Eifelheim Read Online Free Page A

Pelican. He stretched a tentative forefinger toward the candlestick. When it came within a thumb’s-length of the base there was a snap, and a spark appeared in the air between fingertip and candlestick. Though he had known what would happen, he pulled away as quickly as had Joachim. His fingertip felt as if pierced by a hot needle. He stuck the digit in his mouth to soothe it and turned to Joachim.
    “Hngh.” He took the finger out and inspected it. “A small hurt,” he announced, “seeming greater only through surprise.” It had felt much like with the aquamanile, only stronger. Further argument that the mover was drawing nearer. “But it is entirely material. A moment ago, I recalled a trick with amber and fur that creates a similar effect.”
    “But, the small lightnings …”
    “Lightning,” said Dietrich. A new thought had struck him. He rubbed his finger absently. “Joachim! Could this essence be of the same species as the lightning itself?” He grinned broadly and touched the candlestick again, drawing another arc from it. Fire from earth! He laughed and the Minorite drew away from him. “Imagine a waterwheel rimmed with fur,” he told the monk, “rubbing against amber plates. We might generate this essence, this
elektronikos
and, could webut learn to control it, we could command the very lightning!”
    The lightning struck without warning!
    Dietrich felt fire run through his entire being. Beside him, the Minorite arched his back, his eyes bulging wide and his lips pulling back from his teeth. Sparks leapt between the two candlesticks.
    A great burst of light washed through the stained-glass lancets in the north wall of the church, casting rainbows. Saints and prophets blazed in glory: Mary, Leonard, Catherine, Margaret of Antioch, bright as the sun. Radiances streamed through their images and played across the dim interior, speckling the statues and columns with gold and yellow and red and white so that they seemed almost to move. Joachim fell to his knees and bowed, covering his face against the radiant windows. Dietrich knelt also, but looked everywhere at once, trying to take it all in.
    An avalanche of thunder followed upon the flash; and the bells in the tower pealed a mad, arrhythmic clanging. The timbers of the church creaked and moaned and wind rushed through the vises and passageways under the roof, howling like a beast. Griffins and wyverns growled. Carven dwarfs groaned. Window glass shrieked and cracked into spiderwebs.
    And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the light dimmed and the thunder and the wind faded. Dietrich waited, but nothing more happened. He took a deep breath and found that the feeling of dread had left him as well. Whispering a brief prayer of thanksgiving, he rose to his feet. He glanced at Joachim, who had curled on the flagstone paving with his arms wrapped around his head, then he turned to the credence table and touched the candlestick.
    Nothing happened.
    He looked at the cracked windows. Whatever had been approaching had arrived.

1
NOW
Sharon
    D URING SUMMER sessions, Sharon and Tom both did their research from home. That is easy enough today, when the world lies literally at our very fingertips; but it can be a trap, too, for what we need may lie just beyond the tips of our fingers. There is Tom hunched over the computer by the window, tracking down obscure references over the Net. He has his back to the room, which means to Sharon.
    Sharon lounges on the pillow sofa on the other side of the room, notebook open, surrounded by wadded-up balls of paper and half-finished cups of herbal tea, thinking about whatever it is that theoretical physicists think about. She gazes in Tom’s direction, but she is looking on some inner vision, so in a way she too has her back turned. Sharon uses a computer, too, but it’s an organic one that she keeps between her ears. It may not be networked to the wider world, but Sharon Nagy creates her own worlds, strange and