The Drowned Vault (36 page)

Antigone squirmed, scraping her back against the bricks. “We can’t be here. When Gil gets back, I don’t think we’ll be alive for long.”

Rupert’s bloody lips smiled slightly. “I do not think today is our day to die. You saw Arachne in the Quick Water. Our friends and your brothers are out there. And now they have seen us. They know we are alive.”

An orange flame billowed slowly from the side of the pillar room. Antigone and Rupert looked up at the crawling flash.

“What’s he doing?” Antigone asked.

“The same thing we are,” Rupert said. He jerked his arms hard against the straps. “Straining at his bonds. And like us, he will need help if he’s going to break free.”

The flame died and pigeons slowly resettled in their roosts. Coming from high in the rafters, Antigone heard the call of a red-winged blackbird. She squinted up at the distant windows.

“Down here!” she yelled. Before the echo died, a shape was fluttering through a slice of window light. When the bird landed on top of the nearest bookshelf, Antigone could finally see the red feathers on her wings.

Antigone laughed as the bird belted a triumphant call. She hopped off the shelf and glided to Antigone’s shoulder. Singing angry threats to unseen enemies, the bird hopped down Antigone’s arm and pecked at the leather strap on her wrist.

Rupert watched with his brows down. “How much have you thought about that bird?”

“What do you mean?” Antigone asked.

“You know what I mean,” said Rupert. His voice was low. “You and Cyrus must have talked about it. You call it ‘she’ when the plumage is male. You’ve never trained it, and yet it’s always around one of the two of you. Was it ever at the motel?”

Antigone shook her head. She licked her dry lips. She and Cyrus hadn’t talked about it. Not much, at least. Some. A little. Enough. But when Arachne had knocked them out back in Skelton’s rooms, and they had both heard their mother’s voice, and she had talked about watching them …

“You’d be crazy not to wonder,” Rupert said. He watched the worried bird flutter to Antigone’s other arm and squawk irritation at the toughness of the leather. “When did she show up at Ashtown?”

Antigone didn’t want to talk about it. Not that part.

Rupert’s voice lowered. “Before or after Phoenix?”

“At the same time,” Antigone said quietly. “Well, maybe. Cyrus saw a red-winged blackbird in a cage in Phoenix’s plane with Mom and Dan after the crash in the lake. But it might not have been this one.”

“Really?” asked Rupert. “And after that night …”

“… the bird has always been around,” Antigone finished. The bird hopped up onto her head and then flew back to its shelf perch. It turned in place, surveying the room. “Can we not talk about it?” she asked. “Sometimes it’s nice and I like to think that she really is watching, that she really sees how hard I’ve studied and how fast Cyrus runs, and sometimes it just makes me want to cry, and sometimes it makes me think I’m all the way crazy. I don’t like thinking that she’s—that my mom … that Phoenix might have …”

Rupert’s eyes were on the blackbird, but she fluttered away.

“Tell me a story,” Antigone said. She twisted as far toward Rupert as she could. “Please. Tell me one about my dad.”

Rupert laughed. “A father story? Now?”

“Do you have something better to do?” Antigone asked. “We could be killed any time, and I have to go to the bathroom, and I feel like I’m going to start crying and I’m not going to be able to stop. Unless you’re planning
our escape, I think you can tell me a story. If you don’t, you’re just going to fall back to sleep and leave me here worrying about absolutely everything all by myself.”

Rupert leaned his head back against the brick wall and looked up at the distant ceiling. “A Lawrence Smith story … and one that makes him out to be the soundest of role models for his daughter.” He smiled. “And with a little bird that might be listening in, too. Not the easiest task, Antigone Smith.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me about how he met my mom. You’ve told us a little bit about that already.”

“Lovely,” Rupert said. “A mother story now as well? Fine. Brilliant. It’s as good a tale as any, though I shouldn’t be the one to tell it.”

“Tough,” said Antigone. “They can’t, so you will.”

Rupert cleared his throat. “The last trek of Lawrence Smith, it is. Right. Picture your father, but younger. In fact, picture Cyrus, only a little taller, blond, and heftier in the shoulders and chest.”

“Dan looks more like Dad than Cy does.”

Rupert tried to shrug. “Sure. But your father’s aura, his attitude, his mouthiness, his stubbornness—that’s all Cyrus.” He smiled. “And you too. But you control it better than either of them.

“The two of us set out for northern Brazil because those jungles had swallowed more of the Order’s bodies than any other. And because winter was settling in at
Ashtown and other members were scattering for distant homes to pass the holidays. We had no family but each other, and no desire to share dry turkey in the dining hall.

“Lawrence had read stories about a network of valleys tangled through the jungle mountains. We tracked down an old Keeper in Africa—Alan Livingstone’s father, an even bigger elephant than he, called Sir Curtis by everyone who knew him. He had been in the region as a lad, and he told us all the drunken campfire tales he’d heard from natives and traders alike. Hidden villages were said to be built into the cliffs of those jungle valleys, and in the central valley there was supposed to be a city like those long ago destroyed in Peru and still hidden in parts of Mexico. The rumors were not especially unique—the valleys were charmed, the city was cursed, no one who entered was ever seen again, untold wealth, impossible danger—the kind of stories men tell themselves both to frighten and entice the minds of young explorers. Alan Livingstone wanted to join us, but his father had other plans for him. It was years before I saw him again.

“Your father and I packed one heavy backpack each, chartered a nearly broken-down plane, and parachuted into the deepest valley we could spot from the air, not too far north of the Brazilian border.” Rupert looked at Antigone. “Still awake? Still interested?”

Antigone laughed. “No … not at all. Please stop. I’ve only tried to get you to tell this story for a whole year.”

“Well, the next part is long and boring. That’s why I asked. It was the rainy season, and we walked through that jungle for six weeks, tromping beside every flooded stream and river and valley and gulch we could find. It was horrible and long, but all I really remember is the hunger. We ate bark and birds, and every beetle we could find. Fruit was hard to come by, which surprised us both. Finally, we even ate a half dozen fat newts we caught in fast rapids, praying that they weren’t as toxic as most of their kind, hoping we would wake up alive in the morning. We did wake up, but deathly ill. Would you like to know how ill?”

“Not really,” Antigone said. “Skipping, skipping, skipping—you threw up, you felt better, and then …”

“We didn’t feel better,” Rupert said. “We just didn’t want to die there. We made an embarrassingly terrible raft—shameful construction—and we pushed out onto the fast river, curious if we would die at the first waterfall.

“We shot rapid after rapid and lost a little of our raft each time. And then we hit the real waterfall. It hurled us over a cliff, but we only fell part of the way. We landed in a churning, cauldronlike pool high on the cliff face. Both of us managed to clutch onto rocks. The raft shattered and scattered.

“The water spilled out again and dropped out of sight—down and down and down. Later, when we were at the distant bottom, we actually stood directly beneath
that torrent and it was like standing in a quiet rain. The water fell so far that most of it vaporized in the drop and wafted through that broad lush valley, painting even the cliff walls green with moss.”

“But what happened at the top?” Antigone asked. “In the cauldron? How did you get down?”

Rupert laughed. “In the cauldron we were attacked by dragonflies. Huge dragonflies, and not just in the air. We were in their breeding pool. While mothers with heads as big as grapefruit slashed at us, ripping at our faces and shoulders and scalps, dragonfly nymphs the size of footballs attacked our legs beneath the water’s surface. They had jaws like bulldogs.”

He stopped and shut his eyes.

“And …,” Antigone said. “This is no place to stop talking. Come on, Rupe. How’d you get down?”

“We were lowered,” Rupert said. “Believe it or not, we had stumbled upon the legendary valley and had ridden our raft right over the waterfall into its well-defended gate. Tall brown men with shorn heads and bronze weapons appeared on the cliffs around the fall and snared us in nets. A few of them laughed, but most acted as if they were sorting rubbish. They hauled us out of that cauldron like fish.

“They lowered us all the way to the valley floor, where more of their people waited for us. An older woman pressed a small green viper against my neck. The bite felt
like fire, and within seconds, I was asleep. Your father fought and managed to cut himself out of the net. I don’t know how long he lasted.”

Someone coughed in Antigone’s ear. She whirled in surprise. Mentor was standing on her other side. He winked and clicked his tongue.

“The Captain’s daughter, eh?” he asked. “Daughter to the Beheader? Heads and heads, chop, chop?” He hacked at his own neck with his hand, then stuck out his tongue. Antigone looked at Rupert, but he was studying the old man’s face. And he saw something he liked.

“That she is,” Rupert said, smiling. “The Captain’s distant daughter. Did you know him?”

The blackbird swooped out of a shadow and landed on Antigone’s shoulder.

“All’s right then,” Mentor said. He tapped his nose. “Captain Smith, he found me when no one cared. Old Mentor. Sought counsel—my own counsel—right where I slept.” He winked. “In the Angel. Londontown’s taverny Angel. Had a bench for my roof. Oh, Mentor’s bench and he sat on it and I said my wisdom from beneath like a prophet and he gave me coin like it was Christmas.” He sniffed. “And it were.” He widened his eyes. “Christmas. When the Captain sought old Mentor.”

He smiled, as if his whole tale had made complete and perfect sense. “The Captain,” he said again. Then he reached up and undid the leather strap on Antigone’s
arm. It dropped stiffly to her side, firing pain through her creaking shoulder. She rolled it slowly as Mentor moved to her other arm, then crouched to undo the straps at her ankles.

Antigone dropped awkwardly to the floor and Mentor backed away. He tapped the side of his nose and winked.

“Christmas. In summer,” he said. Then he added, “They’re gone. The beasties. Off to fight and hack and hew.”

He blew Antigone a kiss, turned, and hurried away between the shelves.

Antigone tugged Rupert’s straps loose. “You’re not getting out of it,” she said.

“Getting out of what?” Rupert asked.

His first arm swung free, and he groaned.

“The story,” she said. “You’re telling all of it. And soon.”

Rupert smiled as he stepped down from the wall. He pointed at the room perched on the pillar. “I hate to say it, but I have to go back up there.”

Antigone looked at her Keeper like he was crazy. “That’s not funny, Rupe.”

“I know,” Rupert said. “Gil stole your Quick Water or I would use it instead. But wherever he and the others are heading, wherever he believes your brother to be, they saw it from up in that room. I have to know where we’re running, and what we’re running into.”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Antigone said, “there’s a transmortal in that room who doesn’t like you very much.”

Rupert nodded. “Mentor said he was asleep.”

Antigone looked around the empty rows. “Seriously? That guy? You’re just going to trust him? What if he’s wrong?”

“Then we run,” said Rupert simply. “And we don’t stop.” He swept Antigone’s remaining possessions into her pack and tossed it to her. Then he turned and began to limp through the rows of shelves toward the room and the stone pillar it rested on. Antigone hurried after him.

Crossing that sprawling building was like wandering through a badly organized library on top of a badly organized museum, intermingled with a village or two and an extremely well-organized junkyard. The place was as big as a blimp hangar, dimly lit, and crisscrossed with tall bookshelves, overflowing storage containers, tidy collections, and even small houses. They passed three helicopters in a row, all partially assembled, and after that, a cottage with metal siding and lights on in the windows.

A woman ducked inside as they approached, and they heard children’s voices as they passed.

“They have kids?” Antigone whispered. “And they live in here on purpose?”

“They’re not normal people,” Rupert said. “My coin over yours, that woman and her children are mortal and
she cannot remember when she first wandered into this place. Transmortals lead a very lonely existence. The more men and women die around them, the lonelier they grow. Sometimes they’re driven mad, or they simply deteriorate, like Mentor. Some, like Nolan, seek the stillness of dark isolation, but never too far from the noise of mortal life. Some seek the companionship of the other undying, like Gil and Enkidu.” He glanced up at the pillar. “But the darkest of the strong ones—half-gin and blood sorcerers, and the Dracul chief among them—they are like lightless dying stars. They have a deep gravity that pulls pain and hurt and oppression into orbit around them, even when unseen. It always happens,” Rupert said angrily. “Victims, worshippers, and slaves gather around a destroyer, fearful but devoted.”

Antigone could see three more crude cottages with glowing windows up ahead, and one truck camper without a truck. Hushed voices floated past, carrying from another row.

“Weird,” she whispered. “These people want to be here?”

“They were drawn,” Rupert said quietly, “like flecked metal to a magnet. The dark undying must be Buried deep. Encase one in stone, and within a year, broken and twisted people will be dancing around it at midnight. Strap Radu Bey to an anchor and toss him into a volcano, and it wouldn’t be more than a generation before
bloody muttering priests would be tossing in virgins after him.”