As such, he was a formidable person to be seated opposite. Though Sorcha knew Hastler’s methods, she still cracked under them. She broke the quiet first. “So . . . when is the Episcopal inquiry due to start?”
His bright blue eyes were suddenly aimed right at her and any pretense of kindliness was swept away. When he had been tested as a Deacon, it was rumored that Hastler had ranked so high as an Active and Sensitive that it had been a close call which he would choose. In the end Sensitive won out, and it was only when he was raised to Arch Abbot that he had taken up the Gauntlets. Sorcha felt intimately aware of this fact as she sat pinned under that gaze. She understood he could literally see right through her—a talent no doubt very useful in his position.
“Perhaps you should be asking about your husband, instead of the consequences of activating Teisyat?” His voice remained quiet, as if they were discussing doctrine rather than the likelihood of her dismissal from the Order.
She tried to keep her tone as level as possible. “I was with Kolya all night, Reverend Father. I know he will be fine.”
“Eventually, perhaps. But he will not be suitable for duty for several months at least. The geist exacted a terrible toll on him.” The Arch Abbot set down his half-empty bowl and folded his hands, waiting for her to reveal all.
If he wanted to, he could see everything anyway. Kolya had mentioned once that sometimes what people didn’t reveal was more telling than what they did. What concerned her, apart from her husband’s injuries and her possible dismissal, was the nature of the geist responsible for both.
“It wasn’t a normal unliving entity,” she began.
“Obviously.”
“For its size, it should have been immediately apparent, but it took Kolya and I together to sense it.”
“Such things are not unknown.”
“But it read our Bond, Reverend Father. It read my thoughts, and then it turned on Kolya almost as if it could make conscious decisions. That is supposed to be beyond anything from the Otherside!”
The Arch Abbot sighed and leaned back in his chair, and this time it was Sorcha who waited for him to speak. Outside, birds could be heard chirping in the orchard, along with the low murmur of novices filing off to their classes and chores. Finally he turned back, his face furrowed with worry. “This, too, is not without precedent.”
The fragile bowl in Sorcha’s hand rattled as she tried to set it carefully down. She cleared her throat. “I know I am not privy to all the information you receive, Reverend Father, but I would think that such information would be valuable to the Deacons working in the field.”
He did not reply immediately, but got to his feet and crossed to his desk. Placing a long dispatch box in Sorcha’s hands, he took his seat once more. Looking down, she saw the gold-embossed sigil of the hand grasping many ribbons, the symbol of the Emperor.
“This was delivered before dawn this morning. Don’t read it now; the details can wait for you to ponder over, but the essence is that there is a major surge in unliving attacks to the northeast.”
“Then the Abbey rides to . . .”
“No.”
The bald reply confused Sorcha beyond measure. The Order had spent the first two years of the Emperor’s reign darting from hot spot to hot spot. With this continent’s own Priories having long fallen into ruin, the land had been overrun with the unliving. The Deacons who had come over with the Emperor had been pushed hard to keep up, but it had been their primary mandate. Yet now, here was the Arch Abbot saying that they would not be venturing out to take care of the matter. For a moment Sorcha was completely lost for words.
When the Arch Abbot spoke again, he didn’t add to her understanding. “I am sending you to the focus of the attacks to investigate: a little town called Ulrich. His Imperial Majesty and I both agree that this is the best course of action.”
Sorcha blinked. Deacons received their missions from the Presbyter Secondo; to take direction from the Arch Abbot directly was highly unusual. An honor to be sure—but not one that Sorcha felt she should welcome.
She now wished that she had asked for something a little stronger than sweet tea. “But Kolya could take weeks, maybe even months to be fit for duty,” was the best she could manage through a suddenly dry throat.
“That’s why I am assigning you a new partner before you go.”
Sorcha slumped back, nearly embarrassing herself before recovering her balance on the embroidered stool. “A new partner? But no one ever gets a new partner unless their Bond is broken, or . . .” Or if their partner was dead.
“There is precedent for this, too.” The Arch Abbot was acting as calm as ever, which was more distressing to her than anything. “And the situation will only be for this assignment. By then Kolya should be recovered.”
Arguing with the Head of her Order would be a foolish move, yet Sorcha could feel a tightness inside her stomach and a taste of bile bubbling inside her throat. Her bandaged hands began to ache. Forget that sending an untested team into a hot zone verged on the insane. Never mind that partners trained for months to get perfectly in tune with each other. The Arch Abbot was dropping her into a situation he seemed unwilling to explain.
Hastler was an evenhanded man, one who inspired trust among his Deacons. He was respected by them and by the Emperor. As one of the top-ranked partnerships in the Order, Kolya and Sorcha had always felt in the Arch Abbot’s confidence. Yet as she sat across from him, she could see he was physically tight-lipped. What this could mean, she didn’t know. She ached for a cigar at this point but decided not to argue. Her husband would have been very surprised.
Still she kept her voice calm as she went on, trying to make the best of a bad situation. “Perhaps if we were allowed to take one of the Imperial Fleet dirigibles, we could accomplish this so much—”
“The Order’s ability to demand that one of the Emperor’s valuable new contraptions change its route is limited.” Hastler’s eyes flicked from friendly to flinty in a heartbeat, reminding Sorcha that while he might look like a kindly grandfather, he was far from it. “Only in extreme circumstances would I suggest such a thing.”
Sorcha cleared her throat, and glanced longingly down at the empty cup next to her. Her mouth had gone suddenly bone-dry. “I would like to be able to wait until Kolya is conscious at least, if that is allowed, Reverend Father?”
Hastler nodded and tidied the bowls and pot on the tray. At this point, Sorcha didn’t have the strength to ponder what exactly could be causing his unusual behavior.
“Go, sit with your husband.” The Arch Abbot kept his back turned, staring out the window at the last few stubborn leaves of late autumn as they fell. “Read the report, as well. I’ll arrange a meeting with your new partner for first thing tomorrow.”
“And the Episcopal inquiry?” she asked.
“There will be none. The matter is being dealt with in a more private manner. Another thing, Deacon Faris.” His tone grew distant. “I would prefer it if you and your husband did not speak of the . . . unusual nature of your encounter.”
Compared to the strange things she had heard in this room, that was the very least. The calm of the previous day seemed a very long way off. Her only problems then had been an argument with her husband and the overeager Gent.
At the door she paused and turned back for a moment. “Am I permitted to perhaps know the name of my new partner?”
The Abbot’s voice contained something she might have interpreted as sadness. “Deacon Merrick Chambers. A bright young man and a highly ranked Sensitive.”
She didn’t know the name, but if he had been recently elevated from novitiate, then she wouldn’t. Sorcha itched for something to smoke or drink, but duty as always took higher priority.
As she left, she passed three other Deacons seated in the antechamber ready to see the Arch Abbot—so many audiences so early was enough to pique her interest. Sorcha recognized Durnis Huntro and gave him a quick smile. The somber man looked even less likely to smile
back today, and she wondered what his business was with the head of the Order. However, her own issues were more pressing, and she did not stop to ask.
Stepping out into the corridor, she discovered she still had one more audience to pass. Presbyter Rictun, wrapped in his blue cloak, was lurking in the shadows, waiting for her. If Hastler was the kindly center of the Order, then his second in command was the enforcer. It was he who usually gave out the assignments to those Deacons on duty, and his glance down at the dispatch box in her hand was sharp enough for even an Active to interpret. He didn’t like it—not one little bit. He was a young man for the role; there were only five Deacons of Presbyter rank in the Order, and yet he was not much older than Sorcha herself. How he had managed to attain such giddy height was a mystery to her.
It could have been his golden hair and good looks; it was most certainly not his charm. “Off on assignment so soon, Faris? You really know how to go through those partners of yours. I would have thought you might be a little kinder to this one, since you married him.”
Four partners was indeed above average, but one retirement, one death and one gone mad could not be all put on her doorstep. Sorcha smiled thinly, the lack of sleep and the shock of the Arch Abbot’s audience leaving her with very little endurance for the Presbyter’s mocking ways. “Kolya will be all right in time.”
Rictun raised one eyebrow. “Terrible to get caught in a riot like that.”
His fishing was always pretty blatant but this time it was just a little too far for Sorcha. Holding up her orders, she glared at the Presbyter. “Would you like to have a look, is that it?”
His eyes locked with hers, and she remembered all the other times they had argued. Rictun rubbed her the wrong way at the best of times. Perhaps he saw the impatience in her, as his gray eyes flicked away over her shoulder toward Hastler’s rooms. “No, you’d better obey the Arch Abbot. But when you get back . . .”
“I’ll report straight in,” Sorcha snapped, turned on her heel, and indulged in a little tooth grinding as she strode away down the corridor.
This Chambers, whoever he was, had better have a thick skin, because right now she needed someone to take it out on.
THREE
The Giving of Affusion
Sorcha left the Abbot’s chambers and strode through the Devotional with a lot more certainty than she actually felt. It was cool in the stone corridors of the building, high-vaulted ceilings perhaps not the best design choice for Vermillion’s winter climate, but the building had been inherited much as the Emperor had received his palace.
She passed underneath carvings of the native Abbots who had once ruled here, their symbol of a circle of five stars pinned to their chests. Many of their stone faces had been hacked off. The wars of this continent had not discriminated against those who wanted to protect it.
In the north wing, there were still lay Brothers clambering up scaffolding to install a new slate roof to replace the one destroyed in the fire that had wiped out the remainder of the native Deacons nearly seventy years before. The Mother Abbey’s Devotional building had lain in ruin, open to the tender mercies of nature, until Arch Abbot Hastler had brought the new Order to the continent. Now three years of repairs were drawing to a close. Once the roof was in place, only the scars would be visible, not the destruction.
Sorcha paused for a moment to watch the artisans working on the northern rose window—replacing the glass they’d recovered and installing new portions where that was impossible.
“Sorcha!” The familiar voice snapped her out of a melancholy turn of thought.
A tall figure emerged out of the shadows, his hands covered in white dust, his step halting.
“Garil.” She smiled in genuine happiness. “What are you doing here?”
Sorcha knew as his gray eyes looked her over that nothing could be hidden from him; the slight slump in her shoulders and the fractional frown on her brow. Yet unlike most Sensitives, she didn’t mind him observing her. Garil had been her first partner, but despite that and everything that happened, he still held her in high regard. It always rather shocked her.
“Little Red.” He hobbled over to catch her in a rough embrace. “They poked me out of my tiny Priory with some rubbish about needing my skills for this project.”
No one since Pareth, the Presbyter of the Young during Sorcha’s childhood, had dared give her a nickname, but from Garil it was somehow acceptable. Sorcha threw her arms around him with a laugh until she realized how thin he was beneath the charcoal robes. She could feel every bone. Garil was one of the few Sensitives forced into retirement by severe injury. The perpetrators had not been the unliving, but if she ever found them, they soon would be.
“So how are you, Garil?” She gently squeezed him back, afraid that she might hurt him.
“Ah, you know.” He shrugged, an awkward movement. Despite how hard the physicians had tried, his broken pelvis and back had never healed straight. “It still feels strange to wear the gray after so long in the emerald.”
He should have stayed in Delmaire but had insisted on joining the Emperor’s expedition. He’d been old then, but still one of the great Sensitives of his age. The Bond they had shared as partners had been very strong.
Sorcha cleared her throat, feeling his sadness like it was her own. Being rated unfit for duty and having to wear the charcoal robes of the retired Deacon was something that few ever got to enjoy, yet it was obvious that Garil took no pleasure from it. She could hardly blame him; the heady rush of geist battle was addictive.
“I was in the infirmary when they brought Kolya in.” The elderly Deacon shook his head. “Most unfortunate to be caught in a riot like that.” His eyes grew distant as he undoubtedly thought of his own dark night in the alley. Why anyone would beat such a kind man within an inch of death was still a mystery.
It was becoming clear that no one was going to mention the geist that obeyed no rules or her opening of Teisyat. It seemed the paper shufflers in the Abbey would be saved any disturbance.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Very unfortunate.” Glancing up at the beautiful rose window, she attempted to change the subject. “How is the restoration going?”
Garil laughed, a short little sound that contained more than a hint of bitterness. “They really don’t know what to do with an old Deacon here.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think the Arch Abbot believed I was going a little crazy out there in the wilds, worried I might say too many things.”
Sorcha shrugged. “Well, you have a lot of experience, something that we lack this far from Delmaire. You know how to get people to do things.”
Garil sighed. “Even our beloved Emperor has spent years restoring the palace—so I should not grumble.”
“Then you are following an excellent lead.”
Her old partner nodded slowly, but she sensed something else; the elderly Deacon was holding back. At any other time she would have pressed him, but she had enough on her plate not to go looking for trouble. Not today anyway.
In the name of distraction Sorcha tried him on his favorite subject. “Do you think the native Order would appreciate what we are doing to their Abbey?” She said it in jest, trying to get his grim mood to lift, but the old Deacon shrugged.
“They left so few records it is impossible to tell. I do know that when they were cut off here for so long, their ways were rumored to have grown a little strange.”
During her training, history had been the bane of Sorcha’s life, but now her interest was a little piqued; the looming statues of those who had come before seemed somewhat more than mere rock today. She knew that in the dark ages Saint Cristin had landed in a tiny boat on the new continent and founded the native Order, but that was as far as her knowledge went. Garil had studied everything he could about the founding Deacons, yet even he didn’t have all the answers.
The conversation had strayed into uncomfortable territory. “Perhaps if our Order stays here for six hundred years, we too will be considered
strange,” she offered.
Garil’s great bushy eyebrows drew together, and he looked away. “Maybe we already are.” His voice was a low rumble, and Sorcha restrained an inappropriate smile. Her old partner was not taking retirement at all well.
“You at least have earned some rest, Garil.”
“Maybe so,” muttered her old partner as he glanced up at his workers. “But back in Delmaire . . . Well, there are more gray cloaks. Here . . .” The rest remained unsaid. Here there were very few old members of the Order.
Garil shifted uncomfortably, and she realized he had more than his share of aches in badly healed bones. The wintry air she found pleasantly bracing would not be so kind to him. Her ire rose toward whichever clerk had thought this a good project for an old man.
“Surely they don’t need you to watch glass getting slotted into place.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Keep me company to the infirmary?”
He shot a look up at the artisans and then laughed. “These young people know what they are about, and I could do with some more tincture for my old skin. It gets so thin, you know.”
It would in fact be for the pain, but his pride wouldn’t let him admit that. Sorcha knew full well what Garil was like. Together they strolled out of the Devotional toward the low stone building that housed the infirmary. A low lavender hedge contained a physic garden at the front, where lay workers were rushing to gather the final autumn plants. To the right were the drying rooms, and the apothecary where potions, tinctures and rubs were prepared. The scent that wafted out of the open doors was so soothing Sorcha almost forgot why she was going there.
Garil patted her arm. “I’ll let you go and find your husband. Give him my best.”
Geist Page 3