The Fall of Tartarus (44 page)

He
came to his senses to find himself tied upright - to a cross? - with four
points of numbness where his arms and legs had been. Beside him he could hear
the Abbot, moaning in masochistic ecstasy. He considered what a gruesome
trinity they must present upon the altar.

‘Francesca,’
he whispered. ‘Oh, Francesca, the pain . . .’

‘The
pain, Hans,’ she replied, ‘the pain is part of the sacrifice.’

He
laughed, and then wept, and then fell silent.

Francesca
continued, her voice a whisper. She lovingly detailed what further sacrifices
they would be called upon to make. Next, she said, would come the expert
excision of their genitalia; after that they would be skinned alive. And then
the Master Surgeon would remove their internal organs one by one: kidneys,
liver, lungs, and finally their hearts, while all the time they were conscious
of what was taking place, the better to appreciate their sacrifice.

‘Hans,’
she whispered. ‘Can you feel it? Can you? The wonder, the joy?’

He
could feel nothing but pain, and lapsed into unconsciousness. He awoke from
time to time, unable to tell how long he had spent in blessed oblivion, or what
further surgical mutilations they had carried out upon his body.

What
followed was a nightmare without respite. During the day, when the heat was at
its most intense, they were lifted from the altar and set side by side in the
opening of the cliff-face, while the congregation chanted their medieval,
monotone chant in hope of miracles. The pain was constant, at its worst in the
heat of the day, dulling to a tolerable agony during the night.

Towards
the end, Cramer dreamed of rescue: he hallucinated the arrival of a pirate ship
come to set them free. Then he came to his senses and realised that for him
there would be no release, no return to physical well-being. He was a prisoner
of Tartarus, a jail more secure than any of ancient myth.

On
the very last day they were carried outside and positioned before the scalding
light of the sun. Cramer sensed heightened activity among the monks, hurried
movement and hushed conversation suggesting panic and disbelief. He felt the
heat of the sun searing his flesh, and laughed aloud at the knowledge of his
victory.

Francesca
maintained her faith until the very end. In mounting fear she intoned: ‘And it
is written that the Ultimate Sacrifice
shall
rise from the dead, and
will
guide the faithful to the lost temple of the Slarque, and through the
sacrifice of the Holy Trinity the sun will cease its swelling . . .’

Cramer
was torn between exacting revenge upon the person responsible for his torture
and keeping the one he loved in ignorance. A part of him wanted to impose upon
Francesca his rationalisation of what had happened, to explain that there had
been no miracles at all.

He
said nothing. If he were to make her comprehend the tragedy and evil of their
predicament, the insane fanaticism of the accursed Church, he would only
inflict upon her a greater torture than any she had suffered already.

The
end came within the hour, and swiftly. He felt his flesh shrivel in the intense
heat, and was aware of Francesca and the Abbot to his left and right. Francesca
was murmuring a constant prayer, and the Abbot from time to time laughed in
manic ecstasy.

All
around them sounded the monks’ frantic chanting, the entreaties of the faithful
to their oblivious God.

In
rapture, Cramer heard the detonation of multiple thunder, and the roar of the
approaching firestorm as the sun exploded and unleashed its terrible freight of
radiation.

He
turned his head. ‘Abbot!’ he whispered with his very last breath. ‘So much for
your superstition! You bastards didn’t get my heart!’

The
holy man could only laugh. ‘For our sacrifice,’ he began, ‘we will be granted
life ever—’

Cramer
should have known that the righteous would forever have the last word.

‘Hans!’
He heard the small voice to his left. She was crying, now. ‘Hans, please say
you love me . . .’

But
before he could speak, before he could accede to Francesca’s final wish, the
blastfront reached the surface of Tartarus Major with a scream like that of a
million souls denied, and Cramer gave thanks that his suffering was at a
blessed end.