With that, the conversation ended and Freel spurred his horse on. They didn't slow again until they had reached their destination.
Scholten Cathedral. The last time two times Kali had trodden its supposedly hallowed halls she had been with Slowhand, and on both occasions she and the archer were intruders, either running for their lives or sneaking about in the dark. In either case they had been able to pay little attention to the details of their surroundings, other than to the whereabouts of Faith patrols. She wished she could say it made a nice change to be able to take a good look around but the opposite was true. Everything about the place — the grandiose architecture, the ceremony and particularly the smug faces of the cathedral's Enlightened Ones, tending to their flock in exchange for donations — made Kali sick to the stomach. She wondered why she hadn't, in fact, jumped away with Horse on the way here, as had crossed her mind.
They were a blight selling the false dream of ascension to their followers, and she wished she could tell every one of those followers what she had witnessed done in the church's name, just what it was that went on behind the gold-thread tapestries and hand-carved wooden doors — show them the real face of the Final Faith.
She, of course, bore scars both old and new to remind her of exactly what that was. The old scars on her ankles, wrists and neck had been acquired deep beneath these very halls, where Konstantin Munch had submitted her to the comforts of his 'nail chair' and the tender ministrations of Querilous Fitch. Though the scars had faded, her disdain for the Faith would never go away. The new scars were the red blotches that she now bore on her shoulders and neck: evidence, if any were needed, of these bastards' propensity to burn first and not ask questions later, to immolate any who spoke out against their cause, as they had done in the thousands over the years.
It gave Kali no small pleasure, then, as, with the sound of the Eternal Choir fading in their ears, Freel led her and DeZantez down into the sublevels', where it seemed the Faith had undergone some suffering themselves. The transition from the ornate cathedral to its gritty underbelly was always dramatic, but the signs of recent battle in the distribution and rail centre made it more so. Bodies had clearly been removed from within it, but cleaved or broken pieces of armour and torn surplice cloth were scattered here and there, some pieces of which still contained the odd chunk of severed flesh. And there was blood. A great deal of blood that had to have come from a great many people.
Something had hit the Faith and hit them hard.
The question was what?
'Come with me,' Freel said, wasting no time.
He led the two women to some kind of bunker that, judging by the crates of belongings waiting outside the door to be removed, had recently changed hands. Kali recognised some of the belongings, particularly a small trolley containing a number of needlereeds and vials of viscous liquids and a duplicate of her own gutting knife. This must have been Konstantin Munch's hidey-hole when he wasn't torturing poor unfortunates in the holding chambers below. But as they passed through the door, no further evidence of the dwarf-blooded psychopath could be seen. Freel had put his own stamp on the office.
Kali's eyebrows rose. The bunker could have been an Old Race site, so much of their technology had been installed. Except that where most of the devices she encountered in such sites had been decayed and broken down, rotten after countless years of neglect, this stuff looked as if it had come straight out of the box. Amberglow light- panels illuminated an array of exotic machines of unknown purpose, security cages were sealed with runic arches and, most disturbingly, a raised platform in the centre offered views from a dozen Eyes of the Lord spheres, projecting goings-on in different parts of the Faith's empire. These images were being monitored by a handful of grey-robed men.
Gabriella DeZantez seemed discomforted in the presence of so much technology, as if it had no place in her vision of the church. Freel immediately dropped a few notches in Kali's estimation, too.
'Seems like there's a difference between my manipulating forbidden artefacts and your doing the same,' Kali observed, nodding at the spheres.
'Oh, those things,' Freel responded, 'those weren't my idea.' He signed a chit handed to him by one of his men. 'The rest, though… well, the Faith has to move with the times. Even if, ironically, those times are the ancient past.'
'Still meddling with things you don't understand,' Kali said.
Freel paid her little attention, his face darkening as another man entered and read out the latest confirmed casualties — supply workers Bogle, Krang, Rutter and Flank, and an Eminence named Kesar.
The latter name seemed to shake Gabriella DeZantez.
'Rodrigo Kesar is dead?' She said.
The guard looked regretful. 'The Eminence was supervising a… volatile incense shipment when the assault began, Sister. Was the Eminence a friend of yours?'
'No,' Gabriella DeZantez said quietly to herself, and shook her head.
Kali looked at her, puzzled. The man had obviously been important in some way, but she had already said not as a friend. It seemed almost as if she had had some door slammed in her face. Maybe she'd ask her about it when she had the chance. For now, though, there were more important questions to be addressed.
'You want to tell me what the hells has been going on here?'
Freel guided her and DeZantez to the viewing area and, as he did, three other men joined them from across the room. 'General McIntee of the Order of the Swords of Dawn, Cardinal Kratos,' he said by way of introduction. 'And this is the developer of the Eyes of the — '
'I know who this bastard is,' Kali interrupted. 'And I should have known. Hello, Fitch.'
The psychic manipulator bowed slightly, his hands steepled. They were bandaged, Kali noticed. 'Kali Hooper. What a pleasant surprise.'
'What the hells are you doing here?' Kali demanded.
'Helping, Kali, just like you. All hands on deck, and all that.'
'What — you run out of heads today?'
Fitch smiled and suddenly noticed the burns on Kali's neck. He tutted sympathetically.
Kali snarled.
'I suggest,' Freel said hastily, 'that we get down to business.'
'No argument here,' Kali agreed. 'You said Makennon needed my help? That you feared she'd gone to the hells?'
Freel nodded. 'The Anointed Lord has been taken.'
'Taken? By which I presume you
'He means abducted,' General McIntee said. 'Here from the very heart of the Faith.'
Kali pursed her lips, nodded. 'Neat trick. So who's got her?'
Freel nodded to Fitch who promptly shut down all of the images being projected from the Eyes of the Lord. He then picked up an inactive Eye of the Lord from a nearby table and readied it for viewing.
With DeZantez, Kali found herself watching the horde's assault on the tunnels. She saw an overview of the grey figures pouring from the tunnel, zooming images of agonised or dying Final Faith soldiers and the flashes of the intruders' makeshift but lethal weapons. She had to disguise her shock as she saw Slowhand struggling in the grip of Faith guards. She had already met with indisputable proof that his mission to kill Fitch had failed, and now she knew why. Just like herself, events had overtaken him. Not for the first time, she reflected that she and the archer had a knack for being in the right place at the wrong time. It was almost as if, as Poul Sonpear had pointed out some months before, their presence in these places was somehow predestined. Now was not the time to worry about that, however, or Slowhand's current fate. If she were to make sense of what was happening before her, she had to give it her full attention.
Katherine Makennon was visible in the fray now, the armoured form of the Anointed Lord striding into the sublevel at the head of her men. Again, Kali caught a glimpse of Slowhand, trying to stop Makennon wading in. Wade in, of course, was what she did, and Kali had to give the woman her due — she could certainly bollock the bad guys. What happened next, however, was so unexpected and shocking that she wasn't at all surprised to see Slowhand and his captors reel from it.
