Quintessence Sky (43 page)

Ramos thought of Antonia, still a prisoner
with the colonists, and his conscience pricked him. He had left
her, helpless, in the control of killers. Elizabeth, too, he had
rescued from execution only to abandon her to Spanish soldiers. It
wasn't fair, and he knew it—he had done the best he could to try
and save them all—but it didn't stop him from feeling like a
coward.

The conquistador stabbed, and this time Ramos
couldn't get away. The point of the bayonet cut deep into his
belly. He cried out and stepped backwards involuntarily, his foot
finding nothing but air. The soldier pulled the blade back out, and
Ramos fell backwards into space. The cliff was not completely
vertical. He dropped, flailing with arms and legs, then struck
against a steep slope, caroming away and falling again. He struck a
second time and tumbled headlong, half falling, half sliding on
loose gravel, battering himself on rocks on the way down. Another
free fall, and he struck with jarring force against a rock ledge,
biting his tongue and lancing pain through his skull, but stopping
his fall. He tried to get up, but his head was ringing with the
impact, and his vision narrowed and went black.

MATTHEW sat in the dirt with the rest of the
colonists, hands tied. He felt helpless and stupid and afraid.
Catherine was alive, but in a few minutes, she might wish she had
died at the bottom of the manticores' cave shaft. It was clear that
Torres was planning to find out what they knew, and Matthew knew
from painful experience what a Spanish interrogation could be
like.

The barrier was gone. Torres had destroyed it
through the simple expedient of chopping down all the trees that
supported it. Those trees he had further chopped into firewood,
which several soldiers were now stacking into a tall pyramid.
Matthew knew what that was. It was a pyre.

Horizon had taken its toll. There were now
fewer than fifty colonists left alive, of the hundreds who had
traveled with them from England. Some had died on the journey, some
from predatory animals or poisonous plants, some by the hand of
Diego de Tavera, still more in the first battle with the manticores
over the settlement. Today's battle had claimed still more, though
looking out across the field, the English dead was nothing compared
to the enormous number of manticores killed.

Ramos had told Torres that the colonists were
not to be touched; presumably that was because Torres's actual
orders were to kill them. They had no energy or salt left to
resist. It would be Diego de Tavera all over again: torture, or the
threat of harm or death to others, in order to extract information.
Matthew knew there was no resisting it. The year before, he had
endured punishing pain to his own body, only to crumble when Tavera
started killing random people to force him to talk. He had
ultimately told them everything he knew, which was why the Spanish
had been able to get a ship back to England with any treasures at
all. He had no illusions about his chance of survival, either. Once
Torres had what he wanted, he would kill them. The only hope they
had was rescue, and who could rescue them now?

Torres had Elizabeth off to herself, where he
was questioning her. She maintained her regal pose, even when he
slapped her, and Matthew suspected she was making no secret of her
true identity. Torres had obviously recognized her anyway.

The conquistadors stood over them, preventing
conversation. Matthew was nearest to his father, with Parris and
Ferguson not far away. Catherine was on the other side of the
group, too far away even to try any surreptitious conversation.
Matthew felt a stab of dread in his chest at the thought that,
after she had so recently been restored to him, she might die
before he could even speak with her again. She was tied next to
Ramos's strange daughter, Antonia, who didn't even seem to know
where she was. Matthew had heard from Ramos how so many in Europe
had fallen under this same madness, though none had on Horizon. It
was as if some central part of herself had gone absent, leaving her
alive, but no longer present.

It reminded Matthew of when Catherine had
bonded to Chichirico on the ship, before any of them had any
experience doing so or knowledge of what was happening. Her
consciousness had been entirely immersed in the manticore's, such
that she could hardly differentiate herself from him. That had been
different in many ways; Catherine had been unconscious, not able to
be led around like Antonia was, but there was that same sense of
someone missing an essential part of herself.

Matthew caught a brief glimpse of something
bright glowing in Antonia's thick black hair. He peered, trying to
make it out. Most of the time he couldn't see it, but—there—a flash
of light. In fact, he realized that Catherine was whispering, not
to Antonia, but to the glow in her hair. It was one of those spirit
lights. Matthew glanced at their Spanish captors, to see if they'd
noticed, but they gave no sign that they'd seen it.

By now, the sun was descending toward the
horizon, red and gigantic, as close to the Earth as it ever came.
Despite the cover of the trees, the air was hot, and Matthew felt a
droplet of sweat slide down his back. It was not the first evening
the conquistadors had spent in this place, but the huge sun clearly
unnerved them.

They erected three pyres in all, each with a
post in the center driven into the ground. Torres grabbed a handful
of Elizabeth's dress and yanked her to her feet. The once-white
gown was dirty and torn. He pushed her up against one of the posts,
and his men tied her wrists tightly to a notch high on the post,
forcing her to lean against it with her hands high in the air, her
feet only barely touching the ground.

"Two more," Torres said. He pointed to
Catherine and Antonia. "These two will do."

Blanca screamed and tried to shield them, but
the conquistadores knocked her roughly to the ground. They pulled
Catherine and Antonia to their feet. Catherine twisted and fought,
but they overpowered her and led her toward one of the posts.

They stretched Catherine's arms high and
hooked her tied wrists over the notch in the post, just like they
had with Elizabeth. Antonia went willingly, making no complaint,
and was similarly tied to the third post.

Matthew couldn't tear his eyes away from
Catherine. Her eyes were locked to his, wide with panic. After all
this time, fearing her lost, not knowing whether or how to grieve,
was he really going to lose her like this? It seemed impossible
that he could do nothing. A month ago, he had so much power. Power
to heal, power to fight, a settlement like a fortress and what
seemed like infinite stores of salt. Now he had nothing. He was
just a mortal man, helpless, able to do nothing as his love was
tortured and killed. He couldn't bear to watch, but it seemed like
a betrayal to look away. If he couldn't hold her hand, at least he
could hold her gaze.

His father poked him in the back, hard. "Do
something," he whispered.

"What can I possibly do?"

His voice was like a hiss, spoken out of the
side of his mouth. "I've seen you do the impossible more than once.
Don't tell me you're just going to stand there and let this
happen."

Matthew wanted to punch him. The situation
was bad enough without his father blaming him for it. "Why are you
asking me?" he said bitterly. "Why don't you just pray?"

"I
am
praying. I'm praying for you to
rescue them."

"I can't."

"Stop it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and
do what needs to be done."

Matthew gritted his teeth. How could his
father think so much of him and so little of him at the same time?
His hands were tied behind his back, he had no salt, and they were
surrounded by armed soldiers. What did he expect Matthew to do?

And then Matthew knew. It popped into his
head as obvious as his own name.

He waited for just the right moment, when
Torres was reaching for a torch, and moved as quickly as he could.
He jumped up, off-balance, and ran to Catherine's pyre. Before
anyone could stop him, he kissed her passionately, knowing he had
mere seconds. As he expected, the conquistadors tore him away from
her and shoved him roughly to the ground.

"How touching," Torres said, chuckling. "The
lover steals a final kiss before the end." He lit his torch and
held it above Catherine's pyre. "I was going to burn the princess
first, but this is more tragic, don't you think? Young love, cut
short." All he had to do was drop the torch. There was no oil,
nothing to make the wood burn quickly. Worst of all, the
quintessence water still in Catherine's veins would continue to
heal her as she burned. It would be a slow and horrible death.

"Stop!" Matthew said. "You don't have to do
this. We'll tell you whatever you want to know."

"I'm certain you will," Torres said. "I find
that tongues are loose once their owners witness the horrors their
heresy has earned them. I will burn your love, and then you will
have a chance to speak. If I am not satisfied, I will burn the next
in line."

"I can teach you how to use quintessence,"
Matthew said. "I can show you where to find shekinah flatworms, how
to preserve them for the trip back to England. I'll show you how to
make your body fast and strong, like ours, and how to create the
quintessence fire."

"You will lie to me," Torres said. "And then
I will burn your friends, and only then will you tell the truth. I
wish to skip the lies. I take no joy from it, but it was you who
chose to set your faces against the Lord. As it says in Holy
Scripture, 'He shall crush you with a scepter of iron; he shall
break you in pieces like a potter's vessel.' God laughs at your
pitiful rebellion. When you see your princess burn, you will know
there is no hope in defying Almighty God."

It was a twisting of Psalm 2, and a horrible
one. Matthew struggled to stand, but a soldier kicked him and he
fell back to the ground. Ferguson looked dazed, staring in shock
and denial. Parris had his eyes closed in apparent calm, and his
lips were moving. Was he talking to Tanalabrinu across their bond?
Or praying for divine rescue?

"We will never tell you anything," Catherine
said from her pyre. "Your cruelty will buy you nothing but God's
judgment."

"Such brave words," Torres said. "But we will
see how fast your defiance turns to begging for mercy." He turned
back to look at Matthew. "Any last words for your young love?"

Matthew glared at him from the ground.
"You're a monster. Is this what serving Christ looks like? The
torture of young women?" He had no doubt that Torres had picked out
Catherine and Antonia simply because they were young and beautiful,
and thus their gruesome deaths would be that much more shocking.
His goal was to crush any hope of resistance or rescue, in order to
be sure the information he extracted from the rest was true and
complete.

Torres shook his head in apparent regret.
"This is the price of heresy," he said. He tossed the torch into
the wood at Catherine's feet.

CHAPTER 26

RAMOS woke with a throbbing headache. He was
on a narrow ledge, maybe thirty feet above the crashing waves. He
looked back up the way he had fallen. There was no way he could
climb it. He was alone in this vast and strange world with no
resources, no plan, nowhere to go. Antonia and Elizabeth and the
others were doomed. As soon as Torres extracted the information he
needed from them, he would kill them. Burn them for heresy,
probably. Ramos knew how it worked. He would burn some so that the
others would talk, and then burn the others anyway.

He had to do something, had to save them. But
what could he possibly do? He was just one man, an astronomer, not
even a warrior. He had no weapons, no quintessence tricks. He was
stuck on a ledge with no way off. Everything he ever knew had been
taken away from him. His church. His country. Now even his
niece.