“They’re … hidden. Obstructed. But I can … I can get through them if I …”
His eyes widened suddenly, and he smiled. “There,” he breathed. “There …”
Darquesse gave it as long as she possibly could, and then she grabbed him, rammed her hand into his mouth and forced it down his throat.
Argeddion struggled. He wasn’t strong yet, but she could feel his power returning to him. It wouldn’t be long now.
She drew the Remnant into her hand, closed her fingers round it, and yanked it out.
It squirmed and squealed in her grip and Argeddion collapsed, his throat in ruins and his jaw smashed. Darquesse opened wide, forced the Remnant into her own mouth. She swallowed, feeling its little claws ripping her insides to shreds. She smiled, healing everything instantly. The Remnant struggled inside her, tried to escape, but she kept it where it was. After a few moments, its natural processes took over, and she felt it try to slink into her mind. Instead, she pulled it in, isolated it, extracted its memories. Once she was done, she burned it, fed on its power.
So many memories. It would take time to sort through them. Luckily Darquesse had plenty of experience with this. In some ways, it was a lot like Valkyrie absorbing the reflection’s experiences, back in the old days.
She was brought back to the present by Argeddion getting to his feet. His power was returning. She could see it. Within moments, he would remember how to heal himself.
She poured her magic out through her eyes. A beam of energy, no thicker than a pencil, burrowed through Argeddion’s heart. He stepped back, then fell. She watched his life leave him, watched his essence rejoin the Great Stream, as the Necromancers called it – a stream that would soon be bursting its banks.
51
THE TEMPLE OF THE SPIDER
reyfon Signate flickered and disappeared, leaving Valkyrie and Skulduggery alone to creep through the darkness.
Redhoods stood guard, surrounding the remains of this dimension’s Sanctuary. Their scythes looked every bit as nasty as the Cleavers back home, but somehow their red uniforms were even more unsettling than the grey. Grey was the colour of neutrality. Red was the colour of violent, passionate intent.
“Can’t see any survivors,” Valkyrie whispered. “I count seven dead Cleavers, three dead sorcerers. No sign of Ravel.”
“If they caught him, he’s either dead or already on his way to Mevolent,” said Skulduggery. “Come on.”
Staying low, they moved away, seeking refuge in the night’s darkness.
“What do you think Mevolent will do to him?” Valkyrie asked.
“Torture,” Skulduggery said. “But after what Ravel’s been through, mere torture would be a blessing. He’ll be interrogated. He’ll eventually tell Mevolent everything he wants to know about our reality. And if Mevolent has a Shunter on staff, and there’s no reason to think he doesn’t, that could spell trouble for us.”
“You think Mevolent would invade?”
“Possibly. The last time he received a visitor from our dimension, it was Darquesse, and she proved to be quite a threat. Mevolent’s not the type to sit around and wait for trouble to strike.”
“And what if they didn’t catch Ravel?” Valkyrie asked. “How do we find him, then?”
“He knows about this place. He’s read the reports. He knows the layout of the city, and how to get in.”
“You think that’s where he’s going?”
“He fought against Mevolent his whole life, but take the worship of the Faceless Ones out of the equation, and what do you have? What ties Mevolent and Ravel together?”
“They both want sorcerers to rule over the mortals.”
Skulduggery nodded. “The city’s the place for him – certainly somewhere to find like-minded individuals, if nothing else. Besides, he knows we’ll be coming after him. The city’s the best place to hide. If he went there of his own free will, we grab him, slap him around and drag him back. If he was brought there as a prisoner, we rescue him. Then slap him around and drag him back.”
“OK,” said Valkyrie, and wrapped her arm round him.
He looked at her. “Uh …”
She blinked. “What? We’re flying there, aren’t we?”
“Not with the Redhoods and the Sense-Wardens on high alert. We’ll be walking. It’s safer.”
“Oh,” she said, and took her arm back.
“If you want to hug me, you just have to ask,” he said.
“Shut up.”
“It’s sweet, actually.”
“Shut up.”
They started walking. When Valkyrie got too tired, Skulduggery carried her and she slept with her head against his chest. He was an unsurprisingly smooth walker. She only woke on the few occasions he had to hurry behind cover as a Barge passed overhead, or dodge behind a tree to avoid someone on the road.
The sun came up and he let her down and they walked together. Sometimes they talked. Other times they didn’t. The silence that would accompany them was comfortable and easy.
They got to Dublin-Within-The-Wall a little before midday. The wall that surrounded the city was gigantic, even by Roarhaven standards. They watched mortals in ragged brown clothes bring carts of goods in and out through the massive gates.
“If he came here himself,” said Valkyrie, “that’s how he got in.”
“He did come here himself,” Skulduggery said. “We crossed his tracks a few times on our way here.”
“You’re sure it was him?”
Skulduggery nodded. “His shoes are standard-issue prison wear. They leave a mark like no other.”
“He was right in front of us? So, if we’d just been faster, we would have caught up to him?”
“Maybe,” said Skulduggery. “Or maybe we’d have overshot and alerted him to our presence, and lost our chance forever. We did the right thing. We took our time and we made sure. He’s ahead of us, and I think you’re right – I think he’s already in the city.”
“So how do we get in?”
Skulduggery didn’t answer. He just led her away from the gates. When they were out of sight of even the sharpest of eyes, they approached the wall itself.
“OK,” Skulduggery said, “you can hug me now.”
She scowled at him. “We’re going to fly over the top?”
“Not quite. Come. Hug.”
Valkyrie sighed, and they hugged, and they leaned against the wall …
And the wall cracked and crumbled and they moved into it, into the cold and the dark and the dirt and the stone and the pebbles, and they were turning, revolving, the whole world rumbling, and then light burst through the darkness and they were out the other side, Valkyrie coughing and staggering and gasping. “Since when can you do that?”
“What do you mean?” Skulduggery asked, using the air to brush the dust from his suit. “We’ve done that before, when we were going to get the Hessian Grimoire from – oh.”
“That wasn’t me,” said Valkyrie. “That was Stephanie.”
“Yes. It would appear so.”
“Awkward.”
“Indeed it is. Let’s skip by it, what do you say? So, yes, I can walk through walls now. I can’t do it as well as Sanguine, and there are some materials I just can’t pass through at all. But it’s a neat little trick when you’re in a tight spot.”
“You are full of surprises, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. To some people, that may have been a modest gesture. But to Valkyrie, it was a shrug that said, “Yes. Yes I am.”
She had to smile. “So where to now? If Ravel’s in here, where would he go?”
“The first thing he’d do is look up old friends,” Skulduggery said. “The last time we were here we passed a peculiar church. Do you remember it?”
“Everything here is peculiar. A Faceless Ones church?”
“No, which makes it peculiar. Come on. We’ll have to stick to the back streets, but I think I know the way.”
He’d only been here once before, and alrea
dy he was talking about short cuts. But Valkyrie didn’t argue. If Skulduggery thought he knew something, he generally did.
They walked for almost two hours. Skulduggery’s façade was used only when absolutely necessary, but even so it was close to failing when they got to where they were going. The church was nothing compared to Mevolent’s Palace, or the Faceless Ones’ churches, or even the Sanctuary in Roarhaven, but it was bigger and more impressive than any place of worship Valkyrie had ever seen back home. She frowned at the iconography built into the structure.
“The Children of the Spider?” she said. “They have their own church?”
“Apparently so,” Skulduggery responded. “And if Ravel has gone anywhere for refuge, it’s here. He planned the takeover of Roarhaven with them. It makes sense he’d seek them out in this reality.”
He checked the street, made sure there were no City Mage patrols, and they hurried through the open doors.
Immediately upon entering, they saw a cage suspended by chains. Within that cage, an old man with a long grey beard and long grey hair was forced to crouch, an old man Valkyrie knew as the Torment.
Skulduggery’s façade failed in that instant, and it flowed back off his skull.
The Torment peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Skeleton,” he said. “I’d heard your bones had turned to dust decades ago and you were carried away on a stiff breeze. Unless you’re another unfortunate who has had his flesh stripped from his body.”
“No,” Skulduggery said. “Same unfortunate, I’m afraid.”
The Torment shifted his attention to Valkyrie, his frown deepening and his lip curling beneath all that hair.
“And what exactly are you?”
She sighed. “Save your disgust, OK? I’ve heard it before. You don’t like me because I have the blood of the Ancients in my veins, and I don’t like you because you’re old and nasty and creepy and you stole Gandalf’s beard.”
“I don’t know who this Gandalf is, but that is not why you disgust me, you insolent little—”
Valkyrie jabbed her finger at him. “No insults. You hear me? I’m not in the mood and we don’t have the time. By the looks of it, you’ve been in that cage for a while now, and people in cages probably don’t get many opportunities to chat to people who aren’t in cages, so embrace this chance while you can, you miserable old goat.”
“What my friend is trying to ask,” Skulduggery said, diverting the attention back to him, “is why are you in a cage? This is a Temple of the Spider. Surely this is your home?”
The Torment sat cross-legged, and didn’t answer.
“Maybe this is a self-punishment thing,” Valkyrie said. “But instead of, like, whipping himself or wearing one of those shirts made of hair, whatever they’re called—”
“Hair shirts,” Skulduggery said.
“—maybe instead of doing that, he locks himself in a cage so that more people can see how he’s suffering. He probably thinks he’s being really dramatic and noble.”
“I don’t think that’s it. But this cage isn’t even bound. It wouldn’t stop magic from being used.”
The Torment sneered. “My magic, as you put it, is to grow into a beautiful spider that would dwarf the likes of you. This cage stops me from growing. It does its job.”
“I’m sure it does.” Skulduggery took a step closer. “We’re looking for a friend of ours who might have come through here a few hours ago.”
“The man Ravel,” said the Torment. “Yes, he was here. He seemed surprised when the others found him. I do not think it was what he was expecting.”
“Where is he?”
“They took him away. They’re deciding what to do with him now. They’ll argue and debate, but eventually they’ll do what they always do – bring him to Mevolent like the spineless, gutless whelps they are.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “That’s why you’re in here,” he said. “You wouldn’t bend the knee.”
“Mevolent worships the Faceless Ones,” the Torment said. “In order to ensure their own survival, the Children of the Spider have taken to worshipping them as well. I stood against it, as did Madame Mist and a handful of others. But our own brothers and sisters betrayed us. I was the only one left alive after the purge, such as it was, and now here I sit, another of Mevolent’s trophies.”
Valkyrie remembered the lifeless body of Mr Bliss floating in that tank in Mevolent’s Palace. He did seem to have a thing about displaying his enemies for all to see.
“We need to get Ravel back,” Skulduggery said. “Where’s he being held?”
The Torment uttered a sound that may have been a cough or a laugh. “Why would I help you, skeleton? You’re a dead thing who should have given up any claim to life a long time ago. And the girl … Even she doesn’t know what an abomination she really is.”
“In your reality and ours,” Valkyrie said, “you’re still a gigantic asshat.”
“If you help us,” Skulduggery said, “you’ll be hurting Mevolent. You’ll be hurting all those people who betrayed you. That’s worth something, isn’t it, to that withered little heart of yours? Even here, trapped in a cage, you can still manage to slip the knife in and give it a fun little twist.”
“Or I could ignore you,” said the Torment, “and by ignoring you, hurt you. At least then I’ll be able to see the frustration on the face of the abomination.”
“Please call her Valkyrie. I’ll never hear the end of it if you keep calling her … the other thing. And you’re absolutely right – by not helping us, you’ll be able to see with your own eyes the frustration that results. But we haven’t hurt you, have we? We may offend your delicate sensibilities, but we have never, and I can say this with absolute certainty, we have never acted against you. But Mevolent? Those Children of the Spider? They are directly responsible for your imprisonment. They are directly responsible for the death of Madame Mist. And this is your chance, finally and at long last, to strike back, in whatever small and meagre fashion it may be. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be far more satisfying than causing us this trifling little moment of annoyance.”
“You talk a lot.”
Skulduggery nodded. “That has been said.”
The Torment settled back. Just when Valkyrie thought he wasn’t going to utter another word, he spoke. “He was here, your friend. He saw me caged, talked to me like he knew me. Before he said too much, he was taken away. The Terror likes to make regular offerings to his lord and master Mevolent – I expect your friend will be one such offering before long.”
“So he hasn’t been handed over yet?”
“As far as I am aware, he is still being held in the Confessional, in the uppermost tower. If you are considering a rescue attempt, I wholeheartedly endorse such an idea, as it will surely get you both killed.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No, and nor do I feel the need to supply one. Time, however, is not on your side. The hour is almost upon us when Baron Vengeous pays the temple a visit.”
Valkyrie frowned. “Vengeous is dead. The last time I was here, I saw Anton Shudder kill him.”
The Torment curled his lip behind his beard. “Death means little to Mevolent’s generals, though I admit Vengeous is not the man he once was. That pool of Mevolent’s, the one he bathes in daily, has properties as strange as they are unnatural. Baron Vengeous is a man transformed, and when he arrives, your friend will undoubtedly be passed into his custody.”
“Well then,” Skulduggery said, “we’ll have to endeavour not to be here when he shows up. Top of the stairs, you say?”
Skulduggery didn’t wait around for an answer. Valkyrie shot another glare at the Torment, then followed Skulduggery through the archway. They passed three Children of the Spider. Valkyrie tensed, ready to fight, but Skulduggery just walked by, acting like he owned the place. It was one of his favourite tricks, and it usually worked. Nobody likes to bother someone who looks busy. Not even a walking skeleton.
They go
t to a vast hall housing the stairs, the sight of which made Valkyrie start. The base of the staircase was ridiculously wide, but then it split into narrower tributaries at the second floor, tributaries that curled and spiralled and split again and again and got narrower and narrower as they rose, criss-crossing, into the gloom overhead. Supporting pillars of varying thicknesses stood like impossibly tall trees, so tall their tops could not be seen from where Valkyrie stood. Skulduggery slipped through the forest of pillars like this was something he saw every day. Valkyrie trailed after him, seemingly unable to close her mouth, and the only thought in her head was a fervent wish that the Children of the Spider had been wise enough to install elevators.
Skulduggery stopped walking and looked straight up. From this position, they had an unobstructed view of the ceiling high above. Valkyrie stepped close and his arm encircled her waist.
They lifted off the ground, flew upwards, eliciting a few startled cries from people who blurred by too quickly to see. They reached the top and landed behind a man with unusually large hair. Probably a new craze sweeping Dublin-Within-The-Wall. He turned and Skulduggery hit him, and he bounced off the ground and lay still.
They hurried down a corridor that narrowed the further they got. Another guard was stationed ahead of them. They walked right up to him and just as he was about to deny them entry, Skulduggery punched him. This one didn’t go down as easily, so Skulduggery smashed his head against the wall. They moved on to a junction, heard a cry of pain, and a moment later Erskine Ravel ran round the corner.
He saw them and his eyes widened. He raised his hand, but Skulduggery was already splaying his. Ravel flew backwards, tumbled and got up, staring straight into Skulduggery’s gun.
He froze.
Valkyrie checked round the corner. Three people lay unconscious. Beyond them was an open door and another unconscious person. A pair of shackles lay on the floor nearby.
“Why?” Ravel asked. “Why did you come? Why bother? You could leave me. Why don’t you? You can just walk away. And it’s not like I’ll have a happy life here. I’m probably going to be caught again, taken to Mevolent, tortured until I die. That’s the thing about Darquesse’s punishment – the agony was exceptional, but I was never going to die from it. Mevolent’s way seems a lot fairer.”