The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (18 page)

He tried the metal door, to no avail, and sighed with impatience. It was an old lock, intended more to delay determined pursuit than prevent it utterly. He groped in his coat for a ring of iron skeleton keys and flipped through them. The second key worked, and he swung the door open slowly—it was well-greased and did not creak—and stepped through into darkness. He pulled the door behind him, leaving it unlocked, and listened. His quarry’s pace was slow, not surprising due to the combination of the drunken man and Angelique—her shoes and dress would not be suited to a darkened cobblestone tunnel. Chang followed quietly, stick before him, left hand feeling the wall. The tunnel was not long—judging by the distance just far enough to clear the alley and next block of houses. Quickly Chang tried to place the exact direction—the stairway down, then the passage, the corner, then the dark tunnel, which seemed to have a very gentle curve to the left…the block behind the brothel was the outlying wall of the Palace itself—additional buildings for the Institute. Undoubtedly the tunnel had been originally built as a secret bolt-hole from the Palace, perhaps to what was then the house of a mistress, perhaps as a way to escape a mob. Chang smiled to see the usage reversed, but retained his air of caution. He had never been within the walls of the Institute, and had no clear idea what he was going to find.

Ahead, they had stopped. Someone pounded on another iron door, a metallic rapping (the large man’s stick?) that echoed sharply through the tunnel. In answer, Chang heard the working of a lock, the shrill ripple of chain pulled through an iron ring, and then the creak of heavy hinges. Orange light bled into the darkness. The party stood at the base of a short stone staircase, and above them an open hatch nearly flush with the ground, as to a cellar. Several men stood with lanterns, offering their hands one at a time as the party members climbed out. They did not close the door—perhaps because they would be bringing Angelique back?—so Chang took the opportunity to slip to the stone steps and crouch low, looking up. Above him, quite ghostly in the moonlight, were the leafless limbs of a tree.

He peeked over the edge and saw that it opened onto a large grassy courtyard between buildings of the Palace. The pool of lantern light moved farther away as the group was guided across the lawn, leaving him very much in shadow. Keeping low, Chang stole from the tunnel—it felt like leaving a crypt—and after them, drifting as he went toward the nearest tree, which gave a more substantial cover. The windows in the buildings around him were dark—he had no idea how much of the Palace the fellows of the Institute actually occupied, or in what manner, so could only hope to remain unobserved. He jogged along to another tree, now even closer to the walls, the thick turf swallowing the sound of his boots. It was easy to see where the party was headed—toward another man with a lantern, who stood marking the entrance to a strange structure at the courtyard’s center, apart from and unconnected to any other building.

It was one low story, made of brick, without windows and, as near as Chang could tell, circular. As he watched, the group of six and their guides reached the doorway and entered. The man who had been at the door remained. Chang advanced to another tree, taking more care with any noise. He was perhaps twenty yards away. He waited, still, for several minutes. The guard did not move from the door. Chang studied the courtyard, wondering if he could creep around to the far side of the circular building, in case there might be another door, or a window, or access through the roof. Instead, he eased into a crouch and decided to wait, hoping that the guard would enter or some of the party would come out. The party itself he was still pondering. He did not recognize any of them save Crabbé and Angelique. The man Bascombe was a lackey for either the Deputy Minister or the man in the fur, it was unclear who—just as it was unclear who between those men was the superior power. The final two were a mystery—from his vantage point on the ceiling he could hardly see the face of either man, nor the details of the drunken officer’s uniform. Obviously there was some relation to the gathering at Robert Vandaariff’s house—Crabbé had been in both places. Had one of them courted Margaret Hooke in the same way as they were courting Angelique—Margaret Hooke who was looking for Isobel Hastings (who had also been at Vandaariff’s) and who had the same scarring as the late Arthur Trapping? Her scarring had been recent, just as Trapping’s had occurred in the few minutes between his leaving the main reception and Chang finding him on the floor—which at least told Chang that the scarring itself hadn’t caused Trapping’s death, as the woman had obviously survived. Most important was the disparate nature of the group, gathering for some shared purpose—a purpose that, perhaps only as a tangent, had killed Arthur Trapping and prompted a search for Isobel Hastings. Chang doubted this search was about revenge. His Persephone may indeed have killed Rosamonde’s friend—the blood had come from somewhere—but she was being hunted for what she had seen.

The guard turned suddenly, away from Chang, and a moment later Chang himself heard footsteps from across the courtyard. Walking forward into the lantern’s glow was a spare man in a long, dark, double-breasted greatcoat with silver buttons and bare epaulettes, his pale head bare, his hands joined behind his back. At the guard’s request he stopped several yards away, nodding sharply and clicking his heels in salute. The man was clean-shaven and wore a monocle that reflected the light as he nodded his head, clearly requesting entry and then taking in the guard’s refusal. The man exhaled with resignation. He looked behind him and gestured vaguely with his left hand—perhaps at a place where he might be allowed to wait. The guard turned his head to follow the hand. In one swift movement the man whipped his right arm forward, his thumb drawing the hammer of a gleaming black pistol, and aimed the barrel square at the guard’s face. The guard did not move, but then very quickly, at the man’s brisk, whispered instruction, dropped his weapon to the grass, put down the lantern, and then turned his face to the door. The man snatched up the lantern and placed the pistol against the guard’s spine. The guard opened the door with a key and the two men disappeared inside.

They did not close the door either. Chang quickly loped across the lawn toward it and carefully craned his head so he could see in. The entrance led directly to a low staircase that descended several stories on a direct and very steep incline. The building was sunk deeply into the ground and Chang could just see the two figures leaving the stairwell, with only a flickering orange glow bleeding back from the disappearing lantern. Chang glanced around the courtyard, readied his stick, and crept down the stairs, moving slowly, silently, and keeping himself at all times ready to bolt back to the top. Once again he’d placed himself in a narrow corridor at the mercy of anyone appearing above or below him—but if he wanted information, he saw no other way. Just above the lower landing he stopped, listening. He could hear distant conversation, but the words were muddled by the strange acoustics. Chang looked above him. No one was there. He continued his descent.

The stairs opened onto a circular hallway curving away to either side, as if it formed a ring around a great central chamber. The voices were to Chang’s left, so he went that way, pressing close against the inner wall to remain unseen. After some twenty yards, moving into a steadily brighter light, he stopped again, for suddenly—as if he had walked through a door—he could hear the voices perfectly.

“I do not care for the
inconvenience
.” The voice was angry but controlled. “He is insensible.”

The accent sounded German, but perhaps something else—Danish? Norse? The words were met first with silence, and then the delicate speech of a practiced diplomat, Harald Crabbé.

“Doctor…of course…you must see to your duties—quite understandable, in fact, admirable. You will see, however…the delicacy, the
time
element—that there are requirements—
duties
—in competition. I believe we are all friends here—”

“Excellent. Then I will bid you a friendly good evening,” replied the Doctor. In immediate answer came the ringing of steel—a sword being drawn—and the clicks of several guns being cocked. Chang could imagine the standoff. What he could not imagine were the stakes.

“Doctor…,” Crabbé continued, with a rising strain of urgency in his voice. “Such a confrontation suits no one—and your young master’s wishes, if he were able to make them known—”

“Not my master, but my charge,” cut in the Doctor. “His wishes in the matter count for very little. As I said, we will be leaving, unless you choose to kill me. If you do so choose, I promise that I will first blow out the brains of this idiot Prince—which I believe will quite spoil your plans, as well as leaving a powerful father…angry. Good evening.”

Chang heard shuffling steps, and a moment later saw the Doctor, one hand holding up the tottering, insensible man in uniform, and the other occupied with the pistol. Chang retreated with him step for step, keeping out of view of the larger group which he had just glimpsed—Crabbé, Bascombe, the foppish red-haired man (who held the sword), and three guards (who held the pistols). There was no sign of the man in fur, nor of Angelique. As they retreated, no one spoke—as if the situation had progressed beyond words—and soon Chang found himself retreating past the staircase. He considered dashing up, but it would only expose him—they would have to hear his steps and he could not reach the top unseen. It might also be the exact distraction to get the Doctor killed, and right now Chang didn’t know if that would be a good thing or not. He still hoped to learn more. The drunken, uniformed man, unless he was very wrong, must be Karl-Horst von Maasmärck. Once more, mysterious connections between Robert Vandaariff, Henry Xonck, and the Foreign Ministry seemed to be dancing just out of reach in his brain. Momentarily distracted with thought, Chang looked up. The Doctor had seen him.

He stood with the slumped von Maasmärck at the base of the stairwell, and had merely glanced down the other end of the corridor as a reflex and been shocked to see anyone, much less a strange figure in red. Chang knew he was beyond the curve of the wall and out of sight to the others, and slowly brought a finger to his lips, indicating silence. The Doctor stared. His skin was pale and the impression he gave nearly skeletal. His hair was ice-blond and shaved on the back and sides of his head in a nearly medieval fashion, long and plastered back in a part on top—though his struggles had broken it forward in lank, white clumps that hung over his eyes. It did not seem, for all his apparent confidence, that the Doctor was a man of action, or necessarily used to waving a pistol. Chang deliberately backed away from him, keeping eye contact, and made a gesture to indicate that the Doctor should exit—
now
. The Doctor darted his gaze back to the others and began to awkwardly mount the stairs, pulling up the near deadweight of the Prince along with him. Chang retreated farther from view, his thoughts once more askew upon seeing von Maasmärck’s face: quite clearly livid with red circular burns around both of his eyes.

The group clustered around the lower door. “Doctor, I am sure we shall see you again,” called Crabbé amiably, “and good night to your sweet prince.” The Deputy Minister then muttered to the guards near him, “If he falls, take him. If he doesn’t, one of you secure the door, and the other follow him. You”—he singled out the guard the Doctor had brought down at pistol point—“stay here.” Two of the guards climbed rapidly from sight and one remained, his pistol in hand. Crabbé turned and, with Bascombe and the red-haired fop, disappeared down the hallway whence they’d come.

“It doesn’t signify,” he said to them cheerfully. “We shall find the Prince tomorrow—in some fashion—and the Doctor may be dealt with at leisure. There is no hurry. Besides”—and here he chuckled, speaking more intimately—“we have another engagement with
nobility
—yes, Roger?”

They passed out of hearing. Chang slowly retreated another ten yards, boxed in again. He would have to attack the guard to get out, or outlast them—assuming that when the party left they would take the guards along. He turned and continued down this half of the corridor, hoping the circle might join on the other side.

Chang advanced with his stick before him in both hands—one on the handle and one on the body—ready to pull it apart at a moment’s notice. He had no real idea if he was the hunter or the hunted, but knew that if things went bad he could be fighting several men at once, which was almost always fatal. If the group of men kept their heads, one of them was always presented with an opening, and their lone opponent, no matter how vigorous or skilled, would fall. That man’s only option was to attack at as many points as possible and through pure aggression separate the group into fragile individuals—who might then be prone to hesitation. Hesitation created tiny moments of single combat, winnowing the group, which in turn created more hesitation—ferocity pitted against presence of mind, fear trumping logic. In short, it meant attacking like a madman. But such a wanton strategy opened his defense with more holes than Mrs. Wells’s natural smile—and any remaining presence of mind in his opponents—which was to say, if they were not inexperienced, stupid, easily rattled farmers—would leave him stuck like a pig. The better aim was to avoid it entirely. He took care to make no noise.

As the corridor curved, he detected a low humming from beyond the inner wall—from the central chamber, whatever that actually was. On the floor in front of him lay a profusion of long boxes, opened and emptied in a great tumbled pile, the same boxes he’d seen on the cart at the canal and in the house of Robert Vandaariff—though these were lined with blue felt rather than orange. The humming grew louder, then steadily louder still, until the very air seemed to vibrate. Chang put his hands over his ears. The discomfort bled horribly into pain. He stumbled forward. The corridor ended at a door, sheathed in metal. He picked his way across the boxes—the great throbbing noise covering the sound of his awkward steps—but he could not concentrate, tripping, knocking boxes aside. He tottered and shut his eyes. He sank to his knees.