Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

by Derek Landy

  The room was a mass of alloy and wood, with magical symbols carved on every surface. Four steel arms protruded from the corners, stretched towards the middle where they almost met. Hovering between the tips of these arms was a cage of energy that crackled with power, and within that cage was a man. Dressed in a white bodysuit, Argeddion rotated gently in mid-air, his eyes closed and his expression peaceful. He looked young, maybe around thirty years old. He had black hair, cut short, and a clean-shaven face. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would destroy the world if he woke up.

  Directly beneath the cage was a metre-high glass pyramid, in which raged a small storm of energy. The pyramid had wires and cables running from its base to a padded chair set into a metal arch, decorated in sigils and circuitry.

  “Six hours every day,” said Lament, “one of us sits here, strapped in and hooked up.”

  “What’s the pyramid for?” Valkyrie asked.

  Skulduggery answered instead of Lament. “Their magic is drawn out of them and stored in there, am I right? Presumably to power Argeddion’s cage.”

  “Very good,” Lament said, clearly impressed. “We call it the Cube, though. A cage is something you keep an animal in. The pyramid is called the Tempest. Our magic is collected inside it, pretty turbulently but not dangerously so, and then siphoned off to maintain the Cube’s integrity.”

  Skulduggery nodded. “And is one person a day really all it needs?”

  “A lot of power was required when the Cube was first created,” Lament said, “but only a minimal amount is needed to keep it going. That’s the beauty of it.”

  “And what if something goes wrong?” Valkyrie asked.

  Lament nodded towards a big red button. “This,” he said, “is the Big Red Button. If there’s an emergency, I press this and the Tempest empties itself into the Cube, reinforcing it. It means it wouldn’t have to be recharged for three days. Hopefully, that would give us enough time to fix whatever emergency had occurred and get back to our normal routine. We haven’t had to use it yet. Hopefully, we never will.”

  “This is quite a machine,” Skulduggery said, examining the chair. “If all gaols had this level of technology, there’d be no more break-outs.”

  “But then we’d have the Nadir problem,” Valkyrie said. “What’s the point of sending criminals to prison if they’re going to sleep their way through their sentence?”

  Lament shook his head. “They wouldn’t have to be asleep,” he said. “Roughly a third of the power we collect is dedicated to making sure Argeddion stays in a coma-state, but he could just as easily be conscious. Naturally, with Argeddion, that would be a bad thing, as the Cube itself wouldn’t be enough to contain him. But for anyone else it would be more than sufficient.”

  Skulduggery approached the Cube. “Has there been any ageing?” he asked. “That long without magic should have had some effect by now, no matter how slight.”

  “He doesn’t appear to have aged,” said Lament. “We didn’t expect that, to be honest. Maybe it’s because of his evolved state of being or maybe it’s a side effect of keeping him in a coma, but according to our tests he hasn’t aged even one day.”

  “So what’s your plan? You’re going to keep him contained until you all die of old age? Then what?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out.”

  “You’ve obviously considered killing him.”

  “That is not an option.”

  “Destroy the brain, Tyren. Destroy it before his survival instincts kick in.”

  “We didn’t go to all this trouble just to end the life of the man in our care.”

  “It may be mean-spirited but it’s a practical solution to a problem that has precious few.”

  Lament shook his head. “There is always another way.”

  “But there’s not always a better way.”

  “Skulduggery, even if we wanted to end his life, I’m not even sure that we could. His mind is asleep but his body could still heal itself. And someone of Argeddion’s power... I’m not sure there’s any wound we could inflict that would be enough to kill him instantly.”

  “Then how do we stop him from spreading the infection? We had a werewolf in Ireland, Tyren. It has to stop.”

  “We’re not even agreed that Argeddion is responsible. The man is comatose.”

  “The subconscious is more powerful than you know, Tyren. I’ve seen it myself, firsthand. It’s possible that Argeddion’s subconscious is infecting the minds of those susceptible and actually transferring magic to them remotely. And if this did all start a few weeks ago, then it leads me to only one possible conclusion.”

  Lament frowned. “Argeddion is waking up.”

  “His mind is becoming active.”

  “Impossible. No, I’m sorry, Skulduggery, but there has been no change in our readings. No unusual brain activity, nothing like that. Lenka is in here every day, scanning his mind. If anything was going on, surely a Sensitive would pick it up?”

  “Not necessarily. It’s possible to throw up a false reading. It’s been done before.”

  “But only by the most powerful of psychics.”

  “And is Argeddion not the most powerful of everything right now?”

  Lament hesitated.

  “You’re right,” Skulduggery said. “There has not been one single Sensitive around the world who has even heard of Argeddion. But we visited a prison where the more unstable inmates, those more susceptible to this kind of thing, were scrawling his name on the walls. He visits people in their dreams, Tyren. He’s doing something to the mortals, something to do with a Summer of Light. We have less than four days to figure out what that is. He has to be stopped.”

  “And I told you, I don’t know how to do that.”

  “What about telling the Elders?” Valkyrie asked. “I know it wasn’t safe in the past, but now Ghastly Bespoke and Erskine Ravel are in charge, and you can trust them.”

  “And can we trust Madame Mist, a Child of the Spider?”

  “Well,” said Valkyrie, “no, but she can be kept at a distance. You can get back-up there. The Sanctuary can support you. It’d mean you wouldn’t have to live here any more, you could go back to your lives. We could all share the responsibility and, I don’t know, maybe make the Cube stronger.”

  “That’s an idea,” Skulduggery said slowly. “If we do make the Cube stronger, it would block Argeddion’s subconscious from wandering off and infecting anyone else. I’ve seen the blueprints, and it seems to me that there’s absolutely no reason why the Cube couldn’t be reinforced two, three times over.”

  “Now, just wait a second,” Lament said. “You’re both speeding on ahead.”

  “It’s possible, though, isn’t it?” Skulduggery asked.

  Lament hesitated. “Yes.”

  “And a reinforced Cube would mean Argeddion does not wake up.”

  “But the risk involved with acknowledging his existence...”

  “Would immediately be overshadowed by the risk of Argeddion opening his eyes.”

  “I don’t know. You’re asking us to abandon our plan.”

  “The moment you realised he wasn’t ageing, that plan became null and void. The Cube can be reinforced, right?”

  “Yes, of course it can, but the power needed to maintain a reinforced Cube would kill anyone who charged it. The Tempest would drain them in an instant of both their magic and their lives, and then you’d need another mage to charge it. No, sorry. It’s impossible.”

  “I don’t see how the process would be any different to the way it is now. The Tempest is just a storage chamber, after all.”

  Lament shook his head. “Not when you’re dealing with this level of power. There’d be no more storage – everything would be instant. The magic would be donated, sucked through the Tempest, and within nanoseconds it would be crackling around the Cube. In order for your plan to succeed, the Cube would have to be hooked up to a constant source of massive, massive power. And I’m sorry, but tha
t cannot...”

  He faltered.

  “What?” Valkyrie asked.

  “Nothing,” Lament said. “It can’t be done.”

  “You were going to say something. What was it?”

  Lament looked away. “I need to talk to my colleagues.” Without waiting for an answer, he walked out.

  Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery, and shrugged. “That’s promising.”

  lastic containers full of body parts threatened to nudge Scapegrace’s jar over the edge of the table. They were stacked six high and still Thrasher was bringing them in through Nye’s secret entrance. Scapegrace wouldn’t have thought that a human body would have so many little pieces to collect, but apparently it had – unless Thrasher had accidentally scooped up a load of pebbles when he’d collected the White Cleaver’s remains. Which, knowing Thrasher, wasn’t exactly unlikely.

  Through the liquid all around him, Scapegrace heard the idiot’s slow, plodding footsteps, back with another few containers. Nye was going to have some job putting all this back together. Still, if there was one creature who’d probably appreciate a new hobby like that, it was Doctor Nye. And then suddenly Scapegrace was sliding over the edge of the table.

  “Hey!” he screamed. “Stop!”

  The jar started to topple, the liquid tilting him upside down, and then Thrasher was there, diving to catch him.

  “Oh, Master!” the idiot wailed, clutching the jar to his bosom. “I’m so sorry! Are you OK? Oh, Master, please speak to me! Please say something!”

  “I will,” Scapegrace growled, “as soon as you shut up.”

  Thrasher was practically weeping with joy. “Oh, thank heavens. Oh, thank heavens.”

  “Find somewhere else to put me,” Scapegrace said, “as far away from you as possible.”

  Thrasher looked around, eventually deciding on a room in the back of the Medical Bay. There was an area that was curtained off, but beside that was a table. He put the jar there, and then plodded off, probably to cry. Scapegrace bobbed around a bit before coming to a stop. The curtain wasn’t pulled over all the way, and he could see a patient lying on a bed, his midsection wrapped in bandages and soaked in mud. He was wearing sunglasses indoors. Even before he turned his head Scapegrace knew who he was.

  Billy-Ray Sanguine looked at him without expression, so Scapegrace returned the favour. He wasn’t going to be intimidated by the man who’d killed him. He was beyond that now. He’d changed. Grown. He was the Zombie King, and who was Sanguine? Just some annoying American with a stubble-covered jawline and good muscle tone. So what? At least Scapegrace had eyes, and one of them even worked.

  He looked right at Sanguine and Sanguine looked right at him. Neither man looked away. It was a matter of pride now. It had become something more than a mere staring contest. Now it was about dominance. It was about superiority. It was about strength. And Scapegrace was damned if he was going to be the one to look away first. Although he did feel that wearing sunglasses was technically cheating.

  Moving slowly, Sanguine sat up. Pressing an arm to his bandages, he got off the bed. He groaned slightly with the effort, pulled the curtain open wider, and walked the few paces to the table. Scapegrace’s mind churned with possible insults and comebacks. The first words out of Sanguine’s mouth were going to be nasty, he knew that much.

  Sanguine leaned down and they looked at each other, face to face. Then Sanguine tapped the glass with his finger. “Ugly little critter, ain’t ya?”

  “Takes one to know one,” Scapegrace retorted triumphantly, and Sanguine screamed and leaped back, hit the bed and fell backwards over it, collapsing into a heap on the other side.

  Scapegrace stared.

  Nye and Thrasher rushed in and immediately went to Sanguine’s aid. They picked him up and laid him back on the bed. He was obviously in a great deal of pain.

  “What happened?” Nye asked, checking the bandages. “I told you no movement.”

  Sanguine pointed. “You got a head in a jar.”

  “So?”

  “It spoke to me!”

  “What did you think it was going to do, shake your hand? You could have pulled your stitches. You must remain still while you heal. I explained this to you.”

  Sanguine grabbed Nye’s coat, pulled the creature in close. “Why,” he said through gritted teeth, “is there a goddamn head in a jar talkin’ to me?”

  “You talked to me first,” Scapegrace pointed out.

  Sanguine lay back. “Somebody shut it up. It’s freakin’ me out.”

  “It’s your own fault,” Scapegrace said.

  “On principle alone, I refuse to have a conversation with a decapitated head.”

  “You’re the one who killed me!”

  Sanguine looked around. “I make it a point of rememberin’ who and how I killed, and I ain’t never chopped someone’s head off.”

  “My head was on when you killed me. I am Vaurien Scapegrace.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “You murdered me and your father turned me into the walking dead!”

  Sanguine frowned. “Hey, I remember you now. You’re that guy...”

  “Yes.”

  “The idiot.”

  “What? No.”

  “You’re the moron who pretended he was an assassin, and then you lost control of your own zombies.”

  “I didn’t lose control of them,” Scapegrace said. “They lost control of me.”

  Thrasher stepped forward. “He’s the Zombie King now.”

  “Good God,” Sanguine said. “It’s another one. How many of these things do you have here?”

  “Two too many,” Nye said absently.

  “Well, at least this one has his head on. But how do you stand the smell?”

  Nye pressed its fingers against Sanguine’s stomach. “I don’t have a nose. Does this hurt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “Why is he here?” Scapegrace asked. “The last I heard, this man was wanted for a variety of crimes. At the very least he killed me.”

  Nye looked up. “You and I have a deal, zombie. You give me what I want, and I give you what you want. I have the same sort of deal with Mr Sanguine here. I expect discretion from all my patients.”

  “I think we should flush him down the toilet,” Sanguine said.

  “Don’t you dare!” Thrasher screeched, jumping in front of the jar so that now all Scapegrace could see was the way the back of his trousers sagged.

  “Oh, God,” Sanguine said, disgust in his voice. “Is that his intestine? It is, ain’t it? Look at it swingin’ there. For God’s sake, man, put it away. That’s disgustin’.”

  Scapegrace closed his eyes in embarrassment.

  “I am who I am,” Thrasher proclaimed proudly.

  “Hey, you go fly your freak flag high, but you just tuck that little bit of yourself back in so you don’t scar no minds. Have some dignity.”

  Thrasher turned away dramatically, hands on his hips, and his little piece of shrivelled intestine slapped against Scapegrace’s jar. “You don’t tell me what to do. Only Master Scapegrace, the Zombie King, can order me around.”

  “Put it away, Thrasher,” Scapegrace said.

  Thrasher blinked down at him. “Sir?”

  “Tuck it in, you idiot.”

  Thrasher’s lower lip quivered, and he rushed out of the room. Scapegrace sighed, and looked at Sanguine and Nye as the doctor finished its inspection.

  “You’re lucky,” it said. “But if you move off this bed again, I’ll snip every last one of your stitches myself.”

  It walked to the door, and Sanguine frowned after it. “Hey, you just gonna leave this head talkin’ to me? Hey, Nye, at least turn it so that it’s lookin’ the other way or somethin’!”

  But Nye was already gone. Sanguine glowered, and lay back.

  Minutes ticked by. Finally, he looked over. “So what happened?”

  “What happened when?”

  “I mean how’d you
lose your head?”

  “I didn’t lose my head,” said Scapegrace. “I lost my body.”

  “How’d you lose your body, then?”

  “The White Cleaver cut it off.”

  Sanguine nodded, and it went quiet again. Then he said, “Wanna play I spy?”

  Scapegrace would have shrugged if he’d had shoulders. “Sure,” he said.

  ow much do you know about Roarhaven?”

  Valkyrie and Skulduggery sat in the mountain facility’s living room, around the large table with Lament, Plight, Lenka and Kalvin on the other side.

  Skulduggery sat back, hands clasped over where his belly would have been, tapping his fingertips together. “The very fact that you ask us that leads me to believe there is something important that we don’t know about Roarhaven. Valkyrie will tell you what we do know.”

  “Uh, OK,” said Valkyrie, doing her best to remember. “Most magical communities establish themselves in towns or cities and kind of blend in and go unnoticed. But the people of Roarhaven built up their town in the middle of nowhere. They isolated themselves on purpose, and because of that their hostility towards normal people grew. They didn’t agree with official Sanctuary policies – they believed sorcerers should be ruling the world, not hiding in it. So they hatched a plot to destroy the Sanctuary and steal control.”

  “And what was the plot?” Lament asked.

  “No idea.”

  Skulduggery looked at her. “I told you this.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did. I told you about the bomb that didn’t go off and the failed coup and the arrests.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

  Skulduggery sighed.

  “The coup was only the start of it,” Lament said. “From what we’ve gathered, the Roarhaven mages had much bigger plans. Did you know that since the war with Mevolent ended, hundreds of sorcerers from all over the world have gone missing?”

  “Sorcerers go missing all the time,” Skulduggery pointed out. “You went missing, after all.”