Ghost in the Cowl (4 page)

“Forgive him, master poet,” said Damla. Given how much business Sulaman’s presence drew, little wonder she did not want to offend him. “Master Marius is new to Istarinmul.”

“No,” said Caina, striving for calm and almost reaching it. “It…was a lovely poem. Mistress Damla is right. This is the first day I have ever set foot in Istarinmul, and the poem was…unexpected, that is all.” 

“I am sorry if it caused you pain,” said Sulaman. “For such tales often cause pain, when we recall the vast span of years and how many have suffered and died in vain. But you, Master Marius…the poem seemed to disturb you.”

“I lost friends,” Caina heard herself say, “when the golden dead rose.” 

She had lost friends, but she had lost more than that. 

Everything, really. Halfdan. Her place with the Ghosts. The House of Kularus. Her home in Malarae. Her friends in Malarae, who had been unable to protect her from Lord Corbould Maraeus’s misplaced ire. 

And Corvalis. Corvalis most of all. 

“I am sorry for your losses,” said Sulaman. “Many lost kin and friends when the golden dead rose.”

“And I am sorry for yours,” Caina made herself say. “I am not the only one to have lost someone.”

“I fear that you are correct,” said Sulaman. “The city was already in great upheaval after the war, and the golden dead made matters worse.” He sighed. “Perhaps the madmen in the countryside are right, and the golden dead are the punishment of the Living Flame upon us for our sins. For I fear that the sins of Istarinmul are black and deep indeed.” 

“Do not say such things, sir,” said the drummer. “The golden dead were the work of some mad sorcerer, I’d warrant.” 

“Perhaps, Mazyan,” said Sulaman. 

“I am inclined to agree,” said Caina, who knew firsthand that Mazyan was correct. 

“Forgive me, Master Marius,” said Sulaman, “for dwelling upon such melancholy matters.”

“A question, master poet, if I may,” said Caina. 

“Of course,” said Sulaman.

“The star is the key to the crystal,” said Caina. “Have you ever heard those words before?”

“I have,” said Sulaman. 

“What are they?” said Caina, leaning closer. Some of her intensity must have shown, because Mazyan scowled and reached for his dagger. Caina forced herself to calm, but the whole of her mind thundered with those words. The spirit of Horemb had told them to her, after Corvalis had died and the Moroaica had been vanquished. What did they mean? Were they a riddle? A warning? A prophecy?

“I believe,” said Sulaman, “they are the words from a poem.”

Caina blinked. “A…a poem?” Her voice caught a bit. “What poem?”

“A newer epic, only a century old,” said Sulaman. “It describes the ill-omened day that the Master Alchemist Callatas used his sorcery to destroy Iramis in a single instant. It is the refrain of the poem, I believe. Though I do not know what it means.”

“A poem?” repeated Caina. “That’s all? A poem? That’s it?” 

Caina had killed the Moroaica, had seen the man she loved die, and Horemb’s spirit had quoted a poem at her? Had that been a joke? A final cruel mockery? The room seemed to spin around her, and Caina wanted to scream, wanted to strike something, to kill someone, to collapse the floor and weep until her lungs gave out. 

The shadows in her mind seemed to choke her vision. 

Mazyan’s perpetual scowl depended. “Have the poet’s words offended you, foreigner?”

“No,” said Caina. “I thought it meant something else. That is all.” 

“Are you all right?” said Damla. “Forgive me, Master Marius, but you look…rather ill.”

“Come to think of it, I am,” said Caina. She made herself smile, and Mazyan’s hand tightened further against his dagger. “I…think I need some fresh air. Pardon me, sirs.” She dropped a few more coins into the bowl. “Master poet, thank you for your words.”

“The Living Flame go with you, Master Marius,” said Sulaman. There was pity in his eyes, and for some reason that enraged Caina further. 

She walked from the House of Agabyzus without another word.

Chapter 4 - Breaking

A few moments later Caina staggered into the Sanctuary, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. The dim glow from the iron stands illuminated the tables, the cabinets and shelves, the brickwork walls. The faint splash of the aqueduct came to her ears, soft and quiet.

She walked to the table holding tools and leaned upon it, breathing hard. Her fingers tightened against the wood, so hard the knuckles shone white against the skin. 

She had lost everything. 

It had happened to her before, when her mother had murdered her father and sold her to Maglarion. But Halfdan had rescued her, and for years rage had driven Caina, rage and grief. But one could not live on rage forever. She had met Corvalis. She had started the House of Kularus. She had hoped to settle down with Corvalis and move on.

And all that was gone now.

Caina felt herself shaking, her eyes burning.

Now she was alone. Halfdan was dead, murdered by Sicarion, and she could not turn to him for help. Caina wanted to talk to Theodosia, to Ark and Tanya, but they were in Malarae, and she had been banished to Istarinmul. Sent to rebuild the city’s Ghost circle, to spy on the Istarish for the Emperor.

But to what end? Istarinmul had been a cruel and brutal place long before Caina had been born, and would be long after she was dead. Nothing she did would change that.

Useless, useless, useless.

A sob ripped out of her, almost against her will, and her legs buckled beneath her. Caina slumped against the table, her body shaking with the tears. For a long time she could do nothing else, her chest hitching with the draw of her breath. At last it trailed off, and she felt a little more in control of herself.

But the shadows still danced in her mind. 

A poem. A line from a poem.

A damned useless line from a damned meaningless poem about dead men. Again the fury rose in Caina, mingled with grief, and she started to think about veins.

Distraction. She needed to distract herself. 

She got to her feet, threw off her coat, and started to work through the unarmed forms. 

High block, low kick, middle punch, backward throw, all the moves she had practiced over and over again until they were imprinted upon her very muscles. She always felt better after, calmer, more at peace. She worked through them for an hour, until her heart hammered against her ribs, her breath sharp and fast.

This time they did nothing. 

Caina worked through them for another hour, again and again, her arms and legs aching with the effort. Sweat drenched her clothing, and she started pulling it off with snarled curses, yanking off her boots and throwing them aside, tugging off her shirt and trousers until she stood in her sweaty shift. 

Again she worked through the unarmed forms, faster and faster. 

Caina stood upon her left leg, her right raised past her head, when a burning cramp shot through her overstressed muscles. She lost her balance and fell hard upon her side, her head bouncing off the stone floor. Another wave of pain rolled through her, and Caina hissed as her legs clenched.

At last the cramp subsided, and she got to her feet, the sweat cold and clammy against her skin. She staggered forward and caught her reflection in the mirror, her blue eyes maddened and bloodshot, her blond hair hanging in disarray around her face. Her hair…she had hated dyeing it blond. Corvalis had teased her for it, expressing feigned shock at her vanity, but had run his hands through it anyway, and then pulled her close to kiss her…

Caina thought again of veins. 

She stooped over her discarded belt and pulled out a dagger. A few aching steps moved her closer to the mirror, the dagger in her right hand. Her reflection looked like some crazed specter, a madwoman bent on vengeance.

She started hacking at her hair, cutting it off sweaty lock by sweaty lock. She could not stand the sight of it another moment. Soon nothing remained by a ragged shock of black hair, little more than two inches long. 

Caina looked nothing like Sonya Tornesti, nothing like the woman Corvalis had loved. 

And that made her feel worse. 

She did not want to feel anything. She wanted numbness, forgetfulness.

Oblivion.

Her eyes stayed to the casks of spirits under one of the tables. 

She dragged one out, her muscles straining, and located a wooden cup. She found that it contained Caerish whisky, which tasted absolutely terrible and made her mouth and lips and throat burn as it sank into her belly. But, then, no one drank whisky for the taste, did they? They drank it to forget.

The drink hit her hard. Soon she felt warm, far warmer, and the room spun around her. She drained another cup, and another, a veil of warm wool seeming to encircle her head as the Sanctuary blurred and shifted. 

Sometime between the fifth and sixth cup, she heard shouting and smashing wood from above, but dismissed it. It was entirely possible she was hearing things. Or the Teskilati had discovered that she was a Ghost and were hacking their way into the Sanctuary.

Caina did not care which. 

At the moment, she was more concerned with keeping her balance. She doubted she could stand, and even sitting upright was proving a challenge.

Sometime after the eighth (or possibly ninth) cup Caina slumped onto her side, the world whirling around her. 

And then darkness came.

###

And in her darkness, Caina dreamed.

She saw the things she expected, the usual images that populated her nightmares. Maglarion and her mother. Kalastus screaming as his own pyromancy devoured his flesh. Andromache’s lightning falling upon Marsis, Nicolai screaming in terror.

There were newer horrors. The golden dead rising in the chaos of the Agora of Nations, the rift spreading overhead. Sicarion’s blade erupting from Halfdan’s chest. The Moroaica’s green fire slamming into Corvalis, his limp corpse lying upon the ground.

Caina fled from those dreams, but they pursued her nonetheless.

And then some unseen force seized her, and she saw something new.

Something she had never seen with her waking eyes. 

A city walled in golden stone, sitting in a fertile plain, strong and prosperous and orderly. There were no slaves in the city, only free men and women. Ships from every nation crossed the sea to dock in the city’s harbors, to trade in its markets. 

And then the fire came.

A hooded man stood on a ridge overlooking the city, a star of blue light burning in his fist. He raised the star, and fire devoured the city, consuming it in a single instant. The farms turned to wasteland as the rains stopped, withering to desert, a desert filled with thousands of gleaming crystalline pillars.

The desert shifted around Caina, and she found herself staring at Corvalis.

She started forward with a desperate cry, reaching for him, but then he turned. 

In life his eyes had been a brilliant, jade-colored green, but now they burned like liquid flame.

As if they had been made of smokeless fire.

Smokeless fire. She had heard those words before. But where? 

“You’re not Corvalis,” said Caina.

“Obviously,” said Corvalis. In life his voice had never carried that dry, sarcastic drawl. He began to circle around her. “Are you the one? You might be. If the shadows of the future harden into the stone of the present. Time, alas, is ever unreliable.”

“Who are you?” said Caina.

“A dream, of course, my dear slayer of demons,” said Corvalis, his burning eyes looking into hers. “Or the Balarigar, as the Szalds so loved to name you. They do like their stories. But is the story true? Are you the one? I have been looking for someone like you for a long time. Well, a short time, really. But from your perspective, several lifetimes.”

“I don’t understand,” said Caina.

“You will,” said Corvalis. He looked at the barren desert as the stars went out and the sun turned to ashes. “You will start to understand, I think, when you wake up. You’re going to have a very busy day ahead of you. Assuming, of course, that you do not first choke on your own vomit. Should you survive the night, I would advise you to avoid strong drink. You simply do not have the constitution for it.” 

The dream dissolved, and Caina sank into endless blackness.

###

Later, much later, facts penetrated the haze filling Caina’s brain.

The first was the odor. Something smelled unpleasant, and very close to her face. The second fact was the ache in her left side, the throbbing pain in her left knee and shoulder. She was lying on her side upon a cold stone floor, wearing only a shift, and consequently she was freezing.

And then the headache tore through her forehead like a crossbow bolt.

“Oh,” muttered Caina, squeezing her eyes shut. 

After a moment the thunder in her head subsided to a mere roar, and she pushed herself to a sitting position. 

She was still in the Sanctuary, sitting next to a small puddle of vomit she had no recollection of producing. Last night’s memories came swimming back. Her darkening mood, Sulaman’s poem, the meaning of the words Horemb had given her. 

Her mind collapsing into utter despair.

“Gods,” muttered Caina, pressing the heels of her hands into her forehead. Little wonder people drank to forget their misery. She could barely think of anything through the headache. 

She could have died last night. Had she fallen asleep on her back, she might well have choked. Or she could have tripped and cracked her skull upon the floor. 

A wave of shame went through her. Corvalis had sacrificed himself to save her life. Drinking herself into a stupor and cracking her skull upon a table would have been a poor way to repay his sacrifice. The thought would have made her weep, but no tears came. Perhaps she had cried them all.

Or, more likely, she was too dehydrated to cry. Gods, but that Caerish whisky was nasty stuff. 

Caina got to her feet, caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, and winced. She looked terrible, her face pale, her eyes bloodshot, and her hair…

“Oh, dear,” said Caina, running her hand through what remained of her hair. It looked as if a madwoman had attacked it with a pair of scissors, leaving only a few ragged, uneven inches.

Which, she supposed, was exactly what had happened. 

Vaguely she wondered what Corvalis would say if he could see her. Or Halfdan. 

Again she felt that wave of shame. 

No more. She would not destroy herself through drink. She owed that to Corvalis and Halfdan. She had to continue living, if only to honor their memory.

And she could always get herself killed doing something useful. 

Caina retrieved a razor from the table and trimmed her hair, leaving only a half-inch of black stubble. It was not an attractive look on her, made her look gaunt and wasted. But at least her head would be cooler under the damnable Istarish sun. And it would make it easier to wear wigs to disguise herself, if necessary…

She blinked at the thought, and let out a long breath. 

If she was thinking about wigs, that meant she was thinking about disguises…which meant she could do what she had come to Istarinmul to do. 

It seemed she was not ready to die yet after all. 

She wanted to curl upon the floor and weep, but she knew that if she started that again it would end badly. And there was work to be done in Istarinmul. True, she could hardly expect to change the city. But there were things she could do. The slaves, for one – perhaps she could help escaped slaves to freedom. Or she could discomfort the Slavers’ Brotherhood – they kidnapped slaves from across the world, and Caina had no qualms about making their lives miserable. 

Besides, the floor in the Sanctuary was damned uncomfortable. If she wanted to lie down and cry, she could at least find a proper bed. 

Caina cleaned up the various messes she had made, located fresh clothing, and dressed herself. With her close-cropped hair, she did indeed look like a ragged (if short) Caerish mercenary. She had always resisted cutting her hair short, even though it would have made disguise easier. How Corvalis would have laughed…

Caina closed her eyes for a moment and waited for the pain to pass. 

Some coffee would be welcome, and the House of Agabyzus could provide that. And perhaps Damla knew the location of a reputable bathhouse. Caina could hardly use a public bath, not if she wanted to maintain her disguise. She could worry about it later. Right now it felt as if a war drum hammered away inside of her skull, and to her astonishment she was hungry. The solution to both problems waited in the House of Agabyzus. Caina would have to apologize to Damla for her behavior. She could pass it off by claiming that she was sick from the ship’s food. 

That at least would have a kernel of truth to it. 

She wrapped a sword belt around her waist, tucked throwing knives into hidden sheaths beneath the sleeves of her coat, and climbed the ladder to the square. The brilliant glare of the sun sent another stab of pain into her skull, and Caina squinted until her eyes adjusted and the pain settled to a tolerable level. After a moment she realized that it was almost noon. She had been unconscious for the better part of sixteen hours, if not longer. 

Whisky was not her drink. 

Caina walked through the alley to the Cyrican Bazaar, turned towards the House of Agabyzus, and froze in shock.

Something was wrong. 

The coffeehouse’s shutters stood open, and within Caina saw destruction. The tables had been tipped over, the cushions shredded, the coffee cups and plates smashed. The door had been ripped off its hinges and lay upon the ground. Men and women went about their business in the Bazaar, but they gave the House of Agabyzus a wide berth, as if it held some deadly plague.

Caina saw no sign of Damla or her sons or her slaves.

Had they been robbed? Did Damla have enemies? Caina supposed a coffeehouse owner could acquire violent enemies, though it seemed unlikely.

But Caina had enemies.

If the Teskilati had learned she was here, they might have attacked the coffeehouse. And Caina would not put it past Lord Corbould to send assassins after her.