The smell of damp earth filled his nostrils, so he knew he was somewhere underground—maybe another cellar. He was pinned to the bare earth, his arms and legs spread.
Merrick tried to reach out along the Bond; the powerful nature of their partnership, unexpected and annoying as it had been up until this point, might prove to be useful. The pain that flared through his body gave Merrick a more complete understanding of Aulis’ methods. It was impossible to break a Bond, but it could be rendered poisonous to a Sensitive by overloading his talent.
The ragged scream he let out alerted them to his consciousness. When the blaze of agony subsided, he opened his eyes to see Aulis crouching over him. Her face had become positively evil.
“By all means, test the limits.” She smiled. “Our use for you does not require you to be awake.”
“What are you planning, Traitor?” he croaked through his damaged throat.
Her eyes gleamed in the dim light, but she ignored his question. “You know you only have your partner to blame for this pain. We planned to have her here, not you.”
“She’s going to come back, and then you’ll be—”
“Sorry?” She smiled again. “One Deacon is of no consequence to us.” She waved her hand as if batting a midge, then stood up again and pointed above him to the ceiling. “Perhaps you have missed that.”
With a chill, Merrick followed where she was pointing. The floor might have been dirt, but someone had taken a lot of time with the ceiling. The curve of the brickwork had been whitewashed and decorated with the swirls of more cantrips than he had ever seen in one place. He did indeed recognize many of them, but there was one whose swoops and spirals occupied the middle of the circle and hovered directly over the center of his body.
It was written in the language of the Ancients; a language that had been dead a thousand years. Only Deacons ever bothered to learn it, and they did so only because Ancients had been the first experts on the Otherside and the unliving. He had never seen the swirling script used in a cantrip, but there it was; a huge scarlet letter that could only have been made in blood, and outlined in something he instinctively knew was the charcoal remains of the Sensitives. The word was “First.” Why exactly it would be written so large and importantly above him, he had no idea; however, he imagined that it meant nothing good.
Merrick struggled against his bonds, but they were iron, solid and tight. Desperately he reached for his Active strength, a feat that he had not attempted in years. The flame burned all the way down every nerve and muscle. Thought blew away in the searing agony. He thrashed about, more terribly aware of his body than he had ever been in his life.
“Foolish, but amusing.” When he finally was able to think enough to let go of his attempt at Activity, Aulis was above him once more. Her grin was a sickening parody of grandmotherly concern. “Every time you reach for your power, no matter which one, the fire will enter you. Open yourself wide enough, and it will burn out your eyes and your mind. Go ahead—neither is what we require.”
She turned back to her Actives, having apparently gotten her fill of amusement from Merrick’s pain. “The Pretender must be found before tomorrow evening and the Third Pass.”
They bowed, tucked their hands into their sleeves and left the room. The Third Pass. Merrick’s head swam, but he had heard correctly.
“You can’t be serious,” he managed to say, his voice sounding a dry squeak in his own ears. “The theory of pass was discounted three centuries ago; there are no cycles to the closeness of the Otherside.”
“Oh, really?” Aulis’ curiously green eyes hardened beneath the line of her gray hair.
Merrick blinked, trying hard to focus his eyes.
“The theory did not fall accidentally from grace. It was discredited for fear that common folk would make use of it. Just like the use of weirstones. The Order has always tried to smother the use of power. They seek to control the knowledge of the unliving and keep it all for themselves.”
Good: he had her talking. He might be powerless at this instant, but maybe there would be an instant when he would not be. Knowledge was the only thing he could gather at this moment.
“But you’re one of us,” he gasped. “A Prior, a confidant of the Arch Abbot . . .”
Her smile showed a lot of yellow, sharp teeth. “I am so much more than that, lad, and tomorrow night all shall be revealed.”
The cold knot in the pit of his stomach began to resolve itself into boulder-sized apprehension. She did not linger to elaborate. He was left alone, manacled to the floor and looking up at that word hanging ominously above him. The Deacon couldn’t tell how long he lay there with his own bitter thoughts.
“Merrick.” The familiar voice to his left made him both incredibly glad and incredibly worried.
“Nynnia.” He lifted his head off the ground and flicked it from side to side, trying to find her. Finally, he saw her standing in the dancing shadows cast by the torches on the wall. Her sweet face was pale and folded in concern, but she did not come closer. She was looking up at the cantrips above him.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, terrified that Aulis and her Actives would return. “They are only meant to hold me here and stifle the Bond between Faris and myself. Maybe you can find the key for the manacles?”
She stayed where she was, huddled next to a pillar, and her brown eyes focused upward with the sort of dread horror he would have thought reserved for geists or murderers. “I . . . I can’t.” Her voice was very soft, so soft, in fact, that he almost feared that he was hallucinating and she was only a wishful figment of his brain.
“Please, you have to help, Nynnia. They’re going to kill Sorcha and do something worse to Captain Rossin.” He hated to put her in danger, but what other choice did he have? It wasn’t just his life at risk. Every person in Ulrich was in danger—or maybe even further. Aulis had a plan, and lordship of one remote township didn’t seem worth the risk of bringing the Arch Abbey down on herself.
“I wish I could.” She paused, and he could hear the honesty in her voice. It sounded as though she was really torn. “My father, Merrick . . . What will they do to him if I help you?” Nynnia still did not come out of the shadows.
He slumped back against the floor with a sigh, and gradually it dawned on him; there was only one real choice. He stared up at the cantrips for a minute, and then spoke. “What about my Strop, Nynnia? Did you see where they took that?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her give a quick nod.
“Then can you get it—can you bring it to me?” Stripped of his Sight and afraid, it was very hard for Merrick to judge anything. The rapid trip of her pulse in her throat indicated she was indeed frightened, yet her expression was hard to fathom.
“I can try.” She sounded like she was very close to tears. “I will try, Merrick. But I am afraid of the Actives. If they could do this to you . . .”
He knew was asking a lot of the young woman, but if she didn’t bring him what he needed, Sorcha would be only the first to die. He didn’t need to know the Prior’s plan to be sure of that.
Merrick tried to keep his voice low and even, like he was talking to a very nervous animal. “Just the Strop, Nynnia. Just bring me the Strop and I will do the rest.” His next words remained locked inside him . . . If I have the courage for it.
As they climbed the rise for the second time in as many days, Raed noticed that she tested the pull of her sword in its scabbard. Deacons seldom bothered with physical weapons, but he heard they trained hard with them. The Pretender had no need to check his saber.
As they neared the top, almost within sight of where they knew the townspeople were gathered, she stopped him with a hand on the crook of his elbow. “Your crew, Captain Rossin—how many of them know how to fight?”