The Book of Dead Days (20 page)

“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 will
love
.

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.”