The Lazarus Vault Part 38

Her voice sounded thick and sluggish. Blanchard gave her a pitiless grin.

'There's a GPS transmitter in it. A beacon, to help me find my little bird when she flies away. The battery is so small it only lasts twenty-four hours when activated, but it was enough.'

He crossed to the stone table. Beside Ellie, Leon stiffened, though the guns at the door kept him rooted to the spot. The lance still swayed gently from the explosion's aftershock. Blanchard reached out to take it but paused. He pulled back his hand, stepped around the table and picked up the black box out of the fireplace. He smiled at Ellie.

'You brought it back. So thoughtful. We expected you would try and steal it but even I didn't think you'd succeed.'

'Is that why you hired me so you could use me as a p.a.w.n in your game?'

'Surely you didn't think we hired you for your financial expertise?'

He took the box to Saint-Lazare and laid it on the old man's lap. Saint-Lazare's withered arm shook, but his hand stayed firm as he pecked out a sequence from the glowing symbols on the lid. It swung open.

Blanchard looked uncertainly at the old man, who gave a curt nod. It was the first time Ellie had seen Blanchard defer to anyone. He reached in with both hands.

Cwm Bychan Rain changes the face of the battle. As it falls harder, the arrows gradually disappear. Clouds of steam billow off the dying fire, which has sunk to a bitter red glow. The roar of battle gives way to spattering water, softening the ground and puddling with the blood.

I wait until the arrows stop falling, then run out from my shelter. I find a body it isn't hard and hoist him on my shoulder, then start the treacherous descent. I pray there'll be no more lightning. I try to go quietly, but on that slope, with the full weight of a mailed knight on my back and the lance trailing from my free hand, it's impossible.

Thirty yards down from the summit, I hear movement, the rasp of a blade being drawn. It sounds like a knife I guess it's one of the archers. The rocks are steep and slick, and they don't know what's waiting for them at the top. They're in no hurry to storm the hill.

'Help me!' I shout in Welsh. 'He's wounded.'

He can't see me in the dark, but my voice sounds right. I see a figure coming towards me. I walk on, muttering encouraging words to the dead man on my back.

The knife slides back in the sheath. 'What happened?'

'He tried to go up there.' I let the body swing round. The archer puts his right arm under the corpse's shoulder, taking the burden.

'Christ, he's heavy.'

I shrug off the body so that the full weight suddenly falls on the archer. He's wearing armour, so I don't try to punch him. Instead, I kick his legs from under him. He falls in a tangle with the corpse. I find the knife and whip it out of his belt. With my knee on his chest I press the blade against his neck. It would be so easy to kill him.

But too many men have died that night. Working quickly, before he recovers his wits, I take off his belt and knot his hands together. He has a cloth he uses to dry his bowstring I stuff it in his mouth, then pull off his boots and hurl them into the darkness. It won't hold him for long, but it'll be enough. Finally, I take his shield.

Using the precious lance like a staff, I stumble down the mountainside. Rain drums against me. At last, the sound changes I can hear the soft hiss of water on water. The lake. I slide down the final embankment and come out on the valley floor. The rain's stopped; the breeze shreds the cloud. Moonlight leaks out like a wound.

I can't see the horses. Have Morgan's men driven them off? My whole being is close to collapse but before I despair I hear a whinny in the trees to my right. The horses must have sought shelter there from the storm. I call, and one comes trotting obediently towards me. He's already tacked up we didn't have time to remove the saddles when we arrived.

I don't know which way the sea is, but I can hear running water. I track the sound to the far end of the lake, where a stream flows out. I follow it down a narrow gully between two hills, splashing in and out of the water.

Soon the stream grows into a small river. There's a track beside it, easier riding. I look back, but the hilltop where we fought is hidden from view. The fire's gone.

I let the river lead me to the sea. I know I should hurry, but a slackness has overtaken me, the let-down after the battle. I loosen the reins and let the horse find his own way. Soon enough, the earthy air takes on a new salt smell. Waves break softly ahead of me. The horse's hooves sound silver on the sand.

I dismount and take off the saddle. The horse lies down and I lie against him, drawing his warmth, one hand resting on the lance beside me.

The night's terrors aren't over yet. Malegant is still out there, and Lazar, and Morgan too. I'm supposed to be guarding the lance. But I've barely slept in four days. I've ridden, clambered, fought to the end of my endurance. The hot breath of battle drains out of me, leaving me empty and limp.

I fall asleep.

Loqmenez Though she'd been warned, Ellie had still expected a cup a gold chalice crusted with jewels, the image that a poet's words had seeded into the West's collective imagination for centuries. Instead, what Blanchard lifted out was an egg-shaped stone, about the size of a rugby ball. The stone was cloudy white, but even in the dull worklights it glittered with myriad points of light, like an infinitely multifaceted diamond. The reflected light glowed off it, making a nimbus in the dust and smoke that hung in the air.

As Blanchard turned it in his hands, Ellie saw that the tip of the stone was hollowed out into a shallow bowl, and the base was smoothed flat so it could stand upright. Blanchard carried it back to the stone table and set it down under the spear.

'These were separated in the twelfth century,' he murmured. 'We've been waiting for this moment ever since.'

'Why?' Ellie asked simply.

'The lance cuts and the stone heals. But only the spear that made the wound can cure it.'

As Blanchard spoke, Saint-Lazare's whole body seemed to lurch forward almost as if he were about to get up from the chair and walk. The chill of centuries touched Ellie's cheek. She wondered how long he'd sat in that wheelchair.

Blanchard reached for the spear again. Again, Ellie sensed Leon go tense beside her. Blanchard, with his back to them, didn't notice but Saint-Lazare missed nothing.

'Stop.' His face was drawn into a fierce scowl of concentration, hard as ivory. His blue, fathomless eyes turned to Ellie.

'You do it.' The artificial voice, uninflected and mechanical, was pitiless. Ellie stayed rooted to the spot.

Saint-Lazare jerked his head. Destrier marched forward, grabbed Ellie by her hair and dragged her to the table.

'Where I can see her,' Saint-Lazare rasped.

Ellie shook Destrier off and walked to the far side of the table, facing the rest of the hall. Destrier stepped away, keeping his gun trained on Ellie.

From across the table, Blanchard gazed into her eyes. She searched his face for any trace of warmth, any last lingering affection, and saw nothing. She felt tears stinging her eyes not for Blanchard, but for so much waste. So many mistakes she'd never be able to correct.

Blanchard misunderstood. He shrugged. 'I'm sorry.'

Ellie looked past him to the hall beyond like a suicide on the precipice taking one last look at the world she'd abandoned. Destrier, leering with triumph. Saint-Lazare's skeletal face fixed on Leon, who in turn was staring at Ellie. He mouthed something to her she couldn't understand; his eyes moved deliberately from the spear to the fireplace behind her.

Whatever he was trying to tell her, it couldn't make any difference. She looked down at the stone grail on the table, dull and plain in Blanchard's shadow, then up at the spear. It wasn't one piece, but two lengths of black iron, joined in the middle by a length of burnished wood. She could see the cables suspending it now, two wires snaking down from the roof. There were no knots: the wires disappeared right into the shaft of the spear.

Ellie put both her hands on the shaft. Her fingers closed around the iron. In the wheelchair, Saint-Lazare's eyes narrowed.

A shudder convulsed her; she felt an electric surge crackle through her body.

Then the room exploded.

Cwm Bychan I wake at dawn. It wasn't the light that woke me, though I don't realise that at first. Grey sand stretches away to a grey sea at low ebb; wisps of grey cloud drift across a grey sky. The only thing that breaks the grey is a boat, a c.o.c.keyed hulk stranded by the tide.

Carried on the wind, I hear a sound the clop of hooves on the shingle at the top of the beach. I leap to my feet, though it's clear at once that there's no danger. The rider's slumped over his reins, nodding as if asleep. He's kept hold of his lance, but it trails behind him like an oar. The horse isn't much better he weaves and sways like a drunk as he ambles on to the sand.

My first thought is that he's no threat. My second thought is that he must be close to death. Then I realise it's Hugh.

I run across and grab the bridle. I try to lift him down, but he won't move: he's looped his belt around the cantle of his saddle to hold him in place. I unhook him and pull him free. There's a deep gash in his arm and another in his side, black wounds cut through his armour. I unlace his helmet. He squints at me, as if even that grey day is too bright.

'Chretien?'

'Did you get it?'

A look of agony crosses his face. 'Lazar escaped. I tried to follow, but Malegant found me.'

'What about the others? Anselm, Beric ...?'

'All dead.'

I stroke the hair back from his face. There's a flask of water in my horse's saddlebag: I fetch it, and pour some in his mouth.

There's no way we'll ride out of there. Even if I tied him back on his mount, he wouldn't last five miles. I cut off his hauberk and wrap him in one of the horse blankets. He still weighs as much as a pony. I lift him in my arms and stagger down the beach to the boat. Ribbons of weed hang off the hull; some of the planks have warped, but there's a pair of oars, a mast and a sail.

It's all I can manage to heave Hugh over the side and lay him in the bottom of the boat. I put the lance beside him. He feels it, and gives a grimace.

'At least they didn't get that.'

I put my shoulder to the boat's transom and make a halfhearted effort to push it into the water. It doesn't budge. It's too heavy for one man, and the sand holds it firm. I think about tying the horses to it, but I don't have a harness and I'd probably just break their necks.

I clamber back into the boat and kneel beside Hugh. I tell him how we'll wait for the tide to come in and then sail away. I don't know if he understands. His eyes are glazed; he barely knows me.

Loqmenez It wasn't like the stun grenade. That had been over in a heartbeat a flash and a crack, then nothing but blindness and the ringing in her ears. This time it happened in slow motion: a percussive boom rumbling down from the roof, a torrent of sound that started loud and grew and grew until it was almost a solid presence, driving the air out of the room. She glimpsed flashes above and blooms of smoke, felt the first pieces of debris falling on her like knives. The floor shook.

She scooped the stone off the table and dived into the fireplace. The noise grew again, battering her; for a split second she saw the whole roof of the hall descending like a cloud, and Michel Saint-Lazare under it, powerless to move.

The world went black. She covered her head with her hands and curled in a ball around the stone; she felt her body being punched and kicked from every side, until the blows were so many they became indistinguishable. The world melted around her sound and stone and flame became one roiling, furious ma.s.s pounding against her.

She couldn't say how she knew it was over. She couldn't even say she knew she was alive only that she could identify some spark of life inside her, battling through the suffocating weight of numb flesh and bruises. She could feel something smooth and round and hard against her stomach, and that gave her confidence. She cracked open her eyes.

There was light. That gave her hope. She opened her eyes more; she tried to turn her head and found that she could. She looked around.

She was lying in the fireplace, half-buried under a cascade of earth and rubble that had spilled through from the hall. The fireplace itself seemed mostly intact, though a number of bricks had shaken loose from the chimney. She looked up. There was no light at the top of the chimney, but a hole gaped in the back wall where a cl.u.s.ter of bricks had been knocked out. Behind it she could see s.p.a.ce and light. It was a dim, dirty sort of light, but natural, not generated or kindled. Daylight.

She dug herself free. The hearth was so big, the chimney so wide, she could easily stand up in it. She found a piece of rubble and used it to hammer at the bricks, knocking them out one by one. The explosion had shaken the mortar loose: they came easily. Soon she had a hole big enough to crawl through. She posted the grail-stone through, then put her hands on the lip to haul herself up. She winced. Her hands were a b.l.o.o.d.y mess of sc.r.a.pes and bruises. Two fingers seemed to have been crushed.

She heard a noise behind her, the rattle of shifting debris. Beyond the fireplace the whole hall was a symphony of ruination: sighs and clatters, cracks and bangs as the rubble shifted and settled. But this sounded closer. She looked down.

A hand had emerged from the mound of earth. She was sure it hadn't been there a second earlier. It twisted around, blackened fingers scrabbling at the rubble. The earth shuddered, and a second hand came out beside it. The gold bracelet of a Cartier watch gleamed on the wrist.

Ellie s.n.a.t.c.hed at the wall and tried to haul herself up. The bricks wobbled under her grip; for a moment she thought they might bring down the whole chimney on top of her. Her arms burned, but she swallowed the pain and heaved. Broken stones cascaded behind her as Blanchard rose out of the rubble; something s.n.a.t.c.hed at her foot, but she kicked free.

She flopped through the wall, landed awkwardly and rolled away. She was in some kind of stairwell, tumbling down the steps. She threw out an arm to stop herself, but before she could get a purchase she landed at the bottom with a b.u.mp. New shoots of agony ripped through her.

She pulled herself to her feet. A thin layer of earth carpeted the stairs, but otherwise they were clear. The daylight she'd seen seemed to be coming from above, though the tight-wound spiral hid its source.

She had to get there.

She picked the grail-stone off the floor where it had landed and began to climb. The light was barely clear enough to see by; some stairs were missing, others buried where lumps of the wall had fallen in. Her trouser legs tore open. Blood poured from the grazes in her skin, coagulating with dust and grit.

She reached a landing and paused. Her chest ached she thought she might have broken a rib and every breath hurt. She bent double to squeeze out the pain, listening to the sound of her breathing.

It wasn't all she could hear. Quick footsteps rose out of the darkness below not running, but faster than she could manage. A weary tremor ran through her body.

She went on.

The air grew brighter and cleaner, drawing her up. The footsteps were getting close, but she hardly heard them: she was trapped in an ever-ascending world of her own, concentrating on the pain to keep despair at bay.

And suddenly she was there. She rounded the final turn and came out at the top of the tower. She stared.

After so long underground, the daylight was strange and foreign. The sun was setting behind the clouds, throwing a blood-red light over the landscape. Her eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, the sight was still incredible.

She was standing on the top of a stone tower, dug into the side of the hill. Behind her, she could see shrubs and trees poking over the edge of an escarpment only a few feet higher than the tower itself. In front of her, there was only s.p.a.ce. The collapsing hall had brought down half the hillside, exposing the tower and leaving an enormous crater in front of it. A few pieces of masonry were visible, but most of the hall lay buried under the earth. Uprooted trees lay strewn across the surface.

Laboured footsteps climbed out of the staircase behind her. She heard heavy breathing, a pained sigh, then the clean, metallic sound of a bolt being snapped. She didn't look back.

'It's quite a sight,' Blanchard said.

'Is that ... what the lance does?'

Blanchard gave a ragged laugh. Reluctantly, Ellie turned to face him. His white hair had become a crazed, mud-streaked tangle; his face and arms were a welter of cuts, and his clothes were shredded. A gaping wound across his cheek oozed blood; his right arm hung limp and useless. The only clean thing about him was the small pistol he gripped in his left hand, incongruously black and shiny.

'The lance was a lure a decoy to trap us. Your friend, I think, rigged a detonator to it. When you touched both ends, your body completed the circuit.'

Ellie remembered the scaffolding, the wires running from the generator. 'The roof ...'

'Explosives.'

A fit of coughing overtook him. The gun shook dangerously in his hand. He spat out a gob of blood.

'The lance was a fake.' He pointed to the white stone cradled to her chest. 'That, I'm afraid, is the real thing.'

Ellie had almost forgotten she was holding it. Instinctively, she pulled it closer, hugging it to her like a child.

'You did more than I ever expected, Ellie. More than your father more than all these idiots have managed for centuries. But you cannot keep it.'

His broken lips twisted into a ghastly smile, encouraging her.

She almost gave it to him. But Blanchard's words bothered her. More than your father. She thought of him, the man she knew only from photographs, run down in a tunnel trying to rescue the stone she now held in her hands. She thought of her mother's long years of stoic widowhood and her lonely death, imprisoned in Blanchard's hospital. She thought of Doug. After everything she'd done, she was glad she hadn't brought him here.

She gripped the grail-stone tighter. 'No.'

Blanchard nodded. 'I understand.'

He shot her.

Cwm Bychan There's no time on that beach. No sun or shadow, no church bells: only grey stillness and the lap of waves. The gla.s.sy tide never seems to move.

I examine the lance. I still can't tell what it's made off. It feels like stone, though surely stone would have shattered by now. Strange designs run along the shaft, engraved so finely I can barely feel the groove with my fingertip. I carry it down to the sea and wash Lazar's blood off the tip.

A tremor goes up my arm, a twitch like an adder. Maybe it was a muscle spasm, but I think it came from the lance. I put it back in the boat and cover it with the edge of the blanket.