Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Dead,” said Kylon. A flicker of pain went over his face. “I was wounded, probably mortal. I took a vial of Elixir Restorata, and I timed it so the explosion went off on her face. That…was the end for her.”

  “Good,” said Caina. “I’m glad. I’m so glad. I…I was sure she was going to kill you, that I would lose you…oh, gods, I’ve missed you so much…”

  One of his hands moved down to stroke her cheek.

  “Yes,” said Kylon, his voice quiet.

  “Where am I?” said Caina.

  Kylon blinked. “You don’t remember?”

  There was a roaring noise filling her ears, and she wondered what it was. Had they ended up by the seashore somehow? Or a windstorm? No, it was…

  Cheering.

  Thousands of voices raised in celebration, mixed here and there with clear metallic tones. At first, Caina thought they were bells, but she realized they were gongs struck in celebration. The people of Iramis, Annarah had told her once, had no bells, but instead sounded gongs to send signals and mark significant moments.

  Iramis…

  Her eyes widened as she remembered Callatas and the gate, Samnirdamnus, and the Azure Sovereign, and the titanic sights that the Knight of Wind and Air had shown her. The last few hours had felt like a mad, hallucinogenic dream after she had permitted Samnirdamnus to enter her mind after she had taken up the Star and the Staff and the Seal.

  And then…and then…

  The astonishment exploded through her.

  “Oh, gods,” breathed Caina. “What did I do?”

  Kylon smiled, the widest smile she had seen on his face since their first night together in Rumarah.

  “See for yourself,” he said, helping her to stand.

  The Staff still lay next to her, and Caina gripped it with her left hand, the Seal on her finger clinking against it. Kylon gripped her right hand and pulled her to feet, and Caina looked around, half-expecting to see the bleak Desert of Candles and the forest of gleaming crystalline pillars.

  Instead, she saw Iramis.

  The city had been restored, the towers of white and golden stone rising around her, a vast plaza stretching before a fortified palace. The buildings bore the same geometric designs she had seen in Silent Ash Temple and the other Iramisian ruins she had visited. People filled the plaza, thousands of people, and she saw more of them on the streets leading to the rest of the city. Caina blinked in amazement, swaying a little on her feet. There had been a quarter of a million people in Iramis on the day that Callatas had burned the city.

  No. He hadn’t burned the city, had he?

  Caina climbed out of the fountain, Kylon following her.

  The others awaited her below, Annarah and Nasser and Morgant and Laertes. Morgant didn’t look happy, not exactly, but instead…shocked, as if something had happened that his cynicism simply could not process. Laertes looked sober as ever, no doubt working the logistical problems that the return of Iramis to the waking world would present. But Nasser and Annarah…the woman and the children from the fountain clustered around him, restored to flesh once more. A tall, strong man with an Iramisian valikon slung over his shoulder stood next Annarah, his arm around her waist, two boys under the age of ten hovering near him.

  They looked at her and Kylon, and to Caina’s surprise, Nasser offered her a deep bow.

  “Balarigar,” said Nasser, his wife taking his arm as he straightened up. “It is my very great honor to welcome you to Iramis at last.”

  “I’m an idiot, you know,” said Caina.

  Annarah blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “It was right there in front of me the whole time,” said Caina, pointing at Nasser. “A man cannot labor for vengeance for a century and a half without becoming twisted by it. You weren’t working to revenge yourself on Callatas. You were trying to save your family. And you,” she pointed at Annarah, “I could never figure out why you weren’t mourning your husband and your sons. At first, I thought it was because you had become cold, but you probably have one of the most generous hearts I’ve ever encountered. You weren’t mourning your husband and sons because they weren’t dead. Just banished. Imprisoned.”

  “Forgive me,” said Annarah. She took a deep breath, tears in her eyes. “I hope you will forgive me. The Prince had given me the Staff and the Seal and sent me away, so I saw what Callatas did to Iramis. I realized what had happened at once, and I told the Prince. We were the only ones who knew the truth. Callatas was too arrogant. He thought he had destroyed Iramis, but he had merely banished and bound it to the imprisoned lords of the Court of the Azure Sovereign. I dared not tell anyone. If Callatas had the slightest inkling of the truth, he would have realized his error and found a way to destroy Iramis. I could not tell anyone, not you, not Morgant, not anyone. Forgive me.”

  “What is there to forgive?” said Caina. “You saved Iramis.”

  “You did,” said Nasser.

  “I…don’t know what I did,” said Caina. “I picked up the Star, and I thought it would kill me. It seemed the only thing I could do with the power without destroying the world. Did you know that the Star was actually the Azure Sovereign?”

  “I did,” said Nasser. “It was one of the trusts of the Princes, passed down from father to son. I suppose the responsibility has been discharged at last.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Caina, pulling off the Seal and handing it and the Staff to Nasser, “these are yours.”

  “Thank you,” said Nasser, “but they are not mine. They are held in trust by the Princes of Iramis, for they are too powerful to be used. It is better that they are kept safe here…”

  “I had forgotten,” said Morgant, “the pompous speeches you used to make.” He grinned his gaunt grin at Nasser. “Still going to arrest me?”

  “You, too, helped save Iramis,” said Nasser, flashing his white smile back. He waved his free hand to the cheering crowds. “The Balarigar brought us back, but you spared Annarah. Had you not rescued her, none of this would have been possible. Would you like a noble title for you work?” The smile sharpened. “No, a better idea. A commemorative sculpture for your great deeds. Not a painting.” Caina burst out laughing. “Markaine of Caer Marist, the greatest painter of our age, remembered forever by a sculpture…”

  “Oh, for the gods’ sake,” said Morgant. “I should have known your tastes in art would be so predictably pedestrian. Though it is telling that when you see you wife for the first time in a century and a half, the first thing you do is insult me.”

  The woman on Nasser’s arm laughed. “You should have been dead a century ago, Morgant the Razor. Is that not punishment enough? A hundred and fifty years spent keeping your word to the loremaster Annarah, thrice your natural span of years. Surely that is enough of a sentence. No mortal ruler could have laid such a stern judgment upon you.”

  “Balarigar,” said Nasser. “This is Anzima, the Consort of Iramis and my wife. My children…”

  The introductions came after that, to Nasser’s children, all of whom gazed at Caina with awe. Annarah’s husband was named Mishan, and he bowed deeply when Caina greeted him. Bit by bit she realized that more and more people were staring at her, and she heard the word “Balarigar” repeated among them over and over again.

  She could not understand why, and then she realized the truth.

  They had seen her, all of them. She had lifted the Staff and the Seal and called them back from their imprisonment, and in that instant, every man, woman, and child of Iramis had seen her face. Every single person she thought Callatas had murdered had seen her call them back from their twilight imprisonment and bring them back.

  “I think,” said Kylon in a low voice, “the legend of the Balarigar is going to grow after this.”

  Morgant snorted. “I think you’re going to have a much harder time being a spy.”

  “I think,” said Caina, “you might be right.”

  Perhaps she could not be a Ghost any longer. She could hardly be a Ghost circle
master when every person in a nation knew her face and name. Gods, fame had been the last thing she had ever wanted!

  Yet as she looked at Annarah with her husband and sons, as she saw Nasser with his consort and children, as she listened to the cheers and the joyous clanging of the gongs, as she saw the families reunited after a century and a half of dreamless sleep, Caina concluded that it had been worth it.

  BALARIGAR.

  She stiffened.

  The voice of the Azure Sovereign was faint, but she could still hear it.

  THE KNIGHT OF WIND AND AIR HAS GIVEN YOU HIS GIFT. I NOW GIVE YOU MY BLESSING. THE KNIGHT HAS SEEN YOUR SOUL, AND KNOWS YOU WOULD WISH MY BLESSING TO HELP OTHER MORTALS. THEREFORE MY BLESSING TO YOU IS THAT I SHALL LIFT MY ANGER FROM THIS LAND.

  Caina wondered what that was about.

  ###

  Damla hurried across the Cyrican Bazaar, knocking at the barred door to the House of Agabyzus, Tomazain and Agabyzus following her.

  A stunned silence had fallen over the city. At the damaged Golden Palace, Sulaman and Lord Tanzir had taken charge, issuing a stream of orders to bring order and peace to the city once more. It seemed strange to think that the poet she had once hired to recite epics to her customers would now rule the city, but she had seen many strange things in the last two years. What was one more?

  And she had more important things to think about.

  For a moment fear choked her. Had those winged devils gotten into the House? Were her sons safe? For an awful moment, she imagined seeing their slashed corpses upon the floor…

  The door opened, and Bahad and Bayram saw her and smiled.

  “Mother!” said Bahad. “You’re…”

  She caught them in a hug the moment they lowered their crossbows, blinking back tears.

  “What happened?” said Bayram.

  “We won,” said Damla. “I saw it happen. The Balarigar killed the Grand Master, and all the nagataaru were banished.”

  “The damnedest thing I ever saw,” said Tomazain. “The damnedest thing. After this, I think it’s time to hang up my sword. Find a job baking bread somewhere. No more sorcery, no more mad demons. Just oil and flour and ovens.”

  Damla looked up from her sons and smiled. “I think…”

  Something wet hit her forehead.

  She blinked in surprise and looked up. The night sky had grown dark and cloudy, and another drop of water hit her face, and then another.

  “By the Living Flame,” said Agabyzus, as shocked as Damla had ever seen him. “Is that…is it…”

  “It is,” said Tomazain. “I thought it didn’t do that here.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Agabyzus.

  For the first time in a century and a half, for the first time since the banishment of Iramis, a steady rain fell upon the arid lands of Istarinmul.

  Chapter 31: Judgment For Your Crimes

  Three weeks later, Caina returned to Istarinmul, traveling with Prince Nasser and his party as they came to pay their respects at the coronation of the new Padishah.

  Nasser traveled with his wife and some of his children, the column organized by the new high seneschal of Iramis, a former Imperial centurion named Laertes. From what Caina had heard, Laertes had already arranged marriages for three of his daughters to some of the younger valikarion. A hundred men of the Prince’s Guard accompanied Nasser, along with the high loremasters, aged men and women in white robes, their pyrikons in the forms of staffs and diadems and bracelets, and a hundred valikarion, their valikons sheathed over their shoulders.

  Caina rode next to Kylon behind Nasser and his family. She had arrived in Iramis with nothing but her weapons and her sweat-stained, blood-soiled clothes, but Lady Anzima and her daughters had all but adopted Caina as a member of their household. That had included gifts of clothing, and Caina wore a dress in the Iramisian style, the light cloth patterned in red and gold and banded with black at the edges. Her valikon and ghostsilver dagger rested in scabbards at her belt. Iramisian women generally did not carry swords, but Caina refused to be parted from the valikon. The weapon had bonded to her after the ordeal with the star, just as Kylon’s valikon had bonded to him after he had killed Kalgri, and she could summon it and dismiss it at will. The loremasters said that sometimes happened when a valikon was used to kill a great lord of the nagataaru or another powerful spirit.

  Besides, Caina was a valikarion. As Morgant had said on Pyramid Isle, it was only proper for a valikarion to carry a valikon.

  Kylon rode next to her, gazing over the arid steppes. Like Caina, Anzima seemed to have adopted him, providing him with clothes in the Kyracian style, boots and trousers and a long loose tunic. The sheathed valikon rested over his shoulder, though like Caina, he could call the weapon to his hand.

  She smiled at him, and then laughed as a thought occurred to her.

  “Did I say something funny?” said Kylon.

  “It just occurred to me,” said Caina. “The last two times I left Istarinmul, I didn’t want to go. The first time I arrived, I didn’t want to come. Now I’m returning there voluntarily. I’m not quite sure what to make of that.”

  In truth, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her life now. She was too well known to continue as a Ghost circlemaster in Istarinmul, and the new Padishah would be friendly to the Empire and hostile to the Umbarians. There was hardly a need for a Ghost circle in Istarinmul any longer.

  So what would she do now?

  She could settle in Iramis and adopt the life of an Iramisian noblewoman. She could return to Istarinmul and settle here. Caina would like to have returned to the Empire and Malarae, but she doubted she could do so. She had been banished at the behest of one of the most powerful lords of the Empire, and Lord Corbould Maraeus was not known for changing his mind.

  Her eyes turned to Kylon, and a flicker of unease went through her as she wondered what he planned to do next. The last three weeks with him had been wonderful. But the mocking words that Kalgri had spoken on Pyramid Isle still echoed inside of her head. Caina couldn’t have children. Kylon was a Kyracian nobleman, and one day his banishment might be lifted. Would he return to New Kyre and seek a wife of Kyracian blood to continue his line? Caina and Kylon had been thrown together by exile and their common enemies. Would the lack of that common purpose pull them apart?

  Caina didn’t want to think about that.

  “There is a difference this time,” said Kylon.

  “Oh?”

  “We’re welcome in Istarinmul now,” said Kylon. “When I came, I most certainly wasn’t welcome, and you…”

  “I daresay I made myself unwelcome in short order,” said Caina. “At least to Callatas and the Brotherhood and Erghulan.”

  “Burning down buildings will do that,” said Kylon with a brief smile.

  Caina started to point out that she hadn’t burned down that many buildings, but Morgant had already told him how she had accidentally incinerated the dead jungle of Pyramid Isle, so there was no point in arguing.

  “What are you going to do now?” said Caina.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Kylon. “I came to Istarinmul to avenge Thalastre. I thought I would die in the attempt, and I didn’t care. And then…”

  “And then you succeeded,” said Caina. “Rolukhan and Cassander and Kalgri, all of them dead by your hand.”

  “Aye,” said Kylon.

  “And now you don’t know what to do,” said Caina.

  “I didn’t think I would live this long,” said Kylon.

  “It’s hard to know what to do after you take vengeance,” said Caina. Kylon watched her for a moment. “You know I understand that, Kylon. Maglarion murdered my father when I was eleven, and I spent the next seven years learning to become a Ghost, thinking how I would one day find him and kill him for what he had done. And when I did, when it was all over…I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just didn’t, not for weeks. I thought of drinking myself into a stupor, or finding some handsome man and luring him into my bed, or mas
querading as an Imperial noblewoman and living a life of ease.”

  “None of those things sound like you,” said Kylon, a dry note in his voice. “What did you do instead?”

  Caina shrugged. “You know what I did. You were there for a lot of it. I threw myself into the work of the Ghosts. Then Corvalis died, and I came here, and I did the same thing.” She let out a long breath. “And now…”

  “You don’t know what to do next either,” said Kylon.

  “No,” admitted Caina.

  “Whatever it is,” said Kylon, “we’ll find it. Together.”

  Some of the fear lifted from her. “Yes, together.”

  But not all the fear. Some of Kalgri’s whispers lingered in her thoughts, for she knew that the Huntress had not been lying. Or, rather, Kalgri had been using the truth to wound her.

  “It is odd,” said Kylon, cutting into Caina’s dark thoughts.

  “What is that?” said Caina.

  “All my life, I never doubted my purpose, but that was because my purpose was laid out for me,” said Kylon. “First my duties as a noble of New Kyre, and then to avenge Thalastre. And now…I am not sure.”

  “Well,” said Caina. “I know what we’re going to do next.”

  “What’s that?” said Kylon.

  Caina smiled. “We’re going to go see the Padishah crowned.”

  ###

  A vast throng gathered in the Court of Justice, spilling into the galleries of the Golden Palace and into the surrounding streets, all to see the new Padishah take his throne. The blood and the corpses had been cleaned up since Caina’s last visit, along with the wreckage of the Mirror of Worlds, though the damage to the stonework remained. From what Caina had heard as the Iramisian embassy had ridden through the city, the new Grand Wazir had ordered repairs first to the walls and then to the many houses damaged by the fighting and Cassander’s fiery circle.

  The embassies of a dozen nations had arrived to bear witness and greetings. Lord Martin and Lady Claudia represented the Empire, and Caina thought Claudia looked smug as she stood next to her husband. Of course, why should she not? Martin Dorius had come to ask the Padishah to stay neutral in the Emperor’s war with the Order, and thanks to Cassander’s crimes, the Umbarians had alienated the Istarinmul, ensuring that Istarinmul would never side with the Order. There were embassies from other lands as well – high khadjars from the court of the Shahenshah of Anshan, ambassadors from the various sultanates of Alqaarin, and emissaries from the free cities of the west. Caina had heard that an Umbarian ship bearing a new embassy had attempted to dock in the Alqaarin harbor, only for Istarish war galleys to chase it off with Hellfire.