reallybadeggs | Test Drive for September 2013 Apps

"What if she was just chipped and had Robert Frost engraved on her? Or unchipped and making vague threats?" Descry stopped a few feet away from the odd-looking figure wearing the Jolly Roger flag like a scarf, his eyes crinkling with a smile. A somewhat bemused, vaguely frazzled smile, though only someone who knew him well would be able to see it.

Skulduggery knew him well.

It was far too hot to be wearing the sweater and scarf Descry had been during a rainy day in Dublin, so he'd stripped down to his shirt and trousers. Now he held the scarf out to Skulduggery. "Here. You might make people run off, wearing that flag. Or worse, laugh their heads off. Either way, you won't be able to get any information out of them like that."

The hastily-disguised skeleton glanced up, and though it was impossible to see him smile, that smile was audible in his voice. "Descry. Fancy meeting you here. Does this mean I'm dead?"

The last time he'd seen Descry, the other sorcerer had been poisoned and dying on the floor of a pub almost a century ago. It seemed like a reasonable assumption to make, even if - beyond the most absolute technical definition - Skulduggery was fairly sure he hadn't died yet.

He fingered the flag covering his head. "It was hanging off a shop window. There's something faintly ironic about hiding in plain sight, don't you think?" He reached out and took the scarf Descry offered nonetheless, and wrapped it around the lower half of his jaw before pulling the flag up so it rested as a sort of cap on top of his skull.

"Of course you're dead," said Descry, tilting his head and with the smile more in his eyes and voice than on his mouth. It overshadowed the bemusement, this time. "Did you miss the fact you've lacked flesh, blood and limbs for all this time?"

His mouth pulled up, close enough to be laughing. "It would be, if anyone could see the skull. Here, let me." The redhead stepped forward and reached up, pulling off the flag and tossing his sweater onto Skulduggery's head to hide his skull for as long as it took to fold the flag into a bandanna, with the skull's broad grin on feature. Then he took his sweater back and fitted the bandanna on again. "Now all you need is something to cover your eyes. Or possibly to put in your eyes, if Rover can--"

Descry cut off abruptly with an exhale, and there was a faintly awkward pause before he stepped back, folding his sweater over his arm. Last thing he remembered, he would have sworn he could hear all the Dead Men, save Skulduggery. But he couldn't have been. Rover was dead, and he'd been dying himself. "What happened to your hat?"

"Lost in transit," Skulduggery replied in the clipped tones of someone who had been wondering the exact same thing for the past half an hour, and wasn't getting any closer to finding it. He was almost immediately distracted, however, by Descry's behaviour right before he asked the question.

Combined with the comment about lacking flesh, blood, and limbs, it didn't take a genius to work out what must have happened. And Skulduggery was a genius.

His voice softened considerably. "Is that pub the last thing you remember?"

Descry smiled at him, an understated, lopsided smile filled with resignation. "Is that a question, or are you actually a detective?" He reached out to straighten Skulduggery's lapel. "It's not the last thing you remember, if the cut of your dress is anything to go by. How long has it been and what have I missed? Besides Ghastly's new suits?"

They weren't the only ones who'd appeared out of nowhere. From the mental whispers of the island's inhabitants, there had been a lot of people--and some not-exactly-people--who had been waking up in the middle of the square without any apparent origin. It wasn't all that hard to figure out that, if Skulduggery was not only wearing different clothes from what Descry remembered but a different style entirely, he was probably from another time altogether.

The thought made Descry's stomach twist, but he didn't need to articulate his question more than that. Is everyone else alive? Is Saracen okay? Did you get Serpine? Has Vile made any unwanted visits?

... Well. Except for the last. Descry chose not to clarify on that one.

1912. If Skulduggery's memory was anything to go by, and it was, Descry had been poisoned and killed in 1912. Only a few years before the introduction of the Truce - which, of course, had been Serpine's plan from the beginning.

"Over a century," the detective finally answered. A chuckle escaped his lipless teeth. "You've missed, let's see... the war ending much more peacefully than anyone imagined. Serpine making a return with the Sceptre of the Ancients and nearly succeeding in his plan to end the world, then dying." Skulduggery didn't mention that Serpine's death was at his hand, but he knew he wouldn't have to. No one else pursued the Adept quite as doggedly as Skulduggery had. "You missed Vengeous escaping from prison, reviving the Grotesquery, and then both of them dying. The Diablerie returning, succeeding, and then most of its members dying. Three Faceless Ones. Dreylan Scarab. An attack of the Remnants on the Sanctuary."

He hesitated. "Lord Vile returning to try and kill the Necromancers' messiah. He, thankfully, didn't succeed. Neither did the Necromancers. Ghastly and Erskine are also both members of the Council of Elders now."

Skulduggery had sorely missed being the only one able to surprise Descry.

The war ending wasn't so much a surprise as a relief, and a sigh escaped Descry at the news. The rest ... was more of a concern. A series of mounting concerns, in fact. A series of mounting concerns which ended in all the blood draining out of Descry's face until he looked nearly as bad as he had in the moment that he'd died.

He tried to speak and let out a strangled sound of disbelief and incomprehension, reflexively reaching out to grip Skulduggery's arms. His grip would have been painful, if Skulduggery had flesh; as it is his bones might have creaked. For a long moment Descry struggled with articulation, peering up into Skulduggery's eye-sockets.

Descry knew about Vile. He'd said nothing, because he'd also known Skulduggery wouldn't react well to knowing anyone else did. But this was a century later, and Lord Vile--

"Are you alright?" he managed finally. "Are you having trouble controlling him? What's Ghastly doing? Or the others? They're all fine--or at least alive?"

This was no time to continue pretending he didn't know. It wasn't often he pretended he could read Skulduggery's mind, but he was now. The Necromancers were almost an afterthought, so much so that Descry didn't even bother bringing them up.

Descry's silence about the Necromancers confirmed that he'd known about the Passage from the beginning. Anyone else, and Skulduggery would have demanded to know why he hadn't been told - why Meritorious hadn't been told.

But this wasn't anyone else. This was Descry. Unless anyone was in direct danger, his life depended on his keeping secrets.

An overlook that was much harder to forgive, Skulduggery found, was Vile. Are you having trouble controlling him? He'd always suspected Descry knew the truth and never said, but it was still somehow paralysing to hear him admit to it. Never mind that he was supposed to be dead and yet walking around like nothing was wrong; this was what made Skulduggery have to work just to form words.

"No," he managed at last. "I'm not having trouble. It was touch and go at one stage, but it was my choice and I managed to come back from it. The others - "

He hesitated again, just because it had been so long since he thought of them all as 'the others.' They weren't a unit anymore. When the war ended, they drifted apart. "The others are all fine. Ghastly owns a shop - or used to. Anton owns a hotel. Dexter went traveling. Saracen drifted. Erskine's the new Irish Grand Mage, which is very brave of him considering the last two - "

And another hesitation, but this time Skulduggery didn't speak again. The last two Grand Mages. Corrival and Meritorious. They were both killed.

Touch and go. Touch and go where Lord Vile was concerned could have meant hundreds of people dead. The fact that Skulduggery came back from it was a miracle. The fact that he'd chosen to go there ... Descry choked and let out a strangled, wordless objection.

It was fortunate, and not, that Skulduggery went on. Descry almost relaxed a little, hearing about how the others were going. Almost. Instead his grip on Skulduggery's arms tightened. Meritorious had been slated for the title at the end of the war, and there was only one other person Skulduggery hadn't mentioned for whom he was hesitate like that.

"The last two were Corrival and Eachan, weren't they?" His voice was raw.

Skulduggery didn't need to confirm it for Descry to know. Hearing it, or not hearing it, felt like almost as much of a blow as hearing Dexter's stricken grief before even seeing him cradling Larrikin's body. Descry exhaled shakily and almost pulled away, except that he changed his mind halfway through and stepped in to hug Skulduggery hard instead. It was what Larrikin would have done, and regardless of the fact that Skulduggery was the cause of Descry's crushing state of shock, in that moment he needed to cling to the only link he had back to his family.

It wasn't the strangled noise Descry made, uncommon though it was to hear him so shocked that he couldn't even speak properly. It wasn't his question, or the unnerving accuracy of the words in the question, or how tortured his voice became as he asked it.

It was the hug. The hug made Skulduggery realise that maybe he'd gone a little too far. He'd only known Descry to hug Saracen unwarranted, and even then never in public. The hug, more than anything else, alerted Skulduggery to the level by which Descry was overwhelmed.

And Descry wasn't used to being overwhelmed.

Skulduggery returned the hug and didn't answer. What he did do, after several quiet moments, was put a hand on Descry's shoulder and push him gently away so he could look him in the eye. "What have I told you about checking the cause of death in unexpected crime scenes?"

Descry wasn't a hugging person by nature. He had become one out of the necessity of living with Larrikin for any length of time, at least as much as any of the Dead Men had, but his natural inclination for comfort didn't run toward hugs. It was just that a hug was his only option in Skulduggery's case, because he couldn't read Skulduggery's mind to stabilise his own thoughts.

It wasn't often Descry wished he could read Skulduggery's mind, knowing just what memories were in there. Right now, he did.

Those moments were enough to at least regain his footing, though Descry didn't really try to hide the fact his eyes were damp and he didn't really release his grip on Skulduggery's sleeves. The redhead laughed, quiet and a little ragged. "Wear gloves. Or wait for you. You've been dying to ask me that for a century, haven't you?"

And then he smiled, a tight, lopsided smile not completely mirthful.

"Quite literally," Skulduggery nodded. By any technical definition of the word 'dying,' anyway. He'd never found a satisfactory way of describing his current state. 'Undead' was much too clumsy, and reminded him too much of zombies. 'Dying' was as good a word as any.

All of which was putting much more thought into a lighthearted pun than Descry probably intended.

"And here's another one," Skulduggery added barely a second later. "Why didn't you wait for me? I learned who he was, and how he was connected to you. I learned what you were trying to do. What I never learned was why you threw all caution to the winds."

There had been many, many times during their tenure as one unit in which Descry and Skulduggery had frustrated the others by being on one wavelength and leaving the others behind, even taking to account Skulduggery's immunity to Descry's magic. They were simply the most alike in thought process.

This was not one of them.

Descry's smile faded into that expression he so often wore, the one of quiet resigned weariness. "Skulduggery, it took me nearly two years to stop forgetting you even existed. In the year since Rover died I was constantly surrounded by the burning urge for revenge. What makes you think I had the capacity to remember how to be careful?"

Because he hadn't. Because there were times, when he was alone, when he realised how reckless he'd been getting. The problem was that even when he was alone and could recognise it, he'd found it hard to care. It was hard to care when there was a Larrikin-shaped hole in their lives, and even harder to care when he had to grieve for him seven times over.

"Being careful isn't something you remember," Skulduggery disagreed. "It's instinct. Ingrained by a good teacher. And since I'm an excellent teacher, either you paid a woeful amount of attention during our lessons, or something went terribly wrong in that apartment."

Constantly surrounded by the burning urge for revenge, robbing Descry of the capacity to be careful. It was a scenario that sounded all too familiar. But in Descry's case, it only led to one tragic death. In Skulduggery's, it led to a tragic lapse in judgement that left thousands dead. Here, at least, Descry would have the opportunity to regain himself again.

Speaking of here... "You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?"

"I almost feel like I should be flattered by your faith in my ability not to ever make a mistake." Almost. If Skulduggery weren't taking it as more reason to feel guilty for not teaching Descry well enough. The skeleton may have made it into a joke, but Descry knew Skulduggery, and there was a grain of truth to his reaction.

Descry still hadn't forgotten what Skulduggery had said before, about Vile being his choice. And he wasn't going to forget it, let alone forget to ask about it. But for the moment, Skulduggery had curtailed the question.

"Isla Empieza," Descry said promptly, lifting an eyebrow in a 'really?' fashion nearly identical to the one Corrival wore. He leaned back against the fountain. "It's a small colony, but it's been here for a while. The fountain has been here longer. Folklore says the ruby used to reside here, but it went missing--I haven't met any of the townspeople who know how, at least in any fashion that seems solid. Mostly they think the fountain is cursed or patronised by a deity."

He pointed down toward the residential area. "All the townspeople live in that area, but any public housing is off this way. They're worried, Skulduggery. They don't quite know what's happening, but they can guess, and they know people like us are strange. They don't want to risk angering whoever brought us here by treating us badly--public opinion is Davy Jones--but that doesn't mean they want to make friends. They'll give us a place to stay for a little while, but the last thing they want is for us to make it permanent. Probably why their ships are such reasonable prices."

His direction shifted toward the road leading out of town, toward the woods. "The southern part of the island is covered by woods. I don't know anything about it; the locals don't go there. They're afraid of that, too." Descry dropped his arm and gave Skulduggery an exasperated look. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you'd think I've forgotten how to gather information, Skulduggery."

Even Descry couldn't always tell how Skulduggery's words were meant. The question itself had been flat, but there was a touch of amusement to Skulduggery's nonexistent face as he asked it, almost like he was teasing Descry.

He hadn't been, exactly. It wasn't that Skulduggery thought Descry had forgotten how to read minds. It was that, to be brutally honest, after a century of no one to rely on but himself, he'd almost forgotten Descry could read minds at all.

"Just testing," he murmured, taking all the information in. Descry's efficiency was something Skulduggery could easily get used to again.

"Davy Jones," he mused, "isn't surprising. It's written right on the fountain. But whatever or whoever brought us here, they expect us to become pirates in search of the missing shards of this ruby. If the poem didn't make that obvious enough - " he held up the leather-bound journal he'd woken up with, which bore a faded skull and crossbones on the cover, " - there's this."

He paused, then shook his head. "I've never been fond of rubies. I'm much more interested in why the woods are so frightening. What do you think?"

"It is," Descry agreed with a faint smile, shifting the sweater over his arm to reveal his own leather journal. It looked, actually, a lot like one of the ones he'd made himself, except he'd never imprinted one with a skull and crossbones. "The poem is interesting, though."

He knelt by it, tracing the words. "Look at these, the first two lines of the final stanza. 'Stangers listen: take heed, take care.' This is a directive. 'Mayhap the chance to flee.' There's an offer here, and it's a specific one, for all the window dressing. This fountain is old, Skulduggery. We're not the first ones to have been brought here, not with such specific address on a monument this age."

The redhead looked up. "This is a game. Or a trial, or possibly a challenge, or a quest. Davy Jones may have something to do with it, but I doubt he's the only one involved. Jones is meant to be a spirit presiding over the dead at sea; we're on land. And while he's implied to have a mischievous or cruel streak, it's usually involved in shipwrecks. So who's responsible for this island?"

Descry frowned down at the words, that tiny crinkle in his brow he wore when he was thinking. "The final stanza is a clear warning against Jones, but the poem as a whole still bids us to go onto the ocean--his domain. How much do you want to bet that we're being sent by someone else to gather the shards of the ruby because they can't go onto the ocean themselves?"

It was almost a rhetorical question, because Descry certainly didn't wait for an answer. "It's not even any guarantee we'll be able to use the ruby ourselves. 'Mayhap the chance to flee.' Mayhap because it may not have that power, or we may not be allowed to have it?" He shrugged and straightened back up again, brushing off his knees and picking up the sweater and the journal wrapped in it. Then he glanced over at Skulduggery with a faint smile. "Which is all, of course, my way of saying that I want to know what else is on land before we start dipping our toes in the water. How much did you miss me?"

Skulduggery didn't answer the question at first, his expression inscrutable within the visage of his grinning skull. When he finally did, there was a certain tenor to his voice - one part exasperation, one part impressed. "Valkyrie was right. It does get annoying, listening to someone show off."

Because of course, he'd thought of the same. Within moments of examining the poem in greater detail, he'd made what to him were the obvious connections. Skulduggery just wasn't used to anyone else making the same connections without a helpful prod. It was ego-boosting, in a way, always being the smartest person in the room; but it did get frustrating on occasion, particularly when nothing but obvious questions were asked and time was of the essence.

He'd forgotten how often he and Descry left the other Dead Men in the dust.

"I'll admit, I missed the convenience." Skulduggery put a hand on Descry's shoulder as he passed, already heading for the southern part of the island and the woods. "Since you're dead, can I assume you don't need to eat or sleep, or would that be making things too easy?"

Descry laughed, and though quiet it was a true laugh, not a bitter one. Just a tad sad, perhaps, that he'd missed out on nearly a century of his friends' lives. That Skulduggery had forgotten what it felt like to be in accord.

"That would be too much to ask, I'm afraid," the redhead admitted as he followed Skulduggery, falling into step beside him. "I'm already feeling a bit peckish." Which was true, although part of him also didn't want to eat. Skulduggery's words still rang in his head.

"It was my choice."

Those words were making Descry feel a little too sick to his stomach to eat.

"Skulduggery," he said, looking straight ahead to the road, "why did you choose to become Lord Vile again?"

It couldn't have been too peckish, since Descry didn't stop and demand that they find a tavern first. That was perfectly fine with Skulduggery. Many saw food as a potential for luxury, but since his death, Skulduggery hadn't seen it as anything more than a mildly distracting and annoying necessity. It was amazing how many more hours in the day there were when no physical necessity held you back.

Descry's question was so unusual as to be surreal. Only Valkyrie had ever known the truth. Valkyrie was the only one Skulduggery had ever discussed the details with - and even then, he held back far more than she was aware of.

"Because the Necromancers found their Death Bringer," he answered, and if the subject matter hadn't been so serious, you might have thought he was making a remark on the weather. "She grew too powerful too fast, and there was no other way to stop her."

It wasn't often that Descry simply didn't know what to say. Most of the time, he chose not to say anything because there was no need, or the other person in the conversation wouldn't have been served by his speaking. Right now, it was because he had no way to articulate what he was feeling.

One part anger, one part incredulity, one part grief, one part acceptance. Skulduggery knew what Lord Vile had cost everyone. He wouldn't have made that choice unless what he was saying was accurate: that there was no other way. But he was also holding back from details, and while Skulduggery had always been one to hold back details if he felt they were too personal, irrelevant or obvious, in this case that wasn't a good sign.

He hadn't held back details from Descry. It had taken a while to get to that point, but he'd stopped, save the big one, and even that had been obvious in Skulduggery's own way. Obvious enough that Descry hadn't felt the need to mention it.

"Ghastly still doesn't know, does he?" Descry said quietly.

And that was from where the anger came. Descry just wasn't sure if it was all for Skulduggery.

Skeletons may not have needed to breathe, but Skulduggery exhaled a long breath from between his teeth anyway. "No," he answered simply. "He doesn't."

Nor had Ghastly ever suspected. Not once. To Skulduggery's knowledge, none of them had, apart from perhaps Saracen due to the nature of his magic. And Saracen was young enough that his not asking was understandable. Justifiable, even.

Skulduggery didn't mean to add anything else, because there shouldn't have been anything else to add. But before he could think about it too thoroughly, Skulduggery turned his head toward Descry. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

Of course Ghastly didn't. Of course he didn't, because throughout the century Descry had known, he had never once given Skulduggery cause to believe he wasn't alone in having to struggle with his burden. The redhead exhaled slowly and pressed his hand over his eyes, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his knuckles.

He couldn't have told anyone in the beginning. Descry knew that. But he should have told someone afterward, after Skulduggery had had the chance to recover his equilibrium. Now Skulduggery was a century later, and still alone the way he should never be.

"It wouldn't have helped you," Descry said simply, with only the crunch of their footsteps and the whisper of distant minds as their backdrop. "If you'd known someone knew, your guilt would have driven you to leave again. That's not what you needed, to come back properly. You needed to know you had an anchor to stop you from wanting that power all over again."

Now he wasn't even sure it had worked. Oh, it had for a century, but Lord Vile. That kind of power--it was an addiction. Descry had wrestled with addictions once or twice in the past, before the war, when he'd finally had reason to train his magic instead of deny it and all the minds in the world had grown too much. Even one lapse, for a former addict, could be dangerous.

How much was the memory of that power, and the fact that this time he'd controlled it, weighing on Skulduggery's mind and soul?

"Dexter knows," he said, with just enough of a pause to make it seem like an afterthought. "He found out after that mission at the pass, the one you insisted we should undertake in spite of Vile's threat. I had a nightmare and said some things I couldn't help. He agreed to wait, to let you find your footing."

The redhead didn't exactly look over, but he turned his head just enough to look at Skulduggery sidelong. "Saracen knows too. He came to me during that wild goose chase when someone claimed they'd seen Vile on a battlefield and Meritorious sent us to confirm the truth. I asked him not to say anything either."

Descry had a very unique perspective on the way the human mind worked. That was why Skulduggery didn't generally question decisions Descry made regarding someone's mental health - never had, and never would. But the idea that Descry had known about Vile, and couldn't have known for sure that Skulduggery was stable, and still decided not to tell anyone?

Objectively, it made practical sense. It was what the Dead Men always did, dismantling threats before they even became threats. Objectively, it had less to do with Skulduggery himself and more to do with making sure Lord Vile never entered the picture again.

So why did he get the feeling Descry's reasons were much more personal than that?

Skulduggery froze, digging one foot a little deeper into the gravel than he meant to and accidentally kicking a stone a short distance up the slope. Dexter had known since the pass? Known, and done nothing? For close to a century? Saracen, at least, had gone to Descry - but he hadn't been there when Ghastly's mother was killed. Dexter was. Hadn't he promised Ghastly revenge? Hadn't he been just as terrified by the prospect of Vile as the others?

Dexter and Saracen had each called him separately within a few days after he killed Serpine. Skulduggery had found it strange at the time. Now, he knew why.

Skulduggery didn't stumble. He was a skeleton, he had far less weight than anyone had to worry about, and perfect control over his form without any hiccups to be caused by biological processes. For Skulduggery, kicking a stone across the way without meaning to was a stumble.

Descry didn't pause, or even look over. The skeleton's silence said more than his evasive chatter could. That was okay. Descry didn't need him to talk.

So he talked instead. Quietly, but in that steady way he had when he knew things no one else could.

"We're a family, Skulduggery. You can't go through the things we did and not be. Of course I wasn't going to say anything. You spent five years as Lord Vile and then you came back. Our family had a hole in it, and then it was filled up again. If I'd thought it would help, I would have told someone, but it wouldn't have."

If he'd had to feel Ghastly's anger and betrayal, or Anton's fury, or Corrival's cold purpose, Descry honestly wasn't sure if he'd been strong enough to stand in Skulduggery's defence. Not so soon after everything had happened. Dexter was the only one Descry could have trusted to maintain the secret, and even then the mind-reader knew how close Dexter had gotten to telling Corrival.

"But that was a century ago," he continued. "A century is a long time, Skulduggery. Even for us." A century was more than long enough to see sweeping social changes. Even sorcerers noticed the passing of a century.

Now he knew what he was feeling. Not just anger, not just incredulity. He was disappointed. He never thought he'd have cause to feel disappointed in one of the Dead Men before; they'd saved his life and sanity more times than he could count. How could he be disappointed in people to whom he owed everything?

He stopped and laid a hand on Skulduggery's arm to stop him as well, looking into the skeleton's empty sockets. "You should have told him by now, Skulduggery. He's had enough time to grieve, and enough time with you back as you were before your death, to handle it. You owe it to him."

Test Drive for September 2013 Apps

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