Deep within Raed the Rossin stirred, listening with real interest, Raed knew, to the next words. “Go on,” the Young Pretender urged.
Aachon held up his hands, looked at them for a long moment and then held them before Raed as if they were sacrificial offerings. “I have that ability, my prince. I am in fact fully trained in its use, so I am asking your permission to join Sorcha’s Deacons.”
Raed blinked at him. Ever since he had known Aachon he had heard nothing but how corrupt and blinkered the Order of the Eye and the Fist was. His friend had even finally revealed why and how he had been turned away from them, for his love of Garil and the weirstone power. Now, here he was standing before him, asking for Raed’s blessing to go back and serve. Things were in a pretty state indeed if it had come to this. The Young Pretender was at a loss as to what to say.
Aachon must have taken it as a slight. He cleared his throat. “You, more than anyone, know what the geists will do if the way to the Otherside is opened. You have faced the Murashev, the Wrayth and Hatipai. The Beast inside you still gnaws at your soul, my prince, I know that.”
Raed raised his hand and shook his head a fraction. “I am sorry, Aachon. Please—my silence is not a judgment on your decision. I am just . . . surprised . . . but you are right. Sorcha will need every person that can wield a rune in the coming days.”
Aachon opened his mouth, as if to say something, then closed it with a snap. He looked once more over the devastated streets, to where the red and blue lights had now subsided. “I will go to her then, ask to be marked and take my place among them. It is time to forget old grudges.”
Now it was Raed that clapped him on the back. “I feel the geists lifting from the city, but I must wait until they are all clear. Still, go with my blessing.” His eyes drifted to the flaring lights on the horizon. “I don’t know how she did it, but there you are. Perhaps we have some hope after all.”
“Indeed, it is a strange world in which I find hope in the Deacons,” Aachon commented. “I will see you there, my prince . . . and thank you.” They clasped each other’s forearms, and then Aachon began to pick his way down the hillside to the road.
The Young Pretender watched and felt a heaviness descending over him. Aachon had always been there, always watched over him, and now he too must be lost to Raed. Just like Snook. Just like Fraine.
Maybe that was the best way to be; hollow. When the end came, perhaps it would not hurt as much if there were only a shell where Raed had once been. And yet . . .
Raed sighed. “I have been reading far too much poetry,” he whispered to himself. She was still there. Sorcha. As twisted by all these events as he was—he still loved her.
All the rest was burned and floating away on the winds of circumstance, but that remained.
Not much to hang your life on, the Rossin muttered. A Wrayth-Deacon half-breed just clinging onto her sanity.
Raed determined not to listen. The Beast was not to be trusted—least of all in this chaotic time. “Don’t worry,” he replied lightly, “there will be plenty of blood for you to feast on before this is all over.”
The Rossin became ominously silent.
Raed was just about to climb down and make his way in Aachon’s footsteps, when he spotted someone else moving at the edges of the city. Merrick had told them there would be a gathering at the town square—one that no surviving human for miles would be able to resist. However, as Raed watched, a gray-cloaked figure was picking its way through the ramshackle and smoking houses. The way it kept to the shadows, and hurriedly crossed streets made it immediately apparent it did not want to be seen.
A Deacon—but not one of hers.
The Rossin’s vision was laid over his, a new development that he had previously been too worried to tell Sorcha about, but which he was very glad of now. This figure gleamed in the moonlight; the aura around it flickering silver.
The Circle of Stars had shown its hand with the destruction of the Order and the Mother Abbey, but it had not been seen since. Like Sorcha, they made use of weirstone portals to travel about Arkaym and even the more distant continent of Delmaire. Yet now, here was one scuttling around this devastated city.
The Circle had been responsible for twisting his sister’s mind, thinning the barrier between worlds and tipping the Empire into civil war. It was not just the Rossin whose anger had begun to kindle, yet he hesitated for a second to go after this creature. He glanced once more toward the center of the city and thought of her there. Alone.
She is never alone, the Rossin snarled in Raed’s head. She has much to do, and not much use for you. You know that.
The Beast’s barbs were getting sharper and more accurate—as if he was really making an effort. However, there was inescapable truth in the Beast’s words and one fact: they did share a hatred for the Native Order that had caused so much destruction.
Without consulting each other they had reached an accord. Raed started walking down the hill toward the cloaked figure, but within moments he was running. The black smoke that still hung over the city would have made it impossible for any mere human to keep track of this fleeting figure, but he had the Rossin’s sight, smell and other geistlord senses at his disposal.
The thought crossed his mind that if it were not for the horror that the Beast had inflicted on his family, and the blood of countless others it had spilled, then it would have been a useful alliance.
It was meant to be an alliance, but I was tricked. You hate the pain I have caused you, but your family has become a prison for me. You cannot understand all that I am.
Raed would almost have preferred not to hear the curse of the Imperial family speak. His words of late had become confusing and more terrifying than his former blood rages—so that the Young Pretender almost wished he would go back to that. As he stumbled through the wreckage of a city torn apart by geists, he tasted soot and smoke in his mouth, but none of it could distract from the fact that the Rossin was becoming more real to him.
He did not want to feel an ounce of sympathy for the geistlord. He was far more comfortable with the Rossin he had grown up fearing; one mad for blood and with no shred of desire for anything more than that. The changes in the Beast of late had made no sense, and yet he feared if he could figure them out they would not be terrifying.
You let me in.
Another uncomfortable truth. The deal he had made with the Rossin after the incident with Hatipai had been one he’d made for survival’s sake—not his own, but his sister’s. However, he was growing more and more sure it had been a mistake.
Concentrate! the great pard snarled in his head, flooding his body with heat. The Circle of Stars is not to be underestimated. Derodak, the first Emperor, the first Deacon, is the one responsible for you and I.
Raed slid to a stop behind a burned-out building on the intersection of a ravaged street. He peered cautiously around the corner. Not far off, the cloaked figure was striding quickly out of view.
If that was a Sensitive of the Circle of Stars, then he or she was the worst in the Order.
An Active then.
That made even less sense, but Raed knew if he tried to find logic in this damaged Empire he would be a long time looking. As quietly as he could manage, he followed.
At least there were no geists in the area—the Rossin’s senses gave him that much—but there was still a thick stench of death on every street. He choked back bile many times as he followed in the figure’s wake.
Finally, they reached one of the ward towers along the city’s now scarred walls. The Emperor had not only unleashed a storm of geists on the population, he had also dropped fire to complete the job. The walls here were scorched black, but had managed to stay upright—a testament to their builder’s skill.
His prey entered the block tower and without glancing behind, disappeared. Carefully Raed picked his way over the broken road toward the door. This could well be another situation where he would lose his clothing—but history had taught him not to p
lace too much importance on pants. If the Rossin welled up inside him, then there would be bloodshed as well as the destruction of his clothing. He fished around trying to get the Rossin’s answer in his head, but the Beast had subsided into his unconsciousness like a monster into a river of darkness. Yet Raed could not be sure he wouldn’t leap to the surface again.
Still, he could not afford to head back to Sorcha now—whatever the person he was following had planned could be important. While the Deacons were dealing with the town, he would find some way to be useful.
Raed let out a long slow breath, and opened the door the figure had passed through just a fraction. The air inside was even colder than it was outside, but he could make out the sound of voices. They were too far away for him to discern any words, but it sounded like a conversation rather than chanting. In his recent experience, chanting was always a very bad thing.
Perhaps, some small gods were smiling on him, because the door didn’t creak as he nudged it the rest of the way open and slid inside. A set of spiral stairs was the only way forward. He was grateful that it was lit by small yellow fires flickering in sconces, since the Rossin was no longer sharing his senses, for some reason. With his hand on his saber, Raed crept up the stairs, staying as much in the shadows as he could manage.
The voices grew louder as he ascended, but it didn’t seem to be in any of the archaic languages, which was good since he had only learned to read them as a boy, and never had learned to speak them. It was in Imperial common, a man’s voice, and the tone was rather warm . . . until Raed finally made out the words.
“. . . The arrival of the heathen was expected, and you have no need to fear. We protect those who are important to us. With the devices we have given you, there is no fear of discovery by their Sensitives. We have been working hard while the whole world thought us gone. During that time, we learned many things, but one of them was how to remain hidden, and you are now benefitting from that . . .”
Raed felt his mouth grow dry; he knew that voice. He had not heard it a great deal, but the one time he had, it had made quite the impression. Derodak, the apparently immortal leader of the Circle of Stars, had stood in the Mother Abbey and commanded attention.
The Rossin stirred slightly, but did not urge him to stop, and the itch of curiosity gripped Raed. He did not turn back. Derodak had fully shown his ability to escape at a moment’s notice, so this could be his only chance to observe him and learn what he was up to.
Still, the voice sounded strange. “We will protect you as the great chaos begins. When the veil to the Otherside is finally torn down, this place will give you protection. The Circle of Stars will wrap around you, as it was always meant to be.”
He had to ignore those words and see what was going on in there. Raed climbed higher, glad of the soft boots he’d managed to find only a few days before in the citadel’s stores. Ahead, he saw the stairs finished, and there was a wide landing lit by larger torches. The floor he observed was covered in dust and rocks from the bombardment, but showed signs of very recent and frequent passage of feet.
Derodak’s voice continued, and now it sounded even stranger—as if echoing off a distant mountain. Raed frowned. How could that be? They were in a confined space. Ducking his head, he put one foot on the landing and, keeping himself tight against the wall, slid up next to the open doorway.
“You are the chosen ones, the faithful who have never forgotten your true protectors, and it is you who will reap the rewards.”
Raed, keeping his head low, dared a look around the corner of the door. What he saw made him quite confused for a moment. The small guardroom was full of people, some seated on the floor, others lined up around the walls. He found that he had been wrong; there was not a single Deacon among them. They were cloaked sure enough, but none of them were green, blue—or even gray. These folk looked like normal citizens, from elderly to small children on their mothers’ hips. Certainly there was no chance that any of them were going to notice the Young Pretender stealing a glance, for all of them had their eyes fixed on the device in the middle of the floor.
Derodak had spoken true—it looked as though the Circle of Stars had been most productive during their time out of the sun. The device on the floor was a work of art; brass like an open basket held a weirstone aloft as if it were an egg in its nest, while beneath spun a collection of gears and cogs that snickered to themselves.
The Order of the Eye and the Fist had thought themselves the masters of weirstone power, keeping it from the general population and setting it to work for their Emperor. However, it appeared they were rank amateurs compared to their predecessors.
The image of Derodak was hovering in the air a foot above the machine. It was the very same as he had appeared at the Mother Abbey, but only three feet high, and curiously flat. Raed was reminded of the shadow puppets the people of Irisil loved so much. They used a flat, pale piece of cloth to act out their local legends, and entertain their children. This device of the Circle’s was something far more complex. It didn’t need anywhere to project the image.
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 o
f 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.
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