Ghost in the Maze (3 page)

Chapter 2 - Smokeless Flame

Caina took a step toward the wall. Neither Anburj nor his Immortals made any move to stop her. With all the exits blocked, they could kill her at their leisure.

But they didn’t know about the rope dangling from the window.

At least, Caina hoped they didn’t. If Anburj had stationed men in the mansion to watch her approach, they would have spotted the rope and taken it down. But Anburj and his men must have concealed themselves in the laboratory soon after Vaysaal’s murder. Caina had seen no signs of Immortals or Kindred assassins anywhere else in the palace.

She took another step toward the window, and still the Immortals made no move to stop her. 

“A trap?” she rasped. “Are you so certain of that, Anburj of the Kindred?”

“I am,” said Anburj, his smile cold. “Because I know who you are, Balarigar.”

“Oh?” said Caina, her alarm growing. “Do enlighten me.” If Anburj had figured out who she was, then Damla and her sons were in danger. 

“The common vermin and the slaves think you are the Balarigar, a hero come to save them,” said Anburj. “The emirs and masters think you are a thief hoping to get rich. But I know exactly what you are. You are a Ghost nightfighter hunting for secrets. No other man would wear such a cloak. The Teskilati shall be wroth that I found you first.”

“If I am a thief,” said Caina, “then perhaps I stole this cloak as well.” She felt a twinge of relief. Anburj had not figured out who she really was, had not even discerned that she was a woman. Damla and Agabyzus would be safe for now. But once Anburj killed her, he might return to the House of Agabyzus to hunt for any other surviving Ghosts. 

“I think not,” said Anburj. “A common robber could not have achieved some of the audacious thefts you have accomplished. The Ghosts have returned to Istarinmul, have they not? I thought we had exterminated every last one of the cockroaches, but more have scurried from the shadows. Tell me, Ghost. When you robbed and humiliated Master Ulvan, did his slaves aid you? When you destroyed the Widow’s Tower, who let you inside?”

“No one,” said Caina. 

Anburj laughed. “No. You had help. We shall find the traitors and hang their corpses from the walls of the Golden Palace. Starting, I think, with you.”

“Then you killed Vaysaal to get at me?” said Caina, taking another step closer to the window. A few more, and she could make a run for it.

“Do not bother going out the window,” said Anburj. “It would be so very easy to push you from the ledge. If the fall doesn’t kill you, some of Vaysaal’s little flowers can keep a man alive for seven years in exquisite torment.”

“Then you did kill Vaysaal,” said Caina

Anburj snorted. “Vaysaal killed himself, the fool. He started ingesting wraithblood for his own use, and the Grand Master requires every last drop of wraithblood for his work. He paid my brothers of the Kindred to kill Vaysaal, and we obliged. But you, Ghost…I knew you would come here. For I know what you want.”

“And that is?” said Caina, edging closer to the window. If she could keep Anburj talking, that would give her more time to escape. And perhaps the assassin might reveal some useful information.

“Secrets,” said Anburj. “You want to know about the Apotheosis. I’ve studied you.” He stepped forward, his cold smile sharpening. “All those slavers you robbed? They were not chosen at random, were they not? They were cowled masters who sold slaves to the Grand Master. The Widow’s Tower? One of the chief wraithblood laboratories. Some of the survivors saw a man in a shadow-cloak fleeing the inferno. I know you were there. So when one of Grand Master Callatas’s chief lieutenants was assassinated…what a perfect chance to look around his laboratory, to learn something useful about wraithblood.” He waved a hand at the flickering Mirror of Worlds. “It was a gamble, to be sure…but here you are. Walking so obligingly into my grasp.” 

“You’re mistaken,” said Caina, taking one final step toward the shutter. 

“Oh?” said Anburj. “Why is that?” 

She lifted her left hand. “I came for this.”

Anburj glanced at the strange ring and spat out a laugh. “Indeed? Then you truly are a fool at the end. So you found a pyrikon? What good will that do you, I ask? You will not leave this room alive. And even if you did, you would never live long enough to reach the Maze. The defenses would make certain of that.”

“Are you so certain?” said Caina.

“Entirely,” said Anburj, gesturing to his Immortals. “Take him alive. Maim him if you must, but leave him able to speak. Before we grant him the mercy of death, he is going to tell us everything he knows.”

The Immortals strode forward, chain whips ready in their hands. Caina had seen them use those weapons in Marsis, and she knew what they intended to do. The whips would curl around her arms and legs with enough force to break bone, and after they crippled her, they would interrogate her. 

There was no way she could survive that.

She threw herself backward with as much strength as she could manage.

Anburj snorted. “Fool! Take him before…”

The shutters popped open, and Caina fell out the window. 

And as she did, she saw the gleam of the grapnel.

Anburj and his men had not spotted her rope.

Caina grabbed at the rope, the shadow-cloak billowing around her. For an awful, agonizing instant the rope seemed just out of reach, and she was certain that she would fall to her death. But her fingers tightened around the cord, and it uncoiled as she fell. 

Caina kicked out with her legs, her boots slamming into the stone wall below the window. The impact pushed her away from the wall, and she swooped like a clock’s pendulum over the garden.

“Rope!” roared one of the Immortals. “He has a rope!”

“Stop him!” bellowed Anburj in fury. “Now!”

She heard a click and saw the gleam of steel as an Immortal raised a crossbow, and Caina reached the end of her arc. She swung toward the wall, a steel quarrel hissing past her ear, and saw that her momentum would take her near a closed window on the palace’s fourth floor. Another crossbow bolt hurtled past her to plunge into the garden. Caina braced herself as her swing accelerated, driving her toward the closed window.

“Fool!” said Anburj. “Cut the rope!”

The rope suddenly went slack in Caina’s fingers.

She flung out her arms, and her right hand barely managed to grasp the windowsill, the rough stone rasping beneath the leather of her glove. For an instant she hung by her arm, grateful for all the endless hours she had spent practicing the unarmed forms and building up her strength. Her scrabbling boots found purchase on the wall, and she hauled herself up to the sill. Caina yanked one of the daggers from her boot and jammed it into the gap between the shutters, pulling them open.

Again she heard the click of crossbows, and two quarrels slammed into the wooden shutters. One brushed her right arm, so close that she felt a flare of pain as the razor-edged quarrel touched her skin. She desperately hoped that the quarrels had not been poisoned. 

But the shutters popped open, and Caina threw herself through the window and into the palace’s fourth floor. Anburj’s furious commands echoed in her ears, and she heard the clatter of armor as the Immortals ran along the bridge, making for the palace proper.

They would not let her escape without a fight. Caina found herself in a deserted bedroom, the bed and the chairs draped in sheets to keep dust at bay. She hurried across the bedroom and threw open the door to the corridor. From here it was a short distance to the palace’s grand central staircase. She could easily reach the main floor and escape across the grounds before Anburj and the Immortals descended. 

But a half-dozen armed men blocked the way to the stairs. They were Istarish, and wore chain mail and leather, swords and shields in hand. Caina didn’t think they were Kindred assassins. Mercenaries, most likely, men Anburj had hired to help trap the Balarigar. 

For a moment she wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. She was one woman in a shadow-cloak, yet Anburj feared her enough to set this elaborate trap. If he captured her and forced her to talk, she wondered if he would be disappointed to learn that she was only a woman with a shadow-cloak and a flair for theatricality learned from an opera singer. 

“That’s him!” roared one of the mercenaries, pointing his scimitar. “That’s the Balarigar. Kill him!” 

The men charged with a yell, shields raised. 

Caina sprinted in the opposite direction, the mercenaries in pursuit. Trying to fight them was out of the question. She had lost her rope in the inner courtyard, so going out the window was not an option. Caina could outrun the mercenaries, perhaps reach the slaves’ stairs first. But if there was another band of men upon the back stairs, she would be trapped. For that matter, if there was another group of mercenaries on this floor, if she found herself caught between them in the corridor, her life would be over very quickly. 

Or her life would last until the mercenaries dragged her before Anburj.

She raced around a corner and her heart sank. Another corridor stretched before her, unlit iron chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. It ended in another corner, and around that corner, Caina heard the clatter of boots and the shouts of men. She was trapped between two bands of mercenaries.

But she still had one moment free to act.

A marble statue stood in a niche along the wall. Caina heaved herself up the statue, perched upon its stone shoulders, and jumped. Her hands seized the cold edge of the iron chandelier, and Caina pulled herself up, her legs wrapped around the outer ring, her cloak caught between her boots.

An instant later the mercenaries dashed around the corner, and came to a confused stop as they looked back and forth.

“Where the hell did he go?” said one of the men.

No one ever looked up. 

“Check the side rooms,” said another mercenary. “He can’t have gone far.” The men started to move to the side of the corridor. “He ought…”

Caina swung down, all her strength and weight behind her boots, and drove both her heels into the nearest mercenary’s face. The shock of the impact traveled all the way to her hips, and the mercenary’s head snapped back, blood and teeth flying from his jaw. Caina let go and landed, catching her balance, a dagger flying into her hand as she slashed. Her blade opened the throat of a second mercenary, hot blood splashing across her hand and sleeve, and the mercenary fell next to the first man.

The remaining mercenaries recovered from the surprise and charged, but by then Caina was already running. She dashed down the corridor, past the rows of closed doors, and came to the palace’s grand stairs. They spiraled up to the palace’s top level, glittering and polished, and descended to the great hall below. Elaborate mosaics of geometric designs and animals covered the walls, done in the traditional Istarish style. 

The black-armored forms of the Immortals sprinting down the stairs stood stark against the colorful mosaics. 

Caina raced down the stairs, shadow-cloak billowing behind her. The Immortals pursued, and she heard Anburj’s voice bellowing commands. Caina was fast, but the Immortals were faster. She felt a faint breeze as the lash of a chain whip came within a few inches of her head. Another few moments and the Immortals would have her.

So she threw herself to the left, vaulted over the railing, and jumped. 

The stairwell yawned beneath her, and Caina slammed into the railing of the stairs on the next level. She seized the railing, her fingers gripping the edge of the cold marble.

The strange bronze ring, the thing that Anburj had called a pyrikon, clinked as it tapped against the railing. 

Caina swung her legs back and released her grip upon the railing. She fell another story and caught the railing. Her shoulders and arms screamed from the effort, the cut upon her right arm pulsing, but Caina pulled herself up to the stairs.

Then she kept running, the Immortals pursuing her.

But Caina had gained two floors and reached the ground level before they did. She turned away from the main doors and sprinted into the wing of guest bedchambers alongside the great hall. Going out the front doors would have been folly. Anburj had likely stationed men there, and she suspected he had left more men to watch the kitchen door. Her best option was to go out one of the windows in the guest rooms. Then she could run across the grounds, go over the wall, and escape into the streets. She ran down the corridor of doors, pushing them open as she did. Perhaps that would confuse the Immortals, give her a few extra seconds to escape.

Or perhaps they would see through her tricks and kill her.

Coming here had been foolish. Agabyzus was right. She had been taking too many risks, pushing herself too hard and daring greater dangers. Sooner or later it had been bound to fall apart. If Anburj had been clever enough to figure out that she was looking for the truth of the wraithblood, other hunters might as well. A bounty of half a million bezants would tempt many men. 

Caina veered into one of the guest rooms. It was little different than the one she had hidden herself in earlier in the day, save for a large mirror hanging on the wall next to the wardrobe. The shutters were closed, and the windows looked north towards the Golden Palace and the College of Alchemists. Caina eased toward the shutters. If she crept out into the night without anyone noticing, perhaps she could elude Anburj and his men entirely…

Suddenly the bronze ring upon her finger pulsed with sorcery.

“The star is the key to the crystal.”

The voice was dry, whispery, and it sent an icy chill down her spine.

She whirled in alarm. She had heard those words before, on the worst day of her life, as the temple of Anubankh burned around her in the netherworld, the Moroaica’s rift to the realm of the gods howling as it collapsed. The spirit of the Moroaica’s father had claimed Caina needed those words, that she had to remember them, though Caina knew not why. 

But she knew that voice.

It was the voice of the spirit that had spoken in her dreams the night after she had arrived at Istarinmul, that had warned her against Ricimer’s daevagoths in the Widow’s Tower.