Erebos (4 page)

He turned on the computer, and while it was booting up he fetched himself a blanket from the living room, which he put round his shoulders.

He had at least four uninterrupted hours in front of him. From habit – and to heighten the suspense even more – he retrieved his email first (three ads, four spam messages and an embittered email from Bethune, threatening dire consequences to anyone who skipped one more training session).

As he was about to open his Facebook page, Finn instant-messaged him.

‘Hey, little bro. How's it going?'

Nick couldn't help smiling.

‘Everything's fine.'

‘How's Mum?'

‘Busy, but she's okay. How about you?'

‘Ditto. Business is doing nicely.'

Nick refrained from inquiring more closely.

‘Nicky, listen. The shirt that I promised you . . . You know the one, don't you?'

And how Nick knew. A shirt from Hell Froze Over, the best band in the world, according to Finn.

‘What about it?'

‘I can't get it in your size – not in the next four weeks. You're too tall, baby brother. The fan shop people have ordered it, but it's going to take time. Is that okay?'

For a moment Nick couldn't figure out why he was so disappointed – probably because he had a picture in his mind of him and Finn at the concert in two weeks' time, both of them in their HFO shirts with the ice-blue devil's skull, bellowing out
Down the Line
.

‘Not a big deal,' Nick typed.

‘I'll keep on it, promise. You going to drop round?'

‘Of course.'

‘Miss you, baby brother.'

‘Yeah, I miss you too.' And how. But he wasn't going to rub Finn's nose in it – otherwise he'd start feeling guilty again.

After the chat with his brother, Nick checked in on Emily's drawings on deviantART, but nothing on there had changed since yesterday. That figures, he thought, feeling a little ashamed, and went offline again.

An inner voice was telling him it would be better to write his English essay before he devoted himself to Erebos. It didn't stand a chance. Nick's curiosity was too strong. He opened the case, made a face at the sight of Brynne's handwriting and pushed the DVD into the drive. It took a few seconds before a window opened.

It wasn't a movie or music. It was a game. The install window showed a grim picture. There was a ruined tower in the background, surrounded by scorched countryside. In front of the tower a sword was planted in the bare earth, a piece of red cloth tied to its handle. It fluttered in the wind, like a last memento of life in a dead world. Above that, the lettering ‘Erebos' arched, also all in red.

Nick had butterflies in his stomach. He turned the volume up, but there was no music, just a deep rumbling like an approaching storm. Nick hovered the cursor over the Install button with the vague feeling he had forgotten something . . . of course, the virus scan. He checked out the files on the DVD with two different programs and breathed a sigh of relief when both gave the all-clear. Right then.

The blue install bar inched forwards in agonising slow motion. In tiny tiny steps. Several times it seemed as though the computer had crashed – nothing was happening. Nick tried moving the mouse back and forth – at least the cursor still responded, but only slowly, jerkily. Nick shifted around on his chair impatiently. Twenty-five per cent – oh, come on. He may as well go to the kitchen and get himself something to drink.

When he came back some minutes later, it was thirty-one per cent. He dropped onto the chair, cursing, and rubbed his eyes. What a pain in the bum.

After what felt like an hour one hundred per cent was finally downloaded. Nick was already inwardly rejoicing when the screen went black. Stayed black.

Nothing helped. Not banging on the monitor, not all his key sequences nor his angry outburst. The screen displayed nothing but unrelenting darkness.

Nick was about to give up and press the reset button when something did actually happen. Red letters were emerging out of the dark, words that pulsed as if a concealed heart were supplying them with blood and life.

‘Enter.

Or turn back.

This is Erebos.'

Finally! Tingling with anticipation, Nick chose ‘Enter'.

The screen went black again – so what was new – for several seconds. Nick leaned back in his chair. Hopefully the game wouldn't stay so slow. His computer couldn't be at fault – it was pretty much state-of-the-art. His processor and graphics card were lightning fast and all his games ran without a problem.

Gradually the screen lightened up, revealing a very realistic forest clearing, with the moon above. A figure was standing in the middle in a ragged shirt and threadbare trousers. No weapon, just a stick in his hand. Presumably that was supposed to be his game character. As a test Nick clicked a spot to the right, whereupon it leapt up and moved to exactly the spot he'd selected. Okay, the controls were idiot-proof, and he would have the rest figured out before long. It wasn't exactly his first game.

Right then. But – which way should he go? There was no path, no indication. A map, maybe? Nick tried to call up an inventory or a game menu, but there was nothing. No indication of quests or goals, no other characters in sight. Just a red bar for the life meter and a blue one underneath. Presumably it indicated stamina. Nick tried various key sequences that had worked in other games, but they didn't do anything here.

The thing was probably riddled with programming errors, he thought grumpily. As a test he clicked directly on his shabbily equipped character. The word ‘Nameless' appeared over his head. ‘Even better,' muttered Nick. ‘The mysterious Nameless.' He got his ragged character to walk straight ahead first, then left, and finally right. Every direction seemed to be wrong, and there was no-one around he could ask.

‘It's incredibly awesome, honest,' he mimicked Brynne's voice in his head. On the other hand . . . Colin seemed to be keen on the game too. And Colin was no fool.

Nick decided to make his character walk straight ahead again. He figured that was what he would do if he were lost. Keep on going in the one direction. He'd come across something or someone, and every forest had to end somewhere. He focussed his attention on Nameless, who was skilfully dodging trees and pushing aside the branches in his path with his stick. He could clearly hear each step the game character took: the undergrowth snapped, dead leaves rustled. When the character climbed over a tor, small pebbles came loose and rolled down.

On the far side of the tor the ground was wetter. Nameless wasn't making such good progress any more, since his feet kept sinking in up to his ankles. Nick was impressed. It was all extremely realistic – when he was wading through the mud it even made a sucking noise.

Nameless struggled on; he began to pant. The blue bar had shrunk to one third of its length. Nick allowed him a rest at the next rock. His character rested his hands on his thighs and bent his head down, obviously trying to get his breath back.

There must be a stream somewhere around. Nick heard it gurgling and cut short his rest. He sent Nameless a short distance to the right, where he did in fact find a small stream. His character stopped short of it, still panting.

‘Come on, drink.' He pressed the down arrow on his keyboard and was delighted when Nameless actually bent down, cupped his hand and drank water from the stream.

After that he made better headway. The ground was no longer damp, and the trees weren't as dense either. But he still didn't have any points of reference, and gradually Nick was beginning to worry that his go-straight-ahead strategy was a dead loss. If only he had an overview – maybe a map or . . . Overview! Nick grinned. Let's see, maybe his virtual self could not only bend down, but climb as well! He chose a massive tree with low-hanging branches, positioned the figure in front of it and pressed the up arrow.

Nameless carefully put his stick aside and pulled himself up on the branches. He stopped as soon as Nick released the arrow key, and started climbing when it was pressed again. Nick sent him up as high as possible – until the branches became too weak and he nearly slipped. Only when the figure had a secure foothold did Nick venture a look all round. The view was fantastic.

The full moon was high in the sky, and shone its light on a seemingly endless greenish-silver sea of trees. To the left the foothills of a mountain range could be made out; the plains stretched out to the right. The landscape straight ahead was hilly; dots the size of pinpricks on a few of the hills revealed settlements.

See, Nick thought triumphantly. Straight ahead is the right way.

He already had his finger over the down arrow when a gleam of warm yellow light between the trees caught his eye. That looked promising. If he corrected his route to the left, he would find the source of the light within a few minutes. Maybe it was a house? Impatiently he sent his figure back down onto the ground, where it took up its stick again and walked on. Nick chewed on his bottom lip, hoping that he had fixed the direction correctly in his memory.

It wasn't long before he thought he could make out the first weak glimmers of light between the tree trunks. Almost at the same moment he struck an obstacle: a crevice that was much too wide for his character to jump over. Damn! The crevice stretched a long way in both directions, and disappeared somewhere in the darkness between the trees. To go round it would cost Nameless a lot of time – and possibly his bearings.

Nick discovered the fallen tree only after he'd spent some time cursing. If he could get it into the right position . . . The space bar was the key to success. Nick's game character dragged, pulled and pushed the trunk in every direction the cursor instructed. By the time the tree was lying across the crevice, Nameless was gasping for breath and the red life meter had gone down a lot.

With the greatest care Nick made his screen hero balance on top of the tree trunk, which turned out to be a very precarious bridge, because on his fifth step it rolled slightly to the right. Nick only just got his figure to safety with a daring jump.

The beam of light was stronger than before, and it was flickering. Straight in front of Nick was a tiny forest clearing, in the middle of which a fire was burning. A solitary man sat before it and stared into the flames. Nick released the mouse button, and Nameless immediately stood still.

The man by the fire didn't move. He wasn't carrying any weapons Nick could see, but that didn't mean anything. He could be a mage, as his long black cloak seemed to indicate. Perhaps clicking on the character would reveal more. Nick's cursor had hardly touched the man when he lifted his head, revealing a narrow face with a very small mouth. A dialogue box opened at the same time at the bottom of the screen.

‘Greetings, nameless one.' The silver-grey letters stood out against the black background. ‘You were quick.'

Nick took his figure closer to him, but the man didn't react; he only pushed the pieces of burning wood in his campfire together with a long branch. Nick was disappointed; He'd finally encountered someone in this forsaken forest, and all he got was a meagre greeting.

It was only when Nick spotted the blinking cursor on the next line in the window that he understood he was expected to answer. ‘And greetings to you too,' he typed.

The man in the black cloak nodded. ‘It was a good idea to climb up the tree. Not many nameless travellers have been so resourceful. You are a great hope for Erebos.'

‘Thanks,' Nick typed in.

‘Do you wish to proceed?' The man's small mouth twisted into an expectant smile.

Nick wanted to type in ‘Sure!' but his counterpart wasn't finished yet.

‘Only if you ally yourself with Erebos will you be any match for this game. That is something you should know.'

‘All right,' Nick answered.

The man lowered his head and poked his stick deep in the embers of his campfire. Sparks flew up. That looks real, it looks so real.

Nick waited, but his counterpart didn't make any move to continue the conversation. Presumably he'd already reeled off all the text assigned to him.

Curious to see whether he would react if Nick addressed him of his own accord, he typed ‘p#434<3xxq0jolk-

He's looking me straight in the eye, Nick thought, and suppressed his unease. He's looking at me as if he can see right through the screen.

Finally the man turned back to his fire.

Only now did Nick notice that music was playing softly – an intricate but insistent melody that was oddly moving.

‘Who are you?' he typed in his text box.

Naturally there was no answer. The man simply put his head to one side, as if he needed to think. However a few seconds later, to Nick's surprise, words appeared in the dialogue window.

‘I am a dead man.' Again he looked at Nick, as if he wanted to test the effect of his words. ‘Just a dead man. You, on the other hand, are alive. Nameless, admittedly, but not for much longer. Soon you will be able to choose a name, a vocation, and a new life.'

Nick's fingers slipped from the keyboard. That was unusual – no, it was scary. The game had given a meaningful answer to a random question.

Maybe it was a coincidence.

‘Dead people don't usually talk,' he typed in, and leaned back in his chair. That wasn't a question as much as an objection. The man by the fire wouldn't have any appropriate response programmed in for that.

‘You're right. That's the power of Erebos.' He held the stick into the flames and drew it out again, alight.

Even though he didn't want to admit it, Nick felt alarmed. He checked whether his computer was offline, or whether someone was playing a joke on him. No. There was no internet connection. The branch in the dead man's hands w s was blazing fiercely, and the reflections danced in his eyes.