The Dark Volume

Mr. Potts shook his head. He glanced down at the glass shards and then back to Svenson with a cold, knowing gaze. As if in silent answer to all of their questions Doctor Svenson stepped forward and with deliberate strikes of his boot heel smashed the glass fragments into glittering powder, then scuffed as much dirt as would come loose on top of the pile.

Potts pointed above them, farther into the hills.

“The trail continues. Perhaps we've argued enough.”

IT WAS another hour of steady climbing before they stopped again, by which time the air had grown quite cold. Without the slightest regard for propriety, Mr. Carper had thrown the woolen wrap across his shoulders. Ahead, at the front of the line—a line that had become distended as their journey increased and the urgency of their errand diminished with the deepening chill—Svenson saw Mr. Potts conferring earnestly with Mr. Bolte, and knew he ought to take part, if only to defend himself. But Doctor Svenson was tired and still too generally touched with despair not to instead take a cigarette from his case and light a match. He looked above him at the dense carpet of low cloud, so near it seemed he might exhale directly into its smoky mass. He offered the case to Mr. Carper, who shook his head, and then looked up to approaching footsteps—Bolte and Potts bringing the conversation to Svenson.

“It has grown late,” began Mr. Bolte. “Mr. Potts suggests we stop.”

“And go back?” asked Mr. Carper, hopefully.

“That would take half-way to morning,” announced Potts. “Apparently there is an old mine just ahead. Shelter enough, and we may make a fire.”

“Have we any food?” asked Carper.

“We did not think to bring it,” snapped Potts, glaring at Svenson, as if the lack of a dinner was his doing.

The fire was made in a long roofless hut, the far end sloping into shadows where a deep shaft had been sealed with a hammered-together wall of boards. Across a small clearing were two more huts, one also roofless and the other—because of the roof—a haven for nesting birds, its floor crusted and foul.

“I have told you exactly the truth,” said Potts, his sharp features etched deeper in the firelight. “I joined a hunting party—”

“Hunting what?” asked Svenson.

“Deer,” replied Potts. “And wild boar.”

“Boar?” asked Mr. Bolte. “At this time of year?”

“I am no expert,” said Potts. He sighed with a sudden peevishness. “I am no particular hunter at all.”

“No,” said Svenson. “That would be your Captain… what was his name?”

“Captain Tackham,” yawned Carper. “I came up with them on the train. Elegant fellow for a soldier, I must say.”

“Mrs. Daube told me the party went separate ways to hunt,” said Svenson to Potts. “I wonder who went north… and if they have returned.”

“The Captain,” said Potts. “According to Mrs. Daube he returned and then went out again, searching elsewhere—there can be nothing, no good game, in the north.”

“And what about this woman?” asked Mr. Bolte, poking the fire and looking seriously at Svenson across the rising sparks. “A woman is responsible for all this death? I confess that makes no sense to me.”

Svenson met the gaze of Mr. Potts, who seemed just as concerned about the question as he himself. Perhaps, as far as the men of Karthe were concerned, they shared a desire to keep their business as hidden as possible…

“I will tell you all I know,” Svenson replied, and reached into his coat for another cigarette. “Though I cannot pretend to possess an answer to her particular mystery. Even her name may be a fiction— Rosamonde, Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.” He glanced at Potts, but the man's face betrayed nothing.

“She is Italian?” asked Bolte.

“Venetian, I was told,” said Svenson, deliberately deepening his own accent. “Though that too is most likely a lie… I myself first made her acquaintance in a private room of the St. Royale Hotel, in search of my charge—the Crown Prince of Macklenburg, Karl-Horst von Maasmarck. Do you know the St. Royale? It is an extraordinary place —the lobby is like an Ottoman palace, with carved columns and walls of mirror and marble—you can just imagine the sort of woman who keeps a whole suite of rooms there to herself! But, yes, the Prince—I was the Prince's personal physician—the Contessa was an intimate of the Prince's fiancee, Miss Lydia Vandaariff, though she was more truly an intimate of the girl's father, Lord Robert Vandaariff, whose name you must know, even in Karthe, for he must be reckoned one of the wealthiest men of the age—the Contessa being in fact a member of Lord Vandaariff's inner circle of advisors with regard to a particular business strategy involving my country of Macklenburg— thus his daughter's alliance in marriage with the Prince—mining rights, to be precise, which must interest you gentlemen very much, and then in turn manufacturing, shipping, markets in general—in any case, in this particular private room, the Contessa was, if I recall correctly—and I'm sure I do, for if ever there was a striking woman, it is she—wearing a dress of red silk, a Chinese red, which as you will know is a color that possesses more yellow in it than, for example, what one would call ‘crimson’—a very striking choice when set against the woman's very black hair…”

He was gratified to see Mr. Bolte yawn, and pressed ahead with this pattern of detail and digression, giving at all times the impression of complete cooperation without ever revealing anything of substance regarding the Cabal, not even the airship and why such a woman would be in Karthe to begin with. Instead, by the time his narrative had paused to describe the labyrinthine interiors of Harschmort House, his only remaining listener was Mr. Potts, across the fire. The Doctor allowed his sentence to drift into silence and he reached for another cigarette. Mr. Potts smirked at the slumbering men around them.

“An amusing stratagem.”

“They have no need to know,” said Svenson. “I do not claim to know who has precisely sent you.”

“You will accompany me back to the city,” snarled Potts.

Svenson looked up at him. “Quite possibly.”

“Without question.”

“Mr. Potts, I appeal to you—you have seen for yourself this violence, the unnatural effects of the blue glass, the wickedness—”

“I know that, alone amongst my fellows, I have discovered my enemy.”

Svenson snapped with exasperation, “Alone amongst your fellows? Mr. Potts, what does that tell you? What do you think has happened to them?”

Potts chuckled greedily. “They are unluckily blundering about the woods, while I capture—from your own description—the prime quarry of them all!”

“Quarry? Not ally? Not mistress?”

“It can be none of your concern.”

“You tempt fate to speak before you have her in hand.”

“Not in the slightest.” Potts smiled. “If I read these signs correctly she is gravely ill. Your proud villainess has been reduced to killing children. Speaking of which…” From his pocket the man extracted a large naval revolver, the black metal gleaming with oil. “You will give me what you found.”

The large revolver was an unlikely weapon for the dapper Ministry man, one that required strength to be accurate, given the recoil, or simply a knowledge that anyone he was likely to shoot would be at point-blank range. It meant that either Potts was a cold killer or that he was ignorant of firearms altogether.

“I will not,” said Svenson, nodding to the sleeping men around them. “You will do nothing.”

Potts hesitated and then stuffed the weapon away. Svenson breathed a sigh of relief for the lack of bloodshed, but in the same moment knew he was dealing with a dangerous fool.

“It is not the time,” sniffed Potts, officiously. “And as you say, the business is not finished. But do not doubt me, Doctor. If you try to escape I will shoot you dead—no matter who sees it.”

POTTS SHOVED more wood onto the fire, and Svenson took the opportunity to excuse himself, aware that the other man would have the pistol trained on his back the entire time. He stumbled to the bird-stinking hut and relieved himself in its shadow. When he returned, Potts had lain down next to the fire, his eyes closed. Svenson smoked a last cigarette, tossed the butt into the embers, pulled the peacoat more tightly around him, and shut his