Glass Books of the Dream Eaters mtccads-1

by Gordon Dahlquist

  “W-what are you doing? ” sputtered Crabbé.

  “I am getting to the bottom of this mystery,” rasped the Comte.

  “You cannot finish this without our help,” hissed Xonck. He waved a hand at the girl on the bed. “Haven’t we done enough for you—haven’t we all accommodated your visions?”

  “Visions at the core of your profit, Francis.”

  “I have never denied it! But if you think to turn me into a husk like Vandaariff—”

  “I think nothing of the kind,” answered the Comte. “What I am doing is in our larger interest.”

  “Before you treat us like animals, Oskar,…and make me your enemy,” said the Contessa, raising her voice and speaking quite fiercely, “perhaps you could explain what you intend.”

  Miss Temple clapped a hand over her mouth, feeling like a fool. Oskar! Was it so stupidly obvious? The Comte had not stolen the works of Oskar Veilandt, the painter was no prisoner or mindless drone…the two men were one and the same! What had Aunt Agathe told her—that the Comte was born in the Balkans, raised in Paris, an unlikely inheritance? How was that incompatible with what Mr. Shanck had said of Veilandt—school in Vienna, studio in Montmartre, mysteriously disappeared—into respectability and wealth, she now knew! She looked over to Chang and Svenson, and saw Chang shaking his head bitterly. Svenson had eyes for nothing but Elöise’s slumped figure, glaring down at the poor woman with helpless agitation.

  The Comte cleared his throat and held up the glass card.

  “The encounter is attended by spectators—including you, Rosamonde, and you, Francis. But the clever Mrs. Dujong has perceived, through the viewing mirror, a second encounter, in the lobby…that of Colonel Trapping speaking most earnestly with Robert Vandaariff.”

  This revelation was met with silence.

  “What does that mean?” asked Crabbé.

  “That is not all,” intoned the Comte.

  “If you would simply tell us, Monsieur!” protested Crabbé. “There is no great amount of time—”

  “Mrs. Dujong’s memory tells of a second card—one the Doctor cut from the lining of Arthur Trapping’s uniform. Evidently his body was not fully searched. Among other things this card conveys an image of myself performing a preparatory examination on Lydia.”

  “Arthur intended to give it to Vandaariff,” said Xonck. “The greedy fool would not have been able to resist…”

  Crabbé stepped forward, narrowing his eyes.

  “Is this your way of informing us that you killed him?” he hissed at the Comte. “Without telling anyone? Risking everything? Pushing forward our entire time-table? No wonder Lord Robert was so agitated—no wonder we were forced to—”

  “But that is the point, Harald,” rumbled the Comte. “I am telling you all this exactly because I did not harm a hair on Arthur Trapping’s head.”

  “But—but why else—” began Crabbé, but he then fell silent…as every member of the Cabal studied one another.

  “You said she had this from Svenson?” the Contessa asked. “Where did he get it?”

  “She does not know.”

  “From me, of course,” drawled a sluggish voice from the other side of the room. Karl-Horst was attempting to pour himself more brandy. “He must have found it in my room. I never even noticed Trapping, I must say—more interested in Margaret! It was the first bit of glass I’d ever seen—a present to entice my participation.”

  “A present from whom?” asked Francis Xonck.

  “Lord knows—is that important?”

  “It is perhaps crucial, Your Highness,” said the Contessa.

  The Prince frowned. “Well…in that case…”

  It seemed to Miss Temple that each member of the Cabal watched the Prince with the barest restraint, every one of them wishing they could slap his face until he spat out what he knew, but none daring to show the slightest impatience or worry in front of the others…and so they waited as he pursed his lips and scratched his ear and sucked on his teeth, all the time enjoying their undivided attention. She was beginning to get worried herself. What if Angelique were to continue her search? Who was to say the glass woman could not somehow smell the presence of their minds? Miss Temple’s leg tingled from being crouched so long, and the dusty air was tickling her nose. She glanced at Chang, his lips pressed shut, and realized he had controlled his cough this entire time. She’d not given it a second thought, but suddenly the possibility—the inevitability!—of him exposing their presence terrified her. They must take some action—but what? What possibly?

  “I suppose it must have been Doctor Lorenz, or—what was his name?—Mr. Crooner, from the Institute, the one who died so badly. They were the ones working the machines. Gave it to me as a sort of keepsake—don’t know how that villain Svenson found it unless he had help—I stashed it most brilliantly—”

  The Contessa cut him off. “Excellent, Your Highness, that’s very helpful.”

  She crossed to the Comte and relieved him of the items he’d taken from Elöise, speaking with a barely veiled anger.

  “This gets us nowhere. We have what we came for—the key. Let us at once return to the books, to find what we can from Lord Robert’s testimony. Perhaps we will finally learn why the Colonel was killed.”

  “You don’t believe it was Chang?” asked Crabbé.

  “Do you?” scoffed the Contessa. “I would be happy to hear it—my life would be simpler. But no—we all remember the delicacy and risk involved in our final swaying of Robert Vandaariff, who up to that point quite believed the entire campaign was his own conception. We know the Colonel was brokering secrets—who can say how many secrets he knew?” She shrugged. “Chang’s a killer—this is politics. We will leave you, Monsieur, to your work.”

  The Comte nodded to Lydia. “It is done…save for the settling.”

  “Already?” The Contessa looked down at Miss Vandaariff’s spent body. “Well, I don’t suppose she would have taken pleasure in drawing things out.”

  “The pleasure is in the final outcome, Rosamonde,” the Comte rasped.

  “Of course it is,” she replied, her gaze drifting to the spattered bedding. “We have intruded enough. We will see you at the airship.”

  She turned to leave but stopped as Xonck stepped forward and nodded at Elöise.

  “What will you do with her?”

  “Is it up to me?” asked the Comte.

  “Not if you’d prefer it otherwise.” Xonck smiled. “I was being polite…”

  “I would prefer to get on with my work,” snarled the Comte d’Orkancz.

  “I am happy to oblige you,” said Xonck. He pulled Elöise to her feet with his good hand, and dragged her from the room. A moment later the Contessa, Crabbé, and their retinue followed.

  Miss Temple looked to her companions and saw that Chang’s hand was clapped across Svenson’s mouth. The Doctor was in torment—yet if they made any noise at all, Angelique would sense their presence and overcome them as easily as she had Elöise. Miss Temple leaned forward again, peeking down into the laboratory. The Comte had watched the others depart, and then returned to his table. He glanced over to Lydia and to Angelique, ignored the Prince, and unscrewed a small valve that stuck out from the metal implement’s side. With more delicacy than she would have credited a man of his size, Miss Temple watched the Comte pour steaming liquid from one of the heated flasks into the valve, never spilling a drop, and then screw the valve closed. He lifted the metal implement and walked back to the bed, setting it down next to Lydia’s leg.

  “Are you awake, Lydia?”

  Lydia nodded. It was the first time Miss Temple had seen the girl move.

  “Are you in pain?”

  Lydia grimaced, but shook her head. She turned, distracted by movement. It was the Prince, pouring more brandy.

  “Your fiancé will not remember any of this, Lydia,” said the Comte. “Neither will you. Lie back…what cannot be reversed must be embraced.”

  The Comte picked up
the implement and glanced up to their balcony. He raised his voice, speaking generally to the room.

  “It would be better if you descended willingly. If the lady brings you down, it will be by dragging you over the edge.”

  Miss Temple turned to Chang and Svenson, aghast.

  “I know you are there,” called the Comte. “I have obviously waited to speak to you for a reason…but I will not ask a second time.”

  Chang took his hand away from Svenson’s mouth and looked behind for some other way out. Before either could stop him, the Doctor shot to his feet and called out over the balcony to the Comte.

  “I am coming…damn you to hell, I am coming down…”

  He turned to them, his eyes a fierce glare, his hand held out for their continued silence. He made a loud stomping as he reached the staircase, but as he passed thrust the pistol into Miss Temple’s hands and leaned close to her ear.

  “If they never marry,” he whispered, “the spawn is not legitimate!”

  Miss Temple bobbled the gun and looked up at him. Svenson was already gone. She turned to Chang, but he was stifling a vicious cough—a thin stream of blood dripping down his chin. She turned back to the balcony rail. The Doctor stepped into view, his hands away from his body and open, to show he was unarmed. He winced with disgust at this new closer view of Lydia Vandaariff, then pointed to the glass woman.

  “I suppose your creature sniffed me out?”

  The Comte laughed—a particularly objectionable sound—and shook his head. “On the contrary, Doctor—and appropriately, as we are both men of science and inquiry. My glimpse through Mrs. Dujong’s mind showed no memory of an attack on Herr Flaüss. It was mere deduction to assume the true culprit was still in hiding.”

  “I see,” said Svenson. “Yet I do not see why you waited to expose me.”

  “Do you not?” the Comte said, with a smug condescension. “First…where are your companions?”

  The Doctor groped for words, his fingers flexing, then let them burst forth with scorn and rage.

  “Damn you, Sir! Damn you to hell—you heard for yourself! Their throats have been cut by Colonel Aspiche!”

  “But not yours?”

  Svenson scoffed. “There is no virtue in it. Chang was half-dead already—his dispatch was a matter of seconds. Miss Temple”—here Svenson passed a hand across his brow—“you will not doubt how she fought him. Her struggles woke me, and I was able to break the Colonel’s skull with a chair…but not, to my undying shame, in time to save the girl.”

  The Comte considered the Doctor’s words.

  “A moving tale.”

  “You’re a bastard,” spat Svenson. He waved a hand at Lydia without taking his eyes from the Comte. “You’re the worst of the lot—for you’ve wasted gifts the others never had. I would put a bullet through your brain, Monsieur—send you to hell right after Aspiche—with less remorse than I would squash a flea.”

  His words were met with laughter, but it was not from the Comte. To Miss Temple’s surprise, the Prince had roused himself from his chair and taken a step toward his one-time retainer, the snifter still cradled in his hand.

  “What shall we do with him, Monsieur? I suppose the task is mine—he is my traitor, after all. What would you suggest?”

  “You’re an ignorant fool,” hissed Svenson. “You’ve never seen it—even now! For God’s sake, Karl, look at her—your fiancée! She is given someone else’s child!”

  The Prince turned to Lydia, his face as blandly bemused as ever.

  “Do you know what he means, darling?”

  “I do not, dearest Karl.”

  “Do you, Monsieur?”

  “We are merely ensuring her health,” said the Comte.

  “The woman is half-dead!” roared Svenson. “Wake up, you idiot! Lydia—for heaven’s sake, girl—run for your life! It is not too late to be saved! ”

  Svenson was raving, shouting, flailing his arms. Miss Temple felt Chang take hold of her arm and then—chiding herself again for being one step behind the game—she realized that the Doctor was making noise enough to cover their way down the stairs. They descended quickly to the lowest steps, just out of sight of the room. She looked down at the pistol—why in the world had the Doctor given it to her? Why did he not try to shoot the Prince himself? Why not give it to Chang? She saw Chang look down at the weapon as well, then up to meet her eyes.

  She understood in an instant, and despite everything, despite the fact she could not even see his eyes, felt the sting of tears in her own.

  “Doctor, you will calm down!” cried the Comte, snapping his fingers at Angelique. In an instant Svenson cried out and staggered, dropping to his knees. The Comte held up his hand again and waited just long enough for the Doctor to regain his wits before speaking.

  “And I will hear no more disparagement of this work—”

  “Work?” barked Svenson, waving his arms at the glass beakers, at Lydia. “Medieval foolery that will cost this girl’s life!”

  “Enough!” shouted the Comte, stepping forward ominously. “Is it foolery that has created the books? Foolery that has eternally captured the very essence of how many lives? Because the science is ancient, you—a doctor, with no subtlety, no sense of energy’s nuance, of elemental concepts—reject it out of hand, in ignorance. You who have never sought the chemical substance of desire, of devotion, of fear, of dreams—never located the formulaic roots of art and religion, the power to remake in flesh myths most sacred and profane!”

  The Comte stood over Svenson, his mouth a grimace, as if he were angry for having spoken so intimately to such a person. He cleared his throat and went on, his words returned to their customary coldness.

  “You asked why I waited to expose you. You will have overheard certain disagreements amongst my allies—questions for which I would have answers…without necessarily sharing them. You may speak willingly, or with the aid of Angelique—but speak to me you will.”

  “I don’t know anything,” spat Svenson. “I was at Tarr Manor—I am outside your Harschmort intrigues—”

  The Comte ignored him, idly fingering the knobs on his metal implement as it lay next to Lydia’s pale leg.

  “When we spoke in my greenhouse, your Prince had been taken from you. At that time neither you nor I knew how or by whom.”

  “It was the Contessa,” said Svenson, “in the airship—”

  “Yes, I know. I want to know why.”

  “Surely she gave you an explanation!”

  “Perhaps she did…perhaps not…”

  “The falling-out of thieves,” sneered the Doctor. “And the two of you seemed such particular friends—”

  The Prince stepped forward and boxed Svenson’s ear.

  “You will not speak so to your betters!” he announced, as if he were making polite conversation, then snorted with satisfaction. Svenson looked up at the Prince, his face hot with scorn, but his words were still for the Comte.

  “I cannot know, of course—I merely, as you say, deduce. The Prince was taken mere hours after I had rescued him from the Institute. You—and others—were not told. Obviously she wanted the Prince for her own ends. What is the Prince to your plans? A dupe, a pawn, a void in the seat of power—”

  “Why, you damned ungrateful rogue!” cried the Prince. “The audacity!”

  “To some this might seem obvious,” said the Comte, impatiently.

  “Then I should think the answer obvious as well,” scoffed Svenson. “Everyone undergoing the Process is instilled with a control-phrase, are they not? Quite by accident the Prince was taken by me before any particular commands could be given to him—the Contessa, knowing that, and knowing the Prince’s character would predispose everyone to think of him as an imbecile, seized the opportunity to instill within his mind commands of her own, to be invoked at the proper time against her putative allies—something unexpected, such as, let us say, pushing you out of an airship. Of course, when asked, the Prince will remember none of it.” />
  The Comte was silent. Miss Temple was amazed at the Doctor’s presence of mind.

  “As I say…fairly obvious,” sniffed Svenson.

  “Perhaps…it is your own fabrication…yet credible enough that I must waste time scouring the memory of the Prince. But before that, Doctor—for I think you are lying—I will first scour you. Angelique?”

  Svenson leapt to his feet with a cry, but the cry was cut to a savage choking bark as Angelique’s mind penetrated his. Chang burst forth from the stairwell, running forward, Miss Temple right behind him. Svenson was on his knees holding his face, the Prince above him, raising a boot to kick the Doctor’s head. To the side stood Angelique. The Prince looked up at them with a confused resentment at being interrupted. The Comte wrenched his attention from Svenson’s mind with a roar. Angelique turned, a little too slowly, and Miss Temple raised the revolver. She was perhaps ten feet distant when she pulled the trigger.

  The shot smashed into the glass woman’s outstretched arm at the elbow, shearing through with a spray of bright shards and dropping the forearm and hand to the floor, where they shattered in a plume of indigo smoke. Miss Temple saw Angelique’s mouth open wide but heard the scream within her mind, indiscriminately flaying the thoughts of every person in the room. Miss Temple fell to her knees, tears in her eyes, and fired again. The bullet pierced the cuirass of Angelique’s torso, starring the surface. Miss Temple kept squeezing the trigger, each hole driving the cracks deeper, lancing into each other to form fissures—the scream redoubled and Miss Temple could not move, could barely see, flooded with random memories stabbing her mind like daggers—Angelique as a child at sea, the rank perfume of the brothel, silks and champagne, tears, beatings, bruises, distant embraces, and a piercingly tender hope, more than anything, that her desperate dreams had come true. Before Miss Temple’s eyes the torso split wide below the ribs and gave, the upper body breaking against the lower in a cloud of indigo smoke and glimmering deadly dust, the pieces smashing apart as they struck the stone.

  Miss Temple could not tell whether the silence was due to a shared inability to speak, or if the scream had made her deaf. Her head swam with the fumes in the air and she put a hand before her mouth, wondering if she’d already inhaled blue glass dust. The steaming ruins of Angelique lay scattered across the floor, blue shards in an indigo pool. She looked up and blinked. Chang lay with his back against the wall, staring. Svenson was on his hands and knees, groping to crawl free. Lydia was on the bed, whimpering and pulling at her ropes. The Prince lay on the ground near Svenson, hissing with pain and swatting feebly at his hand, where a splinter of glass cut open a patch of skin that had since turned blue. The Comte alone still stood, his face pale as ash.