Simon Toyne - The Key

Aziz shook his head. ‘Everyone was dead. Everything was burning. I was afraid the fire might touch me again. I feared the dragon’s return, so I ran. I ran into the desert. But the dragon knows I live still. It wants to finish me — I can feel it.’ He stepped forward and gripped the bars. ‘Find the dragon, John Mann. Kill it for me so I can be free of this place. Only you can tame the dragon now — for you are a ghost too.’

Athanasius sat in the Abbot’s private washroom, his back to the door, his face illuminated by the glow from the phone. Outside he could hear Father Thomas engaging Malachi loudly in a conversation designed to draw his attention while Athanasius slipped away.

He opened the message and pressed send. This time there was no error alert. Even so, he watched it until the screen went black then tapped it again to make sure. The screensaver was back in place, showing the photograph of the Mirror Prophecy. Ever since Gabriel had first shown it to him in the darkness of the ossuary he had been thinking about the possible meaning of the last few lines.

The Key must follow the Starmap Home

There to quench the fire of the dragon within the full phase of a moon

Lest the Key shalt perish, the Earth shalt splinter and a blight shalt prosper, marking the end of all days

A blight.

It was what Brother Gardener had called the disease when it first appeared in the garden; and now something was stalking through the corridors of the mountain and striking people down. And the earthquake that had shaken the mountain: was that not the earth starting to splinter?

It all suggested the prophecy was true, which meant the best way to stop the spread of the disease was to help the girl find her way home to Eden. And yet Brother Dragan believed only the restoration of the Sacrament to its place inside the chapel would cure the mountain. He was trying to bring her back here. Maybe he was the dragon mentioned in the prophecy and the fire of his zealous beliefs the thing that needed quenching. He needed to talk to him. Maybe if he could just show him the Mirror Prophecy he could convince him of its wisdom.

Father Thomas was still arguing with Malachi when Athanasius burst from the washroom and virtually sprinted across the room to the Abbot’s desk.

‘We need to talk to Dragan,’ Athanasius said, pulling open the upper drawer where the old Abbot kept the key to the forbidden stairs. ‘I think I know how we can cure the Lamentation.’

The Abbot was one of only two monks in the Citadel permitted to pass both in the upper, restricted section of the mountain reserved for the Sancti, and the lower parts where the general populace lived. The only other monk granted these privileges was the Prelate. Dragan had ventured up to the forbidden section through the Prelate’s staircase; Athanasius now intended to do the same using the Abbot’s. He grabbed the key and headed to the bedchamber.

A large wooden bed filled most of the space, draped with thick fabrics to keep the occupant warm. The only other thing in the room was a vast tapestry with the sign of the Tau embroidered upon it in green thread. Athanasius pulled it aside to reveal a door hidden in the wall.

‘What are you doing?’ Malachi called after him. ‘You are not permitted to go through that door.’

Athanasius turned on him, all the frustration and stress of the last few weeks spewing out in his answer. ‘What difference does it make? You’ve seen for yourself there’s nothing there. Whatever secret we have pinned our past to, it’s gone. We would be fools to fix our future to it as well. Brother Dragan is clinging to a dream, and it’s a dangerous one that might kill us all.’ He twisted the key in the lock and stepped through the door. ‘I must find him and persuade him that, for all our sakes, he needs to let go.’

Malachi moved to try to stop him but Athanasius was too quick. He slammed the door behind him and locked it so no one could follow or try to stop him.

Washington was waiting for them when they emerged from the dingy hell of the asylum. They got into the cooled interior of the 4x4 — Gabriel in the front, Liv in the back — and drove away without saying a word.

‘That bad, huh?’ Washington said after a few kilometres of silence.

Gabriel shook his head, still trying to process the bizarre story he had just heard. ‘I don’t know, he seemed pretty lucid to me. I think he was telling the truth, or something he believed to be true. He said a dragon destroyed the camp and a ghost killed my father. I’m sure these must be abstract or metaphorical terms for something else, but his burns are real enough, and his experience was clearly traumatic enough to splinter his mind.’

Washington went quiet. ‘Did he say “a ghost” killed your father, or “the Ghost”?’

Gabriel stared out of the window at the bleached streets as he tried to recall.

‘It was “a ghost”,’ Liv answered.

Washington frowned. ‘There’s an insurgent — not a major league threat, so he’s low down on the priority list — but he’s caused us some problems in the past. He’s known as Ash’abah — “the Ghost”.’

‘Is he still around?’

‘Oh yeah. He’s been around for ever. He’s a proper old-school fedai, fighting anyone who comes along for the freedom of his land. Apparently he was a pain in the ass for the former regime too, so you’ve got to give him some credit. A lot of the locals see him as a kind of Robin Hood figure, which has made it hard for us to gather any useful intelligence on him or find out where his base is. All the most successful insurgents tend to live out in the desert. Most reports of the Ghost’s activities come from south of here, in Babil Province.’

‘Around Al-Hillah.’

‘Exactly. The other thing worth mentioning is that he deals in ancient relics, selling them on the black market for premium prices. But he only ever sells to well-funded Christian organizations and occasionally to museums. Some people think this is because he is actually a Christian himself with roots stretching back to biblical times before Islam pushed the Christians out.’

‘Any idea where we might find him?’

Washington shrugged. ‘Not really. They don’t call him “the Ghost” for nothing. The locals seem to view him with a mixture of fear and respect. Many of them think he actually is a ghost. He’s supposed to have this big scar on his neck and a strange way of talking, like stones being rubbed together. If he was the one who sold out your old man, I would advise you to proceed with caution. He’s pretty serious people out here — very well connected — and you’re just a stranger in a strange land with no clue about how you’re going to get to where you want to be. Fortunately for you — ’ he pulled over and pointed to a jeep parked on the forecourt of a battered-looking garage — ‘it turns out that you too have friends with influence. I booked it through one of the dummy corporations we use. It’s handy, being involved in covert work; they’re a lot less particular about expenses. It’s in your name, or at least the name in that phony passport you’re travelling with. Consider it a belated leaving present from Uncle Sam for all your hard work and early starts.’

Gabriel turned to him with a look.

‘Don’t you even think about giving me some weak-assed civilian hug, Mann. I know you’ve been out for a while, but that’s still no excuse for going soft.’

Liv leaned forward from the back seat and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Washington smiled. ‘Now from you I’ll take it all day long.’ He turned to Gabriel, the sternness back in his face: ‘But you disappoint me, soldier, you really do.’