Ghost in the Maze

by Moeller, Jonathan

  Strabane snorted. “Remind me to never eat your cooking.”

  “I am a nobleman and warrior of Anshan. I do not sully my hands with cooking.”

  “If you are quite done sharing your expertise,” said Nasser, “we ought to move on.”

  “You found the book?” said Laertes.

  “I did,” said Nasser.

  “Just what is in this book?” said Kazravid, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “A collection of the epic poems of Istarinmul,” said Nasser. “I do have a taste for them.”

  “Then don’t tell us,” said Kazravid.

  “I suggest we go this way,” said Nasser, pointing at another door on the far side of the library. “I suspect it is not much farther to the laboratory proper.”

  “You’re right,” said Anaxander. “I sense several powerful sources of arcane force in that direction.” Caina could, as well. She hoped they were not more warding spells.

  “Very well,” said Nasser. “Let’s…”

  He froze in mid-word, his foot raised to take a step. Caina spun and saw the others frozen in place as well. Yet she felt no new spell, no sorcery other than the wards already radiating over the library. Had the pyrikon done something? She looked at her wrist, and as she did, the world blurred to black and white.

  It was a trap.

  “No, it’s really not.”

  She knew that voice.

  Caina looked up and saw Samnirdamnus leaning against one of the balcony pillars. He wore again the form of Corvalis Aberon, clad in the black coat and trousers and boots of a wealthy Nighmarian merchant. His eyes were of smokeless flame, stark against the black of his coat.

  “You,” said Caina.

  “Well,” said Samnirdamnus, pushing away from the pillar and strolling toward her. “It actually is a trap, come to think of it. But not one set by me. Or anything in this room.”

  “Are you killing us?” said Caina. “Is that what this is?” The others remained motionless, frozen in a moment, all the color leached from the world. It reminded Caina of the time Ibrahmus Sinan had sent her through his Mirror of Worlds to the netherworld. Time often ran faster in the netherworld than in the mortal world, and she had looked back through the gate to see the others frozen.

  “Not at all, my darling demonslayer,” said Samnirdamnus. “You successfully negotiated with me. You solved my little riddle. So I’m not lifting a finger against you or your plucky little band of thieves.” He examined them for a moment. “Such as they are.”

  “Then what is this?” said Caina.

  “A little chat, nothing more,” said Samnirdamnus. “Previously, I could only speak to you in your dreams or in places near an opened Mirror of Worlds. Such as Vaysaal’s palace, you’ll recall. But our conversation in the mortal world changed that. Now I can speak to you directly, when the circumstances are right.”

  “Lovely,” said Caina. “So this is all a vision, and I’m twitching on the floor while Nasser and the others try to figure out if I was poisoned or if I’m having a seizure?”

  “Actually,” said Samnirdamnus. “No time has passed at all. We are between heartbeats at the moment.”

  “How is that possible?” said Caina.

  “A curiosity of the mortal mind,” said Samnirdamnus. “Mortal minds are capable of processing much more information than your senses and conscious thoughts can generate. I am merely borrowing the excess capacity. When our conversation has finished, you will find that no time has passed and that no one will have noticed anything amiss.” He paused. “Unless you start talking about voices in your head, of course.”

  “So you’ve come to talk,” said Caina. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Why, affairs that could be of interest to both of us,” said Samnirdamnus. “Given that you might be the one I have been looking for.”

  Caina sighed. “I don’t suppose you are ever going to tell me why you have been looking for me?” She tilted her head to the side as she regarded the djinni. “Or is it someone like me? Not me specifically?”

  Samnirdamnus smiled. “Why should there be a difference? But, today, we shall not talk about that. Instead we shall discuss the warning I am about to give you.”

  “Warning?” said Caina. The last two times that Samnirdamnus had given her warnings, they had been proven right. “Against what?”

  “Against what lies before you,” said Samnirdamnus. “You’ve done very well. You have slipped past all of Callatas’s defenses, but there is one trap left.”

  “What is it?” said Caina.

  “What you have brought with you,” said Samnirdamnus.

  “I don’t understand,” said Caina.

  “You will,” said Samnirdamnus. “Very shortly, alas, and it might well kill you. And…I’m afraid we are done now.”

  He clapped his hands, and he vanished. Color flooded back into the world, and the others returned to motion.

  “Let’s go,” said Nasser, finishing his sentence.

  Caina blinked, a wave of dizziness washing through her.

  “Ciaran?” said Nasser. “Is something amiss?”

  “Probably,” said Caina. “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. Evidently having a djinni talk directly into her skull had side effects.

  For the thousandth time, Caina wished that all the sorcerers and spirits that liked to talk in her dreams and thoughts would simply write letters. Or give her straight answers to her questions.

  “I don’t know,” said Caina again. “But I think…I think we should be on guard for traps.”

  “Obviously,” said Kazravid.

  “I do sense another source of arcane power beyond the next door,” said Anaxander.

  “Can you tell what it is?” said Nasser.

  “No,” said Anaxander. “Only that it is powerful.”

  “Everything in this demon-haunted place is powerful,” said Strabane.

  “We’ve gone too far to turn back now,” said Nasser, “and I suspect that Callatas’s laboratory is near. We will press forward…but remain on your guard.”

  “I agree,” said Kazravid. “There is too much wealth at hand to simply leave.”

  Caina nodded. The money from the sale of the Elixir Restorata meant nothing to her. But the possibility of unraveling the mystery of the Apotheosis was too much to pass up. She might never against have the opportunity to look around his laboratory.

  “We press on,” said Caina.

  Her hand tightened around the unfamiliar hilt of the ghostsilver dagger.

  “Well,” said Nasser. “Shall we?”

  They walked to the next door.

  Chapter 17 - Reflections

  The room beyond the library was not what Caina had expected.

  It was a large round chamber, the floor of black stone polished to a mirror shine. Niches rested in the walls, and in every niche stood a panel of gray light. Each panel was the size of a door, and as Caina looked at them, she realized that the panels were in fact mirrors. She saw her reflection in the glass, saw a young Cyrican nobleman staring out at her.

  And behind her reflection, she saw something moving.

  “Anaxander,” said Nasser.

  The magus cast the spell to sense sorcery, but Caina already knew what he would find. She felt the powerful spells binding each of the mirrors, sorcery fell and potent.

  A type of sorcery that she had sensed before.

  “They’re enspelled,” announced Anaxander. “Each of them.”

  “What manner of spell?” said Nasser.

  “I do not know,” said Anaxander.

  “I do,” said Caina. “I’ve seen it before. Look into the mirrors. Look at what’s behind the reflections.”

  “Behind the reflections?” said Laertes, stepping forward with Kazravid. “I don’t see…wait. There’s something moving behind the glass.”

  “A gray plain,” said Kazravid. “Like the steppes west of Anshan…but without color. A stormy sky.”

 
; “Are these windows, then?” said Strabane. “But we are so far underground! Does the Alchemist have an entire world hidden in his dungeon?”

  “No,” said Caina, “they’re not windows.”

  “What are they, then?” said Nerina. “The effect of perspective within the glass is…most disconcerting.”

  “They’re gates to the netherworld,” said Caina, “bound within the mirrors. Each one of those mirrors is in fact a Mirror of Worlds.”

  Strabane barked an oath, his sword coming up. “The realm of demons?”

  “And other things,” said Caina. “Stay away of them. We should probably keep moving.”

  “Why would Callatas keep all these gates open?” said Nasser. “There are thirteen of them. A remarkable waste of sorcerous power.”

  Caina turned in a circle, performing a quick count. There were fourteen niches in the circular room’s wall, and thirteen of the niches held mirrors. The fourteenth contained a closed wooden door. The walls between the niches were carved with more of the grotesque, monstrous figures Caina had seen in the Maze.

  She stared at her reflection in one of the mirrors and felt a twinge of unease. Something about the image in the glass, superimposed over the twisting gray plain of the netherworld, felt wrong. The reflection looked a little too sharp. Like a duplicate standing behind the glass.

  Caina stepped away from the mirror.

  But her reflection remained in place.

  “What the hell?” she muttered.

  “Ciaran?” said Nasser.

  “Look,” said Caina. “Don’t step in front of the mirror, but just look.”

  Nasser looked at her, looked at the mirror, and then back at her.

  “I see,” said Nasser.

  “My reflection is doing the same thing,” said Laertes, pointing at another mirror. Caina saw his reflection in the glass. Laertes pointed, but the reflection remained motionless.

  “Mine as well,” said Kazravid.

  “Anaxander,” said Nasser, looking at his own reflection. “What is this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Anaxander, his voice tight with concern. His own-black robed reflection stared out at him. “I’ve never heard of a spell that can do this. It must be some sort of illusionary trickery…”

  “It’s not,” said Caina. “There are spirits in the netherworld that can take other shapes, mimic people you know. I think those aren’t our reflections. I think that they are spirits taking our shapes. We had better keep moving.”

  But she still found it hard to look away from the reflection. It seemed to exert a terrible fascination over her, drawing her eye like a lodestone pulling an iron nail to itself. Caina could not understand why it fascinated her so. It was not as if she had never seen a duplicate of herself before – Sicarion had used Rhames’s mask to appear as her, and in the Sacellum of the Living Flame she had fought a spirit that had disguised itself as her.

  A spell. It had to be. One that compelled them to stare at the images in the mirror.

  Caina pulled off her cap, stuffed it into a pocket, and reached into the collar of her black coat.

  She drew out the cowl of her shadow-cloak. The cloak was nearly weightless, and she had hidden it within her coat. She let the cowl fall over her head, and all at once the strange fascination stopped. The shadow-cloak could shield her mind from thought-controlling spells, which meant the fascination had been a spell.

  A trap.

  Caina looked around and saw the others gazing slackly at their reflections, their eyes glassy.

  As if hypnotized.

  “Nasser,” said Caina, grabbing his shoulder. “Nasser!”

  “Hmm?” said Nasser. His expression was blank, but his reflection had a knowing smirk. “What is it? Is it important?”

  Caina cursed in frustration…and then the reflections stepped out of the mirrors.

  The glass rippled around them, and then the reflections strode free across the gleaming floor. They looked solid, their boots clicking against the stone. Caina watched as her reflection drew closer. It looked identical to her in every way – the same black clothing and boots, the same blue eyes and close-cropped black hair, the same height and stance. Yet like Nasser’s image, her reflection had the a knowing smirk, a same malicious gleam in her eyes.

  And as Caina watched, her reflection changed.

  Her clothes rippled and shrank, changing color. A heartbeat later the reflection wore the costume Caina had used to infiltrate the Kindred family of Cyrioch, a short skirt of red silk, high-heeled sandals, and an intricate arrangement of red silk strips that just barely managed to cover her breasts. The reflection’s hair coiled around her shoulders, long and black and gleaming.

  A quick look around saw the reflections of the others changing as well, growing younger or older.

  “What are you?” said Caina.

  “Why, I am you,” said her reflection, “your past, come to face you once more.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Caina. “You’re a spirit. One that can change form. You read my mind and fashioned an image from my thoughts. I expect that Callatas bound you to guard his laboratory and to kill any intruders.” She took a step back and drew the ghostsilver dagger from its scabbard, the blade rasping. “But you can’t read my mind now, can you?”

  “No,” murmured the reflection, “you bear a weave of shadow. But it does not matter. The shadows might guard your mind, but they shall not shield your flesh. And the prince of the nagataaru shall be most pleased.”

  “Prince?” said Caina. “What prince?”

  “No answers for you, fleshling mortal,” said the reflection. “I am not a djinn to prattle on endlessly about nonsense when a feast is at hand. Come, brothers!” She raised her voice. “Come and feast!”

  The reflection stepped forward and changed. Her mouth filled with needle-like fangs, and long black claws sprouted from her fingers and toes. Spikes of razor-edged bone jutted from her arms and legs, making her look a creature of nightmare or a beast from Callatas’s ghastly menagerie.

  “Feast!” shrieked the reflection, charging forward.

  Caina spun, dodging the slash of black claws, and stabbed with the ghostsilver dagger. The reflection danced aside with the grace of a swaying serpent, and Caina saw the others struggling against their own reflections. Every last one of them had changed. Nasser fought a hunched, ape-like creature with a fist of white-hot glass, while Laertes dueled a hulking shape in the bloodstained steel armor of an Imperial centurion. Kazravid fought a thing that looked like a giant slug in the robe of an Anshani anjar, a slug that nonetheless moved with speed and power.

  Then Caina’s reflection lunged again, and she had no more time to observe the others. She dodged the stab of a black-clawed hand and ducked under a sweep of a spike-studded arm. Caina struck with the ghostsilver dagger, and this time the reflection was too slow. She opened a slash across the reflection’s ribs and belly, and the spirit creature stumbled back with an infuriated scream, gray light seeping from the wound. The ghostsilver dagger grew warm in Caina’s hand. The reflection reeled back, sudden fear on her distorted face, but already the glowing wound shrank.

  Suddenly she felt a surge of sorcery and jumped back, worried that one of the reflections was casting a spell.

  But it was Anaxander.

  The exiled magus stood in the center of the melee, arms outthrust. Tarqaz squatted next to him, sobbing as his distorted reflection circled around him, hissing threats and curses. Anaxander’s reflection leapt towards him, clad in the black armor of an Imperial battle magus, but Anaxander thrust a palm. Blue light burned around his fingers, and the reflection screamed, dissolving into a swirl of gray mist.

  The mist swirled across the floor, as if caught in the wind, and vanished back into one of the gates.

  Anaxander had a spell to drive back the spirit creatures.

  And as one, the remaining creatures turned to look at him.

  “Help!” shouted Anaxander. “If any of you still have co
ntrol of your minds, help! I can’t hold them off all at once!”

  Caina slashed at her reflection, driving it back, and then ran at Anaxander.

  Azaces stood in her path, dueling his reflection, a towering, distorted version of himself. The reflection wore only a loincloth, and the words “traitor” and “betrayal” had been tattooed in every language over every inch of his muscular flesh. The reflection slammed a foot into Azaces’s stomach, and Nerina’s bodyguard fell over with a grunt. But rather than finish the fight, the towering reflection ran at Anaxander, raising his scimitar for a killing blow.

  Caina dashed forward and sprang upon the giant’s back, her left hand seizing his shoulder, her right driving the ghostsilver dagger forward again and again. In a heartbeat she had torn three gaping wounds in the giant reflection’s back, punctures that shone with gray light. The giant threw back its head in a soundless scream – even Azaces’s reflection was mute. Caina landed two more hits, and then the spirit creature flung out its arms, the motion throwing her from its back. Caina hit the floor, rolled, and came to one knee, driving the dagger into the back of the giant’s leg with both hands. She ripped the blade out, and the reflection toppled as light blazed from its wound.

  Before the creature could recover, Caina ran to Anaxander’s side.

  “You can control yourself?” said Anaxander, his bloodshot eyes wide with fear and strain. “How?”

  “Not important,” said Caina. “You can banish these things?” Nerina slashed a dagger at her reflection, a thing that looked like a hairless monkey dripping with wraithblood.

  “Aye,” said Anaxander. “They’re called carchomorphic spirits. One of the greater dangers of the netherworld. They can read minds, and take on distorted forms of their victims in order to induce an apathetic stupor. They also…”

  “Don’t care,” said Caina, watching as Azaces’s reflection healed its wounds. Her own reflection drew closer, black claws glittering. “If you can banish them, do it now.”

  “It will draw their attention,” said Anaxander, “and they’ll kill me before I can finish the spell.”