world deserved to die, and you told me…”
“Yes,” whispered Annarah. “Yes. The world deserves to die.”
Caina frowned and leaned closer.
“Have you not seen it?” said Annarah, her words echoing in his memory from all those years ago. “So much suffering. So much needless death. The strong rule and the weak suffer, and if the weak become strong, they behave no better. This world is drenched in blood and torment.”
“You sound like the Moroaica,” said Caina, her voice tight.
“Do not you deserve to die, too, Morgant?” said Annarah, gazing at the book. The long-ago conversation echoed inside his head. “All that innocent blood on your hands. You’ve killed people who didn’t deserve it. You’ve broken your word. Why do you not kill yourself? Your own rules demand it.”
“I…” said Morgant.
Now, as then, he did not have an answer for her.
“Because you forgave yourself,” whispered Annarah, “and you need to forgive the world, Morgant. Any man can take vengeance. Vengeance is the most common thing in the world, but you cannot shelter beneath it, you cannot clothe yourself with it, you cannot feed your children with it. Revenge is so common. Forgiveness…forgiveness is the rarest thing of all. Forgiveness can change the world. What if you forgave the world, Morgant? What would you do then?”
“I don’t know,” murmured Morgant. “I would…”
Spend a hundred and fifty years seeking for a way to rescue Annarah?
Throw in with a mad Ghost nightfighter in her quest to defeat Callatas?
“That’s why you tried to save Rolukhan, isn’t it?” said Caina. “To forgive him?”
“Yes,” whispered Annarah. “You understand, Balarigar. No one can live on vengeance their entire life. Not even you.”
Kylon shifted against the wall, his frown deepening.
“Does the world deserve to die?” said Morgant. “I suppose you answered that question.”
“That is the answer I choose,” said Annarah, her eyes closed as she turned the pages. “Now another question. Where did I hide the Staff and Seal of Iramis? Where did I hide them so well that not even Callatas could find them with all his power and knowledge? Where…”
Suddenly she gasped, going rigid beneath Morgant’s grasp.
###
Annarah’s green eyes shot open, and Kylon reached for his sword out of instinct.
He sensed the emotions in the room. Caina felt sad and tired. Nasser and Laertes eager. Morgant’s cold aura was oddly at peace. Annarah’s sense had been seeking, curious…
But now something else flooded her aura.
Dread. Utter, total dread.
###
“What have I done?” whispered Annarah, her hand falling away from the book. “What have I done?”
“Annarah?” said Caina. “What is it?”
“Loremaster?” said Nasser.
She let out a laugh. “Of course. Where else could I have hidden them? Where else would not even Callatas ever dare to go? In all this world, what is the one place that Grand Master Callatas himself would never dare to visit again?”
“Where?” said Caina.
She looked at Nasser and saw the shock on his face.
“You didn’t,” said Nasser.
“I am sorry, my lord Prince,” said Annarah. “But I did.”
“Oh,” said Morgant. “I remember now.” He looked astonished. “We actually did that? We’re idiots.”
“Where did you put them?” said Caina.
“I hid the Staff and Seal,” said Annarah, “in the Tomb of Kharnaces.”
“Kharnaces?” said Caina. “You mean the Great Necromancer that used to command the Inferno? I thought the other Great Necromancers destroyed him for heresy.”
“They tried,” said Annarah. “They failed.”
“It seems you shall learn another of my secrets, Ghost,” said Nasser. “This was a secret known only to the Princes of Iramis and the senior loremasters. The Great Necromancer Kharnaces was not destroyed. Such was his strength that not even the assembled priests of Maat could overcome him. Instead, he was banished and imprisoned on an island tomb in the Alqaarin sea, and there he has remained for the last two and a half thousand years.”
Caina considered that. “Why would Callatas be afraid to go there? Not unless…”
The answer came to her in a flash.
“What was Kharnaces’s heresy?” said Caina.
“What do you think?” said Nasser.
“He turned from the old gods of Maat to worship the nagataaru, didn’t he?” said Caina.
“You see why he so alarmed the priests of Maat,” said Nasser. “After Callatas forsook the Order of the Words of Lore, he fled Iramis and went to Kharnaces’s tomb. He remained there for some years.”
“What did he do there?” said Caina.
“No one knows,” said Nasser, “but I suspect Kharnaces held him prisoner. After Callatas escaped, he displayed an interest in the nagataaru, and he began to research them.” He looked at Annarah. “And you hid the relics there? In the