Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (9 page)

The Council of Elders had never convened faster. They dropped whatever it was they were doing and immediately met Skulduggery and Valkyrie in the throne room. Ravel and Mist wore their traditional robes, but Ghastly was fresh out of the shower and sat there with his shirtsleeves rolled up. Skulduggery filled them in on what Greta Dapple had told them.

“So you think Argeddion is still alive,” said Ravel, “just hiding somewhere, and has unimaginable power from discovering his true name, which allows him to enter people’s dreams and give them magical abilities?”

“In a nutshell,” said Skulduggery.

“Well, now I’m conflicted. On the one hand, it sounds like things are progressing quickly, which is wonderful news. On the other, it means that there’s a sorcerer out there who could kill us all with a wave of his hand – which dampens my mood somewhat. I’m assuming that Ghastly has already broken with protocol and told you about the Supreme Council and their deadline?”

“He has,” said Skulduggery.

“Then let’s focus on the positive. A quick solution is what we need to get them off our backs. Whatever you need from us, just ask.”

“That’s why we’re here, actually,” said Skulduggery. “We need to know about Tyren Lament.”

Ravel nodded. “All right, then. Good.”

Skulduggery waited. “So?”

“So what?”

“So what can you tell us about him?”

Ravel laughed. “Me? I knew him as well as you did, which wasn’t very well. Why don’t you look up his file?”

“We did. His files are missing.”

“Missing? Then why would you think I’d know anything?”

“Because you’re the Grand Mage,” Skulduggery said. “You have access to the Elders’ Journals.”

“Oh,” said Ravel. “Oh, yeah.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “You
have
read them, haven’t you? One of the requirements for taking a seat on the Council is you have to read the Journals of those who have gone before.”

“I was getting around to it,” Ravel said, a little defensively. “I was about to start, but... Listen, being an Elder is not an easy job. I rarely sleep, did you know that? I go to bed late, I get up early. Every day I’m in meetings or briefings or I’m doing this or that. I would
love
the opportunity to take a few afternoons off and read those Journals, I really would. The chance to learn from the wisdom of past Elders... It would be an honour, and I’m looking forward to it.”

Skulduggery nodded. “There are three hundred and forty-four Journals.”

Ravel blanched. “Seriously?”

“All big leather-bound books, a thousand pages long. Single-spaced.”

“Dear God.”

“It’s going to take more than a few afternoons to get through them.”

“So it would appear.” Ravel scowled. “OK, you caught me out, I haven’t read the dusty old diaries. Big deal. I’ll get to it. Ghastly, you’ve read them, what can you tell us about Lament?”

“Uh,” said Ghastly.

Skulduggery shook his head. “Oh, not you, too.”

“One of them is on my bedside table,” Ghastly said quickly. “I started it. I did. But my God it was boring. It was all ‘forsooth’ and ‘verily’ and ‘forthwith’. Did we really speak like that back then?”

“So no one has actually read the Journals,” Skulduggery said. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Ravel and Ghastly both looked sheepish. Finally, Madame Mist spoke.

“I have read them.”

Ravel looked startled. “You have? You didn’t find them... boring?”

“I find many things boring,” Mist said in that quiet way of hers. “It does not mean I’m going to forsake my duty.”

“Well, good,” Skulduggery said, “at least someone here is doing what they’re supposed to. What can you tell us?”

Madame Mist observed him through her veil. “Nothing,” she said.

“Lament wasn’t mentioned?”

“He was mentioned, but I cannot tell you in what context. Only Elders are allowed to know what those Journals contain.”

“Well, we can tell Skulduggery and Valkyrie,” Ravel said.

“No. We can’t.”

Ghastly sat forward so as to look at Mist better. “Yes, we can. They’ve earned that right.”

“It is not for us to decide,” said Mist. “It is a rule.”

“We’re breaking the rule,” said Ravel. “Today that rule is broken. I’m Elder Mage, I decree it. The rule is no more. So tell them what the Journals said.”

“If we want to change the rules, we must vote on it. It need not be unanimous. A simple majority would suffice.”

“So you’re looking for a two-to-one majority,” sighed Ghastly, “when you know exactly how myself and Ravel are going to vote? What’s the point?”

“It is the rules, Elder Bespoke.”

“Fine. All in favour of telling Skulduggery and Valkyrie what the Journals say, raise your hand.” Ghastly and Ravel voted. “There. Two-to-one. We win. Now, if you would be so kind – what did the Journals say about Lament?”

“Tyren Lament was a detective under Meritorious,” Mist said, “specialising in science-magic.”

“That much I know,” said Skulduggery.

“There were others, but their names weren’t mentioned and a definitive number was never given. Lament and his colleagues were a specialist group, tasked with dealing with global threats in as quiet a manner as possible. Meritorious and the Elders spoke very highly of them, but provided few details as to their assignments. There were notes on some low-profile arrests at the beginning of Lament’s Sanctuary career, but even that tailed off.”

“What about Argeddion?” asked Valkyrie. “Was he ever mentioned?”

“No. Neither was the disappearance of Lament and his group.”

“So they vanish off the face of the earth,” Skulduggery said, “and none of the Elders even bother to make a note of it. It sounds like Lament and his friends were Black Ops, the same as our Dead Men, or Guild’s Exigency Mages, but in peacetime. The dirty jobs that have to be done. They went in to take down Argeddion and whatever happened has been wiped from official records. Meritorious covered it up.”

“Not the first time,” Ghastly murmured.

“But wouldn’t that mean Argeddion is dead?” asked Valkyrie. “If they went in and failed, Meritorious would have just sent someone else. He’d probably have sent you. But he didn’t.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Which would seem to indicate that it was mission accomplished.”

Ravel shifted in his chair. “So if everyone who knew about this mission
is
now dead, where does that leave us?”

“Maybe not everyone,” Skulduggery countered. “Lament may have been killed, maybe most of the others, but there’s no reason to think there wasn’t a survivor who reported back to Meritorious when it was done.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “So we need to find out who else was in Lament’s group. How do we do that?”

Skulduggery put his hat on. “In order to find a man’s friends, who are the best people to ask?”

Valkyrie smiled. “His enemies.”

ammer Lane Gaol was, to all outside appearances, a small house on the border of Laois and Offaly that stood with its front door open. There were a few dead trees out front, and a garage in the back, and plenty of mud all around. And inside was one of the last men arrested by Tyren Lament.

The Bentley splashed through puddles on the uneven road and pulled up. They got out, and Skulduggery didn’t bother with his façade as an old man wandered over.

“Hi there,” the old man said. “Lost, are you?”

“You really think we’re lost?” Skulduggery asked. “You really think we’re civilians just passing through, one of whom happens to be a skeleton?”

“Oh, yeah,” said the old man. “Yeah, that kind of gives the whole game away, doesn’t it? Suppose you’re wanting to visit the prison, then.”

“I suppose we are.”

“Stay right here, I’ll put the call through. What’d you say your names were?”

“Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain.”

“Pleasant and Cain,” said the old man, nodding. “And you have an appointment?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Be right back.”

He shuffled off into the garage, and Valkyrie looked at the little house with its open door. It shimmered slightly, like it was caught in a heat haze.

“Why’s it doing that?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Skulduggery said. “It could be some kind of projection, or it could be an energy shield of some description.”

“It’s a little small and, I don’t know,
accessible
to be a prison, isn’t it? Unless it’s a prison for really tiny criminals who aren’t too bright and who don’t really want to escape.”

“Just the regular-sized criminals, I’m afraid. And the house would merely be the entrance – the prison is underground.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Everything is underground. I’m sick of things being underground. Sanctuaries are underground, gaols are underground...” She faltered.

“Wow,” said Skulduggery. “Two things that are underground. That’s a pretty exhaustive list.”

“Shut up. All I’m saying is, it’d be nice if there were a base or a headquarters of something that had big windows and a nice view and maybe even a little sunshine every now and then.”

The old man wandered back. “The warden is ready for you,” he said. “You ever been to Hammer Lane before? The only tricky bit is getting through that front door there. The important thing is not to touch the sides as you walk through. For slender people such as yourselves, this should pose no particular problem. But for other people… ” He shook his head, like he was remembering a personal tragedy.

“What happens if we touch the sides?” Valkyrie asked, but he was already walking away. She looked at Skulduggery, and motioned to the open door. “Age before beauty.”

“So kind,” he said, and walked through. He looked back at her. “Well? Are you coming?”

Valkyrie hesitated. The doorway shimmered. She licked her lips, then turned sideways and inched forward into the house.

Skulduggery stood watching her. “What are you doing?”

“Being careful,” she said under her breath.

“You walk through doorways every day and manage not to bounce off one side or the other.”

“Stop distracting me.”

“You could walk in with your hands on your hips and you still wouldn’t touch the sides.”

She took a deep breath and took the last step as a hop, then gasped in relief.

“You puzzle me,” Skulduggery said.

It was a one-room house. There was a tattered armchair and a tattered rug and peeling wallpaper. Something beeped, and the floor started to descend.

“Cool,” Valkyrie whispered.

They left the peeling wallpaper above them and descended through a brightly lit steel shaft, picking up speed as they went. Just as Valkyrie was beginning to enjoy the experience, it was over, and a door slid open to reveal a man in a suit and tie and a smile.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Delafonte Mien, I’m the warden here. Can I get you folks some lemonade?”

Their tour through Hammer Lane Gaol took them through gleaming corridors and steel doors. The main body of the prison was a vast cylinder, at the base of which was the mess hall and social area. There were five levels of cells built into the walls, each one with a circular perimeter walkway that was bordered with a clear material that sounded like glass when Valkyrie knocked on it. They were standing on the Observation Deck, the sixth and highest level, allowing them to overlook the whole structure.

“It sounds like glass,” Mien told her, “because it
is
glass. Reinforced, of course. It’d take a rocket launcher to even make a crack in one layer of this thing – and it’s four layers thick. Impenetrable.” He waved his hand along the metal barrier, and a section of glass retracted. They leaned over, looking straight down. Valkyrie felt a touch of vertigo.

“Your prisoners are very well behaved,” said Skulduggery. Far below them, the convicts sat in their bright orange jumpsuits at their tables in perfectly ordered groups.

Mien chuckled. “Ah, I wish I could say they’re always like that, but any minute now one of the inmates is going to be rejoining them from a month in solitary confinement. He’s a bit of a troublemaker, so I have extra security down there to deal with any messing.

“You know, before I came here, this was the worst gaol in Europe. Disruptive behaviour, riots, inmates escaping... I was assigned here seventeen years ago, I looked around at what we had at our disposal, and I made changes. Within two years, this place had become a fortress. No prisoner has escaped in fifteen years. Even
attempted
breakouts have dropped to almost zero.”