The Fire Chronicle by John Stephens Page A

focus.
    “Well—”
    “Or we could go that way!”
    Dr. Pym pointed to the far side of the cavern. At first, Michael saw only rocks and the play of shadows. But then, looking closer, he perceived that one of the shadows was in fact a narrow fissure, a sort of crack in the cavern wall.
    The wizard smiled. “Lucky we’re both slim, eh?”
    They had to scoot through the crease sideways, and the jagged edges of the rock wall ripped at Michael’s jacket and the legs of his pants; once, he banged his knee and had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. Finally, the crevice widened, and Michael and Dr. Pym could walk normally. But the way was still dark, andthe only sounds were their footsteps and the soft flutter of the torches. Michael hung close to the wizard’s heels and began to ask questions. Mostly, he wanted to hear the wizard’s voice.
    “So, that letter Dr. Algernon found was from two hundred years ago?”
    “Yes, give or take.”
    “And the man with the fever, the one who was in the Order, said he and the others had taken the book out of Egypt; and that happened more than two thousand years ago.”
    “That’s right. Oh, Michael, my boy—”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Please don’t set fire to my suit. It’s my only one.”
    “Sorry.” Michael slowed and put another few inches between his torch and Dr. Pym’s back. “So wouldn’t he, the sick guy, have had to be really, really old?”
    Michael heard Dr. Pym chuckle; the sound seemed to bounce from wall to wall.
    “Indeed he would. Which raises an even more interesting question. There are two remaining Books of Beginning. Each has unique powers. Tell me, have you given any thought as to what those powers might be?”
    Michael had. He and Emma had debated the subject endlessly since their return to Baltimore—Kate had refused to join in, saying, “The Books’ll be what they’ll be; I don’t want to think about them till I have to.” But all of his and Emma’s theories about the Books’ possible powers—the power to fly, the power to become superstrong, the power to talk to insects (Michael hadonce seen a documentary that said there were more than a trillion insects on earth and how if they all worked together, they could take over the planet), the power of endless ice cream (one of Emma’s favorites, which Michael had maintained was not actually a power), the power to talk to people a long way off (another of Michael’s, though whenever he’d mentioned it, Emma had always said, “Yeah, that’s called a telephone”)—suddenly seemed either too small or just plain silly.
    “Yeah, but nothing good.”
    “Allow me to give you a hint,” the wizard said. “You correctly pointed out that the man in the pig merchant’s letter would have been thousands of years old. And yet, the members of the Order were men with normal life spans. How do you explain this fellow living as long as he did?”
    “You mean … that was the book?”
    “Just so. Now, what name would you give such a book? Remember, the Books deal with the very nature of existence, and the
Atlas
is the Book of Time. Think big, my boy.”
    There was only one answer. “I guess … the Book of Life?”
    “Exactly. Or as it’s also known, the
Chronicle
. And granting long life is only one of its powers. So this fellow in the letter, he and the other members of the Order, they hide the
Chronicle
in a secret place, and as long as they are close to it, they live on, century after century. Then this man comes to Malpesa, perhaps leaving the book with his comrades, and once separated from its power, he grows sick and dies. As to why he would embark on such a journey, well, that is another question.”
    They walked on; but Michael had one more thing to ask.
    “Dr. Pym …”
    “Yes?”
    “So the last book, the third one, is it … well …”
    The wizard stopped and faced him.
    “Yes,” the old man said, “the last is the Book of Death. But that is not a matter to concern us