by Landy Derek
"I don't think I have, no."
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"We think he's behind a series of murders, and he wants to use a Teleporter to open a gateway between this reality and whatever reality the Faceless Ones are stuck in."
"Is that possible?"
"Skulduggery seems to be taking it seriously, so I imagine it is."
"What can I do to help?"
"If the Faceless Ones return, we're going to need the Scepter to stop them."
"But didn't you tell me that Skulduggery broke it?"
"The crystal doesn't work anymore, but if we got another crystal..."
"Ah. And you want to know if I found out anything about the black crystals in my research."
"Exactly."
"Well, you're in luck, because I found out a lot."
"Do you know where we could get one?"
"I do, as a matter of fact."
"Really? Where?"
Gordon pointed down, and Valkyrie frowned. "In your shoes?"
"In the caves."
She blinked. "Seriously? There are black crystals
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in the caves beneath this house? Mind telling me why?"
"This house was built over the mouth to the caves hundreds of years ago, by a sorcerer named Anathem Mire."
"Skulduggery told me about him. He used to throw his enemies into the caves and let the monsters at them."
"He was not, as you can imagine, a very nice man."
"Did he worship the Faceless Ones?"
"No, but he studied them. He studied the literature and the history of the Faceless Ones and the Ancients because he wanted power. He bought the land, built the house, and made some tentative efforts to explore the caves. He wanted the secrets the caves hold, and they do hold a lot of secrets."
"Like what?"
"Why are the creatures down there unaffected by magic? Is it something in the air? In the rocks? Is it because of the mix of minerals? Is it something else? There is no explanation for it, Valkyrie. We simply do not know. According to his journals, Mire made seven expeditions into the caves. The first had a ten-man crew. Mire was the only one to
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return. In the second, fifteen sorcerers were lost. Again, Anathem Mire was the sole survivor. He realized that the larger the group, the fiercer the attacks. The creatures were drawn to the magic.
"Once he made this discovery, the expeditions became smaller and more successful. Mire continued to be the only one to emerge alive, but only because he was killing his colleagues to make sure they kept their mouths shut.
"On his sixth journey into the caves, he found a vein of black crystals. He instructed one of his party to take a sample, but when the sorcerer laid one finger on an exposed crystal, he was consumed by what Mire described as 'black lightning' and turned to dust."
"Do you know where this vein was?"
"There's a map in the last of his journals, on one of the shelves in here. That's the journal that prompted me to buy the house in the first place. I wanted to explore the caves for myself. I never got as far as the black crystals, mind you. Because I had no magic, I was largely ignored by the creatures, but even so, there were a few close calls that convinced me to leave the adventuring to the adventurers."
"That guy who tried to take a crystal was killed.
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How are we supposed to get one?"
"That is where your Ancient heritage will come in useful. It was the Faceless Ones who mined the crystal in the first place--this is true. But the Ancients made themselves invisible to its senses and thus immune to its power."
"They weren't immune. They used the Scepter to kill each other."
"Ah, but that was when the crystal was embedded in the Scepter, when its destructive power could be directed at whomever and whatever the wielder desired. What we're talking about is the crystal in its original form. I think it reacted the way it did and killed that expedition member because, unlike you, the expedition member didn't have Ancient blood."
Valkyrie looked at him. "You think?"
"I'm relatively sure."
"Relatively?"
"Very relatively. Virtually positive."
"And you're willing to stake my life on that?" Gordon smiled reassuringly; then the smile dropped and he shook his head. "God, no."
"But it's your opinion that I'll be okay, right? "
"Don't do it. It's a silly idea."
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"But still, that's your theory?"
"A theory is the academic equivalent of a guess. How would I know? Don't do it."
"Where's the journal? Is that it on the shelf behind you? "
"No, it isn't."
"Does it have The Journal of Anathem Mire written along the side?"
Gordon hesitated. "No."
Valkyrie stepped toward it and Gordon barred her way. She took a deep breath, then put her hand through his face.
"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Stop that!"
She brought her hand back, the journal clasped in her fingers, and Gordon scowled.
"That wasn't fair."
"Sorry."
"You just can't go around putting your hand through people's faces. It's rude, for one thing. Deeply unsettling, for another."
Valkyrie put the journal on the table, opened it, and flicked through the yellowing pages. "Really am sorry."
"Something like that, such an obvious demonstration of what is substantial, and what isn't, what
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is real, and what isn't--it's enough to make you question yourself, you know?"
She took a folded piece of parchment from the book and opened it. The map of the cave system was incomplete, with vast areas of blank space between known trails and the supposed edge of the underground tunnels.
"A man is only as effective as the effect he has on his surroundings," Gordon was saying. "And if a man is not effective, if his very being is as insubstantial as thought, then what is this man? Is he a man? Or is he merely the thought of a man?"
Valkyrie traced her finger from the words black crystals, captured in a circle, back along a trail and through all its intersections, back to the cave opening. By the scale Mire had provided, she judged it to be a little under two miles west.
"I suppose I couldn't fool myself forever," Gordon said, dejection in his voice. "I'm a fake. A fraud. A shadow of the real Gordon Edgley. I'm a mockery of a great, great man."
Valkyrie folded the map into the journal. "What's that you're saying? "
"Nothing," he grumbled.
"Thanks for this," she said, leaving the room.
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The bookshelf closed behind her, and she hurried down the stairs and into the living room.
Skulduggery was standing on a chair, looking through the books on the top shelf.
"Got it," Valkyrie said.
His head tilted. "No. Impossible. You can't have found anything."
She grinned. "There are black crystals in the caves below us," she told him. "Apparently, I'm the only one able to touch them because of the whole Ancient thing. I even have a map. How impressed are you right now?"
There was a moment of silence. "You're such an unbelievable show-off."
"I learned it all from you."
Skulduggery got off the chair and took the journal from her. "I don't show off. I merely demonstrate my abilities at opportune times." He examined the map. "It looks like we're going into the caves."
"Now? Just the two of us? "
"Too many people will draw too much attention, and we simply don't have the time to waste. The Diablerie have been one step ahead of us all along. It's time that changed."
***
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The key rotated in the lock, and the floor of Gordon's cellar opened. Valkyrie clicked on her flashlight and followed Skulduggery down the stone steps that led to the caves.
Skulduggery read the air around them at regular intervals to make sure they weren't being tracked. Three times they had to turn off their flashl
ights and crouch in the darkness until the path was clear. Valkyrie kept a wary eye out for any dangling vines.
Narrow beams of sunlight, caught up above and cast down below, dimly illuminated their surroundings. Mire's map proved to be precise, but the farther they traveled, the colder it got, and Valkyrie was glad that she'd taken one of Gordon's overcoats to wear over her sleeveless tunic.
They followed the tunnel as far as it went, then had to crawl through a gap in the wall. Valkyrie had images of the entire cave system crashing down on top of her. She didn't like tight spaces. They made her want to lash out, to flail for no reason. She didn't like them one little bit.
Skulduggery helped her out the other side, and they consulted the map again.
"The crystals should be around this corner," he said. They looked at the corner in question. "Bear
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in mind," he continued, "that this is where things usually go spectacularly wrong."
"I've noticed."
They turned off their flashlights as they approached the corner. The only sound was their own footsteps.
"Do you want to go first?" Skulduggery whispered.
"Why would I want to do that?" Valkyrie whispered back.
"I just thought you might want to prove something to me."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, maybe that you're as brave as I am, or as capable, or maybe something to do with not needing a man to protect you."
She shrugged. "I'm okay with all that."
"Really?"
"Really. Poke your head around, see if there's a monster waiting for us."
Skulduggery muttered something, then peered around the corner. Valkyrie prepared herself to either hit something or run.
"Well," Skulduggery said. "This is unexpected."
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Twenty-three
***
A nathem Mire
The tunnel opened into a huge cavern, the size of a football stadium. Shafts of light pierced the ceiling like stars in the night sky and fell upon the two-story house that stood before them. Valkyrie stared at it, somewhat stunned.
'That looks familiar," she eventually remarked.
"It does," Skulduggery agreed.
"That looks a whole lot like Gordon's house."
"It does."
They stayed where they were and looked at the house. It wasn't an exact twin. It was thinner, and the windows were too narrow, and the door wasn't
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in the proper place. The roof was a lot higher and the angles were wrong. It was like a memory of Gordon's house, filtered through a bad dream.
Valkyrie didn't like asking obvious questions. In fact, she hated it. There were times, however, when the obvious questions were the only ones available.
"How do you think it got here?" she asked. "I don't know," Skulduggery answered. "Maybe it got lost."
They walked toward it. The house was dark. Some of the curtains were closed. Skulduggery didn't bother scouting around. He knocked on the front door and waited, and when no one came out, he pushed the door open.
"Hello?" he called. "Anyone home?"
There was no answer, so he took out his gun and stepped in. Valkyrie followed. It was somehow colder in here than it was in the caves, and she shivered. If it hadn't been for the flashlights, they would have been enveloped in pitch-black.
There were no power lines down here, no access to electricity, so when Valkyrie flicked the light switch, she wasn't expecting the diffusion of sickly green that rose in the dust-covered lightbulbs.
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"Interesting," Skulduggery murmured.
It was an unsettling feeling, to stand in a place familiar yet alien. The staircase that, in Gordon's house, was solid and wide was here narrow and twisted. There were paintings on the walls, images of depravity and torture.
They moved into the living room, and Skulduggery turned on a few lamps. That same sickly green changed the absolute darkness into an unhealthy murk. The color was making Valkyrie nauseous.
There was an armchair and a sofa by the cold fireplace, and an ornate mirror above the mantelpiece. Valkyrie nudged Skulduggery and pointed. Someone was sitting in the armchair.
"Excuse me," Skulduggery said.
The figure didn't stir. All they could see was part of an arm, and the top of a head.
They moved slowly to the sofa, giving the armchair a wide berth. Valkyrie saw a shoe now. Then a knee. A man was sitting in the chair, his right hand on the armrest, his left in his lap. His suit was old-fashioned and stained with something dark around the chest. His mustache drooped over the corners of his mouth, down to either side of his chin. His hair was dark. He looked to be in his fifties. His eyes
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were open and gazing at nothing.
"Hi," Skulduggery said in greeting. His tone was warm and friendly, but he hadn't put his gun away. "I am Skulduggery Pleasant and this is my partner, Valkyrie Cain. According to our map, there is a vein of black crystals in the rocks around this cavern. Have you seen any?"
The man in the armchair didn't look up.
"The reason I ask," Skulduggery continued, "is that we really need one, and time is of the essence. If anyone would know where to find these crystals, I'd say it would be you, am I right?"
Skulduggery nodded, as if the man had answered.
"This is a nice house, by the way. We know of a similar one, up on the surface. The real one, actually. This is like a half-remembered copy, but that doesn't mean it's any less of a home. I'm sure you're wonderfully happy here, Anathem."
Valkyrie turned her head to Skulduggery. "What?"
"I'm assuming that's Mire," he told her. "He came down here, all those hundreds of years ago, intending to continue his exploration. Obviously he was wounded, as evidenced by the blood on his
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clothes, by either a fellow explorer or one of the creatures who inhabit these caves, but he didn't want to die here. Who would? It's dark and cold and miserable. So, being a conjurer of some power, he conjured this house, so that he could pass away in more familiar surroundings."
"This house is made of magic?"
"Can't you feel it? There's a certain tingle to everything."
Valkyrie looked at the man. "He's been sitting there for the last few hundred years, slowly bleeding to death? "
"No, no. He's quite dead by now."
"Then why hasn't the house disappeared?"
"Because he hasn't left."
Skulduggery stepped forward.
Valkyrie frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Waking him up."
Skulduggery kicked, hard. The chair tipped over backward, taking the body with it, but the body that hit the ground was decayed and moldy, and it left an indistinct afterimage of the mustachioed man, sitting on thin air. His eyes flickered, like he'd finally noticed something different, and slowly, he looked up.
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"Trespassers," he hissed, face contorting, and his image blurred as he stood. "Interlopers!"
"Calm down," Skulduggery said.
Anathem Mire screeched and went for them, and Valkyrie jerked back and lashed out as he charged straight through her.
"It's a ghost," Skulduggery said. "He can't touch you."
Mire's form turned and came around. His face took shape. "This is my house," he snarled. "You are intruders!"
The sofa picked itself up and hurtled at them. Skulduggery hauled Valkyrie out of its path.
"The sofa can touch you," he told her, and pushed at the air, deflecting the table that rushed at them from behind.
Mire spread his arms wide. "I will bring this house down upon you," he said as the house started to shake.
Skulduggery ran to the large mirror over the fireplace and took it down, turned, and swung it into Mire. The glass soaked him up, and Skulduggery pressed the mirror against the wall.
Valkyrie had read about mirrors being the only thing able to capture souls and spirits. The fact that
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she didn't have to ask what had just happened made her glow a little inside.
"We're not looking for a fight," Skulduggery said, loud enough for Mire's ghost to hear. "We just want a single black crystal."
"The crystals are mine!" Mire shouted. "Release me, demon!"
"I'm not a demon, I'm a sorcerer. Like you. We didn't come here to hurt you."
"Trickery! Lies! You're another demon of the caves, another monster, sent here to torture me! To drive me mad!"
Skulduggery sighed and looked at Valkyrie. "Take a look around. If he's claiming ownership of his surroundings, maybe he's managed to get hold of some crystals."
She nodded, and left Skulduggery to try to reason with the ghost. She walked into the kitchen, turning on lamps as she went. A giant black stove stood under a chimney that didn't exist in Gordon's house. Valkyrie opened a cupboard, and an insect the length of her finger scuttled around the edge of the door and vanished up her sleeve. She jumped away, ripping the overcoat off and throwing it down, but the bug was on her bare arm, climbing to
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her shoulder. She swatted at it, but it hung on and darted inside her tunic. She tore the tunic open, reached in, and grabbed it, feeling it squirming in her grip. Valkyrie flung it to the other side of the room and flailed with revulsion.
Once she was done flailing, she picked up Gordon's coat, dusted it off, and checked to make sure nothing else had sneaked in. She put it on, buttoned her tunic, and smoothed down her hair. That, she told herself, was revolting.
She opened the rest of the cupboards much quicker, taking her hand away faster and faster each time. She had a horrible vision of a batlike thing flapping out at her, so she stood to one side as she did it. There were no black crystals in the cupboards, no more bugs, and thankfully no batlike things.