Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

by Gordon Dahlquist

  “It does.”

  “These figures are intertwined, and deadly,” said Chang. “Are we to follow them all—to an end?”

  “I would insist upon it, actually,” said Miss Temple.

  Doctor Svenson spoke. “I too. No matter what happens with Karl-Horst, the work must be finished. This conspiracy—this cabal—I cannot say what drives its members, but I know together they are like rot around a wound, like a cancer. If not removed in its entirety, what remains will only grow back, more virulent and vicious than ever. Not one of us or any that we care for shall be safe.”

  “Then it’s agreed,” said Chang.

  He smiled wryly and put his hand out. Doctor Svenson stuck his cigarette into his mouth and, his hand free, took hold of Chang’s. Miss Temple placed her small hand over theirs. She had no idea what this would portend—it was intrigue after all—but she did not think she had ever been happier in her life. As she had agreed to something exceedingly serious, she did her best not to giggle, but she could not prevent herself from beaming.

  “Excellent!” announced Miss Temple. “I am happy to have it so directly spoken. And now, the other question—as I have said—is how to proceed. Do we find another place of refuge? Do we go on the attack—and if so, where? The St. Royale? The Ministry? Harschmort?”

  “My first thought would be to move from the rooftop,” said Chang.

  “Yes, yes, but we can talk while we go—no one will overhear us.”

  “Then this way—stay with us, Doctor—to the north. The hotel is connected to the next building—I believe there is no gap at all.”

  “Gap?” asked Svenson.

  “To jump across,” said Chang.

  Svenson did not reply.

  “Surely,” said Miss Temple, “we should look down to the street—to see the men arrayed around the Boniface.”

  Chang sighed, acquiescing, and looked to Svenson, who waved them toward the edge of the building. “I shall proceed to the next roof—so as not to detain you…” He walked slowly in that direction, looking down at his boots. Miss Temple marched to the edge and carefully looked down. The view was exquisite. Below her the avenue was laid out like a doll’s house full of tiny creatures. She looked over to see Chang had joined her, kneeling in the cover of the copper moldings. “Do you see anyone?” she whispered. He pointed to the end of the street: behind a grocer’s cart were two men in black, quite out of sight from the Boniface but able to view its entrance with ease. With growing excitement Miss Temple looked the other way and smiled, tugging Chang’s coat. “The iron fence—at the corner!” Another two figures lurked behind it, just visible to them above but concealed from the street by the fence’s veil of ivy.

  “They are watching at each corner,” Chang said. “Four men in uniform—already more than you saw in the hotel. Now they think we are trapped, they may bring every man at their command. They will be in your rooms even now. We must go.”

  They found Svenson advanced across the rooftops of two very fine town houses, connected to each other and the Boniface. He gestured vaguely to the far edge. “The drop is significant,” he said, “and the distance across farther than any of us can leap. To the front of the building is the avenue, which is even wider, and to the rear is an alley, narrower, but still more than we can manage.”

  “I should quite like to see in any case,” said Miss Temple, and walked smilingly to the rear edge. The town house roof was at least two stories taller than the building across the street, whatever it was—she could not tell, its few windows small and blackened by smoke. She looked down and felt a giddy pleasure. The Doctor was right, she could not imagine any person breasting it. She saw Chang crouched at the far edge looking down—more soldier-counting, she assumed.

  Miss Temple returned to the Doctor, who she saw was having a hard time of it. In truth this was a comfort, for compared to the menacing capacity of Chang, her own feelings of ignorance and weakness were lessened by Svenson’s obvious distress.

  “We saw several pairs of soldiers watching the front of the hotel,” she said to him. “More than were inside—Chang thinks they are gathering.”

  Svenson nodded. He was digging out another cigarette.

  “You consume those at quite a rate, don’t you?” she said affably. “We shall have to find you more.”

  “That will be difficult,” he said, smiling. “They are from Riga, from a man I know in a Macklenburg shop—I cannot get them otherwise there, and doubt anyone could find them here. I have a cedar box of them in my room at the compound—for all the good it does me.”

  Miss Temple narrowed her eyes. “Without them…will you become peevish and ill?”

  “I will not,” said Svenson. “What is more, the effects of tobacco are entirely beneficial to me—a restorative that both soothes and awakens.”

  “It is the chewing and spitting of tobacco I dislike,” said Miss Temple. “Such usage is common where I come from, and fully abhorrent. Besides, tobacco of any kind stains the teeth most awfully.” She noticed the Doctor’s teeth were stained the color of new-cut oak.

  “Where are you from?” asked Svenson, pressing his lips together self-consciously.

  “An island,” Miss Temple answered simply. “Where it is warmer, and one may eat fresh fruit on a regular basis. Ah, here is Chang.”

  “I can see soldiers in the main streets,” he said, walking up to them, “but not at the alley. There is a chance we can go through this rooftop”—here he pointed to an undoubtedly locked door that led into the town house—“and out to the alley. I do not, however, see how we can hope to leave the alley itself, for each end of it will lead us to them.”

  “Then we are trapped,” said Svenson.

  “We can hide downstairs,” said Chang.

  They turned to Miss Temple for her opinion—which in itself was gratifying—but before she could answer, there was the sound of trumpets, echoing to the rooftops.

  She turned to the sound, its clear call seemingly answered by a crisp low rumbling. “Horses,” she said, “a great many of them!” All three, Miss Temple steadying the Doctor’s arm, crept carefully to look over the main avenue. Below them, filling the street, was a parade of mounted soldiers in bright red tunics and shining brass helmets, each draped with a black horse’s tail.

  “Are they coming for us?” she cried.

  “I do not know,” said Chang. She saw him share a look with Svenson, and wished they would not do this so often, or at least so openly.

  “The 4th Dragoons,” said the Doctor, and he pointed to an important-looking figure whose epaulettes dripped with gold fringe. “Colonel Aspiche.”

  Miss Temple watched the man ride by, officers to either side, lines of troopers in front and behind—a stern figure, gaze unwavering, his finely groomed horse immaculately controlled. She tried to count his men but they moved too quickly—at least a hundred, perhaps more than twice that. Then there was a gap between the lines of horsemen, and Miss Temple squeezed Doctor Svenson’s arm. “Carts!”

  It was a train of some ten carts each driven by uniformed soldiers.

  “The carts are empty,” said Svenson.

  Chang nodded toward the Boniface. “They are going past the hotel. This has nothing to do with us.”

  It was true. Miss Temple saw the red mass of uniforms continuing past the hotel and then winding toward Grossmaere.

  “What is in that direction?” she asked. “The St. Royale is the other way.”

  Doctor Svenson leaned forward. “It is the Institute. They are going to the Institute with empty carts—the glass machinery—the—the—what did you say, both of you—the boxes—”

  “Boxes in carts were delivered to Harschmort,” said Chang. “Boxes were all over their Institute laboratory.”

  “The boxes at Harschmort were lined with orange felt, and had numbers painted on them,” said Miss Temple.

  “At the Institute…the linings were not orange,” said Chang. “They were blue.”

  “I
would bet my eyes they are collecting more,” said Svenson. “Or relocating their workplace, after the death at the Institute.”

  Below them the trumpets sounded again—Colonel Aspiche was not one for a demure passage. Svenson tried to speak over them but the words were lost to Miss Temple. He tried again, leaning closer to them, pointing down. “Major Blach’s men have entered the hotel.” Miss Temple saw that he was right—a stream of black figures, just visible along the edges of the red horsemen, scurrying toward the Boniface like rats for an open culvert. “If I might suggest,” the Doctor said, “it seems an excellent time to attempt to leave through the alley.”

  As they made their way down a luxuriously carpeted stairway, Miss Temple wondered that anyone thought themselves immune to housebreaking or burglary at all. It had taken Chang but a moment to effect their entry into a dwelling whose owners she was sure prided themselves on inviolable security. They were fortunate not to find anyone at home on the upper stories (for the servants who lived in those rooms were at work), and were able to creep quietly past the floors where they heard footsteps or clinking crockery or even in one case an especially repellent huffing. Miss Temple knew that the ground floor and the rear entrance itself would be the most likely places for a confrontation—these would be occupied by servants, if no one else—and so as they stepped free of the staircase she made a point to thrust herself in front of Chang and Svenson despite their looks of surprise. She knew full well that she could offer an appearance that was unthreatening but nevertheless imperious, where each of them would invite the outrage sparked by any interloping man. From the corner of her eye she saw a young housemaid stacking jars who out of instinct bobbed into a curtsey at her passing. Miss Temple acknowledged the girl with a nod and strode on into the kitchen, which held at least three servants hard at work. She smiled at them crisply. “Good afternoon. My name is Miss Hastings—I require your rear door.” She did not pause for their reply. “I expect it is this way? I am obliged to you. What a well-kept room—the teapots are especially fine—” Within moments she was beyond them and down a short flight of stairs to the door itself. She stepped aside for Chang to open it, for behind him and over the Doctor’s shoulder she saw the crowd of curious faces that had followed. “Have you seen the parade of cavalry?” she called. “It is the Prince’s Own 4th Dragoons—my goodness, they are splendid! Such trumpets, and so many fine animals—remarkable. Good day!” She followed the Doctor through the door and exhaled with relief as Chang closed it behind them.

  The sound of hoofbeats was fainter—the parade was already passing by. As they ran toward the alley’s end, Miss Temple noted with alarm that Chang had drawn his long double-edged knife and Svenson his revolver. Miss Temple groped at her green bag, but needed one hand to hold up her dress to run and could not successfully open it with the other. If she was a cursing sort of girl she would have been cursing then, for the obvious urgency with which her companions treated the situation had caught her unawares. They were at the street. Svenson took hold of her arm as they walked rapidly away from the Boniface. Chang loped a pace or two behind, his eyes searching for enemies. There were no cries, no shots. They reached the next street and Svenson wheeled her around the corner. They pressed themselves against the wall and waited for Chang to follow a moment later. He shrugged, and the three of them continued away as quickly as they could. It seemed incredible to be free so easily, and Miss Temple could not help but smile at their success.

  Before either of the men could set a path, Miss Temple picked up her pace so that they would be forced to follow her. They rounded the corner into the next broad avenue—Regent’s Gate—where ahead of them, Miss Temple spotted a familiar awning. She steered them toward it. She’d had an idea.

  “Where are you going?” asked Chang, brusquely.

  “We must strategize,” answered Miss Temple. “We cannot do it in the street. We cannot do it in a café—the three of us would be much talked of—”

  “Perhaps a private room—” suggested Svenson.

  “Then we would be even more talked of,” interrupted Miss Temple. “But there is a place where no one will comment on our strange little band.”

  “What place?” asked Chang with suspicion.

  She smiled at her cleverness. “It is an art gallery.”

  The artist presently exhibited was a Mr. Veilandt—a painter from somewhere near Vienna—whose work Roger had taken her to see as a way of showing favor to a visiting group of Austrian bankers. Miss Temple had been alone among the party to pay the art itself any attention—in her case, a negative interest, for she found the paintings unsettling and presumptuous. Everyone else had ignored them in favor of drinking schnapps and discussing markets and tariffs, as Roger had assured her they would. Reasoning that the gallery would not mind another such visit of ill-attention, she pulled Svenson and Chang into the outer lobby to speak to the attending gallery agent. She explained in a low tone that she had been part of the Austrian party and here brought a representative of the Macklenburg court, in search of wedding presents for his Prince—a figure of taste—surely the man had heard of the impending match? He nodded importantly that he had. The man’s gaze drifted to Chang and Miss Temple noted with some tact that her second companion was also an artist, much impressed with Mr. Veilandt’s reputation as a provocateur. The agent nodded in sympathy and ushered them into the main viewing room, delicately slipping a brochure with printed prices and titles into the hands of Doctor Svenson.

  The paintings were as she remembered them: large, lurid oils depicting in an almost obscenely deliberate manner incidents of doubt and temptation from the lives of saints, each chosen for its thoroughly unwholesome spectacle. Indeed, without the establishing context within each composition of the single figure with a halo, the collection of canvases created a pure pageant of decadence. While Miss Temple perceived how the artist used the veil of the sacred to indulge his taste for the depraved, she was not sure whether, on a level deeper than cynical cleverness, the paintings were not more truthful than was ever intended. Indeed, when she had first seen them, among the throng of self-important financiers, her dismay had been not with the profligate and blasphemous carnality but, on the contrary, the precarious isolation, the barely persuasive presence, of virtue. Miss Temple led her companions down the length of the gallery, away from the agent.

  “Good Lord,” whispered Doctor Svenson. He peered at the small card to the side of a largely orange canvas whose figures seemed to slither from the surface fully fleshed into the air around them. “St. Rowena and the Viking Raiders,” he read, and turned up to the face that could perhaps charitably be said to be glowing with religious fervor. “Good Lord.”

  Chang was silent, but equally transfixed, his expression unreadable behind the smoked-glass lenses. Miss Temple spoke in a low tone, so as not to attract the agent.

  “So…now that we may speak without concern…”

  “The Blissful Fortitude of St. Jasper,” read the Doctor, glancing up at a canvas on the other wall. “Are those pig snouts?”

  She cleared her throat. They turned to her, slightly abashed.

  “Good Lord, Miss Temple,” said Svenson, “these paintings do not take you aback?”

  “In fact they do, yet I have already seen them. I had thought, since we have already shared the blue cards, we could weather their challenge.”

  “Yes—yes, I see,” said Svenson, at once even more obviously awkward. “The gallery is certainly empty. And convenient.”

  Chang did not offer any opinion on the place or the paintings of Mr. Veilandt, but merely smiled—once more rather wolfishly, it seemed.

  “My own idea…,” began Miss Temple. “You did look at the glass cards, Cardinal?”

  “I did.” The man was positively leering.

  “Well, in the one with Roger Bascombe—and myself—” She stopped and frowned, gathering her thoughts—there were too many at wing inside her brain. “What I am trying to decide is where we ought to next dir
ect our efforts, and most importantly whether it is best for us to remain together or if the work is more effectively accomplished in different directions.”

  “You mentioned the card?” prompted Chang.

  “Because it showed the country house of Roger’s uncle, Lord Tarr, and some kind of quarry—”

  “Wait, wait,” Svenson broke in. “Francis Xonck, speaking of Bascombe’s inheritance…he referred to a substance called ‘indigo clay’—have you heard of it?”

  She shook her head. Chang shrugged.

  “Neither had I,” continued Svenson. “But he suggested that Bascombe would soon be the owner of a large deposit of the same. It has to be the quarry, which has to be on his uncle’s land.”

  “His land,” corrected Chang.

  Svenson nodded. “And my thought is that it may be vital to making their glass!”

  “Thus why Tarr was killed,” said Chang. “And why Bascombe was chosen. They seduce him to their cause, and then this indigo clay is under their control.”

  Miss Temple saw the ease of it—a few words from Crabbé about the usefulness of a title to an ambitious man, the flattering company of a woman like the Contessa or even—she sighed with disappointment—Mrs. Marchmoor and cigars and brandy with a flattering rake like Francis Xonck. She wondered if Roger had any real idea of the value of this indigo clay, or if his allegiance was being purchased as cheaply as that of an Indian savage, with these people’s equivalent of beads and feathers. Then she remembered that he too had borne the purple scars. Did he even retain his own unfettered mind, or had this Process transmuted him into their slave?

  “He is a pawn after all…,” she whispered.

  “I’d wager every preening member of this cabal sees every other as a pawn.” Chang chuckled. “I would not single out poor Bascombe.”