Glass Books of the Dream Eaters mtccads-1

by Gordon Dahlquist

  The room was empty. Thickly carpeted and lined with wooden cabinets and mirrors, it reminded him of a dressing room for the opera—or, as if there was any real difference, of Karl-Horst’s own attiring room at the Macklenburg Palace. The idea that it was connected to a theatre for demonstrations of surgery was perhaps all the more sickening for what it said about Robert Vandaariff. The cabinets were open and in disarray, various garments spilling onto the floor. He took several steps, brushing glass and ash from his uniform, his feet sinking deeply into the luxurious carpet, and stopped. On the floor near the cabinets, in ruins and quite clearly cut from her body, was the dress Elöise had been wearing at Tarr Manor. He looked behind him. Still no sounds of pursuit. Where were the women? His throat was aching. He pushed himself across the room to another door and turned the handle carefully, peering out with one eye through the gap.

  He closed it at once. The corridor was full of activity—servants, soldiers, cries for buckets, cries for help. There was no possible way he would not be taken. But could the women have had any better hope? He turned again to the rampway door. His enemies would be coming through it any moment—someone—he had caused too much damage to ignore. Svenson was wracked with regret for the men he had shot, for the injury—flame? falling debris?—that had stricken Miss Poole, despite his hatred for her. But what else could he have done? What else would he yet be forced to do?

  There was no time for any of this. Could the women be hiding in the room? Feeling a fool, he whispered aloud.

  “Miss Temple? Miss Temple! Elöise?”

  There was no reply.

  He crossed to the wall of opened cabinets to quickly sort through them, but got no farther than Elöise’s dress on the floor. Svenson picked it up, fingering with a distressed intimacy the ripped edges of her bodice and the sliced, dangling bits of lacing. He pressed it to his face and breathed in, and sighed at his own hopeless gesture—the dress smelled of indigo clay—acrid, biting, offensive—and dried sweat. With another sigh he let the dress fall to the floor. He was bound to find the women—of course he must—but—he wanted to cry aloud with distress—what of the Prince? Where was he? What could Svenson possibly do aside from killing him before the wedding? This thought brought the words of Miss Poole back to his mind, in the theatre with the blonde woman and the loathsome potions. She had mentioned the girl’s monthly cycle…“until the cycle is prepared”…obviously this was more of the Comte’s (or Veilandt’s) alchemical evil. Svenson was chilled—Miss Poole had also mentioned the woman’s “destiny”—for he was suddenly sure the pliant blonde woman, proven to be the passive instrument of the Cabal, was Lydia Vandaariff. Could Vandaariff be so heartless as to sacrifice his own daughter? Svenson scoffed at the obviousness of the answer. And if the Lord’s own flesh meant so little, what would he possibly care for the Prince—or the succession?

  He shook his head. His thoughts were too slow. He was wasting time.

  Svenson stepped toward the cupboard and felt his boot crunch on broken glass. He looked down—this was not where he’d brushed it from himself—and saw the carpet littered with bright shards…glittering…reflective…he looked up…a mirror? The doors of two nearby cupboards were opened toward each other…the open panels blocking whatever might be behind. He pulled them apart to reveal a large jagged hole in the wall, punched through what had been a full-length mirror with an ornate gold-leaf frame. He stepped carefully over the shards. The glass was slightly odd…discolored? He picked up one of the larger pieces and turned it side to side in his hand, then held it up to the light. One side was a standard mirror—but the other side was somehow, granting a slightly darker cast to the image, transparent. It was a spy mirror—and one of the women (it could only be Miss Temple) had known of it and smashed it through. Svenson dropped the shard and stepped through the gap—taking care to pull the cupboards to behind him, to slow any pursuit—and then over a wooden stool that she had evidently used to break the glass, for he could see tiny glittering needles embedded in the wooden seat.

  The room on the other side of the mirror confirmed all that Doctor Svenson feared about life in Harschmort House. The walls were painted a bordello red, with a neat square of Turkish carpet that held a chair, a small writing table, and a plush divan. To the side was a cabinet that held both notebooks and inks, but also bottles of whisky, gin, and port. The lamps were painted red as well, so no light would give the game away through the mirror. The experience of standing in the room struck the Doctor as both tawdry and infernal. On one hand, he recognized that there were few things more ridiculous than the trappings of another person’s pleasure. On the other, he knew that such an arrangement only served to take cruel advantage of the innocent and unsuspecting.

  He knelt quickly on the carpet, feeling for any bloodstains, in case either woman had cut a foot making her way through the glass. There were none. He stood and continued after them—a poor shambling trot. The way was lined with the same red-painted lamps, and twisted and turned without any reason he could see. How long would it take to truly understand the ways of this house? Svenson wondered how often the servants got lost, or for how long—and further what the punishment might be for the wrong servant mistakenly stumbling into an extremely sensitive room, such as this. He half-expected to find a caged skeleton, set up as a sign to warn off all curious maids and footmen.

  He stopped—this tunnel just went on—and risked another whisper.

  “Miss Temple!” He waited for a reply. Nothing. “Celeste! Elöise! Elöise Dujong!”

  The corridor was quiet. Svenson turned behind him and listened. He could scarce credit their pursuit had not reached him already. He tried to flex his ankle and winced with pain. It had been twisted again in his fall from the catwalk and soon it would be all he could do to drag it, or lapse again into his absurd hopping. He steadied himself with a hand on the wall. Why hadn’t he had more to drink in the airship? Why had he walked right past the bottles in the first red room? By God, he wanted another swallow of brandy. Or a cigarette! The urge fell onto him like a wave of agitated need. How long had it been without a smoke? His case was in the inner pocket of his greatcoat. He wanted to swear out loud. Just a bit of tobacco—hadn’t he earned that much? He stuffed a knuckle into his mouth to stifle the urge to scream and bit down, hard as he could bear. It didn’t help in the least.

  He limped ahead to a crossroads. To his left the corridor went on. Ahead it dead-ended at a ladder going up. To the right was a red cloth curtain. Svenson did not hesitate—he’d had his fill of ladders and his fill of walking. He whipped aside the curtain and extended the revolver. It was a second observation chamber, its far wall another transparent mirror. The red chamber was empty, but the room beyond the mirror was not.

  The spectacle before him was like a medieval pageant, a Danse Macabre of linked figures from all walks of life being led away by Death and his minions. The line of figures—a red-coated churchman, an admiral, men in the finest topcoats, ladies dripping with jewelry and lace—shambled into the room one after another, assisted by a crew of black-masked functionaries, guiding each to a chaise or chair where they slumped unceremoniously, obviously insensible. If he were a native of the city Svenson was sure he would have known them all—as it was he could pick out Henry Xonck, the Baroness Roote (a salon hostess who had invited Karl-Horst once and then never again after he’d spent the entire time drinking—and then sleeping—in his corner chair), and Lord Axewithe, chairman of the Imperial Bank. Such a gathering was simply unheard-of—and a gathering where they had all been so overborne was unthinkable.

  In the center of the room was a table, upon which one of each pair of functionaries would—while the other settled their personage—deposit a large brilliant rectangle of blue glass…another glass book…but how many were there? Svenson watched them pile up. Fifteen? Twenty? Standing at the table and watching it all with a smile was Harald Crabbé, hands tucked behind his back, eyes darting with satisfaction between the growing stack of books
and the procession of vacant luminaries arranged around the steadily more crowded room. Next to Crabbé, as expected, stood Bascombe, making notes in a ledger. Svenson studied the young man’s expression as he worked, sharp nose and thin earnest lips, hair plastered into position, broad shoulders, perfectly schooled posture, and nimble fingers that flipped the ledger pages back and forth and stabbed his pencil in and out of them like an embroidery needle.

  Doctor Svenson had seen Bascombe before of course, at Crabbé’s side, and had overheard his conversation with Francis Xonck in the Minister’s kitchen, yet this was the first time he’d observed the man knowing he had been Celeste Temple’s fiancé. It was always curious what particular qualities might bring two people together—a shared taste for gardening, a love of breakfast, snobbery, raw sensual appetite—and Svenson could not help but ask the question about these two, if only for what it revealed about his diminutive ally, to whom he felt a duty to protect (a duty naggingly compromised by the memory of the thin silk robes hanging closely around her body…the suddenly soft weight of her limbs in his arms as he helped her from the table…even the animal spate of effort as she pulled the gag from her stretched lips). Svenson swallowed and frowned anew at Bascombe, deciding then that he very much disliked the man’s proud manner—one could just tell by the way he ticked his notebook. He’d seen enough naked ambition in the Macklenburg Palace to make the man’s hunger as plain to his trained eyes as the symptoms of syphilis. More, he could imagine how Bascombe had been served by the Process. What before must have been tempered with doubt or deference had been in that alchemical crucible hardened to steel. Svenson wondered how long it would be before Crabbé felt the knife in his back.

  The last functionaries laid the final victim on a divan, next to the uncaring elderly churchman—a handsome woman with vaguely eastern features in a blue silk dress and a fat white pearl dangling from each ear. The last book was set down—the whole pile had to number near thirty!—and Bascombe made his final jabs with the pencil…and then frowned. He flipped back through the notebook and repeated his calculations, by his darkening frown coming up with the same unsatisfactory answer. He spoke to the men quickly, sorting through their responses, winnowing their words until he was looking at the somnolent figure of a particularly lovely woman in green, with a mask woven of glass beads that Svenson guessed would be Venetian and extremely expensive. Bascombe called again, as clearly as if Svenson could hear the words, “Where is the book to go with this woman?” There was no answer. He turned to Crabbé and the two of them whispered together. Crabbé shrugged. He pointed to one of the men who then dashed from the room, obviously sending him back to search. The rest of the books were loaded carefully into an ironbound chest. Svenson noted how all of them wore leather gloves to touch the glass and treated them with deliberate and tender care—their efforts reminding him keenly of sailors nervously stacking rounds of ammunition in an armory.

  The clear association of particular books with specific individuals—individuals of obvious rank and stature—had to relate to the Cabal’s earlier collection of scandal from the minions of the powerful, at Tarr Manor. Was it merely another level of acquisition? In the country, they had gathered—had stored within those books—the means to manipulate the powerful…could the aim have merely been to blackmail those powerful figures into journeying to Harschmort, and then forcing this next step upon them? He shook his head at the boldness of it, for the next step was to seize hold of the knowledge, the memories, the plans, the very dreams of the most mighty in the land. He wondered if the victims retained their memories. Or were they amnesiac husks? What happened when—or was it if?—they awoke to full awareness…would they know where they were…or who?

  Yet there was more to it, if only in simple mechanics. The men wore gloves to touch the glass—indeed to even look within it was perilous, as those who had died at Tarr Manor made clear. But how then did this precious information serve the Cabal—how was it read? If a person could not touch a book without risking their life or sanity, what was the point? There must be a way…a key…

  Svenson glanced behind him. Had there been a noise? He listened…nothing…merely nerves. The men finished loading the chest. Bascombe tucked the notebook under his arm and snapped his fingers, issuing orders: these men to take the chest, these to go with the Minister, these to stay. He walked with Crabbé to the doors—and had the Minister handed something to his assistant? He had…but Svenson could not see what it was. And then they were gone.

  The two remaining men stood for the barest moment and then, with a palpable relaxation of their manner, stepped one to the sideboard and the other to a wooden cigar box on a side table. They spoke smilingly to one another, nodding at their charges. The one at the sideboard poured two tumblers of whisky and crossed to the other, who was even then spitting out a bitten tip of tobacco. They swapped gifts—tumbler for cigar—and lit up, one after another. Their masters not gone for ninety seconds, they were smacking their lips and puffing away like princes.

  Svenson looked around him for ideas. This observation room was less fully appointed than the other—there was no drink and no divan. The two men walked around the room, making a circuit of the furniture and commenting on their charges, and it was only another minute before they were fumbling through the pockets of a tailcoat or a lady’s handbag. Svenson narrowed his eyes at the actions of these scavengers, and waited for them to come nearer. Right before him was the divan holding the churchman and the Arabic woman—with her head lolling back (eyes dreamily half-open to the ceiling) the pearl earrings shone brightly against her dark skin…they would have to notice them.

  As if they had heard his thought, one man looked up, saw the pearls and ignored the five victims in between to hurry directly to them. The other followed, sticking the cigar in his mouth, and soon they were both leaning over the passive woman, their black backs facing Svenson, not two feet away from the glassy barrier.

  He placed the barrel flat against the mirror and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the back of the nearest man and then, with an unexpected flourish, out his chest to shatter the tumbler in his hand, sprawling him across the unfortunate cleric. His companion wheeled at the shot and stared without comprehension at the round hole in the mirror. Svenson fired again. The glass starred at this second puncture, a sudden spider’s web clouding his vision. He quickly stuffed the revolver into his belt and reached for a small side table of inks and paper, tipping them brusquely to the floor. Three strokes with the table, swinging it like an axe, and the mirror fell away.

  He dropped the table and looked behind him. The sound of the shots would have traveled for the most part back through the tunnels, not forward into the house, and he had to trust that they’d been well-insulated for secrecy’s sake. Why was no one following? On the carpet at his feet the second man was breathing heavily, shot through the chest. Svenson sank to his knees to find the entry-point and quickly concluded the wound was mortal—it would be a matter of a minute. He stood, unable to bear the gaze of the gasping man, and stepped to his fellow, quite dead, rolling him off of the elderly churchman. Svenson shifted the body to the floor, already assailed by feelings of guilt and recrimination. Could he not have wounded them? Shot once and bluffed them into submission, tied with curtain cords like Flaüss? Perhaps…but such niceties—had human life become a nicety?—left no time to find the women, to secure his Prince, to stop these fellows’ masters. Svenson saw that the dead man still held a burning cigar between his fingers. Without a thought he reached down and took it, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes with long-missed pleasure.

  The men were unarmed, and with no weapons to pillage Svenson resigned himself to more stealth and theatre, holding the empty revolver as he walked. He’d left the room’s other occupants as they were and picked his way through an empty string of parlors, watching for any trace of Bascombe or Crabbé, but hoping it was Bascombe that he found. If what he had guessed of the books from Tarr Manor was true, that they
were capable of absorbing—of recording—memories, then the chest of books rivaled an unexplored continent for value. He also realized the particular worth of Bascombe’s notebook, where the contents of each book—of each mind!—were cataloged and detailed. With those notes as a guide, what question could not be answered from that unnatural library? What advantage not be found?

  Doctor Svenson looked around him with annoyance. He’d walked through another sitting room to an airy foyer with a bubbling fountain whose sound obscured any distant footfalls that might point him in the right direction. The Doctor wondered idly if the labyrinth of Harschmort had a Minotaur. He crossed heavily to the fountain and looked into the water—could one ever not look into the water?—and laughed aloud, for the Minotaur was before him: his own haggard, soot-smudged, battered visage, cigar in his face, weapon in hand. To the guests of this gala evening, was he not their determined, monstrous nemesis? Svenson outright cackled at the idea—and cackled again at the antic hoarseness of his voice, a raven trying to sing after too many cups of gin. He set down his smoke and stuffed the pistol into his belt, and reached into the fountain’s pool, scooping water first to drink and then to splash across his face, and to once again smooth back his hair. He shook his hands, the droplets breaking his reflection to rippling pieces, and looked up. Someone was coming. He threw the cigar into the water and pulled out the gun.

  It was Crabbé and Bascombe, with two of their functionaries walking behind, and between them, unmistakably, his posture characteristically sharp as a knife-point, Lord Robert Vandaariff. Svenson scrambled to the other side of the fountain and dropped to the floor, for all his fear and fatigue feeling caught out like a character in a comic operetta.