Endymion Spring (28 page)

Getting permission was not as difficult as they anticipated.

Juliet Winters returned from the Bodleian Library in a foul mood.
 
This time she was annoyed with the librarians and not with them.
 
Another scholar had requested the set of Faust books she needed to consult and she'd spent most of the afternoon trying to track them down.

"Who'd have thought so many people would be interested in Faust all of a sudden?" she said wearily as they waited for the bus.
 
"It not only means that I'm behind schedule, but there's also a chance someone else is researching the same topic.
 
I'm going to have to push even harder to publish my findings first."
 
She closed her eyes and kneaded her brow with her fingertips.

The bus wheezed to a halt beside them and Juliet Winters piled into a seat near the middle.
 
Duck and Blake positioned themselves behind her — like good and bad angels, one on either shoulder.

"If you need some extra time, we don't mind," said Duck obligingly at the first set of traffic lights.
 
"We've been invited to a lecture.
 
We could go to that while you work in the library tomorrow night."

She was using her most soothing voice, like a hypnotist, to lull their mother into a false sense of security.
 
Blake could not tell whether or not it was working.
 
Her eyes were closed.

"We promise to be good."

That did it.
 
Their mother was instantly awake.

"What lecture is it?" she asked, her suspicions aroused.

"Sir Giles Bentley's.
 
On collecting books."

"You mentioned it the other day," Blake added quickly.
 
"You told us we could go."

"I did nothing of the sort."

Blake held out the invitation for her inspection.

Juliet Winters frowned.
 
"Why are you interested in that all of a sudden?"

"Professor
Jolyon
thought we might be curious," said Blake.
 
"Besides, Duck wants to ask some questions."

"Sir Giles?" repeated his mother warily, scowling at the thick piece of paper.
 
"I'm not sure.
 
All Souls is no place for kids.
 
Plus, it's late at night."

"But we've been invited!" protested Duck.
 
"We can't let Professor
Jolyon
down.
 
He's relying on us."

"Hmm, I wonder," said their mother, still not convinced.

The bus swerved sharply to avoid an old man teetering on an even older bicycle, and she lost the thread of her argument.

"I promise to look after Duck," said Blake, noticing they were approaching
Millstone Lane
.
 
He reached out to press the button for the next stop.
 
"We could meet you outside the Bodleian Library afterwards.
 
It's not too late.
 
Besides, Professor
Jolyon
will be there.
 
He'll be our babysitter for the night."

He gave her a cheesy grin, but Duck tapped him on the elbow, warning him not to overdo it.

"Well, I don't know," murmured their mother sleepily as the bus ground to a halt and the doors opened.
 
"I could certainly do with some more time to work, plus the Bodleian is advertising late hours this week, but..."

Blake knew he was almost there.
 
One more push ought to do it.
 
"Just think of how much you'll accomplish," he reminded her.

"OK, I suppose so," said Juliet Winters, still with misgivings.
 
"Especially if
Jolyon
has invited you."

"Thanks.
 
You're the greatest!"

They both ran towards the house, smiling; but she was frowning.
 
"Are you sure you'll be all right?" she called out, perhaps remembering the trouble they'd put her to that morning.
 
"I don't like the idea of leaving you alone."

"Don't worry," the children chimed together.
 
"Nothing can possibly go wrong."

A

That night, while their mother worked, Duck and Blake met in Blake's bedroom.

Blake knew what he had to do, but he was reluctant to go through with the procedure.
 
It was a rite he didn't want to perform.
 
The paper dragon was too beautiful, too intricate, to destroy; and yet, he needed to follow the instructions in
Psalmanazar's
book precisely and bring all the parts of the blank book together.
 
The dragon was just one more piece of the puzzle.

With a heavy heart, he took the beast from behind the pillow, where he had left it, and started to unfold its many scales.
 
The creases quickly disappeared, as if ironed by his touch, and soon the dragon was transformed into an enormous sheet of blank white paper, made from
innumberable
fine membranes of smooth skin.
 
They flapped in the air, a gentle sail.
 
Alive.

Feeling more confident, Blake folded the paper until it formed a small quire that fitted neatly in the palm of his hand.
 
He then slipped it inside the leather volume and closed the covers, waiting for
Endymion
Spring
 
to
perform its magic.
 
He could feel the book vibrating slightly between his fingers as the invisible threads began once more to weave the pages together.

And then it was over.
 
The book lay still.

"This is it," he whispered as he opened the cover.
 
With trembling fingers, he turned the pages, impatient to know what the book would show him.

Nothing.
 
The pages were blank — apart from the patch of darkness in the middle of the book, where the Person in Shadow's warning still haunted him with its three terrifying words.

"I am watching," read Duck disappointedly.
 
She sat back on her heels and sighed
.
"Nothing's changed.
 
What are we going to do now?"

Blake shook his head, but remained silent.
 
Something else had appeared on the page in front of him, something his sister couldn't see.
 
He nearly dropped the book.

The Sun must look the Shadow in the Eye

The forfeit the Book lest one Half die.

The Lesion of Darkness cannot be healed

Until, with Child's Blood, the Whole is sealed.

These are the Words of
Endymion
Spring.

Bring only the Insight the Inside brings.

Two words, in particular, grabbed his attention and refused to let go.
 
They clutched at his throat and echoed in his mind like a horrible refrain:
 
child's blood, child's blood, child's blood...

Either he or Duck was going to die; he knew it instinctively, as though
Endymion
Spring had entered the room and whispered it in his ear.

"What's wrong?" asked Duck.
 
"You're sweating."

"It's nothing," he lied, and shook his head again to dismiss the terrible thought.
 
"We'd better go to bed."

Some things, he felt, were better left unsaid.

Mainz

Spring
 
1453

W
ithout warning, a devil sprinted past the window and performed a grotesque, gyrating dance in the middle of the street.
 
Peter and I ran to the front of the house to watch.
 
The fiend made lewd gestures with its tail and mocked all those who came near.

Before long a gang of children had encircled it and started heckling.
 
In a bid to escape, the devil dashed beneath their outstretched arms and raced towards the cathedral, pursued by a chorus of catcalls and whistles.

Almost immediately after, a procession of unsightly skeletons — faces powdered, eyes blackened and ribs painted across their chests — started walking along the straw-strewn streets, knocking on the walls of the surrounding houses, summoning the living to join the dead.

"Come one, come all!" they sang, beating their sticks together and prancing from door to door.
 
"The time has come!
 
All will be judged!"

Like obedient sheep, the citizens of Mainz emerged from their timbered houses to join the parade, all heading in the same direction:
 
the graveyard beyond the city walls.
 
Some were dressed in the false finery of kings and queens, which they had sewn specifically for the occasion, while others donned masks to disguise their faces and wore their normal clothes back to front.
 
The more outlandish tied cowbells to their breeches and lowed like cattle, while younger children banged pots and pans together and cheered — or cried.
 
Half-naked tumblers somersaulted up and down the length of the street, waving flags of multicolored cloth and adding their laughter to the general chaos and confusion.

Meanwhile, the players struck up their instruments.
 
Bladder pipes, viols, lutes and lyres all belched and thrummed as madrigals began to weave in and out of the crowd, singing at the top of their voices.

"King or Queen, Pope or Knight,

Each lies equal in God's Sight;

Judge, Lawyer, Doctor, Fool,

None escapes Death's final Rule;

Merchant, Pauper, Friar, Thief,

Rich and Poor both come to Grief;

The Time has come to make Amends,

Judgment Day for all ye Men."

Hundreds of footsteps thundered in reply, as the congregation shuffled slowly towards the grave, forming its own relentless march through the city.

The Last Judgment had begun.

A

Herr Gutenberg sneaked up behind me.

"Aren't you going to join in the festivities?" he asked, laying a hand on my shoulder.
 
"It's considered bad luck, you know, not to participate in the Dance of Death."

I turned round.
 
Ordinarily, I would have laughed at his mismatched clothes — he was covered from head to toe in red and yellow squares, like a harlequin — but my heart was heavy.
 
I shrugged.
 
I knew that my time in Mainz was swiftly coming to an end and there would be no turning back.
 
The day of my reckoning had indeed come.

Outside in the street a butcher with a pig's snout strapped to his brow jostled with a maid as the Dance of Death continued.

"Do not dawdle, do not labor," sang the madrigals.
 
"Join hands — now — with your nearest neighbor..."

The people in the street linked hands and began to wind like a serpent through the crowded city.
 
It was one of the spring's most festive occasions.
 
The windows and doors were festooned with bright garlands of flowers, mixing their hopeful scent with the richer smells of meat roasting in the distance.
 
Herr Gutenberg was stepping back and forth in a little jig of his own invention, completely out of time with the music, preparing to join in; but I held out a hand to detain him.

He glanced at me.
 
"You look as though the end is near," he said, his worried voice full of compassion.
 
"What's wrong?"