Ian Irvine: Tribute to Hell

‘My time is up,’ said Hildy. ‘Astatine, when I took you in as a little girl — ’

At the far end of the chapel, a window was smashed and blazing sheaves of oil-soaked straw arced in, trailing brown billows. Astatine scrambled to her feet but Hildy pulled her down.

‘Abbess?’

‘You weren’t abandoned on the doorstep, newborn. The abbey was paid handsomely to take you in, and threatened with ruin if I revealed your origins. But now it is lost, you must know.’

Astatine could not take that in. ‘What will become of me?’ she cried. ‘I’ve nowhere to go.’

‘You must make your own way in the world, little sister.’

‘But I’ll infect it with the sickness I carry around with me.’

‘Don’t start that again,’ snapped Hildy. ‘It is a particularly offensive form of arrogance to assume that the world’s ills could come from one so innocent as yourself.’

Astatine bit her lip. ‘Where can I go? Hildy, who were my parents?’

‘I never knew your mother’s name, but she’s long dead.’ Hildy began to pant. Astatine, trying to staunch the ebbing blood, was afraid the abbess would never speak again, but then she whispered, ‘Your father brought you here. He was a demon out of Perdition.’

‘No!’ Astatine gasped. ‘Who?’

‘I’m afraid it was … Behemoth.’

Her god’s enemy. ‘It can’t be,’ whispered Astatine, choking with horror.

‘He brought you here,’ said Hildy. ‘And because of the link between you and him, if anyone can find the Covenant, you can. Stop whimpering! Before I die I must pass my gift to you. Lean forwards.’

Astatine did so, numbly. How could it be true? Demons were dark, yet she was pale. And she was petite, so how could the mighty Behemoth be her father?

Hildy gripped the sides of Astatine’s head, strained, and agony sheared through her skull. The abbess’s hands fell to her chest. ‘The stigmata — ’

Instinctively, Astatine inspected her own hands, though they were unmarked. When she looked up, Hildy was dead.

A hot wind shrieked through the broken window, swirling the smoke around her. Her head was throbbing so badly she could not see. Astatine crawled off, but did not get far before she was overcome by the smoke.

‘Once again, Greave, fortune has saved you from damnation,’ said Roget as he carried an unconscious Astatine away from the burning chapel. Behind them, a horde of red-gowned monks was torching the abbey outbuildings under Fistus’s direction. ‘Truly, you must be intended for great things.’

‘I swore a mighty oath,’ said Greave dully, ‘but I was too weak to hold to it.’

‘It was an evil oath, made under compulsion. Breaking it proves there is yet some good in you.’

‘I seduced K’nacka’s month-bride!’ cried Greave, sick with self-loathing. ‘Now I’ve let down my god, slain the sainted abbess and doomed my little sister. I’m worthless.’

‘Then redeem yourself!’ snapped his friend. ‘Here, carry the novice.’

‘I’ll destroy her too.’

‘Just don’t look at her,’ said Roget, enveloping Astatine in his cloak. ‘If you do, I swear I’ll run you through.’

Greave was thankful for the darkness, for the soft weight in his arms was temptation enough. Had he been able to look on Astatine’s lovely face, nothing could have saved her, or himself.

Hours later they hid among the tumbled boulders on a barren hilltop and he lay her down.

‘Sleep, little one,’ said Roget, putting a minor charm on her.

They sat watching the distant flames until, not long before a chill and windy dawn, the abbey had been reduced to cinders. As the sun rose, the cavalcade of red-clad monks rode away.

‘Fistus isn’t going back to the city,’ said Roget. ‘He’s heading into the drylands. I wonder why?’

‘I couldn’t give a damn.’ Greave stretched himself on the hard ground and closed his eyes, knowing there would be no sleep for him.

‘He’s going to work a miracle!’ Astatine sat up so abruptly that she whacked her head on the pebbly overhang.

The headache came shrieking back, then the smoke, the crackle of fire and the abbess dying beside her. Astatine groaned and opened her eyes to find herself alone on an arid hilltop scattered with boulders of conglomerate.

Boots grated on grit and Roget appeared, breathing heavily. Greave was close behind.

‘Did you call out?’ said Roget.

‘I saw the Carnal Cardinal,’ said Astatine.

‘What, here?’ Greave said sharply, eyes averted.

‘In a dream.’ She rubbed her throbbing forehead, realising that she had not been dreaming, for the images remained clear in her mind. ‘No, it must have been Hildy’s gift.’

Greave swung around. ‘What are you talking about?’

Astatine jumped up and moved away, watching him warily. ‘Before the abbess died, she passed her gift to me …’ What gift, though? Her ecstatic vision? ‘She sees — saw things — bad things that might come true.’ Like the evil Covenant Astatine had to find and destroy. ‘And I just saw Fistus, clear as a raindrop.’

‘When he caught the god-bone, he looked triumphant,’ said Roget. ‘Getting it mattered more to him than our sacrilege. What kind of a priest would act that way?’

‘Perhaps one who seeks power for himself,’ said Greave. ‘What else did you see, Novice?’

‘He was on a barren hill.’ She looked around. ‘A bit like this one — ’

‘There are a thousand barren hills in these badlands.’

‘There was a huge, ruined shrine on top. It looked as though it had been hacked in two by a monstrous axe … one that had cut halfway through the hill itself.’

Greave and Roget exchanged glances. ‘The Cloven Shrine,’ said Roget, his fingers curling.

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ said Astatine.

‘The truth was too shocking to be told. Few people know the story.’

‘Fistus does!’ Greave said darkly.

‘The shrine was destroyed when the Great God, the original ruler of Elyssian, was defeated and cast down in the Second Coup. He crashed through the shrine, nearly splitting the hill in twain.’

‘And died there?’ Worms were dancing along Astatine’s backbone.

‘The Great God could not be killed,’ said Roget. ‘He could only die at his own hand and, in despair at being cast out of Elyssian, that’s what he did.’

Astatine trembled. She knew about the First Coup, when Behemoth had rebelled, yet, inexplicably and at the moment of victory, turned his back on Elyssian and set up his own rival kingdom, Perdition. Was he behind the Second Coup? Were the gods passing away? Was that why the world was so sick?

‘What “miracle” is Fistus planning?’ said Greave.

‘I don’t know,’ said Astatine. ‘But I don’t think he means to honour our gods.’

Assuming, of course, that they were still her gods. If she was half demon, maybe she had no gods. Astatine could not bear to think about that. The destruction of the abbey had left her empty and belonging nowhere. If her beloved gods had also been taken away, how could she exist?

She had to find the Covenant.

Dawn was breaking as they crept up the chasm cutting across the cloven hill. Greave kept his eyes fixed above him, for his curse had not abated. Twice the previous day he’d frozen Astatine’s hair, and the second time he had only come to his senses when Roget put a sword blade to his throat. At times, Greave wished his friend had used it.

‘How dare Fistus pretend to perform a miracle?’ cried Astatine. ‘Why don’t the gods punish him for this insolence?’

Her child-like faith was an insult to his intelligence but Greave kept silent, not daring to further provoke the gods.