Ghost in the Razor Read online

  The Sifter threw back its head and roared, and as it did the dead girl’s body burst into howling flames. The interior of the circle transformed into a crimson cylinder of shrieking fire. Had the summoning circle not been ringed in binding and warding spells, Cassander suspected the heat from the fire would have burned the skin from his flesh and turned his bones to charcoal. Even so, the warding sigils flared brighter, straining against the Sifter’s wrath, and for a moment Cassander feared that the ifrit’s power would rip through the warding spells.

  But the fire faded away, leaving only a pile of glowing embers within the circle.

  “What,” said Maria, a hint of fear in her voice, “what happened?” Cassander looked at her, and noted with pleasure how she flinched at his gaze.

  “Tell me,” said Cassander. “Why is the spirit called the Sifter?”

  Maria shrugged. “I fear I do not know, my lord.”

  Within the circle the embers stirred, pulsing brighter.

  “Because the Sifter’s preferred method of killing,” said Cassander, “is to force its way into a host’s body, overwhelm the host’s will, and burn its victim to embers. It then sifts through the ashes, and gains the dead host’s memories and knowledge…along with the ability to take the victim’s shape and guise. Behold.”

  He clapped his hands, the gauntlet ringing, and the glow of the circle vanished. The embers erupted from the floor, shaping themselves into a human form, and suddenly the dead slave girl appeared. She looked healthy and unharmed, her eyes returned to black.

  Cassander knew better.

  “Go forth and slay,” said Cassander. “A century of my Adamant Guards await you outside this palace. They will obey you.”

  The Sifter grinned, and crimson fire flashed in the black eyes.

  The dead girl strode from the cellar without another word.

  ###

  The Sifter stepped into the sunlight and looked around.

  It did not use its host’s eyes of flesh. The mortal inhabitants of this world used light to observe the world around them, though there were many other forms of energy they could not perceive. The Sifter did not rely upon anything so crude as material organs of sense to make its way through the city of Istarinmul, the troop of spell-mutated Adamant Guards following.

  It could see…totality. The lines of destiny. The balances of probability.

  All of which could burn.

  It saw the Adamant Guards following behind, saw the potent spells binding their flesh and reinforcing their bodies, grafting plates of armor to their flesh. It saw the lines of destiny they wrote into the totality of the mortal world, the threads they wove into the tapestry of time, their pasts crystallized, their futures uncertain.

  Though less uncertain with every passing moment as the Sifter contemplating killing them.

  Cassander’s binding burned through the elemental spirit, and the Sifter felt its stolen face twist in rage. The Sifter wanted to burn all of Istarinmul to ashes, but it could not. Cassander’s spell compelled it, and it could not do as it wished. Someday, the Sifter would take revenge upon Cassander Nilas.

  Not today, though.

  For Cassander had given it a worthy task.

  To burn the demonslayer.

  So many other threads crossed the line of her destiny. If the Sifter slew her…countless others would die. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Perhaps even millions.

  Perhaps even this entire world.

  The Sifter had devoured countless mortals, their screams fueling its fires…but it had never killed an entire world before.

  There was a first time for everything.

  The Sifter strode through the streets of Istarinmul in its stolen body, seeking the destiny line of Caina Amalas.

  Chapter 5: Kindred

  Ikhardin stepped forward, and Caina felt a familiar sensation.

  The big assassin had a spell upon him. No, not a spell, an enspelled item. Caina sensed the familiar cold aura of necromantic sorcery upon him. In a flash she realized that he had a torque with a bloodcrystal around his right arm. The Kindred Elder of Cyrioch had carried such an item, and it had granted him inhuman speed and strength while healing his wounds.

  “Kylon,” said Caina in a low voice, stepping closer to him. “Ikhardin. He has a bloodcrystal.”

  He gave a sharp nod. “I can sense it.”

  Rolukhan turned and strode down the corridor at the far end of the training room, his boots clicking against the floor. The arrogance of it stunned Caina. If the Master Alchemist had thrown his powers into the fray, it would have ended the fight quickly.

  Of course, with six Kindred assassins, Rolukhan’s withdrawal was not so much arrogance as simple confidence.

  An idea came to Caina.

  “Kyracian,” she hissed. “Speak Kyracian. They might not know it.”

  “Go,” murmured Kylon in the same language as the Kindred approached, spreading out in a semicircle. “There’s an entrance to the sewers behind the barracks. Run, and you can…”

  “No,” said Caina, reaching into an interior pocket of her robe.

  “I can’t take them all,” said Kylon. “They’re here for me. There is no need for you to die too.”

  “Actually, I would prefer if neither of us died,” said Caina, her fingers closing around something cold and hard in her pocket. He had asked if she trusted him. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” said Kylon.

  “Then close your eyes when I tell you,” said Caina.

  The Kindred drew closer, and Ikhardin’s scarred face twisted into an ugly smile.

  “Exile,” rumbled the towering assassin in Istarish. “I have seen you fight upon the sands. You are a skilled fighter…but let us see if you can face a killer. Let us see if you are one of the sheep or one of the wolves.”

  “Come and find out,” said Kylon in Istarish, his voice quiet.

  ###

  Morgant ducked into the empty gladiator’s cell, wrapping his black coat tight to conceal the white cloth of his shirt. Had he known he would be skulking around the shadows today, he would have chosen more appropriate garb.

  Still, he had spent a lifetime improvising his way out of dangerous situations.

  A moment later Malik Rolukhan strode past the cell, his gleaming white robes flowing around him like a splash of white paint upon a dark canvas. The Master Alchemist and the Lieutenant of the Inferno looked neither right nor left and failed to notice Morgant. Morgant counted to thirty, took a deep breath, and peeked out of the cell just in time to see the Master Alchemist disappear up the stairs back to the Ring.

  Wasn’t that interesting?

  He knew of Malik Rolukhan. Thanks to Rolukhan’s mastery of Elixir Rejuvenata, he was almost as old as Morgant. He was also the Lieutenant of the Inferno, the hellish fortress were men were transformed into Immortals, and the man who commanded the Inferno had a brutal ruthlessness that made the other Master Alchemists look like timid children. At first Morgant had assumed the Kindred and Rolukhan had come to kill the Balarigar. Rolukhan was one of Callatas’s supporters, and the bounty of two million bezants upon Caina’s head would tempt even a Master Alchemist. Yet it seemed that the Kindred were here for the Kyracian gladiator. Morgant could not fathom why. The man was a skilled fighter, but no one would send six Kindred assassins to kill a gladiator.

  Nor was he sure why the gladiator was important to the Balarigar. Morgant’s first thought was that the Kyracian was her lover or former lover. Certainly that explained why she had run off the minute the Exile had removed his helmet, yet that did not seem quite right.

  Then the Kindred had arrived.

  Morgant stood in the shadows of the doorway, wrapped in his black coat, watching the assassins. Neither the Kindred nor the Balarigar nor the Exile had noticed him. If Morgant struck before Ikhardin and his followers noticed him, he could take two or three of them before…

  No.

  The Knight of Wind and Air might think that Caina Amalas was the one that he
had sought since the fall of Iramis, but Morgant was not convinced. He was not sure that a woman in her early twenties could help him keep his word to Annarah.

  He did not think Caina could bear the burden of the knowledge he could give her.

  So he would see if she was worthy or not. The Kindred would make an excellent test. And if the assassins killed her and her Kyracian friend, well…the Knight of Wind and Air had been wrong before.

  Morgant waited, watching the assassins draw closer, and Caina dipped a hand into her robe.

  ###

  Kylon pointed his sword at the assassins and drew upon his power.

  He was not a powerful sorcerer, not the way that Andromache had been. She had been able to command the winds and call the lightning, burning her enemies alive or trapping them in caskets of killing ice. Kylon did not desire that kind of power. He had seen the end it had brought to Andromache. Instead, his sorcery let him draw on the elemental power of wind and storm, granting him the speed of the storm and the strength of the tide. Once he had been able to wreathe his blade with killing frost, so cold that a touch of his sword turned the blood of his foes to ice. Only a blade forged of storm-wrought steel could withstand the stress of such cold, and Kylon’s sword of storm-forged steel had been shattered when he fought the Red Huntress in the Tower of Kardamnos.

  The broadsword in his hand was of good quality, but if he tried to wrap it in frost it would shatter like glass.

  He used the power instead to augment his speed and strength, preparing to strike. The leftmost assassin, he thought. Kylon would cut him down and then strike the next man. He could take down two or three of them before Ikhardin and the others killed him, and Caina could use the opportunity to escape. Kylon had failed Andromache, had failed Thalastre, had failed his homeland and his people. He deserved to die for his mistakes.

  Caina didn’t, though.

  As ever, she looked calm and collected, her emotions cold and focused against his arcane senses. It was odd. If he was about to die, he was glad he had seen her at least one more time. He had always admired her bravery and cunning…

  She withdrew something that looked like a small clay sphere from a pocket.

  “Close your eyes,” she said in Kyracian.

  He realized she was about to do something clever, and as she drew back her arm to throw, he closed her eyes.

  And as he did Kylon realized that he did indeed trust her, trusted her enough to close his eyes in the middle of a fight.

  The clay sphere shattered against the sandy floor, and even through his closed eyelids, Kylon felt the glare of sudden brilliant light. The Kindred bellowed in dismay.

  “Strike!” shouted Caina. “Now!”

  Kylon opened his eyes and shot forward, all his strength and his power driving him.

  ###

  Caina had found the supplies for creating the sphere in the Sanctuary. She supposed it was technically a smoke bomb, but she had altered the formula to generate more flash than smoke. Given how many people wanted to kill her, she went armed with as many weapons and tools as she could carry, even while disguised.

  She had never regretted it.

  Caina opened her eyes and saw a plume of black smoke rising from the shattered clay sphere. The Kindred assassins had come to a halt, trying to clear the afterimage of the dazzling flash from their eyes. She shouted for Kylon to strike…

  …but he was already in motion.

  He had suffered much, lost much, but Kylon Shipbreaker was still one of the deadliest fighters she had ever seen.

  Caina felt a surge of arcane power, and Kylon leapt across the training room, his broadsword a blur of steel. An instant later the Kindred assassin on the left collapsed, blood spraying from his slashed throat. Kylon wheeled and stabbed, his arm driving the blade with the force of a tidal wave. The sword bisected a second assassin’s chest, and Kylon ripped the blade free, turning to face the others.

  Ikhardin hurtled forward in a terrifying blur, his speed augmented by the surge of necromantic power flaring around him.

  “Kill him, brothers!” thundered the huge assassin. “Kill him!”

  Ikhardin and the surviving three assassins turned towards Kylon, focusing upon him as the main threat. Kylon’s sword blurred back and forth, parrying and blocking the blows of the Kindred, but Ikhardin could match his speed, and every one of the Kindred assassins were skilled fighters.

  Yet for the moment, they had forgotten Caina. She could not match any one of them in a straight fight, but as both her teachers at the Vineyard and brutal experience had taught her, to fight fair was to lose.

  She rolled her wrist, drawing a throwing knife from the hidden sheath up her sleeve, and grasped the weapon by the blade. Caina stepped forward, her arm shooting forward and her body snapping like a bowstring. The nearest assassin wore chain mail and armored gauntlets, but there was a gap between his steel-plated boot and the edge of his hauberk. Caina had a lot of practice with throwing knives, and the spinning blade buried itself in the back of his knee. The assassin stumbled with a bellow, his knee collapsing, and Caina sprang forward, snatching one of the daggers hidden in her boot. She buried the blade in the assassin’s neck, blood bursting across her fingers. The assassin took a wobbly swing at her, but Caina dodged with ease, and the Kindred collapsed to the floor.

  One of the assassins turned towards her, while the final assassin and Ikhardin continued driving Kylon back. Caina retreated, and the Kindred prowled after her, scimitar leading, dagger drawn back. She adjusted the throwing knife in her right hand, but the assassin’s eyes flicked to the blade. Caina’s left hand dipped into her robe, drawing out another sphere, and she flung it to the sand.

  The assassin looked away, shielding his eyes.

  But the sphere had been a fake, and Caina was already moving. She flung the throwing knife before the assassin recovered from the ruse, and the blade landed in his throat. He stumbled with a gagging scream, and Caina yanked another dagger from her belt and struck, widening the wound in his neck. The assassin stabbed at her, but Caina deflected the thrust with a sweep of her arm. The Kindred fell to his knees, and Caina sidestepped and drove her boot into the small of his back.

  The assassin landed upon his face and stopped moving.

  She turned to help Kylon with the final Kindred, and saw that the stormdancer had already dispatched the assassin. Now he dueled Ikhardin, the two men spinning around each other as they fought, their blades ringing and chiming. A gash crossed Ikhardin’s forehead, and she saw Kylon bleeding from minor wounds upon his right arm. Yet Ikhardin’s wound was shrinking, healing as the bloodcrystal upon his torque closed the gash. Kylon’s own stamina and strength might fail long before he could strike down Ikhardin.

  Unless Caina helped him first.

  Both men were focused upon each other, so Ikhardin did not notice Caina’s presence until she sent a throwing knife spinning at him. The blade landed in his shoulder, and Ikhardin stumbled with a grunt. Kylon seized the opening and swung, and the Kindred assassin jerked back, the thrust aimed for his throat drawing a line of blood across his jaw. Caina flung another knife, and Ikhardin whirled, his scimitar snapping to send the blade spinning away.

  Another leap carried him a dozen yards back. Ikhardin looked back and forth between Kylon and Caina.

  “This is not over,” spat the assassin in Istarish.

  Then he spun and fled, vanishing down the corridor with inhuman speed.

  Caina let out a long breath and looked at the corpses scattered across the floor.

  ###

  Morgant watched the surviving Kindred assassin flee.

  That surprised him. The Kindred assassins were fools, but they were fools quite skilled at killing, and he had expected them to make short work of the Balarigar and her Kyracian friend. Especially since he knew Ikhardin. The man had rank among Istarinmul’s Kindred family, either a Gatewarden or one of the Masters of the Blades, and therefore had possession of a torque with a bloodcrystal that could
augment his prowess and heal his wounds.

  Yet the Balarigar and her ally had defeated them.

  Of course, it helped immensely that her ally had been a stormdancer. Morgant distrusted sorcerers, as did any sensible man, but the stormdancers of New Kyre deserved a modicum of respect. He had seen them fight, had seen them carve through the ranks of enemy soldiers like a farmer harvesting wheat. Though why the devil was a Kyracian stormdancer fighting in the Ring of Cyrica? If the Kyracian was here as a spy, it was a particularly wretched disguise.

  For that matter, why did a Master Alchemist and the Lieutenant of the Inferno want to kill a Kyracian stormdancer?

  Morgant had no idea.

  He did know that stormdancers often had the ability to sense the emotions of those around them, so he took a moment to still his mind, calming himself. He wanted to observe the Balarigar and her Kyracian friend for a little while longer before he made up his mind.

  ###

  Kylon let out a long breath, wiping the blood from the blade of his sword.

  “You’re hurt,” said Caina.

  “Eh?” said Kylon, blinking. He looked at his arm and felt the pain from the wounds. “Not seriously.”

  “Thank you,” said Caina. “They would have killed me if they had caught me alone.” She walked from corpse to corpse, retrieving her throwing knives from the dead men.

  “They wouldn’t have done anything to you,” said Kylon. “They were here to kill me.”

  She paused, then retrieved her last blade. “Rolukhan.”

  Kylon shook his head. “I cannot believe Rolukhan found me so fast. I have not been in Istarinmul for very long.”

  “That’s enough,” said Caina. “All it takes is one Teskilati informant. And Kylon Shipbreaker was a famous man. Thousands of soldiers and sailors saw your face.”

  Kylon felt his hand tighten against his sword hilt. “Malik Rolukhan is outside. Probably alone. If I catch him now…”