Scepter of the Ancients

  “Lessens,” the woman named China said, “but never entirely goes away, does it, Skulduggery?”

  The detective took off his hat and looked at China but ignored her question. China smiled at Stephanie and handed her a business card. It was eggshell white and bore a single telephone number, etched with delicate elegance.

  “Feel free to call me if you ever stumble across a book or an item you think I might be interested in. Skulduggery used to. He doesn’t anymore. Too much water has flowed under that proverbial bridge, I’m afraid. Oh, where are my manners? My name is China Sorrows, my dear. And you are …?”

  Stephanie was about to tell China her name when Skulduggery turned his head to her, sharply, and she remembered what he had said. She frowned. The urge to tell this woman everything was almost overwhelming.

  “You don’t need to know her name,” Skulduggery said. “All you need to know is that she witnessed someone breaking into Gordon Edgley’s house. He was looking for something. What would Gordon have that someone might want?”

  “You don’t know who he was?”

  “He wasn’t anyone. His master, that’s who I’m after.”

  “So who do you think his master is?”

  Skulduggery didn’t answer, and China laughed. “Serpine again? My darling, you think Serpine is the culprit behind practically every crime.”

  “That’s because he is.”

  “So why come to me?”

  “You hear things.”

  “Do I?”

  “People talk to you.”

  “I am very approachable.”

  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything: rumors, whispers, anything.”

  “Nothing that would help you.”

  “But you have heard something?”

  “I’ve heard nonsense; I’ve heard something that doesn’t even deserve to be called a rumor. Apparently Serpine has been making inquiries about the Scepter of the Ancients.”

  “What about it?”

  “He’s looking for it.”

  “What do you mean? The Scepter’s a fairy tale.”

  “Like I said, it’s nonsense.”

  Skulduggery went silent for a moment, as if he was storing that piece of information away for further study. When he spoke again, it was with a new line of questioning. “So, what would Gordon have that he—or anyone else—might want?”

  “Probably quite a lot,” China answered. “Dear Gordon was like me—he was a collector. But I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.”

  Skulduggery thought for a moment. “Ah.”

  Stephanie looked at the two of them. “What? What?”

  “The question,” Skulduggery said, “is not what did Gordon have that someone might want to steal, but rather what did Gordon have that someone had to wait until he was dead in order to steal it?”

  Stephanie looked at him. “There’s a difference?”

  China answered her. “There are items that cannot be taken, possessions that cannot be stolen. In the case of such an item, the owner must be dead before anyone else can take advantage of its powers.”

  “If you hear anything that might be of use,” Skulduggery said, “will you let me know?”

  “And what do I get in return?” China responded, that smile playing on her lips again.

  “My appreciation?”

  “Tempting. That is tempting.”

  “Then how about this?” Skulduggery said. “Do it as a favor, for a friend.”

  “A friend?” China said. “After all these years, after everything that’s happened, are you saying that you’re my friend again?”

  “I was talking about Gordon.”

  China laughed, and Stephanie followed Skulduggery as he walked through the stacks. They left the library and traveled back the way they’d come.

  When they were out on the street, Stephanie spoke up at last.

  “So that was China Sorrows,” she said.

  “Yes, that was,” Skulduggery responded. “A woman not to be trusted.”

  “Beautiful name, though.”

  “Like I said, names are power. There are three names for everyone. The name you’re born with, the name you’re given, and the name you take. Everyone, no matter who they are, is born with a name. You were born with a name. Do you know what it is?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “Do you know what your name is?”

  “Yes. Stephanie Edgley.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “That’s your given name. That’s the name other people handed you. If a mage with any kind of knowledge wanted to, he could use that name to influence you, to attain some small degree of control—to make you stand, sit, speak, things like that.”

  “Like a dog.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You’re likening me to a dog?”

  “No,” he said, and then paused. “Well, yes.”

  “Oh, cheers.”

  “But you have another name, a real name, a true name. A name unique to you and you alone.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t know it either, at least not consciously. This name gives you power, but it would also give other people absolute power over you. If someone knew it, they could command your loyalty, your love, everything about you. Your free will could be totally eradicated. Which is why we keep our true names hidden.”

  “So what’s the third name?”

  “The name you take. It can’t be used against you, it can’t be used to influence you, and it’s your first defense against a sorcerer’s attack. Your taken name seals your given name, protects it, and that’s why it’s so important to get it right.”

  “So Skulduggery is the name you took?”

  “It is.”

  “What about me? Should I have a third name?”

  He hesitated for only a moment. “If you’re going to be accompanying me on this, then yes, you probably should.”

  “And am I going to be accompanying you?”

  “That depends. Do you need your parents’ permission?”

  Her parents wanted her to find her own way in life. That’s what they’d said countless times in the past. Of course, they’d been referring to school subjects and college applications and job prospects. Presumably, at no stage did they factor living skeletons and magic underworlds into their considerations. If they had, their advice would probably have been very different.

  Stephanie shrugged. “No, not really.”

  “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

  They reached the car and got in, and as they pulled out onto the road, she looked at him.

  “So who’s this Serpine you were talking about?”

  “Nefarian Serpine is one of the bad guys. I suppose, now that Mevolent is gone, he’d be considered the bad guy.”

  “What’s so bad about him?”

  The purr of the engine was all that filled the car for a few moments. “Serpine is an Adept,” he said at last. “He was Mevolent’s most trusted general. You heard what China was saying, about how she is a collector, how Gordon was a collector? Serpine is a collector too. He collects magic. He has tortured, maimed, and killed in order to learn other people’s secrets. He has committed untold atrocities in order to uncover obscure rituals, searching for the one ritual that he, and religious fanatics like him, have been seeking for generations. Back when the war broke out, he had this … weapon. These days he’s full of surprises, but he still uses it because, quite frankly, there is no defense against it.”

  “What’s the weapon?”

  “To put it simply, agonizing death.”

  “Agonizing death … on its own? Not, like, fired from a gun or anything?”

  “He just has to point his red right hand at you and … well, like I said, agonizing death. It’s a necromancy technique.”

  “Necromancy?”

  “Death magic, a particularly dangerous Adept discipline. I don’t know how he learned i
t, but learn it he did.”

  “And what does the Scepter thing have to do with all this?”

  “Nothing. It has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s a weapon of unstoppable destructive power. Or it would be, if it actually existed. It’s a rod, about the length of your thighbone. … Actually, I think I might have a picture of it. …”

  He pulled the car over and got out, went to the Bentley’s trunk, and opened it up. Stephanie had never been to this part of town before. The streets were quiet and empty. She could see the bridge over the canal in the distance. Moments later Skulduggery was back behind the wheel and they were driving again, and Stephanie had a leather-bound book on her lap.

  “What’s this?” she asked, opening the clasp and flicking through the pages.

  “Our most popular myths and legends,” he said, turning on the interior car light so she could see. “You just passed the Scepter.”

  She flicked back and came to a reproduction of a painting of a wide-eyed man reaching for a golden staff with a black crystal embedded in its hilt. The Scepter was glowing and he was shielding his eyes. On the opposite page was another picture, this time of a man holding the Scepter, surrounded by cowering figures, their heads turned away. “Who’s this guy?”

  “He’s an Ancient. In the legends, they were the very first sorcerers, the first to wield the power of the elements, the first to use magic. They lived apart from the mortal world, had no interest in it. They had their own ways, their own customs, and their own gods. Eventually, they decided that they wanted to have their own destinies, too, so they rose up against their gods, rather nasty beings called the Faceless Ones, and battled them on the land, in the skies, and in the oceans. The Faceless Ones, being immortal, won every battle, until the Ancients constructed a weapon powerful enough to drive them back—the Scepter.”

  “You sound like you know the story well.”

  “Tales around the campfire might seem quaint now, but it’s all we had before movies. The Faceless Ones were banished, forced back to wherever they came from.”

  “So what’s happening here? He’s killing his gods?”

  “Yep. The Scepter was fueled by the Ancients’ desire to be free. That was the most powerful force they had at their disposal.”

  “So it’s a force for freedom?”

  “Originally. However, once the Ancients no longer had the Faceless Ones to tell them what to do, they started fighting among themselves, and they turned the Scepter on each other and fueled it with hate.”

  The streetlights played on his skull as they passed in and out of darkness, flashing bone white in a hypnotic rhythm.

  “The last Ancient,” he continued, “having driven his gods away, having killed all his friends and all his family, realized what he had done, and hurled the Scepter deep into the Earth, where the ground swallowed it.”

  “What did he do then?”

  “Probably went for a snooze. I don’t know, it’s a legend, it’s an allegory. It didn’t really happen.”

  “So why does Serpine think it’s real?”

  “Now that is puzzling. Like his master before him, he believes some of our darker myths, our more disturbing legends. He believes the world was a better place when the Faceless Ones were in charge. They didn’t exactly approve of humanity, you see, and they demanded worship.”

  “The ritual that he’s been looking for—is it to bring them back?”

  “It is indeed.”

  “So he might think that the Scepter, which drove them away, could somehow call them back, right?”

  “People believe all kinds of things when it comes to their religion.”

  “Do you believe in any of it? The Ancients, Faceless Ones, any of it?”

  “I believe in me, Stephanie, and that’s enough for now.”

  “So could the Scepter be real?”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “So what does any of this have to do with my uncle?”

  “I don’t know,” Skulduggery admitted. “That’s why they call it a mystery.”

  Light filled the car, and suddenly the world was bucking, the only sounds a terrifying crash and the shriek of metal on metal. Stephanie lurched against her seat belt and slammed her head against the window, and the street outside tilted wildly and she realized the Bentley was flipping over. She heard Skulduggery curse beside her, and for an instant she was weightless, and then the Bentley hit the ground again and jarred her in her seat.

  The car rocked back onto its tires. Stephanie looked at her knees, her eyes wide but her brain too stunned to think. Look up, said a faint voice in her head. Look up to see what’s happening. The Bentley was still, its engine cut out, but there was another engine. A car door, opening and closing. Look up. Footsteps, running footsteps. Look up now. Skulduggery beside her, not moving. Look up, there’s someone coming for you. Look up NOW.

  A window exploded beside her for the second time that night, and the man from the house was grabbing her and hauling her out of the car.

  Six

  A MAN APART

  HIS CLOTHES WERE ragged and charred, but his skin had been untouched by the fireball that had enveloped him at Gordon’s house. She glimpsed his face as she was dragged through the yellow beams of the Bentley’s headlights, a face that was twisted in anger and hatred, and then she was lifted and slammed onto the hood of the car that had hit them. His hands had her collar bunched, his knuckles digging into her throat.

  “You will die,” he snarled, “right here and now if you do not give me that damned key.”

  Her hands were on his, trying to break his grip. Her head felt light, blood pounding in her temples. “Please,” she whispered, trying to breathe.

  “You’re going to make me look bad,” the man growled. “My master is going to think I’m a fool if I can’t get one stupid little key off one stupid little girl!”

  The street was empty around them. Shop fronts and businesses had closed for the night. No one was going to hear her. No one was coming to help her. Where was Skulduggery?

  The man lifted her off the hood and slammed her down again. Stephanie cried out in pain, and the man leaned in, his right forearm pressed beneath her chin. “I’ll snap your scrawny neck,” he hissed.

  “I don’t know anything about a key!” Stephanie gasped.

  “If you don’t know anything, you’re of no use to me and I’ll kill you here.”

  She looked up at that horribly twisted face, and she stopped trying to pull his hands away and instead dug her thumb into the bullet hole in his shoulder. He screamed and let her go and staggered back, cursing, and Stephanie rolled off the car and ran to the Bentley. Skulduggery was pounding at the door, but it had buckled under the impact, trapping his leg.

  “Go!” he shouted at her through the broken window. “Get away!”

  She glanced back, saw a figure loom up, and pushed herself away from the car. She slipped on the wet road but scrambled to her feet and ran, the man right behind her, clutching his injured shoulder.

  He lunged. She ducked, caught a streetlight, and swung herself from her course, and the man shot by her and sprawled onto the pavement. She took off the opposite way, passing the two cars and running on. The street was too long, too wide, and there was nowhere she could lose him. She turned off into a narrow lane and sprinted into the shadows.

  She heard him behind her, heard the footsteps that seemed to be moving much more quickly than her own. She didn’t dare look back; she didn’t want the fear that was lending her speed to suddenly sabotage her run. It was too dark to make out anything ahead of her; she couldn’t see one arm’s length ahead. She could be about to run smack into a wall and she wouldn’t—

  Wall.

  She twisted at the last moment and got her hands up and hit the wall, then pushed away, kicking off without losing too much momentum, continuing around the corner. The man couldn’t see in the dark any better than she could, and she heard him
hit the wall and yell out a curse.

  Up ahead was a break in the darkness. She saw a taxi pass. The man slipped and stumbled behind her—she was getting away. All she had to do was run up to the nearest person she could find, and the man wouldn’t dare follow her.

  Stephanie plunged out of the shadows and screamed for help, but the taxi was gone and the street was empty. She screamed again, this time in desperation. The streetlights tinted everything orange and stretched her shadow out before her, and then there was another shadow moving up behind. She threw herself to one side as the man barreled past, narrowly missing her.

  The canal was ahead, the canal that flowed through the city. She ran for it, aware that the man was once again behind her and gaining fast.

  She felt his fingers on her shoulder. The first touch was fleeting, but the second was a grip. His hand curled around her shoulder and tightened just as she reached the edge of the canal, and she managed to throw herself forward before he could drag her back. She heard a panicked shriek from behind and realized she had pulled him after her, and then the freezing water enveloped them both.

  The cold stunned her for a moment, but she fought it and kicked out.

  She clutched at water and dragged it down to her sides, just the way she had done countless times off the Haggard beach. Now she was moving up, up to where the lights were.

  She broke the surface with a gasp and turned her head, saw the man struggling, flailing his arms in terror.

  For a moment she thought he couldn’t swim, but it was more than that. The water was hurting him, working through him like acid, stripping pieces of him away. His cries became mere guttural sounds, and she watched as he came apart and was silent and most dead.

  She turned from the bits of him that floated to her and plowed through the water. Her hands and feet were already numb with the cold, but she kept going until his remains were far behind.

  Shivering, Stephanie reached the edge of the canal and managed to haul herself out. Arms crossed over her chest, running shoes squelching with every step and her hair plastered to her scalp, she hurried back to the Bentley.

  When she got there, the Bentley was empty. Stephanie hung back, out of the light. A truck passed, slowing when it approached the crash. When the driver didn’t see anyone, he drove on. Stephanie didn’t move from her spot.