Ghost in the Tower

by Jonathan Moeller

  “On the balance of probability,” said Ariadne, “I suspect you were once an assassin. Probably of the Kindred, though maybe a freelancer.”

  Sophia blinked. “You were a Kindred assassin?”

  Markaine grunted. “Before either of you were born, in fact.” He turned his head. “And I think we’re about to have more urgent concerns.”

  Ariadne started to ask why, but then she saw for herself.

  The spell-cloaked form of Decius Aberon emerged from the door to the stairs. Even when disguised, the First Magus still managed to stride imperiously. Behind him came a wiry-looking woman wearing a peculiar mixture of clothing – the armor and worn leathers of a mercenary soldier beneath a long wool coat, the sort that shepherds wore to keep warm in the hills of the Caerish provinces. The woman’s face was tanned, like she had spent a great deal of time under a sun far harsher than ever shone in Artifel. She had a ragged shock of hair the color of iron, and cold, steely eyes…

  A shock of recognition went through Ariadne, and she made sure to raise her wine cup to obscure her face.

  It had been well over twenty years, but she still recognized Riona Canwyll.

  The woman had aged much more in the same time than Ariadne had, but Riona still had the same harsh, intense energy that Ariadne remembered. She wondered if Riona would recognize her. Maybe she had aged too much. (A vain part of Ariadne’s mind hoped that she had not.)

  But it didn’t matter. Riona paid no attention to her surroundings, save for a cursory glance around. She and Decius disappeared down the stairs, heading for the doors to the street.

  “Do you think Lady Caina needs help?” said Sophia with sudden anxiety. “They might have seen her…”

  “Steady,” said Markaine, grasping Sophia’s shoulder as she started to rise. “She’s probably fine. I expect we’ll see her any…ah.”

  Caina appeared in the doorway and hurried over. She had removed her shadow-cloak, coiling it around her right forearm like a dark veil.

  “What did you find?” said Ariadne.

  “Bad news,” said Caina, reaching for her wolf-fur cloak. “We have to go. We’ll talk as soon as we’re on the street and no one can overhear us.”

  “Where are we going?” said Ariadne, getting to her feet.

  “The Tower of the Cataphract,” said Caina as she fastened her cloak.

  Ariadne’s eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

  “Because the First Magus and Riona Canwyll are responsible for the suicides,” said Caina, “and they’re going to the Tower. Let’s go.”

  Ariadne’s head spun as she followed Caina and the others to the floor of the common room. Why the hell was Decius murdering high magi? Or if Riona was killing them, why was Decius allowing it? The First Magus would not gain any benefit from having his dwindling number of supporters killed. And why on earth would he go to the Tower of the Cataphract? Over the centuries, a few of the more ambitious high magi and even some of the First Magi had organized expeditions into the Tower, hoping to find whatever relics and secrets the Cataphract had left behind.

  None of them had ever returned.

  Riona must have found something, Ariadne decided as they passed into the gloomy chill of the Artifel night. Some secret, some hidden mystery of the Tower. Something that Decius thought might help him hang onto power.

  But what?

  They left the Black Mirror, heading towards the gate to the Southern Quarter.

  “All right,” said Ariadne. “What did you find?”

  “To sum up,” said Caina, “it seems that Riona Canwyll is alive, and spent the last few years searching for relics in the ruins of ancient Maat. She found one of the masks once worn by the undead Great Necromancers, masks designed to disguise them as living men. But the spells on the mask are flawed, and whoever looks at someone wearing the mask goes insane and hangs themselves. The mask feeds off those suicides, and it’s become powerful enough to access the high chamber in the Tower of the Cataphract. Riona thinks the high chamber contains some sort of sorcerous weapon that Decius will use to destroy both the Emperor and the Umbarians. He’ll hang on as First Magus, and he’ll allow her into the Magisterium. At least that’s what he believes is going to happen. I think he’s convinced himself that he can control Riona, but she’s probably going to betray him and claim the weapon for herself.”

  They walked in silence for a moment.

  “Well,” said Markaine. “Hell.”

  “How do you know what the mask of a Great Necromancer looks like?” said Ariadne.

  “Because the Great Necromancers I fought in the past both wore of them,” said Caina.

  “You fought a Great Necromancer?” said Ariadne, astonished. “And you’re still alive?”

  “Yes,” said Caina.

  “Plainly,” said Markaine.

  “Wait,” said Ariadne, her brain catching up through her astonishment. “You fought two Great Necromancers?”

  “To be fair, the second one had been exiled for heresy,” said Caina. “Oh, I also heard something else. Decius said he sent his son Calaver after us. I assume he was the magus who attacked us at Aureon’s tower.”

  “Calaver Aberon?” said Ariadne. “Damn it, I should have realized it sooner. He’s one of the new generation of magi who have grown skilled at summoning elementals since the restriction was relaxed. He can’t summon powerful elementals, but he can summon a large number of weaker ones. It probably would have overwhelmed a foe without a valikon and banishment spells.” She shook her head. “He’s a better man than I would have expected for one of Decius’s sons, but he still will follow his father’s orders.”

  “Which involve killing us,” said Markaine.

  “Maybe not,” said Ariadne. “That yellow mist was supposed to knock us unconscious.” Her mouth twisted. “Perhaps Decius wants to take us alive. Then he can enroll Sophia into the Magisterium, and kill Caina and me slowly at his leisure.”

  “Cheery thought,” said Caina.

  “Or Calaver wanted to knock us unconscious and kill us without personal risk,” said Markaine. “That should lighten your spirits.”

  “You are a font of good humor,” said Ariadne.

  They passed through the wall, leaving the inner city behind and entering the Southern Quarter. The grand mansions and towers instead became apartment blocks, workshops, and warehouses, though the towers of the magi rose among them. There was only so much room in the inner city, and land was cheaper in the outer quarters.

  “Are we going to kill the First Magus when we catch up to him?” said Markaine.

  “We should arrest him,” said Ariadne. “Bring the evidence of what he’s done before the high magi and put him on trial for murder. The high magi have been looking for an excuse to get rid of him, and this will be it.”

  “Waste of time,” said Markaine. “We should just kill him. That will also get rid of him.”

  “He should stand trial,” said Ariadne, though the words sounded hollow on her lips.

  She remembered the red puddle spreading near her first husband’s dead hand.

  “He might not give us a choice,” said Caina. “And I think it’s more important to make sure he doesn’t get his hands on that weapon, whatever it is.”

  “Perhaps it is time to contact the Praesar and let him know what we have found,” said Ariadne.

  “Will he act, though?” said Caina. “We don’t have any proof.”

  “But you heard what the First Magus was planning, my lady,” said Sophia.

  “I’m just one woman, and my dislike for the Magisterium is apparently well-known,” said Caina. “Decius can claim I am making up stories to frame him.”

  “But Calaver Aberon tried to kill us,” said Sophia. “Magus Tempora was a witness to that.”

  “We didn’t actually see his face,” said Caina. “And no proof. The First Magus can claim we were attacked by robbers, or that some enterprising citizens of Artifel tried to go for the bounty on my head. We…”

&nbs
p; She came to an abrupt stop.

  Ariadne looked south down the street, trying to find what had caught Caina’s attention. Apartment towers rose on either side, filled with the cramped tenements that housed dockworkers and their families. Narrow alleyways stretched between the apartment towers, only wide enough for one man to walk at a time.

  And armed men were coming out of the alleyways, scores of them.

  They wore chain mail and leather jerkins and carried broadswords and shields. Mercenaries, probably. None of the men wore any markings to indicate their company or employer.

  Which meant their employer didn’t want them identified.

  “Here we go,” said Markaine, drawing his crimson scimitar and black dagger.

  ###

  Calaver stood at the apartment window and watched the confrontation play out on the street below.

  In hindsight, attacking both a high magus and a valikarion at the same time had been a poor strategy. A high magus could command significant sorcerous power, and a valikarion had proven more dangerous than Calaver had anticipated. If he had learned anything from the last two and a half years of civil war, it was that going into battle with insufficient information and an inadequate understanding of the enemy was a recipe for catastrophe.

  All things considered, he had gotten off lightly from the confrontation at Septimus Aureon’s tower.

  And his aims might have been too ambitious. He didn’t care what happened to Ariadne Scorneus, the girl his father wanted to enroll in the Magisterium, and that gaunt old man in the black coat. If they got in his way, he would kill them, but he would prefer to avoid that outcome. Better to avoid making unnecessary enemies, especially since Ariadne was married to Lord Corbould’s eldest son. Lord Corbould had a vengeful streak as wide as the Strait of Artifel, and Calaver could hardly present Corbould with his son’s killer if he had killed Corbould’s newest daughter-in-law in the process.

  No, better to take Caina alive or dead, and then to leave the others behind.

  Ruan and the Kindred assassins had proven invaluable for the new plan. While one of the assassins had gone to hire the Broken Shields, the other five had fanned out through the taverns and brothels of the inner city. Covert agents often used the taverns as sources of information, and Calaver had suspected Caina would do so as well. One of the assassins had spotted Caina entering the Black Mirror, and Ruan had gotten the mercenaries into position. After that, it had been a simple matter to bribe the residents of this apartment to find different accommodations for the night, and Calaver was in position.

  This had all cost prodigious quantities of his father’s money, but Calaver did not care.

  He started to gather power, preparing to cast the summoning spell.

  ###

  Caina lifted her hand and called her valikon, and the ghostsilver blade assembled itself in her hand, white fire dancing around the blade.

  That gave the mercenaries a start. They stood in a line, blocking the road, their eyes wary beneath their steel helms. The sight of the valikon’s glowing blade had intimidated them, but that wouldn’t last. Very soon they would recover their nerve and attack, and there was no way Caina and the others could fight off twenty mercenaries by themselves.

  And to make matters worse, the vision of the valikarion saw a glow coming from the second level of the apartment tower to her right. She recognized the now-familiar aura of a summoning spell. Calaver Aberon was there, and he was getting ready to call up more earth elementals. Probably he would summon the spirits further down the street, trapping Caina and the others between the mercenaries and the elementals.

  Unless Caina did something clever, right now, they were probably going to die.

  Or be taken captive and brought to Decius Aberon, which would likely be worse.

  And then an idea came to her.

  Fraud and trickery. Antonin Crailov had said that the legend of the Balarigar was nothing more than fraud and trickery. Caina didn’t disagree, but she knew firsthand just how effective a well-timed bluff could be.

  It was time to bluff.

  ###

  Calaver focused on his spell, preparing to summon the elementals, and then it all went to hell.

  Caina Kardamnos turned and pointed that burning silver sword at him.

  Right at him.

  “Calaver Aberon, magus of the Magisterium!” she said, her voice ringing like a thunderclap.

  Calaver was so startled that his concentration faltered, and his spell collapsed. Gods, how could one woman be so loud? More to the point, how the devil had she known that he was there? There was no illumination in the apartment, and his armor was lusterless and did not reflect any light.

  “Hear me!” shouted Caina. “I know why you are here. Your father commanded you to kill me. But you do not know that he is going to his death. The First Magus knows that he is doomed, and in his desperation, he is entering the Tower of the Cataphract in hopes of finding a weapon that will save him.”

  Calaver blinked, feeling Caina’s eyes glaring up at him. The Tower of the Cataphract? Why the hell would his father be foolish enough to enter that cursed place? Anyone who entered the Tower never came out again. And that wasn’t merely a peasant superstition about a supposedly cursed building. There were multiple documented instances of magi entering the Tower and never coming out again.

  “Furthermore,” said Caina, “Decius Aberon has allied with the rogue sorceress who murdered Septimus Aureon, Hiram Nilas, Secundus Camwallen, Kalin Nicephorus, and Livia Iconias. He has given this renegade his protection as she carried out these murders.”

  “And I am Ariadne Maraeus, high magus of the Magisterium,” said Ariadne, looking towards Calaver’s window. Her voice wasn’t quite as loud as Caina’s, but Calaver had no difficulty hearing it. An uneasy ripple went through the Broken Shields, and Calaver hissed a curse. He should have struck at once. He had told the mercenaries that they were assisting in the capture of a criminal, which was mostly true, but apprehending a criminal was one thing. Attacking a high magus was a far more serious matter. “I say that these charges are true and that I shall bring them before the council of the high magi! For his crimes, Decius Aberon shall be deposed from his office as First Magus and placed on trial!”

  “But it’s not too late for you, Calaver!” said Caina. “The First Magus is going to fall, but you don’t have to fall with him. You don’t have to die for a man who has treated you as his tool and nothing more.” Emotion entered her voice. “I have met some of his other children. Claudia Aberon broke away from him. Corvalis Aberon did before he died. You can, too.”

  For an instant Calaver was too stunned to react, even to think.

  Of the dozens of the First Magus’s bastard children, Calaver had always gotten along well with Corvalis. They both shared an appreciation for swordplay, and more importantly, neither man had ambitions of displacing their father and becoming the First Magus. Then Corvalis’s sister had convinced him to leave Artifel, and they both had disappeared. Later Calaver heard rumors that Corvalis had died on the day of the golden dead, that Claudia had married an Imperial noble, but Calaver had never known for certain.

  “Come down, Calaver!” said Caina. “Come down and help us. You can be rid of your father. I know how he has blighted your entire life, how he has treated you as a slave and a tool instead of a son. His time is almost up, and you can help push him from his seat.” Her voice rang with conviction. “You can be free of him.”

  Calaver stared at her, his hand twitching towards his sword hilt.

  For one of the very few times in his life, Calaver Aberon did not know what to do next.

  Could she be telling the truth? The part of his mind made cold and calculating by long experience screamed that this was a trick. Yet Calaver knew that his father was doomed, that Decius Aberon was hanging on as First Magus by a thread. His father was desperate, perhaps desperate enough to enter the Tower of the Cataphract in search of some malevolent weapon to secure his grip on power. How
many people would Decius kill to remain First Magus? What new horrors would he unleash?

  Calaver felt a deep wave of weariness roll over him.

  He was a soldier, a battle magus. He was good at it. Yet he had seen so much death in the last two years. He had seen the slain covering the ground like fallen leaves in a forest. He had seen spells burn and twist men, had seen the dead rise as undead soldiers at the command of the Umbarians. Would his father unleash more death on that scale? And for what? All so his bloated carcass could retain the authority of the First Magus for a few more years?

  No. The cold part of Calaver’s mind said he should disregard his father and focus on bringing Caina to Corbould Maraeus, dead or alive. Bringing Caina to Lord Corbould would gain Calaver a powerful patron.

  And yet…

  That was the high magus Ariadne Scorneus with Caina, herself a powerful and influential woman. And she had married Lord Corbould’s heir, and she was clearly allied with Caina. What would Ariadne do if she knew that Calaver had killed or captured Caina? She might turn Lord Corbould against Calaver. Corbould Maraeus would be more inclined to listen to his daughter-in-law than a bastard son of a man he despised.

  Something else came into Calaver’s mind, something that he rarely felt and that his father had done his best to destroy.

  A flicker of conscience.

  He had thought for years that the magi needed a better leader, that the Magisterium was in dire need of serious reform. And here was a valikarion offering him the chance to do just that. Calaver knew the legends of the valikarion, the Arvaltyri knights as the Ulkaari called them. With Caina’s help, perhaps they could depose the First Magus and put a better leader in his place…

  Hard experience closed down the flicker of conscience. Calaver had to look after himself because the gods knew no one else would. Whoever claimed the First Magus’s office might decide to rid himself of Decius Aberon’s remaining bastard children. Calaver might find himself banished from Artifel. And while he would not mind leaving Artifel, he would prefer not to do so as a penniless exile. No, he needed a powerful patron, a new master to serve. Corbould Maraeus was just such a patron.