Authors: Jonathan Moeller
“We went through the rift,” said Caina. “The netherworld was burning around us. Jadriga was trying to open a rift into the next realm, the domain of the gods, and it would have torn the world apart. Her spell was so powerful that it reshaped the netherworld around her, transforming it into a mirror of her thoughts. We saw Khaset…”
“Khaset?” said Claudia.
“Once the capital city of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun,” said Caina. “Where the Moroaica was born. Where she was transformed into one of the Undying. That was where her revenge started, when she used her sorcery to destroy the city. We saw it over and over again, saw the city burn and rise anew.” The memories shuddered through her mind like splinters of broken glass. “We found the Moroaica in the Temple of Anubankh. Talekhris dueled her, and the Moroaica conjured shadows to keep us at bay while she fought the Sage.”
“She killed Talekhris then, I assume,” said Claudia, staring into the misty hills.
“Yes,” said Caina. His head had exploded into the grip of Jadriga’s power, the jade splinters of his Sage’s mask skittering across the floor. “At least it was quick.”
“Then she turned on you,” said Claudia. “And Corvalis.”
“I tried to talk her out of it, but she could not have changed her mind even if she had wanted to,” said Caina. “She was undead. She had no free will. Her mind and heart were locked in the moment of her first death. So Corvalis and I charged her. I was sure we would both die, that we would die together. The Moroaica cast a spell…”
“To kill Corvalis in front of you,” said Claudia. “To make you suffer. That sounds like her.”
“No,” said Caina. “She threw the killing spell at me. Corvalis pushed me out of the way to take spell onto himself.”
“He sacrificed himself,” said Claudia, staring at Caina with flat eyes. “To save you.”
“Yes,” said Caina, her voice cracking a bit on the word.
“Why didn’t the Moroaica just kill you then?” said Claudia. “I saw her power. It would not have been a challenge for her.”
“She couldn’t,” said Caina. “She was too busy weeping.”
For the first time Claudia looked taken aback. “For…Corvalis?”
“She possessed me, you remember,” said Caina. “For nearly a year. When she was driven out of my body, she still retained all my memories. Everything from before Catekharon. Including…”
“Including your feelings for Corvalis,” said Claudia.
“Including them,” said Caina. “So when she killed Corvalis, it crippled her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t function, couldn’t do anything through the pain. Her heart was still frozen in the moment when she had seen her father die all those centuries ago. She couldn’t handle the grief.”
“But you could,” said Claudia.
“Corvalis had the ghostsilver spear and I had a ghostsilver dagger,” said Caina. “I stabbed the Moroaica before she could recover. She died there.”
“What happened then?” said Caina.
“I saw her,” said Caina. “Her spirit, the child she had been when Rhames killed her. Then I saw her father.”
“Her father?” said Claudia. “The…scribe Rhames mentioned, yes? The one he killed.”
“His name was Horemb,” said Caina. “His spirit had been bound to Jadriga for millennia, and she never knew it. He thanked me for freeing them, and then they both departed to the next world. I made it to the rift back to the mortal world.” She rubbed at her eyes for a moment. “I came out of the rift just as the tower of ice collapsed…”
“I saw that part,” said Claudia.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Caina. “It seemed funny at the time, that I had survived Rhames and Sicarion and the Moroaica, but I was going to fall to my death in the Agora of the Archons.”
“But Kylon saved you,” said Claudia.
“I wish,” said Caina. “I wish he hadn’t.”
“You don’t?” Claudia seemed startled.
“I thought that I was going to die,” said Caina, “and that was my comfort. That I was going to die, that I was going to be reunited with Corvalis. With Halfdan and my father and everyone else I had lost. But then Kylon caught me, and Lord Corbould wanted my execution. I was banished here to Istarinmul, alone with no friends and allies.”
“That…must have been difficult,” said Claudia.
“You were right about me,” said Caina. “I’ve done nothing but destroy. When I came here, I was exhausted and angry and full of grief. I didn’t know what to do. My first night here, I almost drank myself to death. The next morning, I visited the coffee house of a woman who had been kind to me, and found that her sons had been taken as slaves.”
“That was when it started,” said Claudia. “Everything with the Balarigar and the Slavers’ Brotherhood.”
“I was so angry,” said Caina, “and suddenly I had a target for it. I rescued her sons, and I ruined the slaver who had taken them. I kept doing it, again and again. And because of it, I learned about wraithblood and the Apotheosis, about Callatas and the nagataaru. I might have started because I wanted to save those two boys…but I kept at it because I was furious at…at everything, I suppose, and I had to do something.”
“I think I understand,” said Claudia, her voice soft.
“I miss him,” said Caina. “I miss him so much. The pain never goes away. It changes, though. At first it was like having a limb cut off, or my heart ripped out of my chest. Now it’s like having a knife in me. If I’m scared or running or busy, I can forget about it for a little while. But I always come back to it.” Her voice was starting to shake a little, her hands trembling. “You’re right. You were always right. It was my fault. If I had been a little faster, a little smarter, I could have found a way. I could have saved him. I…
Her voice choked off, and Caina closed her eyes, fighting to get herself back under control.
“No,” said Claudia.
Caina took a deep breath and saw that the other woman was crying, too, but she looked calmer than she had been in Strabane’s hall.
“I thought…it was unworthy of you, what I believed,” said Claudia. “I thought that you had sacrificed Corvalis for the greater good. That you had used him to distract the Moroaica so you could kill her at the cost of his life.”
“I wish it had been the other way around,” said Caina.
“But Corvalis made his choice, didn’t he?” said Claudia. “He threw himself into the spell. He saved you, and that let you kill the Moroaica.” She took a deep, ragged breath, sobbed once, and then took another breath. “I suppose…I suppose he saved us all.”
“He did,” said Caina. “There is no doubt. He did.”
“He always did as he pleased, damn him,” said Claudia, wiping at her eyes. “I am so frightened.”
“Of what?” said Caina, looking around for any foes.
“Of becoming like you.”
“Me?” said Caina, wondering what she meant. “Well. I suppose you would have to be a few inches shorter. And dye your hair black. Which wouldn’t suit you.”
Claudia let out a quavering little laugh. “No, that’s not what I meant. I saw what losing Corvalis did to you. You’re harder and colder than you used to be. Angrier, you said so yourself. I don’t want that to happen to me.” She shivered. “I don’t want to lose Martin. The Umbarians would kill him just because they can. If Cassander catches him outside the walls of Istarinmul, he’ll kill us both. And the Huntress…if your pyrikon had not slowed her down, if I hadn’t tried to banish the Voice, she would have killed Martin and I could have done nothing to save him.”
“We will stop her,” said Caina. “We’ll go to Silent Ash Temple, find the valikon, and kill her.”
“You can’t promise that,” said Claudia.
“No,” said Caina. “But I can promise this. We will find the valikon and kill the Red Huntress, or we shall die trying.”
“Thank you,” said Claudia. She sighed. “I have…not treated you very well, I know.”
Caina shrugged. “It is no different than the things I have said to myself a thousand times. I have often been suspicious of you without justification. I don’t think…I don’t think Corvalis would have wanted us to be at odds.”
“No,” said Claudia.
“Besides,” said Caina. “Given the foes we face, arguing amongst ourselves would be folly.”
“Agreed,” said Claudia.
“Shall we head back inside?” said Caina. “Any longer and Martin will get concerned. Or Laertes will think I am trying to seduce the Lord Governor’s wife.”
Claudia laughed. “Perhaps you ought to let the man hire you a prostitute. Or arrange for you to court one of his daughters.”
Caina snorted. “Ciaran the master thief is far too disreputable to court one of Laertes’s daughters. I shudder to think of his reaction should he ever figure out that I am a woman.”
They turned back to the hall, and Caina stopped.
“What is it?” said Claudia.
“The star is the key to the crystal,” said Caina.
“What is that?” said Claudia. “It sounds like a line from a poem.”
“It is,” said Caina. “From a poem about the fall of Iramis at Callatas’s hands. Horemb quoted it to me after the Moroaica was slain. He said that one day I would need the words.”
Claudia blinked. “Well…the star, could that be the Star of Iramis that Callatas has?”
“I think it is,” said Caina. “As to the rest…I do not know. Not even Nasser knows. So far no one has known the answer.”
“It would have been convenient if Horemb could have simply told you,” said Claudia. “Irritating that he did not.”
“You have no idea,” said Caina, thinking of Samnirdamnus. “But spirits seem bound by different laws that mortals. I think…”
She fell silent as the crawling tingle of sorcery washed over her.
“Are you casting a spell?” said Caina.
“No,” said Claudia. “Do you sense…”
Her eyes widened in alarm as she came to the same realization as Caina.
A Silent Hunter was nearby.
###
Kalgri gazed at the village of Drynemet upon its hill. It was a strong place, fortified with a stockade and barricaded with a gate. If the defenders did not waver or starve to death, a man would need a strong army to take the place.
Fortunately, Kalgri needed no such thing.
“You understand what you are to do?” said Kalgri to the leader of the Silent Hunters. Cassander had told her the assassin’s name, but it was of no importance and she had not bothered to remember it.
“Yes, mistress,” said the Silent Hunter. He had discarded all his clothing save for a loincloth, his torso and limbs scarred and marked by the Umbarians' sorcery. Kalgri’s lip crinkled in contempt behind her mask. Such scarred, broken things these Silent Hunters were. The Umbarians certainly loved their sorcerous pets. Still, the Hunters would prove useful.
“Tell me what I have commanded you,” said Kalgri.
“We are to create a distraction,” said the chief Hunter. “Kill at random. Set fires. Release beasts from their pens.”
“Good,” said Kalgri. “If the opportunity presents itself, kill Claudia Aberon Dorius.” The sorceress must have worked out the existence of the Voice, or Caina had told her about the nagataaru. Otherwise Claudia would not have attempted to use the banishment spell upon Kalgri. She had failed the first time, but there was no sense in taking foolish chances
“We understand, mistress,” said the chief Hunter.
“Good,” said Kalgri. “Then stop talking and go cause trouble.”
The Hunter bowed, silver light flaring around the scars adoring his torso. Kalgri’s sneer intensified behind her mask. The Hunters relied too much upon their ridiculous little tricks. Still, they would be effective for what she had in mind.
The Voice gibbered with gleeful anticipation of the bloodshed to come.
Kalgri watched Drynemet and waited for the flames to begin.
Chapter 15 - Balarigar
“No,” said Caina. “No, I don’t see anything. You must be mistaken, my lady. Perhaps you’ve had too much to drink.”
Claudia frowned, surprised. Caina was not the sort to play practical jokes. Had the strain of their conversation gotten to her?
“My lady!” said Caina. “Don’t fall! Stay away from the edge!”
Before Claudia could react, Caina hurried forward and caught her arm around Claudia’s waist. The smaller woman’s strength surprised her, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. When she had seen Caina wearing the dancer’s costume, the woman had seemed made entirely of wiry muscle. Caina tugged her forward, and Claudia’s lost her balance a little.
Caina’s face moved toward her ear.
“Two Hunters,” she whispered. “Near the wall. I think they’re going to stab us when we go inside. Play along with me.”
“Yes,” said Claudia, straightening up. “Yes, I fear I’ve had too much to drink. My lord husband shall be ever so wroth with me. Help me inside.”
“You can dispel them?” whispered Caina.
Claudia bobbed her head in a nod that she hoped looked drunken.
“They’re on either side of the door,” whispered Caina, and then she raised her voice. “This way, my lady. Never fear. We’ll get you to Lord Martin.” She sidestepped and slung her left arm over Claudia’s shoulders, her right hand falling to her belt.
They took two hobbling steps forward, and then Claudia raised her left hand and swept it before her, unleashing power through the mental patterns of a spell. Silver light flashed and pulsed next to the door, and two patches of air rippled.
The ripples resolved into two Silent Hunters, gaunt and lean and scarred, short swords glittering in their hands.
Caina surged forward, her hand a blur, and an instant later the handle of a throwing knife sprouted from the neck of the Silent Hunter on the left. The man fell to his knees with an agonized gurgle, blood flowing across the scars of his chest. Caina spun to face the second Hunter, yanking a dagger from her boot, but Claudia had already begun her next spell. Psychokinetic force, raw and unfocused and invisible, burst from her fingers. The Hunter was already running at Caina, and Claudia did not think she could hit him hard enough to stop him.
So she shoved him instead. Her spell slammed into his lower back, and the Hunter rocketed past Caina with an unexpected burst of speed. He tried to stop, his arms spinning, but he lost his balance and hurtled over the edge of the terrace.