Sorcha tried to shrug his arm off, rather unsuccessfully, as Shedryi had recovered some vigor and was prancing about. The touch of his arm only increased her sensitivity to that strange geist charisma that infected him. “They are probably just annoyed that their local Deacons haven’t been able to help. Once we sort this situation out, they’ll give us a parade.”
Raed glanced around with a skeptical tilt to his eyebrow. “That, I wouldn’t bet on.” He cleared his throat, as if pleased with his own wit. “Or don’t Deacons gamble?”
Sorcha glanced at him, feeling his immovable damn arm tickling her neck. “Deacons gamble. Deacons can do anything they want to; drink, whore around, smoke. We gave up those inhibitions centuries ago, along with religion.”
“Oh, really?” Raed’s grin widened. “Decided the gods don’t exist, then?”
Sorcha really wasn’t up to giving a history lesson. “There are plenty of religious orders back in Delmaire. Ours chose to refocus on protecting the world from the unliving.” She flicked his hand off her shoulder, and her glare indicated that he’d better not replace it. “I notice your native pantheon of gods didn’t exactly help you out.”
A full-blown argument was brewing, and Merrick, like all Sensitives, tried to act as peacemaker. “We’re nearly at the Priory.” He pointed to where the town faded away and the raw rock slope led up to the looming castle. It was certainly impressive.
The first thing that Sorcha noticed as they climbed the hill was that the Priory had a portcullis and it was lowered. The place was presenting formidable defenses, as if it was expecting an army rather than ragtag travelers. She idly fingered the edges of her Gauntlets and glanced over her shoulder. The stares of the townspeople suddenly felt more ominous.
“Keep an eye out.” She nudged Merrick.
“Already doing so,” he replied. “Want me to share?” Recalling his blinding strength, she shook her head. “No, just give me a warning if something is about to happen.”
“Nothing, so far . . .” But his voice held a waver of concern. She couldn’t blame him; after the week they’d had, pretty much anything was possible.
The Pretender at their side drew his breath in over his teeth. Raed, that blazing silver fire in the ether, had his hand on his cutlass, as if he too could sense the malice in the air.
This was just a Priory. It was perhaps not as safe as an Abbey, but it was still a place of the Order. Sorcha kept telling herself that as the four humans and two horses approached the gatehouse to stand before the gate and the lowered portcullis.
“This isn’t right,” Nynnia whispered to Merrick. “The portcullis is never lowered like this.”
“It’ll be all right,” he replied to her, the assurance not tripping easily off his tongue. “The Arch Abbot must have sent word by weirstone that we were coming,” he hissed to Sorcha.
The sharp edge of his concern felt through the Bond only added to Sorcha’s own worry. At her side, Shedryi gave a sharp whinny and pranced as if jabbed by something. Yet nothing appeared from the air, and Merrick was silent.
Finally, after a few inexplicably tense moments, Sorcha managed to move her hand from the Gauntlets to the rope hanging by the gate. The clanking of the bell in such silence made them all even edgier. She was so tense that her grip on Shedryi’s bridle actually hurt. Merrick shifted closer to Nynnia, and Raed’s breathing went up a notch. She was well aware that her own was doing similar.
When the crooked figure of a young man hobbled to the portcullis, she let out a long breath. Wearing the brown of a lay Brother, he was at least a sign of normality. He looked at them through the bars with unveiled caution, and her ire started rising to replace her concern.
Handing Shedryi’s bridle to Raed, she walked forward to confront the man, her hand on her cloak, the badge of the Order standing out bright silver. Even though he glanced at it, he didn’t rush to raise the barrier.
“Who are you?” He spoke slowly through malformed lips.
“Deacons Sorcha Faris and Merrick Chambers. The Abbot should have weirstoned the Prior that we were coming.”
The answer that the young Brother gave made her start. “Our Priory stone was destroyed four nights ago.”
The wrongness of this place was now impossible to ignore. “Quickly, then . . . We must speak to your Prior.”
“She’s busy, and I’m not allowed to admit anyone.”
Her anger was about to boil over, and her fingers itched to be in the Gauntlets and blasting the damn portcullis out of its footings. Once again, it was Merrick who found the right words.
Standing next to her, he took out the long, decorated leather Strop and held it before him. “Do you know what this is?”
The young Brother’s eyes lit up. “The Strop of the Sensitives.”
“Good.” Merrick pointed to the Gauntlets tucked into Sorcha’s belt. “And those?”
“Gauntlets of the Active.”
“And you know only Deacons can wear them?”
“Yes.” The Brother nodded so hard it seemed his head might fly off.
“Then you can let us in. Your Prior wouldn’t want you to keep out Deacons.”
After a moment’s deep contemplation, the Brother finally scampered off to turn the wheel and raise the portcullis. Once they ventured inside he seemed incredibly excited, capering around them and barraging them with questions. Eventually Sorcha gave Shedryi and Melochi into his care just to get him out from under their feet. He grew quite solemn with the responsibility, and led the horses off toward the far corner of the courtyard.
“Prior Aulis is over there.” He jerked his head toward the main doors of the keep, before turning back to the horses and the stable.
The large yard was the place in which Felstaad’s knights would have assembled in olden times, but it made a very poor showing in the current one. Sorcha had read the file before it had been lost with their first ship; Ulrich Priory had only a compliment of a dozen Deacons and twice that of lay Brothers. This place could have housed a hundred times more.
Abruptly, she remembered something. “You live here?”
Nynnia nodded mutely.
“Then, is it usually like this?” Sorcha gestured to the quiet stone expanse that looked as deserted as a grave.
The girl shook her head, foolish brown eyes wide like those of a spooked deer.
Sorcha gritted her teeth and then took a deep breath. “So where does your father practice his craft, then?”
“In there.” Nynnia pointed timidly toward the main keep.
The Deacon realized there was not going to be much sense coming from that particular quarter.
“You know”—Raed still hadn’t let go of his cutlass—“this has the feeling of a trap.”
“Here?” Merrick’s brown eyes were still scanning the area, and his voice had a note of real concern. He didn’t want to believe that such a thing was possible in a house of the Order, but some deeper instinct was kicking in.
Bunched up together, they climbed the short flight of stairs and opened the doors. Immediately, the smell of charcoal and smoke forced Sorcha back a step. Glancing to her left, she got a little shake of the head from Merrick, and she went in.
Sorcha found herself wishing very hard that there might be some rules that still remained sacrosanct. A week of strangeness—geists crossing water, geists laying traps and geists summoning sea monsters—was still nothing to this. The inside of the keep’s great hall had been laid out to mimic the form of an Abbey, as all Priories were, yet it was burnt to a cinder. The white stone was charred and, when she cautiously laid a finger to it, she realized that it had actually melted on the surface. Remains of wooden pews were scattered about, some disintegrated into ash, while others lay discarded at the edges of the room as if flung there by fleeing Deacons. Debris crackled under their boots as they cautiously moved up what had once been the central aisle, but Sorcha did not bend to examine it.
Nynnia let out a muffled sob, her hand up to her mouth. Merrick put an arm around her, but his other hand still held his Strop ready. Reaching the pulpit where the Prior would have given her daily lesson, Sorcha turned to examine the scene. The front of the hall was relatively undamaged. The hanging above the pulpit was not even singed.
“Whatever happened”—she swallowed hard to regain a measure of her professionalism—“it happened right in the center of the room.” Glancing down, she realized that the Prior’s notes were still on the lectern. “And it happened suddenly.”
Raed, the pirate and the Pretender, obviously thought he knew more than a Deacon. “But the Brother outside, why did he let us in? If they are under attack . . .”
“We were under attack.” A steely voice to the right made them all jump. A neat little woman in the blue cloak of an Active, pinned closed by the grand flourish of a Prior’s insignia, stood watching them with bright green eyes. “But it was not the total devastation you see here.”
“Prior Aulis.” Sorcha gave the appropriate bow to a superior, and felt a little warmth return to her bones. She’d imagined all of the Deacons dead, so the relief made her actually smile.
“Enough of that.” The woman turned and gestured them to follow. “I have no time to spare. We need your help immediately.”
That much was obvious; yet the sight of a living Prior was still a good sign.
As he brushed past her, Raed raised one eyebrow. “This deal about you protecting me . . . I think I got the raw end of the bargain.”
Sorcha resisted the urge to slap him and followed after, moving deeper into the Priory to see what further horrors awaited.
NINE
The Thunder of Destruction
Merrick held tight to Nynnia’s hand, or maybe she was holding tight to his—whichever the case, he was glad of it. He had not pulled his Center back, from the moment they had entered this place. Ahead, Sorcha was a smoldering scarlet ember, the Bond running back to him twisting like living lava, while Raed flickered like hot silver flame. Prior Aulis was also scarlet, but flecked through with blue fire: the mark of a Sensitive.
This confused Merrick. While he knew that Sensitives were usually in high positions in the Order, he had never thought to find one so high in both Active and Sensitive in such a remote outpost. Deacons like the Abbot, with such high ratings in both, warranted positions in larger Priories or Abbeys. To find Aulis tucked away here was rather strange.
These concerns were shoved to one side when she led them into what had to be the infirmary. Merrick immediately yanked his Center back; too much human pain could overload his senses. This, then, was where the remaining Deacons were.
The room reeked of so much sweat, urine and fear that it was like a blow between his eyes. If he had been viewing this with his Center, it would have been unbearable. All four of them stood in the middle of the chaos, while the Prior watched their reactions. Doing a quick head count, Merrick reckoned that pretty much every Deacon and lay Brother was in the infirmary, apart from three or four. After the destruction out in the Hall, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what had happened to them.
Several lay Brothers, also bearing wounds, were trying to hold down a young man wearing the blue of an Active, yet he seemed to have no physical injury. His eyes were bulging from their sockets, and with a start Merrick realized that the Brothers had gagged the struggling man. Froth was starting to leak from the corner of his mouth and stain the leather bit.
“Father!” Nynnia let go of the Deacon’s hand and dashed over to a bulky older man sewing up a gash on a lay Brother’s head. Merrick was relieved that she had not traveled so far only to face grief at the end of her journey. He watched as the old man tenderly pressed his daughter to him and kissed the top of her head. She smiled at him so broadly that it was like the sun had dawned in the small infirmary. “Father, this is Deacon Merrick Chambers—he is responsible for me being able to get back to you—and this is my father, Kyrix Macthcoll.”
The stout man’s hands were covered in blood, so he did not offer a hand for Merrick to shake, but his smile was a smaller reflection of his daughter’s. “Then I thank you, Deacon Chambers—I need my girl home.” He turned and looked over his shoulder. “Now more than ever.”
Nynnia was rolling up the sleeves on her dress. “Who can still be saved, Father?”
“There are several Brothers in the other room who could use your talents.” He patted her on the shoulder and then gave a slight bow to Merrick. “Excuse our rudeness—but as you can see we are both needed here.”
The Deacon, who was feeling particularly useless, tucked his hands under his cloak. “Please don’t stand on ceremony on my account.”
The girl’s eyes darted to Merrick, soft brown and—he wasn’t imagining it—warm. She turned away with a swirl of her dress.
He hated to leave her, but it was obvious that Prior Aulis needed him, for there was one thing he had noticed: all of the Deacons here were Actives. Not one Sensitive remained; had any been alive, they would have been here watching over their brethren.
Sorcha was voicing the very question that buzzed in his head. “What the hell happened here?” She moderated her tone slightly since they were in a heaving infirmary, but still, the edge of panic was audible.
The short gray haircut that Priors often favored made the older woman look somewhat masculine, Merrick noted as he took in the deep wrinkles on her forehead. This woman’s life had been hard to begin with, and it looked like it hadn’t been any easier in the last few days. “What do you think happened?” she snapped, her tone belying her grandmotherly looks. “We were attacked by the unliving!”
It was the one thing no one wanted to hear. Even with all the evidence out in the main hall, it was not a pleasant thing to have confirmed. An attack on a sacred building of the Order had not happened since the dark ages. Not in Arkaym, not in Delmaire. Powerful runes were carved into Priory and Abbey foundations and walls—kept active by constant reworking by the Deacons. Their protection was immutable, more so than water. A huge chasm opened up in front of Merrick as he realized the training he had so recently completed was not proving as useful as he’d imagined.