The Ehtia. The name echoed and bounced in Merrick’s head as he tried to keep up with Nynnia. The world was falling down around them, and yet he could not keep a foolish grin off his face.
He knew for fact things scholars of his own time would have killed to know—and he was with the woman he loved—the one who had died in his arms. But she wasn’t dead. It was almost enough to make him start believing in the gods of his childhood again. If he had time to stop and consider such things.
Nynnia’s hand was wrapped tightly around his, and she pulled him on as the rocks twisted under their feet. The smell of the loamy earth filled his nostrils, and they stumbled together a few times. Merrick smashed his knee into a jutting piece of rock, but the pain was a distant thing in the tumult of noise and fear. Blood poured down his shin, filling his boot, but there was certainly no time to stop and bandage it.
The Temple of Ehtia was tumbling in a roar of carved marble above them. As they scrambled down the hill, bits of it rolled and bounced past them. Merrick clutched Nynnia, yanking her back just as a piece of a carved column went flying past. The dust and rock pelted them, but they ran on.
Suddenly she grabbed him, wrapped her body around him, and rolled with him under an overhang as a rain of gravel poured down the side of the hill.
The roar of the earth beneath their feet filled their ears, yet all Merrick was aware of in that instant was her warm body pressed tightly against his. Her breath panted against his cheek, and despite the situation, it took a will of iron to stop him from kissing her then. It was not the rumble of the earth that stopped him—it was the knowledge that this might be Nynnia, but it was not the Nynnia who had fallen in love with him.
“We’re nearly there,” she said, her eyes dropping away from his. Still, she took his had, and once more they were running. Merrick cold see no destination, because the foothills of the mountain looked much as they were in his time, barren and rock-strewn.
Something snapped behind them, and he managed a quick glance over his shoulder. Half the mountain had slumped away completely, and a wave of rolling rocks was thundering toward them. It was Nynnia who saved him.
Without so much as a look behind her, she dodged a tumbling stone with the kind of accuracy that could not belong to a normal human. Merrick, attached to her hand, followed after.
It was an impossible feat, and Merrick wondered if she was using some version of his own Sight to accomplish it. If he had tried to use the rune Masa, it would have taken so much focus he would have been squashed like a bug while concentrating. Just as he was contemplating that mystery, Nynnia came to a complete stop.
“Here it is,” she panted, and for a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. Then a great chunk of the earth’s surface slid away to reveal stairs going down. Merrick didn’t need an invitation to follow her.
As soon as they were inside, the door closed behind them. It was suddenly very silent. By the strange green light Merrick could make out they were in a small chamber, and when he touched a wall, it was made of slick metal.
A deep frown etched itself between his eyes—he could not identify the metal.
He turned to Nynnia. “Are you some sort of Tinkers?”
A soft smile flitted across her lips. “If you mean do we create and build things, then yes, we started that way. Our ancestors were curious people, and soon we became our own separate tribe of seekers. The knowledge we’ve collected has been passed on through the generations.”
“Until you were able to make this,” Merrick whispered. He thought of that lost knowledge—the kind his people were only just rediscovering. He swallowed hard. “Will we be safe down here?” he gestured somewhat futilely up.
“For the moment.” Nynnia let out a long sigh, tilted her head and then put her hand on his shoulder. “We must talk to Mestari—he will know what to do with you.”
The light in the chamber was kind, softening the lines, and wiping away the gray, tired pallor of her face he had seen in the Temple. Under these conditions it was easy for Merrick to imagine that she was his Nynnia. The possibility that he might lose her again drove the Deacon to the point of recklessness. He clasped her by the arms. “Whatever your plan is, we have to hurry.”
She opened her mouth to reply, paused, and then touched his face. “I see you are a good man, Merrick, and if you say I fall in love with you in the future, I believe you—but there is nothing to be done.”
The resignation in her voice broke his heart. So her kissed her again.
She pressed her hand against the Deacon’s chest. “I don’t know what sort of religious orders they have in the future.” She chuckled. “But I think I like them.”
Merrick opened his mouth to tell her how the Order had transitioned from a religious community to something else after the arrival of the Otherside—but he stopped himself. Talking to someone from his past was rather confusing.
Nynnia was looking at him with the same piercing gaze she would level at him in the future. “You don’t need to tell me anything—what we have to deal with ight here and now is more than enough.” She brushed a curl back from his face. “But I don’t think you can help but give me hope. I must live to know you—now, mustn’t I?” The smile she gave him was wicked and beautiful.
As always with her, Merrick was quite vulnerable, so caught unawares he fell back on the truth. “I don’t know what is safe to tell you.” And he shook is head. “And I don’t know if the place I come from is worth saving.”
“Don’t fret,” she replied softly, turning to the flat surface of the metal wall. “We have come to the end of our time. I do not expect the Ehtia can be saved by one man alone. It’s too late for that.”
Before he could answer, a rattle of gears announced something working out of sight. The wall slid aside; Nynnia took his hand and led him through the opening.
They went down a set of metallic stairs, which rang underfoot, and into a vast room of which there had been no sign aboveground. Merrick’s mind was now whirling faster. Nynnia on the Otherside had said she was sending him back to learn something and to plant a seed—whatever that meant. If he could only stop to take notes on the marvelous etched walls they were passing, or at least to copy the towering cogged wheels, then perhaps all would be well.
Yet Nynnia was not slowing down. They passed a few other people who were of the same small stature as the woman at his side—but their skin coloring was as diverse as that in his own Empire.
So many questions were bubbling in Merrick’s head, but he managed to hold his tongue. This was borrowed time. He shot Nynnia a look out of the corner of his eye—she seemed to be well aware of that.
They reached yet another door. This one was wooden and, as with everything in this place, etched and carved with symbols. Nynnia flung it open with great vigor. Tugged after her, Merrick found himself in what appeared to be a war room.
A long table ran the length of it, and seated around it were ten harried-looking individuals—well, at least nine harried-looking individuals. Merrick’s Sensitive training helped him take in the gray faces, the lost looks, and the air of despair. However, his immediate focus was on the one person he recognized in the room.
Or rather he recognized the sparkling mask. Merrick stopped stock-still for a second drenched in a sudden chill, and then his logical brain caught up. The Prince of Chioma was indeed the only Prince who could be at such a meeting before the Break. It was one of the most powerful principalities in this time, so the man sitting before him must be Onika’s ancestor.
Still, it was very eerie to be confronted with that strange swinging mask—the very one he had seen only a day earlier in the Hive City. The Deacon gave his head a little shake in an effort to clear it and turned to the person who Nynnia was introducing him to.
Though this man was short in stature, he had an aura of instant command around him. His long salt-and-pepper beard was neatly trimmed, but the eyes above were deeply shadowed, even if their icy blueness conveyed a dete
rmination as steely as the walls they were surrounded by.
“Mestari”—Nynnia gave a little bow—“this is Deacon Merrick Chambers.” And then, horrifyingly, she added, “From the future.”
The older man did not call her a liar or even laugh—he merely nodded his head and then held out his hand.
Merrick took it reflexively in a clasp of hands that even iis time must be a sign of friendship. Immediately his senses leapt, and the world blurred for a long, terrifying moment.
For a Sensitive to be blind was a terrible nightmare of an idea, but before the Deacon had a chance to cry out, the sensation passed. Now the man Nynnia had named as Mestari was looking at him differently.
“You have our blood in you, lad—but you have traveled so far to reach us. Truly amazing.”
Rune Kebenar, Fourth of the Runes of Sight, allowed Sensitives to see the true nature of things—yet this man had done that without any visible sign of using it. Once again Merrick’s curiosity was piqued, and it was particularly difficult to hold his tongue.
“The Otherside is capable of many things.” The Chioma Prince broke the silence. “Even time has only a tenuous grip upon it—and now my mother uses it against us.” The voice that came from behind the sparkling mask was smooth, powerful and—shockingly to the Deacon—familiar. Through his Center Merrick knew. This was no distant ancestor of the Prince he had met—it was the same man!
Now his tongue would not be still. Merrick spun about and pointed most rudely at the seated form of Onika. “That . . . that is impossible!” For a little bit all other words failed to come.
“Merrick!” Nynnia was horrified at her guest. “This is the Prince of Chioma, our greatest ally.”
The rest of the table jerked to their feet. The more martial of the Ehtia grabbed their swords, worried no doubt that this newcomer was about to attack one of their number. Merrick was not moved to violence, even if the world had gone quite mad.
The Deacon reconsidered; he must have been mistaken. So he backtracked. “Forgive me, Majesty, it is just that in my time there is a Prince of Chioma, and he sounds exactly like you. Perhaps I should not tell you that one of your descendants—”
“I have no sons, nor can I ever have,” the Prince replied and then he swept aside the curtain of beads.
Over the many decades the mystery of the ruler of Chioma had been whispered about, discussed by scholars and rumormongers alike—so the sudden exposure of reality stunned Merrick.
Onika, the Prince of Chioma, was a handsome man. His skin was smooth and dark, the color of the strong coffee of his kingdom. He had a powerful jaw and a narrow, tidy beard—what he also had were eyes that would suck out a person’s soul.
Merrick forgot this mad situation. He lost the feeling of Nynnia’s hand on his shoulder. Everything faded to insignificance. In the eyes of the Prince, none of those mattered.
He staggered, dropping to his knees, banging his shins on the table leg. Pain didn’t matter either. Onika was a bright star drawing him down—whatever the Prince needed Merrick would have given to him. If he had asked for his arm, his heart—even Nynnia—he would have given those to him.
Then the Prince dropped his hand, and the shivering crystals fell back into place. The spell, or whatever it had been, also fell away. Merrick was left breathing heavily through his mouth, shaking and sweaty.
When the Deacon finally recovered himself and climbed to his feet, his certainty in anything was rocked to its foundation. Nothing he had ever experienced, nothing he had ever read, explained what had just happened.
Mestari pulled the chair he had just gotten out of over toward the Deacoand guided him into it. “Knocks you about, doesn’t it—no shame in it—everyone has the same reaction.”
The Deacon struggled to find his Center, the one thing that he had been able to rely on. It took a long, terrible time for it to come back. Finally he was able to say in a shaky voice, “What . . . what, by the Bones, was that?”
Nynnia took an empty seat by him and reached across to cradle his hands in hers. “You’ve never felt a touch of the gods before?”
“Gods?” Merrick was far too shocked to hold his tongue any longer. “I have no truck with the little gods—they are the domain of the weak-willed and the desperate.” He spat the words out without a thought.
Then he realized that everyone else looked as though he had slapped them in the face. “I mean . . . I don’t know . . .”
“You’ve said enough,” Mestari growled through a choked throat. “To know that we succeed—even if they destroy what we have made—it is enough.”
“We should ask no more of him.” The Prince of Chioma raised one perfectly manicured hand. “What he knows may affect how we act in these last days.”
Nynnia squeezed the tips of Merrick’s fingers, making him warm instantly. “How can it? We have so very few choices before us . . . only one, in fact. And we made that long ago.”
The Deacon’s insides clenched. He knew that the Ehtia ended up on the Otherside, but he was still not certain if they died or somehow managed to get there alive. Unbidden, he once more thought of his and Sorcha’s experience there.
Most of the Ehtia in the room looked away, but one, a woman with a sharp bob cut, slammed her palm firmly down on the table with a clang. “Nynnia, may I remind you that this is our business alone. Even our allies”—she nodded to Onika—“cannot know all our secrets—let alone someone you have just met.”
The Prince arose smoothly from his seat. “Then let me take the young man aside—I am sure he has questions.” He gave a little bow to the people. “We will leave you to make your arrangements.”
Merrick kissed Nynnia lightly, without thinking about how it might seem to the others, and followed the elegant form of Onika out of the room. As a man alive in both times, the Deacon somehow felt he could trust the Prince—though he realized that this was perfectly ridiculous. The Prince would not know him for a thousand years—and he was not entirely human, either.
They exited into the throbbing, vibrating metal room, and now that Merrick had recovered his composure a little, he could see how many of the Ehtia were scurrying about. The Prince stood still and watched, his hands folded in the small of his back, and the Deacon had the impression that behind that damned mask he would be frowning—though he would not ask to see.
“Tell me what is happening.” The Deacon stood to his full height.
“You don’t know?”
“Much is lost in the future—I didn’t even know the name of Nynnia’s people. We simply called them the Ancients.”
“How very imaginative.” Onika chuckled, but there was a hint of bitterness in it. He walked over to another door and inclined his head. “Let me educate you a little.” The sharp gesture caused the crystals to sway, and for a second he caught a glimpse of those riveting, horrific eyes.
The Deacon hato have the answers to all this—it was more than just his nature that demanded it—it was his training as a member of the Order that had to be satisfied.
The Prince spun a narrow iron wheel set in the door, then he tugged it open. It swung noiselessly on its hinges—or at least Merrick assumed it was noiseless, since he could hear nothing at all above the sudden banging and clattering that issued from the room. It was the kind of cacophony that shook the whole body and made thinking impossible. The only comparable sound had been the stamping presses in his father’s mines. He’d only visited there once. That noise had also made quite the impression.
Onika led the way into the room, and even he had to clamp his hands to his head. Apparently whatever he was, a pounding headache or a ruptured eardrum was still a risk. Merrick found it hard to concentrate on what he was seeing in this chamber with the ringing in his ears. The stink of oil here added an extra layer of delight to the experience, clogging his nostrils and making it difficult to breathe.
It was a machine, the kind that would make the Master Tinkers of Vermillion weep with jealously. It filled the room, which
might have been small in circumference but was now revealed to have massive height and depth. Merrick and the Prince of Chioma stood on a metal walkway and looked over the edge. The Deacon could not see the top or bottom, because it was filled with a thick mass of spinning cogs, wheels and driving pistons. The only thing he did recognize the purpose of was a great weirstone set not three feet from his hand—the largest he had ever seen in his life. If he stretched both his arms wide, he could barely touch each side of it. The blue surface was swirling madly, and the faint crackle of power in the air made him nervous.
If only Sorcha was here with him, because even with the delight of finding Nynnia and the wonder of this great machine, he was beginning to feel the loss of his partner. Although an Active would never admit it, they knew full well that they were blind without their Sensitive. However, a Sensitive also needed his Active—Merrick was aware of that space where Sorcha’s power had resided, buoying him up. As well he sorely missed her physical presence.
The Prince drew him on, and they passed through another door on the far side that opened in the same way as the other. Once beyond it, and with it secured at their backs, the sound of the massive machine was thankfully diminished.
Merrick had thought the weirstone in the machine was impressive, but now he realized they were in a room filled with weirstones—many the same size as the one they had just seen.
It was a magazine, much like the storage facilities on the Imperial Navy ships, and he knew he was holding his breath just as he would in those situations. Weirstones in the most trained hands were unpredictable, but the Prince of Chioma looked unconcerned and even leaned up against one very casually. Merrick winced. Only a Deacon should have been able to touch a weirstone without consequence.
“You needn’t worry,” Onika said in a conversational tone. “The Ehtia are, among other things, masters of the weirstone. These are unkeyed. In point of fact, the Ehtia are the ones who made this for me.” He gestured to the shimmering strings of crystal that hid his face.
“How could I not sense that?” Merrick blurted, aware of a faintly angry tone in his voice. “And I thought all weirstones are blue.”
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