This Dark Endeavor

by Kenneth Oppel

  “You madman!” I cried, getting to my feet. “Is this how you treat an invalid?”

  “A little diva is what you are,” said Konrad. “Look at you, standing!”

  I hunched, wincing for effect, but Konrad started laughing, and I did too. It was hard to watch oneself laughing without doing the same.

  “It’s still sore,” I said, testing the foot gingerly.

  He passed me the crutches that Dr. Lesage had brought. “Try these,” he said, “and let Elizabeth have a rest.”

  Elizabeth had righted the wheelchair and arranged herself gracefully on the cushioned seat. “You little wretch,” she said to me, her hazel eyes narrowing. “It’s very comfortable. I can see why you didn’t want to get out!”

  Elizabeth was a distant cousin of ours, from Father’s side of the family. When she was only five, her mother died, and her father remarried and promptly abandoned her to an Italian convent. When Father got word of this, some two years later, he traveled at once to the convent and brought her home to us.

  When she’d first arrived, she was like a feral cat. She hid. Konrad and I, seven years old, were forever trying to find her. To us it was a wonderful game of hide-and-seek. But it was no amusement to her; she just wanted to be left alone. If we found her, she became very angry. She hissed and snarled and hit. Sometimes she bit.

  Mother and Father told us she needed time. Elizabeth, they said, had not wanted to leave the convent. The nuns had been very kind to her, and their affection had been the closest thing she’d known to a mother’s love. She hadn’t wanted to be torn away from them to live with strangers. Konrad and I were told to let her be, but of course we did nothing of the sort.

  We continued to pursue her for the next two months. Then, one day, when we found her latest hiding place, she actually smiled. I almost yelped in surprise.

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered us. “Count to a hundred and find me again.”

  And then it truly was a game, and from that moment the three of us were inseparable. Her laughter filled the house, and her sullenness and silence disappeared.

  Her temper, however, did not.

  Elizabeth was fiery. She did not lose her temper quickly, but when she did, all her old wildcat fury returned. Growing up together, she and I often came to blows over some disagreements. She even bit me once, when I suggested girls’ brains were smaller than boys’. Konrad never seemed to infuriate her like I could, but she and I fought tooth and claw.

  Now that we were sixteen, all that was far behind us.

  “Well, then,” said Konrad, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, “you shall finally have your turn in the chair.”

  At top speed he propelled her out of the sitting room and down the great hallway, me hurrying to keep up on my crutches, and then tossing them aside and running after them on my miraculously healed ankle.

  Great portraits of our ancestors looked smugly down at me as I ran past. A full suit of armor, brandishing a sword still stained with blood, stood sentry in a niche.

  Ahead, I saw Konrad and Elizabeth disappear into the library, and I followed. Konrad was in the middle of the grand book-lined room, spinning Elizabeth round and round in a tight circle until she shrieked for him to stop.

  “I’m too dizzy, Konrad!”

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s dance instead.” And he took her hands and pulled her, none too gently, from the chair.

  “I can’t!” she protested, staggering like a drunk as Konrad waltzed her clumsily across the room. I watched them, and there was within me a brief flicker of a feeling I did not recognize. It looked like me dancing with Elizabeth, but it was not.

  She caught my eye, laughing. “Victor, make him stop! I must look ridiculous!”

  Because she had grown up with us, she was used to such rough play. I was not worried for her. If she so wanted, she could have freed herself from Konrad’s clutches.

  “All right, my lady,” said Konrad, “I release you.” And he gave her a final spin and let go.

  Laughing still, Elizabeth lurched to one side, tried to regain her balance, and then fell against the shelves, her hand dislodging an entire row of books before she collapsed to the floor.

  I looked at my twin with mock severity. “Konrad, look what you’ve done, you scoundrel!”

  “No. Look what I’ve done!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  The bookshelf behind her had swung inward on invisible hinges, revealing a narrow opening.

  “Incredible!” I exclaimed. “A secret passage we haven’t discovered yet!”

  Château Frankenstein had been built by our ancestors more than three hundred years before, outside the village of Bellerive, not four miles from Geneva. The château had been constructed as both home and fortress, and its thick walls and high turrets rose from a promontory overlooking the lake, surrounded on three sides by water.

  Though we also had a handsome house within Geneva itself, we usually stayed there only in the winter months, and at the first signs of spring, we moved back to the château. Over the years, Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had spent countless hours and days exploring its many levels, its sumptuous chambers and ballrooms, boathouse, stables, and ramparts. There were damp subterranean dungeons, portcullises that clanged down to block entranceways—and, of course, secret passages.

  We’d naively thought that we’d discovered all of these. But here we were, the three of us, staring with delight at this gap in the library wall.

  “Fetch a candlestick,” Konrad told me.

  “You fetch a candlestick,” I retorted. “I can practically see in the dark.” And I pushed the thick bookshelf so that it swung farther inward—enough for a person to squeeze through if he turned sideways. The darkness beyond was total, but I resolutely moved toward it, hands outstretched.

  “Don’t be daft,” said Elizabeth, grabbing my arm. “There might be stairs—or nothing at all. You’ve fallen to your death once already this week.”

  Konrad was pushing past us now, a candlestick in his hand, leading the way. With a grimace I followed Elizabeth, and hadn’t taken two steps before Konrad brought us up short.

  “Stop! There’s no railing—and a good drop.”

  The three of us stood, pressed together, upon a small ledge that overlooked a broad square shaft. The candlelight did not reveal the bottom.

  “Perhaps it’s an old chimney,” Elizabeth suggested.

  “If it’s a chimney, why are there stairs?” I said, for jutting from the brick wall were small wooden steps.

  “I wonder if Father knows about this,” said Konrad. “We should tell him.”

  “We should go down first,” I said. “See where it leads.”

  We all looked at the thin steps, little more than plank ends.

  “They might be rotted through,” my brother said sensibly.

  “Give me the candle, then,” I said impatiently. “I’ll test them as I go.”

  “It’s not safe, Victor, especially for Elizabeth in her skirt and heeled shoes—”

  In two swift movements Elizabeth had slipped off both shoes. I saw her eyes flash eagerly in the candlelight.

  “They don’t look so rotted,” she said.

  “All right,” said Konrad. “But stick close to the wall—and tread carefully!”

  I badly wanted to go first, but Konrad held the candle, and led the way. Elizabeth went next, lifting her skirts. I came last. My eyes were fixed on the steps, and one hand brushed the wall, as much for reassurance as for balance. Three … four … five steps … and then a ninety-degree turn along the next wall. I paused and looked back up at the narrow bar of light from the library door. I was glad we’d left it ajar.

  From below rose an evil, musty smell, like rotted lake weed. After a few more steps Konrad called out:

  “There’s a door here!”

  In the halo of candlelight, I saw set into the side of the shaft a large wooden door. Its rough surface was gouged with scratches. Where the handle ought to have been, there was a hole.
Painted across the top of the hole were the words:

  ENTER ONLY WITH A FRIEND’S WELCOME.

  “Not very friendly to have no handle,” Elizabeth remarked.

  Konrad gave the door a couple of good shoves. “Locked tight,” he said.

  The stairs continued down, and my brother held the candle at arm’s length, trying to light the depths.

  I squinted. “I think I see the bottom!”

  It was indeed the bottom, and we reached it in another twenty steps. In the middle of the damp dirt floor was a well.

  We walked around it and peered inside. I couldn’t tell if what I saw was oily water or just more blackness.

  “Why would they hide a well in here?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Maybe it’s a siege well,” I said, pleased with myself.

  Konrad lifted an eyebrow. “A siege well?”

  “If the château were besieged, and all other supplies of water were cut off.”

  “Makes good sense,” said Elizabeth. “And maybe that door we passed leads to a secret escape tunnel!”

  “Is that … a bone?” Konrad asked, holding his candle closer to the ground.

  I felt myself shiver. We all bent down. It was half buried in the earth and was very small, white, and slender, with a knobby end.

  “Maybe a finger bone?” I said.

  “Animal or human?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We could dig it up,” said Konrad.

  “Perhaps later,” said Elizabeth. “No doubt it’s just a bit of another Frankenstein relative.”

  We all giggled, and the noise echoed about unpleasantly.

  “Shall we go back up?” Konrad said.

  I wondered if he was scared. I was, but would not show it.

  “That door … ,” I said. “I wonder where it goes.”

  “It may simply be bricked up on the other side,” said Konrad.

  “May I?” I said, and took the candle from his hand. I led the way back up the splintered stairs and stopped outside the door. I held the flame to the small hole but still could not see what was beyond. Passing the candle down to Elizabeth, I swallowed, and stretched my hand toward the dark hole.

  “What are you doing, Victor?” Konrad asked.

  “There might be a catch inside,” I said, and chuckled to conceal my nervousness. “No doubt something will grab my hand.”

  I folded my hand, slipped it into the hole—and immediately something seized me.

  The fingers were cold and very, very strong, and they gripped so tightly that I bellowed in both pain and terror.

  “Victor, is this a joke?” Elizabeth demanded angrily.

  I was pulling with all my might, trying to wrench my hand free. “It’s got me!” I roared. “It’s got my hand!”

  “What’s got your hand?” shouted Konrad from below.

  In my hysteria all I could think was, If it has a hand, it has a head, and if it has a mouth, it has teeth.

  I pounded at the door with my other fist. “Let me go, you fiend!”

  The more I pulled, the tighter it held me. But even in my panic I suddenly realized that this grip did not feel like flesh. It was too hard and inflexible.

  “It’s not a real hand!” I cried. “It’s some kind of machine!”

  “Victor, you idiot, what have you done now?” Konrad said.

  “It won’t release me!”

  “I’m going for help,” said Elizabeth, carefully moving around me and up the narrow steps. But just before she reached the door, there was a dull thud, and the bar of light from the library disappeared.

  “What happened?” Konrad called out.

  “It closed itself!” Elizabeth called back. “There’s a handle, but it won’t turn!” She began to pound on the thick door and call for help. Her voice echoed about the shaft like a bat’s flurry of panic.

  All this time I was still struggling to pull my hand free.

  “Be calm,” said Konrad at my side. “Elizabeth, can you return the candle to us, please?”

  “I’ll be trapped down here forever!” I wailed, thinking of the bone we’d seen in the dirt. I now understood the deep scratches in the door, no doubt gouged by desperate fingernails. “You’ll have to saw my hand off!”

  Exhausted, I stopped fighting the mechanical hand, and instantly it stopped tightening—but it did not release me.

  “‘Enter only with a friend’s welcome,’” Elizabeth said, reading the message painted on the door. “It’s some kind of riddle. “A friend’s welcome …”

  “Crushing someone’s hand to pulp!” I said.

  “No,” she said. “When you welcome a friend, you say hello, you ask how they’ve been, you … shake their hand! Victor, maybe it wants you to shake hands!”

  “I’ve been shaking hands with it for ten minutes!”

  But had I? I’d been pulling and thrashing wildly about. I forced myself to take a deep, calm breath. As smoothly as I could, I tried to lift my hand. Amazingly, I was permitted to do so. Then I pushed gently down—and then politely pumped up and down once more. Instantly the mechanical fingers sprang apart, my hand was released, and the door creaked open a few inches.

  I cradled my molested hand, flexing my fingers to make sure none were broken. “Thank you,” I said to Elizabeth. “That was a very good idea.”

  “You troublemaker,” she said angrily. “Your adventure’s got us locked in—Victor, what are you doing now?”

  “Don’t you want to have a look inside?” I said, poking the door open a little more.

  “You must be mad,” said Konrad, “after what that door just did to you.”

  “It may be our only way out,” I said. I was aware that I’d done a good deal of wailing and shrieking. At least I hadn’t wept. But I wanted to save face—and I was genuinely curious to know what was inside.

  “Come on,” I said to Elizabeth, plucking the candle from her.

  I pushed the door wide, stood to one side, and waited. Nothing flew out. Cautiously I stepped in, and peered behind the door.

  “Look at this!” I exclaimed.

  An elaborate machine, all gears and pulleys, was bolted to the back of the door. Against the hole was an amazing mechanical hand with jointed wooden fingers.

  “What an ingenious lock,” said Konrad in amazement.

  “And look here,” I said, pointing up. “I bet those ropes go to the library door. Didn’t it close and lock after the machine grabbed my hand? I’d wager we can unlock it from here. A brilliant trap to guard the room.”

  “But why,” Elizabeth began slowly, “does it need to be guarded?”

  As one, we all turned toward the room. The skin of my neck was gooseflesh.

  I held the candle high. We were in a surprisingly large chamber. Nearby was a torch jutting from a wall sconce, and I quickly lit it. The room brightened, an orange glow flickering over tables scattered with oddly shaped glassware and metal instruments—and row upon row of shelves groaning with thick tomes.

  “It’s just a library,” I said, relieved.

  “We must be the first to discover it,” Elizabeth said in wonder.

  I stroked my finger through the thick dust on the closest table, looked at the cobwebs sagging from the corners of the low ceiling. “Maybe so,” I murmured.

  “Curious instruments,” said Konrad, peering at the glassware and scales and sharply angled tools arranged atop the table.

  “It looks a bit like an apothecary shop,” I said, noting the large sooty hearth. “Maybe one of our ancestors made primitive medicines.”

  “That would explain the well,” Elizabeth said. “They’d have needed water.”

  “But why do it in a secret chamber?” I wondered aloud. I walked over to the bookshelves and squinted at their cracked spines. “The titles are all Latin and Greek and … languages I’ve never seen.”

  I heard Elizabeth laugh, and turned.

  “Here is a spell to rid your garden of slugs,” she said, paging through a black tome. “And another to make so
meone fall in love with you.” Her eyes lingered a bit longer on this one. “And here is one to make your enemy sicken and die …” Her voice trailed off. “There is a very upsetting picture of a body covered in running sores.”

  We laughed, or tried to laugh, but we were all, I think, in awe of this strange place and the books it held.

  “And here,” said Konrad, paging through another volume, “are instructions on how to speak to the dead.”

  I looked at my brother. I often had the uncanny feeling that I was waiting for his show of emotions so I could better know my own. Right now I saw fear rather than my own powerful fascination with the place.

  He swallowed. “We should leave.”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, replacing her book.

  “I want to stay a little longer,” I said. I was not pretending. Books usually held little interest for me, but these had a dark luster, and I wanted to run my fingers over their ancient pages, gaze upon their strange contents.

  I caught sight of a book titled Occulta Philosophia and thirstily drew it from the shelf.

  “Occult philosophy,” said Konrad, looking over my shoulder.

  I turned the first few vellum pages to find the author’s name.

  “Cornelius Agrippa,” I read aloud. “Any idea who this old fellow was?”

  “A medieval German magician,” said a voice, and Elizabeth gave a shriek, for the answer had come from behind us. We all whirled to behold, standing in the doorway, Father.

  “You’ve discovered the Biblioteka Obscura, I see,” he said, torchlight and shadow dancing disconcertingly over his craggy face. He was a powerfully built man, leonine with his thick silver hair and steady hunter’s gaze. I would not have wanted to stand before him in his courtroom.

  “It was an accident,” Elizabeth said. “I fell against the books, you see, and the door opened before us.”

  Father’s mood was rarely as severe as his fierce demeanor, and he grinned now. “And naturally you had to descend the stairs.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “And would I be right in assuming, Victor, that you were the one to shake hands with the door?”