by Darren Shan
If I get through the borehole in time, I’ll be able to close it behind me. That won’t stop the killers – the lock’s a simple thing, little more than a latch – but they won’t be able to open it as quickly as I can. I’m guessing I’ll have a minute or two to play with.
It might be enough. There are other boreholes in the zone. If I slip through one of those before the killers cross, they won’t know which way I’ve gone.
Orlan and Argate have started hissing and whistling, trying to unnerve me. They shouldn’t waste their breath. I’m already as unnerved as I could be.
I turn onto the street where the building with the borehole stands, hurry along and cross the road when I spot the door.
“He’s going to cry for help,” Argate laughs as I stop and raise my hand towards the knocker.
But I’m not reaching for the knocker, rather a spot below it, and when I touch that bit of the door, a shimmering blue panel reveals itself.
“A borehole,” Orlan snarls, and I bet I wouldn’t spot a hint of a smile on his face if I looked back now. But I don’t, because I hear their feet pounding on the pavement as they pick up speed. Ignoring the killers, my fingers fly inside the lock. It only takes six seconds to open – part of me counts with solemn detachment – but they’re the longest six seconds of my life, as I keep expecting a knife to slide between my ribs, or an axe to chop through my wrist.
Then the borehole opens, and with a scream of relief I hurl myself out of the Born and into the weird, welcome otherworld of the Merge.
8
I thought, if I ever returned to the Merge, that it would be a joyous moment, that I’d pause to sniff the air, beam at the mushrooms that grow everywhere, and take a while to relish being back. But there’s no time for any of that. If I don’t move quickly, I’m finished.
I’m in a zone that looks a lot like the countryside in England, hills and villages in the near distance, except it has a green sky. There’s also a high, green wall joining the sky with the ground. It’s called a buffer, and it defines the barrier of the zone.
There are lots of shimmering patches dotted across the buffer, boreholes to other zones. They’re all open, and I’ve popped out in the middle of a cluster of them, a couple of dozen or more to either side of me.
I choose to go left and scurry along, ignoring the first several boreholes, figuring Orlan and Argate will be forced to try them in order if they carry on looking for me. Still running, and counting off the seconds inside my head – I’m up to nineteen – I glance back. No sign of the killers. I allow myself four more seconds, then stop in front of a yellow, triangular-shaped patch of light. I treat myself to a quick grin and raise a foot to step through.
“No,” a voice inside my head murmurs. “Push on.”
That voice has spoken to me before, but not in a while. It saved me on the bridge in London last year, when I first crossed paths with Orlan and Argate, and helped me get the better of the Empress of Suanpan. I want to ask where it’s been, and why it’s chosen this moment to speak again, but there’s no time for a debate. I either ignore the voice and cross, or trust it and keep moving.
Cursing bitterly, I decide to follow the voice’s instruction. I start running again and resume the count. Twenty-eight... thirty-three... forty...
Orlan and Argate come barrelling through as I hit fifty-two. They’re arguing.
“...should have let me open the damn lock,” Argate complains.
“You’re no more a master of locks than I am,” Orlan snaps.
“But I might have...” Argate stops and swears, far more foully than I did. “Look at all the boreholes. He could have ducked through any of them. We’ll never find him now.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Orlan replies, and even though I’m not looking, I feel him pointing at me with his knife.
“Why’s he still here?” Argate asks, and it’s a good question.
“I have no idea,” Orlan says coolly, “but it means the chase is still on.”
I sense the killers storming after me but don’t look back. I’m waiting for the voice to speak again. I’m close to the end of the cluster of boreholes. If it doesn’t direct me soon, I’ll hurl myself through one of the boreholes and hope for the best.
“No,” the voice says as it did before. “Push on.”
“Tell me why,” I groan, but there’s no response.
I’m at the final borehole and it’s a bit of a trek to the next cluster. I’m desperate to jump through, but hold my course, placing myself at the mercy of the voice.
I’m panting heavily, more with fear than exhaustion. I’m certain I’ve messed up, and any second now I’m going to feel a hand fall on my shoulder as Orlan and Argate claim me for their own.
I glance back, and there they are, trotting along, smiling viciously. Orlan waves. I moan, but even though they’re closer than they were in London, they’re not within grabbing distance.
“Should we take him?” Argate asks.
“Soon,” Orlan murmurs.
“If he slips through another borehole...”
“We’ll follow,” Orlan says. “He won’t escape.”
He sounds so confident that part of me wants to stop and surrender. If I gave up, at least I wouldn’t have to endure this nightmarish pursuit any longer. They’re going to catch me in the end. Why not spare myself the horror of the hunt?
“Stop,” the voice says, and for a wretched moment I think it’s urging me to give myself up. But then I see that I’ve come to another borehole, a simple rectangular shape, but one the killers can’t see, because it’s not a zone borehole, but a gateway back to the Born.
“He freezes,” Orlan cackles. “I love it when they freeze. We’ll take him while...”
I touch the borehole and it shimmers, turning a dark yellow colour. Orlan and Argate couldn’t see it before, but they can now that it’s active, and their mood switches dramatically. Orlan barrels towards me, his partner just behind. I spy them out of the corner of my eye as my left hand darts into the lock and my fingers twist and turn. It’s a simple lock, like the one in London, but I don’t have six seconds this time. The killers are almost upon me.
Thankfully the lock opens after three and I leap through with a scream, just as Orlan is reaching for me.
There’s no time to shut the borehole. I stagger away as Orlan barges through, Argate hot on his heels.
We’re in the middle of a quiet road. It’s much colder than in London, and darker too. Snowflakes are drifting through the air. I slip and fall as I run. I try to get up, but slip again. I turn onto my back and scrabble backwards, staring up at my pursuers sickly, waiting for them to take me.
Orlan and Argate are standing still, looking around, smiling softly.
“I know this city,” Orlan says.
“We’ve enjoyed good times here in the past,” Argate agrees.
Despite my fear, I check my surroundings, curious as to why the killers find it so appealing. The buildings on either side don’t give much away, but I spot the tops of a few strange structures in the near distance, spires that look like Christmas tree decorations. One’s blue and white, another green and yellow, and a third’s a golden colour.
I’ve often seen pictures of those buildings, especially on the news, whenever there’s a story about Russia. It’s the Kremlin, which means I’m in Moscow.
I’m not thrown by the change of countries. I know from my previous time in the Merge that space as the Born understand it doesn’t exist in that sphere. A borehole can take a person from one side of the Earth to the other in a second or two.
What bothers me is that I don’t see what advantage I have here. The voice made me come this way. I could have taken any of the boreholes in Diamond, but it insisted on this one. Why? I don’t know this city. I have nowhere to hide, and there’s nobody here who can help me. I’d have been better off in London.
Orlan and Argate must think the same way, because they share a smile.
“
I wonder where he thought he’d end up?” Orlan asks.
“Somewhere very different from here,” Argate chuckles. “I think he hoped for an army to defend him.”
“An army wouldn’t have stopped us,” Orlan says.
“You’re not that deadly,” I wheeze, still scrabbling away from them, shivering in the cold Russian air.
“We might surprise you,” Argate says grimly, then tuts. “We should have taken you before this. Our master would have been furious if we’d let you slip through our fingers. My stomach sank when that borehole in London opened.”
“Mine too,” Orlan laughs. “We must stop playing with our prey.”
“I don’t think we need stop completely,” Argate coos. “We just have to be more careful and not let them get quite so far ahead.”
“You’re right, as always,” Orlan says. “Now, before this one has a chance to run again...”
The killer starts towards me, Argate moving beside him. They spread their arms. I try to rise, but my feet keep slipping. I turn onto my stomach and crawl, but don’t get far before a hand clenches my right ankle.
“Come, little one,” Orlan whispers as I open my mouth to scream. “Time to –”
A bright light snaps on and startles me. It startles Orlan too, and I hear him and Argate wince. A second later, there’s a roaring noise that makes me think a lion is at large in the middle of Moscow, until I realise it’s the growl of an engine.
A vehicle screeches towards us, a single light growing brighter by the second, illuminating the surrounding area. Orlan lets go of my ankle and stands. The killers draw their weapons. They don’t look stunned or angry, just determined to deal with whatever’s being thrown at them.
I glance at the oncoming vehicle again, this time shielding my eyes with a hand, and make out a figure on a motorbike. I think it’s a man. One of his arms is stretched behind him.
“Eyes closed and head down!” he bellows, his arm swinging forwards as he lobs an object at Orlan and Argate. I obey the order, shut my eyes and cover my head with my hands.
The night explodes with purple light that flashes through the cover of my fingers and eyelids. I gasp and roll over, blinking like crazy, the world a bewildering purple haze around me.
Then, as the bike draws to a halt beside me, engine throbbing, my vision starts to clear. I spot Orlan and Argate on all fours, cursing shrilly, sightless and lost.
“They’ll only be blind a few moments,” the man on the motorbike says, then pats the seat behind him. “Get on.”
I’ve no idea who he is or what he wants with me, but he can’t be more dangerous than Orlan Stiletto and Argate Axe. A helping hand has been thrust in my direction, and I’d be a fool if I hesitated.
Still blinking, half-blind, trembling with cold and shock, I lurch to my feet, then climb on behind the driver. Argate bellows and hurls his axe at the man, but he can’t see, and although the axe flies surprisingly close to its mark, it sails wide. Orlan advances, blindly stabbing at the air.
The rider doesn’t turn to check on me. Instead, as I wrap my arms round him, he revs the engine, spins the bike one hundred and eighty degrees, cuts the light, then roars off back in the direction he came from. I press my face between his shoulder blades and cling on desperately, and within seconds we’re swallowed by the shadows of the wintry Moscow night.
THREE — THE ENVOY
9
The biker powers through the largely deserted streets, navigating only by the glow of the streetlamps. He runs red lights and screams around corners. I hold on tight, nowhere near as terrified as when I was being chased, but still in fear for my life.
Finally, when my fingers are starting to feel like sticks of ice, he slows and turns on the light. We cruise from that point, joining some traffic on one of the few busy night roads, turning off to putter down some quieter roads, before pulling up outside a house halfway down a tree-lined street.
The driver cuts the engine and stares at the snowflakes that are drifting through the trees and either sticking to the branches or slowly spiralling to the ground. “Isn’t snow the coolest thing?” he says. He’s wearing a helmet, but the visor’s up, which is why his words come to me clearly.
“Who are you?” I ask through chattering teeth.
The man half-turns to squint at me. There aren’t many streetlamps here, so I still can’t see his face. “You’re shivering,” he says.
“It’s cold,” I note.
“Why aren’t you dressed more warmly?” he asks.
“I was in London a few minutes ago,” I tell him.
“Ah,” he says. “That would explain it.”
The man gets off the bike and takes off his leather jacket. He holds it out to me and I gratefully pull it on over my school blazer, feeling warmer almost immediately.
“You still haven’t told me who you are,” I mutter.
The man chuckles and removes his helmet.
“King Hugo!” I gasp.
“The one and only,” he smiles.
I met Hugo in Cornan. The last time we spoke, the young, fair-haired king seemed restless. He’d spent a lot of time in the Merge and was looking forward to returning to the Born, so that he could hit the road on his bike.
“How did you find me?” I ask. “And what was that purple light?”
“I can answer your questions out here,” Hugo replies, “or we can go inside, where it’s warm.”
“Inside?” I echo, looking at the buildings. “Where?”
“Here,” a girl says from across the street.
I turn and spot an open door. There’s a figure lurking in the shadows, and for a moment I think I’m in trouble, but then I place the voice and relax. I almost cry out with joy and run to her, but I don’t want to look too ruffled, so I stretch and yawn instead, then say, “I hope you’ve got earmuffs and a furry hat. My head’s freezing.”
“Same old Archie,” the girl says, stepping into the light to beam at me. “Always complaining.”
“That’s because there’s always lots to complain about,” I sniff, then return her grin and say, “Hello, Inez. How have you been?”
In answer, Inez Matryoshka sweeps forward, hugs me hard, then leads me indoors to warmth and safety, and out of the chill and terror of the night.
We climb three flights of stairs to a large, brightly lit apartment, where a woman is waiting for us. She has long, blonde, frizzy hair, is fashionably dressed in a pale white gown, and sports bright pink lipstick. She’s sitting in a chair, reading a book and watching a television show at the same time.
“I can’t understand a word of this,” she says as the three of us bustle in, “but it makes me laugh all the same.” She looks up and smiles. “This must be Archie.”
“Hello,” I mutter.
“Cindy,” she says, crossing the room to kiss my cheeks. “It’s so great to meet you. Inez told me how the pair of you saved Sapphire. That story was beyond.”
“Beyond what?” I ask.
Cindy laughs and tickles my chin, as if I’d cracked a joke.
“I didn’t say we saved Sapphire,” Inez says, sitting on a couch and patting it to let me know I should sit beside her. “We simply helped ferry Ghita to the palace. She saved it.”
“Sure,” Cindy grins. “I know how it is. The royals take all the credit.” She winks at Hugo, who lays his helmet on a table and settles into a big leather chair.
“I found him where you said I would,” he says to Inez, “though I still don’t know how you knew he’d be there.”
Inez shrugs. “He told me.”
“What?” I frown, then shake my head. “This is crazy. I must be dreaming. A few minutes ago I was running for my life from Orlan and Argate. Now I’m –”
“Orlan and Argate?” Inez barks, shooting an alarmed look at Hugo.
“Yeah,” Hugo says, rubbing his chin. “They were about to drag him off when I ambushed them.”
“I’d no idea,” Inez whispers. “I knew you were in tro
uble, but I wouldn’t have sent Hugo if I’d known those two were on the scene again.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me,” Hugo huffs.
“I wouldn’t have risked you,” Inez says. “Not for someone like Archie.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I snap. “Very nice indeed.”
“Hugo’s Family,” Inez says. “If he’d fallen into their hands...”
She growls softly to herself. She hasn’t changed much since I last saw her. The same short, dark hair, cream trousers, red top and muddy, navy boots. It might have been days rather than months since I last looked into her wide brown eyes. It’s only now that we’re back together that I realise how much I’ve missed her.
“So, are you in Moscow for the ballet?” I ask jokingly, but Inez isn’t in the mood for jokes.
“Could they have followed you?” she asks Hugo.
“Do you think I’d be sitting here calmly if they could?” he counters.
“How can you be sure?” she presses.
“I was on my bike and they were on foot,” he says. “Besides, I hit them with a glomb. They were thrashing around blindly when I left them.”
“What’s a glomb?” I ask.
“A bomb made out of gleam,” Hugo says. “It temporarily blinds anyone who’s looking at it when it bursts. I always carry a few.”
“None of this makes sense,” I mumble. “How did you know I was in trouble and where to find me? Why were Orlan and Argate chasing me? What’s going on?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that too,” someone says behind me, and when I turn, I spot another familiar face emerging from a bathroom. It’s Princess Ghita, in a bathrobe, her long, dark hair streaming around her damp cheeks.
Just when I think the night can’t get any stranger, a key turns in the front door and it opens. A behemoth of a man steps in, shaking snow from his thick, ginger moustache. “It’s getting colder out there,” he says. “I’ll have to find some thicker socks. My toes...” He stops when he sees me. “Archibald?” he gasps.