Skulduggery came to some steps leading down below street level, and an iron door swung open to let them through. The corridor they walked into was warm, with fantastic images carved into the walls on both sides. In places the paint was cracked and peeling, but the years had not diminished the sheer lushness of the colours used. Valkyrie bent to examine a tiny running figure. Even the light glinting in the figure’s eyes had been painted in.
“What is all this?” she asked.
“History,” Skulduggery answered. “It’s all here, for those who know how to look.” He nodded to a carving of two men and a woman, holding light in their hands. “These are the Ancients, discovering magic for the first time. The clouds above them represent the Faceless Ones, and the grass at their feet represents the people.”
“Regular people are represented by a lawn?” Valkyrie asked with a raised eyebrow. “How nice, and not at all insulting.”
“The people are represented by individual blades of grass,” Skulduggery said, a smile in his voice. “Born of the earth, as natural and integral a part of life as magic. You can see the Ancients protecting the grass from the unnatural storm clouds.”
“All I see are the Ancients standing on the grass, being rained on, and not one of them thought to bring an umbrella. Not the smartest, were they?”
“Don’t be too harsh – you’re descended from one of them, remember.”
“Any ancestor of mine would have brought an umbrella,” Valkyrie muttered, and crossed to the other wall. The scene depicted there disturbed her, like a hook that had found its way inside her belly and was now tugging gently at her guts. A city in ruins, the dead scattered like dry leaves fallen from a tree on a still afternoon. At its centre stood a man, burning with black fire. “And this?” she asked. “Is this meant to be Mevolent?”
Skulduggery stood at her elbow. “These chambers were built before the war with Mevolent even started. No, that’s not Mevolent. That’s his master. That’s the Unnamed.”
Valkyrie looked at him. “Was his name the Unnamed, or did he just not have a name?”
“He didn’t have one.”
She frowned. “But how does that work? All our magic comes from our true name, right? I’ve been reading all about this. So if he didn’t have a true name, where did he get his magic from?”
“To every law of nature, there are the aberrations. I’m very impressed that you’re doing a little research, by the way.”
“After Marr ordered Myron Stray to kill himself and destroy the Sanctuary, I thought it might be a good idea to learn a little more about the whole name thing.”
“You’re worried that someone might learn your true name?”
Worried was such a weak term for something so coldly terrifying. Valkyrie nodded, but didn’t speak. She didn’t trust herself to answer him.
Skulduggery started walking again. “So what did you learn?”
She walked beside him, forcing herself to remain casual. “Our true names are names of magic, from the oldest of the magical languages. Virtually all of us go around without knowing what that name actually is, but we can still use the magic it provides.”
“And?”
“If you find out what your true name is, it’s kind of like going straight to the source. You’d become more powerful than even the Ancients were. You’d be able to take on the Faceless Ones without needing a weapon.”
“If that is so,” Skulduggery said, “then how come Myron Stray became a puppet, and not a god?”
“Someone, in this case Mr Bliss, found out his true name before he did, so he never had time to seal it.”
They walked into the Great Chamber and the conversation died away. Thirty or forty people stood around on the marble floor, talking quietly. The walls in here were splendid, the elaborate carvings continuing up to the domed ceiling.
Erskine Ravel smiled as he came over. Valkyrie had met him a few times before – he had fought in a special unit with Skulduggery and Ghastly during the war. She liked Ravel. He was charming and nice and quite beautiful, in a manly sort of way.
“Erskine,” Skulduggery said, shaking his hand.
“Skulduggery, good to see you,” said Ravel, shaking Valkyrie’s hand next. “Valkyrie, you’re looking well.”
She actually blushed, and turned her head so it wouldn’t be noticed. Then she spotted an old man with a grey beard, and frowned. “Why is he here?”
Ravel put his hands in his pockets. “Like it or not, we need representatives from all the major groups in order to elect a new Grand Mage, and the mages in Roarhaven have as much say as anyone.”
“But why does he have to be here?”
“You don’t like the Torment?”
“He doesn’t like me.”
The Torment scowled at Valkyrie when he met her eyes. There was a woman beside him, in a black dress that flowed on to the ground at her feet. Her face was covered by a veil, and her hands were gloved.
“He’s here with his sister,” Ravel said, anticipating her next question. “Not his real sister, of course, but another Child of the Spider.”
Valkyrie had seen with her own horrified eyes the way the Torment could vomit black spiders the size of rats, with talons for legs. He also had the disconcerting habit of transforming into a spider himself – a huge monstrous thing that liked to haunt her dreams every once in a while.
“Madame Mist,” Skulduggery said, eyeless gaze on the woman in the black veil. “She lives in Roarhaven now too? Since when? I didn’t even know she was in the country.”
Ravel shrugged. “We really weren’t chatting long enough for me to get the details. I try to stay away from Children of the Spider, you know? They tend to give me the creeps. And speaking of creepy …”
High Priest Tenebrae entered the hall, flanked as always by Craven and Quiver. Tenebrae nodded to Valkyrie as they swept by in their black robes.
“Well now,” Ravel said, catching the nod. “You seem to know more people here than I do.”
Valkyrie smiled. “I’m still going to need some help with the boring ones.”
Ravel laughed. “I’m sure they’d love to hear themselves being called that. In this hall, you have the usual suspects. Sorcerers of particular power or age or standing. That lady over there is Shakra, and beside her is Flaring. You probably know them from the Sanctuary. They were lucky enough not to be there the day the Desolation Engine went off. To their left are assorted sorcerers you may not know – they work behind the scenes mostly, and do their best to stay out of the spotlight.
“Over here we have Corrival Deuce,” Ravel continued, indicating a portly old man in a colourful coat. “He’s more or less retired now, but we dragged him out of his house for this little get-together. He’s a