The Drowned Vault

by N. D. Wilson

  “Cy! Hello?” Antigone elbowed up to the window beside him. “Arachne’s here.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You all right? Nolan left and you didn’t even notice.”

  “What?” Cyrus looked around, startled. Nolan was gone. The rug was back over the grate. No doubt the pale transmortal boy was weaving his way through the heat tunnels, down to the Polygon.

  Arachne, dressed all in black, stood in the center of the rug. Her midnight hair had been oiled and was pulled back into an explosion of curl. She had a backpack over one shoulder and a sagging, heavy satchel over the other. Her light blue eyes studied Cyrus and Antigone.

  “Hey,” said Cyrus. “I’m glad you’re here. Rupe said we could head out if you were good with it.”

  “First things first,” Arachne said, and she lowered her heavy satchel to the floor. As it touched ground, the bag sagged and deflated, spilling spiders like sand. Thousands poured out of its mouth and flooded across the floor, legs whispering like wind on a cactus.

  Antigone screamed and jumped up onto the wooden dining chair. Cyrus lunged for the safety of the armchair, but his toe caught on the corner of the rug and he knocked the armchair over and crashed to the floor.

  He twisted and tried to roll away.

  Arachne jumped forward and put her hand on his head. “Be still,” she said, and Cyrus felt cold pour through him. His skin was suddenly numb. There must have been things on him, all over him, but he couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t feel anything, not even the rough wool of the rug against his skin. Arachne was whispering, singing some strange and hushed spider song.

  Then her hand rose off Cyrus’s head, and warmth roared back through him. He scrambled to his feet and looked around.

  Antigone was on her chair, biting the knuckle of her forefinger to keep from screaming. Her eyes were on the walls.

  “Watch,” said Arachne. “But be calm and silent. They need to hear me.”

  Cyrus did as he was told. He watched the spider storm begin to take a more ordered shape as the arachnid army scaled the walls and surrounded the windows, surrounded the mouth of the fireplace, surrounded the door behind him, and then became still.

  Rows and rows of spiders had lined up on either side of the window. An even thicker regiment had lined up at the top. Not one sat on the sill beneath.

  There were heavy spiders and tiny spiders. Fat-bodied garden spiders, and spiders built for jumping. Gray, brown, black, orange, green, and even white spiders, all still and ready and waiting for something.

  Arachne dragged the wooden chair in front of the window, climbed up, and lightly touched four large spiders above the window. Immediately, they swung down on their lines and began to spin. Arachne moved to the fireplace, selected eight spiders, and then moved to the next window.

  Cyrus studied the spinners in front of him. The four spiders were working on a single web unlike any normal spider construction. This was a grid. They were simply dropping vertical lines, attaching them to the windowsill, then climbing back up and doing it again.

  Arachne stood between Cyrus and Antigone. After a moment, the spiders had finished and resumed their original spots.

  “So …,” said Antigone. “They’re just—”

  Arachne raised a finger to her lips and then hummed a single note, long and low. The smallest spiders muscled forward on all three sides. She shifted her pitch up higher, and Cyrus shivered as the hair on his arms tingled.

  Then, in unison, every spider marched forward, and every one was dragging a line. One row swept down, one left, one right. Keeping exact time and pace, they clambered across the web ladder and wove between each other, over each other, around each other. They tucked and ducked and braided and looped and twisted like a square-dancing militia. And then, when they had reached the other side, they regrouped, paused, and returned.

  As Cyrus and Antigone watched, the loom of spiders wove the beginnings of a tight sheet of silver silk across the window. Cyrus looked around—across the other window as well. And the fireplace. He turned around. Nothing was happening at the door. The spiders there were waiting patiently.

  “This will take them a while,” Arachne said. She smiled. “If you’d like me to walk the grounds with you before your captivity, now’s the time.”

  “It’s …” Antigone shrugged, surprised by her own reaction. “Well, it’s beautiful. And impossible.”

  Arachne smiled. “It is both. And when my weavers have finished, it will be stronger than steel and far lovelier than any worm silk.” She laughed, as if worm silk was the most ridiculous thing in the world. Then she looked into Cyrus’s eyes, and he blinked in surprise at her happiness. The pale ice in her blue irises was gone, replaced by the burning warmth of a summer sky or the blue of a … of a something really, really blue.

  “Come,” she said, and Cyrus followed her to the door. Antigone trailed behind him.

  “Where are we going?” Antigone asked.

  “For a walk on a hot summer evening,” Arachne said. “Before your door is sealed behind you for the night.”

  The sky was dark above the Ashtown green. On one horizon, whispers of silver promised that the moon would soon rise above the trees. On the other, only the faintest blue glow was left behind the sleeping sun. All across the green and surrounding the tall fountain, hundreds of small canvas field tents had been pitched in tightly ordered rows. Lanterns hung on poles lit the rows within the tent town. More were hanging above tent flaps, and others were spreading their glow from within, lighting canvas walls like the sides of large lamp shades.

  All around, Acolytes were racing, shouting, and laughing—like the coming wave of transmortal refugees and Order members was cause for a festival. Three boys were struggling to force a fourth into the fountain. In the distance, tent stakes were pulled and cries of revenge went up as canvas collapsed.

  Cyrus, Antigone, and Arachne stood on the gravel path beside the green and watched. Antigone laughed.

  “I’ll follow you,” Arachne said to Cyrus. “Go where you will.”

  Antigone stepped toward the main building. “Let’s go down to the lake.”

  Cyrus turned the other way and began to walk.

  “Okay, fine!” Antigone said, and she jogged up beside her brother. “Where are we going, fearless leader?”

  “You can go to the lake,” Cyrus said. “Go where you wanna go.”

  “Sorry,” said Arachne from behind them. “You’re staying together.”

  Cyrus watched the tents as they passed. A few Acolytes seemed to notice them, but not many. They were too preoccupied with their own comic turf wars.

  He could hear an airplane landing, but he didn’t look for it. He needed to get out of the courtyard gate, away from the green, and into the little street where Mrs. Eldridge had taken them a year ago to get their Order clothes when they’d first arrived. He hadn’t ever been back, but he was sure the right building wouldn’t be hard to find.

  Antigone nudged him. “Cy? What’s going on? Why so surly?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Cyrus. “I’m not surly.”

  “Oh, come on,” Antigone said, and she brushed back her hair. “Are you being a grouch because I bossed Dennis when you were bossing Dennis? Are we only allowed to boss one at a time now? Or is it because Diana is leaving and we can’t? If I think about it, I start to get surly, too.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “Tigs, I’m not surly. Not at all. I’m just, well …” He trailed off. What was he? Not happy. Not unhappy. It wasn’t like that. Worried? Unsure? The transmortals were afraid. And if they were … He felt like there was something dark creeping up behind him. Or something heavy hanging right above him that was about to fall. Phoenix was out there somewhere, using the tooth William Skelton had handed to Cyrus. The Acolytes could laugh and play and camp on the green, but something seriously unpleasant was brewing. And Cyrus could do what?

  Antigone was watching him. “Well,” she said, “you’re either surly, or you’re some synonym for
surly.”

  Cyrus looked at his sister as they walked along the path, looping around the green toward the gate.

  “I’m not exactly helpful to the Order, am I, Tigs?” Cyrus scattered a lump of gravel with his toe. “I lost the tooth. Phoenix is out there doing whatever he’s doing while you and I prepare to be locked up with half the spiders on this planet.”

  Antigone opened her mouth, and then clicked it shut and scrunched her face. Cyrus watched her. He knew she wanted to argue him into being cheerful. But he also knew that she knew that arguing with him would only make him worse.

  Suddenly, Cyrus laughed. “I am a little surly.”

  Antigone smiled. “Let’s go with surlyish.”

  “I miss Dan.” Cyrus sighed and glanced back at Arachne. Her eyes were down, focused on the sharp turf edge to the grass beside them. He could see faint shadows and whispers of tiny movement on the path behind her. Were all spiders her spiders? Did they really just find her anywhere?

  A pack of giggling Acolytes raced by, weighed down with what had to be water balloons. It would have been nice to be one of them.

  His eyes drifted up to the main building. The statues on the roofline carved black shadows against the dark sky. Four bulbous shapes were floating above them.

  Cyrus turned Antigone around to see. Arachne stopped beside them.

  “What are they?” Antigone asked. “What’s going on?”

  Arachne took them each by a wrist. Her grip was cool and calming on Cyrus’s skin. Her voice was quiet.

  “We should go back now,” she said, and she pulled.

  Cyrus resisted. “No, no, it’s fine.” He looked into his babysitter’s face, and he grinned. “I know what they are. Really. Watch.”

  Four small football-shaped hot-air balloons with quiet rear propellers dropped down over the tented green. Each balloon was armed with a cannon for firing bread. While Cyrus and Antigone and Arachne stood and watched, the Journeymen in the balloons began their assault on the Acolytes below.

  Loaves rained down and tents collapsed. Acolytes scattered, shouting in confusion. In mere moments, the tent-city neighborhoods had forgotten their feuds and had unified. From various corners, fast-moving teams with oversize slingshots began to launch water balloons as the floating fleet descended on every side.

  A stale loaf thumped to the ground at Cyrus’s feet. Laughing, he and Antigone began to run.

  The battle was still loud and visible when they ducked through the gate and into the little road. The shouts still echoed and the belching bread cannons still phoomphed when they reached the door into the tall, narrow stone building Cyrus was looking for.

  The door was locked, and on the ground floor, the windows were dark. They stayed dark for the first thirty seconds of Cyrus’s banging.

  When a light did flick on, Cyrus stopped. His sister studied him.

  “And we’re here why?” she asked. “You need another flight jacket?”

  Arachne had stepped close to the wall and was looking up, studying the eaves.

  The front door opened, and Cyrus felt cool air-conditioning rush out around him, carrying the smell of old leather and oil and mothballs and four generations of recollected clothes.

  An old man glared at them from the doorway. His eyebrows were even more tremendous than Cyrus had remembered. He had a crumpled cigarette tucked above his hairy left ear, and another soggy, unlit, and thoroughly chewed cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “Mr. Donald,” Cyrus said, relieved that he could remember the man’s name. “I’m sorry to bother—”

  “Smiths,” the man snorted. “Nineteen-fourteen guidelines. What do you want with Old Donald right now?”

  Cyrus smiled and made sure he didn’t look at his sister. “Patches,” he said. “Some old patches.”

  Antigone moaned. “Cyrussel …”

  “I will start calling you Tigger again,” Cyrus said, still smiling. “Not you,” he said to Donald. “Just her. And only when she’s a total pain.”

  “Patches,” Donald said. “Not many patches needed now.”

  “I know,” said Cyrus. “But I also know that you keep everything. You have to have some patches.”

  Without answering, Donald turned and walked back into his shop. He hadn’t invited Cyrus in, but he hadn’t closed the door, either.

  Cyrus followed him, and Antigone trickled along behind. Arachne stayed in the street.

  The two of them tracked the man around and between the mountains of leather flight jackets and the ladders propped against them. They slid past a pyramid of riding boots and shelf after shelf of safari shirts and jodhpurs and fatigues. They pushed on, farther than they had gone before, to the very back of the shop. And there, the two of them stopped in front of a towering set of tiny drawers, like an ancient and oversize card catalog from a precomputer library. It was at least ten feet tall and fifteen wide. The wood was dark, but the stain was worn thin in places, revealing a light grain beneath. Each drawer was only a few inches across and had a little brass handle.

  Donald sniffed and leaned against it. “Patches,” he said. “What are you hoping for?”

  Cyrus scanned the drawers. “Smiths,” he said. “The old family crest. Do you have one?”

  Donald’s eyebrows collapsed down over his eyes. “I might. What will you be doing with it?”

  Cyrus shrugged. “I just want one. Or a couple. I’m a Smith.”

  “Well, I don’t have a couple,” Donald said. “I have one. And it’s not for sale. And not for display, especially right about now, with the transmor—with the immortals flowing in.”

  Cyrus cleared his throat. He had to sound confident. He had no experience negotiating for anything. “Everything’s for sale,” he said. That sounded right. “I know there’s a price or something. Just tell me how much you want.” That was wrong and he knew it. He was going to get gouged.

  Donald’s eyebrows climbed slightly and wobbled. He gnawed on his cigarette.

  Be confident, Cyrus told himself. He felt Antigone’s hand on his elbow and ignored it.

  “Can you get it now?” Cyrus asked. “Please.”

  Donald fetched a short stepladder.

  The little drawer he opened was in the very top row. From inside it, he pulled a small white cloth sleeve. Then he climbed back down, held it out to Cyrus, and chewed his cigarette.

  While Antigone leaned in over his shoulder, Cyrus slid the patch out onto his palm.

  The colors were old but still rich, and the patch’s embroidery was incredibly intricate. It was a shield, but not a simple shield. Its curves were exaggerated and … Gothic? Medieval? Flowy? Cyrus searched for words briefly, and then focused on the design itself.

  The shield was bloodred with a thin gold border. A thick gold diagonal stripe ran across it. Inside the gold stripe, there were three heads, shown in surprising detail. The upper head was the oldest and bearded. The center head had a long mustache that hung down past his jaw. The lowest head was young and clean-shaven. All of them had black hair. All of them had a stripe of red blood at the base of their necks, and all of them were wide-eyed and apparently conscious.

  Above the shield, there was an unfurling scroll, embroidered with a Latin motto.

  Sic Semper Draconis

  Cyrus traced the old thread with his fingertip.

  “Cy …,” Antigone said.

  “I know,” said Cyrus. “Thus to all dragons.”

  Antigone sighed. “Close enough.”

  five

  LOCKDOWN

  CYRUS OPENED HIS EYES, yawned, and tried to stretch—something his hammock wouldn’t allow. Frustrated, he kicked his one thin blanket onto the floor, swung over the side, and dropped onto his sleep-tender bare feet. Straining his arms toward the ceiling, muscles quivering back to life, he stared at his bedroom window.

  The solid sheet of spider silk was backlit by the morning sun, and the whole room glowed silver. The weave was tight, complicated, and perfect. Cyrus stepped forward, squ
inting. There was a design in the center, the ghost of an image, embroidered with silk on silk—the shield and boxing monkey of the Polygoners.

  Cyrus smiled. “Tigs, you see this?” He looked at the other hammock. Antigone was gone.

  Once he was in the living room, Cyrus heard the rush and rattle of water through pipes in the floor. On the other side of the wall, he heard the shower bleat and hum. A muffled yelp told him that his sister was braving the water too soon.

  Cyrus dropped into the armchair and looked at the windows and the fireplace. The weave of the silk was a little different on each one. And the embroidered image changed. In the first window, the monkey had shaken off his boxing gloves. Over the fireplace, he had stepped outside of his shield. In the next window, he was swinging away.

  “Good morning,” Arachne said.

  Cyrus jolted in his chair. Arachne was stepping out from the Book Dump. She was in the same black clothes she’d worn the day before, but her hair was pulled into a tight braid. Her eyes were alive and bright.

  “Did you sleep in there?” Cyrus asked.

  Arachne nodded. “I did. Up at the top of the piles, near the ceiling.”

  Cyrus looked all around. Behind him, another sheet of silk covered the front door. He couldn’t see if there were any extra images.

  Arachne sat in the wooden dining chair across from him.

  “Where are the spiders?” Cyrus asked.

  “Eating,” Arachne said. “Sleeping. Resting. They had a long night, but they’re close if I need them.”