Ghost in the Pact (16 page)

“So you would like me to find the Emissary and bring her here,” said Kylon.

“There is more, Lord Kylon,” said Nasser. “Some of Tibraim’s scouts spotted a band of horsemen heading into the Kaltari Highlands. We suspect that either Erghulan or Rhataban has realized the danger and sent men to kidnap or kill the Emissary of the Living Flame.” 

“If they do, they will inflict grave damage to our cause,” said Tanzir. “If Erghulan takes the Emissary captive, he can claim that she has thrown her support to him. Worse, if he kills her, he can cast the blame upon us. Either outcome would be disastrous. Most of our men are followers of the Living Flame and hold the Emissary in reverence. Some of them have even made the pilgrimage to Silent Ash Temple to speak with her. We cannot let her fall into the hands of the enemy…”

“And this is exactly,” said Kylon, “the kind of task Callatas would send the Huntress to perform.” 

It made a great deal of grim sense. The Red Huntress had threatened to kill everyone at Silent Ash Temple during her confrontation with Caina. Kylon knew the spiteful creature would kill the Emissary and her monks if the opportunity presented itself. 

“Lord Kylon,” said Sulaman, “we have no right to command you. But if the Red Huntress comes for the Emissary, you are the man best equipped to fight her. Will you do this?”

His hand hitched to grasp the valikon’s hilt.

“Yes,” said Kylon. 

Chapter 9: Relics of Maat

Sanjar Murat’s prediction proved correct. 

The
Sandstorm
made good time, the prow slicing through the waves in a spray of white foam. The weather was bright and clear and windy, and the sails billowed. Between the current and the wind, the ship made good time, and Murat revised his estimate, saying they might arrive at Pyramid Isle a day sooner than he expected. 

That was the first good news Caina had heard in a while. Their best chance of stopping Callatas was to ambush him and kill him before he noticed their presence. If they could reach the island before the galley and lie in wait, they had a better chance of arranging a successful ambush.

Come to think of it, an ambush was their only chance of overcoming him. 

“The beach,” said Caina on the morning of the fourth day.

She, Annarah, and Morgant stood on the bow, leaning against the railing. At Caina’s instance, they always stayed within earshot of each other. She did not think Murat planned treachery. He had kept his word to Nasser during their previous journey to Pyramid Isle, and he had not betrayed them since. Nevertheless, Caina thought Murat had a great deal in common with a shark. If he smelled opportunity, he would attack. 

Best not to give him that opportunity, then. 

“What about the beach?” said Annarah. 

“We will have to kill Callatas on the beach,” said Caina. “Before he can enter the jungle.”

“More cover in the jungle,” said Morgant. His manner was crisp, with much of his usual rambling rudeness absent. Caina wasn’t surprised. They were discussing his business, and his business was killing. 

And Morgant the Razor was very good at it. 

Caina shook her head. “If he goes into the jungle, he’ll be within the power of Kharnaces. You remember all those warding stones circling the jungle? The ancient Iramisians raised the stones to keep Kharnaces bound within his tomb after the rest of the Great Necromancers imprisoned him on the island.”

“The warding spells have decayed,” said Annarah. “Once the loremasters used to visit the island to renew the spells, but Iramis burned a century and a half ago. I suspect that Kharnaces has been attacking the spells, seeking to break them.”

“He hasn’t broken them yet,” said Morgant.

“How can you be sure?” said Annarah. 

“Because he hasn’t come to get Callatas,” said Morgant. “Otherwise Kharnaces wouldn’t need to bother bringing Callatas to him. Then Kharnaces would be free to leave the island, and I think we would notice if a Great Necromancer arrived in Istarinmul.”

“Not necessarily,” said Caina. “The first time I encountered a Great Necromancer, he disguised himself as a living man.” 

Morgant waved his hand. “My point is that Kharnaces can’t leave Pyramid Isle. Else he would just stroll up to Callatas with a needle, a straw, and a bottle, and take all the blood he needs.” 

“So it would be best to kill Callatas on the beach,” said Caina. “Before he enters the jungle. If we do, we won’t have to deal with Kharnaces. He never gets Callatas’s blood, and therefore cannot finish the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.”

It sounded so neat, so simple…and so unlikely. 

Morgant spotted the plan’s flaws at once. “There wasn’t much cover on the beach. We can’t fight Callatas, because if we try to fight him, he’ll just wave his hand and kill us all. We have to ambush him, and we have to kill him quickly. Maybe it’s best to wait until he’s distracted.”

“When will he be distracted?” said Caina.

Morgant grinned. “When he and Kharnaces are fighting each other to the death.” 

“Kharnaces has him under a compulsion,” said Caina. “He’ll bring the Staff and the Seal to Kharnaces.” 

“And then Kharnaces will then try to kill him,” said Morgant. “Which will give Callatas an excellent reason to fight off the compulsion.”

Annarah frowned. “Do you think he could fight it off?”

“Why not?” said Morgant, pointing at Caina. “She did, didn’t she? Remember how she kept saying that she had to give the Staff and the Seal to Callatas? Kharnaces put that compulsion on her. Callatas is far more powerful than any of us. You think he won’t fight if his life is in danger?”

Caina frowned. “Kharnaces is more powerful than Callatas.”

“Oh, probably,” said Morgant, “but maybe he underestimated Callatas. If Kharnaces really is twenty-five centuries old, he’s probably gotten a bit set in his ways, you know? A bit rigid in his thinking. That, and Grand Master’s had a century and a half to practice his spells. Kharnaces might bite off more than he can chew. He’ll likely beat Callatas in the end, but the fight between them will burn the jungle to ashes before it’s over.” 

“What are you saying?” said Annarah. 

“Easy,” said Morgant. “We wait until Callatas and Kharnaces fight, and then we stab Callatas in the back.”

“That might work,” said Caina. Callatas would need his full attention to fight Kharnaces. In such a moment of distraction, it might be possible to slip past his guard and strike.

“But if we kill Callatas in the jungle,” said Annarah, “then Kharnaces can still take the blood from his corpse.”

“That depends,” said Morgant. “Does Callatas need to be alive for his blood to complete the Conjurant Bloodcrystal?”

“I…don’t know,” said Caina, wondering. 

“Would it really make a difference?” said Annarah.

“It might,” said Caina. “Every kind of bloodcrystal is grown from a base, the blood of an initial victim. And if the base is still alive, he can resist the effects of the bloodcrystal. I’ve seen that firsthand.” 

Annarah frowned. “Where?”

“A long time ago,” said Caina. “When I first joined the Ghosts.” Her hand wanted to stray to her stomach, and she stopped herself. “There was a necromancer named Maglarion, one of the Moroaica’s former students. He took my blood and used it as the base to grow a colossal reservoir bloodcrystal, and then used the bloodcrystal to create a deadly poison. With the poison, he planned to kill everyone in Malarae, store their life energies in the reservoir bloodcrystal, and employ the power to become a god.” 

“Presumably he failed,” said Morgant, “since Malarae is still alive and the remnants of the Empire are not ruled by a living necromancer-god.” 

“He made a mistake,” said Caina. “He didn’t fully understand what he was doing. He tried to kill me with the poison, but I was immune to it. Since my blood served as the base for his reservoir bloodcrystal, I was immune to its effects.”

To her surprise, Morgant let out a pleased laugh. “So you played dead and then stabbed him in the back?”

“Something like that, yes,” said Caina. 

Morgant laughed again. “Clever. I approve. I imagine his expression in the final moment must have been…surprised.”

Caina remembered Maglarion’s scream as he fell from the tower of Haeron Icaraeus’s mansion, remembered the cold satisfaction she had felt at seeing the corpse of the man who had destroyed her life. 

“It was,” said Caina, her voice soft. 

She also remembered the emptiness that had filled her after. Vengeance was a fine thing, and Maglarion had deserved his fate a thousand times over. Yet vengeance could not serve as the sole purpose of her life. It had taken Caina years to understand, but one could not live solely on rage. Not forever.

On the day Caina had killed Maglarion, if someone had told her that one day she would take a Kyracian stormdancer, a sorcerer, as a lover, she would have been horrified and furious. Now she missed Kylon with an intensity that felt like a splinter sinking into her heart. 

“Anyway,” said Caina, pushing the tangle of memory and emotion out of her head, “I don’t know if Callatas needs to be alive for his blood to work. But we had best not take the risk. We should try to kill Callatas on the beach. If that doesn’t work, we’ll use Morgant’s plan as a backup.”

“This seems reasonable to me,” said Annarah.

“We shall likely have to improvise,” said Morgant.

Caina shrugged. “Don’t we always?”

They stood in silence for a while. 

“May I ask you something?” said Annarah. 

“Of course,” said Caina. 

“You do not have to answer, if you do not wish,” said Annarah. 

“No, go ahead,” said Caina. “We have been through so much together that we may as well be honest.”

Annarah hesitated. “Maglarion. The necromancer you mentioned.” Caina nodded. “He was the one who gave you that scar, was he not? The one that left you unable to conceive a child.” 

“He was,” said Caina. She gripped the rail. “I was eleven. My mother was a failed initiate of the Magisterium, so she looked elsewhere for lessons. Maglarion could teach her. He also needed the blood of a virgin to serve as the base of his bloodcrystal. The bargain was struck.”

“That is dreadful,” said Annarah. “I am sorry.” 

“I hated my mother,” said Caina. “When I was a girl, what I wanted most was my own children.” She let out a long breath. “Because then I could be a better mother to them than she ever was to me. Of course, she made sure I would never have any children.” 

That thought would have pleased her mother. Even Callatas could have learned lessons in spite from Laeria Amalas. 

“Children are overrated,” said Morgant. “The screaming and the vomiting and the endless whining ingratitude, and you’re responsible for another mouth to feed. One too useless to do any useful work, too.” 

“As if you would know,” said Caina.

“And you would?” said Morgant. 

She felt the sudden urge to hit him again, but starting a fight in front of Murat’s crew was a bad idea. That, and this was Morgant’s usual game of probing her weak spots with insults, testing how she would react. 

“You’re not wrong, Morgant,” said Annarah, “but neither are you correct.” 

Morgant snorted. “How enigmatic. Did the loremasters teach you to speak in riddles?”

She smiled. “They did, but that’s not the point. All that you say of children is true. It is work without end. When my first son was born I do not think I slept the night for three or four months, and after he learned to walk he was so disobedient I wanted to scream.” She spread her hands. “Yet I did it all willingly. I loved my children. I would have done anything for them. I would have done terrible things for their sake, and told the most appalling lies for years to save them. Compared to all that, what is caring for them?”

“I’m sorry,” said Caina. “I will never have children, but you had them and lost them. Surely that must be worse.”

“Perhaps,” said Annarah, “but I would rather have had them and lost them. To never have had them would be worse, I think.” She closed her eyes and sighed, opening them again a moment later. “It is only love that makes such things bearable.”

“Love, like children, is overrated,” said Morgant.

“Another topic on which your lack of expertise is remarkable,” said Caina. 

“It is simply another word,” said Morgant. “I knew a man who claimed he loved his wife, yet took a new mistress in secret every few months and never told her. Or a mother who claimed she loved her children, but ate their bread and let them starve. Men are wolves, and love is simply a rationalization for what we wished to do anyway.” 

“No,” said Caina. “You’re wrong.” 

“How?” said Morgant. 

“If love is a rationalization for what I wanted to do anyway,” said Caina, “then I wouldn’t be here. I would be with Kylon right now. Not chasing after Callatas.”

“Bah,” said Morgant. “Well, children are entitled to their dreams, I suppose.” 

He strolled a few paces away, clearly exasperated with the topic. 

“He is not,” said Annarah, “as cynical as he claims.” 

“Oh, I know,” said Caina. 

Annarah blinked. “How?”

“Because otherwise he wouldn’t be chasing after Callatas with us,” said Caina. Annarah laughed. “Though he is nearly almost as cynical as he claims.” 

“I cannot contest that,” said Annarah. She hesitated. “Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but…you have done great things. I would never have escaped the Inferno if not for you. Cassander would have slaughtered everyone in Istarinmul. I have heard Lord Kylon and Lady Claudia speak in passing of other things you have done, the lives you have saved. I wish for your sake that this Maglarion had not set you upon your path, but if you had not become what you are, if you had not become the Balarigar, the world would be a far darker place.” 

“There’s no such thing as the Balarigar,” said Caina. “The Szaldic slaves in Marsis called me that, and I threw it in Ulvan’s face before I dumped him off his balcony. The whole damned legend grew out of that.”

“Nevertheless,” said Annarah. “People only believe the legend of the Balarigar because of what you have done.”