Deacon Chambers was, thankfully, silent. Sorcha rode ahead of him and fought the urge to kick Shedryi into a gallop. Sensitives were tricky creatures to get away from. She wanted a smoke badly, but there were only so many cigars in her pocket and she had a feeling if she got trapped in Ulrich, she might need every one of them.

They would have to follow the road north to the calmer port of Irisil, where kinder and warmer currents flowed into the harbor. Sorcha wasn't looking forward to getting on a small ship with her new partner.

Sparing a glance over her shoulder, she was amused to realize that Merrick was actually reading the report. His curly dark head bent while he rode with practiced ease. Maybe he hadn't been joking about winning those events.

She'd realized he would be young; she'd been unprepared for just how young. After reading his file in the records office, she'd noticed that he'd declared a touch of Ancient blood in his line. Though those first peoples had long since been swallowed up by the Otherside, their blood could still be traced in some of the continents' older families. It explained his incredibly high testing in both Active and Sensitive. It wasn't up there with the Abbot's skill, but if he burned out his Sensitivity, he would have been accepted without question into the ranks of the Actives.

She would have to watch this one for sure. Deacons of near-equal rank in both disciplines could sometimes be tempted to activate when first confronted with a geist. That sort of deadly mistake could leave her looking for yet another partner.

As Sorcha had been thinking about this, Merrick had urged his mare up next to her and offered back the report. "Not many solid details, really." At least he had the good sense to sound concerned about that.

"There seldom are," Sorcha said with a little laugh. "Geists are like that…; mysterious."

"You know I studied all this, don't you?" he snapped back. "Just like you, I did my training. Difference is I got stuck with the partner no one in the Order wants."

That stung, though Sorcha managed not to let it show. Once upon a time she'd been highly sought—now she wondered what exactly she had done for that to change. Oh, yes…; all those supposedly private arguments with Kolya.

She glanced at him out of the corner of one eye and measured up exactly how she should play this. They were partners, Bonded and shackled together. They would have to rely on each other in tough situations. The whole setup of this assignment worried Sorcha, and she would need a Sensitive who was not only good, but who cared enough to pull her out of the fire if necessary; so ramming those words back down his throat as she was tempted to do would serve no purpose.

"Sorry you feel that way"—her fingers itched to be holding a cigar right now—"but we've got to make this work for the sake of the assignment."

They traveled in silence for the next few hours. The Bond between them was still fresh and raw, and that was surely why she could feel a tinge of his frustration. It flickered across her awareness and disturbed what might otherwise have been an enjoyable ride.

The countryside on the east coast was beautiful even this late into autumn, and Sorcha looked about with a feeling of real pride. When the Emperor had arrived, this area had been a rabbit warren of unfettered geists and mistwitches. It had been one of her and Kolya's assignments to oversee the clearing of the area from Vermillion to the Turijk Mountains. As they passed through the low-lying areas of marshes and dark water, she was able to look back on those times as simple and rather pleasant. It had been hard work, but satisfying.

Recollection softened the hard knot of displeasure in her stomach. She pointed to a collection of abandoned stone buildings not far from the road they now traveled. "That is the place where my husband and I banished our first geist for the Emperor in his new realm." It was only three years past, but felt a lifetime ago.

Merrick pulled his cloak around him as if he wasn't interested, but she could tell he was. The prickle of frustration subsided a little. "Are the geists of Delmaire the same as the ones here?"

For a second she didn't reply, stunned. If he was asking her that, then he must have been among the new recruits from Arkaym, and if that was true, then he had gotten through the novices faster than anyone since Abbot Hastler. She would definitely have to take care around this one. Sorcha was abruptly conscious of the Bond between them. She'd crafted it so casually, but if she'd joined herself to such a powerful Sensitive, maybe she should have been more cautious.

She cleared her throat. "No, the Delmaire geists have been tamed for centuries. The last attack recorded there was more than fifty years past—that was why so many Deacons jumped at the chance to sign up to this new Abbey: boredom."

"That's one thing we never have to worry about. Sometimes I wonder…;" The young man's voice trailed off. Flicking his head over his shoulder, he pulled his mare up suddenly.

"What is it?" Sorcha tugged Shedryi to the right, circling her new partner. No matter how useless it was, she too scanned their surroundings. They were in the middle of a narrow stretch of dry ground, with low marshes on each side. Sedge and rushes whispered in the breeze, but she could make out no trace of geist. Certainly there was no scent but the brackish water and the damp earth.

She brought her stallion up tight against Merrick's mare; she wasn't about to let another Sensitive get away on her. Even when she cocked her head and strained her Sensitivity, she could still make out nothing more dangerous than sucking mud. "I don't smell any—"

"Quiet!" The young upstart actually raised his hand as if she were a novice at the back of the class. The tone of his voice, though, and her knowledge of his ranking caused Sorcha to slide her Gauntlets from under her belt and onto her lap.

The marsh to the right, a thinly spread oval of dark water, was completely quiet. No wading birds disturbed the surface. No frogs chirped from its fringes. Even the expectant resilient midges seemed to have abandoned this patch.

The Deacon Breed horses, male and female, tossed their heads, but unlike lesser mounts did not dance sideways. Trained to stand in the face of supernatural attack, they dropped their heads, blew through their noses, and did not move.

Carefully, Sorcha got down off Shedryi, slid on one Gauntlet and walked to the head of Merrick's mare. He had not shared his Sight. Annoyed, she reached up and placed her bare hand on his.

Sight flared about her, so different from what she had shared with Kolya it was disconcerting. This new partner of hers must be packed full of power; everything was blazing. Behind her she was aware of the gentle slumbering trees, the creatures hiding in the mud and birds winging their way out to the sea. It was the color, though, the sheer brightness and detail, that she reveled in; reveled in, and was definitely overwhelmed by.

This was why new partners usually stayed safely within the Abbey walls, learning each other's strengths and getting used to the sensation of the Bond. After a moment, Sorcha's Center felt like she'd been looking into the sun for too long.

Snatching back her hand, she shot a look up at Merrick. He was glaring down at her. Rated Sensitives didn't need to send their Centers out; they trained to keep both the real world and the ethereal one in focus. What sort of strange double vision that might engender, Sorcha couldn't really imagine. She tugged on her left Gauntlet without looking away.

After a second of playing staring games with each other, Merrick shook his head. "By the Bones, that was uncalled for! Give me a second, and keep your hand off me…; if you can manage that?"

He too dismounted and wandered a little distance off, looking out over the patch of water. The locals called the little dips in the land vamma kesi, or dark water, because no sunlight reflected off the pools that collected there. It was something to do with the earth itself, as Sorcha had read in an indolent moment in the Abbey library. Whatever the reason, they were dire little spots.

Merrick pointed over toward the farthest reaches of the water, where low scrub tumbled down a small rise. "It's not a geist, but there is something lingering there…; something in pain."

Sorcha snorted. Everything was always in pain or tormented. She'd trained Kolya not to get involved with every injured kitten or bruised plant, and it looked as though she would have to do the same with Merrick.

"If you haven't noticed, we need to get moving. Those ships are leaving if we are there or not…;" She looked up and realized that her new partner was already off the road and tromping through the light snow in the direction he had pointed.

"Stubborn," she muttered to herself. "Hastler had to give me a stubborn one." Tucking her fur cloak around her shoulders, she strode after him. He was at least fifteen feet in front of her, not even bothering to look behind him. Basically giving her the same treatment that she'd handed to him at the Abbey. The phrase "too big for his britches" was made for this one. She'd much rather have had a lesser-ranked Sensitive than one who knew he was good.

"You know, if I get wet boots, you'll be riding the pack mule the rest of the way," she barked at him. Merrick had stopped and was actually yanking aside bushes. Whatever he had sensed from the road had probably crawled in there to die. Her only satisfaction was that he was tossing enough snow about to get himself rather damp as well.

Finally reaching his side, Sorcha stood with Gauntleted hands on hips, staring down at her new partner as he fossicked around in the undergrowth. "I'm not carrying any…;"

She stopped in midsentence as Merrick finally cleared away the snow and branches. A long length of what she assumed was bleached wood was wrapped in the remains of a red skirt. It was a human leg.

Wordlessly she bent and helped her partner yank away the swath of brush that covered the scene; cold and dread were building in her. What she'd thought was merely growing near the water had in fact been deliberately laid down to cover the horror beneath.

When they finally both stood back, panting into the air, the scene had been revealed. It was difficult to count exactly how many bodies there were, but all were frozen into terrible shapes. Merrick clapped a fist to his mouth and turned away.

Sorcha took a deep breath herself. Many of those in the pile of dead were women and children. The jumble of body pieces was not random, however. They were stacked in a pattern, limbs placed like firewood with heads facing upward in an inner circle around what looked like the burnt remains of a wagon. They appeared to have been a family group, probably Tinkers who traveled from village to village repairing items and selling cloth and such. Whatever they had met on the road had been the death of them all.

It was a terrible, half-frozen, macabre display. No doubt it was an exhibit not meant to be seen by mortal eyes.

Merrick, to his credit, wasn't throwing up his breakfast. He turned around and stood at her shoulder. Sorcha felt his Center open, but he didn't share. What he was Seeing, he was best qualified to make sense of.

"They aren't here," he muttered. "The souls are all gone. Such pain and fear should have left terrible marks on the ether—but there is nothing."

"Then how did you…;"

Merrick cleared his throat. "One of the children didn't die immediately. Whatever it was, it took her soul, but her pain left the smallest whisper."

It must have been tiny, indeed.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" he asked in a thick voice. "I've read the textbooks, but…;"

"Not like this." She pointed to nearest bodies. "This wasn't done by anything human. Think about it for a moment. Geists can usually only operate to kill through humans. These wounds were not made by anything mortal. Something unliving made this circle."

Merrick nodded. "We should at least bury them. Their souls…;" He stopped and surged upright. Suddenly, he was sharing a portion of his Center with Sorcha.

Through his eyes, the world was tinged with red. Something was coming through the ether toward them; something that she had also never seen before. Leaping to her feet, Sorcha put herself between Merrick and the approaching geist.

In the real world, the vamma kesi was bubbling and writhing as if a fire had been lit underneath it. The bubbles were moving toward them at a rapid pace.

"What is it, Chambers?" she hissed. She held the Gauntlets up, as yet unsure which Rune to activate upon them. "By the Bones, what is it?"

Her new partner was scrambling at his belt pouch. "I can't see." There was an edge of real panic in his voice. "I need the Strop to see…;"

"No time for that," Sorcha yelled. "Give me the damn Sight…;"