David Mcintee - The Light of Heaven

"Something like that."

The bos'un picked up a chunk of knobbly glass and threw it at Farran's feet. "Is this what you call diamond?"

Farran made a placating gesture. "Diamonds don't sparkle when they're first found. They have to be cut and polished — "

"Aye, that they do," another sailor joined in. "But I've worked in a diamond mine and rough diamonds don't look like this rubbish. This is slag, not gemstones."

"Maybe the people who used to live here made jewellery and smelted gold. This could be what's left," Farran suggested. "There may yet be profit to be found elsewhere on the island."

"What people?"

"You're standing on one." Startled, the bos'un looked down, as did Crowe and saw that there was indeed a vaguely humanoid skeleton set into the translucent earth below him. "Somebody used to live here."

Something else caught Crowe's eye, on a smooth blister a few feet above. He lurched over and realised that what he was seeing wasn't on the blister, it was inside it.

The skull of some ancient beast, full of crumbling fangs, was lying on its side deep inside the rock. Crowe had seen flies trapped in amber and sold in the markets of Freiport, but he had never seen anything like this. "What it is?"

"Sea devils," a sailor muttered.

"Or Dwarves," another said.

"He's the tallest sodding dwarf I've ever seen, mate," Crowe replied. Margrave could only shake his head in wonder. "I've never seen such a creature. Whatever it is, it must be an ancient thing."

Crowe turned away in disgust, walking back towards the longboats. This place wasn't right. Not for him and not for anyone.

"Where are you going?" Farran shouted.

"Back to the ship."

"Send water and food across," Margrave said. "We may camp here tonight."

"Rather you than me."

Crowe rowed back to the Belle alone, his head buzzing with a sick and dizzy feeling. At first he thought it was still the images of the trapped bones that was making him feel strange, but as he climbed back aboard the ship he began to realise that in fact there was a literal buzzing in his ears.

It was a sound that Crowe had never heard before. No-one on board had ever heard anything like it before, and everyone was looking around them in a mixture of terror and bafflement. It was a hissing and sizzling sound, descending from the skies and filling the air. Crowe could feel it quivering in the breaths he took.

Someone pointed to the sky, and cried out: "Look!"

There were no clouds in the sky, but even the deep blue of the day was peeling itself apart, as the very air shuddered in agony. The air was tearing itself apart.

The Isle of the Star was burning, glowing from the inside out with the silver light of a million of the stars that twinkled in the night. In a heartbeat, it was too bright to look at. Crowe spun, trying to find a direction in which he could still see. There was a sudden silence and then Crowe felt the blinding starlight burn every muscle in his body. His hair was straining to escape from its roots and every part of him was screaming in the fire that consumed him.

There were footsteps thumping across the deck and the sound of men's' voices. Crowe blinked the water out of his eyes and tried to look over the edge of the barrel in which he sat.

A startled sailor was looking at him. Crowe didn't recognize the man. Maybe he was a pirate. More likely he was a dream, or a figment of Crowe's imagination. Perhaps he was dead and the sailor was just another soul that had joined him in Kerberos.

"Mister Farrow!" the man shouted. "I think there's a man alive here!"

More men came running at his call, but Crowe couldn't even tell what they looked like; the blackness was descending over him once more.

"If you call this alive," he heard a voice say.

Gabriella took some time to let the story sink in. No wonder Crowe was such a troubled man, as well as troublesome, soul.

"How did your ship get back through the Stormwall?"

"I have no idea. I blacked out and when I came round, I was being… rescued."

She decided not to press the issue. There was magic involved here, and she didn't know much about magic. "You told me about the fire and how you got burned."

"It's not exactly something that would slip my mind easily."

"You never said where the fire came from."

"Of course I bloody didn't, because I don't know! That's the whole point. It was like it came from Kerberos itself. Just like that bloody sea-thing said, all right? There was a bridge between Kerberos and the Isle, and everyone in its path died."

"Except that isn't the end of the story. There was the other ship, the one that picked you up."

"The Vigilant ."

"Why did you do what you did there?"

"Self-preservation, girlie. Looking after number one. They were going to try do something I really didn't want to repeat and I tried to stop them."

"You killed them to protect them?" Somehow, saying it made it almost logical, which wasn't her intention.

Crowe blinked and rubbed his forehead. "I'm not looking for forgiveness, pet. Not from you, not from anyone."

Gabriella thought long and hard before answering. "I understand."

Kesar stood on the slope of the rise upon which they had made camp and watched the glittering peak of Freedom through a spyglass.

"It's ideal," he commented to Preceptor DeBarres. "All of Kell's little friends, bottled up in there. Unless we force them out and they manage to escape into the closest settlements."

"There are no settlements nearby. They've already displaced the goblin nests, and those have been dealt with. Unless, of course, they scatter into the Sardenne."

"They would be most welcome to do that," Kesar murmured. "They may find it better than the bridge to Kerberos."

"You mentioned that a moment ago. You could try to sound more ironic."

Kesar smiled. "But it is indeed a bridge to Kerberos."

DeBarres, standing next to Kesar, looked at him disbelievingly. "What? You're not seriously telling me those heretics are going to…"

"They're going to see the light, Preceptor. It is a bridge to Kerberos, I assure you. Well, perhaps it would more accurate of me to say it is a bridge from Kerberos."

"A bridge has two ends. But not always two directions of travel."

Kesar rose and strolled towards his tent, DeBarres following. Kesar began to neaten his hair with a small comb, absent-mindedly, as he looked up towards Kerberos. "Tell me, Preceptor, do you know where magic comes from?"

"From the Lord of All, as does everything in the world." He grunted. "I know there are those who think otherwise, however."

"People don't have access to the histories that you and I, or the Anointed Lord, do."

"I'm only a soldier, Eminence. A good one, of course, but a soldier nonetheless."

"You sound very sure of yourself."

"The Lord of All gave me a particular set of skills and talents and Katherine Makennon and Eminence Voivode saw where those talents best lay." He smiled calmly, knowing it would needle Kesar. "Between three such august personages, I can't imagine they're all wrong. Can you?"

Kesar's lip curled as he gave DeBarres a cold stare.

"Mid-morning the day after tomorrow,'" Gabriella said. A light drizzle had begun and so Gabriella and Crowe had withdrawn into their tent. They squatted opposite each other on low stools, while she tried to light an oil lamp.

"Yeah, that's what Kesar said."

"Which means tomorrow now. Why be so specific?" she asked.

"I told you not to trust him, Dez. That bloke's got something up his sleeve."

"But whatever it is, it can't be military…"

Her mind was racing, and she found herself fighting against it. It was plunging headlong in a direction she didn't want to go in. "It could be something to do with — "