The Key (31 page)

And he waited.

Beyond the walls of the mountain, in the streets of the old town, all was quiet. The cleaning crew had gone and the waning crescent moon was up. In the police station Gabriel and Arkadian ran through the various things they each had to do, then shook hands and parted. Arkadian stayed back, Gabriel slipped out of the door and made his way up the silent hill towards the Citadel. It was almost one o’clock in the morning.

He trod softly, listening to the night. Everything was quiet. Even the city had gone silent beyond the old town wall.

The public square, thronged with tourists by day, was now empty, and eerie because of it. Gabriel slipped through one of the presentation arches beside the public church, and looked up at the Citadel. He felt exactly as he always did before a combat mission: focused, coiled – and a little afraid. Fear was essential. It stopped him from being complacent, and there was much to fear in what he was about to attempt.

Skirting the darker edge of the embankment, he kept close to the buildings as he made his way towards the wooden bridge spanning the dry moat. Above him he could see the tribute cave, high up on the sheer face of the mountain. No light burned within it. The only indication that there was anything there at all was the thin line of a rope, barely visible against the side of the mountain, a straight scratch on the surface of the night leading all the way down to the flat tribute stone at the base of the mountain.

He reached the rope and carefully took it in his hand, being careful not to pull on it. It was thinner than he had hoped and made in the traditional way out of hemp – not the strongest of materials, but at least it had a rough surface that would give him something to grip. He took a pair of climbing gloves from his pocket and slipped them over his hands, scanning the embankment for any sign of movement. A drooping flag on the side of a building drifted in the hint of a breeze. A piece of litter the night crew had missed skittered over the flagstones. Other than that there was nothing.

Gabriel took hold of a section of the rope and tested it. It creaked as he pulled on it, stretching a little, but not much. It would have to do. He took a deep breath, flooding his body with oxygen then heaved down on the rope, leaning all his weight into it and bracing himself for a quick exit if a metallic clang sounded high above him.

Nothing happened.

The message had got through.

The Ascension bell had been silenced.

Straddling the rope, he swept it round the outside of his right leg and over the top of his boot. He reached up and gripped it, pulling himself up, feeding the rope over the top of his right boot then trapping it in place with the sole of his left, which acted as a brake, holding his weight in his legs and freeing his arms to reach further up the rope. It was a simple ‘brake and squat’ technique taught to every soldier in the US Army. It allowed you to inchworm your way up anything, so long as your upper body strength held out and the rope didn’t break. The tribute cave was about a hundred metres above him. Gabriel tried not to think about the odds of there being a weak spot somewhere along the length of the rope.

Instead, he cleared his mind of everything and set into a steady rhythm.

He was covering around a metre each cycle, a hundred reps before he reached the tribute cave. In battle training he had regularly done five sets of ten, though that had been on a thicker rope which had been easier to grip. At least he wasn’t carrying his combat pack this time, just a gun and a copy of his grandfather’s map.

He continued his steady rhythm, twisting in the night air as the rope tightened and creaked. The tendons in his wrists started tightening too, burning with each new grip. His rhythm slowed, but he continued steadily. He kept thinking of Liv, scared and alone, being brought here now by the people who had killed his mother. He would not let the same thing happen to her. No matter how much pain he felt, he would keep on going, for her sake.

It took him nearly ten minutes to reach the tribute hatch, by which time every muscle in his arms and legs was screaming in agony and his clothes and gloves were soaked with sweat. Most of the hatch was filled with the solid wooden structure of the Ascension platform. The bell rope ran alongside it and disappeared into a hole in the rock; big enough for the rope to pass through, but much too narrow for him. He inched up the final length of exposed rope until his head rose above the level of the cave floor.

It was empty.

There was no one lying in wait for him.

He needed to get closer to the lip of the cave or the wooden platform, both of which were just beyond his reach. He began to shift his weight back and forth, setting the rope swinging. The rope creaked as the swinging increased. He would only have one chance at this.

The rope swung out.

The fibres creaked.

The edge of the cave rushed back at him.

He let go at the top of the upswing and arced towards it.

The moment the rope left his hand he knew he was going to land short. He could feel gravity dragging him down as if he had rocks in his pockets. He lunged desperately at the edge of the opening and hit it with a bone-crunching thud, jarring his ribs and knocking the wind from his lungs. His lower half dangled down into the dark, his arms the only thing stopping him from falling. He clung on, pain blooming in his ribs, circling his legs for something solid to kick against, but there was nothing there. The opening jutted out from the side of the mountain with nothing below it but a hundred-metre drop.

Gabriel focused his remaining energy into his shaking arms, willing them to pull him up, but the surface of the cave floor was like marble, worn smooth by thousands of years of traffic. Every time he tried to draw himself up, he lost a little ground, slipping back rather than inching forward. In the end he stopped moving altogether, locked in position, aware that if he carried on he would only keep slipping until he fell to his death.

But he had to do something.

Even just hanging there he could feel himself slipping, millimetre by millimetre. With a desperate effort he threw his right leg sideways, kicking it as high as he could. It caught the lip of the cave and stayed there. He wiggled his foot to gain more grip, the rubber of his sole squeaking its way across the slick surface. But for every inch of progress his foot made he could feel his arms weakening further. After the exertion of the climb there was no grip left in his fingers and nothing to hold on to. Hanging sideways, more off than on the rock platform, he knew his arms were most likely to give way first. With each second his sweat-dampened fingers were slipping. Soon he was going to fall head-first down the side of the mountain and he didn’t have the strength to stop it.

Then a hand grabbed the back of his jacket and started to tug him upwards.

Gabriel pulled too, timing his efforts with the rhythm of whoever was trying to haul him up so that in five well-timed tugs he was up and over the edge of the cave and sprawling gratefully against the stone floor. His sweat-slicked skin felt cool against the cold rock and he lay there for a moment, basking in the glory of being alive. Had it been made of eiderdown it could not have seemed more comfortable or welcoming. He looked up into the face of the man who had saved him.

‘We must hurry,’ Athanasius said, ‘we cannot be found here.’ He held out a bundle of folded robes. ‘Put these on and you will pass unnoticed through the mountain.’

Gabriel hauled himself off the floor, his shaking muscles complaining all the way, and pulled the scratchy woollen garments over the top of his own clothes. They would keep his aching muscles warm, which was good as he would need his strength again soon enough if he wanted to escape from the mountain. He looked up and held out his hand.

‘Gabriel,’ he said. ‘Thank you for saving my life again.’

The bald monk looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Athanasius,’ he replied, shaking the proffered hand, ‘or Brother Peacock, if you prefer. Your message mentioned something about a map.’

Gabriel dug a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. It was a copy of the map Oscar had drawn in his journal. Athanasius took it and traced the outlines of tunnels and corridors with his finger, until it arrived at the symbol of crossed bones.

‘It’s the ossuary,’ he said. ‘Whatever you seek lies buried below the cathedral cave, along with the sacred bones of the prelates.’ He lifted the oil lamp down from its niche in the wall. ‘Pull your cowl over your head, keep a distance behind me and hide if anyone stops me to talk. No one should be abroad in the mountain this late. Let’s just hope everyone else is obeying that rule more strictly than I.’

Then he turned and left the tribute cave, heading for the darker depths of the mountain.

Gabriel followed the glow of the oil lamp as it bobbed ahead of him in the darkness. It slid along the tunnels, picking out dark doors and wires that snaked along the walls like veins. Every ten paces or so a light fitting jutted out, but none were lit. He wondered if this was down to the recent earthquake or just to save energy. It was a thought that strangely unsettled him. For so long he had demonized the Citadel and all who dwelt within it that to find himself suddenly inside and struck by these trivial details seemed surreal. He reminded himself he was in the enemy camp and that he was here for a reason. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the reassuring weight of the gun, and kept his eyes on the light ten or so paces in front of him and his mind on his mission.

Sometimes the curve of the tunnel made the light vanish from sight for a second or two and he had to feel his way quickly along the rough walls to catch up. Other times it dropped to the left or rose to the right as Athanasius descended or climbed stairways to other levels. Gabriel tried to keep track of where he was, but it was impossible. He hoped his guide was taking him on this circuitous route to avoid the more populated areas of the mountain rather than to confuse him in a prelude to an ambush.

After ten minutes of walking, ducking beneath low lights and squeezing through tunnels so narrow only one man could pass at a time, they stepped through a grand doorway into a vista that took Gabriel’s breath away. The cave was so vast he felt dizzy from the sudden space. Huge stalactites hung down from the distant ceiling and a massive window was cut high in the far wall. He could see the partial moon through it, reminding him of the ticking clock as it cast its silver glow through the antique glass, creating watery patterns on the stone floor below. They must have walked right through the centre of the mountain and arrived on the other side.

‘This way,’ Athanasius whispered, ‘the ossuary lies beneath the cathedral cave.’

Gabriel followed him, past the looming shape of the Tau rising up from the altar to the far wall where a needling formation of stalagmites formed a natural screen hiding a small door studded with metal bolts. Athanasius twisted a key in the lock, the noise echoing in the huge space like the bolt-action on a rifle. Gabriel looked behind to check they were still alone before following Athanasius through the door.

They were at the head of a stone ramp descending into darkness. It smelled of death. Athanasius locked the door and headed down, the musty hint of decay growing stronger with each step. At the bottom of the ramp another door barred their way and the smell of dry, mouldering rot billowed out at them as it opened.

‘The ossuary,’ Athanasius said, stepping inside and holding up the oil lamp to cast its light into the chamber beyond.

There were rows of long niches cut into both walls, three-high, stretching away into the darkness in either direction, making the narrow chamber resemble a carriage on a sleeper train, but those who slept here would never wake. In each niche Gabriel could see bones sticking out of rotting cassocks that covered what was left of the bodies of the formerly great. In one of the recesses in front of him a skull had rolled clear of the cowl and stared sightlessly at them. Below it the letter X was carved into the rock.

Gabriel stepped forward. The location of the Starmap had been marked with an X on Oscar’s map, but it seemed odd that he would hide it right opposite the door.

In the light of the lamp Gabriel could see something else carved next to it, partly obscured by the same gossamer layer of cobweb that covered most of the walls and openings. He wiped it away with his thumb and received a shock when he saw what it revealed: L I V.

He stared at the carvings for a moment, baffled by the presence of Liv’s name in this secret crypt. Then he realized his error. Every niche had a symbol carved beneath it. The one above was XLIII, and to his left the sequence continued with XLII, XLI, and XL. They were Roman numerals. XLIV was simply the number 44.

He took Oscar’s map from his pocket, remembering what was marked next to the crossed bones: XIV, the number 14.

‘This way,’ he said, heading left.

He hurried the length of the dank tunnel, counting down the numbers as he went, the flame of Athanasius’s oil lamp casting a long, restless shadow before him. The lower the numbers got, the rougher the walls of the tunnel became. When they dropped below the thirties, the tunnel changed again. The cobwebs that had laced the walls were now gone, cleared away so that each opening yawned clean and dark. The bodies inside had also been tidied up, and the loose piles of dusty bones were now wrapped neatly in canvas bundles that had been placed in the centre of each recess with the skull resting on top.

‘Here,’ Gabriel said, drawing level with number 14. He produced a compact torch from his pocket and twisted it on so the white light of the tiny bulb flooded the darkness.

‘What is it we are looking for?’ Athanasius asked, holding up the oil lamp to add more light.

‘Something like a piece of rock, or a section of a stone tablet with symbols etched on it; too heavy for someone to swim with, but small enough that they could smuggle it in here to hide.’