Derek Landy - The Dying of the Light

ack to Roarhaven, and not a word spoken in the car. Stephanie replayed the vision over and over in her head. Details changed, but the facts remained the same. Stephanie, standing there with a tattoo and that gauntlet. Darquesse, murdering her family. Skulduggery’s skull plucked from his spine. That smile. Those things didn’t change. Those things wouldn’t change.

They drove by the elderly sorcerer whose job it was to turn back any mortal who strayed too close. He nodded to them, and a few moments later the road narrowed and they passed through the illusion of emptiness that protected Roarhaven from mortal eyes. The city loomed, its huge gates open. The Bentley slid through the streets, parked below ground. Stephanie followed Skulduggery into the Sanctuary corridors and they went deeper. They walked without speaking. Stephanie wondered if Skulduggery even remembered she was there.

They got to the cells. Skulduggery spoke with the man in charge, told him what he needed. Moments later, they were in the interview room. Skulduggery sat at the table. Stephanie walked slowly from one wall to the other and back again, her hands in her pockets. She looked round when the door opened, and a small, neat man stepped in. Creyfon Signate was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, and his hands were shackled before him.

“Finally!” he said, once he saw who had summoned him. He walked forward, dropping into the empty chair.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve been asking to speak to someone in charge ever since I was arrested,” said Signate. “I’ve been locked up here for weeks !”

“Erskine Ravel orchestrated a war in which hundreds of sorcerers were killed,” said Stephanie, “and you played a huge part in that. Of course you were locked up. You’re lucky we kept you here instead of shipping you out to an actual gaol.”

Signate shook his head. “I had nothing whatsoever to do with the war. I was brought in to do a job, to oversee the construction of a city in a hospitable dimension and then to shunt the people and the city itself back to this one. The city we built had to overlay the town of Roarhaven exactly. It took pinpoint planning, an absurd attention to detail, and it required my full attention. Do you really think I had time to plot and conspire with Ravel and the Children of the Spider, even if I’d wanted to?”

“So you’re entirely innocent?” Skulduggery said. “You were just doing your job?”

“I believed in what Ravel tried to do. I believed in his vision. But having an unpopular ideology is not a crime, and yet here I sit. In shackles.”

“You’re not in shackles for the ideology part,” said Stephanie. “You’re in shackles for everything else you did.”

“But I didn’t do anything! I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t even lie to anyone. All I did was obey the Grand Mage.”

“Construction on the city started long before Ravel became Grand Mage,” said Skulduggery. “You can’t use that as an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse, Detective. I was just doing my job, and breaking no laws while I did it. Bring in your Sensitives, have them read my mind. They’ll tell you I’m innocent.”

“They’ll tell us you believe you’re innocent,” Skulduggery said. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Then allow me a trial. We can still have one of those, can’t we? They haven’t been rendered completely obsolete? Allow me to be judged by my peers, based on evidence and testimony. Let them weigh up the facts and deliver their verdict.”

“No,” said Skulduggery.

“This is preposterous! You cannot keep me in prison! I deserve a chance to prove my innocence!”

“Mr Signate,” Skulduggery said, his voice calm, “you won’t require a trial because we’re here to offer you a deal.”

Signate’s fury vanished. “You are?”

“Darquesse poses a threat like virtually nothing we’ve ever seen. While we do have a way of fighting her, we don’t have a way of finding her. She could be anywhere. That’s why we need you.”

“I don’t understand how I could be of use.”

“You’re one of the best Shunters alive, Mr Signate. We’re going to require someone of your skill to do what needs to be done.”

“I … I still don’t see what—”

“If you’re interested,” Skulduggery said, interrupting him, “and you agree to help us, then you walk free this very afternoon. You’ll be working with the Sanctuary and all your previous misdeeds will be forgotten. Are you interested?”

“I … I am,” Signate said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Before she vanished, Darquesse punished Erskine Ravel for everything he’d done. In particular, the murder of Ghastly Bespoke. She took that personally. You may have heard that Ravel is allowed one hour free of agony every day. The other twenty-three hours are spent screaming. No sedatives or painkillers can help him, no Sensitive can calm him. On his hour off, he has taken to begging. He wants to die. He wants the pain to end. Obviously, I won’t let that happen. I took Ghastly’s murder personally, too.”

“I didn’t know Ravel was planning to … to kill Elder Bespoke,” Signate said, fear in his eyes for the first time. Stephanie believed him.

“The human body adapts,” Skulduggery said, ignoring Signate’s distress. “If constant pain is inflicted, it raises its threshold. Ravel has been denied this luxury. Every time he gets used to the pain, the pain intensifies. The only way this is possible, we think, is if Darquesse has formed a direct link to Ravel. She’s turning the dial on his agony herself.”

Signate looked at Skulduggery for a few moments. “You want me to shunt Ravel into another dimension,” he said.

Skulduggery nodded. “Doing so should sever the link between them, catching Darquesse’s attention. Then, when you bring Ravel back, she should come for him.”

“And you’ll be waiting.”

“Yes. You’ll take a team of Cleavers with you when you shunt to keep Ravel in check.”

“It’s a good plan,” said Signate. “But there’s a problem. I have access to four dimensions. Three of them are inhospitable at this time of year. The fourth is where we built the city.”

“So that’s where you’ll be shunting.”

“I’m afraid not. There are creatures in that reality that we barely managed to hold back with the city’s walls. Some of these creatures are as big as elephants. Some are the size of large dogs. They’re all predators, and now that there are no walls to keep them at bay, we would be shunting straight into a feeding frenzy.”

“So you need a new dimension to shunt into,” Skulduggery said, and went silent for a moment. “Tell me, Mr Signate, do you know Silas Nadir?”

Signate’s lip curled in distaste. “I know him. Haven’t spoken to him in over sixty years. If you’re hoping I know where to find him, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I try not to associate with serial killers.”

“We don’t need you to find him. We’ve come close to it in the past, and one of these days we’ll catch him and make sure he never kills again. But you’re aware of the dimension he found?”

“I am, of course,” said Signate. “A reality where Mevolent rules the world. Not somewhere I’d ever be interested in visiting, mind you, but … oh.”

“Do you think you can find it? I’m aware that every dimension has its own frequency and there’s an infinite number of realities, but—”

“Once a frequency has been found,” said Signate, seizing his own opportunity to interrupt, “it’s out there, open, waiting. It becomes noticeable, if you’re of a particular skill level. And of course I am. It would help me greatly if there was something I could draw a reading from, though. Did you happen to bring back any souvenirs?”