An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (28 page)

Nearby, a hiss rose, closing quickly. Panic blurred Rachel’s senses. Sybil made a small cry of terror and ran to hug her mother’s leg, eyes like saucers.

“Let’s run, Mommy! Hurry!” Desperately, she tugged her mother’s arm. “Hurry!”

“Stay here!” Jeremiel commanded, wiggling farther along the underside of the stone shelf, hand searching.

Rachel cast a terrified look over her shoulder, wondering why she trusted this stranger enough to obey. The wind increased until it whipped her hair into stinging threads. As the hiss grew, fear and hope drained from her until she suffered only numbness, knowing the
samael
would loom over the high rocks any moment. All the struggling, all the deaths would have been for nothing.

“There!” Jeremiel grunted and a gravelly sound of rock sliding split the air. “Sybil!
Come on!”

Rachel watched her daughter dive through a rectangular opening barely large enough for human entry. Jeremiel waved ferociously and Rachel dropped to her stomach to slither through the opening, feeling him brutally shove her forward as the entrance grated closed. Darkness fell like a black velvet blanket around them.

“Mommy, where are you?” Sybil whimpered and slapped floor and walls with her hands, hunting.

“Here, baby. Follow my voice. Follow my … There.” She pulled her daughter to her lap.

“They almost got us.”

“But we’re all right.”

“For now,” Sybil murmured, breathing raggedly in Rachel’s ear.

After a few moments of listening intently to the darkness, Rachel whispered, “Jeremiel, what is this place?”

“The antechamber to the caves of the Desert Fathers. Someone should come to meet us fairly shortly. But I don’t know how long—”

“The
who?”

“Desert Fathers. They’re a secret organization. They’ve lived on Horeb for almost a thousand years now.”

In the blackness, she heard him move, as though he reached over his head and to either side to test the size of the cave. A swish of air from his waving hands caressed her cheek.

“I’ve been here all my life and never heard of them.”

“Of course not. If you had, they wouldn’t be very secret, would they?”

A difficult swallow bobbed in Rachel’s throat. At least outside she’d known what she faced, but here, who knew? A secret organization that hid in the mountains? Who could they be and why did they hide? Nausea roiled in her stomach. Unseen horrors might lurk just beyond her reach and she wouldn’t realize it until too late. “Jeremiel, I don’t like this. Isn’t there somewhere else we could wait? I feel claustrophobic here.”

“Right now, I’d say this is the safest place on all of Horeb, Rachel. Trust me.”

“You trust too many people and you end up dead.”

“Yes,” he said blandly. “I certainly understand those fears. Dead—or at least weaponless.”

A defense bubbled to her lips, but she never had a chance to use it. The darkness stirred. A chill wind touched her hair and a flood of fetid odors sent terror through her. She got her feet under her, preparing to run.
“Jeremiel…?”

“It’s all right.” His muscular arm went around her and he unthinkingly drew her against him. Soft scratching sounds came from the side of the cave that led deeper into the mountain. “Curtain time.”

“What?”

“It’s an old expression. It means we’re about to be granted an audience with the great and wise Desert Fathers. Let’s go.” He released her.

“Wait!”

She felt more than saw him turn. “What?”

“How do we know that’s who it is? We could be walking into a trap.”

“Could be, but I doubt it. The Most Reverend Father himself told me how to find this chamber. I’m relatively certain he’s not a spy for the Mashiah.”

“How can you know that?”

“Tell you what, I’ll go first. If you hear me cry out, make a run for it.” The sounds of his boots scraping against the stone floor retreated. A short time later, he softly called, “Rathanial?”

Flickers of gold illuminated an adjoining cave, throwing the long shadows of two men across the floor at her feet. In the light, she saw that the cave stretched about thirty feet upward, forming a rounded red dome. Through the broad opening to the next chamber, she occasionally glimpsed one of Jeremiel’s hands flashing in some gesture. Rachel trained her ears on the hushed voices.

An unknown man whispered angrily, “How could you have brought her
here?”

“I thought our goal was to save Gamant lives. I
didn’t
think letting the Mashiah get his hands on her would advance that cause.” Jeremiel’s voice carried traces of irritation and disbelief.

“All right, but they’re your responsibility. I’ll have none of it!”

A lengthy silence ensued, where Rachel heard the grating of boots on sand as someone shifted positions.

“I’ll accept that.”

The crack of hands slapping sides or perhaps a fist hitting a palm echoed through the caves. “All right, hurry. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Things here have gotten considerably worse in the last twenty-four hours.”

Sybil frowned up at her, pretty face streaked with dirt and black smudges of soot. “Mommy, I don’t like that man.” She mouthed the words so no one would hear.

Rachel patted her hair. The Desert Fathers didn’t want them here. What sort of monsters would refuse sanctuary to a woman and child who fled the horrors of the Mashiah?

“Rachel?” Jeremiel’s deep voice echoed. “It’s safe. Why don’t you and Sybil grab my pack and come in.”

She snatched his pack from the ground and grabbed Sybil’s hand, quickly striding forward, ready to do battle with the devil. Only the devil turned out to be a small whitehaired man with a silver beard. His dark eyes appraised her resentfully, but a resigned acceptance lay beneath it.

“My dear Miss Eloel,” he greeted, walking forward with his hands formed in the sacred triangle. His swaying amber robe seemed almost to blend with the candlelight.
How did he know her last name?
“I’m sorry you’re here. There are great dangers in the future. But since you are, we’ll make the best of it to protect you. I’m Rathanial, Most Reverend Father, hereabouts.”

Rachel returned the mudra of greeting and glanced at Jeremiel. He stood stiffly, arms folded across his broad chest, studying Rathanial with a curious gleam in his eyes. When he noticed her attention, he uneasily lowered his gaze to the red stone floor.

“Reverend Father, we’ll try not to cause you any trouble,” Rachel responded gratefully. “Thank you for giving us refuge.”

Rathanial bowed slightly in acknowledgment and turned to Jeremiel. “Come. I’m sure you’re all hungry and tired. We’ve hot food waiting.”

In a flourish of swirling robe, he turned and fairly stalked from the chamber, heading down a long diamond-shaped hall cut through the stone. The candle in his palm sent wavering flashes of burnished copper over the walls.

As Jeremiel started to follow, Rachel caught his black sleeve and gave him a questioning look. He lifted a shoulder and shook his head slightly. Honest bewilderment and something deeper glimmered in his eyes. Suspicion?

“You go first,” he said with calm confidence, then placed a hand at her back and gently pushed her forward.

Yosef pressed his nose to the portal of the ship and watched the world below spin from dark to light. Horeb was a rough-hewn planet of spiny red and gray ridges, separated by vast expanses of desert. Only rare patches of trees dotted the highest peaks. Toward the north pole, a small sea splashed the land, but no towns clung to the shores. A curious fact, Yosef thought, since on his own homeworld of Tikkun, ninety percent of the population clustered around the vast blue oceans. Perhaps the waters here were poisonous? Or dangerous creatures roamed the shores?

“Hey! Look at that!” Ari blurted, thrusting a lanky arm toward the opposite portal.

Yosef adjusted his spectacles and waited for the terrain to spin around to him. When it did, his eyes narrowed. “How many orbits have you made?” he demanded, seeing the same spindly band of star-shaped ridges flash by for at least the fourth time.

“I’m just getting my bearings.” Ari defended, pushing first one lever, then another. He looked like a child in a toy shop, a broad grin lighting his thin, lined face.

“You’re playing!”

“I’m studying.”

“When are we going to land?”

“Pretty soon,” Ari said and chuckled. “As soon as I remember how to work the attitude jets.”

Yosef’s bushy gray brows drew together. “Attitude jets? What do those do?”

“When we’re landing, they keep us from tumbling around like a thrown rock.”

Yosef blinked, then staggered away to drop into a chair. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his green suit and mopped his freckled brow. “Oh, my God.”

“Don’t worry.” Ari sliced the air with an unconcerned hand. “If I can’t remember, I’ll just make sure we crash into something soft.”

“Soft?”

“Sure.”

“Have you seen
anything
soft on this planet? The whole place is a huge spiny rock!” He flailed his arms.

“Around that big city, there’s a field of dead grass.”

Yosef sat forward, wetting his lips. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the tiny field that’s surrounded by those rugged mountains?”

“That’s the one.”

“We’ll bounce around like a pong ball, for God’s sake!”

Ari turned in the captain’s chair. He’d taken off his blue jacket and draped it over the pile of cans in the corner. His white shirt was unfastened to the middle of his bony chest, showing straggly gray hair. “Hey, it’s hot in here, don’t you think? I wonder if we can figure out—”

“You’re just feeling the fires of hell breathing down your neck! How come you don’t remember what Jeremiel told you about those jets?”

Ari shrugged, looking like a kicked puppy. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the lavender carpet. “There were so many things to remember and I was thinking about you. You weren’t doing too well just then.”

Yosef felt red rise in his cheeks, remembering the bouts of loneliness and pain he’d felt over Zadok’s death. He
hadn’t
been doing too well, though no one would have noticed but Ari. He got up to lay an apologetic hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We’ve been together for three hundred years, you know that?”

“Sure. I know that.”

“Ari?”

“Hmm?” The old man looked up through hurt eyes.

“I guess it’s all right if we have to crash into something. You just do the best you can.”

Ari hung his head and nodded.

“I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. I couldn’t have done any better. You go ahead and …”

From the control console a shrill beep sounded, a red light flashing. Ari jerked up his head, squinting at a series of dials. At the same time Yosef caught a glimpse of something swooping by the portal. He raced to the window to peer out. A needle-nosed ship slid effortlessly alongside them, the shield-shaped insignia of the Galactic Magistrates marking the tail section.

“Oh-Oh.”

Yosef waddled across the now filthy carpet to the other portal. A similar ship hung visible a short distance away. “We’re surrounded!”

“There’s one on top of us, too, and he’s descending.”

“They’re trying to force us down?”

“Looks like it.”

A green light flared on the control console and Yosef gasped, “What’s that?”

“They want to talk to us.”

“Do you know how?”

“Sure, but I’m not going to.”

“Why not?”

“What do we care what they think?”

“What do you mean what do we care?
Maybe they’re under orders to shoot us down if we don’t respond. Huh? Think of that?”

“Not if they think Baruch is still in here. He said he was sure they were supposed to take him alive. That’s why we don’t want to talk to them. Maybe they have his voice print or something. And when they run ours through and it doesn’t match up, they might figure it’s okay to flare us.”

“Dear Lord.” Bracing a hand on the back of the copilot’s seat, he swung it around and dropped unsteadily. Punching the waistband restraints to “on,” he laced his fingers over his stomach and leaned back. “Okay, run us into something soft.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to argue about it some more?”

“No, go ahead.”

Ari grinned, slapped two switches and the
Sews
plunged, diving toward the planet’s surface. The g force threw Yosef back in his seat, but from the corner of his eyes he caught a glimpse of a bolt of violet and whirled to see the government ship fire again. The shot crackled off their bow.

“They’re trying to kill us!”

“If they were, we’d be dead. They’re trying to scare us into following them down.”

“Why don’t we let them? What could they do to us?”

“I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of thinking they have the upper hand.”