Ghost in the Glass

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Lord Cazmar,” said the Malvashar. Was that fear on his deformed face? “We…”

  “That is enough!” said Libavya, stepping between Cazmar and the Malvashar. The horrible black eyes fixed on her as she raised her left hand, the Ring shining on her finger. “By the power of this talisman, I compel you to…”

  Cazmar sneered, the expression terrible on his withered face.

  In one smooth motion, he reached out and ripped Libavya’s left arm from its socket in a spray of blood.

  The arm bounced away down the bier steps and came to a stop, blood spurting from the ragged end.

  Libavya blinked at her bleeding shoulder, and for an instant, she looked baffled.

  Then she started to scream, the horrible, wrenching screams that a human throat was not designed to make. Cazmar seized her face between his hands, his fingers glowing with red light. The red light shone brighter in his eyes, and Libavya Jordizi started to age in his grasp.

  One second she looked forty. The heartbeat after that she looked eighty, her hair turned white, her once shapely body withered to little more than a scarecrow as her remaining arm raked at Cazmar’s chest. The second after that he let Libavya’s corpse drop to the floor, a puff of dust rising from her crumbling skin. Cazmar still looked old, but he no longer appeared ancient, and a new vigor seemed to flow through him.

  His eyes still were like black pits into a smoldering hell.

  “And now, traitorous priests,” said Cazmar, drawing his saber and striding towards the Temnoti, “we shall settle accounts!”

  The crypt exploded into motion. The reveniri rushed towards Cazmar, intent on defending their slain mistress. Or maybe one of the Temnoti had taken command of them. The footmen yelled and charged at Cazmar, and the Malvashar and the other two Temnoti began casting spells.

  In the chaos, for the moment Caina and Ilona and Svetlana were forgotten.

  And Caina knew that if she tried to attack Cazmar, if she tried to take him with the valikon, he would stop her just as quickly as he had torn off Libavya’s arm.

  “Run!” shouted Caina as the Temnoti unleashed their sorcery at the vyrkolak lord.

  Caina sprinted forward, calling her valikon to her hand, Ilona and Svetlana a half step behind her. Libavya’s left arm lay in a small puddle of blood at the foot of the stairs. Caina reached down, snatched the Ring of Rasarion Yagar, and yanked it from the dead hand. She shoved the Ring into a pocket and kept running.

  As she did, Cazmar leaped into the air like an insect and landed like a thunderbolt amidst the Temnoti. His saber blurred out, and the Malvashar’s head rolled away with a spurt of black slime. The reveniri froze in their charge towards Cazmar and then turned to seize the footmen. Caina realized that Cazmar’s will had taken command of the undead creatures, making them into his servants.

  Libavya had been guilty of the most appalling crimes, but she might have just loosed something far worse into the world.

  Any moment Cazmar would finish with the Temnoti and the footmen, and he would realize that Caina and the others were fleeing.

  “Run!” said Caina again.

  Ilona and Svetlana needed no prompting. Both women ran after Caina as she sprinted for the library door.

  Behind her, she heard the screams as Cazmar started killing the footmen.

  Chapter 18: A Knight of the Iron King

  Seb strode into the great hall of the sanitarium, his sword ready in his right hand, spells of psychokinetic force held prepared.

  The dying fires still glowed in the four hearths along the walls, and the smells of food and wine still lingered in the air, but otherwise, the great hall was empty. A dais rose at the far end of the hall, and no doubt that was where Theodosia and Ilona had sung their ribald song. He hoped Ilona was still alive. The dress she had been wearing had been beautiful, but Seb could not imagine it would be practical to run in the thing.

  He was annoyed with himself that he was picturing Ilona in that dress when he was about to go into battle.

  Because there was going to be a battle. Even without casting the spell to sense the presence of arcane forces, Seb felt the dark power radiating from the floor beneath his boots. If Libavya had killed Caina and taken the Ring from her, she was using it to work a spell of immense potency.

  Seb glanced at Kylon, but the stormdancer’s face was unreadable. If Caina was dead, then Libavya Jordizi did not have long left to live.

  Behind him, the witchfinders and the mercenaries streamed into the great hall, and Seb moved forward to give them room. His eyes swept the balconies and the doorways in the walls, seeking for enemies. The gods alone knew how many reveniri Libavya might have to command, or if she had the aid of Temnoti priests. The priests of Temnuzash did not like to show themselves openly, but if they realized that the Ring was here, they might discard caution to claim the relic for themselves.

  “All right,” said Basarab. He looked at Calugar. “Organize the men into groups of four. We’ll need to search the mansion’s ground floor and…”

  “High Brother, if I may?” said Crailov. “A suggestion. The entrance to the catacombs is in the mansion’s wine cellar. Lady Libavya raised her shrine to Temnuzash there, and the catacombs also open into Lord Cazmar’s tomb. Almost certainly Lady Libavya and her minions will be in the crypt, along with anyone you might wish to rescue.”

  “Very well,” said Basarab.

  “I’ll go first,” said Kylon. “If we run into any reveniri or something worse, I have the best chance of dealing with it.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Seb.

  “And I suggest that I accompany you as well,” said Crailov with a smile. “You young men are capable, no doubt, but I suspect I have rather…more experience with this sort of situation.”

  “Fine,” said Kylon. “Let’s go.”

  ###

  Caina had gotten six steps closer to the library door when the walls of the crypt exploded.

  She stumbled, fearing that the amount of sorcerous power that Libavya had unleashed would bring the roof crashing down. But that didn’t make any sense. Necromantic sorcery commanded flesh and blood, not rock and stone. No, the roof wasn’t falling in. Instead, six hidden niches in the walls of the crypt had burst open.

  Dark shapes stepped into the greenish glow.

  One was close enough that Caina got a good look at it. The creature was a mummified corpse in dark armor, an Ulkaari saber in its hand. A ghostly image of green light was superimposed over the withered face, showing the translucent features of an Ulkaari nobleman, proud and stern with a bushy mustache. Caina had seen undead creatures like this before. This thing was an ardivid, a powerful undead warrior.

  Cazmar hadn’t been buried alone. His szlachts had been buried with him as well, and now they came at their master’s call.

  “Go!” said Caina, and Ilona and Svetlana hurried after her.

  A scream came from the top of the bier, and Caina glanced back as the withered husk of a dead footman dropped to the steps. The reveniri swarmed around Cazmar and held the remaining footmen as he killed them one by one. Cazmar now looked to be a vigorous man in late middle age, his hair more gray than white, and his eyes still burned like open graves.

  That terrible gaze fell upon Caina, and she felt it as if she had been touched by a hot iron.

  “Stop her!” thundered the vyrkolak. “She has the Ring! Stop her, my servants!”

  All six of the ardivids drew their swords, the steel flashing in the green glow. Dozens of reveniri turned to face Caina, and the creatures ran across the crypt.

  “Faster!” said Caina.

  She tore through the door to the library, Ilona and Svetlana a half-step behind her. Caina seized the massive door and slammed it shut. There was a bar of wood next to it, and she dropped the bar into place.

  “That won’t hold them for long,” said Ilona.

  “No,” said Caina. “Go!”

  The second word had barely left her lips when the door shuddered in
its frame with enough force that one of the thick boards splintered. The reveniri might not have been all that smart, and they might have been unable to perceive Caina, but they were still hideously strong. Even the iron-bound door would not hold them for long.

  They were halfway across the library when the door shuddered again, and they had just reached the armory when the door exploded out of its frame, and a pair of reveniri raced after them. With the door open, Caina heard screaming, heard the snarl and crackle of spells. Cazmar was feeding on the footmen, and the last of the Temnoti priests was putting up a fight.

  Caina needed to find Kylon and Seb right now. They were likely still waiting at the Temple of the Old City. Caina had a valikon, but there was no way she could take a creature like Cazmar in a straight fight. The vyrkolak lord might find her easy prey, but he would have a far harder time facing a Kyracian stormdancer and an Imperial battle magus, to say nothing of a High Brother equipped with the Words of Lore and a force of Ulkaari witchfinders.

  But by the Divine…all those reveniri and the ardivids. Could Basarab and the others fight all those creatures at once?

  They reached the prison corridor, and the two reveniri rushed after them.

  “Keep running,” said Caina, turning to face them.

  “But they’ll tear you apart!” said Svetlana.

  Ilona urged her on. “Trust me, she knows what she’s doing.” Caina hoped so. “Go!”

  The nightkeeper and the sorceress kept running, and Caina took her valikon in both hands and drew it back to swing. The reveniri rushed after Ilona and Svetlana and did not realize that Caina was right in their path. At the last moment, she sidestepped and swung the valikon with both hands, all her strength behind the blow. The blade struck the withered neck of the reveniri on the right, and the valikon took off the creature’s head.

  Caina blinked in surprise. Kylon would have been proud of her if he could have seen the blow. But by the Divine, that made her shoulders hurt. Better stick to stabbing.

  The second reveniri slowed, seeking for whatever threat had dispatched the first one, and Caina followed her own advice and stabbed it in the back. The valikon’s blade flared with white fire, and the reveniri collapsed as the ghostsilver blade shattered the necromantic spells and destroyed the carrion spirit.

  Caina wrenched her sword free and ran after Ilona and Svetlana, who had almost reached the end of the prison corridor. She hated running in a long skirt, but she had done it before many times, and the sound of the reveniri pouring out of the crypt made for an excellent motivator.

  The screams had stopped as well. That meant Cazmar had finished off Libavya’s footmen and the Temnoti, and the vyrkolak would becoming for Caina and the Ring next.

  She caught up to Ilona and Svetlana, and they sprinted into the corridor leading to the ossuary shrine and the catacombs.

  ###

  The valikon burned in Kylon’s right hand, matching the anger in his heart.

  He should never have let Caina go alone. He should have insisted on going with her. If Libavya had hurt her, she would regret it bitterly, at least in the few brief moments she would have left in her life.

  Seb and Crailov followed him as Kylon strode towards the balcony on the left side of the hall. Next to one of the hearths, there was a narrow door that led deeper into the mansion.

  “That door will go to the kitchens, Lord Kylon,” said Crailov. “From there, we can proceed to the wine cellar, and then to the catacombs.”

  “You seem very familiar with the layout of the mansion, Master Crailov,” said Kylon.

  He didn’t like the man’s emotional sense. Kylon could only sense a little of it, thanks to the masking spells that sheathed the assassin, but what he sensed felt cold and controlled and calculating. Rather like the sense of a master assassin…or perhaps the sense of a powerful necromancer. Morgant the Razor’s aura had been like that, but Crailov’s emotional sense had an element of gloating malice that Morgant, for all his irascibility, had lacked.

  Yet Crailov’s emotions were under tight control now. He was expecting a fight.

  “The Voivode was a frequent guest of Lady Carmen, and I am but a humble advisor to his lordship,” said Crailov. Seb snorted at that. “I suggest, Lord Kylon, that if all possible the three of us try to take Lady Libavya unawares and kill her before she can react. She is surprisingly strong for a necromancer of her age, and if she is given free range to use her powers, I suspect she might kill us all.”

  “For once, I happen to agree,” said Seb.

  “Aye,” said Kylon. “We…”

  Sudden terror flooded against Kylon’s arcane senses. Someone was running up the corridor to the great hall. Seb didn’t notice, but Crailov turned a sudden sharp look towards the closed door. Did he have some ability to sense the presence of those around him?

  The door to the great hall burst open, and Caina came into sight, the valikon burning in her right hand. Relief flooded through Kylon, followed quickly by alarm. Ilona came after Caina, and despite her calm expression, fear boiled through her sense. After her came an emaciated-looking young woman wearing only a shift, her pale limbs dirty and marked with dried blood, and from her Kylon sensed both an aura of arcane power and stark terror.

  “Kylon!” Caina smiled as she saw him. “You’re here. And you brought friends.”

  “Aye,” said Kylon.

  She frowned at Crailov. “What the hell are you doing back here?”

  “I suspected, my lady,” said Crailov with smooth calm, “that you might find yourself in need of assistance.”

  Caina looked back and forth, taking in the scene in an instant.

  “Listen to me!” she said, turning to face the door. Ilona moved to stand behind Seb and Kylon, and the woman in the shift started summoning power for a spell. “Listen to me, all of you! High Brother, are you here?”

  Basarab jogged over. He was surprisingly quick for such a big man. Calugar and Teodor followed him, and Teodor froze when he saw the woman in the shift.

  “Svetlana?” he said.

  She whirled, her green eyes enormous. “Father? Oh, Father! Thank the gods you are alive!”

  The two of them embraced, but Caina was already talking.

  “Libavya Jordizi’s dead,” she said. “She used a necromantic spell to resurrect a vyrkolak lord who served the Iron King himself.” A murmur went through the witchfinders and the mercenaries.

  “Cazmar Vagastru?” said Basarab.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “Libavya freed him from his tomb, and he repaid her by feasting on her life force. He woke some ardivids that had been sleeping in the crypt, killed all Libavya’s footmen and her Temnoti allies, took control of her reveniri, and is coming to kill everyone in his path.”

  “The Divine preserve us, High Brother,” said Calugar. “One of the great vyrkolak lords of old loose in the city. It will kill thousands of people.”

  “No,” said Basarab. “No, it will do worse. It will take over the city. It will keep the people of Vagraastrad as herds to feed its hunger, as the Iron King and his szlachts did in ancient days. We must fight to stop it here…”

  Something surged against Kylon’s senses. He focused, and he realized what it was.

  Carrion spirits. Dozens and dozens of carrion spirits, boiling out of the earth like poison gushing from an infected wound.

  “They’re coming!” said Kylon.

  “To arms!” said Basarab. He barked a quick series of orders, and the witchfinders and the mercenaries rushed forward, forming a line to face the door. Caina said something to Svetlana, and she released her father and went to stand near Ilona, still holding her arcane power ready to strike.

  Kylon started to tell Caina to stand back, and then he saw the flares of dozens of points of white light in the corridor.

  The reveniri were coming.

  “Fight!” roared Basarab, brandishing his massive club. “Fight for the name of the Divine! Fight for Ulkaar!”

  The first of the rev
eniri raced into the great hall, and Kylon hurtled forward, using the sorcery of air to make himself faster.

  ###

  Seb fought with sword and spell as he had so many times before.

  There was an art to combining sorcery and blade work. Every magus of the Imperial Magisterium (and every magus of the Umbarian Order) could work spells of psychokinetic force. It was one of the first spells an initiate in the Magisterium learned, and even magi of marginal skill and competence could hit hard enough to break bones.

  But using psychokinetic force to make oneself faster and stronger was far harder. Too little power and the effort was wasted. Too much power or insufficient focus, and Seb could shatter the bones in his arm or break his knees. The trick was to use enough force to make his arms and legs faster, while also strengthening them enough to withstand the augmented force. Not all the magi could wield psychokinetic force to that precise degree, which is why not every brother and sister of the Magisterium could become a battle magus.

  But Seb could.

  And while he preferred sword work to spells, while his childhood dream had been to become an Arvaltyr knight rather than a battle magus, he appreciated how the skills of a battle magus could enhance his skills with a sword.

  He especially appreciated it now.

  A reveniri lunged at him, reaching for his throat with claws that swirled with deadly white mist. Seb lashed with his black sword. The black steel had been created in the foundries of the Magisterium, specifically strengthened and prepared to withstand the stresses a battle magus could place upon a sword. That meant the black blade barely slowed at all as it took off both the reveniri’s hands at once. The undead creature stumbled from the sudden loss of weight, and Seb hacked his sword into its neck. The black sword bit through and came out the other side, and the creature collapsed. Seb caught a brief glimpse of something twisted and malignant rising from the corpse as the carrion spirit was yanked back into the netherworld.