The Dark Volume (69 page)

“I am Mr. Fochtmann,” he said, aghast.

“Exactly so.
Proceed.”

THE HANDLE was pulled and the crackle of current spat across the copper wires like fat on a red-hot stove. Miss Temple clenched her fists and squinted, half turning her face away. Robert Vandaariff's voice echoed from under the black rubber mask, in unearthly yelps of terror, high-pitched and plaintive as an uncomprehending dog whose leg had been crushed by a cart. His tightly bound limbs thrashed and his spine arched until it seemed it must break from straining. At the first touch of current, blue light glowed from the brass device that held the book, intensifying to a bright white flame—the scorching reek of indigo clay came off in clouds. Within the glare, Miss Temple saw flickers of shadow, ghost fragments, dreams flaming to life.

Then it was done. At Fochtmann's wave the machines went silent.

Vandaariff sagged against the restraints. No one else moved.

“Did it work?” whispered Charlotte Trapping.

Vandaariff lurched forward, choking. Miss Temple felt a mirroring, sympathetic spasm of nausea. Leveret cried aloud as he pulled the mask away—Vandaariff had filled it with black bile, and now vomited another ink-colored gout across the man's trousers.

GRIM AND determined, Fochtmann loosened the restraints, easing Vandaariff to his knees and watching carefully as the man emptied the fouled contents of his stomach onto the planking. Leveret opened his mouth to complain, but the engineer impatiently motioned him to silence.

Vandaariff tipped his head from side to side, slowly, like a stunned bull, and flexed his fingers as if he were testing a pair of new leather gloves.

“Do not approach him,” Fochtmann warned.

Vandaariff strove to rise, grunting with effort, the livid scars accentuating the whiteness of his eyes. Fochtmann took the rag and wiped Vandaariff's face.

“Look at him!” whispered Mrs. Trapping. “What is
wrong?”

“These are temporary effects,” said Fochtmann. “Be patient…”

“Monsieur le Comte?” asked Leveret. “Is it you?”

The Contessa took one hesitant step. “Oskar?”

Vandaariff tried to stand but could not, slipping to his knees and elbows like a tottering colt. He looked into the faces around him, and his eyes—the whites tinged with a blue film his blinking pushed into beads that broke down his cheeks—began to clear… and upon seeing the Contessa, a rattle of recognition rolled from his throat.

“Oskar?” Her voice was gentle. He swallowed, his face suddenly clouded by fear. The Contessa sank so her face was at his level.

“You are alive again, Oskar… it is not the airship. On the airship you were killed… but you have been restored. You have been restored by one of your own marvelous books, Oskar. Do not be afraid. You have come back to us… back from where no man has ever returned.”

Vandaariff swung his head awkwardly, straining to make sense of her words, of the different room and so many people—so different from the ones he had last seen. He lurched forward. Fochtmann patiently raised him when the spasms had stopped, once more wiping Vandaariff's chin.

“Is it truly him?” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“Of course it is,” said the Contessa easily. “He
knows
me.”

“Did not Robert Vandaariff know you too?” asked Leveret. He peered suspiciously into Vandaariff's face, like a farmer inspecting a pig at auction.

“Monsieur le Compte—if you
are
the Compte—my name is Leveret—”

“Tell him we need
proof,”
Mrs. Trapping called over Leveret's shoulder. “Something only
he
could know—some snip of alchemical
whatsit.”

Mr. Fochtmann insinuated himself between Leveret and Vandaariff.

“Give him room, sir—the physical costs of the infusion are prodigious. Robert Vandaariff has undergone this
after
the Process, nor had he a young man's vitality to begin with.”

“The problem is not his body,” said Doctor Svenson, studying Vandaariff with pained disapproval, “but his
mind
. The Comte was snatched from the arms of death.”

“I'd expect him to be grateful,” muttered Mrs. Trapping.

The Contessa sighed with irritation and shifted closer.

“Oskar… try to remember… on the airship. The last minutes. You were very angry—angry at me. I had behaved very badly. I had killed Lydia—”

Vandaariff's eyes flared at her words. The Contessa nodded as if to encourage his memory, as if his rage were entirely natural. “I had ruined all of your great plans. You came at me… you thought to kill me… but then you were stabbed. Do you remember? Everything had gone wrong. We were betrayed. The airship was sinking. You were dying. Francis came to you with a book… an empty book, Oskar. Francis captured your soul.”

Robert Vandaariff swallowed, listening intently, watching her mouth. His lips trembled.

Once more Leveret thrust his face forward.

“This is the Xonck Armament Works in Parchfeldt Park, monsieur. I am Mr. Leveret.
You
are—” He grimaced with distaste and then muttered to the room at large, “I feel a fool saying this at all—we have no certainty that anything of the sort has occurred…”

“Go
on
, Alfred,” said Mrs. Trapping. Leveret sighed, then snapped his fingers in front of Vandaariff, whose gaze had gone back to the Contessa.

“The contents of that book have been infused into the body of Robert Vandaariff. If you are indeed the Comte d'Orkancz, we require you to give out some sign—some
assurance
—that this is true. We require it
now.”

Vandaariff blinked, returning Leveret's stare. Miss Temple could see the man's expression had sharpened, enough for his true thoughts to be veiled behind it—though this might bespeak no more intelligence than a cat's wary reaction to a curious child. She swallowed with a wince, like the others unable to look away from his scarred face, but unlike them, dreading an echo of the corruption she had already allowed to stain too much of her own mind. But Robert Vandaariff remained mute.

“Why don't we simply
make
him answer?” Charlotte Trapping addressed Mr. Fochtmann. “What did you call it—the control phrase? Why doesn't Alfred simply speak the phrase aloud and
order
him to tell us?”

“He may not be unwilling,” began Fochtmann, “but
unable
. If we try to imagine what this man may have
seen
—”

“Nonsense. Alfred?”

Leveret stood tall and cleared his throat.
“Indigo Pilate iris sunset Parchfeldt! Are you the Comte d'Orkancz?”

No one spoke. Instead of answering, Vandaariff attempted to stand. Fochtmann caught his arm, and so steadied, Vandaariff kept his feet.

“He will not answer,” hissed Leveret. “Look at him! He does not even acknowledge the phrase!”

“That is impossible,” said Mrs. Trapping. “At least… it ought to be…”

Leveret's face darkened with rage. “Is this trickery? Does he presume to
trifle
?”

“For God's sake!” cried Fochtmann. “Give him another moment!
He has only come back from the dead!”

Miss Temple was startled by the halting clicking steps—the glass woman was advancing with great care, the little girl in tow. Vandaariff thrust Fochtmann away from him, gripping one of the brass boxes in an effort to remain upright. A line of saliva hung from his lips. He met Mrs. Marchmoor's swirling blue eyes.

Then his mouth slackened and his eyes went under a cloud. The glass woman was quite obviously probing Robert Vandaariff's new-fashioned soul.

“What do you see?” whispered Fochtmann.

“Tell us!” hissed Mrs. Trapping.

The glass woman began to glow with the same cerulean sparks Miss Temple had seen that morning in the Duke of Stäelmaere's study, and her gleaming fingers tightened around the vacant girl's arm.

“Look at this marvel!” Fochtmann whispered, eagerly staring at the glass woman. “She senses him… she sees what has been done—an accomplishment beyond anything I might have dreamed…”

Francesca's eyelids flickered like a dreaming animal's. Miss Temple looked back to Vandaariff… with alarm she realized that Francesca's face was now flinching and twitching exactly in time with his. Through the conduit of the glass woman's hand, the child was being completely exposed to Vandaariff's mind. Did no one else see?

Mrs. Marchmoor's words curled into Miss Temple's mind like a serpent encircling a sleeping bird.

“It is done. The Comte d'Orkancz has been saved.”

FRANCESCA TRAPPING suddenly coughed, choked, and then sprayed out a mouthful of blackened spit. Her mother screamed. As if realizing too late what had happened, Mrs. Marchmoor thrust the child toward Colonel Aspiche, breaking the connection. Francesca retched again, bent over double.

“Francesca!” shrieked Mrs. Trapping.

The girl looked up, eyes wide, as if she were seeing the room for the very first time. Mrs. Trapping rushed toward her, but was caught about the waist by Leveret.

“What has happened?” shrieked Charlotte Trapping. “What has she done to my child?”

“Charlotte—no, wait—”

“Do not!” cried the Colonel. He held tight to Francesca's shoulder and pointed to Mrs. Marchmoor. “Margaret—Margaret, what in heaven…”

Her remaining glass hand had been sprayed with black bile. Mrs. Marchmoor convulsively licked her lower lip as she stared down at the stain, as if she could taste the nauseating substance through her surface. The surprise in the glass woman's voice pierced Miss Temple's mind like a pin.

“He… he is…
unclean
…”

The bright slug of her blue tongue spurred another spasm in Miss Temple's stomach. The glass woman had never found the corruption, even when probing Vandaariff's mind outright, having wrongly assumed that with the change in bodies the Comte's prohibition no longer held force. Only when the taint had passed to the child could the glass woman sense it. Mrs. Marchmoor retreated from Vandaariff, her blue lips drawn back.

“Unclean?”
Leveret shook his head angrily, still holding Mrs. Trapping. “What does
that
mean?”

“It means nothing!” shouted Fochtmann. “We all saw the sickness from the procedure—this is more of the same—it is
natural
—”

“It is
not,”
Aspiche shouted. “Look at the child!”

Francesca trembled, held at arm's length by the Colonel. Her lips and chin were black, and her small mouth dark as a wound.

“The child is ill,” snapped Fochtmann. “It has no bearing on our work.”

Phelps nervously addressed the glass woman. “You must explain, madame. You looked into his mind—you told us the infusion worked, that this was the Comte—”

“It
is
the Comte!” insisted Fochtmann, but the glass woman's continuing distress stopped his speech.

“I could not see it in
him,”
Mrs. Marchmoor hissed. “Only in the girl… but it is from
his
body…”

“What
is from his body?” demanded Aspiche.

“Nothing!”
Fochtmann waved his arms. “The girl must be diseased—”

“I was forbidden by him,” said Mrs. Marchmoor. “None of the Comte's servants could enter his mind—”

“We don't
understand
you, Margaret,” said the Contessa.

The glass woman rolled her head as if to clear it, yet her words remained too dense, as if she could not find the way to translate her present senses into language.

“I could taste that the book held him, that he had been infused with Lord Robert—but not the character of his mind… I was forbidden, and so the corruption… eluded me…” Mrs. Marchmoor thrust her bandaged stump at Miss Temple.
“She
knew!
She
knew all along!” Her dismay rose to a keening shriek.

Fochtmann wheeled toward Miss Temple, his own frustration finally finding its object.

“Did she? It seems she has known all
sorts
of things! She was alone with the book—and alone with the girl! I suggest she tell us all
exactly
what she has done to them both!”

Miss Temple took a careful step backwards.

“The truth is before you all—the
decay
. You have not given a
man
new life… you have retrieved a
corpse
.”

“TRUTH BE damned!” roared Xonck, and he careened toward Vandaariff, scattering everyone. Fochtmann turned in protest, but Xonck drove his plaster fist into the man's stomach, then took Vandaariff by the collar with his other hand.

“Francis!”
screamed Mrs. Trapping. “Francis, we need him—step away at once!
At once or you will die!”

“Company!” cried Leveret.
“Arms!”

The soldiers raised their carbines. Xonck spun Vandaariff's body before him as a shield, his foul lips pressed dripping against the man's right ear. Aspiche thrust Francesca Trapping to Phelps, sweeping out his saber as Phelps caught the girl in the crook of his cast and groped in his coat for a pistol. Leveret waved to stop the soldiers from firing, visibly furious at events being so suddenly beyond his control.

But then Xonck's whispering was answered.

From inside his raw throat came a chuckle, and the man's features settled into a heavier, petulant expression Robert Vandaariff had never worn.

“Why, Francis…” he rasped. “You seem to be in… a
very bad
way…”

“Oskar?” whispered Xonck with fervent relief. “Is it you?”

“You hold me rather tightly,” answered Vandaariff. “I do not like it.”

“If I release you, I will be shot.”

“Why is that possibly my concern?”

“Let me enlighten you, Oskar,” Xonck snarled. “My body is poisoned by your glass. I require you to save my life—after which I am again your willing friend. I cannot speak for Rosamonde—she too is not her best—but I can say that others, who hold the power to end both your life and mine and whose place this is, have agreed to your
restoration
only so you can be their slave.”