They sat in the Tower, drinking tea and brandy, chewing on stale bread. All three were lost in their own thoughts, and the mood was grim.
It had been about two o’clock in the morning when Valerian and Willow got home. Boy, who had been back for hours, practically throttled Willow when he saw her. Hugging her hard, he hadn’t let go of her until she’d made a small squeaking sound.
“How touching.” Valerian had said.
He looked terrible, and as far as Boy could tell, nothing had been done to his arm.
“Wasn’t Kepler there?” Boy had asked.
Neither Willow nor Valerian replied, and that was answer enough.
“Did you succeed, Boy?” Valerian replied.
Boy’s face fell. He stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“What?” spluttered Valerian.
“I couldn’t even get past the door.”
“And you told them my name?” Valerian thundered.
“I said, I couldn’t even get past the woman at the door.”
“Damnation!” shouted Valerian, and strode away across the room, kicking over a pile of books, heedless of his damaged arm. He stood with his back to them, his shoulders rising and falling, staring at the floor. Finally he turned round, but he was no longer angry.
“Well, it was Childermass,” he said.
They looked at him blankly.
“The unluckiest day of the year.”
They thought about the graveyard, and the burial, and Valerian’s arm and their fruitless trips across the City, and despite themselves, they all smiled.
“Fetch us food and drink,” Valerian had said, and Boy had found what he could, and taken it up to the other two in the Tower room.
When he got there he found Valerian and Willow standing by the table, above which was suspended the camera obscura.
“Come and look at this,” whispered Willow.
Valerian turned to him. “Haven’t you seen this before?”
“No,” he said. “You’ve never shown me what it does.”
“Come and see,” Valerian said.
There were two parts to it. On the floor of the room stood a round table with a clear white circle set in its surface. Above it hung some large pieces of equipment, made up of wooden boxes and tubes of brass.
On the white surface of the table was an image of the City immediately outside the house. It was as if viewed from the very summit of the Tower, but slightly distorted; lines that should have been straight, like the sides of buildings, were gently curved, warped by the seeing-eye of the camera. But nevertheless it was an extraordinary image of the world outside, viewed from within.
And it was a moving image.
Boy watched, his mouth open, as they saw lights flickering in windows along the street, and smoke whispering out of chimneys and up into the night sky.
There was a long wooden lever that seemed to control the camera, and as Valerian moved it, the picture swung so that a different view from the roof of the house was shown on the tabletop. They watched tiny figures scurry across the white circle like ants.
“It’s so…,” said Boy.
“Isn’t it,” said Valerian, nearly smiling. “Unfortunately, despite its beauty, it illustrates the precarious nature of my current predicament.”
“What?” asked Boy, not really listening. He gazed at the moving picture in front of him, trying hard to tell himself it was real, that it truly was what was happening that very moment down in the streets beneath the Tower. As Boy watched the ant-people hurry along, he felt a sense of power.
“I had it built to see danger,” Valerian said. “I keep watch here, night after night.”
Boy looked up. Valerian’s fear was there between them, almost tangible.
“What for?” asked Boy. “What are you watching for?”
Valerian’s voice was clear and calm and full of the promise of death.
“The end,” he said. “Him. It. Kepler said I was stupid to have this built. That it would do me no good even if I did see something coming for me. Maybe he was right, but at least this way I might get a little warning.”
Willow and Boy moved closer together and stared at Valerian, who turned his gaze back to the table. He moved the handle this way and that with his good arm, until he had scanned right around the Yellow House, checking all the streets and alleys.
Finally he pulled his eyes away.
“Did you find some food, Boy?” he asked.
They sat down to eat and the camera kept playing its dim but very real image of the outside world into the inner space of the Tower.
Valerian ate just a few mouthfuls and then fell silent, brooding in his great leather chair.
Boy looked at his master.
“You must eat,” said Willow, following Boy’s gaze.
So should we, thought Boy. Valerian said nothing.
“How’s your arm?” asked Boy. Then, getting no answer, “You didn’t tell me. What happened? Where’s Dr. Kepler?”
When Valerian still showed no sign of talking, Boy looked at Willow.
“Willow,” he said, “where is Kepler?”
“I-he-” began Willow, glancing at Valerian. “It seems-”
“It seems!” cried Valerian. “It appears! No! It is the case that Kepler has disappeared, and from the peculiar rantings in his cellar I think he has probably gone mad. My arm grows more painful, and I am running out of these.”
He waved a nearly empty vial at them.
“And then?” he barked, leaping to his feet. “And then? Who knows! By the new year I shall be pieces of flesh strewn around this room!”
He stopped, aware that he was shouting. Boy and Willow stared at him, clinging to each other.
Boy felt panic slip up his back and squeeze his throat. He wanted to be sick.
But Valerian had regained his composure and sat back down, as if resolved to his fate.
From his pocket he pulled another bottle of the drug. As he did so, a piece of paper fell to the floor. It was the paper that Willow had seen Valerian take from Kepler’s study.
Boy looked at Willow, her eyes wide. Valerian took a long swig of his drug, then rinsed it down with a few mouthfuls of brandy. It was early morning, and as he slumped back in his seat he immediately fell fast asleep, snoring like an old, old man.
At dawn the camera played them a beautiful vision of the waking winter city, but they were all asleep, and the vision went unseen. Across the roofs and towers flooded a soft pink light that presaged snow, without doubt. Yet still it would not come and the City froze in its filth.
The Tower room had grown cold, and Willow lifted her head from the cushion on the floor. Her movement woke Boy. It was very early still, but they were soon wide awake. Boy felt awful. His arms were like wires, his legs like metal trunks, his neck like an iron bar. All he did was live, it seemed-live like one of Valerian’s machines, with a heart-machine that pushed acid round his veins until they screamed in fear of what might be.
Boy had not slept well. Nightmares had ridden through his mind while he lay huddled on the floor. Unwanted thoughts returned to him again; those questions that Willow had been asking nagged at him. Who were his parents? Maybe it was important to know. Did he need to know, to know who he himself was? He was no longer sure.
He got up and walked around the room, stretching his legs. He found himself standing by the camera obscura table, staring at the moving image of the City waking up, coming to life.
Seeing that Valerian was still asleep, he dared to touch the handle that rotated the image. Willow came to stand by him and watched as Boy moved the lens around to view different scenes.
As he did so, a patch of light moved from the table and fell on the floor, illuminating the paper that Valerian had dropped.
Willow picked up the paper.
“What is it?” asked Boy.
Willow shook her head. “I don’t know. Look.”
She held it for him to see.
Boy was not very good at reading, and the paper was covered in many symbols and signs that he knew were not words or letters at all.
But there was one word at the top of the paper that he could easily read.
BOY.
Valerian began to stir. Boy dropped the paper onto the table.
“We cannot stay here long,” Valerian said, rubbing his eyes with his good hand. That same hand began to search impatiently for another of the little bottles that took away his pain. “The Watchmen will be looking for you. I have no doubt. Perhaps we should move to Kepler’s house-it may be a little safer there…”
“But there was something,” said Boy.
“What?” said Willow.
“Why I couldn’t get to see the Master of Burials.”
“Oh, spare us!” snorted Valerian. He crossed the room and began to fiddle with some bits of the camera, cursing occasionally when he couldn’t manage with only one hand.
“I thought you might be interested,” Boy said to Valerian’s back. “What you said about him doing some strange studying and so on.”
Valerian ignored him.
“Tell me,” said Willow to Boy. “What was it?”
“Well, I got talking to this woman at the gate. It seems he’s obsessed with some animals he owns. It’s all he spends his time doing. He’s got this collection of animals, but they’re all strange-he’s got bird-headed snakes and dogs with cats’ heads. There’s cats with wings, and Willow, he’s got dragons! They’re tiny, but I saw them all!”
Willow stared at him in wonder.
“You’re sure?” she said.
“I saw them with my own eyes. Snakes with birds’ heads. Fish with a head at each end. And the dragons! But the thing is, they’re all dead. I think he wants to make them live. I don’t think he’s doing his real job at all-he just spends all his time in this huge room under the glass dome, working on them.”
Willow shook her head.
“Dragons? Real dragons?”
“Yes,” said Boy. “They’re small, but-”
“Poppycock!” said Valerian. Neither of them had noticed that he had been listening. “There are no such things.”
“I saw them.”
“Tell me,” Valerian said. “What exactly did you see?”
Boy looked at Valerian and suddenly he hated him. Why did he have to treat him so badly all the time? Boy did his best, he always did what he was told, he worked hard, and yet all the man ever did was snipe and bark and criticize. Valerian looked at him now, and Boy expected his face to be full of scorn, but as he held Valerian’s gaze, Boy saw that he was earnest, even interested. He was listening.
“What did you see?” asked Willow in a reassuring voice.
“Animals,” said Boy. “And there were lots of them. And they were all weird. None of them looked like anything I’ve ever seen, or seen pictures of, or even heard of. They were all lying on his great table. On marble slabs.”
Boy paused. He pulled a face.
“Oh! There was so much blood.”
“Blood?” asked Valerian, with real interest.
Heartened, Boy went on.
“Yes, blood, and… things, from taking them apart.”
“The animals?” Valerian asked.
Boy nodded and scratched his nose.
“So he is dissecting them?” Valerian said.
“He’s taking them apart,” said Boy. “To see why they won’t live, I suppose.”
“These animals,” said Valerian, “all of them are strange, perverse things? Like nothing you have seen before?”
Boy nodded.
“And you think he’s trying to make them live?”
Boy nodded.
“And he’s taking them apart to see why they don’t?”
Boy nodded.
Valerian shook his head.
“No,” he said gently, “he’s not taking them apart, he’s trying to put them together.”
Boy tried to remember exactly what he had seen.
“Could it be that?” Valerian asked.
Boy nodded.
“I think,” said Valerian, “I think we should pay another visit to the Master of Burials. We’ll get the name of the cemetery where Gad Beebe is buried yet!”
He began to rummage all around the Tower room, pulling out various peculiar devices and equipment.
“But, Valerian,” said Willow. “Valerian!”
“What is it?” he shouted back. “We don’t have the time!”
“You were going to tell us. About what’s happening to you.”
“Yes,” he snapped, “I’ll tell you on the way. Here, Boy, take this. It’s delicate. Be careful! And, Willow, this bag, if you please. Very good.”
Having checked around the outside of the building using the camera, they hurried from the Yellow House. As they went, Boy saw the paper with his name on it on the table and snatched it up, unseen. If Valerian didn’t want it, then he did. It had his name on it after all-and Boy reasoned therefore that it belonged to him.
But Valerian did not tell them on the way. He did not tell them about the approaching horror, about the road that Fate was leading him down.
Instead he instructed them as they walked in the use of the pieces of apparatus they were carrying, repeating himself until they understood.
When they reached the residence of the Master of City Burials, Valerian had stared at the woman in the pillar, gazing deep into her eyes without saying anything for a long time. Finally he spoke, in a low and soft voice.
“You will go and tell the Master that Valerian is here to see him. Tell him I can make his animals live.” Boy and Willow watched amazed as without a word the old woman shuffled off her stool and went to do as she was bid. It was just as if Valerian had cast a spell on her.
Five minutes later a small door within the main door opened, and they hurried inside.
Valerian and the Master stood facing each other in the grand entrance hall, sizing each other up. The Master was a short man, only a little taller than Boy. He was not quite as ugly as Green, but it still made Boy uncomfortable to look at him. His nose was pushed back; his eyes were small and overshadowed by huge hairy eyebrows. His hair was thin and greasy. He smelt terrible; his clothes were stained and, despite their original quality, were now little better than rags.
“Valerian! How strange to see you again.”
“A pleasure to renew your acquaintance. How long has it been?”
“Never mind that,” the Master snapped, his brow creasing. “How do you know of my work?”
“All the City knows of your work,” lied Valerian.
Good start, thought Boy.
“I myself have admired your noble and valuable… investigations into this… subject,” Valerian went on.
He’s losing it, Boy thought. He doesn’t really know what to say.
“And I believe,” Valerian concluded, “that I may be able to help you.”
“Do what?” said the Master of Burials.
Valerian opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again.
“You said you could make them live,” said the Master.
Valerian shifted a little where he stood.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I believe I can.”
“Believe?” shouted the Master of Burials, furiously striding right up to Valerian. Though Valerian towered a foot or so above him, Boy was amazed to see that the Master seemed to intimidate him. Boy had never seen anyone do this.
“Believe?” cried the Master again. “I thought you said you could do it! If you can’t, you can get out of here and stop wasting my time. This is important work. Important! I have history to think of! How will my name be written across the pages of history if I cannot achieve this… masterpiece!”
He stared up at Valerian, then turned and spat on the floor. “Get out of here! Be away from here!”
Valerian stepped forward.
“No!” he cried. “No, I can do it. With my two assistants here, I shall do it. Show me your animals. In return all I want is a little of your knowledge.”
The Master of Burials spun back to Valerian and held his gaze steadily for a long time.
“You had better be serious,” he growled, “or you will visit one of my cemeteries very much sooner than you had planned.”
He beckoned them forward, opening the door to the Dome.
“I already have,” said Valerian under his breath, and looked at Boy and Willow. “Pray we get this right.”
Boy looked up to the roof of the Dome, where a few hours before he had clung to the frosty glass like a human fly.
Boy and Willow, who had spent all of their fragile lives in the City, were used to disgusting sights and noxious smells, but nothing could have prepared them for this. Even Valerian put his hand to his mouth and nose.
The inside of the Dome was the most ornate, richest, most extravagantly decorated slaughterhouse. Under the glass Dome above their heads the whole room was one vast experiment. Solid wooden workbenches of elaborate design formed a semicircle. The top of each was finished with a thick marble surface. There the horror began.
Animals, normal ones, lay dead all over the room. Larger beasts rotted in boxes on the floor, while the smaller specimens hung from hooks or lay in trays on the worktops. From the darkest corners whimpers and howls came from various unknown creatures.
Bits of bodies were lined up on other workbenches. A pair of dog’s legs, a row of crows’ wings and four cats’ heads were just some of the foul sights they took in with their hasty glances.
The Master was at the far side of the room, at the workbench where Boy had observed him through the glass late the previous evening.
“Come on then,” he snarled. “Come and see my beautiful creations!”
He waved them forward.
Boy and Willow stared at each other as they walked behind Valerian to the Master. They tried not to look around them, but they were fascinated and repelled in equal measure by what they saw. They were used to seeing carcasses and hunks of animals hanging in butchers’ shops, but this minute and precise dissection of dogs, sheep, cats, birds-all still furred and feathered-was something else. Seeing this display of muscle, brain and bone made Boy wonder why things lived and then died, and what the difference was.
Then it got worse.
Boy and Willow caught up with Valerian, where he stood inspecting the Master’s lifework.
“This is what I saw!” Boy whispered to Willow, but Willow had covered her mouth with her hand, either to stifle a cry or to stop herself vomiting.
On the ranks of marble slabs in front of them lay the animals. A creature the size of a cat lay in a glass tray. Its body seemed to be that of a weasel, but it had a long cat’s tail and its head had once belonged to a large bird. There was no sign of any joins; the Master had evidently become a good craftsman.
Next to the bird-weasel, in a tank of some foul chemical, a large fish with the head of a dog floated obscenely on its side. Further along the workbench were dogs with cats’ heads and bird-headed cats.
And then there were the dragons. At first sight there seemed nothing else they could be but dragons-baby dragons. The largest was perhaps a foot long. It had the body of some greenish-gray lizard and seemed to have its own tail, and possibly even head. Large, powerful, beautiful wings with feathers the color of a golden sunrise adorned the creature’s back.
As they looked closer they could just see a hint of some fine gut thread hanging down across the dragon’s belly from where the wings were attached.
Valerian was hard at work now, praising the Master’s genius, his insight and his skill.
“And I curse the evil luck that has dogged you,” he went on.
“You are right!” cried the Master, his eyes glowing. “It is bad luck. What else can have prevented every single one of my fine creations from living?”
“Indeed,” said Valerian.
“I do not merely throw these bodies together,” the Master went on. “Oh no! Look!”
He took them to another table and lifted the skin over the haunches of a small deer to show where he was attaching an eagle’s legs.
“See? I link all tendons and tissues and fibers just as they should be. Every organ and vein and artery is thought of! I put back all the blood they lose. Why should they not live?”
“Why indeed?” echoed Valerian.
Boy and Willow looked at each other.
“None of them are sick,” the Master rambled on, “before they come here. They are all well. I only allow the healthiest animals to go under my knife! Why then should they not live?”
“Indeed,” Valerian went on. “Unless…”
He paused for effect.
“What?” the Master cried breathlessly.
“Unless… I have some small knowledge in Natural Philosophies. It may be the case-it may be that there is some small but vital spark that is required to set life in motion.”
“And what is this vital spark?”
Valerian’s onstage again, Boy thought. Acting a role, exhibiting his magical skills, as he had done at the Great Theater every night for years.
And now the Master was snared. Valerian turned to Boy and Willow with a flourish.
“The apparatus!” he declared, and Boy and Willow set their canvas sacks on the floor, carefully lifting out the things Valerian had given them to carry.
The Master stared at what he saw; he was a mixture of excitement, worry and ignorance. Under Valerian’s direction Boy and Willow set up the equipment.
From inside a wooden case Boy pulled a long glass tube, about two fingers thick and an arm’s length. It had a metal cap at each of its ends and a small screw point for attaching a copper wire.
Willow lifted out her piece. It was a wooden-and-metal-cased object, the size of a bucket. It was round, like a small barrel, with a handle on one of its flat sides. On its top was another screw point, to which Valerian quickly attached a length of copper wire. The other end was soon fixed to Boy’s glass tube.
“Now,” said Valerian, “which specimen do you want to live first?”
The Master was nearly beside himself hopping from one foot to the other.
“Now?” he cried. “You can do it now? Just like that?”
“I can,” stated Valerian in a booming voice, “on one condition.”
The Master didn’t even break step.
“Yes! Anything! Anything! Just make my animals live!”
“We require information. On a burial in the City. You will promise us this if-when I make your beasts come alive?”
“Yes,” said the Master, now almost weeping with excitement. “I promise! You have my word!”
“Very well. Show us your latest creation. Is there anything you have recently finished?”
“The dragon! The dragon!” shouted the Master, hopping and pointing frantically.
They lifted the equipment closer to the dragon, so that it was within touching distance.
What if we really do bring it to life? thought Boy. What ifwe don’t?
Valerian said, “Now! Like I told you.”
Suddenly he winced in pain. He took another swig from his small bottle, and after few seconds lowered his head. He nodded for them to start.
Willow knelt down by the barrel-thing and began to wind the handle. No one spoke. The tension in the room was truly electric. The barrel hissed and crackled and fizzed.
Then Boy, who was holding the glass tube, made a mistake.
Hold it by the glass only, Valerian had warned, but Boy forgot. Losing his grip on the tube and fearful of dropping it, he touched one of its metal ends.
Instantly he shrieked. His hair stuck up in the air and his feet smoked slightly. He dropped the tube.
By a miracle it did not break.
“What is this nonsense?” screamed the Master. “Are you trying to ridicule me?”
Valerian hurried forward.
“No, my friend! No! This is just a demonstration of the immense power we will instill in your creation!”
He picked up the tube and shoved it back in Boy’s hands.
“Get it right, idiot!” whispered Valerian in his ear. “Or I’ll cut you up like one of these brutes!”
Dumbly Boy held the tube again as Willow gaped at him. He felt as if his brain had been fried. His hair still stuck up vertically; he looked like a brush on legs. It felt like-it felt like the time he’d tried to pick the lock on the Yellow House and had been blown backward across the street.
Boy realized that Valerian was using the same power now-something shown to him by Kepler, no doubt.
“Again!” cried Valerian. “Willow. If you please.”
Willow wound again, and this time Boy held the tube only by the glass.
After a minute Valerian cried, “Enough!”
He took the tube from Boy.
“Boy! The wires!” he cried.
Boy undid the wire from the tube, being very careful only to touch its leather sheath, avoiding the metal clips.
Valerian took one last look at the Master and approached the dragon.
“Behold!” he cried, and touched the metal tip of the tube to the legs of the creature.
Immediately they began to twitch and flex.
Next Valerian touched the wings, and they too sprang into life, opening and then relaxing.
“It lives!” cried the Master. “It lives!”
He began to jump up and down, hitting his hands against the side of his head.
“I have done it at last! I am a genius!”
He approached Valerian, arms open wide. Valerian took a step backward and held up his hand. “Your promise.”
The Master smiled.
“Anything you want! Just name it!”
“I need to know where someone is buried.”
“You have a name?” asked the Master, scuttling to the side of the room. There he pulled on a purple rope that hung from the ceiling. A distant bell tinkled and a servant appeared. He looked a little surprised to have been called at all, and even more surprised to see that his master had guests. “Sir?”
“Get this man whatever he asks. You will need the alphabetical register of burials. Now leave me! I have many more animals to bring to life!”
Valerian looked nervously at Boy and Willow, who were studying the dragon.
“Yes,” he said to the Master, “I am sure you have much to do. We will leave you. All you have to do is turn the handle to charge the wand, then touch it to your animals. You may keep the equipment,” he added graciously.
Boy looked at the dragon. It had stopped twitching and now lay lifeless on the marble slab, but the Master had not noticed. He was too busy winding the handle of the charger, talking to himself, trying to decide which of his bizarre beasts he would bring to life next.
Valerian looked at the servant.
“Would you mind?” he asked, and the servant led them away into a library stuffed with books full of the names of dead people.
Within two minutes the answer was in their grasp, but it was not one Valerian had expected.
There, in the register of dead people whose last names began with B, was a simple and clear entry.
Beebe, Gad. The Churchyard of Our Lady of Sorrows, Linden.
“Linden?” Valerian asked the servant. “I’ve never heard of that part of the City.”
“That’s because it’s not in the City,” he said. “It’s a village.”
“Outside?” said Valerian. “Outside the City?”
“Outside?” said Boy, unable to understand. “We have to go outside?”
It was still only ten o’clock in the morning, even though they had already brought fantastical dead beasts to life, and found the key to Gad Beebe’s whereabouts, and felt they had done more than a lifetime’s work.
But they had hardly begun the struggles of December 29.
It was a fiercely cold morning. They stood outside the residence of the Master of City Burials, shivering in their boots. People hurried by, wrapped up against the biting cold in furs and capes.
“First,” said Valerian, “we get away from here. It won’t be long before that madman realizes his beasts will only twitch for a bit, and then we’ll be in trouble. As if it weren’t enough to have the Watch after us already.”
Willow and Boy had nearly forgotten about that.
“You mean you didn’t really bring them to life?” asked Willow.
Valerian snorted.
“Of course not! No one could do that. It’s just a trick that one of Kepler’s teachers discovered some years ago. Amusing but pointless. However, as I planned, it fooled him long enough to get what we were after.”
That was a pretty big gamble, thought Boy.
“And now,” Valerian went on, “we have to get to the village of Linden. We must find a coaching inn.”
“I know one!” said Willow. “I was sent to meet Madame at the Black Four when she arrived in the City. We can find a coach there.”
“Lead on,” said Valerian. “I need the book.”
The Black Four was a handsome place, one of the best-looking inns that Boy had ever seen. He wished he’d known about it in his days on the streets, because it was filled with rich travelers coming and going, forgetting where they’d left their bags and valuables. They would have made easy pickings.
To the side of the tavern was a huge pair of double gates that swung open whenever a coach came or went. Just as they arrived, a vast black coach pulled by four black horses swung down the road and into the courtyard behind the inn.
“Look!” said Willow to Boy, tugging his sleeve. “Just like the sign!”
She pointed at the sign of the Black Four, with a picture of a coach and horses.
“Do you know anyone here?” Valerian asked Willow.
“I spoke to the landlord while Madame rested. She was tired after her journey.”
“Poor thing,” said Valerian unpleasantly. “Well, what’s his name?”
“Budge. Or Bridge. Something like that,” Willow said.
Valerian muttered impatiently and strode through the doors of the inn, his long black coat swirling behind him. He made an even more alarming sight than usual. Tall, dressed in black, with his gray-white hair straggling around his shoulders, he was usually quite imposing. Now, with his arm broken, hitched up and hidden under his soiled and muddied coat, and with eyes that burned despite having not slept properly for many nights, he looked like a minor demon.
Silence fell as he walked into the crowded saloon bar. All eyes fell on Valerian and the two urchins who shuffled nervously behind him.
He stopped in the center of the room.
“The landlord?” he fixed the nearest serving girl with his best glare.
Speechless, she nodded at a frosted glass door in the corner.
“Wait here,” he said to Boy and Willow, then strode through the door.
Gradually the people in the bar stopped staring at Boy and Willow and went back to their own business.
“What on earth do you think this book is?” asked Willow.
“What?” asked Boy. Why did she always have to ask questions? By now all he wanted to do was sleep. They had been chasing around for almost three days, with little in the way of food and rest. He just wanted to collapse in some small dark space and be left alone.
“The book! How is it going to save him?”
“I have no idea,” said Boy. “But if Valerian thinks it will work, it probably will.”
“What’s going to happen to him anyway? On New Year’s Eve?”
Boy shrugged.
“Ask him,” he said.
“I will. I just thought you might have some idea.”
“I’m hungry,” said Boy. “Let’s see if we can get Valerian to buy us something to eat.”
They pushed timidly through the frosted door to find Valerian and the landlord shaking hands.
“Ah, children,” Valerian said, as if he was some kindly uncle. “It is time to go. I have agreed on a price for some transport to take us to Linden immediately.”
The landlord was smiling from ear to ear.
“Perhaps not my best coach, but since you are in a hurry you will not mind…?”
Valerian nodded.
“Valerian,” said Boy, “can we get something to eat?”
“Indeed,” said Valerian. “Mr. Birch here has packed a luncheon aboard our vehicle. Now we must be going. There is no time to waste. You have your money, do you not?” he added, turning to the landlord.
“Yes indeed, a very fair price,” he said. “Well, this way then.”
Birch took them through a back door into the courtyard. The sumptuous black coach they had seen earlier was being made ready to depart.
“Our coach?” enquired Valerian amiably.
The landlord hesitated.
“Er… no,” he said. “Yours lies just beyond.”
Without another word he hurried away. The black coach pulled forward slightly, revealing something little better than a hay-wagon, a small cart suited for taking carrots from the fields to the markets. It was open to the skies and there was barely room in the back for the three of them.
The cart was hitched to a solitary and ancient horse, with a gray coat and a swayback. Inside the cart, their luncheon was a loaf and a bag of carrots, most probably for the horse. Holding the reins was an equally decrepit coachman.
He stared at them, sucking his gums.
“The crook!” cried Valerian. “This will not do! Where’s he gone?”
“What’s the use?” said the cart-driver. “I’ll get you there. You won’t find anyone else to go out into the country today. It’s going to snow.”
Valerian drew in his breath as if he might explode.
“Come on,” he said to Willow and Boy grimly.
They clambered aboard.
“Drive on!” Valerian shouted to the coachman, who jolted the beast into life.
They trotted, at a fair speed, out of the gates and onto the street. As they did so, the grand coach they had seen pulled out of the yard behind them. Valerian leant forward, with some difficulty because of his arm, to speak to the driver.
“That was where you met Madame?” Boy asked, nodding at the inn.
Willow turned to Boy, smiling.
“That’s funny. I was just thinking about her too.”
“You could still go back to her,” said Boy quietly to Willow. “All you have to do is jump off. Go back to the theater. She’d take you back.”
Willow turned to look at Boy.
“No,” she said sadly. “I hated her. She hated me. I’m sick of it. And anyway, she’d probably turn me over to the Watch for Korp’s murder.”
“I can’t believe you think working for Valerian is any better,” said Boy.
“I don’t. I mean, I’m not working for Valerian.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Don’t you know?” She fiddled with some straw from the Cart.
“What, Willow?” asked Boy.
She looked up, into his eyes. “I thought you could have guessed. You should know. You were alone for so long. All those years on the street, that you can’t even properly remember now. And then you found Valerian, or rather he found you.”
She glanced up to check that Valerian was still busy in discussion with the coachman.
“And he’s awful,” she whispered. “He beats you; he ignores you; he’s unpleasant and ungrateful and foul. And yet you stay with him. Why?”
“Because I…,” said Boy. “Because I want to be with someone.”
“Exactly,” said Willow, and looked over the side of the cart at the buildings going by. “I want to be with you,” she said, but not loud enough for Boy to hear.
They rode toward the City wall.
Valerian struggled to sit back down, having got little joy from the driver over their journey and its destination. Boy lent a hand to Valerian and helped him sit.
Valerian grunted with pain.
“Gods! It’s cold this morning,” he muttered.
“Look, here are some blankets,” said Willow, rummaging under the side benches that were supposed to provide seating. She pulled out two large, moth-eaten blankets, and they were grateful for them.
Willow spread one over Valerian and tucked it under him.
“Thank you, Willow,” he said, and shut his eyes as they bounced on through the City.
Willow and Boy spread the other blanket around them as best they could. They chewed slowly on the bread and carrots, grateful for some food, but Boy’s mind was on other things. The cart was too exposed. Anyone could look at them, and at any moment he expected to see a gang of red- or pink-plumed Watchmen come charging down the street after them. But they were just another small cart with some human cargo winding its way through the City, a scene that was occurring a thousand times in every corner of the vast metropolis. No one paid them the slightest attention. No one could tell that the three figures in the back of this particular cart were engaged in a most unusual and deadly history.
It took the rest of the morning for the cart to get to the City gates. It was painfully cold now, and they huddled in the back of the cart under the blankets. As they passed under the massive arch of the South Gate, the first few feeble flakes of snow fell.
The South Gate was a vast stone construction covered with bizarre carvings, designed by the City Architects to impart improving lessons to the populace. It seemed that much of the populace was even now gathered in and around the South Gate, a busy marketplace. Around them the City walls were still decorated with fir-tree branches and other greenery from the festivities of a few days before.
A few days, thought Boy, but it feels like months. The Dead Days had a knack of stretching themselves. When the days are out of the normal flow of time, time can stand very still indeed. All time, and no time. The dead time of the Dead Days.
For a heartbeat they were under the flying stone arch, and then they were outside.
“Have you ever been out of the City, Valerian?” asked Boy.
“Oh yes,” he said, “Many times, though not for years. I suppose the last time was fifteen years ago.”
“And you’ve never been outside since?” asked Willow.
Valerian was lost in his memory. Then he shook his head.
“That was enough. For a lifetime,” he said grimly. “For a lifetime.”
“What’s it like?” asked Boy.
“You’ll see,” said Valerian, and waved at the changing landscape.
Boy and Willow had never believed there could be so little of everything.
The last few miles through the City had been much like any other, but there had been a subtle change. The outermost parts were the poorest and the houses the most dilapidated. The coachman had picked up the pace a bit as they wound through some particularly unpleasant areas, even though it was midday.
Now there was nothing. Around them lay mile upon mile of empty fields. The blank sky pressed down. Away in the distance were forests and beyond them some hills. Boy and Willow moved even closer together.
The snow was falling thickly, as if the promise of all that snow had been stored up for this moment, for very soon the world disappeared under a blanket of pure whiteness.
Into Willow’s mind once more came a picture of herself, as a little girl, playing in the snow somewhere in the countryside. It seemed more real this time. She was with her parents, and she had the feeling they had been going to see someone. But no more pictures would come, and the vision evaporated.
“Where is this place?” asked Boy. “Linden?”
“You are becoming too much like the girl,” said Valerian irritably. “Too many questions.” He took a swig from his bottle.
But when Willow asked the same question, he relented.
“It may take some hours to get there.”
“Have you been there before?”
“No.”
“Valerian?”
Valerian stowed the bottle back in his coat pocket with some difficulty, and looked up at Willow. Snow lay on his eyebrows.
“What is it, girl?”
“What’s happening to you? What’s going to happen?”
He stared out at the whitening world around them.
“You said you were going to tell us.”
The cart trundled on. Its driver did not look back once. The snow fell ever harder as the narrow road plunged them into dense forests of silver birch. The trees were stripped of their leaves and had a ghastly air of desolation about them. The wheels of the cart slipped against the mud of the track, frozen hard into great ruts. All around them was the absolute silence of the dormant forest.
And as the old nag led them ever closer to the grave of Gad Beebe, Valerian spoke.
“You remember I said that I had last ventured out of the City fifteen years ago. I will tell you about that excursion.
“I was still a young man then, but I could feel time was passing for me. I had left the Academy. I was not well liked. In fact, I was disgraced. In my defense I can only say that I was doing what my timid colleagues were too scared to do! If you understand.”
Boy shook his head but said nothing to disturb Valerian. He had waited years to hear this story.
“How can I explain? I studied every aspect of Natural Philosophy-what some younger men are now calling ‘Science.’ I studied hard. Like Kepler still… like Kepler. I examined all branches of investigation into our world. So did we all. Myself, Kepler and those who later denounced me.
“The intense pursuit of any idea that takes complete possession of me is one of the qualities that makes me different-sometimes for good, sometimes, I daresay, for evil-from other men. It was because I had a greater thirst for knowledge, a greater hunger and desire to know all that could be known, that I became interested in stranger aspects of these studies. Dark, strange knowledge. Hidden knowledge.
“And I soon learnt that our modern thinking is but half the story. That there is a hidden world of a precious and powerful nature that has been known for as long as man has been thinking and doing.
“In my stupidity and pride, I rushed to share this with my colleagues, but I was a fool, for they shunned me. The things I did were dark and powerful, yes, and they were afraid of me. They threw me out! They turned their backs on me! And I was disgraced.
“Their treatment only served to make me delve even deeper into these unknown forces. I worked long and hard and began to create things I should not have. I began to conjure powers that should not be known. I summoned them. Small spirits at first, then greater and greater life-forms, with the power to change the world if they so desired.
“I thought I could control them. I summoned these things from their hidden places and they did my bidding. Small matters like money were no problem. That was easy in those days. They did whatever I wished. Now I would not dare…”
He paused for a moment.
There were so many questions Boy longed to ask, but he did not want to break the spell. Willow, however, had the habit of asking.
“Why?” she said.
“There is something else,” said Valerian. “Someone else, I should say. A woman.
“She was fair, like the clear moon that shone down on my labors night after night. Her hair was long and blond like golden corn, but she always wore black. The beauty of this extreme drove me to distraction.
“Yes, she was beautiful. But more than that. Light danced behind her eyes, such eyes as I have never seen before nor since. Her voice sparkled like a glittering stream, and her mind was both sharp and playful.
“She was rich. Her father was a great and powerful nobleman. She was unattainable. She would never have noticed a nobody like me, thrown out even from my college. And so I resolved to make something of myself, to make myself powerful and rich and strong. Then she could be mine.
“And so, having learnt of a most powerful conjuration, I summoned a thing-a thing I should not have done- to help me, to grant my wishes. And so it did. But I was oblivious to the price for all the power and wealth I was granted.”
Valerian stopped again, wincing at a twinge of pain from his arm.
“Look at me now!” He fished in his pocket for the bottle. He drained the last few drops and threw the bottle over the side of the cart to land unheard in the thick snow. “A wreck! This cart may as well be taking my coffin to the ground as taking us to God-knows-where in this forsaken land.”
“Don’t say that!” cried Boy.
“No?” asked Valerian bitterly. “I have now a little over two days to live unless there’s a way out of this mess. I have not yet told you of the price I was set. I demanded power and wealth and I got them. I was granted the power to have her.
“In return, I gave my life. I did not realize it at first, even though the conditions were spelt out. I was given fifteen years. Fifteen years to use my power and money and make what I could with it, and at the end of which I would belong to the thing I summoned. My life is his. My body and soul are his. It is over, then. And it was almost exactly fifteen years ago that I made this pact, this bargain, deep in the forest. On New Year’s Eve.
“Do you think it’s strange to risk so much?”
Neither Boy nor Willow answered.
“I was blind. Love had made me blind, and I thought a night-even an hour with her would be enough. And I was arrogant, and certain that in fifteen years I would find a way out of the pact. How clever I was then! How stupid!
“As the years passed I grew older and wiser and doubt began to grow. I had spent all my money, and never again will I summon those powers to help me get more.”
Willow was about to ask Valerian the woman’s name, but Boy spoke first.
“And Kepler’s been helping you find a way out?”
Valerian nodded.
“So why didn’t you ask him for help sooner? Why wait until the last few years?”
Valerian spoke to Boy, but his gaze went right through him.
“Kepler and I had fallen out at the time of my making the pact. We… disagreed over something. We did not see each other for maybe ten years. But many things can be forgiven in time, and when I went to see him again he agreed to help me find the book.”
“What did you disagree about?” Boy asked.
A shadow crossed Valerian’s face. He chose to ignore this question, but some intuition told Willow it had something to do with the woman.
“My time is up,” he said. “My only chance lies with the book. I had heard of it, and when I told Kepler about it he spent many months finding out about it. His knowledge of ancient libraries is second to none. He gathered references to the book-a mention here, half a line there-until we learnt that if it still existed, it was probably in our very own City. Then we truly began to believe we might actually find the thing itself.
“It is a book full of such ancient and powerful knowledge that we believe it contains some spell or other way of breaking the contract I am under. Kepler firmly believes that it contains the answer. From his researches he discovered that it is not just pages with writing, information to be learnt, the mundane and the extraordinary. No, it is more than that. Kepler believes that the book is itself a magical device, and each person who looks into it learns something different-something about only themselves, the thing uppermost in their mind, the thing they most want to know…
“For five years we have been tracking it down. About a year ago we thought we had it. We were mistaken. Then a few months ago it was promised to us, and again we were tricked. Across the years many people have struggled to claim possession of it.
“I was relying on things happening more quickly than they have, but maybe there is still time. Maybe. Kepler was sure it would yield an answer. And despite… the things that occurred between us, he is my one salvation in all this.”
He broke off.
Willow watched him.
“Valerian?” she asked, brushing more flakes of snow from her hair.
“What?” His voice was faint.
“The woman. The woman you did it all for. What happened to her?”
Valerian lifted his head and his cold stare ran straight through Willow.
“She?” he said. “She… rejected me. Despite the enchantment, somehow she still rejected me. I never saw her again.”
There was silence.
Willow still wanted to know her name, but could not bring herself to speak. Boy wondered how someone could risk so much, face such horrors, enter such a pact, all for someone who would cast them away, but Willow, looking at Boy, could feel differently.
To risk everything for someone-that was something she understood.
“Boy,” she said, quietly, “I’m cold.”
“Come here,” he said, and put his arm around her.
Silence fell over them as the cart plowed on through the snowbound forest.
Boy felt a mixture of emotions, and none of them good-fear, horror, sadness, hopelessness. Willow felt pity, and dread.
And Valerian? Who knows what deep and dangerous thoughts ran through his disturbed mind?
Dead to everything around them, they plodded on through mile after mile of snow-laden silver birch forests. Dimly, it seemed to Boy impossible that there could be so many trees and that it could snow for so long. And yet the trees went on forever and so did the snow.
Willow kept a firm grip on the blanket spread across them. The rhythmic stagger of the cart lulled Boy into a half-sleep, in which the waking world and his troubled imagination fought for control. He plunged into a bizarre sequence of mind-pictures in which he was back in his favorite kind of place: a small, confined darkness. Yet there was horror somewhere nearby, something that wanted to be bad to him. He scurried deeper into the cramped black spaces until he felt safer only to feel the hunting presence coming closer and closer once more. In his perverse dreamworld he could feel himself being pulled further away from himself, until at last there was an answer and he became the small dark space himself, and in doing so was free.
And Valerian?
There was nothing. He slept as they went on through the paper-white trees, and the soft, deathly snow.
And yet… and yet, then there came the end to the trees.
Dusk was only an hour or so away when they emerged from the forest at last. Far off in the distance stood a wretched little village.
“Linden!” The driver spat.
Then, in a cracked and bleak voice, he began to sing, rousing them from their fitful sleep.
“In the morning you should think
You might not last unto the night,
In the evening you should think
You might not last unto the morn.
So dance, my dears, dance,
Before you take the dark flight down.”
As he finished his dirge, they pulled into Linden. It was just a handful of houses, an old water mill and the odd barn. For some reason, however, it had an imposing and ancient church that towered in the dusk like a manmade mountain of cut stone.
There, past a rickety fence, lay their goal-the churchyard.
The driver pulled the horse to a stop.
“We shouldn’t need long,” Valerian said to him.
“I don’t care how long you need,” said the driver. “We can’t go back tonight.”
He got down and started to unhitch the horse from the cart.
Valerian turned to argue, but the old man cut him off.
“If you don’t get out of there before it’s unhitched you’ll fall off,” he grunted. “And by the look of your arm I don’t think you’d want that.”
Defeated, Valerian scrambled down, grimacing with pain as he reached the ground.
“Is it getting worse?” asked Willow.
“Do you have any left?” asked Boy, and Valerian pulled a final, somewhat larger bottle of Kepler’s magic drug from his pocket.
“That’s all,” he said forlornly. He turned to the driver, who was leading his horse over to one of the barns.
“Where are we to stay, then?”
The driver didn’t look back as he called, “You should have thought of that before you set out.”
He led the horse into the barn and the door closed. There was a time, Boy knew, not too long ago, when Valerian would have fought the driver, compelled him to do his bidding. But now Valerian was broken, nearly spent.
They looked around the village. Even in the fading light they could see it all from where they stood.
There were three houses, each standing by itself on a patch of land with a low wooden fence. Each had a variety of little shacks and outhouses clustered behind it, and vegetable gardens that ran down to where the fields proper started.
There was the water mill. It had a large millpond upstream, frozen solid and now covered in snow as well. The entire millrace seemed to be frozen, though water must have been moving underneath the icy surface. The wheel was still frozen fast, and long fingers of icicles hung down from the blades that in summer would have ducked powerfully into the water.
There were two large barns, into one of which the coach driver had vanished with his horse. The other was a little smaller. And there was the church.
There was no one around, though they could see firelight inside some of the windows and could hear the sounds of a village preparing to rest at the end of a winter’s day. A dog barked behind one of the houses. A rickety door slammed. They felt utterly alone.
“I don’t like the countryside,” said Willow.
“Hmm,” said Valerian. “It can be a little… quiet.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Boy. “Where are we going to sleep?”
“We’re not,” said Valerian. “The first thing to do is find what we came here for-the book. Then we’ll get a horse and take ourselves back.”
“You mean… steal one?” asked Willow.
“If we have to,” said Valerian. “I’ll be damned if I spend the night in this hole.”
He realized the other meaning of his words and fell silent.
It did not go well.
They made their way to the churchyard.
“We’ll need to find a spade,” said Valerian. “There’ll be something in the mill…”
He tripped and fell forward, landing on his knees.
Willow and Boy knelt beside him.
“Don’t fuss!” he snapped, and they jumped back.
He struggled to his feet, but this time when Boy and Willow each put a hand out to help him, he did not argue.
They staggered to the churchyard, where they leant Valerian against the wall on a low buttress that ran around the outside.
He shook his head.
“You’ll have to do it,” he whispered. He drank the first of his last bottle and pulled a face. “You two will have to do it.”
Boy and Willow looked at each other.
“Dammit!” cried Valerian. “I can’t move for pain. I can’t walk and I certainly won’t be able to dig. You’ll have to do it.”
They nodded in unison.
“Boy! Go to the mill. They must have some sort of shovel for moving the corn. Girl! Start looking. Remember, Gad Beebe is the-”
“Of course I remember,” said Willow. “I found the name for you!”
She glared at Valerian, who hung his head. He lifted his hand and waved them feebly away.
“Come on,” said Boy quietly.
The light was failing fast but there was just enough to see the names on the gravestones, though Willow had to scrape the snow off a few of them to be able to read the name of the grave’s occupant.
Before Boy returned with the spade, Willow had made a full circuit of all the stones in the small yard.
Boy found her standing in a far corner of the graveyard.
“Which one is it?” he asked, clutching a long-handled wooden spade.
She shook her head.
“He’s got it wrong,” she said. “It’s none of them.” Boy stared at her.
“I’m too afraid to tell him.”
“You must be wrong. Let’s have another look.”
“Boy-”
“We can’t tell him that,” said Boy. He looked over at Valerian slumped against the wall of the church. “Let’s have another look.”
Boy felt a strange sense come over him as they searched the stones. A sense of being outside himself, of not needing to be there in the snowy village deep in the countryside. Yes, he was cold and hungry and miserable, but it was something more than that. It felt as if he was in the wrong place, going the wrong way.
Though they searched the graveyard until the light was nearly gone, Gad Beebe’s last resting place was not to be found.
When they got back to Valerian the snow had stopped but it was very, very cold. He looked old and on the point of freezing.
His eyes read their faces as they approached and they were spared the job of having to tell him.
“He’s not there, is he,” Valerian said. His head dropped.
Boy, still clutching the spade, opened his mouth.
“Don’t say ‘What are we going to do?’,” Valerian said without looking up, “because I don’t know.”
“We need to get inside somewhere,” said Willow.
“Yes,” Boy said. “Let’s get inside somewhere.”
“What about the church?” suggested Willow.
“Very well,” said Valerian hoarsely. “Help me up.”
Gratefully, Boy and Willow pulled and levered Valerian into a standing position. It seemed that his legs had practically frozen solid where he leant against the church. Boy put the spade under his arm for him to use as a crutch, and they crept slowly forward.
Once again they staggered through the graveyard, taking the path to the church door. It was not locked and they pulled Valerian out of the bitter, biting wind.
The heavy oak door swung behind them, pulled shut by a counterweight. A massive church silence descended.
They settled Valerian on a pew at the side of the aisle. There were candles burning all around the altar and in other alcoves. Having been lit for the festival, they would be kept alight for twelve days. Willow was mightily glad to see them.
“Come on,” she said to Boy, and started to collect them two at a time. They took about two dozen thick and tall goose-white candles back to where Valerian lay on the pew, and placed them on the flagstones in front of him. The effect of the flames from the tallow candles was impressive, like a small fire, and slowly Valerian came back to life.
Using the spade as a prop he pushed himself upright, until he was sitting more or less vertically on the pew.
“Well,” he said, “let me ask you two a question. What are we going to do now?”
“Don’t joke,” said Willow.
“I’m not,” said Valerian. “Everything I have tried has failed. I have been foiled at every twist and turn. All my decisions have turned out badly and now we are sitting in a freezing church in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting home and even if we did… my prospects are not good. So, I think that you may as well decide what we do next.”
What is there to do? thought Boy miserably.
“We ought to find something to eat,” he said. “We could ask at one of the houses. The driver must be staying in one of them. Maybe he’ll help us.”
“Him?” said Valerian. “That swine!”
“Well,” said Willow, “we can’t just sit here.”
She looked at Valerian, who was staring into space behind her head.
“Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem!” he said.
“Valerian!” Boy cried. “Stop it! You’re scaring me!”
But Valerian rose to his feet and pointed at the wall. “ Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem!”
“Stop it!” Boy shouted.
“No! Look! Non omnem videt molitor aquam molam praeterfluentem. ‘The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.’ Willow and I have seen that before!”
There on the wall behind them was a huge shield, a coat of arms, painted onto the stone. Its central image was a waterwheel, just like the sort frozen solid in the winter’s night outside the churchyard. Emblazoned across the top was the motto Valerian had read.
“Look!” said Willow. “There!” She ran over and pointed to the name beneath the crest.
William Beebe.
“Beebe! This is his family crest!” said Valerian. “It must have been a wealthy family. He’s not buried outside at all. He’s in here somewhere! Look! There’s another!”
He pointed.
A little farther down was the same coat of arms, with another name. Daniel Hawthorn Beebe.
“Quick!” Valerian cried, his strength miraculously returning. “Quick!”
But Boy was already scampering down the church.
Joseph and Sophia Beebe.
John Israel Beebe.
And then, there it was.
Gad Beebe.
“Here!” called Boy. “It’s here!”
Willow ran to him, Valerian not far behind.
“I can’t believe it!” said Valerian. “He really exists! Or he did exist, anyway. To see the name, written!”
“But where is he?” asked Boy. “He can’t be in the wall.”
Valerian turned and looked down at Boy, pulling one of his most devilish smiles. Then he raised a finger in front of boy’s face and turned it slowly so it pointed straight at where Boy was standing.
“Indeed,” he said. “He’s under your feet.”
Boy shrieked and jumped back. By the light from Willow’s candle they could see an inscribed stone in the floor.
“Fetch that spade, will you, Boy?” said Valerian. “Let’s get on with it.”
Boy brought the spade over.
“When was he-you know-put here?” he said.
“I have no idea,” said Valerian. “Why?”
“Well, I was wondering what sort of-what we might find.”
“Ah! Well, let’s have a look at the date.”
Valerian knelt down, wincing as he did so.
“Bring that candle a little closer, will you? Good. Now. There we are. Years ago, so no need to worry. It won’t be too foul. Anyway, it’s the book I’m after, not the man.”
Still Boy dithered.
“Get on with it,” said Valerian icily.
Boy shoved the tip of the spade along the crack between the stone with Beebe’s inscription and its neighbor. He levered it back and pulled. He went flying backward as the spade splintered on the stone, which had not moved.
Boy picked himself up.
“Are you all right?” Willow asked.
“Never mind him,” said Valerian. “We’ll have to find something else to prize it up. Quick. Someone could come at any time.”
They found a tall, heavy candlestick, its massive spike exposed when Willow removed one of the candles.
Putting the metal spike into the crevice, Boy and Willow both leant on it with all their weight. There wasn’t as much leverage as with the spade, but the candlestick was strong, and with a sudden lurch the slab lifted an inch or two.
“Quick!” said Valerian. “Get something under there!”
With his foot Boy slid the handle of the spade under the flag.
Still cold, and not having eaten since leaving the City, everything they did now exhausted them. They rested for a moment, panting after the exertion.
“What are you waiting for?” Valerian growled. “Get on with it!”
Wearily, they lifted the candlestick and shoved the top end as far as it would go under the small space they’d created.
Again they pushed down and the slab lifted some more.
“Lean to the side,” ordered Valerian, and they did. The slab rolled along the top of the candlestick and away from the hole. Repeating this motion a couple more times freed the stone completely.
“Now dig,” said Valerian, pointing at the patch of earth they had exposed.
Boy picked up the broken spade. Most of its face was still usable and he began to lift out the earth.
It came away surprisingly easily, and before even a few minutes had passed the spade hit the top of something else wooden.
Valerian could hardly contain his frustration. He hovered by the hole, grunting and cursing as Boy and Willow pulled at the dirt with their bare hands.
“Why do we always end up doing this?” muttered Willow as she and Boy once again scraped in grave soil.
“Shut up and dig,” said Boy.
And then it was done. They had exposed the surface of the coffin.
“Oh no!” said Boy. “Not again!”
“What is it?” asked Valerian, his voice tense.
“The box is broken.”
He leant down and with one hand was able to pull up the top section of coffin lid. Just like the one in which Valerian had nearly met his end, the top third of the lid had been broken, snapped off to leave a jagged edge of flimsy wood.
Boy threw the wood to one side and looked into the hole. Willow gasped. Inside lay a skeleton, mostly clean. Mostly.
Its arms were folded across the tatters and rags of its chest.
And that was all. There was no book.
“It can’t be!” cried Valerian. “Look further in! At the feet!”
Boy didn’t move. He looked down at the skeleton and knew he could not make himself get that close to it.
“Do it!” shouted Valerian.
“I-I-” Boy stammered. “I can’t.”
Valerian kicked the candlestick hard so it skittered away into some pews.
“I’ll do it,” said Willow. She held up a candle and peered into the depths of the grave.
She stood up. “Nothing.”
“Tricked!” Valerian said bitterly. “Yes. Yes. This looks rather like a dead end.”
“Can’t you just run away somewhere?” asked Boy. “Hide? Until after New Year’s?”
“If only it were that simple,” said Valerian, “I would already be on the other side of the world. The force with which I made my pact transcends time and space. It will come for me wherever I am on New Year’s Eve. The day after tomorrow.”
They were sitting in the church, by the candles, trying to keep warm.
“But there is something,” said Valerian suddenly. “How could I have forgotten… the motto? The Beebe family motto! Willow, I said we have we seen it before! Where?”
“At Kepler’s house. In the basement. But why?”
Valerian stood up.
“Why?” he said slowly. “Because Kepler must have known about Gad Beebe. He knew about his family motto. Perhaps he already has the book! Come!”
“What?” cried Boy. “Where?”
“Back to the City. To find Kepler. We must find him! He knows something. Find him and we may find the book.”
“Do you think he was here?”
“No. No, I don’t think so, but he knew about Gad Beebe. Now we just have to work out where he’s gone.”
“But how will we get back?” asked Willow.
As she spoke the clock in the tower of the church above them began to strike midnight.
“Willow,” said Valerian, “it’s time to steal a horse.”