Archibald Lox and the Rubicon Dictate Read online

  Archibald Lox and the Rubicon Dictate

  Archibald Lox and the Rubicon Dictate

  ––––––––

  ARCHIBALD LOX

  and

  THE RUBICON DICTATE

  BY

  DARREN SHAN

  ––––––––

  Archibald Lox, Volume Two, Book Three of Three

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  ONE — THE INVITATION

  1

  We make slow progress on our way back to the team quarters from the prison, partly because I’m in such poor shape, and partly because Cal finds it hard going, since he’s so burly and can only barely squeeze through some of the tighter vines. He’s starting to worry.

  “This is taking ages,” he pants.

  “It was the same on our way here,” Pol says. “We said you’d struggle in the vines, but you insisted on coming.”

  “Time wasn’t so much of an issue then,” Cal says, “but what if they send guards after us?”

  “They won’t send anyone into the vines,” Pol says confidently. “They’ll know rats were involved – nobody else would have been able to find their way – and they won’t want to mess with us in here. This is our realm.”

  “Aren’t you worried they’ll target you later?” I ask.

  “If this was Ruby, we wouldn’t have crossed them this openly,” Pol admits, “but although the SubMerged have lots of support in Topaz, this isn’t their realm. They can’t directly punish us here.”

  “Unless Topaz switches alignment,” I note.

  Pol sniffs. “We’ll deal with that if and when we have to.”

  “You sound like you’re fitting in nicely with the Niffelheim rats,” I smile.

  “Having a great time,” he beams. “I might never return to Cornan.”

  It’s hours before we come to a hole in a vine that slices through one of the rooms of the Sapphire team’s training complex. If you cut a chunk out of a vine, it usually self-seals fairly swiftly – the 5-shaped vine in the cell has probably already repaired itself – but Pol tells me he used a special potion, so this one wouldn’t close while they were away.

  We crawl out of the vine and onto the floor of a room with piles of stacked logs of varying heights, which the players run up and down or leap over. A couple of the gropsters are working out, and stare at us oddly, but say nothing.

  “I’ll leave you here,” Pol grunts as we’re heading for the door. He’s standing in the vine, enlarging the hole with a knife, removing the treated rim, so that the vine will grow in to fill the gap, meaning if anyone does follow us, they won’t have any way of knowing where we exited. “I was busy when you zizzed me, and I’ve been away too long already.”

  “Sorry for dragging you into this,” I mutter, “but you were the only person who could help me.”

  “No need to apologise,” Pol says breezily. “If I hadn’t wanted to help, I’d have ignored you.” He raises a warning finger. “You don’t owe me – we’re friends, and I didn’t do it in expectation of a favour – but make sure you repay your debt to Jacinta and Jarlath when they call it in.”

  “Of course,” I sniff, and recall what he said to them in the cell. “I’ll do whatever they want, whenever they ask.”

  “Good answer,” Pol chuckles.

  Then he’s gone.

  “I’d love to know how you can zizz people that way,” Inez says.

  “Me too,” I sigh. “I’d no idea what I was doing, or if it would work.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t figure you out, Archie.”

  “That’s why I’m so intriguing,” I smile.

  “That’s one word for it,” she says with a little growl.

  Cal supports me as I hobble back to the Shackleton suite. We pass a few more players, all of whom stare at me but ask no questions. I flood with relief when I spot my bed and consider the joy of slinking beneath the sheets and sleeping for as long as I like. But something’s puzzling me.

  “Why’s the team still here?” I wheeze.

  Inez looks at me oddly. “Where else would they be?”

  “I thought they’d have gone home after the Tourney. Or was it suspended because of what happened to me?”

  Inez looks confused. She starts to answer, but Cal stops her. “How long do you think you were in that cell, Archibald?” he asks softly.

  “A year or more?” I moan.

  Inez’s eyes widen. “Oh, Archie,” she whispers.

  “Those mind readers are snakes,” Cal snarls. “They know how to really mess with a person’s head. You weren’t gone anywhere near that long.”

  “No?” I blink stupidly. “But it must have been at least a few months.”

  “Not even weeks,” Inez says quietly.

  “Eight days, Archibald,” Cal says.

  My mind spins crazily. “Impossible. Just over a week? I don’t believe you.”

  “Why would we lie?” Inez asks.

  “And as you noted, why would the team still be here if the Tourney had finished?” Cal says.

  “The Tourney’s still going?” I croak.

  “Of course,” Cal says. “The group games have concluded and we’re waiting for the start of the second-round matches.”

  “Eight days,” I repeat, remembering all the sessions I was forced to endure, how certain I was that months had slipped away while I was suffering at Kerwin’s hands. The weight of everything I’ve been through suddenly comes crashing down upon me, and I begin to weep helplessly. Floods of tears come thick and fast, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

  Inez hugs me, and Cal hugs us both, and we stand there for a long time, swaying gently, me bawling like a baby, Cal and Inez murmuring comfortingly. In the end, while I’m still crying, Inez leads me to my bed. Cal pulls back the covers and Inez lays me down, taking off my shoes but leaving me in my clothes.

  “Sweet dreams,” she says, kissing the top of my head, and that brings more tears.

  “Do you want a kiss from me too?” Cal asks, puckering his lips.

  “Stop it,” I laugh.

  “We’ll be just outside,” Inez says, turning to leave.

  “Inside,” I gasp, grabbing her hand. “They might come to take me again.”

  “They can’t get in here,” Cal assures me.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” I groan.

  “Then I’ll stay,” Inez says, squeezing my hand to reassure me. “Cal will tell Seamus that we’ve found you, and ask for an audience with Malina, to inform her of all that’s happened. She can decide what to do after that.”

  “She needs to stick Adil, Noah and the rest of them in the maze with Kerwin,” I spit, the tears stopping as my eyes fill with a red, angry mist.

  “Hopefully she will,” Inez says, then covers me with the blanket and goes to sit on her own bed, while Cal lets himself out.

  I want to find out what’s been happening in the games, if word has spread about my kidnapping, if any action has been taken against the SubMerged, but I’m all out of energy after the crawl through the vines and the sobbing. Leaving the questions for later, I feel my breathing slow and my eyes close, and I slip into my first deep sleep in what might only have been eight days in reality, but was a lifetime in every other respect.

  2

  Inez is still sitting on her bed when I wake, and tells me I’ve been asleep for nearly thirty-six hours. I yawn and stretch, feeling as if I could sleep for another thirty-six, but eager to catch up on all the news I’ve missed while being held prisoner.

  Inez asked someone to bring a bucket full of mushrooms, figuring I’d be ravenous when I
woke, and I tuck in, asking questions between mouthfuls.

  She tells me they scoured the city for me, and enlisted the aid of Malina, who furiously demanded an audience with Kurtis, Dai and Poppy. They acted innocent, said I’d slid down the Abyss and that was the last they’d seen of me. They admitted bribing the sleigh handlers to leave Inez and me stranded, but said they knew nothing of my whereabouts.

  “That much was probably true,” she says. “I doubt Noah told them where he was taking you.”

  “Did Malina haul in the duke for a grilling?” I ask.

  Inez shakes her head. “There was no evidence that he’d kidnapped you. In fact, there was no proof you’d even been kidnapped — you might have simply wandered off and got lost.”

  Inez explains how she tried to collar Kurtis and squeeze answers out of him, but Noah protected him from any approach.

  Winston, she says, was frantic and blamed himself. He kept saying he shouldn’t have let me get wrapped up in their schemes, that he should have taken me back to London. Then Inez reminded him about Orlan and Argate, and how they’d found me in Seven Dials. I’d have been no safer in the Born than in Topaz.

  “Adil definitely sent them to London to hunt for me,” I tell her. “He all but admitted as much at one point.”

  Inez frowns. “I’d tend to agree, except we haven’t seen them here. Adil knew you were in Topaz, and even where you were staying. Why not use Orlan and Argate if he’d already hired them to abduct you?”

  “Maybe he didn’t bother with them because he had another pair of puppies every bit as vicious,” I sniff, and tell her about Tommy and Trevor.

  Inez is perplexed. “Why would he involve gropsters rather than his own personal killers or a pair of ordinary guards?” she mutters. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Inez can’t work out what was going on with the Red Devils, so talk moves on to the more pleasant business of the Tourney, and she fills me in on the results. Topaz beat Emerald in the last game in our group, to claim top spot, leaving Sapphire in second and Emerald third. Pearl wiped the floor with Diamond in the other group, winning by sixteen points.

  With results panning out the way they did, each team in group A won a single match, meaning final placings were determined by points scored and conceded. That meant Pearl topped the group, with Ruby finishing second, and Diamond propping it up as expected, although with that thoroughly unexpected victory to their credit.

  In short, it means Ruby are up against Emerald in the first of the play-off games four days from now (there’s a longer break between the end of the group games and the first play-off), with Sapphire facing Diamond three days later.

  Winston and Hugo come to check on me while Inez and I are talking grop. I’m still tender and tired, but get up and hug both men, putting all of my thanks into the simple gesture, since words can never convey how much I owe them.

  “Kerwin?” I ask quietly.

  “He belongs to the maze now,” Hugo grunts.

  “Long may it keep him,” Winston adds.

  “There’s no way Adil can break him out?” I ask.

  Hugo shakes his head. “No one’s ever matched Ash’s cunning,” he says, “and that maze was his masterpiece. Kerwin’s lost until he figures a way out, and we’ll all be a lot older before that happens.”

  I beam at my rescuers, then frown. “Winston, what are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I told you, I came once I heard you’d gone missing,” he says.

  “But why?” I cry. “You didn’t want anyone to know you were in Topaz. People will have seen you walking around. And the guard in the cell will be able to identify you! Adil surely knows now that you’ve returned to the Merge.”

  “I don’t care,” Winston sniffs. “I’m done living a half-life. Time to live fully again.”

  I stare at him, amazed. “You’ve stayed out of the affairs of the Merged for so long. Why expose yourself now?”

  “I was already in up to my neck,” Winston says wryly. “And then I found myself thinking about King Lloyd. He came back, after all that he’d suffered, as frail as he is, his mind a swirl. I figured, if he could find that strength within himself, what was my excuse to stay on the sidelines?” Winston laughs as I gawp at him. “Shut your mouth, Archie. If we were in the Born, you’d catch flies.”

  “Does this mean no more hiding?” I whisper.

  Winston nods, and there’s a glint in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. “I’ll never forget the pains of the past, but it’s time to stop letting them define my present. If Adil wants to come for me, I’ll give him the fight he craves. I’m back, Archie, and this time for good.” Winston leans forward as happy tears fill my eyes. “And do you know what the best thing about all this is?”

  “What?” I ask, thinking he’s going to talk about the freedom that comes when you take a stand. Instead he winks and punches the air.

  “I get to watch the rest of the games in the Tourney,” he whoops.

  Everyone in the room collapses in stitches, and for a short, sweet while, all in the sphere is the colour of happiness.

  3

  The pain fades over the next couple of days but doesn’t completely go away. I think it will be a long while before I feel the way I did before Kerwin got his hands on me, if indeed I ever do.

  As bad as the days are, the nights are even worse. I suffer with dark nightmares and wake several times each night. The nightmares are mostly about my torments at the hands of Kerwin, though I often dream about my kidnapping and the Red Devils too. In my nightmares there’s something familiar about their voices, and they lean in close and tell me they’re going to unveil a dark secret. Before they do, I wake up, most times screaming and covered in sweat.

  It’s difficult to explain how much Kerwin hurt me, and although my friends are sympathetic, there are no outward signs that I’ve been mistreated, so I can tell they don’t fully understand what it’s like to have your brain lacerated and probed. Except for Winston, obviously, but he doesn’t talk about it. Even after all these decades, it’s hard for him to discuss what happened to him when he was Adil’s prisoner. He keeps a close eye on me, and constantly tells me how well I’m doing, and that it will get easier every day, but he doesn’t swap war tales. His scars run deep, and those that he bears on his face are the least of them.

  Although Winston doesn’t share much with me, I tell him all that I can remember of my time with Kerwin — I find it helps if I talk. I also tell him how I fought back, guided by that inner voice that seems to belong to someone else.

  “How do I do these things?” I whisper. We’re alone in a sauna – I wouldn’t bring this up in front of anyone else – but I’m trembling in spite of the heat. “Knowing where certain boreholes lead… crosshairing… zizzing in a way no one else can… holding my own against Kerwin… even the fact that I’m skilled at opening locks. It’s like I’m two people, but one of them is a secret to me.”

  Winston sighs. “As much as we know about the spheres, much more is a mystery to us. Reincarnation, for instance. Who’s to say our souls don’t return to the Born at some point and take a new form, as many of the Born believe? Perhaps you’ve been this way before, and a piece of your previous self exists inside you, steering you in certain directions, allowing you to leap hurdles that you mastered first time round.”

  I mull that over, then ask, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Winston shrugs. “I put my old set of beliefs behind me when I woke up in the Merge. I’m open to all possibilities these days.”

  “If you’re right,” I say hesitantly, “I think I may have been one of Adil’s allies in my past life.”

  “Why would you think that?” Winston asks.

  “He mentioned a few times that he thought we could work together, and when I first ran into him at the palace, it was like he recognised me. He asked me if we’d met before.”

  Winston strokes his scars. “Of course, there might be nothing to this reincarnation speculation
. I’m sure there are other explanations for what you’re experiencing.”

  If Winston has an idea of what they might be, he keeps it to himself and steps out of the sauna to lower himself into a plunge pool, which is a big hole in the ground filled with icy water. He says it works wonders for the pores, but I’m no lunatic, so I give it a skip and grab a couple of towels. We’re in the middle of drying ourselves when Seamus turns up, coughs softly and says, “Is this a good time?”

  “As good a time as any,” Winston says. “What can we do for you?”

  “It’s more a case of what I can do for you,” the impressively bearded guard says. “I’ve been asked to escort Master Archibald to the palace, for a meeting with Malina, and she’s inviting his rescuers too.”

  I lick my lips nervously. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go out on the streets.”

  “If you’re concerned for your safety, let me set your fears at rest,” Seamus says. “I’m bringing several trusted colleagues and we’ll all be armed. Plus, the queen sent a deviser, a girl who can freeze a person in a block of ice within seconds.”

  “That would slow them down for sure,” I chuckle.

  “It would do more than that,” Seamus says. “It would freeze their innards too and they’d die.”

  “Death by ice,” I say softly, thinking about the slides of Bon Repell, and how I thought I was going to die a cold, lonely death in the middle of the mountain. “I’ll come with you,” I tell Seamus, “but I’d rather the deviser not travel with us.”

  “She might prove useful if we’re attacked,” he says.

  “I wouldn’t want to see anyone killed that way,” I murmur.

  Seamus bows his head, then tugs at his beard, and flushes. “I haven’t said anything about what happened to you,” he says haltingly. “In truth, I’m embarrassed. You’re our guest, and our hospitality should have been honoured. The criminals who took you insulted everyone in this realm. I’ll do whatever I can to ensure it never happens again.”

  “Um… thanks,” I say awkwardly.

  Having said his piece, Seamus waits for us to finish getting dressed, then leads us through the complex to locate the others and ask if they want to tag along. Inez is happy to come, but Cal and Hugo are training, and politely reject the invite.