by Amy Alward
A tense moment of silence hangs in the air. Kirsty and Zain’s eyes laser into my back, but they’re not who I’m focused on. All I can do is stare at the centaur and pray my gamble has paid off. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I’d come all this way and not given it my best try.
He shifts, and I can see him better. His eyes are hypnotic. The longer I stare at them, the stranger they become. They’re far more impressive than the replica in the ZA lobby. They look like golden stars – no, like galaxies, a thousand million stars and nebulas swirling in his irises. Like he has an entire universe within each one. I smell whiskey on the air, strangely, but I’m only vaguely aware of it.
All at once, the universes narrow into thin slits. ‘Fine. You may come with me,’ he says, his voice seeming to come up from the ground itself. It takes me a moment, but I realise he’s spoken Novaen. I can understand.
He turns around and walks away. Before I know it, he’s leapt forward into a gallop.
‘Quick!’ says Kirsty. She leaps out of the car, tugging arrows out of the ground so I can escape and join them. ‘Sam, you crazy, reckless weirdo.’
‘I got him to take us, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but to what?’
We follow the great plumes of dust the centaur throws up behind him. Soon, we’re not just following one. In fact, we are surrounded by hundreds. They ride along beside us, making the ground shake with their thunderous hooves.
‘Are we about to give these creatures two barrels of whiskey?’ I ask, eyeing the wooden barrels sloshing around in the back. The centaurs look wild enough already.
‘Trust me, that’s barely a significant offering,’ says Kirsty. ‘The centaurs like their drink – and they only get to indulge a few nights of the year. The festival of the Fire Horse being one of them.’
‘Yes,’ says Zain, ‘and we don’t know if it was your plea or the fact that Kirsty opened up the cork on the top of one of the barrels that made him change his mind.’
A shudder runs through me. ‘You mean . . . he might not have done this for me?’
‘Hate to say it, but I think not. Did you see the way his eyes changed when he smelled the alcohol?’
‘Then why the heck are we heading with him and not far, far away?’ I say, suddenly losing my nerve.
‘Because if they accept the gift, then they won’t harm us.’
For the first time all night, I breathe a sigh of relief.
‘Holy dragons,’ Zain says. And I know what he means. A single fire has appeared on the horizon, a blaze of light – but it’s no ordinary campfire. It’s a full-blown bonfire, with flames shooting high in the air. All around it are hundreds – if not thousands – of centaurs. Both Kirsty and Zain look like they can’t believe their eyes.
I’m amazed, but I’m not shocked. My ancient book said that herds could number in the tens of thousands.
‘Sam, get my camera,’ Kirsty says, snapping her fingers at me. She grabs it out of my hands as soon as I fetch it from her bag on the back seat, and she starts shooting away. ‘I need to get a good shot of this or else no one will believe us. There are only supposed to be a few herds left. Heck, they’re on the endangered creatures list! But this is not endangered. This is . . .’
‘Thriving,’ Zain finishes. ‘I checked in with the national databases before we left. The status is definitely endangered. There should not be this many of them.’
‘Didn’t your teachers ever tell you not to use online resources as your only source?’ I say. ‘My book says this is normal.’
‘How old is that book again?’ asks Kirsty. ‘Does it mention the blight – the mysterious illness that wiped out almost the entire centaur population? It’s yet another reason they hate Finders. They think it was a disease we brought to their lands that killed so many, and then we went ahead and killed a centaur at a time when there were already so few remaining.’
‘I would hate us too,’ I say, my voice small.
Kirsty slams her foot down onto the brake, throwing us forward in our seats. Our centaur has come to a stop. We are closer to the fire now, and our car is surrounded by angry-looking centaurs. Or maybe they always look angry: the deep V of their eyebrows screams constant grouchiness to me.
‘Come on, let’s get this over with,’ says Kirsty, unclicking her seatbelt. She steps out of the car and walks around to the boot. Zain and I quickly follow. She looks up at the centaur and says, ‘Do you have a name?’
He looks at her for a long moment then says, ‘I am Solon’ in his broken and uneasy Novaen. I’m glad that the fire is so bright and smokey that it stings my eyes and blurs my vision, because I can’t clearly see the pandemonium around us.
Zain and I move closer to Kirsty. As if the three of us could do anything to stop Solon if he decided to use that bow and arrow again.
‘We have a gift,’ says Kirsty. ‘But we want an audience with Cato. Then we will deliver our offering.’
‘You come here and expect to bargain with us?’ Another centaur steps out of the smoke. And if I thought Solon had been big and scary, he looks like a foal compared to this one. His Novaen is superb, as if he’s spoken it his whole life – it has none of Solon’s hesitation and broken syllables. He is incredibly old, if the length of his grey beard is anything to go by.
Kirsty lowers her voice. ‘That’s Cato,’ she says. I swallow hard. This is the centaur who could tell me what happened to my great-grandmother. I want to bow or curtsey or something to show respect. Instead, like Kirsty and Zain, I stand stock still.
To Cato, Kirsty says, ‘Of course not,’ and she hurries to unlock the boot of the car. ‘Here, please . . . accept our humble gift. We are honoured that you have allowed us to join you here today.’
‘Good – I thought for a moment that the rumours were true, that all Finders had lost their manners.’ He nods at two of the centaurs either side of him, and they step forward to take the gifts. Kirsty looks relieved.
‘Come, walk with me away from here. It is too loud to talk.’
We follow him, and I grip Zain’s hand tightly, glad to be moving further away from the main gathering. Most stories of centaurs portray them as gentle, introspective beings. Those historians probably never saw a gathering.
In my peripheral vision I can see centaurs wrestling, hooves and fists clashing together. They’re lifting huge barrels of drink and downing it like they’re at a university frat party. The ground vibrates so hard I can barely walk in a straight line. Gradually as we move away from the mayhem, my racing heart slows to a more normal pace. Cato comes to a halt and turns to face us.
‘Samantha Kemi,’ he says, his eyes drilling into my soul. Like Solon, his eyes are like galaxies – except where Solon’s burned golden and red and brown, Cato’s are deep blue and silver and purple. I read that centaurs can see along different spectrums to humans. Not just colours and shapes – but pasts, presents and futures, dreams, intentions, hopes and fears. ‘Come.’
I hesitate until Kirsty gives me a reassuring nod. Zain bites the edge of his lip, but he allows my hand to slip from his, squeezing my fingers at the last moment. I take a deep breath and step forward.
‘Your ancestor was wise and foolish,’ he says.
My knees tremble as he speaks to me. ‘Did . . . did you know her?’
He tilts his head to one side, and I take that as a yes.
‘I need to find her diary before it’s too late. There’s a woman named Emilia Thoth who is looking for it, and if she gets her hands on it then the consequences for Nova will be dire.’
‘I can see the desperation in you, child. It is written all over your skin, clear as the day. But it is not for Nova that you are desperate.’
My eyes prick with tears. He’s right. ‘It’s my Grandad,’ I say, feeling as small as a mouse.
‘Now these other two – their ambitions aren’t nearly as pure. On him, I can smell chemicals and synthetics – it makes me sick. And her, I can see her calculating our worth in her mind, seeing the
potential for profit.’
I cringe, wondering if they can hear. ‘She’s a Finder – that’s her job. And he works in a synth lab. But I will listen to you alone if you would prefer.’ I turn back to Kirsty and Zain, summoning my courage. ‘You two need to go back to the car.’
‘No, Sam. You’re going to need us. Centaurs can speak in riddles. He won’t give you a straight answer,’ Kirsty says.
‘He’s been pretty straightforward so far. I have to try.’
‘I’m not leaving you,’ says Zain.
‘You don’t have a choice,’ I say back.
Eventually he nods and they return to the car. Kirsty keeps throwing glances over her shoulder, as if she expects me to be struck by an arrow at any moment. I watch them until they disappear into the smoke, and then I turn back to Cato.
He is looking up at the sky.
‘What is it that you see?’ he asks me.
I crane my neck up at the sky. ‘I see . . . inky darkness and bright stars . . . too many stars to count.’
‘Good, good.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I know the object you seek. And I can see where it is, right at this very moment.’
‘You can?’ My voice squeaks with hope.
‘Yes. It sees this. This sky . . .’
My heart sinks. ‘That’s all? The diary is somewhere out there, in the open?’ It doesn’t help me at all. My mind starts racing. What kind of place is out in the open, but where a diary can be lost for half a century with no one finding it?
‘There is one more thing,’ he says.
‘Yes! What is it?’
‘In that place, the stars spark on command, but the day is always night.’
I take a deep breath, trying not to let frustration cloud my memory. ‘The stars spark on command, and the day is always night. So, not out in the open?’
‘My role is not to interpret. Only to tell you what I see.’
‘The stars spark on command, and the day is always night.’ I repeat to myself. I repeat it until it’s seared onto my brain.
‘Now, I must ask you and your companions to leave. You have been here long enough.’
‘Please . . . is there nothing more? Can you tell me a city? A landmark? Anything?’
He stares at me, unblinking, until I get the picture. There’s nothing else. Finally, I nod. My heart feels like it’s been trampled on by hooves. I don’t know what I expected – maybe that Cato would have my great-grandmother’s diary tucked away somewhere in that enormous beard of his? I’m too full of despair to laugh at the thought. I’ve come away with one extremely cryptic clue and nothing else.
And I don’t have much time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Samantha
‘THE STARS SPARK ON COMMAND, but the day is always night,’ I say, as I slide into the back seat. ‘Write it down somewhere!’
‘What’s that?’ Kirsty asks.
‘Where the diary is.’
‘Wow, Sam . . . that’s not a clue, that’s a poem.’
‘I know, but can we talk about this later? I think we need to get out of here. For real, this time.’
A snort grabs our attention, loud as gunfire. Cato and his followers have gone, replaced by a group who look far less friendly. The centaur closest to us drags his front hoof slowly along the ground.
Kirsty grips the steering wheel. ‘But which way do we go?’
The journey through the centaur camp has turned us around completely; I have no idea which is the way back to Nadya’s village.
‘Just drive,’ says Zain. ‘This looks bad.’
Kirsty starts up the engine and steers away from the centaurs. I scan the horizon for the rock formation we entered at, but the bonfires (there are lots of them now, so we can’t even use those as guides) are obscuring the scene with their smoke, making the dark seem even darker. The night-vision goggles are no help here.
‘They won’t hurt us since we’ve given them the gift, right?’ I ask.
‘That was the tradition. But traditions change.’
The centaurs still follow us, backlit by flames. One grabs my attention more than the others, because his eye is glaring at me with as much hatred as it can muster. And the other eye is covered by a patch.
He comes to a halt. Then, he rears.
‘Floor it, Kirsty!’ I scream as the entire herd of centaurs picks up into a charge.
Kirsty’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, the car bouncing hard on the rocky ground as she pushes the car to its limits. Centaurs appear out of the darkness whichever way we turn. They appear to be channelling us out of the camp. We can only pray that we’re going to escape – and not get driven off a cliff to our deaths.
‘On your left!’ shouts Zain, and Kirsty jams the wheel right to avoid being flanked by another set of stampeding creatures.
‘What’s got into them?’ I scream.
‘Whiskey!’ Kirsty yells back.
‘They’re slowing – they’re falling back,’ I say shakily, not daring to take my eyes off the back window in case there are more surprises.
‘Good.’ Kirsty doesn’t lessen the pace. As we rocket deeper into the Great Steppe, my view of the centaurs fades. Only one is still looking out at us. His face is disappearing into shadow but I can tell it’s the one with the eye patch. And that he has a smirk on his face.
‘Do you think they were directing us somewhere?’ Zain says to Kirsty. ‘Why haven’t they followed us? They could have easily caught us – they’re supposed to have crazy amounts of stamina.’
‘Who knows. Maybe it was the final part of their game.’
‘Maybe they were leading us in the direction of Cleo’s journal?’ I ask, hopefully.
‘I don’t think so,’ Kirsty says, with a dry laugh.
‘Well, are we going the right way, do you think?’
‘No idea. When we’re further away, we’ll pull over and set up camp for the night. We can check the compass then, too.’
I nod. Sleep sounds really good right now.
We drive for another hour, then Kirsty stops by an outcrop of rocks, which will vaguely protect us from the elements. The sky is already beginning to lighten, and we won’t have long to rest.
Zain leans over to me. ‘Sam, you can sleep in the car. It will be just as comfortable as the tents.’
I don’t complain – I’m glad to have the metal cage of the car around me. I brush my teeth, then settle down into my sleeping bag on the back seat.
‘You take the first watch,’ I hear Kirsty say to Zain. ‘Then me, then Sam.’ Their tents are the kind you throw up in the air and they pop up fully formed. Kirsty crawls into her tent, and I’m glad she can get some rest.
Strangely, I’m not tired. The night sky is alive with stars, the kind of sky that makes me feel like a tiny dust mote compared to the vastness of the universe. In a weird way, it’s comforting.
‘Mind if I join you?’ Zain leans up against the car.
‘Course not,’ I say, shuffling away from the window, giving him space to get in.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asks. I lay my legs across his lap and lean back against the far window.
‘Not really. Too many thoughts. I can’t turn my brain off.’
‘Your grandad?’
‘Yeah. And it’s weird. I haven’t mixed a potion in ages. Between the store closing and the travel . . .’ Next time you mix a potion, it will be to save Grandad, I tell myself.
‘You’re lucky, you know that?’ says Zain.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I dunno. The thing is, after watching you . . . I’m not sure if working with synths is for me. Not even “Synth-Natural Potions Studies”.’ Something about the way he says it makes me think he’s putting air quotes around the title.
I shift closer to him, grabbing his hand. ‘But what about your fancy office that’s all set up?’
‘Screw the office,’ he says, with a ferocity I haven’t seen before. ‘I want what you have. I want a passion. I want to b
e on fire about what I do. I want to get up every morning and run to work.’
‘Trust me, I don’t run to the store every morning . . . sometimes I definitely prefer my bed.’
He gives me a small smile. ‘No, okay, maybe not every morning. But Sam, when you’re working on a mix, when you’re hunting down a recipe, you light up. A fire burns in you that can’t be put out. It makes you shine. And that’s why I don’t just love you. I’m in awe of you.’ He kisses me deeply and I shift my legs so I can cuddle up against him.
I lie there for a moment, happy. But something else niggles. I put my hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. ‘You don’t have to have it all figured out. I know this might sound weird coming from me but . . . you’re eighteen. I don’t think you’re supposed to know everything at eighteen.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’ll figure it out. You could do anything. You just have to keep your eyes open. Of all the people in the world, you are not one of the ones that needs to worry.’
He laces his fingers between mine. ‘That’s because I have you.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, yes, you do have me – but that’s not what makes you great. And besides, you make me better. I mean it when I say we’re a good team.’
He chuckles. ‘How come you’re so wise?’
‘I read . . . a lot,’ I say, with a grin.
Sleep hits me as Zain’s arms wrap around my shoulders. My eyes stay open long enough to see a shooting star dance its way across the sky and then I’m out like a light.
When I wake, it’s because of a curious beeping. I’m disoriented and stiff from sleeping scrunched up against the door, and it’s far brighter outside than when I closed my eyes.
I rub my eyes, just as my brain clicks into gear. Oh crap. I leap forward into the front seat and lift up the middle panel of the dashboard. The bright green radar screen is on and flashing. But there isn’t just one dot on the screen. There are two.