Child of the Ghosts (30 page)

Chapter 32 - The Final Spell

The Magisterium’s messenger bowed low before Maglarion.

“The master magi send word, sir,” he said. “They have conjured the storm, as you wished. It should reach the city at any moment now.”

Maglarion smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Please extend my gratitude to the master magi. And tell them that they shall receive their reward in full, this very night.”

Oh, they would. 

The messenger bowed once more and left, leaving Maglarion alone in the tower chamber. After a moment he started to laugh.

The “master” magi, indeed. During the height of the Fourth Empire, they would have been little better than half-trained novices. Still, Maglarion had put the fools to good use.

His smiled widened.

He had put quite a few fools to good use.

And he was at last ready. True immortality would be his. He would ascend in might, to live forevermore as power and strength. 

There was just one thing left to do. 

He walked to the great bloodcrystal and tore aside the tarps, filling the chamber with ghostly green light.

A year ago, the bloodcrystal had been half again Maglarion’s height. Now it stood twenty feet tall and ten wide, its jagged top brushing the domed ceiling. Green flames blazed and writhed in its black depths. The faces of his victims appeared and disappeared in the green glow. Maglarion laid a hand on its rough surface, and felt the power pulsing within…the power that his, thanks to his link with the bloodcrystal. Power beyond the reach of weaklings like the master magi, power beyond the ability of a fool like Haeron Icaraeus to comprehend. 

He looked out the south windows, saw lightning over the bay.

Power that would soon increase beyond reckoning.

The long and difficult spell to imbue the clouds with plagueblood would drain a substantial part of the great bloodcrystal’s reserves. But once plagueblood fell from the skies, once Malarae started to die, Maglarion would receive that power back a thousand times over. A million times over. The necromantic power released from all those deaths would surge into the bloodcrystal…and through the link, into Maglarion himself. 

Maglarion would devour it all. 

True immortality at last. 

He supposed that he was about to destroy the Empire of Nighmar. The Emperor would die, along with most of the nobles. The provinces of the Empire would fracture into civil war and chaos…and pestilence, too, if travelers happened to carry Maglarion’s plague from the desolate capital. But the death of the Empire did not matter in the slightest. The Empire was peopled with mortal men and women, men and women whose lives had no meaning and no purpose. 

The only purpose to their existence was to be consumed as Maglarion saw fit.

Raindrops splattered against the tall windows.

Almost time now. 

And no one could stop him.

The Ghosts could try, of course, but he had misled them. Sending Rekan to the fountain in Graywater Square, and Ikhana to the Naerian Aqueduct had been nothing more than diversions. If they succeeded, well and good – his bloodcrystal would absorb the resultant deaths. Of course, he was reasonably sure that the Ghosts had killed Rekan, and that they would kill Ikhana.

No great loss. Especially since their deaths would keep the Ghosts away during the final spell. 

He crossed to the wooden podium before the bloodcrystal. A dagger rested on it, along with the ancient Maatish scroll that he had taken from Sebastian Amalas’s library seven years ago. He looked over the hieroglyphs, refreshing the ancient spell upon his mind one final time.

Footsteps sounded against the tower stairs. 

Maglarion shivered in anticipation. 

He turned as Lord Haeron Icaraeus entered the chamber.

“You wished to see me?” said Haeron, his voice holding a threatening edge. After all, one did not summon Lord Haeron. 

“Yes, my lord,” said Maglarion. “I have good news for you.”

He fell silent.

“Well?” said Haeron. “What is it?”

“I have devised a means for using plagueblood to kill the Emperor,” said Maglarion.

That part was true.

Haeron blinked, and then smiled. “You have? Excellent! And I will not be suspected?”

“I can assure you, my lord,” said Maglarion, “that no one will suspect you in the slightest.”

Which was also true. 

“When can you do it?” said Haeron. 

“Why, I have already begun” said Maglarion. “The Emperor will probably die by sunrise. Certainly before night comes again.” 

Haeron frowned. “So soon, you say? But…I’ve barely had time to prepare. My support is strong among the Restorationist nobles, but I need additional allies among the Militarists before I can crush the Loyalists.”

“My lord,” said Maglarion. “You are a man of destiny, fated to bring great change to the Empire. And power comes to those bold enough to seize it.”

Haeron gave a sharp nod. “Yes. Yes. It is as you say. Very well. How precisely will you kill the Emperor?”

Maglarion lowered his voice. “Are you sure you want to know?”

He was going to enjoy this.

Haeron scowled. “Tell me, sorcerer. Now.”

“Very well,” said Maglarion, beckoning Haeron to the podium. “Do you know what this is?”

“A Maatish scroll,” said Haeron, voice impatient. “You’ve explained this to me already.” 

“Plagueblood was an…innovation of the Maatish necromancer-priests,” said Maglarion. “With it, they terrorized their enemies and their subject peoples, and kept the Maatish empire under an iron fist for centuries. They had a spell, you see,” he gestured at the windows, “to charge the rain itself with plagueblood. If a city rebelled, they conjured a storm over it, infused their rain with plagueblood, and sat back to watch the city die.”

He watched the thought worm its way through Haeron’s mind.

Haeron’s reaction was most entertaining.

“Are you insane?” thundered Haeron. “Our agreement was for you to kill the Emperor, not everyone in Malarae! I want to rule over the Empire, not a graveyard! I forbid this!”

“As you wish, my lord,” said Maglarion. “It’s just as well, since I cannot proceed. I’m missing a final catalyst for the spell.”

“What catalyst?” spat Haeron. 

“Royal blood,” said Maglarion. “The spell to infuse storm clouds with plagueblood requires an offering of royal blood. Which is why the Maatish necromancers used the spell rarely, of course. The pharaohs, and their families, were loathe to give up their blood.”

Haeron snorted. “Just as well, then, that you will find neither kings nor pharaohs in Malarae, sorcerer. The Emperor and the nobles rule the Empire, not a king. Trouble me no more with this nonsense.”

He turned to go.

“My lord?” said Maglarion. “One more question.”

“What?” said Haeron, glaring over his shoulder.

“Did you not tell me that in ancient times, the House of Icaraeus ruled over Cyrica as kings?”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Haeron, turning around, “why…”

He saw understanding come over Haeron, saw him turn to run.

Too late.

Maglarion flicked a finger, wrapping Lord Haeron in bands of arcane power. Haeron froze in mid-step, trapped in the grip of Maglarion’s sorcery. Maglarion gestured, and Haeron floated towards him.

He retrieved the dagger from the podium and a goblet from the worktable, and strode towards Haeron. On impulse, he released the portion of the spell that bound Haeron’s mouth. He wanted to hear what Haeron had to say.

Maglarion did want to enjoy this. 

“Release me!” bellowed Haeron. “I demand that you release me at once. You’ll regret this, sorcerer. I’ll watch you die for days!” 

First would come bluster.

Maglarion ripped open Haeron’s sleeves.

“I tell you, release me!” said Haeron. “I can make it worth your while, once I am Emperor. Power, riches, lands, whatever you desire, it is yours!”

And then bargaining.

Maglarion walked towards the bloodcrystal, Haeron floating after him, still struggling against the invisible bonds.

“Let me go!” shrieked Haeron, eyes wide as he stared at the dagger. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!”

And then begging.

Maglarion turned, green flame crackling around his fingers, and cut Haeron’s left wrist, catching the blood in the goblet.

And last came the screaming, the terrified, frantic wails of a trapped man with no escape. 

“Why do you scream so?” murmured Maglarion, watching the goblet fill. “You told me so yourself. The strong do as they like, and the weak suffer.” He smiled. “It is only the natural order of things.” 

Haeron shrieked and sobbed and begged all the more. Maglarion ignored it, painting sigils in blood upon the floor, encircling the bloodcrystal’s dark mass. At some point Haeron fell silent. No doubt he had died from blood loss. His usefulness to Maglarion had ended. 

He released the spell, and Haeron’s corpse crumpled to the floor. A flick of his fingers, and the body slid across the floor to the wall, conveniently out of the way. 

One more sigil painted around the bloodcrystal’s base.

And then it was finished.

He was ready. At long last, he was ready.

True immortality would be his.

Trembling, Maglarion crossed to the podium, tossing aside the bloody dagger and goblet. He cleared his mind and focused, drawing the words of the final spell to the forefront of his thoughts. Then he began to chant, drawing arcane power into himself, more and more, until he thought he would burst from it.

The bloodcrystal pulsed with green flame, matching his heartbeat. The massive thing shivered, sweating drops of black plagueblood. The plagueblood floated into the air, whirling around the bloodcrystal, faster and faster, wreathing it in a halo of liquid darkness. 

Maglarion shouted and clapped his hands. 

Power screamed out.

And the bloodcrystal erupted in answer. 

A pillar of emerald flame exploded from the bloodcrystal. Maglarion’s spells protected him, but the force tore away the domed ceiling, blasted out the windows, and ripped away most of the walls. For a moment shattered debris tumbled in every direction, and then the tower chamber stood open to the air, the storm raging around Maglarion. 

The column of emerald flame stabbed into the sky, piercing the storm clouds themselves. The lightning arcing from cloud to cloud took a greenish tinge, the air crackling with necromantic power. More plagueblood swirled around the bloodcrystal’s mass.

Maglarion’s shoulders shook with exertion, his head ringing, but he laughed. When he finished the spell, the spinning cloud of plagueblood would ascend the pillar of flame, mingling with the storm. Plague-tainted rain would fall upon Malarae, killing those it struck, filling the aqueducts and the cisterns with death.

Within a day Malarae would die.

And their deaths would lift Maglarion to true immortality at last.

Exultant, he flung out his hands and began screaming the spell’s final words. 

Chapter 33 - Blood And Vengeance

Haeron Icaraeus’s mansion loomed in the darkness, visible even in the pouring rain. Liveried guards stood at the gates, while Caina saw Kindred assassins prowling the grounds. 

Her skin tingled and crawled, reacting to the sorcery-fueled storm raging overhead. And she felt something else, a nexus of dark power swirling within the mansion, stronger than anything she had ever sensed before. It was like looking at the sun…if the sun gave out black light, light that froze instead of warmed. 

“So it’s in the mansion, but you don’t know where,” growled Riogan.

“We’ll sneak past the guards,” said Caina, thinking fast. “Once we’re in the mansion, we find Maglarion and kill him before he casts his spell.”

It sounded simple enough. 

“Yes,” said Riogan. “We’ll sneak past a dozen Kindred assassins. That should certainly…”

The tingling against Caina’s skin doubled, and redoubled, until it was almost physical pain. 

Then green light flared overhead, and Caina looked up just in time to see the top of the mansion’s tower explode. The thunderclap was enormous, even louder than the storm overhead, and for an instant a cloud of broken stone wreathed the tower’s shattered crown. And then a pillar of emerald flame burst from the tower, stabbing into the clouds. Green lightning leapt from cloud to cloud, and Caina felt wave after wave of necromantic power pulsing from the tower. 

“I think I know where Maglarion is,” she said.

Riogan swore. “He’s finished the spell!”

“No,” said Caina, drawing a dagger in either hand. “Not yet. We’ll have to fight our way in. Run!”

Caina sprinted for the gates, Riogan following. They were probably going to die, she realized. She was capable in a fight, and Riogan was better, but they couldn’t defeat Haeron Icaraeus’s guards and assassins by themselves.

But the guards took one look at the pillar of fire and ran, terror on their faces. She saw servants fleeing the mansion, and even the Kindred assassins were running. Caina had spent so much time around sorcery that she had grown numb to it.

Though looking at the pillar of flame, she could understand their reactions.

“That’s our chance!” she hissed to Riogan. “Go!” 

They raced through the gates, dodged the fleeing guards and servants, and entered the mansion. Caina knew her way through the maze of corridors from her previous visits. The mansion trembled and shuddered, dust falling from the ceiling, and she wondered if the force of Maglarion’s sorcery would bring the entire place down before she could reach him. 

Then they sprinted up the tower stairs, Caina’s breath coming fast and hard, running through round chamber after round chamber. The pulsing throb of necromantic sorcery against her skin grew sharper and colder. Then she saw green light from above, and realized they were almost there…

Blue light flashed, and a jolt of pain went down her arms.

“Stop!” she hissed. Riogan came to a halt behind her, leaning on the ghostsilver spear to catch his breath. 

“What?” he said, and then fell silent as he saw the faint wall of blue light shimmering across the stairwell.

“A ward,” said Caina. She waved her gloved hand in front of it, and felt a wave of stabbing pain. “A powerful one, too. I…I don’t know what will happen if we touch it.” They had to get past it. Halfdan had said that ghostsilver spear could pierce spells. Could it break the ward?

“We go up,” said Riogan, crossing to the chamber’s tall, narrow windows. “Climb the walls. If Maglarion sees us, he’ll kill us the minute we come up the stairs. But I doubt the old devil warded the windows. If we take him unawares, I can have the spear through his heart before he realizes anything is wrong.”

Caina nodded as Riogan lifted the butt of the spear and smashed a window.

“I’ll go up this side,” said Riogan. “You take the other. We’ll play this the way we planned at Haeron’s party. You distract Maglarion, and I’ll kill him from behind.” 

Caina nodded again. “Riogan?”

“What?”

“Good luck.”

He gave sharp nod. “You as well.”

Caina shattered a window with the handles of her daggers and stepped onto the sill. Rain and wind lashed at her, threatening to send her tumbling to the mansion’s roof hundreds of feet below. But she kept her balance as she pulled the rope from her belt and flung it. The grapnel caught on the tower’s shattered crown. Caina gave it several tugs, took a deep breath, and started to climb. 

A few moments later she reach the tower’s top.

The first thing she was Haeron Icaraeus. Or his corpse, rather. He lay crumpled against the jagged ruins of the wall, face frozen with fear and horror. 

His alliance with Maglarion had not ended well. 

Maglarion himself stood perhaps thirty feet away, his coat billowing in the wind. The bloodcrystal in his left eye socket blazed with light, and he stood with his arms raised to the heavens, face uplifted as he screamed the words to a spell. Caina felt the arcane power swirling around him, vast and strong as an ocean tide.

But the great bloodcrystal captured the whole of her attention.

Caina had never seen anything like it.

The thing stood twenty feet high and ten wide, a jagged monolith of gleaming black crystal, wreathed in a swirling cloud of plagueblood. Ghostly green fire danced in its depths, the flames forming faces. So many faces. For a horrified moment Caina saw her father’s face in the flames, and the servants of House Amalas that Maglarion had butchered so long ago, and then Alastair and Nerina.

But even that was only peripheral.

Because she could feel the great bloodcrystal.

It felt…the hideous thing felt like it was a part of her, almost like a limb. She felt every flash and pulse of the flames in its depth, felt it shuddering and trembling with stored power. She felt the draining aura radiating from the thing, vast enough to cover all of Malarae, the aura that would drink the deaths from every man, woman, and child in the city when the rain of plagueblood fell. 

It was pulsing in time with her heartbeat. 

How? How was that even possible?

She saw a dark flicker behind Maglarion. Riogan rolled over the ruined wall and landed on his feet, the ghostsilver spear in hand. Step by step he crept closer to Maglarion. 

Any moment Maglarion would notice him.

Caina scrambled to her feet, making no effort to conceal herself.

“Maglarion!” she yelled.

He spun, the spell faltering, astonishment on his face. Then his good eye narrowed, his hand came up, and Caina felt the crawling tingle as his power closed around her. 

The ghostsilver blade erupted from his chest.

Maglarion staggered, hands raking at the air. Riogan ripped the spear free, the blade dimmed beneath a thick coating of blood, and buried it in Maglarion’s back again. Maglarion dropped to one knee, right eye wide with shock, his shoulders slumped. Caina felt the vast spell shudder and come to a halt. 

They had done it.

The bloodcrystal blazed with emerald light.

Maglarion snarled and flung out a hand, invisible force seizing Caina. For a panicked instant she thought the spell would blast her off the tower, send her tumbling to her death. But instead she floated into the air, immobilized by Maglarion’s will. She saw Riogan caught in the same way, shuddering as he tried to break free from the spell. 

Maglarion gripped the spear below the blade and pulled it free from his chest, foot by bloody foot. After he got it loose, he spent a few moments coughing and shuddering. But wave after wave of power washed out from the bloodcrystal, the hideous wounds on Maglarion’s chest and back shrinking with every pulse.

Had he become so strong that nothing could kill him? Not even a ghostsilver blade?

He was linked to the bloodcrystal, Caina realized. It poured so much power into him that he could heal any wound, recover from any injury. 

He was invincible.

A little later Maglarion levered himself to his feet, leaning on the spear like a staff.

“Ghostsilver,” he said, his voice rusty. “Very clever. It would have worked, a year or so ago. But I’ve moved beyond that. I’ve moved far beyond that.”

The wounds on his chest vanished, and he tossed the spear aside. It clattered across the floor and came to rest against Haeron Icaraeus’s corpse. The great spell still raged against Caina’s skin, waiting for Maglarion to continue. 

“Ghost nightfighters,” he said, looking from Riogan to Caina. “You Ghosts are so damnably persistent. Like cockroaches, really. Again and again I smash you, and again and again you come to die.” He smiled. “At least you had the wit to wear those shadow-woven cloaks. That’s why I didn’t sense your approach. But let’s see who you are, hmm?”

He threw back Riogan’s cowl and mask. Riogan scowled at him, and Maglarion laughed.

“I know you!” he said. ” Haeron told me about you. The Kindred assassin who refused to murder the child. Haeron put an enormous bounty on your head for that.”

“Guess you didn’t care for the fat bastard either,” said Riogan, glancing at Haeron’s corpse. 

“No,” said Maglarion. “I did not. Tell me. You had a life of wealth and power as a Kindred assassin, and you cast it aside to save the life of one worthless child. Was it worth it?”

Riogan sneered. “If it meant I could defy a miserable craven like Haeron, and a bloody-handed devil like you, then yes.”

“Haeron indeed was a miserable craven,” said Maglarion. “But he had his uses, so I kept him alive. You, however, are of no use to me. Your death shall be far worse than his.”

He gestured, and some of the plagueblood whirling around the bloodcrystal struck Riogan in the face. 

Riogan snarled. Then he started to scream. The veins in his face turned black, and cysts swelled beneath his jaw, his nose, his eyes, his armor bulging as the cysts spread. His screams redoubled, raw and horrible and worse than any sound Caina had thought Riogan could ever make. 

Then one of the cysts swelled in his throat, cutting off his air, and the screams stopped.

Maglarion let Riogan’s deformed corpse fall to the floor. The bloodcrystal pulsed, and Caina felt it drink in the power released from Riogan’s death.

Maglarion turned to face her, smiling.

Caina trembled, trying not to scream. She was eleven years old again, chained to that cold metal table, watching as Maglarion approached with the dagger in hand. 

Only this time Halfdan was not coming to save her. 

And once Maglarion killed her, he would kill everyone in Malarae.

She had failed.

“And who might you be?” said Maglarion. “Let us find out, before you join your comrade.”

He reached up, pulled back Caina’s cowl, and tossed aside her mask.

His good eye widened in astonishment. 

“Laeria Amalas?” he said.

Caina glared at him, forced herself not to show fear.

“No,” murmured Maglarion, taking her chin in his hand. “No…too young, though you are her very image. Her…daughter? Yes. That fierce little girl Laeria sold to me? Still alive? Amazing.” 

“You killed my father,” said Caina.

Maglarion ignored that. “And you survived for seven years? I thought I had killed you.” He shook his head and rubbed the ragged hole in his coat. “That was an oversight. When the Ghosts poisoned those fool magi…they must have saved you. Taken you in, trained you to become a weapon.” He laughed. “Little good it has done you.” 

“Better to fight than to let you do whatever you please,” spat Caina.

Maglarion laughed. “You fought back, and I still did whatever I wished. What a fine joke this is!” His hand tightened on her chin. “I created you. By accident, true, but I made you what you are. The Ghosts forged you into a weapon, and I assume you spent the last seven years dreaming of the day you would finally strike me down and avenge your useless father. And now that day has come!” He leaned closer, good eye bright with mirth. “Tell me…is it everything you dreamed it would be?” 

Caina said nothing, every muscle straining against the invisible force that held her fast.

Useless. She might as well have tried to move a mountain of iron. 

“Of course,” said Maglarion, releasing her and stepping back, “you failed to kill me, which means you’ve wasted your entire life.” He spread his arms, gesturing at the vista of Malarae around them. “If you’re here, you’ve figured out what I will do. I should keep you alive to watch your precious Empire die. But I made the mistake of keeping you alive once before. You see, your life, your father’s life…their only purpose was to be used as I pleased. Think on that as you die, dear child.”

He gestured, and a spray of plagueblood kept from the cloud and struck Caina in the face. 

It was cold, so terribly cold, and Caina gasped, the plagueblood filling her nostrils and mouth. She felt it trickle down her throat, the terrible cold spreading through her chest and stomach. She waited for the agony to begin, for the cysts to erupt from her flesh.

Instead, for a brief moment, she felt…better. As if something long-lost had been returned to her at last.

Then the cold sensation faded.

Nothing else happened. No cysts, no pain. 

Nothing. 

The plagueblood hadn’t killed her. It hadn’t even hurt her. Her eyes darted back and forth, glimpsing plagueblood leaking from cracks in the great bloodcrystal…

The bloodcrystal.

Realization struck Caina.

It was the same bloodcrystal. The one Maglarion had made from her blood in that cellar. The one he had used when he killed her father. No wonder she had felt such a terrible attraction to it, to the vials of plagueblood taken from Rekan and Ikhana. Even now, swollen with the stolen lives of thousands, it was still the same bloodcrystal, made from Caina’s blood. 

Which meant the plagueblood was made from her blood. It was part of her. A stolen part, but part of her nonetheless. 

She was immune.

Maglarion stared at her, the beginnings of surprise on his face. 

If he realized that she was immune, he would crush her skull. Or simply throw her from the top of the tower.