Doctor Illuminatus Read Online Free PDF Page B

way will show itself unto you.”
    As Pip started off down the passage, Tim switched off his flashlight and immediately felt disoriented. It was as if he were suddenly suspended in a black liquid. He reached out to feel the wall, partly to comfort himself and partly to keep his balance. The stones were cool and surprisingly dry.
    “Touch not the wall,” Sebastian said.
    His voice seemed far off. Tim reckoned he had already gone some way down the passage, although there had been no sound of his retreating footsteps.
    “You there, Pip?” Tim asked.
    “Over here,” she replied, yet her voice also seemed distant.
    Without being exactly sure that he was heading in the right direction, Tim took a tentative step forward. When he did not bang his head against the wall, he took another, then another, then another. It seemed as if he were not so much walking as the floor of the passageway was shifting under him, like a slow-moving treadmill in a gym.
    Suddenly, the passage ended in an open door made of heavy planks of dark wood joined together with iron bolts. Although Tim was sure she had been some way ahead of him in the passage, Pip was only just passing through the door as he arrived, a few steps away.
    Sebastian was waiting for them in a large, vaulted chamber lit by four candles set in bronze wall mountings. It was about ten meters square and four high. At the center of the arched ceiling the ribs of the vaulting met in a large stone boss into which was mounted an iron hook. From this hung an iron gantry and a series of chains and pulleys. In the middle of the room stood a vast oak table upon which was arranged a collection of glass retorts and copper distillation condensers, a tripod, ceramic dishes, iron or pewter bowls, a mortar made of alabaster, racks of bottles and a pile of leather-bound volumes.
    A library of other books lined shelves on one wall, stretching from floor to ceiling, the top levels reached by a set of sliding library steps fixed to brass runners on the penultimate shelf. In an alcove opposite the door was a stone platform with several thickly fleeced sheepskins spread upon it. Animal hides covered the floor like carpets. The only other furniture consisted of several high stools by the table, some lower stools and two massive oak chests with iron padlocks from which protruded enormous keys. The whole place smelled of dust, stone and something sweet, like dried orange peel.
    “This is my domain,” Sebastian announced. “It is humble, yet it serves my purpose well, for I have no need of greater comforts.”
    “Where exactly are we?” Pip asked, as she and Tim gazed around themselves in amazement.
    Sebastian avoided the question. “Please,” he indicated two of the low stools, “be seated, for we must talk.”
    As Pip and Tim lowered themselves onto the stools, Sebastian went to the table and, taking a bottle from a rack, pulled the cork.
    “I wish to show you something,” he said. “You need not be afraid, but it will be strange.” He held the bottle out. “Close your eyes and, when I request it, inhale through your nose. Not too deeply. No more than you would to smell a delicately scented flower.”
    Pip closed her eyes. Tim followed her example, although with some hesitation. Sebastian held the bottle under their nostrils for a few moments, then, corking it again, said, “Open your eyes.”
    “Wow!” Tim exclaimed, his hands gripping the seat of his stool as if he were afraid it might suddenly throw him off.
    The entire room seemed vast, like a cathedral nave. The walls were deep purple and the flagstones seemed to be shifting as if turning to liquid.
    “What do you hear, Pip?” Sebastian asked. “Weird music,” Pip replied. “It sounds like . . .” she sought for the right description “. . . like the song of whales.”
    “Close your eyes once more and take a deep breath,” Sebastian ordered.
    They did as they were told and, when they opened their eyes again, the chamber was as