Athanasius watched Axel, taking the opportunity to consider the man who had so recently challenged him and would undoubtedly do so again in the forthcoming elections. He was an authoritative presence, there was no doubt about that. Eight years as captain of the guards had gifted him the ability to deliver orders with supreme confidence and conviction. This quality would be attractive to many in the mountain who were used to strong command. But there was a chink in his armour.
Elections in the Citadel had historically been run to fill one vacancy — the position of Abbot. When the Prelate died, the Abbot automatically became acting head of the monastery until he was confirmed. This had always been a formality with seldom a challenge mounted — and certainly never a successful one. This time, however, it would be different. There was no automatic succession. Both the Prelate and the Abbot were dead and all their natural heirs — the Sancti — were gone. This time the men of the mountain would not only be voting for a new Abbot but a new Prelate as well, and between these two positions, the whole future of the Citadel would be decided. Because of this Athanasius had realized that, as in the American presidential race, success would depend on the combined appeal of both candidates, not the influence and standing of one. And Axel had no obvious allies. He had risen to his position through ambition and single-mindedness. He might be respected, but he wasn’t liked. So if he ran for Abbot, who would be his Prelate? And if he ran for Prelate, who would serve directly under him? He might be able to convince one of the guards to stand as his running mate, but everyone would realize he was merely a puppet candidate whose sole purpose was to ensure that Axel achieved his long-held goal. And if Axel was elected, Athanasius knew he would re-establish the Sancti in the name of tradition, slam the door on any reform and restore everything to the way it had been before. He was, after all, a soldier; strict orders and routine were what he trusted and understood. The old ways suited him perfectly.
There were of course others in the Citadel who would put themselves forward and stand a chance of election. Father Malachi, for example, was well respected and a definite candidate, but Athanasius felt sure he could forge some kind of alliance with him. As chamberlain to the previous Abbot, he knew the workings of the Citadel more than most and was therefore a useful ally.
But Axel was a different case. The best way to deal with him was to keep him isolated in his candidacy and hope his staunch adherence to the old hierarchy would alienate the large moderate faction within the mountain. The Sancti were gone, and there were many who did not mourn their passing and would relish their return even less. These were the people Athanasius would appeal to. These were the key to the Citadel’s future.
‘Hold steady!’
He looked up as the second distance marker rose from the darkness, indicating that the Ascension platform was nearing the top. Axel stopped pacing and stepped forward to peer over the lip of the tribute hatch, withdrawing his gun from his sleeve as he did so. Then he gasped and stepped away, levelling his gun at the darkness. The rest of the guards followed his lead, just as the supporting ropes rose, bringing the platform level with the floor.
Standing in the middle of the platform was a man, dressed in the apparel of a priest. Red eyes stared out at them from blackened skin and his lips curled in a parody of a smile as he regarded them coolly. ‘Such a welcome for an old friend,’ it said, in a voice that was ragged but familiar. ‘Have I really changed that much?’
It was the syrupy Slavic voice that made Athanasius realize who was standing before them. Brother Dragan, youngest of the Sancti, now returned from the dead and risen back into the mountain, his bloody eyes scanning the faces of the assembled men like Death seeking out the weakest.
‘Fetch me my robes,’ he commanded. A guard scuttled off, tripping in his haste to obey. ‘And send word to the Abbot that I have returned.’
Axel cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible. Brother Abbot has sadly passed.’
Dragan shuffled forward stiffly and stepped off the platform on to the solid rock floor of the tribute cave. ‘Send word to the Prelate then.’
‘Again, that will not be possible. I regret that he too is no longer with us.’
‘So who is the most senior monk remaining?’
Axel turned to look at the heads of the guilds, huddled by the spindle in the centre of the room. ‘We have been running things democratically until such time as elections provide new leaders.’ He turned back to Dragan. ‘But now that God has seen fit to bless us with your return, you are the most senior monk in the Citadel.’
Dragan nodded and his lips curled in another ghastly smile. ‘In that case, take me to the Prelate’s quarters and spread the word throughout the mountain that, by the grace of God, a Sanctus has returned.’
And with that he walked past everyone into the darkness of the mountain, dragging Athanasius’s dreams of reform with him.
III
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.
47
Badiyat al-Sham, Al Anbar Province, Western Iraq
There was nothing on earth like being in the desert at night.
The same thin air that offered so little protection from the hellish daytime sun let in the absolute cold of space when darkness fell to steal the heat away again. And then there were the stars: billions of them, filling the sky with pinpoints of light and casting a microscopic glow over everything. The Bedouin used the stars to travel at night, their desert eyes accustomed to levels of light that city dwellers could never perceive. The Ghost used this skill now to pick his way over the stony ground and gravel paths, following the line of the dragon’s back into the place the Bedouin called the land of thirst and terror.
The Syrian Desert was over half a million square kilometres of nothing. It spread across the land like a crusted sore, spilling out of Syria into northern Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. There were no settlements in the heart of it and no proper roads. During the Iraq War the insurgents had fallen back here, using the prehistoric brutality of the desert environment as their main defence against the technological might of the modern war machine. And it had worked; machinery broke down, dust storms grounded all air support, even hi-tech thermal- imaging systems could be rendered blind by the simple strategy of lying under a blanket on a warm rock. It was impossible to fight people when they had the land and nature on their side.
The insurgents had used the desert as their main base of operations, resupplying themselves with men and equipment that flowed over the leaky and unpatrolable border with Syria. It was only when the invaders had taken all the towns that they moved back to the cities to harry the new government with the more traditional terrorist tactics of roadside bombs and the ever-present threat of kidnap. So the desert was empty again — and yet, as the Ghost rode on through the night, he began to sense that he was not alone.
He saw the first signs of something out of place a few hours before dawn when the cold had chilled the air to crystal clarity and the moon began to rise. It was a dark shape, away in the distance, stretching across the otherwise flat horizon. Dismounting, he approached it on foot, keeping low to the ground so that any watching eyes with thermal-imaging scopes would not be able to see his hot outline against the cold sky.
As he drew closer he saw that the dark shape was actually a shadow, cast by the rising moon and a large mound of rocks and dirt that had been piled high next to a hole in the ground. He dropped lower and crawled towards it, stopping every now and then to listen to the empty silence broken only by the intermittent whisper of night breezes flowing around the jagged edges of the pile of rocks and earth.
The hole next to it was only a metre or so deep, far too shallow to account for the size of the pile that cast such a long shadow. In the middle of the hole a rock the size of a car had been partly excavated, then abandoned,
