Spectyr

by Philippa Ballantine

  “Yes, ma’am.” She grinned broadly.

  Sorcha found herself strangely satisfied that at least someone was happy in this crazy situation. “Just take care of him,” she said over her shoulder, and the words felt curiously final.

  Onika and his handful of guards climbed aboard the Winter Falcon with the kind of trepidation that reminded Sorcha of Raed. The slight swaying and creaking of the dirigible had also alarmed him, but his anxiety had disappeared when they had lain together in the swinging bed. This trip would be considerably shorter and nowhere as enjoyable.

  The crew leapt to their positions quickly, and Captain Poetion strode past his newest guests to take control of his ship. The Falcon took her name very seriously. She soared into the air toward the dark clouds highlighted by the moon. It was a surreal and beautiful moment, and Sorcha was determined to enjoy the spectacle, because she certainly wasn’t allowed to smoke.

  At her side Onika’s hands gripped the railing. “Such things are not right.”

  “Not right?” Sorcha looked down as the Hive City slid past under them. From up here, the little fires looked pretty, though they signaled chaos.

  “Such things were why the Ehtia left this world,” the Prince muttered.

  “The Ehtia?”

  “Never mind.” Onika slid his hand beneath his mask and rubbed wearily at that magnificent face his mother had given him.

  The Prince’s facade, hidden as it might be, was starting to crack. He sounded almost human under there. “Very well, Your Highness, perhaps we can talk about what we will face when we reach this Temple.”

  He sighed heavily. “My mother will create a new body so she can have a grip on this world. It was what we took from her last time—but we could not banish her spirit, and that is what we imprisoned under Vermillion. Only a Prince and a person of faith could free her—it was the best lock we could make.”

  “I wish Vermillion wasn’t such a popular place to dump problems.” The Deacon drummed her fingers on the railing as she digested this. She knew there were no true acolytes of the little gods in the capital—except one very famous one: the Grand Duchess Zofiya. She swallowed. The Emperor’s sister, who lived in the palace and was well-known for her strange adherence to a curious religion. Still, no one in Vermillion would have questioned Zofiya. Doing so would be detrimental to their health.

  The Deacon began to wonder if she might have to kill the Emperor’s sister rather soon, and then she began to consider what her Arch Abbot would think of that.

  “I hope your partner has found Japhne,” Onika said, his voice so low that it was almost drowned out by the hum of the weirstone engine.

  “She’s his mother, so I think he has plenty of motivation, and Merrick is the most determined person I know.”

  Onika nodded and became silent as they flew on. Sorcha stepped away and helped the guardsmen find places to sleep. They, like she, would certainly need rest. A lifetime of the thin mattresses in the Abbey helped her sleep pretty much anywhere, and it had been a long, long day.

  Sorcha curled up in the empty hold with a mat of straw under her and caught a few vital hours of sleep. What the Prince of Chioma did was his own business. The smooth progress of the Winter Falcon lulled her off to sleep, where dark shadows waited to chase her.

  What woke her up, however, were a lurch and the sound of feet pounding on the deck. Grabbing her Gauntlets, Sorcha leapt up and ran outside to find what fresh trouble had them.

  It was a staggering progress, though, as the dirigible was bucking and shaking itself like a maddened bull. The clouds, which had been distant, were churning around them with lightning rumbling in their bellies. The con shook and creaked, throwing around her occupants, so that even the crew had to hang on to the rigging.

  Sorcha proceeded forward in a sort of monkey scramble, more swinging than walking. She found the Chiomese guards clustered around Onika—all of them were wet and panicked. The Prince’s mask was shaking and trembling, and this meant that every few heartbeats his face was revealed. His poor guardsmen were alternatively terrified and struck dumb with his glory.

  Sorcha averted her eyes and tried instead to make out what was happening to the Falcon. Sharp rain stung her face, and howling winds pulled her hair loose from its pins. She’d been on dirigibles during storms before, and usually the captains took their vessels above the clouds—yet she couldn’t feel any change in the Falcon’s altitude.

  “Stay here,” she yelled over the sound of wind and then half crawled toward the cabin. The dirigible bucked and hummed as if she were in pain, and the Deacon had to latch on to the rigging as best she could while working her way forward.

  She had only just reached the flight cabin when the door flung open, and Captain Poetion appeared. His face said it all, though as a trained officer in the Imperial Air Fleet, he tried to hide his look of terror beneath a mask of professionalism. Yet it was there.

  “We have reached the Temple,” he yelled over the cacophony, while clenching onto the frame of the door. “But we can’t get above this storm. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  “That is to be expected.” Onika appeared at Sorcha’s shoulder. “Captain, if you want your vessel to survive this, you must let us off. Immediately.”

  Poetion glanced back into the flight cabin where the wheelman struggled with the controls of the Falcon. The dials danced as if possessed, while another member of the crew tried to hold the levers steady.

  The captain leaned into the wind and shouted at Onika and Sorcha, “We can’t control the altitude at all. If you want to get off, we are going to have to use the swings.”

  The Deacon’s stomach lurched, and it didn’t have anything to do with the mad bucking of the dirigible. Nobody could be sure how high they were, but Sorcha was sure the Prince knew what he was doing.

  As quickly as possible, Poetion led them to the rigging on the starboard side. The swings, which Sorcha had used once before, were unhitched by crew who looked glad to be rid of their passengers. In the rain and the wind, Sorcha’s fingers were numb as she struggled to get into the harness. She couldn’t see much, and her heart was racing. The firm wood placed under her bottom did indeed resemble a swing, though there was a small comfort in the fact that she and Onika were buckled into it.

  The guards were arguing with Poetion, demanding to go down ahead of their Prince, but it was Onika who cut in.

  “The sooner I am on solid ground, the better for all of you,” he said, and that was that. The tiny glimpses of his compelling face made sure that no one disagreed. He and Sorcha poised on the edge of the railing, their feet dangling out into space. The Deacon took a long, deep breath, trying to keep herself from breaking out into full-fledged panic. A crew member stood ready on the each of their winches, waiting for the signal.

  Poetion looked to the Deacon, and she realized that even in this moment of madness it was up to her to say the word. Clenching her hands around the swing’s chains, she pushed with eet. The arm of the device swiveled out, and now she was hanging over nothing. Below, all she could see was mist and rain—no sight of the ground at all.

  “I wonder how many people have wanted to drop a Deacon like this,” she muttered before waving to the grinder on the end of the winch. “Ready to go.”

  And then there they were, descending into the darkness. Her hair was blasted free of its ties, so she was almost blinded by it. The rain picked up, each droplet sharp on her skin, while the rumble of thunder deafened her. It didn’t seem that the storm was abating—in fact, it was intensifying. She wondered if this was how a worm on a fishhook felt.

  The swing was certainly living up to its name, but unlike a childhood pleasure, this jarred her stomach and robbed the breath from her body. Sorcha couldn’t even see Onika, though he was surely only six feet from her.

  Pushing her hair out of her face, Sorcha looked up with her Center. She immediately wished she hadn’t. The clouds above danced with lightning, but this only served to illuminate
the darkness that was deeper in the throbbing mass. It looked exactly like a clawed hand reaching down. Sorcha tried to work out what sort of geist could do that, but it was hard to think clearly when those talons were obviously wrapping about the Winter Falcon.

  The swing jerked, spun her around, and began tipping backwards. A scream escaped Sorcha and was swallowed by the storm. Falling had always been her greatest fear, and hours of Deacon training had only blunted its edge. A terrified glance down told her nothing at all, because the storm wrapped around everything. They could be five feet from safety or a hundred.

  Lightning flashed and thunder boomed immediately after. Sorcha’s head rang, and she was blinded for a second. Some primal survival instinct made her look up again, and there it was; the hand clenched around the dirigible flashed with lightning. If no one was allowed to smoke on the Imperial ships, they were certainly not allowed to throw lightning into them either.

  “Onika!” Sorcha screamed, uncertain where he was. The envelope of the Winter Falcon caught fire with an ear-ringing roar. The heat was so intense that the Deacon threw her arms around her head, fearing her hair would catch alight. The dirigible burned bright blue, and flames licked up the skin as if caressing it. It would have been beautiful if it wasn’t also everyone’s death.

  The Deacon knew there was nothing to be done now. The Falcon was bending in half, falling toward them, and they only had one chance. Everything slowed.

  To her right she could at least now see Onika. “Cut the harness! Cut the harness now!” Sorcha screamed to him, unsure if in the panic he would hear her. Then she pulled her knife from her belt and did as she hoped he would.

  Free of the swing, she didn’t want to let go for a split second. Her mind screamed denials, but the device was a false safety—they would be tangled with the doomed Falcon and burn with it.

  Sorcha took a deep breath, wiggled free and then with a cry dropped into the darkness. All she could hope for was sand or a quick death.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Despair and Delight

  They dragged Raed into the Temple and locked him a room about the size of a cupboard, but his surroundings mattered ttle. The Young Pretender lay there waiting for the hurt to stop. It didn’t. Eventually blessed unconsciousness wrapped itself around him.

  The next morning his eyelids flicked open, revealing the world and its ugly realities. His hands were numb and still bound with the weirstones. Raed licked his lips, trying to focus his eyes. The only light in here was from the narrow crack under the door. The cupboard was tiny, like a hot box found in a prison.

  As a thin line of sweat ran down Raed’s forehead, he tried to come to terms with the fact that last night had been real. He had found his sister—and she hated him. His crew had died for him. All these things were true.

  These were merely another long line of bitter facts that he’d been facing all his life. Raed would not give up. Fraine, poor damaged Fraine, had gone. However, if he could get away from this mad situation, he still could catch up to her, make her see the error of what she was doing. As painful as it was to think about, it had to have been Tangyre that had twisted Fraine’s mind. Raed had thought Captain Greene was his friend, but he was now positive he didn’t know half the things that had gone on in his absence. She must have been feeding Fraine venom for years, venom that now threatened to engulf them all.

  So Raed struggled to his knees and assessed what his chances were. His body ached with the various kicks and punches he had taken last night, the kind of deep bruising that would take a while to heal. Still, he had taken notice of what the charming women had said last night and wondered if he would even get a chance to heal. He just had to go on as though he would.

  Somewhere out there was a wild card, one that Zofiya, Tang or his sister didn’t count on—Deacon Sorcha Faris. He’d put his trust in her before, and she hadn’t failed him. Getting to his feet, Raed pressed his ear to the door of the cupboard. An ominous chanting, soft and low and from many throats, was all he heard. It didn’t matter if it was for gods or geists, chanting was never a good sign. Yet there was no handle for him to try, nothing else in the cupboard he could use as a weapon and the walls were of sturdy stone.

  Just as he was contemplating trying his shoulder against the door, two Chiomese guards yanked it open and pulled him out into the light. Now Raed was able to take in the beauty and terror of the Temple of Hatipai. It did nothing to cheer him.

  She, according to the nature of her kind, dominated it. No other decoration detracted from the huge carving of her that slithered its way around the walls of the Temple. Her stretched body resembled nothing so much as a snake eating its own tail. Her undulating neck carried the depiction of her head up the stairs so that its distorted face rested at the top. Her open mouth was like a void, and a freezing breeze poured from it. Raed was no expert, but he had always imagined that in a Temple the object of adoration should be lovely, offering comfort or inspiring awe. This looked like something out of a mad dream.

  The citizens of Orinthal didn’t appear to feel the same. They were crowded into the building with barely an inch between them. Parents had their children on their shoulders so they could see the scene. Raed wasn’t so lucky. All he experienced was the shoves and jeers of the mob. A few managed to get punches in, so that by the time he was dragged to the foot of the stairs he had all new aches and pains.

  One of the cuts on his head had been reopened, so when he looked up it was through a veil of blood. Zofiya and an old man waited for him at the top of the stairs, and behind them was a device that gleamed in the torchlight. In his childhood Raed had found one of his playmates cutting a rabbit to pieces in the orchard. The boy had nailed each of the poor creature’s feet into the ground and was slicing into it with the care of a surgeon. Yet the creature was still conscious.

  Now, looking up at the metallic X-shaped device studded with weirstones, Raed recalled vividly the white, panicked eyes of the rabbit and heard again that strange scream it had made. He wondered if he would make the same sound when they got him up there and began their vivisection. Zofiya had promised Fraine it would hurt. It looked like she would keep her word.

  Death didn’t find him. Merrick stood panting in the dark and tried to gather his calm about him.

  The guardsmen were dead at his feet, but he still had his mission to find his mother. Taking a few deep, slow breaths, Merrick bent and felt around under his fingers, feeling for a guard’s abandoned rifle. Standing upright, armed with gun and blade, he slowly opened his Center. He could still feel nothing of the attacker in the dark. It could not be geist or human, as he would have detected it—so then what could it be? His mind whirred.

  If he could not find the attacker nor see it, then he had to move on or remain frozen in fear while terrible things happened to his mother. His Center flowed out from him, seeking his kin. She was there . . . in the shadows, not far away now—but also other presences. Human. Powerful. Near to her.

  Merrick’s eyes flickered open as he realized they were as aware of him as he was of them. He grasped his saber’s hilt and ran forward into the dark. He couldn’t see a thing and was led only by his Deacon-trained senses. The tunnel echoed with the rapid slap of his feet on the damp ground and was accompanied by the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.

  When light spilled from ahead of him, even though it had only been moments since he’d last had it, Merrick’s eyes still watered. It was no geist that stood before him—it was four robed figures—three men and a woman.

  For a heartbeat Merrick was back in the Mother Abbey, in front of his peers. A habitual smile almost made it to his lips at the familiar cloak of his Order.

  And then he noticed the differences. The cloaks were not green or blue but brown. The light they had summoned gleamed on the brooches pinned to their shoulders, and he was not surprised to see the circle of five stars.

  Another shape, another Deacon, for want of a better word, stepped out of the shadows, and he was dra
gging Japhne. Merrick started forward in rage.

  “Now, now, Deacon Chambers.” One of the older men, tall and with a hawklike nose, held up his bare hand. “Do not be hasty. Young man, this is the meeting on which your future turns.”

  Merrick paused a moment to gain a foothold on this new reality. “It is rather hard to think clearly with a knife at a pregnant woman’s back.” He couldn’t see it from here, but his Center was still open and was becoming useful again. By telling them about the knife, he was telling them he was not quite as helpless as they might think.

  Still, everyone could see he was a Sensitive without his Active.

  Their leader, if that was what he was, tilted his head, and a disturbing smile spread on his face. Yet he gestured to his cohort, who then dropped the tip of the blade from close proximity to his mother. “You must know she is the key to controlling Hatipai, and I am sure you’re clever enough to realize how important that is.”

  Merrick swallowed hard. “I presume you mean to use her unborn child to do that.”

  The man shrugged as if they were talking about the price of milk. “The blood she left behind is her focus. That is why she wanted to get rid of it. Instead, we will use it with runes and cantrips to put a leash on ‘the goddess. ’”

  As he spoke, the young Deacon tried to judge how many of them he could shoot before they did anything to his mother. He was good with a blade, but it had been some time since he’d fired a rifle. “And who are you to do that?”

  The man gave his name easily. And then grinned as if it were nothing.

  The look in Japhne’s eyes was terrified, and she wrapped her hands about her belly, trying to provide some protection to her second son.

  “But you’re consorting with Hatipai.” Merrick shuffled forward a little. “The murderer stalking Chioma was no crazed killer—you called that Beast for her, for the geist who will have Chioma again.”

  The old man smiled, an expression that chilled Merrick to the core. “We use what instruments we need—even geistlords can sometimes have their uses.” His eyes flicked down to Japhne. “Once Hatipai’s son is dead, she will take Chioma and bring down chaos.”