THIRTEEN
The Congregation Will Speak
If the sight of a poltern-possessed little girl had not sickened Raed enough, he was treated that very morning to a tour of Ulrich’s misery. The grocer and his lad had not seemed very surprised that Sorcha had been unable to save the girl. Apparently the Priory had fostered fairly low expectations among the population of the town.
Wailace showed them more; much more than Raed had wanted to see. It was no wonder that the townsfolk had assaulted the Priory. Twelve children were possessed by poltern in a similar manner to the first. Sorcha did not repeat her experiment with the pot again, but her face grew sterner with each visit. Raed did not get any more accustomed to the stench and the horror.
After the first five, he waited outside. Sorcha, however, insisted on seeing all of them. When she came out of the last house, she looked gray. Leaning against the wall, she wearily rubbed her face.
He knew enough about her to realize that she was craving a cigar and a quiet place to smoke it. If he’d had his choice, he would have sailed Dominion out of the cursed place. Since that wasn’t an option, he had to make do.
Raed was not used to following another’s lead; he’d always been the heir to his father’s Curse, and that meant he had a small retinue to obey his orders. When the time had come, it had been these soldiers whom he had led into battle. Then, after the first onset of the Curse, when he’d taken to the sea, he’d been captain of a whole crew.
Yet now he was watching this woman—this Deacon, what was more—and hoping that she had some answers. Apparently there wasn’t a worse place in the world for him and his Curse to be.
Sorcha pushed herself away from the wall and walked over to him. The moment of exhaustion had obviously passed, for there was a real spark in her eye.
“So.” He stroked his beard and glanced warily at her out of the corner of his eye. “Just how bad is it?”
The Deacon chewed on the edge of her lower lip, for a moment looking as though she might be choosing her words with care. “Let’s just say that I have been a working member of the Order for nearly twenty years, and this is the worst outbreak of poltern possession I have ever seen. Bar none.”
“And you can’t help any of these children?”
“Not without Merrick, and not without identifying the foci.” At his blank look she sighed.
Raed felt a little flare of resentment. “Look, I am not your partner—I know that—but I am the best resource you have right now. I’m sorry you have to explain things to me, but please do.”
She unfolded her arms. “For a cluster of attacks like this, something so consistent and so particular, there must be something holding a gateway open. Not a large opening, or we’d be seeing a full-on invasion of geists, but one concentrated on particular levels of the Otherside.”
“So, some sort of object?”
Sorcha nodded.
“And any idea what it would look like?”
The Deacon began tying back her bronze curls, reclaiming the severity that didn’t do her beauty justice. “That’s the bad news. It could look like anything.” She pushed one stubborn strand back out of her eyes.
“Then how are we expected to find it?”
The Deacon opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a strangled whimper. Grabbing her throat, she slumped backward, and only Raed flinging himself forward and catching her prevented her fall to the ground. A fine bead of sweat had broken out on her forehead while she clawed frantically at her neck.
He loosened her collar, wondering if she was choking on something or being strangled by some sort of invisible foe. After a second she let out a great gasp and stiffened in his arms, her blue eyes wide. Raed was sure she was dying, but then she shook herself like a cat emerging from a dunking.
Jerking free of him, Sorcha leapt to her feet. “Merrick—Holy Bones, something has happened to Merrick!” Her face was as pale as milk and her lips, drained of blood, were a straight line of anger.
Raed knew of the Bond between partners; the kind of connection that was both a strength and a weakness to the Deacons. Fearing that she would leap over the side and start racing back up toward the Priory, the Pretender put his hand on her shoulder; partly in reassurance, but also partly in restraint.
“Calm down,” he said as reasonably as possible. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
She pressed a hand to her forehead, her breath still coming in little gasps. “Yes. He’s alive. You’ll have to excuse me, pirate Prince. This Bond Chambers and I share, well, it’s surprisingly strong. I have never felt anything like it before with any other partner.”
Was that a twinge of jealousy niggling at his core? Raed stuffed that strange emotion down as best he could, and tried instead to understand what Sorcha was going through. “Can you See where he is, what has happened?”
She gave him a quizzical look, as if he were a child. “The Bond does not allow me to See through his eyes. I heard his voice, like a muttering in another room. I could hear his tone, but not the words.”
“And then?”
She pulled out her Gauntlets and stared down at them in some concentration. “I recognized something, the taste of . . .” She shook her head. “No. No, that is impossible!”
“What is it?” Raed watched her fist clench tightly on the Gauntlets. “Come on, Deacon, we’re all in this nasty little affair together—like it or not.”
“Unholy, cursed Bones.” She spun away, pushing her hands through her hair. When she turned back, he could see the rage in her eyes. “I recognized Deiyant, the ninth rune.” She waved her Gauntlets at him. “Do you understand? A rune from these!”
Saying, “I told you so,” at this point would probably have earned him more than a slap. He was not that foolish, but he had to mention the thoughts that had been running through his sleepless mind. “They meant to kill you.”
The anger drained out of her face and now she looked very vulnerable. Having people that you trusted turn on you—he could sympathize with that easily enough; he and his family had been living with the consequences of that for years.
“Do you think so?” She remained staring at her Gauntlets as if they had the answers. “Unholy and damned Bones, I think you’re right.”
“What now, then?” He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Now?” Sorcha said, not shaking off his touch. “We go and get my partner back—by whatever means it takes.”
Together they glanced up the hill to where the Priory dominated the ridgeline. She smiled at him, a weary, bitter little smile that brought no warmth with it.
Merrick awoke adrift in his own Center, falling into it rather than letting it go ahead of him. All of his normal sensations were denied him, and now vibrant hues of his Sight were all he could see. The Prior and her Actives burned like recently raked fires as they clustered around him. He couldn’t hear what they were saying—yet the ether was turning a distinctly indigo shade and the smell of burning invaded his brain.
They were going to do something terrible to him, and it would not just involve death. His senses let him drift higher, and from his height he could make out the faint blue glow of a Sensitive below—it was his own body.
Around it he could see flickering designs that he recognized from his training—the training that had warned of dark things that could be done with cantrips. If he’d been capable of it, he would have recoiled.
A hissing roar enveloped Merrick, a pulling tug that he did not want to give in to. The Center was a more pleasant place, and now he wanted to stay—down below, pain waited for him. The Deacon struggled, but he could feel awareness of his body coming back to him. It was reeling him in, and despite his training, he couldn’t resist.
The first sensation to return was a bruised and sore windpipe. The Actives had surely been within moments of killing him. He retched and gagged on the sharp taste in his mouth. So far, Aulis had not noticed he was conscious again, so he took the chance to try to see exactly what they had done to him.