Tomb of Ancients

by Madeleine Roux

  “Let the child do what she must,” Mrs. Haylam said. “Let her choose.”

  I took a deep breath, smelled the gore and gunpowder all around us, felt the quaking of the ground . . . It would be easy enough to summon Father. This was his chosen arena, his natural element. He craved bloodshed, and now, at last, I would give him as much as he could stomach. For my part, I had already seen more than enough. In my head, Father’s soul snapped and snarled and raged, denied his feast.

  Then the glass behind us shattered. It seemed as if the whole of the house had imploded, but it was only the windows. I covered my head, shrieking as shards of glass rained down on us, and then, with the fluttering of a thousand wings, birds gushed from the mansion. They were a riot of color and sounds, their cast-off feathers joining the shower of glass from the windows. Brushing debris off my shoulders, I marveled at their speed, following their trajectory as they all but erased the sky. Whenever a bird found a target, be it winged foe or giant, it would burst in a cascade of feathers that flowed into wisps of silver. Those blobs coalesced, then formed ghostly figures.

  The souls. He had at last released the army of souls he had reaped and stored in his birds.

  Mr. Morningside appeared directly after, loping out from the kitchen with a cup of tea. He downed it in one gulp and threw the porcelain against the nearest wall.

  “Fashionably late!” I screamed at him, exasperated.

  Mr. Morningside shrugged and strode past me, tending to Mrs. Haylam. “But still fashionable. Still want the deed? Sorry, I seem to have made a mess.”

  “I hate you,” I seethed back.

  “That’s allowed.” He shot a look over his shoulder, just in time for Dalton to appear, a heavy bag strapped to his back, also departing through the open kitchen door. “You can hate me later. It appears it is time for you to go.”

  The souls shrieked as they regained their forms, and I had to lean closer to Henry just to divine a single word. Gunfire. Screaming. The dull thud of javelins hitting Mary’s barrier . . . It was all too much, and I had only just pulled myself back from the mental brink. Khent sprinted to meet us, putting himself between me and the field of battle.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “You’re going,” Mr. Morningside said. “Leave this bit of bother to us, you have work to do. He’s got the book, Louisa. Now it’s time for you to do as you promised. Take the dog man, he’s useless without a moon around.”

  “Mother is coming, too,” I told him. “She isn’t meant for this kind of bloodshed.”

  The tide seemed to be turning, with Mr. Morningside’s birds allowing our side to gain more ground. That didn’t erase my concern completely, and I hated the thought of leaving even one of my friends behind.

  Mr. Morningside sighed and rolled his eyes, then gestured to Mother. “I’m only agreeing because she’s apparently useless. Now go! We’ll keep them busy while you four depart.”

  “So sudden,” I murmured, feeling as if the ground had been knocked out from under me. “Where are we going?”

  “Helmsley Castle. It isn’t far. Dalton has your instructions.” Mr. Morningside clasped me by the arm, and not for the first time, I wondered if this would be our final meeting. He was suddenly serious, oblivious to the violence bearing down. “And Louisa? Good luck. I know you won’t let me down.”

  There was no time to say goodbye, a fact that would haunt me for the entirety of the ride.

  “I just don’t know what to expect,” I told Khent and Mother, who sat across from me in the carriage. We had taken the roughshod carriage Chijioke used for errands, with Dalton in the driver’s box, a cloak wrapped around the book on his lap. “And I couldn’t say a word to Mary or Chijioke. Or, God, Lee and Poppy! How will I explain any of this to them?”

  “They will understand,” Mother assured me. She had recovered quicker than I expected, sitting upright and calm, her veil draped over her face. The mourning garb seemed appropriate. “You are walking into the unknown, child. There will be time for apologies later.”

  Khent, however, had climbed into the seat next to me, watching through the back window as the house disappeared in the distance. Helmsley Castle lay not far from Malton, which also struck me as fitting, going to the start to reach the end. Malton was nothing like Constantinople, and I hoped this wasn’t some kind of trick. But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this mysterious place—the unknown, as Mother had called it—had many doors. After all, the one Mr. Morningside had found in the diary had appeared out of thin air.

  “Something is wrong.” Khent pointed out the window, grumbling.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They should be following. They should sack their strategist. A chariot leaves the battle, you follow. No matter how empty it looks, you follow. Either they are very stupid or we are riding into a trap.”

  “Stay alert,” I told him. “I have a bad feeling in my stomach.”

  Mother watched me closely, the carriage rocking us all as Dalton spurred the horses and we flew down the road. I nestled down into the seat, exhausted, trying to recover some of my strength for the trials to come. Whatever we faced, it would require more than just following a few directions. Which reminded me . . .

  I pulled out the small scroll Mr. Morningside had provided. Dalton had handed it off to me before we departed the house and suggested that I memorize it. There wasn’t much to it, and most of it I already knew.

  “There will be riddles,” I told them. “And there must be something different about me . . . Morningside said he wasn’t allowed inside, but that I should be able to pass. I cannot say too much about it just now, even speaking of the ritual can summon horrid things to punish you.”

  “Perou huer hubesou,” Khent muttered, his nose still up to the rear window. More deceptions.

  But I shook my head at him. “No . . . We’re quite different, he and I.”

  “That is an understatement.”

  “Maybe . . . ,” I mused aloud, rubbing my forehead, “maybe only women can enter. Or perhaps only those with Dark Fae blood are allowed. If he tried to enter the tomb with Dalton and Ara then that wouldn’t work. Oh, I don’t know, it’s pointless to speculate.”

  Mother leaned over and touched my knee, then lifted her veil and patted the seat next to her. I climbed across and settled down, then felt a warm, soothing sensation rush over me as she touched the side of her head to mine. “Read the scroll. Recover yourself.”

  I did, and it was far easier with her there. Just her touch had a way of obliterating my fears, a balm for the battle we had just endured and the battle no doubt to come. My thoughts eased, and though I still felt heavyhearted from the bloodshed and from leaving behind so many of my friends, it did not feel so hopeless with her there.

  Flattening the parchment across my knee, I read over the brief lines, written in Mr. Morningside’s exceedingly elegant hand. They were what I expected—the riddles he had discovered, the answers he thought to be correct, and even the words to speak to call out the door. My eyes caught on one line in particular, and I felt a pang of sorrow deep in my chest. Now I was infinitely grateful that I had read the entirety of Dalton’s diary; without it, I would be in awful peril.

  For Mr. Morningside had lied. I read over his recounting of the riddle again and again, hoping it was a simple misspelling or error. But no, there was no way he had written the wrong answer by mistake. Either he wanted me to suffer, or he wanted me to fail. Or perhaps he was simply too dim-witted to count and realize that Faraday had been missing three fingers. Three. He had gotten every single riddle wrong, which meant . . . which meant . . .

  Something inside me hardened, a cluster of nerves that had been soft became steel, and I knew then that I would do what he could not: I would enter the Tomb of Ancients and behold all that he had wanted so badly to see and been denied.

  “Arms to embrace, yet no hands. Pinches to give, yet no fingers. Poison to wield, yet no needle.”

  Betr
ayers betrayed. Liars lied. The Devil deceived. Or else Mr. Morningside was not as clever as he thought.

  Scorpion was not the answer, but I knew what was.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1247, Tuz Gölü

  I was about to mount my horse when I heard Ara’s screams.

  The dog nestled in my robes fussed and poked his head out of the collar, leaning into the sound of her agony. I tracked it, too, then, powerless to stop myself, I trotted back toward the center of the salt. Malatriss presided over a gruesome sight. Ara was on the ground, writhing, holding both hands over her eyes, her legs kicking at the diamond-hard ground.

  “What did you do to her?” Henry shouted, falling to her side.

  “I can see into her heart, as I see into yours, Dark One,” the lion creature said. A droplet of blood, perfect and red, clung to the open mouth of her strange white snake. “You are truly willing to enter the tomb. She is not.”

  “That’s hardly cause to attack!” I said, out of breath from sprinting to reach them.

  Malatriss, eyes glowing and gold, smiled at me, displaying pointed, regular teeth, all of them sharpened to gleaming daggers. “This is not a game for little children,” she whispered, her smile never failing. “Through that door, you play with cards of flesh and dice of bone, you wager in blood and sinew. Your friend the demon learned that the hard way. He did not take it well when Nira sucked the fingers from his hands.”

  The pale snake around Malatriss’s neck bobbed its head and coiled more tightly around its mistress.

  Ara’s hands dropped away long enough for me to see that one eye was shut, blood weeping down her cheek. I had never heard her cry that way, in such childlike anguish, raw and helpless.

  “Come away with me, Henry,” I whispered, kneeling with them and taking him by the arm. “Have you not seen enough? This place is cursed. Come away.”

  “No.” He wiped furiously at the tears on his face, tilting his head up to the doorkeeper. “No. The book must be destroyed. I have not come this far for nothing. I want answers, do you hear me, wretch? I want answers.”

  “That is my desire, too,” Malatriss purred, unmoved by his shouting. It occurred to me that many had probably discovered clues to the Binders and made this journey, making similar appeals. Any who encountered the books would want to understand their power and know how such things could be made. How many bumbling adventurers had she tortured and turned away? “I make a meal of answers, or flesh, as the case may be. I harvest them. Riddles are the tool with which I till the field.”

  “Yes, the riddles.” Henry was in a constant state of weeping, trying not to weep more, and wiping at his mouth with sloppy, desperate pawing. “I will answer your riddles, witch. Proceed.”

  She laughed. The constellations above us spun and surged, so bright it hurt to look up.

  “Bold. Bold and arrogant. I almost like you; your flesh would taste of pride,” Malatriss whispered, lightly petting the body of her pet snake. “You would do well to listen to your friend. You may be willing, Dark One, but this place is not for you. Only the dead may enter here, and you have so very much longer to live.”

  Malatriss showed us her teeth again, and then, as if the whole sordid scene had been a nightmare, we woke, and she was gone. The salt crust broke under us and we sank into the shallow water, daylight returned, the sun beaming over a cloudless sky. But the wound Ara had suffered was real, and though her hysterics had calmed, Henry’s had not.

  “No!” He beat at his chest, standing, turning in every direction. Slicking both wet hands through his hair, he giggled, a deeply mad sound. “No, it . . . it cannot be. The book.” He stared at it, soaking in the salt lake. “The book . . . I was so close. No.”

  Henry didn’t notice that I had helped Ara to her feet. That she leaned against me, that she had taken up the book to carry back to the horses. He did not notice Bartholomew trying to lick at his hand, the only consolation he was likely to receive.

  Helmsley Castle, a fawn-colored spike reaching up from a low hill, stood abandoned. Someone had maintained the grounds, but I heard no farmers or townsfolk from Malton out for a stroll. The grass was slick still from the rains as we climbed toward the structure, and I felt compelled to stare holes into the back of Dalton’s head.

  The medieval ruin towered above us, just one lingering facade, the rest of it long since crumbled away. Which made it look, upon reflection, rather like a gate.

  “Why didn’t they follow us?” I asked. Khent and Mother flanked me, though I could sense them watching Dalton, too. “It seems foolish to just let us go.”

  “Henry told me he would create a distraction,” Dalton said, stopping. He put one foot up on the higher level of the hill and twisted, resting his hands on his raised thigh. The fabric over his eyes was damp with sweat. “He had to, or I never would have been able to go to Judgment and steal the book.”

  “Judgment,” I repeated. “Is that where you take people to be Judged? Sparrow took me there once. It’s another realm of some kind?”

  “Yes. Only accessible by us. You could only see it because Sparrow forced you to go.”

  “Was the book difficult to take?” I asked. He wasn’t volunteering much, and that only made me more nervous. I now knew Mr. Morningside was inadvertently or intentionally trying to sabotage me; I didn’t need his old lover doing the same.

  “To be frank with you . . .” Sighing, Dalton shook his head and then began his way up the hill again. “It was unguarded. There was no one there at all.”

  “Well, that’s not suspicious.” Khent picked up the pace, overtaking me and then Dalton, charging his way ahead. I was not going to let them beat me to the ruins, so I ran to catch up, hoping Mother would do the same.

  “Wait!” I managed to maneuver around the two men. I stooped and put my hands on my knees, still weak and out of breath from using my powers so recently. “I want to trust you, Dalton, but why would you do this? You will be annihilating all of your own people, and for what?”

  He crossed his arms over his suit and lifted his chin to the wind, letting it catch his hair and the bandage around his eyes. Breathing deep, he let it go through his nose. “I will miss this place, but I’m tired. I’m tired of this fighting, this war. I’m tired of Henry. He thinks destroying us is revenge, but it is not so.”

  I waited, giving Khent a dark look to keep him quiet.

  “There will be no one left to blame when I’m gone,” Dalton said, more to himself than to us. “Now, how does that go? Ah, yes—‘I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge—but it was transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it.’”

  With that, he walked off across the green, toward the remains of the castle, the rising gusts across the hills tearing at his coat. I followed, but Khent hesitated, and I was forced to nudge him along.

  “No man that melancholy has betrayal on the mind. Come on,” I said softly. “He need not have brought the book. He need not have returned from Judgment at all.”

  We made a silent procession into the ruins, passing through the door and into the cool, shaded area beyond, which almost felt like a courtyard, but with no high walls to hem it in. Mother went to sit on one of the fallen chunks of wall, gazing up at the height of the castle front. I had memorized the scroll Mr. Morningside had given me, and I knew how to proceed; my only doubts lingered over whether or not to tell Dalton of his friend’s deception. Or error.

  Stand in the very middle of the door, take twenty paces, then turn back and speak the words.

  Those were the instructions in the journal, and I did exactly that, holding on to one breath all the while, my heart pounding faster with each step. Khent stood rigidly to the side, alert, his purple eyes following me so intently they felt like physical pressure against my cheek. Dalton, however, seemed relaxed, or perhaps resigned, hands in pockets as he admired the ruins.

  When I had gone twenty paces, I paused and swiveled back toward the door. Even though I knew what might co
me next, it felt like jumping off a cliff, hoping to find water at the bottom but feeling just as strongly that I might find stone. Dalton approached me silently, pulling the pack from his shoulders and handing it to me. It was unbelievably heavy, the canvas top shifting aside, showing me the gleaming white book within.

  “Don’t touch it,” he warned with a gentle smile. “It will burn.”

  “I have some experience there,” I said. “I’m going to begin now.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you certain this is what you want? It isn’t too late,” I said.

  “You need to be rid of Father, and Henry needs to be rid of me. It will all be wrapped up neatly, I think. You’ll see.”

  I didn’t see, but I decided to trust him, pulling on the bag and inhaling one last time, telling myself that I could face the trials, telling myself that I could achieve what Mr. Morningside could not.

  “I’m willing.”

  The effect was instantaneous. Night fell, the sky lighting up with a thousand gleaming constellations—alligators and snakes, rams and spiders, stags and rabbits. The moon appeared, a circular white beacon that felt close enough to touch. Then the ramp appeared, cutting its way into the grass, the square black door appearing just under the door into the castle. Just as the diary described, Malatriss emerged shortly after, climbing the ramp with the almost-bored air of someone going about their daily tedium. She might have been feeding the chickens or going to the baker’s for bread.

  Dalton had failed to describe her beauty, or the way the sudden constellations reflected in her feline eyes. She studied him first, in fact, grinning as if stumbling upon a long-lost friend. But I had been the one to call her, and she swiftly turned back to me. Mother and Khent sidled close, protectively so.

  “I am Malatriss,” she said, bowing her head just a little. “One Who—”

  “Opens the Door,” I interrupted. “Yes, yes, can we move this along? We’re in a bit of a rush.”

  That startled her, which felt good, honestly, and she gave another wide smile, recovering with a laugh. “You are impatient,” she said, licking her teeth. “And willing. And these others?” she asked.