by S J Howland
Xander nodded, his opinion of the younger Thorne clear on his face.
‘I won’t say anything,’ he promised.
Ari smiled. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, evidently relieved to be changing the subject. ‘Since you’ve done so well with the basics, I’ll show you an offensive ward. With these border breaches and your previous history as an unrestrained shade-magnet, it’s probably not a bad thing for you to learn.’
Xander straightened up, his eagerness evident on his face and Ari laughed. She jumped down from the stone and came to stand behind him, reaching out to take his left hand in hers.
‘This type of ward is hard to describe,’ she said, over his shoulder. ‘I’ll just do it and I want you to feel it through your own orb, okay?’
Xander nodded his head, and then felt her make a throwing motion with their joined hands. The sudden rush of energy reflected through his own orb startled him, and then made him smile with delight, as an arc of brilliant light illuminated the old tower in front of him, vividly highlighting every little crack and flaw in the stone. Ari let go of his hand and he turned to face her, his eyes alight.
‘That was amazing,’ he burst out. ‘Can I try that?’
Ari grinned at him. ‘You may, as long as you make sure you’re directing the ward at inanimate objects, okay? This is for dealing with shades, not people that annoy you.’ She gave him a mock severe look, and he laughed. He was about to attempt the warding technique for himself when Ari’s orb chimed rapidly, and immediately her expression became serious.
‘Sorry, Xander, I have to go,’ she said. ‘Hold on and I’ll jump you back. You can feel how I do that, although don’t try by yourself yet, for Haven’s sake. You’re not ready for it.’
Disappointed by the abrupt end of his lesson, Xander reached out to grip her outstretched arm again. This time however, with his new experience of feeling her orb in action, he tried to pay attention to what she was doing when she jumped, and felt again that faint reflection through his orb. Despite Ari’s cautionary words, the technique felt quite clear to Xander and he wondered when he would be allowed to try for himself. A moment, and a sharp lurch, later they were back at Woodside and Ari was turning away, with a hasty goodbye before vanishing once again. With a wistful look at the empty space on the terrace where she had stood an instant ago, Xander turned towards the kitchen to find Ollie and Len, and update them on the latest information.
*
Over the next couple of days Xander trained hard, practicing all of the things that Ari had shown him, sometimes alone and other times accompanied by Ollie or Len. They endlessly re-hashed the few clues they had about why the hobs had given Xander the unusual orb, and the strange messages from the ancient terminal in the Halls. Ollie, inspired by the bright, powerful wards that Xander could now produce, had taken to practising himself with the more limited wards that synthetic orbs were capable of creating. Unfortunately his results were somewhat erratic, and Ollie’s coding sometimes looked as though it would fizzle out entirely.
However, even as Xander’s confidence grew in his new-found skills with his orb, the news continued to get worse on the stability of the border. The Travellers, who had hitherto enjoyed a fairly leisurely existence in terms of defending the border, were now rather stretched in finding people with the necessary skills to deploy to vulnerable areas. The few times that Xander saw Flint at Woodside, his demeanour was worried and forbidding, and he was even more unapproachable than usual.
Meanwhile, Xander was becoming increasingly convinced that the messages were referring to the hobs’ Core, while Len absolutely disagreed with this conclusion.
‘Think about it, Len,’ Xander said to her, as they sat out in the garden after lunch while the adults spoke in worried undertones in the kitchen. ‘You’ve been there. It’s surrounded by water and the whole power core is made of crystal rock. The message said ‘rock upon the water where the power lies’; it’s obvious that it means the Core.’
‘It’s not obvious at all,’ retorted Len stubbornly. ‘And what about the other clues? It’s deep underground – how can stars lead the way there?’
Xander scowled at her, but Ollie suddenly sat bolt upright with the look of one who saw visions. ‘The tunnel to the hobs’ Core,’ he blurted out. ‘Don’t you remember? When we walked through it, the glowstone made it look like the walls were covered in stars. Couldn’t it be that?’
Xander beamed at him.
‘You’re right,’ he said, filled with sudden certainty. ‘We were led by the stars to the hobs’ Core. That’s brilliant, Ollie.’
Ollie grinned in pleasure at Xander’s enthusiasm but Len shook her head, still unconvinced.
‘That’s a total stretch,’ she said, with a mulish expression. ‘And what about the other stuff? Where are ‘the marks of the kin’?’
Xander brushed that away.
‘Their ‘kin’ are goblin-kind,’ he said firmly. ‘They probably have marks all over the place that we don’t recognise. They said I could heal the blight and speak to the stone, and that’s why they gave me the orb. I think Thorne and Larcius want to take over using the Nexus, and they’ll be able to if the hobs’ Core is out of the way. Probably they’re even involved in sabotaging it – the hobs did say that the contagion is coming from the Nexus.’ Idly, he plucked some grass stems and sent them whirling up into the air, before showering them down on Len’s head. ‘Maybe you’re just peeved because you didn’t think of it yourself.’
Len rose to her feet with great dignity and stared down at him.
‘Or maybe you’re a show-off who doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.’
She stuck her nose in the air and stalked off, leaving Ollie and Xander to exchange quick grins.
Xander stood up as well, feeling a sudden sense of urgency in honing his skills with his orb. ‘I’m just going to head over to the Folly to practice lifting and offensive warding,’ he told Ollie. ‘I’ll be back before supper, okay?’
Ollie laughed. ‘Wise decision,’ he said. ‘She might have calmed down by that time. Or, of course, she may have spent the afternoon stuffing your bed with frogs.’
*
His training session had proved very successful, and he could now handle several of the great stone blocks with ease, but Xander, frowning up at the darkening sky as he hurried back along the track, couldn’t help wishing he had paid closer attention to the weather. Ominous-looking black clouds were massing heavily to the north and the temperature had plummeted. Clearly a storm was going to hit very soon, and the electric tension in the atmosphere made Xander shiver and pick up his pace even more. Just to add to his unease, shadows were beginning to shift and blur in the growing dusk under the thick canopy of leaves behind him, and there was a deep silence which Xander was determined to ignore, not wanting to think about the implications. His palm began to itch insistently and he rubbed it against his trouser leg.
‘I’m just imagining things,’ he told himself firmly, but if the last few weeks had taught him anything, it was that his imaginings were frequently far less alarming than reality.
He shivered as the temperature dropped even further and then began to run, but it was already too late. Even as thunder growled in the distance and the first big drops of rain began to fall, the shadows under the trees stirred ominously. This was the first threat of border failure in the city that Xander was aware of but, as he threw worried glances over his shoulder, at least it didn’t appear to be a full breach as the shades remained in place rather than coalescing. Xander glanced down at the orb on his wrist and wished that Ari had taught him how to communicate through it, as the Travellers did. He knew Flint would want to know that the border was weakening even here.
Finally, he reached the shelter of the first buildings and heaved a quick sigh of relief, casting a last glance at the dusky woodland behind him. He froze in shocked concern. Hurrying along the track was a tall boy, his shoulders hunched down away from the shifting shadows, while his orb gl
ittered fitfully in an effort to maintain a rather anaemic-looking ward. Even as Xander watched, the shades were swelling in the dusk under the tree line too quickly to be outrun and the boy looked around him apprehensively, the faint light from his orb illuminating his face and making Xander’s eyes widen in recognition; it was Roran Thorne.
Without giving himself too much time to think about it, Xander raced back down the path. He leant deeply into the orb just as Ari had instructed him and then threw out his arm, letting the energy surge out through his orb in a soaring arc of brilliant, sparkling light. It seared into the wavering shadows under the trees, crackling as it ignited them in an instant, and Xander felt a sense of total exhilaration, as if the pure force of it could lift him right off the ground and send him soaring. It felt more glorious than he could ever have imagined and he grinned with sheer joy; even the fat rain drops splashing down around him could not dampen his excitement.
Thorne had dropped into a half-crouch as Xander had unleashed the intensity of the orb strike into the trees behind him, but now he stood up again and looked around warily.
‘It’s okay,’ said Xander. ‘The shades are all gone.’
If Xander had expected any heartfelt thanks for his efforts, he was clearly doomed to disappointment. Thorne simply stared at him for a moment, his face expressionless, and then continued to walk along the track, brushing rudely past Xander without a word. Xander glared after him, feeling a surge of annoyance at the ingratitude, and then was hit with a sudden inspiration.
‘We’re even now, okay?’ Xander called out.
Thorne stopped walking. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly, without turning or looking at Xander, but his tension was clear in the rigid set of his shoulders.
Xander suppressed a triumphant smile.
‘Oh, I think you do,’ he said lightly. ‘I know that it was you Flint sent to meet me, even if you did try to blur your face. So thanks for that, I guess. It’s nice to return the favour.’
Thorne stiffened and then spun around to face Xander, his fists clenched by his side and his eyes blazing. ‘You don’t know anything,’ he snarled. ‘And you certainly don’t know anything about me. I didn’t do you any favours and I didn’t need your help just now. I was fine until you nearly blinded me.’
Xander’s own temper began to rise at this and he opened his mouth to refute it, but Thorne rushed on, his voice cold and livid.
‘Only idiots like Travellers, who know less than nothing, go around confronting those things and you’re not even one of them, just a stupid nobody who apparently has a death wish.’
Thorne’s eyes were icy blue, his face was twisted with contempt and the rain continued to beat down on both boys as they glared at each other.
‘I think it’s you who has the death wish,’ Xander snapped back. ‘Shades were manifesting everywhere, and what were you doing? Cringing along with barely a blip from daddy’s orb to protect you. How exactly did you plan to drive them away?’
Thorne looked like he was about to hit Xander.
‘Drive them away?’ he spat. ‘You could have lost control in a moment, you incompetent moron, and killed us both. For your information I was warding, which would’ve got me through quite safely without your stupid antics putting us both at risk. Next time, I suggest that you try to keep a grip on your delusions of grandeur, and ward and run like the rest of us, before you kill yourself and everyone around you.’
Thorne turned and stormed away up the track and into the city, leaving Xander open-mouthed and fuming on the path behind him. Thunder rolled ominously overhead and the first stab of lightning lit up the dark, northern sky. Abruptly aware that he was now absolutely drenched, Xander pushed the soaking hair off his face before turning to head back to the gate.
*
Len was rather distant with him when Xander returned, clearly still annoyed about his earlier comment, but Ollie was keen to hear about what had happened with Thorne and the shades, and flatteringly impressed with Xander’s feat in driving them away.
‘There’s no point paying attention to what someone like him says,’ he said. ‘He was probably just embarrassed that you dealt with them, while he could barely do anything. He’s a nasty piece of work.’
Xander agreed, but Thorne’s implication that he was incompetent and stupid continued to nag at him. The next morning brought even more dire news about the state of the hobs’ Core and Xander worried that he was running out of time to do anything. He and Ollie discussed the situation and decided that the best course of action was to go to see Hob at his shop, and get his opinion.
‘They gave you the orb, after all,’ Ollie had said. ‘Not to mention, it’s their Core that’s in trouble. If you offer to help and they turn you down, at least you’ll know that you’ve done everything you could.’
Len, who had overheard this, rolled her eyes with a theatrical sigh but Xander ignored her. ‘You’re right,’ he replied to Ollie. ‘If the whole thing goes down, then it’ll be too late and we’ll never know if I could’ve done something.’
Ollie nodded solemnly, while Len just walked away, shaking her head.
That afternoon, therefore, found Xander heading back to Hob’s Orb shop with a sense of relief that he was finally doing something, mixed with slight apprehension at dealing with the hobgoblins again. The bell rang as he pushed the door open for the third time, and then stepped into the shop. Once more, Hob was at his desk and his strange eyes narrowed as Xander walked over to face him.
‘You’re back,’ he grated, not sounding at all pleased about it.
Xander stood his ground, determined not to be intimidated this time.
‘I need to talk to you about something,’ he said. ‘It’s about the orb and what I’m supposed to do with it.’
Before the hobgoblin could interrupt or make any disparaging comments, Xander poured out his account of the mysterious messages from the ancient terminal and the conclusions he and Ollie had come to about what they could mean. When he had finished, he looked anxiously at the hobgoblin, wondering what his response would be.
Hob’s yellow eyes were hooded and secretive as he stared at Xander.
‘Interesting theory, human, but what makes you think you can do what we cannot?’
Xander swallowed, and then stared straight back at him.
‘Your Elder Goblin said that I can heal the blight on Haven. Isn’t that why you gave me this orb?’
‘Foolish boy,’ said the hob, dismissively. ‘We gave the orb in response to an ancient imperative, not by our choice or opinion about our Core.’ His face twisted for a moment, and then he stood up. ‘However, this is not for me to judge. Come.’
The hobgoblin walked over to the door of the shop and Xander expected him to open it, but instead he turned a heavy key in the lock and then led the way over to the little doorway that the old hobgoblin had used after giving Xander his orb. He turned to glower at Xander.
‘We do not take humans by our ways but in this case we will permit it.’
Looking at the shadowy space behind the door, Xander swallowed again but it seemed ridiculous to object now. He followed the hobgoblin through the doorway, bending his shoulders down to get through. When he stood up again, he was looking at a large, ornate rock formation in the middle of a beautiful landscaped garden, the sound of running water coming from his right. Blinking in confusion, he turned to see the unmistakable structure of the Nexus.
‘Was that a gate?’ he asked the hobgoblin, who just stared at him disdainfully.
‘I told you, we have our own ways,’ he growled, then turned and stumped away in the opposite direction to the Nexus.
Trying not to roll his eyes in exasperation at the hobgoblin’s unrelenting unfriendliness, Xander followed him across the clipped green lawn to an area where the ground became rougher and less manicured. Just through a small belt of trees was an odd structure, like one of the stone alcoves Xander had seen in the Nexus itself, leading to the Core. It
looked particularly out of place here, standing upright and alone in the middle of the rough grass. The hobgoblin stepped inside it and then turned and beckoned, in an eerie repetition of the previous visit to the Core. Xander took a deep breath and a final glance around, and that was when he spotted the shadow of a face moving out of sight just behind the alcove. He stiffened, and then ducked sideways so he could see the curving back of the edifice. There was no one there.
Hob stuck his head back out and glowered at him.
‘If you have quite finished,’ he grated out, ‘I have better things to do with my afternoon than watch you play games.’
Xander opened his mouth to explain and then shut it again. He took a last uneasy look towards the place where he was sure that an ordinary, unremarkable face with menacing eyes had been watching him, and then walked into the alcove. The hobgoblin led the way through the rippling wall, back into the hobs’ Core.
It was dark and hot, with a faint sulphuric smell he did not remember from before, and after a few breaths it coated his tongue and left a burning sensation on the back of his throat. Clearly things had got much worse since Xander had last been here a week before and he stared about, shocked by the change. Hob silently led Xander forward into the crystal mass, no longer pulsing with colourful light but now dimmed and opaque, with a sickly overtone of yellow and green.
The Elder Goblin was standing in front of a dark, shattered spire surrounded by a group of other hobs, their faces creased with worry, and he turned at Xander’s entrance to look at him with cold yellow eyes. Hob stumped forward and bowed his head.
‘The boy thinks he is getting secret directions to heal our Core, and that he has sufficiently mastered the orb to do so,’ he grated, in a voice which clearly communicated his scepticism about both claims. All of the hobs stared at Xander, who shuffled his feet awkwardly and tried not to duck his head.