Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  It was frustrating being without his Center, but he heard the words, though it sounded like a distant conversation muffled by walls. “Ratimana…Vashill…”

  Merrick frowned. The first was the same name he had heard in the Silence Room, the second was also familiar.

  “What can it mean?” Kolya asked, head tilted.

  Merrick took a long breath. He shouldn’t have imagined that Nynnia would give up on him. She and he still shared a connection that had nothing to do with the Bond or the Order. She might be lost to him, but she was the one who had gone to a great deal of trouble to be born into the human world, just to help stave off the Murashev. She was still watching him.

  “I don’t know who or what this Ratimana is, but the widow Vashill is someone Sorcha and I helped a few months back.” He pulled his borrowed cloak tighter around himself. “We need to head to Tinker’s Lane and ask the delightful lady a few questions.”

  “Tinker’s Lane?” Kolya tucked the book away, and glanced up and down the alley. “That’s back toward the center of the city? There are probably Deacons and Imperial Guard out looking for us.”

  “What other choice do we have? It’s night now and this is our best chance.” He clapped Kolya on the shoulder. “Let’s try and think of it like an adventure.”

  Kolya shook his head and smiled. “Now you are sounding like Sorcha, and that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  Merrick laughed. “I am sure she would appreciate that.”

  They circled back through the Edge, and found a slightly better bridge to cross over. Since they were fugitives from the Order, they kept their hoods up. When they crossed back to the islands, the clouds cleared and the rain gave up making them miserable. Vermillion was drawing into evening and the stars were leaping to life in the sky.

  Merrick much preferred looking up than taking any notice of the city. The moon and the stars had always been a mystery to him. However, he should have been able to understand everything about the people and things around him—yet he was blind.

  Kolya also appeared depressed. After the excitement and rush of escape, the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in. As they passed the Street of Tailors, the older Deacon finally broke their silence. He stepped closer to Merrick so that they would not be overheard.

  “What if the Order cannot be fixed?” He asked the question that had been burning its way inside the younger man. “What will happen to Arkaym without us to deal with the geists? We’ll be thrown back to the dark times.” Kolya shook his head. “I joined the Order to make a difference.”

  “The Pattern,” Merrick replied. “The librarian said something about the Pattern. If the Emperor did something to it, maybe it can be repaired or remade.”

  “We don’t even know what it looks like,” Kolya said miserably. “The Presbyters and the Arch Abbot would know, but we can hardly go back and ask them.”

  Merrick shot him a look, but the other Sensitive did not even pretend to notice. Widow Vashill had been an awkward client, and it was in her house that Sorcha had encountered the shade that eventually took them to Orinthal. However, when they returned to Vermillion, Merrick had been left with very little to do.

  So he’d checked up on their only real geist case in the capital. Widow Vashill had been glad of the company, and so he hoped that their unexpected nighttime visit now wouldn’t come as a complete shock.

  They kept their nondescript hoods up and stayed to the less populated streets, trying to keep out of anyone’s attention. However, when Merrick heard his name hissed from an alleyway he did turn reflexively. Another cloaked figure beckoned to him, and before Kolya could stop him, the younger Deacon went toward it.

  The Imperial Guard would not have lured him, merely snatched him from the street, and the same went for the Arch Abbot. When he got closer, Merrick relaxed a little. He recognized instantly the rather distinctive nose of the person standing in the shadows. Leonteh Norin had been the last person in any of their shared novitiate classes to ever raise his hand. The gangly redhead lad from Vermillion was also the smartest in the class. He’d become an Active Deacon days before Merrick left with Sorcha for the east.

  Now he was standing in the darkness of an alleyway, behind a pile of refuse from the nearest public house. He was not wearing his blue cloak. He locked his right hand around Merrick’s offered one and grinned. “By the Bones, it’s good to find you Merrick!”

  “You were looking for me?” It seemed strange that any of the Order would want anything to do with him after using his wild talent on them.

  “Well, everyone is looking for you,” Leonteh replied, “but some of us for a different reason.” He stepped back and another half dozen Deacons revealed themselves in the shadows. Merrick recognized a couple of them from his class, but the others were older. Tighon Murn was even older than Sorcha.

  “What’s going on?” Kolya, finally unable to contain his concern, joined them. “Are you going to drag Merrick back to the Abbey?” His hand actually went to his sword hilt.

  Leonteh could not have looked more offended if he’d tried. “No! Some of us left just after you did. The Arch Abbot should never have considered handing you over to the Emperor.”

  Tighon Murn shook his head, his dark eyes distant as he contemplated what they had come to. “We are an Order of brothers bound together by our work. Even Kaleva comes second to that.”

  Merrick swallowed hard, remembering his history. The first Order and the first Deacon had not lasted long. Schism after schism fractured it, until there were more than twenty Orders. Every break was a peril for normal folk, and it had been generations since there had been one. Eventually, the Orders realized that they had a greater calling.

  Had he inadvertently caused a new schism? The cold claimed his belly again.

  “It’s not just us.” Leonteh took him by the arm, looking nothing like the prankster boy he’d been only a few years before. “About thirty Deacons took the chance to get out.” He revealed a plum-sized weirstone in his hand. “We set off to find you, before the Arch Abbot shut and barred the gates. I’ll tell the others we found you and that the dark lady was right. She said—”

  Merrick closed his classmate’s hand over the glow of the stone. “What do you mean?”

  “The dark lady.” Leonteh looked back at his fellows. “We all heard her last night. She told us that whatever happened, we had to stay with you. She spoke to us in Ancient and showed us a dire path that would swallow up the Order forever unless we followed her instructions.”

  Everywhere he went Nynnia had smoothed the way for him. However, whatever she was seeing from her vantage point on the Otherside, he was not.

  “She said the gates would be locked in the Order,” Kolya interrupted, “and they were locked and barred as they never have been since we came here.” He turned to Merrick. “If she wants us together, then we should be together.”

  He trusted her. Even people who had only seen her once in their dreams trusted her. Merrick sighed and realized he would have to believe in her too, because that was all he had at this moment. He smiled hesitantly at Leonteh. “Tell them to meet us at Widow Vashill’s establishment in Tinker’s Lane—but let them know to come in small groups. We don’t want to attract attention.”

  While his classmate raised the weirstone and did just that, Merrick gave the others instructions. He and Kolya set off, knowing they would follow in dribs and drabs. He hoped the widow had plenty of food and water, because tonight she was going to get some very unexpected guests.

  NINETEEN

  Loyalty and Challenge

  The crew formed up behind their captain with grim faces and primed pistols. Sorcha and Aachon took the front positions. Surprise was the only advantage they had, and she was going to use it the best she could. Standing by the door in the dark chamber, the Deacon could hear the footsteps of the approaching people they had just listened in on. Sorcha took a long, steady breath.

  The tang of the weirstone’s power
was the only thing keeping her upright and functioning, but it tasted flat, coppery and chill compared with Merrick. She was pining for his strength and good sense, and as soon as she could, she was going to drag Raed back to Vermillion to find him. If they survived of course.

  With that thought, Sorcha took a step into the corridor and spread her Gauntlets wide before her. She only had a brief instant to take in the people before her. Tangyre was there, her arm guiding a shorter, younger, blonder woman before her, and Sorcha thought Fraine looked very little like her brother. Behind were three more women, but with bone-white hair and skin. In them, the Deacon could feel the flicker of the Wrayth, lying just under their skin like a serpent.

  They glanced up, and it was not her imagination, something in their eyes told her they recognized what she was.

  If they saw anything about Caoirse in her, she was pleased. Like her mother she would teach them a thing or two about Deacons. She didn’t spare them a word as she darted forward, slipped between Tangyre, who was now reaching for her sword, and Fraine. She made no introductions. Instead she kicked out hard with her left leg, connecting with the younger woman’s knee; she sent her sprawling to the ground with a surprised grunt.

  Then Sorcha summoned the rune Deiyant. It blazed like white lightning on her palm as she pushed forward toward the line of women. The power of the Gauntlet filled the confined space of the hallway with a massive explosion of air. Like a geist moving furniture, Sorcha used Deiyant to toss the bodies of all before her. They were chaff in her way. As a Deacon she’d never done such a thing to humans before and wasn’t sure she dare examine too closely how good it felt.

  Raed and his crew sprang from the shadows and scooped up the stunned Fraine before anyone could scramble up off the floor. She screamed and kicked furiously, but Raed disarmed her, and there were more of them than one outraged Princess could manage. Sorcha saw the cold light in Raed’s eyes as he grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her to her feet. He bound her hands before her with sharp efficiency.

  Aachon and Sorcha took up the rear while the rest of the crew bundled their captive away with them, back the way they had come, toward the riser.

  It seemed like a dangerous apparatus to make their escape, but it was all they had. They would have to trust it since Sorcha could not phase all of them through the walls.

  “Nicely done,” Aachon commented as the riser continued its ascent. “We should be able to summon Captain Lepzig with the weirstone to pick us up from the roof.”

  “You’re all dead,” Fraine spat, straining against Arriann who had taken stern control of her. “I’ll have the Wrayth slit your throats just like I ordered done to your crew members in Chioma.”

  The men and women who heard this glanced at Raed in undisguised shock. This was news to every one of them, including Sorcha. If what the Princess said was true, the Deacon could understand why the Young Pretender would keep it from them at least until they were beyond the nest.

  Aachon drew back his hand, as if to slap the Princess stupid, but then at the last moment held his blow. “They died for their captain as we all would. He’s earned our respect over many years. How many can you say would do that for you?” His voice was wracked with choked-back rage. It was the most emotional the Deacon had ever seen him.

  Sorcha could understand; broken loyalties and conspiracies had almost destroyed her beloved Order. She touched his shoulder. “She isn’t worth it.”

  Raed stepped between his sister and his first mate. “Enough, Fraine. I don’t know what you gave up to the Wrayth, but this isn’t the way to revenge yourself on me—bringing a whole Empire to the very brink of civil war.”

  “Brink?” Her smile was chill. “Brother, it has already begun.”

  The truthfulness of that statement could not be tested right then, because no sooner were the words out of her mouth than shots rang out above them. Many shots.

  Instinctively everyone ducked down, but the bullets were not aimed at the people. They rained down against the top of the riser like hailstones.

  Aachon grabbed Sorcha’s hand. “Guards above are trying to shoot out the mechanism for the machine. We have to stop them!”

  The Deacon looked at him as if he were mad. She understood the risk, but she had no way of targeting anyone. Her Sight was not that accurate without Merrick and she had more chance of killing them all with a misplaced blast of Pyet, than she did of halting the assault on their transportation.

  Apparently the Wrayth had what they needed from Fraine, because they were showing scant regard for her safety. Tangyre must have had no say in the matter either. However, Raed, perhaps out of habit, had covered his sister’s body with his own. Not that it mattered.

  For just then, the shots had their intended effect. The riser lurched from side to side like a ball on a string, and the sound of groaning metal filled their ears. The passengers had nowhere to jump to escape, and Sorcha could think of only one mad chance. Spreading herself on the floor she shouted, “Hold on,” to the crew.

  It was perhaps an unnecessary piece of advice. The chain above finally snapped under the assault, and the riser began to do quite the opposite; it began to fall like a lead weight back the way they had come. The sensation of her stomach trying to force its way into her throat was a new one to Sorcha, and it was accompanied by a feeling that she was almost without any weight. In other circumstances that might have been enjoyable, but since she knew they were all about to be crushed to death at the bottom of the fortress it took away much of the fun.

  She had enough time to glance sideways at Aachon, and scream, “Everything! Now!”

  The weirstone flooded her with power and then shattered. It filled the inside of the riser with tiny crystal shards, and the sound of Aachon’s wail of outrage. However, since everyone else was screaming it was lost in the din.

  Pressing her Gauntlets down on the floor, Sorcha summoned Aydien, the Rune of Repulsion. Now the riser was filled with screams, broken shards of weirstone and a flood of blue light. The Deacon added her own howl to the mix, just for good measure.

  Her eyes blurred as she held on. The rune had never been used for this, that she’d heard, but she could think of nothing else. Everyone screamed as the riser bounced against the sides of the shaft. Its descent seemed relentless and to go on for the longest time.

  Then blue fire exploded around them, wiping out—for a moment at least—thought, consciousness and hope. Sorcha felt, rather than heard, the riser shatter all about them. It broke and flew into as many shards as Aachon’s weirstone.

  That seemed to be it.

  Then reality found her again; found her shaking her head free of weirstone shards, and tossed not too far from the bottom of the shaft. Staggering to her feet, Sorcha yanked off her Gauntlets and tucked them with numb fingers into her belt. There would be no use for them now.

  It took another few moments before she found Raed, climbing to his knees. In celebration, she planted a kiss on his lips, while he was still looking around bemused.

  “Are we all getting that treatment?” Balis was pulling a dazed-looking Fraine to her feet, a trickle of blood from a cut on his head staining his cheek. The sharp thought that if the young Rossin had died in the accident things might have been easier, passed through Sorcha’s head. Immediately she felt terrible for such callousness.

  Aachon climbed out of the shaft, over the remains of the riser. His glove was covered in the dust of the lost weirstone and his expression pained. Still he was moving, and Sorcha took that as a very fine thing.

  The Deacon did a quick head count, and smiled. “I think I’ve found a new use for Aydien,” Sorcha coughed on her own pride. Every one of the crew members was there, alive. Perhaps not exactly undamaged—but still alive.

  “No chance of the rooftop then,” Raed said, wiping dust out of his eyes. “So I guess we get to try this infernal tunnel instead.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a low groan began to rumble out of the tun
nels behind them. The peon level Wrayth were struggling to their feet, their naked bodies covered in the debris of the crash. Many of them sported far more horrific injuries than those that had taken the tumble with the riser.

  “Aachon,” Sorcha whispered, as a peon with a large slice of metal buried in his shoulder began to orientate on them, “how quickly do you think you can activate the weirstones of the tunnel?”

  The big man shook himself, and his eyes took a spell to focus on her. How long had the first mate been using the weirstone he had just lost, she wondered. Its loss could signal more damage than they could afford right now. However he still had far more experience with weirstones than she did—especially considering she couldn’t stand the things.

  The vacant eyes of the peons were unnerving, especially as they came ambling toward them. The crew formed a rough circle around Aachon and Fraine, close to the tunnel. The Princess remained still, head bowed and her expression unreadable.

  Raed, standing next to Sorcha, blade drawn, chuckled. In this dire situation he actually chuckled. “You know, my dear Deacon, one day I would like to court you properly. You know…without the geistlords, the angry goddess or the nest of hungry Wrayth.”

  Sorcha considered what sort of strange world that would be. “Damnation, that sounds like a lovely dream, but I will take whatever I can get.”

  The peons were assembling in a mob that would certainly overrun them eventually. She was reminded of the gathering outside Vermillion palace that she’d had to deal with. That had been the beginning of her journey of discovery. She hoped she didn’t have to kill any more folk than she had that day. It looked unlikely at this point.

  Still, possessed by either geistlord or geist, the result would be the same. Briefly she considered doing what she had in Chioma, acting without Sight. But she was drained of her own strength now, and without the support of Aachon even worse than blind. Yet…all these people—including Raed—were relying on her…