Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (13 page)

She stared at him for a while. The eyes of smokeless flame did not blink.

“Why?” she said at last. 

“Come with me,” said Samnirdamnus, “and I shall show you.” 

“Why not just show me here?” said Caina.

“Because I cannot,” said Samnirdamnus, Morgant’s face displaying a crooked smile. “You are a valikarion now. I cannot enter your mind without your invitation.” He gestured at the House of Kularus around them. “Nor can I take your vision elsewhere without your consent.”

“What will you show me?” said Caina.

“What you need to see,” said Samnirdamnus.

“And that is?” said Caina, folding her arms over chest.

“The truth,” said Samnirdamnus. 

She hesitated. A very large part of her did not trust the djinni. She knew Samnirdamnus had his own agenda, had known it from the beginning, yet she still was not certain what that agenda was, save that they shared an enemy in Grand Master Callatas. 

And yet…he had done nothing to make her mistrust him. Far from it, in fact. His counsel, his subtle hints, and his clues, had set her upon the right path more than once. He had arranged for Kylon and Morgant to find the tools Kylon needed to save her life at Rumarah. 

“Did you want me to become a valikarion?” said Caina. “Was that why you helped me? Because you foresaw the possibility that I might become a valikarion, and you wanted the aid of one?”

“It was not,” said Samnirdamnus. “The potential was there, of course, but that was only one of several possible outcomes. No. I thought you were the one I sought because you were the Balarigar. Because you defeated and slew the Moroaica herself.” The mocking smile widened. “Because the Moroaica possessed you for a year.”

Caina frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?” 

“The Moroaica, the Herald of Ruin, the Bloodmaiden, the Queen of Crows,” said Samnirdamnus. “Perhaps the most powerful mortal wielder of arcane force your world ever produced. The Kingdom of the Rising Sun was the most powerful empire in your world’s history, and she shattered it to dust. Not even the Iramisian loremasters could overcome her. All that power…and she couldn’t control you. She could not make your mortal flesh her own. Just as the Sifter learned to its sorrow.”

“That’s why you were looking for me?” said Caina. “Because I could be possessed, but not controlled?”

“Yes,” said Samnirdamnus. “Now. Do you wish to see the truth?” 

“Very well,” said Caina. “Show me.”

“Come with me,” said Samnirdamnus.

She stepped out of the House of Kularus and into the Desert of Candles. As she did, she felt a searing sense of dislocation, as if that single step had covered some unimaginable distance. The moan of the wind picked up, tugging at the skirts of her gown and the tails of Samnirdamnus’s black coat. The Desert rippled and folded around her.

Suddenly she stood in the netherworld, the colorless grass hissing around her. She turned in alarm, reaching for her valikon, and the sword appeared at her belt. Caina drew the short sword, its silvery blade burning with white wrath in the netherworld.

“There is no need to fear,” said Samnirdamnus. “At least, not yet. This is still only a dream. Behold.” He gestured at the black, rippling sky overhead. “Behold the truth. I warn you…the sight is rather daunting.”

Caina looked towards the sky, the valikon burning in her fist. 

As she did, the black clouds rolled back like a giant scroll, and she saw…

She saw…

Eternity.

Infinity. 

The cosmos.

A billion times a billion worlds scattered across a billion times a billion stars, and each of those worlds held nations and civilizations and empires, far more than she could ever hope to comprehend. Caina glimpsed cities of shining crystal or cities built in great caverns below the sea and cities clinging to the sides of mountains, more than she could imagine.

She gasped in wonder and stepped back, turning in a circle as she tried to take in the enormity of the sight.

And as she did, she saw the nagataaru. 

Billions upon billions of nagataaru spirits. 

Countless epochs of history blurred before her eyes in a single instant of terror and blood. The nagataaru moved from world to world, waiting until one of the mortals on that world was foolish enough to invite them inside. Then they feasted, swarming over the world in a tide of darkness and blood and purple shadow, leaving nothing in their wake. Caina glimpsed countless dead worlds, their forests burned to ash, their oceans boiled to dust, their cities smashed to rubble, the bones of their people lying bleached in the sun, a mausoleum for the civilizations that had dwelled there. The nagataaru moved like an endless swarm of locusts, gorging themselves upon pain and misery and death.

But they were hindered.

Armies of smokeless flame struggled against the nagataaru in titanic battles, driving them away from world after world. The hosts of the Court of the Azure Sovereign battled the nagataaru in a war so old that Caina’s mind could not comprehend the number, a war without end.

The strange vision faded. 

“The truth,” said Samnirdamnus, and Caina tore her gaze from her sky. The djinni had resumed Halfdan’s form. “The purpose of the Court of the Azure Sovereign is to defend the mortal realm from the nagataaru, a purpose given to use by the Divine at the uttermost dawn of eternity. Sometimes we are victorious. Sometimes we are not. Of late we have known more and more defeats, for the Azure Sovereign has been weakened, and the armies of our Court have been scattered. And now, in our weakened state, the nagataaru come for your world.”

“You’re a spy,” said Caina, her mind working. “You told me that yourself.” 

“I am the Knight of Wind and Air,” said Samnirdamnus. 

“I suppose that is what the djinn call their spies,” said Caina. “Kotuluk Iblis and the nagataaru are coming here. This is going to be your battlefield. So…you came ahead. To make preparations. Like a spy sent into a neutral city when two armies are about to clash outside its walls.” 

“A battlefield,” said Samnirdamnus. “Yes. Behold.”

He gestured again, and the netherworld rippled around them. Caina knew for a certainty they were in the region of the netherworld outside of Istarinmul. Again she saw the shimmering echo of Iramis, burned into the sky by the power that Callatas had unleashed, and the echo of the Moroaica’s rift, the rift that Cassander had exploited in his plan to destroy Istarinmul. The strange familiar objects floated in the air, the trees and the statues and the stairs that went nowhere.

The vast horde of the nagataaru blotted out the sky.

Caina had seen them before when she had escaped from the Maze with Nasser, and again when she had gone into the Inferno to rescue Annarah from the netherworld. Countless nagataaru filled the sky with shadows and purple fire, and Caina remembered the immense terrible thunder of the voice of Kotuluk Iblis. 

“They are waiting,” said Samnirdamnus. “They need only for Callatas to finish his Apotheosis, to create his new humanity, and then they can enter and feast.” 

Caina remembered the dead worlds she had seen, remembered the nagataaru descending upon them like wolves. For a moment she imagined the same thing happening in Istarinmul and Malarae, saw Damla and Agabyzus and Ark and Theodosia and all her other friends perishing as the nagataaru devoured them, saw Kylon fall with his valikon broken in his hand.

“No,” said Caina, her voice hard and sharp as a knife blade. “How do we stop them?”

“My darling demonslayer,” said Samnirdamnus in that familiar, sardonic drawl. “You know quite well how to stop them. Defeat Callatas. Defeat him and break his pact with Kotuluk Iblis. Only then will your world be saved.” 

“All right,” said Caina. “But if it escaped your notice, I’m trapped on Pyramid Isle at the moment. Unless I find a way off the island, there is no one to stop Callatas.” 

“You know how to escape Pyramid Isle,” said Samnirdamnus.

“Do I?” said Caina.

The mouth below the burning eyes smiled. “You have known since the very first day we spoke, since the moment you sailed into the Cyrican Harbor for the first time.” 

“Fine,” said Caina. “Helpful as ever.”

“You know the laws that bind me,” said Samnirdamnus. “Though consider this. You are the one I have sought since Iramis fell. When the time comes, call for the Knight of Wind and Air, and I shall come.”

“And what time is that?” said Caina.

“You will know,” said Samnirdamnus, “when the hour strikes.”

The dream dissolved into blackness around her.

###

Caina blinked her eyes open. 

She pushed against the ground and sat up, wincing at the stiffness in her muscles. The last several weeks had been an endless succession of fighting and running, and it was starting to catch up to her. Still, she felt less tired than she had earlier. It was still dark out, the stars blazing overhead, yet the sky was starting to lighten to the east. Annarah lay asleep a few yards away, while Morgant stood guard near the stairs. He had his notebook open and propped against his left forearm while he scribbled away with his right, and Caina wondered how he could see well enough to draw in the dim light. 

The memories of the dream buzzed through her thoughts. 

The day she had come to Istarinmul…

How was the key to escaping Pyramid Isle in that?

Morgant turned. “Sleep well?”

“No,” said Caina.

“Ah,” said Morgant. “Dreams, then? Did the Knight of Wind and Air trouble your rest?”

“He did,” said Caina, not bothering to deny it. Morgant was too observant to fool, and Samnirdamnus had appeared to him in the past. 

“Did he have any useful advice?” said Morgant. “He likes to talk, but sorting the useful advice from the empty words takes some doing.”

“I know,” said Caina, rubbing her forehead. “He said I learned the way to escape Pyramid Isle during my first day in Istarinmul.” 

She remembered that day, though it was cloaked in a haze of grief. She had drunk herself senseless in the Sanctuary of the Ghosts. She had met Damla and Sulaman for the first time, little knowing how significant that meeting would prove. A group of Collectors had tried to kidnap and sell her into slavery, and she had killed them all. 

“A typically useless answer,” said Morgant. “If you asked him whether the sun rose in the east or the west, he would respond with some poem about the ocean…”

“The ocean,” said Caina, blinking.

No. Damla and Sulaman hadn’t been the only ones she had met on that day, had they? She had met Cronmer and his circus for the first time aboard the ship she had taken from New Kyre. Caina had also seen an Istarish war galley for the first time that day, guarding the Cyrican Harbor. Istarinmul’s fleet was puny compared to the Kyracian fleet or the Imperial fleet, but the Istarish had Hellfire, and…

“Oh,” said Morgant. 

“What?” said Annarah. She had woken up, blinking her eyes. “What is it?”

“Our clever little Balarigar’s just had an idea,” said Morgant. “You can see it her face. I wonder if she has the exact same expression when the Kyracian rips off her clothes and throws her down on the…”

“Shut up,” said Caina, partly out of annoyance, but mostly so she could concentrate. Istarish ships used Hellfire, but one amphora of Hellfire could consume a wooden ship within minutes. The Istarish ships employed an elaborate pumping mechanism to spray bursts of Hellfire at their foes, keeping the dangerous elixir well away from their ship.

Suddenly Caina remembered some of the strange things she had seen in the trophy room of Kharnaces.

“I know how we can get past the nagataaru,” she said.

Chapter 8: Spycraft

Night fell, and Kylon strode towards the walls of Istarinmul, the valikon secure in its sheath. Nasser had offered to find him a dark cloak, but Kylon had refused the offer, instead making sure that he had no metal visible on his person, nothing that could reflect light to the watchers on the walls. He wouldn’t have minded a shadow-cloak, though, but Caina was the only person he knew who had one and she was far away. Perhaps if they all lived through this, he would ask her for one, and the thought of how the Kyracian Assembly would react if they knew that a former Archon was wearing a Ghost shadow-cloak brought a flicker of amusement to his mind. 

But only a flicker.

There was work before him, and he might have to kill someone the sun rose.

He missed Caina. Not just because he loved her, and not just because he desired her, but because she was a lot better at this kind of thing. Still, Kylon of House Kardamnos had always tried to do his duty. He had often failed, and the Assembly had banished him from New Kyre for his failure at the Tower of Kardamnos. But now the lives of everyone in the world were at stake, and he would do his duty, or die in the attempt.

Fortunately, the abilities of a stormdancer gave him an edge. Caina had used her skills as a Ghost to become a master thief, terrorizing the cowled masters of the Brotherhood of Slavers. Kylon supposed a stormdancer would make an astonishingly effective thief. He could scale any wall and outrun any pursuers. 

Right now, he hoped a stormdancer would make an effective spy. 

He circled to the west, staying out of bowshot of the walls. Erghulan Amirasku, whatever his failings, knew how to organize an effective defense. Every one of the watch towers was manned, and as he reached out with the sorcery of water, Kylon sensed the vigilance of the men within the towers. He also detected the harsh aura of Hellfire within the towers, chained within their sealed amphorae. The Alchemists’ dangerous weapon made Istarinmul all but impossible to take by storm, so long as the walls were competently defended.

Kylon kept walking and soon heard the crash of the sea against the jagged breakers and stony beach south of the Cyrican Harbor. Attempting to enter the city through the Harbor would have failed. Istarish warships guarded the entrance to the Harbor, and while Kylon was a good swimmer, he doubted he could have evaded them. 

But here, between the beach and the Harbor, the guard upon the walls was lighter. A large force could not maneuver on the rocky ground, and the wall was too high for most infiltrators to climb.