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[Pokémon] Cracked, or How the Love of Seafood Saved Unova

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Chapter Twenty-One: Our Man in Johannesburg

"Anything yet?" asked Harmonia frantically.

He and Caitlin sat in a large, comfortable drawing-room on the lowest floor of Hawthorne House; above their heads, the battle between Sairse's curses and the implacable Teiresias was raging, but it did so silently, and no one had yet noticed it. Sounds found it hard to penetrate the drawing-room – the governor who had built it had enjoyed peace and quiet, and had had rudimentary soundproofing installed under the wooden panelling; he had also populated the room with a series of overstuffed armchairs that absorbed noise and deadened the air, and it was actually rather hard to make yourself heard there. Harmonia would have had the whole room redecorated ages ago, but Hawthorne House was a listed building, and this room in particular, a marvel of nineteenth-century soundproofing engineering, had Grade I status under the Historic Architecture Law.

"No," Caitlin replied patiently, leaning back in her chair. "I told you, you'll know when they reply; I've got my phone right here." She held it up again. She would have preferred to go home, but Harmonia claimed to be in the process of hatching a plan, and had demanded she stay until he was ready to put it into action.

"All right," he said at length, sounding a little calmer. "This Ezra that Weland's man told me about. If he's with this woman, it stands to reason that through her he's connected to Halley and her group – they both came to secure the dragonstone, didn't they? And they were both at the Gym in Striaton."

Caitlin frowned.

"You want to smoke out Ezra by threatening the kids? I thought you'd promised N you wouldn't?"

Harmonia shook his head.

"I promised him that if his methods yielded results, I would relax my efforts to find the kids unless they started interfering," he said. "Well, if they're connected to Ezra, they definitely are interfering – so I'm justified in trying to get to them, aren't I?"

Caitlin saw the logic of this. It was sneaky, devious and thoroughly underhanded; she wholeheartedly approved. The only point of caution she raised was that Halley's gang had hospitalised two of their agents before in the Dreamyard, had systematically evaded Smythe and Teiresias, and had almost succeeded in getting the dragonstone back in the woods – would have done, had they known they were meant to be looking for the stone. They were young, but she was living proof that that meant nothing; with enough forethought and data to work with, raw intelligence could defeat experience.

"True," conceded Harmonia. "So, subtlety is in order." He looked at her. "Time for one of our old friends, I think," he said. "Bronius, maybe – or Rood?"

"Oh, Rood, I think," replied Caitlin with a wicked grin. "If you're thinking what I think you are, then this is exactly his sort of thing..."

---

"Harmonia has some kind of tracking device implanted in N," said Halley.

"What?"

"That's... well, that's pretty much all I managed to find out," she admitted. "Before Teiresias went apesh*t and I decided to get out of there."

We were still in the lounge of the Pokémon Centre, where we'd spent the last few hours watching awful late-night TV and fretting; we'd gone quiet around midnight, when we knew to expect the switch between universes – but hadn't felt anything change, even though I knew that just a second ago I had been Lauren White. I remembered sitting up in the night waiting for Halley as me, even though I wasn't sure whether that history was real or simply imagined to cover up the fact that it was Lauren who'd done it; was there even a difference between Lauren doing it and me doing it? I wasn't so sure there was.

At any rate, Halley had returned shortly after midnight, with a haunted look in her eyes and unusual information.

"Teiresias was there?"

"Yes," said Halley. "And it doesn't seem to be working for Harmonia anymore. It wanted some information from me – information that I've forgotten, apparently – and I managed to talk it into helping me through the building in exchange for telling it. Thankfully, a pack of demons answering to someone called 'His Undying Majesty' showed up, and the fifteen seconds it took him to destroy them gave me time to get away." She yawned. "F*cking hectic night, man."

"Wait," I said, clutching at my head to try and stop it falling apart at the seams, "Teiresias has abandoned Harmonia and is coming after you personally?"

"Looks like it."

"Doesn't that mean it'll be coming after us again?" I asked.

There was silence.

"I rather think it does," said Cheren. "And I also don't think it's wise for us to stay in one place for too long. I'm not sure how it finds us, but it's getting good at it."

"And," put in Halley, "its powers are coming back. Something to do with a King – I presume this 'Undying Majesty' guy – and Jormal's Cycle. Whatever that is. Anyway, the point is: it's getting stronger. A lot stronger."

"It was strong to begin with," said Bianca. "How much worse can it get?"

Halley fixed her with serious green eyes – eyes that had self-evidently seen things that didn't bear the retelling.

"A lot," she replied insistently. "Trust me."

"Jormal's Cycle is a druidic thing," said Cheren. "There are supposed to be cycles of rising and falling power in the land that recur over periods of time – Jormal's Cycle is a big one. Discovered by a man named Jormal, presumably. It's a two-hundred-year cycle that's just on its way to reaching its peak now."

"'Rising and falling power in the land'?" asked Halley. "What the f*ck does that even mean?"

Cheren shrugged.

"I'm not an expert," he said. "I just know the definition."

"Really? Huh. I assumed you knew everything."

"Why does everyone keep saying that to me?"

"Because you seem like you do," Bianca told him, perfectly ingenuously, which seemed to calm his irritation a little.

"Ugh. Fine," he said, "but let's not wander off the point. What was this about Harmonia and a tracking device, Halley?"

"Well, he has one implanted in N, I think," she replied. "Or on him somewhere. There's a map of Unova with a dot on it where N is. I zoomed in and watched it for a little while, and saw it move, so I'm pretty sure there actually is a tracker on him somewhere. It said he was moving around the eastern half of the big city north of here at the moment."

"Nimbasa?"

"I don't know – I don't know sh*t about Unovan geography. If you say it's Nimbasa, it's Nimbasa." Halley yawned. "Now. I don't know about you, but I could use some sleep. I'll be in Lauren's room if you want me."

I frowned. Somehow the fact that she had confused us troubled me; some indefinable worry hovered at the edge of my mind, but I couldn't articulate it. Perhaps Lauren would be able to, I thought; perhaps she already had, and I didn't know.

"Jared," I corrected. "I'm Jared."

Halley blinked at me tiredly from the doorway.

"Right," she said. "Jared, right." She yawned again. "I'm guessing Teiresias will have to lie low or run for a while after tonight, because this demon King is probably going to send stronger people to kill it when he realises it ate his last squad. I think we're safe for tonight at least."

She padded off towards the stairs, tail waving slowly behind her.

"I guess that's something," sighed Cheren. "Right. I'm going to bed. Bianca, set Munny on guard; it'll sense Teiresias approaching before anyone else can see it."

"OK," she replied. "Night!"

"Goodnight."

We dispersed and went our separate ways, each heading back to their own room; after the tension of the night's long wait, I was tired, and fell asleep easily. As predicted, Teiresias didn't show, and morning came without incident; I woke myself up at about ten with a loud sneeze, and stumbled down to the canteen – where I made the unwelcome discovery that Cheren was already up, and that he looked as neat and alert as if he'd had a full twelve hours of sleep.

"Lelouch has finished evolving," he announced with more enthusiasm than I was comfortable with first thing in the morning, and something that looked a lot like a Snivy but definitely wasn't slithered up onto the table, propelling itself with little kicks of its stumpy legs. Lelouch seemed to have become more serpentine overnight; he was certainly a lot longer, and a series of stiff, leafy plates projected from his spine where before there had been none. I had a look in his eyes, but there was nothing in them to indicate he'd become any more intelligent; I supposed that snakes didn't need a whole lot of brainpower.

Candy couldn't quite believe that this was the same creature as before, and poked him experimentally with a taloned hand; Lelouch hissed crossly and made a half-hearted lunge for her that startled her into falling over backwards. Assuming that this was some kind of telekinetic projection on the snake's part, she decided the best course of action was retreat, and promptly hid inside my jacket.

"Nice," I said, patting her absently. "What do you call that?"

"He's a Servine," Cheren informed me. "You'll notice he uses his legs less and less – by the time he's a full-grown Serperior, he won't need legs at all, and they'll have atrophied so completely that they'll remain only as bone clusters within the main body."

"Yeah, great," I mumbled. "Uh... Cheren, it's too early for a biology lecture."

He raised his eyebrows and speared a sausage delicately with his fork.

"Suit yourself," he said.

I turned my attention to eating, but something was bothering me; I couldn't put my finger on what it was – then I looked up, and saw that there were a pair of decidedly Gothic-looking Trainers sitting at a table beyond Cheren. Nothing odd about that, I thought – what was it about them that was odd? I stared for a moment, but if there was anything, it was beyond me in my current sleep-fuddled state, and I returned my gaze to my plate, towards which Candy was creeping very, very slowly, as if she thought that I might not notice if she moved only in increments of less than a centimetre. I fed her a sausage and she squealed in delight.

"Cheren! Jared!"

Bianca's voice cut through the low chatter like a knife; she burst through the doors and scuttled over to us like an anguished crab.

"Cheren!" she gasped, eyes wild and hat askew. "Munny's gone!"

He started.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" he asked.

"I mean gone!" she cried. "Gone gone! As in – not here!"

"OK, calm down," he said, sitting her down. Lelouch took advantage of his distraction to haul a long strip of bacon into his mouth from his plate, but Cheren didn't seem to notice. "What happened, exactly?"

"Munny was floating just outside my window last night," Bianca said, swallowing hard, "watching for Teiresias, like you said. But now... now it's not..."

"OK." Cheren thought for a moment. "We can find it," he said decisively. "Lelouch!"

The Servine's head snapped around and he swiftly sucked down the remaining bacon. Cheren patted his arm, and he slithered up and coiled around it, settling into position like an unusual hawk on a falconer's gauntlet.

"All right," he said, getting to his feet. "Follow me."

I grabbed a sausage for the road and hurried off with Candy after Bianca and Cheren; as I passed the Goth Trainers, I realised what it was that had struck me about them: they had broken handcuffs around their wrists, like I did. Abruptly, I recalled the girl with too much eyeshadow from Striaton, saying that she had to get some for herself; I hadn't been serious when I'd thought she would go and tell her friends about it, but perhaps she had.

"Snakes have exceptional senses of smell," Cheren explained as we passed down the hall. "It's a bit hit and miss, since they're not exactly smart, but Lelouch knows Munny's scent well and should be able to track it."

The air outside was cold and hit like a southbound freight train; I shuddered and tugged my jacket closer around me.

"Ugh. Freezing."

"Ss," agreed Lelouch; neither reptiles nor plants are cold-weather enthusiasts, and his leaf-plates were flattening themselves against his back at the touch of the chill air.

"Why're they doing that?" I asked.

"Thermoregulation," said Cheren, setting off at a brisk pace to the spot beneath Bianca's bedroom window. "The leaves are full of blood vessels. When it's warm, they spread out to prevent overheating. When it's cold, they collapse to preserve energy. Here," he announced, halting. "Bianca, Munny's ball, please."

She held it out and Lelouch flicked his forked tongue over it; Cheren held him up, and in one fluid movement he wriggled free of his arm and started slithering away across the pavement.

I looked at Cheren.

"That it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "Don't just stand there, follow him!"

We made swift progress down the street; the Centre was not in a fashionable part of town, and there weren't too many people about. I could hear the roar from the shoppers' Mecca of the Eastmarch Arcade to the north; I half-hoped the trail would lead us there – it was good to be back in a big city, and a wander through some horrendously overcrowded shopping streets would have put me in an excellent mood for Munna-hunting.

However, it was not to be: Lelouch brought us west via the back streets, avoiding the main roads; I supposed that meant someone had stolen Munny deliberately, and had taken the struggling Munna away via side roads where they stood less of a chance of being seen or questioned. That made things more serious: I stopped thinking about shopping opportunities, and focused on following Lelouch. The focus was necessary, I found; Lelouch did not apparently care to wait for the traffic to stop before attempting to cross the road, and on more than one occasion we had to be fast to grab him before he vanished under the wheels of a bus.

"Munny's gone a really long way," said Bianca anxiously. "What do you think happened?"

"Someone took it," Cheren replied. "I think, anyway." Then, noticing her worry: "But don't worry. We'll find Munny, I'm certain – it's more why it was taken that bothers me."

"I'd been thinking about that, too," I said. "Why would anyone want Munny?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "Perhaps someone is trying to stop us sensing Teiresias before it comes? Although I'm not sure what we could do against Teiresias even if we did know it was coming, given what Halley says it's become..." He paused for a moment, and I almost bumped into him. "Speaking of which, where is Halley?"

"Uh... well, she was still asleep when I got up," I said. "She must still be at the Pokémon Centre."

"She's going to be angry," remarked Cheren, with just a hint of satisfaction in his voice. "Anyway. Lelouch, which way here?"

We were close to the seafront now, a little north of the Hodder Docks; casting my mind back to previous trips to Castelia, I thought that we must be somewhere just south of Central Plaza. This would put us just east of the Gym, I thought – and I experienced no small satisfaction when Lelouch slipped around a corner, startling a small child, and onto Gym Street.

The child shrieked and ran for her mother; Lelouch, interpreting this for some unknown reptilian reason as hostility, gave chase with a violent hiss. For a moment, we were too surprised to follow – and then, as Lelouch reared onto his stumpy legs in front of the cowering girl and her startled mother, our minds caught up to the situation and we ran to stop him. Cheren called for him to stop – but at the same time, I yelled at him to get back and Bianca cried to the girl to get away, with the result that Lelouch never heard his master's voice, and shot towards the girl—
—only to be scooped up gently by a massive claw, and held carefully in the air out of harm's way.

We stared, faltering in our sprint towards Lelouch; next to the mother and child was a towering creature in dull blue armour that looked like nothing so much as part of the Nacrene Museum torn loose, painted and brought to life: every square inch of its skin was covered in stony protrusions and knobbles, and the two lumpish limbs that arched above its head were so heavy with spines and crags that I couldn't imagine they were ever any use as actual wings. Even I knew what this thing was called; it was widely regarded as one of Unova's most impressive predators, and indeed one of the most impressive in Europe: the creature that out-gargoyled gargoyles, Druddigon.

The sight of a Druddigon next to them was actually less reassuring than that of the Servine, and the mother and child fled squealing down the street; the Druddigon watched them go with a look of placid evil on its rough-hewn face. They were extremely cold-blooded and took half a day or more to warm up to a fit state to attack anything; most of the time, Druddigon simply sat there, like the statues they resembled, and waited. If roused to anger, however, they were capable of a kind of berserker bloodlust – a state in which they felt neither pain nor fatigue, and to which it was not generally advisable to provoke them if you valued your life, or those of the people in a mile radius around you.

"Oh, bugger," exclaimed someone petulantly from across the street. "I didn't think he'd scare them that much."

I looked for the speaker, and found her crossing the street; she looked a year or so younger than me, and had a tremendous mane of black hair that would probably, had it not been bound up into a ponytail, have reached her ankles. She was definitely weird enough to be a Trainer, and so I assumed she was the owner of the dread beast before us.

"Ah," she said, looking at us. "Is this yours?"

"Yes," replied Cheren, recovering his wits first and taking command of the situation. "He was startled by the girl screaming, I think. Still, no harm done—"

"You should be more careful!" the girl admonished him. "What, are you trying to prove Harmonia right? Another second and he'd have bitten her – what are you even doing letting a Servine run loose in a city, anyway? You should know they're unpredictable around children!"

Cheren gaped and staggered back as if physically struck; I don't think anyone had spoken to him like that for a long time. It must come as a shock, I thought with a small smile, to meet someone who didn't immediately recognise his superiority.

"I—"

"Frige preserve us from idiots like you," sighed the girl. "Honestly..." She shook her head and gestured to the Druddigon as if to ask it what the world was coming to; the Druddigon gazed at her unblinkingly with its jaundiced eyes and grinned evilly. Not that it could help it, of course – that was just the way its mouth was shaped – but it did look incredibly evil. You could see why generations of Unovan sculptors had used Druddigon as the basis for depictions of demons.

"I am tracking a stolen Pokémon," replied Cheren stiffly, as if the words were being forced out of him. "I needed my Servine loose so he could keep track of the scent."

The girl's whole demeanour changed in an instant; she froze, cocked her head on one side and regarded Cheren with eyes from which all the indignation had drained in an instant.

"A stolen Pokémon?"

"Yes," said Bianca, stepping forward shyly. "Mine... My Munna."

"Ah!" cried the girl. "You poor thing!" She slapped her Druddigon harder than I would have dared to; we all flinched as we heard it, wondering if she had catapulted the big dragon into one of its famous frenzies – but it just turned its head to look down at her, its scales rubbing together with a noise like grinding stone. "Put that Servine down," she snapped. "Right now! We have to find this girl's Munna."

The Druddigon exhaled mightily and began lowering its claw to the ground; in its grip, Lelouch had been writhing furiously for some time, but the dragon hadn't even noticed.

"Faster!" cried the girl, smiting it furiously on the shoulder. "There's no time to waste – didn't you hear me? Her Munna's been stolen!"

The Druddigon continued moving at a steady pace, completely heedless of its mistress' efforts to speed it up, and at length released Lelouch onto the pavement; that done, it straightened up with a rumbling sigh, and settled into comfortable immobility. For his part, Lelouch, leaves flattened nervously against his back, retreated towards Cheren with all possible haste.

"Come on!" cried the girl. "There's no time for this – get your Servine on the trail again!"

"Your overgrown lizard has startled him," snapped Cheren. "Recall it, and give me a minute to get my Servine moving again."

The girl tutted.

"This is careless of you," she said. "If you hadn't let him rush ahead, then you could have avoided all this and got your friend's Munna back by now—"

"Stop blaming me for everything and let me solve the problem," he replied coldly. "Unless you have some way to trace a Munna?"

The girl glowered, but backed down; Cheren had won this one. She recalled her Druddigon in a flash of red light – for which we were all grateful; its presence was not exactly reassuring – and took a step back.

"Fine," she said. "Have it your way."

Lelouch, emboldened by the disappearance of his gigantic foe, slithered out into the open again; he tasted the air, and then the ground, and crossed the street. Mercifully, there were no cars at the moment – almost no people at all, in fact; Gym Street was quiet today – and the four of us followed him, a curiously motley procession in our assorted outfits.

He slid up onto the pavement, proceeded a few dozen metres down – and stopped, almost dead opposite the Gym.

As one, we all looked up at the building above.

It was tall and dark, and only a few rows of the windows were lit; I guessed that it must be rented out by the floor, and not all the floors were currently occupied. It wasn't a nasty place – not particularly; more battered than truly decrepit – but there was an indefinable aura of menace about it. Or, to be more specific, I thought, I saw it as menacing: I had a bad feeling about this place. If there was anywhere that a criminal mastermind might secrete a stolen Pokémon, this would, I thought, be it.

I looked at Cheren.

"Here?"

Lelouh had coiled himself neatly on the doorstep; his job, as far as he was concerned, was done.

"I guess so," said Cheren, recalling him. "Are you coming?"

This was directed at the strange girl with the hair, who stuck her chin out defiantly in response.

"I'm protecting the injured party here," she said, grabbing Bianca's shoulders so firmly that she sank a little beneath her hands. "Of course I'm coming."

Cheren sighed.

"Have it your way," he said, sending out Justine. "Right. I'll just check the lobby – one moment."

He rubbed the filthy glass of the door with a sleeve, and cleared a space large enough to peer through; a moment later, he took his eye away and shrugged.

"Looks clear," he said. "I suppose they must be upstairs or something." He had one hand on the handle when the girl interrupted.

"Not so fast," she said, eager to get back at him. "Let me see through there."

Cheren stared.

"You really think I'm going to lead us all into a trap out of spite?"

The girl ignored him and scrutinised the little patch of clear glass carefully.

"Hm," she said at length. "OK. Let's go, then."

She pushed the heavy doors apart and led us into a dingy lobby with cracked tiles on the floor. There was a receptionist's desk at the other end, but it was unmanned.

"This thief," I said. "They're not exactly high-class, are they?"

Cheren shot me a look.

"All right, all right," I said, raising my hands pacifically. "Just a thought."

"Uh... guys?"

The three of us turned to Bianca, who was tugging ineffectually at the doors.

"I thought I'd wait outside," she said unhappily. "But, um..."

I sighed.

"Great," I muttered. "A trap."

---

In the depths of International Genetics' innermost chambers, something was stirring.

A heart began to beat.

Slow, reptilian eyelids peeled open.

An unquenchable desire to kill Archen flickered into being.

"The retriever's ready," said the man who'd created it into the telephone. It flung itself at the glass separating them with a snarl, but bounced off; he didn't even flinch. A great many creatures had tried to break that glass, including some tougher than the retriever – but none had ever managed it. Well, none had managed it when he was on duty, anyway; if they had, he'd be dead, as were those of his colleagues who had been on duty on those occasions when the glass had failed. "Activation as and when you want it, sir."

Snarl. Leap. Bounce.

"Good," said the voice on the other end of the line – the chairman, as it happened, who we last saw forcing an agreement in the Ingen boardroom. "We called our agent again; she said that the Archen tore the museum apart here in Nacrene and helped start the riots, too. Whatever powers that thing has, it's getting out of hand."

"So immediate release?"

Snarl. Leap. Bounce.

"Nothing less," replied the chairman. "Take it out into the woods and set it free."

"All right," said the geneticist. "We'll prepare it for shipping right away, sir."

Snarl. Leap. Bounce.

A dart hissed out of some hidden recess in the chamber and slipped neatly into the retriever's flesh; it had precisely zero effect, and more darts joined it until its flank bristled like a pincushion – at which point the beast finally succumbed, and toppled over with a disgruntled hiss.

The geneticist whistled cheerfully.

"I don't envy the kids who picked that bird up," he said to himself, directing a couple of underlings with a crate over towards the sleeping abomination. "Not one little bit."
 
77
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen May 12, 2021
Hello! I just wanted to say I have been keeping up, despite not replying. Also, this is developing quite nicely. What with everything that's happened so far, it's hard to believe they're only in Castelia and just meeting Iris. Still, terrific job so far. I will continue to read avidly, though my replies won't become actually meaningful for about a month (until school ends). Until then!
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Hello! I just wanted to say I have been keeping up, despite not replying. Also, this is developing quite nicely. What with everything that's happened so far, it's hard to believe they're only in Castelia and just meeting Iris. Still, terrific job so far. I will continue to read avidly, though my replies won't become actually meaningful for about a month (until school ends). Until then!

Cheers! Much obliged; it's nice to know that people are reading and enjoying things. I've missed this week's chapter, as you've probably noticed by now; my apologies for that, but in my defence I spent the time making a large cuddly Cthulhu. I don't know if that mitigates my crimes at all, but he certainly serves as an effective minion, or he will once I have brought him to life with eldritch rites and orphan tears.

So... what was I saying? Oh yes. Thanks for reading! The next chapter will probably be, uh, next weekend. Sorry about that.

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sage Advice

One might perhaps have expected a demon from the mythic past to be less than au fait with modern computing technology. Such an expectation would have done no more than betray one's ignorance of exactly how much spare time a demon from the mythic past has on his hands. With only a little assistance from Niamh – confined to the vagaries of Windows 7; the last machine Ezra had encountered had run Windows 98 and a few things had been shuffled around – Ezra soon had the innards of Harmonia's data spread out before him like the carcase of a lion. Now, to carry the simile further, he had begun to pick over the entrails like a marabou stork.

"Most interesting," he mused. "Miss Molloy has outdone herself..." He looked across at Niamh, who had fallen asleep a while ago with the proviso that he wake her if he found anything; she had been awake for close to twenty-four hours now and, while she didn't particularly want to waste time sleeping, she knew that her performance would be adversely affected if she didn't allow herself to rest.

Or something like that. Those probably hadn't been her exact words, now that Ezra thought of it; they were more than likely his.

Ezra stretched and sighed, and let his human shape slough away like a spider-husk. He uncurled, dark and shining and new, and brought the part of himself which served as a head back to bear on the laptop.

"Right," he said. "I suppose I ought to see if I can't find out where exactly they performed this miracle, then."

And in the depths of his being things lit up like the ghosts of long-dead Christmas lights, pale and sad, and things that were not fingers stroked the keyboard with a loving, feather-light touch.

---

"Now we have you," said an old man in robes and a stupid hat. "You will listen to our demands."

I stared. Though he looked very much like the old man in robes and a stupid hat who we'd stopped in Pinwheel Forest, he was not that particular old man in robes and a stupid hat; he was a different old man in robes and a stupid hat, and to be honest, we were racking up the old men in robes and stupid hats at a faster rate than I was comfortable with. Were we to meet a third, I would have thought that fate was taking things too far; old men in robes and stupid hats were unusual in a way that even Teiresias wasn't, and I didn't much care to have so many of them being flung around with such abandon.

Where exactly he had come from was another problem. I was pretty sure that there had been no one in the lobby until he'd started speaking, and now there was an old man in robes and a stupid hat brandishing a large automatic pistol.

I blinked.

That hadn't been there a moment ago, either.

"What exactly is going on here?" I asked, puzzled. "I don't think I'm even thinking straight, let alone seeing it."

The old man sighed.

"This en't the time for explanations," he told me. He had a South African accent – or perhaps an Australian one. I wasn't entirely certain of the difference. "This is more the time where you comply with my demands or get shot."

"Gothitelle or something," Cheren said, eyes fixed on the old man. "Space is bending. That's why the door's shut as well, I expect."

"Look, you're not being very good hostages," said the old man. He sounded aggrieved. "Will you just—"

"Have you considered that maybe we aren't hostages?" asked the girl with the hair.

The old man looked nonplussed. This was evidently an aspect to the situation that he hadn't considered.

"What?"

"Well," said the girl, idly fiddling with her fingers, "I don't know about you, but I think people with these" – here the Druddigon materialised between us and the old man – "don't really make good hostages."

The old man, to his credit, didn't swear and shoot blindly at the Druddigon. That would have been the instinctive response; it would also have been the one that ended with his skull between the big dragon's jaws. It takes a big, strong bullet from a big, strong gun to get through a Druddigon's hide, and his little handgun did not look like it was up to the job.

He sighed.

"Right," he said. "So, this throws a spanner in the f*cking works, doesn't it? How the hell was I meant to know you were bringing a bloody Druddigon?"

"You weren't," replied Cheren reasonably. "Which is probably why you're going to hand over the Munna."

"Ah," said the old man. "The Munna."

"Yes, the Munna."

The old man scratched his chin.

"Fair enough," he conceded. "The Munna."

This time, I saw how the trick worked: in the split second before Munny had fully appeared, I saw the air around it unfurl and draw back like a curtain; Cheren was right, I realised – one of those Pokémon that could move the fabric of reality around a bit was at work. Something like a Gothitelle, or – what was that other one? I couldn't remember the name.

"Munny!" cried Bianca, rushing forwards.

"Stop!" cried Cheren, trying and failing to grab her arm.

"Gotcha!" cried the old man with satisfaction, snatching Bianca's arm and twisting her up close to him. The barrel of his gun came to rest against her temple. Munny looked like it was about to do something – but before it could move to assist its mistress, it disappeared again, folded back out of the visible universe.

There was a very palpable silence.

"Oops," said Bianca, in a small voice.

"Yes, oops," replied Cheren, his sarcasm potentially more dangerous than the old man's gun. "Ack. Your move, old man."

"My name," said the old man with dignity, "is Rood. I'm a sage."

He paused, as if expecting this admission to meet with gasps of wonder and delight, but none were forthcoming, and he sighed theatrically.

"Sage Rood?" he repeated. "No one heard of me?"

I looked at Cheren; if anyone had heard of him, it would have been him. However, he seemed as ignorant as the rest of us.

"Seven Sages of Plasma?" asked Rood hopefully. "Seven Seas of Rhye? Seven Deadly Sins?"

"I know the last two," said Cheren. "I can only assume you're being facetious with those. But I have no idea who these Seven Sages are. Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us?"

Rood grinned.

"Nope," he said. "I wouldn't care to engage you in any witty badinage, I'm afraid. We know you. You're a trickster."

"Not really," said Cheren. "I'm mostly honest."

"Brutally so, though," argued Rood. "Which, in this world of liars, is tantamount to—" He broke off abruptly. "Ah, you see? You almost got me going there." He shook his head craftily. "Clever boy," he said. "If you were more congenial to our glorious leader's general aim, then there might be a place for you in the new world order. However," he said philosophically, "as you're not, there en't, so you're just going to comply with our demands or watch me redesign your girlfriend's head to include a fancy new blood fountain."

I had a feeling that was meant to be a joke, but no one was laughing. Doubtless Halley would have been in hysterics.

"Actually," I said suddenly, "I remember the Seven Sages of Plasma. Gorm said the same thing, didn't he?"

Cheren gave me a look.

"Now really isn't the best time, Jared," he said. "In case you hadn't noticed, the situation is extremely delicate—"

"Yeah, it is," agreed Rood. "So! Time to comply with some demands."

"You keep saying that," snapped Cheren, "but you haven't made a single one yet. Get to the point, would you?"

"OK, OK." Rood looked vaguely hurt. I wondered if he was perhaps slightly senile; he seemed to be more than one marble short of a full set. "Demand number one: lose the Druddigon."

I blinked. I had almost forgotten about it, despite the fact that it took up about as much space in the room as the rest of us together.

We all looked at the girl with the hair. She had remained uncharacteristically silent so far; perhaps it was the sudden loss of her advantage that had done it. I doubt people who go through life with a Druddigon are used to someone else being in command of the situation.

"How do we know you won't just shoot – um, her?" she asked.

Rood blinked.

"How do you know that? Well, let me see... No, wait, you don't. Hostage negotiations are founded on a system of trust, my girl. Well, trust and hostages. It's pretty pointless to have hostage negotiations without the hostage. Although I could probably manage it – this is my specialist area, kidnappings and such."

"He won't do it because if he shoots Bianca right now, he loses his advantage," said Cheren calmly. "And if he loses his advantage, there is nothing at all to stop us from killing him."

"Killing?" said the girl with the hair uneasily. "That's... a little strong, isn't it?"

"If he's willing to kill, we must play for the same stakes," said Cheren. His eyes were utterly expressionless. I wasn't Lauren, I couldn't read people like she could – but it seemed to me that he believed every word he was saying, and a chill ran down my spine. "Isn't that right, Rood?"

The old man smiled.

"You see? You could go on to great things, you know." He sighed. "Never mind. You're too righteous to join us. Let's move on – recall that Druddigon, and we can get to demand number two."

"Do it," commanded Cheren, and reluctantly the girl obeyed. Without the Druddigon between us, I wondered whether or not I could cross the distance between Rood and me before he could pull the trigger. Too risky, I decided – especially with Candy still on my shoulder; I couldn't rush into a fight without making sure she was well away from it, or there was a large chance she would be crushed.

"OK," said Rood. "We can all breathe easier now. Demand number two: one of you must have some means of contacting Ezra Schwarz or the woman who's travelling with him. Do it now."

Cheren and I looked at each other, and then at Bianca. Candy, not to be left out, nibbled my earlobe until I looked at her too, but that was less important.

"Who is Ezra Schwarz?" asked Cheren politely.

"Don't f*ck with me," Rood said patiently. "You must be working with him. You met his agent in Striaton; you must have met him in Nacrene too – he got the dragonstone, and the King says he felt you touch it."

His eyes lit on me when he said that, and for a moment I remembered being the dragon, riding the storm-blast on wings of flame – then, as quickly as it had come, the memory passed. I shivered again. It wasn't a good day for thinking.

"No doubt all that is true," said Cheren, "but we don't know who this Ezra guy is."

Rood looked slightly concerned.

"I don't think," he said, after a short pause, "that you're lying. Which, frankly, bothers me."

"I'm not lying," replied Cheren. "Like you said: brutally honest."

Rood scowled.

"I hate it when people throw your own words back at you," he said. "Well, f*ck. You have no clue who Ezra is, do you?"

"No," I said. "None at all. So, do you have a demand number three, or are you going to give Bianca and Munny back and let us go?"

Rood gritted his teeth.

"I think I might have to do that," he said reluctantly. "The King would... well. Unfortunately, his way is working better than the pursuit way, so it seems for now we obey his rules."

He pushed Bianca away roughly; being Bianca, she tripped over in her haste to get away, but Cheren stepped forwards and caught her before she fell.

"I suppose I'll be on my way, then," said Rood dismally. "I'd better tell Bronius... he was meant to show up here too, but it's as well he's late now... what a clusterf*ck."

So saying, he turned his back on us and vanished into thin air again, courtesy of the hidden Pokémon. Moments later, Munny reappeared – and this time, it stayed there when Bianca came to hug it.

"Munny!"

I stood there, watching her childlike happiness, and heard Cheren saying something and the girl with the hair saying something else; I felt Candy's claws on my shoulder and the hiss of her breath in my ear. I should have felt relieved – happy – something like that. But I wasn't.

Something was wrong. Something Rood had said? Something about him in general? I wasn't sure. Would Lauren be able to work it out, I wondered. I hoped so.

Whatever it was, there was something about Rood that struck me as terribly, terribly wrong, and as I stood there I couldn't help but feel that something had happened here that we had not seen, and which would soon enough rise out of the darkness to greet us with fiery eyes and a brace of wet, sharp teeth.

---

"OK, what's going on— Iris?"

I turned and looked. For some reason, it seemed Burgh had entered the building; quite why this was, I wasn't entirely sure, but later on it was revealed that the girl and her mother had called the Gym with reports of a rogue Druddigon and called him out to deal with it.

"Iris," repeated Burgh, staring at the girl with the hair. "I might have known it was you... And thank Woden it is you," he added. "A wild Druddigon is more than I feel up to today. Or any day, really."

"Burgh," replied the girl. "Sorry. I was helping these guys out. Someone stole this girl's Munna."

It was then that Burgh seemed to notice the rest of us.

"Hey," he said, vaguely surprised. "Jared. And you guys," he added, obviously having completely forgotten who Cheren and Bianca actually were.

"Yes," replied Cheren dryly. "Us guys."

"It was one of those Sages," I told Burgh. "Like the guy in Nacrene – same robes, same hat, same everything."

"Wait wait wait," he said, holding up a hand. "Too many things at once. What exactly is going on here?"

So I told him – or rather, I competed with Iris to tell him – and he nodded wisely at everything we said.

"I see," he said, so thoughtfully that it was clear that he didn't. "Well, then. The League needs to be informed – didn't you say you knew Shauntal?"

"'Knew' is putting it a bit strongly," I told him. "We met her once. She said there wasn't much she could do to help, but she would do what she could."

Burgh sighed.

"Ah yeah," he said. "I remember. She set us up for a fight with Harmonia..." He shook his head. "Those anti-battling organisations Harmonia set on us – we're really not doing well against them. All our resources are tied up trying to shut down protests at the League and dealing with accusations – not so much money but time, and we don't have the staff to give it all. And then there's the Striaton Gym."

"What?"

"Haven't you heard? The triplets have quit." He made a vague but expansive gesture with both hands. "It was all over the news this morning. They owned the building, too, so we've lost the property. We have to find new premises and a new Leader."

"Burgh, I can—"

He cut her off abruptly.

"No, Iris," he said. "You're a Dragon-type specialist, and we can't have two Gyms of the same type without making it clear just how badly-off the League is right now. Besides, Drayden wants you to succeed him, and you know he's only a month or two off retirement."

"Why have they quit?" asked Cheren, returning to the point.

"Chili's hurt pretty bad, replied Burgh softly. "He won't be able to Train again... well, not for a long time, anyway. His brothers feel that their place is at his side, so they've given their notice and gone on leave. The Gym sign comes down in about six weeks."

Cheren nodded slowly.

"Teiresias," he said, and the tone of his voice said it all.

"Bastard," I agreed..

Iris looked at us in some confusion.

"Am I missing something?" she asked, in a voice that strongly implied that if she was, someone had better explain it to her, and that they'd better do so right now. I'd never heard anyone but Cordelia use that particular voice before, and it made me a little homesick for a moment. I would call later today, I decided. Cordelia and Annie, if not my parents.

"Uh... yeah," admitted Burgh, the magnitude of the story placing it outside his ability to retell. "Look, come back to the Gym with me, guys. This is the sort of story you need to sit down to tell or hear, and I'm knackered anyway."

We agreed, and half an hour later were sitting around a small square table in a back room somewhere in the Gym, having laboriously explained to Burgh all that had occurred since Nacrene, and to Iris all that had occurred since Black City. I was amazed at how Byzantine the story of the last few days seemed to have become; it wasn't really apparent except in the retelling, but it was full of twists and branches and odd details that made it hell to recount.

"O-K," said Iris doubtfully, "assuming all this is true—"

"You have my word that it is," put in Burgh dutifully.

"Burgh, your word depreciates in value with every joint you smoke," she said wearily. "No offence." Her tone made it quite clear that offence was meant, and if it wasn't taken then it was due in no way to her lack of effort.

"It's for my art!" he protested.

"Of course it is. Anyway, assuming this is all true – why haven't we done something?"

"We are doing something," said Cheren. "We're following N."

"I meant the League. Harmonia isn't just being mean, for Frige's sake, he must be breaking the law—"

"I wasn't aware there was a law against liaising with demons and chasing cats," Cheren replied. "More's the pity. And anyway, we have no idea what he's planning to do – we need information. And for that, we need N. He knows everything about everything."

"And we can't really attack Harmonia openly," said Bianca, seizing her chance to join the conversation with zeal, "because whatever we do, he can pass it off as an underhanded League reaction to his Liberation policy."

"He will always be the injured party, yes," agreed Cheren. "Furthermore, I'm certain that most of the demons with him – Teiresias seems to be something of an anomaly – are only visible to those they wish to be seen by. And other than their presence, there really isn't anything to connect him with any serious wrongdoing, no matter what we suspect of him."

Iris punched the table, and then tried very hard to look like she didn't regret it.

"But that's not fair at all!" she cried.

"No, it isn't," agreed Cheren. "It is smart, though. Harmonia isn't an opponent to be taken lightly. If his demons can somehow make the populace vote for him, he'll be completely unassailable – although quite what the demons are getting out of this, I'm not sure."

"I think they're probably all that's stopping people abandoning him entirely," said Burgh. "Have you noticed? The polls indicate he's still bottom of the league, despite all his press coverage. I don't know why anyone thinks he might still win the election – but they do. It's probably the demons." He delivered a sage nod with these words, as if they were somehow something more than a few random assertions collected into one speech.

"Er... perhaps," said Cheren diplomatically, "but he's planning something else. Something that he needs N for. Something that he needs an impossible man for, something that – I presume – involves the dragons from your visions, Jared."

Iris' ears pricked up.

"Dragons?"

"Yes, dragons." Cheren looked at me. "Remember them? The last few times you've met N, and when we went to the Library – visions of dragons, black and white like the Twin Heroes' symbols."

"And when you called him yesterday," said Bianca. "He told you to chase the dragons."

I nodded.

"OK," I said. "But we don't know what they are."

"That's where I come in," said Iris. "I can ask Drayden, if you like. No one knows more about Dragons. Or dragons, for that matter," she added thoughtfully.

"That would be very helpful, thank you," said Cheren. "There's also—"

"Oh, and Sandjr," Bianca said. "We need to figure out the significance of that. Unless it was just a clue to N's namesake..."

"That's true," agreed Cheren. "Ah, N has so many answers here, and we have none!"

"Well, we know where he is now, don't we?" I asked. "Nimbasa. Halley found out last night."

"Seems to me that you guys need to get after him as soon as possible, then – before he moves," Burgh said. "Or before Harmonia makes a move. Iris, if you're done in Castelia, it'd be good if you went and spoke to Drayden, and I suppose I'd better talk to Shauntal – though she's pretty tied up with the triplets right now. Aspertia and Virbank have both been after Gyms of their own for years; they're going to be fighting tooth and claw to get one now, and we've got to liaise between the two of them." Burgh shook his head. "F*cking politics! It's a killer."

"Yes," said Cheren dryly. "Harmonia's taught us that much already."

Burgh laughed, though it wasn't exactly a pleasant one; it was too tired to be born of genuine good humour.

"Yeah. Right, then. You'd better get going. Hell, I'd better get going. I have to report to the police about the so-called rampaging wild Druddigon..."

Iris gave me her number, promising to call when she got information (she told me not to hold my breath; Drayden was mayor of Opelucid, after all, and he was notoriously busy) and we left. Not long afterwards, we were approaching the Pokémon Centre, to see a somewhat lost-looking Halley sitting by the bins at the side. When she saw us, her concern melted swiftly into fury, and she lost no time in stalking over to intercept us.

"Where the f*ck have you been?" she demanded to know.

"On a rescue mission," replied Cheren. "Details later; we need to get going now."

"No, you listen," she hissed angrily, but had to fall silent as we were entering the Centre; once safely past the receptionist, she broke out again into a vengeful murmur. "That won't do it," she growled. "Do you know how difficult it is for me to move around this place without one of you guys pretending to be my owner? I was sitting out there by the f*cking bins for hours!"

"We haven't been gone hours," said Cheren reasonably. "You couldn't possibly have—"

"Cher-en!" reprimanded Bianca. "We did leave without telling her where we were going..." She looked at me; I held up my hands in a way that said I was staying out of this one.

"Right," said Halley, rubbing against Bianca's legs. "I was all alone, and—"

"Of course you were," she said, picking her up and carrying her upstairs after us. "Cheren, you could be a bit more charitable—"

"You know," said Cheren acidly, "if you wore the collar, Halley, everyone would think you were just a regular tame cat, and they wouldn't question what you did."

"F*ck you," she replied, probably less eloquently than she would have liked. Cheren did not deign to reply, and she wriggled out of Bianca's arms and stalked off in a foul mood.

She was somewhat mollified by the revelation that we were going to Nimbasa on the strength of her advice, and was almost entirely placated when Candy climbed onto the bed and Halley was able to pull her tail; after that, it was a bit easier living with her on the walk to the train station, during which Bianca and I (Cheren refused, as a matter of principle) filled her in on what had happened earlier in the day.

"He mentioned a King, did he?" she asked of Rood. "Interesting. There seem to be a hell of a lot of kings floating around Unova for a country without a monarchy."

"Meaning?" asked Bianca.

"This 'Undying Majesty' guy – who, judging from his guards, is probably the guy in charge of the demons – and N," Halley explained. "King. Teiresias called them both King. You think these Sages are linked to Harmonia?"

I sighed.

"I really wouldn't be surprised," I said, thinking about how complicated and interconnected everything else seemed to be. "I really wouldn't."

The one thirty-two to Nimbasa departed as advertised, and I took advantage of the jourey to make good on my promise to myself earlier and call Black City.

First was Cordelia, who seemed to have been expecting my call, and proceeded without preamble to shatter my calm entirely:

"Mum and Dad have reported you as a missing person and called the police," she said matter-of-factly. "So it's not just going to be the Green Party after you now, it's the—"

"Woden hang 'em," I groaned. "That's not good."

"No, it isn't," she replied. "I suggest you stay—"

"No," I interrupted. "I'll... I'll call my government contacts," I said, thinking suddenly of the League.

"You've acquired government contacts?" Cordelia didn't sound surprised (was it even possible to surprise her?), but she certainly seemed to approve. "Good. That will help considerably. I've had to tell them everything, by the way."

"Did they believe any of it?"

"No," she replied, "but then again, I didn't expect them to."

I sighed. Could I not be left alone to pursue demonic electoral treachery for just a couple of weeks?

"Right," I said. "Thanks. I'll... I'll have to contact my people."

"Yes, it doesn't seem like you have any other choice," agreed Cordelia. "Well, I'll see you, then."

With that, she hung up. I listened to the tone in mild stupefaction, wondering if she missed me at all, and called Annie instead: I was certain she'd show some signs of missing me, at least.

I was right. We talked for half an hour and made each other quite sick with longing for the other's presence, and probably would have gone on longer had the train not gone into one of the tunnels leading into Nimbasa's huge station hub and the signal cut out.

I sighed and hung up.

"Guys," I said, "the police are after me."

That got everyone's attention pretty fast. Cheren looked annoyed; Bianca looked concerned; Halley, for reasons best known to herself, grinned.

"Good for you," she said. "I always knew you had it in you. What's it for? Armed robbery? Assault and battery?"

"No!" I snapped. "My parents have reported me as a missing person, unfortunately. I'm going to have to call the League and see if they can't intercede... I mean, it's in their interests for me to keep investigating, right? Since N isn't going to talk to anyone else."

"Yes, you'd better do that," agreed Cheren. "We don't want any interference."

The train drew to a halt and we got off; the crush in the station removed any possibility of conversation, and for five minutes we concentrated on fighting our way through the station and up out of the ground exits. Once out, we found it had started to rain – a light, insistent rainfall that fell from the slate-coloured sky as evenly and continuously as from a shower head. Candy shivered and cheeped forlornly, and I tucked her into my jacket. She wriggled happily, dug her claws firmly into my stomach, and poked her head out the top so as not to miss anything that went on. Wondering why exactly I was putting myself through this for her sake, I turned to Halley and asked:

"Which way?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I've never been here before. Where are we now? Geographically speaking?"

"Almost the dead centre of the city," replied Cheren, stepping out of the way of a gaggle of people exiting the station. "Ah... hang on, let's get out of the way before we stop and talk."

We moved out of the way and huddled together close to the wall of the station; it seemed like it might provide some shelter from the rain, but, as we soon discovered, it didn't.

"Well, N was in the eastern half and heading eastwards, the last I saw," Halley told us. "Is there anything he might be heading toward?"

"He could be planning to leave the city and go east through the forest," Cheren proposed.

"Or he could be visiting one of the theme parks," suggested Bianca. "They're mostly on the eastern fringes of the city, right?"

"That's right," I said, recalling long-ago trips to Nimbasa's eastern edge and the colony of theme parks that fought for supremacy there. "They are. Why would he go there, though?"

"I don't know. Why would he leave the city?"

"Fair point. We have no idea what he's up to."

I sighed.

"So, what do we do? Just get a bus east and keep looking out of the windows in case we spot him?"

Cheren shrugged.

"Might as well. You never know, perhaps he'll find us – he's run across us 'by accident' a suspiciously large number of times. Either he's looking for us, or whatever connection you with him will draw him to you."

I stared.

"Really? You think it might work?"

"Well, we can take a bus or we can walk," he said, "and in this weather, frankly, I don't feel like walking."

"I'm liking this train of thought," said Halley. "Cheren! For once, we agree."

"Yes, so it would seem. Hmm... we want a 436, I think. Or a 36."

Cheren was studying his phone; I wondered how he'd managed to find the bus routes online so quickly. Then again, I thought, this was Cheren we were dealing with: in two minutes, he'd have virtually any piece of trivia you cared to mention at his fingertips.

Gear Station was surrounded by more bus stops than you would have felt justified in shaking a stick at; it took us a while, even with Cheren's maps, but we did eventually find Stop Q, where the 436 and 36 stopped, and shortly afterwards we were out of the rain and alone on the upper level of a dilapidated double decker. I wasn't sure whether or not we'd see anything through the water splattered across the windows, but right now it didn't seem to matter; I just wanted to be out of the rain.

Something yellow flashed by in the rain; I peered out of the window and saw an Emolga, flitting between lampposts. I was just in the process of realising how uncommon it was to see one when I noticed the second Emolga landing next to it, and the Tranquill, and the three Pidove.

By this point, there was no more room on the lamppost, and half of them flew in a group to the next one. They sat on the top and stared at me.

I stared back.

The bus started moving again, and the little group of flying Pokémon launched themselves into the air again, keeping pace with it as it moved.

"Cheren, Bianca," I said slowly. "I think we're being followed."

They looked out of the window, and I could tell immediately that they saw what I meant.

"How unusual," said Cheren. "Those... they aren't intelligent enough for someone to order them to trail us like that. They can't grasp such sophisticated instructions – they wouldn't understand the order."

"Perhaps they would," said Bianca softly, "if you told them in their own language."

I nodded.

"Well, then," I said, my eyes following the cluster of Flying-types wheeling and flapping outside the window. "It looks like we might've found him..."

Halley chuckled.

"I don't think so, Jared," she said pityingly. "He's been in control of this situation from the start. No way we'd have found him if he didn't want us to."

"What do you mean?" I asked, though I knew already what she was about to say.

"We haven't found him," she said. "He's found us."
 
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Cutlerine

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Interlude: Harmonics

Once upon a time there was a boy, and once upon a time there was a girl.

We know how this story should go.

But the truth is rarely so obliging as to fall neatly into predefined stories, and so the boy, who everyone agreed had a quiet intensity about him, and who would never meet your eye, followed her home one night and killed her.

He would never have been able to tell you why he did that, although he thought about it often enough. He didn't think about it at all on that first night, when he staved her skull in with a brick. Nor did he think about it while he was digging the pit out in the woods where her body would lie – beneath that of a dog, in case bloodhounds found the grave. (He was careful even then, even before the accident.)

The boy would only think about it a week or so later, when the police came to each house on the street, and asked if anyone had seen her.

He said he hadn't, but he thought she had seemed a little preoccupied on the days before she disappeared. This was in fact true, but it was only because she had begun to think that someone was following her.

Nothing came of the investigation, and the boy was left to wonder.

He never did come to a satisfactory conclusion. Years later, when he was a man, he would only ever be able to say that perhaps certain people are simply born to do certain things.

He was, he decided, born to do a great many things, and lots of people would come to know it.



Chapter Twenty-three: In Thunder, Lightning or in Rain

However much I might have been impressed by the way N contacted us, I wasn't impressed by where he chose to meet us. The Flying-types landed in a body on the arch that soared over the entrance to Olga and Benito's World of Adventure, a theme park based on a cartoon I hadn't seen since I was twelve and which I hadn't known was even still running. Beyond the arch I saw the loops of rollercoasters looming through the rain; it was getting worse, and the park itself looked deserted.

"How much do you think it is to get in?" I asked the others.

"Too expensive," replied Halley. "Let's break in."

"No," said Cheren. "It's the off season, it won't be too much."

It was true enough. There weren't many visitors to theme parks at this time of year; most of them were closed during Unova's harsh winter, and quite a few stayed closed through the dreary spring as well. Those that remained open charged much less, confident that virtually no one would be visiting them anyway.

"All right," I sighed. "Fine."

"We can always go on a couple of rides as well," suggested Bianca brightly.

"Damn it," muttered Halley. "I'm pretty sure the height restrictions mean I can't go on any of these any more."

"I doubt they'll even let you into the park," pointed out Cheren. "Why don't you wait here?"

"Why doesn't everyone except Jared wait here?" asked Halley petulantly. "N isn't going to talk to anyone else, anyway."

"Fair point," said Cheren. "It'll save money anyway."

"Oh," said Bianca, disappointed. "I kind of wanted to go..."

"Then go," said Cheren. "I'm not stopping you. But I'll wait here."

"And I," announced Halley, "will wait with you."

Cheren stared.

"What?"

"I'm not going in there to be reminded of things that humans can do and cats can't," she said firmly. "I'll stay out here and entertain myself by arguing with you instead."

"Oh, joy."

"I'd better leave Candy here too," I said, dislodging her from my shoulder and transferring her to my hand. "I don't think she'd be allowed, and I'm not sure I want N doing... whatever it is he does to her, either."

"Jared, I don't think—"

"I don't care, Bianca," I said. "I feel better with her here."

I handed Candy to Cheren; she celebrated this change of ownership with a loud squawk and an immediate attempt to see whether or not Cheren's glasses were, as she suspected, edible.

"Thunor—!"

Bianca and I left Halley laughing and Cheren trying desperately to disengage Candy's teeth, and were sold two tickets by the bored man in the office; minutes later, we were wandering through a deserted, rain-streaked wilderness of sad-looking rides. Everything looked like it wanted nothing better than to give up and go home, and like it would have done so had it possessed legs; rollercoasters, dippers, twisters – even the signs, brightly-coloured and cheery, looked like their gaiety was somewhat forced. The only bright spot was the occasional yellow flash of the underside of the Emolga's wing membranes.

"This actually represents Olga and Benito's Dread Adventures pretty well," Bianca pointed out. "It isn't very cheerful."

I thought back a few years.

"No, I guess it wasn't," I agreed, thinking of the episode where Benito's legs are stolen by the Limb Bandit. "Then again, I don't know what anyone expected of a show whose premise is literally 'a Swedish child and a Mexican child explore a bleak grey afterlife together with an array of dogs named after philosophers'."

"Now that you mention it," said Bianca thoughtfully, as we passed the teacups, "it was quite weird."

"I think it's symptomatic," I replied. "Symptomatic of all Unovan media. We don't make normal TV shows, or radio shows, or whatever. You must have noticed?"

Bianca looked confused.

"Really?"

I sighed.

"The most popular soap opera in this country is Skómst, which features three different mythical creatures and frequent appearances from an ése. Doesn't that tell you anything about our TV output as a nation?"

"Yeah," said Bianca. "I guess we make our own because the rest of the world's TV is too sensible."

That took me aback a little.

"Oh. I... hadn't thought of it like that."

Here, we were interrupted by an insistent hoot from the Tranquill, and realised we'd stopped walking; Bianca apologised, and we started up again, following it and its fellows deeper into the park. A little way off was a dispirited-looking man dressed as Raoul the Clockwork Ghoul (a recurring villain, I recalled, from the show); he had the head of his costume tucked under one arm and was huddled under the roof of a carousel, smoking a cigarette. He stared at us without enthusiasm as we drew near.

"Do you want me to put the head on and do the mascot thing?" he asked.

Bianca's eyes lit up.

"No," I said, before she could reply. "No, thanks. You, uh, you carry on."

"Right," he said, and turned away.

Bianca pouted at me.

"Why'd you say that?"

"Could you really believe in Raoul the Clockwork Ghoul if you'd seen him a moment ago with his head off, smoking a cigarette?"

She considered.

"Yeah, I think so," she said. "It seems like the sort of thing Raoul would do. I mean, he's a robot, he can take his head off if he wants. Though robots don't really smoke, I guess, but maybe ghouls do."

I frowned.

"You know a lot about Olga and Benito's Dread Adventures," I told her.

"Uh – not that much," she replied, suddenly somewhat embarrassed. "I mean—"

"You still watch it?"

"I like cartoons," she said defensively.

"I'm not condemning them," I replied. "What you do with your Saturday mornings is none of my business."

"OK. Just... As long as you're not."

"And—" I broke off; something wasn't right. I could feel something tugging at me, but not on any part of my body that I could name; it was as if something was pulling at my soul.

I was not surprised to see N leaning against the railings around the Ferris wheel.

"Jared," he said, smiling. "You found me. Is it your turn to hide now?"

He stretched out his arms, and the Pokémon landed on them, chittering and squawking; he made a soft cooing noise, and the birds flapped off in that clattering way that pigeons do. The Emolga lingered for a moment, and then he dismissed them with a twitch of his nose and a guttural chuck.

"We're not here to play hide and seek," I replied.

"No, you're here to question me, aren't you?" He sighed. "I can't promise you the answers you want. You know how it works. But I'll do what I can; you came a long way to find me, and a quest always justifies the handing out of a few answers."

I nodded. I knew how it worked. When I was near N, I always did; it was holding onto the understanding afterwards that was the problem.

"Come with me," he said, vaulting the fence into the queueing area. "Please. We'll talk as we ride."

I looked at Bianca.

"Er... I'll be back in a minute," I said. "Sorry about that."

"Nah, it's OK," she replied. "I'll go on Wizard Corkoran's Wild Coaster while I wait. And maybe the magic carpet. And maybe—"

"OK," I said hurriedly, before she got carried away. "I'll see you in a bit."

She smiled and waved, and I joined N in the queueing area. We were waved through into a carriage by a slightly confused and very bored attendant, and then, with a jolt, the wheel began to move and the carriage rose from the ground.

"Have you seen The Third Man?" asked N, as the tarmac started to fall away beneath us.

"What?"

"Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton? On the Wiener Riesenrad?"

I shook my head.

"Ah, never mind," he said. "The wheel appealed to me because of that." He was silent for a moment. "I wanted to learn to play the zither because of that film."

"I see." I paused. The rain blurred the world beyond the glass walls; I imagined this was how a jellyfish saw the world, and thought that this was what it must be like, rising steadily and gently through a universe of water. "N, who are you?"

"Do you know how Galvantula hunt?" he asked. "They sit in the middle of a web that stretches across miles of forest. Whisper-thin threads that wind between trees, carefully insulated with coils of rubbery silk where they touch the earth. And when something touches a thread, the vibration travels all the way back to the spider in the middle, and it flicks lightning down the wire to paralyse them.

"That's who I am," he said. "I'm the spider. Do you see?"

"I think so," I replied. A rollercoaster car rumbled past at eye level, and I dimly heard Bianca screaming in delight. We were quite high now, and I hadn't even managed to get a straight answer out of him. I needed to get him to cut down on the dramatic pauses.

That was what I was meant to do. Instead, I asked, "What does that make me?"

"The cat," he replied. "You should look it up."

"OK," I said. "How are you connected to Harmonia?"

"He's my father," he replied. "In a sense."

I gaped.

"Your father?"

"In a sense," he repeated. "Not biologically, of course. Not strictly speaking legally, either. But he considers himself my father, and I suppose I do as well."

"Yeah, but..." I shook my head. "Wow. I didn't see that coming."

He smiled.

"No one does," he assured me.

"Huh. You support him?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he replied. "I thought you knew that already."

"I wanted to make sure," I replied. "I mean – you're unity, aren't you? How can you want to divide people and Pokémon?"

"You're division, aren't you? How can you want them to remain together?" he asked.

I hesitated. He had a point, though the words necessary to express it were beyond me.

"I see what you mean."

"My essence is unity. That does not mean my opinions necessarily must be. Despite what fate has made of us, we do have free will." N drew a little circle in the condensation on the window, and shaded one half of it in. "At least, I assume we do. If we don't, then I guess no one does."

"You know what Harmonia's doing, right?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Yes. Every detail."

I did not ask what it was; he would not – indeed perhaps could not – tell me.

"How can you support it?"

"I know he won't succeed." N peered out of his little semicircular window; we were nearly at the top of the wheel's arc now, and the rain had got so severe that you couldn't make out anything of the world beyond the glass but a dim blur. "Everyone will betray everyone else, you see. Weland will betray Harmonia. Harmonia will betray Weland. Teiresias already has betrayed both of them, by the sound of it." He paused. "Ezra will betray Niamh," he said softly. "Or the other way around. I'm not sure who breaks the thread first."

I didn't ask if he knew Niamh. He was the spider, after all; it all converged on him.

"Who's Weland?" I asked. "And who's Ezra?"

N sighed.

"King Weland the Undying is the Archdevil, the Ur-Alf, the Hellerune; he is Lord-of-all-the-ghosts; he is the Ancient of Nights. He is," he said, "the king of the demons."

That was just great. There were more demons than Teiresias involved in this mess, and it seemed they were even bigger and nastier than it was.

"He's helping Harmonia, isn't he?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Yes. I'm sure you can find the rest about him yourself."

N started drawing on the window again; his finger traced a line of short, deft strokes that the rain warped into odd, trickly jumbles. We had just crested the top, I thought – but I was judging solely from the movement of the carriage; I could see nothing at all but flickering grey outside, and hear nothing but the susurrus of raindrops on metal.

"All right. He sounds, uh, famous enough to look up, I guess. Who is Ezra?"

"Another demon," he said. "He wants to kill Weland."

"He wants to seize the throne?"

"No. He has nobler goals."

"Which you're not going to tell me about."

"No, of course not." He grinned. "You're learning the rules fast."

"You don't give me much choice." I sighed. "OK, so, what else... oh, how are you connected to King Naudri?"

"I am King N of All Humans," he replied. "I inherited his throne. I am the first with the birthright for several thousand years."

Lightning – and then thunder almost immediately. I shivered. It was cold up here, and I didn't much care to be in something tall and made of metal during a thunderstorm.

"Is that why Harmonia named you N?"

He looked at me with something halfway between pity and exasperation, as if he had expected me to work this much out by now and was only now starting to think that perhaps that wasn't a realistic expectation.

"Names are very important," he told me. "I wouldn't trust anyone to supply something so important; I chose mine for myself, and I chose it because it is the name I was born to bear."

"Right," I said, feeling as if I had just had something very important explained to me and had failed entirely to see it. "Um... is there anything else I should know?"

"Of course," he replied. "Libraries of it. But you know I can't give it to you; you have to go out and earn it. It's the price you pay for being a hero."

"I know," I sighed. "I get it."

"'We have given you the blade, but you must find the dragon yourself'," quoted N.

"Where's that from?"

"An old story," he replied. "Forgive me. Stories are the spider's prerogative."

"Right." I paused. "Anything... uh, any idea what I should be doing next?"

"Act on the information I just gave you," he said. "That would be a good start."

The carriage was sinking fast now. Had the wheel sped up? Or had I just misjudged our position on its circumference earlier?

"We won't meet again for some time," N said, suddenly business-like. "In the darkness where my cousins live. Please don't contact me; I can't do any more and I don't want to disappoint you."

It seemed reasonable, though rational thought would surely have told me that his words made very little sense.

"All right," I agreed.

We descended for a few minutes in silence; the thunder boomed out twice more, louder than before, and the rain's drumming rose to fever pitch, as if it were trying to drown it out.

"One more thing," I said, struck by something. "Just before we go."

"Yes?"

"Who do you see when you look at me?"

N considered for a moment.

"People think it's very hard to hold two things in your mind at once," he said. "But everyone is born with the ability. It's only after they start to see that most things in the world have only one outward face that they lose it. When I see you, now that I know who you are, I see Jared Black, and at the same time I see Lauren White. It isn't a question of transforming from one to the other," he said. "There is no conflict. You are simply two things at once."

"I thought you might say something like that," I admitted. "It makes me feel a bit better to hear it, though."

N smiled at me – that odd, gentle smile, which changed the shape of his face entirely, and made those who saw it suspect that perhaps he was not human at all but was in fact an angel.

"Then take the information and wield it freely," he said, as the door clunked open. He jumped out into the rain, feet kicking up plumes of water from the puddles outside; in what seemed like less than a second, he was soaked to the skin, his hair hanging wet and limp around his head in green hunks and his thin shirt so firmly plastered to his body that it seemed to be part of his skin. I realised for the first time how oddly he was proportioned; his body didn't look right, somehow – too thin, too long, too... something. His shoulder blades and collarbones seemed to rise up from within him like eruptions of volcanic rock from deep below ground; the rain running down his face trickled through hollows I had never seen on anyone else's face before, tracing an alien physiognomy. For a moment, as he tipped his head back and swallowed a mouthful of rainwater, he looked frighteningly alien – a visitor to Earth who had disguised himself so as to fit in, but not quite well enough.

"Well, Jared," he said. "It's been a pleasure."

"Uh... yeah, I guess," I said, stepping reluctantly out of the carriage. "It was good to see you.

"Yes. I love this rain!" he said suddenly, as if some passion he had hitherto been trying to hold back had broken loose and taken over him. "It makes me feel so alive— hello, Fenwick!"

A small, mousy man in a thick coat and hood was hurrying towards us, unfurling a gigantic umbrella as he went. He didn't seem particularly pleased to see N.

"My lord, you're drenched," he observed, aghast. "You'll catch your death—"

"No, I won't," he said. "I'm a little tougher than that. Give that umbrella to Jared; I don't think he likes the rain."

He was right. I was always a bit concerned that maybe the studs on my jacket might rust or something when it rained.

"But—!"

"But nothing," said N in terms that brooked no argument. "I neither want nor need it, and Jared does. Hand it over."

Reluctantly, Fenwick handed me the umbrella, which I accepted gladly; N might feel alive in this sort of weather, but I was fairly certain I wasn't far off death.

"Thanks," I said.

"Not at all," said N. "Now, Jared, I'll have to go now, or Fenwick will have an apoplectic fit."

Fenwick reddened at this, which in fact made him look closer to an apoplectic fit than ever.

"My lord N—"

"I'm coming," he said gently. "Goodbye, Jared. I'll see you later."

"Bye," I called, and I watched them, the short man and the tall, unnatural boy, until their silhouettes became one with the rain and disappeared into the curtains of water.

---

Ezra had, in his eagerness, pushed Harmonia's laptop a little too hard, and it had begun to cry blood out of the fan vents. After that, it stopped working, and no amount of demonic fiddling could restore it to life.

However, before it had perished, it had divulged another secret: the tracking program previously discovered by Halley. This meant that, with half a day's perambulation around the dark paths, and another few hours spent searching the physical world, Ezra and Niamh found themselves standing outside a theme park in the rain. Or at least, in a place where it was raining; they weren't in the rain themselves, given the way the raindrops ricocheted off something invisible that hovered above their heads. Niamh did not know what this something might be, but she also knew that raindrops shouldn't be ricocheting, and so wisely decided not to question it.

"Fleisweg," said Ezra in some surprise, staring at the figures walking towards them on the other side of the gates. "He looks exactly the same as the last one."

"The last one?"

"The last King," said Ezra. "The King who was killed by Eodred, an archer in the army of the Twin Heroes, in the year 32."

"Oh." Niamh blinked for a moment. "Uh, how?"

"I have absolutely no idea, and I'm not sure it would be polite to ask. Or perhaps he won't mind; I don't know, I haven't met him yet. Shall we say hello?"

Without waiting for an answer, Ezra stepped forwards towards the approaching figures, who were now separated from them by just a few metres of car park; here, he stopped, and lowered himself respectfully onto one knee.

"Your Highness," he said, bowing his head. "E—"

"Ezra Schwarz, yes," replied the King, coming closer and looking at him curiously. "I wondered what you looked like."

Niamh watched him carefully, and shuddered. She did not like this so-called King; in fact, she felt a strong urge to shoot him on the spot. The only things she had ever seen before that looked and felt as wrong and warped as he did were certain of the monsters she had been hired to destroy. Her eyes ran across him quickly, cataloguing the deviancies in his form: his eyes were an impossible colour, his musculature oddly anchored; his cheekbones were too thin, his brow too weak and the end joint of each finger far too long, with the nail overlarge and curved over the sides like a shield. Something in the set of his mouth argued for a few too many teeth, too, and her practised eye detected an abnormal skeletal structure beneath his skin. One of these oddities, she might accept as a genetic condition or something; two or three, even, if it came to it. But all of them together? No, thought Niamh, this man was not human, or if he was it was only in the same way that a tiger is a cat.

"You can get up," said the King. "I haven't really been crowned or anything. I just bear the blood."

Ezra got stiffly to his feet, and regarded him respectfully.

"I saw your predecessor," he said. "You are very like him."

"I know," replied the King. "I have his name, or its son. I'm N."

He held out a hand for Ezra to shake, and Ezra did so – very carefully, as if this hand might suddenly turn into a valuable vase and fall to the wet asphalt to shatter.

"This is Niamh Harper," said Ezra, gesturing at her. "We're working together on a project."

N smiled lazily, and Niamh stuffed her hands into her pockets so that she wouldn't break his freakish, ivory-tombstone teeth.

"Regicide," he said. "I know all about it."

"Of course you would," growled Niamh softly, under her breath. She transferred her attention to N's companion instead – a little mousy man, weedy and looking very much overwhelmed by the King's visitors. As well he might, she reflected; she had cleaned herself up at the hotel, but she still had an atmosphere around her that told you she was dangerous. Portland had once told her that for strangers, being around her was like having a dinner party with a live grenade balanced on a stick in the middle of the table; everyone wanted to get on with things and have a good time, but no one dared to move too much for fear of a sudden deadly explosion.

She had laughed, she remembered, and told him he was silly and had no way with words.

She missed him.

"Well, then," said N. "Why are you here?"

"We came to tell you what Harmonia is doing – what Weland is doing," said Ezra urgently. "You must understand, whatever they've told you, it's lies—"

"I know," he replied. "I'm not an idiot. I know what they want to do."

Ezra stared.

"And you'll lend your support to it?"

N hesitated.

"Please don't be angry," he began, and Niamh began to feel very angry indeed. This was the paragon of humanity? This was a man who could sway the minds of half the demons in Unova, who could by simply choosing to act up to his own f*cking title could save untold lives and give her a chance to get Portland back?

"What do you mean?" asked Ezra. There was no longer any warmth in his voice.

"Please don't be angry, but I have my own reasons for doing what I'm doing," N said. His voice was gentle, placatory, but Niamh could see nothing of the sort in his eyes; they remained cold and dead. Were other people even there for him, she wondered. The bastard wasn't human, and obviously wasn't a demon either; did he think himself so superior to either species that neither mattered? "I have to keep going with this, or things will... things will be very much worse," he finished lamely. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you more than that."

Niamh saw the look on Ezra's face, and she saw the cold indifference hiding behind the obsequious politeness in N's voice, and she thought, F*ck it.

And she punched him in the mouth.

N went down easily – in fact, he slammed into the ground as if flattened by a falling star; he was light, far lighter than any man his height had a right to be. The man at his side squealed in dismay and almost stepped forwards – but Niamh looked at him for just a fraction of a second, and he retreated in terror instead.

"Bastard," she spat. "What are you, anyway?"

N stared up at her from the ground, unhearing, and touched his mouth. There was blood on his fingers.

"I understand why you did that," he said, in that horrible calm voice, and Niamh kicked out at him—

A grey band of light held her foot fast two inches from N's ribs.

"If he says he has his reasons, Niamh," said Ezra, though he didn't sound entirely convinced, "then he has his reasons."

"People are going to f*cking die!" she snapped back, wrenching her foot free so hard that the light dissolved and turning to face him. "Doesn't he get it? If things go on as they are, Unova's f*cked – the world's f*cked!"

"It is and it isn't," said N. "The world as you know it is, but a new—"

"Funnily enough," interrupted Niamh, "I'm pretty fond of the world as it is."

"But the new world would be better," he said earnestly, rising to his feet. "I'm afraid I can't tell you how – that's not how it works. But it will be, I promise."

Niamh stared.

"We don't even have kings any more," she said. "We don't want one person making all our decisions. We like to be consulted. That's why Weland has to die."

She hadn't thought of it before, but it was true: freedom was important. Niamh was no idealist; she knew that people would always be unhappy, would always fight and f*ck and murder for the scraps from the rich's dinner table (that was her world, after all), but she felt quite strongly that people did at least have the right to decide what was best for themselves. That went for the demons, too; how many actually wanted to support Weland's insane war on humanity? Everyone, Niamh decided suddenly, was due a little f*cking autonomy, soul-eating demon or not.

"I can't help you," said N. "And I can't tell you why, either." His face looked unhappy, but his eyes were calm as ever: balls of ice, bloodless, inhuman.

"Ezra, I think we ought to leave," said Niamh tightly. She felt like she was going to explode, and she knew it was probably because of Portland but Woden fIcking hang 'em this guy was annoying and she was going to beat him into nothingness if they stayed. "Or."

"Yes, I can see your 'or'," said Ezra, stepping between her and N. He was now taller than before, she noticed. Quite a lot taller. "Your Highness. N. Whatever you wish to be called. I... don't pretend to understand your decision. Nor do I pretend to approve of it. Your actions are not those of your forefathers."

"I am them," said N cryptically, "but they were never me. I have to do things differently."

"Doubtless." Ezra sighed. Niamh couldn't see his face, but his head bowed a little. "We'll leave you now, your Highness. You have... complicated our plans a lot. And a lot rests on our plans."

"I'm sorry," said N. "I really am."

"Goodbye, your Highness," said Ezra, and he took Niamh's hand, and together they stepped away and into the dark.

Fenwick scurried back over to N, wide-eyed and staring.

"Who were they, my lord? Are you OK? Your lip—"

N wiped the blood from it.

"It's fine," he said. "See? No cut."

It was true. There wasn't.

"As for who they were..." N sighed. "It doesn't matter. We'll see them again, but I don't think they'll be as polite next time. I don't think Ezra will baulk at attacking me again."

The rain pattered on; it seemed to be easing a little, but that could just have been wishful thinking on Fenwick's part.

"I see," he said, though he didn't; it was just the easiest thing to say when N started talking about things that only spiders saw, or whatever it was he called it.

"Mm," said N, who knew exactly what the limitations of Fenwick's understanding were. "Come on, Fenwick. There's no sense in standing here all afternoon."

And they started to walk again, the rain splattering in freezing curtains around them.

---

Ghetsis Harmonia was not happy.

It is true that these days, it was almost a terminal affair with him, but today he felt it especially acutely.

Rood had failed, and failed, moreover, due to Harmonia's error of judgement. If it had been his incompetence – if it had been Molloy's bad choice of Sage – if it had been almost literally anything else – the sting would have been mitigated. Not completely nullified; there was no amputating the barb on failure's armoured tail. But he would at least have been stung through a thick pair of jeans instead of on his bare and unprotected thigh.

Harmonia thumped the table and refocused his HawkEye in rage. Now he was making inappropriately elaborate metaphors.

Something had to be done. He needed good news, and he needed it soon. The past couple of days had been horrendously bad for the Party; the successes of his opponents could prove to be his downfall. The only enemies he'd beaten in that time were the League, and they weren't exactly putting up much of a fight at the moment.

At that moment, his phone rang. He regarded it with the air of someone who has caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye, and does not know whether it was the boy delivering the paper or a Bengal tiger taking up a good pouncing position.

After a long pause, he picked it up.

"Hello?" he said cautiously.

"Good news, Ghetsis," came the voice of Caitlin Molloy. "We found the mystery woman."

Relief flooded through Harmonia's system with such force that it threatened to spurt from his nostrils.

"You have? Who is she?"

"Her name is Niamh Harper," she replied. "Apparently, she's – get this – a freelance monster-slayer. Not to be taken lightly, by all accounts; frankly, I'm not sure she finds humans very intimidating opponents, after some of the things she's meant to have killed."

"Oh." Harmonia paused. "Well. Do we have any idea of her weaknesses?"

"Yes, actually." He could almost hear the grin in Caitlin's voice. "She's going after us for the sake of helping out one man that she's absolutely devoted to – one man that we already have as a hostage."

Harmonia's heart skipped a beat.

"You can't mean..."

"Yeah," said Caitlin. "We've got her over a barrel, because we've got Portland Smythe."
 
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Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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14
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Chapter Twenty-four: Dinosaurs and Dragons

People make a lot of assumptions about dinosaurs.

And while we could go on and list them all here – for there are many we make, and not all are right – we really want to focus on one specific group of dinosaurs: the dromaeosaurids.

People assume they hunted in packs. That they were smart. That they could, if given the chance, learn.

Ingen had not been able to prove much of this, even after they had cloned some. Some dromaeosaurids were relatively smart, it seemed – but nowhere near as smart as the smartest birds, the crows. They didn't show much inclination to hunt in packs, either – it was all more disorganised than that, with them mobbing their prey like juvenile Komodo dragons. Whether this was because they had no one to teach them to cooperate or because they simply didn't have the intellect to form organised groups was uncertain; at least, it was until it was fairly conclusively determined that the dromaeosaurids showed very little interest in learning.

This was bothersome. They had a roomful of resequenced velociraptors and nothing to do with them. They weren't even really big enough to use as guard dogs.

It was then that it was decided that they ought to carry on where evolution had left off, and start making improvements.

The beasts would have to be smarter, of course. And larger – but that was easy, there were other dromaeosaurids that were bigger, like utahraptor. They would have to be able to figure things out for themselves, should they need to be left to their own devices for a while.

So they got to work, and it could be said that they got a little carried away – but really, who could blame them: after all, when one can put subdermal armour plating on your pet monster, then why not? And if you can gift it with the superstrong bones of a Machamp, then why not do that? And if you can combine the regenerative powers of the axolotl and the Blissey, then why not that as well?

And in the end, Ingen were left with something very illegal, and very, very dangerous.

Something that they discovered they could hard-wire with a pathological fixation for one particular thing.

Something that they took to using to kill things that should never have been, and which should never have escaped.

Something that was making its furious way towards Nimbasa, following the burning trail in its mind that would lead it to an Archen.

---

Cheren and Halley hadn't waited in the rain, of course; they'd left a message on Bianca's phone and gone to the Pokémon Centre in the Clatter, Nimbasa's innermost district. The rain had, if anything, increased in ferocity since we'd left Olga and Benito's World of Adventure, and by the time we were back the umbrella N had given me was looking a little ragged around the edges. So was I, but that was only because a soaking-wet Bianca had been bouncing around splashing me by accident and telling me how amazing the rides had been. Apparently, she didn't particularly mind that the rain had turned her hat into a large green pancake and her hair into a limp imitation of straw; I suppose she was to be commended for her fortitude, but really all I wanted to do was get away from her before she got me any wetter.

Once she and I were (mostly) dry again, we joined Cheren and Halley in the lounge, which was much busier than in other cities we'd been to – Nimbasa seemed to be a popular destination for Trainers. I pondered this for a moment, and then realised the connection between the city's famously attractive Gym Leader and the large number of teenage boys here.

"Ah," said Cheren, looking up as we entered. "How was it?"

"It was amazing!" cried Bianca. "It was so cool – I went on the Gate to Hell coaster, and met Señor Grool, and—"

"I was thinking more about the meeting with N," said Cheren carefully. "You know. The reason we went to the park in the first place."

"Oh."

I sat down next to him and held out my arm for Candy; she hopped off his head and rushed up my sleeve to bite my ear.

"Ouch," I said, pushing her beak away. "It went OK, Cheren, as it happens. I mean... he told me quite a lot." I paused to think it over and assemble the information he'd given me into something comprehensible. "I... guess he dropped a lot of hints, but didn't give many specifics," I said at last. "He mentioned that Harmonia is working with the king of the demons, someone called Weland the Undying. He mentioned that Teiresias has betrayed both of them. He mentioned that a demon called Ezra is trying to kill Weland – I think he's connected to Niamh Harper somehow.

"He went on to suggest we look up something about a cat and a spider, and, uh..." I tried hard to recall; my mind seemed to execute a half-twist when I entered and left the area around N, and memories formed while with him came back to me with difficulty. "Uh... oh yeah. He said he's inherited the right to be King from King Naudri, whatever that means, and he says that Harmonia's his father."

"What?" asked Halley, then clamped her mouth shut before anyone who shouldn't started noticing she was talking.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "Weird, isn't it?"

"Harmonia N's father," said Cheren slowly. "How strange... there's no family resemblance at all, except the hair."

"He did say he wasn't his biological father," I clarified. "Or actually his legal father. Just... they mutually consider Harmonia to be his father."

"Weird," said Bianca, frowning. "So where did N come from?"

"I don't know," I replied. "But he didn't – when I saw him in the rain. He didn't – just didn't look human."

We fell silent for a while, and over the murmur of conversation in the room I heard a voice coming from the TV:

"...Jared Black, who went missing in Black City over a week ago..."

I sat up very straight, eyes flicking over to the TV screen – and then, seeing my own face looking back, hunched down again and tried hard to be inconspicuous.

"He disappeared early on Eostre morning," the newsreader was saying, looking seriously out at the world in a manner that she probably thought befitting of such a worrisome story. "He took with him his pet, an—"

Please don't say 'Archen', I begged silently. Please, Mum, Dad, realise that having this Archen is illegal—

"—exotic fanged parrot from Norway," finished the newsreader.

I stared.

"Huh," I said.

"Attempts to contact him have failed, but he did leave an elaborate story involving persecution by Green Party leader Ghetsis Harmonia behind for his younger sister Cordelia to pass on," she said. "Police are interviewing her to see if she knows about Jared's ultimate destination."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Good luck with that," I muttered.

"His family declined to be interviewed, but asked the message to be put out that if Jared is watching this, would he please come home."

The newsreader was silent for a moment. Presumably she thought she looked composedly sorrowful, but in fact she looked vaguely constipated.

"In other news, the Gym Leaders of Striaton Gym have announced their retirement from Training. Max Duveaux has the story."

I turned away from the TV and looked at the others.

"I think," I said, "I'm going to need to keep a close eye on the news. And get the f*ck out of this room."

"Yes," replied Cheren, standing up. "Come on, let's move before someone notices you..."

I followed him out closely in the hope that it might obscure my face; Bianca walked behind me in case my back was particularly memorable. She wasn't tall enough to block the back of my head from sight, but if anyone knew me well enough to recognise me from that, there probably wouldn't be any fooling them at all.

A minute later, we had reconvened in Cheren's room (Bianca's and mine were full of wet clothes) and were wondering what exactly we ought to do.

"We need to disguise you," said Cheren decisively. "No one must know who you are—"

"Can't we just call the League and ask them to talk to the police?" I asked. "They know who I am and what we're dealing with here—"

"What makes you think the League have any clout with the police force?" asked Halley. "I know you suggested this before, but... come on. They barely have control of their own f*cking people, let alone the cops."

Cheren paused.

"True," he said. "That doesn't stop us trying. But even if you do stop the police actively looking for you, there's been a TV broadcast now. The nation will notice your face, Jared, no matter what – they'll see you, and when they do they'll stop you and call the police. It's going to cost time and effort to get it sorted out, and you might end up being sent back home anyway."

I sighed.

"I see," I said. "Well... f*ck." I rubbed my eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. It was too late for this; I'd spent a long time with N today, and battled through the rain, and I just felt exhausted. "All right. OK. What sort of thing are you thinking of?"

"I wasn't. I haven't got a plan yet. I thought Munny might be able to make people who noticed you forget you were there, but I don't really think its skills are up to the task."

"Yeah," agreed Bianca. "Munny's not so good at all that – no subtleties. Knock someone out, yeah, but probably not wipe a memory."

"Turn yourself into a cat," suggested Halley. "It worked for me. Hell, even I don't know who I am any more."

I stared at her.

"I would've thought you of all people wouldn't find that funny."

She shrugged – which, since she was a cat, amounted to a long, sinuous ripple of her spine.

"I veer wildly between moments of self-deprecating humour and aggressively egotistical witticisms. Occasionally I stop in the middle and just vomit f*cking acid for a while."

"I'm not sure that makes sense."

"I'm not sure you make sense," she said, and curled up on the bed.

"Right," said Cheren, ignoring her steadfastly, "let's think about what needs to change. The jacket you have is actually pretty good – it's distinctive, with all those studs, but half of Unova's teenagers are wearing ones just like it these days."

I nodded.

"OK," I said. "So that helps me blend in. But it doesn't change my face."

"And that's something that's got to happen," said Halley sleepily. "Remember when I was listing the ways in which you and Lauren were opposites? This is another. Jared's f*ck ugly, and Lauren's... OK, not pretty, exactly. Less unattractive, maybe. Hell, you both look like something Swamp Thing shat out after a particularly violent curry."

"That is an unspeakably foul imagination you have," Cheren told her conversationally. "Your talents must be in demand among all your friends, if you have any."

Halley grinned, unfazed, and went back to sleep.

"I'm not sure what we can do," said Cheren. "Your hair could change, I guess."

Black hair was the least common hair colour in Unova by far; our ancestors had been red- and blonde-haired northern barbarians and green-haired God-knew-who. (There had been a theory that the green hair genes came from sloth people, but it was later pointed out that sloths don't actually have green fur, and that in any case there was no such thing as sloth people.) When you saw a black-haired person, you knew that their ancestors had come to Unova in the last couple of hundred years. Or, if they were me, that they were born inexplicably dark-haired to blonde parents, which had caused some small friction between my mum and dad.

I scratched my head.

"I guess," I said, unenthusiastically. "Dunno. Might be enou—"

Bianca's phone rang, and she went outside into the hallway to take the call.

"Might be enough," I repeated. "We could go and buy hair dye or something tomorrow, I guess."

"Not 'we'. 'I'." Cheren tapped his breast. "You want to go out on the busy streets the morning after they broadcast your status as a missing person? I'll deal with the dye for you."

"Good point," I admitted. "Anyway, we'll call the League first, and see what they can do."

"Maybe I switched bodies with a cat," said Halley thoughtfully. "In which case, I'm willing to heroically take this bullet for Jared and let him hide out in this pathetic cat body."

"Are you going to suggest anything serious at all?"

"I could claw odd marks all over your face and disfigure you," she said. "There. If that ain't serious, boys, I don't know what is."

"A serious wound, yeah. Not exactly a serious suggestion."

Halley sat up and placed one paw over her heart.

"Jared," she said. "Cheren. Since when have I been anything less than the f*cking model of gravity?"

There was a lot I could have said in response to that, but she was saved from it by the ringing of my phone.

"Hello?"

"Jared?" It was Iris. "You're on the news."

"Yeah, I noticed. I was going to ask if the League could do anything about that, actually."

"I don't know," she replied doubtfully. "I mean, we could say you've been deputised into the League for the purposes of a secret investigation, but I honestly don't know if we can make that wash."

"Why don't you just tell them I'm one of the two focal points of reality and the only one who can stop whatever horrendous evil N is lending his support to?"

"Yeah, I don't think anyone will believe that," she said.

"Could you try? Because if I end up stuck back home, I don't think Harmonia can be stopped. N has to challenge me, at the end of all this – he has to, and it has to be me. The universe is always in balance, two weights on either side of a pivot, and one has to defeat the other before it can tip either way." I didn't know where the words were coming from, but they rang in the air with the commanding authority of truth. "If I get stuck at home, they'll just have to bring him to me, or me to him. That puts people in Black City in danger – my family, in danger, and it also means that when I challenge him I won't know enough to win. To let the police investigation continue," I said, "is to hand Harmonia and the demons their victory on a silver platter."

There was a silence.

"Bloody hell," said Iris, with a grudging admiration. "That was... that was a good speech."

"I've been learning from the best," I told her, thinking of N. "So. Will you try?"

"I'll see what I can do," she said. "If we could only find Alder, then he'd be able to authorise the whole thing easily, but..." She sighed. "The whole League system is in a mess. I'll tell Grimsley and see what he can do."

"Thanks. I think it's going to be important."

"I can see that."

"Anyway. Was that all you wanted to call about?"

"Yeah. I haven't had a chance to speak to Drayden yet – his mayoral duties have got him for the next couple of days. I'll call you when I find something out."

"OK."

She said goodbye and hung up.

"Right," I said. "That was Iris. She's going to speak to Grimsley about overturning the police investigation."

Cheren nodded.

"Good—"

The door opened, and Bianca came back in. Her face, usually flushed with excitement, was pale and bloodless; she seemed not so much to walk as float over the carpet, as if she had retreated several steps from reality.

"Bianca?" Cheren had a hand on her arm immediately. "What's wrong?"

She didn't say anything, just sat down on the bed. Candy cheeped uneasily.

"Bianca?"

"Dad called," she said. Her voice lacked substance; like the rest of her, it had somehow removed itself from the real world. "The three weeks are up."

"What?" Cheren's eyes widened. "Thunor, I'd forgotten completely..."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Three weeks," Cheren said, sitting down next to Bianca. "That's how long she had to do this. Her family is... not keen on Training. Her dad gave her three weeks to see what it was like, and it took a lot of arguing just to get that. We spent about half of it just getting to Striaton."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what else to say.

"He's coming tomorrow morning," said Bianca. "Here. I can't just run away. Can I? I can't."

"You can convince him," Cheren replied. "I'll help you."

"I don't know," said Bianca, and she started to cry silently; at that point, very, very conscious that I was hanging around awkwardly, I retreated and went back to my room.

A moment later, there was a scratching at the door, and I opened it for Halley.

"They threw me out," she said, as if surprised about it. "Apparently my suggestions were insensitive."

"They were," I told her, putting Candy on the table and throwing myself onto the bed.

"You didn't even hear them," she replied, jumping up and settling like furry lead on my stomach.

"I don't need to. I know they were insensitive." I brooded for a moment. "What do you think Lauren's doing right now?" I asked.

Halley looked at me.

"Fixing the situation, I guess," she said. "She's probably making Bianca feel better, while simultaneously trying to think of a way to let her continue on this journey."

"Huh." I couldn't think of anything more eloquent.

"Funny, isn't it? Bianca's about the sh*ttiest Trainer ever, but still she wants to go on..." Halley shook her head. "Cheren's going places. He's the sort of kid who gets in the news for beating all eight regional Gyms in under a year – I guarantee that in less than two years he'll be at least halfway through the Elite Four."

Beating the Elite Four wasn't something that normally happened. They were good – and merciless: you challenged all four in a row without respite, followed by the Champion. This was a challenge that most Gym Leaders couldn't complete; to beat one was amazing, to beat two was utterly fantastic, and to beat three was front-page news across half of Europe.

"But Bianca," Halley went on. "Bianca... she can't get better. It's not that she won't – not that she isn't truly applying herself, although she isn't. It's more that she's just... not capable. Some people are good at Training. Some people are good at writing. Some people are just f*cking failures."

"Bianca isn't a failure," I said. It was the first thought to penetrate the cloud of general gloom that had settled over me.

"No," agreed Halley, apparently willing to take things seriously for once. "But she doesn't have a talent. She can't manipulate situations and people like Cheren. She can't fight or survive like you. She can't help others like Lauren. She has absolutely f*cking nothing, and it's like staring into a terrifying, bottomless abyss. Where does she go? What does she do? Who knows?" Halley stared inscrutably at Candy, who was challenging a lamp to a duel. "I doubt if she even knows it herself, but she's on this journey so she can figure out what it is that she wants to do," she said.

I stared at her.

"What's got into you?" I asked, puzzled.

"I'm not always serious," said Halley, curling up, "but when I am, I delve pretty f*cking deep."

And then I knew, of course, that she had gone back to normal, and that I wasn't going to get any more sense out of her.

I lay on my back and listened to the rain, rattling and hissing in the dark outside like a thousand threatened adders. What would Lauren do, I wondered. How would she help Bianca? I must know, somewhere – we were the same person, after all, even if we were opposites.

What would you do, I asked, only I was too tired to say it aloud, so it echoed in my mind instead, blending with the sound of the rain. The clock on the table clicked over to 8.00; Halley rolled over in her sleep, landing on my chest and becoming heavier than ever, a huge presence that seemed to flow out through my limbs and leave me stuck there, immobile, a single thought pinned to a bed in a dry spot in the midst of the rain.

What would you do, Lauren?

There was nothing else, just the question and the rain and the huge weight that held me down – not in a threatening way; in fact, I could barely perceive it, because instead of a rational mind I had only the question, resounding like thunder in an empty head.

I was dreaming, I realised suddenly. The thought came to me like an unobtrusive bassline underneath the guitar of the question. I was dreaming, because there was no longer any bed. I was lying inside the ribcage of a dragon, and the weight that was holding me still was the crushing meat of her muscles surrounding me. Her nerves had pierced my skin, and were intertwined with my own; we were one creature, one huge weapon ready for a colossal fight.

What would you do, Lauren?

My eyes were sealed beneath layers of mucous, protecting them from the dragon's vitriolic blood, but I saw through her eyes more clearly than I had ever seen through my own. Armies marched beneath me, a thousand armoured men and women with white and black plumes streaming from their helms. I saw the standard-bearers, ragged boys and girls who served as marching drummers too, with the great beams supporting the flag strapped to their backs; I saw the black dragon on the white field, and the white dragon on the black.

What would you do, Lauren?

The dragon and I flew on together, over the endless armies and the plains they marched across; we glanced to our right, and saw our brother-sister flying beside us. Lauren, I thought, as I saw the black creature riding the storm-cloud. Lauren, what would you do?

Beyond the vanguard was a long plain and a wall of black granite; on the walls were more men and women, staring at us and at the armies we led from beneath the visors of pied armour. They glanced up at the Braviary and Mandibuzz that traced circles above them, and wondered if they should send them away rather than involve them in a fight they could not win.

What would you do, Lauren?

The army was close now, and huge creatures were stepping out of niches in the defenders' wall: great artificial men, built solidly of granite and river clay. They were as old as the city of granite and porphyry itself, and owed their fealty to the stone of its heart. They would be dangerous, but only until we took the throne; they defended the city, not the people. Stone looks after its own. Mortar never knows what it is to be blood.

What would you do, Lauren?

There he was, the King himself! He stood at the very centre of the defenders on the wall, a gigantic black Zoroark at his side. King Naudri, the man that we were all here to kill. Everything froze – the army halted its march, four hundred yards from the walls; the defenders stood to attention; the Braviary and Mandibuzz seemed to hang motionless in midair. Even we, the dragons and the master, hovered in place.

What would you do, Lauren?

And perhaps it was the sudden stillness and silence, but she finally seemed to hear me, and as quickly and easily as a fish slipping through water I was looking back at the white dragon from the black, and felt his huge muscles gripping a smaller, slimmer body, and knew that Jared had asked me a question.

It isn't a question of transforming from one to the other. There is no conflict. You are simply two things at once.

I started awake with a gasp. For a moment, I couldn't breathe – and then I remembered that there was no dragon crushing the air from my lungs. It had been a dream, or something without a name that I could only think of as a dream.

I pushed Halley gently off my chest without waking her and walked over to the window. The rain had abated a little, but it was still lashing down violently. The clock was reflected in the glass; the green digits were illegible, but I didn't need it to know that it was sometime in the early morning. I could feel it, in that strange way you can if you wake up far too early.

Drawing the curtains, I turned back towards the room. Something had changed, I was sure of it. I had come very close to something there – something that N had shown me, somehow. I was being shown the way – shown what I had to do. I didn't think about it too much; I knew it would come in time. But the important thing was that battle, I knew: the young king, defending his doomed people with every last stratagem they had to offer, and the Heroes, the dragons and the army.

I closed my eyes and sat on the bed. I wasn't tired at all, despite the vividness of the dream. In fact, I felt quietly alert, and more so than I ever had before. I was learning, I thought. N had always been united with his ability: there was no mystery in it. I had to start out divided from mine, but I was, bit by bit, clawing it closer.

At that moment, I became aware that I was holding something. I opened my palm and looked, but I couldn't make out what it was in the gloom; I switched on the bedside lamp, careful not to wake the sleeping Candy next to it, and held the object close to the light.

In the middle of my tea-coloured palm was a small cone of metal. I stared at it for a moment, unable to work out what it was, and then my eyes widened.

It was a stud from Jared's jacket.

---

Three masked men broke into an office in Castelia and shot a clerk dead before flinging themselves from a window. No bodies were found in the street or in the building.

A truck carrying copper pipes crashed on the way to the water treatment plant on Route 3.

A garden shed in Striaton burned to the ground, harming no one.

This was all that humans saw of the ferocious battle being fought between Weland's guards and Teiresias. The latter was heading east, away from the Green Party building and the Court; the former pursued it, engaging it and occasionally surviving.

Teiresias was not stupid. It knew it was not immortal, and that it could not keep relying on its proleptic abilities to maintain this winning streak. It had to reach a place of safety, somewhere it could build up its powers further before pursuing further answers.

After all, it knew Halley had them.

She just needed to be reminded.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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14
Years
Chapter Twenty-five: The Longest Night

Ezra was troubled.

Doubtless the King had his reasons for what he was doing; his kind always did. But he couldn't help but worry that those reasons might not be as sound as they had been in ancient times. After all, two and a half thousand years had passed since the city of granite and porphyry had been seared to dust under the withering attacks of the dragons; the great grey golems were mud and ether, and the bloodline had been extinct. Who knew what changes the modern world might have wrought on the character of a king so out of time?

Harmonia was the problem. Between his silver tongue and the strength lent to his cause by Weland, he was capable of almost anything – and what he couldn't win with words, he would take by force, as the riots in Nacrene had proved. Ezra could not even begin to imagine how he had acquired such a gigantic army, or what he might choose to do with it – for, although it had appeared in the guise of a mere disconnected rabble, it was an organised force, he was certain of it. Perhaps the police would realise, in time, that not all of the rioters even seemed to live in Nacrene; perhaps they would notice that most of them had melted away into the background and disappeared from the city when their task was done. Ezra couldn't say. The only thing he knew for certain was that Harmonia had brought a city of one and a half million to its knees to take a single artefact from a museum. When the smallest weapon you have is a private army, Ezra thought grimly, your largest is too terrible to be guessed at.

"What are you thinking?" asked Niamh.

He turned, surprised. He had forgotten she was there.

"I'm thinking about Harmonia," he said. "I think he may be more dangerous than we thought."

"I think he's exactly as dangerous as I thought," replied Niamh. "I should have killed him in his office."

Ezra shook his head.

"No. It would have been worse – much worse – if you had. Then Caitlin Molloy would have been in sole control of his organisation, and she's worse than he is. Harmonia may be dangerous, but at least he isn't a psychopath."

"Ah." Niamh nodded. "I forgot about her."

"That's one of her tricks," Ezra said gloomily. "Everyone forgets about her, or doesn't notice her. Not until it's too late."

"You don't sound happy," ventured Niamh. She was more comfortable removing limbs than comforting people, but she considered Ezra (more or less) her friend now, and was willing to give it a try.

"I'm not," he replied. "Harmonia knows we stole his computer. Yes?"

"Yes."

"So he has a good idea of what we now know."

"Yes."

"So where would he expect us to go next?"

Niamh thought.

"To Driftveil," she said. "To the warehouse where the gold is."

"And more than that," Ezra said darkly. "It's... grotesque, I have to say. I'll tell you when we get there. For the moment, let's consider that he knows where we're going, and that if we get what we want from there, we'll have a criminal accusation that we can level against him and perhaps force him to release Smythe."

"There's something we can use to blackmail him in there?" she asked. "I know there's the gold, but that's kind of tenuous—"

"More than gold," said Ezra. "As I said, I'll tell you when we get there. I'd rather not talk about it. It makes me... uncomfortable."

"OK," said Niamh, frowning. "Fine. So you say there's something we can use to blackmail him in there – something that he so desperately needs to keep secret that he'd rather give up Portland than let it out?"

"That's it," said Ezra. "Now look at the news."

He pointed at the TV and turned the sound on.

"...recent riots in Nacrene," the newsreader was saying. "Some incoming footage now..."

Blurry images of people chanting, punching the air, waving banners; the camera pulling back, showing how many there were – thousands upon thousands, pressed so tightly together that at times it seemed like they had become one vast pulsating creature. Someone threw a stone and the camera fell; it went dark before it hit the ground, and the recording ceased with a crunch of trampled plastic and metal.

"The group is using the same 'Plasma' chant that was used in the Nacrene riots," said the newsreader. "Police are trying to disperse the protesters, but there are too many at present for current Driftveil forces to make an impact. There—"

Ezra switched it off again.

"A blockade," he said humourlessly. "Harmonia's blockading his own warehouse, and it looks like he's the victim. Thousands of people throughout the country will be saying he deserves it – but how many more will say that he doesn't quite deserve this?" He shook his head. "And all the while, no one can get in or out."

Niamh bit her lip.

"How did you know that this would happen?"

"If you live long enough, you start to see patterns," Ezra told her. "Nothing in human action is truly original. There are only variations on the old. I don't know how Harmonia is controlling these people – whether they're hypnotised or whether they're supporters of his cause – but once I saw them in Nacrene, I knew he would use them again. When a megalomaniac like him tastes power like that, he inevitably finds he likes the flavour. And so he does it again."

Niamh sighed.

"You could have told me this earlier—"

"I didn't know earlier," Ezra said. "I didn't think about the warehouse – I was too concerned with N."

"Fat lot of good that did us."

"Yes," said Ezra, and for the first time Niamh could hear the years in his voice – uncounted aeons, trickling like sand through the cracks between his words. "It was futile."

She didn't know what to say. She had never heard age like that before – age beyond all comprehension; age that encompassed the world, that cupped human achievement in the palm of its hand and planted its feet so far beneath it that they were out of sight. Virtually every civilisation in human history but the First Kingdom had risen and fallen in the time since Ezra was born, she realised, and the thought took her breath away.

"Anyway," said Ezra, getting to his feet. "There's no point worrying on that score. If the bloodline of the Kings is corrupt, the source of the corruption lies with the man who made it his tool: Harmonia." He held out a hand. "To Driftveil, Niamh, and we'll see if our powers combined can stand against his petty blockade!"

---

I didn't feel like sleeping any more, so I crept downstairs and watched TV in the abandoned lounge instead. Now, at two in the morning, there was no one about and I didn't have to hide my face – thankfully. My white hair makes me pretty unmistakeable.

There was nothing on, of course – reruns of Skómst, of old Simpsons episodes, the twenty-four hour news – but I wasn't really watching. I was thinking about the little metal cone in the palm of my hand.

I rolled it around, the broken cuffs jingling on my wrists. (I'd got used to them by now; apparently they were in fashion or something, and I'd seen so many other people wearing them that I no longer thought they stood out.) I wanted to know what it meant – it was a question, I thought. Or it was the closest we could come to one, as things were now. Jared had wanted to know something, I thought, trying to concentrate on the dream, but what had it been? I wasn't sure. At any rate, he hadn't managed to bridge the gigantic divide between us. All he'd been able to do was throw a stud over – a tiny act of connection, but an important one.

It meant, I thought, that in some way we were one person as well as two. We stood for division, but it wouldn't mean a thing if we were entirely separate people – then we'd be the same as any other two randomly-selected people in Unova. There had to be something connecting us, some thing that we had in common, that united us in the midst of our division. Through that thread, I thought, Jared had sent the stud – and through that thread, maybe we could call to each other.

I wasn't sure. It felt right, but feeling wasn't quite the same as reality, I knew – although from what N said, it might be closer to it than I thought.

"Ah, well," I said to myself. "You'll figure it out, Lauren. And you, Jared," I added, after a pause, though I wasn't so sure about him.

"Who are you talking to?"

I turned. It was Bianca. She didn't look like she'd slept very well; her face was pale and her eyes red.

"Myself," I replied. "How are you?"

She sat down next to me.

"Not good."

I hugged her.

"We'll solve the problem, you know," I said. "I know we will. We've got Cheren, after all. He almost out-talked Teiresias – I'm sure your dad won't be a problem."

Bianca pulled away from me, frowning in bewilderment.

"It was all he could do to persuade him to let me go in the first place," she said. "How can he improve on that?"

"He's learned," I reminded her. "He's getting better – at Training, at thinking. At outsmarting people. I bet he can do it."

Bianca shook her head.

"Why do you have so much confidence in him?"

I paused. I hadn't been expecting that.

"Well..." I shrugged helplessly. "I've seen him do things I never could. He's – he convinced Rood to let you go. He kept Teiresias waiting in the dark long enough for help to arrive, even though that help didn't really work out the way we thought. Every time something happens, Cheren rises to the challenge. If this were a novel, he would be the main character."

Bianca actually laughed then, which I didn't understand but which I thought must be a good sign.

"You're adorable," she said. "If this were a novel, you'd be the main character, Lauren."

"Me? What – well, just because I'm the centrepiece doesn't make me—"

"Shut up," said Bianca, good-naturedly. "Lauren. Forget about Cheren. You're the important one. And I think – I think you can make my dad see reason."

"Uh... what?"

She shook her head.

"Don't worry about it," she advised. "I think that tomorrow morning it's all going to happen anyway, whether you want it to or not."

I stared helplessly. Mysteries were all very well when they were coming out of N's mouth, but put them in the hands of someone else and I couldn't fathom them at all.

"What?"

"Don't worry," repeated Bianca. "And, Lauren...?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," she said, getting up. "I feel much better now."

I wasn't sure what to say, so I said nothing. I just watched her leave and listened to the sound of her footsteps on the stairs. It occurred to me that she was prettier than I'd first thought, but I let that thought slide away and covered it with my ties to Annie. Bianca was Cheren's, I thought, the future opening up before me like a book; give them five years, or ten, or fifteen, but they would come together in the end. They would have other friends, and girlfriends and boyfriends, perhaps even husbands and wives, all their own – but in the end, I was certain, it would just be them, as it was now. Cheren and Bianca, alone together.

They didn't need anyone else, I realised. I wondered where that left me.

I suddenly felt very tired. I clicked the TV off, and went back upstairs to bed. There would be time to worry about the future tomorrow; for now, I just wanted to sleep.

Morning found me stuck in my room, wondering whether or not I could risk going outside without instantly being spotted and reported to the police; I was still there, dithering, when Cheren came in.

"Thank you," he said without preamble. "Bianca seems much calmer this morning."

I frowned.

"How do you know that's down to me?"

"Well, it wasn't me," he said, "and it definitely wasn't Halley."

"F*ck you," she said sleepily, from her nest among the sheets.

"OK, maybe I did something," I admitted. "Not much, though. I'm sure you helped too."

Cheren sighed.

"Lauren, trying to compliment you is like trying to nail water to a wall. Please. Help me here."

"Sorry," I said, blushing. "Thank you. We just had – um. We just talked a bit."

"Bianca's dad will be here at eleven," Cheren said. "She wants you to talk to him then. Until that time – here."

He passed me Bianca's hat.

"I'll stay with her," he said. "You go to the computer room and look up anything you can that N might have told you."

"The hat is for...?"

"Disguise," he said. "I know your hair's quite long, but you could sort of bunch it all up under the hat to hide it, couldn't you?"

"Thus speaks a boy," sighed Halley. "He's never had his hair done. I suspect he's done jack sh*t with it except have it cut when it gets in his eyes."

"Thanks," I said hurriedly. "Come on, Halley. We'll – um – get going now."

"I have to come?"

"Yes," I said, looking in the mirror and adjusting Bianca's hat on my head. It didn't look particularly good on me, but then, I didn't suppose very many people could carry off an oversized green beret successfully. "You do."

She sighed.

"Fine."

I was about to pick up Candy, but saw she was still asleep and decided to leave her be for now. We left the room, Cheren going left to his room and Halley and I turning right to the stairs. A couple of minutes later, I was seated in front of a computer, waiting for it to start up, and Halley was asleep on top of the monitor.

"Um – Halley," I said, "what do you think Bianca's dad's like?"

"A fat bastard," she replied, without opening her eyes. "Will that do?"

"What?"

"You asked me what I thought he'd be like. I have a mental image of him as being fat, and also as being a bastard. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Why do you think that? It's not very nice..."

"I have no idea why I think that," she told me. "I just do, the same way I have a mental image of Steven Stone as being tall and handsome, even though I've never seen a picture of him."

"Who?"

She opened one eye.

"Jesus Christ. You're serious." She sighed. "Look, the point is – don't you ever judge someone before you've met them? Don't you get a picture of them in your head, despite not having anything to base it on?"

I thought.

"Um... no. Not really."

She shook her head in stupefied amazement.

"You are a weird, weird girl. Your computer's ready."

"Ah. Thank you."

I opened the browser and began to search. It was time to put the flesh on the bones N had given me – time to cash in my endless secrets and see if I could come up with a few answers.

---

"Sh*t," said Ezra, as the dark paths opened up around them. "Hold on tight."

Niamh started to say 'what', but didn't get any further than opening her mouth: he tightened his grip on her hand and began to fly.

The darkness roared past on either side of them like water; the stones of the path blurred into one long grey mass beneath their feet. Neither Niamh nor Ezra touched it; if they did, Niamh thought, the impact would certainly be lethal.

Abruptly, she became aware that Ezra was no longer human; he had dissolved, becoming something huge and dark with vast arching things that might have been wings. The part of him that gripped her wrist felt like a hand, but when she looked at it all she saw was a thick curl of something like ink that oozed at the corners.

"They knew where we were," he boomed, in a voice that was at once human and, somehow, not. "They were lying in wait – N! N must have given us away!"

"Who?" Niamh screamed against the roaring wind; not a breath of air escaped her lungs, but Ezra seemed to hear anyway.

"The Houndguard," he replied. "Weland's ghuls!"

And then she saw them.

They travelled along their own paths, stones materialising before them and disappearing behind, and they did not restrict themselves to a single shape; they were men and women in armour of polished stone, and at the same time they were colossal grey hyaenas, easily six feet at the shoulder – and at the same time they were also vast smoky billowing things that boiled with tongues and teeth, and whipped trails of saliva through the air.

Not all of the paths they used led towards the one Ezra and Niamh followed, and frequently they had to turn away to switch to a side-path that would bring them back on track – but they were, she noted, gaining on them. They were experts at navigating the paths, she could tell that at a glance, and given a few minutes they would almost certainly be upon them.

"I'm going to kill that N kid," Niamh said to herself. Then, louder: "Can't we get out of here?"

"They're taking the exit paths," replied Ezra. "There are few safe places to walk here, and they stand on every one between us and the holes that lead back to your reality."

"That's reassuring."

"Isn't it just."

The ghuls snaked closer, tacking across the paths like sailboats; one shot right over their heads, its paws and feet and pseudopodia striking the transient stones of the path so hard they cracked as it passed. Strings of spittle dripped down and sizzled into nonexistence on the back of the thing that had been Ezra; Niamh wondered what would happen if they touched her.
And now the ghuls were closer still, and a pair succeeded in jumping onto Ezra's path just behind them, baying and yelling and howling in all their shapes; Niamh felt the swish of stone swords and the hot carrion breath of predators' mouths at her back, and turned in midair to face them, trailing horizontally out behind Ezra.

The ghuls were worse this close up, she thought, staring grimly into the eyes of the foremost one; it had six pairs, all overlaid like layers in a crushed Viennetta, and each burned with a different species of fervour: the absolute concentration of a professional soldier, the brute ferocity of an apex predator, the incomprehensible madness of the seething toothed fogs – all were present, and each magnified the last, so that the whole effect was of something unimaginably fearsome that would have burned clean through the soul of any ordinary human.

"Frige, you're an ugly f*cker," she told it, and shot it eight times in the face.

The bullets slammed deep into the hyaena's skull and shattered it, but they ricocheted off the warrior's helmet, and their effect on the hideous cloud was best not even contemplated. The different visual inputs clashed so violently that Niamh blacked out for a moment; when she regained her senses, she saw the ghul was pursuing her as steadily as ever, without apparent wounds in any of its three shapes.

"Ezra!" she yelled. "They're bulletproof!"

"You don't say!" he yelled back. "Hang on, we're jumping tracks!"

There was a terrible nothingness—

They were flying along another path, and the two ghuls that had been behind them, surprised, ran straight into a third that had dropped down just in front of Ezra before they jumped; the three of them fell from the path, and something that seemed to be mostly invisible swallowed them with a grotesque lip-smacking noise that reverberated through the void like thunder.

"What the f*ck was that?"

"A lost soul," replied Ezra, jumping to another path to avoid another descending ghul. "If you leave the path, and if you survive the experience... Well. This place changes you. Skorvow!"

This last was spat with some venom at a ghul racing alongside them on a path just a few feet away; Ezra swept one massive wing into its back and knocked it off-balance, but it recovered quickly and sank a cluster of bony teeth into his substance. He roared in pain and flapped wildly, corkscrewing impossibly along the path, wings pulling in tight to avoid contact with the stones; Niamh had a wild, dizzying glance of blackness and grey fur and a flash of brilliant gold, and then they were the right way up again, and the hapless ghul was being catapulted across the abyss. She expected it to be snatched up like the others, but it seemed it was lucky; a path formed behind it perpendicular to their own and it scrambled to its feet, rejoining the chase at ninety degrees to the norm.

And now, she saw, despite their earlier victories, that the ghuls were massing; canny and crafty path-finders, fifteen or sixteen of them were bunched tightly around them now on all sides, stones flickering in and out of existence so fast they hardly seemed to be there at all.

"We have a proposition!" whooped one, in a hyaena's awful laugh. "Stop and listen!"

"Do you think we're idiots?" asked Niamh, and shot at it to add to the insult.

"I don't deal with Weland," growled Ezra. "I'm not interested in any proposition."

"They're not interested," yowled the ghul.

"Then what?" snapped another.

"They killed Dozla!" screeched a third.

"And Mogwai!"

"And Abydos," said another one, using the fluid mouths of its smoke-form to unutterably horrifying effect.

They might be fearsome, thought Niamh, but they weren't exactly clever beasts.

"So we kill them!"

"Yes! Kill them!" crowed the first.

"Kill them! Kill them!"

"Oh, they're as bad as schoolchildren," sighed Ezra, swooping down to within an inch of the path to avoid a clutching talon from above. "Niamh! Are you willing to take a risk?"

The ghuls around them blanched.

"He's going to do it!"

"He wouldn't do it!"

"He won't do it!"

"Just f*cking get us out of here!" yelled Niamh.

"Oh Kågskr," said one of the ghouls – quite quietly, but perfectly audibly, as if for a moment the rushing of the wind had faded to nothing. "He's going to do it."

And Ezra leaped off the path into the void.

---

"OK," I said. "So the spider and the cat – that's the fable of unknown provenance."

"Probably dates from the First Kingdom," suggested Halley helpfully. "Knowing N."

"Oh yeah, that's a good idea. It probably does."

The story was about a spider who vied for control of the world's stories with a huge, powerful hunting cat; the cat was good at tracking the stories down and catching them, but the spider knew about the divided nature of cats, half elegance and danger and half graceless idiocy, and left a large ball of silk in her path. The great hunter couldn't resist lying down to play with it, and the spider made off with all her stories in the threads of his web.

"It's easy to see why N says he's the spider and I'm the cat," I went on. "I'm not sure if there's any more relevance to it than that, though."

"There might be," said Halley. "There are a lot of cats about, aren't there? Teiresias always appears in a cat body, and I'm a cat, and apparently you are, in a way, and, well... Cats f*cking everywhere, that's what I'm saying." She frowned. "Well. No, not literally – if there were cats f*cking everywhere, there'd be even more cats, but – well, you know what I meant."

"Yeah, I get it, thanks," I sighed, wondering how this could be the same person who had talked so seriously and penetratingly about Bianca the night before. "Um. Then – er – there's this King Weland."

"The King of the demons."

"Yeah. There's a lot about him – I don't know how much is true. He's in a lot of old myths, but he's only called Weland in the very oldest. In the ones I know, he's usually Jrael – 'Sen and the King's Daughter', 'The Cloak of Woven Rivers', 'The Thane and the Druid' – everyone in Unova knows those."

"In White Unova, at least," Halley corrected. "I doubt many in Jared's world remember old stories."

"Maybe so. But that's not the important thing." I looked up at her. "The important thing... well, there's one story that comes up over and over again. It's in his title – world-eater. The creation story – where the children find a darkness in a pit near the water-meadow and it climbs into their hearts, and then they bring it home to the village, and it spreads throughout everyone else. And then it makes them take it to the city, where it eats its way through a thousand hearts and grows so big that it starts bursting through the flesh; and the sunlight touches it and burns it and in its pain the darkness makes its slaves dig down and bury the entire city under the ground. It ends 'And that is how the Archdevil was made, and how his tomb-city in the earth was built.'"

"Where are you going with this?" asked Halley.

"Well..." I hesitated. "Doesn't that give you some idea of what we're up against? How this... How do we even – can we stop him?"

I was trying very hard to keep my voice from shaking at that point, and Halley must have sensed it; she jumped down off the monitor and rubbed her head awkwardly against my cheek.

"Not us, exactly," she replied. "Never just us. But you, and N, and Niamh and that Ezra guy..." She shrugged. "I have every confidence that it'll work out. You're the one going on about f*cking stories – that's how stories work, isn't it?"

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I suppose it is..."

"Anyway," she said, glancing at the lower right corner of the screen. "It's ten to eleven. Time to find Bianca."

"Ah!" I cried. "Yeah, yeah – let's do that."

I shut down the computer and hurried out to find the others; they weren't in any of our rooms, nor were they in the lounge, and it took a while for me to realise that they were outside in the small scrap of yard that separated the Centre from the street. As I passed through the doors, I realised to my surprise that Bianca's dad was, true to Halley's prediction, more than a little overweight; he had the comfortable, kindly shape of a pear, balanced on a pair of spindly legs. If he hadn't looked so angry, I would have taken to him immediately; as it was, I felt a bit overwhelmed.

"...see what the problem is," he was saying. "We've let you come far enough, haven't we? And the country's getting more dangerous by the day! Riots everywhere – you know there are rioters in Driftveil now? The League falling apart, the animal attacks on the Route 4 development..." He shook his head. "Bianca, sweetheart, I just—"

"Hello," I said, uncertainly. "Is this your dad, Bianca?"

He glared at me, and I felt myself wilt like a plant caught in the searing eye of the sun.

"Excuse me," he said. "This is a family affair."

"Um," I said, taking a step back without meaning to. "Er—"

Bianca gave me a pleading look; I felt fear and the desire to help tugging on either side of my heart, shifting it out of place and making me feel queasy.

Halley jumped up onto the fence and from there onto my shoulder, where she batted Bianca's hat off my head. Almost immediately, Bianca's father noticed my hair, and stared at me in startled recognition.

"You," he said, with wonder. "You're..."

And then I realised what Halley had done; she had given me an opportunity to speak, and she had forced me into it – and, mentally thanking her as she dropped back to the floor, I said, "Yes, I'm Lauren White. You may recognise me from the news, but that's not why I wanted to speak to you." Bianca's dad looked confused, and I felt myself growing more confident; I let myself be carried onwards on the wave of assurance, and went on, "My parents are worried about me too. I never really expected to be on this journey, so I never got to explain to them properly, and I am really worried about what they think. So I can sympathise with your concerns – after all, this is really, really dangerous. Demons and sinister politicians are abroad. People who are less than, or more than, human pop up and guide us from location to mysterious location, never giving us more than the tiniest hint about what's going to happen next.

"But we keep going," I said. "The sensible thing would of course be to go home and let someone else handle all of this – but I can't even consider that. And now, neither can Cheren or Bianca, either. Fate is moving like a flood, and we are all caught up in it – you could take Bianca home, but she would still be swept along in the water, and I think you would rather have her here, where at least she has others who understand what is happening to help her and protect her, than keep her alone at home where she's vulnerable to attack.

"I don't know if what I'm saying makes any sense to you. Sometimes it barely makes sense to me – how can the world work this way? It just doesn't seem to fit with what we think about reality. But despite all of that..." I shrugged. "I don't know. I hope something of what I said rings true to you."

Bianca's dad stared at me for the longest time.

"Bianca, get your hat," he said. "We're going."

"No!" I cried. "No, listen—"

"No, you listen—"

"No, you listen, you fat f*ck," growled Halley, which shut him up. "This is the centre of the f*cking universe here. Hear her out."

His eyes bulged and his mouth flapped uselessly like a fish's out of water.

"I – a—"

"Yes, a talking cat," said Halley, climbing easily up his ponderous chest and settling around his ample shoulders. "Now" – she pointed his head at me – "listen to the hero."

His eyes met mine, and I felt something open up inside me – something that N cracked a little, sometimes; something that had split almost in half last night, when Jared had tried to talk to me – and I looked into his eyes with everything I had, a big, pale hand holding my own and a cluster of cold metal studs brushing my arm.

Then the moment had passed, and the something closed up like a clamshell in my breast, and there was no one of myself here but me.

Bianca's dad staggered back, shaken.

"I don't understand," he whispered, still staring at me. "I don't – what – who are you?"

"It's confusing, I know," said Halley, jumping down off his shoulders and sitting down at my feet. "You think the age of gods and heroes is long since past. But narratives like that never die, my flabby friend. They shed their skin and emerge with different scales, but they're the same at their core; from sacred trees to skyscrapers, gorgon to demon king, five thousand years can pass and things stay the same. Your daughter is caught in an epic, Mister Aaronson. Two thousand years ago, the scops would have sung her story in the mead-halls and lent her story the wings of immortality. You've lost that mindset, and believe me, so had I: no one loves the shiny, electric present more than me. But being around this motherf*cker" – she jerked her head up at me – "has forced me to broaden my views. "For want of a better way to put it, Mister Aaronson: here be dragons."

Bianca's dad sucked in a deep breath.

"I think," he said, in a quiet, shaky voice, "that the five of us need to talk this over."

---

Niamh ceased.

On one level, she was aware of her body – of the pressure of Ezra's hand on her wrist, of the weight of the guns and knives in her coat, of her feet, drifting as if underwater through the abyssal nothing – but she could not convince herself of her own existence. And, as if determined to disprove Descartes with its dying breath, her mind decided that without a body it did not exist either, and stopped.

There was absolutely nothing.

Perhaps in the dream of some far-off sage a pack of ghuls were chattering, jumping up and down and arguing about what might happen to those foolish enough to jump off the path – but certainly, such a thing could never have happened in reality, for reality had stopped the moment the path had vanished from beneath their feet. Now there was nothing but the level waste, the rounding grey; they spun and drifted beneath the foundations of what Niamh had once called the universe.

The void deepened, and the demon and the monster-slayer dripped gently on, drops of half-life in a world of endless apathy.
 
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  • Seen Nov 9, 2013
Letting you know that I read this the day it was posted.

I would have wondered how Ezra would react to Windows 8
:psy copy:

I see some ideas from Hackers (with Ingen and their velociraptors). That was a cool premise, glad to see it live on in some limited form.

At first I was like "yay 2 chapters at once" (maybe black and white versions in parallel) but then superficial visual inspection indicated that the chapters were identical. Just to make sure, I copied and pasted them into PSPad to and did a text diff. NO differences were found between the posts.

Thanks
 
Last edited:

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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I see some ideas from Hackers (with Ingen and their velociraptors). That was a cool premise, glad to see it live on in some limited form.

Actually, this is mostly from Jurassic Park. I just like dinosaurs, and it's probably one of the best reengineered-dinosaur-based thriller novels of the twentieth century.

At first I was like "yay 2 chapters at once" (maybe black and white versions in parallel) but then superficial visual inspection indicated that the chapters were identical. Just to make sure, I copied and pasted them into PSPad to and did a text diff. NO differences were found between the posts.

Thanks

Oops. Looks like I accidentally double-posted it. I can't imagine how that happened; surely I'd notice pasting the text into the editor twice? Anyway, thanks for pointing it out. I'll take down the duplicate.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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Chapter Twenty-Six: From Nimbasa With Love

Niamh opened her eyes.

Then, because they were about a mile above the open ocean, she closed them again.

The wind swelled in her ears, a harsh, keening roar like lions in pain; the air stung her face, cold and wet and moving at such unbelievable speed that she thought it must be going straight through her, that it had torn thousands of tiny holes through her body and passed through to the other side—

And then everything stopped.

"Fleisweg," said Ezra tiredly. "All right, Niamh. We made it."

She opened her eyes. They were back on the dark path again; Ezra was human-shaped once more, and the sleeve of his coat was bloody.

"Are you—?"

"I'm fine," he interrupted. "He bit me. No more." He closed his eyes; they seemed to have sunk half an inch into their sockets, and dark shadows rimed them like frost. "We were lucky," he said at length. "It seems we floated into an exit."

"An exit in the sky?" asked Niamh.

"Yes," he replied. "Somewhere north of Cuba, I think. I suppose no one's found it yet."

"Where – was that the space between the paths?"

"Yes. Total nothingness. If we had spent much longer there, we would have been... altered. Perhaps we already have been," he posited. "Though I confess we look the same at least."

He opened his eyes with a sigh.

"Right," said Ezra. "Come on; we'd better get moving. I don't know exactly where we are, but the ghuls will find us soon."

"Yeah," she said, getting to her feet. "About them. What are they, exactly?"

Ezra looked back over his shoulder, but did not slow his pace.

"The curses," he said. "You know we can manipulate flesh – guide it into new shapes?"

"Yes...?"

"If you are strong enough, you can manipulate the essence of demons, too; transform yourself or others literally. And if you are very, very strong, you could do it on several levels, and craft three interwoven forms for each creature." Ezra paused. "Weland," he said at length, "is that strong."

"Jesus." Niamh shook her head. "Is that where the bulk of his powers are? Changing, er, life forms? Because, well, the fetches, the ghuls – he's always sent twisted things after us."

"Very perceptive of you." Ezra nodded. "Though it's less a matter of Weland being skilled at corruption than of him being corruption. He is the wellspring of all Unovan demons; a fount of taint, of malice, of change, that takes in matter and spits it out in a different shape."

"We're not fighting a person here, are we?" asked Niamh, feeling a little uneasy. (It says much about her that this was the first time she had felt uneasy about killing Weland.) "It's more like... a force of nature."

"That is exactly what he is," agreed Ezra. "He existed long before he was Weland, as a sort of shadowy primordial ooze; he has birthed countless monsters. Some of the things you have killed in the past are probably his older children, things that he spawned in the distant pat before he attained sentience and which have bred and evolved on in the darker corners of the world. Then, somewhere along the line, he became a person, created the first demons and built himself a city of tombs."

"Well, how the hell do we kill him, then?" asked Niamh, not unreasonably.

"Let me worry about that," said Ezra. "You just have to get me into his throne room." He stopped walking. "For now, though, don't even worry about that. It's time to find a way into that warehouse."

And Driftveil popped into existence all around them, like an especially impressive conjurer's trick; and an ice-cream truck came around the corner and crashed straight into Ezra.

---

"Lauren," whispered Halley. "What exactly did you do to the poor bastard?"

"I showed him who I am," I replied quietly. "Both of me."

We were sitting in a small café that Cheren had spent some time in the day before, sheltering from the rain while waiting for Bianca and me; the table was liberally covered in half-drunk cups of tea and untouched cinnamon biscuits, and Bianca's dad was slowly dropping sugar cube after sugar cube into his coffee, stirring them in without actually noticing what he was doing.

"I really – I just don't know what to say," he said.

"Take your time, Dad," Bianca told him, touching his arm. "It's... weird."

"But I," he began, then stopped and shook his head. "Already. You've done so much already. Demons. Guns. Mutant cats."

Cats, I thought. They're everywhere: Sytec, Halley, Teiresias...

"How can I— no, that isn't it." He frowned.

"Take your time," repeated Bianca.

"It's just..." He sighed. "All right. Lauren, I'd like to ask you a question."

"Yes?"

"Is it more safe for my daughter to be with you or to be at home?"

I thought of Cheren, and Jared; of Munny, Justine and Lelouch; of Harmonia, N and Teiresias. I thought of Weland.

"I think," I said slowly, "that she'll almost definitely be safer here with us. Alone, she's too exposed, and there's no guarantee that someone won't come after her." I hesitated. "I'm sorry for dragging her into all this," I told him. "For dragging everyone into this. I shouldn't have."

"Don't be stupid," replied Cheren. "You couldn't avoid it. We ran into each other; it was like fate."

I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been. Random chance seemed to be disappearing rapidly from my world; all events appeared to have a purpose, and no meetings were coincidences. It felt a bit like being a pinball bounced around a cosmic table.

"It does seem that way," said Bianca's father. "I – all right." He straightened up and took a deep breath, smoothing his hair back into place. "Right. I have no idea what I'll say to your mother, Bianca, but I'm – I believe what you say, Lauren."

"Thank you," I said, looking him in the eye; he flinched away from my gaze. That hurt, but I hid it and went on: "I promise we'll all do whatever we can to keep Bianca safe."

"Yes," agreed Cheren. "We will."

Bianca's dad nodded.

"All right," he said. "I know you will."

Bianca hugged him tightly, and he walked us back to the Pokémon Centre, where he kissed Bianca goodbye and made her promise him not to take unnecessary risks. Then he walked away into the drizzle, and was gone.

"Thank you," said Bianca, hugging me as well. "I knew you could do it."

"Oh," I said, blushing, "I think it was Halley, when she said—"

"Nope," she interrupted. "We all saw it, Lauren. You were sort of – you looked..." She trailed off. "Cheren, you're good at describing things. What did she look like?"

Cheren considered for a moment.

"Legendary," he concluded. "You looked like a figure out of the mythic past. In that moment," he said, "anyone who looked at you knew that there really was an Aspertia Dragon, and that it was slain by Eodred Blodtoeth, or that there was a Medusa to be killed by Perseus. They saw how it is that humans can kill unconquerable monsters, or build a city from nothing and rise to be crowned kings."

There was a short silence.

"Yeah, that'll do," said Bianca, slightly awed. "That was good, Cheren."

"Yeah," I agreed. "And, well, it probably wasn't quite like that—"

"No," said Bianca. "It definitely was."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so settled for, "Um," and went inside. It was still raining, after all.

"Oh," I said, on our way back up to Cheren's room (since the living-room was too risky, it was our main meeting place now), "I looked up all the stuff that N told me about, by the way."

"And?" asked Cheren.

I told them the story of the cat and the spider, and of how the Archdevil came to be; while they agreed that these were interesting, nothing, they said, actually told us what to do next.

"I mean, where do we go from here?" asked Cheren. "Are you sure he didn't drop any other hints?"

"Yes," I replied. "No, I mean – well, but—"

"Spit it out," said Halley, exasperated. "And will someone please open this door?"

I pushed open the door and we filed through into Cheren's room.

"Reading the stories reminded me," I said, "Weland's tomb-city is always described as filled with mountains of gold and jewels, right? In fact, that's why there are so many stories about thieves trying to get in to steal them. And there's something in 'The Robber Prince' about the wealth of the underworld being his."

"'He dwelleth under the earth, and the riches of the world beneath are rendered unto him as the tithes of subjects to their lord'," quoted Bianca.

I stared at her.

"Um... yes, that's it," I said, surprised.

"I had to declaim that one for Unovan Studies last year," she said sheepishly.

"I remember that," said Cheren. "You forgot the part where Ulnere gets the key to the tomb-city gates, and so no one could figure out what you meant when you got to the bit where he breaks in."

She winced.

"Did you have to remind me?"

"Oh. Um, but you were very good, though," added Cheren belatedly.

I hid a smile and said:

"OK. Well, if gold keeps mysteriously appearing in Harmonia's warehouse, where do you think it comes from and who puts it there?"

There was silence.

"Whoa," said Halley, at length. "A salient observation from Lauren. Hold onto your f*cking hats, kids, because the rules just went out the window."

"You're right," said Cheren, ignoring her. "Of course... It has to be the demons. They're financing him." He frowned. "Do you think that's it? That that's all they're doing – just giving him money and protection?"

I shook my head.

"No. Weland has a plan – N said he'd betray Harmonia once they were done."

"Ah!" cried Halley suddenly. "I know!"

We stared at her.

"What?"

"Why hasn't Weland killed you all already?" she asked. "Why has he been stuck underground all this time, if he enjoys killing people so much?"

"Well," I said. "The ése—"

"Let's assume for a moment that the ése aren't real," she said scathingly. "What else?"

I thought.

"Um... the druids?"

"Exactly." Halley jumped onto the bed. "I know they're weak now, but back in the days when all these other legends were happening, I bet they were stronger – they'd have to be. So Weland has stayed down there because he doesn't want to get all his minions killed – and who can blame him? But it gives Harmonia something to promise him, doesn't it?"

"I get it!" cried Bianca. "Harmonia achieves power and dissolves the Gorsedd, then Weland can come back to the surface!"

"Ah! And maybe the Pokémon Liberation policy is the same sort of thing," suggested Cheren. "If there was no League and no Gorsedd, the only thing in Weland's way would be the army, and there's not a lot they can do to demons. So with one or both of them gone, Weland's path is almost entirely clear."

"But it won't be, will it?" I asked, seeing it clearly now. "Harmonia's going to dissolve the League and tell Weland he can come up to the surface, but then have the High Gorsedd ready with some kind of banishing spell."

"And he'll come up to the surface—"

"To get a fistful of mistletoe to the face, and sink back down to hell," said Halley grimly. "That's what Harmonia wants, obviously. But you said N told you that Weland was going to betray Harmonia too – and come on, we should have seen that coming. The guy predates the f*cking wheel; he's seen more tricks than you've taken breaths."

"What would he be planning to do, then?" wondered Bianca. "I mean, what would he do to Harmonia?"

"Kill him, probably," theorised Cheren. "And I expect Harmonia suspects it; he's no slouch himself, and he must know it's risky to make deals with the King of the demons."

"How would killing him help?"

"I believe dead bodies don't necessarily have to stop moving, where demons are involved," said Cheren. "A puppet Prime Minister could weaken the Gorsedd and pave the way for a full-scale demon rising."

There was a silence.

"I really don't know which one of them I'd prefer to win," said Bianca.

"Hopefully, neither," I replied.

"Emphasis on hopefully," sighed Halley. "Anyway. Cheren's idea is only a theory. All of this is only theory, come to that. The question remains: what are we doing next?"

"Driftveil," I said without hesitation.

Everyone stared at me.

"Why?" asked Cheren.

"Oh," I said. "Well, we don't have any leads, do we? The only thing we can do is try and investigate the warehouse."

"But where will that get us?" asked Cheren. "Is there anything there?"

"We won't know if we don't try," I replied. "And there really doesn't seem to me to be anything else we can do, anyway."

Bianca looked at him.

"She has a point," she said. "What else can we do?"

"I suppose there isn't anything," sighed Cheren. "Hm. It just feels... off, somehow." He shrugged. "Never mind. You're the one with the mysterious sense for fate, Lauren. I'll trust your instincts."

I took a step back.

"Ah!" I cried. "Wait – I mean, I'm not exactly – I might not be—"

"Shut the f*ck up," said Halley tiredly. "Believe in yourself. For God's sake, you made a complete stranger believe in you just forty minutes ago. So much so, in fact, that he laid aside all his fear for his own daughter's safety for you. If he can trust you that much, you should bloody well be able to trust yourself that much too."

"Sorry," I said inadequately.

Halley rolled her eyes.

"And she apologises again. Jesus Christ."

"Enough," snapped Cheren. "Please. Enough of that."

"Right," said Bianca. "I'd, um, better start putting my stuff away."

"OK," said Cheren. "Me too."

I looked around. His room looked as if not only did it not currently have an occupant, but it hadn't had one for the past seventeen years. It was more than spotless; it had the appearance of something that has just come off a factory line, and is currently being shrink-wrapped for freshness during the journey to the supermarket.

"OK," I said. "Well, shall we meet up in the lobby in half an hour?"

Cheren glanced at Bianca.

"Better make it forty minutes," he said.

"I'll be done in half an hour!" she protested.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Really, I will."

"All right," he said. "Half an hour it is."

Forty minutes later, we were about ready to brave the rain once again; it had died down to a soft drizzle now, but it was so cold it seemed it must have a grudge against us, and we were all very glad when our bus arrived. I kept Bianca's hat on, hid my face beneath N's umbrella, and forced Candy to hide inside my jacket; it seemed to do the trick, because no one challenged me, and we made it onto the one seventeen to Driftveil without further incident.

Half an hour into the journey, Cheren, who was doing something on his phone, grunted in surprise.

"Look at this," he said, handing the phone over. It was turned to the New Unovan website, Cheren's preferred news medium, and the article onscreen began with the words 'Riots broke out earlier today in Driftveil' and didn't get much better.

"Oh no," I said softly, reading on. "'Plasma'? Again? It's the same people..."

"Those Seven Sages people," said Cheren. "Yes. I suspected it before, but now it seems certain that they're connected to the Green Party – they've got the whole warehouse blocked off. It looks like they're attacking it, but they're not doing anything; it seems to me they're just there as an excuse to stop people getting in. Which is oddly convenient for the Party, considering we were just on our way there. Perhaps they know that we don't have enough information to go anywhere else."

"What? Let me see," said Bianca, and I handed her the phone. "That's not good," she said unnecessarily, reading it.

"I know," replied Cheren. "This might prove tricky." He took the phone back. "I don't know how we—"

The train stopped.

A murmur of confusion ran through the carriage. I looked out of the window, and saw the Route 5 motorway to the left; through the other window, there was nothing but the dense forest of the Unovan countryside.

"Why have we stopped?" I wondered aloud. "What's happened?"

"Excuse me," said the guard over the PA system. "Excuse me. The Driftveil Drawbridge has been, er, unexpectedly raised. Please bear with us while we try and find out what's going on."
There was another murmur – the drawbridge raised, now? Trains using the bridge and ships needing to pass up the Valroy Channel to Driftveil were timed so that they didn't clash – even I knew that, and I knew almost nothing about anything that wasn't in White Forest.

Candy popped her head out of my jacket at the sound, but I pushed her back in.

"Candy! Stay!"

"This is odd." Cheren frowned. "Do you think it's related to the riots?"

"Maybe."

Halley looked like she wanted to say something, but the carriage was quite full, and so she had to keep pretending she was a normal cat.

"I don't know," I said. "Look, I'm sure—"

"It seems all entrances to Driftveil have been closed," said the guard. "In light of ongoing riots in the Colster district, the Mayor has ordered that the city be isolated to prevent a repeat of the escapes in Nacrene while police and security forces try and disperse them. Um. Uh, please hang on a bit."

Poor guard, I thought. He sounded flustered; doubtless this wasn't what he'd been expecting when he got up this morning. The poor man probably wanted nothing more than for this problem to go away, just like everyone else, and I expected the passengers were going to blame him for it – in cases like this, I thought sadly, the messenger gets shot for the news. Yes, there it was now: I could hear raised voices in the carriage ahead of ours, where the guard was. I longed to go and tell whoever was bothering him that it wasn't his fault, that we were all stuck here because of the Plasma rioters, not the guard, but I couldn't seem to find the courage.

"Do you think they're emptying the warehouse while these people stop people getting to it?" asked Bianca. "I mean, the fact that it seems like they're deliberately stopping us getting in kind of implies that there's something to find in there..."

Cheren paused.

"You're right," he said, surprised. "If I were them, that's exactly what I would be doing... If we were there right now, I expect we'd find another of those damn Sages in there, overseeing some kind of evacuation." He bit his lip. "We need a way in there."

"Right." It was the guard again. "We'll be returning to Gear Station as soon as the trains behind us move. Thank you for your patience."

"Returning to Gear Station?" cried Bianca. "We can't do that!"

Most of the passengers in the carriage agreed with her about that, judging by the noise they made.

"No, we can't," agreed Cheren. "We have to get over the Channel somehow."

"Excuse me," said the man sitting across the aisle from us. "I couldn't help overhearing that. You're Trainers, yes?"

"Yes," replied Cheren, guardedly.

"Then you should know that there's another way across the Channel to Driftveil," he told us. "It's an old Trainer Trail that – well, it's not used much any more, because the new one comes out at the bridge and that's more convenient – but it's not too overgrown."

Cheren snapped his fingers, and recognition flickered in his eyes.

"Trail 0057?"

"That's the one," said the man. "I was thinking of getting off here and taking it myself, but I don't have Pokémon myself—"

"Say no more," cut in Bianca. "We'll take you. Won't we, guys?"

I looked at her. I could see why her father had been concerned; we had no idea who this man was. He could have been a murderer, a rapist, a lunatic intent on guiding us to our doom in the middle of the woods – and yet, on the basis that he'd reminded Cheren of another way to Driftveil, she was willing to trust him completely.

Shifting my gaze to the man, I studied him. Nothing about him told me that anything was amiss, but then again, I knew I was woefully inexperienced in the ways of the world. He was tall and broad, and moderately young – I would have placed him as in his late twenties, which was old enough for his face and young enough to justify his flamboyant shock of two-tone dyed-red hair. He was dressed soberly in a white T-shirt and loose-fitting, pale trousers; there was a kind of weathered look about him that made me think of rocks half-sunk in sand in lonely deserts, and I thought that he'd either suffered from bad acne as a teenager or spent a lot of time outdoors in bad weather. There might have been some kind of mark or scar on his lower cheek, too, but I couldn't be sure; it was hidden beneath his stubble – a commodity he had in abundance.

I glanced at Cheren.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I think we'll be OK," he replied, fixing those piercing eyes of his on the stranger. He would be looking right through him, I thought; if anyone could find anything suspicious about him, it would be Cheren. He could see right into your soul, I thought with a shiver.

"Look, if there's a problem, then that's fine," said the man. "But I'm just trying to get to Driftveil, all right? Got to get to my niece's birthday party." He indicated the solid-looking, badly-wrapped parcel on his lap. "I know it must seem weird and probably suspicious, but that's all there is to it."

"He's telling the truth," Cheren told us quietly, taking his eyes off him. I glanced at the stranger and fancied I could see scorch marks where Cheren's stare had touched him. "Definitely the truth."

The man looked interested.

"That's quite a pair of eyes you've got on you," he said. "Anyway. What do you say?"

"We'll do it," Cheren told him. "Come on, then. We'll have to convince the guard to open the doors for us."

"Cheers," replied the man, as we all got to our feet. I could feel the eyes of the whole carriage on us; it made me a little uncomfortable (actually, a lot uncomfortable), but I resolved to put up with it. I was a hero, I told myself, but the words rang hollow; I didn't believe myself at all.

It took less than a minute to find the guard and considerably longer to persuade him that it would be all right to open the doors, but at length it was done, and we stood on the scrubby land by the tracks. Just ahead of us, the forest rose up in a dark, dense wall; behind us, the train formed an impassable barrier between us and the motorway. The rain had more or less gone, or perhaps it was confined to Nimbasa, and the sun was even making a weak effort to shine.

"That's better," said the stranger, hefting his parcel. "Bit of fresh air's always preferable to the train. I wouldn't have taken it if I didn't have to get there by five..." He checked his watch. "Should make it," he said. "Just about."

"Excuse me," said Cheren. "You never actually said – what's your name?"

The man looked surprised.

"Oh, didn't I say? 'Scuse me." He held out a large, calloused hand to be shaken. "Pleased to meetcher," he said. "Name's Alder."
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Into the Dark

"Alder," repeated Cheren. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Cheren."

"Bianca."

"Lauren," I said, timidly; Alder was an overwhelming kind of man, and without my distrust of him my shyness had free reign over me.

"And who's this?" he asked, bending down and stroking Halley, who hissed and retreated hurriedly.

"That's – um – my cat," I said awkwardly. "Halley."

Alder gave me an ingenuous grin.

"A Trainer who takes her cat around with her? I like that idea," he said. "There's a movie in that, I think." He laughed quietly to himself. "Anyway, how old are you all?"

"Sixteen," Bianca told him.

"Same age as my niece," he observed. "More or less, anyway. She'll be seventeen today. He looked off into the woods. "Well, then. Shall we?"

"Yes," replied Cheren. "By all means, let's get going. We'd like to get to Driftveil as soon as we can."

Alder set off between the trees at a brisk pace, swinging his arms with the vigorous pleasure of one who enjoys a good long walk in the woods, and we hurried to catch up.

"If we keep going north," he said cheerily, "we should run into the path. It runs parallel to the tracks and the motorway, for the most part. Until it gets closer to the coast, anyway."

"If you say so," said Cheren. "It connects to that park just off Route 5, right?"

"Bombast Acre, yeah," he confirmed. "That's it." He paused, casting about for a new topic. "Have you been Training long? I'm a bit out of touch – what age do you kids start these days?"

"A little later than they used to," answered Cheren. "We've been at it for three weeks – we're part of Professor Juniper's early test for the summer scheme."

"I see," he said. "You're on your way to challenge Clay, then?"

"Yes," lied Cheren. "That's exactly what we're going to do."

"He's a good tactician," mused Alder. "Business strategy and battle strategy – it's all the same to him. He has a sense for what his opponents will do next. You'll keep glancing ten steps ahead when you fight him, if you're sensible."

"I thought you weren't a Trainer?"

"Not now I'm not," he replied genially. "But I was once, and I knew Clay then. In fact," he went on, "I knew them all – everyone who's a League member now, and half the major Trainers of Unova too." He smiled meditatively.

"You know Chili and his brothers are quitting now?" said Bianca.

"I know, I heard." Alder shook his heavy head. "Terrible, that. I feel so bad for them – such nice kids!" He sighed. "I heard Hugo Vance wants the slot, and he wants to have the new Gym in Virbank – but so does Roxie, and God knows where she'll want to put it."

"Roxie?" I asked, curiosity overcoming shyness. "Poison Jam Roxie?"

Alder nodded.

"That's her. Didn't you know? She's not just a musician, she's an excellent Trainer."

"She was on the Unovan Olympic team last year, wasn't she?" asked Cheren.

"I think she was," agreed Alder. "Yes, actually! She got to the quarter-final before she had to retire after that mess with that Valbiluze."

Even I remembered that, albeit vaguely; some American Pokémon had suffered an allergic reaction to something and burst its lightning sac. The resultant electrical storm had almost brought a halt to the Olympics and had badly burned a number of competing athletes; it had made news worldwide. I hadn't realised that our Roxie was there though – Roxie, of all people! Annie liked her music, I thought, and wished I hadn't remembered that.

"Anyway," Alder continued, "there isn't a single League outpost in the whole southwest, but I don't know where it's going to go. They'll be fighting over it tooth and claw. I don't know that Lenora will be staying on much longer either; she's been on leave since her husband got shot, and the rumour is that she might not be coming back."

"You're pretty well informed for someone who isn't a Trainer," noted Cheren.

Alder shrugged.

"I keep abreast of the news. I could just as easily tell you about the train crash outside Anville last week, or the new nuclear reactor they're opening near Striaton. But Hugo Vance!" he cried, returning to the Gym Leadership question. "I hope he doesn't get it."

"Why not?" asked Bianca.

"He's not a particularly nice man," Cheren informed her. "He's been arrested three times on suspicion of rape but it's never come to anything."

"Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary," growled Alder. "Honestly! The state of Unova today... I like my country as much as the next man, but really, there are a hell of a lot of people who need to see the gallows. I'd say they should be cut open on the menhirs but they're too profane for the sun... Sorry," he said, almost immediately. "I feel pretty strongly about all that... Anyway. You certainly seem to know your stuff, Cheren."

"It's only natural," Cheren replied. "I'm aiming to be Champion, after all."

So there it was: his ambition, unveiled with such perfect casualness that it just had to be counterfeit. As I heard it, I knew at once that I should have known, of course; what else could drive Cheren on like that? There was no other ambition for such a talented Trainer; he would strive to become the strongest there was, and wouldn't rest until he'd achieved it all.

"You are, are you? Well, you've got stiff competition there."

"I'll beat them," said Cheren coolly. "I'm confident I'll get there."

Alder appraised him for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"You're not lying," he said. "So you're either monumentally arrogant or the real deal." He laughed. "Here's hoping it's the latter. The League is about due for a change of leadership!"

"Yes," agreed Cheren. "You don't seem to be doing a good job as Champion."

Silence fell over us. As one, we stopped walking; Cheren's words fell into the space between us like stones into the dark.

Alder, I thought. Alder, Alder... of course! I had never seen a picture of reigning Champion Alder Fenn, but this man shared his name, and knew everything about the League; he was obviously a wanderer, and Alder had been gone from his office for some time, apparently choosing to walk Unova rather than perform his duties.

"Well now," said Alder at last. "I can see where you're coming from there."

Cheren said nothing.

"It's a hard path to walk, the Championship," he went on. "You want to be the Champion, don't you? Well, so did I. And then I became Champion, and I had to wonder what happened next. I was the toughest: so what? What did it get me?

"The Championship is an old role," he said. "Traditionally, the most powerful warrior of the tribe became the leader of its forces. That's the origin of the thing. But now, it's changed. Being Champion is an administrative role that requires foresight, strategy, technical acumen – and yet the way to apply is still to beat the old Champion in single combat. To prove yourself the strongest warrior in the tribe." He shook his head. "But the strongest warrior doesn't make the best Champion. And I was a good Trainer, but a bad Champion. I made mistakes, very fast – mistakes that cost lives, because when you're Champion mistakes are often counted in terms of lives. And I... I knew it couldn't go on. So I left." Alder seemed old, all of a sudden; he sagged before us as if the weight of his years and his mistakes had come up on him all at once. My heart went out to him; no one, I thought, should have to bear as heavy a load as that alone. Was there no way I could shoulder a little of it for him? "The Elite Four do a better job without me than they did with me," he admitted. "And until someone defeats them all – until someone appears who will be able to defeat me – I won't return. I just won't."

Cheren looked at him inscrutably.

"Alder," he said quietly. "Do you have any idea what's going on in Unova at the moment?"

He looked puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

I took off Bianca's hat and let Candy out of my jacket; she'd gone to sleep in there, which spoiled the effect a little, but after a moment or two she woke up and climbed happily back onto my shoulder.

"Me," I said. "Do you recognise me?"

He stared.

"Lauren White," he breathed. "From the news..."

"Ghetsis Harmonia," Cheren persisted. "The League. Weland, King of the demons. N, whoever in Córmi's hall he might be. Does any of that mean anything to you?"

Alder looked from me to him in confusion and back again.

"No," he said. "Why? What do you mean?"

"Shauntal and the others have been trying to contact you, you know," replied Cheren. "They need your help. The League is in a bad way, and with the war it's fighting it needs every man it can get."

"War? What war—?"

"I think we need to have a talk," said Cheren. "But there's no time to stand still – we'll talk while moving."

Once again, I had to admire how he'd assumed control of the situation; it was all him, I thought, every time. Even when Rood had a gun to Bianca's head, or when Teiresias held the entire room in its iron grip, Cheren was still in control; I didn't think anything would ever take a situation out of his command. Not Alder, not Harmonia, not even really N – at the end of the day, when things started to get out of hand, I could always count on seeing Cheren there, calmly reducing the impossibilities into plausible theories, and arranging them into a pattern of his own design.

We began to walk, and Cheren nodded encouragingly.

"That's it," he said. "Now. We may as well get the biggest shock over with, so Halley, if you'd like to demonstrate your sparkling wit for Alder..."

---

"Are you sure you're all right?" Niamh asked again.

She did not have much experience of being hit by speeding ice-cream van going at eighty miles per hour, but assumed that people did not generally survive such incidents, let alone get up moments later and announce that it was good to be back in the real world.

"Yes, I'm certain," replied Ezra wearily. "The van came off far worse, I assure you."

It had; it now resembled a cross between a badly-made accordion and a ball of crumpled wastepaper. Ezra was, it seemed, rather more solid than he appeared; the impact had knocked him over, yes, but it had also caused the truck to bounce off him like a pinball off a bumper, colliding heavily with a nearby building. Mercifully – not to mention miraculously – the driver had survived, and Niamh had dragged him from the cab and laid him out on the street before calling an ambulance. For nearly killing him, she reasoned, they owed him that much.

They could stay no longer, however, on account of it being somewhat suspicious that they had been seen to appear from nowhere in the middle of the street and then hit without apparent ill effect by a speeding van, and had consequently had to make themselves scarce, leaving behind forever the mystery of why (and indeed how) an ice-cream man was driving so fast in a built-up area.

Now they were heading steadily southwards through the knotty streets of the Wharf District; here, despite centuries of effort to minimise traffic congestion, the roads were so packed with trucks and pedestrians that it required extreme effort to get anywhere at all, let alone where you wanted to go. The industrial docks to the south occupied the entire southern half of the Driftveil coastline, and a substantial chunk of the coast of Welkan Island, too; the vast quantities of traffic they generated simply could not be contained by the ancient city, but the buildings were of such historic value that they could not all be bought up and flattened to make way for bigger roads.

"If you're sure, then," said Niamh, unable to shake the conviction that Ezra should have been more badly hurt; he looked like a man, after all, and she knew from experience just how easy to break most men were.

"Don't let my appearance deceive you," he replied, catching his wounded arm on a lamppost and rubbing it. "This is an illusion, remember? I can fool your sight and touch into believing I am human, or indeed anything else, but – well, you saw something close to my true self a little earlier. Not quite like it – the dark paths distort all vision, to an extent – but close."

"Right," said Niamh, casually grinding an elbow into the throat of someone who had thought he could push past her. "Christ! These streets are awful."

"I know," replied Ezra. "It's only two streets to the bridge at South Point, though; we're through the worst of it."

And indeed they were; pedestrian traffic dwindled as they approached South Point, the point where the mainland was closest to the shores of Welkan Island (or, as it was informally known, the Cold Storage, owing to the all-pervasive and wholly inexplicable chill that had lain over the island since time immemorial). There was simply little reason to be walking here; the bridge was, though it had pavements, mostly the preserve of the transport lorries that rumbled back and forth from the warehouses to the city and back again, carting loads of ore and lumber to the waiting ships and bringing consumer electronics back with them.

"At last," sighed Niamh, looking out over the channel to Welkan. "That was worse than the ghuls."

Ezra looked at her askance.

"For you, perhaps," he said. "I suppose it's all a matter of perspective." He sighed. "That particular situation looked worse the more you knew about ghuls and the dark paths, I expect. I don't think I've told you about the Sleer, have I?"

"The what?"

"Conjoined twins," he went on, as they walked out over the bridge. "Born in, oh, it must have been the first century. Celts, they were. They ended up falling from the dark paths, and didn't resurface for another three hundred years. When they did, it was in Rome; you might remember that as the Sack of Rome."

"I thought that was the Visigoths," said Niamh, puzzled.

"Well, old Alaric was keen to take the credit, of course," replied Ezra. "And no one's really ever questioned it, because to most historians, the idea of a cosmic morass of evil destroying Rome seems a lot less plausible than the Visigoths."

"I see."

They walked on. The clouds were clearing, and the journey was almost pleasant; if it hadn't been for the stink and roar of the ever-present lorries, it might have been quite an enjoyable walk.

At the other end of the bridge, they were stopped by a man who wore, of all things, a top hat and a cloak. Both Ezra and Niamh paused at this startling apparition; he looked so out of place before the backdrop of warehouses and labourers that they couldn't be entirely sure that he was really there at all.

"Excuse me," he said. "I have a message for you."

"Your disguise is out of date," replied Ezra. "When was the last time you came topside?"

The man harrumphed, and Niamh suddenly realised that he must be a demon. Her hand went for a weapon, but Ezra touched her arm; wait, he seemed to be saying, this creature poses no threat.

"We confess that we might have made a strategic error in sending the ghuls to capture you," the man went on. "The Guard have – er – underestimated your capacities."

Ezra inclined his head solemnly.

"Most gracious of you to say so. Would you kindly get to the point?"

"The message was to have been delivered from a position of overwhelming advantage," the man said. "From which you would have had no alternative but to accept our proposal. However, it has since been decided that it would be more acceptable all round to send an emissary to meet you and pass on the message on equal terms."

"Yeah," said Niamh. "Fine. Now do as Ezra asked, and get to the point."

Anger burnt across his face for a moment – evidently, he had never dreamed a mere human would talk to him like that – but soon enough the messenger had composed himself again.

"Ahem. The message is as follows: we know who you are, Niamh Harper."

Niamh felt her pulse begin to quicken; if they knew who she was, they knew who was important to her, and if they knew who was important to her—

"And we have, as a result of that, become aware that we have a strong position to bargain from." The man looked at her frankly. "From the recent success of Ezra's efforts to retard Harmonia's activities, it has become clear that you are in some way important to his plans. Therefore, we offer you Portland Smythe in exchange for you ceasing your interference in the politics of the Shrouded Court. If you accept this offer, I am authorised to take you at once to Court, where you may pick up your Smythe and leave. Should you not accept the offer, we will take it as admission that you would not mind very much if we were to have him killed. "

For a long moment, there was no sound but the rumble of lorries and the swish of waves.

Niamh looked at Ezra.

"We made a deal," she said, but her voice was thick and had none of her usual confidence.

Ezra looked back at her. His eyes glowed faintly red.

"The terms have changed," he replied. "You must do what you think best."

"I believe in your cause, though..." Niamh looked away; she couldn't hold his gaze any longer. "Weland needs to die. Just like you said."

The messenger raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"Don't worry," said Ezra. "We demons are tricky creatures. I shall work this out somehow."

Niamh did not say anything. She wasn't sure what she could say.

"Take your chances while you can," said Ezra. "Even if we can no longer work together, I'm certain we will meet again – perhaps in the moth-eaten chantry of an ancient temple, or in the bowels of a skyscraper beset by monsters. Or give me a call sometime; we could always just drink coffee and talk." He smiled, just a little. "Go on, Niamh. You have done enough to help me. The seeds of a marvellous victory have been sewn, and I will labour to make them full of growing."

Niamh closed her eyes. She had never felt this sort of conflict before, and hoped to Woden she never would again. It wrenched at her heart as if trying to tug it clean out of her breast, she felt sick too, violently sick; her whole body seemed to be rebelling against the decision she had to make.

"Are you sure?" she whispered.

"Absolutely," replied Ezra. "Weland's fall is closer than you think. You have acquitted yourself nobly and I wish you all the best for the future."

Niamh opened her eyes again, and held Ezra's hand.

"I owe you... a lot," she said seriously. "Everything. For this. If you ever need anything – anything – you know where to find me."

Ezra nodded.

"Thank you. But now, Niamh – go and get Portland Smythe back. And this time," he added, with mock severity, "marry him while you have the chance."

And all at once Niamh Harper realised that that was what it had been, all this time; there was a reason the word 'friends' hadn't seemed quite enough to describe them and that was what it was. They were in love, she told herself in wonderment, and neither of them, terminally dysfunctional as they were, had ever noticed.

"'Sraven," she breathed. And then, more loudly: "Yeah. Thank you. And... Goodbye."

"Goodbye," agreed Ezra. "For now."

Niamh Harper turned to the messenger, and looked him dead in his awful eyes.

"Well then," she said. "What the f*ck are you waiting for?"

---

Alder received our story in stoic silence.

"...to investigate the warehouse," Cheren concluded.

"I'm sure I did more for you all than that," said Halley huffily, brooding over the small role she had been relegated to in Cheren's version of events. "But well, that's just Cheren, I guess. Little sh*t."

"Ark," added Candy, who seemed to realise she had been excluded from everything for half a day now, and was determined to have her say in whatever matter came under discussion.

"Anyway," said Cheren. "The main importance of it all for you, Alder, is that without you to authorise things, the Elite Four have their hands tied. They can only do so much without you, and if they overstep their boundaries questions start getting asked."

"Probing questions," put in Bianca, with a significant look.

"Er... yes," agreed Cheren. "Probably. And in addition to that, Alder, there aren't many of them. A fifth pair of hands would be tremendously helpful. Not to mention the fact that the list of qualities you made a minute ago – foresight, strategy, acumen – are qualities that the best Trainers, and by extension you, have, and they're what the League needs now. Why do you think the old way of choosing a Champion is still abided by? To steer the League, you have to be a Trainer, and a brilliant Trainer at that. Natasha Brent in America, Steven Stone in Hoenn, Lars Öberg in Sweden – all Trainers first, not bureaucrats. And they've done better than any regular official."

"You made a mistake," I said softly. "And people died. But that doesn't mean you're not good at what you do."

Alder looked at me. I'm not sure what he saw in my eyes, but he seemed to lose all his resolve when he saw it.

"I think it means exactly that," he replied. It was the first thing he had said since we began to tell the story. "I'm not good at it. My skills never translated across properly – I'm no Stone, no Buckley. I'm just a Trainer. But," he went on, before we could protest, "I do see your point. And I believe your story. It's crazy as f*ck, but I believe it. And so when I get to my sister's house and give my niece her present, I'll call the League and ask them what they want me to do."

"Spoken like a man," said Halley. "Or, well, like a... a manly person." She frowned. "F*cking patriarchy. I can't find a decent expression. Anyway, the point is that I approve of people who say things like 'crazy as f*ck'. And your decision is a worthy one, too," she added as an afterthought.

Alder said nothing. I guess that was kind of hard to respond to.

"Ark," said Candy, seeing an opportunity to have her say.

"It's the right thing to do," Bianca told Alder.

"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "I know. I just don't feel it should be me to do it."

"No one else is going to do it," said Cheren. "If you didn't want to be Champion, why didn't you abdicate?"

Alder shrugged.

"I guess I thought I might be good enough one day to come back again," he said.

"Maybe you are now," I suggested.

"Maybe," he said. Then, a little more confidently: "Maybe."

Just then, I spotted a bundle of fallen palings in the grass.

"Look," I said. "We must be at the path."

"What are we looking at?" asked Bianca.

"That," I said, pointing. "Look. Part of a fence."

In the end, I had to go over and poke it before anyone else noticed it; there followed a flurry of activity during which we all tried to work out where the path had been before the undergrowth had reclaimed it, and eventually we set off in a (more or less) westerly direction, which would hopefully take us to the old route across the channel.

The whole business of trying to remember how the old path seemed to have made Alder feel a little better, and he even whistled a little as he walked.

"So," said Bianca, to make conversation, "what have you got your niece?"

"The complete works of H. P. Lovecraft," he replied. "With illustrations by Jan Guntridge."

"I don't know who either of those people are," I apologised.

"Neither do I," admitted Bianca, and we both looked inquiringly at Cheren.

"Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of the twentieth century," he said. "Guntridge is a famous Nacrene horror painter. He did that installation at the Nova last month."

I had seen a photograph of that installation. It had given me nightmares.

Bianca and I looked at Alder.

"I have an odd niece," he confided. "Last year it was Poe; I got her a tame raven."

"Oh," said Bianca, "Hilbert has one of those, doesn't he, Cheren?"

"Yes," he agreed. "He does. It's the greediest bird I've ever met."

"She called him Edgar," Alder went on, "and taught him to say 'Nevermore', but he isn't as Gothic as she would have liked; he watches too much TV and keeps repeating bits of news from months ago."

Ravens were not uncommon pets in Unova; the same went for pygmy hogs and Allfather's hounds, the big Unovan dogs that weren't really much more than (mostly) tame wolves. Ravens and wolves were Woden's beasts, after all, and keeping them was an act of devotion. As for hogs, boars had been a battle symbol in ancient Unova just as they had been across much of Northern Europe, and so pigs were an important part of our heritage. The army still maintained a cadre of Emboar, in the fortress at Lacunosa.

"Your niece sounds... interesting," I said.

"She sounds like great company," said Halley. "I don't remember the last time I had a long discussion with someone about the Ars Goetia." She frowned. "Actually, on account of the amnesia, I'm having trouble remembering what the Ars Goetia even is."

"Ark," said Candy, not to be left out.

We walked on, talking first about that, and then about this; occasionally the conversation wandered back to the topic of the Harmonia affair and Alder's return to the League, and then it became more solemn – but it always veered away again, and brightened up.

At about half past three, the distant pounding of the surf grew stronger and the forest abruptly gave way to a tortured-looking strip of stony beach. To our left, the drawbridge rose up like the horns of a gigantic goat, sticking straight up into the sky on either side of the channel, and an oily black tugboat was puttering contentedly along up the channel towards the northern Driftveil docks.

"Ah," said Alder. "Well. Here we are, then."

"How do we get across?" I asked.

"We look for the tunnel mouth," he said, glancing around the beach. "It should be around here somewhere... There's a cave network that goes beneath the channel, though it's flooded during the mornings, at high tide, and the people who made the Trail cut stairs to lead down into it."

We searched, and after a little while found them – a set of slimy, weed-strewn steps hewn from the living rock, descending into the dark beneath a barren crag projecting from the surf.

"Hey, that looks inviting," said Bianca.

"Yep," agreed Halley. "Just as inviting as a wet bed on a November evening."

"It's the only way across right now," said Alder, glancing up at the raised bridge. "And it seems like you don't have much time, either."

"He's right," said Cheren. "We have to get to the warehouse as soon as possible. And," he added, "that means that we need to start thinking about how we're going to get in."

He started on his way down the steps.

"Bianca, do you have the torch?" he asked, after he had gone halfway down the stairs and had completely vanished into the dark.

Bianca shuffled her feet.

"Um... I may have left it in the Striaton Centre," she said. "I was really hoping I could get another one before you noticed, but, um, I haven't had a chance."

Cheren sighed.

"I knew we should have brought a spare," he said gloomily. "Lauren? Alder? I don't suppose either of you have a torch."

We shook our heads.

"Right." He thought for a moment. "Halley," he said. "You're a cat."

"Why, yes I am, Cheren." She grinned wickedly.

"You have excellent low-level vision."

"That I do. I can also navigate using shifts in air currents that I detect with my whiskers, which is a damn sight more than any human can do, even with the biggest moustache in the world."

"You'll lead us through the tunnel, right?"

Halley yawned.

"Why," she said. "I don't know, Cheren. That sounds like a lot of work to me. Don't you have a Purrloin? She can see in the dark."

"She's unreliable at the moment," he replied. "She's close to evolution – look, Halley, don't argue. You have to get across the channel too."

"Ark," agreed Candy, who wasn't certain what was being discussed but didn't trust Halley at all.

"Come on," I said, crouching before her. "Please, Halley."

She gave me a long look.

"Since you ask so nicely," she answered, turning away and stalking down the steps. "All right, Alder, what am I looking for?"

"There are – er – arrows carved into the walls," he said. "They used to glow in the dark, but after the Trail was disused they stopped repainting them."

"OK," replied Halley, looking over her shoulder so that we could see the shiny green circles of her eyes in the dark. "Come on then, boys and girls. The tour bus is ready to depart."

Cheren glanced at me as I passed him.

"Why does she do it when you ask?" he said quietly.

I thought of that time in the forest, when Halley had told me I was doing great, and of earlier that day in the computer room, when she had rubbed her head against me.

"I don't know," I answered honestly, and we filed after her, down the slimy steps and into the dark.

---

The prisoner heard something scraping on stone.

He smelled something like old, old ink.

He saw two great white eyes open in the dark.

"Smythe," said a voice like the slow crackle of skin on a desiccating corpse. "We need to talk."
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Twilight Zones and Catacombs

In the middle of the afternoon, when the skies were clearing a little, a certain unnameable something crept out of the forest, its nose pressed close to the ground. The trail, it noted, was strong here.

It meandered across the beach, the stones shifting under its claws as if trying to crawl away from it; it snuffled, and it hissed, and soon enough it found its way to an old set of weed-strewn stairs.

The retriever growled a little, and stalked on into the bowels of the earth.

---

"Oh, f*ck," said Smythe. "It's you."

"It is me," agreed Teiresias. "I have a proposition for you."

Smythe hesitated. He did not, he thought, have a whole lot to lose by hearing the demon out.

"Go on," he said. "What is it?"

"Do you want to escape?" asked Teiresias.

"Yes. Obviously."

"Good. I need a body to conceal myself in."

"Hey." Smythe raised a hand. "Look, you didn't say anything about—"

"I am saying it now." Teiresias billowed slightly; Smythe could make out glints of light on the fringes of its cloudy body. "Thanks, ironically, to Weland, I will soon have returned to my former strength," it went on. "At that point, I will not have to be concerned with the Shrouded Court unless the King himself comes to attack me. For now, however, I have to tread carefully. It was not easy for me to break in here, and now that I have I find I cannot leave the cells without being detected. I require a body to conceal my presence in."

"Then why the hell did you break in here in the first place?" asked Smythe, not unreasonably. He was beginning to realise that his fear of Teiresias had decreased in proportion to the length of time he spent in the tomb-city. Or, more accurately, he thought, he was still afraid of it, but he had spent so long in a palace of horrors that he was actually beginning to get bored of being scared.

"It's the only way into the last bastion of the old world," replied Teiresias enigmatically. "There is a buried passage from the Western Transept here that leads there. I have heard it said that it was to be the last defence of the throne; if the city fell, the survivors would have somewhere to flee."

"I have literally no idea what you're talking about," said Smythe. "Do you want to clarify yourself?"

Teiresias rumbled in displeasure, but Smythe held his ground; if it needed him, he reasoned, it wouldn't kill him – not yet, anyway. Thus, he could afford all the pugnacity he desired.

"There is a fortress I need to enter," Teiresias told him. "Most of which has long since collapsed. It is not accessible by the dark paths, and there are certain precautions in place against air approach. There is, however, a tunnel leading there from here. And to navigate it unnoticed, I need a living shell to shield my presence." The blind eyes smouldered. "Possession is in my nature. When I dive deep, not even my brothers can find me."

"You have brothers?"

"That is irrelevant." There was a warning note in Teiresias' voice, and Smythe realised that while the demon needed him alive, it did not necessarily need him sane, or indeed in possession of a mind; this offer of a collaboration was, all things considered, rather generous.

"Right. Of course." Smythe swallowed. "Well, then. It looks like our interests, er, coincide. So I'd be willing to, you know, accept your offer."

"I thought you might say that." The eyes seemed to expand, swelling like a corpse with the gases of decay, and Smythe realised that Teiresias was approaching. "It is time to sleep now," it said, in that awful voice. "When you wake, things will be... different..."

Smythe had thought that the darkness he had been imprisoned in was absolute. He was wrong: as Teiresias sank through his face, everything went even darker.

---

"You know, this reminds me of something," said Halley, "but for the life of me, I can't remember what."

"Amnesia does have that effect on people," observed Cheren archly.

I had no idea how long we had been walking through the gently dripping darkness, but it felt like forever and then a couple more centuries on top of that; here, with the stones themselves creaking under the weight of the channel and the weed clutching at my ankles, I felt like time had stolen away under cover of darkness and left us marching onwards through a blank, faceless eternity.

At least, I felt that way when Halley stopped talking. And thankfully, she didn't often do that.

"It does," she said. "It really does. And, you know, there's this whole crazy—"

Halley stopped. Not just talking, but walking; I know, because I almost tripped over her. Cheren bumped into me and Alder stumbled over a rock; Bianca almost fell over. The only one unaffected was Candy, who had long ago decided that night must have come very early today and had gone back to sleep inside my jacket.

"Woden hang 'em," cursed Alder, amid the general hubbub of oaths. "What's going on?"

"I smell something," said Halley, a hint of a growl in her voice. "I smell something strange... not the sea. Something alive."

There was a pause.

"Er... Alder, what kind of animals live in this cave?" asked Bianca.

"Nothing much," he replied. "A few fish and crabs in the tidal pools... some birds come down here to forage in the silt when the tide is out."

"Any Pokémon?"

"Not that I know of."

"It's not that," said Halley. "It smells like... a bird? A crocodile? F*ck me sideways if I know. But it smells dangerous." I felt her tail rise and bristle by my leg. "It's close," she said. "Too close for my liking. I feel like it's a hunter."

"Which presumably makes us its quarry," said Cheren. "How close are we to the exit?"

"We've been walking... twenty minutes or so," replied Alder, looking at the luminous digits of his watch. "Which means we must be about halfway there."

"We are in darkness stepped in so far," muttered Halley, "that, should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er." She let out a shaky sort of breath. "Whatever this thing is," she said, "we don't want to encounter it in the dark. We need to get the f*ck out of here."

No one disagreed, and we kept moving. The darkness seemed to deepen, and every scrape against the wall felt like the touch of a predator's hide; each tiny sound gained significance beyond its size, and if I concentrated I was certain I could hear a fifth set of footsteps, keeping pace with us in the blackness.

It's Córmi, I thought, knots tightening in my stomach. He's waiting by the pier...

Images from old books came to my mind unbidden – Córmi standing impassive on a wharf, Córmi with his hands nailed to the oars of his boat – and pictures from other books, too, images of ettins that wandered with outstretched hands through the forest, seeking out whatever would fit in their mouths; images of the Lacunosa Worm, the cosmic dragon that had slithered through the earth like water, emerging only at night, to snag a hapless passerby in its teeth before vanishing beneath the streets...

Stop, I told myself. You did this before, and you just made yourself panic.

Cheren cried out.

I whirled around, but of course I saw nothing; Halley, with her night vision, yowled, incredibly loud in the small space, and I felt her scurrying, spitting and hissing, around my feet. Something thumped onto the floor, and Alder was yelling—

I felt something cold and sharp touch my breast, piercing clean through my jacket and shirt without effort, and I jerked away instinctively, lashing out—

—fingers brushing something hard and rough as sandpaper—

—Bianca screaming—

—Cheren shouting a command in a flash of light—

—whip-crack and a choked, hissing roar—

—something like bone hit my head so hard that stars burst against the black, and my face was half-buried in the silt.

I reached out blindly, trying to get back to my feet, but my knuckles hit something like a leathery pillar instead; I grabbed it reflexively, and yanked on it as hard as I could—

Something big fell over nearby with a yelp of surprise, tail slapping against the rocks as it struggled upright again – and then I heard another impact, and another yelp, as Alder leaped on top of it.

"Thunor, Frige and Eostre!" he yelled. "The hell is this thing?"

"While it's down, Lelouch!" Cheren snapped, ignoring him. "Again!"

I had just got back to my feet when something big flew past, clipping my arm and knocking me down again – the beast had thrown off Alder. I fell backwards this time and my head hit the sediment hard; this time, the stars lingered and I felt a wetness on the back of my head, and observed with a kind of detached neutrality that my hands would not obey me, and that I didn't seem to be able to get up.

I felt Candy scuttling over me, cheeping in anxiety; the sound seemed to drive whatever monster we faced into a rage, and it roared so loudly that dirt pattered down from the ceiling onto my face; there was a sharp snapping noise and then a ghastly, pained exhalation – the voice of a tree being cut down, if trees had voices.

And then the world lit up: fire was bursting out from somewhere, Frige knew where, and I could see in the flickering light the massive, bulky head of no creature living, all angles and prongs and jagged tearing nubs of ossified leather—

The fire was too bright. I had to close my eyes, and listen to the pounding rhythm of unfamiliar footsteps beneath the red darkness of my eyelids.

"Are we all OK?" asked Cheren, at length.

"I'm fine," said Bianca. "It didn't touch me. Smokey's OK... How about Lelouch?"

"His tail is broken," replied Cheren grimly. "But since he's a Servine, it should be all right... Alder? Lauren?"

"Conveniently forgetting me," said Halley. "I'm alive. Not that you care."

"Alder?"

"Here," he said. "Just – oof – winded."

"Lauren?"

"Here," I said, or tried to say, but I didn't manage anything except a light breath through dry lips. I licked them and tried again. "Here."

"Lauren? Where are you?"

"She's here," said Halley. "Look – keep your hand on me – yeah, now you've got her."

"Lauren, are you all right?"

"I feel weird," I replied honestly. "I don't think I can get up right now."

"You haven't broken anything, have you?" asked Alder sharply.

"No," I said. "My head hurts, but not that much. I don't think anything is broken. I just..."

"Hang on," said Halley. "I can get you back on your feet."

Several sharp somethings dug into my side, and I sat up sharply.

"Ow!"

"That's the ticket," said Halley kindly. "Up you get."

"Halley!"

"Look, you needed a f*cking hand, I was here to give it—"

"She might have a serious head injury," snapped Cheren. "In which case, she shouldn't be moving."

"I don't, though," I said, probing the back of my head with a cautious finger. "I think the skin just split a little... yeah. I mean, I've had worse before, when I was climbing a tree." I got to my feet, leaning on the wall. "Yeah," I repeated. "I'm OK."

Something tugged at the leg of my jeans, and I bent down to pick up Candy, biting my tongue against the ache in my head.

"Forgive me if I don't take your word for it," said Cheren. "We need to get that looked at as soon as we can. But first we need to get out of here."

"Before that thing comes back," added Bianca.


"Sh*t... yeah," said Alder. "Did anyone see it? I only got a glimpse, when your Pignite started spitting fire at it."

"I saw it," said Halley in a low voice. "Be thankful you didn't. That was not a Pokémon, nor was it any animal that has a right to exist on this f*cking planet. You didn't see how it fought, did you? It was f*cking learning – you choked it once with Lelouch, Cheren, but next time it happened it saw it coming and had a hand at its throat to pull it off. We're bloody lucky that it's never seen fire before, because it was f*cking fireproof – those flames barely scorched its scales. They did scare it, for now – but only for now, because it's going to realise soon that the fire didn't actually hurt too much, and then it's going to be right back over here to where the big meaty things are walking slowly through its territory."

That was a hard act to follow. No one said anything for quite some time.

"Woden hang 'em," muttered Alder. "Where did it come from? What is it? There never used to be anything like that living here before – or anywhere else, for that matter."

"Valid questions, but ones for another time," said Cheren assertively. "Halley, get us out of here."

"Abso-f*cking-lutely," she said fervently. "This way!"

Ezra lingered on the bridge, leaning on the rail and staring out over the water.

"Problems, problems," he said, tobacco smoke trickling from between his lips. "It was risky, but there was no other option."

A skua landed on the rail a few feet away and stared at him with insolent eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," said Ezra. "If Niamh got the message, I get into the Shrouded Court. And even if she doesn't, she gets Smythe back. If anything, it was a rather self-sacrificial move on my part."

The skua shuffled closer. It did not seem to be afraid of him, but then again, gulls always were unimpressed by humans, or things that seemed human.

"The main problem is what to do in the interim," Ezra went on. "This has all been a rather sudden change of plan – and a risky one too, staking everything on one move like that. Though I suppose I don't lose anything if it doesn't pay off; I only stand to gain if it goes well."

The skua maintained its stare. Perhaps it wanted something to eat, thought Ezra. He dug about in his pockets, and came up with a dead mouse.

"Do you want this?" he asked, waving it. The skua stared at it greedily. "Here," he said. "Take it."

He wiggled it once more, and the temptation was too much; the skua snatched it from his hand and skimmed away low over the waves, heading for some unknown roost. Ezra watched it go, shaking his head.

"Bread and circuses," he said with a sigh. "I wonder how you mortals can have built all this when you have that hunger inside you all the time. It's a wonder it doesn't drive you mad." He blew a smoke-ring and watched it decompose slowly in midair. "Bread and circuses," he repeated. "I'll go north, I think. I have a feeling north is the way to go. And if it isn't, well, it's the work of a moment to come back south again."

He vaulted the bridge rail and vanished, and an excitable docker faced an evening of ridicule from his friends as in the pub he recounted the tale of how he had seen the ghost of a suicide.

---

I had never been so glad to see daylight as when we emerged from the other end of the caves. It was still overcast, and dark seemed to be coming on early – but we were out, thank Frige, and climbing a trail of broken stones up the side of the island that bore the west end of the drawbridge. There was a bridge ahead, I knew, one that couldn't be raised, and if we could just get over there we'd be in Driftveil, where we could find a Pokémon Centre and I could at last rest. (It wasn't the walking – I was used to long walks – but the tension and the brief, chaotic fight had taken all the strength out of me.)

Of course, Cheren had insisted on looking at the back of my head as soon as we were out in the light, even before the rest of us had really finished being relieved that we'd escaped without another encounter with the mystery beast. Maybe that was his way of dealing with it; he always seemed to channel his feelings into strategies or actions, I reasoned, and perhaps this was him expressing his relief.

"Thunor," he muttered. "You know, there's quite a lot of blood here... Bianca, your hat's going to need a serious wash."

"It's dry clean only," she replied, looking at the bloodstained hat sadly. "I think it's ruined."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Um – I'll get you a new one—"

"It's all right," she said. "I've been meaning to get a new one for a while, anyway... I don't know, I fancy one with a little bow on or something."

"Is Lauren irredeemably broken or not?" snapped Halley. "Because I don't want to hang around here where the f*cking murder monster lives."

"I can't tell for sure," replied Cheren irritably. "We'll have to get it checked out."

"Then let's move. Like, now."

For once, no one argued with her; none of us wanted to be reminded of the 'murder monster', and none of us really wanted to see it in the light, either.

The long walk over the bridge was not enjoyable. Driftveil was a city built around freight, not humans: the road was broad enough to allow six lanes of lorries (all jammed with the bridge raised) but the pavements were unspeakably narrow. I felt like I was being crowded right out of the city, as if the machines here had no time for people; the air was thick with petrol fumes and the smoke from the boats and docks, and I thought plaintively about White Forest. I didn't belong here, I knew; I belonged beneath the trees, surrounded by wood and birdsong, not choking in steel and smog.

Thankfully, two streets from where the bridge met the mainland was a bus stop, from which, the Internet told us, a 54 or a 254 would take us to where we wanted to go in Halbarn. Alder, on the other hand, informed us he would be getting the 71, which would take him almost all the way to his odd niece's house.

"I'm glad we met," he said, as we waited for the bus. "I would have... well, I wouldn't have known any of this otherwise." He sighed. "Of course, I'd be happier not knowing it, but I guess I can't really avoid this."

"I know the feeling," I replied. "That's wyrd for you."

"Yeah." He glanced down the street. "My bus."

As it pulled up, he hefted his (miraculously undamaged) book and looked around at us awkwardly.

"Well," he said. "Er, bye."

"Goodbye," said Cheren. "Thanks for guiding us."

"And for helping us in the tunnels," added Bianca.

"Thank you for throwing yourself on the monster," I said softly. "I think that might have saved our lives."

Alder looked faintly embarrassed.

"Well – yeah – OK," he said. "It's, um, nothing."

He stood there, looking awkward, for quite some time, until Cheren pointed out that he was in danger of missing his bus, at which point he turned around and made a desperate leap for the doors as they closed.

"We're going to see him again, aren't we?" asked Bianca.

"I think so," I replied.

"I'm sure we will," said Cheren. "He's the Champion. He's going to have to intervene now we've told him about the situation." He glanced at the electric sign on the bus shelter. "Three minutes until our bus."

In fact, it was closer to ten, and it took us much longer than we thought to get to the Centre; we didn't arrive until close to six, and if we had still had any idea that we might get to the warehouse that evening we were mistaken: Lelouch had to be taken for examination by the Centre vets (who pronounced him fine, but to be rested for several days while the wood of his bones rejoined), and I, still pretending to be Swedish, had to spend quite a long time in the infirmary while a doctor spoke very slowly and loudly to me to make sure I understood what he was saying.

"Not too bad," he said. "You should be OK. Got it? O. K."

"She's foreign, not deaf," protested Bianca.

"Can you or your friend tell her she needs to rest?" asked the doctor. "I can't seem to get through at all."

We couldn't rest, though: the doctor had been fooled for the moment, but as soon as he opened a newspaper or turned on the TV he would see my face looking back at him, and realise that his patient hadn't actually been Swedish but had been a runaway from White forest. So we moved on immediately, to a Centre a couple of districts to the southwest, where I pulled Bianca's ruined hat low over my eyes and slunk quietly upstairs to the room I'd been given. There, I fell asleep before I'd actually got to the bed—

Tock.

—and before I knew it, I was awake again, lying on the floor and wondering why I felt so crappy.

I sat up. My head hurt, but I really wasn't sure why – I didn't recall any head injuries. I'd been knocked about a bit in the fight with the unseen monster, yes, and I had a few bruises around my ribs where it had whacked me, but nothing above the shoulders.

"Huh," I said. "The hell happened there?"

As if in answer, my phone started to ring; I was still kind of confused, and stared at it stupidly for quite a long time before I realised what I was meant to do with it.

"Hello?" I mumbled. "Whosis?"

"Is that Jared? It's Iris."

"Oh," I said. "OK. What?"

"Are you even listening?"

"Yes," I lied. "Go on."

"I managed to get through to Drayden," Iris told me. "He's putting the word out now through the police force, and Elesa's going over to your house to explain to your parents. Shauntal's going to call in some favours in the papers and have your story pulled – people should forget about it soon."

"I hope so."

"They should," she repeated. "I mean... Well, people tend to forget stories that stop appearing in the news fairly quickly. We can't stop the bloggers, of course, but we can stop the main news sites and the papers."

"OK," I replied. "Thanks. It'll be really helpful."

"Don't worry. We'd like to see Harmonia stopped as much as you would."

"Yeah. Oh," I said. "We found the Champion. Alder."

"What?"

I winced and held the phone a little further from my ear.

"Where is he? We've been looking for him for ages! What's he been doing? Come on, we—"

"He's probably already contacted the Elite Four now," I said. "He said he'd do that when he got to his sister's house, and that was" – I glanced at the clock – "about eight hours ago." I frowned. "Wait, it's one in the morning? Why are you even still awake?"

"I'm busy. Why are you still awake?"

"I have no idea," I answered honestly. "I woke up about a minute before you called me."

"Right. Whatever. Anyway, that was, er, all I had to say, and I've got to get on with work—"

"No, that's OK, it's cool. I'll let you get on."

"Bye."

"Bye."

I tossed my phone onto the bedside cabinet and crawled up onto my bed; I didn't quite have enough energy to get into it, however, and fell asleep on top of it instead, my head throbbing with each slow beat of my heart.

---

Niamh did not know what she had been expecting of Weland's domain, but it did not disappoint her. In the unknown corridor they had materialised in, it was far colder than was possible this far underground, and dark as fear; the walls were carved with bands of runes that defied all identification, and the only light came from the glowing wand of oak her guide bore.

He had cast aside his human guise as soon as they had entered the dark path, and now Niamh saw him as something huge and dark, thirteen or fourteen feet tall, and vaguely human-shaped. What his face was, she had no idea; perhaps in an effort to make her feel more at home, he had left his human face stuck to the front of his shadowy head. If calming her had been his intention, he failed miserably: it looked hideous, like a hellish mask of skin and muscle, and Niamh was not surprised when she noticed that the eyes behind the eyelids had been replaced with red lights, or that the lips no longer moved when the demon spoke.

"This way," he said, and led her down the corridor.

They passed no others. Either the tomb-city was larger than she'd known, and this was just one small passage among many, or the other demons were keeping out of her way for some reason. Whatever the cause, Niamh saw no one else until they came to a large, square chamber, lit by four smoky green torches. Here, there were two creatures that resembled the human-shaped dimension of a ghul – a man and a woman in black armour, standing on either side of a pair of vast bronze doors, big enough to admit a pair of elephants.

"Niamh Harper to see His Undying Majesty," said her guide.

The guards thumped their spear-butts on the stones with a sound like breaking bones.

"To see His Undying Majesty," repeated the man.

"Niamh Harper," said the woman. "Enter!"

The doors swung open, oddly silently for such massive objects, and without quite knowing how Niamh suddenly found herself on the other side of them.

She looked behind her. The doors were shut, and so covered in grime that it was clear they had not been opened for quite some time.

She returned her attention to what lay before her – nothing, or at least nothing that she could see: the hall appeared to stretch away into unending darkness.
Niamh almost called out, but something told her not to, and instead she started to walk.

As she walked, shapes began to appear in the dark; not identifiable shapes, but odd, flickering things that wavered at the corner of her eye, breaking apart and recoalescing like drops of oil in water. They were not threatening on their own, but Niamh felt a certain something behind them – not something she could name, but something that looked with shrivelled eyes through the shapes, and saw her coming; something black and smoky and smothering that yearned to break free from wherever it was held and choke, and choke, and choke...

Niamh could see something now.

A throne, it might have been – far away in the dark, down the length of the interminable hall. Someone, or something, was sitting on it; she could not make out what it was, but it was perfectly still, and she knew with absolute conviction that it was dead.

Niamh stopped walking.

She heard a voice – a voice like the buzzing of a thousand flies, echoing and resounding over itself as if the swarm were trapped in the speaker's throat; a voice like space, boundless and alien, terrifying in its emptiness; a voice like death itself, devoid of all motion but the relentless chewing of maggots.

"WE ARE WELAND, KING OF SANDJR," said the voice. "WELCOME TO OUR COURT."
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
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14
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I apologise if you've been reading this story and (for some reason) enjoying it, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go on hiatus. For the first time in a long, long time, I'm writing an original novel again, and though so far I've managed to keep Crack'd going alongside it, I just can't manage it any more. I can write a lot very fast, but if I keep jumping tracks from story to story I'm afraid I'm going to end up writing one of them badly, and since I'm working so hard on the other one, it's going to end up being Crack'd that suffers. I don't want that to happen, so I'm going to have to stop, at least for now. I may come back to it some day. I would like to finish it. But by the time I finish my novel, I may not be able to come back to Crack'd that easily.

I might have time for the odd one-shot or two, but the sustained effort of Crack'd is beyond me for the conceivable future. I don't walk away from stories lightly, especially not serialised ones that I know that people are reading and (possibly) enjoying, but one story or the other has to give, and the one that's most important to me is the one that is not, for better or worse, being serialised online.

I suppose this is the shortest summary I can make: sorry to my readers, but Crack'd has to go on an indefinite hiatus now.

Right. That's that, announcement over. I'll just go and throw the dust sheets over Unova and pack the characters into cold storage.

F.A.B.
 
5
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10
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Very sad to hear that, but you are right of course, a story like this deserves a certain amount of attention, and shouldn't be continued if you can't give it that. Best wishes on your novel; in fact, I would very much like to find out where I could get a hold of a copy, once it is out.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Very sad to hear that, but you are right of course, a story like this deserves a certain amount of attention, and shouldn't be continued if you can't give it that. Best wishes on your novel; in fact, I would very much like to find out where I could get a hold of a copy, once it is out.

teamVASIMR said:
Farewell, fair winds, and following seas.

Thanks, both of you. I'll still be around here, hopefully reviewing more than I have done in the past - just not writing.

F.A.B.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
1,030
Posts
14
Years
Previously, on Crack'd...

Lauren/Jared and the gang unexpectedly run across Alder on a train stuck on the wrong side of the Driftveil drawbridge, and convinced him to retake his position at the head of the League. After a brief and terrible battle with something that can only be described as 'f*cking nasty' in the caves that run under the Valroy Channel, they had reached Driftveil, where they received word from Iris that the League was going to try and quash the search for Jared/Lauren.

Meanwhile, the rebel demon Ezra and the monster-slayer Niamh had parted ways at the Cold Storage, as a messenger delivered an ultimatum: Niamh was to cease helping Ezra, and in return she would win Smythe's freedom. She had no choice but to accept, and was last seen entering the throne room of King Weland himself – not far from where Teiresias and Smythe were holding a mysterious discussion in the tomb-city's prison about matters unknown.

Ingen's retriever is closing in. Harmonia's strange press-ganged riot still closes off the Cold Storage, and the mysterious Caitlin Molloy is doubtless behind it all. What will happen next? Only time will tell. And your ability to read.

Look, just move your eyes slightly downwards. No, down, you dullard. OK, that's the ticket. Now, read on!



Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Quick and the Dead

"OK," said Cheren. "The Cold Storage."

It was, amazingly, a pleasantly warm spring morning, and we were crossing the bridge that led south to Welkan Island, more popularly known as the Cold Storage. The little island was almost entirely covered in a thick outgrowth of warehouses, clustered like enormous square barnacles across its breadth; lorries rumbled back and forth from them to the docks and back again, none of which looked small enough to be able to negotiate the narrow byways of southern Driftveil. I supposed that was probably what all the backed-up traffic we'd passed earlier was about.

"What about it?" I asked.

"There's a list of holdings online," said Cheren, "which includes all the warehouses that don't belong to secret government departments, cults or other organisations that don't want their property made public. Surprisingly enough, the Green Party's warehouse is listed, which means I was able to print this map off from the website and make some annotations based on the photographs of the riots on the New Unovan website."

He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket as he spoke, and Halley shook her head in wonderment.

"Bloody hell," she said. "Do you even sleep?"

"A little. You'll see here," Cheren went on, "that the Party own this set of buildings here – an office, attached to this large warehouse in the southwest corner."

"OK," I said. "Halley, can you see from down there?"

"Oh, someone notices. No, I can't see the map that you're holding at chest height, you selfish bastards."

I resisted the urge to kick her between the railings and into the sea and picked her up. Candy hurriedly climbed around the back of my neck to my other shoulder.

"How does this help?" asked Bianca, blinking at the map. "I mean, isn't the building surrounded?"

"It is," agreed Cheren. "All around this fence – sorry, it's not completely accurate, but it wasn't on the original map and I had to draw it on myself based on Google Street View – there are hordes of apparent Liberation Policy protesters. Only, of course, these protesters haven't spoken to anyone, and they keep mentioning 'plasma' over and over."

"So they're definitely Harmonia's doing somehow," I said.

"Almost certainly. Now, the fence itself is chain-link with razor wire at the top, and I think there's a few Watchog as well."

Watchdogs had never caught on in Unova; Watchog were alert to the point of clinical paranoia, and virtually never missed an intruder.

"I expect they've been removed, though," he said. "They're very highly-strung; the protesters would probably give them heart attacks."

"OK." I looked along the bridge; I couldn't see any sign of discontent at the other end, but then, the Green Party's warehouse was on the other side of the island. "So how do we get in, short of beating our way through the protesters?"

"Here." Cheren tapped a point on the map where the warehouse met the coastline. "There are no protesters standing here, so this is where we'll get in."

We stared at the map.

"Er... Cheren," said Bianca, "correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason no people are standing there because it's the sea?"

"Yes, actually. But I noticed on an aerial photo that there's a path that winds around the edge of the island – part of which passes between the cliff edge and the warehouse fence. It's not broad enough for any protesters to stand on, so there aren't any there."

"I don't get it," said Halley. "If this weak spot exists, why hasn't Harmonia guarded it somehow?"

Cheren shrugged.

"I expect he has," he said frankly. "We'll find out when we get there."

"Christ. What a f*cking plan."

"Do you have a better one?"

"That's really not the point."

Cheren sighed.

"Anyway." He folded up his map and pointed south down the bridge with it. "Shall we?"

We did, and soon enough came to the unrelentingly grey and miserable expanse of cold concrete that was Welkan Island; it was drearier and more fume-stained up close, and the people here looked at us as if they would probably batter us over the head with metal pipes and throw us into the sea if we couldn't give them a very good reason why we were here.

I guess we did seem a little out of place.

We crossed the road, which, given that congestion meant that ninety per cent of the lorries were stationary, was pretty easy; on the other side, next to an enormous grey dinosaur of a building, we found a narrow asphalted pathway, bordered on one side by a fence of steel palings and on the other by a sandy slope that rolled down to the sea at a deceptively steep inclination.

It was also sealed off behind a padlocked gate.

"Well done, O master planner," said Halley. "Behold our path to glory!"

"We're not done yet," said Cheren irritably. "Bianca. Smoky?"

She let out the Tepig, and he immediately lay down to sleep.

"Oh," she said, puffing out her cheeks. "Smoky! Up!"

She nudged him with her toe, but to no avail; he twitched an ear, and farted loudly, but showed no desire to move.

"Classy," said Halley. "Shouldn't we have checked that no one was looking before we started melting through locks?"

"We haven't started yet," pointed out Cheren. "In fact, we've barely even got the tools ready."

"Smoky!" Bianca picked him up and tugged experimentally on his tail; he opened his eyes then and grunted the grunt of a pig who does not wish to receive visitors today.

I looked around.

"Doesn't look like anyone's watching," I said. "Mostly because the traffic's blocking us and hasn't moved for five minutes. So, uh, now would be a good time.

"I'm trying!" said Bianca, brandishing Smoky like a shotgun. "Ember, Smoky. Ember!"

He yawned, deliberated, and eventually burped a jet of flame at the lock – to absolutely no effect.

"Hm," said Cheren. "Bianca – er – when exactly did you last have any kind of training session with Smoky?"

She looked guilty.

"If I said... yesterday, would you believe me?"

"No." He sighed. "All right, recall him, then. Let's have a go with—"

There was a click, and the padlock opened.

We stared.

"What the—?"

"Boop," said Munny, floating above Bianca's head. The last traces of blue light were fading from its sides.

"Oh yeah," I said. "Telekinetic, right?"

"Yeah," said Bianca. "I forgot about that." She recalled Smoky and patted Munny on its side. "Good Munna! Well done."

"Boop."

"No time for that," said Cheren, unhooking the padlock from the bolt. "Come on – we need to get through before someone sees us. Or had you forgotten that we're technically trespassing?"

We didn't need any more encouragement. He pushed open the gate, and we went.

---

Niamh stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back.

"What do you want, then?" she asked.

"A CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES," replied Weland. It hurt to hear him; his voice shook Niamh's consciousness in her body, like the seeds in a metaphysical maraca. "WE ARE NOT FOOLISH. THIS WAR WILL GO WELL IF OUR ENEMIES ARE FEWER, AND THIS IS AN EXPEDIENT WAY OF THINNING THEIR RANKS."

Niamh closed her eyes, took a deep breath, tried to quell the soulsickness rising within her.

"Why aren't I dead?" she asked.

"THIS IS DIPLOMACY," Weland said. "DIPLOMACY ONLY ENDS IN AN AMBASSADOR'S DEATH WHEN IT FAILS."

The hint was quite clear, thought Niamh; she'd do what he wanted, take Smythe, and go, or she'd be killed. And it was obvious that there was no way around it. No one had even bothered to relieve her of her weapons on the way in, and the only reason they would have done that was if they weren't threatened by them at all. Niamh wasn't used to negotiating from a position of weakness.

She wasn't taking to it.

"Let Portland go, then," she said. "Just let him go, and I'll leave and you'll never see me again."

"THAT WAS THE AGREEMENT, YES." Weland paused. It could only have been a second or so, but it felt like an infinity. Niamh looked steadfastly at the dim and distant throne, and knew with terrible certainty that something had gone horribly, unimaginably wrong. "BUT YOU ARE SUCH AN EXCELLENT SPECIMEN OF YOUR SPECIES."

"What?"

Niamh hadn't been expecting that, certainly. Death threats, yes, but not compliments.

"YOU HAVE SOME OF THE BLOOD, FOR A START. THAT PLACES YOU AMONG THE GREATS. YOU ARE INTELLIGENT AND RESOURCEFUL, FOR SOMEONE WHO CONTAINS THEIR THOUGHTS WITHIN A BRAIN. AND YOU ARE ONE OF THE FINEST HUMAN COMBATANTS WE HAVE SEEN IN A LONG TIME."

Was it her, or was it getting darker? The gloom was thickening, filling up with those strange half-glimpsed shapes; they came like the ghosts of rooks, settling on invisible perches, windows for some malign eye.

"Look, I just came here to get Portland," she said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

"AND SMYTHE WILL WALK FREE," said Weland. "THIS WILL BE DONE. BUT YOU, NIAMH HARPER, ARE A SPECIMEN WE CANNOT LOSE."

Sh*t. She had no idea what that meant, but it almost certainly wasn't good.

"I never—"

"IT DOES NOT MATTER, NIAMH HARPER. YOU ARE, AFTER ALL, ONLY HUMAN."

And before Niamh could so much as blink, the dark came screaming down—

And then there was nothing.

---

We threaded our way down the back of a long row of warehouses, the roar of an unseen crowd growing slowly louder and drowning out the rumble of lorries; in fact, down at this end of the island, it seemed like all traffic had been suspended, because all I could hear was people chanting and shouting, and occasionally stamping.

However, with the sea on one side and blank concrete walls on the other, I couldn't actually see them, and it made me a little nervous. I liked to have any potential threats in view; if you knew where the enemy was, you could punch him.

"Ah," said Cheren, stopping suddenly. "Er... That's the Party building."

He pointed at a medium-sized warehouse just ahead of us – and just ahead of where the path turned sharply to the left and terminated in a locked shed.

There was about fifteen centimetres of dirt between the rear fence and the cliff edge.

"Cheren," said Bianca. "I am not going down that way."

"We can hold onto the fence," he suggested. "And climb along the side—"

"Cheren," repeated Bianca, "I am not going down that way."

"Once we get a few metres along, we can get Justine to cut through the fence—"

"Cheren. Are you listening to me at all? I am not going down that way."

"Hey Cheren, I don't think Bianca wants to go that way," said Halley dryly. "Got another plan?"

"How else do you suppose we get in?" asked Cheren. "Look. Concrete wall – concrete wall – barrier fence. We can't break through a wall, but we can probably cut through enough links of the fence to get through that way."

Bianca made a face.

"Yeah, but Cheren... there's like six inches of space between the fence and, uh, death."

"OK," said Cheren, trying and failing to sound calming and understanding, "why don't... um... I'll climb out there with Justine, and get her to cut the fence, and then open the door there that the path ends at."

"That's not connected to the same building," I pointed out.

"Ah. Right." Cheren twisted his lip. "Bianca, it, uh, doesn't look like there's any alternative." He glanced at the fence. "It's not so bad. One foot in front of the other and hold onto the fence with your hands. Unless you make some kind of enormous mistake, it's statistically very unlikely that you'll fall to your death."

"Cheren, it's me," Bianca said earnestly. "'Enormous mistake' is my middle name."

"Don't put yourself down—"

"She isn't," said Halley. "You know it's true, Cheren. She's like the proverbial f*cking bull in a china shop. Give her a goldfish to look after and she'll manage to drown it."

Cheren sighed.

"You won't fall," he said. "Not even you are that unlucky."

"How about you go between me and Cheren?" I suggested. "We'll keep hold of you. Or I will, anyway," I added, remembering how much bigger than Cheren I was. (Not that he was particularly weedy, but he looked like he had all the upper-body strength of a paralytic sloth.)

Bianca hesitated.

"OK," she said eventually. "I'll do it. But you go first, Cheren, and cut the fence – I don't want to hang there and wait for you."

"All right," said Cheren. "I can do that."

He sent out Justine and nudged her out along the gap with a foot.

"Go on," he said. "Out there. I'm following."

Justine did not seem to need the encouragement: she had, apparently, a cast-iron belief in her own balance, and cheerfully trotted out along the gap as if it were nothing. Cheren edged out after her, clinging to the fence and moving sideways.

"See?" he said. "Simple."

A particularly loud burst of chanting from the other side of the warehouse startled him then, and he reflexively jerked a little closer to the fence.

I smiled.

"Simple?"

"Yes," he maintained. "Simple." He turned to Justine. "On a bit more."

They moved further out, to where the concrete bottom of the fence gave way to dirt; here, he had Justine first sharpen her claws on the fence post, and then Fury Swipe her way through the links. A little more slashing and tugging, and a reasonably large chunk of fence had been unravelled.

Cheren looked back at us.

"You see?" he said. "Not so hard."

He lowered himself carefully through the gap – leaning perilously far out over the sea in doing so, I noticed, which made Bianca grab my arm way too hard to be comfortable – and Justine bounced through after him.

"All right!" he called. "Your turn."

I looked at Bianca.

"You go on first," I said. "Then I can help you through the hole."

She bit her lip.

"OK," she said, and edged out over the void.

I followed, and was immediately struck by how high it seemed we were now; how the wind seemed much stronger when there was less ground beneath our feet. I glanced to my right, at Bianca, and saw she had her eyes shut.

She wasn't moving.

"Go on," I said, taking one hand off the fence and gripping her wrist firmly. "I've got you."

She took a deep breath, opened her eyes and went on again.

The fence seemed to vibrate beneath our hands with every shout and stomp of the invisible crowd; it felt like it wanted to fling us off. I pushed the thought away and concentrated on moving along one-handed, walking my hand along the fence like a crab. (I didn't quite dare to let go completely; I wasn't sure I would be able to grab hold of the fence again quick enough to stop me falling and dragging Bianca to our deaths.)

On, and on. I'm sure it wouldn't have been so bad on my own – and probably, I thought, almost nothing for Lauren. But with Bianca in tow, it seemed to take forever; it was as if time was stretching out, like a cat taking its ease – until at last, aeons later, we were at the gap Justine had cut, and I was lowering Bianca through it. Moments later, I was through myself, and about three seconds after that, Halley had jumped through with the same ease as Justine.

"Man, you guys are slow," she complained. "And Bianca, you stink of fear."

"You did very well," said Cheren, ignoring her. "Sorry. I didn't think it would be this... this hard."

Bianca nodded. Her face was pale and slick with sweat; it reminded me of what Halley had said of her – that she had no talent, that she wasn't a hero. And yet, I thought, she was still here. She hadn't gone back home – she had fought her dad to make him let her stay. I was still unclear about how exactly that had happened; I vaguely remembered Lauren coming to help me convince him, or something.

She had stayed, despite everything, and that was probably more heroic than anything I'd done so far.

"Yeah," I said. "Well done."

Bianca smiled, though it was slightly strained.

"Thanks," she said. "I – I'm OK now. Really."

I nodded and looked around. We were in a small enclosed space at the back of the warehouse; the warehouse formed the front wall, and the two sides were concrete. There were a couple of industrial bins at one end, but other than that, and the occasional crisp packet on the floor, there wasn't much around. Behind us, the sea and the ships swashed and splashed; before us, still hidden from sight, the protesters chanted. I could make out their words from here: Plas-ma, plas-ma, plas-ma...

"Right," I said. "How are we getting in? I'm betting that door's locked."

There was a single unmarked door in the warehouse wall; it didn't look like it had been opened for a while.

"Why don't we knock?" asked Cheren. "And when they answer, you hit them over the head and we go in."

"Won't they see us?" I asked. "On CCTV or something?"

"If they had CCTV, they'd have seen us break in already," pointed out Halley.

"I have seen you break in already," said the security guard.

We looked at the door. It was now open, and contained a man with a gun.

Naturally, this put us all slightly on edge.

"You went to quite a lot of trouble to get in," he said mildly. "I take it you're those kids that've been interfering with everything?"

"That sounds like us," Halley said.

"And the cat, too," noted the guard, looking down at her – quite some way, as it happened; he was the approximate height and weight of a walk-in freezer. "Definitely you people." He sighed. "Now, if I had my way, you'd be shot on sight. Burn up the bodies in hellfire, job done, no more interference. But orders from above are that we can't just kill you – not without provocation, anyway. That would, apparently, have bad consequences. Can't take you captive without cause, either." The guard rolled his eyes. "I don't know anything about it, but you know, not paid to do anything but follow orders, and all bosses have their foibles. I worked for a guy once insisted all of us wore red feathers in our hats. Anyway," he said, flexing the fingers of his free hand, "the point is, as long as you stand there, you're safe. You could back away now and all I'd be able to do is tell my superiors that you were here."

He sighed.

"But if you came inside, I'd be completely justified in whacking you over the head, taking you prisoner and giving you over to the tender mercies of our resident demon. That," he added, "is if you weren't too pugnacious. If you resisted, I might have no option but to use deadly force."

He looked at his gun as if he'd just remembered he was holding it.

"So," he said, with the sort of smile that you never, ever want to see. "I cordially f*cking await your response."

---

"I'm not sure about this," said Smythe.

"Do you want to stay here?" asked Teiresias.

Smythe looked around at the dark. He could not see the walls, but he knew they were approximately two feet away in each direction.

"Well, no," he said. "But I'm not sure I like your way of getting me out."

"I can find other places."

Smythe hesitated.

"Ah, f*ck it," he said. "Fine. But only until you're back up to strength, and you don't kill or harm me. Do we have a deal?"

"By blood," replied Teiresias, its smoke coalescing and dripping darkly onto Smythe's palm. It stung, and he realised that there was a cut beneath it – that the foulness that constituted Teiresias' blood was mingling with his own. "And so even I cannot break it."

"OK." Smythe had seen a lot of things that he'd previously thought impossible over the last few days. This last did not bother him at all. "Whatever."

He stood up, stooping so as not to hit his head on the ceiling.

"Are we ready, then?"

Teiresias' smouldering eyes stared blindly at him for a moment, and Smythe realised for the first time that Teiresias was standing much further away from him than the closeness of the walls ought to have allowed; then they lurched forwards, like the headlights of a truck, and Smythe staggered back as something smashed intangibly into his face. There was no impact, but his body couldn't help reacting as if there was; he stumbled backwards and fell heavily against the rear wall.

Then he rose back to his feet, the purple of his eyes staining the air around them.

"Now then," he said, and whose voice it was that came from his mouth was difficult to tell. "For freedom."

---

There was a pause, during which we considered our options.

"Well," said Cheren, "you certainly make a persuasive case."

"He does," I agreed. "Bianca. How's Munny's telekinesis?"

The guard shook his head.

"You must be joking," he said. "A Munna stop bullets? It doesn't have the strength. And it can't tug the gun out of my hand, either." He held up his free hand; the fingers were each the size and approximate colour of a raw Lacunosa sausage. "I've got quite the grip, if I do say so myself."

I sighed.

"Woden hang 'em," I said. "This isn't going to be easy, is it?"

"No," agreed the guard. "It isn't."

"We aren't giving up, are we?" asked Bianca anxiously. "I did not climb along that horrible ledge for nothing."

"Don't worry, we aren't giving up," said Cheren. "We'll get in. Somehow."

The guard raised his eyebrows.

"Oh. I anticipate your next plan with pleasure."

"So do we," I said. "Cheren? What's the plan?"

"Bianca," he said. "How hard could Munny move a large object? Weighing – oh, let's say... forty kilos?"

"I don't know," replied Bianca. "Probably not that hard."

Cheren sighed.

"Ah, well. There goes that plan."

"What plan was that?" asked the guard. "I'm interested."

"We were going to get the Munna to slam the door on your head," said Cheren. "But that doesn't seem to be a viable possibility any more."

The man shook his head ruefully.

"No, it doesn't."

"Jared."

"Yeah?"

"Why don't you go over there and punch him in the face?"

I did a double take.

"What?"

"Why don't you go over there," he said patiently, "and punch him in the face?"

There were about fifty-eight reasons I could think of why I didn't, actually, but I settled for the most obvious.

"Because he's about six foot six with the pecs of a grizzly bear," I replied. "Sure, I'm bigger than you, but there's no way I'm going up against a guy his size – especially since he has a gun."

"Six ten, actually," said the guard cheerfully. "And I will beat you into little balls of sh*t if you so much as breathe on me aggressively."

"Whatever. You get the point."

Cheren gave me a look, and suddenly I realised that he had a plan.

"Jared..."

"Oh, fine," I said, feigning reluctance. "But look, when I get my head kicked in, you'll be the one explaining my sudden death to my family and girlfriend."

Bianca looked worried.

"Er – Cheren, maybe Jared shouldn't—"

"Let him go," said Halley. "I'd like to see this."

As I walked up to the door, I passed Cheren, and he muttered, "Slam it."

And then I saw it, and I felt like an idiot.

I stopped about a foot ahead of the guard, who gave me a pleasant smile.

"Go on, then," he said, leaning forwards like a tiger over its kill. "I dare you."

"OK," I said, and slammed the door on his face.

To his credit, it wasn't enough to knock him out, but it did knock him over – and make him drop his gun, which I hurriedly kicked away over the asphalt.

"Ettinf*cker," he gasped, clutching his face and struggling to get back onto his feet. "You little—!"

"Candy," I said, "you remember how to Rock Throw, right?"

"Ark," she replied, and threw a small boulder at his face.

It wasn't the hardest blow ever, but on top of everything else it did the job; the guard groaned and slumped back onto the floor.

I looked back at Cheren.

"Nice plan," I said.

"Nice slamming," he replied. "I didn't think you'd hit him that hard."

"I did," said Halley.

"Roy? Roy, everything all right back there?"

We froze. The voice had come from down the passage beyond the door.

"Er... yeah," I called back, trying to deepen my voice a bit. "Yeah, it's nothing."

"I heard the door slam," said the voice.

"Thought I saw someone," I replied. "Just the seagulls fighting over a plastic bag."

"F*cking vermin," said the voice, and fell silent.

I let out a long breath.

"I think they bought it," I said.

"If they did, they're a moron," said Halley. "You sound nothing like him."

"Thanks. Look, shall we move him out the way?"

"OK, OK."

Between the three of us, Cheren, Bianca and I managed to drag Roy across the way and dump him in one of the bins, from which we hoped he would take at least a little while to escape. Cheren picked up his gun, and gave it to Bianca.

"Here," he said. "If we meet someone, threaten them with it."

Bianca stared at it.

"But what if it goes off?"

"Then someone will die," answered Halley. "Or at least get seriously injured. Don't you watch movies? Those things are basically magic murder sticks."

"That's the point," Bianca cried. "I want to avoid that!"

"Then just follow this one handy tip: don't pull the f*cking trigger."

"Isn't there a safety catch?" she asked. "That stops it firing?"

"Look, I don't know anything about guns," said Cheren. "Just, er, be careful with it."

She handed it back to him.

"You take it," she said. "You're good at being careful."

Cheren eyed it with distrust.

"Fine," he sighed. "I'll take it."

"Can we go inside now?" I asked. "Someone's going to come looking for Roy if we leave it too long."

Cheren nodded.

"OK." He motioned to the door. "You're intimidating. You first."

I thought about pointing out that he had a gun, but decided against it; I knew he wouldn't actually use it.

"OK."

The corridor was short and turned at a sharp right angle; beyond it was a small office, where a woman was typing at a computer.

"Roy," she said, without looking around. "What was all that about? You were gone ages."

I looked at Cheren.

"Threaten her," I mouthed.

"Roy?"

The woman turned in her chair and froze.

"Ah," she said. "Is Roy in one of the bins out at the back?"

"Yeah," I said, almost apologetic. "Sorry about this."

She licked her lips nervously, smudged her lipstick.

"OK," she said. "There's no one else in the building. The workers who shift the gold aren't here because of the protests, and then apart from then there's usually only Roy and Geoff guarding the place, but Geoff's been at home with the flu for the last week and today is an inspection day, so I'm here."

"Inspection?" asked Cheren. His hands did not shake – not even a little. He looked like he was used to the weight of the machine in his hand.

"Yeah." The woman blinked in surprise. "What, you don't – oh, you've broken in to find out what's in here, haven't you?"

"Yeah." Halley jumped up onto the desk. "So start talking."

The woman stared.

"You're Halley," she said.

Halley started.

"That isn't the response I usually get," she said. "It's more usually something like 'Aah! A talking cat!'"

"Harmonia was after you," the woman continued. "You're connected to the theft..."

"OK," said Cheren, taking a step closer. "You seem to know an awful lot about all this."

"Things we've been trying to find out for ages," added Bianca, which slightly ruined the sense of menace.

"Look, I'll tell you, OK?" The woman scooted backwards on her chair, wheels squeaking on the carpet. "Just – you don't have to point a gun at me. God. You three are Trainers, I'm a scientist whose only exercise is walking to the vending machine for more coffee. It doesn't take a genius to work out that I'm going to have to talk to you if I want to come out of this all right."

I looked at Cheren.

"I don't think we need the gun," I said. "Keep it for now, in case Roy comes back and we need to threaten him, but I don't think we need it for – what's your name?"

"Lisbeth," she answered. "Dr. Lisbeth Patel."

"Yeah, for Dr. Patel," I said.

"I agree," said Bianca.

"All right," said Cheren. "I don't like it either. It's got oil on my hands."

He lowered it and took his finger off the trigger, holding it outside the trigger guard.

"Can we get on with the questioning?" asked Halley. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty keen to hear about my past. You know, since I don't f*cking remember any of it."

"Yeah, yeah." Cheren looked at Bianca. "Bianca, you're a people person. Do you want to question Dr. Patel?"

"Just Lisbeth is fine," said Dr. Patel helpfully. "I'm not a medical doctor or anything. I'm a genetic engineer."

"Hi, Lisbeth," said Bianca. "I'm Bianca, and this is Cheren and Jared. And Halley. And that's Candy, Justine, Munny—"

"Oh, get on with it," snapped Halley. "What do you know about me?"

"Not much," said Lisbeth. "I mean – only what I've overheard. No one's actually told me, as such. But people seemed to think you might know the person who stole the Dark Stone. Whatever that might mean."

Cheren looked at me.

"Has N ever mentioned anything about that?"

I shook my head.

"No, but it sounds... I don't know. No, I don't think I know it."

"What else do you know?" asked Halley. "About me, that is."

Lisbeth shrugged.

"Nothing. Really, I'm sorry." She glanced at me. "What, did you have a question?"

"Er – no. Nothing."

I'd been staring, I realised. It was difficult not to; Unova's population was more than ninety-five per cent white. It was not a popular destination for immigrants. I supposed it explained her name, too – decidedly Unovan forename, obviously foreign surname.

"OK," said Bianca. "If there's nothing more you know about Halley, then what is it that you're doing here, with all your genetic engineering?"

"Harmonia approached us – that's Ingen – a long time ago with—"

"Ingen?" I asked, surprised. "Do you know Gregory Black?"

Lisbeth looked startled.

"Er – yeah, you could say I know him. Why?"

"He's my uncle," I said. "How is he? I mean, with the Archen thing..."

"He's facing an inquiry," she said. "It's not looking great..." She trailed off. "Oh, God. You're Jared Black, aren't you? And that's..."

"Yeah," I said, scratching Candy's neck. "Yeah, this is the Archen."

Lisbeth closed her eyes and sighed.

"This is such a clusterf*ck," she said. "I'm going to pretend I didn't notice that that was anything but a parrot."

"I think we're losing control of the situation here," said Cheren authoritatively. "You were talking about your work here?"

"Oh. Yeah. Well, it was an ambitious project, but Ingen like ambitious projects, so they sent a team out to see how it would go, and—" She paused. "Can I get up and show you?" she asked. "I thought I'd better ask, in case you shot me or something for making sudden movements."

"I'm not shooting anybody," said Cheren tiredly. "This conversation stopped being a hostage situation at about the time when we all inexplicably started making friends with each other."

"But isn't it nice that it's worked out like this?" asked Bianca.

"I don't know. I've never seen anyone get shot before," said Halley. "Might've been an interesting experience."

"You are a vile creature," said Cheren. "Lisbeth. Please, lead on."

"Wait," she said. "If you're not going to shoot me, I don't really need to do anything you ask. Do I?"

"No," said Cheren, "you don't. Although if you choose not to help us Jared could always beat you up a little."

Lisbeth looked at me, and I did my best to look threatening. Perhaps it worked; perhaps she was just humouring us. Either way, she gave in.

"All right," she sighed. "This way."

She took us to a door beyond her desk and through into what must have been the main body of the warehouse – a huge, echoing space, filled with gigantic crates stacked up to the ceiling.

"This is the gold," she said. "But if we go this way, through here is the cryonics suite."

"Cryonics?" asked Bianca.

"Low-temperature preservation," said Cheren. "Frozen, essentially."

"Oh, like Fry in Futurama. I get it."

Both Cheren and Lisbeth winced.

"Yes. To put it simply."

"Anyway," said Lisbeth. "Here."

She led us between two last columns of crates, and the space opened up; instead of boxes, here were long lines of freezers, upright like soldiers standing to attention. I looked at them for a minute, puzzled—

And then I saw them.

I saw the faces staring blankly through every single frosted window.

The ice-coloured eyes.

The green hair.

The unmistakeable face of N.



Note: Hey, everybody! The book's done bar the editing, and I'm back to working on Crack'd. Thanks for being so patient!
 

Cutlerine

Gone. May or may not return.
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Chapter Thirty: Spare Parts

"What the actual f*ck."

Halley, of course, prowling inquisitively between the lines of standing pods; I couldn't even muster that much. There was N, and there were... well, what were these? Clones? Spare copies?

"Thunor strike us," breathed Cheren. "It's—"

"Explain," I snapped, turning to Lisbeth. "Now. What are these, and why are they N?"

"Jared," began Bianca, but I held up a hand to interrupt her.

"No. Lisbeth. What is going on here?"

She looked afraid, as if she thought I might attack her – and for all I knew, I might have done; there was a horrible wrongness about all these Ns, these rows and rows of deathless clones, and it swelled inside me like ice in pipes, threatening to burst me at the seams. I wanted— I don't know what I wanted. But I wanted to do it fiercely.

"He had a mummified body," said Lisbeth, speaking far too fast. "A – a king, he said, an old king, and he wanted us to extract the DNA and grow a clone – several, he said, in case of trouble—"

"F*ck," said Halley. "Do you remember? The first of the royal blood for thousands of years, N said. Didn't make sense at the time, did it? How could the monarchy be passed down? But if you found the body of the King..."

"That's why he's named N," I said, an icy cold stealing through my skin. "It's the name he had before, just modernised a little." I took a deep breath. "He isn't descended from Naudri at all. He is Naudri."

"That's not quite how cloning works," Cheren pointed out. "N is technically Naudri's son, but they're genetically identical."

"Why?" I asked abruptly, not listening to him. "Why did he want this – why did he want the body cloned? And where did he get it?"

Lisbeth backed away slightly, raising her hands in a pacifying gesture.

"Look, I only know so much—"

"Then tell me whatever you do know," I snapped. "Sun's sake, just talk already!"

"OK!" She swallowed. "I don't know where the body came from," she said. "The desert, I think. It came in a sarcophagus like they've found over in the First Kingdom ruins, so I'm guessing it was there."

"And why?" I asked.

"I don't know!" Lisbeth closed her eyes. "I don't know." She opened them again. "Look," she said, more calmly, "I'm just a scientist. I work for Ingen, not Harmonia. I just patched together the genetic information from the body and grew it. After that, Harmonia's men took the baby away – I just made forty more bodies as back-ups, like he'd asked. He took them too, for a few years, and then gave them back for me to put into slow growth stasis in here. I've come here once a week to check on them ever since."

Something in my throat seemed to close up.

"How long?" I asked, dreading the answer. "How long have they been stuck in there?"

Lisbeth counted on her fingers.

"Er... five years?" she hazarded. "Since they were toddlers."

"Wait," said Cheren. "Five years?" He glanced at the clones. "They're as old as N, though."

"Yeah," she said. "Same age – about eight or nine."

"What do you mean, eight or nine? They're clearly at least sixteen."

"They look sixteen," agreed Lisbeth. "But they matured much faster. So did N." She paused. "Wait. You didn't know, did you?"

"Know what?" asked Halley. "I'm getting tired of this bullsh*t, so if you'd like to get to the f*cking point some time soon...?"

"They look human," said Lisbeth, an earnest look on her face. "And they act human, too – or at least N does; these don't do anything at all. But if you look at their bones, and their brains, and their DNA... Well. They just aren't human."

---

Niamh opened her eyes.

This did not change a thing.

She blinked. No. Still as dark as ever – unnaturally dark; darker than she'd ever known it to be before.

She took a deep breath, and felt a weight on her chest.

"Try not to breathe," said a soft voice in her ear. "Moving only makes this trickier, and we do want you to survive the process."

Niamh started and hit her head on stone.

"We asked you not to move," said the voice. It had something of the buzz of flies about it, and Niamh knew, all at once and without being told, that it was an aspect of Weland. Not all of him, but some at least.

Niamh lay very still, and concentrated.

Where was she? In some very small, narrow space – possibly entombed, she thought. That was alarming, but not insurmountable. The voice said they wanted her alive, after all, so she wouldn't die.

OK, thought Niamh, I can deal with that.

Unfortunately, that wasn't all there was to it.

Her clothes were gone, and in their place it felt like some kind of shroud or bandage was being wrapped around her. They began at her feet, and wound up tightly about her body to the chest, where she could feel them winding further, somehow slipping between her back and the stone beneath her with each revolution.

Niamh thought of sarcophagi and mummies.

Niamh thought of Ezra's choking bands of grey light.

Niamh thought of curses that were sculpted flesh.

"What are you doing to me?" she whispered faintly, clinging resolutely to the remnants of her iron will.

"We are making you anew," the voice whispered back, like a lover in her ear. "Such a prize specimen is not to be passed up, Niamh Harper. You will be a choice gem in our diadem indeed."

I am not afraid, Niamh told herself. I am Niamh Harper and I am not afraid of anything, so I'm definitely not f*cking afraid now—

But she was, and with the Hellerune in her ear there was no way she could deny it – no way anyone could; no Beowulf or Hercules, no Atalanta or Osiris or even Baldr, could have found a way to shut the fear out of their mind with the soul of decay itself upon their chest.

Something snapped inside her, and Niamh began to cry.

---

"Not human," I repeated. "What do you mean, not human?"

"I mean exactly that," replied Lisbeth. "Not human. Not a member of the species Homo sapiens."

"Well, what are they then?" asked Bianca.

Lisbeth shrugged.

"Something different. I don't know enough to work out the specifics. I just grow clones." Perhaps she noticed the look on my face, because she carried on hurriedly, "These grow fast – as in, they grow at a constant rate and get larger faster. Their muscles mature rapidly, too, and their brains – or at least, N's did. These clones don't have brains; if N were to suffer a fatal injury, Harmonia would have his transplanted into them."

"This is some seriously f*cked-up sh*t," said Halley. "You grew forty-odd people without brains in case N died?"

Lisbeth looked nervous.

"We did need them," she said defensively. "N's body isn't strong, and he's allergic to pretty much everything you find in a modern city, from plastics and asphalt to petrol fumes and virtually every artificial additive in any food, ever. He's gone into major anaphylactic shock hundreds of times and died eight times over the last nine years."

"I can't believe this," I said, shaking my head and stepping back. "No, I can't – these are all—"

"It's a little disturbing if you're not used to it, I agree," said Lisbeth. "But N is a very fragile person, and these aren't humans. They aren't anything – just shells that look like people."

"Let's leave the ethics aside for one moment," said Cheren, in a tone of voice that convinced me that he hadn't considered them even for a second, "and let Lisbeth finish telling us about N's... species."

"How can you leave the ethics aside?" I asked, gesturing wildly at the cryo-chambers. "She made forty zombies and keeps them in chest freezers!"

"In the name of keeping a very ill boy alive," protested Lisbeth. "It's not like these bodies have minds. They're literally just meat until they need them."

"I – I guess she does have a point," said Bianca doubtfully. "It's not so bad, Jared..."

I could see that, I really could. I knew there was no suffering involved, and that the bodies only looked human (or almost-human, or whatever N was). But that wasn't the problem; it was more that whatever N was, whatever Naudri was, it was something more than this – something that was profaned by this, something that shared its essence with the dragons and with the city of granite and porphyry. It was something that Lisbeth had no business cutting up and resurrecting – something that should have been handled only by a Sun-Priest, not by a scientist.

(What was a Sun-Priest, I wondered distractedly. I had no idea.)

"Fine," I said, suddenly exhausted. "Fine, fine. Go on then, Lisbeth."

"About N's species?"

"Yeah. About that."

"Well, like I said, they grow fast – but they don't reach sexual maturity when you'd expect," she said. "None of the specimens has developed any recognisable secondary sexual characteristics as yet; they're all still prepubescent. Which is normal for a nine-year-old, but not normal for someone the size and shape of a sixteen-year-old."

"Man," said Halley. "You would not know it from his voice. You'd think it'd be all high and squeaky, but nope. Bari sax all the way."

"The vocal range is deeper from birth," said Lisbeth. "There was no breaking of the voice."

I eyed her with distaste. I didn't like the dispassionate approach she was taking.

"All right," said Cheren. "Do you know any more?" Lisbeth shook her head. "Then start taking photos," he said to Bianca and me. "Harmonia must have suspected we, or perhaps that Ezra guy, were on our way here, and thought to use the protests as a way of stopping us. Why? Because this is all very, very illegal, and if information about this gets out, it's going to destroy his career."

"We could stop his whole campaign," Bianca cried. "There'd be an inquiry—"

"Send it all to the League," I said. "If Shauntal had this information and photos to back it up, she could get it all over the country in half an hour."

Lisbeth looked alarmed.

"Look," she said, "I know the legality of this is kinda questionable, but so was resurrecting that Archen—"

"Where's the body?" I asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Naudri's body," I clarified, as Cheren started taking photos with his phone. "What did you do with it?"

"Nothing. I mean, Harmonia took it away afterwards. I mean, hey, please don't take pictures—"

"Don't worry, we won't implicate you," said Bianca kindly. "You've been really helpful."

"I suppose so," said Cheren, taking a close-up of one of the frozen clones. "Though I don't suppose Ingen looks after its own, does it?"

"No," said Lisbeth sourly. "It doesn't. Seriously, could we talk—?"

Cheren twitched his fingers and Justine was on her shoulders in an instant, claws ready to curl into the flesh of her throat. Lisbeth looked surprised – hell, I probably looked surprised; what with everything else, I'd forgotten Justine entirely.

"All right," said Lisbeth, swallowing. "I'll take that as a 'no'."

"I'd rather be reasonable than violent," said Cheren, without looking at her, "but to be honest, you rather threw reason out the window when you began human experimentation."

"They aren't human—"

"But they are a species of human, aren't they?" asked Cheren. "They must be. They couldn't be so similar to us and not be at least in the hominin group, if not in the genus Homo."

Lisbeth was silent.

"I thought so," he said. "The men and women of the First Kingdom – they weren't our humans, were they? They must have been something else – a species of human that developed civilisation slightly earlier. That built the nameless city of granite and porphyry when we were still stabbing wild cattle with pointed sticks. They're not Homo sapiens. But they are human, and you brought them back to life in a world that they can no longer live in."

"N," I said. "He said the same thing about Candy..."

"Ark?" said Candy, hearing her name, but she didn't get a response.

"Jesus Christ," said Halley. "He wasn't being insightful. He was being empathetic. He's as dislocated in time as she is."

I stared at Lisbeth.

"You started this," I said, not quite able to believe what I said. "That's what it was then – two types of human, two dragons. Two heroes versus one King. It's the same now, and why now? Because you brought him back. That's why the war is starting all over again." I shook my head slowly. "One thing. One resurrection, and all this..."

"Damn," said Cheren, breaking into my reverie. "No signal. Bianca?"

"Nope."

"Oh, signal's terrible all over the Cold Storage," said Lisbeth, eager to be helpful and get back into our good books. "Lots of the older warehouses date back to the British occupation. The roofs are thick and packed with lead – you won't get a signal until you get back over the bridge."

"Guess we'll have to wait til then to send the pictures." Bianca slipped her phone back into her bag. "So, I guess we'd better get moving? I mean, we need to get those pictures out there as soon as possible."

"Yeah," I said. "Let's get the f*ck out of here."

Justine mewed from Lisbeth's shoulder, as if to ask what we were going to do with her.

"Ah," said Cheren. "Yes. I have to say, I wouldn't really feel comfortable beating Lisbeth into unconsciousness."

"Neither would I," said Lisbeth. "How about you just leave me here? I'll sit tight and – and pretend this never happened."

Cheren looked at me.

"What do you think?"

"Fine. Whatever. Can we just get out of here?"

"OK, OK." He gestured to Justine and she leaped back down to the floor. "Come on, then," he said. "Let's go."

"Go? Oh, come on. You only just got here – won't you stay a while?"

I froze.

"You can turn around," said the voice. "I'm not going to kill you."

We did.

"Woden hang 'em," I groaned, seeing who it was. "Another of you f*cking Sages."

---

The Sage shrugged, which made his ridiculous hat bob and nearly fall off his head.

"What can I say," he said. "We get around."

"What accent is that?" asked Bianca. "Are you all from different parts of the world?"

"We are the wisest and the most powerful!" said the Sage theatrically, throwing his arms wide. "Gathered from all around the world by Ghetsis Harmonia, who serves as our head." He withdrew his arms quickly. "Agh. It's cold in here, isn't it? I hate that. Don't move," he added, as I began to run at him, and I saw something enormous rise silently up from behind him – a great face of jagged ice, trailing chains of snowy lights from its upper lip. It did not have eyes; in their place, it had two soft orbs of cold, cold blue light, and though they did not move I was certain they were fixed on me.

"Drop the gun and kick it over here," ordered the Sage. "You could shoot, and maybe you'd get me. But you wouldn't get both me and my Cryogonal before my Cryogonal got you, and once my Cryogonal got you, you wouldn't be getting anything. You'd be a bit too dead."

Cheren dropped the gun and kicked it over to him; the Sage scooped it up and tossed it across to Roy, who had just emerged from the gold storage area.

"Hello," he said, with a certain savage humour.

"Hey, Roy," I replied. "How's your head?"

"F*cked."

"Good to know."

"Roy contacted me when he woke up in the bin," said the Sage.

"Speaking of which – who are you, exactly?" asked Cheren.

"Ah! But of course. My name is Zinzolin—"

"Zanzolah?" asked Bianca.

"—and you are Cheren, Bianca and Jared." Zinzolin frowned. "No, Zinzolin."

"He's French, Bianca," said Cheren quietly. "It's his accent."

"F*ck you," said Zinzolin. "I'm Belgian."

"So make a f*cking waffle," retorted Halley. "Now there's a reference I never thought I'd get to make."

Zinzolin snapped something in French and the Cryogonal roared – at least, I think it roared; there was a sound like the wind howling in midwinter when it's heavy with snow, and I was reasonably sure that it came from between the Cryogonal's parted lips.

There was silence.

"Thank you," said Zinzolin. "Now. Let us get to the point, shall we? You" – he jabbed his finger in our direction, and the Cryogonal bobbed fiercely – "have been taking photos. And this we cannot allow."

"Did you think me and the protest were the only things standing in your way?" asked Roy. "Sage Zinzolin's been waiting in the middle of the protesters."

"Like Gorm," I said, narrowing my eyes. "You Sages seem to like going around with hypnotised crowds."

Zinzolin wagged a finger.

"This isn't about me," he said. "This is about you, and your snooping." He made as if to pat his Cryogonal, then noticed the frosty mist rising from its skull and thought better of it. "We were told not to kill you," said Zinzolin. "It is N's will. But there was nothing about freezing you in blocks of ice and gifting you to King Weland. He is very keen to meet you," he added, looking directly at me. "He would love to add you to his collection."

I felt sick – sick and angry; angry that we had lost, angry that there was nothing I could do, angry that we were going to Weland of all people. I wanted something solid between my hands with which to smash the Cryogonal into pieces – but what good would it do? It was almost certainly faster than me, and tougher than it looked, and there was Roy with the gun...

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bianca's hand wind nervously into Cheren's, and I thought of Annie, alone and wondering why I wasn't returning calls; I wondered what would happen to Cordelia, to Harlow, to Mum and Dad – what would everyone say when I was dead or something even worse in the halls of the demon king.

"How about you don't freeze us in blocks of ice?" asked Halley nervously. "Really. I mean, Han Solo is cool and all, but I don't want to emulate his untimely demise."

Zinzolin pretended to consider it.

"No," he said. "No, I think we'll go with the freezing."

Lisbeth put up her hand timidly.

"What about me?" she asked.

"You? Oh, the scientist. Don't worry, you're safe, despite your betrayal – you're the only one who can look after these."

He waved a hand at the clones.

"Actually," Lisbeth began, "anyone with the right— You know what? Yes, I am the only one in the whole world who can look after them."

"Return your Purrloin," said Zinzolin. "One less thing to freeze."

Cheren did. He didn't say anything, but his lips were taut, and he kept the light glinting off his glasses so that his eyes could not be seen.

Bianca didn't say anything either. She didn't need to; her face said it all.

I took Candy from my shoulder and held her close, in front of me. Halley paced indecisively before us.

"F*ckf*ckf*ckf*ck," she said. "No, this isn't – we can't lose, not now, not when we've found this—"

"You think so?" asked Zinzolin, regarding her disinterestedly. "Ah, well. Not so. Hexagel," he said, suddenly switching to French. "Glaciation!"

The Cryogonal's mouth gaped, and I shut my eyes as the air around me burst into horrendous, blood-freezing cold—

---

When the work was done, Weland lifted his Hand from the body of Niamh Harper, and left the sarcophagus to let the new flesh cool.

The Hand crossed the Gaol hall, and climbed back up the stairs to the Great Western Transept, where the Gaoler had her office. It did not knock, nor did it open the door, but the Gaoler knew that the Hand was there, as everyone always knew when the Hand was there, and opened the door for it.

"My lord," she said, lowering herself. (It would be incorrect to say she bowed, or that she curtseyed. She lacked the proper limbs for such a manoeuvre.)

"Thejne Yaghda," replied the Hand. "Release Harmonia's man."

"The human?"

The Hand made a gesture of affirmation. (It would be incorrect to say it nodded, for much the same reason that it would be incorrect to say that Yaghda bowed.)

"Portland Smythe," said the Hand of Weland.

"Where shall we leave him, my lord?"

"Anywhere," replied the Hand. "We keep our word. We promised the warrior that he would be released, and so he shall."

Yaghda smiled.

"Does that mean we might release him very far above the ground?"

"Of course. You might watch him, too, to see how he bounces."

Yaghda's substance flexed with pleasure.

"It shall be done, my lord."

The Hand left, and began to stalk back towards the throne room. Yaghda, for her part, made her way downstairs, back into the Tomb-Gaol. She crossed the hall, opened up the wall—

"Ah," said Yaghda, staring. A few of her eyes migrated to the front of her body, just to make sure she wasn't missing anything – but there could be no mistake.

The little chamber was empty.

Portland Smythe had escaped.

---

—and then gradually warmed again.

"Ouch," said an unfamiliar voice. "That hurt."

I opened my eyes. There was a man standing in front of us – no, not a man; he had wings, or something dark and nebulous that looked a little like wings, arching out from his back, shielding us from the Cryogonal's breath. Frost hung heavily on his hair and the shadow-stuff of his wings, and it cracked and fell to the floor in showers as he moved.

"But it all serves a purpose," he went on, his wings folding away into nothingness. "It is only the attacked who can use the Riposte."

He stepped forwards and laid his hands on the Cryogonal, and an unearthly sheen flared across its surface; its mouth flopped open, and then its lower jaw detached completely and smashed on the floor. A moment later, the rest of its body followed – and there was nothing more than a heap of glassy shards to show that there had ever been anything there at all.

Zinzolin stared.

"Roy," he said. "Shoot him."

Roy did, and the man's hand jumped forwards so fast it made my eyes water. He opened his fingers, and a little flattened disc of metal fell out.

"Would you care to try again?" asked the man. "Only it seems rather a waste of ammunition."

"Sh*t," said Zinzolin, and I thought in that moment he sounded much more Unovan than French. (Or Belgian, or whatever.) "It's you, isn't it? The rebel."

The man bowed.

"At your service. Or rather, at your service."

He turned and nodded to us, and I saw his face for the first time – soft-edged, long, with large, haunted eyes.

"Now," said the rebel. "Hero, accomplices – let's leave. We can safely leave these three here; should they somehow muster the courage to mount some form of assault, I have no doubts at all that we can repulse it."

I would have asked what he meant by 'Hero', but I wasn't up to it; I couldn't even think straight. N was the clone of Naudri, who wasn't human, and there was another Sage, and an impossible man had taken the frozen breath of a Cryogonal and caught bullets. If there's anyone on Earth who could still react to anything after experiencing all that in less than five minutes, I'd like to meet them.

So we trailed out, following the rebel in his battered suit and dark coat; felt Zinzolin's eyes on us, smouldering with rage; felt Roy and Lisbeth watching in confusion and fear.

We had escaped death and the King, I thought, but where were we going now?

---

Niamh opened her eyes, and pushed the lid of the sarcophagus aside with one hand. She climbed up and out, rubbing her neck with greying fingers, and regarded the two smiling men standing before her with interest.

"Good morning, boss," said one. "We brought you your weeds."

Niamh took the suit from him and the bowler hat from his comrade, and stared at them for a moment.

Then, all at once, and quite without reason, she began to grin, and she did not stop.
 

Hyzenthlay

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Totally amazing work you have here! The way you phrase, your pronunciation and the way you can capture the reader's attention is truly inspiring! It makes me realize how much my own work needs brushing up. ^-^"

A moment later, he was just a face between the clawing hands of the old people, screaming wildly; a few seconds later, he had vanished entirely in a swell of cardigans and wrinkled skin.

This sentence is a humorous work of art!
 
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