Ghost in the Pact (22 page)

Caina must have told her. Except she couldn’t have. Caina had spoken with the Emissary several weeks before she and Kylon had met in the Ring of Cyrica, and she hadn’t been back to Silent Ash Temple since. The Emissary must have overhead them from Nasser or Laertes, both of whom had been at Rumarah. Yet Nasser and Laertes kept their secrets as well as Caina kept hers. There was no way the Emissary would have heard those words from either men. 

“Damn it,” muttered Kylon. “Fine.” He got to his feet, finishing his wine with one quick swallow. “Let’s get this over with.” 

Karzid led him a short distance through the camp to a tent of yellow-orange cloth. If the Emissary was trying to remain inconspicuous, Kylon thought, that bright tent was a bad way to go about it. Karzid lifted the flap for him, and Kylon ducked inside. Four of the monks waited along the canvas walls, and a wooden table filled the center of the tent. 

The Emissary stood on the other side of the table, leaning upon the cane in her right hand. Her dark eyes settled upon Kylon, and again he felt the power behind her gaze strike him like a physical blow. 

“Lord Kylon has come, Emissary,” said Karzid.

“Yes, I see,” said the Emissary. “Thank you, abbot. We…”

“How did you know to say that?” said Kylon.

“Because I have seen it in your future,” said the Emissary. 

Kylon shook his head. “Wrong. It was in my past.” 

“And your future,” said the Emissary.

“So you’ve seen my future, then,” said Kylon. “I’m sure you’ll be filled with helpful advice.”

“I have seen your possible future,” said the Emissary, “for it wraps around the futures of many others. And I have seen your path, written upon your spirit in letters of fire and blood.” 

“How poetic,” said Kylon. 

“I have seen the line you have woven in the tapestry of the world…”

“Destiny thread,” said Kylon.

The Emissary blinked. Likely she was not used to people interrupting her ominous little speeches. “What?” 

“I’ve heard a spirit call it a destiny thread,” said Kylon. “As if we were all threads in a tapestry, our lives woven together. It was very poetic. I think you would have appreciated the spirit who told it to me.” It was the sort of glib remark Morgant would have made, but Kylon was too angry to care. 

“It is a good metaphor,” said the Emissary without rancor. “Then I have looked at your destiny thread, Kylon of House Kardamnos, and I have seen the kind of man that you are.” 

“And what kind of man,” said Kylon, his voice soft, “am I?” 

“You are the kind of man,” said the Emissary, “who is defined by the women you have lost.” 

Kylon went very still, but something inside him snarled.

“Your mother, murdered when you were a child,” said the Emissary. “Your sister, slain by her own hubris at the height of her power…”

“Stop,” said Kylon. 

“Your wife, murdered by a lord of the nagataaru and its willing vessel,” said the Emissary.

“I said to stop,” said Kylon. 

“Your daughter, slain within her,” said the Emissary.

Daughter? The child would have been a daughter? 

“And the demonslayer herself,” said the Emissary, “the Balarigar, the bane of sorcerers and perhaps even the liberator to come. She should have died in your arms, but you cheated destiny and brought her back…”

“That’s enough,” said Kylon, his voice soft. 

“And she is lost to you again,” said the Emissary, “for she faces…”

The snarling thing within Kylon snapped.

“That is enough!” he roared, and he slammed his left hand against the table. The table shattered with a loud crack, collapsing into itself, and the monks took a shocked step back. The Emissary’s dark eyes were wide with fear as she looked at his left hand.

Kylon glanced down and saw that he had called his power, that he had sheathed his hand in a gauntlet of ice harder than granite. The wooden table had been an inch thick, but he had shattered it like glass. The Emissary’s eyes remained wide, and Kylon felt her agitated emotions even through her aura of power.

Her fear was not feigned. 

Kylon took a shuddering breath, releasing the sorcery of water, and the gauntlet dissolved into white mist. 

“Do not,” he said, “play games with me. Not ever.” 

“I am the Emissary of…”

“I do not give a damn,” said Kylon. “I am sick to death of oracles and prophecies and riddling spirits with their riddling talk, and I am not some supplicant who traveled a thousand miles to hang on your cryptic nonsense. Either tell me plainly what you want, or go spout your prophecies to Tanzir or Sulaman.” 

For a moment a brittle silence filled the tent. The monks looked as if they were about to flee in terror. Kylon felt a twinge of guilt for frightening them, but he was still too angry to care.

The Emissary let out a long breath.

“She chose wisely,” said Emissary.

“What?” said Kylon.

“That valikon upon your back,” said the Emissary. “One of the last of the valikarion, dying of his wounds, appointed my predecessor the custodian of the weapon. I, in turn, made the demonslayer the custodian, free to give the valikon to whomsoever she chose. It seems she chose wisely.” 

“This was a test, then,” said Kylon, still angry.

The Emissary shrugged. “I needed to know what kind of man you were, Kylon of House Kardamnos. Now I know.” She drew herself up. “Ask me what you will.”

“What?” said Kylon.

“You face a tremendous task,” said the Emissary, “for you must battle foes that have slain mighty warriors and powerful sorcerers. You will face them again, before the end, and it is in your hands that many lives rest. So ask me what you will. Knowledge may not be as direct a weapon as the valikon, but it has a keen edge nonetheless.”

“Fine,” said Kylon, pushing back his irritation. “The Balarigar. Can you tell me if she is alive?”

“I cannot,” said the Emissary, “for she is valikarion, and the valikarion are immune to all forms of arcane sight.” She hesitated. “Yet I strongly suspect that she still lives.” 

“Why?” said Kylon. 

“For I cannot see her ‘destiny thread’, as you put it,” said the Emissary, “but even when she stood before me in Silent Ash Temple, already countless threads pulled around hers, their courses changed by her decisions, and even more have been caught in her wake since that day. The warping has only grown stronger since. If she was slain, the threads would move into a different pattern.” 

“I see,” said Kylon, but some relief went through him. 

“Countless destiny threads are pulled in her wake, stormdancer,” said the Emissary, “but yours is pulled the closest of all. Yours is entangled with hers.”

“I knew that already,” said Kylon.

“Because your life is now entangled with hers,” said the Emissary, “her enemies are drawn to your path. You will face two of them. Both of them are slaves and servants of the nagataaru, and both are inhabited by powerful lords of the nagataaru.”

“The Huntress,” said Kylon. The identity of the second enemy came to him. “And Master Alchemist Rhataban.” 

“The fate of uncounted lives rest in the hands of the demonslayer,” said the Emissary. “But her fate is in your hands. You must be her shield, Kylon of House Kardamnos. For if you fail, Rhataban and the Huntress will find her, and she will not escape them…and the world shall die.”

“Fine,” said Kylon. “When they show themselves, I will kill them. I’ve faced the Huntress before, but I didn’t have the valikon then.” Of course, he had barely kept Rhataban at bay during their fight even with the valikon, and if the Master Alchemist had taken the threat of Kylon’s frost sorcery more seriously, he might well have killed Kylon. 

“To slay them,” said the Emissary, “you must understand them. And you must know your own destiny.” 

“Explain,” said Kylon. 

“Those who carry the nagataaru are slaves,” said the Emissary. 

“To the nagataaru?” said Kylon.

“No. It is subtler than that,” said the Emissary. “Those who carry the nagataaru are slaves to their own darker natures. For the nagataaru hunger for pain and death the way a starving man hungers for bread. That hunger fills their hosts, twists their thoughts, and makes them slaves to it…even though they know it not.” 

“What good does that do me?” said Kylon. 

“If a man is a slave to his lusts, then his lusts rule him,” said the Emissary, “and they are his weakness.” She shrugged. “I know not how to exploit such weaknesses. You are the warrior, not I.”

Kylon snorted. “Some oracle.”

She offered a brief smile. “You asked for plain speaking, so do not complain when you hear it.”

“Fine,” said Kylon. “You also said I had to understand my destiny. What is my destiny?”

“The silver fire is your only salvation,” said the Emissary. 

“The Surge told me that, before I was exiled from New Kyre,” said Kylon. “What does it mean?”

“What did it mean in your past?” said the Surge. “For I have seen it in your past.” 

Kylon said nothing. In the Craven’s Tower, Caina had used a vial of Elixir Restorata to save his life, the silver fire erupting from him to heal his wounds. He had thought the Surge’s prophecy fulfilled, but then the Huntress had given Caina a mortal wound in Rumarah. With Samnirdamnus’s help, Kylon had used the Elixir Restorata to save Caina’s life…and the resultant explosion had wiped out the Umbarian soldiers and driven Cassander Nilas from Rumarah. 

It had also transformed Caina into a valikarion. 

Kylon had four vials of Elixir Restorata with him. Did the Emissary’s warning mean that he would need them to save his life once more? Or that he would somehow use it to save Caina? He could not see how. Caina was hundreds of miles away, likely on Pyramid Isle by now. 

Kylon wanted to hit the table again, but he had smashed it already. 

“I am sorry, Lord Kylon,” said the Emissary. “If I could tell you more, I would. The future is far cloudier than the past.”

“If the future is cloudy even to you,” said Kylon, “then what is the point of an oracle?” 

“To set others upon the path they may need to walk,” said the Emissary with a crooked smile.

“Now you’re being cryptic again,” said Kylon. 

“May the Living Flame light your path, Lord Kylon,” said the Emissary, “and grant you wisdom. For I fear you shall need all the aid you can find in the days ahead.”

Kylon turned away. “Better get some sleep. There might be a battle tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said the Emissary. “I know.”

Kylon looked back at her, a barbed remark on his lips, decided it wasn’t worth it, shook his head, and left the tent.

Night had fallen, the air marginally less hot. Kylon gazed up at the stars, wondering if Caina was looking at these same stars right now. He wondered if his father and mother had endured the fears and doubts that gnawed at him now, if Andromache had ever entertained similar doubts. On the other hand, Andromache had never questioned herself, which had probably gotten her killed. 

And as Kylon questioned himself, a disturbing thought occurred to him.

The Emissary had said that the Huntress would come for Caina again. 

Did that meant she was going after Caina right now? Had they miscalculated? 

Had the Red Huntress accompanied her master to Pyramid Isle?

Chapter 13: Ambush

As the sun slipped beneath the jungle to the west, Caina glimpsed a flash of white on the curve of the beach ahead.

“Stop,” she said, keeping her voice low. Morgant and Annarah came to an immediate halt. 

Caina remained motionless, peering at the horizon. Pyramid Isle was roughly circular in shape, which meant the beach and the line of the jungle moved in an uneven curve. Far ahead, just before the curve of the jungle blocked the sight of the beach, Caina glimpsed a figure clad in brilliant white.

Like the white of a Master Alchemist’s robe. 

Almost certainly they had found Grand Master Callatas. 

Yet next to the white-robed figure stood a shape in red and black.

Caina’s suspicions had proven accurate. Kalgri had indeed accompanied Callatas to Pyramid Isle. 

“It’s them, isn’t it?” murmured Annarah. “Callatas and the Huntress.”

Caina nodded.

“We’ll have a devil of a job sneaking up on them,” said Morgant.

“Not if we go through the jungle,” said Caina. 

“They aren’t walking,” said Annarah. “They’re just standing still. Why?” 

“I’m not sure,” said Caina, “but it looks like they’re arguing. All the better. If they’re arguing, we have a better chance of taking them unawares.” She looked at the wall of jungle to her right. Two of the Iramisian warding stones stood at the edge of the jungle, glowing to the vision of the valikarion, and beyond she saw the sickly green haze of the necromantic aura. “Into the jungle.” 

They hurried up the slope of the beach, towards the wall of the jungle. Caina risked a glance towards Callatas and Kalgri, but both distant figures remained motionless. So far, it seemed, they had not noticed Caina and the others. They ought have paid better attention to their surroundings. For that matter, Caina did not know why Kalgri had come to Pyramid Isle. The Red Huntress had a sense of self-preservation as sharp as Morgant’s dagger, and surely she realized the danger that Kharnaces posed. Perhaps Callatas had compelled her to come. Perhaps the Voice had encouraged Kalgri to come, hoping to use her to stop Callatas from walking into the waiting arms of Kharnaces.

Caina didn’t know. 

All she knew was that Kalgri’s presence made their odds of victory far narrower. 

She stopped at the edge of the jungle, its wet, sharp smell filling her nostrils. She saw nothing moving in the shadows beneath the trees. 

“Let’s hope,” said Caina, “the baboons don’t see us.”

“Yes,” said Morgant. “It would be disappointing to have come all this way only to be torn apart by undead baboons.”

“Very,” said Caina, and she stepped past the veil of white light from the warding stones and into the jungle. A crawling tingle went over her, and nausea twisted through her as she sensed the dark power saturating the jungle. The necromantic aura radiating from the Tomb of Kharnaces seemed much stronger without the protection of the ward, and if Caina concentrated, through the vision of the valikarion she could glimpse distant point of brilliant green light.