Ghost in the Pact (23 page)

The Conjurant Bloodcrystal itself, so powerful that the vision of the valikarion could see the thing from halfway across the island. 

Yet nothing stirred as Morgant and Annarah crossed the threshold of the ward and entered the jungle with Caina. 

“Let’s go,” said Caina. “Keep as quiet as you can.”

She led the way north, approaching Kalgri and Callatas.

And as they drew nearer, she heard the voices of the Red Huntress and the Grand Master raised in argument. 

###

Kalgri had known Callatas for longer than anyone else in the world, and she understood him completely. Most of the time this understanding filled her with contempt, since his plan to create a new and better humanity was insipid. Yet there was also a measure of respect – the man was powerful and brilliant in his own way, and some fear colored that respect. He possessed tremendous power, and she couldn’t hurt him or in the end even disobey him. Neither could he kill her, but he could inflict a tremendous amount of pain if he put his mind to it. For all that she mocked him, she feared him enough that there were lines she would not cross.

Yet, for the first time in over a century and a half…he baffled her.

After they had finished killing off the last of the nagataaru-infested undead baboons, they had headed north along the beach. Kalgri failed to see the point. With the galley wrecked and the Immortals dead upon the beach, they were stranded here until another ship stopped at the island. If Callatas was going to work the Apotheosis and kill the world, Kalgri did not intend to spend it trapped on this miserable little island.

Callatas had started walking slower and slower, shaking his head and muttering to himself. He had always talked to himself, but now it sounded as if he was carrying on an argument. 

Then, at last, he simply stopped, staring at the bone-colored hill in the distance. 

“What?” said Kalgri. 

“I must go to the Tomb of Kharnaces,” said Callatas.

“Then go,” said Kalgri.

Callatas hesitated, nodded…and then stopped, shaking his head.

A wave of confused anger rolled through Kalgri, followed by the alarmed hissing of the Voice. The Voice did not want Callatas to go into that jungle. It wanted Kalgri to stop him, but the nagataaru did not offer any useful suggestions on the matter. Not that the Voice ever did. If Kalgri wanted something done, she had to do it herself. 

“I must go to the Tomb of Kharnaces,” said Callatas. He started to take a step forward, and then froze, trembling as if holding himself back by a colossal act of will.

“Stop prevaricating, father,” said Kalgri. “The world will crumble into dust while you stand here dithering.” 

That should have gotten a response out of him. He detested it when she called him father, and being called indecisive infuriated him further. Callatas claimed that the length of time it took him to make a decision was a sign of his vast intellect and experience. Kalgri thought it a result of his habit of overthinking everything. If he had been a little more decisive, he could have dealt with Cassander Nilas long before the Umbarian magus had nearly destroyed Istarinmul. 

For a moment a flicker of the old irritation went over his bearded face, and then his expression relaxed once more. Kalgri wished he had not warded himself so well. Had the Voice been able to sense his presence, perhaps she could have guessed his intentions. 

As it was, she suspected that he had lost his reason. The only other times Kalgri had seen anyone act like this had been in the grips of insanity, or…

She frowned. 

Or in the grips of a mind-controlling spell. Both the Imperial Magisterium and the Umbarian Order used mind-controlling spells on their enemies, but it was hard to do properly. Mind-controlling spells often resulted in total insanity as the victim’s mind broke down under the strain of competing impulses. But who could have put a mind-controlling spell upon a sorcerer as potent as the Grand Master? Kharnaces, perhaps, but Callatas had not been here for century and a half. Or perhaps the Staff and Seal had been trapped, guarded by a spell that drove whoever wielded them to insanity. Though Caina and Nasser Glasshand both had carried the regalia, and neither Caina nor Nasser seemed to have gone insane. 

“Yes,” said Callatas, his voice flat. “I must come to the Tomb of Kharnaces.” 

“Then go,” said Kalgri. The Voice screamed in fury at the thought. 

“Yes,” said Callatas in that strange voice. “You are right.”

He took a step forward, then another, but with hesitant, jerky movements. It made Kalgri think of corsairs forcing a man to walk the plank into shark-infested waters. 

Strange.

She had thought that Callatas would unleash the Apotheosis at once after she led him to the Staff and Seal. Instead he had gone to Pyramid Isle with such haste that he had not even cared when their galley had foundered upon the reef. 

Still, in the end, she did not care. She did not care about Callatas, and she did not really care about his Apotheosis. She only cared about killing as many people as possible, about gorging herself upon their pain and torment and deaths, about killing without end. The Apotheosis had seemed like the best way to do that.

Yet if Callatas got himself killed here…

Kalgri decided to wait and watch. Maybe Callatas would destroy himself the way that Cassander had destroyed himself…

No. That wasn’t right. Cassander hadn’t destroyed himself. Caina and Kylon had killed him. 

Odd. Why should she think about them now? Their corpses likely lay beneath several tons of sand in Istarinmul, and even if they had survived, there was no way they could have followed Callatas and Kalgri to Pyramid Isle.

Yet, for some reason, her instincts screamed a warning, and Kalgri took several steps back, watching Callatas as he staggered towards the jungle.

###

Morgant crouched next to Caina and Annarah in the trees, watching the Grand Master and the Red Huntress. 

The last time Morgant had actually seen the Grand Master had been several decades ago, when Callatas had hired him to paint a mural glorifying the destruction of Iramis in the Tarshahzon Gardens. Of course, Callatas had thought Morgant was Markaine of Caer Marist, famed master painter. He hadn’t recognized Morgant as the assassin he had hired to kill Annarah and bring him the relics of Iramis. 

Callatas had not changed. He still looked ascetic, scholarly, with a slump to his shoulders and a perpetually sour look on his lined face. The Star of Iramis, a fist-sized gem of blue crystal, rested against his chest, and his right hand held the silvery Staff of Iramis and wore the Seal of Iramis with its carved blue stone. The Grand Master stood a few yards from the edge of the jungle, twitching and jerking like a man in the grip of a seizure. 

The Red Huntress waited behind him, a slim, pretty woman clad in crimson armor of chain mail and leather, a dark cloak hanging from her shoulders. She had blue eyes and blond hair, and looked so much like Caina that the two women could have been sisters. Morgant suspected that was a twisted joke on the part of the nagataaru that inhabited the Huntress, that it had rebuilt her with the features of the woman who had defeated her at Silent Ash Temple.

It was actually kind of funny, though Morgant could just imagine Annarah’s sigh if he said that aloud. Plus, hiding a few yards from the most powerful sorcerer and the deadliest assassin in Istarinmul was not the time for jokes.

Callatas staggered, step by slow step, towards the jungle. Strange spasms went over his expression. One moment his face was slack and impassive, the next confused and angry. Then he shook his head, and the cycle started all over again. Had Morgant not known better, he would have thought the Grand Master was drunk, or had just taken a sharp blow to the head. Clearly Callatas was trying to fight off the compulsion, and just as clearly he was failing. Step by step, he was moving towards the jungle. Perhaps Kharnaces could not claim him until he passed the circle of warding stones and entered the jungle proper. 

But as the Grand Master moved closer, that meant he was standing in the shadows of the trees. 

Caina pointed at one of the trees. Morgant didn’t know what kind of tree it was, save that it was tall and had a lot of spiky-looking green leaves. He supposed that it if was cut down and shipped to Istarinmul, the glossy dark wood would fetch a high price so it could be turned into a table or something. 

Still, it looked heavy and solid…and Callatas was standing right underneath it. Morgant knew that the Grand Master had warded himself against steel weapons and arcane attack. He did not know if the Grand Master had warded himself against a giant damned tree falling upon his head. 

Time to find out! 

Morgant glided forward. The wind and the constant rustling of the leaves ought to mask any idle noise, but he did not want to take the chance that the Huntress would hear anything. He leveled his black dagger and started sawing at the base of the tree. The tree was thick enough and hard enough that it should have taken a team of strong men wielding axes to bring it down, but Morgant’s enspelled dagger bit into the wood with ease. 

Of course, there was a lot of tree, and Morgant’s blade was only so long. He started to dig a trench into the trunk, working as fast and as silently as he could manage. The wood turned black and charred where the blade touched it, and the gem upon the dagger’s pommel started to glow as it sucked up the friction of the cutting. Caina moved to the left side of the tree in silence, the ghostsilver dagger ready in her hand, her eyes fixed upon Callatas. Annarah moved to the right side, her free hand opening and closing as pale white fire started to glimmer around her fingers, her eyes upon the Huntress. As a loremaster of Iramis, she had any number of spells that could harm or perhaps even destroy a nagataaru, though Morgant did not know if she was powerful enough to deal with someone as potent as the Huntress. 

He supposed they were about to find that out as well. 

Morgant pulled his dagger from the smoking trench in the tree, the smell of burned wood filling his nostrils. The tree swayed precariously upon the remaining sliver of the trunk. Callatas had managed to move another yard closer to the jungle, while the Huntress remained motionless further down the beach, her black cloak stirring around her. 

Morgant glanced at Caina. She gave him a hard nod, her fingers tightening against the ghostsilver dagger. 

It was grimly amusing. A lot of people had tried to kill Callatas over the last century and a half, and all of them had failed. Mighty sorcerers, powerful lords, and dozens of assassins had come for him, and he had crushed them all. Now Morgant and Caina and Annarah were going to try to assassinate the Grand Master with a tree and a dagger. 

Well, it wasn’t as if Morgant had any better ideas.

He slammed his shoulder against the tree, and it toppled forward with a crackling noise. 

###

Kalgri watched Callatas totter towards the jungle. She let out an aggravated breath, shaking her head with annoyance, and she did, something strange caught her attention.

She smelled…wood smoke? 

But that was impossible. The jungle was too damp to burn. And it didn’t smell like a forest fire. It smelled like someone was making charcoal. But this wretched island was supposed to be uninhabited. Where was…

A loud cracking noise came from the jungle, and one of the trees fell right towards the Grand Master. Callatas, wrapped in his internal debate, didn’t even seem to notice the damned tree falling towards his skull. 

“Callatas!” shouted Kalgri. 

The Grand Master jerked, saw the tree coming, and tried to dodge. Instead of landing upon his head, the tree struck his right shoulder. There was a brilliant flash of blue light as his defensive wards flared to life, and the tree ripped in half as if it had been struck by a lightning bolt. Yet the Grand Master’s wards had been designed to deflect swords and spears and arrows and spells, and Kalgri doubted they had been cast to deflect that much weight at once. In the instant before the defensive spells ripped the tree in half, it clipped his shoulder, and Kalgri heard the snap of bone. Callatas let out a started yelp and spun to the side, his gray eyes wide, and went to one knee, leaning upon the Staff of Iramis for balance. 

It happened so fast that even the Voice was shocked into silence.

Kalgri’s first thought was amused. Of all the trees in the jungle, what were the odds that one would land upon Callatas?

Her second thought was that it was too improbable a coincidence. 

Then Caina Amalas burst from the trees, sprinting towards the stunned Grand Master, a ghostsilver dagger glinting in her hand.

For a moment sheer shock froze Kalgri’s mind. 

It was impossible. It was utterly impossible. Caina was dead, her corpse buried beneath tons of sand in the Alqaarin Quarter. Even if she had somehow survived, there was no way she could have followed Callatas and Kalgri here. For that matter, she couldn’t have known where Callatas and Kalgri were going. 

Then the Voice screamed a warning, and Kalgri surged forward. Caina had a ghostsilver dagger. That weapon could penetrate Callatas’s weakened wards and kill him. And if the Grand Master died, then the Apotheosis died with him. 

Kalgri would not allow that. The Apotheosis would kill the world, and to do that she first had to kill Caina Amalas, ridding herself of the troublesome Balarigar once and for…

A blast of white fire erupted from the jungle, and only the reflexes granted by the Voice let Kalgri dodge. The spell ripped across her left side, and pain exploded through her, bringing her charge to a halt.

###

Caina sprinted forward as Kalgri stumbled, snarling in fury.

Annarah emerged from the jungle, her pyrikon returned to its staff form, and cast another spell. Another burst of white fire erupted from the staff, and Kalgri dodged the spell. Caina caught a glimpse of Kalgri’s expression, and saw that the left side of the Huntress’s face was red and black with burns. Annarah’s spells could not harm living mortals, but Kalgri had taken a nagataaru into her flesh, and was vulnerable to the power of the Iramisian loremasters.