Ghost in the Pact (27 page)

An empty crystalline vial, the kind Alchemists used to store their most potent Elixirs. 

Callatas began to glow, both to Caina’s physical eyes and the vision of the valikarion, golden fire burning through his veins and beneath his skin. He stood up with a growl, his face a rictus of agony. 

He had just swallowed a vial of Elixir Rejuvenata, made from the mingled ashes of unborn children and a phoenix spirit. 

“Get back!” shouted Annarah. “Get away from him!” 

Kalgri sprinted to the north, watching over her shoulder. Caina considered charging Callatas, hoping to kill him before the Elixir finished, but realized that it was too late. The Elixir was working its power, and any wounds she dealt to him would be healed at once. That, and the release of power from the Elixir would kill her.

So she ran towards Annarah and Morgant, staggering. The pain in her head was making it difficult to keep her balance. She stumbled to a halt next to Morgant, and Annarah caught her wrist.

“Caina,” said Annarah. “What…”

Callatas threw back his head and screamed, and golden fire erupted from him. 

Caina and the others were a safe distance away, yet she still felt a faint tremor go through the ground, a massive thunderclap ringing in her ears. A blast of hot wind washed over the beach, knocking her back a step, and a pillar of golden fire exploded from where Callatas had been standing, shooting a hundred yards into the air. The fire ripped out from him for twenty yards in all directions, and the nearby trees caught flame. The sorcerous power of the unleashed Elixir roared over Caina like a wave of needles, her skin crawling and tingling, and she squinted her eyes against the glare. 

The golden fire faded away and finally winked out. A circle of sand twenty yards across had been melted to glass, and fires danced in the jungle. Callatas stood at the center of the smoking circle, breathing hard. His robes were intact, though still torn and stained with blood from Caina’s dagger blows. Likely the spells armoring his robes had let them survive the release of power. 

Callatas himself was…younger.

The Grand Master looked like a man of twenty, his shoulders unbowed, his skin unlined, his hair and beard black as night. The Elixir Rejuvenata restored youth and vitality, stealing them from the ashes of the unborn children mixed into the Elixir. Callatas seemed utterly bewildered and exhausted, and he fell to his knees, leaning on the Staff for balance. The Staff and the Seal and the Star had come through the explosion unharmed. Caina suspected it would take far more to even begin to damage the relics. 

The Elixir had healed all of his wounds. But the Grand Master was dazed, and Caina still had her ghostsilver dagger. More than that, she doubted that Callatas had carried more than one vial of the priceless Elixir with him. 

This was their last chance.

“Now!” shouted Caina. “Take him!” 

She sprinted for Callatas, Morgant running next to her, Annarah hurrying behind them. Callatas looked at them, blinking his gray eyes, but he remained dazed. Caina wasn’t even sure that he saw them. 

A dark blur shot over the top of Callatas’s head and landed in front of him, the melted glass crunching. Kalgri straightened up, a gleeful smile on her face and the dark fire of her nagataaru shining in her eyes.

“Caina, Caina, Caina!” said Kalgri, laughing in triumph. “The stormdancer isn’t here to save you today!”

She shot forward, weapons blurring…and then froze in place as arcane power blazed around them. Caina flinched, or tried to, and then realized that the same power held her fast. She could still turn her head, and saw Annarah and Morgant frozen in place. 

Gods, but her head hurt…and Caina had seen this spell before. 

“No,” rasped Callatas, staring at the jungle. 

A man in a pristine white robe stood at the edge of the beach.

Except, of course, he hadn’t been a living man for a very long time. 

His expression was serene, his hair jet-black, his dark eyes lined with kohl makeup. The man looked Anshani, yet his brown skin had a strange golden tinge, one rarely seen after the Moroaica had brought ruin crashing down upon the heads of the Great Necromancers. He wore a simple white robe bound at the waist with a white sash, and the top of his robe was far enough open to show an expanse of muscular chest. In his right hand he carried a heavy bronze dagger with a forward-curving blade, and upon his feet he wore unadorned leather sandals.

His feet were floating a few inches off the ground. 

But Caina knew that the man wasn’t really here. This was a projection spell, albeit one of sufficient power to allow the projection to cast spells and manipulate physical objects. Now that she was a valikarion, Caina could see the immense skill and power in the projection…skill and power that could have only come from a Great Necromancer of Maat. 

Kharnaces looked at them, and the purple fire of the Harbinger pulsed through his dark eyes. Dark shapes moved in the trees behind him, and nearly a hundred undead baboons loped forward, pausing at the edge of the jungle. Caina heard the clatter of damaged armor as the undead Immortals moved forward. 

“Ah, I see,” said Kharnaces at last, his voice deep and musical and calm. He spoke the high tongue of ancient Maat, and Caina understood it now, thanks to knowledge Kharnaces had shoved into her skull during their last meeting. “My wayward pupil and my chosen instrument have both returned! And as one of the accursed valikarion, no less. Indeed, even I did not foresee this. Yet the paths of fate are ever crooked. Yes. Let me look at you.”

Kharnaces glided forward, the white robe stirring in the wind. He stopped between Caina and Kalgri, and scrutinized Caina for a moment. His face remained serene, but she felt the furious malice of the creature lurking behind those dark eyes.

“How astonishing,” murmured Kharnaces at last. “A valikarion returned to the world, after I thought my wayward pupil had rid me of those vexing troublemakers. I feared this might happen, once the stormdancer confronted my shadow in the center of your mind.” 

“Maybe there are other dangers you should beware,” said Caina in ancient Maatish. The words felt strange and heavy upon her lips, and her head would not stop throbbing. 

“No,” said Kharnaces. “There are no dangers left for me. My plans have been fulfilled, if not in quite the way I planned. All is in readiness, and soon our diseased and blighted world will perish as it should have done long ago.”

He turned away from Caina, gliding towards Callatas. At last Callatas seemed to recognize the danger. He scrambled backwards, trying to regain his balance, but failed to stand. He started to gather power for a spell, but Kharnaces flicked a finger, collapsing the spell before Callatas could finish it.

“My wayward student,” said Kharnaces. “At last you have returned to me, bearing the relics of lost Iramis. Of course, the relics are as useless as Iramis itself, and the key to my victory flows through your veins.”

“No!” said Callatas, trying to stand again. “I shall save humanity, I shall make it better, I shall make it perfect…”

Kharnaces sighed, the gentle sound a teacher disappointed in a student. 

“There is nothing to be saved in humanity,” said Kharnaces, gliding to a stop next to Callatas. “There is nothing perfectible in humanity. Nothing worthwhile or honorable or noble. Mankind is simply a disease that blights the world. The nagataaru shall make the world clean once more.”

“No!” said Callatas, trying to rise. Again Kharnaces flicked a finger, and a psychokinetic burst knocked the Grand Master to the smoking ground. “You will…”

“It took longer than I expected,” said Kharnaces. “The loremaster concealing the regalia here proved an effective stratagem. But, in the end, you returned to me. Did I not foretell that you would?” He beckoned, and Callatas floated into the air, still clutching the Staff of Iramis. “You of all men should have realized the truth. You cannot stop me. You cannot avert this. You can only acquiesce.”

Kharnaces pulled back Callatas’s left sleeve, and dragged the curved dagger along the inside of his arm. Blood welled up from the cut, and Kharnaces slid the dagger back and forth over the wound, coating the blade in the blood of the Grand Master. 

“Stop,” said Callatas. “You do not understand, you…”

“Behold,” said Kharnaces, lifting the bloody dagger before Callatas’s eyes. “The final instrument. The catalyst that shall finish the Conjurant Bloodcrystal and summon Kotuluk Iblis. You do a great service, though you know it not.” 

“Kharnaces,” said Caina, her mind racing. “Callatas is possessed by Kotuluk Iblis. Does that not mean you must obey him?” 

Kharnaces glanced at her, his expression calm, but she saw the purple fire and shadow snarling in his eyes. 

“You do not understand, valikarion,” said Kharnaces. “Perhaps you are incapable of understanding. The valikarion would never have understood. They spent too much time trying to save what could not be saved.”

“Enlighten me, then,” said Caina, trying to think of a plan through the agony in her head. 

“The nagataaru shall devour our world,” said Kharnaces. “It is inevitable. The Court of the Azure Sovereign has been scattered and imprisoned, and there are none left to defend the world. This world is doomed, but there are many ways in which the death blow could land. Kotuluk Iblis, in his wisdom, has permitted his vassals to compete for the death of humanity.” He gestured at Kalgri. “The Voice advocated one path. The Harbinger advocated another. Yet the Harbinger’s victory was also inevitable. For I am the Harbinger and the Harbinger is me, and I am also Kharnaces, and no foe has ever stood before me.”

“Except, of course,” said Caina, “when the other Great Necromancers imprisoned you here.”

Kharnaces went every still, and the purple fire blazed around his eyes like a forge. Sorcerous power snarled in the air around him, and for an instant Caina thought that she had pushed him too far. 

Yet the purple fire dimmed, and the eerie calm returned to Kharnaces’s face. 

“As I said, the valikarion are incapable of understanding,” said Kharnaces. “Perhaps you shall understand in the glorious moment when the nagataaru descend from the skies and cleanse the world of humanity.” A flicker of the insane rage went through his eyes once more. “And as for the other Great Necromancers…they and the Kingdom of the Rising Sun are ashes, and I am still here.” 

He floated away from Callatas, who slumped against the Staff, his forehead resting against it. Kharnaces glided to the jungle, and as he did, hundreds of the undead baboons poured out of the trees, joining the undead Immortals. Hundreds of the dead things encircled Caina, Annarah, Morgant, Callatas, and Kalgri, hundreds of purple-burning eyes gazing at them. 

“My final punishment for your perfidy, my wayward pupil,” said Kharnaces, “is that you shall not live to see the glorious advent of the nagataaru. You shall not live to see humanity wiped from the face of the world like dirt from a mirror. Instead, you shall die here, upon this beach, and you shall know final failure.”

Kharnaces disappeared into the jungle, and the undead things waited. Caina struggled against the bands of power holding her motionless. She wondered if the nagataaru would kill them at once, or wait until the spell ended for greater sport.

Her answer came a moment later when Kharnaces’s spell winked out, and Caina could move again. The undead Immortals and baboons surged forward, and Caina set herself, hoping to cut down at least one of them before they took her…

Callatas shouted, and golden fire erupted from him. It passed through Caina and the others without harming them, but pushed back the nagataaru and their undead hosts. A ring of golden fire twenty yards across encircled Caina and the others, holding the undead at bay. The baboons raked at the ring of pale fire, and the Immortals hammered at it, but none of them could break through. 

Caina took a step towards Callatas, and the Grand Master’s gaze met hers.

“If you kill me,” he rasped, “the spell ends, and we all die.”

His eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out upon the ground. 

Caina looked at him, at Kalgri, and then at Morgant and Annarah.

“Well,” said Morgant, “now what?”

She started to answer, and then pain exploded through her skull, her vision turning crimson. Caina felt herself falling, felt herself hit the ground, still hot from the firestorm of Callatas’s Elixir. She heard Annarah shouting, but could not make it out the words.

The last thing Caina saw was Kalgri grinning at her. 

Chapter 15: A Second Pact

A long, long time later, Caina’s eyes slid open.

Her eyelids felt like lead, her mouth dry and gritty, her head pounding. She had been hungover once in her life, and this felt much worse.

“Oh, thank the Divine,” said Annarah’s voice. “Thank the Divine. She’s awake.”

Caina groaned, sat up, and looked around. 

She would rather have been hungover.

Night had fallen, but Callatas’s ring of golden fire cast a gentle glow over the beach, and upon the hundreds of undead baboons and Immortals waiting of the ring. Annarah knelt next to Caina, her expression tired, while Morgant stood nearby, his scimitar and dagger in hand. Callatas lay upon the ground, his chest rising and falling. Kalgri sat cross-legged in front of him, calm and relaxed, her hands resting palms-up upon her knees. The Red Huntress looked for all the world like a meditating priestess, but Caina had no doubt that Kalgri’s attention never wavered.

“Aye, she’s awake,” said Morgant, “but let’s hope her brain didn’t turn to mush.” He leaned closer to Caina, still looking at Kalgri. “Who am I?”

“An obnoxious braggart,” said Caina, scowling, rubbing at her temples. “What happened?” 

“The netherworld,” said Annarah. “You went to the netherworld. You reshaped the terrain with your mind, did you not?”

Caina nodded, which was a mistake, because it didn’t help her head. “Yes. How did you know?”

“The terrain of the netherworld is psychomorphic,” said Annarah, “but because of the unique abilities of a valikarion, you can manipulate it to a far greater degree than even a powerful sorcerer. Yet this is a dangerous ability, because it puts an immense strain upon the mind…”