Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9)

by Jonathan Moeller

  ###

  Kylon staggered at the smokeless flame vanished, looking around in shock.

  He wasn’t in the Golden Palace any longer.

  Nor was he even in the city of Istarinmul.

  The bleak gray plain of the Desert of Candles stretched away in all directions, the sun setting to the west. Thousands of the jagged blue crystalline pillars rose around him, flickering with their eerie azure glow. Ahead Kylon saw the fountain of white stone, all that remained of Iramis when Callatas had burned the city. The crystalline statues of Nasser’s wife and children stood motionless upon the plinth at the heart of the dry fountain, glowing with the same pale light as the pillars.

  He was not alone.

  Caina stood next to him, her eyes burning, the fire spreading through her veins. Nasser and Laertes were a short distance away, Laertes looking around in astonishment. Behind them were Morgant and Annarah. Morgant looked startled, but Annarah was weeping a little as she looked at Caina.

  The power of the Star had carried all six of them here in an instant. Kylon felt that power rolling off Caina in colossal waves. It should have killed her. It was going to kill her.

  “Put it down,” said Kylon. “Put down the Star.”

  “I can’t,” said Caina, her voice hoarse, the eerie echo of the djinni still in her words. She stepped away from him, walking towards the fountain. “I understand now. I understand what happened.”

  “What do you mean?” said Kylon, following her.

  “The star is the key to the crystal,” said Caina. “It has always been the key to the crystal.”

  “What does that mean?” said Kylon, his alarm growing. Caina had told him about that strange prophecy, given to her by the spirit of the Moroaica’s father, but they hadn’t known what it meant. Had the power of the Star driven her mad? “It means that Callatas was a fool,” said Caina, stopping at the edge of the fountain.

  “I could have told you that,” said Morgant.

  “He burned Iramis,” said Caina. She hopped onto the rim of the dry basin, the cold wind of the Desert tugging at her sweat-soaked clothing. “He told everyone he burned Iramis. He had Morgant paint a mural of him burning Iramis. But he didn’t understand the Star. He couldn’t control it, not really. He thought he burned Iramis and used the power of the city’s destruction to bind the nobles of the Court of the Azure Sovereign, but he was wrong.”

  She crossed the basin, the Star burning brighter in her hand, and a strange chiming rose from the crystalline pillars.

  “He was exactly wrong,” said Caina.

  She lifted the Star, sorcerous power rising off it like heat from the sun.

  “He didn’t burn Iramis,” said Caina. “He froze it.”

  She put the Star in the outstretched hand of Nasser’s wife, and the world shuddered.

  ###

  The power rushed out from the Star, and Caina screamed.

  She felt the others around her, felt Kylon reach for her, felt Nasser grab Kylon’s shoulder and shake his head. Caina would have felt agony, but the pain she felt was beyond that.

  Instead, she reached for the Staff, willing the Star’s power into it. In her hand the Star shivered against the crystalline fingers of Nasser’s wife, shuddering and shrinking as its physical form started to unravel.

  Caina asked the Staff to open the way, and it answered, shining with gray light.

  The world shuddered again, and a rift opened in the sky, a vast shining gash of golden fire. It was the echo of the rift the Moroaica had opened, the same echo that Cassander had tried to use to summon the ifriti to destroy Istarinmul. Caina felt it open like a door beneath her will, yawning wider and wider.

  “Come home!” she shouted.

  ###

  Kylon stared at Caina, uncertain of what to do.

  He wanted to rip the Star out of her hand, but to judge from the amount of power radiating from the thing, doing so would kill him, would kill her, and likely anything else for a hundred miles in every direction. Overhead golden light blazed across the dusk sky, and the rift of golden fire reappeared, yawning wider and wider.

  “What are you doing?” said Kylon, his words lost in the roar of the opening rift.

  Yet Nasser heard him nonetheless. “She is opening the way!”

  “The way to what?” said Kylon.

  “Behold!” said Nasser, pointing his gloved hand at the rift.

  Kylon looked at the sky, the rift opening wider.

  Then he saw the city, the towers and walls of white and golden stone, ghostly and beautiful in the shadows of the netherworld. It was the echo of Iramis. When Callatas had destroyed the city, the spell had been so powerful that it imprinted an echo of the doomed city upon the netherworld.

  A dozen pieces clicked in Kylon’s head, memories of things he had seen over the last two years. The echo of Iramis. Nasser’s and Annarah’s secret. The crystalline pillars, and the strange visions whenever someone touched them.

  It wasn’t an echo.

  It was the real thing.

  ###

  The rift opened all the way, and the ghostly image of Iramis grew sharper.

  Caina shuddered with exhaustion, the Star’s power howling through her as its physical form dissipated. She knew the next step would probably kill her, but it would be worth it.

  She would save more lives than she had ever done before.

  “Balarigar,” said Samnirdamnus, and Caina directed the power into the Seal, calling to the djinn lords bound within the crystalline pillars.

  Pain exploded through her, and everything went black.

  ###

  Morgant looked around, uncertain of what was happening.

  The image of Iramis in the sky grew sharper, the wind howling through the Desert, the crystalline pillars flickering and shuddering. Caina stood at the fountain, pressing the Star into the statue’s hand, her face a rictus of agony, the cords standing out on her neck as the smokeless fire burned so bright within her that Morgant could saw it even through her closed eyelids.

  Then she threw back her head and screamed, and the world exploded.

  The ground heaved and shook, a groaning sound filling the air, and the crystalline pillars blazed. As they glowed, they shrank and diminished, seeming to take on human shape. An instant later plumes of smokeless flame erupted from the pillars, the djinn spirits freed from their imprisonment, and the released djinn soared towards the opened rift.

  Nasser grunted in pain and fell to his knees, clawing at his gloved left hand. Annarah ran to him, and Morgant followed. Laertes helped Nasser rip off his glove and bracer, and the crystalline fist seemed to shift and blur, transmuting from blue crystal and back to dark-skinned flesh.

  “Gods,” said Laertes, and Nasser let out a long, shuddering breath.

  Around them, the crystalline pillars changed from crystal to flesh. People reappeared around them, thousands upon thousands of people, and with a shock, Morgant realized they were the people of Iramis as they had been on the day that Callatas had burned them.

  Or, rather, the day that Callatas had thought he had burned them.

  “You knew,” said Morgant. “You always knew.”

  “I am sorry I did not tell you,” said Annarah. “I knew. Nasser knew. No one else did. If Callatas ever learned the truth, if he ever realized what he had actually done, he could have returned and destroyed Iramis…”

  Morgant laughed, and Annarah blinked at him.

  “Gods!” he said. “The best liar of them all is an honest woman, it seems. I…”

  Thunder rang out, and Iramis returned.

  The city sprang back into existence around him, drawn back from where Callatas had unknowingly banished it to the netherworld. The Desert of Candles vanished as the golden rift snapped shut overhead, and Morgant found himself standing in the Plaza of Princes in the heart of Iramis. The Palace of the Prince towered over him, the Towers of Lore themselves rising to his right, and in the distance, he saw the pinnacle of the Tower of the Va
likarion.

  And the plaza was filled with people, thousands of people, people that Morgant had seen die a century and a half ago.

  No. People that he thought he had seen die.

  “Husband!”

  Morgant turned and saw that the woman and children atop the fountain’s plinth had turned back into living flesh, jumping over the edge of the basin and running to Nasser. Amidst the crowds filling the Plaza of Princes a tall Iramisian man with a valikon over his shoulder ran to Annarah, two children trailing after him, and Morgant had never seen such joy on her face. Annarah’s husband and children, he guessed. Around him the Plaza of Princes erupted into cheers and shouts, and Morgant looked around in wonder.

  Two hundred years he had lived, and he had never, ever, seen anything like this.

  He turned in a circle and saw Laertes, and for a moment they stared at each other.

  “Well?” said the former centurion.

  “I,” said Morgant. “I…I cannot think of anything to say.”

  Laertes snorted. “Gods! Now there’s the true miracle.”

  Morgant turned again, intending to find Caina, and saw her collapse at the base of the plinth, blood leaking from her nose and ears.

  ###

  Kylon bent over Caina, catching her as she fell, the last wisps of the Star vanishing from her grasp.

  Around him, a colossal tidal wave of joy and jubilation rose from Iramis and washed over his arcane senses, so overwhelming that he could not have blocked it out if he had tried. He had never sensed anything like it.

  Right now he felt nothing but cold dread.

  Caina wasn’t breathing, and she didn’t have a pulse.

  Chapter 30: Eternity

  Caina walked through nothingness.

  Part of her mind was aware that she lay dying upon the ground, that the strain of drawing that much power had been too much. The rest of her mind seemed clear and untroubled.

  With her mind, she saw the vision that Samnirdamnus had shown her, the vision of the unending war between the nagataaru and the djinn.

  But now, unencumbered by flesh, she saw it clearly.

  The vast dark host of Kotuluk Iblis surrounded the world, but now it was in disarray, fleeing into the netherworld as the revitalized djinn pursued them. Caina saw the Lord of Storm and Frost, as terrible as a storm and as unyielding a mountain, commanding the host of the Azure Sovereign. With him now were thousands of djinn nobles, nobles that Callatas had trapped in the material world and bound to the people of Iramis, transmuting them into crystalline prisons to give the nagataaru a free hand as Callatas summoned them to work the Apotheosis.

  Under that assault, the nagataaru broke and fled, scattering back into the netherworld as their furious enemies pursued them.

  “This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” said Caina.

  “My darling demonslayer,” said Samnirdamnus, walking alongside her, “how clever you are.” He wore the form of the Emperor, but this time, there was no sardonic edge to his voice, and he smiled at her. “What do you think?”

  “The Azure Sovereign came to this world to rest,” said Caina, “and you were appointed to watch over him as he hibernated. When Callatas stole the Star, you put your plan into motion. You needed to find a way to rescue the Azure Sovereign and stop Callatas, and you needed someone who could not be controlled by a possessing spirit.”

  “Precisely right,” said Samnirdamnus. “I searched long and hard…and then you were banished to Istarinmul. Your Emperor knew that danger threatened in Istarinmul, that Callatas was a threat to the world, but even he knew not the good he did by sending you to Istarinmul and to me.”

  A dark thought occurred to Caina. “Did you arrange my life? How I became…what I am, I mean. Maglarion and Corvalis’s death and the rest of it.”

  “Certainly not,” said Samnirdamnus. “You always made your own choices, Caina Amalas, and I was unaware of you until you killed the Moroaica in the netherworld. After that, I watched you, and helped you when I could.” He smiled again. “You are a spy, as I am. You understand the rules of the game. Your transformation into a valikarion was an unexpected but welcome outcome. I doubt you could have defeated Cassander or Kharnaces without that edge. And now you have accomplished all my hopes. The Azure Sovereign is awakened once more. The nobles of my Court are freed. Iramis is returned, and best of all, the nagataaru have been dealt a terrible defeat. They will not threaten your world again.” To Caina’s lasting surprise, he bowed deep before her. “Thank you, Balarigar.”

  Caina blinked. “You…are welcome. I had no idea of any of this. I learned the truth piece by piece…”

  “That is the way for mortals, I fear,” said Samnirdamnus. “You cannot be told the truth. You must learn the truth for yourself. Though that may not be a problem for you any longer.”

  Caina frowned. “What do you mean?”

  KNIGHT OF WIND AND AIR.

  Caina flinched. For a terrible moment, she feared that the colossal voice belonged to Kotuluk Iblis. Yet it was different entirely. It was just as alien as the voice of the lord of the nagataaru, just as powerful. But it lacked the horrible malice and lusting hunger of the voice of Kotuluk Iblis. Instead, it seemed implacable and stern and unyielding. It reminded Caina of the voice of Annarah’s pyrikon in the netherworld.

  It was the voice of the Azure Sovereign.

  “My lord Sovereign,” said Samnirdamnus.

  YOU HAVE DONE WELL. I KNEW NOT THE DANGER THAT WOULD BEFALL WHILE I RESTED FROM MY LABORS. THE PLOT OF KOTULUK IBLIS HAS BEEN UNDONE, AND HIS MORTAL SERVANTS DEFEATED. YOU HAVE PROVEN WORTHY OF TRUST.

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Samnirdamnus. “I think that the Balarigar, too, is worthy of trust.”

  YOU SPEAK TRULY. INVITE HER, IF YOU WISH IT.

  “What do you mean?” said Caina.

  “You are dying,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “Yes,” said Caina. Part of her knew that she was laying in that dry fountain, Kylon bending over her.

  Oh, Kylon. Kylon…

  “If you wish, you may leave your mortality and humanity behind and become something new,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “Become what, exactly?” said Caina, frowning.

  “A Knight of Wind and Air,” said Samnirdamnus. “A djinni of the Court of the Azure Sovereign.”

  Caina blinked, taken aback. “Is that…even possible?”

  “For one such as you, yes,” said Samnirdamnus. “If you wish, you can lay aside your mortality and become one of us. You will ride with us as we pursue the nagataaru from world to world, from star to star. For that is the purpose of the Court of the Azure Sovereign, our duty, the reason for our existence. Our duty is to shield the mortal worlds from the nagataaru. Sometimes we have been victorious, and sometimes we have been defeated. But with your help, we shall win even more victories. We shall defeat the nagataaru on a billion times a billion worlds, and drive them before us until the cosmos reaches its completion.”

  Caina gazed at the battle raging before them, and a wild exultation seemed to take her. It sounded…it sounded almost like what she had been born to do. The nagataaru were a refined form of the evil she had fought all her life. There had been a fierce joy in defeating them, and she imagined herself riding with the horsemen and chariots of cloud and storm, chasing the nagataaru from world to world. It sounded like the kind of battle she had been made to fight.

  Except…

  “Do spirits know love?” said Caina.

  Samnirdamnus shook his head. “Love is a quality of mortals. Spirits have duties. We require nothing else.”

  Caina thought of the mortal world, of Kylon most of all. She thought of others, of Damla and Annarah and Morgant, Nerina and Malcolm and Azaces, of her Ghost circle, of the friends she had not seen for years in Malarae.

  Suddenly the thought of existing as a spirit seemed a cold and lonely thing.

  “I cannot,” said Caina. “I cannot. I could not leave the others.”

  “Ah,”
said Samnirdamnus. “I thought you would answer that way.”

  “Well, you are a spy,” said Caina, “and you’ve been doing it longer than I have.”

  “Truly,” said Samnirdamnus. “Then I bid you farewell, Caina Amalas, and wish you victory, for I have no doubt you will seek new foes.” He reached out and touched her forehead. “A piece of myself I leave you, to heal you when you are wounded. It will restore your life now, and you may need the ability in the future.”

  “Farewell, Samnirdamnus,” said Caina. “Thank you for all your help.” She smiled. “Go terrorize the nagataaru.”

  “I could not do otherwise,” said Samnirdamnus. “Farewell, my darling demonslayer. I always knew that you were the one I was looking for.”

  He vanished and joined the host of the Court of the Azure Sovereign as it pursued the fleeing nagataaru deeper into the infinity of the netherworld, and Caina knew no more.

  ###

  Kylon gazed at Caina, his mouth seeming full of ashes.

  After everything she had survived, for her to die here seemed hideously unjust. But she would have wanted it that way, wouldn’t she? Saving all those people. Bringing Iramis back out of the shadows of the netherworld and into the light once more, its loremasters and valikarion ready to hunt those who abused sorcery.

  If only…

  She took a shuddering breath, and her eyes twitched open, wide and confused.

  They were blue once more.

  ###

  For a moment Caina could not remember where she was or how she had gotten there.

  She was lying in a basin of cool stone, the dusk sky overhead streaked with red. Kylon knelt over her, his face streaked with soot and sweat and blood, his expression almost slack with relief, his hands gripping hers.

  “Kylon,” she croaked.

  He smiled at her, still grasping her hands, and she wondered what emotions he sensed from her. Confusion, most likely.

  “Kalgri,” said Caina, a burst of fear going through her. “She went after you. Is she…”