Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 08 - Ghost in the Mask (32 page)

She pushed her hands together, as if squeezing a sponge, and the awful force tightened. 

Behind her, the earth elemental collapsed with a rumbling roar.

Maena staggered, hands flying to her temples in pain. The force holding Caina vanished, and she fell in a heap to the ground. Talekhris must have shattered the spells upon the earth elemental, sending the broken sorcery ripping through Maena. 

It was Caina’s last chance. 

Her limbs trembling, her head throbbing, she threw herself at Maena. The sorceress shrieked a curse, and started to cast a spell, but Caina was faster. She struck Maena, driving her to the ground, and the ghostsilver dagger grew warm as it punched through Maena’s ward and sank into her belly.

###

Sicarion stopped, a frown tightening his deformed features.

Kylon saw Maena fall, sensed the backwash of power as the elemental collapsed. The battle was over, and Lord Martin’s men swept into the camp. Kylon might not be able to defeat Sicarion, but even Sicarion could not overcome so many foes.

Yet Sicarion was not looking at Maena or Lord Martin’s men.

Instead he looked at the ground outside of Maena’s tent. 

“So,” he murmured, “that’s what he intended. Very clever.” He took another step back and grinned. “We’ll see each other again, stormdancer. Very soon. If you survive.”

He fled, vanishing before Kylon could pursue.

Why had he been staring at the ground?

###

Caina climbed to her feet, the ghostsilver dagger wet with Maena’s blood, and lifted the weapon for a killing blow.

But there was no point. 

Maena’s face had gone gray, her green eyes wide with pain and fear, her gown darkening with blood. The dagger must have opened an artery or a vein inside her belly. In another few moments she would bleed to death. 

Corvalis stared down at the dying woman.

“Gods,” he said. “Ranarius. I never would have guessed.”

Maena hissed at him. “Aberon. I’ll see you dead. I’ll burn you, I’ll…”

“Do nothing,” said Caina, “since you’re in too much pain to stand, let alone cast a spell.” 

Maena opened her mouth to respond…but instead coughed out a mouthful of blood. 

“Finish her off,” said Corvalis, voice grim. “She’ll work some mischief, otherwise. Or she’ll heal herself and we’ll have to do this all over again.”

“Kill me,” hissed Maena, trembling, “kill me and the Moroaica will move my spirit to a new body.”

“I know,” said Caina. “Then you can explain to her how you failed.”

She lifted her ghostsilver dagger, and several things happened at once. 

Lord Martin strode towards them, Claudia and Harkus at his side. Claudia looked exhausted, her hair and clothing matted with dirt, but she was still alive. Behind them strode several militiamen, their eyes wary and hands on their weapons. 

“You have her, then?” said Martin. “Good. I…”

“Ghost!”

Kylon ran towards them. 

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I can feel it. There’s a spell upon the ground. It’s waiting. I think…”

“What?” said Maena.

Caina turned to answer them, and then she felt the tingle of sorcery. Not from Maena, and not from Claudia or Kylon.

But from the ground beneath her feet. 

She looked down, wondering if Maena had summoned another earth elemental.

A curved line of blue light, perhaps six inches wide, flared to life across the trampled grass. Another line appeared, and another, and another, until a strange, elaborate sigil glowed upon the earth. Caina turned in a circle, the power of the thing washing over her, and saw that the sigil of blue light enclosed the central third of the camp. 

“What are you doing?” said Caina, looking at Maena. “What is this?”

But Maena’s eyes were wide with terror, her limbs trembling as she tried to sit up. 

“I’m not,” she whispered. “I’m not doing…this isn’t mine.”

“Go!” said Kylon. “It’s about to activate. Run!”

The blue sigil flared, and force hammered into Caina.

She gasped, and would have fallen, but invisible power held her fast. She heard Maena screaming in pain, heard the shouts and exclamations from the other men. Outside the boundary of the enormous sigil, the militiamen threw down their weapons and ran. Caina tried to move, found that she could not. But she still could turn her head, and saw Corvalis and Kylon frozen in the blue light, saw Martin and Harkus and Claudia also trapped. 

A trap. Someone had set an elaborate trap for them, and both the Ghosts and Maena had walked right into it. 

She turned her head again as men strode into the camp outside the boundaries of the great symbol. Hundreds of men, clad in fur and leather armor, their faces tattooed with Maatish hieroglyphs.

The cultists of Anubankh.

A tall man in ornate black and red robes walked through them, a smile on his bearded face, a hulking figure in a kilt and a gleaming bronze mask following after him.

“Ah,” said Anashir. He came to a stop, his seset-kadahn looming behind him. “Good. You are all here. At last I can begin.”

Chapter 22 - The High Priest

“Anashir!” said Caina. She found that she could speak, even if she could not move her legs. “What is this?”

Anashir peered at her, his face ghostly in the symbol’s blue glow. “Oh, yes, the young Ghost. I must say you are as clever as I thought. Do not blame yourself for your defeat and impending death. I arranged the facts as was necessary, and you had no choice but to follow them as you did.”

“And what facts are those?” said Caina, hoping to gain time. Whatever spell Anashir had used to trap them was powerful, and surely he did not have the strength to maintain it for long. If Caina kept him talking, perhaps the sigil would start to unravel.

But the blue light remained steady, and Anashir seemed unwearied. 

“Why, the reason I wanted you here, of course,” said Anashir, a paternal smile on his face. “You see, I have many enemies, and for all my power, even I do not wish to take foolish risks.” His smile faded. “I learned that lesson long ago. I knew the Moroaica would come for the Ascendant Bloodcrystal. It was inevitable. She could no more stop herself than a man dying of thirst could stop himself from drinking a cup of water.”

“Stop herself from what?” said Caina.

A flicker of motion caught her eye. She wanted to turn her head for a closer look, but dared not take her attention from Anashir 

“From claiming the bloodcrystal,” said Anashir. “Such power would help her fulfill her purpose after so many centuries. Indeed, she has never wavered from that purpose, not in all the millennia since she left the realm of the noble pharaohs a haunted ruin. She has grown mighty, and I had no wish to face her or her minions alone.”

“And you are the one,” said Caina, “who started the cult of Anubankh.”

Anashir laughed. “Why, yes! Very good.” He sounded like a teacher condescending to praise a pupil. “You are as clever as I believe. What a useful tool you have made! A pity you are too clever to enslave permanently.”

“Then your story about Rhames, about a Great Necromancer of Maat,” said Caina, “was nothing but a fiction?”

“Almost,” said Anashir. “I had no wish to face the Moroaica alone, but neither did she have a wish to face me. I knew she would send her minions,” he waved a hand in Maena’s direction, “her filthy abominations, created through a perversion of the blessed arts of the Great Necromancers. But how best to destroy my enemies?”

He gazed at the waiting ranks of the cultists. They hung on his every word, followers awaiting the command of their god. Yet Anashir had all but admitted that he had started the cult to achieve his ends. So why did those men still follow him?

Something uneasy started to stir in the back of her mind.

And then she saw Corvalis.

He was moving, inch by painful inch, towards Anashir. A militia spear gleamed in his right hand. He trembled and twitched, but kept his feet, making his slow way towards the edge of sigil.

His tattoos. They gave him a measure of resistance to sorcery. Just enough, it seemed, to allow him to move.

And if he got close enough to throw the spear at Anashir…

Caina had told keep his attention. 

“So,” she said, “you wanted to gather your enemies in one place?”

“Indeed,” said Anashir, turning from his followers. “I knew the Moroaica would send her disciples to stop me, once she learned of my existence. And I knew the Ghosts would try to intervene as well. It is remarkable, how your brotherhood has endured over the centuries, from the Second Empire to the Fifth Empire. I knew better than to underestimate you, and that you would act to stop me if you learned of my plans. Better to strike preemptively and rid myself of your threat.”

“So you allowed Jurius and Ephaltus to take Dustblades,” said Caina.

Corvalis inched closer, a grim shadow in his hooded cloak. 

“Yes,” said Anashir. “Their attacks would almost certainly fail, of course.” From the corner of her eye she saw the rage flash across Kylon’s face. “But I knew they would draw the attention of the Ghosts, and they would be useful harbingers of the new age I shall bring upon the earth.” 

“And once we were here,” said Caina, “you drew us into a confrontation with Maena.” She could not tell if Maena was alive or dead. 

“Filthy creature,” said Anashir. “Such a thing is an abomination, moving the spirit of a man into the body of a woman. Nevertheless, the abomination was powerful, and a risk to my plans.”

“The Moroaica,” said Maena, her voice a trembling croak, “the Moroaica will stop you.”

“She may try,” said Anashir, “and if she does, I shall crush her like the cowardly spider that she is.”

Caina blinked. She had seen Jadriga’s power firsthand. The ancient sorceress was the strongest wielder of arcane force Caina had ever seen.

Yet Anashir seemed so confident. 

“I was not sure if you would serve my purposes, not at first,” said Anashir. “You had no sorcerous power, even if you managed to secure the aid of that fool Talekhris. But then I saw how you infiltrated Maena’s camp, how you escaped Caer Magia. Few could manage such a feat.”

“And since we caught your eye,” said Caina, “you decided to use us to get at Maena.”

“I did,” said Anashir. “And you have proven effective. I did not know if you would overcome the Moroaica’s pet abomination, or if the abomination would destroy you all. But it did not matter. That was not your purpose.”

“No,” said Caina. Corvalis had moved noticeably closer, but still Anashir did not notice him. Perhaps, like many sorcerers, he placed too much confidence in his spells. “No, the purpose was to gather all your enemies in one place…where you could lay a trap and destroy them all in a single stroke.” 

“Ah!” said Anashir with delight, and he clapped his hands. “A pity you have no arcane talent. You would have made a worthy acolyte and risen high in the new order.” 

“If I am so clever,” said Caina, “why didn’t I see your trap?”

Corvalis was closer now. Just a little further…

“There is no shame in that,” said Anashir. “You simply faced a superior intellect. As well might a child try to defeat a grandmaster at chess. The child may make a good showing, of course, but she is simply overmatched.” 

“And so you have all your enemies in one place,” said Caina. “What’s next? You take the Ascendant Bloodcrystal and make yourself a god, the tyrant of the earth?”

“Yes and no,” said Anashir. “Yes, I will take the bloodcrystal. But I will not make myself into a god. Such an act would be blasphemous to the true gods. Instead I shall use it to restore the world to proper order. I shall repair that which was torn asunder so long ago.”

“And that is?” said Caina.

“Alas,” said Anashir, lifting his right hand. “You will not live to witness it. None of you will. Time is pressing, and I must enter the Chamber of Ascension ere the Moroaica spins a new web. Farewell, Ghosts. Know that your deaths will bring about a new and better…”

In one smooth motion, Corvalis flung the spear.

It plunged into Anashir’s chest, the point erupting from his back. Anashir stumbled, eyes wide with shock. The seset-kadahn whirled and drew his khopesh, his bronze mask turning towards Corvalis. Caina waited for Anashir to fall, braced herself for the hulking bodyguard to charge into the sigil.

But Anashir raised his hand.

“Hold,” he said, the spear’s shaft still jutting from his chest. 

Maena started to laugh, her voice a croaking wheeze as blood bubbled from her lips. 

“A fine throw,” said Anashir. “You would have made a worthy slave, perhaps even a bodyguard for one of the pharaoh’s minor officials.” He stepped closer to the symbol’s glowing edge. The spear in his torso did not even appear to  pain him. “But a futile effort.”

“Why didn’t that kill you?” said Caina.

“A flaw in your logic, Ghost,” said Anashir, pulling the spear from his flesh. No blood marked the weapon, and he tossed it aside. “Two flaws, to be precise. First, that I can be killed. I cannot. I died a long, long time ago.”

The uneasy sensation in the back of Caina’s mind grew sharper.

“And the second?” she said.

“And the second,” said Anashir, lifting his hands, “is that you assumed Rhames is a fiction I created.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, and when he lifted them, a gleaming golden mask covered his features. The mask was identical to the one the seset-kadahn wore, save that it was fashioned of gleaming gold. 

“You were almost exactly wrong,” said Anashir. “Rhames was not a fiction I created. Anashir was the fiction.”

He pulled the mask away from his face.

Caina heard herself curse.

The face of a man dead for centuries stared at her. It was a skull covered in leathery, mummified skin, the withered lips drawn away from yellow teeth, the nose a black crater. Green flames flickered in the empty eye sockets. And yet, despite centuries of decay, Caina recognized the features.

She had seen them in a dream, on the face of the Great Necromancer Rhames as he ordered the death of Jadriga’s father.