Geist (21 page)

“Deacon Faris?” Nynnia’s mouth twitched in an unconscious bitter smile. “Why would you think she’d be dead? If anyone can look after themselves, she can.”

Merrick let out a short laugh, but he did not mention the Rossin. It could just be coincidence, and the Pretender had been with them for the past week. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more.

Putting away his own fears and concerns, he went back in his head to the basic training of his kind. Terrible as it was, the only clues were in those dreadful moments he’d glimpsed before death took the Deacons. Letting his head droop a little, he shut away all physical sensation, relying totally on his Center; replaying those moments as slowly as possible. Then, through the confusion, he began to count the screaming faces he had seen.

“How many Sensitives did the Priory have?” he demanded of Nynnia.

“Ten,” she replied quickly.

A look of hope spread across his face. “I only saw nine die here. And yet . . .” His Center darted once more around the Priory. “I can feel no other in the area.” He paused and cocked his head. He could feel all the little embers of people inside and out, townsfolk, Deacons and lay Brothers. Even the smallest animal could not escape his notice: the tiniest of insects flowed through his awareness like bright motes. However, what he could not feel was anything, anything at all, living below his feet. It was as if the sphere of his awareness had been cut in half.

“Nynnia”—Merrick felt his heart begin to race with dawning realization—“are there tunnels and chambers underneath the Priory, apart from the one to the town?”

She felt the seriousness of his question, but couldn’t possibly know why it was important. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “When this place was a fortress, the Felstaads built many.”

He could not feel even the smallest beast down there, and surely there could be only one explanation: something or someone was blocking his perception. He took her hand. “Show me.”

Nynnia was used to the strangeness of Deacons, and led him to the farthest end of the keep without further question. An iron-bound door was set into the wall and swung soundlessly when she pulled it open. Merrick frowned, his Deacon observational skills already burning with curiosity. It looked ancient and seldom used, yet when he ran his fingertip over the hinges he could see they were new.

He hesitated a moment, feeling along the Bond with the distant Sorcha to reassure himself that she was all right. Training told him that he should wait until his Active returned, yet he couldn’t afford to. If there was a Sensitive somehow miraculously still alive, then they might not be safe. If that being came back . . .

Merrick swallowed and adjusted his saber at his hip. If it came down to that, he was surely done for. “Stay here,” he said to Nynnia.

“Shouldn’t I go tell the Prior?” she asked.

He paused and thought about it. Somehow he didn’t trust that the Priory Actives would be able to protect him. After all, they had failed to save their own Sensitives right in the middle of Matins. Merrick shook his head. “If I’m not back in half an hour, then yes, but I should be fine.”

He looked at Nynnia then, and though he hadn’t even thought about kissing her before, the possibilities of what might be down there spurred him to action. The soft touch of his lips on hers was almost gentlemanly, but he was proud of himself for having taken that step. It had been a good few years since he’d kissed anyone in such a manner. Then, while she was still looking at him in surprise, he turned and strode down the stairs. If this was to be his final impression, he wanted it to last.

The sunrise was flickering off the ice, and Sorcha was still huddled at the stern in her fur cloak, a dark shadow except for the copper blaze of her hair. Raed paused as he came up the stairs of the quarterdeck. She had to be aware of his presence, but she did not turn.

As he watched, Sorcha flicked the remains of her cigar over the side. “Well, that was the last one of those.” She sighed theatrically.

“I have some in my cabin,” he offered, walking over to stand at her back. “I acquired them off a pirate captain.”

Sorcha glanced up at him. “No honor among thieves, then?”

Raed laughed despite himself. This Deacon was as prickly as a desert cactus. Leaning on the gunwales, he stared over the ice. It was beautiful in a threatening kind of way, like shattered gleaming glass as far as the eye could see.

“I don’t suppose you are going to be able to careen your ship now.” Sorcha pulled her legs up close to her on the bench in a curiously childlike gesture.

“Now, that would be rather foolish under the circumstances.”

She shrugged. “You could. After all, it doesn’t look like anyone is going anywhere for a while.”

“Which leaves us with another problem. What do we do about these annoyed townsfolk? They outnumber us by quite a bit, and not all of my crew are fighters.”

They were both silent a moment. The sun was finally free of the ice, but Deacon Sorcha Faris was not looking at it. She was looking at him with an expression he interpreted as trust. Something had definitely changed between them back in the tunnel.

Both of them glanced up at the sudden creak of a step. Aachon, his weirstone clenched in one hand, had managed to walk up on them unnoticed. The Pretender knew by his expression that he did not like the look of the situation he thought he’d stumbled into. His first mate knew him better than even his own father, and he felt incredibly uncomfortable under that dark gaze.

Still, on the surface Raed managed not to reveal that, keeping his voice level when he spoke. “What is it, Aachon?”

“I thought you’d like to see this,” the older man replied and gestured toward the quay. Quickly, Raed and Sorcha scrambled down to where a group of the crew was leaning over the side.

Jocryn, with his shock of balding red hair, was yelling something down to someone on the dock. For a second Raed thought that a battle was about to break out. That was, until he heard, “No, I need more fresh kale, my friend. These mouths need feeding, you know, and sharpish.” As
Dominion
’s cook, Jocryn was in a constant battle to keep the vessel provisioned, ideally with supplies that wouldn’t be—literally—thrown back in his face.

Sorcha yanked at Raed’s sleeve. “Townsfolk.” Her look was still feral, and he remembered her display on the walls of the Priory with sudden vividness. Quickly, he looked her over. The tell-tale blue cloak was in his cabin, and nothing about her screamed Deacon . . . except for one thing. When he reached out and took her badge of office from her shoulder, he thought he was about to get another slap. Perhaps even a punch.

“Wait.” He held up one hand. “You’ve just discovered the Priory is not what it seems. Maybe the townspeople aren’t, either.”

“Your point—and quickly?”

“The Deacons are not exactly popular here.” Raed pressed the badge into her hand. “So perhaps a little discretion would be sensible right now.”

Sorcha’s fingers tightened on her badge but she gave a little nod. “Very well, then, but I think these might also be a bit of a giveaway.” The Gauntlets.

Raed snorted. “I was not about to try and take those off you.”

“Sensible.” A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she loosened her shirt and tucked them underneath, against her skin; his eyes followed the Gauntlets’ progress. Ancients, he had been naked next to her only hours ago.

The crew were now yelling at Jocryn, while he continued to negotiate with the unseen person down on the dock. Food was the only thing that crew ever argued about. A long time at sea had only sharpened their desire for decent rations, and their confinement on
Dominion
had made them somewhat cranky.

Sorcha and Raed managed to get through to the crowd to see what was going on below. The person standing on the dock was a young man, his face just bursting with its first hair. Around him were several baskets stuffed with fresh food, making the crew go almost insane with delight. Aachon had ordered the gangway pulled up and no one allowed on board, so how exactly this youngster was going to deliver his produce to Jocryn was an interesting question.

“Lad,” Raed called down, “are you the only grocer in Ulrich?”

The boy looked down at his baskets, realizing that their small contents were not going be to able to feed the entire crew. “No, sir,” he replied after a minute. “These are a sample. My father will bring more this afternoon.”

“Why not this morning?” Sorcha leaned down over the side, her unbound bronze hair falling off one shoulder. Without her cloak, badge or Gauntlets, she was simply a beautiful woman, and the way the grocer’s lad was blushing, he’d not been questioned by many of those in his life. “Is he up at the Priory with the others?”

Even from this distance the boy looked shocked. “No, ma’am . . . He . . . he is with my sister.” This last part was muttered.

Sorcha stiffened. “The lad has a strange aura,” she said to Raed softly. “Touched by a geist.”

Before he could stop her, the Deacon had swung her legs over the side and dropped down next to the boy. Being on the high tide, it was quite a distance and an impressive physical feat. The lad leapt back in shock and knocked over several of his baskets. Leaning over the side, Raed watched cautiously. He doubted that one grocer was going to be much danger to the Deacon, but if he broke and ran for his kin, there could be a mob surrounding
Dominion
in very short order.

From this distance he couldn’t hear what Sorcha was saying. At their captain’s gesture, the crew scrambled to thrust out the gangway. She was talking to the lad earnestly with one hand resting lightly on his shoulder. At first he looked very tense, ready to make a dash for it, but as Sorcha continued he began to nod and relax. By the time Raed and Aachon had lowered the gangway and jogged down to where they were, the lad was positively calm. The Pretender was surprised. He’d never seen any sign of diplomacy from the Deacon before, but perhaps the danger her partner was in had tempered her mood.

Sorcha turned to them. “I’ve told Wailace here that my partner and I are not from the Priory. You can vouch for that, Captain Rossin?”

The lad’s wide eyes focused intently on him. “Indeed. We brought Deacon Sorcha from the South, direct from the Arch Abbey itself.”

The grocer’s lad let out a sigh and then abruptly grabbed hold of Sorcha. “You must come back to our house, then. My sister . . .”

“No need to explain.” Sorcha shoved her hand once more into her shirt and pulled out her Gauntlets. The appearance of these talismans made the lad’s eyes light up, or maybe it had been the glimpse of the top of her pale breast.

The Deacon and the stunned lad turned and trotted back up the street. He’d not been invited, but Raed was certainly not about to let Sorcha go anywhere without him. He told himself it was because of her ability to dismiss the Rossin.

“Look after the crew.” He squeezed Aachon’s upper arm. “Keep them on the ship a bit longer, just in case.”

His first mate fingered his weirstone’s bag and nodded somberly. They both knew that nowhere was safe. “Be careful, my prince,” was all he said.

Raed, as he turned and raced after Sorcha, only wished that he could promise such a thing.

After the strangeness of the last day, Sorcha had been reassured to see something familiar in Wailace’s eyes—at last, something normal. Relief. After she’d told him the story, he had willingly grasped it. Whatever the Priory had done, they had not quite eroded the built-in faith in the Order.

This time, as she followed him into the town, there were even fewer signs of life.

“Tell me when the first attacks came.” She actually had to tug the young man back to slow him down. “I need to have information if I am to help your sister.”

He gulped a minute, clearing his throat and shaking his head. “They—they began slowly at first, a month ago. We thought our Deacons would protect us.”

“A month.” Sorcha wished Merrick was here. He would perhaps see the significance of that more than she could.

“Where are we going?” Raed had caught up with them at a jog, neither out of breath nor put off by the glare she shot him.

She waved at Wailace to lead on, while whispering at the Pretender out of the corner of her mouth. It was never good to expose frailty in front of a distressed next of kin. “What are you doing here?”

“You don’t have a partner at the moment”—he grinned—“so I am standing in for Merrick. He would want me to keep an eye on you.”

“By the Bones,” Sorcha hissed, “you are more useless in this than a fifth leg on a dog.”

“Now you’re just hurting my feelings.”

The lilt of his voice, charming and roguish at the same time, should have irritated her, but instead her mind treated her to a recollection of his nakedness and the feeling of his mouth on hers. Ridiculous.

“Since you insist on being here,” she asked as evenly as possible through gritted teeth, “may we just concentrate on helping this boy and his family?”

He was mercifully silent for a bit, though she was still painfully aware of his presence. It was almost a relief to get to the grocer’s house.

Wailace stood by the door, talking to a man who sat slumped on the ground, leaning against the wall of the house with his head in his hands. Sorcha walked up slowly and stopped to look down at him. His eyes were red-rimmed and haunted, his hand trembling. “Can you—” He cleared his throat. “Can you help my daughter?”

She knew better than to offer any definitives. “I promise to try.”

“She—” The father looked away, shame burning on his face. “She says things that . . .”

Sorcha had seen plenty of distraught relatives who had been forced to do terrible things, so she was partly ready for what lay within. “I understand.” She gave his shoulder a light squeeze, and asked the one question she needed to have answered. “What’s her name?”