Endymion Spring (12 page)

"Ah, Peter, foolish boy,"
Fust
cajoled him.
 
"Stop trying to be so honorable.
 
Holiness does not become you.
 
This paper will make you a rich man — a very rich, enviable man."

I shook my head.
 
Part of me wanted to flee from the room, to escape
Fust's
wicked ways; yet another was tempted to remain by the fireside and see what other wonders this paper could perform.
 
The lure of the skin, its luminous sheen, enticed me still nearer.

The promise of money, however, seemed to have stayed Peter's mind.
 
He fumbled with the tough ends of his tunic, which Christina had darned with patches of mismatched fabric.

"That's my boy," said
Fust
craftily.
 
"
Coster
did not know what to make of his discovery, but I do."

Peter gaped at him for a long moment.

"What do you propose to do?" he stammered at last.
 
The words barely escaped his mouth.

Fust
picked at the points of his bifurcated beard.
 
"What I desire is to harness the power of the skin," he responded calmly.
 
"To turn the parchment into a book that will outstrip even Gutenberg's most precious Bible."

My heart jumped inside me.
 
How could anyone dare to compete with my Master's sacred work?

Peter looked perplexed
.
"I don't understand."

"I have devoted many months of study to this skin," said
Fust
.
 
"It belongs to the rarest, most mystical breed of dragon — a dragon fabled to have dwelled once within the walls of Eden and to carry the secrets of eternal wisdom within its skin.
 
Everything Adam and Eve hungered for — but lost — is now within our grasp.
 
Just imagine what the paper will reveal once we can read it!"

Peter bit his lip.
 
"But—"

"Why, everything!" cried
Fust
ecstatically, clapping his hands together and causing his gemstone rings to clack.
 
"All the secrets of the universe will be ours, all contained within one book!"

"But... but the paper is blank," murmured Peter.
 
"How will you find the information you seek?"

Fust
smiled cunningly and his eyes darted round the room.
 
I cowered even lower in my hiding place, hoping he would not see me.
 
His eyes were as restless as flies:
 
they landed on each piece of equipment until they settled on the smudged, padded ink balls we used to wet the type.

"Ink," said
Fust
finally.
 
"We need ink."

He paused to rub the ends of his fingers, which were still smeared with the dusky ointment he had used to touch the silver fangs.
 
Peter glanced uneasily at the table, where he had replaced the metal cup.
 
Whatever it contained was slowly filling the room with a noxious odor — a metallic scent like blood.

"You remember that it was
Coster's
granddaughter who could see the dragon," started
Fust
, raising a red eyebrow.
 
"Correct?"

Peter nodded.

"And her blood that brought the letters to life?"

Again Peter nodded, but this time with less conviction.

"Don't you see?" erupted
Fust
at last.
 
"This paper needs a special kind of ink to make its meaning known!"

I felt the color drain from my skin.
 
Peter, too, had turned pale.

"Blood?" he asked tremulously.
 
"Is blood the ink?"

Fust
did not answer, but stared into the flames, which writhed and curled like snakes.
 
His eyes were as red as hot coals.

"Just imagine," he said.
 
"This little girl was so innocent, so naïve, it borders on repellent.
 
And yet she —
she
!
— had the power to summon words from a dragon.
 
A power even I do not possess.
 
Yet."

He snapped the final word with his teeth.

"What do you mean?"

"
Coster
was very crafty in the way he designed this chest," explained
Fust
.
 
"As soon as he saw the dead creature, he was filled not with desire, but with regret.
 
He realized he'd destroyed one of God's most sacred creatures, a beast invested with everlasting knowledge.
 
Just one spiteful act — to crush his granddaughter's imagination — was enough to rob this fabled creature of its life.
 
And so he made this chest so frightening, so hideous and horrifying, he hoped no man would dare open it.
 
And he topped it off with these perfidious snakes, right from the Garden of Eden."

Peter's mouth hung open.
 
"But how... how did you..."
 
He pointed at the gaping lid of the chest.

Once again, I felt my eyes drawn to that frightful box.
 
Ferocious monsters scowled at me from the engraved panels, while hellish demons wept tears of amber in the firelight.
 
There was cruelty in its construction, but also guilt and remorse, a sadness that touched my heart.

"Up until now, I have attempted to purify my blood with that," said
Fust
, indicating the cup on the table.
 
"It was enough to deceive the lock, but something is not yet right.
 
Even
monksbane
is not potent enough to release the words from the parchment.
 
For that I need something stronger.

He waved a blackened finger in the air and, at last, I recognized the smell wafting towards me.
 
Monksbane
.
 
One of the metals my Master used to create his special typeface, an element so powerful monks were believed to drink whole quantities of it to purify their souls.
 
Yet, as my Master frequently warned me, in even minimal doses it could be lethal.

Fust
shook his head.
 
"No, this paper responds to something else entirely.
 
Something virtuous, honest and true..."

I felt tempted to run upstairs, to crawl beneath my blankets, for I know what terrible truth was coming.

"This paper," said
Fust
finally, "feeds on children."

A

Unable to control myself, I recoiled in horror.
 
My head bumped against the frame of the press and the noise thudded in the dim room.
 
With the swiftness of a fox,
Fust
turned away from the chest and swept his eyes round the furniture, hoping to flush out any unwanted quarry.

I remained where I
was,
perfectly still, too afraid even to breathe.

As
Fust's
eyes neared my hiding place, I pressed myself even deeper into its shadow.
 
I feared he was going to drag me out by my heels and feed me to the paper; yet he seemed to shrug off the suspicion and turned back to the fire.
 
He shuddered, as if cold.

It was then that I noticed my toolkit lying on a nearby bench.
 
As inconspicuously as I could, I reached out to grab it and unrolled its soft leather lining.
 
Inside was a row of shiny metal implements and I selected a sharp gouge to defend myself if either
Fust
or Peter came too near.
 
Concealed beneath the press, I watched and waited.

Fust
had gripped Peter now by the shoulders and was whispering something in his ear.
 
I could not tell what he said, but was startled by Peter's reaction.

"Master!
 
What's wrong?" he cried, for
Fust
had slipped to the floor.
 
An ashen complexion had come over his face and he had started to shiver, as if seized by a fever.

The man clutched his stomach and made an agonizing retching sound.
 
"It's the
monksbane
," he gasped.
 
"It disagrees with me."

"What should I do?"

"Take me home.
 
Close the chest and take me home.
 
Christina will know the cure."

The mention of Christina's name seemed to spur Peter into action.
 
He rammed the dragon skin into the chest, kicked the lid to, and rushed to his Master's aid.
 
Bending down, he managed to lift
Fust
awkwardly to his feet and guided him gently towards the stairs.
 
The man reeled like a drunkard.

Just before he left, Peter allowed himself a quick glance in the mirrors lining the walls and checked his reflection.
 
For the first time that night, I saw a genuine smile pass his lips.
 
And then, remembering the
monksbane
in the cup, he rushed back to toss the remnants in the fire.
 
The flames emitted a choking white cloud and went out.

The room was plunged into darkness.

A

I remained where I was and listened.
 
When I was certain they would not reappear, I hurried over to the chest.

The room was dark and
cold,
and I could barely see what I was doing.
 
Only a glimmer of heat still seethed inside the fire.
 
Like a hibernating beast, its red eye glinted at me from a cavern of ash.

The leather toolkit was bunched in my hands and I laid it out beside me.
 
Desperate to see inside the chest, I worked my fingers round the carved panels of the box until I could feel the domed heads of the snakes protecting the lid.
 
My fingers were jittery, but I fought hard to control them.
 
I knew what I must do.

Taking a deep breath, I let my hands slide down the sleek curves of the silver fangs until they reached the tips of the teeth.
 
The points felt sharp, cold to the touch, and I winced as they bit hard into my skin.

Despite all I had seen, I half-expected a rush of venom to seep into me, to lull my senses to sleep, but nothing happened.
 
After the first stab of pain, there was only a strangely cool, comforting sensation as the fangs sipped from my fingers.

Would I be judged pure enough, I wondered, to see inside?

It did not take long for the flow of blood to subside.
 
Following
Fust's
example, I then slid the teeth together and watched as the snake's head magically disentwined and the lid opened.

The fire sprang to life, and I jumped.

Almost immediately I discovered that the fangs I had feared for so long
di
not belong to the snakes, but were parts of the dragon — talons that pierced the front of the lid and protruded from the serpents' mouths.
 
The snakes were merely a façade, a deterrent; it was the dragon itself that guarded the chest and all it contained.
 
Its claws had read my fingers — and allowed me to enter.

Emboldened, I dipped my hands into the chest.
 
The top layer of dragon skin felt like a covering of frost-hardened leaves.
 
Tinged green and silver, they were forged together like an invincible plate of armor.
 
I had to remind myself that these were neither leaves nor chain mail, but actual scales!
 
Dragon scales!

My heart knocked against my ribs.
 
How could this be true?

The parchment beneath was glowing softly and I immersed my hands in the billowing sea of material.
 
My fingers dissolved in a pile of paper as cold and soft as snow, yet without its icy sting.
 
My skin tingled.
 
A feeling of overwhelming security flooded into me.

Greedily, I brought up several leaves of parchment and watched as the air buffeted and breathed within them, filling each separate layer with life.
 
I could barely contain my excitement.
 
The membranes were as thin as moth's wings, yet illumined from within by some strange source of light.
 
I was captivated, spellbound.

And then something else caught my eye.
 
A glimmer of words, in silver strands of gossamer, appeared before me like an oracle.
 
Where had they come from?
 
I read them quickly, hungry to glean their knowledge:

The Child may see what the Man does not

A future Time which Time forgot:

Books yet to be and Books already written

Within these Pages lie dormant and hidden.

Yet Darkness seeks what Light reveals

A Shadow grows:
 
these Truths conceal.

These are my Words,
Endymion
Spring,

Bring only the Insight the Inside brings...

My skin shuddered with recognition.
 
That was my name!
 
The dragon was addressing me personally, just as it had appealed to
Coster's
granddaughter several years before.
 
My hands began to shake.

Even now, I could see other words, other messages, appearing in the sheets of paper that were unfolding in my fingers.
 
Pockets of parchment opened at random, each disclosing a hidden doorway to wisdom, a miniature book.
 
It was more wonderful than anything I had imagined — much faster than Herr Gutenberg's press.
 
Whole kingdoms rose and fell within a few pages, leaving behind their legacies of words.
 
I wanted to follow each new path, each staircase of paper, to find out where they would lead, but all of a sudden my elation turned to fear.