This Dark Endeavor

by Kenneth Oppel

  “What nonsense you talk!”

  “Is it? Konrad sees your angel, but I see your animal. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?” said Konrad behind me.

  Elizabeth glared at me. I glared back.

  “Just a lively discussion,” I said dismissively, “and one I now tire of.” I walked past Konrad and back into the château.

  I wasn’t surprised when, not an hour later, there was a knock on my bedchamber door and Konrad entered without waiting for an invitation. I was at my desk, pretending to read.

  “You have upset Elizabeth very much, you know,” he said, sitting down in an armchair.

  “Have I?”

  He seemed surprised by my play of innocence. “Yes. She’s upset by the way you spoke to her.”

  I frowned. “What way was that?”

  I wasn’t about to make this any easier for him. I would give nothing away. I wanted to know how much Elizabeth had told him.

  Konrad raised his eyebrows. “Your behavior on the balcony was hardly gentlemanly.”

  The balcony. So he still didn’t know about our midnight kiss. Or her midnight visits to my bedroom. The fact gave me a little thrill. Our secret from Konrad.

  “My behavior,” I said with a frown. “Can you be more specific, please?”

  “You forced a kiss upon her, Victor.”

  I shrugged like a world-weary lover. “Oh, that. How could a young woman be upset by such flattery?”

  I watched Konrad carefully, waiting for his composure to crack.

  “That kiss was not wanted,” he said evenly.

  I chuckled. “It was by me.”

  My brother’s expression remained infuriatingly calm. “You don’t really love Elizabeth. It’s nothing more than a youthful infatuation.”

  “Ah, is that what it is?” I said, feeling my temper kindle.

  He nodded, as though he were a kindly uncle giving advice to a pimply, gawking child.

  “Perhaps yours is the youthful infatuation,” I said.

  “All right, then,” said Konrad, and I suddenly felt like we were fencing again—lunging and parrying. “How long have you had romantic feelings for her? Be truthful. Weeks?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Days, perhaps?”

  “What does it matter?” I countered. “If I love her, I love her.”

  “I am willing to bet,” Konrad said, “that you only discovered your love for her after you knew of mine.”

  “Not so!” I said, wondering if there was truth in this.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you,” Konrad said. “That was obviously a mistake.”

  “I knew your feelings well before then,” I scoffed. “And my own, too.”

  “Victor, she wants you to stop.”

  “Hmm. I wonder,” I said. And on a devilish impulse I added, “Did she not tell you about our long midnight kiss?”

  Konrad’s face tightened. A hit. But almost at once my victory tasted sour.

  My brother stood, enraged. “She’s never said a word of this to me.”

  Elizabeth had kept my shameful secret to protect me and Konrad—and I had just betrayed her.

  “I tricked her,” I said quickly. “I stole the note meant for you. She thought I was you, but not for long, and when she found out, she was furious with me.”

  “And yet you persist,” said Konrad, kicking the chair so hard it toppled and skidded across the room. “You want everything, Victor, that is your problem.”

  “How easy for you to say, when you already have everything.”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded, his fist closing.

  Scalding anger evaporated any lingering shame or regret. “You are best at everything, and you know it. It comes so easily to you that I wonder if you even try. I must work at what I want.”

  “And you’ve suddenly decided you want Elizabeth? Can’t you see how selfish you’ve been? She loves you as a brother, and it pains her to have to reject you—more than once now, it seems! She has no romantic feelings for you, Victor.”

  “I’m not convinced,” I said stubbornly.

  Konrad took a threatening step toward me. “This is one thing you cannot control. You must accept this.”

  “I accept nothing,” I said.

  “You deserve a proper beating, then!”

  “Excellent!” I said, exhilarating anger coursing through my veins. “Let’s have at it. Or maybe we should fight a proper duel over her, hey? Come, let us get our foils.”

  “Only if we uncork the tips!” said Konrad in fury.

  “Agreed!” I barked.

  He lunged for me, fists raised, but at that moment all the blood seemed to rush from his face, and he fainted on my floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE GATES OF HELL

  I HARDLY SLEPT, WORRYING ABOUT KONRAD THE WHOLE NIGHT. When he’d collapsed to the floor, so pale, for a terrible moment I’d thought he was dead. But he’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, and when he’d roused, he’d insisted that he was absolutely fine. But I’d already called a servant to fetch Father, and the servant and I had helped Konrad to his bedchamber and settled him in bed.

  “Please don’t make a fuss,” he’d said, still very pale. “You’ll only worry Mother.”

  When I’d bid him good night, he would not meet my eye.

  Dawn came, and I threw on a robe and went directly to his bedchamber. Mother was just leaving, closing the door softly behind her.

  “Wait a bit,” she told me. “He’s still sleeping.”

  Elizabeth came round the corner, hastily robed, her hair loose about her shoulders. She scarcely glanced at me.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  Mother gave us a smile, though there was something brittle in it. “Not so bad. A small fever only. Two of the girls downstairs have the exact same thing,” she added reassuringly. “It has laid them low for a day or two, but no doubt they will be right as rain. In an hour or two I’m sure he’ll be awake and wanting company. Maria is watching over him for now.”

  Mother walked off, leaving Elizabeth and me alone in the corridor. She started walking away, and I followed her awkwardly.

  “Shall we get some breakfast?” I suggested.

  She turned on me, livid. “When he fainted in your room, what were you two talking about?”

  I cleared my throat. “If you must know, he came to reprimand me for the way I treated you on the balcony.”

  Had there been some alchemical process to turn back time, I would have paid a fortune for it, so I could take back the hurtful words I’d said to Konrad. I’d come to his room just now hoping to make amends.

  “Victor?” she said impatiently. “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him that you and I kissed in the library.”

  Her dark eyes blazed. “How could you?”

  “I regretted it instantly. I told him I pretended to be him, that you were guiltless.”

  “And the sleepwalking?”

  I looked at her in surprise. “So you believe me now?”

  “Answer my question!”

  “No, I said nothing of it. And he remained very calm—until the very end. I was amazed.”

  “He’s not like you, Victor,” she said. “He can master his temper. But you went too far, and put his blood into a fever.”

  “You’re saying I’m responsible for his fever?” I demanded, though the idea had plagued me. “Listen to Mother. It’s a passing ague. Others in the house have it.”

  Neither of us said a word. We both shared the exact same worry.

  “I hope you’re right, Victor,” she said, “because if you’ve brought back his illness, I will never forgive you.”

  And she walked away from me.

  “I’d like to visit Saint Mary’s and light a candle for Konrad,” Elizabeth said as we were finishing breakfast.

  The slightest flicker of irritation crossed Father’s face, but he said, “V
ery well. I’ll have Philippe take you.”

  “I can take her,” I said quickly. I’d been planning on making a trip to the graveyard to check for Polidori’s note—and this gave me the perfect excuse.

  Father looked at me closely, and I realized he was still reluctant to let me out of the house.

  “To the church and back, Victor,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  Outside on the lake road, with the water sparkling and the heady smell of the fields in my nostrils, I ought to have felt exhilarated after my two weeks’ confinement. But I felt wretched. Elizabeth sat beside me, silent and reproachful.

  My only thought, thumping in time with the horse’s hooves, was: Let it be there. Let there be a message waiting.

  When we arrived, I watched her enter the church, then tied up the horse and ran through the tombstones to the Gallimard crypt, a huge pile of granite that had glowered there for centuries. I walked around it twice, scrabbling in dirt and leaves, looking for some kind of wallet.

  Nothing.

  I cursed and kicked at the crypt’s wall with my boot. Polidori had had two weeks. What could be taking the old fool so long? I wanted to ride the rest of the way to Geneva and box his ears.

  If Konrad’s illness had returned—

  I banished the thought, and walked inside the church. After the bright sunlight, it took my eyes several moments to grow accustomed to the dim interior. The church was nearly empty, only a few people at prayer scattered among the pews.

  I took a seat near the back. I saw Elizabeth at the front, kneeling before a row of small lit candles, her hands covering her face.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and I looked away. On the altar a young boy was polishing the brasses. My knowledge of the Church was small, but I did know about how the priest was said to perform a miracle, turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

  From the stained-glass windows shafts of colored light angled through the stillness of the church. My thoughts drifted.

  Wine to blood. Lead to gold. Medicine dripped into my brother’s veins. The transmutation of matter.

  Was it magic or science? Fantasy or truth?

  Two days passed, and the fever did not leave him.

  His body ached. The joints of his right hand became swollen. Downstairs, our two servants were still laid low as well. We had a visit from the kindly, useless Dr. Lesage, who administered his usual strengthening powders and tinctures to help combat the fever.

  “I am sending for Dr. Murnau,” Father said at dinner. William and Ernest had already been taken off to bed, and it was just Elizabeth and me with Mother and Father. For a moment there was silence around the table.

  “But I thought this was just a passing illness?” Elizabeth said.

  “Mostly likely it is,” said Mother, “but I think it best to be safe.”

  I avoided Elizabeth’s gaze, for fear of the anger I would see there.

  “Before he departed,” said Father, “Dr. Murnau left me a detailed schedule of his whereabouts, in case we needed him again. He’s currently in Lyon with another patient. I mean to ride there myself and bring him back as soon as possible.”

  Lyon was in France, and the country was in the utmost turmoil. Mobs of revolutionaries still roved the land in a reign of terror, persecuting any who might disagree with them. I looked at my father, and for the first time he seemed old to me, and tired. My heart felt as crumpled as his shoulders.

  “Is it safe for you, Father?” Elizabeth asked. “The stories we’ve heard …”

  “I will take Philippe and Marc with me. The French people have no quarrel with the Genevese—we have no love of monarchy either. My only worry is how long the journey may take. I plan to leave tomorrow morning.”

  Later that evening I found Father alone in his study, hurriedly packing a small valise.

  “May I speak with you?” I said, closing the door behind me.

  “What is it, Victor?”

  I took a deep breath, let it out. “Father, given Konrad’s condition, is it not worth … at least considering the Elixir of Life?”

  He looked at me as if I had gone mad, but I persisted.

  “We need only one last ingredient and—”

  He lifted his hand. “Enough. Dr. Murnau will advise us.”

  “But he himself said he couldn’t give Konrad the same medicine so soon. What can he do? Maybe if you’d told Mother the truth, she’d be willing to pursue the Elixir of Life as well. If we at least had it at hand, we’d—”

  “No!”

  “You would rather let him die?”

  “How often must I tell you? Alchemy does not hold the answer!”

  My heart thudded. “How can you say that when you yourself have practiced it?”

  His split second’s hesitation betrayed him. “Nonsense.”

  My voice shook. “I saw your handwriting in Eisenstein’s book. You have transmuted lead into gold.”

  Quietly he said, “It was not gold.”

  I stared in confusion.

  “It only had the appearance of gold.” There was bitterness in his voice.

  “But in your notes there were calculations for some two hundred pounds. If it was not gold, why did you make …” I trailed off.

  My father turned to look out the window, and I had the dreadful sense that something was about to be taken away from me forever.

  “Its appearance,” he said, “was enough to fool a great many people.”

  It took me a moment to form the words. “You sold people fake gold?”

  “When I was a young man, the Frankenstein fortune was all but gone. My family would have lost everything. Everything. When I discovered the Dark Library, I thought alchemy might prove our salvation. The gold, alas, was not real—but it was possible to carefully sell it through various agents, far away, in the empires of Russia and the Orient.”

  “I see.”

  “Without that money our family would have failed. I would not have married. You would not exist. I am not proud of it, but it was necessary.”

  I felt feverish. My father, the great magistrate, was a liar, a hypocrite, a criminal. I could not sort my thoughts properly. He turned to face me, and this time it was I who could not meet his eye, so ashamed of him was I. He took me tightly by the shoulders.

  “You must tell no one of this, Victor. You understand?”

  I said nothing.

  “It would destroy us.”

  I forced myself to look at him. “What about Konrad?”

  “Listen to me, my son. Alchemy is a mirage. You must accept that.”

  I wrenched myself free of his grip. “Maybe it was only you who failed. You cannot dismiss the entire discipline because you could not make gold! Maybe others are more skilled than you!”

  “Victor—”

  “No,” I said, blood pounding in my ears. “I no longer trust you!”

  He tried once more to put his hands upon me, but I twisted away and fled his study.

  The next morning he was gone. He’d departed for Lyon before I was even awake.

  At breakfast Mother looked at Elizabeth and me rather uncomfortably and said, “Your father left instructions that you are to stay within the house until he returns.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “He is concerned you might entangle yourselves in more mischief.”

  Elizabeth’s face filled with innocent amazement. “That is not fair! We have no such plans!”

  I said nothing, watching Mother, wondering how much she knew—of my interview with Father last night, of Father’s criminal past.

  “Those were his wishes, and they will be kept,” said Mother firmly.

  My pulse was a drumbeat of anger. I would not keep Father’s secret any longer—if secret it were. I would not be treated like a prisoner! But Elizabeth spoke before I could.

  “Surely I am still permitted the freedom to worship.”

  Mother faltered, for the word “freedom” in our house was given
great weight. “Yes, I am sure your father would not deny you that.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Because Elizabeth wants to visit Saint Mary’s again this morning. To light another candle for Konrad.”

  Elizabeth glanced at me in surprise.

  “And I am happy to take her,” I hurried on, before Elizabeth could say another word.

  “To the church and back only,” Mother said. “And do not dally, or there will be no more exceptions.”

  Later, on the way to Saint Mary’s in the trap, Elizabeth looked at me.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I thought I might light a candle myself.”

  “Is that so?” she said.

  I let her go inside alone, and then rushed to the crypt to check for Polidori’s message. If I again found nothing, I swore to myself I would ride to Geneva and confront Polidori personally.

  At the grave site I got down on my hands and knees and searched. Finding nothing, I climbed the low fence and peered inside the crypt. Nothing. I should have been clearer in my instructions and specified a place. Where would he have put it?

  Then I realized it would not have been Polidori himself who’d have brought the message. He would have hired a trustworthy messenger … or sent Krake. A great oak tree shaded this part of the graveyard, and I remembered the lynx’s speed in trees. I glanced up and saw, hanging from a low branch, a pouch. I jumped and snatched it down. It smelled like cat.

  I looked about, a touch uneasily, half expecting to see the mysterious lynx gazing at me with his unnerving green eyes. I untied the pouch and took out a small piece of parchment, dated only the previous day.

  My Dear Sir,

  I have finished the translation and discovered the final ingredient. It is very close at hand. If you still wish to obtain the elixir, come at your earliest opportunity.

  Your humble servant,

  Julius Polidori

  I went inside, found Elizabeth praying, and lit a candle.

  I knelt beside her and silently—to whom, I don’t know—said, Thank you.

  When we returned, I saw a pair of horses being harnessed to our carriage. Richard, one of the stable hands, told us that our mother wanted to see us at once. We vaulted up the stairs, fearing it was some desperate news about Konrad. As we passed my bedchamber, there was a servant packing my clothes into a large valise.