The Power of Five Oblivion

made their goodbyes, keeping them as brief as possible. None of them trusted themselves to speak too much. Matt shook hands with Lohan and hugged Holly. Finally he came face-to-face with Richard one last time. “Goodbye, Richard,” he said. “You may not believe it but I can promise you that we will see each other again one day, not so long from now, and it won’t be quite as you imagine. We’ll all meet again. Nothing is ever completely over.”
    “Goodbye, Matt. I’ll miss you.”
    The two of them embraced. Then the five Gatekeepers gathered their things and set off. Richard still had no idea where they were going.
    They walked in a group, making their way across the ice with the sea behind them, heading towards the mountains. If the fortress had still been standing, it would have been right in front of them. But it wasn’t and although it might have been an illusion, it seemed as if the mountains had opened up, revealing a path that would take them further on.
    That was the last Richard saw of them … five small figures in their Antarctic gear, getting smaller and smaller as they moved towards the horizon. But that wasn’t what he would remember most. The weather had changed and unexpectedly Oblivion had become quite extraordinarily beautiful. The ice was sparkling, a pure and brilliant white. There was no sign of the huge crater that had been formed and so little remaining of the fortress that it simply blended into the landscape. The snow looked as if had fallen long ago and had lain there undisturbed ever since. There was a mist hanging in the air, obscuring the mountains that rose up into a sky, which was now the softest grey infused by layers of pink that shimmered through. The first birds had already returned … just a few of them. They were wheeling round and round, their wings outstretched, as if reclaiming the nesting grounds that had once been theirs.
    “There’s a ship coming!” Lohan said.
    Richard twisted round and sure enough a single frigate was ploughing through the water, heading towards them. He turned and looked back across the ice.
    It was empty. The Five had gone.

ENVOI

FIFTY-SEVEN
    An envoi is a short chapter which you find at the end of a book. It’s a very literary word, a sort of goodbye. I can’t imagine why I should remember it now. I think Miss Keyland taught me the term a very long time ago. And there’s another funny thing. I started this story with her and I’m finishing it with her too – which is more than she deserves because she was actually a pretty nasty piece of work.
    There is so much to tell about what happened after Antarctica. In fact, I could write a whole book about it, and maybe one day I will, although I think I’ve written quite enough already. My job now is just to tie up the loose ends, as it were. And perhaps to add a little more.
    After Matt and the others disappeared, we packed a few things and made our way down to the beach, not saying very much and feeling very full and tired after so much food and drink. It was also the middle of the night, not that you would have known it. We arrived at the beach just in time to be met by some French marines from the Duc d’Orléans and they ferried us out in an inflatable boat and that was how we finally left Oblivion behind.
    The captain wanted to hear everything that had happened before he would weigh anchor again. He was particularly keen to know why the nuclear missiles hadn’t gone off although it seemed quite an irrelevant detail to me. He was amazed and, I think, a little ashamed when we told him that the Old Ones had been beaten. After all, he had gone off, and left us and, indeed, he wouldn’t have come back at all if his engines and guidance systems hadn’t gone haywire and forced him to turn around. He had been certain he was being drawn to his death, that the Old Ones had taken control of his ship. So he and his men were hugely relieved to find that everyone had gone and only we were left.
    And then, before we left, he insisted on climbing back up to the ice shelf and examining everything for himself. Not that there was much left to look at. The fortress had gone, the ice was undisturbed, and apart from the planes and the tents and the two gravestones with their five-pointed stars, there was no evidence that anything had actually taken place. The captain could see quite easily that something had happened. He could tell just from looking at the sky and the sea, at the birds that had