Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) Read online

  “Yet you saw him with the slaves in the Old Bazaar,” said Nasser.

  “I did,” said Nerina, closing her eyes. “I was waiting on the roof, and occupying myself by calculating additional trajectories for my crossbow bolt should the wind change. I happened to look into the Bazaar, and I saw Malcolm. At first I thought I had experienced some sort of cognitive failure, but it was him. I am certain it was him.” She shivered a little. “Then I…I am afraid I lost my head.”

  Morgant snorted. “An understatement.”

  Caina glared at him and he fell silent, though he kept his smirk in place. Morgant was afraid that Nerina Strake had become a problem, and Morgant would have to deal with her before she jeopardized his task. Best to have Caina’s support when he acted. Caina was clever and efficient, but so regrettably sentimental.

  “I had to get him,” said Nerina. “I had to go to him, just as an equation has to balance out in the end. I…thought I could convince the Immortals to release him, or maybe that I could buy him away…oh, by the Living Flame.” She rubbed her hands against her face. “I was a fool. I should have thought it through and devised an equation with a better chance of balancing. Instead I nearly got us all killed.”

  “True,” said Morgant.

  “It would be difficult,” said Caina, her voice quiet, “to keep your head if you saw a dead loved one return.”

  “Difficult,” said Morgant, “but not impossible. Especially when that dead loved one is surrounded by Immortals.”

  “Nasser,” said Kylon. “Those slaves with the Immortals. They were going to the Inferno, were they not?”

  “They were,” said Caina before Nasser answered. “The first caravan was heading to the Inferno, carrying supplies and slaves. Kuldan Cimak was going to follow tomorrow, once he had finished with his amusements in the Crimson Veil.”

  Laertes snorted. “Given that Cimak is going to serve as a khalmir under the Lieutenant of the Inferno, I cannot blame him for that.”

  It had been a good plan, Morgant had to admit. Malik Rolukhan, the Master Alchemist in command of the Inferno, had never actually met Kuldan Cimak. Kidnapping the emir and having Caina take his place would allow them entry to the Inferno. With luck, they could enter the Inferno, rescue Annarah from her Sanctuary, and escape before anyone noticed.

  That was before Nerina had ruined the plan, of course.

  “Very well,” said Nasser, setting down his coffee and tapping his fingers together. As ever, he wore a glove of black leather over his left hand, his left forearm concealed beneath a bracer. “We have suffered a setback, but the plan can be adapted. It is a long way from Istarinmul to the gates of the Inferno. Cimak can be abducted easily enough in the countryside.”

  “He will have Immortals with him,” said Laertes.

  “We can hire mercenaries for the task,” said Caina. “Between the two of us we have enough money to manage it. Kazravid and Shopur’s company, maybe. There’s another mercenary company I know from Rasadda, the Black Wolves. They used to work for the Magisterium, but came here to avoid the war between the Empire and the Umbarians. They would be willing to take the job.”

  “Cimak will not travel quickly,” said Nasser. “We can overtake him.”

  “Battles are always chancy,” said Kylon. “Is this worth the risk?”

  Morgant started to answer, but Nasser spoke first.

  “I fear it is, Lord Kylon,” said Nasser. “No new officers have been sent to the Inferno for two years, and this is the first man that Malik Rolukhan has not known personally. This is a perfect opportunity, and I fear we will not have another chance.” He shrugged. “Risky, yes, but there is no profit without risk.”

  “Before we proceed with these fine plans,” said Morgant, “we need to settle another matter first.”

  “And what matter is that, master painter?” said Nasser.

  Morgant pointed at Nerina. “Her.”

  Caina frowned. “What about her? That she saw her husband? If he is among the slaves in the caravan, we…”

  “You are overlooking the obvious,” said Morgant. “Her husband is dead. Wraithblood induces hallucinations. The most probable explanation is that despite the danger, despite knowing the risk, Strake took wraithblood and hallucinated that she saw her husband among the Immortals.”

  Azaces’s eyes narrowed, and Nerina’s mouth fell open.

  She started talking. “No. That’s not true. I didn’t take any wraithblood. I have not consumed any wraithblood for over two years.” She shuddered. “I stopped even before I knew that Callatas manufactured it from the blood of murdered slaves. I did not hallucinate Malcolm. He was there, I am certain of it.”

  “Are you?” said Morgant. “You’ve seen the wraithblood addicts at the docks? You’ve heard them begging for money even while they rant at their hallucinations? Have you seen the things they’ll do for even a drop of wraithblood?”

  “I did not take any wraithblood,” said Nerina. “I know what I saw.”

  “I believe her,” said Caina.

  “You’re an optimist,” said Morgant.

  “Really?” said Caina, her eyes narrowing. “Since when?”

  “Since you risked your life in a completely unnecessary way to save the Kyracian at the Craven’s Tower,” said Morgant. He was curious how she would react to the barb. Her attraction to Kylon was just as obvious as her denial of it. Hopefully it would not distort her thinking.

  “Given that Kylon just kept the Immortals from killing me,” said Caina without missing a beat, “I would say it was a wise decision.”

  Morgant grunted. “Good answer.”

  “Pardon,” said Nasser, “but while I do not presume to doubt Mistress Strake’s word, perhaps verification is at hand.” His dark eyes turned to Kylon. “Lord Kylon, can you tell if she is lying?”

  ###

  Kylon blinked and straightened up.

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “Can you tell if Mistress Strake is lying?” said Nasser. “I am given to understand that stormdancers have the ability to sense the emotions of others.”

  “I do,” said Kylon. He had pulled back his senses to their minimum, just enough to let him know if any attackers entered the courtyard of the sculpture works. That was still enough to let him sense the emotions of the others in the room with him. Nasser was cool and focused, though Kylon sensed a fierce, burning eagerness within him. Laertes was vigilant, his eyes never still. Morgant felt…old and hard, his emotions cooled, but filled with iron determination. Azaces was cold and grim, his sense tinged with something like regret. Perhaps he had been friends with Malcolm.

  Yet as ever, Kylon found his senses turning towards Caina. While he could sense her emotions, he could never tell quite what she was thinking. Her mind almost always felt cold, but there was fire within the ice, old rage and fury mingled together. He suspected that anger had driven her on for years. Right now her sense felt charged with tension. She believed Nerina.

  “Well,” muttered Morgant. “Remind me to never gamble with you.”

  “A stormdancer of New Kyre cannot sense lies,” said Kylon. “I can sense her general emotional state, yes. That does not tell me if she is lying.”

  “Then sense it,” said Nerina. “I am telling the truth. If that helps balance the outcome of the equation in my favor, so be it.”

  Kylon nodded and stepped closer to her. Nerina looked at him with her eerie blue eyes. Her emotions were…strange, almost distorted. He suspected it was a permanent effect of long-term wraithblood use, even if she had stopped taking the drug. He had sensed something similar from other wraithblood addicts he had encountered since coming to Istarinmul. Other than that, her emotions were a boiling cauldron of pain and fear and shame and…hope, desperate, terrible hope. Kylon understood that hope. He had seen his wife murdered in front of him, and if he had seen Thalastre as a slave in that Bazaar, he would likely have acted much as Nerina had.

  “She’s telling the truth,” said Kylon.
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  “Or she thinks that she’s telling the truth,” said Morgant. “Perhaps the delusions of the wraithblood fooled her.”

  “I have not taken wraithblood,” Nerina spat. “Not now, not ever again. My father addicted me to it. And I know it is made from the blood of murdered slaves. I will never take it again.”

  Her sense pulsed with certainty.

  “She speaks the truth,” said Kylon.

  “Or she thinks that she does,” said Morgant. “We…”

  A flash of surprise went through Caina’s sense.

  “Shut up,” she said, standing. “We’re idiots. We should have thought of this sooner.”

  “The obvious?” said Morgant. “You mean that she took wraithblood and cannot remember it?”

  “No,” said Caina, stepping to Kylon’s side. “Even more obvious than that. We ask Azaces.”

  The big Sarbian blinked, and Morgant rubbed his jaw.

  “The damned obvious,” said Morgant. “Nothing is so hard to find.”

  “I don’t understand” said Kylon.

  “In the Bazaar, Azaces,” said Caina. “Was that really Malcolm that Nerina saw?”

  Kylon frowned, and then felt like a fool. Azaces would have known both Nerina’s father and her husband. Azaces could neither speak nor write and did whatever Nerina or Caina told him to do without hesitation or protest. Sometimes Kylon forgot that he was there at all.

  Azaces looked at Caina, and a strange flicker went through his emotional aura, regret and pain and sorrow.

  At last he nodded once.

  “I see,” said Nasser. “I suppose that settles that.”

  “Those slaves came from the Inferno, as did those Immortals,” said Caina. “They came here to obtain supplies and then return to the Inferno.” Her eyes turned to Nerina. “I thought you said that Malcolm was murdered.”

  “He was,” whispered Nerina. “I was…I was so sure of it.” She rubbed her face, her fingers sliding through her ragged red hair.

  “How?” said Caina.

  “My father’s enemies,” said Nerina. “They murdered him.”

  “Before or after they murdered your father?” said Caina.

  “I…don’t remember,” said Nerina.

  “A peculiar sort of thing to forget,” said Morgant.

  “I was taking so much wraithblood at the time,” said Nerina. “The last year, before Azaces took me to the Sisterhood of the Living Flame, I cannot remember much of it clearly. I know my father was murdered. I saw a Kindred assassin stab him to death. Malcolm…Malcolm was murdered. I’m sure of it…yet I saw him today.”

  “Did you see the body?” said Caina.

  Nerina shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

  “Ragodan Strake,” said Morgant.

  Caina looked at the assassin. “Nerina's father. What about him?”

  “He was friendly with Malik Rolukhan,” said Morgant.

  Kylon felt his eyes narrow. “How do you know this?”

  “Because Nerina’s father, while a tedious boor, did have good taste in artwork,” said Morgant. “He purchased several of my paintings. And I know he was friendly with Rolukhan. So.” He pointed at Nerina. “Imagine you have a crazy but brilliant daughter who brings in a lot of money with locksmithing skills. Now, imagine she marries a man you don’t like, a man who threatens to take away your income. You could have him killed…or, if you are a tedious boor like Ragodan Strake, you could have him enslaved. Especially if he had a useful skill.”

  “What did Malcolm do for his living?” said Caina.

  “He was an armorer,” said Nerina. “The best armorer in Istarinmul. His family fled here when he was young to get away from the Magisterium. His father had offended Decius Aberon the First Magus…”

  “I see,” said Caina, old rage flickering to life in her emotional sense. Her lover Corvalis had been the First Magus’s bastard son, and likely Decius Aberon’s cruelty has left its mark upon Corvalis.

  “Malcolm was injured by a spell,” said Nerina. “It broke part of his mind. He was quite intelligent, and had remarkable powers of concentration…but he was incapable of speaking a lie.”

  “Truly?” said Caina. “I’ve heard the mind-altering spells of the magi can have effects like that, but…”

  “I find social situations unpleasant because they do not conform to precise mathematical principles,” said Nerina. Her expression became almost wistful. “Malcolm…he found socializing even more difficult than I did, since social mores require a great deal of polite lying.”

  “Dear gods,” muttered Morgant. “The two of you together in conversation must have been a spectacle.”

  “That was how we met,” said Nerina. “Father wanted to buy some armor from him. Malcolm observed that I was shorter than average and below the normal weight for my height, which would make it hard for Father to find me a husband, since my hips were not the optimal width for childbearing. I demonstrated that I was well within the median range for height among Istarish women, and we wound up discussing the mathematical principles of sound armor construction until well after dawn.”

  “A love story for the ages,” said Morgant.

  “An armorer,” said Caina, her emotional sense darkening. “The best armorer in Istarinmul. The Inferno is where the Immortals are created and armed, and Malik Rolukhan is the Lieutenant of the Inferno. If Nerina’s father was friendly with Rolukhan, and he wanted to get rid of Malcolm…why not get rid of Malcolm and do a favor for Rolukhan at the same time?”

  “All this time,” whispered Nerina. “He was in the Inferno all this time, and I never knew it.” She looked at Caina. “Will you look for him when you go to the Inferno? If you can, will you bring him out?”

  “I shall,” said Caina.

  Morgant started to make another barbed remark, but Nasser spoke first.

  “To that end,” said Nasser, “I suggest we make our plans. Mistress Strake, please accept my apologies for doubting your word.”

  “It is all right,” said Nerina. “One should not believe things without mathematical proof.”

  “This will distract from our true purpose,” said Morgant.

  “I fail to see how,” said Nasser. “Our task is to enter the Inferno and rescue Annarah. To do that, our best path is still to kidnap Kuldan Cimak and have Ciaran replace him. If we happen rescue Malcolm along the way, well and good. We will then have a man with intimate knowledge of the Inferno.”

  “Very well,” said Morgant with a disgusted shake of his head. “You’re the military commander, not me. What would I know of such matters?”

  Nasser’s expression did not change, but Kylon’s senses caught the flicker of fury that went through him.

  “If my knowledge of Istarinmul’s geography is correct,” said Caina, “then it seems our best chance to catch Cimak is on the road to the Vale of Fallen Stars, between the Desert of Candles and the Trabazon steppes.”

  “I concur,” said Nasser. “Both the Trabazon steppes and the Desert of Candles are ideal locations for banditry. If we catch Cimak’s column there, we can overpower it and take him captive without anyone interfering, especially if we ensure that no survivors make their way to the Inferno and carry news to Rolukhan. Four hundred men would be best. Shopur’s company, and these Black Wolves of yours, I think.”

  Kylon frowned. “Four hundred men is a formidable force. Will they not attract notice?”

  “I hadn’t considered that,” said Caina.

  “No,” said Nasser. “We shall not draw undue notice.”

  Caina looked puzzled. “Why not?”

  Morgant snorted. “Haven’t you realized yet, Ciaran?” He used Caina’s alias with a hint of scorn. “You’ve broken Istarinmul.”

  The unease in Caina’s sense deepened. “What?”

  Nasser sighed. “The reason that four hundred armed men crossing the countryside will not draw notice is because four hundred men is an acceptable escort for a traveler these days.”

  “The
Collectors, you see,” said Morgant. “The errand boys of the Brotherhood of Slavers. You’ve put the fear of the gods into the cowled masters, but Callatas needs slaves, and he does not accept excuses. So the Collectors are taking slaves wherever they can find them by kidnapping travelers and attacking caravans. They’ve even begun kidnapping peasants from the lands of the southern emirs.”

  Caina glanced at Nasser. “I had heard that Kaltari raiders were attacking the slave caravans coming up from Anshan.”

  More likely than not, Kylon suspected, Caina and Nasser had a hand in arranging that.

  “Which has also made the Brotherhood even more desperate,” said Morgant. “The southern emirs have complained, but Callatas wants slaves for his wraithblood laboratories, and Grand Wazir Erghulan Amirasku is a puppet upon Callatas’s strings. The emirs of the Vale of Fallen Stars and the other southern emirates are just about ready to take matters into their own hands.” He grinned, his pale face almost like a skull. “You’ve stuffed Istarinmul full of kindling, and it will only take a single spark to set it all ablaze. Have you ever started a war?”

  “I helped once,” said Caina, her emotional sense darkening further. “Stopped a few others.” She shrugged. “This would have happened anyway. Sooner or later Callatas would have overreached…and either the emirs would overthrow him or he would drown Istarinmul in blood. All I did was hasten the inevitable.”

  “But if we find Annarah and obtain the Staff and Seal of Iramis before Callatas,” said Nasser, “then we can defeat Callatas and stop his Apotheosis.” He offered a shrug. “If an army becomes necessary to defeat Callatas and depose the Grand Wazir…then that is what is necessary, I fear.”

  “You knew,” said Caina, her eyes narrowing. “That’s why you sent Strabane to the Kaltari Highlands, and that’s why you told him to raid the Brotherhood’s caravans. To put pressure on the Brotherhood and deny Callatas slaves to kill for wraithblood, yes, but to prepare for this.” Her sense turned cold as certainty washed over her. “You’ve been planning to overthrow the Padishah all along.”