Skulduggery Pleasant_ Death Bringer - Derek Landy [78]
Skulduggery’s voice was empty. “You brought me back?”
“No. I merely allowed for the opportunity. You brought yourself back, Skulduggery. Through sheer force of will, your soul regained its consciousness. From there, your body acted as if it were whole again, allowing you to talk, to move, to feel pain.”
“You. You did this. I’m alive today because of you.”
“Yes. Doesn’t that make you smile? Knowing you owe me everything?”
Skulduggery sagged.
“What’s wrong?” Tenebrae asked. “Were you expecting something more? Did you fool yourself into detecting a divine hand in your resurrection? Did you believe your life to have some special purpose? Sorry to disappoint you, but your life had no special purpose other than the one I had planned for you. Which, as it turned out, was a waste of everyone’s time.
“I didn’t tell anyone, of course. You were my little secret. I continued to keep an eye on you. I watched you fight on, letting your anger consume you. It was a fascinating exercise, knowing there could really only be one outcome. All I had to do was wait. I knew you were coming.”
“OK, stop,” said Valkyrie. “What the hell are you talking about? What outcome? What were you waiting for?”
“For the knock on the door,” Tenebrae said. “Necromancy killed him, Necromancy brought him back. His loved ones were dead, his life was war. His life was death. With every year that passed, he was losing more and more of the person he thought he was. With every year, he was becoming somebody else. And then he knocked on the door of a Necromancer Temple, and I knew he had come home.”
The warmth drained from Valkyrie’s face. “No.”
“He abandoned his old life. He wore armour to disguise his old form. He took a new name to kill his old self.”
“No,” Valkyrie said. “No, don’t.”
“Skulduggery Pleasant walked off the battlefield, and Lord Vile walked into my Temple.”
Chapter 29
Who Knows What Darkness
alkyrie looked at Skulduggery. “He’s lying,” she said. “I now he’s lying. Tell me. Skulduggery, tell me he’s lying.”
“He can’t,” Tenebrae said.
“Shut up!” Valkyrie screamed. “Shut up! Say one more goddamn word and I’ll kill you, I swear to Jesus! Skulduggery, look at me. Look at me!”
Skulduggery raised his head, looked at her with his hollow eye sockets. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Valkyrie found herself walking backwards. “What are you talking about? What are you saying? What are you talking about? Skulduggery, he’s lying. He’s lying. Tell him he’s lying, for God’s sake. You’re not Lord Vile. You fought Lord Vile.”
“The real Lord Vile,” Tenebrae said, “and I mean the fully powered Lord Vile, would have obliterated him. That thing he fought was mere… intention. It was simply the armour. Inside, it was empty.”
“Yeah,” Valkyrie snarled. “We thought of that. Vile’s ghost. That’s what it is. Vile’s ghost is controlling it.”
Tenebrae folded his hands in the sleeves of his robe. “Vile doesn’t have a ghost. He’s not dead. Skulduggery is the one controlling it.”
“No, I think you’ll find that he isn’t.”
“Not consciously,” Tenebrae said. “Not willingly. But Lord Vile is a part of him, a part of his subconscious. Evidently, that particular part of his subconscious has… broken away from the rest.”
“What you’re talking about is ridiculous.”
“No, Valkyrie, actually it’s not. Our dear friend Skulduggery is, and let’s be honest here, a little bit insane. He spent ten months being tortured by the Faceless Ones, didn’t he? When you rescued him, was he the same well-adjusted gent you knew and loved?”
Valkyrie hesitated.
“He cracked.