And he also felt the cold, alien power of the nagataaru coiled within his chest.
“That’s him,” said Kylon, his voice flat. “That’s Malik Rolukhan. That’s the man that murdered my wife.”
“The Red Huntress slew Lady Thalastre,” said Rolukhan with a smile. “I merely facilitated it. I confess I was shocked when you appeared in Istarinmul. Surely you would not be so foolish as to come here. But vengeance can drive a man to foolish ends.”
“You will pay for what you have done,” said Kylon. “And I know what you are. You are a puppet of the nagataaru inside your skull.”
Caina said nothing, her eyes darting back and forth between the six Kindred assassins.
“Puppet?” said Rolukhan. “You misunderstand, exile. We are not puppets but partners. The nagataaru understand the true nature of life. The strong rule and the weak submit.”
“The nagataaru also feed on death and torment,” said Kylon.
“That,” said Rolukhan, “is a mere bonus.” His teeth flashed in his beard. “One that I enjoy very much. Ikhardin!”
“Master?” said the leader of the assassins.
“Kill the Kyracian,” said Rolukhan. “Oh, the Imperial merchant as well. I would prefer to leave no witnesses behind.”
The six Kindred assassins started forward, weapons raised.
Chapter 4: Sifting
Cassander Nilas, magus of the Umbarian Order, had seen numerous strange things in his life. He had defeated foes with the power of his sorcery, crushing them in the iron grip of his arcane strength. He had summoned spirits of the netherworld and bound them to his will. His mastery of the dangerous arcane sciences of necromancy and pyromancy had grown ever stronger, his control finer. All of this he had survived only by cultivating iron self-discipline, the willpower to continue in the face of any obstacle.
It look every bit of that self-discipline to keep from killing the fools at his dining table.
After a moment he realized that Ulvan had finally stopped talking.
“Please, Master Slaver,” said Cassander, rebuking himself for the lapse. “Do continue.”
Cassander sat in the audience hall of the Umbarian ambassador’s residence in Istarinmul, a building in the Alqaarin Quarter that had once been an abandoned palace. Istarinmul offered more prestigious locations, but the palace suited Callatas’s purposes. It was small and had thick walls, providing for easy defense. Its cellars went deep and linked to the sewers and the catacombs, offering a convenient way for covert agents to come and go unseen.
And to dispose of corpses and failed experiments.
For a moment he entertained the fantasy of taking the Master Slavers to the cellars, but discarded the idea.
“I fought as fiercely as I could, but the Balarigar had the strength of ten demons!” said Ulvan. The Master Slaver was grossly obese, a thick beard covering his jowls, and wore the ornate robe and the black leather hood of his rank. The beard did not quite conceal the livid scars left where the Balarigar had driven Ulvan’s brand into his face. “He defeated me through treachery, and then flung me over my own balcony and left me to dangle by a chain.” He swept a thick arm at his legs. His ornate robes failed to conceal the crooked angles of his knees, which had never healed right. Though Cassander supposed Ulvan had rarely gone about on his own feet even before the Balarigar had crippled him.
“And so the man escaped,” said Cassander.
He wondered how Ulvan would react if he knew that a woman had destroyed his fortune and crippled him. It would have been entertaining, to say the least.
“Because of Ulvan’s failure,” said a cadaverous Master Slaver named Konyat, “the villainous Balarigar turned his attention to me.” The Balarigar had also turned Konyat’s own brand upon him, marking both of his cheeks, and if the rumors were true, Konyat’s buttocks. Cassander had no desire to confirm that particular rumor for himself. “He slipped into my bedroom through trickery, drugged me, and left me to hang from the ceiling until my cowardly slaves worked up the nerve to free me in the morning.”
“Perhaps you ought to be grateful,” said Cassander, “that they simply didn’t slit your throat, rob your palace, and depart.”
“Not that the Balarigar would have left anything worth stealing,” said another Master Slaver.
“And our slaves revere us,” said Konyat. “They may hate and fear their betters, but they respect us more, for we bring order and purpose to their otherwise meaningless lives.”
The other cowled masters murmured their agreement, and again Cassander’s contempt threaten to boil out of control. What utter fools! They deserved to have the Balarigar rob them. And these were some of the leading men of Istarinmul! Little wonder the Umbarian Order had to bring order to the world, if fools such as these led the nations.
Talking them had been a waste of time. They knew nothing about Caina Amalas that Cassander had not already discovered. He thought again about killing the cowled masters, but dismissed the thought. There was no reason to make an enemy of the Brotherhood, and they might prove useful later.
“My friends,” said Cassander, rising and bowing, “I thank you for your counsel. The Balarigar has enemies among the Umbarian Order as well, and the Provosts have ordered me to hunt down this thief and kill him.” That, at least, was mostly true. “Your counsel shall be of great use to me in the days to come.” That was definitely not true. “Urgent business calls me away, I fear, but I urge you to enjoy the meal.”
The cowled masters rumbled their assent. Cassander turned and spotted one of the servants he had brought from Rasadda. The man hastened over and bowed.
“Bid Maria to join me in the laboratory, and tell her to bring the female slave we discussed,” he said, and the servant scurried away.
Cassander left the dining hall and descended to the cellars. The stairs ended in a massive steel door, sorcerous wards crackling over it. Two silent Adamant Guards stood watch before the door, their armor grafted to their scarred flesh, the power of the spells bound to their limbs shimmering against Cassander’s senses. They bowed at his approach, and Cassander disarmed the wards and stepped into his laboratory.
The room had once been the palace’s wine cellar, but Cassander had put it to better use. Rows of books and scrolls filled shelves upon one wall, and an elaborate double circle, five yards across, had been cut into the floor, ringed with warding glyphs and spells. Steel tables equipped with shackles proved useful for his research into necromancy, and a long table held various instruments of brass and silver. Enspelled glass globes upon iron stands provided ample light.
Maria Nicephorus was waiting for him. She had once been a noble of a Nighmarian family before joining the Magisterium and then the Umbarian Order, and now she served at his command. Like Cassander, she wore the formal garb of the Umbarians – a long coat of dark leather, enspelled to turn aside weapons, gleaming black boots, black trousers, a white shirt, and a golden medallion adorned with the winged skull sigil of the Umbarians. She had long black hair bound in a braid and gray eyes that glittered at his approach. Next to her stood an Istarish slave girl of about eighteen, her eyes downcast, her dark hair hanging loose around her face.
“Lord Cassander,” said Maria with a bow.
“She is ready, as we discussed?” said Cassander, scrutinizing the slave girl. The slave cringed away from his gaze.
“Yes, lord,” said Maria. “She has been prepared.”
“Good,” said Cassander. He pointed at the slave. “Remain silent and do not speak or move until I command it.”
The girl offered a timid nod.
“I am ready,” said Maria, “to assist with any spells you might…”
He grabbed the front of her coat, pulled her close, and kissed her roughly upon the lips without a trace of gentleness. She froze for an instant, and then responded, pulling herself close against him. A few moments later he had her out of her clothes, and then he took her upon the stone floor, listening to her moan and feeling her writhe beneath
him. He was certain that she was not enjoying herself as much as she pretended, but he did not care.
He required a clear mind for what he intended next, and this was one of the best ways to clear his mind. The fact that he enjoyed it a great deal was almost irrelevant.
After he finished, Cassander rose to his feet and retrieved his clothes, while Maria gathered up her scattered garments. The slave girl stood motionless and rigid, fear and embarrassment warring across her face.
Cassander pointed at her. “Stand in the center of the circle. Now.” She moved to obey, walking into the center of the double circle. “Maria.” She looked at him, clad in only her shirt and trousers. “The circle.”
“We begin, my lord?” said Maria.
“We begin,” said Cassander. “Tonight we work the death of the Balarigar.”
Maria nodded and cast a spell, the symbols within the circle flaring with blue light. The circle itself pulsed and throbbed with the same glow, almost seeming to shimmer in a cylinder of blue light around the slave girl. The terrified girl looked back and forth, her dark eyes wide.
“Masters,” she said, her voice quavering, “I am…I am an obedient slave, I will do whatever you wish of me, but please, please don’t hurt me, please…”
Cassander smiled at her. “Fear not, child. I promise you this shall not hurt.”
She offered a tremulous smile, and Cassander raised his right arm. He wore a gauntlet of black steel over his hand, a crimson bloodcrystal glowing upon its back. Cassander had fashioned it himself, and it allowed him to wield pyromantic forces without destroying his sanity in the process. He would not need it quite yet, but soon.
Cassander closed his hand, the metal fingers of the gauntlet clanking as he cast a spell.
Invisible force closed around the girl, snapping her neck and killing her in an instant. Cassander supposed it hadn’t been painless, but it had been close enough. She collapsed in a heap to the ground, her glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling.
“My lord?” said Maria, pushing some loose strands of hair from her face.
“Consider how far we have come,” said Cassander. “In the Empire, slavery was illegal, the sciences of necromancy and pyromancy forbidden. Now we can conduct our researches with a free hand, unencumbered by archaic systems of morality. Consider how much we have learned, even in a year and a half. Consider how far we shall advance our science, to what heights we shall lift mankind.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Maria.
Cassander felt his smile widen. “And all it shall take to defeat the Empire and advance the cause of the Order is the death of one ragged little Ghost nightfighter.”
The High Provost had sent him to secure Istarinmul’s alliance against the Emperor. The Padishah Nahas Tarshahzon and the Grand Wazir Erghulan Amirasku might rule Istarinmul in name, but Grand Master Callatas ruled it in truth. Caina Amalas had been a tremendous thorn in Callatas’s side, and the Grand Master wanted her dead. He wanted her dead so badly, in fact, that if Cassander slew her, Callatas would side with the Order against the Empire. He would open the Starfall Straits to the Order’s fleet, and they could sail through the Straits and strike at Malarae. The Empire would fall to the Umbarian Order within a year.
And all Cassander had to do was kill Caina Amalas.
He was under no illusions that it would be easy. The woman had proven herself to be damnably clever, and had thwarted the Imperial Magisterium on multiple occasions. For that matter, she had operated in Istarinmul for a year and a half, and neither the Teskilati nor any bounty hunters had been able to catch her. Even more impressive, Callatas had sent the Red Huntress after her, and somehow Caina had slain the dangerous assassin. The Red Huntress had slaughtered half the high magistrates of New Kyre in one night, yet Caina had managed to kill her.
This was not a woman to underestimate.
Which was why Cassander was not going to kill her himself.
He took several deep breaths, clearing his mind and focusing his will. When his mind was prepared, he began casting the spell, gesturing with his armored right hand. Fire blazed to life around his fingers, and the light in the circle turned from blue to a harsh yellow-orange, the color of a flame devouring a house. The air within the circle shimmered as the walls between the mortal world and the netherworld, the realm of spirits, thinned inside its boundary. Cassander’s will reached into the netherworld, and he called out.
Something answered his summons.
The dead slave girl twitched, her limbs jerking as if upon invisible strings. Her head rolled back, her mouth yawning open, and hellish crimson flames filled her mouth and her eyes. The jerking stopped, and the girl’s head rotated back and forth.
She climbed to her feet in one smooth motion, her burning eyes fixed upon Cassander.
“Sorcerer,” she said. The voice was far deeper than any human voice, and hissed and snarled like a roaring fire. “You dare to summon me once more?”
“Sifter,” said Cassander. “Such a pleasure to meet you again.”
Maria looked back and forth between them, her gray eyes wide.
And frightened.
As well she should be, if she recognized the powerful spirit within the circle.
Cassander had joined the Umbarian Order in secret soon after becoming a novice of the Magisterium, eager to expand his powers beyond the Magisterium's strictures. Chief among those forbidden abilities had been the summoning and binding of elemental spirits, knowledge that the Magisterium claimed had been lost after the destruction of Caer Magia, but had been secretly preserved by the Umbarian Order. After becoming a full brother the Magisterium, Cassander had expanded his abilities further, traveling to Istarinmul to research the lore of lost Iramis.
And there he had learned about the ifriti, the raging elementals of fire, and he had summoned the Sifter.
The djinn had an organized kingdom in the netherworld, albeit one organized along principles incomprehensible to mortal minds. The ifriti were wild loners, waging war against each other and all other spirits. Some kingdoms of spirits pursued their own goals and purposes, locked in war against each other for uncounted millennia. The ifriti simply cared for destruction, and wanted to destroy as much as possible.
And the Sifter was an exceedingly powerful ifrit. Twice before Cassander had summoned the spirit, sending it against his rivals within the Magisterium. Twice before the Sifter had disposed of his enemies.
Now the Sifter would do it a third time.
“I have,” said Cassander. “a task for you.”
He felt the Sifter’s fury pressing against his will. “You dare to command me?”
“You shall kill for me,” said Cassander. “You shall devour my enemy for me.”
Against the spirit’s wrath washed against him, but Cassander’s will stood fast, buttressed by the power of the summoning circle upon the floor. Sweat broke out on Cassander’s forehead, and for a moment he was not sure he could contain the furious spirit.
Then the dead slave girl shuddered, and the crimson fires in her eyes brightened.
“Who shall die?” said the Sifter. “Who shall I burn?”
“You will find and kill Caina Amalas,” said Cassander. “The daughter of Sebastian Amalas and Laeria Scorneus. She is a nightfighter of the Ghosts. Find her and kill her.”
He expected the Sifter to accept, eager for the kill, or to refuse and fight him.
Instead the spirit hesitated.
“The demonslayer,” rasped the ifrit.
“You…know of her?” said Cassander, surprised.
“The demonslayer,” said the Sifter. “Her name resonates in the shadows of the netherworld. She is the one foretold. The shadow of fate lies upon her.” The dead girl tilted her head to the side, and Cassander had the distinct impression that the ifrit was alarmed.
“Explain yourself,” said Cassander.
“The line of her destiny is wrapped in shadow,” said the Sifter. “Her line intersects with many other destiny lines. Do you
not understand, mortal sorcerer? Time is not a river. It is a continuum, a tapestry, woven of many interlocking threads, complex beyond your ability to comprehend. The destiny line of the demonslayer crosses many others.” The Sifter’s mouth twisted in a burning smile. “Her destiny line crosses yours as well, sorcerer.”
Cassander did not like the sound of that. “That is why I am telling you to burn it.”
“You wish the demonslayer slain?” said the Sifter.
“She is my enemy,” said Cassander. “She stands in the way of my goals. Destroy her, and my victory is assured.” He smiled at the possessed corpse. “You wish to see destruction, spirit? Slay Caina Amalas, and you will see destruction beyond anything this age of man has witnessed. Slay her, and the Empire of Nighmar shall burn. For ten thousand years it has stood, the oldest realm among the nations of men. Slay Caina Amalas, and the Empire shall shatter into ruin and never rise again.”
But a new Empire would rise from the wreckage, an Empire ruled by the Umbarian Order, an Empire based upon the power of the arcane sciences. An Empire far stronger than the old, an Empire that would bring the barbarians of Anshan and Istarinmul and New Kyre to heel.
The Umbarian Order would rule over the new Empire as gods forever.
The Sifter wheezed out a crackling, booming laugh, like an ancient tree cracking in an inferno.
“The demonslayer’s line of destiny crosses many others,” said the Sifter, “and if her path is cut short, than countless other threads shall perish.” The dead girl’s hideous smile widened. “Millions of threads shall burn, and the tapestry of this world itself shall crumble to lifeless ash.”
“Then go forth,” commanded Cassander, “and slay. I bind you to do this, spirit, by my power and my will. But would you not kill of your own will if you were free to do so?”
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