Ghost in the Tower Read online

  Caina nodded. “It is, isn’t it?” She felt a pang at the thought. She didn’t like her mother’s family, but she did like Seb. Caina had never had an actual sibling before, even a half-sibling.

  “I am supposed to be serving with the Legions in Nova Nighmaria,” said Seb. “Talmania’s spell plucked me from the field and dropped me into Sigilsoara.” His crooked smile returned. “Granted, a cold forest in Nova Nighmaria wasn’t nearly as pleasant as your wedding bed, I’m sure, so it was less of a shock for me.”

  “Small comfort,” said Caina.

  “Yes, well, we need to take what comfort we can,” said Seb. “I’ll have to report to the Lord Praesar and explain my absence.”

  Caina frowned. “Will you face charges for desertion?”

  “No,” said Seb. “Given the amount of sorcery both sides are using in the civil war, all manner of strange things have happened. And I’m afraid my relation to Talmania is well known.” He paused. “I’ll make sure to forget about you and Kylon and Sophia.”

  “Thank you, Seb,” said Caina.

  “Do you know, I think I’ll miss you,” said Seb.

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” said Caina.

  “Neither was I,” said Seb. “Nor was I expecting to meet a valikarion of flesh and blood, someone like the tales I read when I was a boy.”

  “And you still haven’t,” said Caina. “The Balarigar is fraud and trickery. I’m just a woman with a valikon.”

  “I’m sure Razdan Nagrach and Cazmar Vagastru and Antonin Crailov would be shocked to learn of it,” said Seb.

  “I’ll miss you, Seb,” said Caina. She looked up at him. “I…think I would have been happier without learning our mother had more family. But I’m still glad I met you.”

  He smiled, took her hand, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed her gloved fingers. Caina smiled at the courtly gesture. “I’m glad I met you and your husband. And not just because I wouldn’t have gotten out of Sigilsoara without your help.”

  Caina laughed. “I suppose that’s one way to make a good first impression, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll visit you some time,” said Seb. “Once the civil war is over, and I can travel again. I would like to see Iramis with my own eyes. And…”

  He fell silent, his head turning. Caina followed his gaze to see Ilona and Sophia emerge from the galley and start across the deck. Seb’s eyes lingered on Ilona for a moment, his expression softening, and he looked away before she noticed his attention.

  “I’m not the only one you’re going to miss, am I?” said Caina.

  “No,” murmured Seb.

  “Did you sleep with her?” said Caina.

  Seb gave her an irritated glance, scowled, and then looked embarrassed. “No.”

  “But not for lack of thinking about it, I imagine,” said Caina.

  “Meeting you, dear sister, has had one valuable lesson,” said Seb. “I never fully realized how annoying it can be to talk to someone so perceptive. This must be how people feel when they speak with me.”

  “Oh, don’t sell yourself short, brother, you’re much more annoying than I am,” said Caina, and Seb laughed.

  His laughter faded. “But Ilona will accompany you to Iramis, and I suppose I shall have another farewell. Maybe it is for the best.”

  “What do you mean?” said Caina.

  “Talmania murdered my wife,” said Seb. “I…did kiss Ilona, once, and I wondered if I was disloyal to Katrina. Or if I had betrayed her somehow. Maybe it would be better if I never saw Ilona again. Talmania murdered Katrina out of spite. She might do the same to Ilona.”

  “Maybe it’s wiser to do nothing,” said Caina. “But maybe you’ll regret that more.”

  “What do you mean?” said Seb.

  “There was someone before Kylon,” said Caina, her voice soft. “A man I loved.”

  Seb considered her.

  “How did he die?” he said at last.

  Yes, he was just as perceptive as she was.

  “Saving my life,” said Caina. Memories of Corvalis flashed through her mind, his strong hands, his green eyes, his sardonic smile, the way his body had felt pressed against hers when she lay beneath him.

  And of the day he died, the netherworld burning around him.

  “Does it get easier?” said Seb. “The memories?”

  “No,” said Caina. “Just different. You learn to live with it. And other things happen to you. The grief is always there, but it’s not the center of your heart any longer.” She saw Kylon and Morgant emerge from the hold. Morgant seemed to be needling Kylon, who responded in a distracted fashion. “I do know that if I had pushed Kylon away, I would have regretted it. And not just because he’s saved my life so many times.”

  “You do love him,” said Seb.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “Does that surprise you?” Her mouth twisted. “A Scorneus woman capable of love?”

  “Not really,” said Seb. “I know that Aunt Ariadne got along with her first husband, and she did love her second, I’m sure of it. I suppose I am more surprised that a Ghost nightfighter was capable of love.”

  Caina raised her eyebrows. “And that would be just as much of a surprise from a battle magus of the Imperial Magisterium.”

  “Ah, we’re all imprisoned by our own prejudices, are we not?” said Seb.

  “Maybe,” said Caina, “though I have to admire how deftly you have changed the topic of conversation from you and Ilona.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” said Seb. “And I’m about to do it again.” He pointed. “Because we’re coming within sight of Artifel.”

  The ship followed the curve of the land to the southeast, and Caina saw the city of Artifel.

  The city was big, home to at least a quarter of a million people, and it filled the peninsula on the western side of the Strait of Artifel. Caina had never been to Artifel, had never possessed any desire to visit the home city of the Magisterium, but she had read about the city in her father’s library as a child, and she had heard a great deal about it in the years since. Artifel had three harbors – one on the northern side of its peninsula, another on the east facing the Strait itself, and a third on the southern side of the peninsula that opened into the Narrow Sea. The outer city was home to commoners and laborers and soldiers. The nobles and the magi mostly lived in the inner city, though the magi had built their towers throughout Artifel.

  Caina stood at the railing and watched Artifel as Kylon, Morgant, Ilona, and Sophia joined them. Dozens of ships moved through the water near the Northern Harbor, and Caina spotted several heavy quinqueremes of the Imperial fleet. Beyond she saw a maze of apartment towers and houses climbing towards the inner wall. The towers of the magi were scattered throughout the outer city, but within the inner city, they were as thick as a forest of stone trunks. Some of the towers were round, some square, some octagonal, some slender and hundreds of feet tall, others short and squat, all of them built in a dizzying array of architectural styles. Over all the towers rose the huge black dome of the Magisterium’s Motherhouse. The huge building housed the council of high magi, the Magisterium’s school for novices and initiates, the forges and artificers’ workshops, and the vast library the magi had accumulated over the millennia. A dozen smaller domes ringed the vast central dome.

  To her physical eyes, Artifel was an enormous city.

  To the vision of the valikarion, Artifel glowed.

  Caina saw the warding spells on the city’s walls, spells designed to strengthen the stonework and to prevent elemental spirits from passing the gates. The thousand towers of the magi shone with a maze of tangled warding spells, each one different than the others. The master magi who had reared those towers over the millennia had each possessed their own secrets, and they had worked those secrets into the defenses of their towers. The Motherhouse itself at the heart of the city blazed like a star, warded in layer after layer of warding spells, and it was probably the single strongest concentration of defensive spells Caina had ever seen, equal
to the Tower of Study in Catekharon or the defenses around the Tomb of Kharnaces on Pyramid Isle.

  A splitting headache blazed to life behind her eyes, and Caina forced back the vision of the valikarion, limiting its reach. The vision of the valikarion had no limitations, but her mind most certainly did, and there was a limit to the amount of information it could process at once. Too much and she would develop a headache until she passed out. Her skin crawled, tingling as if pins and needles brushed at her flesh, and her stomach clenched with sudden nausea. She had possessed the vision of the valikarion for less than a year, but she had carried a sensitivity to sorcery ever since Maglarion had scarred her. When Caina had visited Catekharon, home to the mysterious school of powerful sorcerers called the Scholae, the concentration of arcane power around their city had been so potent she had suffered constant headaches and nausea.

  It seemed she would have the same experience in Artifel. Just as well she planned to leave as soon as possible.

  “Artifel,” murmured Seb. “The City of a Thousand Towers, and home of the Motherhouse.”

  “You know,” said Morgant, “when I sailed through on my way to Risiviri, I hoped the city improved since the last time I was here a century or so past.” He scoffed. “It did not.”

  “By the Divine,” murmured Sophia, her dark eyes wide as she gazed at the city. “When you said that Risiviri wasn’t all that large…I wasn’t sure I believed you.”

  “You’ve heard this before,” said Morgant, “but wait until you see Malarae and Istarinmul. The largest cities in the world. Bigger than Artifel by far.”

  “If you say so, sir,” said Sophia. Morgant grunted in answer. He had tried his usual probing insults on Sophia, and she had responded with an unwavering wall of courtesy. The Ulkaari custom was to revere the elderly as wise, and as much as Morgant claimed to be wise, Sophia’s politeness annoyed him to no end.

  Caina stifled a smile as Morgant scowled.

  “Look at those towers,” said Morgant. “Monuments to the egos of mediocrities. Distasteful.”

  “Really,” said Kylon. “I thought if we wanted a monument to ego, we just had to look at you.”

  “That's true,” said Morgant without rancor, “but there’s a difference. I’m not a mediocrity. I’m the best painter in Istarinmul and probably the Empire…”

  “Do you feel that, Lord Kylon, Lord Sebastian?” said Sophia.

  “Feel what, dear?” said Ilona. She was trying to look calm, but like Sophia, she had never been out of Ulkaar before, and her eyes were a little wide as she gazed at the towers of Artifel.

  “A…a pressure,” said Sophia. “Coming from the city. It’s like this…weight inside of my skull. It’s not painful, but it’s definitely there.”

  “Yes, I feel it too,” said Kylon.

  “You’re sensing the spells around the city,” said Seb. “There have been so many warding spells cast around Artifel for so long that anyone with arcane ability can sense them from a long way off. If you closed your eyes, you would still know exactly where Artifel is.”

  He had seen speaking rhetorically, but Sophia closed her eyes and turned in a circle, the tail of her hair brushing against the back of her coat.

  “You’re right,” said Sophia.

  From the wheel, Captain Karzov shouted orders. The sailors scrambled over the sails, and the Harpoon slowed in its approach to the expanse of Artifel’s Northern Harbor. Two of the Imperial quinqueremes approached the Harpoon, their oars lashing at the gray waters. On the decks of the warships, Caina saw men in chain mail with swords at their belts. Probably the civic militia of Artifel, she decided, put to work inspecting ships.

  “Are we stopping?” said Ilona.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “The Empire is at war. They won’t let just any ship into the harbor. They’ll board us and inspect the hold.”

  “Just as well Boyar Mircea wrote up official documents naming us his messengers to the Emperor,” said Ilona.

  “Aye,” said Seb, gazing at her. “Hopefully that should let us get into Artifel without any trouble…and then you and Caina can continue to Malarae without difficulty.”

  They shared a look for a moment, and then Ilona looked down, and Seb looked away. Caina felt a pang for her half-brother. He was so obviously lonely, and just as obviously drawn to Ilona. But maybe he was right. Ilona was no less committed to her duty than he was, and their respective duties drew them in different directions.

  Ilona’s duties…

  Something rattled inside Caina’s head, some idea she couldn’t quite grasp. Ilona was a nightkeeper of the Ghosts, and Theodosia had sent her to help make sure the Sword of Rasarion Yagar went to Iramis and out of Talmania’s grasp forever. But there was something else about Ilona, something Caina couldn’t quite place.

  One of the quinqueremes pulled up next to the ship, and Karzov extended the Harpoon’s gangplank. Caina’s lips thinned as a young magus in a black robe and a crimson sash strode onto the Harpoon, followed by a half-dozen militiamen. She banished the expression from her face at once. Until they left Artifel, she had to keep her dislike of the magi under control. The magi had more authority in Artifel than they did anywhere else in the Empire, and if she provoked a quarrel with them, they might seize the Sword and force Sophia into the Magisterium.

  The young magus spoke with Karzov at length in Caerish. Caina listened, and heard Karzov claim no cargo, saying that he had been hired to carry a group of mercenaries the Boyar of Risiviri had employed as messengers. The messengers had been sent to affirm the Boyar’s loyalty to the Emperor and the Imperial Curia, despite Umbarian attempts at coercion and bribery. The magus glanced over Caina and the others with a bored expression and made notes in a ledger while his soldiers searched the ship. Karzov presented the documents Boyar Mircea had drawn up for him, and the magus made another note in his ledger.

  “You will put in at Quay Fifteen,” said the magus, pointing at the harbor. Hundreds of stone quays jutted into the water, and behind each quay rose a massive stele of stone with a number carved into it. Caina supposed that made navigation easier. “Proceed immediately. If you attempt to return to the open water, or if you attempt to dock at another quay, we will board your vessel and arrest you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Karzov. The magus ignored him and returned to his warship, and the quinqueremes pulled away. Karzov and his first mate barked orders, and the crew scrambled into the holds. The Harpoon did carry some oars, just enough to let the ship navigate in a harbor without the wind. Compared to one of the warships, the Harpoon would move like a wallowing pig, but the ship would get to Quay Fifteen without difficulty.

  “Once we enter the city,” said Seb, “we should head at once to the Western Quarter. We can buy horses and supplies at the forum there. They’ll overcharge you outrageously, but you can be on the Imperial Highway to Outer Ulkaaria and Disalia before sundown.”

  “Good,” said Caina. “We wouldn’t want the Boyar’s messages to the Emperor delayed.”

  “Yes,” said Morgant. “I’m sure that’s just what the Emperor wants. To read letters from a minor noble of a province on the hinterland of the Empire.”

  “Risiviri is the largest city in Ulkaar, sir,” said Sophia.

  Morgant started to say something else, but Caina didn’t hear it.

  Her eyes were fixed on Quay Fifteen.

  Specifically, at the large body of men marching onto the quay.

  “Seb,” she murmured.

  Twenty men in the chain mail and red tabards of the civic militia walked onto the quay. With them came a half-dozen men in the black armor of Imperial battle magi. Behind them walked a half-dozen more men in the black robes and crimson sashes of magi, but they also carried maces of black steel that looked ornamental.

  “Those men with the maces, Seb,” said Ilona. “Are those…”

  “Lictors,” said Seb. It was an ancient High Nighmarian word, once used to describe the guards assigned to magistrates during the First Empire. Th
e term had fallen out of use among the lords and nobles, but the Magisterium still used it. “They’re the…police of the magi, for lack of a better term. They have the authority to make arrests and to investigate crimes among the magi.”

  “I’m sure they do a superb job,” said Caina, though her sarcasm hid her unease. Those battle magi and the Lictors were waiting for the Harpoon. Perhaps that was only part of the security measures of the city. The Divine knew that the Umbarians probably tried to send spies and Silent Hunters into Artifel daily.

  And yet…

  “They’re waiting for us, aren’t they?” said Kylon.

  “I don’t know,” said Caina, “but probably.”

  How had the magi known that they were coming?

  “Wait,” said Seb. “That’s the Praesar. That battle magus in the front? That is the Praesar.”

  “Praesar?” said Sophia.

  “The commander of the battle magi and the Lictors,” said Seb. “The second highest authority in the Magisterium after the First Magus.”

  “Who’s the current Praesar?” said Kylon.

  “Valron Icaraeus,” said Seb.

  Caina’s head snapped around, shocked out of her alarm by the name. “Wait. Did you just say Valron Icaraeus? Of House Icaraeus?”

  “Aye,” said Seb, blinking at her. “You know him?”

  “No,” said Caina. “But House Icaraeus collapsed seven, eight years ago.”

  Which was a polite way of saying that she had a direct hand in the downfall of House Icaraeus. Lord Haeron Icaraeus had been one of Maglarion’s chief supporters and financiers, which hadn’t ended well for Haeron when Maglarion murdered him. Haeron’s eldest son Naelon had escaped the collapse of House Icaraeus and fled to the western Empire and made a fortune kidnapping people and selling them as slaves.

  Caina hadn’t killed his father, but she had killed Naelon. There were things she regretted, but Naelon Icaraeus’s death definitely wasn’t one of them.

  “They did,” said Seb. “I don’t know if you heard about it, but House Icaraeus was working with some renegade necromancer or another in Malarae.”

  “I heard rumors about that,” said Caina.