Spectyr

ominous—if one believed in such things. His mother had remained a believer in the small gods, and those superstitions implanted at her knee had been hard to shake. A hunter’s moon had been called that as it gave nighttime stalkers the best light to see by. After the Break it was found to be the most preferred time for geists to appear.

Sailing up here they were safe from geist activity—it was thought. As Merrick peered over the edge at the landscape sliding below them, he wondered what the folk down there were experiencing, but he had not ventured out into the chill night air merely to think dark thoughts.

Locating apace that was small and out of the way on the efficient deck was hard, but eventually he found a box tucked behind the main cabins that was part of the overflow from the delegation. Sitting himself cross-legged on it, Merrick took out the Strop.

The long, thick piece of leather was tooled with the Seven Runes of Sight, and its making had been his final achievement before becoming a Deacon. Under his fingers the runes were slightly warm.

Merrick slipped the Strop over his eyes, tied it into a knot at the back, closed his eyes and opened his Center. It was the calm place that all Deacons had: their seat of power, where all things passed away and only knowledge mattered. At least that was how it was experienced by Sensitives.

Masa, the Third rune of Sight, was always tricky to use. Seeing into the future was inexact. Whatever he would be able to squeeze from it would not be as accurate or obvious as anyone with a wild native talent, or even the Possibility Matrix, could find. That damned device that had provided their enemies prescience was gone—he was relieved about that, yet he could have done with its foresight at this moment.

Merrick’s Center flew forward like an arrow. He saw the Hive City, though he only knew it from picture books, so it was indistinct and fluttered in the winds of his mind. Overhead the stars gleamed in a carpet of beauty, deeper and more magnificent than even the real night sky. Then as Merrick watched, the stars all dimmed, except for five. These grew brighter and pulled themselves from the sky. The young Deacon held out his hand, and they flew to him, twisting around his outstretched fingers to lie in a circle. They twinkled bright and lovely, yet somehow to look upon them made Merrick sick. Such a visceral sensation was something unexpected while wearing the Strop.

He was used to the signs and interpreting them—what he was not used to was the feeling of not being alone that now came over him.

Once, as a child, he had lost his mother in the bustling market. Wandering the streets alone, he had heard footsteps behind him, and he ran. But the shadow had given chase, and though his mother had eventually found him, that memory was still a powerful one. He felt that fear again—right into his bones. And so his spirit ran in a display of panic that his tutors at the Abbey would have despaired of. As his discipline crumbled in the face of such a primitive force, he heard it—words in a space where there should have been none.

Come back to us, Brother. Come back . . .

It was a voice of such yearning and familiarity that he turned. The young Deacon caught sight of a man, cloaked in darkness and circled by stars. Merrick only had time to make out his hawklike profile and the eyes that were focusing on him.

Then the real world called. Merrick gasped, feeling the Sight being ripped away from him deep down in his gut. When he yanked off his Strop it took a moment for his head to stop spinning enough to focus on the woman standing in front of him.

Captain Vyra Revele had her hand raised to her mouth in shock. “Damnation, I am sorry—”

“So you should be,” Merrick snapped, caught unawares by his own annoyance. His heart still pumped fast, so that he was forced to wipe the sweat off his palms and onto his trouser leg. In Captain Revele’s eyes he saw how he must look and was not pleased. The captain of the Summer Hawk had only shown them courtesy this trip, and on their previous encounter she had assisted them at risk of her own life and commission. “I am sorry, Captain.” He unfolded his legs and slid down to the deck. “Using the runes sometimes makes me forget my manners.”

In her smart Imperial air navy uniform, her short dark hair ruffling in the wind, she was very much part of her ship but completely clueless about the world he walked in. Her smile was hesitant. “I did not see it was you, Deacon Chambers. I thought it was one of my crew hiding from his duties.”

He laughed at that, trying to dispel the final fears that still clung to his brain. “I wouldn’t think any of your crew would dare such a thing.”

She tilted her head, nodded slowly, but did not reply. For some reason, it seemed she was suddenly out of words, and Merrick found himself struggling for something to fill this mysterious gap.

“So, Captain Revele—”

“You may call me Vyra,” she said as they walked the deck of the dirigible, heading forward where the clouds could be seen skidding around the airship’s hull.

Merrick heard the tone in her voice, a slight intensity that made him feel uncomfortable. So he did what he had been trained to do—he faced it. “It is a wonderful coincidence that the Summer Hawk is the ship assigned to take us south.”

Vyra leaned on the ropes. “I confess, Deacon Chambers—”

“You may call me Merrick.”

“That would be inappropriate—and against regulations.” She stood suddenly military straight, and then shot him another glance. “But thank you. I must confess that when the assignments were handed out, I volunteered Summer Hawk for this detail.”

“Why would you do that? This delegation must be the dullest use of an Imperial Dirigible possible.”

Vyra shrugged. “I have a feeling, Deacon Chambers, that wherever you and your partner go, it is never dull.”

Merrick let out a breath. He had been worried that the captain’s interest was related to him—never thinking that it was just a desire for action. The Imperial Air Fleet was still new, and the Empire largely quiet—so much of what it did was act as a courier service for goods all over the continent.

“I am afraid that this is a mission that even Sorcha cannot make more than a civilized delegation.”

The captain shrugged. “The marriage of Emperors is perhaps not as simple as you think.”

The tone of her voice was enough to raise Merrick’s curiosity. “Have you heard something?” It was one of the risks of being a Deacon; gossip and scuttlebutt tended to not be passed on to the Order.

Vyra’s lips pursed as if she were considering the wisdom of doing that very thing. “Let us say that the jockeying for the position of Empress has not been . . . gentle.”

A stray fact, one of the many he had learned of Chioma, suddenly emerged from the depths of Merrick’s recollection; the principality was not only the home of every strange and exotic spice in the Empire but also some of the most powerful and hard-to-detect poisons. Suddenly their trip seemed to become far more complicated.

“It is good then to know you are our backup, Captain Revele.”

Her smile was sudden and brilliant in the moonlight, but she did not reply. Instead she squeezed his arm in a most familiar manner before she turned and strode the rest of the way up the deck toward the wheelhouse.

Merrick was left looking over the night of tumultuous clouds and angry moon. He didn’t need the Sight of Deacon Reeceson to know bad things awaited them in the rich principality of Chioma, but that was not what made him shiver.

It was instead the memory of the man that had chased him in his own sacred space. He would not sleep this night—and for many more, most likely—because of what he had felt. Merrick would be glad when they reached Orinthal and its Abbey. Maybe it was an illusion, but he felt sure he would at least be able to sleep there.

EIGHT The Wakened Dark

After getting the appropriate paperwork, the Sweet Moon sailed up the Saal without much ceremony, but Raed couldn’t shake the memory of the blood-soaked woman holding her kin in a dripping bundle and screaming to an impotent goddess. Tangyre had tried to distract him to little effect. The surroundings of a slaver ship, even an empty one, were not that conducive to laughter.

Only Raed and Tang were above deck on the third morning, while the crew breakfasted below. The Young