Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (35 page)

Caina watched the creatures, her mind racing. The nagataaru could sense when living mortals were nearby, but they could not sense a valikarion. Caina had exploited that to great use on Pyramid Isle. Could she do the same thing with the winged creatures? They had physical eyes, so they could see her, but if they couldn’t sense her…

As one, the winged creatures folded their wings and landed on the deck of the
Sandstorm
. 

A half-dozen corsairs died in the first second, their throats torn out by the claws of the winged creatures. Murat bellowed a command and charged, his cutlass flashing, and the corsairs followed with ragged shouts. Annarah leveled her staff and cast a spell, and a shaft of white fire ripped across the nearest creature. It staggered, wings coming up like a shield, and Morgant attacked it, black dagger and scimitar flying. The black dagger bit deep into the creature’s neck, and it collapsed to the deck, its body shrinking into the shape of a gaunt, emaciated old man with eerie blue eyes. 

Caina yanked the valikon from its scabbard and joined the fray, the curved ghostsilver blade burning with white fire as it reacted to the nagataaru around them. One of the creatures came at her, slashing its claws. It was fast, as fast as Kalgri had been when she drew upon the Voice’s power. 

But like Kalgri, the creature recognized the deadly danger of the valikon, and it recoiled from the white-burning blade. Caina thrust at the creature, and it retreated a quick step, raising its wings around it like a shield. 

That was a mistake. The leathery flesh of the wings shielded the creature from the valikon’s edge, but it also blocked its vision, and Caina suspected the creature hadn’t realized what she really was. She whirled to the side, drawing back the valikon, and the creature turned, lifting its wings as it hunted for her.

Caina buried the valikon to the hilt in the creature’s gleaming back, the blade sinking between its ribs. The Apotheosis might have made the creature stronger and faster than human, but its heart was in the same place, and the valikon found it. The creature shuddered as the white fire of the valikon destroyed the nagataaru, and as Caina ripped the blade free, the winged shadow shrank to an emaciated, sad-eyed old man who collapsed dead to Murat’s deck. 

A wave of guilt went through Caina. The old man had been helpless and likely insane, and she had killed him…

No. Callatas had done this. 

Callatas had addicted the poor man to wraithblood, and Callatas had transformed him into a monster. This was Callatas’s doing, and unless Caina could stop him, a lot worse would happen. 

Murat’s corsairs had recovered from their shock, and under his bellowed commands, fought back against the winged creatures. Annarah’s spells and Morgant’s blades aided the defense, shafts of white fire ripping from Annarah’s pyrikon to burn the creatures, while Morgant slashed and thrust and stabbed, leaving a trail of emaciated corpses in his wake. 

Caina darted behind one the creatures, using its own wings to conceal herself, and drove her valikon into its back.

As it collapsed, she rushed to join the fight. 

###

Morgant cut down another creature, his dagger slicing through its throat, and stepped back as it shrank into another wraithblood addict. 

His breath came hard and fast, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, his shoulders and arms aching with strain. For all their size and immense strength, the creatures were so fast he had a hard time staying ahead of them. It reminded him of fighting the Huntress upon the beach of Pyramid Isle. 

Except this time, instead of fighting a single Huntress, he was fighting an army of them.

Only three things had kept him alive and kept the creatures from ripping apart the corsairs and smashing the
Sandstorm
to splinters.

First, the fires of the Words of Lore drove the creatures back. Whatever spell Annarah used caused the creatures tremendous pain, and they recoiled from her fire. She put the spell to good use, whipping the shafts of fire back and forth across the deck. The fire left the ship untouched and passed through the corsairs without harming them, but the creatures recoiled from the fire, keening in pain as it touched them.

Second, the creatures were afraid of Caina’s valikon. They couldn’t sense her, and she was clever enough to stay out of sight, using their own wings as concealment.Third, the creatures didn’t care about the
Sandstorm
. They were here for Caina.

Morgant was sure of it. Certainly, the winged things didn’t hesitate to cut down the corsairs when the opportunity presented itself, but they weren’t really trying to attack the
Sandstorm
. They were looking for Caina. They ignored the corsairs to go after her. Callatas must have sent his new pets to kill her. Not surprising, given how spiteful the old sorcerer was. 

Caina, of course, saw it, and ran back and forth, stabbing with her short valikon whenever she seized an opening. She managed to kill a half-dozen of the creatures, their corpses shrinking down to the emaciated form of wraithblood addicts, but step by step they were pushing her back. They might not be able to sense her, but they could see her well enough, and the nagataaru could communicate without speech. Once enough of them had eyes upon her, the winged creatures would coordinate and kill her. 

Then Caina stumbled, and one of the creatures whirled, its wing catching her across the face and chest, and the impact sent her stumbling back, the valikon dropping from her hands to clang against the deck.

She hit the railing and clawed for balance. 

###

In a single, horrified instant, Caina felt the railing slam into her hips, felt her momentum carry her backward. She heard Annarah shout something, heard the cries of the corsairs as they fought against the new humanity, and Caina tried to seize the railing.

She was too slow, and she fell off the deck and into nothingness.

Caina was shocked by how fast the
Sandstorm
seemed to recede above her. The buffeting of the wind spun her around, and she saw the Alqaarin Quarter racing towards her at terrific speed. She would strike one of the streets in the Alqaarin Quarter and burst apart like a melon thrown from a rooftop. 

Odd that the end had come so suddenly. 

There would be no time for regret, for guilt, for loss. Caina just had time to wish that she had been able to see Kylon once more. The nagataaru spirits streaked past her, hurtling towards the ground, and behind her, the massive storm cloud surged forward as the djinn of the Court rode to war against their eternal enemies. The ground shot towards Caina…

And then it stopped.

Caina blinked in surprise. 

All the color drained away from the world, leaving everything in shades of gray and black and white, much like one of the pencil sketches in that little notebook Morgant carried in his coat. 

Caina felt no surprise whatsoever when she turned her head and saw Samnirdamnus standing next to her, his feet resting upon the empty air. 

This time, the djinni wore the form of Kylon, at least as Kylon had looked on the day of the battle of Marsis, armored in leather and a sword of storm-forged steel in his right hand, a sea-colored cloak streaming from his shoulders. The smokeless fire of the djinn burned in his eyes, but somehow it seemed hotter and more intense than before. 

“My darling demonslayer,” said Samnirdamnus in his sardonic voice. “Here we are at last.” 

“The final seconds of my life, you mean?” said Caina. 

“Perhaps,” said Samnirdamnus. “You may think of it that way if you like. I look at it differently.”

“Then how do you look at this moment?” said Caina, terror and surprise giving way to bewilderment. 

“The moment,” said Samnirdamnus, “that I have been working towards for a century and a half. The moment where all destinies are in flux and all fates are uncertain. The reason I have been looking for you.”

Caina felt a chill. He had asked her again and again if she had been the one he had been looking for…

“What do you mean?” said Caina. 

He kept speaking, almost as if he had not heard her. 

“I knew it from the moment you entered my sight,” said Samnirdamnus. “So full of pain and rage, yet valor as well, the ability to face grave danger without flinching. You had killed the Moroaica and stopped her great work, and not even the loremasters of Iramis had been able to defeat her. The Moroaica had even possessed you for a year, and she could not overcome you. Yes. How could I have doubted? You were indeed the one I needed for this moment. And after one hundred fifty years, the moment has come.”

“What moment?” said Caina. 

“The shadow,” said Samnirdamnus. “The shadow the wraithblood addicts saw around you. Have you not realized what it is?”

Caina’s chill worsened. “Annarah thought it was a…a portent of a future event, like an omen, a shadow cast backward over my destiny thread…”

“She was entirely correct,” said Samnirdamnus, “though lacking in details. Specifically, the shadow was cast backward from a moment in time. From this moment, this exact moment, and the decision that you make here and now.”

“A decision?” said Caina. 

“Yes,” said Samnirdamnus. “Because you are the one I have been looking for, Balarigar.”

Caina felt her mouth go dry. “Why have you been looking for me?”

And for the first time since Samnirdamnus had appeared in her dreams during that first awful night in Istarinmul, the Knight of Wind and Air gave her a straight answer.

“Let me enter your mind and body,” said Samnirdamnus, “just as the Moroaica entered you and the Sifter entered you. That is why I have sought you out.”

Caina blinked. “You want to…possess me?” A wave of revulsion went through her, just as it had when she had learned that the Moroaica’s spirit had been trapped inside her body. “You went to all this trouble just for a mortal host? That’s ridiculous. Why…”

Samnirdamnus’s sardonic smile never wavered. 

“No, no, it’s not that simple, is it?” said Caina. “I can be possessed…but I can’t be controlled. The Sifter possessed me, but it couldn’t control me. Not even the Moroaica could control me. Why would you be any different?”

Samnirdamnus spread his hands, Kylon’s cloak rippling behind him. “Why would I wish you to be any different?” 

“But you would be trapped inside my mind and body,” said Caina. “You couldn’t access any of your power.”

“I could not,” said Samnirdamnus, the sardonic smile widening, “but you could. Freely, too.”

Caina’s chill worsened. 

“I am the Knight of Wind and Air,” said Samnirdamnus. “The wind and the air are mine to command. The smokeless fire of the djinn is mine to command. Or it would be yours to command, once I inhabit you.” 

“No,” said Caina, her revulsion boiling over. “I don’t want that kind of power. I…”

“I know that very well,” said Samnirdamnus. “Do you not understand? You are exactly what I needed. A mortal I could possess, but I could not control. A mortal who could wield the power of the Knight of Wind and Air without the restrictions Callatas placed upon me. And a mortal who loathes sorcery and arcane power with every fiber of her being…and, therefore, would not abuse my power once it is in her hands.”

Caina stared at him. “The shadow…that’s what it is, isn’t it? My own shadow. My own shadow, cast by the smokeless fire of the djinn and flung backward through time.” 

“You understand at last,” said Samnirdamnus. 

He was asking something enormous of her. 

He was asking that she become a creature like Kalgri, like Malik Rolukhan or the new humanity, a hybrid fusion of human and spirit. The thought filled Caina with profound revulsion, as if she had looked into the mirror and seen the dead black eyes of the Moroaica staring back at her from her own face.

Or, worse, the sneering expression of her own mother. 

Samnirdamnus wanted her to become a creature like…like…

Like Mazyan, come to think of it. 

The djinn of the Court of the Azure Sovereign were powerful and alien and inscrutable, but they were not malevolent, not like the nagataaru. They were not the enemies of mankind, but they were the bitter foes of the nagataaru. 

“What if I refuse?” said Caina at last. “I could refuse.”

“Of course, you could refuse,” said Samnirdamnus. “I never compel anyone to do anything, do I? If you refuse, you will die in another three seconds when you strike the ground, Callatas will destroy Istarinmul, and the nagataaru of Kotuluk Iblis will kill every living thing in your world.” 

“And if I accept?” said Caina.

The eyes of smokeless flame brightened. “Then the future is unknowable. But we shall have a reckoning with our enemies, you and I. For we indeed share the same enemies, do we not? Truly, that is a better bond than any friendship or kinship.” 

Caina let out a quiet laugh. “Morgant was right about you. Beyond all doubt, you are the most skilled manipulator I have ever met.” 

His smile flashed like a knife. “That is why we get along so well. You are just like me, my darling demonslayer. We are both agents of the shadows. You are the Ghost circlemaster, and I am the Knight of Wind and Air…and the offices hold the same function.”

“Then let us come out of the shadows,” said Caina. “Do it.” 

“So be it,” said Samnirdamnus, and he walked through the air towards her.

Suddenly Caina knew why the djinni had chosen the form of Kylon. 

He leaned forward, seized the back of her head with his free hand, and kissed her hard on the lips. 

And as he did, he dissolved into a cloud of smokeless flame, fire that plunged into Caina’s mouth and nostrils and eyes. The fire spread through her, and as when the Sifter had tried to possess her, she felt as if molten metal had been poured into her veins. The fire of the Sifter had struggled against her, but this fire wrapped around her, and as it did the world shifted around her.

She felt the air around her as if it was an extension of herself, sensed the fury of the djinn as they charged at the nagataaru.