The Book Without Words_ A Fable of Medieval Magic - Avi [1]
Weak heart fluttering with excitement, Thorston used his right hand to pour a flagon of water over the clay. The water was holy water siphoned secretly from the cathedral’s baptismal font, then tinted pink with a drop of his own blood.
Taking the items from his hip purse, the old man rapidly added to the mix; bits of shredded gargoyle ears, chimera crumbs, scales from a fire-lizard’s tail, two dozen white spider legs, thirteen and a half nightshade leaves, sixteen hairs from the tip of a Manx cat’s tail, plus six white pearls of dried unicorn tears. He also dropped in the blackest of the raven’s black feathers.
Using a spoon made of Jerusalem silver, Thorston stirred the mixture eighty-six times to the left—once for each year of his life. He stirred to the right eighty-one more times—once for each day of his eighty-sixth year. When the brew smelled like the sweet breath of a resurrected phoenix, he knew he was close. His pulse quickened.
From the small leather purse on his belt, he drew forth a box made of narwhale bone. Within lay the dusty remains of Pythagoras, most ancient of philosophers. Thorston paused: the dust had cost him much-all the gold he could make—gold that would soon crumble. The other ingredients in the formula had taken more false gold. Thorston didn’t care that it was false. His new life would make him—for all practical purposes—invisible. As he had planned things, by the time his gold turned to sand, he would not be found.
Thorston sprinkled Pythagoras’s remains grain by grain into the pot, until the brew frothed, foamed, and fumed.
His excitement rising, Thorston scurried to his bed, checked the book anew, then hastened back to stir the recipe: one stir to the right—for the midnight sky. Three stirs to the left—for the heavenly Three. One stir across—for the noonday sun. A final stir for the cold and distant moon.
“Now,” he said, unable to suppress his exhilaration, “the final ingredient … the girl’s life.”
2
In quite another part of Fulworth, a monk appeared at the entrance of a small and bleak cemetery. His name was Brother Wilfrid, and he too was very old. Indeed, his face was a web of wrinkles upon skin so thin, so translucent, the skull beneath offered up its own yellow cast. Upon his mottled head hung shreds of lank white hair. His small, green-hued eyes were sunk deep and forever leaking tears. His nose was all but fleshless, his mouth almost without lips. Knobby feet were bare. Stooped and limping, Brother Wilfrid wore an old brown tunic, more tattered than complete.
In one clawlike hand, he held up a smoldering torch. The light of the feeble flame seeped through the shifting veils of fog, a fog that drifted back and forth like the ebb and flow of open sea. The monk prowled about the cemetery, over the oozing black mire, pausing before cracked gravestones, holding his torch close to examine obscure names. From time to time he rubbed encrusted dirt away to read Latin or Runic words.
“Not here,” he murmured at last.
Leaving his spent torch behind, the old monk limped out of the cemetery and into the church. It was a small, ancient structure built with gray stone. Its modest single tower was sharply pointed. Wilfrid entered by a narrow, arched doorway, stepping noiselessly into the building. It was deserted. On the old stone altar, a solitary candle burned, its muted light making the outer reaches of the building indistinct. But on the eastern wall was a large painting. Wilfrid looked at it and gasped. “Saint Elfleda!” he cried. The saint was portrayed larger than life, garbed in white, floating in the air. One hand held a belt, the other hand was lifted in blessing. Her large, dark eyes were almond-shaped and full of pain.
Wilfrid sank to his knees. “Help me,” he pleaded. “Help me help you.”
A short time later, the old monk left the church, went out into the roiling fog, and roamed