The Lost Book of the White

by Cassandra Clare

  “I don’t have any better ideas,” he said. “I’m sorry you’ve all followed me into Hell again.”

  Clary snorted. “It’s easier the second time.”

  “It’s what we do,” said Jace. He went to retrieve his spear from where he’d left it leaning against the wall. “Lead the way.”

  Alec didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “I suggest we put on some Marks,” Tian said. “We will almost certainly be getting into some fights.”

  “Marks work in Diyu?” Alec said, surprised.

  “They do,” Tian confirmed, and Jace shrugged and took out his stele. Magnus had grown used to a lot of things about spending time with Shadowhunters, but the five solid minutes of drawing on one another that preceded every battle continued to be just a little bit funny to him every time.

  “We leave by that side door,” Tian added, gesturing, and to Magnus he said, “Your friends are very casual about going where almost no living person has ever been.”

  “Yeah,” said Magnus, “they’ve been through some stuff.”

  * * *

  THE PATH TOOK THEM OUT of the Second Court and into a walled passage. All of Magnus’s instincts had told him they were deep underground by this point, but the passage was lined at regular intervals with tall windows that looked out on a vast wasteland far below. The windows had once been elaborate carvings, with faces leering above them, but much of this had eroded away and crumbled.

  As Tian, Jace, and Clary went ahead, Magnus hung back to join Alec. “You don’t like it,” he said. “The plan, I mean. Too vague?”

  “No. I mean, it’s vague, but I agree we should get to where the action is. And where the Book of the White is. If we can get it away from Ragnor and the others, we can maybe wreck Sammael’s plan.”

  “Or at least ruin his day. You think he’s using the Book to figure out how to break through from Diyu to Earth?” said Magnus. It was the same thought he’d had.

  Alec nodded.

  “Are you angry with me?” said Magnus.

  “What?” Alec said sharply.

  Magnus stopped walking. “It’s just—you’re all here because of me. If I hadn’t lost the Book of the White… if I hadn’t been caught by surprise by Ragnor…”

  Alec snorted. “If I hadn’t been in the shower.”

  “It’s not the same,” Magnus said. “I shouldn’t have kept the Book in Max’s room. I should’ve been more careful about the wards on the apartment.”

  “Magnus,” Alec said, and he put his hand on Magnus’s cheek. He looked into Magnus’s eyes, and feeling the strange power of the thorn bubbling within him, Magnus wondered what he saw there. “Given that one of the minions of the Father of Demons was holding our kid, and that kid ended up safe in bed at the end of it, from my perspective you handled things perfectly. I’m not angry at you.” He sighed. “I’m kind of angry at Isabelle, so let’s go rescue her before something terrible happens to her.”

  “No pressure,” said Magnus.

  “Yeah,” said Alec. “That’s why I’m kind of angry at her. Because I hate worrying about someone I love. But I’m not angry at you,” he said again. “Clary’s right and Jace is right. I’m your partner. They’re your friends. We’ve followed you into Hell before, and we’re doing it again, and we would do it a third time.

  “Besides,” he added with a smile, “a Prince of Hell trying to break through to our world is absolutely our jurisdiction.”

  He leaned forward and kissed Magnus, gently, slowly, the way he would on a Sunday morning in bed. It was totally at odds with their situation, totally at odds with how either of them felt in that moment. It was wonderful.

  “Not the time!” Jace yelled from a little ways ahead of them.

  “Always the time,” Alec murmured against Magnus’s mouth. He called back to Jace, “Just working to keep up morale!”

  They hurried to catch up with the others. Magnus felt a little better about Alec, but the uncertainty of where they were going and what they would do there remained in the bottom of his gut like a jagged stone.

  And then they saw the pit of Mount Tai.

  As they came around a wide curve in the passage, the walls fell away and suddenly they were walking through a wasteland. From their passage, a wide, black ribbon of road jutted off to one side, winding through a blasted wilderness of rock and ruin. In the distance, it glittered darkly—an upside-down mountain, just as Tian had said. Stark, black even against the constant gray background of Diyu, a yawning chasm in the distance that seemed to split open the land.

  Magnus could see why Tian had suggested it. No matter how mazelike Diyu’s layout might be, this was hard to miss. And it definitely seemed to go a long way down.

  Tian led them off the stone and onto the new path, which turned out to be of solid iron. The surface glittered like the scales of a snake, and lining each side of the roadway, twisting loops of wrought iron formed low barriers like thornbushes. Magnus leaned over to take a closer look and realized that these were iron weapons—swords, spears, pikes—melted and bent and re-formed. It must have been an intimidating sight in its heyday, but now, as the path arced back and forth in front of them, huge patches of rust marred the surface, and in many places, pieces of the barrier of weapons had broken off and lay by the side of the road.

  They walked slowly and curiously. Magnus could see that once upon a time this had been a real road, signposted, its grounds tended, but now it was just ruination, blasted landscape on all sides. And then there were the demons.

  None were nearby yet, but from here they could see a long stretch of the road ahead, and all over were clusters of demons, milling about: the Baigujing skeleton warriors, Ala, and Xiangliu they had fought in Shanghai, plus more of the Jiangshi. There were others whose names Magnus didn’t know: huge leopards with horns and five tails, herds of faceless goats with eyes all over their bodies, many-headed bird creatures.

  “So many,” Clary said quietly.

  Tian said, “They used to be responsible for torturing the souls who found their way here. But now there are no new souls coming, and most of them have nothing to do.”

  “Nothing to do except fight us,” said Jace, twirling his spear in his hand. Alec drew his sword, and Clary her dagger. Tian fingered the silver cord of his rope dart, wrapped around his body like a ceremonial sash.

  But as they made their way down the path, the demons ignored them. Many of them were a good distance away—the emptiness of the landscape made it difficult to judge how far, and clusters that seemed like they would plainly block the group’s way turned out to be hundreds of yards into the wastes. Even when they passed close by, the demons showed little interest in them. In fact, the demons were more interested in attacking one another. Magnus and the others watched as two of the bird demons descended on a pack of Baigujing and tore them apart, flinging human bones away as they feasted. Ala smashed into one another in the sky, creating miniature bursts of thunder and lightning when they collided.

  As the minutes passed, most of the Shadowhunters relaxed their grip on their weapons and walked more casually. Only Alec refused to drop his guard, circling the group restlessly, his sword out as if daring any of the demons to come and get them.

  Magnus understood. It was its own strange kind of agony to have to walk down this long, long path, thinking of their friends in danger, of their enemies moving forward with their plans, while they could do nothing but traverse the space between. He felt Alec’s nervous energy. Alec wanted to run down the path, charge ahead toward the inevitable fight, but the way was too far and they needed to preserve their strength.

  They walked in near silence. At one point, Alec said to Tian, “Are you sure this is the best way to go?” Tian didn’t answer, just walked on.

  An hour passed. The iron road wound on.

  Two hours.

  Finally the smooth road ended, and a massive suspended bridge, of the same iron as the road, crossed a deep crevasse that bloc
ked the way to the pit. On the far side of the bridge, two huge red que towers rose, forming a gate to an endless staircase that descended the mountain toward its reversed peak, disappearing into a haze beneath them.

  “At least it’ll be downhill,” Magnus remarked.

  Tian nodded. “I’ve made the walk up the real Mount Tai. It is more than six thousand steps to the top. Except at the top of Mount Tai is a beautiful complex of temples.”

  “Rather than the deepest pit in Hell,” said Magnus.

  Tian just looked grim.

  Before they could reach the bridge, dark flashes began to burst on the road, like the afterimages from looking at the sun. When Magnus blinked to clear his vision, he saw that two demons had appeared in their path. They had the same greenish skin as the Jiangshi, but where the Jiangshi were gaunt and ragged, these two were massive, heavily built, and well-muscled. One had a human body, but the head of a horse; he carried a chain whip, its links each the size of a human fist. The other, also human in form, had the head of an ox and bore in front of it an enormous, double-bladed battle-ax. The ox let out a tremendous bellow, shattering the strange silence that they had become accustomed to.

  The Shadowhunters drew their weapons.

  * * *

  ALEC REFLEXIVELY LOOKED OVER TO Tian and was shaken to see that a look of terror had passed over his face. “Niutou,” he said, “and Mamian.”

  “Friends of yours?” asked Magnus.

  “They are called Ox-Head and Horse-Face,” Tian said. “They were the messengers of Yanluo, and guardians of Diyu. There are many stories of Shadowhunters fighting them, in the time when Yanluo still roamed the world.”

  “If they fought them, we can fight them,” said Clary.

  Tian shook his head. “They are much weaker in our world. The legends say that they cannot be defeated in their own realm.”

  “So we turn back?” said Clary.

  “It’s five against two,” Jace said. “I like our odds.”

  Tian said, “If we want to go forward, we have no choice.” He stepped away from the others, giving himself room, and with a few deft turns, unwound the rope dart from his body, grasping its diamond-shaped adamas head at the base. Magnus slowly and uncertainly drew White Impermanence from his back and held it before him. It was very strange to see Magnus wielding a sword, Alec thought. It seemed wrong, even perverse. But they were severely underequipped for this fight, and they needed every asset.

  “Clary, you’ve only got a dagger,” Jace said quietly, “so you can’t get inside their reach. Alec and I will try to tie up the cow and you go behind. Tian, your job is to keep that chain whip off us. Magnus, any protection you can offer…”

  It was too late for any further planning. With a roar, Ox-Head charged them.

  Jace might have been right that it was five against two, but Alec was pretty sure the two were each bigger than all five of them put together. They had no choice but to try, of course—Alec let Jace go ahead to receive the charge with his spear, and he stood ready to slip underneath and strike when an opportunity arose. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Tian leap at Horse-Face, the rope dart unfurling and bursting out toward his foe like a snake rearing to strike.

  Ox-Head’s ax struck against Jace’s spear with enormous force, and Alec saw Jace shudder as he absorbed the impact. He ran in at an angle, striking at the arm holding the ax, and managed to bite into it with the sword before the momentum of Ox-Head’s swing thrust the sword away. There was a cut across Ox-Head’s arm, dripping ichor, but it was shallower than Alec might have thought. Still, it did the trick, as Clary executed a controlled roll behind Ox-Head’s legs, and with both hands struck out and slashed across each of his Achilles tendons.

  Disengaging from Jace, Ox-Head roared a harsh, inhuman cry and twisted around to seek out Clary, but he was slow enough that Jace had time to right himself and approach for another blow. Alec whirled around and saw that Tian had waylaid Horse-Face, leaping and tumbling around him, using the much faster rope dart to prevent his enemy from successfully employing the chain whip. The adamas diamond moved in wide, slicing arcs and returned, again and again, wrapping around Tian’s body and then unwrapping just as quickly to strike. As he watched, the dart struck Horse-Face in the shoulder, and he jerked back with a raucous braying noise.

  Meanwhile, Magnus was being kept busy with other demons. A flock of the many-headed birds had taken note of the fight and decided to join in, swooping down toward the combatants. With a grim set to his face, Magnus held out the sword like a magic wand; over and over, his eerie crimson magic crackled out from the tip of the sword to strike at the birds. They dodged and rolled, and occasionally took a hit, but Magnus was successfully keeping them at a distance, and that was good enough for now.

  They were doing fairly well, Alec thought. Jace was using the spear to prevent Ox-Head from winding up for a real strike from his ax. Clary danced around to the side, looking for another opening. But then Ox-Head pulled back, and with a growl leaped backward, sailing through the air to land twenty feet away from the gathered Shadowhunters. He landed on one knee and, holding the ax in one hand, pressed his other fist against the ground. As Alec watched, the wound he’d struck on Ox-Head’s arm fizzed and foamed, and in a few seconds, it was totally healed.

  “Uh-oh,” said Jace.

  Alec glanced over and saw that Tian had discovered the same problem: Horse-Face’s shoulder injury was also gone, having disappeared as though it had never been inflicted at all.

  “Can’t be defeated, huh?” he called out to Tian.

  Tian looked grim. “Here, the ground itself heals them.”

  “What do we do about that?” shouted Jace.

  “Magnus!” Alec yelled. “Can you get them off the ground?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on the others,” put in Tian, and he spun gracefully, letting the dart extend in a blinding silver flash toward one of the bird demons trying to harry them.

  Magnus held White Impermanence in both hands and, with a look of great concentration, flung a wide beam of scarlet light at Ox-Head. Rather than being lifted into the air, though, Ox-Head stood his ground, and the magic flowed into him. He absorbed it, leering, and seemed to grow even taller and stronger before their eyes.

  “Um,” said Magnus.

  “We could use a little of that classic blue magic right about now,” said Clary. Magnus looked at her helplessly.

  “Any other bright ideas?” Jace called to Tian.

  Tian shook his head, wild-eyed. “Stall,” he suggested.

  Ox-Head swung the ax over his head and brought it down toward Alec, who knocked it away with his sword. Clary flung her dagger, which embedded itself in Horse-Face’s chest, but he just yanked it out and threw it back. Clary spun to catch it by the hilt, glaring.

  “We are ill-prepared,” Tian said.

  “You think?” yelled Alec.

  Light burst in the sky, above the fray. Alec ignored it, assuming it was just more demons arriving, but then he noticed that Magnus had lowered his sword and was looking up, an unreadable expression on his face.

  He looked, and from the blinding light, now dissipating into afterimage, came a horned creature. This one was also green, but a deeper green than the Jiangshi or the guardians they’d been fighting. Huge ram’s horns extended from its head, white as bone, and it wore a black cloak that billowed as it descended to the ground. Even Ox-Head and Horse-Face had stopped to watch it.

  And then Alec realized. It was Ragnor Fell.

  * * *

  RAGNOR LANDED AMONG THEM. NOBODY spoke for a moment.

  Ox-Head broke the silence, raising his ax tentatively and lowing. Without looking at him, Ragnor raised his hand and waved them upward, and both Ox-Head and Horse-Face were lifted twenty feet into the air, held in a reddish cloud. They flailed around within it but succeeded only in spinning slowly end over end in the air. Horse-Face began to bellow loudly, and Ragnor, with a flash of annoyance that reminded Magnus of the Ragnor
he knew, twitched his hand again. The sound stopped abruptly.

  Magnus cleared his throat. “So, I suppose this is what I have to look forward to, with the thorning? Bigger horns, mostly?”

  Ragnor said, in a voice whose familiarity was unsettling, coming out of his much-altered face, “I’m only here to talk.”

  Nobody put their weapons away. “So talk,” said Alec.

  “Are you still Sammael’s henchman?” said Jace. “Let’s start with the basics.”

  “Look,” said Ragnor. “Everything is already spinning out of control. None of you are supposed to be here. None of this was part of the plan.”

  “You always did like a plan,” noted Magnus.

  “So I’m going to help you get out of here,” Ragnor went on.

  Next to Magnus, Alec breathed a long sigh of relief. “Ragnor,” he said, “that’s great. With you on our side, we can—”

  “Shinyun was never supposed to thorn Magnus,” Ragnor went on, ignoring Alec. (This, too, struck Magnus as normal behavior for the Ragnor he knew.) “She never asked permission or even thought about what it would mean for the rest of the plans.” He looked scornful. “Any idiot should have realized that with your… close ties to the Nephilim, involving you would add an infinity of complications.” He looked around at the assembled Shadowhunters with an expression of distaste.

  “Yes, Shinyun is clearly deranged,” agreed Alec. “So—”

  “I can’t do anything about the thorning,” Ragnor said to Magnus. “No one can. It’s not reversible. But I can help you find your way out of here. You’re far too much a threat to my master’s plans, you see.”

  Magnus’s heart sank. “Your master.”

  Ragnor looked surprised. “Yes. I believe the whole situation with the Svefnthorn was explained to you already, Magnus. You never pay attention to details. That’s always been your besetting sin. My master,” he went on, “does not need some hero Shadowhunters and a rogue warlock wandering through his realm, confusing the situation and messing things up. So if you’ll allow me.” He raised his hands and crimson magic, the twin of Magnus’s, burst forth in his palms, which bore the same spiked-circle pattern that Magnus’s did.