His soldiers looked relieved to have something to do that was not a move against the Deacons. Raed was the sole enemy they easily recognized among those who had so recently been allies.
Now!
At Merrick’s command all the Conclave of Deacons stepped out wide from behind him, spreading between the pews in a disciplined move that even the most practiced military men could not have emulated. The Actives raised their hands and Yevah, the Rune of Fire burned on their skin. In the Conclave so much pain was only compounded—they all shared it, but it did not stop them. The rune was burning through every muscle and sinew—or so it felt. The temporary designs the Patternmaker had created barely held together, and they had to concentrate twice as hard to keep Yevah in place. Yet they did. Merrick felt triumphant, for without a Conclave, this would be impossible. He also knew, without Sorcha there would be no strength in the rune. Merrick felt her like an iron rod in the group; a core they could all grasp onto.
Despite the difficulties, a sheet of summoned flame erupted between the mass of Deacons and the Imperial Guard. The soldiers flinched back from the unholy fire, and their shock was perfectly understandable. No one had ever used runes on humans. Not in all the history of the Order of the Eye and the Fist. However it was a time of change and chaos. All the rules were gone now, and his small band of Deacons was making its own. For a brief moment Merrick reveled in that freedom.
The Deacons, those still without powers, rose to their feet turning to those who held the rune before them. A few smiled broadly and cheered to see that at least some of their colleagues had regained power. Others hid their faces in shame. At the front, the whole Presbyterial Council looked up as the wide length of flaming shield reflected in the stained glass windows in shameless beauty. Merrick caught a glimpse of another face in the crowd, the weather-beaten visage of Deacon Garil Reeceson. He merely nodded to Merrick, not exactly happy with what he was seeing, but not surprised either.
“This meeting is a sham. He gathered you all here to kill you!” By some trick of the moment and acoustics of the building, Sorcha’s voice boomed down the whole length of the Devotional. “Get out to the stables, my brothers! Leave Vermillion while we still can! We shall find each other after!”
Merrick felt his partner’s plan like a hard pebble in his mind, but there was no time to examine it. It was enough she had some idea of how they could survive this. The Presbyterial Council members, who had all looked so powerful to Merrick, now appeared fragile creatures, but several of them did in fact turn to do as Sorcha suggested. Melisande Troupe had her arm around the elderly Trelaine. Her eyes locked with Merrick’s for just an instant.
Not everyone heeded Sorcha’s warning. Some brave Deacons stayed to fight even though the Order had no weapons on them, while others just looked confused and stricken by indecision. Those who did turn and flee from the Devotional kept to their training and did not panic. Even as they ran, they reached out and helped one another. Merrick’s pride in his fellow Deacons surged, and he set his jaw, determined to give those who could escape the best chance possible. They would have to hold the attention of the Emperor and his guards for some time for that to work.
As confusion began to take hold, del Rue finally showed his true colors. With a shake of his head that made him look like an angry bull, he raised his hands. They were covered by the thin calfskin gloves that Merrick had observed previously. When he whispered something to them however, the runes on them became visible. Such fragile objects should not have been able to contain and control even one rune.
One man with no Sensitive? Sorcha’s heady delight in violence rushed through the Bond. Let’s end this while we can.
Merrick, struggling to hold the Conclave together, would have urged caution, but by then it was too late. Sorcha drew her sword—actually drew her sword—and strode forward.
In response, del Rue summoned Shayst. The green flame of the rune was impossibly fluid as it wrapped around their shield and dispersed the power like a child blowing out a candle flame. He didn’t need a Sensitive. He was like the Arch Abbot—a wielder of both Active and Sensitive powers. No wonder he was so sure of himself. He was everything he required!
Each Deacon had in him the seeds of both Active and Sensitive, but to find one with equal strengths was incredibly rare. Merrick should have been able to see that immediately—that he hadn’t, made the young Sensitive wonder just what this conspirator was. Only an Arch Abbot should have that ability, but this enemy was more than that. While his butterfly thoughts chased that particular fear, del Rue flexed his fingers in his far-too-thin gloves.
Kaleva’s eyes bulged and he staggered away from the man who had just revealed himself as a Deacon. The conspirator’s weeks of work began to tangle around and trip him, because the Emperor was now horrified by any kind of Deacon power. Del Rue didn’t notice at all. He was lost in the mad delight of wielding power. His face was set in a mask of joy as he summoned Chityre to him. Lightning bloomed in the highest reaches of the Devotional, dancing from pillar to pillar and illuminating those powerless Deacons still fleeing the building. The whole building rang with the sound of thunder.
Tighon had the distressing thought, which filtered across the Bond as stones groaned, that all the Order’s work to repair this beautiful building was about to be undone. It was so hard for Merrick to keep a clear mind in Conclave with all these new chaotic thoughts darting about.
Deiyant! Sorcha’s voice was like a shout in his head, rising above the rumble of the yammering of the others. She called for the rune that wielded air, often called the push rune, but he didn’t have a moment to think. He acted. The Conclave raised its hands as one above their heads, and the amber glow of the rune flashed out around them. The pews around them flew up, wrenched from their places and thrown up, just barely above their heads.
This all happened in one long heartbeat, just as the lightning came down among them. The Devotional keened again, like a ship caught in a storm, and in fact did seem to list. Then one of the two front pillars of the asp cracked and toppled, bringing down a portion of the ceiling.
Like a mast, Merrick thought dimly to himself, as the Conclave buzzed in his head. Something impacted him in the chaos, but it really didn’t seem to matter. For a time, his world was entirely comprised of stone, dust and rubble.
Reflexively, Merrick held on to the Conclave. When finally he could make sense of the world, he found himself lying at the edge of a pile of stones, coughing up dust, with his ears ringing.
Sorcha was lying sprawled across him, but she was miraculously alive, though bleeding from a wound to her head. Staunching the blood with one hand, she yanked Merrick to his feet with the other.
His ears were still useless, but he heard along the Bond. Tighon is dead. She really didn’t need to tell him that—he could feel it in the Conclave. One had fallen away, and with him Natylda his Sensitive. Merrick glanced to his left and saw her screaming and trying to dig him out of the rubble, even though all in the Conclave could feel his loss. Thanks to Sorcha there were not as many Deacons buried beneath the stones than there would have been otherwise, but they could still all feel them; injured, broken, dying. Even as Merrick’s Center flooded him with information, he felt in that moment a man’s life go out.
The Devotional was now groaning and creaking, still shuddering with the terrible wounds it had taken. The sheer weight of bricks and stone could not hold forever.
Some distance off, Merrick spied del Rue pulling himself out of the dust. He was completely unharmed, but the young Deacon spotted his one chance. Del Rue was concentrating so hard on finding a way to destroy the Conclave, that for a moment his mind was vulnerable and unprotected. Merrick wrapped his mind around the rune Aiemm and cast it at him like a javelin.