Mist & Whispers (31 page)

‘But they look like skins, like snakes that shed their skins.’ Michael’s revolt gave his voice a warble.

‘It’s their exoskeletons.’ Tim was staring at the spiders now, studying them by the light of the fire bowl. Even Lorcan had stopped for a look.

‘They’re enough to put anyone on edge,’ Lorcan said, cringing at the dozens of arachnids as they crawled across their webs.

‘I know, right? Look at that one!’ Michael pointed at a rather large, black and white spider with marks on its back that resembled a skull. Lorcan’s eyes were straight on the creepy-crawly.

Anya stood for a while watching the boys. After the way they’d acted in the temple, puffing out their chests and throwing acts of gallantry in each other’s faces, now they were bonding over their phobia of spiders? She wasn’t sure she’d ever understand men. Or boys, for that matter, if there was ever really a difference between the two.

‘Guys? Can we go before they try and eat us?’

Michael and Lorcan both jumped back from the wall, watching behind them to ensure they didn’t end up too close to any others on the opposite side. Tim was harder to pull away. His interest seemed more an intellectual curiosity than a repugnant fear.

After some time, they came to a fork in the passage. The tunnel on the right was a well lit staircase winding down even further underground, whilst the tunnel on the left was in complete darkness.

‘Which way should we go?’ Anya asked the others.

‘I think it’s obvious which way we should go,’ Michael said. ‘Unless you want to end up like a horror-movie victim, let’s go with the lit passage, shall we?’

The others all agreed, so they continued on down the steps where they came to a corridor, decorated with as much grandeur as the castle halls, and adorned with portraits and statues.

There didn’t seem to be as many spiders down this corridor, much to the boys’ relief.

‘What do you think this place is?’ Michael asked whilst studying a statue of a Royal.

‘I think it’s like a memorial hall for Kings and Queens,’ Tim said as he was reading a plaque below a portrait.

‘I’ve heard of this place,’ Lorcan said. He had the sincerest look on his face, as if this place in which they were standing was a place he thought existed only in his dreams. Anya had seen the look before, the time he told her about his friend Brey and how they played at being Spartacus and Crixus as young boys. The warmth she’d felt as she revealed that his heroes were real men came back to her in this moment. ‘This is the Passage of Sleeping Kings. I always thought it was a myth – the way people would talk about it, wondering if it was real or not – but I guess, they had to be buried somewhere.’

‘The Kings and Queens?’

‘No, not all of them. Most of them are buried in the Garden of Rest, just outside Wargrave, but legend has it, when King Erac and Queen Toldess died, there were so many distraught folk in the Kingdom, they couldn’t be buried just anywhere; they would never have had any peace. It was thought by many that there was a secret tomb somewhere. I thought the whole passage idea was spurred from hearsay. I guess I was wrong.’

Anya joined Tim at the portrait he was fixed on. There was a King, tall and thin, with a crown perched upon a fuzzy head of hair, and a Queen – his Queen – a shorter lady with sleek chestnut hair and blushing butterfly wings.

‘They look like you and Steph,’ Anya said, smiling at Tim.

Tim seemed quite flattered at her remark. ‘They do.’

‘“King Castor Godson: 1665-1791. Queen Isamene Godson: 1671 – 1729”.
Why did she die so young?’ Anya asked Lorcan.

‘She died in childbirth. Their daughter married Rayne Hail, and later they took over the Kingdom. Their name has been passed down the Royal line to this day.’

‘Harrion’s last name is Hail?’

Lorcan nodded.

She hadn’t ever thought about the Virtfirthians having surnames. It was funny, she’d spent so many years obsessing over her own surname, but really, what did a surname matter? It didn’t tell you anything about the person, other than lineage in some people’s case. Not hers, of course. Her surname meant nothing. Just a name taken from someone she never knew and given to her as a replacement for the name she would never know. It wasn’t as if knowing her real surname would change her. It wouldn’t make her a better person, or smarter, or faster or stronger. She had made it through everything over the past few weeks not with her family, but with her friends. Maybe just
Anya
was enough after all.

She followed the long row of portraits along the passage, skim-reading through the plaques beneath whilst acquainting herself with the faces of Virtfirth’s history, until she came to a dead end. On the end wall, mounted in an opulent gold frame, was the largest of all the portraits.

Never had she seen a finer couple. The King; a handsome, boyish face, with eyes as bold and blue as a summer sky, the Queen; skin so fair you’d think it would melt at a single touch.

Below the portrait the plaque read:

KING ERAC CROWN & QUEEN TOLDESS CROWN

30
TH
MARCH 1353 – 30
TH
MARCH 1564

Two souls in this life, one beyond

Anya’s hand shot to her mouth as it dawned on her.
Sleeping Crowns.
‘The first book – it’s here!’

She had Tim and Michael’s attention immediately. ‘Where?’ they asked together as they came to her.

She pointed to the names on the plaque. Michael just looked on at her, eyebrows raised in wait of an explanation. ‘Don’t you see? The Weaver’s book is resting with Erac and Toldess!’

‘In their grave?’ Michael blurted, seemingly horrified at the thought.

‘A tomb would ensure the books hiding place,’ Tim reasoned.

‘A tomb, sure, but this is just a painting, hung on a dead end.’

‘And that crying phoenix statue in Erimus Hall was just a coincidence.’ Anya rolled her eyes and began to feel around the wall for some kind of door way. She pulled at the painting with the intention of feeling the wall behind and felt a surge of excitement when it swung open like a door.  Behind it; a small tunnel.

Anya, Michael and Tim all looked at one another, their smiles full of new found hope.

‘Is this something to do with your quest?’ Lorcan asked Anya.

She nodded, unable to contain her excitement. ‘We’ve been looking for something – more than one something really, but the first one is somewhere here in Virtfirth. If we find it, it means we didn’t come here for nothing. It means it’s all real, and it means at some point, we can go home.’

Lorcan smiled, but it faded quickly after she said the word
“home”.

‘But what if it’s not real? What if there is nothing there?’ Michael’s words lingered uncomfortably around them.

Anya didn’t answer. She just pressed her lips together and lifted herself into the tunnel.

THE TUNNEL WAS
short – a matter of meters. Like the passage beneath the altar, it was dusty and grimy and laced with cobwebs. On the other side, to Anya’s relief, was the tomb of the Sleeping Crowns.

It was how she expected a tomb to look. She remembered studying Egyptian tombs at school. This one didn’t seem much different, except instead of a single stone sarcophagus lying in the middle of the tomb, there was a double one, and of course, in typical Virtfirthian style, it was the shape of an octagon.

Anya brushed the dust away with her hand. The words that lay beneath were exactly those on the plaque below their portrait. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now, faced with their place of rest, the dates on the tomb pricked at her curiosity. ‘They were born and died on the same day? That’s... pretty special.’

Lorcan, who was still trying to dust the cobwebs from his wings said, ‘The legends say they moved and thought as one. That’s why they were so revered.’

Michael began tinkering with the artefacts that lay about the tomb.

‘Michael, what are you doing?’ Anya whispered, though she didn’t know why she was whispering.

‘I was looking for the book, that’s what we are here for, right?’ He turned and bumped into a coat of armour resting on a pedestal. He grabbed hold of it, quickly steadying the pedestal, stopping the armour clattering to the ground with a breath of relief. ‘We still don’t know what the last word is, so it could be anywhere.’

But Anya did not need to look around. As soon as her feet touched the floor of the tomb, as soon as she laid eyes on the sarcophagus, she knew in the pit of her stomach where the book was hidden. ‘Michael, I think it’s
with
the King and the Queen.’

His face fell. ‘You can’t be serious? We can’t open someone’s grave; it’s – it’s not right!’

‘Do we have a choice?’

‘I’m with Anya,’ Tim said, letting go of Steph’s hand and joining Anya at the sarcophagus. ‘After everything that’s happened, we can’t return home without some hope of saving Scott’s. It’s why we started this whole thing in the first place. I know it doesn’t mean the same to me as it does her, but she saved my life back there, and she was brave enough to hand herself over to the King’s brother and the God of the Damned just to try and save Steph.’ He turned and spoke his next words directly to Anya. ‘I know my friendship is nothing in comparison to what you’ve done for me and Steph, but it’s all I have to offer. That, and my word that I’ll help you see this whole thing through to the end, no matter what.’

Anya’s eyes prickled and glistened. She was too choked to say anything. Instead, she held out her fist, and Tim bumped his on hers, their own little gesture of camaraderie, as well as a reminder of the world they were all trying to get back to.

‘So, what’s the best way to do this without disturbing the dead?’ she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

They inspected the sarcophagus closely. ‘Look,’ Tim said, pointing to a chipped corner on the top stone, and then to a few fragments scattered about the ground. ‘This must have been moved before; it looks like someone has dropped it.’

Anya nudged the stone towards Tim and to their delight, it moved. Together, they lifted, and dust filled the air, an overwhelming stench of must and spice hitting the back of their throats. When the dust finally settled and everyone had finished coughing on the bouquet of death, everything they had hoped for finally became real.

There, nestled beneath the holding-hands of Erac and Toldess’ skeletons, was a book, bound in tea-coloured leather and thick with dust.

  Nobody moved.

‘Someone’s going to have to pull it out from under their hands. You know, the old cloth on a set table trick.’ This was Michael.

Anya raised an eyebrow. ‘And to think, barely two minutes ago you were calling
me
out as disrespectful.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, if you want to touch a dead body then go ahead, but I’m not doing it.’

But she
had
touched a dead body already. She had been with Iain, her hand resting on his when he died, and although she hadn’t told them yet, she had held Gavriel as he died too. Lorcan aside, she had the most experience with the dead and the dying, and it was her idea to start this quest, so she stepped forward and readied herself to move the sleeping King and Queen’s hands.

Her arm shook a little as she reached inside and gently closed her hand around theirs.

A BLOODY BATTLE
raged on all around her, but she was not scared. She was deep in the heart of it, a broadsword in her hand and a giant, muscular creature coming straight at her. She knew the creature from mythology; its horns were a dead giveaway. The minotaur threw its axe hard at her, but she was ready. Like a bird’s wings in flight, she moved without contemplation, lifting herself into the air and throwing her body over the deadly weapon. When her feet touched back down, she ducked and rolled, knowing the minotaur’s next move would be to try skewering her with its solid horns. The minotaurs were too predictable. Too quick for the beast, she was up in the air, her sword raised and ready. Then she brought it down hard, slashing through its exposed neck. Blood rained from every angle, covering her head to toe, but when she looked down at her feet they were not hers. A glance at her hands and they did not belong to her either.

She felt a pat on her back and when she looked up, King Erac, slightly older than he’d looked in his portrait, was by her side.

‘We’ve taken back the north completely. Elek is already marching our troops through Valvale and on to Port Elliot, and Arion is holding the Wyre. Take your men on to meet Elek. Toldess and I will stay and push the rest of these beasts back up through the mountains, corner them against the river.’

‘No, there’s too many of them; it’s suicide.’ Even her voice was not her own.

‘We know the risks, but I’d rather die than let these mongrels take our lands.’

She looked on at him in admiration, then they joined hands as brothers.

BACK IN THE
tomb, she dropped the old King and Queen’s hands.

‘Oh, nice,’ Michael scoffed. ‘See, I’m not the only one freaked out by the dead.’