Ghost Arts Read online

  GHOST ARTS

  Jonathan Moeller

  ***

  Description

  CAINA AMALAS is the Ghost circlemaster of Istarinmul, the leader of the Emperor's spies in the city.

  When one of her informants is murdered, Caina must act to defend those under her protection.

  But the murder might have been nothing more than bait.

  Bait in a trap to kill Caina...

  ***

  Ghost Arts

  Copyright 2015 by Jonathan Moeller.

  Smashwords Edition.

  Cover images copyright Kriscole | Dreamstime.com - Young Beautiful Girl With A Sword Photo & Zoom-zoom | Dreamstime.com - Treasury In Petra Photo & Daniil Peshkov | Dreamstime.com.

  Ebook edition published July 2015.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ***

  Ghost Arts

  The trouble began when someone murdered one of Caina’s informants.

  Caina Amalas was the Ghost circlemaster of Istarinmul, the leader of the Emperor’s spies in the city. She had rebuilt the city’s Ghost circle from scratch after the Teskilati, the Padishah of Istarinmul’s secret police, had wiped them out. Consequently Caina had eyes and ears all over Istarinmul – an emir’s factor in the Old Quarter, an apothecary’s apprentice in the Anshani Quarter, scribes in the Padishah’s Golden Palace, a pair of prostitutes in the Old Quarter, a minor emir whom Caina had saved from an assassin with a poisoned knife. Some of them knew that she was a Ghost, but most of them did not. Caina preferred to keep them ignorant, both for her safety and for theirs. The Grand Wazir of the Padishah’s magistrates had put a bounty of two million bezants upon Caina’s head, and that kind of money could turn many a man into a traitor.

  For that matter, there were countless bounty hunters who would cheerfully kill Caina’s informants for a shot at the reward.

  So when one of Caina’s informants was murdered, she was not surprised.

  Furious, but not surprised.

  The man’s name was Tradek. He was a slave, but one with a position of trust and ease in his master’s household. His owner was one of the cowled masters of the Brotherhood of Slavers, the men who provided Grand Master Callatas with the innocent victims he needed to manufacture wraithblood and work his terrible Apotheosis. Tradek was not particularly loyal to his master, and in exchange for a reasonable sum of money, every few months he shared his master’s secrets with Caina, knowledge that she had found useful more than once.

  Now someone had gotten to him.

  Caina stood in the alley where she met with Tradek, wearing the disguise of a ragged caravan guard. Tradek lay sprawled upon his back, clad in the fine gray robe and silver collar of a high-ranking household slave. His eyes stared at the sky with shock, and his robe had darkened with the blood from his cut throat. Caina crossed the alley and stood over him, anger simmering beneath her thoughts. It was possible Tradek had been murdered to lure her into a trap. If so, she would not go quietly.

  Yet the alley was quiet. No one was waiting for her, and she was alone with Tradek’s corpse. Caina looked around, hoping to find any clues that might indicate who had murdered him. A survey of the ground was useless. The hard-packed earth of Istarinmul did not keep footprints. Tradek himself had a look of terror on his face. His fingers were scratched and bloody, indicating that he had fought his killer in vain. The skirt of his robe was dusty, which meant that his killer had forced him to his knees and then cut his throat.

  Tradek had a money pouch at his belt. None of the coins within had been taken. For that matter, his silver collar would fetch a good amount of money if it was melted down and sold. Someone had strolled up to Tradek, killed him, and then left without taking anything of value.

  That made no sense at all.

  Eventually she left. Caina dared not linger over his corpse. Sooner or later the watchmen would find the corpse, and they would likely arrest anyone they found near the body. Caina spent the next week asking discreet questions of Tradek’s fellow slaves and his friends, and learned nothing useful. The man had no family, but no enemies. No one in the world wished him harm, and the only reason to kill him would be to rob him or to send a message to Caina. Yet no one had taken Tradek’s money, and none of her other informants or Ghosts had been killed.

  Then, one week after finding the body, she saw the painting.

  ###

  Caina walked past a coffee house in the Masters’ Quarter and froze in surprise.

  Istarinmul had hundreds of coffee houses. Some were little more than small rooms where the men of the local Quarter socialized. Other were larger affairs with multiple levels, where wealthy merchants gathered to conduct business. The Masters’ Quarter of Istarinmul housed the palaces and mansions of the cowled masters of the Brotherhood of Slavers, where the masters of the Brotherhood lived in luxury attended by their slaves. Sometimes the cowled masters preferred to meet with potential business partners away from their palaces, so at the edge of the Masters’ Quarter stood a small cluster of shops, including a gaudy coffee house constructed of marble. Two gray-clad slaves moved towards the front doors, maneuvering a painting in a wooden frame.

  The scene in the painting had caught Caina’s attention.

  She moved towards the coffee house. No one stopped her. She had chosen the robes and turban of an Istarish emir’s factor, complete with a false beard and makeup that made her look twenty years older, so she looked as if she belonged here. The slaves carried the painting into the common room, a gleaming expanse of marble with round tables of expensive wood and cushions of equally expensive cloth. Another slave awaited them, an irritated-looked man with a gray tunic and a carpenter’s hammer in hand.

  Caina stared at the painting.

  It showed the corpse of Tradek.

  The Istarish had grisly tastes in art to match their equally gloomy taste in epic poetry. Some of it was innocuous, like scenes of hunts or great battles from Istarinmul’s past. The tastes of wealthier emirs and merchants tended towards the decadent, with scenes of dying slaves or gladiators lying slain upon the ground. The worst were the Alchemists, who sometimes transmuted living slaves into statues of dead crystal, to stand lifeless forevermore. In that light, the painting before Caina would not have been remarkable.

  Except she had seen Tradek’s corpse with her own eyes not a week past.

  The scene was stylized, more geometric than reality, but the slave lying dead in the picture was unquestionably Tradek. He was even lying in the same pose. For a moment she looked at the painting, stunned, and then her mind caught up with her surprise.

  The answer was obvious. Whoever had killed Tradek had created this painting.

  “Carefully!” A fat Istarish man in a fine robe and turban hurried over, watching the slaves with anxiety. “I paid a large sum for the painting. More than all of you would fetch upon the auction block. Carefully, carefully.” He waved his hands with annoyance.

  “Pardon, sir,” said Caina, and the man’s eyes turned to her. “You own this establishment?”

  The man considered, realized that she was probably an emir’s factor, and decided that he did not risk offending her. “I am, sir.” He bowed. “I am Malak Lorgan, and this is my establishment, the Slavers’ Lash.”

  A charming name for a coffee house.

  “I was admiring your painting,” said Caina
as the slaves struggled to mount it.

  “It is handsome, is it not?” said Lorgan. “I like to think it will make my customers reflect upon their own mortality and the fleeting brevity of our span of years, and therefore make them purchase more coffee.”

  “My master the emir is a great admirer of such artworks,” said Caina, “and I wonder where you purchased it.”

  “From the House of Contemplation, of course,” said Lorgan.

  “I fear the name is unknown to me.”

  Lorgan offered her a patronizing smile behind his thick beard. “It is a market and museum for art, located in the Emirs’ Quarter.” Caina did have a vague recollection of an artists’ market in the Emirs’ Quarter, but she had no interest in art, so she had never visited. “There the greatest artists of Istarinmul sell their works to the high nobles and wealthy merchants of the land.”

  “Such as yourself,” said Caina.

  The insult went right over Lorgan’s head. “Such as myself. I have the ear of many influential men.”

  “Who painted this most excellent painting?” said Caina.

  “A new artist,” said Lorgan. “A Nighmarian, regrettably, but he does grasp the Istarish soul. His name is Helioran.”

  “Helioran?” said Caina. That was the name of an extinct Imperial noble house. There had been several Helioran Emperors during the start of the Third Empire, and one of them had brought the Magisterium back under Imperial authority after the collapse of the Second Empire. “He is a nobleman?”

  “So he is,” said Lorgan.

  “I would like to meet him,” said Caina.

  “One must be invited to the House of Contemplation,” said Lorgan. He smirked. “Perhaps your lord the emir holds enough prestige to merit such an invitation.”

  “Perhaps he is,” said Caina. “Thank you, Master Lorgan.”

  She left before the owner of the Slavers’ Lash could speak again, her mind working. Caina knew of no one with enough prestige to get her into the House of Contemplation. Martin Dorius, maybe? As the Emperor’s Lord Ambassador to the Padishah, he had a great deal of influence…but Caina was loath to drag Martin and his pregnant wife into the hunt for the man who had murdered Tradek.

  Caina stepped into the street, the hot Istarish sun blazing overhead, and an idea came to her.

  She didn’t have an invitation to the House of Contemplation…but she knew a man who probably did.

  ###

  An hour later Caina knocked on the door of a rundown house in the Cyrican Quarter. The house was unremarkable, three stories of whitewashed stone, though it was in dire need of repair. The man known to the public as Markaine of Caer Marist lived in the house, and Markaine was one of the most famed and eccentric painters in Istarinmul. Caina knew that was just a front. The man was actually Morgant the Razor, the famed assassin of legend.

  He was also two hundred years old, give or take.

  The door swung open. Morgant kept no slaves, but sometimes hired an elderly freedwoman to clean his house when the dust got too thick. The old woman stared at Caina for a moment, then shrugged and stepped into the street, leaving the door standing open as she hobbled away. Caina stared after her, puzzled.

  “Don’t mind her,” said a man’s voice with a thick Caerish accent. “She didn’t open the door because you knocked. She left because she was done for the morning. Very sensible, really.”

  Caina took a deep breath and stepped into the lair of Morgant the Razor, legendary assassin.

  It looked exactly like a painter’s workshop, with wide skylights to admit ample light. Tables stood here and there, cluttered with jars of paint, vials of pigment, and rolled canvases. Sketch books stood in piles upon the tables, and easels held pinned canvases in various stages of completion. Morgant himself stood at one of the tables, staring at a vial of pigment. He looked like a gaunt man in his middle fifties, far paler than he should have been after years under the Istarish sun, with close-cropped gray hair and pale blue eyes. As ever, he wore a stark white shirt, a long black coat, black trousers, and boots, though when in his workshop he buttoned up his black coat to the neck and wore a leather apron. The heavy clothes should have been unbearable in the Istarish heat, he seemed comfortable.

  In fact, he appeared amused to see her.

  “The Balarigar herself,” said Morgant. “Come to sit for a portrait? Don’t expect a discount just because you know me.”

  “No,” said Caina.

  “You could always pose nude, of course,” said Morgant, gesturing with the vial of pigment. “True, you are not, shall we say, classically voluptuous, but you could always send the portrait to the Kyracian. I’d imagine he would pay quite handsomely for it. Assuming he hasn’t seen the sights in the flesh. So to speak.”

  Again she took a deep breath, putting aside the urge to hit him. Morgant never, ever stopped probing those around him for weakness, and he was very good at it. She had grown used to his game, but that made it no less irritating.

  “I need your help,” said Caina. “Do you know the House of Contemplation?”

  Morgant snorted. “A place where rich idiots stand about and buy portraits they do not understand to impress their equally stupid friends.”

  “That’s the place,” said Caina. “Do you know a painter named Helioran?”

  “Mmm,” said Morgant. “Heard the name somewhere. Can’t say that I’ve met him.”

  “Can you get me into the House of Contemplation?” said Caina.

  “Why?” said Morgant. “You’ve no sense of aesthetics.”

  “A week ago one of my informants was murdered, a slave named Tradek,” said Caina. “I couldn’t figure out who killed him. Then this morning I walked past the Slavers’ Lash in the Masters’ Quarter, and I saw a portrait depicting his death exactly to the smallest detail.”

  “Well,” said Morgant. “That’s damned peculiar.”

  “Which leads back to my previous question,” said Caina. “Can you get me into the House of Contemplation?”

  “I can,” said Morgant. “Why?”

  “I want to find whoever killed Tradek,” said Caina.

  “And if you find the killer, you’ll kill him in turn?” said Morgant.

  “Yes,” said Caina.

  “Why?” said Morgant.

  “Because he killed one of mine,” said Caina.

  “Ah, well,” said Morgant. “Is that the Ghost circlemaster or Caina Amalas talking?”

  “Does it matter?” said Caina.

  “You know my two rules,” said Morgant. “I keep my promises, and I only kill those who deserve it.”

  “I’ve noticed that you’re rather flexible about what constitutes a deserved death,” said Caina.

  Morgant did not respond to that. “A man should know his reasons for doing something.”

  “Women, too?” said Caina.

  “You more than most, I think,” said Morgant. “See, I’ve noticed you have a little problem with rage. When you get angry, you do things, drastic things. You’re clever enough to avoid most stupid mistakes, but sooner or later you’ll make a serious error and get yourself killed.”

  “Does that concern you?” said Caina.

  “Not particularly,” said Morgant. “But I keep my promises, and I need you alive to help me keep those promises. So. If we find whoever killed your informant, ah…”

  “Tradek,” said Caina.

  “Tradek,” repeated Morgant, “then why are you going to kill him? Because you’re angry?”

  “Because if someone is targeting Ghost informants,” said Caina, “I need to put a stop to it, now. Because Tradek didn’t deserve to get knifed in an alley. And, yes, because I’m angry about it.”

  Morgant considered that and set the vial of pigment on the table.

  “Good enough,” he said. “Go change clothes and come back here, and we’ll pay a visit to the House of Contemplation.”

  “You can get me inside?” said Caina.

  “I have paintings there,” said Morg
ant. “The owners tried to cheat me out of my commission, but we had a little chat and now we’re the best of friends. Don’t disguise yourself as a man. We’ll say…oh, we’ll say you’re my mistress, in awe of my brilliant paintings.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least strive for a believable disguise?” said Caina.

  “Wear something nice,” said Morgant. “Maybe something that enhances your bust? It could use the assistance.”

  “For the gods’ sake,” said Caina, but she left to choose a disguise.

  ###

  Several hours later, Caina and Morgant walked together to the House of Contemplation.

  It stood at the edge of the Emirs’ Quarter, within sight of the Padishah’s Golden Palace, the gleaming College of Alchemists, and the towers of Grand Master Callatas’s opulent palace. Compared to them, the House of Contemplation seemed understated, a building of gleaming white stone set within a courtyard filled with bushes and flowering gardens, paths of crushed stone winding their way past small trees and statues upon plinths.

  “The House of Contemplation,” said Morgant. “Where fools come to gawk at paintings beyond their comprehension. They also serve decent coffee.”

  “The House, it is lovely,” said Caina, speaking Istarish with a thick Szaldic accent. She had chosen a yellow dress with a stiff collar, black trim upon the hem and sleeves, a matching headscarf over her hair. Her ghostsilver dagger rested at her belt, and as usual, she had more daggers hidden in her boots. “Like an oasis in the desert.”

  “That terrible accent,” said Morgant, “is…” He considered. “Surprisingly realistic.”

  “I have had good teachers,” said Caina. She had learnedthe accent from her friend Tanya, and a pang went through her at the thought of all her friends in Malarae, friends she had not seen since her banishment from the Empire nearly two years past.

  “Clearly,” said Morgant. “Shall we?”