First, the fires of the Words of Lore drove the creatures back. Whatever spell Annarah used caused the creatures tremendous pain, and they recoiled from her fire. She put the spell to good use, whipping the shafts of fire back and forth across the deck. The fire left the ship untouched and passed through the corsairs without harming them, but the creatures recoiled from the fire, keening in pain as it touched them.
Second, the creatures were afraid of Caina’s valikon. They couldn’t sense her, and she was clever enough to stay out of sight, using their own wings as concealment.Third, the creatures didn’t care about the Sandstorm. They were here for Caina.
Morgant was sure of it. Certainly, the winged things didn’t hesitate to cut down the corsairs when the opportunity presented itself, but they weren’t really trying to attack the Sandstorm. They were looking for Caina. They ignored the corsairs to go after her. Callatas must have sent his new pets to kill her. Not surprising, given how spiteful the old sorcerer was.
Caina, of course, saw it, and ran back and forth, stabbing with her short valikon whenever she seized an opening. She managed to kill a half-dozen of the creatures, their corpses shrinking down to the emaciated form of wraithblood addicts, but step by step they were pushing her back. They might not be able to sense her, but they could see her well enough, and the nagataaru could communicate without speech. Once enough of them had eyes upon her, the winged creatures would coordinate and kill her.
Then Caina stumbled, and one of the creatures whirled, its wing catching her across the face and chest, and the impact sent her stumbling back, the valikon dropping from her hands to clang against the deck.
She hit the railing and clawed for balance.
###
In a single, horrified instant, Caina felt the railing slam into her hips, felt her momentum carry her backward. She heard Annarah shout something, heard the cries of the corsairs as they fought against the new humanity, and Caina tried to seize the railing.
She was too slow, and she fell off the deck and into nothingness.
Caina was shocked by how fast the Sandstorm seemed to recede above her. The buffeting of the wind spun her around, and she saw the Alqaarin Quarter racing towards her at terrific speed. She would strike one of the streets in the Alqaarin Quarter and burst apart like a melon thrown from a rooftop.
Odd that the end had come so suddenly.
There would be no time for regret, for guilt, for loss. Caina just had time to wish that she had been able to see Kylon once more. The nagataaru spirits streaked past her, hurtling towards the ground, and behind her, the massive storm cloud surged forward as the djinn of the Court rode to war against their eternal enemies. The ground shot towards Caina…
And then it stopped.
Caina blinked in surprise.
All the color drained away from the world, leaving everything in shades of gray and black and white, much like one of the pencil sketches in that little notebook Morgant carried in his coat.
Caina felt no surprise whatsoever when she turned her head and saw Samnirdamnus standing next to her, his feet resting upon the empty air.
This time, the djinni wore the form of Kylon, at least as Kylon had looked on the day of the battle of Marsis, armored in leather and a sword of storm-forged steel in his right hand, a sea-colored cloak streaming from his shoulders. The smokeless fire of the djinn burned in his eyes, but somehow it seemed hotter and more intense than before.
“My darling demonslayer,” said Samnirdamnus in his sardonic voice. “Here we are at last.”
“The final seconds of my life, you mean?” said Caina.
“Perhaps,” said Samnirdamnus. “You may think of it that way if you like. I look at it differently.”
“Then how do you look at this moment?” said Caina, terror and surprise giving way to bewilderment.
“The moment,” said Samnirdamnus, “that I have been working towards for a century and a half. The moment where all destinies are in flux and all fates are uncertain. The reason I have been looking for you.”
Caina felt a chill. He had asked her again and again if she had been the one he had been looking for…
“What do you mean?” said Caina.
He kept speaking, almost as if he had not heard her.
“I knew it from the moment you entered my sight,” said Samnirdamnus. “So full of pain and rage, yet valor as well, the ability to face grave danger without flinching. You had killed the Moroaica and stopped her great work, and not even the loremasters of Iramis had been able to defeat her. The Moroaica had even possessed you for a year, and she could not overcome you. Yes. How could I have doubted? You were indeed the one I needed for this moment. And after one hundred fifty years, the moment has come.”
“What moment?” said Caina.
“The shadow,” said Samnirdamnus. “The shadow the wraithblood addicts saw around you. Have you not realized what it is?”
Caina’s chill worsened. “Annarah thought it was a…a portent of a future event, like an omen, a shadow cast backward over my destiny thread…”
“She was entirely correct,” said Samnirdamnus, “though lacking in details. Specifically, the shadow was cast backward from a moment in time. From this moment, this exact moment, and the decision that you make here and now.”
“A decision?” said Caina.
“Yes,” said Samnirdamnus. “Because you are the one I have been looking for, Balarigar.”
Caina felt her mouth go dry. “Why have you been looking for me?”
And for the first time since Samnirdamnus had appeared in her dreams during that first awful night in Istarinmul, the Knight of Wind and Air gave her a straight answer.
“Let me enter your mind and body,” said Samnirdamnus, “just as the Moroaica entered you and the Sifter entered you. That is why I have sought you out.”
Caina blinked. “You want to…possess me?” A wave of revulsion went through her, just as it had when she had learned that the Moroaica’s spirit had been trapped inside her body. “You went to all this trouble just for a mortal host? That’s ridiculous. Why…”
Samnirdamnus’s sardonic smile never wavered.
“No, no, it’s not that simple, is it?” said Caina. “I can be possessed…but I can’t be controlled. The Sifter possessed me, but it couldn’t control me. Not even the Moroaica could control me. Why would you be any different?”
Samnirdamnus spread his hands, Kylon’s cloak rippling behind him. “Why would I wish you to be any different?”
“But you would be trapped inside my mind and body,” said Caina. “You couldn’t access any of your power.”
“I could not,” said Samnirdamnus, the sardonic smile widening, “but you could. Freely, too.”
Caina’s chill worsened.
“I am the Knight of Wind and Air,” said Samnirdamnus. “The wind and the air are mine to command. The smokeless fire of the djinn is mine to command. Or it would be yours to command, once I inhabit you.”
“No,” said Caina, her revulsion boiling over. “I don’t want that kind of power. I…”
“I know that very well,” said Samnirdamnus. “Do you not understand? You are exactly what I needed. A mortal I could possess, but I could not control. A mortal who could wield the power of the Knight of Wind and Air without the restrictions Callatas placed upon me. And a mortal who loathes sorcery and arcane power with every fiber of her being…and, therefore, would not abuse my power once it is in her hands.”
Caina stared at him. “The shadow…that’s what it is, isn’t it? My own shadow. My own shadow, cast by the smokeless fire of the djinn and flung backward through time.”
“You understand at last,” said Samnirdamnus.
He was asking something enormous of her.
He was asking that she become a creature like Kalgri, like Malik Rolukhan or the new humanity, a hybrid fusion of human and spirit. The thought filled Caina with profound revulsion, as if she had looked into the mirror and seen the dead black eyes of the Moroai
ca staring back at her from her own face.
Or, worse, the sneering expression of her own mother.
Samnirdamnus wanted her to become a creature like…like…
Like Mazyan, come to think of it.
The djinn of the Court of the Azure Sovereign were powerful and alien and inscrutable, but they were not malevolent, not like the nagataaru. They were not the enemies of mankind, but they were the bitter foes of the nagataaru.
“What if I refuse?” said Caina at last. “I could refuse.”
“Of course, you could refuse,” said Samnirdamnus. “I never compel anyone to do anything, do I? If you refuse, you will die in another three seconds when you strike the ground, Callatas will destroy Istarinmul, and the nagataaru of Kotuluk Iblis will kill every living thing in your world.”
“And if I accept?” said Caina.
The eyes of smokeless flame brightened. “Then the future is unknowable. But we shall have a reckoning with our enemies, you and I. For we indeed share the same enemies, do we not? Truly, that is a better bond than any friendship or kinship.”
Caina let out a quiet laugh. “Morgant was right about you. Beyond all doubt, you are the most skilled manipulator I have ever met.”
His smile flashed like a knife. “That is why we get along so well. You are just like me, my darling demonslayer. We are both agents of the shadows. You are the Ghost circlemaster, and I am the Knight of Wind and Air…and the offices hold the same function.”
“Then let us come out of the shadows,” said Caina. “Do it.”
“So be it,” said Samnirdamnus, and he walked through the air towards her.
Suddenly Caina knew why the djinni had chosen the form of Kylon.
He leaned forward, seized the back of her head with his free hand, and kissed her hard on the lips.
And as he did, he dissolved into a cloud of smokeless flame, fire that plunged into Caina’s mouth and nostrils and eyes. The fire spread through her, and as when the Sifter had tried to possess her, she felt as if molten metal had been poured into her veins. The fire of the Sifter had struggled against her, but this fire wrapped around her, and as it did the world shifted around her.
She felt the air around her as if it was an extension of herself, sensed the fury of the djinn as they charged at the nagataaru.
The world exploded into color around her once more, and Caina fell towards the ground.
She screamed.
“Command the wind!” Samnirdamnus’s voice thundered inside of her skull. “Command the wind, and it shall obey you!”
Something inside Caina shifted, and she reached for the wind around her, though she knew not how.
And to her astonishment, the wind obeyed.
Caina spun over the streets of the Alqaarin Quarter and then shot upwards, rocketing back towards where the Sandstorm flew towards the city.
The wind of her passage tore the shadow-cloak from her shoulders and sent it spinning away.
###
Morgant blinked in surprise, staring at the valikon lying upon the deck.
He had never expected to die on a flying ship carried aloft by djinn, but life was just full of little surprises.
Certainly, Caina must not have expected to die like that, losing her balance and tumbling to her death from a flying ship. Annarah looked stricken, but Morgant found he felt only…cold. Cold and numb.
He had always known this would end in disaster and death, hadn’t he?
Morgant would keep his word until he was killed, but he knew defeat and death were the most probable outcome.
Still…for a little while, Caina had made him doubt that certainty. When she had staggered alive out of the burning ruins of the Corsair’s Rest, when she had actually stopped Cassander Nilas, for just a moment Morgant wondered if the legend was true, if she really was the Balarigar. It was an absurd thought. He had seen how the legend had been constructed around her, gathering like a pearl around a piece of sand.
Still, if the legend suited anyone, it would have been her. From time to time she had made him wonder if something other than final defeat was possible.
But she was mortal, in the end, just as all of them were. Morgant raised his weapons, intending to take down as many of the winged creatures as he could before they killed him…
A blur shot past the railing, rising past the ship, but it wasn’t one of the Grand Master’s winged monsters.
Caina Amalas landed on the deck next to her valikon.
For a moment Morgant was so astonished that he froze. Surviving the explosion at the Corsair’s Rest was one thing, but this…
“What the hell?” he said.
Caina snatched up the valikon, the blade erupting into harsh white flames, and she shot forward in a blur, the silver sword flashing. Two of the creatures fell dead in as many heartbeats, and the corsairs rallied, their swords rising and falling. Morgant dashed forward to join the fight as Annarah cast another spell, white fire flashing across the creatures’ armored hides. The charge of the corsairs took the creatures off-guard, but Caina was more effective by far. Somehow she was moving faster than she had ever moved, faster than the winged creatures themselves. She could have given the Kyracian a challenge in a race at the moment.
After a dozen of them fell, the surviving creatures decided to withdraw, leaping from the ship and soaring away. No doubt they had gone to regroup and summon reinforcements.
Caina stared after them, breathing hard, a few loose strands of black hair dancing in the wind.
“Caina?” said Annarah, taking a careful step forward. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Caina turned, and for the second time, Morgant froze in surprise.
Her eyes were on fire.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Caina’s eyes weren’t burning. Rather it looked as if her eyes had been filled with smokeless flame, a very familiar smokeless flame. The same fire pulsed beneath her skin, seeming to flow through her veins.
“I knew it,” whispered Annarah.
Morgant looked at her in surprise.
“I knew you would be the one,” said Annarah, rapt. “I was sure of it.”
“What,” said Morgant, looking back at Caina, “did you do?”
“Samnirdamnus,” said Caina. Her voice had a peculiar echo, as if a second voice, just beyond the edge of hearing, was speaking through her mouth at the same time. “This was what he wanted. Someone he could possess, but could not control. Someone he could use to avoid the restrictions Callatas bound upon him…”
“To bring his power to bear against Callatas,” said Morgant, the Knight of Wind and Air’s scheme flashing before his eyes as he understood at last. It had been a plan a hundred and fifty years in the making, and Morgant had been part of the Knight’s game the entire time. Of course, to an immortal djinni, a hundred and fifty years was an idle afternoon. “So he’s inside your head?”
“Yes,” said Caina.
“Then he’s stuck there, just as the Sifter was,” said Morgant. “Brave of him.”
“It was his plan,” said Caina. “That’s why he was looking for me. That’s why he went to such lengths to save my life. So someone could bring his power to bear against Callatas.”
She sheathed her valikon and looked over the railing, and Morgant followed suit. The Sandstorm descended in a gentle arc towards a pier in the Alqaarin Harbor. Behind them, the corsairs watched Caina with a mixture of awe and terror, and Morgant’s lip twitched with amusement. If the world didn’t end in the next hour or so, if they were not all killed, the Balarigar’s legend would grow anew.
Perhaps he would paint portraits of it.
A war had broken out in the sky.
The djinn raced past the Sandstorm, flying towards the vast cloud of nagataaru. The plume of shadow stirred and twisted like an agitated serpent, and more ribbons of purple flame and shadow broke off and raced to meet the attacking djinn. Lines of misty horsemen and chariots charged at the rippling shadows and specters of purple flame, and soon sw
ords of lightning and smokeless flame clashed against shields of shadow and blades of purple fire, and a constant rumble of thunder rolled over the city.
“Yes, I understand,” said Caina.
“What did he say?” said Annarah.
“Samnirdamnus said that the djinn are attacking the nagataaru,” said Caina.
“Obviously,” said Morgant.
“That will distract them, keep them from possessing any more of the wraithblood addicts than they already have,” said Caina. “But we must hurry. The nagataaru are stronger than the djinn, and can draw upon Kotuluk Iblis’s power to aid them. The Azure Sovereign has vanished, and most of the powerful djinn nobles are imprisoned in the Desert of Candles.” She turned to Murat, who flinched before her burning gaze. “The djinn will put the ship down soon. Aid us or flee, but do not hinder us.”
Murat spread his hands. “I would not dream of it.”
###
Caina stepped to the pier, returning to Istarinmul, and a wave of tangled emotions went through her.
She had hated Istarinmul when she had first come to the city, hated its cruelty, hated its gladiator games, hated the Brotherhood of Slavers and their allies. After all that, it seemed shocking that she was glad to return to Istarinmul. She had made friends here, had saved lives, had won victories, had saved the city from Cassander Nilas’s vengeance.
She had found Kylon again.
And now, looking around, Caina was surprised at how angry she was.
Istarinmul was dying. Here and there plumes of smoke rising from the city, and bodies lay scattered along the piers. The winged creatures had been killing at random, doing Callatas’s work of wiping out the old humanity to clear the way for the nightmares he had created.
The sight of Istarinmul in chaos and in flames made Caina angrier than she would have thought.
“Yes, you understand,” said Samnirdamnus inside of her head. “This is what the nagataaru would do if left unchallenged. A cosmos of ashes and death.”
“No,” said Caina, her voice a harsh rasp of denial.
Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) Page 28
