The Key

92

Brother Axel was strapped to his bed and stripped to his loincloth. He lay moaning, his fingernails drawing blood from his palms as they worked away at the only bit of skin they could reach.

Athanasius, Thomas and Malachi were in the washroom, silently scrubbing their hands and faces with antiseptic soap in the stone sinks, wondering if the same poison that had claimed Axel was now working its way through them. It had taken all three of them to hold him down until the attendant Apothecaria had eventually managed to subdue him with a well-aimed shot of strong sedative.

They emerged from the washroom and were met by Brother Simenon, drawn here by the news that the contagion had claimed a new victim. He was hunched over the pustulant chest of Brother Axel, drawing a sample of fluid from one of the larger boils. When he finished, he handed it to an assistant then turned to the group, unsnapping his gloves and lowering his mask. The face beneath was drawn and hollow. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a month, though in truth it was only a few days.

‘Well, at least this solves one problem,’ he said, moving away from the bed to the far side of the room and perching on a reading desk. ‘Brother Axel is not alone; there have been three other new cases of the Lamentation in the past few hours, apparently unconnected to the initial outbreak, which changes the game somewhat. I was wondering where we could put these new patients to keep them isolated; I might as well put them here. We can easily fit them in if we take more desks away and convert the second reading room. As you said earlier,’ he nodded at Athanasius, ‘the sealed nature of the library makes this a perfect isolation ward.’

‘And what about us?’ Malachi asked, his magnified eyes terrified and tearful. ‘Are we to stay here too, sharing a room with the infected?’

‘I see no reason to keep you. The purpose of your quarantine has now been negated by the fresh outbreak. I have recommended a new form of general quarantine within the mountain. From our studies of existing cases we have managed to identify a few early-warning symptoms. Anyone displaying these should be moved immediately to a containment ward. Everyone else should restrict themselves to their main area of work, and general movement throughout the mountain must be forbidden.’

‘And has Brother Dragan sanctioned this?’

Simenon shook his head. ‘Brother Dragan has locked himself in the forbidden stairwell and retired to the chapel of the Sacrament, advising everyone to pray for salvation.’

‘Then who is in charge?’

‘At the moment? Nobody.’

Athanasius’s mind hummed with this new information. He turned to Malachi and Thomas. ‘Then I suggest we three set up an emergency council to help implement Brother Simenon’s suggestions. Between us, we can appeal to our guilds to remain steadfast, and quickly organize the logistics of a lockdown throughout the mountain. We can organize food distribution to the major stairwells, so no one need travel to the refectories, and keep the corridors clear for swift evacuation to the infirmaries in the event of new cases. Only by staying calm can we hope to see our way through this.’

Thomas nodded in agreement and Simenon brightened a little, as if someone had just removed a sack of rubble from his back.

‘And where should we base ourselves?’ Malachi asked. ‘My main area of work is here in the library, and that is about to become a haven for the infected.’

Athanasius nodded as if considering this problem, though in truth he already had the answer. ‘We could set ourselves up in the Abbot’s chambers,’ he said. ‘For one thing, it is vacant, plus there’s room for all three of us and it’s well placed for coordinating efforts throughout the mountain.’

What he didn’t say was that the Abbot’s chambers, situated on the outside of the mountain with one of the few glazed windows in the Citadel, overlooking the modern city below, offered the best chance he was likely to get of picking up a phone signal.