Travis Crowe was on his knees too, just as awe-struck. Much as he despised the Faith and the Brotherhood, he had no doubt that this was the Lord Of All at work. It wouldn't make him waste his time going to what some other bloke or woman thought was a holy event, but it was beautiful to watch.
The mountain was glowing; light flared from the heart of it and the white crystal surface brightened like the dawn.
A maw seemed to open in the face of Kerberos, and suddenly cleansing light, far brighter and purer than mere whiteness, punched a hole through the skies over the peaks surrounding Freedom Point.
A shockwave of explosive sound blasted out across the slopes. Men and women all clutched at their ears and some even fell. It was as if all the souls in the clouds of Kerberos had loosed a war-cry to turn the bones of every still-living soldier to jelly.
"What is that?" one of Kesar's attendants yelled over the explosive din.
"Magic!"
"No sorcerer is that powerful!"
"The Lord of All is!"
Across the terraces, grass and flowers exploded into flame and disappeared in the wink of an eye. The dry stone walls began to glow a deep red and the stones themselves began to melt together. Tents and yurts vanished, instantly reaching their materials' flashpoint. The city that the people had brought with them was cleansed as if it had never sullied the mountain with its presence.
The rock faces of Freedom Point itself began to shift, not in a landslide, but in a bizarre, slow churn. The blazing white rock flowed smoothly, like butter. Inside, every piece of furnishing, and every corpse in the palace complex flashed into light and vanished. Superheated air burned pure gold, swimming through every tunnel and every corridor, sealing them tightly.
Then the icy white fire blazed out in all directions.
And then it was just as suddenly gone.
Gabriella had never seen anything so beautiful.
The peak of Freedom Point was still glowing, a pure copper tone, the shade of Gabriella's hair. "The Lord of All," she whispered.
"The Lord came and touched the world." She wished that Erak could have seen this.
It was wonderful and everything she had done, everything that had happened at Freedom Point, right now was absolutely worth it. She wouldn't have changed any of it for the world.
Beside her, Crowe was on his knees, shaking.
"Bloody hell," he kept mumbling, over and over. "Bloody hell."
Gabriella was right about one thing, he decided. That was God touching the world. Just reaching out like it was no effort at all to reach from one world to the next. Or, more accurately, from the next world to this one.
It was the Lord Of All, right there in front of his eyes; no doubts, no questions. He had seen the Lord at the Isle of the Star too; he just hadn't known what he was seeing. It had been too big, too fabulous, for his brain to take in.
He also saw that the Lord paid no heed to either the Faith or the Brotherhood. He threw back his head and laughed. All those petty people insisting that the Lord wanted things done their way, and here the Lord had come and not given a monkey's toss who was doing things which way. It was perfect. It was wonderful. It was as if the Lord of All had shown him that just to prove that he was right not to trust either faith.
He rose and held Gabriella. She didn't pull away. "It was the Lord of All," he said.
"It was." She managed a smile. "You believe now?"
"In the Lord of All? Always did, like a good soldier. It's just you God-botherers I don't believe in."
Preceptor DeBarres was the first to look away from Freedom. All across the valley, little groups of people were picking themselves up and beginning to walk or ride away.
He walked towards Gabriella and Crowe.
"Gabriella?" She looked round, and he saw the beatific smile that he knew he was wearing too. "We should get back."
"Back?"
"To the Order's encampment, to start with. Out of this valley, eventually. I'm sure you two could do with some food and a change of clothes, if nothing else."
Gabriella blinked. "Yes, I suppose…"
"Now that you mention it," Crowe said, "I do feel a bit peckish. And I could murder a drink."
As they mounted up and cantered towards the Order's camp, DeBarres leaned in close to Gabriella. "There's something you need to know. I think others knew what would happen at Freedom."
"What others?"
"Eminence Kesar." He caught her gaze with his, and she could see that he was aware of the severity of what he had just said. She didn't quite nod, but briefly lowered her eyes in a way that implied a nod. "I won't pretend to know what it means," he went on, "and I suggest that you don't either."
"I'm not the pretending type," she said. "I'll leave that to Crowe."
A few weeks later, Eminences Rodrigo Kesar, Jan Voivode and Ludwig Rhodon were sat round a large table, going over scrolls of each others' reports on the events in Pontaine and at Freedom Point.
"Remarkable," Voivode was saying. "If only I could have been there, to see the Lord's clear light."
"It was," Kesar agreed.
"So, the assassination attempt on you, Ludwig, has been well avenged by Sister DeZantez and many people saved from the machinations of Kell and the Brotherhood. An excellent outcome. It's nice to have a victory to declare, after the lunacy of that business with Munch."
Rhodon looked unsure. "And yet many of those people who were saved from the Lord's power were almost certainly sinners and heretics. A minority, perhaps, but the numbers are unclear. What is clear," he went on slowly, "is that Sister DeZantez has shown… questionable judgement, at best."
"You question her judgement?"
"I would go so far as to describe her actions as apostasy."
Voivode slammed his hand on the tabletop as he rose angrily. "Eminence! That suggestion is beneath you! Sister DeZantez has always been one of my most devout knights. You insult Preceptor DeBarres and myself by suggesting that one of our students has in any way — "
Rodrigo Kesar watched the eyes of the two other Eminences. Voivode's eyes were filled with righteous passion and Kesar didn't think that could be faked. Not by Voivode, at any rate. He prided himself that he might have been able to pull off such a performance but, then, he had been portraying a public face for so long that he had almost forgotten how not to do it. Ludwig Rhodon, on the other hand, looked pained. Whether that pain was due to his wound, the thought of a betrayal by DeZantez, or some other issue, Kesar couldn't tell. Not yet.
"Eminences," he said quietly. "I have met Sister DeZantez on several occasions and found her an admirable Knight and an admirable Enlightened One. However, I have also met her friend Travis Crowe and he is certainly a man of, at best, dubious character and morality."
"He is a known associate of the Brotherhood," Rhodon insisted. "A gambler, smuggler of hard liquors, and worse. What possible reason could there be for an association between the two of them?
"DeZantez was also seen in the company of Sandor Feyn, a known Brotherhood figurehead."
"Whom she executed quite properly," Voivode snapped.
"And why was she trying to hunt down Feyn in the first place?" Rhodon asked. "It wasn't part of her duties. She was supposed to hunt Kell. And don't give me any nonsense about the list of proscribed men. Kell was a bigger target."
"It was at my suggestion," Kesar interrupted mildly. That shut both of the other Eminences up. "I find it troubles me when there is such a division between members of the Faith; especially between two such esteemed Eminences. It seems to me that there are questions which must be asked, when such an upset as this arises. Purely," he added, with a nod to Voivode, "to clear up any misunderstandings which may have arisen due to the confusion of recent times."