The Book of Dead Days Read online

  “Would you mind?” he asked, and the servant led them away into a library stuffed with books full of the names of dead people.

  Within two minutes the answer was in their grasp, but it was not one Valerian had expected.

  There, in the register of dead people whose last names began with B, was a simple and clear entry.

  Beebe, Gad. The Churchyard of Our Lady of Sorrows, Linden.

  “Linden?” Valerian asked the servant. “I’ve never heard of that part of the City.”

  “That’s because it’s not in the City,” he said. “It’s a village.”

  “Outside?” said Valerian. “Outside the City?”

  “Outside?” said Boy, unable to understand. “We have to go outside?”

  5

  It was still only ten o’clock in the morning, even though they had already brought fantastical dead beasts to life, and found the key to Gad Beebe’s whereabouts, and felt they had done more than a lifetime’s work.

  But they had hardly begun the struggles of December 29.

  It was a fiercely cold morning. They stood outside the residence of the Master of City Burials, shivering in their boots. People hurried by, wrapped up against the biting cold in furs and capes.

  “First,” said Valerian, “we get away from here. It won’t be long before that madman realizes his beasts will only twitch for a bit, and then we’ll be in trouble. As if it weren’t enough to have the Watch after us already.”

  Willow and Boy had nearly forgotten about that.

  “You mean you didn’t really bring them to life?” asked Willow.

  Valerian snorted.

  “Of course not! No one could do that. It’s just a trick that one of Kepler’s teachers discovered some years ago. Amusing but pointless. However, as I planned, it fooled him long enough to get what we were after.”

  That was a pretty big gamble, thought Boy.

  “And now,” Valerian went on, “we have to get to the village of Linden. We must find a coaching inn.”

  “I know one!” said Willow. “I was sent to meet Madame at the Black Four when she arrived in the City. We can find a coach there.”

  “Lead on,” said Valerian. “I need the book.”

  6

  The Black Four was a handsome place, one of the best-looking inns that Boy had ever seen. He wished he’d known about it in his days on the streets, because it was filled with rich travelers coming and going, forgetting where they’d left their bags and valuables. They would have made easy pickings.

  To the side of the tavern was a huge pair of double gates that swung open whenever a coach came or went. Just as they arrived, a vast black coach pulled by four black horses swung down the road and into the courtyard behind the inn.

  “Look!” said Willow to Boy, tugging his sleeve. “Just like the sign!”

  She pointed at the sign of the Black Four, with a picture of a coach and horses.

  “Do you know anyone here?” Valerian asked Willow.

  “I spoke to the landlord while Madame rested. She was tired after her journey.”

  “Poor thing,” said Valerian unpleasantly. “Well, what’s his name?”

  “Budge. Or Bridge. Something like that,” Willow said.

  Valerian muttered impatiently and strode through the doors of the inn, his long black coat swirling behind him. He made an even more alarming sight than usual. Tall, dressed in black, with his gray-white hair straggling around his shoulders, he was usually quite imposing. Now, with his arm broken, hitched up and hidden under his soiled and muddied coat, and with eyes that burned despite having not slept properly for many nights, he looked like a minor demon.

  Silence fell as he walked into the crowded saloon bar. All eyes fell on Valerian and the two urchins who shuffled nervously behind him.

  He stopped in the center of the room.

  “The landlord?” he fixed the nearest serving girl with his best glare.

  Speechless, she nodded at a frosted glass door in the corner.

  “Wait here,” he said to Boy and Willow, then strode through the door.

  Gradually the people in the bar stopped staring at Boy and Willow and went back to their own business.

  “What on earth do you think this book is?” asked Willow.

  “What?” asked Boy. Why did she always have to ask questions? By now all he wanted to do was sleep. They had been chasing around for almost three days, with little in the way of food and rest. He just wanted to collapse in some small dark space and be left alone.

  “The book! How is it going to save him?”

  “I have no idea,” said Boy. “But if Valerian thinks it will work, it probably will.”

  “What’s going to happen to him anyway? On New Year’s Eve?”

  Boy shrugged.

  “Ask him,” he said.

  “I will. I just thought you might have some idea.”

  “I’m hungry,” said Boy. “Let’s see if we can get Valerian to buy us something to eat.”

  They pushed timidly through the frosted door to find Valerian and the landlord shaking hands.

  “Ah, children,” Valerian said, as if he was some kindly uncle. “It is time to go. I have agreed on a price for some transport to take us to Linden immediately.”

  The landlord was smiling from ear to ear.

  “Perhaps not my best coach, but since you are in a hurry you will not mind . . . ?”

  Valerian nodded.

  “Valerian,” said Boy, “can we get something to eat?”

  “Indeed,” said Valerian. “Mr. Birch here has packed a luncheon aboard our vehicle. Now we must be going. There is no time to waste. You have your money, do you not?” he added, turning to the landlord.

  “Yes indeed, a very fair price,” he said. “Well, this way then.”

  Birch took them through a back door into the courtyard. The sumptuous black coach they had seen earlier was being made ready to depart.

  “Our coach?” enquired Valerian amiably.

  The landlord hesitated.

  “Er . . . no,” he said. “Yours lies just beyond.”

  Without another word he hurried away. The black coach pulled forward slightly, revealing something little better than a hay-wagon, a small cart suited for taking carrots from the fields to the markets. It was open to the skies and there was barely room in the back for the three of them.

  The cart was hitched to a solitary and ancient horse, with a gray coat and a swayback. Inside the cart, their luncheon was a loaf and a bag of carrots, most probably for the horse. Holding the reins was an equally decrepit coachman.

  He stared at them, sucking his gums.

  “The crook!” cried Valerian. “This will not do! Where’s he gone?”

  “What’s the use?” said the cart-driver. “I’ll get you there. You won’t find anyone else to go out into the country today. It’s going to snow.”

  Valerian drew in his breath as if he might explode.

  “Come on,” he said to Willow and Boy grimly.

  They clambered aboard.

  “Drive on!” Valerian shouted to the coachman, who jolted the beast into life.

  They trotted, at a fair speed, out of the gates and onto the street. As they did so, the grand coach they had seen pulled out of the yard behind them. Valerian leant forward, with some difficulty because of his arm, to speak to the driver.

  “That was where you met Madame?” Boy asked, nodding at the inn.

  Willow turned to Boy, smiling.

  “That’s funny. I was just thinking about her too.”

  “You could still go back to her,” said Boy quietly to Willow. “All you have to do is jump off. Go back to the theater. She’d take you back.”

  Willow turned to look at Boy.

  “No,” she said sadly. “I hated her. She hated me. I’m sick of it. And anyway, she’d probably turn me over to the Watch for Korp’s murder.”

  “I can’t believe you think working for Valerian is any better,” said Boy.


  “I don’t. I mean, I’m not working for Valerian.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Don’t you know?” She fiddled with some straw from the Cart.

  “What, Willow?” asked Boy.

  She looked up, into his eyes. “I thought you could have guessed. You should know. You were alone for so long. All those years on the street, that you can’t even properly remember now. And then you found Valerian, or rather he found you.”

  She glanced up to check that Valerian was still busy in discussion with the coachman.

  “And he’s awful,” she whispered. “He beats you; he ignores you; he’s unpleasant and ungrateful and foul. And yet you stay with him. Why?”

  “Because I . . . ,” said Boy. “Because I want to be with someone.”

  “Exactly,” said Willow, and looked over the side of the cart at the buildings going by. “I want to be with you,” she said, but not loud enough for Boy to hear.

  They rode toward the City wall.

  Valerian struggled to sit back down, having got little joy from the driver over their journey and its destination. Boy lent a hand to Valerian and helped him sit.

  Valerian grunted with pain.

  “Gods! It’s cold this morning,” he muttered.

  “Look, here are some blankets,” said Willow, rummaging under the side benches that were supposed to provide seating. She pulled out two large, moth-eaten blankets, and they were grateful for them.

  Willow spread one over Valerian and tucked it under him.

  “Thank you, Willow,” he said, and shut his eyes as they bounced on through the City.

  Willow and Boy spread the other blanket around them as best they could. They chewed slowly on the bread and carrots, grateful for some food, but Boy’s mind was on other things. The cart was too exposed. Anyone could look at them, and at any moment he expected to see a gang of red- or pink-plumed Watchmen come charging down the street after them. But they were just another small cart with some human cargo winding its way through the City, a scene that was occurring a thousand times in every corner of the vast metropolis. No one paid them the slightest attention. No one could tell that the three figures in the back of this particular cart were engaged in a most unusual and deadly history.

  7

  It took the rest of the morning for the cart to get to the City gates. It was painfully cold now, and they huddled in the back of the cart under the blankets. As they passed under the massive arch of the South Gate, the first few feeble flakes of snow fell.

  The South Gate was a vast stone construction covered with bizarre carvings, designed by the City Architects to impart improving lessons to the populace. It seemed that much of the populace was even now gathered in and around the South Gate, a busy marketplace. Around them the City walls were still decorated with fir-tree branches and other greenery from the festivities of a few days before.

  A few days, thought Boy, but it feels like months. The Dead Days had a knack of stretching themselves. When the days are out of the normal flow of time, time can stand very still indeed. All time, and no time. The dead time of the Dead Days.

  For a heartbeat they were under the flying stone arch, and then they were outside.

  “Have you ever been out of the City, Valerian?” asked Boy.

  “Oh yes,” he said, “Many times, though not for years. I suppose the last time was fifteen years ago.”

  “And you’ve never been outside since?” asked Willow.

  Valerian was lost in his memory. Then he shook his head.

  “That was enough. For a lifetime,” he said grimly. “For a lifetime.”

  “What’s it like?” asked Boy.

  “You’ll see,” said Valerian, and waved at the changing landscape.

  Boy and Willow had never believed there could be so little of everything.

  The last few miles through the City had been much like any other, but there had been a subtle change. The outermost parts were the poorest and the houses the most dilapidated. The coachman had picked up the pace a bit as they wound through some particularly unpleasant areas, even though it was midday.

  Now there was nothing. Around them lay mile upon mile of empty fields. The blank sky pressed down. Away in the distance were forests and beyond them some hills. Boy and Willow moved even closer together.

  The snow was falling thickly, as if the promise of all that snow had been stored up for this moment, for very soon the world disappeared under a blanket of pure whiteness.

  Into Willow’s mind once more came a picture of herself, as a little girl, playing in the snow somewhere in the countryside. It seemed more real this time. She was with her parents, and she had the feeling they had been going to see someone. But no more pictures would come, and the vision evaporated.

  “Where is this place?” asked Boy. “Linden?”

  “You are becoming too much like the girl,” said Valerian irritably. “Too many questions.” He took a swig from his bottle.

  But when Willow asked the same question, he relented.

  “It may take some hours to get there.”

  “Have you been there before?”

  “No.”

  “Valerian?”

  Valerian stowed the bottle back in his coat pocket with some difficulty, and looked up at Willow. Snow lay on his eyebrows.

  “What is it, girl?”

  “What’s happening to you? What’s going to happen?”

  He stared out at the whitening world around them.

  “You said you were going to tell us.”

  The cart trundled on. Its driver did not look back once. The snow fell ever harder as the narrow road plunged them into dense forests of silver birch. The trees were stripped of their leaves and had a ghastly air of desolation about them. The wheels of the cart slipped against the mud of the track, frozen hard into great ruts. All around them was the absolute silence of the dormant forest.

  And as the old nag led them ever closer to the grave of Gad Beebe, Valerian spoke.

  “You remember I said that I had last ventured out of the City fifteen years ago. I will tell you about that excursion.

  “I was still a young man then, but I could feel time was passing for me. I had left the Academy. I was not well liked. In fact, I was disgraced. In my defense I can only say that I was doing what my timid colleagues were too scared to do! If you understand.”

  Boy shook his head but said nothing to disturb Valerian. He had waited years to hear this story.

  “How can I explain? I studied every aspect of Natural Philosophy—what some younger men are now calling ‘Science.’ I studied hard. Like Kepler still . . . like Kepler. I examined all branches of investigation into our world. So did we all. Myself, Kepler and those who later denounced me.

  “The intense pursuit of any idea that takes complete possession of me is one of the qualities that makes me different—sometimes for good, sometimes, I daresay, for evil—from other men. It was because I had a greater thirst for knowledge, a greater hunger and desire to know all that could be known, that I became interested in stranger aspects of these studies. Dark, strange knowledge. Hidden knowledge.

  “And I soon learnt that our modern thinking is but half the story. That there is a hidden world of a precious and powerful nature that has been known for as long as man has been thinking and doing.

  “In my stupidity and pride, I rushed to share this with my colleagues, but I was a fool, for they shunned me. The things I did were dark and powerful, yes, and they were afraid of me. They threw me out! They turned their backs on me! And I was disgraced.

  “Their treatment only served to make me delve even deeper into these unknown forces. I worked long and hard and began to create things I should not have. I began to conjure powers that should not be known. I summoned them. Small spirits at first, then greater and greater life-forms, with the power to change the world if they so desired.

  “I thought I could control them. I summoned these things from their hidden places and
they did my bidding. Small matters like money were no problem. That was easy in those days. They did whatever I wished. Now I would not dare . . .”

  He paused for a moment.

  There were so many questions Boy longed to ask, but he did not want to break the spell. Willow, however, had the habit of asking.

  “Why?” she said.

  “There is something else,” said Valerian. “Someone else, I should say. A woman.

  “She was fair, like the clear moon that shone down on my labors night after night. Her hair was long and blond like golden corn, but she always wore black. The beauty of this extreme drove me to distraction.

  “Yes, she was beautiful. But more than that. Light danced behind her eyes, such eyes as I have never seen before nor since. Her voice sparkled like a glittering stream, and her mind was both sharp and playful.

  “She was rich. Her father was a great and powerful nobleman. She was unattainable. She would never have noticed a nobody like me, thrown out even from my college. And so I resolved to make something of myself, to make myself powerful and rich and strong. Then she could be mine.

  “And so, having learnt of a most powerful conjuration, I summoned a thing—a thing I should not have done— to help me, to grant my wishes. And so it did. But I was oblivious to the price for all the power and wealth I was granted.”

  Valerian stopped again, wincing at a twinge of pain from his arm.

  “Look at me now!” He fished in his pocket for the bottle. He drained the last few drops and threw the bottle over the side of the cart to land unheard in the thick snow. “A wreck! This cart may as well be taking my coffin to the ground as taking us to God-knows-where in this forsaken land.”

  “Don’t say that!” cried Boy.

  “No?” asked Valerian bitterly. “I have now a little over two days to live unless there’s a way out of this mess. I have not yet told you of the price I was set. I demanded power and wealth and I got them. I was granted the power to have her.

  “In return, I gave my life. I did not realize it at first, even though the conditions were spelt out. I was given fifteen years. Fifteen years to use my power and money and make what I could with it, and at the end of which I would belong to the thing I summoned. My life is his. My body and soul are his. It is over, then. And it was almost exactly fifteen years ago that I made this pact, this bargain, deep in the forest. On New Year’s Eve.