“What is she doing?” he asked Sorcha in a whisper.
“Tracking the portals,” she replied. “I finally managed to key a weirstone to their power, and Melisande and I have been watching where they are going. It should give us some warning if Derodak tries to make a portal to the citadel. Even though we’ve repaired the cantrip on the foundations, they could still appear in the valley somewhere.”
“Good idea,” Raed said, shooting her a sideways look. “I’m sorry, I heard Mournling passed away last night.”
Sorcha looked down at her world-weary boots. “He was a good man and a good Presbyter. He tried to hold on to see us through our task, but perhaps it is better he didn’t.” Mournling had been in the Order longer than she could remember. His passing was rather like losing an aloof grandfather. “He lived long enough to pass the torch to Merrick as the strongest Sensitive, and he will feel his passing most strongly.”
Raed opened his mouth to say something, but just at that moment Melisande jerked backward and dropped the weirstone onto her lap as if it were burning hot. She looked around and for a moment her eyes weren’t focused on them. The Young Pretender offered her his hand, and clasping the weirstone she rose to her feet.
“How are things, Presbyter?” Sorcha said, wondering at the other woman’s wide eyes.
Her pretty pink mouth twisted. “Nothing coming our way, but I detected a lot of activity to the west of Vermillion. I could feel people moving to and from there. I couldn’t tell if any of them were Derodak or the Circle of Stars.”
Sorcha’s mind raced. Could it be that there was some kind of assault on Vermillion planned? Or perhaps it was Derodak’s base? He must be working from someplace.
Just as that was all sinking in, the door to the inside of the citadel opened, and Merrick stepped through—though a more apt description might have been staggered. However, there was such a look of triumph on his face that Sorcha held back on admonishing him for driving himself too hard.
“I know the place!” Merrick said, his voice cracking as he stood there trembling in the cold air. He pulled the thick fur cloak tighter about himself, and the Bond between he and Sorcha fairly sizzled with delight.
Along it, she saw a devastated wreck of a town. Waikein, Merrick’s voice whispered. One of the first places attacked by the Emperor, overrun with geists. That is where we should go.
“You have a target?” Raed asked, glancing at the Deacons. Once again he was excluded from their sharing.
“Waikein,” Merrick spoke for his benefit. “All the paths of the future start there, and it is where we must strike our first blow if we are to have any chance.”
Melisande’s white blonde hair was tossed by the wind as she whispered, “A town to the west of Vermillion. Within a short distance.” She shared a questioning look with Sorcha as if wondering how much she was willing to bet on Merrick’s sight.
The answer was of course, everything.
“I will send word then,” Sorcha said, already turning toward the line of weirstone wielders. “All Deacons who can manage it will meet us in Waikein at the full moon. It’s only a week away, but . . .” She paused and turned on Merrick. “How much do we know about this place?”
His smile was victorious. “I can tell you a great deal about Waikein. You see, I have a friend on the inside.”
Her smile broadened. “That’s why I love you, Merrick. You make friends wherever you go, and many places you have not.”
FOURTEEN
A Waking Dream
The Emperor had come in his airships and nothing was the same. Eriloyn stood in the shadow of the building where he had once apprenticed a blacksmith. The roof, along with the blacksmith, had been destroyed the day of the attack. Coincidentally, that had also been the last time Eriloyn had seen food.
He’d always been a tall, strong boy, but since the destruction of Waikein he’d been whittled away to painful thinness. His stomach had ceased to bother him, but his brain had been enveloped in a fog that was just as dangerous. In this state, he knew he could easily make mistakes, but he was desperate. Only the day before he’d been drinking from a dirty puddle of water in the street, mad for some kind of moisture, and had nearly been run over by a carriage.
Some small instinct of self-preservation had jerked him back out of the way, and the dark shape had rattled and bounced past him. He’d only caught a glimpse of the crest on the door; the mayor of Waikein’s pair of crows holding a massive yellow wedge of cheese. It seemed cruel with the current state of affairs.
Even now, Eriloyn’s mouth watered at the recollection, his tongue circling around the cavity that felt as dry as wool. The image of his mother knitting by the fire drifted up from his memory, and along with it the recollection of the warm milk and honey bread she brought to him when he was ill. It was a cruel jab from his own treacherous brain, because it drove his stomach, which had been silent for so long, into a knot of wrenching hunger. That was why he had followed the carriage and now stood huddled in the gently falling rain, looking toward the town hall across the square. The mayor had to have food.
The boy glanced up and down the street, searching for any movement, human or otherwise. Nothing stirred—as it had not for days. The terror of the geists had sent many running for the hills, while others had taken their own lives or fallen into madness from it all. Those that remained kept themselves hidden—which was the sensible thing to do.
Except now that the wind changed, Eriloyn’s senses brought another terrible blow. It was the smell of baking. It pierced the boy through and made any sensible thoughts impossible. The primitive needs of the body overrode anything else.
Wrapping his arms around his middle, the boy darted across the road, borne aloft by the tempting smell that promised food of unparalleled delight, scuttling from spot to spot like a rat that dared not be caught in the light. His first sanctuary was an overturned cart near the edge of the town square. It was not a food stall, but rather a toy display. Broken wooden dolls lay scattered about where citizens had trodden on them in their mad dash to escape some horror.
The second refuge he scampered to was the remains of a carriage. Once it must have been very grand, because the cerulean paint on the side was a sign of nobility—his mother had taught him that much. The boy dared a peek inside, and had the ravages of the geists not already beaten him into a wreck he would have screamed. The perfectly preserved head of a woman was turned to him from her seat within the carriage. Whatever geist had come upon these travelers had turned their flesh to the consistency of jerked meat. The shriveled eyeballs of the woman seemed to regard Eriloyn with disdain.
If it had been only a few weeks earlier, he would have lurched back screaming for his mother, but in the decimated and unrecognizable town that his home had become, he’d learned to control such instincts. His hands clutched the edge of the carriage, but he stayed where he was, pulling his gaze from the woman and toward the town hall. The smell of warm bread baking thrust itself into his nostrils and made all other thought impossible.
Abandoning all attempts at covert approach, Eriloyn leapt up and sprinted for the door of the Council building, the smell of bread luring him on, as if he were a hungry trout and there was a hook jammed in his snout. The huge oak doors of the building loomed over him but were slightly ajar. Eriloyn looked over his shoulder, but the street was silent.
The town had not been silent for a long time: screams, wails and people begging for their lives. He’d prayed for silence during those horrible days, and yet, now it was here, he was terrified by it. He turned and slipped into the building.
As a young boy, Eriloyn had gone with his father to pay his taxes in this building. It had seemed huge and beautiful back then: high oak beams, blazing fires, and people bustling around on important matters. Now only the oak beams remained. Chairs were overturned, books ripped from the shelves, and the remains of the fire from the great hearth scattered everywhere.
Eriloyn walked on haltingly, feeling his bre
ath choking in his throat, and his heart beating in his ears. As terrified as he was, the hunger was greater.
He stumbled and staggered through the broken room, down hallways smeared with blood and other terrible things. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could hear voices; and not the voices he’d been used to in recent weeks. These were not screams; they were of genuine laughter . . . maybe even children like him.
Eriloyn’s feet began to quicken all by themselves. He slipped and slid down the stairs of the hall into the lower floors. Now the smell of fresh baking was overwhelming, and already in his mind’s eye he could see other orphans playing, both hands full of warm bread.
The tread of a stair broke under his foot, trapping his leg for a moment. With a sob Eriloyn tore it free. The pain of the wood ripping into his flesh was a distant thing to the hunger. He was almost passing out from both of these by the time he made it down to where the kitchens of the town hall were. It had once produced bread for the poor and the needy, now surely it was doing it again.
For a moment the boy was confused. He stood there in the wreck of the kitchen, blood pouring down his leg, stomach cramped with hunger, and looked at the broken crockery lying on the floor. Everything was turned over and rotten. The hearth itself was snapped in two, the great stone smashed as if by an iron fist.
“Quite the sight isn’t it,” a voice hissed behind him.
Eriloyn spun about, but he couldn’t see anyone there—only the shadows in doorways he was too terrified to enter. His skin was crawling, and the darkness was now creeping into the edges of his vision. Fingers were creeping over his skin, and he couldn’t find the strength to rip himself away from them. Terror that he had been fighting off for weeks flooded over him, like an ice-cold tide that he could no longer hold back.
“Give in. Give up. It’s all right to surrender,” the voice at his back whispered into his ear. “You’re tired. Rest for a while.”
It made complete sense to do so. He’d been running and terrified for a very long time, so he listened to the voice and fell into its cold embrace.
For the longest time that was all there was, but Eriloyn could not hide in unknowingness for long. Slowly, his eyelids fluttered open. He hurt everywhere, but his leg ached worst of all. Suddenly the need for food was not as important as he had thought it was. Survival now loomed large.
All of this flashed through the boy’s mind even before he took in his surroundings. He’d made a promise to his dad to survive, and he had to keep that promise. So slowly he levered himself upright, feeling the grind of hard metal and straw under his palms. He looked straight into the eyes of a girl. She couldn’t have been any older than he was, and she had long matted dark hair, blue eyes and a massive bruise that covered half of her face. Her gaze, when it locked with his, was empty, though, as if the light had been snuffed out behind them.
Eriloyn would have smiled in normal circumstances, but here and now he merely nodded. Looking down, something caught his eye, a gleam of metal. Shackles. He and the girl were shackled together by the ankles. Tilting his head, the boy saw that they were not alone; other children, silent and huddled, ran in a line behind the girl. They were in the basement, and there was no longer any smell of bread in the air; there was only the odor of frightened children.
Eriloyn pushed his hair out of his eyes and tugged on the chain. It was pointless, he knew that, but he had to try.
“Don’t bother,” the girl whispered to him, her voice hoarse. “He’ll be here soon enough. You’re the last they needed.”
A little voice in Eriloyn’s head was screaming in horror, but somehow he stuffed it down with a hard swallow. He turned his head and saw that night had come on while he’d been wrapped in unconsciousness. The night was the worst. Something about the darkness gave the geists bravery.
While that thought possessed him, a very real man made an appearance. Unlike those men left in Waikein, he appeared well fed, well cared for, and with not an ounce of pity for the children. They began to sob, but quietly, as the man unhitched the chain from the wall and began to lead them away.
Eriloyn however would not go quietly—not with his father’s last words ringing in his head. Promise me . . . survive.
As the man wordlessly swung away to tug the captors upstairs, the boy dashed forward, throwing himself at the stocky man’s legs. He was young, small and poorly fed, so the adult swung at him, knocking him down as if he were nothing more than a fly. The tunnel seemed to spin, but Eriloyn felt the nameless girl’s hands on his shoulders, guiding and holding him up.
“It’ll be over soon,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” Her damp hand clutched onto his. It seemed to be her mantra.
Eriloyn tried to clear his head, struggling to hold himself up. The town hall flashed past him in a series of blurry images. The chain between the children dragged them onward.
Now they were outside. Night was about the city, but there were lights. By the time Eriloyn came back to himself, their captor had reattached their chain to one on the side of the town hall.
They were not alone. Eriloyn swallowed hard. He had not seen so many citizens of Waikein since before the geists came, and now they were all here. It should have gladdened his heart that so many of his living fellows were in one place, instead it only filled him with an abiding dread.
Once he pulled his gaze away from the assembly, it traveled naturally to the man that stood before them. He knew him, though he had seldom seen him this close. It was the mayor of Waikein. A tall man, still well dressed despite the situation, his red and silver hair immaculately styled as if barbers had somehow survived the chaos. The mayor stood on a raised platform, and from where he stood Eriloyn could see that he was smiling. However, it was not a smile that would soothe any fears. When he pulled back his lips, he revealed rows of sharp, pointed teeth—as if they had been filed to a predatory gleam.
The girl holding his hand squeezed it once more, her empty eyes following the mayor as he waved at the crowd. Eriloyn tugged at the chain, but it was tight and strong.
“Survivors of Waikein”—the mayor’s voice carried over the heads of the citizens and echoed off the hollow buildings that surrounded the square—“I am here to offer you salvation, and a way to keep yourselves alive.”
Eriloyn tilted his head; there was something strange about the air around the man’s head. It was bending slightly, and there was an odd smell coming off him, something sharp that hurt his nostrils.
“Do you smell that?” he whispered to the nameless girl, but she shook her head.
The odor overwhelmed him, and the boy gagged on it, not understanding how she could be so lost to the world as to not be affected by it.
No one else in the town square seemed able to smell it either, because they were actually drawing closer to the mayor as he spoke. Could they not see his teeth?
“We have to live with the geists now.” His voice was soothing and sounded reasonable. “The Order is all gone, and we must make our own way. All the undead want is small sacrifices, little offerings, and they will let us live in peace.”
Again Eriloyn knew that only a few weeks earlier would have made a world of difference; everyone knew that you didn’t make deals with geists. They always turned on the humans eventually—it was written in every legend and myth ever spoken to a child anywhere. Yet, these were people who had seen their loved ones ripped from them, who had lived in abject fear for weeks, and so were willing to reach out for any tiny sliver of hope.
When the mayor turned to look at the line of children ranked behind him, Eriloyn was not surprised to see that he had a long knife in his hands, and a weirstone gleaming in his fist. Blood magic and the gleaming orbs went together like snow and winter.
“Small sacrifices, that will take but an instant,” the mayor said. “If anyone objects, speak up now.”
He wanted their complicity—he needed it—Eriloyn realized. Gleaming in the mayor’s jovial eye was something undead, and it required something from t
he people assembled. The boy’s stomach twisted, and he bent over for a moment; fearful that he was going to throw up whatever little remained in his stomach. When he finally regained control, he stood up tall, and looked not at the mayor who was approaching, but at the girl who still held his hand.
“What is your name?” He whispered the question to her, suddenly consumed by the need to hear it, even as he was aware of death’s approach.
Deep down, there was a small spark in her. She hesitated only a moment. “Aloisa,” she replied, a tiny smile on her mouth.
The mayor’s shadow now blocked out the tiny lights that the people held—the people who were silently watching events unfold. No sound or protestations came from them.
Then, just as the mayor was coming into striking distance, a voice did rise from among the crowd. It was none that was familiar to Eriloyn, though he did recognize that it was a woman’s voice. Somehow it carried and caused even the mayor to pause. “You will want to be moving slowly, and carefully away from those children.”
From his vantage, the boy saw the thing behind the eyes of the man flicker. Was it possible it was recognition, or could it be panic? Everyone in the crowd strained this way and that to find who had spoken.
The children in the chained line shifted. Little sighs and sobs escaped them. Eriloyn shook his head, blinking; he could swear that the air around the crowd was moving to a strange pinkish hue. The boy wondered if fear was driving him mad.
These worrying thoughts were set aside however when she stepped out of the crowd. The boy found himself stumbling toward her but was caught up short by his restraints.
It was hard for him to see any details of this woman. All he could make out was that she was not particularly tall and was wearing a plain black cloak. It was what his wavering eyes saw, though, that brought him almost to his knees. Whatever madness it was that had wrapped him up, he saw other things about her; silver threads swarmed around her, and they twisted themselves into patterns his eye could not follow.
Harbinger (A BOOK OF THE ORDER) Page 15
