Heaven's Gate

by Toby Bennett

  “There is more to this than the merchant,” Kalip says slowly, “we have other enemies trying to thwart us.”

  “How can we be sure the man is not just one of Zacurius’s agents?”

  “Because Samuel Blake would never ride at the order of a Strigoi.” Kalip answers.

  Chapter 8:

  “Inquisition”

  Nathaniel Ramond Tenichi, Chief Pardoner, second in line to the Tenichi Barony, since he had sentenced his eldest brother for heresy, Justice of Christ’s Peace and Father to the Fallen. Since the war the man had acquired titles like a corpse does flies. Normally Father Rugan would not have willingly shared the same room as him, at least not with the Chief Pardoner’s knowledge! He had personally observed the Chief Inquisitor more than once through the secret panels and spy holes of the palace, which he had made it his business to find out about, with methods every bit as ruthless as those employed by the blood- thirsty aristocrat. For the last five years the old Necromancer had been doing his best to undermine the man without exposing himself to the Inquisitor’s revenge, a very dangerous game indeed and best played at a distance. No one would dare to openly question the activities of the Inquisition’s highest official. Even the General’s confessor could afford to say little against a man, who was widely considered to be second to Leedon only in name. When he might have done something to curb the Chief Pardoner’s power Rugan had not seen the need; power for the peace time officers of the Inquisition had seemed like power for all crusaders but as the years had passed and Angus had slipped further from him, Rugan had developed a terrible suspicion, which recent events and his own investigations had all but confirmed.

  It had been unthinkable, at the time that the young aristocrat had joined the Crusade, to consider that he might be an agent for the Strigoi; in the first days of the Crusade they had been only too grateful for the legitimacy provided by a baron’s son. Without his aid and the information provided by his secret informers, they would never have found the Citadel, never have killed the Elders and that was the least of his contributions to the Crusade. With the heat of war and its enthusiasm gone, his peacetime Inquisition had seemed the best way to keep purity in the newly cleansed baronies. It was only as the new Inquisition gained strength, developing into an unofficial separate body in its own right, while Tenichi began to flex his slowly cultivated power, drawing in those elements in the army and the Church that sought a new route to power or an outlet for fanaticism that had not abated with the end of the war, that Rugan began to truly question Tenichi’s involvement. Too late it occurred to him that if he could use the Crusades for his own ends, there might be those in the ranks of his enemy who would be capable of doing the same thing.

  With hindsight, it all seemed too convenient; how Tenichi and his informers had provided the intelligence that so quickly led them to the heart of the vampire infection; how he kept Angus supplied with old lore, gained through his ‘interrogation’ of heretics. Rugan was certain now that it was Tenichi behind the Strigoi influence on his general. It was Tenichi who had made him aware of the Gate and he had been one of the strongest proponents on the alliance with the Carter Barony. It was clear enough to Rugan now, it just had not occurred to him at the time, that there might be those in the Strigoi community who would willingly aid in the slaughter of so many of their own. It was a truth he had been reluctant to face but with the Strigoi stirring again he knew, without doubt, that he had taken the victory they had given him without examining it closely enough. He didn’t even dare tell the rest of his order about his suspicions, lest they decide he had lost all his influence and took precipitous action. With no one else to trust, all that was left to him was a clandestine search for anything that might discredit the man leading what was, currently, the most powerful arm of the Crusade. A man who would be equally happy to discover that the General’s confessor, who had so often questioned him, was an unholy Necromancer, requiring a release from his own sin.

  “I am, of course, grieved to hear of your loss, sir,” the immaculately dressed young officer says, his contrition so convincing that only Rugan’s distrust allows him to see past the deception.

  “As you know, I favoured the match, it represented much wealth and stability for the region and the Union as a whole, but there are other reasons for us to be disturbed by this turn of events, are there not Master Confessor?” Nathaniel favours the rotund cleric with a smile.

  If Rugan has chosen his disguise in age and rotundity then Nathaniel has chosen style and beauty as his shield. Each strand of hair on his head has been meticulously gathered back into a short tail of jet black strands, even with the late hour of the meeting, he is freshly shaved, without even the hint of stubble. The dark blue uniform, which he had decided to wear, rather than his humble Pardoner’s robe, has been pressed immaculately, and the pistol at his side, bound with ceremonial peace wrappings of gold and crimson cord looks as though it has never been held by human hands, let alone fired. Only the half cloak that hangs from his left shoulder, breaks with traditional military dress and gives a hint of some of the flamboyancy, which Rugan knows he indulges in private. The Pardoner was discrete but Rugan had spies at his disposal that not even the walls of the Tenichi manor can keep out. Even with sorcery, however, it had proved difficult to confirm his suspicion that many of the young boys and girls, put into the Inquisition’s care by Tenichi zeal, soon found that the outwardly virtuous third son had other appetites as dark as his penchant for murder or torture. Those that survived their master’s mortification of the flesh were even now being inducted into his inner circle, a select group of Inquisitors that referred to themselves as the Hammers of Christ. Of course, there was no direct proof of these goings on and so, as usual, Rugan must content himself with simply being obtuse.

  “I cannot imagine what could make the loss of the General’s bride particularly worse, as tragedies go.” The old priest replies, raising an eyebrow.

  Nathaniel smiles to himself, there was no way he could prove his suspicion that the priest was involved in Lillian Carter’s disappearance but that didn’t mean he was above making the confessor uncomfortable.

  “So it was not you who suggested that the abductors were Strigoi?”

  “I suggest nothing. The girl could not have left the city on her own, not without help, that is undeniable. If she were simply fleeing the marriage, she made no public rejection of the General’s proposal and she has yet to reappear, despite a vigorous search.”

  “Your point?” Nathaniel asks, growing impatient with the sound of the old man’s voice.

  “My point is that she need only have publicly rejected the General, she had no need to run and hide, it is scarcely practical for a young woman of her station and disposition. The more one looks at the possible means and motivations for her disappearance, the more it becomes clear that this must be an abduction, which leads us to the question of how anyone could achieve such a thing in the very heart of the Crusade’s power. Once one considers this it is almost impossible to escape the conclusion that malign forces are at work.”

  Nathaniel smiles indulgently. “It is this which I have come to ascertain. I abandoned all other duties as soon as I heard the terrible news.”

  “News must have travelled fast,” Rugan snaps, unable to restrain himself.

  “Indeed it did and I have brought my best men with me in order to find out if there is any substance to these claims of unholy activity. Such claims cannot simply be made lightly whenever….” the Pardoner encounters the General’s sharp gaze and decides not challenge the story of abduction, “someone goes missing.”

  “There is more,” the General says grimly, “Father Rugan did indeed advise me to announce that our conquered enemies were responsible for the abduction of my bride, it was politically expedient and hid a great many underlying problems. Indeed, I feared that it was simply our distaste for each other that had prompted Lillian to flee but it seems that the Father sees things more clearly, as usual.”

&
nbsp; “You mean you have seen some evidence of our enemy yourself?” The Pardoner asks, looking genuinely surprised.

  ‘Weren’t expecting that were you?’ Rugan thinks to himself, unable to enjoy his opponent’s discomfort completely, since, whatever had convinced Angus of the Strigoi’s involvement, had also been withheld from him.

  “Forgive me,” Angus says, obviously sensing something of his confessor’s unease at this unexpected revelation, “I have learned something new since I last spoke to you and you both have a right to hear what has happened. As you know, Nathaniel and as you may have guessed, Rugan, I did not just choose my bride simply for the standing that she would grant me.”

  A dark look crosses the Pardoner’s face, momentarily robbing it of its bland perfection. Rugan speaks before Nathaniel can interject.

  “I did indeed guess as much, but how does that effect the question of whether the Strigoi are behind this disappearance?”

  ‘The trouble with politics,’ Rugan thinks to himself, ruefully, ‘is that everything has to be rehashed several times.’ After more than two life times of playing the game, he had developed a dangerous impatience with having to feign ignorance of everything around him, until someone saw fit to include him. On the positive side, it seems that Angus still regards his counsel as being worth the risk of disclosure.

  Obviously this was something that had also occurred to the Chief Pardoner!

  “General are you sure that Father Rugan should hear more of this? His objection to the match has never been a secret.”

  “Perhaps it is time he understood my reasons. A man should not hide things from his confessor, no matter how important; besides it is impossible to explain how I know that the Strigoi are behind this abduction without first explaining what I was trying to achieve.”

  “Even so general, perhaps we should discuss this in private. The men I have brought with me have special experience in matters of the occult, if there are ungodly forces at work we will discover it soon enough.”

  General Leedon seems to consider this for a moment and the corner of the Pardoner’s lip twitches with barely contained tension as he awaits the General’s response. Father Rugan, on the other hand is already sure of what he will do next. It amuses him that, for all his own double dealing, the Pardoner has not realized that the pause is merely there for the sense of propriety. It would be inappropriate to dismiss the Pardoner and his men’s expertise out of hand but the General rarely went back on his decisions; having weighed the value of revealing his secret beforehand it was unlikely that he would be swayed, especially not now that the existence of the secret itself had been confessed. If he refused to divulge anything further now it would be a mortal insult to his confessor.

  “No! No more of this! We all know neither of you trusts the other, no matter how well the knives are concealed. It is the inevitable result of the end of wars. In war the enemy is clearly defined and honourably fought but the battlefield we fight on now is one far more suited to our enemies, where we strike at each other from the shadows, not knowing friend or foe and they do not have to lift more than a finger to ensure our ultimate destruction. Father Rugan has fought the evils of the desert by my side since I begun this battle and I was wrong to keep anything secret, even for fear of his disapproval. We will be put apart by suspicion no longer.”

  “As you say.” Nathaniel Tenichi agrees, tersely.

  “Indeed,” Rugan echoes with equal sincerity, “in what spirit, Angus, will you please elaborate?”

  “There is little you don’t already know, only that not everything we found in the Citadel joined it in destruction.”

  “No?” Rugan feigns surprise.

  “I knew you would disapprove of anything taken from there as unholy.”

  “And extremely dangerous! The lore of the Strigoi has been known to have an insidious effect on all who study it.”

  “Not under the auspices of the Inquisition, not for one who is strong in faith.” The Chief Pardoner protests.

  “I thought I’d made it clear that we would not continue with this bickering,” Leedon intervenes, locking eyes with each of them in turn, “whatever you may think of my actions, Rugan, Nathaniel brought me rumours of something found in Strigoi lore that could not be overlooked. I decided that we could not afford to ignore it and shirk our duty simply for fear that we were not strong enough to learn our enemy’s ways. The Chief Pardoner and certain select members of his order, have been helping me since, ensuring that our interpretations of their texts do not unbalance our minds or taint our purity.”

  “What is it that demands you risk your immortal soul, Angus?”

  “A Gate to the Heavens themselves!”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “According to the texts we have read, certain Strigoi have been seeking this passage to the Heavens for countless years; some looking in a misguided hope of redemption and others for darker purposes. None has been successful but the reasons for that are obvious, but we, the pure in faith, we have a chance to lead our followers to the very Gates of Heaven itself.”

  Father Rugan stares into the General’s wild eyes with growing concern. Angus had always been pious, it was why he had been the one to lead the Crusade but the idea of the Gate had obviously taken root more deeply than he had guessed. It was inevitable that a man of his disposition would be drawn by the quest but that it already had such a hold on his imagination, spoke volumes about the seductive nature of the vampire texts and the Chief Pardoner’s powers of persuasion. Rugan wondered how many the General would sacrifice for this latest victory. Near four thousand had not left the plains of Golifany, how many more souls might Heaven be worth? The priest sighs inwardly, there was never a belief so pure that it could not be turned against itself.

  “Did the girl know of this Gate? Is that why you chose her as a bride over the others?” Rugan queries, keeping a lid on his private misgivings

  “I thought she knew nothing,” Leedon answers, “during our research we found a text that was older than all the rest, it contained many things that were beyond our understanding but amid the text we found her name.”

  “What?” Rugan blurts, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

  “Apparently the Gate was not always hidden from men, the founders were granted access and their names were listed in the book, Lillian Carter was supposedly one of those blessed with access. Nathaniel and I reasoned that this must mean that the Carter family’s claims of being directly descended from the Founding Fathers were true.”

  “So the name is just a coincidence then?”

  “Not necessarily,” Nathaniel answers, “it is possible that the same blood flows through the modern Lillian’s veins as flows through her ancestor’s. If this is indeed the case, she represents a chance to reopen the Gate, since all the texts agree that this was done through the use of the founders’ blood.”

  “It hardly sounds like a holy endeavour to me, if you marry someone only to empty a vein when the time is right.”

  “There are precedents enough in the bible. Abraham was surely a holy man but that is beside the point because, from what we can understand the amount of blood required is very small, it was more important for the one seeking entrance to the Gate to recite their number in their own voice. Lillian Carter’s number was listed in the book and with it she might be able to open the way.” General Leedon pauses and rises, moving over to stare out of the window at the fishing boats returning from the lake. Angus needed to say no more for his confessor to know what was coming next.

  “The book was lost on the same night Lillian disappeared, was it not?” The priest says softly.

  A look of anger passes over Nathaniel’s face on hearing this.

  “Surely not,” the Pardoner protests, “you assured me it was well protected.”

  “And it was! The locks on the chest were the best money could buy and I hold the only key. I cannot be absolutely sure that the book disappeared on the same night as Lillian, I was so conc
erned with dealing with the ramifications of her leaving that I did not discover the loss until later but I feel in my gut that she left of her own accord and that she took the book with her.”

  “Why are you so sure that she was not stolen away, along with the book?” Rugan asks.

  “She was seen entering the WesternTower on the same day that she disappeared.”

  “You mean you did not keep the book in your quarters?” Nathaniel inquires in a level voice that does nothing to disguise his frustration.

  “I kept a false copy in the safe in my room but I deemed the actual book too valuable to leave somewhere so obvious. I used the renovations in the WesternTower as an excuse to conceal the real book in one of the hidden strong rooms. Apparently all my precautions were in vain, somehow she found where I had hidden it and defeated the locks.”

  “How though can you know it was her?”

  “As I said, Lillian was seen entering the WesternTower, the guard who questioned her said she simply wanted to be alone for a while. I kept security tight around the tower but I also ordered that it not seem too ostentatious, if the future Queen of the City wanted a bit of peace and quite the guard had no reason to stop her.”

  “You are still assuming that the book and the girl did not vanish separately.” Rugan points out, his mind racing. He knew only too well that Lillian had been in the WesternPalaceTower that day, it was he who had met her there to finalise the details of her escape. He could not help but remember, though, that it had been she who had suggested the venue for their rendezvous. At the time it had seemed to make sense, for precisely the reasons that Angus had already mentioned. The repairs had been slow and the tower was unofficially off limits, Rugan had not bothered to delve too deeply into the reasons why the tower was left unused, it had simply seemed a convenient meeting place; he was able to reach the rendezvous through the old passages. It had not occurred to him that part of the General’s renovations had been to add yet more hidden chambers to the rundown building. Rugan could remember nothing remarkable about their meeting, the girl had seemed nervous but that was to be expected. She hadn’t mentioned her run in with the guard, only asked him about the ferry and the horse. Rugan had listened patiently to various virtuous and fabricated reasons why he, a man of God, should step in to prevent a travesty of a marriage. He had indulged her, after all he would have broken the alliance with the Carter house if meant aiding the lowest whore in the city, let alone the whining over indulged child who thought she had been so clever in gaining his support. Was it possible, he burned at the thought, that she had been so much more than she appeared? Had she held this valuable text somewhere on her person, even as they talked or had she waited until he left, to slip into whatever room held the book and steal it away? It seemed unthinkable and indeed there was no way to know whether Angus’s supposition was correct. The theft of the book and her presence in the tower that day could be entirely unrelated, Angus was not even sure when the book had been stolen but it just seemed too much of a coincidence that both the girl and the book, two parts of what seemed to be a key to the long forgotten Gate should be so close together and disappear at about the same time. It seemed that his judgement in bringing Samuel Blake into the equation had been right, the taint of the Strigoi seemed to have touched everyone involved. Only the hunter was guaranteed to be outside their influence; a wild card that they could never have included in their calculations. If Lillian were indeed more than she seemed, he would soon find out. He could warn Blake but it was unlikely that the man would willingly give up his prize, anymore than the others seeking the Gate would. No, best not to seem to conflict with his agent’s needs, let all the parties in this misguided quest fight it out; he did not share their need for this Gate and its mysteries. They would give him everything he sought with their conflict. Whatever transpires, he assures himself, he has one advantage that the others do not. The necklace that Angus had given his bride was more than simple jewelry, Rugan had chosen the gift for the General himself and it was one of the reasons he was so unconcerned about aiding in the girl’s escape, so long as she wore it, both she and the Pilgrim would always be easy to find.