Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  Raed was just contemplating what they could mean, when the floor slid out from under him. Reflexes far beyond a normal mortal being kicked in and Raed managed to catch hold of the lip of the trap before he fell, though his shoulders were nearly wrenched from their sockets.

  The geistlord was awake now, ready to take over. “Not yet,” Raed gasped, as he flexed his fingers against the stone. He didn’t want to lose his clothes and gear if at all possible. Though the beast had no respect for such trivial things, as a man, he preferred not to enter dangerous situations naked. With some effort he managed to get the edge under his armpits and from there haul himself upright.

  So he had his explanation of the red dots on the map. As he followed the path he took careful note and edged around them. It certainly explained why there were no people on this level either. The Shin were obviously master trap makers, which cut down on how many guards they had to have.

  He was just contemplating how many of the Shin themselves must have fallen into their own traps while distracted, when a sound pierced the suffocating silence.

  It was laughter. Female laughter. It was so unexpected and delightful that Raed stopped. In his life, there had been precious little female company let alone merriment. If he concentrated, he thought he could recall his mother and sister giggling—but perhaps that was merely wishful thinking. On the Dominion the women had occasionally had cause for amusement. Snook had been most cheerful—the most likely to see the fun in any situation.

  Snook. Now dead at his own sister’s command.

  Frowning, recalling why he was here, Raed went to find out what was so funny in the lair of the Shin. He had a feeling he would not like it.

  FIVE

  Alone in the Abbey

  Merrick made his return in the tail of evening to the Mother Abbey. It was only a short distance from the Imperial Palace to the home of the Order of the Eye and the Fist, and it was a walk that he had taken often since returning from Chioma. Though the Emperor himself had shown little interest in returning Merrick’s mother and his half brother back to that southern province that they should by rights be ruling, the Grand Duchess had been most considerate of their care. She had seen to it that Japhne was given a wing and the best doctors when the time came for her to give birth. She even visited her so that the older woman would not be so alone. Apparently they had many things in common, and despite Zofiya’s reputation, his mother found her a great companion.

  As he looked up at the stars he found himself considering Her Imperial Majesty the Grand Duchess Zofiya in quite a different light. Everyone at the Abbey thought he was studious and quiet, but he noticed the fairer sex like any other normal man. Since he had traveled back in time and stolen a few moments with Nynnia, he had been more at peace with his lost love. The mere fact that she still existed—even if he could never be with her again—had allowed him to come to a certain acceptance. Nynnia had given up her body in order to save the world from the destruction of the terrible geistlord the Murashev, and she seemed content with that. It would be churlish of him to remain angry for her choice.

  So his refreshed eyes and soul had perceived immediately that the Grand Duchess was very beautiful. Even to have thought that a season ago would have been ridiculous, but in their time together, he had seen beyond the intimidating cover she presented to the world. She had lost her faith and her goddess had proven to be a horrible fraud. In a way, Merrick and she shared a loss.

  Naturally, these thoughts were idle ones. Deacons could indeed have sex, love affairs and even get married—however Imperial sisters had to be far more cautious. He could tell by the expression in her eyes that she liked the look of him—he’d learned that much in the past year—but in her position, she would have her pick of lovers from among the Court.

  Still it was pleasant to wonder about some things, such as what would her lips taste like? What secrets of her inner heart would she reveal after they kissed? How would her skin feel against his?

  Merrick shook himself free of these idle thoughts as he reached the gates to the Mother Abbey. Between intrigue and duty he allowed his imagination free rein—but once back inside the walls of the Order he had to return to reality. The lay Brother opened the postern gate and let him in without challenge. Most Deacons were ensconced in the dormitory, but others were on patrol, or doing the business of the Order.

  As his step passed over the lintel, Merrick stopped, for a second frozen comically there, head tilted to one side. Everything was quiet and in its correct place. The Presbyters tucked in their presbyterial chambers. Arch Abbot Rictun was awake working on some paperwork, the light flickering in his antechamber behind the stained glass. The lay Brothers were either asleep in their quarters or moving quietly about their duties. Deacons, Sensitive and Active were the same, but lying in their cells in the dormitory. The powerful and beautiful Breed horses shifted in their stalls, but signaled no distress. Injured and addled citizens and Deacons were sleeping or cared for in their rooms. All but one.

  Merrick set off at a run in that direction—his senses now focused on the infirmary with the intensity of a hawk searching for a field mouse. Their Bond had gone so quiet that he had almost forgotten it was there, and now he was kicking himself for that carelessness. She was dead—by the Bones she was dead and he had not even noticed!

  Bursting into her room, Merrick ran to the bed expecting to see Sorcha’s still corpse lying there—but there was nothing. Nothing at all. Her bed had been stripped and a lay Brother was in the corner bundling the sheets away.

  “What happened?” Merrick grabbed the poor man by his shoulders and gave him a sound shake. “Where have they taken the body?”

  “There is no body.” In the confusion the young Sensitive had not noticed Sorcha’s retired partner Garil in the chair in the corner of the room near the door.

  He spun about. “What do you mean? They can’t have buried her so quickly!”

  “She’s not dead…at least not yet.” Garil raised a hand and gestured the bewildered Brother away. He shut the door behind him in a manner that suggested he was very grateful to get out of the line of fire.

  Merrick sized up the older man. Something in his tone set the young man’s teeth on edge. He did not know a great deal about Garil’s personality, and only a little more of his life. Sorcha had told him once, since it was no secret, that he had been badly beaten by some thugs, years ago, and taken off active duty. She had retained a genuine affection for him, even after their Bond had been severed, and trusted him implicitly.

  Indeed, at one time both Merrick and Sorcha’s lives had been in his hands. When they had ventured to the Otherside, where geists came from, they had shucked off their bodies and ventured there in spirit. It had been Garil who had brought them back. Yet now, every hair on Merrick’s body was standing on end and his skin ran with an uncomfortable prickle. Cautiously he stepped away from the bed. “Deacon Reeceson, I need you to explain yourself. And now.”

  It was awfully impolite to address an elder of the Order in such a way, but technically Merrick outranked him since he was still a practicing member and Garil was not.

  The old man sighed, and levered himself out of the chair. That was when Merrick went far beyond the boundaries of propriety and possibly into the realms of illegality. He opened the First Rune of Sight, Sielu, and attempted to see through Garil’s eyes. It was a bold move that should have outraged the old man.

  Instead he laughed—not in a mocking way, but gently as if he had caught a child out at a silly prank. “Don’t bother trying that on me, Deacon Chambers. I may be elderly, but I am not without my faculties.”

  “But apparently quite without your loyalty,” Merrick snapped back, at a loss with what he should do. “Sorcha trusted you, loved you as a father—and you let her die.”

  Garil’s eyes dropped away. “I did what was best.”

  Suddenly Merrick was reminded of the one other thing he knew of Deacon Reeceson—the other thing, apart from Sorcha that they
had in common. A wild talent. A secret gift that was quite outside the Order, the runes and the rules. Now both Sensitives shared a hard look. Deacon Reeceson’s talent was for prescience. The ability to see into the long future—something even the rune Masa did not allow a member of the Order.

  “What have you done with her?” Merrick asked in a whisper filled with dread.

  “She is gone to a distant Priory, one that can deal with her particular illness. One that might be able to heal her.”

  His words were clearly spoken, but through his Center Merrick could feel a murkiness to their meaning. “She is still my partner,” he countered. “I should have been informed—gone with her.”

  When Garil shook his head, the young Sensitive’s heart sank. “That can be quickly fixed in Presbyterial Council—you are far too great a talent to be lost to the Order. They will find you—”

  “Enough!” Merrick could take no more of it. His eyes burned as if he might shed angry tears, and he did not want to do that in front of Garil. “You are a retired Deacon—no longer fighting geists, no longer a real Brother. I will speak to the Arch Abbot himself on this matter.” Then before the old man could stop him, Merrick darted out of the room, and blundered out of the infirmary. He caught glimpses of the concerned faces of lay Brothers, and a few scattered visitors, but none of these things registered.

  His brain was too full of concern for Sorcha and outrage that anyone would ask him to sever the Bond with her. It was unlike any other he had ever read of, and when it had been in the fullness of its power, before Sorcha had been stricken, they had worked as a seamless pair. It had been beautiful.

  They would not take the chance of its restoration from him. They would not. He charged through the silent Devotional building. Bereft as it was of Deacons, he could not help glancing up at the carved images of the Native Deacons that occupied its soaring ceiling space. They had been hacked about their stone faces, destroyed in an act of mindless vandalism generations ago. It gave them an eerie appearance, and it took very little imagination to think that they were glowering at him, or perhaps laughing. Many years had passed since the last of that old Order had died. The Order of the Eye and the Fist had come only recently to take on the geists in Arkaym, but before them there had been others. Others who had been thought extinct.

  That was until Merrick had had that assumption crushed. Beneath the Chiomese palace, he had run into living, breathing examples of that old and corrupt Order. They had made their intentions perfectly clear—to use geists, rather than to fight them. To take the power they thought they deserved. Even the remembrance of it made his stomach clench like he’d been punched there.

  The young Deacon paused for a second under the defaced and hacked final statue. The angry populace had left it one piercing eye under a stern brow. It reminded him of the nameless leader of the Order of the Circle of Stars—which had to be impossible. And yet—Merrick swallowed—many impossible things had been proven since he had left the novitiate, and been Bonded with Sorcha.

  As he stood beneath that frightening gaze, he recalled how his report on the Chiomese affair had still not been dealt with by the Presbyterial Council. They had taken it, had assured him it would be given the greatest weight, and then…nothing.

  Clenching his teeth, he spared one final glare for the one-eyed stone harbinger, and then ran on to the back of the Devotional to where the Presbyters and the Arch Abbot slept. No guard stood at the door, since this was the heart of the Mother Abbey, and so he passed on, unchallenged.

  The Arch Abbot was unlikely to be asleep, but Merrick knew that his receiving hours were well over. Still he banged on the door. The tiny sparrow of a woman named Drale who served as his secretary answered Merrick’s rabid banging on the door. She was a lay Sister of the Order—one who had gone through the trials and yet proven not powerful enough to be trained with the runes. Still, she was due some respect. Her eyes were bleary, as she undid the door and peered out.

  “Deacon Chambers?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. She was well aware, like most of the Mother Abbey, that Arch Abbot Rictun was no friend of Sorcha’s, and that, by association Merrick was also tarred the same. Still, he and Drale had spent a lot of time in the Abbey library together, and had become, if not friends, at least friendly.

  “The Arch Abbot has retired,” she said, narrowing the gap in the door. “His chambers will be open just after lunch tomorrow. He has—”

  “I must speak to him now,” Merrick said, pushing forward, his knee pressing against the smooth, ancient wood of the door. “I cannot wait until morning!”

  “Deacon!” Drale hissed, not quite pushing back, but looking horrified as the young, quiet Deacon she knew turned into something far more like his partner. “You will make no friends on this course. Please, go back to the infirmary!”

  “You think I care,” Merrick shot back, his voice rising. “Deacon Sorcha Faris is missing—and as far as I am aware she is still one of our Order. We do still take care of our own don’t we?”

  “Do you doubt the morality of the Mother Abbey?” Rictun finally pushed open the door and stood facing his younger colleague. The Arch Abbot was a young man to have reached such lofty heights, about the same age as Sorcha. He had golden hair, and the kind of handsomeness that would have brought women flocking to him had he had another occupation. He still could have married, because there was no injunction against it by the Order, but he had the kind of personality that tended to repel most on long acquaintance. Still he was the strongest Presbyter in both Active and Sensitive powers, and amid the chaos of the previous Arch Abbot being killed and revealed as a traitor, he had been the best choice at the time.

  Now, Merrick was beginning to think it had been a very wrong decision, because there was a set to Rictun’s mouth that suggested he was not surprised to see him at his door.

  “Do not worry, Drale.” Rictun stepped back and gestured to his audience chamber. “I am always open to all members of the Order, day and night.”

  The frightened secretary scampered to her own tiny bed in the corner of the entrance chamber, all too happy to get out of the way. Merrick stormed after Rictun, not feeling an ounce of his rage dissipate. Sorcha was still gone.

  Rictun slipped into his chair behind his desk, but Merrick did not sit. Instead, he began to pace, trying to compose his thoughts, while a hundred angry words clamored to get out of his mouth. The small audience chamber was lit by flickering candlelight, and the way it danced over the ancient stained glass disturbed him. This place must have been the home of the Arch Abbot of the Order of Stars. Perhaps a part of those that had gone before still lingered here.

  This thought outraged Merrick further. He slammed his hands down onto the desk and glared at his superior. “Deacon Sorcha Faris has been taken from the infirmary without my knowledge, and Deacon Reeceson says she is bound for some distant Priory—but I know this cannot be. The Bond is sacred. She should not have been sent without me.”

  The Arch Abbot shrugged. “If I remember Deacon Faris’ Bond is still under review. You and Deacon Petav are still disputing your right to be called her partner. Such decisions take time, and Deacon Faris needs help now.”

  “But the Mother Abbey’s infirmary is the best facility the Order has!” Merrick growled through gritted teeth, leaving the question of their Bond aside for the moment. He knew Rictun had thrown it down to distract him. “Where can she possibly go to get better help for what ails her?”

  It was then that the man on the other side of the desk smiled. “I do not believe, Deacon Chambers, that you are versed in the healing arts. Deacon Reeceson, since his retirement from his trials as a Sensitive has made a study of them in the infirmary. He suggested Prior Ellan in Aberfelck might have the experience and skill to treat her.” The Arch Abbot cleared his throat. “What’s more, I think I should remind you of your place in the Order.”

  Merrick swallowed. Ever since his father had been killed by a geist, he had only ever wanted to
be a part of the Order of the Eye and the Fist. He had found sense and a peace that he had not expected to. He had fought geists, freed people, and saved the city of Vermillion itself. His mind raced, thinking over what his choices within the strictures of the Order were now. He had studied harder than any other novitiate in the class, but now he could find no other avenue. Even if he protested to the Presbyter of the Sensitives, the best that Yvril Mournling could do was take it to the rest of the Council. Everyone knew that Rictun had the sway of the vote there.

  Once the ideas of what he could do within the Order were all run out, Merrick began instead to think through what his other options were; all of this while under the stern gaze of the Arch Abbot. That moment of consideration seemed to stretch forever, but really it didn’t take long for Merrick to make up his mind. Sorcha was his partner, and despite his love of the Order, he had seen its darker side. Corruption was not something alien to it, and Arch Abbot Rictun was no example of the best of their Order. Sorcha was. Maybe his partner was not perfect, but she had always been his back. No other Bond Merrick had ever heard of, or read of, had ever been as strong as theirs.

  Quickly, he stifled these thoughts and decisions down. While it was entirely inappropriate for one Deacon to peer into the mind of another, he didn’t trust Rictun to not do what was inappropriate. While he did so, Merrick bowed—not too deep, lest the Arch Abbot suspect it was coming too easily—and sighed his regret. “Yes, Reverend Deacon. I am sorry, I guess I have just been confused by the last few months—and now this.”

  The Arch Abbot stared at him with his jaw clenched—and there it was—the subtle probing of Merrick’s thoughts. Really an Arch Abbot, the only Deacon to be able to hold both talismans should have been better at this covert intrusion. That he was not, steeled Merrick’s determination that he was on the right path.