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“Which is stupid and ridiculous,” Sterling said, blatantly avoiding eye contact when I glared at him. “Unless everyone’s in the mood to break into a high security museum.”
“Pssh,” Vanitas echoed into my brain. “I could have told you that.”
I tugged on my backpack’s straps, hoping in some way that Vanitas could feel my disapproval, and hushed him telepathically.
“Right, right,” Herald said. “But that gave me the idea, see. There’s another sword that’s just as famous, which also belonged to someone, well, French, and famous. Durandal.”
“Let’s see,” Bastion said. “Belonged to one of Charlemagne’s twelve paladins. Roland, was it? They were big in the Crusades.”
“That’s the one,” Herald said. “Nicely done, Brandt.”
Bastion shrugged. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
I rolled my eyes. Herald carried on, completely unbothered.
“Now,” he said. “Durandal is famously powerful, but most importantly, more or less terrestrial in nature. Sure, there’s stuff about its origins being divine, but what matters is that it was wielded by a human, and it died with its human. The crucial bit here is that we don’t know where it is. That’s where Asher comes in.”
Asher grinned bashfully, giving a sort of sheepish salute. “I sent out some feelers to probe the area. Which is to say, I got in touch with some of the dead here, to see what they knew.”
I blinked at him, impressed. “Wow, Asher. You speak French?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know how else to put it, but the language of death is universal. Seems to be how necromancy works. Words don’t even matter.”
“Obviously,” Sterling grunted, rolling his eyes at me, finally acknowledging my existence. “Pssh.”
Again, I ignored him. We had to focus on the task at hand. Threatening to plunge Sterling into sunlight if he didn’t stop acting like a baby could wait.
“Let’s just get started,” Herald said. I thought it was interesting how he defaulted to the role of sorcerer-in-charge in Carver’s absence. Actually, I found it pretty damn hot.
“Right then,” Asher said. “Everyone stand clear.” He sat on the grass, then placed one hand against the earth. We gathered around him in a loose circle.
“What happens now?” I whispered, nudging Herald with my elbow.
Asher’s hand burned with pale green fire.
“Now he’s checking,” Herald whispered back. “Like I said, the sword is lost to history. No one knows where Durandal is. But the dead might. Out of the legions and legions of those who have fallen over the centuries, someone must have an idea. And Asher is listening, and waiting.”
That was when I first heard it, the whispering, first of a dozen voices, then of hundreds. Asher blinked, and his eyes burned with the same jade fire as he focused on something deep in the earth, on something only he could see. The light went out, then on again as he blinked once more.
“There,” he said. “There it is. Everybody, stand clear.” He pressed a second hand into the ground, and the whispering stopped.
But then the screaming began.
The ground didn’t even shake as a seam in the earth began to open, then slowly, horribly transformed into a gaping chasm that screamed as awfully and as loudly as the portal on that first night I met Hecate. But I looked down into the pit, and I gasped. This was nothing like the gateway to Hecate’s domicile. For starters, there were all the hands.
Hundreds of them, lining the inside of the hole. No, thousands, of differing lengths and sizes, the arms of long-dead men and women and children, the color of their skin indistinguishable even in the moonlight because they were all muddy, caked with earth and soil. It was a grim and sobering reminder of the greatest truth of them all: that at the end of all things, none of us are better than the others. Beneath the earth, the worms eat everyone. Kings and peasants taste exactly the same.
Then I saw it, the gleam of silvery-white metal from deep within the pit, moving slowly, at first, then faster and faster as hands passed the thing up from the wet depths. Even from far away, Durandal was something to behold, not just a sword in appearance, but a hallowed, ancient weapon in the shape of a crucifix. Faster and faster it moved, passed from one pair of dead hands to the other, until finally, one last set of hands brandished the paladin blade Durandal just over the lip of the great screaming hole.
Asher leaned forward, fearless and stalwart, then grasped the hilt of the blessed sword, hardly even flinching as his fingers made contact with those of the dead hand holding the blade. Making sure he had a firm grip, Asher pressed Durandal against his chest, then grinned as he waved into the pit. “Thanks,” he called out, beaming. At least three of the hands waved back. Finally, the hellhole closed up, sealing as abruptly as it appeared, taking with it the dreadful, symphonic howling of the dead.
Careful to offer me the sword pommel-first, Asher presented Durandal like he would an ancient, sacred relic. Which, in many ways, it was. I could feel the sting of time and divine import radiate from the cold metal as I closed my hands around it, the sword gleaming so perfect and bright that it looked almost as white as the moon. I slipped it into my backpack to keep along with Vanitas, that strange sense of reverence only completely falling away when I released Durandal and let it fall into the pocket dimension.
“That was easier than expected,” Herald said, sticking his hands into his hips. “I guess that means we can all head back, unless anyone’s up for some sightseeing.”
Nobody really had a chance to answer, because the earth began to move. We sprang away from the fissure that Asher had opened, the scar of it still imprinted in the ground, but from the fear and concern on his face, it was clear that the quake wasn’t another necromantic event.
“This isn’t me,” he cried out, confirming what I already knew.
