The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [208]
The world. When the Voice spoke that word, a vision formed in Carson's mind, only he saw not the world he knew, this Earth, but a different place, one distant, yet strangely close at hand. A world of possibility.
He began to understand, though not completely. In that moment he realized how far beyond him all of this was. Yet he probed where he could, asking what questions he dared of the agents of Duratek. He would color the words of the Big Voice he was to relay to them, or even speak small falsehoods to see how they reacted. That was how he came to know he was right; the world the Big Voice spoke of was not this world. It was another world, a world from which the Voice came. A world to which Duratek intended to go.
When at last he learned this, it occurred to Carson to flee back over the dusty plains to Kansas. Except that was impossible. He couldn't give up what he had wrought here; no matter how it had come to him, he loved his cathedral and his followers. Besides, if they sensed his doubt, it would all be over. They would discard him and find someone new, another prophet to raise in his place.
Or they would find a way to make him obey.
It had begun not long after he started preaching in the Steel Cathedral. Your flock has grown great in number, the Big Voice told him. It is time for you to offer up a lamb on the altar to the one who brought your followers to you.
At first it was just one or two at a time. Carson culled them from his congregation with care. He chose those least likely to be missed: the homeless, the lonely, or the elderly who had been abandoned by their families. The Angels of Light came and led them away.
He was terrified the first time the Angels appeared, but the Big Voice told him not to fear them. Still, he did. They were tall and beautiful to behold, thin as wisps inside the halos of silvery light that followed them. Their eyes were like large jewels, and they had no mouths. Nor did they have wings. Weren't angels supposed to have wings?
What was done to the people after the Angels of Light took them away, Carson didn't know, at least not at first, but when he saw them again they were . . . different. Their faces were smoother, calmer. Harder. A fervent light shone in their eyes.
Their hearts are strong now, the Big Voice told Carson when he asked what had been done to them. Their doubts have been taken away.
As time passed, Carson began to think it was something else that had been taken from them, something warm and human. Then, one night, he grew bold enough to follow the Angels of Light. He watched what they did with an old homeless man in a chamber deep beneath the cathedral, and he learned the truth. Iron. They were given hearts of iron.
He had fled, and had not said anything about it. He didn't dare, not if he didn't want his own doubts, his own heart, to be taken by the Angels of Light. Soon it was not one or two at a time, but three or four or five. Every day, the Big Voice asked for more, and every day it grew harder to find people in the congregation who would not be missed.
Finally, over the course of the last week, Carson had grown desperate. The homeless people of Denver had grown wary; there were no longer enough who could be lured to the cathedral with the promise of charity. Carson no longer cared if those he selected had husbands and wives, sons and daughters. Any who seemed weak and lost enough, who could be persuaded that something better than this life awaited them, were led to the Angels of Light. The reports of the missing were all over the news.
“Speak to me,” Carson whispered, gazing at the mirror.
The man gazing back had an ageless, slightly plastic quality, as if the thick makeup he had worn all these years had been bonded to his face by the hot stage lights.
“Please,