Marcus Sedgwick - The Book of Dead Days

“Valerian! Listen! You will do what I say. You will come with me.”

“I will not! The only reason I like you is because you never preach at me, so don’t start now. I am too ill and tired to move. I will stay here.”

Kepler got to his feet and gave his light another few cranks of the handle.

“Very well,” he said. “You leave me no alternative. I will not see you die in this way. I am going to mend your arm at least. I will take Boy, for help. The girl can stay with you.”

“But I don’t want to go!” cried Boy.

“And I don’t want to leave Boy!” cried Willow.

“You will both do as I say,” said Kepler, “for Valerian. I need Boy to help me carry things to mend his arm. Someone must stay with him.”

They argued awhile longer, but Kepler would not be dissuaded and eventually Boy and Willow agreed. Valerian watched it all-it seemed to have no effect on him now.

Kepler had brought some torches in case his light device stopped working. He handed one to Boy and set it burning with a chemical match.

Then they left Willow and Valerian with Kepler’s special light.

“Just turn the handle if it starts to fade,” Kepler told Willow. “We’ll be gone no more than a few hours.”

Then Boy and Kepler left for the boats.

As they went, Willow called after them, “Don’t be long!”

Her voice wavered in the darkness as they disappeared from view.

“Please.”

Kepler held the torch over the prow of the boat. He seemed not to need a map. Boy sat in the back of the boat and they generally followed the natural flow of the canal toward one of the river inlets, though they made two difficult turns. Boy was not sure he could find his way back to Willow and Valerian if Kepler was not with him.

“Doesn’t really take that long,” said Kepler over his shoulder. “You just have to know which way to go, or you could be in here forever.”

He laughed. It was not a nice laugh.

Kepler called out more directions and Boy obeyed.

“Did you know the girl well?” said Kepler.

What does he mean, “Did”? thought Boy.

“Willow’s a friend of mine,” he said. There was a note of surprise in his voice, as if he himself were only now realizing this. But it felt right saying it. “A good friend.”

“And bad about Valerian, too,” Kepler went on. “It can’t be helped though. It has to be like this.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Boy, shipping the pole into the boat. They drifted.

“That I found the book. Oh yes, I found it days ago, but when I saw-well, I knew I had to hide it again. I was just hiding it when you and Valerian and the girl arrived. That was your good fortune. If he had found it! Well. Shame they’ll have to die. Although I suppose the girl might find her way out. That’s why I left her the lamp, but otherwise…”

Boy felt himself go cold. Then fear and anger rushed through him. He was sitting in a boat with a madman. Kepler seemed to think Valerian was the enemy, and that he had to hide the book from him.

Kepler rambled on.

“I have known him a long time, but then he deserves no better after all he’s done. We will have to get along without him!”

He laughed again, then peered ahead into the gloom.

“A left coming up, I think. Yes. Boy? A left! A left!”

But Boy had another use for the pole. He took careful aim and swiped Kepler around the head with it. His aim was true and Kepler fell clean over the side into the water.

To Boy’s good fortune, the torch dropped inside the boat.

Boy started to push the boat hard against the current. He had to find his way back to Valerian. His master’s life depended on it, and Boy was not going to let him down.

“Valerian!” he called into the darkness. “I’m coming. I’m coming!”

Behind him, Kepler sank under the water for a moment, then, as the cold revived him, came spluttering to the surface.

“Boy!” He coughed. “Come back! Boy! You don’t understand! Come back!”

But he could only gasp the words, and Boy was already far away.

Boy hurried back to his master. Some strange power entered him, and he remembered without hesitation every turn he had made in the dark. The torch guttered on its side in the bottom of the boat, and the wood where it lay started to smolder, but Boy fixed his eyes on the tunnels ahead, until he was back at the quayside of the underground square.

He leapt from the boat and ran across the square, holding the torch in front of him.

“Valerian! Willow! Valerian! Valerian!”

Willow lifted her lamp high and scrambled to her feet as he arrived.

“Valerian! I know where the book is! I know!”

Now even Valerian was roused from his stupor.

Boy ran right to the entrance of the low tunnel where Kepler had emerged and pointed.

“The book’s in there! Kepler’s crazy! He was trying to hide it from us! I wouldn’t let him do that. I hit him! I can’t let you go, Valerian.”

Valerian almost leapt to his feet, despite his arm.

“Kepler…,” he murmured to himself. “Kepler! I was wrong to think the past was the past. I, of all people, should know that!”

He looked at Boy.

“You have done well,” he said, his eyes shining with a renewed power. “I am pleased with you.”

Boy stood, speechless.

“Now!” said Valerian. “Give me the light, Willow. I’m going inside.”

Valerian got down on his hands and knees, and shoving the lamp ahead of him, he crawled into the tunnel, moving along like a three-legged dog.

Boy turned to Willow.

“I think I’ve killed Kepler,” he said.

Willow said nothing. Boy did not stop, could not stop. The words tumbled from his mouth.

“He was just leaving you here to die with Valerian. I didn’t think. I just did it.”

“What did you do?” Willow asked.

“I hit him with the pole. He went into the water. I-”

“Boy…” She stopped, then held her hand out to him. “Let’s hope the book gives Valerian the answer he needs. Then it may have been worth it.”

Boy sat down. They leant against each other in the dank air and watched the flame of the torch flicker and spark. Its smoke twisted away to the low ceiling of the passage from which the many smaller tunnels led.

“It’s going out,” said Boy.

“No, it isn’t,” Willow said firmly. “It can’t be.”

But it was. They tried to turn the torch this way and that, to coax the flame back into life, but they only seemed to be making it worse. It went out, and they held each other, trying not to panic.

“He’ll be back soon,” said Boy. “Soon.”

Finally they heard a sound, and saw the light flooding the entrance.

Valerian emerged, triumphant. He backed out of the low tunnel, dragging something behind him. It was a huge book, vastly ancient and tattered beyond belief. There was a strange expression on Valerian’s face as he clutched it. Stronger than joy-it was joy and delight and rapture and hope combined. His eyes burned at Boy and Willow, and then at the thick tome grasped in his strong fingers.

At last the weight was too much for Valerian to hold in one hand and he put the book on the ground in front of him.

“Now let us see…,” he said, his voice quiet and strangely high.

He lifted the book so it balanced on its spine.

“Wind this infernal contraption for me, will you?” he said to Willow. She bent over the lantern. “Good. Now hold it there.”

Valerian let the book fall open, as if letting it choose which page it would show to him, what secrets it would impart to him.

Boy stared as Valerian flicked backward and forward through the pages searching for his answer. None of them moved, save for Valerian occasionally turning a page and Willow winding the light whenever it began to fail.