Book of Souls

He was in a second vault, seemingly identical to the first. Vast bookcases lined the corridor, plunging into the blackness. He checked the spines in the nearest case-1457. His mind raced. Now that he had found the Library, how would he reap its harvest? He needed to find the books for 1581 and beyond. That was where the profit lay. He would have to figure out how he might haul the precious booty out of the hole. He was completely unprepared for success, but he had confidence in his cleverness and was certain he would be able to fashion a plan once his heart stopped beating in his throat.

At each successive case he stopped to check dates. When he spied a book dated 1573, he turned to his right and headed deeply into the stacks.

There-1575, 1577, 1580, and, finally, 1581. The present! There were a dozen or more books engraved with the current year. He stood before them, shaking like a cornered rabbit.

Before him was the ultimate power in the world, the power to see the future. No one on the earth but John Cantwell had the power to say who would be born and who would die. His chest puffed out in pride. His father was wrong. He had, indeed, made something of himself. He reached slowly and deliberately for one of the books.

He never saw the blow coming, never felt pain, never felt anything again.

The rock caved in his skull and his brain filled instantly with a killing tide of blood. He crumpled on the spot like a child’s rag-filled doll.

Brother Michael called to his companion a few paces behind in the dark. “It is done. He is dead.”

“God forgive us,” Brother Emmanuel said, standing over the body and picking up the torch before it could ignite the books on the lowest shelf. They both dropped to their knees and prayed.

The young monks had spied the diggers passing their quarters and had followed them through the night and watched from afar as they worked the earth. When the local men fled, they had stayed to follow the activities of the remaining gentleman. When he climbed down a rope into the earth, they crossed themselves and quiet as snakes, slithering through the grass, followed him down.

Brother Michael was angry that the monastery had been invaded and angrier still that he had been compelled to take a life. “What is this place?” he spat.

His companion was a few years older, less of a physical sort, more cerebral. “Surely an ancient, sacred library, created by the brothers who lie peacefully in the crypt. It was sealed for a purpose, what, I cannot fathom. It is not meant for us. It was most assuredly not meant for this vile intruder. Taking a life is a great sin, but God will forgive us.”

“Let us take our leave,” Michael said. “I say we seal the hole, fill in the ditch, and say nothing of this to the others. Will you keep the secret with me, Brother?”

“In the name of our Lord, I will.”

They left John Cantwell’s corpse to lie where it fell and used his torch to find their way back to the rope. The body began its long, slow desiccation, and it would not be seen again by human eyes for 366 years.

A month passed, then another and another. Every morning Edgar Cantwell asked whether anyone in the household had heard anything of his son, John.

The autumn turned to winter, the winter to spring, and the old man incrementally came to accept that his oldest son had disappeared from the face of the earth. No one knew his destination when he left Cantwell Hall in secrecy, no one knew what might have happened.

One day, Edgar prayed in his chapel for guidance, and in his frail and increasingly confused state, he thought he heard the Lord whisper to him to reveal the family secret to his younger son, Richard, as he would need to be the bearer of the knowledge of the Vectis book. After chapel, he had the servants take him to the library. They sat him on a chair and he commanded them to climb the ladder to retrieve a wooden box hidden on the top shelf.

His manservant climbed up and passed some books to another pair of hands then announced he had found the box. He carried it over to his master and placed it on his lap.

The old man had not held the box in his hands for a long time. He was looking forward to spending a few moments with these papers, these old friends which bore so many memories-the Felix letter, which had made him spellbound as a young man, the enigmatic page with a date long in the future, the Calvin letter, which he treasured above all others for the memory of his esteemed friend, the Nostradamus letter for the memory of the man who had saved him from certain death.

He slowly opened the lid.

The box was empty.

Edgar gasped and was about to order the servant up the ladder again when he felt his chest explode with the pain of a thousand blows.

He was as good as dead when his withered body fell off the chair and hit the floor, and his servants could do nothing but frantically call for his children. His son, young Richard, was first on the scene, forever unaware that the secret of Vectis had just died with his father.