Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

so detailed as he might like, but it made sense that the warden might have personal access to the central viewing tower. Had Vandaariff simply adopted—and no doubt expanded and layered with mahogany and marble—the previous despot’s lair for his own? If Chang’s guess was right, Vandaariff’s study could then get him to Celeste. It was the thought he kept returning to in his mind, her rescue. He knew there were other tasks—to revenge Angelique, to find the truth about Oskar Veilandt, to discover what falling-out between his enemies had led to Trapping’s death—and normally he would have relished the idea of juggling them all together, to carry their evolving solutions in his head as he carried the sifted contents of the Library. But tonight there was no time, no room to fail, no second chances.

He could not risk being seen by anyone, and so was reduced to painful dashes across open corridors, creeping to corners, and scuttling back into cover when guests or servants happened by. With a scoff Chang thought of how nearly everyone in the pyramid of Harschmort’s inhabitants was some sort of servant—by occupation, by marriage, by money, by fear, by desire. He thought of Svenson’s servitude to duty—duty to what, Chang could not understand—and his own doomed notions of obligation and, even if he disdained the word, honor. Now he wanted to spit on them all, just as he was spitting blood on these white marble floors. And what of Celeste—had she been a servant to Bascombe? Her family? Her wealth? Chang realized he did not know. For a moment he saw her, wrestling to reload his pistol at the Boniface…a remarkable little beast. He wondered if she had shot someone after all.

The guests, he saw, were once again masked and in formal dress, and their snatches of conversation all carried a buzzing current of anticipation and mystery.

“Do you know—it is said they will be married—tonight!”

“The man in the cape—with the red lining—it is Lord Carfax, back from the Baltic!”

“Did you notice the servants with the iron-bound chests?”

“They will give us a signal to come forward—I had it myself from Elspeth Poole!”

“I’m sure of it—a shocking vigor—”

“Such dreams—and afterwards such peace of mind—”

“They will come like trusting puppies—”

“Did you see it? In the air? Such a machine!”

“Fades in a matter of days—I have it on the highest authority—”

“I have heard it from one who has been before—a particular disclosure—”

“No one has seen him—Henry Xonck himself was refused!”

“I’ve never heard such screaming—nor right after, witnessed such ecstasy—”

“Such an unsurpassed collection of quality!”

“Spoken in front of everyone, ‘is not history best written with a whip mark?’ The Lady is superb!”

“No one has spoken to him for days—apparently he will reveal all tonight, his secret plans—”

“He’s going to speak! The Comte as much as promised it—”

“And then…the work will be revealed!”

“Indeed…the work will be revealed!”

This last was from a pair of thin rakish men in tailcoats and masks of black satin. Chang had penetrated well into the maze of private apartments and presently stood behind a marble pillar upon which was balanced an ancient and delicate amphora of malachite and gold. The chuckling men walked past—he was in a middling-sized sitting room—toward a sideboard laid with bottles and glasses. The men poured themselves whiskies and sipped them happily, leaning against the furniture and smiling at one another, for all the world like children waiting for permission to unwrap birthday presents.

One of them frowned. He wrinkled his nose.

“What is it?” asked the other.

“That smell,” said the first.

“My goodness,” agreed the other, sniffing too. “What could it be?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“It’s really quite horrid…”

Chang shrank as best he could behind the pillar. If they continued toward him he would have no choice but to attack them both. One of them would surely have a chance to scream. He would be found. The first man had taken an exploratory step in his direction. The other hissed at him.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Do you think they might be starting?”

“I don’t understand—”

“The smell! Do you think they’re starting? The alchemical fires!”

“O my goodness! Is that what they smell like?”

“I don’t know—do you?”

“I don’t know! We could be late!”

“Hurry—hurry—”

Each tossed back his whisky and slammed down his glass. They rushed unheedingly past Chang, straightening their masks and smoothing their hair.

“What will they make us do?” asked one as they opened the door to leave.

“It does not matter,” the other barked urgently, “you must do it!”

“I will!”

“We will be redeemed!” one called with a giddy chuckle as the door closed. “And then nothing shall stop us!”

Chang stepped from his spot. With a shake of his head, he wondered if their reaction would have been any different had he not traveled through the furnace pipes, but merely arrived at a Harschmort drawing room bearing the normal odors of his rooming house. That smell they would have recognized, he knew—it had been settled into their social understanding. The hideous smells of Harschmort and the Process carried the possibility of advancement, suspending all natural judgment. Similarly, he saw now the Cabal could be as blunt and open as it wished about its aims of power and domination. The beauty was that none of these aspirants—crowding together in their finery, as if they’d managed an invitation to court—saw themselves as people dominated, though their desperate fawning made it obvious that they were. The unreality of the evening—their induction—only served to flatter them more, thrilling themselves with the silks and the masks and scheming—enticing trappings that Chang saw were nothing but the distractions of a circus mountebank. Instead of looking up at the Contessa or the Comte with any suspicion, these people were turned gleefully the other way, looking at all the people—from within their new “wisdom”—they might now dominate in turn. He saw the brutal sense of it. Any plan that trusted for success on the human desire to exploit others and deny the truth about one’s self was sure to succeed.

Chang cracked open the far doors and looked into the corridor Smythe had described, the whole of its length lined with doors. One of these doors had led him to Arthur Trapping’s body. At one end he could see the spiral staircase. He was convinced that Vandaariff’s study must lay in the other direction if it held a way down into the great chamber.

But where to start? Smythe had said the house was full of guests—as he had said the hallway was full of guards…but for this moment it was unaccountably empty. Chang could not expect it to stay so while he tried each of what—at a quick glance—seemed to be at least thirty doors. All this time…was there any hope that Celeste was alive?

He stepped boldly into the hall, striding away from the staircase. He passed the first doors, one after another, with a rising sense of anticipation. If whatever had happened to Aspiche and the Duke (it was difficult for Chang to think of a more loathsome member of the Royal Family) had indeed served to disrupt the ceremony in the great chamber, then Chang was committed to causing as many additional disturbances as he could. He whipped apart his stick—still no one intruded—he was halfway down the hallway. Could everything have already started in spite of what Smythe had said? Chang stopped. To his left one of the doors was ajar. He crept to it and peered through the crack: a narrow slice of a room with red carpet and red wallpaper and a lacquered stand upon which balanced a Chinese urn. He listened…and heard the unmistakable sounds of rustling clothing and heavy breathing. He stepped