"And is Sir Giles after the Last Book too?" asked Blake stupidly, trying to catch up.
"Of course he is," snapped Diana. "Giles collects books on forbidden knowledge. What could be more spectacular than the most tempting book of all?"
Her expression hardened. "Mind you, he almost ruined everything by mentioning that elusive copy of Goblin Market — a book he couldn't have known about without a prior knowledge of the library's collections. But I don't think your brave little librarian had any idea what we'd really been looking for all this time."
"And you?" asked Blake. "What do you want the Last Book for?"
She smiled at him icily and then whispered in his ear, "I'm after the power it possesses: the ability to foresee the future, to know the past. The opportunity to make children's nightmares real. What is the power of withchcraft or wizardry compared to that?"
Blake shivered.
"And now," she said triumphantly, holding the book aloft, "to read the Last Book."
Just at that moment, there was a loud, ferocious baying from the street outside, as if a pack of hounds had descended on the library all at once. Blake ran to the window to see what was happening.
There was just one dog: a scruffy mongrel leaping against the gates in an attempt to get in. Alice! Psalmanazar was barely able to restrain her. He tugged on her bright red bandanna, but Alice pulled free and charged against the library. The noise of her barking reverberated against the sides of the building with a harsh, percussive echo that caused a crowd of spectators to stop and stare.
"Get away from there!" screamed Diana, dropping the book and racing towards him. She slashed a long, black fingernail across his neck and he winced as the sharp edge seared his skin. In an instant, he doubled back to the desk and seized the book and the butterfly clasp — anything to defend himself — from the tabletop.
The dog's howl grew more insistent. New voices joined the din. Duck pounded on the door below.
"Give that back!" said Diana fiercely.
Blake was surprised to feel the clip in his fingers curling towards the palm of his hand like a claw, as if to prick him. It was just like the clasp on Endymion Spring 's notebook — the one that had scratched his knuckle once before.
And then, with sudden clarity, he knew what he had to do.
In one quick motion, he stabbed the point of the clasp deep into his finger and extended the injured digit over the edge of the Last Book. It was what the volume had first tried to accomplish in the college library; it was what the riddle had been telling him all along. Until, with Child's blood, the Whole is sealed...
He watched as blood welled in the wound and spilled on to the exposed pages.
"You beast!" screamed Diana. "What are you doing? Get away from that book!"
She rushed headlong towards the table; then froze, horrified. The blood from Blake's finger had formed an immediate seal, a rusty red clot, on the side of the Last Book. The pages were sealed. Blake's heart burst with relief and he sank to the floor.
Diana grabbed the book from his weak fingers and clawed at the covers like a wild animal, yet the Last Book — no more than a battered brown volume — remained closed. She could not dislodge the crusty seal of blood. The bond held fast.
"What have you done?" she roared. "Why won't it open?"
She glared at him furiously, but there was no answer.
Blake had already scooped up Duck's yellow raincoat from the floor and bolted towards the door. He opened it and scrambled up the uneven spiral staircase before she could react.
There was no time to rescue Duck. His best chance was to summon help from the roof. He sprinted up the remaining stairs, stumbling on the old stone steps, scraping at the walls with his sore fingers, and continued all the way up to the top of the tower.
Diana was close behind.
"Come back, you monster! Open the book!" her voice boomed in the narrow passageway.
Blake spotted an emergency exit just beneath the enormous turret and propelled himself towards it. Without thinking, he rammed his body against the door, grunting as the stiff metal bar punched into his stomach. Pain pummeled through his body. He tried again.
An alarm system trilled deafeningly in his ears.
For a moment, he rolled along the top of the square rooftop. Spires and gargoyles wheeled past his eyes. He landed on his back, groaning with pain, and stared up into blue space. Then, rising to his feet, he looked frantically for the fire escape.
A stone trellis surmounted by tall, knobbly turrets ran along the edges of the tower — far too high to clamber over. Through one of the carved quatrefoils, he could make out crowds of people in the street below.
"Hey! Up here!" he yelled out, waving his arms up and down to grab their attention; but his voice was smothered by the alarm bells and nobody noticed the terrified boy on the roof of the tower.
Sirens roared into life in the distance, responding to the emergency call, but they were still far away.
Hobbling, Blake tried to make his way down to the iron ladder on the opposite side of the rooftop, but Diana suddenly blocked his way. Her face was ruthless and cold. Losing all hope, he waved Duck's coat in the air and cried again for help.
Below him, people were struggling to restrain Alice, who was leaping crazily at the gates. Others were pointing at the library's many windows, trying to locate the source of the disruption. Finally, someone spotted a yellow shape flapping in the wind and caught sight of Blake. A number of startled faces peered up.
There was an astonished silence — then shrieks filled the air. People yelled and jumped, pointing behind him.
Blake turned round... but he was too slow. A blinding blow — the Last Book — thwacked against the side of his face and he reeled backwards against the guard rail, hitting his head hard against the stone. He let go of Duck's jacket, which fluttered uselessly to the pavement far below.
He rubbed the side of his face and was sickened as his fingers came away wet with blood. Suddenly the world swam before his eyes. Everything slowed down. Helplessly, he appealed to Diana, who was clutching the Last Book to her chest — a look of murderous rage in her eyes.
"You will do as I say and open the book," she said. "Or I will kill you."
He shook his head, barely able to from the words to defy her.
"No," he muttered weakly.
She studied him with silent hatred and then said: "So be it."
With sudden vehemence, she locked one of her elbows round his neck and pulled him off his feet. His face felt as tight as a red balloon. "If I don't get the book," she snarled into his ear, "then neither do you."
Blake was powerless to resist. His arms fell to his sides, too heavy and too tired to fight back. He was exhausted. The shadow had won.
Diana's glove chafed against his skin, tightening its grip on his neck. He could barely breathe. He raked in dry, desperate gulps and his knees went weak.
Faintly, he could hear people yelling in the street. Hundreds of faces were looking up in horror, some taking pictures, but the sights and sounds reached him only dimly, drifting in on waves. He was drowning in mid-air. There was nothing anyone could do to help.
"I will not lose the book," spat Diana, and pinned him against the stone railing. He could feel the sharp edge of a quatrefoil biting into his side. "What a pity it has to end this way."
"No!" he roared one last time, twisting and turning and biting and fighting with all his might.
Taken by surprise, Diana opened her hand and accidentally dropped the book. They both watched, horrified, as it fell through the open quatrefoil and into empty space.
Diana immediately released him from her grasp and groped at the air with her gloved fingertips, desperate to recapture the book as it tumbled over the side of the tower and plummeted down... down... down... into the waiting arms of Duck's yellow raincoat, which lay like a dead body a hundred feet below.
And then Blake slunk, senseless, to the ground.
Oxford
; Summer – Winter, 1453
I felt like I was flying.
Crowds reeled drunkenly around me, spinning on their heads, while houses, taverns and spires turned somersaults. Booths with canvas awnings swung at weird angles.
I could not tell where I was. The ground was thatched with mud and straw, and the sky stretched far above me like an impossibly blue ocean. My arms flailed uselessly to either side, the limbs of a dead man.
A stranger, I realized dimly, was transporting me through a market in the back of his cart. My head jolted painfully each time the wheels struck a loose stone, and twice I vomited.
A round, worried face peered down at me from the side of the cart. "Be not afraid," it said in the softest of voices — first in English, which I could not understand, and then in Latin, which I could. "You are safe with me, Endymion."
My brow furrowed. How did he know my name?
Then, sensing my confusion, the man smiled and added, "I am Theodoric. I am taking you to St. Jerome's."
A circle of unruly hair crowned his head like a halo and a long black robe cloaked his body. His hands were as smooth and white as vellum, but covered in inky scribbles — like my Master's.
For a moment I feared an angel had come to take me up to heaven and I struggled to be set free. I still had my task to complete. I could feel the book of dragon skin strapped to my back, cutting into my flesh. Yet try as I might, I could not move. I could not even sit up.
The world swayed sickeningly around me and my head lolled weakly in the straw.
"Faster, Methuselah," Theodoric urged the grizzled mule, which pulled the cart behind it and brayed objectionably at the extra load it was carrying.
Then everything plunged into darkness.
A
I dreamed a lion swallowed me. Its teeth were set in a silent roar, a shoulder's width apart, but luckily they had no bite. I passed through its stone mouth into a chamber full of books. The walls were pierced with light and the room divided into alcoves by a number of sloping desks and large chests. The air was quiet with the sound of quills and whispering parchment.
Bleary-eyed, I looked around me. Black-robed figures hunched over the desks, hard at work. Some were writing in a beautiful script that flowed from their quills in streams of ink, while others pressed thin sheets of gold to the capital letters they were adorning. Still more dipped their brushes in oyster shells of crushed crimson powder, which they applied to the flowers they were painting in the margins of a wonderful manuscript.
All of a sudden I understood the marks on Theodoric's hands. He was a scribe, an illuminator. He had taken me to one of Oxford's monastic colleges.
The book of dragon skin stirred again on my back and I squirmed, trying to get down; but Theodoric refused to let go. He carried me in his arms to the front of the room, where a small, white-haired man was seated on a large, thronelike chair. The Abbot was deep in prayer: His eyes closed, his fingers fumbling with beads of a rosary.
An ancient librarian with skin like melted wax sat close beside him, reading from a tiny book. His lips made a soft sound like a sputtering candle as he recited the words to himself and traced them in his Psalter. Suddenly, he stopped. One of his eyes was milky blue and rolled alarmingly in his head; the other, as clear as day, drifted towards me and fixed on my face.
Unnerved, I glanced away. Through the window, I could see a sapling in an enclosed garden, its pale green leaves shuddering in a breeze.
Luckily, the Abbot took one look at me, crossed himself and rushed to my aid. Despite his wild thistledown hair, he showed no signs of a prickly disposition. He clamped his hand to my forehead and checked for symptoms of disease. Then, ignoring the protests of Ignatius, the librarian beside me, he indicated the Theodoric should escort me to the infirmary.
Words were unnecessary. They communicated by means of a system of simple hand gestures.
Theodoric, however, stood his ground and slowly drew the Abbot's attention to the leather toolkit I normally wore beneath my belt. It had transformed itself into a sealed notebook ages ago. Somehow it had worked itself free.
I reached out to grab it, but Ignatius was too quick. He snatched the book before either I or the Abbot could lay our fingers on it.
I watched helplessly as the old man turned the notebook over in his hands and tried unsuccessfully to prize the covers apart. He studied the clasps more intently. No matter what he tried, he could not get the book to open. His brow creased in consternation and he shot me a suspicious look, as though the Devil lurked somewhere behind my eyes.
Theodoric, amused by the older man's struggles, calmly took back the book and showed it to the Abbot. Shifting my weight onto his shoulder, he underlined the name on the cover and gestured towards me. Endymion Spring. No wonder he had known my name.
The Abbot nodded thoughtfully and then, after gazing at the notebook for a while, made a curious writing motion with his hands. The message was clear: he wanted to know if I could read or write.
Theodoric shrugged.
I didn't have the strength to enlighten them. Despite the sunlight streaming in through the windows, I was shivering uncontrollably. My face was clammy and hot, and my body felt as though I had rolled in splintered glass. Every little noise boomed in my ears like thunder.
Theodoric looked at me worriedly and then, returning the book to my possession, cradled me in his arms and hurried me through the cloisters to the infirmary. My hands curled weakly round the book like an additional clasp.
We passed under another archway engraved with lion's teeth and dashed across an open area full of herb gardens and neatly cultivated flowerbeds. Wicker hives, daubed with clay, hummed in the distance. The air was sweet and honey-scented; but I barely noticed. Already, I was sinking into a deathly cold delirium.
By the time we reached the infirmary, a long low building close to the latrines, a fever had gripped me — and would not let go.
A
Fust waited for me in the darkness.
No matter how far I ran, no matter how hard I tried to escape, he always caught up with me the moment I closed my eyes. He swept into my dreams like a shadow, filling my heart with dread. Endlessly, he pursued me; endlessly, he hunted for the book...
From Mainz, I had fled not to Frankfurt, nor to Paris, as he had imagined, but to Eltville, a pretty little village on the banks of the River Rhine, where Herr Gutenberg had a niece. For a few days I sheltered among the fragrant grape-greeen hills; then, when Peter sent word that Fust had stormed off towards the Library of St. Victor, hoping to overtake me, I grudgingly began my route north to Oxford.
For weeks, I kept to the grassy banks of the river. Fust had placed a bounty on my head and I was no better that a wanted criminal. I avoided the inns, which were infested with lice, fleas and thieves, and bedded down with the cows in the fields at night. Nowhere was safe. No one could be trusted.
The book was my sole companion, but even this did not contain any news of Herr Gutenberg or Peter. For all its power, it could not bring them back to me. I was befriended only by the past, by the memories of those I had left behind.
As I neared Coster's homeland, the birthplace of the book, the place where Coster had slain the dragon, I began to fear that Fust had finally caught up with me. His name was never very far from the lips of the people I passed in the woods or villages; but it was a name spoken of with loathing and distrust. His theft had not been forgotten. It rankled in the hearts of Coster's countrymen. Yet, even here, the book was not safe. Haarlem was too close to Mainz and Fust could follow my tracks too easily. Only in the depths of the vast new library William had described in the Little Lamb could its pages be properly be hidden. I kept going.
In Rotterdam, where the Rhine meets the sea, I found a vessel bound for England and two or three days later emerged from it, dazed and disorientated, in a city far larger than any I had known: London. Hungry and cold, I shivered through the densely packed streets, shunning strangers and disappearing into anonymous cracks
. I could not wait to be free of the city. Yet there seemed to be no end to the wharves, houses and alleys that flanked the busy river, spewing their filth into the mighty waterway that cut through that land like a gash. Boroughs festered outside the city walls.
Nevertheless, as the drunkard William had promised, the river eventually narrowed into a more navigable stream and I followed its wriggling course through the more pleasant countryside, overtaken by boats loaded with luxury silks and linens. Half-starved, I stole from farms and hamlets, sheltered beneath the lych-gates of old stone churches and watched miserably each night as the day's reflections sank in the turbid water.
Finally, Oxford lay, huddled in mist, on the other side of the river. The spires were not nearly so grand as I had imagined — they squatted closer to earth than aspired to heaven — but I was cheered by the thought of the colleges and libraries, and the expectation of somewhere warm to rest my weary feet, which were rubbed raw with blisters.
I rushed forwards, joining a pilgrimage of laborers up to the South Gate, but my cheerfulness turned almost to despair.
"Your kind is not welcome here," snarled the shorter and smellier of the guards at the gate. I could barely comprehend his language. His face, however, said it all. His partner stared fixedly over my head at the restless line of people behind me.
My bright yellow cloak was no more than a soiled rag and my skin was covered with sores and abrasions. I looked like a victim of the plague.
I began to unfold my notebook, hoping to prove that I could read and write — surely a valuable skill in a university town — but they were not impressed.
"Look, be off with you," said the more officious guard. "If you don’t move on, I'll throw you in the boggards' prison myself."
He shoved me roughly back and I tripped over the edge of a cartwheel that had been drawn up close behind. I collapsed in a pool of muck and thought I heard a mule snigger. Tears of humiliation pricked my eyes.
Endymion Spring Page 24
