Geist

by Philippa Ballantine

  Raed blinked. Deacons always put him at a disadvantage, but this one had literally rocked him back on his heels. “You”—he cleared his throat—“you were expecting me?”

  The man, who Sorcha had told him was called Garil, had gray eyes and the sort of face that radiated charm like a favorite uncle or grandfather. The Pretender had known neither of these, but despite all that, he found himself smiling back. “Lucky for you, she is dead, or you’d be in real trouble.”

  “Dead, you say?” Garil cocked his head. “Not dead . . . just gone over. Still, a perilous thing to do.” He waved Raed back to the door. “Well, bring them in quickly. The longer they are there, the less likely they are to come back.”

  Raed ducked outside and carried first Sorcha, and then Merrick, laying them side by side in front of the fire. The soft light reflected on their still faces. Garil gently touched her cheek. “Good, there is still warmth in them. Give me his Strop.”

  The Pretender fished it from his pocket and handed it carefully over to the Deacon. Even dark, the thing made his skin crawl, so he was only too happy to relinquish it.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Raed said as Garil sat once more in the chair, with some difficulty, “how long have you known Sorcha?”

  The old man’s head whipped up and he fixed the Pretender with a steely gaze. “Sorcha, now, is it?” His thick eyebrows shot up. “I have known Sorcha ever since she was a child—when her family first brought her to the Order.”

  These were the details Raed craved to have. She might have lain in his arms, but she had spoken so little of herself. It might have been their combined breathlessness or it could have been that she didn’t want to say. “How—”

  “Quiet now,” Garil snapped. “Sorry to be abrupt, young man, but if I don’t have silence, then there won’t be a Sorcha to be curious about.”

  Raed could feel a chill descending into the room and realized that whatever the elderly Deacon was doing, it had already begun. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Hold her down.” Garil was now withdrawing his own Strop. “The return is never easy, but particularly hard for the Actives. She is physically stronger than she looks.”

  Raed crouched down over Sorcha, trapping her legs under his, while leaning over to pinion her arms. They were cold, and he found this strangely sexual position very uncomfortable given the situation. The old Deacon seemed to be taking no notice, however. He was busy laying his Strop on top of Merrick’s with some care, matching the edges so that there was no overlap.

  “Never thought I would be doing this again,” he muttered under his breath as if to himself. “Here’s hoping there’s enough strength in these old senses to do the job.”

  With a sigh he placed both Strops over his eyes and secured them behind his head. The hairs on the back of Raed’s head began to tremble, while the rolling sensation in the pit of his stomach made him regret eating. Otherside power made the air wintry, and the flames in the fireplace spluttered and died low as if there was not enough fuel around them. Raed’s short, sharp gasps of breath were actually coming out white, even though he was only feet from the wavering fire.

  Garil’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair convulsively, and his head, burdened with two Strops, flicked backward to connect sharply with the chair’s back. The runes in the topmost leather sparked with blue fire, tracing the shape of the rune—though which one it was, the Pretender could not have said.

  The cold was now a scent as well, harsh in his nostrils, as on the morning of a new snowfall, and every breath stung. Then, beneath his hands, Raed felt Sorcha’s body move. It felt nothing at all like the feeling of her body under him early today. It felt . . . inhuman. Her body rippled as if something was stirring. It elicited no desire in Raed—in fact, he wanted to leap up and flee the room. But when he looked across at Garil, he realized that he had the least of their problems.

  Sweat was running down from under the Strops, and the old man’s mouth was set in a mask of agony, the like of which even the battle-experienced Pretender had not seen before. Whatever power the Deacon was drawing was taking a lot from him. Merrick moved, but lethargically, as if waking from a relaxing nap. He turned his head and let out a long, soft breath.

  Beneath Raed, Sorcha was not so lucky. Abruptly she began jerking violently, almost catching the Pretender unaware. Her back arched and she twisted in his grip like a wild creature. He had to bend all of his strength to her, and give no heed to bruises he might inflict.

  “Hold her, tight,” the old Deacon by the fire nearly screamed, his fingers turning red where they were buried into the arm of the chair. “By the Bones, hold her tight.”

  It was like trying to restrain a thrashing snake of the Western Wilds. Sorcha’s skin was slick with sweat despite the fact that she was as cold as ice. Raed howled, determined to keep her from harm, leaning down as hard as he could, every muscle in his body straining against hers.

  Sorcha’s eyes flicked open, and they were no longer blue—they no longer had a color at all. Beyond those pits he could see the Otherside: a sucking maelstrom in which forms could be seen moving; the ultimate end for the spirit, and the most dangerous of realms. This was what Merrick and Sorcha had cast themselves into to avoid detection. That made them either heroes or fools. This close to the realm of its birth, the Rossin within him shifted, uncoiling to sniff the air.

  That would have been the ultimate nightmare. “Come back,” Raed screamed. “By the Blood—come back, Sorcha.”

  He didn’t know if his voice made any difference, but for a moment all was still. He was looking straight through into the Otherside and it was looking right back at him. Over there were spirits, geists and the geistlords—the ultimate answer to everything he had ever wondered. Raed had never been so frightened in his life, and yet he could not look away.

  And then . . . and then the cold blew away and Sorcha’s eyes reverted to blue, like a shade being pulled down on an awful scene. He scanned her face, desperate to see if any trace of the geist world remained, but when she smiled he knew it was her—undoubtedly, unequivocally, Deacon Sorcha Faris.

  “I’d love to have the time to enjoy this”—she laughed weakly—“but . . .” At her raised eyebrow, he let out a relieved laugh of his own, and got off her. At her side, Merrick was stretching. The look he shot Raed was confused, angry almost—but the Pretender couldn’t fathom why he would be deserving of that. He had done his job pretty damn well, as far as he could tell.

  “How was it?” Raed asked as he helped Sorcha to her feet.

  She looked at him askance. “How did it look?” Her voice was rough, as if she’d been screaming, even though he had heard no noise at all from her.

  “Bad.”

  “Then enough said.” Sorcha took Merrick’s arm and helped him up. Behind her, Garil was slowly removing the Strops, with the kind of care Raed had only seen a sapper use when handling gunpowder. He handed Merrick back his Strop and let out a long breath.

  Then the old Deacon smiled at Sorcha with real warmth, and they hugged tightly. When he pulled away after a lingering hug and looked straight into her eyes, his expression had changed. “Why did you come back, Little Red? Why, when there is only death here for you?” It was hardly the greeting Raed had expected, and the words stung him.

  TWENTY

  Accepting Kenosis

  The memory of the Otherside was fading, even as Sorcha felt warmth return to her fingertips. She had, mercifully, not felt a thing after the initial flash of white. Her throat was raw as though she’d been howling, but whatever pain she’d encountered on the brief trip into the world of the geist, she couldn’t remember. As far as she was concerned, if she couldn’t remember it, then it didn’t matter. For Merrick it would be very, very different.

  The Bond sang with his distress. Only his strength had held them back from real death; quivering on the very edge of falling over and into the Otherside. It was the kind of trick that only partners of many years would ha
ve usually dared. Sorcha grinned at him with lips that were rough. “You were brilliant, Merrick—just bloody brilliant.”

  The young man let out a ragged sigh and staggered. Raed took his elbow and led him over to the chair on the left hand side of the fireplace. “Thank you, Sorcha,” he managed with a gasp. “Glad you approve. But if Deacon Reeceson had not been able to call us back—”

  “But he did.” Raed squeezed Merrick’s shoulder, his eyes locking with Sorcha’s. “He did.”

  “Enough of this,” Garil barked, his voice now sharp with an edge she had seldom heard. “There are far more important things to consider.”

  Some things were never spoken of in the Order, certain gifts that fell outside the comfortable bounds set by the Mother Abbey. As Sorcha stood, still reeling from her icy trip to the Otherside, she looked into Garil’s eyes and saw that he was finally ready to acknowledge his gift.

  She’d had hints of Garil’s abilities, but had never talked of them with him. Whatever glimpses he got into the future always seemed to frighten him—even if they had been useful in their work.

  “What did you see?” she murmured under her breath, though there was no way Merrick and Raed could avoid hearing what she was saying. She caught at her old partner’s hand as he sat shaking in the chair by the fire. “Was this what you wanted to talk to me about before?”

  She knew her fingers were icy, but his were just as cold. “What did you see on the Otherside, Sorcha?” he asked wearily.

  “Nothing.” She gave a laugh, even though her stomach was suddenly full of bile.

  “What about you, young Deacon?” The piercing gray eyes of the elder swung toward Merrick. “You must have Seen!”

  Her partner turned his head away, and the Bond flooded with real fear—not the kind of fear that she might expect from a trained Deacon, one who had proven himself up to any task. It was the fear of a child; unreasoning fear that clawed its way up from the most primitive part of his subconscious.

  Sorcha could still remember her own flood of this kind of panic. Just a lonely child left in the care of the Order, she could have been no more than five, and yet the memory was as fresh to her as any other. Pareth, the Presbyter of the Young, a beautiful dark-haired woman who smelled of honey and warmth, was the only person she had ever known as a mother. Early one morning, Sorcha had overheard two novices in the garden talking about the Otherside, death and geists. Though she had been seeing shades all her life, she had never connected them with death before. When she slept that night, the realization had crept up on her—of her own mortality, and that of her caretaker. She’d woken screaming and had rushed to Pareth, seated at a fire much like this one. Sorcha had sobbed into her skirts, begging her to deny the existence of death; deny that one day, both of them would be no more. All Pareth had been able to say was, “Not yet, Sorcha. Not for a long time.”

  That ultimate realization haunted every living thing. She let her thoughts play out along the Bond, letting Merrick into that terrible memory, reaching out to him.

  Slowly, he turned his head and looked at her, his back straightening. “I saw you that time, the time you went to the Castle Starlyche. You fought the five-clawed geist on the stairs.”

  Now he was opening the Bond to his own memories in return. The image flashed against the back of her eye, a curious double recollection of what he had seen and what she had. He had been the child hiding and observing when he should not. She had been the young novice still hitting her stride, but asked to do the impossible when other older heads were unavailable. It was the nightmare that chased her harder than any other.

  Lord Starlyche had been a good man, and she had been unable to save him. Her breath seemed frozen in her chest as she recalled the creature she had glimpsed briefly on the stairs of the castle; a vast five-clawed hand reaching out from the Otherside, awash in a tide of swirling geists like moths clustered around a bright flame. Starlyche had been the foci of the attack, but even so, she could have saved him. Her inexperience had caught up with her, reaching for the wrong rune, just a heartbeat mistake, and the backlash had alerted the creature to her attack. In its fury it had tried to reach her through any means possible, and had killed its physical link in the process. The Lord had died, and not quickly or cleanly.

  And her partner that day—he had seen it too. Probably more.

  “Garil?” Her voice broke, as if she were once more standing on the stairs, covered in the blood of the man she’d been sent to save. The remembered taste of iron and bile flooded into her mouth.

  “It waits.” The old man would not meet her gaze, instead staring into the fire, his expression like soft clay. She recognized it too—somehow the old man’s talents had extended beyond the strictures of the Order and were now venturing into the future. “It and many like it have been growing in the depths of the Otherside. So alone, and ready to return. They hunger for the light.” He turned and looked at all three of them through eyes that burned white. “And they need you. Together.”

  “The Body.” His finger lanced out in her direction.

  “The Beast”—toward Raed now.

  “The Blood.” Merrick flinched as if he’d been struck.

  The image of her partner strapped to the draining table flashed in her memory. Sorcha began to feel sweat on her brow, a sick knot clenching deep in her belly. “Holy Bones!” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “What have I done?” she muttered past her fingers.

  Realization was sliding into place, the pieces tumbling into recognizable shapes in her head. The Bond she’d forged with all three of them—she’d thought it had been her idea, a convenience to harness the power of the Rossin.

  “Sorcha”—Merrick’s face was bone pale—“you gave them what they wanted.”

  “Would you both have a conversation normal people can follow?” Raed, leaning against the mantel, was not Deacon-trained; he could no more feel the Bond she had woven around him than he could feel moonlight on his skin. She hadn’t thought it would matter; Sorcha could dismiss it quickly enough once he no longer needed to fear the Curse. He would never need to know. How many times had she said that to herself?

  “Tell him!” Merrick rose to his feet, a deep frown etched on skin that had seldom known such an expression. “By the Bones, Sorcha!” He seldom cursed either.

  She struggled. Raed was looking between the Deacons, puzzled but not yet angry—there was still time for that. The Bond was still fresh. It could be undone, and then everything would be all right. Reaching out, she clasped Raed’s hand as if in a loving gesture, but at the same time desperately reached for the tendrils of the Bond. It should be easy to dispel a Bond formed only days ago—a simple matter that he wouldn’t even feel.

  Her power yanked at the strands of empathy and awareness, and Raed fell to the floor howling in agony. Dropping to her knees beside the writhing Pretender, Sorcha knew that there was no chance he was still ignorant, but the Bond—she had to get rid of the Bond or he would never forgive her. She pulled harder at the coil of connection between them.

  It was now hurting her. Thousands of little flames burst to life in her muscle and sinew as her body reacted to the power. It was like having barbed wire wrapped around her bones, and pulling. Dimly, Sorcha heard Merrick’s indrawn breath as it burned him too. But Raed would never understand; he would never . . .

  The icy thrust of Merrick’s control stopped her like a slap to the face. Stop it—stop it now! You’re ripping us apart! His voice—his actual voice—thrust into her mind like a knife of steel.

  She fell back with a yelp. Sorcha might have thought that was the worst of it, Merrick yelling directly into her mind like a man possessed, but it wasn’t. The worst was the look on Raed’s face.

  It should not have mattered. The look of betrayal in his eyes, hard and glittering like a dread stone, should have made not one iota of difference to a Deacon. She’d used plenty of people before—the Order’s work sometimes required toughness. However, this was different. Her breat
h caught in her dry throat and her hands clenched tight. Raed, tell me I have not ruined what we have.

  “What we had?” he snapped, giving his head a firm shake and glaring at all of the Deacons with equal vigor. “What have you done to me?”

  “It is the Bond,” Merrick answered for Sorcha, who could not find the words. “She managed to forge a Bond with you as well as with any Deacon. It should not be possible with a normal person, but you are hardly normal—”

  Sorcha fell back on her defenses, and sharply cut in, “You wanted the Rossin controlled. He is controlled.”

  Raed swore and turned away to glare into the fire. “He may be, for the moment, but if you think he can be used as your weapon, you may find him more wily than you think. I have lived with him inside me . . . I know him better than you.”

  His voice was full of such contempt, Sorcha had to try to reach him. “You don’t understand. They manipulated me to do this,” she replied desperately. “I think the whole situation was all about getting you there; the sea monster, the Priory, even the possession of the children.”

  “Then why did they try and kill us in the tunnel?”

  “I think they hoped it would drive me to make the Bond—and they were right.”

  “But the Rossin could have killed you.” Raed looked at her from under drawn brows. “How could they know you would do any such thing?”

  Her natural instincts were to hug him, kiss him—but they were long past that point. She stiffened. “They must have studied me.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how else . . .”

  “You have no idea what you are dealing with, Little Red,” Garil whispered, “but young Merrick does. He knows, like I do—like all Sensitives do . . .”

  This was what Actives whispered about Sensitives. When Actives went off to learn of their runes, they wondered what the Sensitives were learning of theirs. While everyone could see exactly what the ten Active runes were, the Sensitives kept theirs to themselves, never discussing them—even with their partners. Most Actives dismissed whatever their partners could do as merely different versions of their own lesser Sight, but Sorcha had always been curious about the Strop. It was much more seldom used than the Gauntlets. Unlike her gloves, it was dangerous for anyone but another Sensitive to touch a Strop while its user was still alive.