to it, maybe it can be repaired or remade.”
“We don’t even know what it looks like,” Kolya said miserably. “The Presbyters and the Arch Abbot would know, but we can hardly go back and ask them.”
Merrick shot him a look, but the other Sensitive did not even pretend to notice. Widow Vashill had been an awkward client, and it was in her house that Sorcha had encountered the shade that eventually took them to Orinthal. However, when they returned to Vermillion, Merrick had been left with very little to do.
So he’d checked up on their only real geist case in the capital. Widow Vashill had been glad of the company, and so he hoped that their unexpected nighttime visit now wouldn’t come as a complete shock.
They kept their nondescript hoods up and stayed to the less populated streets, trying to keep out of anyone’s attention. However, when Merrick heard his name hissed from an alleyway he did turn reflexively. Another cloaked figure beckoned to him, and before Kolya could stop him, the younger Deacon went toward it.
The Imperial Guard would not have lured him, merely snatched him from the street, and the same went for the Arch Abbot. When he got closer, Merrick relaxed a little. He recognized instantly the rather distinctive nose of the person standing in the shadows. Leonteh Norin had been the last person in any of their shared novitiate classes to ever raise his hand. The gangly redhead lad from Vermillion was also the smartest in the class. He’d become an Active Deacon days before Merrick left with Sorcha for the east.
Now he was standing in the darkness of an alleyway, behind a pile of refuse from the nearest public house. He was not wearing his blue cloak. He locked his right hand around Merrick’s offered one and grinned. “By the Bones, it’s good to find you Merrick!”
“You were looking for me?” It seemed strange that any of the Order would want anything to do with him after using his wild talent on them.
“Well, everyone is looking for you,” Leonteh replied, “but some of us for a different reason.” He stepped back and another half dozen Deacons revealed themselves in the shadows. Merrick recognized a couple of them from his class, but the others were older. Tighon Murn was even older than Sorcha.
“What’s going on?” Kolya, finally unable to contain his concern, joined them. “Are you going to drag Merrick back to the Abbey?” His hand actually went to his sword hilt.
Leonteh could not have looked more offended if he’d tried. “No! Some of us left just after you did. The Arch Abbot should never have considered handing you over to the Emperor.”
Tighon Murn shook his head, his dark eyes distant as he contemplated what they had come to. “We are an Order of brothers bound together by our work. Even Kaleva comes second to that.”
Merrick swallowed hard, remembering his history. The first Order and the first Deacon had not lasted long. Schism after schism fractured it, until there were more than twenty Orders. Every break was a peril for normal folk, and it had been generations since there had been one. Eventually, the Orders realized that they had a greater calling.
Had he inadvertently caused a new schism? The cold claimed his belly again.
“It’s not just us.” Leonteh took him by the arm, looking nothing like the prankster boy he’d been only a few years before. “About thirty Deacons took the chance to get out.” He revealed a plum-sized weirstone in his hand. “We set off to find you, before the Arch Abbot shut and barred the gates. I’ll tell the others we found you and that the dark lady was right. She said—”
Merrick closed his classmate’s hand over the glow of the stone. “What do you mean?”
“The dark lady.” Leonteh looked back at his fellows. “We all heard her last night. She told us that whatever happened, we had to stay with you. She spoke to us in Ancient and showed us a dire path that would swallow up the Order forever unless we followed her instructions.”
Everywhere he went Nynnia had smoothed the way for him. However, whatever she was seeing from her vantage point on the Otherside, he was not.
“She said the gates would be locked in the Order,” Kolya interrupted, “and they were locked and barred as they never have been since we came here.” He turned to Merrick. “If she wants us together, then we should be together.”
He trusted her. Even people who had only seen her once in their dreams trusted her. Merrick sighed and realized he would have to believe in her too, because that was all he had at this moment. He smiled hesitantly at Leonteh. “Tell them to meet us at Widow Vashill’s establishment in Tinker’s Lane—but let them know to come in small groups. We don’t want to attract attention.”
While his classmate raised the weirstone and did just that, Merrick gave the others instructions. He and Kolya set off, knowing they would follow in dribs and drabs. He hoped the widow had plenty of food and water, because tonight she was going to get some very unexpected guests.
NINETEEN
Loyalty and Challenge
The crew formed up behind their captain with grim faces and primed pistols. Sorcha and Aachon took the front positions. Surprise was the only advantage they had, and she was going to use it the best she could. Standing by the door in the dark chamber, the Deacon could hear the footsteps of the approaching people they had just listened in on. Sorcha took a long, steady breath.
The tang of the weirstone’s power was the only thing keeping her upright and functioning, but it tasted flat, coppery and chill compared with Merrick. She was pining for his strength and good sense, and as soon as she could, she was going to drag Raed back to Vermillion to find him. If they survived of course.
With that thought, Sorcha took a step into the corridor and spread her Gauntlets wide before her. She only had a brief instant to take in the people before her. Tangyre was there, her arm guiding a shorter, younger, blonder woman before her, and Sorcha thought Fraine looked very little like her brother. Behind were three more women, but with bone-white hair and skin. In them, the Deacon could feel the flicker of the Wrayth, lying just under their skin like a serpent.
They glanced up, and it was not her imagination, something in their eyes told her they recognized what she was.
If they saw anything about Caoirse in her, she was pleased. Like her mother she would teach them a thing or two about Deacons. She didn’t spare them a word as she darted forward, slipped between Tangyre, who was now reaching for her sword, and Fraine. She made no introductions. Instead she kicked out hard with her left leg, connecting with the younger woman’s knee; she sent her sprawling to the ground with a surprised grunt.
Then Sorcha summoned the rune Deiyant. It blazed like white lightning on her palm as she pushed forward toward the line of women. The power of the Gauntlet filled the confined space of the hallway with a massive explosion of air. Like a geist moving furniture, Sorcha used Deiyant to toss the bodies of all before her. They were chaff in her way. As a Deacon she’d never done such a thing to humans before and wasn’t sure she dare examine too closely how good it felt.
Raed and his crew sprang from the shadows and scooped up the stunned Fraine before anyone could scramble up off the floor. She screamed and kicked furiously, but Raed disarmed her, and there were more of them than one outraged Princess could manage. Sorcha saw the cold light in Raed’s eyes as he grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her to her feet. He bound her hands before her with sharp efficiency.
Aachon and Sorcha took up the rear while the rest of the crew bundled their captive away with them, back the way they had come, toward the riser.
It seemed like a dangerous apparatus to make their escape, but it was all they had. They would have to trust it since Sorcha could not phase all of them through the walls.
“Nicely done,” Aachon commented as the riser continued its ascent. “We should be able to summon Captain Lepzig with the weirstone to pick us up from the roof.”
“You’re all dead,” Fraine spat, straining against Arriann who had taken stern control of her. “I’ll have the Wrayth slit your throats just like I ordered done to your crew members in Chioma.”
The men and women who heard this glanced at Raed in undisguised shock. This was news to every one of them, including Sorcha. If what the Princess said was true, the Deacon could understand why the Young Pretender would keep it from them at least until they were beyond the nest.
