Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 05 - Ghost in the Stone (4 page)

“The Defender,” she muttered. “The Well.” 

Was that a code of some kind? Odds were that it didn’t mean anything. But did that mean Barius had burned his ledger? Or had someone else burned it?

Caina didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to figure it out. That assassin would return with friends. She got to her feet and cast a quick look over the shelves. The assassin would recognize her disguise, but there was enough clothing here to improvise a new one. Caina cast aside her ragged cloak and snatched a garish red one. The cloak was a ridiculous color, but it looked Cyrican, and should conceal her long enough to rejoin Theodosia at the Plaza of Majesty. 

She took one last look at Barius, and then slipped out the back door. The alley behind the pawnshop stank of garbage and urine, but was deserted. She took a quick look around and hurried towards the end of the alley. From here she would circle east, through Seatown until she reached the district of Westshadow and then the Plaza of Majesty at the foot of the Stone…

Caina froze.

A shape in a cloak stood at the end of the alley, staring at her. She could not see the figure’s face beneath the cowl, but the front of the cloak opened, and she caught a glimpse of chain mail and a sheathed sword.

Another Kindred assassin?

She raised her dagger and braced herself.

The cloaked figure turned and disappeared to the left.

Caina cursed and ran to the end of the alley. It terminated in a street leading east from the plaza, lined on either side with shabby houses. She saw no trace of the cloaked figure, or of the Kindred assassin in the yellow robe.

Caina hastened for the Plaza of Majesty.

She wondered what Theodosia would make of Barius’s fate.

Caina slipped unnoticed through the crowds, merely another figure in a red Cyrican cloak. 

She had to admit that the Plaza of Majesty lived up to its name.

It sat at the base of the Stone, broad and wide, paved with white marble chosen to match the peculiar white rock of the Stone. On the northern side of the Plaza stood the massive temples of the gods of the Empire. On the western side stood the basilica of the Magisterium’s chapterhouse, stern and grim. Across the Plaza from the chapterhouse rose the black, pyramidal shape of a temple to the Living Flame, the chief god of Cyrica and Anshan. And at the base of the Stone itself a broad ramp climbed the face of the hill to the Palace of Splendors itself. 

Lord Governor Armizid Asurius and his chief magistrates awaited Lord Corbould at the end of the ramp. Around them stood a company of the city’s militia, wealthy merchants, minor nobles, and a host of other hangers-on. Citizens of Cyrioch lined the Plaza, watching the spectacle, held back by a line of militia spears. 

Lord Corbould Maraeus entered the Plaza from the other end, flanked by a troop of black-armored Imperial Guards.

Caina slipped through the crowds, which proved easy of enough, since most of the commoners had their attention focused on the nobles. She passed Lord Corbould and his guards and came to the rear of the column. The chariot drivers Corbould had brought walked there, followed by the singers and stagehands of the Grand Imperial Opera. Caina spotted Theodosia, clad in a brilliant red gown with black trim, her hair covered by a scarf of similar color. 

Caina approached, and Theodosia smiled. 

“Ah,” she said. “There you are. Did you get the things I asked for?”

“No,” said Caina, keeping her voice disguised. “Things…did not go well.”

Theodosia’s smile faded. “This is an outrage! An outrage! Why, I shall speak to Lord Corbould himself! I have his ear, you know. I’ll have you shipped back to Malarae as a kitchen drudge! I’ll…”

Theodosia went on in that vein for some time, much to the amusement of the other members of the company. Bit by bit their attention wavered, and turned to Lord Corbould’s ceremonial entrance into the Plaza of Majesty. Theodosia looked at them and nodded.

“There,” she murmured. “They ought to be distracted now. What happened? What did Barius tell you?”

“Nothing,” said Caina.

Theodosia frowned. “Is he dead?”

“Yes. Maybe,” said Caina. “I don’t know.”

“Hearken!” boomed the voice of Lord Corbould’s herald. “Corbould, Lord of House Maraeus, once Lord Governor of the Imperial Pale, twice Lord Governor of Marsis, and four times Lord Marshall of the Legions, has come! He sends greetings to his brother Armizid, Lord Governor of Cyrica, and requests permission to enter the city!”

“Come with me,” said Theodosia. “I want to watch this, since whoever hired the Kindred to kill Corbould is probably in the Plaza right now. You can tell me what you found once I have a better view.” 

Caina nodded and pushed her way through the crowd, Theodosia gliding after her with stately grace. After a few moments, she reached the edge of the Plaza, not far from the line of militiamen that kept the Plaza clear for the nobles. From here, they had a clear view of the festivities. Lord Corbould dismounted his horse and waited while his herald continued the stentorian recitation of honors and offices. 

“Now,” said Theodosia, voice low. “What happened? Is Barius dead?”

“Probably,” said Caina. “Someone turned him to stone.”

It was one of the very few times Caina had ever seen Theodosia taken aback. 

“Turned to stone?” said Theodosia. “That’s not possible.”

Caina shrugged. “Unless there is a reason Barius had a life-sized statue of himself in his back room. A life-sized statue sculpted with incredible detail and showing an expression of horror. A life-sized statue that also has an aura of sorcery.”  

“That does seem unlikely,” said Theodosia. “But…turned him to stone? I’ve never heard of any kind of sorcery that can do that. There are the old stories about serpent-haired women, true, but those are just stories. Was there any indication how it happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Caina. “The door was open, and it looked like it was forced. There was a Kindred assassin waiting in the alley behind the shop. He got away before I could kill him. And there was another man in a cloak, watching everything. He fled before I could get a good look at him.” 

“I suppose neither one of them were serpent-haired women,” said Theodosia.

“No,” said Caina. 

“Well,” said Theodosia, “that’s a puzzle, then.” The herald kept droning through Lord Corbould’s honors. “Barius was going to be our contact with Cyrioch’s Ghost circle, tell us of any plots against Lord Corbould’s life. So did the Kindred do this to him? Or did he stumble into some other kind of trouble?”

“A very good question,” said Caina. She passed the charred scrap of paper to Theodosia. “Someone burned a book or a ledger in Barius’s stove. This was all that was left. Does it mean anything to you?”

Theodosia squinted at the paper and nodded.

“It might,” she said. “The Defender is a statue in a plaza a bit east of here. The Plaza of the Defender, they call it. We’ll be staying at the inn there. As for the Well…there is a place in the Palace of Splendors called the Gallery of the Well. I have never been there.” She grinned. “But if Lord Khosrau enjoys Nighmarian opera as much as the rumors say, I might get an invitation.” She looked at the paper for a while longer, and then handed it to Caina. “Keep that. It might not mean anything. But just in case…”

Caina nodded. “What will we do now?”

“I’ll have to contact Cyrioch’s circlemaster,” said Theodosia. She scowled. “Which I was hoping to avoid, because he’s a dreadful bastard. But we have no choice. We need his help.” 

“And if someone is targeting the Ghosts of Cyrioch,” said Caina, remembering what Kalastus had done in Rasadda, “they’ll need to know.”

Lord Corbould’s herald wrapped up the recitation of honors, and Lord Governor Armizid’s herald stepped forward. 

“Hearken!” thundered the herald. “Armizid, a scion of House Asurius, Lord Governor of the province of Cyrica, guardian of Cyrioch, keeper of the Palace of Cyrioch, and scourge of the Sarbian tribes, does bid his brother Lord Corbould welcome to the Shining City of Cyrica Urbana!” 

Lord Governor Armizid Asurius stepped forward, and Caina got her first look at the man who governed Cyrica. He was about thirty, with a soldier’s lean build, and wore a gleaming white robe and turban in Anshani style, an elaborate jeweled sword and dagger at his belt. His expression was stern, his black eyes hard and cold. 

“A humorless martinet of a man,” murmured Theodosia, “but his father Khosrau is the real power in Cyrica.”

Lord Khosrau followed after his son. The men had the same facial features and eyes, but Khosrau was enormously fat, so fat that his white robe and beard made him look like an ambulatory snowball. He walked with a limp, leaning upon an ivory cane in his right fist. Unlike his son, his expression was not a cold mask. If anything, he looked…amused. As if he was privy to some joke unknown to everyone else in the Plaza. 

A man in a black robe with a purple sash trailed after Khosrau, a slave girl in a gray tunic following him.

“Who is the master magus?” said Caina.

“Ranarius, the preceptor of the Cyrioch chapterhouse,” murmured Theodosia. “A cold one. Was a strong supporter of Haeron Icaraeus. Even the First Magus steps lightly around him.”

Caina took a closer look at Ranarius. The master magus was in his sixties, with a gaunt, ascetic face and the perpetual squint of a scholar. The slave girl was perhaps a few years younger than Caina, with hair so blond it was almost white. A strip of black cloth covered her eyes, and an elaborate collar of carved jade rested around her neck. Caina wondered why Ranarius bothered keeping a blind slave. Perhaps she warmed his bed - Caina would not put it past a magus to keep a slave mistress or three. The suspicion was confirmed when she saw a jade bracelet of similar design on his left wrist. 

Lord Armizid strode toward Lord Corbould, and a sudden memory struck Caina with the force of a blow.

She remembered standing in the Great Market in Marsis, taking Nicolai to see the grand arrival of Rezir Shahan aboard his ships. Lord Corbould had been there with his bodyguards and magistrates, coming to greet the Padishah of Istarinmul’s Lord Ambassador. Yet the meeting had been a trap, and Istarish soldiers had stormed into the Great Market, killing and capturing slaves. The slavers had taken Nicolai captive. Dread rose up to choke her throat at the memory. She had to get him back! She had to find him before…

Caina shook her head. She had rescued Nicolai, had slain Rezir Shahan and outwitted the Moroacia’s disciple Scorikhon. Nicolai was safe with Ark and Tanya. She had saved him.

Yet the dread did not leave her, and for a terrible instant she was sure that Istarish footmen would boil into the Plaza of Majesty, their khalmirs bellowing commands…

She heard a voice, hissing urgent words. 

Caina blinked.

“Are you all right?” said Theodosia. “Because this is not the time to let your attention wander!”

“I’m fine,” said Caina, but she knew it was a lie.

Theodosia’s expression said that she knew it, too.

Then Lord Governor Armizid started to speak, and Caina pushed aside her memories and emotions.

“My lord Corbould,” said Armizid in High Nighmarian with a thick Cyrican accent. “I bid you welcome to Cyrica Urbana, the Shining City.”

The two men gripped hands briefly. 

“I think you, my lord Armizid,” said Corbould. “On behalf of our Emperor, I offer greetings, and thank you for your hospitality.”

Armizid offered a thin smile, and Caina suspected that he did not like Corbould very much.

“All nations know the hospitality of the Cyricans,” Armizid. “Truly, we are generous to our friends…and merciless to our enemies.” 

“Indeed?” said Corbould. “Then it is well that the Cyricans are friends and loyal citizens of our Empire. For our Empire is threatened by bitter enemies.”

Armizid lifted an eyebrow below his white turban. “By the Kyracians and the Istarish, you mean? Perhaps they are your enemies, Lord Corbould, if they went to such efforts to seize Marsis from you. But for generations beyond count, the slaves who labor in our mines and plantations have come from the slavers’ brotherhood of Istarinmul. The ships that carry our olives and rice and cotton to the ports of the world come from New Kyre. The Kyracians and the Istarish have been friends of Cyrica for centuries. Perhaps they are your enemies, my lord Corbould, but they may not be the enemies of Cyrica.”

Corbould’s face grew hard. “So you would rather side with enemies of the Empire than with your Emperor, my lord Armizid?” 

“I wish to remain friends with the Emperor of Nighmar,” said Armizid. “But if the Emperor makes himself into the enemy of Cyrica, well, then he shall have to live with the consequences.”

“I take,” said Corbould, his voice tight, “a dim view of rebellion. As does our Emperor. You might try to recall the fate of the Kagarish tribes that rebelled twenty years past.”

Armizid gave a brief laugh. “The Kagars? Savages living in grass huts and mating with their horses. We Cyricans have been civilized for centuries beyond count.” 

“And for most of those centuries,” said Corbould, his voice hard as the marble flagstones, “you Cyricans were slaves of the Anshani. It was the Emperor of Nighmar who liberated you from the Shahenshah of Anshan, and it was the Emperor of Nighmar who graciously allowed you to keep your slaves, even after your provinces rebelled during the War of the Fourth Empire. And now you think to turn your back upon him?”

Armizid sneered. “If Emperor Alexius turns his back upon us, if he drives the Cyricans away from our friends in Istarinmul and New Kyre, then he is a fool, and he deserves whatever misfortunate falls upon him!” 

“And if you are so foolish as to rebel against the Emperor,” said Corbould, “then you will learn the fate of a traitor.”

This was not going well.

Both Corbould and Armizid glared at each other, and for a moment Caina thought they would come to blows. The memories of that terrible day in the Great Market of Marsis flooded through her mind, and Caina stepped toward Theodosia, intending to get her away if the Plaza of Majesty erupted into violence…