"The Dark Volume" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dahlquist Gordon)

Eight. Reticence

THE SHOUTING from the open French doors must have been very loud, for it penetrated—like the first perceived drop of rain out of a thousand others—just enough to disrupt Chang's velvet enthrallment. He was on his knees in Harschmort's garden. Someone was pulling his hand. He turned—his glasses askew on his nose, half his head still surrounded by morning light and perfume, the voices of young women—as the pistol was wrenched from his fingers.

Before him lay the Duke. Francis Xonck slithered from view behind an ornamental boxed juniper. The black-coated Ministry man fired the pistol, the bullet splintering the box near Xonck's foot. Bodies rushed past Chang to cluster around the glass woman, her shattered wrist waving above their heads and steaming blue. The Ministry man's pistol clicked on an empty chamber.

“Reload, Mr. Phelps! Where can he hide?”

Too slowly Chang spun on his knees. The sharp toe of Colonel Aspiche's boot caught him square on the shoulder. The blow knocked Chang onto his back, the whole of his left arm gone numb. Aspiche swept out his saber. Chang scuttled farther away, feet hopelessly tangled, still unable to stand, raising his stick as Aspiche came on with his blade. Chang knew from experience that stabbing or slashing at a man on his back was more difficult than one might assume—cold comfort when he still felt half-asleep. Aspiche cut at Chang's left knee, to maim him. Chang deflected the blow with his stick, cracking the wood.

“Ought I to shoot him?” asked Phelps. He stood quite prudently beyond Chang's reach, the cylinder of the revolver opened out, digging in his waistcoat for brass cartridges. Both men gasped at another sharp silent spasm from Mrs. Marchmoor—some tall fellow grappled to wrap her hand. Chang rose to one knee. Again the impact of her distress had passed him by.

“Cardinal Chang is entirely my business,” barked the Colonel. “Find Mr. Xonck. Predators are most dangerous when they are hurt…”

Aspiche did not bother to feint, but hacked directly at Chang's head. Chang dodged to the side, another chip of wood flying out from his stick. Around them dashed more servants and soldiers, as if he were nothing but an animal being put down in a corner.

He called to Aspiche, “How can you kill Xonck? You underwent the Process! Where is your loyalty?”

“Ask me rather why he—like you—has lived so long!”

Aspiche's curved blade lanced viciously at Chang's stomach. Chang slashed the stick desperately across his body, splintering the tip, and the saber's deflected point disappeared into the earth. Behind them came two more pistol shots—Phelps putting Xonck from his misery—but their sudden sound launched another shattering vibration from Mrs. Marchmoor's mind, and Aspiche flinched.

The vibration did not stop Chang. He flung himself forward. The Colonel stumbled back, flailing wickedly with the blade, but Chang rolled free. Around him a nest of dragoons and servants and Ministry men all took sudden notice of his presence—blades swept from scabbards in every direction. Chang plunged after Xonck around the same boxed juniper—but in three long steps came to an abrupt halt, arms circling to keep his balance, at the sudden edge of the collapsed cathedral chamber, a dizzying slope of jagged, smoking wreckage beneath his feet, dropping at least a hundred feet. Not five yards away stood Phelps. The man raised the pistol straight at Chang's head. Without a second's thought, Cardinal Chang launched himself into the void.

HE LANDED ten feet down on a blackened iron beam and without pause sprung recklessly onto the shattered remains of a jail cell, a fall of perhaps fifteen more feet, the breath driven from his body. His stick flew from his hand, and before he could see where it landed a shot crashed out from above, the bullet pinging like a hammer near his head. Chang writhed over the twisted prison bars, hanging so the metal floor of the cell shielded him—at least until Phelps moved to a better angle. He looked past his dangling legs—a straight drop some sixty feet into a wicked pile of sharp steel that would finish him as neatly as the press of an iron maiden.

Phelps fired again—the bastard had moved around—the bullet sparking near Chang's left hand. Chang swore and began to vigorously swing his body back and forth. The earth wall had fallen in, some yards away, creating at least the pretense of a slope. If he could reach that, there was a chance. He looked up. Phelps stood directly above him, Aspiche at the Ministry man's side. Phelps extended the pistol. Chang kicked out his feet and let go.

WHEN HIS body came to rest—after perhaps as brief a time as ten seconds, but seconds as eventful and bone-shaking as any Chang had ever known—he lay on his back with his legs—fortunately unbroken—stretched out above him. His knees were bleeding and his gloves were torn, and he could feel abrasions on his face that would unpleasantly scab. His dark spectacles had remarkably remained in place (Chang had long ago learned the virtues of a well-tightened earpiece), but his stick was lost in the heights above. Roused to his danger, Chang scrambled into the cover of a buckled sheet of steel—part of the cathedral tower's skin, half-embedded in the ground like the blade of a gigantic shovel. The wreckage around him was so complete and his passage down so chaotic that he'd no idea where he was, or whether his enemies could see him. He peeked around the metal sheet. A shot rang out and he darted back, the bullet ringing harmlessly off the debris. That was one question answered.

In the silence, and quite near, Cardinal Chang heard a distinctive and odious chuckle.

The chuckle was followed by an even more disgusting gagging swallow. Francis Xonck crouched in a nook of mangled ducts and prison bars, just across the clearing from where Chang had come to rest. The wound in his chest had congealed to a sticky cobalt.

By now, Phelps might have been joined by twenty dragoons with carbines.

“I thought you'd been shot,” he called casually to Xonck, keeping his voice low.

“My apologies,” sneered Xonck. “It is a younger son's natural talent to disappoint.”

Chang studied the man, taking his time since neither of them seemed likely to go anywhere soon. Xonck's face was more altered than Chang had realized. The eyes were wild with fever, nostrils crusted, and his blue lips blistered raw. Where his skin was not discolored it was pale as chalk.

The glass woman's fingers had been inside Xonck's body… when her wrist had broken, had they come out? Or were they still inside? What delirium must be swimming through Xonck's head, bearing so much glass in direct proximity to his heart, his lungs, his rushing blood. Yet during their own recent battle in the train car, he'd shown no weakness…

“But you were shot before… I see you've dressed the wound in an extremely sensible fashion.”

Xonck spat a ribbon of clotted indigo onto the broken stones.

“I can only imagine what it's doing to your mind,” continued Chang. “One recalls those African weevils that chew from ear to ear, right through a man's brain. Their victim stays alive the entire time, losing control of his limbs, unable to speak, to reason, no longer noticing when he's fouled himself.”

Xonck laughed, eyes shut tight against his mirth, and playfully stabbed his plaster-cast arm at Chang. “The sensations are singular, Cardinal—you have no idea! The pleasure in action, the impact of feeling, even pain… like having opium smoke for blood, except there is no sleep in it. No, one is most viciously awake!”

His laughter stopped short in a cough and he spat again.

“Your mood seems strangely merry,” said Chang.

“Why shouldn't it be? Because I am dying? It was always possible. Because I'm a stinking leper? Was that not always possible too? Look at yourself, Cardinal. Did your mother breed you for such work? Would her eyes shine with pride at your fine habit? Your high-placed companions? Your virtue?”

“It does not seem you are anyone to speak of family. What are you but an inheritance, and the debauchery that came with it?”

“I could not agree more,” growled Xonck, with all the spite of a viper that has bitten itself in its rage.

CHANG RISKED another glance at the high crater's edge. No bullet followed, but he tucked his head back into cover. Xonck's eyes were closed but twitched like a dreaming dog's. Chang called to him.

“Your former associates have not welcomed you with affection.”

“Why should they?” Xonck muttered hoarsely.

“Does not your Process ensure loyalty? Slavish devotion?”

“Don't be a fool, the Process harnesses ambition. That is the risk of ruling by fear. As long as they know disobedience will be crushed, our adherents remain fiercely loyal. If, however—” and here Xonck chuckled too giddily “—the masters lose their hold, or become so ill-mannered as to die, these restraints vanish. We are sunk to their level— or they raised to ours—all the more, since knowledge itself is the most leveled field of all.”

“Because the Comte is dead?”

“Very bad form, in my own opinion.” Xonck thrashed his head— as if struggling with an unseen hand around his neck—and then gasped aloud.

“But Cardinal, you forget my family business—I am not such a dilettante as I may appear. Perhaps for all your reputation for learning, you are…”

Xonck nudged his plastered arm at the destruction around them. To his chagrin, Chang registered for the first time the striations of force amidst the fire… clear signs of an initial and massive point of ignition.

“An explosive shell.”

“Perhaps even two,” replied Xonck. “Detonated after the Comte's machinery had been removed. Not one of his infernal machines is here. Just as in his laboratory—”

“You're wrong.”

“I am not! Smell the cordite within the ash!”

“I do not mean here.” Chang could not smell anything and was annoyed to have missed so obvious a clue. “In the laboratory there was no detonation. That was a fire, started with the Comte's chemicals. Though again his things—or at least the paintings—had been removed.”

“Perhaps they did not care to set off ordnance indoors.”

“This destruction is not the act of someone who cares.”

Xonck smiled. “So… we have two sources of fire. Then there must also be two perpetrators, for anyone with access to our munitions has access to quantities. Neither deed can be laid to our surviving glass creature, for she quite convincingly asked me these very same questions in the garden.”

“Then who has done it?”

“Lord knows. Where are your own earnest compatriots?”

“I have no idea. Dead?”

“How cold you are, Cardinal.”

“I thought you were an ardent admirer of the Contessa.”

“Well, you know, who isn't?”

“You tried to kill her before my eyes.”

“Again, who doesn't—eventually? Did you not yourself, on several occasions?”

“Actually, I never did,” replied Chang, surprised that this was actually true. “I should be happy to do so now.”

“How lovely to have things in common.”

Xonck looked up at the lip of the crater. There were no gunshots.

“The Contessa took your little trunk, didn't she?” Chang called.

Xonck winced at some internal pain—the blue glass ripping at the flesh it was frozen against—and merely grunted his assent.

“What was inside it?” asked Chang. “The Comte's device?”

Xonck grunted again at a still sharper pain and then, when the pain did not give way, kicked his boot at the ground, muffling a louder cry through force of will, breathing through his nose like a bull. When the attack at last subsided, the man's face was even more spent, the red around his eyes deepened to scarlet and his teeth the color—whether this was the enamel itself or the slick discharge, Chang could not tell—of lapis lazuli stones. Strands of blue stretched between his lips with each huffing breath.

“It is true,” Xonck whispered at last. “I must recover it… as I must recover my book… as I must locate the requisite power… and the requisite vessel… all true… and all unlikely. I am not a fool, Chang. If I hate the proud virtue of a real fool, like—I lose the name—your Captain of Dragoons, men the likes of whom I would happily shoot every day before breakfast… if I hate such virtue it is because… for all my rank and privilege, I have been defined by exclusion. I have studied the limits of what human beings can endure—a study undertaken without scruple, indeed, well aware that such pursuits might consume my own soul away… like Brasilan fish strip the carcass of a bull—have you been to Brasil?”

Chang snorted.

“A pity,” sniffed Xonck. “It is a crucible—destruction of men, of men's souls, on such a scale… an idiot can see what drives his enemies, only a rare man perceives what drives himself. But when men and women are bought and sold so openly… one is oneself devalued… yet made wise. In our civilized society we actually compete for the privilege of being owned by the very foulest of masters. As I am from a family of the foul, I know this to be true.”

“I thought you were describing how you were doomed,” observed Chang dryly.

“Of course.” Xonck laughed. “If only one could put such a thing in a play, its audience must be huge! ‘Francis Xonck to Perish: Extra Performances Added!’”

He shook his head and coughed, but almost immediately Chang could see the man had become rueful again, resistance to self-pity never being—in Chang's observation—a priority of the rich.

“But perhaps I should have died with the rest and been swept beneath the sea. I could have lain still and allowed the water to rise over my face with a hideous serenity. But I do not possess that sort of mind… and so, before you and I make our compact of survival, Cardinal—as it seems we must—I will tell you… a little story.”

Xonck wiped his face. When he spoke again his voice was calm.

THREE CHILDREN, the oldest by enough years to seem more an uncle, never one with whom the younger two shared interests or exchanged secrets—a figure who from his own youth had been occupied with making business out of air—that is, quite literally, from conversation, from cunning speeches both made and overheard… for the father of all three—a sort of king, or more exactly a sort of magician—had left behind a secret, a treasure horde. It was the oldest child's skill to inflame this treasure into an empire, where the secret was sold and resold and refined and resold again, innumerable times, until he became more like a king than their father ever could have hoped, and all around him kings in truth were made to kneel.

“The second and third children were nearly twins, growing up in the shadow not of their father but of their fearsome elder sibling. They had their own portion of inheritance, but not—for he would not allow it—any role in the kingdom. Their lives became nothing but appetite and ease, and no one paid either any mind, save to condemn their sloth, or blanch with disapproval at what new tastes they found. But each possessed an innate inheritance from their father, like the oldest's skill with commerce. The middle child glimpsed the father's secret itself, though she was not schooled, because she was a girl. The youngest saw only the father's lack of fear…”

Xonck paused. “Or perhaps it was not from the father at all, but the mother… she who had been slain by his birth, giving him life no matter that she would die.”

Xonck spat and went on more heartily. “And for his empire the oldest son received an idiot wife, compliant whores, and children he could barely name. For her seclusion, the second child received a husband she despised, a life of craven envy, and children she could barely see without tears. For his ferocity, the third received no wife at all, unceasing hunger, and no child to ever call his own…

“Not much of a story at all, of course,” added Xonck, after a moment of silence, “but it is a degraded plane, and one grows attached to one's fancies.”

He spun his face from Chang, cocked his head, and sniffed several times like an animal.

“It is a draft of air,” Xonck whispered, already pawing at the wreckage. “A tunnel blocked with debris. The stones are too large—I cannot shift them alone!”

Against all his best instincts, Chang scrambled across the open blast space into Xonck's shelter. Working together they cleared the aperture: one of the large metal ducts, the sort through which Chang had descended from the garden urn into the boiler room.

“That there is air shows the way is still open,” said Xonck.

“It can only lead to the lower levels of the house. All those going up have been destroyed.”

Xonck smiled. “Which means it may be crawled. If I go first, I am of course vulnerable to a knife from behind. If I go second, I may as easily be ambushed at the end.”

“As may I.”

“Indeed. I offer you the choice.”

“What if I let you depart on your own and attempt to make my own way up the walls?”

“You cannot. There is no other way.”

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 step 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.

Mrs. Marchmoor had not moved.

“Take control of your man,” Chang snarled, “before he hatches an idea.”

Phelps lurched and then settled like a stack of jostled crockery, his face blank. Aspiche's body stiffened beneath Chang's grip, ensuring the same degree of silence and cooperation.

“I have others at my call,” she whispered, “in every direction throughout this house. You will not escape, no matter what you believe.”

“Whoever you call will only find a pile of broken shards.”

“I can have Mr. Phelps shoot you.”

“You can have him try.”

He scooped up Aspiche's saber and felt the desperate thrust of her mind. Two steps gave Chang the range to take her head.

“If I had decided to harm you, Margaret, I would not have thrown the chair at the Colonel.”

The glass flesh conveyed no more feeling than marble—or less, as marble at least presented a coherent surface. Chang's gaze penetrated beyond his ability to measure, into a swirling well whose depths he could not resolve.

“Of course, Cardinal… perhaps we can aid each other… there must be so much you want to know…”

Chang sneered at the need in her grating, acid-etched voice.

“Why have you taken Charlotte Trapping's children?”

“To force the cooperation of their mother, of course.”

“Why should you need the cooperation of Charlotte Trapping?”

He could feel her presence again, more gently, like the flickers of an annoying breeze.

“Stop that, Margaret. Answer me.”

The coldness fell away but her eyes still watched him closely.

“I should think it obvious. I need her because the Grand Design depended on shipments of munitions—how else were we to make sure of Macklenburg, much less our own city? With Henry Xonck lacking a mind and Francis Xonck ruined, Charlotte Trapping takes their place.”

“You're a liar.”

“How dare you!”

“When your masters left for Macklenburg, Henry Xonck was exactly as empty-minded as he is now, and Francis Xonck as unavailable—nothing has changed to require Mrs. Trapping's participation. All munitions were to be managed by Francis Xonck's handpicked man, Alfred Leveret—whom you have driven away. But that is not what I asked. I asked why you have taken that woman's children.”

Chang's voice had become too loud, and in the silence that followed he feared some earnest minion or other would take it upon themselves to intrude—or perhaps those intrusions were just what Mrs. Marchmoor was preventing as she paused.

“Think of all I can tell you, Margaret,” he whispered. “Just answer this first. You sent Rawsbarthe into her home—”

“Charlotte Trapping is not important,” she barked, like a nail scraping porcelain. “But there is too much for me to manage—the Duke, the Council, all the adherent minions awaiting instructions— so many tasks… and I am alone, without help.”

“Without help? You have the servants of a Pharaoh.”

“But they must not see me! They would rebel! They would break my body!”

“Why is that?”

“Because they are all as ambitious as I once was!”

“Once?”

“You cannot begin to understand what has been done to me!”

“What has been done? What you desired!”

“But so much has changed… I was not to be alone…”

“Everyone's alone, Margaret.”

“No, not everyone.” Her voice had gone disturbingly still. “Some are fortunate enough to carry their loved ones with them always …”

CHANG SENSED the pressure of her thought entering his palm like a key into a lock-hole, and before he could react the same vision of Angelique that had over-borne him in the garden swallowed his awareness again. Chang shook his head but it was too late. When he saw the room once more, Colonel Aspiche had been pulled away, his body positioned to shield her. Chang stood utterly open to a bullet from Phelps, who extended the revolver with an arm of stone. How had she done it?

“All you can tell me?” Mrs. Marchmoor mocked him. “Will you begin—or will Mr. Phelps shoot your leg?”

“I should prefer he didn't.”

“How do you know of Leveret? Where is he now? I need the machines! I need the power!”

“You need a book too, I believe. Xonck's book.”

“She has it. And she is already mine! I have been inside her mind, your proud little island rat—and left my stain upon it. Will it disgust you when her hair falls out—or her teeth? Will the stench of her decay revolt you more than I do?”

The glass woman's laughter came in brittle snaps. Chang felt the heat on his face, wanting to break her graceful neck. Mrs. Marchmoor leaned even closer and hissed again.

“How is it you were able to resist me?”

“I find you vulgar, Margaret,” he replied. “Why should a little glass change that?”

In answer, Mrs. Marchmoor poured all her energy into his palm— could there still be glass in the wound? Once more Chang was drowned in Angelique's incomparably sweet memory… once more, with a near-nauseating pang of loss, he dredged his mind free.

He looked up, breathing hard. Why was he not dead? Aspiche had returned his saber to its scabbard. Chang wiped his mouth on the back of his glove.

“Madame,” began Phelps, “we should not allow him to—”

“He wants nothing more than all our deaths,” Aspiche croaked. “He is our enemy.”

She did not reply. Chang looked into Mrs. Marchmoor's expressionless eyes. He took a step backwards.

“Where would you go now, Cardinal Chang?” she hissed.

“There's nowhere he can go,” said Phelps.

“Do not believe it. Cardinal Chang is resourceful.” He felt her loathing, her open hatred, her clear memory of his every insult. “He may even escape from Harschmort House alive. Who can say when we will encounter him again… each party having accomplished so much in the meantime?”

AS HE cut through Harschmort's maze, he met not a single servant or soldier. Had the glass woman cleared his path of any possible obstacles?

Mrs. Marchmoor would find Miss Temple. For Celeste to survive, Chang needed to deliver someone of equal value. He had been released to find Charlotte Trapping. Was their understanding so naked?

As he walked Chang brought his injured palm up to his mouth and tore off the bandage with his teeth. He stepped into a small mirrored alcove and took out the razor. He opened his hand wide, stretching the skin, and dipped the square corner of the razor into wound, pressing delicately until blood was flowing over his fingers. The metal touched something hard… Chang shifted the blade and braced himself against the insistent, pulsing memory of Angelique. He gouged the last splinter of glass free, winking and wet on the flat blade… the final shred of Angelique. Chang flicked the blade at the mirror, spattering it red, the blue fragment sent who knew where. He'd have no further shackling.

He kept walking until he finally reached what seemed like an acre of black-and-white tile, the entryway to Harschmort, a crossroads usually thronged with servants and guests, now empty. He made his exit without incident, trotting down the wide stone steps, certain he was being observed. In the courtyard were at least five coaches laid in a line, but their drivers stood clustered together, watching him descend.

No one had cleared the hallways for Francis Xonck, yet Chang was sure the man had escaped. In the Library, Chang relied on the archivists to limit his own effort and spare his eyes—could he not use Xonck the same way? Xonck's first priority would be to locate his book and thus Miss Temple. This ought to have meant following her path through the garden, slavering after his prize like a pig after truffles … but Aspiche's dragoons were combing the land between the gardens and the shoreline, from the farmlands to the canal—and the Colonel, odious but not incompetent, would have sent patrols to the train stations at both Orange Canal and Orange Locks. Yet they had not found her. Nor had they found Xonck. What did he know that his pursuers did not? Chang returned the impassive gazes of the gathered coachmen, and strode toward them.

THE COACHMEN were wary of someone—by his clothes at least—so obviously of a lower rung. But once he stood with them, their caution was punctured by both discomfort at Chang's scars and a curious compulsion, for his questions were so specific and assured that only afterward did the more careful amongst them realize they had answered the strange figure as if he were a policeman. Having learned where each coach had come from, and with whom, Chang asked if any had returned to the station. He was told they had not, nor had anyone approached them to do so. The men waited for another question. Chang cleared his throat.

“It will be obvious that I am being observed from the house—do not look at the windows, you will see no one—and were any one of you to go so far as drive me to the train station, another would be immediately drafted to follow in pursuit. I thus apologize for not being able to employ you. I would be much obliged if you might point me in the direction of the canals.”

In saying this to men he knew would be interrogated, Chang was simply attempting to save time. He knew the way perfectly well—and while the canals were a reasonable, even clever destination for a man seeking escape from Harschmort, Xonck would avoid them, for the canals would be thick with dragoons. Since Xonck had also avoided the coachmen, that left Cardinal Chang with a single place to pick up his trail—the Harschmort stables.

He jogged toward the outbuildings, but then deliberately overshot them, so anyone watching would assume he had passed the stables. At the next row of sheds he darted to the right and broke into a dead run to get around the far wall, where he paused, waiting. Soon enough a rumble of bootsteps on the gravel reached his ears and then faded in the distance. Chang hurried back, slipping the razor from his coat.

He need not have bothered. The stable door swung ajar, and a black-coated groom lay facedown in a heap of straw not two yards away. Beyond the groom gaped an open stall, no horse within. The boards at Chang's feet were sticky. Chang scuffed new straw into the goo and saw its vivid blue color. He sighed. Horses were not, to Chang, any source of comfort or pleasure. A rustle caused him to turn—a second groom in the doorway, obviously on the verge of shouting for help.

“Be quiet!” Chang snarled. “Who has done this to your fellow?”

The confused groom looked at the fallen man and then back to Chang. “But—I—you—”

“If it had been me, I would not be here. There was a horse there, yes? He has taken it!”

The groom nodded dumbly.

“A saddle! Another mount! Your friend will revive,” Chang said firmly. “I must catch his assailant—it is the only hope we have! As fast as you can or we are finished!”

As the groom leapt to his task, Chang risked a glance outside. No one had come back to search. He picked up the fallen man from the straw and turned him over. White flecks from Xonck's plaster fist dotted the raw skin along the jaw. Chang slapped the young man lightly and stepped away, letting him grope to awareness on his own.

Minutes later a saddled mare was brought forward for his approval. Chang nodded gravely—what did he know of horses?—and did his best to mount the thing on the proper side on the first attempt. This done and Chang's feet having found the stirrups, the groom guided the horse through the door and pointed to the only path Xonck could have taken—then slapped the mare's flank. Fast as a rifle shot the animal leapt forward. Chang squeezed with his knees to keep his seat, expecting at every moment to break his head like a melon.

Within minutes, the cobbles of Harschmort gave way to a grassy path. At the end of the immediate estate grounds the grassy path forked, the left side clearly turning toward the rail station at Orange Canal. He pulled the horse to a halt and awkwardly—for he did not trust himself to dismount and remount with any success—paced the mare along each path of the fork. If Xonck had gone to the station, he had gone back to the city. But without the machines Xonck needed to survive, the city was just a place to die. It took Chang another three minutes, glancing over his own shoulder for pursuing dragoons, to find a smear of blue on the bright grass, like the excrement of some especially exotic African bird, on the fork going north. Chang wheeled the horse and dug in his heels.

He bounced past meadows dotted with the gnarled survivors of abandoned apple orchards, testament to the unpredictable flooding of the fenland. He thought back to the confrontation with the glass woman and her mocking description, “resourceful”… he was smart enough to realize that whatever hopes she had that he might deliver Charlotte Trapping would keep Miss Temple alive. Was it possible that Miss Temple had escaped? She had been in the garden—no doubt he'd been blinded to her presence by his fit. With the damage to Mrs. Marchmoor and the rush to shoot Xonck and himself, the search might have been delayed some five or even ten minutes. How much ground could she have made with such a start—against the determination of organized soldiers? Chang gripped the reins more tightly. She would stick out against the dunes and fen grass like a fox on a croquet lawn.

HE KEPT riding. Mrs. Marchmoor—two weeks before, a whore named Margaret Hooke—had somehow become his keenest enemy. She was vulnerable, to be sure, and hot-tempered, but she was learning. She had taken personal control of the Ministries. She had launched Tackham on his search. And she was willing to sacrifice anyone. It would be insane to underestimate her—insane to come within a hundred yards of the woman without a coatful of orange rings. Woman? Margaret Hooke had been a woman. This was a creature, the abhorrent residue of one man's diseased imagination. Who knew when she might become unstoppable altogether?

This thought pricked his memory… something else the glass woman had said, that she “needed the machines… needed the power…” He had taken it to mean power in the broadest sense— domination over an invisible octopus of minions. But what if Mrs. Marchmoor had been speaking literally? The Comte's laboratory held paintings, chemicals, papers, the man's knowledge. But the cathedral chamber had contained not only the machines, but also the power to run them, through Harschmort's fantastic network of ducts and furnaces and boilers. Whoever had taken those massive machines would find them useless without an equal source of power.

At once Cardinal Chang knew where Xonck was riding, and where he was bound to follow. The clue had been before him from the moment he'd seen the striations of shell-blast. The explosives had been courtesy of Alfred Leveret—the same man who had over-seen the refitted factory near Parchfeldt Park, a factory specifically remade to house all the Comte's machines… machines no doubt already arrived on the newly made canal and set into position.

THE MEADOWS lasted another three miles and Chang began to worry about the horse, knowing nothing of their care, and so eased the animal's pace. He passed a stand of birch trees, planted as an estate boundary, but all of the surrounding lands had been gobbled up by Vandaariff's agents to ensure his privacy. Beyond the birches was a proper road, and on that road an inn. Chang pulled up and walked the horse to a trough of water. He was debating whether to slide from the saddle himself when a boy ran out from the inn with a mug of beer and a wadded cloth. He handed the mug to Chang and began at once to rub the horse with the cloth. Feeling he had been given a role to play—and since it only required drinking beer—Chang drank deeply, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was. He returned the empty mug, feeling one could enjoy country life after all, and dug in his coat for a coin, asking the boy in an idle tone where the road might take him. One direction looped back toward the Orange Canal station, and the other led all the way to the lonely coastal fortifications at Maxim-Leduc. He wondered aloud that the inn must not see many travelers, and the boy shook his head, accepting the tarnished old florin—he'd seen no other rider stop all day. Chang flicked his heels and nearly lost his perch as the mare shot forward, appalled at the figure he made, but far too occupied with staying aboard the animal to care.

HE CLATTERED across a small wooden bridge, children fishing down in the reeds to either side, thinking to inquire about Xonck but not wanting to again wrestle with a horse that had no inclination to stop. The road topped a gentle hill. At its crest Chang stood in the stirrups and saw, miles ahead, what must be Parchfeldt's thick green canopy. Then the road dropped down into an even denser wood, and Chang felt the air grow colder.

With a determined tug, Chang reined the mare until she walked, slow enough to study each side of the path as they went. If Xonck knew he was being followed, this was the best location so far for an ambush. Chang tried to remember what else he knew of Parchfeldt, from the maps and the newspapers, and from whatever Elöise had told them about her uncle's cottage—Elöise…the woman had slipped from Chang's thoughts!

Where was she now? He had not, frankly, expected to see her again—any more than a hundred others who had crossed his path on one unsavory matter or another: the widow Cogsall, the old ship's clerk, the basement-dwelling apothecary, or that Russian cook… or was she Hungarian? He remained haunted by her arm—the inch-long scar, from a stove. The ragged diffusion of his memory was echoed in the colors of the forest, trees in such number and variety to make him think he had never truly seen one in life before. But the vivid density of the wood only drove Chang's thoughts deeper. He pulled his collar up against the chill. Moisture leached into the earth here, giving off a cold that touched his very bones. In nature's eyes, human desire seemed a brief-lived thing, no more notable than the blind hopes of a fox for its cubs or a lark for the contents of each fragile egg.

THE ROAD was barred by a low wrought-iron gate, beyond which lay a wooden landing and the brick-lined canal. Chang listened in vain for any voices or recognizable sounds, then gripped tight to the saddle and swung himself to the ground. He patted the mare's neck as he had seen other horsemen do, and walked her to the gate.

The gate's clasp was sticky—he could imagine Xonck wiping his mouth on a sleeve, the slick fluid brushed onto the metal—but there was no lock. Chang looped the mare's reins around the gatepost to examine the situation unencumbered: there was no bridge, nor any tow-path to a bridge farther down. Chang peered into the black swirling water, seeing his own reflection with distaste. There was no further sign of Xonck, nor of Xonck's horse, which meant the beast had not been abandoned. Had they swum across? The drop from the facement to the water was perhaps two feet—easy enough to leap into, but to climb out again? Chang glanced back at the mare, contentedly watching him with her placid brown eyes, and shuddered. He pushed up his glasses and squinted at the far bank. Was it possible? Xonck was a gentleman, and could ride even a crazed horse to its limit.

Directly opposite the wooden landing was another just like it, and a continuing path. Chang dropped to a crouch. Beneath the other landing was some sort of ironwork, hanging down… after a moment of feeling especially dim he craned his head below his own landing and found a cast-iron lever. Chang pulled it and jerked back as the bridge speared forward across the black canal, slamming into the far couplings with enough force to skewer a wild boar. He stood and studied it with dislike: the bridge was but a yard in width and did not look to hold a man, much less a horse. Yet on the center plank, smeared by retraction and extension, gleamed another patch of blue.

The mare crossed as blithely as it had borne his ignorance. It took Chang three attempts to regain the saddle, but she stood patiently through them all.

THE NARROW path wound uphill through trees, to meet a more proper country road covered with leaves. Chang did his best to place the direction of the road by the fading light, and orient that direction with reference to the factory—or where he, without having paid special attention to the map, conjectured it being. He clapped his heels, spurring the mare to a trot. He would only discover if he'd made a mistake in the brief time before the light was gone. He needed to hurry.

The path veered deeper into the woods and he began to pass ruins—broken boundary fences, road markers, the remnants of walls—all echoing the gnawing discomfort of his body. The path skirted a tumbled gatehouse, but Chang could detect no sign of the manor it once had guarded. He detected no sign of Xonck either, and so rode on, still hoping to reach De Groot's factory. And who would he find there? And what did Chang expect to do? Destroy the machines? See to it that Xonck's illness consumed him? That the Comte's legacy disappeared? Chang felt a fresh spark of irritation that he was so very out of his element, while the Doctor and Elöise might be—who knew, perhaps not two stone's throws away—settling in with cups of tea before a warm fire, the woman blinking shyly as Svenson did his level, failing best not to stare at the single button undone at the top of her black dress. Chang clutched tightly at the mare's mane and snarled, nearly slipping again.

When he looked up, something caught the corner of his eye. Stopping the horse, he pushed his dark glasses down his nose, for the curling plume of white smoke blended so cleanly into the color of the dying sky that he could not at first be sure if it was fire or cloud. Chang clumsily slid from the saddle and walked the mare off the road. He looped the reins over a low branch, saw with satisfaction that there was thick grass around the tree for the horse to eat, and then rolled his eyes at his own solicitousness.

THE GROUND fell steeply toward a trickling watercourse, edged on either bank by a trough of rich black mud. Chang slid down through a moist layer of last year's leaves—doing his best to avoid snapping twigs or low-hanging branches—along the tight, muddy valley to where the smoke seemed to rise. He had assumed it was a campfire— woodsmen or hunters—but was surprised to meet the crumbled remnants of an outlying wall, netted with vines that seemed intent on pulling the stones back to the torpid earth. Over the wall lay an abandoned garden, thick with high-grown weeds. Beyond the garden stood the roofless frame of a redbrick house, the windows empty… yet out of its still-standing chimney rose the white plume.

Crossing the tangled garden in silence was impossible, so Chang crept around the wall, sinking to his ankles in the black mire. The watercourse fed an unkempt pool lined with stonework and once fitted with a mill wheel, now toppled half-rotted to one side. The pool's surface was thick with green scum, like the spittle of toads, and the air above it beset by hovering insects. On the bank near the ruined house lay a small flagged yard. The stones would allow a silent approach.

Chang studied the back of the house: two windows with a doorway leading out between them. One window had been covered with planking, and the other draped with oilcloth. He looked up at the smoking chimney—most likely it was a refuge for gypsies, or a rough lodge for hunters… had it not been for the lack of any sign of another horse, he would have thought it a perfect refuge for Xonck. Chang advanced to the oilcloth-covered window and listened.

The last thing he expected was the sound of a woman in tears.

There, there…” It was the voice of a man, hesitant and low. “There, there…”

“I am fine, thank you,” the woman whispered. “Do sit down.”

A scrape of a chair and then silence. Chang reached for the oilcloth, pausing as he heard footsteps.

“A cup of tea,” announced a clipped new voice. Another woman. Chang could hear the fatigue and impatience beneath her simple words. “One for each of you.”

“Thank you,” said the man, and at once he whimpered.

“It is hot,” the second woman snapped. “Take it by the handle! It is lemon verbena.” The woman sighed bitterly after a sip of her own. “Too weak.”

“It will do perfectly well,” said the first woman. Chang felt a spark on the back of his neck. He knew her. Why was she crying? And who was the man?

“I'm sure it will have to,” responded the other, tartly. “I am not used to making tea at all, of course—still less in such a pot, on such a fire. Any more than I am used to any of what has happened to my former existence! Though what has truly changed after all? Am I not still a shuttlecock batted back and forth by the more powerful?”

To this opinion the other two had no answer.

“I do not mean to compare my losses to yours,” the woman went on. “Whatever your losses might be, I'm sure I do not fully comprehend them—who comprehends anyone?—but from what you have told me and what I have in the meantime guessed—I am not wholly without deductive powers—I do not know why you find yourself still so distraught. Indeed, Elöise, it is most difficult to bear.”

“I am sorry.”

“It has been some time. No matter what you say about memory and forgetting, all of which you take so seriously—of course a measure of seriousness does credit to a person, but not an excess—yet here we are, flown from what seemed a perfectly fine cottage, because of you. It is nearly dark—I suppose we shall sleep here! I myself am enduring all manner of outright tiresome privations.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am. And yet you are the one in tears! They are pernicious!”

Elöise did not answer. It was obvious to Chang that the other woman was as terrified as she was arrogant.

“And who was he again? That fellow?”

“Doctor Svenson,” replied Elöise softly.

“O yes, the Prince's man. Lord above—”

“He has saved my life repeatedly.”

“So you intimated. Or,” the woman added dryly, “so you remember…”

“He saved my life from Francis.”

“Why would Francis hurt you?”

“Charlotte—”

“Why would Francis hurt any one of us? What nonsense!”

“Charlotte.” Elöise sighed with some forbearance. “Charlotte, that is not true.”

To Chang's astonishment, Charlotte Trapping laughed.

“Ah, well, there you have me.” She chuckled quite merrily. “Per haps I fathom one or two elements after all!”

“Charlotte—”

“Stop blubbering! Your dear friend—of, goodness, ten days?—is still alive. And left behind he will remain so, and there's an end to him. What did you want instead, Elöise? A romance to sweep you away? After all you've done?”

“What I've done for you—”

“You say that—so often that I nearly believe you. Do you believe her?”

This last was to the man.

“She is very pretty,” he answered gently. Charlotte Trapping huffed.

“Pretty! What girl isn't pretty? I was perfectly pretty, and look what happened! Come now, Elöise, did you really expect—and from a German—”

“He is very decent.”

“Decent!” Mrs. Trapping crowed. “A word to describe a churchman! Elöise, a woman cannot put her hope in a man she pities!”

“I do not pity him. Doctor Svenson—”

“He struck me as—O I don't know—rather weedy—”

“He was injured!”

“Not like Arthur. Arthur was a strapping man, with very broad shoulders. Even if you grant your Doctor his uniform—though it was extremely shabby—you cannot allow his shoulders are anywhere near as broad. What's more, your fellow's hair was unpleasantly fair—not like Arthur with his very thick whiskers. I do not believe this Doctor possessed any whiskers at all. You approved of Arthur's shoulders and his whiskers yourself, didn't you, Elöise? I am sure you said something very much like that—perhaps you did not know that I could hear you. I made a point to hear everything, you know.”

“Yes, Charlotte.”

“Arthur. My husband promised to save me, but he was always promising things he didn't understand.”

“I am sorry, Charlotte.”

“Everyone is always sorry for everything.”

“Not Francis,” said Elöise.

To this, Charlotte Trapping was silent.

“THE TEA is hot,” said the man, quietly, as if he had been waiting for some time to speak. Both women ignored him.

Chang eased two fingers to the oilcloth and edged it aside with glacial patience. Elöise sat on a broken-backed wood chair. She still wore her black dress, but had added a dark shawl. Her hair had become curled with the moisture of the woods and rough travel. There was a lost look in her eyes Chang had not, even in their determined struggles aboard the airship, seen before. The veil of kindness and care that had been so customary had gone, and a frank, bitter clarity had taken its place.

To her right, on a rotting upholstered bench, the still-steaming mug of tea held tight between his palms, sat Robert Vandaariff, hat-less, in a black topcoat with silk lapels and the muddy shoes and trouser cuffs of a sheep farmer. Like a child for whom an absent parent bears responsibility, the mindless magnate's hair was uncombed and his cravat had gone askew.

Charlotte Trapping sat with her back to Chang, in what was obviously the only whole chair in the ruined house. The widow's hair was pale with a touch of red (he would have taken it to be a henna wash had he not known her brother), silhouetted against the light of the glowing fire. She wore a well-cut jacket of blue wool over a warm straight dress. Next to her chair was a leather travel case, a hat, and long gloves, all spelling out that Mrs. Trapping had attired herself for travel and difficulty. A patterned velvet clutch bag had been looped around her wrist and hung heavily. When Mrs. Trapping raised her mug of tea, the bag clacked as if it were stuffed with Chinese ivory tiles. Near to Vandaariff lay another awkward bundle, wrapped in a blanket and bound with twine.

“SO YOU have seen Francis,” remarked Charlotte Trapping.

“I have,” replied Elöise. “Have you seen your brother Henry?”

Mrs. Trapping waved her hand toward Vandaariff with a sniff. “The world will lose no sleep over Henry,” she said, and then too lightly, “I did not know if Francis was alive.”

Elöise did not respond, and once more Chang noted the dull hardness of her gaze. Mrs. Trapping must have noticed it too, for she muttered with disapproval.

“I thought you liked Francis.”

“Charlotte… your brother Francis… has changed.”

“But that is where you are ignorant, Elöise. Francis has always changed—it is why he is the opposite of Henry! You would not have known him before he went to school, or again before each of his celebrated travels. Every time he returned he appeared entirely new— and each time he made new friends with no inkling how strange or dissipated he had become. It was as if portions of his character kept vanishing one after another—given over in exchange for… well… something. And what did he have to show for it—for all his boasting? Land? A title? I will tell you, Elöise, and it is Francis all over: nothing but more wicked stories… more cruel tricks.”

“But this is different, Charlotte. It is physical. It is monstrous.”

“Really, Elöise—”

“Francis is beyond whims and cruelties—it is the blue glass!”

Mrs. Trapping pursed her lips and took an unsatisfying sip of tea. “I am heartily sick of this blue glass. Is it true that especially nasty man is dead?”

“The Comte? Yes.”

“And who killed him?”

“Cardinal Chang.”

Mrs. Trapping snorted. “Are you sure you remember correctly? Are you sure it was not my brother?”

“Your brother and the Comte were fast allies!”

“I very much doubt it.” Mrs. Trapping smirked. “Francis is not one to keep promises. He was never the Comte's true friend! And who can blame him? I never liked the way that man smelt. Just like a Russian—or how one imagines a Russian—”

“Charlotte—”

“If you take that tone with me, Mrs. Dujong, I will forbid you shelter in even this crude ruin! We find ourselves at liberty—and you find yourself rescued—precisely because I have learned all there is to know about this blue glass, about this supposedly alchemical woman—and these apparently all-powerful books. Not that I have seen any of them, you understand, but I have done my share of work. You will not perhaps credit that as children I always got the better of Francis playing chess, and always got the better of Henry too—whenever he would play me, which was very rarely, because he hated to lose! Do you think I spent my time at those dreadful Harschmort galas worrying about my evening gown? I watched Henry, and I studied Robert Vandaariff. Look at him now, Elöise! Smarter than Henry, smarter even than Francis, though of course without Francis' appetites.”

“I saw Francis shot in the chest. Yet he lives.”

Mrs. Trapping stopped talking.

“I thought him dead,” Elöise said. “We all did—and drowned beneath the sea. But then there were signs, Charlotte, murders—innocent people, terrible attacks made to look like an animal. Then I saw him myself. He has poisoned himself to stay alive, and the only man who could cure him is dead. It is all hopeless. You must abandon this business. You must go home. You have other responsibilities. Francesca needs you, and Charles, and Ronald. They have no one else.”

Mrs. Trapping remained silent.

“I am sorry,” continued Elöise. “I know how… how… how—”

“Who shot him?”

Elöise's face fell. The woman had not heard a word.

“Charlotte—”

“Who shot my brother Francis?”

“It was Doctor Svenson,” said Elöise, heavily.

Mrs. Trapping stood up and emptied the whole of her tea mug into Elöise's face.

TAKING THIS as the best opportunity he might find, Cardinal Chang took the sill with both hands and vaulted through the window, shooting past the oilcloth to land in a crouch. Charlotte Trapping wheeled to face him, quite obviously wishing she had not just emptied her cup on such a lesser target. Vandaariff stood as well, but this was in mere imitation of the woman, for the man did nothing other than stare as Chang rose, the razor slipped from his pocket.

“It is Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise quickly, her face wet, taking a warning step toward Mrs. Trapping.

“Is he your lover as well?”

“Charlotte, come away from the window.”

Elöise gently reached both hands for Mrs. Trapping's arm, but at her touch the woman sharply shrugged herself free.

“So you are the one who killed that odious Comte,” Charlotte Trapping cried to Chang, her eyes bright and glittering. “I daresay it has saved me the effort, and yet the timing has proven most unfortunate. Ought I to be frightened by your fearsome appearance? I am not. What do you intend with that implement?” She nodded at the razor.

Chang looked at his hand as if he had not known what it held. “This? I suppose I hold it out of instinct—like an animal. Or because I do not choose to share the fate of Doctor Svenson.” Chang kicked Mrs. Trapping's chair across the room with enough force to make both women flinch. “You will sit down until I tell you otherwise.”

The women did so, Elöise moving hastily to right the chair and brush off the seat. Chang watched with disgust, wondering what could possibly drive her to abandon the Doctor, who had saved her life, in favor of an employer. He turned to Vandaariff, still standing with an expression of blank concern.

“Sit down, Lord Robert.”

Vandaariff did. Chang plucked the tea mug from the man's grasp and drank it down, then handed the mug back with a nod of thanks.

“I think you are an animal—” began Charlotte Trapping.

“Be quiet,” growled Chang, and turned to Elöise. “Where is Miss Temple?”

“How on earth are you here?”

“Dry your face and answer my question.”

“Elöise, do not tell this man one thing.”

Chang shot out his hand and slashed Mrs. Trapping's jacket— trusting the razor would not cut through the whalebone in her corset— clean across her torso, causing the blue fabric to hang, the gash made before the woman could even squeak.

“Do not speak again until I am asking questions of you. I promise, we will talk, for I have spoken to your brother. Elöise?”

Elöise looked into Chang's black lenses for the first time since his entry, her gaze grim and beaten.

“I left Miss Temple at the town of Karthe. We became separated. We had quarreled. The Contessa was there, and Francis Xonck. If you have truly seen him—”

“I have seen him.”

“I believe he took me for the Contessa. He attacked me, with a sliver of glass.”

“Elöise,” muttered Charlotte Trapping, “really.”

But Elöise had already pried free the third button down between her breasts, and pulled the fabric open with her hands. Chang saw the bandage, and its coin-sized stain of blood.

“The Doctor found me—”

“What was Svenson doing in Karthe?”

“I have no idea. He left the fishing village not long after you yourself… we had quarreled—”

“Elöise quarrels with everyone,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“When I woke I was on the train. The Doctor removed the glass. He saved my life.”

“Again,” said Chang.

“Again,” echoed Elöise, miserably.

“I found him rather weedy,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“Charlotte, please!” cried Elöise, her voice a whisper.

“Francis Xonck was also on that train,” said Chang.

Mrs. Trapping looked up.

“And the Contessa,” sighed Elöise, “hiding in a freight car. When the train stopped at Parchfeldt, she fled and the Doctor and I went to find her. The last we saw, Francis was bent double on the trackside, sick as a sailor. The Contessa escaped into the park. Abelard insisted that we follow.”

“And what of you? Did you want to follow?”

“I believe I more wanted to die,” sighed Elöise, and she covered her face with both hands.

CHANG LOOKED down at the unhappy Elöise, whose dismay only inflamed his desire to cuff her face. Instead, he stepped to the bound bundle. He flicked the razor at the blanket and then ripped enough of an opening to see the vivid colors of the painted canvas beneath it. Charlotte Trapping had gone to Harschmort, burned the laboratory, taken the paintings, and captured Robert Vandaariff all by herself. He had taken her for a society ninny. He glanced up and met her fierce, determined gaze—the green eyes unpleasantly like her brother's— and recalled Xonck's story, that the second child had inherited the intelligence of their powerful father. From the conversation he had just overheard he knew she was whimsical, cruel, and insufferably proud—that she was here at all proved her bravery and determination … and that she was a Xonck meant she was also probably insane.

But he was not finished with Elöise Dujong.

“Where is the Doctor now?” he demanded, harshly.

“We left him at my uncle's cottage.”

“Struck on the head,” added Mrs. Trapping.

“He will be safe,” said Elöise quickly. “The cottage is warm and there is food and firewood and a bed—Lord knows he deserves an excuse to let all of this go, to let me go.”

“I'm certain he feels the same way,” said Chang.

“He is alive,” said Charlotte Trapping haughtily. “He need not be.”

“And how long will he stay there, do you think?” Chang ignored her, directing his words to Elöise. “And where will he go? The Prince is dead. The Doctor has been declared an outlaw by his own government—and our Ministries, presently in the hands of his enemies, are more than happy to capture or execute him. I do not imagine he has any money. A destitute foreigner hunted by the law? Your Abelard will be lucky not to be hanged on the spot by the first country sheriff to run him down!”

Elöise began to sob before he finished.

“You're an ugly fellow, aren't you?” observed Mrs. Trapping.

Chang took hold of Elöise's jaw, tugging her face up so their eyes met. “I've been to your room—I know. Were you Xonck's spy from the beginning? Or was it the Contessa?”

“Cardinal—”

“Of course, none of this was worth mentioning! When people were dying! When people were saving your life!”

He released his grip with a push.

“Caroline Stearne summoned you both to a private room in the St. Royale,” Chang went on. “Doing the Contessa's bidding—was it only blackmail, or something else? What did she demand in exchange? Who else did you betray?”

Tears streamed down Elöise's cheeks. He turned away from her to Mrs. Trapping.

“Why don't you tell me—there are no holes in your memory, are there?”

“I am completely capable of telling you about Caroline Stearne,” said Charlotte Trapping. “But I want you to tell me why I should.”

Ironically, Chang realized her blithe dismissal of his anger actually meant that, for the first time, she truly understood how dangerous he was. Was this her Xonck tenacity rising to—and there was the pity, perhaps only to—a mortal challenge?

“These are family matters,” she said coolly. “Why should you be part of it?”

“Clearly I am already.”

“But what is your stake, sir? Is it this Doctor? Is it revenge? Or—” she allowed her eyes to traverse his ruined habit—“merely a matter of money?”

With an effort Chang stopped himself from backhanding the woman across the face.

“I am here because people have tried to kill me. People like your brother.”

“But he has not killed you. I don't know what you're so afraid of— you must be very formidable to survive Francis. You must tell me where he has gone. What are his plans?”

“So you can assist him?”

She smiled almost girlishly. “O I do not say that…”

The woman was insufferable.

“When did you last see your children?” asked Chang.

Mrs. Trapping did not answer, realizing at once what the question meant.

“It is that terrible man!” she whispered. “Noland Aspiche. Always watching, disapproving—he never accepted Arthur as his rightful commanding officer.”

“He hired me to kill your husband, actually,” said Chang dryly.

“What?”

“Chang did not kill Arthur,” said Elöise quickly.

“But—but that man—he hired you.”

Chang smiled. “Your husband was loathed.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Your husband was an undeserving ass.”

“But—the arrogance—the presumption—”

“Charlotte!” Elöise cried. “Your children! Could they have been taken by Francis?”

“Of course not! Why would he endanger—”

“Charlotte!”

“I do not know!”

Both women turned to Chang. To tell them what he knew was to step away from interrogation and toward alliance. Did he want that? Did he care? What was his stake? Had he not been wrestling with Charlotte Trapping's question since the first night in the fisherman's hut? Why was he still involved in this business? He thought of the Doctor, with a broken head and a ruined heart, and of Miss Temple, running for her life, a captive, or already dead. He looked at the two women, their bundle of paintings, their idiot tycoon, squatting in a shambles like the meanest gypsies.

“At the command of the Privy Council, your children were put on a train to Harschmort House, under the immediate authority of a Captain Tackham.”

Charlotte Trapping's eyes narrowed. “David Tackham made advances to me at a regimental function. He was not even drunk. He is an adder.”

“Are they still at Harschmort?” Elöise asked Chang.

“Am I?”

“Did Francis see them?”

“I do not know.”

“Did he speak of them?” pressed Elöise. “You said the two of you talked—did he speak of them?”

“Not at all.”

“What did he say?” This was Mrs. Trapping, but her voice had gone cold.

“Very little that bears repeating,” replied Chang. “The blue glass has deranged his mind.”

“Cardinal, please!” cried Elöise. “Francesca! The boys! Where are the children now?”

“No,” he said. “Tell me about Caroline Stearne.”

FROM OUTSIDE the window came the sound of splashing water. Chang turned to it, trying to pick out anything unusual within the normal noises of the woods at night—for night had indeed fallen while they spoke—but it all sounded strange to him. Who knew what shuffling steps would be covered by the pond water rushing past the broken mill wheel?

He spun again and pulled his head back as sharp as any bantam rooster. The brick in Charlotte Trapping's hand swung inches past his face. He caught her wrist and, had the razor been open, could not have prevented an instinctive counter-stroke from slicing her jugular. As the razor was folded into his right fist he merely snapped a blow to the woman's jaw, dropping her to the floor with a protesting grunt of pain. He looked at Elöise, who stood with both hands over her mouth.

“I did not see her!” she whispered. “O Cardinal Chang—O Charlotte, you fool!”

She went to her mistress, sprawled and kicking, then looked to Chang, her eyes wide.

“Cardinal!”

The door behind was kicked open. Three dragoons filled the window, carbines aimed at his chest, while in the doorway stood an officer with his saber drawn. Behind the officer were the shadowed forms of at least another ten soldiers.

“Whatever is in your hand, drop it,” ordered the officer—a lieutenant by the bar on his collar and the single thin epaulette. “You are all prisoners of the Crown.”

Chang opened his palm and let the razor fall to his feet. The Lieutenant stepped into the room, the tip of his saber pricking Chang's breastbone. Chang retreated so he stood in a line with the two women and Vandaariff, who had leapt up at the crash of the door. The officer kicked the razor to the side with one muddied boot. Behind him four more dragoons entered, their saber blades glinting in the firelight.

“You are Chang,” announced the Lieutenant, as if to cross the name off a list of tasks. “Do not move.” He nodded once at Vandaariff. “Berkins, Crimpe—take him.”

Two troopers seized Vandaariff's arms and marched him away into the darkness. The officer's blade did not waver from Chang's chest.

“Ladies. I am Lieutenant Thorpe—”

“I know you very well, sir,” said Mrs. Trapping.

The Lieutenant nodded stiffly, not meeting her eyes. Instead his gaze went to Charlotte Trapping's leather travel case. Without a word he stepped to it, pulled it open, and sorted carefully through the clothing inside. He stood and then saw the clutch bag around her wrist. The Lieutenant held out his hand for it—the woman handed the thing across with a huff of indignation—and then pulled open the top. Chang heard clinking from inside, and then saw a glint of blue light reflecting off Thorpe's face. The bag was stuffed with blue glass cards… no doubt all looted from secret corners in Arthur Trapping's study.

Lieutenant Thorpe closed the bag and hardened his voice. “I have been pursuing this criminal from Harschmort House. That I have located your party as well is a kind coincidence. Sergeant!”

From the doorway came a massive man. He placed an iron hand around an elbow of each woman.

As she was pulled past Chang, Elöise whispered, “I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

Chang had no answer, and then she was gone. Thorpe sheathed his saber with a sweeping ring and followed the women outside, to whisper in his sergeant's ear. Chang stood alone, facing the firing squad of carbines in the window. Then Thorpe returned, studying him with a professional detachment.

“It was the horse, you know. We saw it from the road.”

“I know little of horses,” Chang replied.

“And that has cost you. Take off those glasses.”

Chang did so, having no other option, and took some satisfaction in the discomfort on the faces of the soldiers at the revelation of his scars. He folded the glasses into his pocket.

“I am obliged,” said Thorpe, and called behind him, “Corporal!”

A young soldier stepped forward, yellow chevrons on his sleeves. Chang smiled bitterly. The man's left leg was wet above his boot— here was the oaf who'd tripped into the pool.

“Secure him.”

The Corporal quite savagely drove a fist into Chang's abdomen, doubling him over, then stepped behind and laced his arms with Chang's, pinning them tight. With a brutal shove he drove Chang onto his knees. Chang looked up, fighting for breath. The three troopers had left the window. Thorpe was tugging on a thick pair of leather gauntlets, and the dragoon next to him held an open leather satchel. Another dragoon stood to Thorpe's other side, with a drawn saber, but Chang could no longer see any troopers through the door.

Had they all left with the sergeant and the prisoners? So they wouldn't see him die?

“My orders are simple,” said Thorpe. “You are too dangerous to keep alive, and yet what you know is extremely valuable. Therefore I have been instructed to take it.”

He reached carefully into the satchel and removed a square parcel wrapped in cloth. He looked at Chang, measuring him, and then spoke generally to his men.

“If one word of this is breathed to any other soul, I will see all your backs whipped raw.” Thorpe nodded to the dragoon with the satchel. “Help hold him fast.”

Thorpe picked the cloth away with thick leather fingertips. The blue glass book flickered in the firelight. He knelt in front of Chang, so their faces were at a level, and delicately opened the book. Chang glanced once into the swirling blue depths and wrenched his eyes away.

“I am told,” the Lieutenant said, “that after this, when you are killed, you will not feel a thing. I have no relish for executions, so I hope it is true. Corporal?”

Chang felt a hand grip the hair on the back of his head and push him down. He twisted his face and shut his eyes, resisting with all his strength. This was an empty book. Gazing into it, or touching it with his flesh, would cause the whole of his memory to be drained like a wine-cask.

And why was he fighting it—merely pride? Was this not what he had wanted—oblivion after Angelique's destruction? Was this not what he sought in opium, in poetry, in the brothels? It was not a decision he cared to be made for him… yet… his eyes drifted closer to the swirling blue plate, daring to be seized…

The Corporal pushed down even harder. Chang's face was inches away. Would the orange rings in his pocket protect him? Or merely prolong his agony? He could feel the cold emanating from the slick surface—

THE DRAGOON standing guard with a saber shrieked like a woman and thrashed forward onto his face. Thorpe leapt free of the man's weapon, cradling the fragile book beneath his body. Chang just glimpsed a glittering spike of blue sticking out of the dying trooper's spine before a black-cloaked figure hurdled the body and tackled the Lieutenant into the rotting bench where Vandaariff had perched. The two men landed with a hideous crash, but then the shadowed figure rose and swept the cloak aside to reach for another blue stiletto. The officer's mouth gaped with harsh astonishment, the bulk of his torso frozen stiff, for the book had been crushed on impact and the broken sheets driven deep into his chest.

The men holding Chang went for their blades. Chang dove for the razor and slashed wildly behind him. The Corporal howled, blood spitting from his wrist, and Chang drove a heel into his groin. The Corporal doubled over and Chang kicked the man brutally across the jaw. Francis Xonck stood over the second soldier—whose open eyes gazed unnaturally backwards from his twisted head—a dragoon's saber in his non-plastered hand. Chang rolled to his feet, dropping the razor to seize the Corporal's blade.

But Xonck's face was a death mask, chin and neck dark with blue discharge, and his eyes fluttered, as if the room before him made up but a portion of what he saw, as if the effort of the attack—of controlling his mind enough to make it—had been too much. He stabbed the saber into the dirt, and held out an empty hand.

“There will be too many for myself alone… too many for you… perhaps you will accept… a temporary… expedience.” The words emerged from Xonck's mouth as if through a sack full of slick stones.

“These soldiers…” said Chang. “Mrs. Marchmoor…Margaret… she is coming.”

“I should think so.” Drool covered Xonck's lips. “That means she's found your little miss.”

AN HOUR later, twisting through the woods until even with the moon above them Chang had no idea of where they'd gone, and stopping twice for Xonck to be ill, they reached a ridge, and upon it a sudden gap of meadow. Far below curled a gleaming snake of canal water. From the canal a pale road had been cut through the trees, at the end of which loomed a bright building. Its high windows bled enough light into the black air for a Royal christening.

In the silence Chang could hear the thrum of machines.

“Frightfully bad form,” Xonck rasped next to him. “The swine have begun without us.”