Doctor Illuminatus (7 page)

“Why is this field uneven when the other is flat?” she asked.

“Men have lived in this place for many centuries,” Sebastian explained. “Long before my father was given the land, there were houses here. Each of these raised areas is where a building stood, the dips between them ditches or the course of lanes.”

A cock pheasant, startled by their approach, suddenly burst into the air almost from their feet, cackling with annoyance. Pip squeaked in alarm and jumped.

“There is no need to be afeared,” Sebastian said calmly.

“But what if it was de Loudéac?”

“It will not be.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he is away at present.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” Sebastian replied inexplicably, watching the bird glide down, spreading its wings to brake its flight and disappear into the depths of the far hedgerow.

In the center of the field, surrounded by grass so tall that it was invisible even from a short distance away, was a pond. The banks were gently sloping, the water covered in a green carpet of duckweed and water-crowfoot, the edges lined by small bulrushes and a plant that somewhat resembled parsley, but which Pip knew immediately was deadly hemlock.

“This pool,” Sebastian announced, “was made by men well before the time of the coming of Our Lord. A tiny spring feeds it from the far side.”

“I suppose it was the water supply for the settlement,” Pip said.

“No,” Sebastian explained. “For that, they went to the river. This pool is a holy place. I will show you.”

Sebastian sat down in the long grass, removing his sneakers and rolling his jeans up above his knees. Once barefoot, he slowly stepped into the pool, the duck-weed parting before him and closing behind him. Three meters from the bank, he halted, then started to move around very slowly.

“What are you doing?” Pip asked.

“I am feeling with my toes.” He stopped and bent down, plunging his arm into the water. When he stood up, duckweed clung to his skin. “I have one,” he announced and made for the bank.

“What is it?”

Sebastian placed a small circular disc about two centimeters in diameter and covered in mud in her hand.

“Wash it clean,” he said.

Pip knelt at the water’s edge and rubbed the object between her finger and thumb. As the mud sluiced off, she saw a silvery pattern of some sort appear.

“What do you see?”

Turning it in her hand, Pip realized it was not a pattern but a head in profile, wearing what resembled a crown of spike-like thorns. Around it was lettering in block capitals.

“It’s a coin,” she exclaimed, flicking it over to see more writing on the other side, surrounding a figure standing holding what might have been a spear or scepter. She washed it again and the silver became brighter.

“It is a
Roman
coin,” Sebastian corrected her. “Why was it in the pond?” Pip asked.

“To Romans, springs were holy places and they cast money into them as offerings to their gods. And to the Romans, the emperor was a god . . .”

Tim appeared around the coach house, running towards them.

“Here you are,” he declared. “Alcohol!” He held out a bottle of vodka.

Sebastian took the bottle, unscrewed the cap and sniffed at it.

“
Aqua vitae!”
he said with obvious glee.

Without saying anything further, he set off in the direction of the river, clutching the bottle as if it were immensely valuable.

“If Dad finds that bottle missing,” Pip warned her brother, “you and I are going to be neck deep in serious trouble.”

“He won’t,” Tim said confidently. “When last did you see Mum or Dad drink vodka? He’s a scotch-and-water man and Mum drinks gin and tonic. It was only in the drinks cabinet for guests and, anyway, if they can’t find it, they’ll assume it got lost in the move.”

They followed in Sebastian’s footsteps, where he had flattened a swathe through the long grass.

“Look what he found in that pond,” Pip said, handing the Roman coin to Tim. “That pool was a holy shrine in Roman times. It’s full of coins and offerings and things.”

“Now that is cool!” Tim replied.

When they caught up with Sebastian, he was striding out, walking at almost a trotting pace.

“Slow down a bit!” Tim said.

Sebastian, who seemed to be walking in a semi-trance, eased up on his pace.

“Can I ask you something?” Pip inquired. “Certainly.”

“How is it that you know so much?” Pip asked. “I mean — you are more or less the same age as us. At least, you are in waking terms. You’ve never been to school and while your father taught you a lot, I’m sure, he can’t have taught you everything you know in just ten years.”

“And for the first five years, you must have been just a little sprog anyway,” Tim added. He went on, “And some of the stuff you know about, like atomic half-life of elements and such, is knowledge men have only had for the last fifty years or so. And the Human Genome Project’s only been going on for a few years, yet you know about it.”

“It is simple,” Sebastian replied, “for I exist not only here, now, in this time, but also in another.”

“Of course!” Tim exclaimed. “Like turning the page.” “Not exactly. I am able to acquire knowledge whilst I am asleep, for then I am able to exist in a parallel universe.”

“Run that one by me again,” Tim said. “According to some scientific thought,” Sebastian began, “there exist other worlds — other universes — which connect with or relate to our own. These are called parallel universes, which are similar and may even be duplicates of our own, occupied by human beings who are duplicates of ourselves. It is said that we can visit these parallel universes in our sleep and that, when we dream, we are in fact entering one of these other worlds that mimic our own.”

“So when you are hibernating, you can go into one of these places?” Pip suggested.

“Yes,” Sebastian replied, “and, once there, I can learn, bringing the knowledge with me whither I go.”

“Presumably,” Tim observed, “de Loudéac can do the same thing.”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, nodding soberly, “he can.” The ground began to rise slowly. Ahead, half covered in brambles and hawthorn, was a single line of rusty barbed wire strung loosely between fence posts that had rotted through and were either leaning over or held upright only by the wire and the tenacity of the tangle of briars and branches. Behind, on a rise, was a dense clump of trees. Sebastian headed for an almost in-discernible path, holding the barbed wire up for Pip and Tim to duck under.

“This copse is called the Garden of Eden,” Sebastian announced, striding past them, pushing the under-growth aside as he went. “Follow me.”

“Isn’t this the place the headmaster mentioned?” Tim said under his breath as Pip passed him.

She nodded and set off after Sebastian, Tim a few paces behind her.

After some twenty meters or so, they came upon a clearing in which a large number of different plants was growing, separated by narrow strips of grass.

“It looks like a herb garden gone wild,” Pip remarked.

“Which, in a way, is what it is,” Sebastian said. “Every plant was originally sown or placed in the ground here by my father. My family have tended them down through the centuries, cultivating them and, where necessary, sowing fresh seed or setting new cuttings. My uncle was the last to honor the responsibility but now, as you can see, it has been abandoned and is in much need of attention.”

“I’ll do that,” Pip offered eagerly. “I like gardening.” Sebastian smiled and said, “That would please me, for I shall have little time for such matters. Furthermore,” he added, “you will be safe here, for de Loudéac cannot enter this place to do his mischief.”

“Why not?” Tim asked.

“There is much here that can harm him,” Sebastian declared, “much that can sap his alchemic strength.” He turned to a low plant growing on his right. “Do you know of this?”

Pip squatted next to it. The plant had long, broad leaves that were dark green and deeply ribbed, each of them fanning out from a single point. Three small blue bell-shaped flowers protruded from the center. She rubbed one of the leaves between her fingers and sniffed at them. The smell was awful.

“It is mandragora,” Sebastian said, “which protects from evil and demons. This,” he pointed to a taller plant whose small mauve flowers were being visited by at least half a dozen wasps, “is figwort, which also protects. And the others here — wormwood, cowbane, selago, oregano, valerian, monkshood . . .”

Setting off around the clearing, Sebastian started to collect a leaf here, a bud or flower there; two plants he uprooted, nipping off tubers, pieces of root or rhizomes before firming them back in the soil with his heel. Each part he collected he pushed into the bottle of vodka, thrusting it down with a green twig snapped from a turkey oak that grew at the edge of the clearing. All the while, he muttered to himself as if casting a spell or reciting a recipe so as not to miss a single ingredient.

When he was done, Sebastian screwed down the cap, shook the bottle vigorously and said, “Now I must prepare my
sauvegarde
.”

“Sauvegarde?”
Tim repeated.

“I think you would call it your safety net,” Sebastian replied, shaking the bottle again and setting off towards the edge of the copse.

They returned across the field of rank grass, passing the pool and entering the ruined coach house by squeezing through a half-open door, hanging awkwardly by one hinge. The walls were stained with patches of damp while the upper floor looked unsafe, with gaps where planks had rotted through. The wooden staircase lacked a number of steps and the banister was hanging awry. The flagstoned floor, upon which carriages and dog carts had once stood, was covered in debris, drifts of leaves that had blown in and, against one corner, three or four huge barrels, their bands rusting and their ends staved in. The air smelled of dampness, mold and decaying wood.

Sebastian moved to the middle of the floor and stood upon a large flagstone that seemed more or less devoid of rubbish, beckoning to the others to stand with him. As soon as the three of them were on the stone together, he tapped his foot on two other flags. Immediately, the stone they were standing on appeared to sink into the ground. As it moved downwards, the sides of the shaft sped by. It reminded Tim of being in an old-fashioned elevator where you could see through the bars of the door.

After at least twenty seconds, the feeling of motion ceased and a door opened into Sebastian’s underground chamber. Without further ado, he walked straight to the table and poured the contents of the vodka bottle into a glass retort, which he began to connect to a copper distillation tower.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Pip ventured. “Nothing,” Sebastian replied, “but thank you.” He finished setting up his equipment and, with a match-box, struck a spark and lit a small spirit burner beneath the retort. “And now, I must tell you that I am going away for a few days. You shall not see me, but you need fear not. I shall return before long. In my absence, I must request that you not try to come to this place, for it is protected and those who venture here may only do so in my presence. This is the only means by which I may protect myself whilst I sleep.”

“Haven’t you ever worried that someone might have found the panel in my bedroom?” Pip asked.

“Or the flagstone in the coach house?” Tim added. “You’ve been incredibly lucky the builders renovating the house didn’t find anything.”

“And,” Pip added, “if our father decides to convert the coach house into an office, which he is planning to do . . .”

“There is no need to be concerned,” Sebastian said. “Were they to dig up the flagstones, they would not find their way here.”

“But the shaft . . .” Tim began.

“There is no shaft,” Sebastian declared.

“But we just came down it,” Tim replied.

“You think you just came down it.”

“If there’s no shaft,” Pip pondered, “where are we? Aren’t we under Rawne Barton?”

Sebastian made no answer, but turned his attention to the retort which was now bubbling. The contents were swirling around like vegetables cooking in a boiling saucepan, and steam rose from the surface of the liquid to waft along the tube to the condenser. He watched as a colorless liquid started to drip from the spout into a ceramic dish with a pouring lip on it. He counted the drops. When there were thirty, he extinguished the flame on the burner by covering it with a snuffer and poured the liquid into a dark-blue vial the size of a perfume bottle, which he corked. For a short while, the condenser continued to drip. This liquid he allowed to collect in a small, delicate china vessel rather like an after-dinner coffee cup but with an alchemical symbol drawn on the glaze.

“Now,” he said, “I must go.”

“Where are you going?” Tim asked.

“I am going,” Sebastian said gravely, “in pursuit of evil.”

“Can’t we come?” Tim asked.

“No,” Sebastian said firmly. “This I must do alone for there is much danger and you are not yet ready to face it.”

“Is there anything we can do while you’re away?” Pip offered.

“Just be on your guard,” Sebastian replied, “and,” he smiled at Pip, “tend my garden well.”

At that, he picked up the cup, put it to his lips, drained it in one swallow and snapped his fingers.

“Yoh! What the . . . !” Tim exclaimed.

The next thing he knew, he found himself standing, holding the bottle of vodka, by the pond in the field, with Pip looking into the water. Of Sebastian there was no sign. However, when Tim looked at the vodka bottle, he noticed that although the top was still on and the seal was unbroken, it was empty.

Four

The Edge of Darkness

T
he following morning, Tim found himself alone in the house. His father, who sometimes worked from a study at home, had gone to London on business. Tim’s mother and Pip had departed shortly after him, heading for the county town on what his father termed “a jolly girls’ retail-therapy outing,” which meant traipsing around department stores trying on clothes that neither of them, in a million years, would dream of buying, never mind wearing.