snow, but did not melt, not even in the blaze of the fire, which crackled and spat nearby. Instead, the enchanted skin seemed to suck the color from the flames and burn with a more intense whiteness. Even my Master's best parchment looked dull in comparison.
My fingers squeezed the legs of the press. I longed to feel this amazing apparition for myself.
The chest contained other, similar sheets of paper — I could see them lapping in the box like a moonlit sea — but even as I watched, this single leaf divided in Fust's hands into ever-finer, thiner membranes that were all nearly transparent, yet veined with a delicate silver light. There seemed to be no end to the number of pages emerging from this individual sheet alone. It was a miracle!
'Yet for all its fragility, it is virtually indestructible,' said Fust, dipping a corner of the skin into the fire.
I listened, astounded, as the paper emitted a soft hiss, but did not burst into flame as I had expected it would. Instead, it seemed to douse the fire, which turned from raging red to sullen gray and back again. Yet there wasn't so much as a scorch or a burn mark on the paper when Fust retrieved it from the fire.
I rubbed my eyes. Could this be real?
Peter peered over his Master's shoulder. 'How did you come upon this — this magic parchment?' he asked with an incredulous whisper.
Fust remained silent and thoughtful for a while. Then he smiled. The tip of his tongue protruded briefly between his teeth, 'You could say it was a gift from an especially pious fool in Haarlem.'
Breathlessly, I listened as he explained the origins of the paper.
Several years before, a Dutchman named Laurens Coster had been out walking near his home in the Low Countries with his granddaughter, a girl of no more than five or six. Coming to the middle of a wood, they had chanced upon a magnificent tree he had never seen before. To his surprise, she had insisted she could see a dragon hiding in its leaves.
'And was there?' asked Peter, with bated breath.
'Patience!' said Fust, silencing him with a reproachful stare. 'I shall tell you.'
Coster's granddaughter was an imaginative girl, prone to dreams and fancies, and Coster did not believe her. The tree looked like a mighty beech to him. And so, to prove her wrong, he had stuck his knife deep into the heart of the trunk — in a whorl of bark that looked diseased — and challenged the dragon to reveal itself or be chopped into firewood. Nothing happened. The dragon failed to appear.
'In a rage, the girl stomped off,' continued Fust, seeming to delight in the young girl's distress. His eyes burned with a vicious light. 'She was so blinded by tears that she ran headlong into another tree and fell to the ground. Her cry brought her grandfather running.'
Peter was losing interest in the story, for he asked what this had to do with the paper.
'I am getting to it,' remarked Fust coldly. 'The little girl scraped an elbow or a knee, I cannot remember which, but the abrasion bled — enough to make her grandfather staunch the wound with a cloth.'
He held up a finger to silence Peter, who was about to interrupt.
'This is important,' he said severely. 'To cheer her up, Coster used part of the bark of the tree she had found to whittle a series of letters for her as a toy alphabet. He was a master craftsman, you see, used to designing woodcuts. He wrapped the letters in the blood-soaked cloth and led her home, resolving to return as soon as she was asleep and chop down the tree — for it really would make splendid firewood.'
Fust paused to study Peter's face. 'Only, when he arrived back at his lodging,' he continued, lowering his voice, 'Coster found that the letters had transferred more than their sap to his bloody rag.'
Peter shook his head. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean, Peter,' said Fust, 'imprinted on the cloth were not just the outlines of the letters he had carved, but a whole word — a word strung together by some unseen, all-knowing hand. It really was as if the tree had possessed a dragon…or a spirit.'
Peter's mouth dropped open. 'But—'
'The letters,' said Fust, even more slowly, 'were addressing Coster's granddaughter by name.'
Peter tugged on his ear, as if he had misheard.
'But how can that be?'
Fust appeared to smile. A shiver crept up and down my spine.
'Open your eyes, boy. The answer lies before you.'
He spat into the fire.
Shielded from the flames, the dragon skin on the floor had turned back to its original greenish silver color, like a mount do frosty leaves. Once again, I found myself desiring to bury my hands in its tempting texture.
'You mean there was a dragon in that tree all along?' stammered Peter. 'It knew her?'
Fust jerked his wrist slightly and caused the expanding sheet of paper in his had to fold shut again. 'When Coster returned to the forest,' he said 'he found a mass of quivering leaves in the clearing, exactly where the large tree had been. The creature was writing in agony, tearing its barklike hide across the ground, in the very throes of a burning death. Its last breath left the earth scorched and fallow.'
Fust paused to consider the fire in the hearth for a moment. The flames were fizzing and sighing.
'After the dragon's incineration,' he resumed, 'Coster found a mound of pure white paper and intact scales among the ash and debris — a perfect parchment. The temptation to gather it in his arms was too strong for him to resist.'
'And Coster showed you this? Peter took up the story excitedly, pointing at the open chest. 'He gave you the dragon skin?'
Fust hesitated. 'Let's just say he opened his storeroom to me one Christmas Eve,' he said, evading the question.
Peter turned to his Master in horror. 'You mean you stole it? On Christmas Eve, too! How could you?'
'Ah, Peter, foolish boy,' Fust cajoled him. 'Stop trying to be so honorable. Holiness does not become you. This paper will make you a rich man — a very rich, enviable man.'
I shook my head. Part of me wanted to flee from the room, to escape Fust's wicked ways; yet another was tempted to remain by the fireside and see what other wonders this paper could perform. The lure of the skin, its luminous sheen, enticed me still nearer.
The promise of money, however, seemed to have stayed Peter's mind. He fumbled with the tough ends of his tunic, which Christina had darned with patches of mismatched fabric.
'That's my boy,' said Fust craftily. 'Coster did not know what to make of his discovery, but I do.'
Peter gaped at him for a long moment.
'What do you propose to do?' he stammered at last. The words barely escaped his mouth.
Fust picked at the points of his bifurcated beard. 'What I desire is to harness the power of the skin,' he responded calmly. 'To turn the parchment into a book that will outstrip even Gutenberg's most precious Bible.'
My heart jumped inside me. How could anyone dare to compete with my Master's sacred work?
Peter looked perplexed. 'I don't understand.'
'I have devoted many months of study to this skin,' said Fust. 'It belongs to the rarest, most mystical breed of dragon — a dragon fabled to have dwelled once within the walls of Eden and to carry the secrets of eternal wisdom within its skin. Everything Adam and Eve hungered for — but lost — is now within our grasp. Just imagine what the paper will reveal once we can read it!'
Peter bit his lip. 'But—'
'Why, everything!' cried Fust ecstatically, clapping his hands together and causing his gemstone rings to clack. 'All the secrets of the universe will be ours, all contained within one book!'
'But…but the paper is blank,' murmured Peter. 'How will you find the information you seek?'
Fust smiled cunningly and his eyes darted round the room. I cowered even lower in my hiding place, hoping he would not see me. His eyes were as restless as flies: they landed on each piece of equipment until they settled on the smudged, padded ink balls we used to wet the type.
'Ink,' said Fust finally. 'We need ink.'
He paused to rub the ends of his fingers, which were still smeared with the dusky ointment he had used to touch the silver fangs. Peter glanced uneasily at the table, where he had replaced the metal cup. Whatever it contained was slowly filling the room with a noxious odor — a metallic scent like blood.
'You remember that it was Coster's granddaughter who could see the dragon,' started Fust, raising a red
