Harbinger

NINE An Old Love

A Conclave was a tricky thing; it was easy to lose oneself in the soft morass of the group-mind. A hundred worries, dreams, feelings and sensations wrapped themselves around Merrick. Suseli’s fears from last night’s horrific dream screamed in his ear, while Heroon’s idle thoughts about whether his lover was really the one he wanted were distracting. The tangle of so many muttering voices was a trap for the inexperienced Sensitive, and Merrick had not been that long out of the novitiate—in reality it was only a year and a half since he had left the security of training. However, anyone working with Sorcha got more experience than they had bargained for.

Now, Merrick put that experience to use. He imagined the strands of the different people in the Conclave threading between his fingers, like brightly colored tendrils of wool. He held them apart from each other and more importantly from his own self. He used his will to sort the tangle out, and was surprised by his own dexterity. The Presbyter of the Sensitives, Yvril Mournling, who had trained Merrick in the novitiate, would have been impressed—if he’d been able to move from his deathbed that was. Few remained with the skill to hold a Conclave together, and so there was no one around to pat Merrick on the back. He sorely missed the community of Sensitives he had taken for granted in the Mother Abbey.

With this sad little thought, Merrick began to weave the threads back together. He took the powers of the Sensitives and formed them into a pattern. Their Centers bloomed around him, and he was awash with that combined power. Now he could see so much more than even his powerful Center could bring him.

His Sight soared over the citadel, out over the gravel-strewn valley, and washed farther away into the mountains. He could pick out scattered people and animals with the accuracy that even a great eagle could not have.

It was a heady, deadly situation. Sensitives liked to imagine that it was Actives that were full of hubris and overconfidence; but they were just as susceptible. If Merrick looked too long into the sun of the Conclave mind, it would have the same effect, and then all would be lost.

He turned his Center away from the endless possibilities of this power, and dove forward into the unknown. Masa, the Third Rune of Sight, was slippery. He’d been taught in the first classes as a young boy that it was not to be relied on. Looking forward into the future was somewhat of an art—compared to the other runes that could be mastered with training.

Sorcha was asking a great deal of him sending him in this direction, and it was a measure of her desperation that she even asked. Merrick knew how she felt, because he felt it too. They had to find a path and quickly or else be exposed as frauds. If they could not change what was happening to Arkaym, then they might as well have never had the runes carved on their skin.

So, holding on to the skeins of the Conclave, Merrick opened himself up to the future. It was a moment of abandon, and reckless exposure to this world and the Otherside. The sensation of rushing scared the Sensitive; it was as if he were speeding away from his body—so fast he felt as though he might crash into something.

Luckily, it stopped just as suddenly, as quickly, as it had started. Merrick opened the eyes of his Center and found that he was standing in a long corridor. It stretched away before him with no sign of ending, and off it were an uncountable number of doors.

Silence was sucking on his senses, and he understood behind each one was a possible future. As he had feared, he was finding it impossible to read. A quick glance behind him, and he realized the corridor was disappearing into shadow—the strands of the Conclave were swallowed up by it as well.

After taking a long, slow breath Merrick had to remind himself that this was all a construction of his trained mind; a way to deal with the confusing power of Masa. It could do him no harm, and really all he had to lose was his ignorance. Later, when back in his body and away from the rune, he could examine what he had found.

Strengthened, Merrick reached out and pushed open the door before him. Almost immediately he flinched back. She was there, the creature wreathed in scarlet flame that had given him nightmares; the Murashev, who had stepped through into the world from the Otherside under the city of Vermillion. He, Sorcha and Raed had been melded by the Rossin into a creature of pure rune magic, so his recollection of the geistlord was warped by that, yet she still blazed in his memory.

Something about the slight, snarling figure aroused him in this half-dream state. “Don’t you see?” she said with a magnificent smile. “The change is coming.”

The room was full of flame and suddenly Merrick couldn’t breathe. He staggered back into the corridor and slammed the door shut. As he pulled his hand back from the handle, he stared down at his scalded fingertips. They hurt.

Shaking his hand absentmindedly, he moved on to the next door. This one he opened more cautiously.

Behind it was the geistlord he had been expecting: Hatipai. She was the scourge of Orinthal, and the creature that had set herself up as a goddess in that southern principality. She was also the false goddess that Zofiya had worshipped for years.

Merrick knew that the revelation of her deception had cut the Grand Duchess very deeply. He had never seen the goddess persona of the geistlord, but the smooth lovely face was unmistakably hers. “You cannot stand against the geists alone,” she said with a smile. “You do not have what you need.” She opened her arms and stepped toward him.

Merrick had the feeling if she touched him he would not want to return to the real world. He tripped over himself to get out of the room, and threw the door shut behind him.

A chill concern was beginning to build inside him. He was in his own Center, and Merrick should have not been so drawn to something that was essentially built from his own mind.

Now he glanced with real trepidation at the next door; however, the Order had never trained a coward in its entire history. Merrick stepped up and this time, in defiance of his building concern, kicked open the door with a snap of his leg.

Sorcha turned to look back at him. Many, many Sorchas who were crowded in the space that represented the future. Some were smiling, others frowning, but all locked him where he stood with their stern blue-eyed gaze. Merrick tilted his head and contemplated what this would mean.

The Murashev and Hatipai had been enemies manipulated by the Native Order to bring destruction to the world. As far as he knew Sorcha had never been a danger to him. Was the rune he’d followed here beginning to unravel?

The Sorchas all stepped toward him and now their mouths began to part. Wider and wider they opened, until they became nothing but flashing jaws full of terrible fangs. Improbably they began to speak, and the words they uttered were the ones etched on Merrick’s soul.

I promise to protect and shelter Imperial citizens from all attacks of the unliving—even to the end of my mind, body and soul. I shall never lie down before the geists and give up a mortal while I have soul or breath.

It was the oath all Deacons made when they left the novitiate, but the way that these creatures were reciting it was not serious and dedicated—it was mocking.

Merrick knew Masa was an untrustworthy thing, but he did not like the way it was getting away from him, nor did he understand what was going on. Sorcha. As he backed away into the corridor once more, he saw what was etched over the lintel.

See deep, fear nothing. The words engraved above the door were the code of the Sensitive. The trouble was Merrick was seeing deep, but he was afraid of what he found.

“Where is your shelter now?” the Sorchas cried, though their voices were now not hers. They were something else. “How can you protect anyone, when you can’t protect yourself?”

They charged at him, and he fled the room completely. He raced up the hallway, letting Masa run out of his fingers, and abandoned his Center.

Merrick knew immediately that he had to find the answers somewhere else. He couldn’t tell anyone about what he had found—least of all his partner. No, he would say that he had failed to see anything at all. That would be better than the truth.