The End of the World is Nigh Read online

  The End of the World is…NIGH!

  TONY MOYLE

  Also by Tony Moyle

  ‘How to Survive the Afterlife’

  Book 1 – THE LIMPET SYNDROME

  Book 2 – SOUL CATCHERS

  Book 3 – DEAD ENDS

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  Copyright © 2019 by Tony Moyle

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

  First published: February 2019

  ISBN

  Limbo Publishing, a brand of In-Sell Ltd

  www.tonymoyle.com

  Cover design by Damonza

  For…

  Anyone who didn’t fit in.

  “If you want to be different, be different.” T.M.

  Preface

  I’ll be honest with you. I’m not a big fan of the preface. When a book contains one it normally sends me into a cold sweat as my brain tries to compute why the author would add a form of scholastic teasing to keep me from the main purpose of buying the book in the first place, to read it. Prefaces tend to feature highbrow navel-gazing as the author self-indulgently waffles on about his inspirations, collaborators and moral authority for writing the damn thing in the first place. Or even worse, they come across as elongated sales pitches, which is odd really given that you’ve probably already bought it. With all that in mind, I’ll keep this concise.

  The main reason for including a ‘preface’ is the word’s own entomology. That’s a fancy word for origin. Oh come on, if I’m going to do one I might as well go highbrow. No? Ok, I promise I’ll stop. The word preface originates from Latin, at or around the time when most of this book is set. Its meaning translates as ‘beforehand’ or quite literally ‘pre-fate’ and it is fate, and the prediction of the future, that run through the heart of this story.

  Some four hundred and fifty years since his death, Michel Nostradamus is a name still familiar to most of the inhabitants of Earth. His predictions have become synonymous with every catastrophe from the sixteenth century to the modern day, and every one of those events has been retrospectively deciphered and reapplied to one of his many prophecies.

  According to Nostradamus fanatics he has single-handedly predicted everything from the 9/11 attacks to the Great Fire of London and to the rise of Hitler. If you follow the people who dedicate their lives to interpreting his work, they argue that Nostradamus predicted the end of the world on no fewer than five occasions including: 1999, 2012, 2017, 2018 (clearly hedging his bets after the millennium) and 3797. This pattern is reminiscent of my betting behaviour at the horse races. I rarely win either. These people have a habit of wanting the answers to be true, which doesn’t make them particularly neutral academics.

  But what do you really know about Nostradamus the man? Not much, I would guess. How did it transpire that he was remembered so many years later? What education did he have? What was his approach? How could one person be an expert in so many disciplines? Some of these questions may never be fully answered. And this story isn’t supposed to either. Centrally it isn’t even about him. But it does purposefully meander through key historical events that he unquestionably played a part in. Events that I have attempted to describe as close to historical accuracy as I was able. Many of the characters whom you’ll meet in this book were real people who played their own part in that period of history. However, it’s not all true. After all, historical satire isn’t meant to be.

  Some characters involved in this story are fictional.

  Principally this is the fictional story of Philibert Montmorency, set in an interlocking timeline of sixteenth-century France and the modern day. It aims to highlight humankind’s paranoia regarding future events and more specifically the generational fear about the impending end of the world. It is this fear that fertilises the landscape and allows characters like Nostradamus and Montmorency to sow their seeds of hope, with the same degree of success as modern-day politicians.

  If you thought ‘fake news’ was a new concept then think again.

  I’d like to reference two books that have assisted me in creating an accurate depiction of the times. Frederic J. Baumgartner’s ‘France in the Sixteenth Century’ and Peter Lemesurier’s ‘The Unknown Nostradamus’ have been invaluable references for the places, people and events that make up this story.

  I hope you learn, laugh and think.

  In the eleventh month of the second millennium

  Under a blood moon the kingdoms of God shall fall

  to cold winds carried by birds and beasts,

  and very brightly the men of the mountain will burn.

  - Chapter 1 -

  The Last Prophecy

  The internet was awash with rumours. Not the usual ones about two-bit celebrities caught in compromising positions, or instructions on how to get rich in three days with nothing more than a YouTube account and a microwave, nor the news of the revolutionary diet proven to help you lose twelve kilograms a day by eating nothing more than quinoa and hopping up and down frequently. These rumours were much more serious. If they were to be believed, and they were on the internet so fifty per cent of people did, it would be best not to make plans for Christmas.

  The end of the world was coming.

  The exact circumstances and timelines were a bit sketchy, but it was almost certainly going to be on a Tuesday, and it was definitely going to be messy.

  Dr. Ally Oldfield was just one of the fifty per cent of people who ignored the rumours as bunkum. As senior Professor of Medieval Languages at the University of Warwick she’d never gone in for the conspiratorial, preferring to position herself on the rational side of the fence when it came to debates about our potential extinction. There were times, though, when rational thought and conspiratorial nonsense collided. Never more so than when they involved a certain Michel de Notredame. Which was exactly why distancing herself from the obvious rubbish doing the online rounds was going to be difficult. Ally had written more research papers and books about the sixteenth-century seer than any other living person.

  The circus was not going to ignore her however much she ignored it.

  It was rare for a prophecy by Nostradamus to be used to foretell a future event. That was a recipe for looking foolish. It was much more successful to apply them after the event had already occurred. If a volcano exploded in Japan, or stock markets crashed, causing economic chaos around the world, it was easy to go back through the thousands of Nostradamus quatrains and find one that would broadly fit the circumstances. Over the centuries this had been done often, sometimes more than once with the same quatrain applied to two completely different events many decades apart. Not even the great Nostradamus was smart enough to predict both in the same four lines.

  Ally Oldfield knew there were good reasons why his predictions were always applied retrospectively. Nostradamus was rarely inclined to give any specific details that might validate his now notorious talents. Very few of his prophecies highlighted an accurate place, an individual’s name or even a rough guess at a time period. They were ambiguous, misleading, poorly translated, inconsistent, depending on which version of the text you were reading, and written in a style so confusing you could easily use them to predict what colour socks you were wearing that very morning.

  This assessment had been true until last week.

  Only two original manuscripts of Nostradamus’s seminal work ‘Les Prophéties’ were known to exist, and neither the version in Albi, nor the one in Vienna contained the exact same content, such were the ina
ccuracies of the printing process during the sixteenth century. Back then it was common for the printer to substitute letters, lose others when they dropped out of the manual printing frames, and make educated guesses to decipher what the author had really meant from his original scribbles. And the responsibility for all this vital task was the compositor, who’d certainly had less education than a present-day four-year-old. This highly inaccurate process was normal because the author probably lived several days’ carriage ride away and wouldn’t have access to email to quickly approve any drafts for at least four hundred years. One of the few benefits of the times.

  But now a third version of that famous book had been found in a Lyon basement behind a temporary wall, stored inside a damaged and damp piece of furniture. Not only was it thought to be an original, dating from around fifteen-sixty-three, it also contained a rather interesting preface. If the reports were true, within the contents of this preface was written a prophecy never previously printed in any of the other first editions, or the countless forgeries that have been produced in the decades that followed. Its meaning had already been translated and widely disseminated across the world by an online group calling themselves the Oblivion Doctrine.

  And in their opinion the end was very much nigh. Whether the prophecy was authentic or not didn’t stop it doing laps of the internet faster than a ‘cat falling off a ladder’ meme. There was only one question on people’s lips. Were we really all doomed by November? The slightly saner and more reserved portion of the internet-using world needed an answer, and there was only one person qualified enough to give it to them. Dr. Ally Oldfield desperately wanted it to be someone else. But sadly that wasn’t the case, and she couldn’t avoid the constant phone calls, emails and tweets forever. Particularly when they came from the Pope.

  Twenty-four hours later, after finally giving in and agreeing to authenticate the prophecy, she landed at Lyon Airport and was soon being driven at speed to ‘Le Musée de L’Imprimerie’ at the request of its Director Salvador Depuis. On the site of Lyon’s first City Hall, dating back to the early seventeenth century, the Museum of Printing celebrated the thriving publishing industry of Renaissance France. It was home to some of the most valuable pieces of medieval printing anywhere in the world. Sandwiched on a strip of land between the Saône and Rhône rivers and hidden down a rabbit warren of narrow one-way streets, the old Museum nestled in stark contrast next to a modern fast-food restaurant, the past and present sharing the street as much as history shares the future.

  Ally took a deep breath in anticipation as the car came to a halt outside the building. A skinny, well-dressed man of obvious Mediterranean descent, sporting a greasy waxed moustache that was curled at both ends, opened the door for her in a chivalrous fashion.

  “Welcome, Professor Oldfield. It’s an honour to have you here. I have studied much of your work down the years. My name is Salvador Depuis, welcome to our museum.”

  “Do you have coffee?” replied Ally abruptly.

  Salvador’s expression was churned like milk by the lack of social etiquette and her brash tone. He overlooked it: there were more important things to worry about today.

  “This is France, madam, we practically live off the stuff.”

  “Double espresso, as quick as you can,” she snapped. “I’ve been dragged on this wild goose chase and I’m not going another step until I get some good coffee.”

  “Of course,” said Salvador, shooting a glance at one of his welcoming party who was soon scurrying off on a caffeine-related emergency.

  Ally Oldfield had always been difficult. At least that was most people’s opinion shortly after first meeting her. It normally took them less than a minute. She saw herself as a serious historian committed to the education of others and an important leader in the quest to shed light on historically important texts. Her attitude towards other people was born from a career spent debunking the Nostradamus codswallop and the flagrant misinterpretations that were rife in most people’s understanding of it.

  Those who lacked sufficient intelligence or knowledge annoyed her. Experience led her to believe that as almost everyone occupied that camp there was little point wasting time establishing if she was right or not. After all, she prided herself on always being right, even when she was in fact wrong. On the rare occasions that people didn’t turn out to be simpletons with an IQ slightly lower than a pond skater she could always repair the damage later. None of this made her a popular collaborator within her peer group. But her immense knowledge of the subject of Nostradamus couldn’t be ignored at times like this. If they wanted the truth they’d have to suffer her rudeness.

  “Let me give you a brief tour of the museum before we show you our discovery,” offered Salvador, keeping his sense of hospitality up in the face of this rather abrupt woman.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve been here many times: in fact, I probably know it better than you do. I doubt very much that the discovery you describe is genuine so let’s validate my assumption and then we can crush these ridiculous internet rumours and go back to the real world.”

  “Mon plaisir,” he replied, not meaning it literally. He was careful not to slip into any underhand French slang to secretly express how he felt about this obnoxious English woman as he was aware she spoke multiple languages fluently and even some local dialects.

  Strong-smelling coffee in hand, Ally marched through the building ignoring the many spectacular exhibits on either side of her. She barely registered a flicker of interest as she passed Gutenberg’s forty-two-line Bible, the first book printed in Europe, but then again she’d studied it half a dozen times in the past. She vigorously swung her briefcase along the hem of her black pleated skirt as her high heels tapped loudly on the stone floor like a well-oiled machine gun was picking off enemy soldiers. There was only one piece in the museum of interest, and only one possibility.

  It must be a hoax.

  Salvador directed her as best he could through the museum, out of the public areas and into a heavily secured private room that contained the museum archives. The distinctive smell of books infected their nostrils and sent both of them back to a period in time when books ruled all knowledge. The room was dimly lit, but in the centre of it on a metal table propped up on a stand and surrounded by a glass case, was a shabby manuscript in perfect serenity. Ally placed her briefcase on the floor, drained the last dregs of her coffee and pulled up a chair. Sitting inches from the glass she removed a pair of expensive spectacles and nestled them somewhere in her untidy mane of curly, black hair.

  “Do this often?” asked Salvador.

  “What?”

  “Authenticate books.”

  “No. I’m more interested in the words than the paper, but don’t worry, I should be able to tell you if both are original or not.”

  “How so?”

  “If I find a barcode then it’s probably a fake,” she replied sarcastically, never moving her line of sight from the book behind the glass. “Now if you wouldn’t mind shutting up I can do my job.”

  Salvador took the hint. If the donation turned out to be genuine this was a big deal for the museum. If they had an original copy of ‘Les Prophéties’, in the very city where it was first published, it would draw in new visitors and worldwide publicity. If this rumbustious woman’s views counted even a smidgeon, he didn’t want to be the reason why they didn’t.

  “Where was it found?” she asked purposely without moving her head from her target.

  “Not far from here. A house in the old town was having its basement reinforced because of subsidence and one of the builders accidentally fell through a temporary wall. They found a veritable menagerie of antiquities behind it, including a commode from the Renaissance period.”

  “Interesting choice.”

  “I’m sorry, Professor, I’m not following.”

  “Do I really have to tell you that commode is French for convenient. I’m wondering who might find it convenient that the manuscript was found.”
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  “I think you’re reading too much into it.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Why would anyone want a forgery?”

  Ally looked up for the first time since entering the room and pierced the Director with a withering scowl. “Money, influence, power, notoriety and a way of causing discord throughout the world.”

  “I see you are a, oh how do the English say it…glass half-empty kind of person.”

  “No. I’m a glass completely empty kind of person, until they bring me a genuine twenty-fifteen Côte-Rôtie, and then I’m a glass completely full kind.”

  “I see you know your wines, madam.”

  “I know very many things, but not enough about this book. How many people have had access to it?”

  “Only the staff here, maybe five or six of us, and the owner of the property where the book was found, a Monsieur Palomer.”

  “And how did the translation get out in the open?”

  Salvador Depuis’s normally happy disposition was dimmed somewhat by a sense of shame. “It is assumed that Palomer requested that someone else review the book before informing us about it.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “No. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

  “If it’s genuine I might just do that. Open the glass,” demanded Ally.

  “Of course, let me get you some protective gloves.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Either this is the most protected fake in the history of books or it has been safely stored in a cupboard for the last four hundred years and it’ll be in better condition than some of the books you can buy at your local bookshop.”

  “I really must insist.”

  It was too late. Ally had already lifted off the glass case and was flicking through the pages, eager to get to the pronounced new material. At the bottom of the fourth page of the preface was a prophecy she’d not seen before. This preface was much like the ones at the beginning of the other two originals, both of which she had studied first-hand, but for one additional passage.