Heaven's Gate (31 page)

“We are brothers no more, shade,” the other man answers firmly refusing to even give the dead priest his rightful name, “you are my servant now, forget what you have been before.”

“But why? Why? It is forbidden that one of our order be used so.”

“And dangerous, you need not lecture me, corpse, but I have no intention of creating a lich, such would be more abomination even than the Strigoi. If there were any other way I would have you resting in holy soil but there is no choice, we must bring all our strength to bear if we are to stop the Elder reaching the Gate.”

“This is wrong, Mordiki. Why has Angus not found rest for me? Why did he not bury me? How can you condemn me to this?” Rugan feels the pain of each betrayal already grinding in him, threatening a fragile reason that should have died when the hot lead tore through his brain.

Despair and anguish more than should ever be felt by the dead resonate in the pitiful cry, Mordiki looks around but he need not worry about being overheard, the first sounds of the reanimated corpse combined with the eerie notes of the skeleton’s tune have emptied the square of whatever stragglers had been left when he entered it. There was no way that the wretches could have consciously understood what was happening but a deep, primal instinct had served to drive off the living and leave the Necromancer alone with his latest creation.

“I have no choice, the Pilgrim nears the Gate and the Strigoi are close on his heels, we must fulfill our ancient trust. As for how I found you outside a consecrated grave yard… There at least luck played into my hands,” Mordiki decides to run the risk of answering his old colleague. It did not do to indulge the corpse too much though, the risk that Rugan was still too attached to his flesh was very real, that was bad enough in normal men and women but in the case of a fellow Necromancer, who had already lived longer than any mortal should, there was always the possibility that the spirit would break free of the
summonor’s
control and become a cursed thing trapped in the memories of its flesh.

Mordiki had only heard legends of those monstrosities, from a time before the resurrection of Necromancers had become forbidden but even if the worst were true and he had created a lich, an undead Necromancer, capable of raising its own army of the dead, he would have to suffer the consequences later, now there was simply no choice; if the Strigoi and the Pilgrim were to be stopped from reaching the Gate, he would need Rugan’s influence.

“From what I can tell, General Leedon was badly injured himself. Tenichi ordered every available man to go after the fugitives and the General has only just regained consciousness. It has probably not yet even occurred to him that you might not be alive or taken from the square if you were dead.”

“He left me!” Rugan’s corpse snarls, “that Strigoi loving traitor left me to feed the vultures in this square!”

“Enough!” Mordiki orders, lashing out with his thoughts, in an attempt to subdue the spirit, still raging in the undead body. “There is no ‘me’ any more, you are no longer alive!”

“Yes.” Rugan answers in a dull voice

“Yes what?”

“Yes, master.” Mordiki nods only partially satisfied, “that will have to do. Now you must restore yourself, you must look wounded but no one must realize that you are actually dead.”

At his master’s command, Rugan strains to recall the glamour that had hidden his desiccated flesh for so long. All the while the bone clown plays on his macabre pipe, blessing the fact that he hardly cares that he is there, let alone what his old and new master do decide to do.
 

General Angus Leedon wakes to the sound of someone knocking on his bedroom door, his pain wakes with him and it takes all his discipline not to groan at the burning sensation running down one side of his face, despite the drugs his physicians had plied him with. Miraculously he had sustained no more serious damage than the burns and scrapes down one side of his body. The doctors had assured him that his wounds would heal completely, barring a few scars but they were too eager to constantly inspect things; obviously the last thing they wanted to appear was negligent with a patient of the Generals stature but it was tiresome being constantly prodded and checked. With the initial shock of his injuries gone, General Leedon was beginning to bristle against the constant attention.

“If you’ve come to change the dressing, come back in the morning,” the General growls and roles over, instantly regrets it and turns back onto his good side. All the while the knocking continues. “Hell’s tits! Someone checked on me an hour ago. I’m a soldier not a sickly babe,” he bawls.

“I’m sorry, sir, but the Father says it can’t wait till morning.” One of the men posted at the door calls back.

“Rugan?” The General asks, blinking and trying to clear his head. The image of the last time he had seen his mentor plays in his mind again. Their horses had collided in the explosion but he had been thrown clear where as the priest had gone down with his horse and half a wall falling close behind that, “Nathaniel told me he was dead, lost somewhere under the rubble.” The General speaks as much to himself as to the lad outside, could it be that Nathaniel had been wrong? Leedon wrings his fragmented memories of those last few seconds before he had hit the flagstones. “By what miracle did the old dog manage to escape that falling wall?” Once more the General speaks his thoughts out loud.

“I would have been dead soon enough if the horses had not taken most of the impact and
 
allowed me to extricate myself, but I believe that was what the Chief Pardoner intended all along.” Rugan thrusts the door open, giving the soldier guarding the door a look that dared him to make any protest.

Despite the pain the General forces himself to his feet and crosses the room to greet his old friend.

“Rugan I’m happy to hear you survived, but I have to say you look terrible, have you seen the physicians yet?”

“I’m afraid there was little time, there is something more important than my health or I would not have bothered you.”

“This is nonsense, who knows what damage you took in the explosion or the fall? Not only that, you look like you must have been lying out there for a while. Surely anything you have to say can be said after you have had a doctor see to you and taken some rest?”

“I’m afraid this cannot wait, Angus,” Rugan says fixing the General with lifeless eyes. “Quickly, bring him in,” the priest calls out into the hall, summoning in two bleary eyed soldiers, holding a wounded man on a stretcher between them.

“By the sainted cross, it’s
Clark
!” The General exclaims recognizing the officer, “you look near dead man, Rugan why have you brought him here? The man needs a medic.”

The lich glowers inwardly at this, the last thing he needs is to be confronted by any medical men, neither he nor the corpse of Clark Ginmann would hold up before close medical examination. He had not bothered to do much to hide the dead man’s pallor, reasoning that it would hardly matter in one who was apparently dying. This now seemed to have been a mistake, it was the sort of thing that Rugan knew liches were prone to. It was one thing to know that academically but it was another to have to try to compensate for it in oneself. It is hard for a dead thing robbed of the various trappings of ‘meaty’ living thinking, to anticipate the reactions of their living counterparts. Mordiki had simply ordered him to tell his story and make the General aware of Tenichi’s betrayal but Rugan still had enough of his old shrewdness to realize that more might be required. Despite his apparent cunning and even with all his knowledge, Rugan now realized he had made a
 
simple miscalculation. He had dug the colonel out of the rubble because he had judged that General Leedon would hold him to be a credible witness to Nathaniel Tenichi’s betrayal. The men had fought in many battles together and
Clark
had been a trusted aide. What Rugan had forgotten, or rather had been too disassociated to even consider, was the possibility that Leedon might care for Clark Ginmann’s health above the information he might reveal. A mixture of panic and desperation, terrible and dull plays uncomfortably through him. Many stories were told of the apparent madness of the lich’s behaviour but he understood, better than ever before, that what the living saw as madness was simply the gulf between the creature’s memories of what it had been and the senseless monster it had become. Even the disquiet that Rugan felt at the thought that this curse was already at work in him, was only a memory of what it meant to feel a lich could never learn or feel anything new. Rugan knows it is not madness, rather a merciless clarity, it is not the obsession of the undead that drives them to count each grain of sand or the mania and frantic hungry lusts of the Strigoi. This was the madness of a sprit still as alive as it had ever been, trapped amongst the living in a rotting husk in the ruins of its old life, with no capacity to shape a new existence. There will be no renewal for him, none of the youth and strength that the Strigoi enjoyed, only centuries with his body as the prison, trapped until the last atom of his bones was swept away by the desert winds; even then he might become one of the shrieking spirits that careened across those sands like torn ships before a storm. To forget how the living might think was just the first symptom of the beginning of an eternity deprived of the weakness of the flesh. Rugan would never again sleep or dream or forget or feel, all was memory growing ever more distant and experience growing ever more meaningless.

“Why have you brought him here Rugan?” the General repeats breaking in on the priest’s churning thoughts and bringing his frittering attention back to reality.

“I had no wish to risk his life, Angus but you have to hear what he has to say.”

“What could be so important?”

“He insisted on being brought here.”

“He must be delirious! Why do you allow him to risk his life?”

“Tell him.” Father Rugan commands his creation.

“I saw Tenetchi with Lady Carter and Captain Blake when we entered the square, just before the explosion went off. That had to be how they knew we were coming.”

“No, Nathaniel was guarding the second entrance, that’s why he couldn’t get through the crowd to stop them in time, he even got wounded trying. You can’t be right, Colonel, you are in a lot of pain, you must be mistaken.” Leedon argues.

“I know what I saw, sir,” the pale soldier insists from his deathbed, “it was the Chief Pardoner, clear as day, he and some of his men were talking to them, warning them I’m sure… that’s, that’s…” the soldier coughs blood from a punctured lung, “that’s how they were ready for us, the only way they could have got away and done this.”

“It cannot be! Why? Why would he betray me?”

“It is as I feared, Angus. As I have tried to tell you before but you mistook my concern for jealousy or rivalry. That is why I hoped Colonel Clark’s words might make things clear. Tenechi has always served the interests of darker powers, he betrays us now because the Gate is near.”

“But he could have sought the Gate on his own all the time, he need never have even told me of its existence… why all this, just to betray me now? That bastard Blake nearly tore his throat out with his teeth for God’s sake!”

“Or was it all part of the deception? Such things would be child’s play for the Strigoi. He himself admitted that he needed the girl, perhaps he was only loyal to you as long as you could gain him access; now he has made some deal with the Captain, who has been seeking the Gate for years. If it were not so then how could they have timed their attack so perfectly?”

“You swear on your immortal soul that you saw this?” General Leedon asks leaning over the prone officer all concern for his health consumed by the possibility of the Chief Pardoners betrayal.

“On my soul! On my life!” The dead man answers before slumping back into natural death.

Behind his mask of sorcery and flesh, Rugan yearns to join the soul in its rest but there is no such escape for him, now. Ginmann had been a loose binding of soul and flesh, a puppet to be used then discarded, his own bonds are stronger and far more tightly coiled about him.

“I
 
cannot deny the word of two witnesses and I cannot deny events as they happened. I had already wondered who could have warned them of our coming but I had not even considered that it might be Nathaniel.”

“Remember how he excused himself almost as soon as we arrived? He barely stayed long enough to hear how you wished the troops ordered.”

“But he did stay that long! even that would not have been possible without your vision Rugan, I have been a fool! You are a holy man, who has served me with wit and rare perception and I judged you to be like any other that serves me. I saw your distrust of Nathaniel as being motivated by self interest and ambition, rather than being the truth, which I now see it was.”

“You could not have done anything else, Angus, I know you did what you felt to be right in your heart.”

Only a short distance away, the lich’s creator helps to school his face into a look of forgiveness and understanding. For Rugan it feels like pulling the strings on a marionette, he is not the flesh that curls and smoothes at his master’s will he is the ginning skull underneath.

“You understand what this means though?” The General asks, unaware of his confessor’s inner detachment. “There may be civil war, Tenechi as the son of a baron and my second, gave the air of propriety. Now, without the alliance to the Carter house, who I must hold suspect on your advice since you have proved to be correct in other matters, some of the other barons might rally to Tenechi along with a good number of the Pardoners. It has the potential to tear the
Union
apart, when we may need all our strength to deal with a more insidious threat. Do you still think the Strigoi are behind all this?”