Ghost Undying (3 page)

He felt an uneasy prickle. “Then…you shall declare war upon the gods?” Sicarion doubted any gods existed, that they were anything other than lies concocted by priests. But if they did exist…

“I shall shatter this world and remake it,” said the Moroaica, “in a new form, one free of suffering and pain and loss and death. Everyone shall be immortal, and there shall be no more death, no more tears. And then I shall throw down the gods from their thrones, as I once overthrew the pharaohs of old Maat, and I shall make them pay for their crimes against us.”

“That’s,” said Sicarion, “that’s…”

“Mad?” she said, stepping closer to him. “Is that what you were going to say? Mad?” Adina’s lovely young face had never carried an expression like that, a mixture of fury and hatred and centuries-old insanity. 

“Yes,” said Sicarion, uneasy. There was no point in backing away. If he tried to run or attack her, she could kill him in the space between two heartbeats. “If you do that, if you try to wield power on that level, you won’t accomplish anything. You’ll only kill the world…”

He frowned.

“Kill the world…” he whispered. 

The thought of that thrilled him. Killing was a pleasure. It had always been a pleasure for him, ever since he had been a young man. The pleasure had only increased as he had grown older.

What would it be like to kill the entire world at once?

He shivered at the thought. 

“I will destroy the world and reforge it in a new and better form,” said the Moroaica. 

“No,” said Sicarion, pushing aside his musings. “All you’ll do is destroy yourself.”

And anyone near her.

“You are wrong,” said the Moroaica. “It has taken me centuries of work to get this far, and centuries more lie before me. But I shall be ready. Once I gather the tools I need, once my spells are ready, I shall complete the great work. And the world shall be remade, and the gods thrown down.” 

“Or you will destroy yourself,” said Sicarion. 

Her smile was eerie. “I have been killed many times, assassin. Once by your own hand, if you recall. What is death to one who has died so many times already?”

Sicarion had no answer for that. 

“Go to the slaves in the kitchens,” said the Moroaica. “I have not eaten for two days, and this body requires sustenance.”

“Yes,” said Sicarion. “Sustenance.”

And, perhaps, his chance to get away. He had hoped to kill the Moroaica, to take revenge for his lost hand, but he saw that was madness. Even if he killed her, she would only take another body. Better instead to rouse the local chapter of the Magisterium against her. Likely they would destroy each other in the fighting, and Sicarion could use the chaos to slip away.

Just as Maglarion had thrown him into the Moroaica’s path, and used that distraction to make his escape.

Sicarion left the cellar without a backward glance and climbed to the mansion’s main floor. Dorgan stood guard at the door, and sneered as he saw his former master. 

“Are you fetching things for the great mistress, dog?” said the gladiator.

“Be silent,” said Sicarion. Oh, but one day he would make Dorgan regret his treachery. On impulse he started to summon arcane power, expecting the Moroaica’s ward to disrupt his attempt…

But the power came at his call.

The ward was gone.

Sicarion blinked in surprise. Tentatively he worked the spell to sense the presence of sorcery. The Moroaica’s ward upon him had vanished…and the wards around the mansion had dispersed as well. Had someone dispelled them?

Or had the Moroaica grown so immersed in her studies and arcane experiments that she had simply forgotten to maintain them?

Either way, Sicarion had his chance to escape.

But first, a little revenge.

He turned, his left hand coming up, green fire crackling around his fingers.

Dorgan started to shout, but Sicarion finished his spell first. A pulse of shadow and green fire slammed in Dorgan’s chest, throwing him against the wall. The gladiator went rigid with a strangled groan, every muscle in his body contracting at once, and toppled to the floor.

Sicarion grinned, stooped over him, and took a dagger from his belt. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt quite a bit, Dorgan.”

He raised the dagger, cursing at its awkward grip in his left hand…and stopped.

One of the spells of Maatish necromancy he had studied flashed through his mind. 

Why not try it?

He hacked off Dorgan’s right hand, the gladiator trying to scream through a spell-locked jaw. Sicarion took the limp hand in his and pressed it to the stump of his right wrist. He whispered the spell, summoning necromantic power, and green flames crawled and snapped around his maimed arm.

Sudden agony flooded through him, and Sicarion screamed. 

And then the flesh of Dorgan’s sword hand and Sicarion’s right arm crawled together.

The pain exploded through him, and Sicarion toppled to the floor with a groan. 

After a moment the agony faded, replaced by something like euphoria. Sicarion sat up, blinking and flexing his fingers…

The fingers on both hands.

He looked at his new right hand. It was larger than his old one, but strong and limber. Dorgan’s darker skin seemed strange against the pale skin of his arm, and the hand was joined to his wrist with a hideous ring of garish scar tissue, but Sicarion hardly cared. He made a fist over and over again, the euphoria only fading a little. 

With the spell he had learned from the Moroaica, he no longer need fear injury or death. Any body part he lost, he could replace. He grinned, picked up his dagger, and turned to finish off Dorgan.

But he saw that the former gladiator had already bled to death. 

Well, no matter. Now to escape the mansion and make his way to the Magisterium chapterhouse and send the magi after the Moroaica. In the chaos he could leave Malarae. He had caches of money hidden throughout the city, and could easily escape and set himself up in comfort in some distant land.

Sicarion turned towards the mansion’s doors.

And as he did, the doors, the frame, and part of the surrounding wall exploded in a spray of shattered masonry and splintered wood. 

The blast flung Sicarion to the floor, and he scrambled backward, coughing and wheezing in the masonry dust. A figure strode through the doors, a tall, thin man in the ragged clothes of a Nighmarian noble. A strange jade mask covered his features, carved in the expression of a serene face, and he carried a silver rod in his right hand, its length carved with Maatish hieroglyphs.

Sicarion’s spell to sense the presence of sorcery was still active, and he sensed mighty arcane forces upon the tall man.   

Power enough, perhaps, to match the Moroaica.

“Where is she?” said the masked man in a hoarse voice, rod pointing at Sicarion. “Where is she?”

“What?” said Sicarion.

“You are one of the Moroaica’s minions,” said the masked man. “I sense her necromancy upon you. Where is she?”

Suddenly Sicarion knew just who had dispelled the wards around the mansion.

“You’re one of her enemies, aren’t you?” said Sicarion, his mind racing. “She must have collected a few over the centuries, if she is as old as she claims.”

“I am Talekhris,” said the masked man, “of the Sages of the Scholae of Catekharon. Where is the Moroaica? I have come to put an end to her evil.”

“She’ll just claim another body,” said Sicarion. If he could goad this Talekhris and the Moroaica into fighting one another, he could escape during the battle. “Why bother?”

“Because she is evil,” said Talekhris. “Because she has used my knowledge to wreak great harm, and will work greater harm if she is not stopped.” His jade mask took in Sicarion’s new sword hand. “And you are one of her disciples, one of her students in the vile necromancy of old Maat.”

The rod began to glow with silver light.

“Wait,” said Sicarion, scrambling to his feet. “I’m not…”

“Talekhris.”

The Moroaica stood at the end of the hall, pale and motionless and beautiful. 

“This ends now,” said Talekhris, pointing his rod at her.

“No,” said the Moroaica, “it does not. How many times have you said that in the last seven hundred years? Time and time again I have slain you. Do you even remember them all?” Scorn entered her voice. “Do you even remember your own name? Or how to lace your boots?”

“I remember enough,” said Talekhris. “I will not allow you to continue using my knowledge to work harm.” 

“Fool,” said the Moroaica. “Your Sages squat in your precious Tower, pouring over old books and hoarding knowledge you barely understand. I labor to remake the world and cast the gods from their thrones.”

“Your path is madness,” said Talekhris, “and you will kill the world.”

Again Sicarion shivered at the thought. An entire world dying at his hand…

Killing brought him pleasure. 

How much pleasure would he derive from killing the entire world?

“No,” said the Moroaica, green fire burning around her fingers. “I will remake the world anew. And you will not stop me.”

They both struck at once, the Moroaica unleashing a volley of green flame and swirling darkness. Talekhris waved his rod, a ward of silver light appearing around him, and sent a blazing pulse of silver flame at the Moroaica. Their wards turned aside both attacks, but the howl of competing spells filled the hall, the mansion trembling around them.

And then both the Moroaica and Talekhris began fighting in earnest.

The roof and the walls exploded, both combatants using psychokinetic force to hurl volleys of jagged masonry at each other. The floor heaved, knocking Sicarion from his feet, and he saw his slaves fleeing and screaming as the mansion ripped itself apart around them. He supposed their disloyalty ought to enrage him, but he could not blame them for trying to escape.

In decades of assassinating powerful magi, he had never seen wielders of arcane force as mighty as Talekhris and the Moroaica. 

Talekhris took step after staggering step at the Moroaica, the fury of his sorcery thundering around him. The floor between the Sage and the Moroaica cracked and melted, the air between them rippling as their competing spells wrestled. Sicarion got to his feet and again worked the spell to sense the presence of sorcery. 

The amount of power he detected almost overwhelmed his senses. 

Yet the Moroaica and the Sage were almost evenly matched. The Moroaica’s face was locked in a grimace of effort, her hands hooked into claws as her blood-colored robe billowed around her slender body. He could not see the Sage’s face beneath the jade mask, but the man’s arms trembled, sweat rolling down his neck. 

Both their wards had collapsed, and they were just barely battering aside the attacks of the other. The first one to make a mistake would die. 

Sicarion hesitated. Now was his chance to kill the Moroaica, to take his revenge for his sword hand. Of course, he had a new sword hand now. And if he struck down the Moroaica, Talekhris would kill him as one of the Moroaica’s disciples. 

And the Moroaica would take a new body in short order anyway.

Better, perhaps, to simply slip away. He had planned to lure the Magisterium here to distract the Moroaica, but Talekhris had made a far superior distraction. Perhaps he would even destroy the Moroaica so thoroughly she could not take another body.

Or the Moroaica would kill him.

And then she would go on to kill the world…

Talekhris moved another step closer to the Moroaica, and Sicarion reacted without thought.

He gripped his dagger in his stolen hand and buried the blade in the Sage’s back. Talekhris gasped, his spells sputtering out, and Sicarion stabbed him twice more.

“You know,” he said, seizing the Sage’s hair, jerking his head back, and opening his throat, “for a man who fights evil, you’re not terribly good at it.”

Talekhris let out a gurgling scream and collapsed to the smoldering floor, his jade mask bouncing away. The face beneath it was lined and thin, the blue eyes bloodshot.

And quite thoroughly dead.

Silence fell over the ruined mansion, save for the crackling of the flames, and the moaning of the wind. Sicarion looked up and saw the night sky. The battle had ripped away the roof.

He saw the Moroaica staring at him, the wind tugging at her robe. Her calm had returned, though she looked exhausted, dark rings circling her blue eyes, her black hair dancing in the wind. Perhaps if he tried to kill her now, he would succeed.

Or she would kill him. And even if she fell, she would only take another body.

“Why?” said the Moroaica at last.

“Because,” said Sicarion. “Your great work. I wish to help.” His hands, the stolen one and the original one, tightened into fists. “I want to kill the world. I want to see it die.”

The thought thrilled him as nothing ever had. 

“I am going to remake the world, not destroy it,” said the Moroaica.

“But to do that,” said Sicarion, “you have to kill the old world first.”

“True,” said the Moroaica. 

“I am very good at killing,” said Sicarion, “and if you continue on your path, you shall need a lot of people killed.”

“Also true,” said the Moroaica. “That fool Talekhris. He will return to life in a few days, though he may not remember me this time. I have had rebellious disciples like Maglarion before, and undoubtedly I shall have others in the future. To say nothing of men like Talekhris, fools too misguided and blind to see that my vision for a new world is best. Yes. There will be a great deal of killing. Though if you betray me, you shall be the first to die.”

Sicarion grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Come,” said the Moroaica. “This level of sorcerous disturbance shall draw the attention of the Magisterium, and they will send magi to investigate. I have no wish to kill them all unless it is necessary.”

She strode from the ruined mansion, and Sicarion followed, eagerness filling him. 

With her power, he was going to kill the world.

And with his new spells, no one would ever stop him. 

THE END

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