A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(21)

It looked like an Ancient, only writ small.

“Look at this bloody thing,” Magnus whispered. Hanging on the wall above our heads was a great skull, the size of a large dog. Three curving tusks protruded from its mouth. This was not a monster anyone would care to anger. Blackwood whistled softly and pointed to the ceiling. A stuffed creature, ten feet long and serpentine, hung suspended there. Silver and blue scales decorated the length of the monster, which appeared to be an eel—only with some kind of feline face.

Jars of yellow liquid held pickled monstrosities, hearts, eyeballs, organs. Stuffed heads of horned and thorny and spined beasts were mounted on plaques. Here was a bowl of serpent scales; there, a tray bristling with clipped claws and talons.

So Ralph Strangewayes hadn’t merely summoned Ancients; he had hunted them.

“Let’s be smart about this.” Blackwood passed his candle from one hand to the other, the flame thinning. “Record everything you see. Once we go over the room, we’ll continue exploring the rest of the house.”

Yes, the rest of the house. On the far wall, two closed wooden doors awaited us, each decorated with elaborate carvings. The one on the left showed unicorns and goat-hooved satyrs capering among flowers and trees in leafy countryside. Maria threw it open to reveal what appeared to be an everyday dining room, complete with slate stone floor, wooden table, carved chairs. Perfectly standard.

The door to the right, however, was more menacing, its carvings less wholesome. The trees were leafless and barren, great, pendulous clouds forming overhead. Sharp-horned devils danced around young, half-dressed women who screamed in fright.

Charming.

Maria went straight to the other door, yanked it open, and vanished down a pitch-black corridor. What the devil was she up to? The boys were too transfixed with the Ancients to pay any mind, but I moved after her.

“Maria, where are you going?” I called, though I parked myself at the threshold. The darkness beyond felt, well, rather furry. I shrank from the black as though it might touch me.

“There might be more of them,” she yelled back. Her bobbing light vanished around a turn. “I want to see where this goes.”

“Wait for us!” But she had gone ahead, ignoring me. I was about to chase her when Blackwood called my name.

“Come look at this.” He sounded awestruck. Well, blast it all. Maria was an ax-wielding witch. If she needed help, I got the feeling she’d call.

Magnus and Blackwood stood before a painting of Ralph Strangewayes. He’d the same bushy beard he’d sported in the painting from Mickelmas’s trunk, the same small, dark eyes, the same long face. Another creature had been painted beside him. This one was insect-like, just as the one under the glass case had been, only large enough to sit at Strangewayes’s feet and come up to his waist. Dragonfly wings erupted out its back. The thing was a vibrant shade of blue.

“It looks like Holbein painted this,” Blackwood said, finally finding his voice.

“King Henry the Eighth’s court painter created this?” Magnus said in amazement. He started cutting the portrait out of its frame. The canvas curled as he took it.

“What are you doing?” Blackwood sounded horrified.

“Whitechurch may want to see.” Magnus rolled the painting up and shoved it into his pack. He cocked an eyebrow. “I never knew you were such an art lover, Blacky.”

“Don’t argue,” I said before they really started sniping at each other. “We should go after Maria. She—”

A scream shattered the quiet, echoing from the open doorway.

Without pausing to think, I raced across the room and into the corridor. My candle flame quickly went out. It was as if I’d entered some black, alien world. I set myself burning as I moved forward along the hallway. Twisting and turning, I searched for doorways, for windows, for anything. But there was nothing, no decoration or natural light. Sometimes it seemed the blackness gurgled. It was like traveling into some great loop of intestine, as if the house had digested me and was enjoying its meal.

Stop that. It was enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Where the bloody hell was Maria?

Rounding a corner, I nearly stumbled over her. Maria was huddled against the wall with her hands over her ears, her face taut with fear and pain. Her candle had gone out—God, how long had she sat in the dark?

“You feel it, don’t you?” she cried. Her knees tight against her chest, her brown eyes wide and fearful, she looked nothing like the warrior I’d first met on the cliff.

“Feel what?” Then my vision blurred. I nearly put a hand to the wall to steady myself, but as I was still on fire it didn’t seem wise. Through my veil of flame, I looked where Maria pointed. The hallway had come to a dead end, and there in the wall was a door.

On the outside, it appeared perfectly normal. But magic pulsed behind that door, calling to me. Even more so than the room of monstrosities I’d left behind, I knew it deep in my bones: this was what we had been meant to find.

Opening the door, I stepped inside before I could lose my nerve.

The room screamed with magic. Runes had been carved into the wooden floor, the walls, the ceiling. Circles, swirls, and lines of runes unfurled around me. My stomach soured. Though I couldn’t read anything in this place, I knew, somehow, that it was obscene. That it was against reason.

Looking more closely, I saw that some of these runes had been scratched out and burned. I was afraid to think what this room was like before they were eliminated.