Glass Books of the Dream Eaters mtccads-1

by Gordon Dahlquist

  He was called Chang for more immediate reasons, if equally ironic and mocking. As a young man he’d been deeply slashed by a riding crop over the bridge of his nose and both eyes. He’d been blinded for three weeks, and when his vision finally cleared—as much as it was ever going to clear—he was greeted with the blunt scars that crossed and then protruded out from the corners of each eyelid, as if a child’s caricature of a slant-eyed menacing Chinaman had been scrawled with a knife over his features. His eyes were thereafter sensitive to light, and tired easily—reading anything longer than a page of newspaper gave him a headache that, as he had learned many times over, only the deep sleep of opiates or, if such were unavailable, alcohol, might assuage. He wore spectacles with round lenses of dark smoked glass in all circumstances.

  It was a gradual process by which he accepted these names, first from others, and then finally used them himself. The first time he replied “Chang” when asked his name, he could too easily recall the taunting comments as he waited day after day in the sickroom for his sight to return (it was a name to be always accompanied by a bitter smile), but even those associations seemed more real—more important to carry forward—than an earlier identity marked with failure and loss. More, the names were now a part of his working life—the rest were distant landmarks on a sea voyage, faded from sight and usage.

  The riding crop had also damaged the inside of his nose, and he had little sense of smell. He knew abstractly that his rooming house was more objectionable than his own experience told him—he could see the nearby sewers, and knew by logic that the walls and floors had fully absorbed the fetid airs of their surroundings. But he was not uncomfortable. The garret room was cheap, isolated, with rooftop access and, most importantly, in the shadow of the great Library. For the smell of his own person, he contented himself with weekly visits to the Slavic baths near the Seventh Bridge, where the steam soothed his ever red-rimmed eyes.

  At the Library, Cardinal Chang was a common sight. It was knowledge that put him ahead of his competitors, he felt—anyone could be ruthless—but his eyes prevented long hours spent in research. Instead, Chang made the acquaintance of librarians, engaging them in long interrogative conversations about their given responsibilities—specific collections, organizational theories, plans for acquisition. He pursued these topics in calm but relentless inquiry, so that eventually—through memory and rigorous mental association—it had become possible for him to isolate at least three-quarters of what he needed without actually reading a word. As a result, though he haunted its marbled halls nearly every day, Cardinal Chang was most often found pacing a Library corridor in thought, wandering through the darkened stacks by memory, or exchanging keen words with a blanching though professionally tolerant archivist as to the exact provenance of a new genealogical volume he might need to consult later in the day.

  Before the incident with the riding crop and the young aristocrat who wielded it, Chang had been a long-time student—which meant that poverty did not trouble him, and that his wants, then from necessity and now by habit, were few. Though he had abandoned that life completely, its day to day patterns had marked him, and his working week was divided into a reliably Spartan routine: the Library, the coffeehouse, clients, excursions on behalf of those clients, the baths, the opium den, the brothel, and bill collecting, which often involved revisiting past clients in a different (to them) capacity. It was an existence marked by keen activity and open tracts of ostensibly lost time, occupied with wandering thought, thick sleep, narcotic dreams, with willful nothingness.

  When not so pacified, however, his mind was restless. One source of regular consolation was poetry—the more modern the better, as it usually meant a thinner text. He found that by carefully rationing out how many lines he read at a time, and closing his eyes to consider them, he could maintain a delicately steady, if perhaps finally grinding, pace through the whole of a slim volume. He had been occupying himself in such a manner, with Lynch’s new translation of the Persephone fragments (found in some previously unplundered Thessalonikan ruin), when he looked up and saw the woman on the train. He smiled to think of it, as he lay just awake on his pallet, for the lines he’d been reading at the time—“battered princess / that infernal bride”—had seemed to exactly illustrate the creature before him. The filthy coat, the blood-smeared face, her curls crusted and stiff, her piercing grey eyes—a meeting of such beauty and such spoilage—he found it all perfectly impressive, even striking. He had decided at the time not to follow, to allow the incident its own distinction, but now he wondered about finding her, remembering (with a stirring of lust) the lines fallen tears had traced down her cheeks. After consideration, Chang decided he would ask at the brothel—any new whore so covered in blood would certainly have someone talking about her.

  The grey light from his window told him that he had slept later than usual. He rose and washed his face in the basin. He dried himself vigorously on an old towel and decided he could go another day without shaving. After a moment of indecision, he decided to swirl a mouthful of salt water around his teeth, spat into his chamber pot, pissed in the pot, and then ran his fingers through his hair in lieu of a comb. His clothes from the previous day were still clean enough. He put them on, re-knotted a black cravat, tucked his razor into one coat pocket and the slim volume of Persephone into another. He put on his glasses, relaxed as even this day’s pallid light was dimmed, grabbed a heavy, metal-knobbed walking stick, and locked his door behind him.

  It was just after noon, but the narrow streets were empty. Chang was not surprised. Years ago the neighborhood had been fashionable, rows and rows of six-story mansions crowded near the river, but the growing stench of the river itself, the fog and the crime it covered, along with the city’s expansion elsewhere into broad landscaped parks had caused the mansions to be sold, each of them cut up into a myriad of smaller rooms, rough unpainted walls thrust between the once elaborate stucco moldings, catering to a vastly different caste of occupants—disreputable occupants such as himself. Chang walked some distance out of his way, north, to find a morning newspaper, and tucked it under his arm unread as he turned back toward the river. The Raton Marine was historically a tavern—and still functioned as such—but during the daylight had taken to serving coffee, tea, and bitter chocolate. In this way it had expanded its role as a place of itinerant business, where men might linger to seek and to be found, in rooms both public and unseen.

  The Cardinal took a table inside the main room, away from the glare of the open walkway, and called for a cup of the most dark and acrid South American chocolate. This morning he didn’t want to speak to anyone, or at least not yet. He wanted to read the newspaper, and that was going to take time. He spread the front page over his table and squinted so that he could really only make out the largest size of type, sparing his eyes as much unwanted text as possible. In this way he skimmed through the headlines, moving quickly past international tragedies and domestic scandals, the perfidies of weather and disease, the problems of finance. He rubbed his eyes and took a hot mouthful of chocolate. His throat clenched against the bitter taste, but he felt his senses sharpened all the same. He returned to the paper, moving into the inner pages, bracing himself for smaller type, and found what he was after. Chang took another fortifying swallow of his drink, and plunged into the dense column of text.

  REGIMENTAL HERO MISSING

  Col. Arthur Trapping, commander of the 4th Dragoons, decorated hero of Franck’s Redoubt and Rockraal Falls, was reported missing today from both his regimental quarters and his own dwelling on Hadrian Square. Col. Trapping’s absence was noted during the formal investiture of the 4th Dragoons as the “Prince’s Own”, with newly designated responsibilities as a Household Regiment for Palace defense, Ministry escort, and ceremonial duties. Acting for Col. Trapping in the ceremony was the regiment’s Adjutant-Colonel, Noland Aspiche, who received the formal charge of duty from the Duke of Stäelmaere, attended by Palace representatives. Despite concerns e
xpressed from the highest levels of government, the authorities have been unable to locate the missing officer….

  Chang stopped reading and rubbed his eyes. It told him all he needed to know—or all he was going to learn for the moment. Either the truth was being suppressed, or indeed the facts had somehow remained unknown. He could not believe that Trapping’s movements were so much a secret—he’d followed the man easily enough, after all—but any number of things could have happened between then and now to alter what appeared to be the facts. He sighed. Though his involvement ought to have been finished, it was more likely to be merely beginning. It would depend on the client.

  He was about to turn the page when another headline caught his eye. A country aristocrat—Lord Tarr, whom he’d never heard of—had been murdered. Chang peered at the text, and learned that the ailing Tarr had been found in his garden, in his nightshirt, with his throat torn out. While there was a chance that he’d been attacked by an animal, it was now suspected that the wound had been brutally enlarged to disguise the deep cross-cut of a blade. Inquiries were pending. Inquiries were always pending, Chang thought to himself, reaching for his cup—that was why he had regular work. No one liked to wait.

  As if on cue, someone near him coughed discreetly. Chang looked up to see a uniformed trooper—red coat and trousers, black boots, a brass helmet with a horse-tail crest in one hand, the other resting on the hilt of a long saber—standing at the doorway, as if actually entering the Raton Marine would foul his military crispness. Upon getting Chang’s attention, the trooper nodded and clicked his heels. “If you’ll accompany me, Sir,” he deferentially called over to Chang. None of the other customers acted as if they’d heard a word. Chang nodded to the trooper and stood. This was happening more quickly than he’d expected. He collected his walking stick and left the paper for someone else to read.

  They did not speak as Chang was led to the river. The bright uniform of his guide seemed to vibrate against their monochrome surroundings of stone paving, grey mottled plasterwork, and black pools of standing fetid water. Chang knew that his own coat had a similar effect, and smiled at the thought that the two of them might be seen as a strange kind of pair—and how much the trooper would loathe such an idea. They rounded a corner and walked onto a stone balcony that overhung the river itself. The wide black water slipped past beneath them, the far bank just visible through the tracings of fog that had either not fully abated from the night or were already beginning to gather. The balcony had been a wharf for pleasure craft and boats for hire when the district was thriving. It had since been left to rot, despite being regularly used for nefarious transactions after nightfall.

  As he expected, Adjutant-Colonel Noland Aspiche stood waiting for him, with an aide and three other troopers standing behind, and two more waiting in the trim launch tied up to the stairwell. Chang stopped, allowing his escort to continue on to his commander, click his heels and report, gesturing back to Chang. Aspiche nodded, and then after a moment walked over to Chang, out of earshot from the others.

  “Where is he?” he snapped, speaking quietly. Aspiche was a hard, lean man, with receding hair cut close to his skull. He dug a thin black cheroot from his red jacket, bit the tip off, spat, and pulled out a small box of safety matches. He turned away from the wind and lit one, puffing until the flame took. He exhaled a blue plume of smoke and returned his sharp gaze to Chang, who had not answered. “Well? What have you got to say?”

  Chang despised authority on principle, for even when veiled by the rubric of practical necessity or the weight of tradition he could not see institutional power as anything but an expression of arbitrary personal will, and it galled him profoundly. Church, military, government, nobility, business—his skin crawled at every interaction, and so though he granted Aspiche his probable competence there was an urge in Chang, rising at the very manner in which the officer bit off the tip of his cheroot and spat, to savage the man with his razor then and there, no matter the consequences. Instead he was still, and answered Adjutant-Colonel Aspiche as calmly as possible.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Are you sure? What did you do with the body?” Aspiche spoke moving only his mouth, keeping the rest of his body still—from the back, as his men saw him, he was merely listening to Chang.

  “I didn’t do anything with the body. I didn’t kill him.”

  “But—we—you were instructed—”

  “He was already dead.”

  Aspiche was silent.

  “I followed him from Hadrian Square to the country, to the Orange Canal. He met a group of men, and together they met a small launch sailing up the canal. From the launch they unloaded a cargo onto two carts, and drove the carts to a nearby house. A great house. Do you know what house that was, near the Orange Canal?”

  Aspiche spat again. “I can guess.”

  “Evidently it was quite an occasion—I believe the given excuse was the engagement of the Lord’s daughter.”

  Aspiche nodded. “To the German.”

  “I was able to enter the house. I was able to find Colonel Trapping, and with a fair amount of difficulty, I was able to introduce a substance to his wine—”

  “Wait, wait,” interrupted Aspiche, “who else was there? Who else was with him at the canal? What happened to the carts? If someone else killed him—”

  “I am telling you,” hissed Chang, “what I am going to tell you. Are you going to listen?”

  “I’m contemplating having you horsewhipped.”

  “Are you really?”

  Aspiche sighed and glanced behind him at his men. “No, of course not. This has been very difficult—and not hearing from you—”

  “I was awake into the early morning. I explained that this was likely to happen. And instead of paying attention you first sent a uniformed man to collect me, and then appeared yourself in a part of the city you can have no decent social or professional business in whatsoever. You might as well have set off fireworks. If anyone has suspicions—”

  “No one has suspicions.”

  “That you know of. I will have to go back to the coffeehouse and give ready money to the five men who saw me so collected—to protect the both of us. Are you this careless with the lives of your men in action? Are you this careless with yourself?”

  Aspiche was not accustomed to such a tone, but his silence itself was admission of his error. He turned away, gazing back into the fog. “All right. Get on with it.”

  Chang narrowed his eyes. So far it had been simple enough, but here he was in the dark as much as Aspiche was at least pretending to be. “There were hundreds of people in the house. It was indeed an engagement party. Perhaps that is not all it was, but it was certainly that, which created both confusion for me to blend into, and confusion that got in my way. Before the substance could take effect, Colonel Trapping eluded me, leaving the main gathering by way of a back staircase. I was unable to follow directly, and was forced to seek him through the house. When I finally did find him, he was dead. I could not see why. The substance I gave him was not in a quantity to kill, yet he had no marks of mortal violence about his body.”

  “You’re sure he was dead.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You must have miscalculated your poison.”

  “I did not.”

  “Well, what do you think happened? And you still haven’t explained what happened to the body!”

  “I suggest that you calm yourself and listen.”

  “I suggest that you get damned on with your explanation.”

  Chang let that pass, retaining his even tone. “There were marks on Trapping’s face, like burns, around the eyes, but of a regular, precise nature, as if from a brand—”

  “A brand?”

  “Indeed.”

  “On his face?”

  “As I said. Further, the room—there was a strange odor—”

  “What was it?”

  “I cannot say. I have no ability with odors.”

 
“A poison?”

  “It is possible. I do not know.”

  Aspiche frowned, thrown into thought. “All this—it makes no sense,” he snapped. “What about these burns?”

  “That is my question to you.”

  “What does that mean?” said Aspiche, taken aback. “I don’t have a clue.”

  They stood in silence for a moment. The Adjutant-Colonel seemed genuinely perplexed.

  “My examination was interrupted,” continued Chang. “I was again forced to make my way through the house, this time away from pursuit. I managed to lose my pursuers on my way back to the canal.”

  “All right, all right. What was in those carts?”

  “Boxes. Of what I don’t know.”

  “And his confederates?”

  “No idea. It was a masked ball.”

  “And this—this substance—you don’t think you killed him?”

  “I know I did not.”

  Aspiche nodded. “It’s good of you to say. Still, I’ll pay you as if you had. If he turns up alive—”

  “He won’t.”

  Aspiche smiled tightly. “Then you’ll merely owe me the job.”

  He pulled a thin leather wallet from his jacket and handed it to Chang, who tucked it into his coat.

  “What happens next?” asked Chang.

  “Nothing. My hope is that it’s over.”

  “But you know it isn’t,” Chang snarled. Aspiche did not reply. Chang pressed him. “Why has there been no further word? Who else is involved? Vandaariff? The Germans? Any one of three hundred guests? You know the answers or you don’t, Colonel. You’ll tell me what you want to. But someone’s hidden your body, and you’re going to have to know why. You’ve come this far—it’ll have to be finished.”

  Aspiche did not move.

  As Chang gazed at the man—stubborn and dangerously proud—one of the Persephone fragments rose to his mind:

  His willful suit, imperious and cold Pay’d court perfum’d by graves and fetid mold