December 28

The Day of Worst Fortune

1

After Willow had explained for the fourth time how she knew what the name was, Valerian began to believe it himself.

“Music!” he exclaimed. “Hidden in the music! Before my very ears!”

He laughed.

“Kepler knew what he was doing after all—he must have sent this thing for me. Green decided to play difficult and then . . .” He laughed again.

This worried Boy. He had never heard Valerian laugh before. It worried him a lot.

“And you learned this from Madame?” Valerian asked Willow.

She nodded. “Yes, she taught me musical notation.” And more than that, Madame had grudgingly told Willow that she had “perfect pitch.” Willow could identify any note in isolation of any other note that might be used as a reference point—an ability Madame herself did not possess.

“And these notes—each one is a letter?”

Willow nodded again. “G—A—D—B—E—E—B—E.”

“By chance the name uses only letters from the first seven of the alphabet,” said Valerian. “Whoever made this thing, or had it made, was not only musical, but had spotted this curious fact about Mr. Beebe. Beebe . . . ,” wondered Valerian aloud. “I’m sure I know the name.”

“So,” ventured Willow, “about me staying . . . just for a while . . .”

“Hmm?” said Valerian, his mind elsewhere. “Hmm? Yes, that’s—you might even be useful, unlike Boy.”

He held the music box mechanism in his hand, turning the handle, listening to the vital tune over and over again.

The many clocks in the house began to strike midnight.

It was December 28.

As the last chime died away, Valerian’s mood grew somber again.

“Come,” he said, gruffly. “We have much to do and time is shortening.”

Boy smiled a little. He knew where he was with this Valerian.

2

The three figures stole through the unusually silent city streets. It had not snowed, as Willow had thought it might. It was cold, however, and Boy was glad he had all his clothes on. Yet again he was out traipsing after Valerian. The only difference was that Willow was with him this time.

Willow and Boy lagged behind as Valerian strode rapidly down dark paths. The City was quiet, partly due to the sudden cold snap that had sent people to their beds early, but mostly because Valerian was heading into one of the few pockets of the City that were somewhat deserted: the Black Quarter, where the last outbreaks of plague had hit the City. As its inhabitants had fled the quarter it had been sealed off by a ring of burning buildings until everyone left inside had survived or died. Although that was many years ago, people had been slow to move back, and only a few of the very poorest citizens lived there now. The buildings were dark, convoluted, tangled mazes thrown together over the years—crooked houses with slanted windows and warped frames. Between them ran the usual gutterlike streets, reeking and heaving with piles of filth. The three hurried on.

“What are we doing?” Willow panted to Boy, struggling to keep up.

“It’s always like this,” Boy said. “I never know anything. You’d better get used to it.”

But it wasn’t always like this, Boy realized as soon as he said it. He was too out of breath to explain, but Valerian was different. Worse.

Boy was used to his moods, used to getting beaten, used to being ignored—but Valerian had definitely changed. Over the last few months he had become distracted. And now Boy knew why.

Four days to live.

Could that be true?

Why?

Boy wondered if Valerian was deluding himself. How could he know he had only four days to live? Maybe Valerian had gone a little crazy and was convinced by some make-believe of his own invention.

But no. That would not be like Valerian.

Four days . . . That would take him to New Year’s Eve, Boy realized. What could happen that Valerian could be so possessed by?

And what, then, would happen to Boy?

It was still the first hour of December 28. Valerian turned to wait. “Childermass,” he said quietly, when they reached him.

“Sorry?” Boy said.

Valerian glowered at them both.

“Childermass.” Valerian began to walk. He called over his shoulder without looking back, “Today is Childermass. The unluckiest day of the year.”

Boy looked at Willow, who opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

They trotted after Valerian, who was twenty long paces away already.

“Where do you think we’re going?” Willow asked. Boy began to scratch his nose.

“Valerian!” she called.

Boy looked at her in alarm, for she still did not understand how to wait until Valerian spoke to you.

“Where are we going?”

He did not turn round.

“Valerian!” she called, louder. “Where are—”

And now Valerian loomed over them in the deserted street. His eyes burnt through the darkness at Willow, and she began to shake. It was as if she was standing naked in a snowstorm—she felt cold and small and fragile. Valerian held her gaze until she finally pulled her eyes away and stared at the ground.

“Be quiet, Girl,” he snarled, “or I’ll leave you to rot here.”

He turned and strode off again.

“I told you,” said Boy. “I told you. Don’t upset him.”

He looked at Willow, then saw Valerian about to disappear down yet another shabby alleyway. He looked back at Willow. Her face was drawn and pale.

Boy put his hand on her shoulder.

“Come on.”

“How does he do that?” she asked.

Valerian had vanished around the corner.

Boy tugged at her arm. “We’re better off with him.”

Willow still didn’t move.

“I know,” he said. “I know what it’s like. But really, it’s best if we keep going. Stay with him.”

Willow nodded slowly.

“Where’s he gone now?” he moaned. “Come on, Willow. Please?”

At last she began to walk. Boy pulled her sleeve to hurry her, but he knew that Valerian would be getting further ahead with every stride.

Valerian had gone down a small alley on the left, but now they were closer, Boy could see there were three of them leading off into even deeper darknesses, and he had no idea which one his master had taken. He scratched his nose.

The thought of being alone in the City at night worried him. It brought back memories of things he had half forgotten, of all the years he had lived alone on the streets.

Boy hesitated, and the longer he hesitated, the further away Valerian would be getting.

Grabbing Willow by the hand, he ran down the nearest alleyway, his boots plucking at the mud and filth underfoot.

“Valerian,” he called, but quietly. “Valerian?”

It was so dark in the passage that he could barely see.

“Where is he?” Willow asked, still sounding shaken.

Boy kept running.

Suddenly they came out into a torchlit square. It was vast and empty. Beautiful old buildings leant inward on all four sides, as if trying to get closer to each other across the cobbles that lay between them. Boy took in the square. Compared to the darkness of the alley, the light from the torches was amazingly bright.

There!

There was Valerian, unmistakeable, about to disappear down a street that led off the far corner of the square.

Boy and Willow raced across the open space, feeling vulnerable and watched as they went. The City was quiet, and there still seemed to be no one else around. The sound of their boots on the cobbles of the square rang out like pistol shots.

They made it across and turned into the street. Boy noticed its name: the Deadway. Another bad omen.

Valerian was waiting.

“You two make more noise than I care to hear,” he said as they arrived, panting heavily, but he waited for them to get their breath back.

“Right,” he said. “Nearly there. Then our work begins.”

The look on his face was deadly serious. There was no anger or intimidation this time, none of his tricks of scaring the hearts out of them.

Just . . . , thought Boy, just . . . fear?

Could Valerian be scared? It seemed unlikely.

Valerian set off.

Boy looked at Willow.

“Are you all right now?” he asked as they followed.

She nodded, forcing a smile.

“I know,” Boy whispered. “He’s . . . difficult. But better the devil you know.”

Though Boy said this quietly, Valerian had heard.

“What did you say, Boy?” he asked, though not angrily. “A fair quote from you for once. But do not mention his name here.”

They had come to the end of the Deadway, and stopped.

Before them stood a huge pair of ornate bronze gates set into a long, high stone wall. The gates were covered in iron pictures of confusing and frightening design. Human figures, mostly naked, writhed and hung in peculiar postures and agonizing angles from the bars of the gates. Here and there Boy and Willow could see less-than-human figures, but they were not in pain. They grinned demonically and held long sticks or spears, with which they were pricking and piercing the bodies.

“What is this place?” Willow whispered, but Boy had understood.

“Look,” he said.

His voice was deathly. He pointed through the bars of the gates to where, beyond the walls, stretched row after row of cold, gray gravestones.

Above the gates was an arch, upon which were carved some strange words.

“What does that say?” Boy asked Valerian quietly.

“Is your reading still so bad?” Valerian sniped, but merely from habit. There was no life in his voice.

“But it’s strange,” Boy protested.

“It’s Latin,” Valerian said, “and it’s high time you learnt some. Mille habet mors portas quibus exeat vita. Unam inveniam. It means, more or less, ‘Death has a thousand doors to let out life. I shall find one.’ ”

3

It was bitterly cold. Boy and Willow were shivering, but not just from the temperature. Row after row of lifeless stones faded away around them into the darkness of the cemetery. They had crept inside through the massive iron gates, which were not locked. They could just make shapes out from the moonlight that slanted low over the wall of the cemetery. The land sloped slightly from where they stood, so that even in the darkness they could see the stones rising away from them. There were thousands, some small and plain, some big, some carved with complex designs. Some were not mere markers at all but impressive tombs made of huge blocks of stone, surrounded by spiked railings. The railings were designed to keep people out, though Boy thought how strange they looked, like cages, as if they were actually meant to keep people in.

“What are we doing here?” Willow whispered.

Boy shook his head.

“I don’t know. He’s just got a habit of finding unpleasant places to be.”

“Boy,” said Willow, “if you don’t ask him, I will.”

Boy looked at her, wondering if she’d learnt nothing from her recent experience of Valerian’s moods.

Valerian stood a few paces away, trying to get his bearings in the endless death-field.

“I mean it,” Willow said.

“All right!” he said. “All right.”

Boy approached slowly. Gingerly he tugged at the tall man’s sleeve.

“Valerian,” he said.

“Ah! Boy!” Valerian said. “Good. Now, take these.”

He pulled two candles from his pocket and couple of large matches.

“There’s not too much wind—we won’t need lamps. I can almost smell it now! This must be the one.”

“Valerian.” Boy was firmer this time.

Valerian looked down at him distractedly.

“Yes, Boy, what is it?”

“What are we doing here?”

A shadow swept across Valerian’s face, a flicker of rage.

“I don’t have time to debate it, Boy! Don’t you understand? Time is running out. Today is the twenty-eighth. Don’t you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand,” shouted Boy, “because you never tell me anything!”

Valerian clapped his hand across Boy’s mouth and held it there.

Willow ran over, then stopped, seeing that Boy was not actually being harmed.

“How many times do I—” Valerian hissed. Willow stared at him. She saw the anger slip from his face.

“No,” he said quietly, and took his hand from Boy’s mouth. Willow stepped to Boy’s side and held his arm.

“No,” said Valerian again. “You are right, Boy. I should tell you.”

Boy looked at him intently, waiting.

“I will tell you, but not now. No time now. First we must find it.”

“But what?” asked Boy.

“The grave. The grave of Gad Beebe. Isn’t that obvious?”

No, it isn’t, Boy thought, but he nodded. He smiled.

“That was what the music box told us?” asked Willow. “To come here?”

“Yes,” said Valerian. “Well, no, not exactly. I was looking for a grave, and now I have a name. We are looking for the grave of Gad Beebe, and this is the biggest cemetery in the City. We have to start somewhere!”

“And what then? When we find it? Why is it so important?”

“Later. We’re running out of time. We’ll find the grave first and then—Damn!”

“What?” asked Boy.

“A spade. I forgot to bring a spade.”

Valerian stamped his foot and swore at the sky.

“Why do we need a spade?” asked Willow, but she and Boy had a terrible feeling they knew why.

“To dig up his grave, of course. Never mind, there must be a sexton’s hut here somewhere. The first thing is to find it. Now, let’s get these candles alight. . . .”

A succession of thoughts swept through Boy’s mind, all of them ghastly. The news that was rife in the City about the Phantom and grave-robbers sprang to his mind. He looked at Valerian. Was it possible that he was the one who had been breaking into people’s graves? Could Valerian be capable of such a thing?

Of course he could.

“No,” Boy said, “I won’t do it!”

Willow looked at Boy, surprised. Valerian too.

“What now?” he asked. “Can’t you see we must get on?”

“You can get on without me,” said Boy. “I won’t do it. I’ve done a lot of terrible things for you, but I won’t do this.”

“Do what?” asked Valerian, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

“I won’t steal people’s bodies. People’s . . . dead bodies.”

Valerian gave a short bark of a laugh. Then he shot a glance around him, and was silent.

“But, Boy”—he smiled—“we’re not looking for a body! We’re looking for a book.”

4

“Right. To save time, we’ll split up. Here, take a candle, each of you. Now, Boy, you go along this wall and work inward, row by row. Work systematically and do not miss one out. Not one. You, Girl—”

“My name’s Willow,” she said, then remembered that terrible look he had given her, “sir.”

But Valerian was too busy thinking to care.

“Willow, go along the other wall. Do the same as Boy. Do not miss one out. I will go up this central avenue and work outward. It’s nearly the third hour after midnight. Meet back here in an hour. And remember—Gad Beebe. Inside his grave we will find the book, and then . . .”

His voice tailed off. He pulled a third candle from his pocket, and as much to amuse himself as to impress Boy and Willow, he pulled it out already alight.

“Can you teach me to do that?” asked Willow, but Valerian did not bother to reply.

Valerian went up the stony path that led into the dark heart of the cemetery, his small candle flickering in his hand, casting weak but unnerving shadows on the stones around him.

Boy and Willow looked at each other, then looked down the separate routes they were supposed to take, leading off into the pitch-black night.

“Book?” asked Willow. “What’s so important about a book?”

Boy shrugged. “He’s always going on about books, how important they are and why I have to learn to read better.”

“Maybe, but that’s not enough of a reason to dig them up from graves, is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but then I never do. I just do what Valerian tells me. Life’s easier that way.”

Willow looked at him sadly; then she glanced down the rows of elaborate, ornamented graves, and shivered.

“Supposing,” said Boy, “we do half an hour my way and then half an hour your way? That would be about the same thing, wouldn’t it?”

No, thought Willow, it wouldn’t.

“Near enough,” she said, trying to sound bright. “Anyway, if one of us holds the candles and the other does the reading, we’ll be faster.”

“Yes,” said Boy. “Especially if you do the reading,” he added, shuffling slightly where he stood.

Willow smiled.

“Which way first?” she said.

Boy looked at the options.

“This way,” he said.

“Why?”

“No idea. Willow?”

“What?”

“How will we know when an hour has passed?”

“It’s about as long as one of Madame’s performances and one of Valerian’s put together, but you know how time moves differently when you’re doing . . . difficult things.”

“Yes,” agreed Boy.

He had a feeling this was going to be a very long hour.

Elsewhere in the cemetery, Valerian was thinking about time too. In his eyes, time was speeding up, every day, every hour. It seemed to him that every second lasted half as long as the one before, as if time was accelerating toward the end of the year. The end of the year, and the end . . .

He pushed the thought from his mind as he bent down to peer at the seventy-third gravestone he had looked at.

Trying to stay calm, he noted the name. Gad Beebe? No.

Gad Beebe? What kind of name was that? An important one. For Valerian it was a very important one.

What was today?

The twenty-eighth. Just three days left after today. Three days to find an answer, and so much depended on Kepler. Once, many years ago, he had trusted him completely, but things had changed. But he had always respected his learning, and now—now he needed all the help he could get.

Seventy-fourth. No.

Kepler. The camera obscura worked like a dream. It had cost everything Valerian had earnt from the theater for the last year, but it was worth it. Kepler had laughed at him when he’d first asked him to make it. “What is the use?” Kepler had scoffed. “It will be of no use to you, at the end. It will not save you to see Fate approaching!”

Seventy-fifth. No.

But then, when Valerian had persisted, he had changed his mind. “Very well,” he had said. “Very well, I will waste your money. It will be expensive. I only make the best pieces of optical equipment.”

Seventy-sixth. No.

And so they had agreed, and Valerian had slogged away at that stupid act for another year until the camera was built. Kepler had called him delusional. Delusional? He’d be delusional himself, thought Valerian, if his time was running out. If something was coming for him he’d damn well be delusional too!

Seventy-seventh. No.

Valerian straightened and moved on to the next stone, beginning to doubt he was going about this the right way. He knew there had to be a better answer. But just as an idea came into his head, his attention was caught by something up ahead.

A light.

There was a weak light flickering in the darkness ahead of him.

“That boy can’t get anything right!” he cursed under his breath. “I told him to stick to the wall.”

Valerian plucked another candle from his pocket and lit it from the one he was holding. No tricks this time. Pushing the candle into the earth of number seventy-eight to mark his place, he strode off to see what his boy was up to.

As he approached the source of the light, his eyes widened with surprise.

“Well! Hello, Valerian,” said a high, cracked voice.

Valerian turned to run, but a blow to the back of his head had him out cold before he even hit the ground.

5

“What?” whispered Boy.

“What?” replied Willow.

“What did you say?” Boy asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” she said.

They were hunched over a grave. Yet another grave. They had been searching stone after stone, until the carved names had become a blur. Nowhere had there been a trace of anyone with a name even vaguely resembling that of Gad Beebe.

“What was that noise?”

“You’re imagining things,” said Willow, as much to convince herself as anything.

“Isn’t that an hour yet?” asked Boy.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it must be. Come on, let’s go back.”

“You are sure it’s an hour?” Boy asked. “I mean, we don’t want to—”

At that moment there was another noise, the click of metal on metal.

They froze.

“The candles!” Willow warned.

Boy blew the candles out. Utter blackness surrounded them. After a few moments they began to see a little as their eyes widened to catch as much light as possible. In the vague, gray shadow world, they suddenly both saw the same thing—a flicker of yellow light away to their left, in the heart of the cemetery.

“It must be Valerian,” said Willow.

“Why?”

“Well, who else would be out here?”

Boy didn’t want to even think about the answer to that question.

“Yes,” he said, “Come on. We may as well meet him there.”

They set off in the darkness and immediately Boy walked into a gravestone. The moonlight had vanished behind a bank of cloud, and with no light to guide them the gray stones were as good as invisible. He picked himself up, silently cursing Valerian.

“Boy!” whispered Willow. “Here’s the path. Come on. When you get your feet on it you can follow the stones.”

She was right. By the feel and the sound of the grit underfoot they made their way more quickly toward the light. Boy found that by looking straight ahead rather than at his feet, he could see the faint gray ghost of the path better.

As they got near, something started to worry Boy. “Willow?” he said quietly.

She ignored him.

“Willow?” He stopped in his tracks.

She turned.

“What is it now? I just want to go home.”

“I don’t think that’s Valerian.”

“Don’t be difficult,” she said. “Who else could it be?”

Her voice tailed off as she realized the implication of her words.

“And,” said Boy, “Valerian went that way.”

Willow couldn’t see the arm he waved in the darkness, but she understood.

For a long time they paused, uncertain what to do. The light was no more than a hundred feet away now and they could hear vague sounds coming to them across the stones.

“What if it is him?” Boy said.

“We’ll have to go and see,” Willow said.

Boy pulled a face in the darkness.

“All right,” he said, “but let’s be careful. Please.”

Getting down on their hands and knees, they crawled the rest of the way between them and the light, leaving the path and cutting across the rows.

Boy could feel the damp of the scraggy grass begin to soak through to his knees. His hands pushed into patches of mud, cold but not yet frozen, as it soon would be once the winter hardened.

After a few minutes he could no longer feel his fingers; a little further and his hands had gone numb.

Still they pressed on, and as they neared the light and sound they saw they were right to have been cautious. It was obvious even from a distance that they were not the only ones working in the cemetery that night.

They came to a large tomb, and decided to hide behind it. Peeping around the side of the grave, they had a clear view of an unholy scene.

Three men were hard at work in a grave. A small glass lantern propped against a gravestone illuminated the scene. The shadows it cast were long and grim. Around them lay various tools, and beside them a mound of earth spoil was piled onto a large sheet of canvas. There was a spare shovel and an iron bar with a hooked end. And there was a large canvas bag with a lump inside it—a large, disturbing lump.

“Grave-robbers!” whispered Willow in alarm.

Boy nodded.

There was no sign of Valerian.

“Come on,” said Boy.

Willow ignored him, trying to work out what was wrong with the scene.

The figures in front of them were shoveling earth back into the grave. It was obvious what was in the large sack next to them on the grass.

“Wait,” said Willow. “They’re going. Let’s wait.”

“Let’s just find Valerian and get out of here.”

“In a minute. Look, they’re going.”

It was true. The men worked fast and as soon as they had finished it took them no more than a second or two to gather their things, including the hideous bag, and leave. They swung away into the night, straight down the center path of the cemetery, as bold as could be.

“He never could keep his nose out,” said one. Boy and Willow started at the sound of his voice. It was high and wavered like that of a dying man.

Boy thought he heard another of them laugh.

Willow meanwhile was scampering over to the grave.

Horrified, Boy hesitated by the tomb, unsure if it was more dangerous to follow or to stay where he was. A glance behind at the yawning rows of death in the darkness convinced him to move.

He caught up with Willow where she crouched on the grass by the grave.

“Willow,” pleaded Boy, “come on. Please. Let’s just—”

“Look,” she said. “You would hardly notice they’d been here. A bit of loose soil, but then if it was a new one it would look like that anyway.”

She nodded at the fresh grave.

“Boy,” she said, “what was wrong with what you just saw?”

Boy frowned at her, but it was wasted in the darkness.

“Apart from the fact they just stole somebody?” he asked, sarcastically.

“Exactly!” she said. “They stole somebody. Well?”

Boy shook his head and looked around, expecting the grave-robbers to return at any moment. He noticed a sickly light in the sky. It was still a fair time until dawn, but they could at least see more easily now.

“Look,” Willow said, “I’m not an expert on the ways of resurrection men, but why would they fill the grave back up once they’d taken the . . . you know?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “All right, so it’s strange, but could we find Valerian and discuss it at home?”

“Surely they’d just run—unless they needed to cover their tracks.”

“Or cover something up,” said Boy, despite himself.

“Or some . . . No, that’s too horrible.”

They were silent as they stared at the freshly turned soil at their feet. The daylight was coming stronger now, casting weak light across the vast sprawling area of decay around them.

“Did you hear . . . !” asked Willow.

Boy nodded, clenching his mouth tight shut and trying not to scream.

From the grave just by their feet, they could hear a faint ticking sound. It grew louder, became a knocking, regular, strong. Then stopped.

Boy and Willow clutched each other. The noise started again.

Then they understood, and both fell scratching and scrabbling madly at the loose pile of cold earth in front of them. Their hands were still numb and sore from their crawl across the cemetery.

They dug with clawlike hands until they were paws of mud, scraping up fist after fist of grave-earth, until finally, gasping and straining, they reached the lid of the box.

It was broken. Of course it was broken, for it had already been broached earlier that night to release its horrible but valuable contents.

Were it not for this, they would not have saved him. In the time it would have taken them to find a pick or a chisel and smash their way clumsily into the coffin, he would have been dead.

As it was, it was a near thing. Their failing hands barely managed to prize the broken portion of coffin lid out of the ground to reveal the choking, injured and terrified figure lying there.

Without a word, Boy and Willow fought the remaining soil to give up its prize. Boy began to pull at one of his arms, but as he did so a howl of pain ripped through the air. They put all their weight into pulling him up by his shoulders and then, at last, it was done.

Valerian lay coughing and spluttering on the mess of grass and earth beside the grave, half dead, his right arm hanging at a disgusting angle.

Next to him Boy and Willow crouched on all fours, panting like dogs, trying to breathe.

6

The journey back to the Yellow House was difficult and slow. Dawn had broken blue and bright before they were halfway back.

Boy was used to running and trotting after Valerian as he strode around the City, but now Boy and Willow had to lead him cautiously back through the twisting streets. He stopped frequently, the pain from his broken arm coming in surges, overwhelming him. They had tied the end of his right sleeve to the collar of his coat in an attempt to fashion a sling to stop him from doing his arm more damage, but it was far from perfect. Willow had nearly been sick as they had moved Valerian’s arm back into something like the right position, and he had screamed with pain more than once.

Boy’s mind raced. Who had done this to Valerian? Someone had buried him alive—the man with the cracked voice and the others. Was it just because he had disturbed them at their grave-robbing? Nothing made sense.

Boy feared for the future. Valerian was difficult, unpleasant, violent and sour, but at least he kept Boy safe, more or less. Now here Boy was leading him back home.

“Nearly there, are we, Boy?” he would ask. “Nearly there?”

Boy shuddered. They were nowhere near home yet. Why didn’t Valerian know that?

But at last they were leaning Valerian against the posts of the outer doors of the Yellow House.

“Pocket,” mumbled Valerian, unable to say any more.

Boy fumbled in Valerian’s right-hand pocket until he found his big bunch of heavy keys.

It took Boy a while to find the right one—a sudden clumsiness overtook him as he listened to Willow trying to soothe Valerian.

“Just a minute more, Valerian,” she was saying, “and we’ll get you into bed. You need to rest.”

Finally Boy turned the tumblers of the lock and they half dragged Valerian inside.

It seemed to take the last of Valerian’s strength to get upstairs to the first floor, where his bedroom was. Even then Boy and Willow had to do their best to lift him up each of the ancient wooden stairs and then along the corridor.

They sat him on the bed and pulled his boots off. When they stood up, the huge man had passed out on the covers. They could not move him any more.

“What about this?” asked Willow, holding up a blanket she had found in a box at the foot of the bed.

Boy nodded.

They covered him up with the deep-red quilted blanket and stood back.

“What are we going to do?” asked Willow quietly.

Boy said nothing.

“A doctor,” Willow went on. “We must fetch a doctor.”

Boy hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said. “He hates anyone coming here. He hates doctors. He hates interference.”

“But he’s in trouble. And we can’t do anything.”

“There’s only Kepler. I don’t even know if he’s a real doctor, but—”

“You must go and get him,” said Willow firmly. “You must get him to come and mend Valerian’s arm.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Willow, it’s early still and I haven’t had any sleep. I can’t go now. Look at me! Look at us.”

They were still covered in grime and mud from the cemetery.

“Please, Willow,” said Boy, “I’m so tired. . . .”

At the mention of this word, Willow felt her energy slip away.

“Well, he’s safe enough for now, I suppose,” she said, looking down where Valerian lay sprawled across the bed.

She went and sat by him, and then put out a hand to gently touch his forehead. He didn’t react, but he was breathing.

“I’ll go,” said Boy, sitting down on the bed too. “Just let me have a little sleep first.”

He looked at his master and felt a rush of panic clear his tiredness for a moment.

“Valerian? Valerian?” he whispered, but there was no response.

Glancing away, he saw that Willow had dropped off to sleep beside him.

Boy put his head on the covers next to hers and they slept a deep, but troubled, sleep.

7

Boy woke screaming, waving his arms out in front of him, pushing at a coffin lid he thought was closing him away from the light forever.

With his hands still covered in the soil from the grave it was all too easy to dream that it was he and not Valerian who had nearly been buried alive. What a way to kill someone, Boy thought.

He gazed around.

Valerian’s room. He remembered bits of the night before. He felt like crying, but tears would not come.

Willow lay snoring softly, tucked in against Valerian’s side like a kitten with its mother.

Valerian had not moved from where he lay on his back, more unconscious than asleep, Boy guessed.

And then Valerian spoke.

“Coming!” he said. “It’s coming . . .”

Boy jerked upright and stared at Valerian. He’d never heard anyone talk in their sleep before.

“It’s coming!” Valerian mumbled again, barely opening his mouth. “Time! What’s the time? Boy, where are you?”

“Here! Valerian, I’m here!”

But Valerian was not listening, only talking.

“Time . . . running out now . . . when? What’s the day, today . . . Boy . . . time . . . it’s coming.”

“What’s coming? What’s the matter?”

“Time is coming. The time is coming,” said Valerian.

“What’s happening to you?” Boy persisted, desperate now.

“Must . . . the book! Oh please . . . the book . . . the Eve of the Year . . .”

The book again! Boy knelt over Valerian, trying to catch every word, but as he did so a knocking at the front door made him jump. No one ever came to the house— no one unexpected. No one called to see Valerian without having been summoned by Boy. Even then Boy could only remember Kepler visiting.

For a moment he thought he might have imagined the sound, but it came again, louder this time. Someone was definitely there.

“Open up!” came a shout from the street.

Boy left the bedroom and ran lightly down the corridor to a small leaded window that looked over the front of the house and down onto the street.

He could just see a red feather.

His heart began to race.

The knocking on the door resumed, louder than ever.

He ran on tiptoe back to the bedroom and found Willow awake and blinking in the strong light of late morning. “What’s that noise?”

“Watchmen outside!” hissed Boy, his eyes wide.

She nodded.

“Go and hide in my room,” said Boy. “I’ll get rid of them.”

“How? Don’t be stupid! We must run!”

“We can’t!” Boy said, pointing at Valerian.

“We’ll just have to wait until they’ve gone away.”

“If they go away,” said Boy.

They cowered on the bed and listened to the knocking on the door getting louder and louder, just as their hearts were thumping harder and harder in their chests.

“Open up! We demand you open up!”

“They know we’re here,” whispered Willow.

“Maybe,” Boy whispered back, “maybe not. Just don’t move.”

“Open up! Persons in this house are wanted on suspicion of murder!”

Boy put out his hand to stop Willow from speaking.

“I don’t think they know that we’re here. Just wait.”

The banging on the door went on for another few minutes, and then stopped.

Willow made to get up from the bed, but Boy mouthed, “Wait.”

Sure enough, a moment later there was another banging on the door. They waited for it to stop, and then Boy made Willow sit still for nearly five more minutes before he got up and crept to the window.

“They’ve gone, I think,” he said. “We’ve got to leave before they come back.”

“But supposing they’ve left someone watching the house?” Willow cried.

“What is all this noise!”

Boy and Willow turned to find Valerian standing by the bed.

He looked like death. His clothes were covered in grave-soil, his hair stuck up at crazy angles and his right arm hung limply by his side, having loosed itself from the makeshift sling.

“Valerian!” cried Boy.

“Boy, be quiet! I can’t stand you shouting and wailing all the time! I want quiet!”

Valerian swung his good arm in front of him wildly. He fumbled in his inside pocket and pulled something out, which he raised to his lips. He tipped his head back and drank, then threw the object to the floor.

It was a small glass bottle. Valerian wiped the back of his left hand across his lips. “For the pain. One of Kepler’s more useful concoctions.”

“But your arm!” Boy said.

“Is broken. Yes,” said Valerian. “But there are more important things to deal with.”

“Who was that,” Boy asked, “in the cemetery? Who did that to you?”

Valerian ignored him. “We have much to do, and time is running short.”

“I don’t believe you!” shouted Willow. “You have us crawling around that death-field all night, hunting for some stupid book. You’re practically buried alive and we dig you out with our bare hands and drag you home! And you won’t even tell us what it’s about! I hate you!”

Boy turned in horror and shook her by the arm.

“She doesn’t mean it, Valerian,” he said. “She’s just tired and we don’t need to—”

But Valerian held up his good hand.

“No,” he said, “the girl is right. It is time to tell you, but we must act fast. I was a fool last night. I thought once I had the name it would be a simple thing to find the grave where the book . . . and then . . . And then I was a fool to risk the cemetery. Those were old aquaintances of mine. I owe them money—quite a lot of money for some things they obtained for me once upon a time. Never mind that now. They seemed to think that putting me in the earth was an appropriate way of settling our differences.”

“But—”

“Listen. I am alive. I want to stay that way. And on the eve of New Year’s I will face something much worse than a few grubby resurrection men, unless I can find a way out. I need your help,” said Valerian, and then, looking at his broken arm, “more than ever now.”

8

“What’s her name?” Valerian asked Boy.

“Her name is Willow,” she said crossly.

“Willow,” said Valerian. “Willow, would you go to the Tower and get as many of those as you can find?”

He pointed with his foot at the empty bottle on the wooden floor.

“They’re in a cupboard by the narrow window. Boy, where are my keys? Quickly!”

Boy found the keys on the floor.

“Here,” said Valerian, giving Willow the key to the Tower.

Boy stared. Valerian was actually giving one of his keys to someone else. To a girl he barely knew!

Willow ran off to the Tower.

“Now, Boy, I need you to do something for me. I wasted time by hunting round the cemetery at random. Why?”

“Because it was too big,” ventured Boy, “and too dark?”

“Partly,” said Valerian, “but something else too. Do you suppose that’s the only cemetery in the City?”

“You don’t even know which cemetery he’s buried in? Beebe?”

“Exactly. We were in the largest one, but there are others. And what else?”

Boy thought hard. “Church graveyards!”

“Good!” cried Valerian. “And have you any idea how many churches and how many churchyards there are in the City?”

“A dozen?”

“A hundred and seven. And how long is it going to take us to look through them all?”

“A very long time?”

“No,” said Valerian, “it’s not going to take us any time at all, because we’re not going to look. We’re going to find out exactly where Gad Beebe is buried first. I need you to visit someone—the Master of City Burials. I should have done this before, only . . . he’s an awkward man.”

“Is he a friend of yours?” asked Boy.

Valerian frowned.

“I know him. At least I used to, in my days at the Academy. He is the only source of cadavers for dissection in the City. Well, the only official source.”

Valerian saw the question on Boy’s lips.

“Work it out, Boy! Would it be clearer if I said ‘bodies to cut up’? To study the nature of the human organism. So I had a few dealings with him until I . . . left . . . academia. There’s a building in the Reach that’s his official residence. Go there and tell him Valerian sent you. Tell him I need to know the whereabouts of a grave.”

Boy knew the Reach. It was a rich part of town. Before Valerian had found him, he had often spent summer days there, begging and, when no one was being generous, picking pockets.

“You must go there and get the location of Beebe’s grave. All burials that occur in the City are recorded there. All official ones, that is.”

Valerian brushed at the dirt on his coat.

“What will you do?” Boy asked.

A look of irritation crossed Valerian’s face, but it passed.

“The girl—Willow and I will go to Kepler. I need him to mend my arm, and I need someone to help me. I also need someone to go to the Master of Burials, and that will be you. You know the way there and Willow does not. Meet us back here this evening. Only enter the house after dark, light no lights and answer the door to no one. The place is safe enough.”

“How will I get in if I get back first?”

Boy thought about the shock he’d had the time he’d tried to pick the lock.

Valerian smiled.

“It’s time you had your own key.”

He pulled a key from the bunch and handed it to Boy.

“The only spare. Don’t lose it. Now, back here after dark with the name of the cemetery. Understand?”

Boy nodded, as usual.

“Then go! And do not fail!”

Boy turned to go.

“Valerian?”

“What is it?”

“You said he was awkward, the Master of Burials. What do you mean?”

“Cantankerous. Prone to strange moods. And difficult to work with too. When I last knew him he had become involved in some studies of his own. I never found out what. It made it impossible to get what we needed from him anymore, and we had to use . . . alternative sources. That’s all.”

Boy fingered his key.

“You have nothing to fear! Go!” Valerian said, and pushed him toward the door.

Boy fled from the house, clutching his key, without even telling Willow where he was going. And this time Valerian would not be there to get him out of trouble.

9

It was long past noon. Boy trotted along the streets, out of habit keeping to the shadows and smaller alleys. He had never liked being on his own, and with the thought of those featherbrained, feather-hatted Watchmen on the lookout for him too, he felt more timid than usual.

It was December 28. The sky was clear and ice-blue. Columns of gray smoke twisted feebly upward from chimneys and other funnels on the rooftops. It was cold, if anything colder than it had yet been all winter, but there was still no sign of the snow that Willow had sensed.

It was a busy day, with people getting about their business in the street and behind doors.

Boy had not even had time to clean his hands, and as he made his way along the streets he picked at the soil stuck to his fingers. It gave him the creeps.

He had entered a dreamworld. Two days ago everything had been normal, or as normal as life ever was with Valerian.

Now everything had changed. Although Boy knew that things had started to change for Valerian months ago, it seemed to be coming to a head now, in these last days of the year.

The festivities and celebrations were over, for the time being, until another burst of frenetic fun at New Year’s. The City had been a riot of noise and rare winter color up to the twenty-fifth. Even the poorest people somehow saved and hoarded all the little luxuries they could for the midwinter feast: some rare dried fruit, some decent wine or strong beer was all it took to warm their hearts for a few days, reminding them that winter could not last forever, that spring would return eventually, bursting green and golden. For those very few of the City who were rich, it was a time of greater indulgence and lavish gifts, but the purpose of the festivities was just the same, creating a candle-bright haven in the depths of winter.

Now, in the few days before the New Year arrived, there was a lull. It was an unusual time, Boy thought, and he knew he had always felt this. Even in the days before Valerian, when he had lived on his own like a mouse in the hidden nooks and crannies of the City, he had always felt these few days before the New Year to be different from the rest. This was a strange and quiet interlude, somehow outside the rest of the year, outside time itself. It was as if the rest of the year was alive, but these days were dead.

Boy was not surprised that if he had entered a dreamworld, it had happened during the dead days.

He had had barely any sleep—perhaps that was adding to his sense of the unreal. But it was true that he had been in a prison cell, under suspicion of involvement in Korp’s murder. Korp had been spread all over the box where Boy had spent whatever free time he could. And then, when Willow and Boy had been incarcerated in the Watchmen’s Citadel, Valerian had effected a daring escape. They had spent a night crawling around a cemetery looking not for a body, but for a book. Surely a library was the place to look for a book? And he and Willow had then pulled his master half alive from a freshly robbed grave.

This was not normal, even for life with Valerian. And his master had told them there was worse to come. Nothing Boy knew, or had ever known about Valerian made him doubt it.

Boy trotted through the City, grim resolution on his face.

10

“Where did you find him?” asked Willow.

“Do you always ask so many questions?” Valerian snapped.

“Only when I want to know something. So where did you find him?”

Valerian and Willow were slowly making their way to see Kepler. Willow kept forgetting the reason for their visit, kept forgetting that Valerian’s arm was broken. The drug—whatever it was he had taken in the house—was doing a remarkable job of shielding him from the pain. Willow had retied his arm in something much more like a proper sling, and tucked the loose sleeve of his long dark coat into its pocket.

“You wouldn’t even know there was anything wrong,” she had said, “unless you looked hard.”

“I can tell you there’s something wrong,” Valerian had answered, and took a small swig from one of the bottles Willow had found in the cupboard.

“Well?” Willow pressed, but gently. “Where did you find Boy?”

Valerian looked down sideways at her, narrowing his eyes, but he was too sleepy from the drug to be really annoyed. He began to talk.

“Boy fell from the sky,” he said, “sort of. I was in a church—not something I make a habit of, but it was raining hard and it was somewhere dry, if not warm. And he was in one of his hiding places. I think he had lots of them. He’s good at getting into small spaces—that’s why I thought he’d be good for the act. Anyway, I was talking to . . . well, Korp, as it happens. Our dear departed Director. We had arranged to meet to discuss the act. And the next moment Boy fell on top of me, more or less. Here, we need to take that street over there.”

He nodded and Willow steered them on their way.

“That can’t be all,” she said. “Why does he live with you? What did he do before?”

“He lived on the streets. He says he can’t remember a time before that. He could speak, though, so he must have grown up with people somewhere or other.”

Willow nodded thoughtfully.

“And I taught him to read, though he is a terribly lazy scholar. . . .”

Did she imagine it, or was there a slight softness in Valerian’s voice?

“It must have been hard for him,” said Willow, trying to get Valerian to tell her more.

“What?”

“Living by himself. In the City. That must have been hard.”

Valerian snorted.

“Maybe so, but he’d do better if he paid me more attention. It doesn’t matter. The point is, he came to live with me. I had started to work at the theater, being short of money, but although I had created an act, I needed help. I needed someone to be mine—someone who would do exactly what I told them without questioning why. Someone I could trust. Boy’s arrival was like a foretold event. It was meant to be, you see.”

“Not really,” said Willow.

“Well, there I was talking to Korp about my state of health, and the act, and the fact that I was nearly ready but just had to find the right assistant, and then . . . there he was. At my feet. And do you know, in a strange way I knew straight away he was the one. It was as though we had always been together. It works.”

“So why are you so hard on him?”

“I am not hard on him,” said Valerian. “He needs a firm, guiding hand. He is prone to laziness and stupidity.”

Willow thought about defending Boy, but sensed Valerian’s mood. She changed the subject.

“So why did he fall from his hiding place, then?”

“He said it was what I was saying.”

“What was that?”

“As I recall, I was explaining to Korp why I needed— why I had decided to create the act for the theater. I was running short of . . . money. As a result of which, a . . . few problems had left me in a state of some ill health. A doctor was called. The doctor pronounced me either dead or dangerously sick. I understand it was those words that surprised Boy into relinquishing his grip on the stones.”

Willow frowned.

“ ‘Dead or dangerously sick’?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

“Well, I think Boy was as confused as you. This is, however, where I get my mistrust of doctors in general. The man was a charlatan, and nothing he did had the slightest to do with my survival and recovery.”

“And Kepler?” asked Willow, thinking of the doctor they were about to meet.

“Kepler is no ordinary doctor. In fact, Kepler is no ordinary man, and will do the best that can be done for my arm.”

11

A mile or two across the City, Boy was nearing his destination—the wide and relatively clean street known as the Reach. Halfway along it lay the official residence of the Master of City Burials. Like many of the organizations that ran various aspects of City life, that of City Burials was a little strange. Like the others, it operated from the official house of its Master. Each one was a small governance in its own right, with its own set of laws and rules, and those in charge giving orders to those who obeyed, with the Master himself at the top.

Each was housed in a grand building, a reminder of the City’s ancient and proud past. Some were now more than a little worse for wear, according to the prosperity of the Chamber or Society that operated from them.

Of course, all these organizations were ultimately ruled by the Emperor, but in practice no one knew much about this. Emperor Frederick was a strange and remote figure, hidden away in the Palace. Something of a city within the City itself, the Palace occupied a vast area atop a low hill near the banks of the river. It was composed of a huge variety of buildings of various ages and styles clambering over one another for supremacy, and all surrounded by a high, crenellated wall. The title Emperor was something of a joke—a pathetic hangover from the days when the City had been ruled by a leader of awesome power, when there had actually been an empire to rule, of which the City was its magnificent capital. Not anymore. Gone was the Empire, gone was the power and the glory of the City, and all that was left was Frederick, the last of his line, with no offspring to rule after him.

It was more than ten years since anyone outside the Palace had seen Frederick, and only then by accident. Life in the City functioned largely without him.

The building that housed City Burials was splendid and opulent. Death was always good business, and since the Master’s men coordinated all aspects of a person’s life after death, from mortuary services to undertaking to burial and funerary rites, he was very wealthy indeed.

Boy stood on the other side of the Reach in a doorway opposite the ornate building. It stood imposingly, its front doors up a flight of at least a dozen stone steps, each door three times Boy’s height, heavy and solid. On them hung huge polished door knockers shaped like lions’ heads.

There was an inscription in the stone above the doors.

“Latin, I suppose, Valerian,” Boy said to himself, and smiled. Then the smile drifted from his face. Valerian was in trouble. It was more than just a broken arm, and it was up to Boy to find the solution.

He swallowed, looked up and down the street and crossed. He skipped nimbly up the stone steps and, reaching up on tiptoe, swung one of the lions against its base.

The loud metal clunk seemed to echo the length of the street, but as Boy looked around nervously he was relieved to see that no one was paying him any attention. Nor, unfortunately, did anyone inside the building seem to have heard.

He swung the lion harder and waited.

“Side entrance,” said a voice beside him.

Startled, Boy looked to his right and noticed a small hatch set in one of the soaring pillars. Inside the pillar was a little room in which sat a tiny old woman with a wrinkled face and an expression to match.

“Come about a death, have you? Round the side.”

“Yes—no—not exactly.”

The woman was unimpressed.

“Death? Round the side. Side door, see? That’s where you register.”

Boy was puzzled.

“Then what do you do?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, “I tell people about the side door.”

“That’s it?” Boy asked. “That’s all you do?”

“It’s important. Someone’s got to tell people about the side door. For deaths. Important,” she added.

“And I wonder,” he said, “who tells me where to go if I haven’t got a death to register.”

The woman blinked.

“Well,” she said, peering anxiously around before answering, “well, I could, probably, tell you.”

“Oh, good,” said Boy. “So where do I go to speak to the Master of City Burials?”

“Well, then you’d want to knock on the front door there and . . . What?” She spluttered to a stop. “What do you mean? Don’t waste my time!”

“No,” said Boy earnestly. “No, I really need to see him. My master sent me—his name’s Valerian. He said to say he sent me. We have to find out where someone is buried.”

“You can’t see him. You think proles like you just wander in off the street for a chat?”

“But, look,” he said, “the thing is, Valerian, he’s a friend of the Master. And he needs to find out something, about where a grave is—”

“Listen to me,” she said. “No one gets to see him.”

“But I have to see him!” cried Boy.

“No!” snapped the woman. “He’s very busy working on his animals in the Dome. He won’t think about anything else. No one talks to him.”

“What’s he doing with animals? Doesn’t he have lots of work to do for the cemeteries and so on?”

“Well, I don’t know, of course, but he’s been working in the Dome with his animals for years and it must be very important because he is the Master and it must have lots to do with burying people or he wouldn’t be doing it.”

Boy was puzzled, but he nodded.

“What is he doing with them?” he asked. “What are the animals for?”

“Well, nothing much. They’re dead, you see.”

A creeping little curiosity inside Boy told him he was going to have to find out what the Master of City Burials was doing before he went back to Valerian.

12

This was something Boy was good at.

Creeping and climbing around the dark spaces of buildings that no one even knew existed was something he had always done. Even Valerian had to admit that Boy was very good at not being seen.

Standing back in the street he had immediately spotted the dome the woman had spoken of. It was a huge glass roof made of hundreds, probably thousands of individual panes of glass. They arched in a single beautiful sweep from some part of the building out of sight from where Boy stood. He’d spent a long time stalking the area, and now dusk was coming. In the half-light, the Dome shone with the light of a thousand torches—or so it seemed to Boy. It was a glowing, shining, crystalline bubble that gleamed out of the filth of the City like a diamond in a dung heap.

Boy had scouted around the streets that joined the Reach and found a small alley running into the center of the block. There was a narrow but sturdy iron gate across the entrance to the alley, but Boy was over it before he had even wondered what he was doing. If he had stopped to think, he might have noticed that he was actually enjoying himself. This was like home to him. It was familiar ground—running, climbing, hiding in the dark, with a mission to perform for Valerian. It was almost like normal.

He skipped down the alley as lightly as a rat, realizing as he went that the alley was some kind of rubbish heap for all the buildings that ran behind it. Walls rose up high on either side of him, but just as he expected, there were little gates into the back courtyards of each building.

He guessed where the gate for the Burials building would be.

There beyond lay the Dome, and for the first time he could see the stone building that it rose from. In a way he was disappointed that the shining glass roof rested on anything at all—it was so magical it ought to have floated in the air.

He looked to the gate. No way to climb over this one— it was set into the solid stone wall—but he had his bent metal pin out of his pocket and into the lock in a moment.

The gate swung and then he ran, quickly but cautiously, to the base of the Dome.

Some rather elaborate block work made climbing the building as easy as walking up stairs, and soon he was crouching against the glowing glass of the Dome itself.

He looked down at what lay within, and his jaw dropped. He had listened intently to what the old woman in the pillar had said about the Master of Burials and his animals, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw now.

13

Darkness was settling over the winter cityscape as Valerian and Willow got to Kepler’s house. On the way Valerian chatted almost casually to Willow, mostly about Kepler, about how he had been born of noble family but had turned his back on his aristocratic lineage for the pursuit of knowledge. Valerian looked up at the darkening sky. “The end of the twenty-eighth,” said Valerian mournfully. “Three days . . .”

Valerian rang the bell. Kepler’s house was narrow and tall, by no means as large as Valerian’s, but in a far better state of repair. This was a much cozier neighborhood, of terraced houses for the well-to-do if not the rich.

“No light within,” said Valerian, frowning.

“Shall I knock?” asked Willow, but Valerian put out his good hand to stop her.

“He must be out,” said Valerian, but there was no certainty in his voice. “But . . . he goes out no more than I do. Try the bell again.”

Willow stepped forward. “Valerian!” she whispered. “The door is open!”

“Careful, child,” said Valerian. He shoved the door further open with his boot, and they listened hard for a minute. The street behind them was empty and quiet. They took two steps into the hall and then pushed the door shut behind them.

“Kepler?” called Valerian in a stage whisper. “Kepler? Are you there?”

There seemed to be no one in the house.

“I think we can risk a little light.”

Willow started to hunt in her pockets for a match but was puzzled to see Valerian step over to the wall to turn a small metal knob set into the wall itself.

Immediately a dim, flickering light sprang up in a chandelier above their heads.

Willow let out a small shriek.

“Valerian! Your magic is real!” she cried.

“No, Willow, no,” said Valerian. “This is not my magic, but Kepler’s genius. He has greater knowledge than anyone in the world of electrical phenomena. He has installed an automatic system of electrical light in his home. He says one day all houses in the City will have the same. He’s mad, of course, but you have to admire his invention. My simple chemical lights at the theater are child’s toys compared to this.”

Valerian walked into a room leading off the back of the hall and turned another knob, throwing light across what was clearly Kepler’s study.

Willow followed, openmouthed.

“There’s a large array of electrical cells in the cellar,” explained Valerian, but this was lost on Willow. She marveled at the lights on the walls.

“There’s no flame!” she said with disbelief.

“No,” said Valerian, “but please concentrate.”

“Where is he?” asked Willow, dragging her gaze away from the magical lights.

“We must search the house. Something is wrong.”

Valerian winced as he spoke.

“Damn this arm!” he moaned. He rummaged in his deep left-hand pocket and pulled out another of the small bottles. It was at least his third, and pulling the cork with his teeth, he finished it off.

“Disgusting!” He spat, setting the bottle down on Kepler’s desk. “You start at the top and work down, room by room. If you see any more of those,”—he glanced toward the bottle—“bring them with you.”

Willow didn’t move. “Valerian?”

“What is it?”

“Do I have to go upstairs by myself?”

“Yes. You’ll be quicker than me. Don’t tell me you’re getting scared like Boy? Go. I’ll be down here.”

He turned to the desk and began to open drawers and flip through books. She saw him look with interest at a piece of paper covered in writing and diagrams, which he folded roughly with one hand and put in his pocket. Then he went on rummaging.

Willow didn’t understand how that would help find Kepler, and wondered who was really the more scared of what lay upstairs. But she turned and, with her heart in her mouth, set off for the upper floors.

14

Willow thought about using the electrical light system, but it was probably dangerous. Seeing that Valerian was poring intently over papers at Kepler’s desk, she lit the stub of the candle from the cemetery expedition with a match she had found beside the fireplace.

She reached out a shaking hand to the first door she came to. Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob and pushed the door gently, and waited. Nothing. Holding the candle out in front of her she moved slowly into the room. A bedroom. There was no one there, nothing strange.

As she went through room after room and found nothing extraordinary in any of them, she began to calm down. This was just a normal house, the home of an educated man, with normal things in every room. Only the strange electrical switches on the wall showed that it was anything other than totally commonplace. She noted that the bed was made in what she assumed was the main bedroom, with clothes in neat piles on boxes, and everyday things sitting just where they should be.

There was no sign of violence, or robbery, or even untidiness anywhere.

Mystified, she went back to the study to find Valerian.

He was not there.

She swung around as if she was about to be attacked from behind at any moment.

No one there.

“Valerian! Valerian, where are you?”

She noticed a small door standing open in the far wall of the study. It was a secret door; she could see that it was made to look like part of the wooden paneling of the wall when it was shut.

Had it been open when they first came in? She crept across the room, trying not to make a sound.

Valerian, she thought angrily, where are you?

When she reached the small doorway she was not surprised to see a tiny flight of steps that turned immediately and led down, she presumed, to the cellar.

“Valerian!” she called.

Curse you, she thought.

Still holding her lighted candle, she put her foot on the first step and began to descend. Two more steps, and she noticed there was light coming from below, that strange yellow electrical illumination.

She blew out her candle and went down.

She stopped abruptly at the bottom.

Valerian stood with his back to her, perfectly still, staring at the floor.

Around the walls were ranks of clay troughs, piled one on top of the other, so that there was almost no wall space left uncovered. In the top of each Willow could see metal plates, and from these came copper wires, which trailed crazily all around the stuff. There was an awful smell of some chemical. Willow supposed this was the source of the weird lighting.

But Valerian was staring instead at the floor space in the center of the cellar.

He turned and saw Willow. “No?”

“There’s no one,” said Willow, coming forward.

“Look at this.” Valerian nodded at the floor.

It took her a moment to work out what she was looking at.

The floor of the cellar was made of packed earth, rammed as solid as brick. In its dusty surface someone had dug a crazy pattern of trenches, each a few fingers wide and maybe a few deep. They crisscrossed and joined and snaked along and turned corners and struck out at odd angles, seemingly at random.

And they were filled with water. At least, Willow assumed it was water—it was hard to tell in the dim light. Whatever it was, it was liquid, a little murky from the packed soil channels through which it ran. For it was not still; somehow, it was moving.

Willow turned, and Valerian anticipated her question.

“There’s a small device at the far end, pushing it around. It is powered by the cells, just like the lights.”

But that posed another question.

“What . . . is this?” was the best way she could put it.

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I rather fear it means my friend has gone mad.”

Willow saw one more thing.

On the far wall, across the other side of the watery maze, was a blank space, not hidden by electrical paraphernalia.

Some words had been painted hastily on it with a thick brush. Willow recognized them as more Latin. “What does that say?”

“The ramblings of a madman,” said Valerian sadly. “ ‘The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.’ ”

Valerian stood staring at the nonsense on the floor and on the wall in front of them, and would say no more.

Willow sat down and put her head in her hands. She had been carried into something she did not understand. It was easy to be swept along by Valerian when he was strong, but now he was weak and broken. He needed Willow, but she had no strength left. It was she who needed someone to guide her, and her only friend was running about the City miles away, on another crazy errand for his master.

They sat in the gloom of the cellar until finally the clocks in the house began to chime midnight.

As the chimes died away one by one, Willow looked up at Valerian, who shook his head slowly.

“December twenty-eight is done,” he said.