Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge

by Jonathan Moeller

  He laughed, long and loud, and Halfdan started towards Corvalis, drawing his weapons back.

  “Corvalis!” shouted Caina. “Run. Run!”

  “Claudia,” croaked Corvalis, shaking. “I…I tried, I looked for you…”

  It was no good.

  Pure terror joined the emotions raging inside of Caina’s head. She had no particular wish to die, but the prospect did not frighten her. But the thought of seeing Corvalis die terrified her. She had to do something. She had to stop Sicarion.

  Caina took a step forward, and Halfdan shouted curses at her. Useless, it was useless! Corvalis was going to die, the Emperor was going to die, and she had failed them both as she had failed Halfdan…

  She wanted to collapse, to wait until death took her.

  But the thread of rage would not let go.

  She bowed her head, trying to think of something, anything, she could use against Sicarion. Halfdan screamed in fury and pain, and she heard Sicarion’s mocking laughter. A trio of dead Imperial Guards lay on the ground nearby, blood soaking into their purple cloaks and reflecting in the gleaming surface of their shields.

  Caina blinked.

  Shields that had been polished to a mirror sheen…

  The phobomorphic spirit within the amulet showed anyone who saw Sicarion their worst fear.

  So what would happen if Sicarion saw himself?

  Caina didn’t know, but she wanted to find out.

  She tore her eyes from Halfdan’s furious face and wrenched the shield from the grasp of the dead Imperial Guard. The thing was heavy, and Caina held it before her, fingers grasping the cold metal of the edges.

  “Sicarion!” she yelled. “Look at me. Damn you, look at me!”

  Halfdan stopped a few paces from Corvalis and looked at her, still berating her.

  Then he stopped, frowning, and titled his head to the side.

  Caina held the shield before her, arms trembling, heart hammering against her ribs.

  “No,” Sicarion muttered.

  Halfdan stepped back.

  “No!” Sicarion shouted, and for the first time Caina heard fear in his rusty voice. “No! I killed you, you miserable bastard! I watched you die, I laughed as you bled out on the floor, I…”

  Sicarion kept ranting, his threats mixing with Halfdan’s curses, and Caina lifted the shield before her eyes. She still felt the fear, still heard Halfdan, but the terror that gripped her faded somewhat.

  She sprinting forward, screaming, and drove the shield into Halfdan. His face impacted against the shield with a crack, and Sicarion roared in sudden fury. Caina raised the shield over her head. A stab of grief shot through Caina as Halfdan’s betrayed eyes drilled into her, but she was already in motion.

  She brought the shield down on the top of Halfdan’s head.

  He stumbled back and dropped his weapons, the impact of the blow knocking the shield from Caina’s hands. She flung herself at him, clawing at his chest. The damned amulet had to be there, even if she couldn’t see it.

  Something cold and pulsing with sorcery brushed against her fingers, and she yanked.

  The amulet came off in her hand, the gold chain snapping, and Halfdan disappeared. Sicarion reappeared, blood streaming from a gash atop his scarred head, his face bruised.

  Sicarion threw himself at her with a yell, and Caina went down with the scarred assassin on top of her, the amulet tumbling away.

  ###

  Tanya disappeared, and Ark blinked.

  The grief and pain were still there, but they faded like mist in the morning sun. Nothing he had seen had been real. With Caina’s help, he had rescued Tanya and Nicolai from the darkness below Black Angel Tower. Tanya and Nicolai and Natasha were safe in Malarae.

  A lie. It had all been a lie, pumped into his head by some mind-controlling sorcery.

  He turned his head and saw Caina fall, a hideously scarred man atop her.

  ###

  Caina clawed at Sicarion’s face to little effect. The assassin’s scarred, mismatched hands clamped around her throat, squeezing the breath from her lungs. Black spots appeared before her eyes.

  She yanked a throwing knife from her belt and slammed it into his side. The blade plunged through his leather armor and bit into his flesh, and Sicarion screamed. He struck her across the face, the back of her head bouncing off the ground, and white light flashed across her vision.

  He ripped the throwing knife from his side and raised it high. “I’m going to…”

  The ghostsilver spear plunged into Sicarion’s left side and burst out of his right in a spray of gore. The impact threw Sicarion off Caina, and he rolled to the side, snarling. Caina coughed and saw Corvalis standing a dozen yards away, his arm outstretched from his throw. Sicarion scrambled to his feet, the spear jutting from his torso, and began casting a spell, darkness and green fire dancing around his fingers. Caina coughed again and tried to sit up, hoping to throw a knife before Sicarion finished his spell…

  “Die,” he snarled, “die, die…”

  The green fire brightened.

  Sicarion’s head popped off his shoulders and rolled away, crimson blood spurting from the stump of his neck. The corpse swayed for a moment and fell to the ground, the green fire fading away. Ark stood over Sicarion’s body, his Kyracian sword gripped in both hands, blood dripping from the blade.

  “You should not,” he said, voice quiet, “have touched my wife.”

  Caina sat up, and Corvalis helped her to stand.

  “Are you all right?” said Corvalis.

  “Not particularly,” said Caina, rubbing her throat, “but I’ll manage. You?”

  He nodded, and Caina heard a squelching sound as Ark ripped the ghostsilver spear free and cleaned it on Sicarion’s cloak. He handed the weapon back over to Corvalis. A stunned silence fell over the Agora, men and women picking themselves up and shaking off the remnants of Sicarion’s dark dream.

  “That throw,” said Ark, “was almost worthy of a Legionary. Almost.”

  “Thank you,” said Corvalis, taking the spear back. “What did you do? You hit Sicarion with that shield and started fighting him…and then the fear just vanished.”

  “I made him look at himself,” said Caina.

  “With a face like his,” said Ark, “that would make anyone despair.”

  Sicarion’s corpse had started to fall apart, blood pooling beneath it. He had been held together by necromancy, his sorcery binding replacement parts to his scarred flesh. But with his death, the spells had been broken…and now his corpse was breaking down into its component parts.

  The smell was unpleasant.

  Caina heard herself laugh. It sounded reedy and half-mad, and she forced herself to stop. “The shield. The Guards polish their shields to a mirror shine. Enough that Sicarion could see himself. I wonder what he saw.”

  “His own death, probably,” said Corvalis. “Which met him soon enough.”

  Caina looked around the Agora. The Imperial Guards were drawing themselves back into formation, seeing to the dead and the dying and guarding the Emperor and the nobles. The Emperor himself stared at Caina with a stunned, ashen expression.

  She would have to explain herself.

  Later. Right now she had to join Talekhris and find the Moroaica.

  A boot scraped against the stone, and Caina saw a man in the gray leather of a stormdancer approaching, a lovely young Kyracian noblewoman at his side.

  “Kylon,” said Caina.

  “Caina,” said Kylon, gazing at Sicarion’s dissolving corpse. “The Ghosts finally killed him.”

  “Kylon,” said the woman. Caina guessed she was Thalastre. “This is…this is her? The Ghost? But she threatened the Emperor, she…”

  “An illusion, I think,” said Kylon.

  Thalastre bowed. “I am Thalastre of House Kardamnos, and it is my very great honor to meet you. I owe you my life. Several times over. I…”

  “It is an honor to meet you, but we have to hurry,” said Caina.
“Kylon, the Moroaica is here in New Kyre. Probably somewhere near the Pyramid of Storm. She’s about to cast her great work.” She saw Talekhris hurrying over as fast as his injured leg would allow, Harkus and three of the Venatorii following him. “I don’t think she’s started yet. We…”

  “Seize that woman!”

  Caina turned as Lord Corbould, Lord Titus, and a pale-haired man she did not recognize hurried to the Emperor’s side.

  “That is her, your Majesty,” said Corbould, pointing at Caina. “That is the woman who murdered my son, who attacked us here!”

  “It would appear so,” said Titus, “though she looks…rather different that she did a few moments ago.”

  “The wear and tear of combat could explain that,” said the pale-haired man.

  “This is madness,” said Ark, gesture at Sicarion’s liquefying corpse. “That was your attacker, my lords. He used a sorcerous relic to appear as this woman.” Martin and Claudia hastened over, and Caina saw Claudia gather up the phobomorphic amulet and Rhames’s mask from Sicarion’s belt. “If not for her help, we would all be dead.”

  “Dozens of witnesses saw her murder my son,” said Corbould, “and thousands more heard her admit it a few moments ago. I want her arrested.”

  “I take exception to that, Lord Corbould,” said Kylon. “She is valiant and clever. She would no more lift her hand against the Emperor than you would.”

  Corbould’s lined face tightened. “With respect, my lord Archon, this is an internal matter for the Empire.”

  “I, too, have seen her valor,” said Lord Martin, scowling at Corbould. “Without her help, the cultists of Anubankh would have destroyed Caeria Ulterior, and much else besides.”

  “Yes, I shall be glad to heed the counsel of a military incompetent who got himself banished to Caeria Ulterior,” said Lord Corbould. “Imperial Guards, take her. Kill her if she resists.”

  A score of Imperial Guards headed towards Caina, swords drawn.

  “With respect, my lord Corbould,” said Martin, “does not the Emperor command the Imperial Guard?”

  All eyes turned to Alexius Naerius, and the Guards hesitated.

  “Whatever you want to do to me, for the gods’ sake, do it quickly,” said Caina. “We cannot hesitate. New Kyre is in terrible danger.”

  “Yes,” said Talekhris. “My lord Emperor, I urge you to make a decision quickly. Uncounted lives are at stake.”

  Corbould snorted. “And just who the devil are you?”

  Harkus frowned. “Even a high lord of the Empire should speak respectfully to the Sage of the Venatorii.”

  “The Venatorii?” said Corbould. “Are we surrounded by secret societies now? Gods! My lord Emperor…”

  “Enough,” said Alexius. Though his voice was quiet, the others all fell silent at once. The Emperor looked at Caina, and she forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “I believe,” said the Emperor at last, “that…”

  Caina gasped and stumbled, and would have fallen had not Corvalis caught her arm.

  She felt sorcery in the air, powerful sorcery, stronger than anything she had ever encountered before. Every single sorcerer in the plaza, whether the magi or the stormsingers or the stormdancers, looked at the towering stone mass of the Pyramid of Storm.

  The ground trembled beneath Caina’s boots.

  A moaning wind rose up, blowing dust through the Agora.

  “What is happening?” said Corbould.

  “Too late,” said Talekhris. “The great work.”

  A column of raging golden flame erupted from the apex of the Pyramid.

  Chapter 18 - A World Reborn

  “Now,” said Jadriga.

  She took a deep breath, her stolen body’s lungs filling with air. After two thousand years, she was ready. Two thousand years of torment, of study, of constant struggle and experimentation and fighting. Two thousand years spent acquiring the most profound knowledge of sorcery ever collected upon this world, knowledge that surpassed the Great Necromancers of Maat, or the Imperial Magisterium during its height in the Fourth Empire.

  Knowledge that she could at last put to use.

  “Do not do this, I beg,” said the Surge, all three of her voices filled with fear. Her priestesses huddled behind her, watching Jadriga with wide eyes. She felt a slight twinge of amusement at their terror. The priestesses of the Surge were so haughty when dealing with the lords of New Kyre. Yet the sight of the Bringer of Ashes herself, the dread sorceress of legend, unnerved them so terribly.

  How would the priestesses react, Jadriga wondered, if they knew that she had been younger than they when she died the first time?

  It mattered not. Malifae had been dead for centuries…but the Moroaica, the Bringer of Ashes and the Queen of Crows, would throw the gods from their thrones.

  “You need not do this,” said the Surge. The silver pool flickered with images, showing cities wreathed in flame and falling into chasms, the oceans rising to break free of their shores, mountains falling and the plains burning. Sometimes the face of Caina Amalas flickered across the pool. Jadriga wondered if Sicarion’s distraction had succeeded.

  It matter not. If Caina tried to intervene, Jadriga would kill her.

  “You need not do this!” said the Surge, fresh urgency in her voices. “Can you not see the folly? The world will burn and drown and freeze if you wake the elemental princes! If you enter the netherworld and tear open a gate to the heavens, you shall shatter the barrier between the mortal world and the netherworld. Our world shall be torn asunder!”

  “You are wrong,” said Jadriga, forcing her will into the Staff of the Elements in her right hand. Fires wreathed the staff, but the metal felt cool beneath her hands. “Perhaps the storm of the world, as you term it, grants clairvoyance, but it does not grant you an understanding of the underlying principles of sorcery. I will do this, and I will succeed.”

  “No,” said the Surge. “You shall not.”

  “Why even attempt to dissuade me?” said Jadriga. “If you are right, I am an undead thing, and can no more change my course than a river can choose to alter its bed.” The rage burned anew in her, the rage that had blazed in her heart every day for millennia. “I will remake the world, I shall set it ablaze and reforge it. I shall rip the gods from their thrones and make them pay for…”

  “Yes,” said the Surge, closing her silver-glowing eyes, “yes, you have said it all before. I am sorry for all that has befallen you. But your will was lost long ago. All that remains of you is your rage, and you will continue your path of destruction until you destroy yourself at last.” She opened her eyes. “Or the Balarigar stops you.”

  “No one will stop me,” said Jadriga. “Leave the Sanctuary. Or stay if you wish. But the amount of power I am about to summon will be lethal to anyone standing nearby.”

  “So be it,” said the Surge, and she led her priestesses from the Sanctuary.

  Jadriga gave them no further thought. They had no weapons that could harm her, no spells to penetrate her wards. Soon enough, when the new world arose from the ashes of the old, they would understand.

  She cleared her mind, performing the basic mental exercises of sorcery that Rhames had taught her so long ago, and pointed the Staff of the Elements at the floating Ascendant Bloodcrystal, the hieroglyph written in phoenix ashes glowing with golden light.

  And then she began the spell.

  She spoke the intricate phrases in Maatish, summoning the power and pushing it into the elaborate designs she had carved into the walls and floor and ceiling. The hieroglyphs glowed brighter and brighter, until as one they erupted with pale green flame, sheathing the Sanctuary in emerald fire. The lines of green light danced, growing sharper and brighter as she summoned more sorcerous force.

  And still Jadriga drew more power.

  Suddenly thousands of lines of green light stabbed into the staff’s dark metal. A ribbon of fire erupted from the Ascendant Bloodcrystal and wrapped around the Staff of the Elements, augmenti
ng the staff’s power. Jadriga now held enough power to shatter the Pyramid of Storm in a heartbeat if she chose.

  But the final spell was just beginning.

  She let the power flow into the staff, its flames turning a ghostly green. Jadriga raised the staff, and the tremendous might of the Ascendant Bloodcrystal poured into her. The bloodcrystal’s sorcery filled her mind, and it extended the reach of her thoughts, until it seemed as if her mental vision could encompass the entire world at once.

  And the dozens of hibernating elemental princes that dotted the surface of the world.

  The elemental princes came here to rest between the endless, eternal battles they waged in the netherworld. A short respite from their eternal perspectives, though their sleep could last tens of thousands of years. The Stone in Cyrica Urbana was one such elemental lord, and Ranarius had foolishly tried to awaken it as a weapon against her. Had he succeeded, the elemental would have killed him, Cyrioch would have been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands would have perished in the resultant earthquakes. The power of one awakened elemental prince beyond mortal reckoning.

  And now Jadriga would wake them all up at once.

  She sent the command through the staff, and power flooded through her. Jadriga gasped and caught her balance, leaning upon the Staff of the Elements as a vortex of green flame blazed around her. The staff had been designed to awaken one elemental at a time. But with the Ascendant Bloodcrystal’s sorcery to fuel her spells, Jadriga could use the staff to draw upon the power of every hibernating elemental lord at once.

  Giving her power enough to crack the world in half, to rip open the barriers between the mortal world and the netherworld.

  But still she had not yet finished gathering power.

  Jadriga screamed another spell, her head resounding with the words, and lowered the barriers she had erected around the Ascendant Bloodcrystal.

  The crystal came to life at once, burning like a sun of green fire. It had been designed as a weapon, constructed to kill every living thing within five hundred miles and transfer the stolen life energy to its wielder. The crystal had a mind and will of its own, and its purpose thundered inside her skull.