Ghost Nails

by Jonathan Moeller

  Caina hesitated, looking back and forth between us.

  “Go after him,” I said. “I’ll head back to the House of Agabyzus.”

  Caina raced down the stairs. Male clothing had one major advantage over that of women. It let her run faster, and Caina could run like the wind when she set her mind to it. She dashed down the stairs and vanished around the corner after Kamal. I hurried down the alley and into the main street, my heart racing, my hands quivering a bit as I removed my mask. I calmed down as I headed back to the Bazaar and traffic started flowing around me, but still the fear remained. I was not suited for this kind of thing.

  But I hadn’t been given a choice in the matter, had I? Ulvan’s abduction of my sons had thrust me upon this path. I hadn’t asked Kamal to try and kill Korim beneath my roof, but he had. I would do what I had to do.

  I hoped Caina knew what she was doing, and the icy fear in my stomach did not ease.

  ***

  Chapter 4: The Hakim's Invitation

  I did not see Caina for three days.

  I would have worried, but a few hours after I returned to the House a courier delivered a note, a bill of sale for an order of coconuts from a Kyracian ship in the harbor. I had not purchased any coconuts, but it was a message from Caina. We had worked out (or, rather, she had instructed me in) a series of coded messages. That particular message meant that she was safe, and I would hear from her in a few days.

  Life went on at the House of Agabyzus.

  I served coffee and cakes and dealt with my suppliers. Bayram and Bahad helped me with those tasks, and I was pleased to see how much they had grown. I feared of what would become of my sons when I was gone. I thought they might have their heads turned by stories, might run off to become soldiers as their father had been or take up arms to fight as gladiators in the arenas. Fortunately, they showed no inclination to do so, and they both had a head for business. I hoped the coffee house would support them and their sons for many years to come.

  Three days later, Caina returned, and suddenly my fears for the future became more immediate.

  This time she wore the disguise she had employed when I had first met her a year and a half past, the dusty coat, trousers, and boots of a courier for the Imperial Collegium of Jewelers. Makeup gave her the illusion of dark stubble to match her close-cropped black hair, and she wore a sword and a dagger at her belt.

  “Master Ciaran,” I said. “It is good to see you again.”

  “And you, mistress Damla,” said Caina, her voice rough and disguised. “A word?”

  I nodded. It was mid-morning, and the tables were mostly empty. We sat at one of the booths near the kitchen. Caina sighed as she sat, and I realized that not all of her weary, haggard appearance was a disguise.

  “You’ve been busy,” I said.

  “Aye,” she said in her normal cool voice. “I’ve spent the last few days infiltrating Korim Murasku’s mansion in the Wazirs’ Quarter, and I’ve learned a few things in the process.”

  “What have you discovered?” I said.

  “Korim has a wife a third of his age and weight,” she said. “A Cyrican noblewoman named Dinaka. From what I understand, he made the marriage as a business alliance. He ignores Dinaka in favor of food and drink and work, and lets her do whatever she pleases so long as she does not embarrass him before the Wazir of the Treasury and the Grand Wazir. Naturally, she hates him and plans to have him killed.”

  “That seems…foolish,” I said. “If she waits but a few years, he will die of his indulgences and she will inherit his wealth. If she bears a son for him, her position is secure for life.”

  Caina shrugged, her eyes distant. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. An older, wealthier husband and a bored younger wife. In the Disali provinces, years ago, and again in Mors Septimus. Corvalis was…”

  She stopped talking for a moment. Corvalis was the name of the man she had lost, the man she had loved. She had spoken of him to me only once, tears in her eyes as she refused to meet my gaze, and I was shocked that anything could bring tears to the eyes of a woman as bold and cunning as Caina. I had never pressed her further on it.

  “Anyway,” said Caina a moment later, “Dinaka is vain and arrogant, and hates Korim for ignoring her. I think she hired the Kindred to rid herself of Korim, but in the process she’s become infatuated with Kamal. They’ve been carrying on an affair with Korim none the wiser. She wants to murder Korim and wed Kamal.” She shook her head. “I fear Kamal is besotted with her. Otherwise he would never have agreed to that ridiculous plan with the nails, and he would have killed Korim in a more efficient fashion long ago. But Dinaka, you see, wants Korim to suffer.”

  “I see,” I said, chilled. “Perhaps it is just as well Kamal is in love with such a foolish woman. Else he might have efficiently murdered the Hakim under my roof, and I would be ruined.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. “But you’re clear of it now. I doubt Korim will come to the House of Agabyzus again for a few weeks, and I think Kamal will soon lose patience and simply kill Korim this very night.”

  I considered this for a moment.

  “You are telling me this for a reason,” I said.

  “Does Korim deserve to die?” said Caina.

  “I have been paying him bribes for years,” I said, “but he has never made trouble for me, and even aided me a few times. I would not say that he is a good man…but he certainly does not deserved to be murdered so his adulterous wife can claim his wealth.”

  “Will you help me save his life?” said Caina.

  “Why do you care?” I said. “He’s not a Brotherhood slaver or an Alchemist. A magistrate in the Padishah’s government, yes, but he is not that powerful.”

  “Because if we save his life,” said Caina, voice quiet and hard, “he will owe you a favor…and we may need that in days to come.”

  Her tone unsettled me further. “What do you mean?”

  “Istarinmul is a pot upon a fire, and it is going to boil over soon,” said Caina. “Not tomorrow. Not next month, likely. But within the next few years. The Padishah has not been seen in public since before the war with the Empire, and his sons and heirs have vanished. The price of slaves has exploded, and the Brotherhood of Slavers is making themselves more and more unpopular. You’re not the only woman who has had family kidnapped. The southern emirs are furious at the Brotherhood, and the Grand Wazir is more and more unpopular.” She leaned closer, her voice little more than a whisper. “And there is the great sorcerous work Grand Master Callatas plans with the wraithblood.”

  She had not told me all the details, for the simple fact that what I did not know could not be tortured out of me by the Padishah’s secret police. But she had hinted, and I had put her hints together. Callatas, the Grand Master of the College of Alchemists, was planning something awful. Something as terrible as the day of the golden dead when the dead had risen to attack the living, animated by the golden fire that had filled the sky. After the day I had learned of Bahlar’s death and the day Ulvan had taken my sons, that had been the single most terrifying day of my life. I had been sure that the end of the world had come, that the Living Flame had turned his back upon the world of men and handed us over to the dead as punishment for our sins. Instead, Caina had told me, the golden dead had been the work of a mad sorceress.

  And from what she had hinted, the thing that Callatas planned was even worse.

  “There are dark days coming,” said Caina, “and when they arrive, we’ll need as many friends as we can get. Someday we will have the chance to stop Callatas…for if we fail, he will unleash a disaster at least as bad as the fall of Iramis.”

  I had seen the mural in the Tarshahzon Gardens, the great painting depicting Callatas on the day he had destroyed Iramis one hundred and fifty years ago. According to the tales, Iramis had been a city of beauty and strength and wonder, home to a quarter of a million people, and Callatas had burned them all in a single moment.

  I thought of such flames sweep
ing through Istarinmul, of my sons dying in the wrath of a mad sorcerer, and I shuddered.

  “What would you ask of me?” I said.

  “Tonight is Korim’s birthday,” said Caina. “He will hold a feast in his mansion, inviting whatever nobles and Alchemists who will deign to accept his invitation, along with the merchants under his jurisdiction in the Cyrican Bazaar.”

  “I know,” I said. “He does it every year.” I had attended some of the feasts. They were boring, tedious affairs, with the merchants maneuvering for Korim’s favor, and Korim maneuvering for the favor of those who outranked him. Even when I did not attend, I always made sure to send a gift and a note of congratulations.

  “Tonight,” said Caina, “Dinaka and Kamal are going to poison Korim. They will lace either his food or his drink with a poison of surpassing lethality. He will die in considerable pain a few hours after he consumes it. I need you to warn him about it.”

  “Why me?” I said. “Why not you?”

  “Three reasons,” said Caina, counting them off on her fingers. “First, an anonymous letter or message wouldn’t work. He would assume someone was trying to frighten him. Second, if you save his life, you will gain his trust and favor in the future. Third, I’ve spent the last three days infiltrating the workers and slaves preparing his feast…and the nature of my disguise means that I cannot warn him. He would not believe me.” She shook her head. “If I had chosen a different disguise…well, what’s done is done.”

  “Do you know what, specifically, that Kamal and Dinaka intend to poison?” I said.

  Caina shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Korim is a glutton, as you know better than I do, and his birthday shall be a festival to that particular vice. There will be course after course and toast after toast. A hundred different opportunities for Kamal to slip his poison into Korim’s food or drink.”

  “The poison,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Powerful,” said Caina. “But such a powerful venom has a downside. It has a noticeable foul taste and unpleasant odor. Kamal will have to conceal it in a heavily spiced dish, or a particularly strong liquor. If he tried to conceal it in, say, one of Novaya’s cinnamon cakes, the taste would be noticeable at once.”

  “That could be a problem,” I said. “This is Istarinmul. Most of our dishes have powerful spices.”

  “You see the difficulty, then,” said Caina. “We have to be vigilant. When I spot the poisoned dish, I shall warn you, and you can denounce it to Korim. I will be there to aid you, if I can, but you shall have to convince Korim.” She hesitated. “Can you do it? If you do not wish to do it, I understand, and I can arrange…”

  “No,” I said. “You are right. I do not want to do this, but…it must be done. And I am the best one to do it.”

  “Very well,” said Caina, pushing away from the table. “I will see you at Korim’s mansion tonight.”

  “Who will you be disguised as?” I said. “A mercenary guard? A merchant?”

  Caina grinned. “Not quite. You’ll see.”

  ***

  Chapter 5: Drink Of This Cup

  I do not like being a widow, and I wish my husband were still alive.

  That said, widowhood had one advantage. It is very easy to dress for formal occasions when one’s choices are limited to black. When I was younger, I would have spent hours selecting the proper dress and headscarf and jewelry. Now I simply tied my black hair into a long braid, donned a black dress, a black headscarf, sandals, and a belt, a sheathed dagger clipped to it since no one in Istarinmul went unarmed. A bit of makeup and perfume, and I was ready.

  I set off for the Wazirs’ Quarter, which was east of the Cyrican Quarter and north of the Tower Quarter and the Old Quarter. The great emirs and Alchemists and merchants dwelled in the Emirs’ and Masters’ and Alchemists’ Quarters. Merchants and craftsmen congregated in the Cyrican Quarter and the Old Quarter, while watchmen made their home in the Tower Quarter. The Wazirs’ Quarter housed the mid-ranking magistrates of the Padishah’s government, those who made enough from bribes and rents to afford a mansion but not one of the grand palaces of the Emirs’ Quarter.

  Nonetheless, Korim’s mansion was opulent. It was five stories of gleaming stone within a courtyard surrounded by a low ornamental wall. Rows of empty sedan chairs and their slave bearers waited in the streets, while less wealthy merchants like myself made their way on foot. Four watchmen in leather and chain mail stood watch at the gate, admitting the guests. Korim was not important enough to warrant of bodyguard of Immortals, which was a relief. The closest I had ever gotten to an Immortal was during Ulvan’s grand banquet, when I had been helping Caina to rescue my sons, and I had no desire to see an Immortal again.

  The guards admitted me, and I walked into the courtyard. Bonfires burned in low stone rings, providing light as the sun sank below the mansions to the west, and long wooden tables and benches waited for the guests. More of Korim’s watchmen stood here and there, swords and clubs at their belts. The guests stood in groups, speaking in low voices. Slaves led them to their seats, and a fussy house slave in a fine gray robe led me to my table. It was, I noted with amusement, rather far from the high table at the mansion’s doors.

  I looked at the high table and spotted Kamal. He, too, wore the gray robe of one of Korim’s house slaves, and for a terrible moment I thought he would recognize me. But the light within the boarding house had been bad, I had been wearing a mask, and he had glimpsed me for only an instant before Caina hit him with a throwing knife. Most likely he would not recognize me.

  Most likely.

  He walked towards the high table, and I wondered how anyone could mistake him for a slave. The man moved with the efficient grace and balance of a predator. Caina herself moved in much the same way in a crisis. Kamal stopped near the high table, speaking to a young woman in a brilliant gown of gold. She was dark-skinned but paler than most Istarish women, which meant she was likely Cyrican. She wore jewelry, a lot of jewelry, a golden choker with rubies around her throat, rings on each of her fingers, glittering earrings, and a diadem over her headscarf. This had to be Dinaka, Korim’s wife. She looked over the gathering with barely concealed disdain.

  Then she shared a look with Kamal, and the heat between them was obvious. I wonder how Korim had possibly overlooked their affair. Whatever virtues that Korim possessed, keen perception was likely not one of them.

  I looked for Caina but saw no sign of her. Not that it meant anything. If she was using a disguise I had never seen before, I might walk past her without noticing. The woman had such a gift for disguise that sometime I wondered if she was one of the shapeshifting djinn of ancient legend.

  I decided to keep an eye upon Kamal. The Kindred assassin was the key to this entire mess. I racked my brain, trying to decide how he might employ the poison. Caina had said it would be liquid, not a powder, so he could try to pour it into wine. Of course, any number of fine dishes were served in liquid sauces, and they were spicy enough to conceal the poison’s taste. I supposed Kamal might have a confederate among the slaves of Korim’s household, one that might already have prepared the poisoned dish. If that was true, then it wouldn’t matter how much I watched Kamal…

  A booming voice interrupted my dark musings.

  “Welcome, my friends, welcome!” Korim hobbled from the doors of the mansion, leaning upon his thick cane, his scribe and his bodyguards trailing after him. “Thank you for your gifts and prayers upon the day of my birth. I bid you all welcome to my home, and urge you to enjoy yourselves.” Dinaka walked to her husband’s side, smiling at him. I wondered if Korim recognized the smile as false. Likely not, given that he didn’t even seem to notice her. “We have entertainment and music and food. Please, sit and let the feast begin.”

  I thought he looked…happy. How odd. He was a corrupt magistrate of the Padishah’s government. Yet I supposed many of the men here were his friends. I looked at Dinaka, and wondered what it would be like to be married to a man like Korim. Being igno
red by a wealthy man who let me do whatever I wanted did not seem like such a dire fate. Perhaps that was the insult. Maybe Dinaka could not stand to be ignored.

  We rose and applauded our host, and then I took my seat with the other guests. At my table were other minor merchants, those who had licenses for booths in the Cyrican Bazaar or shops in the surrounding streets. I knew all of them and was on good terms with most of them – merchants enjoyed coffee, after all. The sounds of drums and flutes rang out as musicians played in the corners of the courtyard. A double line of women came from the mansion doors, clad in scanty costumes that revealed rather more than they concealed. They began to dance, moving their limbs in time to the music, spinning and gyrating. I thought that in poor taste, but most of the guests were men.

  And then I spotted Caina among the dancers.

  She wore a skirt of red silk knotted over her left thigh, leaving her left leg bare. An intricate net of red silken strips encircled her neck and chest and did a marginal job of concealing her breasts, leaving her back and shoulders and stomach bare. She wore ornate jewelry upon her wrists and ears and ankles, and a black wig over her close-cropped hair. Her face had been painted with elaborate makeup, her eyes lined, her lips reddened, her eyelids painted a shade of blue that matched her eyes. She moved in an intricate dance in time to the drum, the skirt flaring around her as she spun to expose her legs. I saw the definition of the muscles in her arms and legs, the strength in her movements.

  I had expected her to disguise herself as a merchant or a guard, not a dancing girl. I could not imagine how she could wear such a revealing costume in front of so many staring eyes. And the eyes did stare. Most of the men near her watched with open admiration. I had worn a costume like that when I helped her regain my sons, and the embarrassment had almost been crippling.

  Yet it was an admirable disguise, was it not? Who among the emirs and the Alchemists and the merchants would expect a dancing girl to be a spy? Or the most wanted master thief in the city, for that matter?