The Chemickal Marriage

‘Who are these people? Whose memories –’

The third card was a banquet. The fourth card a horserace. The fifth a game of whist. In the sixth he strangled a man with a silken rope. In the seventh he lay on a brothel sofa with a thin-limbed whore bouncing energetically above him. Vandaariff pulled the glass away and Chang looked down at his arousal, mortified and angry.

‘Enough,’ said Vandaariff, smiling. ‘Unless you would prefer that last again?’

‘Choke on your own blood.’

‘An admirable performance. A foundation upon which to build.’

Vandaariff returned the cards to the satchel. He removed a second batch. These cards were like nothing Chang had ever seen, for they were not blue … instead, each glinted with different colours. The first was mottled with streaks of red.

‘We start with iron.’

The card contained no experience, no memory, no human life. Chang’s senses fogged and he gagged at the taste of blood filling his throat. Vandaariff pulled the card away and selected another, greenish and flecked with copper …

One after another Chang absorbed their depths. Where before the glass had implanted memories, here the transaction lay beyond his mind, as essential forces passed from the glass to his body. Each time he felt both sickened and more strong, Vandaariff tempering Chang’s body like a blacksmith working steel. When the cards were back in the satchel, pain echoed in his bones and knotted his organs. His teeth burnt like coals in a fire. Vandaariff reached into his coat and came out with an eighth card, bright orange. He gripped the back of Chang’s head and thrust it before his eyes. Chang arched against an explosion of agony near his spine.

When it was finally taken away, Chang could barely breathe.

‘I’m going to cut your throat,’ he gasped.

Vandaariff took off his gloves and snapped the satchel closed.

‘Three days, Cardinal. In three days you may well do just that thing.’

But the next day he heard voices in the other room. Then the door was flung open by Doctor Svenson, with Celeste Temple screaming like a fool. Svenson leapt to the chains but Chang stopped him with an urgent whisper. ‘Where are we? Where is he? Where is his man?’

‘The Xonck works at Raaxfall – there are soldiers just outside –’

Another figure in the doorway – was it Phelps? ‘They have heard – they are coming!’

‘Leave the chains!’ Chang hissed. ‘Against the wall – hide!’

Svenson had already shut the door. The Ministry man pressed himself into the corner. Celeste Temple stood like a stone, staring at Chang’s body. Finally she noticed Svenson waving vigorously and dropped under the table. The girl would kill them all.

For a moment he heard nothing … then the hidden door swung open, shielding Svenson behind it. No one stepped through. Chang jerked his head as if woken and blinked at the light. He could see Foison’s shadow, and a gleam of metal in his hand.

‘What now?’ Chang called hoarsely. ‘Where is your master?’

Foison took a single step into the doorway, offering no clear shot to Svenson or Phelps.

‘Where are they?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Chang cocked his head. ‘Has the cat misplaced its mice?’

Chang looked past Foison, hearing more footsteps.

‘Benton’s dead, sir!’ The man was out of breath. ‘Everyone but Hennig – two men, he says, with guns – left with the girl!’

‘Left where?’

‘He didn’t see, sir. We’re looking everywhere –’

‘Bring Hennig. Send word to Lord Vandaariff.’

‘But, sir – if we find them – no one need know –’

‘If we find them, we will then send word of that. Do it now.’ The man ran off. Throughout their conversation Foison had kept his eyes on Chang, who could not decide whether his captor was Asiatic or, instead, some Lapp or northern Finn.

‘There are footprints outside. I came to ask. You might have heard.’

‘Not a thing,’ said Chang.

‘You are fortunate they did not find you.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because you … are the property of a jealous, jealous man.’

Foison drove his body hard against the door, slamming it into Svenson, then he spun, whipping the knife in his right hand towards Phelps, who cried out, the bright blade sticking out of his topcoat. Foison slammed the door again, still harder – Chang could see Svenson’s legs buckle – and then opened it wide, another knife in his hand, and kicked the still-struggling Doctor in the ribs.

The chain across Chang’s chest and arms went slack. Foison turned at the sound, but Chang took hold of the chain and cracked it at Foison like a whip, the last hard link snapping at the man’s forehead. Foison sprawled into the wall.

Miss Temple stood, her fingers rapidly working free the other chains, eyes blessedly averted from Chang’s body. Svenson was on his knees, an unwieldy Naval revolver jammed into Foison’s belly. The white-haired man lay on his back, blood on his face, his teeth bared in pain.

‘He has pinned me to the wall,’ hissed Phelps, pulling at the knife that held him.

Miss Temple hurried to assist Phelps, who did not seem to be injured. Chang gratefully slipped off the table to crouch near the Doctor.

‘We did not expect you,’ said Svenson. ‘We thought you dead.’

‘As I you,’ replied Chang.

‘These fellows will kill us.’

‘They will try.’

Chang slapped Foison across the face, and then wrenched him up by the collar.

‘I require your clothes.’

He left the white-haired man his undergarments and boots, for Foison’s feet were small. He turned his back on the others to dress. Foison’s trousers were black leather, but the white shirt was silk and draped Chang’s skin like cool water. Decent once more, he reached for the jacket, but paused at the expression on Svenson’s face.

‘Dear Lord … Cardinal …’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Chang snarled, turning his head. ‘I have lost my glasses, I cannot help it if my eyes offend your delicacy –’

‘No, no – good heavens, no – your spine –’

Both Miss Temple and Phelps stood in shocked silence. It was the last thing Chang wanted to think about. He could move without pain – that was what mattered. He slipped into the coat, a surprisingly good fit, given the discrepancy of shoe size, and jerked his chin at their prisoner.

‘Get him on his feet.’

Foison’s hands had been tied behind his back. Chang picked up the second knife – Foison’s coat still held another pair sheathed within it – and held it flat against the man’s throat.

‘Must we take him with us?’ asked Phelps.

Chang raised a hand for silence, then pointed to the door. At his nod the Doctor pulled it wide, revealing Chang alone in the doorway, Foison before him like a shield.

The clicking of pistol hammers came like a chorus of crickets – at least ten men, standing in the cover of more tables and the colourless corpses they bore.

‘If you interfere, he will die.’

‘If you touch him, we’ll shoot you to pieces,’ replied the man to his right, in a green Xonck tunic, three stripes on his sleeve. His revolver pointed straight into Chang’s ear.

‘Then we understand one another,’ said Chang. ‘As much as I would enjoy killing this man, in exchange for safe passage, I will not.’