by Mike Wild
"It is better all round, do you not think?" Freel said.
Kali did think. Once again the enforcer had demonstrated an approach to the job that was different from Konstantin Munch's and shown himself to be something of a manipulator in the process. It made a refreshing change from a punch in the face, but she realised she'd have to keep an eye on this Jakub Freel.
"Maybe it is," she agreed.
Kali again moved to Horse, and this time actually reached him. She debated manually unshackling the various chains that had been wrapped about his body and legs but, having had more than enough of this town, snapped her fingers instead. Horse bucked, the chains exploded and links flew like rain.
"Good boygirl," Kali said.
She began to check her saddlebags ready for the journey. As she did she noticed DeZantez emerge from rooms behind the church with a single, if fairly hefty, saddlebag of her own. She slung it over a dusty, chestnut horse, and the clank it made suggested it contained her armour.
Kali frowned. Gabriella was something of an enigma and she couldn't quite work out how serious she was taking her assigned role as her custodian. Whether, indeed, she was aware that Freel himself had not been serious about it. Certainly, she had to keep up appearances for now, but the question was, were they more than appearances? Would she, if it came to it, return her to McCain if she failed to help Freel? Would she, even, cut her down if she tried to flee? Kali decided she might have to have a word with Freel once they'd left town, request that he make his little deception clear to DeZantez, because she appeared to be a soldier who followed orders to the letter.
Or... maybe not.
Kali watched as DeZantez returned to the church and emerged with its collection coffers. The gold inside was destined, like them, for Scholten, and it was a cardinal sin to remove it, but DeZantez had no hesitation in distributing it instead to the people of the town. She clearly thought it better used for the repairs Solnos would need.
Kali was about to move forward, tell her that was a kind gesture, but hesitated as DeZantez moved to the edge of the ruined graveyard and stood, staring in. Kali didn't know why, but she sensed that had the graveyard still been intact the Enlightened One might have been a little more reluctant to leave. With its destruction, she had found an excuse for a decision that she had struggled with for a while; that it was time to leave Solnos, and whatever memories it held, behind.
After a while DeZantez turned and mounted her horse. Kali and Freel mounted up too. The three of them rode to the edge of town and then up onto the ridge where, for Kali, this whole affair had begun. They stared at the rotating machines. A rumble of thunder in the sky behind made them seem all the more ominous.
"I was going to find out what these bastards are," Kali said to Freel. "Before you came."
"Actually, Miss Hooper, you were going to die, screaming horribly."
"You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean. And believe me when I say you are still going to get the chance."
Kali snapped him a look, but before she could question him further, Freel spurred his horse on, and she and DeZantez had to gallop their mounts to catch up.
The enforcer kept them to a strenuous pace for most of the journey to Scholten, slowing to rest the horses - the bamfcat needing none - only infrequently. Kali could, of course, have had Horse make a few 'shortcuts' but there seemed little point in reaching Scholten before Freel. Still, she would have liked to see DeZantez's face if Horse jumped right in front of her eyes. What would she do about returning her to McCain then, eh?
It was during one cooling off period - she and Jakub Freel riding side by side in silence, DeZantez lagging a little way behind, lost in thought - that she decided to tackle what had so far been unsaid.
"I know who you are."
Freel simply nodded. "And I, you. In fact, I understand you were something of a thorn in my predecessor's side."
"More like an arrow in his head," Kali said. "But, strictly speaking, I wasn't the one responsible."
"No?"
"No," Kali repeated. "It was my lover. Slowhand. Killiam Slowhand."
The mention of the archer, and her relationship to him, was careful and deliberate. She let both facts hang in the air. She hadn't known how much Freel knew of her and Slowhand's involvement with Jenna's death in the Drakengrats, but got a notion now - a flicker in Freel's eyes that went beyond recognising his wife's brother's name. It was obvious he knew full well that Slowhand had given the order that had killed Jenna.
"Killiam Slowhand," Freel repeated. "A joke of a name. Not even his own."
"He has his reasons."
"That, then, is his role in your relationship? He is your assassin?"
"Assassin? No, of course not. He's a soldier and..." Kali hesitated and decided that she may as well take the bamfcat by the horns. "Freel, you have to understand, what happened... it was Jenna or us."
Freel pursed his lips, nodded slowly, but said nothing. Kali did not press him.
"Was it worth it?" He asked eventually.
"What? Was what worth it?"
"What you fought so hard to save? The reason so many died that day? The ship?"
The question threw Kali and she frowned. The fact was, other than generalities, she had no idea what role the Tharnak had yet to play. "Honestly? I don't know."
"Are you saying that it remains to be seen?"
"I guess I am, yes."
Freel turned to her for the first time. "Then, Miss Hooper, if you are trying to discover what my opinions of your lover are, my answer is they, too, remain to be seen."
With that, the conversation ended and Freel spurred his horse on. They didn't slow again until they had reached their destination.
Scholten Cathedral. The last time two times Kali had trodden its supposedly hallowed halls she had been with Slowhand, and on both occasions she and the archer were intruders, either running for their lives or sneaking about in the dark. In either case they had been able to pay little attention to the details of their surroundings, other than to the whereabouts of Faith patrols. She wished she could say it made a nice change to be able to take a good look around but the opposite was true. Everything about the place - the grandiose architecture, the ceremony and particularly the smug faces of the cathedral's Enlightened Ones, tending to their flock in exchange for donations - made Kali sick to the stomach. She wondered why she hadn't, in fact, jumped away with Horse on the way here, as had crossed her mind.
The One Faith, The Only Faith, The Final Faith, she thought. Gods!
They were a blight selling the false dream of ascension to their followers, and she wished she could tell every one of those followers what she had witnessed done in the church's name, just what it was that went on behind the gold-thread tapestries and hand-carved wooden doors - show them the real face of the Final Faith.
She, of course, bore scars both old and new to remind her of exactly what that was. The old scars on her ankles, wrists and neck had been acquired deep beneath these very halls, where Konstantin Munch had submitted her to the comforts of his 'nail chair' and the tender ministrations of Querilous Fitch. Though the scars had faded, her disdain for the Faith would never go away. The new scars were the red blotches that she now bore on her shoulders and neck: evidence, if any were needed, of these bastards' propensity to burn first and not ask questions later, to immolate any who spoke out against their cause, as they had done in the thousands over the years.
It gave Kali no small pleasure, then, as, with the sound of the Eternal Choir fading in their ears, Freel led her and DeZantez down into the sublevels', where it seemed the Faith had undergone some suffering themselves. The transition from the ornate cathedral to its gritty underbelly was always dramatic, but the signs of recent battle in the distribution and rail centre made it more so. Bodies had clearly been removed from within it, but cleaved or broken pieces of armour and torn surplice cloth were scattered here and there, some pieces of which still contained the odd chunk of sev
ered flesh. And there was blood. A great deal of blood that had to have come from a great many people.
Something had hit the Faith and hit them hard.
The question was what?
"Come with me," Freel said, wasting no time.
He led the two women to some kind of bunker that, judging by the crates of belongings waiting outside the door to be removed, had recently changed hands. Kali recognised some of the belongings, particularly a small trolley containing a number of needlereeds and vials of viscous liquids and a duplicate of her own gutting knife. This must have been Konstantin Munch's hidey-hole when he wasn't torturing poor unfortunates in the holding chambers below. But as they passed through the door, no further evidence of the dwarf-blooded psychopath could be seen. Freel had put his own stamp on the office.
Kali's eyebrows rose. The bunker could have been an Old Race site, so much of their technology had been installed. Except that where most of the devices she encountered in such sites had been decayed and broken down, rotten after countless years of neglect, this stuff looked as if it had come straight out of the box. Amberglow light-panels illuminated an array of exotic machines of unknown purpose, security cages were sealed with runic arches and, most disturbingly, a raised platform in the centre offered views from a dozen Eyes of the Lord spheres, projecting goings-on in different parts of the Faith's empire. These images were being monitored by a handful of grey-robed men.
Gabriella DeZantez seemed discomforted in the presence of so much technology, as if it had no place in her vision of the church. Freel immediately dropped a few notches in Kali's estimation, too.
"Seems like there's a difference between my manipulating forbidden artefacts and your doing the same," Kali observed, nodding at the spheres.
"Oh, those things," Freel responded, "those weren't my idea." He signed a chit handed to him by one of his men. "The rest, though... well, the Faith has to move with the times. Even if, ironically, those times are the ancient past."
"Still meddling with things you don't understand," Kali said.
Freel paid her little attention, his face darkening as another man entered and read out the latest confirmed casualties - supply workers Bogle, Krang, Rutter and Flank, and an Eminence named Kesar.
The latter name seemed to shake Gabriella DeZantez.
"Rodrigo Kesar is dead?" She said.
The guard looked regretful. "The Eminence was supervising a... volatile incense shipment when the assault began, Sister. Was the Eminence a friend of yours?"
"No," Gabriella DeZantez said quietly to herself, and shook her head.
Kali looked at her, puzzled. The man had obviously been important in some way, but she had already said not as a friend. It seemed almost as if she had had some door slammed in her face. Maybe she'd ask her about it when she had the chance. For now, though, there were more important questions to be addressed.
"You want to tell me what the hells has been going on here?"
Freel guided her and DeZantez to the viewing area and, as he did, three other men joined them from across the room. "General McIntee of the Order of the Swords of Dawn, Cardinal Kratos," he said by way of introduction. "And this is the developer of the Eyes of the -"
"I know who this bastard is," Kali interrupted. "And I should have known. Hello, Fitch."
The psychic manipulator bowed slightly, his hands steepled. They were bandaged, Kali noticed. "Kali Hooper. What a pleasant surprise."
"What the hells are you doing here?" Kali demanded.
"Helping, Kali, just like you. All hands on deck, and all that."
"What - you run out of heads today?"
Fitch smiled and suddenly noticed the burns on Kali's neck. He tutted sympathetically.
Kali snarled.
"I suggest," Freel said hastily, "that we get down to business."
"No argument here," Kali agreed. "You said Makennon needed my help? That you feared she'd gone to the hells?"
Freel nodded. "The Anointed Lord has been taken."
"Taken? By which I presume you don't mean she's currently prancing through the clouds annoying the rest of the poor souls with Kerberos?"
"He means abducted," General McIntee said. "Here from the very heart of the Faith."
Kali pursed her lips, nodded. "Neat trick. So who's got her?"
Freel nodded to Fitch who promptly shut down all of the images being projected from the Eyes of the Lord. He then picked up an inactive Eye of the Lord from a nearby table and readied it for viewing.
With DeZantez, Kali found herself watching the horde's assault on the tunnels. She saw an overview of the grey figures pouring from the tunnel, zooming images of agonised or dying Final Faith soldiers and the flashes of the intruders' makeshift but lethal weapons. She had to disguise her shock as she saw Slowhand struggling in the grip of Faith guards. She had already met with indisputable proof that his mission to kill Fitch had failed, and now she knew why. Just like herself, events had overtaken him. Not for the first time, she reflected that she and the archer had a knack for being in the right place at the wrong time. It was almost as if, as Poul Sonpear had pointed out some months before, their presence in these places was somehow predestined. Now was not the time to worry about that, however, or Slowhand's current fate. If she were to make sense of what was happening before her, she had to give it her full attention.
Katherine Makennon was visible in the fray now, the armoured form of the Anointed Lord striding into the sublevel at the head of her men. Again, Kali caught a glimpse of Slowhand, trying to stop Makennon wading in. Wade in, of course, was what she did, and Kali had to give the woman her due - she could certainly bollock the bad guys. What happened next, however, was so unexpected and shocking that she wasn't at all surprised to see Slowhand and his captors reel from it.
Something hurtled out of the dark, darker than the tunnel from which it came. A thing of indeterminate shape, a storm cloud streak that moved at breakneck speed, whose outlines writhed before the eye. A shifting, octopus-like morass and an insane blur at the same time, as seemingly insubstantial as shadow as it shot straight at Makennon and whipped back towards the tunnel, wrapping about her as it did, absorbing her in its mass and carrying her away. In that instant - and only that instant - it was almost identifiable, as a black carriage drawn by wild-eyed, snorting horses from the pits. A moment later the shape and Katherine Makennon with it were gone.
"Farking hell," Kali said, as the image from the sphere flickered and died.
Gabriella DeZantez was a little more controlled. "What in the name of the Lord was that?"
"Interesting, isn't it?" Freel said. "All I can say is that it - and the preceding events - were repeated at twelve other locations across the peninsula. And in each case the leader of that community was taken by that... thing."
"By previous events, I presume you mean the attack from the soul-stripped?" Kali said.
Fitch looked surprised. "You know of the First Enemy?"
The First Enemy, Kali thought. Only the more senior of the Final Faith called him that, those who remembered. DeZantez seemed not to be one of them, and so for her sake -
"Why don't you remind me, Fitch?"
Fitch shrugged. "The result of a conceit of the first Anointed Lord, Jeremiah Nectus Dunn. He mistakenly believed the teachings of the Faith could be taken to the farthest reaches of our empi... of the land."
"The Sardenne Forest you mean."
Fitch nodded. "But Dunn was wrong. The people who live in that forsaken hinterland have greater things to fear than the Lord of All, as our people discovered to their cost."
"My, my, Querilous Fitch, that's almost blasphemous," Kali chided.
Fitch could have been talking about any of the multifarious creatures that called the Sardenne home, and it would have served Dunn's missionaries right if they had encountered them and not come home as a result. But he wasn't talking about them, she knew. It wasn't the bogarts and beasties of the great forest coming out of there that they had to w
orry about - the assault on Scholten Cathedral was far too coordinated for them. This was without doubt the work of the one ruling intelligence that called the Sardenne home. In an area called Bellagon's Rip.
Most people called him the Pale Lord.
"He was the first serious resistance our Church encountered," Fitch continued. "A sorcerer of power unprecedented, then and now. He found the presence of our people in the forest - in his forest - distasteful, and made that distaste abundantly clear. Those who 'survived' the encounter remain with him, I imagine, to this day. In the end the Faith and he made a truce. The Sardenne would be left alone and, unless we attempted to return, so would we."
Kali nodded. It was pleasing to see that some things made Fitch sweat as profusely as his victims. But with good reason. In Pontaine, at least, the Pale Lord had become something of a bogeyman. A necromancer by the name of Bastian Redigor, he had been banished from civilisation long ago and had retreated into exile in the depths of the Sardenne Forest, whereafter occasional sightings of his almost albino features and tall, thin, cloaked figure - who never seemed to age - had earned him the nickname of 'the Pale Lord.' It was what the Pale Lord did during these sightings, however, that had earned him his fearful reputation over the years. People near to the forest began to disappear, first in ones and twos and then in ever increasing numbers. If these people were ever seen again it was as a fleeting form glimpsed among the trees, empty and grey and engaged in mysterious business. These people had become slaves of the Pale Lord - he had taken their souls for purposes unknown - and they became known as the 'soul-stripped.' As the years had passed, more and more had been taken - the soul-stripped themselves taking people on their Lord's behalf - so much so that unruly children were sent to bed with a promise that, if they did not behave, the Lord or his growing army of minions would come to 'kiss them' and take them away into the night.
Oh yes, Kali knew that, because she'd been one of those children who'd lain awake night after night, peeking out fearfully from under the sheets. Thankfully, rather than turn her into a gibbering wreck, it had eventually instilled in her a curiosity for the unexplained that had defined the rest of her life.
