Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (31 page)

“Kill me,” moaned the Padishah. “Oh, by the Living Flame.” He was so agitated that his chains rattled a little as he shifted in his chair. “Oh, by the Living Flame, kill me, kill me. It’s almost too late. It’s almost too late.” 

His moans added to the chorus of whimpering groans from the chained wraithblood addicts outside the circles. They ought to have been rejoicing. They would have rejoiced, of course, if they knew and understood the truth, if they knew they were about to become the first of the new humanity to spread across the world in a tide of blood and fire. 

Part of his mind noted the sound of battle rising from the rest of the city, the screams and shouts and the clang of swords upon shields. He had also noted the sound of several Hellfire explosions, and he supposed that Erghulan had lost the walls. The idiot Grand Wazir could not even hold the fortified walls of Istarinmul. It should have angered him. 

But it did not alarm him. The spell was almost done, the Mirror almost ready. The rebels would arrive just in time to see the nagataaru pour through the gate. Callatas cast the summoning spell one more time, felt it interlock with the others already blazing around the Mirror.

And then, at last, after a century and a half of labor and experimentation and pain, it was ready. 

The Apotheosis was ready.

Callatas was about to save mankind. 

The shadow of Kotuluk Iblis surged through him, the sovereign of the nagataaru’s sense of triumph as vast and as overwhelming as a tidal wave sweeping over the world.

OPEN THE GATE. SUMMON MY HOST. FULFILL OUR PACT AT LAST. 

Callatas shouted, pouring all his will and power into the Staff of Iramis, and struck the end of the relic against the ground. A thunderclap rang out, seeming to roll out from the Staff, and power rushed from Callatas and into the Mirror.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the combined powers of the mighty spells transmuted the Mirror into the single largest gate to the netherworld that Callatas had ever created. For an instant, the gate blazed with gray light, as bright as the sun, and Callatas had to shield his eyes. The light cleared, and through the glass of the Mirror rippled the colorless grass and writhing black sky of the netherworld, as familiar as all the other times that Callatas had seen it. 

Then the Mirror turned black as the lightless void between the stars.

Tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of nagataaru had blocked the view.

A heartbeat later they exploded from the Mirror and shot skyward with the force of water bursting from a breach in a dam. The column of shadows hurtled upward, seeming to spread across the sky like a vast black mushroom, and it made Callatas think of black ink poured into a glass of clear water.

Ribbons of shadow and purple flame broke off from the vast column, flying towards the city as they obeyed Callatas’s commands. Exultation surged through him. It was working. The spell was working. The nagataaru, summoned to the material world, would seek living vessels of flesh to enter.

And thanks to the wraithblood, tens of thousands of vessels awaited the nagataaru.

The Padishah screamed, his fingers clawing at the arms of the chair.

Callatas turned to look at the wraithblood addicts. They gazed at the vast column of shadow with bewilderment. Even as he watched, ribbons of shadow and purple fire flowed towards them, and the addicts recoiled in fear. For a moment the nagataaru spirits hovered before the addicts, like lions contemplating gazelles.

Then the nagataaru surged forward, hammering into the addicts. The ribbons of shadow and purple flame poured into their nostrils and mouths and eyes, sinking into their flesh, and the wraithblood addicts screamed. The nagataaru vanished, and the addicts trembled and flailed. 

Then, before Callatas’s eyes, the first of the new humanity arose from the shells of the wraithblood addicts.

Their bodies swelled, growing so large that their ragged clothes disintegrated, and their shackles and collars snapped apart. As they grew, their skins changed, becoming the color of obsidian and as hard as diamond, impervious to any form of attack. Claws sprouted from their fingers and toes, and fangs grew over their lips even as great black wings sprouted from their backs. The wraithblood addicts had been gaunt and wasted, but their new forms rippled with heavy muscle, and their faces were inhumanly beautiful. Their eyes burned with the purple fire of the nagataaru, and the same purple fire pulsed in the veins beneath their skin.

The hybrids, the first of the new humanity, straightened up, looking around themselves. 

“Yes,” whispered Callatas.

They were beautiful. 

Beautiful and utterly perfect. The kadrataagu, created when a nagataaru overwhelmed its human host, were hideous and deformed. But here, guided by Callatas’s spells and the power of the Seal, he had created a perfect melding of mankind and nagataaru, taking the strengths of both and fusing them together. The new humanity was immortal, impervious to disease and injury, far stronger and faster than its predecessor. 

And Callatas could at last guide mankind to its new and better future, freed from the corruptions and the infirmities of the past.

“Hear me!” said Callatas, and the purple-burning eyes turned towards him. 

###

Kalgri watched the black-winged creatures with fascination, while behind her Erghulan and his men gaped with horrified expressions.

She had to admit that the hybrid creatures had turned out better than expected. For all of Callatas’s boasting, she had expected that he would create a horde of kadrataagu, misshapen monsters that would rampage across the world in an orgy of slaughter. The things that had been created from the wraithblood addicts were beautiful in the way that a poisoned dagger was beautiful, sleek and deadly and dangerous. She wondered how he had managed that. It took a great deal of power to achieve that…

Ah, of course. The Mirror of Worlds. The huge gate was a permanent weakness in the barrier between the mortal world and the netherworld, and so long as it was open, the nagataaru could draw more power from the netherworld. She supposed all sorcerers could draw more power for their spells, just as any spirits currently in the mortal world would become stronger…

Even as the realization crossed her mind, the Voice attacked her. 

For over a century and a half she had held the nagataaru lord housed within her flesh, neither one of them entirely in control, but Kalgri for the most part had held the upper hand. The Voice whispered constantly in her thoughts, urging her to do this or that, and for the most part Kalgri was in accord with those desires. Yet, in the end, Kalgri was still in command of her body, and she never did anything she did not wish to do.

It seemed that with its increased power, the Voice saw an opportunity to change the terms of their relationship. 

Kalgri staggered beneath the unexpected assault, the Voice’s power howling through her limbs. She felt her will start to crumble beneath the attack, felt the Voice’s malevolence sink its fingers into her flesh. Her skin crawled as if it wanted to submit to the Voice’s control, as if her body wanted to reshape itself under the Voice’s command, with Kalgri a prisoner in her own flesh. 

The nagataaru’s hatred filled her, its gloating desire to repay her for a century and a half of captivity in her own mind, its promise of torments beyond imagination.

Kalgri laughed at it.

The Voice’s gloating faltered. 

Perhaps a century and a half ago she might have succumbed to such an assault, but she had spent that century and a half using the Voice’s power to strengthen herself. The Voice knew her inside and out, but likewise, she knew the Voice as profoundly as she knew herself, and those years had hardened her will into something like the black carapace of Callatas’s newborn monsters. 

Bit by bit Kalgri forced the Voice back, commanding it to yield, commanding it to surrender its power to her. The nagataaru lord’s gloating turned to alarm and then dismay, the spirit’s attack buckling beneath her defenses. She was bound to the Voice, thanks to Callatas’s long-ago experiments, but in turn, the Voice was bound to her.

In the end, it could not resist.

“Do not be afraid,” murmured Kalgri. “We want the same thing, you and I. Death, so much death, and we shall slay and slay until the stars die…but we shall slay as I wish, not you. Yield!” 

The Voice crumbled beneath her unexpected resistance, and Kalgri forced the spirit back into her mind. As she did, its power flooded through her once more, and Kalgri swayed upon her feet.

It was more power than she had expected.

A lot more. 

Kalgri blinked and flexed her fingers, calling the sword of the nagataaru to her hand. It came with gratifying speed, but as it did, the rest of the power did not leave her. She still had the enhanced strength and speed the Voice offered. Previously, when she had used the sword of dark force, she had been only able to move as fast and as strike as hard as the natural strength of her muscles allowed. Now she could use the sword while drawing upon superhuman strength and speed. 

That would come in handy. There were a lot of people to kill.

Her eyes turned back towards Erghulan and his men, who gaped in horror that the winged creatures, and then back to Callatas. 

###

Callatas gazed at his creations, at the new humanity. 

“Go forth,” he bade them. “Take to the sky. Find the old humanity and cleanse the world of them. You can feast upon their deaths, and killing will make you stronger. Go forth and hunt!”

The creatures needed no further prompting. Their wings flexed, and they took to the air, soaring over the Golden Palace. Callatas looked over the walls and domes, and already he saw more black spots rising into the air as the vast shadow spread across the sky.

The new humanity had come, and the old humanity would perish.

Already he heard the screams rising from the rest of the city.

Chapter 19: Impossible

For a moment everyone in the Bazaar of the Southern Road stood frozen, gazing at the nightmare spreading across the sky.

Ever since the Surge had given him the ability, Kylon had been able to sense spirits. Yet never before had he seen such an enormous density of spirits, tens of thousands of them, spreading across the sky like a storm cloud. 

It wasn’t a summoning. It was far worse than that.

It was an invasion. 

“Gods,” whispered Kylon. They were too late. All their effort, all their struggles, all of it had been for nothing. Callatas had opened the gate to draw forth the nagataaru…

“What the hell is that?” said Strabane, scowling at the sky. The Kaltari headman did not seem daunted by the immense tower of nagataaru. “Is that smoke? Did Callatas accidentally blow himself up?” 

“It’s not smoke,” said Kylon. “It’s the nagataaru. Thousands of nagataaru. Callatas just finished the Apotheosis.”

His mind recovered from its shock and started to consider their options, though he still felt the oppressive weight of countless nagataaru against his senses. If they reached Callatas in time and killed him, could they reverse the spell and return the nagataaru to the netherworld? 

With a sinking feeling, Kylon realized that it was probably too late. Callatas had already summoned thousands of nagataaru, and those nagataaru would be seeking out wraithblood addicts to possess. Kylon didn’t know what would happen when the nagataaru possessed the wraithblood addicts, but from what Caina had learned about Callatas’s plans for his “new humanity,” he had no doubt they would be deadly and dangerous foes. Like the Red Huntress, but without her cunning or patience. 

And there were tens of thousands of wraithblood addicts in Istarinmul. Perhaps stopping Callatas was the wrong question. Perhaps they ought to think about stopping and fighting Callatas’s newborn creatures instead. But could they be defeated? Nearly a million people lived in Istarinmul, and Callatas’s monsters would start killing at once. Would even the combined armies of the Empire, the Umbarian Order, Anshan, Alqaarin, and New Kyre be enough to stop the creatures?

Kylon didn’t know.

But with a grim, horrified feeling, he realized that the city of Istarinmul might well die today. 

“We must attack the Golden Palace without delay,” said Nasser, his voice as hard as Kylon had ever heard it. “It matters not how many lives are lost in the assault. If Callatas is not stopped, everyone within the walls will die before the day is over.” He shook his head. “It might already be too late.”

“Yes,” said Sulaman, his voice distant. Had his vision showed him the impending destruction of Istarinmul? “Lord Tanzir, every one of our men must converge upon the Golden Palace as soon as possible. Callatas himself is the target. We must find him and kill him immediately.” He turned in his saddle. “Also have the men upon the walls target the Hellfire catapults at the Golden Palace. If we are unable to take the palace, we shall have to bombard it with Hellfire until it is destroyed.”

Tanzir frowned. “That would burn down half the city, lord Prince.” 

“Better half the city than all of it,” said Sulaman, the lines on his face seeming to sink deeper. “And if we are driven to it, better the city than the rest of the realm, or the entirety of the world.”

Around Kylon messengers galloped past, hastening to deliver the Prince’s and the emir’s orders. His fingers tightened against the valikon’s hilt, his eyes fixed upon the vast writhing cloud of shadow and purple flame. Perhaps he ought to leave the others and head for the Golden Palace at once. He could move faster than any of the others, and if he found and surprised Callatas, maybe he could put an end to this. 

Or maybe he could get himself gutted by the Red Huntress.

Even as he made up his mind and took a step forward, the outer edges of the vast cloud splintered. Hundreds of ribbons of shadow and purple fire hurtled towards the ground as the individual nagataaru dove, seeking wraithblood addicts. One of the nagataaru hurtled towards the Bazaar of the Southern Road. Undoubtedly there were wraithblood addicts nearby, hiding in the alleys or the courtyards of the nearby buildings.