Hovering over everything was the Maker of Ways. The red eyes sweeping over it all, his shoulder pressed against the edge of existence, and his great tentacles sliding forward out of the Otherside. Already thin geists, rei and mist witches were wriggling their way past him into the world. When he entered completely, there would be nothing but death and servitude to follow.
Sorcha’s mother had not birthed her for this, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was alone and the void around her roared.
At least until she heard the roar of the Rossin. It was loud enough to rise above the screaming sound of the Otherside. Once that roar had caused fear in her heart, but now she felt her tiny mote of reality flare at it.
Derodak was still above her, still letting the blood flow, still forcing her to hold on to all of humanity. Dimly she saw his gaze flick away from her. He called on the shield of fire to hold the Beast off. As it burned, he screamed at the Rossin, “You cannot harm me, Beast. We made the pact, my blood is your blood. You cannot enter.”
The Way is open! Arise Ehtia! A familiar voice called. Sorcha had the fleeting impression of a sweet face pressed against hers, cool and calming.
Then Nynnia and a thousand ethereal forms darted past the Maker. Derodak howled and swore as they collided with him, but he was forced off his perch on Sorcha.
The Ehtia had no bodies, but they had some little power still. They pressed the Arch Abbot against the far wall of the cavern opposite from where the raging Rossin snarled and roared. Their ancestral voices were like dead leaves rustling on cobblestones, but she could make out nothing of their words. It must have meant something to Derodak because he was howling. She was glad of it. Wanted more of it.
The shield of fire dropped away.
Sorcha levered herself up on her elbows, feeling the blood running from many cuts on her arms and body. Her vision dipped in and out. The Maker of Ways was screaming his song of destruction and moving forward. He had no need of her power or blood now; he was nearly done with his task. All was chaos and pain, but standing in the doorway, she finally saw them, and understood.
Merrick, pale and calm was beside the Rossin. He had his hands buried in the fur of the Beast’s mane. They could have been a statue dedicated to wild beauty. Both of them were looking directly at Sorcha, ignoring everything around them. There was nothing else.
Three bodies, four minds in agreement. Sorcha smiled slowly. No, not four minds. Hundreds of minds. She still held humanity inside her, while Merrick held the grand Conclave lightly in his mind, as if he were a child with a string toy in one hand. Sorcha cradled the tiny sparks of the rest of humanity in her. As it had been in the ossuary, one of them was dying.
Gasping, choking on her own blood, Sorcha held out her hand. “Come.”
The minds enveloped her, the flesh followed, and once more they fell into the Merge.
* * *
The Beast made of everything was flayed into existence on the very doorstep of the Otherside, but it was not the same Beast as had been born in the White Palace. It had grown huge on so much power. Its tawny hide shifted and moved to the eddies of the runes and power within it. It was the lost children of Waikein. It was the desperate Deacons of the Enlightened. It was the hopeless Empress defending her people above. Each hurt and barb of the living made up its essence.
Sorcha, Raed, Merrick and even the mighty Rossin were merely tiny parts of this great creation. They might have caused it to come into existence, but they could never grasp what it was.
When it opened its eyes, they flared every color.
If there was to be a god in Arkaym, it would be the Living Beast, and it would be brief and glorious. Unlike the creature four souls had made in the darkness of the ossuary, this one was not proud. It was something else entirely; it was the beauty of life. And life was brief, but powerful.
The Maker of Ways still towered above it, the scion of the undead. Its tentacles had pushed aside the breach, and one of its clawed feet was already on the sand. It could not be allowed to enter.
The Living Beast sprang forward, but the sound that issued from its throat was not a roar—it was almost music. It struck the Maker with all the force of everything that made it: the life of the human realm. Its claws pierced the hide of the Beast, and the geistlord howled. Its tentacles tore at the Beast, but he could not pierce to the core of its being. Human realm and Otherside wrestled for control of the breach.
Runes flexed on the Living Beast’s hide as it drove the Maker of Ways backward, biting and clawing at it with all the determination of life trying to overcome death. It had only a moment to exist and triumph. It only had one purpose.
As its feet gouged deeply in the earth, it gained strength from the blood there. It pushed harder.
When the Maker of Ways fell, it lost everything, connection to the human realm and strength. It could not muster itself again. As the figure collapsed backward into the Otherside however, the Beast also fell.
It landed on the sand and burst for the same reasons the Maker had. Connection was lost. The living could not hold. The Living Beast let go of its brief existence, exploding into a shower of realities that would never again come together.
* * *
The Rossin, Merrick and Sorcha were left scattered on the floor. The Maker of Ways had been beaten back, but the breach was still closing, ever so slowly.
Sorcha, her body healed in the Meld, saw the geists racing to escape into the human world while they could. They had stopped the Maker, but there would still be hundreds of lives lost if these geists entered. The gift of the Wrayth flared in her, and Merrick felt her understand what she needed to do. Before he could stop her, she turned the connection she had with the humans on the undead.
I’ll hold them, she sent desperately along the damaged Bond to Merrick. You must stop Derodak!
She was right. With the breach sealing itself the power of the Ehtia was failing. Their flimsy forms were not like geists; they could not exist beyond the Otherside without bodies. They evaporated like so much mist in the sun.
Derodak smiled and raised his hands still burning with runes to strike.
The Rossin snarled and bunched. The Arch Abbot pointed at him as if he were a house pet. “You cannot even touch me Beast. Remember our pact.” His eyes fell on Merrick. “You will be the first to die, and with your blood we will begin again.”
The Sensitive was too weakened by the Meld to do anything but watch as Derodak drew a long hunting knife and approached.
The Rossin’s roar filled the cavern again, and it was not that of a defeated creature. “Only your blood can kill you,” he snarled, and then immediately sprang forward.
This day’s events had slowed the Arch Abbot down too. He could not get out of the way quickly enough.
The great pard threw himself toward Derodak, but in mid-leap his flesh changed. It was Raed Syndar Rossin that landed atop him, still full of the strength of the Beast. He bore Derodak to the ground with a guttural yell. The sound of the Ancient man’s neck snapping echoed in the chamber, but Raed did not stop there. He tore his head free and flung it away into the shadows. It was the most impressive physical feat Merrick had ever seen, and he was left breathless.
When he levered himself up, Raed was covered in his ancestor’s blood. “No,” he said to the corpse, “only your blood can take your blood. Not the Rossin. Just me.”
Then he turned to Merrick and helped him to his feet. They both looked to Sorcha.
She was burning, as if her whole body lit from within. Her partner shivered at the strength of the connections she was holding to the geists—to the whole Otherside.
Let go! he shot along the Bond, but she was so weakened, so broken that she could not hear him, and he knew, neither could she let go.
“What’s happening?” Raed asked, shivering in his nakedness before the breach.
“We’re losing her,” Merrick replied, dropping to his knees beside his partner, “and gaining geists.” Nynnia had
been right. If Sorcha held her connection to the geists, then the breach would never close, and they would not need the Maker of Ways to enter. She would be their eternal conduit.
“Do something then!” Raed demanded, and he could not really understand what he was asking.
Yet, Merrick knew what he had to do. The distressed face of Nynnia was close, but she did not press. They both knew what had to come. She had asked him once if he would have the strength to do this very thing.
In the halls of the initiate, in the quiet of the Sensitive training, Merrick had learned along with all his fellows the rune Ticat; the Final Rune. Actives thought it was another level of consciousness—which in a way it was. It was the rune of control, for when an Active became as Sorcha was now; a danger to the human realm.
Along the Bond, comprehension of what he was about to do flowed to his partner. She understood. Her partner felt that instantly. In all the chaos of the moment, there was an instant of clarity. In it, there was only the two of them and the Bond.
It’s too much, Merrick. I can’t stop it, so you have to stop me.
Her voice echoed in his head, cool and calm, but it held none of the passion he’d come to associate with Sorcha. The world was only her blue eyes and her acceptance. They’d both trained. They both knew the risks. However, Sorcha had to tell him this, and Merrick knew why: she didn’t want him to be haunted by guilt, and she wanted to make sure he didn’t hesitate.
Silver light flared along Merrick’s forehead, running along the Pattern, flooding his vision white. He dived down into Sorcha, became her for an instant. Then he took it from her, ripping away all that made her powerful. It was the cruelest thing to do to a Deacon—to take away all that made them who they were. He flayed the channels of the runes, burning everything out as he plunged through her.
The marks on his partner’s arms faded as Merrick wielded Ticat, and he made sure to take all that she had; she would be no conduit for geist or geistlord.
When Merrick opened his eyes, it was to look into Sorcha’s blue ones. The breach behind them was sealing with nothing to hold it open. However, in that instant all that mattered was each other.
Merrick had burned everything to nothing. Not just her power, but their connection. They were now just as two normal people who knew each other very well. No Bond lay between them. Not between them or between the Rossin.
He expected hatred, but instead she looked remarkably calm. Pressing her hand on top of Merrick’s, Sorcha climbed to her feet, and all three of them embraced. Words were unnecessary between them. They all knew what had been lost, but also what had been saved.
In the silence, they heard a yip. Turning, they saw that the Fensena had entered the chamber. The huge coyote with blood drying on his coat was panting, but when he spoke it was with confidence. “Harbinger Sorcha Faris, while you still hold the title of head of an Order, I need that one favor you owe me.”
Sorcha sagged slightly, her arm around both Merrick and Raed. “You . . . you ask me this now?” Even exhausted her voice was outraged. “Have you not seen what we have just done, did you not—”
The coyote tilted his head. “Yes, very impressive, and I am grateful, but I think you will find I have done more than I ever expected . . . but nonetheless you still owe me that favor.”
Sorcha’s jaw clenched. “Very well, what do you want?”
“A simple thing,” the Fensena said, walking in closer. “Take up your partner’s cloak, wrap it around the Imperial blood, and tell my master he must be free.”
“Your master?” Merrick had a feeling he knew what the answer would be.
The coyote performed a little bow. “Yes, the Rossin. Only a leader of the Order can give my master the freedom he has always wanted.”
Raed, who had the most to gain in this transaction, held up his hand. “Hold on! Do you mean that the Rossin would be separated from me, free to roam the world?”
“Yes,” the Fensena replied simply.
“No!” Raed turned on Sorcha. “I have always dreamed of being free of the Rossin—but you cannot unleash him on the world. His bloodlust . . .”
“Raed.” It was Sorcha who interrupted him. “Did you really not understand the Rossin when we were in the Meld?”
Merrick stopped breathing for just an instant. He understood what she meant. They had been so tightly bound together nothing had been hidden. The Rossin’s bloodlust had subsided with the Bond; he had become more a part of the human world than part of the Otherside the longer he was bound to them.
He had not needed to kill to sustain himself for some time. When they had been one, his need for freedom had been theirs. They could still taste it, and what was more, they understood it.
Raed’s shoulders slumped, he sighed, and then nodded. “No one wants to understand an enemy,” he finally said, “but now I do.”
“Be not too worried,” the Fensena offered, “the Rossin, I think, will find being bound to one form, one life, not as much freedom as he might think.” A sly coyote grin spread on his jaws. “Think of it as the sting in the tail if it makes you feel better.”
“Very well then.” Sorcha bent and took up the silver fur Merrick had let drop and wrapped it around Raed. “Be free.”
It seemed such a simple thing. The pelt of the Rossin was given back to him by the Harbinger of the Enlightened—as Derodak had made it so.
When Raed staggered back, the Rossin was born anew into the world and ran. They glimpsed only the flick of his tail and heard his roar of delight.
* * *
The Rossin ran from Vermillion. His great pads made no noise as he pounded along the cobblestones. The war drums were gone. Citizens of Vermillion, those that still remained on the street that was, hurried to get out of his way.
He did not think they knew what he was, perhaps just some Beast that had escaped the Imperial menagerie in the tumult. He took no more blood from them, because he did not need to. The mad lust for it was gone, and it was another thing he was free of.
The sudden realization hit him as he bounded over a man tugging a recalcitrant donkey pulling a cart—he was free. He heard the donkey’s frightened bray, and the howl of the man, but they were suddenly a long way behind him.
He had his own body. The flesh he wore was his alone now. He was no longer geist, since that had been ripped away from him when Sorcha Faris broke all Bonds. She’d freed him, and in doing so fulfilled her promise to the Fensena.
His longs strides slowed, and the great pard looked around. He was standing at the very edge of Vermillion again, looking out over the swamplands, and it was as if he were seeing them for the very first time.
The Fensena’s warning now came to him. Without the powers of the geist or any connection back to the Otherside, the geistlord was nothing more than a large, peculiar creature. He had his intelligence, his size and his strength—and that was all.
The Rossin snarled, shaking his thick mane and inhaling the smells of this new world he had literally just been born into. He was indeed no longer a geistlord, but he was certainly no normal lion. He was indeed something new. This world needed something new.
Yet he only had one life now. The Rossin could no longer hide in the bloodline of the Imperial family that had taken his name.
As the Rossin stood there contemplating, he heard a sound in the streets behind him, and turned to see a small child that was staring at him. It was a boy of no more than five, standing in the shadow of one of the shacks that made up the Edge of Vermillion. He had wide brown eyes, and he was staring at the Rossin with not a trace of fear in his face.
The great pard saw himself reflected in those eyes, and he was no terrifying geistlord. He was a shadow-maned wonder with gleaming eyes. The child actually raised one hand and waved at him. He was fearless, and the Rossin wondered if perhaps there was a way that humanity would forget its terror of him.
A sea of possibilities opened up before the Rossin, and even though there was risk waiting for him out there
, he was at least free. As the great pard sprang away from the city of Vermillion, he let out a roar. It was a promise of things to come—a promise of freedom.
TWENTY-NINE
Setting Sail
Three weeks after the end of Derodak and his Circle of Stars, four people, respectfully followed by two platoons of Imperial Guard, walked down from the palace to where the remains of the Mother Abbey lay.
One wore a black cloak with bands of emerald green and sky blue, two others thick brown wool cloaks, while the fourth was in a dress uniform of pure white and wore a band of gold on her head.
The Mother Abbey seemed a good place to contemplate what needed to be done and to bid farewell to one another.
Sorcha, Raed, Merrick and the Empress of Arkaym, with the now-confined-to-one-body Fensena trotting at their heels, picked their way over the ruins of the devotional, examining the space where the new Arch Abbot of the Order of the Enlightened wanted to build his new Mother Abbey. Merrick had decided not to call himself Harbinger—that he would leave for his predecessor.
“Are you sure you want to start again here?” Sorcha frowned and pushed some stones through the dirt with her foot. “This ground has seen a lot of death and pain.” Her arms were healing, though the marks the Patternmaker had carved on her skin had become nothing more than strange scars. No runic power had flowed through her skin since Merrick had cast the rune Ticat on her. She found she was at peace with that.
Merrick’s brown eyes grew distant for a moment, so that she wondered if he were attempting to peer into the future. He shook his head and smiled at her. “It has also seen a lot of laughter, healing and intelligent discourse. The stones we will bury far from Vermillion, but the ground is still solid. I know you wanted to build something new, Sorcha, but the Order is mine now. And besides,” he said, shooting her a sharp grin, “this is the place you and I first met. In days to come, it may become holy ground.”
Harbinger (A BOOK OF THE ORDER) Page 29
