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.