by Mike Wild
But why, after all these years, and as the Faith hadn't returned to the Sardenne, was the Pale Lord attacking them?
And how the hells had he been able to do what he did?
"I thought your tunnels were shielded," she said. "Weaved so powerfully nothing, not even the Pale Lord, could get through."
"They are. Or rather, were. The shields collapsed before the assault began. Just vanished. As, incidentally, did the abilities of every mage or shadowmage in the complex."
Kali's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Vanished how?"
"We don't know. They just -"
"Fizzled out," Kali finished, and sighed. "Just like Quinking's Depths."
"Quinking's Depths?"
"Below Solnos," Kali said absently. "The same thing happened there."
"Then I imagine you're thinking that the reason the shields collapsed is related to the appearance of the machines near Solnos. And you would be right. But only partly so."
"Oh?"
"Those machines are not the only ones of their kind. There are three groups of them."
"What?"
Fitch moved to a map of the peninsula, pointing out three locations. "Three groups of three machines rising from beneath the ground at precisely the same time. Their appearance was reported to us by our senders, just before their abilities... left them."
Kali hesitated. "Wait one minute. Are you trying to tell me this phenomena is peninsula-wide? That magic has been cancelled out everywhere?"
"Yes. Our theory is that these machines have been activated from some central location by forces of the Pale Lord for just that purpose. It is with this that we need your help."
Kali folded her arms. "I thought that's where I might come in. You want me to find out where this location is and shut these things down right?"
Fitch nodded. "Only then would we have an effective defence against the First Enemy. Only then would we be able to effect a rescue of the Anointed Lord."
"And the others who were taken, of course..."
"Of course."
"Okaaay," Kali said. "And just what do you lot do in the meantime?"
"Try and find out more about what the Pale Lord is planning," Freel said. "To that end I ordered an Eye of the Lord despatched to the Sardenne."
Kali was impressed. She doubted very much that such a course of action would even have occurred to Fitch, who could think of nothing to do with his new toys other than spy on his flock.
Sometimes you just needed to think, as it were, outside the collection box.
"Show me," Kali said.
"I will," Freel reassured her. "But the journey to and from the Sardenne takes time. We expect the Eye's return in the next couple of hours." The enforcer shrugged, half-smiled and spread his arms. "In the meantime, I suggest you make yourself at home."
Make yourself at home, Freel had said. How exactly did you do that in the bosom of the most intolerant religion the peninsula had ever seen? Kali had contemplated popping upstairs to do a few numbers with the Eternal Choir - maybe something with a bit of a beat - or perhaps sneaking into Makennon's quarters to grab herself a nice, hot bath, but she didn't want to give Fitch a chance to play with his balls. She had even thought of getting the hells out of the cathedral for a while to down a flummox or three in the Ramblas, but the information she was waiting on was too important to miss.
She tried to get to see Slowhand, But the archer was under heavy guard - access to no one but Fitch - and instead she found herself wandering the sublevels. She came at last to the naphtha chamber where the soul-stripped, who had been left behind after the Pale Lord's assault were meeting, without objection, their ultimate end. The creatures' fate was indicative of how Redigor had used them as nothing more than cannon fodder to draw Makennon out, and now their purpose was done, they were discarded.
Kali was surprised to see DeZantez in the chamber, watching the mindless victims with sorrow rather than disgust in her eyes. As one soul-stripped after the other was placed within a naphtha cage, mindlessly compliant, she seemed even to sag before the weight of them, as if each victim took with it a little part of her. Maybe it did, Kali reflected. After all, as a Sister of the Order of the Swords of Dawn, these were the people whom DeZantez had sworn to protect, and they had been taken from her by the Pale Lord in obscene numbers.
Watching them burn, Kali cringed, recalling her own close encounter with the gibbet and trying not to think how agonising her death could so easily have been. She was aided in this by what was perhaps an even greater horror. As the naphtha consumed them, the Pale Lord's soldiers remained perfectly still, making no attempt to escape their gibbets and absolutely no sound other than the crackling and spitting of their own burning flesh. By all that was natural, they should have filled the underground with the sound of their screams but, whitened eyes staring unfeelingly ahead, their mortal forms departed the world uncomplaining, supplicant until the last to their dark master's will.
When it was done, Gabriella DeZantez touched all four points of the crossed-circle on her tunic and then placed her right palm on its centre, her head bowed in prayer. When her gaze rose once more Kali was surprised to see teardrops beading the corners of her eyes.
"Maybe now," DeZantez said, "their souls can somehow reach Kerberos."
Kali regarded her, and nodded non-commitedly. Considering the treatment she had received at this woman's hands, she hadn't expected such a human response from her but, then, she had already sensed that there was more to her than the average Filth drone. She shared their devoutness, yes, but she was clearly not part of the pack. There was an air of independence and a sense of humanity and, more importantly, justice about her. For a moment she wished she could share her hopes for the victims.
"You don't believe in ascension to Kerberos." Gabriella observed, seeing her expression.
Kali shrugged, bit her lip. "Let's just say I've seen and heard a few things that make me question the received wisdom, particularly the teachings of the Filth."
DeZantez actually smiled at the slur. "That it is our destiny to ascend - to become something greater than our whole?"
"Yes."
DeZantez pondered for a moment. "We have time. What if I could prove to you that when a deserving soul departs its body it does indeed travel to the place to which we all aspire - to the clouds of Kerberos?"
"And just how would you do that? With some Faith parlour trick? No, I don't think so."
"No trick. And nothing to do with the Faith. Except, of course as a reinforcement of our faith. No, this is something that was here before our Church. Something much, much older."
Gabriella snapped instructions to a nearby brother, an initiate by his cowl, to fetch something from her saddlebag, and he departed, returning a little while later with a small cloth-wrapped object. Gabriella unfolded the material almost reverently, revealing what appeared to be a shard of glass or crystal.
"This is a piece of Freedom Mountain," she explained. "It was loosened during a recent... let's say visitation and removed from the site by a man named Crowe, as a souvenir of what happened there. Travis... he neglected to take it with him when we parted company."
"I don't see what geology has to do with anything here."
"Take it," DeZantez urged. Kali did, and found the shard unexpectedly light. "Now come with me."
Kali frowned, but did as asked, finding herself led along a number of corridors to a small chamber which had been converted into a makeshift field hospital to treat the few survivors of the recent attack. One of the cots held the badly injured body of a Faith brother for whom nothing more could be done. The dying man stared up at DeZantez with dimming eyes as she stood over him, a rattle of recognition at her Swords of Dawn surplice escaping his dry throat. Gabriella smiled with genuine warmth and sat gently down on the side of the cot, taking the man's hand.
"This is Brother Marcus," she explained, squeezing his hand. "Brother Marcus is a good man, with simple beliefs. Chief among those beliefs has always been
that when his time comes he will ascend to Kerberos and there find the greater glory that awaits us all, just as the Final Faith teaches." She leaned forward to Brother Marcus's face and spoke softly. "You understand, don't you, Marcus, that your time is coming soon?"
Brother Marcus nodded almost imperceptibly and swallowed, as did Kali. DeZantez had clearly spent time here while she'd been wandering around.
"I am with you," Gabriella said.
Kali shifted uneasily on her feet, but said nothing as DeZantez continued to comfort Marcus and wait for the man to die. There was, she presumed, some point to this. After a few more minutes, Marcus's hand suddenly tightened in Gabriella's, he bucked once and gave a long sigh. This particular member of the Final Faith had breathed his last.
DeZantez sighed. "What do you see?" She asked Kali.
"A man gone to meet his maker," Kali responded. "But who, or what, that maker is I wouldn't want to say."
"Look again," Gabriella instructed. "Through the shard."
"What?"
"The shard. Freedom Mountain had a direct physical connection to Kerberos, and that has given it some unique properties. Look again," she added. "Hurry, girl, or it will be too late."
Girl? Kali thought. There wasn't that much difference in their ages and, in fact, she was pretty sure she was the elder here. Nevertheless, she shrugged, warily raised the shard before her eyes, and caught her breath. Because what the shard revealed was that Brother Marcus hadn't yet gone anywhere. His soul, his essence - Kali wasn't sure what to call it - separated itself from the physical form like pollen shaken from a flower by a spring breeze. It was made up of sparkling, scintillating beads of light as vibrant as anything Kali had ever seen. As they emerged from his lifeless body, they formed themselves into a recognisable semblance of Brother Marcus - albeit distorted, as if viewed through a carnival mirror - forming and stretching upwards, towards the ceiling of the chamber. And then, with an actual, noticeable glance down at his corporeal remains, through the ceiling.
Kali continued to stare upwards, working out where beneath Scholten this particular chamber was located, trying to rationalise what she had just seem. But she couldn't. Because unless Brother Marcus was heading for a final tankard in the Bloody Merry - which, considering the Faith's abstinence laws, seemed unlikely - there was only one thing up there. Quite some way up there.
"The clouds of Kerberos." Kali said softly.
"The clouds of Kerberos." Gabriella confirmed.
"I... I don't know what to say."
"Then say nothing. But understand that this is why I have given myself to the Faith. That, despite what you think, some of us truly believe."
Kali stared at her. DeZantez turned as the messenger who had delivered the shard returned, in a hurry and bringing news. "Sister DeZantez, Miss Hooper, Enforcer Freel requests your presence," he said breathlessly. "The Eye of the Lord has returned."
The pair looked at each other and began to make their way to the bunker.
"There's something that I need to ask you," Gabriella said en route. "Something I don't understand."
Kali was grateful to return to more familiar footing. "Shoot." "That thing that took the Anointed Lord. It was borne of sorcery, it had to be. Of magic. But I thought the magic had died."
The same seeming contradiction had occurred to Kali, and while she had no answer, she did have suspicions. The threads might have been cancelled by the machines, but what if this wasn't the threads at work? Something close to them, yes, something similar, but not the threads everyone knew? She recalled Aldrededor telling her that while he had been piloting the Tharnak he had seen strange black threads lying dormant amongst the others, no longer a part of their tapestry but still there. They'd appeared lifeless, he'd told her, but nevertheless occasionally leeched colour from other threads.
"It has," Kali said to DeZantez. "That's what worries me."
They reached Freel's bunker where he and the others were gathered once more about the central platform, where a new sphere had been positioned for viewing. The returned Eye was blackened and damaged, still smoking slightly, as if it had been caught up in some incredibly vicious firestorm. Kali wondered how it had managed to limp home. But limp home it had and, by the looks on the faces of Freel, Fitch and the others, they had already viewed what it had brought back with it.
"I have a feeling this isn't good news," Kali said.
"It isn't." Freel replied.
He nodded to Fitch and the manipulator activated the sphere. The flickering image showed the rolling plains of east Pontaine for a moment, before the target of the Eye of the Lord's flight came into view.
The sphere approached the perimeter of the Sardenne at a height of about a thousand feet, so that the demarcation between the ancient forest and the plains was clearly visible. It was darker than Kali had expected it to look, however, although she had experience of just how dark the Sardenne could be. The reason wasn't immediately obvious, the distance still too great, but from Jakub Freel's expression it was going to come as quite the revelation. She studied the image intently as the small recording blimp drew closer, and gradually began to make out exactly what it was that constituted that greater darkness.
Gabriella DeZantez crossed herself once more, praying under her breath.
Soul-stripped, thousands of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in the border of the forest, absolutely motionless and as grey as the shadows in which they stood. Distinguishable as individuals mainly by the whites of their lifeless, staring eyes, they were crowded together in an almost crushing mass but none reacted to the others, none complained, none jostled. Kali had no idea how far back into the forest these witless creatures lurked but, as she watched, more, presumably recent victims, shambled to join them and take up positions by their sides. As if those already assembled weren't enough.
This was a gathering of the Pale Lord's servants on a massive and hitherto unprecedented scale. The necromancer was, it seemed, building an army.
"Their eyes," Fitch said. "It's said that the First Enemy can, if he wishes, see through them all at once, and that when he does his gaze is powerful enough to see people's thoughts."
"What the hells is going on?" Kali asked.
Freel placed a hand on her shoulder. "There's more."
Kali glanced at Gabriella, who looked as confused as she did, and turned back to the projection. The Eye of the Lord was heading beyond the edge of the forest, now, and the vista it displayed was an unending, rolling landscape of ancient and massive trees, a thick canopy that hid the presence of the multifarious creatures and horrors that lived beneath. As the sphere progressed, Kali mentally traced her own journey through the forest almost a year before, the only way that she could map the progression of the Eye of the Lord over the otherwise unchanging topography. She guessed it was nearing Bellagon's Rip, now, which was generally accepted to be the stomping ground - or hiding place, depending on which way you looked at it - of the Pale Lord. Her guess turned out to be accurate as, after a minor alteration of its flight path, the view of the Eye of the Lord changed slightly and something hove into view.
"Oh, my gods," Kali said.
The Eye of the Lord had turned to look over the Sardenne's canopy, Kerberos's azure curve clearly visible above the forest. It was neither the canopy nor the gas giant that drew the eye, though, but the space between the two, where a massive pillar of energy, the width of a small village, punched up from the forest towards Kerberos. The pillar pulsed regularly and, each time it did, seemed to rise a little higher.
"What are those things you can see in it?" Gabriella DeZantez asked.
"I wish we knew," Freel responded. "Miss Hooper, have you ever come across anything like this in your travels?"
Kali shook her head. She was gaining a better view of the pillar now as the Eye of the Lord moved closer. The 'clouds' were revealed to be an agitation of the entire insides of the pillar, the shapes thick within it, slapping and battering against each other like leaves in a s
torm. Kali squinted, peering at them to make out more of their exact form when a thought struck her. She nudged DeZantez, indicated the shard and then raised it to her eye to view the projection.
Kali swallowed before speaking.
"They're souls," she announced.
Freel, Fitch and the others snapped their gazes towards her but, before Kali could elaborate, the projection suddenly juddered and flickered and, with the sphere perhaps thirty feet from the surface of the pillar, blackened and disappeared.
"The Eye of the Lord closed at this point," Fitch pointed out. "And returned to me."
"Did you say souls?" DeZantez asked Kali, clearly disturbed by what she had seen.
"But the ascension is meant to be a personal calling," Cardinal Kratos said, seemingly of the same mind, though Kali wasn't sure she believed him. "An individual journey. Not this... this -"
Kali offered him the shard. "Watch again and see for yourself. I'm sorry but they're souls. One for each of those soul-stripped."
Freel blew out a breath, looked at Kali. "I have to ask again - have you ever come across anything like this?"
She shook her head. "Believe me, it's only recently that I've got aboard this whole 'soul' thing."
Kratos sighed. "I think the enforcer had hoped to benefit more from your experience."
"Hey," Kali protested, "do I look like a farking encyclopedia?"
"No," Fitch joined in. "What you look like is the owner of a disreputable tavern in the middle of nowhere."
"That's it, I'm off..."
Gabriella DeZantez blocked Kali's way.
"I thought we'd gotten past that," Kali snarled.
"Gentlemen, ladies, please," Jakub Freel said. "The pressure of this current situation has obviously affected us all. May I just ask you all for your conclusions on what you've seen?"
"What other conclusion can there be?" General McIntee answered. "You saw the number of those things. The First Enemy is planning a full-scale invasion of the peninsula."