“Ah,” said Shopur, white teeth flashing in his black beard. “I like that thought. I prefer not to fight fairly whenever possible.”
“Wise words,” said Caina.
“Then we are agreed?” said Nasser. “Our best course of action is to circle around the storm through the Desert?”
No one argued. Kylon could think of any number of things that might go wrong, but that was true of any plan. He supposed the worst outcome was if Cimak broke free of the storm and reached the Inferno before they could catch him. If that happened, Caina would simply have to devise a new plan to enter the Inferno.
“Very well, then,” said Nasser. “Let us proceed.”
###
As the sun began to set two days later, Caina saw the first candle.
Water was scarce on the Trabazon steppes, so the mercenary companies had prepared an ample supply for their journey. That was just as well, because water was nonexistent within the Desert of Candles. The ground was dry, hard-packed dirt covered by a layer of ever-present dust. From time to time the wind moaned and whistled past them, blowing up flurries and curtains of dust, and soon Caina had a fine coating of grit upon her face and clothes. She didn’t complain, though, as it was nothing compared to the massive dark curtain of the storm to the south. As Morgant had predicted, the storm was drifting northwest, out of the Desert and onto the steppes. They had gone far out of their way to avoid it, but the loss of time did not trouble Caina. The Desert was flat, broken up with occasional hills, and once the damned storm ended they could make good time on the hard-packed earth.
“This is good soil,” said Kylon, squinting at the ground from the back of his horse. “With a little irrigation, this could produce quite a crop.”
“And you know about farmland, do you?” said Morgant. “An odd thing for a Kyracian nobleman to know.”
“Not really,” said Kylon. “House…”
Caina gave him a look, and then cast her eyes over the nearby mercenaries. He caught the hint.
“My family owned estates outside the walls of the city and near some of our colonies,” said Kylon. “Some were productive, and some were not.”
“I suppose the matter could be mathematically quantified,” said Nerina. “It should be possible to devise a formula to factor average rainfall, soil quality, local weather, crop type, and other such variables. Then we could predict with perfect accuracy the yield of any individual acre of land.”
“Unlikely,” said Morgant. “There are always too many variables. The world is too complex to quantify with your chalkboard scribbling.”
Nerina gave a vigorous shake of her head. “Inaccurate. That simply means we need a better equation…”
Caina ignored the argument, trying to find the cause of the peculiar unease she felt. Some of it was the cold. The sun still blazed overhead, but the Desert of Candles was cold, far colder than the surrounding steppes. Some of it was the eerie sense of familiarity. She had never visited the Desert of Candles in the flesh, but she had seen it many times in her dreams. Samnirdamnus took her to the Desert in her dreams to offer cryptic riddles and warnings. There was something else, too, something that brushed the edges of her awareness.
Suddenly her stomach clenched, and a wave of pins and needles rolled up and down her arms.
Caina whispered a curse. She had been able to feel the presence of sorcery ever since she had been wounded by a necromancer as a child, and the sensitivity had only sharpened as she grew older. Right now she felt sorcery ahead, powerful sorcery…
“What’s wrong?” said Nerina.
Caina turned in the saddle, saw Kylon’s face turn grim, his hand falling to his sword hilt.
“You, too?” said Caina.
“I don’t know what it is,” said Kylon, drawing his sword with a steely hiss. “It’s powerful, though. Extremely powerful.”
“What are we talking about?” said Nerina, blinking at the sword in Kylon’s hand. Azaces scowled and drew his weapon. The nearby mercenaries, seeing something amiss, drew their own blades or strung their bows.
“Sorcery,” said Caina and Kylon in unison.
They looked at each other, and then Caina turned towards the front of the column. “We had better warn Nasser and the captains…”
“No need,” said Morgant, urging his horse forward. “There’s no cause for alarm, beyond the overall insanity of our enterprise, but you’re about to see why this wasteland is called the Desert of Candles.”
Caina frowned. She already knew why the desert had gotten its name. The candles were the jagged crystalline pillars she saw in her dreams. Was she about to see one of them with her waking eyes?
Curiosity overcame her alarm, and she rode forward, Kylon and Morgant following. Nasser and the captains rode at the head of the column, speaking in low voices. In the distance, as the sun sank to the west, Caina glimpsed a pale blue glow.
“What the devil is that light?” said Dio.
“Do not worry, captain,” said Nasser with glacial calm. “The light is neither a curse, nor a spirit, nor a sorcerous spell.”
“What is it, then?” said Shopur.
“A candle,” said Nasser, glancing back. “Ah. Ciaran, Exile. I thought you might be the first to notice. Come with me, if you please. I think you shall find this interesting.”
He spurred his horse forward, and Caina and Kylon followed. No one had invited Morgant to follow, but he came anyway. He had been there, Caina remembered, on the day Callatas had burned Iramis and created the Desert of Candles. She looked at Nasser and wondered if he had been there, too.
An idea started to scratch at the back of her mind.
“What is…that?” said Kylon a moment later. Caina tried to halt her horse, and managed to stop the beast on the third try.
A pillar of rough, jagged crystal about nine feet tall rose from the earth a dozen paces away. It shone with a pale, eerie blue glow, a ghostly and unsettling light. Behind the crystalline pillar Caina spotted three more, and then dozens of others scattered across the plain…and still more in the distance.
There were thousands scattered across the desert, she knew, maybe tens of thousands.
Tremendous arcane force radiated from the crystalline pillar, sorcery of a type she had never sensed before. Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, she realized that she had sensed it once, nearly two years ago, on the night she had disguised herself as Natalia of the Nine Knives and infiltrated Ulvan’s palace. The Star of Iramis around Callatas’s neck had given off a similar aura, though it had been quieter, more subdued.
“No one knows,” said Caina at last, since neither Morgant nor Nasser seemed inclined to answer Kylon’s question. “They appeared when Callatas used the Star of Iramis to destroy Istarinmul a century and a half ago.” The pillars were also the same color as the Star, Caina realized, the same pale azure. She felt a…connection between the pillars, a ribbon of sorcerous force that joined the pillars together in a single massive web. “I don’t know what they are, or what they do. Only that they appeared when Callatas called his fire and burned Iramis and its farmlands to ash.”
She dropped from the saddle, feeling the crystalline pillar’s aura wash over her like a wind of needles. Its presence hurt, but she was used to that kind of pain. The peculiar light within the crystal pillar seemed…compelling, almost.
“I’ve never sensed anything like this before,” said Kylon, frowning. “It reminds me a little of a summoning spell.”
“Can you sense any spirits within it?” said Caina, her voice faint. The blue light was fascinating.
“No. I…” Kylon shook her head. “Wait.” He closed his eyes, the veins pulsing in his temples as he concentrated. “I would say that I do feel something like a spirit within the crystal, yes…but…”
“But what?” said Caina.
“It’s…frozen,” said Kylon, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze. His eyes were brown, but this close to him she saw amber flecks scattered throughout the irises. It made
for a compelling color, yet the strange light in the crystal column continued to draw her attention.
“Frozen?” said Caina. “What do you mean?”
“The spirits I have sensed earlier have been in…in flux,” said Kylon. “I’m not sure why.”
“From what I understand, it is their nature,” said Nasser, who had been watching them intently. “Spirits are timeless, as is the netherworld. When spirits enter our world, the material world, they enter time and therefore can touch it to some extent. It is against their nature, though, hence the flux.”
“How very learned for a simple thief,” said Morgant.
Nasser offered a lazy smile. “One hears things now and again.”
“If that is true,” said Kylon, “then I would say I’m sensing a spirit that is still in the netherworld. The nagataaru I’ve sensed were always in flux. So was the Sifter. But these spirits are frozen. As if they were still in the netherworld.”
“Callatas burned Iramis,” said Morgant. “I know. I was there. These crystals appeared in the moment Callatas lifted the Star and burned the city. Why would he bind spirits into crystalline pillars at the same time? Seems rather an excessive amount of work.”
“For the same reason he does anything,” said Nasser, a hard edge to his voice. “To further his work and his Apotheosis. Lord Kylon. Can you tell what manner of spirit is bound within the pillars?”
The light seemed to burn into Caina’s eyes, sinking into her mind and heart as the sorcerous aura tightened around her.
“I fear not,” said Kylon. “I have not possessed this ability for very long. I know what a nagataaru feels like, or an ifrit after that business with the Sifter. Other than that I can only guess.”
“Pity,” said Morgant. “Well, I think…”
Caina reached out and touched the crystal. It felt cold, icy cold, beneath her fingers.
“No!” said Kylon. “Don’t…”
The world vanished around her.
Suddenly she stood in a square of golden stone, a grand gleaming palace rising before it, its golden domes trimmed with white. Screams and shouts rose around her, people in strange robes fleeing in all directions. A man in ornate silvered armor sprinted for the doors of the palace, shouting and reaching out his hand. A woman of stunning beauty ran toward him, children running in her awake. The armored man reached for her with his hand…
Callatas’s voice thundered from overhead.
Fire exploded from the sky.
Fire exploded from the earth.
Fire exploded from the air.
Caina screamed in agony as the flames chewed into her flesh, the screams of uncounted thousands filling her ears…
“Ciaran,” said a man’s deep voice. “Ciaran!”
Caina took a deep breath, and the vision unraveled into nothingness.
She was lying on her back, Kylon kneeling over her, Nasser and Morgant staring down at her. Kylon looked alarmed and Nasser looked concerned. Morgant merely seemed confused. Caina just felt foolish. She should have known better than to touch the damned thing.
“Ciaran,” said Kylon. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” said Caina, and Kylon helped her sit up. “I just…” She shook her head. “That was quite a shock.” She looked at the others. “Don’t touch the crystals.”
“I could have told you that,” said Morgant.
“What happened?” said Kylon.
“I had a vision,” said Caina. “Of Iramis. I was…I was someone in the city. The day Callatas destroyed it. I saw the city burn. I saw a man trying save his family. Then they burned. They all burned. They…”
She scrambled to her feet, putting as much distance between her and the crystal as she could. Her legs wavered a bit, and she felt Kylon’s hand tighten about her arm.
“A memory,” she said. “Gods, the crystal’s a memory. A memory, frozen in physical form. The memories of everyone Callatas killed on that day.” The thought made her shiver. “There were a quarter of a million of people in Iramis, and the gods know how many in the countryside. So many people.”
“You see, then,” murmured Nasser, “the depth of his evil. Why I have spent so many years opposing him by whatever means I could.”
“The Desert of Candles?” said Caina, trying to shake of the shock of the vision. “The wrong name. The Desert of Corpses. Not candles.”
“North of here,” said Morgant in a quiet voice, “in the far northeastern Empire, in the marshes of the Ulkaari and the Iazyn, sometimes rotting plants are trapped beneath the waters, and the gases catch aflame.” His words did not carry their usual mocking bombast. “The Ulkaari shamans call them corpse candles and believe that the flames mark the locations of the cursed dead. Behold, then.” He waved a hand at the thousands of crystalline columns stretching away to the east. “Corpse candles beyond count. The Desert of Candles.”
“Gods,” said Caina, trying to pull herself together. “I can see why the tribesmen believe it is haunted.”
“In a way,” said Kylon, his fingers still resting on her arm, “it is.”
“Fortunately,” said Nasser, “that will ensure we are not troubled. Come. Let us locate a campsite. We shall rest, and then proceed in haste tomorrow. If we do not wish Callatas to work another atrocity on this scale, then we shall need to catch Cimak before he reaches the Inferno.”
Chapter 8: Glass Hand
Caina lay down with a sigh, wrapping the blanket around her.
She had not bothered to remove her leather armor or her worn cloak or any of the rest of her caravan guard disguise. It was chilly in the Desert of Candles during the day, but at night it became frigid. Her clothes stank from days in the saddle, but they helped keep her warm. Caina very much wanted to strip off all her clothes and sit in a hot bath for an hour or so, but such a luxury would have to wait until they returned to Istarinmul.
For now, she settled for her blanket and her tent. The encounter with the crystalline pillar and the subsequent vision had left her exhausted, and even lying on the hard ground in her small tent felt wonderful.
She wondered if she would have nightmares, but instead she fell asleep at once.
Caina did dream, but the images were broken, disjointed, confusing. She touched a pillar of blue glass and saw her father die again, but this time Callatas held the glittering knife instead of Maglarion. The rift of golden fire ripped across New Kyre’s sky, and Caina seized the Moroaica’s shoulder and spun her around, only to see Kalgri’s harsh face smirking at her.
Again she ran through the streets of Marsis, but instead of seeing Andromache’s lighting snarl over the sky, she saw nagataaru, thousands upon thousands of nagataaru, flowing across the sky like rivers of shadows and purple flame. Kylon pursued her through the streets, intending to kill her, but when he caught her, he kissed her hard upon the lips, his mouth like silver fire against hers.
A shadow watched her, inching closer step by step.
No matter what happened, no matter what she saw, the shadow came closer. Caina saw it…yet it never seemed to register in her thoughts. For some reason she didn’t seem to notice the thing, even as something within her screamed warning.
Smokeless fire flashed through her vision.
“Wake up!” It was Samnirdamnus’s voice, yet thin and faint, as if coming across a great distance. As if the djinni strained against the bounds that Callatas had laid upon him. “Wake up. It is almost too late! Wake up! Wake…”
The voice crackled into nothingness, and Caina’s eyes shot open. She was alone in her tent, the blue glow from the crystal pillars casting faint radiance through the cloth. Everything was silent save for the moan of the wind, and…
And…
Caina gasped and sat up, yanking a dagger from beneath her bedroll.
The shadow from her dream stood at the flap of her tent. She drew back the dagger, preparing to throw it…
The shadow was gone.
Caina blinked. Had it ever been there at all? Maybe she had just
imagined it.
The tent’s flap jerked aside, and Kylon was there.
“What’s wrong?” he said. He had the valikon in his right hand, and the ghostsilver blade glimmered in the gloomy light of the crystal columns.
Caina blinked. “How...how did you know?”
He smiled a little. “Stormdancer, remember. I can sense when you are alarmed.” The smile vanished. “I thought someone was about to attack you.”
“I did, too,” said Caina. She felt foolish. She was too old to jump at shadows…but considering the number of people that wanted her dead, keeping an eye on the shadows was prudent. “I was sure of it. I thought I saw someone.” A thought occurred to her as she got to her feet. “Did you sense anyone?” She tucked the ghostsilver dagger into her belt.
“No,” said Kylon. “But if someone was at your tent, and they had enough emotional control, I might not have noticed them. You did it, a few times.”
“Really?” said Caina. “That’s good to know.” She stepped past Kylon and looked around, scrutinizing the dusty ground. It should have been too dark to see anything, but the constant glow of the pillars gave off enough light. She squinted at the dust on the ground, trying to make sense of the patterns. Around them the camp was silent, the tents standing in orderly rows. Both Shopur and Dio had posted sentries, but other than that the men slept.
“A shadow-cloak is best, though,” said Kylon. “I couldn’t sense you at all when you wore one. Are you looking for tracks?”
“Trying, anyway,” said Caina, scowling. “Too many footprints. I can’t make sense of them. I should have thought to rake the dust in front of my tent.” She stared at the ground for a moment longer. There had been enough footsteps and hoof marks to obscure the tracks of anyone who had been standing in front of her tent. And yet…
“There,” said Caina, pointing. “Tracks, going this way. I think…I think a man stood outside my tent, and went that way. I’m not sure, though.”
Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) Page 11