Philippa Ballantine - Geist

Staggering back, the two mortals almost fell into the strange pattern of bodies. Merrick grabbed her arm, pulling her to the left and away from it. The shield Yevah conjured moved with them, but Sorcha’s arms were already beginning to ache from holding it there.

“Name it,” she screamed. The howl of wind and water was painful on mortal and Deacon senses. But she could not know how to destroy what Merrick could not name. “Damnation, remember your training!”

“Look,” he screamed back. The full power of his Sight flooded into her once more, and only by focusing it on the geist was she able to bear it. Deacons learned all the forms of the unliving: the dukh, the rei, the ghast. Centuries of experience had slotted each shape into categories memorized by every novice. The swirling forms of the vortex and the spinning shapes of the rei were among those familiar to every Deacon.

As Sorcha stood gaping up at the geist that was all around them, she abruptly understood Merrick’s indecision. This creature was not in the books. The pattern she could make out in the flickering geist form was like no other; complicated and knitted together like one of those visual puzzles popular at court. The difference was that this one was tightening on them. The shield of fire was actually shrinking under the weight of the dark water. Holding Yevah up within the Gauntlets was keeping Sorcha fully occupied.

“Don’t you dare open Teisyat,” Merrick bellowed at her while the geist began to squeeze in on the shield of fire.

Did he imagine that she popped that door open every time things got a little hairy? Only Kolya going down in a heap had brought that on. “I don’t like you that much,” Sorcha screamed in return.

At her back, she could feel Merrick doing something; she could See him doing it. Their shared Sight was unraveling the pattern. He was going deep into it, trying to understand the impossible.

With a grunt, Sorcha took a step back. “It’s too much. Yevah is about to pop wide-open. How do you feel about drowning on dry land?”

He pressed his lips right next to her ear to be heard above the howling mass of dark water. “We have to get back into the circle.”

That was against everything in the rule books: never step into any sort of summoning circle. Such circles were the base of the geist’s power in this realm, and it was actually possible to be drawn into the Otherside from within one.

Sorcha dared a glimpse at Merrick. His face was calm, but his eyes glittered with an intensity shared by fanatics and the faithful. Breathing in over her drawn teeth, she made her decision. Years of training provided her only option: always trust your Sensitive.

Together they stepped backward over the dead and into the ring that had been constructed with such macabre care. They were now in the summoning circle. Yevah had shrunk so much under the assault that Sorcha and Merrick were now breathing against its fiery surface. But, looking up with her partner’s vision, she saw something so incredible that their immediate danger paled into insignificance.

They were inside the geist. Craning her neck up, with their shared Sight she could See the pattern of the unliving whirling and spinning around her. It was like being inside a patterned tornado. Teisyat wouldn’t help them now; the Otherside would have swallowed them along with the geist.

Sweat was pouring down her back, and her shoulders ached with the effort of keeping her Gauntlets up. “Please tell me that you have a damned plan!”

Nearly there, nearly there. Kebenar will show us. The Sensitive rune bloomed from Merrick to her, and Sorcha could finally see clearly. The pattern flickered around them from red and swirling to white, suddenly revealing itself. It was a braid, as simple as a child’s braid. The pattern around them was a combination of three of the most common geist forms: dukh, rei and spokelse. They were the three most innocuous varieties, but it appeared that once they were combined, that was no longer the case.

It was certainly nice to know what she was facing, yet Sorcha was now far beyond any of her training. A geist made out of the essence of three others—such a creation should be impossible. Yet, the last few days had been full of impossible things. It appeared that all bets were off and the rule books might as well be thrown away.

Pyet. The Bond was too strong. She could now hear Merrick echoing in the back of her head. The whole world had gone crazy.

“Explain yourself,” she hissed, falling to one knee as the shield buckled. They surely had only a few moments before it collapsed entirely. Merrick put his back to hers, giving her the physical strength to keep her Gauntlets up a little longer.

Keep Yevah, open Pyet. Not so much words leaked across, but understanding. Two runes at the same time? It was a good thing that Merrick hadn’t been stuck with an Active fresh out of the Abbey.

“Stay behind me—but not too far.” Sorcha clenched her right hand shut, dismissing Yevah. The shield, now held only by the left-hand rune, swayed sickly, sucking down even closer to the Deacons. They were forced to huddle together like two lost children or be exposed to the raw, roaring center of the geist. Sorcha, despite this difficult situation, appreciated that Merrick held the Sight steady and pointed upward, managing to ignore the wobbling shield and concentrate on the patterned geist.

She sought out Pyet. Doing so was like having one fish on a line, and using another hand to balance a rod for another. Her training had covered this tricky ability and she had done it before, but only under controlled circumstances. Had Deacons become so complacent, the thought flashed across her mind, in the way idle thoughts do in moments of stress, as to never expect to need more than one rune at a time?

Her fingers tingled within the Gauntlet, stretching out, while she gritted her teeth. Sweat now slid off her forehead. Finally, Pyet activated, snapping white-hot onto her palm. It was a lesser rune, but still enough to bring down something like a spokelse. These bouncing orbs of light that led people to their deaths had not been seen anywhere near Vermillion for more than a year. Now one was part of this monstrosity.

Her left hand was outstretched, still holding Yevah. Her right contained the undeployed Pyet. She needed a target before this deck of cards collapsed completely. Her muscles ached and her back was howling in protest as she braced herself against her Gauntlets.

Show me. Her shared Sight snapped into focus on one strand of the braid, separating it from the whirling chaos of the others. Sorcha dropped Yevah; no rune power could be transmitted through a shield. The geist was all around them and now they could both feel the raw power of the unliving. It scorched the skin and tore at their hair. Unlike normal mortals, Deacons could stand that power, but not for long.

Sorcha and her partner clung onto each other, holding tightly so as not to be swept away. With Merrick’s Sight, she aimed Pyet through narrowed eyes, directly at the rei strand of the geist.

Gleaming fire spun around her Gauntlet and smashed into the unliving creature crushing down on them. The world became a chaos of white fire and dark water, snarling together as if a tornado were tumbling around them. Sorcha’s ears and eyes felt like they might explode. She doggedly held on to her young partner as the fierce geist battered them about.

Merrick slipped and fell, but she never let go, shielding his body with her own. She was not about to lose another Sensitive to a contrary geist. Her lungs seemed on the verge of collapse, her eyes burning in her head, and then . . . and then . . . the storm passed, leaving them gasping in the aftermath. Pyet still twinkled on her hands, ready for more action as she pulled herself upright. Merrick was lying there, panting and staring up at her. Certainly for a first real-life battle experience, this one would be hard to beat.