Ghost in the Hunt (39 page)

“Did robbers attack you?” said the man. “Here, you can cover yourself with this.” He tugged off his cloak. “My wife can find a dress for you, and…”

“Oh, how very tedious,” said Kalgri. The Voice had been badly weakened, but it still had power enough to allow her to rip the man’s throat from his neck. “But do you know what?” The man fell to his knees, eyes wide and shocked. “Apparently I am now the kind of woman who likes to talk to her victims as they die. That’s new. It’s really rather enjoyable, isn’t it? Well, for me, maybe. Not for you.”

The man fell into the stream, his blood running into the water, and Kalgri shivered as the power of his death entered her, the Voice growing a little stronger.

She turned, intending to find a cave or an abandoned house where she could rest. Once she had recovered, she would return to Istarinmul. The Red Huntress would stalk the night anew, and Caina Amalas and Claudia Dorius would pay for what they had done.

But for now, Kalgri would rest.

Chapter 22 - The Loremaster

The night after Erghulan Amirasku decided upon neutrality, Caina walked into the common room of the Shahenshah’s Seat. 

As ever, the room was crowded with mercenaries and porters sitting upon the benches and drinking. Caina wove her way through the crowd, wearing again the disguise of a caravan guard. She would have to devise some new disguises soon. Kalgri had managed to find her, and if Kalgri could do it, others could follow in her footsteps. Of course, Caina doubted many assassins had a century and a half of experience. But she needed to exercise greater caution.

Especially now that Cassander and the Umbarians were looking for her. 

Laertes leaned against the wall in his usual place, though this time he had a bandage wrapped around his head and another across his left hand. 

“Ciaran,” said Laertes with a grunt. 

“How’s the head?” said Caina.

“Better,” said Laertes. He grinned. “Never heard the end of it from my wife.” He straightened up. “You should meet her. She could introduce you to my daughters…”

“By the Living Flame, man,” said Caina. “Are you trying to set me up with one of your daughters? I am flattered, of course…but that is really not a good idea.” On more levels than Laertes knew, too. 

“You’re a good man, Ciaran,” said Laertes. 

“I’m really not,” said Caina. 

“Not many men would have the nerve to go toe-to-toe against the Huntress,” said Laertes. “Fewer still could do it and live to tell the tale.”

“I wouldn’t wish to leave your daughter a widow,” said Caina.

Laertes shrugged. “It’s a dangerous world, and growing more dangerous by the day. Even men who have never picked up a sword in their lives might get killed if matters keep going the way they are. You’d be able to look after her, at least.”

“That was a good shot, by the way,” said Caina, hoping to change the subject. “With the ballista. I was sure I was finished.”

Laertes snorted. “I told you I spent a lot of time in the Legion assembling war engines. Didn’t expect Lord Martin to know his way around a ballista. Decent fellow, for a noble.” He scratched his chin. “Better go on up. He’ll want to talk business.” 

“Lead on,” said Caina.

They went to the Seat’s second floor and entered the sitting room. Nasser sat at his usual place at the round table, rising as Caina entered. He wore the patterned red-and-black robes of an Anshani merchant, his left hand covered with a glove of black leather. 

He looked perfectly healthy.

“Ciaran,” said Nasser. “Thank you for coming.” He smiled. “I trust you are recovering from our little jaunt into the countryside?”

“Bit stiff, bit sore,” said Caina. “But I’ve lived through worse, and I’m still alive. I cannot complain.” 

“Please, sit,” said Nasser. Caina sat, as did Nasser and Laertes. “It was a very narrow thing, but we prevailed. Hopefully we shall be rid of the Huntress for a few years.”

Caina frowned. “Then you think she might have survived?” 

“I do not see how,” said Nasser. “From what you describe, Laertes’s and Lord Martin’s most excellently timed shot tore her to shreds. It is difficult to imagine that even a lord of the nagataaru could reconstruct such extensive damage to its host. And yet,” he drummed the fingers of his right hand upon the table, “and yet I wounded her almost as badly when I faced her the first time. I was certain she was dead…but she reappeared a few years later with a new face to attack you.”

“Perhaps she claimed a different body,” said Caina. “I have encountered necromancers who possessed the same power.” 

“I must say,” said Nasser, “you are taking the prospect of her survival rather calmly.” 

Caina shrugged. “The Moroaica…I saw her die several times before New Kyre. I killed one of her disciples three times. Or maybe four, depending on how you count it. I’ve seen this sort of thing before.”

Yet the thought of facing the Huntress again sent cold sweat slithering down Caina’s back. 

“There is no way to know for certain, alas,” said Nasser. “But if she did survive, we shall have at least a few years’ respite. The power that allows her to survive such grievous injury does not appear to be a quick process.” 

Laertes grunted. “Malarae was not built in a day.”

“Quoting proverbs, my dear Laertes?” said Nasser. “There is wisdom in that, for I fear we have our own Malarae to build. To business, then.”

“Yes,” said Caina. “Why aren’t you dead?”

Nasser raised his eyebrows. “I suspect the gods or the Living Flame or the One Divine have work for me yet.”

“That arrow went right through your chest,” said Caina. 

“It glanced off the ribs,” said Nasser. “It was dark, and likely it only seemed to go through my chest.”

“No, I’ve seen men killed with arrows before,” said Caina. “It went into your heart, and you dropped like a stone. You should be dead.”

Nasser smiled and spread his hands, and she felt the aura of sorcery around his gloved left hand.

“At the fight in Drynemet, when you caught the Huntress’s blade,” said Caina, “it ripped your glove. Your hand was…glowing. Whatever spell lies upon it, is that what let you survive the arrow?”

“My dear Balarigar,” said Nasser. “You have your secrets, and I begrudge them not, for they protect you. So it is with my secrets. That is all I can tell you for now, I fear. My secrets preserve my life.”

“Very well,” said Caina. “You have kept faith with me before.”

“And you with me,” said Nasser, smiling. “Does not a common enemy make for a marvelous alliance?”

“It does,” said Caina.

“Quite true,” said Nasser, reaching under the table and producing a sheathed sword with a curved blade. He laid the valikon upon the table. “You should take this.”

Caina shook her head. “You wielded it more effectively than I ever could.” 

“Aye,” said Laertes. “You are a terrible swordsman.”

Caina raised an eyebrow. “Still want me to marry your daughter?”

“There are more ways to kill a man than with a sword,” said Laertes.

“I have no need of the weapon at the moment,” said Nasser. “More importantly, the Emissary appointed you the valikon’s custodian. In the days of ancient Iramis, I am told, only the wisest loremasters were appointed custodians of the valikons, to guard the blades until they were needed. I am inclined to trust the Emissary’s vision. You knew when to give me the valikon, and I expect you will know to whom you must give it next. For we shall no doubt need the weapon.”

“Very well,” said Caina, taking the sheathed sword.

“And now to other matters,” said Nasser.

“Annarah,” said Caina. “The last loremaster. Do you know a sorcerer who might be able to use her pyrikon to find her?” 

“Perhaps,” said Nasser. “I had hoped Lady Claudia would have the skill to work such a spell, but she does not. Nor does Anaxander, nor any of the sorcerers whom I would trust with a matter of such delicacy. In any event, a tracking spell may be useless. Wherever Annarah is, she is someplace where even Callatas cannot find her. If his spells cannot locate her, the spells of a weaker sorcerer will not succeed.” 

“Then it is a waste of time,” said Caina. “She could be anywhere in Istarinmul. Anywhere in the world, for that matter.”

“Not necessarily,” said Nasser. “I have begun discreet inquires among historians and poets. According to various accounts, Annarah was killed in the Argamaz Desert by the legendary assassin known as Morgant the Razor.” 

“The Razor?” said Caina. “I recognize the name. Sulaman sometimes recites poems about him. But he is a legend…”

“Like the Huntress?” said Nasser. “The master thief Glasshand? Or the Balarigar?”

“Oh, gods,” said Caina, rubbing her forehead. “Another legendary assassin?” 

“We know beyond all doubt that Annarah is still alive,” said Nasser, “and that she knows where the Staff and Seal of Iramis are hidden. Yet the tales claim that Morgant killed her in the Argamaz. That tells us, therefore…”

“That if anyone knows where to find Annarah,” said Caina, “it is this Morgant. But Annarah disappeared one hundred and fifty years ago. Morgant has been dust and bones for decades, unless…”

She sighed as the realization came to her.

“Unless he is possessed by a nagataaru,” said Caina. “Another creature like Kalgri?”

“That was my thought as well,” said Nasser. “Of course, it is possible that Morgant was simply a mortal man and died long ago. But he may have left records. In any event, this will make a starting point for our search for Annarah.”

“A very thin starting point,” said Caina. “We might never find her. We should look, yes, but we should focus upon more concrete matters, such as stopping wraithblood production and harassing the Slavers’ Brotherhood. And keeping Istarinmul out of the war against the Empire. It will do us no good to terrorize the Brotherhood only for the Umbarians to flood Istarinmul with cheap slaves.”

“I completely agree,” said Nasser, “and have a few ideas on how to proceed…” 

Caina nodded. She still did not know what Callatas intended with his Apotheosis. But she was beginning to suspect things. She had seen the wanton carnage that Kalgri and her nagataaru had unleashed, and Caina suspected that was only a fraction of the bloodshed that would be wrought if Callatas finished the Apotheosis. 

Caina would stop it. For the sake of all those who had been terrorized by sorcery. For the sake of Claudia’s child, so the child would not know the horrors Caina had known. So that another catastrophe like the day of the golden dead would never happen again.

Caina would stop the Apotheosis, or die trying.

Epilogue

The message told him to come alone, without his Silent Hunters or his Adamant Guards or any of his other guardians. It was something of an insult, but Cassander Nilas obeyed nonetheless.

He suspected he was about to meet the true ruler of Istarinmul.

Cassander walked through the corridors of Grand Master Callatas’s palace, flanked by an escort of Immortals. The palace was, he noted with amusement, rather more ornate than the Golden Palace itself. Though Callatas had a rather more macabre taste in art than the Padishah. Dozens of lifelike crystalline statues stood in niches along the walls, their expressions frozen in fear and horror. Cassander knew that those statues had once been living men and women until Callatas’s sorcery had transmuted them into crystal.

The Immortals led him up a flight of stairs to a solar atop the palace’s central tower. Through the high windows Cassander had a fine view of the Emirs’ Quarter and the Masters’ Quarter, of the shining towers of the College of Alchemists and the golden domes of the Padishah’s palace.

Callatas, Grand Master of the College of Alchemists, awaited him.

He was short, clad in a gold-trimmed white robe and turban, a glowing blue crystal the size of a man’s fist hanging from a chain around his neck. His face had the gauntness of the ascetic, his shoulders stooped from much study. A close-cropped gray beard shaded his jaw, and his gray eyes were cold and hard and flat as a steel blade.

A flicker of fear went through Cassander as he sensed the old man’s arcane aura. He had thought Callatas a fool, a complacent old sluggard like Decius Aberon or the other high magi that had sided with the Empire instead of the Order. Yet Cassander sensed tremendous power around Callatas, stronger than any power he had ever sensed. Stronger, even, that the Provosts of the Order, perhaps even the High Provost herself.

Callatas could crush him in a moment.

“Leave us,” said Callatas in Istarish. “Ensure that we are not disturbed.”

The Immortals bowed and withdrew, leaving Cassander alone with the Grand Master.

“To expedite this discussion,” said Callatas in flawless High Nighmarian, “if you lie to me I will kill you where you stand, and wait for the Order to dispatch another ambassador. Am I understood?”

Cassander considered saying something charming or glib, but one look at the old man’s humorless face put the idea out of his head.

“Yes,” said Cassander.

“Good,” said Callatas. “So. Erghulan tells me that the Balarigar is a woman?”

Of all the things that Callatas might have wanted to discuss, Cassander hadn’t expected this. “She is. Caina Amalas. From what the Order discovered of her, she was once the daughter of a minor nobleman. One of the Moroaica’s disciples killed her family, and the Ghosts took her in and trained her as a nightfighter.”

“The Ghosts,” muttered Callatas with loathing. “Theatricality and deception. Such nonsense. Yet nonsense with a powerful effect upon the ignorant rabble.”

“This business of the ‘Balarigar’ seems to have begun in Marsis,” said Cassander. “She slew Rezir Shahan in front of his soldiers and freed a number of slaves, most of whom were Szaldic. The tale seems to have grown from the barbaric superstitions they inherited from their ancestors.”

“Rezir should have listened to me,” muttered Callatas. “Much disruption to my plans could have been averted.”

“Given that the emir lost his life in Marsis,” said Cassander, “I expect he would agree with you.”