The Bone House Read online

  Contents

  Important People in the Bright Empires series

  Previously in the Bright Empires series

  The Bone House

  Part One: The Book of Forbidden Secrets

  Chapter 1: In Which Some Things Are Best Forgotten

  Chapter 2: In Which a Wander in the Wilderness Is Good for the Soul

  Chapter 3: In Which an Omen Is Proved True

  Chapter 4: In Which Tea and Sandwiches Are Encountered

  Chapter 5: In Which a Guest Is Honoured

  Chapter 6: In Which the Pregnant Question Is Asked

  Chapter 7: In Which December Proves the Cruellest Month

  Part Two: Auspicious Meetings

  Chapter 8: In Which the Aid of a Good Doctor Is Sought

  Chapter 9: In Which Full Disclosure Takes a Drubbing

  Chapter 10: In Which an Identity Is Mistaken

  Chapter 11: In Which Wilhelmina Learns the Ropes

  Chapter 12: In Which Sheer, Bloody-Minded Persistence Is Rewarded

  Chapter 13: In Which an Impossible Birth Is Celebrated

  Chapter 14: In Which the Truth Cannot Be Ignored

  Part Three: Coming Forth by Day

  Chapter 15: In Which an Apprenticeship Is Begun

  Chapter 16: In Which Ruffled Feathers Are Smoothed

  Chapter 17: In Which a Burden Shared Is a Burden Halved

  Chapter 18: In Which a Visit to Prague Is Wangled

  Chapter 19: In Which a Three-Cup Problem Is Expounded

  Chapter 20: In Which the Infant Science of Archaeology Is Radically Advanced

  Part Four: The Language of Angels

  Chapter 21: In Which the Scholarly Inquiry Bears Strange Fruit

  Chapter 22: In Which Blood Tells

  Chapter 23: In Which Patience and Practice Pay Off

  Chapter 24: In Which a Destiny Is Determined

  Chapter 25: In Which the Past Catches Up

  Chapter 26: In Which the Question of What to Do Is Asked and Answered—Twice

  Chapter 27: In Which a Little Light Is Shed

  Part Five: A House Made All of Bone

  Chapter 28: In Which Feeling Good and Strong Is Not Enough

  Chapter 29: In Which a Most Peculiar Predicament Arises

  Chapter 30: In Which Kit Embraces the Stone Age

  Chapter 31: In Which a Sensible Course of Action Is Proposed

  Chapter 32: In Which Confidences Are Frankly Shared

  Chapter 33: In Which Formal Introductions Are Made

  Chapter 34: In Which the Future Is a Dream

  Chapter 35: In Which a Remedy Is Pursued

  Epilogue

  Essay: “Quantum Physics and Me” by Stephen Lawhead

  Acknowledgements

  What Readers Are Saying about

  The Bright Empires Series

  “His mastery of the art of description is beyond belief (I had to stop several times to jump up and down because I loved his style so much, seriously). His level of attention to details like period mindset and speech is a delight to behold (especially for die-hard background-first novelists like me).”

  —SIR EMETH M.

  “This is a story that has it all: mystery, history, damsels in distress, and a mind-bending meditation on the nature of reality. It is equal parts Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Treasure, and Jumper. Highly recommended!”

  —CHAD J.

  “Filled with descriptions that beguile all five senses and all the beauty and charm of the language I have come to expect from Lawhead, this book is a fascinating blend of fantasy and sci-fi.”

  —JENELLE S.

  “. . . a hold-your-breath beginning to a new series. This novel mixes ancient history, time travel, alternate realities, mystery, physics, and fantasy, to create a story so compelling that I find myself recommending it to any who will listen.”

  —SHEILA P.

  “[A] sure winner for eager sci-fi readers . . . The vivid imagery and witty lines help keep the reader on the edge of their seats.”

  —JERRY P.

  “Time travel and high adventure abound in this brand new title from veteran author Stephen R. Lawhead.”

  —BEN H.

  “Imagine Narnia merged with Hitchhiker’s Guide, and you have a starting point for the adventures of Kit Livingstone.”

  —RICK M.

  “Lawhead vividly describes the sights, sounds and smells of the markets in Prague, the streets of Restoration England, and even the dry heat of Ancient Egypt . . . The premise of ley line travel is fascinating yet mysterious, with scientific definitions that are detailed without becoming too technical. The characters are personable and complex, and it’s easy to get caught up in their search for that elusive map.”

  —MALINDA D.

  “. . . an excellent, mysterious storyline that draws the reader in.”

  —KIERAN

  THE

  BONE HOUSE

  OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN R. LAWHEAD

  THE BRIGHT EMPIRES SERIES:

  The Skin Map

  The Bone House

  KING RAVEN TRILOGY:

  Hood

  Scarlet

  Tuck

  Patrick, Son of Ireland

  THE CELTIC CRUSADES:

  The Iron Lance

  The Black Rood

  The Mystic Rose

  Byzantium

  SONG OF ALBION TRILOGY:

  The Paradise War

  The Silver Hand

  The Endless Knot

  THE PENDRAGON CYCLE:

  Taliesin

  Merlin

  Arthur

  Pendragon

  Grail

  Avalon

  Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

  Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome

  Dream Thief

  THE DRAGON KING TRILOGY:

  In the Hall of the Dragon King

  The Warlords of Nin

  The Sword and the Flame

  A BRIGHT EMPIRES NOVEL

  Quest the Second:

  THE

  BONE HOUSE

  STEPHEN R.

  LAWHEAD

  © 2011 by Stephen Lawhead

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Page design by Mandi Cofer.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lawhead, Steve.

  The bone house / Stephen R. Lawhead.

  p. cm. — (The bright empires series ; 2)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-805-4

  1. Space and time—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3562.A865B66 2011

  813’.54—dc22

  2011012768

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 12 13 14 15 16 QGF 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Suzie

  “ The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion—albeit a persistent one.”

  ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHYSICIST

  Important People

  Anen –
Friend of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, high priest of the temple of Amun in Egypt, 18th dynasty

  Archelaeus Burleigh, Earl of Sutherland – Nemesis of Flinders-Petrie, Cosimo, Kit, and all right-thinking people

  Arthur Flinders-Petrie – Also known as The Man Who Is Map, patriarch of his line. Begat Benedict, who begat Charles, who begat Douglas.

  Balthazar Bazalgette – The Lord High Alchemist at the Court of Rudolf II in Prague, friend and confidant of Wilhelmina.

  Burley Men – Con, Dex, Mal, and Tav. Lord Burleigh’s henchmen. They keep a Stone Age cat called Baby.

  Cosimo Christopher Livingstone, the Elder, aka Cosimo – a Victorian gentleman who seeks to reunite the Skin Map and understand the key to the future.

  Cosimo Christopher Livingstone, the Younger, aka Kit – Cosimo’s great-grandson.

  Emperor Rudolf – King of Bohemia and Hungary, Archduke of Austria and King of the Romans, he is also known as the Holy Roman Emperor and is quite mad.

  Engelbert Stiffelbeam – A baker from Rosenheim in Germany, affectionately known as Etzel.

  Giles Standfast – Sir Henry Fayth’s coachman and Kit’s ally.

  Gustavus Rosenkreuz – The Chief Assistant to the Lord High Alchemist and Wilhelmina’s ally.

  Lady Haven Fayth – Sir Henry’s headstrong and mercurial niece.

  Sir Henry Fayth, Lord Castlemain - member of the Royal Society, staunch friend and ally of Cosimo. Haven’s uncle.

  Jakub Arnostovi – Wilhelmina’s landlord and business partner.

  Snipe – Feral child, and malignant aide to Douglas Flinders-Petrie.

  Wilhelmina Klug, aka Mina – In another life, a London baker and Kit’s girlfriend. In this life, owns Prague’s Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus with Etzel.

  Xian-Li – Wife of Arthur Flinders-Petrie and mother of Benedict. Daughter of the tattooist Wu Chen Hu of Macao.

  Previously

  Our story thus far concerns an underemployed but agreeable young fellow named Cosimo Christopher Livingstone, who much prefers to go by the name of Kit. He is related by birth to an anachronistic old gentleman named Cosimo, who is in fact his long-lost great-grandfather: long lost in that, owing to circumstances arising from the phenomenon known as ley travel (about which, more later), he disappeared more than a hundred years or so ago while on a routine visit to the local shops.

  Cosimo’s return was greeted by Kit with disbelief, astonishment, and chagrin. The elder relation’s insistence that Kit should accompany him on a quest of great significance was rebuffed and, after a fleeting taste of this heretofore unheard of ley travel, Kit retreated to the arms of his unpleasant girlfriend, Wilhelmina Klug. Due to the time drift involved in ley journeys, he arrived quite late for a long-promised shopping excursion.

  When the explanation for his tardiness failed to convince this young woman, Kit endeavoured to provide her with a practical demonstration. Owing to his inexperience, the demo went horribly wrong and poor Wilhelmina was lost in the transition. However, Kit was found once more by Cosimo, who introduced him to a stalwart colleague by the name of Sir Henry Fayth. Together the three of them set out to find Wilhelmina and return her to her proper place and time.

  Laudable as their concern may have been, it ultimately proved misplaced. Wilhelmina landed on her feet in seventeenth-century Prague, where she was befriended by a kindly soul named Engelbert “Etzel” Stiffelbeam, a baker from Rosenheim who had travelled to Bohemia to seek his fortune. The two joined forces and opened a bakery, the success of which remained elusive until they introduced an as-yet-unheard-of commodity to the capital: coffee. The Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus was an immediate success, and soon all of Old Prague was abuzz over the latest sensation.

  The coffeehouse brought Wilhelmina into contact with members of the court of Emperor Rudolf II, and among these a coterie of alchemists who were dutifully employed in the pursuit of arcane studies in what is to this day known as the Magick Court.

  Now we come to the concept of ley travel, or ley leaping as Lady Fayth, Sir Henry’s mercurial niece, is wont to call it. Ley travel consists of utilising, or manipulating, lines of electromagnetic force that are to be found embedded in the earth, thereby employing these lines of force by methods yet to be described by science to effect great leaps in not only distance but dimensional reality and, consequently, time as well. The reader is asked to bear in mind that ley travel is not the same as time travel, strictly speaking. Although it must be admitted that, owing to the fact that time is relative to the reality being visited, ley travellers do come unstuck in time, which leads to a sort of chronological dislocation—an unavoidable side effect of ley leaping. It would be pleasant to report that all times everywhere in the universe are the same and that each reality links up perfectly end-to-end, but that is not the case. For reasons described below, each separate reality has its own history and progression in its own time. Thus, travelling to a different dimension involves a sideways slip in time as well as place, but that is not the same as travelling backwards or forwards along a single timeline in a discrete reality.

  How many ley lines there are and where they lead, nobody really knows. Nor is it known how they are produced, or why. But one man knew more than most: the explorer Arthur Flinders-Petrie, an intrepid soul who made countless trips to other worlds and meticulously recorded his discoveries on a map. So that he could always find his way home again and so that he could never be separated from his map, he had it tattooed onto his torso in the form of coded symbols—not the most original plan, of course, but highly effective and productive too, in that it allowed him to meet and marry his Chinese tattooist’s charming daughter, Xian-Li. Arthur shared with his new wife his passion for exploration, introducing her to the arcane secrets of ley travel. On one such early trip to Egypt, tragedy struck in the form of Nile fever, and the stricken Xian-Li succumbed and died.

  At some later time, Arthur died also, and in order that his discoveries should not die with him the map was removed and carefully preserved; for among the many wonders he encountered in his travels there was one that was so amazing, so staggeringly important, that Arthur kept it a close-guarded secret from all but his nearest and dearest kin. Through circumstances yet to be explained, the map was divided into sections, and those sections scattered across the multi-verse. Happily, the Skin Map and its tantalising secret endure.

  Flinders-Petrie has a nemesis—Archelaeus Burleigh, the Earl of Sutherland—an unscrupulous dastard who is wholly obsessed with possessing the map and learning its secrets. He and his nefarious crew will stop at nothing to discover the treasure.

  At the end of our first instalment of this tale, Kit and his companion Giles were facing imminent demise in the tomb of Anen at the hands of Lord Burleigh—the same tomb that had already claimed the lives of dear old Cosimo and Sir Henry. Wilhelmina, whose presence in the chase had been understated up to that point, made a sudden and welcome appearance—all the more so because Lady Fayth had proved too fickle. Loyalty, it seems, is a rare and precious commodity in whichever reality one occupies.

  With those things remembered, we return to our story, in which some things are best forgotten.

  PART ONE

  The Book of

  Forbidden Secrets

  CHAPTER 1

  In Which Some Things

  Are Best Forgotten

  From a snug in the corner of the Museum Tavern, Douglas Flinders-Petrie dipped a sop of bread into the gravy of his steak and kidney pudding and watched the entrance to the British Museum across the street. The great edifice was dark, the building closed to the public for over three hours. The employees had gone home, the charwomen had finished their cleaning, and the high iron gates were locked behind them. The courtyard was empty and, outside the gates, there were fewer people on the street now than an hour ago. He felt no sense of urgency: only keen anticipation, which he savoured as he took another draught of London Pride. He had spent most of the afternoon in the museum, once more marking the doors and exits, the bli
nd spots, the rooms where a person might hide and remain unseen by the night watchmen, of which there were but three to cover the entire acreage of the sprawling institution.

  Douglas knew from his researches that at eleven each night the head watchman retired to his office on the ground floor to make tea. He would be duly joined by his two underling guards, and the three would enter their observations in the logbook and then spend an enjoyable thirty minutes drinking their tea, eating pies, and exchanging gossip.

  While they were thus occupied, he would strike.

  The pub was quiet tonight, even for a damp Thursday in late November. There were only five other patrons in the place: three at the rail and two at tables. He would have preferred more people—if only so his own presence would not be so noticeable—but he doubted it would make much difference. In any event, there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Everything all right, sir?”

  Douglas turned from the window and looked up. The landlord, having little to do this evening, was making the rounds and chatting with his customers.

  “Never better,” replied Douglas in a tone he hoped would dismiss further intrusion. But the man remained hovering over the table.

  “Mr. Flinders-Petrie, is it not, sir?”

  “Indeed so.” He offered a bland smile to cover his annoyance at being recognised on this night of all nights. “I fear you have me at a disadvantage. I was not aware that my name would be common knowledge.”

  The landlord chuckled. “No, I suppose not. But do you not recognise me, sir?”

  Douglas looked more closely at him. There was a vague familiarity about the fellow, but . . . no, he could not place him.

  “Cumberbatch, sir,” the landlord volunteered. “I worked for your father, I did. Oh, quite a few years ago.” At Douglas’ dubious expression, he said, “I was his footman—Silas.”