Sanctus

Chapter 138

The boom echoed through the mountain like thunder shaking free from the ground. In the darkness of the great library it sent books tumbling from shelves and dust drifting down from the vaulted roof. Athanasius looked up in a numbed daze. It was as if the mountain had read the words over his shoulder and shuddered at what it discovered there.

He reached out, folded the waxy pages back inside the volume of Nietzsche and rose from his seat. He needed to know if what he had found buried in the smudged words of the dead language was true. His faith depended on it. Everybody’s faith depended on it. He walked down the passageway towards the central corridor, stepping over all the books that had been shaken to the floor, oblivious of the chaos around him and the raised voices puncturing the deadness as he approached the entrance. He felt detached from himself, like he had become pure spirit unfettered by the constraints of his physical self. He passed into the entrance chamber and drifted across the hallway towards the airlock, barely aware of the wailing librarians tearing their hair as they surveyed their ruined library.

The smell of smoke hit him the moment he stepped out of the airlock and into the corridor. It had an acrid, bitter quality — like sulphur — and mingled with the clamour of confusion and fear echoing up from the lower corridors. Two monks wearing the brown cassocks of the guilds hurried past, heading down into the mountain towards the source of the smoke. In his mind Athanasius imagined them scurrying towards a crack in the rock from which the foul smoke now poured: A crack filled with brimstone and fire.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction, heading up the mountain towards his own revelation. He knew this path was forbidden and would probably lead to his death, but somehow this did not frighten him. He could not live in the cold shadow cast by the words he had just read. He would rather die discovering they were not true than live suspecting they were.

He ducked into a stairwell and followed the steps as they curved towards the upper landing of the lower mountain. At the top he turned into a cramped hallway with several other passageways leading off it. At the far end the red-coloured cassock of a guard stood by the doorway that led to the upper part of the mountain. He had no idea how he was going to get past him, but in his heart he felt sure that, somehow, he would.

He realized he still had the book in his hand containing the stolen pages of the Heretic Bible and raised it to his chest now like a talisman. He took a couple of steps towards the guard and saw him look in his direction just as another doorway opened halfway down the landing. Another guard emerged into the narrow hallway, his hood pulled low over his face.

Then the lights went out, plunging the hallway into total and impenetrable darkness.