Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

get a look at Vandaariff’s unchangingly impassive face.

It did not seem to Cardinal Chang that Robert Vandaariff’s eyes saw anything at all. They were open, but glassy and dull, the thoughts behind them entirely elsewhere, facing down at the desk top but quite to the side of his writing, as if he were instead inscribing thoughts from memory. Chang leaned even closer to study the parchment—he was nearly at Vandaariff’s shoulder and still there was no reaction. As near as he could tell, the man was documenting the contents of a financial transaction—in amazingly complicated detail—referring to shipping and to Macklenburg and French banking and to rates and markets and shares and schedules of repayment. He watched Vandaariff finish the page and briskly turn it over—the sudden movement of his arms causing Chang to leap back— continuing mid-phrase at the top of the fresh side. Chang looked on the floor behind the desk and saw page after long page of parchment completely covered with text, as if Robert Vandaariff was emptying his mind of every financial secret he had ever possessed. Chang looked again at the working fingers, chilled by the inhuman insistence of the scratching pen, and noticed that the tips were tinged with blue…but it was not cold in the room, and the blue was more lustrous beneath the pale flesh than Chang had ever seen on a living man.

He stepped away from the automaton Lord and felt behind him for the curtain, swept it aside to expose a simple locked door. He fumbled with his ring of keys, sorting out one, and then dropped them all—suddenly full of dread at being in Vandaariff’s unfeeling presence, the pen scratching along behind him. Chang scooped up the keys and with an abrupt, anxious impatience simply kicked the wood by the lock as hard as he could. He kicked again and felt it begin to split. He did not care about the noise or any trail of destruction. He kicked once more and cracked the wood around the still-fixed bolt. He hurled himself against it, smashing through, and staggered into a winding stone tunnel whose end sloped downward, out of view.

Apart from his relentless spidery hand, Lord Vandaariff did not move. Chang rubbed his shoulder and broke into a run.

The tunnel was smoothly paved and bright from regularly placed gas-lit globes above his head. The passage curved gently over the course of some hundred paces, at the end of which Chang was forced to reduce his speed. It was just as well, for as he paused to steady his breath—leaning against the wall with one hand and allowing the gob of bloody spit to drop silently from his mouth—he heard the distant sound of many voices raised in song. Ahead the tunnel took a sharp bank to his right, toward the great chamber. Would there be any kind of guard? The singing drowned out any other noise. It came from below…from the occupants of the overhanging cells! Chang sank to his knees and cautiously peered around the corner.

The tunnel opened into a narrowed walkway, little more than a catwalk, with railings of chain to either side, extending to a black, malevolent turret of iron that rose into the rock ceiling above him. Through the metal grid of the catwalk rose the sound of singing. Chang peered down, but between the dim light and his squinting eyes, could get no true sense of the chamber below. On the far side of the catwalk was an iron door, massive with a heavy lock and iron bar, that had been left ajar. Chang stopped just to his side of it, waiting, listening, heard no one, and slipped into the dark…and onto another spiral staircase, this one welded together from cast iron plates.

The staircase continued up to the roof of the cavern, toward what must be the main entrance to the tower. But Chang turned downwards, his boots’ tapping on steps more sensed than audible over the chorus of voices. He could hear them more clearly, but it was the kind of singing where even if one did know the language the words might well have been those of an Italian (or for all he knew Icelandic) opera, so distended and unnatural was the phrasing imposed by the music. Still, the lyrics he did manage to pick out—“impenetrable blue”…“never-ending sight”…“redemption kind”—only drove him to descend more quickly.

The interior of the tower was lit by regular sconces, but their light was deliberately dim, so as not to show through the open viewing slots. Chang slowed. The step below him was covered by a tangled shape. It was a discarded coat. He picked it up and held it to the nearest sconce…a uniform coat, dark blue at some point but now filthy with dirt and, he saw with interest, blood. The stains were still damp, and soaked the front of the coat quite completely. He did not, however, see any wound or tear in the coat—was the blood from the wearer, or from, perhaps, the wearer’s enemy? Whoever had worn it might have bled from the head or had their hand cut off and clutched the stump to their chest—anything was possible. It was then that—his mind moving so slowly!—Chang noticed the bars of rank on the coat’s stiff collar…he looked again at the cut, the color, the silver braid around each epaulette…he damned himself for a fool.

It was Svenson’s coat, without question, and covered in gore.

He quickly searched around him in the stairwell, and on the wall saw the dripping remains of a wide spray of blood. The violence had happened here on the stairs—perhaps only moments ago. Was Svenson dead? How had he possibly reached Harschmort from Tarr Manor? Chang crab-walked another few steps, face close against the iron. There was a descending trail of blood, but the trail was smeared…not made by a wounded man walking, but a wounded—or dead—man dragged.

Chang threw the coat aside—if the Doctor had dropped it, he hardly needed to carry it himself—and clattered down as quickly as he could. He knew the distance was roughly what he’d previously climbed—two hundred steps, perhaps? What in the world would he find at the base? Svenson’s corpse? What was d’Orkancz possibly doing? And why were there no guards?

Chang’s foot slipped on a splash of blood and he clutched at the rail. It would be all too simple for one mistake to land him at the bottom with a broken neck. He forced himself to concentrate—the voices still soared in song, though he had descended past the tiers of viewing cells and the chorus was above him. But when had Svenson arrived? It had to be with Aspiche! Could the Doctor be the cause of Smythe’s disturbance? Chang smiled to think of it, even as he winced at the likely retribution the Colonel would have delivered to anyone crossing his path. He did not relish the image of the Doctor standing alone against these men—he was no soldier, nor was he an unflinching killer. That was Chang’s place—and he knew he must reach Svenson’s side.

And if Svenson was dead? Then perhaps Chang’s place was to die with him…and with Miss Temple.

He raced down another thirty steps and stopped at a small landing. His lungs were laced with stabbing pains and he knew it was better not to reach the bottom in a state of collapse. One of the viewing slots was near him on the wall and he pulled it aside, grinning with sinister appreciation. The slot was covered with a plate of smoked glass. From the inside, he could see through it, but to any prisoner the glass would mask whether the metal slat had been opened at all. Chang pulled off his spectacles and pressed his face to the glass at the very moment the singing stopped.

Above and opposite him were the viewing cells, full of finely dressed people, all masked, faces pressed to the bars, for all the world like inmates in an asylum. He shifted his gaze down, but could not see the tables. He was still too high.

As he stepped away a voice echoed up from below—unnatural, strangely amplified, deepened, and unquestionably mighty. He did not recognize it immediately…he’d only heard the man speaking a very few words, and those in a rasping whisper to Harald Crabbe, an enormous fur-clad arm enfolding Angelique. But Chang knew…it was the Comte d’Orkancz. Damning his lungs, he began to run, recklessly, his feet flying two and even three steps at a time, hand on the rail with his stick, the other hand holding the wrapped book safely free of collision, his soiled coat flapping behind him, its heavy pockets knocking against his legs. All around him the chamber rang with the Comte’s inhuman voice.

“You are here because you believe…in yourselves…in giving yourselves over to a different dream…of the future…of possibility…transformation…revelation…redemption. Perhaps there are those among you who will be deemed worthy…truly worthy and truly willing to sacrifice their illusions…sacrifice the entirety of their world… which is a world of illusion…for this final degree of wisdom. Beyond redemption is designation…as Mary was made apart from every other woman…as Sarah was made pregnant after a barren lifetime…as Leda was implanted with twin seeds of beauty and destruction…so these vessels before you all have been chosen…designated to a higher destiny…a transformation you will witness. You will feel the higher energies…you will taste this greatness…this ethereal ambrosia…before known only to those creatures who were named gods by shepherds…and by the children we all once were…”

Chang toppled off balance into the rail and was forced to stop, clutching with both hands to prevent a fall. He spat against the wall and groped, gasping, for the viewing slat, ripping off his glasses to look. Below him he saw it all, like an iron cathedral from hell laid out for an infernal mass. At the base of the tower was a raised platform— seemingly suspended on a raft of the silver tubing—holding three large surgical tables, each surrounded by racks