by Simon Toyne
He spiralled down, aiming at the centre of the blackness to a spot he remembered from the satellite photo of the garden. When it centred in his vision he yanked down hard on the ripcord. He felt the slight tug of the guide chute shooting up from his pack then the wrench of the main chute deploying. The canopy arched over him like a huge curved airbed as he slipped his hands through the handles of the guide ropes and steered himself down through the darkness.
With the roar of the wind gone he could now hear the sounds of the city: the hiss of traffic on the ring road, music from the bars beyond the southern side of the wall mixed with the sound of talking and laughter. Then the sound was cut off, along with most of the light, as he dropped below the high ridge and into the dark crater at the heart of the mountain.
The moment the light went Gabriel switched eyes and the night vision that had been preserved in his right eye instantly made sense of the flat blackness. He could see fissures in the mountain walls and round, fluffy shapes rising in soft-edged clusters from a large area below him that looked lighter than the rest of the mountain. It was the garden. Much closer than he had imagined. Rising fast.
He pulled down hard on both guide ropes. Felt a bounce and a soft yaw in his stomach as the chute pulled him up. He lifted his legs away from the feathery top of a tree rising up from the darkness. His boots clattered noisily through the thin branches as he caught the top. He pulled hard on the right-hand rope to swing away from the tree. Felt his leg get snagged by a thicker branch. Kicked free and looked up just as the next tree rushed out of the darkness towards him.
The monk looked up from the fireplace — listening.
He rose and moved over to the door, his red cassock the only colour in the monochrome lower hallway of the Prelate’s private quarters. He put his ear to the door leading out to the garden and heard it again — quieter this time. It was like a huge bird shifting about in the trees, or maybe someone pushing their way through bushes. He frowned. No one was allowed in the garden after dark. He reached into his sleeve for his Beretta, shut off the lights and opened the door.
The moon was still hours from rising and the monk’s eyes could see nothing in the deep darkness of the garden. He stepped outside, closing the door quietly behind him, then scanned the darkness, turning his head like an owl, listening for the sound of movement.
A sharp crack split the silence and his head snapped round towards it. He listened harder. Heard a faint whispering, like a branch shaking, then silence flooded back. The sounds had come from the orchard. He stole down the stone steps to the pathway and stepped over the gravel path to the silent grass beyond. It whispered softly against his hurrying feet as he moved towards the copse of trees, gun extended, the darkness taking form as his eyes grew accustomed to the night.
He could see the trees now, and something else near the centre of the orchard, lighter than the prevailing night, moving in the darkness like a ghost. He levelled his gun at it, moved closer, keeping the uprights of the trees between himself and the apparition. As he drew nearer he noticed ropes draping from its edges, then saw an empty harness at the end of them, trailing on the ground. He realized with a jolt what it was just as his vision whipped round and everything flashed white in time to a deafening crack. The monk tried to turn and level his gun at whoever had grabbed him but the lines of communication between his head and the rest of his body had already been severed by his broken neck. He collapsed to the floor, smelt the rich moist fug of the dark soil mixed with the rotten mulch of last year’s leaves, was aware of someone loosening his rope belt and his cassock being tugged. Then his eyes fluttered shut, and darkness engulfed him.
Chapter 137
The bike’s headlamp swept across the jagged walls of the tunnel, curving up and away towards the flat steel upright of the entrance.
The solid shutter loomed up and Kathryn stamped hard on the brake, locking the wheels and slithering across the concrete floor until the front wheel clanged against it, bringing her to a sudden, echoing stop. She snatched the key card from her teeth and reached across to swipe it through the lock, dropping the bike to the ground where it stalled into silence. From behind her she thought she could hear the crackle of fire echoing down the tunnel and she dropped to the floor next to the bike, ready to slide outside the moment the shutter started to rise.
But nothing happened.
She looked down at the card, bent slightly from where she’d bitten down on it, flexed it straight and swiped it again.
Still nothing.
She looked round, searching for another lock or way of escape and saw a security camera, squatting like a crow high in the corner, peering down with its large glass eye. The red light on its front winked and she realized with rising panic that the door was not going to open.
She was trapped.
Gabriel’s left arm burned with pain as he rolled the stripped body of the monk into the parachute and dragged it across the wet grass to where a tangle of cut branches lay in a pile. He’d knocked it badly when he hit the trees and now the adrenalin of the free-fall was easing off, the pain was flooding in. He could just about move his fingers but could hardly grip anything worth a damn. It felt like it was broken.
He cradled it to his body and pulled some branches over the cocooned shape of the monk with his good right hand then headed back to where he’d stashed his backpack at the base of an apple tree. Above him he could hear the dry whisper of leaves and the distant hum of the city beyond, but no muffled boom shook the ground beneath his feet. Maybe something had gone wrong.
He reached inside the bag and switched on his PDA. He closed his right eye to preserve night vision, ducked his head down to the opening of the pack and peered inside.
The monitor was showing a white dot, expanding and contracting towards the top of the screen. There was no other information. The wire-frame lines sketching the skeletal outlines of streets had gone. He was off the map. Without any points of reference he would have to use it as a simple direction finder, following the signal from the transponder in Samuel’s body. He was pretty sure that wherever they’d taken him would be where they’d now take Liv.
He closed the bag and gritted his teeth against the pain as he pulled the hood of the russet-coloured cassock over his arms and head. Through the trees he could see the faint glow of a light behind a window cut high in the wall. He watched it while he reached into the backpack to remove the gun and PDA, listening for the rumble of the explosion. It should have happened by now. He was counting on the shock of the blast and the smoke that followed to cause enough confusion for him to get safely lost in the mountain. But he couldn’t wait for ever. Someone might miss the monk he’d just killed and come looking for him, or sound an alarm and put the whole mountain on alert. He couldn’t afford to let that happen. Not if he wanted to get Liv out alive. His mind drifted to thoughts of what might have happened to his mother but he quickly shut them down. Speculation wouldn’t get the job done.
He waited for a few more seconds, flexing his stiff left hand to test it. It hurt like hell but it would have to do. The light in the window shifted slightly as someone moved behind it and he rose from the ground, his hands buried in the sleeves of the cassock — the good one holding his gun, the other gripping the PDA as best he could. He headed across the grass, following the line of the pathway that would lead to a door and into the Citadel.
Kathryn could feel panic rising inside her like whistling steam.
She had no idea how long she had left before the van exploded. She scanned the passage frantically for a way out, her mind screaming with her desire to survive.
Think dammit!
The tunnel was curved. It was possible the shape of it would protect her from the direct force of the blast. She pictured the shock wave travelling down the narrow space, throwing her against the steel shutter like a hammer on an anvil. She needed to get down, tuck into the wall as tightly as she could, and offer the smallest possible area for the blast to act upon. She hopped over
the bike and dropped to the ground, noticed the helmet still hooked over the handlebars, yanked it free and jammed it on to her head as she rolled to the left where the curve of the tunnel might deflect some of the blast. She hit the smooth upright of the wall and tucked herself into the gap where it met the floor, her frantic mind casting about for anything else she should do. In the confines of the helmet her breathing was deafening.
She snatched a quick breath.
Pinched her nose.
Blew hard into her sinuses.
Chapter 138
The boom echoed through the mountain like thunder shaking free from the ground. In the darkness of the great library it sent books tumbling from shelves and dust drifting down from the vaulted roof. Athanasius looked up in a numbed daze. It was as if the mountain had read the words over his shoulder and shuddered at what it discovered there.
He reached out, folded the waxy pages back inside the volume of Nietzsche and rose from his seat. He needed to know if what he had found buried in the smudged words of the dead language was true. His faith depended on it. Everybody’s faith depended on it. He walked down the passageway towards the central corridor, stepping over all the books that had been shaken to the floor, oblivious of the chaos around him and the raised voices puncturing the deadness as he approached the entrance. He felt detached from himself, like he had become pure spirit unfettered by the constraints of his physical self. He passed into the entrance chamber and drifted across the hallway towards the airlock, barely aware of the wailing librarians tearing their hair as they surveyed their ruined library.
The smell of smoke hit him the moment he stepped out of the airlock and into the corridor. It had an acrid, bitter quality — like sulphur — and mingled with the clamour of confusion and fear echoing up from the lower corridors. Two monks wearing the brown cassocks of the guilds hurried past, heading down into the mountain towards the source of the smoke. In his mind Athanasius imagined them scurrying towards a crack in the rock from which the foul smoke now poured: A crack filled with brimstone and fire.
He turned and walked in the opposite direction, heading up the mountain towards his own revelation. He knew this path was forbidden and would probably lead to his death, but somehow this did not frighten him. He could not live in the cold shadow cast by the words he had just read. He would rather die discovering they were not true than live suspecting they were.
He ducked into a stairwell and followed the steps as they curved towards the upper landing of the lower mountain. At the top he turned into a cramped hallway with several other passageways leading off it. At the far end the red-coloured cassock of a guard stood by the doorway that led to the upper part of the mountain. He had no idea how he was going to get past him, but in his heart he felt sure that, somehow, he would.
He realized he still had the book in his hand containing the stolen pages of the Heretic Bible and raised it to his chest now like a talisman. He took a couple of steps towards the guard and saw him look in his direction just as another doorway opened halfway down the landing. Another guard emerged into the narrow hallway, his hood pulled low over his face.
Then the lights went out, plunging the hallway into total and impenetrable darkness.
Chapter 139
Liv woke thinking of thunder.
She opened her eyes.
Hundreds of pin-points of light quivered before her in the liquid darkness. She focused. Felt the cold hard ground tremble and settle beneath her. Saw candle flames reflected in lines of mirrored blades shivering to stillness against a dark, stone wall. Then she saw something else, lying on the floor. A body, naked from the waist up, familiar lines standing proud and grotesque on the surface of its faintly glowing skin.
She reached out for him, ignoring the pain in her head that came with the movement. Her outstretched hand touched a face as cold as the mountain and rolled it towards her. A low animal moan escaped from her throat. Despite the violence of his death, and the brutal medical enquiries that had followed, Samuel looked serene. She pulled herself across the floor towards him, hot tears scalding her eyes, and rose up to kiss his face. She pressed her lips against his cold skin and felt something shift inside her. Then everything lurched as she was grabbed from behind and pulled violently away from her brother.
Gabriel spotted the guard moments before the lights went out.
He dropped down in the sudden darkness, jarring his arm and sending pain screaming through his body. He choked it down and forced himself to move silently across the black corridor, towards the far wall, reaching out with his good hand but careful to shield the gun so it didn’t clatter against the stone when he found it. His left hand remained buried in his sleeve, throbbing with pain but still clutching the PDA. He had stolen a glance at it just before entering the corridor. The signal from the transponder was coming from somewhere beyond the door at the end of the corridor, the one the guard had been standing by.
The back of his hand touched the cold, stone wall and he dropped lower, levelling his gun at a spot ahead of him in the black where he had last seen the guard. Behind him a rising confusion of voices echoed up from the depths of the Citadel: some calling for lamps, some for help, others for hoses to feed water down to where the mountain was burning. He could feel the panic. Nothing unsettled people like the smell of smoke.
He kept the gun steady and with his free hand held the PDA out towards the centre of the corridor and slightly in front of him. His arm screamed as he willed his thumb to search for the button to turn on the display. He found it. Pressed it. And the cold glow of the screen lit up the corridor as the PDA tumbled from his hand to the floor. The guard was not by the door. He was crouched over to the left, his gun pointing down the corridor. He fired twice, aiming above the light source, probably going for a headshot, the sound deafening in the stone confines of the corridor.
Gabriel fired with his own silenced weapon, watched the guard twitch then slump back against the door, his gun clattering to the ground. He sprang forward using the glow from the PDA to light his way and kicked the gun away from the guard’s hand. He reached for his neck with his good hand, feeling for a pulse, but keeping a tight grip on his gun in case he found one. He found nothing. His hand skimmed across the rough surface of the cassock, skirting the warm wetness of the chest wound until he found what he was looking for.
He tracked back, picked up the PDA and wedged it in the claw of his left hand, directing the light towards the heavy studded door. The keyhole was in the centre. Gabriel slotted in the key he had taken from the guard, twisted it and leaned against the door, revealing a flight of steps behind it heading up into the dark of the mountain.
Chapter 140
Samuel’s body wrenched from Liv’s view as she was yanked to her feet and whirled round to face a grotesque figure standing close by in the darkness. It stared at her, with grey eyes shining above a thick beard, its upper body glistening darkly with blood running from cuts that were both fresh and familiar. ‘The marks of our devotion,’ the Abbot said, following her gaze. ‘Your brother bore them too — but he could not bear our secret.’
He twitched his head towards the darker end of the cavern and Liv was jerked round to face the blackness. She twisted her head to the right, hoping to catch sight of her brother. A hand grabbed her hair and forced her to face forward. ‘Search the darkness,’ the Abbot commanded. ‘See for yourself.’
She looked.
Saw nothing but shadow. Then a breeze seemed to blow through her body as something took form in the gloom.
It was the shape of the Tau, at least as high as she was and just as solid. As her eyes continued to make sense of the darkness, the breeze strengthened and brought with it a whispering sound, like the wind moving through trees. She could feel it flowing through her, gently rinsing away her pain.
‘This is the great secret of our order,’ the voice behind her said. ‘The un-doer of all men.’
The hands pressed her closer and more details emerged. The main up
right was about the width of a small tree, though its surface was flatter and made of something darker than wood. At its base was a rough grille from which something seeped into channels cut into the stone floor. It reminded her of the sap she’d seen oozing from the dying tree outside the hospital in Newark. Where this sticky substance flowed, thin vines had somehow taken root, their tendrils snaking up the strange, uneven surface of the Tau. Her eyes drifted up, following the vines past raised joints in the surface where crudely beaten iron plates had been welded together to make the central pillar. The breeze strengthened, carrying with it now the warm, comforting scent of sun-toasted grass. She arrived at the place where the central upright met the thinner arms of the horizontal crosspiece; then saw something else — something inside the shape — and the shock of it drove the breath from her lungs.
‘Behold,’ the Abbot whispered, sensing her discovery. Liv stared at the narrow slit cut into the dull metal surface of the Tau — and the pale, green eyes that stared back at her. ‘The secret of our order. Mankind’s greatest criminal; sentenced to death for crimes against man — but unkillable. Until today.’ He stepped into view and pointed at the floor where Samuel’s body lay crumpled and discarded. ‘The cross will fall,’ he said, shifting his finger to point at Liv. ‘The cross will rise,’ his hand swept over to the Tau, ‘to unlock the Sacrament, and bring forth a new age, through its merciful death.’ A sharp metallic snap echoed through the chapel as he undid a clasp on the side of the cross. ‘She who once robbed man of his divinity will now restore it.’ More sharp snaps cracked through the air until the front of the structure shifted and swung slowly open, dragging an agonized, animal shriek from the woman it contained.
