The Book Without Words: A Fable of Medieval Magic

  “Out of the house.”

  “What of Master Thorston?”

  “He’s still dead.”

  “Won’t he come back soon?”

  “Which is why we must hurry.”

  “And you’ll not abandon me?”

  “Take my hand,” said Sybil.

  They went into the main room where Thorston remained unmoving on his bed. Softly, Sybil picked up the Book Without Words and led the boy down the steps. Odo was waiting by the hole in the wall.

  “Now,” said Sybil, “I’ll have the hardest time getting through, so I should go first. Alfric, once I’m on the other side, hand the book out to me. Then I’ll help you get through. Odo, it will be easiest for you, so you’ll be last.

  The two murmured their agreement.

  Sybil got down on her hands and knees, extended her arms into the hole, curled her fingers on the other edge, and pulled forward. It was a tight squeeze, and the stones scratched, but she got through, falling onto weedy ground on the far side.

  “Alfric,” Sybil called back through the hole. “Hurry now. The book.”

  The boy pushed the book into the hole. Sybil grasped it and pulled it through. “Now you should have it easier than I,” she called. “Reach for my hands and I’ll help you.” She leaned into the hole, found Alfric’s small fingers, and gripped them. “Squirm and kick. I’ll pull.”

  Within moments, Alfric was standing by Sybil’s side. As he brushed himself free of mortar dust, she bent down to see where Odo was.

  “God’s mercy!” she cried.

  “What’s the matter?” said Alfric.

  “The hole in the wall is gone.”

  5

  Odo was just about to jump into the hole when the stones rose up and rammed themselves back where they had been.

  Stunned, he stared at the wall for a few moments then lifted a claw. “Feallan!” he whispered. Nothing happened. He repeated the word. The result was the same. He tried pecking at the mortar, but it had become harder than before, and only hurt his beak. He told himself he was lucky he wasn’t inside the wall when the stones reassembled: he would have been entombed.

  Perhaps, he thought, if he rested, some of his magic would return.

  Exhausted, Odo hopped away from the wall and fluttered up the steps and then atop the books. Shaking his head in agitation, he thought, She has the stone. What if she abandons me? She won’t, he told himself, even as he recalled all the times he had insulted her. Be patient.

  Greatly agitated, Odo tried to settle himself. Just as he began to drift off to sleep, he heard a sound. He opened his eyes.

  Thorston was sitting up in his bed and looking around. “Where,” he said, “is the girl?”

  6

  “But how,” Alfric said to Sybil, “could the hole just disappear?” The two were standing outside the wall. It was cold, and in the sky the full moon seemed to be racing through new clouds.

  “It’s the book’s magic,” said Sybil. “It takes what it gives.”

  “We’re not going to leave him, are we?” said Alfric.

  “We have to,” said Sybil. “We need to find Brother Wilfrid. Just pray Master Thorston doesn’t come back to life too soon.” She checked her purse to make sure the stone was there, tucked the Book Without Words under an arm, took Alfric’s hand, and started off along the narrow path that ran along the outside of the old city wall.

  After a while, Alfric said, “Mistress, who is Brother Wilfrid?”

  She told him all she had learned regarding Thorston and Wilfrid. Alfric listened in astonishment.

  “Mistress,” he said when Sybil had done, “that time you made the skull rise; was that magic you had learned from the book?”

  “Alfric, I can’t read, so I took nothing from the book. That’s why we needed you—and your green eyes.”

  “But you said you had magic.”

  “I said so only for Damian’s sake. It was Odo who made the skull rise. And for his pains, it smashed.”

  “Did he read the book?”

  “What magic he knew he learned by watching Thorston. As you saw, Odo’s magic is not very strong.”

  “Mistress,” said Alfric, “as I told you, the book has other magic. I did see it.”

  Sybil halted and looked at the boy.

  “Is that … wrong to say?” Alfric asked beneath her steady gaze:

  “Other than gold-making, what kind of magic did you see?”

  “Shall I tell it to you now?”

  “No,” Sybil said after a moment. “It’s better I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “The magic is false. It will turn against you. Now, enough chatter. We need to get back into town and then find the monk.”

  They continued silently along the path.

  Suddenly Sybil stopped, set the Book Without Words on the ground, and opened it. The blank pages glowed. “Alfric,” she said, “I do want you to try to read something,” she said.

  “Is it the gold-making secret?”

  “I want you to fix your desire on finding Brother Wilfrid. Tell me if the book reveals how to find him.”

  “What does the monk look like?”

  “He’s not very tall—hardly bigger than me—and very old. He looks almost … like a living skeleton, as if he’d been caught between life and death.”

  “Mistress!” cried Alfric. “I know the man. He found me on the street. It was he who brought me to …” He faltered.

  “Brought you where?” asked Sybil.

  Tears welled in Alfric’s eyes. “Mistress, I hadn’t eaten in three days. He offered me bread if I’d let myself be given over to Master Bashcroft.”

  “The reeve!”

  “The monk said in all likelihood the reeve would bring me to Master Thorston’s house. Which,” the boy faltered, “is what he did.”

  “What … what did the monk want from you?”

  “To … to find your book. That I might bring it to him. But, Mistress,” Alfric cried when he saw the alarm in Sybil’s face, “I won’t betray you in any way. I won’t.” He threw himself at her, hugging her tightly. “You must believe me.”

  Sybil put an arm around the boy, but squeezed the stone in her purse. “I do believe you.”

  “And you’ll let me stay with you?”

  “I will.”

  “I was too frightened to tell you,” sobbed the boy.

  “Alfric,” said Sybil. “You must know, when we meet Brother Wilfrid I intend to give the book to him. It belongs to him. But—has he any other claim on you?”

  “None.”

  Sybil looked down at the boy. He seemed terribly frail. “I’ll trust you. Now, can you read the book and determine where he is?”

  “But won’t it—as you said—hurt me?” said the boy.

  He was gazing up at her. The moonlight illuminated his red hair, his pale, streaky face and his green eyes. And suddenly Sybil had the thought: His eyes shine magically. Is that what the monk spoke of—the great desire?

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she whispered in awe. “Better we find our own way. But we must hurry.”

  7

  Odo looked across the room at Thorston. He was as Sybil had seen him, but even younger, no more than thirteen. His hair was unruly, body slim and muscular. His green eyes were bright with anger.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” demanded Thorston. “Where is the girl?”

  “She’s … gone.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” said the bird, determined to say as little as possible so as to give Sybil the time she needed to find Brother Wilfrid.

  Thorston remained seated on his bed, trying to untangle his thoughts. “She had no right to go without my permission,” he said at last, as much to himself as the bird. Agitated, he flexed his fingers so that his knuckles cracked. Then he sprang up and strode to the window and looked out. The night’s dank fog had risen from the river. It was seeping over the courtyard, reducing the soldier’s lamp light to hazy, y
ellow smears. The soldiers—more ghostlike than corporeal—were asleep or on guard about the gallows. The dangling noose hung limply in the thick air like a hunting snare.

  Odo, watching his master, shifted uneasily on the book pile and fluttered his wings. He wondered when Thorston would notice that the Book Without Words—and the stone—were gone.

  “There are more soldiers than before,” said Thorston. “And the gallows seems to be in readiness.”

  “It’s the town reeve, Master. Don’t you recall? You gave him gold. No doubt it whet his appetite for more.”

  Thorston laughed. “It’s only false gold—as he’ll learn soon enough.”

  “Which means he’ll become even more furious than he is,” said Odo. “More determined to hang you.”

  “He won’t find me.”

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  “He’ll be looking for someone who doesn’t exist. I look very different now,” said Thorston. “Hardly more than a boy. That girl’s age.” He grinned. “He won’t notice me. Being a child is the best disguise.”

  The thought seemed to remind him: he walked to the back room, only to return. “That boy—the one with green eyes—he’s gone. Did he go with the girl?”

  “I … think so.”

  Thorston considered for a moment. “It doesn’t

  Matter,” he finally said. “She’ll not survive for long. No more than you.”

  Uneasy, Odo shifted about. “Why?” he asked.

  “When I fully regain my life with that final stone, you’ll both lose yours.”

  “And all my loyalty to you,” said Odo, “was it for naught?”

  “Loyalty!” scoffed Thorston. “What has that to do with anything? Living is my life. Have you any idea how difficult it has been to preserve myself for this moment? To avoid accidents, illness, and violence. Think how hard it is to keep oneself from death!”

  “To what purpose, Master?” said Odo.

  “To begin my whole life again,” said Thorston. “I’ve outwitted death.”

  “Ah, Master,” said the bird with a shake of his head, “what good was that life, if, by avoiding death, you didn’t live?”

  “Don’t preach to me,” said a scowling Thorston. He ran back to the window and looked out. “How did the girl and the boy get away?” he demanded. “They couldn’t have gotten past those soldiers.”

  The raven said nothing.

  “Tell me,” cried Thorston, turning and pointing right at Odo in the same fashion he had pointed at Damian. “Or I shall turn you—”

  “The back entrance,” cried Odo in alarm.

  “The walled one?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Not possible!”

  “Look for yourself.”

  Thorston hurried down the steps and examined the wall. Finding it solid he ran back up and said, “You’re lying. There’s no hole there.”

  Stung, Odo said, “I learned some of your magic, Master. Enough to allow them to escape. I made a hole in the wall.”

  “Knave! But then, she doesn’t matter,” he said. “She’s only a servant. A nothing. Anyway, she’ll die soon, like you. But I’ve a good mind to first turn you back to what you once were.”

  Odo leaned forward. “What was I?”

  Thorston shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

  “Then why did you make me a raven?”

  “Because black feathers are part of the formula for making the life stones—by which I’ll live—and you’ll die.” Suddenly, Thorston halted. His hand went to his hip purse. He felt it. “The stone!” he cried. “Where is it?”

  Odo, his head cocked, looked at Thorston.

  “Did the girl take it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Thorston moved toward the bird, only to stop and wheel about. “And the Book Without Words! Did she take that too?”

  “You just said she doesn’t matter. But perhaps she’s no longer a nothing.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “And how could I know. I don’t even know what I am.”

  Thorston jumped for him. With a frantic fluttering of his wings, Odo leaped and managed to get away from Thorston’s grasp by landing on the worktable. Thorston pursued him, but the bird scrambled to the window, then back to the bed. Thorston tried to corner him. With a great leap, Odo tried to get past, only to be snatched out of the air by Thorston. The bird struggled frantically.

  “If I don’t have the Time stone,” cried Thorston, his hands about Odo’s neck, “I’ll die. But you’ll die now if you don’t tell me where she went.” He began to twist.

  “She’s… . taking them back to Brother Wilfrid,” the raven croaked.

  “Brother Wilfrid!” cried Thorston, so surprised, he released the bird.

  “The one from whom you stole the book,” said Odo, hopping frantically away.

  “How can that be?” cried a dumbfounded Thorston.

  “He’s found you. And Sybil is taking him what’s his.”

  “When did she go?”

  “How would I know, Master?” said Odo, making sure he kept his distance. “I’m hut a fool.”

  For a moment, Thorston stared at the bird. “I shall not die!” he shouted, and rushed down the steps. Odo followed. When Thorston came to the wall he made quick, twisting motions with his hands. The stones tumbled out, bringing back the hole.

  Odo, looking on, croaked, “I’m glad she’s giving those things to the monk.”

  Thorston turned to glare at the bird … and pointed at him.

  “Master!” croaked the bird. “Don’t!” But all the same, he fell dead.

  Thorston, not even looking at the fallen bird, squirmed through the hole. Once beyond the house he looked first one way, then another, before running along the pathway in the same direction Sybil had taken.

  8

  “There,” said Sybil to Alfric. “The town wall is broken down. We should be able to get back into town easily enough.”

  It was exactly what Sybil had hoped for: a section of the old city wall had fallen down, the stones crumbled outward in a heap. With the incline not very steep, it took only a little effort to clamber to the wall’s jagged crown. A short jump brought them back into town.

  They peered into the darkness. The night’s thick, damp fog had moved in, making it hard to see. “Is Brother Wilfrid near?” asked Alfric.

  “I’m not sure where he is,” said Sybil, adjusting her grip on the Book Without Words. “Or we, for that matter. Stay close. We’ll go on until I find something recognizable. Perhaps Brother Wilfrid will find us first.”

  As she led the way along the narrow, winding streets, the mist thickened, wrapping about them like damp cobwebs. Their footfalls were muffled. Buildings loomed on either side and, in the thick air, appeared ready to collapse on their heads. Occasionally smudges of light could be observed behind shuttered windows. From the city center, the cathedral bells pealed dismally, as if announcing death.

  “Mistress,” cried Alfric. “Look there!”

  Sybil strained to see. A figure—garbed in pale white from head to foot—emerged from the fog. It floated just above the ground, undulating in the miasmic air.

  “Is that the monk?” whispered Alfric.

  “I don’t believe so,” Sybil replied, her voice equally soft.

  “Who … is it then?”

  “I think it’s Saint Elfleda.”

  The glowing figure lifted an arm—as if beckoning.

  “She wants us to follow,” said Sybil.

  They followed the white figure as it floated in and out of the mist. At times it seemed as if she were gone for good. Then they waited. She reappeared soon enough—always beckoning. Sybil and Alfric kept on. But abruptly the figure vanished.

  Sybil squinted through the fog. A structure, more blur than bulk, loomed before them. “There’s something,” she said.

  They drew closer.

  “It’s a church and cemetery,” said Alfric.

  Sybi
l stopped and gazed at the cemetery. She recognized it as the place where Brother Wilfrid had taken them. “I know where we are,” she said.

  Sybil searched for some sign of Wilfrid, but saw nothing. “We’ll look for him in the church.” Moving cautiously, she made her way forward. When they found the entryway they stepped inside.

  Inside the church an altar light flickered, revealing only a deserted hall. “She’s here” whispered Alfric, pointing to the image of Saint Elfleda on the wall. “But where’s the monk? Is there anywhere else we can look?” asked Alfric.

  After a moment Sybil said, “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “The cemetery.” Sybil, feeling uneasy, said, “I think it best that you stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m only going to look. The book will be safer here with you.”

  “Will you be gone long?”

  “No. Sit yourself near the altar.”

  Sybil placed the Book Without Words upon his knees. “Best not open it,” she said.

  “I won’t.”

  Sybil started to go, only to look back at Alfric. The boy’s face was full of misery. She reached into her purse and felt for the stone. “You must to do something for me,” she said.

  “Please, Mistress, anything.”

  “It’s the stone,” she said, drawing it from her purse. “Hold it and protect it. It will be safer with you, too.”

  “But … what might happen?”

  “I don’t know. But if something does …”

  “Yes?”

  “Get the stone to Odo,” said Sybil. “If you can.” She put it into his hand and folded his small fingers over it. “Hold it tightly,” she said.

  The boy squeezed his hand shut. “I promise,” he said.

  “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” said Sybil. She left the church through the same door they had entered.

  9

  Once outside, Sybil headed around to the back of the church. With care, she edged along the perimeter of the low slate wall that bordered the cemetery. Finding a gap, she passed on through, then stopped to gaze upon the dismal scene. The old cemetery was rank with decay, choked with wilted and twisted weeds. Over it the fog rose and fell like a restless, inland sea, so that the burial markers looked like the fingers of drowning men and women. The only visible life was clumps of lichens, which glowed and winked in the dank and dismal air with a melancholy, phosphorescent hue—like dying embers.