The Dark Volume

by Gordon Dahlquist

  In his other hand the man held a small volume bound in red leather—the book given to every loyal servant of the Cabal for deciphering coded messages. The crowd surged closer to the wall, jostling them both. Svenson pointed to the book.

  “I am afraid I have lost mine.”

  “And yet you are here.”

  Svenson groped for an explanation that would not expose him further. Before he could speak the man tugged him away from the wall, where they might hear one another clearly. If he struck the man hard enough, might he reach the woods before the others brought him down?

  “You were at Harschmort,” the man said. “As was I. But these others… I do not know them, or where they have been enlisted.”

  “Or by whom,” Svenson added.

  “As I say, Harschmort. You were there…”

  “That night?” said Svenson. “The Duke sent off in his carriage— the Comte's ladies—”

  “You remember them, their sifting your thoughts.”

  “Not, I confess, with any pleasure,” said Svenson.

  “Nor I, and yet…” The man looked down at the red leather book. The others were now shouting quite loudly to be let in. “I felt it again not six hours ago.”

  “I had not wanted to say. It is she who summoned me also.”

  “She? You know which of the three has done it?”

  “Only one survived the night,” said the Doctor. “There was chaos and violence—I know this from the Prince.”

  “But…but…that just makes it worse!” the man cried, now barely audible against the escalating roar. “Who has given her the order to summon us? And who else, though you say this is a Xonck factory, bars our way?”

  “What did she tell you, in your summons?”

  “Nothing—it was not even words! Just the certain impression that I must travel at once to this place.”

  “Your dedication distinguishes you,” said Svenson.

  “My dedication leaves me flat,” the man replied. “We do not know our situation—how can we serve in ignorance?”

  Before Svenson could answer, the man pulled him back into the agitated crowd, raising his voice above their shouting.

  “Listen! Listen all of you! Here is one who has been this day to Harschmort House. More is afoot than we know! We have been called here for a rescue!”

  Any answer Svenson might have made stopped in his throat when he saw that the crowd of angry men had all turned to him, waiting for his words.

  “Ah… well… the trick of it is—”

  “He is a soldier serving the Prince of Macklenburg!”

  They gazed at Svenson with a new veneer of respect. Once more, he was appalled.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, while that is true—”

  “Send him over the wall!” It was the old man with gold spectacles, his mouth a rictus of spite. “These blackguards won't let us in? Let's give them one who can sort them out!”

  Before Svenson could dispute this especially stupid idea he felt something cold and heavy pressed into his hand, and looked down to see he was now holding a silver-plated revolver.

  “Wait a moment, all of you! We do not know—”

  “You will shoot them!” cried the old man. “You will open the gate!”

  “That is unlikely,” snapped Doctor Svenson, but no one heard. They had already taken hold of his arms and legs, lifting him abruptly to the level of their shoulders and marching straight to the wall—indeed, slamming him into the planks. The men holding his legs hefted him higher with exuberant force. The Doctor clutched the wall convulsively with both hands, ignoring the drop to either side, and threw a leg over the top to grip tightly with all four of his limbs.

  The men behind him shouted with triumph, but the Doctor expected at any moment to be shot at or perforated by a pike. He looked down into a grassy compound, lit from the factory's high windows— the light streaming so brightly he was forced to squint. They called to him—what did he see, who was there, what had he found? Someone bounced the fence and he promptly lost his grip on the pistol, dropping it onto the grass inside. Svenson swore. His outer leg was suddenly shoved upwards and he toppled over. With a grunt he caught himself before he fell completely, hanging by one arm, but there was no way he could pull himself back up. He spat with frustration—suspended between the louts outside and the rogues within, all convinced he had murdered the barge-master. He dropped with a squawk into an ungainly roll. A triumphant cry soared at his disappearance—and he groped urgently for the pistol. A door in the factory opened wide. Someone had seen him.

  SVENSON LOOKED into the glare. Perhaps ten men filed out toward him, the gleam of polished metal in their hands. He flung himself facedown, flinching as they snapped carbines to their shoulders and fired a crashing volley.

  Svenson realized he was not dead—nor had the bullets gone into the fence above him. They had fired into the air. He heard a synchronous clacking as each rifleman advanced his next round, and then too soon a second volley—and then a third, and then a fourth, then a fifth, in what seemed like as many seconds, the shots harmless but the demonstration as cold a display of unanswerable force as a frigate's broadside.

  The mob fell silent, as if they too were on their knees and trembling. What else had he expected—it was an armament factory. Who knew what weapons they might possess, what explosives, what newfangled quick-firing carbines, what vicious hand-cannons stuffed with grapeshot? The glass woman's army stood helpless as lambs outside a slaughterhouse.

  His groping hand found the pistol and closed about it. One soldier detached himself from the line and strode directly at Svenson, his carbine fixed on the Doctor's chest. Svenson raised his empty hand in supplication, the hand with the pistol still hidden in the grass.

  “These fellows have raised me over this wall,” he stammered. “I am not one of them.”

  The soldier wore an extravagant green uniform, like that of a hotel doorman, with polished black shoes and a black belt loaded with am munition pouches. An elaborate silver plume of flame had been embroidered on each tab of his stiff green collar—an officer, but of what force? The man's expression was stone-hard. He advanced a new shell into the carbine. The Doctor recalled the one bit of advice he had received with regard to dueling (Svenson having been challenged as a student by a drunken Prussian), from a disinterested young baron with unpleasant pink scars across each cheek. The nobleman had advised Svenson to note when his opponent breathed—for men typically inhaled before launching an attack—and use that very instant to attack himself. It had not worked in the duel—Svenson had been extremely fortunate to take a saber-tip along his wrist for an honorable ending. But he found himself now transfixed by the man before him, the swelling of his chest… waiting for the exhale that must put a bullet into his heart.

  “Stop!”

  The cry came from the doorway, but Svenson could see only the speaker's shadow.

  “There is another dead,” called Mr. Fruitricks, quite perturbed. “And this man cannot have done it. Bring him inside.”

  THE PISTOL'S silver-plating betrayed his attempt to tuck it behind his back, and it was taken away. The officer marched him into the house, the rest of the detachment following in a drill precise enough to satisfy a tartar. The door was slammed and bolted, and the men leapt up ladders to loopholes in the wall through which they could fire upon the whole of the open yard and the wooden wall. These were not young men, not raw fellows recruited from the thousands driven from work by failed mills or ruined farms—but men with hard faces, scarred and grim. Svenson had seen them on his own ships, sailors whose service had required terrible acts—criminal in any civilian circumstance— and who after years where such work grew familiar came to inhabit another world entirely, men whose shore leave inevitably resulted in bloody mayhem and consequent whippings. Such men filled the ranks of the Xonck Armaments private militia. No doubt the company paid better than the Queen. He thought of the crowd outside the wall, its peevish assumption of privilege, and how littl
e they understood the resolute figures arrayed to keep them out—men whose deep-set resentment for everything the privileged adherents stood for would find grateful outlet in the Xonck family's defense.

  The officer detailed two men to escort Svenson to a perfunctory office complete with filing cabinets, a desk, and two wooden chairs. Fruitricks was already behind the desk, shoving at the ledger books on top of it. Svenson fell into a chair and reached in his tunic for his cigarettes.

  “Who is killed?” he asked mildly.

  “You are astonishingly insolent,” Fruitricks muttered, sorting papers without looking at his hands.

  “On the contrary, I am merely a foreigner who knows not your ways.” The Doctor blew smoke toward the lantern on the desk, wishing very much that his fingers would stop trembling. “You know I did not kill your man at his watch fire—I found him dead.”

  “Then why did you run away?”

  “Because your men would have shot me,” replied the Doctor. “Who has been killed?”

  Fruitricks sighed, his expression aggrieved and pinched. “One of them.”

  Svenson swiveled his head, following Fruitricks' gaze to the guards.

  “The Xonck private army?”

  “They are most formidable, I assure you.”

  “As formidable as your new weapons can make them, at least.”

  “That is very formidable!” Fruitricks was nearly shouting.

  The Doctor sat back in his chair and looked for a spot to tap his ash. “A very good thing they answer to your command.”

  “Of course they do.”

  “And not to anyone named Xonck.”

  Mr. Fruitricks glared at him. “No one named Xonck is my present concern.”

  “What about anyone named Trapping?”

  Mr. Fruitricks shot to his feet, prompting the soldiers at the door to look in. He ignored them, leaning over the desk at Svenson.

  “I am a businessman, sir—and this is a place of work! Whatever your intrigues, we have no part of them!”

  “Of course not,” replied the Doctor. “This is an island of calm.”

  Fruitricks snorted and waved with anger toward the courtyard and the gate.

  “Who is that crowd?” he cried. “Do they not realize we can easily kill them all? Nor how very tempting it has been to do so?”

  “I think they appreciate it more than they did before your display.”

  “But who are they?”

  “You do not know?” Svenson tapped his ash into a dish of pins. “My goodness. All manner of people from the city, some of them very highly placed—”

  “But they cannot do anything!” Fruitricks protested. “We are impregnable!”

  “Then why are you upset?”

  “Because two men are dead! I watched you out there—speaking and plotting! They put you over my wall!”

  “They assume I am of their number.”

  “That is no answer! If you think I will scruple to get the information I require…”

  The man was near to screaming and Svenson's head throbbed with each shrill, miserable word. He inhaled deeply and replied as calmly as he could. “I am no sort of interested party—while you are. You really do need to think while you can. This mob at your door, sir—it means that you are finished.”

  “We are nothing of the kind! Our store of munitions alone—”

  “Cannot hold off the Queen's entire army!” cried Svenson. “This mob is but a vanguard—a simple delaying tactic until the greater force can arrive.”

  “What greater force?”

  “Whatever the Duke of Stäelmaere can command. Whole regiments. Do you think they will scruple to get their answers?”

  Fruitricks returned to his seat, tapping his fingers on the desk top.

  “But who is killing my men?”

  “How should I know?” asked Svenson, fatigued by the man's inability to keep to the obvious point. “Someone else.”

  “But who is left? They are all dead. Or in Macklenburg.”

  Svenson rubbed his eyes and sighed. “No one ever reached Macklenburg. My Prince is dead. Lydia Vandaariff's head was cut from her body. The airship sank into the sea.”

  Fruitricks' face went pale. He shrieked to the door, “Take him to the tempering room—at once!”

  SVENSON WAS taken through a narrow corridor into an enormous chamber so crammed with machinery that he could not see the far side. He held a hand before his eyes—gas lamps had been placed along the walls, but the truly blazing light shone from the machinery itself, piercing as winter sunshine slicing off the Baltic ice. He looked back to see if Fruitricks had followed—he had not—and noticed fresh saw-cuts and nails. The warren of little rooms had been recently made.

  The green-coated soldier behind him touched his arm—a decent enough gesture when the man perfectly well might have given him a shove—and Svenson moved on. The bulky machines he had seen on the barge, all now roaring with life, had been arranged in a jagged, radiating spiral around a hidden center, shielded by tall rectangles of beaten steel that hung in frames. The metal sheets reflected the light off one another, and he could see that each was somehow scored with writing. At once he thought of the Comte's alchemical formulae, scrawled on the Annunciation paintings… perhaps Fruitricks had taken the plates as well from Harschmort. But the barge had only just arrived. All of this had to have been in preparation for some time, the large machines themselves dropped into place as the final pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

  On the far side of the industrial floor another hasty wall had been flung up, and Svenson was shown into a room whose every surface had been sheathed with bright metal sheets. In the center of the room, suspended in a complicated harness strung between iron poles was the same—or if not the same, its double—round, helmetlike contraption the Cabal had used in Tarr Village to refine raw lumps of indigo clay into pliable bolts of glass. The burning, acrid smell told Svenson it had been successfully used. The room would forever stink of it.

  Yet the smell and the machine were nothing, the Doctor's attention captured instead by the corpse on the floor. The kerchief around the barge-master's neck had been removed, and Svenson saw the wound clearly for the first time—a deep slash across the jugular and into his larynx. Svenson turned to the soldiers posted to either side of the open door. Each resolutely ignored his gaze. He fished out a cigarette and sensed by a tightening in each man's posture that they disapproved of his access—as a prisoner—to any such luxury.

  “Any physician can judge from skin pallor and stiffening of the limbs how much time has passed since this man's murder,” he observed aloud. “Enough that the event must have taken place while I was still under confinement at the canal. Your master knows this. It proves I am no killer.”

  The soldiers said nothing, not that he expected they would. He lit his cigarette, wondering how long he would be confined in this especially unnatural cell. He shook out the match and tossed it to the floor. In the brilliant light he could see the yellow stains on his fingers.

  HE LOOKED up at a commotion in the corridor. Two more soldiers bustled in with a second body on a stretcher. Fruitricks stood to the side, hands balled into bony fists, waiting for the soldiers to leave. As soon as the stretcher-bearers had gone, he darted at Svenson with a nervous, sour expression.

  “You must tell me who has done this!”

  Doctor Svenson knelt by the body—another body—and inhaled, feeling the copper filigrees of nicotine score into his blood. It was one of the green-coated soldiers, sporting an almost identical incision— but not yet congealed to such purples and blacks.

  “This has been done while you were out there!” Fruitricks waved impatiently toward the front of the building. “With them!”

  “The wounds look… similar.”

  “Of course they are similar! They are one and the same! Who is the killer?”

  “You must study the clues.”

  “I do not care to—I am no butcher or surgeon! It is horrid!” Fruitricks stabbe
d a finger at the barge-master. “That is Mr. Brandt! He is dead!”

  “If you do not look, you will not learn. This is the world you have entered. Here.”

  Svenson indicated with his right hand—the cigarette between his fingers, a translucent ribbon of smoke fluttering above it—Mr. Brandt's opened throat. Fruitricks winced in protest, but knelt beside him.

  “From the angle of the cut, it is clear that his assailant stood before him—from where the blade enters to where the cut leaves off… it is unlikely for anyone to have done it from behind.”

  “He saw his killer? But there was no cry, no signal!”

  “Look closer, at the actual angle of the blade—excuse me, I mean no disrespect… but to illustrate my point…”

  Svenson took out the dead man's own clasp knife and snapped it open. If Fruitricks recognized the weapon he kept silent. Svenson delicately pressed the flat blade into the sticky wound.

  “To make this incision the blade must be pointing up.”

  “What does that signify? If I were to attack you with a knife, my hands would be below your throat—my hands hang below my waist—they would rise in the same way!”

  “No,” said Svenson. “Stand.”

  They rose. Svenson put the blade into the other man's hand and then took hold of that hand's wrist, moving the blade slowly toward his own throat to sketch an attack.

  “In making your stroke, your arm is actually much more likely to swing the blade from your shoulder, like a fist, and so the angle of entry is more a flat gash than what we see.”

  Fruitricks looked down at the knife in his hand with distaste. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that whoever killed the man was a good deal shorter.”

  Svenson took back the clasp knife and knelt by the newly dead soldier, pressing aside the wound in much the same way—the fresher gash seeping unpleasantly over the blade.

  “It is the same—from the front, and from below. I assume there was no cry or signal from this man either?”