like they did in the movies but his mouth was no longer working and his eyes flickered shut.
He felt and heard the clatter of wheels over the flagstoned floor as they moved him then the air cooling as he neared the door. He forced his eyes open and saw the vaulted ceiling and ecclesiastical paintings slide away above him to be replaced by night skies and stars. He picked out Draco, the constellation that had led him and Liv to the lost place in the desert, the place where he had last seen her. He wondered if she was still there, waiting for him, looking up at the same stars. As he stared up he spotted something else, a new star, brighter than all the rest, travelling across the sky. He watched it sliding across the night then a beam shot out from it, blinding him, and making his stretcher-bearers turn their heads away. It held on them for a few seconds, long enough for the news cameraman in the helicopter to get a good shot, then it moved away, the sound of the rotors chopping the air and sending cold air down onto Gabriel’s burning skin.
They passed through another stone arch onto the embankment and the Citadel came into view, a monumental darkness that blocked out the stars as they drew closer. The hollow bang of wooden boards replaced the scuff of feet on stone as they reached the bridge leading to the ascension platform. The mountain was so close now it blocked out half the sky. Tears leaked from Gabriel's eyes as they placed him on the platform. Arkadian appeared above him, his mouth forming words that he couldn’t hear, then he disappeared, ushered away by the orderlies.
The sound of wooden battens banging into place echoed through the night as the guardrails on the edge of the platform were put back in place then a bell rang high in the mountain. The ropes securing each corner of the platform creaked then the platform lurched and lifted off the ground.
Gabriel looked straight up at the night, half-filled with stars and half black. He could see the tribute cave high above, dark and wide like a huge black mouth, growing larger as it sucked them closer. He thought of what he was leaving behind, all the sorrow and regret: his father found and gone, his mother gone too, and the woman he cared most for in the world, the one he felt bound to protect at all costs, abandoned and alone like he was. And all because of this mountain, this hateful mountain.
The ascension platform rose higher, lit from time to time by the searchlight from the hovering news helicopter, then it passed into darkness as it entered the tribute cave and banged to a halt.
The last time Gabriel had been here was in the dead of night, alone, unannounced and armed. Now he was strapped tight to a stretcher, his senses dulled by the sedative, his body wracked with a disease that had robbed him of both strength and freedom. And there were people everywhere.
Two monks loomed over him, their surgical masks looking sinister against their cowled and bearded faces.
‘Bring the patients this way,’ a voice commanded from somewhere inside the cave. ‘We have a place prepared.’
The two monks hoisted him up and carried him off the platform, the air closing in on him and the sound deadening as they moved out of the cave and deeper into the mountain.
They began to descend, bumping down narrow corridors. Gabriel could feel his temperature climbing in the trapped, stuffy air and sweat trickled down inside the tight bindings, further torturing his already screaming skin. Something started to disconnect inside him. He had held on for so long, using the focus of getting here to drive him; now that he had finally made it he had nothing left. A small part of his lucid mind registered the relief of it. He took a breath and whispered something, too quiet for anyone else to hear: ‘Goodbye, Liv.’ Then a howl erupted from him as he finally let go and was carried screaming into the heart of the mountain.
IV
… and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
Revelation 6:8
46
Brother Athanasius stiffened as the first stretcher appeared out of the darkness and was carried through the door. He was standing in the centre of the cathedral cave, the largest chamber in the Citadel and the