Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (37 page)

Her childish cries diminished to soft soundless sobs. She twisted the fingers of her bound hands into the front of his purple shirt, as though holding on for dear life.

Cole rocked her back and forth slowly. “It’s Cole, Amirah. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m here. Are you listening? Find your way out of those neural pathways. Follow my voice, come on, follow my voice to a time two weeks ago when you and I sat in front of the fire in the caves of the Desert Fathers and talked about military strategy. Remember? We discussed Antares Minor. You said I made a stupid error? You were right. Bet you never thought you’d hear me admit that, did you?” He forced himself to laugh warmly. “I’m not as bad as you think. Actually, I—”

“I—I know,” she whispered feebly. Her frantic hands unfastened from his shirt and slid down his chest to his lap. She awkwardly patted his side.

He tightened his grip around her and braced his head on the top of hers so she could feel him nod. “Are you all right?”

“I need to … sleep.”

“Let me help you to your quarters.” He got into a kneeling position and slipped his arms beneath her shoulders and under her knees. He quietly carried her into her room and laid her on the narrow cot. While Cole pulled the blue blanket up over her, Jeremiel came to stand in the doorway, his pistol pointed at Amirah’s chest.

“The restraints aren’t enough. We have to sedate her.”

Cole hesitated. He looked ruefully at Amirah, but a tangle of blond waves shielded her face. “Yes. Yes, I agree.” He started to walk away and she frantically reached out and gripped his hand with both of hers. But she said nothing. She didn’t have to. He knew she was afraid of his leaving—afraid the terror would return.

Cole looked at Jeremiel unhappily.

“I’ll get it,” Baruch said. He tossed Cole his pistol before he disappeared.

Cole gripped the gun and eased down onto the side of Amirah’s cot. With his free hand, he drew her bound wrists into his lap. Her fingers felt small and frail in his grasp. He squeezed them tenderly. “I’m glad you’re back, Amirah. Stay here. Stay with me.”

He continued to talk softly to her until Jeremiel came back and gave her the shot and she fell deeply asleep.

CHAPTER 37

“Damn it, Merle! He didn’t want us to know!” Rudy raged as he tramped around the first level conference room aboard the
Orphica.
The oval white table in the center had a stale cup of taza perched precariously on the edge of a stack of crystal sheets. Rudy glanced at it in annoyance, wishing he had the time to dump it and get another.

Merle ignored his outburst and finished watching the final scenes of the dattran run. She sat at the head of the table in front of a com monitor, one hand combing her long ebony locks back away from her round face. A petite woman, she had a pointed nose and dark graceful brows. When the file ended, Merle closed her eyes tightly and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I.” Rudy propped his hands on his hips and paced furiously up and down the length of the table. “What the hell’s he doing?”

“You know what he’s doing.” She fixed him with her dark serious gaze.

Rudy stopped and lifted a fist, wanting to slam it into something, unable to gather the anger to do it. He felt suddenly like crawling into a hole and refusing to ever come out again. “Why?
Why is he doing it!

Merle formed her mouth into a pout. “Because he’s more desperate than he’s ever been in his life.”

“Oh, in the name of God, Merle! He’s seen friends die before. Carey’s loss is—”

“Not the same, Kopal.”
One of her brows lifted reprovingly. “Halloway’s not Pleroma—Carey’s been his wife and best friend for a dozen years. He couldn’t just leave her to the Magistrates’ mercy. I’m amazed Jeremiel stayed through the strategizing and completion of the Horeb attack. It must have nearly killed him, knowing every minute that Carey might be dying while he was arguing insignificant details about tactics.”

Rudy stood unmoving. He’d noticed, too, the way Jeremiel’s hands had clenched and unclenched during odd moments at the conference table, the way his voice took on a cutting edge when he discussed the Magistrates or what might happen to the Magisterial crew they put down on Horeb. “He can’t do it, Merle. Nobody could. Not even with Tahn at his side.
Taking a battle cruiser out from under a crew of three thousand isn’t possible anymore!
” He threw himself forward to brace his hands on the edge of the table near a mound of crystal sheets. The scent of stale taza rose up to him. “Merle, the latest battle cruisers have protective devices, secret passageways not on any schematics, alternative control centers, special tactics teams trained specifically to squelch takeover attempts.
He can’t do it!”

She quietly shoved her chair back and got up to pace. Strands of black hair clung wetly to her temples. “Baruch knows about the latest innovations in the cruisers. Even if none of us are exactly certain what they are or where they’re installed—he knows what he’s up against. And Tahn’s brilliant at covert schemes, though I know you hate to admit that. Maybe together they can figure out some angle that you and I are missing.”

Rudy folded his arms in frustration. “Maybe.”

“And anyway, we can’t worry about them. The last shuttles are on their way up. We’ve got to be ready to lead the fleet out of here within the hour.”

“I know,” Rudy responded hollowly. “I just …”

The com unit on the table flared suddenly, flashing blue alert, and Merle’s navigation officer’s frantic voice boomed through the room,
“Captain Wells, return to the bridge immediately! Enemy cruisers
…”

The first shot slammed the
Orphica
like the blast of God’s fist. Rudy and Merle both tumbled to the floor in the quake that gyrated through the deck plates. The cold cup of taza toppled and spilled onto the floor in a dark torrent.

Rudy lunged to his feet and grabbed onto the chairs to steady himself while he scrambled for the door.
Too long
—
this is no ordinary attack. There must be three or more cruisers concentrating fire to shudder the bones of the ship this badly.
“Merle, I’ve got to get back to my ship!”

She crawled frantically along the other side of the table, making it to the door before him. She got to her feet and slammed a palm into the exit patch, panting. “There’s no time, Rudy. Come with me to my bridge!”

CHAPTER 38

Carey walked silently at Zadok’s side, her gaze wandering over the magnificent rolling hills of the fifth heaven. Late afternoon sunlight slanted down across the dirt path they followed, throwing a golden cloak over magnolia trees that burst with ivory blossoms everywhere she looked. A sweet citrus fragrance wafted on the warm breeze.

The archangel Michael had hastily led them through the last four gates. Before he vanished, he explained, “I must talk to Epagael before you get to the seventh gate.” And he’d spread his wings and risen like a gorgeous white bird to soar away through the azure skies.

Carey knelt down in the lattice shadows cast by the branches over her head and picked up a fallen flower. Its broad white petals had turned brown on the tips, but it still glimmered waxily in the saffron light. Zadok watched her fondly, as though understanding how all this beauty and serenity must affect her horror-accustomed soldier’s heart.

“Zadok?” she said. “Tell me about Rachel. I didn’t understand that conversation you had with Sedriel. What role does she play in the future?”

Hunched and tired from their long walk, Zadok’s ancient face seemed made of overused leather, wrinkled and dark. “There are legends,” he answered, “about the Antimashiah. We always assumed the wicked being who would try to destroy the universe would be a man. But we were wrong.”

He fixed Carey with eyes as black and glistening as ebony velvet.
“We were wrong.”

Carey frowned skeptically. How could anyone see Rachel as the Antimashiah? The woman had indeed suffered enormously at the hands of God, but would she destroy the universe to get back at Him? It didn’t really seem like her style. “Why do you think she’s the Antimashiah?”

“Oh, I know she is. I read her name upon the Veil. She has the letters AKT on her forehead.”

“The Veil?”

“Yes. The cosmic curtain that shields the throne of God. On the Veil are written all the preexisting events of creation, including the identities of the true Mashiah and the famed Antimashiah. Rachel Eloel is definitely allied with the wicked angel, Aktariel.”

Carey nodded, but she doubted the truth of it. Oh, not that she doubted the
appearance
that Rachel was working in concert with the Archdeceiver—but she remembered all too clearly the final hours before the
Hoyer’s
destruction when Carey herself had operated as a double agent. What could Rachel gain from pretending to be the Antimashiah? Time? An opening to destroy Aktariel?

Carey thoughtfully twirled the magnolia blossom in her hand. “And who does the Veil list as being the Mashiah?”

Zadok smiled, but an almost painful expression came to his face. “My great-grandson, Nathan.”

“Mikael’s son?”

“Yes.”

“When was Nathan born?”

“Very recently, I think. It’s been a long time since God let me see the Veil, over ten years, in fact, based on what you told me. But I recall that Nathan was supposed to be born in the middle of the year 5426.”

Carey glanced disquietedly at the little patriarch. She prayed Mikael had survived the war on Horeb long enough to father the promised Redeemer. The clandestine information the Underground had been getting just before she’d left on the Kiskanu mission didn’t make her hopeful.

The path led over a hill and down across a narrow plank bridge through a tree-shrouded swamp. The scents of moist grass and moss blanketed them as they entered the dark shadows. A froth of pink star-shaped blooms covered the bushes that crept alongside the sluggish water lapping at the planks of the bridge. Carey listened to the lyrical songs of the birds. Her boots pounded hollowly over the wood, providing a percussion accompaniment to the natural symphony.

When they climbed out of the cool shadows and up onto a meadowed terrace, Carey saw the sixth gate. Set against the green background of trees and undulating hills, it rose like an archaic curtained tabernacle. Two rows with seven gray marble columns each lined the approach. The tabernacle itself had an ornate gabled roof with a majestic red and green stained glass window over the door. Orange curtains shimmered as though aflame on either side of the door. And before the entry, the angel Gabriel knelt in prayer. His long golden curls brushed the shoulders of his crimson robe. The amber halo cast by his tall body gleamed with a fiery radiance in the stained glass, and cast a pastel reflection over his white wings.

As they approached Gabriel, a sudden thought struck Carey. “Zadok, who wrote the Veil? God?”

The elderly patriarch shook his bald head. “No, legends say that the wicked Aktariel wrote it just after Creation to show God the shapes that the chaotic patterns of the future would take.”

“To warn God?”

“I don’t know, Carey. I don’t think anyone does. Perhaps to warn Him. Perhaps to persuade God to destroy the universe before things got out of hand. Aktariel had always been against the Creation.”

“I’m intrigued,” she said as they entered the dappling shadows of the row of gray columns.

“By what?”

“That you believe what the Veil says. If it’s written by the Great Deceiver—”

“But I’ve never found it to be wrong, my dear. I’m sure Epagael watched over Aktariel’s shoulder when he wrote it, assuring its correctness.”

“Are you? You’ve more faith than I, Zadok. Fabricating the sequence of events at the end of time would seem to me just the sort of diversion the Archdeceiver would create to distract God from his final ploy, whatever that might be.”

Zadok frowned up at her. “I know you’d rather believe Rachel isn’t the Antimashiah, Carey, but I don’t honestly see how Aktariel could deceive God. If that part of the Veil had been wrong, I’m sure Epagael would have corrected it long ago.”

Carey gazed up at the Tabernacle. The stained glass window flamed, throwing a geometric patchwork of rainbows over their path.

When they were about five feet away from the prostrate gatekeeper, Zadok gripped her arm lightly and tugged her with him to kneel on the ground. Her dusty black jumpsuit rustled as she got down on her knees at his side. Carey followed Zadok in forming her hands into the sacred triangle.

Quietly, Zadok prayed, “Please, Lord Gabriel, we stand at the door and knock. Let us enter.”

As though shocked, Gabriel spun around and stared. His amber mouth parted slightly. “Zadok? What are you doing back? You’re worse than the famines of Canaan!”

“It’s been over a decade, Lord.”

“That’s only long to you, Patriarch.”

“I know you weren’t expecting us, Lord, but the Archistrategos led us through the first five heavens and promised to speak to Epagael about our request for an audience.”

“Michael
led
you through?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“That’s most irregular.” Gabriel got to his feet to loom over them like a crimson-robed pillar of fire. “But if Michael’s interceding on your behalf, I’m certain Epagael will approve. Now …” He cast a curious glance at Carey. “Why are you here?”

Zadok braced a hand on Carey’s shoulder and grunted his way to his feet. The orange curtains bracketing the Tabernacle billowed in the breeze like windblown flames. Bowing reverently, Zadok said, “It is not I, Lord Gabriel, who seeks Epagael, but this woman, Carey Halloway.” He put a fatherly hand on Carey’s auburn hair. “An angel plucked her from the horror chamber of the galactic Magistrates on Palaia Station and sent her—”

“What angel, Zadok?”

“She doesn’t know. Neither do I.”

Carey gracefully got to her feet and bowed as Zadok had. “Lord, the angel who came to me did not give me his name, but he guided me through a tunnel of light to the Void of Darkness where I met the Patriarch.”

“He escorted you into Authades? That’s more than incredible; it’s bizarre.” Gabriel ran a hand across his glowing face and, as though understanding had just dawned, his gaze darted over the verdant landscape. Casting a look over his shoulder, he leaned forward and whispered, “Did this angel perhaps have short hair, cut about here?” He ran a finger beneath his ear.

“Yes,” Carey responded suspiciously. Did only certain angels have shorn hair?

“And did he wear a hooded cloak? Let me see, generally he favors velvets or satins. Blue or green?”

“Yes,” Carey responded again. “Jade green velvet.”

Gabriel leaned unsteadily against the door to the Tabernacle. He shook his head as though in astonishment.

“What’s wrong?” Zadok demanded.

After a few seconds, Gabriel let out a low laugh. “Nothing, Zadok. Nothing I’m going to get involved in anyway. But I hope Michael knows what he’s doing.” He vented a troubled sigh and straightened up again. “Well, it seems I need to ask you some questions.”

“That’s the way it usually works, Lord,” Zadok pointed out irritably. The old man had his head cocked like an eager dowager.

“Yes, indeed. Well, then, let me think.” Gabriel fastened his glinting golden gaze on Carey in a way that made her muscles go tight. “Yes, maybe a question you’ll need to know the answer to, eh, Halloway?”

Carey canted her body at a defensive angle. She’d no plans of attacking, but angels were unpredictable.

“Please get on with it, Lord. We’re in a hurry,” Zadok requested. He gripped Carey’s black sleeve and pulled her closer to him.

Gabriel grinned sardonically, then shifted his attention to Carey again and laughed openly. “A hurry? Yes, I dare say that’s true. Well, here goes. There is an ancient Koranic legend about the Golden Calf. It is said that at the end of the world, the Calf will come alive. How will that happen, Zadok?”

Trees waved in the wind, filling the air with a soft rustling sound. Zadok rubbed his smooth jaw, eyes focused on the hem of Gabriel’s robe which flapped in the wind. “It is written, Lord, that when the angels ride down to seal the culmination, the hooves of their horses will kick dust into the mouth of the Calf and it will dance.”

“Yes, very good, Patriarch.” He lifted his brows as though greatly amused by the discussion. He chuckled. “Angels, however, come in many forms. It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it, Zadok?”

Calas frowned, puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean, Lord.”

“Well, I mean,” Gabriel waved his arm and his crimson sleeve fluttered extravagantly.” ‘Angel’ is a later derivation from an ancient word:
mal’ak,
meaning messenger. Think about that, Zadok!”

“I don’t understand, Lord.”

“Don’t you? Name the Angels of Vengeance, Patriarch.”

“The Angels of Vengeance?” Zadok repeated. His ancient brow furrowed. He lifted a hand and began putting down fingers as he listed them: “You are one, Lord, Michael is another, Uriel, Satanel, Raphael, Suriel, Jehoel, Zagzagel, Metatron, Yefefiah, Nathanael, and lastly, the wicked Aktariel.”

Gabriel nodded with an exaggerated pride. “Very good. But it’s true, isn’t it, that a rose by any other name is still a rose?” The angel lifted a hand and mimicked Zadok, putting down fingers as he said, “Baruch, Kopal, Wells, Tahn—”

“What does that mean?” Carey demanded loudly. She stepped forward like one of the Angels of Vengeance herself, eyes glowing. “Explain! What do Tahn and Wells—”

Gabriel cocked his head at her, but he spoke to Zadok. “You’re certainly worthy to pass though the gate, Patriarch. Go.”

Zadok bowed again and grabbed Carey’s hand, dragging her forward with him to the door of the Tabernacle. Though she wanted to insist on an answer from Gabriel, she feared it might be her last chance to get through the gate. But fear fluttered in her stomach. Angels of Vengeance? Jeremiel and Cole and Merle….

“Just a minute, Patriarch,” Gabriel interrupted. “I said
you
could pass. Not Halloway.”

Carey stopped and spread her legs, glaring up into the huge creature’s glowing face. Gabriel’s mouth curled into a smile, but his eyes shone as coldly as frozen amber.

“Why can’t I pass, Lord?” Carey asked.

“Because I have a question for you.”

Carey’s mouth tightened with foreboding. She’d known none of the answers Zadok had so easily rattled off. Was this arrogant angel trying to halt her journey to Arabot? “I’m not versed in the secrets of the Gamant patriarchs, Lord. I don’t—”

“Oh, this is a different sort of question, Halloway. Yes, very different, indeed. Tailored especially for you.”

“What is it?”

Gabriel walked in front of them to stand tall between the fluttering orange curtains. He opened his wings, spreading them until they blocked the entry completely. His eiderdown feathers shimmered blue, red, and green beneath the radiance of the stained glass.

He lifted his chin and his yellow curls cascaded down his back. “You know Maxwell’s Constant for light, don’t you, Halloway?”

“Of course.”

“Are you also familiar with Epimenides’ paradox?”

Carey searched her memories. “No. I’m sorry.”

Gabriel laughed menacingly and lowered his gaze to study the square base of a gray column. “Well, let me grant you that part. Epimenides was a Cretan who postulated that ‘All Cretans are liars.’ He—”

“The
liar’s paradox.
Yes, I know it now. Godel’s famous Incompleteness Theorem in mathematics is based upon it. Go on.”