by Darren Shan
“Yes,” Kojo says cheerfully.
Inez is speechless. I suppress a chuckle. This is the way I felt when she casually told me she was four hundred years old. It’s fun to see the tables turned.
Kojo has led us close to one side of the chamber, and I spot a narrow moat between the floor and wall. At first I think it’s filled with water, but when the light catches it, I see that it’s red, like...
“Is that blood in the moat?” I ask, and Kojo pauses.
“Yes,” he says.
“Real blood,” Hugo asks, staring at the moat with unease, “or blood like in the rivers of blood?”
“Like in the rivers of blood,” Kojo says.
“They really don’t want you straying close to the sides here,” I mutter. “Brush against a wall, you’re whipped off to the Lost Zone. Dip a toe in the moat, you’re sucked into the blood and dissolved.”
“Does the blood work the same way here as in the rivers?” Inez asks.
“Exactly the same,” Kojo nods. “They needed a barrier of blood when they built the Crypt. I’m not sure why, but apparently it was an architectural necessity. I also don’t know if it links back to the rivers, or if they carted it here in special tubs and filled the moat manually. The devisers didn’t like sharing their secrets, and I was only brought here once work had been completed.”
To our relief, Kojo leads us away from the moat, then returns to the subject of the Departed, and why the Crypt was built.
“Lines of communication between the spheres were open in the past,” Kojo says. “That’s how the Born were able to construct the Merge in the first place — they were guided by those who’d died and moved on. Our ancestors wanted to create a new sphere, especially for those who’d been killed. They never revealed much about what lies beyond the Born or the Merge, or meddled in our affairs. We had the sense that they were operating within a strict set of guidelines, but they never told us who made the rules.
“During those early millennia, communication boreholes were plentiful, and all the Merged could talk with the Departed,” Kojo says, “but over time they shut most of the boreholes and would only converse with royals, on rare occasions. Guided by them, we built this chamber, accessible only through the Crypt boreholes.”
Kojo points to the hovering, multifaced cylinder at the centre of the room. “There are ten panels,” he says. “One for each of the original realms, and one that connects to the Born. Ten Crypt boreholes were built in each realm – as well as in the Born – with locks that could only be opened by Family members.” He shoots a dubious look my way, but doesn’t ask how I managed to open one of the locks, which I appreciate, because I’ve no idea.
Kojo walks back to the cylinder and gently presses his right palm to the active white borehole that we came through. To our consternation, it turns transparent, and we’re now looking into the room of panels in Canadu.
“If several boreholes in Sapphire were open, you’d be able to see the view from each of them when you touched this,” Kojo says. “They’d be smaller and separated from one another, spread around the panel. You’d touch the one you wanted, and it would fill the panel, then you’d be able to step through. It’s the same with the other nine. You used to be able to get to a hundred different places from here, but for a long time all ten panels were inactive, no way in... no way out.”
“I still don’t understand where we are,” Inez says. “The way you’re speaking, it’s as if this Crypt isn’t in any of our realms.”
“It isn’t,” Kojo says.
“But then where...?” she asks.
“Look at the buffers,” Kojo says, nodding at the walls and ceiling.
“I can see that they’re boreholes to the Lost Zone,” Inez says, “but that doesn’t tell us where...”
She stops as Kojo chuckles. “They’re not boreholes to the Lost Zone,” he says. “They’re part of it.”
“You’re trying to tell us we’re in the Lost Zone?” Inez doesn’t believe him.
“The Crypt was built before the first realm fell,” Kojo says, “but everyone could see that such a thing would eventually happen. Working from the Departed’s blueprints, the Families built an indestructible zone in a realm that looked like it was about to fall. When the last royal of that realm died and it was torn apart, that one, hardy zone would survive, but would lie at the heart of a newly generated Lost Zone, surrounded by the swirling debris of the fallen realm – plus those that would follow later – lost to the Merge forever, except for a hundred ways in and out.” Kojo points to the cylinder again.
“So we really are in the Lost Zone,” Inez whispers, staring at the ceiling with awe and fear.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” Kojo says. “This zone will stand as long as the Merge does. It might even outlast the Merge, the last trace of our sphere left intact when the final realm falls, trapped within the howling winds of the Lost Zone for the rest of time as a reminder of what once was.”
“No,” Inez says. “When the last royal dies, the Merge will blink out of existence, the Lost Zone too.”
“Perhaps,” Kojo says. “Nobody knows for sure. There’s a chance the Crypt might last forever, even when humanity itself is snuffed out, an ark to preserve a tiny slice of its history.” Kojo stops and turns to face us. He’s smiling. “So if any of you want to survive the end of the world, now you know how!”
19
I’m used to being flummoxed in the Merge, but this is a new experience for Inez and Hugo. They walk along in silence, clearly mulling over all that they’ve learned, as Kojo continues his search. When they woke this morning, they had no idea that they’d be uncovering secrets of the Merge’s origins not long after breakfast. It’s a lot for them to take in.
For me, however, it’s business as normal, so I take it in my stride, and that’s why I’m the first to ask a follow-up question. “What do you do here? Are you Family?”
Kojo almost chokes with laughter. “Me! Family! Do I have an aura?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. Although every Family member has an aura, you can only see them if you’re Merged, or a royal like Hugo.
Kojo’s laughter dies away and he stares at me. “You’re Born?” he croaks.
I check with Inez, who nods.
Kojo shakes his head. “A Born locksmith who can open a Crypt borehole? How is that possible?”
“I’ve no idea,” I grin. “So what’s the deal with you?”
Kojo studies me a while longer, walking backwards as he does, then shrugs. “The Departed only sent occasional messages once the Crypt was completed, if they had something extremely important to communicate. Royals took it in turns to camp here, in case a message came – it’s weird when that happens, all the mouths on the statues moving at the same time – but there could be hundreds of years between communiqués, and they grew tired of all the hanging around. At the same time, they were afraid they’d miss a vital message if they left the Crypt unattended.”
“I don’t get it,” I frown. “If a message was that important, couldn’t the Departed make contact with the royals directly, the way they used to?”
“They wouldn’t,” Kojo says. “They were adamant about that. Once the Crypt was up and running, this was the only place where they’d talk to the Merged.”
“Seems like a strange set-up,” I note.
“We thought so too,” Kojo says, “but there was no arguing with them.”
“I see where this is heading,” Hugo says. “The royals hired someone to listen for them.”
“Correct,” Kojo says. “Each Family submitted candidates, and the final choice had to win the approval of every single royal. It took a long time, and hundreds were rejected, but eventually they settled on me, and I’ve been here ever since.”
“How did it work?” I ask. “Did you carry messages to the royals whenever you heard from the Departed?”
“No,” Kojo says. “If it was calamitous – for instance, if they told me the Merge would co
llapse within a week unless we acted to avert it – I had clearance to leave and warn the Families, but that never happened. Instead, royals used to visit me to find out if I had any news. At first they came often, so I had a steady stream of visitors, but the visits decreased over time. They started coming every few months, then years, then decades. The Departed passed on so few messages that it stopped being a priority for them.
“I’ll admit it got lonely,” Kojo says hollowly. “I’m happy to endure the long, isolated stretches, but it’s hard. I asked a few times if they could appoint a second Cryptkeeper, so that we could divide the watch up between us, but the Families could never agree on another candidate. I guess they didn’t work too hard on it. They had a lot of other things to focus on.”
“You should have gone on strike,” I tell him, feeling bad for the boy, left alone all this time to carry the can.
He smiles sadly. “I didn’t mind that much, until the dark. I haven’t liked being without light. That was no fun at all.”
Kojo looks around and shivers. I share a puzzled look with Inez and Hugo.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “It isn’t dark.”
“It was until you opened the borehole,” Kojo says. “The walls and ceiling only light up when at least one of the boreholes is active. In the old days that wasn’t a problem – even when the royals hadn’t visited for ages, there were always a few Crypt boreholes open in the various realms – but then the old fella hit the scene, and he wasn’t long plunging this place into what he hoped would prove to be an eternity of darkness.”
Kojo looks at us guiltily and lowers his voice. “I never liked the old fella. I shouldn’t say that – I promised to be neutral and respect all the royals when I took this job – but he knows how I feel. He said it to me once, sneered, ‘You don’t like me, do you, boy?’ I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘No, I don’t.’ He huffed and said, ‘At least you’re honest. I rarely flay a person for being honest with me.’”
“He sounds like a charming sort,” Hugo says witheringly.
“The old fella never approved of the Crypt,” Kojo says. “He didn’t agree with the Departed meddling in our affairs. He wanted to sever all connections with them, and brought a few devisers here to see if they could destroy the Crypt, but that proved beyond them. Nothing they did to the walls or ceiling made any difference. In fact a few of them got jerked through into the Lost Zone.” Kojo snickers, then looks guilty. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh at such a terrible thing.”
“Don’t worry,” Inez says. “Some people belong in the Lost Zone. The Merge is better off without them.”
Kojo gulps. “Anyway, when the old fella couldn’t destroy the Crypt, he decided to make sure that nobody could ever come here again, by breaking the locks on all the connecting boreholes. This was long before he went to war with the Merged. I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and now I’m pretty sure he wanted to stop the other royals coming here in case the Departed tipped them off to his plans, although they never did.”
“It would have spared us a lot of trouble if they had,” Inez mutters.
“The old fella was wrong to think they’d have taken sides against him,” Kojo says, “but he didn’t want to take any chances, so he set out to destroy all the locks, and I guess by the lack of visitors over the last several hundred years that he must have succeeded. I think he targeted royals as well, the older members who knew how to open the locks.”
“You mean he murdered them?” Hugo growls.
Kojo nods glumly. “The locks were made for Family members, but they didn’t simply open to their touch — if one was closed, a royal had to unlock it, and it was a complicated procedure. That’s why they tended to position the boreholes in their palaces or isolated places where people wouldn’t be likely to find them, and leave them open. I imagine, as time passed, most didn’t bother to show new royals how to open the locks, as they weren’t using them even on their occasional visits here, so he wouldn’t have had to kill that many people.”
Hugo looks like he wants to throttle Old Man Reap. I think he’d happily drag the scourge of the Merge back from the Lost Zone if he could, just to be able to wring his neck.
“He came to see me before he destroyed the final few locks,” Kojo says, his voice dropping. “He said he was close to doing what he’d vowed, and had started a war with the other realms. He told me to tell the Departed what was happening if they ever got in touch, and to warn them not to mess with him, or he’d wage war on their spheres too.”
“Wage war on the Departed?” Inez snorts. “He sounds like a madman.”
“As mad as they come,” Kojo agrees, “but a powerful, cunning madman. I didn’t laugh at his threat. I don’t think the Departed would have laughed either. Then he left, and a short time later the lights went out, and they’ve been...”
Kojo spots something and cries out with joy. He races to one of the heads and retrieves something that was stuck in a crack high up. He sits down and raises a foot, and I realise it’s the missing sandal.
“I’ve been looking for that for ages,” Kojo beams, standing to admire the sandal on his foot. “I used to play games with it, hide it and then try to forget where I’d put it, so that I could kill some time searching for it. But one day I hid it too artfully and it’s been lost to me ever since. I feel so happy now, and it’s all because of your visit. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Kojo’s eyes fill with delighted tears and he darts from one of us to the other, making the greet. As I consider how happy this small find has made him, and think about what it must have been like, stuck here in the darkness for hundreds of years, all by himself, loyal to his duty even though nobody else in the Merge knew or cared, my eyes fill with tears too.
20
Kojo’s story seems to have tugged at Inez’s and Hugo’s heartstrings as well, because for a while nobody speaks, and we all look sheepish when we make eye contact with one another.
“We’ll leave the borehole open when we return,” Hugo finally says.
Kojo’s eyes light up, but then he grimaces. “You can’t,” he says softly. “The old fella wouldn’t like it if he found out, and I don’t want you getting into trouble on my account.”
We all gawp at Kojo.
“What?” he smiles, looking down at his clothes and sandals, trying to work out what we’re staring at.
“You don’t know?” Hugo croaks.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Inez murmurs. “If he’s been locked up here all this time, no contact with anyone in the Merge...”
“The Departed should have told him,” Hugo says hotly.
“What are you talking about?” Kojo asks.
“Old Man Reap lost the war,” Inez says.
Kojo freezes.
“More than five hundred years ago,” Hugo confirms.
“He...” Kojo clears his throat. “He was killed?”
“No,” Inez says. “We used a snap borehole to send him to the Lost Zone.”
“What’s a...” Kojo starts to ask, then stops. “He’s in the Lost Zone?”
“Yes,” Inez says.
Kojo stares at the walls, then up at the ceiling, as if expecting to see Old Man Reap’s shadow. “Honestly?” he whispers.
“It’s not something we’d joke about,” Inez says.
Kojo leans against a statue, then slumps to his haunches. For a few seconds I think he’s going to cry, but instead he starts to laugh. “Yes!” he howls with glee. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Kojo’s laughter is infectious, and soon the rest of us are laughing too.
“I wish I could have seen it,” Kojo chuckles. “He was a Supreme Regent, so he was able to control all the devisers. He thought it made him invincible, but that power was meant to be used for good for a while, then passed on. I’m glad he was punished for taking such cruel, selfish advantage of it.” Kojo stops laughing. “But the war must have been awful. Lots of people must have died.”
“Ye
s,” Inez says sombrely.
“And all for nothing,” Kojo sighs. “What a waste.”
There’s a long silence while we reflect on the damage done to the Merge by Old Man Reap. Hugo breaks it again. “So, since the old fella is no longer around to tell us what to do, we’ll leave the borehole open and set a guard outside the room where it’s stored in our palace, to make sure no one stumbles through accidentally, or to alert us if you ever have to cross with an urgent message. We’ve got to go – there’s a tournament we can’t miss, for all sorts of reasons – but we’ll drop in to see you every now and then when we return to Sapphire.”
“Yes,” Inez says. “We’ll tell you what’s been going on in the Merge these past centuries, play games with you, bring you anything you want, toys, clothes, musical instruments, different types of food, as I’m sure you’re bored of...” She stops and looks around the Crypt with a frown. “Where are the mushrooms?”
“There aren’t any,” Kojo says.
“Then what do you eat?” she asks.
“Nothing,” he says. “You don’t need food in the Crypt.”
She blinks. “You’ve gone fifteen thousand years without eating? And you haven’t turned into a hell jackal?”
“That’s the way it is here,” Kojo shrugs. “No sleep. No food. It’s like time stops in the Crypt, and all the things you need in any other place, you don’t need here.” He licks his lips nervously. “Even though you’re not royal, it would be lovely to see more of you if you could spare a few moments every once in a while...”
“We can and we will,” Inez says firmly, and Kojo’s eyes sparkle.
“You could come back with us,” I suggest. “You don’t owe the Families anything, not given the way they left you stranded here for all that time.”
Kojo shakes his head. “I took a vow,” he says, “and the Departed still speak to us, albeit rarely — the last time was maybe a hundred years ago, give or take a few decades. But they do occasionally get in touch if it’s important, so someone has to record what they say. There were times, when it was dark and no one was coming to visit, when I felt like I was wasting my time, but now that I have visitors again, I can easily do another five thousand years... ten... more!”