Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (36 page)

She didn’t know what time it was when the throbbing in her arm woke her, but it was still dark as she lunged out of bed. She grabbed her phone and her ring off the bedside table and stumbled to the wardrobe. The world flickered around her and a wave of dizziness sent her into the mirror. Her ring fell from her grip. She reached for her black clothes as the reflection stepped out and then the bedroom was gone and Valkyrie was falling through empty space. She hit the ground and rolled, sprawling on to her back.

Her house was gone. She sat up, groaning, looking down towards the pier as the waves crashed and churned. The modern houses were gone. Old walls crumbled beside dirt tracks instead of roads.

She sat there on the untamed grass, in her underwear and a T-shirt, her phone clutched in her hand. She didn’t have her protective clothing. She didn’t have her Necromancer ring. The only thing she’d managed to do right was release her reflection, so at least her family wouldn’t notice her departure. That was something, at least.

“Looks like we’re in trouble,” her own voice said, and she whipped around to see her reflection sitting behind her.

he town of Haggard was gone, and in its place stood a small village. Thin shacks of rotting wood squatted in the darkness, black voids against the star-filled sky. It was an unsettling sensation for Valkyrie to walk the ground she knew so well and for it to be so utterly different. They circled the village’s perimeter. Small stones dug into her feet with every step. The reflection matched her pace but showed no sign of discomfort.

“You should have given me space,” Valkyrie said, her voice tight.

“I’m sorry,” said the reflection.

“The whole point of your existence is to stay behind, for God’s sake. What use are you if we’re both missing? Mum’s going to freak out.”

“Or she might just assume that you left for school early.”

Valkyrie glared. “Have we ever done that before?”

“No,” it admitted, “but with all the talk of exams lately, she might believe you’re taking it seriously.”

“So she’s going to believe I got up an hour earlier because I wanted some study time?”

The reflection shrugged. “People believe what they want to believe so long as it’s reasonable. But I’m sorry. I should have waited in the mirror until you were gone. I don’t know why I tried to help you up. There might be something wrong with me again.”

Valkyrie didn’t say anything. She was being unfair and she knew it.

“OK,” she said at last, “the plan. The plan is to stay out of sight until we’re pulled back. We need to stay within arm’s reach at all times, all right? I don’t know how long we’ll be here.”

“You’re cold. You need clothes.”

“You need clothes, too. I don’t want you running around in a strange dimension half naked. I have my modesty to protect.”

Valkyrie checked her phone, more out of curiosity than any expectation that it would actually work. No signal and no Internet. She tried to find her position on a map but the phone informed her she could not be located. Out of the two things she had grabbed, why couldn’t she have dropped the phone instead of the ring? The ring at least would have worked.

They found a clothes line that apparently belonged to a big fat man. The trousers were a fine length but they were far too wide, so Valkyrie had to use a piece of string as a belt. The coat was fine, though she had to roll the sleeves up a little. The boots were the worst, though. They were battered and tattered and much too big. But at least she
had
boots. The reflection was barefoot, and didn’t have a coat, but it did find some loose change in one of its pockets so at least now they had money – even though they had no idea how much the coins were worth.

They were heading for the next town over. The plan was to keep to the back roads and they were succeeding admirably, as every road so far looked like a back road.

“What time is it?” the reflection asked.

“Why, do you have somewhere to be?”

“I’m just asking because your first visit here lasted twenty minutes. We’ve been here hours. It’s nearly dawn.”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said. “I noticed. Nadir said this echo thing will build its own pattern, but I have no idea how to work it out.”

“We could be here for days.”

“Yeah,” said Valkyrie, her mood failing to lift.

Dawn split the night sky and glorious orange spilled across the horizon. They saw farmers in fields working with mules and horses, sweating in the morning sun. It was just like travelling back in time.

“I wonder if the whole world is like this,” she said. “There has to be one country where things have progressed, where things have been invented. Life evolves, right? It doesn’t just stay in one place and that’s that.”

“It does if you’re a slave,” said the reflection. “That’s what the mortals are in this dimension, aren’t they? Slaves. The sorcerers keep magic for themselves, their lives evolve and their society progresses, but for mortals? They’re kept down here in the mud. They aren’t allowed up.”

Valkyrie looked at it. “That sucks.”

“Yes, it does.”

They got to the next village and bought some bread. Their money didn’t stretch very far, but it was enough to satisfy Valkyrie’s hunger. People looked at them oddly, seeing a set of twins in badly fitting clothes, but didn’t bother them, and Valkyrie and the reflection stayed out of the way as much as possible. The houses here were the same as in Haggard, and the stony trail that acted as the main street was covered in horse dung.

They watched the people ignore a woman who was pleading for help. She grabbed the arm of a man and he tried to shake her off. Valkyrie turned away from her wailing and begging and only glanced back when he threw her down.

“Hey,” said Valkyrie, and before she knew what she was doing she was halfway across the road.

“Please!” the woman cried. “Please help me!”

The man cursed her, raised a hand to hit her and Valkyrie clicked her fingers. The fireball flared and the man recoiled, turned and ran. She let the flames go out, fully aware that the street had practically emptied and that her reflection was shaking its head. The woman was on her knees, and she clutched Valkyrie’s leg.

“Please help me.”

“Here,” Valkyrie said, “stand up. Stop crying. What’s wrong?”

The woman allowed herself to be pulled up, but she transferred her hold from Valkyrie’s leg to her wrist. “Please. My son. They took my son.”

“What happened?”

“He was talking with his friends, just talking. It wasn’t anything more than that. There was nothing about the Resistance or about fighting, it was just... He didn’t mean anything by it. He wasn’t complaining. But the Sense-Wardens came out of nowhere, and before he could explain himself they arrested him.”

Valkyrie went cold. “Sense-Wardens patrol out here?”

“They patrol everywhere,” said the woman. “They arrested him. Just him, not any of his friends. It’s all a mistake. He would never have had anti-Mevolent thoughts. Please. Please, if you could talk to them, make them understand that my son isn’t a threat...”

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk to anyone. I don’t know them.”

“But you’re a sorcerer, aren’t you? You’re...” The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re part of the Resistance.”

“I’m not part of anything.”

The woman tightened her hold. “Could you help him? Could you rescue him?”

“I can’t,” said Valkyrie. “Sorry. I’m not even from here.”

“They have my son. Please. They might execute him. You have to help me. Nobody else will.”

“If they’ve brought him beyond the wall, then there’s nothing I can do.”

“But they haven’t,” the woman said. “The Barge doesn’t return to the Palace for another three hours.”

Stay out of trouble
, Ravel had said, and it had seemed so easy at the time.

“The Barge,” Valkyrie said. “Where is it?”

“It leaves here in a few minutes, then joins the other Barges and they all return to the City. Please. There isn’t much time.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Wait here.”

“Please don’t leave me!”

“I’m going to talk to my sister, OK? Just stay here for a moment.”

She pulled her wrist free, and hurried over to the reflection, which stood in the shade with its head down.

“I’m going to see if I can help this woman,” she said.

“Skulduggery told you—”

“I know what he told me. I want you to follow. Wherever I go and whatever I do, you follow. You don’t interfere unless it looks like I’m about to be killed or something.”

“I thought we were supposed to stay within reach.”

“Plans change.”

The reflection looked up. “I really don’t want to be left here alone if you return without me.”

Valkyrie hesitated. “I know. Listen to me, if that happens, go back to Haggard, where we arrived. I’ll come back for you.”

The reflection nodded, then said, “Please don’t get killed.”

Valkyrie gave it a shaky grin. “No promises.”

Valkyrie allowed the woman to guide her to a field that ran along the outskirts of town. Parked in this field was a vessel roughly the size of a jumbo jet. In fact, if someone had taken a jumbo jet made of black metal, torn the wings off, flattened it till the cylinder shape became rectangular, then that’s what the Barge looked like. Minus wheels or windows or any obvious way in.

“You seriously want me to break into that thing?”

“Can you do it?”

“I don’t see how. I don’t even know how it works. Where does it open? Where’s the door?”

The woman looked at her. “You’ve really never seen a Barge before? Where are you from?”

“Not here.”

The woman bit her lip, then nodded. “I can show you the door. When it starts to leave, if we hurry, we can get to it without being seen.”

“No, you should stay out of sight.”

“You won’t find it without me. I can be quick when I need to be.” The woman picked up a rock. “And if the Redhoods come, I’ll fight them with you.”

“We don’t fight Redhoods if we can help it,” said Valkyrie. “If you see them, you run, OK? Leave any fighting to me.”

The woman nodded, but didn’t drop the rock.

They ducked down as a small squad of Redhoods returned to the field. They disappeared round the other side of the Barge, and a few minutes later, a massive engine started rumbling.

“Get ready,” said the woman.

The Barge shook a little, then slowly lifted up off the ground.

“It flies?” Valkyrie said. “You didn’t tell me it flies!”

“Come on,” said the woman, hurrying out from cover into the wide-open space of the field. Against every instinct she possessed, Valkyrie followed. They passed into the shadow of the Barge, and when they were directly underneath, the woman stopped and pointed.

“See? Right there. See that hatch?”

Valkyrie frowned. The underside of the Barge was completely flat, with nothing to hang on to should she propel herself upwards. “That’s the only door? There isn’t one on top?”

“That’s the only one I know of.”

“Then we’re in trouble,” said Valkyrie. “I can probably get up there, but I’ve got no way of opening—”

The woman swung and the rock cracked against Valkyrie’s skull. She wasn’t even aware of her body falling. She just lay on her back, her thoughts congealing into something slow and thick as she watched the hatch open, high above. A hovering platform lowered itself to the ground, and a man stepped off. He was familiar, but Valkyrie’s muddled thoughts couldn’t place him. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Grey hair. A strong jawline. The woman spoke to him, her hands clasped like she was begging. The man didn’t even look at her. His eyes were on Valkyrie, as her mind struggled towards clarity.

“—brought her to you,” said the woman. “Let my son go. Please. He made a mistake. He’ll never do it again. Take her instead. I know you’ve been looking for her.”

“Your son will be questioned,” the man said. He had a deep voice, rich with authority. “If he has committed no serious crime, he’ll be returned to you as a reward for your service.”

The woman broke down crying. “Thank you, oh, thank you. When will he be released?”

But the man had wasted enough time on this mortal woman, and instead stood over Valkyrie, shackles in hand. Using his foot, he flipped her on to her belly. A name floated through her thoughts. She almost hadn’t recognised him without his beard.