The oratory was set in a deep alcove opening off the main sleeping chamber, its interior hidden from casual view behind a rich damask curtain. No light burned on the altar when Camber pushed back the curtain on its wooden rings, for the altar had been stripped and the Sacrament removed to the cathedral after Jaffray’s death. A thin layer of dust covered the floor, the priedieu, and the bare altar itself, but a faint hint of incense still clung to the curtain and kept watch. The Inhabitant of the tiny, open tabernacle had not abandoned His house—only left it for a time, and would return.
The feeling of the place sparked vivid memories for Camber, even though he did not come here often. Once, long before he had become Alister Cullen, he had come here to plead the aid of Anscom of Trevas, Jaffray’s predecessor, now these twelve years deceased. Anscom had hidden him within this very chamber while he arranged for another priest to cover his own Christmas Eve duties so he could come with Camber to solemnize the marriage of Cinhil and Megan, parents of the present king and his two brothers.
With a blink, Camber made the mental transit back along the passage of the years and sighed. Jebediah was standing on the Portal square set in the floor between the prie-dieu and the altar, the fine eyes dark and troubled in the rugged, handsome face.
“Are you all right?” he murmured.
“I’m fine,” Camber replied, clasping Jebediah’s arm and nodding assurance. “Just remembering another time. Shall we say that whoever gets back first will wait for the other?”
“Very well. You will be careful, though, won’t you? Both of you!”
“See that you follow your own advice, as well,” Camber said with a smile. “Godspeed, Jeb.”
“And you. God, I hope that Tavis isn’t playing us false.”
With a nod of agreement, Camber stepped back and watched Jebediah lay his hand on his sword hilt and close his eyes. When Camber blinked, Jebediah was gone. With a sigh, Camber turned to Joram.
“Well, Rhys and I made this trip once before, though from a different Portal. We’ll come out in the sacristy at Saint Neot’s.” He spied Jaffray’s crozier standing in an ornate base beside the altar and hefted it experimentally. “I wonder whether Jaffray would mind.”
“Why should he? It’s yours now,” Joram replied, picking up an embroidered miter and bringing it to Camber. “Besides, it will make a good weapon, just in case one’s needed. Here, bend down and let me put this on you. You’ll make a more identifiable silhouette when we come bursting in on Dom Emrys and his brethren unannounced.”
“What makes you think it won’t make me a more identifiable target for Rhun’s men?” Camber retorted, stepping onto the Portal square with his son, who extinguished the handfire which had lit their way eerily while they made their preparations.
Both of them let the long-familiar link spring up between them, Camber assuming control. Then they were standing in a different kind of darkness, slightly lit by the familiar glow of a red glass Presence Lamp.
The silence was reassuring as they glanced about, surrounding them all at once with the sense of security which the familiar sights and scents and sounds bespoke. No clash of fighting or attack assailed their ears; nor was the silence that of carnage already done, of slaughter already completed. Rather, it was the profound and reverent stillness of a church at prayer, the tranquil murmur of voices raised to God, accompanied by the warm psychic glow of scores of highly-trained Deryni united in adoration of the All-Holy.
With a little thrill of relief, Camber moved toward the open sacristy door, Joram watchful at his heels. He ducked a little so that his miter would not hit the doorjamb as he passed into the corridor guarded by the mosaicked Saint Gabriel on the wall, pausing just inside the entrance to the sanctuary. Save for the Presence Lamp hanging to the side of the tabernacle and the obligatory altar candles, the chancel was nearly dark. But as he turned toward the choir and nave, he could see the back of Dom Emrys standing at the foot of the sanctuary steps, a pure silver light streaming from behind him to illuminate the filled rows of choir stalls to either side and beyond him.
The Office in progress was Compline, which closed the canonical hours for the day, and in two orderly lines the Gabrilite brethren, priests, Healers, and a few older students were filing out of their stalls and up the center aisle to make a reverence before their abbot and then conjure handfire symbolically from the light in his hands. As Camber and Joram watched, each man took his light back to his place in the choir and knelt, the silver glows gradually taking on individual tints of color as each man merged his own meditations with the spark which the abbot had given. It was a uniquely Deryni devotion, but under the circumstances its beauty was a little lost on Camber as he took another impatient step into the sanctuary. Could it be that they were not aware of his arrival, these most highly trained and aware of all Deryni?
The physical movement did finally produce results. Camber saw one of the priests take note of his presence and then bend to murmur something in Dom Emrys’s ear. The old Deryni nodded, but he did not turn—merely kept passing handfire to his spiritual sons as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the Bishop of Grecotha, now Archbishop of Valoret, to appear suddenly in his chapel at Compline on Christmas Eve.
Camber waited, wondering whether he could have been wrong about the danger, if Tavis could have lied, or been mistaken. He could hear no untoward sounds outside the chapel, could detect no psychic sign of impending doom, though something vaguely menacing seemed to crawl at the very edge of his consciousness—possibly of his own creation, he acknowledged.
He waited until the last of the assembled Gabrilites had received the symbolic light from their superior, then sighed with relief as Emrys turned to bow deeply to Camber, his brethren doing the same. Curbing his impatience, Camber made a hurried genuflection toward the Presence on the altar, then strode quickly down the steps to Emrys’s side and let the old man kiss his ring.
“You are all in great danger,” he said, motioning them to move closer and congregate on the sanctuary steps before him. “Baron Rhun and his men are on their way to destroy Saint Neot’s and all who remain within its precincts. We believe that Haut Eirial and Mollingford are also threatened, and there may be more. You must leave immediately.”
Emrys nodded, his lined face betraying no sign of anxiety or tension. “I feared you might have such news, Your Grace. Indeed, we have seen soldiers in the vicinity for several weeks now, and wondered why the king’s men stayed in the field so late in the season. Now it is clear.”
“Then, Tavis was not lying,” Camber murmured. “Dom Emrys, have you made preparations to defend yourselves?”
“To defend? No. Regardless of our resistance, Baron Rhun could not allow a Deryni training center to survive, no matter what the cost to him, if he has finally taken it in his mind to destroy us.” He turned briefly to his brethren. “We will go now, my sons. You have your instructions. Let us file into the sacristy in an orderly fashion and be away. Those of you who are to gain us time know your assignments.”
As he finished speaking, the men began lining up by twos, teachers and students, each still cupping a sphere of handfire in his palm. Three of the priests moved briskly to the altar, where they drew aside the veil of samite from the tabernacle and began removing the altar vessels containing the precious consecrated Hosts.
A student with his robe kilted up between his legs came bursting through the doors at the west end of the church and ran breathlessly down the center aisle, followed by a handful of other students and lay servants.
“Father Abbot, we’re under attack! There must be fifty knights, and twice that many men-at-arms! They’ve breached the outer walls beyond the fields and they’re moving on the abbey itself! Brother Gillis and Lord Dov are slain!”
“God help them, we are too late!” Camber whispered, his knuckles whitening on the staff of his crozier.
Emrys, with a shake of his snowy head, moved into action, though his pale face had gone even paler again
st the white of his habit.
“Not too late for some of what must be done. Stephen,” he addressed the student, apparently regaining his customary composure, “have the students bar the gates as best they can, and then all of you come into the chapel. We will take as many through the Portal to safety as we can.”
As the young man turned to obey, Emrys came between Camber and Joram and laid his hands urgently on each one’s elbow, pushing them toward the sacristy doorway. Camber, aghast at what he had just heard, drew back and stared at Emrys.
“Do you not mean to resist?”
“What good would it accomplish, other than to show that Deryni do, indeed, use their powers to kill?” Emrys replied. “We are a teaching Order, a Healing Order, Your Grace. You know that. We are sworn to do no harm, even in our own defense.”
Dozens of younger students and lay brothers were pouring into the chapel now and barring the doors, strangely serene and calm for unarmed men and boys about to be set upon by steel. Emrys’s pressure on Camber’s arm became more insistent.
“Come, Your Grace. We are prepared to do what must be done, and you should not be seen among us by our attackers. Your office will protect you yet a little longer, and in that time there is much that you may be able to accomplish—but only if you are alive and free.”
“But, they will be cut down like lambs!” Camber protested.
“Aye, some of them will. But perhaps only martyrdom of a few of us will keep the impeccable reputation of the Gabrilites intact for history. None of our Order has ever harmed a human with his powers. We must make it clear that this is yet the case, even when we ourselves are threatened unjustly. Now, please go! Your presence delays those who would make good their escape, for they will not interfere with your use of the Portal.”
More of the youngest students surged past Camber in an orderly wave, forming a triple line with the priests, Healers, and other students, but several dozen students and lay brethren and a handful of priests remained at the doors, barricading them against the stout blows which were now battering at the carved oak from the other side. Beyond the rose of the western facade, the sky glowed redly, though sunset was long past, and Camber knew that the marauders were already putting beautiful Saint Noet’s to the torch.
Choking off a sob, he let himself be propelled past the queued Gabrilites and into the sacristy, where Joram was already waiting beside the Portal, one hand toying anxiously with the hilt of his sword—for though Gabrilites would not kill, Michaelines had no such compunctions about defending themselves. Camber watched the Gabrilites part as he approached, making room for Joram to step onto the Portal square and beckon Camber urgently.
Camber’s eyes filled with tears as he took his place beside his son and lifted his hand and crozier in final blessing of those whom he would likely never see again. Then he closed his eyes, bowed his head and let Joram take them back across the stomach-wrenching leap of the Portal. The beginning cries of slaughter as the intruders broke through into the chapel at Saint Neot’s were cut off abruptly as the two of them jumped back across the safety of the miles to the Portal in Jaffray’s apartments.
And back in the chapel at Saint Neot’s, an aged and frail Deryni abbot prepared to make his last stand against the intruders who were slaying his brethren and students even then. Joining hands and mind with an experienced Healer named Kenric, Emrys let their combined shields extend between them and the battered doors, creating a shimmer of illusion to hamper those who were now hacking their way down the nave. He could feel his brothers surging past him to disappear on the Portal, two and three at a time, and knew that he would never see them again—that for him, there was no escape.
The explosive crash and tinkle of broken glass assailed his ears, and he could hear missiles striking the floor inside with tremendous force as the great rose and the clerestory windows were attacked and shattered. He flinched at the splintering sound of delicate wooden screens and railings being smashed by the fury of the attackers, and knew the flare of fire being set at the rear of the church, the red glow visible even through closed eyelids. Still, he and Kenric held the illusion which hampered the soldiers’ progress, making the men believe they fought through cobwebs and mire which weighted their feet and slowed their advance.
The sounds of carnage were getting closer, and as Emrys opened his eyes and let the illusion go, he could see that the intruders were halfway down the nave, their path now blocked only by the unarmed resistance of a last band of students and teachers who were throwing themselves in the soldiers’ paths. Quickly Emrys glanced around, seeing the last of the men by the Portal disappear, then drew his Healer companion toward safety as fast as they could manage.
“Go to the Portal at Dhassa, Kenric. Dom Juris will hold it open yet a little longer, until you are safely through. Then it must be set as a trap and manned constantly. I have a final task to perform.”
“Aye, Father Abbot. God keep you,” the Healer murmured, tears streaming down his face as he kissed the old man’s hand.
“And you, my son. Now, go!”
Even as the Healer stepped onto the Portal and was gone, Emrys was kneeling beside it and slipping his hands beneath the carpet square to touch the stone, questing forth with his mind to rip the Portal’s existence from the universe. He could hear heavy footsteps pounding in the hallway outside, the shouts of the men overrunning the sanctuary, the clatter of weapons clashing against the doorway where no weapon had ever before been drawn in anger, but he did not lift his head as he poured all his remaining strength into the destruction of the Portal. He was dead and his task completed an instant before a soldier’s axe shattered the back of his skull.
And from the sanctuary doorway, a blood-spattered Rhun of Horthness saw the old priest die even as he tried to stay his man’s weapon—for he had guessed what the abbot was doing. He had hoped to be able to use the Portal to track down at least a few of the fleeing Deryni, as well as to ease communication with his fellow regents in Valoret.
But it was too late, even if the soldier’s axe had been stopped. The old priest lay as lifeless as a broken doll across the Portal square, only a little blood staining the carpet which covered the floor and marked the Portal’s location. Later, when his men had slain the last of the inhabitants they could find and set about the methodical destruction of the abbey, Rhun confirmed the destruction of the Portal by bringing in one of the two captive Deryni who travelled with them in chains. The man was inured to his condition by now, for his wife and sons were held hostage for his service, but he wept when he laid his hands on the blood-stained carpet beside the dead abbot and knew the Portal’s destruction.
Another hour the marauders stayed, smashing, looting, and desecrating. They could not overturn the main altar because of its size and weight, though they tried; but they smashed the delicate carving on the sides, cracked the mensa slab in two, and threw the gory body of one of the dead monks across it so that the snowy marble was stained with his blood.
Nor did they spare the Lady Chapel, with its cool, jewel-like panels of blue glass let into the walls, and its rich hangings; or especially the chapel to Saint Camber, set in the northeast angle of the nave. The statue of the Deryni saint was pulled from its base and beheaded, the arms hacked off to free the jewelled crown which the effigy had held aloft in commemoration of Camber’s appellation as “King-Maker.” Even the mosaicked hemisphere on which the statue had stood was attacked with club and mace. The gilded carving on the edge of the altar shelf likewise earned their special wrath, for the name of the Deryni Saint Camber must be obliterated from sight, if not from memory. Battle-axes and maces pounded repeatedly against the incised lettering until only imagination might supply the message once carved there: Jubilate Deo +++ Sanctus Camberus. A torch was set to the once-exquisite wooden screen which had taken years to carve, and the fire cracked and blackened what the soldiers had spared and which would not burn.
When the marauders had looted and desecrated all they could, and s
et the final fires to destroy what remained, they mounted up and rode away. It was yet a little while before midnight, but the glow of the fires of Saint Neot’s would stain the sky long after the moon had sunk behind the western horizon.
Only one Deryni gained even some small measure of satisfaction at Saint Neot’s that night, and he was one of only two of his race to ride out of the burning abbey with Rhun and his men. For Rhun’s captive Deryni never told his hated master of the message left in the blasted Portal by the dying abbot, of the warning sealed with the death of a Deryni Healer-mage, which would endure as long as this patch of earth:
Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger! Of a full one hundred brothers only I remain, to try, with my failing strength, to destroy this Portal before it can be desecrated. Kinsmen, take heed. Protect yourself, Deryni. The humans kill what they do not understand. Holy Saint Camber, defend us from fearful evil!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine.
—Hosea 7:5
Though Camber himself would later count it as small victory, in a way Saint Camber did defend the inhabitants of Saint Neot’s from fearful evil; for without Alister Cullen’s timely warning, few if any of the Gabrilites would have escaped that night’s grim work. When, after a few hours, Camber at last dared to reach back to the Saint Neot’s Portal, he could only sense the lingering message of Saint Neot’s last abbot and know its warning to be true: the humans kill what they do not understand.
Human understanding counted for even less at Haut Eirial and Mollingford, as Jebediah discovered. Apparently Rhun had moved first against Alister Cullen’s Michaelines, splitting his forces to strike both houses simultaneously in late afternoon before reforming to march against Saint Neot’s. For both locations, Tavis’s information had come far too late.
True, the Michaelines had long since abandoned both sites to other Orders, but Rhun’s soldiers had not known that, or perhaps had not cared. The poor monks who had counted it their fortune to be given the former Michaeline lands and houses found it no fortune at all when they were overrun on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and slain where they worked or prayed. By the time Jebediah reached them, he found only smouldering ruins, ashes and charnel heaps whose decent burial he did not even dare to undertake for fear of being discovered by any laggard soldiers still prowling in the area.
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