Ghost Vessel Read online

  “Here,” said Caina. “Help me move these.”

  They hauled aside the sacks of grain, revealing an iron door. With the sacks of grain removed, faint gray light leaked through the cracks in the doorframe, and Caina also heard a faint splashing sound.

  “Is that water?” said Tomazain.

  Caina laughed to herself. “Of course. The Cistern. How did the tavern get its name? It must have been built over an old cistern.”

  “That would be a perfect place to conceal a wraithblood laboratory,” said Agabyzus. “An abandoned cistern would be disconnected from the main aqueducts, and would lie deserted for anyone who wanted to use it.” He shook his head. “I should have thought of the possibility sooner. Gangs of thieves have used abandoned cisterns as lairs before. Why not the Grand Master and his wraithblood laboratories?”

  “Why not?” said Caina, and she opened the iron door.

  Pale gray light leaked into the cellar, and she put away the glowing sphere.

  As Caina had surmised, the Cistern had indeed been built over an abandoned cistern. It was a large stone chamber, the ceiling supported by thick pillars of brick and hewn stone. A channel ran through the left side of the chamber, half-full with sloshing water as it flowed into the maze of sewers and water channels beneath the city of Istarinmul. Caina doubted they were in any danger of drowning. There were water stains upon the walls, but they looked old and faded.

  But the water was a background concern.

  The apparatus for producing wraithblood commanded her full attention.

  Nearly forty steel tables stood in orderly rows throughout the chamber. Every single one of the tables held a naked corpse, both men and women among their number. The dead men and women had been pierced with steel spikes in a dozen places, the veins around the spikes turning black. Slender chains had been attached to the spikes, dropping in glittering loops to the floor. The various chains had been woven together in a single massive cable of metal, as thick as both of Caina’s legs put together. The heavy cable stretched across the floor and stopped at a glowing square of glass in a steel frame, ten feet by ten feet.

  It was a Mirror of Worlds, an enspelled gate to the netherworld, the realm of spirits and sorcery.

  The cable of chains passed through the gate, and beyond it, Caina saw the bleak gray plain of the netherworld, the sky black and writhing, the lifeless plain stretching in all directions. The cable passed two feet into the netherworld and then was wrapped around a metal stake driven into the earth. The image rippled and pulsed, and sometimes Caina saw the netherworld, and sometimes she saw the reflection of the laboratory in the Mirror’s glass.

  Sorcerous power crackled in the air, gathered around the Mirror and the maze of chains leading to the steel tables. Caina had seen such places before, more often than she had wished. Agabyzus had seen wraithblood laboratories before. That was where they had met the first time, come to think of it.

  Tomazain, however, had not seen a wraithblood laboratory before, and Caina had forgotten the sheer horror of the first sight of the place.

  “By the Living Flame,” he croaked. “By the Living Flame! What the hell is this place?”

  “A wraithblood laboratory,” said Caina. As far as she could tell the place was deserted, save for the dead, and she could not sense any warding spells or traps.

  “There is Granicus,” said Tomazain, pointing at one of the dead men. “And the others. And…gods! I know him. And him. I thought they were on a job. Why do this?”

  She had told him already, but hearing it was one thing. Seeing it was quite another.

  “Come,” said Caina. “I’ll show you.”

  Tomazain followed her, his face still tight with surprise. Caina kept one eye on him, and another on the Mirror of Worlds. In theory, nothing should be able to pass through the gate to the material world. In practice, she sometimes saw creatures come through the gate, and the resultant fights had almost killed her several times.

  She stopped by one of the tables and pointed at the corpse. “Look. See how the veins are turning black?” Tomazain nodded. “Look at the grooves on the tables.” Black blood slid through the grooves, dripping into metal troughs below the tables. The blood should have congealed by now, but the black liquid remained fluid, radiating a dark aura of sorcerous power. “That is wraithblood.”

  “How?” said Tomazain, his voice a rasp.

  “That gate,” said Caina. “It’s a mirror, but it’s been made into a gateway to the netherworld. Those chains draw out sorcerous power from the netherworld and send it into the dead, and it transmutes their blood into wraithblood. From here the wraithblood is bottled in vials and given to the poor of Istarinmul to addict them to the drug.”

  “Why?” said Tomazain.

  “A spell,” said Caina. “Callatas is working some terrible, powerful spell. I haven’t figured out what kind of spell yet, but I will, and when I do, I’m going to stop him.”

  “This…” Tomazain shook his head as he looked at the corpses of his friends. “This is…I was in the Legion for sixteen years. I have seen men die in every way that men can die. But this…slaughtered for some mad sorcerer’s spell. Gods! How many…”

  “We have been unable to determine an accurate count,” said Agabyzus. “But tens of thousands have died in the Grand Master’s laboratories. Probably more.”

  “And no one knows?” said Tomazain.

  “I know,” said Caina. “And I’m going to stop it.”

  If she could.

  Callatas was a sorcerer of immense power, and he had the government of Istarinmul under his control, to say nothing of the powerful allies he commanded. Caina was setting herself against powerful enemies, and it might lead to her death. It would likely lead to her death. But what of that? She had lost everything when Halfdan and Corvalis had been killed and she had been banished from the Empire, and the thought of her own death to not frighten her.

  Sometimes the idea seemed like a relief.

  “How?” said Tomazain.

  “We start,” said Caina, “by closing the gate.”

  She stepped around the table, staring at the Mirror of Worlds, its arcane power washing over her.

  “That is the key to the laboratory,” said Caina. “The source of its power. If we close the gate, Callatas will have to make a new one, and that will slow his efforts considerably.”

  “Best to do it as soon as possible, too,” said Agabyzus, moving closer. He had produced a crossbow and held the weapon loaded and ready. “If we linger too long, we might draw attention.”

  “Agreed,” said Tomazain, “but we’re the only ones down here at the moment.”

  Caina shook her head. “We might draw attention from something on the other side of the gate.”

  “The other side of the gate?” said Tomazain.

  Caina drew her ghostsilver dagger. It gleamed in the gray light from the Mirror of Worlds like real silver, but ghostsilver was something else. It was lighter and stronger than steel, and more importantly, it was impervious to sorcery. A ghostsilver blade could penetrate a sorcerer’s defensive wards to strike at the flesh beneath. A ghostsilver dagger dragged through a warding spell could cause the spell to collapse.

  And a ghostsilver dagger, applied to the right places on the Mirror of Worlds, could collapse the gate.

  Of course, if she did it wrong, the gate would explode and kill them all.

  “Sometimes spirits wander through the gate,” said Caina, considering the Mirror. The trick was to destabilize the gate enough to let it collapse under the weight of its own spells. It took a lot of power to keep a Mirror of Worlds open. “Elementals. Or worse things.”

  “Demons?” said Tomazain.

  “Something like that,” said Caina. “Spirits have many different orders and empires and kingdoms. One of them is a kind of spirit called a nagataaru. They prey upon death and pain, and…”

  “The death of the weak!” rasped a voice from the other end of the cistern.

&nbs
p; Caina whirled, her ghostsilver dagger coming up. Agabyzus lifted his crossbow, and Tomazain drew his broadsword. At the far end of the cistern, a figure stepped through the iron door, a tall woman in a gray slave’s dress, her hands held behind her back.

  The faint smell of blood came to Caina’s nostrils.

  “Oh, my strong lads,” said the woman. “You left me disappointed and alone. How very sad.”

  “You,” said Tomazain.

  “You don’t even remember my name?” said the woman. She clucked her tongue and grinned, her dead black eyes seeming to flash. “Disappointing.”

  “Tirzia,” said Caina.

  “Ah!” said Tirzia. “He remembers. But you’re really a woman, aren’t you? Yes, I can tell. I can taste it on you.” She licked her lips. “I wonder what the rest of you will taste like.”

  “We don’t mean you any harm,” said Caina. “You know what this place is. We’ve come to destroy it. When we do, the building will likely explode. You can escape then. Even find your way to freedom, if you wish.”

  Tirzia laughed. “The master will be upset you are in his laboratory.”

  “Do you intend to report us to him?” said Tomazain.

  “I don’t know,” said Tirzia. “How do you think he will react? Let’s find out.”

  She brought her hands out from behind her back, her mad smile widening.

  In her right hand she held a heavy steel cleaver, its blade razor-sharp, its sides spattered with blood. In her left hand, she held a bearded human head by the hair, and it took Caina a moment to recognize the features of the Alchemist Malhound.

  “Well, master?” said Tirzia to the severed head. “What do you think? Are you upset?” She shook the head, the beard waggling, a few droplets of blood falling from the ragged neck. “Oh, nothing to say. Just as well. I always hated the sound of your voice.”

  She threw the head, and it rolled to a stop against the base of one of the steel tables. Tirzia’s breath came hard and fast, her eyes widening, and a horrible suspicion started to fill Caina’s mind.

  She had seen this kind of madness before.

  “How did you kill him?” said Tomazain, stunned. “He was an Alchemist, a sorcerer.”

  “I know,” said Tirzia in a dreamy voice. “I know it well. The Grand Master built his wraithblood laboratory in this cistern and gave its keeping to Malhound. Here I toiled, luring men to their deaths upon the steel tables, and then carrying away their corpses when their blood had been used up. I hated Malhound, and I hated the men I killed. Then I heard the whispers coming through the gate. The whispers understood. The whispers wanted to kill as I wanted to kill. The master had forbidden us from touching the gate, but…”

  “But you touched it,” said Caina, finishing the story, “and a wraith of hooded shadow and purple flame came through the gate and entered you, and now it makes you stronger when you kill.”

  Tirzia laughed again, the sound high and unstable. “You understand, do you?”

  “You’re possessed by a nagataaru,” said Caina. “You’re strong enough that it can’t control you, but it’s twisting your thoughts. It will use you to kill and kill until you get yourself killed, and then it will move to a different host. I can help you, I can…”

  “No,” said Tirzia. “No, I need no more help from anyone. All my life I have been weak. Now I am strong. Now I kill, and I become stronger. I see the truth. I see the truth that not even the Grand Master sees.” Her words came out faster and faster. “The world is going to die. I am going to kill the world. The nagataaru will kill the world when the Grand Master opens the way for us, and we shall kill and kill until we are gorged upon death…”

  “Be ready,” said Caina, stepping back, Tomazain and Agabyzus on either side of her. “The nagataaru will make her faster and stronger, and it might give her the ability to heal wounds.”

  “You think to stop me?” said Tirzia, her face twisting with rage. She shivered, and her dark eyes started to burn with purple fire, shadows seeming to pulse and throb through her veins. “You cannot stop me! I will feast upon your deaths! I will feast upon your agony! I…”

  Agabyzus lifted his crossbow and shot her in the chest.

  Tirzia stumbled back, her eyes going wide with pain, her gray dress darkening with blood. The bolt should have killed her, but she screamed and ripped out the shaft, throwing it aside. Already Caina saw the wound shrinking, healing in the grasp of the nagataaru’s power.

  Caina dashed forward, ghostsilver dagger ready, and Tomazain charged next to her as Agabyzus hastened to reload his weapon. Tirzia’s screamed again and ran towards them, the cleaver raised over her head. She moved fast, as fast as a master swordsman, but Tomazain had gotten his heavy shield up, and the steel blade rebounded from the steel-studded wood with a flash of sparks. Caina lashed out with her ghostsilver dagger, the blade scraping across Tirzia’s shoulder. The wound sizzled, and smoke rose from it instead of blood. Tirzia shrieked, her teeth bared in a snarl, and the purple fire in her eyes sputtered. Ghostsilver was proof against sorcery, but it also harmed spirits, and the nagataaru within Tirzia recoiled from its touch.

  Caina drew back the dagger to stab again, and Tirzia whirled with cat-like speed. Caina dodged, and the punch that would have hit her in the face instead hit her in the chest. Even so, it still landed with tremendous force. The blow threw Caina back, and she landed against one of the steel tables, clawing for balance as the chains jangled around her feet.

  Tirzia hammered at Tomazain, chips of wood flying from his shield as the heavy cleaver struck again and again. She fought without skill, wielding the cleaver like a hammer. Yet the nagataaru made her fast enough that Tomazain dared not lower his shield to strike, and the nagataaru made her strong enough that she might break through Tomazain’s shield. For that matter, she was too close for Agabyzus to use his crossbow.

  Caina got back to her feet, ignoring the pain in her chest from the punch, and yanked a throwing knife from her sleeve. She drew back her arm and then snapped it forward, stepping to add momentum to her throw. Caina had spent a long time practicing with throwing knives, and that practice paid off. The throwing knife sank into the forearm of Tirzia’s right hand, and again she screamed in pain, lips peeling back from her teeth in a snarl. She stepped away from Tomazain, raising her cleaver, and Caina threw another knife, this one sinking into Tirzia’s shoulder.

  Her shriek of pain rang through the cistern, and Tirzia whirled. The sheer power of her impact knocked aside Tomazain, who hit the floor with a grunt. Tirzia came at Caina in a storm of blood and fury and snarling teeth, and Caina had no choice but to retreat, vaulting over one of the steel tables to stay ahead of the blurring cleaver. The nagataaru-possessed woman kept coming, almost frothing at the mouth in her fury.

  She wasn’t a fighter. She was simply an enraged woman gone mad with newfound power, and that meant Caina knew just what levers to pull.

  “You’re a fool!” said Caina, still retreating.

  The power from the Mirror of Worlds radiated against her, making the skin of her back crawl.

  Tirzia laughed, plucking the knives from her wounds as the nagataaru healed them.

  “The nagataaru will use you and cast you aside,” said Caina. “Just as you’ve been used and cast aside all your life. It’s no different.”

  Tirzia flinched, and for a moment doubt went over her face. Then the rage returned, and she screamed in fury, raising the cleaver for a two-handed blow. Her nagataaru-granted strength would have split Caina’s head in half, but it was an obvious move, and Caina had known the counter to such an attack since she had been a child.

  She twisted, dodging the descending cleaver by inches, and drove her heel into the back of Tirzia’s knee. The nagataaru-possessed woman staggered forward, and Caina kicked her in the back.

  Tirzia lost her balance and fell face-first into the Mirror of Worlds.

  There was a flash of gray light, and she disappeared. Through the distorted image of the gate, Caina
caught a glimpse of Tirzia falling into the colorless plains of the netherworld, the shadow and purple fire of her nagataaru burning around her.

  Caina drove her ghostsilver dagger into the edge of the Mirror.

  There was a hideous tearing sound, and the handle of the weapon grew hot beneath her fingers. The Mirror rippled like a pond in the wind, and with a grinding noise, a maze of cracks appeared in the glass. The tearing sound got louder, and the Mirror started to shudder in its frame, the gray light from the glass blocking the view of the netherworld.

  “Run!” shouted Caina, jamming her dagger back into its sheath.

  Tomazain had gotten back to his feet, breathing hard, and Agabyzus shouldered his crossbow. Caina ran with them to the iron door, through the cellar, and up the stairs to the common room of the Cistern. Some of the bouncers had returned to the room, scowling at the hearth.

  “Run!” shouted Caina.

  One of the bouncers scowled. “Wait a…”

  With a surge of sorcerous power, the Mirror exploded.

  Fortunately, it was deep enough underground, and the cistern had been built solidly enough that the tavern did not collapse. The building shook with a loud boom, and curtains of dust fell from the ceiling, but the Cistern did not collapse. The bouncers gaped in alarm at the ceiling, and Caina and Agabyzus and Tomazain took advantage of their distraction to flee into the night.

  ###

  “Gods,” muttered Tomazain, flexing his fingers. “She hit hard. Skinny arms like that, didn’t think she could hit that hard.”

  “Her nagataaru gave her the strength,” said Caina.

  They sat at a table in a wine shop in the Cyrican Quarter. Most of the other patrons were in various stages of inebriation, and no one paid any attention to Caina and Agabyzus and Tomazain.

  “If she had possessed any skill at all, we’d be dead,” said Tomazain. “With some training, she could have been as deadly as a Kyracian stormdancer or an Imperial battle magus.”

  “I knew a stormdancer once who could hit that hard,” said Caina idly. She wondered what had become of Kylon. She hoped he was happy with his wife Thalastre, and then put the thought from her mind. “But she wasn’t a stormdancer. She was a vessel for a nagataaru spirit, and it drove her to destroy herself. Agabyzus should have your payment.”