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

  “And you will trust me with that information?” said Morgant.

  “Not by choice,” said Nasser, “but you knew where Annarah was for a century and a half and told no one. If you wanted to destroy the world, you could have told Callatas where Annarah was at any time during the last century and a half.”

  Morgant remembered the Knight of Wind and Air’s offer to him, the chance to destroy the world.

  Maybe he had never wanted to kill the world, not really.

  “I had not considered it in that light,” said Morgant.

  “Wait,” said Caina. “Annarah, before we begin. Did you have a chance to examine that relic Morgant took from the Inferno?”

  Nasser frowned. “Yes, that. I was curious of the torque’s importance…and why Morgant thought it necessary to risk our lives for it.”

  “I did, Balarigar,” said Annarah. Caina scowled a little, but did not object to the title. “It was an instrument of sorcery of ancient Maat, one commonly carried by priests of middling to high rank. It was called a wedjet-dahn, and its purpose was to provide protection against arcane attack.”

  “A shield against sorcery, you mean?” said Caina.

  Annarah nodded. “A wedjet-dahn absorbed hostile spells, protecting its bearer from harm.” She reached into a pocket of her dress and drew out the torque. The golden links of its chain hung loose, the green jade of the scarab glimmering.

  “That could be useful,” said Caina.

  “Unfortunately, this one is badly damaged,” said Annarah, giving the wedjet-dahn a shake before she set it upon the table. Morgant reached over, collected it, and tucked it into a pocket of his black coat. “It takes on the properties of whatever spell it absorbs, and starts channeling that power back into its bearer.”

  “So if you were wearing that wedjet-dahn,” said Caina, “and someone hit you with a pyromantic blast…”

  “The torque would absorb the power of the spell,” said Annarah, “and then channel the fire back into its bearer. I suspect the damaged wedjet-dahn was in the Inferno as a trophy. Likely Kharnaces defeated a lesser priest in a duel, and kept the priest’s wedjet-dahn as a memento of his victory.”

  “You risked our lives for a trophy?” said Caina, looking at Morgant. “Why?”

  Morgant sighed. “A mutual friend suggested it.”

  “Which mutual friend?” said Caina, though her eyes narrowed.

  “A windy knight,” said Morgant. He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen again.

  “A windy knight?” said Nasser.

  “Remember Samnirdamnus?” said Caina.

  “Vividly,” said Nasser. “As I recall, he sometimes speaks to you through dreams.”

  “Who is that?” said Kylon.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Caina. “He also speaks to Morgant.”

  Nasser gave Morgant a blank look.

  “How do you think I lived this long?” said Morgant. “Clean living and exercise? No. A long time ago I freed one of the djinn of the Court of the Azure Sovereign from an Anshani occultist, and in exchange the djinni granted me long life.”

  “I suspect, though,” said Annarah, “that the djinn wanted to keep Morgant alive for some purpose.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Morgant. He pointed at Caina. “The day I met you, Samnirdamnus told me to follow you. Before we went into the Inferno, the Knight told me I would find that torque in the ruins. He claimed that if I took it with me, I would save the world, but that if I left it behind, the world would perish.”

  “How can a damaged implement of Maatish sorcery save the world?” said Caina.

  “Damned if I know,” said Morgant. “You’re the Balarigar. You figure it out. I just kill people and paint stunning masterpieces of timeless art.”

  “I counsel you to keep it, Morgant,” said Annarah. “The djinn of the Azure Court were never hostile to mankind. If Samnirdamnus aided you in the past, perhaps he has foreseen a need for the relic in the future, just as he foresaw that Caina might aid you.”

  “Very well,” said Morgant.

  “Speaking of relics,” said Nasser, “we should proceed with the business at hand.”

  Laertes reached into a bag and drew out a thick book bound in leather. A sigil marked the cover, an intricate ring encircling a seven-pointed star. It was the ancient sigil of the Princes of Iramis, and a chill went through Morgant at the sight.

  He had not seen that book for a very long time.

  “The last time I saw that,” said Morgant, “I handed it to Callatas.”

  “Annarah,” said Nasser.

  “My lord Prince,” murmured Annarah, raising her left hand. Her pyrikon shrank to its ring form, and with her left hand she opened the book, the pyrikon flashing with white light. “I feared that Callatas would read my mind and pluck the location of the Staff and the Seal from my thoughts. The loremasters of Iramis had the ability to remove memories from our minds and encode them within the pages of a book. Some of the greatest loremasters used this power to store their memories for future generations to study. I employed it to hide the Staff and the Seal, and I wrought the spell so that only I could unlock the memories. Morgant. Put your hand on my shoulder, and you shall remember as I remember.”

  He hesitated, then stood, crossed the room, and put his right hand upon her shoulder. Her flesh felt very warm, almost feverish, through the cloth of her dress. He did not like touching her. Truth be told, he did not like touching anyone. Morgant supposed that Caina, romantic that she was, assumed that he was in love with Annarah, that he had spent a century and a half trying to find her for that reason. He didn’t love her. He liked her, certainly, respected her…

  He feared her.

  Annarah turned the pages of her book, the characters flowing and writhing across the page, and suddenly memory flooded into Morgant.

  He remembered why he feared her.

  “Does the world deserve to die?” he whispered.

  “I remember,” she said. “I remember. The day you caught me with the Staff and the Seal in Rumarah, near the docks.”

  “I hadn’t decided if I was going to kill you or not,” said Morgant. “I asked you…I asked you if the world deserved to die, and you told me…”

  “Yes,” whispered Annarah. “Yes. The world deserves to die.”

  Caina frowned and leaned closer.

  “Have you not seen it?” said Annarah, her words echoing in his memory from all those years ago. “So much suffering. So much needless death. The strong rule and the weak suffer, and if the weak become strong, they behave no better. This world is drenched in blood and torment.”

  “You sound like the Moroaica,” said Caina, her voice tight.

  “Do not you deserve to die, too, Morgant?” said Annarah, gazing at the book. The long-ago conversation echoed inside his head. “All that innocent blood on your hands. You’ve killed people who didn’t deserve it. You’ve broken your word. Why do you not kill yourself? Your own rules demand it.”

  “I…” said Morgant.

  Now, as then, he did not have an answer for her.

  “Because you forgave yourself,” whispered Annarah, “and you need to forgive the world, Morgant. Any man can take vengeance. Vengeance is the most common thing in the world, but you cannot shelter beneath it, you cannot clothe yourself with it, you cannot feed your children with it. Revenge is so common. Forgiveness…forgiveness is the rarest thing of all. Forgiveness can change the world. What if you forgave the world, Morgant? What would you do then?”

  “I don’t know,” murmured Morgant. “I would…”

  Spend a hundred and fifty years seeking for a way to rescue Annarah?

  Throw in with a mad Ghost nightfighter in her quest to defeat Callatas?

  “That’s why you tried to save Rolukhan, isn’t it?” said Caina. “To forgive him?”

  “Yes,” whispered Annarah. “You understand, Balarigar. No one can live on vengeance their entire life. Not even you.”

  Kylon shifted aga
inst the wall, his frown deepening.

  “Does the world deserve to die?” said Morgant. “I suppose you answered that question.”

  “That is the answer I choose,” said Annarah, her eyes closed as she turned the pages. “Now another question. Where did I hide the Staff and Seal of Iramis? Where did I hide them so well that not even Callatas could find them with all his power and knowledge? Where…”

  Suddenly she gasped, going rigid beneath Morgant’s grasp.

  ###

  Annarah’s green eyes shot open, and Kylon reached for his sword out of instinct.

  He sensed the emotions in the room. Caina felt sad and tired. Nasser and Laertes eager. Morgant’s cold aura was oddly at peace. Annarah’s sense had been seeking, curious…

  But now something else flooded her aura.

  Dread. Utter, total dread.

  ###

  “What have I done?” whispered Annarah, her hand falling away from the book. “What have I done?”

  “Annarah?” said Caina. “What is it?”

  “Loremaster?” said Nasser.

  She let out a laugh. “Of course. Where else could I have hidden them? Where else would not even Callatas ever dare to go? In all this world, what is the one place that Grand Master Callatas himself would never dare to visit again?”

  “Where?” said Caina.

  She looked at Nasser and saw the shock on his face.

  “You didn’t,” said Nasser.

  “I am sorry, my lord Prince,” said Annarah. “But I did.”

  “Oh,” said Morgant. “I remember now.” He looked astonished. “We actually did that? We’re idiots.”

  “Where did you put them?” said Caina.

  “I hid the Staff and Seal,” said Annarah, “in the Tomb of Kharnaces.”

  “Kharnaces?” said Caina. “You mean the Great Necromancer that used to command the Inferno? I thought the other Great Necromancers destroyed him for heresy.”

  “They tried,” said Annarah. “They failed.”

  “It seems you shall learn another of my secrets, Ghost,” said Nasser. “This was a secret known only to the Princes of Iramis and the senior loremasters. The Great Necromancer Kharnaces was not destroyed. Such was his strength that not even the assembled priests of Maat could overcome him. Instead, he was banished and imprisoned on an island tomb in the Alqaarin sea, and there he has remained for the last two and a half thousand years.”

  Caina considered that. “Why would Callatas be afraid to go there? Not unless…”

  The answer came to her in a flash.

  “What was Kharnaces’s heresy?” said Caina.

  “What do you think?” said Nasser.

  “He turned from the old gods of Maat to worship the nagataaru, didn’t he?” said Caina.

  “You see why he so alarmed the priests of Maat,” said Nasser. “After Callatas forsook the Order of the Words of Lore, he fled Iramis and went to Kharnaces’s tomb. He remained there for some years.”

  “What did he do there?” said Caina.

  “No one knows,” said Nasser, “but I suspect Kharnaces held him prisoner. After Callatas escaped, he displayed an interest in the nagataaru, and he began to research them.” He looked at Annarah. “And you hid the relics there? In the grasp of that monster Kharnaces?”

  “Callatas was too frightened to ever return there,” said Annarah. “And Kharnaces himself seems to be in…some kind of hibernation. If the Undying hibernate. Perhaps he was in a stupor. Morgant and I penetrated the tomb’s defenses, hid the Staff and the Seal in the upper levels, and we departed.”

  “I remember,” said Morgant. He rubbed a hand through his gray hair. “I can’t believe we survived that.”

  “After we left the Tomb I removed my memory, concealed it in the journal, hid myself in the netherworld, and waited,” said Annarah.

  “What now, then?” said Laertes.

  “Perhaps we can simply leave the relics in the tomb,” said Kylon. “If Callatas fears the place too much to enter it, we will never have to fear the Apotheosis.”

  “No,” said Caina, Annarah, and Nasser in unison.

  “Why not?” said Kylon.

  “Because,” said Caina, “if Kharnaces was…hibernating when Annarah visited a century and a half ago, he might not stay that way. If he wakes up and finds the Staff and Seal…”

  “He will use them to summon his nagataaru gods to the mortal world,” said Annarah. “Kharnaces will work an Apotheosis of his own. Callatas has some mad plan to remake humanity. Kharnaces will simply feed us to the nagataaru.” She shook her head. “I was such a fool. I thought it would only take a few years to return from the netherworld, that I could retrieve the Staff and the Seal from the Tomb before Kharnaces awoke. Instead I have put the entire world in terrible danger.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Caina, thinking it over. “Kharnaces must still be in hibernation. He hasn’t used the Staff and the Seal yet, and he doesn’t know that they’re in the Tomb.”

  “Just how do you know that?” said Morgant.

  “Because the world hasn’t ended yet,” said Caina.

  Kylon grunted. “Good argument.”

  “Then it seems that our course is clear,” said Nasser.

  Caina blinked, and then she laughed.

  “What is so funny?” said Annarah.

  “It’s not funny,” said Caina. “It’s just…we’re going to plan another heist, aren’t we?”

  Nasser’s white smile spread slowly over his dark face.

  “A heist?” said Annarah. “Like we are common thieves?”

  “I stole your pyrikon from the palace of a dead Master Alchemist,” said Caina. “Then we stole your journal from Callatas’s Maze. After that we robbed the Craven’s Tower, and then stole you out of the Inferno. Before that I robbed half the cowled masters of the Brotherhood of Slavers. Honored loremaster, I submit that you have probably fallen in with the most effective gang of thieves in Istarish history.”

  “And probably the gang with the most illustrious birth,” said Morgant. “The Prince of Iramis, the last loremaster of Iramis, and a former archon of the Assembly of New Kyre. Truly, you have all come down in the world.”

  “Not me,” said Laertes. “My father was a brewer. I’m just here to pay for my daughters’ dowries.”

  “We work from the shadows, loremaster, because we must,” said Nasser. “Gone are the days when I could command armies and summon nobles. So we work in the shadows, but the shadows are an effective place to work. As the Ghosts, I suspect, could no doubt tell me.”

  “Yes,” murmured Caina.

  Her heart was heavy, but her mind was clear, and so were her path and purpose. Before her was the best chance she had of stopping Callatas from working his Apotheosis, of stopping the wraithblood laboratories and the rampages of the Brotherhood, of stopping the Istarish civil war before it could begin. She had capable friends and allies, and with them she had her best chance of keeping the Apotheosis from ever happening.

  Her eyes turned to Kylon, and the sadness within her tightened.

  Perhaps when all this was over, perhaps if they both survived what was to come, then maybe something more could happen between them.

  Or perhaps Caina was simply fooling herself.

  She pushed the entire matter out of her mind and got to work.

  Epilogue

  The woman who now called herself Kalgri lay motionless in the hot darkness of the crawlspace below Nasser Glasshand’s sitting room, listening to the voices filtering through the floorboards a few inches above her nose.

  Another voice filled her thoughts, whispering and hissing.

  The Voice pointed out that Caina Amalas was only a few feet away, that if Kalgri summoned the sword of the nagataaru and stabbed up, the blade would shear through the floor and cut Caina in half before she could react. Then the Voice would feast upon her death, and the nagataaru crooned with pleasure at the thought

  Kalgri remained motionless, listening. She could
kill Caina with the sword of the nagataaru. Of course, if she did, Kylon of House Kardamnos would draw that damned valikon and kill her. Or the loremaster Annarah would speak the Words of Lore and kill her. Certainly Annarah had the power to do it.

  Kalgri could fight Caina, but then she would die.

  That had been her mistake the last time, before the Voice had rebuilt her flesh and her mind. Every time the Voice rebuilt her, she looked different, thought differently. The last time Kalgri had enjoyed fighting, and so had let Caina draw her into a fight.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Fighting Caina had been imbecilic. The Ghost had a peculiar sort of genius for observation, for tactics and improvisation, and that had ended with Kalgri falling a thousand feet with a ballista bolt shot through her torso. It had taken the Voice months to rebuild her after that, and while Kalgri was inured to pain, it nonetheless was not an experience she wanted to repeat.

  Kalgri had lived for nearly two centuries, and she had survived that long by learning from her mistakes. Fighting Caina had been a mistake.

  So she wouldn’t fight Caina.

  Kalgri would simply kill her with Caina’s own tactics.

  She smiled in the darkness, one hand fingering the smooth fabric of her shadow-cloak.

  A long time ago she had encountered a Ghost nightfighter and killed the man, taking his shadow-cloak and ghostsilver short sword as trophies. She had hidden away the items and forgotten them. Later, as Kalgri considered the best way to kill Caina, she remembered the shadow-cloak. Kalgri had never used the shadow-cloak because while it blocked arcane detection, it also blocked the Voice’s ability to sense nearby mortals, an ability Kalgri had found useful on many occasions.

  Kylon of House Kardamnos could sense emotions, which made it difficult to sneak up on him, as Kalgri had learned in the Tower of Kardamnos. Kylon of House Kardamnos could also sense the presence of nagataaru, and the Voice was a powerful lord of the nagataaru.

  But when Kalgri wore the Ghost shadow-cloak, she could not access the Voice’s senses…but Kylon could not sense her emotions or the Voice’s presence, either.