Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked
Derek Landy
Fantasy
950/390
Summary
Valkyrie gets coordinates from
Hansard Dagan to the place where Lament might be hiding with her charm and
amazing looks (well, that’s stretching it a little). She and Skulduggery fly to
the place, which is on the side of a mountain, and, after an encounter with the
Abominable Snowman, find the place where Lament and his associates are hiding.
They find out that Argeddion is being contained there, in a mechanism called
the Cube. The Cube stores energy that keeps Argeddion in a comatose state. It
gets recharged by the magicians, Lament and the others, channeling their energy
into it every once in a while. Skulduggery and Valkyrie explain to Lament the
problem with Argeddion; that he is going around and granting mortals powers. They
ask him if the Cube can be reinforced so that Argeddion never wakes up. Lament
seems to have an idea, but refuses to say anything. He leaves to speak with his
colleagues, leaving Valkyrie and Skulduggery confused.
Lament
calls a meeting. He talks to Skulduggery and Valkyrie about the town named
Roarhaven. Roarhaven is a town populated entirely by sorcerers, but these
sorcerers have an idea of a world ruled by sorcerers. They hatched several
plots, none of them succeeding, but there was talk of a machine invented by one
of the Roarhaven sorcerers called an Accelerator. The Accelerator would be a
machine that could boost magical power to an incredible degree. Lament is
convinced that if they were able to find this Accelerator in Roarhaven, they
would be able to hook it up to the Cube so it could work without having to be
regularly charged.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie go to
another room to make a phone call, and Valkyrie talks to Skulduggery about the
Cube. Her dark side, Darquesse is becoming stronger every day, so maybe they
could build a Cube for her. Skulduggery calls Ghastly, one of the Elders and
one of the pair’s best friends, to check up. He brings Ghastly up to date, and
tells him to try and find the Accelerator.
Back at the Sanctuary, Ghastly and
Grand Mage (the head Elder) Ravel are looking for the Accelerator. They come
across a corridor that’s not on the map, and they realize that the mages they
sent down to make maps were Roarhaven mages. In one of the rooms, what do they
find but the Accelerator itself? The leave to go notify Skulduggery, but find
their way blocked by three Roarhaven mages named Paloma, Brennock and Tevhan.
They claim that there is an emergency call from the detective. The three escort
Ghastly and Ravel, but on the way Ghastly checks the names of the mages who
wrote up the map. Sure enough, three names are written; Paloma, Brennock and
Tevhan. Ravel and Ghastly knock the three mages out, and then go to notify
Skulduggery of the events.
When Ghastly gets a line through to
Skulduggery and Valkyrie, he tells them about the things that happened.
Valkyrie easily puts the blame on Madame Mist, the third Elder beside Ghastly
and Ravel. However, Ghastly and Ravel refuse to accept this, because there
isn’t enough proof. They discuss getting the Cleavers (the highly trained
guards of the Sanctuary) on their side, because their numbers are depleted.
After that, they talk about how they are going to get the Cube and Argeddion to
the Sanctuary to hook it up to the Accelerator. They decide to call Fletcher, a
Teleporter and Valkyrie’s ex-boyfriend, to help.
When Fletcher arrives, he and
Valkyrie catch up, and then they show him the Cube. Everyone clears out the
facility, and when they’re done, they have Fletcher teleport them and the
machine to the Sanctuary. Everything goes well. Argeddion is safely transported
to the Sanctuary, as well as everyone else.
Afterwards,
Valkyrie and Fletcher go for a walk. She asks him if they can hang out, but he
reveals that he’s seeing someone. He teleports away and comes back hand in hand
with a pretty girl with light brown hair. Fletcher introduces her as Myra.
Valkyrie feels like hitting her. It turns out that the two met when Fletcher
saved Myra from a fire. Myra isn’t a sorcerer; in fact she’s as normal as can
be, but she knows that Fletcher is a mage. Valkyrie decides that she’s very
nice. Too nice to hit. After that, Fletcher Teleports Myra back to her muffins,
which he had interrupted her in making.
After that,
the perspective switches to Elsie, and her friends Kitana, Sean, and Doran-
three of the people who had been given powers by Argeddion. They aren’t really
her friends. Kitana, the leader of the group, is a mean and selfish person,
taking advantage of Elsie and treating her as if she was far below her. Doran
only cares about impressing Kitana, and so follows her every word. Sean follows
Kitana and Doran without a thought, and he’s the only one that Elsie cares
about, but he becomes more distant and uncaring every day. The group goes to
Doran’s house. His mother went away long ago, and his father works late, so
only his brother is home. Doran, drunk on his immense new power gifted to him
Argeddion, taunts his brother into fighting him. The fight finishes with Tommy,
terrified, at the mercy of Doran. Doran tears his brother apart, bit by bit,
and as he and Kitana laugh and Sean stands by, watching, Elsie takes a
decision. She walks out the back door, not wanting any part of it any more.
Valkyrie
wakes up to Skulduggery telling her news of a murder. They drive to the place
of the crime, and find Cleavers, as usual, posted outside the house disguised
as guards. Skulduggery goes inside, and comes out with results. He tells
Valkyrie that the victim’s name was Tommy Purcell, and he had a brother named
Doran. Valkyrie goes to ask Doran some questions, and comes back to Skulduggery
with results. She finds that Doran is ‘practically dancing with joy now that
his brother’s dead’ and that he smells of soap, probably from having to wash
blood off. She and Skulduggery take it upon themselves to follow Doran, to see
whether he meets up with his accomplices. They follow him to a café, and
Skulduggery goes inside to watch him, since Doran knows Valkyrie’s face. Valkyire
waits in the car, but, after a little while, Skulduggery comes crashing through
the window. Doran walks out with Kitana and Sean, and a fight breaks out. The
two detectives try to get away with the car but it gets flipped by the three
teenagers. Valkyrie and Skulduggery run into a boarded-up book store, bending
the air to break through the wall. They try to get out of the line of sight of
the teenagers, but they’re too quick. A stream of energy gets shot from one of
them and hits Skulduggery, who falls and doesn’t get up. The three teenagers
converge on Valkyrie and eventually bring her down. Kitana takes Valkyrie’s
jacket, which is designed to protect her, and so Valkyrie is now vulnerable.
Kitana orders Doran and Sean to kick Valkyrie to death. Just as Valkyrie is
losing consciousness, Doran and Sean are blown into Kitana by a gust of wind,
and Skulduggery grabs her and runs away.
At
the hospital, Valkyrie and Skulduggery recover from the fight. Ravel drops by
and talks to Valkyrie. He tells her that they are using all resources to look
for the three teenagers. They talk about how the three are very inexperienced,
so they should be pretty easy to catch, despite their apparent immense power.
Valkyrie says that ‘Argeddion must have
overloaded them because they had no skill and no training and they still nearly
killed us’. She then notices that Ravel has two Cleavers trailing him, and
remarks on it. He tells her that
he was assigned bodyguards to protect him. They chat for a little more, and
then Ravel leaves, telling her that, when Skulduggery gets back on his feet, to
go check on Lament and the Cube.
Skulduggery
is back on his feet in about a minute. On the way to see Lament, they stop by
the cell of Silas Nadir, the man from the gaol that the detectives visited.
They talk to him about Valkyrie’s dimensional jaunt. He explains that what’s
going on is called an echo. Instead of immediately shunting (jumping
dimensions) tension would build up and once it’s too much Valkyrie shunts. He
says that it takes time for the echo to die down, so it’ll take four or six
times for her to stop shunting. Skulduggery is concerned, though, that it won’t
be four or six but maybe three or five; maybe she’ll be stuck over there for
good.
After
that, they head over to the Accelerator room. Skulduggery and Valkyrie discuss
the shunting and eventually make a deal that when Lament brings the Accelerator
online and they catch Kitana, Doran and Sean, Valkyrie will go somewhere safe
and stay there for as long as it takes.
As
they are walking, something happens. A blue light shines and the two detectives
find themselves inside a big blue force field. Intrigued, they keep walking,
and come across the other side of the force field, and there are people outside
it, trying to break in. Lament is on the inside, and it takes Valkyrie a few
seconds to realize he’s floating. They
call Ghastly, and receive shocking news. Lament isn’t here to contain
Argeddion. They’re here to free him.
Response
I’m
really enjoying the book so far; it’s exciting and very well written. I like
how there is a lot of humor and the plot twists don’t make the book confusing
but rather make it more intense. My prediction is that Argeddion will be released
and the only person who will be able to stop him will be Darquesse and Valkyrie
will go through a huge emotional conflict.
Passage
‘Despite the horror of what she had just witnessed, her
thoughts were clear. There was a low wall at the other end of the garden. Elsie
climbed over it and walked away. She didn’t bother running. It’d be another
half an hour before they even noticed she was gone.’
I like this passage because if you read
between the lines there’s a lot of emotion going on. Elsie isn’t accepted by
the other three and she’s only been following because that’s what people do;
they follow the leader. Also, she’s worried about Sean, and she cares for him,
but by this point she’s had enough of Kitana and Doran and their psychopathic rampage
and she just gives up. She detaches herself from the group she’s been pulled
into. It could relate to problems normal teenagers have, with groups of ‘friends’
that make you do bad things, and instead of following, you should just walk
away.
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