Ghost in the Glass

by Jonathan Moeller

  Kylon said nothing, but his eyes remained hard.

  “I have two questions,” said Caina at last.

  The Witch inclined her head. According to the legends that Caina had heard from Seb and Sophia, the Bronze Witch of Ulkaar was a mysterious figure who had wandered the land for centuries, posing riddles to travelers. All the tales contradicted each other. Some said the Witch helped lost travelers. Others claimed that if travelers failed to answer her riddles, she ate them alive. Or that she kidnapped lost children, took them to her hut, and cooked them alive for her dinner.

  Caina rather doubted that last one.

  She would rely upon her eyes and her wits, not legends and tales. And so far, the Witch had not played them false. She had warned them of the mavrokhi north of Kostiv, and the advice she had given Caina before Razdan’s attack had proven sound.

  “The first question,” said Caina. “The last time we spoke, you appeared right before the mavrokhi attacked, and again before Razdan and his szlachts attacked Kostiv. Yet now you appeared after we fought off the reveniri. Why?”

  “Ah,” said the Witch. “Then you wonder if I sent them against you?” Her cowl turned towards Teodor. “Or if I have damaged this poor witchfinder’s mind?”

  “Did you?” said Caina.

  “Such a rude question,” said the Witch.

  “You asked it, not me,” said Caina.

  “Indeed,” said the Witch. “But, no. I did not harm this man, nor did I summon the reveniri and set them upon him. Necromancy is a filthy crime, an abomination to the Divine, and I have set myself against those who wield it. The Temnoti chief among them.”

  Caina nodded. “I see. My second question then, please.”

  Again, the Witch inclined her head.

  “You said that we’re your best hope of getting the relics of Rasarion Yagar out of Ulkaar,” said Caina.

  “I did.”

  She glanced at Teodor, but the old man remained unaware of his surroundings. “But I’m only carrying the Ring of Rasarion Yagar.”

  “You are.”

  Caina looked back at the Witch. “Does that mean there are more relics?” The legends had mentioned several relics, but perhaps the Witch knew for certain.

  “Ah.” The Witch’s bronze teeth glinted in a smile. “Caught in my own words. Yes, you are correct, Liberator. Before his defeat at the hands of the Warmaiden, the Iron King created five great relics of necromantic power. His Ring is but one of them, though it is one of the most potent. And that, I believe, will inspire a third question.”

  “You’ve appeared before to warn us,” said Caina. “Are you warning us of something now?”

  “I am,” said the Witch. “Beware the snares of the Temnoti. For the servants of Temnuzash and the Iron King have many friends in Vagraastrad. The Temnoti know that you have the Ring, and they desire to take it from you.”

  Seb sighed. “Of course they do.”

  “Then the reveniri,” said Caina. “Did one of the Temnoti raise them up?”

  “Either one of the Temnoti,” said the Witch, “or their acolytes. Be ready, Caina Kardamnos. For the Temnoti will come for you.”

  She struck the end of the bronze staff against the ground. Again, Caina saw a flicker of arcane power, and the Witch vanished as if she had never been there. Caina was uncertain of the nature of the spell. It wasn’t an illusion because the vision of the valikarion could pierce all illusions. Her best guess was that the Witch somehow transported herself from place to place through sorcery, but Caina had never encountered a spell that could do that. Even the Moroaica, one of the most powerful sorcerers Caina had ever encountered, had traveled everywhere by foot, horse, and ship.

  “How the devil does she do that?” said Seb, giving voice to Caina’s own bafflement. “If I could whisk myself from place to place with a spell, think of how much trouble I could save us.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” said Kylon. “If the Umbarian magi figured out how to transport themselves through sorcery, they would transport themselves to the Imperial Citadel in Malarae and kill the Emperor in a surprise attack.”

  “Surprise attacks,” said Caina. “That might be what’s waiting for us in Vagraastrad.”

  “Perhaps we should go around Vagraastrad and press on to Risiviri,” said Seb.

  Caina and Kylon shared a look. Part of her was touched that they knew each other well enough to communicate without speaking. The rest of her mind was consumed with the problems facing them.

  “No,” said Caina. “Vagraastrad will be dangerous for us, but the countryside would be worse. If the Temnoti attack us on the road, they wouldn’t have to worry about witnesses. Or fighting witchfinders from the Temple. And if we’re caught outside when another blizzard strikes, the Temnoti won’t need to bother killing us.”

  “A night under a roof with a hearth would be pleasant,” said Sophia.

  Caina nodded. “Then we had better keep moving. And if enemies are waiting for us in Vagraastrad, we’ll just have to be ready for them.”

  Chapter 3: Vagraastrad

  The remaining hours of the journey to Vagraastrad were uneventful.

  Caina had feared that Teodor might prove a problem, but the old witchfinder had sunk into a daze. He didn’t speak, didn’t even seem aware of his surroundings, but obeyed her instructions. Caina seated him in the bed of her wagon where she and Sophia could keep an eye on him. He remained sitting there, staring at nothing and humming to himself.

  Only once did he surprise her, when he stood up and jumped off the back of the wagon. Caina feared that he would run into the trees, but he only paused at the edge of the road to relieve himself. Once he finished, he jogged back to the wagon and climbed inside, and accepted her offer of food and water (mixed with wine to keep it from freezing) without hesitation. Jumping off the wagon and running after them hadn’t winded him at all, which only reinforced her suspicion that he was a witchfinder. He was in good shape for his age, which explained how he had outrun the reveniri long enough to survive.

  Just what had happened to him, though?

  The trees thinned as they continued south, the frozen river growing wider to the west. Soon they entered cultivated fields, the frozen furrows visible beneath the fallen snow. Small villages ringed in wooden palisades dotted the fields, and traffic appeared on the road, mostly farmers headed south with wagons, though from time to time Caina saw a messenger on horseback. All the messengers wore crimson tabards adorned with the sigil of a black hawk clutching a spear in its talons, and Seb said that was the symbol of Gregor Vagastru, Voivode of Vagraastrad and the most powerful nobleman of northern Ulkaar.

  And an ally of the Umbarian Order.

  Three hours after they set off with Teodor, the city of Vagraastrad came into sight.

  The River Kozalin took a sharp turn to the west, and the city filled most of the resultant peninsula. It was a grim-looking place, huddled within a wall of stone encircling the peninsula. Vagraastrad spilled away from the peninsula and onto the eastern bank of the river, and a second wall surrounded the outer city. Caina supposed Vagraastrad had started on the peninsula and then spread outward.

  On a hill at the western edge of the peninsula, overlooking the frozen river, rose a half-ruined fortification of the sort that the Ulkaari called a “castle” but was named a “castra” everywhere else in the Empire. It looked ancient, the towers reduced to crumbling stone shells, half the curtain walls collapsed. A second, more modern-looking castle rose on a hill in the outer city, its curtain wall integrated into the city’s outer wall itself.

  And to the vision of the valikarion, a faint haze of necromantic power hung around the ruined castle.

  It looked faded and attenuated, but it was there nonetheless, and if she could see it from this far off, it had to be powerful.

  “Vagraastrad,” said Seb, gesturing at the walls. “The chief city of northern Ulkaar.”

  “It’s so big,” said Sophia in a wondering voice. “Uncle Ivan told me
about it, and some of the men of Kostiv traded here, but…by the Divine, I never knew anything was so big.”

  Kylon glanced at Caina from his wagon, and she saw his amusement. She guessed that about thirty or forty thousand people lived in Vagraastrad, which by the standards of the rest of the Empire, made it a large provincial town. Nearly a million people lived in Malarae, the Empire’s capital, and the cities of Istarinmul, New Kyre, Cyrioch, and Marsis were all far larger than Vagraastrad.

  Though Caina remembered the first time she had come to Malarae with Halfdan over ten years ago, remembered the amazement as she had seen the Empire’s capital and the Imperial Citadel for the first time. By the Divine, had it only been ten years? Sometimes it felt like a lifetime.

  “Wait until you see Istarinmul,” said Caina. She glanced back at Teodor to see if the sight of Vagraastrad had roused any response, but he remained oblivious. “Seb, a question.”

  “Aye?”

  “There’s a necromantic aura around the ruined castle on the peninsula,” said Caina. Sophia’s look of wonder turned to alarm.

  “There is,” said Seb, “but as long as we don’t go there, it shouldn’t threaten us or anyone else.”

  “Why not?” said Caina.

  Seb cleared his throat. “Time for a history lesson, I am afraid. The part of Vagraastrad on the peninsula? That’s called the Old City. The districts that spread away from the riverbank are called the New City.” Caina nodded. “That ruined castle in the Old City is the Lord’s Castle, and the castle in the New City is the Voivode’s Castle.”

  “Let me guess,” said Caina. “The Lord’s Castle once belonged to a follower or vassal of Rasarion Yagar.”

  “Yes,” said Seb. “One of the szlachts of the Iron King himself…Cazmar Vagastru, an ancestor of the current House Vagastru. He was a necromancer and a warrior, and about as bloody-handed of a tyrant as you would expect. Anyway, during the Warmaiden’s battles against the Iron King, she besieged Cazmar in his castle. Cazmar was slain, his castle ruined, and Vagraastrad laid waste. After the Iron King was defeated and the Warmaiden slain, in time Vagraastrad was rebuilt. It’s too good of a location on the river. But the ruins of the castle were never cleansed. Cazmar Vagastru’s spells had been too powerful. A few witchfinders ventured into the ruins, but they never returned.”

  “And people live in the shadow of that thing?” said Caina, eyeing the crumbling towers and half-collapsed walls.

  “An evil place,” muttered Teodor. Caina glanced back at him in surprise. The old man glared at the ruined castle, his face hard. “An evil place.” Then the lassitude came over his features once more.

  “It’s perfectly safe so long as you don’t go inside,” said Seb. “Whatever’s inside doesn’t come out to trouble the city, though there are always rumors about monsters dragging beautiful young virgins into the castle to feast upon their blood. A few of the crueler Voivodes executed their foes by throwing them into the Lord’s Castle and listening to their screams.”

  “I suppose it’s no different than Calvarium,” said Kylon, glancing back at Caina. “The people there lived in the shadow of Caer Magia.”

  “Maybe,” said Caina, though she did not like the comparison. Hidden in the ruins of Caer Magia had been a sorcerous device that had nearly destroyed the world. The Divine only knew what lurked within the haze of necromancy hanging over the Lord’s Castle.

  “And now, I fear, we should stop discussing such matters,” said Seb. He gestured at the line of wagons before the city’s northern gate. “The less suspicion we arouse from the guards, the better. Does everyone remember their stories?

  “My uncle is an impoverished rural boyar in the north,” said Sophia, “and he has sent me south to wed a prosperous merchant of Risiviri.” She considered. “Should I be weeping?”

  “What?” said Seb.

  “Well, I have been sent south to marry a stranger against my will,” said Sophia. “I feel like I should be weeping. Maybe I should be sighing in a melancholy fashion as well.”

  Seb grunted. “I had no idea you had such theatrical instincts. But I urge you to suppress them. Just act shy, and answer questions quietly and succinctly. We are attempting to enter a city, not appearing on the stage at the Grand Imperial Opera.” He looked at Kylon. “I will be the agent hired to bring Lady Sophia south to meet her wealthy husband. You will be one of the mercenaries hired to accompany me, which will explain why you don’t speak Ulkaari well.” Kylon nodded, and Seb looked at Caina. “Probably better if you don’t talk, I think. With that fur cloak and cowl, you can pass as a man, but your voice would break that illusion.”

  “As you say,” said Caina.

  She answered in one of the disguised voices that Theodosia had taught her all those years ago, raspier and deeper than her normal tones. Seb nodded, blinked, and then did a double-take so forcefully that he almost fell off the wagon seat, much to Kylon’s obvious amusement.

  “How the hell did you do that?” said Seb. “You sounded just like a man. I thought someone else had come up behind you.”

  “Practice,” said Caina. “Lots of practice. And necessity.” She shrugged. “For a while, I was the most wanted woman in Istarinmul. Everyone was looking for me. But if I changed my voice, my clothes, put on a bit of makeup to create the illusion of stubble…no one was looking at yet another dusty caravan guard.”

  “Is it disturbing that your wife can pass as a man so easily, Lord Kylon?” said Seb. “Wait, no, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. Pity you aren’t fluent with Ulkaari yet. Otherwise, you could do all the talking. What shall I tell the guards about our new friend Teodor?”

  Caina shrugged. “The truth. We found him wandering in the woods and couldn’t leave him to freeze to death. Best not to mention the reveniri, I think. The guards will assume we are boasting, and that might arouse suspicion.”

  “Very well,” said Seb.

  They joined the line of carts approaching the northern gate, and their pace slowed to a crawl. Caina saw eight guards at the gate, all of them wearing chain mail, heavy cloaks against the chill, and crimson tabards adorned with the Voivode’s black hawk and spear sigil. The guards questioned each cart and horseman entering the city, and then waved them through.

  An hour later, Seb’s wagon reached the gate, and Caina brought her wagon to a stop behind him.

  “Good afternoon to you, sirs,” said Seb in Ulkaari. Caina forced herself to listen, trying to catch the meaning of the Ulkaari words. It helped that Seb’s diction was excellent.

  The oldest of the guards, a scowling middle-aged man, stepped forward and said something in Ulkaari that Caina didn’t catch, though she heard the name of Vagraastrad and the title of the Voivode in the sentence.

  “We are simply passing through,” said Seb. He gestured to Sophia, who said nothing. “I have been hired to bring this noblewoman to Risiviri. Her uncle has decided to marry her off to a rich merchant of the city, and so I am to deliver the merchant his new bride.”

  “Bah,” said the middle-aged guard. “The men of the south are weak and flabby. The girl will regret it. The merchant will not be able to give her a good…” Caina didn’t know the next several words, but to judge from the way color flooded into Sophia’s face, she could guess their meaning.

  Seb shrugged. “I am an outlander, so such things are not my concern, sir. I was hired to bring the girl to Risiviri, and that is what I shall do.” A small leather pouch appeared in his hand. “I would be grateful for your consideration.”

  The guard took the pouch and glanced into it, and Caina saw the glint of copper coins.

  “And these other two men with you?” he said. “Your men?”

  He had assumed Caina was a man. She would have been annoyed, had that not been the outcome she wanted.

  “Aye,” said Seb. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my time, but traveling alone with a virgin girl across Ulkaar is not one of them.”

  The guard grunted again and made the pouch di
sappear. “What about that old man?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Seb. “Says his name is Teodor. We found him wandering in the forest. I don’t think he’s right in the head.”

  The guard asked a question, and Seb responded, and Caina didn’t recognize most of the words.

  “I think we’ll take him to the Temple,” said Seb. “They’ll know what to do with him.”

  The guard scoffed. “Don’t bother. High Brother Basarab is a useless wastrel. Getting fat and rich while the people go hungry.” The guard seemed oblivious to the fact that he had just taken a bribe. “Take him to…”

  Caina could not follow the rest of the sentence. She did catch a name, though, that of someone called Lady Libavya Jordizi.

  “We’ll do that, sir,” said Seb.

  “Go about your business,” said the guard.

  Seb nodded to Caina and snapped his reins, urging his horses forward. Caina followed suit, and they rolled through the gate and into the city of Vagraastrad.

  They entered a large market square, similar to many others that Caina had seen throughout the Empire and Istarinmul. Shops and taverns lined the square, and there were rows of merchant booths, with heavily cloaked and coated merchants selling their wares while shoppers browsed the stalls. In the center of the square was a frozen fountain, and on the plinth at the center of the fountain rose an obelisk of white stone. It stood about twenty feet tall. Iramisian characters had been carved on all four sides, and Caina recognized the symbols of warding and protection. The symbols glowed, giving off a pale white light, and the stone radiated a warding spell that covered the entire northern market. It was one of the Sanctuary Stones of the Warmaiden, identical to the one that Caina had seen north of Kostiv. She supposed that the Warmaiden must have raised the stone here after defeating Cazmar Vagastru and destroying his castle.

  Sophia smiled when she saw it. “I didn’t know there was a Sanctuary Stone here, my lady.”

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the reveniri following us into the city,” said Caina, looking at the spell radiating from the Stone. “It’s strong enough to keep the reveniri from passing the gate.” As she concentrated, she saw the pale white glow of several other Sanctuary Stones scattered around the city, stark against the dark haze rising from the ruined Old Castle. Perhaps that was what kept whatever horrors that lurked within the ruins from rampaging through the city.