Zero

by Claire Stevens

  Chapter Nine

  That evening, we made camp in a small clearing set back from the road. Kallista lit a fire and before long Oriel was dishing up a thick stew made from dried meat and nettle leaves and some kind of weird bread thing that he’d made in a frying pan. After a bone-shattering day’s walk, it took a lot of restraint not to just shovel the whole thing in my mouth at once.

  Raelthos looked down at his plate with a sad expression. ‘I forgot Oriel would be cooking,’ he said quietly.

  ‘If you have a reservation somewhere else, please feel free to go there instead,’ Oriel said, sitting down next to Neve.

  Despite Raelthos’s sulkiness, the stew was amazing. Everyone fell silent as they ate. It looked like I wasn’t the only one starving after a long day’s walk. The lunchtime protein bar, whilst every bit as filling as Oriel had promised it would be, felt a very long time ago.

  When we'd all finished and cleared away, Raelthos lit a cigarette with a sickly-smelling tobacco and puffed away contentedly. Kallista pulled a dusty-looking book out of her tiny backpack and began reading, casting a thin glow from the palm of her hand. She still managed to throw me a poisonous glare every now and then. You know, so I wouldn't think she'd forgotten about me.

  I sat cross-legged on my bedroll, a tiny raft in the sea of nature that surrounded me trying to ignore her and concentrate on my own book. Only trouble was, I’d already read it, and hadn’t enjoyed it a whole lot the first time round. I sighed again at the thought of the hundreds of books lining my bedroom walls at home.

  This in turn led me to think about my family. I wondered what they were doing right now. I hoped they weren’t worrying about me too much, but I knew they probably were. This was the first time in my life I’d spent more than a few hours away from them and now we’d stopped for the day I had a proper opportunity to consider how much I missed them.

  I bit my lip and tried to think of something else before the homesickness threatened to make me cry, but nothing was forthcoming. God, I even missed Mal. He, Chec and I had been friends since we were little and even though we’d grown apart since he and Chec started seeing each other, I still counted him as one of my closest friends. I looked back down at my book, trying to banish all thoughts of home from my mind.

  'Do you know what? After such a pleasant repast, I feel in the mood for some after-dinner entertainment,' Raelthos said, leaning back onto his elbows. 'Why don't we get the new girl to tell us a bit about herself?'

  I gave a jolt as I realised he was talking about me.

  Oriel slammed his plate into his pack with unnecessary force. ‘Or we could all just try minding our own business.'

  'It's okay,' I said, grateful for the distraction. 'I don't mind. What do you want to know?'

  Raelthos sat up and looked at me keenly. 'Let's start with your family. I'm itching to hear all about them.'

  'Oh. Right.’ Not quite the distraction I’d had in mind. ‘Well, I live with my mum and dad. My mum's a sailing instructor and my dad's an artist. And I've got a twin sister, Francesca. We’re identical,’ I added.

  Raelthos nodded in interest. 'An identical twin sister?' He shook another thin black cigarette out of his silver case and struck a match. 'How very interesting. Tell me, does she share your abilities?' He glanced under his eyebrows at Oriel, who glowered back. 'You know, your skill with a bow and arrow.'

  'No, that's just me. We were home schooled, so my parents are really big on extra-curricular activities, but Chec managed to get away with indoor ones. Mine are mostly outdoors.' I recalled the many mornings I'd tried to hide in a cupboard with a book rather than venture outside in the pouring rain to learn a new character-building skill. Favourite: learning to drive an old banger in the field next to our house. Least favourite: self-defence classes. In the next village along from ours, a mad-haired woman called Carole taught anyone who cared to learn a number of different ways not just to escape from an assailant, but also to cripple them and ensure they were no longer capable of fathering children. All from the comfort of her cat-pee-smelling basement.

  'How terribly practical. Now tell me: who in your family do you favour in terms of looks?' He squinted at me through a cloud of sickly pink smoke.

  'You can see for yourself, I've got a photo in here somewhere.' I thumbed through my wallet and pulled out a couple of pictures. ‘That’s me and Chec.’

  I handed him the picture and he took it, his face creasing into a smirk. ‘And who is this young man?’ His gaze flitted over to Oriel and the smirk widened.

  ‘Oh that’s Mal. Chec’s boyfriend. He lives next door to us. His real name’s Adolphus Malcowicz and he hates it, so everyone calls him Mal.’ Raelthos looked at me blankly. ‘Because Adolphus sounds like Adolf.’ More blankness. ‘As in Hitler.’ More blankness, and then it hit me. Of course. They’d never heard of Hitler. ‘Anyway, that’s my mum.’

  I handed the other photo to Raelthos. His knowing smirk fell away and his eyes bugged out of his head. 'Bloody HELL! That's your MOTHER? She's... You're... She's...' His head swiped comically from me to the photo, back to me and back to the photo. I fought to stop myself snatching it from him. Okay, so she was wearing a bikini, and okay, she’s blonde and kind of young for a mum, but seriously. She’s my mum.

  He coughed gently and regained his composure. 'This really is a remarkable portrait. So life-like,' he said, with the air of a respected art critic. He tilted it towards the light of the campfire to get a better look in the gathering dusk. 'Would you mind awfully if I kept hold of it for a while?'

  Oriel, who had been talking to Neve, turned round, swiped the photo and handed it back to me. He turned back to Neve and carried on with his conversation.

  I shifted position on my bedroll and wondered how quickly I’d be able to make my excuses and go to bed. My plans were shot down, however, by Neve asking everyone to volunteer for watch-slots throughout the night.

  ‘Roanne and I will take the first watch,’ Oriel said and then looked at me quickly. ‘If that’s okay with you?’

  ‘Um, okay,’ I nodded.

  We walked a little way from the camp until we hit a patch where we had a good view all around us. Behind us, the others started preparing to sleep.

  ‘Right, sit on the floor,’ Oriel instructed me. I did as he said, my bow and quiver at my feet. Oriel drew a long machete from a strap on his leg and his sword from the holster across his back and sat down behind me, leaning his back against mine, making me jump. ‘It’s how we sit when we’re on watch,’ he said, sensing my surprise. ‘Lets us see all around the campsite.’

  I eyed the assorted weaponry lying scattered around us. ‘Nice sword,’ I said.

  Oriel chuckled softly. ‘Thanks. Her name is Tempest, and she’s superb.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘All swords are female.’ As if this should be obvious.

  ‘Wow. You named your sword.’

  ‘You have to give your sword a name. Otherwise…’ He made a noise that sounded like Otherwise you’re basically a barbarian.

  ‘Otherwise it won’t come when you call it?’

  ‘Funny. Do you know what Neve’s sword is called?’ I shook my head. ‘Astrid. After the first girl she kissed.’

  I groaned in horror. ‘She didn’t! Oh god, that’s like having someone’s name tattooed on your arm.’

  ‘I know, right? Needless to say, Astrid is no longer on the scene and now Neve’s stuck with it as a constant reminder. I knew girl-Astrid too, and naming an ice-forged katana after her is actually pretty appropriate.’

  ‘I guess at least it’s a girl-name for a girl sword. Tempest sounds like a boy-name.’

  He picked up his machete and started drawing lines with it on the ground. ‘Well, I didn’t name Tempest. Someone else did.’

  My gaze was automatically drawn to the camp, where Kallista was snuggled down in her bedroll, the flash of her bronze hair visible even in the darkness. I wondered briefly if it was her who had named Tempest and shook my h
ead. Totally none of my business.

  Right, then. Guard duty. I pulled my knees up to my chin, and to stop myself falling asleep on the job I started clicking my tongue stud against the backs of my teeth.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that, you’ll damage your tooth enamel,’ Oriel whispered, tilting his face round towards me.

  I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see me. ‘Thanks, Dad, I’ll bear that in mind.’

  I felt his shoulders shake against mine with silent laughter. ‘So, how did you find your first day?’

  ‘It was fine,’ I whispered, aware that the others were sleeping. ‘I did more walking today than in the rest of my life put together, but it was fine.’

  ‘Are your feet holding up alright? Not too sore?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m astonished. The boots Neve gave me are as soft as anything.’

  ‘Good. There’ll be about the same amount of walking tomorrow, I’m afraid.’

  I swallowed a groan. As we’d walked, a tiny part of me had hoped with each bend in the road that Neve would turn around to us and say, ‘That’s it. That’s where Owen’s being held; through that gap in the hedge there’. Now it looked like I had at least another day of Being A Marine to look forward to.

  ‘Oriel?’ I turned my head slightly so he could hear me. He turned his head too, so that our cheeks were almost touching. I lost my train of thought for a second before I remembered. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course you can. Ask anything.’

  ‘You guys all speak like I do. How? You sound like you’re from the Sanctuary. Why is it we’re not speaking different languages?’

  ‘Well the Barrier blocks out light and stops movement, but sound can travel through the tiniest perforations. Not whole conversations, but snippets here and there drift through both ways and get picked up without people even realising.’

  ‘Wow. Weird.’

  ‘Yeah, and even weirder? Ideas can permeate the Barrier, too.’

  ‘No way. Like what?’

  Still talking softly, he said, ‘All sorts, I guess. Concepts. Legends. Folk heroes. Things that exist here, but not in the Sanctuary and vice versa. Everyone here knows what a television is. Or a car. Or what you use a telephone for. And it works both ways. You know what demons are, don’t you?’

  I tried to sound very brave and nonchalant as I asked, ‘Do you think we’ll see any demons on this mission?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe not...but I don’t know.’ He started poking in the dirt with his machete again. ‘If we do come across demons, though, I want you to remember two things. The first is to run and hide. Just run, find somewhere to conceal yourself and do not come out.

  I swallowed. ‘And the second?’

  ‘The second is that I totally stand by what I said to you back at your house.’ For a moment I wondered what he was talking about. Then I remembered. He was talking about when he possessed Boring Suit’s body. ‘Your safety is paramount. I swear, I swear we’re not going to let anything happen to you. The most dangerous part is what we’re doing right now: travelling out on the open road. Once we get back to the Citadel we’re as safe as houses.’

  ‘What’s it like?’ I asked curiously.

  He looked at me, his eyes widening in surprise. ‘The Citadel?’ He looked past me for a moment, up to the stars, thinking. ‘It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen,’ he said softly.

  He told me about the Citadel, about a city built like a fortress against demons, perched on a hill by the sea. How the demon nets rose hundreds of feet into the sky and stretched past the Citadel and over the estuary to the land on the other side and how the same material the nets were constructed from was woven into the fortress walls. He told me about the ships that came into their harbour from all over the world to trade their goods and about the visitors they brought: merchants, paladins, diplomats, all wanting to see the shining star of a city.

  By the time he’d finished, I was transfixed, my heart beating wildly and my mouth unattractively agape. ‘I’m probably making it sound more interesting than it really is,’ he said.

  ‘It sounds incredible,’ I breathed.

  ‘You could visit,’ he blurted. I turned and looked at him in shock, guard duty forgotten. ‘I mean, if you wanted to, you could stay for a bit. Like a holiday. After we get Owen back, we have to go back to the Citadel anyway, if you wanted to stay for a couple of weeks and take in the sights Neve and I would show you around.’ He started fidgeting, rubbing his knuckles against each other and I could see the faint colour in his cheeks as he shrugged. ‘It’s not every day you get to visit a city you never even knew existed.’

  I considered this. I knew I was already in serious trouble for skipping out of the house in the middle of the night, but then, I reasoned, I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I nodded. ‘I’d love to.’

  Oriel grinned back and pushed his hand through his hair, making it stick up further. He looked up at the moon and slowly the smile faded. ‘Damn. Neve’s going to be along in a minute.’ He fixed me with that bright green gaze. ‘Listen, there’s something I wanted to tell you. Some advice. It’s up to you whether you take it, of course, but it might help you over the next couple of weeks.’

  ‘Firstly, you can’t trust Raelthos. I mean, you can trust him on this mission as a soldier. He’s not going to double-cross you or anything. But be careful what you say to him. He might come across as eccentric, but he’s actually a genius. He has a way of manipulating you and digging for hidden meanings in your words and he’ll exploit what you tell him ruthlessly.

  ‘Second, try not to pay too much attention to Kallista. She has a lot going on that she’s trying to deal with at the moment.’

  I brightened. Maybe she was dying. ‘So she doesn’t mean to come across that rude?’

  ‘Oh no, she means to be that rude. In fact, that’s her reining it in. But just don’t let her get to you.’

  ‘So what advice would you give me about yourself?’ I asked quietly.

  The side of his mouth twitched up in a half-smile to match the half-laugh he gave. He was running his knife along the ground, watching the tip intently as it made patterns in the loose bits of bracken and leaf and assorted gack on the forest floor. He looked up at me curiously. ‘Did you figure out who I remind you of?’

  ‘What?’ I asked, confused by his segue.

  ‘Yesterday. You said I reminded you of someone back in the Sanctuary.’

  ‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure that was exactly what I’d said and I wondered how to answer him. He was gazing at me intently, whilst trying to pretend not to. You, I wanted to say. You remind me of you. I just don’t know where I know you from. ‘No idea,’ I said, shrugging and not really looking at him.

  ‘Memory is a funny thing,’ Oriel said quietly. ‘Maybe it’ll come back to you.’

  Before I could ask him what he meant, Neve came over to relieve us. Sleepy-eyed and with her pony tail wonky and fuzzy at the back, she gave a brief nod by way of greeting and sat down with her sword - Astrid! - across her lap.

  Oriel and I walked back to the camp and as I wriggled down into my bedroll I realised that not only had I not got any pyjamas with me, but I’d forgotten to pack my toothbrush when we left The Griffin. The thought of not cleaning my teeth before bed made me squinch slightly, but frankly I was so knackered that I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it and I fell asleep almost immediately.

  I jolted awake again either minutes or hours later. There was the rustle of fabric and a shifting and wriggling. Neve’s stint on watch had finished and she was coming back to camp.

  ‘Hey.’ Her voice was barely a breath and for a second I thought she was talking to me before Oriel answered her. ‘All quiet?’ There was a faint rustle which I took to be a nod.

  I’d almost started to drift off again when I heard Neve again. ‘Did you talk to Roanne?’ My eyes pinged open and I had do concentrate on evening out my breathing noises. Oriel and Neve were
barely whispering but I’d always had bat-like hearing and now I’d heard my name it was impossible to ignore them. ‘And?’

  ‘She doesn’t remember.’

  Neve made a sound in the back of her throat. Disappointment? Sympathy? ‘I was so sure when she saw you, when she came through the portal, that it would all just click into place.’ She spoke softly, disbelievingly. ‘Oriel, are you sure? I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks no one’s looking. It’s like she’s trying to figure you out.’

  If it was possible to burst in flame through sheer embarrassment, I would have turned into a one-girl conflagration right there. Horrified at being caught out staring at Oriel, I almost didn’t clock that Neve wasn’t saying it like it was a bad thing; it wasn’t like she was sneering at me. It was like she’d been expecting it.

  ‘I asked her outright. She wasn’t lying. It’s like the one thing she can’t do.’ Neve laughed quietly. ‘Maybe we just need to give her some time?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Oriel?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Don’t forget that she’s not going to be here forever. Just… Just don’t get too invested.’

  Oriel paused. ‘Invested in what?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb. You’ve given her Granny’s dagger. I know what that knife meant to you.’

  ‘Neve,’ he said mildly, ‘I think you need to mind your own business.’

  Soon their breathing evened out and eventually turned into light snores, leaving me lying in my bedroll, hands clasped across my stomach. I stared up sightlessly at the starred sky willing away blurry tears of frustration. What the fuck? was the only coherent thought I could muster.