The Drowned Vault

by N. D. Wilson

  The wiry man had shaved, and his mud hair was oiled into curls. He smiled. “Mr. Greeves,” he said. “You appear to be all wet.”

  “I have bound Gilgamesh of Uruk in the Polygon, after the attempted murder of two Journeymen of this Estate. It is his final violation. He is eligible for Burial.”

  A whisper danced through the crowd.

  Bellamy Cook let his head drop, chin against his embroidered chest as if lost in thought. When he spoke, it was to the floor, but his sharp voice filled the room.

  “The Brendan will not consider Burial in any case. We no longer have authority over our immortal allies. Gilgamesh of Uruk is accountable to the laws of his own Order. As soon as they have a chance to establish themselves, I suggest that you notify them of your charges.” Bellamy looked up. “As for you, Rupert Greeves, Keeper of the Ashtown Estate, we thank you for your service. Our allies in the Ordo Draconis now offer us protection, and all the strength we could ever need. The primitive office of Avengel—”

  Rupert took another step forward, and his booming voice rattled the upper windows.

  “I am the Avenger of Blood! Where my brothers fall, there I will be. Where my sisters stumble, there you will find me. My road is paved with shadow, and my bed is made of pain. I am the Keeper of unmarked graves and the walker of forgotten tombs. I am the point of Brendan’s spear, and the hunter of Brendan’s enemies, wherever they may be. So I have sworn, so it has been, so it shall be—till Death bend me and the ground take me.”

  For a long moment, the room was silent. And then Rupert was backing slowly away, pulling Cyrus and Antigone with him. Bellamy Cook nodded at the front row. Tall shapes began to stand, but the crowd was already closing, swallowing their Avengel and his Smiths.

  • • •

  Outside, the heat haze suppressed the sun’s glare, but not the sun itself. The fire orb sat high in the sky, pearly perfect without its flame halo. Cyrus would have normally given it more appreciation, but he was jogging to keep up with Rupert’s long strides. They’d lost Nolan, but somewhere in the crowd Rupert had snagged Dennis Gilly by the back of the neck, and he was now dragging the porter alongside him, delivering a long string of instructions into the boy’s ear.

  Antigone looked at her brother as they ran. “What now?” she asked. Her wet hair was slicked straight back, and the blood on her forehead had dried. Her bare feet didn’t flinch on the gravel path. As for Cyrus, his head was splitting, salt water was still draining out of his sinuses and down the back of his throat, and his whole body felt like he had fallen out of a tree. It was even hard to jog straight.

  He snorted and spat on the gravel. “I think we’re leaving,” Cyrus said. “With Rupert.”

  Ahead of them, Rupert released Dennis with a whoop and slapped his backside. The porter raced away without a glance back. Rupert turned.

  “Smiths!” He was almost cheerful. “No time for pain. Hurry now, hurry.” Rupert’s steps were long and quick, his thick arms arched away from his body like a gunfighter’s, and his head was always moving, his eyes sweeping their surroundings. Even his nostrils were flared, like he was catching traces of some enemy in the air.

  “Do you hear that?” Rupert asked, suddenly pausing on the path. “Too low and too fast.”

  Cyrus didn’t hear anything. Antigone shook her head.

  “Don’t stop,” Rupert said. “We need you in your rooms now.”

  Beyond the buildings that surrounded the courtyard, above the trees that lined the hills, the shape of a strange plane appeared. Rupert was right. It was too low and it was definitely too fast. A second later, the shape had become a roar; another second, and the roar had become the plane—olive green, part boomerang and part stingray, Cyrus had never see anything like it. It was like a single wing, but with two jet intakes crowded into the center like gaping nostrils beneath the cockpit.

  The jet ripped through the air above Ashtown, tossing the canvas remnants of the Acolyte tent city like so many leaves. And then it was gone, banking hard and disappearing out over the lake. The roar faded.

  In its wake, a blizzard of red paper rings fluttered and swirled quietly through the air.

  People were flooding out the big main doors and down the steps into the courtyard. All of them watched the strange rings rain down, spinning as they fell, like the seeds of an unknown tree.

  Rupert grabbed Cyrus and Antigone by the shoulders and pulled them back on course, faster this time. He didn’t let go.

  “What are they?” Antigone asked. She grabbed at one and missed.

  “You’ll know soon enough,” said Rupert. “We can’t be in the open right now.”

  Three steps later, the rings were coming down in clouds, rolling down their shoulders, scuffing along the path in front of them, gluing to their wet clothes and wet hair and damp skin as they moved.

  Paper dragons. The head was on the right side of the ring, at three o’clock. The neck and body arched up over the top and then down into the tail. The tail formed the bottom of the ring, looping back up to the head where the tip was folded tight around the dragon’s neck. A flame-shaped wing stuck up off the back, and two clawed legs dangled off the belly, sticking into the empty center of the ring.

  Behind the three runners, the crowd was frozen, watching the red paper rain twist in the air and cover the ground.

  Rupert forced them into the arched walkway that led to their stairs. He pushed them up the stairs first, but cut ahead and banged the door open with his gun drawn when they reached Skelton’s old rooms.

  When he lowered the gun, Cyrus and Antigone followed him in.

  The webs on the windows had been tightened and thickened to the point of near darkness, and the spiders were still working. Jax was already inside, sitting in a corner, clutching an enormous backpack. He clambered to his feet when he saw the Smiths.

  “You’re alive! Are the squid okay? Did they make it?”

  Cyrus snorted. “I don’t know, man. Maybe if they like eating Whip Spiders.”

  Jax nodded and sat back down. “Good. They’ll be fine for a while.”

  Arachne walked toward them. “Sorry, Rupe,” she said. “I’m not ready for the skins.” She clicked her teeth, and Cyrus heard a rustling behind him. He jumped away from the door as hundreds of spiders began to unroll a rippling silver sheet from above the jamb. It was smooth and light, but it looked tougher than steel wool.

  “Fine,” Rupert said. “Things are moving faster than I’d hoped. Lock this place down, but expect Nolan. He’ll be playing shuttle service for some others through the vent. Antigone, do whatever Arachne tells you. Cyrus, you’re coming with me.”

  Arachne plucked a paper dragon off Rupert’s shoulder, her eyes wide. “Already? It’s been years.”

  “Not years,” Rupert said. “Centuries.”

  “Have you opened one?” she asked.

  “Don’t need to see what’s in the belly to know what’s there.” Rupert banged open the doors to Dump Number One and the Book Dump, and then grabbed the knob to the room Cyrus and Antigone had never managed to open. The knob turned, but the door didn’t budge. He looked at Cyrus with eyebrows raised.

  Cyrus shrugged. “It was like that when we showed up.”

  Arachne delicately unfolded the dragon’s tail from around its neck while Antigone hovered at her elbow. The paper unfolded and uncreased easily in her weaver’s hands—the claws disappeared, and the fiery wing splayed open and flattened into mere paper. Then the body opened and Arachne was holding nothing but a delicate red page with a bizarre outline.

  “Well?” Rupert asked. Arachne exhaled slowly, and Cyrus leaned in to see.

  In the center of the paper were three small, brightly colored crests arranged in a triangle. The bottom right corner of the triangle was a winged silver chess knight on a deep blue background. Beside it was a red shield with three severed heads. Above them both was a black shield with a scarlet taloned bird with wings spread. In one claw it held a flame; in the other, a skull
.

  “The crest of the Laughlins,” Arachne said quietly. “That one is for Phoenix.”

  Behind them, Rupert spun and, with a huge booted kick, split the door to the locked room right down the middle. Then he attacked the shards, clearing a hole and shouldering his way through.

  “Boarded up from the inside,” Rupert said, flinging splintered scraps behind him. “Old wood. Get in here, Cyrus.”

  Cyrus lifted his bare feet carefully over the splintered wood and ducked through the hole. The dim room on the other side was not what he’d expected—not that he’d expected anything. But given the state of the rest of the rooms when they’d moved in—especially the library—he certainly hadn’t expected tidiness.

  There was a film of dust on everything, but even that wasn’t too heavy. The floor was oiled and polished wood; a plush rug covered half of it. There was a small cot with a pillow and a folded blanket. Two slippers sat side by side beneath it. There was a hot plate and a tiny refrigerator, one tall, tightly packed bookshelf, and a two-drawer filing cabinet. The top drawer was labeled MAPS, and the bottom drawer was labeled LAWNEY. Rupert jerked the bottom drawer open and then kicked it shut again. It was empty.

  There was also a desk with an old wooden chair behind it, and a small artist’s table with a stool. On the artist’s table were detailed drawings on strange, fragile paper. Cyrus immediately recognized it as rice paper. The same kind of paper that had been used to make the floating lantern globe Skelton had left them in his will, the globe that had been covered with indecipherable ink scrawling. Cyrus would have looked at the paper more closely, but Rupert whistled at him from the opposite corner of the room.

  “All of this makes sense,” Rupert said. “For years I knew Skelton had to be in and out of Ashtown. But I assumed his little lizard lawyer John Horace Lawney hid him.”

  “Rupert Greeves, you’re in no position to be making slighting remarks.”

  Cyrus spun around and laughed. Bald and spectacled, the lawyer himself was sticking his head through the door. “Really, Rupert,” Horace said. “I thought we were past all this suspicion and doubt.”

  “Horace!” Cyrus said. “We haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “And that,” Rupert said, “is just one of the reasons we haven’t gotten ‘past all this suspicion.’ The so-called estate of William Skelton hasn’t done much for his heirs.”

  The short lawyer stepped into the room. He was as stout and calmly pompous as the day Cyrus had first met him, sitting on Cyrus’s bed in room 111 of the Archer Motel, surrounded by the debris of Cyrus’s shattered wall. Now, like then, he was wearing tweed trousers and a tweed vest, but no jacket. And he was completely filthy, trailing hair snarls and cobwebs.

  “Were you in the vents?” Cyrus asked.

  Horace nodded briskly, adjusted his half-moon glasses, and squared off with Rupert. “You saw the will,” he said. “You witnessed the unsealing. The estate has been sufficient financially, but I was as surprised as you were at the somewhat modest contents.”

  Rupert stepped toward the lawyer, towering above him—looking almost straight down. “No, Horace, I don’t know that. What I think is that you were hiding Skelton’s full holdings, because to reveal them would have been an admission that you maintained and controlled illegal assets for years.”

  Horace sniffed. “You are, of course, free to believe whatever nonsense you like.”

  “Um, why are we in here?” asked Cyrus.

  Rupert looked at Cyrus, then turned back to Horace. “We are here to discover how the outlaw Skelton used to slip in and out of Ashtown.”

  Horace rolled his eyes. “And I would know that how?”

  “Horace …,” Rupert said. “This is an opportunity for you to avoid a beating.” His voice was low, but there was distant thunder in it.

  “Fine.” Horace pointed at the ceiling. “When Skelton did come, he came through there. He dropped in, as it were. Check the desk. There’s a bottle opener on one of the drawer fronts. Lift it up.”

  Rupert holstered his gun and jumped around the desk as Cyrus studied the high ceiling. It was covered with dingy tin squares, each bent and shaped to look like plaster.

  “Mr. Cyrus,” the lawyer said, “I hope that you and your sister feel that I am above suspicion of any wrongdoing. I did get shot in the line of duty—serving as your Order solicitor.”

  Cyrus laughed. “And we saved your life.” He glanced at the little lawyer. “Rupe is right. What you told us about Skelton’s estate wasn’t true. We got these rooms and just enough money to pay our Order dues and send Dan to college.”

  Horace sniffed, but before he could respond, four tin squares banged out of the ceiling, followed by a bundle of rope and boards. Wooden treads rattled and clattered down onto knots until finally the whole thing was swinging gently in place—a spiral staircase made of rope. The lowest tread was just a few inches above the floor.

  Rupert eyed the swinging ropes and treads, then sat down on the desk, crossed his arms, and stared at Horace.

  “What?” Horace said. “I was his lawyer. I couldn’t have told you when he came and went. Not ethically.”

  “You realize,” Rupert said, “that I am currently in a lot of trouble with our beloved O of B?”

  “I do,” said Horace. “And I’m sorry about that. If I thought I could help—”

  “In fact,” said Rupert, “it is likely that my relationship with the Order is nearing its end. You’ve heard this?”

  Horace nodded.

  “Then my question is this.” Rupert pulled at his short beard. “Would I be in any more trouble if I shot you right now? Think about it. Don’t answer too quickly. I want your legal opinion.”

  Horace laughed, but his eyes were jumpy. “You wouldn’t. This is just cheap theater.”

  Rupert shrugged and set his gun on the desk. “You’re right. I’m not going to shoot you. But when we’ve gone, I’m going to have a rumor sent Gil’s way, a rumor that John Horace Lawney the seventh knows full well where we are, and that John Horace Lawney the seventh helped us leave.” Rupert smiled. “How’s that sound, mate? I don’t want my threats to be cheap.”

  Horace had turned white. “He’ll kill me,” he said.

  “Eventually,” said Rupert. “But you’re mortal. It was bound to happen sometime.”

  Horace sniffed and took off his glasses. He was polishing them on his vest when he finally spoke. “I’m not a thief. I was going to give them everything,” he said. “Eventually.”

  Rupert’s eyes narrowed. “Why the fraudulent will? Why the game?”

  “You,” said Horace. “Skelton made me swear never to reveal the contents of the estate to any officer of the O of B. He thought you’d confiscate it and that the children would get nothing. The will was always going to be a fake—the will the Order saw. I was to communicate the rest directly to the Smiths—off the record, completely off book.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Cyrus asked. “A little money would have been nice. We’ve been sleeping in hammocks.”

  Horace nodded at Rupert. “I was in the hospital. Eleanor Eldridge was killed, and then the Avengel himself became your Keeper. As long as that was the case, the full estate could wait.”

  Rupert stood. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Money, and a lot of it, needs to show up in traditional non-Order bank accounts in the names of Cyrus and Antigone Smith. And it needs to show up fast. When the storm has blown, you can tell them what else is theirs. I’ll not probe—they can tell me about whatever they choose to. Is that clear?”

  “Mr. Greeves,” Horace said, cheerfully popping his glasses back on. “It is. I appreciate the—”

  “Jeb!” Rupert bellowed.

  Jeb Boone stuck his head in through the broken door.

  Rupert nodded at Horace. “Keep an eye on him. Tie him up if you have to, but the lawyer doesn’t leave until we’re gone.”

  Jeb nodded.

  “Has the herd arrived yet?” Rupert asked. “Who al
l is here?”

  “Everyone, I think,” said Jeb. “Diana, Antigone, Dennis the porter, Jax, Nolan, Arachne, and a little staffer named Hillary. Dennis brought her.”

  “Good. Get them ready and keep them calm. One pack per, if they have gear—and only if they can carry it themselves.”

  Rupert stepped cautiously on the lowest tread of the rope stairs, letting the whole structure swing for a moment before he began to climb. Jeb escorted Horace back to the broken door, but the little lawyer hesitated.

  “Mr. Cyrus,” Horace said, “I am sorry things have been so … complicated.”

  Cyrus rolled his eyes. “Things have been real simple on our end.”

  Cyrus stepped onto the spiral rope stairs. Using his hands on the treads in front of him like he was climbing a ladder, he scurried up.

  Squatting in the darkness beneath attic rafters, Rupert was waiting for him, poking at an old electric coil gun that was strapped to a beam, pointed down the rope stairs.

  “Crude but effective,” Rupert said. “At least if it still held a charge.” He stood as tall as he could under the low ceiling and began to weave his way down a narrow plank path. “Mind the route, Cyrus Smith. You’ll have to retrace it.” He glanced back as Cyrus scuffed along through the dust. “Maps and mazecraft have their uses. Remember that.”

  Cyrus followed Rupert as their attic met up with other attics—crossing or joining the hollow, dust-filled skulls of adjacent buildings. To Cyrus, the taste of the dust was old and familiar—he had eaten a lot of it in the barns and haylofts out in the pastures behind the Archer Motel. Even in the rafters of his school, the perches he had retreated into when teachers and classes and desks and chairs and the whole organized world became too much for him.

  The planks in the attic paths were loose and uneven, balanced on the rafters wherever there was headroom beneath the sloping roves. Petrified tar hung down, and nail tips nicked his scalp when he stood too tall. Old insulation kicked up around his bare toes and floated in the slanting slices of light that slipped through the occasional roof vents.