Ghost in the Throne (Ghost Exile #7) (37 page)

“Corazain was the last of them,” said Caina, remembering her own near-disastrous brush with Corazain’s legacy. “The greatest of them…and the maddest. In the final days of the Second Empire, the Emperor Crisius defeated the Ashbringers and stormed Rasadda. Corazain waited until the Legions had entered the city, and then unleashed his final spell. The pyromantic firestorm killed him, killed Crisius, wiped out the Legions, and turned Rasadda to ashes.” She looked back at Maria. “The survivors of the Ashbringers founded the Umbarian Order…and that means you have something of Corazain’s, don’t you? Some relic, some weapon, some secret.”

“The Throne of Corazain,” said Maria. “It has been in the hands of our Order since the destruction of Rasadda and the fall of the Second Empire. It was one of Corazain’s most potent creations, and we have mastered it to an extent he never dreamed.”

“What does the Throne of Corazain do?” said Caina. 

“It is an instrument of summoning,” said Maria. “The spells upon it allow its possessor to summon fire elementals, the spirits the Istarish call ifriti, in prodigious numbers.” 

“How many fire elementals?” said Caina.

“Why, as many elementals as the Throne has the power to summon,” said Maria. “I understand there is no practical upper limit.”

“And it can draw on the circle of rift echoes for power,” said Caina, looking at the wreckage of the doors. One ifrit had done that. Claudia had stopped it, but if she had not, the ifrit would have burned down the palace and turned the Imperial Guards into piles of ashes and half-melted armor. Caina couldn’t even guess how much more damage the ifrit might have done if it had broken free of Maria’s control and rampaged through the Emirs’ Quarter. 

If Cassander and the Throne summoned hundreds of thousands of ifriti at once…

“Gods,” said Caina, looking at the blazing rift again. “We’ve been blind.”

“Truly,” said Maria, her voice dripping with smugness. 

“We have known that Cassander was up to something…” started Claudia.

“Don’t you see?” said Caina, turning back to face her. “We thought Cassander wanted revenge on Callatas and Erghulan, or that he had some spell to force open the Straits for the Umbarian fleet. But he’s not taking revenge on Istarinmul. He’s going to destroy Istarinmul utterly, burn the city to ashes just as Corazain burned Rasadda and the Legions. No more Callatas, no more Erghulan, no more Towers of the Sea, no more Istarinmul. The Umbarians won’t need to force the Starfall Straits because there will be no more Istarinmul to close the Straits.”

“A twofold victory for the Order,” said Maria. “All the world shall see our wrath and tremble at the fate of Istarinmul. And when our fleet reaches the Imperial capital and our armies seize the Imperial Citadel and dispose of the doddering old fool who calls himself the Emperor, the Empire shall be reunited under the hand of the Order, and our true work can begin at last.” 

Caina glared at the Umbarian magus, fury and chagrin warring within her. It was monstrous, as terrible as anything Maglarion and Kalastus and Ranarius had ever dreamed of attempting. At least Callatas had some grand vision of reforming humanity, however twisted and sick. Cassander would murder hundreds of thousands of people simply because they were in his way. 

And Caina had not seen it coming.

She should have. All the pieces had been there before her eyes. She had known Cassander had been ruthless. Agabyzus had warned her about the purchase of the houses. Even Samnirdamnus had told her to beware the fire. Yet Caina had not seen the truth. She had been too preoccupied with Sulaman’s prophecy of her death, too determined to die to save her friends, too confused about what had happened to her in Rumarah.

She had missed the truth…and a lot of people might die because she had been too foolish and too preoccupied. 

“A million people,” said Caina, her voice tight and quiet. “You’re going to murder a million people.” 

Maria lifted her chin, her expression cold and confident. “And ten million more might learn the lesson and heed the wishes of the Order.” 

Caina took a step forward, and Maria Nicephorus flinched in Kylon’s grip. She wanted to draw her dagger and plunge it into Maria’s throat. Yet that would accomplish nothing, and they might need more answers from the Umbarian magus before this was over. 

“We have to find Cassander and stop him,” said Caina, “and destroy the Throne if possible.”

“He…will have to be somewhere outside the circle,” said Claudia. She looked at Caina like a woman contemplating a loaded crossbow. “The structure of the spell requires it.”

“He will have chosen a secure location,” said Kylon. “Somewhere fortified that will protect him as he casts the spell.”

“The Umbarian embassy,” said Maria, unprompted. 

Caina glared at her. “Why would you tell us that?”

“Because,” said Nasser, his voice dry, “she is so utterly confident of success that it does not matter if she tell us.”

“Exactly,” said Maria. “And it doesn’t matter. You’re too late. It’s already beginning.”

Caina stared to answer, and then the rift echo pulsed with golden fire as arcane power blazed through the room.

Chapter 19: Set To Burn 

Cassander Nilas circled the Throne of Corazain one final time, the fiery glow from the ancient artifact throwing flickering shadows around the solar. Outside he saw the scattered lights of Istarinmul at night, the palaces of the emirs and Alchemists and wealthy merchants glowing with alchemical light in the darkness. 

Soon the city would become far brighter.

Pyres were always bright.

He tried to keep his mind dispassionate as he considered the intricate maze of spells around the Throne. A single error in the spells, and the misplaced energy might blast the entire fortified dock to molten splinters. Yet Cassander could not repress a growing excitement. After a year and a half of frustration and setbacks and pain, success was in his grasp. The Provosts had given Cassander the task of opening the Starfall Straits, and his victory was at hand. 

That he would get to take vengeance upon that querulous old fool Callatas and that pompous braggart Erghulan made it all the sweeter. That he got to kill smug Martin Dorius and his bitch of a wife at the same time was a splendid bonus. That he also got to annihilate the remnants of the Ghost circle still in the city was even better. 

And he would get to destroy Istarinmul. This miserable, wretched, stinking city of useless vermin would burn, would sink into the dust of history. How he hated this place! How he yearned to see it all in flames. 

His newfound bloodlust sang within him. He felt as eager with anticipation as he had before the first time he had lain with a woman. Cassander had killed before, killed since his change in Rumarah. 

But he had never killed so many people at once.

Cassander supposed few people in history had ever killed so many at once.

But none of that would happen if he made an error, so he checked and rechecked the maze of wards and spells binding the Throne and linking it to the rift echoes. He found no flaw with his work, and none with the spells of the lesser magi. 

Cassander was ready. When the spell started, of course, Callatas and the Alchemists would try to stop it. They would rush to the Umbarian embassy, and by the time they realized their error, it would be too late. If they tried to attack the fortified dock, he had enough Adamant Guards to repulse any assault. He had taken other preparations as well, and when the spell began, those preparations would unleash chaos throughout the city, and his enemies might be too paralyzed to act. 

By the time they recovered, he would have called the ifriti, and Istarinmul would be ashes. 

Only one thing troubled him.

Where the hell had the Huntress gone?

Her disappearance did not surprise him. Kalgri came and went as she pleased, rather like a large, murderous cat. Yet he could not imagine why she had left. She knew what he intended, and she knew that Istarinmul would burn. If she was caught outside the wards of the Brotherhood’s compound, she would burn with the rest of them. Perhaps she had gone to warn Callatas…but if she had, Callatas would have counterattacked by now. 

Perhaps she had gone to find a better view of the coming firestorm. 

It didn’t matter. The spells were ready, and the time had come.

Cassander raised his right hand, the crimson bloodcrystal on the back of his black gauntlet flashing with a harsh glow, and began a spell. Flames snarled around his armored fingers, and the three rings of sigils encircling the Throne began to burn as well. The fire imprisoned with the Throne flared, glowing brighter through the black obsidian, and it writhed in time to the flames dancing around Cassander’s armored hand. For a quarter hour he cast the spell, feeding power into the maze of spells around the Throne. It grew hot and stuffy in the solar, the glow of the Throne filling the chamber with hellish light. The windows of the tower would shine like a beacon in the night, but that didn’t matter.

Soon the good people of Istarinmul would have something else to occupy their attention. 

Cassander finished his spell, and a shaft of fire burst from his gauntlet to strike the Throne.

###

Caina took a step back, eyeing the rift echo. 

It burned brighter, the golden fire starting to flicker madly. A dull howling noise came from the rift, like the roar of the blast furnaces she had seen in Ark’s foundry in Malarae. Currents of power flowed through the rift echo and into it, and Caina thought of a ball rolling down a curved chute, spinning faster and faster until it reached the bottom.

She suspected it would be a good idea to be as far away from the rift echo as possible when the power reached its climax. 

“We have to get out here,” said Caina.

“I concur completely,” said Nasser.

“Guards!” shouted Martin. “Withdraw! Back to the doors! Back to the…”

“Wait!” shouted Caina, her mind racing as she thought of Agabyzus’s map of Istarinmul. The palace’s doors faced west, which would put them inside the massive circle Cassander planned to draw across Istarinmul. Caina had a strong suspicion that getting trapped within the activated circle would be unwise. “Not that way. Go east. If we go west, we’ll be stuck inside the circle.”

Martin did not hesitate. “Centurion! Recall the men at the gate.” He pointed to a door on the far side of the grand hall. “That door. Move! Move!” 

The Imperial Guards hastened past the rift, Annarah helping Claudia along. The Guards who had been watching the gate at the outer wall sprinted into the palace. They gaped a little at the rift echo, but they were too well-disciplined to stop and kept running. Nasser, Laertes, Morgant, Nerina, and Malcolm came after, and Kylon brought up the back, still pushing Maria Nicephorus along. 

“You should kill her,” said Morgant as the Imperial Guards filed through the narrow door. The howling roar from the rift echo grew louder. “If you or the Kyracian don’t want to do it, fine. But she knows too much to leave alive.” 

Morgant’s grim logic rang true. Yet Caina didn’t want to murder the woman in cold blood. The part of Caina’s mind that often agreed with Morgant’s grim logic pointed out that Maria had been perfectly willing to murder everyone in Istarinmul in cold blood, and would help Cassander finish his plan if she escaped. 

“Go…” she stared to say, and then the rift blazed with golden fire. 

“Run!” said Kylon, and he released Maria, sprinting to Caina’s side.

Morgant groaned. “Idiot! I…”

Maria laughed, raising her gauntlet as it began to burn with pyromantic fire. “Fools! Istarinmul shall burn, and you will be the first!”

“No,” said Kylon. “We won’t.” His voice was confident, his expression hard. “You really should run.”

Maria sneered and started to cast a spell, and then the rift exploded. A sheet of golden fire, nearly a hundred feet tall, erupted from either side of the rift echo, curving through the grand hall. The sheet of fire ripped through the walls and the domed ceiling, shattering the heavy stone as if it was brittle ice.

The wall of flame tore through Maria, incinerating her in an instant. Caina had the briefest glimpse of Maria’s skeleton as her flesh burned away, and then the smoking remnants of her black gauntlet bounced across the floor.

The palace groaned as the dome started to collapse, and pieces of stone fell into the wall of fire, only to crumble into ash. The wall of flame had slashed through the palace like a giant knife, and Caina realized the entire thing was about to collapse.

“Go!” she shouted, and she raced for the door, Kylon and Morgant following her. They ran through a narrow slaves’ corridor, across the kitchens, and then burst into the palace gardens just as the building gave one final groan and collapsed into splintered white rubble. 

The curved wall of fire stretched away in either direction as far as Caina could see, and it had smashed its way through palaces and buildings without stopping. The circle of rift echoes had become a single massive circle of golden flame, sealing off the core of Istarinmul from the rest of the city. 

###

Cassander watched the circle of golden fire blaze into existence in the heart of Istarinmul. 

It appeared as if drawn by a giant hand, leaping from rift echo to rift echo. The wall of golden fire that marked that circle tore through stone and wood and brick and adobe with equal ease. Flames crackled at the edges of the circle as the discharge of sorcerous force ignited anything flammable in its path. The fires alone would do considerable damage to the city. 

A dull rumble came to his ears as the wall of golden fire stabbed into the Crows’ Tower, the citadel that housed the headquarters of both the watchmen and the Teskilati in the heart of the Tower Quarter. The masters of the Teskilati, Cassander knew, would have met to discuss their plans if the Umbarian embassy refused to leave the city. 

He hadn’t originally planned for the circle to pass through the Crows’ Tower, but once he had realized that it would, there was no reason to stop it.