Chang heard shuffling steps, and a moment later saw the Doctor, one hand holding up the tottering, insensible man in uniform, and the other occupied with the pistol. Chang retreated with him step for step, keeping out of view of the larger group which he had just glimpsed—Crabbé, Bascombe, the foppish red-haired man (who held the sword), and three guards (who held the pistols). There was no sign of the man in fur, nor of Angelique. As they retreated, no one spoke—as if the situation had progressed beyond words—and soon Chang found himself retreating past the staircase. He considered dashing up, but it would only expose him—they would have to hear his steps and he could not reach the top unseen. It might also be the exact distraction to get the Doctor killed, and right now Chang didn’t know if that would be a good thing or not. He still hoped to learn more. The drunken, uniformed man, unless he was very wrong, must be Karl-Horst von Maasmärck. Once more, mysterious connections between Robert Vandaariff, Henry Xonck, and the Foreign Ministry seemed to be dancing just out of reach in his brain. Momentarily distracted with thought, Chang looked up. The Doctor had seen him.
He stood with the slumped von Maasmärck at the base of the stairwell, and had merely glanced down the other end of the corridor as a reflex and been shocked to see anyone, much less a strange figure in red. Chang knew he was beyond the curve of the wall and out of sight to the others, and slowly brought a finger to his lips, indicating silence. The Doctor stared. His skin was pale and the impression he gave nearly skeletal. His hair was ice-blond and shaved on the back and sides of his head in a nearly medieval fashion, long and plastered back in a part on top—though his struggles had broken it forward in lank, white clumps that hung over his eyes. It did not seem, for all his apparent confidence, that the Doctor was a man of action, or necessarily used to waving a pistol. Chang deliberately backed away from him, keeping eye contact, and made a gesture to indicate that the Doctor should exit—now. The Doctor darted his gaze back to the others and began to awkwardly mount the stairs, pulling up the near deadweight of the Prince along with him. Chang retreated farther from view, his thoughts once more askew upon seeing von Maasmärck’s face: quite clearly livid with red circular burns around both of his eyes.
The group clustered around the lower door. “Doctor, I am sure we shall see you again,” called Crabbé amiably, “and good night to your sweet prince.” The Deputy Minister then muttered to the guards near him, “If he falls, take him. If he doesn’t, one of you secure the door, and the other follow him. You”—he singled out the guard the Doctor had brought down at pistol point—“stay here.” Two of the guards climbed rapidly from sight and one remained, his pistol in hand. Crabbé turned and, with Bascombe and the red-haired fop, disappeared down the hallway whence they’d come.
“It doesn’t signify,” he said to them cheerfully. “We shall find the Prince tomorrow—in some fashion—and the Doctor may be dealt with at leisure. There is no hurry. Besides”—and here he chuckled, speaking more intimately—“we have another engagement with nobility—yes, Roger?”
They passed out of hearing. Chang slowly retreated another ten yards, boxed in again. He would have to attack the guard to get out, or outlast them—assuming that when the party left they would take the guards along. He turned and continued down this half of the corridor, hoping the circle might join on the other side.
Chang advanced with his stick before him in both hands—one on the handle and one on the body—ready to pull it apart at a moment’s notice. He had no real idea if he was the hunter or the hunted, but knew that if things went bad he could be fighting several men at once, which was almost always fatal. If the group of men kept their heads, one of them was always presented with an opening, and their lone opponent, no matter how vigorous or skilled, would fall. That man’s only option was to attack at as many points as possible and through pure aggression separate the group into fragile individuals—who might then be prone to hesitation. Hesitation created tiny moments of single combat, winnowing the group, which in turn created more hesitation—ferocity pitted against presence of mind, fear trumping logic. In short, it meant attacking like a madman. But such a wanton strategy opened his defense with more holes than Mrs. Wells’s natural smile—and any remaining presence of mind in his opponents—which was to say, if they were not inexperienced, stupid, easily rattled farmers—would leave him stuck like a pig. The better aim was to avoid it entirely. He took care to make no noise.
As the corridor curved, he detected a low humming from beyond the inner wall—from the central chamber, whatever that actually was. On the floor in front of him lay a profusion of long boxes, opened and emptied in a great tumbled pile, the same boxes he’d seen on the cart at the canal and in the house of Robert Vandaariff—though these were lined with blue felt rather than orange. The humming grew louder, then steadily louder still, until the very air seemed to vibrate. Chang put his hands over his ears. The discomfort bled horribly into pain. He stumbled forward. The corridor ended at a door, sheathed in metal. He picked his way across the boxes—the great throbbing noise covering the sound of his awkward steps—but he could not concentrate, tripping, knocking boxes aside. He tottered and shut his eyes. He sank to his knees.
It took Cardinal Chang several seconds of brutally reverberating echo in his ears to perceive that the sound had stopped. He sniffed, and felt his face. It was wet. He dug for his handkerchief—his nose was bleeding. He struggled to his feet amidst the littered boxes, shaking away a fog of dizziness, staring at the bright stains on the cloth as he doubled it over and dabbed again at his face. He collected himself, sniffed, stuffed the handkerchief into a side pocket, and stepped carefully to the door. He pressed his ear against it, listening, but it was too thick—which only made him wonder all the more at the true extremity of the throbbing hum, to have so touched him through the massive walls and this heavy door. What had happened to the people within the chamber? What was the cause of the noise? He stood for a moment, assessing just where he was in relation to his ostensible aims—to find the true killer of Arthur Trapping and the elusive Isobel Hastings. Chang knew he had pursued a dangerous tangent—perhaps trapped himself there. Then he thought of Angelique, perhaps on the other side of this door, involved he knew not how—but certainly without any protection he could trust. He turned the handle.
The heavy door swung open on silent well-oiled hinges, and Chang entered with all the noise of a ghost—and indeed, as he took in the spectacle before his eyes, the color drained from his face. He had entered a kind of ante-room, divided from a larger, vaulted chamber—whose high walls were lined with gleaming pipes, like a great organ, like a cathedral—which he saw through a large window of thick glass. The pipes ran together down to the floor and gathered under a stage-like platform upon which was a large table. On the table lay Angelique, quite naked, her head covered with an elaborate mask of metal and black rubber, her body a-swarm with black hoses and cables, an infernal, passive vision of St. Isobel’s martyrdom. Standing on the platform next to her were several men, their heads covered with great helmets of brass and leather, with thick lenses for their eyes and odd inset boxes over the mouth and ears, all identifiable to Chang from their garments: a small man in grey, a crisp man in elegant black, a slender man who must be Bascombe, and a large man no longer in his fur, shirtsleeves rolled up, arms covered to his elbows by heavy leather gauntlets. They were all looking in his direction—not at him, but through the window at the delicate procedure taking place before Chang’s eyes.
The ante-room was dominated by a wide stone trough of bubbling, steaming liquid, into which fed at least fifty of the slick black hoses, which were draped across nearly every inch of floor space. Suspended by chains above this hissing pool hung a dripping metal slab, obviously just retracted out of the trough. On the opposite side of the trough from Chang was a man in leather gloves, a heavy leather apron, and one of the strange helmets. He was awkwardly leaning forward and in his arms cradled a pulsing rectangular object, brilliantly opaque, the exa
ct shape of a large book, only fabricated from dripping, steaming, gleaming, piercingly indigo blue glass. The glass book was perilously balanced on his open hands and forearms, as if it were too fragile or too dangerous to actually grip. With extreme concentration he had clearly just raised it from the roiling liquid and then taken it off the metal slab. Then the man looked up and saw Chang.
His concentration snapped. His balance shifted, and for an endless sickening moment Chang watched the glass book slide off the slick leather gauntlets. The man lurched, trying to correct the balance, but only sent it skidding uncontrolled in the other direction. He lurched again but it bobbled away from his grasp and dropped onto the edge of the stone trough, where it shattered in a cloud of sharp fragments. Chang saw the figures in the great chamber running toward the window. He saw the man reeling back, his clutching hands bristling with thin daggers of glowing glass. But mainly Chang was overwhelmed by the smell, the same smell he had known near the body of Arthur Trapping, now impossibly more intense. His eyes stung, his throat clenched, his knees sagged. Before him the man was screaming—the muffled shrieks echoed through the helmet. The others were quickly approaching the room. Chang could barely stand. He looked through the window at Angelique on the table, writhing as if the hoses were sucking out her life blood, and stumbled back, his hand over his mouth, his head swimming from the fumes, black spots floating up in front of his eyes. He ran for his life.
He clattered unheedingly through the litter of boxes, sucking in the cleaner air, shouts behind him, and tore his stick apart, readying each piece. He raced around the corridor, his legs pounding, his heart reeling from what he’d just seen, from abandoning Angelique—could he have freed her? Was she there willingly? What had he just done?—and charged straight at the guard, who had heard him coming and frantically dug for his pistol. The guard pulled the weapon free just as Chang reached him, swinging his stick at the barrel. The shot was knocked wide and then Chang’s right hand was lancing forward. The man twisted desperately away and the blade caught on his right shoulder instead of his throat. The guard bellowed. Chang ripped the blade free and struck him across the face with the stick, knocking the man to his knees. He glanced behind—he could hear people charging through the boxes, and ran up the stairs. He was half-way up when a shot went off below—the guard trying with his left hand. The shot missed but would surely alert the man at the top, who would only have to slam the upper door to trap Chang completely. He pushed forward, his legs protesting—his head still dizzied from the fumes, his thoughts still on the table in the vaulted room, Angelique’s thrashing masked face—gasping with effort. Another shot from below, another miss, and Chang had reached the top, charging into the courtyard, already swinging his arms in defense—but seeing no one. He stopped, stumbling, breathing hard, his eyes blind in the darkness. He looked back to the door and located the guard…on the ground, facedown and still.
Before he could think—the Doctor?—two black shapes stepped from shadow, one of them slamming the door closed. Chang backed away onto the grass, and then wheeled at the sound of steps behind him. Two more shapes. He adjusted his angle of retreat away from both pairs, and then heard more steps—he was cut off again. He was surrounded in the dark by six men…all of whom seemed to be wearing black uniforms with silver facings. With a metallic ringing they each drew a saber. There was nothing he could do. Was Angelique dead? He didn’t know—he didn’t know anything. Chang abruptly sheathed his dagger into the body of his stick, and looked at the soldiers.
“Either you are going to kill me here or escort me to your Major.” He pointed at the door. “But they will interrupt us any moment.”
One of the soldiers stepped aside, making a gap in the circle, and gestured for him to walk that way—toward a large arch, the actual entrance to the courtyard. As Chang stepped forward the soldiers as a group extended their sabers toward him, and the one who had moved demanded, “Your weapon.” Chang tossed his stick to him and walked on, half-expecting a blade in his back. Instead, they quickly marched him into the shadow of the archway and toward a black coach. The soldier with his stick sheathed his saber and drew a small pistol, which he held against Chang’s neck. Once this was done, the others sheathed their blades as well, and set about their tasks—two climbed up to drive the coach, one opened the coach door and climbed in, turning to help Chang enter, two more ran to open the courtyard gates. The trooper with the pistol followed him in and closed the door behind. The three sat on the same side, Chang in the middle, the pistol tight against his ribs. Across and alone on the other side of the coach sat a hard man of middle age, his grey hair cropped short, his face without expression. He rapped his knuckled fist on the roof of the coach and they pulled forward.
“Major Black, how fortunate,” said Chang. The Major ignored him, nodding to the man with the pistol, who handed across Chang’s stick. The Major studied it, pulled it apart a few inches, sniffed disapprovingly and shot the pieces back together. He measured Chang with evident disdain, but did not speak. They rode in silence for several minutes, the hard muzzle of the pistol pressed unwaveringly against his side. Chang wondered what time it was—eight o’clock? Nine? Later? Usually he told time by his stomach, but his meals had lately been so arbitrary and sparse as to disrupt that normal sense. He had to assume that they were taking him to an isolated death. He made a point of yawning.
“That’s an interesting badge,” he said, nodding to the Major. “The wolf Skoll swallowing the sun—not exactly an uplifting image, a portent of Ragnarok—the final battle where the forces of order are doomed to fail, even the gods themselves. Unless you see yourself allied with chaos and evil, of course. Still, curious for a regiment. Almost whimsical—”
At a nod from the Major, the trooper on Chang’s left drove his elbow deeply into Chang’s kidney. Chang’s breath caught in his throat, his entire body tensing with pain. He forced himself to smile, his voice choking with effort.
“And Miss Hastings—did you find her? Went to a shocking amount of trouble, didn’t you—only to find out that all of your information about her was wrong. You don’t have to tell me, I know just how you feel—like a fool.”
Another savage elbow. Chang could taste the bile in his throat. He’d have to be a little more direct if he wanted to avoid vomiting into his own lap. He forced another smile.
“Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about what I saw just now? Your men heard the shots—don’t you want to know who was killed? I would expect it to change all sorts of things—balance of power, all that. Excuse me, may I? Handkerchief?”
The Major nodded, and Chang very slowly reached into his outside pocket. His hand was only just there when the man to his left slapped it away and reached into the pocket himself, pulled out the bloody handkerchief and passed it to Chang. Chang smiled his thanks and dabbed at his mouth. They had been traveling for some minutes. He had no idea in what direction. It was most probable that they would take him out to the country or down to the river, but that only meant they could be anywhere in between. He looked up. The Major was watching him closely.
“So,” continued Chang. “Indeed. A struggle—shots—but the main point of interest being an odor—perhaps you have known it—strange, overpowering—and a noise, an excruciating buzzing noise, like a great mechanical hive, with the force of a steam engine. I’m sure you know all this. But what they were doing—what they had done, to that woman…” Chang’s voice faltered for a moment, his momentum broken by the image of Angelique writhing beneath the mass of black hose, the men around her in leather masks—
“I do not care about the whore,” said Major Black in a thick Prussian accent, his voice as cold and hard as an iron spike. Chang looked up at him—already things had become easier—and coughed thickly into the handkerchief, wiping his mouth, muttering apologies, and as he spoke he casually stuffed the handkerchief into the inside pocket of his coat.
“So sorry—no, of course not, Major—you are concerned with the Prince
, and with the Minister, the figures of industry and finance—all pieces in the great puzzle, yes? While, I beg your pardon, I—”
“You are no piece at all,” the Major sneered.
“How kind of you to say,” answered Chang, as he swept his hand from his pocket, flicking open the razor and laying it against the throat of the man with the pistol. In the moment of disorientation caused by the touch of cold steel, Chang closed the fingers of his other hand around the pistol and wrenched the aim away from him and toward the Major. The men in the coach froze. “If you move,” Chang hissed, “this man dies, and the two of you must kill an angry man who holds a weapon that is very, very useful in tight spaces. Let go of the pistol.”
The man desperately looked to Major Black, who nodded, his face furrowed by rage. Chang took the pistol, aimed it carefully at the Major’s face, and pushed himself across the coach. He sat next to Black, placed the razor against his neck and then turned the pistol on the two troopers. No one moved. Chang nodded to the trooper nearest the door. “Open it.” The trooper leaned forward and did so, the noise of the coach was abruptly louder, menacing, the dark street whipping past them. It was a paved road. They were still in the city—they must have been aiming for the river. Chang threw the pistol out of the coach and reached over for his stick. He knocked on the roof with the stick, and the coach began to slow. He glared at the two troopers and then turned to the Major. “I will tell you this. I have killed one of you already. I will kill all of you if I must. I do not appreciate your ways. Avoid me.”
He launched himself through the door and tumbled into an awkward roll on the hard cobblestones. He pulled himself to his feet, stumbling ahead, and stuffed the razor into his coat. As he feared, the two troopers had leapt from the coach after him, along with one from the driver’s seat. They had all drawn their sabers. He turned and ran, the bravado of a moment before vanished like any other hopeful bit of theatre.
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