Ghost in the Amulet Read online

  “I think,” said Caina, “the sooner we get out of Ulkaar, the better.”

  “I quite agree, my dear,” said Theodosia. “Well, we can get a few more miles before we must stop for the night. If all goes well, tomorrow we will reach Risiviri before noon.”

  ###

  That night Caina sat in the tent she shared with Kylon, the blankets wrapped around her shoulders. She had taken off her hat and ran a hand through her hair, grimacing at the greasy feel of it. By the Divine, she needed a bath. Due to her resemblance to Talmania Scorneus, Caina had dyed her hair blond, and while it was an effective disguise, the color annoyed her. She liked her hair’s usual black color.

  Heat radiated from the bronze brazier near the wall of the tent. Every night, after the stagehands had chopped wood and gotten the campfire going, Kylon took hot coals from the fire. The brazier would radiate heat for the rest of the night, though by dawn it would be cold again. But it would be warm enough to keep them from freezing.

  “You’re troubled,” said Kylon.

  She looked at her husband’s face, illuminated in the dim red light leaking from the brazier.

  “Yes,” said Caina. “It’s the strangest thing. I was looking at the snow, and it reminded me of Callatas’s robe.” She took a deep breath. “Then I remembered the last time we came to a city while carrying an ancient relic of sorcerous power.”

  “I remember, too,” said Kylon. A dry note entered his voice. “It wasn’t the sort of thing you forget. And it wasn’t all that long ago.”

  “We had a plan,” said Caina. “We were going to take the Staff and Seal of Iramis to Catekharon. Instead, it blew up in our faces. Cassander nearly destroyed the city, that scared all the ships away, and Kalgri told Callatas where the relics were.”

  “We did win,” said Kylon. “And Callatas and the Red Huntress both are dead.”

  “Aye,” said Caina. She sighed. “I am simply in a grim mood.” She tugged back her sleeve and looked at where the Ring of Rasarion Yagar rested on its leather cord against the skin of her left wrist. Remaining in contact with a valikarion would prevent any sorcerer from sensing the Ring’s dark aura, yet the carved emerald set in the iron band seemed like a baleful green eye staring at Caina. “A sense of foreboding. Like history is repeating itself.”

  “Or like you’ve been in a battle before,” said Kylon, “and you’re bracing yourself for another fight.”

  Caina nodded. “Exactly.” She sighed again. “We’ll just have to be careful. Try to get out of the city and onto a ship before the Temnoti or Talmania figure out we’re there.”

  She tensed a little at mentioning Talmania’s name.

  “You don’t want to meet her,” said Kylon.

  “No,” said Caina. “I don’t want to meet an Umbarian provost, not unless the blade of my valikon is already buried in her chest. For another…by the Divine, Kylon. She sounds like my mother. The kind of woman my mother wished she could have been, and my mother wanted to be someone like Maglarion or Libavya Jordizi. I don’t ever want to meet Talmania.” She shuddered. “I could barely handle meeting Seb.”

  “Seb’s a good man,” said Kylon. “We might not have gotten out of Kostiv or Vagraastrad without his help.”

  “I know,” said Caina. “And Halfdan’s letter said some of my family would be more trustworthy than others. But I don’t want to meet any of them. My mother is dead, but looking at Seb…it reminds me of her.”

  “Seb is not your mother,” said Kylon. “No more than you are.”

  “No,” said Caina. “I’m not. He isn’t. The rest of my family…I want to return to Iramis, and hopefully never think about them again. And it’s a simple plan, isn’t it? We get on a ship and sail to Artifel. The Ring goes to the Towers of Lore in Iramis, and it never comes out again. A simple plan. Just like taking the Staff and Seal of Iramis to Catekharon was a simple plan. And that went so well.”

  “It did, in the end,” said Kylon. “Though it didn’t seem like it at the time.”

  “Aye, I know, I know,” said Caina. “I envy your calm.”

  Kylon shrugged. “It’s our differing backgrounds. I was a soldier. You make your plans, and then you roll the dice, and it’s in the hands of chance or the gods. You were a spy and a master thief. You had to plan everything out.”

  Caina snorted. “And it was still all in the hands of the Divine or chance. I never used to brood like this.”

  Kylon smiled. “Yes, you did. You’ve brooded like this the entire time I’ve known you. You just need to distract yourself.”

  “And just how am I to do that?” said Caina.

  In answer, Kylon put his hands around her waist, tugged her close, and kissed her. Caina blinked in surprise, and then kissed him back.

  “I’m not distracting myself,” said Caina, smiling at him. “You’re distracting me.”

  “Do you care?” said Kylon.

  “Only if you stop,” said Caina, and she laughed as he gently lowered her to the ground.

  Once they were done, Caina did feel better, her worries more distant. Kylon fell asleep first, and Caina rested her head against his chest and fell asleep soon after.

  Fragmentary nightmares danced and twisted through her mind. Caina saw her mother, but this time Laeria Amalas wore the black greatcoat of an Umbarian magus, a gauntlet of black steel covering her right hand, a crimson bloodcrystal set into the dark metal. She smirked, and there was a power and confidence in her gaze that she had never possessed in life. Next to Laeria stood Maglarion, wearing the black coat and trousers of a Nighmarian lord, his left eye hidden behind a strip of cloth.

  “Do you remember us, Caina?” said Laeria with a cold smile. “Do you remember me? You thought to escape from your blood, but it is always part of you. It will always follow you. And it’s going to destroy you.”

  Caina awoke unsettled, and for once was glad to face the cold of another Ulkaari winter day.

  ###

  Kylon of House Kardamnos walked next to his wife early the next morning, keeping watch on the surrounding countryside and sending the sorcery of water sweeping around him.

  He couldn’t sense Caina through the sorcery of water. Her nature as a valikarion made her immune to that sort of sorcery unless he touched her. Then he sensed her emotional state as well as his own. Which, as he had to admit, was an extraordinarily useful thing at times, given how well she masked her thoughts and feelings.

  But the emotional sense of the others washed over him. He sensed Theodosia’s aura, both calm and fiery with rising and falling grief like clouds passing over the sun. Seb’s sense was grim and watchful, tinged with old sorrow. Ilona’s sense was cool and wary, colored with a growing attraction to Seb that neither of them really wanted to acknowledge. Sophia Zomanek’s sense was a mixture of fear, determination, reverence for Caina, and a mild infatuation for Kylon that he was careful not to encourage. The emotions of the rest of the theatre company brushed his mind, a mixture of anger and contentment and fear and lust and watchfulness, the whole range of human emotion.

  As a child, when Kylon had first learned to use water sorcery, the sensations had nearly overwhelmed him. New Kyre was a vast city, and its combined emotional aura had washed over his mind like a tide. It had taken him time to learn the control necessary to separate his own mind from those auras, to discipline his thoughts, so the crushing emotional weight did not drive him mad. At the time, he had thought his abilities a curse. Later, he had come to realize their utility in battle.

  And as he had gotten older and discovered the company of women, he had also come to realize that satisfying a lover was much easier when he could sense her emotional aura.

  Kylon smiled to himself as he glanced at Caina, recalling last night, and then turned his attention to watching for enemies.

  They were very close to Risiviri, and if the Temnoti or the Umbarians wanted to attack, a ferry crossing was an excellent place to do it.

  There was traffic on the road this morning. Farms
and small villages dotted the landscape near Risiviri, and some of the farmers and villagers headed to the city. Before coming here, Kylon would have thought that traveling during such a harsh winter would have been impossible, but the Ulkaari had adapted. They had heavy ox-pulled wagons like the ones Theodosia’s theatre company owned or used wide snowshoes of wood and wicker. Some of the Ulkaari also traveled using a strange contrivance Kylon had never seen before. They strapped long strips of polished wood to their feet and then used poles to propel themselves along. It looked unwieldy, but the Ulkaari used the wooden strips to move with surprising speed.

  “They are called skis, Lady Caina,” said Sophia when Caina spotted them. “Sometimes people use them to travel in haste. When Boyar Vlad Nagrach still ruled in Kostiv, there were races on skis, and whoever could go to the boyar’s castle and back again the swiftest would win a prize.” Embarrassment colored her emotional sense, followed by a faint surge of arcane power. The girl was getting better at keeping her emotions from calling sorcerous force, but she still had work to do. “I could never do that. My balance wasn’t good enough.”

  “They’re useful for traveling down the river in winter as well,” said Seb, glancing at the dark waters of the Kozalin.

  “But only when the river is frozen?” said Caina in a dry voice.

  “Yes, skiers tend not to swim well,” said Seb in the same tone. “Though I have seen carts with skis instead of wheels, and they hasten quite well down the frozen river.”

  “Too expensive,” said Theodosia. “They’re only good in winter and removing the skis and installing the wheels back is a tedious job.” She snorted and adjusted her fur hat. “And if urgent business hadn’t taken me to Vagraastrad and then back to Risiviri, I wouldn’t travel in winter.” She smiled. “But the journey’s almost over. In fact, when we get to the top of this next hill, I think we’re in for a pleasant sight.”

  They climbed the road to the top of the next hill, the wagons creaking after them.

  And as Theodosia had promised, the view of the top of the hill was remarkable.

  The land sloped to the sea about three miles ahead, its gray expanse filling the horizon. Kylon knew that was the Inner Sea, the sea that dominated the interior of the eastern Empire and that also served as one of the battlegrounds between the forces of the Emperor and the Umbarian Order. The Kozalin River flowed straight south into the sea, and the harsh smell of salt filled the cold air. On the western bank, Kylon spotted several stone piers, massive wooden barges waiting next to them.

  On the eastern bank of the river rose a city.

  It was a good-sized city, perhaps home to a hundred and fifty thousand people. It had both an outer wall and an inner wall, and Kylon saw the masts of ships rising from the city’s harbor. On a hill in the center of the city, overlooking the harbor, rose a sprawling fortress built of red stone. Within the city rose domes and towers and houses with the sharp peaked roofs the Ulkaari favored to prevent snow accumulation in the winter.

  “By the Divine,” said Sophia, amazement in her sense. “I thought Vagraastrad was large…but I’ve never seen such a big city.”

  Kylon shared an amused glance with Caina. If the girl thought Risiviri was large, wait until she saw Istarinmul for the first time.

  “The chief city of Ulkaar,” said Theodosia. “Let’s proceed to the ferry station, where the ferrymen will no doubt attempt to gouge us outrageously. If…”

  “Those ships,” said Caina, frowning.

  She pointed, and Kylon saw a half-dozen ships waiting outside Risiviri’s harbor, far enough from the shore that the low tide wouldn’t beach them. They were quinqueremes, the massive warships favored by the Empire of Nighmar, with five banks of oars, ramming beaks, and siege engines.

  And every one of the six ships flew the banner of the Umbarian Order, a golden winged skull on a field of black.

  “Umbarian warships,” said Seb. “I know the Order had some ships left on the Inner Sea, warships they had managed to get past Arzaxia for the siege of Artifel. I didn’t think they would all be here, though.”

  “That’s a blockade formation,” said Kylon. “They’ve sealed off the harbor of Risiviri. They’ll be able to intercept and board or even destroy any ships trying to enter or exit the harbor.”

  “Is the city under attack?” said Caina, peering at the walls.

  Kylon looked over Risiviri, extending his senses of water sorcery to their utmost. It was a bit of a strain, but he caught something of the city’s emotional sense. It was tense and wary, likely because of the warships outside the harbor, but it lacked the sick fear he would have expected from a city under siege. For that matter, he couldn’t see any trace of an armed force outside of Risiviri’s walls. The city’s fortifications were the best he had seen in Ulkaar, and if a determined force held them, it would take a large army to break inside.

  “Not that I can see,” said Kylon, pulling back his arcane senses. “There are no soldiers outside the walls, and the gates are open.”

  “It looks like they’re simply blockading the harbor,” said Seb.

  “Then Talmania is waiting for us,” said Caina, voice grim.

  “Maybe,” said Theodosia. “Or the Umbarians are trying to pressure Boyar Mircea into siding with them.”

  “They haven’t been able to get any substantial forces past Artifel,” said Seb, scowling at the warships. “That’s why the Umbarians would like to get Ulkaar into their camp. They could assemble a new army and fleet, sail across the Inner Sea, and attack Artifel from the north.”

  “Come,” said Theodosia. “It looks like the ferries are still operating. Let us speak to the ferrymen. They gossip like old women.”

  “Or stagehands,” muttered Ilona.

  “Or stagehands,” agreed Theodosia with placid calm.

  They walked to the stone quays. Three massive wooden barges sat next to the quays. A small crowd had already loaded onto one of the barges. Kylon supposed the ferrymen waited until they had a full load before crossing the river. No doubt there was less traffic in winter, and perhaps Theodosia could use that to negotiate a discount.

  Theodosia and Ilona began negotiating with the ferry master, a big, paunchy man named Vlad. Kylon had noticed that every third Ulkaari man seemed to be named Vlad, much in the same way that every third man in Malarae was named Marcus or Julius. No doubt every nation and tribe had its own favored names. Vlad and Theodosia began bargaining, with Vlad offering an inflated rate for carrying the wagons across, and Theodosia pointing out that traffic was lower in winter and therefore Vlad and the ferry were hurting for business.

  Kylon was pleased that his command of the Ulkaari tongue had improved to the point that he could follow the discussion. He still had trouble speaking the language. Caina was the one who had a gift for languages, not Kylon

  “Besides,” said Theodosia, making a grand gesture in the direction of the Umbarian warships, “Risiviri hardly looks hospitable right now.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Vlad. “That’s about the Boyar, not us.”

  “Aye?” said Theodosia. “What’s going on?”

  Vlad lowered his voice, no doubt eager to exchange gossip. “One of the provosts of the Umbarian order is in the city. Talmania Scorneus, but everyone calls her Talmania Skull-speaker because of her wicked sorcery. Wouldn’t call her that to her face, though.” Kylon felt the pulse of anger go through both Theodosia’s sense and Seb’s. “Anyway, the Voivode of Vagraastrad has sided with the Umbarians, but Boyar Mircea supports the Empire. Talmania is trying to bully him into helping the Order.” Vlad spat over the quay and into the river. “I hope the Boyar stands firm. If the Umbarians take over Ulkaar, they’ll do to us what they did to the Saddai. Or they’ll unleash their Kagari horsemen upon us.” Hatred flushed through his sense. The Ulkaari loathed the Kagari horsemen of the eastern steppes, and as much as they feared the memory of the Iron King, they still celebrated Rasarion Yagar’s victories over the Kagari khans. Sinc
e the Umbarian Order had allied itself with the Kagari Great Khan, that likely explained why so many of the Ulkaari refused to support the Order.

  “Risiviri is a long way from the eastern steppes,” said Theodosia.

  “Aye, but the Umbarians already let the Kagari into the eastern Empire, the devils,” said Vlad. “But Boyar Mircea is a stout fellow. Voivode Gregor might be foolish enough to throw in with the Umbarians, but Boyar Mircea is not so easily duped.” A worried note entered the big man’s voice. “Unless the Umbarians do away with him. They’re treacherous. And I’ve heard rumors of fighting along the docks.”

  “Have you?” said Caina. She had been staring at the warships, apparently ignoring the conversation, but Kylon had no doubt that she had heard every word. “What kind of fighting?”

  “The dockside gangs, girl,” said Vlad. “The docks are a rough place, and there are gangs of thieves and rogues there.” He spat again over the side of the quay. “And two of the gangs wiped each other out a few days ago. I heard a rumor the Kindred assassins were involved.”

  Caina frowned. “There are Kindred assassins in Risiviri?”

  Kylon had dealt with the Kindred before. They were a peculiar combination of secret society, religious cult, and criminal gang, and they had branches in most of the major cities of the civilized world. Caina’s former lover Corvalis Aberon had been a Kindred assassin, though he had broken with them. Kylon had met Corvalis in Catekharon and Caeria Ulterior, and he had seemed like a quiet, competent assassin, a good match for Caina.

  Then Corvalis had died fighting the Moroaica, and Caina had been exiled from the Empire, and the Red Huntress had murdered Kylon’s wife, and he had been exiled from New Kyre, and they had met again in Istarinmul…

  Kylon dismissed the rumination and turned his attention back to the conversation.