Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) (42 page)

“No,” said Caina, Annarah, and Nasser in unison. 

“Why not?” said Kylon. 

“Because,” said Caina, “if Kharnaces was…hibernating when Annarah visited a century and a half ago, he might not stay that way. If he wakes up and finds the Staff and Seal…”

“He will use them to summon his nagataaru gods to the mortal world,” said Annarah. “Kharnaces will work an Apotheosis of his own. Callatas has some mad plan to remake humanity. Kharnaces will simply feed us to the nagataaru.” She shook her head. “I was such a fool. I thought it would only take a few years to return from the netherworld, that I could retrieve the Staff and the Seal from the Tomb before Kharnaces awoke. Instead I have put the entire world in terrible danger.” 

“Perhaps not,” said Caina, thinking it over. “Kharnaces must still be in hibernation. He hasn’t used the Staff and the Seal yet, and he doesn’t know that they’re in the Tomb.”

“Just how do you know that?” said Morgant.

“Because the world hasn’t ended yet,” said Caina. 

Kylon grunted. “Good argument.” 

“Then it seems that our course is clear,” said Nasser.

Caina blinked, and then she laughed. 

“What is so funny?” said Annarah.

“It’s not funny,” said Caina. “It’s just…we’re going to plan another heist, aren’t we?” 

Nasser’s white smile spread slowly over his dark face. 

“A heist?” said Annarah. “Like we are common thieves?”

“I stole your pyrikon from the palace of a dead Master Alchemist,” said Caina. “Then we stole your journal from Callatas’s Maze. After that we robbed the Craven’s Tower, and then stole you out of the Inferno. Before that I robbed half the cowled masters of the Brotherhood of Slavers. Honored loremaster, I submit that you have probably fallen in with the most effective gang of thieves in Istarish history.” 

“And probably the gang with the most illustrious birth,” said Morgant. “The Prince of Iramis, the last loremaster of Iramis, and a former archon of the Assembly of New Kyre. Truly, you have all come down in the world.”

“Not me,” said Laertes. “My father was a brewer. I’m just here to pay for my daughters’ dowries.” 

“We work from the shadows, loremaster, because we must,” said Nasser. “Gone are the days when I could command armies and summon nobles. So we work in the shadows, but the shadows are an effective place to work. As the Ghosts, I suspect, could no doubt tell me.”

“Yes,” murmured Caina. 

Her heart was heavy, but her mind was clear, and so were her path and purpose. Before her was the best chance she had of stopping Callatas from working his Apotheosis, of stopping the wraithblood laboratories and the rampages of the Brotherhood, of stopping the Istarish civil war before it could begin. She had capable friends and allies, and with them she had her best chance of keeping the Apotheosis from ever happening.

Her eyes turned to Kylon, and the sadness within her tightened. 

Perhaps when all this was over, perhaps if they both survived what was to come, then maybe something more could happen between them. 

Or perhaps Caina was simply fooling herself. 

She pushed the entire matter out of her mind and got to work.

Epilogue

The woman who now called herself Kalgri lay motionless in the hot darkness of the crawlspace below Nasser Glasshand’s sitting room, listening to the voices filtering through the floorboards a few inches above her nose. 

Another voice filled her thoughts, whispering and hissing. 

The Voice pointed out that Caina Amalas was only a few feet away, that if Kalgri summoned the sword of the nagataaru and stabbed up, the blade would shear through the floor and cut Caina in half before she could react. Then the Voice would feast upon her death, and the nagataaru crooned with pleasure at the thought

Kalgri remained motionless, listening. She could kill Caina with the sword of the nagataaru. Of course, if she did, Kylon of House Kardamnos would draw that damned valikon and kill her. Or the loremaster Annarah would speak the Words of Lore and kill her. Certainly Annarah had the power to do it. 

Kalgri could fight Caina, but then she would die.

That had been her mistake the last time, before the Voice had rebuilt her flesh and her mind. Every time the Voice rebuilt her, she looked different, thought differently. The last time Kalgri had enjoyed fighting, and so had let Caina draw her into a fight. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Fighting Caina had been imbecilic. The Ghost had a peculiar sort of genius for observation, for tactics and improvisation, and that had ended with Kalgri falling a thousand feet with a ballista bolt shot through her torso. It had taken the Voice months to rebuild her after that, and while Kalgri was inured to pain, it nonetheless was not an experience she wanted to repeat. 

Kalgri had lived for nearly two centuries, and she had survived that long by learning from her mistakes. Fighting Caina had been a mistake.

So she wouldn’t fight Caina.

Kalgri would simply kill her with Caina’s own tactics.

She smiled in the darkness, one hand fingering the smooth fabric of her shadow-cloak. 

A long time ago she had encountered a Ghost nightfighter and killed the man, taking his shadow-cloak and ghostsilver short sword as trophies. She had hidden away the items and forgotten them. Later, as Kalgri considered the best way to kill Caina, she remembered the shadow-cloak. Kalgri had never used the shadow-cloak because while it blocked arcane detection, it also blocked the Voice’s ability to sense nearby mortals, an ability Kalgri had found useful on many occasions. 

Kylon of House Kardamnos could sense emotions, which made it difficult to sneak up on him, as Kalgri had learned in the Tower of Kardamnos. Kylon of House Kardamnos could also sense the presence of nagataaru, and the Voice was a powerful lord of the nagataaru.

But when Kalgri wore the Ghost shadow-cloak, she could not access the Voice’s senses…but Kylon could not sense her emotions or the Voice’s presence, either.

So for the last several months, Kalgri had used the shadow-cloak to follow Caina and Kylon unseen around Istarinmul. Both of them expected Kalgri to return at some point in a blaze of blood and murder. Neither of them expected Kalgri to simply watch and wait. 

So Kalgri watched and waited. 

Sometimes she left Caina little gifts, the curved knives she had purchased from a fisherman in the Cyrican Quarter before killing him and dumping his body in the harbor. Caina’s reaction had been everything Kalgri might have wished. For all her genius and boldness, Caina was just one young woman with no arcane abilities. Trapped in a locked room with Kalgri, she would not last more than a few seconds. Granted, she had a gift for securing the friendship of capable allies, which was why Kalgri had failed to kill her at Silent Ash Temple. But alone, without the support of her friends and allies, Caina was far less dangerous.

Which was why Kalgri would lure her alone, and then kill her.

It had almost worked once. 

When Caina and Nasser’s mercenaries had encamped in the Desert of Candles, Caina had been alone in her tent. Had Caina been in Kylon’s tent, as she obviously wanted, Kalgri would not have approached. But Caina had been alone, and had the Ghost not awakened at the last moment, she would be dead. 

The Voice hissed and spat its hatred of the Balarigar, and Kalgri smiled in the darkness.

She only had to be patient and keep leaving little gifts for Caina to find. The Ghost’s fear would grow, and she would start to isolate herself to keep her friends and allies safe. Then Kalgri would kill her, and the Voice would feast upon her death. 

How pleasant that would be!

A pity there was no practical way to kill Caina in front of Kylon. Kalgri had already killed a woman Kylon loved in front of him once, and doing it again would have been delightful. She wanted Caina dead more, though. She wanted Caina dead as she had rarely wanted anything, wanted to gorge herself for hours upon the Ghost’s dying torment. 

Patience, she reminded herself. Patience, patience. The feast would be all the sweeter for the waiting.

So Kalgri waited and listened…and therefore learned one of the most dangerous secrets in the world.

The Voice went wild when Annarah announced that the Staff and Seal of Iramis were hidden within the Tomb of Kharnaces. The nagataaru demanded that she go to Callatas at once, to tell him where the lost relics were hidden. Then Callatas could claim them and work the Apotheosis, and Kalgri could gorge herself upon the death of an entire world. 

With some effort, she ignored the Voice’s demands.

She did not care about Callatas or his Apotheosis. Callatas had created her, true. She had been one of his first experiments, using the knowledge and lore he had discovered in the Tomb of Kharnaces. The experiment had succeeded beyond Callatas’s expectations. Kalgri could not harm Callatas, but neither could he force her to obey him. She was too strong for that. Of course, the nagataaru within her feared the nagataaru within the Grand Master, so she wound up usually doing Callatas’s bidding sooner or later. 

A part of her, a very large part, considered telling the Grand Master what she had learned. Callatas would work his Apotheosis, continuing his insipid quest to undo whatever wrong had sent him upon his path, and countless millions would die. The Voice wanted to do that at once, and Kalgri almost agreed.

Almost.

She would tell the Grand Master about the relics eventually…but first she would use them to kill Caina Amalas.

And a lot of other people.

Here was another tactic she could steal. Caina recruited capable allies.

And Kalgri knew just where to find willing help. 

###

Cassander Nilas strode into his study with a scowl. He had a headache.

More precisely, he had headaches.

The Provosts of the Umbarian Order had sent him to Istarinmul to secure the aid of the Padishah against the Empire, and after a year he had failed to budge Erghulan Amirasku and Callatas from their neutrality. The High Provost herself was becoming restless with Cassander’s lack of progress, which was not a safe position. Callatas had promised to aid the Order if Cassander killed Caina Amalas, but so far Cassander had failed. His first attempt had failed rather spectacularly, and his spies and summoned servants had been unable to find the damnable woman since. 

He took a step into his study and froze. 

His study occupied the top floor of the Umbarian Order’s embassy, with a balcony overlooking the courtyard below. The balcony doors stood open, moonlight spilling across the floor. Cassander raised his right hand, drawing upon his power. An armored gauntlet of black metal covered his right hand, the back adorned with a single crimson bloodcrystal. The enspelled gauntlet let him use pyromantic sorcery without the homicidal insanity that usually accompanied fire sorcery. 

If any assassins had entered his study, they were going to die screaming.

A shadow moved in the corner. 

Cassander pointed at the shadow, summoning power. It was a woman in a Ghost shadow-cloak, and for a ludicrous instant he wondered if Caina Amalas had arrived in person to assassinate him. The woman drew back her cowl and threw back the cloak, revealing a slim figure in black clothing and leather armor the color of blood, a pale, pretty face, a ragged mop of blond hair, and blue eyes that burned with madness.

No. Not madness. 

Cassander rebuked himself. He dared not underestimate this woman. By any conventional measure, Kalgri was insane, her mind twisted out of all recognition…but she was not irrational. She followed her own internal logic, and what her internal logic wanted was to feast on the pain and death of her victims. 

If she decided that Cassander was an enemy, she would come after him without hesitation, and he was not entirely sure he could stop her.

Best not to find out, then.

“My lady Huntress,” said Cassander with his most charming smile. “A Ghost shadow-cloak? I daresay it suits you.”

“Bah,” said Kalgri, shaking the cloak. She stepped towards his desk, running a gloved hand over the papers there. “I’m too pale now. Black washes me out. I look positively sallow.” She giggled. Cassander had seen many terrible things and defeated many foes, but Kalgri’s giggle was still one of the more disturbing things he had heard. “One must look one’s best when killing one’s foes. Mustn’t one?” 

“Is that why your nagataaru rebuilt you with the features of Caina Amalas and Claudia Aberon Dorius?” said Cassander. When he had first met the Red Huntress, when he had hired her to kill Kylon of House Kardamnos, she had looked Istarish. Now she had the blond hair of Claudia Dorius and the blue eyes and facial features of Caina Amalas. Kalgri looked like she could have been Caina’s sister. 

Kalgri’s blue eyes snapped to him, and for a moment Cassander wondered if he had made a mistake. 

Then she giggled again. “A reminder, my lord Cassander. But I’m not here to talk about that. You have so many problems, don’t you?” She ran a finger over the papers on his desk.

Cassander scowled. “You read my letters, I presume?” 

“Of course,” said Kalgri. “I had to do something to pass the time while I waited. The High Provost is annoyed with you. Callatas and that windbag Erghulan are irritated with you.” Her eyes locked on him again. “What if I could help you with both?”

“What do you mean?” said Cassander.

“Answer a question,” said Kalgri, “and I’ll help you. Lie to me, and I’ll kill you right now.”

“All right,” said Cassander, puzzled. “Proceed.”

“You first came to Istarinmul years ago,” said Kalgri. “Before the Umbarians declared themselves openly, before the day of the golden dead. Why?” 

“I was looking for relics of ancient Iramis,” said Cassander. There seemed no harm in telling her. “Specifically the ancient Regalia of the Princes. According to the histories, the relics had the power to command and summon spirits of the netherworld. You can see how I might find that useful.”

“The Staff and Seal of Iramis,” murmured Kalgri.