by Rob Kinsman
It only took another mile of walking before Zoe realised that she was going to have to ‘borrow’ a bike. It was crazy trying to cross somewhere the size of London without transport, and after her experience at the hospital she felt her good Samaritan days – or minutes, really – were behind her. It didn’t take long to find a bike which hadn’t been locked securely enough.
Gliding through the largely deserted streets on a push bike made her feel like the heroine of a particularly low-budget road movie. Admittedly her top speed was hardly going to be the stuff of legend, though she did feel a guilty flush of pleasure as she jumped through red light after red light.
An hour later she found herself outside a large house locked behind great steel gates. It was the kind of place that probably had mere millionaires living in the shed; you’d have to be seriously rich to own a house like this. Not that the person she was looking for would be the legal owner.
She pressed the buzzer. Predictably, there was no answer.
The fence was high, but Zoe wasn’t going to let this stop her. She started scrambling up the wrought-iron gate… only to find the damned thing was unlocked. It swung open, taking her with it.
If Nick is here, please say he didn’t just see that.
Zoe climbed down off the newly positioned gate and headed towards the house with as much dignity as she could muster.
The front door was also unlocked. It led into a chic modern hall, all wooden floors and tastefully expensive pieces of art. It was part of the ‘other’ London, one so-very-far away from Zoe’s own flat. Room after room proved to be ostentatious, wealthy, classy. And empty. The beds hadn’t been slept in, and even the wet-room was dry. The size and scale of the house was slightly overwhelming, the kind of place Zoe’s mother would no doubt approve of. But to Zoe it felt dead and lifeless. There weren’t even any personal photos.
Just like the flat Nick took me to.
She could picture Nick preparing this new ‘home’ without much strain of the imagination. Somehow he would have found out it was going to be empty, worked out how to disable the alarms and, hey presto, a luxury shag pad for the week. But he’d have to take down any family photos, anything that would hint too strongly that he wasn’t meant to be there. Otherwise maybe the gullible idiots he’d taken back there for a meaningless fuck might smell a rat.
Gullible idiots like me.
So now came the question of what she was going to do next. Somebody had clearly been here, or why were the doors unlocked. But were they gone for good? Probably, especially now there was the whole of London to choose from. The best thing to do would be to get back to Maja and make sure she was alright.
But damn, the sofa was comfy.
“Hello Zo.”
Zoe was in that halfway stage between wake and sleep where she couldn’t tell what was real and what was fantasy. The figure who’d spoken was casually slumped on the armchair opposite her. Zoe rubbed her eyes.
“Don’t call me Zo.”
The man held his hands up in apology. Zoe was still feeling a little lightheaded, but gave herself a moment to come round. The man – Nick, or whatever he called himself – seemed in no rush.
Zoe sat as upright as possible on a sofa that felt like it was made of cotton wool. The bags under Nick’s eyes were monstrously heavy; Zoe dreaded to think what cocktail of stimulants he was having to put into his body in order to stay awake. He casually lit a cigarette. Every fibre of Zoe’s being wanted to scream at him to put it out – it didn’t smell like the home of smokers – but she kept her peace.
“Did you kill my neighbour?”
“No.”
“I left you alone in my flat. When I got home there was a dead man in the living room, and you were nowhere to be found.”
“The man who attacked us killed him. It’s what he does.”
Zoe’s jaw locked tight, as she attempted to keep her emotions in check. “I saw his face on the back of a leaflet yesterday. He's not exactly keeping a low profile.”
“I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can.” Zoe was less certain that she was going to believe a word he said.
“His name is Thomas Knight and he’s a very dangerous man,” said Nick insistently. “I was there when he came to your flat. Your neighbour interrupted, that’s why I’m still alive.”
Zoe felt a cool shiver trickle down her back. “How did he know where I live?”
“We’re drawn to you. It’s how I found you. How your neighbour did.”
Zoe had long suspected she was a magnet for weirdoes. This was the first time the weirdoes had confirmed they were keeping up their end of the bargain.
“You knew he was dangerous, and you ran away.”
“I made sure he followed me. It was the only way I could be sure you were safe.”
“Very noble of you.”
Nick watched her face, considering for a long time.
“You really don’t remember, do you?” he said.
“Remember what?”
“Him. Us. Any of it?”
“I think you’re ill.” Zoe’s voice was small and weak. A sad truth rather than an accusation.
“You don’t have the dream,” said Nick calmly.
Caught unawares, Zoe felt the possible lies and protestation rising up within her, ready to go into battle. But she was too weary.
“How did you know?”
His tired eyes glistened.
“I forgot as well, at first. It’s been coming back to me in scraps, clearer each time I sleep. When I met you I wasn’t sure if what I remembered was real. I waited for you to show some sign that you recognised me, but you never did.”
“Will you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Nick rubbed his eyes. Sleep was starting to win the battle.
“You’re Amelia.”
“Sorry, you must be thinking of some other girl you were seeing.” Her sarcasm sounded hollow and unconvincing. She withered under the calm look of certainty on his face.
“We knew each other before. We were lovers.”
From the moment she’d met him, Zoe had known there was something special about Nick. That they had some kind of connection.
She felt herself getting sucked into his madness.
“When?”
“Before this place even existed. The castle, the world it’s in, that’s not the dream.” Nick gestured around the room. “This is.”
Thirteen
The rogue sat outside the cave, waiting for the queen to wake. He sucked in slow breaths of crisp air, looking out across the sweeping plains. The castle was still visible, even from this distance. It was the heart of the kingdom and the home of all who’d call themselves civilised. The surrounding towns had been swept away in a different age, the immortal king demanding that all those faithful to him remain within his fortress’s walls.
Just down the slope, the jester was trying to talk to a rabbit. If he could only catch, skin and cook it then at least he’d be of some use to us, mused the rogue. The jester’s passage with them had been secured by helping the lovers escape the castle, but now they were in the wastelands he seemed more a hindrance than a help. However, the queen had insisted that they keep up their end of the bargain, so for now the jester travelled with them.
The rogue, Nicholas, had been awake for hours, and had watched the purple suns rise over the horizon. It was a sight he’d rarely seen before: the external windows in the castle had been few and far between, and they were rarely available to even a man with his considerable powers of persuasion.
Finally the queen emerged from the dark hole of the cave.
“Surely we could have brought pillows with us?” she said, stretching out her stiff muscles. Nicholas smiled, the queen probably hadn’t slept on anything less than the finest feather mattresses for many years. He wasn’t sure if she’d truly realised that those days were now firmly behind her; the cold stone floor of the cave was the best they could expect for some time to come.
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br /> The queen frowned as she saw the jester making conversation with the rabbit.
“Can he really talk to the beasts?”
“Oh course,” sighed Nicholas. “They don’t talk back, but that doesn’t stop him.”
The jester’s mind had been addled by moon juice in his youth, leaving his brain scarred and rotten. Sometimes the rogue envied him for it since he seemed capable of taking pleasure from the simplest things. He’d once spent an entire weekend beguiled by a ball of string, long past the point where even a kitten would have wandered off.
“Did you have the sleep story last night?” asked Nicholas. The queen nodded, the memory still fresh. Nicholas glowed with anticipation. “What was it like?”
“I saw a world of impossible things. Of fantastical creations even the mages of the inner sanctum couldn’t imagine. There were carriages that travelled without horses. And devices which carried voices and pictures across great distances.”
Her voice held the wonder of such things, and Nicholas was fascinated by every tiny detail. Sleep stories were banned throughout the kingdom, the penalty for having them the executioner’s axe. However, for many moons the queen had found her sleep disturbed by visions of a wondrous land. The king wouldn’t hesitate to crush the life out of even his own wife if he knew, so fanatical was his need for absolute power. Fortunately his indifference to the people around him left the king blind to the clues she unwittingly gave away. The rogue had far sharper eyes.
For as long as anyone could remember, people had debated the cause of the sleep stories. More superstitious folk, especially in the outer kingdom, believed them to be visions of distant lands beyond the great oceans. Some felt they were a portal into the dark places of the soul where the demon king held sway. The more progressive thinkers in the College of Philosophy and Enlightenment had suggested that perhaps they were a soup of ideas gleaned from an individual’s experience and memories. The differences in opinion were academic anyway. In most families it bad been several generations since anyone had experienced a sleep story, and only the king remembered a time when they were common. The occasional misfits who were born with that forgotten gift were given a swift and fatal punishment.
“We should move soon,” said Nicholas. “The king’s men won’t rest once the hunt begins.”
The queen nodded, although something still troubled her.
“Nicholas?”
“Yes?”
“You do love me, don’t you?”
He fixed her with his sparkling eyes.
“We’ve come this far, how can you doubt it?”
He wished he had better words to say how he truly felt. The rogue had whispered sweet syllables of love to some of the castle’s greatest beauties, but his utterances had always been just another weapon is his armoury. On the rare occasion when he was being honest, speaking from his heart, his language was awkward and clumsy.
“We have done the right thing?” said the queen.
“We’ve done the only thing we could.”
The queen considered for a moment, then seemed to accept this. It was no surprise that she was wary, the rogue’s reputation preceded him. He’d stolen the hearts of more than a few of the ladies at court, and rumour had it a number of lords as well. Despite his charm being legendary, people still fell for it time and time again. Whispered rumours over soft pillows had kept him safe: Nicholas knew where the, sometimes literal, bodies were buried for over half the inner council. He’d let it be known that every scandalous detail was written in ink, ready to be released to the world if anything should happen to him. Even so, by anyone’s standards eloping with the queen was crossing the line.
It had started as a bit of banter, some gentle teasing when others weren’t in earshot. The queen had tried to warn him off him by threatening to have him executed if he carried on, but that only seemed to encourage him. Gradually she learnt to see past the games and to realise that there was a decent man lurking beneath all the swagger, one whose fight for acceptance had been no less great than her own. He was the son of a blacksmith who arrived at court feigning being the descendent of a line of exotic spice traders. She had stumbled across proof of his secret one day, but remained silent about it. Even the rogue himself was unaware she knew the truth of his less than illustrious upbringing. In many ways it gave the queen newfound respect for him. He had his flaws, to be sure – he hid his vulnerability behind a wall of charm and sweet words – but at least there was something real about him. He made her feel alive. She wasn’t sure the king had ever made her feel anything at all.
The turning point in their relationship, when they stopped being able to pretend it was all just a harmless game, had come when the queen arrived at one of their secret liaisons in tears. Although she had pretended that it was nothing serious, merely the result of some interminable court politics, Nicholas recognised the look of a secret burden when he saw it. He’d made her feel at ease by confiding some minor misdemeanours of his own, hoping to set her at ease. The rogue had a gift for making even the most anxious person feel like they were confiding in their closest friend, but even he had been surprised when the queen had blurted out the fact that she had been experiencing sleep stories.
She’d told him that at first they’d been a comfort to her, a way to escape the life that had made her so miserable. All the women in the kingdom envied her place beside the king, yet she would have gladly swapped lives with a kitchen maid if it stopped her feeling like her veins were slowly filling with stone. The sleep stories were so intoxicating that it made the terrible fear that waking brought all the more acute. She hadn’t slept in the same chamber as her husband since their wedding night, but she lived in constant fear of the day when she would slip up and reveal her secret.
When she had admitted the truth to the rogue, it stirred something in him. On the whole he wasn’t a man given to selfless acts, but there was enough compassion in him to see that the queen’s burden would eventually eat away at her until there was nothing left. It was an even greater surprise to realise that the thought of life without her seemed bleak and empty. As she spoke of her dilemma he realised there was a vital spirit buried beneath the brittle exterior she had shielded herself in. If the rogue had been a less rational man he might even have called what he was now feeling love.
They continued meeting in secret, and gradually her burden became a secret that brought them ever closer together. Whenever she left their encounters he could see part of her dying, realising she would have to resume the deception until their next few stolen moments together. The rogue also began to loath their time apart, the changing faces spouting the same court gossip at him seemed increasingly tiresome.
Eventually he had decided enough was enough. He promised her they would leave this life behind them and head out into the wild lands beyond the castle. It was a dangerous idea, perhaps foolhardy. He didn’t care.
The lovers wouldn’t be able to run forever, of course. The king’s influence was weaker the further one got from the castle, but he was a relentless fanatic. His men would doubtless follow the renegades to the very edge of the world if needs be. However, the queen’s special gift presented them with the possibility of a safe life together. Out in the wild lands there were rumours of people who understood how to harness the power of sleep stories, to make their phantom worlds solid and real. In short, they could create a place where the lovers could live together without fear of discovery.
As their musings developed from an impossibility into something resembling an actual plan they were overcome by a rush they hadn’t felt in years. For Nicholas life had become stale and meaningless, risks that would seem outlandish to others now just part of an endless routine of seduction and blackmail. Suddenly life had meaning again, and he had found it not in the reflection of stolen gold but in the eyes of another person. Meanwhile, the queen began to sparkle like a different person. A chapter of her life was about to close, and a thrilling new book would be written.
They had
been forced to enlist the jester’s help – he was the one person with access to the royal quarters who lacked the wits to betray them. Better still, he was fiercely loyal to the queen. She had always treated him well, seeing him as more than the carnival sideshow her husband treated him as.
Twenty moons later and here they were, striking out from all that was once familiar. But however lofty their plans for the future were, for now life would be rough. Food was sparse, comfort even more so. The rogue was sure the queen would adjust in time. If the price for feeling alive was sleeping on a stone floor then it was surely one worth paying.
“Let’s load up the horses,” said Nicholas, standing. “We’ve dallied here too long.”
“I need to pray to the forty-seven Gods first.”
“All of them?”
“It is my duty, on behalf of my people.”
“They aren’t your people any more, Your Highness. And we haven’t got time for you to offer prayers. We need to move.”
The queen shovelled the few possessions she’d brought with her back into the saddle bag. The rogue frowned, bemused.
“Why did you bring jewellery?”
She smiled, coyly tilting her head to the side.
“You want me to look nice, don’t you?
“We’re won’t be going to any balls.”
“We’ll need money. We can sell them.” She held out a golden necklace in the shape of a fire lizard. “This alone could is worth a whole row of houses in the outer regions.”
“And who do you think is going to have enough coin to buy it?”
She had no answer for that.
“Pack them away, Your Highness,” said Nicholas, with a wry smile. “If nothing else, we’ll be the richest starving wretches in the whole kingdom.”
“Stop calling me Your Highness.”
“Let’s get moving, Amelia. We need to escape this realm before your husband’s men come knocking.”
They packed the horses and left the cave behind, the three travellers heading ever deeper into the outer reaches of the kingdom.