Valkyrie put the journal on the table, opened it, and flicked through the yellowing pages. 'Really am sorry.'
'Something like that, such an obvious demonstration of what is substantial, and what isn't, what is real, and what isn't--it's enough to make you question yourself, you know?'
She took a folded piece of parchment from the book and opened it. The map of the cave system was incomplete, with vast areas of blank space between known trails and the supposed edge of the underground tunnels.
'A man is only as effective as the effect he has on his surroundings,' Gordon was saying. 'And if a man is not effective, if his very being is as insubstantial as thought, then what is this man? Is he a man? Or is he merely the thought of a man?'
Valkyrie traced her finger from the words black crystals, captured in a circle, back along a trail and through all its intersections, back to the cave opening. By the scale Mire had provided, she judged it to be a little under two miles west.
'I suppose I couldn't fool myself forever,' Gordon said, dejection in his voice. 'I'm a fake. A fraud. A shadow of the real Gordon Edgley. I'm a mockery of a great, great man.'
Valkyrie folded the map into the journal. 'What's that you're saying? '
'Nothing,' he grumbled.
'Thanks for this,' she said, leaving the room.The bookshelf closed behind her, and she hurried down the stairs and into the living room.
Skulduggery was standing on a chair, looking through the books on the top shelf.
'Got it,' Valkyrie said.
His head tilted. 'No. Impossible. You can't have found anything.'
She grinned. 'There are black crystals in the caves below us,' she told him. 'Apparently, I'm the only one able to touch them because of the whole Ancient thing. I even have a map. How impressed are you right now?'
There was a moment of silence. 'You're such an unbelievable show-off.'
'I learned it all from you.'
Skulduggery got off the chair and took the journal from her. 'I don't show off. I merely demonstrate my abilities at opportune times.' He examined the map. 'It looks like we're going into the caves.'
'Now? Just the two of us? '
'Too many people will draw too much attention, and we simply don't have the time to waste. The Diablerie have been one step ahead of us all along. It's time that changed.'
***
The key rotated in the lock, and the floor of Gordon's cellar opened. Valkyrie clicked on her flashlight and followed Skulduggery down the stone steps that led to the caves.
Skulduggery read the air around them at regular intervals to make sure they weren't being tracked. Three times they had to turn off their flashlights and crouch in the darkness until the path was clear. Valkyrie kept a wary eye out for any dangling vines.
Narrow beams of sunlight, caught up above and cast down below, dimly illuminated their surroundings. Mire's map proved to be precise, but the farther they traveled, the colder it got, and Valkyrie was glad that she'd taken one of Gordon's overcoats to wear over her sleeveless tunic.
They followed the tunnel as far as it went, then had to crawl through a gap in the wall. Valkyrie had images of the entire cave system crashing down on top of her. She didn't like tight spaces. They made her want to lash out, to flail for no reason. She didn't like them one little bit.
Skulduggery helped her out the other side, and they consulted the map again.
'The crystals should be around this corner,' he said. They looked at the corner in question. 'Bear in mind,' he continued, 'that this is where things usually go spectacularly wrong.'
'I've noticed.'
They turned off their flashlights as they approached the corner. The only sound was their own footsteps.
'Do you want to go first?' Skulduggery whispered.
'Why would I want to do that?' Valkyrie whispered back.
'I just thought you might want to prove something to me.'
'Like what?'
'I don't know, maybe that you're as brave as I am, or as capable, or maybe something to do with not needing a man to protect you.'
She shrugged. 'I'm okay with all that.'
'Really?'
'Really. Poke your head around, see if there's a monster waiting for us.'
Skulduggery muttered something, then peered around the corner. Valkyrie prepared herself to either hit something or run.
'Well,' Skulduggery said. 'This is unexpected.»
Chapter Twenty-three. Anathem Mire
The tunnel opened into a huge cavern, the size of a football stadium. Shafts of light pierced the ceiling like stars in the night sky and fell upon the two-story house that stood before them. Valkyrie stared at it, somewhat stunned.
'That looks familiar,' she eventually remarked.
'It does,' Skulduggery agreed.
'That looks a whole lot like Gordon's house.'
'It does.'
They stayed where they were and looked at the house. It wasn't an exact twin. It was thinner, and the windows were too narrow, and the door wasn't in the proper place. The roof was a lot higher and the angles were wrong. It was like a memory of Gordon's house, filtered through a bad dream.
Valkyrie didn't like asking obvious questions. In fact, she hated it. There were times, however, when the obvious questions were the only ones available.
'How do you think it got here?' she asked. 'I don't know,' Skulduggery answered. 'Maybe it got lost.'
They walked toward it. The house was dark. Some of the curtains were closed. Skulduggery didn't bother scouting around. He knocked on the front door and waited, and when no one came out, he pushed the door open.
'Hello?' he called. 'Anyone home?'
There was no answer, so he took out his gun and stepped in. Valkyrie followed. It was somehow colder in here than it was in the caves, and she shivered. If it hadn't been for the flashlights, they would have been enveloped in pitch-black.
There were no power lines down here, no access to electricity, so when Valkyrie flicked the light switch, she wasn't expecting the diffusion of sickly green that rose in the dust-covered lightbulbs.'Interesting,' Skulduggery murmured.
It was an unsettling feeling, to stand in a place familiar yet alien. The staircase that, in Gordon's house, was solid and wide was here narrow and twisted. There were paintings on the walls, images of depravity and torture.
They moved into the living room, and Skulduggery turned on a few lamps. That same sickly green changed the absolute darkness into an unhealthy murk. The color was making Valkyrie nauseous.
There was an armchair and a sofa by the cold fireplace, and an ornate mirror above the mantelpiece. Valkyrie nudged Skulduggery and pointed. Someone was sitting in the armchair.
'Excuse me,' Skulduggery said.
The figure didn't stir. All they could see was part of an arm, and the top of a head.
They moved slowly to the sofa, giving the armchair a wide berth. Valkyrie saw a shoe now. Then a knee. A
