No. This was going to end, here and now.
The warehouse was only one floor high, and Caina scrambled up the wall, finding footholds in the rough brick. She rolled onto the roof and hastened across it in silence. Overhead three nagataaru swirled and danced around three pyrikon warriors, their swords rising and falling in battle. Caina reached the edge of the roof and peered down.
Callatas stood ten feet below her, the Staff glowing with gray light as he finished his spell.
He didn’t look up.
No one, Caina reflected, ever looked up.
She leaped from the roof, shadow-cloak billowing around her, and slammed into the Grand Master’s back.
The dagger ripped through his wards and sank deep into his back, just below his left shoulder.
The impact drove him across the narrow alley and into the opposite wall. He started to cast a spell, but it was too late, far too late, and with a surge of exultation Caina knew that she had him.
Her arm pumped, driving the ghostsilver dagger down once, twice, three times, every blow slipping between his ribs to seek his lungs and heart. The back of his brilliant white robes turned red with blood, and Callatas tried to scream but only produced a groaning wheeze, bloody foam flying from his lips. He stumbled away from Caina and fell to his knees, the Staff clutched in one hand, pawing at the sash of his robe with his other hand.
Caina drew back the ghostsilver dagger, intending to bury it in his neck.
The Staff activated once more.
###
“You know,” said the Huntress, grinning at Morgant, “I think I want that dagger.”
“It’s not for sale,” said Morgant, keeping his breathing slow and level. Maybe three minutes had passed since Caina and Callatas had disappeared into the netherworld, and the Huntress had spent that time issuing taunts. She had also spent that time healing, her burns vanishing, and Morgant wondered if he should have pressed his advantage, trying to cut her down before she recovered.
Of course, if he had done that, maybe he and Annarah would be dead right now. Delaying had meant Annarah had gotten her breath back, white fire playing up and down her pyrikon staff. A single spell of the Words of Lore had inflicted more damage on the Huntress than anything Morgant had done, and if he could pin the Huntress in place along enough for Annarah to cast a spell…
“For sale?” said the Huntress with a smile. “I shall pay for it in your own blood.”
“Oh, that’s just insulting,” said Morgant.
The Huntress blinked. “What?”
“Is that supposed to be a taunt? ‘Pay for it in your own blood?’ As taunts go that’s feeble. Obviously we’re going to try to kill each other in a few minutes. So somebody’s blood is going to get spilled, and stating the obvious isn’t terrifying. Will you point out that the sky is blue next? I expect better from a woman of your age.”
The Huntress started at him for a moment, and then broke into one of her reedy giggles. “You have a point.” Her gaze flicked to Annarah. “Does he always talk this much?”
Annarah said nothing, the burning staff motionless in her hand.
“Well,” said the Huntress. She rolled her shoulders, a few loose strands of blond hair dancing around her head. Morgant tightened his grip on his weapons, expecting her to strike. “This has been simply delightful, but…”
Her head snapped to the right, her blue eyes narrowing.
“Morgant,” said Annarah.
His first impulse was to attack the Huntress while she was distracted, but he discarded the idea. Something might have drawn her attention, but he had no doubt she was still watching him. She might even have feigned distraction to draw him in.
It was what Morgant would have done, after all.
Yet he risked a quick glance to the south, and saw dark shapes moving along the beach. Had Murat sent another landing party to the island? No, the corsair captain wasn’t that stupid, and he wouldn’t risk his hide, not when he simply had to wait for Caina and Morgant and Annarah to return. Morgant’s next thought was that more baboons had emerged from the jungle, but the shapes were too big for that…
“The dead Immortals,” said Annarah, her voice tight with alarm. “They’re coming for us.”
“Rude of them,” said Morgant. “Dead men ought to stay dead. Life is so much simpler that way.”
“Ah,” said the Huntress. “They have been inhabited by lesser nagataaru.” Her frown deepened. “I cannot command them.”
“You can command lesser nagataaru?” said Morgant.
“Of course I can,” said the Huntress. “But the ones in those damned mummified monkeys refused to heed me…”
“Baboons,” said Morgant.
“What?”
“They weren’t monkeys,” said Morgant, watching the dead Immortals move slowly along the beach. “They were baboons. A key difference.”
“Who the hell cares?” said the Huntress. “A monkey is a monkey. They ought to have obeyed me, but they did not.”
“Probably because they were vassals of the Harbinger,” said Morgant, remembering what Caina had told them of Samnirdamnus’s warning.
“Who is the Harbinger?” said the Huntress.
“Oh, dear,” said Morgant. “The Grand Master didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” said the Huntress.
“That his dear friend Kharnaces is possessed by a rival of the nagataaru lord within you?”
The Huntress blinked, her head tilting to the side again, her eyes narrowing.
A moment later she cursed several times.
“They’ll kill us both, you know,” said Morgant.
“Yes, I’m aware of that, thank you,” said the Huntress. “Evidently it is your turn to state the obvious.”
“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it,” said Morgant.
“These are more powerful nagataaru than the ones that inhabited those damned monkeys,” said the Huntress. She stepped back, purple fire flickering in her eyes as she considered Morgant and Annarah. “Shall we kill each other and let the Immortals tear us apart?”
“Are you seriously suggesting,” said Annarah, “that we fight alongside you?”
The Huntress offered a lazy shrug. “We either fight alongside each other, or we die alongside each other.” She grinned, her eyes wild. “But I can outrun both of you, and I would be more than content to leave you behind to die. Though I do not fancy getting hunted by undead baboons and undead Immortals from one end of this miserable little island to another.”
“Fine,” said Morgant. “We’ll…”
There was a crackling noise, and a pillar of mist appeared a dozen yards away. Gray light shone from the pillar, brighter in the gloom of the impending twilight.
“Morgant!” said Annarah. “The Staff is opening another gate.”
Morgant looked at the Huntress, at the advancing Immortals, and back at the Huntress. Fortunately, she seemed just as uncertain of what to do next as Morgant.
Something dark flickered at the corner of his eye. Morgant turned his head from the Huntress for just a moment, and a dozen misshapen figures darted through the jungle, loping along on all fours. He glimpsed leathery, cracked hides, weathered bone, yellowed fangs, and empty eye sockets that burned with purple fire.
The nagataaru-possessed baboons had returned.
The crackling noise rose to a thunderclap, and a snarling rift of gray mist and harsh light appeared.
###
It felt as if Caina fell forever, plummeting through an endless void of gray mist and flickering light.
Yet it lasted only a second, and the hot, humid air of Pyramid Isle washed over her once more, and Caina stumbled forward. Her momentum carried her into a tree, and she bounced off it, her arms wheeling to keep her balance. There was a flash of light, and her pyrikon settled around her left wrist, resuming the shape of a delicate ghostsilver bracelet once more.
Callatas, she had to find Callatas.
The wounds she had de
alt him had been mortal, but the shadow of Kotuluk Iblis might be able to heal him, and the Master Alchemists had ways of recovering from mortal injury…
A wave of dizziness swept through her, followed by another searing bolt of pain between her eyes. Caina grabbed at the tree to keep her balance, tasting her blood on her lips, feeling it trickle from her nose. This time the pain did not subside, seeming to grow harsher and sharper with every beat of her heart.
No. She couldn’t deal with it now. Caina shoved away from the tree, past a warding stone, and onto the beach.
Morgant and Annarah stood side by side, facing Kalgri, who waited a dozen yards away, her ghostsilver short sword and a steel dagger ready in her hands. To the south the Immortals ran up the beach, which wasn’t right, because the baboons had killed all the Immortals…
Callatas staggered towards Kalgri, his face gray, the back of his robe wet with blood. The Grand Master dropped to one knee, clutching something in his left hand, something that blazed with sorcerous power. Caina stepped forward, raising her ghostsilver dagger, and Callatas lifted the thing to his lips and threw back his head. Something small and glittering fell from his hand and bounced against the sand.
An empty crystalline vial, the kind Alchemists used to store their most potent Elixirs.
Callatas began to glow, both to Caina’s physical eyes and the vision of the valikarion, golden fire burning through his veins and beneath his skin. He stood up with a growl, his face a rictus of agony.
He had just swallowed a vial of Elixir Rejuvenata, made from the mingled ashes of unborn children and a phoenix spirit.
“Get back!” shouted Annarah. “Get away from him!”
Kalgri sprinted to the north, watching over her shoulder. Caina considered charging Callatas, hoping to kill him before the Elixir finished, but realized that it was too late. The Elixir was working its power, and any wounds she dealt to him would be healed at once. That, and the release of power from the Elixir would kill her.
So she ran towards Annarah and Morgant, staggering. The pain in her head was making it difficult to keep her balance. She stumbled to a halt next to Morgant, and Annarah caught her wrist.
“Caina,” said Annarah. “What…”
Callatas threw back his head and screamed, and golden fire erupted from him.
Caina and the others were a safe distance away, yet she still felt a faint tremor go through the ground, a massive thunderclap ringing in her ears. A blast of hot wind washed over the beach, knocking her back a step, and a pillar of golden fire exploded from where Callatas had been standing, shooting a hundred yards into the air. The fire ripped out from him for twenty yards in all directions, and the nearby trees caught flame. The sorcerous power of the unleashed Elixir roared over Caina like a wave of needles, her skin crawling and tingling, and she squinted her eyes against the glare.
The golden fire faded away and finally winked out. A circle of sand twenty yards across had been melted to glass, and fires danced in the jungle. Callatas stood at the center of the smoking circle, breathing hard. His robes were intact, though still torn and stained with blood from Caina’s dagger blows. Likely the spells armoring his robes had let them survive the release of power.
Callatas himself was…younger.
The Grand Master looked like a man of twenty, his shoulders unbowed, his skin unlined, his hair and beard black as night. The Elixir Rejuvenata restored youth and vitality, stealing them from the ashes of the unborn children mixed into the Elixir. Callatas seemed utterly bewildered and exhausted, and he fell to his knees, leaning on the Staff for balance. The Staff and the Seal and the Star had come through the explosion unharmed. Caina suspected it would take far more to even begin to damage the relics.
The Elixir had healed all of his wounds. But the Grand Master was dazed, and Caina still had her ghostsilver dagger. More than that, she doubted that Callatas had carried more than one vial of the priceless Elixir with him.
This was their last chance.
“Now!” shouted Caina. “Take him!”
She sprinted for Callatas, Morgant running next to her, Annarah hurrying behind them. Callatas looked at them, blinking his gray eyes, but he remained dazed. Caina wasn’t even sure that he saw them.
A dark blur shot over the top of Callatas’s head and landed in front of him, the melted glass crunching. Kalgri straightened up, a gleeful smile on her face and the dark fire of her nagataaru shining in her eyes.
“Caina, Caina, Caina!” said Kalgri, laughing in triumph. “The stormdancer isn’t here to save you today!”
She shot forward, weapons blurring…and then froze in place as arcane power blazed around them. Caina flinched, or tried to, and then realized that the same power held her fast. She could still turn her head, and saw Annarah and Morgant frozen in place.
Gods, but her head hurt…and Caina had seen this spell before.
“No,” rasped Callatas, staring at the jungle.
A man in a pristine white robe stood at the edge of the beach.
Except, of course, he hadn’t been a living man for a very long time.
His expression was serene, his hair jet-black, his dark eyes lined with kohl makeup. The man looked Anshani, yet his brown skin had a strange golden tinge, one rarely seen after the Moroaica had brought ruin crashing down upon the heads of the Great Necromancers. He wore a simple white robe bound at the waist with a white sash, and the top of his robe was far enough open to show an expanse of muscular chest. In his right hand he carried a heavy bronze dagger with a forward-curving blade, and upon his feet he wore unadorned leather sandals.
His feet were floating a few inches off the ground.
But Caina knew that the man wasn’t really here. This was a projection spell, albeit one of sufficient power to allow the projection to cast spells and manipulate physical objects. Now that she was a valikarion, Caina could see the immense skill and power in the projection…skill and power that could have only come from a Great Necromancer of Maat.
Kharnaces looked at them, and the purple fire of the Harbinger pulsed through his dark eyes. Dark shapes moved in the trees behind him, and nearly a hundred undead baboons loped forward, pausing at the edge of the jungle. Caina heard the clatter of damaged armor as the undead Immortals moved forward.
“Ah, I see,” said Kharnaces at last, his voice deep and musical and calm. He spoke the high tongue of ancient Maat, and Caina understood it now, thanks to knowledge Kharnaces had shoved into her skull during their last meeting. “My wayward pupil and my chosen instrument have both returned! And as one of the accursed valikarion, no less. Indeed, even I did not foresee this. Yet the paths of fate are ever crooked. Yes. Let me look at you.”
Kharnaces glided forward, the white robe stirring in the wind. He stopped between Caina and Kalgri, and scrutinized Caina for a moment. His face remained serene, but she felt the furious malice of the creature lurking behind those dark eyes.
“How astonishing,” murmured Kharnaces at last. “A valikarion returned to the world, after I thought my wayward pupil had rid me of those vexing troublemakers. I feared this might happen, once the stormdancer confronted my shadow in the center of your mind.”
“Maybe there are other dangers you should beware,” said Caina in ancient Maatish. The words felt strange and heavy upon her lips, and her head would not stop throbbing.
“No,” said Kharnaces. “There are no dangers left for me. My plans have been fulfilled, if not in quite the way I planned. All is in readiness, and soon our diseased and blighted world will perish as it should have done long ago.”
He turned away from Caina, gliding towards Callatas. At last Callatas seemed to recognize the danger. He scrambled backwards, trying to regain his balance, but failed to stand. He started to gather power for a spell, but Kharnaces flicked a finger, collapsing the spell before Callatas could finish it.
“My wayward student,” said Kharnaces. “At last you have returned to me, bearing the relics of lost Iramis. Of course, the relics
are as useless as Iramis itself, and the key to my victory flows through your veins.”
“No!” said Callatas, trying to stand again. “I shall save humanity, I shall make it better, I shall make it perfect…”
Kharnaces sighed, the gentle sound a teacher disappointed in a student.
“There is nothing to be saved in humanity,” said Kharnaces, gliding to a stop next to Callatas. “There is nothing perfectible in humanity. Nothing worthwhile or honorable or noble. Mankind is simply a disease that blights the world. The nagataaru shall make the world clean once more.”
“No!” said Callatas, trying to rise. Again Kharnaces flicked a finger, and a psychokinetic burst knocked the Grand Master to the smoking ground. “You will…”
“It took longer than I expected,” said Kharnaces. “The loremaster concealing the regalia here proved an effective stratagem. But, in the end, you returned to me. Did I not foretell that you would?” He beckoned, and Callatas floated into the air, still clutching the Staff of Iramis. “You of all men should have realized the truth. You cannot stop me. You cannot avert this. You can only acquiesce.”
Kharnaces pulled back Callatas’s left sleeve, and dragged the curved dagger along the inside of his arm. Blood welled up from the cut, and Kharnaces slid the dagger back and forth over the wound, coating the blade in the blood of the Grand Master.
“Stop,” said Callatas. “You do not understand, you…”
“Behold,” said Kharnaces, lifting the bloody dagger before Callatas’s eyes. “The final instrument. The catalyst that shall finish the Conjurant Bloodcrystal and summon Kotuluk Iblis. You do a great service, though you know it not.”
“Kharnaces,” said Caina, her mind racing. “Callatas is possessed by Kotuluk Iblis. Does that not mean you must obey him?”
Kharnaces glanced at her, his expression calm, but she saw the purple fire and shadow snarling in his eyes.
“You do not understand, valikarion,” said Kharnaces. “Perhaps you are incapable of understanding. The valikarion would never have understood. They spent too much time trying to save what could not be saved.”
Ghost in the Pact Page 21
