Glass Books of the Dream Eaters mtccads-1

by Gordon Dahlquist

  Chang wheeled around at a sudden draft of cool air behind him—as if the door had been opened. The breeze came from a metal vent in the floor, the cool air—which with a sense of smell might well have made him nauseous—flowing out to the open window. Chang knelt at the vent. He could hear voices. He sighed with frustration—he could not make out the words for the echoing effect of the vent. The opening was wide enough for a man to crawl through. He felt inside and was gratified to find it was not moist. Keeping as quiet as possible, he pried apart the housing until it was wide enough for him to get at the hole. It was pitch black. He set his stick inside and wormed his way after it. There was just room for him to move on his hands and knees. He crawled forward as quietly as he could.

  He’d gone perhaps five yards when the vent split three ways, to either side and angling upwards. He listened carefully. The voices were coming from above—from the floor he’d just escaped. He peered up, and saw a dim light. He climbed upwards, pressing his legs against both sides to keep himself from sliding back. As he rose, the vent leveled off again—where the light bled in. He kept climbing, finding it more and more difficult, for the surface of the vent was covered with a fine powder that prevented him from getting any solid purchase. Was it soot? He couldn’t see in the dark—he cursed the fact that he was probably filthy—and kept struggling to reach the light. He reached up, his fingers finding a ledge and just beyond it, a metal grate over the opening. He laced his fingers over the grating and pulled his body up until he could see out the hole, but the only view was a slate-covered floor and a tattered dark curtain. He listened…and heard a voice he did not recognize.

  “He is a protégé of my uncle’s. Of course, I do not approve of my uncle, so this is not the highest recommendation. Is he quite secured? Excellent. You will understand that I am not—given these recent events—inclined toward the risks of politesse.”

  A woman chuckled politely in response. Chang frowned. The voice spoke with an accent quite like the Doctor’s, but with an indolent drawl that announced its words one at a time without regard to conversational sense or momentum, so draining them of any possible wit.

  “Excuse the interruption, but perhaps I should assist—”

  “You will not.”

  “Highness.” The word was followed by the clicking of heels. The second voice was also German.

  The first voice went on, and obviously not to the second voice, but to the woman. “What people do not understand—who have not known it—is the great burden of obligation.”

  “Responsibility,” she agreed. “Only a few of us can bear it well. Tea?”

  “Danke. Is he able to breathe?”

  It was a question from curiosity, not from concern, and it was answered—to Chang’s ears—with a swift meaty impact followed by a violent expulsion of coughing discomfort.

  “He should not expire before the Process re-makes him,” continued the voice rather pedantically. “He will know what it means to be faithful, yes? Is there a lemon?”

  The voices were still some distance away, perhaps across the room, he could not tell. He reached out and tentatively exerted pressure on the grated covering. It gave, but not enough to come loose. He pushed again, steadily and with more force.

  “Who is this man they have with them?” asked the first voice.

  “The criminal,” answered the second man.

  “Criminal? Why should we be joined by such a fellow?”

  “I would not agree that we should—”

  “Different walks of life bear different cares, Highness,” said the woman smoothly, cutting into the second man’s words. “Truly when we have nothing more to learn, we have stopped living.”

  “Of course,” the voice agreed eagerly. “And by this logic you’re very much alive, Major—for you have obviously very much to learn about sensible thinking!”

  Chang’s brain took in the fact that the second voice must be Major Blach and the first voice—though his manner contradicted the sense-drugged dissipation as described by Svenson—Karl-Horst von Maasmärck, but these were hardly the crux of his attention. The woman was Rosamonde, Contessa Lacquer-Sforza. What she was doing here he could not say. He was too much stirred at the knowledge she was speaking of him.

  “The Major is angry, Highness, for this man has caused him much discomfort. But yet, that is exactly why Mr. Bascombe, at my suggestion, has importuned him to join our efforts.”

  “But will he? Will he see the sense of it?” The Prince slurped his tea.

  “We can only hope he is as wise a man as you.”

  The Prince chuckled indulgently at this ridiculous suggestion. Chang pressed again against the grate. He knew it was foolish, but he very much wanted to see her, and to see—for he recognized the particular sounds—who was being kicked on the floor. He could feel the grate giving way, but had no idea what sound it would make when it pulled free. Then the room’s door was kicked open with a bang, the commotion of a man violently swearing, and another calling for aid. He heard Bascombe shouting for help and the room was an uproar—Xonck’s vitriolic profanity, Rosamonde sharply issuing commands for water, towels, scissors, the Prince and Blach bawling contradictory orders to whoever else was present. Chang slipped backwards from the grate, for the commotion had driven his enemies into view.

  The cries had faded to fierce muttering as Xonck was attended to. Bascombe attempted to explain what had happened in the office, and then that he had gone ahead.

  “Why did you do that?” snapped Rosamonde.

  “I—Mr. Xonck asked that—”

  “I told you. I told you and you did not pay attention.”

  But her words were not addressed to Bascombe.

  “I did pay attention,” Xonck hissed. “You were wrong. He would not have submitted.”

  “He would have submitted to me.”

  “Then next time you can get him yourself…and pay the consequences,” Xonck replied malevolently.

  They stared at each other and Chang saw the others watching with various degrees of discomfort. Bascombe looked positively stricken, the Prince—the scars still visible on his face—looked curious, as if not sure he should be concerned, while Blach viewed them all with a poorly masked disapproval. On the floor behind them, trussed and gagged, was a short stocky man in a suit. Chang did not know him. Kneeling to the other side of Xonck was another man, balding with heavy glasses, wrapping the burned arm with gauze.

  Xonck sat on a wooden table, his legs between dangling leather straps. Around them on the floor were several of the long boxes. Covering one wall were large maps stuck with colored pins. Hanging over the table from a long chain was a chandelier. Chang looked up. The ceiling was very high, and the room itself was round—they were in one of the building’s corner cupolas. Just under the ceiling beams was a row of small round windows. He knew from his view on the street that these were just above the rooftop, but he saw no way to reach them. He returned his gaze to the maps. With a start he realized that they were of northern Germany. The Duchy of Macklenburg.

  Xonck rolled off of the table with a snarl and strode for the door. His face was drawn and he was biting his lip against what must have been excruciating pain.

  “Where are you going?” Bascombe asked.

  “To save my bloody hand!” he cried. “To find a surgeon! To prevent myself from killing one of you!”

  “You see what I mean, Highness,” Rosamonde said lightly to the Prince. “Responsibility is like courage. You never know you possess it until the test. At which point, of course, it is too late—you succeed or fail.”

  Xonck stopped in the doorway, doing his best not to whimper—Chang had just seen the livid blistering flesh of his arm before they’d wrapped it—while he spoke. “Indeed…Highness,” he snarled dangerously, as if his very words were smoking vitriol. “Abdicating responsibility can be mortal—one is scarcely in more peril than when trusting those who promise all. Was not Satan the most beautiful of angels?” Xonck staggered away.
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  Bascombe appealed to the Contessa. “Madame—”

  She nodded tolerantly. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.” Bascombe hurried out.

  “Now we are alone,” said the Prince, in a satisfied tone that was meant to be charming. The Contessa smiled, looking around the room at the other men.

  “Only a Prince thinks of himself ‘alone’ with a woman when there are merely no other women in the room.”

  “Does that make Francis Xonck a woman—as he’s just left us?” laughed Major Blach. He laughed like a crow.

  The Prince laughed with him. Chang felt a twinge of empathy for Xonck, and was tempted to simply step out and attack them—as long as he killed Blach first, the others would be no trouble. Then Rosamonde was speaking again, and he found her voice still fixed him where he was.

  “I would suggest we place Herr Flaüss on the table.”

  “Excellent idea,” agreed the Prince. “Blach—and you there—”

  “That is Mr. Gray, from the Institute,” said Rosamonde patiently, as if she had said this before.

  “Excellent—pick him up—”

  “He is very heavy, Highness…,” muttered Blach, his face red with exertion. Chang smiled to see Blach and the older Mr. Gray futilely struggling with the awkward, kicking mass of Herr Flaüss, who was doing his best to avoid the table altogether.

  “Highness?” asked the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza.

  “I suppose I must—it is ridiculous—stop struggling, Flaüss, or indeed it will go the worse for you—this is all for your benefit, and you will thank me later!”

  The Prince shoved Gray to the side and took the writhing man’s legs. The effort was not much more successful, but with much grunting they got him aboard. Chang was pleased to see Rosamonde smiling at them, if discreetly.

  “There!” gasped Karl-Horst. He gestured vaguely to Gray and returned to his seat and his tea. “Tie him down—prepare the—ah—apparatus—”

  “Should we question him?” asked Blach.

  “For what?” replied the Prince.

  “His allies in Macklenburg. His allies here. The whereabouts of Doctor Svenson—”

  “Why bother? Once he has undergone the Process he will tell us of his own accord—indeed, he will be one of our number.”

  “You have not undergone the Process yourself, Major?” asked the Contessa in a neutral tone of polite interest.

  “Not as of yet, Madame.”

  “He will,” declared the Prince. “I insist upon it—all of my advisors will be required to partake of its…clarity. You do not know, Blach—you do not know.” He slurped his tea. “This is of course why you have failed to find Svenson, and failed with this—this—criminal. It is only by the grace of the Contessa’s wisdom that you were not relied on to effect changes in Macklenburg!”

  Blach did not answer, but less than deftly tried to change the subject, nodding to the door. “Do we need Bascombe to continue?”

  “Mr. Gray can manage, I am sure,” said the Contessa. “But perhaps you will help him with the boxes?”

  Chang watched with fascination as the long boxes were opened and the green felt packing pulled onto the floor. While Blach secured Flaüss to the table—without the slightest scruple for tightening the straps—the elderly Mr. Gray removed what looked to be an oversized pair of eyeglasses, the lenses impossibly thick and rimmed with black rubber, the whole apparatus—for indeed, it was part of a machine—run through with trailing lengths of bright copper wire. Gray strapped the glasses over the struggling man’s face—again, viciously tight—and then stepped back to the box. He removed a length of rubber-sheathed cable with a large metal clamp at either end, attaching one end to the copper wire and then kneeling for the box with the other. He attached it there—Chang could not see exactly to what—and then, with some effort, turned some kind of switch or nozzle. Chang heard a pressurized hiss. Gray stood, looking to Rosamonde.

  “I suggest we all step away from the table,” she said.

  Blue light began to radiate from inside the box, growing in brightness. Flaüss arched his back against his bonds, snorting breath through his nose. The wires began to hiss. Chang realized that this was his moment. He shoved the grate forward and to the side, slithering quickly into the room. He felt a pang for Flaüss—especially if he was indeed an ally of Svenson, though Svenson had mentioned no ally—but this was the best distraction he was likely to find, as all four of them were watching the man’s exertions as if it were a public hanging. Chang gathered his stick, stood, took three quick steps and swung his fist as hard as he could against the base of Blach’s head. Blach staggered forward with the force of the blow before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor. Chang turned to the Prince, whose face was a gibbering mask of surprise, and backhanded him savagely across the jaw, so hard the man sprawled over his chair and into the tea table. Chang spun to Gray, who’d been on the other side of Blach, and stabbed the blunt end of his stick into the man’s soft belly. Gray—an old man, but Chang was not one for taking chances—doubled up with a groan and sat down hard on the floor, his face purpling. Chang wheeled toward Rosamonde and pulled his stick apart, ready to answer whatever weapon she had drawn. She had no weapon. She was smiling at him.

  Around them the ringing wires rose to a howl. Flaüss was vibrating on the table hideously, foam seeping around the gag in his mouth. Chang pointed to the box. “Stop it! Turn it off!”

  Rosamonde shouted back, her words slow and deliberate. “If you stop now it will kill him.”

  Chang glanced at Flaüss with horror, and then turned quickly to the other men. Blach was quite still, and he wondered if the blow had broken his neck. The Prince was on his hands and knees, feeling his jaw. Gray remained sitting. Chang looked back at Rosamonde. The noise was deafening, the light flaring around them brilliantly blue, as if they were suspended in the brightest, clearest summer sky. It was pointless to speak. She shrugged, smiling still.

  He had no real idea how long they stood there, minutes at least, looking into each other’s eyes. He did force himself to check the men on the floor, and once snapped the stick into Karl-Horst’s hand as the Prince attempted to palm a knife from the scattered tea tray. The roaring Process made it all seem as if it occurred in silence, for he could not hear any of the normal sounds of reality—the tinkling of the knife on the stone floor, the Prince’s profanity, the groans of Mr. Gray. He returned to Rosamonde, knowing she was the only danger in the room, knowing that to look into her eyes as he was doing was to cast the whole of his life up for judgment where it must be found desolate, wanting, and mean. Steam rose up from Flaüss’s face. Chang tried to think of Svenson and Celeste. They were both probably dead, or on their way to ruin. He could do nothing for them. He knew he was alone.

  With a sharp cracking sound the Process was complete, the light suddenly fading and sound reduced to echo. Chang’s ears rang. He blinked. Flaüss lay still, his chest heaving—he was alive at least.

  “Cardinal Chang.” Rosamonde’s voice sounded unsettlingly small in the shadow of such a din, as if he wasn’t hearing correctly.

  “Madame.”

  “It seemed as if I would not see you. I hope I am not forward to say that was a disappointment.”

  “I was not able to accompany Mr. Xonck.”

  “No. But you are here—I’m sure through some very cunning means.”

  Chang glanced quickly to the Prince and Gray, who were not moving.

  “Do not trouble yourself,” she said. “I am intent that we should have a conversation.”

  “I am curious whether Major Blach is dead. A moment…” Chang knelt at the body and pressed two fingers into the man’s neck. The pulse was there. He stood again, and restored the dagger to the stick. “Perhaps next time.”

  She nodded politely, as if she understood how that could be a good thing, then gestured to the older man. “If you will permit—as long as we are interrupted—perhaps Mr. Gray can attend to Herr Flaüss? Just to make sure he
has not injured himself—sometimes, the exertions—it is a violent transformation.”

  Chang nodded to Gray, who rose to his feet unsteadily and moved to the table.

  “May we sit?” asked Rosamonde.

  “I must ask that you…behave,” replied Chang.

  She laughed, a genuine burst of amusement he was sure. “O Cardinal, I would never dream of anything else…here—” She stepped to the two chairs she’d shared with the Prince—who was still on his hands and knees. She sat where she had, and Chang picked up the Prince’s upended chair and extended his stick toward Karl-Horst. The Prince, taking the hint, scuttled away like a sullen crab.

  “If you will give Cardinal Chang and me a moment to discuss our situation, Highness?”

  “Of course, Contessa—as you desire,” he muttered, with all the dignity possible when one is crouched like a dog.

  Chang sat, pushing his coat to the side, and looked to the table. Gray had removed the restraints and was detaching the mask of glass and wire, peeling it away from what looked to be a pink gelatinous residue that had collected where the mask touched the skin. Chang was suddenly curious to see the fresh scarring firsthand, but before the mask was pulled completely free Rosamonde spoke, drawing his attention away from the spectacle.

  “It seems a long time since the Library, does it not?” she began. “And yet it was—what—but little more than a day ago?”