Ghost in the Storm (The Ghosts) (38 page)

“Enough!” shouted Andromache, and she thrust out her hands.

Arcs of blue-white lightning erupted from her fingertips and exploded in all directions. The lightning ripped through the undead cats, sheathing them in flames. The burning cats took two or three steps and collapsed into piles of smoking ash. More lightning poured from Andromache's hands until the hall disappeared into smoke and harsh white light. Caina coughed, wishing she had her mask to pull over her face...

Andromache clapped her hands. A gust of wind blew through the hall, whipping away the smoke and the ash. When it cleared, Caina saw that burned bones carpeted the floor, that every last one of the animated cats had been destroyed.

The stench of burned fur filled the air. 

It was not a pleasant smell. 

Andromache swayed on her feet, blinking, and for an instant Caina considered attacking with her ghostsilver dagger. Then Kylon stepped between them, and the chance was lost. 

“Are you well, sister?” said Kylon. He was unhurt, though the disturbed look on his face had grown sharper.

“I am unharmed,” said Andromache. “Though I will never get this stench out of my nostrils.”

“Perhaps,” said Kylon, “perhaps we should turn back.”

Andromache frowned. “Turn back?” 

“These...ghastly things,” said Kylon, gesturing at the burned bones. “What other horrors might we encounter? Is the price truly worth it?”

“To claim the Tomb,” said Andromache, “I have raised an army and a fleet, sailed across the sea, attacked an enemy city, started a war, and defeated rival sorcerers in spell battle.” She lifted her head. “Do you really think a collection of dead cats will make me turn back?” 

Kylon lowered his head.

“Do you see, mistress?” said Sicarion. 

“See what?” said Andromache. 

“The undead did not attack the Ghost,” said Sicarion. “Because she...”

“Is the Moroaica,” said Andromache, annoyed. “You weary my ears.” She turned toward the archway on the far side of the hall. “The Ghost is not the Moroaica, though it seems some part of my teacher's power is trapped within her. Once I have the Tomb's power, I will claim that power as well. The Moroaica was my teacher, so it is only just that I am her heir.” She pointed at an archway on the far side of hall. “Now, come! I will have no further delays.”

She strode for the arch. Kylon and Sicarion placed themselves on either side of Caina, and she had no choice but to walk with them.

“This is madness,” hissed Caina. “You know it, Kylon.”

Kylon opened his mouth, closed it again, and then shook his head. “I do not know.” 

“You do,” said Caina. “You can talk her out of this, you can change her mind...”

“I cannot,” said Kylon. “She...has always been right before, Ghost. She is my sister. She saved my family, my House. I will...I will trust her.” There was a desperate, faint hope in his voice. “She will prove me wrong, and all my doubts will be for nothing. She will.” 

“Sicarion,” said Caina.

The scarred man's cold, mismatched eyes turned to her.

“You think I am the Moroaica,” said Caina. “If I commanded you to stop Andromache, would you?”

“Of course not,” said Sicarion. “For you commanded that Andromache must claim the power within the Tomb.” There was a malevolent glitter in his eyes, a dark and terrible amusement.

“The Moroaica commanded you to make sure that Andromache entered the Tomb of Scorikhon?” said Caina. 

“Yes, mistress,” said Sicarion. “For the Moroaica always keeps her word.”

“I told you, Ghost,” said Andromache, “not to talk. If she talks again, silence her.”

They walked in silence, deeper into the Tomb of Scorikhon.

Chapter 28 - The Promise of the Moroaica 

The corridor ended in a set of massive black doors.

Even from a distance, Caina felt the necromantic power radiating from those doors. Or, rather, from behind those doors. Power to make the wards upon the outer doors to seem like a child's petty trick, power to even dwarf Andromache's sorcerous might.

Scorikhon’s resting place.

“At last,” said Andromache. 

They had been walking for almost an hour, through corridors carved with Maatish reliefs showing scenes of torture and necromantic science. Time and time again they had encountered wards, only to have the spells disarm themselves at Caina's touch. That horrified her – how much of Jadriga's dark power had she absorbed?

She didn't know.  

“The doors,” said Andromache. “Open them, Ghost.” 

Caina hesitated. She had no wish to open those black doors, but there was no other choice. Andromache would kill her without compunction if she refused. Kylon might hesitate, but if Andromache ordered him to kill Caina, he would do it. 

So Caina walked to the black doors at the end of the corridor. The necromantic power washed over her, like waves of heat radiating from an inferno. Another set of wards rested upon the doors, but they were nothing compared to the power waiting beyond. Caina had to think of something, some way to stop Andromache.

But Caina could think of nothing, so she reached out and opened the black doors. Again she felt the ward drain away at her touch. 

Beyond the doors lay a burial chamber.

It was a large chamber of polished black stone, the roof rising in a dome. Beneath the center of the dome lay a black sarcophagus. The lid had been carved in the effigy of a cruel-faced man in robes, a staff resting across his chest. 

The power radiated from that sarcophagus. 

Symbols written in lines of green fire rested on the floor, pulsing and flickering. They formed a ring around the sarcophagus, like ghostly candles arranged around a bier. Caina recognized some of the symbols as  sigils of warding and imprisonment. Had the Red Circle laid those wards to keep intruders away from the sarcophagus? 

Or had they created the wards to trap something inside?

“At last,” breathed Andromache, the green light reflecting in her eyes. “At long last. The end of all my labors. Scorikhon's power is mine.”

“Sister,” said Kylon. 

But Andromache paid him no heed. She walked past him and moved toward the sarcophagus. Kylon hissed in alarm as she stepped over the glowing green sigils, but nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

That didn’t make any sense.

Caina frowned at the sarcophagus, her mind racing. This didn't make any sense at all. Vast power lay within that sarcophagus. And Jadriga had believed in power, trusted in it as she trusted in nothing else. If she worshiped anything, beyond her own self, she worshiped power.

So why hadn't she taken the power in that sarcophagus? 

Andromache ran her hands over the effigy, whispering a spell. Green light flared around her hands. 

The Tomb’s wards couldn’t have kept Jadriga from claiming the power. Jadriga herself had laid the wards upon the Tomb, if Sicarion and Andromache were correct. Why seal away the power when it would have been so much easier to claim it?

Andromache shoved. The lid slid off the sarcophagus and shattered against the floor, the crack of breaking stone echoing through the burial chamber.  

So what had stopped Jadriga from taking the power? 

Sicarion and Kylon edged closer to see what lay within the sarcophagus, and Caina went with them. A mummified human corpse rested within, draped in elaborate crimson and black robes, face hidden beneath a golden funerary mask. 

“Scorikhon,” said Andromache, voice reverent.

“He hasn't aged well,” said Caina. 

The only reason Jadriga would not have claimed the power was if she didn't want to claim it. Why not? Did she want to give the power to someone else?

Or did it already belong to someone else?

“The power must be in an amulet,” said Andromache, reaching for the corpse. “Or a relic of some kind.” 

Sicarion had told her that the Moroaica always kept her word.

In Caina's dream, the image of Jadriga had claimed that true immortality was not in the flesh, but in the spirit, that the flesh could be replaced...

And in a single horrified instant, Caina understood. 

Andromache had been tricked.

“Andromache!” shouted Caina. “Stop! Don't...”

Andromache's touched the withered corpse's shoulder.

And green light blazed to life in the golden mask's eyes. The mummified corpse sat up, its skeletal hands closing around Andromache's shoulders. Andromache screamed and tried to pull away, but the dead hands held her fast. A swirling green mist poured from the funerary mask and wrapped itself around Andromache's head. Andromache screamed and screamed, eyes wide with horror.

Sicarion laughed.

“Sister!” shouted Kylon, racing to her side. He jumped over the glowing sigils, his sword a blur. The blade crashed through the golden mask and plunged into the corpse’s chest. Caina glimpsed a grinning skull behind the ruined mask, and then the mummy collapsed into dust. Kylon dragged Andromache away from the sarcophagus and through the circle of glowing sigils, the green mist still swirling around her head. The mist poured into her mouth, her nose, her ears, her eyes, draining into her skull like wine pouring into an amphora. 

And then the mist was gone.

“Sister,” said Kylon. “Are you all right?”

Andromache looked up at him. For a moment she seemed confused, disoriented. 

Then her expression hardened into a sneer of contempt.

“Take your hands off me, churl,” she said, wrenching away from Kylon. She spoke High Nighmarian, not Kyracian. “Lest I wither your flesh and crumble your bones for such impudence.”

Kylon flinched as if she had slapped him. 

“Kylon,” said Caina. “Get away from her.”

“I don't understand,” said Kylon. He touched Andromache's shoulder. “Tell me...”

Andromache's sneer turned into a snarl, and she waved her hand. 

Caina felt a surge of arcane power, and invisible force seized Kylon and threw him across the chamber. He slammed hard into the wall and fell to the floor, eyes wide with surprise. 

“Master,” said Sicarion, bowing. “You have returned. The mistress will be pleased.”

“Sicarion?” Andromache's eyes shifted to scarred man, and she laughed. “Still alive, after all these centuries? I should not be surprised. One cannot kill a cockroach.”

“Andromache!” said Kylon, struggling to his feet. “What is this?”

“That's not Andromache,” said Caina.

The others fell silent. There was a cruel, gloating amusement on Andromache's face.

“And just,” said Andromache, “who am I?”

“Scorikhon,” said Caina. 

“Scorikhon?” said Kylon. “Scorikhon is dead.”

“He is,” said Caina, “but he was a necromancer, and a loyal disciple of the Moroaica. And when he died, the Moroaica did not wish to lose such a valuable servant. So she sealed his spirit in the sarcophagus until she could find a new body for him to wear.” 

Andromache inclined her head.

“And it had to be a body with a powerful arcane talent,” said Caina. “That’s why the Moroaica accepted Andromache as a student. She cared nothing for Andromache herself. She only needed a body that she could give to Scorikhon.”

“How remarkably clever,” said Andromache. But it wasn't really Andromache, Caina knew. It was Scorikhon, using Andromache's mouth. “Who is this?”

“The mistress,” said Sicarion. 

“Ah,” said Andromache, her eyes narrowed. “I see. But your reasoning is correct.” She lifted her hands and looked them over. “I would have preferred a male body. Women are smaller, weaker, and not quite as proficient in certain areas of sorcery. But it is good to live again, if only in the body of a woman.” 

“You will release her!” said Kylon, pointing his sword at Andromache. 

Andromache lifted her eyebrows. “And just who is this enthusiastic fool?” 

“Kylon, master,” said Sicarion. “A stormdancer of New Kyre. And the brother of the woman whose body you now possess.”

“Release her!” repeated Kylon.

“So I see,” said Andromache. “I'll give you one chance to flee, boy. Go now, and you may keep your life. Stay and you'll wish that I had killed you.” 

Kylon shot forward, his sword trailing white mist.

###

Kylon cursed himself with every step. 

He should have tried harder. He should have dissuaded Andromache from this attack. He should have kept her from entering this Tomb. He should have made her listen.

And he should have listened to the Ghost. 

But it was not too late. He could overpower Andromache and take her back to New Kyre, where the stormsingers could drive out the evil force that had taken her body. And he would also kill that traitorous scoundrel Sicarion. Perhaps he and the Moroaica had plotted this between them, laughing all the while.  

Andromache pointed at him. Or, rather, Scorikhon pointed at him, using Andromache's arm.