Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge Page 9

  Caina jumped, grabbing the rough brick, and dragged herself along until she had passed the warding spell. Four more warding spells marked off the alley, and she passed them one by one. Nicorus lived in terror of the First Magus’s wrath, though Caina suspected that Decius Aberon had forgotten about him long ago.

  On the other hand, Caina had seen the First Magus’s cruelty firsthand. Perhaps Nicorus was right to live in terror.

  At last Caina climbed up the stairs to Nicorus’s front door. No warding spells rested upon the door, its only adornment an iron plate at eye level. Caina raised her hand and pounded on the door. Nicorus had to be inside. He would not have activated his wards unless he was at home…

  The iron plate rattled aside with a rasp, and Caina saw the gleam of bloodshot eyes.

  “Be off!” said a quavering, rusty voice. “I am not accepting clients, and I have no wish for visitors. Go!”

  “Don’t you want to know,” said Caina, “how I got through your wards?”

  She drew back the cowl of her shadow-cloak.

  An alarmed hiss came from the other side of the door. “You!”

  “Nicorus,” said Caina. “It has been a long time. Let me inside. I have some questions for you. Answer them, and I shall be on my way.”

  “No,” said Nicorus. “No, you bring only trouble with you. I’ll have nothing to do it with it. Go at once!”

  “You activated your wards, I see,” said Caina. “You know the city is in an uproar. Do you know why?”

  Nicorus said nothing, his eyes gleaming in the gloom.

  “The new Lord Governor was assassinated through sorcery,” said Caina, which was mostly true.

  “You lie,” said Nicorus.

  “Not about this,” said Caina. “The Legions have sealed off the city and are searching for the killer. You have a bit of a reputation, Nicorus, and the Legions are out for blood. If they can’t find the killer, they’ll need a scapegoat…and who better to blame than the renegade magus hiding in his hovel?”

  “And you intend to help me?” said Nicorus, his thick voice full of scorn.

  “I do,” said Caina, “by finding and killing the Lord Governor’s murderer. If I do, there will be no reason for the Legions to hunt you, and you can remain in peace.”

  For a moment Nicorus said nothing.

  “Damn you,” he rasped at last. “Damn you, Ghost. You may enter. But be quick about it.”

  Bolts thumped and locks clicked, and the thick door swung open.

  Caina stepped into Nicorus’s workshop. The room was cavernous, the walls lined with wooden shelves of jars, bottles, books, scrolls, and bones. Various organs and dead animals floated in jars of brine. The only light came from a pair of corroded bronze braziers at either end of the room. Nicorus himself was a squat, hairless man in a greasy brown robe, his skin the color of kneaded dough. Caina had not seen him for two years, not since the Istarish attack upon Marsis, and he had aged considerably. Deep wrinkles cut into the slack skin of his face, and he leaned upon a thick cane in his right hand.

  The man was a snake, and Caina trusted him about as far as she could throw him. But he was a snake who knew useful things, both about the Magisterium and various forms of illegal sorcery, and sometimes he assisted the Ghosts out of sheer terror. Halfdan had used him from time to time, and…

  A flash of burning pain shot through Caina’s mind, and she pushed aside the thought of Halfdan.

  She dared not show any weakness in front of a man like Nicorus.

  “I should not be surprised,” said Nicorus with a sneer. His cane rasped against the warped floorboards. “Wherever you go, chaos follows. And there has been so much chaos since I saw you last. The great elementals stir in their sleep, and I felt a dark power awaken in Caer Magia. And now you are here.”

  “I’m not here to talk about recent history,” said Caina. “What do you know about possession?”

  Nicorus tilted his head to the side, his jowls quivering. “As I understand, it is a legal term referring to the current holder of a piece of property, regardless of his actual title to…”

  “Do not be glib,” said Caina. “I know you have far more knowledge about illegal sorcery than you pretend. I know that you have spent years studying the old lore of the Red Circle of Marsis. Tell me what you know about a sorcerer using a spell to possess the body of another.”

  Nicorus rubbed his bald head, watching her.

  “It is,” he said at last, “exceedingly difficult, and would require sorcery of considerable subtlety. The bonds that join the spirit to the flesh are many, complex, and not easily severed.”

  “Are they?” said Caina. “A knife to the heart severs them easily enough.”

  “Perhaps I misspoke,” said Nicorus. Some of his cringing, unctuous manner disappeared as he began to lecture. “Let us say they are not easily reknit if cut, which is required if a spirit is to take possession of a new body. You see, upon death, the spirit is forced into the netherworld, where after a few moments it moves…beyond, to whatever awaits the soul beyond death. Heaven, hell, oblivion, reincarnation, I know not. There we move from arcane science to theology, and there are as many theories as there are faiths.”

  “But obviously it is possible,” said Caina, “for a sorcerer’s spirit to take possession of a new body.” Ranarius had done it. Jadriga had done it for over twenty centuries.

  “Indeed,” said Nicorus, “else we would not be enjoying this discussion. For a spirit to take possession of a new body, two things are required. First, considerable sorcerous skill. Second, a physical anchor in the material world, something to pull the spirit back when death sends it to the netherworld. Else the spirit has no means to return.”

  “An anchor,” said Caina. “You mean something like a canopic jar?” The Great Necromancers of Maat had preserved their mummified internal organs in stone jars, allowing their spirits to possess corpses and remain active in the mortal world.

  “I see you are already familiar with the concept,” said Nicorus. “Yes, the canopic jars of old Maat are precisely the sort of anchor that is necessary. Of course, the Great Necromancers regarded a spirit possessing living flesh as an abomination, and considered the undead state superior to life in any matter.”

  Caina nodded. Talekhris claimed to have found a way to kill Jadriga permanently. Did that mean he had found Jadriga’s canopic jars? The Moroaica must have been given canopic jars, long ago, when Rhames had turned her into one of the Undying.

  But there were more immediate problems. Ranarius said that Jadriga had given him the ability to claim new bodies at will. Did that mean she had given him a canopic jar, anchoring his spirit to the material world? If she had, that meant Caina could find the jar and kill Ranarius permanently.

  She could avenge Halfdan.

  “You seem to have more than an abstract interest in this topic,” said Nicorus.

  “The assassin who killed the Lord Governor has the ability to move his spirit from body to body,” said Caina.

  “Fascinating,” said Nicorus. “Where did he acquire this ability?”

  “The Moroaica taught it to him,” said Caina.

  Nicorus scoffed. “The Moroaica is a myth, a legend of frightened Szaldic peasants.”

  “Believe what you like,” said Caina. “Is there any way to detect the presence of a canopic jar?”

  If she could find the jar, she could kill Ranarius. Of course, a quarter of a million people lived in Marsis. Ranarius could have hidden it anywhere.

  “Actually, there is,” said Nicorus. “The Great Necromancers of Maat never warred with each other, but the lesser necromancers of the Red Circle often fought amongst themselves. And they devised a method of tracking the presence of canopic jars.” He beckoned with his free hand. “Come, and I shall show you.”

  Caina hesitated, but nodded and followed Nicorus to the far end of the workshop. He reached onto the wooden shelves and drew down a metallic disk the size of a child’s fist, blowing the dust from it.
Caina saw that it was a corroded bronze compass, its sides carved with Maatish hieroglyphs, a needle of bone sitting in its center.

  Even as she looked, she felt a pulse of sorcery from the device.

  “This,” said Nicorus, “was constructed to detect the location of the nearest canopic jar. You see, they throw a…shadow, a resonance, for want of a better word, into the netherworld. The appropriate spells can detect that shadow.” He frowned. “And…the compass is working.”

  The needle settled, pointing northeast.

  Towards the Citadel of Marsis and Black Angel Tower. Had Ranarius concealed his canopic jar there? It made sense. Both Black Angel Tower and the Tomb of Scorikhon below the Citadel were places of necromantic power.

  “You were telling the truth,” said Nicorus. He sounded astonished. “There truly is an assassin with the power to claim new bodies in Marsis.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. Before he could react, she plucked the compass from his grasp. “Thank you for your assistance. If I live through the night, I will return this to you, along with a reward.”

  She expected a protest, but Nicorus only gave a distracted nod, a faint frown on his features.

  Caina turned to go, and was halfway to the door when he called out.

  “Ghost.”

  She turned. “Yes?”

  He grinned. “You killed the Lord Governor, didn’t you? Your foe possessed the Lord Governor and forced you to kill him.”

  Caina said nothing.

  “And that means,” said Nicorus, “the other Ghosts and the Legions will turn against you.” He cackled. “They are hunting you, not the true assassin! And your foe,” he rubbed his head again, “your foe has immense sorcerous power. Perhaps the Moroaica truly exists.”

  “Yes,” said Caina. “I would keep my head down for a few days, if I were you.”

  Nicorus smiled. “I think not.”

  He flicked a finger, and Caina felt a surge of sorcerous power.

  An instant later a massive fist of invisible force slammed into her. The compass tumbled from her fingers and bounced across the floor, and the spell threw Caina against the shelves on the far side of the room. They shattered beneath her, bones and books falling around her, and pain blasted through her back and arms.

  “I shall turn you over to the Legions and claim the reward for your capture,” said Nicorus, hobbling closer, his free hand pointing at her.

  “Nicorus!” gasped Caina, fighting to breathe through the force pinning her. He was stronger than she had thought. “This is…”

  “An unexpected pleasure,” said Nicorus. “I shall be a hero of the Empire!” He cackled his phlegmy laugh. “Think of the reward. And then I shall contact your sorcerous opponent and tell him of your death. Perhaps he too will reward me, will give me the knowledge I need to claim a new body, not this bloated husk.” He laughed again. “And then perhaps I can finally take my vengeance upon the First Magus, make him crawl through the mud like the wretched worm that he is.”

  “Nicorus,” croaked Caina, “this is folly, the Moroaica will not…”

  “Do be quiet,” said Nicorus. “I simply need to make you a little more tractable until the Legion comes to arrest you.”

  He hobbled to another shelf.

  The psychokinetic force held Caina’s legs and torso pinned against the broken shelves, but her arms were still free. She snatched a throwing knife from her belt and flung it. Her aim was true, but the blade rebounded from Nicorus’s wards.

  “Disappointing,” said Nicorus, pulling a bottle from a shelf. “Did you really think I would let someone as dangerous as you into my home without protecting myself?

  He poured some of the clear fluid from the bottle into a cloth pad. Undoubtedly he planned to clamp it over her mouth and nose and force her to breathe it.

  And if he did, she was going to die.

  Remembering her fight with Ryther below Lord Nisias’s mansion, Caina seized a jar of chemicals from the broken shelf and threw it. Again it struck Nicorus in the head, and again it bounced away with a flash of light.

  “Many of my brothers and sisters of the Magisterium,” said Nicorus, “neglect to ward themselves against weapons fashioned of materials other than steel. I will not make such an elementary mistake.”

  He hobbled closer, the cloth pad in his free hand, the light from the nearby brazier throwing harsh shadows over his drooping face.

  “Elementary mistakes?” said Caina, hoping to distract him. Her mind raced for a weapon, any weapon. “Such as bedding the First Magus’s favorite mistress?”

  Nicorus stopped next to the bronze brazier, smirking. “Perhaps the Moroaica shall give me the power to repay Decius Aberon for every last insult and humiliation he heaped upon me…”

  Caina grabbed a jar of preserved eyes from the shelf and flung it. Nicorus laughed with derision as the jar missed.

  But Caina hadn’t been aiming for him.

  The jar slammed into the brazier’s bowl. It wobbled with a clang, and then toppled over.

  Spilling hot coals onto the skirts of Nicorus’s greasy robe.

  The outcast magus shrieked in pain as his robes erupted in flame, his scream rising into a howl of agony. Nicorus beat at himself, but the flames only blazed brighter. The pool of chemicals from the broken jars touched the flames and began to burn, filling the chamber with noxious smoke.

  And the force holding Caina sputtered and vanished.

  She hit the floor with a groan, broken pieces of shelf raining around her. Nicorus ran back and forth, screaming, beating at himself with his burning arms. For an instant Caina remembered Kalastus atop the Great Pyramid of Corazain, howling as the pyromancy he had unleashed devoured his flesh.

  She darted forward, seized the compass, and turned for the door.

  Nicorus reached for her, wailing, and tripped over the skirt of his robe. He fell into the wall, breaking one of the shelves, glass jars full of chemicals shattering around him.

  And catching flame.

  There was a flare of white light, and a wall of hot air threw Caina to the floor. The flames spread over the walls of the workshop, and Nicorus collapsed, overcome by the heat at last. The fire jumped from shelf to shelf, wrapping around dozens of glass jars holding preserved organs.

  And flammable chemicals.

  Caina cursed, hauled herself her feet, and threw open the door.

  Corvalis waited at the end of the alley, sword and dagger in hand, as Caina pulled herself over Nicorus’s wards.

  “What happened?” said Corvalis.

  “Nicorus tried to kill me, and I set him on fire,” said Caina, clutching the compass. “We had better run.”

  They had just gotten around the corner when Caina heard a loud thump. A blast of hot air shot out of the alley, knocking both her and Corvalis to the ground, and the roof of Nicorus’s house dissolved in a pillar of flame. Corvalis helped her up, and they ducked into another alley, watching the glow of the inferno.

  “That’s the second building you’ve burned down today,” said Corvalis, breathing hard.

  “I couldn’t think of anything better,” said Caina, trembling from shock and fatigue. Her mind spun and reeled. Both Halfdan and Nicorus, dead in the same day, burned to ashes in pyres that she had lit.

  Halfdan…

  She closed her eyes and forced aside the grief. She could mourn later.

  “Did you learn anything useful?” said Corvalis.

  “I did,” said Caina, opening her eyes and holding up the compass. “I know how to find Ranarius. Let’s go before the Legionaries come to investigate the fire.”

  They hurried away from the maze of Marsis’s docks, leaving the pyres of Halfdan and Nicorus behind them.

  Chapter 8 - A Dead Heart

  “Not again,” muttered Caina, looking at the cliff face.

  “What is it?” said Corvalis, hands on the hilts of his weapons.

  Caina shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just…I’ve been here before.”

 
The compass had led them from the dockside district, up the Avenue of Champions, and to one of the wealthy districts overlooking the River Marentine. Caina had been here before, pursing Naelon Icaraeus as he fled from the Legion.

  And she had pursued him into the dark vaults below the Citadel.

  The street ended at the base of the Citadel’s towering crag, a solid wall of rough rock. The Citadel rose overhead, its ramparts and towers high and proud, the dark shape of Black Angel Tower soaring overhead. Caina swept the compass back and forth before her.

  The needle pointed at the cliff, no matter how she moved it.

  Or, more specifically, at a particular patch of the cliff.

  “Damn it,” muttered Caina.

  “His canopic jar is in the Citadel?” said Corvalis.

  “No,” said Caina, pointing. “Under it.”

  The faint metal of a keyhole gleamed in the rock.

  “A hidden door, then,” said Corvalis.

  “Unfortunately,” said Caina. “It leads into the vaults below the hill and the understructure of Black Angel Tower. The Red Circle must have built the vaults, and they were forgotten when the Kyracians took the city. Naelon Icaraeus used the vaults for his lair, when Jadriga was trying to free the demons imprisoned below the tower.”

  “Do you think Ranarius is trying to free the demons himself?” said Corvalis.

  “Gods, I hope not,” said Caina. “But this is a perfect place to hide his canopic jar. It was supposed to have been sealed off after Naelon’s death, so no one should be down there.” She thought for a moment. “If we’re lucky, he’ll be looking for me in the city. We can find his canopic jar, destroy it, and he’ll never know what hit him.”

  “Why should we start having good luck now?” said Corvalis.

  That was a good point.

  “Light some torches,” said Caina. “I’ll pick the lock.”

  Corvalis nodded, and Caina went to work on the lock. It wasn’t nearly as complex as the one upon the drawer in Nisias Druzen’s study. Most likely the door had been warded, a ward destroyed when the Kyracians had defeated the Red Circle and taken Marsis all those centuries ago.