Geist (10 page)

Sorcha found she was smiling. She wiped her forehead, one Gauntlet already inactive. She glanced at the left one, still burning with white fire. With a slight smile she pulled out a cigar from her pocket and lazily raised it to her mouth. Merrick gaped as she used the treasured talisman, still burning with the fires of the rune, to calmly light it. She grinned at him while he continued to stare speechlessly, the smoke curling past her eyes, and took pleasure in his horror. With a mocking smile and a measured shake of her hand, she extinguished the flames. “Ah, white fire.” She motioned with her head to the lit cigar. “Preserves the flavor.”

On any normal day, the smoke would have calmed her nerves. After all, that was why she enjoyed cigars: guaranteed bliss for an hour, when all that mattered was the smoke and time to do nothing. This had turned out to be anything but another normal day.

As Merrick was still in shock, she turned to one side and began to examine what was left of the summoning circle. She took a good puff and surveyed the damage. It wasn’t pretty. What little remained of the circle of bodies was charred almost beyond recognition. Burying them wouldn’t take long at all.

At her back she could hear Merrick getting to his feet. Worryingly, even without turning, she could tell he was exhilarated more than terrified. The Bond was never meant to be like this, and certainly not this quickly. Only hours old, and all the rules were quite undone. Still, there was no point talking about it.

“Someone went to a great deal of trouble to create that geist.” She traced the outline of the pattern still faintly visible on the ground. “Someone who knows a lot about the unliving.”

“Over here.” Merrick, whose once-bright-and-new emerald cloak was stained almost completely black, was bent over a clear space among the remains. He was poking something with a stick, like he’d found something distasteful or dangerous.

When she reached him, Sorcha understood why.

“A weirstone,” she hissed, chewing grimly on the end of her cigar. “When will people learn?” The cobalt blue sphere was now as dark as pitch.

Merrick, fresh from the novitiate and not having seen the carnage unregistered weirstones could do, glanced up. “People are still frightened. They want reassurance—some of them feel better with a stone around.”

“Do you think they feel better?” She gestured to the smoking pile of bones. “Those damned things can draw geists as well as see them.”

“We don’t know that the Tinkers were carrying one . . .”

Sorcha paused and looked at him askance. “You think whoever made this mess used a weirstone as part of it?”

He reached down and held his hand, fingers spread, inches above the dark orb. “I can feel the geist presence, but also another.”

“Human?”

His brow furrowed. “They have covered their tracks somehow, messed with the ether to disguise themselves. I can’t see beyond it . . .”

Sorcha bent down next to him and drew in a long mouthful of smoke. “You’re the best the Abbey has, Chambers. Are you telling me that there is someone better than you?”

Her new partner glanced up at her, his brown eyes suddenly not at all friendly. “Give me a second.” It was actually a growl.

She didn’t go far; staying crouched down, looking about and trying to enjoy the taste of the smoke on her tongue. What Sorcha couldn’t enjoy was the vague frisson of concentration that was leaking across from Merrick. She hated to think what was leaking in the other direction.

Finally her partner sighed and got up. “Definitely human, and definitely male.”

She stood next to him and tried to moderate her tone to something that wasn’t disappointment. “Anything else?”

He kicked the remains of the weirstone. “Not after the damage the geist banishment caused. If I had found it when the weirstone was still active, maybe . . .”

“Don’t waste time on maybes,” Sorcha said. “I have a feeling that we’ll be getting another chance at this.”

“What makes you say that?”

She pointed to the road. “This isn’t a well-traveled spot at this time of year, and the bodies were fresh. They must have only been here overnight.”

“So?”

She tapped him lightly on the forehead with one fingertip. “It was a trap for us.”

Merrick blinked once in confusion, and then his eyebrows drew together in a frown. “But we only knew last night that we were leaving . . .”

Sorcha puffed contemplatively on of her cigar, let it linger a moment and then breathed it out regretfully. “Indeed, so there are only two options: someone was watching us leave the Abbey, or the perpetrator can somehow see into the future. Take your pick.”

Merrick turned pale, quite impressive in this cold. “I don’t know which I like less.”

Sorcha jerked her head over toward where their packhorse was standing. “How ’bout we get the shovels and bury these poor folk while you think about it?”

Two days of riding and Merrick’s head was still buzzing with the possibilities of the attack. Even when they rode into the port town of Irisil, he remained shell-shocked. It made sense, yet he almost wished that she hadn’t voiced it.

Most novices would have given their eyeteeth to be teamed up with Deacon Sorcha Faris, but now he realized that his nightmare had just begun. Ahead, where she rode, his new partner gave no sign she even knew he was following. However, both were fully aware of each other’s presence. The Bond took care of that.

Though neither of them spoke about it, they both knew it was there and very strong, much stronger than it should have been. Merrick worked very hard to keep his thoughts reined in, but was frightened by the possibility that she would hear them again in a moment of stress. The one thing that he did not want was Sorcha running around his brain. The memory of the night that his father died floated to the surface whenever she was about.

As they trotted through the ramshackle buildings and lines of nets hung up to dry, he could feel his anxiety growing at the prospect of being on board a ship with her. How he was going to occupy his mind for that time was a real and growing concern.

“This is the place.” Sorcha interrupted his flow of depressing thoughts by pulling up outside a house that more resembled a lean-to.

“This is where we take ship?”

She had slid down from her stallion and was grinning up at him. “Not quite to your standards, my lord?”

It was the limit. He was wracked with fatigue, nerves and the overwhelming desire for a bath, and here she was making fun of him. Merrick opened his mouth to let fly with every expletive he’d learned in the novices’ hall, when his eye was caught by a slim form coming down the road toward them, apparently making for the same dreary little building.

His occupational hazard was seeing the inherent beauty in everything. The simplest forms like a petal or the song of a bird could entrance a newly created Sensitive, but he’d thought himself over that stage.

Merrick knew he was agape as the young woman coming toward them glanced up shyly. Her eyes were the most entrancing color, like a woodland doe’s, her lips a perfect bow set in a heart-shaped face. As he turned his neck to watch her, she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and entered the building before them. The scent she trailed behind her was light and sweet. Merrick blinked.

It took him a moment to realize that Sorcha was talking to him. He glanced down at her, already feeling a slight warmth in his cheeks.

She might not be a Sensitive, but his new partner wasn’t an idiot. Shooting a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the vision, she smirked. “Chambers, you’re not going to drop into one of those Sensitive trances over a girl, are you? If so, tell me now so I can have a slap ready.” Her fingers were tapping on the edge of her belt pocket, as if she was indeed holding one back.

“Did saving your life not earn me a little respect?” he snapped back. “Just like an Active to forget so quickly.”

“Yes, yes, I know . . . Without you I would be blind.” Sorcha actually looked away. “You did well, Deacon Chambers. Many newly ordained would have stumbled, faced with something so . . . unexpected.”

Merrick decided to take the compliment, and perhaps, in the interests of getting along with his partner, offer one of his own. “You handled Pyet and Yevah expertly. Many Actives would have stumbled at having to manage two runes like that.”

Her smile was slow and amused. If Deacons wore hats, she might have tipped hers. “I guess that you and I have been dumped into a maelstrom. The things that have been happening in the last few days”—she shook her head, as if only beginning to catalogue them—“we should perhaps turn back and report to the Arch Abbot.”

“You suggested that two days ago, and we decided that we have our orders.” Merrick dismounted as smoothly as possible and was glad not to collapse immediately. After two days his thighs still ached. “Think of all those people in Ulrich who are under attack. If we wait, how many more will die? Besides, with the Priory weirstone I can contact him from our destination.”

Sorcha nodded and handed the reins of her stallion to a stable-hand who had finally appeared around the corner of the building. “We go on, then.” Entering the building, both of them, not the tallest of Deacons, had to duck their heads. It was just as cramped inside. Behind a leaning desk sat a tiny old woman who was coughing so hard Merrick was worried a lung might appear at any moment. In front of the desk stood the beautiful woman from outside. When Merrick saw her, he almost straightened up—though naturally, he realized she would be in here. Without any subtlety, Sorcha elbowed him in the ribs. Only the Bones knew what the Bond was telling her about his state.

The young woman glowed to his Sensitive Sight in the dingy light. She was standing, her head only slightly bent, and her voice was soft and light when she spoke. “But surely there must be room on board. My father arranged . . .”

The old woman stopped coughing long enough to wheeze out a phlegmy reply. “We have an agreement with the Order; they take precedence.”

The young woman pressed her folded hands to her small breasts and inclined her head toward the hunched one behind the desk. “But I must get back to my father in Ulrich—he is lost without me.”

The older woman, however, had already spotted the two Deacons through her watering eyes and dismissed any further complaints. “Honored guests!” She rang a battered bell until three young men, presumably her grandsons, appeared. Before either Deacon could protest at this preferential treatment, their baggage was taken from them and they were ushered to the desk.

“You are blessed lucky,” the old woman croaked. “The tide is near to turning and my son will have to sail with it.”

Sorcha allowed herself to be guided toward the rear door but Merrick paused and glanced back. The young woman was standing stock-still, arms folded tight around her.

He swung about to face the proprietress. “Surely there is room on the ship for this lady?”

Merrick caught sight of Sorcha’s amused expression and raised eyebrow.
Oh really . . .

The old woman grimaced. “The Abbey specifies that we only carry their people, and they pay very well for the privilege.”

His mouth ran away with him before his brain quite caught up. “She is part of our party.”

When the old woman glanced at Sorcha, she only shrugged her compliance, but could not quite seem to keep the smirk off her face.

“Makes no difference to me.” The crone coughed, and spat into the corner. “If you say she is part of your group, then she is your problem, not mine.”

While Sorcha started out of the building and toward the gangway, Merrick turned back to the younger woman. “Please forgive my presumption, but I hope you don’t mind being an honorary Deacon if it means getting home?”

“I’m very thankful.” From some women it might have sounded common, but she said it so quietly and with such honesty in those brown eyes, he didn’t take it at anything but face value.

He held out his hand. “Deacon Merrick Chambers.”

“Nynnia Macthcoll.” She stared at his offered hand for a minute, before putting her own much smaller one in it with a rather uncertain shake.

Only then did Merrick realize he’d done something very foolish. Dealing with Deacons for years, he’d forgotten that most well-brought-up ladies of any standing found a handshake rather offensive. Quickly he jerked his hand back, though holding hers had been a more-than-pleasant experience.

“Shall we go?” He remembered enough to let her out of the door before him. The scent when she passed was like apples and sweet spring grass; Sensitive observation was certainly a rod to bear at times like this.

Outside a brisk wind had picked up, the slate gray ocean heaving against a stony beach. A set of dark wharves thrust out into the harbor, and their small ship was the only one tied up there.

As Merrick and his new acquaintance walked up the pier toward the ship, he took note of her clothes, trying to judge what they could tell him about her. The sky blue dress she wore was covered with a dark gray cloak, and both seemed somewhat richer than a farmer’s daughter might have worn. The hem of the dress, however, was roughened and rubbed, indicating excessive wear. He began to surmise that its owner had fallen on hard times. He imagined this might be her only remaining dress out of a once-larger wardrobe. The small bag that she would not relinquish to him also had the look of being well traveled but seemed rather light for a long sojourn. Her long dark hair was carefully groomed and modestly plaited at the crown with five jet pins holding it in place, which, if she was traveling, showed a dedication to proper appearance.

Merrick ran his hand through his own curly hair, suddenly aware how uncombed it was. “Are you traveling to meet family in Ulrich, Miss Macthcoll?” he asked. The pier was slick with salt spray, and he offered her his arm as she struggled against the wind to follow the striding Sorcha.