Sword and Sorceress 28

by Unknown

  “I’m not dead,” I rasped out. I coughed, sat up, and nearly lost my breakfast on the grass.

  She leveled her wand at me, but it wavered a trifle.

  “Look, Isabeau,” I said when I’d recovered, “you weren’t trying to kill me. I don’t want to kill you either. Must we be enemies?”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “Of course there’s a choice,” I said.

  “I can’t let them all go,” she said. “Not till the twenty-first knight is bound will the perils of the crossing give way to let them pass. I could let you go, but the Bridge of Blades and Flame only holds one. By the time anyone else had a chance to cross, my lady would be aware of it. Her vengeance would be terrible.”

  “I don’t understand you,” I said. “You slave for her. You sin for her. She gives you nothing, and forgives you nothing. Why don’t you defy her? Is your magic not strong enough?”

  “For what?”

  “To make this unstoppable force of proven knights your own, of course.”

  “Are you crazy?” Isabeau stared at me.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I fought the dragon. I crossed the cursed bridge. If my brothers are the flower of knighthood, so am I. So go ahead.” I sheathed my sword. “I’m the twenty-first. Bind me.”

  It was almost worth the certainty that I was the world’s biggest fool to see the look of astonishment on her face. For a moment she hovered, eyes wide as platters, mouth open. Then she smirked. “Kiss me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The spell’s on my lips. If you trust me. If you dare.”

  I didn’t trust her—not wholly. But what else could I do? Escape alone, leaving my brothers and all those other poor fools in bondage? I bent awkwardly toward her upturned face.

  “At least you smell better than the others,” said Isabeau, and kissed me.

  I tried to open my mouth to return some jest—but my body no longer obeyed my commands. Isabeau chanted, tracing spirals and arabesques in the air with her wand, and I could look at nothing else. Then all the statues—all the knights—moved stiffly into ranks beside and behind me, and we marched.

  The chasm of the Bridge of Blades and Flame was now nothing but an empty gulch. The Damsel in the Garden hitched up her skirts in one hand and made her way down one side of it with surprising ease, and we soldiers, bound by her will, lumbered afterward. The dragon I had beheaded raised a new head to glare at us, but Isabeau tossed a silvery scale into the River of Pain, and the beast stretched its neck over the river as a bridge for us. We all marched across and stood on the far shore, facing Isabeau, our captain.

  “Well done, apprentice.” The woman who spoke, straight-backed and regal, had not been there a moment before. Even smaller than Isabeau, her arms slender as a child’s in her elegant tight-laced sleeves, she nonetheless gave an impression of compact power, like a cat poised to spring. Under her jeweled headdress and silk veil, her aged face was still beautiful; but her eyes were like sparks from flint, ready to set the world ablaze. “Now place them in my hands, child, so I may reclaim my rightful domain.”

  “One moment, Grandmother,” said Isabeau placidly. “All is not yet ready.” She spun widdershins, swept the wand with a great flourish, and shouted in some outlandish tongue. And suddenly twenty knights and I stretched our limbs and moved of our own accord. Most drew their swords—and then stopped, finding no one to attack but an old woman.

  “What have you done?” Lady Ettarre cried.

  “I’ve done all the evil I’m ever going to do at your bidding, Grandmother!” Isabeau broke the wand over her knee. I cringed, remembering how it had felt to bite the end. A singed smell confirmed my fears. Isabeau did not cry out, but wrung her scorched hands. Lady Ettarre surged toward her granddaughter, murder in her eyes, a wand in her hand—and there was Isabeau, all unarmed.

  Without a better plan, I thrust myself between them.

  “Ursula, you fool!” I heard, at the same moment that a world of pain descended on me. Every inch of my skin was on fire; my eyes ached; my ears ached; my stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. This she meant for Isabeau, for her own grandchild, I thought, and forced myself, through it all, to keep hurtling toward the old enchantress to disarm her or die trying. I landed squarely upon her and, through sheer weight, knocked her over like a ninepin. I heard shrieking, and was astonished to find it came from the enchantress, as if the moment I touched her, she shared all the agony her spell had inflicted on me. I hung on like death, scarcely knowing what went on around me, hoping I’d give Isabeau a chance to do something cleverer than I could manage.

  “Ursula, get up,” Isabeau said at last. “Please. Let her go.”

  “She aimed that spell at you, Isabeau.”

  “I know,” Isabeau said, “but she’s still my grandmother. Besides, I have her wand now.”

  Astonished, I lifted my anguished body off the old woman’s, and found that once I let go of her, the pain ceased. Standing beside me, Isabeau pointed a wand of dark, knotted wood at Lady Ettarre. “Grandmother,” she said.

  “I told you to call me Lady,” the old enchantress said.

  “I’m not your apprentice anymore. I’m not the bait in your trap. I’m an enchantress in my own right.”

  “Will you bind me to your will, then, young adept?”

  “Only if you make it necessary. Go back to your hall, to the grandchildren you care to acknowledge as kin. I’ll never be your tool again.” She stood over Lady Ettarre, wand in hand, until the old woman vanished as quietly as she had appeared. Then Isabeau turned to the knights. “Go now. Go free.”

  “Ursula! What are you doing here?” My oldest brother, Roland, had caught up with me.

  “Rescuing you,” I said.

  “Who brought you here?” my second brother, Raoul, asked.

  “Myself. You were all three imprisoned here. What did you expect me to do—wait for a miracle?”

  “Well, at least you won’t need to travel home unguarded,” Roland said. And Berenger—even Berenger, my favorite—nodded agreement.

  “Who said I need a guard? Who even said I’m going home?” I hadn’t actually thought, till then, of not returning. But I could feel walls closing around me, and I knew I couldn’t let myself be trapped again.

  “Are you sure you wanted your brothers freed?” Isabeau spoke quietly at my elbow. “I could enchant them again.”

  “Only if they make it necessary,” I said through clenched teeth. “Roland, Raoul, Berenger, I’m glad you’re free. But I’m not going back with you.”

  I hadn’t actually asked her—and she hadn’t actually asked me—but somehow, we didn’t need to speak of it. I found my steed where I’d left him, munching grass on the bank. I mounted, then pulled Isabeau up behind me—brocaded skirts and all—and we rode off to seek our fortunes.

  Ghost Spike

  by Jonathan Moeller

  Jonathan Moeller is very glad to return to SWORD AND SORCERESS a seventh time with “Ghost Spike.” When he wrote the first Ghosts story seven years ago, he did not suspect he would still be writing about Caina seven years later, but sometimes life has pleasant surprises.

  Visit him on the web at http://www.jonathanmoeller.com, where you can find, among other things, six years of interviews with past SWORD AND SORCERESS contributors, and CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, a free full-length novel set in the world of “Ghost Spike.”

  “So my son has asked you to marry him,” said Lord Corbould Maraeus, his voice thick with derision.

  “He has,” said Caina Amalas.

  She sat in Corbould’s solar. The old lord faced her, his face a mask of disapproval, his eyes like gray ice. Corbould Maraeus was the very image of the cold, stern Imperial lord, and one of the most powerful men in the Empire. If Emperor Alexius died tomorrow morning, Corbould might well become the new Emperor by afternoon.

  And he did not like Caina. She was the Ghost circlemaster of the Imperial capital, the leader of the Emperor’s spies and agents, and sh
e had foiled Lord Corbould’s plans more than once.

  “You come to negotiate yourself?” said Corbould. “I am surprised your father did not come to speak for you.”

  “My father has been dead for eighteen years,” said Caina. “I have no other living relatives. I am therefore head of my own noble House, and well within my rights to negotiate my own marriage.”

  “I am not surprised,” said Corbould, “that Lucan wants to marry you. He was always a wastrel and a fool. Little wonder he would become besotted with a murderous whore.”

  Caina felt her hand curl into a fist beneath the table, her fingers brushing against the skirt of her green gown. But not a hint of her anger touched her voice or face. She had faced things far more frightening than Corbould.

  “You do your son a disservice,” said Caina. “Lucan has spent the ten years since the murder of his wife hunting rogue magi and supernatural predators. Countless men, women, and children owe their lives to him.”

  “How terribly noble,” said Corbould, “to run about playing the hero instead of doing the hard work of maintaining the Imperial peace. Countess, I shall be blunt. The Emperor finds you useful, so I tolerate your existence. And I concede that you are necessary to him. Politics is a dirty business. But I will not permit a creature like you to wed one of my blood.”

  “Why so squeamish?” Caina said. She had a vision of putting a throwing knife into Lord Corbould’s throat, and shoved it aside. “You don’t care about Lucan. I’ve heard it from your own lips.”

  “I don’t,” said Corbould. “But he will have children, as soon as I force the fool to take another wife. For the good of the Empire, House Maraeus must remain strong. And you will not give me grandchildren, Countess. I have my own sources of information. I know the magi murdered your father when you were eleven, and the attack left you unable to bear children. So if you wed Lucan, you would take away the one use he has to me. Let me be perfectly clear, Countess. The day you present me with a living grandchild, you can wed Lucan. Not before. Now get out of my sight.”

  And that was that.

  ~o0o~

  Later that evening Caina stood before the door to Lucan’s rooms at the Black Cuirass Inn.

  She hesitated.

  Perhaps Lord Corbould was right. Caina could not have children, and Lucan claimed that didn’t bother him—but she did not entirely believe him. And what kind of life would he have, married to a woman like Caina, hunting outlaw sorcerers and slavers and assassins? He could have a different kind of life, one with children—and one with a wife who didn’t have a score of vengeful enemies bent on her death.

  Caina shook her head. She had tried to push Lucan away before, for his own good, but he had adamantly refused to be pushed.

  She knocked at the door…and it swung open at her touch.

  That alarmed her. Lucan was not quite as cautious as she was, but he was close, and he would never leave his door unlocked.

  Caina stepped into his sitting room, and noticed things were amiss.

  His weapons were gone, emptied from both the trunk by the balcony and the hidden compartments on the wall. His sword was gone from its stand. To judge from the disarray, he had left in haste.

  A piece of paper lay on the center of the floor, alongside a length of white cord.

  Caina picked up the paper and the white cord.

  It was a note.

  “My lord Lucan Maraeus,” it read, “it has been ten years, and I have missed you sorely. But not as much, I think, as your wife. Livia used to scream for you to save her when I used the knives on her. Of course, it has been ten years—now she just screams. I wonder if she even remembers your name. Or her own.

  “You slew my master Morneus, and it’s time for you to pay that debt. Meet me at the Inn of the Golden Milestone by noon. Come alone. If you are late, or if you bring anyone with you, Livia will pay dearly for it.

  “And if you tell anyone about this note—anyone—Livia will suffer for it. I know you’ve seduced the ‘Ghost Countess’ so famed among the rabble, and if you contact the Ghosts or the Imperial Guard…well. You failed Livia once. Don’t fail her again.”

  The note was signed “Croanna.”

  Caina’s hand clenched, the paper crumpling.

  Lucan had told her the entire story. He had been married young, a political match arranged by Corbould to Livia of House Cycorus. Much to Lucan’s surprise, they had come to love each other. And then Livia had seen the master magus Morneus practicing necromancy, torturing and murdering to fuel his spells. Morneus killed Livia to cover up his crimes. So Lucan struck down the necromancer and all his apprentices.

  But one had gotten away.

  A woman named Croanna.

  A woman who had apparently taken Livia captive rather than murder her.

  Caina examined the length of white cord. It was in fact a lock of hair. Platinum-blond hair, exactly as Lucan had described his dead wife’s hair.

  Caina closed her eyes for a moment, surprised at the intensity of the pain.

  If Lucan’s wife was still alive, then Caina had lost him.

  The damned fool. He should have come to her. She had resources. She could have helped him...

  Her eyes snapped open.

  She was a Ghost, a spy and assassin of the Emperor. More, she was the Ghost circlemaster of the Imperial capital, with reliable agents at her call. And she had learned long ago that the surest way to combat grief was with action.

  Lucan might be lost to her, but she would save his life.

  She paused only long enough to help herself to some equipment from Lucan’s stores, and hastened downstairs to the common room. The Black Cuirass Inn was not far from the Imperial Citadel, and catered to nobles visiting the capital on business. The innkeeper, a grim-faced Legion veteran named Appian, kept watch over a common room full of rich nobles eating their dinners. Caina caught his sleeve as he passed. Appian started to glare at her, but his expression quickly changed to respect.

  Caina had a reputation.

  Saving the Emperor from an assassin in front of a thousand witnesses had that effect.

  “Countess Caina,” said Appian, “a pleasure, but...”

  “Lord Lucan received a message today,” said Caina. “Who delivered it?”

  Appian nodded. “A short fellow. Shabbily dressed. Looked sort of like a nobleman’s seneschal fallen on rough times.”

  “Gnaeus?” said Caina. She knew the man. He was petty thief and a small-time spy, scratching out a living selling secrets to interested parties.

  “Yes, him,” said Appian. His mouth twisted with distaste. “In fact, he’s right over there, by the door.”

  Caina headed for the door. Gnaeus himself lounged against the wall, looking over the crowds of nobles and their retainers. His eyes flicked to Caina, and all the blood drained out of his face.

  He spun and raced out the door.

  Caina cursed and sprinted after him.

  Carriages rattled back and forth in the broad street, most making their way to the Imperial Citadel. Gnaeus twisted and ducked into an alley behind the Inn, and Caina followed. She was faster than Gnaeus, but her long skirt hindered her, and he would outrun her.

  So she snatched a throwing knife from her sleeve and flung it. The handle smacked into Gnaeus’s temple, and he stumbled, bouncing off the wall, and almost fell. That was all the opening Caina needed. She fell upon him, driving a palm into his face and a knee into his gut. Gnaeus crumpled, and she caught his arm, twisted it behind him, and drove him to his knees.

  “Don’t kill me!” wheezed Gnaeus, blood dripping from his nose. “I...”

  “You shouldn’t have run,” said Caina, twisting his arm a bit more. “You delivered a message to Lord Lucan Maraeus today. Who gave it to you?”

  Gnaeus hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Caina sighed. “Let me make this plain for you. Tell me, and I’ll pay you.” She dropped a gold coin in the dust at his knees, and then drew ano
ther knife. “Don’t tell me, and I’ll cut off pieces until you tell me. Decide. Now.”

  Gnaeus looked at the knife, and then at the coin. “I don’t know his name. But he paid me well to do it, said he’d kill me if I talked to anyone.”

  “Describe him,” said Caina.

  “Vicious sort,” said Gnaeus. “Wore red chain mail. Red tattoos around his eyes and mouth, too.”

  Caina nodded, let Gnaeus fall to the ground, and hurried away without another word.

  She recognized the description. Red Trajus, a mercenary not overly burdened with scruples, and a favorite hatchet man of the Magisterium, the brotherhood of the magi. The magi used Red Trajus and his company for their dirty work. And if Croanna had returned to the Empire, the magi could not be seen aiding an outlaw. So they would send Red Trajus to assist her.

  That troubled Caina. Why would the Magisterium take the risk of aiding an outlaw magus? Perhaps they wanted Lucan dead even more badly than she had thought.

  Her mouth thinned at that thought, and she hurried into the night.

  She couldn’t take on Red Trajus herself.

  But she knew where to find help.

  ~o0o~

  But first, some preparations.

  The Ghosts kept a safehouse near the Imperial Citadel, located in the cellar below the shop of a goldsmith who owed the Ghosts several favors, and Caina slipped inside unnoticed. She stripped out of the formal gown and into more suitable garb. Loose black clothing, fortified with hardened leather plates to ward off blades. A belt of throwing knives and other useful tools went around her waist, and daggers into her boots, and more throwing knives beneath her sleeves. A black mask hid her face.