Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “I keep meaning to ask how you do that,” said Cassander.

  The woman took a few steps towards the desk. She wore all black, black boots, black trousers, a black tunic, black gloves. Over the black clothing she wore plates of red armor, fashioned from some sort of ceramic that Cassander suspected had been alchemically enhanced to the strength of steel. Over her face she wore a mask of red steel, its expression serene and blank. At her belt hung a short sword fashioned from ghostsilver and a dagger, and he had no doubt she had other weapons hidden in her clothing.

  Not that she really needed them.

  The woman also wore a Ghost shadow-cloak, the cowl pulled up, the cloak hanging loose about her legs. It blurred and blended with the shadows, making her far harder to see. It also had the effect of blocking divinatory or mind-controlling sorcery.

  Though Cassander was not stupid enough to attempt to look into her mind with a spell.

  He knew exactly what he would find there.

  The woman drew back her cowl and removed her red mask, and Cassander found himself looking at the features of Caina Amalas.

  At least, it was a close copy of Caina Amalas.

  Cassander had never seen the Ghost in person, but he had read descriptions, and the woman before him had the same features, the same blue eyes, though there was something of Claudia Aberon Dorius in the jaw and in the long blond hair. When Cassander had first met the Red Huntress, she had looked like a typical Istarish woman in her middle thirties. After Caina and Claudia had defeated her, the nagataaru that inhabited her body had rebuilt her flesh in the likeness of Caina and Claudia. Cassander was not sure if it was intended as mockery or as a reminder. Knowing the nagataaru, maybe both.

  “Practice,” murmured Kalgri, gliding soundlessly forward and running a gloved hand along the edge of his desk. “Your security is almost adequate.”

  “Such high praise,” said Cassander, watching her. She glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes. Kalgri's new form was quite attractive, really, and under other circumstances the look would have been alluring, but Cassander knew far too much about her. The Red Huntress was nearly two centuries old, and she had more blood on her hands than many members of the Umbarian Order. The nagataaru inside her feasted upon pain and death, and fed some of that power back to her in the form of enhanced strength and speed. If it came to a fight, Cassander was not sure he could beat Kalgri.

  Best to avoid that fight, then. Especially since the Red Huntress might be the key to killing Caina Amalas and reclaiming the lost regalia of Iramis, the relics that would make Cassander a power in the Order.

  “It is,” said Kalgri. “Else I would not have wasted my time with you.” Something like purple fire and shadow flashed in the depths of her eyes for a moment. “I would have killed you and forgotten about you.”

  Cassander smiled at her, flexing his armored right hand. “You are welcome to try.”

  For a moment they stared at each other, and Cassander wondered if he had pushed her too hard, or if she had decided to kill him for some unfathomable reason of her own. Then Kalgri smiled and pushed away from the desk, gazing through the open balcony doors at the darkened Alqaarin Quarter below. The transformation had altered her personality in addition to her face, had made her more mercurial, her actions harder to predict.

  He would be a fool to think it had made her any less dangerous.

  “Did you enjoy your meeting with Erghulan?” said Kalgri.

  “Not in the least,” said Cassander.

  “Mmm. I knew his father, too. He was a pompous fool, and his son is a pompous fool. It must run in the blood.” She looked at him and grinned. “Perhaps you can find out when you spill it.”

  Cassander tried to keep the reaction from his face. Had Kalgri realized what he intended to do if Callatas would not open the Straits? He started to summon power for a spell, then realized that if the Red Huntress wanted to kill him, she would not bother talking first.

  So. That meant she still wanted his help to kill Caina Amalas.

  “I take it,” said Cassander, “that you are ready to strike at the Balarigar?”

  “Soon,” said Kalgri. “Very soon now.”

  “Then you know where she is?” said Cassander.

  “More or less,” said Kalgri.

  “Then,” said Cassander, rising from his chair, “I suggest that you tell me where she is, and I shall strike at once.”

  “No,” said Kalgri.

  “It will be difficult,” said Cassander, “to kill her without knowing her location.”

  “If you go after her now, you will accomplish nothing, put her on her guard, and lose a great many of your men in the process,” said Kalgri. “Not that their lives are of any consequence. But you had your chance to kill her and you failed.”

  “So did you,” said Cassander.

  He heard the faint creak of her leather gauntlets as her hands curled into fists, and again purple fire flickered through her cold blue eyes.

  “I did,” hissed Kalgri. “I am going to feast upon her death.” She shivered a little. “Soon. Very soon. Her death…and her death will be the gateway to so many others…”

  “If you tell me her location,” said Cassander, taking a step closer to the Huntress, “I shall be most glad to assist you.”

  Kalgri gave a nasty laugh. “I’m sure you would. Out of the generosity of your kindly heart? No. You are not a fool. We both failed to kill Caina, but we can help each other.”

  She held something in her right hand, rolling it over her fingers. It was a short, curved knife. It looked a bit like a scaling knife, or perhaps the kind of knife a Teskilati torturer would use to peel the skin from a victim.

  “An interesting blade,” said Cassander. “It looks too fragile to make an effective weapon.”

  “It would be,” said Kalgri. “When used against flesh, surely. But this,” she tapped the flat of the blade against her fingers, “but this is a weapon against the mind.”

  “When stabbed into the ear, I assume?” said Cassander.

  That actually a brought a brief smile to her face. “No. Do you know what Caina’s strength is?”

  “Her intellect?” said Cassander.

  “That is one of them,” said Kalgri. “Her chief weapon, though, is her ability to acquire allies. She has gained some potent allies. The stormdancer.” Her lip curled in contempt. “Nasser Glasshand, who likes to masquerade as a thief. Morgant the Razor. Annarah, the last loremaster of Iramis.”

  “Truly?” said Cassander. “She really found an Iramisian loremaster?” The loremasters of Iramis had possessed legendary skills of sorcery. If Caina had somehow found an Iramisian loremaster, she had indeed acquired a potent ally.

  “Yes.” Kalgri tilted her head to the side, the way she did when listening to the nagataaru within her flesh. “I am not certain how. I thought Annarah slain a century and a half past. Callatas himself thought that.” She smiled to herself. “He is not omniscient.”

  “Clearly not,” said Cassander. “Else he would not have devoted such efforts to locating the Staff and the Seal of Iramis.”

  She glanced at him. “You know of his need for the relics?”

  “He requires them to work his great spell, whatever it is,” said Callatas. “I know how he searches the Iramisian ruins in the Desert of Candles. Clearly he needs the relics for some purpose.”

  Kalgri’s smile sharpened. “And you have some other purpose for them?”

  “I promise that if I take them,” said Cassander, “that I am going to kill a lot of people.”

  “Such honeyed words for my ears, Lord Cassander,” said Kalgri.

  “And you know where the relics are?” said Cassander.

  “I know exactly where they are,” said Kalgri.

  A flash of irritation went through Cassander. He considered taking Kalgri prisoner and forcing the knowledge from her, but dismissed the idea as suicidal. He could not force her to do anything, and if he tried, she would likely kill him. If Cas
sander wanted to kill Caina, if he wanted to claim the Staff and the Seal for himself, then he would have to play along with this madwoman’s game.

  And if not…well, there was his plan for opening the Straits whether Callatas and Erghulan liked it or not. Considering the amount of people the plan would kill, he suspected Kalgri might approve.

  “Perhaps you should tell me,” said Cassander.

  “Not yet,” said Kalgri, smiling. That smile unsettled him as much as the anger of the Provosts. “Soon, though. Very soon. Caina Amalas will die…and perhaps all the world with her.” She shivered again, almost like a starving woman contemplating a feast. “All the world.”

  “Would you care to explain your plan?” said Cassander.

  “Prepare your men to strike,” said Kalgri. “I will return tomorrow night, and I will know where Caina shall be for the next few days.”

  “Then we shall kill her,” said Cassander.

  “I will kill her,” said Kalgri. “And then, once she’s dead, you can have the Staff and the Seal.” She stepped towards the balcony doors. “Caina will be either in the Alqaarin Harbor or the Bazaar of the Southern Road in a few days.”

  “How do you know?” said Cassander. “Is…”

  But Kalgri was gone. Likely she had jumped from the balcony in silence and plummeted to the courtyard below. It was a fifty-foot fall, but her nagataaru would have given her the strength to survive it without injury. Cassander sighed and his right hand curled into a fist, the gauntlet clanking. The woman was dangerous and unreliable. Yet she was nonetheless effective…and Cassander would use every weapon he could to achieve his goals.

  He would see the Umbarian Order conquer the Empire, no matter what he had to do to achieve it. Caina’s death was a minor annoyance to achieve that goal.

  Especially since Cassander was both willing and capable of killing everyone in Istarinmul to destroy the Empire.

  Chapter 4: Necessary Villains

  Caina blinked awake, the last threads of a dream fading as she looked at the dawn sunlight spilling across the ceiling of her safe house. She thought the dream had been a nightmare, though she could not remember what had happened.

  Just as well. Caina had so many nightmares. Her old mentor Halfdan had said that nightmares were the scars of the mind, and Caina had accumulated quite a few of those. One of them was Halfdan’s death, stabbed from behind by Sicarion. He had never seen the assassin coming. At least it had been quick.

  Caina wondered what dangers she had failed to foresee. Given the many dangers she did foresee, it hardly seemed necessary to look for new ones.

  She rolled out of her cot and stood, the worn floorboards cold against her bare feet. This particular safe house was a rented room in the Tower Quarter, not far from the Teskilati headquarters in the grim fortress of the Crows’ Tower. It was a risk, sleeping so close to the Crows’ Tower, but the widow Talisla who owned the house owed Caina a great many favors. Though perhaps Caina’s presence here put Talisla and the other tenants at risk.

  Caina stared at the wall for a moment. Perhaps it was good she was leaving the city to find the Tomb of Kharnaces. No one else would be in danger because of her. Of course, the people of Istarinmul would still be in danger. Callatas would continue working towards the Apotheosis …

  She closed her eyes, trying to stop the guilty spiral of her thoughts. Even if Caina had never come to Istarinmul, the city’s people would still have been in danger. If she wanted to defeat the danger, if she wanted to prevent the Apotheosis and end the civil war, the best way was to find the Staff and the Seal of Iramis and prevent Callatas from ever claiming them.

  Best to get started, then.

  Caina worked through her unarmed forms for an hour, both to clear her mind and to keep the movements fresh upon her muscles and memory. They had saved her life more than once, and she moved through the middle block and the low kick, the high strike and the leg sweep and a dozen other movements over and over again until her breath came hard and ragged, her arms and legs trembling with fatigue.

  Once she finished, she felt better. Exercise always had that effect. Caina cleaned away the sweat and dressed in her disguise for the day. While wearing the garb of a courier for the Padishah she had killed a Teskilati agent and three Umbarian Silent Hunters, so today she dressed as an Anshani merchant in a patterned red and blue robe, a turban upon her head, a scimitar and her ghostsilver dagger at her belt, a fake beard and some makeup making her look both male and twenty years older. Since coming to Istarinmul, she had spent far more time dressed as a man than as a woman. The disguises were useful, but she was getting desperately tired of dressing as a man. She wanted to put on a nice dress, wanted to put on earrings and jewelry.

  Caina was honest enough with herself to admit that she wanted Kylon to see her like that.

  That was another tangle of emotion she couldn’t sort out right now, so she pushed it aside, checked her disguise one last time, and left the rented room. Once a brief glance revealed no Teskilati agents or Kindred assassins lurking in the street, Caina set out across the city.

  It was time to visit a tavern she had burned down.

  ###

  Granted, Caina hadn’t intended to burn down the Shahenshah’s Seat. And to be fair, the Sifter had been at least partially responsible.

  Caina walked through the Bazaar of the Southern Road in the Anshani Quarter, the southernmost edge of the city itself. The Great Southern Road, the main caravan route to Anshan and Cyrica, began at Istarinmul’s southern gate. Consequently the Bazaar was one of the largest in the city, and perhaps one of the largest in the world, full of men from a dozen nations buying and selling every conceivable manner of merchandise. The sprawling caravanserai outside the walls usually held thirty or forty merchant caravans at once, some preparing to depart for Anshan or Istarish Cyrica, others unloading their goods to sell in the Bazaar.

  At least, the Bazaar usually held that many caravans. Now it was half-empty. The rumors of war in the south had scared off many merchants. Strabane’s Kaltari warriors had been raiding the Brotherhood’s slave caravans, adding the freed slaves to their ranks, and numerous tribesmen had decided to take advantage of the chaos by going bandit. Consequently merchant traffic had slowed to a crawl, and now only the boldest dared to make the journey across the Trabazon steppes to Istarinmul.

  Perhaps Caina could blame herself or that, too.

  She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and then felt something cold against her left wrist. Caina kept walking, but slipped her right hand into her left sleeve, her fingers coiling around the ghostsilver bracelet on her left wrist. Of course, the pyrikon wasn’t really a bracelet, and it wasn’t really made of ghostsilver. Caina had once thought the pyrikons were enspelled bracelets of the loremasters of Iramis, but they were more than that. They were spirits of defense, summoned from the netherworld and given material form. The loremasters of Iramis apparently earned them as some part of trial, and when Caina had rescued Annarah from the nagataaru in the netherworld, one of the spirits of defense had decided that Caina was worthy.

  It had followed her back to the material world, and now resided upon her wrist in the form of a bracelet. It unsettled Caina to no end, and if she could have figured out a way to get rid of the thing, she would have done so. She did not like carrying enspelled objects, let alone a spirit of the netherworld. Yet the pyrikon had made itself useful. It had transformed into a gauntlet that allowed her to handle the Subjugant Bloodcrystal, and that had led to the destruction of the Inferno and the freeing of the Undying. It also had another useful ability that Caina had not anticipated.

  It sometimes grew cold in the presence of another pyrikon. Given how hot it was in Istarinmul, it was a pleasant feeling, but it also let her find Annarah.

  Caina turned back and forth, then nodded to herself and started down the aisle between rows of merchant booths. At the end of the aisle was a booth selling knives of dubious quality. The merchant himself was a plump Istari
sh man with beady black eyes, a florid blue robe, and a turban of the same color.

  A man and a woman stood before the booth. The man looked like he was in his middle fifties, though Caina knew he was much, much older. He wore a stark white shirt, a loose black coat that hung to his knees, black trousers, and black boots. A sheathed scimitar and dagger rested in his sword belt, and something like a red gem flashed in the pommel of the dagger. He had close-cropped gray hair, icy blue eyes, and a sour, gaunt face. He claimed to be Markaine of Caer Marist, famed painter, but Caina knew that he was Morgant the Razor, infamous assassin.

  Right now his expression was caught somewhere between annoyance and incredulity as he looked at the woman.

  The knife merchant, too, devoted his entire attention to the woman.

  She was striking, taller than both Caina and Morgant, with dark skin, brilliant green eyes, and long silvery hair that Caina had tried to persuade her to cut or dye. The woman would worn the robes of an Iramisian loremaster, but both Caina and Morgant had managed to convince her to wear a simple green dress and headscarf, her distinctive hair bound into a long braid. Her pyrikon rested around her left wrist in the form of a delicate bronze bracelet. The merchant stared at her, eyes wide, and for an awful moment Caina was sure that the man had recognized Annarah, that he was about to call for the watchmen.

  But as she hurried over, she saw that the merchant was nodding in agreement.

  “Then…I should speak to him?” said the merchant.

  Morgant rolled his eyes.

  “You must speak to him,” said Annarah. She spoke Istarish with a peculiar accent. Caina suspected Annarah was one three people left in the world who spoke with the accent of lost Iramis. “Do you not see? He did not mean to insult you. No, he simply wanted a better life for his children, just as you did.”

  The merchant nodded again. “My father dug ditches all his days on a plantation in Istarish Cyrica. Now I have risen higher!” He gestured at his booth.