The Dark Volume

eyes, the glass book in its sack at his side.

When he opened his eyes, the hut was dark. The stone pit still smoked but the fire was dead. Mr. Potts was gone. Svenson's hand went instantly to the sack, felt the weight of the book—but it wasn't right, it wasn't smooth. He opened it up, could not see inside, and with an instant's hesitation thrust his hand in and touched not glass but a rough block of stone. With a snarl, he scrambled to his feet, winding the sack around his hand so he could swing the rock like a mace.

He did not have far to walk. Mr. Potts stood in the center of the clearing, under the cloud-shrouded moon. He was not holding the book. Had the fool dropped it?

“Mr. Potts,” Svenson whispered. “Mr. Potts!”

Potts turned, eyes unfocused, as if unable to place Svenson yet knowing he ought to. The man's chin was streaked with a dark film, and Svenson wrinkled his nose at the smell of bile.

“Where is the book, Mr. Potts?”

“Who?”

“Not who, what! The book! Where is it?”

In response, Mr. Potts whimpered and rubbed his eyes. His hand was smeared with black liquid.

“Potts—yes, of course—I remember.”

“Where is the book?” Svenson reached out to shake the man's shoulder. Mr. Potts smiled weakly, but his eyes were wild.

“Most important is the quality of paint—the chemicals ground into the paint to make colors—every chemical in life possesses properties—”

“Mr. Potts—”

“Chemical properties, fundamental energies!” whispered Potts, abruptly terrified, as if this was a secret he did not care to know. “One might even ask if there is anything else to life at all!”

Svenson slapped Mr. Potts across the face. Potts staggered, blinked, opened his mouth, but found no voice. He looked into Svenson's eyes, blinked again, and the words came out in a fearful croak.

“What… has… happened?”

“Mr. Potts—”

“Who am I?”

“Where is the book, Mr. Potts? Where did you leave it?”

But Mr. Potts was biting his trembling lip, attempting to not cry.

Svenson dragged Potts to the roofless shed. He shoved Potts in and snapped a match to a candle stub— another ring of blackened stones, travelers' rubbish, with the far end of this shed also blocked off with planking, another shaft… and there, the canvas sack. It was empty.

“An important problem is viscosity,” whispered Potts.

“Tell me!” hissed Svenson. “Where is it?”

Now the man was sobbing. “She was only a girl. I have a daughter myself…”

Svenson wrinkled his nose with distaste. A new draft in the open shed had filled it with a tell-tale reek… was it from Potts or the shaft? The planking had been pulled away and then hastily pressed back into place, but at the simplest touch—as Svenson himself proved with a tug—the boards came off. The reek of indigo clay rose even stronger. He thought of the blue vomit in the privy…

“Mr. Potts… you are confused and frightened, but in no danger. You must help me find the book if I am going to help you—”

But Potts shook free, stumbling into the yard. He pointed to the larger shed, where the other men still slept.

“They are doomed,” he whispered.

A sudden spike of fear shot the length of Doctor Svenson's spine. He strode past Potts—the candle going out—and then wheeled around, digging without apology in the man's pockets and pulling out the revolver. He entered the larger shed, cocking the hammer with his other hand… each man seemed to be where he had left them, undisturbed by Mr. Potts' babbling. Svenson sighed with relief, then looked back. Potts had dropped into a crouch, hugging his knees and muttering. The Doctor's attention was taken by a shadow in the far corner, near the blocked-off shaft. Was someone else awake? Keeping his eye fixed on a darkness he could not penetrate, Svenson dug with his free hand for another match. He struck it and looked down at Bolte. A glittering line of blue like the drag of a paint-clogged brush across the man's throat.

Svenson dropped the match with a start. He raised the pistol toward the shadow in the corner, only to see it swell in size before him. He fired, the sound impossibly loud, but the shadowed figure—a man in a cloak?—darted to the side and was on Svenson before he could shoot again. A shocking blow knocked the Doctor down, the pistol flying from his hand. He groped to his knees, shouting to wake the others—the shadow was between him and the outside yard—and took another hideous blow to his shoulder, toppling him back again. Utterly dazed, Svenson felt himself picked up by the lapels of his coat. He looked into a reeking, dark-lipped, dripping mouth, a pale face whose eyes were wild. The Doctor was thrown with savage force through the wall of planking, a rag doll tumbling down into the shaft.

HE AWOKE with his head pointing downward and his legs above in an uncomfortable tangle. Something pulled at his hair and he very carefully reached down to it, probing the area with half-numbed fingers. A gash had opened on the side of his skull, not too bad, but it had bled and the blood had dried. How long would that have taken? He was terribly cold. His head throbbed cruelly, as did his shoulder and the left side of his rib cage. He feebly groped around him—damp rock and earth, a steeply angled slope. He felt for a match, wondering how many he had left, but could not find the box—had it flown from his pocket? Svenson looked above him… a fretful penumbra of light, yards above. He listened, heard absolutely nothing save his own ragged breath, and began, with the grace of an upended turtle, to turn his body and climb.

He reached the first of the broken boards that had accompanied his fall and carefully brushed them aside, mindful of the noise, but more convinced that his attacker was long gone. When he emerged into the roofless hut he saw the men of Karthe as he had left them. In the stark day, each huddled shape held a poignance he could not endure: they had been slain in sleep.

The bearlike form of Mr. Carper lay curled like a snuggling child, a glittering orchid of blue glass blooming from his jugular. Svenson staggered to the yard and saw the sprawled body of Mr. Potts, the man's chalk-white face smeared with greasy, stinking black film. Svenson sat down with his head in his hands and tried to think of simply one thing he could do.

He washed the blood from his hair with one man's water bottle, and took another's to drink. He located the pistol amongst the bodies. The glass book was gone.

He had no real idea of the time—he had not thought to purloin Mr. Bolte's pocket watch—and the heavy clouds did not aid his attempt to guess it. As he descended, the fog stayed with him, lurking over each new valley and preventing any long-range view that might point his way with more confidence. He simply followed what seemed to be the trail, and trusted it would deposit him back at the stand of black rocks. Even when the Doctor attempted to pay attention to the path, his attention wandered within minutes—back to the ravings of Mr. Potts, and to the face he had seen in shadow.

It was Francis Xonck, he was sure—though terribly, terribly altered by exposure to the blue glass. Xonck had slain the village grooms, the boy and his father… and all these men. Could a single book be so precious? Svenson scoffed—measured against human life, a hot breakfast would have been more precious to Francis Xonck.

But now… what had happened to him? Xonck had been shot in the chest on the airship… days ago. Could he have saved himself with a spike of blue glass, desperately inserted to cauterize the wound? The airship had been flooding—the only option was death. Yet if the glass had saved him then, it was killing him now, by agonizing, disfiguring increments.

And what was the book—merely the nearest Xonck could snatch up in the final moments on the airship? Or had he chosen it deliberately? Mr. Potts had looked inside it and been deranged. From what Svenson had witnessed at Harschmort, most of the books were populated with the memories of the rich and powerful… what dignitary's memories could have so terrified Potts? Could his rambling about chemicals and viscosity relate to ordnance—powder and explosives? Could the missing book contain the memories of Henry Xonck, the arms magnate?

HE STOOD once more in Karthe, doors shut tight, smoke pluming from chimneys and stovepipes, its people