Heaven's Gate

by Toby Bennett

  Chapter 9:

  “Running Before the Storm”

  “Why do you want to go back to Olstop? Even if they haven’t found out exactly which inn you were staying in, they’re sure to be looking for you throughout the city by now.” Sam argues, as he picks his way through the intertwined, half rotting growth that covers the banks of one of the seemingly innumerable stagnant pools that dot the marshes.

  “I don’t care! We must go back. Do as I say and you will receive all the reward you could ask for when we reach my father’s estates,” Lillian assures the Pilgrim. She is still cowed enough by the oppressive atmosphere of the swamp and her recent experiences not to simply order the wretched man to do as he was told, because she is a baron’s daughter and he little more than a refugee from the desert, a piece of flotsam she currently found herself clinging to but by no means someone to debate her will.

  “I only want one reward, Miss Carter,” the white haired object of her frustration answers, stepping over a decaying branch and offering her a gloved hand, “and it is not one I am prepared to negotiate over.” The hand tightens on hers, just enough to threaten pain. “You are connected to the Gate, if Pellan is to be believed you might even open it for me. I have sacrificed much and damned myself many times over in search of the salvation you might be able to offer me. The sooner we discover how you can be of help in achieving it, the sooner you will have my eternal gratitude but until you do, you are not leaving my sight, nor will I allow you to risk yourself without good reason.”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to a worn out ex-crusader,” Lillian snaps back, tugging her hand from the strong grip and nearly spilling herself into the mud. “I’ll be safe enough, once you get me back to my father’s estates.” She wipes her grimy hands on her mud encrusted robe, in yet another ineffectual attempt to rid herself of the miasma of the marsh, while trying to retain as much regal dignity as possible.

  “An ex-crusader who only recently helped you to escape your abductors, I should warn you that you are not the first person to ask me to deliver you to your home, Miss Carter and even if I were inclined to comply with either request, I would be honour bound to tell you that I very much doubt that the Carter estates represent any safety for you.”

  Lillian sniffs, she is in no mood for a lecture from the sun worn fool and makes this clear by continuing to walk away from him

  “What the hell would you know about anything?” Lillian murmurs under her breath, without bothering to look back.

  “More than you do, I’m willing to bet!” Sam calls after her. “Unless you want to fall into the hands of another Strigoi Elder I’d listen to me if I were you.”

  Mention of the Strigoi brings her to a sudden halt.

  “They won’t be able to reach me once I’m home.” Lillian’s tone is defiant but Sam recognizes it as the denial of a woman clinging onto the security of childhood rather than a real assertion. Any residue of the childishness her sheltered lifestyle had allowed her to indulge had no doubt been stripped away over a day and a night in the marsh.

  “You know that isn’t true,” Sam says gently, taking a few strides and catching up to her, “everything has been focused on getting you back to your father’s, I don’t know all the reasons why but even if I didn’t need your help, I’d warn you not to go there. As it is my only hope of salvation lies in keeping you away from whatever’s waiting for you and finding out where the Gate is and how you can open it.”

  “So you saved me just so I could become your captive? So I could bring you this absolution you prattle on about?”

  “No, that’s not what I want but I need your help. I’ve waited nearly two life times for some means to open the Gate. I can’t afford to let you fall into the hands of the Strigoi, so unless you can give me a good reason to go back, I’m taking us west, at least for a while.”

  “And if I won’t come?” Lillian asks, stubbornly.

  “Then I hope you know the way out of this swamp alone.”

  “If I’m so important to you, you wouldn’t risk it.”

  “Probably not, but before you force me to carry you out of here, consider carefully what the alternative would be. We both know that you don’t want to go back to General Leedon and as for the Strigoi, there are none as ugly or strange as Pellan and his children but there are many more depraved and evil.”

  “I still have to go back and you have to come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “The book,” Lillian answers after a moment of introspection, “I hid it in my room.”

  “What book?”

  “Angus’s book, he didn’t think I knew about it but I did, it was the reason he wanted me, the same reason you do, the Gate. He never talked about it to me but I knew, he thought I was only a child, that’s how he treated me even though he’s only five years older. He never dreamed I could be listening or that I might know why he’d insisted on marrying me even though he liked me no better than I did him. So I stole it.”

  “What does this book have to do with the Gate?” Sam asks, trying to follow what Lillian is saying.

  “Everything, if you can understand it. It’s very old but Angus thought it would tell him where the Gate lay and how to actually open it.”

  “And does it?” Samuel’s thoughts are in turmoil.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to understand and I didn’t look at it very long, just long enough to confirm what I’d overheard.”

  “And what did you hear, if I may ask?”

  “I heard him discussing it with the Chief Pardoner on one of his visits, he said my name was definitely in the book.”

  “And was it?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t make out much more than that. Even though it’s a copy the pages are badly damaged by age and the language is strange but my name was in there, along with a whole load of numbers and letters.”

  “How, in Heaven’s name, could that be if the book is supposed to be so ancient?”

  “My family goes right back to the founding of the Union,” Lillian says haughtily, “it is not impossible that there was another Lillian Carter around when it was written.”

  “I suppose not. Tell me did the book have a title? What did it look like?”

  “It had no title on the cover, it was just bound in a strange, clear, orange material.”

  “The Orange Book.” Samuel murmurs, “They found it after all.”

  The Pilgrim swivels on his heel suddenly, instinctively turning to face due east.

  “It appears you are right, we will have to return to Olstop but we must be as quick as possible, that inn is where your trail goes cold and I would not be surprised to find the place crawling with Inquisitors or worse.”

  It took two and a half days for the pair to find their way back to town, by which time Blake’s prediction proved to be true. Even if the talk on everyone’s lips had not been about the vile abduction of the General’s bride by forces unknown, the sight of so many austere figures dressed in the impractical white of Pardoners could not be mistaken. Here and there, there were even the crimson cloaks that marked the Hammers of Christ, showing that the Chief Pardoner had taken a personal interest in the abduction. As soon as they had hit the outlying farms on the edge of the city, Sam had been quick to part with yet more of his silver to get them a change of clothes and a pair of horses. Thanks to this precaution, the two riders picked their way though the streets unmarked, just two more men going about their business, one white haired and marked by the desert, the other a fine boned youth, his own hair cropped short to the skull sporting several nicks and scars on his otherwise pale and unblemished skin. Both riders kept their heads uncovered and kept to the middle of the road, which ironically afforded them more anonymity than they could have gained by keeping to the shadows.

  “This is the place,” Lillian says softly to her companion, as they reach the rail that runs along the side of the Hitching Post, absently rubbing her newly cut hair and privately wishing a plague of lice on Angus Leedon fo
r making the loss of her hair necessary.

  “It’s not as busy as I remember it being last time, there were horses here as well as in the front.” A low whinny from the front of the building tells them that the main post, at least, is in use.

  “That’s not so surprising, you came here in the evening last time, and it’s not even noon yet, not many people will be looking to drink at this time.”

  “Then now’s a good time to go in.”

  “Always assuming your room’s not been let out again and the occupants not having a lie in!”

  “You want to wait?”

  “No now’s better than later. I don’t see any white suits at least.” Blake casts an eye around. “Let’s not hitch the horses here, though, just in case.”

  “Where, then?”

  “I saw another post two streets back, that’ll do,” Blake turns his horse as he speaks.

  “Not planning on staying then, citizen?” For a moment both riders freeze at the sound of the voice. Blake’s hand unconsciously steals close to his hip but before he draws the gun, he realizes that the imperious voice is coming from around the corner of the building, from the main entrance to the inn.

  “Seems some Inquisitors are here, after all,” Lillian whispers.

  “But they seem to be bothering someone else. If I hold the horses here do you think you could slip back into the inn and up to your old room, without being noticed?”

  “Do you think you could trust me with a gun, in case there’s trouble?”

  “If there is, this’ll be more use,” Blake slips a broad bladed knife from one of his boots.

  “You seem pretty calm about sending your ‘only hope of salvation’ into danger with only a pig sticker.” Lillian argues quietly.

  “If you fired a gun it would just bring more trouble, as for risking my salvation, I’ve been doing it for years. Only you know which room you were in and where you hid the book so you are the logical one to find it, someone needs to keep an eye on the goings on down here and I am the logical person to do that. Believe me one scream from you and I’ll be up there in seconds, even if I have to come through the wall to do it. Now stop wasting our window of opportunity and go.”

  Unable to think of a good argument for not going and secretly keen to go into the inn by herself, Lillian darts round the back of the inn. Once she is sure she is not being observed, she makes sort work of the lock on the pantry door with well practiced fingers and slips inside. Even at midmorning, the kitchen is full of the smells of baking and frying and Lillian is hard pressed to avoid the attention of the two cooks sitting at the heavy wooden table in the middle of the oversized room. Fortunately the same discussion that had masked the rasping sounds as the tumblers in the lock moved, seemed to keep them distracted enough that neither of the two noticed the figure slipping past them, using the large counters as cover. She enters the common room, unnoticed by the few patrons who slouch at various tables and over drinks. Most of the customers had probably slept there overnight and were slowly collecting themselves to face the blinding light outside. Who ever had left the inn and drawn the Pardoners’ eye was even now being subjected to verbal abuse and threats by at least three of the white clad bullies. Lillian doesn’t try to listen to the commotion outside, instead she slips behind the bar and walks up to the innkeeper, who is half-heartedly rubbing his mugs with a cloth and generally ignoring everything beyond the polished expanse of bar in front of him. His low whistling stops suddenly when he feels the cold sharp point of a knife in the small of his back.

  “It’s Hugh, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” The startled man manages to reply

  “Keep calm and I won’t be forced to put this into your spine, Hugh.” Lillian whispers into the innkeeper’s ear. A slight nod is the man’s only response.

  “Good. Now, the gun, where is it?” She demands, still keeping her voice low. From the perspective of the ragtag group in the common room, Lillian could be any one of the many youths used to pass along messages among businessmen around town.

  “Where’s what?” The innkeeper responds, struggling to keep his voice even.

  “How many revolvers, plated in first water silver, do you find in your rooms?”

  “There are Inquisitors outside,” the innkeeper says, his voice gaining confidence as he recovers from the shock of the cold steel. “Do you know how much trouble you would be in if I just called out that door?”

  At that moment the jeering and the voices stop, drowned out by the sound of a gunshot and the pitiful whinnying of a wounded horse.

  “It sounds to me like they’ve got their hands full already.” Lillian says, allowing the steel to prick the skin deep enough to draw a small ruby drop.

  “Shit!” The innkeeper flinches involuntarily. “That hurts! Okay, what do you want?” “I’ve already told you, the gun and if you would be so kind I’d like you to accompany me upstairs.”

  “All the rooms have been cleaned out already, not that there was much valuable in them. Those Inquisitors came in last night and they were asking all sorts of questions, I didn’t know what to tell them, so I just turned all the guests out and let them look round the rooms. Why do you think there’s so many sleeping in my common room this morning?… You won’t find anything worth stealing upstairs.”

  “Did they find anything?”

  “Who?”

  “The Inquisitors.”

  “You planning to steal from them? No, I told you, there’s nothing up there.”

  “Didn’t tell them about the gun, though, did you? For your sake I hope you haven’t already sold it.”

  “No, I’ve still got it.” The man assures her, looking helplessly out over the dregs of his customers but not one of them meets his eye. “It’s in the safe in the back room.”

  “Then I suggest we go and retrieve it, as soon as possible.”

  Left outside, Sam can’t resist the urge to approach the source of the commotion coming from around the corner. With the reigns of the two horses still in his left hand, he inches over to the entrance to the alleyway and stares out at the scene on the main street. Four white clad Pardoners are standing in a menacing semi-circle around an abnormally tall man, wearing a wide brimmed hat that would be more appropriate in the heat of the west than in the relatively temperate conditions to be found along the Blue Snake. The man’s clothes are unremarkable, a slightly stained white shirt and denim pants and a dark jacket. What draws Sam’s eye almost immediately are the two pistols riding at his hips; both look to be the work of a master gunsmith and matched, yet each is subtly different. Then it hits him, one gun has been made differently to accommodate an abnormality on the tall man’s right hand. Sure enough a glance at the right hand confirms his suspicion and explains why the Pardoners have accosted him. The sixth and seventh fingers on the man’s right hand were unmistakable, as was the thin webbing between them; it was a small enough abnormality, a deformity which would have been overlooked in some of the small towns on the edge of the Western desert, where the needs of a dwindling community often outweigh the precepts of the Union at large. No doubt that was how the mutant had been allowed to grow to maturity, had the Inquisitors in this part of the world found him as an infant he would probably have been burned and his mother with him, for good measure, in order to maintain the purity of God’s children.

  The mutant was too old to have been subjected to the harsher laws that had resurfaced with the ascendance of the Inquisition. As it was the four Pardoners seemed intent on provoking the mutant into any reaction that would allow them to correct the mistake they deemed to have been made some nineteen or so years ago in allowing the mutant to live. The small groups of townspeople, who had gathered at a safe distance all down the street, just as Sam had done, would no doubt be only too eager to see summary justice carried out but even though all mutations were an offence to God, in whose image the righteous were shaped, there were forms to be followed. Before the Crusade such minor deviations had been allowed and the pro
tests of citizens, who had known such people all their lives, meant that there were laws stating that older mutants with such small flaws could not simply be killed outright. Had they chosen to insist on castration, however, the laws both old and new would have supported the demand. One of the White clad figures was pointing this out to the unfortunate man, even as Sam reached the end of the ally.