clear, causing Xonck to hastily step back. Svenson turned at the sound of Blach cocking the pistol.
“If the damage is done,” he snarled, “it’s no matter to do more…”
“Major! Major—there is no need,” Xonck hissed in a fury.
Svenson could see Blach was going to fire. With a yell he heaved the saber like an awkward knife—end over end, directly toward them—and ran. He heard both men cry out and the loud clang of the blade striking the stone— he’d no idea whether they’d thrown themselves aside or not. His only thought was to charge up the path. He ran on—the uneven stones slick from the morning, his own footsteps obscuring the sound of any pursuit—and was perhaps half-way to the top when he saw the two men with the wheelbarrow coming toward him from the top. The barrow was piled with metal and the men each held one of the handles, balancing it between them. He didn’t dare slow his pace, but his heart sank as they saw him and instantly began to trot forward, each man with a broad smile breaking over his face. As they picked up speed scraps of metal bounced out of the pile, clanging on the ground and against the fence. They were perhaps five yards away when they let it go. Svenson flung himself toward the top of the fence to his left, raising his legs. The barrow smashed beneath him, bounced off the wall, and continued recklessly down the slope. With a bestial surge of effort he hauled himself over the fence and dropped into a tangle of boxes and debris.
He had not hurt himself in the fall, though he was on his back and thrashing to rise. On the other side of the fence he could hear the crash of the barrow tipping over and more cries—could it have run into Xonck or Blach? Svenson rolled to his knees as, above him, the fence wobbled back and forth and one of the two barrow men vaulted over it. As the man landed—the drop causing him to double over for just a moment—Svenson snatched a thick wooden board from the mud with both hands and swung. The blow caught the man’s near hand—holding a pistol—and hammered it cruelly—Svenson could feel the cracking small bones. The man screamed and the pistol flew across the ground. Svenson swung again, rising up, across the man’s face. The man grunted at the impact and crumpled, curled and moaning, at the base of the fence. The fence wobbled again—another man was coming over. Svenson leapt at the pistol—it was his own—and still on his knees turned to the fence above him. The second barrow man was balanced on the fence top, an arm and a leg hooked over, looking down with alarm. Svenson snapped off a shot—missing the man but splintering the wood—and the fellow dropped from sight. A moment later the gleaming length of a saber shot through the fence at the level of Svenson’s head, missing him by a matter of inches. He scrabbled away on his back like a crab as the blade scissored back and forth through the slats, probing for him. He could just see the shadows of bodies through the gaps between fence slats and fired again. In reply someone fired back, three shots in rapid succession that tore up the mud around him. Svenson returned fire twice, blindly, and hurled himself away, doing his best to run.
For the first time he saw that the yard was the back of a ruined house, the windows broken and the roof gone, the rear door off its frame and lying broken in the mud. The doorway and the open window frames were lined with faces. Svenson careened toward them even as he tried to take in who they were—children, an older man, women—their skin the color of milky tea, hair black, clothes colorful but worn. He raised the pistol, not at them but toward the sky. “Excuse me—I beg your pardon—please—look out!” He rushed through the door, the bodies around him skittering clear, and glanced back just long enough to see the fence in movement, bodies coming over. He dove ahead into the darkened rooms, leaping cooking pots, pallets, piles of clothing, doing his best not to step on anything or anyone, his senses assailed by the smell of so many persons in such a tangled space, by the open fire, and by pungent spices—he could not even name what they were. Behind him a shot rang out and a splinter of wood whipped into his face. He winced, knew he was bleeding, and nearly ran down a small child—where the hell was the door to the street? He stepped through doorway after doorway—as close as he could come to a dead run—dodging all the occupants—a room of goats?—jumping over an open cooking fire. He heard screams—the other men were in the house—just as he entered what had to be the main hallway, and directly in front of it a ruined set of double doors. He rushed to them, only to find they had been thoroughly nailed shut—of course, the house was condemned. He rushed back, looking for a window to the street. Another shot rang out—he didn’t know from where—and he felt a hideous
Svenson thrust himself to his feet—his hands felt raw, his knee bruised, ankle complaining. As he bent to recover the pistol another shot rang out from the window. He turned to see Blach, one hand holding a bloody handkerchief to his face, the other with his smoking pistol, fixing Svenson in his sights. Svenson could not move fast enough. Blach squeezed the trigger, his eyes ablaze with hatred. The hammer landed on an empty chamber. Blach swore viciously and broke open the gun, knocking the empty shells out the window, digging for fresh cartridges. Svenson scooped up his weapon and ran.
He did not know where he was. He kept on until he was winded, doing his best to lose pursuit—dodging from street to street and cutting through what open lots and parks he could find. He finally collapsed in a small churchyard, sitting with his head in his hands on the ancient, cracked cover of a tomb, his chest heaving, his body spent. The light had grown—it was full morning—and the open space between objects struck him as almost shockingly clear. But instead of this making the events of his night seem unreal, Svenson found it was the day he could not trust. The weathered white stone, the worn letters spelling “Thackaray” under his fingers, the leafless branches above—none of these answered the relentless strange world he had entered. For a moment he wondered if he had eaten opium and was in that instant lying stupefied in a Chinaman’s den, and all of this a twisting dream. He rubbed his eyes and spat.
Svenson knew that he was no real spy, nor any kind of soldier. He was lost. His ankle throbbed, his hands were scraped, he had not eaten, his throat was raw, and his head felt like a block of rotten cheese from the Comte’s drug. He forced himself to remove his boot and palpate his tender ankle—it was not broken, nor probably even seriously sprained, he would simply have to treat it carefully. He scoffed at that unlikely prospect and pulled the revolver from his pocket, breaking it open. There were two cartridges left—he had no others with him. He stuffed it back in his pocket, and realized that the bulk of his money was still at the compound with his box of shells. He’d lost his medical kit, and was for the moment stuck in his uniform and greatcoat that, while a relatively restrained Prussian blue, nevertheless set him apart in a crowd.
His face stung. He brought up a hand to feel dried blood and a small splinter of wood still lodged below his right cheekbone. He delicately pulled it free and pressed a handkerchief to his face. Doctor Svenson realized that he desperately wanted a cigarette. He fished in his coat for his case, extracted one and then snapped a match alight off of his thumb. The smoke hit his lungs with an exquisite tug and he exhaled slowly. Taking his time, he worked his way to the butt, concentrating only on his breathing and on each successive plume of smoke sent over the gravestones. He tossed the butt into a puddle and lit another. He didn’t want to be light-headed, but the tobacco was restoring some of his resolve. As he replaced the case his hand bumped the glass cards in his pocket. He had forgotten the second card, from Trapping. He looked around him—the churchyard was still quite abandoned and the buildings around it void of any visible activity. Svenson pulled out the card—it looked identical to the one he had taken from the Prince’s chamber. Would he be looking into the mind of Arthur Trapping and see some clue about how he had died? He set his burning cigarette down on the tomb next to him and looked into the card.
It took a moment for the blue veil to part, but once it had Svenson found himself amidst a confusing swirl of images, moving rapidly from one to another without any logic he could discern. It was less as if he occupied another’s actual experience—as with Mrs. Marchmoor’s encounter with the Prince—so much as their free-floating mind, or even perhaps their dreams. He pulled his gaze up from the card and exhaled. He was shaking, it was just as involving, he had been as much outside of himself as before. He tapped the growing cylinder of ash from his cigarette and took a long drag. He set it down again and gathered himself for a second, more focused visit.
The first images were in a fussy, well-appointed interior—a carpeted room of dark wood and glass lamps, delicate Chinoiserie and thickly upholstered furniture—and a woman sitting on a sofa, a young woman only a part of whose body Svenson could see—her bare forearms and her small hands as they clutched the upholstery, and then her shapely calves just emerging from under her dress as she stretched her legs, and then to her charming green ankle boots…each glimpse imbued with a particular proprietary hunger from the gaze he was inhabiting.
From here the card jumped abruptly to a rocky scene, a high view into a pit of grey stone—a quarry?—below an only slightly less grey sky. Suddenly Svenson was
