The Guns of Empire (56 page)

“Wait.” Maxwell pushed his way forward. “You said the pontifex brought the prisoners
out
of the deep cells?”

The boy nodded. “A lot of them are in pretty bad shape, too. As pale as dead fish.”

Maxwell beckoned to Winter. Winter said in Vordanai, “Alex, get him to tell you how to get to the cathedral by a route where we won't be seen.”

“Got it,” Alex said. “Then . . .” She glanced at the knife.

Winter's throat went tight. “Just . . . gag him and tie him up. We'll ditch him somewhere and be out of here before he's found.”

There was, she thought, a little relief on Alex's face. “Right.”

Winter took a few steps back down the corridor, with Maxwell behind her. “What's going on?”

“Something's very wrong,” Maxwell said. “The Eldest explained to you the purpose of the Black Priests, didn't he?”

Winter nodded. “To keep the Beast imprisoned.”

“And as many other demons as they can catch. That's what the deep cells are for. Only a few people are faithful enough to be trusted in the field as the Penitent Damned, and they get the most useful demons. The rest are kept in the dungeons until they die, when another host is found to keep that demon from arising in the wild. Most of them are
never
let out of their cells, much less brought together and taken somewhere to pray.”

“If the Church really thinks that Janus is coming to destroy them any day, maybe they're just pulling out whatever they have left.”

“But those prisoners aren't like the Penitents. They're the ones who
aren't
loyal to the Church, who can't be trusted with their powers. Putting them all together is more likely to cause a riot than anything helpful.”

“Desperate people do stupid things,” Winter said, but her gut told her that he was right. Something
was
strange here. “What do you suggest we do? If everyone is in the cathedral, presumably that includes our Penitent.”

“It's going to be hard to get to her if she's in the middle of a mob.”

“If we can get a reasonable vantage point, Alex is as good as a rifle,” Winter said, glancing over her shoulder. Alex and Millie had hog-tied the young servant, with a strip torn from his robe forced into his mouth. “If the cathedral here is like the one in Vordan, there'll be a gallery. That might be what we need.”

“Getting away afterward is going to be the hard part,” the priest said. His eyes lingered on Alex, Winter noted. “I hope you've got a plan.”

“One step at a time,” Winter said.

“The cathedral is aboveground,” Alex said. “Our friend gave me the route, but it comes up at the edge of the central square. If anyone's watching, they'll see us if we try to approach that way.”

“Let's go as far as we can,” Winter said, “and see if we can find another way
in.” She looked from Alex to Bobby and smiled. “We may have a few unconventional options.”

—

As Alex had said, the boy's route led to a long stairway, upper steps coated with snow, that surfaced in a broad, flat square. Winter left the rest of the group behind and wormed her way to the top on her belly, letting as little show over the lip of the stairs as possible.

The square was big, maybe as big as Farus' Triumph back in Vordan. Directly in front of her was a long, low building faced with white marble, its facade encrusted with statues and columns. A similar building mirrored it on the other side of the square, faced in red. Across from the steps was what had to be the cathedral, a monstrous stone construction that towered over its surroundings. A huge circular stained-glass window looked out like an eye from just below the peaked roof, at least three stories above the ground. Two asymmetrical towers, one fat and square and the other slender and round, rose from the two front corners. Like the rest of Elysium, its stone was a patchwork of fresh and weathered, which might explain the mishmash of architectural styles.

More interestingly for Winter's purpose, there were more stained-glass windows along the sides of the cathedral, where it ran parallel to the white-faced building. She shuffled back down the steps and gathered her team.

“Okay,” she said. “There's a building over
there
, all in white.”

“That's the Priests of the White administrative headquarters,” Maxwell said. “A pretty new addition.”

“Where we want to be is on its roof,” Winter said. “That should get us onto the cathedral on one of its blind sides. We'll need to watch the towers, though.”

“How far is it to the white building?” Bobby said.

“Maybe sixty feet,” Winter said. “I don't think we could all run for it without being spotted. But there was a corridor in that direction a little ways back. Come on.”

She led them back the way they'd come, then turned right, down a side corridor. It led to a doorway, with another storeroom beyond stacked with small votive candles and boxes of worn copies of the
Wisdoms
. There were no other exits.

“This is almost underneath the white building,” Winter said. “It has its own basements, I assume?”

“It should,” Maxwell said.

“Bobby?” Winter said. “See if you can make us a door.”

Bobby grinned. “It might be a little loud.”

“If that kid was right, there shouldn't be anyone to hear.”

“Here goes, then.”

Bobby took a deep breath, pivoted on the ball of her foot, and delivered a roundhouse punch to the stone wall at the back of the storeroom. There was a
crunch
and an explosion of small stones and dust, which left everyone coughing.

“Sorry,” Bobby said, as the air slowly cleared. “I wasn't expecting that.”

The blow had had the desired effect, Winter was gratified to see. As she'd expected, the wall separating this tunnel from the basements of the white building wasn't very thick. Bobby's punch had shattered the stone, fracturing it in a bull's-eye pattern like a rock thrown through a window. A little light filtered through the center, where bits of stone had fallen away, and Bobby was able to clear a respectable-sized hole in a few more moments.

“You okay?” Winter said, as the others came forward to help move the rubble.

Bobby made a face. “Think I broke a bone in my hand or something,” she said. “It'll be all right in a few minutes. Next time I'll use a pickax.”

Winter shot her a grin. When the hole was wide enough, Alex and Millie slipped through, with the others following when the two thieves waved them forward.

“Maxwell,” Winter said, “do you know the layout here?”

The priest shook his head. “It's too new. We don't have maps this recent.”

“Then we'll just have to look for the stairs. Keep an eye out.”

Even more than the deeper tunnels, the basements of the Priests of the White were shockingly banal. Here the theme was paper—every room they passed was lined with shelves, which until recently had been stacked higher with bound volumes, wrapped scrolls, and loose sheets. Some of them were still untouched, but most appeared to have been emptied in a hurry, stray books and torn pages lying on the floor under mud tracks from many boots.

At the end of the hall, marble-faced stairs led up to the main floor, which presented a similar prospect. Large, open rooms with many desks alternated with more storage, with a side corridor leading to a well-equipped kitchen and canteen. Paper was everywhere, carpeting the floors as though the building had been hit by a blizzard of the stuff. It rustled around their feet as they walked, but nothing else moved in the vast space. On impulse, Winter reached down and picked up a page, parsing the unfamiliar Murnskai script with difficulty:

Fitness Report for Father Muren Nasidov, assigned to Saint Vilek's of West Ristev

Overall: Good. Some concerns Nasidov may be becoming too close to his congregation. Recommend transfer after no more than one year.

Detail—

“Saints and martyrs,” Winter muttered, letting the sheet fall. “This is worse than Orlanko's Cobweb.”

“I think that's the stairs,” Alex called.

A narrow, seldom-used staircase led upward past a ring of overhanging galleries, ending in a locked trapdoor. Winter looked back to Bobby, but before they could rearrange the group to shuffle her to the front, Alex had popped the lock with a pair of thin metal picks. Millie raised her eyebrows, impressed.

“I told you I was the greatest thief in the world,” Alex said with a shrug. “Besides, this is kid stuff.”

“Open it carefully,” Winter said. “Someone may be watching from the tower.”

Alex nodded and pushed the trapdoor open a few inches. She put her eye to the crack for a full minute, then looked over her shoulder.

“If they're there, I can't see them.”

Winter gestured her forward. One by one, they climbed the last few steps and emerged onto the roof of the white building. It was made of overlapping slate shingles, sharply peaked to keep the snow off, which made the footing somewhat treacherous. The sun was nearly down in the west, the yellow-orange of sunset already fading to purple and black overhead. Just ahead of them, the side of the cathedral rose like a mountain, twice the height of the white building even without its towers. The thinner tower loomed far overhead, but as best Winter could tell there were no windows on its slim sides. It widened at the very top to support a covered platform, but that seemed to be empty except for an enormous bronze bell. A spiderweb of ropes and lines connected it to the larger tower on the other side of the cathedral, supporting long strings of double-circle flags in alternating red and white, along with representative emblems of Murnsk, Borel, and the other Sworn Church nations.

Of more direct interest were the stained-glass windows, each about ten feet high and three feet across, that pierced the thick stone wall of the cathedral at regular intervals. The gap from the edge of the white building's roof to the cathedral's side was perhaps ten feet, longer than Winter had guessed from the ground.

“Bobby, we're going to need something to use as a bridge,” Winter said. “Can you go back downstairs and grab one of those long benches?”

Bobby nodded and disappeared back down the trapdoor. Winter turned to Alex.

“Try to keep the hole as small as possible,” she said. “We don't want anyone down below noticing.”

“Got it.”

Alex flexed her fingers, like a pianist preparing for a performance, and extended a hand. A black sphere formed around it, then sent a lance of pure darkness into the stone beside the window. It stuck there, quivering as though anchored to the rock, and Alex nonchalantly stepped into space. She swung across the gap on her line of shadow, coming to rest boots-first against the wall in what was obviously a well-practiced maneuver.

From there she walked herself sideways until she was right beside the window and fired another line into the rock from her other hand. Putting her weight on this new anchor, she let the first one vanish like a wisp of smoke, leaning over to examine the glass. Darkness gathered around her hand again, and thin, quick spears of black punched out like a swarm of snakes, tracing a rotating circular pattern. A moment later they twined around a section of the stained-glass mosaic and pulled it away, leaving a hole big enough to crawl through. A few bits of glass dropped from the cut edge, but the rest stayed together, held in place by the leaded frame.

Bobby returned, carrying one of the long benches with the legs broken off. With some difficulty, Maxwell helped her work it up through the trapdoor and along the roof until they were opposite the window. Bobby stood it on end and let it tilt across the gap until it came to rest against the cathedral wall, and Alex guided it down and into the hole, making a narrow but sturdy-looking bridge.

“Not bad,” Alex said. “Maybe not
quite
worthy of Metzing, but not bad at all.”

All that remained was for them to crawl across, one by one. Alex went first, dropping lightly off the wall and onto the plank, then shimmying through the hole. Millie and Maxwell followed. Red looked down at the narrow alley between the buildings, thirty feet below, and swallowed.

“Something wrong?” Winter said.

“I'm not good with heights,” the big sergeant admitted. “Give me a moment.”

Eyes closed, she edged out onto the bench, crawling on hands and knees. Millie, waiting on the other side, took her arm as soon as she was close enough and guided her the rest of the way. When she was through, Winter looked at Bobby.

“No problems with heights?”

“Not that I've noticed,” Bobby said. “You?”

“Maybe a few . . . twinges.” Winter took a deep breath, dropped to her knees, and shuffled out onto the board. She kept her eyes locked on Millie's encouraging face and tried her best to ignore the tingling, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she was across, she squeezed through the hole in the stained glass with a sigh of relief, and found Millie and Red squatting in a narrow, darkened alcove. Alex and Maxwell were pressed against each other, leaning against the wall, and it took Winter a moment to realize they were kissing enthusiastically. Alex broke away after a moment, blushing only a little.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “It's been a long time since I did any thievery. It gets me excited.”

Winter raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Bobby emerged from the hole and got to her feet, dusting herself off.

“Maxwell?” Winter said. The priest still had one hand in Alex's, their fingers entwined. “Am I right in thinking this place is going to look a lot like most cathedrals?”

He nodded, keeping his voice to a whisper. “This is the Widow's Gallery. The main hall is down below. The speaker's balcony is over there”—he gestured to the right—“with the priest's quarters and so on behind it. Stairway down is the other way.”