Page 64 of Tomb of Ancients
“But this is what you want?” I asked again, looking at each of them in turn. “It will be a long road north, and I have no idea what to expect when we reach the First City. This was never how I thought it would go.”
“That makes five of us,” Mary said with a sigh.
“Six,”Poppy insisted, grabbing Bartholomew by the ear.
That seemed to settle it. We would all go north together and find what we could find along the way to the First City. There was room enough for us all in the carriages, and Chijioke knew the surrounding roads well. I expected no ambushes on theroad, not now that the Upworlders were no more. Poppy hauled a bag far too big for her toward the carriage, and Bartholomew picked up the slack, grabbing the drooping end in his jaws and trotting along. While the final preparations were made, I found myself drifting back toward the house.
It had looked more foreboding the first time I laid eyes upon it. Now it was merely empty, gutted, the cold hearth and home of only one man. One man who watched us like a fleeting shadow from a high-above window. Gazing up at him, I wondered at his sad eyes, at the confusion and betrayal I saw there. His help had served him faithfully, to the last, but even loyalty had its limits. Perhaps, I thought, he would one day understand why he lived now in abandoned infamy, having gotten his way and finding it wanting.
“Do you think he will try something?” Khent asked, startling me.
He put a hand on my back, where he had before, to give me courage.
“No,” I said honestly, watching the Devil turn away from me to haunt other empty rooms. “No, I don’t think he will.”
We returned to the carriages to find the others bickering over who would ride where. Bartholomew had already claimed a spot in the lighter box, perhaps desirous of the wind in his face. Poppy’s choice then, was made for her, and Chijioke helped her scamper up to settle in next to the hound.
“Where do you think he will go when the house is gone?” Iasked Chijioke. He knew at once who I meant.
“Where all devils go,” he replied with a shrug. “Where he is most needed and least expected. Here,” he said, opening his hands to me. “Let me help you with that.”
He was implying the pack on my shoulders. I removed it carefully, wincing when it grazed my arm, then stopped him, stooping to pull out the book, which weighed no more than a normal volume. It was larger, however, and far more fantastical, bright green with purple vines scrolling across it, a stag and spider stamped in the middle.
I ran a hand across the leather with a shiver, knowing it was some poor adventurer’s hide. A voice shimmered up to me from the pages, deep and relieved, a man’s voice. Father. But it did not sound like any memory of him I had. It sounded like a man unbroken, a man made whole.
Released from the agony of anger... At last.
The others had frozen, watching me. I looked at them gathered there, Mary with her tousled brown hair and dainty freckles, Chijioke still waiting to take the bag with outstretched hands, the dark skin of his forearms bandaged heavily from the fight. And Poppy with her beloved dog, both of them leaning out of the phaeton, the little girl with the mark on her face twining one braid expectantly around her finger. Khent leaned against the carriage, lavender eyes inscrutable, his smile kind as he waited and I tarried.
“Courage,” he mouthed to me and I nodded.
“We are creatures of darkness and curiosity but there is good in this book, and goodness is powerful. It has always been powerful, only that has been forgotten.” I did not know if I spoke Mother’s words or my own, but they came freely and with a confidence I had not felt before. “This book,ourbook, will help the world to remember. And goodness... Goodness does not always mean peace. It does not mean weakness. What goodness is in this book and in us will see us through to the north, and then beyond, into our lives.”
I took a deep breath and let Chijioke take the pack and book, watching it go into his arms with tears filming my eyes. “They tried to snuff us out. This was their age, of angels and shadows and demons. Now comes our chance, our age, the age of our fury.”
“Hear, hear!” Chijioke shouted, giving me a wink. “Now say that all back again when we get to the pub. It demands a toast, eh, lass?”
“Aye,” I said with a laugh. “I promise not to forget a word.”
Then the book was put into the carriage, and Mary came to take me by the arm, and we took the last few steps together.
But after I had taken the step up, I lingered in the open door of the carriage, looking back at Coldthistle House once more, expecting—perhaps hoping—to catch one last glimpse of its former master. On the topmost floor on the most easterlyturret, there was a glimmer of yellow eyes. But as soon as they appeared they were gone, a pair of curtains shutting up tight, as if to say the play had ended, as if to say no more. As if to close the place off forever, a lone, forgotten tomb.
Epilogue
Iwalked out one day across County Leitrim and County Sligo, taking not the road but the fields and woods, finding I wanted to be a hidden thing. The mists on the emerald carpets of grass hung low, a fairy twinkle in the dawn light. The pack on my back, heavier than it had ever been, had long since carved ruts in my shoulders. ’Twas all but part of menow, that bag with that book, but I would never be separated from it, it being my eternal burden to bear.
A devil walked out in the early morning, across rolling, rolling hills, wildflowers thick along the stone walls, so bright they seemed almost artificial, hothouse perfect, dazzling rows of blue and yellow heads. They marked the way and I followed. Many times I had tried to walk this path, and each time something stopped me. But not this time. My heart, set in stone, would see the journey through. The hissing song of night gave way to the softer morning chatter of distant roosters and closer wrens. There were dunnocks, too, and singing thrush, blackbirds, and doves, all a-warble with the promise of a new day.
A sad, old creature, decrepit as only the ancient and regretful can be, walked until his feet ached and were bloody. This is how it happened:
Night had been blessedly cool, but now it turned to day, and so came the heat, and I stopped for a while to rest on a toppled stone ruin. The lake, undisturbed as glass, spread out behind me, the mountainous woods and my destination to the east. I watched the sun break over the water and fished out a canteen, helping myself to last night’s beer. It was sour but cold enough, and I drank deep, flinching as a buzz began over the horizon, then grew, a pointed white object soaring over the lake toward me, low enough to make my bones thrum. I would never get used to those things shooting overhead. Once, it would have been aSky Snake protecting those skies; now it was only machines.
“Are you lost?”
It was a tiny voice, and from a girl. I turned to my right, resting the canteen against my side to find a lass no higher than my knee watching me from the hedges. She seemed a part of the place, wild, with tiny flowers dotting her very dark hair. Her eyes, huge and amethyst, watched me with such intelligence that I nearly laughed. Was this a girl or a little fairy creature? Impossible to know.
“I might be,” I said kindly, reaching into my pack again and coming up with a bit of chocolate I had bought in the last village. “I might be. Do you like sweets?”
