Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “I didn’t bully him,” murmured Caina. “I was just very persuasive.”

  “Tell me,” said Kylon. “Please.”

  For a moment she said nothing, something dark churning beneath the cold ice of her mind.

  “I’m going to die,” said Caina at last.

  “I knew that already,” said Kylon. “Everyone does at some point.”

  “No,” said Caina. “On this trip, when we leave for the island.”

  “How do you know?” said Kylon. “You cannot see the future.”

  “I can’t,” said Caina. “But I know a man who can. He has visions. Somewhat like the Surge.”

  Kylon went cold. The Surge was the oracle of the Kyracian people. She had sent him to Caer Magia to find a blue bloodcrystal to save Thalastre’s life. She had given Kylon the ability to sense the presence of nagataaru. And she had also given him a prophecy before he had been banished from New Kyre.

  “The silver fire is your only salvation,” she had said. That had turned out to be true when Caina had used a stolen vial of Elixir Restorata to save Kylon’s life in the Craven’s Tower.

  “This oracle,” said Kylon. “What did he say?”

  “He saw two futures,” said Caina. “In one, I did not go in search of the relics. I died, and our enemy was successful. The world was consumed by darkness.”

  “And the other?” said Kylon.

  “I went in search of the relics,” said Caina. “I died…but then the future became uncertain. Our enemy still faced the possibility of defeat.”

  “At the cost of your life,” said Kylon, trying to control his anger.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “A good trade, don’t you think?”

  “No,” said Kylon. “I do not think that is even remotely a good trade. And this oracle could be wrong.”

  “He’s not,” said Caina. “He’s never been wrong before. He didn’t want to tell me, either, and he’s helped me before. That’s…what has been troubling me. If you must know.” She licked her lips. “That’s…why I’m not willing to do some other things. It wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve…you’ve already lost someone. I know what that’s like. I can’t inflict that on you again, I can’t, I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

  For a moment they stood in silence, staring at each other.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Kylon. “Oracles only speak of potential futures. I though the prophecy about silver fire was a message for me, but it was a message for you. Maybe this oracle means you’ll die in some symbolic way. Or maybe he means something else entirely.”

  Caina shook her head. “It’s not…”

  “No.” He put his hands upon her shoulders. They felt very warm beneath the thin fabric of her dress. “If anyone wants to kill you, they will have to come through me first. You saved my life, and by the gods of storm and brine I am going to save yours.”

  She looked down, blinking, and then smiled up at him. “All right. You do cheer me.” Caina took a ragged breath, arranging her expression back to calm. “This isn’t the place to talk about it. Let’s go.”

  He nodded and released her, and she hesitated.

  “Kylon?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded, and they walked in silence toward the Anshani Quarter. Kylon would find a way to protect her, he vowed. He would find a way to save Caina’s life.

  A dark voice in the back of his head pointed out that he had vowed to save his sister and his wife, and both women were now dead because of his failures.

  Kylon shoved aside the thought and kept walking.

  Chapter 6: Worse Omens

  That night, Kylon returned to his room at the Inn of the Crescent Moon in the Cyrican Quarter.

  The Inn was a pleasant place, with clean beds and good food. Certainly, Kylon had spent the night in far worse places. His room was on the Inn’s top floor, with a good view of the courtyard below, which would let him escape quickly if the Teskilati or the Immortals or some other enemy descended upon the Inn. Granted, the courtyard was not particularly quiet, but since Kylon usually spent his days walking from one end of Istarinmul to the other, he was almost always tired enough to fall asleep at once.

  Tonight, he was just as tired, but sleep did not come.

  He gazed at the wooden beams of the ceiling, his hands folded behind his head. A dagger rested beneath his pillow, and the valikon was propped against the wall. From the closed shutters of the window he heard the sound of traffic in the courtyard. Kylon had withdrawn his arcane senses, so only flickers of emotions brushed against his mind.

  He stared at the ceiling, thinking.

  He didn’t know how to help Caina.

  There had been utter certainty in her sense when she spoke of her death. Caina truly believed that if she went in pursuit of the Staff and the Seal, she would die in the process, yet the idea of turning back had never crossed her mind. Just as it had never occurred to her not to follow Annarah into the netherworld, or seize the Subjugant Bloodcrystal in the Inferno, or face down the Sifter in the wraithblood laboratory below the Craven’s Tower. Caina had gone into each of those fights with almost certain knowledge of her own death – yet Kylon had not sensed such weariness within her then. Perhaps she had taken too many losses, seen too many friends and loved ones die.

  Certainly Kylon had become a grimmer and harder man since Thalastre had died.

  He didn’t know how to protect Caina.

  Maybe he could not. They were in a war against Callatas and his allies. It was not the kind of war Kylon had fought before, a war of shadows and feints and spies, but it was nonetheless a war. And in this kind of war, Caina was a commander, and commanders were always targets. It was not as if she was a woman who would stay safe at home while Kylon fought in defense of that home.

  A cold, sad chill went through him.

  Thalastre had stayed home, secure within the defenses of the Tower of Kardamnos, and the Red Huntress had killed her anyway.

  His fingers tightened against the back of his head.

  Perhaps failure was inevitable, but he would not stop trying. He owed Caina that much. And if the oracle’s prophecy came true, then perhaps Kylon could trade his life for hers. He did not want to see her die.

  He had come to care about her too much. He didn’t even like to see her in pain.

  Eventually, Kylon drifted off to sleep, the resolution firm in his mind.

  ###

  But sleep brought him no rest.

  He had nightmares, of course. Caina had told him that one of her teachers had claimed that just as the flesh bore scars, the mind bore nightmares, and Kylon had understood that at once. As a child he had dreamt of his parents’ murder, though he had been so young that he could barely remember their faces. Later he dreamed of Andromache’s death in the darkness below the Citadel of Marsis, of the drowning men screaming as the sharks feasted upon them after the destruction of the Empire’s western fleet.

  After his failure at the Tower of Kardamnos, Thalastre’s final moments were a frequent visitor in his dreams.

  But this dream was different.

  He blurred through his life, scenes from his past shimmering past him. Kylon saw again the Tower of Kardamnos, saw Andromache addressing the Assembly, saw the training room in the Tower where he had learned swordplay and the courtyard where he had learned elemental sorcery. The scenes shifted and blurred before him, out of sequence, and he suddenly thought of a man paging through a book at random, glancing over passages of interest.

  As if Kylon’s life was a book, and his memories the pages.

  As if someone was reaching into his thoughts.

  He stiffened, standing at the foot of the Pyramid of Storm in New Kyre, and suddenly the valikon appeared in his hand, shining with white flame.

  “So you do have some ability,” said a woman’s voice, a familiar voice. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  Kylon whirled and saw Andromache staring at him from the stairs of the Py
ramid. She looked just as she had on the day of her death, clad in a high-collared red gown with black sleeves, her long hair bound in a braid. Her expression was aloof and serene, and she looked familiar, so familiar.

  The eyes fashioned of smokeless flame were different, though. Andromache’s eyes blazed, painting the skin of her face with harsh light, and Kylon felt the weight and presence of a powerful mind regarding him.

  “Not quite as perceptive as our darling demonslayer, of course,” said Andromache. Her voice had taken a strange, sardonic drawl. “But few are as perceptive as she is, and even she needed a few months to figure out who I am.”

  “This isn’t a dream,” said Kylon, pointing the shining valikon at Andromache.

  She raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t? How astonishing. Then you are really standing in the homeland from which you were banished and conversing with your dead sister? If that seems likely, perhaps you are not as bright as I thought.”

  “No,” said Kylon. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Perhaps you should be more eloquent.”

  “You’re a sorcerer of some kind, using oneiromancy to speak in my dreams,” said Kylon. Another idea came to him. “Or…no, that’s not it.”

  “Go on,” said Andromache.

  Kylon extended his senses towards the entity wearing his sister’s guise. The Surge had given him the ability to sense the presence of nagataaru, but that also meant he could sense other kinds of spirits. He had been able to sense the dark fury of the Sifter, and he sensed something similar from the form standing before him.

  “You’re…a spirit of some kind,” said Kylon. “Not a nagataaru.”

  “I should certainly hope not,” said Andromache. “It would be very offensive if you thought me a nagataaru.”

  “An elemental spirit,” said Kylon, concentrating. “One of air and storm and fury.”

  “You’re getting closer, my stalwart stormdancer,” said Andromache. “Can you make the final step?”

  “The Istarish call air elementals the djinn, the spirts of air,” said Kylon. “That means…you are probably the djinni who has been talking to Caina and Morgant. The Knight of Wind and Air, Samnirdamnus.”

  Andromache smirked and applauded. “Very good, my stalwart stormdancer. Very good. I can see why she likes you.”

  “Then you are Samnirdamnus,” said Kylon.

  “If you feel the need to state the obvious, then yes,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “What do you want?” said Kylon.

  “To see if you are ready,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “Ready for what?” said Kylon, watching the djinni. He did not think Samnirdamnus meant him harm. The djinni had helped both Morgant and Caina. Yet spirits did not think the way mortals did, even those not actively hostile to mortals.

  “Your choice,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “And what choice is that?” said Kylon.

  “Whether the world shall live or die,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “My choice?” said Kylon. “You said that was Morgant’s choice. Whether the world would live or die when he took that Maatish relic from the Inferno.”

  “It’s pronounced ‘wedjet-dahn’, actually,” said Samnirdamnus.

  Kylon scoffed. “You sound more like Morgant.”

  “Do I?” said Samnirdamnus, and the djinni blurred. Andromache disappeared, and in her place stood Morgant the Razor, thin and tough in his stark white shirt and long black coat, the usual smirk on his lined face. His eyes burned with the smokeless fire of the djinn. “Perhaps this is a more appropriate form.”

  “Are you going to make jokes, or do you have something useful to say?” said Kylon. He thought of Caina’s fear, which sent a pulse of anger through him. “I am sick to death of games and politics and prophesies and mad sorcery. Say what you have to say and have done with it, or leave me in peace to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Very well,” said Samnirdamnus. “Come, then, Kylon of House Kardamnos. Let us consider the consequences of choice.”

  He beckoned, and the Pyramid of Storm and New Kyre dissolved into gray mist. The world reformed around Kylon, and he found himself standing in the courtyard of a mighty stone fortress, towers rising around him. He recognized the place at once. It was the courtyard of the Citadel of Marsis.

  He also saw himself standing a short distance away.

  His duplicate wore the gray leather armor and sea-colored cloak of a stormdancer. The sword of storm-forged steel that the Red Huntress had destroyed rested in the duplicate’s right hand. Kylon realized that it was not a duplicate, but an image of the past. This was the night of the battle of Marsis, the night that Andromache had died and the Kyracians and the Istarish had been repulsed from the city.

  That meant…

  Kylon turned and saw Caina staring at his past self. She looked just as she had on the night of Andromache’s death, clad all in black, a Ghost shadow-cloak hanging from her shoulders. Her long black hair was tied in a loose tail, and her face was tired and haggard, her eyes bloodshot.

  “Will the world live or will the world die?” said Samnirdamnus, circling around the frozen figures of the past, Morgant’s long black coat billowing around him. “Behold, you have already made that choice.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Kylon. “What does this have to do with the world?”

  The djinni gestured at Caina. “Why didn’t you kill her on this night?”

  “Because,” said Kylon, the grim memory of Andromache’s death burning through his mind. “Because Caina was right. She warned Andromache against opening the Tomb of Scorikhon, she warned us both. We should have listened to her. I should have listened to her.”

  “So you let her go,” said Samnirdamnus, looking at the frozen image of Caina.

  “Yes,” said Kylon. He had been a stormdancer of New Kyre and she had been a Ghost of the Empire, their nations at war, yet he had let her go. At the time, he had never thought to see her again. Yet that one decision had shaped his life in ways he had not understood at the time.

  “Do you see, my stalwart stormdancer?” said Samnirdamnus. “Had you slain Caina here, she would not have been able to help you at Catekharon. Likely you would have perished. She would not have been able to help you save your wife…and she would not have been there to stop the Destroyer of Maat on the day of the golden dead. Do you not understand? You spared her life, and you chose for the world to live. On that day, anyway.”

  “I saved her life because I was tired of death, because she warned Andromache of what would happen and she was right,” said Kylon. “What did that have to do with choosing to let the world live? I couldn’t see the consequences of sparing Caina’s life, even if they were all good ones.”

  “Ah,” said Samnirdamnus. “You are indifferent to the abstract, and prefer instead the concrete? You are the kind of warrior to whom your comrades matter more than the ideal of the nation or the sovereign. Admirable, in its way. It affords a sort of clarity. It can lead to madness, true…but less quickly than devotion to an ideal. Callatas is devoted to an ideal.”

  “Caina told me that Callatas bound you,” said Kylon. “That you could not hinder him, and you had to report any intrusions into his Maze.”

  “Why, I am not hindering Callatas, am I?” said Samnirdamnus, Morgant’s face smirking. “I am merely repeating simple and obvious truths, at least for those with eyes to see. Callatas is devoted to an ideal, to a god he has forged from his own thoughts. A new and better humanity, a humanity that will replace the corrupt and fallen humanity that now populates your world. Or so he thinks.”

  “How?” said Kylon. “His Apotheosis will summon a tremendous number of nagataaru. How will that lead to a new and better humanity?”

  “That, I fear, you must discover upon your own,” said Samnirdamnus, “though all the pieces are there before your eyes. You must simply assemble them. But let us instead speak of you, my stalwart stormdancer, the man who cares more for the concrete than the ideal.”

 
; “I cared for ideals,” said Kylon. “For New Kyre, for the defense and protection of the Kyracian people. I still do.”

  “You did,” said Samnirdamnus, “but that, I suspect, was only the shell around something stronger. You loved your sister. You loved your wife. For you, Kylon of House Kardamnos, they were New Kyre. They were what you fought to defend. Why have you not returned to New Kyre?”

  “Because I was banished,” said Kylon, another wave of anger going through him. “I do not know how matters are conducted among the kingdoms of spirits, but I failed to defend my guests and my wife, and so I was banished from New Kyre under pain of death.”

  “You could still fight to defend your city,” said Samnirdamnus. “New Kyre has many enemies. Do not Kyracian exiles traditionally become privateers? Yet instead you are here, following the Balarigar.”

  “If Callatas works his Apotheosis,” said Kylon, “then New Kyre will die alongside Istarinmul.” He was circling the djinni now, as if in preparation for a fight, and Samnirdamnus circled him right back. The frozen images of Kylon’s past self and Caina remained motionless nearby.

  “You speak the truth,” said Samnirdamnus, “but it was not the Apotheosis that brought you to New Kyre. It was vengeance. You came here to slay Malik Rolukhan and Cassander Nilas in vengeance for your wife and child. You would have preferred to die in the process. Now here you are, still alive. What changed?”

  “I learned of the Apotheosis,” said Kylon. “Malik Rolukhan and the Red Huntress slew my wife with Cassander’s help, but they were merely the outer edge of the cancer that has grown in Istarinmul. Many, many more people will die the way that Thalastre died if Callatas succeeds.”

  “Again you speak the truth,” said Samnirdamnus, “but that is not why you stay.”

  “Why don’t you show me, then?” said Kylon.

  “As you wish,” said Samnirdamnus. “You prefer the concrete. Let us see it.”

  He gestured, and the Citadel dissolved around them and reformed into a bleak, lifeless plain. Jagged crystal pillars rose from the ground, standing eight or nine feet tall and shining with a pale azure light. A low wind moaned past him, sending eddies of dust dancing between the pillars. Kylon recognized the place at once. It was the Desert of Candles, the wasteland where Iramis had once stood before Callatas had burned it. The strange pillars gave the desert its name. No one knew what they really were. Caina had thought they contained the memories of those who had died in Iramis when Callatas burned the city, but Kylon thought that unlikely. Why would Callatas create such a thing?