Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  The explosion would kill Caina.

  The explosion would probably destroy the Corsair’s Rest.

  Unless…

  What if Annarah had been wrong? Or what if she had been not completely correct? She was a loremaster, not a Maatish necromancer. She might have known a great deal of the history of ancient Maat…but Maat had been dead for two thousand years before she had been born. Perhaps something had been forgotten in that time.

  And why had Samnirdamnus wanted Morgant to take the wedjet-dahn from the Inferno in the first place? Samnirdamnus had gone to great effort to persuade Morgant to take the damned thing from the Inferno, and Morgant himself had endured great risk to take it, carrying it around ever since.

  Had Samnirdamnus somehow foreseen today’s events? Did that mean the wedjet-dahn could help Caina?

  “Morgant already made his choice,” said Samnirdamnus, stooping down to look Kylon in the eye. “Some spirits view time as a tapestry woven of countless threads, each one altering the course of the other. I prefer a simpler metaphor. Time is a chain of choices, each link leading to the next. And if you steer the links…why, perhaps you can ever choose the destination without making a choice yourself. For I am forbidden to aid the enemies of Callatas, but their own choices…well, that is no affair of mine, is it?” Andromache’s form straightened up. “The choice is yours now, my stalwart stormdancer, the link that will alter so many others. Choose wisely.”

  Samnirdamnus vanished, and color and noise flooded back into the world. Nasser continued his shouted negotiation with Cassander. Morgant and Laertes remained at guard at the door, the chain of the torque swinging a little from Morgant’s pocket. Cassander hadn’t forced the inn yet. Perhaps he thought he could trick them into surrendering.

  Kylon looked at Caina. The foil-lined pouch holding the Elixir Restorata was still at her belt. He pushed it open, looking at the crystalline vials there. Caina shuddered, her pulse growing so faint he could barely feel it.

  Something beyond hope, beyond madness, flooded Kylon’s mind, and he made his decision.

  He snatched the vial of Elixir from Caina’s pouch, reached over, and yanked the wedjet-dahn from Morgant’s pocket. The assassin whirled with catlike speed, his weapons coming up, confusion going over his face.

  “What are you doing?” said Morgant.

  “Maybe,” said Kylon, pulling up Caina’s sleeve and affixing the golden torque and the jade scarab to her right arm, “you can make a painting of this when it is all over.”

  He broke the seal on the vial of Elixir, the silver liquid starting to glow within it.

  “No!” said Annarah, her eyes going wide. “No, Lord Kylon! Stop! It won’t help! It…”

  Before anyone could stop him, Kylon pinched Caina’s nose shut, tipped her head back, and poured the entire vial down her throat. He felt the tingle of power as the Elixir activated.

  Nothing else happened. Cassander shouted a question, repeated it.

  “Oh, hell,” said Morgant.

  “Why?” said Laertes. “What just happened?”

  “It’s going to explode,” said Nasser. “Ciaran warned me about this. Past injuries mean that he cannot use Elixir Restorata. It will explode, violently.”

  “What, you think the wedjet-dahn will do anything?” said Morgant. “You know it’s damaged. It won’t…”

  The aura of power around Caina began to intensify. Silver fire shone in her veins, threading its way beneath her skin. She shuddered, the silver fire burning hotter. Her eyes shot open, silver threads burning through the blue of her eyes.

  She sat up, panting.

  Then she stared to scream.

  ###

  Fire burned through Caina, as if her veins had been filled with molten metal.

  She could remember nothing after falling to the floor, after Kylon had burst through the door. Now the fire burned inside her, filling her…yet something held it back. Some barrier, some shield.

  Something on her right arm.

  She looked down to see Morgant’s wedjet-dahn upon her right arm, the hieroglyphs on the links of the torque shining with silver fire. The wedjet-dahn was holding back the fire burning through her, the storm that wanted to erupt from her skin. But it was weakening. She felt the wedjet-dahn’s power buckling beneath the storm of silver fire within her, and when it failed…

  When it failed the Corsair’s Rest would be ashes, and she would burn with it.

  Suddenly Caina knew with crystal clarity how she would die, how Sulaman’s prophecy and Kotuluk Iblis’s warning would come to pass.

  She stared to laugh.

  “What is it?”

  Nasser’s voice, she thought.

  “It’s just,” said Caina, “it’s just that Kalgri is going to be so disappointed.”

  Her eyes swam back into focus, and she saw the others standing in a ring around her. Caina staggered back to her feet, the silver fire burning through the wounds in her chest and back, pouring through her, filling her with agony, and saw silver flame burning in the veins of her hands. Yet she could move.

  The wedjet-dahn saw to that. Though not for very much longer.

  Kylon stared at her, his face grim and drawn. She suddenly understood what he had done. He had put the wedjet-dahn on her and then poured a vial of Elixir Restorata down her throat, hoping it would heal her. It wasn’t going to work. She could feel the wedjet-dahn failing, growing weaker with every second.

  “What,” said Caina, “what is happening?”

  “The Umbarians,” said Nasser. “Two hundred Adamant Guards around the Corsair’s Rest. Cassander Nilas is with them. He wants you, and he wants the Staff and the Seal.”

  “Then,” croaked Caina, reaching into her satchel and donning her shadow-cloak, “we’re going to give him everything that he wants.”

  Before anyone could stop her, she staggered across the room to the window, pulling up the cowl as she did so. Adamant Guards stood in the bazaar below, hundreds of them, and before them stood two figures in black. One was Cassander Nilas, and the second was Kalgri, her shadow-cloak blowing around her. Even from a distance, Caina saw the ripple of surprise that went through Kalgri, saw the Red Huntress take a step back in alarm.

  “Cassander!” shouted Caina with all the strength she could muster. “You know who I am! I have what you want. I’ll be in the common room. Come and get me if you want me. Let the others go, and I’ll surrender to you willingly.”

  Before he could answer she shoved away from the window, reeling as she fought to keep her balance.

  “You can’t do this,” said Kylon.

  “I’m sorry,” said Caina. “I’m sorry. I know…I know you tried to save me. But this was inevitable.” She looked at Nasser. “Get out over the roof, and when Cassander comes in, take my rope and go down the side. I’ll delay him as long as I can, but…but I can’t hold the power back for very much longer. Go. Go!”

  “Ciaran,” said Nasser. “Thank you. For everything. If we succeed, generations beyond count will live because of you.”

  “Go,” said Caina, looking at Kylon. She wished, more than anything, that she had kissed him before she died. Annarah and Damla had both been right. Caina had been a fool. She should have acted when there was still time. She reached into her shirt, yanked her father’s ring over her head, and handed it to him. “Take this, to remember. But go. Go! Please go!”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  “Please,” whispered Caina.

  At last Kylon nodded and led the others from the room, and Caina staggered towards the stairs.

  ###

  “No,” said Kalgri. “Something’s wrong.”

  She stared at the Corsair’s Rest, her mind racing, the Voice murmuring unease.

  Kalgri had sensed Caina’s life ebbing away, reveling in every second of it. Then it had flickered with a peculiar surge of power and vanished entirely. Kalgri assumed that Caina had died, that the final pulse of arcane power had been Caina’s pyrikon unbinding it
self from her corpse. Caina was dead, and the Voice howled with glee.

  Then Caina had shouted from the window.

  “What is wrong?” said Cassander, smirking at the inn. “You know the woman as well as I do. She realized that she is defeated, and so she is sacrificing herself in a vain effort to protect her friends.”

  “She would do that,” said Kalgri, her unease growing. In fact, after her little game with the curved knives, it was exactly the sort of thing Caina would do.

  And yet…

  “She should be dead,” said Kalgri. “She would have bled out by now. Even the loremaster couldn’t have kept her alive this long.”

  “Perhaps,” said Cassander, “you aren’t quite as effective with a blade as you think.”

  Her initial impulse was to cut that smirk from his smug face. The Voice seconded that thought with enthusiasm. Kalgri chose restraint. Something was wrong. Her instincts screamed that something was wrong, and she had not survived this long by neglecting her instincts.

  “Perhaps not,” said Kalgri, “but if you were more effective with your spells, she would not be here now.”

  That took the smirk from his face. “Can you sense her?”

  “No,” said Kalgri. She sensed Caina’s allies, the Voice watching them with malice, but Caina had vanished.

  “Then she’s wearing her shadow-cloak,” said Cassander, his eyes gleaming with eagerness. “You pulled the same trick on her for months.”

  Kalgri said nothing, still watching the inn with unease. She was certain something was wrong, that she was missing…something. But she could not think of it.

  So she followed Cassander towards the Corsair’s Rest, her instincts wound tight.

  ###

  Caina staggered down the stairs, the silver fire burning in her veins, competing with the poison for the amount of pain filling her. She gripped a wooden rod taken from one of the other rooms.

  The dead followed her. Her enemies, her mother and Maglarion and Kalastus and Ranarius and all the others. They taunted and jeered at her, promising that she would soon join them in darkness everlasting.

  But this time, she saw others.

  Her father, smiling at her. Halfdan in his robe and cap. And Corvalis, his eyes green and hard, eyes that softened when he smiled at her. She would be with them, soon. That didn’t seem so bad.

  She only wished that Kylon…

  Caina put the thought out of her mind. It would have been too painful for her to continue, and it took all her strength to keep moving.

  She stumbled into the common room.

  Adamant Guards filled the common room of the Corsair’s Rest, staring at her with their cold, merciless eyes. There were at least a hundred of them, maybe more. Kalgri stood near the door, that ghostsilver short sword in hand. Her face had changed since their battle at Silent Ash Temple, her skin paler, her eyes now blue, her blond hair tied back in a braid. In fact, she looked a great deal like Caina herself.

  Apparently the Voice had a sense of humor, and Caina laughed aloud at the thought.

  Cassander Nilas tilted his head, regarding her. He wore his black greatcoat, a golden medallion with the winged skull sigil of the Umbarian Order resting against his chest. He watched her with amused contempt, his armored right fist closing and opening over and over again.

  “The Balarigar herself,” said Cassander in his resonant voice. “Caina Amalas.”

  “That’s me,” said Caina, taking a step towards him. The room started to spin around her. The dead watched her from the balconies, all the faces from her past.

  “With the Staff and Seal of Iramis, I am pleased to see,” said Cassander, looking at the useless stick in her hand.

  “They’re yours,” said Caina. “Just…just let the others go.”

  It did not take much to put a quaver in her voice.

  Cassander laughed. “Bring them to me.”

  Caina took another step, and her legs failed. She fell to one knee, breathing hard, the pain of the silver fire warring against the pain of the necromantic poison. Caina tried to stand, tried even to keep her breathing regular, but the pain was too much.

  The wedjet-dahn burned like something molten against her right arm.

  “Bring her to me,” said Cassander. “Now.”

  An armored foot slammed into Caina’s side with enough force to crack her ribs, and she fell onto her side with a groan. Two Adamant Guards seized her arms and hauled her forward, her boots dragging against the floor.

  As they did, the cowl of her shadow-cloak fell back.

  ###

  Cassander watched as the Guards dragged Caina Amalas forward and threw her to the floor at his feet. She curled up around the staff with a little grunt of pain.

  Peculiar. She seemed…so much smaller up close. She was not a large woman. Hard to believe that this dying woman had terrorized the Magisterium, had brought the Brotherhood to its knees, had earned a bounty of two million bezants upon her head.

  Her legend had grown large…and Cassander’s legend would grow larger for his victory over her.

  He looked forward to the expression on Callatas’s face when he dumped her corpse at the Grand Master’s feet.

  He looked forward to teaching the pompous old fool some humility with the Staff and Seal.

  And he especially looked forward to returning in triumph to the Empire once the fleet had passed through the Straits and the Emperor had fallen, to take his rightful place among the leaders of the Order.

  “My dear Huntress,” said Cassander, looking at Kalgri. “Would you like to do the honors? I did promise you her life.”

  Kalgri said nothing. She stared at Caina, her blue eyes narrowed, her head titled to the side as she listened to the Voice.

  “Wait,” said Kalgri. “There’s something…”

  Her eyes widened, and she moved so fast that Cassander did not have time to react. She darted forward, seized Caina’s shadow-cloak and something from her belt, and then the Huntress sprinted out the front door to the Corsair’s Rest, vanishing into the darkened bazaar. Cassander stared after her, incredulous, and then looked back at Caina.

  She looked up at him, smiling a little.

  Then he saw the silver fire shining in her eyes, spreading through her skin like glowing fingers.

  And in that frozen, terrible moment, Cassander realized just how grievously he had miscalculated.

  He shouted, starting to cast a spell, and silver fire devoured the world.

  ###

  Kylon looked back at the Corsair’s Rest.

  Caina’s ruse had worked. Nearly all the Adamant Guards had vanished into the inn, with only a few left to keep watch. Night had fallen, and it had been easy to slip past them. Now Kylon and the others stood at the far end of the bazaar, watching the Corsair’s Rest.

  “Lord Kylon,” said Nasser. “We must go.”

  “Yes,” said Kylon. “Forgive me. I…”

  Someone burst from the front door of the Rest, moving with inhuman speed. Kylon sensed the cold, malevolent presence of a nagataaru. It was the Red Huntress, sprinting from the inn with all the terrible speed her nagataaru granted. She held something clutched in her right fist, a dark shadow billowing from her arm. Kylon raised the valikon, the blade starting to burn in response to the nagataaru, but Kalgri didn’t look at him. She didn’t even notice him. She dashed into another alley and vanished.

  “Why did…” Morgant started.

  A surge of arcane power went through the air, so strong that it almost knocked Kylon from his feet.

  “Take cover!” said Annarah. “It’s…”

  The Corsair’s Rest exploded.

  Kylon stood rooted, unable to look away. Every single window and door in the Corsair’s Rest exploded at once, silver fire spraying into the night. The ground shook and heaved, and Kylon grabbed at the nearby wall for support. In that moment the dome of the Corsair’s Rest ripped apart, silver fire stabbing into the sky, the debris raining over Rumarah.

  No
t all of it was debris. Adamant Guards tumbled through the sky, screaming as the fires chewed into their flesh, and struck the ground.

  They did not get up again.

  Kylon reached for his sorcery of water, driving his senses into the firestorm. He caught, for just a fleeting moment, a hint of Caina’s sense, felt her agony and fear.

  And then her sense vanished, snuffed out like a candle.

  He stood motionless and watched the pyre of Caina Amalas.

  Chapter 21: Ashes

  A little later, Kylon walked towards the smoldering wreckage of the Corsair’s Rest.

  Not much had survived the explosion. The walls still stood, mostly, though the silver fire had torn gaping breaches here and there. The roof and the dome were completely gone, and lay in burning chunks throughout the bazaar. Close to a score of Adamant Guards lay outside the inn. Their armored carapaces had protected their torsos, but had done nothing for their exposed flesh, and the stink of charred meat filled the air. The interior of the Corsair’s Rest was filled with flaming rubble.

  Kylon stood at the edge of the fire, his fingers hard and tight against the valikon’s hilt.

  “It figures.”

  Kylon looked over his shoulder as Morgant approached, the flames throwing hard shadows over his face. Annarah followed him, her eyes sad, her valikon back in its staff form.

  “What?” said Kylon. The word was a hard rasp, and hurt in his throat.

  Morgant jerked his chin at the burning rubble. “The Balarigar had to burn down one more damned building.”

  “She would have laughed,” said Kylon. “The first time we met, she burned down a building. This warehouse in Marsis, off the Great Market. She wound up killing Rezir Shahan in it. I…”