Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (18 page)

Annarah let out a shocked laugh, and all three of them laughed. Caina supposed the smoke and the ash in the air was making them woozy, to say nothing of the immense heat. They had been in the entry hall for less than thirty seconds, but sweat poured down Caina’s face, and she realized that if they didn’t get out soon, they would pass out from the heat. 

“Faster,” she said. “Faster.”

Annarah wheezed, and Morgant coughed something that sounded obscene, but they both ran faster, the amphora bouncing between Caina and Morgant. Her hand was growing slick with sweat, and she gripped the handle tighter, grateful that the ancient Maatish potters had possessed the foresight to make the clay rough and easy to grip. 

They ran through the archway and from the Tomb of Kharnaces, returning to the jungle.

The air was hot and wet and humid, but far cooler than the superheated air inside the entry hall. The air also stank of rot, likely from the dead jungle already starting to decay in the humid air, but after the heat of the Tomb, the stinking, wet air felt wonderful. 

“Oh, by the Divine!” said Annarah, half-laughing, half-coughing. “I have never been so glad to see a desolate island.”

“Nor have I,” said Caina, looking around. The dead trees started a few yards from the base of the rocky hill. She headed towards them, slowing as she tried to catch her breath from the run through the entry hall. “Let’s get to the beach. Gods, I hope the boat is still there. I’ll swim to Murat’s ship if…”

“Caina!” shouted Annarah. 

Caina turned just as the undead baboons sprang from the slope of the hill over the entrance.

Annarah cast a spell, a shaft of white fire ripping across two of the baboons. The creatures disintegrated in mid-air, but one of them slammed into Caina, ripping the amphora from her grasp and driving her to the ground.

The baboon’s jaws yawned down, preparing to rip off her head. 

Caina slammed her open palm into the baboon’s muzzle, snapping its head back, and yanked the valikon from its sheath. The blade burst into white flame, ripping into the baboon’s side. The valikon did not bite deep enough to destroy the nagataaru within the undead creature, but the ghostsilver of the sword unraveled the necromantic spells, and the nagataaru erupted from the dead animal in hooded shadow and purple flame.

Caina pushed the dead baboon off her and scrambled to her feet, breathing hard as Morgant cut down the last of the baboons with a slash of his scimitar.

She looked for the Hellfire amphora and saw it lying broken in two a few yards away, its glowing crimson fluid leaking towards the jungle.

Even as she looked, it started to boil as it touched the air, the power within the elixir awakening.

Chapter 11: Your Chance Will Come

“Kill me,” sobbed the Padishah. “Please, kill me, before it is too late. By the Living Flame, Callatas, this is madness. Stop it and kill me before…”

Callatas ignored the Padishah’s begging and continued casting spells. 

He had already gathered a tremendous amount of power, but he needed more, far more, to work the Apotheosis. Fortunately, the Staff and the Seal made it possible to draw that power. The Staff could open gates to the netherworld and summon forth spirits, and the Seal could bind and command those spirits, but when combined they drew forth a great deal of arcane power. 

So he walked again and again around the huge mirror, casting spells into the three rings of burning golden glyphs that encircled the forming Mirror of Worlds. Callatas had designed the spells over long decades of labor and study, and they worked perfectly, interlocking like the teeth of gears. The focus of the spell would be the huge Mirror of Worlds he would create, a stable, solid gateway into the netherworld, not the massive gash that the Moroaica had ripped open and that Cassander Nilas had exploited during his treacherous attack. Empowered by the Staff of Iramis, the Mirror of Worlds would draw tens of thousands of nagataaru into Istarinmul in the first few moments, with more coming into the mortal world with every passing instant. With the Seal of Iramis, Callatas would direct the hordes of nagataaru, sending them into the waiting bodies of the tens of thousands of wraithblood addicts he had created within Istarinmul.

“Kill me,” said Nahas Tarshahzon yet again. 

The Padishah’s blood was the key to the spell. Most people who knew the truth about wraithblood assumed it was an Alchemical elixir, but they were wrong. Each vial of wraithblood consisted of thousands upon thousands of tiny bloodcrystals, the design derived from the scrolls that Callatas had studied in the Tomb of Kharnaces. The wraithblood crystals attacked the mind’s natural resistance to possession, eroding it like a stone crumbling beneath a sandstorm. All bloodcrystals required a base, a victim from whom the first crystal was grown, and the Padishah’s blood had served as the base for the wraithblood. The power in the blood of the House of Tarshahzon had made the Padishah a perfect base. Every wraithblood laboratory had started with a drop of Nahas Tarshahzon’s blood, used to corrupt the blood of the dead slaves and harvest wraithblood from their bodies.

The Padishah had asked Callatas to make him immortal. In a way, Callatas had complied. The Padishah’s blood would serve as the catalyst, the instrument that would destroy the old humanity and create the new.

And the new humanity would be immortal, strong, and perfect. They would not be like the kadrataagu, the pathetic men and women overshadowed by their nagataaru and twisted into corrupt monsters. They would not even be like Kalgri, who though she dominated her nagataaru was nonetheless a slave to her bloodlust. No, the new humanity would be a hybrid of man and nagataaru. It would be immortal and incorruptible, having no weakness to disease and no need for food. Without a need for food, there would be no need for civilization, no need for laws and customs and lords and kings, no need for property or religion or cities. The perfect, incorruptible mankind would live forever, and would slaughter the corrupt old humanity. 

And then Callatas would lead his new humanity to new worlds. He had seen the truth of the cosmos in the secrets of Kharnaces’s scrolls. Once the old humanity had been cleansed, Callatas would guide his new humanity through the netherworld and to other worlds, and they would spread across the cosmos for all eternity. 

Ultimate victory lay within his grasp. 

Callatas stepped back, breathing hard, and considered the spells blazing in the Court of Justice. 

To his mild surprise night had fallen. The day had passed while he had drawn upon his sorcery. Despite the time, he had no trouble seeing. The three rings of sigils on the ground shone with flickering golden light, filling the Court of Justice with a pale glow. Black-armored Immortals guarded the entrance to the Court, and Callatas felt their blue-glowing eyes upon him. Evidently, the display of sorcery had been enough to make even the Immortals nervous. The Padishah remained chained to his chair in the wagon, the alchemical and necromantic machine that kept him alive pumping the black poison of the wraithblood through his veins as he begged for death. 

Kalgri sat cross-legged at the base of the dais, not far from the massive mirror. Her eyes were half-closed, and she looked almost as if she was meditating. It might have fooled even Callatas, but he knew her too well, and he could sense the Voice hissing in her thoughts, urging caution and vigilance. Her lack of faith annoyed him…but again he rebuked himself. His own arrogance had repeatedly caused problems, and he would not allow it to undo him at the very moment of victory. 

If Kalgri wished to remain vigilant, she was welcome to it. 

“Kill me!” shrieked the Padishah.

“Does he ever shut up?” said Kalgri, her eyes still half-closed. 

“Not for the last several years, no,” said Callatas. The Padishah’s cries of pain were becoming annoying. Still, Callatas had endured far worse, and the dying cries of an old fool were an inconsequential annoyance. 

He sensed the approach of several men, and he turned as a group of horsemen rode into the Court, reining up as they neared Callatas. Erghulan Amirasku rode in their midst, surrounded by his remaining noble allies. His face was a proud mask, but Callatas sensed the fear and doubt there. 

No matter. Soon Erghulan would see terrors beyond his wildest dreams. 

“Grand Wazir,” said Callatas. “How goes the defense of the city?”

Erghulan glanced at Kalgri, at the moaning Padishah, and then back at Callatas. “Well enough for the moment. The rebel army has camp south of the city, just out of catapult range. So far they have done nothing of note, though I expect that will not last.”

“No,” said Callatas. “Traditionally, I imagine a defeated noble in your position would be likely to flee the city with as much gold as he could carry.” 

Erghulan’s lips thinned as the mention of defeat. “Traditionally, though, a defeated noble did not have the Grand Master preparing a mighty work of sorcery to destroy his enemies.”

A wave of contempt went through Callatas. After everything he had seen, did Erghulan really think this was a mere political dispute? The contempt within Callatas intensified. A man like Erghulan Amirasku was symbolic of everything that was wrong with civilization, with its corruptions and hierarchies and enervating weakness. 

He, too, would be swept aside with the Apotheosis.

But Callatas needed him for a little while longer. He could not defend the city and work the Apotheosis at the same time, and it would be a bitter joke that if after years of preparation he was undone by two fools like Kylon of House Kardamnos and Nasser Glasshand. 

“Traditionally, no, they did not,” said Callatas, keeping the contempt from his face and voice. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kalgri’s lip twitch, but Erghulan did not notice. “You need only to hold the city for a few days more. Once the Apotheosis is complete, we shall destroy the rebels. A few days more, and victory shall be ours.” 

“That…may be a problem,” said Erghulan.

Callatas scowled. “Why?” 

“I do not have enough men to defend the walls and man the Hellfire catapults at the same time,” said Erghulan. “If the rebels launch a single massive assault along the southern wall, they will gain the ramparts, yes. We will kill several thousand of them, but we will lose control of the southern wall and have no choice but to fall back to the Golden Palace.”

A wave of searing fury burned through Callatas. “Why not? Defend the wall and man the Hellfire catapults at the same time.”

Erghulan scowled back. “It takes time to train the crews manning the catapults. One mistake and they will blow themselves up, and they might even blast a hole in the wall.”

“Why do you not have enough trained men to manage the catapults?” said Callatas. 

“Because most of them were killed in the battle,” said Erghulan.

“Which was your fault,” said Callatas. “If you had but listened to Master Rhataban and…”

He forced himself to silence. What was done was done. He could have used the help of his most loyal disciples now, but Ricimer and Rolukhan and Rhataban were all dead, thanks to Caina Amalas and her damned allies. That woman had caused him so much trouble, and it pleased Callatas greatly to think of her trapped in the Tomb of Kharnaces, slowly dying of thirst, or ripped apart by the nagataaru-possessed baboons. 

“It is of no consequence,” said Callatas. “Do you think the rebel army is inclined to wait for you to abandon the city? If so, we need to do nothing, and the fools will stand idly by and wait for their own destruction.” 

“I fear not,” said Erghulan. “They, too, knew all about the Apotheosis.”

“Did they?” said Callatas.

“They threw it in my face during the parley before the battle,” said Erghulan. “Evidently that damned bitch the Balarigar told them all about it. Plus, Cassander Nilas’s lies have spread far and wide. They have at least some sorcerers among their number, and I presume the spells of the Apotheosis are powerful enough to be detected from a distance.”

“They are,” admitted Callatas. Erghulan, despite his many failings, was not entirely stupid. “The enemy will realize the danger and attack, hoping to stop the spells before I can complete them.”

The rebel army is in assault formation, from what our watchers upon the walls report,” said Erghulan. “I think they will risk an attack sometime tomorrow, hoping to rush within the range of the Hellfire catapults and seize a foothold upon the wall.” He grimaced. “If they get inside the walls, we are finished.”

“Fight them in the streets, then,” said Callatas, annoyed.

“We do not have enough men for such a battle,” said Erghulan. “The rebels have ten times our number. If we fall back to the Golden Palace to defend it, likely they shall seize control of the Hellfire catapults and bombard the Golden Palace to destroy your spells. Better to lose the palace instead of the entire city.”

Callatas started to say that he would first burn the city to deny it to the rebels, but he stopped himself. His wraithblood addicts were inside the city’s walls, tens of thousands of them, and most of them would die if Istarinmul was consumed in a storm of Hellfire. It would do him little good to summon tens of thousands of nagataaru and have nowhere to put them. 

No. He had to keep the enemy outside of the wall, and Erghulan had to hold the city until the Apotheosis was finished. That was the only option. 

“A sortie,” said Callatas.

“A sortie, Grand Master?” said Erghulan.

“Yes,” said Callatas. “Most of the soldiers who escaped from the battle were horsemen, were they not? The nobles and their retinues.”

“That is so,” said Erghulan. 

“Gather them together and launch a sortie upon the rebel lines,” said Callatas. “Mask your approach with a volley of Hellfire amphorae. Even if the fire fails to reach any of the enemy soldiers, it will disorient them. Hit them hard, and then return to the city. That will disorganize their assault for a few days, which will give me the time necessary to finish the Apotheosis.” 

Erghulan opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated the motion, which reminded Callatas unfavorably of a landed fish. “But…Grand Master. If the sortie fails, the rebels might well gain the gate.”