Read Online This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) by Kenneth Oppel - Free Book Online

shape. His eyes, strangely, were still clear. They were shrewd and confiding, and seemed to be looking out at us intensely.
    I watched Elizabeth, and could see that the image had the same disturbing effect on her, for her lips trembled a bit.
    “It’s like a man who’s been terribly burned, and only a ghost of his former self survives,” she whispered.
    “It is Paracelsus, though, no question,” said Henry, pointing to the bottom of the portrait, where, like words painted upon a wooden sign, it read:
    Famoso Doctor Paracelsvs
    The doctor’s body had not been so damaged by the fire. With a shudder I saw that one of Paracelsus’s hands rested over the edge of his own portrait, his fingers curled overtop of the little sign bearing his name. It was just part of the painting, of course, but it made it seem like he could simply step out of the picture.
    If he so wanted.
    I swallowed back my unease.
    “He was a German physician,” said Elizabeth, reading the tiny print beneath the portrait. “Also an astrologer and alchemist.”
    I began, with great care, turning pages. It was an agonizing, heartbreaking business, for many of them had been fusedtogether by the flames, and just the action of turning them tore them free and sent silky bits of ash floating up.
    On many pages it was really only the lower half, near the binding, that was even legible.
    “We are destroying the book even as we examine it,” said Henry miserably.
    Again and again I carefully turned pages.
    Until I found it.
    “Is that it?” I said excitedly. At the very bottom of the page was one of the strange characters we’d seen in Agrippa’s
Occulta Philosophia.
    “Yes,” said Elizabeth, nodding back at me. “It’s very distinctive.”
    “We will have our translation, then!” I exclaimed. “Surely if Dr. Paracelsus invented this language, he must have laid out its translation in the common alphabet.”
    But when I tried to turn the page, I could not. It had been completely fused by fire into a thick papery clump.
    “Stop, stop!” said Elizabeth. “You’ll tear it!”
    It was all I could do to keep myself from hurling the book across the chamber.
    As if sensing my rage, Elizabeth took hold of my hand and pointed at the open book. “Look there,” she said.
    Above the strange character was written something in Greek. I squinted but could not make sense of it.
    “The Alphabet of the Magi,” Elizabeth translated.
    “But its key is lost to us,” I moaned. “The book is unreadable!”
    “We know the alphabet’s name at least,” Elizabeth said.
    I nodded and took a breath. “And now we must find someone who can translate it for us. We must find ourselves an alchemist.”
    I slept but a few hours and, after breakfast, went downstairs to the servants’ quarters. I waited in the hallway outside the kitchen until Maria turned the corner and saw me. Her face lit up.
    “Konrad?” she said, with such joy that I felt guilty to disappoint her—and then disgruntled, too, for Konrad had always been her favourite when we were little.
    “It is Victor, Maria,” I said, coming more into the light.
    “Victor, forgive me. You gave me a start. For a moment I thought it was your brother, up and about …” She stopped herself. “Is everything all right upstairs? Does your mother need me?”
    “No, no, all is well,” I said. “I am sorry to bother you, Maria, but there is something I wanted to ask you.” I waited as Sasha, one of the kitchen staff, passed by in the hall, giving us a curious look. In a lowered voice I said, “Of a rather confidential nature.”
    “Yes, of course,” she said. “Come into my office.”
    As housekeeper she had a comfortable suite of rooms, some of which looked out toward the lake. She led me into her small office, where all the business accounts of the household were carefully maintained. She was a meticulous woman, and I’d often heard my mother say that we would all be utterly helpless without her.
    “What is