The Light of Heaven

by David A. McIntee

  "Did you... Were you -"

  "Involved in that?" he finished for her. "Revenge would have been... interesting. But no, a mercenary company from somewhere in Pontaine managed that one all by themselves. I didn't even get that satisfaction." He looked down for a moment, then visibly forced himself to cheer up. "All right, my little God-girl. What say we pitch a tent and settle in to Freedom?

  CHAPTER 18

  Crowe stretched and looked up as the last tent peg was finally secured. They had set up their canvas against a rock wall, so there was only one approach to their position. The Glass Mountain loomed above them, proud and impossible to ignore or dismiss as a fevered memory. Absently, Crowe rubbed at the scarring on his face.

  "Newcomers!" a woman called. Crowe started and looked round. The woman was wearing casual trews and robes in rich greens and blues.

  "Welcome to Freedom."

  "I... Thank you."

  The woman laughed. "Listen to you! So stiff! I'm sorry, I don't mean to mock. We've all gone through it."

  "Through what?"

  "The doubting stage. You come here, you think 'hey, I can do what I like, without worrying about the Confessors or anyone.' Then you think 'No, it can't be true,' and you daren't do anything in case a troop of the Swords leap out of hiding and drag you away."

  "Yes... Something like that."

  "It's natural. It'll pass, believe me.

  "So, this is Freedom?"

  "Indeed, there's no Empire here, no Kingdom, no Duchies."

  "No Faith?" Crowe looked sideways at Gabriella.

  The woman shrugged. "Everyone here believes in the same God. We celebrate the Tenthday. But there are no impositions here; no false superiority."

  "No Enlightened Ones then," Crowe said cheerfully. "My kind of place. What about Brotherhood priests?"

  "One or two, but they know better than to insist that their way is best. There's no place for that in Freedom. Kell has shown us a better life."

  "It sounds as nice as we were led to believe. A damn shame, though. That it needs hired mercenaries to guard it."

  "Hired? We have hired no mercenaries."

  "The soldiers on the gates -"

  She laughed and it was quite a musical sound. Crowe wondered what other sounds she might make under interesting circumstances, and decided he would like to find out. "Are volunteers. All have come to Freedom to live out their lives in peace, without interference. Some who had been warriors outside have volunteered to donate their time and experience to protect the city in case of need." The woman looked across at someone who had beckoned to her. "I have to go, but welcome again."

  "Thanks." Crowe could feel his smile freeze as she left. He turned to Gabriella after the woman was out of sight. "Let me get this straight; the city's whole force is made up of a few retired ex-mercenaries who couldn't get employed anywhere else, or who've had their arses handed to them on a plate often enough that they've taken the hint and quit?"

  "Pretty much. It's madness."

  "It's not much bloody use, is it? A class from your seminary could probably take this place without too much trouble. This place is a rat-trap and I can't believe they drove the goblins out."

  "Neither can I, to be honest," she admitted.

  "What did you expect to find here?"

  "For one thing, a lot of whores and whoremongers, gamblers and drunkards."

  "We don't seem to be short of those," Crowe said admiringly, watching a man stagger past on a lower terrace with a painted tart on each arm. This sort of thing seemed normal here. The girls wore little, the air smelled of Dreamweed and booze, and there seemed to be very little authority.

  "And Goran Kell."

  She pointed up to the staircases that were cut into the crystalline face of the peak itself. "If these terraces and tunnels really are Dwarven there may be a wider complex inside the mountain."

  "Even if they're not, it's still a reasonable assumption. There wouldn't be openings otherwise." His brows knotted. "But what about the other terraces on the mountains facing this one? Isn't it as likely he'd hole up there?"

  "Somehow I doubt it. But tomorrow we'll investigate them all just the same."

  "Yeah, let's do that," he urged. "That's a much better idea."

  Gabriella could see that something was troubling Crowe; there was a frantic look in his eyes that was unmistakable. It was obviously something to do with what had happened on the Isle of the Star.

  "Travis," she said, "I know we're in danger here, not just from the Brotherhood or Kell, but from... from something beyond them, something that you saw at the Isle of the Star. Tell me what you saw there. Please."

  "It was two, nearly three years ago," Crowe said at last. "I needed to get out of Freiport, as quickly as possible."

  "Trouble?"

  He shook his head. "Just sick of the place. I get itchy feet after more than a couple of months in one place.

  "Tell me."

  And he did.

  Travis Crowe had needed to get out of Freiport and neither the peasant fields of Pontaine nor the Faith-ridden Vos Empire had sounded appealing. It wasn't that he was being hunted - not then, anyway - but he was sick of hearing the screams from the basements of every other tavern. You had to be careful not to get so paralytic that you couldn't stop yourself being dragged into some back-street temple and sent as a messenger to some minor god nobody ever heard of.

  He needed a breath of fresh air.

  He had first thought of looking in the Anclas for a mercenary company that was hiring, but quickly discarded the idea. These past couple of years, peace had been breaking out everywhere and the number of unemployed mercenaries turning up to look for work in the cities had been steadily increasing. Besides, he didn't feel like being a bodyguard to some merchant who thought selling a few baubles made him some kind of chosen one. The chances were too high that he would end up throttling his own employer within a week.

  Fortune was with him, as he received a visitor just as he was packing up a bedroll and preparing to leave the inn where he had been staying for a short while. The visitor was a balding man with close-cropped greying hair and a drooping moustache. He was wearing trews and leather jerkin, but Crowe took him for a nautical man as soon as he took a step. He had that rolling movement peculiar to someone so used to keeping himself upright on a floor that was always tilting this way and that.

  "Travis Crowe?" the man asked from the doorway of the common sleeping room.

  "Never heard of him," Crowe said cautiously. "What's he look like?"

  "Truth to tell I don't know; I've never met him, but I was told I could find him here. He came highly recommended."

  Crowe didn't stop packing, but was intrigued all the same. Still, anyone could use a line like that if they were coming to pick a fight. "I can't imagine anyone living in a place like this being highly recommended for anything."

  The man looked around at the smeared and stained wood, and the drunken man still snoring in the far corner. "There's something in that, right enough. But when Sandor Feyn tells me a man's a good soldier, that counts for a lot."

  Crowe straightened. "Sandor Feyn?"

  The man nodded. "I need a good soldier and he said to come here and ask for a Travis Crowe."

  "All right... You found him. Who are you?"

  "My name is Margrave," he said "Captain of the Belle."

  "What do you need a soldier for?"

  "The usual."

  "Keep the crew in line, guard the cargo, that kind of thing?"

  "Most probably." Margrave hesitated, but Crowe didn't press him. He knew the man would feel obliged to tell him what he wanted to know. At least, he would if he was genuinely keen to hire Crowe. If not, then Crowe would go somewhere else as planned and find a better job. "And fight off any pirates, or any ships that try to board us."

  "Fair enough."

  Margrave shuffled uncomfortably. "And any sea devils."

  "Sea devils?" Crowe tried not to sneer. "Now you're superstitious.
"

  "Careful, I'd say, rather than superstitious. Believe me, I've heard many stories that have made me think twice about the existence of such things. I hope this doesn't put you off -"

  "Don't worry, Captain; it'd take more than some bedtime story to put me off earning a living."

  The gangplank had bounced slightly under Travis Crowe's boots as he crossed from pier to deck. He'd been on enough ships before, plying the coastal routes round Freiport, Allantia and even as far around as Turnitia, but he had never liked them.

  This ship had two sturdy masts and rode higher in the water than anything Crowe had sailed on before. The Belle was carrying supplies and ballast, and more than enough men, but he didn't see any cargo to trade. He should have taken that as a warning sign and left immediately, but a trip out of Freiport was all that mattered to him. Every ship Crowe had ever been on before had carried cargo from one port to the next. He'd never been on a ship that had left a port unladen.

  He stowed his gear below and then went to find Margrave. The stocky captain was in his Day Room, talking to a baggy-eyed blonde man who was squeezed into a chair too small for him. Two hooded men were standing behind him. After a moment, Margrave noticed Crowe and shook his hand in both of his.

  "I'm glad you made it. We'll be sailing in a couple of hours." His eyes crinkled as he smiled and slid the ship's crew book across for Crowe to sign on. "You won't regret coming along, I promise."

  "Yeah, that's good," Crowe began. "I hate to be a pain, but, what are we carrying?"

  "Carrying?"

  "Cargo. I assume we have some. That's what the likes of me are protecting, usually."

  Margrave looked at the silent figure in the chair and his standing companions, and smiled weakly. "Not... exactly."

  "What Captain Margrave means to say," the man in the chair said, "is that my companions and I are the cargo, such as it is."

  "You must be worth a lot."

  "Not particularly, but later in our voyage, perhaps." He smiled. Crowe took an instant dislike to him. He was clearly a smartarse of the first order.

  "This voyage is not one of mere trade, but exploration." Margrave said. "Farran here is searching for a particular place. It is in that respect that he is the... cargo."

  Crowe looked at Farran. He seemed familiar somehow and Crowe had a vague recollection of seeing him in a tavern once or twice. "He need any special protection?" He asked.

  "Not at the moment, but it's always possible, especially once we find what he seeks."

  "Treasure, you mean?" Crowe tried not to laugh. "I wouldn't have thought such fine businessmen would have fallen for dockside tales."

  Farran stood. He was taller than Crowe and broader. "What we seek isn't a matter for you. Just keep us alive, soldier."

  "Your friend here paid me enough to get you that."

  Margrave looked between them. "I must say, I hadn't expected such hostility. Please, let us concentrate on the journey. It will be most dangerous and we will need all our wits about us."

  Crowe nodded and left the room.

  Crowe was no sailor, but he knew that no-one was paid to board a ship who didn't work a full day. The bos'un had set him to swab the afterdeck as the Belle was swept out to sea on the Down Tide. The complex layers and squat spires of Freiport began to shrink as the Belle moved out into the Allantian Channel.

  As the beginnings of an eclipse darkened the day, Crowe had taken his rum ration at the rail to watch the land fall away behind the ship and Farran appeared beside him. Farran's pale skin and blonde hair took on a strange look under the light of Kerberos.

  "You seem very concerned about things that shouldn't concern you. And people that shouldn't concern you."

  "I've seen enough Brotherhood priests in Freiport and other places to know one when I see one."

  "You don't strike me as a follower of the Final Faith, Crowe. Especially since Sandor Feyn speaks so highly of you."

  "Feyn's usually a good judge of character. If I was with the Faith, Feyn would never have given me a second thought."

  "I'm glad to hear that." Crowe didn't like that tone. It was the sort of tone that implied if Farran didn't like Feyn's judgement, he might try something stupid. He leaned on the rail and Crowe caught a glimpse of his linked-circle tattoo. The symbol of the Brotherhood was inked onto the base of Farran's neck. "Yet you're not one of us?"

  "I'm me, lad, not one of someone else."

  "Now, that comes close to heresy. Turning against the Lord Of All."

  "By the terms of the Faith, maybe. I've got nothing against the Lord, just against men and women who claim to speak for him."

  No-one who hadn't been to sea could imagine the storms that battered ships out there. Hundred mile-an-hour winds whipped the seas into a screaming frenzy and the waves towered over the ship. Crowe didn't think there was anyone aboard the Belle who hadn't spent the whole week throwing up. Even the most experienced hands were losing every meal they ate.

  That was bad enough, but then a few days later the ship passed by the Sarcre Islands and approached the Stormwall. This was an impassable barrier, according to every sailor on board. Margrave himself was of the same opinion, but the Brotherhood man, Farran, merely smiled infuriatingly whenever the subject came up. Now that they were actually here, however, he had no choice but to give his counsel on the matter.

  He did this by summoning his two silent companions. They had been sequestered in the hold and everyone aboard had heard the chanting and smelled the strange scents that emerged from there. Powerful magic was being worked in the hold.

  "My friends," Farran began, "you are about to make history. This ship will be the first ever to pass through the Stormwall." He ignored the disdainful laughter that was stifled all around. "You have each been given a set of words," he went on, and Crowe looked at the slate he had been given. The syllables on it were random as far as he could tell. "When my colleagues begin their great work, you must all recite the words, over and over until we are through. My colleagues are depending on your concentration to help power the spell."

  The crew had been excited in a way, to be a part of the workings of a real spell. As strange and acrid vapours began to rise from the hold and sweep around the ship, the crew began to chant the strange words.

  "Ha rey soon-pa," they began, repeating it over and over.

  As the air around the ship began to thicken, the sea began to behave strangely. It was coagulating and then shaking itself apart, until it was like sand bouncing on a drum skin.

  "Change words," Farran called, as the two hooded magicians floated across the deck to each end of the ship.

  "Toh da che," the crew began to intone, "Ta che doh."

  As they chanted, the magicians pulled at the threads of power and used grand gestures to guide them. Ahead of the ship, the sea began to fall away, as if it had been scooped out. Soon, a tunnel, large enough to let the ship flow through, curved down under the furious but now impotent Stormwall.

  The noise inside the tunnel of water was unbelievable, both because of the sound of moving water itself, the chanting and the screaming of the clouds and lightning of the Stormwall. Men screamed too, certain that the ship was sinking, or being crushed to matchwood by the Stormwall. The more men began to scream, the less they chanted and the ship began to rise as the tunnel began to implode.

  Finally, the ship was excreted from the tunnel before it collapsed utterly. The sea surged back into the space, now astern, where the tunnel had been. It slammed shut with an enormous booming crash.

  They were beyond the Stormwall.

  When the storms eventually subsided, and the Fat Sea settled as Kerberos continued its own voyage across the skies, life on board ship returned to something resembling normality; hard work and cramped conditions, but open skies and plenty of fresh air. Crowe was beginning to enjoy it and wondered whether a life at sea was something he could really settle down to, at least for a year or two.

  A few days later, he was helping the Belle'
s carpenter shape some replacement belaying pins when the call floated down from the crow's nest.

  "Land ho!"

  The men rushed to the rails and Crowe found himself beside Margrave, both men shading their eyes with their hands. Sure enough, something was shining on the horizon. Crowe didn't trust himself to speak. Beside him, Margrave was almost hyperventilating. "It's true," he kept repeating. "It's true. It's true..."

  "The Isle of the Star." Crowe managed to say.

  "An island made of diamond."

  Farran joined them at rail. "Incredible. You've obviously heard the legends, of course, but I assume you never expected to really see it."

  "You never said this was what you were looking for," Crowe pointed out.

  "How long do you think, until we reach it?" Farran said to the Captain.

  "Tomorrow morning with any luck."

  Feet were thumping on wood all around as Crowe sat up with a start. Men were grabbing belaying pins, knives and anything else that could be used as a weapon. Crowe leapt to his feet, snatching up his sword.

  "What's the panic?" he called.

  "Search me mate," someone shouted back. "An attack, maybe."

  "Oh well done, I'd never have thought of that," Crowe muttered, scrambling up on deck. Kerberos was floating overhead, almost the entire sky choked with its azure glow. Men were darting everywhere, while Margrave tolled the ship's bell. Margrave's nightshirt was open at the throat and he looked half asleep.

  "What's happening? I don't see any ships." Crowe said.

  Margrave looked sick. "If there were ships, we'd have fewer problems." He nodded towards the rail. "Look at the water."

  Crowe took a few steps and looked down.

  The water heaving against the hull was black, but what made the breath catch in Crowe's throat were the sickly green lights, like distant lanterns in fog, that were converging on the ship. "What in the pits? What are they?"

  "Sea devils, I suppose."

  "There's no such thing!"