The Ghosts Omnibus One

by Jonathan Moeller

  Caina reached for her lockpicks, and a sudden inspiration struck her. She reached into her belt and drew out the rune-carved key she had taken from the dead slaver in the tenement, the key that unlocked the slave collars. She thrust it into the hidden lock and turned.

  It worked perfectly. The stone door swung open, and again Caina saw the stairs descending into darkness. Far in the distance, she saw a faint glimmer of eerie blue light.

  She hesitated. For a moment she debated going back for Halfdan and the others. But what if this wasn’t Icaraeus’s secret refuge? What if he was only using this passage as an escape route?

  No, Caina had to keep going. Besides, the door looked as if she could open it from the other side. Caina took a deep breath, pulled the key free, and stepped into the stairwell. The door swung shut behind her, leaving her in darkness, save for the distant blue light. Caina made her way down the stairs, moving silently, feeling the rough stone wall for support.

  Three hundred steps later the stairs ended in a stone arch, and she found the source of the blue light. It came from a glowing glass sphere mounted atop a rusted iron stand. Beyond the sphere Caina saw a forest of thick stone pillars supporting dozens of lofty groin vaults. The stonework was massive, ancient. The underpinnings of the Citadel, Caina realized, reared countless years ago when the Empire first took Marsis from the Kyracians.

  The forest of pillars was silent, and Caina saw no sign of Icaraeus, or of anyone else. She did see more lights, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim glow. After a moment she saw a dozen of the glowing spheres on their rusted iron stands, stretching in a line through the pillars. In the far wall Caina glimpsed the faint outline of another archway, leading deeper into the earth. Caina started towards it, keeping in the shadows, just out of the spheres’ light.

  As she drew closer to the archway, Caina noticed two things.

  The first was the cold breeze blowing from the archway. It carried the faint smell of rotting meat, of decaying flesh. Something had died down here, Caina realized, and not long ago.

  The second was the presence of sorcery. Faint and distant, it tingled against her skin, and Caina shuddered. An echo, she thought. Someone had cast a mighty spell down here, recently, and the echoes still lingered.

  She crossed the vast floor and came to the stone archway. An iron portcullis hung suspended by a chain, ready to drop in an instant. A high, vaulted passageway stretched into shadow, still lit by the glowing spheres at a regular basis. The stench of rot grew stronger, accompanied by the smell of excrement. Did the city’s sewers run through this place?

  Or perhaps Icaraeus kept his slaves down here.

  Caina shuddered at the thought, and kept going. After about thirty yards the stonework changed from the massive, rough-hewn blocks of the Citadel to smooth sheets of lusterless black stone. It looked a lot like the stone of Black Angel Tower, and suddenly Caina realized that it was the stone of Black Angel Tower. She must have passed into the Tower’s subterranean levels. Caina looked at the black walls, uneasy. She had seen this place somewhere before, she was sure…

  Then she remembered. Her nightmares. In her nightmares she had fled down this same black passageway. Caina felt her heart pounding beneath her ribs. This was impossible. She couldn’t have seen this place in her dreams. She couldn’t have…

  The same way, she realized, that her dreams couldn’t have warned her about the mercenaries outside Radast’s workshop. What was happening to her? What was this place? Dread chewed at Caina, and for a moment she could not go on.

  Her mouth tightened. Icaraeus was getting away, and she could not allow that. Caina drew the ghostsilver dagger in one hand and a throwing knife in the other. The weight of the weapons made her feel better. She took a deep breath and walked deeper into the gloomy corridor.

  The passageway was utterly silent. Caina heard nothing but her own heartbeat, the rasp of her breathing, the faint scrape of her boots against the stone floor, and the whispering of the cold breeze. The black stone seemed to drink the light, like water vanishing into a sponge. The roof opened up around her, the walls pulling away, and she entered a large chamber. She could not see the walls or the ceiling, only a steady line of blue spheres marching into the darkness.

  That, and far in the distance, she could make out a faint crimson glow.

  Caina took a cautious step into the chamber. One of the blue spheres stood glowing on its stand a few paces away. Beyond Caina glimpsed something like pale ovals floating in the darkness, dozens of them, but she could not quite make them out. Curious, she started to reach for the glowing sphere, and then stopped herself. If Agria or Jadriga had made the spheres themselves, they might have laid detection and warning spells over them. Spells that would go off the minute her hand touched the glass. Instead Caina gripped the iron stand and slid it across the black stone floor, wincing at the noise.

  And in the light she saw faces, dozens of faces.

  All of them staring unblinking at her.

  Caina hissed in alarm and lifted her weapons. The faces made no movement, no response. They didn’t even as blink. Caina stared back for a moment, and then walked closer.

  People sat in the darkness, she saw. Men, women, children. Dozens, hundreds of them. Maybe even as many as five hundred. They wore ragged, soiled clothing, and the enspelled slave collars glittered at their throats. This was where Agria and the others had been hiding their slaves. Trapped by the collars’ sorcery, the slaves had been ordered to sit here in the darkness until they starved to death. In fact, Caina saw a few slaves lying sprawled on the floor, eyes glassy in death. Enormous rats scurried over the corpses, gorging themselves on the dead flesh.

  Perhaps Zorgi’s son Peter stood among the children. Assuming he hadn’t starved to death.

  The very sight filled her with rage, rage enough to drive back her fear.

  It was monstrous. Yet it made no sense. Why would Agria and her friends spend a fortune on slaves, only to leave them dying in this black pit? Caina’s hand twitched towards the key in her belt, her mind racing. Could she free them all? Possibly. Yet many of the slaves looked too weak to walk. And certainly Icaraeus had men down here.

  And that red glow was closer. It didn’t flicker and dance the way a fire would. Instead it pulsed and throbbed, almost like a heartbeat.

  “I’ll come back for you,” said Caina. She didn’t know if the collared slaves could understand her, and she didn’t care. “I am a Ghost of the Emperor. We know you are here, we know that Icaraeus has taken you. I will come back for you.”

  She turned and walked towards the red glow.

  It grew brighter as she drew nearer, and soon she made out a high, pointed arch in the far wall. The air grew colder as she came closer, and the charnel stink increased. The tingling presence of sorcery against her skin sharpened.

  The archway opened into a great domed chamber, at least a hundred yards across. The ceiling vanished into darkness, and Caina realized that she now stood beneath Black Angel Tower itself. A ring of pillars stood in the center of the room, their sides ablaze with sigils of flickering green fire. Another ring of burning green sigils encircled the pillars themselves.

  And within the ring of sigils and pillars waited the shattered pit.

  Twenty yards across, it lay beneath the exact center of the dome. The throbbing red glow came from its depths. As Caina drew closer she thought it looked like a crater, as if something had fallen from some great height to bury itself in the earth.

  Like Ark’s tale of the fallen angel hurled down from the heavens.

  Caina stopped just before the ring of flickering green sigils. They looked similar to the warding sigils carved upon the steel-warding bracers. And if the sigils upon the pillars were indeed some sort of warding spell, then crossing them would expose her to whatever sorcerous power was within the pit. Which was probably a very bad idea. A tilted slab of black stone stood just outside the ring, deep grooves carved into its surface. Caina put her hand upon it, inte
nding to climb up for a better view, and then froze.

  She had seen this slab before. In her dreams. Only then hot blood had oozed down the grooves, spilling upon the floor, flowing in that narrow channel towards the black pit…

  Caina shook her head, pushing away the sudden dread. She climbed atop the titled slab and peered down into the pit.

  And down, and down, and down.

  It plunged into the very bowels of the earth. The crimson glow throbbed in its depths like a burning heart. The shadows clinging to the pit’s side crawled and writhed like gigantic insects. All at once Caina had the sensation that the pit was a great burning eye, that some terrible thing chained in the bowels of the earth could look up at her, and she almost fell off the slab in her haste to get away.

  Still the sensation remained, and Caina shivered. She remembered the strange dream-image of her mother, how her black gown had crawled and writhed like a living shadow.

  Much the same way the shadows clinging to the pit’s walls had writhed.

  She had seen enough. Coming here alone had indeed been foolish. There was something terrible down here, something evil, but that didn’t matter. Caina would go to the surface, find Halfdan and the Legionaries, and return with them. They would free the slaves, and let Icaraeus try to stop them…

  Then Caina felt a tingling surge of power. Someone was casting a spell nearby.

  A thunderclap echoed against the walls. An instant later the chamber filled with crackling firelight. A ring of massive iron braziers stood against the outer wall, now blazing with flame. Caina saw another archway in the wall, heard the echo of footsteps and the murmur of voices.

  Someone was coming.

  There was not enough time to get back to the slave chamber. There was enough time to hide behind one of the braziers. Caina raced across the floor, dived, and ducked behind the nearest brazier. Wedged between the stone base and the wall, she had a clear view of both the archways and the black pit. She heard the voices again, and could pick out Agria Palaegus’s voice among them.

  Agria? Down here?

  Caina wondered if she was about to see what Agria did with all those slaves.

  A moment later Caina wondered if she would regret seeing it.

  Jadriga came first.

  When last Caina had seen her, Jadriga had worn a flowing crimson gown and a black veil. Now she wore a costume of black linen that left her arms, her legs, and most of her stomach bare. Swirling black lines and symbols had been painted upon every exposed inch of her pale skin, covering her face in a grotesque mask. A flowing crimson cloak hung from her shoulders, and she carried an ornate black staff in one hand. Her black hair had been bound up within a silver diadem shaped like a row of miniature skulls. She walked with a slow, ritualized step, repeating a chant in a strange language over and over again.

  She should have looked ridiculous. Instead she looked terrifying, like some mighty demon out of the ancient past. Perhaps it was the way her black eyes reflected the crackling green glow of the sigils, or perhaps it was the aura of crushing sorcerous power that surrounded her.

  A crown of skulls, and a cloak of blood. That was what Katerine had said.

  Agria Palaegus walked behind Jadriga, clad in a more modest crimson robe. She carried a dagger and a chalice, and repeated the chant in the strange tongue. Messana Heliorus followed her, clad likewise in the same robe, repeating the chant. Last came Vorena Chlorus. Unlike the others, she wore a white robe, though she carried a dagger in one hand.

  In the other she pulled a chain. Behind her stumbled a blank-eyed boy of six or seven years, one of the enspelled collars around his neck. Caina saw the family resemblance at once. Vorena Chlorus had put a slave collar on her son.

  Agria and Messana took up position on opposite sides of the pillars, keeping well away from the glowing green sigils. Jadriga and Vorena stopped by the stone slab, Vorena’s son staring at nothing. Jadriga smote the staff against the ground, and again Caina heard the thunderclap and felt the surge of power.

  An answering rumble came from the pit.

  “Hear me, oh great dark one!” said Jadriga in her formal High Nighmarian, her rich voice echoing through the chamber. “The hour draws nigh, and we who shall shatter your chains stand before you! Hearken to our words, for we who shall draw your power now speak! Again we give the offerings to loosen your chains, to prepare for the Opening of the Way!”

  The pit rumbled, a tremor going through the stone floor.

  “Now, Vorena,” said Jadriga.

  Vorena hesitated, staring at her son.

  “It is time, Vorena,” repeated Jadriga. “This is the last chain. The final link holding back your power. Sever it, and you shall have all that you desire.”

  “Yes, Vorena,” said Agria, “Listen to the honored Moroaica. Have you not seen the blessings I gained when I severed my chains, when I brought my husband and daughter to this very chamber? You, too, can have that power!”

  “Listen to Agria,” said Messana. “Do not let mere sentiment stay your arm. Take what is rightfully ours, and join us. Become our sister in blood as well as name.”

  For a long moment Caina saw Vorena’s expression waver. Then the cold hardness returned to it. She nodded, lifted her son, and laid him upon the tilted slab.

  And with soul-sick horror Caina realized what was about to happen. Her mind hot with fury, she braced herself to leap out from behind the brazier, ghostsilver dagger in hand. But a colder part of her mind, the Ghost-trained part, stopped her. She couldn’t possibly fight the four of them and win. She couldn’t even fight Jadriga and win. And she had to survive. She had to let Halfdan know of the horrors happening in this place so he could stop them, so Agria and Icaraeus could pay for the nightmares they had fashioned here.

  Vorena lifted the dagger, chanting in the strange tongue. The blade glimmered in the red light, and Caina felt the crawling tingle of sorcerous power. Vorena’s chant rose to a scream, her back arched.

  The dagger came plunging down.

  And the channels on the tilted slab filled with blood.

  Caina felt herself shaking with rage, the silver dagger trembling in her grasp.

  Most of the blood flowed into the trough, draining into the black pit. Jadriga lifted Vorena’s chalice, holding it beneath one of the channels. Soon the chalice filled with blood. “Now drink, my daughter. Drink, and you shall know true freedom.”

  Vorena lifted the chalice with trembling hands and drank. Her throat worked, red lines trickling down her jaw and neck. She fell to her knees, breathing hard, her face twisted in ecstasy. There was another surge of sorcery, and a snarl of flashing green light.

  When the light faded, Vorena had changed. She now looked ten years younger and forty pounds lighter. Her face had gained the same cruel, overripe beauty Caina had noted in both Agria and Messana.

  “How do you feel, my daughter?” said Jadriga, voice soft.

  “I feel,” said Vorena, trembling, chest heaving with her breath, “I feel, I feel…” She pointed and concentrated, and the dagger floated from the floor into her hand. “I feel reborn. The power…the power is so much stronger.” She climbed to shaking feet, grabbing the bloodstained slab for support, ignoring her dead son’s fingers where they brushed against her own. “I have never truly been alive before this moment.”

  “Yes,” said Jadriga. “Now you understand. Now you know what it is to be free.”

  “Honored Moroaica,” said Vorena, “show me more.”

  “Then you shall see, and you shall aid me,” said Jadriga. She again struck the staff against the floor.

  Four men entered. They looked like more of Icaraeus’s mercenaries, the rune-carved bracers upon their forearms, yet their faces had been painted with simpler versions of Jadriga’s own swirling mask. Between the mercenaries walked a dozen slaves, their expressions slack, their collars glittering. At Jadriga’s direction, they pulled the child’s corpse from the slab. One of the men carried it to the far archway. The others wres
tled another slave, a hollow-faced woman, upon the slab.

  “Great dark one, hear me!” called Jadriga towards the pit. “Again we come before you, and again we bring offerings! Let this blood break your chains and shatter the locks upon your prison. Soon the Opening of the Way shall come, and you will walk again upon this earth!”

  She took the dagger from Vorena Chlorus, raised it high, and brought it plunging down upon her victim. Again the blood filled the stone channels, pouring into the pit. Again the chamber trembled in response. The air filled with snarling crackle of mighty sorcery, and Caina felt the dark presence in the pit stirring, its will reaching out to touch them. Agria, Messana, and Vorena all knelt around the slab, filling their goblets, and they drank in unison. Their expressions twisted in dark ecstasy as green light swirled around them, age falling away from their faces, new vitality flooding their limbs.

  Jadriga gestured, and the mercenaries dragged away the corpse, throwing a fresh slave onto the slab. Again she spoke the chant, raised the dagger, and brought it down. Again the blood flowed into the channels and the pit, the goblets filling.

  And again. And again. And again.

  Caina wanted nothing more than to look away. But she forced herself to watch. She had suspected that Agria was killing the slaves, using their blood for sorcerous experiments. But she had never imagined anything as horrible as this. This was worse than what Maglarion had done, all those years ago. He had been an evil man, cruel and cold…but his eyes had never lit up with the reveling glee she now saw in the faces of the noblewomen.

  At last the carnage ended. Agria, Messana, and Chlorus all knelt, breathing hard, their faces flushed, their lips red with the blood of their victims. Jadriga remained calm as ever, but her face resembled a hideous mask beneath the paint, and her black eyes reflected the fire of the pit. She had drunk no blood herself.

  Agria and the others might have required blood to fuel their sorcerous abilities, but Caina suspected Jadriga’s powers were far beyond that.

  “Clear away these vessels,” said Jadriga to the mercenaries. “I require time for meditation. Do not disturb me.”