Ghost in the Pact (26 page)

Callatas finished his spell, but this time the power flowed to the Seal upon his finger, the carved stone in the ring blazing with force.

“Aid me!” thundered Callatas. “By the power of the Seal, I summon you! By the power of the Seal, I bind you! By the power of the Seal, I compel you!” He pointed at Caina, the Seal’s carved stone shining with blue light. “Slay the Balarigar! By the power of the Seal, by the command of Callatas, by the will of Kotuluk Iblis, slay the Balarigar!”

Caina was halfway up the ramp, and dozens of billowing black shadows erupted from the courtyard. They seemed to take the shape of hooded creatures, their eyes blazing with purple fire. They swept back and forth through the courtyard, moving with the speed of circling birds, and Caina skidded to a halt as one passed a few feet in front of her.

They were nagataaru spirits, and Callatas had summoned hundreds of them, binding them with the Seal’s power. Caina gripped her ghostsilver dagger and held it out before her, the blade shining with white fire, but it seemed a small weapon to use against hundreds of nagataaru. They could swarm over her like rats… 

Yet the nagataaru continued sweeping back and forth…and Caina realized they could not see her.

She was valikarion. Spirits could not perceive her, and it seemed that ability functioned in the netherworld as well. Yet even as the realization came to her, she saw that the nagataaru were sweeping through the courtyard in a systematic way. They couldn’t see her, but they knew that she was there, and once they found her…

A nagataaru brushed her, pain shooting up her left arm. The spirit froze, shadows swirling around it like a cloak, and it let out a keening scream. Caina slashed at the nagataaru with the ghostsilver dagger, and the spirit reeled back, but it was too late. The other nagataaru swarmed towards her, hundreds of them, and she saw Callatas casting a spell from the outer wall. If the nagataaru didn’t finish her, whatever spell Callatas cast would…

White light flashed from Caina’s left wrist. 

Her ghostsilver pyrikon unfolded itself, swelling into a towering warrior armored from head to foot in plate armor, a glowing sword in its right fist and a massive shield upon its left arm. The pyrikon attacked, sword rising and falling, and the nagataaru fell back.

“Defend!” thundered the pyrikon, its voice like the blast of a trumpet. “Defend the liberator! To arms, my kindred! Defend the liberator!” 

Dozens of balls of white light shot across the courtyard, blurring across Caina’s vision like a rain of falling stars. The glowing spheres expanded into more armored warriors, and soon scores of pyrikon spirits contended against the nagataaru, continuing their endless, eternal war. Callatas finished his spell, golden fire bursting from his hand, and Caina focused her mind upon the stone ramp beneath her feet. It shrank and flattened, plunging her back to the courtyard, and Callatas’s spell missed by mere inches. 

Caina stumbled as a searing bolt of pain shot through her head, and she felt something wet touch her upper lip.

Her nose was bleeding. She had a brief vision of her brain dissolving into mush from the effort of changing the terrain again and again. 

Gray light flared around the outer wall as Callatas began yet another spell. The nagataaru might not have been able to see her, but Callatas had no trouble, and he could throw spell after spell until he killed her. 

But what if he couldn’t see her? She had been a Ghost nightfighter long before she had become a valikarion, and she preferred to strike from shadows and stealth. 

Perhaps she could do the same here.

Caina concentrated as hard as she could, focusing upon the replica of the palace that Callatas had pulled into existence. Pain flooded her skull, and for an awful instant it felt as if she had thrust her head into a blacksmith’s fire. 

Yet the netherworld reformed itself around her. 

The palace vanished, replaced by the maze of warehouses and alleys that surrounded the harbor in the Imperial capital of Malarae. Countless warehouses of weathered brick rose around Caina, roofed in crumbling red tiles. Fog flooded through the alleys. Thick fogs often rolled into Malarae off the Bay of Empire, and sometimes it was hard to see more than a dozen feet in any direction in the hazy gloom.

Callatas could not see Caina in the gloomy maze of the docks, and she sprinted forward in silence.

He could not see her…but she could see him.

For not even the fogs of Malarae could conceal the Staff and the Seal and the Star of Iramis from the vision of the valikarion. She saw the glow of the relics, saw the glow right through the walls of brick and the mist and the pyrikon spirits battling against the nagataaru. 

Callatas was not far away. The other side of the warehouse, Caina thought. 

She took a step forward…and a wave of searing pain accompanied by dizziness rolled through her head, and she had to grab at a rough brick wall to stay upright. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, forcing the pain back, forcing herself to keep going. Power flared around Callatas, and the glow of the Staff of Iramis brightened. He was preparing to use the Staff to return to the mortal world and leave her here to die. 

No. This was going to end, here and now. 

The warehouse was only one floor high, and Caina scrambled up the wall, finding footholds in the rough brick. She rolled onto the roof and hastened across it in silence. Overhead three nagataaru swirled and danced around three pyrikon warriors, their swords rising and falling in battle. Caina reached the edge of the roof and peered down. 

Callatas stood ten feet below her, the Staff glowing with gray light as he finished his spell. 

He didn’t look up.

No one, Caina reflected, ever looked up. 

She leaped from the roof, shadow-cloak billowing around her, and slammed into the Grand Master’s back.

The dagger ripped through his wards and sank deep into his back, just below his left shoulder.

The impact drove him across the narrow alley and into the opposite wall. He started to cast a spell, but it was too late, far too late, and with a surge of exultation Caina knew that she had him.

Her arm pumped, driving the ghostsilver dagger down once, twice, three times, every blow slipping between his ribs to seek his lungs and heart. The back of his brilliant white robes turned red with blood, and Callatas tried to scream but only produced a groaning wheeze, bloody foam flying from his lips. He stumbled away from Caina and fell to his knees, the Staff clutched in one hand, pawing at the sash of his robe with his other hand. 

Caina drew back the ghostsilver dagger, intending to bury it in his neck.

The Staff activated once more.

###

“You know,” said the Huntress, grinning at Morgant, “I think I want that dagger.” 

“It’s not for sale,” said Morgant, keeping his breathing slow and level. Maybe three minutes had passed since Caina and Callatas had disappeared into the netherworld, and the Huntress had spent that time issuing taunts. She had also spent that time healing, her burns vanishing, and Morgant wondered if he should have pressed his advantage, trying to cut her down before she recovered. 

Of course, if he had done that, maybe he and Annarah would be dead right now. Delaying had meant Annarah had gotten her breath back, white fire playing up and down her pyrikon staff. A single spell of the Words of Lore had inflicted more damage on the Huntress than anything Morgant had done, and if he could pin the Huntress in place along enough for Annarah to cast a spell…

“For sale?” said the Huntress with a smile. “I shall pay for it in your own blood.”

“Oh, that’s just insulting,” said Morgant.

The Huntress blinked. “What?”

“Is that supposed to be a taunt? ‘Pay for it in your own blood?’ As taunts go that’s feeble. Obviously we’re going to try to kill each other in a few minutes. So somebody’s blood is going to get spilled, and stating the obvious isn’t terrifying. Will you point out that the sky is blue next? I expect better from a woman of your age.”

The Huntress started at him for a moment, and then broke into one of her reedy giggles. “You have a point.” Her gaze flicked to Annarah. “Does he always talk this much?”

Annarah said nothing, the burning staff motionless in her hand. 

“Well,” said the Huntress. She rolled her shoulders, a few loose strands of blond hair dancing around her head. Morgant tightened his grip on his weapons, expecting her to strike. “This has been simply delightful, but…”

Her head snapped to the right, her blue eyes narrowing.

“Morgant,” said Annarah. 

His first impulse was to attack the Huntress while she was distracted, but he discarded the idea. Something might have drawn her attention, but he had no doubt she was still watching him. She might even have feigned distraction to draw him in.

It was what Morgant would have done, after all. 

Yet he risked a quick glance to the south, and saw dark shapes moving along the beach. Had Murat sent another landing party to the island? No, the corsair captain wasn’t that stupid, and he wouldn’t risk his hide, not when he simply had to wait for Caina and Morgant and Annarah to return. Morgant’s next thought was that more baboons had emerged from the jungle, but the shapes were too big for that…

“The dead Immortals,” said Annarah, her voice tight with alarm. “They’re coming for us.” 

“Rude of them,” said Morgant. “Dead men ought to stay dead. Life is so much simpler that way.” 

“Ah,” said the Huntress. “They have been inhabited by lesser nagataaru.” Her frown deepened. “I cannot command them.” 

“You can command lesser nagataaru?” said Morgant. 

“Of course I can,” said the Huntress. “But the ones in those damned mummified monkeys refused to heed me…”

“Baboons,” said Morgant.

“What?”

“They weren’t monkeys,” said Morgant, watching the dead Immortals move slowly along the beach. “They were baboons. A key difference.”

“Who the hell cares?” said the Huntress. “A monkey is a monkey. They ought to have obeyed me, but they did not.”

“Probably because they were vassals of the Harbinger,” said Morgant, remembering what Caina had told them of Samnirdamnus’s warning.

“Who is the Harbinger?” said the Huntress. 

“Oh, dear,” said Morgant. “The Grand Master didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” said the Huntress.

“That his dear friend Kharnaces is possessed by a rival of the nagataaru lord within you?”

The Huntress blinked, her head tilting to the side again, her eyes narrowing.

A moment later she cursed several times. 

“They’ll kill us both, you know,” said Morgant. 

“Yes, I’m aware of that, thank you,” said the Huntress. “Evidently it is your turn to state the obvious.” 

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it,” said Morgant.

“These are more powerful nagataaru than the ones that inhabited those damned monkeys,” said the Huntress. She stepped back, purple fire flickering in her eyes as she considered Morgant and Annarah. “Shall we kill each other and let the Immortals tear us apart?”

“Are you seriously suggesting,” said Annarah, “that we fight alongside you?”

The Huntress offered a lazy shrug. “We either fight alongside each other, or we die alongside each other.” She grinned, her eyes wild. “But I can outrun both of you, and I would be more than content to leave you behind to die. Though I do not fancy getting hunted by undead baboons and undead Immortals from one end of this miserable little island to another.”

“Fine,” said Morgant. “We’ll…”

There was a crackling noise, and a pillar of mist appeared a dozen yards away. Gray light shone from the pillar, brighter in the gloom of the impending twilight. 

“Morgant!” said Annarah. “The Staff is opening another gate.” 

Morgant looked at the Huntress, at the advancing Immortals, and back at the Huntress. Fortunately, she seemed just as uncertain of what to do next as Morgant. 

Something dark flickered at the corner of his eye. Morgant turned his head from the Huntress for just a moment, and a dozen misshapen figures darted through the jungle, loping along on all fours. He glimpsed leathery, cracked hides, weathered bone, yellowed fangs, and empty eye sockets that burned with purple fire.

The nagataaru-possessed baboons had returned. 

The crackling noise rose to a thunderclap, and a snarling rift of gray mist and harsh light appeared.

###

It felt as if Caina fell forever, plummeting through an endless void of gray mist and flickering light. 

Yet it lasted only a second, and the hot, humid air of Pyramid Isle washed over her once more, and Caina stumbled forward. Her momentum carried her into a tree, and she bounced off it, her arms wheeling to keep her balance. There was a flash of light, and her pyrikon settled around her left wrist, resuming the shape of a delicate ghostsilver bracelet once more.

Callatas, she had to find Callatas. 

The wounds she had dealt him had been mortal, but the shadow of Kotuluk Iblis might be able to heal him, and the Master Alchemists had ways of recovering from mortal injury…

A wave of dizziness swept through her, followed by another searing bolt of pain between her eyes. Caina grabbed at the tree to keep her balance, tasting her blood on her lips, feeling it trickle from her nose. This time the pain did not subside, seeming to grow harsher and sharper with every beat of her heart.

No. She couldn’t deal with it now. Caina shoved away from the tree, past a warding stone, and onto the beach.

Morgant and Annarah stood side by side, facing Kalgri, who waited a dozen yards away, her ghostsilver short sword and a steel dagger ready in her hands. To the south the Immortals ran up the beach, which wasn’t right, because the baboons had killed all the Immortals…

Callatas staggered towards Kalgri, his face gray, the back of his robe wet with blood. The Grand Master dropped to one knee, clutching something in his left hand, something that blazed with sorcerous power. Caina stepped forward, raising her ghostsilver dagger, and Callatas lifted the thing to his lips and threw back his head. Something small and glittering fell from his hand and bounced against the sand.