Geist to-1

by Philippa Ballantine

  Good: he had her talking. He might be powerless at this instant, but maybe there would be an instant when he would not be. Knowledge was the only thing he could gather at this moment.

  “But you’re one of us,” he gasped. “A Prior, a confidant of the Arch Abbot . . .”

  Her smile showed a lot of yellow, sharp teeth. “I am so much more than that, lad, and tomorrow night all shall be revealed.”

  The cold knot in the pit of his stomach began to resolve itself into boulder-sized apprehension. She did not linger to elaborate. He was left alone, manacled to the floor and looking up at that word hanging ominously above him. The Deacon couldn’t tell how long he lay there with his own bitter thoughts.

  “Merrick.” The familiar voice to his left made him both incredibly glad and incredibly worried.

  “Nynnia.” He lifted his head off the ground and flicked it from side to side, trying to find her. Finally, he saw her standing in the dancing shadows cast by the torches on the wall. Her sweet face was pale and folded in concern, but she did not come closer. She was looking up at the cantrips above him.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, terrified that Aulis and her Actives would return. “They are only meant to hold me here and stifle the Bond between Faris and myself. Maybe you can find the key for the manacles?”

  She stayed where she was, huddled next to a pillar, and her brown eyes focused upward with the sort of dread horror he would have thought reserved for geists or murderers. “I . . . I can’t.” Her voice was very soft, so soft, in fact, that he almost feared that he was hallucinating and she was only a wishful figment of his brain.

  “Please, you have to help, Nynnia. They’re going to kill Sorcha and do something worse to Captain Rossin.” He hated to put her in danger, but what other choice did he have? It wasn’t just his life at risk. Every person in Ulrich was in danger—or maybe even further. Aulis had a plan, and lordship of one remote township didn’t seem worth the risk of bringing the Arch Abbey down on herself.

  “I wish I could.” She paused, and he could hear the honesty in her voice. It sounded as though she was really torn. “My father, Merrick . . . What will they do to him if I help you?” Nynnia still did not come out of the shadows.

  He slumped back against the floor with a sigh, and gradually it dawned on him; there was only one real choice. He stared up at the cantrips for a minute, and then spoke. “What about my Strop, Nynnia? Did you see where they took that?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her give a quick nod.

  “Then can you get it—can you bring it to me?” Stripped of his Sight and afraid, it was very hard for Merrick to judge anything. The rapid trip of her pulse in her throat indicated she was indeed frightened, yet her expression was hard to fathom.

  “I can try.” She sounded like she was very close to tears. “I will try, Merrick. But I am afraid of the Actives. If they could do this to you . . .”

  He knew was asking a lot of the young woman, but if she didn’t bring him what he needed, Sorcha would be only the first to die. He didn’t need to know the Prior’s plan to be sure of that.

  Merrick tried to keep his voice low and even, like he was talking to a very nervous animal. “Just the Strop, Nynnia. Just bring me the Strop and I will do the rest.” His next words remained locked inside him . . . If I have the courage for it.

  As they climbed the rise for the second time in as many days, Raed noticed that she tested the pull of her sword in its scabbard. Deacons seldom bothered with physical weapons, but he heard they trained hard with them. The Pretender had no need to check his saber.

  As they neared the top, almost within sight of where they knew the townspeople were gathered, she stopped him with a hand on the crook of his elbow. “Your crew, Captain Rossin—how many of them know how to fight?”

  Perhaps he should have said something like, “It won’t come to that,” or, “You’re not making cannon fodder out of my men,” but one look at her deadly serious face and he knew that more was at stake than she would admit to him. He guessed that it was not just about a dozen possessed children, but something much darker. Anything that could scare a Deacon, let alone this one, was not something he could ignore. If he was honest with himself, he considered this still his kingdom.

  “About half are well-seasoned warriors,” he replied. “The others are brave enough but have not trained. We tend to avoid conflict rather than take it on full tilt.”

  Her nod was thoughtful, as if she was quietly making the mental calculations of what was stacked against them. Her head jerked up, and those sharp blue eyes met his. “We’d best see what other resources we have available, then.” With that, she turned and strode in the direction of the encampment.

  Raed wondered how the citizens of Ulrich would respond to being described in such a way.

  It was certainly a good thing that Sorcha was not wearing the immediately recognizable cloak of an Active, because they would probably have been peppered with gunfire before they got within thirty yards of the group. It helped that the citizens were all watching the Priory rather than the approach from the town.

  Even if they’d not just come through the empty streets of Ulrich, it would have been apparent that this was nearly the entire population. The crowd included men and women, all carrying makeshift weapons; fishermen with long gaffes, farmers with their scythes and pitchforks, and bakers with their long wooden paddles. Everyone was focused on the grim building that hung over their town. After doing a quick head count, Raed judged there to be more than a hundred people, all waiting for something to happen on the ridge.

  He pointed to the middle of a group on the left. “There’s the mayor—see his chain of office?” It was a small insignia, to go with a small town, but he’d caught a glint off it from the noon sun.

  Sorcha straightened her Order badge on her left shoulder and indicated he should go first. If she had expected that the Young Pretender would get a better reception here than she would, she was sadly mistaken.

  The Mayor turned to Raed and gave him a somewhat withering look; either he recognized him and was not impressed, or he didn’t and was annoyed at the interruption. His face was young but his eyes were hard in their sockets and his face was grim. Raed knew the look. Very well, he judged, a man who appreciates straight talk.

  He held out his hand. “I am Captain Raed Rossin, of the ship Dominion. I’ve come to offer my assistance.”

  “I am Mayor Erasmus Locke.” The Mayor’s face relaxed slightly, but then his gaze drifted to the woman who stood behind the Pretender. His eyes dropped to the sigil she had replaced on her chest and his mouth flew open in shock. Raed decided quick action was called for, before either the Mayor or, indeed, Sorcha could say anything.

  “This is Deacon Faris, whom I myself transported on my ship, and who was sent by the Arch Abbot to aid you against these transgressors.”

  The Mayor’s gaze flitted between the two of them. His voice was gruff, almost that of an old man. “We have no need of more Deacons here.”

  Raed took hold of Sorcha’s arm, giving it a slight squeeze as he drew her forward. She glared at him, but leapt into the breach he had created. “I can assure you that I am no friend of the woman calling herself Prior—in fact, she is holding my partner prisoner.”

  Mayor Locke’s lips twisted. “And now I suppose you want our help to get him back?” The tone of his voice was bitter. The citizens around him shifted, muttering to themselves.

  The moment hung on a knife’s edge. Raed wondered if they might not have to make a run for it, but once again Sorcha surprised him. “I have examined your children and I know you have good reason to be angry.” She ducked her head and then glanced up at the Mayor with a grim smile. “However, I am here to set things right.” Her bright blue eyes sparkled with determination through the strands of her copper hair.

  The Pretender realized that Sorcha was not beyond using her beauty to manipulate those around her if necessary. It might not be her weapon
of preference, but she was aware of it—and Erasmus Locke was not immune. His shoulders relaxed. The people, those who should have been Raed’s people, had learned to trust the Deacons in the last years, and it was easy to fall back into that habit under the steady stare of Sorcha Faris.

  “We can’t get in.” A tall woman tightened her grip on a baling spike and shook it in the direction of the locked Priory. “They stood and did nothing while my Lyith suffered.” Her voice cracked. “They actually turned us away.”

  Sorcha exchanged a glance with Raed. Her face was flushed with anger, but her eyes were glassy with something that might have been a tear. “We shall make everything as it should be. That is what the Arch Abbot sent us here to do, and when I have my partner back, we can help.”

  “How can you do anything against a Priory full of Deacons?” A sharp voice rang out from the huddle of the crowd, and Raed knew it for a very valid question. He was wondering the very same thing.

  “There is one thing we have that they cannot stand against.” Raed felt her eyes focus once more on him; her expression was both calculating and sad.

  Surely, she was mad. Surely she couldn’t possibly be contemplating what he imagined?

  Sorcha made a slight gesture, asking for his silence for a moment. “Mayor Locke, could you send someone down to the Captain’s ship? Ask for Aachon, and get him to send up all those who are ready for a fight.”

  A boy was dispatched, and Raed watched from the sidelines as Sorcha conversed with the Mayor and his councilors in a low voice. He didn’t take much notice of what they were saying, because his mind was spinning. He knew what she was going to say, so after a few minutes when she strode toward him, his jaw was clenched and he was ready to argue.

  Behind her, the people of Ulrich were newly invigorated, snapping into action and organizing themselves into something resembling forms. Whatever she had said to them had brought positive results.

  He glared at Sorcha, feeling every muscle in his body rigid with rage. It was much easier to be angry than to be scared.

  “So you’ve guessed,” she began. “The only advantage we have right now is you, and the Rossin.”

  “You cannot use the creature as a weapon!”

  “Listen,” she hissed, shooting a glance over her shoulder at the townspeople, “they are right; there is no way I can possibly stand up against the dozen other Actives waiting for us in there.”

  Raed shook his head. He didn’t want to hear anything, let alone something that might make sense.

  “Aside from the fact these people need us”—she stepped closer to him, so close that he could feel her warmth—“we are trapped here, and I am sure that Aulis has a plan of her own. It won’t be good for us. I can tell you that now, for free.”

  All of his choices were whittled away. Raed felt as trapped as sheep in a farmer’s pen, ready for the butcher’s knife. He took a slow deep breath; it never hurt to hear what people had to say. “All right—what do you propose? How can you possibly control the Rossin?”

  Sorcha smiled, a flash of wry amusement. “Control him? I have no desire to control the Rossin. But I believe I can possibly give him something productive to do.”

  The Priory looked as impregnable as any fortress he’d ever seen. He thought about surrendering to the Curse, about how he had feared it since his own mother’s blood had filled his mouth. It seemed unlikely that anything good could come from the Rossin. Then he thought of the children chained in their own homes, his own crew trapped on the ship, and the Deacon whom they’d unknowingly left to his fate.

  Raed, the Young Pretender, cleared his throat. “If you think you can stop me from killing the innocent—if you can promise me that—then yes. Do it.”

  Sorcha’s hands wrapped around his; soft, warm and strong, while her vivid blue eyes remained steady with his. “Trust me, Raed. I won’t let the Beast have you for any longer than necessary, or let you slay anyone needlessly.”

  Aachon would have tried to talk him out of it, but something in Raed felt her honesty and strength. “There is no other way,” he found himself replying steadily, “and I trust you to do as you promise.”

  “Good, then.” Sorcha held his hands a little longer than strictly necessary. “Because I make none I cannot keep.”

  FOURTEEN

  A Use for Blood and Bone

  Aulis’ voice penetrated the fog that Merrick had fallen into—exhaustion and near death could do that to a person. He levered his eyes open. The woman who so falsely called herself Prior was again staring down at him as if he were a piece of meat, head on one side. He wondered what she was seeing with her obviously limited Sight. Trapped, he longed to be able to stretch forth his Center, but he’d learned from his earlier attempt. It would have to be reserved for the final moment of desperation.

  “He’s ready. Bring him.” She gestured to the Actives lurking in the shadows. One of them brought forth a set of keys and unlocked the shackles around his wrists. Merrick left himself limp until they had unshackled all his limbs; then with a surge of energy he went at them. Unfortunately, after getting strangled into unconsciousness and spending many hours lying on the cold, damp floor, he was not in the best condition. Still, he surged up at them, swinging his arms, trying to remember all that he had been taught as a novice. He managed to get a few punches in, but his body felt sodden, wrung out. He was moving too slowly.

  The Actives laughed, their voices grating on ears that felt raw. Merrick shook his head and swayed while they yanked his arms behind his back and tied them firmly. As they pushed him ahead of them, he tried one last time to reach Aulis.

  “Think of your vows.” His voice sounded slurred even to his own ears, his tongue too large for his mouth. Yet he had to try. “Think of all the Order stands for!”

  Her graying eyebrows drew together in a sharp line. “Oh, but I am thinking of it, young fool. You should have studied history more closely.”

  The Actives dragged him upstairs, and he realized he had no chance of calling on their compassion. Yet, he tried.

  The one to the right, with deep-set eyes, looked as though he must have been with the Order a long time. “You can still stop this,” Merrick managed to whisper out of the corner of his mouth, though his lips had gone slightly slack. He could only hope it was some effect of lying under those cantrips for hours and not some kind of palsy.

  The man snorted his derision.

  “Surely your partner who died—surely they . . .” Merrick called on the one thing that all Deacons shared.

  “There are no Bonds that mean anything between us and the Sensitives,” the younger-looking Active to his left growled. “They are sheep and we are wolves.”

  “Shut up, Falkirk,” the other snapped. “Let’s just get him upstairs as ordered.”

  Merrick was not capable of any more questions anyway; shock had driven him to silence. The Bond between partners was the most sacred thing to any Deacon. It was not to be mocked and used so callously. Even if Actives and Sensitives did rib each other in the confines of the Abbey, they would never say such terrible things as had just issued from the mouths of these men.

  Whatever this place called itself, it was not a Priory. They might wear cloaks the same color as Deacons, but they were not of the Order.

  Any further contemplation was cut short when they reached the ground level of the keep. The numbness in Merrick’s body turned suddenly to ice. They were once more in the main Hall. It had, however, been cleansed. The charcoal patch was scrubbed clean; the benches were pushed to the outer edges, and when he managed to turn his eyes upward he also saw that they had somehow repaired the scorches in the ceiling. The Rossin was there, glaring down at him.

  The Beast was not just some fanciful myth Raed’s family had decided to use for their family crest. It was tied to the land here; a geist of the highest order, around which legends had been built. It had never truly been tamed; its submission had been the result of a negotiation between it and the greatest Deacon in th
e mythology of the Order. Myrilian, who had been able to use his Active and Sensitive powers jointly—a feat never since achieved. It was this Deacon who was Raed’s ancestor.

  All these thoughts ran through Merrick’s fevered head as he was dragged on his heels to the front of the Hall. They’d given up all pretense of interest in him. Merrick scrambled weakly, unable to find any power in his own legs.

  A stone had been set in the spot where the lectern had once stood. Merrick shook his head groggily as he suddenly recognized the device from books—a draining board. They shoved him back roughly against it, the lines of razors slicing into his back. He lurched forward with a howl, but the two men were already lashing him against the device with merciless efficiency.

  His mind scurried to make sense of it, trying to call on his memory and his training. Blood, bone and flesh made any summoning stronger. The blood of a Deacon already steeped in the midst of the Otherside would be best of all: it would be not only his power that could be drawn, but that of his partner, as well. Sorcha Faris, the strongest of the Actives.

  To his right, Aulis appeared once more. She had discarded the blue cloak of an Active and was dressed in bright red robes. He’d never seen or heard of the like among the Order. The sleeves were embroidered with symbols and cantrips. “You see, young Deacon? All your training, all your talent—they shall not go to waste.”

  Merrick turned his head away with a sick realization burning in his head. They had weakened him enough to enter his mind; normally, of course, a Sensitive was too powerful to be broken into in such a way.

  Aulis leaned in close to him, so that he could smell sage and a whiff of smoke in her hair. “Thank you for your donation to our cause.”

  The sharp little knives dug deeper into his body with every breath. The blood slid down the channels into the brass bowl the woman bent and placed at the base of the rock. They were draining him of life, as if he were an especially ripe fruit.