Harbinger (37 page)

With the silver fur cape flowing around him, Merrick set off. His own personality felt very fragile as he held it before him, like a dim light that he could drop at any instant. The chatter of so many voices in his head, even as they tried to remain quiet, was still nearly overwhelming.

The Native Order had regrouped farther into the corridors of the palace, and they came at him again; the Runes of Dominion turned on them in floods of green, blue and red. Flames poured out of the corridors toward the advancing Enlightened, and Derodak’s children appeared out of the walls, with swords and spears.

The palace became a heaving battleground in an instant. Battle was joined, and it was Merrick who stood in the center of it all. Blood trickled and ran from the corners of his eyes and his nose as the pressure of holding the Conclave together took its toll. He couldn’t move to defend himself, but he was not without a protector. The Fensena was there, apart from the Conclave, snarling and ripping out unsuspecting throats in the corridors and rooms.

Merrick began to use the parts of the Conclave like a body. His arms flashed out, defending with the shield of fire, while the limbs of others called Chityre into being in the corridors. Shayst, the green fire, took power where it could, while Deiyant threw furniture to block oncoming advances. He saw all and killed all.

Soon enough Merrick realized that he had the upper hand and why. Derodak was not in the Native Order Conclaves. He was not present to hold them together in a grand cohesive union, as Merrick was doing.

And they were frightened. In the whirl of moving his people, the Sensitive had not much energy to use his Center to see beyond the current fight. Yet, now as the grand Conclave felt more seamless, he could sense their opponents’ fear. The Rossin had run among them, and their runes had no effect on the Beast. He had torn them down and left them in ruins, yet their leader was not here.

Derodak was below. He was making the ground shake, and anyone with ears could hear it, and anyone with humanity could feel the presence of the breach. However, Merrick could not reach Derodak, the Rossin or even Sorcha. They were sealed off in a bubble created by the widening breach.

You have to end this. You have to be there.
Nynnia’s breath was on his neck, cool in the heat of battle. It was an instant of clarity in the tumult, and he knew what he had to do.

The talent he carried came from the Ehtia. It was how they had been able to work the weirstones and ruled the world for generations. The Order he had been raised in had hated and feared them because they were not measured and controlled. They were wild and unpredictable.

Merrick needed chaotic and unpredictable right now, so he opened the conduit. His body disappeared. It was not just the wild magic of his heritage—it was everything he had ever learned. He let it all flow out into the Conclave.

You are wrong,
the talent bellowed at the Native Deacons.
You are bad, evil and wrong. Look what you are doing!

No one ever thinks of themselves as evil, but Merrick’s wild talent made them see what they really were. They had been used and twisted. Their Arch Abbot had no care for them. They were fodder for his madness and had been bred as such. They were nothing more than sheep farmed for his use.

It was too much, too much for his targets and too much for the Conclave. The voices of the Native Order in Merrick’s head screamed in horror at what he had done and what he had shown them.

When he came back to himself, he was standing in a room full of bodies. Some were dead, some were howling and crying. The part of him that he’d lost in the Conclave would have felt something about this, guilt he supposed. In this moment he had nothing but emptiness.

Merrick wrapped the cloak about him, stepped over the bodies and strode to the main staircase. The sound of claws on stone was the only thing that made him turn.

The Fensena was trotting in his wake, blood staining his muzzle black, and his gold eyes gleaming above the filth. It was the kind of image that could have come from the dark times when the Break had happened: a wild animal intent on death in the halls of humanity.

It seemed fitting to have such a creature as an escort. With the Fensena following, Merrick went down into the depths of Vermillion to find his partner.

Sorcha felt everything—not just her own physical distress. The pain of her blood pouring out onto the sand that was apparently welcomed by the Otherside. The thousands of voices and concerns of the humans everywhere in the human realm rattled in her head endlessly. She was just a tiny mote in the middle of it. Bleeding out on the very doorstep of the Otherside appeared to be her fate, and even she found it difficult to care.

Hovering over everything was the Maker of Ways. The red eyes sweeping over it all, his shoulder pressed against the edge of existence, and his great tentacles sliding forward out of the Otherside. Already thin geists, rei and mist witches were wriggling their way past him into the world. When he entered completely, there would be nothing but death and servitude to follow.

Sorcha’s mother had not birthed her for this, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was alone and the void around her roared.

At least until she heard the roar of the Rossin. It was loud enough to rise above the screaming sound of the Otherside. Once that roar had caused fear in her heart, but now she felt her tiny mote of reality flare at it.

Derodak was still above her, still letting the blood flow, still forcing her to hold on to all of humanity. Dimly she saw his gaze flick away from her. He called on the shield of fire to hold the Beast off. As it burned, he screamed at the Rossin, “You cannot harm me, Beast. We made the pact, my blood is your blood. You cannot enter.”

The Way is open! Arise Ehtia!
A familiar voice called. Sorcha had the fleeting impression of a sweet face pressed against hers, cool and calming.

Then Nynnia and a thousand ethereal forms darted past the Maker. Derodak howled and swore as they collided with him, but he was forced off his perch on Sorcha.

The Ehtia had no bodies, but they had some little power still. They pressed the Arch Abbot against the far wall of the cavern opposite from where the raging Rossin snarled and roared. Their ancestral voices were like dead leaves rustling on cobblestones, but she could make out nothing of their words. It must have meant something to Derodak because he was howling. She was glad of it. Wanted more of it.

The shield of fire dropped away.

Sorcha levered herself up on her elbows, feeling the blood running from many cuts on her arms and body. Her vision dipped in and out. The Maker of Ways was screaming his song of destruction and moving forward. He had no need of her power or blood now; he was nearly done with his task. All was chaos and pain, but standing in the doorway, she finally saw them, and understood.

Merrick, pale and calm was beside the Rossin. He had his hands buried in the fur of the Beast’s mane. They could have been a statue dedicated to wild beauty. Both of them were looking directly at Sorcha, ignoring everything around them. There was nothing else.

Three bodies, four minds in agreement. Sorcha smiled slowly. No, not four minds. Hundreds of minds. She still held humanity inside her, while Merrick held the grand Conclave lightly in his mind, as if he were a child with a string toy in one hand. Sorcha cradled the tiny sparks of the rest of humanity in her. As it had been in the ossuary, one of them was dying.

Gasping, choking on her own blood, Sorcha held out her hand. “Come.”

The minds enveloped her, the flesh followed, and once more they fell into the Merge.

The Beast made of everything was flayed into existence on the very doorstep of the Otherside, but it was not the same Beast as had been born in the White Palace. It had grown huge on so much power. Its tawny hide shifted and moved to the eddies of the runes and power within it. It was the lost children of Waikein. It was the desperate Deacons of the Enlightened. It was the hopeless Empress defending her people above. Each hurt and barb of the living made up its essence.

Sorcha, Raed, Merrick and even the mighty Rossin were merely tiny parts of this great creation. They might have caused it to come into existence, but they could never grasp what it was.

When it opened its eyes, they flared every color.

If there was to be a god in Arkaym, it would be the Living Beast, and it would be brief and glorious. Unlike the creature four souls had made in the darkness of the ossuary, this one was not proud. It was something else entirely; it was the beauty of life. And life was brief, but powerful.

The Maker of Ways still towered above it, the scion of the undead. Its tentacles had pushed aside the breach, and one of its clawed feet was already on the sand. It could not be allowed to enter.

The Living Beast sprang forward, but the sound that issued from its throat was not a roar—it was almost music. It struck the Maker with all the force of everything that made it: the life of the human realm. Its claws pierced the hide of the Beast, and the geistlord howled. Its tentacles tore at the Beast, but he could not pierce to the core of its being. Human realm and Otherside wrestled for control of the breach.

Runes flexed on the Living Beast’s hide as it drove the Maker of Ways backward, biting and clawing at it with all the determination of life trying to overcome death. It had only a moment to exist and triumph. It only had one purpose.

As its feet gouged deeply in the earth, it gained strength from the blood there. It pushed harder.

When the Maker of Ways fell, it lost everything, connection to the human realm and strength. It could not muster itself again. As the figure collapsed backward into the Otherside however, the Beast also fell.

It landed on the sand and burst for the same reasons the Maker had. Connection was lost. The living could not hold. The Living Beast let go of its brief existence, exploding into a shower of realities that would never again come together.

The Rossin, Merrick and Sorcha were left scattered on the floor. The Maker of Ways had been beaten back, but the breach was still closing, ever so slowly.

Sorcha, her body healed in the Meld, saw the geists racing to escape into the human world while they could. They had stopped the Maker, but there would still be hundreds of lives lost if these geists entered. The gift of the Wrayth flared in her, and Merrick felt her understand what she needed to do. Before he could stop her, she turned the connection she had with the humans on the undead.

I’ll hold them,
she sent desperately along the damaged Bond to Merrick.
You must stop Derodak!

She was right. With the breach sealing itself the power of the Ehtia was failing. Their flimsy forms were not like geists; they could not exist beyond the Otherside without bodies. They evaporated like so much mist in the sun.

Derodak smiled and raised his hands still burning with runes to strike.

The Rossin snarled and bunched. The Arch Abbot pointed at him as if he were a house pet. “You cannot even touch me Beast. Remember our pact.” His eyes fell on Merrick. “You will be the first to die, and with your blood we will begin again.”

The Sensitive was too weakened by the Meld to do anything but watch as Derodak drew a long hunting knife and approached.

The Rossin’s roar filled the cavern again, and it was not that of a defeated creature. “Only your blood can kill you,” he snarled, and then immediately sprang forward.

This day’s events had slowed the Arch Abbot down too. He could not get out of the way quickly enough.

The great pard threw himself toward Derodak, but in mid-leap his flesh changed. It was Raed Syndar Rossin that landed atop him, still full of the strength of the Beast. He bore Derodak to the ground with a guttural yell. The sound of the Ancient man’s neck snapping echoed in the chamber, but Raed did not stop there. He tore his head free and flung it away into the shadows. It was the most impressive physical feat Merrick had ever seen, and he was left breathless.

When he levered himself up, Raed was covered in his ancestor’s blood. “No,” he said to the corpse, “only your blood can take your blood. Not the Rossin. Just me.”

Then he turned to Merrick and helped him to his feet. They both looked to Sorcha.

She was burning, as if her whole body lit from within. Her partner shivered at the strength of the connections she was holding to the geists—to the whole Otherside.

Let go!
he shot along the Bond, but she was so weakened, so broken that she could not hear him, and he knew, neither could she let go.

“What’s happening?” Raed asked, shivering in his nakedness before the breach.

“We’re losing her,” Merrick replied, dropping to his knees beside his partner, “and gaining geists.” Nynnia had been right. If Sorcha held her connection to the geists, then the breach would never close, and they would not need the Maker of Ways to enter. She would be their eternal conduit.

“Do something then!” Raed demanded, and he could not really understand what he was asking.

Yet, Merrick knew what he had to do. The distressed face of Nynnia was close, but she did not press. They both knew what had to come. She had asked him once if he would have the strength to do this very thing.

In the halls of the initiate, in the quiet of the Sensitive training, Merrick had learned along with all his fellows the rune Ticat; the Final Rune. Actives thought it was another level of consciousness—which in a way it was. It was the rune of control, for when an Active became as Sorcha was now; a danger to the human realm.

Along the Bond, comprehension of what he was about to do flowed to his partner. She understood. Her partner felt that instantly. In all the chaos of the moment, there was an instant of clarity. In it, there was only the two of them and the Bond.