Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

behind the black goggles.

“Fix his arm,” said Aspiche.

In fact the “plaster” was some kind of seal for the kiln, but Svenson thought it would work well enough. The breaks were clean, and to his credit Phelps did not pass out—though to Svenson this always seemed a dubious credit indeed. For, if he had passed out it certainly would have gone easier for them all. As it was, the man was left trembling and spent, sitting on the ground with his arm swathed in his cast. Svenson had curtly apologized for the inconvenience of breaking his arm—assuring him that it was the Duke he had wanted to strike—and Phelps had answered that, of course, given the circumstances, it was entirely understandable.

“Your companion…,” Svenson began, wiping his hands on a rag.

“I’m afraid you have done for him,” replied Phelps, his voice somehow distant for all the pain, with the delicate, whispered quality of dried rice paper. He nodded to the tarp. Now that they were closer, Svenson saw that in addition to the woman’s foot, there was also a man’s black shoe. What had been his name—Starck? The weight of the killing settled heavily on the Doctor’s shoulders. He looked to Phelps, as if he should say something, and saw the man’s eyes had already drifted elsewhere, biting his lip against the grinding of his broken bones.

“It’s what happens in war,” Aspiche sneered with contempt. “When you made the choice to fight, you made the choice to die.”

Svenson’s gaze returned to the hidden stack of bodies, trying desperately to recall Eloise’s shoes. Could that be her foot? How many people—dear God—were under the tarp? It had to be at least four, judging by the height, perhaps more. He hoped that, with him captured, they would not bother to search the inn or the train platform in the morning, that she might somehow get away.

“Is he going to live?” This was the arch, mocking call of Doctor Lorenz, walking over from the kiln, the goggles pulled down around his neck. He was looking at Phelps, but did not even wait for an answer. His eyes roamed over Svenson once, a professional estimation that revealed nothing save an equally professional depth of suspicion, and then moved on to Aspiche. Lorenz gestured to his assistants, who had followed him over from the kiln.

“If we’re to dispose of this evidence, then now is the time. The kiln is at its hottest, and will only burn lower from this point on—for all that we wait, the remains shall be more legible.”

Aspiche looked across the quarry and raised his arm, getting the attention of Crabbe. Svenson saw the Minister peer, then realize what the Colonel was pointing to and give him an answering wave of approval. Aspiche called to Lorenz’s men.

“Go ahead.”

The tarp was whipped away and the men stepped to either side, each pair picking up a body between them. Svenson staggered back. On top of the pile were the two women from the attic room, their flesh still glowing blue. Beneath them were Coates and Starck and another man who he recalled but vaguely from the train, his skin also aglow (apparently the men had been shown the book as well). He watched in horror as the first two bodies were taken to the kiln and the wider stoking panel kicked open, revealing a white-hot blaze within. Svenson turned away. At the smell of burning hair his stomach heaved. Aspiche grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back across the quarry to Crabbe. He was dimly aware of Phelps stumbling along behind. At least Eloise had not been there…at least she’d been spared that…

As they again passed Miss Poole and her charges, he saw her amongst the benches, handing out books— these with a red leather cover instead of black, whispering something to each person. He assumed it was a new code, and the key for new messages. She saw him looking and smiled. To either side of Miss Poole were the man and woman he’d first sat with on the train. He barely recognized them. Though their garments had changed—his were smeared with grease and soot, and hers were noticeably loosened—it was more for the transformation of their faces. Where before had been tension and suspicion, now Svenson saw ease and confidence—it truly was as if they were different people entirely. They nodded to him as well, smiling brightly. He wondered who they were in the world, who in their lives they had just betrayed, and what they had found in the glass book to be so altered.

Svenson tried to make sense of it all, to force his tired brain to think. He ought to be drawing one conclusion after another, but nothing followed in his dulled condition. What was the difference between the glass book and the Process? The book could obviously kill—though this seemed almost cruelly arbitrary, like a toxic reaction to shellfish, as he doubted the deaths were intentional or planned. But what did the book do? Eloise spoke of falling into it, of visions. He thought of the compelling nature of the blue glass card, and then extrapolated that to the experience of a book…but what else…he felt near to something… writing…a book must be written in, the thoughts must be recorded…was that what they were doing? He recalled Chang’s description of the Institute, the man dropping the book as it was being made— made somehow from Angelique—the same man from Crabbe’s kitchen. What was the difference between using a person to make the book, and then using these people here to write in it…or be drawn into its clutches like a spider’s web? And what of the Process? That was simple conversion, he felt—a chemical-electric process using the properties of the refined indigo clay— indigo clay melted somehow into glass—to affect the character: to lower inhibitions and shift loyalties. Did it merely erase moral objections? Or did it re-write them? He thought how much a person could accomplish in life without scruples, or one hundred such people working together, their numbers growing by the day. Svenson rubbed his eyes as he walked—he was getting confused again, which merely returned him to the first question: what was the difference between the Process and the book? He looked back at Miss Poole and her little schoolroom in the slag heaps. It was a question of direction, he realized. In the Process, the energy went into the subject, erasing inhibitions and converting them to the cause. With the glass book, the energy was sucked out of the subject—along with (or in the form of—was memory energy?) specific experiences in their lives. Undoubtedly this was the blackmail: the secrets these bitter underlings had to tell were now secreted within Miss Poole’s book, and that book—like the cards—would allow anyone else to experience those shameful episodes. There would be no denial, and no end to the Cabal’s power over those so implicated.

It was making more sense to him now—the books were tools and could, like any other book, be used for a variety of purposes, depending on what was in them. Furthermore, it might be that they were constructed in different ways, for different reasons, some written whole and some with a different number of empty pages. He could not but recall the vivid, disturbing paintings of Oskar Veilandt—the compositions explicitly depicting the Process, the reverse of each canvas scrawled with alchemical symbols. Did that man’s work lie at the root of the books as well? If only he was still alive! Was it possible that the Comte—clearly the master within the Cabal of this twisted science—had pillaged Veilandt’s secrets and then had him killed? As he thought of books and purposes, Svenson suddenly wondered if d’Orkancz had been intending to make a book of Angelique alone—the vast adventures of a lady of pleasure. It would be a most persuasive enticement for his cause, offering the detailed experience of a thousand nights in the brothel without ever leaving one’s room. Yet that would be but one example…the limit was sensation itself—what adventures or travels or thrills that one person had known could not be imprinted onto one of these books for anyone to consume, which was to say, to experience bodily for themselves? What sumptuous banquets? What quantities of wine? What battles, caresses, what witty conversations…there truly was no end…and no end to what people would pay for such oblivion.

He looked back to Miss Poole and the smiling couple. What had changed them? What had killed the others, but spared these two? It was somehow important to know—for this was a wrinkle, something that did not flow cleanly. If there was only a way to find out—yet any idea of who those people were or what might have killed them was even now disappearing into ash. Svenson snorted with anger—perhaps there was enough after all. Their skin had been infused with blue—this hadn’t happened to the ones who had survived. He thought of the couple, changed from suspicious resentment to open amity…Svenson stumbled with the sudden impact of his thoughts. Aspiche took hold of his shoulder and shoved him forward.

“Get along there! You’ll be resting soon enough!”

Doctor Svenson barely heard him. He was recalling Eloise—how she could not remember what scandals she might have revealed about the Trappings or Henry Xonck. She had said it in a way to mean there had been nothing to reveal…but Svenson knew the memories had been taken from her, just as the memories of spite and injustice and envy had been taken from the venal young couple—all to be inscribed in the book. And the ones who had died…what had d’Orkancz said about Angelique? That the energy had “regrettably”