by Dave Bakers
I looked to the others.
Read the alarm on their faces.
I could feel my heart beating harder and maybe, if I’d been able to, I would’ve screamed out loud.
I kicked my feet harder—thrashed with my arms—knowing that I needed to get moving downwards much faster.
When I looked up, I immediately regretted it.
Because I saw the mechashark there: steel, sharp all over, and enormous.
Easily big enough to swallow all three of us and fit us all in its belly.
I wondered, bleakly, if maybe it was already full-up.
If it had already eaten dinner . . . perhaps had a chomp on Alan.
But it soon turned out that it was very much hungry as it whipped its tail hard and began to circle us—its body moving quickly through the water.
I made a gesture for us all to stay close.
I was determined that if we did that, we might be able to frighten it away, or, at the very least, it wouldn’t be able to pick us off . . . one by one . . .
As we sank faster still, I began to be able to make out faint outlines down below my feet.
What I knew was the underwater maze at the seabed.
And where I guessed Alan was—where he was making great progress towards the trophy.
I looked to the others, pointed jaggedly down below us as if they might not have seen it for themselves.
But they were all more focussed on the shark.
And with good reason.
Because it had disappeared from view.
Simply slipped off somewhere—vanished into the shadows of the deep waters.
My heart stopped beating and I was sure—certain—that it was either above, below, or right beside me. I didn’t dare to look. And I waited for the blackness to come, to find myself thrown back out into the convention centre, back into that plastic shell to watch the rest of the tournament play out in much more realistic fashion than the spectators could ever realise.
But nothing happened.
I thought that I was okay.
That we had escaped.
And then, right at the moment when I began to propel myself downwards once more, I watched the shark burst from the depths, grab a hold of Chung’s leg and drag him off into the darkness which surrounded us.
It was so silent.
So deadly.
And yet I anticipated something—a scream—anything at all.
But, of course, we were still underwater.
I looked over James and Kate, caught their looks of total alarm.
I had to grab them both by their shirts to finally get their attention.
And I tugged them down after me.
It was only when we touched the bottom—entered the underwater maze—that I knew Chung was gone . . . that he had been eliminated from the Final tournament.
That it would be up to us to bring his mother back.
41
WE TRAIPSED OUR WAY through the underwater maze—and I found myself following after James. He seemed to be the one who knew this place the best out of all of us. So I guessed he must’ve clocked up some very serious hours indeed on Labyrinths, Labyrinths.
In fact, within five minutes, he got us to this odd, glistening dome area.
It was like an enormous bubble underwater.
I held back for a long while—just as Kate and James had held back from escaping the mechashark . . . and leaving Chung behind.
This time it was Kate and James who had to pull me into the bubble.
Suddenly, like passing my head through a waterfall, I emerged into an underwater space that acted and seemed just like walking on the land above.
A door stood ahead of us.
And it seemed the only way to go.
I turned to Kate and James, felt my heart wrench in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but we had to go, otherwise the mechashark would’ve taken us too.”
Neither Kate or James said anything for a few moments, and when one of them spoke, it was Kate who reached out and clasped hold of my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Zak,” she said. “we knew that this place was full of challenges—it is the Final of the Grand Tournament, after all.”
Up ahead, from behind the door, I heard an almighty roar!
An extremely ominous roar!
And yet, at the same time, I knew there was no other choice.
I turned back to the others. “Sounds like Alan is just ahead of us—waking up the neighbours.”
The other two nodded.
I looked behind them, to the underwater maze we’d just found our way through, then I looked upwards, to the gloomy depths which surrounded us on all sides.
I knew—like always—there was only one way out of the Sirocco, and that was either by winning, or by losing . . . I guessed that—this time—there would be no glitches.
As I trod towards the door up ahead, and that roaring, I sensed James on one side of me, and Kate on the other, and I knew—with them along for the ride, a pair of talented gamers—we would have a chance of beating Alan.
42
THE DOOR CREAKED BACK on its hinges to reveal a sun-streaked world before us.
Rolling green hills, a castle in the distance.
Thick, stone blocks beneath our feet.
In short, a fantasy world all spread out before us.
I couldn’t help but give an enormous sigh as I looked to my left.
Horses.
Three of them.
I guessed that the game was working ahead of us—that it had decided already that Chung would be the one to die, and that would leave only three of us needing horses.
As I looked the horses over, I saw that there was a black one, a brown one and a grey one.
I’ve never really known all that much about horses.
They had their saddles all ready and I saw that each had what looked like a sword hanging off them.
I guess we were supposed to be playing knights.
I looked over at James, and then over to Kate, kind of striking a sarcastic look, as if asking them whether we were really going to have to go through with something as lame as this . . . I mean really . . . I did twig that our parents were at stake, but still . . .
And maybe it was the promise that we made, back in Labyrinths, Labyrinths, that we agreed to find one another’s parents if it came to it.
Now, as I saw it, my responsibility was to bring back Chung’s mother—and if I was killed then it would be James—or Kate’s—responsibility to bring her back.
And so, using the wooden blocks helpfully provided at each horse, we clambered onto one each. With all of us sitting snug in the leather saddles, we cantered on along the green—almost blue—flowing grass and onwards towards the castle.
That seemed where we were supposed to head.
Only when we’d been riding for what felt like fifteen, twenty minutes did I start wondering just what game we were actually inhabiting.
For a moment, I just couldn’t twig it at all.
Didn’t twig it or have a chance to ask either Kate or James since I was gripping onto the mane of my horse and trying not to fall off and break my neck.
We rose over the crest of the hill that looked over the castle.
Then I realised where we were.
Which game this was.
Everland Rubies II: The Twinkled Star
Of course it was.
It was just how it’d been dressed up that had thrown me.
Everland Rubies did take place in a fantasy setting but you really didn’t get to see that much of it. The game itself was a strategy game, one of those ones with lots of colourful shapes dropping down a two-dimensional screen . . . well, I say two-dimensional but the truth is that there are some points in the game when the screen flips and you get to play another side of the puzzle . . .
There was another thing that seemed lacking to me.
And without which, I didn’t feel truly comfortable.
Then I heard it.
The
hard, throat-trembling roar!
43
UP ABOVE OUR HEADS, I saw the dragon.
I remembered from somewhere—sometime long, long ago when I’d actually been bored enough to pick up Everland Rubies and stick it in my Sirocco—that the dragon had a name for itself.
I didn’t remember it now, though.
Didn’t really seem all that important, to be honest.
The dragon had purple-green scales, and a great big mace of a tail.
And the way that the fire billowed out from between its rag-tag—extremely pointy—teeth was a definite alarm for me.
Almost as much of an alarm as it swooping on down, from the turret of the castle, and making right for us.
I could already feel the heat from the dragon’s fiery breath just standing where I did on the hill.
Despite the oncoming peril, I managed to keep my thoughts together enough to scout out the terrain, the façade of the castle, and see the drawbridge there—and the sooty opening beyond which led into the castle itself.
I knew that we needed to cross the moat, get into the castle, and do whatever task it was that Everland Rubies expected of us—most likely sorting brightly coloured shapes into the correct slots—before it would see its way to letting us go.
Right as the dragon wheeled through the air, I looked across Kate and James’s faces, and they looked equally stumped about just what we were going to do now to try and defeat it.
It did look just a little bit intimidating.
I was on the point of calling us to action, to shouting out for us to gallop our horses as hard as we could down the hill in the direction of the drawbridge, when a sudden stillness entered the air.
Time seemed to stop.
The warmth faded.
Replaced by a subtle, fresh breeze.
And it was then that I was drawn back to the castle, or, more exactly, the light-purple—or was it faintly pink?—ray which protruded out from the roof and shot upwards into the air, splitting through the frumpy, cotton-wool clouds.
I squinted hard. Wondered if I might need glasses. Then remembered that I was inside of a video game and that glasses probably didn’t come into it.
But I saw the figure.
Flying upwards within the ray of light.
Seeming to speed up.
Alan.
All three of us stood there stunned, watched him rise on up into the clouds, and disappear from sight.
The cool sensation in the air stopped right about then.
And the fiery glow returned.
I sank my heels into the sides of my horse, made to plunge down the hill, heading for the drawbridge. I didn’t dare to look up as I listened to the hooves of my horse pounding through the long grasses, throwing up turf on all sides as we went.
I did sense the shadow passing over me, though, the dragon coming lower and lower, preparing to pick one of us off.
Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I vaguely hoped that it would be me.
That it’d, at least, put an end to my role in all this.
But I quickly shoved that thought away.
Heard the swoosh! through the air as the dragon soared right over me, its talons just brushing the tips of the hairs on my head.
From behind I heard a scream.
This time I did look back.
Watched on as the dragon seized hold of James by his shoulders, sank its talons into his skin, and then rushed upwards, into the air, once more.
Our horses, apparently startled by this, halted.
I looked to Kate.
She stared upwards at the dragon and at James as he dangled down from its talons.
In the end, it fell to me, to grab hold of her and yank her—and her horse—onwards towards the drawbridge.
There was no time to waste.
And, in any case, whenever we got through with this whole thing, James would be back there, in the convention centre—at Gamers Con—waiting for us.
44
THE COOL STONE that surrounded us inside of the castle was a welcome change to the brash action outside—to the dragon which had picked off James and lugged him off into the distance.
The dragon which had killed him.
For a couple of moments, after me and Kate had shucked our horses, taken to foot and headed on into the castle, I just stood letting my heart tick away to itself.
Tried to get my pulse back under some sort of control.
To wipe away the veneer of sweat that’d broken out on my forehead.
I looked to Kate, saw that she’d gone totally white in the face.
I reached out, touched her gently on the shoulder. “Are you okay?” I said.
Though I saw she was trembling, she managed to give me a nod.
I did my best to smile in return, to make her feel at ease, but I was sure that it came out as more of a grimace. “We’ll see James, and Chung, in a little while, okay? It won’t be long, I promise.”
She gave me another nod, as if to try and cover up the fact that she was still shuddering all over out of fear.
For a couple of seconds, I thought over how this must’ve been playing out for all those spectators, all those people back in the convention centre watching the plasma screens.
Did they think that this was impressive, or just some blunt-headed virtual reality trick?
I knew one thing for sure, that on the message boards of Gamers Gold—the UK’s number-one, bestselling, gaming magazine—there would be some pretty heated discussion about the Final of the Grand Tournament of Gamers Con ending up with such a novelty challenge . . . or maybe they’d realise what was really going on here . . . that really would make for some more heated debate . . .
“So?” I said, “Where to next?”
Kate blinked a few times, apparently still getting past her fear. She breathed in deeply a few times, her shoulders shuddering as she did so. And then, just like that, she seemed to snap out of it, to get her mind back locked in with her surroundings.
She met my eye. “You play Everland Rubies all that much?”
I shook my head. “How about you?”
“I won a minor tournament about six months ago.”
She managed to stay straight-faced for approximately three quarters of a second before busting out in a bright, wide-eyed grin.
I smiled back at her, now extremely glad to have her along for the ride.
If there’s one thing that gamers can never be accused of, it’s false modesty.
“This way,” she said, leading me along the stone corridor.
* * *
As we got deeper into the castle, I noticed the natural light from outside wane and give way to the torchlight.
That glow sent a slight shimmer across the surface of my skin as I recalled the fire-breathing dragon from before.
We’d gone down a fair few flights of steps, and I guessed we must’ve been somewhere in the basement of the castle by then, and, apparently, approaching our destination.
I couldn’t quite recall all that much about Everland Rubies . . . it just wasn’t one of those games which was memorable for me—and certainly not one that I ever would’ve been able to spend enough time with to actually be able to get myself up to anything resembling competition standard.
Then again, I guess I could be accused of being lazy.
Or just not having that much tolerance for stuff that’s not fun.
Whatever.
At the end of this corridor—now only lit by the orangy glow of torchlight—I picked out the sturdy wooden door. I slipped Kate a sidelong look and she gave me a nod in return.
“This is it,” she said, “this is the final level of Everland Rubies.”
“Anything I should know before we head on in there?”
She gave a shrug, looked at the door, and then said, “I’m pretty sure they’ll only let one of us get past it.”
45
I DIDN’T HAVE much time to allow the revelation from Kate’s last comment to die down—that
one of us, most likely, wouldn’t be making it past this point.
Then again, I thought about the rate we’d been picked off in the Final so far and I knew that, whatever happened, there could only be one winner of the Grand Tournament.
And it didn’t matter who that’d be as long as it wasn’t Alan . . . though I couldn’t quite say why that was, didn’t understand why I needed to stop him so badly . . . I guess it was just a gut feeling.
We passed through the door, emerging into an enormous room which stretched up for about ten, fifteen storeys.
I could make out the bright daylight dribbling in through the open roof above our heads.
This, I supposed, was the room which we’d seen Alan propelling himself up through, and into that ray of purple light which’d flown him into the clouds.
I brought my focus back.
Took in our immediate surroundings.
Absorbed the grid of multi-coloured, gemlike blocks which occupied the stone floor in front of us. I looked to their pattern, found myself lost for just a moment, then I glanced over to the other side. Saw that there was another grid alongside that one. And a tiny gnomelike creature sitting off on a wooden stool there, its arms crossed, wearing a bright-green tunic.
I noticed its rosy cheeks.
And its red-lipped mouth.
“Two of you, huh?” the gnome said.
I looked to Kate, seeing if she might have some sort of a tip for this encounter—she was the expert of Everland Rubies after all.
But she looked just as blank-faced as I felt.
“Can’t let you both through,” the gnome said, nodding to the pair of grids occupied by the gemlike, multi-coloured blocks. “Only gonna play one of you.”
“Why can’t you play us both?” I said.
The gnome shrugged. “Orders from above,” he said.
“What’ll happen to the one that has to stay behind?”
“Not my problem . . . but I’ve got orders that only two were allowed to progress through here, and I already let one through.”
