Codex - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by HF
Last updated: 09/18/2008 08:14:15 PM

Chapter 2

The hotel beckoned him with its warmth, but Remy firmly kept himself from going there. Instead, he jaywalked to the other side of the street and headed back up in the opposite direction. Sooze’s apartment was a good ten blocks away, a walk that would become even longer in this godawful rain, but it would be worth it, he felt, as his conviction increased that what he held in his hands was actually a book, and Suzette might help him figure out what was so important about it.

"She *might* help me" he clarified mentally. "Den again, she might jus’ kick my ass on outta dere... Hell, she’ll kick me out, more ’n likely."

With his hands wedged firmly into the folds of his trenchcoat, he could work the thin paper wrapping free without anyone noticing-and if the spectacle was a little too weird, well, he was just trying to keep his hands warm. He could feel the edges of pages, unusually thick and stiff and heavy, bound together between heavy covers made of some kind of metal. Gold? Remy wanted to stop and check, but to do so would be indiscreet. Best do it at Sooze’s.

Thoughts of Suzette distracted him from the cold for just a moment, and he welcomed the chance to slip inside memories that were not unpleasant and did not tie themselves to any that were. Sooze was simply... Sooze, with her curly strawberry-blond hair in the ponytail she hadn’t taken down since she was ten, in her loose flannel pajama pants and her favorite T-shirt that read QUI CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES across the front and back. ’If it’s worth saying, say it in Latin,’ she always said, usually as part of a suggestion that Remy shut his trap.

Suzette leBeau was one of the few women in the world who did *not* like Remy leBeau, and probably never would, not in a million years. Their relationship, nominally familial as it was, changed nothing-unless it had worsened since his separation (euphemism for: exile) from the Thieves Guild. He existed on perpetual sufferance with her, at least on the few occasions they saw each other. He could picture her now, bent over her desk, hemmed in by stacks of dusty tomes, scrolls, and dictionaries and the image made him shudder a bit. Contracting out for Guild translation work...! It was utterly beyond him, but that was Sooze leBeau for you.

And she also referred to him as ’the country cousin’... her branch of the leBeau clan was based in Paris, although they had hustled her off here when she was six to take advantage of State schools and the best information technology the US could offer. She didn’t have a hint of an accent at all; her voice had the odd, sterile quality Remy associated with newscasters and the people on The Weather Channel.

He hurried down the street, and even with his considerable stride it seemed like forever until he reached his destination. Eyeing the intercom suspiciously, he sidled around the building until he located the fire escape, thinking that, at best, Suzette wouldn’t be happy to see him-and she knew his voice from anywhere, no matter how well he could disguise it. Sneaking in would at least give him the upper hand for a moment... although she probably wouldn’t be happy about that, either. Sighing, he braced the book against his chest and swung up onto the first level of the fire escape, landing soundlessly on the metal grating.

"Still got de touch..." He allowed himself the self-congratulation before maneuvering up the next five floors. It was the work of no time, second nature to a young man who had spent most of his life learning how to move quietly in the dark, backstreet places of the world. Before long, he was crouched just to the side of Sooze’s window, and a careful glance inside showed her bent over her work desk, apparently engrossed in something. The apartment was dark, with the exception of the new flat screen monitor humming next to her elbow. Smirking, Remy reached out to open the window.

The latch tripped open easily. "Sooze, t’ought ya woulda learned better... no wonder dey keep you hidden all de way up here like a needle in a haystack."

Silently, silently, the window rode up. Remy unwound his lanky body from its awkward crouch and bent to slip underneath and inside, his natural agility unencumbered by even the awkward weight of the book. Soundlessly, he ghosted into the apartment, so quiet he thought he could hear the whistle of air in his lungs, the shushing of blood in his veins. So quiet he thought he could creep up behind Suzette and lay his rain-chilled hand upon her neck.

"I know what you’re thinking," Suzette said without turning around, her voice sudden and piercing like a gunshot. "Don’t think I don’t."

"Well, damn. Can’t blame a guy f’r tryin’."

"Typical stupid show-off-lookit-me patriarchal role-enforcing Neanderthal."

"Dat’s me, chere."

"There’s one in every family."

His adoptive cousin turned to face him, exasperation vying with victory for dominance on her face. Despite the battle, her thin lips were set determinedly and blue eyes smoldered with the perpetual antagonism she’d held toward Remy for the many years they’d tortured each other at Family functions. "I’m not *that* pathetic, Remy," she said finally, and exasperation won out. "I’m not so far gone that I can’t recognize a cold draft on the back of my neck, or the intrusion of an ego the size of Montana." Her expression darkened to suspicion as she saw the trench coat-wrapped package in Remy’s arms. "What do you want?"

Nope, Sooze was not happy. She never was. Remy quickly freed the package from the confines of the coat as he explained, "Was given this t’ take to a monastery ’r somethin’ in England... think it’s a book of some kind." He’d gotten down to the paper wrapping and Suzette let out a low whistle at seeing the size of the volume.

"That doesn’t look like pleasure reading."

"Non," Remy whispered, having shucked off the brown paper and discarded it. The fluorescent light of the computer screen fell coldly upon gold enamel and gemstones, making them spark with unexpected fire. "It ain’t."

"Holy schnikes!" Sooze was out of her chair in a flash, red-blonde ponytail cracking like a whip. She hovered over the object in Remy’s hands, her face very nearly transfigured with wonder. Her body blocked the light from the computer, but there was still enough to see what it was.

And it was indeed a book, a huge heavy thing with covers encased in gold. From the weight, Remy wondered whether or not it might be pure. Jewels and semiprecious stones had been set into the cover, sapphires and rubies, emeralds, beryl, agate, a great and perfectly spherical pearl just above the center. Inset was an ivory carving done like scrimshaw, a miniature group of three men clustered together. Remy pulled down his sunglasses, and with his keen eyesight he could see that carving was minute, exact down to the tiniest fold in a Biblical robe or wrinkle in a pious expression.

"Holy schnikes!" Sooze said again. She touched a corner of the cover reverently. "Remy... this thing is worth a *fortune*."

"Well, I kinda figured that," Remy answered dryly. He was reeling somewhat, and sarcasm was the best way to hide it. That priest, Father Clay, had been keeping *this*? It belonged in a museum! If any thieves had known of it, there would have been lines outside St. Patrick’s. Then again... Remy thought of the older Guild members and their endless praying, and decided that the leBeau clan, at least, would have let the man alone. There was that and he remembered very clearly Father Clay’s words, his expression of confidence in Remy’s honesty, however misguided it was, and he decided he couldn’t steal from such a person. "Stupid conscience."

Suzette was muttering to herself, a long and complex stream of academia.

"Probably tenth-century," she mumbled, taking the book from Remy’s hands. The movement was quiet and swift and without dramatics, and before Remy could register it she was back at her desk, bent over the first page of the book. "Insular, without a doubt," she continued, mostly to herself. "Look at these illuminations... Celtic knotwork, Anglo-Saxon illustration... gold leaf almost perfectly preserved...absolutely amazing... And you’re taking this back to some monastery? Remy, book collectors would sell their *souls* for this thing."

"Yeah, well, most t’ings ain’t worth sellin’ your soul for, Sooze."

"Well, for this *I* would," Suzette replied. "In a heartbeat." A brief, wicked smile twisted across her lips. "And then I’d steal my soul back, too."

Sometimes it was hard to remember that, anal-retentive and academic as she was, Suzette leBeau was still a Thief. Although she had never been trained for it, had never gone through the rigors that made Guild thieves the best in the world, she had centuries of their acquisitiveness piled up inside her-it was practically genetic. Cloistered in her studio apartment she may have been, but her education had been bent toward one thing: helping people steal stuff.

"Don’t often work like dat, either," was all he said.

Remy stepped closer to get a better look at the book, and surprisingly, Sooze permitted it, but then she was too taken with the book to notice, and Remy couldn’t blame her: the thing was spectacular. He had seen the oldest texts in his adoptive father’s library, the ones in incomprehensible Latin and Old French, some annotated in the margins, some not, and most decorated with some kind of illustration or design. This book eclipsed those, its pages blazing brightly with gold leaf and the rich hues of crimson, vermilion, verdura green, and azure. Impossible vines of knots and twisted cords wound up the margins, wrapping around a colossal initial adorned with more of that decorative work. Inset was a picture of a bearded man in a robe wielding a sword that blazed with fire.

Sooze was busy turning pages, and each successive one held its own wealth of beauty. "The penmanship is remarkable," she muttered. "This is something that would have taken years to do, and God only knows how much money; the illuminators and the scribe had to be about the best in their business. Whatever it is, it must have been important." She turned the pages more slowly, muttering to herself in spouts of what sounded like Latin.

"What *is* it?"

"Most of these books were gospel books," Suzette said, her voice dropping automatically into its lecturing tone-admittedly, it did not take much for her to sound like a teacher droning on, but this time Remy listened with sharp interest. "At least, the best surviving ones are copies of the Pentateuch, the Four Gospels, and a few Psalters; most of the other religious and secular stuff was nowhere near as fancy. This isn’t Biblical though..." She trailed off and flipped back a few pages, frowning to herself. "It’s a vitae-the story of a saint’s life. In this case, see here?" Suzette pointed to something that looked as if it was supposed to be writing, but which to Remy was incomprehensible. "It says here, ’This is the life of the most blessed saint and martyr Nathan, who died in the thirty-eighth year of his service to God the Father in the year 910."

"St. Nathan?" Remy blinked in surprise. "Dat’s de name of the place I’m s’posed t’ take this thing to-St. Nathan’s Monastery in Yorkshire."

"Hm," was Sooze’s answer. "He founded a church there when he was thirty, and the monastery grew up around it... Huh. This is interesting."

"What?"

There was a moment more of silence, during which Remy became genuinely agitated. What was so interesting? Suzette’s voice had lost its academic detachment and for a moment sounded keenly intrigued-and possibly concerned-about something. "What is it?" he demanded.

Suzette had turned the page, and there was another illustration of the same man in the same robe, still carrying the sword, although it was not blazing this time. It was the first, Remy saw, in a series of four small circular drawings, sort of like comic panels, depicting an event in sequence. In the second the second the man was joined by ranks of angry-looking men dressed in black, and the man’s companions fled; the third had the sword flaming brightly, painted in bold swirls of umber and yellow; the fourth had the black-clad men fleeing and a dove hovering over the battlefield.

"Viking raids were pretty much a permanent fixture in England," Suzette explained as her finger brushed across one of the painted black-dressed men. "Churches, villages, monasteries, cities... Everything got sacked sooner or later, regardless of how important it was. It says here that Nathan’s town was starting to crack under the pressure of continued Viking attacks and how the invaders had almost gotten over the walls twice before. It looked for sure that the town would fall and be destroyed.

"But," Sooze continued, sounding both interested and faintly bored-she never had much patience for religious stuff like this, even though it formed the basis for much of her work-"Nathan, who was a young man at the time, went to the church and prayed for God’s help against the ravagers, and the next morning he went out to their hosts accompanied by just a few of his boldest followers. The Vikings, seeing them, rushed forward to attack, but then there was a loud thunderclap and suddenly Nathan held a sword in his hands. And as he called on God to help him, the sword burst into flame, like the sword of the angel that guards the gates of Eden. He killed many of the invaders with this, and the rest either ran away or were converted on the spot."

Leaning back, Suzette massaged her temples. "That looks to be the meat of the story, in a nutshell," she said. "They called him Saint Nathan of the Sword when he was canonized and the church was endowed after his death, and the sword and a bit of his robe were locked up and saved as his relics."

Remy stood back a bit, more perplexed by the story than he thought he should be. It was incredible, unbelievable, like a particularly bad fantasy or science fiction story. Yet there was something about it, even in the brief, bare-bones synopsis Suzette had given him. As he mulled it over, other thoughts, other memories, adhered themselves to it.

""Now, do you see, Remy, how this might have been so?" HE asked, the tone of the question obviously rhetorical. Remy never answered a question so much as he served as a wall off which HE could bounce his demonic, stream-of-conscious ideas. "Yes, I see how it might have been. In a moment of overwhelming need, when the body is driven solely by its need to live, when the survival instinct is *all*, then it would happen. Epinephrine would trigger a cascade reaction, flooding the autonomous nervous system and bringing to life abilities and strengths previously dormant in one large-scale, overwhelming genetic shift coded to respond to such drastic chemical changes... It’s no mistake that young mothers can lift cars off their children, or a man run through a wall of fire to rescue someone trapped inside a burning building, and they don’t feel their muscles tearing or the fire burning their skin. In the moment of greatest need, when the entire being is focused upon the ultimate goal of escape, survival, of continuation of the species-the most primal urges in all humankind-that is when a human’s physical potential comes to its fullest-but with a mutant, one whose genetic structure is so finely tuned to respond to chemical variation, perhaps one traumatic hormonal shift is required for genetic potential to manifest in its most extreme state.