“And very detailed it was too, thanks, Steve. So, you were all there on the Infested Side …” He went into his daydream again. “I can’t even believe I’ve had a chance to say those words. So few have visited, never mind returned alive. I can think of only a couple, and Conrad Single-Limb’s name says everything about the condition he came back in. Of course, according to the prophecy, you will be going back there some time, Finn. But let’s not dwell on that.”
Queasiness hit Finn and he didn’t know if it was in his body or his mind. “You know about that?”
“Of course I know about that. Everyone knows about that. Any of us around the Twelve anyway. Didn’t you grow up hearing about it?”
Estravon noted the embarrassment creeping across Finn’s face and the displeasure on his mother’s. He guessed what they meant. “You really didn’t know?” he said.
“Not till recently,” said Finn.
“The Legends are rising, the boy shall fall,” recited Estravon. “Out of the dark mouth shall come the last child of the last Legend Hunter.”
“There’s no need to—” said Clara.
“He shall open end the war and open up the Promised Land. His death on the Infested Side will be greater than any other.”
“—hear it again,” she finished, irritation flushing through her cheeks.
“It’s nonsense anyway,” said Estravon, busying himself with his clipboard again. “Rubbish. Could mean anything. I wouldn’t worry about it. We don’t. Not at all.”
“You don’t?” said Finn in surprise.
“Well, more or less. Not too much. Only sometimes.” Estravon tailed off and, in the few heavy seconds of silence, Finn thought he could hear the dust falling through the air.
Finally, Estravon announced, “Anyway, to the matter at hand. How did your father get trapped on the Infested Side? It says in the report that you were the last to see him, Finn, that you were with him, and Steve and your mother came through the gateway ahead of you. Yet only your father was trapped. How?”
“He pushed me through.”
“He pushed you through?” Estravon made a note.
“And the gateway closed. Suddenly. Behind me.”
“Closed. Suddenly. Behind you.” Estravon was focused on the clipboard, writing every word down. “But he told you about the map?”
“Yes,” answered Finn as calmly as he could through a head swimming with guilt. “He shouted it at me.”
“We’ve been through all this,” said Clara. “Can we just get the help now?”
“Let me get this straight, Finn,” said Estravon, placing the pen across the clipboard and concentrating on Finn. “The gateway was closing as a swarm of Legends descended so your father pushed you through, shouting to you as you fell. And then the gateway closed. He therefore simply became stuck, Finn. Trapped there. For no other reason than bad timing?” Finn felt sweat moisten his brow. “Yes,” he said, his tongue like sandpaper. “Bad timing, I suppose.”
The Assessor stared intently at him, his face expressionless for what seemed to Finn like an age, but can only have been a few moments. Then he suddenly snapped into a grin. “Well, that’s all good then.”
He clicked the pen, pushed his clipboard back into his briefcase. Relief surged through Finn. A moment ago he’d wanted to jump out of a window and escape. Now he had to fight the urge to punch the air in delight. He wanted to ask if that was it, if they actually believed all of that, but managed to wrestle that idea away from his mouth before he said it.
Estravon checked his watch again. “I can’t believe I’ll have to go so soon after getting here. But I wouldn’t want to impose on you here in this house.” He looked at Steve. “So, I’ll stay the night in your house instead.”
Steve gawped a little.
“But what about the map?” asked Finn.
“Oh yes, the map,” said Estravon.
“Can you help us find it?”
“Well, that’s the thing, I’m afraid,” said the Assessor. “There is no map.”
“No map? Of course there’s a map,” insisted Clara. “Hugo said so.”
“I’m afraid he was mistaken, Clara. May I call you Clara?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The existence of any map, Clara, was thoroughly investigated after the death of Niall Blacktongue although no one really likes to talk about all of that. Nevertheless, what I can say, quite sincerely, is that there is no map. There never was. It was searched for. It was not found.”
That information settled in the hush of the room.
“So that’s it?” said Steve.
“Not at all,” the Assessor said as he stood up suddenly, triggering Finn and Clara into doing the same. “I will report back to the Twelve, to make a recommendation. I feel confident there’ll be some progress as a result of this.”
He glanced once more at his watch as if in a hurry and, seeing Finn look at it again, unclasped it from his wrist and dangled it at him. “Please. Take it.”
“I can’t do that,” Finn said politely.
The Assessor insisted. “It would be an absolute privilege for me to know that it was being worn here, in Darkmouth.”
Finn looked at his mother, who nodded in encouragement while looking as if she wanted this man out of her house as soon as possible. So, Finn took the watch and strapped it on his wrist. “Thanks,” he said.
Estravon leaned into Finn and whispered, “They’re standard issue anyway. I have a drawer full of them at home.”
“I worry we’ve very little time,” said Clara pointedly.
“I do understand.” The Assessor picked up a biscuit. “But there is time at least for one more of these before I have to leave.”
Fully aware of the intense irritation now radiating from his mother, Finn distracted himself by looking at his new watch, admiring how the delicate curves of its steel hands caught the light of the fat moon flooding through the window.
Outside, the sky was clear and still. Another night falling on a world without his father.
The next morning, sun crept into Darkmouth and an early summer breeze travelled across the sea, tickling the low waves that ran up to the raggedy shoreline and warming the fat rocks that littered the small crescent of beach at the town’s southern edge. Reaching the wide mangled cliffs that separated Darkmouth from the rest of the world, the breeze rose up until it ruffled the grass lining the top.
A basset hound scampered across the stony beach, stopping briefly to sniff a pebble, pee on it, then move on again.
“Yappy!”
The animal’s owner, Mrs Bright, scrambled after it, struggling to keep her footing on the shifting layer of stones.
“Yappy! Come back, Yappy, you stupid animal.”
She stopped for a moment and looked back along the beach. It curved away into the early morning haze, its stones kissed by the sun-sparkled sea that lapped at the long sweep of the bay. Inland, the houses of Darkmouth huddled together, as if cowering from some unseen danger, but, in this clear morning light, it looked like a normal town. You couldn’t