Heaven's Gate

by Toby Bennett

  Rugan considered it once more. Blake had already saved the girl from two Strigoi traps and he was taking her north, each mile a mile closer to the Carter mansion, Rugan could still sense them through the girl’s necklace, but was that enough of an insurance? Blake has already done much alive but can he be expected to do more? Should he even be asked? Father Rugan allows himself a secret smile, in a single moment he has decided to pre-empt the Pilgrim’s betrayal, dead hands could deliver Lillian Carter to her home just as efficiently as live ones.

  “You seem overly confident without any proof. Many would be more hesitant about casting such accusations against our most prominent citizens. In some circles your allegations might be seen as treasonous, or do you think that your role of counselor and confessor places you above such concerns?” Tenichi growls, having mistaken the priest’s unfaltering smile for the sign of some confidence or hidden knowledge. “If so I advise you to seek firmer foundations for any future advice you intend to give to the General.”

  “Enough,” the General interrupts, “I thought you two had buried the hatchet, there is no need for petty rivalries or squabbling, what we must discover is where the fugitives who have done this are heading.”

  “I have already told you they are going north, deeper into Carter territory.” Rugan answers.

  “My scouts have confirmed that they were going north before we lost them,” the Chief Pardoner agrees, “but there is no way for us to be sure that Carter is involved, as Confessor Rugan keeps suggesting. For all we know they are simply trying to return the girl home for less sinister reasons or using the river to avoid detection. Few people would risk heading straight west in any event, it’s safer to travel near the line, where settlements and people are easily found, if they just headed straight west we know there is a good chance they would not survive the journey.”

  “All that makes sense, Nathaniel,” General Leedon concedes, “except it does not explain where these two men came from in the first place. How did they make contact with Lady Carter in the palace? How and why did they steal my book?”

  “Your Lordship I still do not believe that Lady Carter was necessarily the one behind the book’s loss. We should be careful before ruining the alliance and accusing the girl or her father.”

  “Well if the book, the girl and the father are found together would that not be evidence enough?” Rugan asks.

  “Indeed it would,” the Chief Pardoner answers evenly.

  Miles away the skeletal clown tilts its head in the ruddy light of the setting sun, sensing its master’s confusion. Rugan had not thought that it would be so easy to lure Tenichi into that trap and the Chief Pardoner’s ready agreement makes him hesitate. Surely he would have been more wary of the possibility that the girl and the book might be discovered at her father’s estate? After all the girl probably would try to make it home with or without the Pilgrim, just as soon as she got within striking distance and she was getting close now. Normally Tenichi would have hedged his bet and found some reason that his ally might still be innocent. He would normally have argued that finding these items together might be coincidence that would not necessarily mean anything or even a deliberate attempt to sabotage the alliance between the General and the barons. There was only one possible explanation, there was something that the Pardoner was not telling him, some reason that there was no reason to fear finding the book at the Carter mansion. Had the Inquisitor found the book already? At the lightest touch of its master’s will, the bone clown slips back from the river bank. Tonight it will begin the work of mustering soldiers for its master’s work but before that, it appeared it would be necessary to talk with the Pilgrim one last time, before he joins the ranks of the priest’s true followers.

  Chapter 13:

  “The Devil on Dark Crossroads”

  The night is cold, as all nights are cold in the Bowl and a stiff wind stirs the dust of the slim streets of Marguild. Trees twitch and buck, tapping like boney fingertips on the glass panes of the sturdy wooden houses on either side of the straight road that runs from the riverside pier to the small market square, where the farmers come to trade with both villager and riverman alike. All the stalls in the square are long shut, before the barge makes a last stop to rest its ponies on the long trip up river, but men with lanterns are ready, even in the late evening, to help tie up and find stabling for their beasts. Marguild has survived for so long because it has kept its service regular and reliable. It will never be more than a small village with hungry sons and bored daughters but few barges make the trip back up river without taking at least a short rest here. The copious stables and the eager dock hands are testament to this. There are even a few stalls for gritters at the end of the long, musty smelling stables, though few barges use the creatures so close to the water; the insects do not do well with all the moisture and can easily drown if their abdomens are immersed too deeply in the mud and pools alongside the river.

  Marguild is the last settlement beside the river before you get to Brigton and the line; the village is used to travellers but not ones who leave in the night. The stable hands are most perplexed when three travellers and two horses disembark but they do not join the ponies or ask for livery; instead a tall white haired man with fierce eyes begins a discussion with stablemaster about his prize mare. It is soon established that no matter what price he offers the white haired traveller will not get more than a gelding of middle years, which he accepts grudgingly and overpays for. The trio set out down the main street the wind at their backs, cold dusty and unforgiving; a few lamps burn fitfully, which along with the three quarter moon, gives them enough light to navigate the road.

  The road runs straight from Marguild docks, through the wooden houses and out from the square. It becomes narrower as it leaves the last house behind, it is only used by locals and farmers and almost never by travellers, at least not since the fire. There is only one crossroads within sight of the village, once a Church had stood on the white hill of Maulten and the words of the Christ man had echoed almost as loud as the songs of the believers but that was before the blaze that blackened the hill’s tip. Some said that the devil himself had come for the soul of Maulten’s preacher that day, others that the priest himself had set the fire to scourge the sinful in his congregation. There is no way to know that particular truth. Only the graveyard is left now, dotting the pale hill with the burned and neglected stones of the fallen; if it had ever been truly consecrated the evil reputation that now hung on it had long since eroded any blessing by a man of true faith. Now and then some of the villagers would have the pale soil turned for one of their number but mostly they stayed beyond the low wall that marks the old grounds and keeps the living from the dead. Tonight a ragged clown clambers to the top of that wall, seats himself cross-legged on the old soot stained stone, the clown cannot feel the cold nor does the dust irritate his hollow eyes. He smoothes his tattered rags with thin, nerveless fingers and begins to play a soft, breathless tune.

  The wind has swept those eerie sounds away by the time the three riders reach the cross- roads but the Pilgrim holds up his hand and calls for a halt none the less.

  “They say that the Devil waits at crossroads, Necromancer, is that why you send your servant? For fear that if he met you here he would claim his own?”

  “And you must have his eyes to see so clearly in the dark. Are you not worried that he will take those back?” The skeletal clown replies in his master’s stead, stepping out onto the road and into the moonlight.

  “What is that thing?” Aden exclaims, peering at the emaciated shape silhouetted by the moonlight. Here and there the silver light winks from tears in the clown’s tattered regalia and the bars of its empty ribcage.

  “One more servant of the Devil. Not what you want to hear, I know but I have no other explanation to give you,” the Pilgrim answers. “the body belonged an unfortunate I once knew, he died at Golifany and someone trapped his soul and body, keeping him from the rest of death. He is no more than
a puppet now, a servant to whichever diabolist used his art to trap him so. His name is Etine, if that helps.”

  Prompted by some echo of its theatrical past, the bone clown takes a deep bow of acknowledgement, sending the rusted bells jangling. It even opens its mouth as if to introduce itself properly but instead the words of its master echo from its hollow skull.

  “A servant to be sure and one at your service had you stayed the course to Brigton,” the dry voice intones. “Tell me, Captain, why have you deviated from the course we agreed?”

  “It was never agreed, Necromancer. I told you at our first meeting that I was not your creature. I have a rendezvous I must keep elsewhere and my companions must be with me. Be satisfied with the fact that I will keep both Lillian and the Gate out of Strigoi hands.”

  “Indeed! And who is this appointment with, might I ask?”

  “That is no business of yours, it is an appointment which must be kept, if I am ever to find the Gate and Lillian is ever to be safe. I told you from the start that my only objective was my own redemption; after that I will let the world turn as it will but until then I will not risk my soul and I’ll not walk into so obvious a trap as the Carter mansion.”

  “This is who asked you to take me there?” Lillian asks, with a mixture of disgust and incredulity, “I’m glad I didn’t press the issue.”

  “I did not offer you a choice girl,” the clown hisses, “it is indeed good that you are kept from the vampires but that does not mean that I value your life as they do. I will admit to some curiosity but if you prove too difficult to deal with, then I will count it a satisfactory outcome if you die and the blood suckers are denied their precious Gate.”

  Sam’s eyes narrow in the darkness, the danger must be worse than he had imagined if the Necromancer was not even pretending that he would allow them access to the Gate, the inevitable betrayal must be close. Sam strains his senses trying to guess where the attack will come from. The smell of the grave is strong here, but the dead have no breath or heartbeat to give them away, they could remain still as a stone until they were needed. The clown is not alone but there is no telling the direction of the anticipated attack; the scent of rot and turned earth is too pervasive to know which way is safe to run.

  “Do not fear, though, my only intention is that you reach the safety of your father’s estates,” the Necromancer soothes as much as the flat voice will allow.

  “Why toy with us, Necromancer? You know I will not willingly turn back and you have seen how my companions view your servant,” Sam growls.

  “Yet they trust you? Are you any different from the Strigoi? Any more natural? Why should they believe you? You are aware I hope, both of you who travel with him, that before he donned the Crusader’s coat you see him in now, he wandered the Bowl for nearly a century. Samuel Blake is as much a legend as the ghosts in the hills, the possessed wretches that crawl in from the deeper desert. Even the blood suckers…”

  “And bone dancers?” Blake interjects. “It does not matter what is natural, Necromancer, we are not taken in by your concern for our present course. I can smell more of your filth close by, I do not know why you are pretending to negotiate when you have already opened graves to stop us. This conflict has been unavoidable from the start.”

  The clown throws his hands up in protest.

  “Not so. Forgive my hasty words. I do not know what you sense but it has nothing to do with me,” the breathless voice assures them hastily. The clown’s dull tones hide Rugan’s alarm at the idea that the battle will be forced on him before he can find out all he needs to know. “I have given my advice and asked you to see sense. Forgive my attempt at intimidation, I have little experience dealing with the living and I merely seek to ensure that the girl and the book are safe.”

  “And going where it suits you.”

  “And to give you the benefit of my knowledge. If you go further you cannot hope to escape the Inquisitors, they can sense the book you stole and will find you in the open. Your father speaks for many of the barons, they might be able to offer you protection, even find away to hide the book.”

  “That won’t matter we don’t have the…” Lillian starts.

  “Say no more!” Sam snaps.

  “You don’t have the book,” the clown finishes for her. “My dear, however did you manage to lose it, after being clever enough to steal it in the first place?”

  “How did you know I stole it in the first place?” Lillian asks, “I’m sure that Angus isn’t shouting that information from the roof of the palace.”

  “I have access to knowledge that is hidden from the living, Lillian it is why I am so intent on keeping you from your present course. Captain Blake is blinded by his desperation to reach the Gate but you must realize that it is far more important for you to be kept from our mutual enemy’s hands. Now tell me how did you come to lose the book? Was it taken from you?”

  “Don’t say any more!” Aden says, echoing the Pilgrim, “Sam’s right, it is not here to help us, it’s just fishing for information.”

  “There are other ways to learn what I need to know,” the clown responds setting his pipe to his teeth, “just as there are other ways to make you go the way I wish you to.”

  A shrill note sounds! A note barely on the edge of hearing, yet somehow louder than Sam’s sudden call to “RIDE!” and the old graveyard of Maulten spits forth her dead, in a writhing tide of mindless corruption. Rotting bodies claw their way up blackened stone then tumble over the low wall, groping for legs and bridles. The terrible silence of the sudden attack is quickly broken by the sound of Aden’s pistols roaring and flashing in the darkness. A few corpses tumble back under the impact but they pick themselves up almost as soon as they have hit the ground. Aden yells a guerrilla war cry and kicks out, shattering a desiccated hand and the skull behind it but he can already feel a pulling on his other leg. He desperately pulls the triggers under his finger but the chambers are already empty and the tide of undead swells around him.

  Confronted by the unnatural wave of death the horses scream in panic and rise up, their front hooves flailing. All her years of riding experience are of no use, Lillian can’t hold herself in the saddle and finds herself sliding back into the morass of rotting flesh. The sounds of stiff tendons given sudden life and the gnashing of withered jaws reaches her, even through her determination to keep her grip on the slippery reigns. She screams as a hand locks on her boot. From the corner of her eye she sees the Pilgrim spurring his horse towards her, the sound of bones, ground beneath the panicked horses hooves reaches Lillian, as she struggles to maintain her position on her own mount. Then Samuel Blake’s bade flashes in the night air, its arc like the passing of a falling star. There is no blood, no scream of pain, simply an explosion of dust and the snapping of dried bone. The weight on Lillian’s ankle diminishes but the grip of the severed hand is just as firm.

  Still only half in the saddle, Lillian tries to urge the horse forward but there are just too many of the shambling attackers still in her way. To her left she hears Sam’s cry of defiance, as he goes down beneath the dry, groping hands. Claw-like fingers, covered with patchy mottled flesh slide over her scalp and finding no purchase in her short hair, latch onto the collar of her shirt, tugging her back and away from the bucking horse. Rage and defiance erupt in her mind as the dead bodies swarm over her, grasping for her wrists and throat. Images of the marshes and the taste of undead flesh being forced into her mouth drive Lillian into a thrashing frenzy. Somehow, she manages to stop the dead limbs finding purchase and draws the heavy dagger she had taken from the Pilgrim. She lays about her, using the heavy pommel and the butt of her gun. Again and again she lashes out, breaking brittle limbs until pure exhaustion starts to replace the rage that sustains her. The dead have no such problem and for each shattered bone there is only more dead weight to throw against their flailing victims, patiently and inexorably dragging them down to the earth.

  Beneath the writhing mound of his attackers, S
am gathers himself for one last effort. He has heard the eerie notes of the clown’s tune ever since the attack began, his concern for Lillian had been his undoing, he should have always been focused on the clown. With a grunt of effort, he gathers his legs beneath him, biting off a foul tasting finger as it tries to enter his mouth. With a burst of strength, every bit as supernatural as the forces animating his attackers, Blake bursts from his captors’ grips and powers his way towards the bone clown, his blade cutting a path through the corpses lurching towards him. His keen eyes pick out the mounds of carrion beneath which his two companions are still striving but he can do nothing for them, the only hope for them all is an end to the half audible tune spilling from the bone clown’s pipe.

  Blake is almost within striking distance of the clown, when a corpse rears up in front of him. There is little or no decay on this body and some of the speed it had once known in life is still left in those thicker limbs. Normally this would never have been enough to stop him but with the tide of undead behind him, even the slightest hesitation is too much. Samuel Blake falls down within five feet of the clown, his sword making a desperate lunge for the pipe but missing by inches. Watching from the ground, Lillian gives her own cry of frustration as the Pilgrim is buried under the wave of dead bodies and writhing severed limbs. The Pilgrim will not rise again, she knows that, every body the clown can spare is already piling down on him, bearing the white haired soldier down. Suddenly a cold calm replaces the anger and panic. The heavy silver butt of her pistol is fouled with rotting gore from being used as a club but it occurs to her that, unlike Aden, she has never fired her gun. With grim determination, she turns the gun on the nearest corpse, blasting it backwards and splintering bones with its heavy round. Before the undead can rally to stop her, Lillian turns her attention to the target that Blake so recently missed. Sure enough the clown and his master are too certain of victory to be worried by another ineffective shot, the clown doesn’t even flinch until its pipe explodes under the impact of Lillian’s bullet. As soon as the dead troubadour’s music ceases, the bodies of Maulten go limp again, allowing their victims to struggle to their feet. Only Lillian has a clear view of the clown, with its shattered grin, scurrying over the low wall and into the darkness of the graveyard.