An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (69 page)

Tahn deleted the message and reached for his pants. Stepping into them, he turned back to the com, switching on the visual. The bridge appeared, officers sitting obediently at their consoles.

“Halloway?”

She turned, green eyes glinting. “Bad news, I presume?”

“How long to Horeb?”

“About four hours.”

“Contact Doctor Iona. See to it he administers a sedative to Mikael Calas. I want the boy sleeping for the next twelve.”

“Why? What are we—”

“Did you get that, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir,” she responded curtly. “Anything else?”

“Yes, tran Talworth and tell him to get the hell out of orbit by at least 0:1500 hours.”

“Cole,”
Halloway said softly, color draining from her beautiful face. “Surely, we’re not—”

“We’ll argue about it over a dark ale on Lopsen, Carey. This isn’t the time.”

He flicked off the com and wearily reached for his shirt.

“Jeremiel,” Rathanial said tightly as he rushed into the council chambers accompanied by his five guards—part of Zadok’s contingent. His maroon robe shone blackly in the firelight. He sprinted for the monitor on the table.

“What is it?”

“Quickly, we’re not sure when this happened. Our analysts just brought it to me. We’ve so many ‘eyes’ on the city and so few people keeping track—since the rest are involved in the battle—that sometimes it takes a while to sift the data.”

Jeremiel leaned against the table as the monitor flickered to life.
Scenes from the polar chambers.
Rachel sat against the wall in the background, face pale, chest rising and falling as though she’d run a hundred miles.

“Friends, I grieve with you …” The Mashiah said in an agonized voice.

Jeremiel gripped the table edge hard as he watched Rachel rise and walk forward, hand dropping to her boot. A glint of silver sparked across the screen. “Come on!” he urged through gritted teeth. “You can do it.”

Rachel lifted the knife, beautiful face contorted in grief, then thrust it deep into Adom’s chest. A roar of adulation went up from the guards next to Jeremiel as the Mashiah staggered and fell.

Rathanial stared at him. “Now that she’s fulfilled her mission, we must get to the palace. Shassy will be in danger. I can’t—”

“Shut up!”

The transmission from the caves went dead, but the monitor on the city continued to send. The masses before the palace shrieked in fear, tearing their hair as they ran wildly through the battered streets. Flickers of cannon fire lit the night.

“Get out of my way, Rathanial,” Jeremiel said gruffly, shoving the old man aside and switching the monitor to casualty figures. His heart thumped as he read them. “On one side of the city there’s been a substantial decrease in deaths. Around the palace, however, casualties have increased sevenfold. Looks like Ornias’ marines have gone on a blood rampage. They must be trying to whip those who’ve lost heart into shape to keep them fighting. Some of it is probably the civilian populace, too, taking out their wrath on anyone who looks like one of our soldiers. Regardless, Rachel must have killed the Mashiah only a short time ago and the news is just now spreading. But it’ll take hours for it to reach the troops in the field. The most isolated positions won’t find out until this is all over.”

“If we have the time to tell them.”

He glanced at Rathanial. The elder stood with his arms folded tightly.

“What do you mean? Tahn should still be five—”

“We’ve been monitoring the transmissions of that small ship he left in orbit. The pilot there was just notified the
Hoyer
is less than two hours away. We—”

“God damn. He’s been pushing his engines to the limit. What else? Did Tahn say how he was coming in? What kind of orders he’s received?”

“No, we’ve heard nothing about his orders. But he did tell Talworth, the pilot in the shuttle, to quote: ‘be out of orbit by 0:1500 hours.’”

Jeremiel’s gut crawled. He sank down on the tabletop. “Well, that’s it then.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“It means,” he said through a tense exhale, “that you need to contact Councilman Ornias. Operation ‘bait’ is in motion as of this instant.”

“Oh,” Rathanial lowered his gaze, gray hair gleaming in the flickers of firelight. “Jeremiel, forgive me. I’m so sorry. I—”

“One last thing.”

“What is it?”

“Rachel is still at the pole—somewhere. If Tahn calls off the attack, you’d damned well better get up there and find her!”

“I don’t think there’s any way—I mean …” The old man looked up guardedly, as though he feared Jeremiel might kill him.

“What are you talking about?”

“I meant to tell you earlier, but in the flurry over the Mashiah’s death, it slipped my mind. You see, Ornias has already dispatched four
samaels.
So even if I could get there once you’re—off—I doubt—”

“For God’s sake,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed. The councilman would have undoubtedly given his pilots the same kind of orders he’d been giving his marines for the past three years. Scenes of Syene’s dead body ravaged his mind. “Do it anyway, Rathanial. You owe it to her to hunt.”

Red climbed the old man’s cheeks, he nodded. “Yes, if I can.”

“Give me fifteen minutes.” Jeremiel shoved to his feet and strode across the room, heading for his chamber to ready the few personal things he’d need.

He made it almost to his room before he doubled over, sick to his stomach.

Rachel ran, stumbling through the eye of a black cyclone. She’d had the dream before, but this time it seemed even more real and terrifying, as though she’d walked into a trap from which she’d never escape.

Had she died? Had the bitter polar cold killed her body and now her soul searched aimlessly for heaven? The old teachings flooded over her, heaven and hell, Epagael and Aktariel.

Rachel gasped as a woman on horseback rode down on her, sword gleaming as she waved it over her head and shouted angrily in an unknown tongue. She dove out of the way, falling through the bottomless blackness. Getting on hands and knees, she scrambled frantically ahead. “Epagael! Let me go home? Please, I beg you. My little girl needs me. Don’t take me away yet!”

A brown splotch wavered to her right. She blinked, trying to bring it into focus, but it rippled as though a wall of water separated her from it.

“Epagael? I believe. I believe! I’m sorry I ever doubted.”

A fiery wheel dove out of the blackness, hurtling down at her. She covered her head, screaming, “Let me go home!”

Then a soft, elderly voice penetrated her terror. “Follow the light,” it urged. “That’s the way to God.”

“Who are you?”

“An experienced friend.”

The brown splotch moved methodically ahead of her, fading into a brighter gray in the distance. Was that the light? The way?

Rachel got to her feet and ran with all her might, panting as the spot grew brighter and brighter. A curious scent like ozone stung her nose. Her steps faltered.

“Rachel,” a deep voice called. “It’s not much farther. Step through the gate.”

A shiver tingled up her spine. All her life she’d dreamed of talking to God. Stirrings of a fragile childish faith rose.
He’d
explain.
He’d
tell her why so much pain tormented the universe. She longed to run to him and bury her face in his legendary robe, knowing his kind embrace would drive out her fear. “Epagael?”

“Yes. I’ve been waiting a long time to talk with you. Stars have been born and died in the interim.”

Her spirits soared. She sprinted forward. The gray changed to orange and she strode out into a magnificent crystalline palace.

Ten feet in front of her, a wide River of Fire ran, the heat nearly suffocating. Bridges spanned the fiery furnace.

“Rachel?”

She peered across the river. A white veil stood before a massive spinning well of darkness. The voice hurled from out of the black whirlwind.

“Has he deceived you?”

“W-who?”

“Milcom?”

She slowly lowered her arms to her sides and took a deep breath. “You mean Aktariel? No, I—”

“Ah, so you know who he is. Good. His wickedness grows like a cancer in the body of your universe.”

Rachel stood silent for a moment, her body trembling. Was this dream or real? The roar of the fiery waves. The gaping black hole. The brilliance of the marmalade walls. They seemed more real at this moment than the icy wilderness of the pole where she knew she must be sleeping … or—maybe she really was dead. She felt so tired, so weary. If she could only lie down and sleep and wake to feel Shadrach kissing her face and teasing, “My sweet darling, you’ve the laziest bones I know. I thought we’d planned on getting up early to go dig radi roots.” But she’d never hear his voice again. And she longed to have someone unwearied and wiser on whose shoulders she could rest her heavy burdens.

She looked pleadingly into the whirlwind. “Lord, help me. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“No, of course, not. Poor Rachel. Aktariel makes everything seem so difficult.”

“Why, Lord? You have all the power in the universe. Why do you let him torment us?”

“Sometimes, it’s necessary. Faith has to be proven before it can be rewarded.”

She winced, feeling a small pain in her heart.
The square … Talo’s words.
She had all the rest of her life to ache, she couldn’t succumb just now.

“But if you’re all-knowing, Lord, you wouldn’t need proof. You’d know.”

“It’s not as simple as you think. The wickedness of your universe shrouds my eyes.”

“Don’t speak to me of wickedness!”
She shuddered, Edom Middoth’s aching journal entries darting through her memories. “My people have died by the thousands praising your name! And where were you?
Absent!
In your convenant with our forebears you promised to protect us. But all you’ve done is
test our faith
through murder and misdirection!”

“I haven’t abandoned the Gamant people. It only seems so from your limited perspective.”

“I just murdered …” A sob caught in her throat. “I just murdered an innocent man to stop the slaughter of thousands on Horeb.
Why didn’t
you
stop it?”

“Ummm, yes, Adom. Actually, hope killed him. Has Aktariel given you your thirty pieces of silver yet?”

“What? Thirty—”

“Never mind. It happened a long time ago. Another of his plots gone awry.”

She shook a fist at the whirlwind. “Do you know how terribly we suffer? Are you omniscient?”

“I know.”

“Do you care? If you were really omnibenevolent like the sacred books say, you’d care and you—”

“I care. But, Rachel, you must understand, I’m not—”

“Are you omnipotent?”

“I have absolute power over creation and destruction, if that’s what you mean.”

“You’re a liar! If you were truly all knowing, all good, and all powerful, you could stop the suffering and you’d want to!
Innocent children wouldn’t be dying right now on Horeb and across the universe if you were as perfect as the Old Books say!’

For a time only the roar of the river responded and Rachel found herself on the verge of terrible tears. She clenched her fists. Memories tore at her like the beaks of the night birds.

“Perfection is a matter of perspective.”

“You
monsterl
You could stop it and you won’t. You
enjoy
the starvation and disease. The wars—”

“The spinning patterns of chaos are beautiful. Yes. Watching them gives me great pleasure.”

Her knees trembled, heart throbbing. “You’re like the plantation master who loves to see the barns fill with cotton regardless of how the field hands suffer beneath the hot sun to put it there.”

“The field hands can’t appreciate what happens to the cotton once it’s gleaned, Rachel. They see only their puny labors, not the magnificent works of art woven from their toil.”

“Oh, no …
no
…” Her lungs heaved as though she’d run to the end of her endurance. “Aktariel is right.”

“He is
not
right!”
Epagael thundered, shaking the crystal floor beneath her boots until she staggered. “Your perceptions are too limited to understand the vastness of the universe. The—”

“I understand suffering!
Do you?
I know how horrifying it is to watch your parents die slowly from disease. I know the agony of having a husband die fighting for righteousness. I’ve watched my friends brutally slaughtered. I know—”

“You know nothing.
Where were
you
when I laid the foundations of the universe? Where were
you
when I threw the stars into the heavens and set them to singing? Answer!”

“I—I don’t … that’s a ridiculous question. What does that have to do with suffering?”