Ghost in the Razor

by Jonathan Moeller

  Just how much did she trust Kylon?

  She remembered Marsis, Catekharon, Caer Magia, New Kyre…

  “Let’s go,” said Caina.

  Chapter 9: Exiles

  Kylon followed Caina into the street, trying to ignore the pain in his side. The towering Sarbian had done a good job with the stitches, but they still hurt. Nevertheless, he had been hurt worse.

  He deserved to be hurt worse.

  Caina walked in silence. Her robe was damaged from the fighting, but it was dark, so that was all right. She moved with confidence through the darkness. Her emotional sense had not changed, the usual icy focus over a hard core of old anger and hate, but this time there was something else in it…

  Uncertainty?

  That seemed odd.

  Suddenly she stopped, surprise going through her emotional sense.

  Kylon drew his sword. “What is it?” He sensed no one nearby, but…

  “Wait,” said Caina. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m an idiot.”

  “I’m sorry?” said Kylon.

  She turned to face him. “How did Rolukhan and Ikhardin know to find you at the Ring of Cyrica?”

  Kylon shrugged. “I fought there before. Presumably one of them saw me.”

  “Or they had you followed,” said Caina. “Where are you staying?”

  “The Inn of the Crescent Moon,” said Kylon, and Caina laughed. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” said Caina. “It…just all started there. I joined the circus at the Inn of the Crescent Moon.”

  “Circus?” said Kylon. Nerina Strake had said something about that.

  A rare smile flashed over Caina’s face. “I disguised myself as Natalia of the Nine Knives. I put on a skimpy costume and threw knives at a terrified coffee merchant.”

  Kylon laughed. “I would have liked to have seen that.” She tilted her head, and Kylon felt a flicker of embarrassment. Then Thalastre flashed through his thoughts, and the embarrassment turned to guilt. “I meant…”

  “No,” said Caina. “If this goes wrong, we might both have to join the circus to hide. But if you’re staying at the Inn of the Crescent Moon, I expect that means the Kindred have someone there watching you. That means we can inconvenience them.”

  “We can kill…no,” said Kylon. “You want to feed them false information.”

  “As much as their heads will hold,” said Caina. “If they’re busy chasing their tails, we’ll have a clear shot at the Sifter. If we survive the Sifter, we’ll have a better chance against Malik Rolukhan if he doesn’t see us coming.”

  “Then you will help me against him?” said Kylon.

  “I said I would, didn’t I?” said Caina. “Even if you had never come to Istarinmul, I likely would have dealt with him sooner or later. He’s one of Callatas’s lieutenants, and he likely has control of one or more of the remaining wraithblood laboratories.”

  Kylon nodded. He had come to Istarinmul to kill Rolukhan and Cassander. With Caina’s help, he had a better chance of succeeding, of avenging Thalastre and all the others that the Red Huntress had murdered.

  And then…

  A cold emptiness tugged at him.

  Once had avenged Thalastre, what would he do then? He had no family left, no home, no purpose beyond vengeance…

  He pushed aside the thought. He could worry about it later, assuming he actually survived to worry about it.

  “What did you have in mind?” said Kylon.

  “Did you ever want to be an actor?” said Caina.

  “We’re going to join the circus?” said Kylon.

  “Better,” said Caina. “We’re going to put on a play.”

  ###

  “Get out of my way!” roared Caina in her disguised voice.

  She stormed past the footmen at the doors of the Inn of the Crescent Moon and into the richly furnished common room. Each table had its own gleaming brass lantern, with more hanging from the high ceiling. A balcony of polished wood encircled the room, and the floor had been worked in an elaborate mosaic showing a pair of Istarish noblemen hunting tigers in the Kaltari Highlands. A score of merchants, both Istarish and foreign, sat throughout the room, eating their dinners while scowling bodyguards stood watch.

  All of them stared up at her in surprise.

  “Sir,” murmured one of the footmen, reaching for a steel-shod cudgel at his belt. “You…”

  Kylon sat at a table, his face grim, nursing a glass of wine. He shot to his feet as Caina approached, his eyes so wide with feigned surprise it was almost comical. Actually, it was comical, but the observers didn’t know that. And Caina was sure that at least some of the merchants were informants for the Teskilati or the Kindred.

  “You!” roared Caina. She pointed at him, letting her damaged robe flare around her dramatically. “That man seduced my wife! Arrest him! This…this Kyracian dog seduced my wife!”

  A chorus of laughs went up from the merchants.

  Kylon backed away, putting on a mask of fear.

  “Kyracian dog!” said Caina, shaking a fist at him. “I’ll teach you to touch my wife!”

  Kylon ran for the kitchens, and Caina followed him. They dashed through the kitchens, into the courtyard, and then the stables. Kylon vaulted over the courtyard wall, and Caina followed suit. She chased him through the alleys, still bellowing curses and imprecations.

  Several blocks later, Kylon came to a stop, and Caina stopped as well. Kylon doubled over, and Caina feared that he had injured himself, that he had torn his stitches.

  But he was laughing.

  “Did you see their faces?” said Kylon.

  “Aye,” said Caina, and she felt herself smile. “Rumor will spread that the Exile fled from an angry husband. The Kindred will look in the wrong places, and we’ll have a chance to catch Rolukhan off guard.”

  Kylon nodded, his mirth fading into his usual grim look. “We should get off the streets.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. “This way. It’s not far.”

  They walked in silence through the alleys.

  “I wish to ask you something,” said Kylon.

  “Certainly,” said Caina. “What is it?”

  “The Red Huntress,” said Kylon. “What…happened when you faced her?”

  She did not want to talk about the Red Huntress, yet Caina suspected that Kylon needed to hear it. Kalgri had murdered his wife, and Kylon had thought the Huntress dead at his hand. That would have given him at least a modicum of comfort as the grief and guilt gnawed at his heart and mind. Caina knew those feelings all too well. She would have ripped the world apart to take vengeance on the Moroaica for Corvalis’s death, yet the girl who had once been Malifae of Maat had died in truth long before Caina had even been born.

  So Caina had taken out her grief upon the Brotherhood of Slavers instead.

  “She…was hunting me,” said Caina in a low voice. “I didn’t realize it at first. I had robbed Callatas himself earlier, with the aid of some allies. So he sent the Huntress to kill me.” She shook her head. “I thought the Umbarians had hired her to kill Lord Martin.”

  “How did you defeat her?” said Kylon.

  “Barely,” said Caina. “I found a weapon called a valikon, a sword forged by the loremasters of Iramis specifically to destroy nagataaru. It was in a monastery in the Kaltari Highlands, and the Huntress caught me there. We wounded her with the valikon, Claudia hit her with a banishment spell, and Lord Martin shot her with a ballista.”

  “A ballista?” said Kylon.

  “Right through the stomach,” said Caina. “It threw her over the edge of the cliff, and she ripped in half when the bolt struck the side of the rock. It was a thousand feet to the valley below.”

  “Do you think she’s truly dead, then?” said Kylon. His voice was calm, but she saw his sword hand clenching and unclenching.

  “No,” said Caina at last. “I suspected she might have been able to return, but after talking to you, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen you fight, Kylon. If you thoug
ht she was dead…”

  “Thalastre hit her with a lightning bolt,” said Kylon. “At the apex of the Tower of Kardamnos. In the last moment before the Huntress took off her head.” He shook his head. “I opened the Huntress’s throat with the shard of my sword, stabbed her in the heart, and threw her from the apex of the Tower. Four hundred feet to the street.”

  “But you never found her body,” said Caina, “did you?”

  “No,” said Kylon. “There was a canal in the street. I thought the corpse might have been washed out to the harbor. Did you find her body?”

  “I tried,” said Caina, “but I couldn’t. It was a thousand feet from the monastery to the valley floor. She was clever, Kylon. She found a coffee house I frequent, got herself hired as a worker there, and watched me for months. She knew almost everything about me. She should have killed me. If I had not happened to turn my head at the last possible second, she would have shot me through the heart.”

  “Then I suppose I failed you, too,” said Kylon, his voice hoarse.

  “What do you mean?” said Caina. “You didn’t fail me. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “If I had killed the Huntress in New Kyre,” said Kylon, “she wouldn’t have been able to attack you here. I thought I had killed her. I thought…I didn’t save Thalastre, but at least I had avenged her. Now I see that I have failed at even that.”

  He stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

  Caina hesitated, and then very, very slowly reached out and touched his arm.

  His eyes opened, full of pain and regret.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you cannot blame yourself. The Red Huntress killed Thalastre, not you. I know this sounds like empty words, but…”

  “But you have lived them, so you understand,” said Kylon. “But there is one thing I have in common with Corvalis that you do not.”

  “What’s that?” said Caina.

  “He died to protect you, didn’t he?” said Kylon. “He would have found it intolerable to live if you had been killed.”

  Caina said nothing for a moment.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I wish that I had been able to follow his example,” said Kylon. “I wish I could have died protecting Thalastre. But I failed to save her, as I failed to save Andromache. So I must content myself with avenging her, even if it brings my death.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted you to die, Kylon,” said Caina. “It took me a year to understand that. All the stories about the Balarigar, all those things I did…I was trying to get myself killed. I had good reasons for terrorizing the slavers and trying to stop Callatas, but a death wish was part of why I did it.” She shook her head. “Claudia got me to understand. Corvalis wouldn’t have wanted me to get myself killed. That’s…the last thing I’ll ever be able to do for him, really. To live.”

  Kylon was silent for a while.

  “There…may be wisdom to that,” he said. “I will think on what you have said.”

  “It’s the sort of lesson that can’t be learned,” said Caina. “It has to be lived.”

  “I suppose so,” said Kylon. He laughed.

  “What?” said Caina.

  “I am a fool, you know,” said Kylon. “Standing here speaking of my woes while powerful enemies hunt us both. I suppose that would be the final irony, if we were both slain while I was ruminating upon my grief like a weepy child.”

  “I, for one, would prefer if the story did not end that way,” said Caina. “Let’s go.”

  Kylon nodded, started forward, and stumbled, leaning upon the wall.

  “What is it?” said Caina. Had the weapons of the Kindred assassins or the Adamant Guards been poisoned? If they had been coated with a slow-acting venom, the poison might have just taken effect.

  “Just dizzy for a moment,” said Kylon. “I’m fine.”

  “Of course,” said Caina. He was just exhausted. Today he had fought a match in the Ring of Cyrica, battled Kindred assassins, fought off Adamant Guards, and run a long distance, all while drawing on the power of his sorcery. Suddenly she felt her own fatigue pressing down upon her. “We’re almost there.”

  Caina led him through the alleys and the back streets until they came to the deserted courtyard behind the House of Agabyzus. The dry fountain with its dedication plaque stood there. Caina looked around, made sure that they were unobserved, and then unlocked and opened the hidden door in the fountain.

  “You live under a fountain?” said Kylon, bemused.

  “Only occasionally,” said Caina. Pale light rose from the small entrance, revealing a ladder descending into the earth. “I mostly store things here. I try to sleep someplace different every night, given how many people are hunting me.”

  “Sensible,” said Kylon.

  “Go down first,” said Caina. “I’ll close the door behind us.”

  Kylon nodded and descended, and Caina closed and locked the door behind them.

  The Sanctuary of the Ghosts of Istarinmul was a large vaulted chamber, the ceiling supported by thick pillars. Glowing glass globes, enspelled by the Magisterium, stood upon iron stands and threw out a pale light that revealed a half-dozen long tables. One held weapons, another tools and half-assembled locks and mechanical traps, the third a variety of herbs and elixirs. A wooden wardrobe stored a wide variety of clothing, for nobles and commoners alike, and another table held a mirror and a set of cosmetics. More of the enspelled lead plates had been fixed to the pillars, shielding the chamber from sorcerous observation.

  That was necessary, given some of the objects Caina stored here.

  “Large place,” said Kylon.

  “I think it’s been here for centuries,” said Caina. “The Ghosts have used it for a long time. The Teskilati wiped out the Ghost circle after Tanzir Shahan negotiated peace with the Emperor, but they never found this place. Right now I’m the only one who knows where it is.”

  “And me, now,” said Kylon. He hesitated. “Thank you for the trust you have shown me.”

  “Given that the Sifter would have killed me if I hadn’t found you today,” said Caina, “I ought to thank you, not the other way around.”

  “Your friend Nerina,” said Kylon, changing the subject. Likely he had grown weary of talking about himself. “Will she be safe with Morgant?”

  “She will,” said Caina. “Azaces is with her.”

  “He might be a capable fighter,” said Kylon, “but Morgant has that dagger.”

  “I doubt Morgant will do anything,” said Caina. “He’s playing a game with me. He wants to see if I’m worthy to entrust with his great secret, whatever the hell it is. Nerina and I are friends, but both she and Azaces are Ghosts. If he kills them or even hurts them, he knows I will never forgive that.”

  “His two rules,” said Kylon, a bit of scorn in his voice. “He never kills anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Surely a mad locksmith and her bodyguard do not deserve death.”

  “No,” said Caina. “And Azaces is mute. He had his tongue cut out some years ago, probably Ragodan Strake’s work. Thankfully, Nerina is nothing like her father.”

  “So what does Azaces being mute have to do with anything?” said Kylon.

  “He can’t read or write, either,” said Caina. “So people talk to him. Rather more freely than they should.” She grinned. “It’s something we’ve used before, actually. Azaces is quite clever about it. Perhaps he’ll get Morgant to say more than he should.”

  “I suppose it is worth a try,” said Kylon, though he sounded dubious.

  Caina shrugged. “A long shot, to be sure, but one without risk. Meanwhile, you need rest.” She walked to an alcove off the Sanctuary’s main room. A row of cots lay there, along with blankets. “You can sleep here.”

  “You thought of everything,” said Kylon.

  “Well, I can’t take the credit,” said Caina. “It was here when I moved in.”

  Kylon lay down on one of the cots with a sigh. “I assume you have a plan?”

>   “Aye,” said Caina. “The items I’ll need to deal with the Sifter are here. We’ll take them and visit another ally of mine, a man who calls himself Nasser. He will know more, and together we can plan an ambush for the Sifter when it finds me again.”

  A faint rasping noise came to her ears. Caina spun, reaching for her ghostsilver dagger, wondering if foes had found the Sanctuary.

  But it was only Kylon. He had already fallen asleep.

  Caina gazed down at him. She wished he hadn’t been forced to come to Istarinmul. She wished he was still in New Kyre with his wife. She wished he had never encountered the Red Huntress.

  Yet, no matter how dire circumstances, she was glad to see him again.

  Caina stooped, picked up a folded blanket, and covered him with it. He did not stir. She stepped out of the alcove, drew the curtain closed, and walked into the Sanctuary’s main room.

  Tomorrow she would find the Sifter and destroy it, and Morgant would tell her how to find Annarah and stop the Apotheosis.

  It sounded so simple.

  Caina knew it would not go that easily.

  She found another cot, shrugged out of her heavy robe, and went to sleep.

  Chapter 10: Destiny

  In her sleep, Caina saw a dream she had dreamed before.

  Once more she stood on the dry, dead plain of the Desert of Candles. Yet it was not dead, not yet. It was the most fertile farmland she had seen in Istarinmul, rich with growing crops. The city of Iramis rose beyond, standing at the edge of the Alqaarin Sea. It was a beautiful city, its walls wrought of gold-colored stone, its gates surrounded with intricate statues, tall white towers rising within.

  The vision blurred, and Caina found herself standing on a hill overlooking the plain.

  She turned her head, knowing what would happen next.

  Callatas, Grand Master of the College of Alchemists, stood nearby. He had the gauntness of the ascetic, the slightly stooped posture of a man who had spent long hours bent over books and scrolls. He had deep-set gray eyes, the hard line of his jaw and chin shaded by a close-cropped beard. He looked like a scholarly, even grandfatherly, old man, but Caina knew better. He was centuries old, and Master Alchemists extended their lives with the use of Elixir Rejuvenata produced from the ashes of unborn children.