Ghost Omens (3 page)

Authors: Jonathan Moeller

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Dark Fantasy, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Historical, #Myths & Legends, #Greek & Roman, #90 Minutes (44-64 Pages)

“I do,” said Caina, straightening up. “The magi are the cause of everything that is wrong in the Empire. Maybe these men were mind-controlled, driven to attack us like beasts goaded by a barbed whip.” She glared at me. “Maybe you did it. You betrayed us in Catekharon. Why not betray us here?”

I flinched. “I didn’t. I’ve never seen these men. And I’ve never set foot in Mors Septimus before today.”

Her anger frightened me. I had only ever seen her angry, truly angry, once before, when I had convinced Corvalis to side with Mihaela.

And that anger had been justified, given how Mihaela had almost killed us all.

“Damned magus,” spat Caina. “Damned magus! I should have killed you in Catekharon! I should have let Mihaela feed you into her damned Forge!”

Levinius blinked at her.

Halfdan looked up, frowning. “Daughter, this is hardly the place to discuss such things.”

“It is their fault!” said Caina, her voice rising to a shriek. “They killed my father! They did this to me!” Her blue eyes, cold no longer, turned to me. “The magi have killed so many...and I will not rest until they are stopped! Until you pay for what you have done!”

She yanked a knife and lunged...and realized that she was going to kill me.

I reacted on sheer panic and flung out my hands, summoning raw arcane power and unleashing it in a psychokinetic blast. The spell knocked Caina off-balance, and she fell to one knee with a growl. She glared at me, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, her eyes glittering with fury.

Her dilated eyes.

Halfdan and Corvalis stared at her, shocked.

“The powder!” I said. “The powder was a drug!”

Caina launched herself at me with a scream.

Halfdan caught her right hand and twisted, and the knife fell from her fingers. She spun around at him, her free hand flying for his face, but Corvalis caught her other arm. Together they held her fast, even as she fought and shouted.

“Let me go!” she snarled, “let me go, she deserves it, she is a magus, she deserves to die, she deserves…”

Maybe I did. I wondered if the drug was a poison, if it would drive her mad until it killed her. Then I remembered something I had learned at the Motherhouse in Artifel.

“Mustard,” I said.

“What?” said Halfdan.

I ignored him and looked at Levinius. “Do you have any mustard?”

“Yes,” he said. “An entire pot. Why…”

“Bring it here!” I said. “Now, quickly! Run!”

He scurried away. Caina cursed at him, jerking against Corvalis and Halfdan.

“I trust you have an idea?” said Halfdan.

“I think so,” I said. “Father was always terrified of poison. So he kept a jar of raw mustard in his office in case he was ever poisoned. If he was…”

“He would eat enough of the mustard to make him vomit,” said Corvalis, “which would purge the drug from his system.”

“Do you think that will work?” said Halfdan. “She didn’t eat the damned powder.”

“She said some of it went in her mouth,” said Corvalis.

Levinius returned with a brown pot of mustard. Even from a distance, the sharp smell filled my nostrils.

“I’ll do it,” I said, “if you can hold her down.”

They dragged Caina to a table and placed her upon it. Corvalis climbed atop her and sat on her chest, his knees pinning her arms in place and his hands clamped about her wrists. Caina struggled against him, mad with rage...but her eyes remained fixed on me.

“Sorcerers,” she spat, “I’ll kill them all, every last one of them, rid the Empire of them for all…”

Halfdan pinched her nose shut and pulled her jaw open, and I had the suspicion he had done this sort of thing before.

I spooned the raw mustard into her mouth, and Halfdan forced her to swallow. By the fourth spoonful, her face turned green, and she started gagging. Corvalis got off her, and I feared Caina would throw herself at me, her hands clamping around my throat.

Instead she rolled over, threw up everything she had eaten recently, and then flopped upon the table, panting and dripping with sweat. Corvalis cradled her, and she remained limp.

Some time later she lifted her head, her eyes dull and unfocused.

But no longer full of mad rage.

“Gods,” she muttered. “My head hurts. And my throat. And belly.”

“I fear you ate something that did not agree with you,” said Halfdan.

Caina shook her head, blinking. “Claudia. Did I…” She looked at me, her expression filling with chagrin. “Did I hurt her? I can’t...I can’t remember. It’s like a blur.”

“No,” I said. “You came close...but no.”

Yet some of the things she had said stung.

“Gods,” said Caina, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry. I was...I was sure you had killed my father, that you had been laughing about it behind your back all these year.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Of course, you would have been thirteen or fourteen when he was murdered, so that would be unlikely.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t kill anyone until I was fifteen.”

She stared at me for a moment, and then laughed.

“I think it is safe to assume,” said Corvalis, “that the powder is some sort of hallucinogenic drug.”

“That is plain,” said Halfdan. “Tonia must have been giving it to them. Which would explain why they heard the voice of a dead Emperor speaking to them. I imagine the drug made them susceptible to her commands.”

“It would have,” said Caina. “Believe me.” She stood up with a groan, rubbing her head. “Just as well we didn’t kill any of these men. They weren’t in their right minds.”

“But why go to all the trouble?” I said. “The drugs, the dead Emperor...all of it?”

Caina looked at me, at the stunned men, and back at me.

And then, for some reason, she looked at the dust on the floor.

“We can question the men when they wake up,” said Caina, “but Tonia was behind all this, and I think I know why.”

“No,” said Levinius, who had been watching our discussion. “No. Tonia...Tonia is a good woman. She wouldn’t have done this, any of this…”

“I’m sorry,” said Caina, “but she did. She came to Mors Septimus for the Emperor’s Helm Inn, for your inn. She married you just to get at it. And she’s trying to kill you so she’ll can claim the inn when you’re dead.”

I saw him start to protest, saw the guilt and the shame spread over his face. He had been living in denial for too long...but now the truth had been shown to him, irrefutably.

I knew what that felt like.

“But why?” he said, hands knotted in his apron. “The Emperor’s Helm...it’s just an inn. It’s nothing special. It has been in my family for as long as anyone knows, true...but it’s just an inn. Why would she do this?”

“I think I know why,” said Caina. “And I think I can prove it.”

“How?” said Levinius.

“We’re going to need to fake your death,” said Caina.

###

An hour later I hid with Caina, Corvalis, Halfdan, and poor Levinius beneath the stairs, watching the deserted common room.

The door swung open, and Mordecai strode inside, accompanied by two sergeants of Mors Septimus’s militia, soldiers with the rounded physiques of men more accustomed to comfortable living than violence. Tonia marched after them, her head held high.

“How did he die?” said Tonia.

“Badly, I fear,” said Mordecai. “Some men burst into the inn, claiming that the Emperor Septimus had sent them. They killed a merchant visiting from Malarae, and stabbed your husband to death.”

“Yes, very tragic,” said Tonia. She looked unconcerned. “So I inherit all his property, yes? He had no children, no other relatives.”

“That is so,” said Mordecai, frowning at her. “An official record must be made at the magistrates’ hall, and the necessary taxes must be paid, but his property shall be yours.”

“Very well,” said Tonia with a wave of her hand. “I will pay whatever is necessary.”

“Some wine to steady your nerves?” said Mordecai, waving at a glass and a skin of wine upon the bar. “I am sure your grief must be overpowering.”

Tonia smirked. “It is my property now, is it not? I will do with it as I please.”

She filled the cup and took a long drink, and I saw Caina smile.

Caina straightened up and walked into the common room.

“You,” said Tonia, frowning at her. “The merchant’s daughter, yes? Lucky you were not killed next to your father.”

“Yes,” said Caina. “I wouldn’t drink that wine.”

“Why not?” said Tonia, taking another sip.

“Well,” said Caina, “some of the men who killed your husband, they put a peculiar powder into the wine.” She held up the leather pouch. “I wonder why. What is in the powder?”

Tonia’s black eyes widened, and she spat out the wine with alarm. “What? Why didn’t you warn me?” She stepped back, sweat beading on her forehead. “Why...why did you…”

“Wife!”

Levinius straightened up from beneath the stairs, reaching for her, and Tonia screamed and stumbled against the bar.

“Wife,” he said, smiling, “I know you didn’t mean it, I…”

“I killed you!” she shrieked. “I had them kill you, you stupid, wretched old man! They killed you! This...this is just a vision, this is…”

“Actually,” said Mordecai, “the wine wasn’t drugged, and your husband is quite well.” He looked at the militia sergeants. “I trust this is enough?”

“It is,” said one of the sergeants. “Come along.”

Tonia looked at them, back at her husband...and I saw the fury blossom over her face as she realized how badly she had been tricked.

She screamed in rage, snatched a knife from her belt, and flew at Levinius. But the sergeants caught her and dragged her from the inn as she kicked and cursed. Levinius stared after her, his expression stricken.

“I am sorry,” said Mordecai, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I thought,” whispered Levinius, “I thought she loved me.” He bowed his head. “I am an old fool.”

“I think,” said Halfdan, “that you wanted to be fooled. But this will be sorted out, do not fear.”

Levinius nodded and followed Halfdan and Mordecai from the inn, leaving me alone with Caina and Corvalis.

“Certainly,” I said at last, “that was a lot of work merely to steal an inn.”

“I don’t think,” said Caina, “that it was ever about the inn.” She pointed. “Get a lantern, and let’s pay the cellar a visit until Halfdan returns.”

Corvalis found a lantern, and we descended to the cellar. To my surprise, it was built of the same rough stone as the foundations above, the vaulted ceiling supported by heavy pillars. The floor had once been covered in thick, heavy flagstones.

Until they had been pulled away and the floor dug up.

A corroded lead box, about the size of a small coffin, stood against the far wall, its sides caked by dirt.

“Tonia might have been a fool, but she knew her history,” Caina said, picking her way over the uneven floor. “This wasn’t just part of the mortuary complex. It was a separate shrine. In the Second Empire, a dead Emperor’s body was interred in its mortuary temple, but his armor was usually entombed in its own shrine, away from the temple. And it looks like the armor…”

She reached down and opened the box.

“And it looks like the armor was still here,” said Caina.

“Gods,” said Corvalis.

A fortune of gold and gems gleamed beneath the lantern’s glow. Inside the box I saw the gilded ceremonial armor, helmet, and sword of an Emperor of the Second Empire, the sword and helmet adorned with dozens of glittering jewels.

I laughed. “The Emperor’s Helm! Gods, the Emperor’s Helm. It was the inn’s name all along.”

“And you figured it out,” said Corvalis, shaking his head. “Your wits half-scrambled from the drug, and you still figured it out.”

“That my wits were only half-scrambled is thanks to Claudia,” said Caina, and she smiled at me. “If you hadn’t force-fed me that mustard, they would have had to tie me up in the corner until the fit passed.”

I looked away and tried not to blush. “It...seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“Well, perhaps you should train to become a physician,” said Caina, looking at the helmet. “The right thing to do when someone starts raving is not always apparent.”

I blinked. A physician. I had never considered that.

It...seemed like a good idea.

“What will we do with the armor?” said Corvalis.

Caina shrugged. “We’ll let Levinius have it. It’s his Inn, it is it not? The armor is the whole reason Tonia wanted to kill him. And the poor man deserves some compensation for losing his wife.”

THE END

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