Endymion Spring Read online

  As we climbed the stairs, the light from the workshop began to pick out shapes from the sides of the box. Lumpy knobs revealed themselves as hideous beasts I had never seen before. Scaly monsters and frightening demons leered at me, as if from the pits of Hell. They had scabby cheeks and savage teeth and eyes like burnt umber. But it was only once we reentered the room, half-kicking and half-sliding the chest across the floor, that I noticed the two snakes coiled tightly round the lid, their heads interlocked. Peter eyed them with obvious distrust, but I was fascinated. They seemed to draw me towards them.

  "I wouldn't touch those if I were you," Fust advised me suddenly, catching my hands straying closer to the snakes. "They just might bite."

  My hands whipped back to my sides. Something about the way he said this made me believe him. Perhaps they were venomous? Fust was regarding me down the length of his nose, his dark eyes glinting. Obediently, I backed away.

  Fust turned his attention to my Master, who was staring at the fire, as though the future were held in its flames. He seemed to have aged in the interval.

  "So, Gutenberg, what do you say?"

  There was a heap of gold and silver next to the discarded lens on the table — more gulden than I had seen since the start of the year.

  "I fear," said my Master slowly, "I shall have to sleep on it."

  "Pish! You know you cannot resist."

  "Yes, but what you propose is—"

  My Master paused, unable to come up with an appropriate word.

  "Perfectly reasonable," suggested Fust.

  "Preposterous," retorted my Master.

  Fust spat with scorn. "Johann, you know not what you are saying! With your machine and my cunning, we can achieve... everything! There will be no end to our wealth or influence."

  "Yes, but at what cost?" asked my Master warily, rubbing his eyes and smearing a daub of ink across his face. "It is not exactly the kind of influence I was hoping for. I will have none of it."

  "Come, where is the merciless desire that once fired your spirit?"

  Fust surveyed the room. Surrounding the press were numerous benches and ink-spattered tables, covered with crucibles, iron frames and padded ink balls — the tools of our trade. Folded sheets of paper hung from the rafters like birds.

  "I have put those times behind me," said Herr Gutenberg moodily.

  "Nonsense! I can see that even now you're engaged on some new enterprise." Fust patted the handle of the press like a pack animal. "What is it this time? Almanacs? Indulgences?"

  Herr Gutenberg glanced up. "Well, I was thinking of printing a Bible," he said diffidently. "A huge and potentially lucrative undertaking."

  Fust spotted his opportunity. He snaked his way behind my Master and laid a jeweled hand on his shoulder.

  "Allow me, then, to fan the flames. Another eight hundred gulden, effective immediately, to help you launch this latest venture. Just think of what you'll achieve. Wealth befitting a patrician of the city! Books impressed with your name throughout the Empire! You will be spoken of with awe and adulation for generations to come!"

  "And your demands!" said my Master, tasting temptation. He looked up into the other man's face like a captivated child.

  "Why, an interest in your business, of course," responded Fust, rubbing his hands together. "And a right to use your equipment, if and when I see fit."

  Once again his eyes landed on me, as though I were one more of my Master's possessions. I squirmed.

  "And that chest?" My Master nodded towards the wooden box, which lay hidden, but not forgotten, near the hearth. In the firelight, I could see the ugly faces jeering and scowling at me. Drops of melted snow, tinted red by the fire, glinted on the snakes' fangs.

  "A special kind of paper, that is all," said Fust, "part of my own invention. As you say, it need not concern you. Peter, I am sure, will safeguard it in my absence."

  Peter and I exchanged looks.

  "In fact, he may as well assist you by learning the tricks of your trade."

  A downward curl to Peter's lips suggested he was not altogether thrilled to have his services volunteered in this way. No doubt he had been looking forward to more salubrious accommodation at his Master's house. He clenched his swollen fingers, as though gripping an imaginary sword.

  "So, Gutenberg, what do you say?" said Fust, indicating the time had come for a decision.

  My Master glanced at the heap of coins on the table and then at me. Wearily and with misgivings, he nodded.

  "Excellent!" said the visitor. He spat on his palm and extended it towards my Master, who took it rather more hesitantly in his own.

  They shook.

  "I shall get Helmasperger, the notary, to draft an agreement in the morning. Until then, I bid you farewell."

  Peter took a few steps to waylay him, but Fust was impatient to be off. "I am sure that Gutenberg will have some bread and beer for you," he snapped. "After all, he is no longer quite the... pauper... he was."

  Peter appealed, but to no avail. Without another word, Fust swept out of the house, while my Master, overcome by sudden tiredness, asked me to see that our guest was fed and made to feel at home. There was not enough room in the dormitory upstairs, so Peter would have to make do, like me, by bedding down before the fire. Herr Gutenberg bade us both goodnight and retired to his private bedchamber, with the mound of gold stacked heavily in his hand.

  A

  While I prepared my cot, Peter strutted around the workshop, picking up pieces of equipment for the surrounding benches and testing their weights in his hand. He then gave the handle of the press a forcible yank, scraping the flat wooden plate against its marble bed.

  Finally, he contented himself with the mirrors along the walls. Muttering to himself, he paced back and forth like a peacock, admiring his reflection. He had a handsome face — penetrating eyes, thick brows and the makings of a beard.

  He obviously took pride in his appearance, for among the hand-copied books and writing instruments we carried in from the sledge were several pouches and horns full of ointment and dried herbs. He ran a finger across his teeth with a paste of powdered sage and pinched a few spots before settling down on a bed of blankets by the fire. Almost immediately, he was asleep.

  I watched and waited and then, when I was certain he would not stir, padded lightly over to the chest and knelt beside it. The remaining firelight picked out yet more ghoulish shapes from its sides. Red shadows flickered over the two snakes, which courted and kissed, coming together in a seductive embrace.

  Detecting a vague rustling movement inside the box, I placed my head closer to the lid. Something was alive within it! A soft sound, like a breeze, whispered in my ears.

  Cautiously, I ran my fingers along the bumps and warts of wood until my hands collided with the snakes. My heart, a cannon of excitement, drowned out Fust's previous warning and I coiled my fingers round the cool metal domes of their heads. Carefully, I tried to prize them apart — avoiding the fangs, which looked sharp enough to bite.

  Nothing happened.

  There were no catches or springs to release the locking mechanism. The lid was clamped shut. There was no way in.

  All the same, I could hear the faint hissing sound inside, beckoning me closer.

  The fire snapped suddenly beside me and I jumped.

  The movement must have disturbed Peter, for he murmured in his sleep and reached a slumbering hand to catch me... but it was the name Christina on his lips and not mine, and he was quickly asleep again. His breathing deepened into a piglike grunt.

  Nevertheless, I could not risk incurring the wrath of Fust so soon. His presence seemed to linger in the house like a menacing shadow, a suspicion I couldn't shake off. Remembering the strange way he had looked at me, as though I and not Herr Gutenberg were now the object of his quest, I returned to my cot and lay for some hours awake, my mind full of restless, moving thoughts.

  What, I wondered, lay inside the chest?

  Finally, the thief of sleep ove
rtook me and, like the snow falling outside, dreams began to settle.

  St.Jerome's College

  Oxford

  1

  Blake glanced at his watch and let out a small, exasperated sigh. What was taking her so long? His mother had promised to be ready more than half an hour ago. He started drumming his fingers along the books in the college library. What should he do now?

  He had already climbed the rolling ladders in the Mandeville Room and used the metal tracks along the shelves to propel himself from one bookcase to another. The he had taken down the largest, heaviest volumes he could find and placed them on a desk near the window so he could look through them properly. The letters in the stone-colored paper had reminded him of fossils and he'd run his fingers over the vertebrae of words for a while before closing the covers. Most of the books were written in languages he couldn't understand and he'd given up trying.

  Next, he'd spun the globe near the door and searched for a sign of his hometown. He couldn't find it anywhere. North America was just a featureless blob with a few rivers traversing its plains — like cracks in the varnish. Where the Great Lakes ought to be, the mapmaker had planted a forest of tepees and drawn a solitary buffalo. This, he realized, was about as close to home as he would come for the next few months...

  He sighed.

  Leaving the room, he now tried to calculate the number of books in the library. There must be tens of thousands, he guessed, scanning the shelves around him: a lifetime's reading stacked from floor to ceiling, extending in both directions.

  He trailed his fingers along the spines, expelling little clouds of dust in the air as he walked.

  Passing the office door with paula richards librarian stenciled neatly on its white surface, Blake paused to listen. He could just make out the rise and fall of his mother's voice on the other side. She wasn't angry, just forceful — used to getting her own way.

  A visiting academic in Oxford for one term, she spent most of her time in the Bodleian Library, one of the largest collections of books in the world, and needed someone to keep an eye on her two children. She was busy negotiating a new arrangement with the librarian, who was fast becoming their babysitter.

  Blake checked his watch — thirty-six minutes — and sighed.

  He tried walking backwards now, tapping the books in reverse order, to see if this would help pass the time.

  A series of stern-looking portraits glared down at him from the walls. Like magicians, they were dressed in dark capes and had sharp, pointy beards. Elaborate ruffs, like squashed chrysanthemums, burst from their collars. The older men had jaded eyes and tortoise-like skin, but there were also a few pale-faced boys like himself. He glanced at their nameplates: Thomas Sternhold (1587-1608); Jeremiah Wood (1534-1609); Isaac Wilkes (1616-37); Lucius St. Boniface de la Croix (1599-1666). Each man was holding a small book and pointing to a relevant passage with a forefinger, as though reminding future generations to remain studious and well-behaved.

  Blake disregarded their frowns of disapproval and continued running his fingers along the books, rapping the spines with the back of his knuckles.

  All of a sudden, he stopped.

  One of the volumes had struck him back! Like a cat, it had taken a playful swipe at his fingers and ducked back into hiding. He whisked his hand away, as though stung.

  He looked at his fingers, but couldn't see anything unusual. They were smeared with dust, but there was no obvious mark or injury on his skin. Then he looked at the books to see which one had leaped out at him, but they all seemed pretty ordinary, too. Just row upon row of crumbly old volumes, like toy soldiers in leather uniforms standing to attention — except that one of them had tried to force its way into his hand.

  He sucked on his finger thoughtfully. A thin trail of blood, like a paper cut, was forming where the book had nicked his knuckle.

  All around him the library was sleeping in the hot, still afternoon. Shafts of sunlight hung in the air like dusty curtains and a clock ticked somewhere in the distance, a ponderous sound that seemed to slow down time. Small footsteps crept along the floorboards above. That was probably his sister, Duck, investigating upstairs. But no one else was around.

  Only Mephistopheles, the college cat, a sinewy black shadow with claws as sharp as pins, was sunbathing on a strip of carpet near the window —and he only cared about one thing: himself.

  As far as Blake could tell, he was entirely alone. Apart, that is, from whatever was lurking on the shelf.

  A

  Slowly, cautiously, he ran his fingers again along the books.

  "Blake!" his mother hissed. Her face had appeared from the office doorway. She was checking up on him — as usual, just when he was on the point of disobeying her.

  Paula Richards, the librarian, stood behind her, smiling amiably.

  "What did I tell you?" his mother scolded him. "You're not to touch the books. They're fragile, rare and in some cases extremely valuable. Now pick up that book carefully and go find your sister. I won't be much longer."

  Blake looked down, surprised. There, in front of him, face down on the floor, was an unremarkable brown leather volume he hadn't noticed before. It seemed to be waiting for him to turn it over.

  His mother apologized to the librarian. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Richards, but Blake's not what you'd call a natural reader."

  "Oh, I wouldn't say that, Dr. Winters," said Paula Richards, happily. "I sometimes knock the books off the shelves myself."

  She winked at Blake and then pulled the door shut behind them, so he couldn't overhear the rest of their discussion.

  Blake liked Mrs. Richards. She was a boisterous woman who loved books and, even more, loved talking about them. Her thick glasses clattered against the desk whenever she took them off, and through them, Blake could see the words on the pages she showed him swimming back and forth like legs in a pool. Some letters bulged and curved more than others, but what fascinated him even more were the little indentations in the paper — like footprints in snow. They reminded him of polar expeditions.

  Mrs. Richards made books seem magical, almost fun, whereas his mother turned them into work. She used them to test his reading comprehension and often quizzed him about his results at school.

  He'd not done very well last year, it's true; but she wouldn't believe him when he said it was not from lack of trying. Things just didn't make sense anymore. It was as if the words started disintegrating the moment he looked at them. One minute they'd be sitting in a straight row like birds on a wire; the next, they'd take off like a flight of startled sparrows. He couldn't pay attention.

  It was hoped that a short break in Oxford, during which he would be tutored by his mother, would give him a renewed focus. "A fresh perspective," his homeroom teacher had said, as thought the phrase encapsulated everything; but his mother had simply passed him on to other college officials who were also busy, and so he spent most of his time working on his own in the library or looking after his little sister. His mother was researching a new book and didn't have time to be "disturbed."

  Blake bent down to pick up the volume that had fallen to the floor, but then stopped. A ripple of anxiety passed through him. Was this the book that had attacked his finger?

  But that's impossible, he thought. Books don't do that. Besides, the cover of this book was chipped and cracked, scabbed like an old leather glove. It looked perfectly harmless. He shook his head. He was just being silly.

  Quickly, before he could change his mind, he reached down and scooped up the volume. Then something else happened: the book realigned itself in his fingers — just slightly. The movement was barely noticeable, yet Blake was certain he had felt it. The book sat in his hand, a perfect fit, as though that was exactly where it belonged.

  His heart skipped a beat.

  Looking closely, he could see that two small clasps, once holding the book together, had broken and the strips of leather hung down like unfastened watchstraps. A silver prong, like a snake's tooth, dangled f
rom one of the bands. Obviously, it was this metal fang that had pricked his finger. His knuckle throbbed with the memory and he sucked on the wound, where another bead of blood was forming.

  There was writing on the cover, too, but this had faded so that the title was barely visible. The words were as delicate as the strands of a spiderweb, and he blew on them softly to remove a fine layer of dust. A name or title, pressed into the leather in unusual rounded letters, appeared before his eyes:

  Endymion Spring

  He opened the book.

  His fingers were jittery, but even so the pages flickered of their own accord — as though an invisible hand had reached across time or space and was searching for the best place to begin.

  He held his breath, amazed.

  Some of the pages were stuck together, joined at the edges, unopened, while others unfolded like maps without obvious destinations. They reminded him of the origami birds he had once seen a Japanese lady making on television. There were no lines on the paper, unlike a notebook, and no sections to write in, unlike a diary; and yet there were no printed pages, so far as he could see, so it couldn't be a regular novel either. It was as if he had discovered a completely blank book. But what was a book without words doing in a library?

  A faint tingling sensation, like the suggestion of a breeze, tickled his fingertips and he moved closer to the window to inspect the book more thoroughly. He thought he could detect minute ridges glowing inside the paper, as though the sun were shining through it, communicating something; but when he held the pages up to the light, hoping to find a secret message encoded inside, he couldn't see anything. The pages were like thin, frosty panes of glass. Unreadable.

  Disappointed, he walked back to the shelf, stroking the paper absentmindedly. It felt softer than anything he had touched before. Like snowflakes before they melt, he thought — or, or, what precisely? It was an elusive feeling, a sensation he couldn't quite grasp. Yet once he had opened the book, he didn't want to let it go. It had cast its spell on him.