“You’ll find skins and photos of various things shot by Theodore Roosevelt — he was a little quick with the trigger when the bushes moved, but those were the times.
“You’ll find charts drawn by Magellan’s steady hand, photographs of Solomon’s diamond mines, and a Phoenician sphere — a true map of the world etched in a globe of silver. That little beauty was recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Mauritius.” He clicked his teeth. “The Phoenicians are always good for a surprise. The map includes Florida, the Mississippi River, and Tenochtitlán — Mexico City these days. But none of that’s why I brought you here. Turn around.”
Cyrus and Antigone both turned.
“Oh …,” said Cyrus.
Antigone jumped back and covered her mouth.
A huge human skull was sitting on a red cushion beside the door. The jaw, four inches off the ground, was as wide as a horse’s chest. The smooth cranium was waist-high. The eyeholes were larger than cantaloupes, and gold had been plated in halos around them.
“This here is one of the sons of the gods,” Sterling said. “An immortal — not a transmortal, mind you — who chose Ethiopia for his kingdom and fashioned Stonehenge for his bathing circle.”
The cook patted the enormous head.
“That was before the stones were stolen by the Irish.”
“The Irish?” Cyrus laughed. “Stonehenge is in England.”
“Truth,” said Sterling. “But only because Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s padre, stole it again with a few cheater’s tips from the weasel Merlin.” He laughed. “And so it has always gone for the Irish.”
Antigone opened her mouth, but Big Ben Sterling shook his jingling head. “Don’t say a word, Miss Antigone, not about the Once and Future King. I won’t hear it.”
He looked back to the skull. “Well, this lad here, like most immortals, didn’t understand people. He cooked ’em, ate ’em raw, slaughtered ’em for sport, demanded their worship, and then still stewed ’em with apples for their troubles. But one day a young Ethiopian girl stole a sword from a priest, and so much for immortality. Do I need to tell you which sword it was, or are you two sharp enough to fill in my blanks?”
“Couldn’t it have just been a … big guy?” asked Antigone helplessly. “A pituitary problem?”
“Tigs,” Cyrus said quietly. “You’re a total hypocrite. My whole life, you’ve been telling me that dragons and unicorns and giants were real. I never believed you.”
“I never believed me,” said Antigone.
Cyrus pointed at the skull. “What’s the gold for?”
“A touch of religious decoration,” Sterling said. “The skull was idolized in a human sacrificial cult for more than a century. You can hear the thing breathe if you make it angry enough. The demon soul huffs and it puffs, but it can’t find its way back in. There are others—”
“Hold on,” Antigone said, raising her hands. “Stop! The skull gets mad?”
“Miss Antigone,” Sterling said. “Take me or leave me. You’ll sleep better if you disbelieve. It isn’t the skull that gets angry — it’s nothing but bone and gold. It’s what used to live in the skull, unable to leave — that’s all immortality is, drifting around, with nothing better to do than linger.
“This one’s been dealt with, and by a girl like you. But I’m sure he still thinks he was badly treated. I would, too, if I were a hellish big immortal, overfeeding on the villagers, seeing no end of myself in sight. Getting sliced by a wisp of a girl with a sharp tooth would be startling on a warm Ethiopian morning. A mortal would have coped better. We all expect a bit of death at the end.”
Cyrus backed away. He had already seen things in Ashtown that he didn’t want to believe. He stopped and crouched down until he was shorter than the skull. “What makes it mad?” he asked.
“Cyrus,” Antigone said, shivering. “Don’t even ask. I don’t want to know.”
“Ah, she’s a believer now,” said Sterling. He stepped back beside Cyrus. “Don’t you worry about Sir Roger here. There’s only one or two things to anger him. Most of the time I don’t think the big lad even knows he’s here.”
Sterling looked down at Cyrus. “If you whisper the name of the little girl who did him in, the demon finds a memory. And, of course, if either of you happened to be carrying that tooth with you, he’d be more than a little upset.”
Antigone looked at her brother, confused. Cyrus turned away from her, staring at the skull instead. She thought he still had the tooth. That’s why Sterling brought them here? To see if he really had the tooth? Well, he didn’t. He was an idiot, and he’d let it get stolen.
“What happens when he’s mad?” Cyrus asked. He hoped his voice sounded normal.
“Oh, he does a bit of heavy breathing — absorbs some of the room’s light. Years ago, the Journeymen named him Sir Roger, and they got a fair bit of use out of him when it came to hazing the Acolytes.”
Cyrus shifted his weight. “Say the name.”
“No. Stop. I’m leaving,” Antigone said. “Seriously, this is dumber than poking a rattlesnake.”
Sterling sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cyrus. But I couldn’t do that to your poor sister. But I’ll spell it so you can test my word when you’re alone sometime — it takes a bit more courage alone. S-E-L-A-M. The name means ‘peaceful,’ a lovely spice of irony.”
Putting his hands on his hips, the big cook scanned the room. “There are other skulls like Sir Roger in the Order’s collections in Europe and Africa — a pair in Istanbul have only a single eye — but this one required the Dragon’s Tooth for the harvest. Like the lads we keep in the Burials.”
Cyrus stood up. Kill me. The whisper ran through his head. The man with the bullet hole and the beard had known he was carrying the tooth.
Edgy nerves were all over Antigone’s face. “What do you mean? About the Burials?”
Ben Sterling jingled to the first row of shelves. He was at least a foot too wide to fit between them.
“Well,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s pretty, but what options do you have when an immortal or transmortal takes to … misunderstanding people? The Sages collect names. Make lists. Do their best to monitor behavior. And it’s up to the Explorers to collect more than names. Before and after everything else, Ashtown is a prison, and don’t you forget it. Beginning and end, start and stop.”
“Wait a sec,” said Cyrus. “Are any of the people in the Burials dead?”
“Not always people,” Sterling said. “Never dead. They sleep.”
“For how long?” Antigone asked.
Sterling shrugged. “Forever. Or, like Maxi, until they are wakened, roused, released, or busted loose. In the beginning, the Burials were all neat and orderly — a polished little dungeon. But there were too many incidents, too many revivals and escapes. Now each Burial is hidden. A guard might know one or two, but only the Avengel keeps a full map. But I’m scaring you now. There hasn’t been a transmortal put down in nearly a century.”
“You know,” said Cyrus, “I saw the thing on Skelton’s keys. It was small — like a petrified shark tooth. I don’t see how it could be the tooth you’re talking about.”
Antigone shot him a warning glance.
Cyrus shrugged. “I saw it. So what?”
Sterling’s face spread into a wide smile. “Did you touch it? Did you handle it?”
“I don’t know,” Cyrus said. “I guess. He had me park his truck. It was just a little black point — not a sword big enough to take off a giant’s head.”
The cook sighed happily, tugged his beard, and then crossed his arms. “Billy Bones, you had the point,” he said quietly. “You old dog.”