The Drowned Vault

by N. D. Wilson

  Nolan laughed. “Behavioral restrictions? Is that what you call it? It was a full powers ban—for those with powers. They didn’t need to restrict me and my peeling skin, but Arachne’s spinning is now limited to the natural order. She can spin tough stuff, but she can’t spin anything with supernatural properties—not like she used to.”

  “I couldn’t, and I don’t want to,” Arachne said. “No good ever came when I did.”

  “But what would happen if you did want to and you found a way?” Antigone asked. “What could the O of B do?”

  Arachne’s eyes grew wider. “Burial. Forever.”

  “The treaties may have been clumsy, but most were necessary,” Rupert said. “Transmortals were captured and contained, or they submitted their powers to the authority of the Brendan and were bound to mortal laws in their registered nation of residence—no killing, no theft, that sort of thing.”

  “And no political office,” Nolan said, smirking. “No more leading the nations of men. And more relevant to our moment in time—no self-governing orders or societies.”

  “The Ordo Draconis,” Antigone said.

  Rupert nodded. “It was the most powerful of those societies, maintained by the Dracul family until John Smith … well, until he dealt with them in his own somewhat questionable way.”

  Nolan’s cold, old eyes were amused. “What Rupert meant to say is that John Smith broke his oath as Avengel by becoming undying himself so that he might face the most dangerous of his undying enemies when they refused to submit to the treaties. The three Vlads—Vlad the Second, his son Vlad the Third, famously called the Impaler and Dracula in some tales, and his son Vlad the Fourth—were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and were committed to the subjugation of mortals.”

  “They were beyond vile,” Arachne said. “Blood sorcerers with dragon souls, they fed on their victims and mortal followers alike. Well done, John Smith.”

  “And amen,” said Nolan. “Smith buried the heads and bodies separately—no one knows where—named his Avengel successor, had himself condemned for his oath-breaking, and then went cheerfully and more than a little drunkenly into his own Burial, knowing that he’d shattered the Ordo Draconis. Of course, he had time to make the Smiths a new family crest—sic semper draconis. Thus always to dragons. But as your Latin tutor, I’m confident you knew that already.”

  Antigone looked at Cyrus, then back at Rupert. “That’s all true?”

  “It is,” Rupert said. “Nolan was there. And despite upheaval and complaints every other generation, the treaties have functioned.”

  “Until now,” said Nolan. “This time, things are different.”

  Arachne crouched and lowered her palms to the floor. Spiders flowed over them and up her arms. “Now,” she said quietly, “the immortals are dying and their Ordo is reborn. They follow Radu Bey.”

  Antigone looked around the room, clearly trying to avoid staring at the spiders. “But who is he?”

  Arachne studied her spider herd. Nolan crossed and tensed his pale arms. Rupert massaged his jaw.

  “Well?” Cyrus asked.

  Rupert scratched his short beard. “Radu Bey was the brother of Vlad the Third, called the Impaler. If Arachne is correct and Radu Bey still breathes, he is a bloody nightmare emerging from centuries of shadow.” He sighed, and then focused on Arachne. “After last night’s mayhem, the Sages have waived any future gathering of the members. Sometime today, they will meet alone to name the new Brendan. Alan Livingstone should be their choice, but that would mean more riots and even war. They’re more likely to name Bellamy Cook out of fear. And he’s likely to immediately vacate the treaties. If that happens”—Rupert looked at Cyrus and Antigone, and then back to Arachne—“we’ll be running. The Smiths are physically ready, but with your own treaty gone, would you be willing …” Rupert’s question trailed away.

  Arachne straightened. Her face was blank but her eyes were wide, searching Rupert’s. “Angel Skin? It has been a long time. I will need to awaken old memories and taste the old words before I try.”

  “Angel Skin?” Antigone asked. “Do any of you feel like explaining?”

  “No,” said Rupert. “None of us do.” He swung his charge gun out from under his arm and moved toward the door, stepping carefully over and around puddles of spiders. “Both of you come with me. You’re going to have a strange day.” He threw open the door and stepped out into the hall. “And an even stranger night.”

  At first, as Cyrus and Antigone scurried along behind Rupert, keeping up with his long, brisk strides, they’d tried to ask questions. Antigone wanted to know what Angel Skin was, and Cyrus wanted to hear more about Radu Bey and John Smith.

  When they reached the green, the chatter stopped and Cyrus, even in his jacket, forgot the heat.

  Tents were strewn everywhere. Quiet teams of Acolytes were sorting through them—collecting tatters, folding torn canvas, and piling the scraps that were black and still smoking. All around, the stone faces of buildings were charred. Windows were smashed. Four big statues had been thrown down from the roof of the main building. Now they jutted awkwardly from the green turf where they had landed, like stone carcasses hatching from the earth.

  Cyrus looked around, stunned. “No one died? Really?” It seemed impossible.

  “No one died,” Rupert said. “Yet. And the Sages will want to keep it that way. Stay close.”

  Cyrus walked by Rupert’s side as they circled the green. “Where are they now? The transmortals.”

  “We have two dozen in containment. The rest have kept to their rooms. They are angry, but quiet for the time being, waiting to hear the decision of the Sages. Our patrols are constant and heavily armed. Even so …”

  “Gil?” Cyrus asked.

  “Couldn’t say,” Rupert said. “And I really wish I could.” Cyrus and Antigone instinctively inched a little closer to their Keeper as they walked.

  Inside the main building, Cyrus and Antigone remained silent as they passed through the rubble-strewn halls. Almost every display had been damaged. Tables had been tipped and snapped. Maps and paintings and photographs had been torn off the walls. Shattered glass was sprinkled across the mosaic floors.

  The leather boat of Brendan himself had been thrown down off its pedestal, its sides slashed.

  Somber Journeymen and tense Explorers worked in the rubble under the quiet instructions of Keepers. Every worker was armed, and the Keepers all carried heavy charge guns with electric coils humming quietly.

  Every pair of eyes followed Cyrus and Antigone as they passed. Some were unfriendly, but Cyrus thought most simply looked sad. He didn’t see any Sages. Not one old face. They would be off somewhere, naming a new Brendan.

  “Cyrus,” Antigone said quietly. “You should really ditch the patch.”

  Rupert glanced down at Cyrus while they walked, waiting for an answer.

  “No way,” said Cyrus. He looked at Rupert. “Not unless you tell me I have to.”

  “Keep it,” Rupert said. “You’ve flown an ancient battle flag. Don’t strike your colors just because the guns begin to growl.”

  Antigone tucked back her hair and didn’t look at her brother again until they began descending the stairs.

  Cyrus knew the route well. He knew the statues under canvas tarps and the dusty rooms cluttered with forgotten storage. They were on their way to the Polygon. But they stopped short of the final stairs. Rupert led them into the long, low room with a glistening ceiling. Pillars held up the thick glass underbelly of the water cube—the three-dimensional liquid labyrinth. Cyrus had seen people train in it blindfolded, and simply watching had caused his throat to tighten and his heart to race. Swimming was fine. Holding his breath was fine. But swimming blind, with only one breath, through a tight, tangled maze cube?

  They wouldn’t have to do this. Rupe wouldn’t make them. Technically, they didn’t have to achieve anything difficult in the cube until they tested for Keeper. And they were only Journeymen. He mi
ght never even make Explorer.

  Rupert was heading for the iron spiral stairs that climbed up beside the cube.

  “What are we doing here?” Antigone asked. She had stopped. Cyrus stopped beside her, staring at the dark water above him. His first time here, a woman had been slithering on the other side.

  “Training,” Rupert said simply, and he began to climb the stairs.

  “Rupe!” Antigone said. “You can’t be serious. We don’t have to do anything with this to get Explorer.”

  “I’m with her,” Cyrus said. “Let’s shoot or fence or something. I’m still not great with a saber.”

  Rupert stopped and looked back down the stairs, his face just below the ceiling. Then he laughed. “This has nothing to do with promotion.”

  “What then?” Antigone asked. “What are we training for?”

  Rupert’s smile didn’t disappear, but it faded into something grim, more stoic than pleasant. “You are training for survival. And to be helpful to me in the tasks ahead. But we hardly have time to call it real training. We are bracing ourselves for a storm. We are doing what little we can before the hurricane swallows us. If you and I and we survive the summer, then we will talk about training for recognition.”

  He disappeared up the stairs.

  Cyrus looked at his sister. Her brows were pinched. Her lips were tight. One of her legs was bouncing. It was her worried look, the look she used to wear when he got detention or skipped school or got too filthy scrambling in the pastures behind the motel, or when there wasn’t enough food, or when he fought with their older brother, Dan.

  Cyrus would have been thrilled to face any of those problems now. Rupert Greeves was not a man who overestimated danger.

  “Cy …,” Antigone began. She tucked her thumbnail between her teeth. “I thought we were done with this stuff. Things were almost … easy.”

  “I lost the tooth,” Cyrus said. “And we’re Smiths. Things never stay easy long.”

  “We were going to visit Dan in California in a few weeks. Surprise. It was supposed to be for your birthday. Diana was going to fly us. She was sure Rupe would say yes.”

  Cyrus inhaled slowly. He did miss Dan. Just thinking about his brother brought back the smell of the Archer and bad waffles. He’d spent the last few months wishing for excitement, hoping Rupert would take them—just him, actually—on one of his hunts for Phoenix. But now …

  “Smiths!” Rupert’s voice echoed above them.

  The two of them jogged for the stairs.

  The room above the water cube was big, with high ceilings and tile walls and the feel of an indoor swimming pool, even though the water was mostly contained beneath the huge glass slab in the floor that acted as a lid. In opposite corners, dark water shivered in small square openings—the entrance and exit to the liquid maze.

  There were two locker-room doors on one wall and a tall arched door on the other. Beside it, Jax was seated on a small bench and leaning back against the wall. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. At his feet were two large plastic buckets. Rupert was standing above him, studying the buckets.

  When Cyrus and Antigone stepped out of the stairs onto the tile floor, the big Keeper grabbed the buckets by the handles and carried them over to the nearer open square of water in the floor. Jax stirred, blinked, and went back to sleep.

  “Shoes off,” Rupert said. “And then a biology lesson before we swim.”

  Antigone grimaced. “Don’t we get to change?” She looked down at her pocketed shorts and safari blouse. “I’m swimming in this?”

  “You are,” said Rupert. “But not yet.”

  Cyrus kicked off the permanently tied canvas shoes he wore when he didn’t feel like buckling or strapping boots. He wasn’t wearing socks. His shorts and shirt were rumpled and dirty. A swim could only help them. Antigone unlaced the light boots she was wearing, and then tugged them off along with her socks.

  Rupert nodded at the buckets, and Cyrus and Antigone leaned in to take a look. A pair of small sleek rubbery shapes were squelching in tight circles at the bottom of each.

  Cyrus laughed. “Squid? What for?”

  Antigone scrunched her face and leaned back. “They’re disgusting.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Tigs.” Cyrus grinned. “Don’t be such a girl. People eat these things.”

  “Not these, they don’t,” said Rupert. “Unless they want to die. These are Jet Squid, and the underflesh is toxic. But they are quite useful. Two are male.” A cluster of bubbles broke the surface. “And two are female. The males are no good to you unless you want to make a bomb. They constantly separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water, and they blow the hydrogen out of their beaks. The females do the same, but they exhale blasts of oxygen.” He looked at Cyrus and Antigone, but especially Antigone. “You need to be able to identify the females, and then swim with one. Even the small ones—like these—can extend your dive length indefinitely, and without the negative effects of using pressurized air in tanks.”

  “You’re not serious,” Antigone said, squinting into the bucket. “That’s disgusting.”

  “How?” Cyrus asked. “I don’t understand.”

  Rupert plunged his hand into the bucket and pulled up a glistening black squid the size of a guinea pig. Tentacles lashed quickly around his wrist. Flipping it upside down, Rupert separated the tentacles, revealing the creature’s sharp, clacking beak, shaped almost exactly like a parrot’s. The beak was as black as its body with only one difference—the very tip of the beak had a cluster of tiny red spots.

  “Red means dead,” Rupert said. “This is currently male, though they can change. Remember that.” He unpeeled it from his arm and dropped it back into its bucket. Then he grabbed the other squid in the bucket, just as black as the first. He sorted through the tentacles. Cyrus crouched and cocked his head, staring in the creature’s wide eye as it searched the room.

  “Cyrus?”

  “Yeah,” Cyrus said, straightening. Rupert held out the animal with its perfectly black beak exposed. It clicked open and shut like a bird’s. Antigone had retreated with arms crossed.

  “No red means female. When you put this in your mouth, make sure the beak rests on your tongue, opening up and down.”

  “No,” Antigone said. “No way. Rupe, this isn’t funny. Don’t be disgusting.”

  Rupert looked at her. “If the beak goes in sideways, you’re going to lose a chunk of your tongue.” He raised the squid to his face. The beak went into his mouth.

  Cyrus’s eyes widened. His mouth fell open. The squid’s tentacles wrapped around Rupert’s face, gripping the back of his head. Chills raced down Cyrus’s back, and then the squid suddenly released, dropping into Rupert’s hands. He stuck it back in its bucket.

  “When you want it off, just blow. A little puff and she’ll drop. Her air will be irregular, so you have to be ready to grab the breath whenever she gives it. Exhale through your nose. Through your mouth, and she’ll pop off.”

  Cyrus studied Rupert’s face for any sign that he was joking. But the big man’s face was stone. His eyes were sharp but understanding.

  “Okay,” Rupert said. He pointed down at the open square of water in the floor. “The goal here is maze memory. Once you’ve made it all the way through, you need to return in less than half the time. But first, let’s just get you used to the squid.”

  Antigone choked. Her hands were over her face. Cyrus couldn’t tell if she was crying or gagging.

  Rupert put his hands on her shoulders. “Antigone, I’m not doing this for fun. I’m doing this because soon you and your brother will be out in the world with me. The dark world. The world your father hoped you would never know. Soon we will be hunters and we will be hunted. You can do this, because you can—and you will—do much harder things. All right?”

  Antigone nodded and wiped her eyes. Cyrus was quiet.

  “Okay,” Rupert said. “Grab a squid and check the gender.”

  The big door banged open, and Jeb
and Diana Boone stepped into the room, breathing hard. Jax jerked awake and thumped his head on the wall.

  “It’s done,” Jeb said. “The Sages named that bastard Bellamy Cook from the Barrier Estate. He’s the new Brendan.”

  “The rite?” Rupert asked. “The anointing? Will they wait the full three days?”

  Jeb shook his head. “No. It’s happening right away. Tonight, maybe.”

  And then bells began to ring, raining down joyful peals through the skylights, echoing against the tile walls—a new man was standing in the Order for Brendan.

  “They’ve done it already,” Rupert said.

  Diana stomped angrily and began to cry. “Rupe, I’m so sorry. It should have been you. Or Alan. Bellamy won’t even keep you as Avengel.”

  “I wouldn’t serve under him anyway,” Rupert said. He looked at Cyrus and Antigone, and then pointed at the buckets. “I need to know if you two can do this. And I need to know now.”

  “Seriously?” Antigone asked. “It sounds like there’s a lot going on.”

  “Right now,” said Rupert, and he turned back to the Boones. “Find that lawyer, John Lawney, and get him to the Skelton rooms. Diana, I need you to file a trek for me before anything else happens—tag it as Avengel and selected others. He’s unable to remove an Avengel in the field or the memberships of anyone with me. Not yet, at least. Destinations and return date undeclared. That’s still my prerogative.”

  Antigone’s eyes were on the bucket and her cheeks were puffed out wide. “I can’t do this, Cy. I can’t. I will absolutely puke up inside some poor squid.”

  Ignoring his sister, Cyrus got down on his knees and plunged his hand in the water. He’d expected the squid to be difficult to catch even in the confined space—they darted so easily, so smoothly in their circles—but as soon as his hand was in, he felt something latch on hard. The squid caught him.