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.
“Do you think it’s strange to risk so much?”
Neither Boy nor Willow answered.
“I was blind. Love had made me blind, and I thought a night-even an hour with her would be enough. And I was arrogant, and certain that in fifteen years I would find a way out of the pact. How clever I was then! How stupid!
“As the years passed I grew older and wiser and doubt began to grow. I had spent all my money, and never again will I summon those powers to help me get more.”
Willow was about to ask Valerian the woman’s name, but Boy spoke first.
“And Kepler’s been helping you find a way out?”