Sanctus

Chapter 105

Athanasius picked his way through the silent library, his hands reaching out for unseen obstacles, his eyes fixed on the thin line of lights set in the stone floor. Like all who lived in the mountain he was used to the dark, but not like this. A soft white noise seemed to dance at the edge of it, like swarms of silent bees that dispersed the moment he tried to look at them.

He stole a glance behind him, checking nervously for the glow of someone who might have ventured this deep into the library. He saw nothing — just the quivering movement at the edge of his vision and the thin thread of lights stretching away like a crack in the blackness. He turned back, his heart beating so loud in his ears he could hear nothing else, not even the muffled tread of his own feet as they stole across the stone floor. Up ahead he could see the floor lights curve away to the right then disappear. It was where the pathway turned into the final corridor that ended at the forbidden vault. He walked towards it, stepping only on the faint scratch of light in the floor like a wirewalker who knew a step either side would plunge him into the abyss. He followed the curve into the corridor. Stopped.

Ahead of him the thin lights continued to stretch out in a wavering line until, after roughly thirty feet, there was nothing. Athanasius moved forwards, counting his paces as he went, drawn to the awful darkness at the end of the light trail. He counted twenty-eight paces, reached the end of the line, then turned and walked back, twenty-eight paces to the entrance to the corridor. As he counted he recalled Father Thomas’s earnest face explaining how he could get round his own security system, but there was nothing he could do once Athanasius was inside the forbidden vault. Once he stepped over the threshold the silent alarm would sound and he would have a maximum of two minutes before the guard arrived.

Athanasius walked back and forth along the corridor, counting the paces to and from the vault, his arms stretched out by his sides as he walked, keeping his balance in the dark. When he was satisfied his escape route was clear he stood once more at the point in the floor where the lights ended and the darkness began, feeling like a man standing on a cliff’s edge, preparing to jump.

He pictured the room that lay in front of him: the stone lectern in the middle of the floor; the twelve recesses cut into the cave wall behind it, each one filled with a black box containing the jealously guarded secrets of their order. He figured it would take him a minute to put everything in the vault back the way it was and escape up the corridor. This gave him sixty seconds to find the book. He pictured the Abbot taking it down the day before — three across, two down. In his mind he ran through the actions he had to perform once inside the room. Sixty seconds wasn’t long enough — but it was all he had.

He stared ahead into the darkness, aware of the white swarms closing in from the edge of his vision. He took a deep breath. Blew it out slowly. Started counting down from sixty in his head.

And stepped forward.

The guard looked up as the high-pitched alarm sounded. He was off his chair and unlocking the desk before Athanasius had even managed to feel his way to the far wall of the forbidden vault.

Inside the guard’s cabinet was a Beretta, a couple of spare clips and a headset with a single telescopic eyepiece protruding from the front. The guard grabbed everything and smacked the first clip into place as he pushed through the door into the main entrance hall.

Father Malachi rose from his chair, his face a mask of concern as he saw the guard moving towards him with the gun in one hand and the night-vision goggles in the other.

‘Give me one minute,’ the guard said, slipping the gun into his sleeve and heading through the archway and into the main library.

Athanasius felt his way across the wall, counting the recesses as he went. Three across. Two down. His hands reached inside the cold niche. Closed around the smooth box.

He lifted it out and placed it on the floor. His fingers fumbling at the sides for the catches on each edge.

He found them.

Opened the box.

Felt the cold smooth rectangle of slate inside. His fingers fluttered over it. Traced the carved outline of the Tau, then moved on to the edge and opened the book.

No alarm sounded within the library but everyone knew what it meant when they saw the russet gown of a guard swooping down the corridors with his hand hidden in his sleeve.

Standard procedure was to make your way directly to the entrance and wait until someone gave the all-clear. Scholars looked up now, closing their books automatically and watching the guard’s halo of light dim as he surged deeper into the vast darkness of the library. Father Thomas was one of these observers. He stood by Ponti, his own circle of light disguising the fact that the blind caretaker now had one of his own, and watched in silence as the guard cleared the medieval section and entered the hall of venerated texts leading to pre-history.

‘Trouble?’ Ponti asked, sensing the tension the way a dog senses ghosts.

‘Possibly,’ Father Thomas replied. In the distance he saw the guard raise his arm and pull the night-vision goggles over his head. He took two more strides, then, as he entered the hall of the apostles, his aura of light winked out.