‘Wait a minute, it’s all a misunderstanding. I’ll try again,’ Sarius cries. ‘This time I’ll do it better, it will work this time, I promise!’
The messenger pulls his hood down over his face.
‘You will not repeat anything about Erebos. You will not turn against us. You will leave the remaining warriors in peace. You will not throw in your lot with our enemies, or you will regret it.’ ‘Please stop! I will do it, this time I’ll do it right!’
They carry him to the fissure that yawns behind the messenger’s throne. It’s clear to Sarius that the fissure is his death. He struggles with all his strength against the grip of the stone demons. In vain. ‘Nick Dunmore. Nick Dunmore. Nick. Dunmore,’ echoes softly through the cathedral.
Then they drop him. The air around him sings; again and again he thinks he can hear his name. He falls down, down, down. There’s still a tiny bit of light, he can see the silhouette of his hands which he has stretched out in terror.
Then the impact. A short sharp screech – the injury tone, louder than ever before.
Then silence. Blackness. The end.
Nick hammered at the keyboard, thumped the mouse, hit out at the monitor, the computer, the desk. Sarius wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead.
Okay, calm down, take it slowly. Turn off the computer first. Then turn it back on again. Watch it booting, don’t get impatient. Think about it.
Who had betrayed him? Who had got the damned bottle of tablets out of the rubbish? Nick hadn’t seen anyone, but then he hadn’t paid attention to whether someone had followed him once he was out of the school.
What an idiot. Some gamer must have crept after him. Probably got loads of gold or another level as a reward.
But still. The messenger couldn’t prove that Nick had refused to carry out the orders. He couldn’t kick him out without proof! It hadn’t even been a day since he’d said that Nick would be a candidate for the Inner Circle.
The thought was painful. And the Arena fight was tomorrow! He wanted to be there, he had to be there. He would make it, he just had to find an opportunity to speak to the messenger and clear up the misunderstanding.
He thought of Greg. Another misunderstanding. Except that it wasn’t one at all in my case.
But he wasn’t Greg. He wasn’t going to let himself be kicked out. There was a way back in, he knew it. For certain. Nick just needed a second chance. He had to get back into the game.
He rapped impatiently on the desk with his knuckles. How come the computer was taking so long to boot?
Assuming the messenger gave him the same orders again, would he do it this time? Would he poison Mr Watson? Did he regret not using the opportunity he’d had?
Yes, damn it all. Yes. What was Mr Watson after all, compared to Sarius?
Nick shut his eyes. Probably nothing would have happened. He would have sipped at his tea, thought it was disgusting and spat it out. So? No big deal. That had probably even been at the back of the messenger’s mind. If all the pills had dissolved in the tea, it would have been completely undrinkable. Not remotely dangerous. But no, Nick had to have scruples about it.
The computer had finally managed it; there it was, the usual desktop display. Nick automatically moved the cursor over to the spot where the Erebos icon was. Or where it had been. The red E had disappeared.
Shit. Frantically Nick fished the Erebos DVD out of the case and put it in the drive. The install window appeared. There you go. Perfect. Install.
It took ages, like the first time. But that didn’t matter; he could be patient.
So. Right. Where was the icon?
He couldn’t find it, any more than he could find the re-installed program. He searched the whole hard drive, twice, three times. Nothing. He’d install it again.
Hang on, maybe he had to copy the DVD first? After all that’s how it was when he’d passed the game on.
He copied it, installed it, twice, three times. Thumped his computer desperately in between. Tried it a total of seven times, in every conceivable variation. It didn’t work. And he knew that it wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t make himself stop. If he stopped, it was final. Then it would really be over. He fought back the rising tears. Sarius was a part of him; no-one was allowed to simply take a piece of his own self away from him. He’d install it again. And again.
After more than three hours Nick gave up. He’d screwed it up. He’d sacrificed Sarius for his stupid English teacher – for someone who just had to go snooping around in other people’s business. Would have served him right, getting a wake-up call. But Nick had been too much of a coward.
Died from cowardice?
The thought of his gravestone finally brought the tears to his eyes. Would cowardice be engraved on it? Or disobedience? Indecision?
He wouldn’t even be able to find that out.
‘Lasagne, Nicky?’ Mum was balancing a foil container in one oven-mitted hand. It smelled of cheese and Italian herbs, but Nick didn’t feel hungry.
‘Yes, please. But not too much,’ he said nevertheless. They were supposed to behave inconspicuously, messenger’s orders. Hang on. That didn’t apply to him any more. He rested his head in his hands. His eyes were burning.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Sure. I’m just tired.’
‘Must be the weather. Karen Bricker nearly fell asleep on me during her perm . . .’
He let Mum talk. Occasionally he smiled; twice he joined in when she laughed, even though he’d lost the thread long ago.
After he’d stopped blubbing, he’d had a new idea. Surely he could install the game again on another computer. He could make a new login – just not as Sarius, unfortunately. Did he want to do that? Would it still be better than nothing?
Oh hell, he’d completely forgotten that you had to give your real name at the start. Last time the game hadn’t let him lie to it. It didn’t matter – he had to try, at least. The messenger would see that Nick Dunmore was taking the matter seriously. He would re-admit him.
Sarius is standing in the middle of the Arena, there’s a red ring dangling round his neck. But it’s not made out of rubies; it’s made of fire.
The crowd around him is cheering – this time it’s made up entirely of spider men, with twitching legs growing out of their heads. Sarius turns away. LordNick is standing next to him with a spear sticking into his body.
‘So what,’ he says and shrugs his shoulders.
Then the spear turns into a snake, which retreats back through the stab wound in LordNick’s body as if into a cave. The injury heals. Magic.
Sarius is looking for Sapujapu, but there’s no sign of him. Lelant is there instead, pulling a stupid face and giving him the finger. There’s a thermos tucked into his belt.
‘Fight,’ bellows big Goggle-Eyes. He hammers on the ground with his staff, and a fissure opens in the earth.
Not again, Sarius thinks, I’ve only just managed to get back. He looks up – the golden hawk is circling there, with the two stone demons alongside him. They mustn’t see him.
The fissure grows wider and wider. Some are jumping in of their own accord, but Sarius isn’t going to – he’s not crazy. He retreats further and further, but soon the hole fills the whole Arena. He has to climb over the barricade, into the stands, but the spider people are there, stretching out their arms as if he were a welcome feed . . .
He’s falling again, falling endlessly. Doesn’t matter, he thinks, at least I know how I can get back now.
The alarm tore Nick out of his fall. At first he was perfectly happy, because Erebos was open to him once again. The next moment reality had asserted its rightful control of his head, and Nick buried his face in his pillow and tried to crawl back into his dream.
Did his face show it? Nick got the impression he was being stared at as soon as he entered the school. Colin studied him mockingly; Rashid, on the other hand, looked right through him as if he were thin air.
Neither of them would help him, that was obvious t
o Nick. What he needed was someone like Greg. Someone who’d already been through the plunge into the abyss and was searching for the way back into the world of Erebos.
The minute he wasn’t being watched he tried Greg, which meant that he practically had to follow him into the toilet.
‘Can I ask you something quickly?’
Greg shrugged his shoulders uneasily. The scrapes on his face had got darker, and he still had a bandage around his left arm.
‘If you have to.’
‘Have you found a . . . solution to your problem in the meantime?’
Greg frowned, then he began to grin. Obviously Nick was easy to see through.
‘Don’t tell me they’ve kicked you out now, too? Oh well, tough luck, Dunmore. Considering how helpful you were, I wouldn’t tell you how you get back in, even if I knew myself.’
He slammed the loo door in Nick’s face.
Okay, so that hadn’t been very clever. Turning to Greg, of all people. But who else did he know about who’d definitely got chucked out? No-one. Did anybody look particularly depressed and withdrawn? He thought of Helen. All Helen did these days was stare into space, and she spoke even less than before. He would ask Helen, even though she didn’t particularly like him. Actually she didn’t particularly like anyone.
But so what? At worst she’d rub his face in his own stupidity and give him a verbal kick up the bum. He’d survive. He didn’t have any time to be picky. The longer Sarius was dead, the more difficult it would be to bring him back to life. It was still possible, Nick sensed. Perhaps Sarius wasn’t even in the graveyard yet, and he could be brought back and allowed to continue. He just needed to convince the messenger. Somehow.
He found Helen in the next free period. She was sitting in the schoolyard, under a linden tree, and twirling a heart-shaped yellow leaf between her fingers. She looked unusually peaceful, and Nick hesitated to disturb her peace. Oh well, he was going to be nice anyway.
He sat down next to her on the bench. ‘Helen?’
She didn’t move, just turned down one corner of her mouth as if an irritating thought had crossed her mind.
‘I’d like to ask you something. You . . . played too, didn’t you?’
‘Clear off.’
‘It’s . . .’ He looked for the right words. ‘I’ve got a problem. I can’t get in any more and I was wondering if you would be able to help me.’
She ran her finger over the jagged edges of the linden leaf.
‘I had the feeling,’ Nick went on cautiously, ‘that you were already in the same situation. That’s why . . .’
She turned to face him. There were shadows under her eyes, and the eyes themselves were bloodshot. She’s played all night, Nick thought. She’s in. But – still, or again?
‘What’s past is past,’ Helen said, and threw the leaf away. ‘You’d better leave me in peace.’
‘But I need help.’
She seemed to find that entertaining. ‘What gave you the idea that I would help you?’
Because I was always nicer to you than the others.
‘Just because. But that’s okay,’ he answered. It wasn’t okay at all. In a few hours the Arena fight was going to start, and he wanted to be there, he wanted to be there more than anything else.
During English class he sat staring hypnotically at the thermos on the teacher’s desk. Mr Watson had it with him today in class, as if he wanted to mock Nick with it. Now and then Watson poured himself out some tea and took a sip. The fact that he’d done that on previous occasions too was beginning to dawn on Nick.
Emily was sitting diagonally in front of him. She was wearing her hair out today, but although part of Nick found her beautiful – as always – a different thought was demanding his attention. She could still accept the game from him. She hadn’t mucked it up yet. The big adventure still lay ahead of her.
She must have felt his gaze, because she turned her head and smiled at Nick. He gave a strained smile back. Did she already know about his expulsion? Jamie had given him an unusually friendly look today too; did they know about it? Could they know about it?
In the lunchbreak he rang his brother, but Finn only answered after the tenth ring.
‘Sorry, little bro, but I’ve got a customer right now. What’s up?’
‘Finn, can you lend me your old laptop? For a couple of weeks?’
‘Why – isn’t yours working?’
‘Yes, but . . . I need a second one. Please.’
‘Well, Becca won’t be very pleased, she uses it sometimes for her designs. But fine. You can have it.’
‘Thanks,’ Nick said with relief. ‘Can I pick it up this afternoon?’
‘Oh. That could be tricky,’ Finn said. ‘We’re closing the shop at three and going out to Greenwich to visit friends. Maybe tomorrow?’
No, the Arena is today, Nick thought desperately.
‘Okay. Tomorrow. See you then.’
He spent the rest of school brooding and feeling that time was running away from him. He had to do something. He had to find a solution.
As he was setting off for home, Jamie pulled up next to him on his bike.
‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? You look completely knackered. Is it serious, or does it have something to do with Erebos?’
Nick suppressed the desire to thump Jamie.
‘I thought you took Erebos so seriously that you’d declared war on it,’ he said. If Jamie wanted an argument, he could have one. Gladly. Nick was in dire need of someone to let all his frustration out on.
‘That’s true. But I’m taking the consequences seriously, rather than the game.’ Jamie pushed his bike along next to Nick, like old times. As if there wasn’t a whole world between them.
‘How are things going with Eric?’ Nick asked, hoping the answer would be ‘bad’.
‘He’s okay. He’s trying to get Aisha to talk to him, but she’s blocking everything. She doesn’t want to talk to a female counsellor, she doesn’t want to do anything. But she’s sticking to her allegation. It’s not easy for Eric.’ Jamie threw Nick a sideways glance. ‘Luckily he’s got a fantastic girlfriend; she’s standing by him one hundred per cent. I met her recently; she’s studying Economics. She’s really nice. You’d like her.’
A girlfriend. A uni student.
He felt as if he had hot rocks in his stomach. Nick swallowed hard, but the rocks stayed put. So it had been easy for the messenger to make big promises.
But – why the thing with Aisha then? Was it an added extra? To convince Nick? Or was Aisha the pill in Eric’s tea?
At this last thought he gave a short laugh, which Jamie immediately misunderstood.
‘I knew you’d be glad to hear it. Her name is Dana, and she’s helping us with our campaign against the game. Getting information materials together for parents and so on. I could have told you that ages ago if you’d only listened to me for a few minutes like a normal person.’
Criticism was the last thing Nick could take right now. ‘Normal, huh? Who’s the paranoid one here? And you talk about normal!’
They’d reached the entry to the Tube station. Nick ran down the steps without saying goodbye, without turning round again.
Handouts for the parents! Jamie was lucky he’d only talked to Nick about it. An active gamer would’ve immediately fed the information to the messenger.
Ten o’clock at night. Nick was lying on his bed, his arms folded behind his head. He’d wasted another two hours trying to get access to the game; he’d copied the DVD twice and re-installed it three times. It hadn’t made the slightest difference.
He shut his eyes. Now they’d all be inside the Arena, each species would be in their own room: the barbarians, the vampires, the cat people, the dark elves . . .
Any minute now they’d be allowed up top; the crowd would cheer them, the master of ceremonies would call out the first name. And Sarius wouldn’t be there.
Would Drizzel challenge Blackspell? Who would win? Would someone die
again, like Xohoo? He would never find out, and that sucked.
It was a shame Nick didn’t know who Xohoo had been. He would have liked to talk to him. He had never felt so alone.
He slept badly that night. He longed for the ability to be Sarius again, at least in his dreams, but the more doggedly he pursued it, the further sleep retreated from him.
CHAPTER 22
The next day began shining and golden, as if the real world wanted to tempt Nick with all the charms autumn had to offer. But Nick just felt provoked. Clouds and rain would have suited his mood much better, not to mention darkness. But this afternoon he would borrow Finn’s laptop, re-install the game and then take it from there. If necessary he would start right from the beginning. Maybe as a vampire this time. Or a barbarian.
He spent the whole school day in a daze. Thank goodness it was Friday. At the weekend he’d be able to set up his new character and send him racing through the levels. He should be able to manage at least four; he was experienced now, after all.
The last period was over and he packed his things up. He was in a hurry; Finn’s shop was over the other side of town, and it would take forever. And on Fridays the Tube was even more crowded than normal.
But of course Jamie had to hold him up again, almost the instant Nick came out of the school building.
‘They’re saying you’re out of the game. Is that true?’
‘Who says that?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Does to me.’
Jamie’s delight was plain to see, and Nick felt like punching him in the face. Of course that wasn’t fair, but then no-one was being fair to Nick either. And if Jamie was so delighted about something that was making Nick totally miserable, then . . . then . . .
‘I promised not to say who told me. But I’d be so happy if it was true, Nick! You don’t know how much you’ve changed in the last few weeks. I mean, we are best mates after all.’
Nick literally saw red.
‘We’re what? What? You’re always trying to interfere in my life – and now you’re practically throwing a party, you’re so happy something went wrong for me. Provided of course that someone wasn’t telling you complete and utter rubbish!’