Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  He immediately stopped, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, staring at the floor without saying a word.

  “No time for this,” Zofiya muttered to herself, while tilting his head forward. “This has been on a long while hasn’t it, old sir.” The flesh on each side of the steel collar was covered in scars where his neck had rubbed against it and then healed.

  Nothing in this room was going to break this piece of the blacksmith’s art, nor were her bare hands. For some reason, tears sprang to her eyes at the thought. Ridiculous that a man of such short acquaintance could bring such emotion out in her, but Zofiya wanted to protect him. He reminded her of the quiet nuns of Hatipai in the temple in Delmaire—the ones that had never realized they served a geistlord. She pressed her hands around his, for a moment stilling his reconstruction of the design on the floor.

  “What is your name?”

  He looked up at her with those incredible eyes. “Ratimana,” was all he said, before returning to what he was doing. As if that was enough explanation of everything.

  She had to go. Del Rue or one of his cronies could return to check on her at any minute. “I will send someone back for you, Ratimana. As soon as I am back with my brother. I promise.”

  He did not glance up, not even when she reluctantly walked toward the far door. Zofiya glanced back once, but he still drew on. Many times in her life the Grand Duchess had wished for some of the talents of a Sensitive Deacon, but never more so than now. Something about that old man suggested he was more than he seemed. She would send her best Imperial Guards back to retrieve him, and a brace of Deacons just to be sure.

  The next door was also unlocked, the final chamber in what she guessed had to be a root cellar of some house somewhere on the Edge of Vermillion. This one was unoccupied and much larger. The first thing she saw that raised her hopes immediately was a set of crooked stairs leading up. Scrambling up them proved to be dangerous as they lurched most alarmingly, but Zofiya reached the top, and felt a grin spread on her face. A pair of cellar doors.

  She pushed on them. Then when that did not work, she applied her shoulder. Nothing budged. Taking a calming breath, she examined them more closely. With her fingertips she traced the outline of the doors. They seemed sturdy, and the gaps were packed with dirt and rocks.

  As she sat back on her heels, Zofiya realized that the cellar door had been most effectively sealed shut on the other side by a thick application of rocks and dirt. How were del Rue and his minions coming and going through?

  Carefully Zofiya climbed back down the stairs and set about searching the rest of the room. It was larger than the other two, but not big enough that another entrance could be effectively hidden. She’d given up on stealth now. Desperation and frustration were growing. In her nightmares she had dreamed of her brother caught in a situation like this—but never herself. All those years of putting his safety first, and the worst thing she’d imagined was getting killed. Being turned into a pawn in someone’s grand game had never figured. Perhaps she needed a larger imagination in the future. Depending on what that was.

  She reached the far side of the cellar, and found only a narrow tunnel. This looked freshly constructed, because the brick walls on each side were ripped apart. Holding her broken bit of bed frame before her, Zofiya followed it.

  The air in the tunnel suddenly became very close, and her skin began to itch frightfully. One summer in Delmaire she’d spent an uncomfortable hour by the lake while her father examined the latest addition to his river fleet. For three days after she’d itched to the point she’d wanted to rip her own skin off. This moment reminded her uncomfortably of that one. Every part of her body wanted her to stop moving forward and just go back. Maybe that cellar door wasn’t as blocked as she thought. Maybe she hadn’t checked all the corners of the last room thoroughly enough?

  These thoughts made no sense, but felt so compelling. She’d been exposed to magic before, she knew the signs, so Zofiya kept plowing forward, one foot in front of the other.

  The end of the short excavation ended in strangeness. An oval was described in the dirt, as tall as Zofiya was. It was outlined with the gleaming opalescence of tiny weirstones. That could not be good. Still she had a feeling this had to be the way del Rue was traveling. When she was within a few feet of it, she extended her hand cautiously.

  The surface was icy cold like she’d plunged her hand into a lake, but after only an inch, it did not yield any further—no matter how hard she pressed. She had to get to Kaleva. He must be turning Vermillion upside down to find her. What was he imagining happened to her?

  However as Zofiya stood there thinking those things, hand still clamped to the surface, the darkness began to resolve itself. The Grand Duchess frowned and peered closer. Was she imagining it, or could she actually see Kaleva? His face was coming into focus in the darkness.

  His expression was one however that she had never seen on her brother before. He looked angry; not just slightly annoyed, but truly and deeply angry. It reminded her of some of the expressions she had seen on the faces of men about to go into battle. Her father had some island folk that went into a maddened state before heading into a fight. The bulging eyes and clenched teeth had frightened her as a child, and seeing a similar look on her brother’s face was worse.

  “Kal!” she shouted, keeping her hand on the surface, lest she break whatever magic was allowing this to happen. “Kal, I am here!”

  He didn’t move at all, so not even a whisper of her scream was getting through. Then the scene around the Emperor began to make itself known, and she saw him. Standing at her brother’s side was del Rue. Zofiya howled again, trying to pound her way through the barrier with her other hand. She even kicked at it, but nothing broke.

  Taking a long breath she bottled her frustration back inside her, and concentrated instead on what was happening on the other side. It looked like the interior of one of the aristocratic chambers in the palace, and she surmised that this was the room del Rue had been given. It was luxurious, more like something a visiting Prince could command rather than a minor noble.

  Kaleva was speaking to del Rue, waving his finger and pointing in a totally uncharacteristic manner. Zofiya’s stomach clenched. She hated seeing her brother like this, and most especially knowing that she was the cause of it. Abruptly she had an idea.

  Cautiously she pressed the side of her head against the surface. One side of her face grew numb, and her ear felt like it might break and fall off, but she was able to make out faint noise from the other side.

  “…and the Arch Abbot says he will not hand over that cursed Deacon for questioning.” Kaleva’s voice cracked with rage. “I never should have let them take him in the first place.”

  “You were in shock, Your Imperial Majesty. You cannot blame yourself for what happened then. What is important is what happens now.” He gestured Kaleva to sit, and after a moment the Emperor did. “Have you given any further thought to what we discussed yesterday?”

  “The Pattern?” Her brother looked distracted.

  “I have been warning you, Imperial Majesty, for months, about the perils of this Order you brought with you.” Del Rue pressed. “Now the man responsible for your sister’s disappearance is safe behind the skirts of the Mother Abbey.”

  “It wasn’t him!” Zofiya then screamed her brother’s name again, but he made no gesture to suggest he had noticed it. Her hands clenched on the surface, but she could not look away.

  “But they have rid Arkaym of the geists, and been very useful to—”

  “Darling.” A voice from outside of the range of the tunnel made itself known by cutting off the Emperor, and Zofiya immediately recognized it. The Empress was apparently also present. “You yourself said it was the Arch Abbot of the Order who was the one that conspired to destroy Vermillion last year. We cannot forget either that the Deacons who you sent to Chioma, only a season ago, returned with my home in flames and my father slain. Now, to top it all off, they have taken you
r sister.”

  Kaleva shook his head, glancing down at the floor. Zofiya knew that gesture from times past. He was coming to a hard decision. He was making his mind up with the poison of del Rue dripping in his ear. She pounded on the surface that stood between them.

  “Much like the old Native Order, this one has fallen prey to avarice and power.” Del Rue leaned in closer to the Emperor. “You can always summon more Deacons from your father’s domain if you like. The Order of the Eye and the Fist is not the only one in the world.”

  “You must think of your people!” Ezefia came into view, stunning as ever in an Imperial scarlet dress, and sat next to him, resting one hand on his knee. “It is about their safety as well as your own.” She made a sharp gesture, and one of her ladies appeared, carrying something on a cushion. With the care the lady-in-waiting displayed it could have been made of glass. Whatever it was however was a mystery, since it was covered with a blue piece of velvet.

  “You got the Pattern from the vaults, my love,” the Empress cooed. “You must know what needs to be done.”

  Zofiya sunk to her knees, keeping her face and hand pressed to the surface. “Kaleva, no! Whatever they are doing, turn away. Please!” She yelled it toward him, as if he could hear her by some kind of Deacon Sensitivity. If only they’d been twins, or born with the power. Too late now to hope for that.

  Kaleva took the cushion from Ezefia’s lady, set it on his knee and then drew back the covering. The Grand Duchess ceased her wailing and looked. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen—and it was not the first time she’d seen it. Two pale blue marble tablets, about as long as her forearm, rested before her brother. A filigree of writing was carved into them, and soft blue light ran from the lines. From her angle she could not see what the words were, but she could remember from memory. The ten Runes of Dominion and the seven Runes of Sight. She’d last seen the Pattern, though she’d never heard it called that, on the wharf in Delmaire, just before they sailed for Arkaym. She recalled the Arch Abbot handing them to Kaleva reverently, and offering them up as a symbol of trust between the Order and their Emperor.

  Back then she’d been too busy organizing her troops for the largest sea journey of any army in history to take much notice of what the Order did. As far as she knew he’d placed it in a box and sent it to the vault with all his other treasures.

  However now, just looking at them, Kaleva’s face blanched. His hand hovered a few inches above them, but did not dare to touch the stones. Even del Rue and the Empress were silenced for a spell.

  “The inscription is indeed lovely,” del Rue said, wetting his lips, “but if Your Imperial Majesty can see beyond that…”

  “Think of Zofiya…” The Empress glanced up, locking eyes with del Rue.

  Kaleva cleared his throat. “What do I do?”

  The Grand Duchess was riveted, unable to move or say anything; trapped on the other side of the barrier and rendered impotent.

  “One must simply break it.” Her brother must have been too foolish or perhaps too enmeshed in del Rue’s machinations to notice that the older man was leaning forward, and his eyes were hard stones fixed on the Emperor.

  “Snap it? It’s that simple?”

  Ezefia smiled and simpered, as if she were asking her husband to pass the salt, rather than destroy a partnership that had brought Arkaym back from chaos. “You are the Emperor, and it is your right.”

  “No, no, no,” Zofiya muttered under her breath. “Don’t be an idiot, Kal! Think for yourself…please…”

  Her pleas dissolved in the ether and never reached her brother. Kaleva straightened in his chair, and then leaning forward took up first the Runes of Dominion and then the Runes of Sight, and then simply by placing them against the low table before him, bent them in half and broke them. The snap of the fragile stone echoed in the room and in the corridor Zofiya watched from.

  Zofiya found that she was holding her breath, but there came no rumble of thunder or shower of geists. Nothing.

  Del Rue’s grin could not have been bigger. He looked as though he had fallen in a pit of gold and then been showered with naked women. The Empress too appeared delighted.

  Meanwhile the Grand Duchess could barely hold back her rage. Kaleva! She loved him, and he was a fine Emperor when it came to day-to-day things. Handsome, kind, but the flaw in him had reappeared. That thread of weakness in her brother, the desire to please that their father had fostered in all his sons, had now come to the fore. It would be his people that would suffer for it.

  All three rose to their feet, leaving the broken remains of the Pattern lying on the table. No longer gleaming with blue light, they were reduced to mere shards of rock. Utterly unremarkable.

  “Now we can go gather the Guard and besiege the Mother Abbey.” Kaleva smiled bleakly. “I shall have that Deacon and answers to what they have done.”

  “The Presbyterial Council and the Arch Abbot are the ones to be held accountable,” del Rue said nodding. “It is not the fault of the everyday Deacons that they followed their orders.”

  “I shall be merciful,” Kaleva said, as he walked out from view, followed by his conniving Empress.

  To think, Zofiya thought grimly, I was once happy he chose her, and thought her a sweet girl. That man has twisted her somehow.

  Del Rue closed the door on them and strode toward the portal.

  Zofiya swallowed and backed hastily away down the tunnel. She only had a dubious piece of wood to defend herself, but she would damn well give it a try. Taking up a position to one side where the tunnel opened up into the larger cellar, she marshaled her remaining strength and waited, stick held ready. If she was able to get in one good blow on his head, she might have a chance to overpower him. Just what she would do after that was a question that could wait until he was lying at her feet.

  She heard del Rue’s footsteps crunch on the dirt as he came toward her, and she let out a soft exhalation in preparation. Then she stepped around the corner, yelled in pent-up rage and frustration and drew back her weapon to strike.

  However, before she completed her downswing, green fire enveloped her. It did not hurt, but she could feel the little strength left in her limbs drain away. When her captor withdrew the flames of Shayst, she was left limp on the floor, having trouble gasping for breath, and at the point of crying tears of despair.

  She heard his words drop on her like hail. “I am a master of both Sight and Dominion, silly girl. Did you think I wouldn’t feel you standing there waiting for me?”

  He rolled her over with the point of one boot and stared at her with all the chagrin of a disappointed parent. “My little miss Grand Duchess. Whatever have you done to yourself getting free? I am going to have to clean you up or that wound could get quite infected.”

  She didn’t have enough energy to reply to him: not a sneer, not a clever remark, not even a groan of pain. He scooped her up easily into his arms and began carrying her back the way she’d come.

  “Never mind,” he commented, “we shall start at the beginning again and all will be well.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Silent Lesson

  It was not a day they left him alone; it was much closer to a week. Twice a day a mechanized door would open at the rear of the Silence Room, and a plate of food would be behind it. Merrick would eat the bland repast, huddled in the corner of the room, and wonder why exactly he bothered.

  Sorcha was long gone, far away, and who knew if she was well or not. Zofiya too was gone. All he had was the company of the darkling. Hearing it whisper into his brain was not comforting, and the longer he was here the more her words of vengeance and distraction were starting to make sense. Merrick was terrified that he would give in to the shadows, and become like her.

  He missed the life he’d had before Sorcha disappeared: the cautious smile of the Grand Duchess, the smell of the liniment they used in the infirmary and the wonderful sense of communion in the Devotional first thing in the morning. He held on to those
memories and fell into their embrace as a way of escaping the stillness.

  So when Kolya Petav opened the door to the Silence Room and whispered, “Deacon Chambers,” it took Merrick a long moment to realize that he was not hallucinating. Kolya had been nothing but a distraction and an irritation to him in the last few months, driving Sorcha into apoplexy with his stubbornness about giving her up as a partner. Now that he was standing there, holding the door open, he looked nothing like Merrick remembered.

  His blond hair was askew, and his calm expression quite evaporated; the man who was technically still married to Sorcha had a clenched jaw and wide eyes. Even Sorcha’s rough temper all those months ago had never made him look like this. “Come with me,” he said, his quiet voice the equivalent of a shot in this particular space. He glanced around the room even though it was patently empty. “Quickly, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Merrick climbed slowly to his feet. Perhaps this was some cruel kind of test by the Arch Abbot, or maybe Deacon Petav was working with the Emperor. “Get out of here?” he asked cautiously, craning his head to see if there was anyone behind Sorcha’s former husband.

  “Yes.” The other Deacon actually stepped in and tugged on his arm, an entirely too familiar gesture—especially within the Order. “Now!”

  “I take it I am not being released by the Council.” Merrick didn’t need his Sensitivity to discern the nervous flicks of Kolya’s eyes, or the way his hand was clenched tight on the doorframe.

  “Indeed not.” His fellow Deacon gestured him into the narrow stairway. “Follow me quickly.”

  Two Sensitives escaping from within the Mother Abbey itself was an impossibility, so ridiculous as to be laughable. Merrick stopped, folded his arms and shook his head. “I’m not quite sure what has come over you, Deacon Petav. I appreciate the sentiment and your effort, but this is a foolish course. We can’t just walk out of here, and I wouldn’t want you to—”