The Book Without Words_ A Fable of Medieval Magic - Avi [50]
Sybil, watching, held her breath.
Thorston’s grip began to weaken. His fingers lost their hold. His legs sagged. “Time!” cried Thorston, “I must have Time!”
Abruptly, the monk threw his arms wide open. Thorston, no longer supported, fell. As he dropped, he tried to snatch at the monk to bring him down. With one blow, Wilfrid struck Thorston’s hands away.
Thorston, on his hands and knees, turned to Sybil. The look upon his face was filled with dread and pain. He held out a shaking hand toward her. “I’m dying,” he whimpered. “Pity me. I only wanted to live.”
When a terrified Sybil made no move or reply, Thorston’s begging hand dropped. He began to age, his body shrinking and shriveling rapidly. In a matter of moments he became old, older, older still, more ancient than he had ever been. His flesh loosened upon his bones. His muscles unhinged. His skin became a mottled blue and green and then turned to rot, collapsing. In moments, what had been a man became a mound of quivering flesh, fused into a foul lump of putrid muck, which quickly bled into the graveyard earth until not the slightest trace remained.
14
Weak and sore, Sybil picked herself up from the mud. She looked around. Brother Wilfrid was standing still, not looking at her, but at the place on the ground where Thorston had been.
“Is … is he gone?” she asked.
“He is. At last.”
“How did you know to come here?” she asked.
“The boy.”
“Is he all right?”
“He is.”
Sybil saw the book beneath his arm. “Did he give you the book?”
“He did.”
“And Odo?”
“The raven? I don’t know.”
“Do you have the stone?” asked Sybil.
“I took it,” said Wilfrid. “I could not have resisted Thorston without. Time overwhelms all. Now I must return the book to where it belongs.”
“Where is that?”
“Saint Elfleda will guide me.”
“And then?”
“I shall have my rest.” That said, Wilfrid turned about and made his way out of the cemetery. As the fog wrapped around him, Sybil was sure she saw a white-clad figure by his side: Saint Elfleda. Now it was she who carried the Book Without Words.
15
Sybil made her way into the church. Alfric was where she had left him, sitting before the altar. When he saw Sybil he jumped up. “Brother Wilfrid came,” he cried.
“I know.”
“The stone,” he said. “He took it. He said he would help you. Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Was I wrong to give it to him?”
“No, Alfric. Thorston is no more.”
“What happened?”
She told him.
“What about Odo?”
“We need to go back and find out.”
CHAPTER SIX
1
THE FIRST crowing of a cock could be heard as Sybil and Alfric made their way back to the old house on Clutterbuck Lane. They went the same way they had come, along the outside of the old city wall. When they reached the house, they found a hole.
“Do you think Odo made it?” said Alfric.
“I suspect it was Thorston,” said Sybil.
They went through the hole, Alfric first, then Sybil. They went up to the room.
The raven was not there. Instead, there was only a scruffy goat, his short brown hair dirty, his horns crumpled, and his dangling beard rather thin. His brown eyes were full of woe.
Sybil and Alfric stared at him.
“It’s me,” said the goat. “Odo. I’m not certain, but I believe Thorston murdered me. But then I woke. Saint Elfleda was standing before me. She had done what she had promised me she’d do: transformed me back to what I used to be. But I’m not what I’d hoped to be. Look at me! I’m a goat! Now I shall never fly. What happened to the book? Perhaps there’s magic in it to transform me back.”
“Odo,” said Sybil, “the monk took it away.”
“And Master? The stone? What became of them?”
Sybil told him.
“Then I am what I am,” Odo bleated.
Sybil put her arms around his neck. “I shall care for you.”
Alfric looked out the window.