The Tower (54 page)

Authors: Simon Toyne

Tags: #Suspense

BOOK: The Tower

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Gabriel knelt down and wiped his hand across the surface of the Starmap, clearing the dew to reveal the symbols beneath. In the middle of the second line an arrow pointed down, something Liv had always assumed meant ‘King’. Now, in the light of all that had happened, she saw it was more general than that.

The Sacrament comes home and The Key looks to heaven

A new star is born with a new
ruler
on Earth to bring order to the end of days.

The baby began to stir in her arms as Gabriel hooked his fingers round the edge of the stone and hauled it over to reveal the symbols on the other side.

The star that heralded the end of the old had new meaning for her now. It spoke of opposites coming together and a balance being struck, for it was made up of two other symbols, the ones for the Citadel and for Eden. The symbol below also spoke of reconciliation, though this one was far more personal. When she first saw it Liv thought it must refer to her in some sinister way, the Tau with a line cutting through it. Now she realized what it was. It was the Tau and the sword combined, her symbol and Gabriel’s together, creating something new entirely.

The baby wriggled and stretched in her arms, the hungry mouth searching for its mother. ‘What shall we call her? I was thinking maybe Kathryn,’ Liv said, referring to the wife of the man lying buried beneath the stone – Gabriel’s mother.

Gabriel smiled and kissed the top of Liv’s head. ‘It’s a good name,’ he said. ‘Do you know what it means?’

The baby girl yawned, unaware of the wonderful new world she had been born into.

‘It means “pure” …’

EPILOGUE

The sun shines and traffic flows freely down the great wide boulevards of Ruin, all signs of the quarantine that held the city in its grip for most of the previous year now gone. The people have returned, the dead are remembered and life goes on.

In the centre of the city, looming above it all, the Citadel remains as dark and silent as always. It has cast its long shadow here before there was a city and will do so after the city has crumbled to dust. But those who have held sway for so long inside it and spread their influence way beyond the physical shadow of the mountain are now gone. After thousands of years withstanding everything kings and emperors could throw at it in their attempts to crack open the walls and learn its great secrets, it was a virus, one of the smallest life-forms on Earth that brought the mountain down.

But life goes on for the Citadel too.

Today the embankment surrounding the mountain is filled with people and news cameras, there to witness its reopening. Cameras have already been inside, moving through the carved corridors to reveal to the outside world all that it wondered about for so long – the dormitories, the refectories, the great cathedral cave, all preserved exactly as they were when the monks lived there.

At the foot of the mountain, where the ascension platform used to rest, the mayor now gives a speech and the news cameras roam the crowd, capturing the excitement and anticipation of the first people to ride the newly installed elevators up the side of the mountain into what used to be the tribute cave. A man hangs back, hiding beneath a hat and behind dark glasses. He avoids the cameras, for he has nothing to share. He has been inside the mountain before.

A ribbon is cut and cameras flash, capturing the first elevator shooting up to the dark cave where more cameras are waiting to capture the looks on the faces of the first people to take this journey into a secret world few have ever known or seen before.

A tour guide leads them through the tunnels, explaining how the monks lived and recounting crowd-pleasing stories culled from the Citadel’s long and bloody history. The man in the hat listens from the back of the group, making mental notes when the guide deviates too far from the script he helped write so he can correct him in the debrief later.

He puts the dark glasses on again as the group steps out into the brightness of the garden and the guide tries his best to paint a picture of what the barren space might have looked like when everything flourished. He moves on quickly, sensing the crowd is not that interested, and heads back inside to the grand finale of the cathedral cave. But the man in the hat remains. He removes his sunglasses and stares at a spot by the firestone where the ground has been nourished by the ash of the fire. He walks over and squats down, removing his hat to fan the dust away from the thing he has seen. The dust blows away and Athanasius breaks into a broad smile at the miracle he has discovered. It is a green shoot rising up from the grey ground straight and sharp, like a model of the Citadel in miniature.

A new life. A new hope. A new beginning.

Acknowledgements

Writing a novel is a lonely process, particularly when you are grappling with the end of the world. For shining much needed light down into the dark of the first draft mines I would like to thank my agent Alice Saunders, who inspires, encourages and constantly nags me to do more exercise; Peta Nightingale who turns the first draft into something altogether more second draft and George Lucas at Inkwell Management who keeps the Sanctus flags fluttering in America.

At HarperCollins I am luckier than any writer deserves to be in having the legends that are Julia Wisdom in the UK and David Highfill in the US nudging, cajoling and supporting me throughout the lengthy process of turning an idea into a book. Loud applause must also be reserved for their sterling teams of editorial staff, designers, marketeers and sales folk. Particular thanks must also go to the long-suffering Emad Akhtar in the UK for his patience and professionalism in the face of the tightest of deadlines. I also owe a huge debt to everyone at ILA who continue to spread the Sanctus story to the four corners of the globe.

As ever, final thanks must go to my inspirational children, Roxy, Stan and baby Betsy Bean, as well as my wife Kathryn for all the love, support – and for doing all the nights when I needed to work. I love you all, though – obviously – in slightly different ways.

Simon Toyne

Brighton

February 2013

About the Author

In 2007 Simon Toyne quit his job and moved to France to fulfil a long-held desire to write a thriller. After a sleepless night crossing the Channel, he and his family abandoned a planned eight-hour drive to their new home and limped instead to the city of Rouen. It was the sight of the sharp spire of Rouen Cathedral piercing the pre-dawn sky that gave birth to the fictional Citadel of
Sanctus
.

Sanctus
and
The Key
both became immediate bestsellers. To date they have been translated into 27 languages and published in 40 countries.
The Tower
is Simon’s third novel.

thesancti.com

simontoyne.net

@sjtoyne

Also by Simon Toyne

Sanctus

The Key

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
2013

Simon Toyne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007391639

Ebook Edition © April 2013 ISBN: 9780007507481

Version 1

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