39
Father Malachi surged through the library in his halo of light.
Following his meeting with Athanasius and Father Thomas he was in a state of total shock. A month ago, when the abbot and the prelate still lived and the Sancti still held sway within the mountain, Athanasius would have been executed for even considering the heresy he was now proposing. Secrecy and isolation were how the mountain had kept its great secrets for so long. Now that damned fool with his weak, liberal ideas was going to allow a bunch of total strangers inside — civilians, doctors, women! — all of them carrying this filthy disease. How quickly the solid walls of his world had started to crumble.
He passed through an arch and strode through the Renaissance section, his follow light becoming steadily dimmer as he traveled back through the great archive of man’s learning. While others in the Citadel turned to God in their time of need, Malachi always found divinity and peace in the written word. Every great thought and every profound event mankind had ever had or experienced was written and recorded somewhere in this vast network of caves. There was an answer for everything here somewhere.
When that damned monk Samuel had jumped to his death and the abbot had confided in him that his body may have contained clues as to the identity of the Sacrament, he had come to the library and taken solace in the chronicles of the Rides of the Tabula Rasa. These recorded every historical instance where the identity of the Sacrament had been threatened. Each time the knights had ridden out and each time the traitors had been found and silenced and the Sacrament’s secret had remained. Later, when the blight had appeared, he had found records detailing outbreaks of other contagions throughout the Citadel’s long history. Again, the mountain had always recovered and prospered. It would do so again. He had to believe that. Whatever lunacy Athanasius was considering it was up to him to maintain the true spirit of the Citadel. And with the Sacrament gone it was the library that now held the greatest secrets. He would keep the door locked and the world outside, even if the mountain beyond was awash with strangers. The soul of the Citadel was in these books, and so — somewhere — was the answer to the question now running though his head. “What should be done about Athanasius?”
40
Liv and Tariq stood by the edge of the pool, staring down at the muddy dish of water. They had been in the desert only half a day but already the water level was down by half.
“You did tell everyone to go easy?” Liv murmured.
Tariq nodded and squinted up at the sun, dropping low in the afternoon sky. “It’s not the people who are the problem.”
The combination of fierce desert sun, the dam stopping the river from replenishing the pool and the natural leaching away of water into the dry ground meant the pool was emptying so fast they could almost see it happening.
Liv looked up at Tariq. “We can’t stay here long. Where’s the nearest town or settlement?”
He nodded back toward the compound. “Al-Hillah is half a day’s ride in that direction, so maybe two days’ walking.”
Liv imagined walking for two days in this heat. The few hours it had taken to get here had been hellish enough. “How much food do we have?”
“Hardly any; the riders didn’t give us much time to pack and everyone was busy filling their canteens with water. Certainly not enough to feed everyone on a hard, two-day journey.” He looked at the lengthening shadows stretching across the land. “I will go alone, one person alone will need less food. The heat is fading, so I could travel all night and cover a lot of ground. I will take as little as I need and bring back horses and supplies. The water here should last another day.”
Liv shook her head. “If you’re going I’m coming with you.”
“No. You should stay.”
“With Kasim and his barely disguised looks of hate? I don’t think so. Besides, what if something happens to you out there and we’re stuck here, slowly dying of hunger and thirst while we wait for your return?”
“Nothing will happen to me.”
“Not if there’re two of us it won’t. Come on, let’s go check the food supplies and break the happy news.” She turned and walked away before Tariq could argue.
The food had been collected and stored in a large backpack that was kept in the shade of one of the rocks to protect it from the worst of the heat. They had been rationing it, handing out just a handful of dried dates or a small piece of an energy bar every few hours to make it last. Liv wasn’t sure how much was left but figured she and Tariq would need to take the lion’s share to give them the energy they would need for their journey. She scanned the patches of shade beneath the larger boulders looking for Kasim, figuring if anyone was going to object to their plan it would be him. She felt relieved when she couldn’t see him.
She made it to the boulder where their “larder” was kept and reached into the gap beneath it for the pack. She knew something was wrong the moment her hand closed around the shoulder strap and pulled the bag toward her. It was too light. She dragged it out, unsnapped the cover and looked inside. Empty.
She looked around in panic, her exhausted mind knocked sideways by the discovery. The flat stone and pocketknife used for cutting the energy bars was on the ground beside her. She was in the right place — so where was the food? No one had said anything about it running low the last time the rations had been handed out.
Then she stopped dead, remembering the last person who had done it.
It had been Kasim.
Kasim had handed round the last rations about an hour ago.
And now Kasim was missing.
41
Joint Base Charleston served as both a civil and a military airport, hence the blunt utility of its name. It was also shared by different branches of the armed forces and the C-130 pulled to a stop now between the drooping wings of two massive C17 military transports, one painted in army camouflage the other in air force blue.
“Agents Franklin and Shepherd?” Their welcoming committee snapped to attention as they walked down the loading ramp into a freezing wind that was whipping off the river. He was a two-chevron petty officer with a clipboard and a pink, scrubbed-looking face that appeared to be suffering in the cold. Franklin flashed his creds, Shepherd fumbled his from the coat he’d borrowed from Marshall after his had been destroyed by the helium blast, the PO ticked something on his clipboard and gestured toward a waiting Crown Victoria with base markings on the side and its engine running. “Sorry, gentlemen, you just got me. We’re kind of short staffed here. And I can’t hang around or let you have the car either. I can take you off base and into town but that’s about all. Traffic is hellacious today for some reason. You’ll have to find your own way back. I’m real sorry.”