The Drowned Vault

by N. D. Wilson

  “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.”

  Antigone kept her head on a swivel as she followed Rupert. The strange hush of the place was even more disturbing to her than the little houses. She could hear birds rustling far above. The snatch of a word, lost in echo. A small crash in the distance. The bark of a dog barely louder than her own breathing.

  And then, from behind her, came the sounds of a bicycle. She turned just as a boy wheeled into their lane and shot past, staring at them with wide eyes. Rupert nodded at the boy’s back.

  “Exhibit A,” he said. “Most likely, his mother found this place by accident, but would now die gladly if it meant her son would be empowered to serve her new Dracul god. I’ve seen it before.”

  Antigone felt sick as she watched the boy pedal away. When he looked back over his shoulder at her, she waved.

  They were close now. Rupert led Antigone around one more corner, and the stone pillar rose up ahead of them. It had the uneven skin of a stalagmite, and around its base was a crudely built circular platform, like a stage, covered in loose wooden planks. She felt suddenly grateful to whoever had decided to build the thing. That’s where she and Rupert had bounced, and without it, she probably wouldn’t be alive—or at least not walking. The lower third of the pillar was covered with disordered carvings—crude portraits, and scrawled words in alphabets Antigone didn’t recognize, and in some alphabets she did. She saw Latin and Greek and Arabic, and in many places, names with dates, and in others, two simple initials together inside a heart. She almost laughed, curious how long people had been doing that. Probably as long as there had been sharp objects to scratch with. There was probably an A + E in the Garden of Eden.

  She looked up. The stone underside of the balancing room was at least thirty feet above the platform. “How did you know we would be okay when you jumped?” she asked.

  “I didn’t,” Rupert said. “I hoped. If I’d known it was that high, I wouldn’t have. Come on, then. No point in waiting.” He scrambled onto the platform and walked toward an old rusty spiral stair that wound up to one of the room’s corners.

  Antigone climbed behind Rupert, sometimes pausing to let the stairs’ shaking lessen. The blackbird had already fluttered to the top.

  Antigone couldn’t imagine Gilgamesh and the Red Beard pig climbing at the same time. If some of the treads hadn’t already held Rupert, she wouldn’t have trusted them at all.

  They moved as quietly as they could, but rusty screws whined, and treads popped and sighed. As they neared the top, Antigone could see that the two solid walls of the room joined in the corner they were climbing toward.

  “Psst!” she heard from below.

  She looked down. The boy on the bicycle was at the bottom of the stairs.

  “That’s not smart,” he said. “He’ll eat you. He ate my sister.”

  Rupert leaned over the handrail. “Ate?” he whispered.

  The boy nodded. “He picked me, and ate her. I hate him.”

  “Did your mother
bring you here?” Rupert asked.

  The boy nodded. “She won’t leave.”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “Would you like to leave?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Then wait right there,” Rupert whispered. “We’ll only be a minute.”

  The top of the stairs dead-ended in a little metal landing jutting out from the joined stone corner.

  Rupert rested his hands on the stone. Antigone’s heartbeat was tap-dancing on her eardrums. She didn’t like this. Not at all. The bird hopped onto her shoulder and shifted from one leg to the other.

  “Stay right here,” Rupert whispered, and he pulled.

  The wall split along the seam of the corner as two thick stone doors swung smoothly toward them, leaving the corner gapped wide.

  Antigone’s dancing heart stopped.

  In the center of the room, coiled in the worn circle in the stone floor, there was a dragon.

  The dragon was sleeping. Its scales had an oily sheen and were the color of dried blood. Two stumps protruded from its shoulders where wings might once have been. Its thick, spiny tail twisted away to the open corner of the room and ended in a bulbous cluster of black spines. They were smoking. On top of its head, two curly horns twisted back into a black mane, and on its snout was a shorter horn, bent back like a scythe. A single intact chain bound the dragon’s foreleg. Three shattered chains trailed across the floor from its other limbs.

  Antigone couldn’t move. She wanted to run or close her eyes or even scream. Instead, she bit her lower lip hard. The bird was frozen on her shoulder. Together, they watched Rupert Greeves limp quietly into the room.

  He turned and moved out of view, walking toward one of the empty walls.

  No. Antigone’s panic unlocked her limbs. Rupert couldn’t do this alone. She stepped into the doorway, and then just inside the room.

  The room’s empty walls were full of sky, sun and clouds and blue. Rupert reached the end of the stone wall. Steadying himself by resting a hand on it, he peered down into the abyss. After only a moment, he lifted his head and continued on, limping along the edge of the floor toward the other open wall. When he reached the empty corner, he carefully circled around the tail, which rasped on the stone floor as it swished.

  Antigone watched the dragon’s sealed eye. She watched the slowly moving tail.

  Rupert reached the other end of the room and looked down, his bloodied shirt rippling in the wind.

  The dragon was going to wake up. Antigone knew it. And as she watched, the great eyelid flickered, then slid open. A golden eye rolled in its socket. If it saw Rupert, he was dead.

  Without thinking, Antigone yelled. “Hey!”

  The dragon leapt to its feet. Crouched on all fours, it sniffed at her like a wolf the size of a whale. It lashed its tail, just missing knocking Rupert over the edge.

  “Where’s Rupert?” Antigone asked, making it up as she went along. “What did you do with him?” She locked her eyes on the dragon’s face, without even a glance at her Keeper, trapped on the other side of the beast.

  The dragon yawned like a crocodile, his jaw popping like snapping branches, flashing white fangs and a slender yellow tongue mottled black. There was enough room in there for Antigone to lie down.

  The beast slid forward, but Antigone didn’t move. The chain cinched tight around the scaled foreleg, and the dragon stopped, only feet away from Antigone, its black claws clacking at the very edge of the worn circle. It puffed hot breath from its nostrils, rustling Antigone’s hair. It smelled like rotting apples. She didn’t see any smoke, but maybe she wasn’t supposed to.

  Rupert was creeping along the edge of the floor toward the nearest solid wall.

  “If you can’t speak, turn back into a man,” Antigone said. “Then tell me where he is.” She tried to glare into its eyes, but they were far apart. And huge.

  I can speak.

  Oh, crap, Antigone thought. The voice was in her head.

  Yes. You know where he is. You will tell me.…

  With only a moment to act, Antigone looked to the empty side of the room—where Rupert wasn’t—and shouted, “Rupe, jump!”

  The dragon whirled one way while Rupert raced forward from the other. At the same time, the dragon’s tail cracked like a whip. The blackbird lifted off from Antigone’s shoulder as she ducked, and the tail sailed over her head, clattering down the stairs behind her.

  Thinking only of Rupert, Antigone stepped under the tail and stood back up. That was her mistake.

  Metal stair treads and the handrail were shredded as the dragon snapped its tail back into the room. The spines slammed into Antigone’s back and pinned her to the landing. She screamed as they tore through her pack and into her ribs.

  Rupert leapt over the tail, crashed onto the stairs, and grabbed Antigone’s ankles.

  The dragon swung back to the door and roared, its mouth wide. It cracked and lashed its tail as it tried to reel Antigone into the room and closer to its snapping jaws.

  The spines dug deeper into Antigone’s back, and her screaming died. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were pierced, collapsing. The blackbird swooped into the room and attacked the dragon’s head, pecking and clawing at its eyes. The dragon recoiled. Snapping at the air, it released Antigone and pulled its tail back into the room. Antigone tumbled through the door and into her Keeper’s arms.

  Rupert let go of Antigone and crawled over the top of her to slam the doors.

  Gasping for air, Antigone writhed on the steel landing. Her lungs wouldn’t expand. Rupert flipped her over and pulled up the back of her shredded safari shirt.

  “Breathe,” he said. “Breathe. It will pass. Breathe.”

  Antigone clenched her teeth tight. “Mom,” she said. “Mom.”

  “Breathe,” Rupert said, pressing his hand down hard on her back. The blackbird landed on the floor in front of Antigone’s face and screamed worry.

  Antigone shut her eyes, and she breathed.

  Her back felt pierced; she felt skewered and torn. But as she breathed, as her lungs filled, the panic faded. Rupert pressed down hard, and it was like the deep gouges rose up to meet his palm.

  “What,” Antigone grunted, “are you doing?” She still hurt, but the pain seemed to be all in the pressure of Rupert’s hands.

  Beyond the closed stone doors, the dragon was raging. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see flashing flame trail away beneath the high rafters. The whole pillared room shook. The stairs rocked beneath her.

  Screws were squealing. Popping.

  “It isn’t me,” Rupert said. “I’m not doing anything. Thank Arachne, her ten thousand spiders, and the power in her weaver’s fingers.”

  He lifted Antigone and sat her up with her back to the stone. The wire landing shook and rocked beneath them.

  “How are you feeling?” Rupert said.

  Antigone shook her head. “It felt like I was being ripped apart.”

  “You were,” said Rupert. “And yet you weren’t. Angel Skin cannot be pierced by normal weapons, and apparently not by a dragon, either. But if a blow is too strong to turn away, the weave retreats into the wound with the blade, and then heals as it reemerges.”

  Rupert smiled. “Antigone Smith, you were brilliant in there. Amazing. Thank you. I owe you my life. And if possible, Radu Bey now hates Smiths even more than he already did.”

  He looked down the shaking, damaged stairs. “I saw what I needed to see. Phoenix is in an old factory on the Mississippi. I can guess the latitude close enough for low flying. Our people are already there and circling, in what looked like two of the Boones’ planes. Gilgamesh can’t be too far behind. It’s time for us to go. Can you walk, or should I carry you?”

  Antigone grabbed for the flimsy handrail, but Rupert pulled her to her feet before she could get it. She closed her eyes, a little dizzy on her feet.

  Rupert gripped Antigone’s wrist and led her down the stai
rs, helping her where the treads were torn or missing. The room above them was quiet. The boy on the bicycle watched from below. The stairs wobbled beneath their bouncing weight.

  They were almost halfway down when the dragon’s tail lashed out of the open wall toward the stairs. Fire blasted out of the smoking spines and smacked into the metal landing, knocking it loose.

  Antigone pushed Rupert in the back. Metal screamed as the whole staircase began to fall, tipping to the side.

  Around. Around. Around. Rupert was faster. He reached the bottom and rolled free. Antigone vaulted over the handrail, dropped the last eight feet, and rolled on impact.

  Wobbling and bending like a damaged spring, the stairs fell to the floor, smashing through crates and shelves and cottages.

  The boy was still perched on his bicycle.

  “C’mon,” he said. “I know a way out.” He began to pedal away.

  Antigone groaned and stood. “We’re not really running after him, are we?”

  “Yes, we are,” Rupert said. And he began to jog, limping as he went.

  It wasn’t a long run, but long enough for Antigone to get a stitch in her side. This time they passed more people in the rows, gazing up at the pillared room. Wild-eyed whispering men and cowering women, dozens of children, and even more dogs. They watched the bicyclist and Rupert and Antigone as they jogged past, and then they looked back at the room on the pillar with worry in their eyes.

  “I’m leaving!” the boy on the bicycle shouted. “Don’t tell my mother.”

  The other children joined them, and the dogs couldn’t help themselves. By the time the boy had led them to a towering wall and an inset flight of stairs, they’d become a parade.

  The worried voices of mothers called after them, but only a few children turned back. Surrounded by shouts and laughter and barking, Antigone and Rupert climbed the long flight of stone stairs. The boy carried his bicycle up beside them. At the top, they looked back over the tremendous room, a Burial that had been discovered but whose prisoner could not be freed, surrounded by servants and junk and treasure hidden in shadow. It made Antigone think of some old Eastern potentate, entombed with his wives and animals and thousands of servants doomed to die just because he had. Entombed and then forgotten.