Tribute to Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fistus planning?’ said Greave.
    â€˜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 andbelonging nowhere. If her beloved gods had also been taken away, how could she exist?
    She had to find the Covenant.
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    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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜They must be afraid,’ said Roget uneasily.
    â€˜How can the gods be afraid of a mere man?’ said Astatine.
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜The way up isn’t guarded. Do you think Fistus sent the vision to me?’
    â€˜If he’s not afraid of the gods, how could he have any fear of us?’ said Roget. ‘He probably wants us to see his miracle.’
    Greave wondered if the cardinal could be a bigger monster than himself, though it hardly seemed possible.
    They reached the top at sunrise, eased behind the mounds of shattered rock and peered over. Fistus, his priests and monk guards had gathered on the far side of the elongated hilltop, before the Cloven Shrine. A ragged arc of believers encircled it, witnesses to the coming miracle.
    â€˜The priests are digging a trench,’ said Astatine. ‘What can they be doing?’
    No one replied.
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    Astatine slipped away between the piled rocks, for Greave’s brooding presence disturbed her, and what if his increasingly desperate self-control snapped? She also needed to be alone, to think.
    Her faith, already undermined by what the abbess had told her, had been shaken to its footings. How dare the Carnal Cardinal attempt a miracle! If he had set himself above the gods he had sworn to serve, itwas no wonder Hightspall had lost hope.
    Would things get better if she destroyed the Covenant? Unfortunately, she had no idea where to look for something that a god and a demon had hidden. It could be anywhere.
    No, not anywhere . K’nacka and Behemoth, being eternal enemies, would not have trusted each other, so the Covenant must have been hidden somewhere that neither could gain access to. Perhaps in the keeping of a third party agreeable to both, such as Fistus?
    K’nacka had expected it to be in the Graven Casket, though the casket had not been opened before Greave touched the god-bone to it, and it had been empty … save for those flakes of ash. Black flakes — the way paper burned when it did not have enough air! Yes, for the outside of the casket had been covered in soot; it had come off on her fingers.
    The Covenant must have been destroyed from outside, by fire, but by whom? Not K’nacka — he had been shocked to discover that the casket was empty. And what would Fistus have to gain by destroying such a valuable document? That only left Behemoth.
    Why would he destroy a Covenant that, evidently, gave him power over a god? He would not — unless he had another copy .
    â€˜That’s it!’ she said, rubbing her silver medal furiously, though after Hildy’s revelation about her father it gave her no comfort. ‘It was Behemoth — Father —’
    The air went so cold that it crackled, then with a little pop a man appeared, sitting cross-legged on the rocks before her. He was an odd-shaped, awkward-looking fellow not much taller