Camber the Heretic (59 page)

As he finished speaking, the men began lining up by twos, teachers and students, each still cupping a sphere of handfire in his palm. Three of the priests moved briskly to the altar, where they drew aside the veil of samite from the tabernacle and began removing the altar vessels containing the precious consecrated Hosts.

A student with his robe kilted up between his legs came bursting through the doors at the west end of the church and ran breathlessly down the center aisle, followed by a handful of other students and lay servants.

“Father Abbot, we're under attack! There must be fifty knights, and twice that many men-at-arms! They've breached the outer walls beyond the fields and they're moving on the abbey itself! Brother Gillis and Lord Dov are slain!”

“God help them, we are too late!” Camber whispered, his knuckles whitening on the staff of his crozier.

Emrys, with a shake of his snowy head, moved into action, though his pale face had gone even paler against the white of his habit.

“Not too late for some of what must be done. Stephen,” he addressed the student, apparently regaining his customary composure, “have the students bar the gates as best they can, and then all of you come into the chapel. We will take as many through the Portal to safety as we can.”

As the young man turned to obey, Emrys came between Camber and Joram and laid his hands urgently on each one's elbow, pushing them toward the sacristy doorway. Camber, aghast at what he had just heard, drew back and stared at Emrys.

“Do you not mean to resist?”

“What good would it accomplish, other than to show that Deryni do, indeed, use their powers to kill?” Emrys replied. “We are a teaching Order, a Healing Order, Your Grace. You know that. We are sworn to do no harm, even in our own defense.”

Dozens of younger students and lay brothers were pouring into the chapel now and barring the doors, strangely serene and calm for unarmed men and boys about to be set upon by steel. Emrys's pressure on Camber's arm became more insistent.

“Come, Your Grace. We are prepared to do what must be done, and you should not be seen among us by our attackers. Your office will protect you yet a little longer, and in that time there is much that you may be able to accomplish—but only if you are alive and free.”

“But, they will be cut down like lambs!” Camber protested.

“Aye, some of them will. But perhaps only martyrdom of a few of us will keep the impeccable reputation of the Gabrilites intact for history. None of our Order has ever harmed a human with his powers. We must make it clear that this is yet the case, even when we ourselves are threatened unjustly. Now,
please
go! Your presence delays those who would make good their escape, for they will not interfere with your use of the Portal.”

More of the youngest students surged past Camber in an orderly wave, forming a triple line with the priests, Healers, and other students, but several dozen students and lay brethren and a handful of priests remained at the doors, barricading them against the stout blows which were now battering at the carved oak from the other side. Beyond the rose of the western facade, the sky glowed redly, though sunset was long past, and Camber knew that the marauders were already putting beautiful Saint Noet's to the torch.

Choking off a sob, he let himself be propelled past the queued Gabrilites and into the sacristy, where Joram was already waiting beside the Portal, one hand toying anxiously with the hilt of his sword—for though Gabrilites would not kill, Michaelines had no such compunctions about defending themselves. Camber watched the Gabrilites part as he approached, making room for Joram to step onto the Portal square and beckon Camber urgently.

Camber's eyes filled with tears as he took his place beside his son and lifted his hand and crozier in final blessing of those whom he would likely never see again. Then he closed his eyes, bowed his head and let Joram take them back across the stomach-wrenching leap of the Portal. The beginning cries of slaughter as the intruders broke through into the chapel at Saint Neot's were cut off abruptly as the two of them jumped back across the safety of the miles to the Portal in Jaffray's apartments.

And back in the chapel at Saint Neot's, an aged and frail Deryni abbot prepared to make his last stand against the intruders who were slaying his brethren and students even then. Joining hands and mind with an experienced Healer named Kenric, Emrys let their combined shields extend between them and the battered doors, creating a shimmer of illusion to hamper those who were now hacking their way down the nave. He could feel his brothers surging past him to disappear on the Portal, two and three at a time, and knew that he would never see them again—that for him, there was no escape.

The explosive crash and tinkle of broken glass assailed his ears, and he could hear missiles striking the floor inside with tremendous force as the great rose and the clerestory windows were attacked and shattered. He flinched at the splintering sound of delicate wooden screens and railings being smashed by the fury of the attackers, and knew the flare of fire being set at the rear of the church, the red glow visible even through closed eyelids. Still, he and Kenric held the illusion which hampered the soldiers' progress, making the men believe they fought through cobwebs and mire which weighted their feet and slowed their advance.

The sounds of carnage were getting closer, and as Emrys opened his eyes and let the illusion go, he could see that the intruders were halfway down the nave, their path now blocked only by the unarmed resistance of a last band of students and teachers who were throwing themselves in the soldiers' paths. Quickly Emrys glanced around, seeing the last of the men by the Portal disappear, then drew his Healer companion toward safety as fast as they could manage.

“Go to the Portal at Dhassa, Kenric. Dom Juris will hold it open yet a little longer, until you are safely through. Then it must be set as a trap and manned constantly. I have a final task to perform.”

“Aye, Father Abbot. God keep you,” the Healer murmured, tears streaming down his face as he kissed the old man's hand.

“And you, my son. Now, go!”

Even as the Healer stepped onto the Portal and was gone, Emrys was kneeling beside it and slipping his hands beneath the carpet square to touch the stone, questing forth with his mind to rip the Portal's existence from the universe. He could hear heavy footsteps pounding in the hallway outside, the shouts of the men overrunning the sanctuary, the clatter of weapons clashing against the doorway where no weapon had ever before been drawn in anger, but he did not lift his head as he poured all his remaining strength into the destruction of the Portal. He was dead and his task completed an instant before a soldier's axe shattered the back of his skull.

And from the sanctuary doorway, a blood-spattered Rhun of Horthness saw the old priest die even as he tried to stay his man's weapon—for he had guessed what the abbot was doing. He had hoped to be able to use the Portal to track down at least a few of the fleeing Deryni, as well as to ease communication with his fellow regents in Valoret.

But it was too late, even if the soldier's axe had been stopped. The old priest lay as lifeless as a broken doll across the Portal square, only a little blood staining the carpet which covered the floor and marked the Portal's location. Later, when his men had slain the last of the inhabitants they could find and set about the methodical destruction of the abbey, Rhun confirmed the destruction of the Portal by bringing in one of the two captive Deryni who travelled with them in chains. The man was inured to his condition by now, for his wife and sons were held hostage for his service, but he wept when he laid his hands on the blood-stained carpet beside the dead abbot and knew the Portal's destruction.

Another hour the marauders stayed, smashing, looting, and desecrating. They could not overturn the main altar because of its size and weight, though they tried; but they smashed the delicate carving on the sides, cracked the
mensa
slab in two, and threw the gory body of one of the dead monks across it so that the snowy marble was stained with his blood.

Nor did they spare the Lady Chapel, with its cool, jewel-like panels of blue glass let into the walls, and its rich hangings; or especially the chapel to Saint Camber, set in the northeast angle of the nave. The statue of the Deryni saint was pulled from its base and beheaded, the arms hacked off to free the jewelled crown which the effigy had held aloft in commemoration of Camber's appellation as “King-Maker.” Even the mosaicked hemisphere on which the statue had stood was attacked with club and mace. The gilded carving on the edge of the altar shelf likewise earned their special wrath, for the name of the Deryni Saint Camber must be obliterated from sight, if not from memory. Battle-axes and maces pounded repeatedly against the incised lettering until only imagination might supply the message once carved there:
Jubilate Deo
+++
Sanctus Camberus
. A torch was set to the once-exquisite wooden screen which had taken years to carve, and the fire cracked and blackened what the soldiers had spared and which would not burn.

When the marauders had looted and desecrated all they could, and set the final fires to destroy what remained, they mounted up and rode away. It was yet a little while before midnight, but the glow of the fires of Saint Neot's would stain the sky long after the moon had sunk behind the western horizon.

Only one Deryni gained even some small measure of satisfaction at Saint Neot's that night, and he was one of only two of his race to ride out of the burning abbey with Rhun and his men. For Rhun's captive Deryni never told his hated master of the message left in the blasted Portal by the dying abbot, of the warning sealed with the death of a Deryni Healer-mage, which would endure as long as this patch of earth:

Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger! Of a full one hundred brothers only I remain, to try, with my failing strength, to destroy this Portal before it can be desecrated. Kinsmen, take heed. Protect yourself, Deryni. The humans kill what they do not understand. Holy Saint Camber, defend us from fearful evil!

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine
.

—Hosea 7:5

Though Camber himself would later count it as small victory, in a way Saint Camber did defend the inhabitants of Saint Neot's from fearful evil; for without Alister Cullen's timely warning, few if any of the Gabrilites would have escaped that night's grim work. When, after a few hours, Camber at last dared to reach back to the Saint Neot's Portal, he could only sense the lingering message of Saint Neot's last abbot and know its warning to be true:
the humans kill what they do not understand
.

Human understanding counted for even less at Haut Eirial and Mollingford, as Jebediah discovered. Apparently Rhun had moved first against Alister Cullen's Michaelines, splitting his forces to strike both houses simultaneously in late afternoon before reforming to march against Saint Neot's. For both locations, Tavis's information had come far too late.

True, the Michaelines had long since abandoned both sites to other Orders, but Rhun's soldiers had not known that, or perhaps had not cared. The poor monks who had counted it their fortune to be given the former Michaeline lands and houses found it no fortune at all when they were overrun on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and slain where they worked or prayed. By the time Jebediah reached them, he found only smouldering ruins, ashes and charnel heaps whose decent burial he did not even dare to undertake for fear of being discovered by any laggard soldiers still prowling in the area.

He found only Camber awaiting him when he returned to Valoret, a little past midnight. Joram was at Sheele, sent to warn Evaine and Ansel of the night's developments while they still had easy access to a Portal. And while Camber and Jebediah waited for Joram's return, Camber outlined the situation as succinctly as he could.

The birth of Evaine's daughter was expected toward the end of January. Hence, though she had longed to come with Rhys when word arrived of Camber's election, she had remained at Sheele with Ansel and Queron, the two younger children, and half a dozen loyal household retainers in what both she and Rhys had felt would be relative safety.

Now Camber was not so certain of that safety, and even less certain of the safety of Evaine's and Rhys's firstborn, Aidan, who was fostered with the grandson of Camber's sister at Trurill. If tonight's madness spread, any Deryni, and especially any of Saint Camber's kin, would be likely game for the regents' forces.

“And unfortunately, there's no way to get word to Adrian MacLean except by conventional means,” Camber explained, as he paced the narrow confines of the oratory. “My sister Aislinn did not marry Deryni, so a Portal was never established at Trurill.”

“Was her husband hostile to the idea?” Jebediah asked.

“No, there simply wasn't any real need. When we all were younger, she would use the old Portal at Cor Culdi when she wanted to visit us at Caerrorie—not that she came that often. She had her own life to lead, with three growing sons and her duties as Iain MacLean's countess. In any case, the Portal at Cor Culdi is no longer accessible. You knew that the MacRorie lands had been given over to Hubert MacInnis's brother, didn't you?”

Jebediah's jaw dropped and then he shook his head. “I didn't know about Cor Culdi. I hadn't even thought about it. It was bad enough, when they took away Caerrorie.” He paused thoughtfully, then went on. “This sister of yours—is she still alive?”

“Oh, quite. She was the youngest of the five of us—five years younger than I. I have another sister who's nearly eighty. She's abbess at Saint Hilda's, down in Carthmoor. I'm sorry, I thought you knew.”