Endymion Spring

Mainz, Spring 1453

The silence woke me. Something was wrong. I opened my eyes and peered into the gloom, trying to detect any sound, any movement, but there was none. Only a sliver cusp of moonlight across the floor. The darkness pressed in all around me, as thick as velvet.

For months now, Peter had been my sleeping companion, keeping me awake with his twitching and scratching, tormented by the dreams he never shared and the fleabites he did. And yet I was grateful for his company. The bearlike warmth of his body had kept me from shivering through the long winter nights when snow capped the roofs of the city and icy drafts crept through the house.

Spring had finally arrived. Ploughmen and vintners began once more to prepare their fields and people picked their way through the thawed lanes with renewed vigor, the memory of fresh fruit revived on their tongues. At long last the frozen river relinquished its hold on the boats trading goods up and down the Rhine.

Since the start of the year, Herr Gutenberg had been pushing us to complete a trial section of the Bible for the upcoming fair in Frankfurt, now only a few days away. He had swiftly invested Fust's money in five additional presses and even more compositors who, together with the other apprentices, had relocated to the Humbrechthof, a more spacious abode where the majority of printing was taking place. Peter and I, however, remained his special charges, sharing a bed at the top of his house. Peter was fast becoming a talented printer, while my fingers were still the undisputed masters of the type.

Work was progressing on the new Bible, a mammoth undertaking for which we had prepared thousands of pieces of type and countless reams of paper. Even at this rate it would take us another two years to complete the massive tome. My Master had planned on printing one hundred fifty copies initially, including thirty on the finest parchment, but already there was a growing list of subscribers: clergymen and patricians all hungry to see how our fabulous machine compared with the work of the most industrious scribes. There was even talk of our being in league with the Devil, for how else could we achieve identical copies of the same text so quickly? Of course, it wall all nonsense. It was simply down to our hard work.

Herr Gutenberg was busier than ever before. Each day, he refined the typeface a little bit more and resized the margins, experimenting with the number of lines he could fit onto each page. Everything had to be just so. He expected his Bible to be the most beautiful, legible book ever created: a tribute to his ingenuity, a testament to God's Holy Word and a profitable enterprise that would repay Fust's investment many times over.

Fust, for his part, was more often to be seen in Gutenberg's house, close to his mysterious chest, than in the workrooms. To him, the Bible was of only minor importance. Another project was occupying his thoughts. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn he was practicing the Black Art, secretly hoping to uncover the laws of the universe, for I frequently saw him poring over old manuscripts belonging to the Barefoot Friars, trying to piece together fragments of ancient texts: strange lines, runes and symbols that befuddled most minds. His fingers were black from the pages he perused and a heavy shadow haunted his eyes. Often, while I bent over my table, arranging words, he watched me — holding out a hand to stop me, as if testing the quality of my work. I shrank from his touch.

He timed his visits, I noticed, according to the waxing and waning of the moon, staying longest on those nights of total darkness, when even the faintest glimmer of light failed to illumine the sky. Tonight, only a splinter of moon was visible through the window at the top of our bedchamber, snagging a few clouds on its pilgrimage over the city. Yet it was enough to show me that the room was empty. Peter was gone.

At first I presumed he was on another of his nocturnal missions to see Christina, Fust's dark-haired daughter. He had developed quite an infatuation for the modest, kindhearted maiden. On religious days, when work was suspended on the press, he could be seen lingering outside the walls of Fust's house like an exiled lover — and by night, in our bed, he could be heard chattering about her beauty. But Peter was not with Christina tonight.

From somewhere deep in the house came voices. Whispers. Traces of movement scudded across the print room below, as though someone were dragging Fust's chest out of hiding and sliding it along the floor.

Wiping the drowsiness from my eyes, I crept towards the stairs. The candle in its iron holder had burned down to a tallow stub that gave off a fatty, rancid smell, but no light. I stumbled, trying to find my way in the dark. Shadows moved around me like quicksilver.

I descended slowly, careful not to make a sound. Even the slightest creak of wood might betray my eavesdropping ears.

The room below was aglow with red light. From the stairway, I could see that the fire was a riot of flame, a phoenix reborn from the ashes. Shapes dashed and flickered along the walls, dancing round the press like devilish minions.

I stepped nearer.

Fust was bent over the horrendous chest, which he had dragged towards the flames. Muttering an incantation I could not understand, he ran his fingers along the sides of the box. Then, in a deft movement, like a scribe replenishing his quill, he dipped them in a cup that Peter held out before him.

I nearly collapsed. The ink was dark and thick, like blood.

Quickly, Fust coiled his hands round the serpents' heads and fed them each a bubble of liquid from his fingertips. The fangs seemed to bite into his skin and then slide together at his bidding. The lid yawned open.

Had my eyes deceived me? Were the fangs not poisonous, as I had always believed?

I inched closer.

The press stood like a monster chained to the floor in the middle of the room and I ducked beneath its wooden belly, wedging myself between its protective legs.

From the top of the chest Fust now pulled out a pale silver-green animal skin. I caught my breath. He held it up to the light, where it immediately absorbed the glow of the fire and turned red like a sunset — a blood-soaked battlefield.

Amazed, Peter held out a hand to stroke it.

Fust batted him aside. "Psst! Do not touch," he hissed as he draped the layers of skin on the floor and plunged his hands deep into the dark interior of the chest.

My eyes widened further as he withdrew a long billowing sheet of paper, which seemed to ripple and stir with life. I had never seen such a spectacle before. It was an enormous wing of parchment! The paper was as white as snow, but did not melt, not even in the blaze of the fire, which crackled and spat nearby. Instead, the enchanted skin seemed to suck the color from the flames and burn with a more intense whiteness. Even my Master's best parchment looked dull in comparison.

My fingers squeezed the legs of the press. I longed to feel this amazing apparition for myself.

The chest contained other, similar sheets of paper — I could see them lapping in the box like a moonlit sea — but even as I watched, this single leaf divided in Fust's hands into ever-finer, thiner membranes that were all nearly transparent, yet veined with a delicate silver light. There seemed to be no end to the number of pages emerging from this individual sheet alone. It was a miracle!

"Yet for all its fragility, it is virtually indestructible," said Fust, dipping a corner of the skin into the fire.

I listened, astounded, as the paper emitted a soft hiss, but did not burst into flame as I had expected it would. Instead, it seemed to douse the fire, which turned from raging red to sullen gray and back again. Yet there wasn't so much as a scorch or a burn mark on the paper when Fust retrieved it from the fire.

I rubbed my eyes. Could this be real?

Peter peered over his Master's shoulder. "How did you come upon this — this magic parchment?" he asked with an incredulous whisper.

Fust remained silent and thoughtful for a while. Then he smiled. The tip of his tongue protruded briefly between his teeth, "You could say it was a gift from an especially pious fool in Haarlem."

Breathlessly, I listened as he explained the origins of the paper.

Several years before, a Dutchman named Laurens Coster had been out walking near his home in the Low Countries with his granddaughter, a girl of no more than five or six. Coming to the middle of a wood, they had chanced upon a magnificent tree he had never seen before. To his surprise, she had insisted she could see a dragon hiding in its leaves.

"And was there?" asked Peter, with bated breath.

"Patience!" said Fust, silencing him with a reproachful stare. "I shall tell you."

Coster's granddaughter was an imaginative girl, prone to dreams and fancies, and Coster did not believe her. The tree looked like a mighty beech to him. And so, to prove her wrong, he had stuck his knife deep into the heart of the trunk — in a whorl of bark that looked diseased — and challenged the dragon to reveal itself or be chopped into firewood. Nothing happened. The dragon failed to appear.

"In a rage, the girl stomped off," continued Fust, seeming to delight in the young girl's distress. His eyes burned with a vicious light. "She was so blinded by tears that she ran headlong into another tree and fell to the ground. Her cry brought her grandfather running."

Peter was losing interest in the story, for he asked what this had to do with the paper.

"I am getting to it," remarked Fust coldly. "The little girl scraped an elbow or a knee, I cannot remember which, but the abrasion bled — enough to make her grandfather staunch the wound with a cloth."

He held up a finger to silence Peter, who was about to interrupt.

"This is important," he said severely. "To cheer her up, Coster used part of the bark of the tree she had found to whittle a series of letters for her as a toy alphabet. He was a master craftsman, you see, used to designing woodcuts. He wrapped the letters in the blood-soaked cloth and led her home, resolving to return as soon as she was asleep and chop down the tree — for it really would make splendid firewood."

Fust paused to study Peter's face. "Only, when he arrived back at his lodging," he continued, lowering his voice, "Coster found that the letters had transferred more than their sap to his bloody rag."

Peter shook his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Peter," said Fust, "imprinted on the cloth were not just the outlines of the letters he had carved, but a whole word — a word strung together by some unseen, all-knowing hand. It really was as if the tree had possessed a dragon…or a spirit."

Peter's mouth dropped open. "But—"

"The letters," said Fust, even more slowly, "were addressing Coster's granddaughter by name."

Peter tugged on his ear, as if he had misheard.

"But how can that be?"

Fust appeared to smile. A shiver crept up and down my spine.

"Open your eyes, boy. The answer lies before you."

He spat into the fire.

Shielded from the flames, the dragon skin on the floor had turned back to its original greenish silver color, like a mount do frosty leaves. Once again, I found myself desiring to bury my hands in its tempting texture.

"You mean there was a dragon in that tree all along?" stammered Peter. "It knew her?"

Fust jerked his wrist slightly and caused the expanding sheet of paper in his had to fold shut again. "When Coster returned to the forest," he said "he found a mass of quivering leaves in the clearing, exactly where the large tree had been. The creature was writing in agony, tearing its barklike hide across the ground, in the very throes of a burning death. Its last breath left the earth scorched and fallow."

Fust paused to consider the fire in the hearth for a moment. The flames were fizzing and sighing.

"After the dragon's incineration," he resumed, "Coster found a mound of pure white paper and intact scales among the ash and debris — a perfect parchment. The temptation to gather it in his arms was too strong for him to resist."

"And Coster showed you this? Peter took up the story excitedly, pointing at the open chest. "He gave you the dragon skin?"

Fust hesitated. "Let's just say he opened his storeroom to me one Christmas Eve," he said, evading the question.

Peter turned to his Master in horror. "You mean you stole it? On Christmas Eve, too! How could you?"

"Ah, Peter, foolish boy," Fust cajoled him. "Stop trying to be so honorable. Holiness does not become you. This paper will make you a rich man — a very rich, enviable man."

I shook my head. Part of me wanted to flee from the room, to escape Fust's wicked ways; yet another was tempted to remain by the fireside and see what other wonders this paper could perform. The lure of the skin, its luminous sheen, enticed me still nearer.

The promise of money, however, seemed to have stayed Peter's mind. He fumbled with the tough ends of his tunic, which Christina had darned with patches of mismatched fabric.

"That's my boy," said Fust craftily. "Coster did not know what to make of his discovery, but I do."

Peter gaped at him for a long moment.

"What do you propose to do?" he stammered at last. The words barely escaped his mouth.

Fust picked at the points of his bifurcated beard. "What I desire is to harness the power of the skin," he responded calmly. "To turn the parchment into a book that will outstrip even Gutenberg's most precious Bible."

My heart jumped inside me. How could anyone dare to compete with my Master's sacred work?

Peter looked perplexed. "I don't understand."

"I have devoted many months of study to this skin," said Fust. "It belongs to the rarest, most mystical breed of dragon — a dragon fabled to have dwelled once within the walls of Eden and to carry the secrets of eternal wisdom within its skin. Everything Adam and Eve hungered for — but lost — is now within our grasp. Just imagine what the paper will reveal once we can read it!"

Peter bit his lip. "But—"

"Why, everything!" cried Fust ecstatically, clapping his hands together and causing his gemstone rings to clack. "All the secrets of the universe will be ours, all contained within one book!"

"But…but the paper is blank," murmured Peter. "How will you find the information you seek?"

Fust smiled cunningly and his eyes darted round the room. I cowered even lower in my hiding place, hoping he would not see me. His eyes were as restless as flies: they landed on each piece of equipment until they settled on the smudged, padded ink balls we used to wet the type.

"Ink," said Fust finally. "We need ink."

He paused to rub the ends of his fingers, which were still smeared with the dusky ointment he had used to touch the silver fangs. Peter glanced uneasily at the table, where he had replaced the metal cup. Whatever it contained was slowly filling the room with a noxious odor — a metallic scent like blood.

"You remember that it was Coster's granddaughter who could see the dragon," started Fust, raising a red eyebrow. "Correct?"

Peter nodded.

"And her blood that brought the letters to life?"

Again Peter nodded, but this time with less conviction.

"Don't you see?" erupted Fust at last. "This paper needs a special kind of ink to make its meaning known!"

I felt the color drain from my skin. Peter, too, had turned pale.

"Blood?" he asked tremulously. "Is blood the ink?"

Fust did not answer, but stared into the flames, which writhed and curled like snakes. His eyes were as red as hot coals.

"Just imagine," he said. "This little girl was so innocent, so naïve, it borders on repellent. And yet she — she! — had the power to summon words from a dragon. A power even I do not possess. Yet."

He snapped the final word with his teeth.

"What do you mean?"

"Coster was very crafty in the way he designed this chest," explained Fust. "As soon as he saw the dead creature, he was filled not with desire, but with regret. He realized he'd destroyed one of God's most sacred creatures, a beast invested with everlasting knowledge. Just one spiteful act — to crush his granddaughter's imagination — was enough to rob this fabled creature of its life. And so he made this chest so frightening, so hideous and horrifying, he hoped no man would dare open it. And he topped it off with these perfidious snakes, right from the Garden of Eden."

Peter's mouth hung open. "But how…how did you…" He pointed at the gaping lid of the chest.

Once again, I felt my eyes drawn to that frightful box. Ferocious monsters scowled at me from the engraved panels, while hellish demons wept tears of amber in the firelight. There was cruelty in its construction, but also guilt and remorse, a sadness that touched my heart.

"Up until now, I have attempted to purify my blood with that," said Fust, indicating the cup on the table. "It was enough to deceive the lock, but something is not yet right. Even monksbane is not potent enough to release the words from the parchment. For that I need something stronger.

He waved a blackened finger in the air and, at last, I recognized the smell wafting towards me. Monksbane. One of the metals my Master used to create his special typeface, an element so powerful monks were believed to drink whole quantities of it to purify their souls. Yet, as my Master frequently warned me, in even minimal doses it could be lethal.

Fust shook his head. "No, this paper responds to something else entirely. Something virtuous, honest and true…"

I felt tempted to run upstairs, to crawl beneath my blankets, for I know what terrible truth was coming.

"This paper," said Fust finally, "feeds on children."

Unable to control myself, I recoiled in horror. My head bumped against the frame of the press and the noise thudded in the dim room. With the swiftness of a fox, Fust turned away from the chest and swept his eyes round the furniture, hoping to flush out any unwanted quarry.

I remained where I was, perfectly still, too afraid even to breathe.

As Fust's eyes neared my hiding place, I pressed myself even deeper into its shadow. I feared he was going to drag me out by my heels and feed me to the paper; yet he seemed to shrug off the suspicion and turned back to the fire. He shuddered, as if cold.

It was then that I noticed my toolkit lying on a nearby bench. As inconspicuously as I could, I reached out to grab it and unrolled its soft leather lining. Inside was a row of shiny metal implements and I selected a sharp gouge to defend myself if either Fust or Peter came too near. Concealed beneath the press, I watched and waited.

Fust had gripped Peter now by the shoulders and was whispering something in his ear. I could not tell what he said, but was startled by Peter's reaction.

"Master! What's wrong?" he cried, for Fust had slipped to the floor. An ashen complexion had come over his face and he had started to shiver, as if seized by a fever.

The man clutched his stomach and made an agonizing retching sound. "It's the monksbane," he gasped. "It disagrees with me."

"What should I do?"

"Take me home. Close the chest and take me home. Christina will know the cure."

The mention of Christina's name seemed to spur Peter into action. He rammed the dragon skin into the chest, kicked the lid to, and rushed to his Master's aid. Bending down, he managed to lift Fust awkwardly to his feet and guided him gently towards the stairs. The man reeled like a drunkard.

Just before he left, Peter allowed himself a quick glance in the mirrors lining the walls and checked his reflection. For the first time that night, I saw a genuine smile pass his lips. And then, remembering the monksbane in the cup, he rushed back to toss the remnants in the fire. The flames emitted a choking white cloud and went out.

The room was plunged into darkness.

I remained where I was and listened. When I was certain they would not reappear, I hurried over to the chest.

The room was dark and cold, and I could barely see what I was doing. Only a glimmer of heat still seethed inside the fire. Like a hibernating beast, its red eye glinted at me from a cavern of ash.

The leather toolkit was bunched in my hands and I laid it out beside me. Desperate to see inside the chest, I worked my fingers round the carved panels of the box until I could feel the domed heads of the snakes protecting the lid. My fingers were jittery, but I fought hard to control them. I knew what I must do.

Taking a deep breath, I let my hands slide down the sleek curves of the silver fangs until they reached the tips of the teeth. The points felt sharp, cold to the touch, and I winced as they bit hard into my skin.

Despite all I had seen, I half-expected a rush of venom to seep into me, to lull my senses to sleep, but nothing happened. After the first stab of pain, there was only a strangely cool, comforting sensation as the fangs sipped from my fingers.

Would I be judged pure enough, I wondered, to see inside?

It did not take long for the flow of blood to subside. Following Fust's example, I then slid the teeth together and watched as the snake's head magically disentwined and the lid opened.

The fire sprang to life, and I jumped.

Almost immediately I discovered that the fangs I had feared for so long di not belong to the snakes, but were parts of the dragon — talons that pierced the front of the lid and protruded from the serpents' mouths. The snakes were merely a façade, a deterrent; it was the dragon itself that guarded the chest and all it contained. Its claws had read my fingers — and allowed me to enter.

Emboldened, I dipped my hands into the chest. The top layer of dragon skin felt like a covering of frost-hardened leaves. Tinged green and silver, they were forged together like an invincible plate of armor. I had to remind myself that these were neither leaves nor chain mail, but actual scales! Dragon scales!

My heart knocked against my ribs. How could this be true?

The parchment beneath was glowing softly and I immersed my hands in the billowing sea of material. My fingers dissolved in a pile of paper as cold and soft as snow, yet without its icy sting. My skin tingled. A feeling of overwhelming security flooded into me.

Greedily, I brought up several leaves of parchment and watched as the air buffeted and breathed within them, filling each separate layer with life. I could barely contain my excitement. The membranes were as thin as moth's wings, yet illumined from within by some strange source of light. I was captivated, spellbound.

And then something else caught my eye. A glimmer of words, in silver strands of gossamer, appeared before me like an oracle. Where had they come from? I read them quickly, hungry to glean their knowledge:

The Child may see what the Man does not

A future Time which Time forgot:

Books yet to be and Books already written

Within these Pages lie dormant and hidden.

Yet Darkness seeks what Light reveals

A Shadow grows: these Truths conceal.

These are my Words, Endymion Spring,

Bring only the Insight the Inside brings…

My skin shuddered with recognition. That was my name! The dragon was addressing me personally, just as it had appealed to Coster's granddaughter several years before. My hands began to shake.

Even now, I could see other words, other messages, appearing in the sheets of paper that were unfolding in my fingers. Pockets of parchment opened at random, each disclosing a hidden doorway to wisdom, a miniature book. It was more wonderful than anything I had imagined — much faster than Herr Gutenberg's press. Whole kingdoms rose and fell within a few pages, leaving behind their legacies of words. I wanted to follow each new path, each staircase of paper, to find out where they would lead, but all of a sudden my elation turned to fear.

Like a shadow passing into the room behind me, a suspicion entered my mind. Wasn't this exactly what Fust had wanted all along? The answers to the world's mysteries laid out before him like an open book? Still more words were appearing on the magic parchment, bleeding through the skin, spreading into the contents of the chest. They were unstoppable!

Instantly, I recognized the error of my ways. I had opened a vast florilegium of knowledge — a book of books without any conceivable end. How could I close it again?

A breath of night air stole into the room and brushed against the back of my neck. The door downstairs had opened and two sets of footsteps — not one — approached. Peter was not alone. Fust had returned with him.

Terrified, I tightened my grip on the paper. As if in response, the expanding sheet in my hand began to diminish rapidly in size, folding itself into smaller and smaller compartments. The immense wing of paper was soon no more than a booklet — al section of paper that fitted easily in the palm of my hand.

Grabbing my toolkit, I hastily remove its contents and stuffed the wad of paper inside, wrapping the leather straps around it as quickly and tightly as possible to form a secure bundle, hoping to keep at least the top layers of enchanted dragon skin from Fust's possession.

Miraculously, the words in the rest of the paper began to halt, as if frozen. Like shadows beneath ice, they were just visible against the whiteness of the paper, but virtually indecipherable. Perhaps these lower reams of paper would be incapable of releasing their power without the top layers to complete them? Perhaps I could still put things right? I had to hope so.

Fust had almost arrived.

Quickly, I closed the lid of the chest, leaving it as I had found it, and then as quietly as possible picked up the loose tools from the floor and trotted across the room towards the stairs, the booklet of paper concealed beneath my linen nightshirt. The fire had died to a red glow.

I could feel Fust's eyes hunting for me in the dark, but I was already on the stairs, hurrying back to the dormitory and my fate — a thief, once again.