Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 05 - Ghost in the Stone (7 page)

“And who turned Barius and that assassin to stone,” said Caina.

Theodosia nodded. “We’ll disguise ourselves and visit him tomorrow. He keeps his headquarters at a sink of a tavern in Seatown.” She sniffed. “Though the man has absolutely no appreciation for opera…”

Caina nodded and let Theodosia talk. Eventually, the older woman’s mood turned towards despondency, and Caina steered her to bed. 

###

A few minutes later Caina stepped onto the sitting room’s balcony. 

It overlooked the Plaza of the Defender, a small square lined with shops selling luxuries. To the north, Caina saw the palaces of Cyrica’s nobility, each more ostentatious than the last, though no match for the Palace of Splendor. Beyond she saw the slums and warehouses of Seatown, and the lights from the countless ships maneuvering in Cyrioch’s harbor, even at night.

The Defender stood in the center of the square.

The statue was eighteen feet tall, clad in armor of antique design, the hilt of a greatsword in its armored hands. A towering helm hid the statue’s features, and it gazed to the north, as if watching for invaders from the sea. A single massive crack ran down the center of the Defender, from its stone helm to its boots. The crack had only appeared a few years ago, Theodosia said, and people interpreted it as an ill omen. The Defender had stood here for millennia, older than Cyrioch, perhaps even as old as the Stone itself. The statue was made from the same indestructible rock as the Stone.

As the statues of Barius and the assassin, now that Caina thought about it.

She stared at the Defender for a long time, thinking.

But no answers came to her, and Caina went to bed.

###

Nightmares lashed at her.

Caina often had nightmares. Bad dreams, Halfdan had told her, were scars of the mind. Just as wounds left scars upon the flesh, so too did the mind bear nightmares after an injury. Of late, whenever Caina closed her eyes, she dreamed of Marsis, of Andromache’s lightning falling from the sky, of Nicolai sobbing as he called for his mother. It didn’t matter that she had saved Nicolai. The dread had sunk into her bones like salt into poisoned earth.

And sometimes her memories melded together to produce a new nightmare.

Like tonight. 

In her dream Caina was naked but for the chains binding her wrists and neck. A pair of Istarish slavers dragged her onto a wooden stage. A crowd of magi, stark in their black robes, gazed up at her, their eyes cold and merciless. 

“One slave for sale,” said the auctioneer, and Caina saw that it was Maglarion. The bloodcrystal in his left eye socket blazed with ghostly green light, panting his dark coat with eerie light. She tried to cringe away as he approached, but the Istarish slavers yanked her chains, forcing her stand upright. “A bit scarred, to be sure.” His hand brushed over the scars his necromantic experiments had carved below her navel, the experiments that had left her unable to bear a child. “But still ripe for any sort of sorcerous experiment.” He grinned. “I know firsthand that she can scream for hours! You should have seen how she wailed when I killed her father!”

“One thousand denarii!” shouted a bald master magus. It was Kalastus, the pyromancer who had almost destroyed Rasadda. 

“A hundred thousand!” said a withered corpse in the crumbling remnants of fine clothes. Caina recognized Lord Naelon Icaraeus – or at least, what was left of him after she and Ark had defeated him.

“Half a million!” said another man, the top of his head a smashed ruin. Ephaeron, the master magus who had tried to kill her in Rasadda.

Caina struggled, splinters digging into her bare feet, but the chains held her fast. 

“Fine bids, all!” said Maglarion. “But surely someone can pay more!”

“One million!” said a hissing, bubbling voice.

Caina turned her head and started to scream.

A misshapen, twisted corpse shambled onto the stage, its arms and legs distorted by huge, cancerous growths, veins running black beneath its skin. Alastair Corus had been Caina’s only lover, and Maglarion’s necromantic sorcery had killed him. 

And now he shuffled towards her, reaching for her with twisted fingers.

“Sold!” said Maglarion. 

Alastair’s corpse reached for her, and the slavers shoved her at him. Caina slammed against him, her bare skin touching his deformed flesh, and she shrieked in horror. Alastair’s arms closed around her, and she screamed again.

Then a strange keening noise filled her ears, and the world dissolved into gray mist.

###

Caina found herself lying on the ground.

Gray mist swirled around her, cold and clammy, and bleak nothingness stretched in all directions. This was a dream, she knew, just as the nightmare of the slave block had been. 

She stood up, and saw the dead sorceress.

The woman was beautiful, radiant. She looked like a maiden of eighteen years, with long black hair and red lips. But that was only an illusion. She was the Moroaica, a sorceress of legend and terror, and her black eyes were ancient and cold with dark knowledge. 

“No,” said Caina. “You’re dead. I saw you die. Sicarion thought some of your power is trapped inside of me. But you’re dead. You’re dead!”

The woman who had called herself Jadriga did not respond. 

“This is another damned dream,” said Caina.

“Ah,” said the Moroaica. “You heard.”

Caina blinked, and then realized Jadriga had not been talking to her.

A short man emerged from the mists. The man wore leather armor and a long cloak, sword and dagger at his belt. His hairless head was hideously scarred, and looked as if it had been stitched together out of torn pieces of leather. His left eye was a brilliant green, but his right was a sulfurous orange. 

“Sicarion,” spat Caina. He had lured Andromache into Scorikhon’s tomb, allowing Jadriga’s long-dead disciple to possess Andromache’s body. “You miserable wretch, you got away from me once, but…”

But like Jadriga, Sicarion did not see or hear her.

“Mistress,” said Sicarion in his rusty voice, making a short bow before the Moroaica. “For a dead woman, you are looking well.”

“I have died many times before,” said Jadriga, “and before the great work is done, I suspect I shall die a few more.”

Caina listened. Was this a dream? Or was Sicarion somehow communicating with Jadriga’s spirit? 

“Indeed,” said Sicarion with another bow. “I have been there for many of your deaths, mistress. Though this time you have, shall we say…remained dead much longer than I expected.”

“It is of no concern,” said Jadriga. 

“When shall you take possession of your current vessel?” said Sicarion. 

“When the time is right,” said Jadriga. 

Sicarion’s lips twitched. Even his lips were scarred. Which was not surprising, given that Caina had seen him cut the hand from a dead man and attach it to the bloody stump of his right arm.

“In other words,” said Sicarion, “you cannot.” 

“No,” said the Moroaica. “It is…intriguing. Her mind has been…fractured, damaged.”

Sicarion laughed. “She was lucid enough when I faced her.”

“When she defeated you,” said Jadriga.

Sicarion shrugged. “And she defeated you as well. Yet I am still alive.” 

“Her cognitive faculties are unimpaired,” said Jadriga, “as we both know. But her spirit is scarred, damaged. Because of that, I can possess her, but I cannot control her.”

“A simple solution presents itself,” said Sicarion. “I will find her and kill her. Then you will claim a more receptive vessel, and the great work can continue.” 

“You will not,” said Jadriga.

Sicarion’s scowl made his scarred face uglier. “Why? You cannot take control of her body, you said so yourself. If I kill her, you can take possession of a new vessel at once.”

“No,” said Jadriga. Her voice grew distant, almost dreamy. “You will not. She and I are more alike than she would ever admit. She has known pain, horrible pain. I suspect even now her sleeping mind throws those memories back into her face. Yet the pain has not broken her. It has only made her stronger, and she wields it as a weapon. Just as I did, once.”

“So you think to twist her,” said Sicarion. 

“Yes,” said Jadriga. “I have always dominated my vessels. Think how much stronger I shall be if she submits to me willingly. If she puts her intellect at my service. I shall speak to in her dreams. Bit by bit she will bend to my will. To see the necessity of the great work, as I do.”

“That could take years,” said Sicarion.

Jadriga shrugged. “What is time to me? A few decades are nothing.”

Sicarion’s face contorted in rage. “You promised me killing, mistress. You promised killing enough to sate me. I will find your vessel and slay her, and when you take a new body…”

“You will not kill her,” said Jadriga, icy calm. “I forbid it.”

The gray mists rippled, and Sicarion took a step back in alarm, a hint of fear in his mismatched eyes.

“As you wish, mistress,” said Sicarion. “I will not kill your vessel.” 

“I never doubted it,” said Jadriga. “But fear not, my faithful hound. I have some work that should please you.” 

“Someone to kill?” said Sicarion.

“Of course,” said Jadriga. “Do you remember my wayward disciple? The one we met at the Magisterium’s motherhouse in Artifel?”

Sicarion’s lip curled in a snarl. 

“You do remember, I see,” said Jadriga. 

“As annoying a fool as Andromache,” muttered Sicarion. He grinned. “Though I regret I didn’t get to kill her myself.”

“A pity about Scorikhon,” said Jadriga. “He remained loyal to me.”

“Because you sealed his spirit in a stone box for five hundred years,” said Sicarion. 

The Moroaica’s smile was thin. “Such simple things can inspire loyalty, no? As you well know. But this is what I would have of you. My wayward disciple has settled in Cyrica Urbana.”

Caina stepped forward, both interested and alarmed. Andromache had been a loyal student of the Moroaica, and she had almost destroyed Marsis. Maglarion had once been Jadriga’s student, Caina suspected, and he had almost killed everyone in Malarae. Was there a disciple of the Moroaica in Cyrioch? 

Sicarion’s grin was hideous. “I’ve been looking forward to this for twenty years.”

“Twenty years is not so long,” said Jadriga. “Even for someone only a few centuries old, like you. For I have been preparing the great work for centuries beyond count, since the Kingdom of Rising Sun collapsed into dust.” 

“I bow before your superior wisdom,” said Sicarion.

“Go to Cyrica Urbana,” said Jadriga, “find my rebellious fool of a disciple, and then…”

She fell silent, a frown marring the pale beauty of her face. 

Then she turned and looked directly at Caina. 

“We are observed,” said Jadriga. 

Caina backed away in alarm. 

“I thought you said her mind was asleep,” said Sicarion. 

“So I did,” said Jadriga. “But I also said she was formidable. Go, my hound. Fulfill the task I have given you in whatever way seems best.”

Sicarion bowed and vanished into nothingness, leaving Caina alone with Jadriga. 

“You’re not real,” said Caina. “I killed you and you’re not real. This is a dream.”

“Oh, come now, child,” said Jadriga. “After what happened in Marsis, I think you would know better.”

“What do you want?” said Caina. “If you’re real, if you’re not just some sort of echo of Jadriga’s power, why are you telling me all of this?” 

“Because,” said Jadriga, “you are going to face trials, terrible trials, soon enough.” She looked into the gray mists and nodded. “As you will soon see.”

She gestured, and blackness swallowed Caina.

###

Caina’s eyes shot open. 

Dazzling sunlight filled her vision. She was on her cot in their suite’s sitting room, the sun pouring in through the opened shutters. It was well past sunrise.

“Oh, good,” said Theodosia. “You’re up.”

Caina turned her head. Theodosia sat at the table, wrapped in a silk robe, eating a piece of bread and sipping at a cup of tea.

“You were exhausted,” said Theodosia, “so it seemed best to let you sleep.”

“More exhausted than you?” muttered Caina, swinging her feet to the floor. Her head ached and throbbed, and her mouth felt as if it had been coated in dust. 

“Well, a performance is tiring business,” said Theodosia. “But I think you needed your sleep.” Her gray eyes were worried. “You kept screaming and thrashing in your sleep. Nightmares?”

Caina stood, crossed to the table, and helped herself to some tea. “Aye.”

“How are you?” said Theodosia.

Caina hesitated. What could she tell Theodosia? That she would wake up in an empty bed for the rest of her life, alone but for her nightmares? That the corrupted spirit of the Moroaica, a necromancer of terrible power, might be riding around inside her skull? 

“I’m fine,” said Caina, sipping at the tea. Bitter and black, the way she preferred it.

“Plainly,” said Theodosia, her disbelief evident. “Well, we are to meet with Marzhod after sundown. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“I’m fine,” said Caina again. 

She could almost make herself believe it.

That afternoon, Caina helped Theodosia prepare for a different role. 

Theodosia donned a robe of sand-colored cloth, the sort favored by the nomadic Sarbian tribes that lived in the deserts south of Cyrica. A white turban went on her head, complete with a thick veil to keep the desert’s winds at bay. A scimitar went on her belt, and makeup gave her the illusion of stubble and a face made leathery by the sun. The desert men, Theodosia said, had a reputation for short tempers, and few would cross them without good reason. 

“How do I look?” said Theodosia, examining herself in the mirror as Caina donned her own robe.

“Dry,” said Caina, buckling on her sword belt. 

“How droll,” said Theodosia. “But if we’re fortunate, no one will trouble a pair of desert men.” She offered a tight smile. “And with a little more luck, Marzhod will have some information for us.”

###

The wealthy districts surrounding the Stone fell silent at night, but Seatown grew louder.