Ghost in the Cowl (6 page)

Caina blinked.

But Ulvan had only just become a Master Slaver, and was holding festivities to celebrate his ascension.

Festivities that had included hiring Master Cronmer’s Traveling Circus Of Wonders And Marvels, who would undoubtedly perform inside Ulvan’s palace. 

An idea rattled in Caina’s mind. 

“What are you thinking?” said Damla, looking at Caina with trepidation, and perhaps a tiny glimmer of hope. “I could go to the Court of Debts, tell the hakim that Ulvan forged the Writ…”

“No, don’t bother,” said Caina, tapping the rolled Writ against her palm. “The magistrates will side with the Brotherhood, and even if you find a hakim immune to bribery, Ulvan will just hire the Kindred to have him assassinated. No, we’ll have to do this ourselves.” 

“How can we help ourselves?” said Damla, shaking her head. “The Brotherhood is strong and wealthy and we are not.”

“The roof,” said Caina.

“The roof?” said Damla. “How will that help get my sons back?”

“I need to go to your roof, now,” said Caina.

Damla gave a resigned shrug and led the way. They went to the third floor, and up a wooden ladder to the roof. It was flat, as were most of the rooftops in Istarinmul. A good fact to know – in a pinch, the rooftops might make for a convenient avenue of escape. In the distance she saw the spires of the Golden Palace and the crystal-topped white towers of the College of Alchemists, the palaces of the wealthy spread out around them.

“Ulvan’s palace,” said Caina. “Do you know where it is?”

Damla shrugged. “All men know where the slavers live.” She pointed at a part of the city south of the Golden Palace. “In the Masters’ Quarter. All the masters of the Brotherhood keep their palaces there.”

Caina nodded. “Have you heard of the Inn of the Crescent Moon?”

“Of course,” said Damla. “It is just across the Bazaar that way.” She pointed. “The cooks there make good bread, and sometimes I supply them with coffee beans.”

“Good,” said Caina. 

“What does that have to do with my sons?” said Damla.

“Follow me,” said Caina. “And I am going to have to borrow some of your clothes.”

“What?” said Damla, bewildered. 

But Caina was already moving, and Damla had no choice but to follow. She climbed back down the ladder, returned to Damla’s bedroom, and opened the wardrobe.

“You’re about my height,” said Caina, looking inside. “Your clothes should fit. Wider in hip and bust, but I’ll just look underfed. Oh, you’ll need to change, too.”

“Why?” said Damla, still bewildered.

“Because it is known that Damla of the House of Agabyzus is a widow,” said Caina, “and it would be helpful if no one recognizes you.”

“You are…going to wear my clothing,” said Damla.

“Well, I’ll need a disguise,” said Caina, taking off her coat.

Damla took a quick step back. “Is that what this is, Master Marius? You are forcing yourself upon a poor widow in her hour of trial. Villain! I…”

Caina pulled off her shirt and dropped it upon the floor, and Damla’s tirade stopped as her mouth fell open.

“You,” she said at last. “You are a woman.”

“Yes,” said Caina, using her normal voice as she selected a blue robe.

“Your voice just changed,” said Damla. “How…how did you do that? Are you a sorceress?”

“It’s just a stage trick,” said Caina. “I learned it from an opera singer a few years ago.” 

Damla half-sat, half-fell on the edge of the bed. “You were a woman. The entire time.”

“Yes,” said Caina, discarding her boots and trousers and donning the blue robe, making sure to tug the loose sleeves over the throwing knives strapped to her forearms. “A useful disguise. A woman of my age can draw attention when she travels. Which is often an impediment to my business. So it’s easier to disguise myself as a man. No one pays attention to one more ragged courier.” She pulled a matching headscarf over the black stubble of her hair. It fit well, no doubt because she had cut off all of her hair. 

Damla considered this in silence for a moment. Caina scrutinized herself in a cloudy mirror tucked into one of the wardrobe’s doors. She looked the part of an Istarish woman. A bit paler than most, true, but many Caers and Nighmarians had settled in Istarinmul over the centuries. 

“A woman the entire time,” said Damla with a shake of her head. “Who are you? Really?”

Caina hesitated. “If I told you, it might put your life in danger. And the lives of your sons.”

“I know,” said Damla. “Agabyzus often answered questions the same way. You’re one of the Ghosts of the Emperor of Nighmar as my brother was, are you not?” 

Caina said nothing for a moment, and then offered a single nod. 

“Oh, the Living Flame preserve me,” said Damla, rubbing her face. “Agabyzus died for the Ghosts, you know. I don’t know how. He and some of his friends disappeared in the riots after the war.” She looked at Caina. “How did he die?”

“I don’t know,” said Caina, wondering how Damla would react. She had not expected Damla to realize that she was a Ghost, but the older woman was no fool. “Every last Ghost in Istarinmul disappeared about a year ago. We assumed the Teskilati did it.”

“The Teskilati,” said Damla, “if they knew you were here, that you were staying under my roof, they would have me arrested, dragged before the Court of Treason, and the Grand Wazir would order my execution before the day was done.”

Caina saw Damla wavering.

“The same Grand Wazir,” said Caina, “who will not lift a finger to save your son? The same Grand Wazir whose magistrates would only shrug if you proved the Writ of Servitude was false?” 

Damla sighed. “True. I suppose…I suppose I must turn to anyone who will give me aid. Even a Ghost, assuming you’re not just a madwoman.”

“I likely am,” said Caina, “and I cannot tell you who I really am, but I will tell you this. I have done this before. I have freed slaves. I have done things, Damla, and seen things I cannot forget. I have been to the netherworld twice, and lived both times.” Though Corvalis had not. “I stopped a madman from using his pyromancy to burn Rasadda to ashes. I was at Marsis when the Istarish and the Kyracians attacked, and I saw their stormsingers call down the lightning. I have seen the fire in the heart of the Tower of Study in Catekharon, and I saw the souls of living men bound to suits of sorcerous armor. And I was there when the golden fire began in the sky over New Kyre.”

There was a long silence. 

“By the Living Flame,” muttered Damla. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you? Or at least you think you are.”

“I promise you this,” said Caina. “If it is in my power to find a way to save Bayram and Bahad, I shall.”

“So be it,” said Damla. “I place myself in your hands, Ghost. It seems I have little choice in the matter.”

“But I warn you,” said Caina. “We shall likely have to do some strange and dangerous things before this is done, and we could both be killed.”

“I will do anything to save my sons,” said Damla.

“Good,” said Caina, drawing another robe from the wardrobe. “You can start by changing clothes.” 

Chapter 6 - The Circus Master

A short time later they stood outside the Inn of the Crescent Moon.

“Who are all these people?” said Damla. 

Caina adjusted the leather satchel she carried, the strap digging into her shoulder. 

“They are,” she said, “Master Cronmer’s Traveling Circus Of Wonders And Marvels.”

Caina had stayed in more inns that she could remember, and the Inn of the Crescent Moon, despite its Istarish architecture, looked a great deal like many other middling inns she had visited. It stood five stories tall, with the usual whitewashed walls and arched windows of Istarish buildings, though mosaics of gazelles and lions ornamented the doorframes. A wide courtyard surrounded the inn, ringed by a low stone wall.

Currently, Master Cronmer’s Traveling Circus Of Wonders And Marvels filled the courtyard to capacity. 

Caina had not expected there to be so many of them.

Captain Qalim’s vessel had been large enough for many passengers and cargo, but Caina had been so wrapped in her own misery that she had failed to notice. She rebuked herself. She was about to go into deadly danger, and failure to notice a single critical detail could mean her death. 

Or, worse, that she would not find a way to free Bayram and Bahad. 

So she looked over the Circus’s assembled performers.

She saw jugglers tossing balls into the air and catching them. In one corner acrobats practiced, men and women spinning through elaborate tumbles. A group of men dressed in the ragged finery of clowns applied makeup, the paint transforming their faces into elaborate and comic caricatures. At least, they were supposed be comic. Caina had always found clowns rather unsettling. 

Her mother, of course, had loved them.

Some cages held exotic beasts – Anshani grass lions, hulking tusked pigs, and an enormous six-legged lizard that gazed truculently at the clowns, perhaps considering them as a meal. A pair of men jumped through a giant ring, and Caina realized that it would be set aflame during the actual performance. An acrobat performed a roll before the lizard’s cage and got to his feet with a dramatic flourish, only to look disappointed when no one noticed. 

She did not see anyone with throwing knives. That was a good sign. 

“This is indecent,” muttered Damla.

“What, the circus?” said Caina. Damla might have a point – the circus masters liked to dress their more attractive female performers in very little, and the gods knew the performers often stole anything that wasn’t nailed down.

“This,” said Damla, gesturing at the yellow robe and headscarf that she wore. “I am a widow, and I have only been widowed two years. It…it is not decent. It does not…it does not honor my husband’s memory.”

Caina opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it as she thought of Corvalis. 

“I understand,” said Caina. “Better than you can imagine. But the best way to honor your husband’s memory is to keep his sons from growing up in chains.”

“Yes, you are right,” said Damla. She took a deep breath. “What do you need me to do?”

“Let me do the talking,” said Caina. “Follow my lead. Our story is that we are sisters. Your name is Nuri, and mine shall be,” she thought for a moment, “Ciara.”

“Sisters?” said Damla. “We look nothing alike.”

Caina made herself smile. “We’ll say Father developed a taste for Istarish women.”

Damla snorted. “Amusing enough. Well, I have no other choice, so let us see this madness through to its end. I hope you know what you are doing.”

“As do I,” said Caina, and headed for the courtyard gate.

Damla froze, going rigid, and Caina saw a pair of men heading towards them. Both looked worn and ragged, their clothing in tatters, their unshaven faces marked with dirt and grime.

And both had the pale, eerie blue eyes of wraithblood addicts.

She felt the faint tingle of the sorcerous aura around them. 

“A few coins,” wheezed the man on the left. “Just a few coins, pretty ladies, so I can see the dreams again, the sweet dreams of the past…”

“I can see them,” rasped the man on the right “The dead children, I can see them again. Coins, coins, so we can buy the blood and drink…”

Damla took a step back. “I don’t have any money.”

“Be off,” said Caina, “before the watch finds you. They don’t like beggars in the Cyrican Quarter.” 

Both beggars stared at her.

And their eyes grew wide with fear.

“The shadows,” one whispered, and the second bobbed his head in agreement. “The shadows, the shadows.”

“So many shadows,” said the second beggar.

“They are following you,” whispered the first, his eyes wide with terror. “Spinning around you like a storm, like dancers in masks and cloaks.”

“To you,” said the second beggar. “All the shadows are pointing to you.”

“I don’t understand,” said Damla. “What do they mean?”

“Nothing,” said Caina. “They’re raving. Pay them no mind.”

Yet their words chilled her nonetheless. The old man at the docks had said almost the same thing. What did they see when they looked at her? Wraithblood was clearly sorcerous in nature, and if she survived the next few days, Caina resolved to learn more about it. Perhaps it altered the sight of its users somehow, permitted them to see sorcerous auras. Caina idly wondered what her own aura looked like – scarred by Maglarion’s spells, marked by her yearlong possession by Jadriga’s spirit and her twin journeys into the netherworld. 

Or perhaps the two beggars were simply raving. 

“Here, now! Be off with you!” Two footmen in the ornate red and blue robes of the Inn of the Crescent Moon strode towards them. “Leave honest women alone, you rats!”

The beggars turned and fled.

“Thank you, sirs,” said Caina. “I feared they might turn violent.”

The older of the two footmen scowled. “The wraithblood drinkers? Aye, best to take care around them. Most are harmless, just babble nonsense all day. But sometimes they go berserk and try to kill everyone they can see.” He started to spit, looked at Damla, and thought better of it. “You shouldn’t be out without your husband or your father. It’s not safe, not these days.”

“Actually, we shall be safe enough, since we have you to guard us,” said Caina. “My sister and I have business at the Inn with Master Cronmer.”

The footman scowled. He had the look of a veteran, and Caina suspected he did not approve of circuses. “Aye, madam, he is in the Inn. Somewhere.”

“Thank you,” said Caina, and she led the way across the street and into the courtyard. Around them the chaos of the Circus reigned. A juggler and an acrobat bellowed at each other, using curses and insults from at least three languages. 

“I wonder how the Circus could afford to stay here,” muttered Caina. 

“Likely Ulvan paid for it,” said Damla. “When a slaver ascends to the ranks of the cowled masters, it is a great affair. No expense is spared in the celebration and the festivities. Otherwise the new-made cowled master shall be thought cheap.”

“Yes, wouldn’t that be a tragedy,” said Caina. 

The footmen at the doors bowed and pulled them open, and Caina stepped into the Inn’s common room, Damla following. It looked a great deal like the common room of the House of Agabyzus, though more ornate. Each table had its own gleaming brass lantern, with more hanging from the high ceiling. A balcony of polished wood encircled the room, and the floor had been worked in an elaborate mosaic showing a pair of Istarish noblemen hunting tigers in the Kaltari Highlands. A dozen foreign merchants sat throughout the room, eating their lunches while scowling bodyguards stood watch. 

A pale, Nighmarian-looking man walked past, clad in a bright red coat. He was handsome in a gaunt sort of way, and mumbled to himself as he walked.

“Pardon,” said Caina. “We are looking for Master Cronmer. Do…”

“Master Cronmer?” said the red-coated man. “Master Cronmer? You call that conniving scoundrel a master?” He thumped his chest. “He does not deserve the title! I, Vardo, am the master of all beasts!”

“Indeed?” said Caina, raising her eyebrows.

“Truly!” proclaimed Vardo. “Why, the fiercest lion turns to a purring kitten beneath my ministrations. The wild pigs follow me with devotion, like puppies trailing after a child. Vardo is the lord of the animals, and if he wished it, he could raise an army of lions to conquer Anshan itself.” He spread his arms and struck a pose. “Can you not see Vardo as the Shahenshah of all Anshan?”

“No,” said Damla. 

“How did Master Cronmer wrong you?” said Caina.

“He would not buy Vardo the elephant.”

“An elephant?” said Damla.

Her incredulity made no impact on Vardo’s enthusiasm. “Yes! Yes! Precisely! You, too, my beautiful Istarish rose, you see this most grievous injustice! We perform to honor some emir or slave trader or another. Imagine his wonder, his delight, when Vardo rides into his courtyard on the back of an elephant. And the tricks Vardo would teach to that elephant! Ah, have you ever seen an elephant balance upon two legs with a ball spinning upon his trunk?”

“I confess that I have not,” said Caina. For that matter, she had never seen an elephant. 

“Then your life is deprived,” said Vardo. He stooped over Caina’s hand and planted a dry kiss upon her knuckles. “You are…Szaldic, yes? Vardo can always tell. There are many lovely women in Istarinmul, but you pale women of the north are fair as well. Come with Vardo, and though you may not see the elephant, you shall see something just as magnificent.”

“I’m sure,” said Caina. Damla started to draw herself up in outrage, but Caina spoke first. “But perhaps I should speak with Cronmer and complain of this egregious offense?”

“Yes! Yes!” said Vardo. “If you complain, then perhaps Cronmer will see the wisdom of Vardo’s words. Cronmer is in the back. Though beware of his wife. She is not a lovely rose of Istarinmul.” 

As if the thought of Tiri had unnerved him, Vardo fled from the common room. 

“I can see,” said Damla, glaring after him, “why you disguised yourself as a man.”

“It has its advantages,” said Caina. “But he told his ‘pale Szaldic rose’ where to find Cronmer, did he not? This way, I think.”

Caina walked through the kitchens, ignoring the surprised glances of the slaves and the freeborn cooks, and stepped into the Inn’s rear courtyard. The stables stood here, housing the Circus’s donkeys and carts. Master Cronmer himself sat upon a barrel, drinking a cup of coffee and squinting at the sky. His wife Tiri stood talking with a pair of female slaves in gray robes, though her eyes turned to Caina and Damla at once.

This was the hard part. Caina was reasonably sure Cronmer and Tiri would not recognize her. But if they did, Caina would have to think of another plan. 

Actually, compared to what lay ahead, this would likely be the easy part.

“Master Cronmer?” said Caina. 

Cronmer took a sip of coffee, grunted, and looked up at her. “Eh? Ladies?” He rose and smiled in the slightly condescending way older men often did with younger women. “I fear you have fallen in with a band of disreputable rogues.” A faint frown went over his craggy features for just a moment, as if he could almost but not quite recognize Caina. “Your virtue is at stake. Best you turn and flee.”

“Do not mind him,” said Tiri, not looking up from her conversation with the slaves. “He is all bark and no bite.”

“Woman!” said Cronmer. “You are undermining my authority.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Though I do not think you have come here to listen to my wife and I repeat the same argument we have had for the last twenty years.” 

“I’ve come to you about work,” said Caina. 

“Oh?” said Cronmer, taking another sip of coffee. “Well, I suppose the Circus could always use another dancing girl or two.” Damla bristled, but Cronmer did not seem to notice. “You’re both a bit skinnier than we would prefer, but I could find you a costume and see if you pass muster. My wife would have the final say, but…”

“Actually,” said Caina, “I’ve heard you need a knife-throwing act.” 

“Really.” Cronmer’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Who told you that?”

“My brother Marius,” said Caina. “He met you on a ship, when he finally arrived from New Kyre.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Cronmer, snapping his fingers. “I thought I had seen you before. You look just like Marius, you know.”

“Mother always said so,” said Caina.

“And just who are you?” said Cronmer, looking at Damla.

“Nuri,” said Damla. 

“My sister,” said Caina.

Cronmer grunted. “No family resemblance there.”

“Half-sister,” said Caina. “Apparently Father liked Istarish girls.”

“A man of good taste, then,” said Cronmer, glancing at his wife. “Well, Marius was right. I do need a knife thrower. He is more than welcome to speak to me in person, but I will not negotiate with his sisters.” 

“Not him,” said Caina. “Me.”

Cronmer raised one eyebrow. “You? A little slip of a girl? You cannot be more than fifteen.”

“Twenty-five,” lied Caina. 

“Thirty-two,” said Damla. Caina suspected she was also lying.

“Well,” said Cronmer, “I’ve no doubt you played at throwing knives with Marius, but there is a difference, an entire world of difference, between throwing knives at a few bushes and throwing them before a cheering crowd. Or jeering, if you miss. Or laughing, I suppose, if you accidentally cut off a finger. Istarish audiences do like their blood.”

“I suppose you are right,” said Caina. And there was a massive difference between throwing knives for entertainment and killing a man with a thrown blade, but no need to tell Cronmer that. “Alas, I fear you are wrong about one thing, Master Cronmer.”

“What’s that, then?” said Cronmer, looking back at his wife. No doubt he wanted Caina to go away so he could go about his business. 

“Marius didn’t teach me to throw knives,” said Caina. “I taught him.”

That caught Cronmer’s attention. It also caught Tiri’s. She said something to the slaves, and they scurried back into the Inn. Tiri crossed to join her husband, tapping one finger against her lips as she examined Caina and Damla.

“Well, wife,” said Cronmer. “It seems young…what did you say your name was?”