Ghost in the Tower

by Jonathan Moeller

  She turned, seeking another mavrokh, but there were none left. Some of the phobomorphic spirits had been pulled back to the netherworld, but it seemed the spirits were not inclined to continue fighting.

  “You know, Kyracian,” said Morgant, “I never thought I would say this, but you are at times a useful fellow to have around.”

  “I live for your high praise,” said Kylon, his eyes sweeping the Mirrors.

  “Why did they all look like Razdan?” said Sophia, her voice quavering a little.

  “Phobomorphic spirits,” said Caina. “They take the form of what you fear the most. For you, obviously, that was Razdan Nagrach.”

  “That was Razdan Nagrach?” said Ariadne. “The horrid man who tried to put you in the Boyar’s Hunt?” Sophia nodded. “Well, that was a foolish mistake on the part of the phobomorphic spirits, dear. You and Caina killed him once, so it was no challenge to kill him a few more times.”

  “You’ve fought phobomorphic spirits before, my lady?” said Sophia.

  “Aye,” said Caina.

  “What…what form did they take?” said Sophia.

  Kylon turned a concerned glance towards Caina. No doubt he expected her to say the phobomorphic spirits had taken the form of her mother, or Maglarion, or perhaps the Moroaica.

  Caina sighed. “A giant dead fish.”

  Sophia blinked. “Fish?”

  Morgant guffawed. “Fish? All those mad sorcerers and demons you’ve fought, and the phobomorphic spirits took the form of a dead fish?”

  Caina sighed again. “When I was a little girl, I was walking near the harbor with my father. I saw this huge dead fish, half-rotten with its eyes eaten out, and…well, it scared me.”

  Morgant laughed again. “A dead fish.”

  “For the Divine’s sake, I was seven years old,” said Caina.

  “That’s why you don’t like to eat fish,” said Kylon.

  “Well, I will eat it. It’s better than going hungry,” said Caina. “And I know you like fish…”

  “He’s Kyracian,” said Morgant. “Of course he likes fish. The Kyracians grow up eating fish. But it’s just as well Callatas never learned that. He might have dressed up like a giant fish, and…”

  “For the Divine’s sake,” said Caina, turning back to Sophia. “The point is that the phobomorphic spirits can read your mind and take the form of something you’re afraid of. Fear isn’t always rational, which is why I saw a phobomorphic spirit that took the form of a dead fish. But some fears are entirely rational, which is why you saw Razdan Nagrach.”

  “Decius would have no trouble getting past phobomorphic spirits,” said Ariadne. “We should keep moving.”

  “Agreed,” said Caina, and they walked down the corridor and headed for the next set of spiral stairs.

  Chapter 16: It’s Not Supposed To Do That

  Ariadne had been in many strange and frightening places, but none of them compared to the Tower of the Cataphract.

  She had known the coaxial dimensional folding would mean that the Tower’s interior was far larger than its exterior.

  Ariadne had not realized just how much larger.

  Unless she missed her guess, they had already climbed at least three times the Tower’s exterior height, and walked two-thirds of a mile of corridors. The magi of the Fourth Empire and the final years of the Third Empire had been far stronger than her contemporaries (though their power had morally bankrupted them), but even so, the Cataphract had been a sorcerer of profound genius. Before today, Ariadne would not have thought it possible to create a dimensionally folded structure on such a scale, and certainly not a stable one.

  But the Cataphract had. And it had stood intact for centuries.

  The Cataphract had put the space to use. They walked through sorcerous laboratories that held immense machines of bronze and glass designed to focus and refine arcane power. Other rooms held collections of artwork – Nighmarian and Kyracian statues upon plinths. Another room contained portraits suspended in niches, the paintings carefully preserved with warding and protection spells.

  And, of course, there were many, many sorcerous traps.

  Ariadne soon saw why anyone who entered the Tower never returned. Potent warding spells rested over every doorway and in every corridor. Ariadne could have used her own sorcery to detect them, but that would have been difficult. The aura of power surging through the Tower’s walls made picking out individual spells challenging. It would take hours of methodical work to unravel those defenses, disabling them one by one.

  The Tower’s guardians would have made that impossible.

  But with Caina’s help, they advanced swiftly through the Tower’s corridors and stairwells. The vision of the valikarion let her pick out the warding spells as easily as if they were words written upon a page. Her valikon shattered the wards. Without Caina, they never would have been able to follow Decius and Riona so deep into the maze of the Tower. And without Kylon, they might have been killed.

  The Tower’s guardians were vigilant.

  Three times more they passed through corridors lined with Mirrors of Worlds, and phobomorphic spirits emerged to attack. The first time the creatures took the form of Razdan Nagrach again. The second time they took the shape of a short, scarred man whose face looked as if it had been stitched together out of scraps of leather, his right eye a sulfurous shade of orange. Caina said that the man was named Sicarion, and hate glittered in her eyes when she said the name. Kylon scowled as well. Evidently, he and Caina had fought this Sicarion sometime in the past.

  The third time, the phobomorphic spirits took the form of Ariadne’s father.

  “You are a grievous disappointment, daughter,” said Hyraekon Scorneus, and her stomach churned with fear. He looked just as she remembered, tall and strong and lordly, with a close-cropped silver beard and a mane of silvery hair, his eyes like chips of blue ice. “A disappointment, and a liability. The magi ought to be strong, and you are weak and cowardly. Your sisters are better than you by far. You require punishment.” He lifted a steel rod in his right hand. Hyraekon had enspelled the rod himself. A single touch caused a wave of searing agony. He had claimed that it was an efficient and bloodless form of chastisement. Ariadne hated the sight of the thing as much as she had ever hated anything, and her skin crawled with the memory. “Perhaps then you will understand…”

  “I bet you never shut up, did you?” said Caina, stepping forward.

  The false Hyraekon glared at her. The phobomorphic spirit had even captured Hyraekon’s cold fury at anyone who dared interrupt one of his lectures. “And who do you presume to…”

  Caina drove her valikon into his face.

  The false Hyraekon shattered into shards of gray light and vanished. A dozen more erupted from the Mirrors, each one wielding one of those steel rods. Ariadne feared that the phobomorphic spirits would mimic her father’s mighty talent for sorcery, but instead, they attacked, swinging the steel rods like cudgels. She threw herself into the fight, flinging banishment spell after banishment spell. Hate flooded through Ariadne as she did, and anger that threatened to break her mental discipline. She wanted to take her staff and beat the false copies of her father to death. That man had tormented her for years, and so many of the shadows that haunted her mind came from him. If he had not ordered her to marry Quartius Hegemonar, maybe things would have been different, maybe she would not have nightmares of the dead lying on the floor, the red wine pooling around Quartius’s hand…

  But she was still a high magus of the Magisterium, with all the mental discipline that office required, and she unleashed her power against the phobomorphic spirits until they had been destroyed or banished.

  “Just who was that supposed to be?” said Markaine, rolling his shoulders with a grimace. “Seemed like a pompous old blowhard. But that’s a common affliction among the high magi of the Magisterium.”

  Ariadne glared at him, but he wasn’t wrong.

  “I didn’t recognize him, my lady,” said Sophia
.

  Ariadne let out a ragged breath. “My father.”

  Markaine grunted and looked at Caina. “You just stabbed your grandfather in the face?”

  “He deserved it,” said Ariadne, staring into one of the glowing Mirrors. “Gods, but that man was a pompous old tyrant. Ah, history just runs in circles like a rat in a maze, doesn’t it? My father was cruel to my sisters and me, so your mother was cruel to you, and…”

  “Wheels can be stopped,” said Caina, “and that wheel stops spinning with us. Let’s keep going. It looks like there’s another stair at the end of this corridor. I think we’re getting close.”

  Ariadne frowned. “How do you know?”

  “I can see the aura,” said Caina. “There’s…something above us. I don’t know what it is, but it’s powerful. I’m willing to bet it’s what Decius and Riona want.”

  Ariadne nodded, and they continued down the corridor, the gray light of the Mirrors gleaming in the walls.

  ###

  The corridor ended in another large round chamber of black stone and green marble, another spiral stair rising into the ceiling.

  But this room had several different features.

  Set into the wall on the right side of the room was a massive Mirror of Worlds, the largest one Caina had seen inside the Tower of the Cataphract. It was ten feet tall, and ten wide, as large as some of the Mirrors the Alchemists of Istarinmul had used, and through the glass, she saw the hazy gray plain of the netherworld.

  To the left opened a high, narrow corridor. The corridor stretched away in the distance and closed stone doors lined its walls. Symbols of white fire glowed above the doors and the archway. A strange aura shone around the corridor, a powerful and deadly spell of mind sorcery. Caina wasn’t sure, but she thought the spell would cause total insanity in anyone it touched.

  “Don’t go any closer to that corridor,” said Ariadne. “There’s a powerful ward over it, and the effect would be deleterious.”

  Kylon frowned. “Those symbols. Are those…”

  “Iramisian glyphs,” said Caina. “Like the ones on our valikons.”

  “Iramisian?” said Ariadne, startled. “Why is there Iramisian writing inside an ancient tower in Artifel?”

  “I have no idea,” said Caina.

  “A pity we can’t read them,” said Ariadne.

  Caina took a deep breath. “I can.”

  “You can?” said Ariadne, raising her eyebrows. “You must be a quick study, dear. You didn’t bring Iramis back to the world of the living all that long ago.”

  “I learned Iramisian before Iramis came back,” said Caina, pushing back the memory. It wasn’t a pleasant one. “Well, it was sort of forced on me. It says…the glyphs over the corridor call it the Hall of Gates. And if I’m not mistaken…I think each of the glyphs over the doors say the names of cities. Malarae, Risiviri, Marsis, Cyrioch…” She shook her head. “It’s a mystery we can investigate later. We’re not far from that source of power above us. I think…”

  She stepped forward, and as she did, the arcane power around her pulsed and spiked. For an instant, concentric rings of Iramisian glyphs written in white fire blazed to life on the floor and then flickered out of existence.

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

  “I…don’t know,” said Ariadne. She looked as puzzled as Caina felt. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a spell like that before.”

  “I have,” said Caina. “It was something cast from the Words of Lore, the spells of the Iramisian loremasters.”

  “A loremaster cast those spells?” said Kylon.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “And wrote those glyphs above the doors in the Hall of Gates, I would wager. It…”

  “The Mirror!” said Morgant.

  Caina whirled, bringing up her valikon, just in time to see the dark figure emerge from the Mirror, staff in hand.

  It was a man, she thought, clad from head to toe in the black spell-worked armor favored by the battle magi. A masked helmet covered his head, and in his gauntleted right hand he carried the staff of a high magus. It looked like Ariadne’s staff of office, but it had been made from black metal rather than dark wood.

  And unlike Ariadne’s staff, Iramisian symbols glowed with white fire on the staff, and more symbols burned on his black armor. His aura was a peculiar mixture of the Iramisian Words of Lore and the warding spells of the Magisterium, as if he had been skilled in both disciplines.

  And his staff…

  It wasn’t just a staff. It was a pyrikon, a spirit of defense shaped into material form. Caina herself carried a pyrikon, currently in bracelet form around her left wrist.

  “Is that a spirit?” said Morgant.

  “No,” said Kylon. “At least, I don’t sense a spirit in him.”

  “A sorcerer?” said Ariadne. “We…”

  “Intruders!” said the armored sorcerer, stopping halfway between the stairs and the Mirror of Worlds. His voice was hollow and metallic. “Turn away from this Tower, at peril of your lives. For I am the Cataphract, and this is my fortress. It is my duty to guard this place, and should you refuse to withdraw, you shall surely die.”

  “The Cataphract?” said Ariadne. “How can you possibly be the Cataphract? This Tower is centuries old. The Cataphract must have died centuries ago, whoever you really are.”

  “My vigil does not permit me the luxury of death, high magus,” said the Cataphract. A hint of weariness entered the metallic voice. “Many have tried to wrest the Tower’s secrets. All have failed, and the creatures of the netherworld devoured their bones. The same shall happen to you if you continue this intrusion.”

  “We’re not the only intruders to come today, are we?” said Caina. “There were others before us.”

  “The four before you have fought their way into the Tower,” said the Cataphract. “But they shall not depart.”

  Wait. Four? Had Decius and Riona found additional allies to accompany them into the Tower? Or was someone else attempting to steal something?

  “Four?” said Caina. “We came chasing two. Who are these four?”

  “Four sorcerers of fell power,” said the Cataphract. “They came in two pairs.”

  “And you didn’t stop them?” said Kylon.

  “I warned them,” said the Cataphract. “I do not stop anyone myself. The defenses I have created will do so. I must attend to my own vigil, my own duty. I…” The metallic voice fell silent, and the helmet swiveled to gaze at Kylon. “A valikon.”

  There was a note of astonishment in his voice.

  “Aye,” said Kylon.

  “Then you are the one who triggered the Words of Lore written upon this chamber,” said the Cataphract. “You are a valikarion.”

  “I’m not,” said Kylon. “She is, though.”

  The Cataphract’s masked helmet swiveled to face Caina.

  “A valikarion,” said the Cataphract. “The valikarion all burned long ago.”

  “They did,” said Caina. “But Iramis emerged from the shadows. The loremasters have returned. The valikarion have returned.”

  For a long, long moment, the Cataphract said nothing, standing as motionless as a statue of iron.

  “Then you are the one I have been waiting for,” said the Cataphract.

  The phrase sent a jolt through Caina. It sounded so much like what Samnirdamnus had told her.

  “Waiting for me?” said Caina. “Why me?”

  “Perhaps not you specifically,” said the Cataphract. “But for the valikarion. For the return of the valikarion. Your return means that the hour of doom approaches. The Temnoti shall try to work the Final Night, and attempt to summon the Iron King.”

  “What do you mean?” said Caina.

  The Cataphract gestured, and his staff drifted out of his grasp and floated next to him. With both hands, he reached up and removed his helmet.

  The face beneath the helmet was surprisingly normal. It wasn’t an ugly face or an ancient one. The Cataphract
looked like a man in his middle thirties, his black hair in the process of turning to gray, his eyes keen and gray but weary, his strong jaw shaded with stubble. He looked like a soldier who had been on campaign for a long, long time.

  For centuries, perhaps.

  “Valikarion, hear me,” said the Cataphract. His voice was deep and a little hoarse. “There is not much time, and I have much to tell you. I have awaited your return for a long, long time. Once I was a high magus of the Magisterium, and I built this Tower to pursue my own power and glory. Then I met Nadezhda.”

  “The Warmaiden?” said Sophia. “You knew the Warmaiden?”

  “Nadezhda was not yet the Warmaiden then. She stopped in Artifel during her return journey to Ulkaar after training in the Towers of Lore of Iramis,” said the Cataphract. “She wished to return to Ulkaar to deliver her homeland and her people from the tyranny of Rasarion Yagar. And she convinced me of the truth. If he was not stopped, the Iron King and his Temnoti would destroy the world. I followed Nadezhda to Ulkaar, and I helped in her war against the Iron King.”

  “You were the Armorer, sir,” said Sophia. “You helped the Warmaiden forge her weapons against the Iron King.”

  For the first time, something that almost looked like a ghost of a smile went over the Cataphract’s face. “So the Ulkaari called me. We were victorious. The Iron King was slain, and the Temnoti scattered. The summoning of Temnuzash was stopped, but the price was great. And the Iron King divided his essence among his five relics. Should they be reunited, and the proper spells cast, he would return to walk the world once more. The Final Night will be completed, and Temnuzash will be summoned. I knew this would happen, and so I returned to Artifel to keep my vigil here across the centuries.”

  “Vigil against what?” said Caina.

  “I have my part to play,” said the Cataphract. “You have yours. I built this Tower for my own glory, but I turned it to the cause of the valikarion and the Ghosts…”

  “The Ghosts?” said Caina.

  “You know of their brotherhood?” said the Cataphract.