Scepter of the Ancients (14 page)

The man’s hand went to his belly, and then he doubled over as if in pain. Stephanie wished she was closer. If he sprouted fangs, she’d hardly be able to see them from here. The man straightened up and arched his spine, and the sounds of his bones cracking echoed through the corridor. Then he reached up and grabbed his hair and pulled his skin off.

Stephanie stifled a gasp. In one fluid movement he had pulled it all off—hair, skin, clothes—and he was pale underneath, and bald, and his eyes were
big and black. He moved like a cat, kicking off the remnants of his human form. She didn’t have to be closer to see his fangs; they were big and jagged and hideous, and now she was quite content to be viewing them from a distance. These weren’t the vampires she’d seen on TV; these weren’t sexy people in long coats and sunglasses. These were animals.

She felt Skulduggery’s hand on her shoulder, and he pulled her back a fraction, very gently, just before the vampire looked over. It moved away from them, down the corridor, in search of prey.

Stephanie followed Skulduggery to the door, and they passed through and closed it behind them. Skulduggery wasn’t creeping anymore, but Stephanie didn’t dare make a sound. He led the way down beneath the gallery, a flame in his hand lighting the steps. It was cold down here. They were in an old corridor now with heavy doors on either side, and they walked until they came to a door with a crest etched into it—a shield and a bear. Skulduggery raised both hands and lowered his head and didn’t move for almost a minute. Then the door clicked and they stepped in.

S
KULDUGGERY CLICKED HIS
fingers, and candles flared up all around the chamber. There were books piled on books, and artifacts and statues, and paintings and wood carvings, and there was even a suit of armor to one side.

“This all has to do with the Scepter?” Stephanie asked in a whisper.

“It all has to do with the Ancients,” Skulduggery answered, “so I’m sure there must be something about the Scepter in all this. I honestly didn’t expect there to be this much. You don’t have to whisper, by the way.”

“There are vampires above us.”

“These chambers are sealed. I broke the locking seal, but the sound seal is still in place. Did you know locking seals have to be dismantled every single time you want to go through, and then crafted again once you leave? I don’t see what’s wrong with a good old-fashioned key. That would certainly keep someone like me out. Well, until I knocked the door down.”

“What’s a sound seal?” she whispered.

“Hm? Oh. Even if they were standing outside the door and you were shouting at the top of your voice, they wouldn’t hear you.”

“Ah,” she said, “okay then.” But she still kept her voice low.

They started searching. Some of the books were about the legends of the Ancients, some took a more practical and analytical viewpoint, and some were written in languages Stephanie didn’t recognize. A few of the books held nothing but blank pages, yet Skulduggery seemed able to read them, although he said they contained nothing of immediate interest.

She started rooting through a collection of paintings stacked in frames against the wall. A lot
of them showed people holding the Scepter aloft and looking heroic. The paintings fell, and she stooped to push them back up. She looked at the painting in front of her, recognizing it from the book she had seen in Skulduggery’s car: a man shielding his eyes from a glowing Scepter as he reached for it. This was the full painting, not the truncated little rectangle on a page. Skulduggery glanced over as she put the pictures back the way she had found them. She approached the suit of armor, noting the shield and bear etched into the breastplate.

“Family crest?” she asked.

“Sorry?” Skulduggery said, looking up. “Oh, yes. We don’t have family names that we can keep, so crests serve as our only link to our ancestors.”

“Do you have a crest?”

He hesitated. “I used to. I don’t anymore.”

She turned. “Why not?”

“I abandoned it, actually.”

“Why?”

“You ask an awful lot of questions.”

“When I grow up, I want to be a detective just like you.”

He looked over and saw her grinning. He
laughed. “I suppose you do share my penchant for raising Cain.”

“Raising what now?”

“It’s an old expression. It means ‘to make trouble.’”

“Well, why can’t you say
making trouble
? Why do you always have to use these words that I don’t know?”

“You should read more.”

“I read enough. I should get out more.”

He held a small box up to the light, turning it over in his hands and examining it from every angle.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s a puzzle box.”

“Can’t you play with it some other time?”

“The purpose of a puzzle box, its whole raison d’être, is to be solved.”

“What kind of raisin?”

“Raison d’être. It’s French for ‘reason to be.’”

“There you go again. Why didn’t you just say
reason to be
? Why do you have to complicate things?”

“My point is, leaving a puzzle box unsolved is like leaving a song unsung. It may as well cease to exist.”

“There’s a crossword in the paper my dad gets every single day. He starts it, makes up nonsensical words to fill in the blanks of the ones he doesn’t know, and abandons the puzzle. I’ll give you every paper we have lying about the house if you put that down and get back to searching.”

“I’ve given up searching.”

She stared at him. “And they say my generation has a short attention span.”

“That painting you were looking at—notice anything strange about it?”

“There were a lot of paintings.”

“The man reaching for the Scepter.”

“What about it?”

“Did you notice anything unusual about it?”

She went over to the wall again and moved the frames one by one till she came to the painting he was talking about.

“Okay, unusual like how?”

“Describe it to me.”

She moved the others out of the way so that she could take a better look. “There’s this man, he’s reaching for the Scepter, it’s glowing … and that’s it.”

“Nothing strange about him?”

“No, not really …” She frowned. “Well …”

“Yes?”

“The Scepter’s really bright and he’s got one hand shielding his eyes, but both eyes are wide open.”

“So?”

“So if it’s really that bright, you’d kind of expect him to be squinting, at least. Even if it
is
just a picture.”

“Anything else strike you as a little off?”

She scanned the painting. “The shadows.”

“What about them?”

“He’s got two of them.”

“So? The Scepter
is
magical, remember. It could be casting two shadows as easily as one, for whatever bizarre magical reason.”

“But the Scepter isn’t casting these shadows. The angles are wrong.”

“So what would cause that?”

“Two different light sources.”

“And what is the primary source of light?”

“The sun?”

“If it
is
the sun, what time of day would it be?”

“Well, the shadow at his feet would make it noon, when the sun is directly overhead, but the
shadow behind him would make it either morning or evening.”

“Which one?”

“How should I know? It’s behind him, so it might be morning.”

“So what you’re looking at is a painting of a man reaching for the Scepter, seeing everything, at a time when it is both the past and the present?”

“I suppose so. What does this have to do with the puzzle box?”

“Who painted it?”

She peered at the bottom corner. “There’s no name, just a crest. A leopard and crossed swords.”

Skulduggery raised the puzzle box for her to see what was carved into its base: a leopard and crossed swords.

“Right,” she said, standing, “guessing games are over.”

“That painting tells us that the painter, or the painter’s family, can offer us a glimpse into the past, and that is what we in the profession call a
clue
. A clue is part of a mystery, a mystery is a puzzle. I hold in my hands a puzzle box.”

Skulduggery’s fingers played over the surface of the box, and Stephanie saw his head tilt. He
pressed his two hands over opposite sides, making subtle rotations until something clicked. There was a noise, like the whirring of a motorized part, and the top of the box opened to reveal a blue gem-stone.

“Ah,” Skulduggery said.

Stephanie peered closer. The gem was a little bigger than a golf ball. “What? What is it?”

“It’s an Echo Stone,” he said. “Very rare. Generally, it’s used by people who are dying. They sleep with the Stone close by for three nights, and in doing so they imprint it with their memories and personality. It’s given to loved ones to help comfort them through their grief, or to answer any lingering questions they might have, things like that.”

“How does it work?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “I’ve never seen one up close.” He pressed a fingertip to the Stone, and it immediately started to glow. His head tilted again, and he sounded very pleased with himself. “Would you look at that? I’m such a genius.”

“You just
touched
it.”

“Still a genius, Stephanie.”

She sighed.

A moment slipped by, and then an old man faded up from nothing before them. Stephanie stepped back.

“Don’t be alarmed,” the old man said, smiling. He was wearing a robe and he had kind eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you, young lady. I am here to answer questions and provide whatever information I can to assist you in your …” His voice trailed off. He was looking at Skulduggery. “My oh my. You’re a skeleton.”

“I am.”

“As I live and breathe … figuratively speaking, of course, as I neither live nor breathe. But a
skeleton
, and a
talking
skeleton at that!”

“I
am
very impressive,” Skulduggery said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Oisin, and I am here to answer whatever questions you may have.”

“Well, that’s good news, because we’re looking for a few answers.”

“How did you manage that, then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Becoming a skeleton. That’s a new one on me.”

“Well, it’s a long story.”

Oisin waved his hand. “Better not tell me. This Stone will work for only a short while before it needs to be charged. I don’t have a lot of time to give you the answers you seek.”

“Then we’d better start.”

“Yes, we had better. Was it painful, though? Losing your flesh?”

“I, uh, I don’t mean to be rude, Oisin, but aren’t you the one supposed to be
answering
questions? Not asking them?”

Oisin laughed. “I admit, I’m a little too curious for my own good. On the other hand, I do have an in-depth knowledge of the stories of the Ancients, so in many ways, I’m the ideal candidate. Better suited to this than my colleagues, believe me. Before we get started, could I ask what century this is?”

“The twenty-first,” Stephanie said.

“Twenty-first?” he repeated, laughing with delight. “Oh my! So this is what the future looks like, eh? Kind of … gloomy and cluttered. I always thought it’d be
brighter
, you know? So what’s been happening in the world?”

“You … you want us to tell you everything you missed?”

“Well, not
everything
. Just the high points. What language am I speaking, by the way?”

Stephanie frowned. “English.”

“English, eh? Marvelous. I’ve never spoken English before. How does it sound?”

“Uh, fine, I suppose. Does the Stone translate what you’re saying?”

“Yes, it does. I could have used something like this on my travels, I’ll tell you that much. It would have really impressed the ladies!” He started to chuckle, then stopped. “Not that I traveled far. Or at all. I don’t trust boats, you see. If nature had intended us to travel across water, we would have been provided with fins.”

“Can we ask you a question?” Skulduggery said. “Again, I don’t want to be rude, but if the Stone runs out of power before we learn what we need …”

The old man clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Of course, my boy! Say no more! Ask me your first question!”

“You’re an expert on the Ancients?”

“Yes, I am. I’m the one charged with the task of documenting their existence. It’s a great honor, even if it does leave me with precious little time to
travel. Not that I would, even if I could. But it’d be nice to have options, you know?”

“Yes … Anyway, we need to know about the Scepter. We need to know its power.”

Oisin nodded. “The Scepter of the Ancients was created to destroy, and destroy it does. There is nothing that will not crumble to dust under its glare.”

“Is there any kind of defense against it?”

Oisin shook his head. “No shield, no spell, no barrier. It can’t be stopped, and it can’t be destroyed.”

“What about its power source?” Stephanie asked.

“A single crystal, a black crystal, embedded in its hilt, capable of channeling the energy that’s poured into it.”

“And can the
crystal
be destroyed?”

Oisin gave a little frown. “I’ve thought about this, actually. I know more about the Scepter than anyone else since the time of the Ancients, certainly more than any of my colleagues, and while there is no record of a weakness, we have translations of texts that suggest the crystal can be destroyed from within.”

“How?” Stephanie asked.

“I, um … I don’t really know.”

“Who created the Scepter?” Skulduggery asked.

Oisin puffed out his chest. “‘The Scepter was created by the Ancients, as a weapon to be used against their gods. For one year they toiled, out of sight and in darkness, so that the gods could not see what they were creating.’”

His chest deflated and he smiled. “That’s a direct quote from one of the first texts we found. I found it, actually. The others were so jealous. That’s probably why they didn’t want me to be the one to answer your questions.”