the human spirit that they had met that morning in a circumstance of mistrust and suspicion, one group inside the compound and one without, and in less than a day those divisions had been removed entirely. It reminded Liv that, despite all the darkness that had swamped her recently, there was so much goodness in the world, and so much good in people. It made her hopeful that, whatever had been started here, whatever ancient spark had been re-ignited by the Sacrament’s return, it might just have a chance to succeed and grow into something wonderful and free, the exact opposite of the Citadel in fact.
Something about this thought struck her and made her pull the folded paper from her pocket and study the symbols anew. Her eyes flicked between the upwards arrow symbol for the Citadel on the second line and another on the third which was its exact opposite.
She looked over at the fountain of water in the centre of the pool, forming an elongated ‘V’ in the air. The symbol was the fountain. The symbol was this place.
She looked back at the second and third lines again, searching for other points of comparison.
The moon sign appeared in both, linking them to the same time frame, and the T was there too, encircled in the first line and beside a circle in the other. She looked down at the perimeter fence surrounding the compound below her and understood now why she felt so strongly about not locking the gate. This place was meant to be somewhere the Sacrament was free, outside the circle not in. It had to welcome everyone and spread as far as the horizon if it needed to. The water had already begun this process, flowing out through the links in the fence and bringing the land back to life.
‘Not a fortress but a haven,’ she whispered.
‘What was that?’
Liv looked up and saw Tariq standing nearby.
‘Nothing,’ she said, aware that everyone was tired and the plan she had just hatched would keep. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
64
Gabriel was wheeled into the Abbot’s private quarters at the head of a procession of equipment and medical personnel. The rooms had been left largely unused since the Abbot’s sudden death and the subsequent spread of the blight. Elections had been planned but the disease had ravaged the electorate before they could be held and since then, in a dark twist of irony, the only thing truly running the mountain was the very thing that had derailed the electoral process in the first place.
‘This is the main living room and office,’ Athanasius said, moving across the large space. ‘There is also a bed chamber through here that could be turned into a laboratory.’ He opened a thick, metal-studded door onto another cave containing a wooden bed, an ottoman and several smaller pieces of furniture. ‘And in here is a washroom giving you all the running water you should need.’
Gabriel surveyed what he could of the new surroundings from the fixed viewpoint of his bed while everyone else started to unpack. His mattress had been raised at one end to render him upright and the bindings that had held him so tightly and for so long had now been loosened, but not removed. Dr Kaplan had advised that they stay in place for the time being until they were sure he wasn’t going to suffer a relapse. He wasn’t allowed to walk either, which was fine with Gabriel. He was so weak that even keeping his eyes open was an effort.
He took in the room, this comfortable prison that would be his home for who knew how long. There was a huge fireplace as tall as a man that dominated one wall and a stained-glass window set into the rock, its ancient, hand-blown panes of blue and green glass forming a peacock motif that distorted the world beyond.
‘How are you feeling?’ Athanasius pulled a chair over and sat down as behind him the room began to be shifted around and dismantled.
‘Like a condemned man.’
Athanasius smiled and ran his hand over the smooth dome of his head. ‘I think we all feel that way to some degree, though I know you have suffered more than most.’ He leaned in closer and lowered his voice so only Gabriel could hear. ‘I sometimes wonder whether all this could have been averted – that if we had just left things as they were, left the Sacrament in place and not challenged the old traditions, all