The Tower (21 page)

Athanasius took a breath and ran his hand over the smooth dome of his skull. He had hoped the carrot of a cure might have been enough to tempt Malachi away from his entrenched and long-held suspicion of the world beyond the walls. He should have known better. ‘We are all united in suffering,’ he said, ‘and in our desire to prevent others from suffering as we have.’ Malachi said nothing. He just continued to stare through the window like a glowing, malevolent ghost. ‘We have been asked to allow medical teams into the mountain so they might treat our infected and study the disease at its origin.’

Malachi’s eyebrows shot up in outrage. ‘Outsiders? Inside the mountain? I hope you are not seriously considering this lunacy?’

‘Is it lunacy? To want to try and arrest the spread of this creeping death?’

‘We have weathered plagues in the mountain before. You should read your history, Brother Athanasius. We suffered and survived our trials then and we shall do so again, and without the need to welcome the world in to gawp at us and what we guard here – our sacred order is more robust than you give it credit for.’

‘The plagues of the past are nothing compared to what we face now,’ Father Thomas cut in, stepping into the narrow airlock to join Athanasius. ‘Historically there has always been greater medical knowledge inside the mountain than outside, so there was never any need to look further than these walls for cures and treatments. We have also historically enjoyed rude health, have we not? But with the march of time and the loss of the Sacrament neither of those things are now true.’

‘Yes,’ Malachi replied, his fierce eyes turning back to Athanasius, ‘and whose fault is that? Had the Sacrament remained here then none of this would have happened. If you want to cure this blight that you have brought upon us then I suggest you concentrate on returning the Sacrament to the mountain where it belongs. That is my answer. Bring back the girl and what she stole and we shall see then how things change.’

Athanasius was not a violent man but if the thick glass of the airlock door had not stood between them he may well have struck Malachi right then and there in the middle of his narrow-minded face. The whole world could wither and perish for all Malachi cared, just so long as his precious library remained unsullied and safe. His act of sabotaging the entry system so he could prevent people freely entering his dark kingdom merely proved it: he had effectively pulled up a drawbridge to create a state within a state, with himself and all the other librarians inside and everyone else without.

‘Do you intend to stay locked up in there indefinitely?’ Athanasius asked, the hint of a plan starting to form in his mind.

‘I do indeed, both to protect the library as well as shield my staff from the dangerous tide of lunatic liberalism that seems to be sweeping through the corridors of the Citadel.’

‘So I take it you will not even consider this letter or the proposal it contains?’

Malachi looked at the envelope in Athanasius’s hand as if it were a viper about to strike. ‘I will not even touch it,’ he replied.

‘Very well,’ Athanasius took a step back and rejoined Thomas in the passage. ‘As you have effectively removed yourself from the community of the mountain you have also disqualified yourself from its governance. Therefore, Father Thomas and I will now vote on this matter ourselves.’

Malachi looked like he was about to explode. ‘You can’t do that. Any change in the constitution must be voted on and agreed unanimously by all the guilds. And for that you need me.’

Athanasius shook his head. ‘If you read the Citadelic statutes closely you will see that in fact a consensus is required from all
active
guilds, as voted for by their chief representatives. And as you have just made abundantly clear, you and your members are no longer an active part of the mountain. So as sole representatives of the still active guilds within the mountain Thomas and I will consider the merit of this proposal alone. We shall inform you of our decision once it is made, of course, out of courtesy. Good day, Father Malachi.’

Then he turned and walked briskly away before Malachi had a chance to respond.

The C-130 dropped through violently churning clouds and banked hard to bring it into the wind and onto its approach heading.

‘Jesus, would you look at that,’ the pilot’s voice crackled through the comms.

Shepherd peered across the cargo space and through the tiny windows opposite. He caught small glimpses of the city of Charleston below, frozen solid and blanketed with snow. He wondered why the pilot sounded so surprised after what he had told them about the weather earlier. It was like this all over the South he had said. A section of midtown slid into view, the higher buildings looking like huge ice crystals that had punched up through the ground, then the plane shifted again, bringing a new view into the windows.

Below him the broad Cooper River snaked through the heart of the city. It seemed low, just a narrow channel winding its way through flat, snow dusted banks. The USS Yorktown, a World War Two museum ship at permanent mooring just down from the Ravenel Bridge, looked like it was beached on the white flats. Then Shepherd saw cracks in the white that surrounded it and realized what it was. The river wasn’t low at all and the white flats not the banks, they
were
the river. The whole thing had frozen solid leaving just a trickle of water running down the centre.

The plane levelled off, bringing more of the city into view and Shepherd finally saw what the pilot had seen. It wasn’t the snow or even the extraordinary sight of a frozen South Carolina tidal river that had drawn the exclamation from his lips – it was what was on the river.

East of the bridge and beyond the cracked edge of the ice sheet where the fresh water met the salt of the sea were more ships than Shepherd had ever seen before in one place. Closest to land were smaller vessels and fishing boats, all crammed together so tight it looked like you could almost walk across the river using them as stepping-stones. Further out in the deeper water were bigger ships: container vessels, tankers, cruise liners, military ships and even the immense outline of an aircraft carrier. It was an astonishing sight and there was something both impressive and deeply unsettling about it. Just before the plane started its final descent and cut the view entirely Shepherd realized what it was. They all had their bow inward. Every single one of the hundred or so ships was pointing towards land.

Father Malachi surged through the library in his halo of light.

Following his meeting with Athanasius and Father Thomas he was in a state of total shock. A month ago, when the Abbot and the Prelate still lived and the Sancti still held sway within the mountain, Athanasius would have been executed for even considering the heresy he was now proposing. Secrecy and isolation were how the mountain had kept its great secrets for so long. Now that damned fool with his weak, liberal ideas was going to allow a bunch of total strangers inside – civilians, doctors, women! – all of them carrying this filthy disease. How quickly the solid walls of his world had started to crumble.

He passed through an arch and strode through the Renaissance section, his follow light becoming steadily dimmer as he travelled back through the great archive of man’s learning. While others in the Citadel turned to God in their time of need, Malachi always found divinity and peace in the written word. Every great thought and every profound event mankind had ever had or experienced was written and recorded somewhere in this vast network of caves. There was an answer for everything here somewhere.

When that damned monk Samuel had jumped to his death and the Abbot had confided in him that his body may have contained clues as to the identity of the Sacrament, he had come to the library and taken solace in the chronicles of the
Rides of the Tabula Rasa
. These recorded every historical instance where the identity of the Sacrament had been threatened. Each time the knights had ridden out and each time the traitors had been found and silenced and the Sacrament’s secret had remained. Later when the blight had appeared he had found records detailing outbreaks of other contagions throughout the Citadel’s long history. Again, the mountain had always recovered and prospered. It would do so again. He had to believe that. Whatever lunacy Athanasius was considering it was up to him to maintain the true spirit of the Citadel. And with the Sacrament gone it was the library that now held the greatest secrets. He would keep the door locked and the world outside, even if the mountain beyond was awash with strangers. The soul of the Citadel was in these books, and so – somewhere – was the answer to the question now running though his head. ‘What should be done about Athanasius?’

Liv and Tariq stood by the edge of the pool, staring down at the muddy dish of water. They had only been in the desert half a day but already the water level was down by half.

‘You did tell everyone to go easy?’ Liv murmured.

Tariq nodded and squinted up at the sun, dropping low in the afternoon sky. ‘It’s not the people who are the problem.’

The combination of fierce desert sun, the dam stopping the river from replenishing the pool and the natural leaching away of water into the dry ground meant the pool was emptying so fast they could almost see it happening.

Liv looked up at Tariq. ‘We can’t stay here long. Where’s the nearest town or settlement?’

He nodded back towards the compound. ‘Al-Hillah is half a day’s ride in that direction, so maybe two days’ walking.’

Liv imagined walking for two days in this heat. The few hours it had taken to get here had been hellish enough. ‘How much food do we have?’

‘Hardly any: the riders didn’t give us much time to pack and everyone was busy filling their canteens with water. Certainly not enough to feed everyone on a hard, two-day journey.’ He looked at the lengthening shadows stretching across the land. ‘I will go alone, one person alone will need less food. The heat is fading so I could travel all night and cover a lot of ground. I will take as little as I need and bring back horses and supplies. The water here should last another day.’

Liv shook her head. ‘If you’re going I’m coming with you.’

‘No. You should stay.’

‘With Kasim and his barely disguised looks of hate? I don’t think so. Besides, what if something happens to you out there and we’re stuck here, slowly dying of hunger and thirst while we wait for your return?’

‘Nothing will happen to me.’

‘Not if there’s two of us it won’t. Come on, let’s go check the food supplies and break the happy news.’ She turned and walked away before Tariq could argue.

The food had been collected and stored in a large backpack that was kept in the shade of one of the rocks to protect it from the worst of the heat. They had been rationing it, handing out just a handful of dried dates or a small piece of an energy bar every few hours to make it last. Liv wasn’t sure how much was left but figured she and Tariq would need to take the lion’s share to give them the energy they would need for their journey. She scanned the patches of shade beneath the larger boulders looking for Kasim, figuring if anyone was going to object to their plan it would be him. She felt relieved when she couldn’t see him.

She made it to the boulder where their ‘larder’ was kept and reached into the gap beneath it for the pack. She knew something was wrong the moment her hand closed around the shoulder strap and pulled the bag towards her. It was too light. She dragged it out, unsnapped the cover and looked inside. Empty.

She looked around in panic, her exhausted mind knocked sideways by the discovery. The flat stone and pocket knife used for cutting the energy bars was on the ground beside her. She
was
in the right place – so where was the food? No one had said anything about it running low the last time the rations had been handed out.

Then she stopped dead, remembering the last person who had done it.

It had been Kasim.

Kasim had handed round the last rations about an hour ago.

And now Kasim was missing.

Joint Base Charleston served as both a civil and a military airport, hence the blunt utility of its name. It was also shared by different branches of the armed forces and the C-130 pulled to a stop now between the drooping wings of two massive C17 military transports, one painted in Army camouflage the other in Air Force blue.

‘Agents Franklin and Shepherd?’ Their welcoming committee snapped to attention as they walked down the loading ramp into a freezing wind that was whipping off the river. He was a two-chevron Petty Officer with a clipboard and a pink, scrubbed-looking face that appeared to be suffering in the cold. Franklin flashed his creds, Shepherd fumbled his from the coat he’d borrowed from Marshall after his had been destroyed by the helium blast, the PO ticked something on his clipboard and gestured towards a waiting Crown Victoria with base markings on the side and its engine running. ‘Sorry gentlemen, you just got me. We’re kind of short-staffed here. And I can’t hang around or let you have the car either. I can take you off base and into town but that’s about all. Traffic is hellacious today for some reason. You’ll have to find your own way back. I’m real sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it, son – we’re grateful for any help.’ Franklin showed him Cooper’s address and the PO whistled through his teeth. ‘Fancy. That’s south of Broad in the old town, where the tourists go and the rich folks live. Like I say, I can take you there but I can’t wait.’

Franklin held up his hands in surrender. ‘No problem – we can hook up with the local PD once we’re off base and take it from there.’

Franklin moved towards the passenger seat leaving the back for Shepherd. He didn’t speak again until the car was rolling.