The Book of Storms (9 page)

But he couldn't do it one-handed. He had to drop the knife for a moment. He was very old, older than most people ever got, and he hadn't much more strength than even twig-armed Danny.

So Danny leaned hard on the table, pressing it down into Korsakof's stomach. The old man cried out in pain.

“Oh! Do not! Do not crush! Let me up!”

Danny didn't care. An angry flush sprang onto his face. He wanted to push the table again, to pin Abel Korsakof down until he was begging for mercy.

“You tried to kill me!” he gasped. “You'll only do it again if I let you go!”

“No…” moaned Korsakof, “no, I promise … I will not. Please.”

Danny stuck out a foot and dragged the knife toward him, keeping his eyes on the old man in case he tried to grab it on the way.

Once he had the knife safely in his hand, Danny looked at Abel Korsakof's face again. This time he saw the wrinkles and the straggly beard. Korsakof wasn't staring at him anymore. His eyes were half closed.

Danny curled his fingers around the solid handle of the knife. Standing back, he tipped the table up and freed the old man.

“Don't do anything,” Danny said, holding the knife before him. “You can get up, but don't do anything.”

It took Korsakof even longer than before to get up. He had to have a break halfway, when he was on his knees. Seeing him kneeling, wheezing, and trembling, his shuddery old arms shaking as though he'd been working a pneumatic drill, Danny wanted to help him. He'd helped his Gran when she'd fallen over a couple of times. It was a kind thing to do. But there was no way he was going near this old man, not any nearer than he had to.

Korsakof finally made it upright. His feet wouldn't hold him; his bandy legs crept farther and farther apart, and he reached for the chair. The knife handle grew clammy, but Danny didn't relax his grip.

Finally, Abel Korsakof put his face in his hands and pressed his bony fingertips against his skull. He was silent for a long, measured breath, then he dropped his hands down, looking at Danny in an almost normal way for the first time.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I will not try to hurt you again.”

“You couldn't,” said Danny. “I've got this.” He was still holding the knife braced in front of him, ready to slash at the first sign of another attack.

“Yes,” said Abel. “Keep it. But you will not need to use it again. Not on me, for certain.”

“I want the Book of Storms,” said Danny. “Don't move. Tell me where it is and I'll get it.”

“It is not here,” said the old man. “I cannot keep it here. It is not the kind of thing you wish to have around you for very long.”

“Tell me where it is, then.”

Korsakof shook his head. “I cannot betray him,” he said. “He may be terrible in many ways, but he is always honest, and it is his book.”

“What?” said Danny. “What are you talking about? Whose book?”

“Sammael, of course. I take it that is why you want it—you think it has some secret in it that will help you destroy him. He said you had found a way to discover it. There is nothing in the Book of Storms about him, though. I can tell you that for certain.”

Danny's stomach scrunched itself into a knot. Sammael. That was the name the dying sycamore had gasped out, with its warning about being careful, and something about dreams. But surely that couldn't help him find his parents? No—it was just this horrible old man trying to make him scared.

He pushed away the thought, as sharply as he could. “I've got no idea what you're on about,” he said. “I told you, I want the book to help me find my parents. They've disappeared and I want to find them—that's all I want. And then you try to kill me! And I just thought you'd give me biscuits!”

They stared at each other. Abel swallowed and rested a frail hand on one of his worn-out knees.

“Let us start again,” he said. “I did not want to kill you. Sammael told me you were coming and that I had to. And you know what he is like. He has ways.”

“I don't know what he's like,” said Danny. “I don't know anything about his ‘ways.' I've only ever heard his name once before. And that was from a—” He stopped himself quickly, not wanting to say “tree.” Why did
he
have to know things that nobody else would ever believe?

“But … you are looking for your parents, are you not? And you know they are alive, because you know Sammael has done something to them. Is that not right?”

Danny ground his teeth. “No! Stop trying to confuse things! I didn't say anything like that. They went off in a storm. It was nothing to do with Sammael.”

“But of course it was. Sammael can control the storms—you must already know that? He has done something with a storm, taken them away, or some such thing. That is why they cannot get back to you. Quite clearly he was aggravated by what they are trying to do and wanted to deter them somehow.”

From confusing to horribly simple. Danny swallowed hard and couldn't breathe for a few seconds. But he forced himself to speak.

“So … so you think he's …
killed
them?”

Abel Korsakof took a small step backwards. “Of course not! He cannot kill anyone himself. Of course he cannot. He is forbidden to take life with his own hands.”

Danny tried to calm the rising panic in his chest. Sammael couldn't kill them. Then they must be alive. They must be somewhere. “But … but if it's them he was after, then how does he know anything about me?”

The old man shrugged. “But he knows everything about everyone. He is Sammael.”

The way he said this made Danny not want to hear the name Sammael ever again. Just the sound of the word filled him with small pricks of icy pain.

“He must have made a mistake,” he said tightly. “I've never done anything wrong. It was
you
who told my parents about the Book of Storms, at a fete in Hopfield.”

Something stopped in Korsakof's face.

“I did…” he said eventually. “I did. That is right—they told me that their child had died in a storm.”

“Their
daughter
,” Danny found himself saying. “I'm their child as well.”

“Of course, but they merely said that their child had died, and they had taken to studying storms. But they
knew
storms. No ordinary human knows that much about storms, not in the way they did. People may know all sorts of science about the weather, but they don't talk about storms as
beings
, like your parents did. They must have been close to a storm—closer than any normal person could ever get. So I just assumed they must have called on Sammael too. I thought they would know about him, and about the book, and then I realized that they did not, and I stopped talking, and I forgot.…”

Abel Korsakof fixed his eye on Danny. The manic stare crept back. “What does Sammael want from you?” he asked suddenly.

“I keep telling you, I don't know,” said Danny. “Who is he, anyway?”

Korsakof ignored the question. “You must have found something recently. He said it was a thing that had to be done.”

Danny realized that by “a thing” he meant Danny's own murder. How had he escaped it? How had he ended up being the one with the knife in his shaking hand, still living and breathing? He ought to be dead, if someone else wanted to kill him. He'd never been strong enough to win a fight before.

Korsakof surely wouldn't try again. It took the old man so long to move after that fall that Danny would be out the door and back in Hopfield by the time he'd even gotten to his feet for another crack. Unless he was only pretending to be frail. Some of those swipes with the knife had seemed pretty swift and powerful.

But Korsakof was the only person Danny knew who might be able to help. So he pushed the creeping fear aside and said, “I did find something strange this morning. I don't know what it is.”

He pulled the stick from his pocket with the hand that wasn't holding the knife. He didn't want to let the knife go, not quite yet.

The stick seemed more ordinary every time he looked at it.

“What is that?” asked Abel Korsakof.

“I don't really know,” said Danny. “Well, it's a bit of stick, I guess. I picked it up from a tree that got struck by lightning, but it isn't burnt.”

He hesitated, remembering again the words of the sycamore tree.
Be careful.
But you couldn't be so careful, or you never found out the things you didn't know.

“Why do you think it is strange?” asked Korsakof, although he could tell it was strange just by looking at it. From where he stood, small white flames seemed to be lapping at the edges of the stick, like cats' tongues at a bowl of milk.

“It makes me hear stuff.”

“Hear what?”

“Like … everything. The tree. And plants. And that cat.” He pointed at Mitz, who was sitting smugly on a bookshelf, and got ready to be told he was crazy.

Korsakof's fingers twitched.

“Is that all?” he asked. “Just hearing things?”

Danny frowned. Abel Korsakof was an adult. Adults were normally sensible. Even Danny, although he wasn't exactly an adult, had thought he was past the age of being able to believe that trees could talk, before he'd actually heard it for himself. But Abel Korsakof hadn't heard it, and he didn't seem in the least bit surprised or skeptical.

“Yeah … I can talk to them, too,” he mumbled, a bit annoyed that the old man wasn't more impressed.

“And that is it? You can hold conversations with other creatures, using this stick?”

“Not just creatures,” said Danny. “I told you, plants and things. They can all talk.” He had a feeling that Abel Korsakof wasn't going to even raise an eyebrow at this, and he was right. The old man just stared at the stick. His eyes weren't quite still.

“Can you talk to … to
storms
?” he asked finally.

Danny felt his feet clench, as though they were trying to grip the ground and keep him upright.

“I don't know,” he said. Could he?

“But you found this after a storm? From lightning? It is … a thunderbolt?”

“No, don't be stupid,” said Danny. “I mean, yes, I found it, but it's just a bit of tree.”

“It is something … it is something … not of this world. Not of our world. Something of his world, perhaps. From a storm … A piece of storm … that is what he wants.” His pupils had gone large, as if he'd been hypnotized. “That is what Sammael wants you dead for. But why should it matter to him…?”

“This? He can have it! It isn't any use to me—once I've got the Book of Storms, I'll find my parents and go home. I mean, this is kind of cool, but I don't need it. If I give it to you, maybe you could give it to him and he'll leave me alone. Here, take it!”

Danny thrust the stick forward to Abel Korsakof. The old man flinched away.

“No!” he cried, flinging up his arms to shield his face.

“It isn't anything bad. It's just a stick,” said Danny. “Just give it to him and tell him I'm going to find my parents and I won't get in his way.” He tried to push the stick forward again, but Abel Korsakof's face had gone whiter than his beard in terror. His lips were moving as though he was calling on someone for help.

Danny stopped waving the stick around. “You won't help me, then?” he asked, rubbing his nose. He only remembered that he was holding a knife when the blade grazed his cheek. Perhaps if he threatened the old man again, he might get him to say where the Book of Storms was hidden. But Abel Korsakof seemed more afraid of the stick, and how could you threaten somebody with that?

The heat left his legs and he was trembling again. Whatever I am, I'm no hero, he thought. This should be happening to someone like Paul. He'd just charge through it, like he does when you're standing in his way in soccer, and be out the other side in seconds. I've no idea what to do.

Abel Korsakof said, very slowly, “I think I am understanding something. I think there may be only one way out for us, Danny. Even that will not be easy.”

Us? He was going to help, then. Danny sank back against a bookcase, needing to prop himself up. Relief made all his tight muscles start to breathe again, and that only made him aware of how exhausted they were.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and putting the stick back in his pocket. Life seemed safer without it now.

“Is it really true that you do not know anything about Sammael?” asked Korsakof. “Tell me truly, now. Something will happen in a few minutes, and you will not like to know you have lied to me then.”

His face had taken on color again, but it was a quiet shade of gray-green, and his piercing eyes seemed to have darkened.

“It's true,” said Danny. “I've heard his name, but I don't know anything else about him. And I don't care, as long as I get my parents back.”

“So you are not trying to destroy him?”

“No,” said Danny, finding that his fingers wanted to cross behind his back.

“Because you must understand that I made a bargain with Sammael,” said Korsakof. “He always keeps his word, and so I must keep mine. I can no more help you harm him than I can help him harm you anymore. And faced with the choice, it seems as though I must take a third way out.”

Danny didn't understand what the old man was on about. He'd gone back to not making sense again. But he was forever old, and there was probably a huge load of stuff in his head that he just wasn't bothering to explain.

“I cannot kill you”—the fifty years of life, the apprentice that he could teach about storms, the thousands of days of study, vanished from Abel Korsakof's grasp—“and you are in possession of something far more powerful than you know. When Sammael told me about it, I thought you had stolen it. But I see now that you have not, you just came on it by chance, so it belongs rightly to you. And I have lived for ninety years on this earth, but today I have learned something entirely new. It seems that, perhaps, just one single person might be able to find the secrets to Sammael's power, to threaten that power, simply by talking to other creatures.…”