Erebos (42 page)

‘That's all very well,' said Nick, after they'd both remained silent for a time. ‘But what do we do with our knowledge?'

‘We enjoy being so clever. And keep our eyes out for more hints. Sooner or later there'll be one that we can use.'

Nick spent the next half an hour watching Speedy become ‘Quox, the barbarian' in the tower. Victor had supplied him with a pad and a pencil and Nick was making a note of the details he spotted in the tower. The tablets were made of copper; was that significant? He noted down every sentence the gnome uttered, and looked for hidden messages. Kate helped him; she pointed at scratches in the wall of the tower. Nick sketched a copy of them. Was there an image concealed in them, a plan, a name – anything?

Victor was sitting at his computer, driving Squamato across barren heathland with much brandishing of his sword. Every few steps, vipers as tall as a man shot up out of the ground beside him, snapped at him and then disappeared back under the earth. But Victor seemed to have a sixth sense – he always dodged and didn't get bitten once.

Meanwhile Hemera was standing by a fire with four other warriors, Nurax among them, chatting about the coming Arena fight. Nurax declared that he was aiming for at least two more levels, and that if everything went as planned he might even attempt to win a place in the Inner Circle.

Emily was shifting restlessly on her chair. Nick suspected that it made her nervous to have him looking over her shoulder. He retreated to the next room with his notes, sat on the roses-and-sailing-ships sofa and opened the laptop that Victor had said was clean. The thought that his own computer at home might not be worried him. Was that why Emily had insisted recently that he shouldn't email her under any circumstances?

If this computer wasn't being monitored by Erebos, what would happen if he searched for the game on Google?

He entered ‘Erebos' and found the ‘Erebos – the game' link that had issued him with a personalised warning on the previous occasion. He clicked on it again now, and the text that was displayed was completely different.

Joy, thou beauteous spark divine,

Daughter of Elysium,

We are entering, drunk with fire,

Heav'nly one, thy holy shrine!

Thy enchantments bind together

What stern custom did divide.

All mankind will be as brothers

Where thy gentle wings abide.

Shaking his head, Nick closed the page. That was familiar to him from a Beethoven symphony. But it didn't make any sense here. Presumably it was intended as dummy text for non-gamers who happened to pass by. Whatever. On with the research.

Next, Nick entered ‘copper tablet', and found loads of suppliers of copper tablets. In addition, copper tablets obviously had something to do with the printing of illustrations in old books. That was presumably a false lead.

Next he tried a combination of ‘snakes' and ‘Greek mythology'. There was Hydra with her nine heads – but Victor's snakes only had one. He found a snake that wound itself around the staff of Asclepius and one that guarded the oracle of Delphi. None that sprang out of the ground. So far, so bad.

What now? Nick cast a glance through the half-open door to the next room. Everyone was absorbed in their games; only Kate was clattering round in the kitchen. He went to check if he could help her; but the two trays of pizza had already disappeared into the oven.

‘Tell me, what's Victor's surname?' he asked.

‘Lansky.' Kate turned the thermostat up a smidge, sighed and turned it down again. ‘Other people's ovens are terrible; my pizzas either turn out soggy or black. I hope you like prosciutto and heaps of onion.'

‘Oh, absolutely. Thanks.' Nick retreated to his sofa and entered ‘Victor Lansky' into Google. He found a Victor Lansky in Canada, and one in London. Bingo. Victor was certainly not a dark horse on the computer scene. He even published a small gaming magazine, which only came out sporadically, but had a good reputation in the scene. Ah, and here was something else. One Zobbolino wrote on his home page that he was a good friend of the infamous Victor Lansky.

Victor and I share fond memories of the time when not a single wall or railway carriage was safe from our art. To spray or not to spray – that was never the question. We were the bright gods of graffiti, and if we hadn't been caught that once we'd still be painting the town red (and every other colour . . . )

Nick read the text through a few times. It clearly stated that Victor had been involved in graffiti and that he'd been caught. Erebos could read, and it made everyone register under their own name. It probably conducted research on every novice. Wow.
Erebos draws on information from the internet,
Nick wrote down.
We hadn't considered that before. The whole internet? It certainly

scans the hard drive and it maybe even tracks which sites you visit. That makes it practically omniscient.

If that was true, then it probably read the instant message transcript on Nick's computer of his chat with Finn. That's how it knew about the Hell Froze Over T-shirt.

Nick would have liked to discuss his observations with Victor, but Squamato was fully occupied climbing a gigantic wall. Impatiently Nick gulped down two cups of tea that were stone cold. He knocked over the third one as he reached for his writing pad again in order to check his notes.

‘Shit!' He evacuated the pad, about a ton of computer magazines, and his notes – the latter had come off worst.

‘Oh. Problems here as well?' Emily was standing in the doorway wearing a tired smile; her eyes were red.

‘Yes, I'm all thumbs. Wait, I'll get a cloth.' Nick sprinted into the kitchen, located a roll of paper towel and ran back. Meanwhile Emily was using tissues to try to stop the tea from dripping on the floor.

‘How's Hemera going?' Nick asked, wiping frantically.

‘She's wounded in the stomach and leg. The screeching from the headphones was almost unbearable.' Emily collapsed onto the second-ugliest sofa and yawned. ‘I desperately need a coffee, but Victor doesn't have any in the house. And I've still got orders to carry out today. Nothing difficult, fortunately. But something I don't want to do.' She yawned again.

‘I'll go to Starbucks and get you a coffee,' Nick offered.

‘It's too far,' Emily said, and in the same breath, ‘I'll come with you. I need fresh air anyway. And a phone box.'

‘For your orders?'

She nodded. ‘Any phone box. That means I don't have to go right across London, at least.'

Nick had already looked out of the window – to be on the safe side – but hadn't seen anything in the darkness that looked suspicious. He had another thorough look around from the front door.

‘If someone's lying in wait for us, they're certainly well hidden.' They walked along Cromer Street and turned into Gray's Inn Road, which was almost deserted at this time of day. Emily glanced over her shoulder several times when they passed groups of young people. Their uneasiness made both of them quicken their pace. They reached King's Cross station, the first phone boxes came into view, and Emily stopped short. ‘I can't do it,' she said soberly.

‘What can't you do?'

‘Make a threatening phone call.' She looked up at Nick pleadingly, as if she was hoping he would have a solution to her dilemma. ‘I can't even try to make it sound nice, because I've been told what words I have to say.'

‘Oh. Yes, that's not pleasant.' Nick said, fully conscious of how lame that sounded. ‘But look at it this way: it's for study purposes. You don't mean it. You're doing it so we can find out about Erebos.'

‘Except my victim won't know that,' Emily murmured.

‘Think of Victor and his Confucius quote.'

‘Unfortunately my message isn't a Confucius quote. That's for sure.' Grim-faced, Emily veered towards the first phone box. ‘I'll get it over with now,' she murmured, and fetched some change, her iPod and a note from her shoulder bag.

‘What's with the iPod?'

‘I have to record the conversation. And upload it. As if it wasn't bad enough already.'

Nick watched her while she dialled, making a despairing face, turned on the iPod and held it to the receiver. She closed her eyes almost as soon as the ring tone started. Nick heard someone answering at the other end.

‘It is not over,' Emily said in a graveyard voice. ‘You will never find any peace. He has not forgotten. He has not forgiven. You will not get away with it.'

‘Who is this?' Nick heard a man at the other end of the line bellow. ‘I'll set the police onto you all, you damned criminals!' Then there was nothing except a quiet ‘Damn' and the engaged signal. Emily hung up the receiver in its cradle.

‘I think I feel sick,' she said dully. ‘What twisted rubbish. I'll never do something like that again. And now I need coffee.'

They found a quiet corner in Starbucks on the Pentonville Road. Emily ordered herself a large cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso. Nick followed suit, added two choc-chip muffins, and was pleased when she allowed him to pay.

‘How do you know Victor?' he asked, after they'd eaten half their muffins and were blowing in their cups because the coffee was still boiling hot.

‘He was a friend of Jack's.' She smiled pensively. ‘Of course Victor says he
is
a friend of Jack's and what's a little bit of drowning between friends.'

Even before he realised what he was doing, Nick had put his hand over Emily's. She didn't pull it away; on the contrary she linked her fingers with his.

‘Victor helped me a lot. He adopted me as his little sister.'

‘He's fantastic,' Nick said fervently. He didn't get any more words out; he had the feeling that he was about to float away any second. To cover his embarrassment, he sipped at his coffee, which had finally reached a drinkable temperature.

‘We'll be in trouble with Kate,' he declared. ‘We're stuffing ourselves with muffins and she's making pizza.'

‘I can handle muffins
and
pizza,' Emily said. ‘And so can Victor, by the way. Don't worry. But we should make our way back soon anyway. Firstly, this isn't a very salubrious area at this time of night, and secondly I want to Google the telephone number of my victim.'

Outside, Emily took Nick's hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The area wasn't at all suited to a romantic stroll, but as far as Nick was concerned it could have lasted the whole night long.

* * *

There was hardly any pizza left when they returned to Victor's flat.

Kate raised her arms in apology. ‘Victor. He says a genius needs food. Lots of food. There's half a pizza left. I could make you some pasta if you like.'

They declined, took the leftover pizza and opened a can of peanuts. The sofa with the roses and ships was suddenly the nicest place in the world. Nick opened the laptop and typed the number Emily dictated to him into the search engine.

‘No hits. Unfortunately.'

‘That's what I expected,' said Emily. ‘It's probably a private number. Too bad he didn't say his name, just “Hello”.'

The word ‘private' struck a chord in Nick – there was something he had to tell Emily. Now.

Hopefully the smile on her face wouldn't evaporate immediately. ‘I need to confess something to you. I've been reading your posts on deviantART for a few months. And your poems. They're brilliant, and so are your drawings.'

She caught her breath. ‘How do you know that it's my account?'

‘Someone let on once. Please don't get mad. You don't need to be embarrassed.'

She looked away. ‘It's a pity.'

‘Why is it a pity?'

‘Because I would have liked to show you those things myself. Some time or other.' She leaned her head on his shoulder and yawned. Nick, who was inwardly leaping with relief, only then noticed that Victor was standing in the doorway.

‘It's group hug time round the campfire,' he said. ‘So I thought I'd see how you're going. But it's hugging time here too, hmm?' He plumped himself down on the sofa opposite.

Emily reported on her orders. ‘I threatened a total stranger. Who knows what he's thinking now. He probably has no idea what I was talking about.'

‘What did you have to say, exactly? Do you remember?'

Emily passed the note to Victor.

‘It is not over. You will never find any peace. He has not forgotten. He has not forgiven. You will not get away with it.' Victor was almost vibrating with excitement. ‘Far out! Okay, let me summarise: A certain
He
is very angry with the person you talked to, Emily. I'd bet he'd like to see him take a trip in Charon's boat or arrange for Atropos to snip away at his life thread.'

Emily was clearly confused, but Victor continued. ‘Unfortunately this telephone number probably doesn't belong to my garage-owner, otherwise we could have sent him a friendly warning.' Victor checked for tea in the teapot, but didn't find any, and his moustache drooped. ‘If you ask me,' he went on, ‘Erebos has only one goal: to take revenge. On Ortolan, our songbird.'

‘Yeah, but . . . graffitied garages and dubious phone calls? Somehow that's not my idea of revenge,' Nick put in.

‘I would be very surprised if that's where it ends,' Victor said. ‘I think I remember you telling me something about a gun in a cigar box.'

Nick felt himself going cold, and hot, and then cold again. ‘You mean Erebos wants us to shoot someone?'

‘It's very possible. If I'm not mistaken, the game is in the process of forming an elite troop for special operations.' Victor smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. ‘It would be good to know who all the members of the Inner Circle are.'

The Inner Circle spun in Nick's head for the next half hour like a burning wheel. An elite troop. A revenge squad. But what were its orders?