Heaven's Gate

by Toby Bennett

  “She’s foolish to think that her father will shelter her! After all he is as much part of this marriage pact as anyone else.” Mordiki says scornfully.

  “She believes that she can sway him, as she has managed to do all her life, I must confess that I did nothing to discourage that line of thought.”

  “You have played the part of virtuous priest too long, Rugan. Who cares if the little idiot is labouring under a misapprehension? When she is found at her father’s estates it will not matter how he protests, you will have sown enough doubt in the General’s mind to wreck whatever plans our enemies, be they mortal or not, have made around her. Though they must be truly desperate if they are reliant on this naive child.”

  “Don’t be so sure, I think they have used our complacency over the last six years to their advantage. We thought when we destroyed the Citadel that we had taken the head from the beast, I think that is what they wanted us to believe.”

  “Or you do not want to believe that it is you who has lost your grip on matters?”

  “Do not insult me, Mordiki, I will not endure it.”

  “I apologize for any affront you have taken, Rugan. Believe me I hold you in the greatest regard, it does not matter if Leedon has been corrupted by the remnants of the Strigoi clans or simply decided to resist our influence and consort with his fellow barons on his own. If we can make people believe that the bloodsuckers are still at large we can reign in our flock. If we can catch a few of the dregs left over from the war and link them to the Carter Barony, so much the better. We have already taken possession of the Island, why not claim the rest of the river?”

  Back in the privacy of his chamber, Rugan grinds his teeth at his colleague’s small mindedness. How could he dare call the girl naïve, when he seemed to see no danger in blithely suggesting the conquest of the Carter Barony nor the possibility that some of the Strigoi Elders might be at large. It was as he suspected, the rest of his brethren were growing restless, who could blame them? Caught out in the desert, surrounded by beetles and old bones, but the possibility that their impatience might be playing into the enemy’s hands was disconcerting.

  “It is not a matter of simple conquest, Mordiki, do not forget I was the one there at the end! Five coffins were empty when we took the Citadel, that means there may be five Elders unaccounted for, we cannot simply assume we are opposing weaklings in this matter. For all we know we are still playing a game of their devising.”

  “We agreed at the time those Elders could have died centuries ago or those sarcophagi may never have even been used. Why assume that they even exist simply because we have had a few setbacks? If there truly were Elders behind all, this our spies would have seen something by now.” Mordiki is dismissive.

  “We shall see soon enough I am sure, I only wish she had waited long enough for me to involve Captain Blake with her escape.”

  “What would we gain by that now? It’s clear that your plan is working, we will throw suspicion on the Carters and imply that they are conspiring with dark forces.”

  “Once more, easier said than done. Carter will not be so easily cornered, besides I didn’t just want the hunter involved for political reasons.”

  “He would only ever have been useful if there were any Strigoi to be dealt with.” The other Necromancer comments. “No need to protest, Rugan, whether you are right or wrong, enough suspicion will force Leedon away from this alliance to one of our choosing. If we can cause enough panic we might even be able to supplant the current baron, at which point it might be acceptable for General Leedon to marry his only daughter and put another corrupted barony under the Church’s protection. Either way it saves us having to wait for Carter to fade from the picture naturally.”

  “You fool yourself, Mordiki and your arrogance is made clear by the way you keep referring to the Church as ‘ours’, even if the leeches are not behind him Tenichi and his supporters are subverting much of our power. I think that this plan may flush out our enemies and might ruin the marriage that they have been trying to engineer. It will not be so simple however, to just dispossess Carter. Not unless I can prove his link to the Strigoi without doubt, even then that might not be enough. Angus is right when he says that the barons are growing restless, would they simply stand by while we took control of the two richest territories in the Union? I am surprised there was so little opposition to the marriage but a military occupation… they would never stand for it.”

  “Let the barons try to argue! Once we have the river, we can starve them into submission. Besides I still don’t understand why you are so sure that the Strigoi have so much invested in this marriage, if the girl were one of their agents, perhaps but it is she who has chosen to run.”

  “They sought to use her in some way we have not yet guessed but I cannot believe that it is coincidence that Angus has become obsessed with the idea of the Gate, I know the Chief Pardoner took something from the Citadel. I don’t know exactly what was said but I know Tenichi was able to convince the General that Lillian Carter could help him find the Gate and that Carter himself knew all the right things to say.”

  “So you assume the Strigoi must have coached the father?”

  “Who else? A marriage to a daughter of the Whistler clan would have done just as much to win him acceptance with the barons but he insisted on the girl even though he obviously cannot stand her. The barons’ agreement to the match may be a measure of the control the remnants of the Strigoi still retain.”

  “Leaving the General and his dealings aside for the moment, I still don’t understand why Blake is necessary? I’d be the first to admit that he is impressive but as far as I can see, he only complicates matters.”

  “No doubt but it may well be necessary to disrupt our enemies’ plans. He is uniquely capable of dealing with the Strigoi when they come, not only that but there is no one alive who knows more of the Gate. He’s even seen it or at least one of those he has cannibalized has. If the girl is some sort of key, he might well give us access to the Gate and even if we can find no use for its power ourselves, we will be able to guard it. The old texts tell us little of the Gate but they make it clear that the leeches must not attain it.”

  “Why worry? They will not come and if they do they can be of no account, I tell you they are broken. We have hidden in the shadows for long enough.”

  “So you would stir the flames of the Inquisition again? Use their fear of the arcane to gain power and then calmly announce our existence to the world? It would be a massacre.”

  “And with each death we would become stronger!”

  “Unless our true enemy is waiting for us to make a target of ourselves! We must be sure they are entirely destroyed before we dare attempt our dominion.”

  “They are gone! Scattered! There are only the barons left to stand against us now.”

  “Again you forget what lies behind the barons. Who truly created the Union? While our kind plotted in the desert, learning our craft in inches, they made all we now know as civilization.”

  “It is their concealment. They hide in the herd, even as they feed on it. There was no nobility in what they made, only necessity.”

  “Which is why we were fools to think they would give it up so easily! I know they are out there, waiting for us to make such a mistake.”

  “Save that line of thought for the sermons, Father, whatever they might once have been, we are stronger now! Should we never take what is ours, for fear some unseen enemy waits for us to show ourselves? Is it not written that ‘bone remains long after blood has dried.’?”

  “But bone must endure, we are still in too precarious a position to seek open dominion and certainly the Inquisition is not our route to power, they would revile us just as deeply as the Strigoi, if they knew.”

  “The Strigoi created the Union and we shaped the Inquisition that has cleansed it! I do not suggest showing our hand all at once but ‘wait’ and ‘caution’ are words easily said from your palaces and towers, the rest of us must abid
e in tombs and ghost towns amid these merciless sands, which clean old bones like carrion birds. How long must we wait to see if there is some substance to these shadows you frighten us with?”

  “If I am right, we have only to wait for night fall.” The old priest answers patiently.

  At that the fly, ceases its humming and buzzes across the room, flying drunkenly on dry wings until it alights closer to the girl in the large hat.

  “Why you still got your hat on honey?” The man at the next table asks, swiping a meaty hand through greasy hair. Lillian stares fixedly at the food on her plate, holding her teeth together on the cutting retort, which would normally follow such insolence.

  “What’s the matter, sweetheart, no lips under there either?”

  “Mind your own business and I’ll mind mine,” she growls back. Damn that cold fish Leedon, if it wasn’t for the prospect of falling under the sway of that hard eyed fanatic she’d be able to deal with the oaf in front of her the way he deserved. She’d never have gone to IslandCity in the first place if her father and Julia hadn’t begged her. Her throat closes in tension at the thought of Julia, officially the woman was her nurse but she had been a mother to her since her real mother died giving birth. Her hand steals under her poncho to grasp the amber crystal on the amulet that had been Leedon’s betrothal present. She would have thrown it away long ago but Julia had been insistent.

  ‘It is a royal gift, even if its giver is not noble.’ she had said.

  As she grips it, the crystal grows warm to her touch as if responding to her anger, it did that sometimes, it even glowed faintly from time to time. It was indeed a rare and princely gift. The rarity and beauty of the gift made it all the more galling when she discovered that, instead of a charming prince, she had found herself matched with a cold, aesthetic man with more taste for strategy, empty tomes and hypocritical religion than for life. Because of that she had to endure the fool next to her and who knew how many hardships before she was home. If the man only knew that he was insulting Baron Carter’s only child the oaf would no doubt be falling over himself, pleading for mercy. Not that he’d get any! Lillian is vindictive by nature, she had found a way to pay Leedon back for his bookish failings as a man and now she makes a private promise to herself that if she ever encounters this piece of filth again, once she is reinstated in her father’s court, she will have some part of his anatomy removed.

  “She speaks, and such a sweet voice! You see, lads, I told you it was a woman, perhaps she doesn’t look so bad under that poncho.”

  “Or maybe she does Ned and that’s why she wears it.” Another man quips.

  Before she can stop herself the revolver is in her hand, the ornate metal work of barrel gleaming in the light of the common room’s lanterns.

  “No need for that, my dear,” the heavy-set man says, breaking a silence in which the only other sound is the click of her gun’s hammer drawing back, “I believe my friends and I were going after this drink.”

  “We’ll be lucky if she makes it to the Carter estate with a temper like that,” a fly on the ceiling above her buzzes, “she’ll get herself killed if she pulls a gun at the slightest insult.”

  “She’s not as helpless as you may think, her father saw that she was well trained. After all, he has no sons to school in war or defense; she’s quite a shot by all accounts.”

  “Trained or not it’s only a matter of time before she comes across someone who takes a gun being pointed at them personally, a pipe in an alley is just as effective as a head-on confrontation.”

  “At least she has the sense to know when she’s made a mistake.” Mordiki observes as Lillian resheaths the gun.

  “I’m…” the girl stops, unable to apologize to these brash peasants for anything, least of all their own boorishness! “I’m not looking for trouble,” she says, “I’ll be going to my room as soon as I’ve eaten.”

  As if on cue, a platter of roasted pork and boiled vegetables appears under her nose; Lillian’s face curls into a grimace at the sight of the greasy meat and the pulpy, over-boiled potatoes. One look into the proprietor’s eyes forestalls an outburst, it would hardly do her any good to point out that she had sampled the offerings of some of the best chefs on the river. Here she was a track hand. A barge worker even a thief or a whore would go unnoticed but an aristocrat complaining of the food and the coarseness of the men would be remembered.

  “I don’t need trouble, miss,” the man says firmly, “Ned’s sometimes loud but he’s a regular. There’s no need to be pulling steel, I have made allowances for a lady on her own, I let you keep the hat and I’ll overlook your behaviour once but if you threaten any more of my customers you’ll be sleeping in the gutter and I’ll be keeping the silver you gave me. Are we clear?”

  “Very.” Lillian responds, taking a mouthful of scalding vegetable mush, which does nothing to help the black look that she casts over the common room, “I’ll go to my room directly after supper. As you say a lady,” she emphasizes the word despite herself, “does not like to be disturbed.”

  “No offence meant, miss,” Ned chuckles from the table opposite, emboldened by the proprietor’s apparent support.

  “And no nonsense from you, Ned. If I’m any judge this one would plug you quick as a ground squirrel pounces on a snake.”

  Ned looks as if he’s about to respond to the warning with some quip, but a look at the eyes watching him from beneath the wide brimmed hat make him think better of it. “S’pose you’re right, Hugh, none of us wants any trouble. Sorry, miss.”

  Lillian makes no acknowledgement of this attempt at contrition but instead begins the process of sawing through the gelatinous outer skin of the small joint with an almost blunt eating knife.

  She leaves the common room with her dinner half eaten and climbs the wide shallow steps up to her room on the second floor. With a sigh of relief she unlocks the door, enters her room and then relocks the door behind her. Once inside the room she moves to the corner where she peels back the carpet and loosens the floorboard beneath. With trembling hands she slips a thin package, wrapped in yellowed paper into the newly revealed cavity before replacing the wood, smoothing over the carpet and seeking the sanctuary of a foreign bed and sleep to remove her from this nightmare reality. The thought that most of the people in the room below would have killed for the money she had stolen to fund her trip does not even cross her mind; she is the only child of the Carters and as such not bound by the limits of common expectation. The thick wooden beams of the floor and their overlay of what had once been some fairly plush carpeting, cannot completely deaden the noise from the common room below, it permeates the chamber as a dull murmur punctuated with laughter and the sound of glasses. After a while the voices grow louder and are joined by the enthusiastic, if uncoordinated, strumming of an old guitar. Grinding her teeth with frustration, Lillian blows out the lantern and resolutely closes her eyes. She falls into a light doze, interspersed with moments of music-filled lucidity. While she tries to sleep something slips under the door, as slow as the moonlight creeping across her windowsill. Something that looks close to human, coalesces at the foot of her bed.

  Chapter 5:

  “Sins of the Flesh”

  Dale Siphon is a skin sculptor. Since his rebirth, he has learned to twist his undying flesh into almost any configuration his imagination can conceive. Sinew and bone only moments before reduced to near liquid density, re-shape as the predator reassembles himself. Cartilage crackles quietly, no louder than the girl’s light snores, he has to do this slowly lest his victim wakes. Not that the room full of sacks below could do much to stop him from taking the girl but he has been told to do this quietly. The last thing he needs is to disappoint his patron. Pellan was short tempered at the best of times, privately Dale thought he might be jealous of his ability to reshape his body. Pellan might be an Elder and might be capable of all manner of terrifying sorcery but the gift touched each in different ways and for all his centuries of existence, Pellan h
ad not been able to find a way to share Dale’s ability. Indeed Pellan seemed to be afflicted with a form of cancerous corruption that affected a small number of those of the blood, each year brought a new growth or a new fold of flesh. Pellan had long ago abandoned the sleep chambers in the old fortress as being too confining for his expanding bulk and ironically, his corpulence had probably prevented his destruction. The thought of ugly Pellan made Dale smile, no doubt he would kill to slip so easily under a door or to be able to conjure beauty with his own blood and bones. Not that Dale had the same conceptions of beauty as he did when he was alive, to his shame he had been a pious man and would have called the creature forming on the soft carpet nothing short of demonic.

  Now, though, he understood the beauty in the sleek lines, the deadly whip-quick body, thrumming with the strength of inexhaustible muscles. Bone and horn frame the features of the leering vampire, his mouth set with rows of shark like teeth, his knees bend backwards unnaturally as he gathers newly formed legs under him and his feet coalesce into broad, wicked talons. Long tendrils of callused sinew begin to extrude from his hardening body, the first of them swishing the air idly while new ones form. Normally he would consider such appendages unsightly, a break with the smooth lines of the sleek black form he had made for himself but at the moment, he needed some way to restrain the girl when they leave. She will struggle, he’d been promised that much and the thought brings an unfocused stirring to his chitinous loins. The urge is not sexual, he has passed through such things, it touches something deeper in his make up. If he could, he would taste her before he returned her to his master, just a sip. The girl is warm and young and the fact that he is forbidden to harm her makes the prospect of every stifled scream delicious.