He gave an awkward little bow to Yohari. “If we could talk to you in private, Abbot. We have some concerns about what is happening in Orinthal.”
The smile faded on their superior’s face. “You are not the only one, Brother.” He gestured them in toward the cool interior of the building.
Once inside, Merrick could feel a little of his calm returning—enough to notice the architecture. Again he was reminded how very different Chioma was. All Abbeys, even the Mother one, were rather stark, removed of any decoration that harked back to the little gods. In this principality, however, the Order of the Eye and the Fist had to tread carefully, and the Priory held on to its religious roots in ways that would have shocked the Order back home.
The symbol of Hatipai was repeated on the tiny tiles that decorated the inside of the Abbot’s receiving room, and they made Merrick deeply uncomfortable. So he took a seat in the sunny nook where he wouldn’t have to look at them directly. A tall, clear window surrounded by panes of colored glass looked out over the city, and Sorcha remained standing before it. Her nerves would have been apparent even without the Bond.
“I too have seen the shades.” Yohari’s voice was now solemn; the act outside had been for the benefit of his Deacons. He gestured over to the desk where his Strop sat. “The gathering of them on the hills began two days ago along with an increase in general geist activity. So few of my Deacons are here in the Abbey—nearly every one fit for duty is out fighting the good fight.”
He leaned back, steepled his fingers and looked at them sternly. “If you were not escorting the royal Ambassador, I might prevail on you to assist.”
“Perhaps we could find some time . . .” Sorcha offered.
The Abbot inclined his head. “No, protecting the Ambassador is vitally important.”
Now Merrick was curious. “I am sorry, but we were given this job merely as a court. We weren’t told to guard—”
“I think we can all agree circumstances have changed.” Yohari gestured to the corner where a gleaming blue orb rested atop a brass stand. Merrick saw Sorcha flinch at the weirstone, but even she couldn’t complain about the Abbot having one or their use in the Imperial air navy. They made many things possible, the most important of which being communication between far-flung Abbeys, Priories and cells.
“I am waiting on word from the Presbyterial Council,” the Abbot rumbled, “though I certainly cannot mount an attack on them in the hills—not when the city needs protecting.”
Merrick nodded. If it was beyond the Abbot’s experience, then waiting was the wiser course. “Then may I ask permission to examine your library, Father Abbot?”
“The library?”
“If there is no service we can offer you, then I would very much like to view the treasures in it.” Merrick tried to keep the hint of avarice out of his voice.
The Abbot dismissed them quickly—having ascertained that two more Deacons would not make those hovering shades disappear. They took their leave from Yohari, and Sorcha let out a long sigh of relief.
They stood in the quiet corridor as lay Brothers began to light candles around them against the drawing night. Even so, Merrick could make out deep shadows beneath Sorcha’s eyes. “Go get some rest.”
She raised an eyebrow at his almost commanding tone. “I hope you are not going all mother hen on me. Remember, I am old enough to actually be your mother.”
He laughed at that. “You’re not that ancient.” He chuckled somewhat forcibly. “I just think we need to be fresh tomorrow.”
Even Sorcha, spoiling for a fight, couldn’t argue with that. She rolled her shoulders and let her eyes close for a moment. “A cool bath and a warm cigar would be splendid. Are you really set on scouring the library?” He grinned, and she sighed theatrically. “I see you are.”
“I managed to sleep on the Summer Hawk,” he lied, knowing that thanks to their unusual Bond she wouldn’t believe it anyway. It was a little game they played.
Sorcha clapped him on the shoulder and then, muttering to herself, left him to it.
The Abbey was silent around Merrick, but that was just fine. He was itching to see what the library might hold. After a few wrong turns he found it.
It was larger than he had expected and packed with books, scrolls and manuscripts that made his blood rush. He was hoping to find something in here that might account for the cloud of shades, yet his scholarly instincts made him just want to dive in.
The sun began to creep down behind the horizon, and still Merrick kept scouring the shelves. He knew if he looked out the window aimed toward the mountains he would get all the inspiration he needed. Yet the library was proving a disappointment. Most of the works here were about Hatipai, and there was only so much adulation to a goddess even he could take.
Finally Merrick slumped down at the broad table in the middle of the room and admitted defeat. With his head in his hands, exhaustion began to overcome him; the long hours of traveling finally catching up.
He was just about to stagger upright and go to find a place to give in to sleep—when a strange noise made him pause. It sounded like onhe eerie sounds made by the Chiomese nose flute—the kind of vibrating noise that had sent him as a child running for his mother’s lap. It filled the long lines of shelves with a kind of tuneless vibration that he could feel in his bones.
Then the whispering began. A cool chill ran up his neck, as subvocal human noises echoed through the library. He was sure that there were words in there, but as much as he strained his ears, he could make none out. So he did the one thing that a trained Sensitive Deacon would always do; Merrick closed his eyes and flung out his Center.
His awareness spread wide over the whole building. He could count every Deacon in the Abbey and every animal too. Swallows were nesting under the building’s roof, a colony of ants were harvesting leaves from the garden, and a hundred tiny pinpricks of awareness in his sight showed where earthworms were digging deep in the soil seeking whatever moistness remained there. He could sense all of these tiny things, yet apart from himself and a straying bee battering itself against the window, there was nothing else in the library. No hint of the Otherside was anywhere in the room.
Merrick told himself that, yet the ominous sounds continued around him. They ebbed away, seeming to move through the stacks of books, roll around in the corners and come back stronger.
Wrapped in confusion, he took a step back, banging into the table. All of his life in the Order he had been able to depend on his Sight—it was the one constant. And more than that, he was the best at what he did. His tutors had told him so. He had been partnered with Sorcha Faris because of it. It was the one thing he relied on.
His childhood had been ravaged. Every happy memory had been stained by seeing his father killed on the stairs of their castle by a terrifying, still unidentified geist. So he had run, taken another name, taken refuge in the Order—because that was what they offered—order. And now, in one instant, he was beginning to doubt all that.
The whispering continued, as if mocking his uncertainty. It sounded harsh and demanding now—like all his worst thoughts were bubbling to the surface. Merrick’s head was spinning, and he had the horrible feeling that maybe he was going mad. No—he would not allow that. Surely madness was something that came on gradually, not as a sudden avalanche of half-heard voices. Perhaps the Bond that Sorcha had created with the Cursed Young Pretender was having consequences; maybe the Rossin power was finally corrupting him.
Then just as the whispers rose to the point where he could almost discern words—there was silence. Abrupt and total; the atmosphere went from tense to serene. Merrick stood very still and held his breath. His mind raced to find an explanation.
It had not been a geist. So what else could it have been? If only he were back in the Mother Abbey. He might have plundered their larger library or had a quiet word in Deacon Reeceson’s ear, because one explanation remained: a wild talent.
Shaking, Merrick sat on the nearest cha
ir. He’d tried to block out all memory of the incident outside the jail. Just after they had rescued Raed, the three of them had been nearly torn apart by an angry mob. He had no clue how he had brought all those people to their knees racked by sorrow—but he had.
The wild talents, not sanctioned by the Order, were dangerous things to admit to. Even Deacon Reeceson, an elderly and venerable member of the Order, kept his gift of prescience to himself—sharing it with very few. So when Merrick thought of what these whispers might mean, what wild talent they might evealing, he shuddered.
He couldn’t give in to fear though. Deacons had to face the darkness. So he got up from his chair and stumbled toward the shelves—to where the sounds had come from. Naturally it was in the darker recesses of the library. Back here everything was covered in cobwebs, and the smell of dust competed with the odor of old books for supremacy.
The faintest echo of the whispers drew him to the carved rear wall. Follow. Follow.
Merrick ran his hands over the wood while putting his Center forward into the darkness. Hidden and secret. It was very like when he sensed the living things around him, but it tasted strange in his mind; dry and musty. The little click under his right fingertip sounded so very loud, but when he slid the secret compartment aside, it was as silent as a lonely grave.
The compartment beyond was packed with books, ones that judging by the amount of dust on them had not been touched for a very long time. He knew before even lifting them what they were about. The round shape of stars on the cover told him, and the shiver down his spine confirmed that these were books on the Native Order. Books that should have been destroyed with the downfall of that organization.
Certainly there were plenty of folk tales about the past—how the people had risen against the old Order, how the ruling Emperors of that time had hunted them down—but their books were burned, and their history had been deliberately destroyed and none in the Order of the Eye and the Fist knew anything of them.
It was not the first time Merrick had discovered that all was not as it seemed within the Abbeys. He let out a long, deliberate breath and then reached for the book. It was the Chiomese Abbott’s journal—but definitely not the current one.
As Merrick scanned down the entries, his blood began to run cold as he realized this was no record of geists destroyed or banished. Instead, he saw words like “captured,” “resistant” and, most chillingly of all, “useful.” It began to make sense. Unlike his Order, the native ones had taken a step down a darker path—a path that used geists for their own gain. It was, to put it mildly, terrifying: an idea that he knew his own superiors would not want even in the heads of their own Deacons. It was no wonder the voices said Hidden and secret.
“Merrick?” His partner’s voice made him jump. Sorcha was standing in the shelves, her hair damp, her eyes half-lidded with sleep. Even when slumbering, the Bond alerted her to his fear and confusion. “Are you all right?” While she rubbed her hair briskly, her partner tucked the journal under his cloak and clicked shut the compartment. With so much dust, he knew these were long forgotten.
Merrick turned and smiled. “Yes . . . just tired.”
“Well then, you should get some sleep.” She sighed. “Silly boy.” She said it with such affection that he couldn’t really take offense.
For a moment he considered telling her about the journal, but she had so much to think about that ancient history seemed a silly thing to bring up now. Still, he wouldn’t be sleeping well tonight, no matter what his partner said.
The crew of the Sweet Moon fished their naked captain out of the river the next morning. Raed lay gasping on the deck with the taste of blood and dirty water in his mouth. They stood around him in a somber circle. His fingers tightened into fists as he remembered other times like this. It had been many years, but the memories were still vivid and still cut.
“Captain?” Tangyre’s voice was soft and her hand gentle on his shoulder.
Raed closed his eyes and tried to recover what remained of his humanity, piece together the shreds that the Rossin had left him. The geistlord was like a leech—only once he had taken his fill of blood would he drop away. Raed had lived in the shadow of this parasite for far too long, but it still became no easier.
Finally, gathering his remaining strength, he levered himself up with every muscle and sinew aching.
Tangyre draped a blanket over him, helped him up, but barked to the crew, “We still have to get to Orinthal. Jump to it!”
Leaning against Tangyre, his limbs heavy, Raed let himself be led into the small cabin and tucked into the captain’s bed. Wordlessly, Tangyre washed him of the river water, examined the cuts and bruises and finally sat down to put salve on them. Her fingers were strong and sure, but her voice when she finally spoke was gentle. “One woman did all this?”
“I wish,” the Young Pretender whispered. “She must have been possessed by a geist. This is all the Rossin’s doing.” To Raed the concerns of his body were very far away.
His friend knew better than to pursue further questioning—there were answers best left unknown.
Raed kept repeating Fraine’s name in his head, conjuring up images of her face framed with curls and her wide blue eyes. They were hard to retain because as always the Rossin had left him with shattered images of the night before. It might not have been him who did the killing, but it had been his flesh—transformed, yes—but his all the same. Flashes of a woman, her white skirt gleaming in the darkness among the grass. Glimpses of a farmer standing before his house, sickle in hand, then nothing but frenzy and the feeling of thick blood in his mouth. Reflected emotions that were not his: hunger and delight.
Raed rolled to one side, heaving. Tangyre, who knew the way of things, had a pot ready. She rubbed his back while he vomited the contents of his stomach—but there was no blood to get rid of. The Rossin had taken that. It was only his own honest dinner from the night before that reappeared.
The Young Pretender slumped back on the bed.
“It was not you, Raed. Remember that.” Tangyre tidied away the soiled pot and handed him a glass of water. “It was that creature, the Curse—not you.”
He worked his mouth a few times before being able to speak. His throat felt raw, broken from too many Rossin snarls. “I know that, Tang . . . it doesn’t make it any easier.” He took a few gulps of the liquid, but the taste of blood was not removed.
Tangyre opened Raed’s pack and fished out some fresh clothes. “If only you had been born in Vermillion as the Curse dictates. If only those worthless Princes had crowned your father instead of—”
“That’s a lot of ifs.” He closed his eyes again, trying to imagine how his life would have been different. “Perhaps if we could go back and change my grandfather to a kinder Emperor—but we have to live in this world, Tang. This reality.” Raed, finding some little remaining strength, pulled himself upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took several long gulps of air. “How far to Orinthal?”
“We should be there by nightfall.”
Chioma was not one of the principalities that had slavery, but they allowed slaver ships to pass up the massive Saal River to places that were less enlightened. It meant they profited from the vile trade—yet remained aloof from it.
It was not just this aspect of Chioma that disturbed Raed. He had studied a lot as a young man: history of the Empire, family legends and all his ancestors. Something from that time was worrying at him.
“In the bottom of my pack,” he croaked weakly to Tangyre. “My grandfather’s journal.”
Captain Greene frowned. “I don’t think you—”
“By the Blood, Tang!” Raed growled and immediately wished he had not. His head felt stuffed with snapping turtles. He waved his hand. “I can at least read. I promise not to get up immediately.”
His friend let out a sigh, retrieved the journal and handed it to him. “Just promise to keep to that bed.” Then she tucked a blanket over him and retreated out
of the cabin.
With a ragged sigh Raed obeyed, even as he opened the book on his lap. The last Rossin Emperor’s journal was not studded with gems or even terribly thick, and it was not the official record—that still remained in Vermillion Palace. Instead, this journal contained Valerian’s personal writings; after his death it had been carried away by his few remaining supporters.
The Young Pretender had been born years after the last Rossin Emperor had died, but he had read enough of his writings to have a pretty good idea why the Assembly of Princes had chased his son out of Vermillion. It mattered little to them that the meek heir, who was branded the Unsung, was nothing like his father.
Raed shivered and pulled the blanket closer. He had no way of telling if his life would have been better if his father had retained the throne; he might have grown up as foolish as his grandfather and met just as untimely a death. But he would never have had to live with the Rossin.
Raed’s jaw clenched, and he began to flick determinedly through the journal. Having already read the damn thing before, he was aware it was soaked in the arrogance and pride of the dead Emperor, yet there was still much of value to be found in its pages. As a young man Valerian had traveled with his father the length of Arkaym and visited every one of the principalities. Even with his many faults, the last Emperor had still been a shrewd observer of character.
After a few moments Raed found the section that dealt with Chioma, the spice land of the Empire. It remained a strange case among the principalities of Arkaym, skating at times perilously close to independence. Its history could be traced unbroken as far back as the written records went and, curiously, its royal family had never changed throughout the ages. No other principality could lay the same claim.
Raed frowned and read on. Valerian recorded his impression of the Hive City, the vast markets for spices and dyes, and the beauty of the women—even if he could have been only thirteen at the time.
However, it was the portion about the Prince of Chioma that caught Raed’s attention.
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