Erebos (30 page)

‘I received the pictures,' the messenger says. He's sitting on a rock at the edge of the moor, stretching out his long legs and looking contented.

Sarius relaxes. Uploading the pictures onto the server as specified hadn't been entirely straightforward; the connection had crashed twice.

‘Have you eaten dinner?'

‘Yes.'

Since when has that interested the messenger?

‘Did you chat with your parents? Did you make a cheerful, normal impression?'

‘I think so.' I babbled like a brook so it wouldn't occur to them to ask about my homework.

‘Good. We must be careful. There is too much talk outside Erebos. Our enemies are positioning themselves. We must be careful not to leave ourselves open to attack. I would therefore like you to attend school every day and behave inconspicuously. Give no-one any reason to find your behaviour suspicious.'

‘Yes, all right.'

‘You are now an Eight. I will increase your life energy and your fire magic. Tell me: has your wish crystal already started to take effect? Have you received what you wished for?'

I don't know, Sarius thinks. That didn't have anything to do with me. I don't believe that awful scene was my doing.

‘Will you give me no answer?'

‘I'm not sure. Perhaps. It's possible that it has. That it's begun to take effect.'

The messenger nodded his satisfaction.

‘You see? Just wait. That will continue; the rest is in your hands, Sarius.'

He can't tell that I'm scared, can he? He can't possibly see it in my face.

He's waiting for the messenger to finally dismiss him, but he keeps looking at him, and spreads out his bony fingers.

‘It would not be a bad thing if Aisha had a witness,' he says. ‘Someone who could confirm her accusations. Can you think of anyone, Sarius?'

He can't be serious, Sarius thinks. I'm not going to do it. Bloody hell, why is he asking that of me?

‘I was with Brynne in the cafe at that time. That means I'm no good as a witness.'

‘I know. I asked you whether you could think of someone, not whether you would do it.'

‘Oh, I see. I'm sorry, I can't think of anyone either.'

‘Then go.'

The messenger waves him away, and Sarius, who is glad to escape from the gaze of those yellow eyes, obeys his gesture. Neither of them has mentioned the Galaris box, but there's no doubt the messenger already knows all about that too.

Sarius sees the glow of the enormous campfire even from a distance. The moor is to the right; to the left a round structure reaches up into the night sky. A meadow stretches between them, on which only thorny bushes and a few stunted trees are growing.

‘Hi, Sarius!' Arwen's Child is the first to notice him. She's sitting next to LordNick by the fire, which reflects off her new breastplate. Both of them must still be above him – he can't see their levels. Lelant is sitting further away; he's recovered since their fight and is a Seven again.

‘Have you registered for the next Arena yet? Over there!' Arwen's Child points over to the round building. ‘That's about all you can do at the moment. Nothing's happening right now. We've been sitting here for half an hour or so.'

Sarius doesn't know anything about a new Arena fight, but of course he wants to take part. What he hasn't bargained for is big Goggle-Eyes himself accepting his registration in person. He's standing on the sand of the night-time Arena with gnomes swarming all around him, and seems gigantic, almost twice as big as Sarius. Once again he's thrown by the giant's strange appearance – he doesn't resemble any of the others here. And he's almost naked. ‘Register here,' he says, and points with his peculiar staff to the list hanging on the wall. ‘In seven days, two hours before midnight, the fights will begin.'

Sarius writes his name underneath Bracco's. Well, well, so he's still alive too. Blackspell is on the list, BloodWork, Lelant, LordNick and Drizzel. Sarius doesn't have time to read any more because the master of ceremonies shoos him off.

‘Don't be curious, little elf. Run back to the others.'

As he comes out of the Arena, Feniel walks towards him. She must have been playing day and night, because the last time Sarius saw her she was a badly injured Four. Now he can't see her level. So it's at least an Eight. All her armour is new, and she's carrying two swords. Something tells Sarius that he would lose this time round if they were facing one another again.

It looks as though the regulars have settled in for a chat around the gigantic fire. Sapujapu is sitting in the middle of a mob of dwarves who are comparing their axes, but he greets Sarius straight away.

‘No quest today?'

‘Doesn't look like it.'

‘Still, makes a nice change.'

They chat about the Arena fight, which Sapujapu also plans to contest, then Sarius saunters on. He sees BloodWork sitting alone on a tree stump, staring into the flames. The ring that he wears on a chain around his neck glows ruby-red in the firelight. Sarius hesitates at first, but then he addresses the barbarian.

‘Do you know what else is happening today?'

‘No.'

‘Okay. Sorry. Have a nice evening.'

BloodWork raises his head.

‘I'm dog-tired.'

‘No wonder. I think we've all been missing out on sleep recently.'

‘You have no idea.'

Sarius could do without the self-importance right now.

‘So call it quits for today and crash on your barbarian skins,' he says. But BloodWork still can't take a joke.

‘Piss off, elf fart,' he says. He heaves his gigantic body up and shuffles over to another barbarian and a cat person who are standing apart from the others. They have red circles dangling round their necks too.

The cat guy wasn't one of those on the tablet at the last Arena fight, Sarius is certain of that.

‘Don't get your hopes up.'

Drizzel has turned up next to Sarius and jostles him roughly aside. ‘You'll never be one of the Inner Circle, you wimp. But I will, I bet you. Just watch out, and wait till the next Arena.'

He bares his long fangs.

Sarius is about to draw his sword, just in case, but his attention is distracted.

A gnome with light green skin has positioned himself on a rock near the fire.

‘The warriors of the Inner Circle are expected at the secret meeting place. There is news.'

BloodWork, both his companions and the elf mage called Wyrdana stand up and head for the wooded area that lies to the left like a wall of shadow. There's no fifth chosen one to be seen, but then Blackspell emerges from the darkness next to the Arena and follows the other four. The red insignia sparkles on his black cape. ‘Blackspell belongs to the Inner Circle?' Sarius asks in astonishment.

‘Shit. I didn't know that either,' Drizzel responds. ‘But so much the better. I'll make mincemeat of him in the Arena!'

Sarius is secretly looking forward to seeing that. Doesn't matter who makes mincemeat out of whom – he can't stand either of the vampires.

Blackspell disappears into the darkness of the forest as well, and Sarius has to keep a grip on himself to remain by the fire. He would love to know what's being discussed in the Inner Circle.

The green-skinned gnome, meanwhile, is still standing on his rock; he has further announcements to make.

‘Warriors!' he begins. ‘The last battle is drawing near. The time has not yet come, but now more than ever it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff.'

He leaves a significant pause.

‘The camp here is none too distant from Ortolan's fortress. We are drawing closer to him, step by step. My master thinks that Ortolan can already sense us. But he will not attack. He
cannot
attack us, because he has no suspicion of who we are.'

Another significant pause.

‘Others are attempting to foil our mission, however. They are spying on us, defaming us, trying to harm us. If we do not close ranks, they will infiltrate us. They will destroy our world. More than ever it is imperative to stay silent. Keep calm. Guard your secrets. Treat your enemies as enemies.'

With that, the gnome climbs down from his stone and makes his crooked-legged way back into the Arena.

The warriors sit together over the next hours. At first they're waiting for something to happen, but no-one gives them orders, no-one attacks them, none of Ortolan's monsters swoops on them. So they occupy themselves peacefully. They throw dice for pieces of meat. The mood is relaxed; no-one feels like turning on his neighbour. Sarius hardly notices time passing. When he takes his leave from the others it's two o'clock in the morning, and he's pleasantly tired. He has never felt more secure, more at home in Erebos.

CHAPTER 18

Nick, you have no idea how disappointed I am in you, in all of you, and the way you've missed the last training sessions without even taking the trouble to inform me. Unfortunately you're not the only one. Last time I was left standing in the gym with four people. Feel free to find someone else to take for a fool. One more unexplained absence and you're out of the team.

F. Bethune

‘What on earth happened to you?'

‘Have you been in hospital?'

‘Looks impressive.'

Brynne and a few of her friends were surrounding the quiet boy, Greg, who was trying, with obvious difficulty, to get his books out of the locker.

‘I fell down the escalator.' Greg forced a smile. Judging by his tone of voice, this wasn't the first time he'd told the story today.

‘Tripped and then went crashing down. But it's not half as bad as it looks.' He touched the crusty scrape on his nose and grinned wryly.

Half as bad would still be bad enough, Nick thought. Greg's left wrist was bandaged, and he was limping slightly.

‘Want me to carry your bag for you?' Nick offered, but Greg declined hastily.

‘No. It's fine. No drama. See you.'

Nick watched him, and pushed aside the thought he couldn't get out of his head since Greg had appeared.

Rubbish. Greg said himself that he'd tripped. As if that had never happened to Nick. After a collision at basketball he'd gone around for two weeks with bandaged ribs. There you go. Things like that happened.

‘Nick?'

It was Emily, and she was by herself. No Eric, no Jamie, not even Adrian was nearby.

‘Hi, Emily. Sorry I didn't answer your text.'

‘Never mind. It wasn't very important.' She smiled.

‘Who's this Victor you mentioned?'

‘That's not so important either. Can I ask you something?'

‘Sure.'

‘Let's go over there.' She tilted her head towards the stairwell, where they could talk undisturbed.

Nick followed her. He could sense Brynne's gaze on his back, threw her a quick smile and silently called himself a coward. ‘What do you think?' Emily began straight off. ‘Do you think it's true, what Aisha said about Eric?'

She knows, Nick thought, and felt himself going red. She knows about my wish crystal.

But there wasn't the faintest reproach in Emily's eyes, only genuine interest in his opinion.

He made a gesture of puzzlement with his arms. ‘No idea. Maybe. I mean, I don't know him that well . . . so . . . I . . .' He began to stutter under her steady gaze.

‘Knowing is always relative, anyway,' she rescued him. ‘You know, ever since yesterday I keep wondering whether there is something more behind Aisha's assertions. At first it all seemed totally absurd to me, but who knows.'

Nick was stupefied. ‘You believe Aisha?'

‘No. Maybe. I don't know. People do the most unbelievable things. Things one would never have thought them capable of.'

Bull's eye. Nick's face felt hot; he must be bright red by now. She does know.

If Emily noticed his embarrassment, she hid it very adeptly. She looked thoughtfully over to the coat racks, where Brynne was still standing and staring at them doggedly.

‘I don't know Eric so well either. We both love English literature and that's what we mostly talk about. He's very smart, and I like that. I would have thought he was too smart for something like this, but now on top of everything a witness has turned up who claims to have seen —'

‘Who?'

Emily shrugged her shoulders. ‘No idea. Mr Watson told Jamie about it this morning. Jamie was absolutely livid. He thinks it's a put-up job.'

It would not be a bad thing if Aisha had a witness. Nick closed his eyes. ‘Why are you telling me all this?'

Emily lowered her eyes. ‘What did you want that time, on the Sunday morning, when you rang me?'

Nick couldn't help smiling. I wanted to give you a world, he thought. A cool, unbelievable, exciting world.

Thrilling. Mystical. Terrible. Nightmarish. All of those put together.

‘You can probably guess, can't you? I didn't want Adrian's phone number, it was about . . .'

‘Got it.' She nodded. ‘I was pretty dismissive, I know. It wasn't personal. I'd probably react differently today. You know, if
you
think the thing's good, there must be something to it.' She smiled at him once more and walked away.

Nick looked after her, speechless. If that was the effect of the wish crystal, he was really getting scared. Things like that just didn't happen. Besides. Emily and Erebos? How come, all of a sudden? He ran his hand over his hair, astonished at how little the thought appealed to him. After all that's what he'd wanted. A cat Emily or an elf Emily, maybe even a vampire Emily at his side. But he'd already copied the game for Henry Scott, so that was that. He wouldn't be able to offer it to Emily, even if she wanted it.