Valkyrie spent most of Monday sitting in the bath in her hotel room, submerged in piping-hot water that fizzed with healing properties. Her skin had long-since pruned by the time she towelled herself off, but at least her cuts and bruises had faded away. Her muscles felt better, too, and her energy was back to a normal level.
It was getting dark when the Phantom pulled up outside and Valkyrie got in. As they drove out of the car park, a passing driver slowed to gape at the car, and the driver behind her, who was also gaping, crashed into the back of her. That was the third time that had happened.
“This,” Valkyrie said, fastening her seat belt, “is a dangerous car.” They headed for the motorway. “Tell me.”
“The only reference to Rhast I could find pointed me to an obscure book on the occult,” said Skulduggery, “the Book of Shalgoth.”
“So we read that, we find out who, or what, Rhast was, or is, and we take his eye. Easy. Gross but easy.”
“Unfortunately, the Book of Shalgoth was destroyed by Mevolent hundreds of years ago.”
Valkyrie frowned. “So we have nothing?”
“There might still be a way to find out what it said.”
“Excellent. How? ”
“The Book of Shalgoth was one of dozens of books and grimoires that would have been studied by a certain group of scholars down through the centuries.”
“There you go,” Valkyrie said, brightening. “So we find one of these scholars and they’ll tell us what we need to know. Nice one.”
“Unfortunately, all the scholars are dead.”
“All of them?”
“Sadly.”
“So there’s no chance of finding out what was in the Book of Shalgoth?”
“None.”
“Then why did you tell me there might be a way?”
“Because there still might. One of these scholars imprinted himself on to an Echo Stone.”
“OK!” Valkyrie exclaimed. “Some good news! Some good news that you’re not going to immediately turn into bad news, right?”
“Right. We’ve accessed this Echo Stone before, actually. Do you remember Oisin?”
“Oisin the rambling monk? The guy who told us about the Sceptre of the Ancients? That’s great! I haven’t seen him since I was twelve! He’s an old friend! Basically. So who has the stone now?”
“After Ghastly died, his property was divided in accordance with his will. The collection went to one of his oldest friends.”
“Is it you?”
“Ghastly had more than one friend, you know.”
“So it isn’t you. Is it someone you know?”
“It is.”
“You’re being hesitant.”
“Am I?”
“It’s someone you’ve annoyed in the past, isn’t it?”
“It may be.”
Valkyrie nodded. “Then we’ll have something in common. ”
Uther Peccant was waiting for them at a big old tree on a hill. Four miles south of him, in the dark emptiness, Roarhaven stood invisible. They got out of the Phantom.
“Uther,” said Skulduggery, “thanks for coming.”
Peccant had the air of an old-fashioned headmaster about him – impatient and authoritative. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a long face, severe but not unattractive – for an older guy. His hair was grey and impressively lustrous.
“It isn’t as if you gave me any choice, is it? Urgent business, a matter of life and death, something-something about the end of the world, isn’t that what you said?”
“Something along those lines.”
“It’s always so dramatic with you, isn’t it?”
Things were getting decidedly frosty decidedly early, so Valkyrie smiled. “Hi,” she said. “I’m—”
“I know who you are,” said Peccant. “Everyone knows who you are.”
“Right, well … I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Who from?”
“Your students.”
“Who, exactly?”
She hesitated. “Omen Darkly.”
Peccant grunted again. “That boy.”
“He’s a good kid.”
“He’s a daydreamer and a slacker who has decided he can never be good enough because of some ridiculous inferiority complex. Nothing gets my goat more than people who refuse to live up to their potential. Are you living up to your potential, Miss Cain?”
“I think so …”
“You are not,” he growled.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
He took the Echo Stone out of his pocket. It was smaller than she’d remembered. Smaller than the other Echo Stones she’d seen. “This is what you’re after, then? ”
“It is, indeed,” Skulduggery said.
“Even though it’s damaged?”
Valkyrie stared, dismayed. “It’s damaged?”
“It’s got some damn fool imprinted on it, a blabbering, blathering monk, and he can’t be erased. Not that I would erase him – he is quite a treasure trove of information regarding the Ancients and the Faceless Ones – but it’s not an Echo Stone’s purpose to keep one person’s memories alive indefinitely. The point of mem-ories is that they fade. It’s part of the human condition.”
“My memories don’t fade,” Skulduggery said.
“Well,” Peccant replied, “you’re not human, are you?”
Nobody said anything for a bit.
“You were a friend of Ghastly’s, then?” Valkyrie asked, smiling.
“I was,” Peccant said. “He was a good man. Unfortunately, he fell in with a bad crowd and it eventually got him killed.”
“Erskine Ravel got him killed,” Skulduggery said.
“Obviously, that’s the bad crowd I was talking about. It’s fully charged, in case you’re interested. I didn’t think you’d have a cradle on you, so I took the liberty.”
“Thank you,” Valkyrie said as he passed it to her. “I have a cradle, but it’s back at home and—”
“And your home is being watched, yes? Because you appear to be an enemy of the state or some such nonsense.”
“Pretty much.”
“Well,” Peccant said, “I hope this is all worth it. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but don’t use this out here in the open. That ridiculous car attracts attention, and you really need to be hiding right now.” He didn’t say anything else – just got in his perfectly ordinary car, flicked on his perfectly ordinary headlights, and drove off.