Heaven's Gate by Toby Bennett Page A

daughter and put another corrupted barony under the Church’s protection. Either way it saves us having to wait for Carter to fade from the picture naturally.”
    “You fool yourself, Mordiki and your arrogance is made clear by the way you keep referring to the Church as ‘ours’, even if the leeches are not behind him Tenichi and his supporters are subverting much of our power. I think that this plan may flush out our enemies and might ruin the marriage that they have been trying to engineer. It will not be so simple however, to just dispossess Carter. Not unless I can prove his link to the Strigoi without doubt, even then that might not be enough.   Angus is right when he says that the barons are growing restless, would they simply stand by while we took control of the two richest territories in the Union ? I am surprised there was so little opposition to the marriage but a military occupation… they would never stand for it.”
    “Let the barons try to argue! Once we have the river, we can starve them into submission. Besides I still don’t understand why you are so sure that the Strigoi have so much invested in this marriage, if the girl were one of their agents, perhaps but it is she who has chosen to run.”
    “They sought to use her in some way we have not yet guessed but I cannot believe that it is coincidence that Angus has become obsessed with the idea of the Gate, I know the Chief Pardoner took something from the Citadel. I don’t know exactly what was said but I know Tenichi was able to convince the General that Lillian Carter could help him find the Gate and that Carter himself knew all the right things to say.”
    “So you assume the Strigoi must have coached the father?”
    “Who else? A marriage to a daughter of the Whistler clan would have done just as much to win him acceptance with the barons but he insisted on the girl even though he obviously cannot stand her. The barons’ agreement to the match may be a measure of the control the remnants of the Strigoi still retain.”
     
    “Leaving the General and his dealings aside for the moment, I still don’t understand why Blake is necessary? I’d be the first to admit that he is impressive but as far as I can see, he only complicates matters.”
    “No doubt but it may well be necessary to disrupt our enemies’ plans. He is uniquely capable of dealing with the Strigoi when they come, not only that but there is no one alive who knows more of the Gate. He’s even seen it or at least one of those he has cannibalized has. If the girl is some sort of key, he might well give us access to the Gate and even if we can find no use for its power ourselves, we will be able to guard it. The old texts tell us little of the Gate but they make it clear that the leeches must not attain it.”
    “Why worry? They will not come and if they do they can be of no account, I tell you they are broken. We have hidden in the shadows for long enough.”
    “So you would stir the flames of the Inquisition again? Use their fear of the arcane to gain power and then calmly announce our existence to the world? It would be a massacre.”
    “And with each death we would become stronger!”
    “Unless our true enemy is waiting for us to make a target of ourselves! We must be sure they are entirely destroyed before we dare attempt our dominion.”
    “They are gone! Scattered! There are only the barons left to stand against us now.”
    “Again you forget what lies behind the barons. Who truly created the Union ? While our kind plotted in the desert, learning our craft in inches, they made all we now know as civilization.”
    “It is their concealment. They hide in the herd, even as they feed on it. There was no nobility in what they made, only necessity.”
      “Which is why we were fools to think they would give it up so easily! I know they are out there, waiting for us to make such a mistake.”
    “Save that line of thought for the sermons, Father, whatever they might once