Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5) (27 page)

The nagataaru were winning, forcing the pyrikon spirits back inch by inch.

In the center of the ring of spirits stood Annarah, the last loremaster of Iramis.

Morgant had not seen her for a hundred and fifty years, and a peculiar spasm of memory shot through his mind. A century and a half and she had not changed, not even a little. She was a tall woman, at least as tall as Kylon, and somewhere in her early thirties. Her dark skin was smooth, and made for a marked contrast with her long silver hair and the white loremaster’s robe she wore. Strain and exhaustion marked her face, her bright green eyes bloodshot, and flickering white fire surrounded her outstretched hands. Pulses of white light burst out from her, pushing the nagataaru back and strengthening the pyrikon warriors. Morgant was not a sorcerer, but he had been in a lot of fights, and he could see that Annarah was about to lose hers.  

How had she held out for so long? It had been a century and a half…

Then Morgant realized that she looked exactly the same because there had not been time for her to change. A century and a half had passed for him…but thanks to the peculiar nature of the netherworld, no more than a few moments had passed for her.

“My mistress requires aid,” said the pyrikon spirit, pointing its glowing sword. “Aid her.”

“Morgant,” said Caina. “The valikon. It can kill nagataaru.”

Morgant nodded, sheathed his black dagger, and took the valikon’s hilt in both hands. He walked forward, raising the sword, the weapon thrumming in his grasp. Some of the nagataaru burst free from the ring and flowed towards him like wraiths of smoke and shadow. Annarah’s pyrikon charged forward, striking with the curved sword of white flame. The nagataaru recoiled from the pyrikon’s blows, but the spirit seemed unable to destroy the nagataaru. 

The valikon had no such problems.

Morgant swung the blade, and it met no resistance as it touched the nagataaru’s dark form. Yet the nagataaru exploded into a spray of dark smoke, smoke that quickly vanished into nothingness. A scream of fury rose up from the surrounding nagataaru, and more of the dark ring broke off to charge at Morgant. He didn’t know what would happen if the spirits touched him, and he had no desire to find out. The valikon swept before him in a blaze of white fire, its touch unraveling the nagataaru, and a dozen of the spirits shattered in a haze of black smoke. Morgant stepped back, trying to get out of the smoke before it obscured his vision, but the nagataaru slid away from the valikon’s blade. He remembered how the Sifter had reacted with panic when Caina had threatened to destroy it with the valikon. Likely the immortal nagataaru reacted to the sudden prospect of destruction in the same way. 

For a moment a gap formed in the swirling ring of nagataaru, and Annarah’s pyrikon shot forward, hewing its way through the dark cloud of spirits. The pyrikon reached the ring of armored warriors and changed form, becoming a sphere of light about a foot across. The sphere touched Annarah’s left arm and she gasped, looking at in in astonishment. As she did, the sphere lengthened and thinned, hardening into the form of a delicate bronze staff. Annarah gaped at the staff in shock, as if unable to believe her eyes. 

The nagataaru swirled faster around her, a dark tide of them coming towards Morgant and Caina. Morgant did not think he could destroy all the spirits before the nagataaru drowned them like a tide of shadows.

“Annarah!” he shouted. “The staff! Use it!” 

She looked at him in astonishment, and then nodded, thrusting the staff before her as she shouted a phrase in the High Iramisian tongue. 

Blinding white fire exploded from her in a ring, passing through the pyrikon spirits without touching them. It slammed into the circle of the nagataaru, shattering it and throwing hooded specters in all directions like black leaves. The nagataaru let out hissing screams, and Annarah spun, the pyrikon staff shining in her left hand.

That was enough for the nagataaru. The spirits fled in all directions, sinking into the stone of the courtyard or vanishing into the tormented sky overhead. The pyrikon spirits around Annarah changed shape, shrinking into those spheres of light. They drifted around her in a loose ring, and her own pyrikon shrank, becoming a bronze bracelet curling around her left wrist. Annarah took a deep breath, caught her balance, and turned. 

She stared at Morgant for a moment.

“You came back,” she whispered. 

“I told you I would,” said Morgant. “I keep my word.”

###

“Morgant,” said Annarah, staring at the assassin. 

Her voice was deep for a woman, but quite musical. Had Theodosia met her, Caina thought, she would have tried to recruit Annarah into the Grand Imperial Opera. A strange accent colored her Istarish, one that Caina had heard before. Both Callatas and Nasser had versions of the same accent, and Caina now realized it was an Iramisian accent. Iramis had burned a century and a half ago, and Nasser’s and Callatas’s accents had faded over time, but Annarah’s was still fresh. 

“How long has it been?” said Morgant.

Annarah walked towards him, her white robes stirring in the netherworld’s strange wind. 

“About two hours,” said Annarah. “I left you my pyrikon and my journal, and then I retreated through the gate. I cast spells to summon a sanctuary, and called upon the spirits of defense to ward me while I waited for your return. But before finished, the nagataaru attacked in force.” She gestured at the pale balls of light floating around her. “We were driven into the courtyard, and I thought my death was at hand. Then you returned and drove them off. Where did you get a valikon? I thought they were all lost when Callatas burned Iramis.”

Morgant jerked his head at Caina.

Annarah’s green eyes turned towards Caina. “A…Ghost nightfighter? In Istarinmul?”

“Yes,” said Caina, using her disguised voice. She decided to keep Annarah from learning who she was if possible. If Callatas realized that Annarah lived, he would stop at nothing to kill her. Caina hoped to keep the loremaster safe, but if Callatas took her alive and tormented her for her secrets…

“We asked the Ghosts for aid,” said Annarah, “but they could not spare it. With the destruction of Caer Magia and the fall of the Fourth Empire, the Magisterium split into civil war. Has the civil war of the magi ended? Could the Ghosts aid us against Callatas?” 

“Aye,” said Caina, wondering how Annarah would react to the truth, “but Caer Magia fell a very long time ago.” 

“Long ago?” said Annarah. “How…” Her voice trailed off, and she turned back to Morgant. “You do not look much older, but your sense…it is older, far older. How…how long has it been, Morgant?”

“One hundred and fifty years,” said Morgant. He looked grimmer than usual, the lines on his gaunt face deeper. 

Annarah raised a single hand to her mouth. “By the Living Flame of the Divine. A century and a half?”

“He tells it truly,” said Caina. “It has been that long.”

“I’m sorry,” said Annarah. “I’m so sorry for that.”

Caina blinked. She would have expected anger from Annarah, or perhaps denial and disbelief. Not contrition. 

“For what?” said Morgant. 

“For forcing you to do this,” said Annarah. “To spend a hundred and fifty years trying to rescue me. By the Living Flame of the Divine, Morgant…no one was meant to bear such a burden over so long a time. No one. I am sorry I made you do this.” 

Morgant scoffed. “I keep my word. The cost of doing so is immaterial.” He grinned his wolfish smile at her. “I was hired to kill you, so it seems only fair, would you not say?”

“What…what has happened since?” said Annarah. “A hundred and fifty years. The world must have changed so much since.”

“Oh, less than you might think,” said Morgant. “I…”

“We have to go,” said Caina. “Right now.” Both the loremaster and the assassin looked at her. “Those nagataaru will be back, and they’ll bring friends. The valikon will not scare them off forever.”

“You are right,” said Annarah. “We must flee.” She turned to the ring of glowing pyrikon spirits. “Disperse, my friends, and thank you for your aid.” She gestured, and the balls of white began to drift away from her. “Which way to the gate?”

“This way,” said Caina, pointing at the gateway in the outer colonnade. “This is your sanctuary. I think you should be able to dissolve…”

The voice thundered out of the sky. 

It was not a voice, not really. Caina heard it inside her skull, not with her ears. 

Despair could not speak with words. Death did not have a voice. Loss and agony could not make orations.

But if they could, they would sound like the voice that exploded inside of Caina’s head.

BALARIGAR.

“What was that?” said Morgant, raising the valikon. 

Annarah looked around, her pyrikon unfolding into a staff once more. One of the balls of light started to float towards Caina. 

DO YOU THINK TO DEFY ME? THE THREADS OF DESTINY WRAP THEMSELVES TIGHTER ABOUT YOU, AND SOON THEY SHALL STRANGLE THE THREAD OF YOUR TROUBLESOME LIFE. 

“The Great Nagataaru,” breathed Annarah. “Their prince and lord. His attention has turned upon us.”

“Actually, he’s talking to me,” said Caina. 

Annarah stared at her in astonishment. “Kotuluk Iblis talks to you?”

“What can I say?” said Caina, scanning the sky. “I’m good at making friends.”

Morgant snorted. “There is an understatement.”

YOUR MOCKERY WILL NOT SAVE YOU, NOR WILL IT SAVE YOUR WORLD. 

The sky beyond the towers of Silent Ash Temple darkened. Had she stood in the mortal world, Caina would have thought she witnessed the approach of a storm. Here in the netherworld, she knew what a darkening sky meant.

The nagataaru were coming for her.

Thousands upon thousands of nagataaru were coming for her, for Annarah, and for Morgant, so many nagataaru that they would blot out the sky of the netherworld like a horde of locusts.

“Run!” shouted Caina, spinning for the gate, some of the balls of light drifting in her wake. Annarah and Morgant sprinted after her. They tore through the courtyard and into the terrace, the sky darkening further. 

RUN IF YOU WILL. THE OUTCOME SHALL NOT CHANGE. THE FATE OF YOUR WORLD SHALL NOT CHANGE. 

Caina reached the edge of the terrace and skidded to a stop. Gravity did not quite work the same way in the netherworld as it did in the mortal world, but she still did not want to fall a thousand feet to the valley floor below. In the distance, at the bottom of the stairs, she saw the pale glow of the gate back to the mortal world. 

“Annarah,” said Caina. “You have to dissolve your sanctuary. It will move us closer to the gate. The nagataaru will catch us on those stairs if we try to climb down.”

Annarah nodded. “A moment.” She closed her eyes, concentrating, both her hands wrapped around the pyrikon staff. 

“Hurry,” said Caina. There was no way they could make it down those stairs before the nagataaru caught them, and she wished that Annarah had not recreated Silent Ash Temple with such devotion to detail. Perhaps Caina could think of something, could force the psychomorphic terrain into a more suitable shape. 

YOUR FATE IS SEALED. YOUR WORLD’S FATE IS SEALED. I HAVE DEVOURED TEN THOUSAND WORLDS AND LEFT THEM AS EMPTY HUSKS IN MY WAKE, AND THIS WORLD SHALL BE NEXT. YOU CANNOT STOP ME.

“What is he telling you?” said Morgant, rubbing his temples. 

“Oh, the usual,” said Caina. “Threats of death that he has failed to carry out so far.”

YOU CANNOT ELUDE ME, BALARIGAR. ALREADY MY VASSALS HUNT FOR YOU IN THE MORTAL WORLD. THEY ARE ETERNAL. YOU ARE MORTAL. SOON OR LATE YOU SHALL FALL, AND ONCE YOU ARE SLAIN THERE SHALL BE NONE TO STOP ME FROM DEVOURING YOUR WORLD.

“There,” said Annarah, opening her eyes, and the world blurred and shifted around them as Caina felt a surge of arcane power. Silent Ash Temple and its mountain crag dissolved into nothingness, reforming into the featureless plain of the netherworld, the colorless grass rippling in the strange wind that drove the clouds overhead. Caina saw the light of the gate a few hundred yards ahead, pale and flickering.

With the tower and mountain gone, she also had a clear view of the nagataaru surging towards her. 

The uncounted millions of nagataaru.

It was like a wall of shadow ten thousand feet high, burning with purple fire within. Caina had seen some large waves during her sea travels, enough to make her prefer the solid ground beneath her feet, but this wave could have drowned them all. It could have covered all of Istarinmul, drowning the city in shadow.

“Run!” shouted Caina, and they sprinted for the gate, the wall of nagataaru surging after them.

KNOW YOUR FATE, BALARIGAR. YOURS IS A THREEFOLD CURSE. YOU SHALL DIE IN AGONY. YOU SHALL DIE ALONE, PARTED FROM ALL THOSE YOU LOVE. AND YOU SHALL DIE IN FAILURE, KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DEFEATED. SO IT IS ORDAINED, NOT BY MY WILL, BUT BY YOURS, FOR THAT IS THE FATE YOUR CHOICES HAVE WROUGHT FOR YOU. 

She kept running, the grass crunching beneath her boots, her shadow-cloak streaming behind her as the ghostsilver dagger blazed like a torch in her hand. She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw Morgant and Annarah keeping pace with her. For a man over two centuries old, Morgant could run when he put his mind to it. Annarah looked exhausted, still drained from her battle with the nagataaru, but grimly kept pace. A dozen of the glowing spheres still trailed her. Caina supposed that was just as well. If the nagataaru caught up to them, perhaps the spirits of defense could hold off the nagataaru for a few moments. 

LIE DOWN AND DIE. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR FATE.

“Watch me,” gasped Caina. 

“What?” said Morgant. 

Caina shook her head and kept running, and they reached the gate as the dark wall of the nagataaru towered over them. To her alarm she saw that the gate was shrinking. When Annarah had unraveled her sanctuary it had also weakened the spell upon the gate. It would not last much longer, and it was already small enough that only one person could go through at once. Through it she saw the wavering image of the Hall of Torments, shadowy and indistinct.