Ghost Keeper (3 page)

Chapter 4: Mirrors

“Wait a minute,” said Caina.

Aydin stopped. “What is it?”

They stood at the top of the stairwell. The stairs terminated at a small landing of snowy white marble with a railing of worked iron. Across the landing waited a polished oak door bound in steel, its hinges gleaming.

“I can pick the lock,” said Aydin.

Caina stepped before the door and waved a hand over it, and her arm erupted with pins and needles. 

“Warded,” said Caina, frowning as she concentrated upon the presence of the arcane energies beneath her fingers. “Not sure what type. If you try to pick that lock, I don’t think you’ll enjoy what happens.”

“You’re a sorceress, then?” said Aydin, his eyes narrowing. “Is that how you know so much about necromancy?”

“Not quite,” said Caina. “I was injured by a necromantic spell years ago. Ever since then I’ve been able to sense sorcerous forces.”

“A useful talent,” said Aydin. 

“On occasion,” said Caina, waving her hand back and forth over the door. “Wait. Two wards. The main one, and then a weaker one. I think…”

“That the second spell warns the Curator if the ward is broken,” said Aydin.

“Aye,” said Caina. “Your rod can dispel them.”

“It can only break one of the spells at a time,” said Aydin. “If I use it on one…”

“The other one will collapse and alert the Curator,” said Caina. She grinned at him. “Just as well you danced with me, then.”

“Do you have a dispelling rod as well?” said Aydin.

“Something almost as good,” said Caina.

She drew the dagger from her belt, the leaf-shaped blade of ghostsilver flashing. 

“That’s a ghostsilver weapon,” said Aydin, his eyes widening in his dark face. “Where did you get that?”

“I’m a thief. I stole it,” said Caina, which was entirely true. “You know what it can do?”

“It can pierce spells and disrupt wards,” said Aydin, starting to smile. 

Caina nodded. “I’ll disrupt the ward. Once I do, hit it with the rod.” Aydin nodded and drew his silver rod, pointing it at the door. Caina shifted the dagger to her right hand, holding her left a few inches over the door. She paused for a moment to feel the currents of arcane power following through the wood, then nodded to herself and jabbed the dagger into the door. The tip sank a half-inch into the wood, and at once the weapon’s hilt grew hot as the ghostsilver disrupted the warding spells. She felt the currents of power twitch and writhe, like cables trembling under too much pressure.

“Now!” said Caina.

A pulse of silver light washed from Aydin’s rod and sank into the door. The warding spells shivered once more, and then collapsed entirely. Caina tugged her dagger free.

“It’s done,” said Caina. “You can open the lock.”

Aydin nodded. “Hold my rod for me.” 

Caina raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Aydin blinked, and then laughed. “This rod.” He held out the silver rod. “I need both hands to pick the lock.” He grinned. “That is what you meant, right?”

“Whatever else could I possibly have meant, sir?” said Caina. 

He winked, went to one knee, and started on the lock. Caina turned to watch the stairs as his tools clicked against the lock’s tumblers. A strange mixture of unease and enjoyment went through her. She had only just met Aydin, but nonetheless she found herself drawn to him. As part of her various disguises, she had casually flirted with any number of men since coming to Istarinmul, but that had only been a mask. She had meant it with Aydin, and that was the first time she had meant it since…

She blinked. 

Since Corvalis had died. 

A wave of shame went through her. Corvalis had been dead for over a year. Soon it would be two years. She didn’t really want to be alone any longer, but her life did not lend itself to companionship. Grand Master Callatas, the Umbarian Order, and the Brotherhood of Slavers all wanted her dead. They would not hesitate to use anyone close to her as leverage. For that matter, she knew what it was like to lose a lover. How could she inflict that upon anyone? She…

The lock clicked. 

“Done,” said Aydin, straightening up. He grinned. “You can let go of my rod now.”

“You sound disappointed,” said Caina, handing it back. 

She rebuked herself. Breaking into the sanctum of a powerful, deadly necromancer was not the time to be thinking of such things. For that matter, she knew nothing significant about Aydin Kirshar. He could still be a Teskilati agent or an Umbarian assassin.

He could be married, for all she knew. 

“Well,” said Aydin, drawing his short sword and taking the rod in his left hand. “Maybe later. Shall we?”

Caina nodded and pushed open the door. 

Beyond was a narrow corridor, the walls smooth and unmarked. Another door, identical to the first, stood at the end of the corridor. Caina walked to the door, checked it for wards, and found nothing. 

“It’s not even locked,” she muttered. 

“Perhaps the Curator put all his trust in the first door,” said Aydin. 

“He can’t possibly be that stupid,” said Caina. “Be on your guard.”

Aydin nodded and raised his weapons, and Caina took a deep breath and swung open the door.

Nothing happened, and she neither heard nor saw anything alarming.

Caina stepped into the next room. It was a large rectangular chamber, built of the snowy Cyrican marble that the Curator preferred. Another door stood on the far end of the chamber, but the room held no furniture, save for a mirror in a wooden frame along the wall. Caina looked at the mirror with unease. It stood nearly seven feet tall and almost as wide, and it reminded her of the mirrors she had seen in Callatas’s wraithblood laboratories, the mirrors that acted as gates to the netherworld, drawing its power to charge the vials of wraithblood with corrupting energy.

She felt a faint aura of sorcerous power around the mirror. Was it a Mirror of Worlds, a gate to the netherworld? The Curator was a necromancer, not an Alchemist, but if he was friends with the Master Alchemists, one of them might have taught him the secrets of making a gate to the netherworld. 

“Nothing,” said Aydin. He sounded disappointed. “We’ll check the next room.” 

“Don’t look at the mirror,” said Caina, even as he turned to look at it.

“The mirror?” said Aydin. “Why not?”

“It’s enspelled,” said Caina. “I’m not sure what kind of a spell.” Aydin stared at the glass, a strange expression coming over his features. “Stop looking at it.” 

He muttered something with a shake of his head.

Caina cursed, grabbed his arm, and yanked him back. He stumbled a few steps and caught his balance, moving away from the mirror. 

Yet his reflection remained in the glass.

“Oh, damn,” said Caina. She had seen this kind of spell before. “Aydin…”

The glass of the mirror rippled, and Aydin’s reflection stepped out of the mirror.

“You,” breathed Aydin.

“Failure,” said his reflection in a hissing voice. “You are a failure, Aydin Kirshar.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Not yet!”

“You are!” said the reflection, pointing its short sword. “You failed them all. The Order is ashes, and you could not save them. Your family is dead, and you could not save your blood. Lie down and die, Aydin Kirshar! Lie down and die! It is all that you deserve.”

“No,” grated Aydin.

“Listen to me, it’s not real,” said Caina. “It’s a spirit. It’s…”

“Then die!” shrieked the reflection, and as it did, it changed and rippled, swelling and growing larger. Fangs sprouted in the reflection’s mouth, and claws burst from its fingers and toes. Even the sword became larger, swelling into a jagged black blade the size of a greatsword. The reflection loosed a hideous, nightmarish shriek and sprang at Aydin, crooked sword raised to strike. 

Aydin rushed to meet the attack, his sword clanging against his reflection’s blade. Caina shouted, but he ignored her, fighting the creature that had emerged from the mirror. They swirled around each other in a furious duel, swords clanging. Caina looked back and forth between them. She had faced a spirit creature like this before, but the last time a renegade magus named Anaxander had banished the spirit back to the netherworld. This time, though, Caina had no way of banishing the spirit…

Her eyes fell upon the silver rod still clenched in Aydin’s left hand.

“The rod!” said Caina. “Use the rod!” 

Aydin made no response to her shout. Likely he had not even heard her, had forgotten that she was there. Caina cursed again, darted forward, and kicked the back of Aydin’s knee. He overbalanced and fell, and as he did, she grabbed the rod from his left hand, its sorcerous power thrumming beneath her fingers. The distorted reflection loomed over Aydin, raising its sword for the kill, and Caina leveled the rod at the mirror and concentrated.

A pulse of silver light burst from the rod and struck the mirror. There was another flash of light, and the grotesque reflection froze. For a moment it stood motionless, and then it dissolved into swirling gray mist. The mist flowed across the room and poured into the mirror like water swirling away down a drain.

The last of the mist vanished, and silence fell over the chamber. 

“Azarma?” said Aydin, blinking in surprise. “What…”

“Don’t look at the mirror,” said Caina, moving to block his view. “Get up, and for the gods’ sake don’t look at the damned mirror.”

He blinked, nodded, and got to his feet. 

“What happened?” he said, backing away until he was no longer facing the mirror. “It was…like a dream. Was it a ward?”

“Carchomorphic spirit,” said Caina.

“A what?”

“Carchomorphic spirit,” she said. “There are different kinds of spirits in the netherworld, just as there are different nations of men in the mortal world. Phobomorphic spirits take the form of your worst fears. Carchomorphic spirits…they’re a little different. They take the form of your regrets and then attack. The Curator must have bound the spirit to guard this chamber.”

“Ah,” said Aydin, wiping sweat from his brow. “I see why I was vulnerable. I…have many regrets.” He tried to smile. “You must have fewer.”

Caina thought of her father, of Corvalis and Halfdan.

“No,” she said. “But I’ve seen this sort of spell before.”

“I see,” said Aydin. “Azarma. Thank you. If you had not come with me…I would have died here.” For a moment he looked haunted. “And would have failed. I would have come all this way, followed the Curator here from Rasadda, only to fail at the final step.”

Caina tilted her head to the side. “You’re here for more than a simple robbery, aren’t you?” 

He nodded.

“Ready to tell me what it is?” 

“Not yet,” said Aydin, gesturing towards the far door. “But I think I can show you.”

Chapter 5: A New Host

They passed through three more rooms, each one warded and trapped. The first was a library, the second a metallurgist’s workshop, and the third a laboratory for potions and elixirs. Every door had a potent ward upon it, but between Aydin’s rod and Caina’s ghostsilver dagger, they made short work of them. All the doors had mechanical traps, but Caina had spent a great deal of time learning to bypass such traps, and Aydin was a fair hand at it as well. 

She searched all three rooms for any sign of Morgant’s sword, but found nothing. Aydin, too, searched each room, but did not what he sought. 

“The training of the Venatorii must have been more comprehensive than I thought,” said Caina, watching him undo a trap.

Aydin grunted. “Not really. My father was a clockmaker, truth be told. The best clockmaker in Cyrioch. Generally, those of us who join the Venatorii do so after having an…encounter with creatures of the netherworld.” 

“A painful encounter?” said Caina, voice quiet. 

“An ifrit,” said Aydin. “A kind of fire elemental, malevolent and hateful. A Sarbian sorcerer conjured it, and the spirit killed my father during its rampage.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Caina. 

The lock clicked and the trap released.

“Here we are,” said Aydin, and he straightened up, picked up his rod and sword, and opened the door.

The chamber beyond was as large as the previous four combined, and Caina suspected it took up the remainder of the palace’s fifth floor. It looked like a mad combination of a museum, a laboratory, and a library. Glowing glass spheres upon iron stands threw a pale, eerie white light over everything. Stone plinths held strange artifacts and relics, and sagging wooden shelves stored books and scrolls and clay tablets marked with wedge-shaped symbols. Tables displayed alchemical and sorcerous machinery, and the air carried a faint chemical reek to it. The Curator’s abilities as a necromancer were evident among the relics as well. Caina saw an abundance of ancient Maatish scrolls, along with more modern books written in Maatish hieroglyphics. Some of the shelves held jars of pickled body parts, hearts and kidneys and other organs, and one shelf held an entire row of polished skulls and severed heads floating in brine. 

Aydin looked at the shelf of pickled heads, a sick expression on his face.

“Aydin,” said Caina. “We need to move.” He did not look from the shelf. “He’s a necromancer. This is what necromancers do.”

Aydin blinked. “Yes, you’re right. It was nonetheless startling.” He offered a bleak smile. “I was looking to see if anyone I knew was in those jars.” 

Caina frowned. “Is that why you’re here?”

“We should hasten,” said Aydin. “This is a large room, and it will take time to search.”

“Very well,” said Caina. She tapped the dagger at her belt. “Call for me if you need the ghostsilver dagger.”

Aydin nodded. “And do the same if you need my rod.”

“That’s rather forward of you, isn’t it?” said Caina.

Aydin snorted. “I walked into that one. Let us proceed.” He grinned, though the strain around his eyes remained. “If we live through this, we can banter about my rod to your heart’s content.”

Caina nodded and made her way into the maze of shelves and stone plinths, and Aydin went another direction. Her eyes flicked over the plinths, noting the artifacts and relics upon them. The Curator had his items stored in no discernable pattern, which would make finding Morgant’s sword problematic. For that matter, Caina was not even sure how she would recognize the sword when she found it. Fortunately, each plinth had a small plaque of laminated wood describing its relic. She passed a helmet that had been worn by a long-dead Shahenshah of Anshan during a forgotten battle, a ring forged by one of the magus-emperors of the Fourth Empire that radiated deadly sorcery, a tattered banner carried by an ancient Caerish war chief during the collapse of the First Empire…

There.

A nearby plinth held a wooden rack, and atop the wooden rack rested a single sheathed scimitar. The plinth’s plaque noted that the sword had once been carried by the famed assassin Morgant the Razor, after he had obtained the blade from the corpse of the assassin Red Carzim, a man famed for killing several Istarish emirs and one of the Lord Governors of Imperial Cyrica. Potent sorcery radiated from the sword, and Caina held her hand a few inches from the plinth, checking for wards. The sword was not warded, but that the weapon itself had been enspelled, likely to make it sharper and stronger.

She lifted the sword from its rack, the sorcerous power of the weapon seeming to tremble beneath her fingers. Caina drew the sword and considered it. The blade was the color of blood, making the scimitar look like a giant, blood-soaked talon. An appropriate weapon for a man as dreaded as Morgant the Razor. Would the weapon help her to find him, to discover what had become of Annarah? According to the plaque, Morgant had killed Red Carzim and taken the sword from him one hundred and fifty years ago. Surely Morgant must have been dead for decades. 

Yet if she could discover what had happened to him, it might led her to Annarah and the Staff and Seal of Iramis.

A moment’s search upon one of the shelves located a sword belt, and Caina slung it across her chest like a baldric, clipping the sheathed scimitar to her back. She looked around for Aydin, shrugged, and climbed atop the empty plinth, the stone cold beneath her bare feet. She spotted him across the chamber. Caina climbed down and made her way toward him.

“I found mine,” she said when she came around a shelf and caught up to him. “If you tell me what you seek, I will help you locate it. Then we need to…”

She stopped when she saw what he was staring at.

A heavy case of crystal rested at a forty-five degree angle upon a wooden stand. Caina’s first thought was that it was about the size of a coffin. Her second thought was that the crystal was translucent, and that she could see the body inside.

It was a child, a boy of about five or six years. The boy lay motionless, his eyes closed, his head resting upon a pillow. He was motionless. Dead, most likely, his body preserved by the crystal casket. A macabre display, to be sure. Caina wondered why the Curator had this corpse. Was it a child of his own? The body of an enemy’s child?

Aydin stared at the boy, and Caina looked from him, to the child in the glass, and back to him again. The resemblance between the two was plain, and the answer clicked inside Caina’s head. 

“Aydin,” she said. “This is your son?”

Aydin nodded. 

“I’m sorry,” said Caina. “To have come all this way…”

“He’s not dead,” said Aydin. “You can sense spells, yes?”

Caina lifted her hand, holding it a few inches from the milky crystal. She felt the powerful aura of sorcery clinging over the coffin. A necromantic spell fused with a ward, one designed to…

“It’s put him to sleep,” said Caina. 

“Something far deeper than sleep, I fear,” said Aydin. “Though not quite like death. The Curator did not want him to die.” His mouth twisted. “He had a far more profound enslavement in mind.” 

Caina started to ask a question, and then stopped herself. Aydin had come here to rescue his son, that was plain, and the Curator clearly intended an evil fate for the boy. She could dig the details out of Aydin later. 

“How do we get this thing open?” said Caina.

Aydin blinked and jerked his chin at the scimitar on her back. “You have what you came to find. There is no need for you to stay.”

“For the gods’ sake,” said Caina. “I don’t like sorcerers, and I’m not leaving an innocent child to die in the Curator’s clutches. How do we get the damned thing open?” 

He stared at her for a long time.

“Thank you,” he said at last. 

“Thank me later. How do we get it open?” said Caina. She looked for the seam of the lid, but couldn’t find it. The damned thing appeared to be one solid piece of milky crystal. 

“It’s warded,” said Aydin. He tapped his silver rod against the casket, making a clear chiming noise. “I can dispel the ward, yes…but the nature of the spell means there’s no air inside the casket.” 

“Then how is he still alive?” said Caina.

“He’s…suspended, frozen,” said Aydin. “The artificers of Catekharon created these caskets, and the Umbarian Order stole the spell’s design. They use the caskets to keep prisoners restrained and alive without the cost of housing and feeding them.”

“So if we break the ward,” said Caina, “your son wakes up, and then he asphyxiates inside of the casket?” 

“I fear so,” said Aydin. “I…”

“Wait,” said Caina, kneeling before the crystal coffin. “There’s the lid.” The seam was so thin she could barely see it, but it was there. “I think the ward is holding it shut, but if you break the spell, we can pry it off.”

“We’ll need a crowbar,” said Aydin. He scowled. “A thin one, though. But that lid has to weigh a thousand pounds, maybe more. We’ll need…”

“This,” said Caina, drawing the crimson scimitar from her scabbard.

Aydin gave the weapon a dubious look. “It will snap like a twig.”

“It’s enspelled,” said Caina. “It should hold under the weight.” She held out the sword. “Take it. You’re stronger. I’ll use the rod.”

He nodded, and they traded the scimitar and the rod. Aydin gripped the hilt in both hands as he jammed the tip of the blade into the gap between the lid and the casket proper. Caina took the rod and laid it against the casket. 

“Ready?” said Caina.

Aydin gave a sharp nod, and Caina focused upon the rod. A pulse of silver light erupted from the rod and washed over the casket, making it glow as if it had been made of silver light. Caina felt a sharp tingle as the spells upon the crystal box collapsed.

The boy within the casket jerked. His eyes opened wide…and his mouth yawned open in a silent, soundless scream. His hands shot to his throat, his legs kicking against the lid. Aydin cursed and jammed the scimitar deeper into the seam, pushing with all his strength, but the lid did not even shudder. Caina shoved the rod into her belt, slapped her hands over Aydin’s, and added her strength to his efforts. Still the lid did not move, and for an awful moment Caina thought that Aydin would get to see his son die. 

Then the lid shuddered up a half-inch or so. Caina jumped, keeping her hands on the sword hilt, and drove her heels into the lid. The impact knocked her to the ground, but it forced the heavy lid back a few inches, and she heard the boy inside the casket start coughing. 

That was good. If he was coughing, he was breathing. 

She regained her feet as Aydin pushed on the lid, grunting as his face tightened with strain. Caina helped him, and inch by inch they pushed the lid back, until at last there was a gap large enough for the boy to squeeze through.

“Papa?” said the boy, his eyes wide. “Papa!”

“Tahram,” said Aydin, picking up the boy, a tremor of relief going through him. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Tahram, I am here. I am here.”

“Where…where are we, papa?” said Tahram. 

“In a lot of danger,” said Caina. “We need to get out of here, now.” She picked up Morgant’s scimitar and returned the weapon to its scabbard. 

“Thank you,” said Aydin, tears in his eyes as he held his son. “Thank you. I…”

“Aydin,” said Caina. “We need to go. Your son isn't safe yet."

Aydin seemed to shake himself. “Yes. Yes, you are right, of course.” She handed him the silver rod, and he shifted his son to his left arm, taking the rod in his right. “Let’s go.”

Caina nodded and led the way from the empty casket, the ghostsilver dagger in her right hand. She walked past the shelves and tables, her mind racing. They had to get out of here as soon as possible. There had been no children among the guests, and Tahram would stand out. Though the Curator’s guards might not notice or care. The Curator himself would, though, and that would be bad. Caina needed to collect Agabyzus and get out of the palace before…

The door to the workshop swung open, and the Curator stepped through it. 

His coat swirled around his legs as he came to a sudden halt, and his black-lined eyes widened in surprise.

Then he started to smile. 

“Hell,” muttered Caina. 

Tahram let out a terrified little sound and buried his face in his father’s shoulder.

“Whatever do we have here?” said the Curator, taking one step forward. In his right hand he carried a long steel fork with two tines. A spark twisted and flashed between the tines. Caina had a seen a fork like that several times before. It was a weapon of sorcery that flung potent bolts of lightning with enough force to kill. 

It could probably kill Caina, Aydin, and Tahram with one blast. 

“Thieves,” said the Curator, pointing the fork at them. The spark brightened, going from a pale white to a harsh blue. “Filthy damned thieves.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Tahram. “But why take the child? Why not take gold or jewels?” His eyes flicked over Caina. “And why take the sword of that wretched assassin?”

“Do you happen to know where Morgant is?” said Caina. “It would be very helpful if you could tell me.”

“He is dust and bone,” said the Curator with a laugh. “Morgant the Razor died decades ago. I would like to add his skull to my collection, but I haven’t been able to find his grave yet. Why steal his sword? A sword and the child…why?”

“Get behind me,” said Aydin, putting Tahram on the floor and stepping in front of him. 

“Ah!” said the Curator. “Now I understand. Your son, is it?” He shook his head. “Typical. The Umbarians sold me the boy, but they forgot to mention that the father was still alive and seeking vengeance.” He shrugged. “Ah, well. I suppose your corpses shall provide useful materials for my experiments.”

The spark inside the fork snarled, and Caina felt the surge of gathering arcane power. Aydin tensed as Tahram began to cry, preparing to spring, but Caina knew he could not reach the sorcerer before the fork spat its killing lightning.

“Wait,” said Caina, taking a gamble. “You don’t want to kill us.” 

“And just why not?” said the Curator.

“Because I know why you took the boy,” said Caina.