21

The bleak, grey skies, the thick layer of blindingly white snow and the grey rocks arbitrarily protruding from the ground almost made for a monochrome picture, if it wasn’t for the trees.

Wednesday afternoon, a time most Pupils could attend without too much personal sacrifice, had arrived. More importantly, the date, time and location had been passed down to them by Watchmaker, so it had never been up to them to begin with.

Apparently, Oracle had felt that this couldn’t wait and Oracle and Watchmaker always had more information than the Pupils. Their understanding of the world and their gaze into the future were beyond words and beyond question.

Despite the overcast, the heavens were bright enough to see the snow covered mountain peaks that surrounded them, creating a false sense of security and a correct sense of isolation.

In the frosty afternoon the group stood blowing misty clouds of insecurity on the parking lot that gave access to several trails and a recreational area. Those were only in use for about nine months per year and would surely be deserted during the winter season.

“Why do these things have to be outside every time?” Marith wondered with a shudder.

“My tits are freezing off,” Amber complained, completely out of character.

Marith and Vanessa giggled at the accuracy. Juliette was not paying attention, because she was scanning their surroundings. She was wearing a tracksuit again, barely affected by the temperature.

“Why do Kyle and I even have to be here?” Amber wondered.

Kyle looked like the Michelin mascot, but was still stomping the ground with his heavy boots and slapping himself with gloved hands to stay warm.

“To practice with these?” Brad held up a colourful, round target, made out of straw, and lifted one of the tubes, containing arrows, up.

He had just hauled the gear from the back of his SUV. Will and Jonathan were holding the bows, the rest of the tubes and a heavy looking bag, filled with more targets.

“Oh, I thought those were just for the Runners,” Amber answered disappointed.

“Nope, we all need to be able to shoot something. At least something as big as the Birdman.”

Amber sighed and her face disappeared briefly out of sight.

“Today’s just target practice, okay?” Brad informed, with a little wink. “Next time we’ll explore the talents of the Mages and test the skills of the Runners. Kyle and yourself won’t have to be there for that.”

Amber stood nailed to the asphalt. That wink had made her cheeks rosy and her heart excited. “Okay,” she almost whispered, eyeing him with her big brown eyes.

They had parked the cars as inconspicuously as possible, which was hard since they were the only ones there. Brad, Kyle and Marith had parked their vehicles far apart from each other, as not to give away that they all belonged together.

The tri-lake area locked almost completely down during winter time. It was barely accessible for supplies and deliveries and the steep, cutting rocks of the mountains didn’t make for safe slopes to be enjoyed by skiers and snowboarders.

They embarked on one of the trails, following Juliette and Brad, assuming that James and Anton would somehow catch up with them.

The path was narrow and meandered downward between fir trees and ginormous, dried out ferns and mossy rocks. The snow hadn’t been able to travel beyond the crown of the forest yet. It functioned as a high, natural roof, giving anyone under it the impression of being inside an old building or a massive greenhouse.

They walked like ducks in a row over the hollow sounding ground.

Just some kids walking around with ancient weaponry, playing outside in the cold. Nothing to see here.

“Any sign of the Kid?” William asked tentative.

They had all been wondering the same thing, but none of them had been comfortable enough to ask the question. William, not entirely wired to the group yet, felt some hesitation, but didn’t let that win from his curiosity.

“Niks, nada, noppes,” Marith shared meekly.

Although none of those words were English the rest knew what she meant.

“I mean, you’d think there would have to be a sign of him, right?”

“The swirly stuff above my clockwork seems… well, depressed,” Kyle commented.

“Yes, my clouds lost most colour and vibrancy, as well,” Amber agreed.

“But that just indicates his presence, not his exact whereabouts,” Jonathan said.

“As long as they keep working,” Vanessa interjected.

The conversation pressed heavy on their chests. They all felt encumbered discussing this laden topic. The Chain knew that the only reason they were even together, on their way to an open space to shoot some arrows, was the presence of their opponent, but that didn’t make matters easier to discuss or digest.

They had been left to their own devices. At least, that was what it felt like. Oracle and Watchmaker would always be there to guide them, from the Clock in the Sky, but after the tour Keymaker had given them they felt estranged, orphaned.

“Where do you think he gets his money? I mean, to function in this society he would need a bank account and everything, right?” Will wondered.

“Maybe he got a job?” Kyle asked.

“Right,” Juliette scoffed, from up front. “With what papers?”

“Maybe he is stealing? I mean, he is a Runner, after all,” Amber suggested. “If anyone could get away with crime it would be him.”

“That would have been reported,” Brad brought in, talking over his shoulder. “There has been no increase in crime whatsoever in the area.”

“So nobody knows what he does for a living or where his money comes from?” Will summed up.

“Yet he probably has it. I mean, he must have. Otherwise he is as homeless as every other person in the area,” Juliette gave her thoughts.

She walked behind Brad, so she spoke up and slightly tilted her head back, so everybody could hear.

“He doesn’t work, but he has money, yet no one knows where it comes from? He sounds like a boomer,” Jonathan joked.

“Utter cocksuckers,” James muttered from their right, completing that train of thought.

Anton and James had casually materialized in between the ferns and underbush, from somewhere. Marith, however, wouldn’t know where that somewhere could have possibly been.

She was slightly unnerved by the fact that she hadn’t seen, heard or sensed them coming. She hadn’t noticed them running towards the group and she hadn’t heard them halt.

She felt vulnerable, like they got caught. It wasn’t that they had done anything wrong, but she had been under the impression that they had at least been somewhat shielded and protected by their clockworks, their talents and the thick greenery.

“Nice of you guys to join us,” Brad welcomed both Runners with a teasing smile.

“How did you find us?” Marith informed, ill at ease.

Both the senior Runners didn’t hike the trail, but moved parallel to them in the wilderness, completely unbothered by the uneven forest floor and the resistance any normal human being would experience by the persistent rocks and vegetation.

“You people walk and talk very loudly,” Anton shared.

“Also, we got some coordinates from our friends up above,” James enlightened her, waving something shiny and circular through the air with his left hand, before putting it behind a zipper again.

Of course, Marith thought, somewhat reassured. The Kid didn’t have any connection to Oracle, Watchmaker or their communications. He wouldn’t find them as easy as these two Runners had done, she told herself.

“Back to the Kid,” William urged. “There is no paper trail of his presence, whatsoever? I find that hard to believe.” He halted briefly, inhaled and exhaled loudly.

Marith noticed how his chest was visibly heaving now and he sounded like he was having some trouble walking and talking at the same time. Keeping up with the Rebirthed Ones, while not being in possession of a properly functioning heart, must be though.

Marith felt bad for him and took the tube of arrows he had been carrying that whole time from his hands. He was so busy catching his breath he barely noticed.

“That is strange, to say the least,” Anton commented.

“He influenced all of us, including our parents and the local economy from the Empty. Is it such a far fetch that he found a way to accumulate wealth from that position as well?” Marith asked the group. “Or to obtain false papers?”

The others guessed not. Doing old fashioned detective work was perhaps not the right path to success. There was a reason Oracle had predicted they wouldn’t be able to identify their adversary until the new Watchmaker would be unveiled. The tricks he was employing to stay under the radar in this dimension might be too advanced and well prepared to unravel for the Pupils.

After the group had resumed their hike the feelers shot out of the envelope in Marith’s head. She directed them towards William’s back.

It was a deliberate action, like she’d done in the abandoned school, under Pavan’s guidance, and later in the Courtroom of the Corridors. She wasn’t sure how useful she was being, since this wasn’t somethings he had practiced very often, but she took the fact that William hadn’t dropped dead yet as a good sign.

They hiked on for about ten more minutes until anyone commented on anything.

It was William again. “I hear water,” he said with a frown, turning his head in the direction it came from.

“You hear water now?” James scoffed. “I’ve been listening to that noise for the past fifteen minutes.”

The path they were taking tilted downwards more steeply, until they were nearly running to the edge of the forest, where the needle filled ground made place for smaller rocks and smooth pebbles.

Marith felt like the woods spit them out to present them to the river.

“Where is it?” Amber asked, blinking playfully.

“What’s the plan here?” Jonathan wondered.

“You’ll see,” Brad shared.

They stepped away from the towering trees onto a rocky shore. While Marith squinted her eyes in a futile attempt to see the water they all heard she noticed a hand on her left sleeve. She looked up into William’s round, flustered face.

“Thanks,” he whispered, with alert eyes, before he stumbled from the underbrush onto the dry riverbed.

“Don’t even mention it,” Marith murmured with a little smile.

The frozen pebbles crunched under their feet like broken glass. At least, they had to assume it wasn’t indeed glass.

Like so often around water there were gusts of lingering ground fog. They coloured their direct surroundings opaque and were also incredibly hindering.

It was as if they were standing in a field of grain. They could see each other’s shoulders and faces, but that was it.

“Is there really no fog free river bed in this whole area?” Kyle asked, while starting to realize this location was probably chosen because of the mist and not despite of it.

The blueish patches moved slower than a snail through peanut butter, but when the mist parted for a few feet or so, they could see the water they were hearing. It was a modest stream. The water didn’t thunder or create foam.

The waterfalls and crystal clear rivers in the area were a result of glaciers and high altitudes. They would swell during spring and decrease again when autumn would appear. This one had almost entirely withdrawn for the winter season.

“I can see perfectly fine in the dark, since my Rebirth. Why can I not see through mist or snowfall?” Marith asked, eyeing the low hanging, white curtains with a frustrated frown.

“Mist is a barrier, darkness is a lack of light. Since your Rebirth your eyes don’t require as much light to see anymore,” Vanessa explained.

“You are the light.” Amber smiled encouragingly at her.

“That’s right,” Brad said, pointing at Amber, who instantly started to glow again. “That’s why it is important to practice without seeing the actual target with your eyes. We need to use our talents within the Web to shoot the arrow at the designated spot.”

He fished a straw target and a standard from the bag Jonathan had been carrying for most of the hike and had now dumped somewhere on the shore. Brad, being the locator, had no trouble finding his way to the insides of the bag.

He walked away from them through the mist with a target and a foldable stand. Anton and James followed his lead and walked with him. When they returned he explained the basics of archery to the group.

“Normally we place the target no more than 25 metres away, especially for beginners, but you guys have more pulling strength than most humans, so I put them about 75 metres back, to begin with.”

For William he had plonked a target in a standard at the regular distance, but he didn’t mention that, not to single him out or to make him feel uncomfortable. Soon he would be just as much a part of the Chain as the rest of them.

Brad picked up a bow that was never handed to them by Keymaker. Marith figured he must have brought them from home. It was slightly bigger than theirs, but the wood was just as dark.

“We basically use bows and arrows from a time in which archery was simpler and more natural. Modern day archers work with bows and arrows that have little to do with the bows and arrows we are going to practice with today.

“Forget everything you’ve seen in movies and shows. That type of archery is as unnatural as… well, as our lives, I guess.”

He continued after some uncomfortable snickers. “We don’t carry the quiver on our backs, while hunting. Jumping from trunk to rock to bark and to the ground again would cause us to lose every arrow we carry. Instead,” Brad explained, while yanking some arrows from a tube at his feet, causing him to temporarily be out of sight completely, “we hold the arrows in our left hand. Yes, that’s the hand we also hold our bows with,” he said, beating them to the question that was inevitably coming.

We should be able to shoot and hit while walking, running, jumping and also while the target is running, jumping and even flying. If you can’t master holding the arrows in the bow hand there are belt-quivers you could use, but I wouldn’t really recommend those either.”

Brad held his own bow in his left hand put a handful of arrows in it as well. The arrows were pointing down and soon they learned why. With one smooth movement he grabbed the back of one of them and pulled it backwards into the string. It was in position immediately. He pulled it back with visible force, not shooting it yet.

“Also,” he continued, while demonstrating , “we place the arrow on the right side of the bow, if we pull back with our right hand, that is. We don’t use the left side of the bow, because that would demand more movements.”

He showed what he meant by trying to place the arrow on the left side, the side of his body, which was indeed more cumbersome. “By keeping the arrow on the right side we can draw and fire in one single motion, which is better and faster. They say it is harder to learn how to shoot this way, but it gives us more options… and I think it’s a lot more fun.

“Try to aim higher then where you estimate the target to be… and for the ladies, try keeping the string away from the chest area.” He made a circular movement in front of his own chest.

“Yeah, that could be painful,” Vanessa mumbled.

“Let’s begin,” Brad encouraged.

“We’ve got nothing to aim at…” Jonathan remarked, waving at the mist, his mouth slightly opened in disbelief of what Brad was asking of them.

Behind him, Juliette smirked at his incredulous tone, looking at where her feet were supposed to be with her arms crossed.

Brad, still holding his weapon, drew the arrow back again, aimed and fired in one seemingly effortless movement, while looking at Jonathan. A distant, dull thud informed them that the arrow had in fact hit the straw target.

“Yes, there is.”

Keymaker had given them three bows and three tubes of arrows to practice with. They split up into four groups. Marith already had an undefined feeling about how this afternoon would unfold, so she joined William, alternating the bow and the bunch of arrows they were also supposed to hold.

William, despite his lack of superhuman senses or abilities, did a decent job of hitting the straw at least once in every three attempts. Martih, however, felt as if she was back in gym class. The bundle of arrows slipped from her gloved left hand more than occasionally and drawing back the string and aiming simultaneously was apparently too much to ask from her frozen shoulders.

Her mind wasn’t cooperating either. The vibrating chords in her head were recalcitrant, reluctant to be deployed and when they finally unfolded to reach out to her surroundings they refused to inform her about the whereabouts of the target. Maybe they sensed a sports related purpose and were organizing a strike.

This whole exercise did not come naturally to her. Which wasn’t all that strange, since her proclivities had never been physical and the strings, bundled up in her mind, were clearly bestowed upon her for living creatures to be recognized, not inanimate objects.

“Come on, Marith! Feel the Web, breathe the Web, be the Web,” James encouraged her, mocking the vague instructions they had repeatedly been given in the past few weeks, in his heavy British accent.

Marith looked at him, smiled nervously, focussed and, judging by the scratching sound of iron hitting rock, missed pitifully, once more.

“Nope, that’s not it.” James shook his head and folded his arms, trying to appear knowledgeable.

“Then you do it!” She pushed the armoury against his chest.

Soon a satisfying, dull sound of something sharp impacting on straw followed. She had barely been able to follow his movements leading up to him firing the arrow, which made her feel even worse about her lack of aptitude.

To her disappointment all the Runners were remarkably good at archery. However, their superhuman skills paled by Brad’s abilities. Their locator was an avid enthusiast of antique arms. Marith had never realized that must have meant he also practiced with them in his spare time.

“Now you’re just bragging,” Amber giggled, looking at James and Brad. They were shooting from under their legs, with two arrows at once and by using their feet to push the bow away from them, stretching the string and firing. The arrows hit straw every time.

Marith walked with them to retrieve the arrows when everybody was out. Theirs had all hit the inner, golden circles. She grumpily picked up her own arrows, scattered across the shore, instructed by Brad about their exact whereabouts. When they returned they counted them to be sure none were missing. At the end of the day they didn’t want to leave a trace of their presence.

“Oh, I know something fun!” James almost exclaimed, like he just remembered a long forgotten technique.

Without explaining himself further he sped off into the mist and halted some hundred metres away. Marith had barely seen him move, but the shards of mist bend around his torso like a stream of water would around a boulder in a river.

“Shoot at me! Shoot at me!” He yelled at Brad, like an over-excited child.

Brad didn’t need to be told twice. An arrow sped through the air between them and right before it was supposed to impact James’s face he snatched it, made a 180° turn and shot it back with the bow he had carried with him, in one unbearably perfect, fluid motion.

Juliette grabbed the returning arrow mid-air, before it could seriously wound Brad. He was a Mage, after all, and not a Runner. His reflexes weren’t as sharp as Juliette’s.

“Now the ultimate one!” James requested jumping up and down in the sea of fog, ignoring the fact he had almost shot their locator.

Brad smirked, drew an arrow and shot. Unfortunately, Marith was admiring Brad’s technique and hadn’t been paying attention to James anymore, who had been doing the same thing.

The arrows met right in between the two young men and both split in half. Everybody cheered. The victors of the afternoon were lauded.

“This makes us all look bad,” Jonathan shook his head as he said it.

“Okay, James,” Brad started, when he realized some of the Pupils needed additional guidance. “Could you tell us something about how you caught the Sunshine in Scotland?”

James braked about a metre away from where the others were waiting. The pebbles only crunches slightly. The mist behind him recovered slowly.

“Well, I would say it’s basically what Pavan has told us before. It is a talent you need to master and you’ll get that gut feeling when it’s right,” James said and then hesitated. “The right conditions for catching weather are partly beyond my control, of course, but what I can control is sensing when the Web will allow me to capture it and then putting the right energy into it. That last part is the tricky part, I would say. Eventually you’ll feel the weather, or in this case, the target vibrating in the Web and you’ll know where to send your arrows.”

“First, you close your eyes and try to find the target,” Vanessa helped, pulling an arrow back and closing both eyes. Then, you keep your eyes open and let your old and your new senses work together.”

“Don’t be alarmed if you’ll experience temporal blindness,” James said, after Vanessa had fired. “You’re not actually blind, you just see this world in a different way. You might see the Web vibrating in all its glory.”

“That’s reassuring,” Kyle mumbled.

“It’s like the flashes of light and the colours you see when a Mailbox opens,” Anton brought in.

“Isn’t locating inanimate objects Brad’s talent?” Marith wondered, hoping that would explain her lack of feeling with their exercise.

“Absolutely, but as the Chain nears its completion Oracle hopes our talents will slowly grow together somewhat. Maybe it’s too soon,” Vanessa explained and then shrugged.

The group went back to practicing in separate clumps again. Marith followed William back to their target without giving it any thought.

Juliette had taken Jonathan apart for some additional training. The senior Runners would shoot an arrow and their newest member would have to race it and catch it. Arrows had a tendency to be slower than bullets, so that was a nice way to start.

Jonathan prepared for take-off by slightly bending his knees again and bowing forward like an ice skater would do before the starting shot. In their case the starting shot was an arrow soughing past one of Jonathan’s ears.

He had been instructed to wait five seconds before running, otherwise the exercise wouldn’t be challenging enough.

Jonathan may not have been the Chain’s fastest Runner yet, but he loved it. He knew he was made for this. Chasing and levelling up with the arrow, before reaching out and folding his hand around the ancient wood, speeding through the cold mountain air, felt like skiing straight down a steep slope or racing on a motorcycle.

He returned excitedly with the arrow in his hand, holding it triumphantly up in the air. They continued to repeat the exercise over and over again by waiting longer, before chasing the arrow, or by shooting several arrows in slightly different directions. Jonathan did well by retrieving them all in one fluent run, before any of them touched the ground or a tree.

Meanwhile the others kept practicing in the mist, under Brad’s supervision. Most did well and everybody did better than Marith. She felt flustered and unnerved, but she kept going, attempting to ignore the mist that crept up on her and blinded her talent.

William slapped Marith enthusiastically on the shoulder. “It sounds like you hit the target!”

Marith had barely registered the arrow boring itself into the straw or William cheering for her. The hairs on her neck had risen up. She felt pinpricks on her skin, over her entire body. Cold shivers ran up and down her spine as if they were trying to win a relay race. The obnoxious foggy sensation that plagued her brain had lost its subtlety.

She tried to deploy the chords from their envelope, but they seemed to be hitting a wall within. When she looked over her shoulder the shadow of a ghost had dissolved at the edge of the forest.

She exhaled, preventing herself from panicking. It had been there. She knew it. And she also knew it hadn’t been the Birdman.

“Are you okay?” William pinched the shoulder he had just slapped a little too jovially.

“Yeah,” Marith nodded, smiling at him, “just a little tired, I guess.”

“Well, you got one, so you can stop now,” William chuckled.

“That might be best,” Marith mumbled.

She didn’t dare to tell the others. Why alarm them if they were safe and she couldn’t prove, or explain, what had just happened?

Instead of running back the last arrow Juliette fired Jonathan stopped after catching it and turned around. He revolved the arrow in his hands before grabbing it like a spear. He threw it back like a tiny, light javelin at the Olympics.

It flew in an arc at Juliette’s face who grabbed it out of the air like it was a piece of clothing on a hanger.

“You’re ready,” she said, eyeing him intensely. “You’ve ran to Nate before, right? How did that go?” Juliette inquired, when Jonathan came closer.

Jonathan shook his head, hesitantly awaiting her reaction.

“What? Why not?”

“The Duchess offered to go that one time it was even necessary.” He faintly gestured at Marith and he sounded small as he said it, unsure whether or not he was revealing a secret.

“You guys have been spending an unusual amount of time together lately,” Juliette insinuated playfully at Marith, who just smiled back in the most perky way she could muster, since it was none of her business.

“Fine. I will train you by running there with you now,” Juliette addressed Jonathan curtly, annoyed by the fact Marith didn’t provide an answer.

“Now now?”

“Yes, now now.”

“Anything you want to say to your boyfriend Marith?” Juliette asked, outing her to the whole group, although it had been pretty obvious that there was something going on.

“Yes, actually,” Marith answered, marching past her to give Jonathan, and Jonathan alone, the message about what she had seen in the playroom of the clinic.

It was a shame she couldn’t bring him the news herself, which was good and bad at the same time. All kids had been drawing birds and Etienne wasn’t special and there was no sign of any new Watchmaker yet.

When she let go of Jonathan’s wrists he was still digesting the information. He hadn’t known Etienne existed until that moment. Marith eyed him expectantly.

“Yeah?” Marith whispered at him.

“Yeah.” He nodded, with a little smile.

When Marith turned around Juliette looked frustrated, which pleased Marith immensely.

“Can we join?” James requested. “I haven’t seen that mad man in a while.” If his Britishness hadn’t been clear before, it was obvious now.

Anton joined them in silence.

“Brad,” Juliette instructed him curtly. She nodded to Jonathan.

Brad walked over to Jonathan and held his wrists in the same way Marith had just done, like he was holding two cello bows. He informed the young Runner about the current locations of Nate and Lisa, so they could visit both remote Prophets.

So, everybody’s going to visit Nate, except for me, Marith moped for a few brief moments. She considered that whole day a failure and she caught herself experiencing some self-pity.

Then she remembered William was basically in the same boat with Lisa, except for the fact that he hadn’t even had his Push yet and with Oracle’s strange, circuitous instructions it could be a while before he would become one of them.

Their hair had become humid and their faces had become red and numb. The faux fur on their collars and boots was sticking together. Darkness was creeping up on them and they all felt, and hoped, this practice round was about to come to an end.

The Runners sped off into the murky evening. The other six Pupils were preparing to head back to the cars, by collecting their equipment.

“What has gotten into her?” Marith whispered at Vanessa as soon as their were back on the trail again.

Feelings of gloom and loneliness washed over her. She thought she was liked by Juliette. Marith did like her.

“Maybe she’s frustrated, having to compete with three other men,” Amber brought in wisely.

“Why? She is obviously the fastest one,” Marith answered.

“Maybe she’s afraid of losing that position as soon as they get back into it, as soon as they seriously start to train again,” Amber continued.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vanessa wove it away.

“You look bomb,” Brad brought in, completely unsolicited, with a bow in his hand and a tube with arrows over his shoulder.

“And?”

Brad shrugged. “Maybe she’s jealous of that? I don’t really know why women fight,” he said in a tone of voice that sounded like he was regretting his first comment on the matter.

“So does she!” Marith answered with a wild arm gesture in the direction the Runners had took off in and an incredulous look on her face. That could not be the reason for her behaviour.

“You drive a sports car.”

“That is not even mine.”

“You live in a mansion.”

“Not mine either.” Marith was actually getting mad. How stupid and senseless was this?

“You’ve got a boyfriend.”

“How do you guys even know that?”

“Oracle.”

Marith gazed furiously at the five faces before her. “What?!”

“Yeah, basically.”

“How is that relevant information to pass along to the rest of the Chain?” Marith almost yelled, stomping onward.