The Shadow Lamp Read online

  THE

  SHADOW LAMP

  © 2013 by Stephen Lawhead

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Scripture quotations taken from the NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible. © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Page design by Mandi Cofer.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-40169-020-5 (ITPE)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lawhead, Steve.

  The shadow lamp / Stephen R. Lawhead.

  pages cm. -- (Bright empires ; Quest the 4th)

  ISBN 978-1-59554-807-8 (hard cover)

  I. Title.

  PS3562.A865S53 2013

  813’.54--dc23

  2013009866

  13 14 15 16 17 18 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Margaret,

  my favourite mother-in-law

  Other Books by Stephen R. Lawhead

  THE BRIGHT EMPIRES SERIES:

  THE SKIN MAP

  THE BONE HOUSE

  THE SPIRIT WELL

  THE SHADOW LAMP

  KING RAVEN TRILOGY:

  HOOD

  SCARLET

  TUCK

  PATRICK, SON OF IRELAND

  THE CELTIC CRUSADES:

  THE IRON LANCE

  THE BLACK ROOD

  THE MYSTIC ROSE

  BYZANTIUM

  SONG OF ALBION TRILOGY:

  THE PARADISE WAR

  THE SILVER HAND

  THE ENDLESS KNOT

  THE PENDRAGON CYCLE:

  TALIESIN

  MERLIN

  ARTHUR

  PENDRAGON

  GRAIL

  AVALON

  EMPYRION I: THE SEARCH FOR FIERRA

  EMPYRION II: THE SIEGE OF DOME

  DREAM THIEF

  THE DRAGON KING TRILOGY:

  IN THE HALL OF THE DRAGON KING

  THE WARLORDS OF NIN

  THE SWORD AND THE FLAME

  “Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.”

  – EMMA BULL, AUTHOR

  Contents

  Important People

  Previously

  Part One: The Ghost Road Revisited

  Chapter 1: In Which Next Steps Are Contemplated

  Chapter 2: In Which Concern Quickens to Action

  Chapter 3: In Which Cass Takes a Quantum Leap

  Chapter 4: In Which a Reasonable Chariness Is Overcome

  Chapter 5: In Which Kit Returns to the Scene of the Crime

  Chapter 6: In Which Vows Easily Made Are Easily Broken

  Chapter 7: In Which Official Doors Swing Wide

  Part Two: Many Unhappy Returns

  Chapter 8: In Which Strong Temptation Is Resisted

  Chapter 9: In Which a Coffeehouse Summit Is Convened

  Chapter 10: In Which a Solemn, Sacred Deal Is Struck

  Chapter 11: In Which a Line of Succession Is Elucidated

  Chapter 12: In Which a Shocking Hypothesis Is Mooted

  Chapter 13: In Which Landlubbers Take to the Sea

  Chapter 14: In Which an Alchemical Difficulty Is Compounded

  Part Three: Hide and Seek

  Chapter 15: In Which a River Becomes a Flood

  Chapter 16: In Which a Snarky Attitude Is Discouraged

  Chapter 17: In Which Final Respects Are Paid

  Chapter 18: In Which Temptation Is Removed

  Chapter 19: In Which the Observer Effect Is Expanded

  Chapter 20: In Which Unwanted Attention Is Aroused

  Chapter 21: In Which an Unknown Mettle Is Tested

  Part Four: The Harrowing

  Chapter 22: In Which Exploding Stars Are Harnessed

  Chapter 23: In Which Tomb Robbing Is Encouraged

  Chapter 24: In Which an Event of Great Significance Is Overlooked

  Chapter 25: In Which Corpse-Pickers Raise the Alarm

  Chapter 26: In Which a Smattering of Latin Finds a Use

  Chapter 27: In Which a Rendezvous Is Arranged

  Chapter 28: In Which Trust Is Cruelly Tested

  Part Five: The End of Everything

  Chapter 29: In Which There Is No Smoke without Fire

  Chapter 30: In Which the Future of the Future Is Considered

  Chapter 31: In Which a Question of Payment Arises

  Chapter 32: In Which Time Is of the Essence

  Chapter 33: In Which Family Lore Is Fully Explored

  Chapter 34: In Which Hindsight Yields Perfect Vision

  Chapter 35: In Which Confession Is Good for the Quest

  Epilogue

  The Great Divide

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from the Paradise War

  About the Author

  Important People

  Anen—Friend of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, high priest of the temple of Amun in Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty.

  Archelaeus Burleigh, Earl of Sutherland—Nemesis of Flinders-Petrie, Cosimo, Kit, and all right-thinking people.

  Arthur Flinders-Petrie—Also known as The Man Who Is Map, patriarch of his line. Begat Benedict, who begat Charles, who begat Douglas.

  Friar Roger Bacon—The early philosopher, scientist, and theologian of Oxford in the mid-1200s; he has been called Doctor Mirabilis for his wonderful teaching.

  Balthazar Bazalgette—The Lord High Alchemist at the court of Rudolf II in Prague, friend and confidant of Wilhelmina.

  Benedict Flinders-Petrie—The son of Arthur and Xian-Li and father of Charles.

  Brendan Hanno—Attached to the Zetetic Society in Damascus, an advisor to ley travellers.

  Burley Men—Con, Dex, Mal, and Tav. Lord Burleigh’s henchmen. They keep a Stone Age cat called Baby.

  Cassandra Clarke—A post-graduate palaeontologist who accidently gets caught up in the quest for the Skin Map.

  Charles Flinders-Petrie—Son of Benedict and father of Douglas, he is grandson of Arthur.

  Cosimo Christopher Livingstone, the Elder, aka Cosimo—A Victorian gentleman and founding member of the Zetetic Society, which seeks to reunite the Skin Map and learn its secrets.

  Cosimo Christopher Livingstone, the Younger, aka Kit—Cosimo’s great-grandson.

  Douglas Flinders-Petrie—Son of Charles and great-grandson of Arthur; he is quietly pursuing his own search for the Skin Map, one piece of which is in his possession.

  Emperor Rudolf II—King of Bohemia and Hungary, Archduke of Austria, and King of the Romans, he is also known as the Holy Roman Emperor and is quite mad.

  Engelbert Stiffelbeam—A baker from Rosenheim in Germany, affectionately known as Etzel.

  En-Ul—Elder statesman of River City Clan.

  Giambattista Becarria, Fra Becarria, aka Brother Lazarus—A priest astronomer at the abbey observatory on Montserrat, and Mina’s mentor.

  Gianni—See Giambattista Becarria, above.

  Giles Standf
ast—Sir Henry Fayth’s coachman, Kit’s ally, and erstwhile servant of Lady Fayth.

  Gustavus Rosenkreuz—Chief assistant to the Lord High Alchemist and Wilhelmina’s ally.

  Lady Haven Fayth—Sir Henry’s headstrong and mercurial niece.

  Sir Henry Fayth, Lord Castlemain—Member of the Royal Society, staunch friend and ally of Cosimo, and Haven’s uncle.

  Jakub Arnostovi—Wilhelmina’s wealthy and influential landlord and business partner.

  J. Anthony Clarke III, aka Tony—Renowned astrophysicist and Nobel nominee, he is Cassandra’s concerned and protective father.

  Rosemary Peelstick—Zetetic Society host, colleague of Brendan Hanno.

  Snipe—Feral child and malignant aide to Douglas Flinders-Petrie.

  Turms—A king of Etruria, one of the Immortals, and a friend of Arthur’s; he oversees the birth of Benedict Flinders-Petrie when Xian-Li’s pregnancy becomes problematic.

  Wilhelmina Klug, aka Mina—Formerly a London baker and Kit’s girlfriend, she owns Prague’s Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus with Etzel.

  Xian-Li—Wife of Arthur Flinders-Petrie and mother of Benedict. Daughter of the tattooist Wu Chen Hu of Macao.

  Dr. Thomas Young—Physician, scientist, and certified polymath with a keen interest in ancient Egypt, he is also referred to as The Last Man in the World to Know Everything.

  Previously

  The number of individuals now caught up in the quest to unravel the meaning of the scrap of human parchment known as the Skin Map has increased: Cassandra, the newest member of our intrepid group, is rudely wrenched from her work as a jobbing archaeologist and pitched headlong into a veritable maelstrom of new ideas, experiences, and alarming revelations when she inadvertently discovers ley travel—that ferociously unpredictable interdimensional mode of transportation employing the regions of geomagnetic force that encircle the planet and radiate through the cosmos known, for brevity’s sake, as ley lines. While a life of academia may have left her unprepared for the realities of a multidimensional universe, she is nevertheless well placed to exploit the phenomenon. Our Cass is tough-minded and centred, and not easily overwhelmed by her new life as a questor. It was Cass who made contact with the clandestine organisation known as the Zetetic Society, thereby fast-tracking her education in all things related to the quest and its attendant possibilities and difficulties.

  Attentive readers will recall that this same society was mentioned quite early in the proceedings by Cosimo Livingstone and Sir Henry as a group to which they belonged, and of which they were esteemed and active members. The Zetetics, headquartered in the timeless city of Damascus, exist to provide support, information, and sustenance for the active questors and are currently led by Brendan Hanno and the redoubtable Mrs. Peelstick. They have taken Cass into the fold and put her to the task of finding out what has happened to Cosimo and Sir Henry, whose fates are a mystery to them, if not to readers of previous volumes of this saga.

  Sir Henry Fayth, it should be noted, was a founding member of the Zetetic Society and, lacking a direct heir of his own, he had hoped one day to pass the baton of membership to his niece, Haven. That same Lady Fayth, having become entangled in a complicated relationship with the nefarious Lord Archelaeus Burleigh, has, we are happy to report, succeeded in making a clean break and is now freely pursuing her own interests. Something of an enigma, to be sure, she has forged a shaky friendship with Wilhelmina; the two have conspired to thwart Burleigh’s plans on at least one occasion, and have thus far prevented Mina from falling into the hands of the man Haven calls the Black Earl, a rogue of the first order.

  Unfortunately, the wicked earl and his Burley Men are not the only ones labouring for their own dire purposes. Another such is Douglas Flinders-Petrie, son of Charles and great-grandson of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, the possessor of the original Skin Map, which, as we all should know by now, records the coded destinations of various ley portals scattered throughout the multiverse and which is thought to provide the location of the treasure everyone is seeking. Douglas has shown himself fully as ruthless as he is resourceful and has enlisted the aid of a medieval scholar of great renown—none other than the venerable Friar Roger Bacon, the thirteenth-century Oxford polymath. In one of those odd historical quirks, it turns out that Bacon (affectionately known as Doctor Mirabilis, the Wonderful Doctor) has written extensively about ley travel in a book called Inconssensus Arcanus, or Forbidden Secrets—a tome of such incendiary content that it had to be inscribed in an unreadable cipher: the same in which the Skin Map is encoded. Thus Douglas, aided by his truculent assistant, Snipe, is well on his way to learning the secret of the map and the location of the treasure, which we have long suspected is not merely monetary in nature.

  As for our old friends Kit and Wilhelmina, it is pleasant to report that a glad reunion has taken place in the unusual, albeit strikingly beautiful, setting of the Abadia de Santa Maria at Montserrat, high in the Spanish Pyrenees. The abbey, like so many sites of religious significance, is part of a sacred landscape that is simply heaving with telluric energy; thus it is a place well suited to the needs of a ley-leaping priest such as Giambattista Becarria, an Italian monk who also happens to be a first-rate scientist with an intense interest in and understanding of astronomy and physics. Fra Beccaria came to Montserrat Abbey to escape an increasingly awkward past; Wilhelmina came on purpose to find a man she hoped could help her learn more about the fundamentals of ley travel. She found that and more. In Brother Lazarus—the name he assumed to better protect his ley-leaping secret—Wilhelmina has gained a sympathetic friend and mentor.

  Before returning to our story, all that remains is to mention Kit’s experiences in the Stone Age, which would appear to have made him not only sturdier and cannier, but also more determined to see the quest to its conclusion come what may. Far from being a meaningless cul-de-sac on the way to greater things, Kit’s sojourn in the Stone Age may yet pay big dividends for all concerned. Certainly, it was there that Kit learned the significance of the Bone House and became the only one of the questors to have actually visited the miraculous Spirit Well. And while the meaning of that fabled place is yet to yield itself to the fullest inquiry, readers could be forgiven for thinking they are beginning to perceive the faint glimmerings of a revelation that could dramatically alter the fortunes of not only the individual questors but the entire universe as well. For, as we have seen time and again in the preceding pages, even the smallest events can have enormous consequences.

  PART ONE

  The Ghost Road Revisited

  CHAPTER 1

  In Which Next Steps Are Contemplated

  Kit stood gazing at the burnt-out ley lamp still sizzling at his feet. The heat from the metal carapace had singed the dry grass, sending tiny tendrils of white smoke drifting up to assault his nostrils with a harsh metallic scent. Overpowered by the energy coursing around and through the enormous tree before them, the devices had expired in a burst of heat and blue light.

  “I guess that’s that,” he concluded.

  Brother Lazarus bent over Mina’s hand, inspecting the burn.

  “We know the ley is here—no doubt about it,” said Kit, taking in the yew’s gargantuan trunk, hard as iron and big as a house, growing right in the middle of the ley. “Now all we have to do is figure out what to do about this whacking great tree.”

  “I think that will have to be a problem for another day,” said Wilhelmina, withdrawing her hand and shaking it gently. Raising her eyes, she indicated the circle of sky above the clearing; the clouds now held a dusky tint. “We’re starting to lose the light. What do you want to do now?”

  “We could stay here and make camp,” suggested Kit, “and then try to establish contact with River City Clan in the morning.” He saw the glint of dissention in Wilhelmina’s dark eyes and quickly added, “Or we could think of something else.”

  “How about this?” she said. “We could see if the Valley Ley is active and use it to get back to Prague.”
/>   “What about Burleigh? I thought we were trying to stay out of his way.”

  “I doubt he’s still hanging around. He’s probably long gone by now.”

  “But if he’s there waiting for us?”

  “There’s an element of risk, I admit,” she said. “But standing around gawping at the problem”—she gestured towards the colossal yew tree before them—“isn’t going to help. Anyway, it isn’t as if that tree is going anywhere.”

  Brother Lazarus, who had been pacing the circle formed by the needle-drop of the yew’s spreading branches, stepped into view and announced something in German. He spoke in a quaint, Italian-inflected Deutsche all his own; Kit could follow nothing of what he said, but sensed a note of excitement in his tone. Having delivered his message, he marched off around the tree once more.

  “Well?” Kit asked, watching the priest count off the paces.