Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  It almost wasn’t enough.

  Annarah’s spell, the white fire conjured by the Words of Lore, hit him hard. His wards shuddered like a gong struck by a mallet, and the white fire flared and flickered around him. Cassander growled, drawing on all his strength, and thrust his hands. The white fire winked out, and he gestured with the fork, sending another arc of lightning at his foe. Annarah swept her staff before her, and again the lightning rebounded from the white light, this time blasting a chunk from the street.

  She was strong. The sorcerers of the ancient world had been right to fear the power of the loremasters.

  Fortunately, Cassander had reserves that she did not.

  He shoved the fork back into his belt and instead lifted a small bloodcrystal, its dark surface flaring with green fire as he tapped its power.

  ###

  The Adamant Guards charged at Annarah as fire and lightning crackled back and forth between the loremaster and the Umbarian magus, and Kylon and Morgant raced to intercept them. Caina ran after Kylon and Morgant, throwing knife and ghostsilver dagger ready. With the valikon and the black dagger, Kylon and Morgant could fight the Adamant Guards in a straight battle. Caina could not. She was a spy, not a warrior or a soldier.

  But she could make trouble for the Adamant Guards.

  The Guards started to fan out, hoping to surround Morgant and Kylon. Likely they had seen the final stages of the battle with the cataphractus, and knew that Kylon’s sword and Morgant’s dagger were dangerous. Caina’s hand dipped into her satchel and came up holding another smoke bomb. This bomb had a different formula than the one she had used in the Desert Maiden, and would generate far less smoke.

  It would, however, create a much brighter flash.

  “Eyes!” shouted Caina, running at the Guards. Both Kylon and Morgant had seen her use these bombs before, and both men looked away as Caina flung the clay sphere at her feet. Because of her shout, all the Adamant Guards were looking at her, which meant they were looking right at the bomb when it burst in a small puff of smoke and a brilliant white flash. A dozen Guards stumbled to a halt, blinking and squinting and trying to clear their dazzled vision, and Caina struck in that moment. She raced at the nearest Adamant Guard and ripped the ghostsilver dagger across his throat. The wound hissed and sizzled, and the man toppled, clutching at his wounded neck. Morgant attacked, his black dagger slashing down the chest of an Adamant Guard, parting steel and bone and flesh with equal ease. He wheeled, pulling his dagger free, and drove his crimson scimitar into the neck of another Guard, the red blade turning even darker with blood. Kylon was just as deadly, the valikon flickering with the speed of a serpent’s tongue, and he left a half-dozen dead Adamant Guards in his wake.

  Caina hoped she could reach Cassander and plunge the ghostsilver dagger into his chest. The Adamant Guards didn’t matter. Cassander was their commander, and with the magus dead the Guards might withdraw back to the Umbarian embassy.

  Yet there were too many Adamant Guards, and even if Caina broke through them, the intensity of the arcane forces snarling back and forth between Cassander and Annarah might prove fatal.

  Caina remained next to Kylon and Morgant, fighting for her life.

  ###

  Cassander hammered at Annarah’s wards again and again.

  The ancient arcane science of the loremasters, the Words of Lore, was most potent. Cassander’s wards had stopped swords and crossbow bolts and the attacks of rival magi, but Annarah’s spells sliced into his defenses like a child tearing apart paper. The formidable reputation of the loremasters had been well deserved, and had she been a little older and a little more experienced, Cassander suspected she would have overcome him easily.

  Yet he had the greater skill…and he had the reserves of power in his bloodcrystals. It had taken painstaking work to prepare them, to form them from the blood of dead men and then to charge them with power. Cassander was glad that he had taken the time to create the crystals. With the added reserve of power, he would outlast Annarah, battering down her defenses and crushing her.

  Then he could deal with Caina and Kylon.

  Cassander looked forward to seeing the expression on Callatas’s smug face when he presented the Grand Master with the heads of all his enemies at once.

  Fire flared around his armored gauntlet, the metal shivering and growing hot. The kind of pyromantic power he had summoned should have shattered his mind into gibbering insanity and burned his flesh to a charred husk, but the powerful spells upon the gauntlet protected him. Cassander fed power from his bloodcrystals into the gauntlet, the fire taking a greenish tinge. He gestured at Annarah, and a blast of fire leaped from his armored hand and shot across the street, power enough to blast her and anyone within a dozen yards of her to ashes.

  She crossed her arms, holding the bronze staff horizontally before her. Cassander had taken her measure, and knew that she did not have the raw strength to deflect the amount of power he had just flung at her.

  To his astonishment, she didn’t even try, her lips moving as she shouted words in the Iramisian language. A flicker of amusement went through him. Perhaps it was a prayer to whatever impotent gods she worshipped.

  White light flashed around her, and suddenly Cassander realized that she had not even tried to deflect the power.

  She had redirected it, like a skilled hand-to-hand combatant using his opponent’s own momentum again him.

  The blast of green-tinged fire came hurtling back towards Cassander.

  He cursed and summoned all his power for a ward.

  ###

  Caina ducked under an Adamant Guard’s stab, lashing at him with her ghostsilver dagger. The Guards had learned to fear the ghostsilver blades, and the soldier jumped back, avoiding her blow. Yet he couldn’t avoid Kylon, and the valikon ripped across the Adamant Guard’s left arm, opening a deep, bloody cut. The Guard staggered under the weight of his armor, his superhuman strength disrupted, and Morgant sank his black dagger to the hilt in the Guard’s chest. He ripped the blade free, and the Guard collapsed.

  The remaining Adamant Guards backed away, eyes wary, watching for an opening. Caina took a deep breath, looking around. There had to be at least twenty Guards left, and Caina and Kylon and Morgant could not hold them off forever.

  She started to say something, and then the street leading to the Alqaarin Bazaar exploded.

  The gale of hot air shot past Caina, knocking her back, and even the Adamant Guards swayed upon their feet. A huge fireball of green-tinted flame roiled and snarled within the street, so hot that some of the nearby warehouses started burning. Caina feared that Cassander had triumphed in his duel with Annarah, but the loremaster stood at the edge of the water, her dress and hair blowing about her in the hot wind.

  “Run!” shouted Annarah, beckoning with the pyrikon staff. “It will not hold him for long! This is our chance! Run!”

  “Go!” said Caina.

  Kylon and Morgant charged, driving into the stunned Adamant Guards. The valikon and the black dagger and the crimson scimitar spun and slashed and stabbed, and the stormdancer and the assassin carved a path through the Guards before the Umbarian soldiers could regroup. Caina ran behind them, and then they broke free, Annarah sprinting to join them. The Adamant Guards hesitated, looking at the fire that had consumed Cassander, perhaps fearing that Annarah might launch a similar attack upon them. Likely Annarah had redirected Cassander’s own attack at him, which meant they had only moments before the Umbarian magus resumed his assault.

  They sprinted to the nineteenth pier. The Eastern Fire, a long galley with banks of oars jutting from its sides, awaited them. To Caina’s relief, she saw that the ship had already moved away from the stone bar of the pier, its oars ready. A thin gangplank still connected the ship to the pier. Nasser and Laertes stood just beyond the gangplank, weapons in hand as they watched the fire raging upon the street.

  “Hurry!” shouted Nasser. “We must depart at once!”

  “Your mastery of t
he obvious never fails to astound!” said Morgant. He urged Annarah up the gangplank, and then Kylon all but shoved Caina onto the plank. She hurried up to the galley’s deck, and Kylon and Morgant hastened after her. At once a pair of Saddaic sailors pulled up the plank. A tall man in a black coat began shouting orders in rapid succession. His features looked somewhat familiar, which meant he was likely Captain Talazain, master of the Eastern Fire and son of the Saddaic merchant who helped the Ghosts of Istarinmul from time to time. A drum began to boom from the beneath the deck as the oars lashed at the water.

  “We must make haste, Captain,” said Nasser. “If our foes catch us, they will destroy the ship.”

  Talazain shook his head. “We must wait for the harbor pilot. Else the fines shall be…”

  “A thousand bezants to you personally,” shouted Nasser, staring at the pier, “and a golden bezant to each of your oarsmen if you get us out of the harbor now.”

  Talazain shrugged, turned and bellowed more orders. Suddenly the pounding of the drum tripled its speed, and the Eastern Fire lurched as the ship surged forward. The pilot cursed as he grappled with the wheel, and Talazain and the first mate ran to help him. Caina grabbed at the railing to steady herself as the ship jerked forward, but Kylon remained undisturbed. Of course, he was Kyracian. He had spent far more time on ships than Caina had.

  She looked at him and made herself smile. “Let’s not do that again.”

  “No,” said Kylon. “Though I suppose you are used to escaping by the thinnest of margins.”

  “More than I would like,” said Caina, “though given the alternative, it is…”

  She fell silent as Adamant Guards ran along the pier, stopping at its edge. For a terrible moment she was certain the Guards would be able to leap the distance and attack the ship, but the galley had pulled too far away for them to jump. The Adamant Guards, for all their strength and speed, could not swim, not with the weight of their armor pulling them down.

  Cassander Nilas shoved to the front of the Guards, his black cloak stark against their armor. He did not appear injured or even tired from his duel with Annarah, and harsh yellow-white fire blazed to life around his black gauntlet as Caina felt the stirrings of pyromantic force.

  “Annarah!” said Caina. “He’s going to burn the ship!”

  Annarah was already moving, lifting her pyrikon staff and calling upon her power. Cassander unleashed a shaft of flame, and Annarah gestured. A dome of white light appeared behind the galley like a curtain of shimmering mist, and Cassander’s spell struck it with a tremendous crack. The dome flickered and sputtered, and Annarah groaned and fell to one knee. Already Caina sensed the surge of power as Cassander summoned more fire. If even a little of the flame got through, the ship would go up like a box of tinder.

  Another blast of fire struck the flickering dome of Annarah’s power, and again the loremaster groaned, leaning upon her staff for support as sweat poured down her face.

  Upon her pyrikon staff.

  Caina had a pyrikon upon her left wrist.

  She dashed across the deck, knelt next to Annarah, and gripped the staff with her left hand. Annarah looked at her, puzzled. Caina ignored her and looked at the delicate ghostsilver bracelet upon her wrist, trying to focus her thoughts on the thing. It wasn’t really a bracelet, and Annarah’s staff wasn’t really a staff. They were both spirits of defense, clothed in material forms.

  “Listen to me,” said Caina. “Help her. You were so damned eager to defend her in the netherworld.” She felt strange talking to a piece of jewelry, but she knew that the defending spirit within could hear her. Or at least she hoped so. “Help her now, or all your efforts in the netherworld shall have been in vain.”

  For a moment nothing happened, and Cassander summoned another burst of flame at the galley. Annarah gritted her teeth, her staff shining with a flickering white light as she prepared to deflect the attack. Then Caina felt a surge of power from her bracelet, the aura making her arm crawl with pins and needles. White light shone from the pyrikon, and leaped up her fingers to sink into Annarah’s staff. The staff’s glow shone brighter, and the dome of light behind the ship blazed so bright that it was almost like the noon sun for an instant.

  Cassander’s fire rebounded from the light, repelled by the power of the twin pyrikons. The dome of light did not even waver. The drum continued its beat from below the deck, the oars lashing the nearby water into white foam. As they approached the entrance to the harbor, an Istarish galley flying the Padishah’s crown-and-sword banner started to turn, trying to bring the Hellfire sprayer at its prow to bear, but the Eastern Fire had too much of a head start and her oarsmen were more skilled than the miserable slaves chained to the Istarish galley’s oars. The Eastern Fire shot past the galley with no more damage that a few crossbow quarrels rebounding from the hull, and they reached open water, leaving Istarinmul behind and plunging into the vast expanse of the Alqaarin Sea.

  The dome of light faded away, the overwhelming aura of power vanishing from her pyrikon. Caina stared at the harbor and the domes and towers of Istarinmul to the west, fearing that Cassander’s power could strike across such a distance. Yet no spells came. Evidently not even Cassander’s sorcery could reach that far.

  Caina closed her eyes and let out a long breath, and Kylon and the others crossed to join her and Annarah.

  “Thank you,” said Annarah. “My strength…I fear it was not enough. That Umbarian was powerful.” She offered a wan smile as Morgant helped her to stand. “I was hardly the most powerful of the loremasters.”

  “Power is not part of courage,” said Nasser. “I chose to entrust the regalia to you, and I do not regret that decision.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Annarah.

  “Laertes,” said Nasser. “Go reassure the captain. We’ll need to make some plans.” He reached into his pack and handed over a leather pouch. “The extra money we promised him. Make sure the oarsmen get it.”

  Laertes grunted. “Officers have sticky fingers.”

  “Said the former centurion,” said Morgant.

  Laertes remained unruffled. “I wasn’t an officer. I was a centurion. I worked for a living.” He strode away to speak with Captain Talazain.

  “How did they find us?” said Morgant.

  “I don’t know,” said Caina. “I arrived at the Desert Maiden, and a group of Kindred assassins were waiting for me.”

  Kylon gave her a sharp look. “Kindred?”

  “How did you escape?” said Annarah. “The Kindred had a formidable reputation even in my day.” She gave Morgant and Nasser a sheepish look. “Well. Our day, I suppose.”

  Morgant snorted. “The Balarigar likely burned down a building or two.”

  Caina shook her head. “I ran over the rooftops. The Adamant Guards and the Silent Hunters were after me. If Kylon hadn’t caught up to me, they would have taken me alive.”

  “I was attacked by Silent Hunters on my way to the Desert Maiden,” said Kylon. “I doubt they realized I could sense their presence, and I cut them down before they could strike.”

  “Laertes and I were attacked as well,” said Nasser. “We then met Annarah and Morgant, and hastened to the ship. Morgant insisted that Annarah remain behind, and went out to find you.”

  “You did?” said Caina. “Why, how very touching.”

  Morgant scoffed. “Just as well I did. Cassander would be stitching pieces of you to his pet cataphractus if I had not come along.”

  “Yes,” said Caina. “Thank you.”

  Morgant snorted and looked away.

  “How did they find us?” said Annarah. “We have been so careful.” She shook her head. “I must have been seen at one of the hospitals.”

  “No,” said Caina. “The Kindred were waiting for me. I must have made a mistake.”

  “We were all attacked, every one of us,” said Kylon. “Cassander must have known our plans.”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Morgant.

  Nasser frowned.
“Clearly he did.”

  Morgant smirked. “Then why, oh wise Prince, didn’t he burn the Eastern Fire to ashes before we arrived? Or why didn’t he load up the ship with Umbarian soldiers and wait for us to walk into his arms?”

  Silence answered him, save for the sound of the oars dipping into the waves over.

  “Because,” said Caina. “He knew where we would be. He didn’t know where we were going.”

  “How?” said Nasser.

  “Betrayal?” said Morgant. “That seems the most likely.”

  Caina shook her head. “I don’t think any one of us would have gone to Cassander. Besides, we all knew we were going to the Eastern Fire. A traitor surely would have told Cassander.”

  “Then how?” said Nasser. “A spell?”

  “Perhaps, lord Prince,” said Annarah. “I shall cast wards about the ship. Maybe that shall baffle any means of arcane observation.”

  “Once you have regained your strength,” said Nasser. “I suspect we are safe enough for now.”

  Caina nodded, watching as the city of Istarinmul dwindled to the west.

  Perhaps she was indeed destined to die on this trip, but it seemed it would not be from the hand of Cassander Nilas.

  Chapter 10: Patience

  Kalgri strolled along the piers of the Alqaarin Harbor, humming to herself.

  No one paid any attention to her. Of course, the Alqaarin Harbor was in chaos. Cassander and his pets had made quite a mess. The gangs of porter slaves had been deputized into a bucket line to put out the warehouse fires. Istarish soldiers patrolled the waterfront, and the Grand Wazir had even sent a century of Immortals from the Golden Palace, their blue-glowing eyes watching the crowds with grim suspicion. Kalgri had discarded her armor and taken off the shadow-cloak, since there was no one here to sense the Voice’s presence. Now she wore a blue dress and headscarf, much like the ones Caina wore when disguised herself as a common Istarish woman, and no one gave Kalgri a second glance.