Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6) (42 page)

For an instant, Kalgri had known a flicker of profound terror.

She had killed Caina. Kalgri was absolutely, unquestionably certain of that. The wound had been mortal, and Caina’s damaged aura would not let her use Elixir Restorata. The long-forgotten religious lessons of Kalgri’s childhood had floated to the forefront of her thoughts, and for a wild moment she had wondered if the Living Flame had descended in wrath to raise Caina to life once more. 

She wondered if the Living Flame had descended in wrath to bring retribution for all of Kalgri’s many, many, many victims. 

Utterly absurd.

Yet Kalgri had not survived for so long by attacking unknown threats. The Voice had counseled retreat, and for once Kalgri was in full agreement with the nagataaru inside her skull. 

She fled.

Now she walked alone through the Desert of Candles, tossing Caina’s ghostsilver dagger to herself, the Ghost’s shadow-cloak wrapped in a bundle and tucked under her arm. 

Well. Maybe not quite alone. She sensed a flicker of life ahead. 

Just as she had expected.

Kalgri stopped, caught the dagger by the handle, and tapped the flat of the blade against her lips, thinking. 

Perhaps the time had come to tell Callatas of the Staff and Seal. Nasser Glasshand had them, and Nasser Glasshand would follow Caina’s counsel and take them to Catekharon. If the Staff and Seal fell into the hands of the Scholae, Callatas would never claim them, and the Apotheosis would never come to pass. 

The Voice screamed in rage at the thought. 

Yet Nasser would first go to Istarinmul to charter a ship. Overland travel while bearing such precious artifacts was too great of a risk. Nasser would go to Istarinmul…and when he did, Kalgri could arrange for the deaths of countless thousands. 

Callatas could have the Staff and the Seal once Istarinmul burned to ashes. Perhaps Caina would even die in the firestorm. 

Kalgri giggled a little at the thought, and the Voice hissed its approval of her plan. Of course, the nagataaru approved of anything that would kill a lot of people.  

She started walking again, strolling through the corpses.

Once the dead men had been a tribe of Istarish nomads, wiry little men in brown robes and turbans. Now they were dead. Most of them had been burned alive. A few of them had broken necks from blasts of psychokinetic force. And some of them had bled to death, their bodies missing various parts.

As if someone had harvested their organs.

Kalgri stopped when she found Cassander Nilas.

Or, at least, what was left of him. 

He wore only his trousers and boots, and his left arm was missing. His torso was now a mismatched patchwork of scars from the stolen skin and flesh he had grafted to repair his grievous wounds. The right side of his face was still handsome. The left was a hideous maze of scars, and looked as if it had been stitched together out of old leather. 

Or as if it had been rebuilt with pieces from the dead tribesmen. 

Kalgri waited as Cassander finished grafting his new arm to the charred stump of his shoulder, assembling it piece by piece from dead flesh, casting spell after necromantic spell. When he finished, it was a mismatched horror, but it was functional. Cassander let out a rasping sigh, rotating his new left arm.

His eyes fell upon Kalgri and narrowed. His right one was still blue, but the left had turned a venomous shade of orange.

“I thought,” said Kalgri, “that you might have a trick up your sleeve. Or, more precisely, a bloodcrystal. One to snatch you away from the explosion. Clever of you. Excellent foresight, really. ”

“You useless bitch,” snarled Cassander, his deep voice transformed to a snarling rasp. “You ran! See if you can run from this!” 

Fire snarled into existence around his armored right hand, the bloodcrystal flashing in the back of his black gauntlet.

“Now, now,” said Kalgri, a sword of black shadow and purple flame springing to life in her hand. The sight of it made Cassander hesitate. “Why so angry? You were successful.”

“I was almost killed,” snarled Cassander. 

“But Caina Amalas is dead,” lied Kalgri. 

Cassander stared at her, his scarred face caught between rage and curiosity. 

“The explosion wiped out your Guards and nearly killed you,” said Kalgri, “but it killed her as well. Behold.” She lifted the ghostsilver dagger. “Her blade and shadow-cloak. Trophies that you can lay before the feet of the Grand Master.”

Some of the rage faded from Cassander’s face. His spells had let him repair his injuries, stealing flesh from others to rebuild himself, but that kind of necromancy had some side effects of which Cassander was likely ignorant. At best, it induced a furious sadism, a twisting of the intellect. At worst, it caused homicidal madness. 

Either outcome promised to be enjoyable. 

“You should have warned me of the trap,” said Cassander. 

Kalgri shrugged. “I ran for my life. What more warning did you require?” She dismissed her blade of force, walked closer, and held out the dagger and shadow-cloak. “If you were too busy gloating to notice the obvious, that is upon your head, not mine.”

She saw him consider killing her, saw pragmatism win out over his newfound bloodlust. 

“Very well,” said Cassander, taking the cloak and the dagger. She located his spell-armored greatcoat, which had survived the blast, picked it up, and held it open as Cassander shrugged into it. “We will present these to the Grand Master, and see if he keeps his word.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” said Kalgri, the Voice hissing with anticipation.

“And if he doesn’t,” said Cassander, his mismatched eyes mad and gleeful, “you and I are going to kill a lot of people.”

He laughed, furious and wild, and Kalgri laughed with him.

Oh, but she was looking forward to it. 

###

In the darkness of his Tomb, Kharnaces and the Harbinger, the nagataaru within him, gazed upon the floating sphere of the Conjurant Bloodcrystal.

He was the Harbinger. The Harbinger was him, and the furious chorus of the lords of the nagataaru thundered through Kharnaces’s mind, the titanic voice of Kotuluk Iblis rising over them all. 

The Conjurant Bloodcrystal was nearly complete. It needed only a single drop of Callatas’s blood to activate. 

And soon, very soon, Callatas would come to Pyramid Isle. The Harbinger had foreseen it, and Kharnaces was the Harbinger and the Harbinger was him. 

For once Callatas returned, Kotuluk Iblis would devour this diseased world at last.

Kharnaces waited for the glorious end. 

THE END

Thank you for reading GHOST IN THE SEAL. Look for Caina's next adventure, GHOST IN THE THRONE, to appear in late 2015. If you liked the book, please consider leaving a review at your ebook site of choice. To receive immediate notification of new releases, 
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