Boy ran without thinking, without knowing what he was doing. He ran off into the darkness, and only after some time of running blindly did he realize that he had no light to run by. He stopped. Everything was inky around him, and now he found himself paralyzed by the darkness.
Then he saw a light behind him.
He had gone perhaps fifty paces into the gloom across the square. He turned, and with alarm saw that Valerian was following, though slowly. He was walking unevenly, almost staggering.
He doesn’t know where I am, Boy thought.
Boy could see Valerian clearly enough. He had grabbed Kepler’s light device from beside Willow’s body and was heading in the direction he thought Boy had gone. But blinded somewhat by his light, he could not see far enough into the gloom to see Boy.
All this passed through Boy’s head in a flash.
He could see Valerian because of the light, and it was enough to dimly pick up a little of the shapes of old buildings around him. If he was careful, very careful, Boy guessed he might be able to use Valerian’s light to see his own way, and provided he kept as far from Valerian as the faint light would allow, Valerian would have no idea where he was.
If he judged it wrong, Valerian would see him.
Boy began to edge backward and tripped over a low stone kerb. He fell with a groan. Valerian froze. Boy watched in horror as Valerian held the lamp higher, away from his face, and looked right at where Boy sat on his backside.
“Boy!” he called. “Come here, Boy.”
Boy scrambled to his feet and scuttled further into the darkness.
“There you are!” cried Valerian, and started to follow, more quickly this time.
Boy hurried on and as silently as he could began to circle around sideways from his last position. Crouching low to the pavement, he watched as Valerian moved straight on ahead, unaware of where he was. Valerian looked demonic as he passed within a few yards of Boy, his face illuminated from underneath by the lamp, which picked out its shadows and crevices.
“Boy!” he called. “I know you’re there.”
Boy waited until Valerian had passed him and gone a fair way ahead, and then began to follow him.
Perhaps, eventually, Valerian would lead him to the outside. Or maybe they would pass within sight of a channel of daylight, if indeed it was day outside, and then Boy could find his own way out.
He had no idea what time it was or what day it was. Maybe only Valerian knew, deep inside, that his last day had arrived.
Indeed, a few stone feet above their heads midnight had come and gone, and the early hours of New Year’s Eve were starting to unwind across the length and breadth of the City. Most people were shut up fast in their beds, trying to sleep as deeply as possible to prepare for the manic celebrations that would entwine the City that night to welcome in the New Year.
Boy crept along behind Valerian, who called ahead of him into the darkness.
“Boy. Boy! Are you there? Come here, Boy. I won’t hurt you.”
Willow woke and began to panic. Her head throbbed. There was not the slightest suspicion of light anywhere, and the more she strained to see something-anything at all-and failed, the worse she felt. She couldn’t believe there could be no difference between having her eyes open and shut, and realized what it must be to be blind. She felt like screaming, but remembered that Valerian was out there in the blackness somewhere, his mind set on murder.
Murder? Was that really what she’d seen in his eyes when he’d read the book and found his answer? She had been looking over Valerian’s shoulder, trying to understand the strange writing and symbols. She had seen the piece of paper about Boy too, but it was not these things that had told her.
No. That knowledge had simply appeared in her head as she looked at the pages of the book. She had seen what Valerian intended for Boy. The book had shown it to her.
If that was not evidence enough, the blow he had struck her was. Why else would he silence her so brutally? She felt her face in the darkness. Her eye hurt. She could feel the stickiness of blood on her fingers.
She tensed at a low, grating noise. She tried to place it, to identify its source and direction, but everything was disorienting without sight. She fought the urge to scream, and to be sick from the fear.
She tried to breathe more deeply and slowly, and listened again. Had she imagined it? But there it was again, coming closer and getting louder.
She struggled to think clearly. She could try to crawl away from the noise, but that would be difficult, and where could she go? Maybe it was better to stay where she was-she couldn’t see whatever it was that was making the noise so maybe it couldn’t see her either. Maybe. If, on the other hand, it was some thing from the canal, it would be used to moving in darkness. Perhaps it could even see in the dark and was coming right for her.
She heard a small scraping sound, and saw-or maybe she only imagined it-the briefest spark of light. The light, had it been there at all, was gone.
Was that a voice?
She sprang to her feet. Her head throbbed from Valerian’s fist and she felt dizzy. Stumbling against some unseen pavement in the blackness, she fell.
She let out a groan as she hit the ground, her wrists taking the fall.
“Boy?” came a voice. “Willow?”
Willow lay still, her head pounding, her breath coming short and fast. Her face was inches from the flags and she could feel their dampness seep into her.
The sound had stopped.
“Willow?” came the voice from the darkness. “It’s me. It’s Kepler.”
Willow was too surprised to say anything. Kepler, who had left her to die with Valerian, was not who she would have chosen to find her.
There was nothing else to do.
“Kepler!” she called out. “It’s Willow!”
“Where are you, child? Is Boy with you? I fear for his safety.”
“What about my safety?” asked Willow bitterly.
There was no reply.
“Well?” said Willow again in the dark.
“You are safe,” Kepler said. “You are safe from Valerian. It is only Boy who can save him. Only Boy’s life is in danger. We would have come back for you-”
Willow cut him short. “Oh! I don’t believe you!”
“I swear,” said Kepler, “I swear you were safe. The danger is only to Valerian and to Boy. Once Valerian had… gone, I would have returned for you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Willow. “I don’t understand any of it. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know where Boy is…”
“Yes,” said Kepler, “we have to find Boy. He’s the one in danger.”
“What does Valerian want him for?”
“I will explain,” said Kepler, “but let me find you first. I have some matches but they are a little damp…”
Willow heard the noise she had heard before-the small scraping sound and then a fizz of sparks, which rapidly died away.
“Wet. Where are you?”
Willow nearly laughed in spite of herself, in spite of the horror.
The louder noise started again and Willow knew that Kepler was getting closer. She didn’t like the idea, but she equally didn’t like the thought of being alone in darkness anymore.
“That’s it,” she said. “I’m this way. Yes, this way.”
And then Kepler bumped into her foot.
“That’s close enough,” she said. “Now, tell me what is going on.”
It was working, after a fashion.
Boy crawled on his hands and knees a handful of paces behind Valerian, who made slow progress. Valerian was walking more and more slowly all the time. Boy wondered if he was getting tired, or if his arm was giving him more pain, but whatever the reason, Boy found it no trouble at all to keep up with him, even crawling as he was.
Slowly they made their way on through the catacombs. Occasionally they would come across a branch of the canal, gurgling gently, the water an oily black snake that shunted off into the next section of tunnel.
Now they were in a long corridor, a straight path with a low ceiling composed, Boy supposed, of buildings that soared away above their heads into the City, into the long-forgotten daylight.
It was an unsettling world, far underground, in this deserted empire unknown to almost everyone. Boy was now following Valerian down a low tunnel in which sound behaved strangely. There was an echo from the scrape of Valerian’s boots, but it was a short, dry sound, cut off almost as soon as it had begun. The ceiling hung with miniature stalactites, at the end of which were small, ice-cool drops of water. When one of these fell onto Boy’s neck it was all he could do to stop himself from shrieking and giving himself away. And then there was the smell, musty, damp, full of spores of unseen fungus noiselessly swelling in the lightless passages and caverns.
They passed a gateway-an iron gate, with a massive rusty iron lock. Behind it the darkness stretched away into depths that no one would ever see.
Along each side of the corridor were low doorways, and at each one of these Valerian would stop a few feet short and then peer in.
As Boy passed them, there was still enough light from Valerian’s lamp to see strange numbers over the lintels, carved and then painted. The numbers made no sense to Boy, but some of the doorways bore inscriptions instead. Sometimes, said one, it is better to die than to live .
Oh, good! thought Boy. Just the sort of thing Valerian willlove.
Then he saw something that bothered him, though he couldn’t work out why. Valerian began to scratch his nose. For a long time Boy watched, trying but failing to work out what it was that upset him about this.
Boy scratched his nose.
Suddenly Valerian dropped his pace near to a dead halt and tiptoed the last inches to a doorway, swinging the lantern round in a rush.
“Boy?” he called, and something in his voice made Boy’s skin creep. He hung back farther from Valerian’s light, until he was sure he would not be seen by his master.
Valerian moved on.
“Boy!” he called. “Boy, I know you’re there. Come out. Let’s talk. There’s really nothing to be scared of. I need your help.”
Boy didn’t want to listen, but had no choice. He crawled on after Valerian, all the time hoping that he would see a way out, maybe a patch of light, or feel a breeze of fresh air.
Valerian had stopped. The light from the device was failing and he could not carry it and wind the handle at the same time. He placed the box on the ground and, steadying it with his foot, he leant down and began to wind the handle evenly, looking about as he did. The light from the globe shone strongly again, and Valerian picked it up.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Valerian said, and Boy thought about Willow and wondered if she was dead. If she wasn’t, he shouldn’t have left her. But what could he do? He had had to run, or Valerian would have had him. Broken arm or not, he would have had him, of that Boy was sure. Valerian always got what he wanted. Always.
“Come out, Boy. I know you’re there. Come out, Boy. I need your help. Haven’t I helped you all these years?”
Valerian sounded tired. He sounded old and pathetic and sad, and Boy wished he would be quiet.
“I found you. In the streets I found you, groveling in dark places. I gave you a life, and a place to sleep and food. We’ve come a long way, Boy, you and I, haven’t we?”
Boy thought about just how far he’d come. Here he was, still groveling around in dark places. Well, at least that was familiar ground. He watched as Valerian slid up to another of the low doorways and repeated his trick of stealing the last inches on tiptoe. Finding nothing, he moved on.
“I’ve always looked after you, haven’t I, Boy? Yes, I have. But now I need you to help me. That’s not so much to ask, is it? You know I’m in trouble, Boy, don’t you? You know I need help. You are my famulus! I need your help, Boy. You’re the only one who can help me now.”
His voice was full of pain and pitiful to hear.
Boy found himself crying in the darkness.
“Please, Boy. Come out. We can go on as we did before. I’m not going to hurt you, Boy. I need you. You don’t know how much you mean to me. And besides, there are things I’ve never told you-things I should tell you. About who you are, where you came from. You’d like to know about who you really are, wouldn’t you?”
Now Boy was listening hard. Valerian couldn’t know anything about his parents, could he? But supposing he did? What if Valerian died and he never found out?
“Yes, I can tell you who you are, Boy. I can tell you about your father, your mother. So come out and let me talk to you.”
Boy stood up. Valerian could not yet see him, but Boy began to walk slowly, his heart thumping in his chest, toward the light.
“I do need your help. And I can tell you who you are, Boy. Who you are, and where you came from.”
Now Boy stood a few feet behind Valerian.
“Who am I, Valerian?” he asked quietly.
Valerian jerked round and lifted the light high, making sure it was really Boy he was looking at.
“Boy!” he shouted. “There you are! Come on, there’s no time to lose!”
But Boy stood still, and though his blood beat through his veins as if they would burst, he spoke calmly to his master.
“I’m not going anywhere, Valerian, until you tell me who I am.”
Valerian took a step toward Boy, his face blank.
“I give the orders, Boy, you know that. Now come here. I won’t hurt you.”
Boy took another step backward.
“Who am I, Valerian?” he cried. “You said you’d tell me.”
“Boy,” growled Valerian, coming closer, and for the first time Boy faltered. He could see Valerian’s eyes more clearly now, he could feel them eat into his own, finding their way into his mind, making him feel so small, so helpless. He would do anything Valerian told him. He always had, he always would…
With an effort, Boy wrenched his eyes away and ran several steps back into the shadows.
“Come here,” said Valerian. “Come here!”
“No,” said Boy.
“Come here!” Valerian shouted. “You! Boy! Come here!”
Boy turned and ran into the nearest doorway.
Valerian’s light bobbed after him.
“But what can we do?” Willow said.
“We need to find a light,” said Kepler, “or we shall die down here. Let me try another match now. The warmth from my hands may have dried them a little.”
This time there was a stronger flicker of flame that lasted longer but died as it reached the wood of the match.
In that short time Willow saw Kepler had a cut above his right ear, a vivid slash of red across his face. He stared at the failing match intently, his desperation clearly visible.
“What happened to your head?” asked Willow. “Did you fall?”
“In a way,” he answered. “Never mind that now. It happened when Boy and I parted company in the canals.”
“But the canals…?”
“Are not deep. No more than waist-high in most places. You need to watch your step occasionally. There’s one place a little farther along where-”
“But why were you coming down here? To find the book?”
“No,” said Kepler, and he laughed, a snorting noise that Willow hated him for. “No! I came down here to hide it.”
Now Willow was confused.
“To hide it? To hide it?”
“Yes. You see, Willow, I learnt things. I have been helping Valerian for a long time. We had not seen each other since… for years, until one day he just arrived at my house and told me about the specter he faced. He turned up as if nothing had ever happened between us! But when he told me about the book, I knew I would put the past behind me. Now is not the time, and certainly not the place to tell you all the trials and troubles we faced, attempting to find the book. Suffice to say that I discovered that an answer would be contained therein.”
“But what is the book? What did you learn?”
“It is an almanac, but much more than that. It holds answers to questions that men ask. It holds information about all manner of dealings, both light and dark. It contains much information on the nature of the… agreement into which Valerian placed himself. And it answers questions-questions in the mind of the reader. It could solve Valerian’s problem-of that there is no doubt.”
“You mean-”
“Yes, I mean exactly that. Valerian’s life ending in a most horrible way.”
Willow thought of something that had been bothering her. Something important.
“Why?” she asked.
“What?” Kepler replied.
“You were supposed to be helping Valerian find the book. And now you’re telling me you’ve been trying to hide it from him. Why?”
“I thought you had realized that. The horoscope. Boy’s horoscope. That gave me the answer, really.”
“What’s a-?”
“Horoscope? It’s a method of thinking about people, based on the patterns of the stars and the planets. It explains who people are, and why they are. It has deep scientific basis that few men truly understand, and yet the results of such investigation can be powerful.
“It concerns the heavens-the stars and the planets and their motions around the Sun, which is the center of the universe, and their relative motions around the Earth.”
Willow tried to follow what he said, feeling lost and lonely again.
“The position of all these things in the sky at the moment of an individual’s conception determines the nature, the character, of that individual. Irrevocably.”
Now Willow began to understand.
“The piece of paper Valerian found, with Boy’s name on it-is that his horoscope?”
“Sort of,” said Kepler. “Sort of.”
“But how can you have worked these things out about Boy? You said you have to know where the planets were at the moment someone was conceived, but no one even knows when he was born-not even he does!”
“I made a guess. I felt a coincidence. An enormous coincidence, maybe, or Fate working its path through Boy and Valerian’s lives. And mine too. And then I found the book, and the book confirmed it. It showed me. I found out the truth.”
“But what is this coincidence?” asked Willow.
“That two people have come to be together. In all this sprawling city of tens of thousands, that two people should find each other. No, I think it is not coincidence. I think this is how Fate works.”
“So why were you trying to hide it?”
“Valerian will kill Boy,” said Kepler. “That is the answer. That is the only way he can save himself now-for him to give Boy’s life in place of his own. The pact can be broken only by a life exactly as long as the term of the bargain. That is what I discovered. I guessed much of this. The book confirmed it to me. I guessed who Boy is, and when he was conceived, and I drew up his horoscope. I found that it described the boy I knew very well. And so then, knowing who Boy is and having looked into the book, I knew what Valerian would do if he found out. And so I began to try to cover the path I had started to clear. I came down here to hide the book.
“In a few hours from now Valerian can offer Boy in place of himself, and he will go free. That is how and why Valerian will kill Boy. That is why we have to find Boy before Valerian does.”
Willow’s heart thumped inside its rib-prison.
Boy. Valerian would kill Boy to save himself. Finally she began to understand the insane nature of the journey they had all been making. A dance-a hideous dance with Fate and Death.
Something else occurred to her.
“But why do you care about Boy?” she asked.
“Why do you?” said Kepler.
Before Willow could answer, Kepler spoke again.
“I have my reasons, as I’m sure do you. And I want the book.”
“So where did you find it?” Willow asked. “Who does it belong to?”
“I heard, after years of searching far and wide, that it had been in the possession of a rich and powerful family. A family who lived in the City itself. A family called Beebe.”
In the darkness, Willow jumped at the name, but Kepler continued unaware.
“A large and powerful family, though corrupt and broken now. They once owned properties in the City, and a large estate in the countryside. They built a church there, as their private place of worship and eternal rest. That was where I found the book, in Gad Beebe’s grave. I had traced it as far as the Beebes. A sum of money to one of their more degenerate members, and the book’s whereabouts became known to me…”
“But…” Willow felt her head swimming. “But I don’t understand.”
“What?” asked Kepler.
“Gad Beebe. We looked in Gad Beebe’s grave-there was nothing in there but his bones… you must have got there before us.”
Now it was Kepler’s turn to be surprised.
“You went to Linden? You went to Beebe’s grave? But how? How did you know his name?”
Willow smiled.
“I worked it out, from the music box that Boy got from Green. I don’t know where Green had got it from, but the notes of the tune it played spelled his name. Gad Beebe.”
In the darkness Kepler started to laugh, bitterly. Then he stopped abruptly.
“But that is too ridiculous.”
“What?” asked Willow.
“That music box… I found it in Beebe’s grave. I gave it to Green. Me! I’d brought it back from Linden. It amused me. Then I sent for Green; I needed him to go and meet Valerian. He saw it on my desk, and asked what it was. When I showed him he smiled like a child. He asked for it, along with the money I was paying him. He refused to do the job unless I gave it to him. That thug! But it was nothing to me, so I gave it to him. He must have had it with him when he went out to meet Valerian in the Trumpet.”
“But it held Gad Beebe’s name!” cried Willow. “Without it we’d have never found the grave…”
“Fate, once more,” Kepler said. “Fate steering us all for its own ends…”
Willow thought about what he’d said. It did seem extraordinary-that little music box had made its way from Gad Beebe’s grave, to Kepler and Green to Boy to Valerian, and only she had known what it held. Without it Valerian would still be struggling for the answer, and Boy would be safe. It was a coincidence too great to be anything other than true. The true path of Fate.
Then something occurred to her.
“But why?” she asked. “Why did you send Green to meet Boy, in the Trumpet?”
“I sent him to meet Valerian-did he send Boy instead? That may have saved his life.”
“What do you mean?” asked Willow.
“I was supposed to meet Valerian that evening, to report any progress on the book. He knew I was close to finding it. In fact, I already had the book, and had read it. I’d learnt what it would mean for Valerian. For Boy. So I had to send Green instead. I sent a letter to Valerian at the theater, telling him to meet Green.”
“But what did you tell Green to say to Valerian? He was expecting to get some news from you.”
“I didn’t tell him to say anything. I told Green to kill him.”
Willow froze.
“Yes, Willow, I told Green to kill Valerian. In another few days he’d be dead anyway, and I knew if he found the book that Boy’s life would be in danger.”
“But he’s your friend! You’ve known him for years. Worked with him! You couldn’t just have him killed!”
“We were friends. Once, a long time ago, maybe. Then we fell out. We became rivals. He… hurt someone, someone I cared for. He betrayed me, around the time he was expelled by the Academy. We didn’t see each other for ten years. Then he came to ask for my help, but we were never friends again… He told me about the book. And I wanted it. I was never interested in helping Valerian. I wanted the book.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Willow said fiercely.
“Listen, girl,” cried Kepler, growing angry. “It’s him or Boy now. Understand that! Only one of them can live! And I want it to be Boy…” They sat in silence until all the questions in Willow’s head fought to be answered.
“So, what did you do then? After Linden? Did you use the tunnel to get here?”
“Tunnel?” asked Kepler.
“It’s how we got here,” Willow said. “We found the entrance to a tunnel in the crypt of the church, and an underground river that led all the way here.”
“I thought it was maybe so,” said Kepler. “During my researches into the book, I found a map of all the catacombs and canals. I made a model of them in my cellar, to try to learn the routes by heart. It is only because I did that I was able to find my way back here in the dark.”
“In your basement? The canals and the writing?”
Kepler nodded in the darkness.
“But I did not have time to investigate while I was in Linden. To see if I was right about a tunnel all the way out there. It was built by the Beebes, when they were most powerful, as a link to the heart of the City. That tunnel is much newer than the rest of this place.”
“So you came back to the City overland?”
“Yes, I had hired a horse. I’d found the book in the grave, and the music box there, too, and brought them both back from Linden. When I got back to the City, things had become complicated. Valerian’s house is being guarded by the Watch. And there have been deaths, I understand.”
Willow was silent.
“Yes, I know about the deaths,” Kepler said. “I heard about Green, though we may never know exactly what happened that night. I went to the Trumpet yesterday. And Korp too.”
“Who told you?” Willow asked.
“Korp’s murder is big news,” said Kepler.
“Valerian? Was it Valerian who did it?”
“I have no idea. Even I cannot work out everything that is going on here. I wonder where the book is now. Valerian must have taken it with him.”
“I don’t know that he has,” said Willow. “He can’t carry that and the light, can he?”
“True.”
“But what about the paper? The horoscope? Valerian found it in your desk.”
“The horoscope. So, I made another mistake! I think I left it there in my hurry to get to Linden. Well, that was as good as handing Valerian a key, but it would still not have been any use had he not found the book. That was why I had to get him away from here. When you three found me, I was hiding the book. Valerian was terrified of this place. He came down here once as a student. He got lost and nearly died. He vowed never to come here again. I thought this the best place to hide it.”
“You could have burned it. Thrown it in the river!”
“I could no more do that than cut off my own hand!” cried Kepler. “I want the book when Valerian is-I want the book. It is full of all knowledge. It holds enormous power, as the success of the Beebe family demonstrates. But more than that, it shows things to the reader, things only about them and their destiny…”
“But if it is so great a thing, so powerful, then why did the Beebes bury it with Gad?”
“Apparently they thought it dangerous. That its power was not always… good. That it could corrupt.”
Willow shivered.
“Are you sure it’s safe to use it?” she began, but Kepler cut her off.
“Of course!” he said dismissively. “The Beebes were fools. They used it unwisely and their downfall was the result. So they decided to hide the book. But in the right hands… it’s nonsense to suggest it could do anything other than impart wisdom.”
They sat without speaking as Kepler’s last words drifted away into the darkness around them. Willow began to panic.
“And we still have no light,” she said desperately.
“No,” agreed Kepler, “we do not.”
“Wait!” cried Willow. “Maybe we do.”
She rummaged around in her pocket and found the candle stub they had used in the great cemetery, and later in Kepler’s house.
“What is it?” asked Kepler, unable to see.
“I have a bit of a candle. Maybe you could try one more match and see if we can get it alight.”
“Excellent,” he said.
She heard him move and then felt him put out his hands.
“Where’s the candle?” he said. “Hold still, stay close. Right.”
Again the match flared briefly, and before the head could burn away, he held it to the wick of Willow’s candle stub. A small glow grew about them.
The relief was enormous, though the tiny patch of light only seemed to reinforce the oppressive gloom.
Now Kepler saw Willow’s face.
“Your face?” he asked.
Willow nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Valerian.”
“We must find Boy.”
Then, in the light of the candle, which Kepler had taken from Willow and was shielding with one hand, they saw something else.
“The book!” Willow cried.
“That is good fortune. Our luck is turning. That is often how Fate works. One piece of good fortune begets another. Now come on! To your feet! I can get us out of here, but first we must find Boy!”
It had been a mistake to show himself to Valerian, and Boy knew it. How could he trust Valerian anymore? How could he? Valerian was probably already a murderer. Korp or Green-or both? No, he couldn’t have killed them both.
What was certain was that Boy could not trust himself with Valerian. Just to be held by his eyes for a moment too long was to forget right and wrong, to mistake black for white.
The game of cat and mouse resumed, but now with Valerian pursuing Boy rather than Boy trailing his master. Valerian was unable to travel fast, and the tunnel was low. He walked hunched over the lamp. The tunnel Boy had chosen was small and straight and narrow, and Valerian could clearly see Boy ahead of him, hurrying away.
Sickeningly, Boy knew this, and he scuttled along as fast as he could.
And then, abruptly, the roof lifted away above his head and Boy stood in a vast open space, though still far beneath the City streets. There were small hills in front of him, it seemed-piles of whiteness in the gloom. As he heard Valerian coming closer, nearing the edge of the tunnel, Boy realized that he had stopped at the threshold of this new space.
Valerian approached, and as he did, the light intensified. Boy lurched forward, missed his footing, and stumbled into one of the piles of white stuff. It was hard, but scattered under his weight. He could hear things cracking. Valerian emerged from the tunnel and shone the light straight at Boy.
“So!” he cried. “I have you at last.”
In the light, Boy realized he was sitting in piles of bones. Human bones of all sorts. He knew they were human by the large number of skulls rolling around at his feet.
He screamed.
As Valerian came closer, Boy picked up a skull and threw it. Valerian ducked but was too slow, and the ancient headbone hit his bad arm. He howled and wavered where he stood. In that split second Boy scrambled clumsily to his feet, bones skidding away under him. Picking one of many possible routes, he spun away between the piles of skeletons that filled this vast hall.
Boy ran and ran, hurtling into pile after pile of bones, making such a terrible noise that he was sure Valerian must be a moment away from catching him.
Finally it was too dark to see at all. Boy staggered forward a few more feet, tripped over yet another skull, and collapsed into one of the heaps, too scared of Valerian to worry about what he was lying on.
He lay still, breathing quietly, and realized there was no sound of pursuit. There was no light anywhere. Valerian was probably out in the bone-field somewhere. Without light he could move no further, but Boy was too upset and tired to care. He had passed over and by countless human remains in the last few days. Thousands of bones that were once people, maybe hundreds of thousands, and all because of one man’s struggle to avoid joining them.
Boy lay in the bone-field, where the exhumed remains from overflowing cemeteries all around the City had been moved hundreds of years before to make space for new arrivals. Exhausted, he put his head onto his outstretched arm and amazingly, sleep came for him and took him away.
He woke screaming.
He clamped his hand to his mouth and sobbed violently until he felt the panic subsiding. He breathed deeply. There was nothing to do but to keep moving. He got to his feet in the darkness and began to walk.
He tried to pretend that he was not blind, that he could see where he was going, and determined to walk until he hit something. He very soon did. It was a wall, but it felt peculiar. He ran his fingers across its surface and felt small, strange knobs, each about the size of his fist. He followed the wall and found a corner. Putting his hand out to the right, he found another wall close by that felt the same as the first. He was in another corridor. He put a hand on either wall and began to walk down the corridor as fast as he dared.
The knobs felt funny-smooth and cold, dry despite the general clammy nature of the catacombs. They were evenly spaced, with small gaps between, in an incredibly neat row from the floor to above his head. The whole wall was made of these things stacked in orderly fashion on top of each other. Just as he was trying to work out what they were, his left hand ran over something else in the wall, and he knew what it was instantly.
A skull. It was set into the wall, which Boy realized was made of bones-thighbones, stacked on top of each other so the thick knobs at the end overlapped and formed the wall.
The panic welled up inside him again and he ran, blind and shrieking, to nowhere.
He ran out through the end of the passageway. Had there been light to see by, and had he stopped to look, he might have seen another inscription above the doorway from which he had emerged.
Stop! This is the Empire of Death.
At least he was going the right way.
Valerian prowled on. He had long ago lost Boy.
His arm hurt so much that his mind was clouded by the pain, and yet he could not stop. He knew that his last day must have dawned, but down in this infernal darkness he had no idea what time it was or how long he had left.
The thought made him shudder. What was happening in the City, above this subterranean empire? It was presumably going about its normal business, whether sleeping, or waking, or working, or getting ready for the New Year’s Eve festival.
The end of the Dead Days, and the end of Valerian’s quest, one way or another.
He had to find Boy and he had to find him fast. That was all he knew. Very soon the gates of horror would open and a force would come to hunt over the Earth until he was found, speared and delivered to Hell.
Valerian staggered slowly on, his mind fixed on one thing, one alone: Boy.
And then, from his right, he felt a breeze on his face. Its freshness was so distinct against the fetid air of the catacombs that it gave him hope.
Valerian headed for the breeze. Quickly he came upon another, larger space, where one of the canals passed by, although here the water flowed as in a fast river. He looked about, saw a doorway, and then a shaft of light rising straight up above his head, and he began to wonder.
He began to smile.
He turned back into the low room, and waited.
Kepler led the way, holding the candle in front of him. Willow clasped the Book against her chest. It was so large and heavy that occasionally they would have to stop while she shifted it to her other arm. She wanted nothing to do with the book at all, but Kepler insisted they bring it with them.
“Can’t we leave it here?” she said. “You were going to hide it. Can’t we do that and come back for it when we’ve got a light?”
“Absolutely not!” Kepler said. “I made that mistake once. Valerian knows it’s down here now. I shall hold on to it-or rather you will-until we get out.”
They made their way across that open square where Willow, Valerian and Boy had first stepped ashore after docking their boat behind Kepler’s.
“If the other boat’s still there, then maybe we have a chance,” Kepler said.
There was a noise-a cry, and footsteps, coming at them from the side.
Boy stood in front of them.
“Willow!” He embraced her. The horrors he had felt drained away and were replaced by hope, as he held Willow tight and felt her clasp his hands to her.
“Boy!” she cried. “Boy! Boy!”
Swinging her around, Boy saw Kepler too.
“You!” he said. “You shouldn’t have done that” was all he could blurt out. He held Willow tighter.
“We would have come back for her,” Kepler replied. “Willow will tell you herself.”
But she said nothing.
“We had to get you away from him,” Kepler tried to explain. “You’re the one who’s in danger.”
“Why?” cried Boy. “What does he want me for?”
“Later. We’ll talk later. Come! All the time you are down here, with Valerian somewhere around, you are in danger. Let us leave this place. It does not lift my spirits, for it provides shelter from everything except death. When we are back in the air of the City I will tell you.”
“The other boat, Boy,” said Willow. “Hurry.”
There indeed was the boat, still with its pole.
They climbed aboard, and with Kepler in front, Willow sitting in the middle clutching the book and Boy holding the pole in the rear, they set off for the outside world.
Many thoughts passed through Boy’s mind, but there was one question above all. “Why does he want to hurt me?”
Silence.
“One of you answer me!” shouted Boy. “Answer me! What does he want me for?”
“Don’t!” whispered Willow. “Someone might hear you!”
“So answer me!” shouted Boy.
“He wants your life,” Kepler said coldly. “Your life is the only way out for him now.”
Boy shook his head in the darkness.
“No,” he said, choking. “He can’t. I don’t believe it!”
“Then tell me, Boy, why were you running?” Kepler asked.
Boy said nothing and they drifted on with the current. Kepler started to mutter to himself, then spoke.
“There’s a tunnel we must take!” he called. “On the right, somewhere soon… There it is!”
Boy shoved the pole as hard as he could into the bottom of the canal, but the current was strong. He wrestled with the boat and forced it to make the turn, but the pole suddenly held fast in the mud.
“Quick!” he called. “Help me!”
The current pulled the boat on. On the point of being pulled in, Boy let the pole go and the boat slipped away. They were now rudderless.
“It doesn’t matter,” called Keplen. “We just need to get to the side up ahead. That’s where we get out!”
The canal narrowed even more and the current turned into a powerful surge.
A few more yards and the canal plunged into a small tunnel, across which lay an ancient grille with gaps no wider than a man’s hand. The water hurtled through the grille at high speed. The boat smashed into the grille, tearing a gaping hole in its prow.
Willow nearly fell as the boat was pounded again and again against the grille by the relentless force of the water. At least they were going nowhere for the moment. Then, with horror, Boy saw that the grinding of the boat against the grille was starting to weaken it. If it gave way there would be no stopping them from plunging into an even blacker abyss.
Boy had always been led to believe that hell was a hot and fiery place, but now he knew that if hell existed it was this place, here and now. Cold, and wet, and very, very dark.
They clutched at the bank, and Willow scrambled onto the stone quayside, throwing the book ahead of her.
She rolled over onto her back and found herself staring up into Valerian’s eyes.
“Help them out,” he said to her.
She lay, frozen with terror.
“Help them out!” Valerian screamed at her, and Willow had no choice. In a few more seconds the weight of the boat would smash the grille away and they would be lost forever.
She stretched her arms and pulled Kepler out; then they both did the same for Boy.
They stood facing Valerian.
The book lay between them on the flags.
Valerian held Kepler’s light device. It began to weaken, and without taking his eyes off Willow, Valerian put it on the floor and, once again steadying it with his foot, wound the handle until it shone brightly.
He didn’t pick it up again.
“So, Boy,” said Valerian.
“Leave him, Valerian,” said Kepler.
“Silence! You traitor! You were supposed to be my friend!”
“I was once. I was. You taught me about betrayal long ago. Things are not what they once were. You have to admit defeat. You can’t take Boy where you should go instead. It’s your doing, not his.”
“But now we know what Boy can do for me,” Valerian said, smiling unpleasantly. “And in this case, I think it’s only fitting that he should go instead of me.”
“No!” cried Willow. “No! You’re evil!”
Valerian laughed at her.
“I am not dead! That’s all that matters. Now, Boy, come to me!”
Boy began to back away.
Willow and Kepler closed together in front of Boy, trying to keep Valerian from him, but he just laughed.
With his left hand he pulled a slim black tube from inside his coat. He shook it with a flick of his wrist. A spike, long and sharp, hissed out and locked in place with a click. He pointed it at them.
“All I want is the boy,” he said, coming forward again.
They began to circle, Valerian edging them backward, closer to the canal.
There were three of them against Valerian with only one good arm, but he had the knife. They stood near the canal bank, Valerian looking beaten, wounded and old. Seeing him like this, they approached, united in a common purpose.
Boy felt his heart stirring for his master. His end would come now, one way or another. He watched, as if in slow motion, as Valerian stuck his stiletto between his teeth, then reached inside his huge black coat.
“No! Stop him!” Boy began, but it was too late.
Valerian’s hand flourished back out from the coat in a way that Boy had seen before.
There was a brilliant flash of light that illuminated the whole underground room. The space was filled with purple smoke.
“Ho!”
The voice was dry and full of bitter humor.
“Ho! And away to fairyland!”
They choked on the smoke, could still see the flash of light even with their eyes closed.
The smoke took its time to clear, with little air to blow it away, but eventually it began to dissipate.
Willow, who had staggered into Kepler, looked around wildly. There was Kepler’s lamp device lying on the floor, its glow still strong. But that was all.
“He’s gone!”
“Valerian!” coughed Kepler, still trying to clear the smoke from his lungs and eyes.
“Oh no!” cried Willow. “Oh, please, no! He’s got Boy. He’s taken Boy with him!”
“Quick!” Kepler shouted. “We must follow!”
“But how?” she cried. “He’s vanished with his magic again. We can’t follow him.”
“Magic?” Kepler said. “Valerian has no such thing as magic these days!”
“But I’ve seen him vanish! And you saw what he just did!”
“No, we did not see what he did! That is only a trick. He must have discovered a way out. An exit to this tombland. A door. Look around, Willow! Look around!”
Boy felt himself being dragged along by the scruff of his neck. A familiar feeling. He shuffled along behind Valerian choking in the smoke, wondering how he had let himself fall for this trick when he had seen it before. He was dragged up a long twisting flight of steps and lost his footing many times, but Valerian seemed to have regained his incredible strength, and Boy felt as if he practically flew up the stairway.
He knew Valerian had no real magic anymore. Those days were past-he was just a theatrical showman. But there was a legacy from his dabblings with real magic that awaited them, that was in fact running to meet them with every passing second.
As the smoke and tears cleared from Boy’s eyes, he began to look around, and what he saw shocked him.
They were outside.
Not only that, but they were outside in the garden of the Yellow House.
“How-how did we get here?” coughed Boy.
“Simple enough,” said Valerian, “when you work out where you are. I knew a little, and guessed the rest. Took me longer than it should have. Now be quiet and do as you’re told.”
Boy felt the past tickle his mind, and he remembered days when he had sat in the garden and dreamt he could hear running water beneath him. It seemed he had not dreamt it after all.
He froze as he felt the point of Valerian’s knife at his neck.
“One more inch,” he hissed. “One more inch and it’s your last. Now get up the stairs.”
Valerian, fumbling with keys while holding the knife, shoved open the back door. He pushed Boy ahead of him into the kitchens.
“Hurry! There’s little time!”
They made their way into the halls as the clocks chimed a quarter to the hour.
But which hour?
“Damnation!” cried Valerian. “Midnight!”
He pushed Boy up the stairs, up, up, up, all the way to the Tower. He kicked the door open, thrust Boy through and slammed it shut behind him.
Locking the door, he put the key in his pocket and staggered over to the camera obscura. He began to adjust its controls, cursing when he was clumsy with his only usable hand.
“Valerian.” Boy stepped forward, but his master held up his hand.
“Shut your mouth, Boy!” Valerian whirled round to face him. “Shut. Your. Mouth. Say nothing. Do nothing.”
“But-”
“I said, be quiet!”
Valerian closed his eyes for a moment, then fiddled with the focus of the camera and began to scan the streets around the House. Boy heard him speaking softly to himself.
“The stars still move, time still runs,
The clocks will strike, the devil will come.”
After a while he gave it up.
“Perhaps Kepler was right,” Valerian said, turning back to Boy. “Maybe it was a waste of money, but I’m not beaten yet.”
He moved over to sit in his armchair.
“Now all we have to do is wait. In a few minutes, it will come. The time will come. Then you go instead of me, and I am saved. I hope that’s clear.”
It seemed to Boy as if Valerian was asking him a question.
“No!” he cried.
“Be quiet!” Valerian shouted. “You have served me all these years; you are going to do this last thing for me.”
Outside, it was snowing heavily. There was a sudden bang and flash of light outside the window. Valerian jumped from his seat and hurried to the camera’s projection.
Then they both saw the twinkle of fireworks scatter across the City sky, and Valerian slunk back to his chair. They heard the sounds of revelers from the New Year’s Eve parties winding through the street below.
“People having fun,” he said. “Something to celebrate. Well, I shall have something to celebrate too, very soon.”
He glanced at one of his clocks on the wall of the Tower room. Boy looked about desperately. The camera obscura, the tricks, the stage props, the experiments, the chemicals. He could see no help from anything.
“How can you do this to me? I’ve done nothing to hurt you. I’ve helped you all I can, but I don’t want-”
“To die? No, neither do I, Boy. That’s why you’re going to instead of me.”
“Why me, of all people?” shouted Boy.
“You, of all people, and only you, can save me. We were meant to be together, you and I. When you fell from the ceiling in the church, that was meant to be too.”
Boy stood staring at his master. Valerian had mistreated him, beaten him, shouted at him. That much was true, but he had also helped him, fed him and clothed him, after a fashion. He couldn’t believe that Valerian was really going to send him to his death.
“But why?”
“You are the solution,” said Valerian evenly. “That is what the book told me. There you were, right in front of me all the time. I know this now, as Kepler does. You are the answer.”
Boy shook his head dumbly.
The clock on the wall ticked on and its long hand slid another minute closer to midnight.
“Fifteen years ago-fifteen years ago I made a bargain. I told you that. With a terrible price to pay at the end. What I didn’t tell you is what I couldn’t know. When I made the pact, something else was created then, too. Someone, I should say. Another soul.”
The clock clunked and whirred. One minute to midnight.
“Wh-what…,” Boy stammered. “What?”
“Not what, Boy, but who. You. You were conceived on the very evening that I made my bargain, fifteen years ago on New Year’s Eve. You are a vessel for me to use. This was what the book told me, and it also told me, as it must have told Kepler, about the only way out. A life the same age, as measured from conception, as the term of the pact. So you go instead of me. Then the bargain will be satisfied and I shall walk free.”
“But I’ll die!”
“Yes,” said Valerian, “but I won’t.”
The clock began to sound midnight. As its twelve chimes died the room was filled with light, and this time they knew it was no firework. The light was as bright as day, brighter even, and behind it came a great wind that lifted up all the loose papers in the room and swirled them madly around.
Boy staggered backward and fell to the floor. Valerian rose to his feet, struggling against the storm that had entered the room, the tails of his great black coat waving in the vortex of wind.
Boy peered up at the light, into a black hole in its center. Small at first, the black hole grew in size until there was a swirling darkness the size and shape of a man hovering just above the floor.
Then came a voice, but there was no one to say the words. Boy simply heard the words in his head and all around him. The voice was small, flat and colorless.
“Valerian, your time has come. Step forward.”
Boy felt a surge of pain, a mental pain that left him rigid with fear.
Valerian stood, swaying slightly in front of the hole.
“No,” he said, his voice wavering. “No. The boy will go instead of me.”
There was silence.
“Is that not my right?” asked Valerian.
“Send the boy forward.”
“Get up,” Valerian said coldly.
Boy didn’t move.
“Get up!”
This time he roared the words, and Boy automatically got to his feet. It was what he did, he thought. What he did was do what Valerian told him.
“Am I really just an empty vessel?” he asked Valerian quietly.
Valerian nodded.
“You are just a vessel, and you have served your purpose. You were made for me. I am your only family, and your family needs you.”
“No!” cried Boy. “You’re not my family. I must have a mother and father! Everyone does.”
“Not you, Boy. You don’t even have a name.”
“You could have given me one. Why didn’t you?”
Behind them the blackness swirled angrily, disgusting, evil colors pouring from within it.
The voice came again.
“It is time! Step forward!”
“You could have given me a name if you’d ever cared about me!” cried Boy. “But you never did! All you ever did was hurt me and shout at me and tell me I’m stupid, and kick me and threaten me! I’ve spent my life running around the City, in dark holes, in dangerous places, and you never cared! Not ever!”
“Boy-” said Valerian.
“Don’t call me that! I want a real name! I want to know who I am, not this nonsense! I must have a life. I must have. This can’t be all I am!”
Valerian seemed to be about to speak but turned to look at the rushing nothingness that threatened to engulf the whole room.
And then there was another sound. It was a thump at the Tower door. Valerian’s whole attention was fixed on the inky center of the vortex.
The thump came again and Kepler and Willow burst into the room, the door flying wide on its ancient hinges, bits of wood from the splintered lock scattering across the floor.
“No!” screamed Kepler. “No!”
Valerian turned to face him.
“You!” he threw back. “You! What right have you to tell me to do anything?”
“Valerian! No, no, no! You must not kill Boy! You must not.”
Willow ran to Boy and they clung to each other, cowering in the maelstrom that filled the room. Other, less precise clocks all around the house chimed midnight.
“You cannot kill him,” Kepler repeated.
“And why not?” sneered Valerian. “He is mine, he has always been mine, and I will do with him as I like!”
“Yes, he is yours,” Kepler pleaded.
“He is my slave, and-”
“No, Valerian! No! He is your son.” Kepler took a step toward Valerian.
“Don’t be-”
“He is your son!” Kepler shouted, raising a fist toward Valerian.
Valerian staggered back.
“I saw it in the book! It is the truth. Think about his age, Valerian. His age!”
Boy struggled to get to his feet. He turned to Valerian.
Valerian stared deep into his eyes. He felt Valerian coming for him, as so often before, through his eyes, feeling for his soul, but this time it was different. He was not controlling, not manipulating, but feeling, sensing.
Boy felt his master’s mind walk through his, as if for the first time really seeing what was there, finally understanding Boy’s life. The years on his own, living off his wits on the harsh City streets. Being found by Valerian, hoping for so much but getting so little.
Valerian found that his own pain was nothing compared with Boy’s.
He pulled away and stepped back, but still he looked deep into Boy’s eyes. As he did, he grew pale, and the darkness began to surround him.
He stepped backward toward the swirling pit, and backward once more, and fell into the dark, already a dead man.
He spoke one more word.
“Boy!”
Boy stood, numb.
The hole, the light, the wind disappeared faster than they had come, and Boy stared into space. All that remained was a faint wisp of yellow smoke that hung in the air, and a pungent smell that vexed their nostrils.
Valerian was gone.
Willow rushed to Boy and held him while he screamed and screamed.
Eventually his screams subsided and became cries and then the cries became tears. He sank down on the floor, staring at Willow beside him.
“He went. He changed his mind. He let me live.”
“Don’t talk,” said Willow. “Not now.”
“There’s so much I don’t know. My father… my father?”
He turned to Kepler, who stood looking down at him, a strange expression on his face.
“Was he-was he really my father?” Boy said.
Kepler looked hard at Boy. Long seconds passed.
“Was he my father? Tell me!”
“Of course he wasn’t,” Kepler snapped. “I said that to make you live. I knew it was the only thing I could say that might save you.”
“No!” cried Boy. “No! You’re lying now! You said I was his son.”
“There are things you don’t know about yet, Boy,” said Kepler, “that happened long ago. I was simply using those things to save your life.” He turned to the door.
“No!” cried Boy, “Wait…”
“You’re alive, aren’t you, Boy? Just be grateful for that.” Kepler stooped and picked up the book from the floor where Willow had dropped it.
“I’ll see you’re all right,” said Kepler. “Both of you. Now that Valerian’s gone.”
He walked out through the shattered doorway.
Boy collapsed into Willow’s arms, and began to sob once more. Around them lay the devastation of what had once been the heart of Valerian’s world. From the streets below came the noise of happy, drunken people, and from the skies overhead came the rush and bang of fireworks.
Boy’s tears flowed freely down his face, Willow holding him all the while. He thought about what he’d heard, what he’d seen, but couldn’t begin to understand. He pushed the thoughts away. There would be time enough to think, later.
And there was something else. Someone else.
As if only now noticing her, Boy felt Willow’s arms around him. He lifted his head, and looked up at her face, and at last he saw the love that was waiting for him there.
A new year had dawned, with a new, and different future, one that Boy had not foreseen. He sensed that the path ahead was obscured by many, many questions, but one thing, at least, was clear.
Boy and Willow would walk that path together.
End of Book One