The Emperor Awakes (20 page)

She gazed at the wall, which was slowly revealing golden letters that were burned onto the cool stone, and she read and memorised, as the letters disappeared as fast as they appeared.

“The tears run from the tropical depth to the middle sea and the land cries and the general takes the ancient throne for centuries now vacant, the one-man democratic city shines in agony and pleasure in equal measure, the place where three philosophers meet, and the golden statue absorbs and consumes the liquid of life around it, but spits it out, unsatisfied, and runs to the glowing horn by the sea, on a golden lamb upon which rides the brother of the matriarch and the matriarch herself … but then changes course for the city that carries the name of the gift to the baby Jesus, now totally destroyed, but chosen to join them all … But beware …”

There it ended and the wall again went cold, from fire to ice in the blink of an eye. Then she turned towards the fight and she saw Aristo struggling to hold the beast. She had an inspiration.

‘Aristo what’s their weak spot?’

They were human after all. Aristo tried for the groin, but failed. There was too much at stake here including Katerina’s life. Aristo gathered his remaining strength. He took off his shirt and then his belt. He covered the belt and used it as a lasso. He swung it and trapped the fiery dagger and pulled hard whilst at the same time Katerina did not stand idle.

She had already quietly positioned herself to Aristo’s right and the moment the belt made contact with the dagger she brought the metal pole down on the Ruinand’s wrist. The Ruinand released the dagger and it clattered to the floor. Aristo then noticed the scaffolding behind the Ruinand and to his right and tried to push him towards it. He signalled to Katerina and looked at the scaffolding.

She realised his intention and she immediately moved into the shadows and started to loosen the ropes holding a metal platform on the side of the scaffolding. At the moment that the Ruinand was below the platform she let go and the metal platform crashed into the Ruinand and flattened him. The disfigured creature screeched and wailed and howled for a while and then suddenly any sign of movement ceased. Aristo and Katerina waited with baited breath, not daring to move.

After a couple of minutes they went closer, but still nothing. Suddenly there was a noise like the burning of paper and dry wood. The Ruinand had suddenly consumed itself and disappeared in a mountain of ash and salt that remained scattered on the ground, accumulated in tiny neat piles at their feet. A sudden burst of wind simply blew the remains away into the ether.

Aristo turned to Katerina and his eyes asked the question before he spoke it.

‘Did you get it?’

‘It was moving too fast. I’m sorry, Aristo.’

For a moment Aristo was ready to shout at her, but saw the beginnings of a smile on her face and held back. Katerina was relieved to see that he realised she was teasing him. She took her mobile phone out of her pocket and held it in his face. His eyes widened in complicit surprise and then admiration.

‘It was lucky I charged it last night and, as a last minute thought, threw it in my pocket on our way out of the hotel room.’

‘You are not just a pretty face. Well done. Let’s go. I need a coffee.’

CHAPTER 23

Constantinople (Istanbul)
Present day

Exhausted, they left Ayia Sophia for a deserved rest before the next part of their task early the next day. They speculated on the inscription, but decided to wait and see the second part on the next day at dawn.

As they exited the church, it was dark and chilly, and they sought a cosy place for refuge. They walked towards the Topkapi and the neighbourhood next to the Golden Horn and they sat at a coffee shop in one of the best-preserved pedestrianized alleys of the Old City. They called over the owner and ordered a strong Turkish coffee each and tried to regain their strength.

‘What on earth was that thing?’

‘That was a Murtif, the helper, one of the most dangerous of the Ruinand fighters.’

‘If that’s the helper, I don’t think I want to see one of the Ruinands themselves and what they are capable of, but I’m afraid I will have to before too soon, won’t I?’

‘I’m afraid so. We are on a course with no return to complete this mission and encountering Ruinands at some point is inevitable.’

‘We are very closely watched. We have to be even more careful. That was a close call. The only way they could have known where we were is if they had followed us. They are very good at blending in with the shadows.’

Privately Aristo knew they must have been watched by members of the Order and wondered why they had not intervened to help them. Had they been incapacitated or even killed by Ruinands or was there another reason, a traitor in their midst, perhaps?

A comfortable silence descended and they both breathed in the life of the street and were briefly envious of a simple life. In their minds they let themselves be transported to their beloved place, be it Limassol or Athens or Constantinople or even Mount Ellothon, Aristo’s mother’s private island retreat and the Order’s secret base and refuge, a magical place.

Lost in his thoughts, Aristo almost didn’t, at first, notice the person that walked briskly past them, but it registered in the corner of his eye. Three seconds later, when it had sunk in, he did a double-take. Was that Iraklios passing by? It couldn’t have been him surely, could it? He let the thought go and turned to Katerina.

‘Let’s go back to the hotel and get a rest. Remember we need it and we need to get up early tomorrow morning and be at the church before dawn.’

They paid the bill and left. It was a pleasant barmy evening. They decided to walk the short distance to the Pera Quarter.

CHAPTER 24

Constantinople (Istanbul)
Present day

The next morning just before dawn, as they were making their way back to the church, a cool breeze suddenly rode through the tree-lined street, and a flock of birds took flight, rising into the sky as a black cloud carrying the sound of screaming flutter.

A crow flying above came too close, as if making a dive for them and Katerina’s superstition reared its ugly head. She shivered. That was an ominous sign, she thought.

As they approached the church they noticed a crowd gathering on the square, outside the open gates leading to the church courtyard and waiting to go inside. Katerina and Aristo remembered that they had been told at the hotel about this.

It was one of those very rare days that Ayia Sophia was opening very early before dawn. They could not waste time and they decided to use another way into the church.

They tactfully circumvented the waiting group and quietly passed through the gates into the courtyard without being noticed and walked slowly round the Northern side of Ayia Sophia searching for a way in.

They had reached the North-Eastern corner of the church without incident when they noticed a small door recessed into the wall. They breathed a sigh of relief when they found it unlocked.

Entering the cool environs of the church, they were thankful to escape the rising heat and humidity outside. They made their way to the anointed place as the previous day and stood there calmly waiting whilst they pretended to be admiring the architecture and made the occasional remark.

That relaxed posture contrasted with the rife anticipation running rampant within. To anyone passing by the face they projected was one of serious but dumb tourists.

Katerina had already opened the cross and was holding the chip in her palm.

Aristo saw it was time and hissed. ‘OK. Now.’

Katerina held the chip up high as the first ray came through and the chip caught the light again throwing it in all directions. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. Thankfully they were alone up there in the Eastern gallery. The group they saw waiting outside was already inside the church and their ears rang with the echo of the group members’ chatter as they admired the huge dome.

The ray got to work and began to create a mesmerising painting of such vibrancy that Aristo and Katerina thought they could step into it. The figures in it looked as if they would turn and speak to them and touch them.

To their surprise, a voice called to them, inviting them into that magic scene. Instinctively they looked back to see if anyone was watching and were relieved to see no-one. They recovered quickly, as they realised they might be running out of time.

They found themselves on what Aristo thought looked like Mount Ellothon, but it was not. It was a strange place, beautiful one time and ugly the next. In front of them stood what looked like a building made out of crystal and tanzanite, shining very bright and almost blinding them.

All around them nightingales were singing, interspersed with the ear-splitting cries of crows and the gentle sounds of owls. And then they saw it. An inscription on the side of the building:

“The king is asleep and waiting to be awakened. His eternal partner and mother of his child is lying dismembered. Their child is lost. They dream of reunification with each other and with their beloved child.”

As Aristo and Katerina stood there the scene was surrendering layer after layer, like an animal shedding its skin in fast motion, revealing underneath the most wondrous images they had ever seen; they were like three-dimensional, holographic reels moving across the sky. It was mesmerising, hypnotic. They forgot their reality outside.

* * *

The sun shone brightly when they exited the church. It felt as if they had been away for hours, but a quick glance at the watch told them that it had only been about thirty minutes. They searched for shade to sit and talk about what they had just witnessed, all the while checking surreptitiously in all directions for anything suspicious. Aristo was first to recover.

‘Am I still dreaming or are we back? I still feel as if I am partly in that scene and partly in our reality. It’s very disconcerting.’

‘I am trying to get that scene out of my mind as well, but I can’t.’

Katerina was still dazed from her experience. It just felt so real. She could still feel the dew on her cheeks and the heat of the sun on her face. Her hair felt as if they had been burnt at the tips by a non-existent fire and were still smoking. Was there a part of the scene that had fire in it and which they had forgotten? And on top of that they couldn’t make sense of what they saw. Katerina turned to Aristo to say something, but it stayed on her lips and she stopped and stared at Aristo.

Small plumes of smoke were rising from his hair too. She wanted to turn away from his face, but couldn’t help staring. His face was drenched in sweat, a strange sweat the likes of which she had never seen before. It was as if Aristo’s face was melting from some sort of acid attack.

Aristo’s eyes had flames in them. The whole scene that they had just witnessed was there in his eyes, but it was a reverse reflection. The whole scene was on fire, and the edifice they saw was crumbling in an almighty heap of ash and dust and dark smoke.

And then it erupted into beautiful fireworks that lit up the sky. And there were faces there, tortured faces burnished on her memory as if by hot iron, faces that she could not forget, would not forget, would not be allowed to forget.

She could see those faces becoming her worst nightmares when she would be surrendering herself to the arms of Orpheus for a much needed rest at the end of the day, but also behind her eyes when she would be awake, during the darkest night and the brightest day for a long time to come. Aristo’s face suddenly turned a bright purple and he collapsed onto the baking-hot pavement.

‘I feel … I feel …’ Aristo could not say it.

‘My God, Aristo, what’s wrong?’

‘What’s happening to me? My eyes … my eyes … they’re burning. I cannot see … Katerina, help me. Get me some water, please.’

She looked around her and spotted the working fountain. She ran like a possessed madwoman, and came back with her now damp scarf. She busied herself with cooling Aristo’s face. She kept rushing back and forth to the fountain. In a surreal way, Aristo felt he was experiencing this torment both as himself and at the same time outside himself as a bystander witnessing the scene.

A part of him could hear and feel Katerina trying desperately to give him some relief and the other part was watching her do so. Had he died and his soul had been released or had his soul split and a part of it floated above his tortured body?

He was soaking wet in sweat and water. The sweat came out in huge waves, unrelenting, as if from an inexhaustible source. It kept gushing up to the surface of his skin, and running down his face and his body, a relentless torrent, like a mighty river bursting its banks and setting a route straight for its delta and the mighty ocean its waters yearned to call home.

His skin then started to come out in bright red pimples and fistulas. Passers-by spared him one look and, terrified, quickened their step, almost breaking into a run, to get away from this ‘thing’ that appeared to have some kind of terrible plague, from this unidentified creature that escaped from a long bygone era, the Jurassic, perhaps. The passers-by feared contagion. They could not get away from Aristo and Katerina fast enough.