Please, no, please. Not here. Not with her. His mind called out hopeless prayers to the unforgiving Rossin.
He caught a glimpse of the Deacon turning toward him and felt a faint tug of the Bond between them like the end of hope—but it was far too late. The control slipped away from her—without Merrick in the Bond, she wasn’t strong enough to hold the Rossin.
Raed managed one more strangled cry to Sorcha, and then he fell toward the Curse, hearing his own scream turn into the geistlord’s cry for blood.
It was one of her creatures. The Rossin flew toward reality on wings of utter rage. She had tried to destroy him, first by direct attack and now by sending one of her minions, her lesser creatures, to take what was his—to break this flesh that he treasured.
Yet the Rossin had strength that Hatipai had not really explored properly at their last meeting. She hadn’t taken full notice of the changes time could produce among humans—let alone known the power of the Deacons. Her lack of knowledge was the Rossin’s advantage—one that he seized upon.
Since she had been contained, the various Orders of Deacons had come to power, and as he ruptured into the world, he felt it again—the rune-fed strength that flowed from the redhaired one. The Deacon’s foolishly constructed Bond was still in place—it constrained him, but it was also a source of unexpected strength.
As he took over Raed’s body, he drew on it with great satisfaction: fur rippled and broke through skin, jaws lengthened and grew teeth as sharp as razors, flesh twisted. The Rossin was once again breathing in the world of humans. He announced his coming with a roar that sent humans screaming in blind panic.
Unlike Hatipai, his enemy, he was confined to one person, his essence tied to a single bloodline, and he could not construct a body from scraps of flesh. It had advantages and disadvantages. As the great lion shape snarled his rage into the confines of the library, he felt the advantages particularly strongly.
Muscles stretched and popped, and he shook himself. Human females squealed and tried to run, but his bulk blocked the door. The Rossin did not bother to swipe at them but leapt at the ghast snapping in the corner of the library.
This creature was made of human flesh as well, but it was merely a meat puppet compared to a fully realized geistlord. The thing’s curved, needlelike teeth shattered on the Beast’s hide as it lunged forward. Its smell was something dried and moldy—an odor not to the Rossin’s liking. The human trapped within the ghast screamed in pain as her flesh buckled in the ghast’s control. Unlike the Young Pretender, she was feeling everything her inhabitant did.
It was almost mercy when the Rossin’s jaws closed like a trap around its throat. He shook the ghast hard, like a cat with a particularly vile rat. The thin thread of human life was broken and the focus of the geist destroyed. It was sent howling back to the Otherside, and the flood of human blood in the Rossin’s mouth was untainted.
It poured over his long, rough tongue and filled his throat with sweet, sharp flavor. Blood and power—they had always been tightly bound. This is what had brought him here to this world.
The Rossin spun on his paws, his great size making him awkward in the confines of the library. A shelf fell and smashed the window with a tremendously satisfying clatter that sent the humans into another massive screaming panic. It drew the Beast’s attention to them.
The Deacon was nearby, standing still against the far wall. She had her Gauntlets on, but her hands were limp at her side—for there was no rune in their lexicon that could draw power from the Rossin. He was as grounded in this world as they were.
“Shut up,” he heard her hiss, presumably to the terrified females sobbing in the corner, smelling of urine and sweat. They were jammed in between two tumbled shelves of books. “Stay very still,” the contemptible Deacon instructed them, and the Rossin felt her trying to take hold again with the Bond. Yet she was weak. The Bond was weak. Somehow the foolish creature had lost her partner.
The Rossin’s lip curled back and it inhaled. The other Deacon was not dead; that would have left this female completely exposed to him. No, the Otherside was close, and he had gone through there. Such a thing had not been attempted by a flesh human for generations. The Rossin was almost impressed.
However, should the male Deacon make a miraculous return, then the Bond would be restored to its strength—the Rossin had to move quickly.
The great cat snarled and lashed his tail, but he had no time to wreak havoc upon these quivering females. She was out there once again seeking to overcome him. All she had to do was find a body strong enough to contain her, locate the Ehtia device, and then even he would have trouble overcoming her.
When he roared at the female, all curving fangs and hot spittle, it was to show the Deacon that he would deal with her later. Soon she would feel his wrath. That quite unhinged the other two women, and they bolted from the fragile safety of the tumbled bookshelves toward the imagined safety of the door.
In reflex the Rossin lunged, his massive paw catching one around the torso, ripping her open, spilling blood and gore over his fur and the floor. The other he snapped at, enjoying the tiny scream, and then the crunch of her backbone between his jaws. He enjoyed aw more satisfying chomps before dropping the broken thing to the ground.
The Deacon yelled, her Gauntlets now flaring bright red with a rune that could not touch him. If she was protected from the ravages of the geistlord, then he was just as protected from her. The fire flowed over and past him as if he were her, which in a way he was.
It must have cost her to do that—foolishly loving his host as she did. With great contempt the Rossin bunched his hindquarters, leapt clear through the window, and landed on the roof of the lower palace. It was a feat no mortal creature could have performed.
Behind he could hear running and shouting—but such sounds were no longer his concern—all that mattered were those sounds of horror that lay ahead. His mouth was already watering as the prospect.
TWENTY-TWO
The Last Time
Merrick pulled himself to his feet, feeling the effects of Onika’s presence pass. Barely had he finished his recovery, when the burrowing ship lurched, knocking him off them again. The Prince caught him by the elbow, and with an impressive display of catlike grace managed to wedge both of them against the wall while the ship continued to vibrate and strain. The weirstones in their cradles rolled like children’s marbles, but thankfully none came loose.
Around them the metal groaned like a sick person, and for an instant Merrick had the image of it collapsing inward. He could almost taste the earth in his mouth, and he immediately reacted how he’d been taught—he flung his Center out. Instantly his senses were flooded with power—a power that he recognized.
“A geistlord!” he yelled, but Onika was not there to hear his pronouncements. He snatched up a weirstone and bolted back through the hatchway they had come through. All the way the ship shifted and bucked under them, but there was a definite direction—up.
Once in the main room, Merrick’s ears were assaulted by the clanging of the machinery around him: gears spun and pistons pumped harder than could be good. The Ehtia were everywhere, scrambling to keep their ship from tearing itself apart, shouting orders at one another, and wide-eyed with near panic.
Merrick lost sight of Onika but spun about when Nynnia grabbed his arm. Her eyes were dark pits in the strange green light of the ship. “We’re going to have to surface—she’s found us!”
The young Deacon could guess what kind of “she” she meant. He might be out of his own time, but his training still held.
“We’ve surfaced!” someone yelled, and now they were all running for the exit. Merrick jerked away from Nynnia and joined those pounding through the corridors and hatchways. This was not panic—this was the organized pelt of warriors toward a battle. He had seen it before in Vermillion, and as a trained Deacon the battle was where he had to be—it didn’t matter what time in history it was or that it was not his fight.
Merrick could smell the arrival of the geistlord. It was sweet and pungent, very like the thick perfumes found in the temples of the little gods. He flinched when Nynnia touched his shoulder. Her face was set in stern lines, and she flexed her fingers around one of the strange sticks. “Now you will get to see our folly, Merrick Chambers.” She looked so sad that he wanted to offer some comfort, but he didn’t know what would work. “The weirstone-craft we thought we were so clever to create”—Nynnia flicked him a bitter glance—“it brought their attention to us from the Otherside.”
Merrick was about to answer, when the earth twisted under him. It was not much, but a shiver that foretold something more. He could feel all the animals fleeing from where he and the Ehtia stood; the earthworms dug deeper, the bugs that could fly caught the breeze as best they could, and the furred beasts scampered in among the rocks. He wished he could join them.
A woman appeared over the rise of the hill, though it was hard to see her shape or form, concealed as it was in darkness. Merrick drew in his breath and felt primitive fear clutch his stomach.
Few Deacons had seen a geistlord and lived to report back. The first Deacon sprang to Merrick’s mind, the ancestor of Raed Rossin, and how he had made the first bargain with the geistlord. As the woman drew nearer, Merrick realized one thing—no one had spoken of their terrible beauty.
Her dark hair tumbled down flawless, naked skin. As his vision cleared he was entranced by the glimpses of her body beyond her curls. She was perfectly nude, and her soft feet landed on rock or moss without reaction—as if pain was for smaller beings. Shadows cascaded from her shoulders and circled her head. Thankfully he could not see into them fully . . . and he knew why.
“Shades,” he whispered, his Center revealing the captured souls that followed her. He could not count the number of them—it had to be thousands. Suddenly the horror of the Rossin did not seem so great.
Geists fed on the souls of humans for the most part—but it was not all that could sustain them. Emotions like rage and love often drew them, so what greater sustenance could there be for a geistlord than adoration? These shades suggested this one had fed well.
“Mother,” Onika spoke clearly to the advancing woman, “you are not welcome here.”
Merrick shook his head—for a moment pulling the two difficult facts together. That Hatipai was a goddess, he was sure. But that was not all he saw when he looked at her. She was also a geist.
Though he was horrified, it made sense. Scholars had always just assumed that the population had turned away from the gods because they had been unable to protect them from the arrival of the Otherside—but if any of them had suspected they were in fact geistlords, then denying their deities was just retribution.
“Son,” the woman spoke, and it was like sweet honey. A sound to make men weep with lust and women commit suicide in despair. “Come to me, and all will be forgiven—even trying to turn my faithful against me.”
Onika straightened. “I could not do it.”
“No.” The goddess laughed. “Not for lack of trying, though. They would have none of it. Foolish boy.”
Though there was no expression visible under the mask, the Prince’s weight of sadness was reflected in the set of his shoulders. He certainly did no appear to enjoy his godhood.
She stepped closer, and even the Ehtia drew back as her presence threatened to wash over them. “I made you for a purpose, Onika: to protect my realm and all the people in it. So long as you live—and I made you to live forever, dearest—Chioma will endure.”
Onika’s laugh was low and bitter. “Yet what is the point of eternal life without love? And you made sure that there will never be love or an heir for me.”
His voice was so sad that it instantly brought Merrick back to the moment where his mother was sitting next to him on the bed, smiling, with her hand resting on her full stomach. I don’t know how he heard of me, she had said.
Suddenly the future opened up before him, and he heard Nynnia’s words. Plant the seed, she had said. His mother had smiled and glowed with such happiness. It had been true love in her eyes, not the mad, hopeless faith of one trapped by the demigod beneath the mask, but real love, as unexpected, delicious and treasured as that could be. Merrick knew what Nynnia wanted and why she had sent him here.
He almost blurted it out, but then Hatipai was speaking. “You alone can hold Chioma—you must live.”
Onika was her focus. The Order’s training made this blatantly obvious. Just as the Rossin had invested in the Imperial family, Hatipai had made her own anchor to this world—similar but different ways of surviving the perils of the real world.
“Let these people pass,” Onika growled.
“Your allies?” The shadows began to race counterclockwise around the face of the geistlord. “They practically invited us into this world, and now when they betray us, you would protect them?” The shades darted apart, and her face was revealed.
Merrick’s senses betrayed him. He dimly heard the Ehtia around him also fall to their knees, but nothing mattered apart from the glory of Hatipai. None of them were worthy of it. When her gaze fell on him, he wanted to slit his own throat lest he insult her with his own pitiful nature. He rolled onto his back, his hands grasping desperately for his knife.
To his right, he caught a glimpse of the vile woman Nynnia fumbling with her stick. She did not seem to have quite as an appropriate reaction to the glory of Hatipai.
From the ground he also saw the heretic Onika raising the weirstone. His glory was nothing compared to his mother’s. But somehow in his fitful delight, Merrick saw a parting of the shades, a gap in her armor of souls. And he reached deep for his training—throwing his mind into the puzzles and recitations he’d studied for years. In there he found a moment of respite.
“There.” His voice cracked. “Onika, there!”
He had no Bond with the Prince as he had with Sorcha, but his voice was just loud enough to hear. Onika said a bright, hot word and threw the weirstone into the shadows and the gap that the Deacon had spotted.
Hatipai screamed, a sound that went deeper than bone, and the shadows flew high. Shades, those mindless, repetitive remains of souls, broke from her like a cloud of scattering crows. Merrick saw them escape the pull of the geistlord and was glad, though everything was mad and dead to him in that moment. Then the world was swallowed by darkness.
When consciousness found him again, his head was cradled in Nynnia’s lap. Her fingers gently stroked his hair, calling him back to reality. It was a lovely ment, but eventually he found his feet.
Nothing dark remained on the blasted cliff top—only the Ehtia, their machine and Onika. “What happened?” The young Deacon turned to Nynnia, but it was the Prince who replied.
“She is gone . . . for now.” His shoulders slumped. “I have bought you enough time to escape. The path is free for you to reach Mount Sytha, my friends.” He sounded desperately alone. “She and I will continue our tussle once you are gone.”
Nynnia grabbed him in a tight embrace. “You will find other allies, Onika. She is not as all-powerful as she thinks.”
Then the Ehtia surrounded him, hugging him, whispering thanks in his ear—while Nynnia and Merrick stepped back.
The weight of sorrow pressed on the Deacon—especially as he knew how many lonely years Onika would have to endure. As the crew of the ship began to clamber back into the hatches, Merrick squeezed Nynnia’s hand and went to speak to the Prince. “Thank you for what you are doing, Your Highness. Th
e people of Chioma might not know what you sacrificed to keep them safe, but others do.”
“I have to be a hero,” Onika muttered, “or become like her.”
“Then I hope you remember this—” Merrick paused, caught by the circular nature of this weird logic, before plunging on. “In the time of an Emperor called Kaleva, seek out a woman known as the flower of Da Nanth.”
“Da Nanth?”
Naturally he wouldn’t know of the principality—because it had not yet been created. It almost hurt his head to think about it, so he merely smiled. “Trust me, it is a place—though not yet.”
The Prince frowned, but a spark of something that felt like hope lurked in his expression. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Do not thank me”—Merrick clapped him on the shoulder—“thank Nynnia.”
The Prince smiled uncertainly and embraced the woman. “Go safe into that place, old friend—part of me wishes I could come with you.” He kissed the top of her head.
She laid her hands over his for an instant. “You have your people to take care of, Onika—and where we go, you cannot.”
The Prince turned and sketched a little bow in Merrick’s direction, the beaded mask swaying. Onika’s voice was smooth, strong and just as it would be when next they encountered each other in throne room in the Hive City. “I find myself looking forward to meeting you again, Merrick Chambers.”
As the Prince of Chioma left, the Deacon recalled his first meeting with the Prince. Looking back on it, he presumed Onika had recognized him. That damn mask always concealed so much—it was hardly a surprise that the ruler had developed a reputation as a mystery.
“Why can he not go with you?” Merrick found himself whispering to Nynnia.
She sighed and tapped him lightly on the arm, as if a teacher correcting a pupil who should have known better. “Think of it: a half human/half geist in that place. He would be torn apart by the geistlords shackled as he is with a mortal frame. They feed on the energy of their own kind there.”
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