Ghost in the Pact (8 page)

All that remained was to take the Staff and the Seal…and Annarah had hidden them from him for a century and a half. 

“The troublesome child earned her fate,” said Callatas, tracing signs in the air. Once he would have found the effort of carrying on a conversation, holding a half-dozen wards in place, listening to Kotuluk Iblis’s shadow, and casting a new spell all at once to be an overwhelming challenge. Now it was nothing more than a minor annoyance. “She delayed the Apotheosis for a century and a half with her little stratagem. She made me waste decades looking for the relics in the Desert of Candles.”

“Perhaps if you wanted the relics,” said Kalgri, “then you shouldn’t have burned Iramis. You ought to have known that Nasser would hide them.” 

Again a wave of irritation went through him. Well, he would soon have no further need of the Red Huntress, once the Apotheosis was completed and the new humanity spread out to populate the emptied world. 

“No matter,” said Callatas, drawing back his hand. “They are mine now.”

“That spell,” said Kalgri. “It will…”

“I know what it will do,” said Callatas. “Since when do you care about the lives of Immortals? They are tools, to be used for whatever purpose I please. Today, their purpose is to hold my enemies pinned in place while I strike.” 

He gestured, and a shaft of golden fire ripped from his hand and slammed into the side of the miserable little tavern, soaking into the cheap brickwork.

The transmutation began at once. 

###

Arcane power spiked in the air, surrounding Callatas in a furious golden glow. To Caina’s valikarion sight, he blazed like a second sun.

He had summoned a tremendous amount of sorcerous force, power enough to blast the Desert Maiden to smoking rubble. Annarah cast a spell of her own, a ward to turn aside Callatas’s wrath, but even the Words of Lore would not be enough to block that potent spell. 

Caina turned, shouting a warning to the others, and golden fire lanced from Callatas and ripped into the side of the Desert Maiden. She expected the spell to strike the building with explosive force, but instead the power spread over the bricks, sinking into the structure. 

For an instant nothing happened. 

And then the entire building transmuted into sand. 

Caina had a brief instant to recognize the spell. The Kindred assassin Anburj had set a trap to capture her, and while escaping from the trap, she fled through the House of Sozanat, a coffee house favored by minor Alchemists. One of the Alchemists had transmuted a staircase into sand, almost sending Caina falling to her death.

Callatas had just transmuted the Desert Maiden into sand. 

The roof disintegrated beneath Caina’s boots, and she plunged into the sand. It fell around her, smothering her, burying her, and hot darkness swallowed her as she struggled to breathe.

###

Callatas watched the miserable little tavern collapse into a rippling sand dune. 

The resultant sand dune was much lower than the original building. Much of what had once been the Desert Maiden had plunged into the cellar. Anyone caught on the ground floor and the second floor would have been buried alive without escape, including all the surviving patrons and Immortals. The sand overfilled the cellar, spilling into the streets like a minor flood. A few Immortals staggered from the wreckage, sand pouring from the joints of their armor, but Callatas saw no sign of his enemies. 

Likely they had all been buried. 

No matter. Mere sand could not conceal artifacts as powerful as the Staff of Iramis and the Seal of Iramis. 

Kalgri was laughing, her voice filled with pleasure. The shadow of Kotuluk Iblis had sensed a score of deaths in the last instant, along with a few more every second as men asphyxiated within the sand. The Voice within the Huntress was feeding upon the deaths, gorging itself on the pain and stolen life force, and Kalgri feasted along with the nagataaru. 

The woman was contemptibly venal. 

Callatas strode towards the remnants of the Desert Maiden, the sand rasping against his boots. 

“So bold,” said Kalgri as he began a spell. “What if Lord Kylon bursts from the sand and stabs his valikon through your heart?”

“Lord Kylon, if he is still alive,” said Callatas, “is choking beneath a dozen tons of sand. Even if he still lives, it will take him time to dig himself free, and while he is doing that, you can cut off his head. Taunt him about his dead wife. You enjoy that sort of thing.”

He finished his spell, his will sweeping the pile of sand for the presence of arcane forces. He felt several potent sorcerous auras beneath the sand. The presence of two pyrikons, for one – the familiar presence of Annarah’s pyrikon, which he had repurposed as a key to the Maze until Caina had stolen it. The aura that surrounded Nasser’s left hand, similar to the thousands of crystalline shadows left by the destruction of Iramis and the banishment of the djinn of the Azure Court. Several other auras that belonged to enspelled weapons likely carried by Caina and her allies. And…

Yes.

There it was. 

He remembered the first time he had felt that aura over two centuries ago, watching Nasser’s father march from the Gate of the Sun to the Towers of Lore, carrying the ancient regalia of the Princes, the white towers of Iramis gleaming gold and silver in the brilliant sun, the crowds cheering their Prince as he walked to the palace…

Callatas scowled.

Lies. It had all been lies. 

He summoned more power, working a simple spell of psychokinetic force. His will sank deep into the dune that had been the Desert Maiden. The sand shifted, and his will coiled around the ancient aura of the regalia. Callatas made a tugging gesture, pulling the aura towards him, and a leather-wrapped spear erupted from the sand and landed in his outstretched hand. 

A spear? 

A man in the rough clothes of a teamster pulled himself from the sand, trying to kick his way free. 

“Help me,” he croaked, sand falling from his beard and mouth. “Please, by the Living Flame, help me…”

“Kalgri,” snapped Callatas, not taking his eyes from the spear. 

The Huntress smiled and called the sword of the nagataaru to her hand, a crackling shaft of purple flame and writhing shadow. The trapped teamster just had time to scream before Kalgri took off his head, shivering a little in delight as his blood soaked into the sand. 

“Ah,” said Callatas. “A disguise.”

He cast another spell, and the spear’s head crumbled into dust, the leather wrapping falling away into sand. 

The Staff and Seal of Iramis gleamed in his hand at long last. The Staff was wrought from the silvery alloy of ghostsilver that the loremasters of Iramis had used for their greatest works, and Callatas felt the tremendous arcane power surging through it. Iramisian glyphs marked the length of the staff, and he recalled the long-forgotten words to the forefront of his mind, words of summoning and opening. He reached up to the last bit of the rusted socket atop the staff and flicked it aside, drawing out the Seal of Iramis, a ring made from the same ghostsilver alloy. It had been set with a large blue stone the exact shade of the Star of Iramis, cut in the shape of a seven-pointed star, the ancient sigil of the Princes of Iramis. 

For millennia the Princes had carried these relics, since the dawn of ages when men had first built houses and cultivated fields, and across that vast span of time, all those epochs of history, the Princes had restrained themselves from using the power of the Staff, Seal, and Star of Iramis. 

Callatas would use them to remake humanity into a new and better form. He had found the one thing that was perfectible about mankind, and he would perfect it. 

He looked at the sand dune, his fingers tight against the Staff, the Seal resting in the palm of his other hand. None of his enemies had yet emerged from the sand, which meant they were either trapped and digging their way out or already dead. He expected at least a few to survive. Kylon and Sulaman’s dogged Oath Shadow, most probably, and likely Nasser as well. The man had proven vexingly difficult to kill. Well, he was finished now. Callatas would take a few Immortals with him and return to his palace at once to begin the final spells of the Apotheosis. 

He would leave Kalgri and the rest of the Immortals here to deal with Caina and Sulaman and their allies. They would be vulnerable as they dug their free, and the Immortals would kill them with ease. He had no fear that Kalgri would disobey, either. The woman had a bad habit for interpreting his instructions in the most creative way possible, but she adored killing, and she would make sure Caina was dead. The Red Huntress did love her little grudges. She woudl kill Sulaman and the others, as well – for once Kalgri’s love of indiscriminate slaughter would prove useful.

Callatas turned to give his commands to Kalgri and the Immortal khalmir, slipping the Seal of Iramis upon his finger.

And as he did, a voice thundered inside of his head.

It was a deep, melodious voice, calm and certain. Callatas had listened to that voice for years, and its teachings had changed the course of his life. Callatas had thought he had escaped that voice, and had not given it any thought for decades. 

In a surge of horror, he realized that the voice had left part of itself inside his head…and the jaws of the trap closed around him.

“Come to me,” said the voice of Kharnaces, the Heretic of Maat. 

Callatas tried to struggle, tried to fight, but sorcery older and stronger than his power closed around his mind like a fist of iron...and suddenly all his emotions drained away, replaced by placid, obedient calm. 

###

Kalgri watched the sand dune, waiting for her enemies to die. 

One way or another, they were going to die. Either the sand would crush the breath from them, or they would crawl free, and then Kalgri would kill them. She sensed that Kylon of House Kardamnos was still alive, and expected him to burst free from the sand before long. Kalgri would dispatch him before could bring that damned valikon to bear. She would have liked to have killed him while Caina watched, but as immensely pleasurable as that would have been, Kalgri was not about to risk her safety. Instead, she would present Kylon’s head to Caina. Yes, she liked that thought, and the Voice hissed its approval, the nagataaru stirring in the depths of her mind like a coiling serpent. She would present Kylon’s head to Caina, and watch the Balarigar’s expression crumple like a…

The Voice’s whispers of exultation turned to a hiss of alarm. 

Kalgri took a step back, lifting her ghostsilver short sword in guard. The Immortals still stood guard, watching the sand dune that had swallowed half their number. The Voice sensed the horror and pain of those buried alive, pain that rapidly ended as they ran out of air and died. She turned, wondering if Callatas had seen anything, and then stopped in astonishment.

Callatas was twitching, his eyes closed. Kalgri and the Voice could sense nothing from the Grand Master, not with the layers of wards mantling him, but she knew that the shadow of Kotuluk Iblis filled him. Callatas had dared to summon the sovereign of the nagataaru and make a pact with him. Perhaps the price for that pact had finally come due.

Or maybe the Grand Master was having a stroke. 

It would be amusing if after one hundred and fifty years of searching, the old wretch finally died just as he stretched out his hand to claim victory. 

As she watched, he shuddered once more, and then his eyes opened. 

“Father?” said Kalgri.

He gave no reaction to the title, which surprised her. She only called him that because it irritated him so much. Kalgri had only vague memories of her real father, but since the man had sold her into slavery a long time ago, he could rot in his grave.

Callatas looked at her. His expression seemed…off, somehow. It was usually a cold mask, colored with contempt and arrogance. Now he seemed calm, relaxed, even placid. She wondered if he had accidentally ingested some of his own wraithblood. 

“I have instructions for you,” said Callatas, his voice a peculiar monotone. “Khalmir. Attend.” The Immortal khalmir stepped to the Grand Master’s side. “Gather the survivors. We shall immediately depart for the Towers of the Sea. There we shall take command of a galley and sail at once. See to the necessary preparations.”

“Of course, Grand Master,” said the khalmir. “If I may ask, where are we going?”

“Pyramid Isle,” said Callatas. The khalmir began shouting commands, the Immortals falling in around Kalgri and the Grand Master.

“Pyramid Isle?” said Kalgri. “Why are you going there?”

She did not know what Callatas had done on Pyramid Isle. He never spoke of it, and she had only been able to discover bits and pieces of the truth. She knew that a Great Necromancer of Maat was imprisoned upon the island, and from him Callatas had learned the secrets of summoning the nagataaru. Apparently Callatas had undergone a falling out with his former master, because he had fled Pyramid Isle and had never returned. 

“It is necessary,” said Callatas. “I must go to Pyramid Isle without delay.” He beckoned to the khalmir. “Are the Immortals ready? Good. We shall leave for the Towers of the Sea at once. Commandeer whatever supplies you require for a sea voyage of seven to ten days.” 

Callatas strode away from the wreckage of the Desert Maiden without another word, and for an instant Kalgri was so astonished that she could think of nothing to say.

“But what about Sulaman?” she said. “What about the Balarigar?” Callatas had been utterly adamant about the need to capture Sulaman and kill Caina a few moments earlier. What could have possibly changed his mind? 

Were the relics controlling him somehow?

Callatas glanced at her. “If you wish, stay behind and kill them. Or accompany me and do as I command. Or depart from this place and do as you wish. Your decisions are of no further consequence.” That strange monotone never wavered, his face still placid and lacking its usual cold arrogance. “Decide now.” 

Without another word, he strode away, the Immortals flanking him.