“
He let a sound escape his throat now. A low, menacing growl that was magnified by the circular chamber. Oh yes, that sounded like something to put fear into the hearts of his enemies. That was the noise, he thought to himself, that he would make when he found that wretched girl again: a sound so horrible, her wits would crumble.
He made a louder noise still, and from the top of the stacks of books, disturbed by the din, there swooped two winged creatures that descended to a point about three feet over his head and there hovered. They were the size of vultures and they had ashen, bloated faces, like monstrous cherubs.
“What do you want?” he said, staring up at them.
Their tiny whiteless eyes fixed on him for a moment, then they seemed to decide that he was nothing of importance and returned to their roosts, climbing in wide spirals to the top of the stacks. Mendelson returned to the final verse of the poem.
“Shape?”
The one-footed man turned.
The voice had come out of the shadows, across the room. No door had opened to let the speaker in. He’d been here all the time, watching Mendelson. Listening to him practice his growls.
Mendelson didn’t move. He simply studied the shadows, waiting for the appearance of the person who had addressed him. He knew of course, who that somebody was. It was the Lord of Midnight himself: Christopher Carrion.
“Sit,” the voice said. “Please, Shape, sit. Are you fond of books?”
The voice was deep and—even in the simplest of questions—was somehow tinged with despair. It was the voice of someone who had walked in the abyss.
Mendelson could see him now, faintly. He was an imposing figure, six foot six or more, his long robes black, which was why he had blended so well with the shadows.
He walked toward Shape, and the candles on the table illuminated him a little.
He had the most piercing eyes of any man Mendelson had met. They glistened in his bald, pale head. As always, he wore a collar of translucent material that resembled glass, which had been devised to cover the lower half of his head. It was filled with a blue fluid, which was now suddenly lit up by the presence of several snaking forms. They flickered in their fluid—some white as summer lightning, some yellow as sliced fat—weaving bright patterns around the Lord of Midnight’s head. Plainly he took pleasure in their proximity, perhaps even a kind of comfort. When one of them brushed against his skin, he smiled, and that smile was so ghastly it made Mendelson want to run from the room.
He knew from what Naw had told him why Carrion smiled that smile, and what those bright shapes were. Carrion had found a way to channel every nightmarish thought and image out of the coils of his brain and bring them into this semiphysical form. He breathed the fluid, the flickering forms ran in and out of his mouth and nostrils, soaking his soul in his own nightmares.
His voice, reverberating through this soup of dark visions, was tinged with the power of those nightmares; their terror touched every syllable he spoke.
“The books, Shape…”
“Yes? Oh yes, the books. I have books. A few.”
“And what else do you have?” Carrion said.
The serpentine lights flickered around Midnight’s head. His eyes fixed on Mendelson.
“Or don’t have?”
“You mean the Key?”
“Yes, of course. The Key. What else would I mean?”
“Lord, please forgive me. I don’t have the Key.”
Mendelson waited, fearing that Carrion would come at him; strike him, perhaps. But no. He just stood there, piercing Shape with his hollow gaze.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“I… I found the men who stole it from you.”
“John Mischief and his brothers.”
“Yes.”
“He escaped with the Key to Efreet and took a boat to the Hereafter. I went after him, and I sank the boat, and thought I would have him—”
“But?”
“The tide was with him. It carried him all the way to the other side.”
“All the way to the Hereafter?” Carrion said, with a little touch of yearning in his voice.
“Yes.”
“How is it there?” he said, almost conversationally.
“I saw very little of it. I was trying to catch Mischief.”
“Of course you were. You were doing your honest best, but he kept avoiding you. Eight heads are better than one, eh? You were outnumbered.”
“I was, Lord,” Mendelson said, beginning to dare think that his master understood the hazards his servant Shape had endured to get all the way to the Hereafter and back.
Carrion went to the largest of the chairs in the Chamber. He sat down in it and knitted his hands together lightly in front of him, as if in prayer.
“So?” he said.
“So…?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Oh. Well… I almost caught up with him, at Hark’s Harbor.”
“The Harbor? I thought it was destroyed.”
“There are some minor portions remaining, Lord. A lighthouse. A jetty.”
“No ships?”
“No ships. I think those that were scuttled are buried in the earth. Anyway, I saw none.”
“So, go on. You went to the Harbor and—”
“He had an accomplice.”
“Besides his brothers?”
“Yes. A girl. A girl from the Hereafter.”
“Ah! He had an accomplice. And a girl, to boot. Poor Shape. You didn’t stand a chance.”
“No, Lord.”
“So he gave her the Key?”
