Soul Stealer (5 page)

“No,” Sebastian replied, “the King pardoned them. His Majesty, you see, knew of Yoland and his powers. He believed Gloucester’s
men and son had been bewitched.”

“What happened to Gloucester?” Pip asked.

“He died in 1447,” Sebastian replied. “Some believed, poisoned by followers of the Earl of Suffolk, one of his enemies. Others
declared he died of palsy. Yet I heard talk and believe that Yoland killed him so that no one might discover his part in the
planned overthrow of the King.”

“How did Yoland kill him?” Tim inquired.

Sebastian answered, “To the best of my knowledge,
by giving him a honey and saffron quiche containing henbane.”

“Quite a thought,” Tim mused. “Our homeroom teacher is a murderer, a mind-bender and a traitor. They don’t come worse that
that! Except,” he added, “maybe the Duke of Gloucester.”

“Do not judge Gloucester too harshly,” Sebastian responded. “He was known by many as the Good Duke Humfrey. He was a widely
read and a very educated man and a great collector of books which he gave to the University of Oxford, where they remain to
this day in a grand building called Duke Humfrey’s Library.”

“So you can go there and borrow them?” Tim asked in amazement.

Sebastian smiled. “They are not lent, being most rare, but you may enter the library and see them.”

“Cool!” Tim exclaimed.

“Let me get this right,” Pip said. “Yoland is able to look into people’s minds, see what they are thinking and then corrupt
them.”

“Yes,” Sebastian agreed bluntly.

“So Yoland can read minds!” Tim exclaimed. “And now he’s our homeroom teacher. Cosmic!” he added ironically. “No more lame
sorry-my-homework’s-late-the-cat-threw-up-on-it excuses. Tell him a lie and he’ll see through it. But he doesn’t sound that
dangerous to me. It’s not as if he can turn us into newts or snails, or make another homunculus, and I see no reason why he
might want to get inside our heads. We’re school kids. Hardly worth bribing.”

Pip listened quietly to her brother and then said,
“I’m not so sure.” She looked at Sebastian. “What about his magnetizing me?”

“He was reaching out to you,” Sebastian declared, “searching for you, to see how easily he might gain access to your mind.”

Pip shivered at the thought and whispered, “Why me? What’s in my mind that he can want? A knowledge of the best shampoo for
split ends? Where to get film-star gossip on the Internet?”

“That remains to be seen,” Sebastian answered, which did nothing to ease Pip’s anguish.

At that moment, Mrs. Ledger called up the stairs, announcing supper.

“I shall depart,” Sebastian declared, “to consider this turn of events. We shall meet again later this evening.”

He opened the panel in the wall, slipping through as it closed behind him. They could hear him descending the passageway in
the wall. He made less noise than a mouse in the woodwork.

“I presume you have no homework?” asked their mother as they sat down to supper.

“Not yet,” said Tim. “We’ve not really begun any classes.”

“It will come,” their father predicted solemnly. “You can count on that. You’ll soon forget how to operate a television remote.”

After supper, Sebastian reappeared in Tim’s bedroom as he sat at his computer, playing a rally driving game. For some minutes,
he watched over Tim’s shoulder as
he swung a bright silver virtual Toyota Land Cruiser over a tortuous succession of sand dunes on the Paris—Dakar Rally. It
was not until Tim reached the next checkpoint that Sebastian spoke.

“I have been considering the situation,” he announced. “Let us talk.”

Stopping for Pip in her room, they went downstairs and out through the kitchen. As they passed her, Mrs. Ledger said pleasantly,
“Hello, Sebastian!”

“Good evening, Mrs. Ledger,” he answered. “I hope you are well.”

“I’m in fine spirits, thank you,” she replied, smiling.

Going by the open kitchen window, Pip and Tim overheard their mother say to their father, “That Sebastian is such a polite
boy. You’d hardly think he was a modern lad at all!” Pip and Tim grinned at each other and kept on walking.

Dusk was falling as they made their way over the fields towards the river, following a path Mr. Ledger had mown across the
meadow. Once they reached the stand of willows that leaned out over the water, they turned and made their way along the bank
in the direction of the copse of trees known since Sebastian’s father’s day as the Garden of Eden. Rafts of dead leaves and
twigs flowed by on the current. The water was black and running fast. Tim tried to see if there were any trout in the places
where the river ran over a stony bed, but his eyes were unable to penetrate the surface in the failing light.

On reaching the edge of the trees, Sebastian led the way into the cover and headed for the clearing in the middle of the copse.
The beds of alchemical herbs which Pip had tidied only weeks before were now overgrown,
many of the plants gone to seed or dying off. Those which were perennials were heavy with fruit or overripe berries and looked
drab. In the center of the clearing stood a new oak bench which Mrs. Ledger had had placed there. She had come to love the
little stand of trees, often going there on summer weekend afternoons to read or just sit with Mr. Ledger, a tray of tortilla
crisps and a bottle of chilled wine or a jug of iced margarita, Mrs. Ledger’s favorite summer drink, between them. Several
times she had said to Pip or Tim how peaceful the clearing was, how the rest of the world hardly seemed to exist when she
was there with a good book.

“It’s really quite a magical place,” she remarked more than once.

Her children always smiled indulgently but said nothing.

For a few minutes, Sebastian walked around the clearing, breaking off seed-heads or dead leaves and placing them in a small
leather pouch hanging from his belt. When he was done, he pointed to the bench and said, “Let us be seated.”

Across the river, a cock pheasant started to chirp loudly in the long grass, another taking up the call over towards the quarry.
The grating sound set Pip’s nerves on edge. Overhead, small birds flitted silently between the boughs as they made for their
night roosts. A small breeze riffled through the branches, the leaves whispering.

“So?” Tim asked at length, breaking their silence. “What’s going down, Sebastian? What’s Yoland’s game?”

Sebastian paused for a moment and then answered, “Whatever it is, be certain it is not a game. He shares not
Malodor’s aim of creating a homunculus, for he has not the skill. He may be seeking to perfect the making
of au-rum potabile,
but I do not believe this to be the case. He has no immediate need of it, for he is aging so slowly. He may, however, be
concentrating on the transmutation of base metals into gold. Yet again, I think not.”

“Has that ever been achieved?” Pip inquired with more than a hint of skepticism.

Sebastian smiled faintly and admitted, “There were many charlatans in my father’s time who claimed success in order to gain
favor with powerful men, but I saw no genuine proof. Yet,” he went on, “it is possible, for science has achieved this aim
in the present day. One element may indeed be transformed into another under the right conditions, with great heat and pressure.
My father deduced the theory, yet the necessary conditions were unattainable in his lifetime. Today, they are.”

“Yes,” Tim agreed, “but not in a glass test tube in a school laboratory.”

“Indeed not,” Sebastian concurred. “Yet it still stands that, with the appropriate equipment, Yoland could attempt it.”

“Yeah, right!” Tim exclaimed. “The appropriate equipment! A scientific research institution the size of a large town, a workforce
of thousands, a budget of billions. Not exactly the tools available to a chemistry teacher following the National Curriculum.
Besides,” he went on, “what’s the point? If you’re a government, or the Bank of England or something, it might be worth your
while, but as an individual, you can’t do much with pure gold.”

Sebastian looked puzzled. “I do not understand,” he said. “Gold is most valuable.”

“Time for lesson number thirty-two in twenty-first-century studies,” Tim announced. “In your day, if you wanted to buy bread
you took a bronze coin along to the baker and he gave you a loaf,” he went on.

“Several loaves,” Sebastian cut in pedantically, “and the coin was silver.”

“Whatever,” Tim said, searching for another example. “All right, how much would your father have paid for a good horse?”

“I know not,” Sebastian replied.

“OK,” said Tim, “but how did he pay for it?”

“In gold coins, usually nobles, or maybe in ounces of gold,” Sebastian declared. “It was the way.”

“Exactly,” said Tim. “Today, it’s different. Sure, if you want to buy something you could still use a coin.” He took a pound
coin out of his pocket, spun it in midair, caught it and put it back in his pocket. “It looks like gold, but it’s not a gold
coin at all. And it’s not worth that much either. Enough for a bag of fries if you’re lucky. What we can’t do is go to a bank
and withdraw or deposit gold. Walk up to the counter and try to pay in a gold and, bingo! The alarms go off, the bars go down,
the doors lock and you’ll be surrounded by the Old Bill in seconds.”

“Old Bill who?” Sebastian asked.

“It’s a nickname for the police,” Pip explained.

“My point is,” Tim said, “even if Yoland had the means, making gold would be a waste of time as he couldn’t spend it or convert
it into cash without raising suspicion. You can’t sell gold unless it’s already been made
into something, like jewelry, and you can’t buy gold, jewelry apart, unless you’re a licensed gold dealer. All our money these
days is really virtual money. He’d do better magically counterfeiting credit cards or debit cards.”

“Debit cards?” Sebastian echoed.

Tim took his wallet out of his hip pocket and slid his Switch card free of the leather. “This,” he held it out to Sebastian,
“is a computer-coded slip of plastic which, when run through a card reader in a shop, can debit money from my savings account
in the bank on the spot. I buy something but no actual money changes hands.”

Sebastian took the card, turning it over and closely scrutinizing it.

“This is indeed a fascinating concept,” he declared.

From the far end of the Garden of Eden came the soft hoot of a tawny owl. Sebastian looked up, searching the trees to locate
the bird.

“Is the owl…?” Pip began.

“There is no cause for alarm,” Sebastian quickly reassured her. “We are secure here. The owl is but an owl.”

The bird took to the wing, flying slowly through the trees towards them. It settled on a bough of a sycamore, sending a small
shower of helicopter-winged seeds pirouetting to the ground.

“I believe,” Sebastian said finally, “you are correct, Tim. He is not trying to transmute metals for he has not the ability.
Once, he tried to gain my father’s assistance in this but my father, realizing Yoland was dishonorable, refused to assist
him, and his efforts came to nothing.”

“So Yoland, like Malodor, was your father’s enemy,” Pip said.

“Yoland,” Sebastian replied softly, “was one of those who betrayed my father. He was one of those,” he went on, “who put firebrands
to my father’s pyre.”

Tim put a consoling hand on Sebastian’s shoulder.

The owl took to the wing once more, flying across the river and off into the gathering night. Pip watched its ungainly flight
until it disappeared in the dusk.

“Night falls and we must return,” Sebastian declared. “It is in the hours of darkness that evil thrives.”

They stood up and began the walk across the field towards the house. Far off, a small flock of two dozen sheep clustered together
under a spreading oak. They belonged to Geoff, a local farmer to whom Mr. Ledger gave the grazing rights. In what little daylight
was left, they looked like clumps of dense mist hugging the ground. As the three of them drew near, a few of the animals rose
to their feet, their rear quarters rising clumsily before their front. Tim, who was carrying his halogen flashlight, shone
it on the sheep’s faces. As the beam caught their eyes they reflected a brilliant silver.

“Look!” he joked. “They’ve got their headlights on.”