Treasure of Light (The Light Trilogy) (9 page)

He extended a hand and his face seemed to glow more brightly, splashing the plateau with a wavering pool of gold. His cloak billowed around him like the great blue wings of a monstrous bird.

“Rachel,” he said with soft urgency, extending his hand a little further. “It’s now or never. Jeremiel just stopped the scorch attack and has dispatched a
samael
for you, but you’re in a much different place than the captain expects. If he has to waste a lot of time looking for you, Jeremiel’s enemies on board will change their plans and target him. You’re going to lose a friend you love and your world will be next. You must return to the ice cave. Let me help you.”

“Don’t touch me!” She backed away. “I just want you to leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that, Rachel.”

He gazed at her through stony amber eyes and held up his crystalline hand. A whirling blackness appeared in the glacial air, like a gaping hole in time and space. Rachel’s heart thundered. She’d seen that maw before. The last time it had burned all her faith, all her dreams, to blackened empty husks. The warm winds of eternity brushed her, blowing her long hair like a midnight breeze of summer.

She turned to run, but the ebony vortex swirled out, hovering over her like a huge black beast. She slipped and cried out as she fell down the slope. The vortex descended, swallowing her up. Rachel screamed, falling, falling….

An instant later, she landed before the ice cave again. She panted and clawed her way toward the cave entry to get out of the fatal wind.

“One last thing,” Aktariel called from out of the disappearing maw. “Make sure you’re armed when you step off that
samael
into the landing bay of the
Hoyer.”

Then the void spun closed, leaving her alone in the windswept silver wasteland. Rachel got on her knees and lifted her fists to the heavens.
“What’s happening to me?”
she shouted.
“What game is this?”

Only a roaring rush of wind answered.

CHAPTER 6

Avel Harper ran a hand through his six-inch halo of hair. He stood beside Jeremiel in the tiny ward room outside of Engineering. On a series of overhead screens, they studied the distribution and numbers of vessels bringing up Horebian refugees. It had been only four hours since they’d taken over the ship and already massive numbers of people had fled the planet, seeking refuge from the fire storms that ravaged Horeb. Many of the ships appeared barely able to fly. Hastily applied patches marred the hulls and blast marks scarred the wings and sides.

“For God’s sake, how can we take care of them all?” Harper whispered. “We’ve only secured four levels and most of those refugees are starving or hurt. How can—”

“We just have to get organized. Quickly.”

Reaching over to the white control console on his right, Jeremiel input a series of commands. The images on the screens changed, showing a dozen landing bays. People disgorged from ships to flood down the gangplanks. Children filled many arms. Others supported wounded. Some carried the dead, faces still contorted in long-forgotten agonies.

“Avel,” Baruch said wearily. “None of the refugees are to get into the
Hoyer
until we’ve secured decks ten through twenty. Keep them locked in the bays.”

“Understood. I’ll organize security details immediately.”

“We also need to set up a hospital and establish a command hierarchy. Rank goes as follows: Me first, you second, Rachel third and …” He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Who else? Who can we depend on?”

“Now that we know Mikael Calas is alive, shouldn’t he be included in the—”

“No. He’s just a boy. I’ll consult with him, yes, but… make Yosef Calas fourth in line, got it? He can act as Mikael’s guardian.”

“What about cabin assignments?”

“Four people per room. Try to accommodate families where possible. There’s no telling how long these refugees will be aboard. We want to make them as comfortable as we can.”

“I’ll input personal data into the computer as soon as we obtain it. That should make assignments considerably faster and easier.”

“Thank you.” Baruch turned around and leaned heavily against the console, folding his arms over his breast. His blond hair had taken on a dull sheen of sweat and dirt. “Let me just rest a moment and then we need to go down and take an inventory of the wounded. Many are going to need immediate attention.”

Harper gazed back up at the monitors, watching hundreds more people flooding out of the ships. Blood drenched nearly every tattered garment. “Yes.”

Baruch turned sideways and struck an adjacent monitor. When it flared to life, Harper frowned. Soldiers in purple uniforms battled
against each other!
One man went down beneath a barrage of fire, his upper torso slamming the wall before tumbling across the floor to stare wide-eyed into the monitor. His four assailants ran back down the long white corridor.

Harper straightened up. “Where is that happening?”

Baruch’s mouth tightened. “Level six.”

“Why? What’s—”

“Every battle cruiser has spies aboard. Undoubtedly the resident Clandestine Services officers are trying to take control of the ship from the ‘incompetent’ officers who lost it.”

“By killing their own people?”

“Oh, yes.” He smiled tiredly. “It’s standard procedure.”

“Will the turmoil help or hurt us?”

“Unknown.”

Baruch started to straighten up but seemed to lose his balance. He stumbled sideways and grabbed the console to steady himself. Harper reached for his arm, supporting him.

“You all right?”

Jeremiel rubbed hands over his face. “I will be—once I get some rest.”

Harper tried not to notice the way his commander’s legs trembled from fatigue. He wanted to tell Jeremiel to go to bed now, that he could handle things—but that would have been a lie. They all needed Baruch awake. Jeremiel hadn’t slept for two days and the past several months had already taken their toll on his strength. Baruch had come to Horeb directly from hot fighting in the Akiba system.

Harper released his arm and stood by, waiting for instructions. As of three hours ago, he understood why Gamants all over the galaxy worshiped Baruch as a savior. On some of the more backward worlds, stories had even begun to circulate that he was the promised Mashiah, foretold eons ago in the Old Books—the savior who would free the people from the cruel hands of their tormentors and establish the millennial kingdom in this galaxy. He half believed it himself. He’d seen Jeremiel hurt, worried, desperate, he couldn’t ever recall seeing him afraid. No, some inner strength flowed in the man’s veins. Why not think of it as the power of God? He’d always been a deep believer and the religious overtones provided a curious sort of comfort.

Fondly, Harper reached out and gripped Jeremiel’s shoulder, squeezing it hard. “Well, things may look bad, but, thanks to you, Horebians have an ark to carry them away from this catastrophe.”

Jeremiel’s shoulder muscles bunched beneath the fabric of his black jumpsuit. He bowed his head a long moment, as though struggling with himself. Then he turned to Harper and the expression on his face made Avel loosen his grip.

“What’s wrong?”

“You think this is an ark?” Baruch’s deadly quiet voice lashed out. His eyes had taken on a haunted gleam.
“Wrong.
Epagael has just lifted his fist over our heads, my friend. This is the belly of the whale and we’d damn well better find a method of cutting our way out—fast.
Or we’re all going to die in here.”

Harper’s mouth dropped open. He felt strangely as though the words had kicked the foundations of the universe apart and all the stones of hope had come tumbling down around his ears.

Jeremiel lifted a hand uncertainly. “Sorry, Avel. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s all right. I see what you mean.”

“Do you? Then I’m doubly sorry. It’s not to our benefit to have both of us scared to death.”

“You? Frightened? I don’t believe it. God’s armor shields you from fear.”

Jeremiel laughed softly, bitterly. “God’s armor? Where are your eyes, Avel?
Can’t you see?”
He stabbed a finger at the bright light panels overhead.

Harper glanced up. “See what?”

“God sitting up there. Right there! You see Him watching us? Every time we cry out to Him for help, every time we beg for mercy, He demands more of our blood! For millennia we’ve given it to Him willingly, blaming ourselves because we broke His commandments or misunderstood His
goddamned
teachings! Gamant blood has washed clean every soul in the universe, and still God raises his fist and slashes open our hearts for more.” He took a breath. “When Tahn wakes up, you’ll see what I mean.”

Jeremiel’s bearded jaw quivered with emotion. He shoved away from the console. “I wouldn’t take God’s armor if He gave it to me.” He strode for the exit and pounded a hard fist into the patch. The door pulled back, revealing a blood-sprinkled hallway. Baruch stopped, shaking his head. His voice came out lower, softer. “Avel… I’m tired.”

“I know you are.”

Jeremiel nodded gratefully. “Check in with Janowitz. I need to know the numbers of people we’ll be dealing with. Then please meet me in landing bay nineteen-four.”

“Aye, Jeremiel.”

Cole Tahn tossed and turned, writhing across his sweat-drenched blankets, reaching pleadingly for people who weren’t there. The hallucinations hurled themselves at him from the dark void of unconsciousness. He had vague memories of Carey hauling him to his cabin and shooting him up with steroids, but since that moment, time had ceased.

“You’re on …
Hoyer!”
he screamed at himself. The echoes of his voice rang through his mind, clanging like the bells of Notre Dame.

Distorted, monstrous images flared and died. He fought them, but still they came….

He ran through the narrow streets of Paris, rifle gripped in clammy palms. Millennia before, the entire city had been declared a planetary historic site and preserved in its twenty-first century splendor. Magnificent buildings with arches and delicate scrollwork lined the streets. Marble sculptures still filled the flower gardens. But today the scents of the roses had vanished—replaced by the bittersweet odor of death. To his left, the Seine glinted a rich green in the morning sunlight. In front of him the ruined towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame stood, broken and battered against a tarnished mustard-colored sky. Overhead, a Pegasan battle cruiser hung like a black oblate coin. The roar of cannon fire split the air as violet arcs streaked from the cruiser to lash the earth, kicking dust and debris a hundred feet high.

“Maggie?” he screamed to the blonde woman running headlong in front of him. “No, no! Not that way! Turn left.
Left!”

She vacillated, confused. Terror had held them both by the throats over the past half hour as the battle intensified. “No, Cole, this way! We have to …” Her voice faded as she turned right, leaping a pile of bloody corpses and racing down a dark alley.

He glanced at the cruiser, seeing the arcs sweeping their way.
“Maggie!”

He ran after her, jumping the bodies and bounding into the alley just in time to see the cruiser’s fire slice through the medieval buildings lining the alley. As though in slow motion the ancient walls tumbled inward, cascading down around them like a gray mountain.

“No!” he shouted in agony and—for a brief moment—felt the sleek fabric of his own bed …
sheets …
but where? He couldn’t quite find it in his memory.

Then it was gone.

He woke in the streets of Paris, blinking at yellow skies hazy with airborne dust. The bars of his light cage gleamed. Agonizingly, he rolled to his side. Maggie lay in the next cage, wavy hair spreading like a blanket of sunlit cornsilk over her bloody uniform.

But she must be alive or they wouldn’t have caged her!

“Maggie?”

“Cole … oh, Cole, forgive me … forgive me….” The sound of her muffled sobs made every muscle in his body go tight.

“Maggie, don’t. We’re alive. They have obligations under the Treaty of Carina. Prisoners of war have to be treated humanely.”

He pulled his battered body forward and extended a hand through the bars, snaking it across the dry weeds toward Maggie’s cage. “Take my hand. Can you reach me?”

Weakly, she rolled to her stomach and wiggled her arm through the bars. They could just barely touch fingertips. But the warmth of her hand eased his fears.

“It wasn’t your fault we got captured, Maggie. Don’t blame yourself. Isle St. Louis was cut off. They’d have gotten us sooner or later anyway.”

He struggled to get closer to her, pressing his wounded shoulder hard against the bars of the cage. Pain lanced him, but he could just curl his fingertips around hers.

The dream shifted.

Hallucinatory images swirled, spiraling down on him, random, terrifying. Wave after wave of pain tormented him. He screamed … and could hear Maggie’s screams, high, breathless. Darkness, so much darkness and pain, constant pain. Agony seared his back and legs, as though a thousand tiny saw blades spun through the hot wounded flesh.