The Light of Heaven

by David A. McIntee

  They persued their chosen guide to a tunnel entrance and then walked on past it, as if they weren't interested in it.

  "Aren't we going up?"

  "Not like this," Gabriella said. She darted into a tent belonging, if the washing hung outside of it was anything to go by, to a very showy woman. She dragged Crowe into a corner and applied the makeup she had stolen to his bicep. It was an excellent imitation of a Brotherhood tattoo. She also blackened her own hair, and made a smudge on her chin that, from a distance, could be taken for a scar like the one Kannis had.

  "You're missing your calling Dez," he whispered. "They could really use someone with your talent in the theatre."

  "One more word and I'll make yours a nice big target. Or a Faith symbol."

  "The day I wear a Faith symbol is the day I'll die. Of shame," he added pointedly.

  The interior of the Glass Mountain was surprisingly bright. Gabriella had expected to have to sneak through dark, dank, tunnels, using the touch of her hands and feet on the rock to guide her round corners or up stairs.

  The bright and airy walkways, glowing with pearlescent warmth, were the last thing she expected. Crowe seemed equally surprised.

  "Wasn't the Isle like this?" Gabriella asked.

  "I've no idea. We never went inside it."

  There were plenty of people around, mostly men but nobody questioned their right to be there. Many rooms in the complex appeared marbled and seemed to be used mostly as meeting points, with no furnishings. Other rooms held dining equipment, or shelves of objets d'art, or beds. It was truly a palace and Gabriella wished she could take the time to explore more of it.

  After a couple of hours they had found no sign of Kell, but Gabriella had identified the limits of what she suspected to be a private set of apartments.

  "How are your lock-picking skills?" she asked.

  "Bloody fantastic if I do say so myself."

  "Good." She glanced around to be sure no-one was passing this junction and tapped a narrow doorway. "Open this."

  It took a matter of seconds and then they were through into a well-appointed hallway. Two doors opened on to a store room and a small bedroom. A third opened into an office. Crowe was at the desk immediately, opening the drawers.

  He brought out two leather-bound tomes and looked at them as though astonished.

  "Something wrong?" Gabriella said.

  "I've seen these before. They're Margrave's day books from the Belle. I imagine the logs of the Vigilant must be around here somewhere too. It obviously survived my attempt to destroy her."

  Gabriella picked up first one logbook, then the other. There was a crossed-circle stamp on each one. "These are from a Faith Archive..."

  A loose page fell out from near the middle and she picked it up. It turned out not to be a page from the book, but a note from a Confessor. 'Taken from customs agent, deliver to Scholten, most urgent.' The date was two years old.

  "They stole this. The Brotherhood, I mean. Kell's people"

  "From the Belle?"

  "From the Faith. That's how Kell found out about this place, two years ago. He must have intercepted the messenger." Putting the log books down, she stepped out of the room and moved along to the next door. She pushed it slightly ajar and peered in. It was a bedroom, with a man snoring on the large four-poster inside.

  She slipped inside and padded across, trying to get a good look at the man's face without waking him. He had a Brotherhood tattoo on his back and braided red-blonde hair, but he had his face buried in the pillow.

  Gabriella took breath and whispered: "Kell?"

  He made a snuffling sound and rolled over, blinking bleary eyes.

  "Yes, what?" He focussed on Gabriella and licked his lips. "Oh, right. You're from the Faith aren't you?"

  "Very much so. I missed you after our little meeting in Andon."

  "A rare compliment, thank you."

  "I also wondered about this place. This palace, I mean. It's so beautiful. I've never seen its like."

  "Do you think man is the only intelligent race to have lived on Twilight?"

  "Of course not, but..."

  "But?"

  "But the other races, the older races, they're all gone."

  "True, but this mountain has been here for a very long time and over those millennia, there came others. The Rabash, for example, whom we call goblins. There are those who remember this place. It's power and its fate."

  Gabriella didn't like the sound of that. "Its fate?"

  "My dear girl, don't tell me you thought these drifters and dispossessed wanderers, fugitives from the Final Faith's repression, built the terraces or excavated the passages that join these mountains?"

  "No. I suppose they were built by the Dwarves."

  "Dwarves... Heh. If you say so. Such a place is not unique of course."

  "The Isle of the Star?" Gabriella suggested.

  "Well done! Like the Isle of the Star, this is a bridge to Kerberos, Sister DeZantez. This is the gateway from which we will journey to Kerberos." Kell said.

  Abruptly, three hidden doors burst open, admitting armed men into the room. They all wore simple black jerkins and leather armour and the linked-circle tattoos on most of them were clearly visible. Kell swept the bed sheets away from himself and over Gabriella's head, blinding her and confining her.

  Boots and fists thudded into her back and limbs and head, and hands stripped away her weapons. Then the sheet was removed again. Kell hopped out bed and revealed that he was wearing trews and boots.

  "Did you really think I could be tracked so easily, without knowing who was following? Did you really think I don't have scryers watching my own home and wards in the corridors? I was worried I wouldn't get back to this room in time for you to find me in it."

  There were six men around her, but they carried cudgels and maces in their hands rather than blades. "While you've got me at a disadvantage, I don't suppose you're in the mood to tell me a few things?"

  "No." He nodded to the Brotherhood guards. "Find a nice high terrace and throw her off."

  Several pairs of hands reached for her and that was their mistake. Gabriella grabbed one man's wrist and pivoted, throwing him into Kell even as she snatched the mace from his hand. She used the opposing force from the move to back-kick a second guard in the gut and crack a third man's cheek open with a mace.

  She spun on the balls of her feet, kicking high and slashing back-handedly with the mace. In a few heartbeats, all six men were down and she dove for her own pair of swords.

  When she rose, ready to go after Kell, he had a sword-point to her throat. "I'm sorry to disappoint you." He lifted the sword that had been in his hand all along and motioned her towards the door through which she had entered. He stepped beside her, keeping the point at her throat. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut short our visit."

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but no sound came as Travis Crowe, standing in the doorway, said: "Hello Kell" and stepped through. He put his sword to Kell's throat and hesitated, looking between Kell and Gabriella. Gabriella felt a wave of triumph wash over her and not just relief.

  "It seems I have you at a disadvantage." She pushed the point of Kell's sword away and put her own blade to his throat. "Now, about -"

  Stars exploded in her vision and her sword flew across the room. Crowe stepped smartly across, shaking the hand with which he had hit her and planted his foot on her sword. He levelled the tip of his blade towards her. Behind him, Kell spoke.

  "I'm afraid, Sister DeZantez, that things are a little more complex than you thought. Your friend Crowe here is not only your friend. He's, shall we say, my friend Crowe."

  "Sorry, God-girl," Crowe said.

  "Kill her," Kell told him.

  Crowe drew back his sword-arm ready for the fatal thrust and Gabriella steeled herself. She refused to close her eyes. If she was to go to the clouds to join Erak, she would go proudly. Crowe hesitated.

  "One thing about Dez. She likes to thi
nk she's smart. Likes to think she knows it all and had it figured out. I like to think she needs to know she's not as smart, and I wouldn't mind seeing her face when she hears how different the truth is from what she thinks it is. When she knows what you're doing here."

  Kell gave him a weary sidelong glance. "Well... I've been keeping track of your progress from Solnos - and, may I say, congratulations on dealing with the goblins. They've been the bane of my flock, as well as yours, for some time."

  "If they were the bane on your flock, they were a bane you set on them when you -"

  "Kicked them out of here, yes."

  "That can't have been easy."

  "A simple matter, actually," Kell said pleasantly. "Troops drawn from Lord Aristide's regiment at Fayence, some very good magicians and the promise of better pickings further north. The goblins are not as stupid as they sometimes seem, but they have sensitive spots, as do humans."

  "Why here? Why not Freiport?"

  "Freiport already has a means of governance. And, sadly, an ideal of freedom?"

  "And this place's name is a lie." It didn't surprise her.

  Kell helped himself to a goblet of brandy from the bedside cabinet. "What makes the Final Faith so strong?"

  "Our Faith in the Lord and his faith in us," Gabriella said automatically.

  He shook his head with a smile. "I prefer to think it's the centralised chain of command. You'll have to forgive me for my tendency to think in military terms, but I've been a soldier for a long time, and one thing I've always found most vital is to respect the chain of command." He sipped from his goblet and Gabriella longed to smash it into his face. "For many years, the Brotherhood has been organised in cells, hiding in the shadows. It lacks a central focus. It lacks a chain of command."

  Gabriella understood at once. "It lacks an Anointed Lord."

  "Or similar figure," Kell allowed. "Or at least it did, until now. Scarra is gone, Feyn is gone, who's left to lead the Brotherhood in Western Pontaine?" He grinned. "Oh, it's me."

  "Those people out there won't take kindly to that idea." She hoped she sounded more certain of that idea than she felt.

  "No? I think otherwise, Sister DeZantez. I'm their saviour. I brought them to a better life with no authoritarian interference. Oh, I make suggestions and give advice, and it's always gratefully received. In return they get... treats."

  "Like pets performing tricks."

  "A training regimen is a training regimen. And they love it because they feel loved by me. So they come and the men see training going on and they're invited to try it. And they do. And they do well. When the Brotherhood rises, supported by a central leader, they will have their own Knights, their own soldiers. It'll take years, to be sure, but this place is cut off from the world." He came over and leaned in close, so she could smell the brandy he just drank. "I have as many years as I like."

  "It was lucky, finding this place."

  "A Faith messenger between Turnitia and Scholten happened to get drunk in the wrong tavern and let slip that he was carrying some interesting documents..."

  "The ships' logbooks?" Crowe said. Kell frowned for a moment, then nodded. "And copies of the records of Wyngarde and his Glass Mountain, all on their way to Scholten."

  "You also hired an assassin." Gabriella said.

  "Which one?" Kell said.

  "To kill Eminence Rhodon."

  "Oh, that one." He spread his hands. "What can I say...?"

  "Something truthful would be nice," she suggested.

  "Quite so, Sister DeZantez. You are correct. I did engage a man called Lukas Bertam to assassinate an Eminence at the wedding of vom Kalten's boy. But you already know that."

  "I know about him and I know he died beforehand, and the shot was made by Joachim Foll."

  "Foll?" Kell nodded to himself. "You don't happen to know who hired him?"

  Gabriella didn't know, but she had an idea. It was one she didn't want to believe, but she didn't have to believe it. She just had to distract Kell with it. "Would you believe me if I said Rodrigo Kesar?"

  Kell blanched. "You're - No?" He blinked several times. "But why...?" He turned to Crowe. "Anyway, enough chit chat. Be at one with the Lord of All, with my blessing."

  Nothing happened. Kell frowned. "Crowe? You are the man Feyn hired for me, remember? Kill her."

  Travis Crowe could feel the sword in his hand and imagined it penetrating flesh as it had so many times, but he found himself unable to move towards Gabriella. A sibilant voice hissed "Protect" in his ear, except that there was no-one there to have said it.

  That voice wasn't the loudest one he could hear, though. Kell's own voice held that honour, but it was Kell's voice from a short while ago. Kell's voice proclaiming his ambition to be a religious leader. Kell's voice admitting to tricking the people here into being his soldiers and slaves.

  Or was it his father's voice?

  "Protect."

  Crowe drew back his sword again and swung it right at Kell's face. Kell was inhumanly quick, ducking under the swing and shoulder-charging Crowe. Crowe tumbled backwards across the bed and rolled off the other side, as Kell lashed out at Gabriella with his own sword. She scooped up the nearest of her fallen swords in time to block and parry, before leaping up onto a table to kick him in the head. Crowe bounded over the fallen guards and added his blade to the melee once more, its tip darting out at Kell.

  Kell snatched up a fallen mace and used that to block Crowe's blade, while fencing with Gabriella. He managed to drive her backwards, towards one of the doors through which the guards had entered earlier. She was able to keep straight in her mind where the fallen guards were, so as not to trip over them, but she didn't expect one of them, with almost his last gasp of life, to grab her foot and pull her off balance.

  She fell, dropping the sword so she could use that hand to break her fall. Kell smashed Crowe in the gut with the mace, doubling him over, then leapt across to bring his sword down at Gabriella's head before she could rise.

  She didn't try to rise, but instead rolled right onto her back and thrust one leg up at his groin, the whole sole of her boot powering into it. Kell's eyes bulged, and he staggered back, just in time for Crowe to ram a dagger up under his jaw and into his brain.

  Kell toppled, the sword clattering loudly.

  "Let's get out of here," Gabriella said.

  There was the sound of booted feet and clanking of weapons and armour from below. "The other door."

  They ran across the room and out through the door on the other side, onto a staircase.

  Gabriella peered out onto the landing. No-one was there. Beckoning Crowe onwards, she moved and began to edge down the sweeping crystalline staircase. She could hear Crowe's weapons rattling and hoped the enemy, wherever they may be, weren't as sharp-eared.

  There they were at the foot of the stairs: four men in red robes, fairly alert and obviously soldiers, but clearly not expecting trouble from inside the palace. They seemed to be chatting amongst themselves; one leaning on a polearm, the others with sheathed swords.

  Gabriella had frequently defeated greater numbers of men who knew she was coming, sparring in the old arena, so four should be no problem. Her hands seemed to make the decision for her, drawing the swords before she even realised that that was what she had decided to do. As if to forestall any second thoughts she might have, the sound alerted the robed soldiers. They turned, agog at the sight of two warriors on the loose in Kell's home.

  With a shout of alarm, one robed man started up the stairs towards Gabriella and Crowe. He tried to thrust at them with a pikestaff. Deadly on the battlefield against horses, but a stupid weapon to carry indoors. With no room to manoeuvre it, the owner was all but defenceless as Gabriella's swords flashed; one guided the polearm harmlessly aside, while the other cut down into the soldiers collarbone.

  Then Gabriella was past that one, and engaging the Brotherhood soldiers further down the stairs. She blocked with one sword and thrust with the other; she cross-blo
cked with both, then swept a soldier off his feet and stabbed the man behind him.

  She didn't stop.

  Crowe watched, dumbstruck, as Gabriella swept down the stairs. There was blood and screaming and a grace to Gabriella's movements that seemed out of place in such a grisly scene.

  Then he plunged down the stairs after her, swinging at the fourth man with a short sword before he could stab Gabriella in the back. Crowe's blade split the man's skull, and he fell, silenced and twitching. Now Crowe was in the fight, but the fight seemed all but over. Gabriella was continuing downstairs and Crowe's legs carried him along behind.

  Footfalls and the jingle of mail approaching alerted Crowe to the arrival of a new enemy behind him. He spun left, gripping the end of his sword with both hands. The quillon punched into the side of the man's skull and he dropped.

  Then a man with a crossbow stepped through the door at the bottom of the stairs, several more soldiers crowding in behind him.

  Moving faster than a crossbow bolt as it flew was impossible, but Gabriella knew she didn't have to try to move faster than the bolt. It was the bowman's hand to eye co-ordination she had to outmatch. The man was wearing no glove, and so Gabriella could see the tendons of his hand flicker as he began to press the trigger lever.

  Gabriella was moving before the bolt was launched. Releasing her swords, she dove head-first downstairs. Her quilted gambeson would protect her from too much damage when she hit the marble floor.

  The iron-tipped bolt passed over her back, ricocheting from a step above her.

  Gabriella half-slid, half rolled across the floor and came up with palms outstretched to catch her swords. One of them was immediately thrust into the bowman's gut. The bowman looked at her, astonishment keeping the pain at bay for a moment. Gabriella could feel the warmth of the man's blood oozing onto her hand, and wished she could just plunge it into water and cleanse it. She settled for kicking him first in the groin and then in the face as she rose to her feet. He flew backwards, screaming as he slid off the sword-blade.