Spectyr

SEVENTEEN Out of Time

Merrick knew he had to be dreaming. Yet, as he sat up, his headache was disturbingly real, pounding in the rear of h of his kull with a strength that he had never felt before.

Cautiously he looked around. Under his legs was a floor of white marble, smooth and cool. Disoriented as he was, for an instant he worried he was still strapped to the draining table in Ulrich. Blood, they had wanted his blood—but Nynnia had sent him here for a reason—and he trusted her.

Perhaps he had just been traumatized by the sudden departure from the Otherside. Perhaps he had not really seen what he had seen. A strange scraping rattle caught his attention, and the young Deacon lurched to his feet.

Not three yards away Nynnia was hard at work. He noted her back stiffen, so she was aware of his presence, but she did not turn to face him—too busy in her task. She was standing next to a machine that was about the size of a saddle but made of gleaming brass rather than leather. At the front it had a layer of spinning cutting wheels that were busy desecrating the carvings on the stone pillar. The Deacon looked around wildly and saw that all of the pillars, bar this one and one other, had already been given this terrible treatment.

Merrick was on his feet and lurching toward Nynnia without even thinking. “Stop!” For he recognized these pillars—though when he had seen them last they had been covered in dirt and moss, having been recently dug from the earth.

She spun to face him, and Merrick felt immediately the dissonance. This was Arkaym, yet it was not. Nynnia was herself, yet not. He stopped in his tracks.

She was older. Lines of silver in her long dark hair gleamed in the morning sun, and a tiny landscape of wrinkles caused by laughter and frowns decorated her face. It did nothing to hide her beauty. Merrick felt as though he were sitting on a shifting ice floe, unsure which direction was safe.

“‘ Stop’ ? ” Her voice was the same. “What do you know about what I am doing? What do you care?” Behind her the machine continued its work, grinding its way up the pillar with amazing speed and efficiency—destroying as it went.

Merrick examined the towering, curved ceiling above them. It was similar to the Mother Abbey—but so much grander. Curls of carved words ran up the dozens of pillars—those that had not already been destroyed. Merrick’s world reorientated itself, and though it was disturbing, at least now he could understand it.

His breath came faster as he walked to them. “I know that these pillars are priceless treasures. They contain so much knowledge.” He held his hand out like that of a blind man looking to touch a face. The markings on the pillar were written in Ancient script, the one he had learned so easily while in the novitiate.

In the future. Merrick felt the whirling of the world about him; he was in fact in the spot his childish self would occupy hundreds of years hence.

“And that is why they must be destroyed,” she replied.

He recalled the toppled pillars in his grandfather’s garden and the strange scouring that had wiped away their meaning. If he could just stop this Nynnia from continuing—if just one pillar survived . . .

Then he thought of the consequences for his future and realized he would have to tread carefully. Merrick raised his hands in defeat. “You’re right—if I stop you, then who knows what changes could be effected in my own time—it is impossible to predict if the future would be better or worse.”

Her gaze was hard but not surprised. “Who are you?” she asked, stepploser to him.

The words cut him, but he sketched a bow, as deep as he would have given to the Emperor himself. “Deacon Merrick Chambers—the man you will one day love.”

If he had said those words to any other woman, she might have laughed and then walked away. However, this was Nynnia. Whatever she was, she was open to new possibilities.

The corner of her mouth twitched, as if it might break out into a smile. “Well then . . . that makes quite a bit of difference—but your title”—she cocked her head—“what does that mean?”

Those were words indeed to chill the heart of a man who had spent all his adult life in the care of the Order. Yet, as a student of history, he knew that the Ancients had vanished from the world before the Break and the Order’s establishment.

The sheer magnitude of everything he knew—everything that had happened before being snatched away from Orinthal spun in Merrick’s head. In the young Deacon’s Sight Nynnia blazed. It was not the same as Raed’s signature—in fact it was like nothing he had ever seen before. When he had first laid eyes on Nynnia, she had dazzled him with her beauty and her sweetness—but she had appeared nothing more than a normal human. Later events had proven that very wrong.

The second incarnation of Nynnia he had met on the Otherside had been beyond anything mortal. Now this one standing before him was human, but scintillating with a strange energy.

One thing at a time. He tried to frame some reply to her that wouldn’t alter time or end up with him burned at the stake. The lecturers teaching in the novitiate had been remarkably silent on the rules of etiquette when thrust back into time. He was still framing the answer, when Nynnia spoke for him.

“So, you’ve traveled from some future, then,” she said, folding her arms in front of her. “Our scholars have postulated such travel is possible, since the essential nature of the Otherside is beyond time.” She gestured upward. “In fact, the router is just erasing that portion of the Grand Knowledge.”

Merrick flinched, and his mind darted to the horror the librarians of the Mother Abbey would feel to see this scene. “Where . . . where am I, exactly? Or when?”

“Where—the Temple of the Ehtia. The when is harder to say—by our reckoning fourteen sixty-seven after the Fire was Lit.”

Her dating convention made absolutely no sense to him; no calendar he had ever heard of or studied used anything like that. He put it aside for the moment. So many questions crowded the front of his mind that for a second they all jammed there.

“Tell me.” Nynnia circled him, the nearness of her banishing all other concerns. “How do we meet, Deacon Chambers, in this future of yours?”

“I could have already given away too much.”

“But you said I will love you?” Nynnia thankfully kept his pride intact by not dismissing the idea out of hand. Up close, he judged her age to be nearer fifty than forty, and he couldn’t help but stare. This was how the woman he knew would have aged if she had ever had the chance.

“You do,” he replied and clenched his fingers tight before they reached out for her. “Or rather you will . . . ”

Nynnia stood scant inches from him, tilting her head up to look into his face. “I do not see how someone from a religious order can possibly help us . . . ”

Merrick was about to correct her when the ground began to shake, rattling every bone in his body like a tuning fork. The Temple above them creaked and groaned, the stone joints shattered against one another, peppering the two people below with dust and pebbles. Instinctively, Merrick threw himself over Nynnia, wrapping his cloak around them both as they crouched on the ground like frightened children.

When the rumbling finally subsided, Nynnia jerked, her face twisted in anger—not fear. “It can’t be much longer.”

The images of the toppled pillars flashed in Merrick’s mind, and he hoped he was not about to get a personal view to how they had ended up that way. The worst thing would be to perish and not to know the answer to the question that was tormenting him.

“What’s happening?” he threw caution to the wind and grasped Nynnia by the arms. “Who are the Ehtia, and why are you destroying this place?”

“You really don’t know?” Her smile was wide, with a hint of mad delight in it Merrick did not like.

The Deacon took a long, slow breath. “In my time this place lies buried, broken and destroyed.” He gave up wondering what effect his actions here might have for the future—it might never matter.

An aftershock rattled through their feet, sending the Temple once more to singing in complaint. Nynnia looked up. The infernal device she had called a router had finished its work. It ground to a halt, a gear shifted and then it slid from the top of the pillar to the bottom. “One last pillar to go. Help me with the router.” She grabbed his arm.

It was entirely mad. This world wasn’t his, and even so, it was falling apart. None of that mattered. The woman he’d fallen for was near him again. So Merrick leaned forward and kissed her.

Nynnia flinched, only a little, before returning the kiss with an ardor he recalled easily. Her lips were sweet, and with his eyes closed, Merrick could tell no difference between this Nynnia and his younger Nynnia.

When she pulled back, her hand cupped his face, stroking the line of his jaw in a sad, almost contemplative way. “We are the Ehtia—and this is all our fault.” She led him over to the machine, and he was fascinated by the complexities of gears and drives that were revealed when she pulled it from the pillar.

“Your fault?” he asked, taking one side of the machine and heaving. Together they crab-walked it over to the only pillar in the deserted hall still with its carvings.

Nynnia adjusted the clamlike device, until it wrapped around the stone with a sharp snap. “There is a good reason we are destroying this place. We went too far.”

The earth rumbled again, as if in counterpoint to her statement.

Merrick’s mouth was dry. “What . . . what do you mean?”

“The Otherside is coming,” Nynnia said, her fingers dancing over the complicated surface of controls embedded in the router. “We thought we knew better. We could go where we wished, harness all that power. We thought weirstones were harmless . . . ”

The young Deacon took a step back, his fingers tightening into tight fists. “You mean the Ehtia brought this all about?”

She didn’t notice—too busy with the machine. Her words were flung very casually over one shoulder. “To our shame—yes, but we will pay for it.” She straightened and fixed him with a gaze full of an odd mixture of fear and pride. “The Ehtia will pay for it soon enough. You’ve arrived in time to see that. I am so very, very sorry.”

“I have very little time.” The Prince of Chioma paced to the window. “And if we take too long, people will begin to wonder.”

Raed managed to hold in his sarcastic snort. The pressures of ruling were something he had been born to—yet never actually experienced. It was also something his sister had been meant for. That thought spurred him to action. Something was happening here in the Hive City, and Fraine could well be caught up in it. Finally, Raed had enough of this Prince’s ducking and dodging.

“Too busy to take care of your own people’s safety?” His voice echoed sharply in the bare chamber. It held not a hint of deference. It was the voice of a man meant to be Emperor who should have stood in Vermillion, moving Princes of this one’s standing like pieces on a castle board.

Onika’s head jerked around, the beads swaying dangerously until Raed could be fairly sure he had caught a good glimpse of the other’s eyes. Yet, he did not react with anger. He did not flare up. He did nothing that Raed might have expected. Instead, he coolly returned to his carved chair and rested one elegant hand on the back.

“Nothing is more important to me than the well-being of Chioma and her people—but you must understand not everything is as it seems. I may be Prince here, but I am constantly watched.”

“Watched?” Sorcha whipped about as if she had been shot.

The Prince’s hand tightened on his chair. “I can trust very few in my Court—not even my own Deacons.”

Raed shook his head. By the Blood, they were still in the same situation. Conspiracy and corruption. He wondered why Sorcha looked so shocked—she should have seen it coming.

She swallowed, her pencil hovering above the small notepad she’d pulled from her pocket. “What makes you think that, Your Majesty?”

“I don’t think it—I know it.” Onika’s voice brooked no argument.

“Yet you think you can trust us?” Raed stroked his beard and not for the first time wondered what exactly was concealed behind that mask. He was beginning to understand some of his grandfather’s irritation.

The Prince’s attention flicked in the Young Pretender’s direction, and though he could not see it, Raed had the distinct impression of a smile. “From what I have heard—yes.”

Sorcha shifted, and her fingertips, just for an instant, brushed her Gauntlets. “We’re flattered to have your confidence, but if you want us to stop these killings . . . ”

“They were related to me,” the Prince said smoothly. “And for you to understand the importance of that, I must tell you that I have very, very few relatives in this world.”

“You mean someone is killing those you have—even your Chancellor?” Raed was reminded of his own father’s conspiracyladen Court.

The beads rattled as the Prince nodded. “I have doubled the guards on all in the city and the palace that have a portion of my blood in their veins—yet still they die. Only a handful remain.”

Raed’s grandfather had called the Prince of Chioma a snake, suspected him of treason, and been insulted by his insolence. Could the same faults exist this, his descendant? It was impossible to judge behind that damned mask.

And then there was the question of the geist that had attacked him on the river. The gleam in the eyes of the woman as they tumbled into the water were burned into his mind. As much as he tried to avoid thinking of it, when he did, he knew instinctually that her attack on him had been very personal.

Sorcha stood up. “Then give us your leave to investigate. The Order is at the service of the Empire—not just the Emperor. And after last night, I am convinced there is some geist involvement.” Like all Deacons, she lied well.

Raed waited—either for the Prince to agree or perhaps to reveal that he had recognized the Young Pretender. Instead, the interior door popped open, and the heavily pregnant woman they had seen in the audience chamber the day before appeared. She was older than might have been expected to be a mother, but very beautiful. Her brown eyes, like those of a doe, widened further.

“I am sorry, Majesty,” she murmured, circling her hand protectively around her belly, and turning back as if to slip away.

“Japhne.” For the first time, raw emotion crept into the Prince Onika’s voice. “You do not need to go.” He held out his hand, and the woman grasped it immediately. She was elegant even while so large. Raed did not have much experience with pregnant women, but he knew that had to be rare.

The love and tenderness the two shared was immediately obvious. That, Raed knew full well, was a rarity in aristocratic unions—especially royal ones. Seeing the way Japhne looked down at the masked Prince made the Young Pretender ache a little. He doubted he would ever be free enough to look at Sorcha in that way.

“This”—Onika reached out and rested his hand against Japhne’s belly—“is the future—this is my son.”

Certainly for a Prince there could be nothing more important than an heir, but there was some other note in Onika’s voice—it was awe.

“I have had few other children in my life, honored Deacon, all of them girls—but this, this will be my very first son.”

Japhne’s smile at him was radiant.

“If they are in fact killing my blood,” the Prince of Chioma went on, “this is what they will come for.”

The look on Japhne’s face was calm—so she must have already heard this. It was the confidence of love.

Sorcha got to her feet. “We will try our best, Your Majesty. My partner has been called away for a short time, but I will give this investigation all of my attention.”

“Called away?” Japhne’s attention abruptly broke free of the Prince. “Is everything all right?”

Sorcha’s mind was already on the path of investigation, so she didn’t see the stricken look on the other woman’s face, but Raed did, and it didn’t make sense.

“Yes,” the Deacon said, already standing up. “He will be back.” She sounded so certain.

“Then find the truth.” The Prince held out a scrap of paper with his wax seal stamped on it. “This gives you freedom to roam anywhere in the palace.”

They made their bows and were about to exit the privy chamber when Raed spun about. “Your Majesty, one final question. Have you had any recent additions to your harem of late . . . any blonde women?”Onika frowned slightly but shook his head. “No, I have made it clear that there will be no more women added to my Court. Not until Japhne wishes it.”

The Young Pretender’s shoulders slumped, but he managed a “Thank you, Your Majesty,” before following the Deacon from the audience chamber.

Raed caught Sorcha’s arm and then, hidden by her cloak, squeezed her hand.

“I am sorry,” she whispered to him. “We have both lost people we care for, and both of us will get them back.” Raed nodded, fearing she might crack if he didn’t agree. She threaded her fingers with his. “We will get Merrick back, find your sister and hunt down whatever is responsible for these deaths.”

“Indeed,” he replied with plenty of conviction. He was tired of being chased and always losing. With Sorcha at his side, Raed felt more optimistic. They had already done incredible things together—defeated a Murashev and gotten Raed out of an Imperial prison. After that, surely everything would be easy.

Sorcha glanced at him, and he wondered if that Bond she talked of so often let her see into his soul—or maybe read his mind. Then, in a daring gesture, she raised his hand quickly to her lips, depositing the lightest of kisses on his knuckles.

“On to the Chancellor’s quarters, then,” she said and waved the Prince’s edict in one hand.