More noises echoed from somewhere within the mountain.
He opened his eyes and began to focus. A faint glow of distant light shone through a narrow window just enough to pick out the principal features of his cell. It was unadorned, rough-hewn, functional. A pile of rubble lay strewn across one corner, showing it was one of the hundreds of rooms no longer regularly used or maintained in the Citadel.
He glanced back at the window; little more than a slit in the rock, a loophole carved countless generations earlier to give archers a vantage point over enemy armies approaching across the plains below. He rose stiffly to his feet and made his way towards it.
Dawn was still some way off. There was no moon, just distant stars. Nevertheless when he looked through the window the sudden glare was enough to make him squint. It came from the combined light of tens of thousands of street lamps, advertising hoardings and shop signs stretching out far below him towards the rim of distant mountains surrounding the plain on all sides. It was the fierce and constant glow of the modern city of Ruin, once the capital of the Hittite Empire, now just a tourist destination in southern Turkey, on the furthest edge of Europe.
He looked down at the metropolitan sprawl, the world he had turned his back on eight years previously in his quest for truth, a quest that had led him to this lofty, ancient prison and a discovery that had torn apart his soul.
Another muffled sound. Closer this time.
He had to be quick.
He unthreaded the rope belt from the leather loops of his cassock. With a practised dexterity he twisted each end into a noose then stepped to the window and leaned through, feeling the frozen rock face for a crag or outcrop that might hold his weight. At the highest point of the opening he found a curved protrusion, slipped one noose around it and leaned back, tightening it, testing its strength.
It held.
Tucking his long, dirty blonde hair behind his ears he gazed down one last time at the carpet of light pulsating beneath him. Then, his heart heavy from the weight of the ancient secret he now carried, he breathed out as far as his lungs would allow, squeezed through the narrow gap, and launched himself into the night.
2
Nine floors down, in a room as grand and ornate as the previous one was meagre and bare, another man delicately washed the blood from his own freshly made cuts.
He knelt in front of a cavernous fireplace, as if in prayer. His long hair and beard were silvered with age and the hair on top of his head was thin, giving him a naturally monastic air in keeping with the green cassock gathered about his waist.
His body, though stooped with the first hint of age, was still solid and sinewy. Taut muscles moved beneath his skin as he dipped his square of muslin methodically into the copper bowl beside him, gently squeezing out the cool water before dabbing his weeping flesh. He held the poultice in place for a few moments each time, then repeated the ritual.
When the cuts on his neck, arms and torso had started to heal he patted himself dry with fresh, soft towels and rose, carefully pulling his habit back over his head, feeling the strangely comforting sting of his wounds beneath the coarse material. He closed his pale grey eyes, the colour of parched stone, and took a deep breath. He always felt a profound sense of calm immediately after the ceremony, a sense of satisfaction that he was upholding the greatest tradition of his ancient order. He tried to savour it for as long as possible before his temporal responsibilities dragged him back to the earthbound realities of his office.
A timid knock on the door disturbed this reverie.
Tonight his beatific mood was obviously going to be short-lived.
‘Enter.’ He reached for the rope belt draped over the back of a nearby chair.
The door opened, catching the light from the crackling fire on its carved and gilded surface. A monk slipped silently into the room, gently closing the door behind him. He too wore the green cassock and long hair and beard of their ancient order.
‘Brother Abbot …’ His voice was low, almost conspiratorial. ‘Forgive my intrusion at this late hour – but I thought you should know immediately.’
He dropped his gaze and studied the floor, as if uncertain how to continue.
‘Then tell me immediately,’ growled the Abbot, tying the belt round his waist and tucking in his Crux – a wooden cross in the shape of the letter ‘T’.
‘We have lost Brother Samuel …’
The Abbot froze.
‘What do you mean, “lost”? Has he died?’
‘No, Brother Abbot. I mean … he is not in his cell.’
The Abbot’s hand tightened on the hilt of his Crux until the grain of the wood pressed into his palm. Then, as logic quickly allayed his immediate fears, he relaxed once more.
‘He must have jumped,’ he said. ‘Have the grounds searched and the body retrieved before it is discovered.’
He turned and adjusted his cassock, expecting the man to hurry from the room.
‘Forgive me, Brother Abbot,’ the monk continued, staring more intently at the floor, ‘but we have already conducted a thorough search. We informed Brother Athanasius the moment we discovered Samuel was missing. He made contact with the outside and they instigated a sweep of the lower foundations. There’s no sign of a body.’
The calmness the Abbot had enjoyed just a few minutes previously had now entirely evaporated.
Earlier that night Brother Samuel had been inducted into the Sancti, the inner circle of their order; a brotherhood so secret only those living within the cloistered halls of the mountain knew of its continued existence. The initiation had been carried out in the traditional manner, finally revealing to the groomed monk the ancient Sacrament, the holy secret their order had been formed to protect and maintain. Brother Samuel had demonstrated during the ceremony that he was not equal to this knowledge. It was not the first time a monk had been found wanting at the moment of revelation. The secret they were bound to keep was powerful and dangerous, and no matter how thoroughly the newcomer had been prepared, when the moment came it was sometimes simply too much. Regrettably, someone who possessed the knowledge but could not carry the burden of it was almost as dangerous as the secret itself. At such times it was safer, perhaps even kinder, to end that person’s anguish as quickly as possible.
Brother Samuel had been such a case.
Now he had gone missing.
As long as he was at liberty, the Sacrament was vulnerable.
‘Find him,’ the Abbot said. ‘Search the grounds again, dig them up if you have to, but find him.’
‘Yes, Brother Abbot.’
‘Unless a host of angels passed by and took pity on his wretched soul he must have fallen and he must have fallen nearby. And if he hasn’t fallen then he must be somewhere in the Citadel. So secure every exit and conduct a room-by-room sweep of every crumbling battlement and bricked-up oubliette until you find either Brother Samuel or Brother Samuel’s body. Do you understand me?’
He kicked the copper bowl into the fire. A cloud of steam erupted from its raging heart, filling the air with an unpleasant metallic tang. The monk continued to stare at the floor, desperate to be dismissed, but the Abbot’s mind was elsewhere.
As the hissing subsided and the fire settled, so it seemed did the Abbot’s mood.
‘He must have jumped,’ he said at length. ‘So his body has to be lying somewhere in the grounds. Maybe it got caught in a tree. Perhaps a strong wind carried it away from the mountain and it now lies somewhere we have not yet thought to look; but we need to find it before dawn brings the first coachload of gawping interlopers.’
‘As you wish.’
The