The Dark Volume

was marooned.”

Even the booted man nodded. Svenson began drawing small x's.

“Those are houses,” said Sorge, unnecessarily narrating for the others. Svenson was touched by this spot of loyalty and nodded.

“They are. Anyone coming from the fishing boat must have passed by someone's house. I suggest that men go to each one, asking questions about what was heard, what was seen…”

Svenson looked up and saw the booted man studying the crude map. He reached across the table, took the charcoal from Svenson, and marked an area to the west, in the thick of the woods. This house lay on the exact route, from the vantage of the wreck, of a person attempting to skirt the village entirely.

“Whose home is that?” Svenson asked.

“Jorgens'”, Sorge answered. “More a hunter than a fisherman. He prefers the woods.”

“Has anyone seen Mr. Jorgens since the storm?”

Sorge looked up at Svenson with a blank expression.

At once the men were shouting to each other—calling for lights, for weapons—but the man with the riding boots hissed sharply and brought them all to silence.

“What if your man Chang is at Jorgens'? What if that's where he's been hid?”

“Then you must seize him,” said Svenson.

“And what if he's already gone?” The man stabbed his finger back onto the map, tracing a line south. “We need to search both ways— some to Jorgens', and some by sea, around the forest.”

“But that's full of wolves,” hissed Sorge, and other men muttered in agreement. “No matter what else is true, that way is asking for death.”

The Doctor felt a sudden peaceful symmetry.

“Not at all,” he said. “I'll go. It is the simplest way to prove myself and guarantee the safety of Mrs. Dujong and Miss Temple. If I do find Chang, I can get closer to him than any of you—and if I find wolves, well, I shall do my best to make a wolf-skin hat.”

“That is madness,” whispered Sorge.

“Do I have a choice?” asked Svenson. “If I am to convince you of my intentions?”

No one answered. The man with the boots nodded sharply, signaling the end of discussion.

“We will go to Jorgens' and walk south—you, Doctor, will skirt around the forest and come back north to the village.”

“Excellent,” said Svenson.

It was decided.

THE TIDE had changed and Svenson clambered aboard the fishing boat, directed to a seat in the bow. He had not said good-bye to Eloise. He was leaving Miss Temple, but Miss Temple had passed the crisis— it was merely a question of when she might regain her strength. Eloise would be safer without him, safer with the village mollified. The craft's sail filled easily and they pulled away, bobbing over small breaking waves. The water darkened beneath the bow, and he looked back to find the land had curved—so quickly—and the village was already out of sight. Doctor Svenson held a hand over his eyes, for they were tearing in the bitter wind.

THE SKY was black by the time the boat reached the swollen estuary lined with reeds. Svenson thanked the fishermen, and followed their directions up the bank, and through the trees. But instead of following the path deeper into the forest, the Doctor cut across a wide, wet meadow to a line of hills he could sense only as shadows. He dismissed the idea of wolves—there was no danger at all—as he now dismissed the notion of following the forest road back to the fishing village. Their enemies had already fled—the danger would be in returning to the city. He would go on to this mining town and seek Chang, not that he expected to find Chang either. He would continue to travel ahead of the women, clearing the way of danger without the painful necessity of actual contact. The villagers might assume his death—but he could leave word in the town, and any sorrow on his behalf would be brief, if it existed at all. The more he thought of it, the less he believed Eloise would want to see him anyway—would this not be the cleanest break?

Once he reached drier ground he made camp, not wanting to blunder about in the dark. He built a small fire, ate his meager supper, and spread his coat over his body. He woke with the sun and walked steadily past noon, winding to the dark hills, grateful for the physical effort to distract his mind and wear his limbs. He knew next to nothing about Karthe, and was mildly worried about his arrival—a foreigner in a military uniform in a town that saw few travelers at any time and scarcely one in half a century from abroad. So much would depend on who else had reached the town before him, and what story they had told. Yet there must be an inn, and he had money. Once the place was sure, he would take the train back to the city. He wondered which of his countrymen might be left at the mission compound, and what word had been sent to Macklenburg. Could it possibly be safe for him to appear there? Perhaps he ought to go straight on to Cap Rouge… on to the sea, and some other ship.

If she loved another man—Trapping or Xonck—what did it change? And why was it so surprising, such terrible men? When did love ever care for facts? Did Corinna moldering in a grave shift Svenson's feeling for her?

THE TWILIGHT was just creeping from the hills when he came to a wider road, rutted by the passage of mining carts. He hoped with the appearance of the road that the town was near, but after another half an hour the Doctor stopped for a drink from his water bottle, sweat under his collar. He looked around him. His gaze was taken by a stand of high black stones, each the size of a house but sharply upthrust through the earth, one on top of the other, like a spectacularly unfortunate tangle of teeth. If he did not think the town so close, he would have investigated it at once for a campsite. He corked the bottle and returned it to the rucksack.

He heard a noise—perhaps a bird, perhaps an animal, but not the wind—faint, but coming clearly from the stones. The Doctor stepped off the road, his pace quickening to a run, boots clumping over the knotted grass.

“Is someone here?” he called aloud, his own voice sounding foolish after so long in silence. The clearing was abandoned, but there was a ring of blackened rocks for a fire, flat slabs to sit or sleep upon, and even a collection of coal, most likely stolen from the mines, or from an unguarded scuttle in the town.

In answer came the same huffling wail that had reached him on the road. It was above him. He dug a candle from his coat and dragged a match on the rock to light it. Some ten feet above he saw a cracked seam between two larger stones, not a cave as such, but large enough to shelter something small. The smooth surface of the rock face below it gleamed wet. He knew it at once for blood, and called to whoever had crammed themselves into the tiny crease.

“What has hurt you? Is it an animal? Can you come down? I am a doctor—if you are injured, I can help.”

He received no reply. The rivulets of blood were smeared and spattered and dragged. The injured person had done his best to climb away, even as his attacker had persisted in trying to reach him.

“I am here to help you,” called Svenson. “I cannot get up—you must come down! Who are you? What is your name?”

In an abrupt answer the figure toppled off the rock, nearly knocking Svenson flat. He raised his arms without thinking and managed to half catch the bloody, windmilling tangle of limbs… but as he held the weight he saw it was only a boy. Svenson eased him to the ground, recovered the candle, and lit another match, moving the light to identify what wounds he could.

“What is your name?” he repeated, dropping his voice to a soothing whisper. The boy did not reply. He had been gashed at the throat and chest, and then repeatedly along his legs. Svenson could only too vividly imagine how these last had been received—the boy's assailant relentlessly scrabbling up the rock, slashing again and again at whatever could be reached, the cave so shallow that the child had not room enough to pull his legs clear. Svenson winced at a brutal gash below the child's knee, a shining, near-black drag of blood… then reached out to touch it. The dark shining line was not blood at all. He held the candle close. The line was blue… a shooting vine of glass beneath the boy's opened flesh. The Doctor hoisted the child in his arms and stumbled back to the road.

HIS SHOUTING brought a rush of people from the doorways of Karthe. Svenson handed the boy into the arms of others and gasped out that he was a doctor and required a table and some light. The townsmen did not question him—neither his words nor his appearance—as he removed his bloody coat and rolled up his sleeves, stepping into someone's kitchen, vaguely aware of the pale faces of a woman and her children as they cleared the table and attempted to lay down a sheet. Svenson waved it away.