The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,73
said Alec. “We’ll find him.”
“We’ll have to figure out how to get back home ourselves,” said Jace. “And we have no idea how to do that, either.”
“And we can’t leave without the Book of the White,” put in Alec. “And we have to save you,” he added to Magnus.
“And we have to rescue Ragnor,” Magnus said.
They all looked at him. “Magnus,” Clary said gently, “we need to be rescued from Ragnor.”
“He’s not himself,” said Magnus. “He’s under Sammael’s control. I’m not leaving him like that. If there’s a way to save me, there’s a way to save him.”
After a moment, Jace nodded. “Right,” he said. “So we need to find the Book of the White, find Ragnor, defeat Ragnor, save Ragnor, find Simon, save Simon, figure out what Sammael’s up to, neutralize Shinyun, and destroy the permanent Portal between Diyu and Shanghai.”
“I thought we just did that last one,” said Isabelle, looking up at the scar in the sky. “Besides—it looks like Ragnor and Shinyun have figured out how to open a big hole between Diyu and our world any time they want.”
“Which begs the question,” said Jace, “if they can do that, why doesn’t Sammael just come through with them?”
Magnus templed his fingers together. “If Sammael could come into our world, he would,” he said. “So there’s some reason he can’t pass from Diyu to Earth yet. Probably something to do with the way he was banished. But I don’t know what it is.”
Jace looked around them, hands on his hips. “Maybe there’s an information booth somewhere. You know, like, ‘Welcome to Hell’?”
Magnus regarded him darkly.
“Well, we can’t just stay here on this rock,” said Alec. “Isn’t Diyu supposed to be a whole bureaucracy with judges and courts and torture chambers? That can’t all be gone, can it?”
“Hang on,” said Magnus, and launched himself into the air. Alec watched him, disconcerted. Magnus couldn’t fly, not normally, but now he was doing it without visible effort. The Svefnthorn in action, he supposed.
In the silence, they watched Magnus swoop around above the stony expanse. Clary put her hand on Isabelle’s shoulder, and Isabelle gave her a worried look. “We’ll find Simon,” Clary said. “He has no part in any of this stuff. There’s no reason for him to be in danger.”
“Sure,” said Isabelle faintly. “He’s only lost in Hell.”
Nobody had anything to say to that, and they stood in silence for another minute, until Magnus landed again, his coat billowing out around him elegantly as he descended. Even in a demonic underworld, Alec thought, Magnus had panache.
“This way,” he said, and led them off in what seemed to Alec an arbitrary direction. They all followed, bemused.
After a few minutes of walking, during which the landscape didn’t change or even suggest that they were going anywhere, Magnus stopped and gestured to the ground. “Voilà,” he said.
Below them, invisible from any distance beyond a few feet, there was a large rough opening in the ground. Stone stairs descended from it in a spiral.
“Where do they go?” said Clary.
Magnus gave her a look. “They go down,” he said, and started to descend the steps.
Clary gave him a look. “The only person who might have appreciated that reference,” she said, “is the one we’re trying to rescue.”
Magnus said easily, “Your comment suggests that you, too, appreciated it in your way.”
“At least we’ll die sassy,” muttered Isabelle as she followed them.
Alec followed too, his mind uneasy.
* * *
THE STAIRCASE WAS HUNDREDS OF steps long, turning back and forth in a zigzag that kept them going more or less vertically straight down. There was no railing, of course, but Magnus had no idea what would happen if someone fell. He could catch them with his magic, he reasoned, but he hoped it didn’t come to that.
For a while, the stairs vanished into haze and smoke below them, with no end. But gradually a huge square shape came into focus below, and as they approached, Magnus realized he was looking down on a walled city.
From above, it could have been a city on Earth, albeit a city on Earth in ancient times. There was an outer wall in stone, marked at regular intervals by towers that, Magnus was sure, were the tops of gates in and out, although outside the walls was the same dark void that surrounded everything else. Inside was a series of courtyards separated from each other by red-roofed buildings that resembled courthouses or palaces.
As they got closer, it became clear to Magnus that he