Empire of Bones

by N. D. Wilson

  Cyrus squinted at the paper. “I don’t see anything, Tigs.”

  Antigone flicked on the flashlight and held the folded globe up to her brother’s face with the light right on it.

  At first, Cyrus thought he was seeing white fibers in the yellowed paper, much lighter than the rest. He leaned closer. The fibers looped together much too neatly, and there was a lot more of it than he had first noticed. It was writing as tight and sharp and fine as any he had ever seen. But it wasn’t English. He couldn’t make out a single word.

  “It’s tiny,” Cyrus said. “We need a magnifying glass. And it’s not English, Tigs. I don’t know what you’re seeing that I’m not.”

  “Oh, come on,” Antigone said. “Is it that hard to figure out?”

  She carefully expanded the paper, pulling it out into something like the original globe.

  “It’s English,” she said, and she slid the glowing flashlight up inside the globe. Then she rotated the paper carefully until she had found what she was looking for. “But it’s all backward.” She glanced at her brother with half a smile. “Don’t you remember what came with it?” she asked. “A candle for the inside. That was the clue. I put the flashlight inside it and …” She pointed the lit paper at the outhouse wall, suddenly spraying a murky cloud of light across it. Inside the cloud, pale cursive letters crawled across knotholes and planks.

  “Wow,” Cyrus said. “Wow.”

  “Correct,” said Antigone. “I know.”

  Cyrus stepped forward and put his hand under his sister’s, trying to steady the wobbling light.

  “ ‘To Antigone Elizabeth and Cyrus Lawrence,’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘I leave you this, my …’ What’s that say?”

  “ ‘My Empire of Bones,’ ” Antigone said. Her voice was low. “And there’s a whole letter that comes after.”

  five

  DEAD MAN’S TALE

  ANTIGONE HANDED CYRUS THE PAPER and the flashlight. When he pulled back from the wall a little too far, the words disappeared in a blur. When he leaned forward, they sharpened.

  Antigone tapped the planks. “Slide the light down. Read the letter.”

  Cyrus tried to adjust the flashlight and the paper, but he was hopeless, spraying blurry lines sideways or losing his place. He gave it back to Antigone.

  “You do it,” he said. “You were the one who kept that screen and the old movie projector in your room.”

  Antigone was distracted, her eyes on the wall. “This … is … nothing like that, Cy.” But she stepped up close to the wall, adjusted the flashlight, and old, dead William Skelton’s words immediately came into focus four lines at a time. She read the whole thing aloud as she went, pausing only to smooth the paper or shift the light. Cyrus watched the tight cursive words slide by as he listened to his sister’s voice.

  To Antigone Elizabeth and Cyrus Lawrence,

  I leave you this, my Empire of Bones. Keep it tight to yourselves. Secret. You hold the Dark Tooth, and no one—no one—must know that you possess it. If Ashtown grows unsafe, run and don’t ever look back. The O of B has been dying since your father was a kid, but if you can keep the tooth hidden, the Order might still win its war with Phoenix. Or it won’t, but at least you’ll be breathing. Every little thing that I collected and hid in my outlaw years is charted in this map. All of it is yours—allies and artefacts, weapons and wealth, enough hidden paths and hidden doors to last you through lifetimes of running. The keys I gave you will open every door. Do not use the keys to steal, or they will turn against you. When more is needed than keys, consult my ink bones. I’ve made notes of which bones will help you. Look closely. Trust no one but the caretakers named here. They are all staunch outlaws, haters of Phoenix as well as doubters of the Order. Tell them nothing about what you carry. Horace will serve you faithfully. Rupert Greeves is honest, but a fool who still believes the Order will stand for the good when blood begins to spill. I have left another globe for him—every little bit I learned about the holdings of that devil, Phoenix. He must be hunted now and put down before he grows.

  Be good. Be brave. I wasn’t.

  Billy B

  Antigone sighed as she finished.

  “That would have been nice to have sooner,” said Cyrus. “We’ve already lost the tooth, and to the worst guy possible.”

  “I know,” Antigone said. “And we would have had this right away if the Order hadn’t shoved us down in the Polygon instead of letting us move right into Skelton’s rooms.” She shifted the paper, searching for something. “But it could still help. Look.”

  A projected image of a large boat wobbled on the wall. Skelton had labeled it:

  S.S. FAT BETTY

  LIBRARY, ARMORY, FUEL

  MS. LEMON CHAUNCEY, SAGE

  14.713791, 160.587158 (AUG.–NOV.)

  Cyrus stared at the numbers. Latitude and longitude. Cartography, darn it.

  “Where is that?” Cyrus asked.

  “South Pacific,” Antigone said. She was already moving on.

  “And Lemon Chauncey?” Cyrus asked.

  “No idea who she is,” Antigone said. “Apparently, a Sage on a boat. But check this one out.”

  The flashlight sprayed up a drawing of a house on a mountain. It was oversize and cartoony, like a detail on a medieval map, but labeled with tight little rows of writing. Cyrus didn’t even try to process the noted latitude and longitude. He only saw “150lbs Gold, Boat, Quiet,” and then Antigone had moved on.

  A cave mouth.

  “This one is in Mexico,” Antigone said.

  CHICOMOZTOC

  RELICS, PLANE (SMALL), WEAPONS (ORDER

  BANNED), JEEP, FUEL

  LEOPOLD MONTOYA, SAGE (EXPELLED)

  “That’s nice,” Cyrus said. “Everyone needs relics and banned weapons.”

  “We might,” said Antigone. She slid up a picture of something like a lighthouse. “This one is weird. It’s in Istanbul.”

  LEANDROS

  60LBS. GOLD, 500LBS. SILVER, DRACUL GIN, DEATH

  THREAD, CURSES, FORBIDDEN. LEFT CLAVICLE.

  CRYPTKEEPER NEEDED

  MONASTERBOICE, IRELAND. RIGHT CLAVICLE.

  Antigone lowered the globe and faced her brother. Cyrus looked from the blank dim wall to the paper in his sister’s hands, and up into her face. Her brows were high and her eyes wide. Cryptkeeper? Monasterboice? They were weird words, and he knew that he had just heard them somewhere. Yesterday. From Niffy, that crazy Irish monk with the Mohawk.

  “Niffy said he’s a Cryptkeeper,” Cyrus said. “And that he was from Monasterboice. Wherever that is. And I don’t understand the clavicle thing.”

  “I think we should tell Rupe,” Antigone said.

  The outhouse door swung open and Rupert leaned his arm above the low jamb.

  “What should you tell me, Antigone Smith?” Rupert asked. “Maybe why you two are plotting like a pair of villains in this dodgy loo?” He examined the tight space with his lip curled. “I should lock the door and leave you for the skunks.”

  “Skunks?” Cyrus asked. He glanced down at the wooden toilet bench.

  Antigone faced Rupert and squared her shoulders. “I wanted to show you, but I had to show Cyrus first.”

  Rupert’s eyes settled on the globe still in Antigone’s hand.

  “You’ve sorted it?”

  Antigone and Cyrus were silent.

  Rupert straightened. “Of course. Secrets, secrets. Why else would you dart off? I’ll pry it out of you later. I’ve left that tetchy little mob waiting while I found you.” He backed away from the outhouse. “Come on, then, and no more disappearing. Oh, and Cy, don’t make your sister pack you around.” He grinned, turning down the slope. “Shameful, mate! Her tracks looked like a squiffy two-legged pony’s.”

  Antigone laughed.

  “Her idea!” Cyrus said. “Not mine.” But Rupert wasn’t waiting, and Antigone had already grabbed the extra globe and was hurrying after him.

  With his head whirling, Cyrus ho
pped out into the light and hobbled down the hill, trying to keep up.

  The camp was like an old village, swallowed by time and trees, with only the cabins near the lake seeing any sun. Cyrus passed a boathouse with a sagging roof and walls lined with stacks of canoes buried in needles and moss. Rupert and Antigone led him around an old obstacle course crushed beneath the carcass of a fallen tree so old and rotten that moist wood fell away at the merest touch.

  Cyrus’s bare feet were silent on the needle-carpeted path, and the movement felt good for the most part, loosening his incredibly tight calf. Beyond the obstacle course, there were more cabins—some completely collapsed in on themselves, and others hiding beneath fallen branches and tufted ferns. And beyond these, in a pool of sunlight, there was a two-story stone lodge nestled against the base of a rising mountainside beside a thin ribbon of falling water. Moss-covered boulders stood guard around it. The roof was peaked twice, side by side, and the valley between the peaks was full of the accumulated forest slough of decades—drifted cones and needles and wooden decay. Two tall adolescent cedars had sprung up in this rooftop valley, but the lodge beneath them was still straight and strong.

  Broad stone stairs ran up to plank doors on the second story. Hanging above the door, a large version of the lightning bolt tadpole on Cyrus’s shirt had been burned onto a thick crosscut of cedar.

  Rupert strode up the stairs and pushed through the doors, but Antigone waited for her brother at the bottom. On one side of the stairs, a steep wheelchair ramp of boards had been thrown down, and a rope had been tied to a post at the top. Cyrus could only imagine trying to pull himself up. Going down would almost be worse.

  “This whole place belongs to Llewellyn?” he asked his sister.

  Antigone nodded. “Rupe says Llew used to be one of the top trainers, and not just from Ashtown. Power families all over the world hired him and sent their kids here. He built this whole place himself.”

  “What happened?” Cyrus asked.

  Llewellyn Douglas rolled out of the doors and stopped on the top step. “A man named Edwin Laughlin happened. Phoenix.” The old man growled. “He came out here with grand ideas of how my training could be improved. Without so much as a do-you-mind, he picked an Acolyte and got started with his sorcery. I almost killed the villain and he almost killed me. I’m not in this chair because I love wheels.”

  “And the kid?” Antigone asked.

  “Went nuts,” Llewellyn said. “Died a year later. Now get up here if you’re gonna.”

  The inside of the lodge was dim and enormous. The ceilings were vaulted on massive peeled logs, and low wooden chairs and tables dotted the room around a large stairwell in the middle. The Captain sprawled in a chair across from Gil and Arachne. Horace was sitting at a table, scratching something out on an old pad of paper. Diana was playing cards with Gunner, who had his long suit-clad legs folded up awkwardly beneath the table. The transmortals were like anchors in the room, like exhibits in a museum with mere mortals flitting past. Light treated them differently somehow. Or they treated light differently. The shadows they cast seemed deeper, the patterns in their faces exaggerated by centuries of extra expression, their eyes always staring out from another time. Especially small Arachne. Her blue icy eyes always seemed to be leaking light collected lifetimes ago. Only Nolan, lean and pale and strong like a whip, was capable of blending in with mortals, of making himself seem light enough for this world. At least if he wasn’t angry and if you avoided looking into his ancient eyes, layered by time like limestone, and polished by trouble. When Cyrus entered the lodge, Nolan was the last transmortal he noticed. His old roommate from the Polygon had a small smirk and he was leaning back in a chair with his partially closed eyes on Gil. Gil, his ancient rival, the hero he had robbed and who had cursed him with his peeling serpentine skin. Nolan yawned and looked away from Gil to watch the slightly pimply Dennis Gilly, who was off in a corner, wearing short shorts, high striped socks, a head bandage that tufted his brown hair straight up, and a damp lightning newt shirt. He was attempting to copy an abdominal workout from a dusty booklet.

  Dennis looked up and waved at Cyrus. Cyrus nodded, but his attention shifted quickly.

  One end of the room was dominated by a huge stone fireplace full of cold ash. A small bed sat beside it, tidily made, and clothes were stacked neatly on top of it. The other end opened into a large kitchen. Cyrus could hear Rupert’s voice coming from somewhere, but he was more interested in the walls than in where Rupert might be.

  Old photos striped the lodge in rows. Men and women in faded color smiled on mountaintops, dove from cliffs, swam underwater behind fat-bodied sharks. Cyrus paused in front of two photos that hung together. A tall black teenager and a tall white teenager stood on opposite ends of a canoe, holding a green flag with a white lightning bolt tadpole between them. In the background, Cyrus could see the camp, the tidy cabins, the stream, and the meadow where the tilt-rotor plane now sat. The boys were both shirtless and muscled like young Olympians, and they were far from serious. The photo had captured them mid-laughter, mid-war—tugging on the flag, rocking the canoe with their bare feet, struggling to balance.

  Cyrus stared at the younger version of his father, at the taut lines in his arms, at the blur of his smile, a little too quick for the camera. Then he studied the young Rupert Greeves. Rupert looked more determined, more insistent, and a little more likely to topple. But what struck Cyrus the most was that this Rupert had no scars. The boys were undamaged, ready for life and laughter and adventure. Now one was dead, and the other carried enough scars for three lifetimes.

  Antigone stepped up next to Cyrus. Together they studied the next photograph.

  Rupert Greeves and their father, now years older, stood shoulder to shoulder. They looked lean and sickly; their clothes were in tatters and their beards were ratty and out of control. Behind them, green cliff walls climbed up and out of view. Out of focus in the background, there was a stone structure like a ziggurat. Rupert’s face was serious and his eyes hard. He had one arm extended, and a huge dragonfly was perched on his wrist like a falcon. Beside him, Lawrence Smith was grinning. He was leaning away from Rupert slightly, toward a girl with deep-olive skin and wide dark eyes. She was wearing a white dress intricately embroidered with swooping red and blue swirls that looked half bird and half wind. Her jet hair was pulled tight and wound into a tower on the back of her head. She wasn’t smiling, but the corners of her mouth were tugging up as if she was about to.

  She looked almost exactly like Antigone.

  “Crazy, right?”

  Dan’s voice made Cyrus jump. He turned to see his older brother standing with his mother leaning on his arm. Her eyes were on the picture, too, and there was nothing tentative about her smile now.

  “Mom,” Cyrus said. He glanced back at the picture. “You’re so …”

  “Young?” his mother asked. “Frightened? In love with the crazy blond boy beside me?”

  “So beautiful,” Antigone said.

  “So Antigone,” Cyrus said at the same time.

  “Why, thank you, Rus-Rus.” Antigone laughed. “You’re such a sweetie.”

  “Don’t make me smack you,” Cyrus said. “I just meant that she looks exactly like you.”

  “I’ll take it,” Antigone said. She stepped back, kissed her mother, and looked back up at the picture. “She’s gorgeous, and I definitely want that dress.”

  This time Dan laughed. “Tigs, I haven’t seen you in a dress in years.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t have that dress, did I?” Antigone crossed her arms. “I had two brothers, no money, and thrift-store jeans.”

  Katie Smith moved from Dan and took Cyrus by the hand. Her touch was still a surprise, something long forgotten made new. She smiled at her son, and then pointed back up at the photo. There was a teenage boy standing next to her in the frame, trying to slide out of the picture. He was young and wiry, shirtless, but wearing what looked like a woven skirt belted with a wid
e scarf. A thick black blade like a machete was tucked into the scarf belt. The hilt was gold and nested with smooth emeralds.

  “Hanno,” Katie said. “Your uncle, my brother. He was your age when your father came to us. To my eyes, his blood is in you.”

  Hanno’s face was worried as he tried to escape the camera. The boy and Cyrus were not the same, but even Cyrus could see the similarities. The jaw, the wide cheekbones, the aggressive brows. Cyrus felt like an echo, like the bouncing sound of someone else’s voice thrown from very far away.

  “I like his skirt,” Antigone said.

  “I like his sword,” said Cyrus.

  Katie sighed. “Your father and Rupert gave it to him on behalf of the Order, though the Order knew nothing of the gift.”

  The sounds of a struggle erupted out of the stairwell. Shouts, kicks, and a crash. And then Niffy backed up the stairs, carrying Flint by the shoulders while the man thrashed. Flint was tied, and he had a cloth blindfold over his eyes, but he was writhing and twisting like a gator. Rupert followed Niffy up the stairs, sweating and gripping Flint’s ankles tight under his right arm.

  “Knock him out,” Nolan said. “Be done with it.”

  “No,” Rupert grunted. “He needs to speak.”

  Nolan shrugged and the crowd watched Niffy and Rupert carry Flint toward the stone hearth. They folded him down into a low chair and Niffy stood behind him with one thick hand on each of Flint’s shoulders.

  “Cowards!” Flint shouted. “Bloody useless sacks—”

  Niffy pinched down on Flint’s shoulders and the man trailed off into a scream, trying to twist and shrink in his chair.

  Rupert stood in front of him and crossed his arms.

  “Enough.” Rupert nodded at Niffy and the monk relaxed his grip. Flint slumped over the arm of his chair, panting. Niffy straightened him back up.

  “Flint Montrose,” Rupert said, “you sit before the Avengel of the Order of Brendan, Ashtown Estate.”

  Flint groaned. “I know who you are, you nit.”