Sanctus

Chapter 12

Kathryn Mann swung the minibus into a small yard behind a large town house and brought it to a standstill amid a cloud of dust. This segment of the eastern part of the city was still known as the Garden District, though the green fields that gave it that name were long gone. Even from the back, the house had an aura of faded grandeur; the same flawless, honey-coloured stone that had built the public church and much of the old town peeped through in patches from beneath blackened layers of pollution.

Kathryn slipped out of the driver’s seat and headed past an empty cycle-rack built on the site of the well that had once provided them with fresh water. She fumbled with her jingling key ring, heart still hammering from the stress of the several near misses she’d had while driving distractedly through the thickening morning traffic, found the right key, jabbed it into the lock and twisted the back door open.

Inside, the house was cool and dark after the glare of the early spring sunshine. The door swung shut behind her as she punched in the code to silence the alarm. She hurried down the dim hallway and into the bright reception area at the front of the building.

A bank of clocks on the wall behind the reception desk told her the time in Rio, New York, London, Delhi, Jakarta — everywhere the charity had offices. It was a quarter to eight in Ruin, still too early for most people to have started their working day. The silence that drifted down the elegant wooden staircase confirmed she was alone. She bounded up it, two steps at a time.

The five-storey house was narrow, in the style of most mediaeval terraces, and the stairs creaked as she swept up past the half-glazed office doors that filled the four lower floors of the building. At the top of the stairwell another reinforced door with thick steel panels hung heavily on its hinges. She heaved it open and stepped into her own private quarters. Crossing the threshold was like stepping back in time. The walls were wood-panelled and painted a soft grey, and the living room was filled with exquisite pieces of antique furniture. The only hint of the current century was offered by a small flat-screen TV perched on a low Chinese table in one corner.

Kathryn grabbed a remote from the ottoman and fired it in the direction of the TV as she headed towards a bookcase built into the far wall. The shelves stretched from floor to ceiling and were filled with the finest literature the nineteenth century had to offer. She pressed the spine of a black calfskin-bound copy of Jane Eyre and with a soft click the lower quarter sprang open to reveal a deep cupboard. Inside was a safe, a fax machine, a printer — all the paraphernalia of modern life. On the lowest shelf, resting on top of a pile of interior-design magazines, was the pair of binoculars her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday when he’d first taken her to Africa. She grabbed them and hurried back across the painted floorboards towards a skylight in the sloping ceiling. A roost of pigeons exploded into flight as she twisted it open and poked out her head. A blur of red roof tiles and blue sky smeared across her vision as she raised the binoculars then settled on the black monolith half a mile away to the west. The TV flickered into life behind her and started broadcasting the end of a story about global warming to the empty room. Kathryn leaned against the window frame to steady her hand and carefully traced a line up the side of the Citadel towards the summit.

Then she saw him.

Arms outstretched. Head tilted down.

It was an image she’d been familiar with all her life, only carved in stone and standing on top of a different mountain halfway across the world. She had been schooled in what it meant from childhood. Now, after generations of collective, proactive struggle attempting to kick-start the chain of events that would change mankind’s destiny, here it was, unfolding right in front of her, the result of one man acting alone. As she tried to steady her shaking hand she heard the newsreader running through the headlines.

‘In the next half-hour we’ll have more from the world summit on climate change; the latest round-up of the world money markets; and we reveal how the ancient fortress in the city of Ruin has finally been conquered this morning — after these messages. .’

Kathryn took one last look at the extraordinary vision then dipped back through the skylight to find out what the rest of the world was going to make of it.