Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6) (18 page)

“Run!” shouted Annarah, beckoning with the pyrikon staff. “It will not hold him for long! This is our chance! Run!”

“Go!” said Caina.

Kylon and Morgant charged, driving into the stunned Adamant Guards. The valikon and the black dagger and the crimson scimitar spun and slashed and stabbed, and the stormdancer and the assassin carved a path through the Guards before the Umbarian soldiers could regroup. Caina ran behind them, and then they broke free, Annarah sprinting to join them. The Adamant Guards hesitated, looking at the fire that had consumed Cassander, perhaps fearing that Annarah might launch a similar attack upon them. Likely Annarah had redirected Cassander’s own attack at him, which meant they had only moments before the Umbarian magus resumed his assault. 

They sprinted to the nineteenth pier. The
Eastern Fire
, a long galley with banks of oars jutting from its sides, awaited them. To Caina’s relief, she saw that the ship had already moved away from the stone bar of the pier, its oars ready. A thin gangplank still connected the ship to the pier. Nasser and Laertes stood just beyond the gangplank, weapons in hand as they watched the fire raging upon the street.

“Hurry!” shouted Nasser. “We must depart at once!”

“Your mastery of the obvious never fails to astound!” said Morgant. He urged Annarah up the gangplank, and then Kylon all but shoved Caina onto the plank. She hurried up to the galley’s deck, and Kylon and Morgant hastened after her. At once a pair of Saddaic sailors pulled up the plank. A tall man in a black coat began shouting orders in rapid succession. His features looked somewhat familiar, which meant he was likely Captain Talazain, master of the
Eastern Fire
and son of the Saddaic merchant who helped the Ghosts of Istarinmul from time to time. A drum began to boom from the beneath the deck as the oars lashed at the water.

“We must make haste, Captain,” said Nasser. “If our foes catch us, they will destroy the ship.”

Talazain shook his head. “We must wait for the harbor pilot. Else the fines shall be…”

“A thousand bezants to you personally,” shouted Nasser, staring at the pier, “and a golden bezant to each of your oarsmen if you get us out of the harbor now.”

Talazain shrugged, turned and bellowed more orders. Suddenly the pounding of the drum tripled its speed, and the
Eastern Fire
lurched as the ship surged forward. The pilot cursed as he grappled with the wheel, and Talazain and the first mate ran to help him. Caina grabbed at the railing to steady herself as the ship jerked forward, but Kylon remained undisturbed. Of course, he was Kyracian. He had spent far more time on ships than Caina had. 

She looked at him and made herself smile. “Let’s not do that again.” 

“No,” said Kylon. “Though I suppose you are used to escaping by the thinnest of margins.”

“More than I would like,” said Caina, “though given the alternative, it is…” 

She fell silent as Adamant Guards ran along the pier, stopping at its edge. For a terrible moment she was certain the Guards would be able to leap the distance and attack the ship, but the galley had pulled too far away for them to jump. The Adamant Guards, for all their strength and speed, could not swim, not with the weight of their armor pulling them down.

Cassander Nilas shoved to the front of the Guards, his black cloak stark against their armor. He did not appear injured or even tired from his duel with Annarah, and harsh yellow-white fire blazed to life around his black gauntlet as Caina felt the stirrings of pyromantic force. 

“Annarah!” said Caina. “He’s going to burn the ship!” 

Annarah was already moving, lifting her pyrikon staff and calling upon her power. Cassander unleashed a shaft of flame, and Annarah gestured. A dome of white light appeared behind the galley like a curtain of shimmering mist, and Cassander’s spell struck it with a tremendous crack. The dome flickered and sputtered, and Annarah groaned and fell to one knee. Already Caina sensed the surge of power as Cassander summoned more fire. If even a little of the flame got through, the ship would go up like a box of tinder. 

Another blast of fire struck the flickering dome of Annarah’s power, and again the loremaster groaned, leaning upon her staff for support as sweat poured down her face. 

Upon her pyrikon staff.

Caina had a pyrikon upon her left wrist.

She dashed across the deck, knelt next to Annarah, and gripped the staff with her left hand. Annarah looked at her, puzzled. Caina ignored her and looked at the delicate ghostsilver bracelet upon her wrist, trying to focus her thoughts on the thing. It wasn’t really a bracelet, and Annarah’s staff wasn’t really a staff. They were both spirits of defense, clothed in material forms.

“Listen to me,” said Caina. “Help her. You were so damned eager to defend her in the netherworld.” She felt strange talking to a piece of jewelry, but she knew that the defending spirit within could hear her. Or at least she hoped so. “Help her now, or all your efforts in the netherworld shall have been in vain.”

For a moment nothing happened, and Cassander summoned another burst of flame at the galley. Annarah gritted her teeth, her staff shining with a flickering white light as she prepared to deflect the attack. Then Caina felt a surge of power from her bracelet, the aura making her arm crawl with pins and needles. White light shone from the pyrikon, and leaped up her fingers to sink into Annarah’s staff. The staff’s glow shone brighter, and the dome of light behind the ship blazed so bright that it was almost like the noon sun for an instant. 

Cassander’s fire rebounded from the light, repelled by the power of the twin pyrikons. The dome of light did not even waver. The drum continued its beat from below the deck, the oars lashing the nearby water into white foam. As they approached the entrance to the harbor, an Istarish galley flying the Padishah’s crown-and-sword banner started to turn, trying to bring the Hellfire sprayer at its prow to bear, but the
Eastern Fire
had too much of a head start and her oarsmen were more skilled than the miserable slaves chained to the Istarish galley’s oars. The
Eastern Fire
shot past the galley with no more damage that a few crossbow quarrels rebounding from the hull, and they reached open water, leaving Istarinmul behind and plunging into the vast expanse of the Alqaarin Sea.

The dome of light faded away, the overwhelming aura of power vanishing from her pyrikon. Caina stared at the harbor and the domes and towers of Istarinmul to the west, fearing that Cassander’s power could strike across such a distance. Yet no spells came. Evidently not even Cassander’s sorcery could reach that far. 

Caina closed her eyes and let out a long breath, and Kylon and the others crossed to join her and Annarah.

“Thank you,” said Annarah. “My strength…I fear it was not enough. That Umbarian was powerful.” She offered a wan smile as Morgant helped her to stand. “I was hardly the most powerful of the loremasters.”

“Power is not part of courage,” said Nasser. “I chose to entrust the regalia to you, and I do not regret that decision.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Annarah.

“Laertes,” said Nasser. “Go reassure the captain. We’ll need to make some plans.” He reached into his pack and handed over a leather pouch. “The extra money we promised him. Make sure the oarsmen get it.”

Laertes grunted. “Officers have sticky fingers.”

“Said the former centurion,” said Morgant.

Laertes remained unruffled. “I wasn’t an officer. I was a centurion. I worked for a living.” He strode away to speak with Captain Talazain. 

“How did they find us?” said Morgant. 

“I don’t know,” said Caina. “I arrived at the Desert Maiden, and a group of Kindred assassins were waiting for me.”

Kylon gave her a sharp look. “Kindred?”

“How did you escape?” said Annarah. “The Kindred had a formidable reputation even in my day.” She gave Morgant and Nasser a sheepish look. “Well. Our day, I suppose.”

Morgant snorted. “The Balarigar likely burned down a building or two.”

Caina shook her head. “I ran over the rooftops. The Adamant Guards and the Silent Hunters were after me. If Kylon hadn’t caught up to me, they would have taken me alive.”

“I was attacked by Silent Hunters on my way to the Desert Maiden,” said Kylon. “I doubt they realized I could sense their presence, and I cut them down before they could strike.”

“Laertes and I were attacked as well,” said Nasser. “We then met Annarah and Morgant, and hastened to the ship. Morgant insisted that Annarah remain behind, and went out to find you.”

“You did?” said Caina. “Why, how very touching.”

Morgant scoffed. “Just as well I did. Cassander would be stitching pieces of you to his pet cataphractus if I had not come along.”

“Yes,” said Caina. “Thank you.”

Morgant snorted and looked away. 

“How did they find us?” said Annarah. “We have been so careful.” She shook her head. “I must have been seen at one of the hospitals.”

“No,” said Caina. “The Kindred were waiting for me. I must have made a mistake.”

“We were all attacked, every one of us,” said Kylon. “Cassander must have known our plans.”

“No, he didn’t,” said Morgant. 

Nasser frowned. “Clearly he did.”

Morgant smirked. “Then why, oh wise Prince, didn’t he burn the
Eastern Fire
to ashes before we arrived? Or why didn’t he load up the ship with Umbarian soldiers and wait for us to walk into his arms?”

Silence answered him, save for the sound of the oars dipping into the waves over. 

“Because,” said Caina. “He knew where we would be. He didn’t know where we were going.” 

“How?” said Nasser.

“Betrayal?” said Morgant. “That seems the most likely.”

Caina shook her head. “I don’t think any one of us would have gone to Cassander. Besides, we all knew we were going to the
Eastern Fire
. A traitor surely would have told Cassander.”

“Then how?” said Nasser. “A spell?”

“Perhaps, lord Prince,” said Annarah. “I shall cast wards about the ship. Maybe that shall baffle any means of arcane observation.”

“Once you have regained your strength,” said Nasser. “I suspect we are safe enough for now.”

Caina nodded, watching as the city of Istarinmul dwindled to the west. 

Perhaps she was indeed destined to die on this trip, but it seemed it would not be from the hand of Cassander Nilas.

Chapter 10: Patience

Kalgri strolled along the piers of the Alqaarin Harbor, humming to herself. 

No one paid any attention to her. Of course, the Alqaarin Harbor was in chaos. Cassander and his pets had made quite a mess. The gangs of porter slaves had been deputized into a bucket line to put out the warehouse fires. Istarish soldiers patrolled the waterfront, and the Grand Wazir had even sent a century of Immortals from the Golden Palace, their blue-glowing eyes watching the crowds with grim suspicion. Kalgri had discarded her armor and taken off the shadow-cloak, since there was no one here to sense the Voice’s presence. Now she wore a blue dress and headscarf, much like the ones Caina wore when disguised herself as a common Istarish woman, and no one gave Kalgri a second glance. 

She shivered a little, the Voice hissing with delight inside her skull. Caina and her allies had killed several of Cassander’s men as Kalgri watched unseen from the shadows, and she had been close enough to feed off their deaths. It was not as nourishing as if she had killed them herself, but it had nonetheless been most enjoyable. She even felt a little drunk with it, and the temptation to join in had been immense, to carve her way through the Adamant Guards and kill Caina in front of Kylon.

That would have been marvelous.

Nonetheless, Kalgri had refrained. Attacking a man armed with a valikon would have been foolish. Attacking a valikon-armed man who had the assistance of an Iramisian loremaster would have been suicidal madness. Annarah might not have been able to overcome Cassander in their duel, but Kalgri was far more vulnerable to the Words of Lore. Between the valikon and the Words of Lore, they could have disposed of Kalgri and the Voice in short order.

No, when the time came to kill Annarah, Kalgri would simply cut the loremaster’s throat while she slept. The Voice feasted upon pain and torment, but to indulge one’s pleasures at the risk of destruction was the height of folly. Annarah would receive a quick and efficient death, not lingering torment.

Kalgri would reserve that pleasure for Caina. 

But not yet. Fighting her was a mistake. Cassander had just made that mistake. Caina alone was nothing, just a young woman with a dagger and a shadow-cloak. But she was a clever young woman, and she had a gift for making allies. Cassander would have no trouble killing Caina in a fair fight, but Caina was not stupid enough to fight fair. Which was why Caina had surrounded herself with a valikon-equipped stormdancer, a legendary assassin, the last loremaster of Iramis, the last Prince of Iramis, and other capable allies, and together they had torn their way through Cassander’s men.

Well, that was Cassander’s problem.

But Kalgri thought she still might have a use for the Umbarian magus. 

Kalgri leaned against the wall of an undamaged warehouse to think. She preferred to do her thinking in crowds, while alone in the midst of many people. They were her prey, all of them, and their only purpose was to feed her lust for death. She watched as Grand Wazir Erghulan Amirasku himself arrived to inspect the harbor, flanked by a guard of Immortals, striding to and fro as he barked useless commands to everyone in sight. The man was a pompous blowhard, too stupid to realize that he was not the true ruler of Istarinmul. Kalgri wondered what his expression would look like if she strolled up and killed him. 

She closed her eyes and shivered, the Voice snarling in her thoughts.

She did not care about Erghulan Amirasku. She did not care about Istarinmul, or about Cassander’s schemes to destroy the Empire. She did not even care about Callatas and his Apotheosis, about his ludicrous plan to create a new version of humanity to populate the world. His plan was madness, but it would kill a lot of people…and Kalgri did care about that.