Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) Read online

  Caina had to hurry.

  She took one more deep breath, made sure her pouch was open, and reached down and yanked the throwing knife from Annarah’s neck.

  Annarah let out a strangled cry, a spasm going through her limbs. More blood bubbled from her lips, but far more blood pulsed from the ugly wound in her neck. Removing the knife had severed the vein, and she had only a few moments before she bled out.

  Caina snatched a vial of silver-glowing Elixir Restorata from her pouch, the Elixir boiling violently at her touch as she wrenched away the vial’s seal. She pinched Annarah’s nose shut and pushed the vial between her lips, pouring the Elixir down her throat.

  For an instant, nothing happened.

  Then Annarah shuddered, her eyes opening wide. A heartbeat after that, her green eyes started to glow with silver fire, and her veins started to shine with silver light beneath her skin. To Caina’s valikarion-enhanced eyes, Annarah became a storm of arcane power as the Elixir activated, gathering sorcerous force to release an explosion of healing power.

  Annarah threw back her head and screamed, and Caina scrambled away, hoping to avoid the destructive discharge silver fire that would accompany the healing.

  ###

  Annarah’s scream cut into Morgant’s ears, and he shot a glance to the side long enough to see her starting glow.

  In that instant, he rebuked himself for inattention. Of course Caina still had vials of Elixir Restorata, and of course, she would use them to save Annarah if possible. Likely Caina had divided the remaining vials between herself and the Kyracian outside the wreckage of the Desert Maiden in Istarinmul. For a moment Morgant wondered what had become of the Kyracian and where he was now.

  Not out of any concern for the man, but his combat prowess would have been useful because the nagataaru kept coming up the stairs. They couldn’t sense Morgant, but the minute he attacked, the creatures knew where he was. Worse, the nagataaru seemed to have some means of communicating with one another, and whenever one noticed him, the rest swarmed towards him.

  Another baboon came at him, reaching for his throat with withered hands. Morgant danced around its grasp, sweeping his dagger before him, and took off the creature’s right forearm. Undeterred, the baboon pressed on, swinging its damaged arm like a club, and Morgant destroyed the creature with a quick chop from the valikon, burying the blade into the baboon’s skull. White fire drowned the shadow in the baboon’s eyes, and the creature collapsed, but not before its arm clipped Morgant’s left shoulder with wrenching strength. He cursed and ripped the valikon free, raising the sword in guard. The valikon’s curved blade was too damned short. It was a better weapon for someone of Caina’s height. He struck down still another baboon, hoping to gain a moment’s respite.

  “We need to get off this hilltop!” said Morgant, watching the stairwell. “Those stairs are a bottleneck. If we stay up here, we’ll get torn apart.”

  He glanced back as Caina ran to join him, ghostsilver dagger in hand. Annarah still lay prone on the ground, shuddering as the silver fire burned through her veins. Morgant had seen Elixir Restorata used before, so he knew that a discharge of explosive fire accompanied the Elixir’s healing. When Caina had used the Elixir to heal the Kyracian at the Craven’s Tower, the explosion had damaged the wraithblood laboratory. When the Kyracian had used the Elixir to heal Caina at Rumarah, the resultant explosion had destroyed the Corsair’s Rest, killed hundreds of Umbarian soldiers, forced the Red Huntress to flee, and nearly killed Cassander Nilas.

  Pity the explosion hadn’t killed Cassander. Morgant would have been spared much bother.

  “As soon as the Elixir finishes, we’ll take Annarah and go,” said Caina. “We’ll make for the beach. Murat and the Sandstorm are waiting for us.”

  “Assuming he’s not dead,” said Morgant. “Or that he didn’t flee for his life.” He glanced again at Annarah, watching her shudder as the silver fire burned through her veins. A wave of anger went through him, which was surprising since he rarely felt strong emotions any longer. Annarah had lost her husband and her children when Iramis burned and then spent a century and a half trapped in the netherworld. Her plan had hindered Callatas for a century and a half, and Morgant supposed that if not for her, neither Caina nor the Kyracian nor millions of others would ever have been born. For Annarah to die at the hands of a creature like the Red Huntress seemed a gross injustice.

  But when had life ever been fair? Only death was fair.

  But if anyone was good at cheating death, it was Caina Amalas.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “But we have no other choice.”

  “When you used the Elixir, the explosion blew up half of Rumarah,” said Morgant.

  “It was one building,” said Caina.

  “Whatever,” said Morgant. “When that Elixir activates, is it going to blast off the top of the hill?”

  Caina shook her head. “It reacted that way because my aura was damaged. Annarah’s isn’t. It…”

  More dark forms burst from the stairs. Four of them were baboons, eyes shining with harsh purple flame. The fifth was a human skeleton, the bones draped with leathery flesh, the body encased in bronze armor. Maatish hieroglyphs adorned the helmet, granting the nagataaru within the mummified corpse the ability to see the material world.

  Which meant, ring or no ring, the nagataaru could see Morgant.

  “Take the warrior!” shouted Caina, sprinting forward. “I’ll handle the baboons!”

  Morgant grunted and charged the undead warrior even as Caina attacked. The nagataaru knew that she was there, thanks to the spells on the warrior’s helmet, but they didn’t know exactly where, and Caina put that to use, stepping behind one of the baboons and raking her ghostsilver dagger down its back. A sizzling hiss filled the air as the dagger shattered the spells binding the undead thing, and it collapsed in a heap of bones and leathery flesh.

  By then Morgant dueled the undead warrior. He wondered if the undead creature retained some of the skills and knowledge it had possessed in life because it wielded its blades with deadly skill. Morgant found himself knocked onto his heels, retreating a few steps, and then changed his approach, launching a flashing series of swings with the valikon even as Caina cut down another baboon. The warrior blocked every single one of his attacks, and Morgant caught the valikon against the bronze sword, holding it in place long enough to rip his dagger through the warrior’s bronze cuirass. The undead warrior forced its way free from the clinch, and Morgant ducked under a slash of the bronze sword, flicking the tip of his dagger against the brittle flesh of the warrior’s upper arm.

  The brief contact was enough to release the heat stored in the dagger, and the warrior erupted into raging flames. The creature staggered another step, and then the flesh holding it together crumbled into ashes, more bones and armor falling to join the collection already strewn across the hilltop.

  Morgant straightened up as Caina finished the last baboon, intending to tell her to get Annarah and run. Before the words left his mouth, six more undead warriors erupted from the stairs. Kharnaces had commanded hordes of the rotting things, and now every single one of them was converging on his Tomb. The stairs to the lower reaches of the Tomb were long, but they were narrow, and the undead could block them with ease. Morgant could handle maybe three or four of those nagataaru-infested warriors by himself. More would be a problem…and more were coming.

  Caina let out a hissing breath, lifting her ghostsilver dagger.

  Everyone had to die, and it seemed like they were going to die here. Morgant would have liked to paint the scene of his own death, showing him surrounded by a horde of undead monstrosities as he cut them down one by one. A pity he wouldn’t have the chance, and the only witnesses would die with him.

  Though it was sort of funny that he would die with two women. One of the many (incorrect) legends surrounding him claimed that he had died in bed sandwiched between two Anshani noblewomen of astounding beauty, though he supposed dying in battle next to th
e last loremaster of Iramis and a half-crazed Ghost circlemaster did not have quite the same flair…

  Silver light flashed over the hilltop, and a shaft of silver fire stabbed past Morgant, ripping through the undead warriors and turning them to ashes, their nagataaru vanishing back into the netherworld.

  ###

  Caina had expected an explosion of silver fire, similar to the one that had engulfed Kylon on the day she had used Elixir Restorata on him at the Craven’s Tower.

  She did not expect a burst of dazzling silver fire that ripped across the undead, consuming the spells upon them like leaves in a fire. Caina turned, astonished, and saw Annarah standing on her feet, her collar and shoulder wet with blood. Silver fire burned in her eyes and through her veins. The wound in her neck had closed from the Elixir’s power, but the sorcerous strength still surged through her.

  “How are you doing that?” said Caina.

  “The Elixir,” said Annarah. Her voice was slurred. “A surge of power. The Words of Lore permit us to ride the surge like a ship upon the waves. Oh, by the Divine, it hurts.” Caina stepped towards her. “No, don’t touch me. If I lose control, I’ll kill us all.”

  “Then let’s get out of here,” said Caina. If Annarah could maintain her control over the silver fire, they could use it as a weapon against the undead. They could punch through nagataaru and retreat to the beach, where she hoped they would escape to Murat’s ship.

  After that, Caina did not know how they could reach Istarinmul fast enough to stop Callatas.

  One problem at a time.

  “Usually, you’re the one burning things down,” said Morgant.

  “The fire,” said Caina. “Can you use it as a weapon? Long enough to get us out of the Tomb?”

  Annarah managed a shaky nod. “I will try.” Her pyrikon had collapsed into its bracelet form, but now it unfolded into a staff, the silver fire of the Elixir’s power crackling up and down its length.

  “Let’s go,” Caina said, and they hurried towards the stairs just as another trio of undead warriors emerged, bronze swords in hand.

  Caina started to lift her dagger, but Annarah reacted first. A blast of silver fire leaped from her staff, so hot that Caina felt the heat against her face like the rays of the sun, and the undead collapsed. Annarah groaned and stumbled, and Caina grabbed her arm, helping her along.

  They descended into the darkness of the twisting staircase, the light of the silver fire driving back the gloom. Again and again, the undead charged up the stairs, and again and again, Morgant cut them down, or Annarah hurled blasts of silver fire. Soon sweat poured down Caina’s face and back from the heat of the fire crackling around Annarah’s pyrikon. Annarah herself looked terrible, the cords bulging in her neck, her face glistening with sweat. She looked as if she was trying to hold a heavy object over her head. Caina wondered how much longer Annarah could maintain control of the silver fire.

  “Keep going,” gasped Annarah. “Do not stop for my sake.” She shuddered again, blinking. “We have to get out of the Tomb. I can’t…hold this for much longer.”

  Caina nodded and helped Annarah to walk, Morgant leading the way with valikon and dagger.

  The stairs ended in a long corridor, its walls adorned with hieroglyphs proclaiming both the great deeds and the various crimes of Kharnaces. The corridor led to the domed chamber before the entry hall, and from there they could make their way to the exit and the jungle. Perhaps they would elude the nagataaru among the dead trees, though Caina suspected it would be bad if Annarah lost control of the silver fire in the jungle. The destruction of the Conjurant Bloodcrystal had reduced the trees to withered husks, much like Kharnaces’s servitors, and Caina suspected they would burn like kindling. The next time a storm passed the island, the first lightning bolt would transform Pyramid Isle into an inferno.

  Here and there doors stood within the corridor walls, opening into large chambers that held treasures – gold and jewels and statues and weapons of bronze and silver. Kharnaces might have been a heretic, but evidently, the Maatish had still buried him with treasures befitting a Great Necromancer. The wealth of empires rested within those chambers, but Caina paid it no mind.

  The hundreds of undead warriors rushing up the corridor held her attention.

  Annarah loosed three bursts of silver fire, cutting down a score of the creatures. Yet more came, more and more, a sea of undead flesh rolling towards them. Annarah threw another blast of silver fire, and then she stumbled.

  The silver glow began fading from her eyes and her veins.

  “I can’t hold it,” she whispered. “I can’t…I…” She blinked. “In there! Quickly! In there!”

  She pointed at one of the treasure rooms, a large chamber that had the look of an armory, swords and shields and helmets of bronze arranged upon racks and stone plinths. Caina helped Annarah into the glittering armory, Morgant following them a heartbeat later.

  “A bottleneck,” said Morgant. “But we’re trapped in here just as effectively as we were on the hilltop.”

  “If we stayed in the corridor, we would have been finished,” said Caina, but she knew Morgant was right. There didn’t seem to be any way out.

  Annarah straightened up, striking the end of her staff against the floor. The last of the silver fire drained from her and ran up the staff’s length, and then leaped from the pyrikon. The burst of silver fire stretched across the doorway, shifting from silver to white, and became a shimmering wall of white light that sealed off the doorway.

  An undead baboon sprang at the doorway, only to bounce off the translucent barrier of light as if it had been solid stone.

  “A ward,” said Caina.

  “Yes,” said Annarah, her voice still slurred. “They can’t pass it. I think…I think…I really think that I am going to fall over. Please catch…”

  Her eyes closed and her legs buckled. Caina caught Annarah and lowered her to the floor. As she did, Annarah’s staff collapsed, folding itself into its bracelet form as it coiled around her wrist. The pyrikon let out a flickering white glow, similar to the glow on the doorway.

  Caina saw a dozen baboons standing outside the door, waiting.

  “If she’s unconscious,” said Morgant, “won’t the ward collapse?”

  “No,” said Caina. “It would, normally, but her pyrikon is holding the spell. It will hold the ward in place until she tells it to stop.”

  “Oh. Well. Good,” said Morgant.

  Caina straightened up, shrugging out of her shadow-cloak. The nagataaru could not perceive her or Morgant, but Annarah had no such luxury. Caina wrapped Annarah in the shadow-cloak, pulling the cowl over her head.

  “So we’re not going to be torn apart quite yet,” said Morgant.

  “No,” said Caina, looking out the door. The undead baboons hadn’t moved.

  “What now?” said Morgant.

  Caina stared at the baboons.

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  Chapter 3: The New Humanity

  Callatas stepped away from the gate as it closed behind him, gazing at the alien landscape of the netherworld.

  He had been here many times before, but the overwhelming strangeness of the place still struck him. It seemed to affect Kalgri as well. She had lost most of her weapons during the fight on the hilltop, save for the short sword sheathed at her belt, but she rolled her right wrist, drawing upon the Voice’s power to create a blade of snarling purple flame and dark shadow that could cut through almost anything.

  “Yes,” murmured Callatas. “It is a sight, is it not?”

  Kalgri snorted. “Understatement from you, father? You are indeed exhausted.”

  Callatas chose to ignore that. “A strange and alien place, yes. But it is from here that we shall harvest the power necessary to create the new humanity to replace the old.”

  Kalgri rolled her eyes, but Callatas didn’t care. He was exhausted, but a surge of exultation gave him new strength. He had escaped Pyramid Isle and the clutches of Kha
rnaces with the complete regalia of the Princes, all the pieces he needed to work the Apotheosis. His enemies had been left to die upon Pyramid Isle.

  The victory was his at last.

  He gazed at the netherworld, gathering his will.

  The gray plain stretched away in all directions, the colorless, waist-high grass rippling in a wind that touched neither Callatas nor Kalgri. The sky overhead was black with ominous clouds flowing past far faster than any clouds moved in the mortal world. Arcs of silent green lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, sometimes casting shadows from the objects floating overhead.

  Odd things floated between the plain and the sky – uprooted trees, statues of stone and bronze and gold, archways without bases and stairs that went nowhere. The netherworld was psychomorphic, reshaping itself around the thoughts of the mortals unfortunate enough to visit the place, and bits and pieces of those shapes lingered after the mortals departed or (more likely) were slain by the predatory spirits wandering the place. Already Callatas saw the netherworld warping itself around them, the ground beneath Kalgri’s feet shifting to become the familiar dusty streets of Istarinmul.

  Kalgri didn’t notice or didn’t care. Instead, she looked skyward, blinking as her sword of dark force cast hard shadows across the planes of her face.

  “I saw that when Cassander tried to destroy Istarinmul,” said Kalgri. Callatas scowled at the mention of that near-disaster. “Through the golden rift. Is that…”

  “Yes,” murmured Callatas. “You remember. The tombstone of Iramis itself.”

  Beyond the floating objects, beyond the writhing clouds, he saw something that looked like a mirage, a floating city of golden walls with soaring towers and arching domes, overlaid beneath a flickering rift of golden fire. The rift was an echo of the terrible spell the Moroaica had unleashed two years ago in New Kyre. The city was the echo of Iramis itself. On the day that Callatas had raised the Star of Iramis and called upon its might to burn the city of his birth to ashes, the unleashed power had been so potent that it had extended into the netherworld, leaving an echo imprinted here. A vicious satisfaction went through Callatas as he gazed at the echo of Iramis. The Prince and the collection of fools in the Towers of Lore had opposed his plans, refusing to see the necessity of a new humanity.