Shedryi turned one accusing dark eye on Sorcha, since she had brought no treat. “Here,” Merrick said, reaching across and dropping one into her hand. “I found a few down in the kitchens.”
Shedryi gobbled his treat and then threw his head up with a snort. “Yes, indeed, we are going on a little ride, you wicked boy,” Sorcha said, rubbing his smooth neck. Glancing across at Merrick she asked, “Any sign of Raed yet?”
Taking a bridle down from the wall, Merrick shook his head. “Aachon said he wanted to be sure all the geists had gone before he came back. He should turn up soon.”
Sorcha shrugged. She was not worried about her lover, he was no dog on a leash, and besides any who threatened him would feel the wrath of the Rossin. She understood that sometimes the Young Pretender needed his space—he too had dark shadows to wrestle with.
Unlike in the Mother Abbey, the Deacons saddled up their own mounts—lay Brothers were far too busy to tend to the whims of the Active or Sensitive. Sorcha didn’t mind. In fact, she thought this new Order of Enlightenment would be better served if the Deacons of it knew a little of what the Brothers of the gray cloaks went through.
Merrick mounted up with alacrity, once again making Sorcha’s bones feel very old. “So, where to?” he asked.
Her partner looked positively elated to be on horseback again, so he was not going to like her reply. “Any direction . . . we just have to get out of the city to find a geist. It shouldn’t take long or far.”
Merrick rode Melochi out into the yard, while Sorcha saddled the stallion. Shedryi turned and tried to nip at her as she tightened the cinch on him—however when she slapped him on the rump, he settled down. Soon she too was mounted, and with a little nudge of the stirrups, they trotted out of the stable and into the city.
In the dark of the previous night, Sorcha had been given precious little time to examine the city of Waikein they were saving. It was dreadful now to ride through it, but the people that they met along the way seemed positively happy. They looked up at the passing Deacons with soot-stained faces, grinned and waved. They were clearing the streets, gathering up the unburied corpses for proper ceremonies, and repairing those houses that could be salvaged.
“You would hardly know them as the same people from last night,” Merrick commented, pushing the reluctant Melochi past lines of smashed barricades.
Sorcha nodded but kept her eyes averted from the gaze of the grateful citizens. She was afraid she had given them false hope. The geists were not beaten back. Countless numbers of them still waited.
Sensing her tumult, Merrick reached across and squeezed her hand. “It was a demonstration, Sorcha. It had to be done, and word of it will already be spreading throughout the Empire.”
“Not that there is much of an Empire anymore,” she muttered in reply.
“Zofiya will be helping with that,” he shot back, and then effectively ended the conversation by urging his mare into a quick trot.
Sorcha needed to feel the wind in her hair and grab a little joy too. She kicked Shedryi into a gallop in response, and soon they had caught up and passed him.
The two of them were quickly out of the city and on their way to the rolling hills that bordered it. It was a wonderful thing to be beyond the stench of death and destruction. They rode the horses up through the velvet green hills punctuated by pale gray rocks, and along the banks of the river. Merrick was being sensible, though, keeping his Center open as they went. All the time they felt no geist presence.
Sorcha knew that most of the undead in the area would have been drawn to the city to feed on the concentration of humanity there.
She took a long deep breath. At this stage the natural world was still untouched; she saw rabbits moving on the hills, and a flock of birds overhead against the bright blue sky. However, should the Circle of Stars achieve their aim then eventually that too would be ravaged.
Shedryi snorted and tossed his head, but that was only when a fox darted across their path. He was a small one, and definitely not a coyote, but Sorcha nonetheless shivered; it reminded her too much of the Fensena. She knew he and his favor were waiting somewhere for her—as if she didn’t have enough to worry about.
They came to a looming series of waterfalls, sliding their way down from the mountains to the east, and the partners began picking their way up the side of the cliffs through a series of goat tracks. The roar of the water and the cloud of spray around them was deeply refreshing. Sorcha took the chance to wipe her face in the chill dew and rub her neck with it. She’d learned to take enjoyment in whatever moment they could.
With that thought, she turned Shedryi around and waited for Merrick to reach her. He kneed Melochi up the rise and then pulled her to a stop next to his partner. He looked out over the beautiful scene of nature’s power, and then also tilted his face into the sun. A few of the shadows gathered in the corner of his eyes seemed to lift slightly. “This was a fine idea, Harbinger.” The way his mouth formed that title said that he was still not happy with it. “But which sort of geist do we need?”
Sorcha considered his question. It could not be one of the lesser ones like a rei, but she did not want a geistlord either. Finally, she settled on one. “A revenant would be ideal, but if you could manage . . .”
As Merrick abruptly opened his Center and shared it with her, her words dried in her mouth. Every time he did so she was reminded how lucky she was to have been partnered with him. The hills and grassland that had seemed pretty enough suddenly exploded into life. It would have been overwhelming in the hands of a lesser Sensitive, but Merrick balanced it so effortlessly that the only information she got was the important facts.
Like the blur of red and gold along the ridgeline; a twining undead power that flickered in and out with tormented faces in its midst. A revenant—a geistlord that gathered the tormented souls of humans as they died, and trapped them within—just as she had asked for. Perhaps her luck was going to hold out.
“Well done, Merrick,” she said, digging her heels into her stallion’s sides, “you have found our informant.” A wicked and dangerous grin spread on her lips. Perhaps as Harbinger she was going to have different luck than when she’d been merely a Deacon.
EIGHTEEN
Sensitive and Wrayth
“Right back where we started,” Merrick found himself muttering under his breath, but it was not with any true distress. The few times that he and Sorcha had hunted geist on the way to Ulrich had been invigorating. It was, after all, what Deacons were trained to do, and when they did engage with each other to exercise their abilities it was a glorious thing.
The sly smile that his partner shot him now suggested that she felt the very same way. Along the Bond the whispering of the Wrayth seemed to subside, or maybe it was the sheer power of the moment that simply drowned them out.
Both Deacons slid from their mounts and walked together up the hill. The earth was springy underfoot. Now, the revenant would usually have tried to escape them, seeing as they were its natural enemy, but lately the undead had learned more than a little bravery. The weakening of the barrier between the human realm and the Otherside was giving them much greater strength.
Merrick caught the subtle gesture of Sorcha flicking back her cloak. It would have been the moment when she went to pull her Gauntlets from her belt, but of course they were no longer there. A gesture learned over a lifetime could not so easily be put aside. Realizing her mistake, Sorcha cleared her throat and instead pushed her sleeves up, flexing her fingers. That particular gesture worked just as well without Gauntlets as it had with.
The runes trickled and ran through the marks the Patternmaker had carved, and Merrick marveled how she didn’t even seem to need to think the words for the runes before they were there. Blue fire filled the lines and flooded down toward her fingertips.
Merrick’s own power was just as second nature as his partner’s. His Sight filled the landscape around them with life and death; but he narrowed it in on the revenant t
hat had just begun to whirl about on itself.
“You really expect to get information from a geist?” he asked as they neared the undead and tried to sound more positive than he felt.
Sorcha shrugged. “Well, if there is anyone more likely to know when and where the barrier will be torn I cannot think of it right now.” She spun on her heel and stared at him hard.
He hated it when she was like this . . . bad and dangerous things happened when his partner threw her hands up in the air and just decided to try some madcap scheme. She might have put on a good show in the town square last night, but she was not fooling him. She was still the same Active that had so casually created a strong, maddening Bond between them.
Sorcha’s lips curled at the corners, but there was a hint of sadness in her face. “Oh, so now you are regretting being my Sensitive, are you?”
“I . . . I . . .” Merrick opened his mouth, and then shut it with a snap. Just get on with this. He pushed his words along the Bond.
They had both come to rely on the link between them and, in fact, with its recent weakening, he had begun to miss it. Still, they remained partners, and Merrick would cling onto that fact until he was spent and done with life.
The revenant was dancing toward them, twirling and strangely confident. It looked like it had captured quite a number of torn souls, thanks to the devastation of the city. Merrick’s stomach turned over in a sick knot. No one had ever discovered the true extent of a revenant’s power, and it had been speculated that there could be no limit to it. If the geist could find enough souls, it could possibly rival a geistlord.
Sorcha had to feel his concern, but it did not stop her. She stepped lightly over the ground toward it, as if they were two dancers—and only they could hear the music.
Merrick strained his senses, both ethereal and physical, but it appeared that they were the only living things of any consequence nearby. By the time he looked up, Sorcha’s whole arms were glowing red with the flame of Pyet, just as the snapping skeletal heads of the revenant spun and threw themselves down on her.
The swell of voices filled Merrick’s head, but he knew they were actually coming from his partner. The Wrayth was never too far away from her now, and the Bond suddenly felt very, very frail. Merrick wrapped himself around it, like a sailor holding on to the rigging, praying for it not to break.
If he was, as she had said, her anchor, then he was damned well going to act like it. She seemed to have even less regard for her own safety than she had when Merrick first met her. He knew what had done it. Sorcha didn’t need to smoke those damn cigarillos to tell him that she didn’t expect to live much longer. In fact, she seemed like she was rushing toward extinction with both arms spread wide.
“Not today,” Merrick muttered to himself. The Third Eye, carved in the middle of his forehead, began to glow white hot and burn on his skin. It was usually reserved for the last few runes in a Sensitive’s arsenal, but something about this revenant was bringing it out far more quickly.
Through his Center he watched as Sorcha wrapped her arms around the snarling faces of those who had been prematurely wrenched from life. They were so angry that it felt as though they might rip her skin right off.
Why are you not doing anything? He screamed along the Bond because it was true. Sorcha was merely standing there, not using a single of her Runes of Dominion—even though they were nearly bursting out of her skin.
A flash of insight burned like lightning in his brain. He suddenly understood what she was doing. The powers of the Wrayth had been proven useful last night, and she was endeavoring to use them in more subtle ways. By twining herself into the fabric of the revenant she was hoping to see what it saw—to understand what it wanted and what was coming.
Merrick felt like a total fool. He had thought she would trap the revenant with the runes, drain it of its power, and demand it show her what she wanted to know. It was yet another mark of the weakening of the Bond that she had been able to conceal her true intentions from him.
The trouble was in the nature of this geist. It, like the Wrayth, was a creature of twined souls, but the revenant contained no single core of intelligence. It was as mindless and muddled a creature as could be imagined. Sorcha was letting it wrap itself around her, and Merrick knew that she would be lost in that chaos very quickly. Revenants were responsible for more Deacons with permanent addled brains than any other kind of geist. Sorcha knew that just as well as he did, but she had become a little too sure of her own power. Lost in it almost.
Merrick raced forward, ready to attempt to pull her bodily from the revenant’s embrace, but the Wrayth and the revenant turned on him. He heard a scream that threatened to cut through his bones and was actually shoved physically backward. The breath was knocked out of his lungs, and he could hear Sorcha’s howls only dimly. Her mind was unreachable.
The barrier was so thin at the moment that this tumult could draw other geists from the Otherside. A new invasion could begin here and undo all the good work they had done last night.
Yes, the barrier is very thin. Merrick shook his head. He heard the words against his skin; a physical presence of one he knew was not in the human realm—one that had given up her body to save the world once already.
Yet when he saw her form, smoky and gleaming as it was, his heart gave a little jump. Nynnia was here with him now. Until this moment he’d not considered all the implications of the thinning of the veil. It was not just geists who lived on the other side of it; the Ehtia and their Ancient knowledge resided there too. He had loved one of the Ehtia—probably still did if he cared to admit it. Despite Zofiya, that ember still burned.
He caught himself speculating. They were in a war for survival, and that meant there was a real likelihood that he would join Nynnia on the Otherside for a brief moment, before being swept away to whatever awaited a Deacon beyond.
Merrick! Sorcha’s voice jerked his attention and his Center back toward her. She was standing within the revenant. Two skeleton heads were clamped on each of her arms, and her pain was burning along the fragile Bond. He had to concentrate . . . but it was very hard with the image of Nynnia drawing nearer—and there was something different about his lost love. He tried to split his attention as best he could.
The geist that was bearing down on Sorcha was stronger than any revenant they’d encountered, but it was as he had warned her; the closeness of the Otherside was giving them more strength and power. He was terrified of his partner burning away under the strain.
Don’t be. Nynnia was now at his shoulder. He could tell because the smell of summer roses came with her, along with a comforting warmth. Sorcha has also become stronger; the Wrayth has at least given her that.
The image of his Active wrestling with the Wrayth seemed to retreat a little, as if he were watching it through a spyglass. He could see her nature now. Long, spiraling, blue white connections ran from her and into the geist twisting above her. Pulses of power ran down these connections, but he could not tell in which direction they were going. He was frightened of the implications.
If any of their Sensitives, old or their newly made ones, saw this, they would be terrified. In the old Order they had a name for it: contamination. At the very least Sorcha would have been confined to the infirmary—at worst she would have been put down like a rabid dog.
The final rune. It had been created for a situation like this and kept secret from the Sensitives. The one secret they never shared with their partners.
When it comes to it, will you have the strength to do what is necessary? Nynnia looked at him with infinite kindness. She knew what Sorcha was to him and how deep their Bond was.
Merrick shook his head, and for the first time felt real, deep anger toward the formless woman. “She is all we have! She just pulled off the greatest feat of geist exorcism that has ever been seen. Even the First Deacon could not have done what she did.”
Nynnia seemed to blow back and forth. And you know there is only one way that is
possible. She is becoming one of them. Her humanity is weakening . . .
Merrick didn’t know what to say to that. Sorcha had experienced her own mother’s final breakout of the Wrayth’s prison. He knew she had been tormented when she saw that, and by finding out her father had been one of the Wrayth. He also knew that she was deeply afraid of becoming one of them.
However, right now, with her arms outstretched, channeling or destroying the revenant, she was magnificent—and definitely not tormented.
Nynnia looked at him, and he felt stripped bare under that gaze. Remember your vows, my love. That is all . . . remember why you became a Deacon. Your father died at their hands, and—
“Merrick!” Sorcha’s call snapped her partner’s head around. She was calling him, and despite everything he followed his training.
“Your Center,” she cried, as the revenant bent toward her. He had pulled back his connection to her, and now it was barely discernable. She could see no way to hold and bind the creature without his Sight.
When he shot a glance over his shoulder again, Nynnia was gone.
“Merrick!”
The Sensitive stumbled as he turned and ran to his Active’s side. For a moment Merrick could not discern who was feeding off whom.
Neither can I. Now Sorcha’s voice in his head was small and frightened. Nothing showed on her expression, but within he could hear the voices of the Wrayth beginning to rise out of the darkness. He didn’t know how to combat them, since they were inside his partner—much as the Rossin was inside Raed.
We will deal with it, he replied to her. They are not as strong as us. Nothing is as strong as us.
It was a bold claim.
A Sensitive must always hold up their Active; he had been taught that in the novitiate. His instructor’s voice, Deacon Rueng, came back to him on the winds of memory. It is they that will stand in the center of the storm, and they will feel unequal to the task. We are the anchor that gives them the strength to hold against it.
Harbinger (A BOOK OF THE ORDER) Page 19
