Ghost in the Flames (The Ghosts)

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “My lady shouldn’t concern herself with the customs of these uncivilized folk.”

  “I am curious,” said Caina. “Indulge me.”

  Cornelia frowned, her needle slowing. “You know…I’m not certain. They’ve always called their god the Living Flame, at least in my hearing. But from time to time I’ve heard about religious squabbles among the Saddai. It may have had something to do with the title of their god, I suppose.”

  “Thank you,” said Caina. She sat back down to finish her breakfast and resumed paging through the book. A short time later Anya entered the room and did a curtsey.

  “It’s done, my lady,” said Anya. She handed over two formal letters. “Both Master Romarion and the magi sent back word. Master Romarion hopes to dine with you tomorrow evening, and the masters of the magi the night after that.”

  “Very good,” said Caina, looking around for Ark.

  “I’d never seen a place so strange as the inside of the Magisterium chapterhouse, my lady,” said Anya. “All those lights…are they truly magical?”

  “They are enspelled, yes,” said Caina. “The magi use their arcane science to make the lights glow.”

  “Unnatural folk,” muttered Cornelia. For once, Caina found herself in complete agreement with the older woman.

  “I thought they were pretty,” said Anya.

  “Thank you, Anya,” said Caina. “Where did Ark get to?”

  “Oh,” said Anya, “he left.”

  Caina blinked. “He made you walk back here alone?”

  “Oh, no, my lady,” said Anya. “He brought me back to the Inn, and then went about his business.”

  “Business?” said Caina.

  “He said you had given him tasks, and that he would return once they were accomplished,” said Anya. She wilted a bit. “Did…did I do something wrong, my lady?”

  “No,” said Caina, “you did well. Thank you again.”

  She stared at the book for a moment, puzzled. What was Ark doing? Had he decided to strike out on his own? He disliked her, she knew, but so far he had always listened to reason. Or had Ostros’s death upset him more than she had thought?

  He had been adamant in his belief that Gaidan and the Sons of Corazain were behind the murders. Had he gone to take justice into his own hands? Maybe Ark was right, and Gaidan was really guilty. Yet Caina doubted it. It just did not feel right. Perhaps Gaidan was involved, but Caina suspected the truth was deeper, darker, than just a disgruntled rebel with some skill at sorcery. And if he was innocent, and Ark killed him, his murder might very well touch off a revolt.

  Or had Ark been killed? Might his burned corpse now lie smoldering in an alley?

  Damn him. Not for the first time, Caina wished that Halfdan had sent her alone, or given her a different contact in Rasadda. But all the other Ghosts in Rasadda had been murdered. And Ark had saved her life, twice. She sighed again, and wished that she knew what to do.

  “Is my lady upset?” said Anya.

  “No,” said Caina, “merely tired.”

  She resumed reading, paging through the book, turning the facts over and over in her head. A few hours later a knock came at the door. Julia opened it, and Sairzan the innkeeper entered, bowing in Caina’s direction. After him came a Saddai peasant clutching a roll of paper in one hand.

  “Begging your pardon, my lady,” said Sairzan, “but this man here claims to have a message for you.”

  “Do you?” said Caina. “Come here.”

  The Saddai peasant came closer, looking nervous. His loose shirt and vest hung open in the front, and Caina saw no sign of a flame tattoo on his chest. He made a quick bow and set the roll of grimy paper on the table. “Your guardsman gave me a coin to bring you this, my lady.”

  “So he did,” said Caina, unrolling the paper. The message was in High Nighmarian, written in hard, blocky script.

  “Countess,” read the message. “For haughtily the stag runs, yet the wolves watch unseen from the shadows. The Pyramid of Arzaidanir. The Lane of Ashes. The Ninth House. Midnight. Your servant, Ark.”

  “Thank you,” said Caina. “Give the man a coin, Cornelia, and see him on his way.”

  “Was the message from Ark, my lady?” said Anya after Sairzan and the peasant left.

  “It was,” said Caina. “He did what I sent him to do.” Or, at least, she hoped that he hadn’t done anything rash.

  She spent the rest of the day in the sitting room, reading, while her maids attended to minor tasks and amused themselves with gossip. Shortly after dinner, Caina stood and said, “Tomorrow will be a long day, I think, and I am still weary from yesterday. I will go to bed early.” Caina bid them good night, refused their offers of help, and barred the bedroom door behind her.

  She lay down and went to sleep for a few hours. Whatever Ark had in mind, Caina suspected, was bound to be exhausting.

  When she awoke it was dark outside, save for the endless funeral pyres atop the black pyramids. Caina rose and dressed in her loose black nightfighter garb, slipping the mask around her face and pulling the cowl of her shadowy cloak low. She felt better with the knives strapped to her forearms, and the belt of weapons and other useful tools around her waist. The weight of steel felt reassuring.

  Once she was ready, Caina strode onto the balcony, hooked one of her grapnels to the stone railing, slid down the slender rope, and vanished into Rasadda’s shadow-choked night.

  Ark’s message had been in code. “For haughtily the stag runs, yet the wolves watch unseen from the shadows.” That was a line of Nighmarian poetry from the earliest days of the Empire. The Ghosts used it when they planned to spy upon a target. The Pyramid was the tomb of Arzaidanir, one of Corazain’s predecessors, and stood in the heart of Rasadda’s slums. The Lane of Ashes, Caina presumed, was a street that ran below Arzaidanir’s pyramid, and she assumed that Ark wanted to meet there.

  Unless the message had been faked, of course. Or if Ark had indeed become a traitor to the Ghosts, though Caina doubted it after seeing Ostros’s murder. Her gloved hand dipped into her cloak, brushing the throwing knives sheathed at her belt.

  Well, if someone wanted to offer her trouble, she could repay them in kind.

  As ever, the burning pyramids bathed the city in their fiery glow, casting all kinds of lovely shadows over the streets and alleyways. Caina moved from the stately mansions (and, she supposed, the high-class brothels) surrounding the Imperial Basilica and Corazain’s pyramid, and into the slums. The buildings changed from marble to brick and sagging wood, and Caina saw more and more people slinking on the streets and the alleyways. Women selling their bodies, and hungry men looking for prey. Lord Nicephorus’s seizure of the peasants’ lands had put a lot of desperate, starving people on Rasadda’s streets. Just thinking about it made Caina angry, so she put the thought aside. She needed to focus on remaining unseen.

  They never saw her.

  She came to Arzaidanir’s pyramid. It was only about a third of the size of Corazain’s, and weathered with age, but its crowning fire burned as brightly as ever. The neighborhood around the pyramid seemed the worst that she had seen in Rasadda so far, block after block of sagging, crumbling apartment houses alongside a row of charcoal works. Caina stared at the charcoal works for a moment, and then nodded. The Lane of Ashes. Of course.

  Caina moved through the shadows until she came to the ninth house overlooking the street. Like all the others here, it looked abandoned, the windows empty, the boards sagging and splintered. Someone had even stolen the door. Caina went up the front steps and looked around, listening. She saw nothing but dust, heard nothing but her own breathing.

  She saw recent footprints in the dust, though, going up the stairs. She followed them, her boots making no sound against the boards, and came to the fourth floor. A door opened into an empty room, and Caina saw Ark standing by the windows, staring down at the street. He was waiting for her.

  “Ark,” said Caina in her disguised voice.

  She had the immense s
atisfaction of seeing him flinch in surprise. He whirled, broadsword flying into his hand, the blade coming up. His eyes fell on her, and he took a step back in sudden alarm.

  “Don’t you recognize me?” said Caina, in her normal voice. She walked into the room, the cloak blending and blurring with the darkness.

  “No,” said Ark. He shook his head. “In the dark, when you are dressed like that…you look and sound like the very shadow of death itself.” He scowled. “How did you sneak up on me? No one has ever been able to do that.”

  “I’ve told you before,” said Caina, her voice snarling and hissing, “practice.”

  His lip twitched.

  “Now, what is going on?” said Caina. “Why did you want me to meet you here?”

  “There’s something you need to see,” said Ark.

  Caina waited.

  “A meeting of the Sons of Corazain,” he said.

  “How did you learn of this?”

  “When we delivered your response to Romarion. Some of Romarion’s servants are Saddai. I spoke only in Caerish to Romarion, so I suppose they assumed I couldn’t understand Saddaic. I heard them speak of it, and I went to find a convenient place to observe.”

  “You should have told me,” said Caina.

  “I did. You’re here, aren’t you? You must have gotten the note.”

  “You should have told me before you did this,” said Caina. “For all I knew you had been killed.”

  “The opportunity was there and I took it,” said Ark. “It needed to be done. Something had to be done. The Ghosts of Rasadda have been slaughtered, the city is on the edge of revolt, and all you are doing is accepting dinner invitations.”

  “That is because Romarion and the Magisterium are plainly involved in this,” said Caina, “and if I am to find…”

  “Plainly?” said Ark. “For someone so clever, you have a remarkable gift for deluding yourself. Gaidan has all but confessed to the murders in front of us, and yet you insist upon chasing this merchant and the magi…”

  Suddenly furious, Caina stepped closer to him. “Gaidan is probably involved in this, yes. But there’s more to it than that. Romarion’s name was in Vanio’s ledger. And I have ample precedent for believing the Magisterium guilty of forbidden practices.”

  Ark’s scowl deepened. “Do you really…”

  “Enough,” hissed Caina. She held up her hand for silence, and listened, but heard only the old house groaning. “What’s done is done. This is not the time and the place to argue about it. So the Sons of Corazain are meeting. Where can we watch?”

  Ark nodded. “This way.” He led to the opposite wall. “These houses are abandoned, and they’re all built up against each other. The house next door overlooks where the Sons will meet. The place is a complete wreck. The bottom three floors have collapsed, and the doors have been blocked.” He gripped something on the wall, and wrenched. A wooden panel came away with a groan, revealing a jagged gap in the wall. “I found another way in, though.” He beckoned. “Careful. The floor is…uneven.”

  That was an understatement. Caina saw that the house’s bottom three floors, and most of the fourth, had collapsed into a pile of shattered timber and broken bricks. What was left of the fourth floor jutted from the wall in a precarious tangle of sagging beams and shattered floorboards. It was a long fall to the rubble heaped below.

  Ark climbed onto one of the more solid-looking beams, and Caina followed him. It felt sturdy enough, but she still took careful, hesitant footsteps. She did not want to trust her weight to what remained of the floorboards. Bit by bit they made their way to the wall. A good chunk of the wall had collapsed, and they had an excellent view of the square below Arzaidanir’s pyramid.

  A square that was full of people.

  Caina leaned over, put her arm over Ark’s shoulders, and put her mouth against his ear. He flinched, and then she began to whisper. “Cover your head.”

  “Why?” Ark breathed back.

  “Your forehead is reflecting the light. And keep your cloak closed. You shouldn’t have worn a mail coat.”

  Ark scowled, but pulled up the hood of his cloak. Caina settled into a comfortable position and waited. More and more people filed into the square, facing the first terrace of the worn pyramid. Most of them had torches.

  “They dare to meet so openly?” whispered Caina.

  “There’s no risk,” said Ark. “The militia never comes into this part of the city after dark.”

  There was movement on the pyramid. Caina saw Gaidan in his red robes, climbing the lowest stairs, flanked by a number of tough-looking Saddai and other red-robed Brothers of the Living Flame. Gaidan lifted his hands, and the crowd in the square fell silent. There were at least two thousand people there, Caina saw, with more packed into the alleyways.

  “Hear me, my fellow Sons of Corazain!” said Gaidan, his voice booming. “I have heard your grumblings, and your complaints. Your lack of faith shames me. Have I not promised you, again and again, that the great day of freedom is near at hand? The great day of burning, when the Empire shall fall!”

  A rumble went through the crowd. Someone shouted a question, which Caina could not quite hear.

  “I will tell you why,” said Gaidan, gesturing. “I did not know, at first. When the first burned corpses appeared, I blamed the Empire and its running dog Nicephorus. Why were the victims only Saddai, and foreigners of no importance? Why did Nicephorus not burn, or any of his pack of fat, thieving merchants? This troubled me, and I spent long hours in prayer to the Burning Flame. And, at last, the answer came to me.”

  He paused, leaning towards the assembled Sons of Corazain. An expectant hush came over the gathered Saddai. Gaidan, Caina had to admit, knew how to play a crowd.

  “Great Corazain has been reborn!” thundered Gaidan. A stunned silence fell over the crowd, and a dozen men shouted questions at once. “Yes! Corazain himself has been reborn.” Gaidan pointed at the great dark mass of Corazain’s pyramid, its pyre bright in the darkness. “Did not our lord Corazain stand there and predict his return, even as he unleashed the mighty spell that struck down the murderer Crisius and his legions? He spoke truly!” Gaidan’s voice rose to a scream. “Corazain himself appeared to me, and promised me that he would soon return openly. The burning deaths, my brothers, are the signs, the harbinger of his return. Those Saddai who burned were weak in their faith, and the others were only foreigners. Mighty Corazain will return, my brothers, and when he does, the Empire will burn!”

  A roar of approval met his words.

  “I think,” Caina murmured, “that we’ve heard enough. And we’d better go before somebody sees us and they decide to celebrate with a bonfire.”

  Chapter 12 - A Simple Merchant

  An hour later they returned to their rooms the Inn of Mirrors.

  “How can you possibly think that?” said Ark.

  “Keep your voice down,” said Caina. “You’ll wake the maids.”

  Ark began to pace. “You heard the same thing I did. Gaidan all but took credit for the murders. He and the Sons of Corazain are behind this.”

  “I don’t doubt that Gaidan is a scoundrel and the Sons are dangerous,” said Caina, “though it is Nicephorus’s fault for creating them. And it is possible that Gaidan is involved. But I didn’t think he was directly responsible, and I am more certain of that now.”

  “Why?” said Ark.

  “Weren’t you listening?” said Caina. “His followers were grumbling. They asked him why some Saddai were among the victims. And Gaidan didn’t know.”

  Ark opened his mouth, closed it. He was not happy, Caina saw, but he was listening.

  “So then he prayed and suddenly realized that Corazain had returned,” said Caina. “I’ll wager he made the entire story up so that he had something to tell his followers. Else he would look powerless, otherwise.” She looked at him. “Unless you actually think that Corazain has been reborn.”

  Ark said nothing.

  “No doubt in
a few months Gaidan will claim to be Corazain reborn, and take credit for any more murders.”

  “Perhaps he is,” said Ark. “Not literally Corazain, of course. But perhaps he has enough skill at sorcery to have managed these deaths.”

  “I doubt it,” said Caina. “Gaidan doesn’t strike me as all that clever. If he had any talent at pyromancy, I suspect he would have gone after Nicephorus, or tried to burn the Imperial Basilica to the ground. Then the Magisterium would have killed him. There are more arguments against it as well. Gaidan’s sent the Sons to have me killed twice now. Why not just burn me to death if he knows pyromancy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ark.

  “Which is part of the reason I’m suspicious of the local Magisterium,” said Caina. “These burning murders have been going on for at least a year, correct? Why haven’t they found our pyromancer yet?”

  Ark shook his head. “We haven’t, either.”

  “We haven’t. I, however, have only been looking for a few days,” said Caina. “If I am still looking in a year, we have problems.”

  Ark snorted.

  “The truth is, we do not have enough information,” said Caina. “Gaidan knows something. Romarion knows something. The Magisterium knows something. Together, they might know everything.”

  “And just how are you going to learn that?” said Ark.

  “I told you,” said Caina, “I’m going to start accepting dinner invitations.”

  She went to bed. Tomorrow was going to be busy.

  ###

  The damned grooming and beauty regimen, as usual, took forever.

  The maids clucked over the collection of bruises and scratches Caina had acquired. They washed her hair, complaining at how sweaty and tangled it had gotten. After the bath was done, she wound up in a dark blue gown in the old Imperial style, which Julia claimed matched her eyes. It left her arms bare, which Caina disliked, since it had no sleeves for concealing weapons, but it looked charming, which she supposed was the point. She could still keep the daggers in her boots. She also chose silver bracelets and earrings, and a silver coronet set with pale sapphires. Anya shaped her hair into an elaborate pile, and Caina was ready.