8

Dominic’s Hourglass

13 Minutes

‘Dominic Mathers?’ A voice interrupted before he could speak again. He turned quickly and saw a girl who could be a Victoria’s Secret model standing beside him. And slightly above him. She didn’t seem too much older than Eva, but she was a good head taller than both of them. Her long hair was a pale blonde and her skin, though not as white as Satarial’s, was porcelain. She had eyes the colour of the Aegean Sea, azure.

‘Are you Dominic?’ She smiled a dazzlingly perfect smile at him.

‘Yes.’ His anger evaporated.

The girl took his hand and held it in hers. It was surprisingly warm and it felt odd feeling such warmth in this static, dead place. She closed her eyes, and inhaled, but he didn’t feel any invasion into his mind. She glanced at Eva, seemingly oblivious to the other girl’s disdain. ‘Hello, Eva. I haven’t seen you in a long time. Are you his Guide? Lucky girl.’ She was coquettish in a way that reminded Dom of the cheerleaders at his school. He couldn’t tell if she was sincere or not. He was sure, however, that she was the most incredibly beautiful girl he had ever seen.

‘I am so pleased to meet you. You are the talk of the City.’ She smiled.

‘Why are you here, Deora? Aren’t you meant to be Guiding someone?’ Eva lifted her chin and stepped a little closer to Dom. He tried to hide his smile as he felt her behind him.

‘Of course I am,’ the girl said, her voice gentle, cheerful and sincere. ‘I am with Lord Albert.’ She gestured to the man in the top hat who was sitting a few feet away, who had spoken of dinner parties. ‘He’s still in denial. He comes here every day. So I walk in the Gardens most of the day.’

‘Where is his Guardian?’ Dom asked.

She laughed, a soft throaty laugh. It was so sexy the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. As if she knew, she reached out and touched his hair, which had grown longer, the twisted braids tied back, but hanging almost to his shoulders.

‘I love your hair, so wild.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Where’s your Guardian, Dominic?’

‘No idea,’ he admitted.

She laughed again. ‘That’s the way of Guardians. They do their own thing. They are there when you need them. Things are calm in the City nowadays. They don’t have a lot to do.’

‘Calm? Was it different?’ He could easily imagine this place as a menacing city of murder and danger. The stillness always seemed fake; temporary.

‘Oh yes. Hasn’t Eva told you?’ She looked at Eva quizzically. ‘Oh, but she has only been here a few years. It was a very dangerous place once. Too many people spent their days at the Glass. Nobody was working, hardly anyone moved on. Before the Trials. The Trials saved the City.’

‘What are the Trials? Are they like the Olympics?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Think more Roman Colosseum.’ Eva sounded disgusted.

‘The battles in the Colosseum were brutal. Are they really like that?’

‘I have no idea what a Colosseum is,’ Deora admitted, smiling. ‘Maybe they are. People compete, fight, race. They can win a lot of minutes. Other people pay to watch. It gives people something to do and it’s a lot more fun than, well, hiding in your room because the streets aren’t safe. Isn’t it, Eva?’

‘I think we might see the Trials differently, Deora. Shouldn’t you be encouraging him to get out of here?’ Eva gestured at the vacant gaze of Deora’s ward.

‘He’s not ready. When he is, I’m here for him.’

‘That could take years!’ Eva was unimpressed.

‘Yes, it could. But I can’t make him work or want to leave. He still has a lot to learn first. I’m here when he’s ready.’ She smiled another calm and beautiful smile which she turned on Dom. ‘I’m so happy to have met you – the youngest to ever arrive. You are somewhat famous and I can feel why. You still feel alive.’

Eva interrupted, ‘I’m going to find Eduardo. Are you coming?’

‘He’ll meet you later. I want a few more minutes of his fascinating company. Please?’ Deora smiled at both of them. Dom hesitated.

Eva snorted her disgust and turned. ‘I’ll meet you back at the apartment. Soon.’ She turned and left, and Dom watched her walk away wondering if he should follow. But he was still angry at her, so he turned back to Deora. It wasn’t hard to choose to stay. Her blonde hair draped over a figure that he was almost terrified to look at. He tried to keep his eyes on hers, but it was difficult.

‘She is such a beautiful girl, Eva. Especially when she smiles!’ Deora had the gracious generosity of a girl confident in her own superior beauty. She gazed back at him. ‘You know, I was the youngest once. I got a great deal of attention here for a while.’

Dom couldn’t imagine Deora ever lacking attention. ‘How old were you? When you . . . died.’ It still felt awkward to say it.

‘120.’ She smiled.

‘What?’

‘People lived much longer in my time,’ she smiled again. ‘To die at fifteen would have been to die in near-infancy! For some of us older ones, you seem almost surreal.’

‘When were you born?’ he asked.

‘The Age of Ephraim.’ She saw his blank look. ‘I don’t know much of your new times. But it was before the Ice and the Great Fires and before the Great Flood.’ She shrugged. ‘A long time ago anyway.’ Her smile was buoyant. ‘Not as long as some.’

‘Are you . . . are you Nephilim?’ Dom was hesitant. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was on issues of race. Was it rude to ask someone if they were part-Angel? People in India asked him all the time if he was ‘black’. His skin was lighter than most of Delhi’s residents and yet they often called him ‘black’. They also called Kaide ‘yellow’. It didn’t bother him at all. It drove his mother crazy though. She was forever correcting local shop owners or restaurant waiters with words like ‘Caucasian-African-American’ and ‘Japanese-American’, both of which brought blank stares to the faces of the locals. Kaide, whose skin was a tanned olive, often joked that black and yellow must be the same colour in India.

He watched Deora’s exquisite face and her eyes narrowed for a moment. But they brightened quickly and she smiled a little. ‘You haven’t been here long, Dominic.’

He thought she was going to leave it at that, she paused for so long, then eventually she continued. ‘I am not truly Nephilim. There are strict rules about race among the hybrid peoples. I am the daughter of a Nephilim and a woman. So I have some of their blood. You obviously didn’t know – but all Nephilim are male. But I live within the Nephilim clan.’

‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realise.’

‘All Angels are male and all their offspring are male as well. There are no females until the second generation and even then they are rare.’ She smiled again, secure in her uniqueness. ‘Will you come to see the Trials then?’

‘I have to work. I’ve hardly earned anything.’ He sighed.

‘What are you doing for work?’

‘The orchard.’

‘You’re at the Workhouse?’ She sounded horrified. ‘Why? You could get a job anywhere and earn ten times as much. What is Eva thinking sending you there? You must talk to her about that, Dominic, you don’t have to slave in the orchards for a few minutes a day. Not someone like you!’ Her hand reached out to touch his arm as she said it, and the warmth of it thrilled his skin. It rekindled the anger he felt towards Eva who was wasting his time in what was, apparently, the worst job in the City. He suddenly wished that Deora was his Guide. She seemed patient and understanding of the fact that someone could be overwhelmed by not only sudden death, but the discovery that they had a whole new unwanted life to live. He wished he could sit in the park for a few days and think. Maybe he would. It wasn’t as though Eva could stop him. He sighed softly. But then he would be here even longer and more than anything he wanted to get out of this place.

‘The Trials are tonight if you would like to come. They only hold them when there is a suitable contestant so it can be quite a wait. Come with me, I’ll be your escort.’ The look she gave him was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. He had a date with a girl who was born before recorded history. And she might be able to get him close to Satarial.

‘Okay. I guess so – Deora.’ He felt fifteen at that moment, young and immature, and he lifted his head to try and make himself at least as tall as her chin.

She laughed huskily. ‘Well, let’s go then, young Dominic.’

‘Just call me Dom,’ he muttered, fixing his satchel around his waist and falling into step beside her. She casually draped an arm around his shoulder and while he imagined it looked a little ridiculous to be with a woman a full head taller than himself, he hoped that when the inevitable stares began, at least they would be staring at Deora, not him.

‘What about your . . . person?’ He glanced around for the top hat and saw only greenery.

‘He’ll be fine. He’ll wander back to his apartment when it gets dark enough.’ She waved a graceful hand in the air to dismiss his concerns. ‘It’s not a very long walk, we can cut through the park and cross the bridge. Have you been to the Arena before?’

‘The Arena? No, I haven’t. What is it?’

‘It’s where the Trials are held. It’s in the centre of our part of the City and it is the most beautiful building you will ever see.’

Dom wasn’t sure of that. He had seen enough black stone to know that no matter how architecturally creative the buildings were, it still made everything seem the same. He glanced to his right and left where the park thinned and there were more black stone apartments. Some were medieval, some looked industrial and some were almost modern, but they all blended together into blackness.

They walked through the Gardens quickly. Deora glided effortlessly when she walked, her long legs taking strides that made Dom walk at an uncomfortable pace to keep up.

Again Deora laughed, a soft husky laugh. ‘Won’t your Guardian be sorry to miss this, Dominic? I wonder where he is?’

‘About three paces behind you, Deora,’ came the lilting tones of Eduardo’s Spanish accent. They both jumped and turned to see him, clad in his dark cloak with the hood pulled up. He stood almost as tall as Deora, whose eyes narrowed at him.

‘Your Guardian is Eduardo? You didn’t mention that, Dominic?’ She sounded as though she were admonishing him. Why would she care if the drunken, morose Eduardo was his Guardian? She turned and kept walking, taking Dom’s hand and pulling him along with her. He had a sudden feeling of unease. There was an expression on Deora’s face, of frustration or fear or something he couldn’t read, that made him think she was not completely genuine. He hurried to keep up with her.

It took them almost ten minutes to walk along the outer, hedged rim of the great park. It was strange for such a forest to be so quiet. They walked past thickly wooded trees and vines and undergrowth and there was barely a sound, no scurrying lizards or screeching birds. Just scratching and rustling and even that was limited by the lack of wind. At the other side of the park the City changed. The buildings were vastly proportioned and ancient in their appearance. Clearly this was where the wealthiest people of the City lived. It was brighter without the apartment buildings and the streets were wider. Some of the dwellings were almost castles and intermittently there were Greek- or Roman-style villas with columns and coloured frescoes on the outside walls. They stepped onto a footpath, wide and smooth. The stone of the houses was lighter than the black stone of the rest of the City; it shone like marble. They walked around a construction that resembled an Egyptian temple he had seen in history class and finally reached the bridge.

‘Man!’ Dom gasped. The river was not wide or particularly fast-flowing, but the water was so crystal clear that the stones beneath were magnified and distorted. It could have been shallow or it could have been ten metres deep – he couldn’t tell. The strangest thing was that he could smell it. He would have never thought water had a distinctive smell, but as they walked towards the bridge the pure clear sweetness made his eyes water and he reached forward involuntarily.

‘You can swim another day, Dominic,’ Deora smiled, ‘we don’t have time today.’

Swim. He turned to Eduardo who shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘It’s cold in there.’

They walked across the bridge, which was a wide arch of carved marble. It was one single piece of stone, seamless and intricately carved. It was wide enough for several lanes of traffic, and since the only traffic here was people and the occasional cart pulled by a person rickshaw-style, it seemed vast. The detail in the carved rails shocked him. There were scenes from life, from history. Roman and Greek figures and other cultures and styles of art he did not recognise at all. Figures that were taller than the others, he assumed to be the Nephilim, but some of them rode on flying creatures – dragons. There were creatures that were clearly dinosaurs, though modern historians hadn’t quite captured the ferocity these frescoes showed. Some of the creatures had flames and sprays of water coming out of their mouths. He smiled. It made him feel strangely happy to know that dragons were real. He had believed in them as a kid only to have his mother assign them to the same category as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and God. It was a shame those reptiles hadn’t come here when they died, he would have loved to see them in the flesh. He wondered if there was anyone in the City who had been eaten by a dragon or a dinosaur. The thought made him grin. Deora gazed at him with curiosity.

‘Oh, you didn’t have the Big Ones did you? I had heard that. I always remember life as I lived it. It must have been very different for you.’ She gave the dinosaurs a cursory glance, but reached out to stroke a relief of a dragon so detailed it had scales. ‘They were so beautiful.’ Her voice was wistful for a moment. ‘They had their own language, you know. It was very difficult to learn, but the Nephilim could speak to them.’

‘That’s awesome.’ Dom was a little jealous. ‘Life must have been so different for you. No cars or planes.’

‘What do you mean?’ She seemed confused.

‘I mean before the world got really, I don’t know, technological. We had spaceships – people travelled to the moon. And we could fly to different parts of the country and the world.’

She laughed a loud, throaty laugh and Dom was surprised to hear Eduardo chuckling as well. He looked at him for an explanation, but his Guardian just winked at him.

‘Do you think we lived in a swamp? Or a cave?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve heard the stories. You think we crawled out of the mud and wandered around for centuries trying to start a fire?’ Her voice changed a little then. ‘We lived for hundreds of years, Dominic. My mother was over four hundred years old when I was born. We did not need to be near each other to communicate. We could speak through our minds, at least those who were not pure Nephilim. They had to use touch. My mother and I would speak to each other when she was huge distances away.

‘My world was more complex than this Necropolis, Dominic, so don’t believe this is any more like my life than it is like yours. We flew great distances too – only we used the Great Ones.’ She gestured at the dragon. ‘We had commerce across the entire planet. Leaders from across the world came together regularly to discuss trade and politics and keeping the slaves in order. My parents’ estate was almost as big as this part of the City.’ She was silent a moment. Dom was surprised by her expression. He had expected grief or some sort of wistfulness, but he saw anger, her face twisted with it as she touched the fresco with her long pale hand. When she turned to meet his gaze it was gone. He shuddered a little and had the feeling again that Deora might be dangerous; that Nephilim blood might be something he should avoid. At least he always knew where he stood with Eva. She always told him exactly what she thought.

Someone bumped into him and jolted the thought from his mind. He suddenly noticed that a lot of people were crossing the bridge.

Deora was also knocked out of her reverie. ‘We should hurry – the roads will get busy soon.’

Dom looked back the way they had come and saw that this was an understatement. Hordes of people were walking towards the bridge and despite its width, the entrance was choking with the volume. He turned and kept walking, finding that Eduardo was no longer behind him, but at his right side, his hood down and his eyes wary. Dom glanced around. Most people seemed intent on simply reaching the Trials, but occasionally someone would notice him and gesture to a friend. He heard the word ‘fifteen’ and sighed. He still couldn’t believe it would be interesting to anyone that he was a teenager, though he imagined that if some of these people were from Deora’s time and were in their hundreds, it might seem very young. Then he heard someone say ‘child’ and, while it annoyed him, he was conscious again of the lack of children. There was no one scrambling lost through the crowd, no prams weaving back and forth and no high-pitched cries from babies. There were babies everywhere in Delhi. Thousands of them. It was the standard noise of the night in India to hear a baby crying. But he didn’t miss it. He didn’t know any small children and he didn’t feel any . . . connection with them. Kaide loved kids and was always carrying a snotty, grimy child around, playing some sort of skipping game in the dirt or babysitting the child of another American family on the compound. Dom wondered if it was a girl thing or just a personal thing. He couldn’t even imagine having kids. He wouldn’t know how to be a parent. Workaholic or alcoholic – that was all he knew about parenting.

‘There it is!’ Deora said grandly, a sense of pride in her voice.

They had walked over a small hill and in front of them was the most amazing piece of architecture he had ever seen. He wanted to stop and admire it, but Deora and Eduardo had each taken an arm and were pushing him forward through the ever-thickening crowd.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the amphitheatre. It was the most incredible thing he had ever seen. The building was entirely created by a ring of six enormous trees. Their trunks were huge, much larger than anything he had seen on Earth, and their branches wove together to form the curved outside walls. As they walked down the hill and approached the Arena he could fully appreciate its magnificence. The trees were alive, their tops curving over the stadium to form a shady roof and the upper branches, those not woven into the fabric of the building, waved a little, as the building filled with people. It was so beautiful he couldn’t turn away. The tree trunks were a rich red-brown colour and the bark was polished with such a patina that it reflected the crowds milling around. As they got close enough, he saw there were also incredible frescoes, intricate carvings of the events played out inside, people fighting, running, jumping. It did look like some sort of Olympics. The winners were holding up their hourglasses, which were clearly full; the prizes were time, hundreds and thousands of minutes.

People were passing through huge gates, holding their hourglasses up towards a wooden panel above them where their minutes slid silently upwards, floated for a moment in the air and then vanished into a vault above. A man ahead of Dom did not have enough minutes to pay for his entry and a soft, low whistle came from the roof. Within seconds two very tall, pale men appeared and carried him quietly through the crowd. The man didn’t struggle, he seemed tired and terrified, but his eyes were wild. The same sort of look David had when he talked about the Glass. Dom wondered if the Trials had the same addictive quality. The tall men, who didn’t seem large enough to be Nephilim, but stood taller than most, carried him away and out of sight.

‘You don’t want to know.’ Eduardo smiled grimly at him.

Dom had a sudden fear that he might not be able to pay himself, but before he could mention it Deora ushered him towards a smaller gate to the side of the large one. She walked calmly through it, leading him and his Guardian. They did not pay and nobody tried to stop them.

‘What—’ Dominic started to question her, and he noticed Eduardo’s face take on a seriousness that worried him.

‘We are special guests.’ Deora smiled beautifully. ‘We do not need to wait.’ She didn’t elaborate further and led him down an empty, intricately tiled path that was separated from the masses of people by a thick branch that grew parallel to the ground at waist height. They walked into the stadium through a dark tunnel and finally the light broke through and he could see into the main Arena.

It was exquisite. There were tiers of seating in an oval shape, and the branches of the trees wove around each other seamlessly, the wood polished and smooth as people filed into the vast benches that surrounded the centre field. The middle of the arena was deeper than he had imagined, set about three metres lower than the first row of seats, and the field was simple and covered in soft dirt. He realised they had entered at the narrow end of the oval-shaped Arena and to his left and right were the longer sides. Midway up on his left side was a vast platform with another branch-woven roof. The lush and vividly coloured cloth seats on the platform drew his attention for a moment until Deora ushered him forward.

They were walking along the lowest level, which was lined on one side with some sort of gallery. People were stopping to examine the exhibits in tall rectangular boxes. Each had a carved marble nameplate at the bottom. It was difficult to get close as now they were mixed in with the rest of the crowd.

Deora whispered in his ear, ‘I thought you might wish to see the collection.’ She smiled and gestured to the exhibits. Eduardo’s grip tightened on his arm and he heard a low growl in his other ear. ‘Walk past. Just walk past.’

He tried to do as his Guardian said. He had a feeling of dread about the exhibits. There was a sense of evil about them. But he turned his head to the left and read the stone at the bottom. It said: ‘Jereamoth’. He squinted at the exhibit and saw only murky liquid. It took a moment more to realise it was a glass tank filled with water. He still couldn’t see anything in the murky water. Maybe it was some sort of aquarium and the Nephilim had found a way to bring some sort of sea creatures to Necropolis.

He walked on to the next, his eyes down, reading the nameplate. It said: ‘Nimrod’. He peered into the murk and again saw nothing. He was about to move on when there was a sudden flash of movement in the tank and a hand slapped up against the glass. Dom leapt back, his skin crawling. Deora laughed and Eduardo tightened his grip on Dom’s arm, holding him upright when his legs threatened to give out.

‘It’s a man,’ Dom whispered in horror.

‘Yes,’ Deora said calmly, ‘a very famous man. He was a mighty king and hunter in his time.’

A face appeared at the glass, its eyes milky, and long hair waving wildly around it. The hand slid down the glass. The man, whose skin was white and soft from the water, had such a look of defeat and despair on his face. Dom coughed to keep himself from throwing up and again leaned on Eduardo’s arm to stay upright.

‘Are they all – people?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ Deora said casually. ‘This is a collection of some of the most famous people who have ever been in the Necropolis. Those who were defeated in the Trials, anyway. That is the risk, you see. Very few are invited to participate in the Trials. Those who do can win the ten thousand minutes they need to leave, but they also risk becoming part of the collection.’

‘They are all people who took part in the Trials?’ He looked along the row.

‘Yes. And some are very special people.’ She watched Eduardo as she said it, her mouth tight. Dom wondered what she meant by special.

‘Does anyone ever win?’

She laughed silkily. ‘Of course. The Winner’s Memoir is over there.’ She gestured to a section of the Arena below the plush platform area. It was carved with many names, but it didn’t seem to be even close to an equitable spread. There were hundreds of bodies in glass cases around the entire circumference of the Arena.

They continued walking and he kept his eyes averted as much as he could, though the occasional movement in a tank drew his attention to a figure inside, wrapped in long hair like seaweed, skin white and eyes glazed. Some had their mouths open in terror, others leaned resignedly against the glass. Dom felt sick. He wanted to leave, and more than anything he wanted to be back in the real world in his real life, alive and away from all of the strange and disgusting things around him. Occasionally he would read and recognise a name, ‘Aleksandre,’ ‘Mao’, ‘Akhenaton’, and he felt an even greater sadness that the great people of history were floating in tanks to be watched in their torment. They couldn’t breathe, but they couldn’t drown either. They were there forever. He understood what his Guide and Guardian had meant when they had said there were some things that were worse than death. He read the name ‘Cleopatra’ and gazed on the haggard face of the woman he had heard was the most beautiful in history. Long black hair fell around a withered and pruned face and the lower lids of her eyes dragged down to reveal the pale red. She looked as though she might be crying, and Dom shut his eyes and shuddered. When they finally pushed through the crowd to reach the centre of the left side of the stadium, Deora pointed up the stairs. ‘This way – we have special seats. You are a guest.’

He cringed. He wanted to sit somewhere quiet and watch the Trials unnoticed. Three tanks in the very centre of the stadium were larger than the others. He glanced briefly at the first and his heart almost stopped as he read the title: ‘Ronaldo. Sixteen’. He knew what it meant. This was the youngest person to have ever entered the Necropolis – before him. Ronaldo’s face was a mask of terror; his skin had not yet gone the milky white of the others but he pounded on the glass as if trying to solicit help. The large tank on the highest pedestal housed a very tall man with a beard that wrapped around his long, linen-clothed body. His face was old and had the sharpened shape that many of the very ancient people here had. Dom knew without reading the sign that this man had died a very long time ago. He looked at the plaque. It read: ‘Noyach’. The name meant nothing to him, but he was drawn to the man’s face; his eyes were closed and his hands hung limply by his sides. Eduardo ushered him on from behind and he followed Deora up the stairs.

The stadium was filling rapidly and there was a violent energy in the air. There was an urgency and sense of anger he had never before sensed at a sports event. He felt a stab of fear. This crowd was bloodthirsty. These people came here to watch other people being eternally tortured. They came to watch people lose the Trials. This was where they vented the frustration of living in this purgatory of a city. He wanted to leave, but knew it was too late for that. Deora pulled him firmly by the hand and he sensed in her a strength he couldn’t match. She led him up the stairs and he followed reluctantly.

There, on the platform overlooking the Trials, on the plush scarlet seats and carved marble benches, were the Nephilim. Taller than most men by at least a foot and fine-featured, they conveyed an air of aristocracy. They all turned and watched him enter behind Deora. In the centre of the group, Satarial sat alone on a huge chair that resembled a throne. Not all of the group were pale-skinned. Some of the Nephilim were black-skinned, the darkest black he had ever seen, their eyes a piercing green. He was strangely surprised; despite his heritage, he hadn’t imagined that Angels could be black. A few days ago he hadn’t even believed Angels existed, so he didn’t know why he had a preconceived notion they were white. He almost laughed at himself. The Nephilim stared at him with deep interest and he imagined himself as they saw him – a teenager, a potential Trials-competitor destined to end up in one of those tanks, perpetually choking, staring out at the leering crowds and wishing that death didn’t mean living forever.

Satarial ushered them over with a flick of two long fingers.

‘Dominic Mathers.’ He spoke smoothly and with the same deeply resonant voice Dom remembered. ‘So good to see you again.’ He smiled and raised an eyebrow as he said it and Dom was immediately sure it had been him in Kaide’s bedroom.

Dom stepped forward, more intent on finding out about his sister than worried about his fate. ‘What happened to my . . .’

A thin woman, the only other woman on the platform, interrupted him on cue and called him to sit beside the throne. ‘Come sit here. We’ve saved you the place of honour. The Trials are about to begin and we would like to offer you the chance to open them.’

‘But, I—’

‘It’s a very great privilege. Humans are rarely invited to do it. You are a special child.’

Child? Dom bristled at being called a child. He focused on the firm grip of Eduardo on his upper shoulder, and ignored the smile tilting Satarial’s mouth.

Every one of the Nephilim was watching him carefully. One of them lifted his hand, reaching out to touch him, then quickly withdrawing the gesture. Dom shivered involuntarily.

He took a deep breath and composed himself. He didn’t want to let them think he was terrified, so he drew himself up to his full height, almost six foot tall, and pulled his shoulders back. His hair, which was growing at a supernatural pace, was almost shoulder length now, even tied back in its high pony tail. He wished he was wearing something other than his T-shirt and jeans as the Nephilim were all garbed in white outfits that reminded him of the gi he wore for his childhood karate lessons. They looked imposing and ethereal, almost like gods.

Eduardo too had straightened; he’d thrown back his hood and was standing behind Dom’s right shoulder. Dom looked to him for reassurance and did a brief double-take. His Guardian seemed taller; tall enough to rival even the Nephilim. Dom took strength from his protective stance.

Ignoring the outstretched hand Satarial offered him as he approached, Dom walked forward and took the chair he was directed towards. He was not prepared to give up his mind so easily again. Deora stood to the side of the group, smiling tightly at him. He understood now. She was not a ranking member of this group at all, more of a servant. They had employed her for her beauty and she had been sent to snare him. He was embarrassed that he had been so easily captured.

‘What do you want me to do?’ He held Satarial’s gaze as determinedly as he could.

‘Start the Trials for us, Dominic,’ he purred. ‘The Trials have an ancient and magnificent tradition. The first Nephilim here in the City, Semjaza planted the great trees almost six thousand years ago and cultivated them into the Arena in which those who sought to conquer the Maze could train. When I took over, I transformed a simple training exercise into a competitive sport that is thrilling and terrifying, even for those who have already faced death. Are you a student of history, Dominic?’ he asked.

‘A little.’ Dom didn’t want to explain that he had mainly studied American history. He imagined that was not what Satarial meant.

‘There have been great competitions since the beginning of time. From the first simple running races and fighting with staves, to the tournaments we fought with the Great Ones. In your time there were the Circus Maximus and the Gauntlets run by those who would be knights, and more recently the innocuous Olympic Games. There have always been traditions of competition.’

Dom was bemused that Satarial considered the ancient Romans to have been ‘his time’; his was more the Superbowl kind of era.

‘We have designed these Trials carefully. They are everything humanity has imagined. We had to do without the Great Ones of course and the wild animals, but we have improvised. I understand your time was very different from mine.’

‘No dragons.’ Dom smiled warily. ‘No dinosaurs either. Some people don’t even believe dragons existed.’

‘Oh, Great Ones most certainly existed. They were very fast and very smart. We used them to hunt the big animals – the ‘dinosaurs’. As I said, there have always been traditions of competition. That is what we have immortalised here.’ He gestured at the Arena, which was entirely full now, buzzing and humming with energy.

‘The trick is to give the people power and to build the anticipation. We hold the Trials infrequently and we make people pay more than they can possibly afford. We let them participate and make the stakes as high as they can be.’

Dom snorted. ‘You mean eternal torture.’

Satarial smiled. ‘I sense a moral indignation. You don’t approve of my gallery, I take it – my collection.’

A chill ran down Dom’s spine. He knew that his place in the collection was anticipated and he felt like prey. ‘No. I don’t.’

‘When people participate in the Trials – and it is by invitation only – they know the consequences of loss. They lose their freedom. But they could win fame or the opportunity to leave – to attempt the Maze – if that is what they want.’

Dom took his chance. ‘Why have you never left? You must have more than enough money to continue to whatever is next.’

‘Because I refuse to be a slave to the Awe. This is a contrivance I will not be part of.’ His eyes narrowed.

Dom was confused. He couldn’t see how the Nephilim had any more choice about being part of the cycle than anyone else did. But Satarial was clearly not going to elaborate so he changed his tack.

‘Did everyone in your “collection” choose to compete? Did they all lose the Trials?’

Satarial smiled a cold, tight smile. ‘Yes. It is not possible to incarcerate a person without their permission. Another rule. Even the most special of my collection were competitors.’

Dom took a breath. ‘Noyach?’

Satarial’s blue eyes flashed so harshly that Dom edged back. This was a man with incredible anger and cruelty in him. Dom had never seen anything so dangerously potent. The Nephilim’s nostrils flared briefly and he spat, ‘Noyach was the first. You might call it an irony.’ He turned back to the scene in front of him. ‘Shall we begin?’

He walked to the front of the raised platform. The crowd’s buzz grew louder, though it wasn’t the cheering or applause Dom was accustomed to from a sports-stadium audience. It was an amplified hum, a deepening of energy that filled the air with as much fear as excitement. The people were terrified of the Nephilim, and yet also fascinated. He surveyed the strange hybrid creatures he was among. They relished the power. Many of them were smiling broadly, enjoying the fearful admiration. Deora’s face glowed beautifully and she cast a dazzling smile in his direction. He almost forgot that she had been bait to lure him to Satarial. He glanced at Eduardo and saw a strange expression on his face. There was no fear and certainly no adulation, but there was a strange sad look of shame as though he felt some of the burden of the spectacle.

Satarial began to speak and while it seemed he was barely raising his voice, it was clear that the entire audience could hear him. Dom wondered if it was another Nephilim talent or if it was something about the timbre of the arena. He could sense a strange life-force in the wooden bench on which he sat and he was highly aware that it was part of the living tree.

‘Welcome, friends.’ Satarial spoke condescendingly to the crowd. His tone left no doubt that the people in the stands were not his friends. ‘We have always brought you the most fascinating competitors, the most thrilling spectacles and the most harrowing of challenges. Today will be no exception. Today you will witness the challenge of Taoyateduta, the mighty warrior of the Land of Grasses. He was a hero in life and today risks the Arena in the hope of taking an even greater trip through the Maze. As ever, you may join the Trials by helping the contestant, or offering him an even greater challenge.’ The audience roared with a mixture of laughter and mockery at this last suggestion. ‘And we have one other special guest for you today.’

Satarial turned his raised arm towards Dominic and the focus of the audience shifted with it. Dom wanted to shrivel. It was the same feeling he’d had when he was on the streets of Delhi, or giving a report in class, only multiplied by the hundreds of thousands of eyes upon him. His shoulders slumped and he swayed backwards. Eduardo’s hand was suddenly hot on his back. In one touch he straightened Dom’s spine and held him upright. Dom felt the man’s strength flowing through him and he felt, at least for a moment, that he could face anything.

‘The youngest man to ever enter the Necropolis – Dominic Mathers. We welcome you to the City of the Dead and to our humble Trials.’ Satarial’s piercing gaze burned Dom almost as much as the hand at his back. He felt as though the men were fighting over him. One to humiliate and destroy him, the other to save him. It took every nerve he had, but he walked towards the front of the podium to stand beside the Nephilim who towered above him.

‘Dominic will begin today’s proceedings and, perhaps, in the coming months he may have the honour of being one of our celebrated contestants.’

The audience screamed with such violent enthusiasm that Dom’s head swam. He heard a voice, a soft grating one that felt as though it was inside his head. ‘All you need to say is that you declare the Trials open.’ He knew it was Satarial. He continued to gaze straight ahead, determined to at least give the pretence of confidence. He raised a hand the same way the Nephilim had and to his surprise the audience was silent for him as well. With a voice as strong as he could muster he began, ‘I now declare the Trials . . .’ He paused. The crowd stared at him expectantly, and he felt a sudden pity for them. They were destined to be eternal spectators, they were too afraid to risk going any further on their life-death journey. Satarial was a king, but only among the dead. His lips curled into a small smile. ‘. . . OPEN!’ he said.

The screaming erupted again and the audience members were on their feet, their eyes turned from him to the centre of the stadium. Dom sat back and felt a reassuring pat on his shoulder from Eduardo.

He had little time to relax though; the Trials began immediately and he was riveted. The floor of the stadium, which had appeared to be covered in brushed dirt, was starting to sway and undulate. It rolled gently at first like the ocean, but swelled into larger and larger waves, eventually cracking and rocketing upwards into shards of rock and jagged clay, a rugged labyrinth. Satarial was still standing by the edge of the podium. He looked intent yet barely interested; a man doing his job. He raised his hand and a doorway at the far side of the field opened, a small and simple gap that spat out a man who looked tiny and insignificant against the new terrain. Despite its magnificence, it wasn’t a huge stadium and Dom could clearly see that the man was a Native American dressed in the same traditional garb he had seen in the orchard; fringed leather chaps, plaited leather jewellery over his bare chest. He had a long braid draped behind him. He was clearly a warrior, his muscles were small and tightly defined and he walked lightly, ready for anything. Dom wondered what exactly he had to be ready for. There weren’t any wild animals to fight. He wasn’t going to die. Perhaps he had to fight other people.

Eduardo whispered in a low voice behind him, ‘See the medallion around his neck? It has three other pieces, one at each end of the stadium and one on the other side. He has to collect the three pieces, which all join into one, and deliver it to Satarial. If he can do it, he wins. If he doesn’t, well, you know the rest.’

‘Is there a time limit?’ Dom asked.

His Guardian snorted. ‘No. The Trials have been known to go on for hours, even days.’

‘How does it remain interesting?’ He wondered if it would be as tedious as some of the cricket matches he had watched with his father on his last tour of Europe. ‘How does he lose?’

‘He gives up.’

‘Why would he give up? He’s not going to die. He might get tired, but he’s not going to ever actually die. What would make him give up when he faces eternity in one of those tanks?’

‘You’ll see.’ Eduardo sounded grim again, as though he was embarrassed to be any part of the spectacle.

Dom kept his eyes on the man who made his slow and cautious way through the rock jungle. The rocks shifted constantly and there were a few tumbling boulders that he had to leap away from, but there didn’t seem to be anything too horrific to endure.

Satarial waited a few more moments and then raised his arm again. From his hand leapt a stream of fire that struck the floor of the stadium and became a writhing serpent. It leapt over and around the rocks seeking out Taoyateduta. The warrior had taken cover among the darker corners of the rocks. The serpent swept past and the man ran towards the southern wall of the stadium. He was fast and he was agile, but Dom watched Satarial and he realised that he was playing with Taoyateduta, that the serpent could reach him at any time. The dance continued to the screams of the crowd; they could see where the flames snaked, while the contestant could not.

‘Is this magic?’ Dom was fascinated.

‘No,’ Eduardo explained. ‘Magic is not what you think. He is from a different time. There are parts of his mind that work differently to yours; that understand more. He can manipulate the elements with his mind because he understands the connection of energies between everything. You could do it too, if you understood.’

‘Can you do it?’

Eduardo was silent for a moment. ‘I am not from that time either, Dominic, my time was closer to yours. The only element I could manipulate was steel.’ He gestured to his sword.

Abruptly, curving over a fragment of shattered earth, the flames found and surrounded the warrior. They squeezed in on him and his shout of pain carried clearly over the voices of his audience. Dom leaned back in horror. The man below leaped through the flames, his long hair on fire, and rolled under a soft mound of dirt and rock. The fire sizzled, smoked and eventually went out. Satarial smiled slightly and sat down. The burned man lay quietly for a while and the audience began to boo. Finally, he struggled to his feet and made his way towards the first piece of the medallion. The rocks and dirt sank back into themselves and once again the floor of the stadium was smooth. Making the most of the flattened terrain, the man sprinted to the end of the Arena, grasping the medallion fragment from its place in the wall and tearing it down. There was a cheer from the audience, but it was soon drowned out by the sound of rushing water. The water gushed up from the bottom of the stadium like a dam had burst, filling it in less than a minute. It was crystal clear like the water in the river, and the sweet scent of it filled Dom’s nostrils. Taoyateduta adapted quickly and began the swim to the other end of the Arena. He was obviously a strong swimmer. He broke through the water with ease. Satarial raised his hand again, and the audience waited expectantly. At first nothing appeared to be happening, but then there was a subtle change in the appearance of the water. It was turning white.

‘It’s freezing,’ Dom said, impressed. He wondered how the warrior would react. If he could get on top of the ice, he could run along it, but getting on top of water as it froze would be almost impossible. The audience held their breath and Dom found himself mesmerised. He had anticipated something much more bloodthirsty and violent, but this was certainly a supreme test of skill.

Taoyateduta struggled valiantly to stand on the slushy ice as it formed, but it wasn’t firm enough and he fell through. By the time he attempted it again, it was too late. The surface of the water was frozen and he was pinned under the ice. Dom leaned forward. The man struggled as he drowned, twisting and fighting for air. Dom felt sick as he empathised – not being able to die and yet suffocating. Finally the body under the clear ice went limp and floated. There was silence and then some jeering from the viewers. But the warrior under the ice was not finished yet. His body twitched a little, and then he began to claw his way towards the end of the stadium using both hands and feet, climbing along the underside of the ice. Soon the water was stained with red as his fingers split and bled. Through the clear crust of ice it was horrifying to see the bloody tendrils swirling around him. The screams of the audience were wild. Animalistic.

Satarial nodded slightly to a tall black Nephilim who raised his hand over the water. It melted in a flash, sloshing and roiling, and blocks of ice hissed into liquid. Taoyateduta was lost in the foam, but as the water stilled and receded into the dirt leaving only pools, his figure could be seen lying in the mud. Fumbling on hands and knees, he crawled towards the far wall and the medallion fragment that hung there. Dom’s stomach curled. Even from where he sat, high above, he could see the man’s skin was peeling. He lay like a corpse. Dom made an involuntary sound of disgust.

Before long, though, the colour returned to the man’s skin as he healed and his body regenerated, and the only difference to his pre-Trials appearance was that his hair was short, singed and frozen back to the scalp. Eventually his stumble became a confident run.

Dom understood now. The Trials were purely about torture as a spectator sport. There was no way to die, so it was about what horror could be inflicted upon someone for the amusement of the audience. He felt sick again. Eduardo was right. This was the worst of everything. The worst of being human. This was the sort of historical practice that, back in life, people had been ashamed of, and here it was celebrated.

Eduardo sensed him recoiling and whispered, ‘This is not everyone. Remember that. The good ones move on and there are many more of the good. Remember.’

Dom decided to leave. Whatever was to come was going to be worse. He did not want to see it, and he knew the more entangled he became with Satarial, the more likely he was to end up in that ring himself. He flexed his leg muscles slightly and in an instant the Nephilim’s hand was on his thigh. It was a light touch, but it was potent. He couldn’t move. In seconds his entire left leg was numb. Despite his growing fear Dom tried to sit up straight, as though nothing had happened. Satarial glanced at him with mild annoyance, as though he were as insignificant as an insect, and then turned back to the spectacle.

In the ring Taoyateduta stood, healthy, strong and fit as though he were in the prime of his life. But there was something about the way that he walked that showed fear. He knew there was more pain to come. He walked with apprehension. He had two parts of the medallion. All he needed to win his freedom and his way out of the City was the piece that hung on the wall directly below Dom, Eduardo and the Nephilim. Taoyateduta made his way towards them slowly, his eyes darting side-to-side.

Satarial waved his hand again, this time towards the audience. They seemed to understand him and a cheer rang out. People rose in their seats and moved as close as possible to the edge of the arena. Dom noticed they were pulling rocks and wooden pipes from their satchels. As Taoyateduta approached his prize the audience hurled their missiles at him in a thick rain. The pipes were blow darts and the accuracy of the crowd was terrifying. Taoyateduta was hit with hundreds of short sharp darts. They burrowed into his bare chest and torso, struck his head and stabbed into his feet. He struggled to pull them from his flesh while keeping one arm over his head to protect it from the rocks. When he stumbled and fell, his back was instantly covered with the tiny darts. Rocks the size of fists pounded into the soft skin of his back, bruising and splitting the skin. The crowd was in a state of frenzied excitement.

Dom looked away in disgust, and noticed that the greyish late afternoon had changed to the starless blackness of night. He felt as though he had been in the stadium for only an hour or so, but it must have been two or three. A ring of torches glowed around the Arena, adding shadows to the ghoulish spectacle below. He wanted to go home. He wanted his sister and his parents. He wanted to be anywhere else in the world, even in a boring math class.

The body on the dirt had stopped moving. Gradually the crowd settled and the missiles stopped. There was an anticipatory silence as the wounds on Taoyateduta’s back healed and he again pulled himself upright. Staggering with fear, he walked towards the wall. As he got closer Dom could see hope flicker across his face. He was almost there. His step quickened. Satarial waited a moment longer and when the hope had fanned into confidence, he raised his long pale hand again, palm upwards, and flicked it slightly. Long wooden spikes erupted from the dirt floor. The panic in Taoyateduta’s eyes could be seen by every one of the thousands of spectators. The spikes vanished back into the dirt and more burst up across the field, this time within inches of him. A spike caught his leg and he fell, began to crawl and another caught his arm. He dragged his body with one hand across the dirt, inch by inch, determined and desperate. Dom noticed the spikes had a pattern, they were forming a cage around him, haphazardly appearing and disappearing back into the dirt, gradually surrounding him. The warrior was very close to the wall and if he dodged and moved quickly he might make it. But Taoyateduta was broken, he was crawling slowly, absorbed in the pain of his mangled leg. The spikes closed in on him – up out of the earth and back down. His leg was almost strong again and he made one last half-hearted effort to slip between the gap in the spikes. Satarial did not change the speed of the attack, he had timed it perfectly as though he knew exactly what the man’s limit would be. Dom leaned forward again, almost on his feet himself. The spikes were only a foot apart now, clearly a cage around the man who was just a hand’s breadth away from the last piece of the medallion. Dom wished with everything he had that Taoyateduta would make it.

He didn’t. His arm was still outstretched when the cage closed him in. Everyone in the stadium would have heard the scream of despair as he was trapped in what had become a tall rectangular box, identical to the ones on display around the Arena. The box slowly sank into the ground and the dirt closed over it.

Satarial spoke softly under the blanket of applause. ‘He was weak. And old. Nothing like you, Dominic. Many, many people win the Trials.’

The cheers were now directed at Satarial, who stood, bowed and invited them back to the next Trials which he guaranteed would be even more exciting.

Dom sat silent and stunned until Eduardo grasped his shoulder.

‘We should leave. It is finished and we do not need to attract any more attention to you.’ He stood and Dom stood with him. A sea of people was washing out the exit, waves of chattering people, leering and taunting the victims trapped in the glass cages. Occasionally they would turn towards him and point.

As he walked as unobtrusively as he could towards the nearest set of stairs he heard the soft purr of Satarial’s voice.

‘Thank you for joining us, Dominic. Perhaps someday I will persuade you to compete. You would be very popular.’

Dom turned and looked at him. As much as he wanted to articulate the revulsion and disgust he felt, he felt a deeper level of fear at ending up in one of those cages. He met the Nephilim’s gaze for a brief moment and turned to go.

‘Dominic. Be sure to look at all of my special collection. I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing.’

Dom walked down the stairs carefully, Eduardo behind him and hundreds of bodies jostling them from the sides. Dom again walked past the glass coffin of Noyach and saw the ancient man’s pale eyes and flaking skin. The crowd forced them to stop in front of the case.

‘You would know him as Noah,’ Eduardo said. ‘Noah of the Great Flood.’

Dom turned. ‘You’re kidding me. Noah from the ark, and the animals and all that stuff. That was real? He’s real?’

‘Probably not the story you heard, but yes, Noah is real.’

‘I see why he is so special. He would have to be one of the most famous people of all time.’ Dom gazed up at Noah again. It was difficult to make out his features among all the hair and the beard that swirled around him. They were pushed forward to the next case. It was also on a podium and was clearly special among the Nephilim’s collection. The nameplate was blank and shiny. Dom peered into the tank, but couldn’t see anything except a swirl of black hair. He was moving forward when a hand pushed up against the glass and he turned back. The hand seemed to reach down to him and he peered up into the tank again. His heart exploded against his chest and his lungs ripped in a harsh breath. Kaide, her mouth open in a silent scream.