Ghost in the Razor (12 page)

“His two rules,” said Kylon, a bit of scorn in his voice. “He never kills anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Surely a mad locksmith and her bodyguard do not deserve death.”

“No,” said Caina. “And Azaces is mute. He had his tongue cut out some years ago, probably Ragodan Strake’s work. Thankfully, Nerina is nothing like her father.” 

“So what does Azaces being mute have to do with anything?” said Kylon.

“He can’t read or write, either,” said Caina. “So people talk to him. Rather more freely than they should.” She grinned. “It’s something we’ve used before, actually. Azaces is quite clever about it. Perhaps he’ll get Morgant to say more than he should.” 

“I suppose it is worth a try,” said Kylon, though he sounded dubious.

Caina shrugged. “A long shot, to be sure, but one without risk. Meanwhile, you need rest.” She walked to an alcove off the Sanctuary’s main room. A row of cots lay there, along with blankets. “You can sleep here.”

“You thought of everything,” said Kylon.

“Well, I can’t take the credit,” said Caina. “It was here when I moved in.”

Kylon lay down on one of the cots with a sigh. “I assume you have a plan?”

“Aye,” said Caina. “The items I’ll need to deal with the Sifter are here. We’ll take them and visit another ally of mine, a man who calls himself Nasser. He will know more, and together we can plan an ambush for the Sifter when it finds me again.” 

A faint rasping noise came to her ears. Caina spun, reaching for her ghostsilver dagger, wondering if foes had found the Sanctuary. 

But it was only Kylon. He had already fallen asleep. 

Caina gazed down at him. She wished he hadn’t been forced to come to Istarinmul. She wished he was still in New Kyre with his wife. She wished he had never encountered the Red Huntress. 

Yet, no matter how dire circumstances, she was glad to see him again.  

Caina stooped, picked up a folded blanket, and covered him with it. He did not stir. She stepped out of the alcove, drew the curtain closed, and walked into the Sanctuary’s main room. 

Tomorrow she would find the Sifter and destroy it, and Morgant would tell her how to find Annarah and stop the Apotheosis.

It sounded so simple.

Caina knew it would not go that easily.

She found another cot, shrugged out of her heavy robe, and went to sleep.

Chapter 10: Destiny

In her sleep, Caina saw a dream she had dreamed before. 

Once more she stood on the dry, dead plain of the Desert of Candles. Yet it was not dead, not yet. It was the most fertile farmland she had seen in Istarinmul, rich with growing crops. The city of Iramis rose beyond, standing at the edge of the Alqaarin Sea. It was a beautiful city, its walls wrought of gold-colored stone, its gates surrounded with intricate statues, tall white towers rising within. 

The vision blurred, and Caina found herself standing on a hill overlooking the plain. 

She turned her head, knowing what would happen next.

Callatas, Grand Master of the College of Alchemists, stood nearby. He had the gauntness of the ascetic, the slightly stooped posture of a man who had spent long hours bent over books and scrolls. He had deep-set gray eyes, the hard line of his jaw and chin shaded by a close-cropped beard. He looked like a scholarly, even grandfatherly, old man, but Caina knew better. He was centuries old, and Master Alchemists extended their lives with the use of Elixir Rejuvenata produced from the ashes of unborn children.

Though on the day he had destroyed Iramis, Caina did not know how old he had been. Perhaps no more than fifty, though his alchemical sorcery had kept him from aging much. 

Callatas lifted a glowing blue gemstone the size of a fist, its sides rough and uncut. Tremendous arcane power radiated from the stone, sorcery strong enough to rip mountains apart. It was the Star of Iramis, and along with the Staff and the Seal, one of the three instruments of power that Callatas needed to cast the Apotheosis. Caina didn’t know what the Star was or how it worked, but she knew it was a relic of tremendous power.

The Grand Master lifted the Star, the gem burning brighter in his fist.

And Iramis burned. 

Fire erupted from the city, consuming the walls and the towers in a colossal storm of raging flame. The inferno rolled across the plains, turning the fertile fields into smoking, lifeless ash. The crystal pillars Caina had seen in her earlier dreams of the Desert rose from the earth, rough and irregular, shining with the same pale blue glow as the Star in Callatas’s hand. The ground heaved and shook, and a terrible storm roiled through the sky overhead. Caina watched as Iramis died, as the farmlands withered into the Desert of Candles in the grip of Callatas’s terrible spell.

“Behold,” murmured a voice, a sardonic drawl that Caina had come to know quite well. 

The world shifted around her, and suddenly she stood at the edge of the plain, gazing up at Callatas’s hill. People fled from the farms, all of them running to the west in an effort to get away from the firestorm Callatas had unleashed. The Iramisians, Caina remembered, had not used slaves, had forbidden the practice in the Prince’s lands. Perhaps that was why Callatas hated them so much.

One of the figures at the edge of the plain was not moving, a thin man in the brown robe and turban of the nomadic tribes of the Trabazon steppes. His face was lean, and he stared up at the hill with stunned surprise in his pale blue eyes.

Morgant. He looked exactly the same as the man Caina had met earlier today. Yet here he somehow seemed…younger, far younger. Not as old and hard and weathered. 

“Yes,” murmured the drawling voice.

The world shifted around her again, and Caina stood in the bleak, barren plain of the Desert of Candles itself, the wind moaning past her like a chorus of damned souls. Thousands of the blue crystal pillars rose around her, rough and jagged, their inner glow seeming to flicker in time to the moan of the wind. Caina had seen this place before, though never in the flesh. 

The fountain was new, though.

An enormous fountain of white marble stood nearby, its basin thirty yards across. The moaning wind blew dust and grit past it, yet the fountain remained pristine, untouched by erosion, though no water bubbled within it. A wide stone plinth rose within the fountain, and upon it stood eight statues wrought of the same blue crystal as the jagged pillars. Seven of the statues were children, and the eighth was a woman of stunning beauty, clad in an ornamented gown. Her expression was tight and hard, her hair thrown back from her head as if caught in a wind. Her arms were thrust before her, as if to ward something away.

The statues were fashioned with unearthly skill. Caina could almost feel the terror of the children, the woman’s grim determination to protect them. 

“The star is the key to the crystal,” murmured Caina, repeating the words that had haunted her ever since she had first heard them in the netherworld. “The star is the key to the crystal.” 

“It is,” said the drawling, sardonic voice, and Caina turned 

Kylon of House Kardamnos walked toward her, but not as she had seen him today. He looked as he had the first day they had met during the battle of Marsis, the day he had tried to kill her and she had tried to kill him. He wore the gray leather armor of a stormdancer, a blue-green cloak the color of the sea streaming from his shoulders. His sword of storm-forged steel hung at his belt, ready to kill. His eyes…

His eyes were wrought of smokeless flame, piercing and hot. 

“Samnirdamnus,” said Caina, speaking the djinni’s name.

Samnirdamnus, djinni of the court of the Azure Sovereign, the Knight of Wind and Air, offered a mocking smile through Kylon’s face. “My darling demonslayer. It has been too long.”

“Silent Ash Temple,” said Caina. “The day we found the valikon and fought the Huntress. That was months ago. I thought you had forgotten me.” Not that she would have minded. Samnirdamnus had aided her more than once. Yet Callatas had bound Samnirdamnus, and she was not sure why the djinni had taken an interest in her.

“I made sure to forget you,” said Samnirdamnus. “You rather annoyed Callatas when you slew the Huntress. He gets terribly annoyed every time she is slain, and he called up many spirits to locate you. He even diverted me from his Maze to try and find you. Of course, I had forgotten your location, so I could not report it to the Grand Master.” He made Kylon’s shoulders shrug. “Alas.”

“Sophistry,” said Caina.

Samnirdamnus smirked in a way that Kylon himself never had. “Between my kind and yours, my darling demonslayer, there is not the spirit of the law, merely its letter. If the Grand Master wished me to act otherwise, he should worded his request more carefully.” 

“Truly,” said Caina. She considered him for a moment. “Why appear to me wearing Kylon’s face?”

Again the djinni shrugged. “I have appeared to you wearing many forms. Your mortal mind cannot comprehend my reality, so I therefore construct a form.”

“Fine,” said Caina. “You’ve never…constructed Kylon’s form.” 

“The constructed form is based upon the forefront of your subconscious mind,” said Samnirdamnus. “Presumably Kylon is currently in your thoughts. It seems your latent attraction to him is much stronger than you…”

“Or,” said Caina, “he saw his wife murdered in front of him by the Huntress, who also tried to kill me. Perhaps that is why he is in my thoughts.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Samnirdamnus. 

“Why are you here now?” said Caina.

“Because,” said Samnirdamnus. “It seems increasingly likely that you are the one I have sought.” 

“Fine,” said Caina. “Don’t tell me the real reason.”

Kylon’s face raised an eyebrow. “I just did.”

“You and Morgant,” said Caina, remembering the assassin’s story of the djinni he had freed. “You would have a lot in common. You both enjoy games with words.”

“So do you,” said Samnirdamnus. 

“One day I’ll get a straight answer out of you and the world will crack in two,” said Caina. “Tell me this, if you can. Did Morgant truly encounter a djinni? Is that why he’s still alive after a century in a half?”

“An occultist of Anshan,” said Samnirdamnus, “did a favor for Callatas. In return, Callatas bound a djinni of the Azure Court for him, and the occultist used it to kill his victims. Eventually the occultist sent his slave against Morgant, and he freed her and slew the occultist. In repayment, the djinni granted him long life.” His smirk returned. “A gift, yes…but also a tool for the Azure Court. Ensuring that Morgant would still be alive when the time came to keep his word.”

“And what time is that?” said Caina.

“Why, the time when I find the one I have sought,” said Samnirdamnus. “Perhaps you are the one.”

“Clear as mud. As ever,” said Caina. She shrugged. “Can you tell me where the Staff and Seal are?” 

“I cannot,” said Samnirdamnus. “For I do not know. In all of eternity, in all of the cosmos, the only one who knows where the Staff and Seal of Iramis are hidden is Annarah, the last loremaster of Iramis. She hid them so well that not even the great elemental princes of the netherworld can find them.”

“So where is Annarah?” said Caina.

“The only one who knows,” said Samnirdamnus, “is Morgant the Razor.”

“Fine.” Caina sighed. “So I play Morgant’s game, and if I win it, he tells me what happened to Annarah, and if I find her, then I can hopefully locate the Staff and Seal before Callatas.”

“You summarize the matter with admirable logic,” said Samnirdamnus.

“I knew all this already,” said Caina. “Worked it out on my own with that logic you allegedly admire so much. So why are you speaking to me now? Not just to tell me things I already know, I assume.”

“Perhaps I simply wished to enjoy a conversation,” said Samnirdamnus. “Callatas lacks your skill as a conversationalist, alas.” 

“No,” said Caina. “There’s always a reason.” She thought for a moment. “That little speech you gave at Silent Ash Temple when I was about to let Kalgri kill me. It gave me the idea to work with Claudia, to use her spells in the battle. I never would have thought of it otherwise.”

“Perhaps you have put your hatred of sorcery behind you,” said Samnirdamnus. 

“It’s not my favorite thing,” said Caina. 

“Nor will it ever be,” said Samnirdamnus. “Yet you overcame enough of your hatred to work with the Lord Ambassador’s wife. You overcame it enough to see me appear in the form of Kylon.” 

“What does Kylon have to do with anything?” said Caina.

The djinni smirked. “The form your mind constructs is based upon your thoughts, not mine. You hate sorcerers, Caina Amalas of the Ghosts, and Kylon is a sorcerer. Not a strong one, true, but still a sorcerer. Yet you think of him favorably enough, are attracted to him enough…”

“For the gods’ sake,” said Caina. “The poor man is widowed.”

Samnirdamnus continued as if she had not spoken. “Enough that you construct my form based upon your thoughts of him. A man from your past who has returned to your present. Perhaps you should think further upon your past.”

“Why?” said Caina, cautious. She suspected Samnirdamnus was coming, at last, to his point. 

“Who shaped your past?” said Samnirdamnus.

“My father,” said Caina. 

“Until he was murdered,” said Samnirdamnus. “Who made you what you are?” 

“Halfdan,” said Caina, a bitter pang of grief going through her at the mention of her teacher, murdered in Marsis by Sicarion. Gods, but she hated Marsis. 

“Halfdan was the second step upon your path,” said Samnirdamnus. “He shaped you into what you are today…but the fuel of your hate came from somewhere else. Who gave it to you?”

She felt a chill. “Maglarion.” 

“The necromancer,” said Samnirdamnus. “The first foe, but not the last, you would overcome. Yet he, too, was shaped. Who created him? Who taught him?”

Her chill got worse. “Jadriga. The Moroaica. The creature who was once a girl named Malifae.” 

“Indeed,” said Samnirdamnus. “How do you know so much about her?”

“She was my enemy,” said Caina. “She killed Corvalis.”

“And she wept over his corpse,” said Samnirdamnus. “Why?”

“Because she had all my memories,” said Caina. “She had been in my head for a year, and had a copy of my memories.”

“She possessed you, then,” said Samnirdamnus. 

“Yes,” said Caina. 

“Then why are you not the Moroaica?” said Samnirdamnus. “Why does she still not wear your flesh as you might wear a gown?”

“Because she possessed me, could see through my eyes and hear through my ears,” said Caina, “but she could not control me.” She frowned. “Is that what you wanted me to remember?” 

“Do you not know how rare that is?” said Samnirdamnus. “Maglarion’s spells scarred your flesh and gave you the sensitivity to sorcery that you carry to this day. Yet it also scarred your soul, fractured and marked your aura. A wound, yes…but one with a blessing Maglarion did not intend. You can be possessed, but you cannot be controlled. Not by the spirit of a mortal necromancer, not by the spirit of an undead creature like the Moroaica…”

She followed his train of thought. “And not by an elemental spirit? Is that what you are trying to tell me?” 

“Tell you?” said Samnirdamnus. “I tell you nothing. Merely conversing, that is all.” Kylon’s smirk widened, the eyes of smokeless flame flashing brighter. “What conclusions you draw from this conversation…well, I cannot control that, can I?”

He beckoned, and the dream ended.

Caina sat up on her cot, breathing hard, and looked around the Sanctuary. Kylon was still asleep in his alcove, and she lay back down. 

Sleep did not come.

###

The Sifter stood alone in a street in the Alqaarin Quarter, observing the destiny lines that composed the totality of the city. 

It still could not find the demonslayer’s destiny line. This was frustrating, but not altogether unexpected. Even a cursory glance at her destiny line, at the other threads she had crossed and defeated, confirmed that she was a clever woman. One of the threads she had defeated went back twenty-five centuries to the destruction of ancient Maat. It was a remarkable feat, especially since the demonslayer had no ability to wield arcane forces herself. 

Yet she must have allies who did. The demonslayer had concealed herself from arcane observation, which meant the Sifter’s ability to perceive time and destiny could not find her. No matter. Such spells did not last forever, and the Sifter had all the time in the cosmos.