Raed Syndar Rossin, as displaced heir to the Empire of Arkaym, had been given an extensive education by many of the greatest minds to be found anywhere, yet he had never seen or read of such a thing. However, much had been lost since the time of the Ancients—the ones that Merrick now called the Ehtia, after his little sojourn into the past.
Emboldened by the fact that the leader of the Native Order was not physically present, and that there were no other Deacons, Raed crept closer while Derodak rattled on, edging his way into the group as the person he had followed here had obviously done.
This was the kind of information that Sorcha had not been able to discover. No matter how her Sensitive Deacons had searched and searched, they had been unable to use any of the Runes of Sight to spy on what the Circle of Stars had been doing. How they had been able to conceal themselves was a real mystery.
The idea that he might be able to find out some things that none of Sorcha’s colleagues had been able to excited Raed. He would put whatever he could find out before her and finally feel better about being with them. He’d be back to being a useful member of the community his lover was constructing.
He had already learned many interesting things, but perhaps this was the greatest one: the Circle of Stars was trying to build a base of adoring public. They had learned from history; when they had fallen it was because they had been toppled by angry and fearful citizens.
“Sar,” a grizzled old man said, raising his hand as if he were still in school, “the Heretic who calls herself the Harbinger has taken the town hall, and her Sensitives are already spreading through the city . . .” The man paused, and stared down at his feet.
Even as a projection, Derodak demanded respect and could instill fear over distance. “Do you think we do not know that? Do you think we would abandon you?”
Though he offered no violence, the target of his outrage dropped to one knee and bent his head. “No, Sar. We know you keep your lambs safe over all comers.”
Derodak turned in midair, his image flickering only slightly. “You will come to us, and join the rest of our beloved followers.” He raised his hand and pointed. The people who had been standing against the wall in the spot he was gesturing to scattered like fish when an eagle dived. When he saw what was revealed, Raed’s heart raced. He recognized the circle of cantrips and runes; the portal device that Sorcha was the mistress of—the only one of her Deacons that could use them. Even Merrick, when he had tried, had been baffled by it.
The space described by the circle flickered and changed; now it was a corridor, and where exactly it was, no one said. It could be anywhere in Arkaym, or even Delmaire. That was what made the Circle of Stars so very dangerous.
The people in the room—including Raed—got to their feet and began to line up to pass through the doorway. They did indeed resemble gray sheep. The Young Pretender was just considering if he should and could shuffle unobtrusively out of the room, or if he should actually pass through with them and find out more.
Before he could come to any real decision, it was made for him. He found that he was surrounded by children, and they did not appear to be normal children. Their eyes when they looked up at him were curiously blank, and it felt as though there was something else looking out from them. It was just a split-second realization, but he didn’t have time to act. Even the Rossin, swimming so deep in his unconscious, could not reach the surface quickly enough to stop what happened next.
The children threw themselves at Raed, but this was no sudden rush of infant glee. Their hands wrapped around him, and those little hands were not empty; they carried weirstones. They jammed them hard into his skin, just before he could contemplate how to fight back against children. Where the dark weirstones touched, they burned like lava.
The Rossin howled in pain and outrage as the agony reached him. Rendered mindless, the Beast dove deep, prevented from being able to reach Raed in time. That problem taken care of, the adults rushed Raed and knocked him to the floor.
While his mind reeled at this attack, they bound him tightly, keeping the weirstones still pressed against his skin. The pain rendered him both speechless and immobile.
Dimly, he heard a heavily pregnant woman yell at one of the men finishing tying his feet. “Quickly, before the Heathen feels this and comes for him.”
That these people knew anything of the Bond between himself and Sorcha was another surprise. However, they couldn’t know how the Bond had weakened considerably between them, else they would not have been so afraid. The Circle of Stars was mobilizing a section of the terrified citizens of Arkaym, and it seemed a most successful ploy.
Trussed up like a game hen, Raed found himself carried through the doorway, and far, far away from Sorcha and her new Order. He guessed that his attempt at information gathering was about to become a lot more intense—and quickly.
His last thought before passing the doorway was how ironic it was that the Rossin had been brought low by children.
SEVENTEEN
Alone with the Whispers
Sorcha sat in the dark, on a splendid chair that was not hers, and listened to the voices. Much as she disliked it, she had very little choice in the matter, since they had grown so much stronger. Awakening her Wrayth powers to use on the mayor and his fellow geists had apparently opened a door she couldn’t shut.
Merrick was about the work of organizing those that had come forward to take up the mantle of the Enlightened—including the rather surprising addition of Aachon.
The Harbinger of the Enlightened sounded rather grand when shouted to a crowd while wielding runes. Now, sitting alone in the room that had once belonged to the mayor, it felt like a cloak made of gold—a beautiful but terrible burden. The worst of it was the words she had spoken had not been her own; someone else had forced them from her lips.
Harbinger, the voices had whispered into her mind, and at the same time the words had escaped her. She had not shared that particular fact with Merrick, and the knowledge that he had not found that out only compounded her fear. They had once been as close as two Deacons could be. Now—though she had called him her anchor—she could feel him drifting away from her.
Come to us, and all fear will be assuaged, the little voices, layered upon each other, repeated.
In her sleep they called her “beloved” and “special.” They sang to her to return to the hive mind where all was safe and all wrongs would be made right. Her mother had taken her from her proper home, and she need only return to make everything as it should be.
Sorcha’s hands tightened on the carved arms of the chair, and her teeth pressed together. She knew what Merrick was afraid of, and it tormented her too. She was fully aware that she was teetering on the edge of a vast abyss, and feared if she even moved an inch she would go over.
Her thoughts darted toward Arch Abbot Rictun. It was strange how she had not thought of him for many, many months and now his face came back to her in the darkness. He had always been at her shoulder when they were growing up, not as a friend, but as a pair of eyes to spot weakness in her. He’d reported Sorcha to the Presbyter of the Young more times than she could count. She’d always thought it was jealousy, but now that the Wrayth had released her memories, she knew that was not what had driven the Arch Abbot.
She recalled a day when the foundlings of the Order, still too young yet for the novitiate, had been set loose to play in the herb garden. It was one of those stifling summer afternoons where the air was heavy with moisture. The more sensible adults had long since retired to the shade and cool of the Abbey’s stone buildings. Sorcha had been eight years old. Her long dark red hair had come loose from her ponytail and was sticking damply to her neck. She was playing chase with all the other children, glad to be free of the hawklike watch of all the grown-ups. For once they were able to be young.
She hid behind a tall stand of lavender, stifling her giggles as three other foundlings ran past, oblivious to her absence. When one of the older boys came close, she cl
ambered into the garden bed and, despite the bees, crouched down among the long purple flowers. The smell was overwhelming, and after a moment the heat and the sweet scent overcame her.
She rolled back until she was lying on the bare earth and just staring up at the bright blue sky. The warmth of the day wrapped around her, and the sound of the lazily buzzing bees put her into a half-awake, half-asleep state. It was this that the older Sorcha knew was very close to the state of reaching for her Center. The smells, the sights and the sounds were acting on her like one of the lay Brother’s drugs.
As the young Sorcha lay back in the garden, she began to notice that the cloudless sky was not entirely cloudless. Tufts of white, like glimpses of smoke, flickered and danced across the perfect deep blue. She watched them idly, but as she did so they began to form into something that was not so formless. She could make out faces, some long and stretched out, others coming very close to being familiar. One even seemed to look like her own face, but older.
In this drowsy state, the young Sorcha did not panic, because she did not know—did not have the training to know—that what she was seeing was not just idle imaginings. The older Sorcha, sitting in the darkness of the broken and desecrated hall, bit her lip as the memory unrolled.
Now the sound of the bees was not just some chaotic, soft rumble, it too began to take shape. The buzzing began to form words. They were voices calling her. They spoke of a warm welcome. They whispered that she did not belong with the Order. She had to leave. Pareth didn’t want her. Pareth was in danger every moment she was in the Abbey.
Suddenly the feelings seemed very wrong. Pareth was the only one who loved Sorcha. She knew that!
The young girl clawed frantically at the side of the trance the sensations had brought her to. It was like being trapped in an awful dream that was struggling to hold on to her.
“Sorcha?” Ernst Rictun’s face, handsome but concerned, appeared in her line of sight. He pushed his shaggy golden hair out of his eyes and then offered her his hand. Sorcha was gagging and screaming on the inside as the voices pounded inside her head. She had to get away from them.
Green flame flared at the tips of her fingers as she lurched upright and snatched at Ernst’s wrist. The moment her skin made contact with his, she felt some of his strength flow into her. It let her pull free of the soporific effect of the bees, the sky and the scent of the lavender.
The boy that would grow up to be Arch Abbot of the Order in far-off Arkaym was not so lucky. He must have felt the energy being sucked away and out of his body. He let out a muffled yelp that would have become a scream—had it not been for a hand that wrapped firmly around his mouth.
Pareth, the Presbyter of the Young, yanked him close, even as Sorcha lurched up from the warm earth. She was gasping as if she had just dived too deep, and she was too young and inexperienced to realize the terrible thing that Pareth did next.
Older Sorcha did however—and was horrified. The woman she had idolized and loved above all others in her life had broken every rule of the Order just to protect one little girl. She also did something that Sorcha hadn’t even known Sensitives could do.
Sielu, the First Rune of Sight, was meant to see from another’s eyes, but somehow Pareth corrupted it. She bent the rune opposite to what it was supposed to do. She forced a new vision on Ernst Rictun, one that didn’t involve a young and inexperienced Sorcha using something close to the rune Shayst on him. When he staggered away, there was a look of confusion on his face.
“Get inside, Ernst,” Pareth barked, and the young boy rubbing at his face in dazed bewilderment did so.
The young Sorcha looked up at her heroine but couldn’t find any words. Pareth grabbed her fiercely, and hugged her until the youngster thought her ribs would crack.
Dimly she heard the Presbyter mutter, “We’ll have to get you into the novitiate immediately . . . no time to waste . . . none at all.”
The older Sorcha shook herself free of the memory with as much difficulty as she had escaped her first experience with her own Center. She licked her dry lips and eased herself back into the chair slowly. It had been a very bad day for Rictun, and she certainly felt sorry for him—something she never would have believed possible. That buried memory explained much.
She wondered where he was now. Was he even alive for her to apologize to? The old Sorcha, the one who had stood before Merrick and scoffed at his age and inexperience, would never have contemplated doing such a thing. Now, she realized she had, by accident, done something terrible, but Pareth had done something even worse—deliberately.
So will you, the Wrayth crooned. You will go back to Vermillion.
The geistlord within her was yearning for the Maker of Ways to tear open reality, to allow the geists full access to the human realm. And once the geists started pouring into this world, the Wrayth could draw them into its hive mind. It wanted her to stitch them into itself, making it more powerful than any other geistlord.
While Sorcha shivered at the prospect, the busy little mind of her father’s master delighted in it.
For a long moment she imagined what their world would be like. The Circle of Stars, the geistlords and the Wrayth would fight for control of the ravaged human population. The people left alive would be just farmed animals for all of them. It was the grand catastrophe that the Ehtia had feared so much they had sacrificed their own lives in the human realm. They had fled in the face of it.
Sorcha smiled grimly. Derodak’s followers in the Circle of Stars could not imagine the horror it would unleash and how unlikely it was that they could control it. Derodak had spent centuries growing arrogant and more self-assured—it would all come undone when he finally experienced a breach in the worlds.
So all that stands against it is you and your little band? the Wrayth voices, dry and hurtful, murmured. You can’t even control yourself, how can you possibly imagine stopping all this?
Sorcha closed her eyes, hearing the voices but trying not to listen. Instead she summoned up the memories of her mother—scant as they were—to give her strength. Still, what little she had been able to see when she shared her mother’s mind, she used as a goad on herself. Sorcha’s hands clenched on the arms of the chair, and the wood ground into her flesh. If she did not pull this new Order together, then that would be all humanity’s fate: nothing but breeders and food for the undead.
She had to find out what the Circle of Stars were doing. Their hunt for the Patternmaker of the Native Order had come to nothing. None of the runes seemed able to pierce that particular mystery. Merrick’s prescience might be terrifying, but not exactly helpful when it came to specifics. His use of runes had brought them to the right place to make a spectacle, but that could not be relied on in the next step.
Sorcha Faris, Harbinger of the Enlightened surged to her feet. It was time for a hunt.
She shoved the doors of the mayor’s office open. They swung far easier than she had thought and slammed into the walls on either side with a tremendous crash. The people who had been bustling to and fro in the hallway jumped. Sorcha saw not just respect in their eyes but a little fear as well. Deacons and folk she had known for years now looked at her differently. The new title she had chosen had not apparently been a reassuring one.
Merrick, who had been sitting across from the mayor’s office, got abruptly to his feet. He pulled his silver fur cloak around himself and walked over to where she stood. His brown eyes were troubled, but his mind, which she felt along the Bond, was as stalwart as ever.
“We need to find a geist,” Sorcha said, taking him by the elbow and guiding him down the hallway and toward the front door—not allowing him to argue in front of everyone. Perhaps pulling her partner out the door wasn’t good for their new image, but after the night before’s display, Sorcha thought she had some leeway on that.
“Very inconvenient then,” Merrick said, shooting her a thin smile, “considering that you just destroyed all of the ones in the city.”
“Yes
, well, I didn’t have much time to stop and think.” The blur of the confrontation outside the town hall was something that she still had to sort through. Reaching out to the geists had seemed so very easy. Like a sword removed from its sheath, she had known just what to do.
Sorcha cleared her throat, and jerked her mind away from contemplating that at present. “But nevertheless, we need a geist.”
They stepped out into the sunshine and blinked at its brightness. Sorcha even tilted her head back and enjoyed the feel of it on her face. The damage to the city was intense; everywhere broken buildings poked from among the untouched like scorched trees in the forest. While the smell of death would take much time to clear, it still smelled better than it had yesterday. A kindly wind had wafted away much of the stench.
“You and I need to travel,” Sorcha said, as firmly as she could manage. Now it was his turn to lead her.
Somehow, remarkably the public stables had survived, and it was here that the Order had brought the Breed horses. When they entered, Sorcha’s gaze traveled over the remains of that bright creation of the Order of the Eye and the Fist. Seven stallions and twenty-three mares were all that remained. Much like the Deacons, they had been badly damaged.
Still, her heart lifted a bit when a familiar long nose poked over the stall door and snuffled at her cloak. Shedryi, the tall black stallion, as old as he was, had come away from the scourging of the Mother Abbey with not a scratch on him. A young lay Brother had ridden him out before the flames reached the stables. Melochi, the mare that Merrick favored, was in the stall next to him.
Merrick fished out a sugar cube and fed it to her. That simple pleasure of a horse’s gentle mouth on his open palm made him smile. Her young partner had precious few reasons to really smile of late.
Harbinger (A BOOK OF THE ORDER) Page 18