He was still in a hurry now. He had left Sarius alone in the inn, unprotected and online. What if there was a fire? Or a raid? What if Lelant had tracked him down?
I should have cut the internet connection, Nick thought. Except I haven’t got the faintest what happens then. Will the gnomes get huffy with me and report it to the messenger?
He was already standing up as he pushed the last morsel onto his fork.
‘Thanks, it was great!’ He smiled at his mother and she smiled back. Everything was fine, except that his father was making a face again.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going off to study again. I’m not buying that.’
‘No, I’ve done enough for today,’ Nick said, and yawned demonstratively. ‘I’m going to read for a while, and then go to sleep; I’m totally knackered.’
‘The last time you went to bed at this time, you were eight.’
‘I told you, I want to read first!’ Nick retorted, more fiercely than he’d intended. ‘Sorry about that. Chemistry makes me aggro.’
His father mumbled something into his plate. Nick didn’t inquire. He had to go and look after Sarius.
The moon shining through the window of the tavern is in exactly the same waning phase as the moon over London. But London is a long way away.
Sarius is lying on his bed, his hands clasped behind his head and his gaze directed at the ceiling. At some stage someone must have delivered a letter; there’s a yellow wax seal on it in the shape of an eye. Before he opens it he checks on his possessions and is reassured to find they’re all still there. The gold, the healing potions.
He opens the letter, which is brief and not encouraging:
The others have gone. You were needed and refused your assistance. We are disappointed, Sarius. Your negligence cannot remain unpunished – do you understand?
The letter is signed, again, with a yellow eye-shaped mark – it’s all that’s needed. Sarius has screwed up.
The moment he puts the letter aside the candlestick on his table extinguishes, the next moment the moon extinguishes. The world of Erebos becomes dark and mute. Sarius is locked out; for a few frightful seconds he thinks: This time it will be forever. But that’s rubbish of course – he fought so awesomely today. The messenger said he was looking for the best of the best. Sarius could be one of them. He knows it. He feels it.
The vegetarian lasagne was sticking in Nick’s throat. If he’d eaten less, if he’d eaten faster, he wouldn’t have missed the quest. It was enough to make him scream. Seriously. Nick stared at the black screen. It was so unfair. But as always the blackness remained relentless, and resistant to computer restarts, pleas and curses.
Nick wondered where the others were right now. Was Lelant with them? Would he overtake him again tonight? Damn, damn, damn. And all because Nick didn’t know how to pause the game properly.
Listlessly he checked his email, but didn’t find anything that improved his mood. More from habit than from genuine need he loaded Emily’s deviantART page and found a new poem.
NIGHT
In my bed I keep guard
behind a palisade
of cushions and blankets.
With wide-open eyes
I watch for whispering creatures
who shrink from the daylight,
the dark twins of my thoughts.
With outstretched arms
I feel for familiar things
and cannot even find myself.
Only the prayer mill in my head clatters
steadily, incomprehensibly, insanely,
and I pray for a cease-fire
between day and night,
for sleep in my eyes
and the first light of morning
that’s pale as you.
There was something in the poem that distracted Nick briefly from his frustration. It made him think that maybe he should talk to Emily some time. Ask her if she was actually okay, or whether she was having problems. He thought about it briefly and dismissed the idea again straightaway. They didn’t know each other well enough, and he’d only make a fool of himself.
Hi, Emily. I wanted to quickly ask you whether you’re okay. Or . . . er . . . you’re having problems.
No, I’m not. Why?
I just thought, because I read this poem of yours . . .
Oh yes? Where?
On deviant ART.
Well, well. How do you know my nickname?
Oh, I once heard you talking to Michelle about it. I’m sorry. Honest.
Not as sorry as me. Keep away from me, Nick. On the internet and in real life.
Yep, that’s definitely how it would go. Probably the poem was simply art and didn’t have the slightest thing to do with Emily’s emotional life.
Nick gave the mouse a shove that sent it sliding right across the desk, and pushed his hair over his shoulder. He could at least have another go at getting Erebos running again. A good ten minutes had passed; possibly the messenger would think that was enough punishment. Maybe he only wanted to see how tenacious Nick was in his attempts to get back in.
It didn’t work the first time, or the second, or the fifth. Shit, it wasn’t fair. The evening was ruined; the only bright spot was Nick’s father’s astonished face when he glanced into the room and actually found his son reading.
Nine-thirty-four according to the illuminated red numbers on the clock radio. Ten minutes ago Nick had decided to go to bed early. He wanted to stock up on sleep; if he managed things better tomorrow, he could play right through the night and catch up on everything he was missing.
Second possibility: look sick and stay home from school. He bet that was what Colin had done. Just like Helen, Jerome, Alex, and – well, probably everyone else.
But Nick knew that he wasn’t going to wag school, not tomorrow anyway. It would be his first school day since the Friday when Brynne had given him the DVD. Tomorrow he’d look at everyone in the school with new eyes: his flesh-and-blood opponents. He wanted to talk to Colin; they could get together and discuss who was behind which character. He wanted to find out who LordNick was.
Who knows what they’re doing right now. Perhaps the best quest ever is happening. Without me. Sod it.
Nick turned onto his right side, then his left side, but sleep wouldn’t come. He’d hardly closed his eyes before he saw all the fights of the past day in his mind’s eye: Big Goggle-Eyes swinging his staff and approaching him threateningly, Xohoo being dragged out of the Arena by his legs, over the blood-stained sand . . .
With a deep sigh Nick clasped his hands behind his head. The clock said ten-thirteen. That was almost approaching the time he usually went to bed, but he felt more awake than ever. He wondered how Xohoo would cope with being eliminated. Whether he’d recognise him in the morning. Assuming, that is, that he went to the same school as Nick. Not all the Erebos fighters would go to his school, obviously. Of course not, what a dumb idea. He closed his eyes again.
How many had there been in the Arena today? About forty or fifty dark elves, thirty vampires and twenty dwarves. Barbarians? Also twenty at a rough estimate. Slightly fewer werewolves – fifteen? That could be about right. The number of cat and lizard creatures had been of about the same order. And then there had been the three humans. Okay, so all in all that made . . . 160 or 170 fighters. Quite a lot, but insignificant compared to the player figures for other online role-playing games. Not all Erebos players had been gathered in the Arena, obviously – but definitely a large proportion. And that ominous Inner Circle. The champions. Had Drizzel managed to drag one of them down from their golden pedestal? Nick had to grin. Probably not. Probably Drizzel had got a hefty thwack on the head. Served him right.
Ten-twenty-one. What if he tried again? Maybe the ban had been lifted. He wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep anyway, if he didn’t give it at least one more try.
He turned his bedside light on, went to the computer and turned it on with a cramped feeling in his chest. Don’t be nervous, you idiot.
/>
Double click on the red E. Nothing. Once more. Nothing again. Without pausing to think, Nick clicked over to Google. If he found out more about the game, he was sure to find a way to make the software start running again. Except that the messenger had found out about Nick’s first attempt – who knew how. A second attempt would surely annoy him.
Acting on a sudden inspiration, Nick brought up Amazon. His game was a pirate copy, but there must be an original. He typed ‘Erebos’ in the search bar and pressed Enter, half expecting another warning that would glow red in his night-time room:
Not a good idea, Sarius. A dumb idea, to be precise. A fatal idea.
However Amazon listed a series of opera CDs, Orpheus and Eurydice in various recordings. Why? Aha, it was because of an aria with the title Chi mai dell’Erebo, whatever that meant. Unfortunately this knowledge didn’t help him in the slightest. There was no game with the title Erebos. Not even a pre-announcement. So how could there be a copy of it? And who on earth had the original?
Nick studied the various paintings on the covers of the opera CDs. They were mostly details of paintings, and they reminded Nick of something. He took a few minutes to figure it out. They reminded him of big Goggle-Eyes.
Ten-fifty-seven. Back to bed again – Nick had truly had enough now. If he couldn’t play, then at least he wanted to sleep; he felt hollow.
A game you can’t buy. A game that talks to you. A game that watches you, that rewards you, threatens you, gives you tasks.
‘Sometimes I think it’s alive,’ Colin had said. Colin was never going to win a Nobel Prize, but he wasn’t naive either. No, of course this game wasn’t alive. But it was remarkable. Very remarkable.
Sarius is lying on the ground; LordNick is standing over him and grinning with that horribly familiar face.
‘I was here first,’ he says. ‘You’re just a pathetic little shit.’ He holds out a pouch to Sarius that contains heads: Jamie’s, Emily’s, Dan’s and Finn’s. ‘Choose yourself one – or do you want to run around forever with that ugly elf mug?’
Sarius hates LordNick; he wants to leap up and draw his sword, but he can’t move, and besides it’s as dark as the grave.
‘We could fight . . . what do you think?’ he manages to stammer. ‘We’ll fight for two levels. But you have to let me stand up.’
‘For levels? Not a chance, Sarius. We’ll fight for years. Ten years of your life, what do you think?’
Sarius realises that he’s actually hearing the voice of one of his opponents for the first time. Why? And why years of his life, he can’t be serious. That’s not possible. The thought makes him afraid.
‘I don’t want to, that’s not a good bet.’ He hears his own voice too; it’s tearful and high.
‘Fine,’ LordNick says and casts the pouch with the heads aside. ‘Then you’re eliminated.’ He takes his sword in both hands, holds it up and stabs. He pins Sarius to the ground like a butterfly, and Sarius screams, he bellows, he doesn’t want to die . . .
It was his own whimpering that woke Nick. His heart was pumping as fast as if he’d been running. The darkness of his dream still surrounded him – perhaps he hadn’t really woken up.
There was his clock radio, thank goodness. 03:24. Nick fell back into his pillow and took a deep breath. His own scream was still ringing in his ears – hopefully he’d only let it out in his dream, otherwise it would have woken the whole house.
But all remained quiet in the flat; neither Mum nor Dad was popping in to find out why their son was screaming his head off. He was in luck.
He shut his eyes, and opened them again straight away. The thought of sleep was still too disturbing. It was quite conceivable that LordNick was standing by for another dream incursion, equipped with the pouch of heads and his sword.
It was a better idea to go and pee. He dragged himself to the toilet, being careful not to wake his parents. He tried to recall LordNick’s voice, but somehow it had just been any voice, nothing he could place.
Why can’t we chat live during the game? Talk to each other properly, like in other online role-playing games?
The answer was obvious, even at this late hour: because the players weren’t supposed to recognise each other. Because they weren’t supposed to know who they were actually dealing with. But was everyone really keeping their mouths shut?
Nick flushed the toilet as quietly as he could and snuck back into his room. He wasn’t at all tired any more. Not a bit. He could have one more go at starting Erebos. If it worked he would go to school in a few hours feeling good.
In the complete silence of the night the noises of the computer starting up seemed hideously loud. Just the droning of the hard disk and the whooshing sound of the fan were bound to wake his parents.
He clicked on the red E, torn between pessimism on the one hand and hope on the other, both yielding to astonished disbelief when the world did open to him again.
Sarius is not in his room at the hostel; he’s standing in the middle of the forest. It’s almost like at the beginning, when he was still Nameless. The forest is dark, and Sarius is alone. A hint of music floats in the air, buzzing as though to herald approaching disaster.
A narrow track snakes its way through the trees; it’s almost impossible to see in the gloom. Sarius doesn’t have to grope his way through the darkness for long, though. After a short time the path leads him into a clearing.
He sees at a glance what it is. A graveyard, enclosed by a high wrought-iron fence. The gravestones shine brightly in the moonlight; some are leaning over, some are overgrown with ivy. They look as if they’re waiting.
Even though he would like to turn back, Sarius steps into the clearing. A tawny owl screeches; at the same time the music changes. A woman’s voice is raised in a wordless, melancholy lament.
It is always courage that the messenger rewards, Sarius thinks, and takes two more steps. It’s possible that the others are nearby. Or that I will get a task all to myself. Perhaps a secret is concealed in this graveyard.
He approaches the first gravestone and reads the inscription:
AURORA, CAT PERSON,
DIED FROM INSUFFICIENT ATTENTION.
Aurora? It only takes a few seconds for Sarius to see the image in his mind’s eye: the injured cat woman in the labyrinth, and the scorpion looming up behind her with it stinger raised high. But she doesn’t see it, she doesn’t hear it. Sarius drives it off, but it has already stung her. I didn’t know she would die. I thought the messenger . . .
‘Insufficient attention’ – does that refer to her lack of vigilance or his lack of consideration? That’s not written on the gravestone. He shakes off his bad conscience and goes on.
RABELAR, DARK ELF,
DIED FROM TALKATIVENESS.
Sarius has never come across the name Rabelar before. But talkativeness seems to be a common cause of death. Charmalia – vampire – and Vhahox – barbarian – both fell victim to it.
The dirges are becoming more and more oppressive. The image of a woman appears in Sarius’s mind’s eye. She’s kneeling on the ground with her hands thrown up over her face, rocking backwards and forwards. Her face is hidden behind a black veil and she is singing . . .
He shakes off the thought and goes on. He’s looking for one gravestone in particular. He stops again at the one after next.
KASKAAR, VAMPIRE,
DIED A TRAITOR.
The stone is one of those that are leaning over. Someone has smeared a hideous gloating face on it.
The grass rustles under Sarius’s footsteps. He moves on.
OGALFUR, DWARF,
DIED FROM LAZINESS.
BERENALIS, DARK SHE-ELF,
DIED FROM TALKATIVENESS.
JULANO, HUMAN,
DIED FROM DISOBEDIENCE.
TROJOBAS, VAMPIRE,
DIED FROM INATTENTION.
And then, although he was hoping not to find it:
XOHOO, DARK ELF,
DIED FROM LACK OF SELF-CONTROL.
/>
So Xohoo is really dead. That’s . . . a pity. A great pity.
The darkness and the sobbing woman’s voice, the fact that no-one apart from him is upset about Xohoo – suddenly it’s all hard to take.
Sarius drags himself away from the sight of the gravestone and goes on.
AIRDEE, DARK SHE-ELF,
DIED FROM CURIOSITY.
A cause of death that could be dangerous for me, Sarius thinks bitterly. He quickens his pace involuntarily as he walks further along the rows.
JOSTABAN, WEREWOLF, INATTENTION.
GRUNALFIA, DWARF, CURIOSITY.
RUGGOR, DWARF, LAZINESS.
GROTOK, HUMAN, DISOBEDIENCE.
Sarius has had enough. There are no adventures to be had here, and no quest to solve. The graveyard feels eerie. Any second he’s expecting that dead hands will poke through the loose earth and snatch at his legs. He wants to leave this place.
He doesn’t finish reading the rest of the inscriptions on the graves, doesn’t care that there may be familiar names among them. Although it would be worth the trouble to find Drizzel or LordNick.
Wanting to leave and being able to leave are two different things, however. He can see the wrought-iron arches of a gate gleaming in the moonlight behind the rows of graves, true, but there’s only forest beyond it. Some random forest. Probably miles away from the White City.
The wind freshens and stirs up new noises; the swaying tree branches are beckoning to Sarius. Or are they scaring him off? He doesn’t know; he wants to cower down and bury his face in his arms, but someone is bound to be watching him.
Died of cowardice, of stone-cold fear. Okay, this won’t do. He’s going to pull himself together now, he’s not going to get freaked out by the darkness or the despairing song, and he’s going to find a way out. The gate is a good start.
He walks towards it, past more graves. Many of the inscriptions are overgrown or so weathered that he can’t decipher them. Doesn’t matter. He has to get out of here.