Marcus Sedgwick - The Book of Dead Days

Boy felt the past tickle his mind, and he remembered days when he had sat in the garden and dreamt he could hear running water beneath him. It seemed he had not dreamt it after all.

He froze as he felt the point of Valerian’s knife at his neck.

“One more inch,” he hissed. “One more inch and it’s your last. Now get up the stairs.”

Valerian, fumbling with keys while holding the knife, shoved open the back door. He pushed Boy ahead of him into the kitchens.

“Hurry! There’s little time!”

They made their way into the halls as the clocks chimed a quarter to the hour.

But which hour?

“Damnation!” cried Valerian. “Midnight!”

He pushed Boy up the stairs, up, up, up, all the way to the Tower. He kicked the door open, thrust Boy through and slammed it shut behind him.

Locking the door, he put the key in his pocket and staggered over to the camera obscura. He began to adjust its controls, cursing when he was clumsy with his only usable hand.

“Valerian.” Boy stepped forward, but his master held up his hand.

“Shut your mouth, Boy!” Valerian whirled round to face him. “Shut. Your. Mouth. Say nothing. Do nothing.”

“But-”

“I said, be quiet!”

Valerian closed his eyes for a moment, then fiddled with the focus of the camera and began to scan the streets around the House. Boy heard him speaking softly to himself.

“The stars still move, time still runs,

The clocks will strike, the devil will come.”

After a while he gave it up.

“Perhaps Kepler was right,” Valerian said, turning back to Boy. “Maybe it was a waste of money, but I’m not beaten yet.”

He moved over to sit in his armchair.

“Now all we have to do is wait. In a few minutes, it will come. The time will come. Then you go instead of me, and I am saved. I hope that’s clear.”

It seemed to Boy as if Valerian was asking him a question.

“No!” he cried.

“Be quiet!” Valerian shouted. “You have served me all these years; you are going to do this last thing for me.”

Outside, it was snowing heavily. There was a sudden bang and flash of light outside the window. Valerian jumped from his seat and hurried to the camera’s projection.

Then they both saw the twinkle of fireworks scatter across the City sky, and Valerian slunk back to his chair. They heard the sounds of revelers from the New Year’s Eve parties winding through the street below.

“People having fun,” he said. “Something to celebrate. Well, I shall have something to celebrate too, very soon.”

He glanced at one of his clocks on the wall of the Tower room. Boy looked about desperately. The camera obscura, the tricks, the stage props, the experiments, the chemicals. He could see no help from anything.

“How can you do this to me? I’ve done nothing to hurt you. I’ve helped you all I can, but I don’t want-”

“To die? No, neither do I, Boy. That’s why you’re going to instead of me.”

“Why me, of all people?” shouted Boy.

“You, of all people, and only you, can save me. We were meant to be together, you and I. When you fell from the ceiling in the church, that was meant to be too.”

Boy stood staring at his master. Valerian had mistreated him, beaten him, shouted at him. That much was true, but he had also helped him, fed him and clothed him, after a fashion. He couldn’t believe that Valerian was really going to send him to his death.

“But why?”

“You are the solution,” said Valerian evenly. “That is what the book told me. There you were, right in front of me all the time. I know this now, as Kepler does. You are the answer.”

Boy shook his head dumbly.

The clock on the wall ticked on and its long hand slid another minute closer to midnight.

“Fifteen years ago-fifteen years ago I made a bargain. I told you that. With a terrible price to pay at the end. What I didn’t tell you is what I couldn’t know. When I made the pact, something else was created then, too. Someone, I should say. Another soul.”

The clock clunked and whirred. One minute to midnight.

“Wh-what…,” Boy stammered. “What?”

“Not what, Boy, but who. You. You were conceived on the very evening that I made my bargain, fifteen years ago on New Year’s Eve. You are a vessel for me to use. This was what the book told me, and it also told me, as it must have told Kepler, about the only way out. A life the same age, as measured from conception, as the term of the pact. So you go instead of me. Then the bargain will be satisfied and I shall walk free.”

“But I’ll die!”

“Yes,” said Valerian, “but I won’t.”

The clock began to sound midnight. As its twelve chimes died the room was filled with light, and this time they knew it was no firework. The light was as bright as day, brighter even, and behind it came a great wind that lifted up all the loose papers in the room and swirled them madly around.

Boy staggered backward and fell to the floor. Valerian rose to his feet, struggling against the storm that had entered the room, the tails of his great black coat waving in the vortex of wind.

Boy peered up at the light, into a black hole in its center. Small at first, the black hole grew in size until there was a swirling darkness the size and shape of a man hovering just above the floor.

Then came a voice, but there was no one to say the words. Boy simply heard the words in his head and all around him. The voice was small, flat and colorless.

“Valerian, your time has come. Step forward.”

Boy felt a surge of pain, a mental pain that left him rigid with fear.

Valerian stood, swaying slightly in front of the hole.

“No,” he said, his voice wavering. “No. The boy will go instead of me.”

There was silence.

“Is that not my right?” asked Valerian.

“Send the boy forward.”

“Get up,” Valerian said coldly.

Boy didn’t move.

“Get up!”

This time he roared the words, and Boy automatically got to his feet. It was what he did, he thought. What he did was do what Valerian told him.

“Am I really just an empty vessel?” he asked Valerian quietly.

Valerian nodded.

“You are just a vessel, and you have served your purpose. You were made for me. I am your only family, and your family needs you.”

“No!” cried Boy. “You’re not my family. I must have a mother and father! Everyone does.”

“Not you, Boy. You don’t even have a name.”

“You could have given me one. Why didn’t you?”

Behind them the blackness swirled angrily, disgusting, evil colors pouring from within it.

The voice came again.

“It is time! Step forward!”

“You could have given me a name if you’d ever cared about me!” cried Boy. “But you never did! All you ever did was hurt me and shout at me and tell me I’m stupid, and kick me and threaten me! I’ve spent my life running around the City, in dark holes, in dangerous places, and you never cared! Not ever!”

“Boy-” said Valerian.

“Don’t call me that! I want a real name! I want to know who I am, not this nonsense! I must have a life. I must have. This can’t be all I am!”

Valerian seemed to be about to speak but turned to look at the rushing nothingness that threatened to engulf the whole room.

And then there was another sound. It was a thump at the Tower door. Valerian’s whole attention was fixed on the inky center of the vortex.

The thump came again and Kepler and Willow burst into the room, the door flying wide on its ancient hinges, bits of wood from the splintered lock scattering across the floor.

“No!” screamed Kepler. “No!”