Philippa Ballantine - Geist

Now the Captain was in on the game. Pressing his swelling stomach against the rail, he managed to get his spyglass back. When he looked away from it, his face was pale.

“Now, I’m no sailor,” Sorcha said to him, “but that looks as if the storm is bearing down on it. Do you recognize the ship?”

“The flag is wrapped around the pole but . . . but . . .” Tarce spluttered. “A geist storm, so far from land? It’s . . . it’s . . .”

“Impossible?” she snapped. “We know. May I suggest we take the other ship’s example and make a run for safe harbor if we can?”

“All hands!” Tarce flew into action that belied his size. Soon crew were scrambling about the rigging, tying it down and preparing to flee before the wind. Cargo ships ran with the bare minimum of crew to increase profits—it was going to be a close call.

In the midst of it, the two Deacons stood and watched the storm. It was no normal phenomenon of weather. The clouds were purple gray, curled on one another like a group of angry fists. In comparison, the ship racing before the storm looked like a paper boat.

Merrick let out a shuddering breath. “A geist storm and no land in sight—is no rule sacred?”

Sorcha had to agree with him. Whoever had cut loose the rules of the unliving seemed to be following the pair of Deacons. If the Tinkers’ camp had been an attempt at an ambush, as she suspected, then this might be a frontal assault.

Merrick was silent at her side, peering forward. Sorcha felt his Center snap away and, turning, shared his Sight. The clouds were not geist-drawn, but something of the Otherside was in them.

“A witch,” Sorcha spat. “The idiot on that ship has drawn power to give them wind for their sails.”

“It seems to be working rather well.”

She turned on him. “You’re not one of those Deacons, are you, Chambers? The ‘let’s let everyone have a taste of the Otherside’ fools?”

The young man shrugged, and it was confirmed. As far as Sorcha was concerned, witches and warlocks, as those untrained or untrainable by the Abbey called themselves, should still be burned as they had been in the old days. This was supposedly a more enlightened age, but those who meddled with the Otherside still deserved to be punished. Nothing but trouble followed in their wake. Among the younger Deacons and novices, there was a growing movement that felt these untrained were as entitled as Deacons to reach for the power; a belief that they were as worthy of it as any from the Order.

Such foolish ideas. As Sorcha watched the distant ship on the horizon, pushed along by winds of its own making, she felt an angry knot develop in the pit of her stomach. People using Otherside powers made her skin crawl, but to tap into it merely to get your ship ticking along faster was madness.

She was just about to turn around and let the Captain know that they were in no danger from the storm, when Merrick’s Sight once more leapt up around her. The world plunged into red, violent patterns.

Merrick cried out, but she didn’t quite hear him over the roaring in her ears. The patterns of geist that had erupted from the water were the least of their problems.

The aberrant geist had woken something in the sea below; something massive. The stench of salt and rotting seaweed hit them all like a club in the face, but it was the noise that caused the crew to howl in terror. A high-pitched keen like a thousand rusted gates swinging open made conscious thought, for a moment, impossible.

Sorcha craned her neck up, watching, stunned, as two giant coiled loops, twice the height of the main mast, snapped out of the water. For a moment, her brain struggled with one thought: A possession—it’s possessed a creature of the deep. A great head, scaled and reptilian, punched out of the water only twenty feet to starboard. The eyes, as big as shields, gleamed pitch-black. The distant storm was, indeed, the least of their worries now.

Flicking her head around, she saw Merrick grabbing up that foolish girl he had been making cow eyes at. Nynnia was only just emerging from belowdecks, but she seemed to be an oasis of ridiculous calm in a tempest of terror. Everywhere, the ship was in chaos; sailors were screaming, the Captain was bellowing, and sails and rigging were snapping.

It was impossible to call to Merrick over the monster’s high-pitched keen, the yelling of the sailors and the almighty cracks coming from the dying ship. Instead, she pushed across the Bond. This was no leak; it was a scream.

Follow me. Give me Sight.

Her call must have gotten through, because the air suddenly bloomed. The howl of a falling mast grated at her ears, but now she had the pinpoint accuracy of Sight. The mast seemed to move in slow motion, predictable and easily avoided. She stepped aside nimbly as it crashed to the deck only feet away. Sea spray was flying everywhere, almost blinding her. A huge wave of water, kicked up by the thrashing monster, crashed into her. The taste of salt flooded her senses, enhanced by her shared Sensitivity. At least she had wrapped her cigars up in oilskin. Everything else was soaked. Yet however concerned she might be about her cigars, something else was even more precious.

Over all the noise, Sorcha could hear the neighs of Shedryi and his mare. They were all going to die—that much was obvious as the writhing coils started their downward strike onto the doomed ship—but she was damned if the Breed were going to die in the dimness of a ship’s hold.

Gasping and pushing her sodden hair out of her eyes, Sorcha leapt out of the way of sliding ropes and barrels as the ship lurched to starboard. Briefly, her racing mind considered using Voishem, but the rune of phase was one of the most draining; though it would confer on her the ability to walk through walls, it would not help the horses escape this sudden madness.

Again Sorcha could hear her stallion’s neighs, sounding more demanding than terrified. Merrick had called Shedryi long in the tooth, and had assumed that he was merely a horse to her. Such attachment to a creature could be considered a weakness. Well, he’d know she cared, once she did this.

Opening herself to the Otherside, Sorcha activated Chityre in her Gauntlets. Bracing herself against the bucking and dying vessel, she raised both hands in the direction of the hold where the horses were trapped. The ship was already being ripped apart; one more hole was not going to make any difference. Her Gauntlets lit up like sparkling fireworks as the explosion ripped from her spread fingers. The rune opened a tiny and split-second gap into the Otherside, a blink-of-an-eye moment that would have been an impressive display at any other time, but at this moment was barely noticeable amid the absolute chaos around her. Chityre blew apart the wood of the hatch and the side of the swaying vessel. Nails and debris flew through the air like blades of grass and disappeared through the momentary rift into the Otherside.

Clenching her fist closed about the rune, Sorcha glanced back. Merrick and the girl were following, drenched and pale but somehow still on their feet despite the thrashing monster and the dying ship.

“Yrikhodit,” Sorcha screamed at the Breed. Both of the horses’ heads snapped up at the command, and the proud, noble creatures did indeed come. With a surge, both stallion and mare leapt over the remains of the hatch, skidding and sliding on their hooves on the pitching deck. Sorcha scrambled onto the stallion while Merrick pulled Nynnia up behind him on the mare.

“Horace!” the young Deacon howled, but the pack mule was lost in the maelstrom of the sinking ship. The great, seaweed-encrusted head of the monster was dropping down toward them. Its mouth, as large as two rowboats, ripped into the remaining mast.