Empire of Bones (Ashtown Burials #3)

by N. D. Wilson

  Antigone glanced over at Pythia, wrapped in her hair. The dark-skinned girl’s eyes were shut and her mouth was slightly open. She looked like she was sleeping.

  “Phoenix found her,” Antigone said. “He wanted her to explain how he could use the Dragon’s Tooth to raise the dead. We rescued her two months ago and we’ve been taking care of her ever since. My brother—Dan, not Cyrus—sees things. He dreams, and then he talks to Pythia about what they mean. He can hear her. The rest of us can’t really. Not usually.”

  “She is the seventy-seventh girl to be made oracle,” Lemon said. “If Phoenix found her, it is only because he stole the journals I tried to burn before my trial in Ashtown. Her birth name is Pascha.”

  Pythia’s eyes opened, not in surprise but with a smile. Lemon continued.

  “When the seventy-sixth oracle died, Pascha was taken from a Byzantine convent and placed in Apollo’s cave, where there is a stone seat at the end of a carved hallway full of arches. There, time folds and is not; there, all can be seen, and mortal minds bend and break. I sat in that seat for two breaths, and those breaths took half a year. And since then, my mind forgets nothing even when I want to. There are cracks in me, deep cracks in my mind and soul, and when Skelton found me, I was ready to fly apart. Pascha, the seventy-seventh oracle, sat in time’s throne for centuries.”

  Pythia smiled. Slowly, she spoke, her voice dry and cracking. “Pascha sat,” she said. “For breaths.”

  “Right,” Antigone said. “Okay. I think it’s my turn, and I’m still at the top of my list. I need to know more about Azazel, this dragon. How do we kill him?”

  “Kill him?” Lemon asked. “Kill? He cannot be killed. But why? Radu Bey is bound and Buried, and his body is Azazel’s cage.”

  Antigone puffed her cheeks and then exhaled out the side of her mouth. “I wish,” she said. “I really, really do.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lemon said. She looked at Pythia. Her voice was edged and breathy. “Radu is bound.”

  LOOSED floated in the air, and Lemon stared at it, stunned.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no, no. You don’t understand what will happen. What is already happening. How long has it been?”

  “Two months,” Antigone said. “About.”

  Lemon jumped to her feet. She whistled through the gap in her teeth and both hands went up to her blond silver hair. “That’s why you’ve come now. Where is he?”

  “New York.”

  Lemon scrambled past Antigone, hopped over Pythia, and disappeared into her maze, shouting back over the shelves as she went.

  “Pain. Azazel wants pain! It makes him strong, and his strength becomes Radu Bey’s. He gathers broken people first—killers, victims, it doesn’t matter—and feeds on their deep hurt while they drift into a sort of nirvana and eventually die.”

  A crash came from somewhere behind Antigone. She heard Lemon’s quick footsteps. A book slapped onto the floor. More running and a drawer opened. Finally, Lemon hopped back into the little room and dropped into her chair, out of breath. She handed Antigone an old leather notebook stamped with the black medieval ship that was the symbol of the O of B’s Ashtown Estate.

  Antigone opened it. It was full of sepia-brown photos and sharp, leaning cursive. The photos were of what looked like an archaeological dig. Men and women in safari helmets stood in trenches with shovels and brooms. Human skeletons were embedded in the trench walls like bricks—all facedown and densely stacked.

  “Persia,” Lemon said. “That book is from the 1850s. O of B Explorers found three different compounds apparently constructed entirely of people—big compounds, tens of thousands of people. Idiots that they were, they identified them as temples in some sort of death cult. They didn’t know their history.”

  Lemon snatched the notebook away, dropped it onto the floor with a thump, and handed Antigone a South American newspaper. The cover showed black-and-white photos of what looked like a ruined mountain temple, half eaten by jungle. The walls and arches and roofs were all bone.

  “This one was a temple,” Lemon said. “But only after the fact. Priests mortared the bones together and rebuilt with the scattered bones. The Chilean government found it and shut down the rituals in the 1960s.” She tugged away the newspaper and handed over a stack of large glossy photos. “I took these,” she said. “Thirty years ago. The first half were taken in an underground compound beneath modern Istanbul. You can only get in through the sewers. Long ago, it was the secret harem of Radu Bey. The bodies are all women. Some are now encased in limestone.”

  Antigone flipped through the photos, staring down long, arched tunnels of bones. Stairs of bones. Columns of bones holding high ceilings of bones. It was hard to understand, to process how many lives had been spent, how much pain there must have been.

  “More than one hundred thousand women down there,” Lemon said. “Just there. The rest of the photos I took in Romania. A hidden mountain valley, the last stronghold of the Draculs. That is where Captain John Smith took the heads of the Vlads. Humans subconsciously avoid it. Even the wolves will not go near it. For three days, I camped there, listening to the voices, to the whispered pain left unconsumed, and I watched the blue wisps of souls burn cold at midnight.”

  Antigone dropped the photos and shut her eyes. She felt like she was going to throw up. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead and she forced herself to breathe slowly.

  Radu and his dragon had been beaten before. There had to be a way.

  Antigone opened her eyes and was suddenly oppressed by the shelves. She stood up.

  “I have to go,” she said. “We’ll finish this later. I need air.”

  “Already?” Lemon asked. “Did Phoenix loose Radu? Are they in alliance?”

  Antigone shook her head. She thought about Cyrus, about the Captain’s final chain in his underwater tomb. Cyrus had cut through it with the Dracul sword, not knowing that he was also loosing the last chain that bound Radu Bey and the power of Azazel.

  “Come downstairs,” Antigone said. “With the others. I need to ask you more.”

  Lemon shook her head. “No more. I won’t come. The cracks inside me … Pythia can help mend them. She knows.”

  “You will come,” said Antigone. “I own this ship.”

  Cyrus woke up on his left side, with his arms tied behind his back. He was on the floor in a small room, with very little light. There was a wooden chair tucked into a desk with an upper cabinet busy with at least a dozen tiny drawers. A small saggy-backed leather sofa lurked against the wall, and pictures of the sea were hanging on cracked plaster.

  The door. Wooden. Shut. Old brass knob. Big keyhole. Light streamed under it and onto the itchy wool rug where Cyrus was lying. Low voices crept through the wood from the other side.

  Cyrus rocked onto his face. Spitting dust and tiny gravel and woolly hairs, he leaned hard onto his cheek and managed to walk his knees up underneath himself. Pushing off the floor with his face, he rocked up slowly and fell back down, twisting to cushion the blow with his already whining shoulder.

  He wriggled closer to the sofa and tried again. This time he barely got his face up onto the sour-smelling leather. From there, he swayed to vertical—knees first and then feet.

  Blood drained from his head and he wobbled briefly. His skull was filing complaints with his brain, cataloging injuries, but none of that mattered. He was probably concussed after his jump from the chapel balcony and the crack he took on the floor. And then Sterling with that kick. Metal legs weren’t fair for kicking.

  Why had he listened to Sterling? Why hadn’t he knifed him or at least kicked him in the head?

  Cyrus thought about his ride in the garlic. Where had they been going before he had jumped out? Nope. That didn’t matter. What mattered was where he was right now, and how he was going to stop being there as soon as possible.

  Yep. He was concussed. Images of his old school fluttered into his head. He’d had a teacher once who had been concusse
d. Cyrus had spilled hydrochloric acid on the tile floor just a little bit on purpose. They’d cleaned it up, but afterward, the tile had been eaten so smooth it was slicker than ice.

  Mr. Finney. With glasses and allergies and a mustache he was always stroking. Mr. Finney had stepped. Mr. Finney had slipped. Mr. Finney had smacked his head on the chalkboard tray.

  Cyrus laughed out loud and sat down on the leather couch. Knots dug into his wrists behind his back.

  Shhh. Cyrus eyed the door. The voices kept on voicing. No footsteps. He wasn’t in trouble about Mr. Finney. No one was coming. But he was still tied up. He needed his keys.

  “Patricia?” he whispered. “Keys, please.” He shook his head quickly, jangling the key ring around his neck. “Unlock my knots.”

  Wait. Knots. The keys would be better for the door, not the knots. And only if the door was locked.

  Grunting, Cyrus stood back up, blinked, moseyed to the door, and turned around. He gripped the door with fat tingly fingertips. He was willing to bet that his fingers were purple right now. They had been purple before. He’d seen them.

  The knob wriggled slightly, but not far. He’d been right. Keys were needed. But something for his knots first.

  Crossing to the desk, he bent over the chair and pinched his lips around the first little brass drawer pull that he could reach. He wobbled it open. It held an old map, folded up tight, sitting beneath a tiny ball of water no bigger than a robin’s egg. Weird. Next drawer. It held a pipe and a pouch of tobacco, and a little metal tool that looked like a knife but wasn’t. Drawer number three.

  Knife! Bone handle. Folding blade. And also matches. Lots of little boxes full of wooden sticks with little red heads ready to explode.

  Cyrus stared at the knife. Something was wrong. He was still tied up.

  Slowly, Cyrus realized that he should get his hands in front of his body. He needed his purple fingers to pick up the knife and unfold the blade.

  Cyrus crouched, lowering his tied hands below his rear end. Pausing, balancing, he raised his right foot to step back between his arms. And he fell. Not quietly. The room shook with his impact. He wheezed and coughed and shut his eyes, begging his skull to shut up. Things were bad all over. Not just in his head.

  Hands, he remembered. Front.

  He was on his back. Wriggling his hands under his rear, he hunched forward, forcing them as low as possible, pushing until his wrists and shoulders screamed. He lifted his knees and pulled his feet in. They were on top of his hands. With a jerk, Cyrus’s hands slid up his smooth black leggings and popped over his knees. They were in front now, and easy to study.

  Yep. They were purple. A thin rope was digging deep into both wrists. Cyrus climbed back onto his feet. He grabbed the knife and unfolded the blade. It was old, but the steel had been scraped sharp enough so many times that the edge no longer held a smooth curve. Cyrus shoved the handle between his teeth and raised his wrists to the blade. It hurt his teeth, but the rope popped loose. He tugged it off, put it in the drawer with the map, and closed it. Then he took two matchboxes, put them in his pocket, and stared at his hands.

  Blood was moving through them again. And they were burning. Nerves were on fire. Cyrus poked his fingers with the knife tip. It hurt.

  Behind him, the door opened.

  Cyrus jumped, blinking, as Sterling stepped into the tiny room, bells tinkling. Behind him, in another little room, there was a small television with a curved, bulging screen.

  “Sorry about Mr. Finney,” Cyrus said. “I didn’t know.”

  Sterling’s eyes narrowed. “Who?” he asked.

  Cyrus raised the knife. “I think I should stab you. And kick you in the head.”

  Sterling smiled and sighed. “I wouldn’t blame you, lad. But we’ve got bigger troubles and that won’t help them. You made a splash I couldn’t hide. I quieted that eel of a woman who shot at you, told her that Bellamy already knew I had you and that I was acting on his orders. Of course, with another little exodus rush going on thanks to the gillies, Bellamy had his mind elsewhere and his hands full. But if he didn’t know you were in Ashtown before, he does now, and he and his questioner will be waiting for old Ben. This place won’t hold you much longer.”

  Cyrus looked through the door at the television. He hadn’t seen one in a very long time. He wished for cartoons, but it was showing a man with a red tie talking about people missing in New York City. Then a cop started talking, laughing, offering explanations.

  Sterling stepped in the way. “Cyrus? Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

  Honestly? Cyrus thought he might throw up. And he was a little dizzy. And his skull was sulking. But there was something else, too. Something wrong.

  “I was tied up,” Cyrus said. “On the floor. You aren’t friendly.”

  “Listen to me, Cyrus,” Sterling said quietly. He took another step forward. Cyrus pointed the knife at him and swallowed hard. “You’re in some rooms of mine,” Sterling continued. “Not my official rooms. These are different. Not normal. Secret rooms with secret ways.” He winked. “You understand me, lad?” He cleared his throat and raised his voice, changing his tone suddenly. “We want to help you. We want to talk about Skelton and Rupert and your little band. Where should we go to talk? Where would Rupert hide?”

  “Biscuits and lies,” Cyrus said. “And barbecue sauce. Liar.”

  Sterling put a heavy hand on Cyrus’s forehead, his face concerned.

  “You’re not well, lad,” he said loudly. He crouched slightly, until he was eye to eye with Cyrus. His bitter breath scratched its way out through his black beard. “Trust old Ben,” he whispered. “Right now I’m your only friend.”

  Two shapes stepped together into the doorway behind the cook. Dizzy, Cyrus clenched his teeth and jabbed the knife at the cook’s big belly. Sterling caught his wrist, quickly stripped the knife away, flipped the blade shut, and tucked it into Cyrus’s shirt pocket.

  “What is the point of this?” The sharp woman from the dining hall. “He should be with Bellamy already.”

  Sterling lowered Cyrus onto the couch. Two rough fingertips closed Cyrus’s eyelids, but they couldn’t close his ears.

  “I’ve told you already,” Sterling said. “Take the boy to Bellamy now, and we lose any chips we have in this game. We learn what we can about Skelton’s holdings and hidings, then hand him over. Not before.”

  “Bellamy will just bundle him off to Phoenix,” a man said. “Phoenix will get anything he wants out of him.”

  “Exactly why we learn what we can first,” said Sterling. He was walking away.

  “We don’t have much time,” the woman said. “We should be peeling back his fingernails. You’ve kept him napping all day. Bellamy will want to know what we’ve been doing.”

  “And I’ll be the one to answer him,” Sterling said. “Not you. This is my game, and you two will back me or back out. Run to Bellamy now if you like. Wag your wee tongues.” The door shut behind him. The voices continued, muffled.

  Cyrus opened his eyes. Sweat ran down his temple and into his hair. Above him, the ceiling was spinning slowly. He rolled off the couch onto his knees. His stomach was in his throat.

  Sterling had left him the knife. Sterling was keeping him from Bellamy. He was playing his game both ways. Gagging, Cyrus crawled to the desk. He pulled open a large drawer near the floor, hoping for a gun.

  Papers. He threw up all over them. His head cleared, but only a little. He stared down at the vile, swampy mixture and then shut the drawer quickly.

  Secret rooms. Sterling had said so. Secret rooms, secret ways.

  Cyrus tugged at the next drawer up. It was locked. Wiping cold sweat from his forehead onto the back of his arm, he slid silver Patricia off his neck and dropped her key ring into his still-gloved palm. Empty silver sheath. Little pearl gripped in a claw. Small smooth nub of petrified wood. And Skelton’s Solomon Keys: one gold, one silver. The silver one changed in his hand as he slid it into the keyhole. He tur
ned it and heard the lock click. He pulled the drawer open. As he did, the entire desk—and the wall attached to it—swung toward him on invisible whispering gears. Cyrus crawled backward out of its way.

  The opening was taller than he was, revealing only a narrow vertical shaft. Cyrus inched toward it. Dark, damp stone walls stained black with soot ran straight up and straight down. How far, Cyrus couldn’t tell. He pried Patricia off of his wrist, where she had latched back on to him, and held her out over the shaft, feeling her tighten with the cool moving air.

  Silver light up and silver light down revealed no end to the shaft. But the walls were grimed with old soot, and that meant that somewhere down there, Cyrus could expect a fireplace. And somewhere up there—he twisted his head, blinking away sweat and queasiness—he could expect a rooftop.

  Cyrus’s stomach turned over again. He shut his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, breathing slowly. Skelton had also used an old chimney as part of his route into Ashtown, but he’d left a ladder inside. There was no ladder here, and even if there had been, Sterling wouldn’t have done well on it with his thin metal legs.

  Cyrus opened his eyes. Leaning into the cool opening, he reached up into the darkness as far as he could. He didn’t want to go down. He wanted fresh autumn air, exhaled by forests and cooled by the lake.

  His hand found a leather strap. No, a leather stirrup. It slipped off a hook and dropped down in front of him, bouncing at the end of a thin rope. He tugged at it. Nothing. He reached back up and felt around all the stone walls. A lever. A gear. A crank. A coiled spring. More rope on a spool.

  Something rattled in the room behind him.

  Cyrus backed away from the opening. He stepped around the open wall and looked at the desk. One little drawer was shaking. Silver light oozed from its cracks.

  Cyrus pulled the drawer open. The tiny ball of water quivered and shook and bounced inside, as bright as the moon. Quick Water. He picked it up and dropped it into his shirt pocket along with the knife.

  Outside the door, voices grew louder. He could hear Sterling, and the cook sounded angry.