CHAPTER
29
I COUNTED A HUNDRED STEPS before I gave up. The stairs spiraled downward, with nothing to mark our place. The curved stone walls had no images and no brackets for torches, only countless cracks in the mortar. The only thing that changed—other than the ache in my back—was the air, which grew cooler with every step.
We finally reached the bottom. The stairs ended in a small chamber that widened to fit a set of double doors so big, they made the doors to Apothecaries’ Hall look like toothpicks. Carved into the oak in each panel was a cross, four arms of equal length, with flared ends. Flecks of paint still remained, white on the surface, red in the cross, gold all the way around.
Isaac touched one of the polished brass handles. “If I may borrow your youth, Thomas?”
Tom stepped forward obligingly and put a shoulder to the door. Then, eyes wide, he froze. “How did you know my name?”
“Benedict once mentioned his apprentice had a friend so loyal that no matter what ludicrous scheme the boy concocted, Thomas Bailey would be there, right beside him. Christopher is wanted for murder. His head is worth twenty pounds. And the King’s Men are not the only predators hunting it. Yet here you are. So who else could you be?”
I flushed. Tom turned to me, triumphant. “I told you they were schemes.”
• • •
The giant door creaked open, swinging on inch-thick hinges. What lay beyond nearly made me drop to my knees.
We were in a cavern. It stretched so far that the light from our lantern couldn’t reach the end. Everywhere there were shelves, scores of them, rows upon rows, built to fit the titans of ancient Greece. They went all the way to the ceiling, fifty feet above, so far you’d need ladders as high as a house to reach them. And the ladders were there, sturdy beams with wheels at the bottom, set in rails on the floor.
I’d never seen so many books. The shelves groaned with them, threatening to split and bring a hail of paper from the heavens. There was much more than just the tomes, too. Scrolls lay stacked in pyramids on one shelf, yellowed and brittle with age. Stone slabs leaned on another shelf, strange glyphs carved into their surfaces. In one row, dusky red tablets were marked with arcane lines and arrows, hardened into the clay thousands of years ago.
Tom backed toward me until his arm pressed into my shoulder. “Where are we?”
“Deep under the city, in a vault built by the Knights Templar,” Isaac said. “Here they stored their plundered treasures, until Pope Clement disbanded their order and burned them all at the stake. The vault was bequeathed, in secret, to the Mortimer family, three hundred and fifty years ago. Before you ask, I don’t know what happened to the Templars’ gold. It doesn’t matter. We’ve filled it with something much more valuable.
“What you see is the full collection of works that I and my brothers before me have acquired. It is centuries of knowledge, from every civilization, from every corner of the world. It is available to all who seek genuine truth. Sadly, of those, there are precious few.”
“You keep saying ‘we,’ ” I said. “Was Master Benedict one of you?”
“He was. There were seven of us. All are dead, or fled the city, except me.”
“But who are you?”
“We are alchemists,” Isaac said.
“The people who turn lead into gold?”
“I thought they were all frauds,” Tom blurted, before realizing that insulting a man when you were deep in his secret underground vault was not a good idea.
But Isaac wasn’t offended. “Most are. And yes, Christopher, the transmutation of lead into gold is one of the secrets alchemists seek. But centuries of deceit have obscured why.”
Isaac walked forward. We followed him, the clicks of our heels on the stone echoing throughout the cavern. When we reached the ladder beside a shelf eight rows down, Isaac pushed it, sliding it across the floor on squeaking wheels.
“The purification of base metals—turning lead into gold—is but a means to an end,” he said. “What we really search for is the blessed knowledge of God Himself. We seek to discover the Prima Materia, the First Matter, the raw energy from which Our Lord created the universe. In this way, we hope to truly understand our mortal world.”
The ladder rattled to a stop a third of the way down the shelf. Isaac traced his fingers along the spines of the books in the second row from the bottom, searching more from feel than from sight. He pulled out a volume bound in dark leather and held it out to me.
The cover was engraved with an image of a serpent swallowing its own tail. Tom and I glanced at each other. The drawing was identical to the snake that ringed the mural in the crypt.
“This is the ouroboros,” Isaac said. “It is the symbol of the Prima Materia. As it circles upon itself, so do we understand that the Prima Materia is the heart of the whole universe. All things, all life, stems from the First Matter. If you could access that Matter, then you, too, could direct it. This is the true goal of the alchemist.
“Apothecaries have already discovered many of God’s lesser powers. Silver heals. Aloe soothes. Oil of vitriol dissolves. Yet all of these are only shadows of the Prima Materia. Imagine the remedies you could create if you knew its secrets. Perhaps you could even prevent death itself.”
“This is what Master Benedict was looking for,” I said.
“Yes. You, too, I think.”
That surprised me. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Not yet. But if Benedict sent you here, then he wished for you to understand.”
“He showed us how to find the door under the—” I began, but Isaac held up his hand.
“Stop,” he said. “It’s not for me to know where Benedict worked. I am no apothecary; I only keep the library. There are secrets we don’t share, even among ourselves. In this way, we protect the brotherhood from those who would misuse our discoveries.”
I thought of the Cult’s victims. They’d been tortured for information. But if each man only knew a piece of the puzzle, all the killers would be able to get from them were scraps that led obscurely to the next man in the line. It hadn’t stopped the killers, but it had delayed them for months, until they’d finally reached my master. He’d poisoned himself precisely so he couldn’t be forced to tell Wat what the boy wanted to know. He’d kept his final secret for me alone.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll find out about you?” I said.
“This library is my purpose in life. I cannot leave it.” Isaac shrugged. “As always, the future is in God’s hands. If they come for me, then that’s what will be.”
Not if I could help it. “We found a sealed door. Master Benedict said you had the key.”
Isaac returned to pushing the ladder, moving farther down the aisle. “The symbols you described earlier are alchemical. They represent instructions, written in code to keep secrets from prying eyes. Except the first symbol you mentioned, the downturned sword. That is not an instruction. It is the emblem of Michael, the Archangel.”
Tom shivered. So did I. “Is this . . . are alchemists the Cult of the Archangel?” Tom said.
“There is no Cult of the Archangel,” Isaac said.
I looked at Tom, who seemed just as confused as I was. “But . . . how can that be? These murders—”
“Are the acts of evil men. Yet their purpose has nothing to do with any cult. At least not in the sense people above use the word.” Isaac waved a hand at the books surrounding us. “Keeping our discoveries hidden isn’t the only reason we work in secret. Alchemists have, in the past, been accused of terrible crimes: treason, heresy, witchcraft. But we who search for God’s gifts to His servants are not murderers. It is the killers themselves who steal that name, spreading fear and lies, wrapping holy work in something sinister. In this way, they obscure their true motives.”
I thought of what Oswyn had said to me. “You said that alchemists are searching for knowledge to make the world better. I was told the Cult—the killers—wanted power.”
“So they do.” Isaac stopped pushing the ladder and looked up. “There. Third shelf from the top. The tome with the blue spine. Go ahead.”
I climbed the ladder and pulled the book he’d indicated from the shelf, bringing it back down.
“Open it,” Isaac said.
Tucked inside the back cover was a piece of parchment. On it was a chart, written in Master Benedict’s hand. Symbols, rows of them, were scrawled down the paper, a label beside each one.
“That’s the key you seek,” Isaac said. “Take it. It is Benedict’s gift to you.”
This was it. I’d finally found the last of Master Benedict’s message. I stared at it, awed, proud . . . and scared.
Isaac’s hand on my shoulder nearly made me jump. “Be careful, Christopher. What you’re doing is dangerous.”
He hardly needed to remind me how many people wanted me dead. But that wasn’t what he meant. “With this legacy comes a choice you will have to make,” he said. “Knowledge can bring us great wonders, but it can also bring great suffering. What to do with such knowledge is a choice Benedict has always struggled with. In the end, perhaps he could only win that struggle by passing his choice on to you.”
I blinked. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
Isaac sighed. “The person who told you that the killers seek power was correct. The Archangel Michael is God’s general. He leads the armies of heaven in the never-ending struggle against the forces of hell.”
Isaac opened the book with the ouroboros on the cover and showed us an image inside. It was an angel, with flowing hair and spread wings, driving a sword into a dragon.
“To exalt him,” Isaac said, “the Lord gifted Michael with unique power.”
He turned the page to a different illustration. Here, the Archangel stood over twisted, crippled, hellish figures. He held his hand high, and it glowed with holy fire. The demons below burned in God’s light, screaming.
“Just as apothecaries’ healing remedies take many forms, so, too, can the First Matter take many forms. The Archangel’s Fire is the raw essence of the Prima Materia. It is God’s power unchecked.”
Isaac turned to me. “I told you before there was no true cult, just killers who hide behind its name. This aspect of the Prima Materia, the Archangel’s Fire, is what they seek. As bad as their crimes have been, if they find it, things will be much, much worse.”
“Why?” Tom said nervously. “What are they going to do?”
“The battlefields of England used to be covered with knights.” Isaac spread his hands, as if drawing the scene. “Sheathed in plate, they were impenetrable, the lords of the land, the pinnacle of five thousand years of war. Tell me: When was the last time you saw an armored knight?” He leaned against the shelf. “Firearms removed knights from the battlefield. Their armor, the seat of their strength, was useless against simple men armed with black powder.
“Now imagine going into battle with Michael at your side. Gunpowder would be no more sophisticated, hold no more power, than a stone from a sling. The man who discovers the Fire could change the world. And if the wrong people get ahold of it . . .”
He stared into the distance. “An army that walks with the Archangel will be invincible.”