The Killing Light

by Myke Cole

  It took Heloise three swallows to pull down the lump in her throat. The lie came easily to her lips, though it made her sick to speak it. For you, Barnard, because I know you need it, and because you have hurt enough for one lifetime. “They are surely in the Shadow of the Throne, Barnard. They are surely with the Emperor. But wherever that is, it isn’t beyond that door. Do you trust me, Barnard? Do you believe I work in the Emperor’s name?”

  He sobbed, nodded.

  “Then trust me now. There is nothing in there for you.” She raised her voice. “There is nothing in there for any of us.”

  She turned to the Gates. “Where is the Congregation of the Faithful?”

  The Left Gate raised his head to her, rheumy eyes squinting. “Who are you, villager girl?”

  “I am not a devil,” she forced herself to answer patiently, “and because of that, I forgive you for all the harm you have done to me and mine. I will save you, if I can. Where is the Congregation?”

  “And if I do not tell you? Will you kill me?”

  “No. The devils will do that soon enough, and if they don’t, then time will. Tell me because we both know what is in that room. Tell me because Barnard Tinker has lost his children. Because I have lost my mother. Because all of us have lost someone coming here, and because you can still do some good with the little life that is left to you.”

  The Left Gate squinted at her without moving for so long that Heloise began to wonder if the ancient man really had died, but then he let out a sigh and stood. He made his way, leaning on his flail, down the wide staircase. Beyond him, the palace doors were still again, and Heloise could faintly hear the flight of missiles from the siege engines driving the devils back once more.

  “What are you doing?” the Right Gate called after him. “You cannot … This is not right!”

  “I have never done good or ill, right or wrong,” the Left Gate answered. “Only what the Emperor asked of me.”

  Heloise started to call him back, but then a line of shadow caught her eye, and she saw why the Right Gate was so furious.

  The Left Gate’s narrow body had concealed an alcove. In standing and walking away, he had revealed a silver statue of a Palantine that stood on a pedestal inside, its silver wings folded back into the wall behind it. Heloise leaned the machine at the waist to get a closer look, succeeded only in scraping the machine’s helmet against the wall. It was simply too big. If she wanted to examine the statue, she would have to get out. The thought sent a spike of panic shooting through her, and she walked the machine back. “Xilyka…” she managed.

  The Hapti girl rushed to the alcove and ran her hands over the statue. “It’s…” The Right Gate walked toward her, and she paused long enough to pull one of her knives from her waist and point it at him. “No closer, old man. I don’t revere your Emperor, and unlike Heloise I have not had my fill of killing yet. If you wish a test of faith, then keep coming, and we shall see if your Emperor intervenes to save you.”

  The Right Gate froze, took a step back, sat back down in his chair.

  Xilyka turned back to the statue, and after another moment, gave a low whistle. “I have it.”

  She pulled the statue forward, and it moved with a grating of stone. Heloise heard a deep, metallic thunk and then the wall beside the golden doors began to shudder.

  Heloise staggered back as it rose, shedding tiny bits of stone, sending up thick puffs of dust.

  “Sacred Throne,” Samson muttered, his eyes rising to watch the wall as it lifted up to disappear among the motes of light that still burned and died overhead, sending them scattering.

  Even Barnard forgot his weeping at the sight of the most incredible tinker-work Heloise had ever seen. The raised wall revealed vast iron wheels, each big enough to fit on a Sindi wagon, driving thick metal rods. If there was a seethestone engine, Heloise couldn’t see it.

  At last the mechanism ground to a halt and the wall shuddered and stopped its ascent. Behind it was another staircase, much narrower than the one leading to the golden doors, but still wide enough to admit three men abreast. It wound sharply upward into darkness. Beneath the staircase was another corridor, and Heloise could see it running to a huge door that must have been on the far side of the throne room. She could see tiny shreds of daylight filtering in beyond it and knew it must lead out of the palace, a secret postern door.

  Heloise turned to the Right Gate, motioned with her shield to the staircase. “The Congregation is up there?”

  The man only stared at his lap, as senseless as Tone.

  Heloise shook her head and moved to mount the stairs, then realized the machine would not fit. She turned it sideways and took a crab-step into the darkness beyond. Xilyka raced past her. “Let me go first.”

  Heloise turned to the tiny fragment of the army that remained. “Come on.”

  “Where does it lead?” Sir Steven asked.

  “Away from the devils, and…” She regarded the ancient vastness of the room about them, the thick layers of dust, the withered old men. It was death. Not the quick, bloody death of the devils outside, but death all the same. “And … and this.”

  Progress up the steps was maddeningly slow. She had walked the machine sideways before, but never at such a steep angle. Her people crowded behind her until she told them to back off, to make room in case she lost her balance and the machine toppled onto its side. They followed at a respectful distance after that, all save Barnard and her father, as if they would somehow catch the machine and support its massive weight on their own. She thought of ordering them back down to brace the doors, but knew they wouldn’t comply. She would simply have to hope the thick stone held for as long as they needed it to. Sir Steven steered Tone up the steps with them, guiding him by his elbow. The Pilgrim’s eyes were dry now, but he stared at his feet, not speaking.

  The staircase wound steeply around, and Heloise realized that they were inside the great dome that capped the room with the empty stone chair, were working their way toward the cupola with its few dirty glass windows. The corridor was wide enough for her companions to move, but the machine was so constrained as to be useless. Visions flashed through her head of Imperial soldiers pouring into the corridor, and she standing powerless to help.

  They continued their steep, winding circuit for what felt like an eternity, and at last the corridor grew lighter ahead of them, opening out into a vast gallery. Heloise began to hear a faint susurrus, somewhere between a mutter and a whisper. Xilyka raised a hand, ducked around the latest turn in the corridor. A moment later, she stepped back into view, still looking around the corner, face slack with shock.

  The corridor gave out into a vast archway, and Heloise was able to move the machine up beside her bodyguard. The cupola had looked small from the throne room below, but up here it was enormous—a vast ring capped by a massive dome. The dirty glass windows admitted the thin light, washing all in pale gray. An ancient and corroded iron railing ringed the gallery, scrolls of metalwork that looked like a vicious thorn bush run wild. On one side of the room was a vast tinker-made instrument, rows of huge metal pipes rising to where the curve of the dome began. They were covered in rust and moldering flecks of paint, so dust-choked that Heloise could tell they hadn’t been used in hundreds of winters.

  Seated before them was another withered Sojourner, as ancient and decrepit as the Gates, but broader in the shoulders and chest. His cloak was lined with a silver pattern that imitated the pipes in the mechanism behind him. He held a lash in his hand, the only thing in the whole room that looked carefully maintained.

  Before him were twenty men and women, standing in two orderly rows. They looked so familiar that Heloise caught her breath, a spike of panic lancing through her gut. They could have been the twins of the three wizards the Order had brought against her outside Lyse. They were shackled hand and foot, starved, filthy, their stick-thin limbs draped in rags. Their eyes had the same vacant, defeated stare. They chanted, a constant tuneless mutter, too garbled and
soft for Heloise to make it out. Even in the wide space of the gallery, with open air all around them, Heloise wrinkled her nose at their stink.

  This Sojourner’s sight was better than that of the Gates. He stood, eyes widening as Heloise rounded the corner and her people trailed in behind her. He raised a finger to his lips, moved quickly across the gallery, giving the chanting prisoners a wide berth. He shook out the lash as he came, and Heloise moved the machine forward to meet him. He winced at the clanking step on the stone.

  “Softly!” he whispered. “If you wake them from reverie, it will be on your head! Who are you? How did you get in here?”

  Heloise stabbed her knife-arm toward the row of chained prisoners. “Is this the Congregation?”

  “By the Throne, you will turn around or I will—” The Sojourner froze as his eyes fell on Tone. The color drained from his face. “You! Gray-cloak! Aspirant! You have no business here! Out! Out in the name of the Emperor!”

  Tone only stood, eyes cast down. The Sojourner pushed past Heloise, his face so incandescent that Heloise’s party drew back from him. He managed to keep his voice to a harsh whisper. “Do you not hear me? I am the Keeper of the Congregation! I am raised above the red! I command you to answer me!”

  Tone raised his head, but Heloise could see in his eyes that the shock of seeing that empty, moldering chair had not yet worn off. He stared at the Sojourner, silent and uncomprehending.

  The old man exploded with a speed and fury that Heloise was shocked to see in one so old. He threw himself at Tone, the lash rising and falling. Tone threw his arms up to protect himself, staggering backward. Heloise watched as the crowd around them drew back, allowing one hated enemy to beat another.

  Tone was driven back to the railing. The Sojourner followed him, continuing to rain blows down. Both men were silent, the only sound the slap of the leather lash on Tone’s arms, punctuated by the old man’s grunting. Tone offered no resistance, and the Sojourner did not tire. Heloise turned to Xilyka. “That’s enough, can you…”

  Tone’s eyes finally lit, and he swatted the lash aside and seized the old man by his neck. His eyes were focused now, cheeks red, breath coming fast. He spun, slamming the old man against the railing, bending him back so far that Heloise could imagine she heard his spine creaking.

  “Enough!” Tone forced the whispered word out through gritted teeth. “I will wait no longer! I will not leave! I have served the Emperor faithfully!”

  The old man sputtered, coughed. Tears escaped the wrinkled corners of his eyes and tracked their way past his ears. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a pained wheeze. Tone released his grip enough to allow the man to breathe, but not enough to let him break free.

  “Please…” the old man managed, “… don’t kill me.”

  “You damned coward!” Tone whispered. “If you die, then it is the Emperor’s will! Where is the Nightingale? I will not ask you another time!”

  But the Sojourner had shaken off the initial shock of the reversal. “The Nightingale? It is the Song who—”

  “The Song is dead. Where is the Nightingale?”

  The Sojourner’s jaw went slack as he processed this news, then wrenched back into a snarl. “You lie. I will do nothing for a rogue member of our Order. I will not damn my soul for the likes of you!”

  “The devils are here!” Tone said. “They are within the city, around this very building! There is no time!”

  Xilyka alone was not impressed by the struggle unfolding before them. She wore a slightly bemused smile. “I don’t see why we need a Nightingale to wake them. I can just go over there and clap in their faces…”

  “Do not dare!” The Sojourner struggled against Tone’s grip. “Wake them incorrectly and they will rend the veil asunder…”

  “It is already rent!” Tone shook the Sojourner like a dog worrying a fresh-caught hare.

  Heloise remembered the captive wizards the Order had unleashed on the walls of Lyse. She remembered the wood going slick, the metal crumbling to rust, the structure sagging in on itself like the lips of an old man who had lost all his teeth. She could picture that happening to the huge dome around her. “No,” she said, “we must wake them properly.”

  “You lie!” The Sojourner shook free of Tone’s grip, stood, holding his hand to his throat. “The devils are not here. Now, get you gone, and take your … companions with you. Leave your cloak. I strip it from you. I cast you out. You are no Pilgrim of the Emperor.”

  Tone’s face hardened. “I am a greater servant to the Throne than you will ever be.” He seized the old man’s wrist, began tugging him toward the stairs. “Come, look upon the devils, and we will see if that wakes you.”

  “No!” The Sojourner struggled, but it was useless.

  Tone spun on him, stabbing an angry finger at the staircase. “All the devils in hell are right on the other side of these walls, you old fool, and this Congregation is the one thing that can send them back again.”

  The Sojourner’s face twisted in horror, and Heloise felt sudden sympathy for the old man. She, too, knew how it felt to be frightened to leave the safety of familiar confines, to confront the too-close sky and the too-vast earth. “I cannot leave the shrine,” the Sojourner whined. “Please. Don’t—”

  Tone dragged the Sojourner almost close enough to kiss. “Then tell me the truth. Does the Nightingale still live?”

  Heloise felt herself sweating despite the chill air as the Sojourner licked his lips, eyes darting around the room.

  Tone shook him again. “Does she live?”

  The Sojourner nodded.

  Tone’s shoulder’s went slack with relief. “Where is she?”

  “The Nightingale is … in its cage.”

  “Then tell me where I may find this cage!” Tone squeezed the old man’s wrist tight enough to make him wince.

  The Sojourner groaned, fell to his knees, but said nothing.

  “Old fool,” Tone said, “tell me or I will drag you out into the light and throw you to the devils.”

  The old man nodded, weeping now. “East! It lies to the east! Past the silver mines! Follow the tow-path for a day or two!”

  Tone released his wrist, stood glaring at him. “Perhaps you lie. I should take you with me as a surety.”

  “No! I swear I speak true. Let me stay here. I must tend to the Congregation. They cannot feed themselves. They need me or they will die.”

  Tone leaned down, pulled the old man to his feet. “I will be back, and if I find you have lied, you will pay.”

  The Sojourner nodded and backed away, leaving his lash where it lay.

  “We must go.” Tone turned to Heloise. “We must retrieve the Nightingale and bring her here.”

  “And you are sure this wizardry will work?” Heloise asked.

  “It is not wizardry,” Tone said. “They are blessed by the Emperor Himself. His power flows through them.”

  Heloise swallowed bile. The Order used wizardry even while they murdered others for it, only they called it a blessing from the Emperor. The Emperor who does not exist. She wanted to leap at him, beat him with her metal shield until the lies ran out of him and her anger was spent.

  “Tone.” Heloise lowered her voice. “You saw that empty chair the same as I.”

  Tone said nothing, and Heloise bit back her rage. It would do no good to argue with him now. “This will work? This will send the devils back?”

  Tone nodded, but he looked chastened.

  The sight filled Heloise with doubt. “How can you be sure?”

  Tone looked down. “I cannot. But the city is already fallen, Heloise. Your army is scattered. We cannot beat these monsters by force of arms. Not now. If the devils are to be driven back, it is the Emperor’s hand that shall drive them. This Congregation is our one hope.”

  Heloise looked back at the prisoners and sighed. “Slim hope.”

  “I am going to find the Nightingale,” Tone said. “Alone, if I must.”

  “And whe
n you have found the Nightingale”—Heloise whirled on him—“when this works and the devils are driven back, you will face the world and tell them that it was wizardry that wrought their salvation. That the Order trucked with wizards all along. You will never raise a hand to anyone again, so long as you draw breath.”

  Tone was silent for a long time. When at last he looked up and met Heloise’s gaze, his eyes were wet. “I will. Help me to do this, and I will. I swear it in the Shadow of the Throne.”

  Heloise stepped close to him. “We have stood in the Shadow of the Throne,” she whispered, low enough that only they could hear. “It is cold, and it is dark, and it is empty. You swear it in my shadow now, in the shadow of my war-machine. And I accept your oath and swear my own, that if you ever break yours, I will make you pay.”

  11

  TO THE CAGE

  The road to salvation is long, and beset with troubles. The wolf shall assail thee, the wanton tempt thee. Thou shalt know the privation of storm and hunger, of sweltering sun and piercing cold. But I am thine Emperor, and the harder the step, the closer it taketh thou unto me.

  —Writ. Lea. IV. 2.

  The Gates had resumed their seats by the time Heloise and her party returned to the bottom of the hidden staircase. They were silent, shoulders slumped, not even bothering to raise their eyes as Heloise finally ceased her sideways-walking and stepped the machine out into the wide open space.

  The great doors to the outside were still sealed, motionless.

  “Perhaps the devils have given up and gone home,” Wolfun said.

  Heloise was surprised to find herself laughing. “That is unlikely.”

  She turned back to the people gathered around her. “Stay here. I’d rather sneak out than fight, and that means a small group who can move fast. I will go, in case we have to fight devils, and Tone, in case this Nightingale’s cage is guarded by the Order. Might be his cloak will get us in without a fight.” And I am not leaving him alone with Barnard, she added silently.