When he shot a glance over his shoulder again, Nynnia was gone.
“Merrick!”
The Sensitive stumbled as he turned and ran to his Active’s side. For a moment Merrick could not discern who was feeding off whom.
Neither can I. Now Sorcha’s voice in his head was small and frightened. Nothing showed on her expression, but within he could hear the voices of the Wrayth beginning to rise out of the darkness. He didn’t know how to combat them, since they were inside his partner—much as the Rossin was inside Raed.
We will deal with it, he replied to her. They are not as strong as us. Nothing is as strong as us.
It was a bold claim.
A Sensitive must always hold up their Active; he had been taught that in the novitiate. His instructor’s voice, Deacon Rueng, came back to him on the winds of memory. It is they that will stand in the center of the storm, and they will feel unequal to the task. We are the anchor that gives them the strength to hold against it.
Merrick ran and stood beside Sorcha. Physical presence did not really matter; as long as they could see each other, the Bond should be strong enough. Yet part of Merrick wanted to stand at her side, share in the danger.
“It is too much,” Sorcha screamed. She was holding the shield of the fire rune, Yevah, in one hand, with the green flicker of Shayst ready in the other fist. Merrick immediately saw the problem. If she used the active rune to draw away power while she was still entangled with it, then she could end up killing herself.
Surely there was some way to free herself from the geist? Merrick’s mind started to race over the possibilities, to offer something to his partner.
Sorcha sank to one knee as the shield of fire was thrust downward. Parts of the revenant were traveling along their connection, piercing the shield.
“Whenever you are ready,” the Active howled, turning her face, white with shock, toward him.
Thinking! he shot back through the Bond. This was no normal case. No Deacon he had ever heard of had linked herself with a geist and still remained sane. Yes, she was still sane.
As sane as ever. She gasped as a tendril of the revenant reached into her body. The sensation of ice-cold flooding communicated itself very well along the Bond and Merrick cried out too.
Faster, he had to think faster. So it was not a case of a functioning Deacon . . . how about a case of an injured one? He had to think like a lay Brother—those that tended to the ill. He had to contemplate what they dealt with: the geiststruck, the contaminated, those that had delved too deep and been lost within the undead’s embrace. All of the initiates were taught something of the work of the lay Brothers, the better to appreciate it . . . however most paid little attention.
Merrick was digging deep now. He’d stood in the back row, the infirmary had been hot, and the drone of the lay Brother had put many of his fellow students to sleep on their feet. However, Merrick was not one of them.
“You are very lucky I was such a damn good student.” He grinned at Sorcha. She simply stared back at him in stunned disbelief.
Now is not the time. And remember we want to capture this geist, not destroy it. We have to keep some small connection to it.
She loved piling on the problems, that was for certain. He opened his Center wide. The geiststruck were often able to be pulled back by repetition and reminders of their past. So he dived down deep into Sorcha’s memory and plucked out something that would remind her of her humanity. A face was staring back at him; very like that of his partner but with long dark hair.
Her mother. Merrick knew that instantly. She looked at him with an expression of such sorrow that he distantly felt a tear break free from his own eyes.
She’d been a Sensitive like he was, and she had given her life to get the child forced upon her out of the grasp of the Wrayth. That was the ultimate blood pact, and the Bond that was formed by it was strong and deep.
Sorcha feared what she was, but she was part of this woman too. A powerful Deacon had birthed her, and Merrick thrust that reality toward his partner. It cut her deep, slid between the tangled connection of revenant and Deacon.
Sorcha let out a scream that almost sounded like a laugh. The rune Shayst flared green along her arms, yanking the power of the geist into her core. Then, flush with it, she turned the Yevah around. The shield of fire bent and flexed as Merrick had never seen it do before.
His breath caught in his throat, and he watched as she wrapped Yevah around the geist. It was drained, exhausted, and hovered within the bubble of flame like a child’s decoration.
Merrick couldn’t help the first thought that popped into his head, nor could he stop it racing along the Bond he had with Sorcha. This must be what Derodak wants to do to geists.
Sorcha winced, as if he had struck her, and her blue eyes closed for a second. However, she didn’t make any comment—instead ignoring his unfiltered words.
“We have our informant,” she said, and despite the circumstances there was a note of triumph in her voice. Sorcha had done what many said was impossible.
She began to stride down toward her partner, and the trapped revenant, still surrounded by flame, bobbed along behind her. The flicker of power ran along her arms, casting her face in odd colors. Merrick felt his stomach clench with sudden pain, as pride, with a healthy dose of fear, washed over him. He mounted back on his horse and thought about how quickly they could get their prisoner back to the city.
Sorcha was smiling. It was going to be all right—until the moment that everything flipped on its head. Merrick had only an instant to cry out.
He saw the side of the hill, right next to where she was standing, ripple and fall away. He recognized it in an instant; one of the Wrayth’s portals. The opening appeared not a foot away from her. Merrick opened his Center desperately, clinging to the Bond so that she might draw strength from it.
She only had enough time to release the revenant from her activity, and then the Wrayth were upon her; or rather in her.
Merrick pulled out his saber and flung himself down off his mount. Yet he knew—he could tell without any rune—that he was not going to be fast enough. The rattle of voices in Sorcha’s head had become a clatter and Merrick knew—this was not an attack by Derodak. This was the Wrayth come to claim their own.
Merrick caught a glimpse of Sorcha’s eyes rolling in her head, just before the energy poured out of her body. She slumped to the ground, while the revenant whirled away. Most terrifying of all, however, was the draining away of all that made her Sorcha, seen through his Center.
They were coming through the doorway now, lines of tall, pale people, marked by the Wrayth, and no more individual than an ant. He wasn’t going to be able to make it to her, but he was damn well going to try.
As Merrick scrambled up the remaining rocks, he felt Sorcha in the Bond—the merest of flickers, Go! Please, Merrick, go!
His foot slipped on the rock. The Wrayth had gathered Sorcha up and were taking her back through their doorway, but a few of them turned his way; the gray eyes, devoid of emotion, suddenly fixed on him. These were no shambling undead; they were racing toward him.
Too fast. His mind processed that in an instant. Too fast and too many for Merrick to get back to Melochi, whose distant whinny seemed to be the only sound that reached above the thunder of the water. He saw at once what they would do to him; he had, after all, shared Sorcha’s vision of her mother. Deacon Merrick Chambers would become their puppet just as she had been.