Matthew Skelton - Endymion Spring

There it was. A small square of leather lying against the endless reams of fine white paper. He reached down to pick it up.

His heart leaped into his throat. The book opened not to the map he had been following earlier, but to the black partition in the center of the volume.

The ghostly message was still there, but it had changed — ever so slightly. His blood ran cold.

His torchlight trembled over the awful words:

Suddenly, the shadows seemed more menacing, more terrifying, and he began to run.

Blindly, he dashed through the surrounding rooms, no longer following the map in the book, but a path of his own devising. "Come on," he yelled, grabbing Duck's hand.

"What did the book say?" she squealed, struggling to keep up.

He didn't answer, but pulled her after him, rushing headlong into the darkness. He made desperate detours, turning first one way and then another, past rows of silent, watchful, waiting books. His torchlight scrabbled over the walls.

The riddle he had seen a couple of days ago flashed through his mind:

The Sun must look the Shadow in the Eye

Then forfeit the Book lest one Half die…

Its meaning seemed even more sinister down here in the dark depths of the library.

Gradually, there was a change in their surroundings. A luminous chamber shone just ahead of them — a beacon in the distance. Or a trap. Blake didn't have time to think. The blood screeched through his body. He raced towards the light.

A faint tittering noise, like rustling leaves, started up again around him, urging him on, and his pulse quickened. This must be the way. The books were communicating with each other.

He burst into the light-filled room and came to an abrupt halt. There was no other exit. A circle of book-lined walls surrounded him. Only a deep hole in the ground opened at the center of the chamber: the source of all the light.

Shielding his eyes, he tiptoed closer and peered down…

Another library, a whole universe of reading, stretched elastically beneath the floor. Books filled the shimmering space: identical volumes in plain white wrappers fitted onto concentric shelves that spiraled down the edges of the shaft like a helix, connected by long, thin ladders. There appeared to be no end to the number of volumes contained in this bottomless well.

He recoiled from the sight. His head spun. How could he possibly find the Last Book among so many?

Endymion Spring was quiet in his hand, as though it had reached its destination. What was he to do?

The books flickered around him expectantly.

And then he noticed something. A long way down the narrow chute was a slight shadow, a barely visible seed of darkness in the gleaming wall of light.

"There's something down there," he told Duck. "A black space. I think there's a book missing. I'm going to take a look."

Duck panicked. "No! Don't go!" She gripped him tightly by the back of his knapsack. "I can't go without you. I'm scared."

"Come on, I have no choice!"

"Yes, you do! You don't have to do this! We could pretend you never found it. We could turn back."

Blake hesitated, then Endymion Spring moved in his hand and urged him that little bit closer to the lip of the well. It wanted him to go down into the stack of books. It was guiding him.

Blake glanced again at the small, unassuming volume in his hand. Its faithful glimmer of light gave him renewed confidence. Endymion Spring had brought him here for a reason. Jolyon had told him that many people had searched for the Last Book , but failed. This was his chance. He felt sure the Last Book was nearby — almost within reach. He had never been so close to achieving something amazing in his life before.

"I've got to try," he said aloud, his mind made up.

Pushing Duck aside, he quietly took off his knapsack and jacket and placed them on the paper-strewn ground beside the hole. Then he slipped the blank book between his T-shirt and the waistband of his jeans and slid his torch into his pocket. He could feel the restless flutter of Endymion Spring's paper against his skin — an additional heartbeat.

"I'm going to find the Last Book ," he said. "You can watch me from up here, OK?"

Duck danced uneasily on the spot.

"Just don't go anywhere. Wait until I get back."

She fixed him with her large, fearful eyes, but said nothing.

"Promise!" he barked.

She nodded obediently and backed away from the hole.

Blake took a deep breath. His mind focused on the sliver of shadow far below — and what it might contain — he stepped towards the threshold of the well and reached with his toe for the first rung of the ladder. His shoe caught a firm foothold and he swung himself over.

Duck started to moan.

"It's all right," he told her one last time. "I'll be back soon."

Gripping the sides of the ladder, he descended slowly, taking tiny steps, refusing to look down. The rungs were placed close together, nearly tripping him. It was as though they had been constructed in a far-off century: the wood was uneven, knotted with whorls of bark — more like branches than proper footholds. He continued carefully, grasping the vine-bound slats in his tight fists. His entire body was shaking.

Every now and then, he paused to make sure that Duck was all right at the top of the well. His fingers ached; his muscles were tense; and his teeth set in a determined grimace. Endymion Spring juddered against his belt, encouraging him downwards. He glanced at the dark space below. It was getting nearer.

All around him the waiting books whispered like leaves in a breeze. Curious, he picked one from the surrounding shelves and, monkeying his arm around the ladder to improve his leverage, flipped through its pages. They were not blank, as he had suspected, but contained a vast number of words, all written in a transparent silver light, as if frozen or suspended in ice. There appeared to be no end to the number of books: made from the same soft, enchanted paper as Endymion Spring, all waiting for some reader's imagination to unleash the writing inside. A trapdoor swung open in his mind. He suddenly comprehended the concept of infinity.

He looked down. A few feet away was the shadowy crevice he had glimpsed from above, the space that divided the limitless wall of books. At first, he thought it might be a black leather-bound notebook, a book different from the others, but now he realized that it was a small opening — a gap in the heart of the library. The blank book seemed to be guiding him towards it.

He slipped down the next few rungs, almost falling, until he was on a level with the black hollow on the shelf. He could feel Endymion Spring urging him closer, its irresistible desire to be reunited with the other books drawing him nearer. He removed the blank book from its position in his belt. Part of him didn't want to let go, but as he inched his hands towards the available space no force on earth could have stopped it. Endymion Spring propelled itself between the other volumes, a perfect fit.

The other books, which had been lisping quietly, suddenly became silent. The air trembled with expectation. The whole library appeared to be waiting for just this moment, as if the stability of the well and its tower of books hung in the balance.

All of a sudden he became aware of a shiver in the air, a slight quiver of paper. Then, suddenly, in a blinding blizzard of books, the volumes on the shelves started to whirl round him, sucked into a maelstrom of paper. They whipped past his head, brushed against his shoulders and nipped his arms and his legs, slashing him with paper cuts, jettisoning themselves towards the small space on the shelf where moments before he had placed Endymion Spring .