by Derek Landy
“OK,” she said, “I can hear you. Stop singing.”
Gordon chuckled softly. “So how are you, my favourite niece? Finding yourself in trouble again, are we?”
“Gordon, I’ve already lost you once. Please don’t make me go through that again.”
“I am sorry, Valkyrie. It’s not up to me. It’s not up to you, either.” He started to fade. “But look on the bright side,” he said. “I get to have a second death scene.”
Stupidly, she reached for him, and her hand passed through his shoulder. “Wait, just … let’s think about this. What if we shut down the stone until I find someone to fix it? Can we do that?”
“Valkyrie,” Gordon said, his voice distant, “there are some inevitabilities you can fight against. There are some you can’t. This is one of the latter.”
Tears ran down her face. “Please.”
“Hush now,” he said. His image was still fading. “All those stories I told when I babysat you, do you remember them? They all had one thing in common. Do you know what it was?”
She shook her head.
Gordon smiled. She could see the rock wall through his smile. “The brave princess, the brave mermaid, the brave rider on her brave horse, whatever you wanted the story to be about … the brave little girl always won in the end. That’s what separates real life from the majority of the books I wrote – sometimes, the good guys do actually win.”
“Please don’t die.”
“The mentor figure dying is all part of the hero’s journey, my dear. Look at Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, or Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings. How are you supposed to reach your full potential if you’re coddled every step of the way?”
“I’ve been coddled?” asked Valkyrie. “When? Why wasn’t I told this was the coddling part?”
His smiled widened. “You’ll be fine without me.”
“I really wanted Alice to meet you.”
“And I wanted to meet her, too … And I wanted to talk to my brothers again, and Melissa … though not Beryl.”
“She’s not that bad any more.”
“Please, let me have my pettiness.”
Valkyrie wiped her eyes. “Sure.”
Gordon was quiet for a moment. “It’s funny,” he said. “I always imagined my death would include a lot more coughing, and long … gaps … between … words … and maybe even a cheek to brush my finger against. Something dramatic like that. Maybe even enough to prompt the shedding of a few tears upon the telling. But would I be able to go through with it without even attempting to subvert the norm and skewer expectations?”
Valkyrie smiled despite her tears. “You have been known to skewer.”
“That I have, my niece. That I have.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you have me crying.”
“It does make me feel better, actually.” A look of alarm crossed his face. “Famous last words! I need to say my famous last words! They must be at least on a par with those uttered by James French or Dominique Bouhours, and maybe even as memorable as those uttered by Oscar Wilde on his deathbed. You must promise me that when you get out of here, you’ll have these inscribed on my headstone, OK?”
“I promise.”
“Good, thank you. I actually came up with these years ago. They’ve gone through a lot of rewrites, but that’s what you get for being a writer, really. Always tinkering. Never satisfied. But finally, they’re perfect, and I get to use them.” He cleared his throat, puffed out his chest, opened his mouth, and then frowned. “No, wait—”
And then he disappeared.
Valkyrie stared at the space where he had just been standing. She shook the stone, smacked it into her palm again. But Gordon didn’t reappear. The stone was wiped. Her uncle was gone.
41
HERE BE DRAGONS
alkyrie emerged from the tunnel. She recognised this place, this chasm. On the opposite side, she had run from a dog-faced monster, had leaped off the edge, grabbed the vines that had turned out not to be vines at all but tentacles, and had been pulled upwards towards the gaping mouth of a monstrous, gelatinous thing. Now Skulduggery hung there, those tentacles wrapped round his arms and upper body, suspending him over the bottomless pit like he was on some invisible crucifix. His jacket was torn and his hat was missing. His head was down. Apart from the swaying, he did not move.
“Skulduggery,” she called, her voice guarded. He didn’t look up.
She stepped right to the edge, keeping her eyes fixed ahead of her, not allowing them to peer down into the darkness. Every few moments, the tentacles, all of them, would tremble slightly. There was a rhythm at work here, a gentle heartbeat, and suddenly Valkyrie understood why Skulduggery wasn’t being carried upwards. The thing that had once dragged her towards its long and many teeth had decided it would be better nourished by the magic it could drain from Skulduggery than by whatever nutrients it could scavenge by munching his bones. Valkyrie didn’t know how much magic could be sucked out before he fell apart, but she assumed that her bad luck would hold and that time was running out. She backed up, away from the edge, took a breath, then broke into a sprint, got a toe to the edge and leaped.
She crashed into Skulduggery, arms wrapping round his waist as they swung back from the impact. She felt the emptiness beneath his clothes but held on, trusting in the quality of Ghastly Bespoke’s work to save her life once again. They swung now the other way, back over the chasm, a pendulum of two. It was all Valkyrie could do to stay clinging on. She closed her eyes and gripped her own wrist, and eventually the swinging slowed and lost its momentum. When they were more or less hanging there, Valkyrie looked up for the first time, and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.
“Hey,” she said. “Hey, wake up. Hey!”
He had no eyes to open, so it was impossible to tell if he were awake or not. She shook him again, then hung on as they swayed.
“What’re you doing?” he muttered.
“Skulduggery! Thank God! Are you OK? Skulduggery? Hey, pay attention!”
His head moved, ever so slightly. “Right, yes. Sorry. What?”
“We’re hanging over a bottomless pit of death. You’re going to have to fly us to safety. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” he murmured. He turned his head, looked at the tentacle wrapped round his upper arm. “That’s new.”
“I think it’s feeding on your magic.”
He nodded. “Get me free. Then I’ll fly.”
“You’re sure? You won’t need time to recover or anything?”
“No. Just … just get me free.”
“OK. Listen, you don’t happen to have a knife on you, do you? No? Hello? OK, I’m going to … I’m going to have to climb up, all right? I can get you free from up there, but you have to stay awake. Otherwise you’ll just fall. OK? Skulduggery?”
“Yes,” he murmured.
“Stay awake,” said Valkyrie, and wrapped her right arm round his shoulder. She pulled herself up, clambering over him. He didn’t notice. Her hand closed round one of the tentacles. The first time she’d found herself here the tentacles had been cold and slippery. Now they were warm and dry. The nourishment was doing them good.
Valkyrie twisted her hand round the tentacle and held on. Then she reached up with her other hand, grabbed another tentacle. Twisted, and held. Like this, she climbed, grabbing and twisting and holding. Her arms were already tired from hanging on to Skulduggery, but she kept going. It was slow. It got painful. She clamped her legs round the tentacles, the same way she’d seen in movies. It stopped her swaying too much.
She got halfway up and stopped to rest. Her fingers were burning from gripping so tight. Her arms and legs were on fire. Sweat dripped along her spine. She glanced down, then immediately closed her eyes as fear seized her heart and fright burst through her veins. No. Looking down was bad.
She opened her eyes again, but looked up, into the gloom overhead. “Hey!” she shouted. “You awake down there?”
Her voice echoed, but Skulduggery didn’t answer.
Gritting her teeth, Valkyrie kept climbing.
Above her, the tentacles disappeared over a ledge. The last time she was up here, she’d been dragged over. She’d tried to pull away, but those tentacles had sought her out, latched on to her. They only loosened when she’d stopped struggling. She prepared herself for what was to come, and reached up, got her forearm over the ledge.
She hauled herself over.
The thing, whatever it was, was right where she’d left it. A grey, sickly mass – like a giant jellyfish with a huge, gaping maw. The only solid parts of it were those teeth. It was different now, though. It looked … healthier, somehow. The magic it was draining from Skulduggery was good for its complexion.
Valkyrie stood up. Her legs trembled. Her arms felt weak. She could barely close her hands. But the thing wasn’t paying her any attention. Whether it was too preoccupied with Skulduggery, or whether it just didn’t have any interest in non-magical prey, she didn’t know. She didn’t particularly care. Six years ago, she had cut through those tentacles with a heavy, sharp rock. She found that rock again, held it in her hand.
Four tentacles held Skulduggery. Only four. She moved back towards the ledge, crouching, careful not to look over the side. She did her best to group the tentacles together. She managed to push them a little closer. The blob behind her didn’t seem to mind.
It soon would.
She flexed her fingers to get some feeling back. Then she held the sharpened edge of the rock over the thickest and juiciest tentacle. She wet her lips as she raised her hand. Then she smashed it down.
Thick green fluid burst from the wound, and Valkyrie started to saw the rock side to side as the tentacles convulsed. She kept hold of the remaining three, started cutting through, glancing behind her. More tentacles were springing from the blob’s centre, searching blindly for whatever was causing it pain. Valkyrie cut faster, feeling the variation in resistance, the different textures, from rubbery to wet to sticky and back to rubbery again, and then she was through, and she looked over the edge and saw Skulduggery dropping.
Not flying. Dropping.
She looked back. The tentacles thrashed in their search. Dozens of them. Too many to dodge, to cut through, to hope they’d miss her. She dropped the rock, turned to the ledge, put her hands over her face and jumped.
Valkyrie fell.
She started screaming.
She fell past the point where Skulduggery had been hanging and plummeted into the chasm.
She twisted. The wind whipped at her hair. Her body turned. Still she screamed.
The chasm widened. She could no longer see the walls on either side. She fell through mist and darkness.
She looked down. Saw something. She blurred past it.
“Skulduggery!” she screamed, twisting again to look upwards.
The thing was a dot now, rapidly retreating into the distance.
No. It was getting closer. It was falling. No. Flying.
Skulduggery streaked after her.
She reached up, but he didn’t take her hand. He stopped flying and started falling alongside her. He had his arms out, his hands moving.
The air began to buffet them both.
Their fall slowed. When he wasn’t going to snap her in two just by laying a finger on her, Skulduggery pulled her close to him and they came to a gradual stop.
They hovered there, and she clung to him. Buried her head in his chest.
“Are you OK?” he asked softly.
She nodded. Suddenly realised how cold it was down here. Cold and dark.
“Darquesse?” he asked.
“Free,” Valkyrie said, her voice trembling. “In Stephanie’s body. We brought her down with us.”
He nodded. “She was Gordon. I figured as much, when his directions led me to a dead end.”
“He’s gone,” she said. “The Echo Stone is empty.”
“Oh, Valkyrie. I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. “Is there a reason we’re floating?”
“Just have to get my strength back,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too long. Another few moments.”
She looked down. All she could see was darkness below, so it wasn’t vertigo that struck her. It was the open, yearning emptiness. It was the quiet. The awful, empty quiet. If he hadn’t caught her, she’d still be falling even now. She doubted she’d have ever stopped.
Valkyrie frowned. “Huh.”
“What is it?” Skulduggery asked.
“My eyes are playing tricks on me,” she said. “It looks like … light down there.”
They shifted slightly so that he could look down, too. Below them, in the deep and distant dark, a red light burned weakly.
“I see it,” said Skulduggery.
“Wasn’t there a second ago. Hey. Is it … is it getting brighter?”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “It’s definitely getting bigger.”
Her eyes widened. “It’s getting closer.”
“I have my strength back now,” he said, and they started to rise.
“You might want to go a tiny bit faster,” Valkyrie said, and suddenly there was a huge shape below them, unimaginably vast, filling the chasm with its darkness. She saw eyes, glittering and yellow, and that red light was flame that burned in a throat and reflected off teeth, and there was the sound of great wings beating. A rush of air boosted their ascent and Skulduggery rode that wave and they shot upwards as a screech, a terrible screech of inhuman power, blasted Valkyrie’s eardrums and made her bones rattle.
They flew up, out of the chasm, and through the tunnel. Their feet touched down at a run and they kept running up the stairs, and into the cellar, and the floor closed up behind them and Valkyrie led the way up into Gordon’s house. She ran into the living room, spun, her hair wild and her eyes wilder.
“Did you see that? Did you see that?” She couldn’t help it – an excited laugh burst from her lips. “That was a dragon! A dragon!”
Skulduggery shook his head. “A dragon.”
“There be dragons!” Valkyrie yelled, spinning in a circle before collapsing on to the couch. Immediately, she was up again, bounding to her feet like she was on a spring. “This is amazing! That is fantastic! It was huge! It was massive! What if it gets free? Do you think it’ll get free? Do you think I could ride it?”
Skulduggery fixed his tie and buttoned his jacket. “I’m sorry?”
“Ride it. Put a saddle on it and ride it. Wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t that be the best thing to ever happen ever in the world?”
“Probably not, all things considered.”
“Don’t you want me to ride a dragon?”
“It would eat you,” said Skulduggery.
“Not necessarily. I could make friends with it. It could be my pet. Or I could be its pet, or whatever. Did you know there were dragons? Did you know there were dragons and you kept it from me?”
“I didn’t know. I thought … I didn’t think they even existed. They’re in stories, in legends, and we have Dragon Eye jewels and dragon thread and dragon this and that, but no one ever seriously thought these things came from actual dragons. That would have been … ridiculous.”
Valkyrie stopped her twirling, and the smile faded. “I wish Gordon were around. He’d have loved this.”
The house was quiet.
She pulled the tranq gun from her waistband. “Here.”
“Ah,” he said, “thank you. And the other?”
“I kind of lost it.”
“You lost it?”
“Kind of,” said Valkyrie.
“They’re a set of two.”
“Now it’s a set of one.”
“That’s not really a set, though.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“That’s OK,” he said tenderly. “You’ve been through a lot.”
She nodded. Moments passed. Her head felt heavy. So did her heart. Then she thought about the dragon and her heart lifted.
She spun. “Do you think it’ll try to escape or will it go back down into the pit?”
“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “I know absolutely nothing about dragons. I suppose there’s no reason to think it’s going to find a way out now, if it hasn’t before. We woke it from its slumber. Hopefully, it’ll go back to sleep.”
Valkyrie grinned. “Dragons.”
42
BRAINSTORM
hina’s voice filled the car. “Where is Darquesse now?”
Skulduggery overtook a slow-moving tractor and guided the Bentley round a hairpin bend. “We don’t know,” he said. “There are dozens of hidden entrances to those caves. She could be anywhere.”
There was an edge to China’s words that had not been there before. “How long before she’s at full strength?”
“Days, if we’re lucky. China, we need to get Ravel ready to shunt. We’re out of time.”
“Agreed,” said China. “Get back here now.”
The call disconnected, and Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie.
She kept staring out of the window. She was fully aware of how hyper she’d been, and now how quiet she’d become. But the mood had settled over her like she was in the shade of some great monolith, and there had been nothing she could do to stop it.
She’d returned the Echo Stone to its cradle. She had hoped a simple recharge would bring Gordon back. It hadn’t. The stone was empty. There was no coming back from that.
Her eyes were tired. They stung, and wanted to close. She longed to go to bed, to curl up under the covers and never come out.
“She’s going to win,” she muttered.
“Nonsense,” Skulduggery said.
“We can’t stop her. You know we can’t.”
“She said it herself, it’s going to take some time for her new body to acclimatise to her power. She’s in a weakened state. What’s the first thing I taught you about getting into a fight?”