Ghost in the Razor by Jonathan Moeller Page B

slew her, Callatas would side with the Order against the Empire. He would open the Starfall Straits to the Order’s fleet, and they could sail through the Straits and strike at Malarae. The Empire would fall to the Umbarian Order within a year. 
    And all Cassander had to do was kill Caina Amalas. 
    He was under no illusions that it would be easy. The woman had proven herself to be damnably clever, and had thwarted the Imperial Magisterium on multiple occasions. For that matter, she had operated in Istarinmul for a year and a half, and neither the Teskilati nor any bounty hunters had been able to catch her. Even more impressive, Callatas had sent the Red Huntress after her, and somehow Caina had slain the dangerous assassin. The Red Huntress had slaughtered half the high magistrates of New Kyre in one night, yet Caina had managed to kill her. 
    This was not a woman to underestimate. 
    Which was why Cassander was not going to kill her himself. 
    He took several deep breaths, clearing his mind and focusing his will. When his mind was prepared, he began casting the spell, gesturing with his armored right hand. Fire blazed to life around his fingers, and the light in the circle turned from blue to a harsh yellow-orange, the color of a flame devouring a house. The air within the circle shimmered as the walls between the mortal world and the netherworld, the realm of spirits, thinned inside its boundary. Cassander’s will reached into the netherworld, and he called out.
    Something answered his summons. 
    The dead slave girl twitched, her limbs jerking as if upon invisible strings. Her head rolled back, her mouth yawning open, and hellish crimson flames filled her mouth and her eyes. The jerking stopped, and the girl’s head rotated back and forth.
    She climbed to her feet in one smooth motion, her burning eyes fixed upon Cassander. 
    “Sorcerer,” she said. The voice was far deeper than any human voice, and hissed and snarled like a roaring fire. “You dare to summon me once more?”
    “Sifter,” said Cassander. “Such a pleasure to meet you again.”
    Maria looked back and forth between them, her gray eyes wide.
    And frightened.
    As well she should be, if she recognized the powerful spirit within the circle.
    Cassander had joined the Umbarian Order in secret soon after becoming a novice of the Magisterium, eager to expand his powers beyond the Magisterium's strictures. Chief among those forbidden abilities had been the summoning and binding of elemental spirits, knowledge that the Magisterium claimed had been lost after the destruction of Caer Magia, but had been secretly preserved by the Umbarian Order. After becoming a full brother the Magisterium, Cassander had expanded his abilities further, traveling to Istarinmul to research the lore of lost Iramis. 
    And there he had learned about the ifriti, the raging elementals of fire, and he had summoned the Sifter. 
    The djinn had an organized kingdom in the netherworld, albeit one organized along principles incomprehensible to mortal minds. The ifriti were wild loners, waging war against each other and all other spirits. Some kingdoms of spirits pursued their own goals and purposes, locked in war against each other for uncounted millennia. The ifriti simply cared for destruction, and wanted to destroy as much as possible. 
    And the Sifter was an exceedingly powerful ifrit. Twice before Cassander had summoned the spirit, sending it against his rivals within the Magisterium. Twice before the Sifter had disposed of his enemies. 
    Now the Sifter would do it a third time. 
    “I have,” said Cassander. “a task for you.”
    He felt the Sifter’s fury pressing against his will. “You dare to command me?” 
    “You shall kill for me,” said Cassander. “You shall devour my enemy for me.” 
    Against the spirit’s wrath washed against him, but Cassander’s will stood fast, buttressed by the power of the summoning circle upon the floor. Sweat broke out on