The Name of This Book Is Secret (22 page)

Stepping through it, Cass and Max-Ernest found themselves in a small, vault-like library crammed with books—piles and piles of books—all of them, you could tell at a glance, rare and priceless. Some were gilded and encrusted with jewels. Others were studded with brass and bound with leather straps. Some looked so old that they would turn to dust if you touched them. It was like walking into a treasure trove of books, hoarded by pirate librarians.

As Cass searched for hidden doors and passageways, Max-Ernest couldn’t take his eyes off the books; he started thumbing through them almost against his will. While many of them had bindings of great beauty, their insides held nothing but horrors. Even the most casual inspection revealed etchings of nightmarish creatures like two-headed men and three-headed dragons, women with bat wings and monsters born in glass bowls. There were fiery planets and stormy oceans. There were ancient maps to places you should never go. Instructions for experiments you should never try. And memory keys for secret codes best forgotten.

“Hey, Cass,” Max-Ernest whispered over his shoulder. “Have you ever heard of alchemy?”

“Sure, it’s like wizard stuff,” she answered from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, but there are real alchemists, too. At least, there were people who really tried it. Listen to this—” said Max-Ernest. “‘
Alchemy holds that all life is made of One Thing. Traditionally, this thing is called the Philosopher’s Stone—although it is not so much a stone as a secret formula. If they could only find it, alchemists believed that they could turn lead into gold, and that they could make themselves immortal.’
Doesn’t that sound like what Dr. L was talking about? Remember—‘the True Science’ where everything is one?”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Cass, not really listening. “But come look at this—”

Okay, I have a confession to make.

Max-Ernest didn’t really read that passage aloud. He saw a reference to alchemy in a book, asked Cass if she knew what it was, then put the book down. Those words describing alchemy—I wrote them myself. You won’t find them anywhere else, certainly not in a jewel-encrusted book in a library next to a pyramid.

The thing is, I didn’t know how else to slip in the information, and you’re going to need it in order to understand the pages ahead.

Also, I have to admit, I’ve begun to care about you to some small—very small—degree. And what is that expression—forewarned is forearmed? After all, being able to grasp what is going on in a book is one thing, being able to survive it is another.

You see, Ms. Mauvais’s spa wasn’t really a spa—or not only a spa. It was home to one of the oldest and most powerful, and by far the most sinister group of alchemists in the world—they who call themselves the Masters of the Midnight Sun.
^*
And while they had not yet discovered the Secret, they had plenty of secrets already—and dangerous ones at that.

If only Cass and Max-Ernest had had the same advantage I’m giving you! Then they might have taken Owen’s advice and run home while they could. Instead, they acted like heroes—that is to say, foolishly, without regard to safety or common sense.

You, I trust, will not make the same mistake.

Now, back to the story:

“I’m sure it leads to the pyramid; it’s got to,” said Cass as Max-Ernest joined her in the back of the library.

She was standing in front of a bronze door embossed with Egyptian hieroglyphs—

On second thought, let’s have a chapter break. I don’t know about you, but I could sure use it.

I’m sure it leads to the pyramid; it’s got to,” said Cass as Max-Ernest joined her in the back of the library.

She was standing in front of a bronze door embossed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. The door was hardly hidden or secret, but it was much smaller than average, and partly blocked by books. It looked like the door to a safe, or perhaps to a tomb—a door designed to keep people out, not to let people in.

In the exact center of the door there was a large dial surrounded by the letters of the alphabet: a combination lock.

“There must be a secret password,” she said. “But how do we figure it out?”

“Maybe there’s a clue somewhere...”

“Sure, if we knew how to read hieroglyphics.” Cass was already feeling discouraged.

“Can you read English?”

Max-Ernest pointed—

Surrounding the hieroglyphics, intermingled with lotus blossoms and scarabs and all sorts of unidentifiable Egyptian designs, were words written not in an ancient Egyptian language but rather in plain English.

When you put them together, this is how they read:

WHAT WORD BEGINS THE BEGINNING?

WHAT IF YOU ERASED THE END OF LIFE, AND REPLACED IT WITH THE CENTER OF JOY?

NOW END AS YOU BEGAN.

FOR YOUR NAME IS A MIRROR. AND YOU ARE THE REFLECTION OF US ALL.

“It’s some kind of riddle, right?” asked Cass, tilting her head to make sure she’d read all of it. “Like the Riddle of the Sphinx?”

Max-Ernest didn’t say anything. His brow was furrowed in concentration.

“You think if we solve it, we’ll have the combi–nation?”

“Yes! Let me think,” said Max-Ernest, annoyed.

“Well, you better hurry, because Benjamin Blake—”

“I know!”

“‘
What word begins the beginning
?’” Cass read aloud. “The beginning of what?”

“Will you please just—”

“See what it’s like when the other person keeps— Well, did you get it?”

Suddenly, Max-Ernest was smiling. “Just the beginning part—it’s the oldest one in the book.”

“OK, what is it?”

“The.”

“The? The what?”

“Just
the.
The first word of the words
‘the beginning’
is
the.
”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“A lot of riddles are like that. I should know—I’ve read over ten thousand of them.”

“OK, if you say so,” said Cass doubtfully. “What’s the next part? The
end of life
is death, right? But how do you replace death with joy? Does that mean you’re happy that someone’s dead? I guess if you’re like Ms. Mauvais or Dr. L—”

“I don’t know—if it’s like the first part, then it’s just about the words, not what they mean.”

“So what is it then? Benjamin could be dying right now! And I don’t think anybody’s going to replace him with joy!”

“I know, I know. I have to think—”

“Well, think fast.”

Max-Ernest covered his ears so he wouldn’t hear her—then removed them immediately.

“Wait, I’ve got it—at least, I think I do. I think—it’s
E.
”

“What do you mean?”

“The
end of life
is the last letter of ‘life’—
E.
And
the center of joy
is
O
—the middle letter of ‘joy.’”

“It’s the letters? How’d you figure that out?”

“There’s lots of letter riddles. Like, why is
C
the coldest letter? ’Cause it’s in the middle of
ice.
Get it?
C
is—”

“OK, OK, I get it. That’s a really dumb riddle. Don’t lose your concentration! So you make T—H—E into T—H—O?”

Max-Ernest nodded. “‘
Now end as you began
...’” he read.

“Maybe you start over with
the
?”

“Will you just let me—actually, that sounds right,” said Max-Ernest.

“It does? So then we get—T—H—O—T—H—E? That’s not a word.”

“Let’s try it anyway.”

They tried the combination twice, first starting by dialing to the right, then starting by dialing to the left. Neither way worked.

“Oh, wait—duh,” said Max-Ernest. “We forgot the last line. ‘
For your name is a mirror, and you are the reflection of us all.’
”

He went back to his thinking pose, covering his ears with his hands again. Cass tapped her toes anxiously. She was trying to let him think, but it was very difficult.

“Hey, Max-Ernest, what was that called? Remember that mirror writing you talked about?”

“Palindromes,” he said, not uncovering his ears.

“Yeah, what about that?”

“Could be,” said Max-Ernest, muttering to himself. “Let’s see, if it was a palindrome, it wouldn’t have the
E,
which would still make sense with the start over part...I guess then it would be T—H—O—H—T, which sounds weird, but...”

But that combination didn’t work either.

Cass groaned. “We’re never gonna figure it out. I wonder if there’s some other way into the pyramid...What!? Tell me! Tell me! Did you think of something else?”

Max-Ernest was staring at the door.

“You see that hieroglyph in the middle? That guy with the head of a bird? I was just thinking that I saw it in one of the alchemy books.”

“And this helps us how?” asked Cass, disappointed.

While Cass waited impatiently, Max-Ernest hurriedly picked up one of the books he’d looked at earlier.

“Yeah, he’s right here,” said Max-Ernest, reading fast. (This time, he really was reading!) “It says he’s the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic and the inventor of writing. Also the record keeper of the dead. Often pictured with the head of an ibis—that must be the bird head on the door. Believed by alchemists to have been reincarnated as Hermes Tris-me-g—never mind, can’t pronounce it, but he was the father of alchemy. How ’bout that?”

“Fascinating,” said Cass.

Max-Ernest grinned. “Guess what the god’s name is—Thoth! That’s our combination—T—H—O—T—H. Thoth.”

“Thoth?” Cass repeated, getting excited.

“Thoth.”

“Thoth?”

“Thoth!”

“Thoth Thoth Thoth Thoth Thoth!” Cass imitated him, laughing. It was impossible to say without lisping.

The door opened with a satisfying
click.

They were at the top of a stairwell. Cass put her finger to her lips, and Max-Ernest managed, for the moment, not to say anything.

Silently, they descended the stairway, until they found themselves in a dimly lit passage—so narrow our two friends had to walk one behind the other.

“We must be under the moat,” whispered Max-Ernest.

Cass nodded, thinking nervously of her pyramid dream. She felt a wave of claustrophobia come over her.

The passageway was not, however, as long or windy as the one in her dream. Instead, it ended abruptly—at a stone wall.

“Oh, great,” whispered Max-Ernest. “Now what?”

He was about to turn around when he saw that Cass was standing close against the wall, looking through a spy hole in a small, hidden door. He nudged her and she stepped to the side—by half an inch—so he could look as well.

On the other side of the door was a vast room: the interior of the pyramid.

The spy hole didn’t allow them to see the entire room at once, but by shifting angles they could piece it together in their heads like a collage.

The floor was tiled with a translucent stone the color of a tropical ocean, and it extended farther in all directions than you would have thought possible from the outside. The walls, which were covered in gold leaf, stretched all the way up to the pyramid’s top, where an open skylight allowed in light from the Midnight Sun’s glowing lantern. A raised altar stood in the middle of the room, and on top of the altar stood a large iron bowl (smaller than a Volkswagen Bug but bigger than a witch’s cauldron) in which a fire burned with the same iridescent flame as the lantern above.

The audience surrounded the altar on all sides, creating a kind of theater-in-the-round. Straining in their seats, they stared at the fire with a sort of thirst, like desert animals stalking an oasis. Among them sat a handful of people Cass recognized as having been spa guests—all members, it seemed, of this ancient, alchemical cult.

Although they couldn’t see her, Cass and Max-Ernest could hear Ms. Mauvais’s icy voice echoing all the way into the passageway where they stood. The pyramid had the acoustics of a world-class concert hall. Ms. Mauvais was not, however, hosting a concert. Far from it.

“I know how eager we all are to begin,” she was saying. “But I believe we have a couple birthdays to celebrate this evening.”

By standing on tiptoe, Cass and Max-Ernest discovered they could catch glimpses of Ms. Mauvais standing on the altar beside the fire. She was dressed as always in gold, but she was wearing now what looked like some kind of Egyptian headdress, and her eyes were lined with black kohl. She could have been Cleopatra addressing her subjects.