Ghost in the Maze by Jonathan Moeller Page B

bolt holes around the city. Halfdan had always done so, and his hidden safe houses had saved their lives more than once. So Caina had followed her teacher’s example, purchasing buildings and renting properties under a variety of false names. A warehouse near the Cyrican docks. A rented room over a tavern in the Alqaarin Quarter. An abandoned smithy in the Forge Quarter, and several others. In each one Caina secured supplies, food, weapons and medicines, along with a variety of disguises. 
    She made her way to a boarding house in the Tower Quarter. The Quarter was named for the Crows’ Tower, the sprawling fortress where the watchmen kept their headquarters, and if rumor was true, the Teskilati maintained secret dungeons to secure their more valuable prisoners. Many of the younger, unmarried watchmen lodged in various boarding houses around the Crows’ Tower.  Most of the boarding houses were ugly four-story cubes of whitewashed brick that had once been barracks and prisons.
    So Caina had bought one.
    Specifically, a boarding house with a secret chamber in the attic. Caina had spotted it while helping a widow named Talisla escape some robbers, noting the unusual thickness of the outer wall. A quick investigation had revealed a hidden passage in the wall and an abandoned chamber in the attic. It had likely once been used to hold prisoners, but to judge from the dust, it had been abandoned for a very long time.
    Caina had bought the boarding house under a false name, hired Talisla to manage the house and rent rooms, and then had prepared the secret room as a bolt hole. 
    She stepped into the alley, making sure she was unobserved, and then opened the hidden door. After closing and locking it behind her, she ascended a narrow stair to the hidden chamber. Dim light leaked through the slats of the roof, and Caina had assembled a cache of supplies here alongside a camp bed. Another hidden passage led to the cellar and then to the sewers, while a coiled rope and a hidden trapdoor permitted her to climb down the side of the boarding house. If she was cornered here, she could likely escape. But she was reasonably sure no one knew this place existed.
    It was a safe enough place to sleep.
    Caina stripped off her sweaty clothing with a sigh of relief. Malarae had been warm, but Istarinmul was brutally hot. She washed as best she could with soap and a barrel of water, scrubbing away the sweat of the last two days’ exertions. Her limbs ached from all the running and climbing, and she would be sore tomorrow. 
    She looked at the ring on her left hand with annoyance. Well, Nasser had promised to tell her what it was, if she showed up tomorrow. Perhaps he could tell her how to remove it. 
    Caina lay down on the camp bed, getting comfortable. A deep wave of loneliness and sadness washed over her. Gods, but she missed Corvalis. The grief no longer maddened her, but it had not left her. Perhaps it would never leave her. 
    Still. The old proverb said work was the best cure for sorrow. 
    At the very least, work made her tired enough to sleep.
    Caina sank into sleep and knew nothing more.

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    And in her sleep, she dreamed once more. 
    It was a dream she had seen before.
    She stood again on a ridge overlooking a vast, fertile plain, its fields and vineyards and pastures overflowing with crops and cattle. In the midst of the plain rose a gleaming city walled in golden stone, its towers domed in crystal, a thousand banners flying from its ramparts. The great city had a hundred gates and a broad harbor, and men from every nation and kingdom under the sun came to trade in its markets.
    And then the hooded man came to the edge of the ridge, his dark cloak stirring around him. He raised his hand, and in his fist burned a star of azure flame, a nexus of sorcery potent enough to shatter mountains and boil seas. The golden city burned in an instant, burned so thoroughly and completely that not even a single stone remained atop another. The