Ghost in the Throne (Ghost Exile #7) (43 page)

Caina Amalas had an idea. 

She ran across the courtyard, Kylon and the others following. 

“Go!” yelled Cronmer, shaking a fist. “If the sets won’t fit, leave them. We can build new ones. Wood’s cheaper than our lives.” He turned, and his eyes widened as he saw Caina. “Ciara? Milartes? What the devil are you doing here?” 

“Ciara?” said Tiri. “If you wish to travel with us you are welcome, but you must flee at once. You heard what that vile sorcerer said. He claimed the city was about to burn,” she shot a quick look at the pulsing rift, “and I feared he told the truth. He…”

She fell silent as she saw Caina’s shadow-cloak, and Kylon felt the puzzlement and alarm spread through her sense.

“What are you wearing?” said Tiri.

“I lied to you,” said Caina. “I’m sorry. My name’s not Ciara. It’s Caina Amalas. I’m the Balarigar.” 

Cronmer’s jaw fell open. “What? No, that’s not possible…”

“It is,” said Caina. “That’s how I got into Ulvan’s palace. That’s why I joined the Circus.”

“You used us,” said Tiri, folding her arms over her chest. 

“Yes,” said Caina. “I’m sorry. But it saved a lot of lives…and we can save more yet.” 

“What on earth are you talking about, girl?” said Cronmer. 

“Why are you here?” said Tiri.

“To hire you,” said Caina, “to save Istarinmul.” 

“What?” said Cronmer, puzzled. Kylon understood how he felt.

Before anyone else could speak, Caina sprang onto the back of a wagon, the shadow-cloak billowing behind her in the torchlight. It made for a dramatic sight.

“Hear me!” roared Caina at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking through the courtyard like a whip.

Every eye in the courtyard turned towards her. Kylon glimpsed Vardo, blinking in astonishment.

“You know me as Natalia of the Nine Knives,” said Caina, “but my true name is Caina Amalas, the Balarigar.” 

A ripple of annoyance and scattered laughter went through the crowd. 

“Impossible,” said a burly carpenter. “You…”

Caina flung a knife. It landed quivering between his feet, and carpenter fell silent.

“You’ve seen the proclamations!” said Caina. “You know what the Balarigar has done. The night I joined the circus, I humiliated Ulvan and freed his slaves. I terrorized the cowled masters, and they could not lay a hand upon me. I burned the Craven’s Tower and the Widow’s Tower, I brought the Inferno crashing down upon Rolukhan’s head, and I robbed Callatas’s palace itself.” 

Stark silence answered her. She had their attention, at least.

“And do you know why I am telling you this?” she said. “There’s a bounty of two million bezants upon my head? Any one of you could be rich if you killed me right now. So why am I speaking my mind to you?”

No answered her. 

“Because,” said Caina, “Cassander Nilas is about to kill you all anyway.”

Another rumble went up from the men and women of the circus.

“It is too late!” said Caina. “The spell is nearly finished. Even if you abandon all your possessions now and sprint for the gates, you won’t get away in time. The city is going to burn. Cassander is going to kill you, your wives, and your children, all for his own glory. He is going to kill every last man, woman, and child in Istarinmul, and you cannot escape him.”

“Is that it, then?” shouted the carpenter, eyeing the knife between his boots. “You came here to tell us we’re going to die?”

“You can’t escape Cassander,” said Caina, “but we can kill him.” 

“How?” said Cronmer.

“By the Living Flame, girl!” said Tiri, her emotional sense veering between terror, confusion, and sheer exasperation. “We are not assassins. We are not even soldiers. We are circus performers!” 

Caina grinned at her, a wild, mad grin. 

“Cassander Nilas said he killed me,” said Caina. “I thought he lied, but he didn’t. He wasn’t lying. He was mistaken! He thinks the Balarigar is dead at his hand. So what do you think he’ll do if at the very threshold of his triumph the Balarigar returns? If five Balarigars return? If twenty Balarigars come to taunt him?”

The Circus Of Wonders And Marvels gaped at her in silence, and Kylon felt the shift in their mood. He had seen it happen before on the eve of battle, when a charismatic commander had convinced troops to follow him into desperate odds. Caina Amalas was not a sorceress, but she was casting a spell on them. No, it was far more profound than that.

She was making them believe. 

Well. She had made Kylon believe, hadn’t she?

“That’s why I’m here,” said Caina. “Cassander is going to kill you and your families. You cannot run from him…but we can save your lives. We can save your wives and children. We can save everyone in Istarinmul!”

“Dear gods,” muttered Morgant. “She went mad. The Elixir drove her mad, and it is contagious, for we are following her into his madness.”

“Do you have a better plan?” said Laertes.

Morgant just sighed. 

“Master Cronmer!” said Caina. “I have come to hire the circus. A hundred thousand bezants I will pay you!”

“A…hundred thousand?” said Cronmer. 

“One hundred thousand for the greatest performance of your lives,” said Caina. “We’re going to save the city! One hundred thousand for the performance that is going to save your lives, your families, and all of Istarinmul!”

And to Kylon’s lasting amazement, the Circus Of Wonders And Marvels burst into cheers.

Chapter 24: I Am The Balarigar

Cassander gazed into the sky, watching the rift swell and feeling the titanic currents of power flowing through it.

At last, the moment had come. 

The rift was ready. It blazed across the sky like a second sun, the flickering golden light illuminating Istarinmul. The spell would not last for much longer. Already the flows of power from the rift echoes grew unstable and erratic. The rift was like a massive boulder perched upon the edge of a precipice, just beginning to tip forward as gravity took hold. 

That didn’t matter. Cassander only needed a few moments with the Throne…and then that boulder would land upon Istarinmul.

He turned to face the Throne of Corazain, gathering the summoning spell in his thoughts. The ancient relic glowed with pulsing light, an inferno dancing within the dark crystal. A colossal amount of sorcerous force surged through the Throne, drawn from the rift overhead. Cassander need only work the spell to summon an ifrit to the material world. The Throne would augment the spell a thousand times and feed it into the rift, which would itself augment the spell a thousand times…

Oh, he looked forward to seeing that, and at last the moment was at hand.

Cassander raised his right hand, focusing power upon the gauntlet, and as he did, a flash of light caught his eye. 

A flash of light from outside the tower. 

###

“Ready?” said Caina. 

Cronmer let out an amused grunt. “Girl, you might be the Balarigar, but I have been giving performances since before you were born. If your performance displeases an Anshani satrap, there’s always the chance he will cut off your head.” 

Caina nodded. She stood in one of the narrow dockside alleys, Kylon on her left and Cronmer on her right. Behind them waited a half-dozen of the circus’s acrobats. Nasser, Morgant, and Laertes had each taken charge of a group of acrobats, leading them to different alleys in the maze of warehouses surrounding the Brotherhood’s dock. 

“Remember,” said Caina. “Don’t try to fight them. Once the Adamant Guards come out, run as fast as you can. You…”

Again Cronmer snorted. “I’m not stupid. I’m not even going to try to fight an Adamant Guard. I might be old and fat, but I can still run like hell.”

“You can?” said Caina.

Cronmer grinned behind his bushy mustache. “Well, sooner or later you do offend the Anshani satrap, you know…and I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Kylon laughed at that. 

“Ready?” said Caina. 

Cronmer drew himself up, adjusting the long black cloak he wore. “The circus is always ready to perform.” 

Caina looked at the acrobats waiting nearby. They too wore long black cloaks with deep cowls. The circus’s clowns had worn those cloaks during their pantomime of an army of Balarigars terrorizing the cowled masters of the Brotherhood. 

Caina hated clowns, but she could put their costumes to good use. 

There was a flash of light from the roof of a nearby warehouse. The others were in place.

“Then let the show begin,” said Caina. 

Cronmer nodded, stepped forward, and started to declaim in his booming voice, the echoes ringing over the street. “Men of the Umbarian Order, hear me! For I am the Balarigar, the slayer of demons, the liberator of slaves, the bane of sorcerers! Cassander Nilas has deceived you, and I have returned at last to take my terrible vengeance of righteousness upon you! Weep and despair, for stern justice has overcome you at last, and your many crimes and iniquities shall at last meet…”

It was a little overdone, but it worked. 

The Adamant Guards at the compound’s gate spun, drawing broadswords. As they did, Caina reached into the satchel she had taken from the circus, her hand brushing against the metallic thing she had taken from Kalgri, and her fingers closed around the small glass vial of a smoke bomb.

Caina flung the bomb, and it landed halfway between the warehouse and the dock’s outer wall. The vial shattered with a bright flash, shooting a plume of brilliant green smoke into the street. Kylon took another bomb from the satchel and threw it with a surge of the sorcery of water to enhance his strength, and the vial soared through the air, over the wall, and burst in the courtyard, another flash throwing stark shadows against the mansion and the tower. 

“Go!” said Caina. 

The acrobats sprinted past her, black cloaks flaring around them, faces hidden beneath black masks, and they started to flip and tumble through the street, the flickering light of the rift and the haze from the smoke bomb transforming them into strange, shadowy figures. Cronmer kept shouting threats and challenges to Cassander, and then Caina heard Vardo’s voice ring out from another alley, announcing that the Balarigar had arrived to kill Cassander. 

She kept lobbing smoke bombs into the street, and Kylon flung them over the wall. The Adamant Guards fell back to the gate, unwilling to fight superior numbers in the smoky haze, their swords ready. 

Nasser’s voice rang out in imitation of the Balarigar, and then Laertes’s, more flashes going off in the street.

“Come on,” muttered Caina, looking at the tower. If the Umbarians decided to ignore the entire display…

But they weren’t. She heard the shouts of alarm from inside the courtyard, heard the clatter of boots as Adamant Guards ran to meet the unexpected threat.

###

Cassander stared out the window, incredulous. 

“Balarigars?” he said, baffled. 

The idea was ridiculous. Caina Amalas was dead. Yet there were five or six deep voices shouting out threats against him, and he saw dozens of black-cloaked figures running through the streets and scrambling over the rooftops. The black-cloaked shapes moved with fluid grace, doing somersaults and spins and…

Cassander blinked. One of them had just done a backflip.  

A volley of flashes went off, both in the street outside the wall and in the courtyard, and Cassander’s hands closed into fists. 

He was under attack. 

Caina Amalas was dead, but somehow the Ghost circle of Istarinmul had followed him here. Well, they were too late. The spell was almost finished, and a band of prancing fools in black cloaks could not fight their way past the Adamant Guards.

Footsteps rang on the tower stairs, and a centurion of the Adamant Guards ran into the solar.

“Lord Cassander,” said the centurion. “The enemy comes.”

“Yes, I’d noticed,” said Cassander. 

“It is the Balarigar herself, returned from the dead!” said the centurion. “My lord, what should we do? Can we truly fight spirits?”

“What?” said Cassander. “Don’t be an idiot. It…”

He blinked. There was dread on the centurion’s face. The spells upon the Adamant Guards made them stronger and faster and more resilient, but also deadened the emotions.  The centurion should not have been feeling fear. Yet there was nonetheless dread upon his face. The centurion, Cassander realized, had believed the insipid legend that had grown up around Caina Amalas, the idea that she was a Balarigar sent by the gods to slay the wicked and overthrow proud sorcerers. 

A wave of molten rage went through Cassander, and he almost drew upon his sorcery to strike down the centurion. 

“The Balarigar has not returned from the dead,” he spat. “The Balarigar was a woman. Think it through. Those are men shouting those threats, are they not?”

The centurion pulled himself together. “What are your commands, my lord?”

Cassander hesitated. The Ghosts knew that he was here. They had called him out by name, had they not? Yet they had not assaulted the compound. His lip twisted with contempt. They could not assault the compound. A band of fools in black cloaks could not overcome hundreds of Adamant Guards. Likely they thought to lure him out with this stupid trick. Maybe even exiled Lord Kylon was there with the valikon that had terrified the Huntress, thinking to avenge his wife and child. Cassander smiled at the thought. Kalgri had mentioned in passing that Kylon had been in love with the Balarigar, so the exiled Kyracian had twice as much to avenge now. 

Well, once Kylon burned with the rest of Istarinmul, he could meet his dead wife and the dead Balarigar in person and apologize for his failures. 

“Chase them off,” said Cassander. “Take as many men as you think necessary. This childish nonsense is meant to lure me out so they can disrupt the spell. The wards on the tower are sufficient to keep the Ghosts out, especially since they have no sorcerers. If they are doing anything that looks dangerous, kill them.” He supposed the Ghosts might have stolen a catapult and an amphora of Hellfire to fling against the tower, but he could think of nothing else they could do to stop him.