Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIII

by Waters, Elisabeth

  The Lord Governor landed on a table and shattered it beneath him, expensive wine and food spraying in all directions. A hundred pairs of shocked eyes turned up to stare at Caina, among them two men in the livery of Anabas's personal guards.

  Only two?

  "She's killed the Governor!" someone shouted. "Take her!"

  Caina leapt back into her room and reached under the bed. Her hand came up holding a leather belt of sheathed knives. She flung it over her shoulder and snatched an oil lantern from the desk just as the first bodyguard hurtled through the door. He lunged at her, and Caina threw the lantern into his face. The glass shattered, oil spraying over his head and chest, and the man shrieked as his clothes burst into flame. He bounced off the wall, setting a tapestry on fire, and tumbled down the stairs.

  She raced onto the balcony, saw the guests fleeing into the streets, saw the flames spreading. Another bodyguard reached for her, and Caina ducked under his arm and leapt down the stairs. Men shouted, women screamed, and Caina heard people calling for the city's guard.

  She had to get out now.

  Caina turned towards the kitchen, intending to escape out the back, and caught one last glimpse of Anabas's corpse. The strange madness had vanished from his eyes, his expression frozen into a mask of bewildered shock. As if he could not understand what had happened to him.

  She did not understand, either.

  Caina fled through the kitchen as the flames devoured the inn.

  * * * *

  Iron bells filled the night.

  Caina hurried from shadow to shadow, wrapped in a stolen cloak to cover her rich clothes. She had kicked off her cumbersome heeled boots, and the cobblestones felt cool and damp against her bare feet. Shouts echoed through the alleys. She saw companies of armed men moving to seal the city's gates, others moving from house to house, all intent on hunting down the Lord Governor's murderer.

  How had things gone so bad?

  A Ghost circle had been hidden in Marsis for years, but how could a fool like Anabas have uncovered them? Why had he confronted her with only two bodyguards, instead of sending a hundred armed men? And why had he flung himself off that balcony? Suicidal madness? Sheer spite?

  And that final, damnable wink.

  Caina shoved aside her doubts. Distractions would kill her. If she lived through this night, she could unravel the mystery later. Anabas was dead, as the Emperor had desired, and with any luck no one would connect the jewel merchant's daughter to the Ghosts. Now she had to warn her circlemaster. If Anabas had breached their secrecy, the Ghost circle in Marsis was in terrible danger, and they had to flee at once.

  At last she came to the rambling, reeking docks, a hodgepodge of quays, warehouses, and cheap inns. Caina slipped through a narrow alley, knocked at a splintered door, and waited. The door parted a crack, and then swung open all the way.

  A hulking man stood in the doorway, a crossbow cradled in his arms. Sweat beaded his grizzled face, and strands of lank gray hair covered his eyes. He stared at her for a moment, then lowered the weapon. "It sounds as if the entire garrison has been roused. Why do I suspect that you were involved somehow?"

  "Halfdan," said Caina, relief flooding her. Halfdan had been her circlemaster for years, had brought her into the Ghosts as a child, had taught her almost everything she knew. He would know what to do.

  She loved the old man.

  Halfdan beckoned her inside with a jerk of his head. Caina followed him into a cluttered sitting room lit by a crimson glow from the fireplace. A few pieces of battered furniture leaned against the rickety walls. Here Halfdan masqueraded as a pawnbroker, listening to the rumors and passing everything he learned to the Ghosts.

  "Well," said Halfdan, staring at the dying fire, "out with it. What happened?"

  "Anabas learned I was a Ghost, I know not how," said Caina. "He attacked me at the inn and I fought him off. But he named me his murderer before witnesses. I scarce escaped with my life, and made my way here at once."

  Halfdan grunted. "Foolish of you."

  Caina flinched, hesitated, and kept talking. "Perhaps. But our secrecy has been broken. Anabas learned of us, and he might have told others. He is dead as the Emperor commanded. But we must leave at once, before his soldiers find us."

  Halfdan still gazed into the fire and said nothing. There was a grim tightness in his jaw. Caina hesitated again, and touched his arm.

  "We have faced trials more dire than this, surely," said Caina. "But if we act at once..."

  Halfdan snarled, whirled, and backhanded her across the face.

  Caina fell back with a cry, clutching at her cheek. For a moment she could not think through the shock. In the dozen years she had known Halfdan, he had shouted at her, screamed at her, and lost his temper more than once. But he never had hit her.

  "Stupid child," hissed Halfdan, his mouth clenched. "Do you have any idea how much you disgust me?"

  Caina stared at him, too stunned for words.

  "You have wasted too much of my time," he spat. His breath rasped through his nose, his chest heaving. "You contemptible little fool." He laughed, hard and cruel. "You remain blind even as death closes around you."

  "But," said Caina, her voice cracking, "you took me in, you taught me everything..."

  "An egregious mistake, clearly," said Halfdan, scooping up the crossbow. He crossed the room and flung open the far door. "See what your folly has wrought!"

  A scream caught in Caina's throat.

  Besides her and Halfdan, four other Ghosts had been stationed in Marsis. All four of them lay dead and piled in the back room, their clothes stiff with dried blood, their dead faces frozen with shock. Crossbow quarrels jutted from their flesh.

  She looked up to see Halfdan's mouth twist in a hideous grin, his bloodshot eyes shining red with the fire's glow. "Wretched little Ghost. I should have killed you when I first laid eyes on you. Well, hindsight is ever clear. But let's rectify that little error right now."

  He leveled the crossbow at her, and Caina's reflexes, reflexes that Halfdan had drilled into her, took over. She kicked out, and the side of her foot smacked into the bow. The quarrel hissed past her chest and buried itself in the wall. Halfdan flung aside the crossbow and yanked a dagger from his belt.

  "Stop!" shouted Caina.

  He stabbed at her face, and again Caina's reflexes took over. She sidestepped his clumsy lunge and yanked a pair of knives from her belt. His arm pumped, driving the blade at her, and Caina blocked his stabs again and again.

  "Stop it!" she said. "By all the gods, stop it! Stop it!"

  He laughed at her and came in a bull rush. His forehead cracked against her nose, and she stumbled back. His dagger swept past her face, and Caina's hands moved of their own accord. She beat aside his thrust, and drove one blade between his ribs and buried another in his neck.

  Only when the old man sagged to his knees before her did she realize what she had done.

  "No," she said, letting go of the knives, "no..."

  Halfdan sneered at her, and spat blood into her face. And then his expression cleared, and he gaped at her in confusion. "Caina?" he whispered. "But... why? Why..."

  He sagged to the floor, dead.

  Caina stared at the corpse, her mind reeling, hands and knees trembling. A single sob burst from her lips, and she fled into the night, heedless of who might catch her.

  When her senses returned she found herself huddled in a doorway, tears streaming down her face, her breath hitching in her throat.

  How could this have happened?

  Halfdan would have told her to think it through. The mind was a blade sharper than any dagger, he always said. But Caina had buried her blade in his neck, had stilled his mind forever.

  She sobbed again, looked at the blood drying on her fingers.

  But Halfdan still would have told her to think it through.

  Caina scrubbed her eyes dry and glared into the night. Why would Halfdan have turned against her? Had the Emperor ordered her
killed? Perhaps, but Halfdan would never have done something so inelegant. Some poison in a glass, or a quick slip of the knife between the ribs, nothing so brutish. For that matter, why kill the rest of the circle? Halfdan had not even acted like himself. In fact, he had acted a lot like...

  Caina blinked.

  Halfdan had acted, and sounded, a lot like Anabas.

  Wretched little Ghost. Both men had called her that. Such an insult might have slipped Anabas's lips, but Halfdan had been a Ghost circlemaster. Why would both men use the same turn of phrase? Why had Halfdan fought so ineptly? Caina never would have thought she could best her teacher.

  It was as if both Anabas and Halfdan had wanted her to kill them.

  Caina's hands curled into fists, dried blood crackling between her fingers.

  There was a power, she knew, that could twist men's minds. That could make them act in suicidal ways. That could transform a man into a puppet in the hands of a cold and heartless master.

  Sorcery. Wielded by a magus of the Imperial Magisterium. And Anabas had been plotting with the magi.

  Caina had killed magi in the past, but knew little of their arts.

  But others might know more.

  * * * *

  She came to a decaying house at the end of a narrow lane.

  The docks were a crowded, raucous place, even at night, but no one, save for the most desperate, ever came here. The house sagged over the lane like a rotting tree. No light came from the shuttered windows, and the air here stank of strange chemicals and rotten meat.

  Caina hurried to the door and hammered on it. Nothing happened, and she glanced over her shoulder. She glimpsed torchlight moving through the streets, heard the tramp of marching boots, and kept pounding on the door.

  At last it opened a crack. "You dare to disturb my rest?" snarled a rasping, bubbling voice. "Leave me! If you have need of my arts, return tomorrow. If you can meet my price."

  "I will have your aid now," said Caina.

  "Leave at once," said the voice, "or I shall show you the pain my arts can..."

  Caina flung back her hood. "Remember me, Nicorus?"

  There was a horrified gasp.

  Caina shoved her way into a dim-lit room. Shelves covered the walls, lined with jars, vials, books, scrolls, and bones. The only light came from a corroded bronze brazier. A squat man clad in dirty brown robes stood near the door, his head pale, misshapen, and hairless, like a ball of kneaded dough. He had once been a rising master of the Magisterium, until he had enspelled a concubine favored by the First Magus. The First Magus's wrath had been fierce, and Nicorus's downfall sudden. Now he eked out an existence selling love potions and petty charms to the rabble of Marsis.

  And selling his arts to the Ghosts from time to time.

  "Nicorus," said Caina. The floorboards felt soft and greasy beneath her bare feet. "So you do remember me."

  "You must leave!" There was no rage in Nicorus's voice, only terror. "I have aided your brethren too often. If the Magisterium learns that I aided a Ghost yet again... I dare not risk it. Not now. The city is in an uproar. Some jewel merchant's brat stabbed the Lord Governor to death in a jealous fit..."

  Caina stared at him.

  Nicorus's face, already slack, fell further. "You? Oh, gods. No. No! I will not aid you. I dare not draw the wrath of the Magisterium down upon me again. I have already paid too dear."

  Caina didn't know what form the First Magus's vengeance had taken, but Nicorus had lost both his hair and his eyebrows, and seemed unable to grow a beard.

  "You will help me," said Caina. "I might die before this night is over, but if you turn me away now, I swear the vengeance of the Ghosts will find you one day."

  Nicorus sighed, and gave a curt nod. "Then speak quickly."

  "I require only the answers to my questions," said Caina. She told him of the night's terrible events, of Anabas's bizarre behavior, and managed to keep her voice steady as she told him of Halfdan and the circle. Nicorus's face changed as she spoke, the fear draining away, replaced with something else.

  Dread.

  "So?" said Caina. "What spell can do this?"

  "A spell?" whispered Nicorus. He began pacing, his hands kneading the filthy skirts of his robe. "You think a spell did this?"

  "If not a spell, then what?" said Caina. "Do you mean to say that both Anabas and Halfdan went mad on the same night?"

  He turned to face her, lip curled with contempt. "Tell me, Ghost. Have you ever slain a magus? Or any other worker of sorcery?"

  Caina nodded. "Thrice."

  "Recently?"

  "Yes. Not a year past, in Varia Province."

  His pale face managed to grow whiter. "And this magus you slew. Did he practice necromancy?"

  "He used murder and the blood of children to power his spells. Why do you think I killed him?"

  "And after you slew him," said Nicorus, "did you chop off his head? Cut out his heart? Burn his body, mix the ashes with salt, and scatter them into the sea?"

  "Of course not," said Caina. "He was wicked, but a mortal man. Not a devil."

  "Oh, no, of course not," said Nicorus. Beads of sweat stood out on his white brow. "But such measures are appropriate, if you wish to slay a man who studied the necromantic sciences."

  "You mean to tell me that he has returned?" said Caina. "Absurd. I killed him myself. He was dead. I would swear to it."

  "I'm sure," sneered Nicorus. "But... there is a spell. A great spell of the highest necromantic science. Metempsychosis, the wizards of old called it. The body is slain... but the spiritual essence lives on, anchored to the dead heart. And that essence can inhabit the bodies of the living, usurping living flesh from its rightful soul. And if the stolen flesh is slain, the essence can claim another body, and another, and another."

  "Impossible," said Caina. But her heart hammered against her ribs.

  "All things are possible to the master of arcane sciences," said Nicorus. He laughed, lips slithering over his yellowed teeth. "Can you not see? You slew that magus, but he transcended death, and now he is coming for you. He possessed Anabas to ruin you. He possessed Halfdan to wound your heart. Think of what he will do when at last he lays hands upon you."

  "Not if I kill him first," said Caina.

  Nicorus shook his head. "You already killed him. Little good it did. Have you sorcery to fight his sorcery? Better to just lie down and die. Or to cut your own throat. It will certainly be kinder than what he will do to you."

  "Even the mightiest spell can be broken," said Caina. "His essence is anchored to his heart, you said? What happens if his heart is destroyed?"

  Nicorus shrugged. "The spell will end, I presume. Though the magic will render his dead heart impervious to weapons of steel."

  "How, then?" said Caina.

  "A spell of sufficient power could do it," said Nicorus. "That is beyond your reach, though. Exposing the heart to sunlight will destroy it, but presumably he has taken precautions against that." He picked up a tarnished knife from the shelves, glanced at it, and put it aside. "A knife of pure silver would pierce the spells. And silver causes agony to the undead, besides."

  "Then I know what I must do," said Caina, turning to go.

  "Fool of a Ghost," said Nicorus. "You will never find the heart. Not before he kills you."

  Caina glared at him. "He slew Halfdan. I will make him pay for what he has done, or die trying."

  She turned again to go.

  Nicorus snarled and gestured with his right hand. There was a gust of wind, and the door slammed shut. Caina whirled, knives in hand.

  He smiled at her. "Your foe is a magus of great power. Power enough, perhaps, to restore my lost manhood in exchange for a gift. And perhaps he will even teach me the secrets of immortality..."

  Caina whipped a knife at his face. The blade struck his cheek and bounced away, leaving the skin untouched.

  "A wardspell," said Nicorus. "Did you think I would take no precautions?"

  He gestured again,
and an invisible force seized Caina and slammed her against the wall. The breath exploded from her lungs, the knives falling from her hands. She felt her ribs trembling beneath the weight of Nicorus's will.

  Nicorus walked past the brazier and retrieved an axe from the shelves. "I can't have you escaping. Your foe wants you alive... but I doubt he'll mind if you're missing your fingers. And eyes." He thrust the axe into the smoldering coals, heating its edge.

  Caina could not free herself from the crushing force of Nicorus's spell, but she could move her right arm. She seized a heavy book from the shelf and flung it as hard as he could. It missed Nicorus and slammed into the brazier.

  The brazier wobbled, tipped, and spilled a wave of hot coals onto Nicorus's legs.

  The former master of the Magisterium shrieked as his greasy robes caught flame. The pressure on Caina's chest vanished, and she fell to the floor with a gasp. Nicorus pawed frantically at the flames, and Caina grabbed a jar from the shelves and ripped off the lid.

  "You were right," she shouted, "I should have burned his corpse!"

  She threw the jar at him. It shattered against his temple, and the clear fluid within erupted into blinding white flames. Nicorus's wails sharpened into agonized screams, and the floor beneath him caught fire. Caina grabbed the tarnished silver knife from the burning shelf, went out the door, and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

  She looked back just in time to see flames erupt from the roof.

  Two buildings burned down in one night. The Ghosts were supposed to remain secret. Gods, how Halfdan would have scolded her.

  Halfdan. Another wave of grief and rage roared through Caina, and drove her into the night.

  * * * *

  Nicorus might have betrayed her, but he had told Caina what she needed to know.

  There was one place in Marsis where sunlight never came. The city had been conquered and reconquered a dozen times over the centuries, but the grim citadel at its heart still stood. Dark vaults honeycombed the earth below the citadel's courts, and only the Lord Governor held the keys to those lightless dungeons.

  But Anabas had been possessed.

  The Ghosts knew of a secret way into the citadel through the vaults. Caina had hoped to use it to quietly rid the Empire of Anabas. Now she glided down the dark tunnel, a hooded lantern in one hand, her bare feet making no sound against the damp stone. Soon she came to the vaults. Glistening pillars reflected the lantern's glow, spotted with dark patches of mold. Rusting iron doors stood open in the stone walls, but all of the cells looked empty. Caina heard nothing but dripping water and the rapid throb of her own heart.