Endymion Spring (35 page)

He wanted to run away, but the book was drawing him closer, pulling him irresistibly into the shadow, its silver pallor extinguished by the suffocating dark.
 
He needed more light.

Then he remembered.

Patting the front of his jacket, he soon found what he was looking for:
 
a cylindrical object tucked into one of his pockets.
 
His torch.
 
He'd forgotten to remove it after his incident in the college library.

He grinned and pulled it out, struggling to hold both the book and the light at the same time.
 
Duck's face was a moon of fear beside him.

He turned back to the hole and watched as the thin beam of light tumbled down the ancient steps.
 
Even now, he could not see the bottom.

"Great, another spiral staircase," he muttered, feeling Duck clinging to his elbow.
 
Her eyes were wet.

With a shiver, he stepped into the shadow.
 
It was like wading into a moonlit pond; the dark came up to his waist, like very cold water.

"Don't," squeaked Duck, her voice small and fragile.
 
"I don't want to go down there.
 
It's not funny anymore."

She hung on to him tightly, pinching his skin.

"Come on," he grumbled.
 
"We have to!"

The book was dragging him down, pulling at him like a weight.
 
He was sinking into darkness.

"It'll be OK," he tried to reassure her.
 
"I'll protect you."

His voice cracked and he fought hard to keep back the fear scratching at his throat.
 
He reached out to support her, but her sweaty hand eluded his.

"No, I don't want to," she said again, backing away.
 
Tears slid down her cheeks.

"Look," he said.
 
"I don't like this any more than you do, but we have no choice.
 
The Last Book is nearby; I can feel it.
 
It
wants
us to find it."

"I'm scared."

"I know, I am too," he confessed, "but I swear I won't let anything happen to you."
 
The darkness was seeping up his legs, chilling him.
 
His teeth were rattling.
 
They had to keep moving.
 
"We'll be OK as long as we stick together."

Duck's bottom lip quivered, but eventually she nodded.
 
She edged closer to the stairwell like a little kid dipping her foot in a pool.
 
She clung to the hood of Blake's jacket, nearly choking him.

Together they stepped into darkness.

24

T
he staircase spiraled steeply down before it gave way to an uneven, earthen floor.
 
A damp mossy smell filled the air.
 
For a moment it seemed to Blake that they had stumbled into a graveyard, a reliquary for dead or forgotten books.
 
Endymion
Spring's bones might be hidden nearby, he thought with a shiver.

Apart from a frail shaft of light falling like a veil from the pages of the open book in his hand, the chamber was thick with shadow.
 
He swept the beam of his torch around the room, chasing away layers of darkness.
 
Ancient pillars supported a low, rounded ceiling from which cobwebs dangled like sticky chandeliers.
 
All around him were open chests, like plundered tombs.
 
Rudimentary shelves lined the walls, but these had cracked and splintered centuries ago.
 
Most of their contents had spilled to the ground.

Everywhere Blake looked there were books:
 
ghostly white volumes in plain wrappers that gradually began to emit a faint silver glow — like the pages in
Endymion
Spring
.
 
Quires of paper filled the chests, while heavy reams, too large to pick up, lay on worn plinths, shrouded in dust.
 
It was more likely a crypt than a library.

Black doorways gaped at intervals, ready to receive them.
 
Blake peered into the deeper, darker rooms, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
 
They were surrounded by a honeycomb of cell-like chambers.

Duck had lifted one of the large folios.
 
"It's blank," she muttered as she let it fall.
 
Instantly, a dusty detonation filled the neighboring rooms and a lisp of paper passed through the air.
 
Endymion
Spring
, the sheets seemed to whisper in an unearthly refrain.

Blake whirled round, startled.
 
His eyes were dark, his pupils dilated.

Shakily, he held out the blank book in front of him and used its lantern-like light to guide him.
 
It was more effective than his torch; it picked up a trail of scintillating paper on the floor.

Duck
followed,
unconsciously leaving fingerprints like bird tracks on the books and shelves she touched.

The rooms were all alike:
 
lined with blank books that seemed to be waiting for someone to fill them with words.
 
The whole library appeared to be watching, waiting for Blake to find the
Last Book
.
 
He felt incredibly small and insignificant in comparison.
 
He shrank against the walls.

As if responding to his growing sense of uneasiness, the book jittered in his hand and fell to the ground.
 
Its comforting light went out.
 
The room was plunged into sudden darkness.

Duck's fingers clawed at him.
 
"Blake!" she screamed, her voice reverberating against the shelves in a shrill shriek.

Frantically, Blake swung his torch around the chamber,
tyring
to locate the blank book.

There it was.
 
A small square of leather lying against the endless reams of fine white paper.
 
He reached down to pick it up.

His heart leaped into his throat.
 
The book opened not to the map he had been following earlier, but to the black partition in the center of the volume.

The ghostly message was still there, but it had changed — ever so slightly.
 
His blood ran cold.

His torchlight trembled over the awful words:

Suddenly, the shadows seemed more menacing, more terrifying, and he began to run.

Blindly, he dashed through the surrounding rooms, no longer following the map in the book, but a path of his own devising.
 
"Come on," he yelled, grabbing Duck's hand.

"What did the book say?" she squealed, struggling to keep up.

He didn't answer, but pulled her after him, rushing headlong into the darkness.
 
He made desperate detours, turning first one way and then another, past rows of silent, watchful, waiting books.
 
His torchlight scrabbled over the walls.

The riddle he had seen a couple of days ago flashed through his mind:

The Sun must look the Shadow in the Eye

Then forfeit the Book lest one Half die...

Its meaning seemed even more sinister down here in the dark depths of the library.

Gradually, there was a change in their surroundings.
 
A luminous chamber shone just ahead of them — a beacon in the distance.
 
Or a trap.
 
Blake didn't have time to think.
 
The blood screeched through his body.
 
He raced towards the light.

A faint tittering noise, like rustling leaves, started up again around him, urging him on, and his pulse quickened.
 
This must be the way.
 
The books were communicating with each other.

He burst into the light-filled room and came to an abrupt halt.
 
There was no other exit.
 
A circle of book-lined walls surrounded him.
 
Only a deep hole in the ground opened at the center of the chamber:
 
the source of all the light.

Shielding his eyes, he tiptoed closer and peered down...

Another library, a whole universe of reading, stretched elastically beneath the floor.
 
Books filled the shimmering space:
 
identical volumes in plain white wrappers fitted onto concentric shelves that spiraled down the edges of the shaft like a helix, connected by long, thin ladders.
 
There appeared to be no end to the number of volumes contained in this bottomless well.

He recoiled from the sight.
 
His head spun.
 
How could he possibly find the
Last Book
among so many?

Endymion
Spring
was quiet in his hand, as though it had reached its destination.
 
What was he to do?

The books flickered around him expectantly.

And then he noticed something.
 
A long way down the narrow chute was a slight shadow, a barely visible seed of darkness in the gleaming wall of light.

"There's something down there," he told Duck.
 
"A black space.
 
I think there's a book missing.
 
I'm going to take a look."

Duck panicked.
 
"No!
 
Don't go!"
 
She gripped him tightly by the back of his knapsack
.
"I can't go without you.
 
I'm scared."

"Come on, I have no choice!"

"Yes, you do!
 
You don't have to do this!
 
We could pretend you never found it.
 
We could turn back."

Blake hesitated,
then
Endymion
Spring
moved in his hand and urged him that little bit closer to the lip of the well.
 
It wanted him to go down into the stack of books.
 
It was guiding him.

Blake glanced again at the small, unassuming volume in his hand.
 
Its faithful glimmer of light gave him renewed confidence.
 
Endymion
Spring
had brought him here for a reason.
 
Jolyon
had told him that many people had searched for the
Last Book
, but failed.
 
This was
his
chance.
 
He felt sure the
Last Book
was nearby — almost within reach.
 
He had never been so close to achieving something amazing in his life before.

"I've got to try," he said aloud, his mind made up.

Pushing Duck aside, he quietly took off his knapsack and jacket and placed them on the paper-strewn ground beside the hole.
 
Then he slipped the blank book between his T-shirt and the waistband of his jeans and slid his torch into his pocket.
 
He could feel the restless flutter of
Endymion
Spring's paper against his skin — an additional heartbeat.

"I'm going to find the
Last Book
," he said.
 
"You can watch me from up here, OK?"

Duck danced uneasily on the spot.

"Just don't go anywhere.
 
Wait until I get back."

She fixed him with her large, fearful eyes, but said nothing.

"Promise!" he barked.

She nodded obediently and backed away from the hole.

Blake took a deep breath.
 
His mind focused on the sliver of shadow far below — and what
it
 
might
contain — he stepped towards the threshold of the well and reached with his toe for the first rung of the ladder.
 
His shoe caught a firm foothold and he swung himself over.

Duck started to moan.

"It's all right," he told her one last time.
 
"I'll be back soon."

Gripping the sides of the ladder, he descended slowly, taking tiny steps, refusing to look down.
 
The rungs were placed close together, nearly tripping him.
 
It was as though they had been constructed in a far-off century:
 
the wood was uneven, knotted with whorls of bark — more like branches than proper footholds.
 
He continued carefully, grasping the vine-bound slats in his tight fists.
 
His entire body was shaking.

Every now and then, he paused to make sure that Duck was all right at the top of the well.
 
His fingers ached; his muscles were tense; and his teeth set in a determined grimace.
 
Endymion
Spring
juddered against his belt, encouraging him downwards.
 
He glanced at the dark space below.
 
It was getting nearer.