They had all been brought up on the legends of what the Sacrament might be: the tree of life from the Garden of Eden, the chalice Christ had drunk from as he was dying on the cross, perhaps even the cross itself. But as they stood now, confronted by the reality of this macabre object in a room lined with sharpened blades, Athanasius could sense gaps starting to open up between their unquestioning faith and the thing that stood before them. It was what he had hoped would happen. It was what he needed to happen in order to steer the Citadel away from its dark past and towards a brighter, purer future.
‘This can’t be it,’ Axel said. ‘There must be something else; something in one of the other tunnels.’
‘But this is the main chamber,’ Athanasius replied, ‘and here is the Tau.’ He turned to it, averting his gaze from the interior, where dark memories of the last time he had stood here were snagged on the sharp spikes within.
‘It looks like it may have contained something,’ Malachi said, stepping closer and peering at it through his thick glasses, ‘but without the Sancti here to explain, we may never know what it was or the significance it held.’
‘Yes. It’s a great pity they are no longer here in the mountain,’ Axel turned pointedly to Athanasius. ‘I’m sure we all pray for their rapid return.’
Athanasius ignored the jibe. The Sancti had been evacuated on his orders, a decision he had made in good faith and did not regret. ‘We have coped together,’ he replied, ‘and we shall cope together still. Whatever was here has gone — we have all borne witness to this — now we must move on.’
They stood for a while, staring at the empty cross, each lost in their own private thoughts. It was Malachi who broke the silence. ‘It is written in the earliest chronicles that if the Sacrament is removed from the Citadel, then the Church will fall.’ He turned to face the group, his glasses magnifying the concern in his eyes. ‘I fear what we have discovered here can augur nothing but evil.’
Father Thomas shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. Our old idea of the Citadel may have fallen, in a metaphorical sense, yet it does not follow that there will also be a physical end to everything.’
‘Exactly,’ Athanasius continued. ‘The Citadel was originally created to protect and keep the Sacrament, but it has become so many other things since. And just because the Sacrament is no longer here does not mean the Citadel will cease to prosper or have purpose. One may remove the acorn from the root of a great oak and yet the tree will still flourish. Never forget, we serve God first, not the mountain.’
Axel took a step back and pointed his finger at Thomas and then at Athanasius. ‘This is heresy you speak.’
‘Our very presence here is heresy.’ Athanasius swept his hand toward the empty Tau. ‘But the Sacrament has gone, and so have the Sancti. The old ways no longer bind us. We have a chance to choose new rules to live by.’
‘But first we must choose a new leader.’
Athanasius nodded. ‘On this at least we agree.’
At that moment a noise rose up from the deeper depths of the mountain and echoed within the chapel, the sound of the requiem Mass beginning.
‘We should go and join our brethren,’ Thomas said. ‘And until we have new leadership, I suggest we say nothing of what we have seen here — it will only lead to panic.’ He turned to Malachi. ‘You are not the only one who knows the chronicles.’
Malachi nodded, but his eyes were still magnified with fear. He turned and took a last long look at the empty Tau as the others filed out behind him. ‘If the Sacrament is removed from the Citadel, then the Church will fall, not the mountain,’ he muttered, too quiet for anyone else to hear. Then he quickly left the chapel, afraid to be left there alone.
4
Room 406, Davlat Hastenesi Hospital
Liv Adamsen burst from sleep like a breathless swimmer breaking surface. She gasped for air, her blonde hair plastered across pale, damp skin, her frantic green eyes scanning the room for something real to cling to, something tangible to help drag her away from the horrors of her nightmare. She heard a whispering, as though someone was close by, and cast about for its source.
No one there.
The room was small: a solid door opposite the steel-framed bed she was lying on; an old TV fixed high on a ceiling bracket in the corner; a single window set into a wall whose white paint was yellowing and flaking as if infected. The blind was down, but bright daylight glowed behind it, throwing the sharp outline of bars against the wipe-clean material. She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, and caught the scent of sickness and disinfectant in the air.
Then she remembered.
She was in a hospital — though she didn’t know why, or how she had come to be there.
She took more breaths, long and deep and calming. Her heart still thudded in her chest, the whispering rush continued in her ears, so loud and immediate that she had to stop herself from checking the room again.
Get a grip, she told herself. It’s just blood rushing through your veins. There’s no one here.
The same nightmare seemed to lie in wait for her every time she fell asleep, a dream of whispering blackness, where pain bloomed like red flowers, and a shape loomed, ominous and terrifying — a cross in the shape of a letter ‘T’. And there was something else in the darkness with her, something huge and terrible. She could hear it moving and feel the shaking of the earth as it came towards her, but always, just as it was about to emerge from the black and reveal itself, she would wake in terror.
She lay there for a while, breathing steadily to calm the panic, tripping through a mental list of what she could remember.
My name is Liv Adamsen.
I work for the New Jersey Inquirer.
I was trying to discover what happened to Samuel.
An image of a monk flashed in her mind, standing on top of a dark mountain, forming the sign of a cross with his body even as he tipped forward and fell.
I came here to find out why my brother died.
In the shock of this salvaged memory Liv remembered where she was. She was in Turkey, close to the edge of Europe, in the ancient city of Ruin. And the sign Samuel had made — the Tau — was the sign of the Sacrament, the same shape that now haunted her dreams. Except it wasn’t a dream, it was real. In her blossoming consciousness she knew that she had seen the shape, somewhere in the darkness of the Citadel — she had seen the Sacrament. She focused on the memory, willing it to take sharper form, but it kept shifting, like something at the edge of her vision or a word she could not recall. All she could remember was a feeling of unbearable pain and of… confinement.
She glanced up at the heavy door, noticing the keyhole now and recalling the corridor beyond. She had glimpsed it as the doctors and nurses had come and gone over the past few days.
How many days? Four? Five, maybe.
She had also seen two chairs pushed up against the wall with men sitting on them. The first was a cop, the uniform a dark blue, the badges unfamiliar. The other had also worn a uniform: black shoes, black suit, black shirt, a thin strip of white at the collar. The thought of him, sitting just a few metres from her made the fear rise up again. She knew enough of the bloody history of Ruin to realize the danger she was in. If she had seen the Sacrament and they suspected it then they would try to silence her — like they had silenced her brother. It was how they had maintained their secret for so long. It was a cliche, but it was true — the dead kept their secrets.
And the priest standing vigil outside her door was not there to minister to her troubled soul or pray for her rapid recovery.
He was there to keep her contained.
He was there to ensure her silence.
Room 410
