Oblivion (Power of Five)

Oblivion is the final book in The Power of Five series. It marks a change in the narrative, being set in the future - 2018 is the affirmed setting. It is ten years on from the other four books in the series and the world is in dark times. The Old Ones have started their war and the Five have to find each other again.

This book was started in 2009 and was finished in 2012. This book is unique because it isn't a rewrite of a previous Pentagram novel.

Plot synopsis

After being separated from the world by ten years, the Gatekeepers and their closest allies finally come back through the mysterious doors. Jamie is the first to appear, in a church called St Boltoph's, somewhere in the north east of England, located in a strange and seemingly hostile village. There is no electricity nor power of another kind and the townspeople are weary and hostile. He meets a girl named Holly, and a strange man named the Traveller, who takes them under his wing.

Meanwhile, the executives of Nightrise Corporation are in the ruins of New York attending a business conference named the "Endgame" Conference where, it is said, they will be given their rewards. But these "rewards" are really to become leading soldiers of the Old Ones. A riot ensures in the United Nations and twenty of the executives are killed. The rest are consigned to training camps in the country to prepare for the final outcome.

Back in the village, Jamie is having trouble fitting in. He finally tells Holly the truth about him and the Five, and although she initially doesn't believe him, she eventually sees the truth, especially when one of her villagers, Anne Keyland, betrays them all to the police, who kill everyone in the village and then obliterate the village itself. The Traveller saves Jamie, and Holly comes along, despite the Traveller disagreeing with this idea. They make a dark and dangerous journey towards London - which no longer exists, as Jamie knows it, because it was bombed by terrorists shortly after the Gatekeepers disappeared, as well as eight other cities in Britain, which were hit on the same day. But the door in Saint Meredith's church still exists, and this is what Jamie is looking for. But on the way to London, they run into a village whose inhabitants have become cannibals, as well as being pursued by Commander Strake, the Old Ones' servant in England.

Scott and Pedro come through a door in Italy, where they are immediately captured by the police working for the Old Ones and left in cells. Scott is taken to meet Jonas Mortlake, who was at the Endgame Conference, but he was the chief executive officer of Nightrise (as well as the son of Susan Mortlake) so he wasn't recruited for militia. He assigns Scott the task of betraying the others, if he breaks Pedro's finger to prove his loyalty to evil. Scott, drugged and weary, does so. But later when he meets Pedro he is shocked by his action. He breaks Jonas' finger himself and they leave. But Mount Vesuvius erupts and destroys Naples. Pedro only gets on a ship through a servant named Giovanni who saves him but Pedro has to swim through human sewage to get out of the castle where he and Scott were imprisoned.

En route to Rome, Pedro's ship is hit by a tsunami from the volcanic eruption but it survives. Then they get to the Vatican where Pedro meets a family called the Riveras, the son of whom, Silvio, is a cardinal who is in the Pope's circle, as well as part of the Pontifical Commission. Pedro sees the daughter, Maria, is sick with terminal pancreatic cancer and cures her with his powers. Silvio is disillusioned and dismayed at Pedro's power and tries to kill Pedro because "there can only be one Saviour and it is not him", but Pedro saves himself by vomiting out the poison the priest used. Silvo dies but Pedro lives. He escapes and meets a good janitor called Leo Tasso who takes him to a door in the Vatican which Pedro wants to use to get to Oblivion, the Old Ones' palace, in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, Matt and Lohan have arrived in Brazil and Matt is encouraging Lohan to sell him for money, and then steal him back. He sells him to a drug lord, rescues him, but then they both get wound up in mining gold whilst carrying out their plan again. Matt visits the dreamworld in the library where the Librarian gets the book of Matt's life out for him to read all the way through. Matt does and is shocked at his future which reveals him being betrayed, then tortured and killed. But he knows it is destiny so he goes along with it, knowing that it will work. First, he needs to get to Antarctica, and to do this, he needs to find one of the doors.

But the doors are locked with an unearthly power that kills whoever tries to work them. Scott works this out and manages to work a way round it. But first, the new chairman of Nightrise wants him to betray Matt. He puts it as a choice between wealth or suffering. Then Scott summons Matt to Skua Bay, where the betrayal is carried out. The Old Ones come and take Matt and Richard. They crucify Matt and lacerate him and then summon Richard to say goodbye, before killing him in front of Matt, but Richard kills Matt with an Incan knife to end his pain. This not only sets the sky on fire but it causes an earthquake. Meanwhile, Scott is being beaten by Jonas, seeking revenge for earlier, but Lohan kills Jonas. Scott opens the doors, but it kills him with the electrical power inside the lock.

The Old Ones converge on Scarlett, Pedro and Richard, thinking this is their victory, and Chaos himself, the King, appears. But Holly and Jamie arrive from London, having survived an attack by the giant spider, and soon afterwards, the version of Matt from the past and Flint, Scott's past form, arrive to fight Chaos. All the Five are together at last and they plunge their swords into Chaos, killing him. The ground splits open and a chasm into space is revealed into which a third gate forms and all the Old Ones are banished into it, as well as some nuclear missiles which the human resistance has unleashed. With evil gone, apparently for good, the Five leave for the dreamworld, their victory complete. They find the dreamworld is now full of colour. Richard and Holly and Lohan return to the resistance which is victorious and they set back home to England. Lohan goes off to the East looking for the Triads. Holly, Richard and the Traveller go to a new village and settle there. The world begins repairing itself and things begin to get better.

Continuity

• The locations in the book - South America, England, Antarctica, Italy and New York, respectively, form a pentagram, just like the homelands of the Gatekeepers do.
• The defeat of the Old Ones is exactly the same as in the past, even down to the minutes before the Old Ones get banished.
• Jonas Mortlake, one of the main antagonists, is the son of Susan Mortlake from Nightrise.
• A second Necropolis appears here, this time being London, because London was bombed after the Five disappeared.
• Ten years pass since the events of Necropolis.

Trivia

• This marks the second appearance of Flint and Matt, both of whom were in Nightrise.
• Matt ends up in South America once again, which is where the Old Ones came into the world.

External links

• Oblivion title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database