An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (12 page)

“So,” Ari said softly. “What do you think? They have quotas on Gamants today or something?”

“Maybe.”

“I think it’s because someone’s scared witless. I’m telling you marines don’t guard spaceports unless they’re expecting big trouble.”

“From Gamants on the planet?”

Ari shook his head and tipped his bottle high, taking a long swallow before snuggling back in his chair. “From somebody coming in.”

“That makes sense.”

“Who do you think they’re trying to nab?”

Yosef shrugged uneasily. At this moment, he could have cared less. He struggled to analyze the emotions that roiled inside him. His grandmother had suffered the same types of attacks he’d just experienced—always just before something terrible happened. He squinted out the portal. Afternoon sunlight lay in glimmering pools of amber on the needles of the pines clustering around the landing field. He took a deep breath and let it hiss out his nostrils. “All I care about is getting to my brother. I don’t know what it is, Ari, but I got a bad feeling standing out there.”

“You’re going to a funeral. Of course, you feel bad.”

“It’s not that. I never even knew Ezarin. I feel nothing for her except pity. But Zadok—”

“Don’t worry. You’ll see him soon.”

Yosef nodded, but his fingers tightened around his beer bottle until the nails gleamed white. He knew that blinding pain, had experienced it twice before in his life. Unwillingly, he let his mind drift back to his childhood and the days before his mother’s horrifying death.

A weight pressed down on his chest with such terrible force he could barely breathe.

CHAPTER 7

Cole Tahn paced the oval bridge of the
Hoyer,
arms crossed over his broad chest. His formfitting purple uniform looked crisp. The gold braid on his shoulders shimmered in the harsh light. A tall man with brown hair and blue-violet eyes, he moved with the controlled strength of a hunting lion.

“Halloway, how long until we exit light vault?”

She flipped auburn hair over her shoulder, reading the monitors on the navigation console. “Approximately three minutes, sir.”

“Macey?” he called to his redheaded communications officer. “As soon as we sight Kayan, I want you on com to every colonel manning our six military installations.”

“Aye, sir. Message?”

“Tell them we’re coming in under section twenty-one of the Treaty of Lysomia. I want a state of emergency declared immediately: curfews, house searches, and the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus.”
He pointed a finger harshly. “You tell those people, we know Baruch is down there and, by God, we’re going to get him this time. Anyone found to have offered refuge to this criminal will be subject to immediate execution. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The entire spectrum splashed his forward screen as they exited the vault, waves of purple and yellow eddying around the edges. Kayan swam into view, lush, blue, with clouds forming a lacy pattern over the vast oceans.

Tahn’s shoulder muscles went rigid, and a queasy anxiety invaded his stomach. He stepped down to the second level, walking over to stand before the broad screen and stare hard at the planet.

“Baruch,” he whispered. “Damn you,
I know
you’re there. This time, we meet. This time
it ends!”

Zadok and Rathanial stood uncomfortably in the huge spaceport. Over a thousand people packed the vast rectangular room, unhappily enduring the delays and canceled flights. Hostile bickering sounded all around them.

“I hate these places,” Zadok grumbled, wiping sweaty hands on his tan robe.

“Government places?”

“Any crowded place.” He leaned a shoulder against the grimy white wall. How long had it been since he’d voluntarily placed himself in such a vulnerable situation? Crowds affected him like cages; a man couldn’t move if danger threatened, except to stumble over bystanders. Silently, he resented allowing Rathanial to talk him into coming inside.

“It looked like it might rain earlier, but the clouds have gone. Do you want to wait outside?” Dressed in an iridescent silver robe shot through with amethyst stitching, Rathanial looked like royalty in exile.

Zadok puffed an exhale and examined the route to the door, which would force them to weave around at least a hundred sweating, perfumed bodies. “No, I don’t think I could endure it.”

“We could go slowly, skirt the wall.”

“Where could Yosef’s transport be? He said he’d be on a direct flight.”

“Perhaps they got started late.”

“Perhaps.”

“You know how unreliable some of those fast transports are. For the most part, they’re manned by opportunistic incompetents.”

“Ummm.”

“I’ll be happy to wait outside with you if you want,” he offered again. “Though, truthfully, I think it’s safe in here. When you’re—”

“Do you?”

Zadok ran a hand over his moist scalp, cocking his head inquisitively. Somewhere in his mind the pungent scent of Orillian pines rose and he saw again the spaceport they’d taken a hundred years ago, crowded with captives, stinking with fear-sweat.

“Zadok?” a voice echoed in his mind. The young golden-haired lieutenant, Rulinsi, waved a hand. “What do you want me to do with these?”

Civilians were being herded in so quickly and in such large numbers, no one could keep count. This group consisted mostly of children. He’d started shouldering through the crowd when the explosion hit. It blasted from the edge of his forces, sending blood and bits of flesh flying. He dove for the floor as the captives stormed the doors.
What had happened? Had his people failed to search someone in the foray?

Mistakes happened in crowds. There were always too many enemies and too few allies.

“On second thought, I am going outside,” Zadok decided suddenly and headed toward the door, pushing between people.

Rathanial frowned, following hurriedly. “Abba, do you want to ask about your brother’s flight before we go? Maybe it’s been delayed for hours. In that case, there’s no reason for us to stay in the city. We can return to the caves.”

Zadok halted in mid-step. He felt abruptly as though the walls were pressing in around him. An inner urgency told him to get out of the building as quickly as he could. Licking his lips nervously, he gazed around. A small man with fuzzy black hair stared hotly at him, then turned away.

“I don’t…” Of course, what Rathanial said made sense, but he couldn’t bear the thought. “No. I’m leaving. If they’re not here in another hour, we’ll …”

His attention jerked to a tall blond man who weaved slowly through the crowd toward him. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit and had a heavy reddish-blond beard. Zadok squinted, searching the strong chiseled features and piercing blue eyes. Was it? He hadn’t seen him in years and the hair color was wrong, plus the beard obscured much of the face, but—

“I think,” Zadok whispered, turning to Rathanial, “that our plans have changed.”

“Whatever you say, Abba. Just tell me what we’re—”

Suddenly a small man with black fuzzy hair thrust his way through the crowd behind Zadok and blurted, “Traitor! We’ll stop you!
For the Mashiah!”

The air crackled and a searing pain blasted Zadok’s chest. His legs went out from under him; he slammed the floor hard.

The blond shouted, “No!” and flung himself on top of Zadok to shield him.

In an instant the building burst into hideous screams and rampaging feet. Zadok lay quietly, watching the red stream from his mouth. He knew what the dark color meant. He’d seen far too many people dead or dying to delude himself. Weakly, he tugged the black sleeve of his protector.

“Jeremiel … I wasn’t sure it was you at first.”

“Save your strength, Abba,” the man ordered, pulling his pulse-pistol and pointing it around the room. “I’ll get you out of here somehow.”

“Rathanial?” he coughed, then choked on the clotted blood that bubbled up his throat.

“Who?”

“He … he sent for you. He’s—”

“The Desert Father from Horeb?”

Zadok nodded feebly.

“I don’t know what he looks like, but…”

Zadok fell into another fit of coughing and Jeremiel gently rolled him to his side to allow the fluid to flow unimpeded from his mouth.

“Listen,” Zadok breathed desperately. “The Veil … you must know the ancient texts … to get through the heavens.”

“Hurry!” Rathanial shouted from nearby.

Through a gray haze Zadok saw him shove a man aside and race to Jeremiel’s side. A short distance away, the small fuzzy-haired man lay dead, his throat slit.

“Let’s go,
now!”

Jeremiel picked Zadok up in strong arms and ran through the room, following Rathanial. People cleared a wide path, staring in horror at the blood trail splotching the floor.

“Jeremiel … the
Mea Shearim …
give it … give it to my grandson. Tell Mikael to study …”

“I will, Abba.”

With his last strength, Zadok reached up and gripped the sacred object, placing it against his forehead and concentrating. “Baruch … atta Epagael.”

“Say again, Abba. I couldn’t hear.”

Zadok’s vision faded and he heard a deep soothing voice calling his name over and over. It took only a moment before he ceased to feel Jeremiel’s arms and the bouncing ride, the screams in the room and Rathanial’s frantic instructions, giving directions back to the caves.

He felt himself moving, being pulled away. He flew effortlessly through a vast ocean of emptiness; not even starlight illumined his journey.

The moon hung like a silver coin over the square, casting an eerie glow across the twisted bodies within and lighting the gate and the empty street beyond. Boulders which thrust up here and there before buildings in the merchant’s section of town seemed huge hunching beasts, their shadows stretching across the square in dark ominous patterns. Wind whispered between the shops, bringing the scents of baking bread and sweet spices. A few lights glimmered from homes.

Rachel’s soul shriveled. Horeb woke and turned her head.

“Are they waiting out there to finish the rest of us?” a woman whimpered from somewhere near the gate. “Dear God, what shall we do?”

“We can’t stay,” an unknown man responded. “We’ve no choice.”

The living massed by the gate, dark shapes moving like ghosts in the luminous night, tired gestures casting monstrous shadows across the red and gray patterns of the back wall.

“We’re going to go faster, baby. Can you hold on?” Rachel asked the child clinging to her back.

“I’m very tired, Mommy.”

“Just a little farther and we’ll rest, all right?”

Sybil dropped her head in what Rachel assumed to be a nod, and clutched her mother more securely around the shoulders. Rachel pushed her dehydrated body to its limits, struggling to find steady places to brace her hands and knees. Many of the bodies had grown stiff, making the task easier. When they arrived near the gate, Rachel saw that the numbers of living were far greater than she’d have believed possible. There must have been two hundred. The wounded, old people, and children pressed tightly against the stone wall, while the younger people huddled in a knot a few feet from the gate. A small slice of empty ground spread near the walls. Apparently, people had run toward the center of the square when the guards began shooting. Now that space formed a blessed buffer zone between the living and dead. Reaching the edge of the tangled mound of bodies, Rachel pulled her daughter from her back, and set her on the ground. Sybil stumbled, falling, her legs too weak to hold her.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Sybil sniffled, rubbing an arm beneath her nose as she stared wide-eyed at the gruesome path they’d just taken.

“Stay right beside me. Don’t leave me for a second. Understand?”

Sybil nodded, twining a hand in Rachel’s blood-drenched robe to pull herself up. Together they shuffled to join the group near the gate. Composed of about twenty of the heartiest survivors, they turned to stare at her.

“I … I think we should try to sneak out one by one,” a tall man with light brown hair and a pointed face said. “If they are out there, they won’t notice just one person slipping by in the darkness.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Rachel said.

He turned sharply, glaring. “Who are you?”

“Rachel.”

“I’m Colin and I don’t like you calling me a fool. We can’t just—”

“The soldiers have heat and light sensitive scopes on their rifles,” Rachel explained. These peasants knew very little about the high technology that had invaded Horeb in the past year. “If they’ve set up an ambush, they’ll be grateful for one target at a time. We have to go in a flood.”

“All at once? But they’re sure to see—”

“Yes, but a mass exodus will startle them for a moment and with all of us running closely together, some are bound to survive.”

“I won’t sacrifice myself to shield someone else from the fire!” a pudgy little woman to Rachel’s right exclaimed. Her red hair blazed even in the darkness.