Ghost Lock (5 page)

“May the Living Flame watch over you,” said Tiri. She
hesitated. “And those you have lost.”

The pain rolled through Caina, hot and sharp.

“Thank you,” she said, and Tiri joined her
husband.

Caina watched as the ship moved closer to the quays
in the crowded harbor. The districts near the docks and the seawall
did not look nearly as opulent as the neighborhoods near the Golden
Palace and the College. The western harbor smelled as harbors did
the world over, of salt and rotting fish and exotic cargo. Yet the
harbor of Istarinmul had an extra odor, the vile smell of men lying
in their own filth for days on end.

The smell of the slave ships.

An Istarish war galley guarded the harbor’s entrance.
Banks of oars jutted into the water, and armed Istarish soldiers in
their spiked helms and chain mail stood ready with crossbows. A
strange metal device jutted from the ship’s flank, a steel spout
wrought in the shape of a snarling lion, connected to an apparatus
of pumps and tubes.

A spigot for Hellfire.

Caina had read of the strange elixir the Alchemists
of Istarinmul brewed in secret, the potion that once set ablaze
could not be quenched by water. The Master Alchemist Callatas had
devised the formula centuries past, and one ship equipped with a
Hellfire spigot could turn an entire fleet into an inferno. The
Kyracians had tried to conquer Istarinmul once, centuries ago, and
the Alchemists had turned their fleet to ashes. Istarinmul stood
between the Empire and Anshan, yet Hellfire insured that the
Padishah’s capital had never fallen its stronger neighbors.

And fed the rumors that the Master Alchemists ruled
Istarinmul in truth, with the Padishah as their puppet.

But the galleys remained motionless, and Captain
Qalim’s ship docked at a stone quay.

Caina went to her cabin, retrieved her heavy pack,
and set foot in Istarinmul for the first time.

The docks were chaos, but ordered chaos. Rows upon
rows of stone quays lined the harbor, lined with ships loading and
unloading goods. Everywhere Caina saw carts rumbling back and
forth, saw heaped crates and barrels. Men in gray tunics labored to
move barrels and crates, and she realized they were slaves, likely
owned by whatever magistrate oversaw the harbor.

She saw hundreds of the slave porters. Thousands of
them.

So many slaves.

The anger burned through her again, struggling
against her apathy. For a moment Caina stood motionless, caught in
the grip of rage and pain. She had lost the man she loved, she had
lost her teacher, and she had been banished from her home. Now she
was in this miserable city built upon the backs of suffering
slaves, and there was nothing she could do for them. She had been
sent to rebuild Istarinmul’s Ghost circle, the eyes and ears of the
Emperor in the city, but what use would that be?

Gods, what use would any of it be?

For a moment Caina thought of veins, the weight of
the throwing knives in her belt…

No.

She started forward, walking further into
Istarinmul’s docks.

She wore a man’s clothing, boots, trousers, and a
heavy leather jerkin, sword and dagger at her belt, her pack slung
over her shoulders. Her hope was that the disguise would let her
pass unnoticed, but she saw that was a false hope.

The beggars saw to that.

Hundreds of them lined the street. Some were missing
arms and legs, veterans of the fighting in the Argamaz Desert. Some
had the look of peasants driven from their lands to seek their
fortunes in the city. Others were old, their faces marked with
brands. Slaves who had grown too old to work, put out by their
masters to die in the streets. She wanted to help them, but she
dared not. If she gave a beggar a single coin, the rest would swarm
her, and she might well be robbed and killed.

So she kept walking, trying to ignore their pleas.
Fortunately, there was a great deal of traffic upon the street, and
she was just one more face in the crowd, another ragged Caerish
mercenary dusty from travel.

And then she felt the faint tingle of sorcery.

Caina stopped, surprised. A cart nearly ran her over,
and she sidestepped, ignoring the driver’s outraged curses. At the
age of eleven, half her life ago, a necromancer had murdered
Caina’s father and wounded her with sorcery. Ever since then, Caina
had been able to sense the presence and intensity of arcane
forces.

And she felt sorcerous power now. Faint, but it was
there.

She turned, and saw one of the beggars staring at
her.

He was an old man of Istarish birth, his hair white
and wispy, his bronze-colored skin scored with a thousand lines. A
steady tremor went through his limbs, and the muscles of his neck
twitched and danced. He looked sick, and Caina doubted the poor man
would last another week.

Yet the faint aura of sorcery came from him.

And his eyes were…wrong.

They were blue. Most men of Anshani and Istarish
descent had brown or black eyes, but there were always exceptions.
Yet this man’s eyes were a pale, ghostly, blue. The color of flames
licking at the bottom of an iron pan.

No one had eyes that color.

The old beggar looked at Caina, his eyes
widening.

“Who are you?” said Caina in Istarish, remembering to
keep her Caerish accent in place.

“Wraithblood,” he whispered.

“Wraithblood,” said Caina. “That is your name?”

“Wraithblood,” said the old man. “Coins. Give me
coins. I will buy the black blood again. And then I shall see my
wife and sons and my daughters. They all died so long ago. I can…I
can tell them I am sorry. I can…coins.” He raised his wasted hands,
as if to paw at Caina’s legs, but they dropped into his lap.
“Coins. I will buy wraithblood. Buy the black blood.”

“What happened to you?” said Caina.

“I…I do not remember,” said the old beggar. “The
blood…the blood takes away the pain. I…I think…”

His strange eyes grew huge, and he shied against the
wall.

“I can see you,” he whispered.

“Of course you can,” said Caina. “I am right
here.”

“The shadows,” said the beggar. “I can…I can see all
the shadows. So many shadows! They are following you! All the
shadows!” He began to weep. “Don’t let them hurt me, please, don’t
let them…”

“I won’t hurt you,” said Caina. “I…”

“Here, now,” said a gruff voice. “What is this?
Begging is illegal.”

Caina turned, and saw a stout man approaching. He was
about twenty-five, and unlike the slaves and the beggars, he looked
well-fed. He wore gleaming chain mail beneath a jerkin of black
leather, and a scimitar rested at his belt. A steel badge pinned to
his jerkin showed a hand holding a coiled, thorn-studded whip.

The sigil of the Slavers’ Brotherhood of
Istarinmul.

This man was a Collector, one of the Brotherhood’s
lowest ranks, a hunter who ranged about seeking new slaves for the
Brotherhood’s markets.

Or one who kidnapped solitary foreigners from the
docks.

Such as Caina.

“His eyes,” said Caina.

“Eh?” said the Collector, surprised. “What about
them?”

“Is he sick?” said Caina.

“What?” said the Collector. “No, he’s addicted to
wraithblood.”

“What is wraithblood?” said Caina, watching for the
Collector’s associates.

“A drug,” said the Collector. “The poor and other
such vermin prefer it. Apparently it gives visions of dead loved
ones and other such rot. Eventually it drives its users insane and
turns their eyes blue.” He swept a thick arm over the street.
“You’ll see hundreds of them here. The Padishah ought to have them
killed and spare honest men the stench.”

“Indeed,” said Caina. The Collector was looking at
her with barely concealed greed. A plan, hard and cold, came
together in her mind. “Which way to the Cyrican Quarter? I’ve
messages to deliver.”

“Why, right that way,” said the Collector. “Head up
the street with the warehouses and take a right turn at the public
fountain. You will come to the Cyrican Bazaar shortly.”

In between her frenetic exercise sessions and
throwing knives at the mast, Caina had taken the time to memorize a
map of Istarinmul. The Collector’s directions were wrong.

Likely leading her into a trap.

“Thank you,” said Caina, and she left without another
word.

She counted to twenty, and then glanced over her
shoulder to see the Collector hastening away, no doubt to warn his
friends.

The old beggar stared at her, his strange eyes full
of terror.

Caina looked over the other beggars and saw many like
the old man, their eyes transformed to that pale blue color.

And from every one of them she felt the faint hint of
a sorcerous aura.

Strange. Very strange. But Caina had more immediate
concerns at the moment.

She turned the corner and walked down the street
lined with warehouses. It was deserted at the moment.

The perfect place to make a foreigner disappear into
a slaver’s inventory.

Caina considered for a moment, then went to one of
the warehouses. The masonry was rough, and she found ample
handholds and footholds. A moment later she climbed to the roof,
and jumped from warehouse to warehouse, taking care to avoid the
skylights.

No one ever looked up.

She jumped to the last warehouse, dropped down, and
crawled to the edge of the roof. The street ended in a square
surrounded by three towering, rickety tenements of whitewashed
brick. A small fountain occupied the center of the square, and the
place looked deserted.

Save for the four men in black leather jerkins
waiting there. One of them carried a net, and another a set of iron
shackles. Their plans for Caina were clear enough. Likely they
planned to sell her to the mines, or perhaps to the fighting
pits.

She felt a flicker of grim amusement as she imagined
their reaction once they learned they had kidnapped a woman. Caina
was not unattractive, and she knew how to dress and carry herself
to appear pleasing to the eyes of men, but the massive scar across
her belly would keep them from selling her to some nobleman’s
harem. Likely they would sell her as a kitchen drudge or a domestic
servant, and such slaves commanded far lower prices than strong
backs for the mines.

Well, she would inflict far more serious
disappointments upon them before the day was done.

Caina crawled back along the roof and peered through
one of the skylights. The warehouse below was deserted, and stored
massive heaps of bulging sacks, lashed in place by rope nets. After
a moment’s examination, Caina realized that the sacks held rice.
The plantations of Istarinmul grew coffee and fruit and olives and
many other things, but the Istarish themselves ate a great deal of
rice.

Enough rice to pile it in sacks twenty feet high.

Caina dropped through the skylight and landed on one
of the piles, a puff of dust rising from her boots. She scrambled
down the net to the floor, and examined the knots for a moment.
Then she drew her short sword and went to work, cutting ropes here
and there. She stepped back, nodded in satisfaction, and after a
moment’s thought hid her heavy pack behind another one of the
piles.

She was going to have to run very quickly, and she
did not want it slowing her down.

Then she went out the front door, making sure to
leave it open behind her.

Caina walked the remainder of the street and into the
square. She ought to feel frightened, she knew, but she felt
nothing but an icy indifference. Though she did feel anger.

Quite a lot of it, now that she thought about it.

She took on more step into the square as the
Collectors moved toward her.

“Welcome,” said the Collector she had spoken with
earlier, smiling as he raised a club. “You’re going to come with
us. Put down your weapons and come quietly. If not, well…you’ll
fetch just as high of a price with a few bruises.”

Caina made an expression of terror come over her
face, and then spun and ran for the rice warehouse.

“Take him!” roared the lead Collector, and the men
sprang after her.

They were fast. Which made sense, since they
kidnapped people for a living. Caina head the crack of leather as
two of the Collectors unfurled whips, no doubt to entangle her legs
and pull her down.

But she had a head start, and she dashed back into
the warehouse.

And as she did, she yanked a dagger from its sheath
and slashed through the remaining rope holding the massive stack of
rice sacks in place.

The Collectors ran through the door after her.

“You’re just making it harder on yourself,” said the
leader, grinning. “I am going to…”

Right about then the twenty-foot stack of sacks
collapsed, and two or three tons of dry rice fell upon the
Collectors.

The sheer force of the impact drove one man to the
ground with such force that his head cracked against the hard
floor. The other three men disappeared as dozens of forty-pound
rice sacks fell upon them with bone-cracking force. Caina heard
limbs snap, heard the Collectors scream. One man clawed his way
free, and Caina cut his throat before he regained his feet. Another
was trapped beneath three sacks, screaming in pain, and Caina put
him out of his misery.

The lead Collector staggered to his feet, his left
arm hanging at an odd angle. He turned towards Caina with a furious
curse, but she seized his left arm and twisted. The Collector fell
with a scream of agony, and she kicked him in the gut and sent him
sprawling. He tried to stand, but she put her boot on his broken
arm and he went rigid.

“Who are you?” whispered the Collector.

“Why did you try to take me?” said Caina.

“The…the Brotherhood,” said the Collector, “they’re
buying slaves right and left.” His words tumbled out in a terrified
rush. “It…it ought to flood the market, but the prices keep going
up and up. I’ve never seen anything like it. It…it wasn’t personal,
I just need the money…”