Ghost in the Throne (Ghost Exile #7)

by Jonathan Moeller

  She kept lobbing smoke bombs into the street, and Kylon flung them over the wall. The Adamant Guards fell back to the gate, unwilling to fight superior numbers in the smoky haze, their swords ready.

  Nasser’s voice rang out in imitation of the Balarigar, and then Laertes’s, more flashes going off in the street.

  “Come on,” muttered Caina, looking at the tower. If the Umbarians decided to ignore the entire display…

  But they weren’t. She heard the shouts of alarm from inside the courtyard, heard the clatter of boots as Adamant Guards ran to meet the unexpected threat.

  ###

  Cassander stared out the window, incredulous.

  “Balarigars?” he said, baffled.

  The idea was ridiculous. Caina Amalas was dead. Yet there were five or six deep voices shouting out threats against him, and he saw dozens of black-cloaked figures running through the streets and scrambling over the rooftops. The black-cloaked shapes moved with fluid grace, doing somersaults and spins and…

  Cassander blinked. One of them had just done a backflip.

  A volley of flashes went off, both in the street outside the wall and in the courtyard, and Cassander’s hands closed into fists.

  He was under attack.

  Caina Amalas was dead, but somehow the Ghost circle of Istarinmul had followed him here. Well, they were too late. The spell was almost finished, and a band of prancing fools in black cloaks could not fight their way past the Adamant Guards.

  Footsteps rang on the tower stairs, and a centurion of the Adamant Guards ran into the solar.

  “Lord Cassander,” said the centurion. “The enemy comes.”

  “Yes, I’d noticed,” said Cassander.

  “It is the Balarigar herself, returned from the dead!” said the centurion. “My lord, what should we do? Can we truly fight spirits?”

  “What?” said Cassander. “Don’t be an idiot. It…”

  He blinked. There was dread on the centurion’s face. The spells upon the Adamant Guards made them stronger and faster and more resilient, but also deadened the emotions. The centurion should not have been feeling fear. Yet there was nonetheless dread upon his face. The centurion, Cassander realized, had believed the insipid legend that had grown up around Caina Amalas, the idea that she was a Balarigar sent by the gods to slay the wicked and overthrow proud sorcerers.

  A wave of molten rage went through Cassander, and he almost drew upon his sorcery to strike down the centurion.

  “The Balarigar has not returned from the dead,” he spat. “The Balarigar was a woman. Think it through. Those are men shouting those threats, are they not?”

  The centurion pulled himself together. “What are your commands, my lord?”

  Cassander hesitated. The Ghosts knew that he was here. They had called him out by name, had they not? Yet they had not assaulted the compound. His lip twisted with contempt. They could not assault the compound. A band of fools in black cloaks could not overcome hundreds of Adamant Guards. Likely they thought to lure him out with this stupid trick. Maybe even exiled Lord Kylon was there with the valikon that had terrified the Huntress, thinking to avenge his wife and child. Cassander smiled at the thought. Kalgri had mentioned in passing that Kylon had been in love with the Balarigar, so the exiled Kyracian had twice as much to avenge now.

  Well, once Kylon burned with the rest of Istarinmul, he could meet his dead wife and the dead Balarigar in person and apologize for his failures.

  “Chase them off,” said Cassander. “Take as many men as you think necessary. This childish nonsense is meant to lure me out so they can disrupt the spell. The wards on the tower are sufficient to keep the Ghosts out, especially since they have no sorcerers. If they are doing anything that looks dangerous, kill them.” He supposed the Ghosts might have stolen a catapult and an amphora of Hellfire to fling against the tower, but he could think of nothing else they could do to stop him.

  No, the display outside was meant to lure him out, and he would not take the bait.

  “As you command,” said the centurion.

  Cassander returned his attention to the Throne, beginning the summoning spell anew.

  Let the Ghosts attempt their tricks. They would burn nonetheless.

  ###

  “Behold, for I am the Balarigar, and I bring justice swift and terrible!” thundered Cronmer. “No evildoer escapes my terrible sword of righteous thunder! Cassander Nilas, I have come for you!”

  “I don’t actually have a sword of righteous thunder,” muttered Caina.

  “Poetic license,” muttered Cronmer back.

  Kylon watched the compound through the haze of the smoke bombs, the acrobats running back and forth before the walls as they flung more vials into the courtyard. He couldn’t sense anything from within the dock thanks to the concealing spells, but he heard the commotion within. It seemed the circus’s little demonstration had indeed inspired surprise and fear among the Umbarians. Though since the Balarigar was supposed to be dead, Kylon could see how her return might cause alarm…

  The gate swung open.

  “Here they come,” said Kylon, and Adamant Guards poured into the street, swords in hand. As they stepped free from the concealment spells hanging over the compound, their emotions brushed against Kylon’s senses, and he felt the uneasy fear that danced in their minds. The situation had unsettled them, though once they realized that the cloaked figures were simply costumed acrobats, that fear would quickly turn to killing rage.

  “They’re coming,” said Kylon, and Caina nodded to Cronmer.

  “Come then, Umbarian dogs!” roared Cronmer. “Come and die!”

  That phrase was the signal. The acrobats whirled with dramatic flourishes of their cloaks, scattering into a dozen different alleys.

  “Run for your life,” said Caina.

  “You too,” said Cronmer. “I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “So do I,” said Caina. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  Cronmer sprinted down the alley at remarkable speed for a man his age. Caina dashed into the street, into the billowing curtains of smoke, and Kylon followed. They ran along the wall, circling to the back of the compound.

  “Here,” said Caina. “This should be good enough.”

  Kylon nodded, drew on the sorcery of water to strengthen himself, and jumped. The wall was ten feet high, but the sorcery let him manage the jump, and he grabbed one of the iron spikes and perched on top of the wall. He tossed down a short length of rope he had taken from the circus wagons. Caina grabbed it, and he pulled her up with a few quick tugs, and together they jumped over the wall and into the courtyard.

  The entire thing had taken maybe five seconds.

  The Circus’s ruse had worked. Across the courtyard the Adamant Guards rushed to the gate, but this area was clear. As Caina and Kylon ran closer to the mansion proper, they passed the circumference of the concealment spells, and Kylon almost tripped as he sensed the raw pyromantic power swirling around the tower. It had to be the relic that Maria Nicephorus and the Huntress had mentioned, the Throne of Corazain. Kylon’s distant ancestors had battled against the pyromancers of the Saddaic empire, and the old histories had spoken of their terrible, destroying power.

  Power that Cassander Nilas now commanded.

  Caina glanced up at the tower once, her eyes enormous, but kept running. There was a narrow slaves’ door at the back of the mansion, likely leading to the kitchens. It was locked, but Kylon kicked it open, and together they ducked into the darkened corridor, Caina closing the door behind them. It was obvious that the door had been forced, but by the time the Adamant Guards noticed, the fight would be over one way or another.

  “The tower,” said Caina. “Cassander will be up there.”

  Kylon nodded. “We keep to the plan?”

  “It’s our best chance,” said Caina. She grabbed his hand, and her emotions flooded over him, a mixture of fear and rage and cold focus. “Kylon. Whatever happens, however this ends
, whatever happens to us…I love you, and I’m grateful for the time we’ve had together.” Her voice dropped to a quiet, pained whisper. “However long it is.”

  He pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss, and she shivered a little.

  “You’re mad and bold and dangerous,” said Kylon, “and I love you. After everything that happened to me, to both of us…I’m glad we found each other. And I want to stay with you until the end, whether that is in fifty years,” he glanced at the ceiling, “or the next five minutes.”

  Again he felt a wave of near-uncontrolled emotion roll through her, just as it had on their first night together in Drynemet. Then, as if by an effort of will, her sense turned cold and focused again as she turned her mind to the task at hand.

  “Well,” said Caina, “let’s see if we can show Cassander just how mad and dangerous I can be.”

  Chapter 25: Smoke And Mirrors

  The stench of rotting flesh filled the mansion of the Slavers’ Brotherhood.

  Caina moved through the silent corridors, her ghostsilver dagger in her right hand and a throwing knife in her left hand. The weight of the dagger against her fingers felt familiar, comforting. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the weapon. It had served her well in the Maze and the Inferno and the Tomb of Kharnaces and a score of other dangerous places, and she was glad to have a weapon capable of penetrating sorcerous wards.

  Especially now that she could see the wards with the sight of the valikarion.

  Though even the most powerful ward seemed as nothing compared to the blaze of pyromantic power swirling around the tower. The pulse of arcane force washed over her, making her skin crawl with pins and needles, her stomach clench with nausea.

  “Anyone?” whispered Caina.

  Kylon shook his head. “No one.” He grimaced in the gloom. “Though from the smell, it seems like no one is left alive in here.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. They went around a corner, through a doorway, and into the dining hall of the cowled masters of the Slavers’ Brotherhood of Istarinmul.

  It had become their tomb.

  “Gods,” muttered Kylon.

  The dining hall reeked of rotting flesh and congealed blood. The cowled masters sat slumped at the table or lay motionless, the walls and floor splashed with blood. Some of them had been burned alive. Some of them looked as if they had been crushed, likely from Cassander’s psychokinetic spells. Some of them had been killed by cuts of eerie precision, far more precise than a sword of steel could manage.

  That would be the work of the Huntress.

  “The Brotherhood,” said Caina. “I terrorized them until they asked Cassander to kill me for them…and he slaughtered them all. The damned fools.”

  She spotted Ulvan’s corpse at the head of the table, his face distorted with the terror of his final moments. The decay of his body had bloated him further. Ulvan had started all of this by kidnapping Damla’s sons. In response, Caina had threatened his petty little empire of misery and despair, and Ulvan had turned to Cassander to save him.

  Caina hadn’t killed any of the cowled masters. Yet if anyone had deserved such a dire fate, it had been the cowled masters of the Brotherhood.

  “Why?” said Kylon. “Why did Cassander kill them?”

  Caina shrugged. “He needed their dock. They were loyal supporters of the Grand Wazir, and he hated the Grand Wazir. Maybe he just did it out of spite.”

  There were stairs in the wall behind Ulvan’s corpse, stairs that spiraled upwards. Caina hurried forward and moved up the stairs in silence, Kylon following her. The stairs led into the round tower, and Caina passed through an empty room floored in green marble, and then another. The howling power of the Throne grew nearer with every step, and she saw the flicker of a summoning spell.

  They were nearly out of time.

  They reached the fourth floor, and Caina came to a sudden stop.

  “What is it?” whispered Kylon. They were close enough to the upper chamber that Cassander might be able to hear them.

  “Necromantic ward,” she whispered back. She saw it shimmering across the top of the stairs like a sickly curtain of green light. “It’ll kill any living thing that walks through it.”

  “Even you?” said Kylon. “Spells can’t target you.”

  “It doesn’t need to target its victims,” said Caina. “It just kills anything that passes through it.” She looked around, her mind racing. “There. The windows. We’ll go up the outside of the tower.”

  Kylon nodded, and they crossed to the windows. Most windows in Istarinmul were closed with shutters. The Brotherhood, being rich beyond measure, at least before Caina had half-crippled their business, had filled their windows with glass treated by Alchemists to make it stronger. She pushed open the window, and it swung silently on well-oiled hinges. Caina jumped onto the sill, and Kylon followed her, slipping the valikon back into its scabbard. The stonework was ornate, carved with geometric patterns, and she had no trouble finding handholds as she climbed to the tower’s top level.

  Then she heaved herself onto a windowsill, looked into the solar, and saw the Throne of Corazain.

  It was a grim, ugly thing, wrought of black obsidian or some kind of dark crystal. It glowed as if fires blazed inside it, the light pulsing and flickering in time to the golden rift. Cassander Nilas stood before the Throne, a dark shadow in his long black coat, his back to her, fire burning around his armored right hand as he cast a powerful spell.

  Caina looked back at Kylon. He nodded, and started to work his way around the circumference of the tower, moving to a window out of Cassander’s direct line of sight. Caina needed to keep Cassander’s attention from Kylon and the valikon he carried at all costs.

  Kalgri had given her an excellent way of doing just that.

  Caina took a deep breath, reached into her satchel, and drew out of the mask of the Red Huntress.

  It was a thin piece of crimson steel, worked with a great deal of skill into a calm feminine face, with a leather strap that went around the back of the head. It had no spells upon it, no hidden needles or anything that Caina could see. Yet the metal felt colder than it should have, and Caina could not shake the feeling that the mask had been dipped in blood to gain its crimson color.

  She wondered who had made it. She wondered if Kalgri had killed the smith who had wrought the mask, and wondered how many people had seen this mask in the final moments of their lives.

  Caina put the mask on, pulling the leather strap over the back of her head.

  The mask of the Huntress fit her perfectly.

  Caina drew up the cowl of her shadow-cloak and tugged on the tall window, swinging it open. A blast of hot air blew past her, the heat from the Throne sinking into her. She dropped over the sill and into the solar, making sure her boots made no sound against the green marble of the floor, and closed the window behind her.

  Still Cassander did not notice her, gesturing as he cast his summoning spell upon the Throne. Caina saw the bands of power swirling around him. Kalgri had been right. Cassander might have used the other Umbarian magi to prepare the spells around the rift echoes, but the summoning spells were centered upon him and him alone. If she killed him, the entire thing would collapse.

  Perhaps she could kill him. He still hadn’t noticed her. If she got close enough and cut his throat with the ghostsilver dagger, this would end right now.

  A third of the way around the room she saw one of the windows open, saw Kylon pull himself inside. He was quite a bit larger than Caina, and the window was a tighter fit. As he moved into the room, the hilt of the valikon tapped against the frame.

  Cassander stiffened, and Caina stepped forward, letting her boots click against the marble. For a moment Cassander remained motionless, and then he turned to face her.

  It was just as well Caina wore the Huntress’s mask, because it concealed the flinch that went over her face.

  Cassander Nilas now reminded her a great deal of Sicarion.

  He had bee
n handsome in a stark sort of way, with strong features, blond hair, and icy blue eyes. Now the left half of his face looked as if it had been stitched together from old, pale leather to create a tangled maze of scars. His left eye was a poisonous-looking shade of orange, and there was a strange hunger to his expression that hadn’t been there before. Sicarion had possessed that expression, too, just before he killed people.

  “Huntress,” said Cassander, his raspy voice heavy with sarcasm. “You have deigned to return.”

  Kylon got to his feet. A little closer and he could attack Cassander in one smooth leap across the solar.

  Caina had to distract Cassander for just a few seconds.

  ###

  Kylon took a long, slow step forward. He would have berated himself for making noise, but there was no time.

  He had one chance to get this right.

  “Observant,” said Caina in a passable imitation of the Huntress’s arrogant tones. It helped that the mask added a metallic quality to her voice.

  “You have finally chosen the course of wisdom, then?” said Cassander. Pyromantic fire burned around the black fingers of his gauntlet. Kylon could not sense Cassander’s emotions, likely due to the warding spells around him. Yet suspicion was written upon his scarred face.

  “Burn Istarinmul for me,” said Caina.

  “I am going to burn it,” said Cassander, scowling.

  Kylon took another silent step forward. Another few yards and he would be close enough to strike.

  “But you already knew that,” said Cassander. “And it is most curious that you turned up just when the Ghosts played their foolish little trick with the Balarigar. Did you tell them where to find me?”

  Kylon drew the valikon, taking the hilt in both hands. The blade made no sound as it slid from the scabbard. He took another step, gathering the sorcery of water and air for speed and strength.