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  This Dark endeavor

  ( The appreticenship of Victor Frankenstein - 1 )

  Kenneth Oppel

  Kenneth Oppel

  This Dark endeavor

  CHAPTER ONE

  MONSTER

  We found the monster on a rocky ledge high above the lake. For three dark days my brother and I had tracked it through the maze of caves to its lair on the mountain’s summit. And now we beheld it, curled atop its treasure, its pale fur and scales ablaze with moonlight.

  It knew we were there. Doubtless it had smelled us coming, its flared nostrils drinking in our sweat and fear. Its crested head lifted slightly, almost lazily. Coins and jewels clinked and shifted as its body began to uncoil.

  “Kill it!” I roared. My sword was in my hand, and my brother was at my side, his own blade flashing.

  The speed with which the beast struck was incomprehensible. I tried to throw myself clear, but its muscular neck crashed against my right arm, and I felt the arm break and dangle uselessly at my side. But my sword hand was my left, and with a bellow of pain I slashed at the monster’s chest, my blade deflecting off its mighty ribs.

  I was aware of my brother striking at the beast’s lower regions, all the while trying to avoid its lashing barbed tail. The monster came at me again, jaws agape. I battered its head, trying to stab its mouth or eyes, but it was as quick as a cobra. It knocked me sprawling to the stone, so that I was perilously close to the precipice’s edge. The monster reared back, ready to strike, and then it shrieked in pain, for my brother had severed one of its hind legs.

  But still the monster faced only me-as if I were its sole adversary.

  I pushed myself up with my good hand. Before the monster could strike, I hurled myself at it. This time my sword plunged deep into its chest, so deep I could scarcely wrench it out. A ribbon of dark fluid unfurled in the moonlight, and the monster reared to its full height, terrible to behold, and then crumpled.

  Its head shattered on the ground, and there, among the bloodied fur and cracked crest, was the face of a beautiful girl.

  My brother came to my side, and together we gazed at her, marveling.

  “We’ve broken the curse,” he said to me. “We have saved the town. And we have released her.”

  The girl’s eyes opened, and she looked from my brother to me. I knew she didn’t have long to live, and a question burned inside me. I knelt.

  “Why?” I asked her. “Why was it only me you attacked?”

  “Because it is you,” she whispered, “who is the real monster.”

  And with that, she died, leaving me more shaken than I could describe. I staggered back. My brother could not have heard her words-they were spoken so softly-and when he asked me what she’d said, I shook my head.

  “Your arm,” he said with concern, steadying me.

  “It will heal.” I turned my gaze to the pile of treasure.

  “We have more than can ever be spent,” my brother murmured.

  I looked at him. “The treasure is mine alone.”

  He stared back in astonishment, this brother of mine who looked so much like me, we might have been the same person. And indeed we were, for we were identical twins.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  I lifted my sword, put the tip against his throat, and forced him, step by step, toward the edge of the precipice.

  “Why should we not share this,” he demanded, “as we’ve shared everything else equally?”

  I laughed then, at the lie of it. “No twins are ever completely equal,” I said. “Though we’re of one body, we are not equal, Brother, for you were born the sooner by two minutes. Even in our mother’s womb you stole from me. The family birthright is yours. And such a treasure that is, to make this one look like a pauper’s pittance. But I want it, all of it. And I shall have it.”

  At that moment the monster stirred, and in alarm I turned-only to see it making its final death contraction. But in that same instant my brother drew his sword.

  “You will not cheat me!” he shouted.

  Back and forth across the ledge we fought. We were both strong, with broad shoulders and taut muscles that thrived on exertion. But my brother had always been the better swordsman, and with my broken arm I was even more disadvantaged. But my cold serpent’s resolve was strong, and before long I had smacked the sword from his hand and forced him to his knees. Even as he stared at me with my own face, and pleaded with me in my own voice, I plunged the sword into his heart and stole his life.

  I gave a sigh of utter relief and looked up at the moon, felt the cool May air caress my face.

  “Now I shall have all the riches in the world,” I said. “And I am, at last, alone.”

  For a moment there was only the shushing of the breeze from the glacial lake-and then applause burst forth.

  Standing on the broad balcony, I turned to face the audience, which had been watching us from their rows of chairs just inside the ballroom. There was Mother and Father, and their friends, their delighted faces bathed in candlelight.

  My brother Konrad sprang to his feet, and together we ran back to the crumpled monster and helped our cousin emerge from her costume. Her luxuriant amber hair spilled free, and her olive complexion glowed in the torchlight. The applause grew louder still. The three of us joined hands and took a bow.

  “Henry!” I called. “Join us!” We all three of us waved him out. Reluctantly our best friend, a tall blond wisp of a fellow, emerged from his lurking spot near the French doors. “Ladies and gentleman,” I announced to the audience. “Henry Clerval, our illustrious playwright!”

  “Bravo!” cried my father, and his praise was echoed round the room.

  “Elizabeth Lavenza as the monster, ladies and gentlemen,” said Konrad with a flourish. Our cousin made a very pretty curtsy. “My name is Konrad. And this”-he looked at me with a mischievous grin-“is the hero of our tale, my evil twin, Victor!”

  And now everyone was rising to their feet, to give us a standing ovation.

  The applause was intoxicating. Impulsively I jumped up onto the stone balustrade to take another bow, and reached out my hand for Konrad to join me.

  “Victor!” I heard my mother call. “Come down from there at once!”

  I ignored her. The balustrade was broad and strong, and, after all, it was hardly the first time I had stood on top of it. But I had always done so secretly, for the drop was considerable: fifty feet to the shore of Lake Geneva.

  Konrad took my hand, but instead of yielding to my pull he exerted his own, and tried to bring me down. “You’re worrying Mother,” he whispered.

  As if Konrad hadn’t played on the balustrade himself!

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Just one bow!”

  Our hands were still joined, and I felt his grip tighten, intent on bringing me back to the balcony. And I was suddenly angry at him for being so sensible, for not sharing my joy at the applause-for making me feel like a childish prima donna.

  I jerked my hand free, but too fast and too forcefully.

  I felt my balance shift. Already weighed down by my heavy cape, I had to take a step backward. Except there was nowhere to step. There was nothing, and suddenly my arms were windmilling. I tried to throw myself forward, but it was all too late, much too late.

  I fell. Half turned, I saw the black mountains, and the blacker lake, and directly below me the rocky shore-and my death, rushing up to meet me.

  Down I fell toward the jagged shallows.

  But I never reached it, for I landed hard upon the narrow roof of a bow window on the chateau’s lower floor. Pain shrieked from my left foot as I collapsed and then rolled-and my body began to slide over the edge, legs first. My hands scrabbled,
but there was nothing to grasp, and I was powerless to stop myself. My hips went over, then chest and head-but at the roof’s very edge was a lip of stone, and it was here that my frenzied hands finally found purchase.

  I dangled. With my feet I kicked at the window, but its leaded panes were very strong. Even if I could’ve cracked the glass, I doubted I could swing myself inside from such a position.

  More important, I knew I could not hold on for very long.

  With all my might I tried to pull myself back up. My head crested the roof, and I managed to hook my chin over the lip of stone. My flexed arms trembled with fatigue, and I could do no more.

  Directly above me came a great clamor, and I glimpsed a throng of people peering over the balustrade, their faces ghastly in the torchlight. I saw Elizabeth and Henry, my mother and father-but it was Konrad onto whom my gaze locked. Around one of the balustrade’s posts, he had tied his cloak, so that it hung down like a rope. And then I heard my mother’s shrieks of protest, and my father’s angry shouts, as Konrad swung himself over the top of the balustrade. He grabbed hold of the cloak, and half climbed, half slid, down to its very end.

  Even as the strength ebbed from my arms and hands, I watched, enthralled. Konrad’s legs still dangled some six feet from my little roof, and his landing spot was not generous. He glanced down, and let go. He hit the roof standing, teetered off balance-to the gasps of all the onlookers-and then crouched, low and steady.

  “Konrad,” I wheezed. I knew I had only seconds left before my muscles failed and my fingers unlocked. He reached out for me.

  “No!” I grunted. “I’ll pull you off!”

  “Do you wish to die?” he shouted, making to grab my wrists.

  “Sit down!” I told him. “Back against the wall. There’s a stone ledge. Brace your feet against it!”

  He did as I instructed, then reached for my hands with both of his. I did not know how this could work, for we weighed the same, and gravity was against us.

  And yet… and yet… with our hands grasping the other’s wrists, his legs pushing against the stone ledge, he pulled with all his strength-and then something more still-and lifted me up and over the roof’s edge. I collapsed on top of my twin brother. I was shaking and crying and laughing all at once.

  “You fool,” he gasped. “You great fool. You almost died.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE DARK LIBRARY

  It’s a terrible thing,” I said, “To be crippled in the prime of one’s life.”

  “You’ve sprained your ankle,” said Konrad wryly. “Elizabeth, why on earth do you keep pushing him around in that wheelchair?”

  “Oh,” said Elizabeth, laughing, “I find it amusing. For now.”

  “Dr. Lesage said it mustn’t bear any weight for a week,” I protested.

  Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of the west sitting room, one of the many large and elegantly furnished chambers in the chateau. It was a Sunday, four days since my brush with death. Father had gone into Geneva to tend to some urgent business, and my mother had accompanied him to visit an ailing aunt in town. My two younger brothers, Ernest, who was nine, and William, who had scarcely learned to walk, were with Justine, their nanny, in the courtyard, planting a small vegetable garden for their amusement.

  “Honestly,” said Konrad, shaking his head, “it’s like a nurse-maid with a pram.”

  I turned to Elizabeth. “I think our Konrad wants a turn in the chair. He’s feeling left out.”

  I glanced back at my brother, hoping for a satisfying reaction. His face was virtually identical to my own, and even our parents sometimes had trouble telling us apart from a distance, for we shared the same brooding demeanor: dark and abundant hair that had a habit of falling across our eyes, high cheekbones, heavy eyebrows, a square jaw. Mother often lamented what she called the “ruthless turn” of our lips. A Frankenstein trait; it did not come from the Beaufort side of the family, she was quite certain.

  “Victor,” my brother said, “I’m starting to doubt that your ankle’s even sprained. You’re playacting. Again. Come on. Up you get!”

  “I’m not strong enough!” I objected. “Elizabeth, you were there when the doctor examined me! Tell him!”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall he said it might be sprained. Slightly.”

  “You should be ready to hobble about, then!” Konrad proclaimed, trying to haul me from the chair. “You don’t want to get sickly!”

  “Mother will be vexed!” I said, fighting back. “This could leave me permanently lame.”

  “You two,” said Elizabeth with a sigh, and then she began giggling, for it must have been a comic sight, the two of us wrestling while the wheelchair rolled and skidded about. At last the chair tipped over, spilling me onto the floor.

  “You madman!” I cried, getting to my feet. “Is this how you treat an invalid?”

  “A little diva is what you are,” said Konrad. “Look at you, standing!”

  I hunched, wincing for effect, but Konrad started laughing, and I did too. It was hard to watch oneself laughing without doing the same.

  “It’s still sore,” I said, testing the foot gingerly.

  He passed me the crutches that Dr. Lesage had brought. “Try these,” he said, “and let Elizabeth have a rest.”

  Elizabeth had righted the wheelchair and arranged herself gracefully on the cushioned seat. “You little wretch,” she said to me, her hazel eyes narrowing. “It’s very comfortable. I can see why you didn’t want to get out!”

  Elizabeth was a distant cousin of ours, from Father’s side of the family. When she was only five, her mother died, and her father remarried and promptly abandoned her to an Italian convent. When Father got word of this, some two years later, he traveled at once to the convent and brought her home to us.

  When she’d first arrived, she was like a feral cat. She hid. Konrad and I, seven years old, were forever trying to find her. To us it was a wonderful game of hide-and-seek. But it was no amusement to her; she just wanted to be left alone. If we found her, she became very angry. She hissed and snarled and hit. Sometimes she bit.

  Mother and Father told us she needed time. Elizabeth, they said, had not wanted to leave the convent. The nuns had been very kind to her, and their affection had been the closest thing she’d known to a mother’s love. She hadn’t wanted to be torn away from them to live with strangers. Konrad and I were told to let her be, but of course we did nothing of the sort.

  We continued to pursue her for the next two months. Then, one day, when we found her latest hiding place, she actually smiled. I almost yelped in surprise.

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered us. “Count to a hundred and find me again.”

  And then it truly was a game, and from that moment the three of us were inseparable. Her laughter filled the house, and her sullenness and silence disappeared.

  Her temper, however, did not.

  Elizabeth was fiery. She did not lose her temper quickly, but when she did, all her old wildcat fury returned. Growing up together, she and I often came to blows over some disagreements. She even bit me once, when I suggested girls’ brains were smaller than boys’. Konrad never seemed to infuriate her like I could, but she and I fought tooth and claw.

  Now that we were sixteen, all that was far behind us.

  “Well, then,” said Konrad, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, “you shall finally have your turn in the chair.”

  At top speed he propelled her out of the sitting room and down the great hallway, me hurrying to keep up on my crutches, and then tossing them aside and running after them on my miraculously healed ankle.

  Great portraits of our ancestors looked smugly down at me as I ran past. A full suit of armor, brandishing a sword still stained with blood, stood sentry in a niche.

  Ahead, I saw Konrad and Elizabeth disappear into the library, and I followed. Konrad was in the middle of the grand book-lined room, spinning Elizabeth round and round in a tight circle un
til she shrieked for him to stop.

  “I’m too dizzy, Konrad!”

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s dance instead.” And he took her hands and pulled her, none too gently, from the chair.

  “I can’t!” she protested, staggering like a drunk as Konrad waltzed her clumsily across the room. I watched them, and there was within me a brief flicker of a feeling I did not recognize. It looked like me dancing with Elizabeth, but it was not.

  She caught my eye, laughing. “Victor, make him stop! I must look ridiculous!”

  Because she had grown up with us, she was used to such rough play. I was not worried for her. If she so wanted, she could have freed herself from Konrad’s clutches.

  “All right, my lady,” said Konrad, “I release you.” And he gave her a final spin and let go.

  Laughing still, Elizabeth lurched to one side, tried to regain her balance, and then fell against the shelves, her hand dislodging an entire row of books before she collapsed to the floor.

  I looked at my twin with mock severity. “Konrad, look what you’ve done, you scoundrel!”

  “No. Look what I’ve done!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  The bookshelf behind her had swung inward on invisible hinges, revealing a narrow opening.

  “Incredible!” I exclaimed. “A secret passage we haven’t discovered yet!”

  Chateau Frankenstein had been built by our ancestors more than three hundred years before, outside the village of Bellerive, not four miles from Geneva. The chateau had been constructed as both home and fortress, and its thick walls and high turrets rose from a promontory overlooking the lake, surrounded on three sides by water.

  Though we also had a handsome house within Geneva itself, we usually stayed there only in the winter months, and at the first signs of spring, we moved back to the chateau. Over the years, Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had spent countless hours and days exploring its many levels, its sumptuous chambers and ballrooms, boathouse, stables, and ramparts. There were damp subterranean dungeons, portcullises that clanged down to block entranceways-and, of course, secret passages.