The exchange complete, both Kali and Slowhand stared up at the pillar of souls. The essences of things still writhed within it, still sought somehow to escape, and perhaps even to snatch at those whose flesh they were now denied, but there was one important difference — these souls were Ur'Raney, and they were going back where they belonged.
The pillar of souls disappeared and Kali and Slowhand found themselves staring at the looming masses of the Engines, still rotating above.
"Hooper, I thought you said…" Slowhand interjected.
"Sorry, Liam. For one thing I didn't know if I had programmed them correctly but, more importantly, I couldn't even think about them in Redigor's presence. He'd have sensed it, stopped them somehow…"
"You worked out a way to bring them all the way here?"
"Made it up as I went along," Kali said, smiling.
Their smiles faded as they heard Katherine Makennon groan and were reminded of the ordeal she'd been through. Slowhand was about to offer aid, but Kali placed a hand on his arm, holding him back, allowing the Anointed Lord to emerge from her nightmare by herself.
Her gait stiff, her head erect and proud, Katherine Makennon moved slowly from the altar by the kneeling Redigor to a slab where her clothing, armour and weapon lay neatly folded and stacked. For the moment, she ignored the garments, regarding them curiously, fingering them, but nothing more. Instead, she took the shaft of the battleaxe in two hands and wearily dragged it towards her. Seemingly lacking the strength to lift it again, Makennon paused a second, drawing in a deep and contemplative breath, and then turned to face the Pale Lord, her expression devoid of emotion. Then, equally slowly, she began to walk towards Redigor, dragging the battleaxe with her. When she stood in front of him, she stopped and, in a dry croak, demanded he rise.
Showing no fear, no remorse, only the arrogance that had marked the man for all his long and depraved life, Bastian Redigor stood. For a second his eyes seemed to flick beyond her but then he leaned forward, and whispered in her ear.
"Your church will crumble at my hands. I will destroy it."
Makennon's gaze rose until it met his. Her eyes were unblinking, her face blank. Almost imperceptibly at first, the muscles about her mouth began to spasm, her face contorted into a mask of rage and fury, and then she swung the battleaxe up from between her legs with a guttural roar that shook the Chapel.
Bastian Redigor had no time even to cry out. With a sound more at home on a butcher's block than a chapel's altar, the blade sliced into the Pale Lord at the groin and continued up through him until it swung out over Makennon's head. Arcs of blood and entrails spattered the faces of those watching but no one moved. The Anointed Lord held the battleaxe over her head, dripping blood and gore, and then gradually set it down. Before her, the halves of Bastian Redigor parted and crumpled to the floor, landing with wet thuds.
Makennon's words were whispered.
"I'd like to see you try."
Kali looked around her at those assembled, seeing in their eyes the same return to humanity that she had witnessed in Makennon's. Then her eyes moved to the prone, shrivelled form of Gabriella DeZantez and she knelt by her side. The Enlightened One was still alive, just, but the life was already fading from her eyes.
Kali cradled DeZantez's head, wanting desperately to offer some comfort but not knowing what to say. In the end, it was Gabriella who spoke first, though her voice was not what Kali remembered — a cracked, aged thing, little more than a sibilant whisper.
"Do you see the light? Gabriella DeZantez sees the light."
"The light?"
"Kerberos," Gabriella said slowly, and smiled. Her eyes were focused upward, not on Kali at all. "My time is close."
"You saved my life. Bought the time to save all our lives. Is there anything I can do… to make things easier?"
Gabriella emitted a low chuckle. "Are you offering to pray for me?"
"Yes. Yes, yes, I am, if that's what you want."
Gabriella shook her head, laughed again. "Maybe it would be… more appropriate if… you had a drink for me instead…"
Kali smiled. "I'll do that. More than one. The whole of the Flagons will."
A cough. "Such a request from a Sister of the Faith is, of course, prohibited."
"What the hells, eh?"
Gabriella suddenly tensed beneath her. "Looks like we were wrong."
Kali frowned. "About what?"
"My being one of the Four."
"Hey, I don't think so," Kali said. "You did more than your bit to save the world today."
Gabriella shook her head again, but this time didn't laugh. "No. This wasn't the time, I sense that. Not the threat that is meant to bring the Four together…"
Kali turned away, biting her lip. When she looked at Gabriella again, the Enlightened One was staring directly at her.
"There's more you haven't told me, isn't there?" Gabriella asked. "You know something, don't you?"
Kali took a second before she spoke. "Not much. Something's coming. Darkness."
Gabriella absorbed the information, swallowed, and her body spasmed once more. But she retained enough control to study Kali intently. She clutched at Kali's hand, squeezed it. "Tell someone. Tell Slowhand. Don't go through this alone."
Kali nodded, while beneath her, Gabriella groaned.
"Do something else for me," she said. Slowly, her skeletal hand slipped into her charred surplice and withdrew the shard of Freedom Mountain, which she pressed into Kali's hand. She swallowed again, dryly, and her next words emerged almost as a wheeze. "Please. Watch me go."
Kali looked at the shard and at Gabriella and nodded. The Enlightened One squeezed her hand in thanks and held her gaze. Only after a few moments had passed did Kali realise that she was never going to look away again.
Kali took a shuddering breath and slowly raised the shard. She gasped, eyes widening, and smiled.
Gabriella's soul rose from her body in much the same way as Brother Marcus's had done, but there was something that distinguished it, not only from the Faith soldier's soul but from every other soul she had now seen.
Gabriella's essence shone brightly, blindingly. As it slowly wove its way upwards, towards Kerberos, it flared with all the colours of the threads, a rainbow burst filled far more with life than it ever could be with death.
Kali thought about everything she'd learned about Kerberos in the past few days. About how it might, despite her previous disbelief, be a part of everything.
And maybe, she thought, Gabriella had been wrong about not being one of the Four. Maybe, just maybe, she might yet still be.
A hand fell heavily on her shoulder.
"Hooper, I'm sorry," Slowhand said. "The Engines — there's something wrong."
Chapter Eighteen
There was something wrong, all right. Great shadows loomed over Kali even as she stood to take in what Slowhand had said. As she looked through the collapsed roof of the Chapel of Screams she saw that the Engines were lower in the sky than on their arrival. Their sirens were blaring in a deafening, urgent tone.