by N. D. Wilson
“Enjoy,” Mrs. Eldridge said crisply. And she began to leave.
“Hey!” Antigone yelled. “That’s it? You just drop us off at some dungeon stairs and leave? What are we supposed to do now?”
Mrs. Eldridge turned back, her lined face grim with shadow. “For the last two years, I kept my promise to your mother. I watched over you. I have no wealth, but I kept the lights on in the Archer. I paid for the waffle mix. And in the end, none of that mattered.” Her face softened. “The Order has you now. It was always going to. It’s in your bones.”
“But what do we do?” Antigone asked.
“Do?” Mrs. Eldridge smiled. “You do what Acolytes have struggled to do for a thousand years — survive and achieve. But for now, try to rest. Someone from the staff will find you. With Skelton dead, Greeves will select you a new Keeper.”
When Mrs. Eldridge was gone, Antigone looked at her brother. “Cy, we really need to find Horace, and we really need him to be alive.”
“Well, we’re here now,” said Cyrus. “Let’s go down.”
Antigone shrugged, brushing back her hair. “As long as you’re first.”
Cyrus laughed. “Feeling brave?”
“Yeah,” Antigone said. “If anything sneaks down after us, I’ll protect you.”
“Great,” said Cyrus. “That’s a relief.”
He began his descent, dragging one hand on the stone wall. Antigone followed him down and around, down and around, passing only one lonely oversize lightbulb on the ceiling.
Antigone sneezed, and Cyrus glanced back. “Too dank for you? You could handle the Archer but not this?” His foot slapped on water and skidded off the stair. Flailing, he knocked his sister backward and landed on her legs.
“Ow.” Antigone grimaced. “That hurt. Why so coordinated, Rus? That one was on you.”
“Don’t call me Rus, Tigger.” Rubbing his right elbow, Cyrus sat up and pointed at the wall. Water was oozing through the joints in the stone and trickling down the stairs. The steps were skim-coated with moisture, and tiny grooves had eroded into the stone where miniature waterfalls slid down from step to step.
“Oh, great,” Antigone said. “We’re supposed to sleep down here? We’re going to wake up with mushrooms growing under our fingernails.”
Cyrus levered himself back to vertical and began moving carefully down the wet stairs. “You know,” he said, “I kind of get the feeling that some of these people don’t want us around.”
Antigone laughed. “What tipped you off? The insults or the dungeon?”
“Nobody offered us lunch.”
Cyrus stopped and Antigone stepped down beside him.
“Ugh.” Antigone grimaced. “Yuck.”
Below the stairs, there was a small landing, a second lightbulb, and a large door. The landing was swirling with black scum-topped seepage. The walls were a forest of strange molds — orange rippling things that looked like they were part brain and part lettuce, long dangling things like spider legs, blue fuzz, white rings, brown everything else.
Bubbles slowly percolated in the scum pool.
“There must be some kind of floor drain, or the stairs would be all full up.” Cyrus crouched and looked at the water.
“Cy.” Antigone tapped him with her foot. “Look at the door. It’s locked. And it has an old flyer nailed to it.”
Cyrus began unlacing his shoes.
“Oh, sick.” Antigone laughed. “Are you really?”
“What else are we supposed to do?” Cyrus asked. “Go back up and cry to Rupert Greeves or Mrs. Eldridge or that kid from the hall? They’re not getting rid of us now.”
He stuffed his socks inside his shoes and dipped a calloused toe into the dark liquid.
“And?” Antigone asked.
Cyrus shrugged and stepped into the shin-deep water. In the middle, he bent and fished around with his hands.
“The door, Cy. I care more about the door.”
“Then come on in and check it out,” Cyrus said. “Yep. Floor drain.” He tugged. “But somebody’s … shoved … in … an … old …” His hands geysered up with a dripping black strip of cloth and oil. “Sock.” He squinted at it, wiping his forehead on the back of his arm. “Orange stripes.”
Antigone wrinkled her nose. Laughing, Cyrus threw the sock up onto the stairs.
“Cy, that is really one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen you do.”
“You aren’t around when I skip school and hit the creeks.” Shoving his hand back into the water, Cyrus pulled up a long tangle of hair and drain scum hooked over his finger.
He held it out to his sister.
“No! Stop it, Cy!” The water was already bubbling quickly, glugging around Cyrus’s ankles. He tossed the hair carcass against the wall and turned to face the door.
A single step rose up just beneath the heavy oak door. An iron strap had been bent around the handle and through a ring in the stone wall. An old lock reconnected the strap’s two ends.
Antigone splattered through the last shallow water and wiped a coat of dust off the flyer on the door. The paper was old and soft with moisture. Two corners pulled free and curled.
“What’s it say?” Cyrus asked.
“At the top it says ‘Infestation Quarantine.’ ” She stood on her toes. “And it’s stamped ‘July 11, 1927.’ There’s something else written here, but I can’t read it.” Dropping back to her heels, she stepped away from the door. “You try.”
Cyrus leaned forward and cocked his head. “Ulip Spitters? No. Whip Spitters? Whip Spiders!” He looked at his sister. “The place was infested with Whip Spiders?”
Antigone crossed her arms. “I am not going in there. I don’t know what a Whip Spider is, and I don’t want to.”
“Oh, please,” Cyrus said. “This is from more than eighty years ago. And the door’s locked anyway.” He grabbed the iron strap and gave it a rattle. The ring in the stone wall shook. Dust dribbled to the wet floor. “Huh. Maybe …” Grabbing the door handle with one hand and the wall ring with the other, Cyrus tugged. The ring slid out so easily that Cyrus staggered back into the stairs as the door swung open. The hinges were silent. The motion was fluid.
Sucking air between her teeth, Antigone peered through the doorway.
“That was too easy.” Cyrus picked himself up. “Careful, Tigs. Somebody wanted it to look locked.”
“Which means what?” Antigone stepped into the dark. “There’s something in here worth finding?”
She felt around the edges of the doorway until she found what she was looking for. A button clicked, and six more large lightbulbs buzzed and sputtered.
The room was sprawling. The ceiling was low but pocked with vaults. Squat columns were scattered throughout. All the stone had been painted white, but large portions dangled off in leprous flakes. The floor was dusty white linoleum, savagely peeling at the seams. White triple-stacked metal bunks were scattered against the many walls.
And there were many walls — angled out, angled in. Cyrus couldn’t even guess at how many there were. A lot.
Strangest of all, a network of suspended plank pathways began just inside the door and ran throughout the room at least a foot above the floor. All of the planks were dangling from the ceiling by ropes and chains. None of them were dusty.
Cyrus tested the first plank with his foot. It swung slightly.
“What are they for?” Antigone asked.
“Walking?” Cyrus said. “I don’t know.”
Antigone looked down. Beneath the plank, painted in black on the linoleum, there was a triangle of lightning bolts around the same black stylized ship they’d seen on some of the boys’ white shirts.
“Weird,” she said.
Cyrus moved out onto the plank and it sagged gently. “There are all sorts of exercise posters on the walls, too. At least, I think that’s what those are.” He pointed. “The same two guys in short ties and high pants over and over again. Wrestling. Kicking each other in the head.”
&n
bsp; “Cyrus,” said Antigone. “Cyrus …”
Cyrus reached a Y on his plank road. He went left.
“Cyrus! Turn around!”
Surprised, Cyrus turned. Just behind him, a strange-looking boy was standing at the first Y in the planks. He was wearing a tight white tank top tucked into a pair of army-green, much-too-large, much-too-pocketed fatigues, cinched around his waist with a rope. His paper-pale arms were knotted with muscle and tied with blue popping veins. His short hair was the color of dust and unevenly cropped around his skull. His face was smooth and young and unsunned, but somehow it didn’t match his eyes.
Cyrus stared into the boy’s eyes, and the boy’s eyes stared into his. What Cyrus saw, he didn’t know. What he felt was layer upon layer of ancient. The boy’s faint green irises looked like they had been beaten and polished more than the smoothest river rock, like they could see by nothing more than starlight — and they no longer cared to see at all.
Cyrus stepped forward and stuck out his hand. “I’m Cyrus.”
The boy looked at his extended hand.
He took it, and Cyrus shivered at the chill in his grip.
“Nolan,” the boy said, and he turned and swayed deeper into the room on the plank paths.
Cyrus looked back at his sister, questioning.
“Go,” she mouthed silently, pointing after Nolan. She was already hurrying forward.
“I think he’s the one Skelton was talking about when he was dying,” Cyrus whispered.
The two of them stopped, watching Nolan disappear around a pillar.
Antigone looked at her brother. “What do you mean? Skelton just said something about beekeepers.”
“Right. And then he said, ‘Trust Nolan.’ ”
Antigone’s eyebrows shot together. She tucked back her hair. “He did not. He said no one, not Nolan. And why would you trust anyone somebody named Billy Bones told you to trust.” She shifted her weight, and the plank swung beneath them. Antigone scanned the pillared room. “I’m not trusting some weird kid who lives down here.”
Nolan’s voice drifted around the columns. “I knew Skelton. Perhaps he trusted me. I never trusted him.”
Antigone blushed. Cyrus bit his lower lip.
“Come,” Nolan said. “Voices move oddly in the Polygon.”
Cyrus followed the planks deeper into the room, with Antigone close behind him.
“It’s not that you don’t look trustworthy,” Antigone said loudly.
“I know how I look.” Nolan’s voice was quiet but all around them. “Stay to the right.”
The suspended paths reached a large junction. Six routes splayed in different directions, winding around pillars and between rusty beds, disappearing around corners.
Cyrus paused. “Tigs, can you hear water?”
“Yes, you can,” said Nolan. “Pass through the showers.”
“Um, excuse me?” said Antigone. “Wouldn’t this be faster if we just walked on the floor?”
“No,” Nolan said. “The floor is not safe.”
Cyrus and Antigone bounced forward into an area with no paint. The floor was still linoleum, at least where it hadn’t been torn up, but the pillars and walls and ceiling were all dark, moist stone.
“What’s not safe about it?” Cyrus asked. “What are we talking about?”
A chuckle reached them, doubling and tripling off the angled walls, and then reaching them again. “The Whip Spiders. Why do you think I have this place to myself?”
“They’re still here?” Antigone scanned the floor. “That was over eighty years ago.”
“It was,” Nolan said. “Whip Spiders can hatch many young in eighty years. Stay on the paths.”
The sound of water grew louder, until Cyrus and Antigone rounded a corner and stood looking at the showers.
Two miniature aqueducts ran from wall to wall above head height. Stone spouts lined both sides of both aqueducts, spilling water to the floor in four falling curtains. On the floor, the water collected in a central trough and drained through a hole in the wall. Where the plank path passed beneath the showers, the spouts had been plugged with wine corks.
Cyrus and Antigone moved carefully through, catching only a few drips on their shoulders as they did.
They had reached the end, or at least one of several ends, of the room. The plank pathway led straight into a dark, jagged hole in the wall.
Nolan leaned out of it, slowly stretching his arms against both sides. “Come in, if you’re going to.” He yawned and ducked back inside. “Or don’t.”
Cyrus hesitated, looking around. A leggy shape flashed out of a corner, clattering toward him across the grimy floor. Antigone grabbed his arm as the thing disappeared under the plank beneath them.
“Right,” said Cyrus. “Well, we’re not staying out here.”
nine. WHIPS AND VISITS
CYRUS SAT ON cold stone. Beside him, Antigone was bouncing her leg nervously. Nolan’s room was a bizarre assortment of elements. But, for a crowded crypt through a hole in the wall, it was surprisingly tidy and warm.
The room was circular and had clearly been intended for use as a tomb. Seven stone beds — for statues, hopefully; for corpses, maybe — had been set in arched and pillared alcoves all the way around. Oddly, all of the visible stone had been slathered with a thick coat of bright yellow paint. One of the alcove beds now held a vivid red cushion with tassels and a brown corduroy pillow. Another held a rickety, tightly packed bookshelf and two reading lamps with green shades. The third held an old pint-sized refrigerator, humming loudly, a hot plate, and a toaster oven old enough to match the Archer’s waffle iron. Nolan had buried two pieces of bread beneath mayonnaise and cheddar from the fridge, and he was now crouching on the floor watching the mixture bubble in the toaster oven. The smell made breakfast seem like long, long ago, and Cyrus’s stomach was humming audibly. The fourth alcove held neatly stacked wooden boxes full of odd-looking tools. The fifth held a stuffed two-headed eagle missing half of one flapping wing, and a square pile of mismatched blankets. The sixth was a nest of books, papers, a small lap desk, and a stack of tightly folded clothes. A similar load had been scraped out of the seventh, which now held an impatient Antigone and a curious Cyrus.
The floor was covered with a pair of Turkish rugs, one missing a burnt corner, the other boasting a large bleach spot near its center. A cluster of three ship lanterns hung from the middle of the yellow ceiling, and the decapitated head of a large grandfather clock, with pendulum and weights attached, was balanced on rough timber legs between two of the stone beds.
A tangle of electrical cords bound up with string ran out of the hole in the wall and up toward the ceiling.
Cyrus stared at the toaster. He hadn’t actually eaten that much at breakfast before Maxi had arrived, and the previous night hadn’t involved much sleep. He yawned, blinked slowly, and tried to ignore the hungry knife in his gut.
He passed his yawn on to his sister, and she stretched her arms above her head. “How long have you been sleeping in this tomb?” she asked.
The strange boy rubbed his smooth jaw. “Not a tomb,” he said quietly. “A Resurrection Room. They are different. In theory.”
Antigone slapped the stone bed beneath her. “You’re telling me there’s not a body inside here?”
“Maybe once,” Nolan said. “Not anymore. Not for a long time.”
“You’ve checked?” Antigone asked. “You really pried up the lid?”
Nolan stared at the slowly melting cheese. “I was looking for a friend.”
“In a coffin?” Antigone shivered. “That’s crazy.”
“My friend is dead,” said Nolan. His voice was flat. “Where else would I look?”
Cyrus laughed. Antigone elbowed him. “And you’re really okay if we stay in here with you?”
“No.” Nolan leaned farther forward and peered into the toaster oven. “But I’m willing. For a time.” He pointed out the room’s rough entrance. “You wouldn’t survive out ther
e.”
Cyrus looked through the hole at the plank paths. The Polygon was silent. Empty. He looked back. Nolan might be crazy, but it didn’t matter. Right now, he was toasting cheesy bread.
Antigone tucked her feet up in front of her and pressed her back against the wall. “Are you part of the Order?” she asked.
Nolan smiled slightly. “I am a spider in a corner. I watch. I listen. I live on what I find.” He looked up. “On what finds me.”
“Um.” Cyrus glanced at his sister. She widened her eyes, and he turned back to Nolan. “Does Rupert Greeves know that you’re down here?”
“Rupert Greeves.” Nolan sighed. He sounded tired. “He can find a spider when he has need. He found you a nanny among the cobwebs, didn’t he?” He looked at Cyrus and then back at the slowly toasting bread. “He is already lost in your troubles.”
“What?” Antigone dropped her feet back to the floor and edged forward. “What do you mean?”
“Your brother was taken,” Nolan said quietly. “I heard you speak with Greeves.” He glanced at her surprised face. “I do not need to be seen to listen.” The toaster oven sparked and its interior light flickered off. Sighing, Nolan thumped it lightly. Cyrus jumped forward, touched the toaster, and then sat back down. The light returned, along with the quiet hum of heat. Nolan’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Cyrus. Cyrus blinked and said nothing.
“What else do you know?” Antigone asked.
Nolan inhaled slowly and turned his worn eyes away. “More than I care to. Maxi and his master are hyenas. Their pursuit will not end. But Greeves will stand or fall with you when the time comes. He’s cut from old stone.”
Antigone shivered, rubbing goose-bumping arms. “Greeves is the one in charge of this place?”
Nolan slid his stare onto her. “No. He’s Ashtown’s Blood Avenger. The Avengel. He protects and — when needed — he avenges.”
Antigone dropped her brows. “I’m not sure I understand.”
Nolan’s mouth twitched into a small smile and then grew into another yawn. “If an Explorer from Ashtown freezes on Kilimanjaro or is burned in New Guinea or is imprisoned in France, Rupe sets out after the remains. If a member commits treason against the Order, Rupe’s the one after him. If the Orbis — the circle of Sages — identifies a threat, Rupe hunts him — or her — or it — to ground. He is both hound and tiger.” He slid a glance back over his shoulder, as if his own words wearied him. “And I am one who knows.”