The White Wolf's Son (39 page)

King Huon had ordered an intensive search for me and the blind boy. The biggest operation Oona had ever seen. We were more
important to the Dark Empire than the defense of its city. I tried to ask how Jack D’Acre could be her twin brother, but she
had no time to explain, she said. “It’s to do with the relationship of one world of the multiverse with another. The closer
they are in conjunction, the closer their time lines. We grow used to these discrepancies when we travel the moonbeam roads.
I suspect that is the secret Hawkmoon has. Klosterheim seems to know something about the duke’s source of power. The
Empire wants to find anyone who has the ability to travel in that manner—you and Jack in particular.”

At least I now understood how she looked roughly the same age as her father. So it really was possible, for a special few
at least, to go back into history and meet their own parents before they were born! Did it mean you could manipulate events?
Change the course of history? From what she said, this power was granted to you only if you were one of a kind, or at least
a manifestation, like Elric, of a recurring hero called the Champion Eternal.

When Oona left to scout out our escape route, she took the panther with her. She had given me plenty to think about.

Those resonances began to make sense of so much that had been a mystery to me. If I ever got back to school and passed my
A-levels, I decided to specialize in mythology and anthropology at university. Then came a fresh anxiety: Had the school holidays
ended? Was I being missed at Godolphin and Latymer? It’s stupid the kind of things you think of when someone is threatening
to hang you upside down and bleed you to death like a pig!

Jack D’Acre wasn’t Oona’s brother’s real name. He had been homeless, hanging out in Covent Garden and Longacre, when his mates
called him that as a joke because they thought he had a French accent. He didn’t know where he was from, though he vaguely
remembered a time before he was blind. He might have dreamed that he’d lived in a cottage in the country, he thought, with
woods all around. He remembered “a kind of brilliant darkness,” he said. He had lived there with Oona, his sister, and in
those days they had been exactly the same age.

It was odd talking to my great-uncle who was probably
no more than five years older than I. He still seemed more like a brother. He had a restless, boyish manner. His white hair
was cropped short, and he wore a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes, but his resemblance to Elric and Oona was uncanny.

“They also called me Onric,” he told me, “in Mirenburg. A weird name. I prefer Jack, don’t you?”

“Well, it’s easier to remember. I’m a bit inexperienced at all this between-the-worlds traveling. I’m not sure I’d be able
to do any of it without help. How did you go blind? Were you always on your own?”

“Oona says it was during the Empire’s first experiments. I was only little when I was blinded. Some agent of Taragorm’s found
me out on the moonbeams apparently. I must have been abandoned there. After that I was never on my own for long. I don’t know
how I got away from Bous-Junge before. There was always someone offering to help me who I could be useful to. One bloke in
Oxford used to take me out with him as a leprosy victim.”

He laughed. “We got a lot of money thrown at us—from a distance. McTalbayne wasn’t the first by a long shot. I’ve done worse
than he wanted me to do. At least I got regular food and my own box.” He chuckled again, his whole face opening up into an
honest and at the same time very sad expression. Then he withdrew again. “All I had to do was be myself and create a diversion,
wherever we were. Sometimes it was shops, sometimes streets. Mostly it was stealing from institutions, big stores, those who
could afford it, though I didn’t really like doing
any
of it. After that bastard Klosterheim found me again he took me to Bous-Junge, as I said. Then to Mirenburg, where they were
trying to forge that sword. Then back
here. They know how to get onto the moonbeam roads, though they find it hard to use them. Klosterheim knew who my mum and
dad were, he said. He claimed he would make it his business to get us together again. I think they might even have bought
me from McTalbayne. I suspect money changed hands because I heard them talking later. I’ve got this very sensitive hearing.
Five hundred quid, maybe? Only a couple of hours after we got off the Ferris wheel we weren’t in London anymore, as I said.
That bloke Gaynor met us in Mirenburg. For a while they had me in the local fairground. I guess it was a way of hiding me
from anyone else who might be looking for me. It wasn’t a bad scam, all in all. But things got more and more restrictive.
They wouldn’t let me go anywhere without at least two minders, and not very far, at that. I heard them talking. The Dark Empire
wanted to find out how to use the moonbeam roads. Klosterheim and Gaynor let them use me to listen to the sword blades. They
wanted some other bloke to see me. They called him ‘our mutual friend.’ Never said his name. They made me work, testing those
swords by their resonances. They were trying to make this one special blade, see. For a special customer they hoped to trick.
At least that’s what I guessed. Anyway, we spent some time in that weird-smelling city, and then they brought me back here
and locked me up in a filthy storage room of some sort. I think it had been a warehouse. I couldn’t get out. Mainly wanted
me as bait for their trap … I didn’t know what had happened to my sister then, and I didn’t, of course, know about you or
my father. Then I met you and guessed it was you they were after next.”

“Do you know why?”

“Some big war or science project they’ve got on?
What would your guess be? Human bombs? I’ve heard lately that the Empire’s losing ground every day. They were so confident
of their own superiority, they never expected their slaves to rise up. They certainly didn’t realize the momentum that revolt
would give Hawkmoon and the others. I heard Klosterheim talking about it just before Oona found me. Hawkmoon’s got a secret
weapon, I think. That crystal my sister mentioned. The armies were actually fighting on the sea bridge, last I heard. Whatever
it is they want from us, they want it
bad.”

“They want to kill us for our blood,” I said. “At least they want to kill
me.
Maybe they’ll let you live; I’m not sure. They’re falling back on witchcraft as they lose battles. Not human bombs but human
sacrifice. Which, I suppose, is much the same thing in the end. And they don’t have any game plan for failure!”

Jack nodded. “That makes a lot of sense. It’s all the new weapons they’re producing in Eastern Europe that’s nobbled ‘em.
Weapons they designed themselves but were too busy and conservative to build in their home factories, where they’re still
turning out the old models. It’s all they’re tooled up for. When that chap Hawkmoon turned up he was still alive, he gave
heart to millions. He must be a pretty amazing person. Everyone but the Empire thinks he’s the cat’s meow. Even Meliadus is
scared of him.”

Jack’s features were expressive. He had learned to hate and to control his hatred in a way I’d never had to. “From what I
heard before my sister got me away, he’s got them off balance. They’re still trying to get their breath back. A year ago they
wouldn’t have believed they would have to worry about all these guys banding together
against them. Up to then they’d had a lot of success with their divide-and-rule policies.”

“How do you know all this? Just from listening?”

“Sharp ears, I told you. I’ve been luckier than you. Because I’m blind, even Klosterheim and von Minct talk in front of me.
They think I’m deaf, too.” He grinned. “But they keep quiet about meaning to sacrifice us to one of their gods, if that’s
what they’re up to. Funny. I thought they were atheists.”

There wasn’t any point in telling him more of what I knew. At least, not yet. Why scare him? But it was on the tip of my tongue
more than once to reveal the grimmer truth. Of course, I was also a bit mixed up about their motives. “Anyway,” I said, “we’re
valuable to them. They could have killed us at any time. How did
you
get away?”

“Oona found me eventually and brought me here. The London Eye’s the secret, all right. I don’t think I ever want to ride another
Ferris wheel again. You wait for hours to get on, and then there’s just a mild sensation of going up and down. Then you get
off and you’re in Mirenburg or here or somewhere. I suppose it’s cheaper than running a plane of your own. I’d love to find
out what that was all about.”

“Well,” I said a bit harshly, “we might soon. I know they are ruthless and cruel. They’d kill us at the drop of a hat if they
felt like it, but right now they need us a lot more than we need them.”

“I wonder why,” he mused. “I mean, apart from throwing fits in the middle of Oxford Street shops and hearing voices in swords,
I’m not exactly much good for anything.” He grinned into the middle distance. “They don’t think I’ve got royal blood, do they?
Why sacrifice
us?
We’re not especially important. Apart from Oona, I
haven’t got any family. All my friends have been killed. My sister’s the only one looking out for me.” He laughed again. “Klosterheim
really didn’t expect her to turn up. He thought she was dead. She must have followed him here. Now we’ll wait and do what
she tells us. If anyone can beat ‘em, she can. She’s playing a tricky game, I reckon.”

“So are they,” I said. “She’s a brave woman, isn’t she?”

“A bloody diamond,” he agreed.

After that, neither of us had any clear idea how much time passed. When we got hungry, we ate from the small store of food
and water Oona left us. We slept on piles of old fabric and talked about our lives. Jack said that Oona had called him Onric
when she first recognized him. Their mother had gone off, he said, though he was unclear why and where. He repeated how he
and Oona had lived together in a country cottage for a while, when they were little, in the days before he was blinded. It
had been some sort of explosion, he thought. For a while he remembered only darkness and confusion. “It was like I was blown
out of one world into another. One time into another.” Maybe his father had rescued him … He next wound up in Bristol, adopted
by a junkie named Rachel Acker, who kept him as a sort of talisman. She claimed he was her son. They both knew she was lying,
but he got his food and keep, and she got her heroin. He said she was sweet to him when she wasn’t totally out of it. Then
Social Services discovered them and wanted to take him in, so she took him and ran off to Oxford first and then London. He
and Rachel worked out a reasonably unambitious little shoplifting scheme, which kept them going for some time, but eventually
Rachel disappeared, probably over
dosing somewhere. And that’s when McTalbayne had recruited him.

I asked him what he thought of being part of a gang run by a modern Fagin, and he laughed. “It beats being banged up in some
orphanage. I’ve heard about those places, and I know what they do to you. At least I was my own boss. Well, partly. It’s important
to be your own boss. McTalbayne says it’s the secret of the British Empire’s success, our will to entrepreneurism.” He shook
his head. “What do you reckon? Is this lot here”—sightlessly he lifted his head and waved his arms to indicate, I supposed,
the whole of Granbretan—“I mean, are they the best the British can be?”

I think this was an argument he had been having with himself. He didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t think of an answer.

“Don’t worry, kid,” he said, lowering his arms. “I’m not barmy. I’m just getting bored and sick of this smelly hole. Do you
think she’s been caught and isn’t coming back?”

I had to admit I feared the worst. We were running out of candles. What food there was didn’t taste very good anymore, and
by the next meal we would have no water. “It’s got to have been a couple of days, at least,” I told him. “Maybe we should
do what she told us to do and head for the river. She seemed to think we’d know what to do. But there’s no Ferris wheel anymore,
is there?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe she has friends who’ll know us.” He felt his way to the far wall and cocked his head, listening as I
dragged stuff away from the little secret door. “Where does that lead to?”

“Somewhere better than this,” I said. “It couldn’t be
worse, could it? I don’t want to starve to death in here, do you?”

He agreed enthusiastically. Since we didn’t know where our next meal was coming from, we decided to wait until there was nothing
left to eat or drink. “I think our best bet is down there, from what I’ve heard,” he said. “It’s supposed to be full of escaped
slaves, crooks and old con men, but I bet it’s not a patch on what I was used to…”

“No cardboard boxes?” I asked a bit nastily. And he laughed.

I took his hand.

I became increasingly convinced that my grandmother had been captured or dangerously delayed. Soon after I made up my mind
that she probably wasn’t coming back for us, there was a thump on the outside door. Nobody came in, but I heard guttural voices,
the clank of armored men. A search party! The snuffling of large dogs. Another thump. Guards in conference. They were going
to find a key and come back. We now had no choice.

I took the two remaining candles from the shelf. Jack held them while I wound as much spare fabric as I could around both
of us, in case we needed to keep warm. Then I opened the tiny back door, pushed Jack through and clambered in myself, pulling
it and other stuff behind me. I hoped the searchers wouldn’t necessarily guess we had been there.

The passage fell away steeply. It was dank, smelling strongly of foul water. From the fresh scrapes on the walls and floor,
probably my grandmother had been there at some earlier point. The path was so slippery that we found ourselves sliding quite
rapidly downwards, almost like a helter-skelter, as the corridor curved and
twisted radically. It must have been some kind of old garbage chute, as it still smelled of what had been poured through it.