Authors: Kerstin Gier
Gideon gave us a broad grin as he sat down cross-legged on the rug. “Okay. Then I’ll be the first to tell you two what I know,” he said. And without waiting to get the go-ahead from Lesley, he began talking about the papers that Paul had given him again. Unlike me, Lesley was more than horrified to hear that I was supposed to die as soon as the Circle
of Blood was closed. She went really pale under her freckles.
“Can I have a look at those papers?” she asked.
“Sure.” Gideon took several folded sheets out of his jeans pocket and a few more from the breast pocket of his shirt. The papers were rather yellowed, and as far as I could see, they looked flimsy along the folds.
Lesley stared at him blankly. “You just walk about with stuff like this
in your pockets? Those documents are valuable originals, not … not snot-rags.” She put out her hand for them. “They’re practically falling apart. Isn’t that just typical of a man?” Carefully, she unfolded the papers. “And you’re sure they’re not forgeries?”
Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not a graphologist or a historian. But they look exactly like the other originals, the papers in the
keeping of the Guardians.”
“Yes, and I bet those are kept under glass and at the right temperature,” said Lesley, still accusingly. “The way such things ought to be stored.”
“But how did the Florentine Alliance people get their hands on the papers?” I asked.
Gideon shrugged again. “Theft, I assume. I haven’t had time to sift right through the
Annals
for a clue. Or to check up on all of what
they say. But I’ve been going around with
these
papers for days. I know them by heart, although I can’t make much of most of the contents. Apart from that one crucial point.”
“At least you didn’t go straight off to Falk and show them to him,” I said appreciatively.
“Although I did think of doing just that. But then…” Gideon sighed. “Right now I simply don’t know who can be trusted.”
“Trust
no one,” I whispered, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Or that’s what my mother told me.”
“Your mother,” murmured Gideon. “I’d be interested to know how much
she
knows about everything.”
“And it means that when the Circle is closed, and the count has this elixir he’s after, Gwyneth will…” Lesley couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Die, yes,” I said.
“Pop her clogs, pass over to the
other side, kick the bucket, go west, shuffle off this mortal coil, breathe her last, start pushing up the daisies.” Xemerius made his own drowsy contribution.
“Will be murdered!” Lesley reached for my hand with a dramatic gesture. “Because you’re not about to fall down dead of your own accord!” She ran her fingers through her hair, which was sticking out untidily in all directions already. Gideon
cleared his throat, but Lesley wasn’t letting him get a word in edgeways. “To be honest, I’ve had a bad feeling about it all along,” she said. “Those other rhymes are terribly … terribly ominous, too. All about the raven, the ruby, and the number twelve, and the outlook is kind of grim for them. And it does fit with what I’ve found out myself.” She let go of my hand and reached for her backpack—a
brand-new one!—to fish out
Anna Karenina.
“Well, really I suppose Lucy and Paul and your grandfather found it out—and Giordano.”
“Giordano?” I repeated, bewildered.
“Yes, haven’t you read his essays?” Lesley leafed through the book. “The Guardians
had
to take him into the Lodge, to keep him from broadcasting his theories to the world at large.”
I shook my head, feeling a bit ashamed of myself.
I’d lost all interest in Giordano’s writings after the first long-winded sentence. (Even apart from the fact that they were by
Giordano
—well, I mean to say!)
“Wake me up if this gets interesting,” said Xemerius, closing his eyes. “I need a nap to help me digest my supper.”
“No one has ever taken Giordano really seriously, not even the Guardians,” Gideon said. “He’s published confused theories
in dubious journals about the supernatural. The readers of such things regard the count as One Transformed and an Ascended Master, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“I can tell you all about it!” Lesley held
Anna Karenina
under his nose as if she were producing Exhibit A in court as evidence. “As a historian, Giordano stumbled on letters and records of the Inquisition from the sixteenth century.
The sources show that when the count was a very young man and on one of his journeys in time, he met a girl who was living in a convent—Elisabetta di Madrone, daughter of the Conte di Madrone—seduced her, and made her pregnant. And on that occasion…” She hesitated for a moment. “Or, well, presumably either before or after it, he told her all kinds of things about himself—maybe because he was
still young and rash, or simply because he’d lulled himself into a false sense of security.”
“
What
kinds of things?” I asked.
“He was very free with information, beginning with his origins and his real name, going on to the fact that he could travel in time, and finally claiming that he was in possession of priceless secrets. Secrets that would enable him to create the philosopher’s stone.”
Gideon nodded, as if he knew the story, but he didn’t fool Lesley.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t go down too well in the sixteenth century,” she went on. “At that time, people thought the count was a dangerous demon, and this girl Elisabetta’s father was so furious about what had happened to his daughter that he founded the Florentine Alliance and devoted the rest of his life to looking for the
count and others like him. So have many generations after him—” She stopped. “Where was I? My goodness, my head’s so full of information that I feel it might explode any moment now.”
“What on earth does any of this have to do with Tolstoy?” asked Gideon, looking impatiently at Lucas’s special edition of the novel. “Don’t snap my nose off, but so far you haven’t told me anything really new.”
Lesley cast him a dark glance.
“Well, you’ve told me a lot I didn’t know,” I was quick to say. “But you were going to explain what the count really intends to do with the philosopher’s stone, Lesley!”
“Right.” Lesley frowned. “But I had to go farther back, because of course it was some time before the descendants of the Conte di Madrone got on the track of the first time traveler, Lancelot de
Villiers, in—”
“You can cut it short if you like,” Gideon interrupted her. “We don’t have all the time in the world. The day after tomorrow we’re meeting the count again, and meanwhile, on his instructions, I’m supposed to be getting some blood from Lucy and Paul. I’m afraid that if I don’t succeed, he’ll come up with an alternative plan.” He sighed. “Well?”
“But we can’t neglect the details.”
Lesley also sighed and buried her face in her hands for a moment. “Oh, all right. The Guardians think the philosopher’s stone is something that will work wonders for mankind, because it will be a cure for all sickness and disease, right?”
“Right,” Gideon and I said in unison.
“But Lucy and Paul and Gwenny’s grandfather and, yes, strictly speaking, the Alliance people as well, all thought that
was a lie.”
I nodded.
“Hang on.” Gideon’s eyebrows were drawn together. “Gwenny’s grandfather? Our Grand Master before Uncle Falk took over?”
I nodded, this time a little guiltily. He was staring at me, and suddenly he looked as if light had dawned on him. “Go on, Lesley,” he said. “What exactly did you find out?”
“Lucy and Paul thought the count just wants the philosopher’s stone for himself.”
Lesley stopped for a moment, to make sure that we really were hanging on her lips. “Because he intends the stone to make him, and only him,
immortal.
”
Gideon and I said nothing. I was suitably impressed, speaking for myself. I wasn’t so sure about Gideon. His face didn’t even begin to tell me what he was thinking.
“Of course the count had to invent all that about the benefit to mankind, blah-blah-blah,
so that he could convince people it would be a good idea to work for him,” Lesley went on. “He could hardly have built up such a massive secret organization if he’d said what he was really planning to do.”
“You mean that’s all? It’s simply because that old buffer the count is scared of dying?” I said. I was almost disappointed. Was that really supposed to be the secret behind the secret? All
the fuss and expense, just for this?
As I was shaking my head skeptically and trying to think what to say next, something beginning with “but,” Gideon’s eyebrows moved even closer together.
“It would fit,” he murmured. “Damn it, Lesley’s right! It does fit.”
“What fits?” I asked.
He jumped up and began prowling around my room. “I can’t believe that my family’s been blindly falling for his
tricks for centuries,” he said. “That
I’ve
been blindly falling for his tricks!” He stopped in front of me and took a deep breath. “
The precious stones shall all unite, the scent of time shall fill the night, once time links the fraternity, one man lives for eternity.
Read that the right way, and you see what it’s all about.
Under the sign of the twelvefold star, all sickness and ills will flee
afar.
Of course! If it’s going to give someone eternal life, that substance must be able to cure anything.” He rubbed his forehead and pointed to the papers lying on the rug. They looked the worse for wear. “And the prophesies that the count never let the Guardians see say so even more clearly.
The philosopher’s stone shall eternity bind. New strength will arise in the young at that hour, making
one man immortal, for he holds the power.
It’s so simple! Why didn’t I catch on long ago? I was so stunned by the idea that Gwyneth was going to die and it could be my fault, I just didn’t see the truth. Although it was staring me right in the face!”
“Oh, well,” said Lesley, allowing herself a small, triumphant smile. “I guess your strengths lie in other areas. Right, Gwenny?” She added, kindly,
“And you had plenty of other problems on your hands.”
I reached for Gideon’s papers. “
But beware: when the twelfth star shows its own force, his life here on earth runs its natural course. And if youth is destroyed, then the oak tree will stand, to the end of all time, rooted fast in the land,
” I read hesitantly, trying to ignore the fact that the little hairs on my arms stood up when I took
in those words. “Okay, so I’m the twelfth, I get that, but the rest of it might as well be in Chinese, for all the sense it makes to me.”
“Here, see what’s written in the margin?
As soon as I have the elixir, she must die!
” murmured Lesley, her head beside mine as we looked at the papers. “You get that bit, don’t you?” She hugged me hard. “You must never, never go near that murderer again, understand?
That grisly Circle of Blood simply mustn’t be closed, not at any price.” She held me a little way away from her. “Lucy and Paul were acting for the best when they ran off with the chronograph. It’s a shame there was a second one lying about.” Letting go of me, she looked accusingly at Gideon. “And to think that someone in this room had nothing better to do than go around busily getting blood
from all the time travelers to fuel it! Promise me, here and now, that the count will never get a chance to throttle Gwyneth, or stab her—”
Xemerius woke from deep sleep with a start. “Poison her, shoot her, hang her, behead her, trample her to death, drown her, throw her off a tower block,” he cried enthusiastically. “What are you talking about?”
“
As the star dies, the eagle arises supreme,
fulfilling his ancient and magical dream
,” said Gideon quietly. “Except that she
can’t
die!”
“
Mustn’t
die, you mean,” Lesley corrected him.
“Must, can, should, would,” droned Xemerius, and he dropped his head on his paws again.
Gideon got down on the floor in front of us. His expression was very serious again. “That was what I was going to tell you just now, before we started—” He cleared his
throat. “Did you tell Lesley how Lord Alastair ran you through with his sword?”
I nodded, and Lesley said, “She was really amazingly lucky that he didn’t wound her seriously.”
“Lord Alastair is one of the best swordsmen I know,” said Gideon. “And he did wound Gwyneth seriously. It was a very dangerous wound indeed.” He touched my hand with his fingertips. “As a matter of fact, it was a fatal
wound.”
Lesley was gasping for air.
“But I only imagi—” I murmured, and then I thought of the way I’d floated up to the ceiling and the spectacular view I had from up there of what was going on down below.
“No.” Gideon shook his head. “You didn’t only imagine it! I don’t know if anyone
could
imagine a thing like that. And I was there at the time!” For a moment, he seemed unable to go on, then
he got himself under control. “When we traveled back, you hadn’t been breathing for at least half a minute, and when I arrived in the cellar with you, you still had no pulse, I’m certain of that. Then a minute later, you sat up as if nothing had happened.”
“Does that mean…,” asked Lesley, and this time she was the one gawping like a sheep.
“It means Gwenny is the one who’s immortal,” said Gideon,
giving me a flickering smile. I could only stare back, baffled.
Xemerius had sat up and was scratching his tummy uncertainly. His mouth opened and then closed, but instead of making any comment, he just spat a little gush of water over my pillow.
“Immortal?” Lesley’s eyes were wide open. “Like … like the Highlander?”
Gideon nodded. “Except that she won’t die even if she’s beheaded.” He stood
up again, and his face set hard. “Gwyneth can’t die, unless she takes her own life.” And he recited, in a low voice, “
For a star goes out in the sky above, if it freely chooses to die for love.
”
* * *
WHEN I OPENED
my eyes, the light of the rising sun was flooding into my room, and little dust motes were dancing in the air, bathed in bright, rosy light. I was wide awake at once—it wasn’t
at all like the last few mornings. Cautiously, I felt beneath my nightdress for the wound under my breast and ran my finger along the scab over it.