Pausing midway down the hallway, Udo asked nervously, “Do you hear footsteps?”
I did hear footsteps, and not just that, but my neck was prickling again, as it had before. Somehow I knew that little prickle was Paimon, hot on our trail.
“Come on!”
We ran. Ahead of us the hallway ended in an arch and plunged down a tunnel-like flight of stairs. The risers were made of white marble swirled through with pale green streaks, and so, too, were the walls, which curved up to meet a low ceiling. Down down down we galloped, ten stairs, twenty stairs, fifty, a hundred. Down down, deeper into the green twilight that was emanating from the marble itself, a cold watery light like coldfire. The smell of the sea and the distant surge of water.
Nini Mo says that most courage comes from being too tired and hungry to be afraid anymore. If exhaustion and hunger were the hallmarks of courage, then I was the bravest person that ever lived. Yet, I didn’t feel brave. I only felt sick and lost and like I had been hung out to dry in a rainstorm. Only Udo’s painful grip was keeping me moving, that and the prickling on my neck that was growing more prickly by the minute. I put a hand out to touch the wall; it felt as warm as flesh, and it was vibrating slightly with the heaviness of Paimon’s footsteps.
“I hope there’s an elevator to take us back up,” Udo said. “Going down ain’t bad, but I don’t relish climbing back.”
“If Paimon catches us, I suppose he’ll carry us back up,” I said breathlessly. “I hope there’s another way out.”
“There’s no way out but through,” Udo said helpfully. “Hurry up, Flora, you are dragging.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I puffed. Behind us the footsteps had grown louder and more rapid. Ahead of us, the stairs finally ended at an arched iron gate, its lintel twined with undulating luminescent letters that spelled out:
The Cloakroom of the Abyss
THIRTY-SIX
Dead Generals. Dark Spaces. Caught.
ANOTHER ROTUNDA, whose diameter was much smaller than the Hall of Expectant Expectations and yet whose height seemed even more lofty. The sea smell was stronger here, thickly mingling with the pungent smell of Opanopex incense, wax, and a musty meaty odor I did not recognize. Through the still hush, I fancied I could hear the low sweeping sounds of the surf.
The center of the room was occupied by a small wooden boat beached upon a tall plinth draped in stiff red satin that obscured the boat’s interior. A flickering lantern hung off the stern, and its bow took the form of a sinuous woman, her curved form and outstretched arms rising out of the wood, weed-green hair slick against her white sides. In the calm light, her eyes flickered with life and her red lips looked fresh and wet. She was, I realized, twin to the carved mermaid in the Bedchamber of Downward Dreaming.
The prickling on my neck was gone. “We lost him.”
“How can you tell?” Udo asked.
“I just know. I don’t know how but I do. I can feel him somehow when he is near, and I don’t feel him now.”
“Well, that’s good, because I don’t see any obvious way out other than the way we came, and if that way were blocked, we’d be pegged for sure.”
“It’s clear—he’s gone—but I have to sit a minute, Udo, before I can go up those stairs again. I’m starving, too.” I sat down on the bottom step and rested my head on my knees. My tummy was burning and gurgling, and my head felt as dizzy as a dust devil.
“I’m surprised that you can think of food when you are so close to being chow yourself.”
“Leave it alone, Udo.”
“Flora, come and look at this.”
I looked up to see that Udo had paused in front of one of the alcoves. “I can’t.”
“Flora—I’m serious. Come on.”
I slogged myself to my feet. The alcove contained a bier, and sleeping on the bier was a sallow young girl holding a wizened baby, so shrunken its face looked like a skull. An inscription on the arch of the alcove said: SER' ENTHA FRYDONIA HAðRAAðA & FRYDONIE HAðRAAðA.
“Why would you sleep down here?” I asked.
“She’s not asleep, I think,” Udo answered. “She’s dead. The Cloakroom of the Abyss is the Haðraaða family crypt.”
Oh ugh and disgusting and yucky-yuck, but Udo was right. Each of the alcoves was occupied by someone who was sleeping a sleep from whence they would never awake. An old woman in a frothy blue dress, holding a perfect round orange in her hands: GEORGIANA HAðRAAðA i. A saucy little pug dog lying on a blue velvet pillow, its pink tongue poking from a slightly open black muzzle: HER GLORY’S FANCIFUL SHADOW. A man in full armor, his face hidden by a pig-snouted helmet, a sharp sword balanced on the length of his body: ALBANY BANASTRE BILSKINIR OV HAðRAAðA.
The bodies looked so alive, so perfectly asleep. It was hard to believe that our whispers would not wake them up. But they made me shiver. No matter how lifelike they appeared, it didn’t change the fact that these pristine figures, so painted and curled and gussied up, were dead. They were cheats, facsimiles, and somehow it seemed indecent to allow them to lie there so exposed.
“I hope my hair looks that good when I have been dead three hundred years,” Udo remarked, looking at an elegant old man in a flowery kimono and stiff elaborate upswept curls. EOS SABRE, according to the inscription.
The next alcove had no body, only an ivory-handled hunting whip, its slender snaky hunting lash twined around a copper-red braid, lying like a substitute effigy on the sangyn marble slab. The arch above had no inscription.
“I’ll bet that one was for the Butcher Brakespeare—General Haðraaða Segunda. It’s ’cause she didn’t have any kids that Paimon got left all alone, I suppose,” Udo said. “Wasn’t her nickname Azote, and doesn’t that mean ‘whip’? I suppose there was nothing left of her to bury after the Huitzils ate her.” He turned back toward the boat in the center of the room. “And that leaves ... who do you think, behind those curtains?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, Udo,” I said. “I’m ready. Let’s get going. I am so tired now, I just want it over with. Fading, or restoration, I don’t care, I just want to be done.”
“Come on, Flora. This may be our only time ever to be here. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“No, Udo. I’m not. I’m just hungry and tired. We still don’t have that Verb yet. Come on.”
“You are no fun,” Udo said, and then craftily: “Or are you scared?”
“Udo.” I moaned. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I think Flora is scared. Flora is scared!” Udo sang gleefully. “I dare you to climb up there and look.”
“I don’t have to take your stupid dare, Udo, or play your stupid games. Come on, if you are so hot on it, then I dare you to look.”
“You can’t block a dare with a dare, Flora. Come on, I triple-dog dare you!”
There’s no block for a triple-dog dare, and no backing out, either. And no point in further hesitation. When you must strike, strike hard, Nini Mo said, and strike them to the Abyss. I walked over to the boat—which, closer up, I realized was actually a fancy catafalque, not a boat at all—then climbed up the little flight of stairs and pulled aside the long billowing drape.
A prone figure lay under the slick shroud of a flag, not Califa’s national flag, but a banner of sangyn silk that had no ensign. With one tentative hand, I gingerly picked up the edge of the fabric, drew it back, revealing a white face, a wide chest, and two folded hands.
I didn’t need an inscription to know who this was. His portrait hangs in every civic office and schoolroom in the City, and though now that famous face was white and still, it was unmistakable. A tiny little shiver ran up my spine and into my tummy, which began to quiver.
Banastre Haðraaða, the Warlord’s Fist.
“Hardhands,” Udo breathed, now leaning behind me. “Look at him. He’s a real stunner.”
Hardhands was beautiful, it was true, but it was an icy-cold beauty, glassy, and I don’t think that was just because he
was dead. His hair, pulled back into a long braid tucked under his dark red officer’s sash, was as white as snow. His taut lips were the palest pink, and his eyelashes lay like black feathers against his paper-pale skin. Long white hands with sangyn-colored nails were folded on his chest, as though they had once clutched something—a sword, perhaps, or maybe a pistol—but now they lay empty, slightly cupped. He wore the sangyn-red Skinner uniform, its long sleeves trailing off the edge of the plinth, spilling to the floor like blood, but his cheeks were not marred by the Skinner scars.
“He looks pretty good for a guy whose wife shot him in the throat with an arrow,” Udo said.
“No one ever proved that Butcher Brakespeare really shot him in the throat—” I stopped, caught suddenly by a glance at my hand, which still held back the curtain.
“Udo,” I quavered.
The knobby lines of my bones shone through my flesh, like rocks at the bottom of a clear mountain stream.
“Pigface Pogocrud,” Udo said. “Don’t panic, Flora—we still have time, I swear. It will be okay. Come on.”
He pulled the flag up over that cold beautiful face, and I was glad to see it disappear. It was exactly the kind of face that could haunt you in your dreams. And my dreams were crowded enough as it was.
As we clambered down the tiny stairs and struggled to put the drapes back as they were before, there came the faint sound of footsteps. A voice drifted down the stairwell, our only way out.
The iron gate at the top of the stairwell squeaked as unseen hands pushed it open. We wasted no time frozen in fear, but scrambled about, trying to find a safe spot. The funeral urns by the doorway were far too big; the little alcoves were not big enough, and I didn’t fancy getting too friendly with any of the pallid dead.
“Hey,” Udo hissed. For a second, I couldn’t find him, then saw a frantically waving hand and part of Udo’s head, poking out from underneath the drapes that hid the bottom of Hardhands’s catafalque. “There’s plenty of room—hurry!”
The footsteps were closer now, ringing like bells, and I thought that I could hear the ominous scrape of claws on the marble. I skidded across the floor, almost banging myself right into the edge of the catafalque. It was a tight squeeze, sliding underneath, but I made it, sucking in a lungful of dry dusty air. Udo dropped the drape, and again we were in pitch-blackness.
The space was cramped and the stale air tasted of sickly-sweet decay. The thought dropped into my brain that perhaps the figure above was merely an effigy, and down here, bony and sharp, was the real thing, twisted sinews and gritty bones, and perhaps it did not want to share its space. I buried my face in the back of Udo’s jacket, trying to choke that thought down.
The footsteps tapped, tapped, tapped, stopped.
Tapped, tapped, stopped, tapped, stopped.
“Ave?” The voice, echoing off the marble, sounded as though it came from behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I clutched at Udo, trying not to make a move, a sound, a rustle, a breath. We lay there in terrified silence, and only the mouthful of cloth I was biting kept me from screaming.
“Ave? Who’s there?”
It was not Paimon’s bell-like voice that spoke these words. But if not Paimon, who? The voice sounded distantly familiar. The footsteps came closer and I felt a swish of air as the drapes twitched.
“How about you, you old bastard?” the voice asked, and stairs squeaked. “Have you been gibbering around again? Snapperhead son of a bitch, it does my heart glad to see you lying there like a cold stiff log. I only rue that I was not the one who stretched you there, tinpot Pigface—”
The swearing stopped, and it was my fault. Udo’s hair was tickling my nose, and though I tried to hold back the sneeze, I could not. It was a small sneeze, as muffled in Udo’s back as I could make it. I held my breath and Udo pinched me, as though I needed any reminder to be quiet.
“Well now,” the voice said. “I never heard of a ghost with a cold.”
I stifled another sneeze, and then suddenly a hard hand was on my foot, yanking. I couldn’t help it, my sneeze turned into a scream, and though I kicked and grabbed and Udo grabbed on to me, the grip was like iron and would not let me go. I slithered along the floor, underneath the drape, and then I was squirming and shrieking and kicking in the open air.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Caught Again. Where? Paimon's Hat.
WHAT HAVE WE HERE, then? A little ghost? Or a little spy?” The man with the grip inspected me at arm’s length. It was a hard grip and a long arm, and the man’s face was not friendly, though there was something familiar about it. In his free hand, he carried a lantern, and this he held up so its light shone on my face.
“Let her go,” Udo said heroically, taking the wrong cue to exit his refuge.
“Two little spies! A matched set.” The man laughed, and by this laugh, I knew him. It wasn’t as hysterical as the last time I’d heard it, but it was otherwise the same.
“Poppy!” I squeaked, for it was Poppy. A Poppy strangely different, but Poppy all the same. No mourning band was painted across his eyes, and without its smudging, he looked younger, his face fuller, less skeletal. The Skinner scars on his cheeks looked vivid, fresh. His eyes were clear and steady, and the arm that held up the lantern showed no sign of injury or constraint.
And his hair! A copper-red braid the exact shade of a brand-new glory hung over his left shoulder and trailed down to tuck into the sash of his dressing gown. As long as I could remember, Poppy’s silver hair had been cut razor short, almost to his skull. Mamma and Idden are both blonde, but my hair is red, and now I knew why.
“Poppy! It’s me, Flora!” I cried.
“What are you doing here, Hotspur?” Udo asked.
Poppy squinted. “You know me?”
“Of course we do. You are Reverdy Anacreon Fyrdraaca, called Hotspur,” Udo answered.
“Ayah so, but who are you?”
“But it’s me, Flora—me. Your daughter, Flora, and Udo, too. See, it’s Udo. Don’t you know us?”
Poppy said grimly, “It is true that I have a daughter named Flora, but she is only six years old, and home, tucked safely into bed, I hope. And I don’t know any Udo.” Poppy let me go. “I think Paimon should explain what is going on here—”
“No!” Udo and I shouted, almost together. “Not Paimon.”
“Look, Poppy,” I said, desperately. “Look!” I yanked at my collar, and pulled out my identification badge. Mamma insists that Idden and I (and the dogs, too) wear our badges all the time. One side has my name; the other, the Crackpot seal. It is to identify us in case we are ever lost. I guess I was pretty lost now.
Poppy took the badge and held it in the lantern light. “‘Flora Nemain Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca,’” he read, and then looked at me, wonderingly. “I recognize that badge; I had it made when you were born. Flora! Why are you so old? What happened?”
“I don’t know, Poppy. We got lost in the House, running from Paimon, Udo and me, and somehow now we are here, and you are, too—”
Udo interrupted, “I think that time is out of whack here. Paimon said he’d slow it down, but maybe he’s turned it too far back or moved it forward or something.” “How old are you, Flora?” Poppy asked.
“Thirteen—I mean, fourteen. Tomorrow,” I answered. “Look at you, Flora! Your hair was so fair, and now it’s so red, and what on earth are you wearing? Is fashion so bad in the future? Come and kiss me, baby.”
Normally I don’t like to hug Poppy, but this time I went to his embrace willingly. Poppy’s arms were strong and warm, and he smelled of pipe weed and bay rum. I kissed him, his cheek scratchy beneath my lips, and hugged him so tightly that he gurgled in mock alarm. He said, over my head, “And who, darling boy, are you?” “He’s my best friend, Poppy. Udo Moxley Landaðon ov Sorrel,” I said into Poppy’s soft woolen chest.
“Sorrel? Moxley has a son—wait until I tell him! He’ll be so tickled!”
Udo said in a strangled voice, “My father! Yo
u know my father?” Udo’s birth father was killed before Udo was born, and though he still has two fathers, I think it bothers him that he never got a chance to meet the one who engendered him.
“Of course. Damn, if only Moxley weren’t at the War Department with the General, we could march straight up and say hello. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to meet you.”
“My father was Buck’s adjutant?” Udo said, bewildered.
“Buck—a general!” Poppy laughed. “I told her she’d never escape family fate! General Fyrdraaca—that’s hilarious. No, not Buck, but General Haðraaða Segunda. Your father and I are her aides, which is why we live here at Bilskinir. And let me tell you, I’ve had some pretty strange things happen to me in this House. Once, I was on the way to the loo in the middle of the night, and a set of tiger fire irons chased me—and they would have gotten me, too, if I hadn’t managed to beat them down with a hat stand. But never this strange as to meet my own grown daughter. Tell me, why on earth were you hiding under Hardhands’s bier?”
“We were running from Paimon—he is going to eat us!” Udo answered. “He’s still going to eat us if he catches us. You’ve got to help us, Hotspur!”
“Don’t worry about Paimon, I can handle him,” Poppy answered. “Now, darling, don’t cry.”
I couldn’t help it. It was all too much. To be so hungry and then so full and then so hungry again. Being chased, hiding, and now this Poppy, tall and true and beautiful, and talking very fast but not the least bit crazy. Poppy as he once was, as I had never known him. Sane. Beautiful. Normal.
“Poppy,” I gasped. “I’m in terrible trouble—”
“Ha! I doubt that any trouble you are in is any worse than any trouble I have been in. I am the troublemaker in this family, I’ll have you know!”
Udo said, “Well, it is pretty bad, Hotspur.”
Poppy squeezed me tightly. “I’ll be the judge of that. Did you accidentally burn down the Redlegs’ hay shack?”
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) Page 23