Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6) (9 page)

“Your praise cheers me so,” said Nasser.

“When do we leave?” said Caina. 

“In two days, at first tide,” said Nasser. 

“Good,” said Caina, getting to her feet. “I have a few arrangements to make before we go.”

“Very well,” said Nasser. “We should gather again at the Desert Maiden in the Alqaarin Quarter in two days’ time, before dawn.” 

“I’ll go with you,” said Kylon, moving to Caina’s side. 

“Of course you will,” said Morgant. 

Laertes grunted. “Why shouldn’t he? None of us should go anywhere alone. Too many people want us dead. The Exile is a trusty fellow. Could have used a few more like him when I was in the Legion.” 

“Thank you,” said Kylon. 

“Perhaps I should introduce you to one of my daughters,” said Laertes. “I can never persuade Master Ciaran to meet them, and…”

Nasser laughed. “Should we survive our endeavors, you shall have the funds to provide ample dowries for all your daughters.”

Kylon opened his mouth, closed it again. “Would it not be a scandal for a centurion’s daughter to marry an exiled Kyracian noble?” 

“Better that than a magus,” said Laertes. “Meaning no disrespect, Lady Annarah.” 

She smiled. “In my day the Imperial Magisterium had something of a grim reputation.”

“It really hasn’t improved,” said Caina, stepping towards the door. 

For just a moment, she hesitated. Sulaman had predicted her death if she went after the Staff and the Seal, and Caina considered remaining behind. Perhaps Nasser and Annarah could do it without her help. There were so many ways Caina could die on the journey – she could fall to pirates, to storms, to the undead defenders within the Tomb. She could even die in the city, if the Teskilati or the Umbarians or some random bounty hunter caught up to her. 

Perhaps whoever had left those curved knives would find her at last. 

Yet Caina could not abandon her friends to face those dangers alone. This war might have started long before Caina had been born…but she had made it worse. She had terrorized the Brotherhood into desperation, she had destroyed the Inferno, and she had pushed Istarinmul into civil war. 

Caina had a responsibility. She had joined the Ghosts in pain and rage, and she had kept to that path to make sure others would not suffer as she had suffered, that others could have the families and lives that she never would. Caina would not turn from that path now. 

Not even at the cost of her life. 

“Ciaran?” said Kylon. He could sense her emotions, and she wondered what he detected from her. 

With cold finality, she realized that her attraction to him and her growing feelings for him did not matter, not when Caina knew that she was about to die. He had already lost Thalastre. She could not put him through that again. 

“I have some things to get ready,” said Caina. “Meet me at the Cyrican Bazaar tomorrow at noon, in the usual spot.”

She left before anyone said anything.

###

Kalgri waited motionless behind a row of barrels in the cellar of the Shahenshah’s Seat, wrapped in her stolen shadow-cloak. Nasser Glasshand’s security measures were excellent, but a man could only defend against dangers that he knew were there. Neither Nasser nor Caina knew that Kalgri had returned, that she had been following them for months. 

The Voice hissed and snarled in her thoughts, full of rage and hunger. Using the shadow-cloak blinded the spirit, preventing it from sensing the world around her. It was inconvenient, but necessary. Kylon of House Kardamnos could sense the presence of nagataaru, and he could also sense the emotions of those around him. The shadow-cloak blocked both abilities. 

They would not realize that Kalgri was there.

Until the very end, of course. 

It would be the last thing they ever realized. 

Kalgri listened to their conversation, her mind sorting through the details.

So. The Desert Maiden in two days. She knew the place. A miserable little tavern in the Alqaarin Quarter. It would be easy enough to surround, and then…

The door swung open, and Caina walked into the cellar, heading for the stairs to the common room. 

Kalgri licked her lips, her right hand coiling into a fist. 

Caina should not have left alone. 

Kalgri’s plan was working. She had watched Caina long enough to know exactly how the Ghost thought. Caina’s fear and pain were making her isolate herself, making her take unnecessary risks. Likely she had some thought of sacrificing herself to save the others. 

Kalgri would be delighted to oblige.

Then, of course, she would kill the others. She only hoped she had the chance to kill Caina in front of Kylon. How he had roared when Kalgri had beheaded his wife in front of him! The Voice had gorged itself upon her death and the death of her unborn child, and the memory of it sent a little shiver of pleasure down Kalgri’s nerves.

Soon there would be greater pleasures than that. 

First, Kalgri had work to do.

She vanished from the cellar like a shadow, making her way to the Umbarian embassy and Cassander Nilas. 

Chapter 5: Mistaken Identity

Caina spent the night alone in the Sanctuary of the Ghosts behind the House of Agabyzus. 

She did not sleep well. Nightmares flashed through her mind, recollections of deaths she had seen. Again she saw Maglarion cut her father’s throat with his glittering knife. Sicarion’s blade burst from Halfdan’s chest, her mentor’s eyes wide with astonishment. Green fire flashed, and Corvalis fell dead at her feet, slain by the Moroaica’s sorcery. Sometimes the visions blurred together, and she saw the Red Huntress, her steel mask expressionless as she drove her sword into Kylon’s throat. Caina screamed and ran to him, but the dream unraveled into mist. 

She awoke on her cot sometime before dawn, her throat dry, her head pounding. Caina sat up with a sigh, rubbed her face, and walked into the Sanctuary’s main room. It was a large stone vault, lit by enspelled glass spheres upon iron stands. Long tables held tools and supplies, and chests contained a variety of clothing Caina used in her disguises. 

She had to check in with the other Ghosts, leave them instructions in the event of her death.

The probable certainty of her death.

In a way, Caina realized, she would be saying farewell. 

She chose a blue dress with black trim, tight across the bodice but with loose sleeves for concealing knives. Her hair had grown long enough to cover her ears, and she combed it back and covered it with a blue headscarf. A black leather belt went around her waist, her sheathed ghostsilver dagger pinned to it. She put on some makeup, reddening her cheeks and lining her eyes, though she went without any jewelry. Given the mood of the city, a woman walking alone with jewelry was likely to be robbed. It would be a grimly amusing end if she challenged the Brotherhood and Callatas and the nagataaru only to fall victim to a thug who wanted to steal some earrings. 

She considered herself in the mirror, and nodded to herself. 

It was time to get to work. 

Caina would visit the Ghosts in the Cyrican Quarter first. The Cyrican Quarter and Bazaar were safe enough, and she could go there alone without too much risk of robbery. Once she met Kylon at noon, she could visit the more dangerous regions of the city in his company. Of course, she would have to stay vigilant. Given the enormous bounty upon her head, robbers were the least of her worries. 

Caina slung a satchel of documents over her shoulder, climbed the ladder to the empty courtyard, sealed the Sanctuary behind her, and headed to the street of the metalworkers. The shop of Kassan Qhoridaz, she noted with some satisfaction, was still closed. Perhaps that would keep the Umbarian spies and the Teskilati from turning their attention towards Nerina’s shop again. 

Nerina’s bodyguard Azaces opened the door at Caina’s knock. He was a towering Sarbian man, nearly seven feet tall, and wore the dusty brown robes and turban favored by the nomads of the Sarbian deserts, though Azaces almost always wore a coat of chain mail beneath his robes. The hilt of a two-handed scimitar rose over his shoulder, and for a moment he frowned at Caina, his dark face scowling. He didn’t recognize her, likely because she had spent more time around him dressed as man than as a woman. 

“Azaces,” said Caina, and he nodded. He lifted a small slate, scratched on it with a piece of chalk, and turned it to face her. 

“Greetings,” he had written.

Annarah, among her other endeavors, had been teaching the mute Sarbian warrior to read. 

“Greetings to you as well,” said Caina. “Are Nerina and Malcolm in?”

Azaces nodded, and together they climbed to the third floor of the house. Nerina’s workshop took up the entire top floor, with shuttered windows looking down upon the courtyard where Caina and Kylon had killed the Teskilati agent and the Silent Hunters. Cabinets stored an array of tools, and long tables held a bewildering array of locks, traps, and other mechanical devices. Long slates displayed scribbled equations in chalk. 

Nerina Strake stood at one of the tables, wearing heavy boots, loose trousers and shirt, and a thick leather apron, a pair of magnifying lenses dropped over her eyes as she worked upon a lock. She was a few inches shorter than Caina, thin to the point of looking gaunt, and her red hair was as unkempt as usual, though she had started growing it longer. Her husband Malcolm stood at one of the slates, sketching out a design for armor and scowling. He was a short man, but heavily muscled, so strong that Caina suspected he had a harder grip than Azaces himself. He had more gray in his brown hair and beard than his years warranted, but his imprisonment in the Inferno had not been pleasant. 

Azaces let out a grunt, and Nerina looked up, lifting her lenses. 

“Ciara!” she said, smiling. She had the eerie blue eyes of a wraithblood addict, though she had not taken any wraithblood in over two years. “Malcolm, it’s Ciara.”

“Eh?” said Malcolm, blinking. “What is it?” He spoke Istarish with the same burred accent as Morgant. “Ciara! Welcome.” He stepped forward, and Nerina moved to his side, leaning against him as she did. “It is good to see you.” 

“And you as well,” said Caina. “That Teskilati agent you saw? You won’t need to worry about him any longer.”

“Yes,” said Nerina. “The corpses upon Kassan Qhoridaz’s doorstep? I calculated nearly one hundred percent probability you had something to do with it.”

“A reasonable calculation,” said Caina. She looked at the shorter woman, trying to figure out what had changed. Then it struck Caina. Nerina was…happy. Or, at least, as happy as a woman like her could be. There had always been a core of quiet misery to Nerina, one that she had buried first with wraithblood and then with constant work. Caina wondered if she had the same core of quiet misery within her. 

“Then you killed him?” said Malcolm. “The naked men with sigils carved into their flesh were something of a surprise.”

“Silent Hunters,” said Caina. “The Umbarian Order’s assassins. They can turn invisible for one hour per day, so long as they aren’t wearing clothes.”

“That sounds uncomfortable,” said Nerina. “Also, chilly.”

“The ward plates should warn you against them,” said Caina, gesturing at the lead plates affixed to the walls. Claudia Aberon Dorius had made them at Caina’s request, and she had placed the plates at the Sanctuary and a few other vital locations throughout Istarinmul. The warding spells upon the plates shielded Nerina’s workshop from sorcerous observation. Additionally, if a Silent Hunter tried to enter the house while using his power, the ward would collapse his spell of invisibility. Of course, the Hunter could always employ his power after entering the house, but it would be noticeable if a stranger entered the house, stripped naked, and then turned invisible. “Keep an eye out for any strangers, or anyone sniffing around your two workshops. With the civil war starting in the south, the Teskilati are trying to find the Ghosts.” 

Malcolm nodded. “That occurred to me as well.”

“We shall be vigilant,” said Nerina. “I have determined an equation to discern whether or not a passing person is likely to be a spy, based upon seventeen different variables…”

“I shall trust to your good judgment,” said Caina. She looked at Malcolm and Azaces. “Also, take care not to go out alone at night. The press gangs tend to keep to the poorer parts of the city, but they make trips to the Cyrican Quarter. It would be a shame for you both to have escaped the Inferno only to wind up conscripted into the Grand Wazir’s army.” 

Malcolm and Azaces shared a look. The two men had a peculiar sort of relationship. Azaces had betrayed Malcolm, handing him over to slavery in the Inferno. But Azaces had done it at the command of Nerina’s father, and after Ragodan Strake’s murder, Azaces had loyally looked after Nerina. Now Malcolm and Azaces seemed to have become friends of a sort.

“I have a way to prevent that and to keep our secrets concealed,” said Malcolm. “I have accepted a contract to produce armor for the Grand Wazir’s men as soon as the forge opens. In fact, I have already hired apprentices and journeymen to assist with the work.”

“Good,” said Caina. “That should throw off any suspicion, and exempt you and Azaces from any attempt at conscription.” She reached into her satchel and handed Nerina a sealed scroll. “I will be leaving the city for a few weeks. If you have not heard from me in four months, open that scroll. It will contain directions.”

If Sulaman was correct, if Caina was going to die, then at least the Ghost circle would continue its work after her death. She would put Agabyzus in charge of the circle, and tell him to report to Martin Dorius and assist Nasser. Perhaps together they could defeat Callatas and keep Istarinmul from entering the war on the Umbarian Order’s side. 

Nerina blinked, taking the scroll. “Where are you going?”

“I shouldn’t tell you,” said Caina. 

“It seems probable that it has something to do with the Inferno,” said Nerina. “With the loremaster you rescued there.”

“That is correct,” said Caina. “I can’t tell you anything more. Safer for everyone that way.”