Ghost in the Razor (2 page)

Caina bought a ticket from a surly slave in a gray tunic and made her way into the tiers of seats. They were only about half-full, but the morning bouts rarely attracted as many as those in the afternoon. Evening matches were only held during festivals or when the Padishah or a noble wished to put on a show. Lighting the arena at night was expensive. 

The maid had been willing to tell Caina where Markaine would be seated, so she made her way down the sloping aisles, closer to the broad, sand-floored oval pit at the center of the Ring. Most the spectators at this time of day were idle laborers or Istarish citizens who received a ration from the Wazir of Grain, and they ignored her as she passed, watching as two teams of five men each fought each other upon the sands. One team wore spiked helmets and fought with scimitars and round shields, while the second bore the helmets of Imperial Legionaries and fought with the massive rectangular shields and broadswords of the Legions. The gladiators had no other armor, and wore only sandals and loincloths. Some of the men were massive and heavily muscled, their blows powerful but slow, while others were leaner but quicker. The men gleamed with the sweat of battle, and a steady cheer rose from the crowds. 

Caina watched them for a moment, admiring the play of muscles beneath their skin, the skill they showed at fighting. The gladiators knew their business, and both teams fought as a coordinated group. Likely the match would end in a draw…

She felt a flicker of shame and looked away. Caina had learned something about herself since coming to Istarinmul, something she did not like.

She often found gladiators attractive.

She shouldn’t. Slavery was a blight upon the world, and she had devoted vast time and energy to terrorizing the Brotherhood of Slavers. She had done it to cut off Callatas’s supply of slaves to murder for creating wraithblood, true, but part of it had been her hatred of slavers. Istarish slavers had helped Maglarion kill her father, and while Caina’s contempt of sorcery had cooled enough that she was willing to work with and even befriend a woman like Claudia Aberon Dorius, her hatred of slavers had never wavered. Every one of those men fighting below had been sold into slavery, had been purchased by the Wazir of Games and ordered to fight. It was a hideous injustice. 

Yet she could not deny that she enjoyed watching them.

It shouldn’t surprise her. Corvalis had been a hard man, an assassin and a killer, trained by his father to become a remorseless weapon. He had been a good man and Caina loved him with all her heart, yet she had nonetheless been attracted to his cold strength, even excited by it. 

She put the entire notion out of her head. There was work before her, and neither idly daydreaming about gladiators like a foolish child or reminiscing over Corvalis would accomplish it. Corvalis would have laughed at her, had she known. 

She located the correct row of seats, and soon found Markaine of Caer Marist. 

He was not hard to spot. 

The painter was in his middle fifties, thin to the point of looking almost withered, with pale blue eyes and close-cropped gray hair. He was oddly pale, his skin almost translucent, and despite sitting in the open sun he showed no sign of a sunburn. His costume was peculiar as well. He wore dusty black boots, black trousers, a crisp, brilliant white shirt, and a long black coat that hung to his knees.  The coat was far too heavy for the sun, yet Markaine was not sweating. If anything, he looked slightly chilly. A black cane with a worn bronze handle rested on the stone bench next to him. Upon his right leg he held a notebook open, and Caina saw him sketching the gladiators with a small pencil, the tip rasping against the paper. There was no one near him, and his seat was further back than she would have expected. Perhaps he could not afford any better. 

Caina stepped towards him.

“No,” said Markaine. He had a thick Caerish accent. Caeria Ulterior, from the sounds of it, highlighting his words with a burr. 

“I’m sorry?” said Caina. 

“Whatever you are about to ask me,” said Markaine, not looking up from his notebook, “the answer is no. I have no interest in creating a painting, a mural, a fresco, or any other artwork for you or your employer. No sum of money shall change my mind.” 

“I’m not here for a commission,” said Caina.

“Of course you’re not,” said Markaine. “I’m sure instead you’re here to socialize. The civil war in the Empire might affect trade. Or it might not. Hmm, let’s all stroke our beards and nod and pretend like we can see the future.” His free hand fluttered at her. “Off you go.” 

Suddenly Markaine’s relative poverty made a great deal more sense.

Caina nodded, climbed over the stone seat, and stepped into the row behind Markaine. She made sure to stand so her shadow fell upon Markaine’s notebook, blocking his light. The painter looked up, blinking, and scowled at her.

“Really,” he said. “That’s very petty.” 

“As I said, I’m not here to commission a portrait,” said Caina. “I would like to discuss another one of your works.” 

Markaine sighed and then stared at her. Caina met his pale gaze without blinking, though the sensation made her uncomfortable. His eyes had a heaviness to them, a strange weight, and she suddenly felt as if her disguise was inadequate. For a moment she was sure that Markaine recognized her, yet she had never seen him before. Had he somehow realized that she was the Balarigar? That seemed most improbable, and yet…

“On the other hand,” said Markaine, sliding to the side, “I’m told socializing is good for the digestion. And you seem like a very interesting young fellow. Have a seat. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” said Caina, sitting next to him.

“Oh, of course not. It must have slipped my mind,” said Markaine. “I’m getting older, you know. Anyway. Who the hell are you?” 

“Duncan of Caer Marist, a factor for Lord Quintus of House Camwallen, a noble house of Caeria Ulterior,” said Caina. Lord Quintus was in fact a minor noble with lands in Caeria Ulterior, though she had never met him, and she doubted that he had ever left Caeria Ulterior. 

For some reason that answer amused him. “I’m sure you are. So.” He clapped his notebook shut, tucked it into a pocket of his roomy coat, and stared at her. “Why does a factor for a minor Caerish lord wish to speak with me?”

“My lord is a student of Istarish history,” said Caina.

“Poor fool. Is life really that boring in Caeria Ulterior?”

“He heard rumor of your work, and since I had business in Istarinmul anyway, he commanded me to seek you out and ask questions,” said Caina. “I can pay for your time, if you will…”

A roar from the crowd drowned out her words. The gladiators dressed as Istarish soldiers had prevailed over their opponents. None of the gladiators had been killed – for all the barbarity of the games, gladiators were expensive, and matches to the death were uncommon. Several of the Legionary gladiators had taken wounds, and gray-clad slaves hurried onto the sands, helping the wounded men into the galleries below the Ring while the victors raised their scimitars in triumph. 

“You were saying?” said Markaine. 

“I can pay you for your time,” said Caina. “My lord Quintus has provided a purse for that purpose.”

“What interests his lordship?” said Markaine. “I imagine Istarish art is quite the rage among Caerish lords. It’s probably all they ever discuss.” There was a hint of mockery in his tone. 

“Specifically, he is interested in the great mural in the Tarshahzon Gardens,” said Caina. “The Fall of Iramis.” Slaves with rakes ran across the sand of the fighting pit, sweeping it clean for the next combatants. 

Again Markaine seemed amused. 

“Ah,” he said. “That would explain it, wouldn’t it? The Fall of Iramis. Such a tragic tale. The sort of tale that inspires bad poetry and worse paintings.”

“Then you do not like your own mural?” said Caina.

Markaine laughed. “I like it just fine. Callatas never finished paying me for it, you know, the cheap bastard.” He made a chopping gesture. “No doubt he can use his power to transmute lead into gold, but he could never be bothered to finish paying me. I certainly cannot bring a lawsuit against him. What hakim or wazir would rule against the Grand Master of the Alchemists?” 

“Given the topic of the mural,” said Caina, “I can see why the magistrates would be weary of challenging a man who killed a quarter of a million people in a day.”

“All that power, and he still can’t pay me on time,” muttered Markaine. 

“The mural is so detailed it almost seems like an eyewitness account,” said Caina.

Markaine raised his gray eyebrows in surprise, and a voice boomed over the arena.

“Citizens of Istarinmul!” said the speaker, a herald standing in the magistrate’s box overlooking the pit. “For your entertainment, our most noble Grand Wazir, Erghulan Amirasku, has commanded that gladiatorial games be held in the Ring of Cyrica. A seasoned champion has been brought to try his valor and his steel against an upstart! Behold the Red Fisherman, winner of a hundred duels and a champion of the Arena of Padishahs!”

The crowds roared their approval, and a man with his face concealed behind a red helmet strode upon the sands. He wore a leather kilt and a gleaming steel cuirass, and in his right hand he carried a crimson trident, its barbed points gleaming, and a weighted net in his left hand. The straps of a pair of baldrics formed an X across his cuirass, and a pair of short swords waited in scabbards upon his back. 

“To challenge him,” thundered the herald, “a new man, a rising fighter among the ranks of Istarinmul’s gladiators! A freeborn man, who in a display of valor has voluntarily entered the games. A man of mystery, known only as the Exile!” 

A second man strode into the oval, and Caina felt her eye drawn toward him. He was shorter than the towering Red Fisherman, but well-muscled nonetheless. The Exile walked with the precise, steady grace and economical movements of a master swordsman. He wore a simple masked helm, a loincloth, sandals, and nothing else. In his right hand he carried a broadsword, and bore no other weapons. The Red Fisherman was larger and likely stronger, and better armed and armored to boot, but the Exile looked dangerous. Caina was not sure who would win.

The fighters saluted each other, and then the magistrate’s box.

“Begin!” roared the herald, and the crowds shouted their approval as the Exile and the Red Fisherman began to circle each other. 

“Now,” said Markaine, once the crowds had quieted and they could hear each other again, “you were saying?”

Caina turned her eyes from the duel below. “The Fall of Iramis. The painting is so detailed that my lord wondered if you were an eyewitness to the disaster.”

“I was,” said Markaine.

Caina blinked in surprise.

“I stood on the hills west of Iramis and watched as Grand Master Callatas raised the Star of Iramis,” said Markaine, taking a stentorian tone. “I watched as he called upon its power. I heard the screams as Iramis died, and the stench of its burning filled my nostrils. The sky itself writhed in the power Callatas unleashed, and I watched as the fields of Iramis turned into the Desert of Candles.”

“Truly?” said Caina. 

“Of course not, you idiot,” said Markaine. “That was a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“One hundred and fifty one,” said Caina.

“Yes, the extra year makes such a difference,” said Markaine. The Red Fisherman and the Exile exchanged a flurry of blows. The bigger man caught the blows of the Exile’s sword upon the tines of his trident, but the Exile was fast enough to avoid the Fisherman’s net. “Your lord wants to know how I made the mural accurate? I read books about Iramis. People do that sometimes, you know. I also talked to Callatas repeatedly. He was very keen that the painting be accurate. Apparently he enjoys frightening people.” 

“I’ve heard that,” said Caina. She had also seen it firsthand.

The Red Fisherman drove his trident forward, and the Exile’s sword whipped around in a two-handed block, catching it an inch from his chest. Had he not blocked it, the blow would have speared him like a potato upon a fork. Gladiators rarely fought to the death, but accidents happened…and a slave like the Red Fisherman would show no hesitation about killing a freeborn man like the Exile. 

“An eyewitness, though?” said Markaine. “Does Lord Quintus have a skull of solid bone? Or a brain made of pudding?” He smirked, showing his teeth. “Or do you think I look old enough to have seen Iramis burn? Do I look a hundred and fifty years old? That’s rather insulting, you know.” 

“No,” said Caina. He was testing her, she realized. Trying to see how she reacted. “No, you don’t look old enough to have seen Iramis burn.”

“Thank you,” said Markaine. 

“You look old enough to have seen ancient Maat burn.”

Markaine blinked, and then snorted. “Clever. I always appreciate a woman who understands history.”

Caina felt a flicker of alarm. “What did you say? 

“I always appreciate a man who understands history,” said Markaine. He tilted his head to the side. “Why? Did I say something else? I might have, you know. I am an old man and so easily confused.”

Caina said nothing. He had called her a woman, she was sure of it. Did he realize that she was a woman? She had thought he recognized her. Sulaman had sent her here. Perhaps Sulaman had finally decided to betray her.

Yet Markaine made no threatening movements. As far as she could see, he wasn’t even armed, not counting the brass-handled cane. 

The Exile landed a hit upon the Red Fisherman’s right thigh, drawing a line of blood. The bigger man reeled back with a grunt of fury, and the Exile went on the offensive, his broadsword blurring and flickering. His attacks were designed to force the Red Fisherman back upon his injured leg. 

“Well?” said Markaine. “What else do you want to know?” He reached for his cane and tapped it against the floor. “I am so enjoying this conversation.”

“My lord Quintus has a great interest in Istarish history,” said Caina, “and wanted to learn more about it. Specifically, he wanted to know if you knew anything of the assassin called Morgant the Razor.”