Without so much as a look behind her, she dodged a tumbling stone with the kind of accuracy that could not belong to a normal human. Merrick, attached to her hand, followed after.
It was an impossible feat, and Merrick wondered if she was using some version of his own Sight to accomplish it. If he had tried to use the rune Masa, it would have taken so much focus he would have been squashed like a bug while concentrating. Just as he was contemplating that mystery, Nynnia came to a complete stop.
“Here it is,” she panted, and for a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. Then a great chunk of the earth’s surface slid away to reveal stairs going down. Merrick didn’t need an invitation to follow her.
As soon as they were inside, the door closed behind them. It was suddenly very silent. By the strange green light Merrick could make out they were in a small chamber, and when he touched a wall, it was made of slick metal.
A deep frown etched itself between his eyes—he could not identify the metal.
He turned to Nynnia. “Are you some sort of Tinkers?”
A soft smile flitted across her lips. “If you mean do we create and build things, then yes, we started that way. Our ancestors were curious people, and soon we became our own separate tribe of seekers. The knowledge we’ve collected has been passed on through the generations.”
“Until you were able to make this,” Merrick whispered. He thought of that lost knowledge—the kind his people were only just rediscovering. He swallowed hard. “Will we be safe down here?” he gestured somewhat futilely up.
“For the moment.” Nynnia let out a long sigh, tilted her head and then put her hand on his shoulder. “We must talk to Mestari—he will know what to do with you.”
The light in the chamber was kind, softening the lines, and wiping away the gray, tired pallor of her face he had seen in the Temple. Under these conditions it was easy for Merrick to imagine that she was his Nynnia. The possibility that he might lose her again drove the Deacon to the point of recklessness. He clasped her by the arms. “Whatever your plan is, we have to hurry.”
She opened her mouth to reply, paused, and then touched his face. “I see you are a good man, Merrick, and if you say I fall in love with you in the future, I believe you—but there is nothing to be done.”
The resignation in her voice broke his heart. So her kissed her again.
She pressed her hand against the Deacon’s chest. “I don’t know what sort of religious orders they have in the future.” She chuckled. “But I think I like them.”
Merrick opened his mouth to tell her how the Order had transitioned from a religious community to something else after the arrival of the Otherside—but he stopped himself. Talking to someone from his past was rather confusing.
Nynnia was looking at him with the same piercing gaze she would level at him in the future. “You don’t need to tell me anything—what we have to deal with ight here and now is more than enough.” She brushed a curl back from his face. “But I don’t think you can help but give me hope. I must live to know you—now, mustn’t I?” The smile she gave him was wicked and beautiful.
As always with her, Merrick was quite vulnerable, so caught unawares he fell back on the truth. “I don’t know what is safe to tell you.” And he shook is head. “And I don’t know if the place I come from is worth saving.”
“Don’t fret,” she replied softly, turning to the flat surface of the metal wall. “We have come to the end of our time. I do not expect the Ehtia can be saved by one man alone. It’s too late for that.”
Before he could answer, a rattle of gears announced something working out of sight. The wall slid aside; Nynnia took his hand and led him through the opening.
They went down a set of metallic stairs, which rang underfoot, and into a vast room of which there had been no sign aboveground. Merrick’s mind was now whirling faster. Nynnia on the Otherside had said she was sending him back to learn something and to plant a seed—whatever that meant. If he could only stop to take notes on the marvelous etched walls they were passing, or at least to copy the towering cogged wheels, then perhaps all would be well.
Yet Nynnia was not slowing down. They passed a few other people who were of the same small stature as the woman at his side—but their skin coloring was as diverse as that in his own Empire.
So many questions were bubbling in Merrick’s head, but he managed to hold his tongue. This was borrowed time. He shot Nynnia a look out of the corner of his eye—she seemed to be well aware of that.
They reached yet another door. This one was wooden and, as with everything in this place, etched and carved with symbols. Nynnia flung it open with great vigor. Tugged after her, Merrick found himself in what appeared to be a war room.
A long table ran the length of it, and seated around it were ten harried-looking individuals—well, at least nine harried-looking individuals. Merrick’s Sensitive training helped him take in the gray faces, the lost looks, and the air of despair. However, his immediate focus was on the one person he recognized in the room.
Or rather he recognized the sparkling mask. Merrick stopped stock-still for a second drenched in a sudden chill, and then his logical brain caught up. The Prince of Chioma was indeed the only Prince who could be at such a meeting before the Break. It was one of the most powerful principalities in this time, so the man sitting before him must be Onika’s ancestor.
Still, it was very eerie to be confronted with that strange swinging mask—the very one he had seen only a day earlier in the Hive City. The Deacon gave his head a little shake in an effort to clear it and turned to the person who Nynnia was introducing him to.
Though this man was short in stature, he had an aura of instant command around him. His long salt-and- pepper beard was neatly trimmed, but the eyes above were deeply shadowed, even if their icy blueness conveyed a determination as steely as the walls they were surrounded by.
“Mestari”—Nynnia gave a little bow—“this is Deacon Merrick Chambers.” And then, horrifyingly, she added, “From the future.”
The older man did not call her a liar or even laugh—he merely nodded his head and then held out his hand.
Merrick took it reflexively in a clasp of hands that even iis time must be a sign of friendship. Immediately his senses leapt, and the world blurred for a long, terrifying moment.
For a Sensitive to be blind was a terrible nightmare of an idea, but before the Deacon had a chance to cry out, the sensation passed. Now the man Nynnia had named as Mestari was looking at him differently.
“You have our blood in you, lad—but you have traveled so far to reach us. Truly amazing.”
Rune Kebenar, Fourth of the Runes of Sight, allowed Sensitives to see the true nature of things—yet this man had done that without any visible sign of using it. Once again Merrick’s curiosity was piqued, and it was particularly difficult to hold his tongue.
“The Otherside is capable of many things.” The Chioma Prince broke the silence. “Even time has only a tenuous grip upon it—and now my mother uses it against us.” The voice that came from behind the sparkling mask was smooth, powerful and—shockingly to the Deacon—familiar. Through his Center Merrick knew. This was no distant ancestor of the Prince he had met—it was the same man!
Now his tongue would not be still. Merrick spun about and pointed most rudely at the seated form of Onika. “That . . . that is impossible!” For a little bit all other words failed to come.
“Merrick!” Nynnia was horrified at her guest. “This is the Prince of Chioma, our greatest ally.”
The rest of the table jerked to their feet. The more martial of the Ehtia grabbed their swords, worried no doubt that this newcomer was about to attack one of their number. Merrick was not moved to violence, even if the world had gone quite mad.
The Deacon reconsidered; he must have been mistaken. So he backtracked. “Forgive me, Majesty, it is just that in my time there is a Prince of Chioma, and he sounds exactly like you. Perhaps I should not tell you that one of your descendants—”
“I have no sons, nor can I ever have,” the Prince replied and then he swept aside the curtain of beads.
Over the many decades the mystery of the ruler of Chioma had been whispered about, discussed by scholars and rumormongers alike—so the sudden exposure of reality stunned Merrick.
Onika, the Prince of Chioma, was a handsome man. His skin was smooth and dark, the color of the strong coffee of his kingdom. He had a powerful jaw and a narrow, tidy beard—what he also had were eyes that would suck out a person’s soul.
