“What is this, Celeste?”
“It is the finish,” said Miss Temple. “You will throw the book if you are able. But I will do my best to put a bullet through the book in your other hand. It will shatter and you will lose your arm—and who knows, perhaps your face, perhaps your leg—perhaps it is you who will prove most brittle of all.”
The Contessa laughed, but Miss Temple knew she laughed precisely because what Miss Temple said was true, and this was just the sort of thing the Contessa enjoyed.
“That was an interesting plan you described, Rosamonde,” called Xonck. “The Prince, and Mr. Gray.”
“Wasn’t it?” she answered gaily. “And you would have been so surprised to see it unveiled in Macklenburg! It is such a pity I never got to see the finish of your secret plans—with Trapping or your brother’s munitions—or yours, Oskar, the hidden instructions to your glass ladies, the triumphant birth of your creation within Lydia! Who can say what monstrosity you have truly implanted within her? How I should have been amazed and out-flanked!” The Contessa laughed again and shook her head girlishly.
“You destroyed Elspeth and Angelique,” rumbled the Comte.
“Oh, I did no such thing! Do not be temperamental—it is not becoming. Besides, who were they? Creatures of need—there are thousands more to take their place! There are more right before your eyes! Celeste Temple and Elöise Dujong and Lydia Vandaariff—another triumvirate for your great unholy sacrament!”
She sneered a bit too openly with this last word, caught herself, and then snickered. A certain lightness of mind was one thing, but to Miss Temple’s wary eye the Contessa was becoming positively giddy.
“Karl-Horst von Maasmärck!” she bellowed. “Come down here and bring me two more books! I am told we must finish this—so finish it we shall!”
“There is no need,” said Xonck. “We have them trapped.”
“Quite right,” laughed the Contessa. “If I did throw this book the glass might spray past them and hit you! That would be tragic!”
The Prince clomped down the stairs into view, with two books bundled in his coat under one arm, in the other carrying a bottle of orange liquid identical to the one Elöise had taken from the Comte’s stores in the tower. Xonck turned to the Comte, who muttered, just loud enough for Miss Temple to hear.
“She does not wear gloves …”
“Rosamonde—” began Xonck. “No matter what has been done—our plans remain in place—”
“I can make him do anything, you know,” laughed the Contessa. She turned to the Prince and shouted out, “A nice waltz, I think!”
As under her command as he’d been in the secret room, the Prince, his face betraying no understanding of what his body was doing, undertook a stumbling dance step on the slippery metal landing, all the time juggling his fragile burdens. The Comte and Xonck both took an urgent step forward.
“The books, Rosamonde—he will drop them!” cried Xonck.
“Perhaps I should just start throwing them anyway, and Celeste can try to shoot me if she can …”
“Rosamonde!” cried Xonck again, his face pale.
“Are you afraid?” she laughed. She motioned to the Prince to stop—which he did, panting, confused—and then raised her arm as if to make him continue.
“Rosamonde,” called the Comte. “You are not yourself—the glass against your skin—it is affecting your mind! Put down the books—their contents are irreplaceable! We are still in alliance—Francis has them in hand with his blade—”
“But Francis does not trust me,” she replied. “Nor I Francis. Nor I you, Oskar. How are you not dead when you’ve been shot? More of your alchemy? And here I had grown quite used to the idea—”
“Contessa, you must stop—you are frightening us all!”
* * *
This was from Lydia Vandaariff, who had taken several steps toward the Contessa, and reached out one hand, the other still clutching her belly. She tottered, and her chin was streaked with blue-tinged drool—yet however hesitant her carriage, as always for Lydia, her tone was both restive and demanding.
“You are ruining everything! I want to be Princess of Macklenburg as you promised!”
“Lydia,” rasped the Comte, “you must rest—take care—”
The girl ignored him, raising her voice, piercingly plaintive and peevish, to the Contessa. “I do not want to be one of the glass women! I do not want to have the Comte’s child! I want to be a Princess! You must put down the book and tell us what to do!”
Lydia gasped at another spasm.
“Miss Vandaariff,” whispered Svenson. “Step away—”
Another gout of blue, much thicker than before, heaved into Lydia’s mouth. She gagged and swallowed, groaned and whined again at the Contessa, now in a tearful fury. “We can kill these others any time, but the books are precious! Give them to me! You promised me everything—my dreams! I insist you give them to me at once!”
The Contessa stared at her with wild eyes, but to Miss Temple it did seem the woman was genuinely attempting to consider Lydia’s request—even as if the words came from a great distance and were only partly heard—when Lydia huffed with impatience and made the mistake of trying to snatch the nearest book. Showing the same speed she had used to overcome Crabbé, the Contessa, all sympathy vanished, whipped the one book from Lydia’s reach and slashed the other book forward, chopping it with a cracking snap some two inches into Miss Vandaariff’s throat.
The Contessa let go of the book and Lydia fell backwards, the flesh of her neck already turning blue, the blood in the back of her mouth and in her lungs hardening to crystal, popping like gravel beneath a wheel. The girl was dead before she hit the floor, her solidified throat breaking open and separating her head from her shoulders as neatly as an executioner’s axe.
From the stairway the Prince let out a bellow of shock, roaring at the spectacle of Lydia dead, jaw quivering, mere words beyond him. Whether it was grief for the woman or outrage at an attack on one of his own, for the first time Miss Temple saw within the Prince a capacity for regret, for sentiment beyond mere appetite. But what to Miss Temple might have rendered the Prince infinitesimally admirable, for the Contessa changed him to a danger, and before he could take another step she hurled her second book into his knees. The glass shattered above his boots and with a piercing scream the Prince toppled back, legs buckling, juggling the books, landing heavily on the stairs, his boots still upright where he’d left them. His upper body slid down to rest against the fallen crewman and did not move.
The Contessa stood alone, flexing her fingers. The delirious gleam in her eyes grew dim and she looked around her, realizing what she’d done.
“Rosamonde …” whispered Xonck.
“Be quiet,” she hissed, the back of her hand before her mouth. “I beg you—”
“You have destroyed my Annunciation!” The Comte’s rasping voice betrayed an unbecoming whine, and he stood up, weaving, groping another cutlass from the cabinet.
“Oskar—stop!” This was Xonck, his face pale and drawn. “Wait!”
“You have ruined the work of my life!” the Comte shouted again, pulling free the cutlass and surging toward Miss Temple.
“Oskar!” the Contessa shouted. “Oskar—wait—” Elöise took hold of Miss Temple’s shoulders and yanked her from the Comte’s path as the large man shouldered through, eyes fixed on the Contessa, who dug hurriedly to restore her metal spike. Miss Temple held her pistol, but it did not seem possible that she should shoot—for all this was the final confrontation with their enemies, she felt more a witness to their self-destruction than a combatant.
Cardinal Chang felt no such distance. As the Comte d’Orkancz passed by, Chang took hold of his massive shoulder and spun the man with all his strength. The Comte turned at this distraction, eyes wild, and raised the cutlass in an awkward, nearly petulant manner.
“You dare!” he cried at Chang.
“Angelique,” spat Cardinal Chang in ret
urn. He drove the saber into the Comte’s belly and up under his ribs, cutting deep into the great man’s vitals. The Comte gasped and went rigid, and after one hanging moment Chang gave the blade another push, grinding it in halfway to the hilt. The Comte’s legs gave way and he took the blade from Chang with his fall, his dark blood pooling into the fur.
His cough trailing into a thick rattle, Chang dropped to his knees and then slumped back against the doorframe. Miss Temple cried out and sank to his side, feeling the Doctor’s nimble fingers snatch the revolver from her hand as she did. She looked up from Chang’s haggard face to see Svenson extend the gun at Francis Xonck—caught flat-footed by the Comte’s death. Xonck stared into Svenson’s hard eyes, his broken mouth desperately working for words.
“Doctor—too much hangs unfinished—your own nation—”
Svenson pulled the trigger. Xonck flew back as if he’d been kicked by a horse. The Doctor now stood face-to-face with Roger Bascombe.
He extended his arm, and then thought better of it and wheeled to the Contessa at the far end of the airship’s cabin. He fired, but not before Roger had leapt forward and shoved the Doctor’s arm. The bullet went wide and the Contessa ran for the stairs with a cry.
Svenson grappled with Roger for the gun, but Roger—younger, stronger—wrenched it away as the Doctor tripped over Xonck’s leg. With an ugly grimace he aimed the gun at Svenson. Miss Temple cried out.
“Roger—do not!”
He looked up at her, his face disfigured by hatred and bitter rage.
“It is over, Roger. It has failed.”
She knew there was one bullet left in the gun, and that Roger was too close to miss.
“It is not,” snarled Roger Bascombe.
“Roger, your masters are dead. Where is the Contessa? She has abandoned you. We are adrift. Both the Prince and the Duke of Stäelmaere are dead.”
“The Duke?”
“He will be killed by Colonel Aspiche.”
Roger stared at her. “Why would the Colonel do that?”
“Because I ordered him to. You see, I learned the Colonel’s control phrase.”
“His what?”
“Just as I know yours, Roger.”
“I have no control phrase—”
“O Roger, … you really do not know after all, do you?”
Roger narrowed his eyes and raised the revolver to Doctor Svenson. Miss Temple spoke quickly and clearly, looking him straight in the eye.
“Blue Apostle blue Ministry ice consumption.”
Roger’s face went slack.
“Sit down,” Miss Temple told him. “We will talk when there’s time.”
“Where is the Contessa?” asked Elöise.
“I do not know,” said Miss Temple, “how is Chang?”
Doctor Svenson crawled to the Cardinal. “Elöise, help me move him. Celeste—” He pointed to the iron steps, to the Prince. “The orange bottle, if it is not broken, fetch it at once!”
She ran to it, stepping carefully around the glass—grateful for her boots—doing her best to avoid eye contact with the disfigured corpses.
“What is in it?” she called.
“I do not know—it is a chance for the Cardinal. I believe it is what saved Angelique—in the greenhouse, the mattress was stained orange—”
“But everyone we met was terrified of it,” said Elöise. “If I made to break it they ran the other way!”
“I am sure they did—it must be deadly indeed, and yet—fire to fight fire, or in this case, ice.”
Miss Temple found the bottle, nestled in the crook of the Prince’s arm. She pulled it free, glancing just once at his horrible face, the open mouth with its stained teeth and blood-red gums, the lips and tongue now tinged with blue, and then looked up the stairs. The trunk of books was where it had been, and she heard no sound from the wheelhouse save the wind. She ran back to Chang. Elöise knelt behind him, propping up his head and wiping blood from his face. Svenson doused a handkerchief in the orange fluid and then, with a determined sigh, clamped it over Chang’s nose and mouth. Chang did not react.
“Is it working?” asked Miss Temple.
“I do not know,” replied the Doctor. “I know he is dead without it.”
“It does not appear to be working,” said Miss Temple.
“Where is the Contessa?” asked Elöise.
Miss Temple looked down at Cardinal Chang. The Doctor’s cloth had partially dislodged his spectacles, and she could see his scars, wounds of a piece with the blood that dripped down his face and neck. And yet beneath this history of violence—though she did not doubt it was integral to his soul—Miss Temple also saw a softness, an impression of what his eyes had been like before, of that underpinning and those margins where Chang located care and comfort and peace—if he ever did at all, of course. Miss Temple was no expert on the peace of others. What would it mean if Chang was to die? What would it have meant to him if their positions were reversed? She imagined he would disappear into an opium den. What would she do, lacking even that avenue into depravity? She looked down at Elöise and the Doctor working together, and walked back to Roger. She took the pistol from his hand and made her way to the iron steps.
“Celeste?” asked Svenson.
“Francis Xonck has your silver cigarette case—do not forget to collect it.”
“What are you doing?” asked Elöise.
“Collecting the Contessa,” said Miss Temple.
The wheelhouse was silent, and Miss Temple climbed past the dead crewman and onto the bloody deck, looking down at Caroline’s body. The woman’s eyes were open in dismay, her beautiful pale throat torn open as if a wolf had been at it. The Contessa was nowhere to be seen, but in the ceiling above another metal hatch had been pushed open. Before she climbed up, Miss Temple stepped to the windows. The cloud and fog had finally broken apart. Whatever its course had once been, the dirigible’s path had become hopelessly skewed. She could see only grey cold water below them—not far below either, they were perhaps at the height of Harschmort’s roof—and the pale flickers of white on top of the dark waves. Would they drown in the icy sea after all? After all of this? Chang was perhaps already dead. She’d left the room in part so as not to watch, preferring even at this extremity to avoid what she knew she would find painful. She sighed. Like a persistent little ape, Miss Temple clambered onto the shelf of levers and reached up to the hatch, pulling herself into the cold.
The Contessa stood on the roof of the cabin, holding on to a metal strut beneath the gasbag, wind whipping at her dress and her hair, which had become undone and flowed behind her head like the black pennant of a pirate. Miss Temple looked around her at the clouds, head and shoulders out of the hatch, her elbows splayed on the freezing metal roof. She wondered if she could just shoot the Contessa from here. Or should she simply take hold of the hatch and close it, marooning the woman outside? But this was the end, and Miss Temple found she could do neither of these things. She was transfixed, as perhaps she’d always been.
“Contessa!” she called above the wind, and then, the word feeling strangely intimate in her mouth, “Rosamonde!”
The Contessa turned, and upon seeing Miss Temple smiled with a grace and weariness that took Miss Temple by surprise.
“Go back inside, Celeste.”
Miss Temple did not move. She gripped the gun tightly. The Contessa saw the gun and waited.
“You are an evil woman,” shouted Miss Temple. “You have done wicked things!”
The Contessa merely nodded, her hair blowing for a moment across her face until with a toss of her head it flowed once more behind her. Miss Temple did not know what to do. More than anything she realized that her inability to speak and her inability to act were exactly how she felt when faced with her father—but also that this woman—this terrible, terrible woman—had been the birth of her new life, and somehow had known it, or at least appreciated the possibility, that finally she alone had been able to look into Miss Temple’s eyes an
d see the desire, the pain, the determination, and see it—see her—for what she was. There was too much to say—she wanted an answer to the woman’s brutality but would not get it, she wanted to prove her independence but knew the Contessa would not care, she wanted revenge but knew the Contessa would never admit her defeat. Nor could Miss Temple prove herself—overcome the one enemy who had always bested her effortlessly—by shooting her in the back, any more than she could have made her father care for her by burning his fields.
“Mr. Xonck and the Comte are dead,” she shouted. “I have sent Colonel Aspiche to kill the Duke. Your plan has been ruined.”
“I can see that. You’ve done very well.”
“You have done things to me—changed me—”
“Why regret pleasure, Celeste?” said the Contessa. “There’s little enough of it in life. And was it not exquisite? I enjoyed myself immensely.”
“But I did not!”
The Contessa reached above her, the spike on her hand, and slashed a two-foot hole across the canvas gasbag. Immediately the blue-colored gas inside began to spew out.
“Go back inside, Celeste,” called the Contessa. She reached in the other direction and opened another seam, out of which gushed air as blue as the summer sky. The Contessa held on to the strut within this cerulean cloud, in her windblown hair and bloody dress a perilous dark angel.
“I am not like your adherents!” Miss Temple shouted. “I have learned for myself! I have seen you!”
The Contessa ripped a third hole in the slackening gasbag, the plume of smoke roiling directly at Miss Temple. She choked and shook her head, eyes stinging, and groped for the hatch. With one last look at the glacial face of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Miss Temple pulled the hatch shut and dropped with a cry to the slippery wheelhouse floor.
Gordon Dahlquist Page 43