The Lost Prophecies

by The Medieval Murderers

  Shiva had seen Milford Sound in documentaries, a landscape formed aeons ago by giant glaciers. In the old days it had been a place of tourist pilgrimage. Shiva remembered that it was in Fjordland, where Parvati had told him the land was too steep to cultivate. Once Milford Sound had been a wet place with vegetation clinging everywhere to the cliffs, but now it was bare, the air hot and dry.

  There were gaps here and there in the cliffs, circular depressions cut into the hillsides by ancient ice, inaccessible except from the water. On the edge of one of these Shiva saw a little complex of wooden buildings, some of them little huts but others the size of warehouses. A big wooden jetty had been built out on to the water. At the end of the jetty an enormous, dark grey metal thing, three or four hundred feet long, lay half-submerged. It was shaped like a cigar, a projecting tower near the front and a fin at the back. A submarine.

  One of the brothers reached into his pocket and pulled out a large army knife. Shiva thought for a moment they were going to kill him now, but the man reached behind him and cut his bonds. Shiva gasped with relief and brought his hands carefully in front of him. His shoulder throbbed.

  ‘We’ve got a bit of a walk, Parvati said. ‘It’s steep. You’ll need your hands to balance. Don’t think of running – there’s nowhere to go.’

  But Shiva was looking at the ring on his right hand, where inside the gold setting the disc had turned pink and was growing darker, edging towards red. He looked at Parvati. ‘This place is irradiated,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ she said simply. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  They went down a steep narrow path, little more than a ledge. One of the brothers walked behind Shiva and the other went ahead, behind Parvati. They needed to hold on to the nearly sheer cliff to their left. To the right was a drop to the still waters hundreds of feet below. A warm breeze rose from the sea, making Shiva’s suit jacket, dirty now, flap around his chest. The other three were wearing shirts.

  A pair of stocky grey parrots eyed them from a small ledge above. As they approached, the birds took off and flew around them, dangerously close, showing the brilliantly coloured underside of their wings.

  ‘Take your jacket off!’ the man behind Shiva ordered. ‘It’s the movement that’s attracting them.’

  Shiva pulled off his jacket and threw it over the side of the cliff. It spiralled down to the sea, and the two birds flew after the strange object, calling loudly.

  ‘Wretched things!’ Parvati’s face was angry. She looked around at him. ‘That’s a pair of keas.’

  They scrabbled along, moving slowly downwards. ‘How deep is the water?’ Shiva asked the man in front of him.

  ‘Couple of thousand feet,’ he replied over his shoulder.

  Shiva could see the submarine more clearly now. People were climbing in and out of it; a group was studying a large chart laid on boxes on the jetty beside it. A pile of small torpedoes stood on the jetty. A group of men appeared to be taking them apart, removing the detonators. He saw a name painted in large white letters along the landward side of the hull: Patriot. Beside it was a small Union Jack. He knew now what the craft was: one of the nuclear submarines from the last century which had disappeared during the methane hydrate eruptions. Several were presumed to be lying on the ocean bed. He looked again at his ring: a light red; not immediately deadly, perhaps, but a dangerous dose.

  They came to the end of the path and walked on to the jetty. Shiva saw more of the keas flying around, people shouting and waving at them to go away. One stood on a nearby post, picking at coils of rope wound around the top. It looked thin and hungry, its plumage ragged. Probably dying from radiation poisoning.

  They came to a halt near the pile of torpedoes. The men studying the chart and the others on the jetty looked at the little party curiously. The giant submarine loomed ahead. One of the brothers said, ‘I’ll get some water,’ and walked off.

  A kea landed on the pile of bombs, and one of the white-suited men shouted angrily and waved his arms until the bird took off.

  ‘They should shoot them,’ Parvati said.

  ‘Can’t risk that with those bombs opened up,’ the remaining brother said.

  ‘How long before we die of radiation poisoning?’ Shiva asked Parvati bluntly.

  ‘A long time. The Leader will tell you more. Perhaps you’ll even understand, though I doubt it.’ She gave an angry little laugh.

  The man brought back bottles of water and passed them around. Shiva was so thirsty it hurt to drink. When he had finished he looked at Parvati again. ‘Who betrayed me?’ he asked.

  ‘Mary Ackerley is one of our people,’ she replied stonily. ‘She’s been one of us for a long time. We got her to open up a guesthouse for visiting officials; it is a useful way of finding things out. And somewhere for me to stay, where I knew I’d be secure.’ She inclined her head. ‘And she’s an old lady; people don’t suspect old ladies of being spies. You told her you were going to be making an air journey soon. Then you contacted me. We put two and two together.’

  She broke off then, looking behind Shiva. He saw that all the people on the jetty had stopped work. Many wore hats, and now they took them off and stood, silent, looking at a man approaching from one of the large buildings. He was large and roughly dressed, with an untidy white beard, and he walked with a stick, a heavy rolling gait. A canvas bag was slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Back to work,’ the man called as he approached. His voice was deep and loud, with a North American accent. He walked right up to Shiva and looked him in the eyes. His face was lined and weatherbeaten. His eyes were blue-grey, intense and alive, seeming almost to glitter. He smiled. ‘Inspector Moorthy.’

  ‘I’ve told him how we got to him,’ Parvati said.

  The bearded man nodded. ‘Yes, God was with us that day.’ He looked hard at Shiva. ‘Well, Mr Moorthy. Do you know who I am?’

  ‘The Leader? Brandon Smith?’

  ‘That’s right. Now, first question – it’s been on my mind. How did you find out that it was Parvati who took the book? Was it a camera she missed in the museum?’

  He did not reply. Smith smiled, showing bad teeth. ‘Not talking? You will.’

  ‘You realize you’re all slowly dying of radiation poisoning?’ Shiva said.

  Smith nodded. Like Parvati, he did not seem to care. ‘There was a small leak in the reactor. It’s closed now, but it polluted the area badly. We’re all dying, I guess, like the birds, but we’ve time for what we need to do.’ His look at Shiva was cold and hard.

  Shiva took a deep breath. ‘There are others waiting for me to report back, in Dunedin. My movements were being watched. They’ll know where I am.’

  Smith smiled again. ‘Don’t try to fool me, son. Have you any idea how remote this place is? There’s only one way in, on a train we own, on a line we own. No one saw us put you on it. And we have watching-posts all along the way. We’ve had only three visitors in the five years we’ve been here, wanderers who wanted to see the Sound, and even they were captured a few miles off.’

  Shiva said nothing.

  The big man nodded slowly. ‘We need to find out just how much you do know. That’s why we brought you here. And we will. You’d be best to cooperate, son,’ he added in a heavy, paternal voice.

  Shiva looked at the great bulk of the submarine behind Smith. It was so big and so close he had to bend his neck to look up to see the conning tower. He decided to ask a question of his own. He had already guessed that they would not allow him to leave here alive; he saw only one slim possibility of escape.

  ‘How did you get the submarine?’ he asked.

  Smith smiled heavily. ‘We didn’t get it, son. God led us to it. The first man to come here in decades was one of us. He felt called to come out into the wilderness to listen to the voice of God. He found the submarine beached just where it sits now. It’s an old British one. It must have been caught in a methane upwelling in the last century. All the crew were killed – just skeletons when we fou
nd them – but the hull wasn’t breached.’ Smith looked down the fjord to the sea. ‘The sub just drifted here and sat here for eighty years until God brought us to it. Isn’t that something? The crew managed to close down the nuclear reactor inside before they died, but it’s still functioning, the missiles and warheads intact. Four Trident Five missiles that can reach a target eight thousand miles away, each carrying a warhead that’ll atomize everything for miles around the impact site.’

  Shiva felt his face tighten in horror. ‘But I thought you were dismantling them.’

  Smith laughed. ‘Hell, no.’ He glanced at the bombs on the jetty. ‘Those aren’t the missiles; the missiles are huge. Those are just a few conventional torpedoes they had on board. We don’t need those – hardly likely another submarine will attack us, now is it?’

  ‘You . . . you’ll kill millions.’

  For answer Smith reached into his canvas bag and pulled out a small black book. It looked incredibly old; the covers were wood, battered and stained and peppered with nail holes. The Leader held it up. A ragged clapping sounded from the workers who had been watching. Smith held the book up so they could see it.

  ‘We’re nearly at the climax now,’ he told Shiva. ‘In a few weeks we’ll be ready to sail the submarine away. As far north as we can go. Then we’ll fire the missiles, at Birmingham and Berlin and Winnipeg. The Europeans and North Americans will think the Chinese are making a pre-emptive strike, like they did at Russia during the Catastrophe, and they’ll fire back. Then the prophecy will be fulfilled, and in the midst of the last war Jesus will return and we will be raptured up to heaven. So you see, son, the radiation doesn’t matter.’ He raised the captured book above his head again and the people clapped and cheered. So these scientists and engineers were willing to go all the way, Shiva thought. The others, the ones who died mysteriously, must have refused.

  Smith opened the book carefully and turned the thick, ancient parchment pages covered with handwritten Latin script. He placed a thick, grimy finger on a passage near the end, then read aloud to Shiva. ‘“A sun-bright fire of blood”,’ he intoned. There was something in his hard, passionless delivery that made Shiva despair, made him realize that nothing and nobody could move this fanatic from his course.

  ‘We wondered how the end would come about,’ Smith went on quietly. ‘Then we found the submarine and realized what the prophecy meant. Sometimes God requires men to act, to bring His wishes to fulfilment. When the Jew Oppenheimer exploded the first nuclear bomb, he quoted your namesake, the pagan god Shiva: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” He was afraid of what he had done, but we are not.’

  ‘That was Vishnu, not Shiva.’

  Being corrected seemed to annoy Smith more than Shiva’s pursuit of them or his lies about others coming. He frowned. ‘All these Hindu gods are aspects of each other, don’t you know that? You skinny little heathen thing.’ He returned the book reverently to his knapsack and turned to the two brothers.

  ‘Have him questioned. Don’t worry about the methods. We need to know if we have a real threat here.’ The Leader turned and walked away without a backward glance.

  They took Shiva up the jetty to the wooden buildings set against the cliff. Looking up, he saw more of the sickly-looking parrots sitting on ledges. The brothers tied his hands in front of him with more rope, then opened the door of a small, solid-looking shed and hauled him inside. The floor was of bare rock with an iron ring bolted into it, the end of a length of rope secured to the ring. The brothers bound Shiva’s hands again with a thin but strong rope, binding them separately, a strand of rope about an inch long connecting them, like handcuffs. Then they tied the strand to the length of rope connected to the iron ring. He cried out as they jerked at his shoulder, but they paid no attention. They tied his feet together, then left without looking at him again, shutting the door and turning a key.

  He sat up painfully. The shed was dim, with only a tiny unglazed window less than a foot square at the back, facing the cliff. Shiva leaned against the wall to give his hurt shoulder some support.

  He knew they were leaving him to reflect before the interrogators came. Don’t worry about the methods, Smith had said. He took a deep rattling breath. He considered his story about people in Dunedin ready to follow him. With practised speed he developed it in his mind, building it up to sound consistent, true. Even if they believed him, he realized, they were hardly likely to delay the project; they might even speed it up. But he had to try to scare them. His life didn’t matter. Even if by some miracle he did get out of here he might be badly affected by radiation already.

  He had one hope of escape. In the restaurant he had deliberately concealed that he was trained to fight. Even with a strained shoulder, he thought that if he could get free of these bonds and into single combat with one of them he might have a chance. But they were well tied. He struggled with them for a while before giving up. Even if he could escape, he realized, he could never make it across these trackless mountains with people who knew them in pursuit. But he had thought of something else he could do, if he could get free. He thought about it hard and sweat ran down his brow, because he knew that if he succeeded he would certainly die.

  He jumped and whirled around as a sound came from the barred window and a shadow fell over the room. One of the grey parrots was there, its clawed feet on the sill, looking in with bright beady eyes above a sharp, hooked beak. It glanced at Shiva, then peered over the floor. Shiva realized it was looking for food; the keas must live by scavenging the camp. When the bird saw there was nothing to eat it flew away. It had looked sick and scrawny, like the one on the post. Shiva glanced at the circle in the centre of his ring again. It seemed red now, though it was hard to tell in the dim light of the shed.

  Shortly after, the brothers returned. One carried a large leather bag. With them was a tall, craggy-faced older man who walked like a soldier. Shiva was surprised to see that he held a bowl of food in one hand, a spoon sticking out. He could smell something like chicken. In his other hand the man carried a bottle of water. He laid both beside Shiva.

  ‘Hungry?’ he asked. He had a Tasman accent. ‘I guess you’re thirsty too?’

  Shiva picked up the water, drank it, then took the bowl clumsily on to his lap. It was difficult to hold the spoon in his bound hands, but he managed, though he spilled some food down his shirt. He ate the meat and started on the thin, fatty stew underneath, but after a few mouthfuls he felt nauseous and had to put the bowl down. He wondered if it was a sign of radiation sickness.

  The man turned and nodded to the brothers. They left the room, the one who carried the leather bag putting it on the floor. They locked the door behind them. The soldierly man sat on his haunches in front of Shiva. His eyes were calculating. ‘My name is James,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you some questions.’ His voice was gentle. ‘How are you feeling? They said you hurt your shoulder on the journey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK.’ James nodded, then turned and picked up the bag. He pulled out a rope and a knife. He used the knife to cut the bonds on Shiva’s left hand, then quickly and expertly, giving him no time to react, he hauled Shiva’s left arm up behind his back, looping a second length of rope around Shiva’s neck and securing it to his wrist, fixing his left arm up behind his back. He cried out at the pain in his left shoulder.

  James leaned back on his haunches. ‘An incentive to answer my questions,’ he said in the same quiet tones. ‘Now, how did you find out about Parvati Karam?’

  Shiva had been taught about dealing with torture. The main point was that in the end nearly everyone gave in. The pain in his shoulder made it hard to catch his breath as he told the story he had formulated. To begin with, what he said was true: how Parvati had been seen through the camera at the museum, how he had been picked because of their shared ancestry to start an internet correspondence with her, his journey to Dunedin.

  James’s face twisted with contempt. ‘Shared ancestry. When I was
young I was in the police in the refugee camps, when rations were so short some of them turned to cannibalism. Don’t think they bothered much about shared ancestry. I saw what people without God are like there. It’s finished, it’s all finished. Don’t you understand that?’

  Shiva took a deep breath. ‘The Tasman government have suspected for some time you were planning something big. There were people tracking me everywhere I went. They knew what they were doing. They’ll follow that railway of yours. The best thing you and anyone else in this place who still has a foot in the real world can do is run.’

  James looked at him steadily for a long moment, then he shook his head. ‘It’s not a bad story, but I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘We were watching you carefully all the time you were in Dunedin, and we saw no one following you. We don’t think anyone there has the faintest idea of what we are planning. We’re better organized than you seem to think. You probably think since we’re Christians we’re naive and badly organized, but we’re not.’

  ‘And you go in for torture and murder,’ Shiva said, gasping at the pain in his shoulder.

  ‘Read your history,’ James said contemptuously. ‘And don’t try to distract me. I think you came here to hunt down Parvati Karam. I think you’re pretty much alone.’

  Shiva did not reply. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ James asked, then rose to his feet. Shiva flinched. ‘I’ll leave you for a while. When I come back I’ll have you standing with both arms tied up behind your back. That’ll be worse.’ He looked at Shiva intently. ‘So have a good think about whether you want to stick to that story.’ He untied the cord around Shiva’s neck and tied both hands back to the rope fixed to the ring in the floor. Then, without another word, he left the shed.

  An hour passed. It began to get dark, the light coming through the little window fading. Shiva twisted and manoeuvred to find a position that would ease the pain in his shoulder. He knew that when James came back, before long he would tell him the truth. He thought about the ancient monk who had written the verses. If he had not written that wretched book, none of this would have happened; he would not be here. ‘Couldn’t you see people would do something like this with your book, you fool?’ he asked aloud.