“Now,” said Valerian, “which specimen do you want to live first?”
The Master was nearly beside himself hopping from one foot to the other.
“Now?” he cried. “You can do it now? Just like that?”
“I can,” stated Valerian in a booming voice, “on one condition.”
The Master didn’t even break step.
“Yes! Anything! Anything! Just make my animals live!”
“We require information. On a burial in the City. You will promise us this if-when I make your beasts come alive?”
“Yes,” said the Master, now almost weeping with excitement. “I promise! You have my word!”
“Very well. Show us your latest creation. Is there anything you have recently finished?”
“The dragon! The dragon!” shouted the Master, hopping and pointing frantically.
They lifted the equipment closer to the dragon, so that it was within touching distance.
What if we really do bring it to life? thought Boy. What if we don’t?
Valerian said, “Now! Like I told you.”
Suddenly he winced in pain. He took another swig from his small bottle, and after few seconds lowered his head. He nodded for them to start.
Willow knelt down by the barrel-thing and began to wind the handle. No one spoke. The tension in the room was truly electric. The barrel hissed and crackled and fizzed.
Then Boy, who was holding the glass tube, made a mistake.
Hold it by the glass only, Valerian had warned, but Boy forgot. Losing his grip on the tube and fearful of dropping it, he touched one of its metal ends.
Instantly he shrieked. His hair stuck up in the air and his feet smoked slightly. He dropped the tube.
By a miracle it did not break.
“What is this nonsense?” screamed the Master. “Are you trying to ridicule me?”
Valerian hurried forward.
“No, my friend! No! This is just a demonstration of the immense power we will instill in your creation!”
He picked up the tube and shoved it back in Boy’s hands.
“Get it right, idiot!” whispered Valerian in his ear. “Or I’ll cut you up like one of these brutes!”
Dumbly Boy held the tube again as Willow gaped at him. He felt as if his brain had been fried. His hair still stuck up vertically; he looked like a brush on legs. It felt like-it felt like the time he’d tried to pick the lock on the Yellow House and had been blown backward across the street.
Boy realized that Valerian was using the same power now-something shown to him by Kepler, no doubt.
“Again!” cried Valerian. “Willow. If you please.”
Willow wound again, and this time Boy held the tube only by the glass.
After a minute Valerian cried, “Enough!”
He took the tube from Boy.
“Boy! The wires!” he cried.
Boy undid the wire from the tube, being very careful only to touch its leather sheath, avoiding the metal clips.
Valerian took one last look at the Master and approached the dragon.
“Behold!” he cried, and touched the metal tip of the tube to the legs of the creature.
Immediately they began to twitch and flex.
Next Valerian touched the wings, and they too sprang into life, opening and then relaxing.
“It lives!” cried the Master. “It lives!”
He began to jump up and down, hitting his hands against the side of his head.
“I have done it at last! I am a genius!”
He approached Valerian, arms open wide. Valerian took a step backward and held up his hand. “Your promise.”
The Master smiled.
“Anything you want! Just name it!”
“I need to know where someone is buried.”
“You have a name?” asked the Master, scuttling to the side of the room. There he pulled on a purple rope that hung from the ceiling. A distant bell tinkled and a servant appeared. He looked a little surprised to have been called at all, and even more surprised to see that his master had guests. “Sir?”
“Get this man whatever he asks. You will need the alphabetical register of burials. Now leave me! I have many more animals to bring to life!”
Valerian looked nervously at Boy and Willow, who were studying the dragon.
“Yes,” he said to the Master, “I am sure you have much to do. We will leave you. All you have to do is turn the handle to charge the wand, then touch it to your animals. You may keep the equipment,” he added graciously.
Boy looked at the dragon. It had stopped twitching and now lay lifeless on the marble slab, but the Master had not noticed. He was too busy winding the handle of the charger, talking to himself, trying to decide which of his bizarre beasts he would bring to life next.
Valerian looked at the servant.
“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.