Ghost in the Pact

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Likely this magistrate of yours abandoned the ship and took refuge on the island,” said Murat. “Left the galley slaves to die in the process.”

  “None of them might have survived?” said Caina.

  Murat gave an indifferent shrug. “Likely not. The slaves are chained to their oars, and the oar deck is below the waterline, see?” He gestured at the ship, and Caina saw the oars rippling beneath the waves, vanishing with every spray of surf. “They would have drowned by now, and if any escaped, the sharks would have taken them.” He shrugged. “I am not so hard-hearted that I would leave men to drown or be eaten. All sailors live in dread of shipwreck. But there is no one here to be saved.”

  “I suppose not,” said Caina. Another wave hit the galley, stronger than the first, and the ship let out a creaking groan. A piece of the hull floated away, bobbing upon the waves, and the galley dipped a little lower. Did that mean Callatas was dead? Caina could not believe it. After a hundred and fifty years, after all his crimes and mad sorcery, could Callatas have simply drowned in a shipwreck? That would solve everything. If Callatas drowned, his body taken by the sharks, then his blood would never reach Kharnaces. And if he had died, the Staff and the Seal would lie at the bottom of the Alqaarin Sea for all time, and the Apotheosis would never come to pass…

  No. Callatas would have had some means of ensuring his survival, some way of ensuring that he reached Pyramid Isle alive.

  Even as the thought crossed Caina’s mind, Karlazain spoke.

  “Captain,” he said. “An Istarish galley that size usually carries four longboats.”

  Caina looked at the wrecked ship. There were only two longboats left.

  “It seems some of our friends escaped,” said Murat. “Get some men up into the rigging with crossbows. If any boats approach the ship, shoot them.”

  Karlazain nodded and strode towards the center deck, shouting orders.

  “Why?” said Annarah, surprised.

  “Because,” said Caina, “the Sandstorm is their only way home.”

  “Aye,” said Murat. “They can pay for passage, if they wish, but if they try to take my ship, the sharks can have them.” He wiped some of the glittering sweat from his forehead. “I suppose they made for the island. They would have had to, since it’s the only place they’ll find drinkable water. If they’re lucky, they found water. If they’re unlucky, the devils in the jungle took them.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. She had seen those “devils” firsthand. Undead baboons, their ancient flesh preserved by the necromantic sciences of old Maat, their withered flesh inhabited by a nagataaru spirit. Within the Tomb of Kharnaces were worse things, undead warriors animated by powerful necromantic spells, possessing the skill and speed of elite soldiers. Caina and Kylon had fought their way past some of the undead creatures, and hundreds more guarded the chamber holding the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.

  None of those creatures would be a match for Callatas. Not at least until their master arrived to take his former pupil in hand…

  But Caina doubted that Callatas had gone alone to the islands. Two longboats were missing from the wrecked galley, and each one of those longboats could have held twenty or thirty men. Someone would have had to accompany Callatas – Caina could not see the exalted Grand Master soiling his hands with the mundane work of rowing to shore.

  “This is far as we’re going,” said Murat.

  Caina looked at him.

  “It is as close as we came the last time,” said Murat. “You and Markaine can row the woman to shore easily enough. After that…well, your fool lives are in your own hands. The same terms as before. We shall wait a week for you. If you return in that time, we shall take you back to Istarinmul, and you shall pay us. If you do not return in a week’s time, we shall assume the devils have eaten you and depart before they eat us.”

  Caina nodded “Fair enough. Thank you, Captain.”

  Murat scoffed. “Thank Nasser. He’s the one who paid on time. And the lot of you are fools. You barely escaped this place once. What madness drove you back a second time?”

  Caina had no desire to explain. Telling Murat the truth would be foolish – if he knew that Grand Master Callatas had come to Pyramid Isle, he might try to aid the Grand Master in hopes of reward. Or he would pursue the more sensible course and flee as fast as the wind could carry him.

  “Captain,” said Caina, “if anyone other than us approaches your vessel, you should probably flee as quickly as you can.”

  “I was going to do that anyway,” said Murat. He hesitated. “Good luck, Ciaran. You’re a suicidal madman, but you throw knives like no one I’ve met.”

  Caina grinned. “If we get back to Istarinmul, I’ll buy you a set of the knives I used to beat you at the Corsair’s Rest.”

  Murat’s eyes narrowed. “The Corsair’s Rest burned down. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Caina.

  Murat snorted, and Caina walked away.

  She joined Annarah and Morgant at the middle of the deck. Four of Murat’s crew swung a smaller longboat over the side. Caina and Morgant could likely row it together, though it would be a challenge. After they boarded the boat, the corsairs swung it over the side of the ship, lowered it to the water, and released the ropes. Caina took the port oar and Morgant the starboard, and together they rowed towards Pyramid Isle, Annarah keeping watch from the prow. She had changed to clothes similar to Caina’s, leather boots and trousers and jerkin, though with her long silver hair and her fuller figure no one would mistake her for a man.

  “See anything?” said Caina as they drew nearer to the island.

  “Yes,” said Annarah. “The longboats. They’re lying abandoned near where we found that old Maatish dock.” She paused. “Those are large boats. Callatas might have as many as fifty Immortals with him.”

  “Won’t do him any good,” said Morgant. “Chain whips and scimitars won’t help against the undead baboons.”

  “Or Kharnaces himself” said Annarah.

  “Do you see anyone on the beach?” said Caina.

  “No,” said Annarah. “No one.”

  Caina whispered a curse. Their best hope had been to arrive first and lay an ambush for Callatas, but it seemed the Grand Master had reached the isle already.

  At last the boat rasped against the bottom, and they got out, dragging the boat the rest of the way to the shore. Caina looked again at the broad, wide beach, at the wall of vivid green jungle rising at the edge of the sand. The jungle was eerily, unnaturally silent, most likely because the undead baboons killed any animals they could catch. Monoliths of white stone stood at regular intervals before the jungle, carved with Iramisian symbols that Caina realized she could now read, symbols of warding, defense, and containment. At the water’s edge stood the tumbled ruins of a small fortress, its walls marked with weathered Maatish hieroglyphs. It was a testament to the prowess of the ancient Maatish engineers that the remnants of the fortress had weathered the wind and waves for so long.

  “Just a little further,” said Annarah, her face tight as she helped carry the boat. “Just a little more.”

  Caina’s boot touched the soil of Pyramid Isle, and she reeled in shock.

  The vision of the valikarion blazed with sickly green flame before her eyes. She saw the necromantic aura hanging over the entire island like a tattered shroud, radiating from the pyramid-like hill. She also saw the crumbling warding spells shining like letters of fire upon the white monoliths, warding spells eroding beneath the relentless assault of the necromantic aura. The dark power seemed to be spinning, spiraling over the pyramid-shaped hill like a massive storm vortex.

  “Caina,” said Annarah. “Caina!”

  Caina blinked, shook her head, and realized that she had dropped her side of the boat.

  “What’s wrong?” said Annarah.

  “The vision of the valikarion,” said Caina, grabbing the boat before the waves could pull it away from Morgant
and Annarah. Her headache had gotten worse. “I…wasn’t expecting it.” She felt the necromantic aura against her skin like faint pins and needles. “Come on. Let’s get the boat above the tide line.”

  “And someplace out of sight,” said Morgant.

  “The old dock,” said Caina, jerking her head at the Maatish ruins. Together they dragged the boat into the ruins, depositing it at the foot of a pillar adorned with Maatish hieroglyphics. Caina set down the boat with a sigh, breathing hard, her shoulders aching from the effort of rowing and carrying. To her mild annoyance, Morgant was not winded, but he never seemed to sweat, either.

  “What did you see?” said Annarah.

  “The aura,” said Caina. “The island’s necromantic aura. It was just…so much more intense than I expected. It startled me.”

  “The valikarion once knew how to focus their sight,” said Annarah. “I would teach you, but I know not how.”

  “Nor is this the time,” said Morgant, buttoning up his black coat to the collar. With his white shirt hidden, his dark clothes were more effective at stealth than she would have thought. “Well, we’ve come all this way to kill the Grand Master, so we should get on to it.”

  Caina nodded. “You brought your ring?”

  He reached into a pocket of his coat and produced a tarnished-looking bronze ring. To Caina’s valikarion sight, it gave off a peculiar gray light that soaked into Morgant’s hand. Morgant had told contradictory stories about how he had acquired the ring, but so long as he wore it, he was immune to sorcerous detection…and hopefully the otherworldly senses of the nagataaru. Morgant claimed that if he fell asleep while wearing the ring its power would drive him into madness, but Caina wasn’t sure that would make much difference to his personality. Morgant donned the ring, and the gray light vanished as the ring’s power shielded him from arcane detection.

  “Annarah,” said Caina.

  Annarah gestured, and her pyrikon bracelet unfolded from her wrist, reshaping itself with peculiar fluid movements. Bronze rings encircled her fingers, joined by slender chains to the main body of the pyrikon, which had become thicker and heavier. It looked like a peculiar bronze glove, and when the pyrikon was in that form, it shielded Annarah’s mind and presence from sorcerous detection. Caina could have done the same with her own pyrikon, but given that a valikarion was immune to sorcerous detection, it seemed redundant.

  Nevertheless, she drew out her shadow-cloak and pulled it over her shoulders. Becoming a valikarion had made her immune to sorcerous detection, but she was hardly invisible, and the shadow-cloak would help with that.

  “We’ll follow Callatas,” said Caina. “It’s impossible not to leave tracks on the beach, and we should be able to follow his trail.” Given that he would make for the Tomb of Kharnaces at once, they could figure out where he was going. “Then we find a way to ambush him.”

  “Just how will we do that?” said Morgant. “Perhaps you and Annarah shall don your costumes from the circus and dance as a distraction while I stab him in the back?”

  “Truly, your insights are as brilliant as ever,” said Caina, stepping out of the ruins as the others followed her, “but I left my costume in Istarinmul.” Annarah laughed a little at that. “Or we could cut down a tree and have it fall on him.”

  “Yes, he surely won’t notice the sound of an axe,” said Morgant.

  “No,” said Caina, glancing back at him, “but he might not notice the sound of your dagger.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing Morgant open his mouth, close it again, and then frown. A pity Kylon wasn’t here to see it.

  “That might work,” he admitted at last.

  “So we sneak up behind Callatas, cut a tree so it falls on him, and then you…” said Annarah.

  “Slice his throat with the ghostsilver dagger,” said Caina, tapping the weapon at her belt.

  “It seems so simple,” said Annarah.

  “The simplest plans,” said Morgant, “are the best.”

  “Less chance for something to go wrong,” said Caina, though she could think of any number of things that might go wrong. “Let’s go.”

  She led the way from the ruined little fortress, heading towards the two longboats lying at the edge of the surf. Callatas had not bothered to pull them above the tide line, and once the tide came in, the longboats would be washed out to sea.

  Evidently Callatas had not planned on ever leaving Pyramid Isle. Caina wondered how badly the compulsion had damaged his thoughts, if he realized how irrationally he had been acting. When Kharnaces had laid the compulsion upon Caina, she had not realized it, and the compulsion had manifested as an overwhelming desire to bring the Staff and the Seal to Callatas. She had been certain that it had been necessary to defeat Callatas, and only after Kylon had driven the necromantic poison from her veins had Caina realized the truth. Perhaps the compulsion had affected Callatas in the same way.

  On the other hand, he was willing to kill everyone in the world in pursuit of his mad dream, so perhaps he wasn’t all that rational anyway.

  Caina looked over the longboats, noting the fresh scratches left by armor and scabbards upon the wood, and the many, many footprints that led to the north.

  “Immortals,” said Morgant.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “At least forty of them. He had hundreds with him when he attacked the Desert Maiden.”

  “We accounted for a few of them,” said Morgant with a smirk.

  “He must have brought the rest with him to the island,” said Caina. “All that survived the shipwreck, anyway.”

  “We can’t fight our way past forty Immortals,” said Morgant.

  “We might not have to,” said Caina, glancing at the jungle. The nagataaru-infested undead baboons had not made an appearance, but it was possible they could not see Caina and Morgant and Annarah, and it was also possible they were not strong enough to break through the circle of Iramisian warding stones.

  It was also possible they had been drawn to Callatas’s Immortals.

  “They went north,” said Caina, and she led the way as they followed the tracks of the Immortals along the beach. She tried to find Callatas’s footprints amidst the heavy prints of the Immortals, but it was a futile effort. She listened for the sounds of any enemies, but she heard only the crash of the surf to her left, the whistling of the wind, and the rustling of the broad green leaves of the jungle.

  No seagulls, though. Every port that Caina had ever visited had seagulls. Not Pyramid Isle. She suspected bad things happened to any seagull foolish enough to nest upon the rocky white hill. On the plus side, she didn’t smell any seagull dung, just the brisk salt of the Alqaarin Sea and the harsh, metallic smell of human blood…

  Caina came to a stop, and looked at Annarah, who nodded, her hand raised in the beginnings of a spell.

  “What?” said Morgant. “I don’t see anything.”

  “You really can’t smell that?” said Caina.

  “I’m two hundred and five years old,” said Morgant. “My sense of smell is not what it once was. Considering the amount of time that has passed since any of us have bathed, that is probably for the best.”

  “Blood,” said Caina. “A lot of it.”

  “Ah,” said Morgant. “If Callatas bleeds to death on the beach, that solves all our problems.”

  “Let’s find out,” said Caina.

  She strode forward, her ghostsilver dagger in her hand. Morgant drew his crimson scimitar and black dagger in silence, and white light began to glimmer around Annarah’s hand. Caina wished Kylon was here. Morgant was capable enough in a fight, but she had never seen a fighter like Kylon, strength and fury driven by skill and cold control.

  Oh, gods, she missed Kylon, for more reason than one…

  Then she saw the black shapes.

  Dozens of Immortals lay motionless upon the beach, their blood seeping into the sand. As Caina drew closer, she saw that they had died in great pain. Something had ripped away their skull masks and bitten out their
throats, or clawed off their faces. A dozen leathery, withered shapes lay motionless around the dead Immortals, and Caina recognized the familiar forms of Kharnaces’s undead baboons.

  “By the Divine,” murmured Annarah. “A terrible way to die.”

  “Aye,” said Caina, staring at one of the withered baboons.

  “Forty-two Immortals,” said Morgant. “That must have been all of them. Callatas is on his own now.”

  “No,” said Caina in a quiet voice. “He might not be.”

  One of the mummified baboons had been cut in half from head to crotch. The cut was perfect, utterly perfect, with no ragged edges. The Immortals would have been more than strong enough to cut one of the baboons in half, but their steel scimitars would have shattered bones and torn the leathery flesh, not sliced it as neatly as a scalpel.

  Or as the sword of dark power that Kalgri the Red Huntress wielded against her foes.

  “There will be two sets of tracks heading from here,” said Caina, walking around the dead Immortals.

  “You’re right,” said Annarah. “How did you know?”

  Two sets of footprints went north along the beach, both made by booted feet. One set was larger and closer together, the other smaller with a wider stride. Like the tracks left by an old man and a young, healthy woman.

  “The Huntress,” said Caina. “She’s here, with Callatas.”

  “But we thought she would go after Sulaman and Tanzir,” said Annarah, her green eyes wide. “We thought…”

  “I was wrong!” said Caina, louder than she intended. She forced herself back to calm, though her heart hammered within her chest. Callatas was far more powerful and dangerous than the Red Huntress, but the thought of facing Kalgri filled Caina with dread. “I was wrong. We’ll have to find a way to deal with them both.” She took a deep breath. “Even if it means our lives. Too many other lives are at stake.”

  They stood in silence for a moment.

  “So be it,” said Annarah.

  “No one lives forever, I suppose,” said Morgant. “And Callatas never paid me for painting that damned mural. I suppose stealing back the Staff and the Seal would settle the debt.”