The nymph waited a moment longer, then stepped back into line with the others. One of the hydra's tentacles encircled Torino's right leg and another his left. Two more grasped his arms and began to pull them apart. He kept his hands clasped for as long as he could but the tentacles were too strong, forcing him to release his grip. As the fragment fell to the ground and the nymphs placed it by the monolith, he expected the tentacles to release him. But they didn't. They kept pulling his arms until they were stretched out on each side of him like a cross. Then they pulled apart his legs. Slowly and inexorably he felt his muscles, tendons and ligaments being stretched as if he were on the Inquisition's rack.
Now the pain came. Torino had never known such agony.
With it he experienced the first flicker of doubt: how could God let this happen to him? Surely the Lord must save him so he could finish his sacred mission.
The trunk of the hydra pulsed and throbbed as its tentacles slowly and relentlessly pulled him apart. Torino could feel his muscles tearing. Why was this happening to him? He had done nothing wrong. Everything he had ever done had been designed to bring glory to the Holy Mother Church. He heard his left elbow pop and his shoulder tendons tear. And he heard himself scream: 'Why, God, why?'
More serpentine tentacles hovered before him. However, unlike the appendages pulling him apart, these had bullet-shaped heads, razor teeth and baleful red eyes. The nymphs watched as the worms studied him: angels and demons united in their mission of torment. However, as terrifying as the worms were, Torino almost welcomed the release they offered. But how could he die now – here? He still had too much to do. Why had God forsaken him?
The first attack was so fast he barely saw the rock worm as it bored a perfectly circular hole in his stretched abdomen, then recoiled, dragging his entrails with it. Torino looked down at the intestines spilling over his belt and cried out in despair. The second worm bit into his left hip. Even as the third attacked, severing the fingers of his right hand, he still couldn't believe that the Lord wouldn't save him.
Only in the last seconds of his life, as the tentacles ripped his left arm from his torso, and the worms bored into his face, did his cries for salvation curdle into the screams of the damned. Ross could hear Torino's screams from down the tunnel but he felt no satisfaction at his enemy's downfall. When the sound stopped, and the priest's blood flowed past him in the stream, he felt only fear – and shame. He had come here for no other reason than to save Lauren's life and, in this selfish quest, he had never once considered the garden's own need to survive. He had trespassed into the cradle of life, bringing death and destruction in his wake. Not only had he led Torino here but he'd failed to stop him and his men destroying the garden, killing nymphs and attacking the monolith.
As the angry nymphs and hydra closed in, he saw that he was as much an intruder as Torino, an unwelcome alien who had brought nothing but harm. The nymphs had saved him once – from his own kind – but now he was convinced they must punish him. As the tentacles came closer, he resisted the urge to turn and fight his way out. Instead he found himself reaching involuntarily for the heavy crucifix round his neck. The Latin cross, with its three-inch-long shaft and two-inch crossbeam, was crude in the palm of his hand. Etched into the soft metal at the centre were the initials AMDG, which Sister Chantal had explained denoted the motto of Father Orlando Falcon's Jesuit order: ad majorem dei gloriam, to the greater glory of God. He now understood that Father Orlando and Sister Chantal had lived and died by that dictum, putting their belief in their God above the doctrine of the Church. Whatever Ross himself believed, the purity of their faith humbled him now.
He felt something brush his skin. As he looked up, two tentacles touched his arm and dread coursed through him. Then the nymph with the red flowers in its hair appeared and reached for the cross. He took it off and surrendered it. As the nymph examined it others gathered round to touch it with a kind of reverence. He remembered how Sister Chantal had held it up to calm them when she had first entered the antechamber with him.
They gathered round it for some minutes, stroking it. Then the nymph with the red flowers returned it to him. Before he could replace it round his neck, the nymph pushed him hard in the stomach, forcing him to step back. It pushed him again and he took another step. The hydra's tentacles followed him, but when he glanced over his shoulder the nymphs behind him parted and formed an avenue. He continued shuffling backwards, holding the crucifix in one hand and Torino's backpack in the other, until he was out of the tunnel of blood. The nymph continued to push him through the antechamber until his back rested against the fallen rocks blocking the entrance to the garden. He knew he was no longer welcome and had to take his chances outside, however hot the garden might be. He backed into the narrow passage through which he and Bazin had crawled, keeping his eyes on the nymphs. The rocks on each side were hot but he dared not stop until he was in the garden, safe from the nymphs and the hydra.
As he left, he could see and hear rocks being moved, blocking the passageway, sealing the forbidden caves. The ground was hot underfoot and he coughed in the smoky air. He appeared to be in a vast incinerator, a grim funnel of granite in which all life had been extinguished. Nothing remained of the garden. The trees and plants were gone and a thick blanket of charcoal and soot covered the ground. Everything was black. Even the sky above was so thick with ash that it obscured most of the sunlight. The sooty lake betrayed no hint of its earlier phosphorescence.
The desolation shocked Ross, but he consoled himself that he had at least stopped Torino escaping with the fragment. If he hadn't, the Superior General would have returned with more firepower, destroyed the hydra and taken control of the Source, abusing its power to glorify his church. He looked down at the rocks sealing the forbidden caves and saw a tiny trickle of phosphorescent water leak out of the caves into what was left of the contaminated stream. He thought of how a forest regenerates itself after fire and reassured himself that, so long as the Source was safe, the garden would return. Life would find a way.
So long as the Source was safe.
Looking across the charred expanse, he thought of how Torino had tried to possess this place, and an idea came to him of how to protect it from future interlopers – whether the Church, oil companies or civilization itself.
Something crackled in the backpack and he heard Zeb's muffled voice. 'Ross, are you there?'
He retrieved the radio and put it to his lips. 'Zeb, I'm in the garden. Where are you? Is Nigel okay?'
'We're in the passage between the garden and the sulphur caves. It's a tad warm but it's safe,' said Zeb. 'What about Marco and the Superior General?'
'Both dead.'
'The Source?'
'It's still there. So are the hydra and most of the nymphs. They're angry but okay.'
He looked across the expanse of the black lake to the far end of the garden as Zeb and Hackett emerged from the sulphur caves. He waved, then moved across the thick blanket of ash to join them.
When he reached them they embraced him.
'Everything's gone,' Hackett kept saying. 'I can't believe it. Everything out here's gone.' His horror encouraged Ross. He was confident that eco-warrior Zeb would support his plan to protect this place, but he needed Hackett's full commitment, too. Though clearly affected by the garden and its destruction, the Englishman had joined their quest seeking glory and gold, and had found them.
'What would you be prepared to do to protect this place and stop this happening again, Nigel?' Ross said, watching him carefully.
The Englishman frowned. 'What do you have in mind?'
After they had listened to Ross's plan, Zeb nodded and squeezed Hackett's hand. 'Come on, Nigel. What do you say?'
For a long time he stared down at her hand in his. Then he looked up at Ross. 'Okay.'
Ross narrowed his eyes. 'You do realize what this means, Nigel? It'll protect both this place and the lost city, but – and it's a big but – you'll never be able to tell anyone about your mother metropolis. You'll never have your glory.'
Hackett absorbed the implications. 'If you can live with keeping your geological discovery secret, then I can keep quiet about my great archaeological find.' He smiled. 'We didn't discover them anyway. Father Orlando found this place and Sister Chantal the lost city. We're merely looking after them. Keeping them safe.'
'What about the gold?'
'It won't be easy,' said Hackett, 'but I've got contacts.'
'We need to get back to civilization and get started then,' said Zeb. She pointed to the sulphur caves. 'We
