Spectyr

TWENTY-NINE Prodigal Son

Sorcha woke in a cradle of sand. It had blown over her, cushioned her, but was now trying to swallow her. She jerked erect, the broken swing tangled on top of her, her mouth dry and her pulse racing. Turning her head to the left, she saw the still-smoldering remains of the Winter Falcon spread over the dunes.

The brave Chiomese and the Imperial sailors had died together because of Hatipai—Sorcha had no doubt of that. It was up to her to stop the false goddess from taking any more victims.

After she pushed herself free of the remains of the swing, she dragged herself to her feet and examined her body carefully. She felt as though she’d been given a damn good beating, and even without pulling aside her clothes, Sorcha could tell there would be plenty of bruises. Though she had no way of knowing how far she’d fallen, nothing felt broken. Next she tried to orient herself under the blazing sun.

“It’s over there.” Onika’s voice at her back made her jump like a green Initiate. The Prince of Chioma could have been a statue revealed by blowing sand—he certainly didn’t look as though he had fallen any great distance either. He looked no more ruffled than if he’d been standing in his own Court.

He didn’t point, but then he didn’t need to. The Temple of Hatipai was the only structure in a blinding ocean of sand. It stood out, red like a blister among the gold of the dunes.

“You don’t have to go.” She tottered over to stand at his shoulder. “I have sworn an Order Oath; I have to go down there, but you—”

“I too swore an oath.” The Prince raised his hand and tore off the shining mask. He flung it into the sand as if it were something vile, but he didn’t turn around. “The people of Chioma are mine to protect—they always have been.”

Sorcha averted her eyes. “How can you protect them if you are dead? What about your son waiting to be born?”

His voice was calm. “I cannot think of that now. Even as much as I love Japhne and him to come, I cannot put them above my people. I trust Merrick will take care of his mother.”

The Deacon heard his cloak slide through the sand as he moved forward, but she still dared not look. She could almost feel the heat of his charisma beating on her head like the sun. “A child should always have its parent.”

“Not everything that can birth a child can be called a parent.” Onika touched her hair. “Some parents do better to leave this world before they can teach a child to fear. How could I have a son who cannot even look at my face?”

Sorcha had never known her own parents, so could not argue with him. His open hand appeared in her peripheral vision.

“Please, Deacon Chambers, I need someone to look at me.”

His voice cracked with melancholy and fear. Sorcha looked up and opened her Center. While her humanity was stunned by the immortal god, her Deacon training helped her see behind it to the man he was.

“Why?” she stammered through numb lips and burning eyes. “Why are you going down there straight into her hands?”

The Prince smiled and jerked aside his cloak. Underneath, hanging from his belt was a long, curved dagger with a weirstone gleaming on its hilt. “Not long ago I found a secret book of prophecy. It can only be done by me, with this blade, in her Temple, as she becomes mortal. Just before she does, there will be a moment of weaknesses.” His hand touched Sorcha’s head lightly. “I am the only one who can strike.”

As a Deacon, Sorcha was sure she didn’t believe in prophecies or fate, but in the gleaming light of his charisma, she trusted him.

“But I have something for yof this should fail.” From one of the pouches at his belt Onika pulled a strange sphere. It was about the size of his fist with a miniature crank in its clear side. When he turned it, a high-pitched whir sounded, while around the Prince the air shifted. His face flickered with momentary pain as a silvery gray liquid filled the sphere, but from where it came, Sorcha could not tell.

“Hold out your hand, Deacon Faris.” Sorcha offered her palm, and he placed the strange device into it. “This is one of my mother’s gifts, a protection for the body. For a human with no trace of geist it should not last long, but it will help you if things go wrong in the Temple.” Onika spun the crank in the opposite direction. The gleaming liquid now began to drop away in the sphere, until there was no liquid apparent. Instead, Sorcha felt warmth spread over her.

For a second her skin gleamed like it was covered in a thin film of oil, but then that too vanished. “You’ve made me immortal?”

Onika laughed again. “Temporarily your body is protected—that is all, Deacon Faris. Do not get arrogant, for it will wear off in a few days. You are not born of a geistlord as I am.”

“And you?”

“If I survive this, I want to grow old with Japhne.” He glanced back toward Orinthal. “I want my son to rule in Chioma, so it is no loss to me.”

Giving up this was a sign of faith Sorcha could not understand, but she wouldn’t argue with it. The look in his eyes said this was no sudden decision.

“Then let us unshackle your people,” she said, slipping on her Gauntlets and facing the Temple.

“Thank you.” His fingers tightened on hers, apparently immune to the sting of the runes, and then together they walked down toward the Temple. With every step, as long as she didn’t glance at him, Sorcha felt her equilibrium recover.

As they got closer to the Temple, she couldn’t help it, she began to chuckle. “Oh, your mother is quite modest.”

Onika’s laugh was loud and unexpected as he got her point. The Temple was shaped like a beautiful woman lying on her side, one hand propping up her head, the steps leading to the interior literally burrowed into her belly button. It was the bright red of the city of Orinthal but not nearly as charming.

“That has to be the crassest thing I have ever seen.” Sorcha giggled. “And I grew up in Delmaire!”

“I think you should mention that when you meet her!” The Prince’s laugh was long and genuine.

A mass of people were clustered around the Temple door. This was indeed where Orinthal had migrated to. Onika untangled his hand with hers so now he stood alone. “Follow me.”

The people turned and then, like a wave breaking on the shore, dropped to their knees, abasing themselves before the Prince. It was not because he was their ruler. It was because he was unmasked. Hatipai had them in her control right up until the moment her son appeared. It was one thing to have belief in a goddess, but when a god walked among them in the flesh, it overrode all that.

A hot wind was coming off the desert and straight into Sorcha’s face, flinging bits of sand into her eyes and mouth, but while she held her hand up and swore, Onika only kept moving forward.

“She’s not far now.” His voice was soft as he stepped carefully over and past the prostrate bodies. Sorcha followed in his wake ashey climbed the stairs and into the Temple of Hatipai.

“I will go in first,” Onika said, and with his godhood, false or otherwise, about him, Sorcha could not deny him.

Inside, the heat was the first thing the Deacon noted. Most Chiomese buildings were deliciously cool—but obviously the geistlord cared little for human comforts. As Sorcha looked around, she realized that in fact humanity cared little for those comforts, either. They were packed in here tighter than pickled herrings. It made it hard for them, but still the people of Orinthal managed to squeeze back a little, allowing their Prince farther into the Temple.

Above the crowd, there was a dais. Sorcha was pushed to and fro and had to stop and crane her head to see what was up there. Desperate to see, she was angry with the crowd, the foolish damn people. Finally, she saw.

It was a shadow of gold, hanging together like a faint mist that was trying to hold on to human form. A suggestion of wings flared out, twining and sparkling, and when she opened her Center, the shadow burned in her Sight—much as the Rossin did. A geistlord indeed, then.

Among the crowd she caught sight of the mustard yellow robes of the Chiomese Deacons, and yet they were just as smitten. Every face around her wore the same idiotic look; all logic, all reasoning washed away in fanaticism.

And the humans were not the only observers in the Temple. Through her Center the Deacon saw the shadows that filled every corner of the Temple: the shades of Hatipai’s followers. Even after death, the so-called goddess kept her hold on them.

Sorcha struggled to keep her feet as the crowd surged forward, and she realized with horror that she was no longer in Onika’s wake. The people had closed around her, and he had moved on. She pushed, shoved and swore, but it was as effective as a piece of flotsam fighting against the sea.

She was being pushed toward the far wall even as Onika walked up the stairs toward the remains of his mother. Then with a cry, she saw Raed. Her throat clenched, because if there was a better picture of sacrifice waiting to happen, she’d never seen it. He was bound upright on an X-shaped device that looked like an unholy melding of the torturer and the Tinker’s art. Two long articulated armatures sprouted from the frame and hovered ready over Raed’s naked body.

At the side of this device stood a gray-bearded man wearing elaborate robes, with the symbol of Hatipai over the broad sash of a royal Chancellor. He looked remarkably well for a man that should have died back in the palace.

Sorcha wished Raed would turn and look, but his eyes were cast down. Only the training and discipline of a Deacon kept her from raising her Gauntlets right then. Instead, she lowered her head and began shoving and twisting her way toward the dais. She didn’t care how many toes she trod on or whose ribs got bruised in the process.

From her nearing vantage point Sorcha could now see the Grand Duchess Zofiya, but it took her a moment to recognize her. She was not in her usual dress uniform. Instead, she wore a thin white robe that left little to the imagination. In her hands, held stiffly out before her, was a sphere like the one the Prince had used. This one was larger but full of the same silver liquid. Zofiya’s face was as expressionless as a statue—very unlike her usual restless nature. This is where faith gets you, Sorcha thought.

Ahead, the golden, ethereal form was bending toward Onika, and her words were loud and echoed off the walls of her Temple. “So, you have returned, my wayward son, returned to take your place with me?”

Onika threw off his cloak, and his voice too was impossibly loud. “I’ve come to finish what I should have generations ago, Mother.” And then he swung down with the blade into the swirling mass of golden light.

Sorcha was now six rows of people away from reaching the theater of events, but she was blind without Merrick. The moment hung impossibly. Some of the people in the Temple began to wail and surge forward, carrying her with them. And then Hatipai’s laughter boomed over everything.

It was not the sound Sorcha or Onika had been expecting, and now the Deacon’s stomach clenched into a tight, painful knot. The crowd around her caught their goddess’ mood and began to laugh too. It didn’t make them any easier to get past.

Onika sank to his knees, his shoulders slumped.

“You really should not believe everything you read, my son.” The golden mist solidified, an echo of a grinning woman’s face.

The treacherous Chancellor laughed; his voice cracked like he’d been left too long in the desert heat. “We made the book, the prophecy, and you swallowed it down.”

Onika’s head sank to his chest as Hatipai enjoyed her moment. “You were always my backup plan, dear boy. The carrier of my flesh, should I lose it.”

“Mother.” His voice was angry, frustrated, lost. “Let her live . . . let my boy live.”

“Never!” Hatipai’s wings flew wide. “Every one of my flesh must die or be sacrificed—there will be no god or goddess but Hatipai!”

What else could he do? Sorcha felt herself on the edge of angry tears. The Prince was a pawn in this game but a good man despite everything. She threw herself toward them desperately. Now she was only two ranks of people away from breaking free, but this close, people were less likely to give way.

Hatipai looked at her son with a fierce look that hovered between rage and sorrow. “I knew you’d read the prophecy, and I knew you’d forget . . . a mother can always take back what she has given—if she has the will.”

The goddess moved, but the Prince made no move to try to escape—there was, after all, nowhere to go. Unlike a geist, a geistlord could indeed hurt. That beautiful face was ripped from him with a terrible sound that all could hear, and then blood poured down the steps. He stayed on his knees for a while as the mist drained him, and then his body toppled. It slid down the steps slowly and then to one side with an audible thump.

Finally Sorcha broke free of the crowd. Hatipai was spinning, a cloud that was now red and gold; she was forming a body from what she had taken from her own son. The Deacon knew that she only had a few moments before the geistlord turned to Raed to take the remainder of what she needed from the him and the Rossin. It was the nature of geistlords to devour one another. Then she would take the sphere, which looked like the one her son had given Sorcha, and become impossible to stop.

So the Deacon tightened the lacings on her Gauntlets, then dashed up the stairs and threw herself into the maelstrom. The gold light enveloped her, and everything else ceased to matter. Her Center was blinded and useless. All there was was Hatipai. The Bright One.

The geistlord tore at Sorcha with her forming hands, and the pain was exquisite. The Deacon screamed as the geistlord wrapped around her inside her. Yet Onika’s gift held her body against the onslaught.

Sorcha tried to think past the pain. Though her body could not be destroyed, her mind and soul could be, so she had to work quickly. Desperately she called runes from her Gauntlets; Chityre and Pyet. Lightning flickered and danced through the red and gold of Hatipai, while flame bloomed around them. It could not touch the geistlord though.

Her face in the flames was now smiling and beautiful. “You cannot hurt me, Deacon. I do not yet have a body.”

“But you can’t destroy me either,” Sorcha panted, her muscles screaming, “thanks to your son’s gift. I will hold you here forever if necessary.” She hoped her opponent could not read the lie from her mind. Sorcha had no idea how temporary her immunity was.

Dropping Chityre, she instead demanded the rune Yevah from her Gauntlets. The snap of the shield around them might offer some protection to the humans.

“Perhaps so.” Hatipai caressed the Deacon’s cheek, a line of fire following. “But I will eventually burn out your mind and then have my way.”

By the Bones, she was right. The image of the broken members of her Order had always haunted Sorcha. She was an idiot to think she could hold out indefinitely.

“So many fears, so many doubts.” The geistlord cooed into her ear. “We all have our secrets, don’t we, little human, and I know the dirty secret of your existence . . . ”

Sorcha didn’t know what the damned creature was talking about, too busy holding up multiple runes while drowning in pain. Through the flickering of the shield she could finally see Raed. Now he was looking at her, his face a mask of horror and frustration as he strained against his bonds. They seemed to always be getting their timing wrong, and now there would be no chance for more. She regretted that.

The followers. The voice in her head was not Merrick, not even Raed; it was the Rossin. Trapped and angry, the Beast reached out to her. The undead foci, they still follow her. Why? Why, you foolish mortal? Think!

The foci of any geist were a strength and a weakness. Sorcha’s streaming eyes flickered to those coalescing shades, and it was then she suddenly realized that most of them were spectyrs.

Yes, you see it. You finally see it. Vengeance.

Hatipai had lied to them, and they were not here at her bidding—they were here for her! They were out for vengeance, and it was the Deacon’s place to give it to them.

Dropping the runes she held, Sorcha called on another, Tryrei, the rune that created a tiny peephole to the Otherside.

Hatipai roared with laughter. “You cannot drag me back home with that.”

Sorcha, holding the rune, felt her strength begin to wane, but she would not let go. “The spectyrs can’t see you very well. I’m giving them a torch,” was all she managed to gasp out.

They had gathered together here to find answers to their ancient deaths. They knew they had been tricked by a geistlord and their faith had been misplaced.

The tiny hole to the Otherside got their attention, buried as it was in midst of Hatipai, the one who had fooled them. A terrible scream filled the Temple, the sound of a thousand souls in pain. They had lost everything to the geistlord: love, family, hope and life itself. The spectyrs flew re like an angry cloud of ravens. Sorcha bit her lip, clenched her muscles and concentrated on the rune as they tore away at Hatipai. She had to hold it for them.

She was drawing too much—she could feel power draining out of her like a broken dam. Without Merrick’s strength, she only had her own, and it didn’t seem enough. She could see nothing, only hang on blindly. Awareness of her own body broke away, and she became a feather in a screaming storm. Something broke in her—she could actually hear it like a sinew snapping. What it was she could not tell, but Sorcha was overwhelmed.

The ground appeared from somewhere, smashing into her, but there was no pain. However, Deacon Faris still held the rune tight, though her Gauntlet was trapped and spread wide.

When the spectyrs took Hatipai’s godhood, they vanished into the Otherside, filled with their own satisfaction. The goddess was no longer a lovely, golden creature but a snarling, snapping monster with the long snout of a wolf and baleful, red eyes. It loomed over the fallen Deacon, but she could only see it from one eye. Her head wouldn’t move to give her a better view of her oncoming killer. Unable to control any part of her body, she was restricted to what she could see from her place on the floor.

Sorcha heard the crowd scream, their voices mingling into a tangled web of horror and shock, and then the sound of running feet made the Temple ring.

The Deacon’s eyes flicked in the other direction, catching sight of the Grand Duchess. Zofiya, her face showing her own distress, but still she somehow managed to see what needed to be done. With her white robe streaming behind her, she ran to Raed. She’d just seen her goddess stripped of illusion—and the Grand Duchess saw their only chance. In Vermillion she had seen the Beast—she knew its power. So she yanked the string of weirstones from around Raed’s wrists, freeing him from the dreadful machine, and then staggered back.

It was a good thing she did, because the Young Pretender was not there for long. His flesh bloomed with the Curse, and the great lion was born, enraged and ready for revenge. He sprang up, snarling, and broke his remaining bonds in an instant.

Despite what he was, the Deacon lying on the floor could not deny the beauty of the Beast. The scene wavered before Sorcha, but she held on. She wanted to see the end. The rune finally faded from her Gauntlet, but her eyes still let her see the moment when the Rossin fell on Hatipai and with evident satisfaction tore her apart.

Somehow it was done, but Sorcha had no time to celebrate. She was so tired, so alone, and nothing moved when she commanded it to. Raed was alive, Hatipai fed into the maw of the Rossin, and soon, very soon, Merrick would come for her. Now if only her body would move . . . everything would be all right. She should have been afraid but found she was not.

Deacon Sorcha Faris abandoned herself. It felt like the best thing to do.