The Dark Volume Part 29

Svenson returned to the car for a lantern, but the hook was empty. One of the businessmen looked out of his compartment, blanching to see Svenson advancing at such speed.

"Where is the conductor?" the Doctor called, his voice low but sharply urgent.

"I-I have not seen him this hour," stammered the man.

But Svenson was already past, convinced the conductor had been thrown off the train or beneath its wheels after inadvertently discovering Xonck's hiding place. And if Xonck was hiding under the coal wagon, what did that mean as far as the Contessa's fate-or Miss Temple's? Had they been dispatched like so many others? Or could they be on the train? That would put Xonck in the same situation as Svenson with regard to the freight cars and the caboose... unless- and Svenson cursed himself once more-Xonck had not been asleep when they'd stopped. Of course not-Xonck would have been waiting, leaping at once from hiding and loping like a wolf down the length of the train. Perhaps even now he was warming himself at the stove in the caboose, having slaughtered every other occupant! And if Miss Temple or the Contessa had sought refuge there-was there a thing they could have done to stop him?

Svenson stalked through to the second car without finding a lantern. Upon reaching Eloise's compartment he found its door open and one of the young men traveling to the southern mills standing inside. Beyond the man, Svenson saw Eloise, the bandage in place, her hands held tightly together. The young man spun to Svenson, eyes caught by the pistol in his hand.

"I-we heard the lady cry out," he managed. "For help."

"Eloise?" Svenson called past the man to her, fixing the interfering fool with an openly vicious gaze.

"I was asleep... I do not know... dreaming-perhaps I did."

"Excellent. Most kind of you to help." Svenson stepped aside with all the crispness of a Macklenburg soldier on parade to allow the man to exit. "If you will excuse us."

The young man did not move, his gaze still fixed on the weapon.

"Is there something wrong on the train?" he asked.

"I cannot locate the conductor," replied Svenson, in as mild a voice as he could manage. "Perhaps he walked up to the engine when last we stopped."

The young man nodded, waiting for Svenson to say more, and then nodded again when it became clear that Svenson had no plans to do so. He edged into the corridor and walked quickly away, looking back once, to find Doctor Svenson glaring. The man bobbed his head a third time as he left the car.

"I am sure he was only trying to help," whispered Eloise.

"A man of his age alone with an injured woman," observed Svenson, "is no more worthy of trust than an asp let into a child's nursery."

She did not reply, giving him the clear impression that his entire manner only made things worse.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I have been thinking," she replied, not to his question at all. "You asked me of Francis Xonck. Whatever gla.s.s he used to stab me, I know it was from a book that had been imprinted. Because I felt myself- my flesh, but also my mind-being penetrated, not by a blade, but by... experiences."

"Do you recall them?"

Eloise sighed. "Will you not put that thing away?"

Svenson looked down at the pistol. "You do not understand. The conductor is missing."

"Yet if he has only gone to the engine-"

"Xonck is on the train-somehow-I am not certain where. The conductor may have discovered him and paid the price."

"You should not have lied to that boy-you ought to have enlisted his help!"

"There is no time, Eloise, and too much to explain. He and everyone else on this train would think me mad-"

"It would be mad to face Francis Xonck alone when there is no need! Or are you set on some ridiculous notion of revenge?"

Svenson swallowed an angry reply. That she could so easily mock the very notion of revenge, that he might be owed anything, or that he was incapable of taking it... or even that despite everything she might be correct-he slapped the metal door frame with an open palm. The anger was pointless, and he let it go, his emotion stalling like a Sisyphean stone at the crest. She was waiting for an answer. Svenson seized on the first unkempt thought that came to mind.

"You... Yes, before-you mentioned the gla.s.s, dreaming-the fragment. Do you recall what you saw?"

"I do," she sniffed, shuffling to a sitting position. "Though I cannot see it helps us."

"Why?"

"Because it was broken. The thoughts inside, the sense of the memory... the content of the gla.s.s had been deranged. Like the ink running on a waterlogged page, but in one's mind... I cannot describe it."

"It was a very small piece-"

Eloise shook her head. "The matter is not size. There was no logic-as if five memories, or five minds, were overlaid one on top of another, like patterns of paper held to a window."

"Was there any detail to suggest who might have been the source?"

She shook her head again. "It was too full of contradiction-all tumbled into one place, which was not one place... and all the time... I had forgotten, music..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It means nothing-though I'm certain the memories themselves are true. Each portion flickered... overlapping the seams between them."

"And none of these... elements seemed... significant?"

"I do not believe so," she said. "Indeed, now that I try, I can scarcely recall a thing."

"No no, this is useful." Svenson nodded without conviction. "A wound with the blue gla.s.s-as contact with blood creates more gla.s.s- necessitates some exclusive contact between the gla.s.s and the victim, do you see? Blood congeals against the original gla.s.s and is itself crystallized-the flesh becomes solid. But what is the nature of this newly made gla.s.s? Since it is in-is of-your body, does it contain some memory from you? How is this raw gla.s.s different from that smelted by the Comte?"

Svenson's mind genuinely raced with the consequences of Eloise's broken shard, and what this implied about the structure and workings of the gla.s.s books. A torn piece of paper would show only the fragment of type printed upon it, but a similarly sized spear from a blue gla.s.s page apparently contained an overlay of multiple memories. It meant that the books were not read (or "written") in any linear way, but that the memories were shot through the gla.s.s like color in paint, or seasoning in soup, or even tiny capillaries in flesh. Whatever aspect of the gla.s.s normally allowed a person to experience the memories in sequence had been dislodged on the broken fragment, and the different memories it contained had been jammed into one jagged, unnatural whole.

He looked over at Eloise. "On the airship, the mere touch of a gla.s.s book on her bare skin drove the Contessa to distraction."

"She killed the Prince and Lydia for no reason but pique-"

"Francis Xonck has used broken gla.s.s to cauterize a bullet wound, and now carries that gla.s.s within his body. He may well be insane." Svenson winced to think of it. Given the wound, the lump of gla.s.s would be the size of a child's fist; what visions gnawed-no, tore-at Francis Xonck's mind? "He also possesses a gla.s.s book, saved in particular from the wreckage. I do not know what that book holds, I can only say that a perfectly sound man who did look into it was turned to a gibbering wreck. That Xonck has selected this of all books must mean something."

He knelt near her. "Eloise, you may be closer to his thoughts than any other soul alive."

"And I have told you-"

"He knows the gla.s.s will kill him," said Svenson sharply. "In the Comte's absence, he will attempt to find the man's notes, his tools- anything to reverse what has been done. I must find him."

"Abelard, he will kill you."

"If you know anything more, Eloise. Anything at all, his aims- his cares..."

But she shook her head.

AT THE far door he finally found a lantern on a hook. Svenson struck a match, tamped the wick to a steady glow, and stepped out to face the blank wooden wall of the freight car. He sniffed the air to no avail, then leaned cautiously over the rail with the lantern. An iron ladder was bolted to the freight car, but he saw no sign of blood or indigo discharge. He returned to the corridor, striding willfully past Eloise and the other occupants, back to the front of the train. He drew out the revolver, took a breath, and then-acutely aware of being watched by the businessmen-realized he could not open the door with both hands occupied. He fumbled the lantern handle into his gun hand and groped for the k.n.o.b.

The ceiling above him thumped with an impact. Someone had leapt onto the pa.s.senger car from the coal wagon-in itself a prodigious feat-and was racing toward the freight cars. Svenson broke into a run. He clawed open the connecting door, just as a second thudding impact echoed Xonck's leap from the first pa.s.senger car to the second.

Svenson sped down the corridor, just a few steps behind the man on the roof, and shouted for Eloise to stay where she was. He reached the rear door and yanked it wide. The footsteps were gone. Xonck must have leapt ahead onto the freight car, but Svenson could not see him, nor-above the clattering wheels-hear a thing. He spun round to find that all four of the young laborers had followed.

"Mrs. Dujong!" he called to them. "She is in danger! There is a man aboard the train-the roof-a murderer!"

Before they could reply, he stepped fully onto the platform. With the lantern at arm's length, he judged the distance between the platform and the ladder, swallowing with fear. Svenson stuffed the pistol into his belt and, gripping tightly to the rail, swung one leg over it. He shifted his grip, too aware of the vibrating rail, how the fluttering stripe of train ties whipped past beneath him, the slippery soles of his boots. He jammed his toes between the bars of the railing-and swung his other leg over. The ladder was still too far away. He would have to jump.

A lurch of the train caused Svenson to lose his balance completely and he flew into s.p.a.ce between the cars. His body cannoned into the iron rungs and slid toward the flashing wheels. The lantern burst onto the rocky trackside, a bloom of flame gone instantly from view. He cried out like a child as his right boot heel was kicked by a tie. His hands finally seized hold, tight as a rigorous corpse, on a cold, rust-chipped bar.

The sound of the train had changed... it was slowing down.

THE TRAIN came to a halt with a final great wheeze of steam. Svenson dropped trembling to the track and looked to the engine-a small station platform, men with lanterns, perhaps other pa.s.sengers. He turned the other way, pulled the revolver from his belt, and ran for the caboose. There were at least fifteen closed freight cars, each with a wide door shut with a heavy metal hasp. He raced past, sparing only such attention to see whether they might have been pried open, but saw nothing untoward. Svenson looked back to the engine, wondering how long they would be stopped. If he did not return, Eloise would be at Xonck's mercy.

The Doctor's breath heaved as he hauled himself onto the caboose's platform and rapped on the door with the pistol b.u.t.t. Without waiting for an answer the Doctor pushed the door open, the revolver before him. A small man in a blue coat, his pink face sc.u.mbled with an uneven swath of bristle, looked up with alarm, a metal mug in one hand and a blackened teapot in the other.

"Good evening," said Doctor Svenson. "I am so sorry to intrude."

The porter's arms rose higher, still holding the mug and teapot.

"There is no m-money," he stammered. "The ore is still raw- p-please-"

"It could not be further from my mind," said Svenson, peering in each corner: a table, a stove, chairs, maps, a rack of shelves stuffed with tools, but no place another person might hide. "Where is the conductor?"

"Who?" replied the trainsman.

"I am looking for a man."

"The conductor would be up front."

"Yes, another man, dangerous, even mad, and perhaps a lady, or two ladies, one younger, small, and the other taller, black hair, possibly injured-even, ah, killed."

The porter did not answer. Svenson smiled brightly.

"And where are we-this station?"

"Sterridge."

"And what is Sterridge?"

"Sheep country."

"How far to the city?"

"Three hours?"

"And what other stops before we reach it?"

"Only one, at the ca.n.a.ls."

"What ca.n.a.ls?"

"Parchfeldt Junction, of course."

"Of course," echoed Svenson, with the annoyance of every traveler confronted with benign native idiocy. "How long until the train moves on?"

"Any minute." The man poked the teapot at the revolver. "You're a foreign soldier."

"Not at all," answered Svenson. "Still, I should advise you to lock the door and let no one inside. I apologize again for the disruption."

The Doctor leapt off the caboose's platform, gazing to its rooftop, the revolver raised. He saw nothing. Svenson wheeled for the front of the train. Far in front of him-and by its posture sniffing-a sinuous figure in a black cloak stood pressed at the door of a freight car like a fox against a hen coop. Svenson broke into a run.

XONCK LOOKED up, alerted by the nearing bootsteps, the lower half of his face just visible beneath the hood of his cloak, both hands wrestling with the rusted iron clasp that held the freight-car door fast. Svenson raised the pistol but stumbled badly on the rocks, just barely keeping his feet. He looked up and Xonck was gone. Had the man darted beneath the cars-or between them to lay in wait as he pa.s.sed? Or was he already scrambling to the roof? If Xonck was on the roof, he might well reach the pa.s.senger cars, and Eloise, before Svenson could cut him off. The Doctor ran past the freight car, sparing one brief glance beneath it, wondering what Xonck had smelt inside.

Xonck was not in wait-Xonck was nowhere at all. Svenson reached the landing, out of breath, just as the men at the front of the train blew their whistles. He slithered his legs over the railing with a groan. The train pulled forward and Doctor Svenson fell into the corridor, the revolver still in his hand. Staggering toward Eloise's compartment, he felt the dread lancing his spine-he was too late, she was dead, Xonck crouched at her open throat like a ghoul. But then he was at the door. Eloise lay where she had, asleep. Across from her, looking up with defiant expressions, were two of the four young men.

Svenson rolled away from the doorway to lean his back against the wall with a sigh, eyes closed. His every effort was a mindless grope in the dark.

THEY WOULD reach the Parchfeldt ca.n.a.ls in the next two hours. Eloise would know how far from the city they were, for this would be near her uncle's cottage, but Svenson did not want to wake her, nor yet confront the young men of such galling good intent. The Doctor allowed himself another cigarette. He shook out the match and stared out the windows, at the carpet of fog that clung to the dark gra.s.sland. He blew smoke at the gla.s.s, as if to add it to the fog, and wondered what had happened to Cardinal Chang. Was he in the city? Was he alive? Svenson inhaled again and shook his head. He knew this feeling from his naval service, where men who had bonded as shipmates would, upon shifting to another vessel, leave every friendship or pledge of trust behind like the crusts and bones at the end of a meal. Svenson tapped his ash to the floor. How long had he known Chang or Miss Temple compared to the crew of the Hannaniah, men who never crossed his mind, though he'd sailed with them for three years?

He remembered his own advice to Miss Temple in the silence of the spiraling airship, that she ought to face Roger Bas...o...b.. while she could, or she might forever regret it... and the girl had killed the man. Had he known that would happen-had he spurred her on to murder? Bas...o...b.. was nothing. What p.r.i.c.ked his conscience was the burden the death had set on Miss Temple's soul. Doctor Svenson recalled every death-far too many-he himself had managed, with a mortified regret. Yet he knew his advice had been correct. If Miss Temple had simply let the man drown, some vital question for her character-one that their entire adventure had, like some enormous alchemical equation, served to compound and lay before her-might not have had its answer. Did his own journey demand a similar accounting with Eloise Dujong?

HE GROUND the b.u.t.t out with the toe of his left boot and returned to the doorway of the compartment, signaling with a jerk of his chin for the two young men to return to their compartment. Svenson smiled bitterly that his adoption of the behavior of braver, harder men-like Chang or Major Blach-was so successful, for the pair did exactly as he demanded, sullen but fully deferent. He stood in the corridor until the far door had closed, listening to the m.u.f.fled racket of the train and fighting the urge for yet another smoke.

Slumping onto a seat opposite the sleeping woman, Doctor Svenson reached into his tunic and pulled out his crumpled and bloodstained handkerchief, unfolding it carefully on his palm to reveal the broken sliver of blue gla.s.s he had removed from Eloise's flesh. The sliver had been altered-no longer merely a smooth shard snapped from the rendered page of a gla.s.s book. One side now bore a whorled ridging grown from contact with Eloise's body, her blood congealing like stiff beads of sap on a newly sliced wedge of oak. He picked up the sliver between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to the dim light. Svenson felt a pressing behind his eyes and the urge to swallow, as if his throat was suddenly dry-but the gla.s.s did not absorb him. It could have been the size of the fragment, but he sensed at least some of what Eloise had said, that its contents were not whole, and as such perhaps offered no real point of entry. Svenson sighed. He pulled up the sleeve of his tunic and then the shirt beneath it, exposing his left arm-above the wrist, well clear of the artery. He took the gla.s.s piece delicately in his right hand and, with a quick glance to make sure Eloise still slept, stabbed the sliver's tip firmly into the meat.

THE p.r.i.c.k of pain was immediately swallowed by a freezing sensation that spread with astonishing speed, and with such chilling force that Doctor Svenson very nearly lost his ability to think. He fought the sudden certainty that he had done something incalculably stupid and forced his eyes to focus on the wound: the gripping cold, though he felt it extending along his veins, did not mean the flesh of his entire arm was being turned to gla.s.s. On the contrary, the altered area was actually quite small, perhaps the size of a child's fingernail. Svenson's relief came with a growing dizziness. He blinked, aware that time had become unnaturally expanded with sensation, that each breath felt trackless, and fought down another rush of panic. There... at the edge of his attention, roiling like rats in the hold of a ship, lurked the visions he had sought-but the worlds they contained were utterly unlike the seductive realms he had found in the blue gla.s.s before. These were sharp, even painful, unhinged, without coherence. Again Doctor Svenson was sure he had made a grave mistake. Then the visions were upon him.

The first was a thick black slab of stone, carved with characters Svenson did not know (and the person whose memory this was did not know either), at once overlaid, from another mind, with a harsher carving on paler, softer stone, a creature from some primitive time, with a bulbous head and too many arms-and then overlaid again with a fossilized stretch of an enormously large cephalopod, with suction cups wide as a grown man's eye... and then strangest of all came a sound, a chanting he understood was a wicked, wicked prayer. Each element bled sharply into the next, colliding in nauseous diagonals, as if the scattered bits of memory had been sliced with a scissors and reshuffled at random, or hammered together like a ball of wire and nails. Even as he winced, Svenson knew the strange carved language was located on a different stone altogether, that the music had not been heard on a deserted rocky sh.o.r.e at all, but in the close confines of a thickly carpeted drawing room, that- Just as the entire head-splitting and meaningless sequence was about to be repeated in his mind, Svenson sensed another strain in the mixture-a different, palpable quality altogether... female... though the woman's presence was the merest impression, a whisper in his ear, his senses cleaved to those of her body-her own inhabitation. And finally, like ghosts taking shape from the fog on a fearful heath, Doctor Svenson isolated three successive instants, clear as whip cracks, three tableaux so sharp in a maelstrom of lesser visions they might have been etched by lightning...

A uniformed man in a side chair waiting, head in hands, as a woman's voice rose in anger on the opposite side of a door-the man looked up, his eyes red-Arthur Trapping...

Francis Xonck within a grove of trees, kneeling to whisper to three children gathered around him...

Holding the hand of a nervous, determined Charlotte Trapping, a servant opening a door to reveal another woman waiting at the far end of a table, her dark hair tied simply with a black ribbon-Caroline Stearne, and in her hand- DOCTOR SVENSON opened his eyes. The frost in his arm had reached his shoulder, the arm gone numb. He flung the sliver of gla.s.s away and with a grimace worked the thumb of his right hand beneath the b.u.t.ton of congealed flesh that surrounded the puncture. With a wrench that hurt far more than he was prepared to withstand, the lump of crystallized flesh came free. The Doctor stabbed his handkerchief into the wound and then tightly held it there, biting the inside of his cheek at the pain. He shut his eyes and rocked back and forth in his seat. Already the cold was ebbing away in his arm, and he could flex his fingers. He let out a long and rueful sigh. He had taken a terrible risk.

He looked up and found Eloise staring at him.

"What have you done?" she whispered.

"I had a small idea," Svenson replied with a tight smile. "It has come to nothing."

"Abelard-"

"Hush, now. I promise you, there is no harm."

She watched him closely, hesitating on the edge of difficult questions. It was evident to them both he had not told the truth.

Yet as he watched Eloise settle back to sleep, Doctor Svenson knew he should have confronted her. The final three tableaux were memories from Eloise herself, transmitted through the congealed residue of her own blood. Were these memories she herself recalled, and had hidden from him-or had they been hidden from her as well, buried like a hidden seam of silver in the fibers of her body? It was another fundamental question about how the blue gla.s.s worked. Eloise was missing pieces of her mind, given over to a gla.s.s book...but what if memories taken into a book disappeared only from the forebrain, from a person's ready memory, but not necessarily altogether? Did that mean the minds of men like Robert Vandaariff or Henry Xonck might be reclaimed?

And if those experiences could be restored... what sort of person would Eloise be? Did she even know herself?