Palace of the Damned. Darren Shan
He had bottles of blood, taken from the few sailors he’d spared on the ship, but he was reluctant to drink. Human blood was nectar to a vampire. He could go a long way on a small amount. If he drank now, he’d find the strength to continue, but that would carry him further than he cared. He didn’t want another week of life. So he left the bottles buried deep beneath his shirt and stumbled on.
Shortly after dawn, as he readjusted the fur to protect his face from the weak sunlight, the green and yellow flashes vanished. He had lost track of them many times before, only to catch another flicker out of the corner of his eye a few minutes later, so he waited calmly. But eventually he realised the colours – if they’d existed in the first place – had disappeared for good. He and the baby were alone, stranded and more lost than ever.
Larten sneered at the wind and snow. He should have known better. He had let himself be distracted when all that mattered was finding a cave. There was no hope for the baby in this damned land. All he’d done was waste time and make it more likely that the child would have to rot in the open with him.
“The same old Larten,” he muttered. “Always indecisive. But no more.”
He straightened and let the rough cloak of bloodstained fur drop to the snowy ground. Enough was enough. He was going to do what he should have done as soon as he got ashore — dig a hole and bury the baby alive. Not a pleasant way for the boy to die, but at least his suffering would be short. It would be hard digging through ice and frozen earth, but his vampire nails were a match for the job. Once the grim deed was done, he could go in search of his own death.
Larten stopped halfway into a crouch. The wind had dropped for a second and he’d spotted an opening in a rocky ridge to his left. It looked like the mouth of a cave.
For a long moment Larten stared slackjawed at the ridge. Was this real? If so, perhaps the colours had been too. Maybe the yellow and green flashes had been shades of the baby’s parents, leading Larten to this place, so that their son could be laid to rest in a proper tomb. It was unlikely, but Larten had seen and heard of stranger things.
Sighing, he picked up the fur, covered himself and the boy again, and set off towards the hole in the rock. One way or another he was determined to part ways with the baby at the ridge. Death had been cheated long enough. It was time to pay the grim reaper his due.
It wasn’t a cave. It was a palace of the dead.
Larten couldn’t believe it at first. The opening in the rock was larger than it had looked from afar, but he’d assumed it was no more than an ordinary cave. He entered happily, glad to be out of the bite of the wind, thinking maybe this would be a good place for him to die too. He stood within the entrance a while, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.
And then he realised it wasn’t that dark. The world behind him was sparkling beneath the rays of the day’s young sun, but the cave ahead was illuminated too. There was a source of light at the other end. Frowning, Larten made sure one of his knives was within easy reach – he felt nervous for some reason – then inched forward, whispering to the baby to keep him quiet.
When the tunnel opened out into a great cavern, Larten forgot about his knife, the baby and everything else, and just stared around in silent, dumbstruck wonder.
Like many of the halls of Vampire Mountain, this monumental cave had started out as a natural feature, but had been worked on by other hands since nature last applied her touch. Rocks had been removed from the ceiling and panels of crystal inserted in their place. That was why the cave was bright, the light of the sun reflecting through the crystals.
Symbols and pictures had been carved into the walls, along with words, row after row of text, encircling the cavern. Larten had never learnt to read, so he wasn’t sure what language it was, but from the different styles he assumed more than one person had worked on the carvings.
There were dozens of ice sculptures dotted around the cavern and hanging by ropes from the ceiling. Some of the sculptures were of objects — a chandelier that looked like it was decorated with candles, a drinking fountain, a four-poster bed, several chairs and thrones. Others were of men, or to be more precise, vampires. Even if there hadn’t been the marks on their fingertips and the scars of warfare on their faces and limbs, Larten would have known. One vampire always recognised another, even if that other was only an icen statue.
The grandest sculpture stood at the centre of the cavern. It was a perfect replica of Vampire Mountain, carved out of ice, twenty feet tall. Larten felt a pang of homesickness, which surprised him — after all, he hadn’t been forced out of the mountain, but had left of his own accord.
At the foot of the giant sculpture sat a long coffin made of ice. Others were spread around the hall, an almost perfect circle of them, only disturbed in two places by a chasm that Larten would soon explore. But first the main coffin. He didn’t want to die before his curiosity had been sated.
The coffin was beautifully decorated with carvings of wolves, bats and bears. Weapons were buried within the ice, a sword, several knives and an axe. They surrounded the body of a naked vampire, one of the finest warriors the clan had ever produced. As Larten drew abreast of the corpse, he peered through the lid of ice at the face of the vampire inside, preserved as if he’d died only a few nights ago. He noted the missing hand and half a missing jaw, but he didn’t need those features to identify the dead General. He’d known as soon as he set foot inside the cavern. Part of him had known when he saw the opening in the ridge from afar. “Perta Vin-Grahl,” Larten sighed, and knelt before the final resting place of the vampire who had passed into the realms of myth hundreds of years before.
When the vampaneze broke away from the clan, Perta Vin-Grahl fought harder than anyone to eliminate the traitors. He hated the breakaway group, but loved the vampire clan even more. When the Princes agreed a truce, Perta couldn’t accept their decision. In order not to clash with his leaders and create more problems, he led a group of similarly inclined vampires away into the frozen wilds to perish out of sight and mind.
One of Perta’s group returned years later with tales of a tomb like a palace and coffins made of ice. For centuries nobody knew if the stories were true. Many had searched for Perta Vin-Grahl’s final resting place, but none had found it. Until now.
Larten studied the face of the dead General and smiled weakly. It was ironic that such a noble vampire should have been discovered by a disgraceful failure. Destiny had a wicked sense of humour. Seba or Vancha should have had this honour, even Wester. Not pitiful Larten Crepsley.
For a moment Larten considered taking the news back to the clan. Nobody knew what had happened on the ship. If he withheld that information, and only spoke of his incredible find, he would be embraced by the Princes, saluted by the Generals, respected by all. The future would be his.
But Larten hadn’t been reared to lie. Seba had taught him, above all else, to be honest. If he returned with his tale, he must tell all. He couldn’t accept a life of half-truths. And since he didn’t wish to admit his shame to his old master, he decided it would be for the best if he stayed true to his original course.
“My apologies if I disturbed your slumber, General,” Larten murmured, then dug out the baby from beneath his makeshift cloak and set him on top of the coffin. The boy gasped from the cold, then laughed and wriggled his legs. Larten smiled and gently touched the baby’s cheek. He’d meant to bury the child, but he no longer thought that was essential. This was a place of death, but there was also some form of strange magic in the air. Perhaps the ghosts of the frozen Generals guarded it, or maybe it was some other force, but Larten was certain the baby’s corpse wouldn’t be disturbed here, even out in the open, atop the coffin of ice.
“Even in death may you be triumphant, young one,” he said softly, then left the boy to freeze. It wouldn’t take long, and he couldn’t think of a better place for the innocent baby to lie than over the preserved remains of the legendary Perta Vin-Grahl.
Leaving the cloak of fur on the floor by the coffin, Larten strode to the edge of the chasm running through the cave. The crack in the ice started at one side and ran all the way across