“That’s… my God, Solomon, please tell me that you know this isn’t right.”
He sighed. “This is the kind of reaction we feared.”
“People aren’t going to accept this. The whole world will be after you.”
“No. Not the whole world. Half the world.”
“What?”
“In order to stop death, we have to block the flow. We have to dam the energy stream.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“We need a massive influx of souls.”
“You mean you’re going to need a lot of people to suddenly die.”
“Yes. Their life forces will block the stream, overload it, cutting it off for ever.”
“How many? How many people?”
Wreath shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t asked me these things.”
“How many people, Solomon?”
“It would have been so much better if you hadn’t asked me.”
“She’s going to kill them? That’s what the Death Bringer does?” Valkyrie pushed Wreath, her palm against his chest. “She kills all these people? That’s the Passage?” She pushed him again. “How many people? How many? For God’s sake, just tell me how many people she’s going to have to kill!”
She pushed him again, but this time he caught her wrist, and raised his eyes to look at her. “Three billion ought to do it.”
Valkyrie broke free, spun, sprinted for the door. A wave of shadows crashed into her and sent her to the wall. The shock rattled her body, but when she fell, she managed to keep her feet under her. She pushed at the air and Wreath snapped his cane, deflecting her aim. A tendril of shadow came from nowhere, wrapped around her throat, yanked her back. She staggered, used her ring to cut the tendril, and then the cane came for her face and met her jaw. She was on the ground then, trying to focus, trying to look up as Wreath’s boot came swinging in, and she went spinning into darkness.
Chapter 28
A Vile History
alkyrie woke in a large room with no furniture to find Skulduggery crouching down and peering at her. She groaned. Her face hurt. Her head pounded. Her hands were shackled behind her.
“Wreath,” she croaked.
“I know,” said Skulduggery. “What did I tell you about wandering off ? Why don’t you ever do anything I say? If I didn’t know any better, I would swear that you feel a compulsion to disobey authority figures.”
“That can’t be what it is,” she said.
“Well, that’s what it seems like.”
“But I don’t view you as an authority figure.”
“Oh, not this again.”
Valkyrie sat up. Slowly. “Are you going to lecture me all day, or are you going to get these shackles off me?”
“I’m inclined to lecture you.”
She sighed, turned her back to him, waited for him to start picking the lock.
“Uh,” he said, “exactly what do you think is going on right now?”
She frowned over her shoulder at him. “What do you mean? Skulduggery, I’ve got a headache. Wreath kicked me in the face. He kicked me. In the face. It hurts. So get these shackles off me, and we’ll go find him, and I’ll kick him in the face. Then you kick him in the face. Then I’ll do it again. We’ll take turns. It’ll be fun.”
“It would be fun,” Skulduggery nodded. “I like kicking Wreath in the face. I haven’t had a chance to do it nearly as much as I’d like.”
“See? So, come on, stop delaying.”
“I wish I could.”
Valkyrie shook her head, and managed to get to her feet. Skulduggery stood beside her.
“So what are you doing?” she asked. “Teaching me a lesson? Is that what this is?”
“Indeed it is,” he said brightly.
“OK, lesson learned. I shouldn’t wander off. Got it.”
Skulduggery’s head nodded happily. “Excellent.”
“Now get these shackles off me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
Skulduggery turned, showing her the shackles that bound his own wrists.
Her eyes widened. “You got captured too?”
“It’s the only way you’ll learn.”
“You got captured on purpose?”
“Don’t be silly. When I triggered the alarm, I did my level best to run away, but I couldn’t find you, so…”
“Ah,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” he shrugged. “I managed to punch some Necromancers, which is always fun. What was less fun was when they started punching me back. And then the White Cleaver arrived and joined in. It was, if I do say so, an epic battle, but I was heavily outnumbered. It’s a pity you slept through it.”
“I was unconscious.”
“You were asleep.”
“Don’t annoy me, OK? I have a headache. How are we going to get out of here?”
“Oh, escape is easy once you have the right plan.”
“Do we have the right plan?”
“Not yet.”
“Do we have any plan?”
“Not yet.”
“Typical. Still, silver lining. Wreath told me what the Passage is.”
“Oh?”
“They’re going to kill three billion people to stop the other three billion from ever dying.”
Skulduggery hesitated. “That… I’ll be honest, that doesn’t sound too great for the first three billion.”
“Can they do it? Is it possible?”
“Theoretically, yes,” Skulduggery said. “I doubt they have much in the way of hard facts to support this theory, but who needs facts when you have faith?”
“So they could be killing three billion and it’d have no effect whatsoever on the lifespan of the others?”
“Very possibly. Of course, I think we can both agree that killing three billion people anyway, no matter what the supposed benefits might actually be, would still be a bad thing to do.”
“Oh,” Valkyrie said with a nod, “we are very much agreed on that one.”
“But you’re right – silver lining. At least we know what their ultimate goal is. Now we can work to foil it.”
The door opened behind them, and High Priest Tenebrae stepped in. They stopped talking, and observed him as he smiled. “Ah,” he said, “the awkward silence.” He closed the door behind him. “How are you, Valkyrie? Things have changed greatly since the last time we spoke, have they not? It’s all very unfortunate.”
“I don’t know how you could have thought that I would ever have been the Death Bringer,” she said. “Did you honestly believe I’d be willing to kill billions of people for a theory?”
“The Passage isn’t a theory, dear girl. It is an inevitability. We know it’s a lot to accept – we know you don’t understand. That’s why we sent Dragonclaw to keep it a secret for as long as possible. But now that it’s out in the open, now that we can have a conversation about it, yes, actually, we did think you would have been willing to kill billions of people – given enough time, of course. If you had chosen Necromancy over Elemental magic, which was a distinct possibility, this would have been the first schism to form between yourself and your skeletal mentor here. And once we had our hooks in you, really got them in there, you would have been ours. And you would have understood. We would have slowly opened your eyes to the truth and the glory of the Passage.”
“I still wouldn’t have killed those people.”
“Well, that’s rather a moot point at this stage, isn’t it? Because now we have Melancholia. She wouldn’t have been my first choice, I admit, but she is dedicated, and she is passionate. These qualities count for something.”
“She’s unstable,” Skulduggery said. “You can’t even keep her under control, for God’s sake.”
“She’s young,” Tenebrae shrugged. “Impetuous. Yes, she went after Valkyrie the first chance she got, but that was nothing more than childish spite. Nothing to worry about, not really. We were all young once, weren’t we, Skuld
uggery? Remember the adventures we got into when we were young men?”
Valkyrie frowned. “You knew each other?”
“He didn’t tell you? We used to be friends.”
“Friends is such a strong and misleading word,” Skulduggery said.
Tenebrae smiled. “Acquaintances, then. In the early days of the war, before the Necromancer Order withdrew from the conflict, we fought side by side. Didn’t we, Skulduggery?”
“If by side by side you mean I was always in front, then yes, Auron, we did. Not that it has any bearing on what is going on today.”
“Really? I would have thought that you of all people would know the effect the past has on the present. But then, you’ve lied to yourself about so many things, why should this be any different?”
“Now this,” Skulduggery said, “should be interesting.”
Tenebrae looked at Valkyrie. “He’s quite an angry man, isn’t he? It’s why his enemies are so scared of him, I suppose. I would even venture so far as to say it’s why you’re still alive. Don’t misunderstand me, Valkyrie – you are becoming a capable sorcerer and a formidable opponent in your own right. But there are plenty of people out there who would love to kill you, and could do so relatively easily. The idea, however, that to kill you would incur the wrath of the Skeleton Detective is, in my opinion, the only reason you still draw breath. I hope you’re not offended.”
Valkyrie looked back at him, and didn’t say anything.
“But there is a common misconception that must be addressed here and now,” Tenebrae continued. “The legend of Skulduggery Pleasant is that his wife and child were murdered and he returned, fuelled by rage and a need for vengeance. A nice legend. Romantic, intimidating, ticks all the boxes that a legend should tick. Naturally, the only ingredient missing is the truth.”
“Please,” Skulduggery said, “enlighten us.”
“You were always an angry man,” Tenebrae said. “When you were alive, you just hid it better, hid it from your loving wife and your loving child. But I saw it, on the battlefield. That’s when you allowed it to surface. That’s when you allowed the real you to appear.”
“I must tell you, Auron, that amateur psychoanalysts do not impress me.”
“I wouldn’t expect them to, but I have proof. I had a theory and I tested it, and my suspicions were confirmed. Valkyrie, Solomon Wreath told me that when you were fighting the Faceless Ones, you used his cane. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Valkyrie said. “He told me to.”
“Of course he did. If he hadn’t given you permission, the moment you tried to use it the power inside would have killed you. You took that cane and you used that Necromancer power, instinctively and without training, and he saw in you a great potential. The same potential I saw in Skulduggery, all those years ago.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember Prussia? This was a few months after you were married. Mevolent’s people had raided the Necromancer Temple where I was studying. I was one of the only survivors, and we linked up with you and your team and tracked the raiding party across the mountains.”
“I remember,” Skulduggery said. “It took us three weeks to catch up with them. Morwenna Crow was with us.”
“That’s right. My dear Morwenna, the only Necromancer to serve on the Council of Elders. Yes, she was a fellow survivor.”
“I spent most of the time talking to her. I don’t think you and I exchanged more than five words.”
Tenebrae nodded. “One of the closest friendships I’ve ever had.”
“You’re a sad little man.”
Tenebrae laughed. “Regardless, we tracked the raiding party and we caught up with them. We waited, and we attacked. In the battle, I was injured. You were injured. All of us were injured, but we kept fighting. I had dropped the dagger that housed my power. I was bleeding, tired, the dagger was just out of reach, and there, lumbering towards me, was the biggest ogre I’d ever seen. Twelve foot tall, green skin, dressed in stitched leathers with tusks as big as my arm.”
“He was half that size,” Skulduggery said. “And he didn’t have tusks, he just had really bad teeth. Also, he wasn’t an ogre. His name was Jeremy.”
“You really know how to spoil a good story,” Tenebrae said. “I was on my back, looking up, so he appeared to be a twelve-foot-tall ogre. One thing you cannot argue with is the size of the axe he was swinging.”
“It was a big axe,” Skulduggery conceded.
“Bigger than any I had ever seen.”
“Oh for God’s sake…”
“And just before that axe split my skull and found my brains, Valkyrie, Skulduggery staggered into view. He fell, reached out, grabbed my dagger, and sent fifty spears of darkness into the ogre’s chest.”
Skulduggery said nothing.
“I hadn’t given him permission,” Tenebrae said. “That power should have torn him apart. But he controlled those shadows, instinctively and without training, and when Jeremy the ogre was dead, Skulduggery dropped the dagger and went looking for the next enemy to kill.”
Tenebrae looked at Skulduggery. “From that moment, I knew you were special. I knew I would need to keep an eye on you. A few years later, we Necromancers retreated to our Temples and fortified our positions. We decided to let the rest of the world fight among themselves. But not everyone respected our neutrality. Nefarian Serpine, in particular, seemed disinclined to leave us alone. He surrounded the Temple I was in, threatened us with utter destruction unless we shared some of our secrets. The High Priest chose me to be the one to venture out and teach Serpine what he wanted to know.”
“The red right hand,” Valkyrie said.
Tenebrae gave the slightest of nods. “Agonising death inflicted by merely pointing at your victim, providing he was within range. Serpine had heard about it and he wanted it. I taught him. During our lessons, we talked. He made clear his hatred of you, Skulduggery. He said you were the reason he was doing this. To be frank, I couldn’t allow that. You had such potential. I couldn’t allow this religious fanatic to kill you, so I altered what I was teaching. I added a little something. If ever this Necromancer power was used against you specifically, it wouldn’t be the end. Your soul, your being, would be for ever tied to your body. If I had known he was going to burn your corpse and reduce you to a mere skeleton, I probably would have taken that into consideration.”
Skulduggery’s voice was empty. “You brought me back?”
“No. I merely allowed for the opportunity. You brought yourself back, Skulduggery. Through sheer force of will, your soul regained its consciousness. From there, your body acted as if it were whole again, allowing you to talk, to move, to feel pain.”
“You. You did this. I’m alive today because of you.”
“Yes. Doesn’t that make you smile? Knowing you owe me everything?”
Skulduggery sagged.
“What’s wrong?” Tenebrae asked. “Were you expecting something more? Did you fool yourself into detecting a divine hand in your resurrection? Did you believe your life to have some special purpose? Sorry to disappoint you, but your life had no special purpose other than the one I had planned for you. Which, as it turned out, was a waste of everyone’s time.
“I didn’t tell anyone, of course. You were my little secret. I continued to keep an eye on you. I watched you fight on, letting your anger consume you. It was a fascinating exercise, knowing there could really only be one outcome. All I had to do was wait. I knew you were coming.”
“OK, stop,” said Valkyrie. “What the hell are you talking about? What outcome? What were you waiting for?”
“For the knock on the door,” Tenebrae said. “Necromancy killed him, Necromancy brought him back. His loved ones were dead, his life was war. His life was death. With every year that passed, he was losing more and more of the person he thought he was. With every year, he was becoming somebody else. And then he knocked on the door of a Necromancer Temple, and I k
new he had come home.”
The warmth drained from Valkyrie’s face. “No.”
“He abandoned his old life. He wore armour to disguise his old form. He took a new name to kill his old self.”
“No,” Valkyrie said. “No, don’t.”
“Skulduggery Pleasant walked off the battlefield, and Lord Vile walked into my Temple.”
Chapter 29
Who Knows What Darkness
alkyrie looked at Skulduggery. “He’s lying,” she said. “I now he’s lying. Tell me. Skulduggery, tell me he’s lying.”
“He can’t,” Tenebrae said.
“Shut up!” Valkyrie screamed. “Shut up! Say one more goddamn word and I’ll kill you, I swear to Jesus! Skulduggery, look at me. Look at me!”
Skulduggery raised his head, looked at her with his hollow eye sockets. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Valkyrie found herself walking backwards. “What are you talking about? What are you saying? What are you talking about? Skulduggery, he’s lying. He’s lying. Tell him he’s lying, for God’s sake. You’re not Lord Vile. You fought Lord Vile.”
“The real Lord Vile,” Tenebrae said, “and I mean the fully powered Lord Vile, would have obliterated him. That thing he fought was mere… intention. It was simply the armour. Inside, it was empty.”
“Yeah,” Valkyrie snarled. “We thought of that. Vile’s ghost. That’s what it is. Vile’s ghost is controlling it.”
Tenebrae folded his hands in the sleeves of his robe. “Vile doesn’t have a ghost. He’s not dead. Skulduggery is the one controlling it.”
“No, I think you’ll find that he isn’t.”
“Not consciously,” Tenebrae said. “Not willingly. But Lord Vile is a part of him, a part of his subconscious. Evidently, that particular part of his subconscious has… broken away from the rest.”
“What you’re talking about is ridiculous.”
“No, Valkyrie, actually it’s not. Our dear friend Skulduggery is, and let’s be honest here, a little bit insane. He spent ten months being tortured by the Faceless Ones, didn’t he? When you rescued him, was he the same well-adjusted gent you knew and loved?”
Valkyrie hesitated.