Ghost in the Maze

by Moeller, Jonathan

  Again she heard the click of crossbows, and two quarrels slammed into the wooden shutters. One brushed her right arm, so close that she felt a flare of pain as the razor-edged quarrel touched her skin. She desperately hoped that the quarrels had not been poisoned.

  But the shutters popped open, and Caina threw herself through the window and into the palace’s fourth floor. Anburj’s furious commands echoed in her ears, and she heard the clatter of armor as the Immortals ran along the bridge, making for the palace proper.

  They would not let her escape without a fight. Caina found herself in a deserted bedroom, the bed and the chairs draped in sheets to keep dust at bay. She hurried across the bedroom and threw open the door to the corridor. From here it was a short distance to the palace’s grand central staircase. She could easily reach the main floor and escape across the grounds before Anburj and the Immortals descended.

  But a half-dozen armed men blocked the way to the stairs. They were Istarish, and wore chain mail and leather, swords and shields in hand. Caina didn’t think they were Kindred assassins. Mercenaries, most likely, men Anburj had hired to help trap the Balarigar.

  For a moment she wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. She was one woman in a shadow-cloak, yet Anburj feared her enough to set this elaborate trap. If he captured her and forced her to talk, she wondered if he would be disappointed to learn that she was only a woman with a shadow-cloak and a flair for theatricality learned from an opera singer.

  “That’s him!” roared one of the mercenaries, pointing his scimitar. “That’s the Balarigar. Kill him!”

  The men charged with a yell, shields raised.

  Caina sprinted in the opposite direction, the mercenaries in pursuit. Trying to fight them was out of the question. She had lost her rope in the inner courtyard, so going out the window was not an option. Caina could outrun the mercenaries, perhaps reach the slaves’ stairs first. But if there was another band of men upon the back stairs, she would be trapped. For that matter, if there was another group of mercenaries on this floor, if she found herself caught between them in the corridor, her life would be over very quickly.

  Or her life would last until the mercenaries dragged her before Anburj.

  She raced around a corner and her heart sank. Another corridor stretched before her, unlit iron chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. It ended in another corner, and around that corner, Caina heard the clatter of boots and the shouts of men. She was trapped between two bands of mercenaries.

  But she still had one moment free to act.

  A marble statue stood in a niche along the wall. Caina heaved herself up the statue, perched upon its stone shoulders, and jumped. Her hands seized the cold edge of the iron chandelier, and Caina pulled herself up, her legs wrapped around the outer ring, her cloak caught between her boots.

  An instant later the mercenaries dashed around the corner, and came to a confused stop as they looked back and forth.

  “Where the hell did he go?” said one of the men.

  No one ever looked up.

  “Check the side rooms,” said another mercenary. “He can’t have gone far.” The men started to move to the side of the corridor. “He ought…”

  Caina swung down, all her strength and weight behind her boots, and drove both her heels into the nearest mercenary’s face. The shock of the impact traveled all the way to her hips, and the mercenary’s head snapped back, blood and teeth flying from his jaw. Caina let go and landed, catching her balance, a dagger flying into her hand as she slashed. Her blade opened the throat of a second mercenary, hot blood splashing across her hand and sleeve, and the mercenary fell next to the first man.

  The remaining mercenaries recovered from the surprise and charged, but by then Caina was already running. She dashed down the corridor, past the rows of closed doors, and came to the palace’s grand stairs. They spiraled up to the palace’s top level, glittering and polished, and descended to the great hall below. Elaborate mosaics of geometric designs and animals covered the walls, done in the traditional Istarish style.

  The black-armored forms of the Immortals sprinting down the stairs stood stark against the colorful mosaics.

  Caina raced down the stairs, shadow-cloak billowing behind her. The Immortals pursued, and she heard Anburj’s voice bellowing commands. Caina was fast, but the Immortals were faster. She felt a faint breeze as the lash of a chain whip came within a few inches of her head. Another few moments and the Immortals would have her.

  So she threw herself to the left, vaulted over the railing, and jumped.

  The stairwell yawned beneath her, and Caina slammed into the railing of the stairs on the next level. She seized the railing, her fingers gripping the edge of the cold marble.

  The strange bronze ring, the thing that Anburj had called a pyrikon, clinked as it tapped against the railing.

  Caina swung her legs back and released her grip upon the railing. She fell another story and caught the railing. Her shoulders and arms screamed from the effort, the cut upon her right arm pulsing, but Caina pulled herself up to the stairs.

  Then she kept running, the Immortals pursuing her.

  But Caina had gained two floors and reached the ground level before they did. She turned away from the main doors and sprinted into the wing of guest bedchambers alongside the great hall. Going out the front doors would have been folly. Anburj had likely stationed men there, and she suspected he had left more men to watch the kitchen door. Her best option was to go out one of the windows in the guest rooms. Then she could run across the grounds, go over the wall, and escape into the streets. She ran down the corridor of doors, pushing them open as she did. Perhaps that would confuse the Immortals, give her a few extra seconds to escape.

  Or perhaps they would see through her tricks and kill her.

  Coming here had been foolish. Agabyzus was right. She had been taking too many risks, pushing herself too hard and daring greater dangers. Sooner or later it had been bound to fall apart. If Anburj had been clever enough to figure out that she was looking for the truth of the wraithblood, other hunters might as well. A bounty of half a million bezants would tempt many men.

  Caina veered into one of the guest rooms. It was little different than the one she had hidden herself in earlier in the day, save for a large mirror hanging on the wall next to the wardrobe. The shutters were closed, and the windows looked north towards the Golden Palace and the College of Alchemists. Caina eased toward the shutters. If she crept out into the night without anyone noticing, perhaps she could elude Anburj and his men entirely…

  Suddenly the bronze ring upon her finger pulsed with sorcery.

  “The star is the key to the crystal.”

  The voice was dry, whispery, and it sent an icy chill down her spine.

  She whirled in alarm. She had heard those words before, on the worst day of her life, as the temple of Anubankh burned around her in the netherworld, the Moroaica’s rift to the realm of the gods howling as it collapsed. The spirit of the Moroaica’s father had claimed Caina needed those words, that she had to remember them, though Caina knew not why.

  But she knew that voice.

  It was the voice of the spirit that had spoken in her dreams the night after she had arrived at Istarinmul, that had warned her against Ricimer’s daevagoths in the Widow’s Tower.

  Caina turned towards the mirror, already knowing what she would see in the glass.

  The indistinct shape of a shadow, blurred and featureless.

  And a yellow-orange gleam from the shadow’s eyes of smokeless flame.

  “Ah,” murmured the shadow. “That always gets your attention.”

  “This really isn’t a good time,” said Caina, voice low. She heard the shouts from the corridor.

  “It might be the only time,” said the shadow, “if your enemies catch you. I thought you might have been the one I sought, my dear child of the shadows, but it seems you are going to die here. Pity. You might indeed have been the one I sought.”


  Caina turned toward the window. “Unless you have help to offer, go away and be silent.”

  “Go right.”

  “What?” said Caina, looking back at the mirror.

  “I cannot aid you, of course,” said the shadow, the eyes of smokeless flame glinting. “Such interference on my part would be dreadfully gauche. But when you go out the window, my dear child, do go to the right. If you go to the left, you will surely die.”

  “And if I go right?” said Caina, recalling the layout of the gardens. Left was safer. It was closer to the wall and bordered a major street where she could disappear. The right led deeper into the Emirs’ Quarter, past palaces with Immortal guards of their own, guards that would surely join the pursuit if they noticed the chase.

  “Even I cannot say,” said the shadow. “Your fate will be in your own hands. As you are about to find out.”

  The shadow vanished from the mirror, and the tingling of the strange bronze ring faded.

  Despite her mortal peril, Caina felt a wave of sheer annoyance. Just for once she would like someone to give her a straight answer. No riddling talk, no games, no ominous hints of doom. Just a straight answer to a simple question.

  She pushed open the shutters in silence and rolled over the sill, landing in the gardens, and closed the window behind her. Here and there she saw torchlight in the gardens as mercenaries patrolled the grounds. Yet most of the gardens lay in darkness, and if Caina hurried, she could make it to the wall before the Immortals caught her.

  She hesitated, and then went to the right, making for the wall.

  If the shadow wanted her dead, it could simply have let the daevagoths kill her in the Widow’s Tower.

  Caina moved as fast as she dared and as silently as she could, her shadow-cloak flowing around her as she moved from bush to bush. The ring kept tingling against her finger. She hoped the thing had not been imbued with a tracking spell.

  The tramp of boots and shouting voices caught her attention.

  Caina froze and shot a glance over her shoulder as a score of Immortals burst from the back of the mansion, swords and chain whips in hand. Anburj must have sent them to check the kitchens. Had she followed her initial plan and gone to the left, she would have gone around the corner just as the Immortals emerged. They would have seen her, and she would have been killed before she could escape.

  Clearly, the strange spirit in the mirror had not meant her ill.

  One of the Immortals turned his head, and Caina realized that he had spotted her.

  “There, brothers!” he roared. “There is the thief!”

  “Take him!” said Anburj, and Caina glimpsed the Kindred assassin among the Immortals. “Whoever kills him shall receive the reward and the gratitude of the Grand Master. Kill him now!”

  The Immortals surged forward in a tide of black steel, their skull masks flickering with the eerie blue light of their eyes.

  Caina sprinted for the garden wall, wondering if she could reach it before the Immortals.

  Chapter 3 - Immortals

  A low wall of white stone, about ten feet tall, encircled the grounds of the late Vaysaal’s palace. Elaborate iron spikes topped the wall, and despite their ornamental function they were nonetheless quite sharp to deter intruders. The wall had only one gate, another method of keeping unwanted guests away.

  Fortunately, the wall was only ten feet high.

  Caina sprinted at the wall and jumped. Her hands caught the lip, and she pulled herself up, catching her balance as the shouts of the Immortals filled her ears. Then she jumped into the street below, her cloak billowing, and her legs collapsed beneath her to absorb the shock of her landing. The Immortals were strong and fast, but their heavy armor slowed them, and by the time they got over the wall, Caina would be long gone.

  She turned, intending to make her way toward the poorer quarters of Istarinmul, and froze.

  Blue lights glimmered in the darkened street. The lights resolved into the black-armored shapes of Immortals, the ghostly light shining from the depths of their black helmets. Anburj had indeed come prepared. In addition to the men he had sent into the palace, he had dispatched Immortals to seal off the street.

  But the trap had not closed yet.

  One route was still open to Caina.

  She turned and sprinted towards the Alchemists’ Quarter as the Immortals shouted and pursued.

  The College itself dominated the Alchemists’ Quarter, a massive palace that made Vaysaal’s home look like a shepherd’s hut. Its domed towers thrust proud and tall against the stars of the night sky, and crystals gleamed along the College’s walls, lit by sorcerous illumination. The effect was eerie and beautiful, but Caina knew those crystal statues had once been living slaves, murdered and transmuted to stand forever as adornment.

  The College dominated the Quarter, but there were other buildings outside its grounds. The Alchemists were cruel and brutal sorcerers, but even they enjoyed good food and drink, fine clothing, and the company of attractive slaves. Merchants had established businesses outside the College’s walls, inns and coffee houses and bookshops, and Caina headed for them, her breath burning in her throat as she sprinted. Losing her pursuers in the wide, broad streets of the Emirs’ Quarter would be impossible. Losing them among the shops and coffee houses of the Alchemists’ Quarter would be difficult, but possible.

  She risked a glance over her shoulder. Nearly forty Immortals pursued, grim and implacable. Her legs and arms burned from the effort of running, and her heart hammered against her ribs like a war drum. Caina was in good physical condition, but her strength would fail long before the Immortals exhausted their stamina.

  Caina ran towards a three-story building of polished white marble and red granite, its windows gleaming with light. A sign adorned with a stylized cup of coffee hung over the door, and two scowling footmen in ornate robes stood guard.

  “Halt!” said one of the footmen. “Only those with invitations are allowed into the House of Sozanat! Name…”

  The footman’s voice trailed off and his eyes widened.

  “By the Living Flame!” he said. “The Balarigar! It is the Balarigar!”

  “What?” said the second footman. “You have had far too much to drink, fool. The master shall have you put out for…”

  Caina sprinted past them before they could resolve their quarrel and slammed into the door, which burst open beneath her weight. Beyond the main room of the House of Sozanat was spacious and luxurious, lit by dozens of lanterns shining upon the round tables. Balconies ringed the walls, giving patrons space to converse in private, and the smell of roasting coffee and cooking pastries filled her nostrils. Merchants, nobles, and not a few men in the gold-trimmed white robes of the Alchemists sat at the tables, sipping coffee. Attractive slaves, men and women both, waited upon the tables. For an agonizing moment the coffee house reminded Caina of the House of Kularus back in Malarae, the business she had run as a front for the Ghosts with Corvalis…

  The shouts of the Immortals outside quickly shattered the illusion.

  For a moment the patrons of the coffee house gaped at her.

  “I am the Balarigar!” roared Caina in her disguised voice, dashing forward, “and I have come to slay you all! Perish!”

  As she expected, a ripple of panic went through the crowd. Some of the merchants cursed, scrambled to their feet, and headed for the back door, surrounded by their bodyguards. A few of the Alchemists and the emirs did the same. But some of the nobles drew their swords, commanding their guards to follow suit. Some of the Alchemists had Immortal bodyguards, and the black-armored soldiers advanced toward Caina, while the Alchemists themselves started spells.

  A half a million bezants was a fortune, even to an Alchemist or an emir.

  Yet the fleeing men got in the way of those coming to kill Caina, and the Immortals that had pursued her from Vaysaal’s palace burst through the door. The common room dissolved into a chaotic mess, men bellowing instructions and curses and women screa
ming and shouting.

  And Caina ran through the chaos. A set of spiral stairs rose to the balconies, and she scrambled up them. A stout merchant in a fine robe reached for her, eyes wide with greed, but a punch to the jaw dissuaded him. As the merchant slumped, Caina passed the second floor, and then the third. In the ceiling she saw a wooden trapdoor – her gamble had paid off. The buildings in this portion of the Alchemists’ Quarter stood close together, with only narrow alleys between them. If Caina hastened she could escape over the roof.

  The tingle against her skin was the only warning.

  She felt the surge of arcane power, and threw herself to the side just as one of the Alchemists cast a spell. A blast of psychokinetic force struck Caina, the power of the impact slamming her against the railing. Pain shot up her hip and left leg from the impact, but she kept running. Another surge of arcane power washed over her, and a second Alchemist cast a spell, one far stronger than the first.

  And beneath her boots the polished wooden stairs turned yellow and gritty.

  Transmutation. The Alchemists had sorcerous powers of transmutation.

  Which meant the Alchemist had just transmuted the wooden staircase into sand.

  Caina felt it start to disintegrate beneath her. With a final burst of strength she took one running step forward and jumped. Her right hand caught the trapdoor’s handle as the stairs collapsed into a spray of sand. For a moment she dangled, trying to gain additional purchase, and her weight pulled the trapdoor open. The jolt rocked her, and her right shoulder howled in protest, but she reached up, her left hand gripping the rough boards of the trapdoor, and pulled herself up. Her right hand caught the lip of the trapdoor, and Caina heaved herself onto the roof. The Alchemist’s spell had inadvertently given her an advantage. No one could immediately follow her, not until they found a rope. If she started running over the rooftops…