The Book Without Words Part 21

It was Brother Wilfrid.

"I have the stone and the book," said the monk, his voice stronger than Sybil had heard it before.

"Then I'll take it from you as I did before," cried Thorston, and he flung himself at the monk. Wilfrid met Thorston with equal force, the two coming together with a crush of bodies.

Feet braced among the grave markers, arms encircled around each other, they tried to hold their places in the mud even as they shuddered with exertion. Thorston strained to his fullest, his youthful muscles bulging as he struggled to hold the monk in his grip. Wilfrid shook with his own great effort. They stood trembling, locked in one another's grasp, caught in the tension of mutual strength.

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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 c.o.c.k 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. crowing of a c.o.c.k 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. "There are more and more soldiers," he announced. "Bashcroft is there, too. They look like they're getting ready to break in."

Sybil said, "We can get out through the back."

There was a pounding on the door.

"It's time to go," said Sybil.

2.

Bashcroft allowed the soldiers to smash in the front door of the house. He strode forward, followed by a press of soldiers. They found the ground floor empty. The reeve banged his staff-of-office on the floor and bellowed, "I, Bashcroft, the city reeve, am here!"

There was no reply.

"The steps," he announced, and marched up. There was no one to be found. There was only Thorston's bed, the chest, which contained a few pennies, and the work s.p.a.ce filled with the alchemist's apparatus.

The soldiers spread through the house. That is how they found the chests in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Open them," cried Bashcroft. The locks were forced, the lids thrown back.

"Dura lex, sed lex, sed lex!" cried Bashcroft. "The law is hard, but it is the law. And since I am the law, it therefore follows, I must be hard." He pushed his hands through the soft sand. lex!" cried Bashcroft. "The law is hard, but it is the law. And since I am the law, it therefore follows, I must be hard." He pushed his hands through the soft sand.

3.

Sybil, Odo the goat, and the boy Alfric tramped along a dirt road some miles south of Fulworth. Though the wind was somewhat bl.u.s.tery, skies were blue, the sunlight clean and bright.

"Where do you think we should go?" bleated Odo.

"It was you who said the land called Italy is wonderful," said Sybil.

"Consider the expense!" said Odo.

Sybil touched fingers to her purse. "I have the Damian coin."

"So in the end, the poor boy shall provide for us," said Odo. "But how shall we ever find the place?"

"I may not know anything about Italy," said Alfric, "but I know how to get there."

"How could you?"

"Please, Mistress, remember you said it was what you wished. That moment, as we went along the wall, I looked in the book and saw the way."

Sybil smiled. "Then," she said, "as long as you don't use magic to get there, that's where we should head."

"Why no magic?" said Alfric.

"Because magic takes what it gives," said Sybil, "but life gives what we take." "I agree," said Odo. And they started off.

4.

On a windswept and deserted island off the Northumbrian coast, Brother Wilfrid and Saint Elfleda stood in the midst of the ruins of the old monastery.

Brother Wilfrid had dug a deep hole in the sandy soil. He looked at Saint Elfleda. She nodded. Kneeling, the old monk placed the Book Without Words into the hole and covered it with earth.

For a moment, the two stared down, and then, side by side, they walked into the North Sea, where the roiling waves washed over them.

The Book Without Words remained where they left it-as unmarked as its pages.