Merrick forgot this mad situation. He lost the feeling of Nynnia’s hand on his shoulder. Everything faded to insignificance. In the eyes of the Prince, none of those mattered.
He staggered, dropping to his knees, banging his shins on the table leg. Pain didn’t matter either. Onika was a bright star drawing him down—whatever the Prince needed Merrick would have given to him. If he had asked for his arm, his heart—even Nynnia—he would have given those to him.
Then the Prince dropped his hand, and the shivering crystals fell back into place. The spell, or whatever it had been, also fell away. Merrick was left breathing heavily through his mouth, shaking and sweaty.
When the Deacon finally recovered himself and climbed to his feet, his certainty in anything was rocked to its foundation. Nothing he had ever experienced, nothing he had ever read, explained what had just happened.
Mestari pulled the chair he had just gotten out of over toward the Deacoand guided him into it. “Knocks you about, doesn’t it—no shame in it—everyone has the same reaction.”
The Deacon struggled to find his Center, the one thing that he had been able to rely on. It took a long, terrible time for it to come back. Finally he was able to say in a shaky voice, “What . . . what, by the Bones, was that?”
Nynnia took an empty seat by him and reached across to cradle his hands in hers. “You’ve never felt a touch of the gods before?”
“Gods?” Merrick was far too shocked to hold his tongue any longer. “I have no truck with the little gods—they are the domain of the weak-willed and the desperate.” He spat the words out without a thought.
Then he realized that everyone else looked as though he had slapped them in the face. “I mean . . . I don’t know . . .”
“You’ve said enough,” Mestari growled through a choked throat. “To know that we succeed—even if they destroy what we have made—it is enough.”
“We should ask no more of him.” The Prince of Chioma raised one perfectly manicured hand. “What he knows may affect how we act in these last days.”
Nynnia squeezed the tips of Merrick’s fingers, making him warm instantly. “How can it? We have so very few choices before us . . . only one, in fact. And we made that long ago.”
The Deacon’s insides clenched. He knew that the Ehtia ended up on the Otherside, but he was still not certain if they died or somehow managed to get there alive. Unbidden, he once more thought of his and Sorcha’s experience there.
Most of the Ehtia in the room looked away, but one, a woman with a sharp bob cut, slammed her palm firmly down on the table with a clang. “Nynnia, may I remind you that this is our business alone. Even our allies”—she nodded to Onika—“cannot know all our secrets—let alone someone you have just met.”
The Prince arose smoothly from his seat. “Then let me take the young man aside—I am sure he has questions.” He gave a little bow to the people. “We will leave you to make your arrangements.”
Merrick kissed Nynnia lightly, without thinking about how it might seem to the others, and followed the elegant form of Onika out of the room. As a man alive in both times, the Deacon somehow felt he could trust the Prince—though he realized that this was perfectly ridiculous. The Prince would not know him for a thousand years —and he was not entirely human, either.
They exited into the throbbing, vibrating metal room, and now that Merrick had recovered his composure a little, he could see how many of the Ehtia were scurrying about. The Prince stood still and watched, his hands folded in the small of his back, and the Deacon had the impression that behind that damned mask he would be frowning—though he would not ask to see.
“Tell me what is happening.” The Deacon stood to his full height.
“You don’t know?”
“Much is lost in the future—I didn’t even know the name of Nynnia’s people. We simply called them the Ancients.”
“How very imaginative.” Onika chuckled, but there was a hint of bitterness in it. He walked over to another door and inclined his head. “Let me educate you a little.” The sharp gesture caused the crystals to sway, and for a second he caught a glimpse of those riveting, horrific eyes.
The Deacon hato have the answers to all this—it was more than just his nature that demanded it—it was his training as a member of the Order that had to be satisfied.
The Prince spun a narrow iron wheel set in the door, then he tugged it open. It swung noiselessly on its hinges—or at least Merrick assumed it was noiseless, since he could hear nothing at all above the sudden banging and clattering that issued from the room. It was the kind of cacophony that shook the whole body and made thinking impossible. The only comparable sound had been the stamping presses in his father’s mines. He’d only visited there once. That noise had also made quite the impression.
Onika led the way into the room, and even he had to clamp his hands to his head. Apparently whatever he was, a pounding headache or a ruptured eardrum was still a risk. Merrick found it hard to concentrate on what he was seeing in this chamber with the ringing in his ears. The stink of oil here added an extra layer of delight to the experience, clogging his nostrils and making it difficult to breathe.
It was a machine, the kind that would make the Master Tinkers of Vermillion weep with jealously. It filled the room, which might have been small in circumference but was now revealed to have massive height and depth. Merrick and the Prince of Chioma stood on a metal walkway and looked over the edge. The Deacon could not see the top or bottom, because it was filled with a thick mass of spinning cogs, wheels and driving pistons. The only thing he did recognize the purpose of was a great weirstone set not three feet from his hand—the largest he had ever seen in his life. If he stretched both his arms wide, he could barely touch each side of it. The blue surface was swirling madly, and the faint crackle of power in the air made him nervous.
If only Sorcha was here with him, because even with the delight of finding Nynnia and the wonder of this great machine, he was beginning to feel the loss of his partner. Although an Active would never admit it, they knew full well that they were blind without their Sensitive. However, a Sensitive also needed his Active—Merrick was aware of that space where Sorcha’s power had resided, buoying him up. As well he sorely missed her physical presence.
The Prince drew him on, and they passed through another door on the far side that opened in the same way as the other. Once beyond it, and with it secured at their backs, the sound of the massive machine was thankfully diminished.
Merrick had thought the weirstone in the machine was impressive, but now he realized they were in a room filled with weirstones—many the same size as the one they had just seen.
It was a magazine, much like the storage facilities on the Imperial Navy ships, and he knew he was holding his breath just as he would in those situations. Weirstones in the most trained hands were unpredictable, but the Prince of Chioma looked unconcerned and even leaned up against one very casually. Merrick winced. Only a Deacon should have been able to touch a weirstone without consequence.
“You needn’t worry,” Onika said in a conversational tone. “The Ehtia are, among other things, masters of the weirstone. These are unkeyed. In point of fact, the Ehtia are the ones who made this for me.” He gestured to the shimmering strings of crystal that hid his face.
“How could I not sense that?” Merrick blurted, aware of a faintly angry tone in his voice. “And I thought all weirstones are blue.”
“Most are—but even those rules can be bent by the Ehtia.” The Prince sighed. “And you could not sense them because they are too smick blurte register in anything but True Sight.”
Merrick frowned. The Prince must be speaking of some form of the Sight taught to Deacons—or rather that which
“So very curious.” The Prince’s hand traced the surface of the weirstone he was almost reclining on. “You should take a care that you do not dig too deep. Even a time traveler can be caught out.”
Merrick found being in this awkward position made him bold. “The machine,” he repeated obstinately. “What is its purpose?”
Onika answered in an almost condescending fashion. “The machine is powering this transport, digging us through the ground in an attempt to escape her wrath.”
The Deacon had been in some very strange situations and had used some advanced methods of travel in his
