The Dark Volume

by Gordon Dahlquist

  Chang was silent, disliking that Xonck was right, disliking their very proximity.

  “Then I will follow,” he said.

  Xonck wormed into the shaft, his arms ahead of his body, and disappeared. Chang dove in afterward. The pipe was greasy with soot, just wide enough to squirm through, and pitch black. Chang's attention was rooted to the scuffles and grunts of Xonck's progress. When ever Xonck paused, he readied himself for a trick, but each time the man simply pushed ahead into the darkness.

  Then Xonck stopped, and Chang heard him whisper.

  “There is a turn. It goes down—you will have to keep hold of my feet, for if the way is blocked, I will not be able to climb backwards.”

  Without waiting for Chang's answer—not that Chang had intended to make one—Xonck slithered ahead, positioning himself at the turn. Chang crawled up and took hold of Xonck's ankles with both hands. He did not know how this might prove a trap, but he nevertheless held himself ready to release the man at a moment's notice.

  Xonck dropped into the new passage and Chang felt the man's weight hit his grip. He heard Xonck's knuckles knocking the metal.

  “Let me go,” called Xonck. “There is a hatch just ahead.”

  With misgivings, Chang released his hold. Xonck slid away. Be fore following, Chang drew Lieutenant Sapp's razor. The pipe was suddenly pierced by a beam of light. Xonck had found a hatch after all. Chang lowered his body into the turn, holding himself in place with his legs. Xonck opened the hatch all the way and began to climb out. Chang slid down in a rush and shot out his left hand, catching Xonck's boot before it disappeared. Xonck paused, taken by surprise, and Chang flipped open the razor, ready to strike if Xonck attempted to pull free. But Xonck did not move his leg, nor did Chang creep forward. To move farther would place Chang's head in the open space of the hatchway, where Xonck might bring the hammer of his plaster cast—or a knife, or a shard of glass—down onto Chang's skull.

  “An interesting situation,” chuckled Xonck. “You cannot come through without risking my attack… and yet if I attempt to free myself, no doubt you will cut the cords at the back of my knee.”

  “It seems a sensible precaution.”

  “Wholly unnecessary, I assure you. Come out, Cardinal—I shall do nothing to prevent it.”

  “Permit me to doubt your word.”

  “Do you think I fear you?” Xonck rasped wickedly. “Do you think I need you at a disadvantage? You have survived me several times on luck alone—we both know it. Climb out and meet me… the real question is whether you have the courage.”

  “On the contrary,” sneered Chang, “I am too in awe of your prowess.”

  Xonck sucked at a blister on his lip. Chang saw a flicker of blue through his cloak—Xonck's free hand held one of the blue glass spikes. If he released Xonck's leg, nothing prevented Xonck from hacking away at Chang as he tried to crawl out, utterly unable to defend himself.

  “Withdraw your leg slowly,” said Chang. “If you try anything at all I will do my best to sever your knee.”

  Xonck removed his hand from his cloak, revealing the glass dagger.

  “If you do that I will stab you through.”

  “And you will still bleed to death in this stinking hole,” said Chang. “The choice is now yours.”

  “It is no choice at all,” huffed Xonck, and he quite deliberately raised both arms, and then very slowly pulled his leg free of the pipe, allowing Chang, the razor pressed close, to extricate first his arm and then his upper torso from the hatch.

  “Drop your weapon,” said Chang.

  “As you will.”

  Xonck released the glass dagger. Chang's eyes flicked toward its impact—he wanted to be sure it shattered and could not be snatched up again—and Xonck swept his plastered arm at Chang's wrist and knocked the razor away from his knee. Chang swore, his legs still caught in the pipe. Xonck clawed his free hand at Chang's face and Chang wrenched his left forearm up to block it. Exchanging blows like a pair of boxers, Chang cut the razor at Xonck and dredged a thin line across the plaster.

  Xonck swept up a leather fire bucket full of sand and swung it at Chang's body like a heavy mace. Chang bent to his right and the bucket only jarred his shoulder and showered them both with sand. Xonck dropped the bucket and reached into his cloak for more glass. Chang curled his legs beneath him and shot forward, barking both ankles hard on the metal hatch rim but trapping Xonck's arm against his body and bringing him down. Xonck thrashed to his feet, eyes wild, a new glass dagger finally ready. Chang rolled to his knees, his back to the cold iron furnace, waiting for the attack…

  But Xonck's eyes had not followed his movement—the man still stared, blue saliva hanging off his chin, at the floor where Chang had been. Xonck snorted in a panic, then wrenched his face to Chang's. With a swirl of his black cloak, Xonck was gone through the door.

  IF XONCK'S illness had the best of him, then now was the time to cut I him down. Chang dashed after him into the curving stone corridor and toward the staircase door. But Xonck had shot the lock—there was blue fluid on the knob—and it took four strong kicks to break it wide. The circular stairs offered too many doors to either side for Chang to blunder past safely, and his caution allowed Xonck, wherever he had vanished, to slip free.

  It was always annoying when, having decided to kill, the work could not be done, but perhaps it did not matter. Chang knew the exact task to justify his journey to Harschmort—long overdue, and his alone.

  At the main level Chang entered a long formal ante-room, whose far end held an archway hung with a heavy red curtain, like a private proscenium. Chang knew it was far more likely to hide servants than a stage, and so he sidled quietly to the curtain's edge. He heard voices on the other side and the clinking of cutlery, and saw that the thick carpet of the ante-room continued on to the far side… was it a private dining chamber? Who could have the leisure for a meal at a time like this?

  He came through the curtain with a sudden rush. Three men in black smocks and knee-breeches looked up with surprise from their work, laying meat and cheese and pickled vegetables in piles onto vast silver platters. Chang struck the nearest with the heel of his fist hard across the ear, knocking the man into a line of wooden chairs. The second—gripping a cleaver half-deep into a wheel of thick-rinded cheese—he kicked without ceremony in the stomach and then hurled by his smock onto the groaning carcass of the first. The third, younger than the other two, stood gaping with his hands full of translucent onions, like the disembodied eyes of drowned sailors. Chang took him by the throat.

  “Where is she? Be quick about it!”

  “Who?”

  Chang hurled him into the wall—the onions slathered away on impact—and hauled him up again, this time placing the razor flat against the man's cheek.

  “The Ministry officials—where are they?”

  Chang spun to the second man, the cleaver wrested from the wheel, foolish—or angry—enough to attack. Chang's razor flashed forward. The man yanked back his arm, too late, his face going white as he looked down, for the slice across his fingers was so clean that the blood took a good two seconds to flow—but then the flow would not stop. The servant dropped the cleaver and held the wound tightly with his other hand, the blood seeping through those fingers as well. Chang yanked his captive peremptorily toward the kitchens.

  “You are making their food—where is it to go?”

  “The green drawing room—just outside—”

  “What would they be doing in the kitchens if you're preparing their food here?”

  “I don't know—they made us leave!”

  “Where are their other prisoners?”

  “What prisoners?”

  “Where are the dragoons?”

  “Outside—something happened in the garden.”

  Chang shoved him back where they had come.

  “Tell no one, or I will return to cut your throat.”

  THE NEXT red curtain led to a formal saloon, with a mirrored wall and
a massive sideboard lined with bottles. Its tables lay littered with papers, glasses, cigar butts, and at least one cardboard box of carbine cartridges. Chang crossed the carpet in silence to another curtain—he imagined how, with all the curtains drawn, the whole suite of connecting rooms would appear as one massive reception hall—and heard two men speaking low… guards?

  “Allow me… your nose…”

  “Ah! I do beg your pardon. It is no doubt the fen grass, one always sets to sneezing at Harschmort. Good Lord—this is blood!”

  “It is.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Did you see Mr. Soames?”

  “Soames? Who is Soames?”

  “With Phelps.”

  “Who is Phelps? I am hopelessly at sea—and my head aches like a night of gin.”

  “Phelps is with the Duke.”

  “The Duke is here?”

  “The Duke was in the garden.”

  “Good Lord. Was not the garden where—”

  “His Grace—”

  The second man cut him off with a sneeze. Chang flicked the curtain aside. The two men wore black coats, and each held a handkerchief—one tight against its owner's nose and the other, the target of the sneeze, using his cloth to wipe blood from his cravat. They looked at Chang with surprise.

  “Where is the Duke?” he snarled.

  “Who are you?” asked the man no longer wiping his front.

  Chang snapped his fist into his face. The man staggered and dropped to his knees, clutching his nose. His companion took a prudent step away from both Chang and his toppled fellow.

  “I will raise the alarm!” he cried.

  “Where is the glass woman?”

  “Who?”

  “Where is the Colonel? What has happened in this house to make you bleed like lepers?”

  The men looked at one another, and Chang flicked out the razor.

  “Get away while you can.” He nodded behind him to the dining room. “That way.”

  The men dashed out. Chang did not give them another thought— time was short and his tactics doomed to fail. At some point someone would stand up to him, others would gather, the dragoons would appear, and that would be that. Around a corner the carpet ended and a gleaming waxed wood floor began, which told Chang he had entered the domain of servants. He must be close to the kitchens. Another turn brought a set of swinging double doors, and he stepped through, aware he could not lock them behind him.

  It was a more formal preparation room, and Chang supposed it might be used for flower arrangements as well as to dress meat. There were several long tables topped with grey marble. On the nearest were laid two men as if for a mortician's care. The Duke of Stäelmaere was stretched next to the Ministry functionary Chang had seen on the grass in the garden, a dark stain obscuring one side of the man's face where the temporal bone had been crushed. The functionary showed the same peeling veneer of disease Chang had seen on Aspiche. The Duke, on the other hand, looked as if he had been dead for a fortnight, bloated and discolored, eyes disgustingly gummed.

  The doors on the far side of the room pushed open. Mr. Phelps, now holding a sheaf of papers, entered side by side with Colonel Aspiche. Behind them floated Mrs. Marchmoor. She was wrapped in a cloak, its hood slipped back on her shoulders. Chang could see the transformation with more clarity now… the solid blue eyes, plump indigo lips, and her once-lustrous hair, still brown but stiffened, a mocking vestige of a different life, like a eunuch's beard. From the side of the cloak emerged her right arm, the hand gone, the stump bound tight with blue-stained cloth.

  The instant was over. The Colonel leapt forward, sweeping out his blade. Phelps dug in his topcoat for the pistol. This was going very badly, very fast.

  “Stop!”

  The two men paused, glancing to each other. Chang realized that the word had not been spoken aloud.

  “It is Cardinal Chang!” cried Aspiche. “He must be killed!”

  At once Aspiche's sword arm fell to his side, like the limb of a mechanical man on a clock. The Ministry man had the revolver free, but apparently could not bring it to bear.

  The voice buzzed in Chang's head. “We are in no danger, Colonel. Be patient…”

  Mrs. Marchmoor floated forward, her gait tender. The two men stepped aside with unease. It did not seem they found Mrs. Marchmoor's company any more welcome than a tiger's—and yet, what choice did they have? Chang braced himself—he felt her pushing at his mind… but without success, like a strong wind shaking a window. Mrs. Marchmoor paused, tried again, and failed. Her swimming eyes narrowed.

  “What is this?”

  Chang remembered Angelique's words in his head, pricking his brain like needle-points. Something was wrong—the glass woman's voice was blunted, less astringent. Was it her injury?

  Chang took a step toward her. At once she retreated, and dragged Colonel Aspiche directly between them, the saber in his hand sawing the air like a puppet's. It was not the injury at all, Chang realized— her power over the other men had not dimmed.

  “Let me take him myself!” cried Aspiche. Chang feinted with the razor. Aspiche's arm leapt at his movement, abruptly and without aim. Chang chuckled.

  “This sort of… street fight… is a tricky thing, Margaret. Without any experience, one is simply ordering trouble on a plate.”

  “What have you done?” she hissed. “How do you resist me?”

  “Why don't you release Mr. Phelps and his pistol so he can shoot me? Why not release the Colonel and his saber? Surely you don't doubt their loyalty—just because they've seen it's possible to defy you?”

  “I do not release them because they will kill you too soon.”

  Chang feinted and she brought up the Colonel's arm, again too awkwardly and too late.

  “An afternoon of setbacks, Margaret. My defiance, Harschmort burned, your poor hand… and you seem to have fallen out with Francis Xonck.”

  “Francis Xonck will be dead in two days. Like all of the others. I will not be anyone's slave.”

  “No, now you require slaves of your own—an ever-replenished supply, the way you corrode them like acid.”

  “That can be undone!”

  Chang turned to the Duke's body on the table top. “Your puppet doesn't look so spry, Margaret…”

  In a sudden movement Chang seized the Duke's long hair and dragged the dead peer's head and shoulders off the edge of the table. He dropped his right forearm onto the extended neck like a hammer, snapping the half-rotten vertebrae with a crack. He stepped away, leaving the head in a morbid dangle. Mrs. Marchmoor cried out, and lost her possession of the two men. Aspiche leapt to the side, the saber raised high, his eyes flashing first at Chang and then at the glass woman. Behind him Phelps had his pistol raised, knowing no more than the officer where it ought to be aimed.

  “A moment!”

  This was Aspiche, his left arm extended to the glass woman, the saber in his right aimed at Chang.

  “The man's a villain—do not listen to his lies. Simply allow me to kill him—”

  “No, we need his information!” said Phelps, and he called sternly to Chang, “Where is Francis Xonck?”

  “Such loyalty,” said Chang. He felt the cold pressure batting ineffectually at his thought and laughed. “Neither of you is even curious as to how I confound her? Perhaps if you consulted a mirror you'd change your mind.”

  Mrs. Marchmoor jutted her brittle chin at Chang. “His essence… tastes of Xonck's… proximity.”

  “Where did he go?” Phelps asked again.

  “Where do you think?”

  “He recovered the book!”

  “By finding that young woman!” cried Aspiche. “She escaped back to the train! Xonck knew we did not have her, nor the book—”

  Their blurted words were exactly what Chang had hoped for, but too much to make sense of in the moment. Young woman? Book?

  “How would Francis Xonck know any of that?”

  This was Mrs. Marchmoor. She took a halting st
ep forward, gesturing with the stump of her right arm.

  “I saw into his mind. Francis did not notice her at all, no more than he takes note of anyone. To him I am a whore—the Colonel, a pompous dupe—Cardinal Chang, a rabid dog in need of poison—”

  “Did he know about the children?” asked Chang.

  She cocked her head and studied Chang carefully. “He did not…”

  Her eyes slid closed and her body went abruptly still. It took Phelps and Aspiche a moment to realize her attention had been directed elsewhere, but neither man knew whether their opportunity lay in killing Chang or freeing themselves from their mistress. Chang discounted Phelps—the man was too schooled by reason to act on his own—but watched Aspiche warily. Yet the Colonel hesitated as well—had sickness broken the soldier's nerve? The glass woman's eyes slid open again, one layer of a glass onion peeling away to reveal another, and her moist blue lips curled with disdain.

  “The children are perfectly well. Captain Tackham—with whom I see you are acquainted—has them in hand. Francis Xonck has abandoned Harschmort House like a whipped cur.”

  “Francis Xonck is many things,” said Aspiche, “and most far worse than any scorpion. But we believe him beaten at our peril.”

  Chang barely listened. It was as one tasted intuition in a fight—on impulse lunging when a sane man would retreat, throwing all to the attack when others would flee—as a swordsman balances all in an instant, the position of each limb, the weight of the blade, and the nearness of each adversary…

  “… we have men watching Hadrian Square, and his brother's houses in town and in the country, his club, his bank, his tailor, the Old Palace, his own rooms at the Caracalla—”

  “The Caracalla?” asked Mr. Phelps. “He has rooms there?”

  “He does,” replied Aspiche.

  “But it is horrible.”

  “It is perhaps notorious.”

  “It is louche,” insisted Phelps, “and foul.”

  “So,” observed Aspiche, “is the man in question—”

  THE WOODEN chair caught the Colonel across the legs, but Chang took care—whipping it with one arm from behind a table—to aim so it would not bounce in the direction of Mrs. Marchmoor. Aspiche went down with a shocked cry of pain, and as the man groped for his saber Chang stepped on the blade. Again, his reaction far too slow, Phelps raised his revolver, but Chang had already hauled Aspiche up by the collar, holding him as a shield.