“You are Mr. Julius Polidori?” Elizabeth asked politely.
“I am, miss.”
The three of us glanced quickly at one another, for this fellow seemed so far from the picture conjured by Maria’s story.
A healer. A man of power who cured a little girl when all the wise men of Europe could not.
This man before us positively reeked of failure.
I felt an instinctive disdain rising in me. What kind of healer could this be? This broken person in a chair, with a crooked wig? His shop was a ruin. No doubt his clothing had not been laundered recently. He was laughable. I was tempted to turn and leave that very moment.
“Might there be some medicine you’re needing?” he asked.
“I think perhaps—,” I began with a sniff, but Elizabeth cut me off.
“Indeed there is,” she said, and gave me a warning look, for she knew how quickly my temper could flare. In that way, we were not so different. To Polidori she said, “But it is of an … unusual nature.”
He looked at us steadily, saying nothing.
I was still far from convinced that any good could come of this, but we were here now. I drew closer to the counter. “You are the same apothecary who cured the general’s girl, some years ago?”
He drew in a breath and released it with a rueful nod. “I am.”
“We have heard that you are a man of wide-ranging knowledge,” Elizabeth said. “A healer with remarkable powers.”
He actually laughed then, bitterly. “Is this some joke? Have you nothing better to do with your days?”
“No, sir,” said Henry. “I mean, no, this is not a joke and we are here with the greatest urgency.”
“We’re searching for the Elixir of Life,” Elizabeth said quietly.
Polidori stared at us with his dull eyes. “Good day to you, young sirs, and young lady,” he said curtly, and with a deft movement he swiveled his chair back toward the doorway.
“Please, sir, wait,” I said, striding forward, taking from my satchel a volume from the Dark Library and putting it on the counter. “I have here a work by Cornelius Agrippa.”
Polidori paused. He chuckled sadly and then turned around, barely glancing at the book.
“Occulta Philosophia. Am I correct?”
I nodded, startled.
“Young sir, put it back into your satchel. Add two large stones, say good-bye, and throw it into the deepest part of the harbor.”
Henry looked over at me, confused. “Is that a spell of some sort?”
“That is advice, and the best I have to give,” said Polidori. “That book will only bring you grief.”
“Sir,” I said. “The physician Agrippa—”
“Magician!” Polidori scoffed.
I persisted. “He writes of something called the Elixir—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said impatiently. “The Elixir of Life. He was hardly the first to dream up such a thing. There are many, many recipes for fantastical potions meant to cure all ills, perhaps even guarantee immortality. Such things are delusions, sir. They do not exist.”
“I am confused,” said Elizabeth. “I thought you yourself—”
“Yes,” he said. “There was a time when I too was seduced by such fancies and sought after them with great passion. I even created an elixir of my very own.”
“And you succeeded with that little girl,” I said.
Again he laughed. “She was cured,” he said. “But not by me. It was chance, or God’s divine power, a miracle! But it was not me.”
“Why do you say that, sir?” Henry asked.
Polidori frowned. “You know my name, yet you don’t know my full story? You have not come merely to torment me?”
I shook my head, wondering why Maria had withheld something. The honesty in all our surprised faces must have convinced Polidori, and the suspicion faded from his eyes. He sighed.
“After that girl recovered, my business flourished. People beat my door off its hinges, wanting the same medicine.” He waved a hand around his shop. “For a short while I was a wealthy man, welcomed into the finest homes in the city. But that elixir I gave the girl, the very same thing, was not reliable. Sometimes it made a patient well. Sometimes it had no effect at all. Sometimes it seemed to make a patient worse. Still, people craved it, even though I grew more and more reluctant to prepare it. Some months later there was a ship owner, Hans Marek, a man of some wealth and power in the city, whose wife was very ill. He came to me and demanded the elixir. I told him I was no longer making it. He offered me a great sum in gold, and foolishly I accepted. Marek took my elixir home, and his wife died shortly after taking it. He was so enraged that he wanted me hanged for witchcraft.” Polidori chuckled. “You see, when a medicine works, it is blessed science, and when it fails, it is witchcraft. I was brought before a magistrate, a fine and enlightened gentleman who dismissed the charges as barbaric and primitive. But he forbade me from making the elixir ever again, or practicing alchemy.”
“This magistrate,” Henry asked. “What was his name?”
The same question had been on my lips as well, and I waited anxiously for the answer.
“His name was Alphonse Frankenstein,” said the apothecary.
I felt a great pride in my father’s fairness, but when I saw that Elizabeth was about to reveal our connection, I quickly touched her hand. I did not think it wise for Polidori to know our identities, not yet anyway.
“I owe Frankenstein my life,” Polidori was saying, “what is left of it. But his ruling offered no satisfaction to Hans Marek. Several nights later I was dragged from my bed by a drunken mob, taken up to the city ramparts, and pushed.”
Elizabeth gasped.
“Clearly I survived the fall,” he said. “A small miracle in itself. But I was paralyzed from the waist down.” He patted at his legs. “I have virtually no business now, but I have been frugal with my savings and so am able to carry on, as you see. Now, you have listened to a long and weighty tale, and if it has any moral, it is this: Rid yourself of that book before it brings you ill luck. Good day to you.”
Once more he began to turn his wheelchair away.
“It is my brother—,” I began, but my voice broke.
Polidori sighed. “I am very sorry to hear it,” he said sadly. “It is always the way. I have seen it many, many times. When a loved one falls desperately ill, and all else fails, any risk is worth the taking.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth.
Polidori shook his gaunt head. “The last time I took pity on such a patient, it cost the patient her life, and me nearly mine.”
“We have money—,” I said.
But Polidori raised his hand wearily. “I cannot. I will not. And if I may give you a further piece of advice, give up your search altogether. Agrippa’s recipe has never been replicated. Why? Because it is written in a strange and complex—”
“The Alphabet of the Magi,” I said. “We know.”
“Very good,” he said. “But did you also know that it has no translation? It is unreadable.”
“What about Paracelsus?” Elizabeth demanded. “The Archidoxes of Magic?”
Polidori looked startled, impressed even. “Every edition is gone, burned,” he said with a trace of wistfulness. “Extinct! And even if it weren’t—”
From my satchel I took the volume of Paracelsus and placed it carefully before him on the counter.
In silence he stared at it with a curious expression I couldn’t quite fathom. Then it came to me. It was the way a cat beholds its prey just before the pounce. His gray eyes lifted slowly to mine.
“Where did you find this?” he asked softly.
“That is my secret.” I was afraid if he knew too much about us, he might guess my parentage and refuse to help us further. “Will you assist us?”
“Your parents, young sir, do they know of this visit?” he asked.
“No.”
Polidori glanced out to the street, as if afraid someone might be wat
ching. He looked at all three of us, reluctant once more, but then his gaze fell back on the Paracelsus.
“Come,” he said. “Bring these books of yours into my parlor. Let us have a look at them.”
He led us into the dim room behind the counter. It too was lined with shelves, but these held books instead of vials and tins. The faded Oriental carpet was rutted with wheelchair tracks. Two armchairs and a threadbare sofa were arranged around a small hearth. There was a table that had not been entirely cleared of its last meal. He lived humbly indeed.
We were not five paces into the room when something leapt at Polidori from the shadows.
Elizabeth and I both gave a cry of surprise, and Henry shrieked outright. Polidori swiveled round in his chair to face us, and we all stared at the extraordinary creature curled up on his lap.
“That,” said Henry, his voice more highly pitched than usual, “is a very large cat!”
It was a magnificent-looking creature. Its body was lithe and long, short tailed. Its tawny coat was marked with dark spots. Beneath its neck was a ruff of white and black striped fur that looked rather like a bow tie. And from the tips of the creature’s tall triangular ears rose tufts of stiff black hair.
I looked at Elizabeth, and she returned my curious gaze.
“It isn’t by any chance,” she began uncertainly, “a—”
“A lynx, yes,” said Polidori with a smile, clearly enjoying our surprise.
“Ah,” said Henry a bit weakly.
Many wild animals inhabited the forests around our lake: bears and wolves, chamois and lynx, who could live almost at the height of the highest Alps.
“I did not know they could be trained as … pets,” I confessed.
Polidori raised an eyebrow, as if questioning my use of words. “He is quite tame. He came to me as a mere kitten and is as amiable as any house cat. Aren’t you, Krake?”
Polidori’s fingers vigorously kneaded the fur between Krake’s ears, and the lynx gave a luxuriant yawn, revealing wickedly sharp teeth. He hopped off his master’s lap and padded toward me. He gave me a sniff, and then rubbed against my legs with such force that he nearly knocked me off balance.
“He likes you, Victor,” said Henry.
“And I like Krake,” I said with forced joviality, hesitantly patting the creature on the head. He looked up at me with a green-eyed gaze that was just a touch unsettling, it was so intent. Then, to my relief, the lynx jumped back up onto Polidori’s lap.
Polidori invited us to sit down, then extended his hand. “May I?”
I passed him the volume of Paracelsus, and he took it gently. Silently he inspected the spine and binding before even opening the cover. For a long time he gazed at the portrait of the author, and then proceeded more deeply into the book’s burned pages, his careful fingers breaking off scarcely a fragment of ash.
When he came to the page that bore the beginnings of the Alphabet of the Magi, he stopped. I realized I’d been holding my breath, and exhaled noisily. Krake turned and looked at me severely.
“It is unreadable,” I said.
“We had hoped,” said Elizabeth quietly, “that you might know of some other book that holds a translation.”
Polidori shook his head. “There is none, I can assure you. But this …” He prodded delicately at the fused pages. “I think there may be some hope for this.”
“You do?” said Henry, his voice echoing the delight and surprise I felt.
“Perhaps,” he said. “I have some experience in restoring texts that have been … damaged, shall we say. Let us go to my workshop.”
I expected him to lead us back to the storefront, but he wheeled his chair in the opposite direction, through another doorway and along a short corridor. I glimpsed a tiny kitchen and, down a second short passage, a bedchamber and a small water closet, which released a faint but unpleasant whiff of sewage.
At the end of the corridor was a narrow doorway, scarcely wide enough to admit Polidori’s wheelchair. He went through first, and right away swiveled his chair around to face us. By the light of his candle I could see that he was inside a room that was really nothing but a large cupboard.
“I think we will all fit,” he said. “Come inside.”
“This is your workshop?” I asked, confused.
“This is the way to the workshop,” he said. “It is a kind of dumbwaiter. I call it an elevator. I had it constructed after my accident.”
“How ingenious,” said Elizabeth, stepping into the compartment.
“Is it … structurally sound?” Henry asked uncertainly.
“I have used it for more than a decade.”
“And it will bear all our weight?”
“Yes, young sir, it will.”
I entered the elevator, followed by Henry, and the three of us crowded around the wheelchair. The floor groaned ominously beneath my feet.
“Krake, I fear you will have to wait upstairs,” Polidori told his lynx.
Without hesitation the cat leapt from the man’s lap and sat down beyond the portal, licking his paws meditatively.
Twin doors hung at the entrance, one on either side, and Polidori pulled these snugly shut, enclosing us in the conveyance.
“From the hallway, it looks like a dead end,” he said. He passed me his candle. “If you would hold this, please.” With both hands he grasped one of the ropes that dangled from the ceiling of the elevator.
“A simple system of pulleys,” said Polidori, and as he tugged, the elevator gave a downward jerk.
Polidori’s strength must have been considerable to lower the weight of all four of us. As we descended, a dank smell wafted up to us. I glanced at Elizabeth and saw her eyes, dancing and lively in the candlelight.
“This descends to the cellar, does it?” Henry inquired, looking quite pale.
“A cellar beneath the cellar,” Polidori said. “I had it dug specially after my accident. This elevator is the only way to reach it.”
We dropped slowly past the timbers of the floor, and then a stone foundation, then brick, and rougher stone still, until the wall finally gave way.
A cellar opened before us, and soon the elevator came to a halt. Polidori rolled himself out. With his flame he lit more candles. The cellar seemed as big as all his upstairs rooms combined. I noticed that, unlike in his storefront, all the shelves had been built at a level that allowed Polidori to reach them from his wheelchair. I caught sight of worktables and more flasks and jars and apparatus than I had ever before seen.
Polidori must have guessed my thoughts, for he said, “Any work I do, I prefer to do down here, rather than upstairs. After being accused of witchcraft and threatened with hanging, one becomes more cautious. Now, let us go over here.”
He led us to a long narrow table on which rested several trays that might have been made of tin or zinc.
“Young sir,” he said to me, pointing, “could you please fetch those three green jars. And you, sir,” he said to Henry, “gather the candles and bring them to the table.”
His voice and manner had become suddenly more authoritative, and we hurried to do as he bid us. Over each candle he placed a special lantern of red glass. The cellar was suddenly bathed in a lurid red glow.
Carefully he opened the green jars one at a time, pouring a measure into a flask and then into one of the metal trays before him. When he was done, there was a shallow film of liquid at the bottom of the tray, red in the lantern light. It might easily have been blood.
“We will need this later,” Polidori said, pushing the tray to the back of the table. From a drawer he took a thick cloth wallet and opened it beside the volume of Paracelsus. Arranged within the wallet was a startling array of instruments that, at first glance, looked like those of a surgeon. There were all manner of tweezers and forceps, and minute scalpels. I glanced at Henry and saw him shiver.
“You would all like to assist, I assume,” Polidori stated. To Henry he said, “You shall be timekeeper. There is a clock there, and you m
ust watch seconds when I ask later.” To Elizabeth and me he said, “I trust you will be able to help me in the surgery.”
“Surgery?” said Elizabeth in surprise.
“Of course,” said Polidori. “This is as precise as any medical procedure.”
He proceeded to name all the instruments for us, and then took a diffuser filled with some liquid and misted the book with it. He then turned to me. “If you might hold the specimen steady, please, we will begin. The Gutenburg scalpel, there.”
Promptly Elizabeth handed it to him, and he set to work.
Several months before, Father had taken us to the dissecting room of the celebrated physician Dr. Bullman. In the sloped theater, filled to the ceiling with eager anatomy students, we’d watched as Bullman had opened up the corpse of a newly hanged convict. We saw its heart and lungs, the spleen and stomach. Henry had had to leave. But Konrad and I—and Elizabeth, too—had stayed to the very end. It was dreadful and fascinating both, to see the body’s innermost secrets laid open.
I felt exactly the same enthrallment as Polidori’s hands hovered over the tome, and then cut. Perhaps it was the noxious smell of the chemicals in the tray, or the mustiness of the room, but I thought the book flinched and exhaled.
Polidori’s goal was to separate the burned, fused pages, and it was a delicate task. He used a bewildering array of instruments to tease apart the sickly parchments. Sometimes it went well. Sometimes a tiny piece tore loose, and Polidori muttered an oath.
The heat in the room grew more intense, as if a great furnace burned nearby. Sweat slithered into my eyes, and I blinked to clear my vision. My gaze never wavered from Polidori’s steady hands and the tips of his instruments. And for a moment the book seemed not a book at all but a living body, and instead of paper, I glimpsed pulsing viscera and blood and organs. I blinked again, not trusting my vision. But—and this was most strange and repulsive—the book seemed to emanate the smell of a slaughterhouse, of entrails and offal.
Wondering if it was just the wanderings of my mind, I looked to Elizabeth, and saw her nostrils wrinkle, and she steadied herself with a hand, but her gaze did not flinch as she watched this strange surgery upon Paracelsus’s tome.