Ghost in the Tower

by Jonathan Moeller

  Sophia nodded, and Caina saw the flickering glow of water sorcery around her.

  They walked in silence along the overgrown path. The trees themselves were massive, their trunks spotted with lichen, their bare branches clawing against the sky. A mixture of fallen leaves and old snow crunched beneath Caina’s boots. She grimaced at the noise, but the snow at least made it easy to follow the trail Decius and Riona had left behind.

  The ruins of the old mansion came into sight, the dark bulk of the Tower rising behind them. The path circled around the ruined mansion, and then came to the gate of the Tower. A shallow flight of stairs rose a dozen feet to a pair of double doors, both of which stood open. A strange gray light spilled from the doors, and beyond them, Caina glimpsed a vast dark room with a floor of green marble.

  “That looks…peculiar,” said Sophia.

  “It does,” said Caina, and she called her valikon to her right hand. “Let’s see why.” The valikon gave off light, but there was no point in hiding. She wouldn’t be able to enter the Tower unobserved, but she didn’t think Decius and Riona realized that anyone had followed them. Kylon followed suit, his mist-wreathed blade assembling itself in his hand.

  “Ready?” said Ariadne, and Caina saw the glow of arcane power gathered around her.

  Caina nodded and strode towards the steps. Her physical eyes saw the dark circular wall of the Tower of the Cataphract, the arched doorway, and the vast gloomy space within. Too vast, it seemed, for the interior of the Tower. The vision of the valikarion saw the shimmering wall of the warding spell around the building. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was designed to shield the interior of the Tower from any sorcerous observation. No divinatory spells would let a magus view any secrets within the structure.

  She was about to see firsthand what lay beyond the Tower’s gate.

  Caina took a deep breath, valikon raised before her in guard, and stepped into the Tower of the Cataphract.

  She made it maybe three steps before sheer shock froze her mind.

  Because the interior of the Tower was…impossible.

  She stood in a large domed chamber built of gleaming black stone, though the floor had been built of polished green marble. The dome arched high overhead, and crystals had been set into the stonework to simulate the appearance of the night sky. Caina recognized several familiar constellations. In the center of the chamber, a slender stone staircase spiraled upward and vanished into the upper reaches of the Tower. A half dozen glass globes set in the wall threw off a pale white light, their glow reflecting off the crystals in the dome to create the illusion of stars. The chamber had a strange and eerie beauty, and certainly it was more attractive than the stark and grim architecture favored by the magi with their spell-worked stone.

  But that was not the strange part.

  The domed chamber was at least three times too large to fit inside the Tower of the Cataphract.

  Caina looked around, wondering if it was some sort of trick of perspective or illusion. But there was no trick, and she could see through any illusions. The chamber was real, and it was too large to fit inside the base of the Tower.

  And while she didn’t see any illusions, she did see arcane power surging everywhere around her.

  It reminded her of the netherworld, how that strange and dangerous realm seemed built of blazing sheets of sorcerous power. Yet Caina didn’t think she had walked into the netherworld. For that matter, something about the tower reminded her of Sigilsoara, the twisted, surreal castle of the Iron King. The aura of power looked similar, but it lacked the malign necromantic corruption that had marked the warped aura of Sigilsoara. For that matter, the walls of Sigilsoara had been covered with black veins and tumorous growths, and the walls of the domed chamber were smooth and polished.

  “What the hell?” said Kylon, looking around.

  “Architecture is an inferior art to painting,” said Morgant, “but usually towers do not have more room on the inside than they do on the outside.”

  “This room,” said Sophia, “it shouldn’t be able to fit into the Tower.”

  “No,” said Caina.

  “I think I know what is happening,” said Ariadne, her voice awed. “Give me a moment.” She cast a spell, currents of power flowing around her. Her face tightened with concentration, and then her eyes widened. “Gods of the Empire. I didn’t think there was a structure like this left in the Empire.”

  “What is it?” said Caina.

  “Coaxial dimensional folding,” said Ariadne.

  “Ah…yes,” said Sophia, blinking.

  “For those of us who are not high magi of the Magisterium,” said Morgant, “what does that mean?”

  “It means that this place is simultaneously inside the netherworld and part of the material world,” said Ariadne.

  “What?” said Caina, taking an alarmed step back. “We’re in the netherworld?”

  She had visited the netherworld several times. Invariably, the trips had almost been fatal. Caina had only visited the netherworld once since she had become a valikarion, the day that she and Annarah and Morgant had chased Grand Master Callatas to Pyramid Isle. Caina had discovered that a valikarion could reshape the netherworld at will, but the strain had been so immense that a blood vessel in her brain had burst. If Annarah had not been right there to heal her, Caina would have died in seconds, and Kylon would never have known what had happened.

  “No,” said Ariadne. “And yes. The magi of the Fourth Empire knew how to build structures that were bigger on the inside than the outside. They did it through coaxial dimensional folding, which is an elaborate way of saying that they forced some of the interior rooms into the netherworld while keeping them anchored in the material world. The net result was a structure that had more interior space than would be physically possible.”

  “Wouldn’t that make the structure vulnerable to attacks from the spirits of the netherworld?” said Kylon, staring at the ceiling.

  “It would, yes,” said Ariadne. “Why?”

  “Because I can sense numerous spirits nearby,” said Kylon. “Above us somewhere, I think.”

  “Wait,” said Ariadne. “You can sense spirits?”

  “Aye,” said Kylon. “The Surge gave me the ability. It’s proven useful.” A flicker of old anger went through his face, his amber eyes hardening for just an instant. “Not that she gave me much else that was useful. This place reminds me of Sigilsoara…”

  “By the Divine, you’re right,” said Caina. “Sigilsoara sinks back into the netherworld unless someone summons it to the material realm. Rasarion Yagar must have built the castle in the same way as the Tower. Except Sigilsoara became unanchored from the physical world and corrupted by necromancy.”

  “The Cataphract was the superior sorcerer,” said Ariadne. “The spells are stable.”

  “Can spirits from the netherworld enter the Tower?” said Kylon.

  “Yes,” said Ariadne. “To empower the spells anchoring the interior structure in the netherworld, there will have to be open gates to the netherworld within the Tower. There should be wards to keep any spirits from entering. But if those wards have failed…”

  “Oh, splendid,” said Morgant. “Maybe we’ll find Decius and Riona torn to pieces somewhere above us.”

  “I really doubt it,” said Caina. “But we have valikons, and they do not.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Kylon. “Caina, keep close behind me. You can see anything coming before I do, and hopefully, I can sense any spirits before they approach.”

  “Can you tell what manner of spirits are above?” said Ariadne.

  “Not from this distance,” said Kylon. “Some elementals, I think. Maybe some more predatory spirits.”

  Caina nodded, and they walked to the stairs. The steps were only wide enough to let them ascend single-file, and Kylon went first, valikon hilt in both hands. Caina followed, and then Morgant. Sophia came next, and Ariadne brought up the back, the glow of a readied spell shining around her. Caina wi
shed that there had been time to send Sophia to safety, somewhere other than an ancient tower that was apparently caught halfway between the material world and the netherworld. But there was nowhere safe for Sophia in Artifel. Decius Aberon would not be the only magus who wanted to enroll her into the Magisterium against her will. And a delay might let the First Magus claim whatever weapon was hidden in the Tower.

  The stairs ended in a wide round room that was smaller than the domed chamber below, but still too large to fit within the Tower of the Cataphract.

  “Well,” said Morgant. “This is annoying.”

  Four different corridors led off from the round chamber.

  “Which way should we go?” said Sophia.

  Caina turned in a circle. As with the chamber below, it had been built of the dark stone favored by the Magisterium, though the floor had been covered in green marble. Caina peered down each of the corridors. One led into a room that looked like a foundry, though the furnaces were dark. The second opened into a chamber that looked like a mix between an arboretum and a forest of dead trees. The third looked like a summoning chamber, and Caina saw the glow of warding spells from that direction. Probably wise to avoid that room. But the fourth corridor…

  “That way,” said Caina. “We’ll want to go that way.”

  The fourth corridor ended in another room, and she saw a slender spiral stairway in its center.

  “We want to go up?” said Kylon.

  “Aye, we do,” said Caina. “Riona said she would need the mask in the high chamber of the Tower of the Cataphract. Presumably, that means one of the upper chambers. Decius and Riona will have to go up, and so will we.”

  “There’s something…glowing on the walls of that corridor,” said Sophia. “I can’t see what it is.”

  “Neither can I,” said Caina. But she saw the light coming from the walls, and the vision of the valikarion beheld the arcane aura. An arcane aura that looked familiar…

  She blinked several times.

  “Wait,” she said. “I know Decius and Riona passed that way.”

  “How can you tell?” said Kylon.

  “And they had a fight with something,” said Caina. “Look.”

  She walked forward and pointed. At the edge of the corridor, a scrap of cloth lay on the floor. Caina picked it up with her free hand. It was a piece of wool, and it had been torn free from something.

  “This is a piece of the coat that Riona was wearing,” said Caina.

  “I think they won their fight,” said Ariadne.

  “How can you tell?” said Kylon.

  “No bodies,” said Ariadne.

  “Maybe whatever fought them…ate the bodies,” said Sophia, swallowing.

  “If they did that,” said Morgant, “there would be more of a mess.”

  Sophia swallowed again, her face going a little gray.

  “Something killed everyone who set foot in the Tower before today,” said Ariadne. “Maybe it attacked Decius and Riona.”

  “Cheering thought,” said Caina. “But we can’t linger here.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Kylon, and he lifted his valikon. Caina and the others followed. The corridor was wide, and every few yards shallow niches had been set into the walls. Glowing glass panels about the size of a doorway filled the niches. Caina frowned as she passed the first niche on the left. The panels looked like glowing mirrors, and she saw her translucent reflection in the glass. Yet she glimpsed something else in the glass, something that looked like a plain of colorless gray grass beneath a sky choked with writhing black storm clouds…

  “Caina,” said Kylon, coming to a halt, “is that…”

  “Yes,” she said, a shiver of fear going through her. “That’s a Mirror of Worlds. By the Divine. I think every single one of those glass panels is a Mirror of Worlds.”

  “Oh, hell,” said Morgant. “The last time I saw a Mirror of Worlds with you it exploded.”

  “A Mirror of Worlds?” said Sophia.

  “A gate to the netherworld,” said Caina. “The Alchemists of Istarinmul make them. They transmute the glass to allow physical entry to the netherworld. It’s necessary to gather some of the more exotic ingredients for their Elixirs.”

  “One step would take me through the Mirror and into the netherworld?” said Sophia.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “You really, really shouldn’t do that, though.”

  “We have valikons this time,” said Kylon. “We can probably destroy the Mirrors, keep anything from coming through them.”

  “You shouldn’t do that, either,” said Ariadne at once, giving the Mirrors a wary look. “To judge from the spells on the Mirrors, they’re drawing arcane power from the netherworld. That power maintains the spells around the Tower of the Cataphract. If we shatter the Mirrors…”

  “Then the spells fail, and the Tower collapses with us still inside it?” said Caina.

  “Yes,” said Ariadne. “Or, as Markaine observed, they might explode. There is a lot of power inside those Mirrors, and while your valikons will break the spells on them, the power has to go somewhere.”

  “The last time we saw a Mirror of Worlds explode,” said Morgant, “it took out most of the Craven’s Tower.”

  “True,” said Caina. “But it had already been weakened when we blew up all the Hellfire.”

  Ariadne looked back and forth between them. “You two sometimes talk about the strangest things so casually.”

  “I was there for most of it,” said Kylon. “It was much stranger in person.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” said Caina. “We don’t want to be near these Mirrors if something decides to come through one of…”

  Even as she spoke, a Mirror further down the corridor seemed to ripple, and a man stepped free.

  Sophia flinched, her eyes going wide with horror.

  The man was young and fit and wore the fine fur-lined dark coat of an Ulkaari boyar. His black hair had been slicked back, and he had a bushy black mustache. A sword with a leather-wrapped hilt rested on his belt, and his white teeth gleamed in his face as he grinned at Sophia.

  “No!” said Sophia. “No, I saw you die! I saw you burn!”

  “It’s a spirit,” said Kylon, but Sophia seemed not to hear him.

  “A fire cannot kill me,” said Razdan Nagrach, the late Boyar of Kostiv. “You’ll run in my Hunt, Sophia Zomanek, you’ll run, and when I have you, you’ll beg on your knees for…”

  “Oh, shut up already,” said Caina.

  The false Razdan blinked, a flicker of confusion going over his face.

  “I know what you are,” said Caina. “I’ve dealt with your kind before. You’re a phobomorphic spirit, a creature that takes the form of its victims’ fears. Turn around and head back to the netherworld, and we’ll let you live.”

  “And who are you to command me, mortal worm?” said the false Razdan.

  “Depart now, or you’re going to find out the hard way,” said Caina.

  “None but the valikarion can stop us,” said Razdan, grinning, “and the nagataaru destroyed all the valikarion long ago.”

  “No, they didn’t,” said Caina. “I suppose you haven’t heard the news, locked up here in the Tower. Iramis has returned. The valikarion have returned.” She pointed her valikon at the false Razdan. “And this is a valikon. Get out of our way, and that will be that.”

  “For years fools have sought to enter this Tower and claim its secrets,” said the false Razdan. “For years my brothers and I have stopped them and feasted upon their lives. Two have eluded us this day.” Caina assumed that meant Decius and Riona. “But you will not leave the Tower. Come, my brothers, and feast!”

  The false Razdan took a step forward and changed form.

  As with the real mavrokhi, the transformation happened with unnerving speed. In the space of three steps, Razdan changed from a man to a Hound of the Iron King. His eyes turned yellow, and claws sprouted from his fingers and toes as his clothes vanished. Brownish-black fur burst from his s
kin as his limbs swelled with muscle, and his face distended into a muzzle, his jaw filling with dagger-like fangs.

  The creature bounded forward, snarling, and lunged at Caina.

  The mavrokh made it about two yards before Kylon’s valikon swept before him in a blaze of white fire and freezing mist, and the blade ripped through the fake Razdan’s chest. The creature let out a howling wail, and then it tore apart into shards of gray light that vanished into nothingness.

  Caina had never seen a phobomorphic spirit destroyed by a valikon before. It was an impressive sight.

  Unfortunately, it looked like she would have the chance to see it several more times because a half-dozen copies of Razdan strode from the Mirrors and changed form into the hulking Hounds of the Iron King.

  “Goddamn oversized dogs!” snapped Morgant, charging with his scimitar and dagger.

  “Sophia, stay by Ariadne!” said Caina, and she took her valikon’s hilt in both hands.

  But by the time she had taken a step forward, Kylon had already attacked. He shot forward in a blur, glowing with the silver light of air sorcery, and he cut down two of the mavrokhi in a single blow. The creatures ripped apart in sprays of gray light as his valikon destroyed them. Morgant attacked another, dodging under its claws, and stabbed his black dagger into its neck. He ripped the blade down and the mavrokh split open, its innards spilling out, the creature falling to the floor. But it wasn’t really a mavrokh, and the creature unraveled into a mist that was drawn to the nearest Mirror as the phobomorphic spirit was pulled back to the netherworld. Ariadne cast the banishment spell, hurling a blue spark into the nearest mavrokh. The creature unraveled into gray mist and rippled back into the mirror.

  Another mavrokh lunged towards Ariadne, and Caina intercepted it. She thrust with her valikon as Kylon had taught her, her foot forward, both her strength and her weight driving the weapon. The blade punched into the side of the creature. It didn’t penetrate far enough to inflict a fatal wound, but when wielding the valikon against a spirit of the netherworld, it didn’t matter. The mavrokh ripped apart in a spray of gray light, and Caina caught her balance as her sword suddenly felt no weight against her blade.