Merrick awoke adrift in his own Center, falling into it rather than letting it go ahead of him. All of his normal sensations were denied him, and now vibrant hues of his Sight were all he could see. The Prior and her Actives burned like recently raked fires as they clustered around him. He couldn’t hear what they were saying—yet the ether was turning a distinctly indigo shade and the smell of burning invaded his brain.
They were going to do something terrible to him, and it would not just involve death. His senses let him drift higher, and from his height he could make out the faint blue glow of a Sensitive below—it was his own body.
Around it he could see flickering designs that he recognized from his training—the training that had warned of dark things that could be done with cantrips. If he’d been capable of it, he would have recoiled.
A hissing roar enveloped Merrick, a pulling tug that he did not want to give in to. The Center was a more pleasant place, and now he wanted to stay—down below, pain waited for him. The Deacon struggled, but he could feel awareness of his body coming back to him. It was reeling him in, and despite his training, he couldn’t resist.
The first sensation to return was a bruised and sore windpipe. The Actives had surely been within moments of killing him. He retched and gagged on the sharp taste in his mouth. So far, Aulis had not noticed he was conscious again, so he took the chance to try to see exactly what they had done to him.
The smell of damp earth filled his nostrils, so he knew he was somewhere underground—maybe another cellar. He was pinned to the bare earth, his arms and legs spread.
Merrick tried to reach out along the Bond; the powerful nature of their partnership, unexpected and annoying as it had been up until this point, might prove to be useful. The pain that flared through his body gave Merrick a more complete understanding of Aulis’ methods. It was impossible to break a Bond, but it could be rendered poisonous to a Sensitive by overloading his talent.
The ragged scream he let out alerted them to his consciousness. When the blaze of agony subsided, he opened his eyes to see Aulis crouching over him. Her face had become positively evil.
“By all means, test the limits.” She smiled. “Our use for you does not require you to be awake.”
“What are you planning, Traitor?” he croaked through his damaged throat.
Her eyes gleamed in the dim light, but she ignored his question. “You know you only have your partner to blame for this pain. We planned to have her here, not you.”
“She’s going to come back, and then you’ll be—”
“Sorry?” She smiled again. “One Deacon is of no consequence to us.” She waved her hand as if batting a midge, then stood up again and pointed above him to the ceiling. “Perhaps you have missed that.”
With a chill, Merrick followed where she was pointing. The floor might have been dirt, but someone had taken a lot of time with the ceiling. The curve of the brickwork had been whitewashed and decorated with the swirls of more cantrips than he had ever seen in one place. He did indeed recognize many of them, but there was one whose swoops and spirals occupied the middle of the circle and hovered directly over the center of his body.
It was written in the language of the Ancients; a language that had been dead a thousand years. Only Deacons ever bothered to learn it, and they did so only because Ancients had been the first experts on the Otherside and the unliving. He had never seen the swirling script used in a cantrip, but there it was; a huge scarlet letter that could only have been made in blood, and outlined in something he instinctively knew was the charcoal remains of the Sensitives. The word was “First.” Why exactly it would be written so large and importantly above him, he had no idea; however, he imagined that it meant nothing good.
Merrick struggled against his bonds, but they were iron, solid and tight. Desperately he reached for his Active strength, a feat that he had not attempted in years. The flame burned all the way down every nerve and muscle. Thought blew away in the searing agony. He thrashed about, more terribly aware of his body than he had ever been in his life.
“Foolish, but amusing.” When he finally was able to think enough to let go of his attempt at Activity, Aulis was above him once more. Her grin was a sickening parody of grandmotherly concern. “Every time you reach for your power, no matter which one, the fire will enter you. Open yourself wide enough, and it will burn out your eyes and your mind. Go ahead—neither is what we require.”
She turned back to her Actives, having apparently gotten her fill of amusement from Merrick’s pain. “The Pretender must be found before tomorrow evening and the Third Pass.”
They bowed, tucked their hands into their sleeves and left the room. The Third Pass. Merrick’s head swam, but he had heard correctly.
“You can’t be serious,” he managed to say, his voice sounding a dry squeak in his own ears. “The theory of pass was discounted three centuries ago; there are no cycles to the closeness of the Otherside.”
“Oh, really?” Aulis’ curiously green eyes hardened beneath the line of her gray hair.
Merrick blinked, trying hard to focus his eyes.
“The theory did not fall accidentally from grace. It was discredited for fear that common folk would make use of it. Just like the use of weirstones. The Order has always tried to smother the use of power. They seek to control the knowledge of the unliving and keep it all for themselves.”
Good: he had her talking. He might be powerless at this instant, but maybe there would be an instant when he would not be. Knowledge was the only thing he could gather at this moment.
“But you’re one of us,” he gasped. “A Prior, a confidant of the Arch Abbot . . .”
Her smile showed a lot of yellow, sharp teeth. “I am so much more than that, lad, and tomorrow night all shall be revealed.”
The cold knot in the pit of his stomach began to resolve itself into boulder-sized apprehension. She did not linger to elaborate. He was left alone, manacled to the floor and looking up at that word hanging ominously above him. The Deacon couldn’t tell how long he lay there with his own bitter thoughts.
“Merrick.” The familiar voice to his left made him both incredibly glad and incredibly worried.
“Nynnia.” He lifted his head off the ground and flicked it from side to side, trying to find her. Finally, he saw her standing in the dancing shadows cast by the torches on the wall. Her sweet face was pale and folded in concern, but she did not come closer. She was looking up at the cantrips above him.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, terrified that Aulis and her Actives would return. “They are only meant to hold me here and stifle the Bond between Faris and myself. Maybe you can find the key for the manacles?”
She stayed where she was, huddled next to a pillar, and her brown eyes focused upward with the sort of dread horror he would have thought reserved for geists or murderers. “I . . . I can’t.” Her voice was very soft, so soft, in fact, that he almost feared that he was hallucinating and she was only a wishful figment of his brain.
“Please, you have to help, Nynnia. They’re going to kill Sorcha and do something worse to Captain Rossin.” He hated to put her in danger, but what other choice did he have? It wasn’t just his life at risk. Every person in Ulrich was in danger—or maybe even further. Aulis had a plan, and lordship of one remote township didn’t seem worth the risk of bringing the Arch Abbey down on herself.
“I wish I could.” She paused, and he could hear the honesty in her voice. It sounded as though she was really torn. “My father, Merrick . . . What will they do to him if I help you?” Nynnia still did not come out of the shadows.
He slumped back against the floor with a sigh, and gradually it dawned on him; there was only one real choice. He stared up at the cantrips for a minute, and then spoke. “What about my Strop, Nynnia? Did you see where they took that?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her give a quick nod.
“Then can you get it—can you bring it to me?” Stripped of his Sight and afraid, it was very hard for Merrick to judge anything. The rapid trip of her pulse in her throat indicated she was indeed frightened, yet her expression was hard to fathom.
“I can try.” She sounded like she was very close to tears. “I will try, Merrick. But I am afraid of the Actives. If they could do this to you . . .”
He knew was asking a lot of the young woman, but if she didn’t bring him what he needed, Sorcha would be only the first to die. He didn’t need to know the Prior’s plan to be sure of that.
Merrick tried to keep his voice low and even, like he was talking to a very nervous animal. “Just the Strop, Nynnia. Just bring me the Strop and I will do the rest.” His next words remained locked inside him . . .
If I have the courage for it.
As they climbed the rise for the second time in as many days, Raed noticed that she tested the pull of her sword in its scabbard. Deacons seldom bothered with physical weapons, but he heard they trained hard with them. The Pretender had no need to check his saber.
As they neared the top, almost within sight of where they knew the townspeople were gathered, she stopped him with a hand on the crook of his elbow. “Your crew, Captain Rossin—how many of them know how to fight?”
Perhaps he should have said something like, “It won’t come to that,” or, “You’re not making cannon fodder out of my men,” but one look at her deadly serious face and he knew that more was at stake than she would admit to him. He guessed that it was not just about a dozen possessed children, but something much darker. Anything that could scare a Deacon, let alone this one, was not something he could ignore. If he was honest with himself, he considered this still his kingdom.
“About half are well-seasoned warriors,” he replied. “The others are brave enough but have not trained. We tend to avoid conflict rather than take it on full tilt.”
Her nod was thoughtful, as if she was quietly making the mental calculations of what was stacked against them. Her head jerked up, and those sharp blue eyes met his. “We’d best see what other resources we have available, then.” With that, she turned and strode in the direction of the encampment.
Raed wondered how the citizens of Ulrich would respond to being described in such a way.
It was certainly a good thing that Sorcha was not wearing the immediately recognizable cloak of an Active, because they would probably have been peppered with gunfire before they got within thirty yards of the group. It helped that the citizens were all watching the Priory rather than the approach from the town.
Even if they’d not just come through the empty streets of Ulrich, it would have been apparent that this was nearly the entire population. The crowd included men and women, all carrying makeshift weapons; fishermen with long gaffes, farmers with their scythes and pitchforks, and bakers with their long wooden paddles. Everyone was focused on the grim building that hung over their town. After doing a quick head count, Raed judged there to be more than a hundred people, all waiting for something to happen on the ridge.
He pointed to the middle of a group on the left. “There’s the mayor—see his chain of office?” It was a small insignia, to go with a small town, but he’d caught a glint off it from the noon sun.
Sorcha straightened her Order badge on her left shoulder and indicated he should go first. If she had expected that the Young Pretender would get a better reception here than she would, she was sadly mistaken.
The Mayor turned to Raed and gave him a somewhat withering look; either he recognized him and was not impressed, or he didn’t and was annoyed at the interruption. His face was young but his eyes were hard in their sockets and his face was grim. Raed knew the look. Very well, he judged, a man who appreciates straight talk.
He held out his hand. “I am Captain Raed Rossin, of the ship
Dominion
. I’ve come to offer my assistance.”
“I am Mayor Erasmus Locke.” The Mayor’s face relaxed slightly, but then his gaze drifted to the woman who stood behind the Pretender. His eyes dropped to the sigil she had replaced on her chest and his mouth flew open in shock. Raed decided quick action was called for, before either the Mayor or, indeed, Sorcha could say anything.
“This is Deacon Faris, whom I myself transported on my ship, and who was sent by the Arch Abbot to aid you against these transgressors.”
The Mayor’s gaze flitted between the two of them. His voice was gruff, almost that of an old man. “We have no need of more Deacons here.”
Raed took hold of Sorcha’s arm, giving it a slight squeeze as he drew her forward. She glared at him, but leapt into the breach he had created. “I can assure you that I am no friend of the woman calling herself Prior—in fact, she is holding my partner prisoner.”
Mayor Locke’s lips twisted. “And now I suppose you want our help to get him back?” The tone of his voice was bitter. The citizens around him shifted, muttering to themselves.
The moment hung on a knife’s edge. Raed wondered if they might not have to make a run for it, but once again Sorcha surprised him. “I have examined your children and I know you have good reason to be angry.” She ducked her head and then glanced up at the Mayor with a grim smile. “However, I am here to set things right.” Her bright blue eyes sparkled with determination through the strands of her copper hair.
The Pretender realized that Sorcha was not beyond using her beauty to manipulate those around her if necessary. It might not be her weapon of preference, but she was aware of it—and Erasmus Locke was not immune. His shoulders relaxed. The people, those who should have been Raed’s people, had learned to trust the Deacons in the last years, and it was easy to fall back into that habit under the steady stare of Sorcha Faris.
“We can’t get in.” A tall woman tightened her grip on a baling spike and shook it in the direction of the locked Priory. “They stood and did nothing while my Lyith suffered.” Her voice cracked. “They actually turned us away.”