Geist (33 page)

The area that had not been built on top of the shallow lagoon, but instead on the soft marshes of the mainland, was called the Edge. It had been so named after one particularly jocular ancestor of Raed’s had referred to it as “the edge of humanity.” It was also much larger than the center, and was separated from it by a circle of canals.

Now, looking over it in the gathering evening, he realized his training wouldn’t help him there. The streets were narrow, some disappearing almost completely under the eaves of houses from up here, and they meandered around on themselves. City planning had long ago given up on the Edge.

As they dropped lower, following the edge of the lagoon, he gestured out to an area that was not covered with houses. Certainly there were signs of rebuilding, but it looked as if fire had swept through the area.

He was just about to ask, when Revele cut him off. “That,” she said grimly, “was our depot up until three months ago.”

“A geist attack?” he asked.

The look his fellow captain shot him over her shoulder matched her tone. “No—an explosion in the gas refilling station. These dirigibles are like your ships . . . not without their risk.”

By the size of the devastation, the Emperor’s fleet must have suffered considerable losses. It was in his mind to make a quip about sea vessels at least not exploding—but it seemed in far too poor taste. He had wondered why he had not seen Sorcha lighting her cigars for the last few days. It had not just been his sweet attentions, then.

The new repair facility was not built far from the scene of the previous one, but space in this ancient city was obviously at a premium. The lowering sun bounced off the shapes of several dirigibles tied up in the facility, and to Raed they looked very menacing. He suddenly wanted to get off this floating exploding death trap, and he was very glad that he hadn’t known of this danger when he’d set foot on it. It would have considerably dampened his ardor for Sorcha. And yet, he shot her a wicked look.
Maybe not.

“You have to come in slow, so the watchtowers have enough time to alert the ground crew,” Revele explained. “We’re lucky there seem to be several moorings.”

She yanked on a cord hanging beneath her console, and somewhere a bell began to ring. Leaning out, curious despite it all, he watched her crew scurry to drop the ropes from the gunwales.
Summer Hawk
began to slow, the kind of gliding entry into port that any sea captain would have been proud to achieve. Below, more men could be seen pouring out of the huge buildings.

“What are they?” Raed asked. “Those are the biggest buildings I’ve ever seen.”

“Hangars for the dirigible repair,” Merrick replied, before the busy air Captain could. “One of the Emperor’s greatest achievements.”

Raed bit his lip on the comment that surged forward.
Summer Hawk
was gradually pulled downward; a combination of the Captain venting some of the dangerous gas, and the ground crew cranking the ship closer with their winches.

“Captain.” Sorcha stood stiffly at the portal, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “If I can trouble you to keep the Breed horses in your hold for as long as you are able, and then return them to the Mother Abbey?”

Merrick wasn’t fooled. His partner had risked her life to save Shedryi and Melochi, and the tautness of her back said this request cost her more than she would admit.

“Certainly.” Revele snapped a salute, which might not have been necessary at this point. They circled lower in stiff silence.

When they were only a few minutes from the ground, Captain Revele pointed to a locker in the rear of the cabin.

“There are uniform coat jackets in there. If you get your people into them, you should blend in with my crew. They are usually quick to head for the attractions of Vermillion after I have dismissed them. After that, you are on your own.”

Raed grinned at her. “That’s just the way we like it.”

It was one thing to return home covertly—it was another altogether to find yourself already a fugitive.

Merrick held the poster up so that she couldn’t avoid it seeing it. His eyes were wide in utter disbelief. “Rogue? Sorcha, what in the Bones have we done?”

Understandable. Certainly, it had to be a shock to be declared a rogue Deacon only two weeks out of the novitiate. He had a right to be upset. She wasn’t feeling that good about it either.

Taking the poster in her hand, she stared at her own features on it with a deep sense of unreality. Both her face and that of her partner were on it, and the headline above screamed, WANTED. Beneath was an account of their “crimes” in Ulrich, which included the slaughter of a peaceful Priory and the summoning of geists to torment the population.

She hastily screwed up the poster and threw it into the shadows. “Obviously we missed one traitor back there, and one weirstone. Once we explain to the Arch Abbot, it will be fine.”

“We better move quickly.” Raed touched her shoulder, making Sorcha jump. “We can’t rely on Captain Revele not to report us once she sees that.”

Merrick’s distress was flooding across the Bond. “The posters are everywhere,” he muttered. “Come daybreak, we’ll be in real trouble.”

“Come, now.” Raed glanced at Aachon, while trying to ignore his dark look. “We’ve all been fugitives for years and managed just fine.”

If only there were time to stop for a cigar in a corner, time to stop and consider how this was all going to fall. Instead, Sorcha had only moments. “You think the Empire has really been trying hard to find you?” She smiled slightly.

“I’m the Young Pretender,” he replied, tucking his thumbs into his belt. “I have a sizable sum on my head.”

“If they really wanted you dead, you would be dead.” The slight droop of his expression might have been amusing in a less dangerous situation. “But a rogue Deacon—let alone two? Now, those get people’s attention.”

Aachon made an unconscious growl in his chest. He knew well enough that was true.

“They will send out a Conclave to hunt us,” Merrick whispered, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to voice it fully.

The Young Pretender could not have any idea what that meant. Even for him, there had never been a Conclave formed—it was something only Deacons gone mad warranted.

“I say we go straight to the top while we can.” Sorcha felt strength flood into her, despite the situation. This was what a partnership was supposed to be. She remembered it from before Kolya. Trust, belief and a well of power. She’d missed that. “Once we have explained ourselves, finding the Grand Duchess will be much easier.”

“My prince!” Aachon shouldered himself between the Pretender and Sorcha, as if by physicality he could sever the power he thought she had over him. “I gave my word to your father that I would protect you; going to the Mother Abbey is neither sane nor safe. I cannot allow it.”

Raed’s hazel eyes never left Sorcha’s face. “We are in Vermillion, my friend—nothing is safe. The time for caution is past—we must needs be daring.”

Aachon folded his arms and glared at the Pretender without a word. Sorcha wondered how difficult it would be to tie the big man up and leave him in a corner somewhere. Tough, was the conclusion she came to.

“What has running got me, old friend?” Raed said, gesturing around him. “This is my first time in Vermillion—the city that should have been mine. I have been running for years. It is time for something new.”

Sorcha guessed his protective first mate would blame her. Two days locked in their cabin; everyone knew about it. They would think she was some witch who had thrown a spell around their captain. If only they knew that the opposite was much closer to the truth.

That was the Young Pretender’s gift; she’d seen it before but never really appreciated it until this moment. Many tried to manipulate others with lies or pretty stories—Raed, however, offered up the truth so completely that it took people by surprise. An honest man in a dishonest world could be a very powerful thing.

While Raed presented his argument to Aachon, Sorcha contemplated the real problem: how to get inside the Mother Abbey. Phasing and using Voishem would have been her first choice if it had been any other building—but like all Order structures it was well protected against such powers. It would not be easy to use other methods either. Even in winter, with many Deacons settled into outlying Abbeys, there would still be more than a hundred staying within the confines of the complex. Not all of them were of Merrick’s rank, of course, but they would still be Sensitive enough to spot two rogue Deacons clambering over the wall.

Sorcha was slightly distracted by Nynnia whispering to her father. Kyrix had made a miraculous recovery. A prickle in the back of the Deacon’s mind was disturbed by that, but if the two of them were using weirstones or some other proscribed magic, Sorcha did not have the time to investigate it.

Nynnia moved over to Sorcha’s side. “My father and I will wait here while you attempt this madness.”

The Deacon felt a heat kindle in her stomach. “Just what I was about to say. We wouldn’t want you to get in the way.” She arched her eyebrow as a warning that she was prepared to say so much more.

The young woman glared back. “Indeed. If you do not return, we will need to take on the Murashev instead.”

Merrick reached across and squeezed her hand. “We will be fine. It won’t come to that.”

It was quite impressive, really, how completely Nynnia had enamored the young man. That was the problem with the novitiate; too many young people coming out of it with no real world experience.

She glanced at Raed for a second. Whatever they had was different. The level of physical passion was unexpected but not dangerous—what gave her pause were the gentler feelings that she dared not examine right now. The Pretender whispered to Aachon, instructing him to stay with Nynnia. The first mate, whose dark eyes bored into Sorcha’s, nodded as if completely compliant, but she wasn’t fooled. Like Kolya, he was the type to give way and then flow back like water.

The Pretender came over to their little huddle. “Aachon has agreed to take the crew—and you and your father, Nynnia—to a bolt-hole he knows here in Vermillion. A little pub in Dyer’s Lane called the Red Flag. But if we’re not back by morning, I can’t guarantee what he will do.”

“It won’t matter.” Merrick took a deep breath and turned in that subconscious way that all Deacons had, in the direction of the Mother Abbey. “Trying to enter the Abbey as outlaws—if we’re not back by morning, we’re dead anyway.”

Sorcha let out a little laugh. “Entering the Abbey as rogues, indeed. Dead might be the best we can hope for.”

Across the Bond she felt Merrick’s surge of interest. He was fingering his Strop and looking at her with something better than fear and excitement. The boy had an idea, and by the look of it . . . it wasn’t going to be the type she’d enjoy. He hugged Nynnia tight, even dropping a kiss on her lips.

Sorcha grimaced, but said nothing. It was strange for her to feel such dislike and have it tinged with the overflow of his emotions. It was enough to give a person a stomach complaint.

Still, once the little band had left them on the street corner, she was impressed with her partner’s ability to snap back to the matter at hand. When it was just the three of them, she was much more comfortable.

“So, you have an idea, Merrick,” Sorcha whispered. “Some brilliant plan to break into our own damn Abbey—full of Sensitives who will pick us up the moment we set foot in it?”

“You’re really not going to like it at all. I thought of it, and
I
don’t like it.”

Once he had explained it, she knew that he was, in fact, underestimating how little she would like it. Even Raed turned pale at what Merrick suggested. “I . . . I can’t do that, Sorcha.”

Her partner coughed a little and withdrew around the corner. She touched the Pretender’s face, running her thumb along his lip line. He kissed her fingertips, and the sensation ran down deep inside her. Beautiful man, even in this dire moment, she couldn’t help reacting to him. “You gave your life into my hands, Raed—now I am giving you mine. I trust you too, you know.”

The Pretender pulled her in close and kissed her. “I won’t let you down,” he whispered against her lips.

It was he who found them the donkey and the cart in a quiet knackers’ yard, and liberated the poor creature. The Abbey was in the final deepest curl of the city; only a mile from the gates to the castle, yet a small town to itself. It had no defenses like the Emperor’s residence. It needed none. However, there was still a lay clergy guard. Raed pulled up his hood, smeared mud on his face and hid his saber in the hay on the back of the small cart.

Sorcha and Merrick, meanwhile, prepared themselves. Taking her Gauntlets from her belt, she shoved them inside her shirt and buckled the belt tight around them. Her partner, however, held his Strop in one hand. Light was already flickering in the deeply etched runes.

She knew what he was thinking; not just because her thoughts ran across a similar vein, but because his were actually echoing in her own.
I’m afraid. By the Bones.

Her own throat was tight. The white walls that surrounded the Abbey had once been protective, but now they seemed so very similar to those that she had been forced to breach at the Priory. Everyone within had to be considered an enemy, at least until she and Merrick could explain themselves to Hastler.

“Do we really need to do this, Sorcha?” Raed whispered. She understood what remained unsaid.
Do you really need me to do this to you?

A knot of tension cramped her neck while her stomach clenched like it had been punched. “Yes . . . When the Conclave begins hunting us, there will be no other choice. We need to see the Arch Abbot—he is the only one with enough influence to sort this mess out.” She looked up into his hazel eyes and let her admission out. “And I need you to help me.” The word “need” was not one she was familiar with.