“No!” Silvio was looking at him in dismay.
Pedro ignored him. Perhaps he was imagining it but he was sure that some of the taste of the poison had already left him. He jerked forward, propelling himself out of the chair and onto his knees. Now he was right in front of the antique mirror. He could see his own reflection. He looked terrible, completely white, sweating, his eyes staring back at him. He focused on the reflection, imagining that it wasn’t him but Matt after the Nazca Desert, Scott in Vilcabamba, just another sick person that he had to heal. He tried to feel the power flowing through him, rebounding on himself.
“You cannot save yourself!”
“I will save myself!”
And Pedro knew that it was working, that there was something inside him fighting back and winning. It was an extraordinary sensation, his own power curing him.
“God help me…!” They were the last words spoken by the priest. He slumped back in his chair, his eyes closed.
Pedro didn’t dare move. He remained on his knees, his hands pressed against the glass of the mirror. He was still there many hours later when the sun began to rise.
OBLIVION
FORTY-FIVE
There was nowhere in the world that was anything like it.
The ice shelf was as flat and as desolate as it was possible to be. It was almost two kilometres long and half a kilometre wide, narrowing to a point, with a range of mountains rising up, black and impenetrable, at the far end. It was from these mountains that the ice had come, part of a glacier that had oozed and crawled its way forward a few centimetres at a time over hundreds of years. The ice shelf widened out until it reached the edge of a cliff, which formed a straight line, as if it were the end of the world. From here, there was a hundred-metre drop down to a thin strip of beach, hammered endlessly by the icy-grey water of the Southern Ocean.
The cliff face had been sliced and sculpted by the weather. It might once have been nothing more than a solid wall. But the wind and the sea-spray had worked with infinite care, turning it into a frozen firework display of strangely shaped hollows, knotted outcrops and bending pillars that seemed unable to support the weight of the rock and the ice up above. From a distance it almost seemed to be writhing in pain, but apart from the waves and flurries of snow, nothing moved. The seabirds, whales, penguins and seals had long gone, as if some instinct had warned them to keep away from this place.
The fortress was situated above the sea, at the other end, two kilometres inland, standing in front of the mountains … part of them, in fact, as it was impossible to say if the structure had been built or if it had grown out of the rocks. No two walls were alike. Some were straight and some were curved; some cut out of ice and some out of stone, the two fused into each other, stark white and iron grey.
A massive gatehouse and barbican stood at the very front. This was the first line of defence, with ramparts and battlements slanting back on both sides. Then came two circular towers, one to the west and one to the east. These were the far edges of the fortress. The walls then turned towards each other, meeting in front of the vertical face of the mountain behind which loomed over the entire place.
Two more towers stood at the back of the fortress, but they hadn’t been built separately. They were also carved out of the mountain, with caverns and corridors running far underground. A narrow bridge led from one to the other, forming an arch behind – and slightly higher than – the barbican. There was an open area, a courtyard or perhaps a parade ground, with a few very ugly buildings, like Second World War bunkers, placed almost haphazardly. These were kitchens, dormitories, storage huts and prisons.
This was Oblivion. This was where Chaos, the King of the Old Ones, had chosen to make his last stand against humanity.
He had brought the greater part of his army here and it was monstrous, all-powerful, running into thousands. Some of them had chosen to be here, selling themselves to the Old Ones’ cause in the belief that when the struggle was over, they would be allowed to live in comfort. But as they had quickly discovered, Chaos didn’t care if they lived or died. They slept in freezing rooms and ate what scraps they were given. They marched or stood guard in the cold for such long hours that most of them were being eaten away by frostbite, their fingers and noses turning black and rotting away. They looked hideous. They carried weapons that they had been forced to manufacture themselves and wore scraps of rags, patches of fur and odd pieces of armour. Anyone who complained was whipped or hanged. There was no such thing as an easy death in Oblivion. And yet even so they were glad to be here. They had persuaded themselves that whatever happened, they were on the winning side.
They were commanded by the wretches who had been “adjusted”, mutilated to make them more frightening and less human. Among them were the politicians and businessmen who had attended the Endgame conference in New York. They were unrecognizable now. Some of them had had their arms or hands sawn off and replaced with metal rods and spikes. Some had been put into iron masks, which completely enclosed their heads and which could never be removed. Some had jagged iron teeth or horns welded into their skulls. A few had lost their legs and had been put on wheels, turning them into half-machines. Those that could be seen had faces distorted with pain … grimacing mouths, bulging eyes. They had long ago gone mad and were prepared to fight more savagely than anyone because they no longer had any fear of death.
Shape-changers moved among them, keeping order. Half man and half alligator, half man and half snake, pigs with human heads, humans with wings … every sick and nightmarish combination seemed to be there, armed with swords, arrows, clubs and whips. They could kill anyone they wanted to and often did, just to set an example, lashing out without warning. A man or a woman might be walking past and would cry out, falling face down with blood spraying across the ice. And everyone else would continue what they were doing but more quickly, more attentively, not wanting to be next.
There were knights on horseback, both man and beast covered in poison-tipped needles that seemed to ripple as they moved. Fly-soldiers, thick clouds of buzzing black insects, had descended and taken solid form. Just once, a giant monster had appeared. A hummingbird the size of a plane had suddenly launched itself into the air and soared over the mountain tops, the snow exploding beneath its beating wings. There were said to be other monsters too: a condor, a monkey, even a spider. Nobody had seen them. But they would come out when they were needed and nothing could stand in their way.
And what of Chaos himself? He was nowhere and he was everywhere. He never appeared but there was no doubt that the fortress was his creation and that he was aware of everything that took place within its walls. Some said that he lived deep within the mountain itself and that he was injured. At night, they heard the cracking of the ice and the deep rumble as the glaciers disintegrated and collapsed into the sea. But there was another, uglier sound. A tortured breathing, the rasp of breath drawn in pain.
Long ago, Chaos had been hurt by one of the Five. And all this – the fortress, the walls, the ice shelf, the gathered forces, the monsters – existed only to draw him in. The King of the Old Ones had no further interest in the world. All he wanted was revenge. That was what people said.
In the last few weeks, an army had come together to fight him.
There were only a few thousand of them, a ragtag assembly of survivors who had somehow been drawn together from all over the world. They had come by plane and by boat, making their crossings from South America, South Africa and Australia. Somehow the word had spread. The Internet had disappeared a long time ago but there was still rumour, whispers, even dreams. The last surviving Incas had come down from Peru. The Society of the White Lotus had sent representatives from the East. Native Americans from different tribes had come together and made the journey south. Even in the twenty-first century there were secret societies and organizations that remembered the Old Ones and who knew what had to be done.
And the Nexus had been busy, recruiting volunteers, arming th
em, helping them on their way. They’d had ten years to prepare. They knew they would only have one chance for success.
There were more than sixty aircraft scattered across the ice at the edge of Oblivion, close to the sea, most of them commercial, a few private or military. They had landed, skidded, spun and stopped, ice spitting from beneath their wheels. Now they looked like discarded toys, facing in every direction, their wings almost touching. They would never take off again, but at least they could be used as living and sleeping quarters. It was summer in Antarctica. The sun never set. But still the temperature was close to zero and the wind howled across the ice shelf, bringing with it blizzards and snow that travelled horizontally, rattling against the metal and the glass.
Down below, just off the beach, a whole fleet had assembled and lay at anchor. It looked like some sort of marine scrapyard. There were cruise ships, container ships, luxury yachts, hydrofoils, trawlers, fishing boats, even an oil tanker. The remains of different navies had found their way here: two battleships – one from Argentina, the other from France – a US aircraft carrier, a British submarine. They were spread out along the coast, being tossed up and down by the waves, waiting for the call to action. The sailors had been busy. They had cut pathways and steps all the way up the ice cliff so that they could make their way up to land, joining the pilots and the passengers who had already arrived. And up on the surface they had constructed tents and bivouacs close to the planes. This was where they met, made their plans, prepared their weapons.
They called themselves the World Army.
It was a brave title but everyone knew that it disguised an unpleasant truth. They were little more than a rabble, outnumbered and ill-equipped; short on weapons, ammunition, medicine and food. There was a limit to the amount of time they could stay here. Every hour was a constant struggle against the cold, and the danger was that they would begin to die even before the fight began.
They were waiting for the five Gatekeepers. Without them they had no chance. Five children. It seemed incredible that four boys and one girl were all that stood between them and complete destruction. Between them and Oblivion, they might say.
For several days now, the fortress had stood silent. More planes had landed, touching down on the ice and slithering to a halt. One, the most recent, was an Emirates airline Airbus that had come all the way from Dubai. Every day, more ships appeared on the horizon, joining the growing flotilla.
One last battle. It would come soon enough.
The snow fell and the wind blew and the sun hung low over the ice shelf, and everyone wondered when Chaos would make his move.
FORTY-SIX
Scott woke up late with that deep, heavy feeling that told him he had slept for a long time. He twisted sideways and reached out for his watch – the brand-new watch that he had been given in Italy. It was eleven o’clock … although it could have been morning or night. He still hadn’t quite got used to the fact that while he was in Antartica, the sun never set, hovering over the horizon as if it were afraid to go any further. There was no sign of it today, however. The sky outside was a dirty white, the clouds solid and unbroken. He yawned and stretched. He was naked underneath the sheets and furs that covered him and he had never felt quite as warm or as cosy in his life.
He was in an extraordinary room – a suite of rooms – like something out of a science-fiction film. He was lying in what was effectively a cave, scooped into the side of the mountain, with the walls and ceiling – living rock – curving round him. His bed was also a flat piece of stone – a giant piece of flint – and it should have been hard and uncomfortable. But he was lying on a thick mattress that seemed to mould itself to his shape, and the sheets, changed every day, were soft and luxurious. The bed was huge and piled with pillows of different shapes and sizes. Three people could have slept in it without touching each other.
There were no doors. An opening led into a private bathroom with a bath the size of a small swimming pool, permanently filled by a thermal spring that gushed out of a crevice in the wall. The water would also explain why the room was so warm. There was a wide open fireplace with a fire lit for him every evening, but even when the flames died down the temperature never dropped. There had to be some sort of natural heating system – perhaps it was volcanic – at work.
Nor was there any electricity. The entire fortress, the inner passageways and dungeons, were illuminated by a natural blue light that seemed to emanate from the rocks themselves. Scott’s room had plenty of daylight. He had worked out that he was three storeys up in the right-hand tower, one of the two built into the rock face. He had no idea how far the passageways penetrated into the mountain itself. There could be rooms – possibly prison cells – that were little more than tombs. But the point was, he was right at the front. An entire wall of his room had been given over to an oval-shaped window looking out over the courtyard and the barbican. Scott had run his finger down the glass, only to discover that it wasn’t glass at all but a sheet of ice, perfectly clear and cold. He was astonished that it didn’t melt.
There was always some sort of activity going on outside. Lying in bed, he could watch soldiers marching past, wrapped in their rags and armour. They were always being made to practise … left turn, right turn, day and night. Sometimes there were sword fights, training sessions that often ended with someone losing an arm and being rushed off, screaming, to the infirmary. He had no idea how many thousands of men and women had been recruited into the army of the Old Ones but he was very glad that he wasn’t one of them. He had made all the right decisions. He was going to be OK.
Matt had known what Scott was planning. He had almost said as much back in the dreamworld. The two of them had spent five minutes together and Scott had been expecting anger, recriminations, an attempt to make him change his mind. But in fact Matt had been completely relaxed. He hadn’t said anything about Pedro or what had happened back at Castel Nuovo. He knew that Scott was flying to Antarctica with Jonas Mortlake. And he accepted it.
Scott almost wondered if Matt had given up. Perhaps he had seen the odds that were stacked against him and realized that the whole thing was hopeless. Matt, Pedro, Scarlett and Jamie could travel back in time or perhaps they could go to the dreamworld. They’d be all right. That was what Scott believed, anyway. The one thing that worried him was that Matt would tell Jamie what he had done, but as far as he knew that hadn’t happened either.
“We all have to make our choices, Scott.” Those were the last words Matt had spoken to him. “You’ve made yours.”
Scott still hoped that he and Jamie would be reunited when this was all over. The Old Ones owed him that. After all, thanks to him, they were safe. The five Gatekeepers would never come together now that he had chosen to be on the other side. Very soon there would be a fight and the last human resistance would be wiped out. What would be left would be a planet of slaves, living and dying simply for the Old Ones’ pleasure. Jamie would be among them but Scott would find him and the two of them would be together, finally enjoying the sort of life that had always been denied them. Jamie would understand what he had done and that he had done it for both of them. And that would make it all worthwhile.
There was a movement at the entrance and a girl appeared. She could only have been a year or two older than Scott with fair hair, a pale face, downturned eyes. She was wearing a simple dress and carried a tray with fresh bread and butter, fruit, boiled eggs, cheese and coffee. Scott didn’t know her name. She was forbidden to talk to him. She wasn’t even permitted to meet his eyes. She was Scott’s personal servant and he could treat her any way he liked.
She set the tray down on a table in front of the window, picked up Scott’s clothes from the night before, bowed and left. Later she would return to make the bed, sweep out the fire and clean the room. Scott waited until she had gone, then slid out from beneath the covers and put on a pair of undershorts and a T-shirt. He sat down and began to eat. He often wondered how the kitchen managed to get hold of
fresh food in the middle of nowhere, literally at the end of the world. But ultimately, it didn’t really matter. All that was important was that it was here.
It was snowing heavily outside. Thick flakes seemed to hang in front of the window before being swept aside by the wind. A man hung from a scaffold near the gate, his eyes frozen, his flesh turning blue. It was a soldier, hanged for stealing extra food. Several were killed every day and Scott had watched this latest execution. He looked up at the sky. Just before the man died, he had seen a plane coming in to land and he had wondered if Jamie had been on it. Or Matt.
And Pedro? He was probably still in Italy. Scott had given him money, but not enough to buy his way out. He thought back to their last meeting at the Piazza Dante, Pedro so thin and scrawny, with his hand wrapped in a filthy bandage. Suddenly Scott wasn’t so hungry and just for a minute, glancing at his food, it seemed to change. It wasn’t bread or cheese on the plate. It was a scrap of rotting meat with white maggots crawling around it. And across the room, the fire had gone out. He shut his eyes as tight as he could. When he opened them again, a few moments later, everything was all right. He took a deep breath. Then he turned away from the window and went to get dressed.
A little while later, Scott left the room. As far as he knew, he was allowed to go anywhere he wanted. Certainly Jonas Mortlake hadn’t told him otherwise. Scott was wearing jeans and a padded jacket complete with a white fur collar and hood that had been provided for him. He didn’t know which animal it had been made from but it was obvious to him that the fur was real. He had already explored the fortress a little. Parts of it reminded him of a medieval castle. He had seen dining rooms with flagstones, long wooden tables and minstrels’ galleries. Other parts – his own room, for example – were more modern.