It was only that afternoon, after Nick had got home, that the magnitude of his mistake dawned on him. He’d allowed himself to get carried away and officially declare himself an enemy of Erebos. Even though he couldn’t prove that Jamie’s accident had anything to do with the game.
Take the pliers that you will find under the park bench next to the school gate and use them to cut through the brake cable on the dark blue bike. The one with the Manchester United sticker on the cross bar.
He could virtually see it. Snip, snip – job done. One more level. It was quite possible that it hadn’t actually been Colin. It was equally possible that the saboteur hadn’t even known whose bike it was. That evening Nick sat at the computer, checked his email and thought about what he should say to Darleen Pember. Whether he should even approach her.
Pensively he ran the cursor over the spot where the red E had been. Would he like to be in one of the caves now, around one of the fires? Yes. No. Yes. He would like to talk to the others. But above all, what he would most like to do was to chop the messenger up into little bony pieces.
In their free period on Wednesday Emily intercepted Nick in front of the library. They were as good as alone, since most people were lounging around outside, making the best of the last fine autumn days.
‘I’ve got some news,’ Emily said.
‘About Jamie?’
‘No.’
The Girl Guides walked past some distance away. They weren’t talking to each other; it looked more as though they were on patrol. When Alex spotted Nick, he smiled and raised his hand in greeting, whereas Dan twisted his piggy face into a grimace.
Nick dragged Emily into the library, where they retreated to the furthest corner. Emily was practically vibrating with energy.
‘Go on, tell me.’
She smiled, opened her bag and pulled out a DVD case, on which someone had written ‘Erebos’ in rounded handwriting.
Contradictory feelings were fighting a pitched battle inside Nick. Disapproval. Concern. Greed. ‘You really want to get into it?’
‘Yes. I think it’s the right time for me.’
Nick looked at the DVD, which he’d only recently been desperate to get. Emily would explore Erebos, travel through all those bizarre, awful, beautiful landscapes, go on adventures. The yearning in his gut was spreading. He shook his head disapprovingly.
‘Jamie was right, you’re not in it any more, are you?’
He nodded. ‘Kicked out,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Well, it’s a shame. Then we can’t play it together.’
‘No.’ Nick bit his lip. It was just as well. He knew it was just as well. All the excitement, the tension, the thrills . . . He didn’t need it any more.
‘How come . . . What’s the reason for changing your mind? You didn’t want to have anything to do with the game.’
‘That’s right. But I want to understand what fascinates you all so much.’ She looked away thoughtfully. ‘Jamie was convinced that this game is not simply a game. He had his own theory about it.’ She turned the cover over in her hands. ‘Jamie thought there must be more behind a game like this. Some sort of goal. All these things that are happening in the real world, they must benefit someone, don’t you think? But the only way I can find that out is if I take a look at Erebos myself. That’s why I’ve dropped remarks here and there about how I’d be interested in a copy now.’
Nick remembered. He himself had passed the message on to the messenger, and a few other gamers were bound to have done so too.
‘Well, the only objective of the game that I know anything about is that a villain by the name of Ortolan is supposed to be destroyed,’ Nick said. ‘What happens in real life is only designed to protect the game against people who have something against it.’
‘Like Jamie? Then we should try to stop it.’
Stop it. Nick thought of the accident and the pool of blood, and knew that Emily was right. Even if he wouldn’t ever be able to run around the White City again or take part in the Arena fights. He sighed. ‘I don’t know how exactly, but we can try.’
The door to the library opened and closed again silently. Nick signalled Emily to be quiet – but it was only Mr Bolton, the RE teacher.
‘We’ll have to be very careful,’ Nick whispered. ‘If they notice, it’s possible that . . . well, it could get dangerous. The game is incredibly smart. I’m still not entirely sure that it wanted to get rid of Jamie, but I know what it had in mind for Mr Watson.’ Emily raised her eyebrows inquiringly.
‘I’ll tell you another time,’ Nick said. ‘You have no idea how difficult it will be to outwit it. And as soon as you look suspicious or you fail, you’re out quicker than you can count to five.’ In his head a stone demon spread its wings. Nick chased it away.
Emily smiled cheekily – an expression Nick had never seen on her before.
‘Oh, I’ll be careful. And I wonder…’ this time she looked around surreptitiously and lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘whether maybe you could help me. I don’t know much about computer games; I only play solitaire.’
Rule number two flashed through Nick’s mind. When you play, make sure that you are alone.
What would happen if there were two of them? Would the game notice? Nick took a deep breath. He would just have to give it a try.
‘Of course I’ll help you, gladly in fact. You’ll make much faster progress if I give you tips.’
‘Perfect.’ She beamed. ‘Come round to my place after tea, okay? Five-thirty would be good.’
* * *
Nick arrived early. Ten minutes before the agreed time, he was standing in front of Emily’s house in Heathfield Gardens, wondering which window was hers.
He had been careful. After the incident with Colin yesterday, he had expected that he might be followed, but he hadn’t been. Nick glanced around – the street was almost deserted. No-one knew where he was.
He didn’t want to ring the bell early; that would have looked too keen. So he went for a walk around the nearby streets, which were attractive and well-kept.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t brought anything; a well-chosen gift would have shown that he was a nice guy with hidden depths. It was too late for that now. But if he didn’t behave too idiotically, maybe he’d have a second chance.
On the dot of five-thirty, he pressed the doorbell, and Emily opened the door. As it turned out, hers was the attic room. It wasn’t one of those frilly pink dolly-rooms with soft toys on the bed and film-star posters on the wall – it was a very grown-up space. Two bookshelves, a futon bed, and seating in the corner with a coffee table, piled high with more books. Under the sloping roof there was an extremely tidy desk, on which an open laptop was waiting. If Emily ever felt inclined to pay him a return visit, Nick would have to carry out a large-scale cleaning and tidying campaign beforehand.
‘We need to be quiet; my mother went to lie down half an hour ago. She may not even come out of her room again today.’
Nick didn’t ask questions, even though it seemed odd to him that a grown-up would go to bed in the afternoon. In any case it was ideal for their joint project.
‘We won’t make a racket. The game is quiet at the beginning. You should use headphones later on. For various reasons. I saw someone die because they didn’t hear something.’
‘Headphones.’ Emily nodded. ‘Okay. Can we start?’
She fetched the DVD out of her bag and loaded it into the drive. ‘I install the game in my program folder normally, right? Anything I should pay attention to?’
‘No. Not yet.’
The install window opened. There it all was. The ruined tower, the scorched countryside. The sword with the red cloth tied to its handle was stuck in the dry earth. ‘Erebos’ was written in red lettering across the sky.
Nick’s stomach pulsed with nervousness. He wiped his damp hands on his pants legs.
‘Should I do it?’ Emily asked.
‘Sure.’
She clicked on ??
?Install’. The blue bar began to edge forwards, sluggish as ever.
‘It’ll take ages,’ Nick said, without taking his eyes off the progress bar. How did it start again? In the forest. Yes, exactly, and he was about to see it. Every lurch of the bar brought him closer to Erebos. As if he were sitting in a train heading towards home.
Emily gave him a sideways glance. ‘Is something worrying you?’
‘What? No! I can’t . . . I can’t wait to see what you think.’
‘So far, mainly slow,’ Emily said and rested her chin in her hands. They waited for a while without saying anything. Nick divided his gaze between the penholder on the desk, the screen of the laptop and Emily’s profile. He couldn’t see a single one of her drawings anywhere in the room. Too bad – then they would have been able to talk about them.
‘Does your mother always go to bed so early?’ he asked, when he thought the silence had lasted too long. He felt right away that he’d been rude, and wished he could take the question back.
‘She’s going through a bad patch at the moment. Sleeping a lot, not eating much, and talking even less.’ Emily stared at the progress bar even more intently than before. ‘That’s how it’s been ever since Jack died. It goes up and down – I’ve got used to it, like the seasons.’
‘And your father?’
‘Married again, two children, Derek and Rosie. Second time lucky.’ She moved the mouse as if she hoped it would speed up the installation. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad at him. It was impossible to take any more – and he didn’t. I’m incredibly glad that the two little ones came along. I wish I could have run away like him.’
Nick needed a moment to digest what he’d heard. ‘You never talked about it at school.’
‘Not with you, that’s true.’
But with Eric, I bet. For a moment the old jealousy flared up. But now Emily was sitting here with him. Talking to him.
‘How about you? Do you have brothers and sisters?’ she asked. ‘Yes. A brother. He’s five years older than me, and he’s already moved out.’
‘Do you get on well?’
‘Yes, really well.’ Nick thought of Finn, tried to imagine what it would be like to lose him, but straightaway abandoned the attempt. He didn’t know how Emily could bear it.
‘Unfortunately he’s fallen out with my parents. Well, with my father, to be precise. They’re not talking to each other.’
‘Why not?’
Nick took a deep breath. ‘Well, my father always wanted to be a doctor, but his parents couldn’t afford for him to go to university. Now he’s a nurse at the Princess Grace Hospital. I don’t know if he’ll ever come to terms with it. At any rate, it was always understood that Finn would become a doctor.’
‘But Finn didn’t want to.’
‘At first he did, he swotted like crazy and his marks would probably have been good enough. But then he changed his mind. He met Becca, and wham, that was the end of medicine.’
Emily looked at Nick out of the corner of her eye. ‘Why was that?’
‘Becca had taken over a tattoo studio. Finn was hooked straightaway. He did a few courses, and now he’s tattooing and piercing like a champion. My father said he’d never talk to him again.’
A tiny smile appeared on Emily’s face, but disappeared again immediately.
‘Do you have to become a doctor now?’
She’d seen through Dad without even knowing him.
‘Oh well, it would please him, and I’m interested in it.’
Finally she turned to face him, and looked at him as if she was checking that he was telling the truth.
‘So you’re not mad at your brother because you’re responsible for your father’s wishes now?’
Nick pushed his ponytail off the nape of his neck. ‘No. I’m not mad at him at all.’
Even though he hardly ever got to see them, Nick knew exactly how the two flying ravens looked that Finn had tattooed for him just under his hairline. He felt Emily’s fingers like a breath of air on the tattoo. He swallowed.
‘Why ravens?’
‘At first it was because we both have such dark hair that Mum always used to call us “the raven brothers”. But Finn says they’re good luck, And besides they’re like a ... seal, a sign that we belong together.’
Emily gently took her hand away, much to Nick’s regret. His ponytail slipped back into its normal place.
‘He has a knack, your brother. It looks good.’
The install was slowly nearing completion. Emily had gone into the kitchen to get a bottle of ginger ale and two glasses. When she came back, the screen was going dark.
‘Is that how it’s supposed to be?’
‘Yes. I thought at first something was wrong too. Just wait.’
Black. Black. Black.
Then the letters appeared, red and throbbing.
‘Enter.
Or turn back.
This is Erebos.’
‘Well, then.’ Emily said, and clicked on Enter.
Dark forest, moonlight. Her nameless figure was huddled in the middle of the clearing. He looked exactly like Nick’s game character before he became Sarius. Nick fought against a renewed surge of melancholy as he watched Emily get familiar with how to control her own Nameless.
‘It’s easy to get him to run around,’ she said. ‘Can he do anything else?’
‘Yes! Climb, fight . . . everything! There’ll be keyboard shortcuts for special abilities later on, but there’s no hurry.’
Emily made her Nameless walk up and down the clearing. She had a good look at everything before she decided on her line of approach.
‘I think I’ll go where the forest is not as dense; I don’t want to make things harder than necessary for myself.’
Branches snapped, the wind rustled in the treetops. If Nick had had his way, Emily would have raced her game character through this first sequence much faster, but he was trying hard to conceal his impatience. She was handling it well, considering she was a newbie in computer gaming. Unlike Nick she didn’t make Nameless rush around pushing his stamina meter to the limit; instead she was pacing him. After about twenty minutes of wandering about she turned to Nick. ‘Is there a goal? Or is it a test of patience?’
‘There is a goal. Somewhere round here there’s a fire and someone you can talk to.’
What the tree had been to Nick when he’d used it to get an overview, a tall rock was to Emily. Nameless climbed up, and for the first time the stamina meter went down a little. But the view was compensation enough. A sea of treetops all around, and on the right a hill with dots of light hinting at the existence of a settlement.
‘There!’ Nick cried, and pointed with his finger at a weak golden glow between the trees. ‘That’s where you have to go!’
It was only Emily’s look of surprised amusement that made him realise how agitated he must appear.
‘Well . . . that’s where you go, over there. If you’re interested.’
On the way to the small fireplace Emily, too, encountered an obstacle. It wasn’t a crevice, like Nick’s, but a rampart that she couldn’t scale. Every time her Nameless took hold of it in order to pull himself up, stones and earth crumbled off.
‘And now?’ Emily asked after the fifth failed attempt.
‘You need to learn how to solve problems like this. It’s something you’ll have to do quite often. Imagine that it’s real. What would you do then?’ Nick felt like some idiotic teacher, but he wanted Emily to grasp how fantastic and lifelike this all was.
And Emily grasped it quickly. She made Nameless drag some small boulders over, all the time keeping an eye on his stamina meter and giving him little rests. In the end he scaled the rampart without any trouble.
From the other side they could already see the campfire flickering. Nick also recognised the dark shadow that was silhouetted beside it. His heartbeat sped up. He wouldn’t give Emily any more tips now. She needed to see for herself what Erebos could do.
Th
e man by the fire didn’t move when Nameless slowly approached. But the shimmering silvery words appeared at the edge of the screen.
‘Greetings, nameless one. I have been expecting you.’
He hadn’t said that to Nick back then. He’d praised him for his speed. And for his ingenuity.
Emily took her game character closer to the man, and tried to peep under the black hood. But he lifted his head of his own accord. Nick had nearly forgotten the narrow face with its small mouth; the man hadn’t ever turned up again later in the game.
‘You are curious. That can help you or destroy you, nameless one. It’s something you need to be aware of.’
Emily threw Nick an uncertain look.
‘Do you wish to proceed?’ the man asked. ‘Only if you ally yourself with Erebos will you be any match for this game. You need to know that.’
Emily was still looking back and forth between Nick and the screen, at a loss.
‘He’s waiting for an answer,’ Nick said, and pointed to the keyboard.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. Try it out, you’ll see.’
Emily placed her fingers on the keys, hesitated at first, and then typed.
‘What does that mean, ally myself with Erebos?’
The man poked around in the fire with his staff. Sparks flew, rose into the air, extinguished.
‘It means overstepping limits, overcoming limits. What it ultimately means will depend on you.’
Emily took her fingers off the keyboard and looked at Nick in astonishment. ‘He gave me an answer. How does that work?’
‘No idea,’ Nick said. ‘That’s one of the special things about this game.’ He suppressed a smile, because he could literally see how Emily was getting hooked.
A delicate melody started to play: flutes and violins, very soft, very seductive. The astonishing thing was that it was a melody that Nick had never heard during his time in Erebos. Not one single time.
‘Would you advise me to ally myself with Erebos?’ Emily typed in. ‘Would you advise me to proceed?’
The man fixed his gaze on Emily’s Nameless for a long time.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’