Wrayth to-3

by Philippa Ballantine

  One man with no Sensitive? Sorcha’s heady delight in violence rushed through the Bond. Let’s end this while we can.

  Merrick, struggling to hold the Conclave together, would have urged caution, but by then it was too late. Sorcha drew her sword—actually drew her sword—and strode forward.

  In response, del Rue summoned Shayst. The green flame of the rune was impossibly fluid as it wrapped around their shield and dispersed the power like a child blowing out a candle flame. He didn’t need a Sensitive. He was like the Arch Abbot—a wielder of both Active and Sensitive powers. No wonder he was so sure of himself. He was everything he required!

  Each Deacon had in him the seeds of both Active and Sensitive, but to find one with equal strengths was incredibly rare. Merrick should have been able to see that immediately—that he hadn’t, made the young Sensitive wonder just what this conspirator was. Only an Arch Abbot should have that ability, but this enemy was more than that. While his butterfly thoughts chased that particular fear, del Rue flexed his fingers in his far-too-thin gloves.

  Kaleva’s eyes bulged and he staggered away from the man who had just revealed himself as a Deacon. The conspirator’s weeks of work began to tangle around and trip him, because the Emperor was now horrified by any kind of Deacon power. Del Rue didn’t notice at all. He was lost in the mad delight of wielding power. His face was set in a mask of joy as he summoned Chityre to him. Lightning bloomed in the highest reaches of the Devotional, dancing from pillar to pillar and illuminating those powerless Deacons still fleeing the building. The whole building rang with the sound of thunder.

  Tighon had the distressing thought, which filtered across the Bond as stones groaned, that all the Order’s work to repair this beautiful building was about to be undone. It was so hard for Merrick to keep a clear mind in Conclave with all these new chaotic thoughts darting about.

  Deiyant! Sorcha’s voice was like a shout in his head, rising above the rumble of the yammering of the others. She called for the rune that wielded air, often called the push rune, but he didn’t have a moment to think. He acted. The Conclave raised its hands as one above their heads, and the amber glow of the rune flashed out around them. The pews around them flew up, wrenched from their places and thrown up, just barely above their heads.

  This all happened in one long heartbeat, just as the lightning came down among them. The Devotional keened again, like a ship caught in a storm, and in fact did seem to list. Then one of the two front pillars of the asp cracked and toppled, bringing down a portion of the ceiling.

  Like a mast, Merrick thought dimly to himself, as the Conclave buzzed in his head. Something impacted him in the chaos, but it really didn’t seem to matter. For a time, his world was entirely comprised of stone, dust and rubble.

  Reflexively, Merrick held on to the Conclave. When finally he could make sense of the world, he found himself lying at the edge of a pile of stones, coughing up dust, with his ears ringing.

  Sorcha was lying sprawled across him, but she was miraculously alive, though bleeding from a wound to her head. Staunching the blood with one hand, she yanked Merrick to his feet with the other.

  His ears were still useless, but he heard along the Bond. Tighon is dead. She really didn’t need to tell him that—he could feel it in the Conclave. One had fallen away, and with him Natylda his Sensitive. Merrick glanced to his left and saw her screaming and trying to dig him out of the rubble, even though all in the Conclave could feel his loss. Thanks to Sorcha there were not as many Deacons buried beneath the stones than there would have been otherwise, but they could still all feel them; injured, broken, dying. Even as Merrick’s Center flooded him with information, he felt in that moment a man’s life go out.

  The Devotional was now groaning and creaking, still shuddering with the terrible wounds it had taken. The sheer weight of bricks and stone could not hold forever.

  Some distance off, Merrick spied del Rue pulling himself out of the dust. He was completely unharmed, but the young Deacon spotted his one chance. Del Rue was concentrating so hard on finding a way to destroy the Conclave, that for a moment his mind was vulnerable and unprotected. Merrick wrapped his mind around the rune Aiemm and cast it at him like a javelin.

  The Rune of the Past consumed the young Deacon as he saw through del Rue’s eyes. No, not del Rue: Horris, Cristin, Melloir, Hjan. Hundreds of names, places and memories rolled over Merrick, until only one remained. Pulled back from the ocean of the past—Derodak. Merrick plunged down desperately after that name.

  The world was new, and he was an Ehtia; a creator of magic and machines. Like Nynnia, he had fled with his people to the Otherside so that the world might not be destroyed by the geists that hunted the Ehtia after the Break. However, also like Merrick’s lost love, he had chosen to be born back into this world with many of his powers stripped away—but not for the fine and good reasons that had motivated Nynnia.

  A world he felt had failed him. A world he now wanted to control. He had lived too long, been too many people: first Deacon, Emperor, saint, rebel and destroyer.

  “Derodak,” Merrick whispered to himself. It literally meant “the first” in Ancient. The Conclave was forming around him again, seeing what he now saw, the real person behind the mask that was del Rue.

  However, they were not alone. Kaleva and his remaining guards could now be seen through the clearing dust. The ceiling high above still held, and the stones had only wounded a few of them, yet the Emperor’s rage was reaching apoplectic proportions. The calm leader Merrick had been introduced to was long gone. His etheric presence was pulsing, indicating he’d passed the point where sanity had any hold on him. All the bonds that held him, his sister, his love of the Empire, his determination to be a good ruler, were blown away under the assault of so much chaos. Derodak had done his work well and had now pulled the trigger.

  “Demons are trying to kill me!” he screamed. “Kill them all! Whatever it takes.” The Imperial Guard needed no urging to take action. They’d been witness to many unleashed powers this day, come close to death themselves, and were now ready to unleash some of their own.

  Merrick, scrambling to hold all the straining powers of the Conclave together, saw their rifles come up, and called again for Aydien. The blue fire ran widdershins around the Conclave, dancing off flesh and lancing out. Bullets zinged around them, even as the power of the rune pushed back against the guards, sending them flying like chaff in all directions. Still some of their aim held true, and Leonteh and Quannik crashed to the ground, choking on their own blood. Horror and disbelief flooded the Bond, and the rest of the Conclave threads began to unravel between them. He only held Lujia and Sibuse with himself and Sorcha now. It was barely enough to be called a Conclave now.

  The Imperial Guard kept firing, but underneath Merrick heard the sound that he had been fearing: the growl of the Rossin. In all of this, they had forgotten Raed. He had stood with them, but apart, and now whatever control the Young Pretender held over the beast disappeared. Merrick had known it would happen eventually. Perhaps, if he was honest, it was the reason they had brought him with them. The Rossin was always the wild card in the deck.

  Raed shared a look with Merrick and Sorcha, his hazel eyes already turning to gold, but he had no time to remove his clothes or spare them a word.

  The great cat leapt into existence, snarling, and ready to do what his nature dictated. He glanced once at Derodak, shook his head and then sprang among the guards. The sound of their screams was painful for Merrick to hear, but they had opened fire on the Order.

  However once he had cleared the Devotional of soldiers firing at them, the Rossin did not turn back. A rear guard of soldiers tried to keep firing to cover their Emperor’s escape, but the Rossin pursued. The scattered remains of the Conclave could do nothing to stop him.

  Keeping his head down, Merrick saw with great disappointment that Derodak was untouched. He rose from among the bullets and debris, still with that damnable smile on his lips, and h
eld out his hand to the Grand Duchess, who took it. She looked no more than a piece of furniture, still Merrick felt relief wash over him.

  Del Rue took no notice of her however, instead focusing on the Deacons. “How very unexpected of you, Faris and Chambers! Looks like you’ve managed to cobble together something akin to a Pattern—so you must have found him then?” His brow furrowed. “How did you do that though, I wonder?” His eyes drifted to Sorcha, piercing her through with Sight. “Something we did not count on then…” He did not appear afraid, but rather intrigued; as if Sorcha were merely a piece he had to fit into his game board.

  Being examined so, did not improve Sorcha’s mood. Merrick felt her raise her hand, but even in the Conclave he could not hold her back; she was far too strong for that.

  She plucked Pyet from the ether, screaming in rage and pouring fire down upon Derodak like some mythical dragon. The heat was so intense in the confined space that Merrick, Lujia and Sibuse staggered back, falling to their knees. Merrick thrust his face into the crook of his arm so that he might have a chance to breathe. It felt as though every hair on his head was going to catch fire. They were all going to die. Against the flame, all he could make out was the outline of Sorcha. Her skin was wreathed in blue flickering lights that wrote out the runes on her flesh. High above them, the stained glass succumbed to the heat, and then it was raining red-hot molten drops—blues, greens and reds—down on them all.

  Merrick was going to have to use Ticat on her, the last-resort rune held by the Sensitives. By the Bones, he didn’t want to, but if she didn’t stop he would have to.

  Sorcha! Come back!

  It was a near thing, but somehow she pulled herself back. The flames died away under her command. What was left behind was a scarred and pitted Devotional that would never be the same again. The smell of burned wood and stone filled the survivors’ nostrils.

  Sorcha herself was sobbing, shaking and staggering on her feet. Yet out of it all, emerged Derodak, only the hem of his cloak singed, with one arm still around the pale and staring Zofiya.

  He glanced once to his right, and smiled bleakly seeing the Imperial Guard fleeing before the Rossin, taking the Emperor with them.

  “Kaleva was always the weakest of the siblings, but luckily I don’t need him anyway”—Derodak shrugged—“I have his sister.” With that, he grabbed Zofiya by the arm and pulled her in the opposite direction her brother had run. Merrick realized none of them could use Voishem, because of the protective cantrips worked into the walls of all the Abbey buildings to prevent geist infiltration.

  What exactly his plan was, Merrick couldn’t fathom, but Sorcha spun on her heel, her eyes wild with rage. “We can’t let him get away or we might never find him. By the Bones, come on!” And then not waiting for his reply, she vaulted over the tumbled rock and chased after him.

  Lujia and Sibuse were bleeding, injured, still capable of movement but not much else. The Conclave was broken. Merrick fixed them with a sad gaze, realizing they could well be the only members of the Order still capable of using their runes. He wasn’t sure how much that mattered now, but there was the faint chance it did. “Get out of here, and go back to Widow Vashill’s. You’ve done all you can here.” Then he turned his back on them and followed his partner into the dust and confusion of the end of the Order.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Alliance and Victory

  The Rossin ran, following the guards out of the building and out onto the cool grass. It didn’t matter where they were; he tore them apart with great relish. Human blood was so much more satisfying than anything the Wrayth could give him; primal and run through with fear.

  Behind him the Devotional of the Order began to crumble in on itself, a great rumble of stone and masonry falling to ruin. That it was the Deacons tearing it apart was a delicious irony. He leapt clear of the dust cloud and with a bunch of his hind legs ran a literal circle around the guards. They saw at once that they could not outdistance him here. Instead they huddled around their Emperor, who had drawn his sword and waited, all foolish confidence, for the beast to approach. Many had made the mistake of thinking him some overgrown lion or tiger that they could battle easily enough. He was more than that.

  The Rossin knew the time had come to reveal himself to this latest in a long line of foolish Emperors.

  The guards took potshots at him, but the bullets had about the same effect as beestings would have. He kept relentlessly stalking toward them, his golden-flecked eyes locked on Kaleva, Emperor of Arkaym.

  Yet he did not spring upon them, as he could have easily done. Instead the great cat sat down at the outer edge of their circle and waited. Eventually they ran out of ammunition. He could smell the salty tang of their fear on the breeze. The Emperor’s was no different than any of the other men’s.

  That was when the Rossin chose to speak. “Do you know me?”

  The surprise on the humans’ faces was almost comical. It had been an age since the great cat had spoken into the world. All thought him a dumb Beast, but like all geistlords he was more than capable of it. Before he had nothing to say. After all, why would a wolf talk to sheep.

  Kaleva, perhaps not the total fool the Rossin had taken him for, straightened. “Yes,” his voice wavered more than a fraction. Good, a little fear was an appropriate response.

  “Then are you prepared to beg for your life now?” The great cat could feel Raed trying desperately to understand what was going on, but the geistlord stuffed him down deeper, where he would be able to see nothing. This was secret business he would not yet have the Young Pretender aware of.

  The Emperor’s eyes were wide and frightened—just like all prey. “Perhaps,” he said, taking a stumbling step back. “If there is anything you want from the Empire, maybe a—”

  “I can take most everything I need,” the Rossin snarled, showing his vast expanse of teeth, “but I want something from you.”

  The Emperor froze, perhaps sensing the scent of a deal in the air. His eyes darted to the crumbling Devotional, and the Rossin knew what his tiny thoughts were; there was now no Order to protect him from the geists. “What…” He stopped and coughed up some of the dust that was in the air. “What can I do for you?”

  He was so weak, and this moment so easy, that the Rossin would have laughed, had he been in the mood. However seeing his old Tormentor had not put him in a good mood. That ancient foe was moving pawns on the table, so now it was time for the geistlord to do the same.

  “It is what I can do for you,” he growled. “I will be willing to serve your new line of Emperors as I did the old one. I gave them power and prestige that was not questioned for nearly a thousand years. I will lay the family that bears my name low for you…for a price.”

  The Emperor’s eyes gleamed. “What would that be?”

  “There is an object, a trinket I gave the first of my line, that lies at the heart of the palace. It is the one place in this realm I cannot go. When the time is right you will fetch it for me.”

  “Is that time now?” Kaleva swallowed hard.

  The Rossin tilted his head up and examined the stars closely. “No, not just yet…but very, very soon.” He fixed his gaze on the human before him. “Do you agree? Have we a pact?”

  The mortal did not even hesitate. The words were barely out of the Rossin’s fanged mouth before Kaleva, Emperor of Arkaym said, “I do.”

  The essence of one was now bound to the other. It was not yet as strong as a Bond of the Order, but it would grow with time. They still had a little of that. The Rossin would have purred, if he could.

  “However, if anyone finds out I made a deal with a geistlord—” Kaleva paused and stared pointedly at his half dozen men who were beginning to look at him with genuine horror. It was an easily fixed problem.

  The Rossin unleashed himself upon the remaining guards and cut them down in bloody swathes where they stood. He was as swift as a desert wind, and just as unforgiving. When he turned back to Kaleva, his muzzle was cove
red in scarlet and gore.

  “Do you see how things are with me in your service?” The Beast was, after so long in the human realm, a consummate liar.

  The Emperor nodded, the look of befuddlement never leaving his face. He could not understand why this was happening or quite what it meant. Perhaps the Tormentor had done the Rossin a grand favor; messing with the Emperor’s mind and soul made him very easy to manipulate now.

  “Then go,” he snarled, “and await my call.”

  Kaleva, the Emperor of Arkaym, turned and ran like a child dismissed from school. The Rossin watched him, while licking the remains of the Imperial Guard from his mouth. The pieces were nearly all assembled, but for now he would feast.

  The great cat dropped his head, and began to devour the soldiers who had given their life for a worthless leader.

  The Mother Abbey was being reduced to rubble. The runes that had been unleashed were pulling it apart—everything that the Order of the Eye and the Fist had stood for was falling down around her.

  The horror of that remained distant to Sorcha—put away for examination at another time. All she knew was that it was no longer the place she had loved and grown accustomed to; now it was merely an obstacle. She could feel the ends of her hair burning, and hear the scream of stone tumbling behind her as she ran up the nave in pursuit of del Rue—now revealed as Derodak. The structure, once punctured, could not hold itself upright, and the loss of the columns sealed the Devotional’s fate. The night sky was visible through the once soaring roof, and it was framed in green flames. In the screaming recesses of her mind, Sorcha knew the Order of the Eye and the Fist would never come here again, and for that she would make her enemy pay. She ran harder, pumping her arms, and leaping as best she could over broken pews and piles of still-sliding stone.

  Dimly, Sorcha realized Merrick was trying to keep up with her, but she summoned Seym, and drew strength from the Rune of Flesh to power her pursuit ahead of him. Her partner would only try and stop her, and she would not let that happen. She scrambled after Derodak with the intensity of a lion on the chase, but this was no gazelle she was chasing.