Harbinger (A BOOK OF THE ORDER)

by Philippa Ballantine

  Merrick ran and stood beside Sorcha. Physical presence did not really matter; as long as they could see each other, the Bond should be strong enough. Yet part of Merrick wanted to stand at her side, share in the danger.

  “It is too much,” Sorcha screamed. She was holding the shield of the fire rune, Yevah, in one hand, with the green flicker of Shayst ready in the other fist. Merrick immediately saw the problem. If she used the active rune to draw away power while she was still entangled with it, then she could end up killing herself.

  Surely there was some way to free herself from the geist? Merrick’s mind started to race over the possibilities, to offer something to his partner.

  Sorcha sank to one knee as the shield of fire was thrust downward. Parts of the revenant were traveling along their connection, piercing the shield.

  “Whenever you are ready,” the Active howled, turning her face, white with shock, toward him.

  Thinking! he shot back through the Bond. This was no normal case. No Deacon he had ever heard of had linked herself with a geist and still remained sane. Yes, she was still sane.

  As sane as ever. She gasped as a tendril of the revenant reached into her body. The sensation of ice-cold flooding communicated itself very well along the Bond and Merrick cried out too.

  Faster, he had to think faster. So it was not a case of a functioning Deacon . . . how about a case of an injured one? He had to think like a lay Brother—those that tended to the ill. He had to contemplate what they dealt with: the geiststruck, the contaminated, those that had delved too deep and been lost within the undead’s embrace. All of the initiates were taught something of the work of the lay Brothers, the better to appreciate it . . . however most paid little attention.

  Merrick was digging deep now. He’d stood in the back row, the infirmary had been hot, and the drone of the lay Brother had put many of his fellow students to sleep on their feet. However, Merrick was not one of them.

  “You are very lucky I was such a damn good student.” He grinned at Sorcha. She simply stared back at him in stunned disbelief.

  Now is not the time. And remember we want to capture this geist, not destroy it. We have to keep some small connection to it.

  She loved piling on the problems, that was for certain. He opened his Center wide. The geiststruck were often able to be pulled back by repetition and reminders of their past. So he dived down deep into Sorcha’s memory and plucked out something that would remind her of her humanity. A face was staring back at him; very like that of his partner but with long dark hair.

  Her mother. Merrick knew that instantly. She looked at him with an expression of such sorrow that he distantly felt a tear break free from his own eyes.

  She’d been a Sensitive like he was, and she had given her life to get the child forced upon her out of the grasp of the Wrayth. That was the ultimate blood pact, and the Bond that was formed by it was strong and deep.

  Sorcha feared what she was, but she was part of this woman too. A powerful Deacon had birthed her, and Merrick thrust that reality toward his partner. It cut her deep, slid between the tangled connection of revenant and Deacon.

  Sorcha let out a scream that almost sounded like a laugh. The rune Shayst flared green along her arms, yanking the power of the geist into her core. Then, flush with it, she turned the Yevah around. The shield of fire bent and flexed as Merrick had never seen it do before.

  His breath caught in his throat, and he watched as she wrapped Yevah around the geist. It was drained, exhausted, and hovered within the bubble of flame like a child’s decoration.

  Merrick couldn’t help the first thought that popped into his head, nor could he stop it racing along the Bond he had with Sorcha. This must be what Derodak wants to do to geists.

  Sorcha winced, as if he had struck her, and her blue eyes closed for a second. However, she didn’t make any comment—instead ignoring his unfiltered words.

  “We have our informant,” she said, and despite the circumstances there was a note of triumph in her voice. Sorcha had done what many said was impossible.

  She began to stride down toward her partner, and the trapped revenant, still surrounded by flame, bobbed along behind her. The flicker of power ran along her arms, casting her face in odd colors. Merrick felt his stomach clench with sudden pain, as pride, with a healthy dose of fear, washed over him. He mounted back on his horse and thought about how quickly they could get their prisoner back to the city.

  Sorcha was smiling. It was going to be all right—until the moment that everything flipped on its head. Merrick had only an instant to cry out.

  He saw the side of the hill, right next to where she was standing, ripple and fall away. He recognized it in an instant; one of the Wrayth’s portals. The opening appeared not a foot away from her. Merrick opened his Center desperately, clinging to the Bond so that she might draw strength from it.

  She only had enough time to release the revenant from her activity, and then the Wrayth were upon her; or rather in her.

  Merrick pulled out his saber and flung himself down off his mount. Yet he knew—he could tell without any rune—that he was not going to be fast enough. The rattle of voices in Sorcha’s head had become a clatter and Merrick knew—this was not an attack by Derodak. This was the Wrayth come to claim their own.

  Merrick caught a glimpse of Sorcha’s eyes rolling in her head, just before the energy poured out of her body. She slumped to the ground, while the revenant whirled away. Most terrifying of all, however, was the draining away of all that made her Sorcha, seen through his Center.

  They were coming through the doorway now, lines of tall, pale people, marked by the Wrayth, and no more individual than an ant. He wasn’t going to be able to make it to her, but he was damn well going to try.

  As Merrick scrambled up the remaining rocks, he felt Sorcha in the Bond—the merest of flickers, Go! Please, Merrick, go!

  His foot slipped on the rock. The Wrayth had gathered Sorcha up and were taking her back through their doorway, but a few of them turned his way; the gray eyes, devoid of emotion, suddenly fixed on him. These were no shambling undead; they were racing toward him.

  Too fast. His mind processed that in an instant. Too fast and too many for Merrick to get back to Melochi, whose distant whinny seemed to be the only sound that reached above the thunder of the water. He saw at once what they would do to him; he had, after all, shared Sorcha’s vision of her mother. Deacon Merrick Chambers would become their puppet just as she had been.

  It wasn’t really a choice. Without hesitation, Merrick ran toward the edge of the cliff. The thunder of the waterfall pounding over rocks filled his ears. He had no time to think—only to act. It had to be the last thing he heard, as he leapt forward into its embrace, expecting to see Nynnia very soon.

  NINETEEN

  The Touch of the Sea

  Raed woke with a pounding headache that threatened to blind him before he had even opened his eyes. He lay still on the ground for a moment, using the tactics he had come to rely on when dealing with the Rossin: sit still, take in details and assess the situation.

  The ground underneath his hands was smooth, and when he dared to crack an eye open he realized that they were tiles, beautifully crafted and decorated tiles. Then his nose brought him a very strange scent, and one that was totally unexpected but very familiar; it was the salt of the sea.

  Raed ran his hands over the tiles for a moment, then he shook his head, and levered himself upright. If they were near the ocean, then maybe things were not that bad; Mother Sea had always looked after him.

  The only days of his life that had been any good—at least before he found Sorcha—had been accompanied by the rocking of the waves. He held on to that knowledge until his eyes were able to adjust and focus. The room was dimly lit but startling. He was once more in a cavern, but where exactly that cavern might be was the real question.

  As he looked around and made out what was lighting the space, his mind did a quick turnaround. He s
aw windows, thick gleaming windows in the cavern, made of something that he suspected was weirstone, since it shone and occasionally shot through with blue, as those dangerous stones were wont to do. However, they were opaque enough to make him realize where the smell of salt water was coming from. Beyond the glass were floating strands of seaweed, thick castles of coral and shoals of brightly colored fish. This then wasn’t merely an underground cavern where secret doings were accomplished, but an underwater cavern.

  As Raed leaned on his knees, all thoughts of his own danger were washed away by this amazing sight. He had always loved the sea, but had never had the pleasure of observing it like this. He leaned closer. Truly it was a wonder.

  After a moment, though, someone breathing and moving fractionally in the dark made Raed aware that he was not alone. The figure that finally emerged from the shadows was not unfamiliar to him either. Derodak, the Arch Abbot of the Circle of Stars, stepped toward him with a disconcerting smile on his lips. “Welcome, Young Prince. I hope your journey didn’t leave you feeling too unwell?”

  The effects of traveling through a weirstone portal were unpleasant, but livable—but it seemed that they were compounded when forced to do so with extra weirstones touching his skin.

  In what he hoped was an insulting gesture, Raed remained seated on the floor and looked up at his captor. From what Zofiya had told them of her imprisonment by this man, he was both unpleasant and quite happy to apply pain when it was needed. However soldierly the Grand Duchess was, Raed had endured more pain and torment than she could imagine in his role as host to the Rossin. It gave him a shot of confidence.

  So he got to his feet and dusted himself off. “I’ve felt worse after a hard night out with my crew members. How are you feeling? The mad Emperor and Deacon Sorcha Faris are people I wouldn’t want to have at my back . . .”

  His eyes darted around the rest of the room; he saw nothing that he could use as a weapon. In fact, the room was entirely barren—just the eerie light of the weirstones spread out over the floor.

  Derodak drew closer, and Raed observed that the man was wearing a cloak very much like Sorcha’s, but it was held closed by a jeweled circle of stars brooch. The material was also far finer than any he’d ever seen the Order of the Eye and the Fist wearing. It shifted and gleamed like some exotic fish skin with all the colors of the rainbow. It reminded Raed of the way the people of his father’s small Court dressed like peacocks. It was desperate and flashy.

  His jailor came close, but not too close. He ended up perching himself on the edge of the weirstone window. The strange blue glow illuminated him well enough, but revealed nothing of his emotions or plans.

  The man looked to be in his later years, with gray staining his dark beard, but his eyes gleamed with vigor and arrogance. Raed had seen that look many times when he was growing up. His father, the Unsung Pretender, had plenty of it—though he had never done anything about pursuing his claim to the Imperial throne. He generally assumed that the Princes of the Empire would come crawling back to him, howling that they needed him. Now the Unsung was more irrelevant than ever in this warring world.

  Perhaps his father and this man shared more than just arrogance. After all, Derodak had exposed the everyday citizens to the predations of the geists. Raed guessed soon he would sweep down and show them how he had the undead under control. Naturally, many would die in the process, but he would be able to play the role of savior.

  As Raed examined Derodak, he was in turn being examined. Finally, it was the older man that broke the silence. “Quite a disappointment,” he said, adjusting his odd cloak around himself. “Generations of breeding, and yet so very little of me in there.”

  Raed clenched his jaw and only just managed to hold back retaliation. He wanted to smack that self-satisfied smile from his face, but years of dealing with the fear and the dangers of the Rossin had taught the Young Pretender restraint.

  “I hardly think after all these generations there can be much of you left in my blood,” Raed returned. “It is the mark of a desperate man to think—”

  “Yes, that would be the case,” Derodak said, inclining his head, “except of course, every now and then I just popped back to keep it topped up.”

  The Young Pretender closed his mouth with a snap as a shudder ran through his body. He had a horrible vision of the first Emperor sneaking into the bed of his female ancestors. He would bet good money that they hadn’t known or had a choice about it.

  “Yes, I believe it was your grandmother that spread her legs for me . . . of course she thought I was your grandfather.” Derodak’s eyes never left Raed’s face. “And like a good gardener I came back now and then to do a little pruning. I couldn’t let the family tree grow too large and thin the bloodline.”

  Raed began to understand what Zofiya had said about this man. His joy in applying pain . . . it obviously included emotional torture.

  “By the Blood . . .” Raed swore and then stopped. He said that so often that he hadn’t really thought about what it meant. The Blood. His blood. The Young Pretender took several unwitting steps away from him. “You sick twisted bastard!”

  “Perhaps by your mortal standards.” Derodak stood and tucked his hands behind his back. “But I am far from mortal. The rules do not apply. When my people fled to the Otherside, only I was brave enough to come back. I saw another way that they did not agree with.”

  He swiftly covered the distance between them, until he was only a foot away from Raed. His eyes darted over the Young Pretender’s face, still searching for something. “Your father was a mistake in the line, and your grandfather a traitor to it, but you may be useful.”

  Where was the Rossin? Raed tried to plumb the depths of his soul, screaming for the Beast to rise and slice this evil thing that wore a human face from throat to crotch. Yet there was no answer; nothing seemed to be there but a distant memory of power.

  “I won’t help you,” he gasped out, desperate to gain some time.

  His captor laughed, as if they were discussing a change in the weather. “That is what that impostor of a Grand Duchess said to me, and you saw how well that worked out for her. And don’t think the Rossin will help you. I have many, many centuries of experience handling that particular geistlord.”

  He poked Raed’s shoulder with one finger and let out a small laugh. “I took care of everything. I made your line, and I made Vermillion itself. It was a hill, but I brought the water, and wound it around, making the canals and rivers to protect it from the geists. And what thanks do I get? They throw down my Order. Your own grandfather helped them . . . but he learned humility . . .”

  He was so smug, so sure of himself, that Raed couldn’t take it. He lunged forward and grabbed Derodak by the collar of his cloak. The fabric was slick under his fingers, but he had enough of a grip to swing him about. He connected with the rough stone wall with a satisfying smack, but his expression didn’t change. Raed punched with his left fist, aiming to connect to his chin, but his opponent’s hand moved quickly, blocking the strike, and then bringing his right around. When it connected with his jaw, the Young Pretender felt as though an anvil had hit him.

  He staggered back, the room dipping in and out of focus. He found himself on his knees. At this stage even staying upright was an achievement. How could he be this strong? Dimly he saw the gray shadow of Derodak move closer.

  “You don’t see what he is doing, do you? You really have been blinded . . .”

  His voice came from a long way off, and the sense of it was hard to grasp.

  Derodak leaned down and whispered into his ear. “The great pard is looking for his freedom, and he is ever so close. You and I know that will never do . . .”

  He was making no sense whatsoever. Raed reached out and grabbed hold of his ancestor’s cloak. “You . . . you . . .” he muttered, “it was you that shackled him to my family. It is your fault.”

  “I did need him at first,” Derodak conceded. “When I was first born into this w
orld, I was not as I am now, and I feared death. I wanted to create a family to take my seed into the future. The Rossin’s power promised that. It was also a way to control them if necessary—as it happened they turned on me, and you have had to bear the brunt of that.”

  His hand clenched around Raed’s jaw and squeezed. The Young Pretender struggled for breath, clawing at the fingers that threatened to destroy him. He might as well have been pounding on a statue with bare fists.

  Still however Derodak talked on; apparently quite happy to converse after so long in the shadows. “So I started another family, and this time I spread my seed a little farther afield. I made my own army over the generations.”

  As Raed’s vision trembled on the edge of vanishing, his eyes locked on the brooch around the cloak. The circle of stars gleamed so brightly, and he understood. All those Deacons were his—and not just in the normal way of an Arch Abbot and his Order. They were as much his children as the Rossins were. Apparently there was no end to his craziness or his fecundity.

  “Still, your blood will be of use. The last of the Imperial line will help summon the Maker of Ways—after I have killed just the right one, he will come.” Just like at the White Palace, Raed realized.

  Desperate, Raed reached out and grasped the brooch with both hands, tearing it from the cloak. The diamonds in it cut into his hands and the pin pierced the palm of it deep. The pain was intense, and it felt as though he had hit a bone with it. Blood squirted out from the wound.

  Now it was Derodak’s turn to curse.

  The grip around Raed’s throat loosened, and he found himself abruptly dropped to the ground. The sudden flood of air into his body was a blessing, though the pain he had caused was not the only consequence. Blood. It was always about blood. The deepest and oldest magic that Ehtia and geist used in combination with cantrips, runes and weirstones. In the end, it was blood.