Tribute to Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

found that irony, Daughter. The harder that mortals strove to live good lives, the more likely they’d attract the attention of K’nacka and become part of his tribute to me. Good or bad, I’d reap their souls.’ Behemoth grinned savagely. ‘And I won. Suddenly, my life had meaning again.’
    And this monster was her father? No wonder she felt that she had been carrying a sickness around inside her, infecting the world.
    â€˜Hildy said she could hear the shrieks of the saintly,’ Astatine whispered. ‘Oh, Father, how could you?’
    â€˜It’s what I’m for. Hightspall needs me, and so do the gods. Without evil, where is the good?’
    â€˜But Hightspall is falling apart, and it’s your fault. You’ve got to put things right.’
    â€˜I don’t do right ,’ he snapped.
    â€˜Then why did you burn the Covenant?’
    â€˜So K’nacka could not.’
    â€˜Where did you hide the copy?’
    His smile faded; he seemed to be reassessing her. ‘In a place where you can never see it.’ Behemoth faded away.
    Did he mean that the Covenant was hidden in Perdition? Could she only destroy it, and keep her oath, by dying?
    Â 
    â€˜Fistus looks ready to work his “miracle”,’ said Roget as they watched the preparations in front of the Cloven Shrine. A hundred red-robed monks stood guard to either side.
    Greave ached for a drink. Stone sober, he lacked the courage to do what must be done. ‘Can you tell what spell it is?’
    Roget focused his spyglass. ‘No, but it’s no ordinary magic.’
    Think of this as another seduction, Greave told himself, the riskiest and most glorious of your life. It got him to his feet, but he felt no thrill — this task was all risk and no reward. ‘We’d better move.’
    â€˜Taking him on is suicide.’
    â€˜I’m dead either way.’ Greave headed across the rock-littered hillside. Roget and Astatine followed.
    The Carnal Cardinal turned to meet them, his mouth as red as a feeding vampire’s. ‘You think to challenge me ?’ Fistus pounded his chest. ‘I’ve done a deal with Behemoth himself.’
    â€˜And betrayed the gods you swore to serve,’ said Greave, only now realising his own hypocrisy.
    â€˜They’ve forsaken us and must be cast down.’
    A white object in Fistus’s hand reflected the light; something small, pointed and familiar. Ants scurried across Greave’s scalp.
    â€˜The god-bone,’ he said hoarsely. ‘That’s what you were after all along.’
    â€˜I used sorcery to whisper into your mind,’ sneered Fistus. ‘It was surprisingly easy to heighten your despair and encourage excesses your dull wits could never have imagined.’
    â€˜You wanted me to seduce K’nacka’s month-bride?’ whispered Greave.
    â€˜I knew he held the god-bone in Elyssian, though there it was beyond my reach. The only one way to get it was by giving K’nacka the means to destroy the Covenant — via a man at the end of hisrope.’
    â€˜But you’d already allowed Behemoth to burn it.’
    Fistus smirked. ‘Poor, deluded K’nacka didn’t know that.’
    â€˜How dare you set yourself up as a rival to the gods you swore to serve!’ cried Astatine.
    The hooded eyes fixed on her, but dismissed her as insignificant. ‘My spells are greater than theirs,’ said Fistus, ‘yet are they recognised? The gods treat me like a churl.’
    â€˜They recognise your true nature,’ Greave said recklessly.
    Fistus’s gory lips thinned. ‘Get rid of them,’ he said over his shoulder, then turned to a crude bench his priests had constructed from slabs of shrine stone. A large stone chalice stood on top, empty save for a small amount of grey powder. The trench they had excavated was half full of it.
    The monks drove Roget, Greave and Astatine back,