by Rob Kinsman
She opened her mouth to speak, but the roar of questions didn’t stop.
They could at least let me bloody answer!
She held her hand up. Gradually hush descended.
“I know you’ve all come here because you think I have answers,” she said. “I don’t. I know the woman in the dream looked like me, but it’s just coincidence. I’m nothing special.”
The questions started again, a noisy monster which drowned her out. She strode forwards, the crowd barely parting enough for her to get through. Her words were meaningless. People wanted a scapegoat, and it looked like it was going to be her.
On and on, the accusations and questions. As Zoe moved away from the church, the ocean of people followed her. Making the most of the opportunity, Nick slipped out unnoticed. Ruth and Arthur joined the back of the crowd as Nick quickly disappeared into the shadows.
Zoe was followed down the High Street as if she was an enchanted pied piper, albeit one that attracted nut jobs. Eventually she came to her parents’ house and ducked inside.
Her father was sitting in his armchair, staring at the sports on the telly.
“Didn’t know you were back,” he told her.
“You didn’t come.” Zoe’s voice was small, hurt.
“Come where?” He saw the advance party gathering around the window. Zoe closed the curtains. “What’s going on? Who are they?”
“Didn’t mum tell you?”
“Said she was going to the shop. Be a love, will you, fetch me a beer from the fridge. My bad leg, you know.” He tapped his leg as if this would prove something other than the fact that he had a leg.
Zoe fetched him his beer then shut herself away in the bedroom.
The light was just starting to fade. Peering out through the crack in the curtains, Zoe could see a sizeable crowd camped out around the house.
What do they all want from me?
She was about to go back to the bed, put on headphones and pretend the world didn’t exist when something caught her eye. Two figures standing apart from the rest. She could swear that one of them was Nick, talking to someone she couldn’t make out.
One of the photographers spotted her and the street was soon lit up with camera flashes. Zoe ducked back behind the curtains. She stayed there for some time, her mind ticking over.
Who was he talking to?
After another hour or so the crowd seemed to calm down, finding places to perch and wait. There was a gentle tap on the bedroom door. It opened a crack and Ruth pushed a plate of food through, as if feeding a prisoner.
Which is exactly what I am now.
Zoe picked at the food, forcing herself to eat some of it, even though she had no appetite. She felt like she’d never want to eat again. Afterwards, she tried to distract herself by reading a novel, but just found herself staring at the words without taking in their meaning. Abandoning that, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. It was equally fruitless.
A noise distracted her. Moving close to the door so she could hear better, she made out the sound of her parents shouting at each other downstairs. George seemed genuinely upset that Ruth had gone to the church without telling him.
“I haven’t consulted you on anything since you suggested we move to this ridiculous village,” Ruth shouted.
“That was over thirty years ago!”
“Exactly.”
The hours passed in a haze. At one point Zoe thought she’d had a dream where she was lying on her bed, unable to sleep, but wasn’t sure if this was just because she was lying on her bed, unable to sleep.
She turned on her phone. There was dozens of missed calls, and plenty of new, abusive text messages. Nick wouldn’t call on this number, someone was certain to have tapped it by now. She turned it off again, just as something to do.
Some unknowable amount of time later she drifted off again. This time she had a proper dream in which she’d joined the cast of Les Miserables. She was about to sing her big song when she realised she had the voice of Barry White. As the people around her started dying on the barricade she belted out a smooth disco classic. The audience, who were composed entirely of clones of her parents, stared at her blankly.
When she woke up she stretched, rolled off the bed and peeked through the gap in the curtains. This time she didn’t try and hide what she was doing, knowing the voyeurs gathered outside would be waiting for moments of curiosity like this. She let the bulbs flash in her face. Once everyone had got their shots the blasts of light died down and she could see the crowd again. So many people here just because she’d appeared in their stupid dream. She wondered if one of them was a man from another reality who wanted to kill her. She also wondered if she was just losing her mind.
A devilish urge nagged away at her. The crowd, possibly the whole world, were waiting for her to tell them something. It would be easy to invent some words of wisdom, a command from the dream world for the people of Earth. She let the idle fantasy dwell a while before it sank naturally away. With nowhere to go, she crumpled back into the bed. Her parents had moved to their bedroom but resumed their arguing.
She let the sound of it fade away as she slept again.
It felt like only minutes had passed when she woke. The walls seemed to be closing in on her. Suddenly this room, this whole house, felt painfully small. She was going to have to get some air. Even if a hundred people surrounded her, she wasn’t going to stay cooped up in here like a criminal.
“Where are you going?”
She recoiled, caught unawares. Nick was sitting in the darkness at the corner of the room.
“How long have you been there?” He didn’t answer. “How did you get in? There’s dozens of them watching the house.”
“I told you, this is a dream. Crazy things happen.”
“And I told you, I don’t believe you.”
“I came in round the back.”
“They’re there as well.”
“I made a deal with them. Promised an exclusive.”
Something about his intense attitude set alarm bells ringing.
“The door was locked.”
“Not to a pro.”
“And nobody tried to stop you?”
“No. Bastards, aren’t they?”
Zoe straightened, trying to make it look like she wasn’t frightened.
“A few hours ago you smashed a man’s camera because you didn’t want anyone to see your face. Now you’re breaking into my house with half the world’s press watching.”
“Things have changed, it’s too late for them to arrest me now. Sit down. I need to tell you the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
She already knew the answer.
“Of how we got here,” he said.
“This is something you already knew when we were in the church?”
“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you. But, like I said, circumstances have changed.”
“How?”
He smiled at her. She felt a cool shiver trickle down her spine.
“I just want to explain it all to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
He eyed her, a gambler sizing up his opponent.
“Don’t you want to know why you can’t remember that other life we led?”
He knew that there was no way she’d be able to resist this. She was desperate for some version of events which she could believe in, whatever the risk.
Zoe pulled a chair over, making a point of sitting near the door. If things turned nasty, maybe she’d be able to get downstairs. Surely even the vultures outside wouldn’t let something terrible happen to her while they all watched.
Actually, they’d probably love it.
“Go on then. Tell me.”
Nineteen
As the rogue left town he thought he heard his name whispered in the crowd outside one of the gin palaces. He knew the game well enough not to turn and give himself away, but it worried him
nonetheless.
Amelia and Sidonius were waiting at the appointed intersection between two dirt roads. Amelia made no attempt to disguise her surprise at the sight of Nicholas walking towards them.
“You came back then?” she said, her eyebrow arched.
“Why aren’t you under cover?”
“You told us to wait here.”
“Not in full sight of anyone passing by!”
“And where would you suggest we hide?”
The queen gestured to the empty miles of flat land around them. Nicholas bit the inside of his cheeks to prevent his tongue saying anything rash. While he had been trained in the art of avoiding prying eyes, he couldn’t expect the same of his companions. Still, they were going to need to be more resourceful than this if they were to escape alive.
“Where did you go?” demanded the queen.
“I had to get directions.”
“Who from?”
Nicholas hesitated. “People we can’t discuss. This way.”
He pushed his horse onwards. He only got half a dozen steps before he realised the queen hadn’t followed. The jester lurked motionless behind her, a faithful hound. Nicholas turned his horse back to face them.
“Have you been to these lands before?” asked Amelia, suspicious.
“We can’t wait here.”
“How did you know who to ask?”
Seeing that she was in a particularly immovable and stubborn mood, Nicholas relented.
“I was born here.”
“People from the wild lands aren’t allowed to enter the castle.”
“The castle has many doors.”
Their eyes met. The rogue, an astute judge of human nature, realised that the queen’s delay was as much punishment for his abandoning them as genuine curiosity.
“We have to get off the road,” he pleaded. “I’ll answer your questions later.”
The queen nodded at Sidonius, and finally their small train began to move. By the time darkness cloaked the land they had left the hellish town of Ramford far behind.
That night they made camp in the foot of the hills which contained the mana caves. Although the rogue would have preferred to rest within the safety of their stone walls this would involve doubling back on themselves in the morning. It would add too much time to their journey, giving the king’s men a chance to gain on them. If it proved to be a foolhardy decision they would surely know before long.
As the rogue had predicted, Amelia was swift to ask him about his past. He told her tales of growing up in a backwater, dreaming of life in the castle but knowing that it wasn’t possible for a man of his birth. But one day a traveller came to town, offering to sell jewelled artefacts of the highest quality. Nicholas soon realised the true value of these trinkets wasn’t their value in coin but the information their very existence spoke of. Even the finest jeweller in the waste lands would be unable to craft something of such exquisite beauty, which meant that they could only have been wrought in the forges of the castle.
Nicholas, who was by then approaching manhood, approached the traveller in a tavern that night and asked to share in his secret. If it was possible to leave the castle with these treasures then it was surely also possible to enter it the same way. The traveller dismissed him at first, but soon saw the determination that had gripped this young fortune hunter. By the time the moon had sunk behind distant hills Nicholas was making plans to accompany the traveller back to the castle. In exchange for this precious knowledge the youth had agreed to part with half of any wealth he made from that point on. Although it seemed a high price, he would have gladly paid considerably more for the chance of a life away from this sewer of a town. It was the first and most important deal he ever made. And, true to his word, he had faithfully paid his dues until the day the traveller was caught and executed. In that moment the rogue both became a man and lost the only person he had ever really trusted.
Nicholas finished telling Amelia his tale, then told them he needed rest. As their fire died, he laid on his side and made motions of going to sleep. Soon after he felt a body press up against him from behind, which mercifully turned out to be Amelia and not Sidonius.
She held him tight that night, but the rogue was a man who always slept with one eye open. He could sense that she was also awake, considering his story, no doubt questioning whether he had told her the truth. He didn’t blame her. He’d told his tale so many times that even he was unsure how much of it had started life in fact. Nicholas loved the queen, but some secrets should never pass one’s lips.
“Do you really know where we’re going?” asked Amelia.
Nicholas realised that to an untrained eye they appeared to have spent much of the morning chasing their own tails around the featureless plains. He insisted that he did, and he spoke true: the path towards the people they were seeking wouldn’t be indicated on any map. This was a journey that relied on magic and ritual, the road ahead being neither in front of them nor to the side. This particular description fell on deaf ears.
“But we definitely passed within sight of that mountain before.”
“Trust me.”
By the time the sun was at its apex, they appeared to have made little progress, although to the rogue the signs were as clear as any river or tree. The already parched air was becoming hotter, the sound of the horses’ hooves against the ground subtly changed. The rogue remained on edge, a pursuer with a keen eye would be able to see for miles across this flat ground.
In the spirit of making a bad situation truly unbearable, Sidonius began singing some ancient ditty about a boy who fell in love with a camel. The song consisted of nineteen verses, and he was only on his third cycle of the wretched piece before Amelia snapped and promised to murder him where he stood. The rogue smirked.
They travelled in increasingly enigmatic directions for a further four hours before the sandstorm hit them. It began gently, but within minutes the circling grains of sand were stinging their face like pebbles.
“We need to shelter somewhere,” barked Amelia.
“No. Dismount. From here we walk.”
“Are you mad? What will we do with the horses?”
“Their journey is complete. If they go on the sand will kill them.”
“Or us.”
Nicholas swung down off his horse, retrieved his pack, and ushered his horse away. Amelia remained stationary, as if suddenly fearing that the real enemy had been with her the whole time.
“This is the only way we can be together,” pleaded Nicholas.
She seemed to look through him, as if trying to peer into his soul; questioning whether his love for her had been nothing more than a convenience. Realising what she was thinking calmed him, because for once there was no deception. He met her gaze.
Amelia dismounted, took what she could carry, and sent her own horse away. Nicholas didn’t want to think how much time they would now waste persuading the jester to do the same.
“Sidonius, perhaps you should return to the castle,” said Amelia, with the kindness of someone tending a wounded animal.
To everyone’s surprise the jester hopped off his mule, detached his pack and gave the beast a perhaps unnecessary kick. It scuttled off.
Now beyond the point of no return, Nicholas’s companions had no choice but to follow him deeper into the storm. He pushed forwards, his hand across his eyes.
Gradually the flying particles of sand began to thicken, until it was a thick soup. Nicholas could feel his energy being sapped with every step. He reached back and grasped for Amelia’s hand.
“Keep hold. And grab him.”
Amelia grabbed hold of Sidonius and followed Nicholas. Before long every step felt like trying to push through a solid wall. The three companions, linked only by ever weakening hands, kept going.
It was time.
Nicholas muttered the chant he had learnt in the temple. An ancient command from a period when words could be keys to other places.
Nothing happened.
And then he realised.
“I need you to say something.”
Amelia couldn’t speak. Every ounce of strength she had left was being used to prevent her body from buckling. The jester’s hand slid from her tired fingers. Sidonius rasped a noise unknown to any language, before being engulfed by the storm.
Amelia’s eyes bulged in panic. Nicholas tightened his grip on her. Without her none of them were going to get out of this alive.
“Do as I say,” he commanded. “Speak these words.”
He told her the chant. Amelia mumbled the mantra half-heartedly, wondering if she was wasting her final breath on these nonsensical ramblings. But she had a gift which connected her with this ancient magic, a skill which had been bred out of her companions.
The change was gradual, but any lessening in the power of the storm was welcome. The wind began to blow a calm space within the swirling sands, a safe haven from the shifting walls that surrounded them. Amelia looked back, relieved to see that Sidonius hadn’t fallen beyond the boundaries cleared by the winds. She rushed over to check he was alright.
Nicholas scanned their new environment. He fixed his sight for some time on each area, knowing that the circling sands would make anything in front of them all but invisible.
“There’s nothing here,” said Amelia despondently.
But the rogue’s keen eyes had seen something that she hadn’t: a figure moving towards them. As it got closer they finally made out the shape of a woman dressed in simple cloth. She was both ancient and beautiful, her eyes full of deep wisdom.