Callatas scowled. The stupid child did not understand his purpose, did not…
He pushed aside his contempt. Contempt led to underestimating an enemy, and that led to a ghostsilver dagger jammed between his ribs. He had no desire to experience that again.
“Then you see,” said Callatas, “that we have a common purpose.”
“Do we?” said Caina.
“Of course,” said Callatas. “We both wish to stop Kharnaces before it is too late.” His gaze strayed towards the island’s central hill. In the pale moonlight, the rocky hill gleamed like a spike of bone. “He will take my blood and activate the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.”
“How long will that take?” said Caina.
“Three days,” said Callatas with a shrug. “Perhaps as long as a week. The Conjurant Bloodcrystal is a device of titanic power, and moving that much power takes time, even for a Great Necromancer. We have that long to destroy Kharnaces and destroy the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.”
“And just how are we going to do that?” said Morgant. “You might be the great and powerful Grand Master, but Kharnaces slapped you around like a puppy.”
“I had just been stabbed several times,” said Callatas through gritted teeth.
“He is still stronger than you, though,” said Annarah in a quiet voice. “You would have found him a challenging foe even at your full strength.”
“I defeated him once before,” said Callatas.
“You escaped from him once before,” said Caina. “There is a difference.”
Callatas let out a long breath. “Yes.”
“So how do we kill him?” said Morgant. “He’s undead. Hard to kill a man who died long before any of us were born.”
“His canopic jars,” said Caina.
“Then you indeed faced a Great Necromancer once before,” said Callatas. “Cassander said as much, but I didn’t believe him…”
“What,” said Morgant, “is a canopic jar?”
Caina took a deep breath, her face turning distant with memory. Likely it was an unpleasant memory, knowing the Great Necromancers. “The Great Necromancers were the priests of ancient Maat, the Kingdom of the Rising Sun. When they died, the greatest of them rose again as Undying, their spirits able to inhabit any corpse. They did this by anchoring their souls to canopic jars – seven enspelled stone jars holding seven mummified organs taken from their bodies. The heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, and the stomach. So long as one of those jars survives, the Great Necromancer’s spirit is anchored to the world, and it can reenter another body at will.”
“Then the only way to kill Kharnaces,” said Morgant, “is to find and smash the jars.”
“Yes,” said Caina. Her eyes shifted back to Callatas. “I assume you tried and failed?”
“For several years,” he said. He disliked to admit failure in front of his enemies, but she would figure it out anyway.
“Then it’s possible he has them hidden all over that Tomb of his,” said Morgant.
“No,” said Caina. “They’ll be close together, possibly secured within the same container. The further away the jars are from each other, the weaker Kharnaces becomes. I suspect he will need all his sorcerous power to complete the Conjurant Bloodcrystal. Did you find any of them?”
“No,” admitted Callatas.
“I think I know where they are,” said Caina.
“Where?” said Callatas.
“In his throne room,” said Caina. “There was a mummified corpse sitting upon the throne, with tremendous wards around it, clad in the robe and mask of a Great Necromancer. I suspect that was Kharnaces’s real body, his original body. I think the canopic jars are secured underneath the throne.”
“A fine idea,” said Callatas. It had, in fact, occurred to him, but he had never been able to breach the wards around Kharnaces’s throne to check for himself. “Yet how are we to exploit it? The Tomb of Kharnaces is ringed with wards, to say nothing of the guardians.” He flicked a hand in the direction of the nagataaru-possessed baboons and Immortals. “More formidable guardians wait in the Tomb itself.”
“I know,” said Caina. “So we’ll turn invisible.”
“Invisible?” scoffed Callatas. “You think to turn us into Silent Hunters?”
“Those nagataaru are inhabiting dead bodies,” said Caina. “Undead baboons and Immortals. A creature like the Huntress,” Kalgri smirked at that, “can see through both her eyes of flesh and the senses of her nagataaru. Those baboons and Immortals don’t have working eyes. They can only perceive the physical world through the senses of their nagataaru, and the nagataaru don’t understand the physical world well at all. So if we obscure ourselves from the senses of the nagataaru, we can escape.”
“Won’t Kharnaces just blast us to ashes?” said Morgant.
Caina shook her head. “He’ll be busy with the spells to activate the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.”
“And he will not be able to kill me,” said Callatas, “until the first few steps are finished.”
Caina eyed him. “You mean if you’re dead, he cannot finish the Conjurant Bloodcrystal?”
Callatas discerned her thought well enough. If she killed him now, she would stop both the Apotheosis and the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.
“For another few hours, yes,” said Callatas. “However, Kharnaces will soon have my blood integrated with the Conjurant Bloodcrystal, likely within the hour. If you kill me right now, you might stop the bloodcrystal. Of course, if you kill me, the nagataaru will tear you apart, and the complete regalia of the Princes shall remain on Pyramid Isle, the Staff and the Seal and the Star.” Callatas gestured at himself. “With these instruments, a sorcerer of Kharnaces’s skill would soon find an alternative to the Conjurant Bloodcrystal. Since no one will know the relics are here, there will be no one to stop Kharnaces.”
Caina just stared at him. She did have a pretty face, he had to admit, with those cold blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. Likely that was just the urges of his rejuvenated flesh. Yet he also had to admit her expression gave away nothing of her thoughts. For all he knew, she could be listening to him, or preparing to attack him with that ghostsilver dagger.
“Your first plan was better,” said Callatas. “We can mask ourselves from the sight of the nagataaru, and make our way to the Tomb. You all caught me off guard, so presumably you all have some means of doing so.”
“And then what?” said Caina, her voice soft and cold. “Once Kharnaces is defeated?”
Callatas smiled. “Then I kill you.”
She said nothing, her eyes unblinking.
“Or you kill me,” said Callatas. “You almost did it once, I confess. Another few seconds and I would have been finished. Perhaps next time you will be a little luckier. But this is what I propose, Caina Amalas the Balarigar. A pact between us.”
For some reason a shiver of unidentifiable emotion went through her face at the word.
“A pact,” said Caina.
“You are familiar with the concept, I trust?” said Callatas. “A temporary truce and alliance. We agree not to harm each other until Kharnaces is defeated. Until then, we shall defend each other and work together to the best of our mutual ability to stop Kharnaces. And then, once Kharnaces is defeated and the Conjurant Bloodcrystal destroyed, we can kill each other.”
“Do not agree to this,” said Annarah at once, her voice calm but urgent. “You know what this man has done. He murdered every man, woman, and child in Iramis. He murdered thousands of slaves in his laboratories to addict the poor of Istarinmul to wraithblood. He sent the Huntress after you, and she murdered Lord Kylon’s wife and the Divine only knows how many others.” Kalgri offered a theatrical little bow. “He let Cassander run amok through Istarinmul, and that almost killed hundreds of thousands of people.”
“All that you say is true,” said Callatas, “though the loremaster lacks the vision to see my true purpose.”
“Because unlike you,” said Caina, “she still has a conscience.”
Callatas scoffed. “And what of you? Caina Amalas the Balarigar? The thief who terrorized the Slavers’ Brotherhood and crippled Istarinmul? The rebel who destroyed the Widow’s Tower and the Craven’s Tower and the Inferno? The woman who has meddled in my affairs again and again and again?” His anger rose again as he thought of the many setbacks this damnable woman had dealt him. “Furthermore, you have allied yourself with a student who was too foolish to appreciate my true purpose, and an incompetent assassin whose treachery set back the Apotheosis by a century and a half!”
“You really should have paid for the mural,” said Morgant.
Callatas let out a long breath, forcing back his rage. “The harsh truth, Balarigar, is that we need each other, as loathsome as we both find that fact. I cannot stop Kharnaces on my own, and neither can you. Together, perhaps, we have a chance.”
“What about Kalgri?” said Caina. “Will you be able to control her?”
“Yes,” said Callatas, and Kalgri let out a derisive laugh.
“My darling Caina,” said Kalgri, and Caina’s lip twitched, more emotion than she had shown during her entire conversation with Callatas. Callatas found that interesting. She was afraid of Kalgri on a visceral level. “I want to kill the world. Kharnaces simply wants to destroy it, and if he does, I won’t be able to kill it myself.” She let out that annoying, coquettish giggle. “I was willing to let you and Cassander kill each other for that.”
Callatas’s fingers tightened against the Staff. Yes, he owed Kalgri for that, too. If she had simply told him where the Staff and Seal were hidden, rather than playing her insane game with Caina and Cassander Nilas, then perhaps Callatas might have realized the trap that Kharnaces had set for him. Perhaps he might have found a way to retrieve the Staff and the Seal without putting himself at risk like this.
He could repay the insane bitch later, once he no longer had need of her. Once the Apotheosis was complete and the new humanity rose from the ashes of the old, he would take great pleasure in ridding himself of the Red Huntress at last.
“Of course we cannot trust each other,” said Callatas. “But we have overlapping interests. Until Kharnaces is defeated, it would be madness to turn upon each other. We can kill each other now, if you wish…but you will doom the world.”
Caina said nothing, and Callatas braced himself, preparing to cast a spell. Yet he did not think it would be necessary. From what Cassander had told him, Caina was a woman willing to use whatever tools were at hand to achieve her goals.
Rather like Callatas himself, he supposed.
“Very well,” said Caina at last.
“I am pleased you can see reason,” said Callatas.
“It isn’t reason, but madness,” said Caina. “Yet there is no other course. Every other path ends in disaster.”
“For you, maybe,” said Kalgri, still smiling.
“You all have methods of concealing yourself from the nagataaru, I trust?” said Callatas. “Other than our bold valikarion, of course. I suggest you employ them now.”
Morgant tapped a brass ring upon his finger. Ah, of course – that was likely why Callatas had been unable to detect him. Annarah scowled at Callatas, but gestured with her staff. The pyrikon folded onto itself, shrinking to a bronze bracelet resting upon her wrist. From somewhere Kalgri produced the shadow-cloak of a Ghost nightfighter and wrapped herself in it, pulling up the cowl to cover her head. So long as she wore it, the Voice would be unable to sense the world around her, but neither could the enemy nagataaru sense her or the Voice.
“Where did you find that, anyway?” said Caina.
“I killed a Ghost nightfighter and took his cloak,” said Kalgri with good cheer. “His ghostsilver short sword, too. It’s been really useful.” She giggled and tapped the pommel of her weapon. “It was long before you were born.”
“Another murder to lay at your feet,” said Caina.
Again Kalgri let out her unsettling giggle. “You’ve racked up your own count of them, haven’t you? But you have a long way to go before you catch me. Will you avenge everyone I ever killed? That might take a while.”
“Enough,” said Callatas, and cast a spell of his own, a ward to mask his presence from spirits. Of course, concealing the Staff and the Star and Seal would take a significant portion of his strength. Still, he ought to have enough left over to make sure they reached the Tomb of Kharnaces.
And then…
And then he would have to think of a way to stop Kharnaces. Callatas’s skill and power had grown greatly in the century and a half since he had left Pyramid Isle, but he knew that Kharnaces was still stronger.
Cassander Nilas and Malik Rolukhan and Ricimer had all been stronger than Caina Amalas, but they were dead and she was not. Perhaps he could maneuver Caina and Kharnaces into destroying each other.
“Well and good,” said Caina. “The nagataaru cannot see us, but we’re still surrounded.”
“Observe,” said Callatas, summoning more power. “Be ready to run.”
###
Caina watched as Callatas drew in a great deal of arcane force.
Part of her, a very large part of her, wanted to put her ghostsilver dagger into his back while he was distracted. She could very well kill Callatas here, but if she did, Kalgri would kill her, or the nagataaru would rip them apart. Then Kharnaces could finish the Conjurant Bloodcrystal, and the nagataaru would devour the world.
The only way to stop Kharnaces, the only way to have a chance of stopping Callatas and his Apotheosis, the only way to save millions of lives, was to work with Callatas and Kalgri.
The very thought made Caina’s skin crawl.
Yet it was the only way to stop the nagataaru.
The only chance she had of ever seeing Kylon again.
So she would swallow her revulsion and do it…and keep an eye on Callatas and Kalgri, because she knew beyond all doubt that they would betray her at the first possible opportunity.
“Be ready,” said Callatas, his free hand blazing with gray light as he prepared a spell of psychokinetic force. “This will scatter them, but we shall have to move in haste.”
He flung out his hand, and the ring of golden fire vanished. At once the baboons and the Immortals charged, and a dome of invisible force erupted from Callatas. It passed through Caina and the others without touching them, but it slammed into the baboons and the nagataaru, throwing the undead creatures to the ground like a field of wheat flattened by a strong wind.
“Now!” shouted Callatas. “Run!”
Caina sprinted forward, Morgant on her left and Annarah on her right. They wove around the stunned undead creatures, making for the trees. Kalgri shot forward in a blur of shadow-cloak and crimson armor, vanishing into the jungle. Caina kept running and saw Callatas hurrying behind them, his tattered white cloak billowing behind him.
The stunned baboons and Immortals started to regain their feet, but by then Caina and Morgant and Annarah had dashed into the jungle, the familiar smells of exotic flowers and decay filling Caina’s nostrils. Callatas plunged after them a moment later, and they came to a halt. Caina looked at the beach and saw the undead fanning out, seeking for them, but so far they had eluded the nagataaru.
“We had best move,” said Caina. “They’ll figure out where we went sooner or later.”
“Yes,” breathed Kalgri’s voice in Caina’s ear.
Caina spun, raising her dagger. Kalgri stood a few paces away, wreathed in her shadow-cloak, the glint of her smile and the purple fire of her eyes just visible beneath the cowl. Once again Caina remembered that awful night in Rumarah, remembered the ghostsilver short sword ripping into her chest, remembered the Huntress’s malicious gloating.
It was all Caina could do not to scream.
“Careful,” said Caina instead, keeping her voice icy. “Sneaking up on people like that is liable to get you stabbed.”
“I’ve found,” said Kalgri, “rather the opposite to be true.”
“Let’s go,” said Caina.
“Since you’re so good at creeping up on people, why don’t you scout the way?”
“I assume you know the way to the Tomb?” said Callatas.
“All too well,” said Caina. “We’ll want to avoid the road with the sphinxes. Likely the nagataaru will start their search there.”
Kalgri grinned and melted into the darkness, and they set off into the gloomy jungle.
Chapter 16: The Grand Wazir
As the sun rose, the drums boomed across the steppes, and the distant wail of the war horns rang out. The emotional aura of the thousands of men around Kylon tightened, and he sensed the fear and dread growing within them, accompanied by bloodlust and a steely resolve to stand before the danger.
The battle, he expected, would start today, possibly within an hour.
That meant that thousands of men might be dead by afternoon.
Kylon hastened through the camp.
The camp itself unfolded around them, men rushing to join their captains, the lords and officers shouting orders to their men. A band of horsemen galloped past, and Kylon sidestepped to allow them passage. The drums of Tanzir’s army rolled out, calling the army to battle formation. Kylon jogged to the north, heading for where Tanzir and Sulaman raised their banners. If the Huntress wanted to kill the leadership of the rebel army, this was the logical time to do it. Kylon kept his arcane senses extended, feeling the fear and resolve of the rousing army.
Yet he felt no trace of the Huntress.
More and more, Kylon wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. Caina had been certain that the Red Huntress would come after Sulaman, and Kylon had agreed. Yet there had been no trace of her at all, and Kylon began to fear that the Huntress had accompanied Callatas to Pyramid Isle.
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