He emerged into the courtyard with the massive gatehouse in front of him and the twisted figure dangling from his scaffold. A boy, twelve or thirteen, staggered past with two pails of water hanging from a wooden rod over his shoulders. The boy was careful to avoid his eyes. A team of men and women, bundled up in rags, were shovelling snow into wheelbarrows. There didn’t seem to be any point as more was falling even as they worked. A few shape-changers were patrolling the battlements, some with legs, some with scales and claws. It was intensely cold outside but they were lightly dressed and didn’t seem to feel it.
Scott turned right and walked into the other tower, which was both wider and taller than the one where he was staying. Both towers seemed to be made of rock or maybe coral. They had no obvious man-made decoration. There wasn’t even any visible brickwork. He wondered vaguely if this was where Chaos lived. And what of Jonas Mortlake? He hadn’t seen the chief executive officer of Nightrise since he had arrived. Not that he cared. There was certainly no love lost between them.
Nobody stopped him as he had made his way through the open door and along a short corridor that sloped down into the ground, the strange blue glimmer showing him the way. The walls were once again natural stone with some sort of ingrained crystal, sparkling and cold to the touch. After about ten paces, the corridor suddenly opened and Scott found himself in a huge chamber with rock walls and ledges, a sort of conference hall with seating for at least a thousand people. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling. It was empty now but looked very much like a sports auditorium. Scott could imagine a fight taking place here. There actually was a sort of boxing ring in the middle with a white plastic floor, although it was surrounded by thin silver wire instead of rope. A wooden frame had been constructed inside it, a single, vertical plank with two rings stretched out on either side. It reminded Scott of a crude Totem pole and seeing it made him shudder. He took one last look around, then quickly left again.
On the other side of the auditorium, further inside the mountain, he came across a workshop filled with shaven-headed, half-naked men, sitting at long tables, chained to benches. They were hammering at swords, spears, pieces of armour and shields that had just come out of the forge. The entire room was filled with a deep red glow and the heat was so intense that Scott could feel it burning his cheeks.
He wondered what it must be like to slave away in there twenty hours out of twenty-four, finally sleeping, still chained in the same place. Scott watched as a man pulled a helmet out of the flames and plunged it into a pool of water. Steam hissed. The room was being patrolled by yet more shape-changers. He saw one of them with the head and single wing of a vulture. With his human arm he trailed a whip, which followed him like an ugly, brown snake that could strike at any time. The hammering continued, the clank of stone against metal suddenly a little faster. Scott moved on.
A short while later he found a fissure in the rock that led outside and he made his way to the gatehouse and the massive wooden doors that were bolted shut, keeping the enemy out and perhaps the slave workers in. The walls stretched out on either side. He turned round. The bridge between the two towers was ahead of him. Scott examined the mountain that veered up behind. It was completely vertical, sheer and glistening, with no obvious footholds. It would have been impossible to climb. It was just like a solid wall with no visible way through.
And yet there was an opening, a cave that ran in several metres before disappearing into shadow. The mountain was black granite but water had trickled down, forming icicles. It gave the entrance the look of a snarling mouth. Scott walked over to it. There was a chain hanging across the cave entrance. Why had someone decided to bar the way? He looked more closely and saw a sign carved into the rock, a five-pointed star. He recognized it at once. He had seen exactly the same at Lake Tahoe, at the church in Cuzco and even in Hong Kong. He knew exactly what he was looking at. This was the twenty-fifth door.
Now he understood why Chaos had built his fortress in this place. Locking the doors hadn’t been enough. He had made sure that he ruled over them. If Matt or Pedro or any of them tried to travel to Antarctica, they would find themselves surrounded, locked in. They would be captured at once.
He moved closer. The chain was made out of some sort of dark silver metal, the links surprisingly thin. He imagined they would snap quite easily. The lock itself was actually made up of two human hands, beautifully carved out of white ivory and clasping each other, the palms interlocked, slender fingers bending round. As Scott approached, he heard a strange buzzing sound. He looked into the cave. He had no idea how far it went but guessed that eventually it would stop at a solid wall. Unless, that was, the hands were unclasped. Surely that was the point? Then it might take him to London, to Italy, to anywhere he wanted to go. He reached out to touch the chain.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The voice came from behind him. Scott wheeled round to find himself facing two men, both of them wrapped up in hooded anoraks, padded trousers and boots. One of them was Jonas Mortlake – but it was the other man, much older with watery eyes and grey, unhealthy skin, who had spoken.
“You hear that buzzing sound?” he went on. “There are thousands of volts running through that chain. It’s not electricity … not exactly. But you touch it and it’ll kill you just the same.” Scott said nothing so the man went on. “You don’t believe me? I could get someone to demonstrate, if you like. That kid with the buckets. You want to see him frazzle?”
“This is one of the doors,” Scott said.
“That’s right, son. And it’s out of service. The funny thing is, locking this one has locked all the others too, so don’t expect any of your friends to come tumbling through. I hope you weren’t thinking of leaving us?” Suddenly the eyes were full of suspicion as the old man waited for Scott to respond.
Scott shook his head. “No. I like it here. Why would I want to leave?”
“I’m glad to hear it.” The man extended a hand wrapped in a thick glove. “I’m the chairman of Nightrise,” he explained. “You’ve already met Jonas, of course.”
Scott couldn’t see much of Jonas, with his hood and high collar, but his eyes gazed at him with undisguised hatred.
“I need to talk to you, Scott,” the chairman continued. “Why don’t you step into my office?”
Scott did as he was told, following the two men back into the tower he had just left. The chairman had a suite of rooms similar to his own but higher up, with a view overlooking Oblivion … the great expanse of unbroken snow with the scattering of planes at the end. The walls of his office were covered in fabric, making it feel less like a cave. The windows were more regularly shaped. There was a round, wooden table and four chairs. The chairman took off his outer garments, revealing a suit and an open shirt underneath. The three of them sat down.
“So let me explain things to you,” the chairman began. “Any day now there’s going to be a fight and there can be no doubt that the Old Ones are going to win. Have you seen the rabble out on the ice? Pretty pathetic, really. You’d have thought mankind would have been able to come up with a little more than that. As for the so-called Five, the Gatekeepers, they’ve been split up. You’re with us. We don’t know where your brother is. He slipped through our fingers just outside London but we’re sure he’ll turn up soon enough. Pedro is somewhere in northern Italy. But you might like to know that Matt Freeman and Scarlett Adams are here in Oblivion. At least, that’s what we believe.”
Scott started when he heard this. So two of them had actually made it all the way to Antarctica, even with the doors no longer working!
“Matt Freeman is the one that matters to us,” the chairman went on. “He’s the leader of your little group and he did something very bad indeed, out in the Nazca Desert. He wounded Chaos. Do you have any idea how serious that is? The simple fact is that the boy has to be punished. That’s more important than anything. And you’re going to help us find him.”
“Me?” Scott’s ey
es flickered.
“That’s right, Scott. We’ve taken a lot of time and trouble getting you here and I hope you don’t think we did it because we like you! We need you to make contact with him and draw him into a situation when he’s on his own. Despite everything that’s happened, Matt trusts you. If you tell him it’s safe, he’ll believe you.”
“Why do you need me? You’ve got a whole army. Why don’t you just go out and get him?”
“Because we want to be certain we get him alive.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
The chairman glanced at him sadly. “Do you really want to know?”
“No.” Scott turned away, looking at the surface of the table.
Jonas Mortlake had said nothing but now he leant forward with an ugly smile on his face. Behind his glasses, his eyes had come alive. “You can always refuse to help us,” he whispered.
Scott knew what Jonas wanted. If he didn’t do what he was being asked, he would lose everything. He’d probably end up in a cell himself … or chained to a table beating out pieces of armour. There was no way he was going to let that happen. “How will I reach him?” he asked.
“You can leave that to us,” the chairman replied. “We’ll make all the arrangements. You just have to turn up and lead him into the trap.”
The interview was over. Outside the window, fifty soldiers were dragging some sort of catapult into place, straining at the end of ropes, their feet sliding in the snow. As ever, there were shape-changers whipping them on.
Scott looked past the walls, out to the ice shelf itself. So Matt and Scarlett were there! He tried to imagine them walking among the aircraft. Or maybe they had arrived by boat. Had the two of them met? And did they know that he was here? Maybe they were watching him even now, with binoculars trained on the window, a tiny figure sitting behind the glass.
Just for a minute he wished he could see them again. But he knew that wasn’t possible. He was on his own.
“We all have to make our choices, Scott.”
That was what Matt had said to him – and he was right. Scott had chosen. There could be no going back.
FORTY-SEVEN
They used the emergency chute to leave the plane, sliding down into the snow. Matt had seen the extraordinary flotilla of different-sized ships as they had flown in. The other aircraft were all around them, sitting, seemingly abandoned, at the far end of the ice shelf. He knew that he had arrived at the place where the last battle against the Old Ones would be fought. Lohan had brought them down expertly, the two of them sitting next to each other, strapped into their seats in the cockpit – but even so Matt had felt a twinge of nervousness. Could the ice support the weight of the Legacy 600? Would they be able to stop before they skidded head first into the nearest mountain? He had no need to worry. One moment they were in the air, circling the area with the fortress at one end and the sea at the other. Then they were sliding along with snow blasted by the wheels and the turbines forming a blizzard around them. They could see nothing out of the windows. Everything was white. Finally, Lohan slammed on the reverse thrust. The engines screamed. They slowed down and stopped.
They had arrived.
Matt reached the bottom of the slide and stood up, taking his first step onto the Antarctic continent with the snow crunching beneath his feet. He had managed to find extra clothes on the plane but he was still aware of the intense cold slicing through him. At least his fever seemed to have burned itself out during the flight. He was tired and hungry and desperately needed something to drink. But he could walk without help. He could feel his strength returning.
He became aware of Lohan, who was just getting to his feet, having slid down behind him. There was an uncomfortable silence. Lohan was angry – not just because Matt had somehow fixed the plane’s controls, forcing them to fly here, but because Matt knew what he had been intending to do. Lohan had tried to leave the gold mine at Serra Morte without him. If he had been given a choice, he would have flown north to the United States. Lohan was a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question. It was not part of his nature to serve the wishes of a fifteen-year-old boy. But it was more than that. He was ashamed. He had behaved dishonourably. If anyone had attempted to betray him in that way while he was a leader in the Triad, he would have had them put to death.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. It was almost the first time he had spoken since they had left Brazil.
“I’m feeling better,” Matt said. “Thank you for flying us here.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you behind,” Lohan said. The words came tumbling out and he couldn’t stop them. “I didn’t think it was a good idea coming here. That’s all. I need to find my own people. So do you.”
“Maybe they’ve arrived ahead of us.”
“Do you think so?”
Lohan turned and looked at the fortress in the far distance, half obstructed by the falling snow. It was built on the very edge of the mountain, the barbican jutting out, the four towers all around. It looked small from the distance, almost two kilometres away, but he knew it must be huge. There were figures moving around in front of it … guards or soldiers, some of them constructing some sort of machinery. Lohan had seen all this from the air as they prepared to come in. But it was somehow more ominous, more real now that they were down on the ground.
“The Old Ones,” he said.
“Yes.” Matt nodded.
“Do they know you’re here?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“I still think we were wrong to come…”
“You don’t need to worry about what happened at Serra Morte,” Matt said. “That’s all over now and we don’t need to talk about it any more. What matters is that we arrived and you brought me here. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”
The two of them stood facing each other, their breath frosting in the air..
“There are people coming…” Lohan said.
It was true. There were half a dozen of them, identically dressed in white padded anoraks and trousers with balaclavas and goggles, carrying rifles. The clothes camouflaged them against the snow. They took up positions a few metres away, circling them. Their weapons hung over their shoulders but they were poised and watchful, ready to bring them round at any time.
“Where have you come from?” one of them shouted. He hadn’t taken off his face covering and his voice was muffled. He spoke English with an American accent.
“From South America,” Lohan replied.
“Why are you here?”
“To fight the Old Ones.”
The leader examined them briefly. What must he be thinking – an Asian man and a Western teenager, emerging alone from a Brazilian plane? “Do you have ID?”
Lohan looked at him scornfully. “What use is ID any more? We escaped from a prison camp in Brazil. We’re here to fight with you. Maybe you could make us feel a little more welcome.”
The man nodded slowly, then gestured at the plane. “Have you got any supplies with you? Food? Weapons? How are you for fuel?”
“We stole the plane,” Lohan said. “We have about a quarter of a tank but there wasn’t much on board. We found a few clothes. There are a couple of crates of brandy. But that’s all.”
“We’ll appreciate the fuel. And the brandy. We can take a look later.” He came to a decision. “My name’s Greyson. Welcome to Oblivion. Right now you need to meet the commander. Come with us.”
The commander. Matt wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that but he had no choice but to follow the group back towards the encampment that stood close to the cliff edge. At the same time, it occurred to him that he had no idea who these people were. The man who called himself Greyson could have been a shape-changer and the others could be … anything. They could have flown straight into a trap. But there wasn’t really anything he could do and at least, if they were being led into danger, they weren’t completely helpless. Lohan had his gun and Matt could feel his
own powers returning.
They walked about fifty metres, following the tracks they had just made in the snow and leaving the Legacy behind them. They were heading for the largest tent at the centre of what was almost a makeshift city. The tent was like something out of a circus, tall and round, a sturdy affair with thick white canvas secured by about forty ropes, pegged into the ice. Dozens of smaller tents and wooden bivouacs huddled all around it and as they drew closer, Matt was aware of faces watching them nervously from behind the flaps. A few fires had been lit on the ice and people were standing over them, boiling kettles or cooking meals in tins. They were wearing a variety of protective gear. Some had fur gloves and hats. There were men as well as women of every age. They nodded in his direction but said nothing as he went past.
Two armed guards were standing at the entrance but they recognized Greyson and stood aside. Matt and Lohan followed him in, glad to be out of the cold. They saw at once that there were stoves burning in the tent. The air was warm and smelled of aviation fuel, which must have been used to keep the fires alight. The ground was carpeted. Trestle tables had been set up in long lines … a hundred people or more could have met here at any one time, and there were blackboards and white screens set up for presentations. As they entered, Matt saw a group of about twenty men and women, the majority of them in uniform, sitting together, deep in discussion. Their heads turned as Matt and Lohan walked towards them. At the same time, the white-suited men were removing their headgear. “We have two new arrivals,” Greyson said.
“Matt!”
Matt heard his name called and looked in astonishment and delight as Richard Cole leapt up from the table and hurried towards him. Richard was dressed in a thick jersey and trousers, which he must have borrowed – they looked too neat for him – and his hair had been cut shorter. He was grinning from ear to ear, ignoring everyone around him. There was a moment of awkwardness as the two of them faced each other, then they fell into each other’s arms.
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