Wrayth (35 page)

The first Deacon was shown as a handsome hero, golden hair flying in the wind along with his green and blue cloak. The Rossin was a hovering black shadow, having not yet taken full form, though he had gleaming red eyes and ethereal, shadowy arms, which were reaching out toward Crispin. Merrick tilted his head. It was strange, but in the streaming depictions of wind and smoke there appeared to be another figure, lightly sketched, but definite, there behind the Rossin.

“I hardly think it is coincidence that del Rue picked this room for his own.” Sorcha glanced across at her partner. “Do you?”

Merrick wriggled uncomfortably. “Maybe there was something he found comforting about it.”

He was so busy examining the image that he almost missed the one thing they were looking for, and when he did see it, he felt an utter fool.

The medallion directly above the bed was indeed decorated with weirstones and cantrips. It looked new. It looked handmade.

He pointed to it, “Sorcha, is that—”

No sooner had he done so than his partner was leaping up.

“Get off the bed,” she barked, shooing Merrick and Aachon off the bed and the others away, like a child scattering chickens. Briskly she ordered them to help her swing a chest of drawers onto the bed, which gave her enough room to climb up and touch the ceiling.

Merrick shivered as she pressed the stones. Sorcha had always been very loud in her dislike of weirstones and those that meddled with them.

“Sorcha,” he cautioned, “that stone-and-cantrip mix looks dangerous. You shouldn’t be…” His voice trailed off as he observed her eyes go suddenly blank, and he had the feeling she was somewhere very distant that he did not like. However, just as he was about to pull her down and damn the consequences, the stones under her fingertips became suddenly fluid. As they all watched, she shifted them around.

Her voice was slurred slightly when she spoke. “I see a tunnel to a great castle.” She paused and moved the stones. “Now a boat by a beach, but this one is not used very often.” Now she frowned. “This one…this one very much more so.”

They all watched, even the Rossin, as she pushed one of the stones around to lie on some other portion of the frame. The space described by the circle shifted, becoming a soft, gray section of wall, rather than a painting. It looked remarkably like a group of shades shifting and dancing with each other. Then it resolved itself into a dark corridor; disturbingly commonplace, though in an incredibly odd place. Sorcha looked down at Merrick, and he almost swore in shock at the blank, eerie look on her face. For a moment, she was an utter stranger.

Sorcha cleared her throat and that woman thankfully washed away. “This leads to a dark cellar.” She held out her hand to no one in particular, and it was Tighon who took it.

Merrick took it from him and pressed his hand briefly over hers, and then turned back to the rest of the group. He also despised giving his partner so little of his attention, but he only had a little to give.

In his heart of hearts, Merrick knew he should have pushed her, demanded to hear every detail of what she had discovered about herself, but she had been right—it was not the time to examine too closely what they had in the here and now. There was very little of it to look at, and under close scrutiny it might evaporate.

He replicated Sorcha, and climbed up on the dresser. “I have to say, this hardly seems the best way to enter a portal.”

It was Aachon who had the answers. “Cantrips, weirstones…who knows what the Circle of Stars has at its disposal. I can’t see this del Rue climbing on furniture either.”

Sorcha jumped up to join him. “Looks like we’ll have to lever ourselves in there.” She reached upward.

She didn’t get far; without any warning the Rossin suddenly sprang from the bed and into the maw Sorcha had opened.

Both Deacons cried out as the great cat knocked them flying. Merrick tumbled backward while Frith somewhat awkwardly caught Sorcha before she fell off the bed altogether.

For a moment it was all a confused tangle of arms and legs. When Merrick finally had helped Frith and Sorcha disengage, the Rossin was long gone.

“The portal works,” Aachon commented dryly, as he examined the space the geistlord had disappeared into. Then he climbed up their makeshift ladder and toward the portal. The burly first mate had no problem pulling himself up and into the portal. The weird moment when he switched from vertical movement to standing in a horizontal corridor was abrupt. Merrick and the other Deacons had seen many odd things, but the crew members whispered among themselves.

When Sorcha went to take her turn, Merrick jerked her back. She shot him a look that could have melted metal, but he hissed under his breath, “Wait a second.”

The crew and Deacons, in various states of eagerness, clambered up, and helped each other through the most unusual portal. Then it was just Merrick and Sorcha alone in the room.

Able to speak his mind for the first time since reuniting with his partner, the younger Deacon knew he still only had a few moments. “Do you know how far away this is taking us?” he jerked his head toward the portal.

She shrugged. “I cannot tell that…it could be somewhere in Vermillion or somewhere even in Delmaire.”

Merrick swallowed. It wasn’t as if they could rely on the Order for support, so moving far from the Mother Abbey should not have bothered him…yet it did. He thought of the tunnel he’d last encountered the Circle of Stars in and it did not provide any comfort.

“Just don’t get too far away from me,” he said, squeezing her shoulder.

Her eyes surveyed him, but she nodded without challenging him about this sudden clinginess. “I will try.”

“And be careful,” he added. “I can’t feel you through the Bond right now, and I hate that. Just know I am a person that cares about you, and we all need to come out of this alive.”

Her hard expression softened to one of vague amusement, and she cupped her hand around his cheek. “These are not the times any of us can take care, but I will do my best not to implode before we get the Grand Duchess and the Pattern back.”

Her partner sketched a bow before her, gesturing toward the portal. “I will take that. Now up you go.”

He watched her go, saw her arrive, and then knew that this was his turn.

Wrapping his hands about the lip of the dark portal, Merrick pulled himself up and into the unknown.

TWENTY-THREE

The geistlord landed softly in the darkness of the cellar and inhaled a great whiff of air. That was the wonderful thing about a body; it brought him so much more information than when he’d been a creature of ether—or even worse, in between, trapped in Raed’s mind.

Immediately, he knew that the cellar was full of old things, a dead rat or two in the forgotten corners, the scent of rusted metal, and somewhere, the odor of humanity.

However, there was nothing like the smell of another geistlord—which was what the Rossin had been hoping for. The cat’s huge head swung from side to side and his annoyed growl filled the space. He’d been aiming to catch one of his kin by surprise, and devour them before the humans arrived to spoil things. The Rossin had hoped all this might be another geistlord’s doing, setting himself up as ruler in the guise of a god, as Hatipai had done. It was a favorite ploy, and one that might have suited the great cat, if he’d been clever enough to devour said geistlord. He would need all the power and strength he could gather in the days ahead.

Much as he hated it, his future lay with the humans—at least for now. He’d had to stomach much worse—especially in the early days—but it was galling to have to put up with their company after all this time. He would abide them for a while, and see what the winds of change brought him.

So as the rest of his human retinue scrambled through the portal behind him, the Rossin concentrated on the one scent that rose above those of earth and metal. It was no geistlord smell. It was most definitely human. However as he drew the air through his nostrils and over his tongue, the Rossin let his mouth open a little. A drone of a growl began in his chest as he began to sort the mix of odors out.

When the geistlord finally did, the realization of what he had found took him by surprise. It was not anything he would have expected.

Two scents; both were vaguely familiar—but one of them in particular had his full attention. It was the Tormentor. The one who had cheated him and cast the Rossin down into the depths of the family that belonged to him. The geistlord had spent generations lost in the state between life and death…unable to form into anything while the heir of the family continued to be born in Vermillion. It had been a thousand years before rule turned into legend and they bore a child beyond the city.

Somehow the Tormentor had not died but had cheated death. It had been a thousand years, but the Rossin’s rage still burned. It was lucky indeed that the Deacons were currently unable to read him through their Bond. They might have sensed his plans. The hatred was so deep-seated and ancient that even their pitiful senses would have been able to discern it.

While the geistlord digested this stunning new reality, the Deacons and the rest of the ragtag crew scrambled into the cellar, trying to be quiet and yet making a racket that disturbed his sensitive hearing.

For relief, the great cat padded to the door. He didn’t need to sniff to ascertain what was behind it; the smell of
overripe, unhygienic human filled his nose. Generations and hundreds of years in an animal’s body had changed the Rossin’s perceptions of many things, but one thing that had not altered had been his impression of people. As far as he was concerned they were sweaty, undisciplined, foul creatures—good for little except for providing blood.

What he detected behind the door did not change his mind in that regard, nor did it make him anything like hungry.

When Sorcha came to the door, the Rossin stepped back and let her open it. Her reaction was most amusing. The Deacon staggered back a couple of steps, clapping her hand over her mouth.

“By the Bones,” she gasped to the little Sensitive behind her, “I think something died in here.”

Humanity’s sense of smell was not that accurate. Still when they went into the room there was much excited yelling, but no sign of the enemy. They had missed him by some little time. The Rossin could smell his odor lingering in the corners of the room even over the smell of excrement.

When the mortals finally emerged from the cell, they were dragging a sorry excuse for a man. Even among humans he would have been dismissed as refuse. They must have broken him free, because he had the end of the smashed chain still secured about his neck. He was covered in his own filth and wearing only the barest of clothes.

The Rossin was about to dismiss him as merely another worthless scrap when he stopped and narrowed his eyes on the pathetic creature.

The smell of excrement masked the man’s real scent, and it was probably meant to do that. A hot anger began to grow in the Rossin’s chest. He knew this man—or whatever he had claimed to be.

The cat’s massive claws clenched in the dirt, and he almost leapt upon him there and then. The Maker glanced at him from under a matted crown of hair, but said nothing.
There was no flicker of recognition for the giant cat glaring at him.

It was greatly worrying that the Tormentor and the Maker would be in the same place—though they were often together in the early days, the geistlord thought they had fallen out. The Rossin crouched down on the floor and waited to see what would happen.

The humans were all chattering among themselves. They offered the Maker water and food; one of them even gave up her cloak to hide his near nakedness.

“What’s your name?” Sorcha asked as she gently tried to wipe away some of the grime with a handkerchief. It was of little use; the dirt went all the way through as far as the Rossin was concerned.

The Maker looked up at the Deacon and recognition flickered on his face. So even he saw it—the change in the Deacon—but he was sensible enough not to point it out. As always, the Maker was a cunning creature. Instead, he worked his jaw a little, and whispered, “Ratimana.”