The Key. Simon Toyne
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stood three circular whetstones, mounted on sturdy wooden frames with treadles to turn the wheels. Beyond them on the back wall a large circular stone with the sign of the Tau carved at its centre had been rolled to one side to reveal an arched doorway.
‘The chapel of the Sacrament,’ Axel said, staring into the darkness beyond the door. For a moment they all stood, tensed and nervous as if expecting a beast to come rushing out of the dark towards them. It was Axel who stepped forward to break the spell, holding his torch in front of him like a talisman against whatever might be waiting there. The light pushed away the dark, first revealing more dead candles inside the door, drowned in puddles of cold wax, then a wall, curving away to the left where the chapel opened out. Then they saw what the sharpening stones were for.
The walls were covered with blades.
Axes, cleavers, swords, daggers – all lined up from floor to ceiling. They reflected the torches, glittering like stars and carrying the light deeper into the chapel to where a shape rose up in the dark, about the same height as a man and as familiar to each of them as their own face. It was the Tau, symbol of the Sacrament, now transformed in front of them into the Sacrament itself.
At first it appeared like darkness solidified, but as Axel took a step forward, light reflected dully on its surface, revealing that it was made of some kind of metal bonded together with rivets. The base was bolted with brackets to the stone floor, where deep channels had been cut, radiating out to the edge of the room where they joined deeper gulleys that disappeared into the dark corners. A withered plant curled around the lower part of the cross, clinging to the sides in dry tendrils.
The group drew closer, drawn by the gravity of the strange object, and saw that the entire front section of the cross was open, hinged at the far end of the cross beam and supported by a chain fixed to the roof of the cave.
Inside the Tau was hollow and filled with hundreds of long needles.
‘Can this be the Sacrament?’ Father Malachi voiced what everyone in the group was thinking.
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.