Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  Not many who they passed were raising words in defense of the Order. Most were whispering about “their good Emperor finally taking control,” or “about time the Deacons were taken down a peg or two.” Her ire finally began to overcome her shock.

  These were the people that the Order of the Eye and the Fist had protected for years. They were the reason so many of her brethren had laid down their lives. And yet, here they were almost looking forward to its demise. Maybe the Circle of Stars was right, perhaps the people of Arkaym should be ruled over ruthlessly since they had so little thankfulness for what was done in their name.

  They circled through the Boulevard of Cloth Merchants, and dodged the crowds on the Lane of Easy Virtue. Some of Raed’s crew spared a glance up to the brightly decorated balconies of the ladies and lads of easy virtue, but fortunately all of them were abandoned. It appeared that even those that made a living on their back had an interest in tonight’s events—enough to give up an evening’s earnings.

  Sorcha, as much as she loved the Young Pretender, was beginning to doubt that he could feel the Bond between himself and Merrick. After all, she couldn’t and she was a trained Deacon. Not that that meant anything anymore.

  Still as she was cradled in his arms, she did begin to feel a little stronger, and by the time they reached Tinker’s Lane, she tapped him on the shoulder to be let down.

  She frowned when she realized where he had led them. “Here?” Tinkers and Deacons went together about as well as oil and water.

  Raed didn’t answer, merely took her hand and led her farther down the street until they were outside a place that Sorcha recognized. It had only been the previous season that she stood outside this place with Merrick and Kolya. The sign still proclaimed, VASHILL—MASTER TINKER TO THE PALACE, while within, a single light flickered in one of the downstairs rooms.

  Aachon and she shared a look, while the crew scoured the darker parts of the street for any dangers. Raed however was oblivious. He marched up the path and banged on the door.

  The noise echoed down the silent roadway and made Sorcha jump. It was a very fine thing that the Imperial Guard was busy right now. No one came to his first knocking, and Raed was just about to try again, when the door popped open.

  There in all her nighttime glory stood Widow Vashill. She looked no older or wiser than when Sorcha had rid her attic of the shade of her dead husband. Her face was just as welcoming now as it had been then however—that was to say, not at all.

  “Oh it’s you,” she said, pulling her shawl around her and peering at Sorcha, while completely ignoring Raed. “I thought someone said you were dead.”

  “No, not quite,” Sorcha muttered. “I don’t suppose you have seen any other Deacons about have you?”

  The old woman grinned, showing her vast expanse of crooked teeth, but rather than denying it, she instead stepped back and ushered them into the shop.

  Sorcha kept expecting it to be some kind of trick, and a mass of Imperial Guards to rush out to carry them off to prison, but the widow gestured half of their company onto the lifting pallet.

  “Not all of you,” she croaked. “Next ride, or take the stairs.” She looked delighted for some reason.

  On the pallet, they sped up to the third floor, and in this large space, with the windows covered with dark sheets, Sorcha finally felt she had come home.

  The room was full of Deacons. They still wore their cloaks, and there were both blue and green in evidence. A tight ball of emotion lodged itself in her throat, but it didn’t stop her from racing over to them. It was hard to tell in the half-light but she would have said there were about twenty or more of them.

  Lujia, Kabel, Sibuse, Elib…She began to lose count of the familiar faces that surrounded her. Then out of the press of people, the one face she wanted to see most of all, and feared she never would again, emerged.

  “Merrick,” she whispered, and not caring who was standing nearby, threw herself into his arms. He felt solid and real, and he was hugging her back just as hard. She had to slap him on the back several times before she was convinced she wasn’t imagining it.

  The Bond between them though was silent, and that loss was an ache inside her that felt like a wound. She kissed him once on each cheek and squeezed him again for good measure.

  His brown eyes were gleaming with delight, and his curly hair was even more unruly than ever. He blinked at her as though he thought she might disappear. “By the Bones, Sorcha! I can’t believe it! You’re all right.” Then she realized why he was blinking: he was trying to hold back tears.

  “Yes,” she said, giving him a little twirl. “Not quite myself.” She patted her skinny hips and held out her rail-thin arms. “Still, nothing that a good few weeks of eating won’t help.”

  “So long confined to a bed,” Merrick marveled, “and yet that is all? You’re a miracle!”

  That brought Sorcha back to reality with a thump. He didn’t know. Without the Bond he wouldn’t know unless she told him. That was a bitter thought indeed.

  To cover her confusion, she gestured into the crowd and Raed managed to squeeze his way through. Merrick let out a delighted yell and grabbed him into a hug, before ending it with several hearty slaps on the back. Such a display from her young partner was quite endearing.

  “I hear you’ve been causing quite the stir,” Raed commented. “Kidnapping Grand Duchesses and igniting a feud with the Emperor himself!”

  “He did no such thing.” Kolya emerged from the back of the crowd, his usual calm demeanor showing signs of cracks. “However, I got him out before Kaleva could torture him into confessing to something he didn’t do.”

  Sorcha looked her former partner up and down, reevaluating him. “No one was there to help Merrick?”

  “Not a soul,” the Deacon himself responded.

  Sorcha did not voice her disappointment that it had not been Garil that aided him. “Thank you,” she said, turning to Kolya, and genuinely meant it. “You did a very good thing with every chance of punishment for it.”

  He blushed and looked away; their shared past made things awkward between them. However compared to what had happened to the Order, it now seemed very trivial. Sorcha shifted from one foot to another for a second.

  “Yes,” Merrick broke through the moment of tension. “The Emperor is not really himself at the moment. He’s been keeping rather bad company.”

  She was certain there was more to that comment than was first apparent, but the Deacons were more important to her right now. “How did all of you get here?”

  “We found each other out on the street, and we could hardly just wander around with guards out there too. This was the best place I could think of to bring them.” The other Deacons were once more settling on boxes and the floor, talking among themselves. Merrick glanced around before lowering his voice. “Many of the Order were either outside the gates when they closed or escaped beforehand. Everyone here is appalled at what the Arch Abbot is doing…or not doing.”

  “An understatement,” Kolya offered, “but the Emperor is not what he once was. The loss of his sister has quite unhinged him.”

  The Deacons nearby nodded their agreement. Sorcha glanced back at Raed who looked like he might never smile again. He had lost a sister, and she hoped he could survive that. Looking around further, Sorcha saw that every one of her colleagues was nursing a set of ruined Gauntlets or Strop like a broken limb. She was not going through this grief alone, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  She took Merrick by the elbow and guided him into a slightly less-occupied corner. “What really happened between you and the Grand Duchess? I know you were attracted to Zofiya, but—”

  “You heard everything I said to you in the infirmary?” Merrick blushed. It was amazing he was still capable of that after all this time with her.

  “Yes, and it was a good thing too, I got into a couple of situations where your experience was very useful.” Quickly she outlined what she had seen in the nest of the W
rayth. Since it was Merrick, she spared no detail—even including what she had found out about her own heritage. The only detail she kept to herself was the deal with the Fensena. That seemed of little importance at this moment—and her partner would only fuss. So she lied a little and said Aachon and the weirstone had helped her remove the curse.

  He sat down quickly on a box after that. “Well”—he cleared his throat before going on—“the story behind your conception explains many things about you, Sorcha. The strength of the Bonds we made, as well as your ability to survive Hatipai…”

  “And perhaps why Rictun hated me, even from the novitiate,” Sorcha conceded. “He was never able to explain it, but something about me irritated him.”

  “I always assumed it was your—” Merrick stopped suddenly, and she smiled.

  Luckily, Raed saved the young Sensitive from further pain, when he wandered over.

  “Have you got out of him what happened with Zofiya?” he asked mildly, as if they had all the time in the world.

  Merrick flushed again. “There’s not much to tell. After Sorcha disappeared I went to the palace with the intention of getting the Grand Duchess to secure an airship, so I could pursue her.”

  “I’m sure that was the reasoning,” Sorcha murmured, thinking of the sly looks the Imperial sister had been giving Merrick even on the way back from Chioma. She was experienced enough to know when two people were attracted to each other—even if one of them was second in line to the throne of the Empire.

  Her partner ignored her jibe and went on. “Zofiya had been having some concerns about a minor noble, del Rue, who was being taken into the Emperor’s confidence in a deep and puzzling way. When I met him, I realized he was the man I had seen in the tunnels in Chioma—the man that tried to take my mother.”

  Sorcha clenched her hands into fists. “When I was laid out you told me all about that—that they were of the Order of the Circle of Stars?”

  Merrick nodded bleakly, while Raed frowned and asked, “But that Order was destroyed generations ago…”

  “Apparently not,” the young Deacon said. “They’re not really as dead as we thought. They still want the Empire for their own. Your grandfather’s attempts to have them wiped out forced them underground—but they never left.”

  “They’re responsible for all this. Ulrich. The White Palace. Chioma.” Sorcha leaned back on the box, and stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

  All three of them considered the implications, but it was Raed that gathered his thoughts quickly enough to ask, “Well then, what can we do to stop them?”

  “Find Zofiya,” Merrick replied swiftly. “The Emperor might become a little more reasonable with her back at his side, and perhaps we can fix what he has done to the Pattern.”

  “The Pattern?” Sorcha blinked.

  “Apparently there is a master Pattern for all the Gauntlets and Strops of the Order, and it was held in trust by the Emperor. It was a form of surety that we would not run amok and steal his throne as the Circle of Stars tried to. The Pattern’s destruction is to blame for the failure of the runes.” Merrick absentmindedly rubbed the length of the Strop between his fingers. “I don’t know what it looks like, but maybe it can be repaired somehow.”

  Raed snorted, but held his tongue. This was all new information to Sorcha, but she believed what Merrick was saying; her partner knew a great deal more than she, even if he had been in the Order for a much shorter time. Book learning was not her forte, but then that was why they were partners; to be a strong team.

  “So, if we know that this del Rue took the Grand Duchess, then how do we plan on getting her back?” Raed asked, his eyes staring at a distant point.

  Merrick seemed to come to a decision, folding up his Strop and tucking it away quickly into his pocket. “He must be using the weirstone tunnels to pass back and forth between the palace and wherever he is keeping her. Very convenient since he doesn’t have to worry about guards or walls.”

  “He could just be using Voishem,” Sorcha offered.

  Her partner shook his head vehemently. “No, that rune doesn’t make you invisible, and he wouldn’t risk being seen. Besides, he’s constantly at the palace. He needs a way to pass around easily and without drawing comment. The Wrayth’s tunnels would work best.”

  “So,” Raed said, standing up and brushing off his jacket, “you are going to say that we have to break into the palace and without the help of your runes?”

  “Why don’t you choose something hard?” Sorcha groaned, thinking with longing of Voishem, now lost to her.

  “We are not completely without resources, some of us have a wild talent or two.” Merrick would not meet anyone’s eyes, but Sorcha felt a surge of pride in her partner. She’d been outraged when first partnered with him—now she wouldn’t have it any other way. “Now, I don’t exactly know how well I can control whatever it is, but it is a weapon we can use…at least until we get the runes back.”

  Raed nodded. “It has to be done, so let’s get to it. The longer Arkaym is without the Order the more geist activity will increase.” He walked back to Aachon, pulled him away and began to talk to him quietly. The first mate listened and nodded. As he did, his face became even grimmer.

  Merrick, watching them, looked just as despondent. Sorcha laid her hand over his. “We’ll find a way back. We have to, and besides”—she nudged him—“you at least have some kind of power. Without my Gauntlets I am nothing.”

  He shot her an appraising look. “With what you have told me, I don’t think that is necessarily true.”

  She flinched and would have yanked her hand back, but he twisted his and held on tight.

  “You can’t ignore this, Sorcha.” His brown eyes were stern in the dimly lit room. “Think of the Prince of Chioma; he too was a product of geistlord and human. The Wrayth are trying to make something with their breeding program. Maybe they already have what they wanted and they just now found that out.”

  She stood and looked down at him, still holding her hand. “Once the Order is fixed, we’ll send back a Conclave of Deacons to root the Wrayth out. Until then, we have plenty to occupy ourselves with.”

  In the way of Merrick, he did not argue. It was push and back away, with him—forever testing her boundaries and demanding more of her. Now he had found one, and he left it up to her to see if she was brave enough to cross it. Sorcha pressed her lips together and glared at him.

  “Come on then,” he said, with a shrug. “Let’s go find the right Deacons to infiltrate our Emperor’s palace.”

  She twisted her mouth. “I suppose you will insist on Kolya?”

  Merrick assessed her for a moment. “Would you mind if I did?”

  She shrugged and glanced over to her former partner. “If you think he will be useful, then that is fine with me.” In the moonlight, she realized she had never looked closely at Kolya—not since he’d recovered from the geist attack outside the palace. In all the time she’d spent angry with him, she had forgotten much of the good about him. She’d married him for a reason, not just for convenience. He had reminded her of that by helping Merrick.

  The young Deacon’s hand rested on her shoulder. “I don’t think Kolya should come, not for this…but perhaps he can guard those left behind. I know he is a fine shot.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “he is indeed.”

  Merrick squeezed her arm. “Then come meet the others, and let us find what we can among the remains of our Order.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Things Never Foreseen

  Merrick crouched next to Raed in the shadow of the garden wall and felt the weight of a rifle in his hands as some kind of desecration. It was not that he had never fired a gun, or wielded a sword, but the fact was that it had never been his first line of defense—Sorcha always had been.

  It was a miserable evening to be out. Rain had started to fall and clouds had covered the moon, so that the only light in the Imperial Square before them was from the torches atop the wall.
Raed had commented it was good weather for a sneak attack, and while Merrick could see that, it didn’t lighten his mood.

  On the other side of Raed, Sorcha was also armed, and looked about as happy as he felt. Behind them were three pairs of Deacons: Leonteh and Quannik, Murn and Natylda, Lujia and Sibuse. All of the Deacons had left their cloaks of the Order behind at Widow Vashill’s home. The rest of the group was made up of crew from the Dominion. At this point, they were far more useful than the members of the Order. Merrick knew Murn and Natylda well, as both had tested against him in the practice arena, but the older pairs were a mystery to him. They had claimed competence with a rifle, but that remained to be seen.

  Kolya had been left in charge of the remaining Deacons; a steady and dependable rudder on this madcap ship. All of the things Sorcha had found boring about him nonetheless made Deacon Petav an excellent administrator.

  Exactly what Raed felt about all of this was impossible for Merrick to know, without the Bond. It also made focusing on the path ahead that much more difficult. He found his thoughts wandering away from him, dwelling in dark corners and conjecturing everything.

  While he did that, Sorcha pulled out a set of binoculars and focused them on the postern gate of the palace. Apparently she was not having the difficulties that Merrick was laboring under. The Emperor’s palace was not built to withstand sieges of any kind, with sprawling gardens and elegant white stone walls. However the inner fortress was older, and had crenellations and battlements that had seen war in the centuries past.

  “Only a light guard tonight,” Sorcha whispered over her shoulder. “I guess we can thank the Arch Abbot for that.”

  “We’ll need every mercy and good turn we can get.” Raed checked his pistols for what had to be the second time. “Now where are this del Rue’s apartments in the palace exactly?”