Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 05 - Ghost in the Stone (33 page)

“Correct again,” said Ranarius. “The greater earth elemental has worn the form of the Stone and hibernated in our world for millennia beyond count. Of course, the Palace of Splendors will be destroyed when the elemental awakens. The hill called the Stone is only a portion of the entire elemental, just as only a part of an iceberg rises above the waters. When I awaken the elemental, all of Cyrioch will collapse into the sea. The resultant earthquake will destroy every structure built by the hand of man for three hundred miles in every direction. And given the waves the earthquake will trigger, both Malarae and Istarinmul might be underwater by this time tomorrow night.”

“You’ll kill millions of people!” said Caina. “And all for what? All for power?”

“For freedom,” said Ranarius. “I will not spend eternity as the Moroaica’s slave.” A shadow of fear passed over his gaunt face. “If I had to kill ten million people to be free of her…I would do it.” He leaned closer. “She’s inside your head. She’s probably listening to me right now!” His voice rose to a shout. “Do you hear me, mistress? I will never be your slave again. Never!”

“This is madness,” said Caina. “If the Moroaica couldn’t control a greater elemental, if the combined stormsingers of Old Kyrace couldn’t do it, what chance do you have? You’ll get yourself killed for nothing, along with…”

“The only thing left to do,” said Ranarius, “is to make sure you cannot stop me.”

“You can’t kill me,” said Caina. “The Moroaica will take another body.” 

“True,” said Ranarius. “I don’t even dare disable or drug you. If I make a mistake, I might accidentally kill you. I can’t even leave you here. Some slave might come along and untie you. And you’re clever enough to find a way to stop me.” He smiled. “Fortunately, I have a way to make sure you don’t interfere.”

Caina realized what he meant.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” said Ranarius. “Once Nicasia converts you both to statues, you’ll be no threat to me. The Moroaica will be imprisoned inside you, sealed within the stone. I suspect the effect will wear off in two or three centuries. But I intend to live forever, and by the time you become flesh once more, the elemental’s power will be mine to command.” He laughed. “And then I will make the Moroaica pay for my servitude!” 

“Ranarius,” said Caina, “listen to me, you’ll…”

“Sleep well, Ghost,” said Ranarius. 

He waved his hand, and again Caina felt the surge of arcane power. The air before her rippled, and Caina could not breathe. She struggled to stand, struggled even to draw breath.

But as before, everything went black.

###

“We are both,” said the Moroaica, “in very serious danger.”

Caina opened her eyes and stood up.

Again she was in the strange gray mists of her dreams. Jadriga stood a short distance away, clad in her blood-colored robe, dark hair hanging wet and loose about her pale face. Her black eyes flashed with rage. 

“Oh?” said Caina. “If he turns me to stone, what of it? He thinks the effect will wear off in two or three hundred years. Surely that is no great length of time for the mighty Moroaica.”

“He is incorrect,” said Moroaica. “The elemental bound within his slave girl is one of surpassing potency. Your body will not return to flesh for at least five hundred years, if not longer. That would be an intolerable delay. Though he is correct that summoning the greater elemental will destroy both Cyrioch and most of Cyrica. Your body would end up at the bottom of the ocean, and when it returned to flesh in five hundred years you would drown at once.” 

“Could he do it?” said Caina. “Could he actually control a greater elemental?”

The Moroaica laughed. “Of course not, child. No one can. Not the great magi of the Fourth Empire, not the stormsingers of Old Kyrace, not the solmonari of the Szalds, not the mighty necromancer-priests of ancient Maat. Not even I could control the greater elementals. They could be…directed, perhaps. Like digging a canal to divert a flood. But not controlled.” 

“You did this,” said Caina. “You turned him into what he is. And now he’s going to unleash this atrocity!”

The Moroaica lifted a dark eyebrow. “He rebelled against me and I punished him suitably. Humiliation is more effective on a man like Ranarius than any sort of physical torment.” She sighed. “Though, in retrospect, it might have been more prudent to simply kill him.” 

“I’m sure your vast intellect could not have seen this coming,” said Caina.

“There’s no need to be churlish,” said Jadriga. “We must focus upon the task at hand. Namely, our survival.” She smiled. “And if you require additional motivation, think of all the innocent lives that Ranarius will slay with his foolish plans. Your friends Ark and Tanya are in Malarae, are they not? Their son Nicolai? Do you really want the last thing Nicolai sees to be a forty foot wall of water roaring out of Malarae’s harbor?”

“I will stop Ranarius,” said Caina. “He is everything I hate about sorcery. Like you.”

Again the Moroaica laughed. “Save that I am not so great a fool as Ranarius.”

“No,” muttered Caina, “you just created him.”

She had to stop Ranarius, but she did not see how. She was unconscious and bound in a storeroom. When she awoke, Nicasia would turn her to stone. 

She might have already turned Corvalis to stone. 

“You could,” said the Moroaica, “accept my aid.”

“No,” said Caina. “I will not use your sorcery. Not now, not ever.”

“Even if it means saving those uncounted millions?” said Jadriga. 

“No,” said Caina.

“Foolish, but irrelevant,” said Jadriga. “I cannot wield my power through your body. So I shall give you knowledge, instead. For you know just as well as I do that knowledge is deadlier than any dagger.” 

Caina nodded. “Speak.”

“First,” said Jadriga, “do not look into the slave girl’s eyes. Not for any reason. That is how the elemental’s power works. Once it looks into your eyes, it can see your spirit, and the transformation proceeds from within.”

“You mean,” said Caina, “if I free from those ropes and keep my eyes closed, I can get away from Nicasia?”

“Certainly,” said Jadriga. “Spirits always hate the mortal sorcerers that bind them. The elemental will do exactly what Ranarius tells it to do…but no more. If you keep your eyes closed, and you do not attack the slave girl, the elemental will let you go unchallenged.” 

Caina nodded. 

“Second,” said the Moroaica, “Ranarius will perform the spell of summoning in the Gallery of the Well. The Well, as you have guessed, is not of natural origin. It leads to the heart of the Stone, to the heart of the greater elemental itself. Releasing the elemental will take tremendous arcane power, and Ranarius will be distracted. If you catch him off-guard,” she smiled, “as you caught me off-guard below Black Angel Tower, you can kill him before he completes the summoning. Though he will almost certainly have defenses.” 

Caina nodded again. “Anything else?”

“Be mindful of the chance to escape,” said Jadriga. “An opportunity will soon arrive.”

“What do you mean?” said Caina.

The Moroaica smiled. “Go and find out.”

She waved her hand and the dream dissolved into nothingness.

Caina opened her eyes.

Nicasia’s face was only inches from hers, her pale blond hair brushing Caina’s jaw. The slave girl’s eyes, her brilliant golden eyes, shone like the sun, and Caina felt an overwhelming compulsion to look into that radiant light and let it swallow her forever…

She yelped and clamped her eyes shut. 

“Ah.” It was the deep, rumbling voice, the voice of the elemental. “You understand. Wiser than I expected, in a mortal.” 

“The master will be mad.” It was Nicasia’s own voice, high-pitched and fearful. 

“The emotions of the master are no concern of mine,” said the elemental. “I do as I am bound, mortal child. No more, no less.” 

Caina took a moment to steady her breathing.

“You could,” she said at last, “let me go.”

“The master would get angry,” said Nicasia. “He hurts me when he gets angry.” 

“You are free to escape if you can,” said the elemental. “I will not hinder you. Though if you open your eyes, I am compelled to transform you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Caina.

She leaned against the rough stone wall and tried to think. If she could stand up and get to a blade, she could cut through the rope. Her weapons were still on her belt, but she could not reach them.

“Corvalis?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

No answer.

“He’s still sleeping,” said Nicasia. “He hit his head hard.” 

Caina rubbed her hands against the stone wall. Perhaps the stone was rough enough to abrade through her ropes. She began scraping the rope against the stone, thankful that she had thought to include gloves in Corvalis’s backpack. How long did she have before Ranarius summoned the greater elemental? 

Probably less time than it would take to get through the rope.

“Nicasia,” said Caina. “Can you untie me?”

“The master would get angry,” said Nicasia.  

“The master isn’t here,” said Caina.

“The master would get angry,” Nicasia said again.

“How you mortals struggle to preserve your little lives,” said the elemental. There was a hint of bemusement in the rumbling voice. “Even if you escape, you will die anyway, whether tomorrow or in another few years. The merest blink of an eye. Why not accept your inevitable fate?”

“For the same reason,” said Caina, “that you do not accept your enslavement by Ranarius.” 

A grinding, rumbling noise came to her ears, so deep that she thought the roof was about to collapse above her. Caina started to open her eyes to see what was going on, and then caught herself and closed them. 

The grinding noise was coming from Nicasia.

Her words had angered the earth elemental. 

“It is egregious,” said the spirit. “My liege and I warred long against the elementals of water and fire and air, as we have since the dawn of worlds, and at last we grew weary. Our sovereign granted us leave to rest, and we came to your world to sleep. Long I slumbered, standing guard over my liege, until that worm Ranarius awoke me and thrust me into this body of flesh.”

“Guarding your liege?” said Caina. A realization came to her. “You…were sleeping inside the statue, weren’t you? The Defender? The stories say that statue has stood there since before men even came to Cyrica.”

“And so it has,” said the elemental. “I guarded my liege in his sleep, even as I slumbered. Does that surprise you? For we spirits have our hierarchies and societies, even as you mortals do.”

“So you’re the Defender,” said Caina. 

She felt a few of the fibers in the rope split.

“You may call me that, if it pleases you,” said the elemental, something almost like amusement in the rumbling voice. 

“He defends me,” said Nicasia. “The master meets so many bad men. Sometimes they try to hurt me. And when they touch me, the Defender stops them. He turns them to stone, and they never hurt anyone ever again.”

“I’m surprised, Defender,” said Caina. Her arms and shoulders ached from the effort, but she kept scraping the rope against the wall. “I thought you would have driven the girl to her death. If she is slain, you would be free.”

“I thought that once, too,” said the Defender. “But it is a…curious sensation, wearing a body of flesh. One I have never before experienced. And the…emotions are most powerful. You mortals are so driven by your emotions. They are nothing but the sloshing of liquids in your brain. And yet you feel them so…vividly. So intensely. I had never dreamed such things existed. And through Nicasia, I behold them.” 

It was fond of the girl. The Defender could experience emotion so long as it lived in Nicasia’s body…and somehow it had grown fond of her. 

“Sometimes it makes me sad,” said Nicasia. “Sometimes the master makes us turn good men to stone, not just bad ones. I remember the woman.”

“Claudia Aberon,” said the Defender.

“She was kind to me,” said Nicasia. “When the master sent me to her, she said I looked lost. That I was a poor little thing, and she gave me some bread and honey.” 

“She never suspected,” said the Defender. There was a hint of regret in the alien voice. 

“I cried, after,” said Nicasia.

“Maybe I can help you,” said Caina. 

Another fiber gave way.

“How?” said Nicasia and the Defender in unison. 

“That jade collar around Nicasia’s neck?” said Caina. “That’s how Ranarius is controlling you, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said the Defender. 

“I have a blade of ghostsilver on my belt,” said Caina. “Ghostsilver is proof against sorcery. Let me go, and I can take the collar from your neck. Then you’ll be free.” 

“Alas,” said the Defender. “Your generosity is remarkable for a mortal. But the collar is linked to the bracelet around the master’s wrist. Shatter the collar, and the bracelet will maintain the binding spells.”

“I can do both,” said Caina. “I’ll cut the collar from your neck and take the bracelet from Ranarius’s wrist after I kill him.”

“You’re going to kill the master?” said Nicasia.

“Unlikely,” said the Defender. “The master is a magus of substantial power.” The elemental paused. “You seem to have tremendous arcane power within you, but it is constrained, somehow. You cannot prevail against Ranarius.”

“There are weapons other than sorcery,” said Caina. 

But the Defender’s doubt was justified. In a straight fight, she could not take Ranarius, and neither could Corvalis. The master magus simply had too much sorcerous strength at his command. Unless they managed to ambush him or catch him off guard…

She heard a groan, leather and chain mail shifting against the floor.

“Ah,” said the Defender. “The other one awakes.” 

“I suppose,” said Nicasia, “that we shall have to do the master’s bidding.”

Caina flinched in alarm.

Corvalis was waking up. He had been trained as an assassin, and when he regained consciousness, the first thing he was going to do was to look around. 

And once he saw the golden light in Nicasia’s eyes, it would be the last thing he ever did.