Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 05 - Ghost in the Stone Read Online Free PDF Page B

followed after his son. The men had the same facial features and eyes, but Khosrau was enormously fat, so fat that his white robe and beard made him look like an ambulatory snowball. He walked with a limp, leaning upon an ivory cane in his right fist. Unlike his son, his expression was not a cold mask. If anything, he looked…amused. As if he was privy to some joke unknown to everyone else in the Plaza. 
    A man in a black robe with a purple sash trailed after Khosrau, a slave girl in a gray tunic following him.
    “Who is the master magus?” said Caina.
    “Ranarius, the preceptor of the Cyrioch chapterhouse,” murmured Theodosia. “A cold one. Was a strong supporter of Haeron Icaraeus. Even the First Magus steps lightly around him.”
    Caina took a closer look at Ranarius. The master magus was in his sixties, with a gaunt, ascetic face and the perpetual squint of a scholar. The slave girl was perhaps a few years younger than Caina, with hair so blond it was almost white. A strip of black cloth covered her eyes, and an elaborate collar of carved jade rested around her neck. Caina wondered why Ranarius bothered keeping a blind slave. Perhaps she warmed his bed - Caina would not put it past a magus to keep a slave mistress or three. The suspicion was confirmed when she saw a jade bracelet of similar design on his left wrist. 
    Lord Armizid strode toward Lord Corbould, and a sudden memory struck Caina with the force of a blow.
    She remembered standing in the Great Market in Marsis, taking Nicolai to see the grand arrival of Rezir Shahan aboard his ships. Lord Corbould had been there with his bodyguards and magistrates, coming to greet the Padishah of Istarinmul’s Lord Ambassador. Yet the meeting had been a trap, and Istarish soldiers had stormed into the Great Market, killing and capturing slaves. The slavers had taken Nicolai captive. Dread rose up to choke her throat at the memory. She had to get him back! She had to find him before…
    Caina shook her head. She had rescued Nicolai, had slain Rezir Shahan and outwitted the Moroacia’s disciple Scorikhon. Nicolai was safe with Ark and Tanya. She had saved him.
    Yet the dread did not leave her, and for a terrible instant she was sure that Istarish footmen would boil into the Plaza of Majesty, their khalmirs bellowing commands…
    She heard a voice, hissing urgent words. 
    Caina blinked.
    “Are you all right?” said Theodosia. “Because this is not the time to let your attention wander!”
    “I’m fine,” said Caina, but she knew it was a lie.
    Theodosia’s expression said that she knew it, too.
    Then Lord Governor Armizid started to speak, and Caina pushed aside her memories and emotions.
    “My lord Corbould,” said Armizid in High Nighmarian with a thick Cyrican accent. “I bid you welcome to Cyrica Urbana, the Shining City.”
    The two men gripped hands briefly. 
    “I think you, my lord Armizid,” said Corbould. “On behalf of our Emperor, I offer greetings, and thank you for your hospitality.”
    Armizid offered a thin smile, and Caina suspected that he did not like Corbould very much.
    “All nations know the hospitality of the Cyricans,” Armizid. “Truly, we are generous to our friends…and merciless to our enemies.” 
    “Indeed?” said Corbould. “Then it is well that the Cyricans are friends and loyal citizens of our Empire. For our Empire is threatened by bitter enemies.”
    Armizid lifted an eyebrow below his white turban. “By the Kyracians and the Istarish, you mean? Perhaps they are your enemies, Lord Corbould, if they went to such efforts to seize Marsis from you. But for generations beyond count, the slaves who labor in our mines and plantations have come from the slavers’ brotherhood of Istarinmul. The ships that carry our olives and rice and cotton to the ports of the world come from New Kyre. The Kyracians and the Istarish have been friends of Cyrica for centuries. Perhaps they are your enemies, my lord Corbould, but they may