Mihaela scoffed with disdain. Caina saw an opportunity in that. If Mihaela thought her a fool, then perhaps the Seeker might reveal some useful information.
“It is…very large,” said Caina.
“Large,” said Mihaela. “Yes. How very profound. Do you have any other useful insights?”
Caina opened her mouth to answer…but found her eyes drawn to the glypharmor.
Suddenly she wanted to touch it.
Mihaela gave an ugly laugh. “I think she is scared of it, Irzaris. And why should she not? What does the little girl of a fat merchant know about power?”
“I think,” said Caina. “I think that it is making me dizzy.”
“Perhaps you’ve had too much wine,” said Irzaris with a smile. “I can find you a place to lie down.”
Mihaela snorted. “Subtle.”
“I should rejoin my father,” said Caina. “Thank you, but…”
A stabbing bolt of pain shot through her head.
The hieroglyphs upon the armor flickered with white light.
“What the devil?” said Irzaris, stepping away from Caina in alarm. “It’s activating!”
Mihaela looked more intrigued than worried. “It appears to be reacting to her.”
“That’s impossible,” said Irzaris. “She has no arcane talent.”
Caina didn’t.
But the Moroaica did.
The hieroglyphics upon the armor flared, the room spun around Caina, and everything went black.
Chapter 10 - Old Blood
Caina fell through an eternity of swirling gray mist.
Confused, broken thoughts danced through her mind. She could not remember how she had gotten here. She remembered a hulking suit of crimson armor, remembered pain stabbing through her head…
Blood. There had been so much blood.
Had the blood been her own? Had she died?
The mists vanished.
Caina stood again in her father’s library, looking at her mother’s corpse, blood pooling across the floor. Then in Maglarion’s lair, screaming as the necromancer cut into her and extracted her blood for his spells…
No. She did not want to remember that. She was tired of death, tired of sorrow. She did not want to remember it any longer.
She concentrated and forced the memories away.
Again gray mist swirled, and a different set of recollections came to her.
Laughing with Theodosia in the Grand Imperial Opera.
The tears in Ark’s eyes as he saw Tanya for the first time in five years.
Carrying Nicolai back to his father after the Kyracians and the Istarish had been defeated.
Lying with Corvalis in her arms, her moans tearing from her throat…
A shiver went through the gray mists, and white light devoured the world.
###
When it cleared, Caina found herself standing underneath a brilliant desert sun.
She stood on a street of gleaming stone, whitewashed houses rising overhead. In the distance she saw splendid temples and palaces of built of white stone, shining like jewels in the sunlight. Hieroglyphs covered the sides of the temples, and gold sheathed many of the stone columns.
Suddenly Caina knew that she stood in ancient Maat, in the capital city of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun during the height of its splendor. But how? She had never been there …
All at once she realized this was not a dream but a memory.
But not one that belonged to her.
A scream rang out, and Caina turned.
She saw a group of soldiers standing before one of the houses. The soldiers wore bronze chain mail and helms, carrying spears with bronze heads. A man in a stark white robe stood in their midst, a frown of impatience upon his face and a golden torque around his neck. His head had been shaved, even his eyebrows, and black makeup lined his eyes.
Caina realized he was one of the mighty necromancer-priests of ancient Maat.
But how did she know that?
The soldiers wrestled two people from the house. One was a middle-aged man with the ink-stained fingers and slumped posture of a professional scribe. The second was a beautiful girl of fifteen or sixteen with dark eyes and black hair.
Both the scribe and the girl were terrified.
“Rhames,” pleaded the scribe, “no, don’t do this, please, please…”
He spoke Maatish, but somehow Caina understood him.
“Silence,” said Rhames. “I’ll never understand why you wallowed in this folly. Your daughter’s beauty has captured the eye of the Great Pharaoh himself. She will share his tomb as one of his consorts, and shall receive eternal life at his side as one of the Undying.” He gave an irritated shake of his head. “You ought to be honored. Instead you hide like a cringing barbarian.”
“You’ll murder her,” said the scribe, “in the name of your false gods and that cruel tyrant you call a Pharaoh…”
“Blasphemy!” said Rhames. “I will not tolerate this!” He pointed at one of the soldiers. “Carry out the sentence.”
The soldiers went into action. Two of them seized the scribe and forced him to his knees. The girl ran to him with a cry, but the other men caught her. Another soldier drew a bronze axe and lifted it over his head.
The axe came down.
A crimson jet splattered across the white street.
“Father!” screamed the girl, struggling against the soldiers. “Father!” Her cries dissolved into wordless howls of grief and rage.
“I do not understand why you weep,” said Rhames. “You have shall be one of the Great Pharaoh’s consorts in the next life. You will become one of the Undying, and you shall never grow old or ugly.” He shook his head. “But women have never been rational. Bring her. We must begin the transformation at once.”
The soldiers dragged the screaming girl away, and Caina saw her eyes.
They were the Moroaica’s eyes.
###
The vision dissolved, and Caina found herself back in the plain of gray mist.
The Moroaica stood nearby, clad in her red robe. She was always calm, always collected, and always spoke to Caina with distant amusement.
But not now.
Her hands clenched and unclenched, her shoulders shaking with fury. Tears even glinted in her eyes and trickled down her pale face.
“You should not,” hissed Jadriga, “have seen that.”
“Then why,” said Caina, “did you show it to me?”
“My power is trapped within you,” said Jadriga, “and it reacted rather…strongly to the necromancy in the glypharmor. I lost control for a moment, and showed you more than I intended.”
Part of Caina’s mind noted that necromancy had been used in the making of the glypharmor. The rest of her mind regarded the Moroaica with stunned fascination.
“Your father,” said Caina at last. “They killed him in front of you.”
“I told you,” said Jadriga, “that we were more alike than you might wish. That I was once like you, long ago.”
“I thought,” said Caina, “that you were only trying to sway me. To corrupt me into something like yourself.”
“I was,” said Jadriga. “But why use a lie when the truth would be just as effective? I understand you, Caina Amalas, child of the Ghosts. You are what you are because your father was murdered in front of you…just as I am what I am because my father was murdered in front of me.” Her red lips tightened into a hard line for a moment. “And because of the consequences of that murder.”
Caina hesitated. She had seen the children Jadriga had kept captive in the black vaults below Black Angel Tower, had watched as Jadriga almost unleashed the demons from their prison. Maglarion, Sicarion, Ranarius, and Andromache had been Jadriga’s disciples, and Caina had seen the horror and death they had unleashed.
Her own father had died at Maglarion’s hand, and the necromancer had almost destroyed Malarae. The Moroaica was a monster, an author of death and misery.
Yet Jadriga’s fat
her had been murdered in front of her, just as Caina’s had.
If Jadriga had become such a monster, could Caina do the same? If she had the ability to wield sorcery, would she have become someone like Andromache or Agria Palaegus?
Jadriga closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She had just seen her father die again, and Caina knew what the felt like.
She lived with the memory every day.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” said Caina at last. She raised a hesitant hand and touched Jadriga on the shoulder.
The Moroaica whirled, her face a mask of fury.
“Do not touch me!” she said. “Do not ever touch me!” Caina stepped back in sudden alarm. “We are more alike than you know, child of the Ghosts. You slew Maglarion in vengeance for your father. But I made them pay. They say the Kingdom of the Rising Sun perished in its own dark sorcery? I unleashed that sorcery! I threw down their empire and ground it into the dust. I sealed the Great Pharaohs in their tombs and left them to scream for eternity in darkness and madness. I set Rhames’s spirit to burn, and cast it upon the desert winds for all time. I repaid the Great Pharaohs a thousand times over for what they did to me!” Her black eyes blazed. “But still it is not enough! Slay one tyrant and a dozen more take his place. The world is broken, Ghost, a prison of rot and decay that spawns monsters. The gods did this to us. They created this torture chamber of a world and left us to suffer in it! They will pay, Ghost! I will make them pay! I will see the gods themselves suffer as we have suffered, and repay them for all the agony their broken world ever wrought!”
Her voice rose to a scream of fury, and the mists howled around them like a storm. Caina lost her footing and fell into nothingness, the gray mist swallowing her whole.
###
An argument filled her ears.
“The girl was always light-headed,” said Halfdan. “I fear the carnage has quite overloaded her nerves.” His voice carried a hint of reproach. “Had I know that we would see such…violence, certainly I would not have exposed her delicate sensibilities to it.”
Mihaela’s laugh was mocking. “Pah, she faints at the sight of a little blood? It is just as well she was never a slave. She would not have lasted a week.”
“Mihaela,” said Zalandris. “That is quite enough.”
“Do not deny,” said the First Magus, “that she reacted to some flaw within the armor. This weapon of yours is no good if it poses a threat to any potential wielders.”
“My design is perfect,” said Mihaela, “and…”
Caina’s eyes opened.
She lay upon the floor, the sullen red glow of molten metal painting the stone ceiling overhead. As she feared, a ring of people stood around her.
It seemed that she had made a scene.
“Ah,” said Mihaela with a sneer. “See? She has awakened. No harm done.”
“Daughter,” said Halfdan, kneeling beside her. “Are you all right?”
“I…I think so,” said Caina.
Halfdan helped her to stand.
Caina shot a quick look around the ring of faces. Some of them looked at her with amusement, but most with wariness. That was not good. If they held her in suspicion, it would make it that much harder to destroy the means of creating the glypharmor.
She could think of only one way to dissuade them.
Caina took a deep breath and started to cry. Theodosia had taught her how to cry on cue, and it proven useful. Contempt flashed over the faces of the ambassadors and sorcerers, while others simply looked embarrassed.
“I’m…I’m so sorry, Father,” said Caina, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t…I don’t know what happened. I was looking at the armor, and I got so dizzy, and then…”
She sobbed again and buried her face in his chest.
“Ah, well,” said Halfdan, patting her on the shoulder. “No harm done. I suppose you’re just tired.”
“Gods,” said Mihaela. “All this fuss over a crying girl?” She laughed. “Perhaps Irzaris has gotten her with child and thrown her moods into chaos.”
“What?” said Irzaris. “I did nothing of the sort. My conduct toward Master Basil’s daughters has been nothing but honorable.”
“I’m sorry to have…made such a scene,” said Caina. “I…I just do not feel well.”
“Master Basil,” said Zalandris, “I suggest you take your kinfolk and retainers back to your rooms. Today’s business is concluded, and I will not listen to any offers until tomorrow.”
“Thank you, my lord Sage,” said Halfdan, bowing to the Masked One. “Come along, daughter. Let’s fetch Irene and Cormark and get you to bed. You can tell us all about what happened.”
Caina nodded and Halfdan put his arm around her shoulders and steered her away from the crowd. He would want to know what she had learned, and…
“Wait.”
Halfdan stopped. That voice sounded almost familiar…
A Masked One stepped free from the crowd. Like the others, a jade mask covered his features, and he carried a rod of silvery metal in his left hand. Unlike the others, his right leg twitched and jerked as he walked, and he seemed in dire need of a cane.
Caina felt a twinge of alarm.
“Talekhris,” said Zalandris. “What is it?”
“The girl may have been injured by the glypharmor’s sorcerous aura,” said Talekhris. “If she is sensitive to the presence of sorcery, the powers within the armor might have done her injury.”
“That is a very remote possibility,” said Zalandris, raising a hand to forestall Mihaela’s protest.
“Nevertheless,” said Talekhris. “She is a guest of the Scholae, and I would have no harm befall her.”
“Very well,” said Zalandris. “If the girl consents to it.”
“Your face,” said Caina. “I want to see your face.”
“So be it,” said Talekhris, lifting his jade mask.
Caina stared into the face of the Masked One she and Corvalis had killed in Cyrioch.
Chapter 11 - The Watcher
“No,” said Caina. “No, Father, I don’t want to go with him. He frightens me.”
But her mind spun furiously beneath the show of fear. How was Talekhris still alive? His mask and rod had disappeared from the Inn of the Defender, but Marzhod had dumped his corpse into Cyrioch’s harbor. Had Marzhod betrayed them?
Or had Talekhris come back to life?
Decius Aberon let out a nasty laugh. “Your daughter frightens easily, Master Basil.”
“I fear,” said Halfdan, “that she inherited her mother’s sensitivities.”
Caina certainly hoped not.
“I can see why she would fear me,” said Talekhris. He was the same man they had seen in Cyrioch, Caina was sure of it, with the same blue eyes, the same limp, the same graying brown hair. “But I swear, Master Basil, that I will return your daughter unharmed to you. I will swear it on the names of whatever gods you wish, and offer whatever you want as surety.”
Caina blinked. Talekhris wanted to talk to her. He needed to know something that she did. Or, he thought she knew something he needed to know.
Either way, Caina could use that.
“If…if you think it best, my lord Sage,” said Caina, looking up at Halfdan. “If you will allow it, Father.”
“If it pleases you,” said Halfdan.
“Yes,” said Caina. “I think it will.”
For Talekhris certainly knew things that she needed to know. How he had survived Corvalis’s sword through his chest, for one. And perhaps he knew how Mihaela had built the glypharmor, and why the Moroaica had claimed necromancy had been used to create the armor. The Scholae forbade the practice of necromancy, which meant if Mihaela had somehow used necromantic spells to create the glypharmor, Caina had a chance of convincing the Masked Ones themselves to destroy the weapon.
“Very well,” said Talekhris, beckoning. “Please come with me. We will be gone but a moment, Master Basil.”
The Masked One led Caina from the
Hall of Assembly.
###
Caina followed Talekhris up a narrow flight of spiraling stairs. The Sage moved slowly, grunting in pain with every step.
“That would go faster,” said Caina, “with a cane.”
“So it would,” said Talekhris, not looking back. “But life is pain. It must be endured.”
“Like a sword blade through the chest?” said Caina.
He looked back at her, and she could not tell if he was angry or amused. “Yes. Precisely like that. Like the sword blade you rammed into my heart.”
He stopped kept climbing, wincing with every step.
At last the stairs ended, and they came to another grand hall, similar to the one where Zalandris and Mihaela had held their ghastly little demonstration. Stone pedestals stood here and there, and objects rested upon the pedestals, swords and shields and cups and daggers and bowls. In the center of the room a long staff of gray metal rested upon a coffin-sized plinth. Fingers of crimson flame danced around the staff, only to harden into glittering ice crystals a few moments later, and then to melt into flickering sparks of blue-white lightning.
Caina’s skin crawled with the presence of potent sorcery.
“What is this place?” said Caina.
“The Chamber of Relics,” said Talekhris. “It is something of a museum. Here we house the most powerful artifacts wrought by the Scholae, objects too dangerous to ever see the light of day.” He pointed at a silver dagger upon a stone plinth, the blade sheathed in an ornate scabbard of silver and black. “That is the Stormbrand, capable of controlling the air with more power than the assembled stormsingers of the Kyracian people. That sphere will extinguish every fire within a ten mile radius, and transform the stolen heat into a weapon…”
Caina had left her ghostsilver dagger in her room. Ghostsilver was proof against sorcery, and perhaps she could use it to destroy these objects.
Or perhaps their sorcery was too strong for even ghostsilver.
“And that,” said Talekhris, pointing at the strange staff as the lightning morphed back into flames, “is the Staff of the Elements.”
Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 06 - Ghost in the Forge Page 12