He scrubbed his face and patted his hair into place, trying to erase his feelings of doubt and failure, and then returned to his room to change into cleaner clothes.
He was examining the paper dragon, turning it over and over in his hands, comparing it with the section of Psalmanazar's book (they were a perfect match), when he heard his mother approaching. Hastily, he concealed the dragon behind his pillow and grabbed his knapsack, pretending to look busy.
"OK, let's go," she said. "I'm going to take you to the college library, where Mrs. Richards can keep an eye on you. You're not to go off exploring without my permission. Have I made myself clear?"
Dutifully, Blake nodded and got up. He barely had time to stuff the wad of Psalmanazar's folded paper in his pocket before she marched him out of the room. He almost collided with Duck in the hall. She gave him a fleeting glance, but Blake ignored her and hurried down the stairs, still feeling bruised from the morning's proceedings.
He rushed out of the door without waiting for either his mother of sister to catch up.
A
His mother led them directly to the library, where she chose their seats for them: right next to the office. Paula Richards, however, was darting back and forth along the corridor, preparing for an invasion of the Ex Libris Society, whose members had requested a chance to peruse the college's collections.
She glanced at the children each time she passed by, but didn't pause to speak or smile; she clearly had other things on her mind. Blake wondered privately if she suspected him of snooping around the library the other night and damaging the books on the floor. Her expression had little warmth in it.
He opened his knapsack and pulled out the worksheets his teacher had given him to complete during his absence. So far he had done his best to ignore them, but now his mother had warned him that she would check his assignments each night — to make sure he didn't fall even further behind. Duck, of course, had finished all of her homework ages ago.
He propped his elbows on the table and tried to concentrate. It was difficult. Duck was reading over his shoulder, tapping her fingers lightly on the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations crawling all over him like a spider.
"Go away," he said, brushing away her hand.
"I can help you."
"I don't need your help." He stared at the words without seeing them. "Don't you think you've caused enough trouble already?"
Duck hovered for a moment and then said condescendingly, "Well, if you don't need me, I'll see what else I can find out about Endymion Spring."
Her words stung and it took every ounce of his willpower for Blake not to retaliate. He buried his head in his hands and stared fiercely at the words in front of him. Identify the grammatical mistakes in the following paragraphs... He groaned, then began to circle all the errors he could find.
Five minutes later, he looked up. Who cared about split infinitives and dangling modifiers when you had a whole library full of books around you, each tempting you with its secret knowledge? He scanned the rows of shelves. Who knew what sorts of information these books contained? He couldn't resist: he got up to take a closer look.
His mother had dumped them deep in the middle of the history section and each step carried him back a decade or two in time. There were fat volumes and thin, old books and new. The past, it seemed, was an unsolvable mystery, constantly being rewritten.
One of the books grabbed his attention. Unlike the others, it was a cream-colored volume with red silk ribbon tied round its body like a belt. It didn't have a title on its cover, but when he opened it, he saw the word Bestiary printed on the front page in fancy letters that reminded him of seahorses. He took it back to his desk.
Inside were lots of illustrations. Bizarre beasts with blue and silver scales, golden fur and elaborate tongues streaming from their mouths like banners stared out at him like exhibits in a medieval freak show. Some were familiar — hyenas, lions, pelicans and elephants — but many more were strange hybrids with horselike bodies, colossal wings and razor-sharp talons. He'd never encountered anything like them before. With any luck, they'd be extinct by now.
He turned the pages slowly. Surrounding the creatures were short descriptions of their characteristics and attributes. These were written in the same spiky lettering, which he found hard to decipher, but gradually he came to realize that some of the animals were dangerous, while others, like the unicorn, had beneficial qualities: restorative powers and magical properties.
He flicked to a separate section — on dragons — and stopped.
On the page if front of him were four trees, and in each tree a well-camouflaged dragon. They were painted bright green, glossy gold, deep red and silver to coincide with the passing seasons. The fourth was almost invisible, barely discernible against its wintry background. He couldn't believe his eyes: they were just like the creature he'd imagined the night before, the dragon in the tree... the animal Psalmanazar's book had revealed to him only that morning. His heart thudded inside him.
He studied the inscription more carefully:
A Leafdragon ys that single creature whose skynne ys believed to contayne the twofoulde propyrties of immortalitee and wisdom, unknowne to manne since Eve dede eat of that moste sacryd forboden Tree. It atchievyth a cloke of invisibilitie, out of sighte of manne, by chaungyng colour accordyng to the sesons of the yeer; yet should manne or his kynde spotte such a beaste, shall he be granted powyrs like unto God and knowlydge bothe Good and Evill...
A shiver of excitement ran through him. The Leafdragon sounded almost exactly like the Last Book Jolyon had told them about — the power Fust had sold his soul to possess. Could the two be related? Did this dragon have something to do with the magical book he had found?
He glanced up and down the corridor, wondering if Duck would know, but he couldn't see her anywhere. She had disappeared.
Grabbing his knapsack, he went to look for her.
He filed past the philosophy section and entered the Mandeville Room, full of old maps and
ancient atlases, but his sister was nowhere to be seen.
He was about to creep upstairs, to see if she had gone up to the gallery, when a hand clasped him on the shoulder. He turned around. It was Paula Richards.
"Where do you think you're going?" she said firmly.
He pointed towards the gallery.
"No, I don't think so, Blake," she said. "Not today. It's off-limits. You're not to go causing trouble while the members of the Ex Libris Society are consulting the St. Jerome Codex." She indicated the glass cabinet on the landing halfway up the staircase and wagged her finger.
Blake blushed guiltily and turned away. Then, quite by chance, he spotted Duck dashing furtively across the lawn outside, heading towards the cloisters. What was she doing?
Luckily, they were interrupted by Mephistopheles, who had managed to sneak inside the library again and now tried to dodge past the librarian's legs. "Oh no, you don't!" she roared, promptly giving chase. "You're not supposed to be in here either!"
The cat made a game of her ferocity and scrambled up the stairs, followed by Mrs. Richards.
Suddenly unsupervised, Blake rushed to the door. A frizzy-haired assistant was busily filing slips behind the main desk, her fingers slipping through a card catalog like caterpillars on a treadmill. She was too preoccupied to take any notice. As silently as he could, Blake opened the door and slipped out.
Duck was easy to find. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the enclosed garden next to the Old Library, dwarfed by the enormous Jabberwock tree, which spread its coppery boughs high above her like large wings. She looked so small and vulnerable in her bright yellow raincoat that he felt an impulse to protect her. He stepped through an archway and walked across the cloistered lawn towards her.
He stopped. A small book lay open before her — a large white butterfly sunning itself on the grass. She was staring at it intently, lost in thought. His heart knocked against his ribs. Duck had found the b
lank book!
"What? How?" He stood above her, unable to speak properly. An unexpected surge of anger and jealousy rose in his throat.
"I was going to tell you," she said, "but I didn't know how."
His cheeks exploded, red with rage.
"I meant to tell you," she began again, wiping her nose on her sleeve, "but the longer I had it the more I wanted to solve the mystery by myself."
She lifted her face and he saw himself reflected in her large eyes — a silhouette blocking out the sun.
He didn't know what to say. He was fizzing with surprise and annoyance, but also with relief. More than anything, he wanted to old the blank book again and feel the pages coursing through his fingers. He tried to make himself calm.
"How long have you had it?" he said finally, sitting down beside her.
"I went to fetch it after you found it," she sniffed. "You went to the Porter's Lodge, remember? It only took a minute. It was right where you'd left it. I wanted to know why you wouldn't let me see it."
She flipped through the pages, all of which, Blake could see, were blank.
"I can't find any riddles," she said. "I've been through it hundreds of times. I've held it up to the light; I've considered using lemon juice to reveal any secret messages; I've even tried spilling ink on it; but nothing works. Ink doesn't stick to the paper. The words are invisible. How do you read it?"
She looked up at him and, for the first time in his life, he realized that she actually needed to learn something from him.
The trouble was, he didn't know how to explain it.
"I don't know," he admitted truthfully. "The words just find you. That's the only way I can describe it."
He wondered whether she would laugh at him, but she didn't. She smiled sadly and held out the book to him. "It's yours," she said.
He felt the blood surge through his fingers as soon as he touched it. All of the anger and jealousy faded inside him. An instant connection to Endymion Spring, the printer's devil who had handled it so long ago, entered him. His skin tingled.
The volume realigned itself in his hand, just as it had done before, and the pages started to flicker, as if preparing to tell him its story.
His heart leaped with excitement.
Duck looked from her brother to the book expectantly. "It didn't do that for me," she said enviously.
Blake wasn't listening. A page had opened right in front of him, in the center of the volume. He held his breath, convinced the first riddle he had seen would reappear. But nothing was there. The paper was blank.
"Can't you seen anything?" asked Duck, sensing his disappointment.
He shook his head, unable to respond.
"Are you sure it's the right page? Perhaps if you—"
"of course it's the right page!" he shouted irritably. "It's no good! We're too late! I should never have let it out of my sight!" His voice reverberated around the cloistered passageways.
Annoyed, he slammed the book shut, but it immediately reopened, like a reflex. Once again, it showed him the blank page.
"Look!" said Duck suddenly.
At the heart of the book, where the sheets of paper had been bound together, a pale loop of thread, like a dragonfly wing, was coming loose.
"No! Don't pull it," he cried, seeing her fingers veering towards it. Very gently, he tugged at the thread — more like a sinew or a fine loop of catgut than string — and watched, amazed, as it came undone at his touch.
"What's happening?" gasped Duck. Her breath tunneled in his ear.
"I don't know."
"Do you think the book is falling apart?"
"No. I don't think so. This is different."
They stared in silence as a second and then a third knot pushed their way up from the spine of the book, like blossoming flowers.
Suddenly Duck had an idea.
"Quick. Do you have the page Psalmanazar gave you?"
"Why?"
"Because the riddle said that two books have to come together to find the third. Maybe that's what's happening now... Maybe you're supposed to bring the pieces of the puzzle together."
"Maybe," replied Blake, unconvinced. His heart, however, was beating very fast and his hand shook as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the neatly folded sheet of paper. It nestled in his palm like a small booklet, then began to quiver as he brought it closer to the book. He laid it carefully inside. It fitted perfectly.
Immediately, the loose threads began to worm their way through the new folds of paper, stitching Psalmanazar's page into the leather-bound volume. Like magic, they disappeared into the central gutter and the book clamped shut with a vicious, springlike motion, its restoration complete.
Like an oyster guarding its pearl, the book remained closed.
"So that's that," said Blake apprehensively.
"I bet it's going to show us the Last Book next," said Duck excitedly. She wriggled beside him.
Blake was more cautious. "I don't know. I expected the Last Book to look different somehow. Larger or more impressive."
He eyed the battered brown book dubiously and then, just when he was about to give up hope, it sprung to life and the pages inside spun round like a whirligig. A light breeze fanned his cheek.
Eventually the blur of paper subsided and a suddenly still, silent page lay open in front of him. Blake looked down expectantly, wondering what he would see.
His blood turned to ice.
The page in front of him was deep black, almost impenetrably so, as though a cloak of night had descended over the book and all it contained. Only a cusp of brightness like a gibbous moon shone through the upper right-hand corner of the paper.
Blake inhaled deeply.
Written in the darkness beneath were three words, etched in white:
18
"What does it mean?" gasped Duck, frightened.
"I don't know," Blake said, glancing over his shoulder at the dark colonnaded passages all around them. "Maybe the book senses something's wrong. I think it's a warning of some kind."
The tree behind them shivered slightly and dappled the ground with restless shadows. To their right stood the bolted door of the Old Library, its lion's teeth set in a silent roar. A gallery of gargoyles peered at them from the chapel roof, pulling nasty faces.
A noise like a hundred birds taking flight all at once rose from a nearby window, as applause greeted the end of a conference paper being delivered somewhere in the college.
Suddenly, Blake turned back to his sister. "Hold on. Are you telling me you can see this?"
"Yeah, but that's to Endymion Spring, is it?" she said uncertainly, her eyes wide with fear.
"No, I don't think so." Blake returned his gaze to the black page, where the ghostly message sent another chill through him. "Maybe the Person in Shadow is communicating with us somehow. Maybe he can see us right now."
"But that's impossible," said Duck. "Nobody knew I had the book. I didn't tell anyone, I swear!"
"Well, the Person in Shadow certainly knows we've got it now," he said seriously. "And I bet he or she'll be coming to us soon to get it."
"What are we going to do?" squealed Duck, beginning to panic.
Blake went very quiet. "I don't know."
"We could tell Professor Jolyon," she suggested. "Maybe he can help us."
Blake looked doubtful. "I don’t think that's such a great idea."
"Why?"
"Because his office is up there," he said, pointing at the tower of the Old Library, which rose above them. Its upper windows were a mirror of sunlit glass, reflecting the dark silver storm clouds slowly approaching. "He could be watching us right now."
Duck swallowed deeply.
"I don't know," he said again, shudders crawling all over him. "I don't know who we can trust."
The page in front of him flickered.
"Hey, wait a minute," said Duck. She ran a pearly pink finger over the surface of the paper and turned over one of the corners.
Blak
e, fearing she was going to try to rip out the infected sheet, raised a hand to stop her.
"No, look at this corner," she said eagerly. "There's still a piece of the book missing." She lifted the edge of the paper with her fingernail and he saw what she meant: the round moon shape was where someone had torn off a corner of the page. It was a small scar revealing the perfect, intact sheet beneath.
"How did that happen?" he asked, dismayed. "Did you do it?"
Duck was offended. "Of course not! It's the page Psalmanazar gave you. Maybe he put a curse on it — or kept part of it for himself."
Her imagination took off. "Maybe he's using it to spy on us!"
He scrunched up his face. "But that's impossible," he said. "Books don't work that way."
"Come on!" she remarked. "This book is hardly normal, is it? Perhaps the paper has other properties, ones we don't know about yet."
She thought about it for a while. Her eyes widened.
"Maybe the Person in Shadow can see what we're doing whenever we open the book," she said hurriedly. "Maybe someone tore the section from the black page a long time ago and kept it as an eye into the book, just waiting for you to find it. Maybe you accidentally communicated something when you discovered Endymion Spring the other day — and that's why you were followed to the library..."
Duck was about to enlarge on the idea when a shadow stole across the lawn, creeping over them. Blake just managed to conceal the book in his knapsack before looking up.
Paula Richards was glaring down at them angrily.
"There you are," she hollered. "I've been searching for you everywhere. You're worse than the cat!"
She clapped her hands impatiently and they both rose to their feet, wiping the grass stains from their knees. "I really don't have time for this. I promised your mother I'd keep my eye on you."
Like criminals, they followed her back to the Library.
A
A tall, familiar figure stood beside the table at which Blake had been working earlier. Jolyon.
Endymion Spring Page 16
