Simon Toyne - The Key

And danger had come.

And this time he had been right there.

But still he had been powerless to stop it.

All his combat training had proved unequal to the simple task of defending and protecting those he loved. Because his enemy was vast and intangible: it didn’t stand up in front of him and level a weapon, it was everywhere, embedded in the faith of millions and the fabric of the very city he was stumbling through. It was the city.

Blinded by grief, he kept moving without knowing where he was going, intent on just putting one foot in front of the other and distance between himself and the hospital while avoiding the fire crews and anyone else in a uniform.

In the end, his survivor’s instinct brought him to Melek Avenue, a wide, tree-lined street on the edge of the Garden District. It was an address unconnected to him and therefore unlikely to be visited by anyone seeking him out. It was also the home of the one person who knew more about the Citadel and its secrets than anyone outside the mountain. If the book his mother had pressed into his hands could be employed against the Citadel, then she would know how to use it.

Gabriel counted the houses until he reached the one he was looking for. He moved up the steps to the door, checking the street to make sure it was empty, then knocked loudly.

A siren was wailing at the far end of the street, one of the many burglar alarms the quake had triggered, but no one was coming to check. He heard footsteps inside the house and the sound of a drawer being opened in the hallway. The footsteps came nearer, a key twisted in a lock then the door opened sharply and he found himself staring into the beam of a handheld torch and the cold, black eye of a gun barrel. He turned away from the brutal light, and started to raise his hands when a strident voice boomed from behind the light.

‘Gabriel!’ The gun vanished and the torch pulled back to reveal the owner of the voice. Even in the turmoil of the earthquake Dr Miriam Anata was impeccably dressed in her usual pinstriped suit with plain T-shirt. Her straight silver hair, cut in an asymmetric bob, gave her a stern appearance but her eyes were full of concern. Looking into them now made something inside Gabriel give way and he turned from her as his face crumpled in grief.

‘What is it?’ she asked, taking him by the arm and leading him inside. ‘What has happened?’

‘Kathryn,’ he managed. ‘My mother.’

He felt her arms around him, patting his back and shushing in his ear as though he were a child again. He was touched by this act of compassion, coming as it did from such a conventional and reserved person as Dr Anata. He tried to thank her and form words of explanation but none came. Grief had stolen his voice.

The Citadel hummed with noise and echoed with urgent voices in the aftermath of the quake. Most of the monks had been asleep when the tremors hit, shaking them out of their beds and into the corridors where they had ridden the worst of it out. Athanasius was one of them and he had spent much of his time since reassuring other monks that what they had experienced had been a tremor and not another bomb. The lingering smell of smoke from the garden had not helped his cause.

Some of the power had stayed on at least, so there had been enough working lights to quickly assess how much damage had been done. The answer was surprisingly little. It was as if the explosion ten days earlier had already pruned away the weaker parts of the mountain and the earthquake had merely shaken what was left to test how strong it was. A few rockfalls had been discovered here and there, and the library was being checked again to make sure no books had been damaged, but other than that the Citadel seemed sound and was getting back to normal. The rock piles were already being cleared away and many of the monks were returning to the dorms and chapels to continue sleeping or praying.

Athanasius was heading to his cell when he encountered Brother Axel coming down the tunnel towards him, fizzing like a lit fuse. ‘This is your fault,’ he said, pointing a finger at him. ‘First the garden and now this. None of it would have happened if the Sancti were still here and the Sacrament safe.’

Athanasius checked behind him to make sure the tunnel was empty then lowered his voice so it would not carry. ‘This is superstitious talk and does you no credit as a leader of men. You of all people should be instilling calm at a time like this, not fear. We need order, not chaos.’

‘We had order. For thousands of years we had it. And now it is gone in the space of a few weeks.’

‘Order will return,’ Athanasius said. ‘Order is returning.’

‘Indeed. You fancy that everyone sees things your way, but I think you are in for a surprise. In times of uncertainty people cling to tradition. And that is what I aim to offer. The elections will soon reveal which way opinion lies.’

Athanasius was about to respond when a sound made them both stop.

It was the Angelus bell echoing up from the tribute cave in the depths of the mountain.

Someone was outside, summoning the Ascension platform so they could be admitted.

Gabriel forced the story out, bit by bit, pushing it past his pain and grief until the details started to flow and his sorrow hardened back to anger. When he had told Dr Anata everything he handed over the diary and sank into the leather sofa, feeling utterly wrung out.

They were sitting in what had once been a grand reception room and was now a well-stocked library with books lining every wall and covering every horizontal surface. With the power still out, the space was lit only by candlelight, creating a sense that the room belonged to the past and not to the modern city wailing outside the heavy curtains draped across the high windows.

Dr Anata stared at the diary, her face white with shock. She had known Kathryn Mann for many years, working alongside her as an unofficial advisor, sharing knowledge and new discoveries on all things to do with the Citadel. She was Mala, like Gabriel’s family, a descendant of one of the two most ancient tribes of men, the other being the Yahweh, the inhabitants of the Citadel who had stolen the Sacrament and used its power for their own ends.

Gabriel could see tears glistening around her blinking eyes as she turned the small volume over in her hands, the silver rings on her fingers catching the candlelight as they moved over the dark leather. Her lips formed silent words as she tried to phrase a question and, when she eventually managed it, her voice was brittle with emotion. ‘Do you think they killed her for… do you think this is what they were after?’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘If they’d wanted the book, the cop would’ve taken it. It felt like a clean-up operation to me, a coordinated move to silence anyone who had been inside the Citadel. Whatever is in the book, I doubt they even know about it.’

‘Have you read it?’

He shook his head. ‘I came straight here. I didn’t know where else to go. I’m sorry if that was… inappropriate. I don’t mean to bring trouble to your door. If you want me to leave, just say.’

Dr Anata tilted her head and glared at him through her half-moon reading glasses, giving Gabriel the sort of magnified look of indignation he had seen her dole out a few times before. The familiarity and honesty of it made him feel better somehow. She unwound the leather binding and opened the cover, angling the book towards the candle so they could both see what was written there.

Dr Anata had spent her life chiselling away at the myths of the Citadel. She had published more books on the subject than anyone living, knew all the legends and lore that surrounded it; so when she turned to the middle pages and saw the symbols forming the shape of the inverted Tau she gasped in shock. Gabriel recognized the heat-blackened writing from games he had played as a child when his mother had written secret messages for him to discover. He shook away the memory and focused on the text, translating in his head the Malan language she had taught him.