The Named (2 page)

Dad’s in the kitchen, sitting at the table with his legs folded one over the other, staring into an empty coffee mug. His apathy hits somewhere deep and I turn on him. ‘What happened to set Mum off this time?’

He continues staring into his mug; I don’t move either. The silence takes on an ear-shattering dimension. Finally he replies, ‘Does there have to be a reason, Ethan?’

He’s right, there doesn’t, but I’m not about to tell him so.

‘For what it’s worth,’ he goes on, ‘she had a disturbing nightmare.’

‘What, her too?’

Dad’s eyes flicker once in my direction and I think, great, a reaction, but then he goes back to staring into his empty coffee mug again. I try to remember the last time we had a normal conversation, but of course I don’t have to think hard to figure it out. My sister Sera’s sudden death was the start of all our problems. But where will it end?

Mum is waiting. So I make her cup of tea just the way she likes it, with a touch of honey, and take it in to her. She looks better and offers me a small brave smile as she takes the cup from my hands. We talk about this and that for a while and when I’m sure she’s OK I leave her.

Back in my room I find myself standing and staring
at my bedside clock like it has all the answers my family needs to repair its broken soul. I know it’s only a clock, made of wood and glass mostly, but I picked it up at a junk market a couple of years ago, struck by the idea that it had had a whole life before I found it, in someone else’s home, waking someone else up every morning.

I don’t realise I’m staring so hard at the clock until its hands start going crazy, rotating faster and faster as I unconsciously offload some of this frustrated energy pent up in my head. Suddenly the entire clock starts to move, lifting off the table and spinning in midair. I’ve done this before a couple of times – moving objects is one of my skills – but never with so much force. Straight away I realise I’m losing control, so I’m way unprepared when the clock starts turning somersaults, rising almost to the ceiling. Finally it explodes. Splinters of wood, metal and glass shower over me. I start clearing it up before Mum or maybe even Dad comes to take a look.

Mum is first. ‘What happened?’ she asks from the doorway, sliding an arm through her dressing gown. ‘It sounded like a bomb went off in here.’ Her eyes take in the debris littering the floor. ‘It looks it too. Are you all right, Ethan?’

I glance down at the broken pieces of my clock gathered in my hands. ‘Ah, sorry, Mum, I dropped my clock.’

Her eyes narrow slightly as she pointedly takes in the multitude of small pieces. ‘Were you standing on the ceiling?’

I shrug and give a lame smile.

‘All right, just make sure you don’t leave any sharp
bits lying around.’

I assure her I’ll clean it up before I go out, and she leaves me to take a shower. At least she’s looking brighter now. I tidy up the rest of the mess and finish dressing, all the time wondering how my father can stay seated at his kitchen table, staring into an empty coffee mug, when an explosion rocks his son’s bedroom only metres down the hall.

Minutes later I’m out. Relieved, I head straight for the mountain, to a place that has become a sanctuary to me. To say this place puts me in another world is understating the reality. It is another world.

The first time I walked into the mountain I was four years old. I don’t remember much of that day except the long rocky climb, and trying to get away from Dad, who wouldn’t let me out of his sight in those early days. But it wasn’t long before a numbness set in, a numbness which hasn’t lifted off him since.

It was in these hills, buried deep within the southwestern slopes of the Great Dividing Range, that Arkarian found me. For days he spoke to me of challenges, great adventures and powers beyond my imagination. Then one day this strange man with bright blue hair and really weird eyes took my hand and led me inside the mountain.

Of course Arkarian is not really that strange, once you get past the superficial oddities. His electric-blue hair and violet-coloured eyes are that way only because such things as hair and eyes change colour over time. A long time. He never seems a day older, though I’ve known him for twelve years. His body stopped aging the moment he turned eighteen.

Arkarian is still taller than me, though now the
difference is not so noticeable. He has an aura about him. I still feel it, even after all this time. Part of it is in the way he speaks, in soft tones that demand without arrogance. Part of it is in his violet eyes and their ability to communicate without the need for speech. Over the years we’ve formed a friendship. For the first five years of our relationship I was his Apprentice, and he’s still my immediate superior. But he taught me more than I ever learned in all my years in a mortal classroom.

The rock wall disappears as I stand before it, reforming the moment I step through the opening. As soon as I make my way down the softly lit hallway, I hear Arkarian call, ‘Ethan, I’ve been searching for you.’

The hallway has many doors: some rooms we use for training, some I’ve never been inside. Arkarian says they change often so there’s no point to looking unless I require that particular room’s service. And I learned early that curiosity is not necessarily a good thing.

I get to Arkarian’s main chamber, and as always, the incredible high-tech equipment that doesn’t exist in the mortal world yet, floors me. ‘Very funny, Arkarian, you knew I was coming. You know everything.’

He glances up at me from across the room and gives a little laugh. ‘You flatter me, Ethan, but you must remember, to know everything is impossible.’ His eyes remain on mine, assessing me. It doesn’t take long to notice my dark circles. ‘Did you have another nightmare?’

I shrug, glancing purposefully at the 3-D holographic sphere in the centre of the octagonal cavern which, at the moment, suspends a perfect image of the Palace of Westminster, London, in, if I’m not mistaken, the 1300s. My nightmare is still too raw and I’m not
ready to talk about Mum. Her depression is getting worse, a thought that makes my heart sink. I nod my head towards the sphere. ‘What year is this?’

Arkarian comes over, tactfully dropping the subject, and flicks a backhanded wave at the sphere. ‘It’s 1377. Your next assignment. But that’s not why I summoned you. Sit down, Ethan.’

He sounds serious. I know this tone of voice.

‘Stop worrying! It’s good news.’

An antique wooden stool appears before me at the point of his finger. I take the hint, straddle it, fold my arms across my chest and wait, wondering, as I often do, at the passion Arkarian has for all things ancient.

He stares at me for a minute, his head slightly angled. Today his blue hair is contained in a band at the base of his skull. It has the effect of making his eyes appear deeper violet. ‘You’re being promoted.’

I jump off my seat, leaping into the air. ‘Yes!’ This is fantastic news. It’s more than that really. The Guard has been my life for as long as I can remember. Most times it’s also been my home and haven. It’s not that my mortal home isn’t safe, it’s just … uncomfortable and, well, just plain morbid.

Arkarian grins, knowing how much I’ve wanted this recognition. No one works harder than I do. I would give the Guard my soul.

‘The Tribunal is so pleased with your work, you’re to be made a full member at a ceremony to be held in Athens next month.’

The reality of his words are hard to grasp. ‘
Full
member?’

He nods, still grinning at me, pleased with my reaction. ‘But hold on, Ethan, there’s something else.’

What else could there be, except maybe …? I reach across and grab his shoulders as if to hold him steady when I’m the one that needs holding up. ‘Arkarian, are you saying I’m going to be awarded the power of flight?’

He glances briefly away, and instantly I understand that his words are going to disappoint. His eyes come back to mine and he says gently, ‘You’re not getting your wings yet, Ethan. Have patience.’

But the disappointment, coming after the nightmare from last night and Mum’s depression this morning, hits me like a flood surging through the lower valley. My hands fly up in the air as I demand an explanation. ‘Oh, come on, Arkarian! I completed my apprenticeship years ago, and I’ve been an active member of the Guard for ten years at least.’

‘Yes, but you started when you were a mere infant.’

I nod, admitting this. ‘But I’ve heard of others who’ve received this power years ahead of me.’

He puts it simply. ‘They were ready; you are not.’

I groan and slump, realising that there’s nothing I can do. Nothing beyond what I do already, that is – keep trying to prove myself. ‘So what’s this other news?’

He releases a soft sigh, produces a matching stool for himself and sits opposite me so that we’re on eye level. ‘You’re to be given an Apprentice.’

It takes a full minute to register. The impact of this honour finally hits and has me springing up again and pacing the windowless underground room, punching the air with my fist. ‘An Apprentice! Of my own?’

Arkarian’s eyes follow me. When I stop and search his face for confirmation, his eyebrows lift with a
gentle nod of his head.

For the Tribunal to give me this responsibility must surely mean my wings are almost assured.

‘Almost,’ Arkarian confirms, reading my mind as usual. ‘All you have to do is train your Apprentice, complete your next mission successfully, and you’ll have your wings by your next birthday.’

‘
Yes
! This is brilliant, Arkarian. How did you swing it?’

He gives me a tolerant grin. ‘I’d like to take credit for your promotion, Ethan, but you did this yourself with your own good work. Now that I’ve admitted that, don’t let your advancement go to your head as I’m inclined to think it might.’ He looks at me hard. ‘You want to prove you’re worth entrusting with this ultimate power, don’t you?’

I nod fiercely. ‘Oh, yeah.’ I come back to the old wooden stool and try to sit still long enough to make sure I understand it all, but my right leg can’t stop jumping up and down. I put my hand on my knee to hold it still. ‘So you’re saying, if I successfully train this Apprentice, I could have my wings within three months?’

His lips don’t move, but his eyes are saying heaps.

‘There’s a catch, isn’t there?’

‘Not at all,’ he quickly assures me. ‘But there is a certain urgency developing …’ He nods towards the circling holographic sphere of Westminster Palace. ‘You don’t have a lot of time before your next mission.’

‘How long?’

‘A few weeks.’

Weeks
? What could Arkarian, or the Tribunal for that matter, be thinking? To train a small child would
take years. It did with me. I remember some of those early lessons – Arkarian was patient (’cause I had two left feet in those days) but relentless. We trained here in a variety of rooms, learning skills most people wouldn’t learn in a lifetime, from self-defence to self-existence. But it was years before the Tribunal thought me skilled enough to handle my own mission.

‘I only have a few weeks to train an Apprentice?’

Arkarian nods. ‘But it won’t be as hard as you’re thinking. Remember, you were an infant when you came to me, an unusual occurrence. Your new Apprentice is more adept than you imagine. She’s skilled in her own right.’ He chuckles, glancing down at his slender, ageless hands. ‘Quite surprisingly so.’

I’m still taking in the part where he uses the word ‘she’. ‘I’m going to be training a
girl
?’

‘Correct.’

‘How old is this girl?’

‘Fifteen.’

Suddenly the idea of training a girl takes an interesting spin. ‘Oh, really?’

His head tilts with a small smile.

‘What’s her name? Do I know her?’

He remains silent and my body hair starts to prickle all over my skin with a sense of foreboding.

‘Her name is Isabel,’ he says softly.

Even though it’s an unusually old-fashioned name, it draws a blank. Arkarian keeps looking at me as if I should know this name, or this person at least. Slowly a recognition somewhere deep inside my head starts happening.
Isabel.

‘I think I do know that name. Remember, when I was younger I had a best friend called Matt? His kid
sister’s name was Isabel. But you said my Apprentice wasn’t a child. And anyway –’ I dismiss this crazy idea quickly – ‘the Isabel I remember was a wild little monkey, a nuisance to society, always tagging along with Matt and Dillon and the rest of us guys when we had important things to do, like build fortresses in the woods, scour the dump for motorbike parts, play rugby. Stuff like that. It couldn’t be her.’

Arkarian stares at me stubbornly, a funny knowing smile tugging at his lips.

‘No way, Arkarian. I’m telling you it can’t be her. Isabel’s a pest. She’ll only get in the way. She couldn’t possibly be right material for the Guard. You have to believe me. This girl is nothing but a headache. You must go back to the Tribunal and tell them. They’ve got it wrong this time.’

‘When was the last time you saw Isabel? The last time you exchanged words with this girl?’

I glance away as I think, trying to recall. We have mixed-age classes at school, so it’s possible we have a lesson together, but surely I would have noticed her? I do remember, though, a couple of years ago, when Matt was still my best friend, a few of us guys went down to Devil’s Creek for a swim. It was a hot day and we’d stripped to our underwear. None of us knew Isabel had tagged along. When Matt spotted his sister halfway up a tree, he told her off for following us. The rest of us laughed and teased her about perving on us until she went beetroot red in the face. She clambered down that tree faster than a Ferrari in a drag race, disappearing into the woods. We went back to jumping into the river from the rope we’d fixed to an overhanging tree. None of us realised until hours later, when we
were ready to go home, that the little pest had taken all our clothes. Matt was mad as hell, and Dillon went feral, calling Isabel every swearword he could think of until Matt got so defensive that Dillon finally shut up. We had to ride our bikes twelve kilometres in nothing but our wet underwear.