The Prince shoved Gray to the side and took the writhing man’s legs. The effort was not much more successful, but with much grunting they got him aboard. Chang was pleased to see Rosamonde smiling at them, if discreetly.
“There!” gasped Karl-Horst. He gestured vaguely to Gray and returned to his seat and his tea. “Tie him down—prepare the—ah—apparatus—”
“Should we question him?” asked Blach.
“For what?” replied the Prince.
“His allies in Macklenburg. His allies here. The whereabouts of Doctor Svenson—”
“Why bother? Once he has undergone the Process he will tell us of his own accord—indeed, he will be one of our number.”
“You have not undergone the Process yourself, Major?” asked the Contessa in a neutral tone of polite interest.
“Not as of yet, Madame.”
“He will,” declared the Prince. “I insist upon it—all of my advisors will be required to partake of its…
Blach did not answer, but less than deftly tried to change the subject, nodding to the door. “Do we need Bascombe to continue?”
“Mr. Gray can manage, I am sure,” said the Contessa. “But perhaps you will help him with the boxes?”
Chang watched with fascination as the long boxes were opened and the green felt packing pulled onto the floor. While Blach secured Flauss to the table—without the slightest scruple for tightening the straps—the elderly Mr. Gray removed what looked to be an oversized pair of eyeglasses, the lenses impossibly thick and rimmed with black rubber, the whole apparatus—for indeed, it was part of a machine—run through with trailing lengths of bright copper wire. Gray strapped the glasses over the struggling man’s face—again, viciously tight—and then stepped back to the box. He removed a length of rubber-sheathed cable with a large metal clamp at either end, attaching one end to the copper wire and then kneeling for the box with the other. He attached it there—Chang could not see exactly to what—and then, with some effort, turned some kind of switch or nozzle. Chang heard a pressurized hiss. Gray stood, looking to Rosamonde.
“I suggest we all step away from the table,” she said.
Blue light began to radiate from inside the box, growing in brightness. Flauss arched his back against his bonds, snorting breath through his nose. The wires began to hiss. Chang realized that this was his moment. He shoved the grate forward and to the side, slithering quickly into the room. He felt a pang for Flauss—especially if he was indeed an ally of Svenson, though Svenson had mentioned no ally—but this was the best distraction he was likely to find, as all four of them were watching the man’s exertions as if it were a public hanging. Chang gathered his stick, stood, took three quick steps and swung his fist as hard as he could against the base of Blach’s head. Blach staggered forward with the force of the blow before his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor. Chang turned to the Prince, whose face was a gibbering mask of surprise, and backhanded him savagely across the jaw, so hard the man sprawled over his chair and into the tea table. Chang spun to Gray, who’d been on the other side of Blach, and stabbed the blunt end of his stick into the man’s soft belly. Gray—an old man, but Chang was not one for taking chances—doubled up with a groan and sat down hard on the floor, his face purpling. Chang wheeled toward Rosamonde and pulled his stick apart, ready to answer whatever weapon she had drawn. She had no weapon. She was smiling at him.
Around them the ringing wires rose to a howl. Flauss was vibrating on the table hideously, foam seeping around the gag in his mouth. Chang pointed to the box. “Stop it! Turn it off!”
Rosamonde shouted back, her words slow and deliberate. “If you stop now it will kill him.”
Chang glanced at Flauss with horror, and then turned quickly to the other men. Blach was quite still, and he wondered if the blow had broken his neck. The Prince was on his hands and knees, feeling his jaw. Gray remained sitting. Chang looked back at Rosamonde. The noise was deafening, the light flaring around them brilliantly blue, as if they were suspended in the brightest, clearest summer sky. It was pointless to speak. She shrugged, smiling still.
He had no real idea how long they stood there, minutes at least, looking into each other’s eyes. He did force himself to check the men on the floor, and once snapped the stick into Karl-Horst’s hand as the Prince attempted to palm a knife from the scattered tea tray. The roaring Process made it all seem as if it occurred in silence, for he could not hear any of the normal sounds of reality—the tinkling of the knife on the stone floor, the Prince’s profanity, the groans of Mr. Gray. He returned to Rosamonde, knowing she was the only danger in the room, knowing that to look into her eyes as he was doing was to cast the whole of his life up for judgment where it must be found desolate, wanting, and mean. Steam rose up from Flauss’s face. Chang tried to think of Svenson and Celeste. They were both probably dead, or on their way to ruin. He could do nothing for them. He knew he was alone.
With a sharp cracking sound the Process was complete, the light suddenly fading and sound reduced to echo. Chang’s ears rang. He blinked. Flauss lay still, his chest heaving—he was alive at least.
“Cardinal Chang.” Rosamonde’s voice sounded unsettlingly small in the shadow of such a din, as if he wasn’t hearing correctly.
“Madame.”
“It seemed as if I would not see you. I hope I am not forward to say that was a disappointment.”
“I was not able to accompany Mr. Xonck.”
“No. But you are here—I’m sure through some very cunning means.”
Chang glanced quickly to the Prince and Gray, who were not moving.
“Do not trouble yourself,” she said. “I am intent that we should have a conversation.”
“I am curious whether Major Blach is dead. A moment…” Chang knelt at the body and pressed two fingers into the man’s neck. The pulse was there. He stood again, and restored the dagger to the stick. “Perhaps next time.”
She nodded politely, as if she understood how that could be a good thing, then gestured to the older man. “If you will permit—as long as we are interrupted—perhaps Mr. Gray can attend to Herr Flauss? Just to make sure he has not injured himself—sometimes, the exertions—it is a violent transformation.”
Chang nodded to Gray, who rose to his feet unsteadily and moved to the table.
“May we sit?” asked Rosamonde.
“I must ask that you…behave,” replied Chang.
She laughed, a genuine burst of amusement he was sure. “O Cardinal, I would never dream of anything else…here—” She stepped to the two chairs she’d shared with the Prince—who was still on his hands and knees. She sat where she had, and Chang picked up the Prince’s upended chair and extended his stick toward Karl-Horst. The Prince, taking the hint, scuttled away like a sullen crab.
“If you will give Cardinal Chang and me a moment to discuss our situation, Highness?”
“Of course, Contessa—as you desire,” he muttered, with all the dignity possible when one is crouched like a dog.
Chang sat, pushing his coat to the side, and looked to the table. Gray had removed the restraints and was detaching the mask of glass and wire, peeling it away from what looked to be a pink gelatinous residue that had collected where the mask touched the skin. Chang was suddenly curious to see the fresh scarring firsthand, but before the mask was pulled completely free Rosamonde spoke, drawing his attention away from the spectacle.
“It seems a long time since the Library, does it not?” she began. “And yet it was—what—but little more than a day ago?”
“A very full day.”
“Indeed. And did you do what I asked you?” She shook her head with a mocking gravity.
“What was that?”
“Why, find Isobel Hastings, of course.”
“That I did.”
“And bring her to me?”
“That I did not.”
