A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire, Book Two) Read online

  I searched my sleeve for a stray thread, found one, and pulled. Cutting it with my teeth, I handed it over to Maria, who looked at the thread like it would bite her. Then, taking a deep breath to prepare, I lightly sliced my thumb with my blade. I’d been as delicate as possible, but the sting still made my eyes water. Blood welled up and ran down my hand. Maria gasped in shock as I took the thread, bloodied it, and handed it back once more. She looked at me as though I’d gone mad.

  “Hold the thread out tight in front of me.”

  “Eh?” But she obeyed, furrowing her brow at handling the bloody thing.

  My thumb throbbed, but I put it out of my mind. Closing my eyes, I thought, What is false becomes true. What is false becomes true. I pictured an invisible curtain lifting off the farmhouse, and my blood began to hum softly. Using Porridge, I sliced the thread and opened my eyes.

  A slit rent the fog down the center, clean as if done by a blade. Buttery sunshine poured out of the wound in the air. Magnus cheered while a gaping Maria poked her hand through. Blackwood’s eyes widened, but he made no sound.

  “Sorcerers can’t do…that,” Maria breathed.

  We took a moment for Maria to pour water on my cut and bandage it. Then, one by one, we stepped through the hole and into a strange, surreal wonderland.

  The grass, which before had been weedy and sparse, now grew emerald, lush, and knee-high. Plants I could never hope to identify bloomed in abundance. One shrub displayed flowers with spiky petals of a grayish-bluish-purplish color; the sight of it lowered my spirits. Another hedge contained leaves that were a riotous shade of pink, flowering buds opening and closing as we passed. If you looked closely, you could catch tiny, jeweled eyes peering out at you from inside the depths of the flower. Extraordinary.

  “Look at the house,” Blackwood said, his voice soft with astonishment.

  The squat, mossy cottage was gone. In its place stood an elegant house done in the Tudor style, with a gabled roof, leaded glass windows, and an arched entryway of brick. One side of the house was covered in a lush growth of ivy. Weather vanes decorated the roof, elaborate iron designs that took the shapes of giant whales and squids fighting, and a decapitated man juggling his own head. The house was so soaked in magic that it made one dizzy, the waves of power that radiated from the building an almost physical force.

  I could feel it, the pressure on the inside of my skull, the sensation of something slithering over my skin. Raw magic. Not elemental, but from some other world.

  Like the Ancients.

  I led the way up the path. Entering was difficult; the door was a thick metal, strangely orange in color. It had been closed a long while, because it squealed when the boys tried forcing it. Eventually, it began to yield. Cautious, I watched for a sign of…anything.

  “Together now,” I said as Magnus readied himself. “We’re not entirely sure what’s in here.”

  “If we’re lucky, it’ll only be some sort of black mold,” Maria said, balancing on the balls of her feet. She was as alert to danger as a cat.

  “That’s luck?” Magnus grunted, throwing open the door. A burst of sour air met us, as if the house had exhaled. Wincing, I waited. Nothing came screaming out to attack us, so we moved in, one after the other. I entered first, flinching when a cobweb brushed my face.

  I stopped dead in the entryway, so Magnus accidentally bumped into me. We all grouped together, gazing about in wonderment.

  The room was enormous, four stories high at least. The house we’d glimpsed from the outside was not big enough to support this.

  Magicians.

  A collection of melted-down tallow candles waited on a table right by the door, jammed into iron candleholders shaped like fists. I lit them, and we each took one. The floorboards creaked loudly as the four of us walked through the stillness of the room. Long tables covered with strange-looking objects stretched out on every side. My eyes watered; the place did smell faintly of mold but also of something sickly sweet, like a burnt cake.

  The room was filled with the most extraordinary creatures. Glass cases covered with a fine layer of dust crowded the walls and tables. Wiping the dirt from one bell jar, I discovered a tiny creature, suspended forever in silence. Its face resembled a very large dragonfly’s, bulbous eyes gazing blindly at the world. One lone fang hung from its open mouth. Wings like a bat’s had been posed to resemble flight. The beast could fit into the palm of my hand, though I wouldn’t want to pick it up.

  It looked like an Ancient, only writ small.

  “Look at this bloody thing,” Magnus whispered. Hanging on the wall above our heads was a great skull, the size of a large dog. Three curving tusks protruded from its mouth. This was not a monster anyone would care to anger. Blackwood whistled softly and pointed to the ceiling. A stuffed creature, ten feet long and serpentine, hung suspended there. Silver and blue scales decorated the length of the monster, which appeared to be an eel—only with some kind of feline face.

  Jars of yellow liquid held pickled monstrosities, hearts, eyeballs, organs. Stuffed heads of horned and thorny and spined beasts were mounted on plaques. Here was a bowl of serpent scales; there, a tray bristling with clipped claws and talons.

  So Ralph Strangewayes hadn’t merely summoned Ancients; he had hunted them.

  “Let’s be smart about this.” Blackwood passed his candle from one hand to the other, the flame thinning. “Record everything you see. Once we go over the room, we’ll continue exploring the rest of the house.”

  Yes, the rest of the house. On the far wall, two closed wooden doors awaited us, each decorated with elaborate carvings. The one on the left showed unicorns and goat-hooved satyrs capering among flowers and trees in leafy countryside. Maria threw it open to reveal what appeared to be an everyday dining room, complete with slate stone floor, wooden table, carved chairs. Perfectly standard.

  The door to the right, however, was more menacing, its carvings less wholesome. The trees were leafless and barren, great, pendulous clouds forming overhead. Sharp-horned devils danced around young, half-dressed women who screamed in fright.

  Charming.

  Maria went straight to the other door, yanked it open, and vanished down a pitch-black corridor. What the devil was she up to? The boys were too transfixed with the Ancients to pay any mind, but I moved after her.

  “Maria, where are you going?” I called, though I parked myself at the threshold. The darkness beyond felt, well, rather furry. I shrank from the black as though it might touch me.

  “There might be more of them,” she yelled back. Her bobbing light vanished around a turn. “I want to see where this goes.”

  “Wait for us!” But she had gone ahead, ignoring me. I was about to chase her when Blackwood called my name.

  “Come look at this.” He sounded awestruck. Well, blast it all. Maria was an ax-wielding witch. If she needed help, I got the feeling she’d call.

  Magnus and Blackwood stood before a painting of Ralph Strangewayes. He’d the same bushy beard he’d sported in the painting from Mickelmas’s trunk, the same small, dark eyes, the same long face. Another creature had been painted beside him. This one was insect-like, just as the one under the glass case had been, only large enough to sit at Strangewayes’s feet and come up to his waist. Dragonfly wings erupted out its back. The thing was a vibrant shade of blue.

  “It looks like Holbein painted this,” Blackwood said, finally finding his voice.

  “King Henry the Eighth’s court painter created this?” Magnus said in amazement. He started cutting the portrait out of its frame. The canvas curled as he took it.

  “What are you doing?” Blackwood sounded horrified.

  “Whitechurch may want to see.” Magnus rolled the painting up and shoved it into his pack. He cocked an eyebrow. “I never knew you were such an art lover, Blacky.”

  “Don’t argue,” I said before they really started sniping at each other. “We should go after Maria. She—”

  A scream shattered the quiet
, echoing from the open doorway.

  Without pausing to think, I raced across the room and into the corridor. My candle flame quickly went out. It was as if I’d entered some black, alien world. I set myself burning as I moved forward along the hallway. Twisting and turning, I searched for doorways, for windows, for anything. But there was nothing, no decoration or natural light. Sometimes it seemed the blackness gurgled. It was like traveling into some great loop of intestine, as if the house had digested me and was enjoying its meal.

  Stop that. It was enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Where the bloody hell was Maria?

  Rounding a corner, I nearly stumbled over her. Maria was huddled against the wall with her hands over her ears, her face taut with fear and pain. Her candle had gone out—God, how long had she sat in the dark?

  “You feel it, don’t you?” she cried. Her knees tight against her chest, her brown eyes wide and fearful, she looked nothing like the warrior I’d first met on the cliff.

  “Feel what?” Then my vision blurred. I nearly put a hand to the wall to steady myself, but as I was still on fire it didn’t seem wise. Through my veil of flame, I looked where Maria pointed. The hallway had come to a dead end, and there in the wall was a door.

  On the outside, it appeared perfectly normal. But magic pulsed behind that door, calling to me. Even more so than the room of monstrosities I’d left behind, I knew it deep in my bones: this was what we had been meant to find.

  Opening the door, I stepped inside before I could lose my nerve.

  The room screamed with magic. Runes had been carved into the wooden floor, the walls, the ceiling. Circles, swirls, and lines of runes unfurled around me. My stomach soured. Though I couldn’t read anything in this place, I knew, somehow, that it was obscene. That it was against reason.

  Looking more closely, I saw that some of these runes had been scratched out and burned. I was afraid to think what this room was like before they were eliminated.

  Words of jibberish had also been carved into these walls with a childish, uneven hand. Most of the words were not English, but two phrases were clear, yet frightening.

  All hail the Kindly Emperor read one sentence. Then, beside it in screaming block letters, WITNESS HIS SMILE.

  My brain throbbed in my skull, the pressure too intense. I clamped my hands over my ears, and that eased the pain somewhat. Apart from the swirls of runes and jagged writing, only two other things were in this room.

  One was a cage, about as large as would hold a person. The bars were bent and mangled, rotted with rust. The door appeared to have been blasted open from the inside. My eyes tracked to the second thing: a body, stretched out on the floor.

  At least, it had been a body. The remains were skeletal. The gaping skull’s mouth grinned, teeth crooked and yellow. My eyes tracked over the clothing, now moldering and moth-eaten. The puffed sleeves and doublet looked familiar, like those in the painting Magnus had just stolen.

  “Hello, Ralph Strangewayes,” I whispered.

  The body of the father of English magicianship lay at my feet, and I doubted his death had been natural. The shredded back of his doublet suggested something had ripped into him. Likely, whatever had been trapped in that cage. I placed a handkerchief to my mouth and continued looking about the room. The others had arrived but would not enter. Magnus stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging open. In the pulsating firelight, he looked wraithlike, his shadow warping over the floor. “Don’t come in,” I said, my voice throaty and hoarse.

  “I won’t,” he said. “Howel, get out of there. It feels…evil.”

  I stopped burning, plunging the room into that thick darkness once more. It was broken only by Magnus’s candle, which he’d somehow kept alive. Crossing to him, I took the candle and raised it over my head, examining the room more thoroughly.

  There was something here; I could feel it. I spotted a dagger hanging off Strangewayes’s belt. It was an odd-looking metal, tinted gold-orange, but not rusted in the least. As quickly as possible, I unhooked the belt from around the skeleton’s middle. I’d never stolen from a dead man before, and I hoped never to repeat the process.

  There. Surely that was what I came here to find, wasn’t it? I wanted to get out of this room, but as I made to leave, something wedged in beside the cage caught my eye.

  It was a book. Ordinary as anything, yes, but still a book. Unable to resist, I yanked it out and I hurried from the room, throwing the door shut behind me. The pounding in my head eased the minute I left that cursed place and handed Magnus his candle. Blackwood had helped Maria to her feet, though she still had her hands over her ears.

  “What is this place?” he said.

  “Strangewayes had something captive in there, and it took its revenge,” I said, handing Blackwood the book. As one, we all hurried back the way we’d come, following the impossible turns of the hall. What if we became lost in here? What if we wandered forever, until we became of the dark, and the dark became us?

  Where had that thought come from? We ran until light pierced the darkness ahead and we reemerged into the Ancients’ showroom. Magnus kicked the door shut. Panting, I swore to myself never to go down there again. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead, and my hands were clammy. I had felt like a small child again, clutching the blankets and waiting for storied monsters to come for me out of the dark corners of the room.

  Blackwood stepped away from us and turned the book’s pages, his expression blank. Putting an arm through Maria’s, I walked her about the room. Color began to return to her cheeks.

  This horrible place was a monument to Strangewayes’s perversions, nothing more. What had we gained by coming here?

  “My God,” Blackwood murmured. He turned the book toward me. “Look.”

  Sketches of the monstrosities Strangewayes had left hanging in his display room graced the pages. But I saw what had caught Blackwood’s eye: a bloblike form, bristling all over with dark hairs. It looked—no, it was exactly like Molochoron, the great jellylike Pale Destroyer. I snatched the book from his hand and read, my mouth falling open.

  To drive away, employ cariz, the book said, the script somewhat legible. What “cariz” was, I’d no idea. There were arrows showing points of attack onto Molochoron’s body, porous areas I had never noticed before.

  Drive away. Flipping another page, I found an illustration of a chain, one that fitted itself rather nicely around the leg of some lizard-like creature.

  Ralph Strangewayes had not only written a book about the Ancients; he had shown us how to defeat them.

  “What the devil does he mean by a car-whatsit?” Magnus looked over my shoulder and pointed at the page. My hands trembled as I leafed through the book. I had to be delicate; the paper felt fragile beneath my fingers.

  “This, I believe.” I showed Magnus and Blackwood, now standing about me. There was a sketch of a flutelike instrument with an oddly formed mouthpiece.

  Blackwood took the book from me and flipped through it. “Does it say anything about R’hlem?” He searched the pages, but no. For some reason, the Skinless Man was the only one of our Seven Ancients who did not appear in Strangewayes’s book. What did that mean?

  “Look back at the weapons,” I said, pointing to more sketches. One weapon resembled a wicked sort of scythe, with multiple metal teeth on the edge of the blade. It looked oddly familiar. “Wait a moment.” I turned back to the walls.

  Yes. When we’d first entered, I’d been too stunned to notice. But hanging all around us were the cruelest-looking weapons imaginable.

  There was the scythe, hooked beside a glass case that contained a horned skull. Curved swords, their blades fashioned like corkscrews, were also displayed on the walls. Daggers with three prongs sat upon a table. We discovered three of those “flutes,” a hand-sized lantern that gave off a soft, eerily persistent glow, and a whistle carved from some kind of twisted bone on a velvet cushion under a glass case.

  Magnus took one of the warped-looking swords off the wall. He
tried swinging it, but the twisting shape of the blade, plus his injury, hampered his movement.

  The blades were all formed from that same dusky orange-gold material, exactly like Strangewayes’s dagger.

  Blackwood had started collecting all the weapons he could lay his hands on, the scythe, the spears, the daggers. Maria picked up the lantern, though she didn’t try opening it. I used Porridge to break the glass case and snatched up the whistle.

  “We ought to leave.” Maria frowned. “There’s something alive about this house.” She looked back at the door with the carved devils.

  I walked back to the front door to peer out at the garden. The sunshine was still bright here, and the breeze crisp with salt from the ocean. Despite the wonders of this house, already I was desperate to leave. Maria was right. Something was off about this place.

  “Henrietta,” Maria called. “Come and look at this.”

  I joined her by an expanse of wall.

  “What do you think these are?” She pointed.

  Hundreds of names had been carved into the wall. Some were etched in large, looping letters, some crammed close together. A familiar name caught my eye: Darius LaGrande. He’d been an eighteenth-century magician, a Frenchman who’d escaped the Revolution and come to England to research alchemy.

  “These are all magicians,” I said. Gingerly, I traced my fingertips along LaGrande’s name.

  “This house is a place of pilgrimage, then?” Maria asked.

  “It looks like it. Perhaps this was a way of paying honor to the father of their craft.” I looked over the names until another one caught my eye. Sparks shot off my hand involuntarily.

  “Careful now!” Maria brushed at her trousers.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, knitting my fingers together. I drew closer to make absolutely certain I was right.

  William Howel. The handwriting was even and neat, and carved for all the world to see. A flush of goose bumps spread over my body. My father had been here. Touching the letters, I imagined him standing in this very spot. I pictured him taking a knife and cutting his name into this wall. When had he come here?