The Five Tors

by Benjamin Ford

  Stan stepped up to the altar, holding aloft the long curved blade of the sacrificial dagger, which he handed to his sister.

  Auvei verium aerpuns,

  Mortinuri tes salutant,

  Cunm dilectoni vitorium.

  Odios hominiums,

  Das quot ivebes ent,

  Ivebes quot vitis.

  Tas daimon landamnus,

  Yak diabolos confitenveria,

  Nos hablebint humus.

  Eterninum,

  Arisi,

  Arisi!

  Val held the dagger firmly in both hands, drawing her arms backwards above her head.

  With a triumphant scream, she brought the blade down.

  With a scream, Barnabas threw Lilly to one side and raced across the chamber with lightning speed.

  With a scream, Lilly tumbled into Gerry, and they both went sprawling.

  With a scream, Rob saw the blade flashing towards him and closed his eyes.

  He felt someone throw themselves over him, heard the sickening sound as the dagger found its mark, and felt the body on top of him go limp.

  He heard Val scream in rage, and cautiously opened his eyes, not sure what he would find.

  He heard himself scream in anguish as he saw his son’s lifeless face next to his.

  ‘What have you done?’ shrieked Val, dragging the lifeless body of Barnabas from the sacrificial altar. Her animalistic visage glowered at Rob, fury in her amber eyes. ‘What have you done!’ she repeated.

  Tears found their way to Rob’s eyes. He could not reply, merely stared down at the desecrated body of his son. ‘Barnabas, you young fool, what have you done?’ he whispered.

  Suddenly the ground started shaking, gradually at first, but building rapidly in intensity.

  Rocks fell from the roof of the cavern, shattering the skulls of several of the still prostrate mindless brethren. Since they were already dead, none moved to escape the falling rocks.

  The shuddering ground shook Apollyon’s children from their feet. A thunderous roaring noise, like some huge beast enraged and in pain, came from deep beneath the ground.

  Val clambered to her knees, clutching onto the altar for support. Fear gleamed dully in her amber eyes. ‘What is happening?’ she growled. ‘This is not as it should be!’

  From the edge of the chamber, Jonathan took the opportunity to scramble through the carnage, dodging falling rocks as he made his way to the altar, where he managed to free Rob from his bindings. They sheltered in a huddle at the side of the altar as the cavern shook itself to pieces around them.

  The pain filled roaring grew louder, more bestial and more agonized as the rumbling increased.

  ‘What have you done!’ screamed Val, struggling to maintain her footing as the trembling ground threatened to send her sprawling again.

  Some distance from the altar, facing the beast, her tearful face betraying both anguish and elation, Lilly stared at Val. ‘It is over, spawn of the devil. Finally and completely! You sacrificed your own brother.’

  Val’s slavering jaws snapped in fury. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Barnabas was the innocent child of Virginia Saunders and Rob Tyler. He was the Chosen One, taking the mantle from his father upon his conception. He was the Maleficent Man, your brother, shielded from you by the being known as Deiform!’

  Val shrieked as her fur began to smoulder. She turned to her brother, in time to see him burst into flames. Stan burnt to a cinder before her eyes in a matter of seconds. She turned back to Lilly, launching herself across the chamber, intent on killing her nemesis.

  She burst into flames before she was halfway there, and her ashes covered Lilly as she ran towards where Rob and Jonathan sheltered from the falling rocks. ‘Come on, you two, we must get out of here!’

  Rob clambered to his feet, struggling to maintain his footing as the ground continued to quake. He stared down at the lifeless face of Barnabas, the son he had not had the chance to know. He stroked the youth’s cheek tenderly, allowing his tears to fall unhindered. ‘Poor Barnabas, it was such a waste.’ He scooped the young man into his arms. ‘I will give you a proper burial. You’re not going to stay down here!’

  Lilly crossed back to the edge of the chamber, where Gerry struggled to his feet. He wanted to know what was going on, but Lilly grabbed hold of him and told him to run.

  They ran from the inner sanctum, moments before the roof caved in, and still the earth tremors continued.

  ‘Come on,’ gasped Lilly, choking against the dust, ‘these are the death throes of Apollyon. We must get to the surface, or we will all die!’

  Rob was not about to let that happen. He had survived the sacrifice for a reason, he felt; it was not his destiny to die, trapped in the depths of this hellhole.

  They ran, stumbling as they retraced their steps. They knew that Gerry and Barnabas had come a faster route, but Gerry could remember nothing about what had happened, and Barnabas…

  I will grieve for my son when we get out of here, thought Rob. I will bury him beside his mother. They will have a beautiful funeral, just as my mother did.

  As they reached the stone steps and began the long climb, Jonathan helped Rob carry the inert body of Barnabas, whilst Lilly and Gerry raced ahead of them.

  Several times they lost their footing as the shaking continued to increase in strength. A terrible heat rose up from beneath them as they struggled up the steps with the body.

  Rob felt certain he could feel hot breath on the back of his neck, but did not trust himself to look back, knowing it was his imagination, aware that if he did so, he would lose his footing for sure and plunge back down into the depths, dragging Jonathan and Barnabas with him.

  Jonathan felt certain that the gates of Gehenna had opened far beneath them, that the heat they felt was the fires of hell trying to ensnare them, drag them back down to the depths.

  The pair put on a final burst of speed as they stumbled up through the darkness, tripping over their feet in their haste.

  A terrible howling came upwards from far below, riding the blast of blazing heat; a crescendo of physical noise that deafened them both, threatened to throw them off balance and send them tumbling.

  Amid the rumbling, the steps began shifting beneath their feet.

  ‘The stairs are collapsing!’ shouted Jonathan. ‘Come on, Rob, we have to hurry!’

  Up ahead they could see the doorway that led to Naghene Hall, through which they could see the outlines of Lilly and Gerry, peering anxiously down at them.

  ‘Get moving,’ shouted Rob. ‘This whole house is going to collapse!’

  He and Jonathan threw themselves through the doorway, just as the steps finally disintegrated behind them, but they did not halt. Scrambling to their feet, gasping for breath as they shifted the weight of Barnabas’s body between them, they ran from the library, closely following Lilly and Gerry.

  Behind them they heard the sound of the walls crumbling, the sound of the wooden floorboards cracking and splintering, the sound of glass shattering. Everything around them suddenly shifted ominously as the house began collapsing around them. With a final burst of speed they launched themselves through the shattered front door of Naghene Hall and out into the night.

  Even then, they knew they could not stop. The collapsing house had been sucked into the ground, along with Dolores’s red sports car, and there was no telling how much more of the surrounding land would be sucked in too.

  They ran, breath ragged, legs aching, until they reached the gates of the estate, and then their legs finally gave way beneath them.

  ‘I can’t go any further,’ gasped Rob, his lungs burning.

  ‘We don’t need to,’ gasped Lilly, falling to her knees beside him.

  They all turned to watch as the monstrosity that had been Naghene Hall crumbled and disintegrated in flame and dust, and they all flinched as the flame and dust coalesced momentarily into the raging outline of the Horned Beast, and then it was gone.

  Eventually
the dust settled, and where there have once been a house there now stood a large mound of earth and rock, very much like any number of other tors in the area.

  ‘Is it finally over?’ whispered Rob after a lengthy silence, during which time they all fought to control their racing hearts and laboured breathing. ‘Is Apollyon really dead?’

  ‘As dead as He can be,’ sighed Lilly. ‘The sacrifice of His son brought about His destruction, and the sacrifice of Deiform at the same time brought balance to His death. One cannot exist without the other, and so they are both gone forever.’ She touched Rob’s arm as he tenderly stroked his son’s face. ‘Barnabas knew what had to be done, as you knew what had to be done when you thought you were the Chosen One.’

  ‘He was much stronger than I was,’ sighed Rob.

  ‘I think you’ll find he was his father’s son,’ whispered Jonathan. ‘I know you well enough, Rob, to know that if it had come to it, if your positions had been reversed, you would have given your life for him!’

  ‘How are we going to explain the disappearance of Naghene Hall?’ asked Rob.

  ‘Never mind Naghene Hall,’ muttered Gerry, who had risen to his feet to investigate a plume of smoke he had seen in the distance, ‘come and take a look at this.’

  Jonathan, Lilly and Rob joined him in the lane outside the grounds of Naghene Hall, staring in the direction of the village. Where they should have been able to see the church tower, they could see nothing but smoke and dust. Jonathan and Rob carried Barnabas between them as Lilly and Gerry led the way into the village.

  Not one house remained standing. There was not even any rubble, the gradually dissipating smoke the only indication that anything had happened. Rock and dirt replaced the village.

  ‘How do you explain the disappearance of an entire village?’ demanded Jonathan.

  ‘Dorstville doesn’t appear on any map,’ replied Rob. ‘I think Lilly will agree that, to all intents and purposes, the village never existed!’

  ‘Something like that.’

  In the moonlight, down by where the church had once stood, Rob squinted. He frowned. ‘Can anyone else see that?’ he said, pointing as he struggled to keep hold of his son’s body.

  The others followed his gaze. Two pin pricks of amber light reflected up at them, and then a distant miaow of a forlorn cat.

  Rob passed Barnabas to Jonathan, who struggled slightly under the weight. ‘That’s impossible. It can’t be…’ He walked slowly towards the glowing eyes, and in spite of his grief, a grin spread across his face. ‘My God, it is Satan!’ He swooped down and scooped up the black cat, ruffling him affectionately as his long- feared dead pet licked him. He walked back up to the others. ‘I thought Satan was in your car when Val blew it up, Gerry. I thought he was dead!’

  ‘Val never blew up my car. It’s still over there, look!’ Gerry pointed into the distance to where the welcome sight of his red Ford Fiesta sat parked at an odd angle near the dirt track. He frowned. ‘It’s funny, because I can remember seeing it blow up, but I guess like a lot of things, that must have been a thought planted in our heads to keep us here.’

  ‘The loss of life has been far too great,’ sighed Rob sadly. ‘I’m just glad it’s finally all over.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Lilly, ‘but what’s important is that the rebirth of Apollyon has been prevented. At the end of the day, our lives will go on. They would not have done, had we failed! Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll go to mother’s cottage and decide what to do next.’

  As they crammed into Gerry’s cramped car, with Barnabas lying across Lilly and Jonathan’s lap in the rear, and Satan snuggled up on Rob’s lap in the passenger seat, they all turned for one final look in the direction of the newly created and named Naghene Tor to confirm that the old house had indeed been destroyed, and then Gerry drove off.

  No one in the world would know how close they had all come to the final apocalypse that night.

  As they drove, Gerry turned on the radio.

  ‘Breaking news. The South West of England was rocked at midnight by an earthquake measuring five on the Richter Scale. The epicentre was located somewhere in Dartmoor, though experts have oddly been unable to pinpoint its exact location. Doomsayers claimed that the earthquake, in conjunction with last night’s total lunar eclipse, which had been visible from the same area, would bring about the end of the world. But, we’re still here, so I guess they were wrong. More on that story at the top of the hour, along with the weather. Now, more music.’

  Author’s note

  As with my previous novels, place names and character names are important in The Five Tors. I think, when I first came up with the plot for this book, I already had the idea that some of the names would be anagrams.

  Dr Val Hyde-Guest and Stan O’Nass are of course anagrams of Devil’s Daughter and Satan’s Son, and Dorstville is an anagram of Devill’s Tor.

  It wasn’t until many years after I had written the first draft of the book, which was way back in 1992, that I gained internet access and discovered there really is a Devil’s Tor on Dartmoor, and so I was glad that my spelling was different. The two places are not the same.

  The initial idea for the story came to me when I found the name Apollyon in the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: destroyer (tr. Abaddon, Rev 9:11); the Devil as destroyer.

  The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary states the definition of Deiform as ‘having the form of a god’ and ‘Godlike in nature or character’.

  It should be pointed out that Deiform in my novel is not meant to be a representation of God.

  Gehenna is also a real word – from the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: the valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem where children were sacrificed (2 Kings 23:10); a place of burning, torment and misery

  It therefore lent itself perfectly to the place below Naghene Hall (yes, an anagram) where Apollyon was buried.

  I named the burial place of the Devil’s Daughter Doh Tor, since dohtor is the Old English origin of the word daughter.