by Simon Toyne
Kathryn looked up at him. Saw his father standing there. Saw his grandfather. Saw herself there too. She knew it was pointless arguing with him. There was no time anyway.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’
He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead – long enough for it to count, not long enough for her to think it was goodbye. ‘OK,’ he said, reaching into the back of the van for the black canvas bag. ‘This is what you do.’
Chapter 129
The Sanctus guard let the girl’s body slip to the ground next to the forge then reached up and took a thin metal rod from a hook on the wall. He laid it in the heart of the fire and started pumping the bellows, filling the room with the fire’s rhythmic roar. The forge glowed brighter, throwing yellow light across the whetstones in front of it. The Abbot moved to the nearest one, shrugging his shoulders out of his cassock and letting it fall to the floor. Cornelius looked at the network of scars on his body.
‘Are you ready to receive the knowledge of the Sacrament?’ the Abbot asked. Cornelius nodded. ‘Then do as I do.’
He unsheathed the ceremonial dagger from his wooden Crux and began working the foot-pedal to set the sharpening stone spinning. He laid the edge of his dagger on the stone and started to work the blade backwards and forwards, his eyes fixed on the sharpening blade. Cornelius shrugged out of his own robes and felt the heat of the fire on his skin. He removed the dagger from his Crux and started his own wheel spinning.
‘Before you enter the chapel,’ the Abbot said, his voice rumbling under the hiss of the bellows and the grinding stones, ‘you must receive the sacred marks of our order. These marks, cut into our own flesh, remind us of our failure to carry out the pledge our ancestors made to God.’ He lifted his blade from the stone and held the edge up to the light. ‘Tonight, thanks to your great service, that pledge will finally be honoured.’
He turned to Cornelius and raised the point of his dagger until it rested at the top of the thick raised scar running down the centre of his body. ‘The first,’ he said, pushing the blade into his flesh and dragging it down towards his stomach. ‘This blood binds us in pain with the Sacrament. As it suffers, so must we, until all suffering ends.’
Cornelius watched the blade slice through the scar until blood dripped down the Abbot’s body and on to the stone floor. He held his own dagger up. Pressed it into his own flesh. Pierced his skin with its point. He dragged it downwards, shutting his mind to the pain, willing his hand to obey him until the first incision was done and blood ran hot from his own mortified flesh. The Abbot raised his dagger again and made the second cut at the point where his left arm met his body. Cornelius did the same, dutifully mirroring this and every cut the Abbot made, until his body bore all the marks of the brotherhood he was now part of.
The Abbot finished the final cut and raised the bloodied tip of his blade to his forehead, wiped it once upward, turned it, then wiped it once across, leaving a smeared red Tau in the centre. Cornelius did the same, remembering Johann as he did so and tears ran down the pale, puckered skin on his cheek. Johann had died a righteous death so that their mission could succeed. Because of that sacrifice, he was about to be blessed with the sacred knowledge of the Sacrament. He watched the Abbot slide his dagger back into the wooden scabbard of his Crux and step over to the forge. He lifted the metal rod from the heart of the flames and carried it across to Cornelius.
‘Do not worry, Brother,’ the Abbot said, misreading his tears. ‘All your wounds will soon heal.’
He raised the glowing tip of the iron and Cornelius felt the dry heat approaching the skin of his upper arm. He looked away and remembered the bloom of the explosion that had burned him once before. Felt the searing agony again as the branding iron pressed against him. He gritted his teeth, clamping down on a scream, willing himself to endure it as the smell of his burning flesh corrupted the air.
The iron was removed, but the pain remained, and Cornelius forced a look at it to convince himself it was over. He sipped shallow breaths, looking down at the charred and blistered patch of flesh that marked him now as one of the chosen. Then he saw the flesh start to harden, knit together and heal.
A grinding sound scraped through the flickering darkness, dragging his eyes away. The guard was heaving against the wooden stakes in the huge circular stone, rolling it along channels worn smooth by millennia to reveal a chamber beyond. At first glance it appeared to be empty. Then, as Cornelius’s eyes sank into the blackness, he saw candlelight flickering inside.
‘Come,’ said the Abbot, taking his arm and leading him towards it. ‘See for yourself. You are one of us now.’
Chapter 130
Athanasius scanned the swirling darkness in the Chamber of Philosophy; looking past the edges of his own contained light for the glow of others.
There were none.
He hurried over to the bookshelf halfway down the room and reached over the collected works of Kierkegaard where his fingers closed round the slim volume of Nietzsche. He withdrew it and slipped it under his sleeve, not daring to look at it as he hurried away from the central corridor towards the reading tables stationed at the quiet and private edges of the chamber. He found one against a wall, buried amongst the most obscure and unsought titles, checked the darkness once more, then laid the book gently down on the desk top.
He stared at it for a moment, as if it was a mousetrap about to spring. It looked suspiciously isolated on the bare desk so he reached across to the nearest shelf, took down a few more volumes and laid them beside it, opening some at random. Satisfied with the makeshift camouflage of study he had created, he sat down, checked the darkness one last time, then opened the volume to where the folded sheets of paper lay. He removed the first one, carefully unfolded it and pressed it flat against the desk.
The page was blank.
He reached into the pocket of his cassock and removed a small stick of charcoal he had rescued earlier from the Abbot’s fire. He ground it against the desktop until he had a small pile of fine, black powder then, very gently, he dipped the tip of his finger into it and began to rub it back and forth across the greasy surface of the paper. As the dust found the gaps in the wax, small black symbols began to rise from the creamy blankness, until two dense columns of text filled the page.
Athanasius looked down at what the dust had revealed. He had never seen so much of the forbidden language of Malan collected into one document before. He held his breath as he leaned forward, as if the merest gasp might blow the words from the page, and started to read, translating in his head as he went.
In the beginning was the World
And the World was God, and the World was good.
And the World was the wife of the Sun
And the creator of everything.
In the beginning the World was wild,
A garden teeming with life.
And a being appeared, an embodiment of Earth,
One to bring order to the garden.
And where the One walked, the land blossomed,
And plants grew where there had been none,
And creatures nested and prospered,
And each was given a name by the One
And took what it needed from the Earth and no more.
And each gave itself back to the Earth
When its life was done.
And so it was through the time of the great ferns,
And the time of the great lizards,
Even to the dawn of the first age of ice.
Then one day man appeared – the greatest of all animals.
Close to being a god – but not close enough for him.
And he began to see not the great gifts he possessed
But only those he lacked.
He began to covet that which was not his.
And this made an emptiness inside him.
And the more he yearned for that which he had not,
The greater this emptiness became.
He trie
d to fill it with things he could possess:
Land, chattels, power over animals, power over others.
He saw his fellow man and desired more than his share,
He wanted more food, more water, more shelter.
But none of these things could fill the vast emptiness.
And above all else he wanted more life.
He did not want his time on Earth
To be measured by the rise and fall of the sun,
But by the rise and fall of mountains.
He wanted his time to be immeasurable.
He wanted to be immortal.
And he saw the One. Walking the Earth.
Never ageing. Never withering.
And he became jealous.
Chapter 131
Gabriel climbed into the cockpit of the cargo plane and looked through the windshield. In the distance the van’s brake lights flared red as it slipped past the guardhouse and pulled out on to the road. He figured it would take his mother about thirty minutes to drive to the Citadel and get into position. Once he was airborne it would take him less than ten.
He sat in the left-hand pilot seat and scanned the controls. He had flown second seat several times, but not for a while, and never solo. The C-123 was not designed for a one-man crew. When fully laden it weighed sixty thousand pounds and needed two strong men hauling on both sticks to shift it through the air. Landing was the hardest part, especially with a full load in a cross-wind: at least that wasn’t going to be a problem.
He raced through the pre-flight checks, dredging his memory for the procedures drummed into him during his military training, then heaved on the flaps and rudder to remind himself of their weight. They were heavier than he remembered. He engaged the brake, pumped the fuel and pushed the starter button. The stick shuddered in his hand as the starboard Double-Wasp engine juddered then coughed into life with a spluttering roar. The port engine followed with a belt of black smoke and he felt the braced power of the props straining against the stick, impatient to push the plane forward. He feathered the throttle down a little then slipped on a headset, hit the comms and hailed the tower. He gave his call-sign and heading and requested clearance for immediate takeoff.
Then he waited.
There were only two runways at the airport. Fortunately the cargo flights mainly came and went on runway two, the one closest to the hangar. If the wind was in the wrong place, however, he would have to taxi the long way round to the other strip. The seconds ticked by.
He saw movement, over to his right, two sets of blue lamps spinning lazily above the bouncing beam of oncoming headlights. It was a patrol truck, skimming across the blacktop, parallel to the perimeter fence, heading towards the guardhouse. Gabriel saw it starting to slow.
Time to go.
He pushed the twin throttle levers forward, eased off the brake and felt the plane lurch as the twin props caught the cold night air and pull him forward across the tarmac. Over to his left a big passenger jet was waiting at the end of the main runway. It was pointing in the same direction. This meant the wind was ahead of him, so if he did have to take off without proper clearance he’d at least be heading in the same direction as the rest of the traffic.
The C-123 bounced over the ground, picking up speed as it lumbered towards the head of runway two. The patrol truck had parked now and someone in uniform was climbing out of the driver’s door.
The scratchy sound of a voice snapped him to attention. ‘Romeo – niner – eight – one – zero – Quebec,’ it squawked through the static and clattering engine. ‘You are cleared to depart, runway two. Taxi into position and hold. Over.’
Gabriel felt his hands relax on the steering column. He confirmed the order and pulled back on the throttle, easing the aircraft further away from the drama unfolding behind him.
To his left he could see the passenger jet picking up speed down the main runway. He would be next. He’d left the Inspector lying just inside the warehouse with his badge lying open on his chest. That way they’d find him quickly and call the medics. He had no idea how much Ketamine he’d pumped into him. Too much, probably. The last thing he wanted was the Inspector’s death on his conscience.
The metallic voice crackled loudly in his headset. ‘Romeo – niner – eight – one – zero – Quebec,’ it said, as over to his left the passenger jet lifted off and pulled up its wheels. ‘You are cleared for immediate takeoff. Over.’
‘Roger that,’ Gabriel responded. He released the wheel brakes and pushed the throttle most of the way forward. The sudden thrust pressed him back into his seat until the nose lifted and the wheels let go of the runway with a loud bump. He reached for the landing gear control then decided to leave the wheels down. Now he was airborne he would get to the Citadel well before his mother and the extra drag would reduce his airspeed.
He cleared the perimeter fence and Gabriel dipped the port wing. Over in the distance he saw the Taurus mountains rising up from the plain. Within them he could see a glow bouncing off the underside of the clouds showing him where Ruin was. He continued to climb, describing a wide circle that took him over the mountains until he was approaching the ancient city from the north. He kept the plane steady, fighting the rising winds from the mountain peaks, until they fell away to reveal the shallow bowl containing the ancient city, with the line of the great northern boulevard pointing straight towards a ragged patch of darkness at its centre. He dialled a heading into the autopilot that would take the plane directly over the Citadel and on to the coast beyond. There was fuel for about forty-five minutes of flight time – enough to carry the plane well out to sea before it came down.
He checked his direction one last time then engaged the autopilot, taking his hands off the steering column as ghostly hands took over, adjusting flaps, throttle and rudder to keep the plane on course. He let the autopilot fly the plane for a few minutes, watching the patch of darkness creep closer until it disappeared below the nose of the plane. Finally satisfied that the autopilot was working and the course was steady, he unclipped his seat belt, slid from the pilot’s chair and headed into the hold to prepare.
Chapter 132
Cornelius stepped through the stone entrance and into the chapel of the Sacrament.
After the roaring brightness of the forge it was dark with an unnatural blackness that clung tightly to whatever secrets it held. A few candles flickered in a cluster by the door barely illuminating the shelf upon which they rested, guttering now as the Sanctus guard stepped past and moved through the darkness towards the far end of the room. Cornelius scanned the darkness and saw something lying on the floor in the centre of the chapel. The guard slowed as he drew near and let the girl slide from his shoulder and on to the ground next to it. It was the body of Brother Samuel, his feet pointing towards the dark end of the room, his arms stretched out on either side to form the sign of the Tau.
The guard reached down, grabbed Samuel’s arms and dragged him over to the far wall, where he dumped him without ceremony, before turning his attention back to the girl. He dragged her feet round to point down into the darkness at the far end of the chapel, took her arms and stretched them out until she formed the shape her brother had so recently held.
‘Thank you, Septus,’ the Abbot said. ‘You may leave us now. But stay close by.’
The monk nodded and sent the candles fluttering again as he swept from the chapel.
Cornelius felt the Abbot take his arm and lead him forward. ‘Come closer,’ he said.
Cornelius drifted along, his eyes fixed on a spot ahead, where the darkness was beginning to take form beyond the figure of the girl. He took another step and felt his wounds start to itch, as if ants were crawling along the sliced edges of his flesh. He looked down and saw the skin closing up, like hot wax running together. Looked up again. Saw the thing in the darkness at the end of the room solidifying into form with every step he took, rising up from the altar, a shape both familiar and strange. Then he saw something else, something so un
expected that he stumbled backwards at the shock of it.
The Abbot gripped his elbow tighter. Steadied him. Leaned in closer. ‘Yes,’ he whispered ‘Now you see. The Sacrament. The greatest secret of our order, and our greatest shame. And tonight you will witness its end.’
Chapter 133
Bright headlamps swept across the grey concrete wall of the multi-storey car park as Kathryn turned into the alley. At the far end she could see the medieval wall, marking the boundary of the old town, rising up above the modern buildings.
She pulled to a stop by the heavy steel shutter and reached out through her open window, swiping the electronic key card Gabriel had taken from the dead monk. She waited, listening to the low throb of the van’s engine echoing down the night-blackened walls of the alley. Nothing happened.
She glanced up at the thin rectangle of sky framed by the high walls of the multi-storey car parks. Her son was up there, somewhere, heading this way. An image of Oscar’s twisted body flashed into her mind and she screwed her eyes shut to push it back. Now was not the time to grieve. She was in shock, she knew that. She also knew it was all going to come crashing down on her at some point – but not now. She had to be strong, for the sake of her son. Her actions now would help him stay alive. He had to live. She couldn’t lose him.
She jumped as a loud clang sounded inside the steel door and the shutter started to rise, creeping upwards like the opening mouth of a grave. When it reached the top it clanged to a stop, echoing again against the low rumble of the engine.
She glanced up one last time at the dark patch of sky then slipped the van into gear and entered the tunnel.