Tomb of Ancients

by Madeleine Roux

  I saw Khent open his mouth to answer, but Mother stepped in front of him, pushing him away. Her smile matched that of Malatriss, though it contained far less contempt. “I am willing.”

  My eyes followed the horrid white snake as it traveled in a slow circle around Malatriss’s shoulders. It had the same open, gaping mouth as the Binder’s fingers.

  Malatriss closed her eyes, the smile vanishing, and for a moment I was sure we had done something wrong. Mother was unwilling, or maybe I was unwilling. But then the doorkeeper blinked and sniffed, nodding her satisfaction. “Two willing hearts. Two hearts that have known death.”

  So that was what had kept Mr. Morningside from gaining entrance to the tomb. I had died briefly, just long enough for Father’s soul to be guided into me, and Mother had been drained to the point of death for the ritual that bound her in that spider. Glancing up at her, her eight pink eyes staring straight ahead, I wondered if she had known, or if she simply wanted to be there with me to face the challenges ahead. Whatever the explanation, she took my hand, and I felt better for it.

  “Willing hearts. Immortal hearts. But are they wise?” Malatriss mused. “What falls but never breaks? And what breaks but never falls?”

  “Night and day,” I said at once.

  Malatriss inclined her head, a flicker of irritation tightening her right eyelid. “My leaves don’t change, but turn, what am I?”

  That was the one puzzle Mr. Morningside had never managed to solve. He had written directly into the instructions that there would be one riddle that I must solve on my own. The answer seemed apparent to me right away, however, given the excruciating weight strapped to my back.

  “A book,” I answered.

  Malatriss bobbed her head, as did the snake, and then she folded her hands out in front of her; the other four hands remained tucked still behind her back. The beads on her collar twinkled gently, and then she gave me the final question. I swallowed, more nervous for this than for the unknown riddle. The answer provided by Mr. Morningside was wrong, I felt sure of that, but I was not at all convinced that I had the right clue. Or perhaps I had been confident, but now, faced with that hungry little eel around her neck, I wanted very much to be right and keep my fingers.

  With another vicious smile, Malatriss offered the final test. “Arms to embrace, yet no hands. Pinches to give, yet no fingers. Poison to wield, yet no needle. What am I?”

  I couldn’t help it—I glanced at Dalton, who had abandoned his casual posture, watching me with his fingernails between his lips. His eyes were hidden, of course, but I knew all of his thoughts, all of his prayers were bent toward me. The demon Focalor had failed, Henry had never gotten the opportunity, but still I summoned the courage to believe in my own wits.

  For I did not know the word for an ancient scorpion creature with the chest and head of a man, but Father did. He spoke the ancient language of Khent, of Ara, of every tree and insect and man. No language escaped him. I shook, fearing what it might do to use his knowledge, but I wasn’t going to lose my fingers.

  “Girtablilû,” I said, my voice ringing out, all my hopes going with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Every inch of me froze with fear. I watched the snake, waiting for it to strike. Mother’s grip on my hand tightened and then relaxed, and Malatriss squinted as if seeing me anew.

  “Willing hearts. Immortal hearts . . .” She extended all six of her golden hands to us. “Wise hearts. You have passed the first trial, but further tests await you within. I will be personally interested to see how you fare, little one. The door is open to you—all that remains is to walk through it.”

  A hard, cold wind blew through the ruins, and a moment later I heard a rustle of wings. Malatriss had begun to walk back down the ramp, but we were no longer alone in the castle. I turned, tucking my hands protectively over the straps of the pack, finding that the shepherd had come, and Finch, proving Khent’s suspicions that our absence was noticed.

  “Go through that door if you must, child,” the shepherd said, hobbling toward me with a cane, his blind eyes finding me easily. “But you will not take that book with you.”

  Finch rushed toward me, the gold of his body fading as he reverted to his human form. He was not to reach me, as Khent stepped between us, his lip curling into a snarl.

  “Louisa, please,” Finch implored, his huge, brown eyes—wet with tears—searching me out over Khent’s shoulder. “You don’t know what you’re doing. We were friends once, and though different, you always showed me kindness. Would you see us all killed?”

  “There’s more to this than you know,” I told him. “I’m sorry, it’s too late, I won’t be persuaded.”

  “How did you find us?” Dalton stepped up next to Khent, and I began backing away, knowing I may soon need to run and run swiftly.

  “Oh, brother, I can sense you. I can always sense you. You may have turned away from us, but that does not mean our bond is broken,” Finch told him, shaking his head of dark hair and glancing away, disgusted. “I knew you were changed, but to take the book? To work for him?”

  Guilt and doubt tugged at the edges of my mind, but not for long. The sharp sting of a headache seared across my forehead, and I gasped, nearly felled by the pain. Sometimes I could feel Father’s influence building gradually, but this came on with the quickness of a summer lightning storm. Father had sensed the shepherd’s proximity and clawed his way through my mind until I could hardly hear a word being said around me.

  Let me face him, let me rend him with teeth and claw.

  Mother’s hands curled around my shoulders, urging me away from the arguing. We stumbled toward the ramp, fragments of the shouting breaking through the bloody mist filling my head.

  “It isn’t for me,” Dalton was saying. “It’s for everyone. You have them cornered, your entire host against a handful of children. This isn’t a war, it’s another massacre. Henry’s released those souls, his strength is spent. What more do you want?”

  “To live, brother! And to punish you for killing my sister.”

  But that was me.

  More bickering, more dark laughter from the corrupted recesses of my mind. The ground sloped, and I let Mother guide me, finding my feet as we descended the ramp.

  “I won’t let her take it!” Finch was screaming now, all pretense of civility gone, and I heard a deafening clash of steel. “You turned away from us, brother. You’ve diminished. I will take no pleasure in defeating you, but I will defeat you. Louisa! Louisa, please! She’s getting away . . . We shall spare your friends, Louisa, if you only listen to us. Listen to reason!”

  They are feeble, alone. Let us end this, daughter, let us have our revenge.

  I gritted my teeth. No. Not now. Not when we were so close . . .

  “Khent,” I managed to whisper. “The moon . . .”

  “I see it. Go, eyachou, go! We will not let them advance.”

  But I leaned hard against Mother, hissing. It was wrong to go, to leave them like that, to let others fight my battles. And yet I feared what would happen if I stayed, if Father emerged and used me for his ancient revenge. I blinked hard, concentrating on Mother’s presence, hoping that if I stayed near to her his influence would fade away. It did, but only a little, and I had time to open my eyes and see her and Khent staring down into my face with twin expressions of concern. How could I leave? A hundred possibilities flashed before my eyes, none of them encouraging. What if we emerged from the tomb to find Khent slain? What if I might have bargained for mercy and found some way to save us all? And those bleeding and dying for us at Coldthistle House, what if it was all for nothing?

  “Go,” Khent said again, pressing his hand between my shoulder blades, “and take my courage when you do.”

  Dalton flared gold behind him, wielding a staff with blades flashing on both ends. He blazed like fire, and through the flames I could see the shepherd advancing toward us, the kindness of his face wiped clean by rage. As Khent turned away from me I s
aw the first ripples of tension beneath his arms, a spray of gray fur clustering at his nape as he took his power from the moon and came to our defense. Malatriss was almost at the door. It was time to go, time to carry the weight of the book down the ramp and into the tomb beyond.

  Even with Mother there, my skin prickled with cold. We were entering a tomb, after all, and a whispering voice of dread reminded me that only the dead belonged in such places. Willing hearts. Wise hearts. Immortal hearts.

  God help me, I did not feel so immortal anymore.

  Amazed, relieved, I stepped through the door and into my dream. No, not a dream this time, but the place itself. Another realm. I had seen the realm of one Binder, but this was something else completely, not just a void of nothingness and impenetrable shadows. An incredible vision, so otherworldly that no simple mortal could be meant to see it, and I stopped short, gazing up at the endless glass hall of stars and night, standing in a tunnel with no walls but infinite constellations rotating slowly around it. Yet I was there. Not a simple mortal, perhaps, but a reluctant god bearer that still felt like a serving maid.

  “I’ve . . . I’ve been here before,” I whispered.

  Malatriss continued through the corridor at her unwaveringly languid pace. “Many dream of the Hall of Gods and Glass. Few ever see it with true eyes.”

  “How many have come before?” I murmured. We at last seemed to have found something that amazed Mother. She, too, cast her eyes in every direction, reaching out for a walled boundary that was not there. Yet her fingers touched something solid, even if it could not be seen.

  “Akantha the Seeking, Romulus the Founder, Miigwan, Hereward, Valens, Nochtli the Thorned, Ying Yue, Owain . . .” Malatriss had tucked her second and third pair of arms back behind her shoulders again and gestured to us with her right hand. The snake around her neck appeared to be sleeping. “Now your names will be added to that list.”

  “And how many of them escaped the tomb alive?” I asked. The corridor was endless, but Malatriss led us forward, more constellations sparking to life above and below.

  “Oh,” she replied lightly. “None.”

  We followed Malatriss five paces behind, and already I felt weary from carrying the white book. It was heavier than I could have imagined, and my back ached. Mother glided along beside me, her veil long since removed, and she touched my shoulder.

  “Shall I carry it?” she asked.

  “No, I think I should be the one to do it. This is my wretched mess,” I said. “Do you think this is what Mr. Morningside wanted? To trap us in here forever?”

  She considered that with pursed lips, then glanced ahead to Malatriss.

  “It certainly would make life easier for him, wouldn’t it? If we destroy the book, then that’s the shepherd sorted, and if we never leave this place then he has all of England to himself.” I thought of the instructions, the word scorpion standing out in my mind as if it had been written in fire. “He gave me the wrong answer to one of the riddles, Mother. I don’t think he really knew what he was sending us into. He must have suspected this might be where we meet our end.”

  My heart sank. I had never really trusted him, but I had hoped at least that my terms were fair enough to tempt him into decency. But even that was beyond him. I had helped him against the shepherd, against Father, and for what? Now he had trapped us in the Tomb of Ancients, a place nobody had survived. Could he have known that, too?

  “We have to get out of here,” I murmured. “If only to throw it in his horrid face.”

  “The Dark One has shown kindness to you before, yes? Perhaps there is more here that we cannot see.”

  Her optimism deepened my despair. Mother was ancient and wise, but I had known Mr. Morningside long enough to understand that his motives were always selfish. He had led Dalton and Mrs. Haylam to the tomb’s entrance once, content enough to put them in the worst kind of danger for his own plot. If that was how he treated friends, what would he be willing to do to me?

  The hall stretched on and on, but I could not concentrate on its beauty. Panic rose in my chest. I looked behind us, but there was no door. Courage. There were trials to come, and the promise of death to face, but I needed to find a way to take that knotted ball of panic and transform it into determination. I was a Changeling, after all, such a feat ought to be possible. Above all, I wanted to see Mary, Khent, Chijioke, Lee, and Poppy again. And I wanted answers, real ones, from Mr. Morningside. I would get the answers I sought, no matter what I needed to endure.

  How very like Mr. Morningside himself.

  I noted a gradual slope to the floor now, a descent that grew steeper as we went. The Hall of Gods and Glass was conspicuously absent of scent. Not even dust touched this place.

  “Where are we?” I asked Malatriss as we went. “Certainly not Yorkshire.”

  I heard the amusement in her voice as we went deeper and deeper into the tomb. “We are nowhere, suspended in time. There is no description I could offer that would tell you where we are. We simply are here.”

  “But it is possible to return?” I pressed. “If we pass your tests, I mean.”

  “It is possible. Difficult. But possible.”

  The corridor turned and twisted, still leading us down. Above, below, and all around us, the constellations began to fade, the tunnel becoming solid black and then, brick by brick, embossed yellow brick. A carpet spread out under our feet, narrow and blue, running along a floor of that same embellished brickwork. This place did smell. I knew the odor well and drank deep of it, the comforting scent of parchment, old ink, and leather reminding me at once of Cadwallader’s. Books. Of course. We had entered a library of sorts, though it had no end. Instead of books in shelves lining the walls, there stood innumerable cases made of glass.

  I slowed and veered to the right, approaching one of the cases. No, not a case, a sarcophagus. A body was suspended within, eyes closed, floating, seemingly asleep. It was a beautiful dark-skinned woman with long hair and feathery wings for arms. The next case held a man so wide and muscular he seemed almost to burst from the sparkling glass confines.

  My hand smoothed across the glass, but the figure within did not wake.

  “What are they?” I breathed. Mother stared at my hand and then at the man entombed beyond it, her eight eyes filling with tears.

  “Gods,” she answered for Malatriss. “Ancients. Those that came before and were made to surrender.”

  “Some have yet to be,” Malatriss added. “Many decided to return here to sleep.”

  “This . . . This is where I was born.” Mother walked to an empty tomb, spreading her palms across it. There were other cases like it, abandoned or waiting to be filled. “I have memories of this place. I have dreamt of it, too.”

  “That’s why I could see it,” I said. “Because Father remembered it.” The library, rectangular but with a ceiling so tall it simply became darkness, stretched on and on, perhaps into eternity. This place, as she had said, existed out of time. I felt compelled to speak only in a whisper, as if afraid to disturb the slumber of so many dreamers. Mother began to cry, and I went to her side, ignoring the pain of carrying the book to wrap an arm around her waist in comfort.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I should not have brought you to this place.”

  “No,” she said, smiling through her tears. “It is beautiful to see it again.”

  “When you have had your fill, you may approach the Binder,” Malatriss announced, standing apart from us and petting her snake. “Time is meaningless here, and I am in no rush to watch you die. If you have made it this far, you deserve to mark the tomb’s splendor.”

  And mark it I did, wandering down the endless line of coffins to see the array of gods and goddesses within, all unique but for the peaceful, blank expression they shared. Mother remained slumped against her own empty case, and my curiosity soon curdled as my feet brushed something brittle on the ground. Bones. I had stepped directly onto a skeleton, its arm turning to dust under my foot.


  “But . . . I thought one had to be immortal to enter,” I whispered, jumping back in horror. It was not my intent to desecrate the dead, and the empty sockets of the fallen skull stared at me accusingly. “To have known death and returned . . .”

  “There are many ways to taste death,” Malatriss replied. “You two are the first truly immortal beings to enter the tomb.”

  The bones had shaken me, and I stumbled back toward Mother, hefting the pack higher on my shoulders before turning to Malatriss. “Mother, I know you are overcome, but I must hurry. My friends are in danger.”

  “Of course,” Mother said, pressing her forehead to the glass sarcophagus. “Of course. Go on, let us see this Binder.”

  I returned to Malatriss, a lump in my throat. Now I needed all of my courage. I had met a Binder before, and every inch of me recoiled at the thought of seeing another. The thing had brought me only pain and torment, but then, it had also given Mother back to us. And my purpose in the tomb was not to admire all the gods that had been and could be, but to destroy the white book and earn the ritual that would sever Father from me for good.

  “Tell me, then,” I said to Malatriss, with great trepidation but also great urgency, for time might not have had meaning in this place, but it undoubtedly did in Yorkshire. I watched her cat eyes dance with excitement. “Tell me what comes next. I came to unmake the white book, and then I will be leaving this place.”

  “The Binder comes,” she hissed, showing me her demon’s smile. “The unbinding begins. You will ask of it one boon, it will take from you two. You ask of it two favors, it will require three. Choose your words carefully, little one. Nothing in this place is free.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Once, delinquent as usual at my old school, Pitney, I had sneaked out of my bed to enjoy the pleasure of nighttime solitude. To be at a boarding school was to endure constant noise. Even when the candles were snuffed out and we were put to bed, somebody snored or coughed through the night, and I, ever a light sleeper, would spend another restless spell counting the days until our lessons broke and we received a brief respite. Not that anyone would visit me or that I would be allowed to leave—my grandparents wanted nothing to do with me, thinking me a broken bird with a wing that never mended. That injured wing, naturally, being my contrary nature, my strange black eyes, and my bothersome habit of speaking my mind.