Scepter of the Ancients

  “What do you mean?”

  “The tide turned. Our side starting losing ground. Mevolent got stronger. It was more than I could stand, so I came back.”

  “You just … came back?”

  “It’s … complicated. When I died, I never moved on. Something was holding me here, making me watch. I’ve never heard of it happening before that, and I haven’t heard of it happening since, but it happened to me. So when it got too much, I woke up, a bag of bones. Literally. They had gathered up my bones and put them in a bag and thrown the bag into a river. So that was a marvelous new experience right there.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I put myself back together, which was rather painful, then climbed out of the river and rejoined the fight, and in the end, we won. We finally won. So, with Mevolent defeated, I quit that whole scene and struck out on my own for the first time in a few hundred years.”

  Stephanie blinked. “Few hundred?”

  “It was a long war.”

  “That man, he called you Detective.”

  “He obviously knows me by reputation,” Skulduggery said, standing a little straighter. “I solve mysteries now.”

  “Really?”

  “Quite good at it too.”

  “So, what, you’re tracking down your head?”

  He looked at her. If he’d had eyelids, he might well be blinking. “It’d be nice to have it back, sure, but …”

  “So you don’t need it, like, so you can rest in peace?”

  “No. No, not really.”

  “Why did they take it? Was that another warning?”

  “Oh, no,” Skulduggery said with a little laugh. “No, they didn’t take it. I was sleeping, about ten or fifteen years ago, and these little goblin things ran up and nicked it right off my spinal column. Didn’t notice it was gone till the next morning.”

  Stephanie frowned. “And you didn’t feel that?”

  “Well, like I said, I was asleep. Meditating, I suppose you’d call it. I can’t see, hear, or feel anything when I’m meditating. Have you tried it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s very relaxing. I think you’d like it.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m still stuck on you losing your head.”

  “I didn’t lose it,” he said defensively. “It was stolen.”

  She was feeling stronger now. She couldn’t believe that she’d fainted. Fainted. It was such an old-woman thing to do. She glanced up at Skulduggery. “You’ve had a very unusual life, haven’t you?”

  “I suppose I have. Not over yet, though. Well, technically it is, but …”

  “Isn’t there anything you miss?”

  “About what?”

  “About living.”

  “Compared to how long I’ve been like this, I was only technically alive for a blink of an eye. I can’t really remember enough about having a beating heart in my chest to miss it.”

  “So there’s nothing you miss?”

  “I … I suppose I miss hair. I miss how it … was. And how it was there, on top of my head. I suppose I miss my hair.”

  He took out his pocket watch and his head jerked back. “Wow, look at the time. I’ve got to go, Stephanie.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Things to do, I’m afraid. Number one is finding out why that nice gentleman was sent here, and number two is finding out who sent him.”

  “You can’t leave me alone,” she said, following him into the living room.

  “No,” he corrected, “I can. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “The front door’s off!”

  “Well, yes. You’ll be perfectly safe as long as they don’t come through the front door.”

  He pulled on his coat, but she snatched his hat away.

  “Are you taking my hat hostage?” he asked doubtfully.

  “You’re either staying here to make sure no one else attacks me, or you’re taking me with you.”

  Skulduggery froze. “That,” he said eventually, “wouldn’t be too safe for you.”

  “Neither would being left here on my own.”

  “But you can hide,” he said, gesturing around the room. “There are so many places to hide. I’m sure there are plenty of good solid wardrobes your size. Even under a bed. You’d be surprised how many people don’t check under beds these days.”

  “Mr. Pleasant—”

  “Skulduggery, please.”

  “Skulduggery, you saved my life tonight. Are you going to undo all that effort by leaving me here so someone else can just come along and kill me?”

  “That’s a very defeatist attitude you’ve got there. I once knew a fellow, a little older than you. He wanted to join me in my adventures, wanted to solve mysteries that beggared belief. He kept asking, kept at me about it. He finally proved himself, after a long time, and we became partners.”

  “And did you go on to have lots of exciting adventures?”

  “I did. He didn’t. He died on our very first case together. Horrible death. Messy, too. Lots of flailing around.”

  “Well, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, and I’ve got something he didn’t.”

  “And that is …?”

  “Your hat. Take me with you, or I’ll stand on it.”

  He looked at her with his big hollow eye sockets, then held out his hand for his hat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Five

  MEETING CHINA SORROWS

  SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT’S CAR was a 1954 Bentley R-Type Continental, one of only 208 ever made, a car that housed a six-cylinder, 4.5-liter engine and was retrofitted with power locks, climate control, satellite navigation, and a host of other modern conveniences. Skulduggery had told her all of this when she’d asked. She’d have been happy with “It’s a Bentley.”

  They left Gordon’s land via a back road at the rear of the estate to avoid the flooding, a road that Stephanie hadn’t even seen until they were on it. Skulduggery told her he was a regular visitor here, and knew all the little nooks and crannies. They passed a sign for Haggard, and she thought about asking him to drop her at home but quickly banished that idea from her head. If she went home now, she’d be turning her back on everything she’d just seen. She needed to know more. She needed to see more.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they drove.

  “Into the city. I’ve got a meeting with an old friend. She might be able to shed some light on recent events.”

  “Why were you at the house?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Tonight. Not that I’m not grateful, but how come you happened to be nearby?”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding. “Yes, I can see how that question would arise.”

  “So are you going to answer it?”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “Well, why not?”

  He glanced at her, or at least he turned his head a fraction. “The less you know about all this, the better. You’re a perfectly normal young lady, and after tonight you’re going to return to your perfectly normal life. It wouldn’t do for you to get too involved in this.”

  “But I am involved.”

  “But we can limit that involvement.”

  “But I don’t want to limit that involvement.”

  “But it’s what’s best for you.”

  “But I don’t want that!”

  “But it might—”

  “Don’t start another sentence with but.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “You can’t expect me to forget about all this. I’ve seen magic, and fire, and you, and I’ve learned about wars they don’t tell us about in school. I’ve seen a world I never even knew existed.”

  “Don’t you want to get back to your own world? It’s safer there.”

  “That’s not where I belong.”

  Now he completely turned his head toward her and cocked it at an angle. “Funny. When I first met your uncle, that’s what he said too.”

  “The things he wrote about,” she said, the ide
a just dawning on her, “are they true?”

  “His books? No, not a one.”

  “Oh.”

  “They’re more inspired by true stories, really. He just changed them enough so he wouldn’t insult anyone and get hunted down and killed. Your uncle was a good man, he really was. We solved many mysteries together.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes, you should be proud to have had an uncle like him. Of course, he got me into a hundred fights, because I’d bring him somewhere and he wouldn’t stop pestering people, but … Fun times. Fun times.”

  They drove on until they saw the lights of the city looming ahead. Soon the darkness that surrounded the car was replaced with an orange haze that reflected off the wet roads. The city was quiet and still, the streets almost empty. They pulled into a small outdoor car park, and Skulduggery switched off the engine and looked at her.

  “Okay then, you wait here.”

  “Yes.”

  He got out. Two seconds passed, but she hadn’t tagged along just to wait on the sidelines—she needed to see what other surprises the world had in store for her. She got out, and he looked at her.

  “Stephanie, I’m not altogether sure you’re respecting my authority.”

  “Yes, I’m not.”

  “I see. Okay then.”

  He put on his hat and wrapped his scarf around his jaw, but did without the wig and the sunglasses. He clicked his key chain and the car beeped and the doors locked.

  “That’s it?”

  He looked up. “Sorry?”

  “Aren’t you afraid it might get stolen? We’re not exactly in a good part of town.”

  “It’s got a car alarm.”

  “Don’t you, like, cast a spell or something? To keep it safe?”

  “No. It’s a pretty good car alarm.”

  He started walking. She hurried to keep up.

  “Do you cast spells, then?”

  “Sometimes. I try not to depend on magic these days; I try to get by on what’s up here.” He tapped his head.

  “There’s empty space up there.”

  “Well, yes,” he said irritably, “but you know what I mean.”

  “What else can you do?”

  “Sorry?”

  “With magic. Show me something.”

  If he’d had eyebrows, they would most likely have been arched. “What, a living skeleton isn’t enough for you? You want more?”

  “Yes,” Stephanie said. “Give me a tutorial.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. There are two types of mages, or sorcerers. Adepts practice one branch of magic, Elementals practice another. Adepts are more aggressive; their techniques are more immediately powerful. In contrast, an Elemental, such as myself, chooses the quieter course, and works on mastering command of the elements.”

  “Command of the elements?”

  “Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We don’t command them, as such; we manipulate them. We influence them.”

  “Like what? Like earth, wind—”

  “Water, and fire, yes.”

  “So show me.”

  Skulduggery tilted his head a little to the right, and she could hear the good humor in his voice. “Very well,” he said, and held up his open hand in front of her. She frowned, feeling a little chilly, and then she became aware of a droplet of water running down her face. In an instant her hair was drenched, as if she had just surfaced from a dive.

  “How did you do that?” she asked, shaking her head, flinging drops of water away from her.

  “You tell me,” Skulduggery answered.

  “I don’t know. You did something to the moisture in the air?”

  He looked down at her. “Very good,” he said, impressed. “The first element, water. We can’t part the Red Sea or anything, but we have a little influence with it.”

  “Show me fire again,” Stephanie said eagerly.

  Skulduggery snapped his gloved fingers and sparks flew and he curled his hand and the sparks grew to flame, and he held that ball of flame in his palm as they walked. The flame intensified, and Stephanie could feel her hair drying.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Wow indeed,” Skulduggery responded, and thrust his hand out, sending the ball of fire shooting through the air. It burned out as it arced in the night sky, and faded to nothing.

  “What about earth?” Stephanie asked, but Skulduggery shook his head.

  “You don’t want to see that, and hopefully you’ll never have to. The earth power is purely defensive, and purely for use as a last resort.”

  “So what’s the most powerful? Is it fire?”

  “That’s the flashiest, that gets all the ‘wows,’ but you’d be surprised what a little air can do if you displace it properly. Displaced air doesn’t just disappear—it needs somewhere to be displaced to.”

  “Can I see?”

  They reached the edge of the car park and passed the low wall that encircled it. Skulduggery flexed his fingers and suddenly splayed his hand, snapping his palm toward the wall. The air rippled and the bricks exploded outward. Stephanie stared at the brand-new hole in the wall.

  “That,” she said, “is so cool.”

  They walked on, Stephanie glancing back at the wall every so often. “What about the Adepts, then? What can they do?”

  “I knew a fellow, a few years ago, who could read minds. I met this woman once who could change her shape, become anyone, right in front of your eyes.”

  “So who’s stronger?” Stephanie asked. “An Elemental or an Adept?”

  “Depends on the mage. An Adept could have so many tricks up his sleeve, so many different abilities, that he could prove himself stronger than even the most powerful Elemental. That’s been known to happen.”

  “The sorcerer, the worst one of all, was he an Adept?”

  “Actually, no. Mevolent was an Elemental. It’s rare that you get an Elemental straying so far down the dark paths, but it happens.”

  There was a question Stephanie had been dying to ask, but she didn’t want to appear too eager. As casually as she could, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of her jeans, she said, as if she had just plucked this thought out of thin air, “So how do you know if you can do magic? Can anyone do it?”

  “Not anyone. Relatively few, actually. Those who can will usually congregate in the same areas, so there are small pockets of communities all over the world. In Ireland and the United Kingdom alone, there are eighteen different neighborhoods populated solely by sorcerers.”

  “Can you be a sorcerer without realizing it?”

  “Oh yes. Some people walk around every day, bored with their lives, having no idea that there’s a world of wonder at their fingertips. And they’ll live out their days completely oblivious, and they’ll die without knowing how great they could have been.”

  “That’s really sad.”

  “Actually it’s quite amusing.”

  “No, it’s not; it’s sad. How would you like it if you never discovered what you could do?”

  “I wouldn’t know any better,” he answered, stopping beside her. “We’re here.”

  She looked up. They had arrived outside a crumbling old tenement building, its walls defaced with graffiti and its windows cracked and dirty. She followed him up the concrete steps and into the foyer, and together they ascended the sagging staircase.

  The first floor was quiet. It smelled of damp. On the second floor, splintered shards of light escaped through the cracks between doors and doorways into the otherwise dark corridor. They could hear the sounds of a TV from one of the apartments.

  When they got to the third floor, Stephanie knew they had arrived. The third floor was clean, it didn’t smell, and it was well lit. It was like an entirely different building. She followed Skulduggery to the middle of the corridor and noticed that none of the doors were numbered. She looked at the door Skulduggery knocked on, the door that had a plaque fastened to it. LIBRARY.

  While they stood the
re, Skulduggery said, “One more thing. No matter how much you might want to, do not tell her your name.”

  The door opened before she could ask questions, and a thin man with large round spectacles peered out. His nose was hooked and his wiry hair was receding. He wore a checked suit with a bow tie. He glanced at Stephanie, then nodded to Skulduggery and opened the door wide for them to come through.

  Stephanie realized why none of the doors were numbered—it was because they all led into the same room. The walls between apartments had been taken away in order to accommodate the vast number of books that had to be shelved. Stacks and stacks of books, a labyrinth of bookshelves stretched from one side of the building to the other. As they followed the bespectacled man through the maze, she saw more people, their attention focused on their reading, people half hidden in shadow, people who didn’t look exactly right. …

  In the middle of the library was an open space, like a clearing in a forest, and in this open space stood the most beautiful woman Stephanie had ever seen. Her hair was black as raven wings, and her eyes were the palest blue. Her features were so delicate, Stephanie feared they might break if she smiled, and then the lady smiled and Stephanie felt such warmth that for an instant she never wanted to be anywhere else but at this lady’s side.

  “Quit it,” said Skulduggery.

  The lady let her eyes move to him, and her smile turned playful. Stephanie stared, enraptured. Her body felt so heavy, so clumsy, all she wanted to do with her life was just stand here, in this spot, and gaze at pure and true beauty.

  “Quit it,” Skulduggery said again, and the lady laughed and shrugged and looked back at Stephanie.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, and Stephanie felt a fog lift from her mind. She felt dizzy and staggered, but Skulduggery was there, a hand on the small of her back, supporting her.

  “My apologies,” the lady said, giving her a small bow. “I do forget the effect I have on people. First impressions, and all that.”

  “Seems like every time you meet someone new, you forget that little fact,” Skulduggery said.

  “I’m a scatterbrain, what can I say?”

  Skulduggery grunted and turned to Stephanie. “Don’t feel self-conscious. The first time anyone sets eyes on China, they fall in love. Believe me, the effect lessens the more you get to know her.”