Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  Holding it in the space between them, Aachon did so. Weirstone power was something Sorcha had never sampled before. She was not one of the Deacons who had ever worked with them, and it was so strange that she was knocked back, distracted for a moment. Whereas Merrick was warmth and gentleness, like smooth cream over her own sharp characteristics, this tasted almost medicinal. It contained not an ounce of human emotion or connection—which was the thing that made the Bond. She took another breath, unclenched her hands and reached out for the stone again.

  Underneath the chill indifference of it was a well of power. Touching it, Sorcha realized why those who used them were so drawn to them; the power was clean like a river from a glacier. It was totally without the complications of a partner, but then it was also not as deep a well of strength either.

  “Are you all right?” Aachon’s voice seemed like it was coming from a great distance, and it took some time for her to find her voice.

  Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth, but she managed to mumble, “Yes. Fine.”

  “Then look for the Prince,” Aachon snapped in return. He’d probably forgotten about the first time he reached for a weirstone’s power.

  Still, Sorcha managed to ignore his rudeness. She turned her Center away from the Autumn Eagle and toward the fortress of the Shin. To her altered Sight, it was like looking into a cube cut from the night itself. A window into nothingness. The only thing she could discern was the Bond disappearing into it.

  The airship circled low over the fortress, so that she could pick out the glow of people standing on the parapets, but apart from that she could not see beyond the walls. She felt sick to her stomach just looking at it.

  Aachon grabbed hold of her arm as it seemed she might topple. She shook him off. “I can’t see past the stone walls. It must have its own cantrip defenses. We’re going to have to get in somehow.”

  She let go of the weirstone power and sagged back against the gunwales with a shudder. The rest of the crew shuffled their feet.

  “What now Aachon?” one of them asked, but she could not focus on who it was who spoke. She was struggling to reel in her Center. Still, she did not like that they were asking the first mate and not her. Sadly Raed’s crew had completely forgotten anything like real discipline.

  “Now”—Sorcha heard the dark tone in Aachon’s voice—“we go and get our captain back.”

  Recovering herself a little, the Deacon smiled. It would be good to do that. Just as long as she could keep her feet, everything would be fine.

  In the dark and silence Merrick woke. He had ceased to be able to tell what time of day it was. He couldn’t even be sure whether it was day or night beyond the stone walls. He thought of Zofiya and wondered if she was dead or alive.

  He knew he should have been thinking about Sorcha and where she might be, or del Rue and what he was up to, but the Grand Duchess’ wide eyes and smile kept coming to him. It seemed impossible that she had been taken. Merrick had only ever known one person that was as ruthlessly efficient and competent as the Grand Duchess in his time, and that was his partner. Yet in one season he had seen his partner laid low with a mysterious illness and now Zofiya taken.

  He sighed and rolled awkwardly onto his back. He was not a broad man, but even to him the bunk was incredibly narrow. They had not built the Silence Room for comfort.

  The strangeness of the place was starting to get to him. For the longest time he thought he heard a voice repeating the word “Ratimana” over and over. What it meant was impossible to say. It was strange what the mind could conjure up when left to its own devices.

  So he stared up into the blackness and thought dreary thoughts. It felt like from the first moment he’d stepped out of the initiate and become a fully functioning Sensitive, the Order had been under attack. The Murashev had tried to destroy Vermillion, and now he was certain that Arch Abbot Hastler had been working with the Circle of Stars. Hatipai had tried to return to the world, and he had hard evidence that they’d aided the false goddess there too. Now one of their number was in the Imperial Palace, spreading poison and arranging for the Grand Duchess to disappear.

  “I have to get out of here,” Merrick said aloud. It was mostly to hear the sound of his own voice before he went mad—however once he had let the words out, he wished he had not. The room ate his words. No echo, no sound reached his ears. It was a horrible effect that gave him chills.

  He decided immediately that he would keep his thoughts to himself.

  However, they kept rolling around to Zofiya. It was maddening not knowing if she was dead or alive. Surely they would have come down and fetched him if she had been found murdered. That sort of deed would demand immediate retribution from the Emperor, and even the Presbyterial Council would not be able to stop him.

  Merrick struck that eventuality off his list. They had not come for him, therefore Zofiya must still be missing. And if she was missing, then she was of some use to the Circle of Stars. The Sensitive ground his teeth together. One fact kept rising to the surface. She was the second in line to the throne.

  When the King of Delmaire had sent one of his spare sons to rule over Arkaym, the deal had been that his unwanted sister went with him, and should Kaleva produce no heirs…

  The young Deacon swallowed hard as he considered the implications of that. Implications that also included him. By the Bones! What if he’d gotten the Grand Duchess pregnant?

  That thought made Merrick sit bolt upright in his narrow, mean-spirited bed. All the other quandaries paled in comparison to that one. No, no, Zofiya had been no maid. She would have taken the powders to keep that eventuality from occurring. Still…he had slept with the Emperor’s sister.

  He would see her again. If the Circle of Stars had her, and thought she was useful enough to keep, then there would be a way to get her back.

  Only the darkling in his head whispered to him.

  You could not save Nynnia. You could not protect her.

  The idea that the same thing could happen to Zofiya was too horrible to contemplate—and not just for the Empire. Despite all his control and all his training, the thought chased around in the back of his brain, and would not let him sleep for the longest time.

  FOURTEEN

  Entering the Nest

  “There is always a way in to a fortress,” Aachon muttered to Sorcha as they tramped through the thick, humid nighttime jungle, with only the light of his weirstone held aloft to guide them. “You only have to think about the needs of the place. Food, water, effluent…”

  Sorcha was listening to him, but mostly concentrating on keeping upright. She supposed that she should be glad that her legs were still working. The Autumn Eagle had circled into the wild a bit, and let them down via rope ladder. It had been a relief that Captain Lepzig did not argue with the instructions to avoid the Imperial Airship port. Seemingly something about that strange fortress stilled any concerns about protocol he might have had. Sorcha shared his unease about the fortress.

  “It just depends how desperate you are to get in,” Aachon went on talking, pointing to the towering destination beneath the full-bellied moon that they could glimpse through the rare breaks in the trees. “Have you noticed something about this palace?”

  Sorcha wiped sweat out of her eyes and glared at it, while the half dozen crew members walked around her not wanting to engage in any extraneous conversations. “It looks bloody impregnable.”

  “You think that’s what the lack of windows says?” Aachon laughed. “It doesn’t make for a welcoming appearance, but I don’t think it is for the benefit of outsiders. I think it is to make the inhabitants happy.” He swung a machete, knocking down a section of bamboo.

  “They must be very strange inhabitants,” Sorcha grumbled as they moved on again.

  “The west is very strange,” Aachon agreed, battering at the swarming mosquitoes with little effect.

  They went on a little farther before she could take no more. The first mate obviou
sly knew something, and their link through the weirstone was giving her no clue what that might be. It was frustrating, because with Merrick she wouldn’t have had to ask. “Aachon, if you have information about what we’re going into then I would appreciate you sharing it with me.”

  The big man shrugged. “I don’t know much about this kingdom except a few things: it is far from the center of the Empire, it has fewer Deacons than anywhere else, and the land is wild. The stories of this land are full of danger.”

  Sorcha pressed her lips together. The man was infuriating, and it was no wonder he had not been able to continue in the Order if this was how he was prepared to share. “Such as?” she urged.

  “Blood. The west is soaked in blood they say. And there are rumors of rituals and creatures that dine upon it.”

  Sorcha shook her head. Residing in Vermillion there was a tendency to think the whole of the Empire was like the city, but the truth was the capital was the most civilized place on the continent. It had the most Deacons and was therefore the most free of geists. It was important—but hard—to remember that vast tracts of Kaleva’s dominion were wild and untamed.

  “Who do you know that would build a fortress without windows?” Aachon tilted his head and regarded her from under his shaggy eyebrows.

  She pondered that question, while staggering after the crew members ahead. Her training was extensive, and she ran through the different geists it could possibly be, but none were quite right. There were plenty of undead that preferred the dark, but most were simple, hungry beings that would not have the control needed to build a whole fortress.

  “I can’t think of any, but—” She stopped suddenly, as she made the connection. “You mean not a geist…a geistlord?”

  Aachon nodded somberly.

  “But this is the capital of the province? A geistlord for a Prince?”

  “A Princess in fact,” Aachon corrected her. The first mate turned and raised one eyebrow in her direction. “From your experience in Chioma is that so hard to believe?”

  The recollection of the Prince, willing to die for his people, yet part geistlord, gave her a pang. She had been struck by him and his tragic fate. “He was not a geistlord,” she snapped.

  “As near as makes no good.”

  Sorcha swallowed a response and wished once again Merrick was at her side. She began wondering about the Abbey here in Phia. It certainly couldn’t survive with a geistlord so near—not unless it was corrupt. She’d seen far too many of those kind of outposts of the Order lately, when even just a year ago she’d wouldn’t have thought there was one.

  “I am beginning to wonder what the Arch Abbot was thinking coming to Arkaym,” she said, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead.

  Aachon did not reply to that, but she already knew the answer; the Order was dedicated to rooting out unliving in all the places it had grabbed a hold. It didn’t matter if it was geist or geistlord, they were set against. Even if Sorcha was uncertain of her status in the Order, she’d dedicated her life to the same goal.

  The buzzing of insects and the slap of damp foliage kept them all busy for the next hour—far too busy to bother with words. Animals moved in the jungle around them, but luckily they were all moving away from them. Still it was hard not to imagine that the whole native world of Ensomn was against them.

  Sorcha felt as though at any moment she might collapse in a damp bundle on the jungle floor, but she called on all her reserves to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She reminded herself that with each step she was getting nearer to Raed.

  “I won’t let him get away this time,” she muttered, batting aside an umbrella-sized leaf that threatened to slap her in the face. She was thinking how good it would feel just to be held by him. One little goal at a time.

  By the time they reached the narrow clearing around the fortress, every one of them was thoroughly sick of the jungle. They were all sweating like pigs, bitten by ravenous insects, and were covered in mud up to their thighs; not exactly the best-looking group of invaders.

  Aachon wrapped his main weirstone in the sleeve of his jacket, and ordered all the lanterns they’d been using doused as they stepped from the trees onto the rocky ground. He still held the stone’s connection alive for Sorcha, and she was impressed at his casual control of it.

  However the sharp tang of its power was making her head ache, and her eyes burn. Aachon might be able to hold his grip on the power for a long time, but she doubted she could.

  Cautiously Sorcha put on her Gauntlets. “I hope you have control over that thing, Aachon. It would be a shame to recover from a coma just to fall into another one.”

  “Yes,” he said, fixing her with a piercing look, “that would be most unfortunate. One can’t count on two miraculous recoveries.”

  Serigala’s disappearance had raised some issues for the first mate—that much was certain—but Aachon’s connection to her was not as powerful as a Bond, and so he couldn’t possibly be able to read what had actually happened from her mind. He was most certainly not Merrick.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” Naleni, short, bitter and utterly contemptuous of Sorcha, would not address the Deacon, and most certainly would not ask for directions from her.

  Aachon jerked his head toward the place where the fortress, tall, black and imposing, met the scrubbed earth. “I don’t care what sort of creature you are, if you have flesh you have to deal with the effluent of living.” He pointed to where a small stream ran out of the base of the stones. “We’re going to follow that up into the fortress, find our Prince, and then get out.” He turned and smiled at them grimly. “I suggest you all learn to keep your mouths shut. It’s going to get messy, but we have Deacon Sorcha Faris on our side.”

  The crew members shared worried looks, while others began tying back their hair shooting doubting glances toward the Deacon. Frith whispered something to Naleni under her breath that made the other woman shake her head emphatically.

  They could look as skeptical as they like, Sorcha was busy being glad of the power that flowed through her. It gave her Center a wider reach than it would have otherwise. The Deacon closed her eyes, and dipped once more into the strength of the weirstone. It was unpleasant, but it meant she could see.

  Sorcha reminded herself that, despite the fact that the vision provided by the weirstone was not as precise as it would have been with Merrick, she wasn’t looking for much, apart from Raed and keeping an eye out for this geistlord—in whatever form it might take. Taking a long, deep breath the Deacon now focused it on the fortress. Immediately, she could tell that Aachon’s hunch was unfortunately correct. The place reeked of geist activity, but of a kind she’d never seen before.

  “It’s like the whole place is undead,” she whispered to herself. After opening her eyes, and flexing her head from side to side to relieve a little stiffness, Sorcha refocused. Nothing changed. No particular place in the fortress flickered with the telltale signature of the undead; the entire building did. It was entirely unprecedented. For a time she was quite dazzled by it; dazzled, confused and just a little bit frightened.

  Aachon pulled Sorcha aside, his hand tight on her forearm. She flinched back in surprise as he barked at her. “Do you feel it? Can you hear the Rossin in there?”

  He must be able to see the same thing she was seeing, but he said nothing about the all-encompassing geist presence. Aachon was nothing if not dedicated to his Prince, and he would ignore everything else until the Young Pretender was safe. Since he wasn’t going to bring it up, stubbornly Sorcha decided that she wouldn’t either. This close, she could feel Raed like a splinter under her skin; a constant distraction from reality. But more precisely, she could feel the Rossin, as Aachon could. The geistlord was there, right along with Raed.

  He burned through her bones, and reminded her of the power that could be hers if she merely reached for it. She’d felt that before, but there was something else. The Rossin’s flame was far hotter than she ever recalled it be
ing—even in Chioma, when faced with the geistlord Hatipai, the beast had not felt like this.

  “Yes,” she finally nodded. “It has him, but it feels like the Rossin has been present for a long time.” She felt along the Bond. It remained intact, but the whisper of Raed was very faint.

  “The Rossin has always abandoned my prince after it is sated,” Aachon said, glancing over his shoulder, “but if things have changed, then we cannot be sure we can get Raed out. Not without being killed by the creature, that is.”

  Sorcha pressed her lips together, remembering the last devastating time she’d been face-to-face with the Rossin. It had begun with the death of two innocent women, and rapidly gone downhill from there. “What are you suggesting?”

  “While we go in through the sewers, you use some of those runes of yours, phase through walls and get to the Rossin. Only you have any chance of pulling him back and reclaiming the Prince.”

  Her desire to see Raed again, to hold him tight, even if just for a moment, was intense, but she had to be careful. She pushed her tangled and sweaty hair back from her eyes, and nodded tightly. “All right, but you better hold that connection open. I was lucky in Orinthal running through walls without Merrick. I don’t want to push the fates any further than I have to. Without you I could be some very pretty wall decoration.”

  As expected Aachon did not laugh, instead he turned and bellowed at the crew; they were used to it. Only Arriann made any kind of grumble, the rest quickly scattered to their tasks.

  Sorcha adjusted her blue cloak, one that she might not have a right to anymore, and ran toward the dreadful-looking fortress without looking back. She would have been far more grateful for a Hunter’s Moon than the gleam of a full one; it made her feel very much exposed over this open ground.

  As she ran, stretching her legs to the greatest strain they had encountered in months, she thought, By the Bones, it is good to be moving again.

  Her body had made a remarkable recovery thus far, but she didn’t know if she trusted it enough to believe it wouldn’t fail her at an important moment. Her legs were shaky and her vision uncomfortably blurred in and out if she turned her head too fast. Sorcha couldn’t be sure it was the weirstone that was keeping her upright. She most certainly did not like relying on it.