The Dark Volume mtccads-2

by Gordon Dahlquist

  “But the airship was gone,” Elöise went on. “Dragged out to sea, no doubt, by the water-logged balloon. Scraps of canvas washed ashore… but that was all.”

  “What,” Miss Temple forced herself to ask, “of the… bodies?”

  “We saw no sign. But they were inside the craft. They would be carried with it, down below.”

  “And all the glass books?”

  “All of them. And all the Comte's machines—everything they had brought to conquer Macklenburg.”

  Miss Temple exhaled. “Then it is truly finished.”

  Elöise shifted slightly.

  “And then the dead grooms were discovered—horses driven from the stable—and then the poor fisherman in his boat. The local folk have little doubt of the killer—the victims’ throats were all torn out most savagely, and this is a land where wolves are known. But after this—after Chang and Doctor Svenson had both taken their leave— the Jorgenses were discovered—”

  “But why did Chang go?”

  Elöise shifted her position to look into Miss Temple's face.

  “You and I have lived in the city. The villagers who took us in became frightened, in the sober light of day, by our strange appearance— you and I dressed as if we'd escaped a seraglio, and the Doctor a foreign soldier… but most of all by the Cardinal—his figure, the scars, the long red coat, the obvious capacity for violence. All of this brought suspicion upon us as these deaths began to appear so suddenly one after another. And of course Chang is a killer. Once the villagers began to whisper amongst themselves—once there were deaths—well, Doctor Svenson—”

  “And where is he? If he went to make sure of the road, why did he not return?”

  “I do not know.” Elöise's voice sounded hollow. “The Doctor left the day before yesterday. We… I am ashamed to say we quarreled. I am a fool. In any event, I knew that I must stay with you, and that the two of us must leave as soon as you were fit. That we were to meet them—”

  “Where?”

  “My family has a cottage, outside the city. It will be safe, and a peaceful place for you to get your strength.”

  Miss Temple was silent. None of this made a bit of sense, from the wolves to the feeble excuses given for her own abandonment. Did Elöise think her so credulous, or was Elöise still speaking for the driver to hear? Surely she did not believe such nonsense…

  Miss Temple cleared her throat.

  “Will you and Doctor Svenson be married?” she asked.

  Elöise stiffened beside her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I merely wondered.”

  “I—I'm sure I have not given it a thought—we have been too busy seeing to you, haven't we? And, my goodness, it feels we have not exchanged ten words of friendly conversation.”

  “You seemed quite disposed to one another.”

  “I barely know him, truly.”

  “When you were captured by the Comte, and taken away by Francis Xonck—at Harschmort House—the Doctor was especially keen that we save you.”

  “He is a kindly man.”

  “Why did you quarrel?”

  “I'm sure I do not remember.”

  “Perhaps you prefer Cardinal Chang,” wondered Miss Temple, her voice airy and musing. “He is more… dangerous…”

  “I have had enough of danger,” replied Elöise, with a touch of tartness. “Though I owe the Cardinal my life.”

  “What do you think of his eyes?” asked Miss Temple.

  “It is a terrible thing,” Elöise said, after a careful moment. “Im possibly cruel.”

  MISS TEMPLE recalled seeing Chang's scars for the first time at the Hotel Boniface, when he removed his glasses to look into the blue glass card Doctor Svenson had found. After several strange glimpses of one another, on trains, across the ballroom of Harschmort, in secret tunnels, the three had met unexpectedly at Miss Temple's own hotel and, in an even more unlikely turn of events, joined forces. Chang had looked into her eyes upon taking off his glasses, a deliberate mocking challenge to what he assumed was her tender, ladylike sensibility. But Miss Temple had seen such scarring before, in fact quite regularly, on the faces of her own plantation. Yet even so, she had never considered disfigurement as a regular part of her life, for it had never afflicted anyone for whom she cared. She wondered if she could have loved Roger if he had been lacking one hand, and knew in all truth she never would have opened her heart to begin with. But that was the queer thing, for she had not purposely opened her heart to Cardinal Chang—nor to the Doctor or Elöise—yet somehow he had entered its confines. It was nothing like what Miss Temple had felt upon choosing Roger Bascombe—that was a choice, and for a type of life as much as for the man himself, though she had not fully understood it at the time. Of course, it was impossible to relate men like Chang or Svenson to any reasonable type of life whatsoever.

  She looked up again at the trees, aware that a nagging itch had grown between her legs as her thoughts had wandered. If she had been alone in her room she might have allowed her hands beneath her petticoats, but with Elöise so near Miss Temple merely pressed her thighs together with a frown. It was the glass book again, the one she had looked into—been swallowed by—in the Contessa's rooms at the St. Royale. The book had contained thousands of memories—the lives of courtesans, adventurers, villains of every kind, decadent sensualists, the indulgent and the cruel—together creating a sort of opium den that had trespassed every border of her own identity, and from which she had wrenched herself free only with the most desperate effort. The problem for Miss Temple was the way the glass books captured memories—insidious, delicious, and terrifying. Looking into a book caused the viewer to physically experience the memory from the point of view—the experiential point of view—of the original source, whether this was a man or a woman. It was not as if Miss Temple had merely read a lurid account of the goings on at the Venetian Carnivale— she now remembered performing the same deeds with her own body. Her mind teemed with false memories so vivid they left her breathless.

  She had not spoken of the glass book to anyone. Yet a part of her craved a moment of conversation with the only people who would have comprehended the true extent of what she'd undergone—her darkest enemies, the Comte and the Contessa. She felt the warmth of Elöise's arm around her—for Miss Temple was a woman unused to being touched by any person save a maid doing up her corset—and at even this meager contact unbidden visions began to rise, like smoke from a slow-catching fire, abetted by the jostling cart wheels until every tingling nerve had grown to glowing. She could help it no more and shut her eyes…

  Suddenly she was inhabiting a man's body, with such wonderful strength in her arms, and in her deliciously thrusting hips… then it was the rushing thrill of another girl's greedy tongue between her legs… her hands caught the girl's head and raised her up, a smiling kiss and she tasted herself… one after another the visions flowed together—Miss Temple's face flushed as red as if her fever had returned—until another kiss, another liquid tongue, became—she realized quite abruptly with horror—the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza dragging her tongue across Miss Temple's eye with a knowing, angry, sensuous sneer. Miss Temple gasped aloud. That incident had really taken place, in Harschmort House. What did it mean that Miss Temple's true memories could be entwined so seamlessly with what she remembered from the book, as if such distinction was a boundary for the weak, or no real boundary at all? If she could not keep her own life apart from what she had consumed from the lives of others, how could she retain who she was? She sat up at once.

  “Celeste?” asked Elöise. “Are you all right? Are you too cold?”

  “I am fine,” said Miss Temple. She dabbed a pearling of sweat from her upper lip. “Perhaps there is something to eat?”

  LINA HAD packed cold mutton, hard cheese, and some loaves of country bread. Miss Temple unhappily chewed a mouthful of meat while gazing about her. The woods had continued to deepen.

  “Where exactly are we?” she asked Elöise.
<
br />   “Heading south. Beyond that I cannot say—past the forest there are apparently hills. On the other side of them we may have hope of a train.”

  “The road seems perfectly fine,” Miss Temple observed.

  “It does.”

  Miss Temple watched Elöise closely until the woman met her gaze. Miss Temple made a point of speaking loudly.

  “This forest… is this where the people were killed?”

  “I've no idea,” said Elöise.

  “I would think it must be.”

  “It is entirely possible.”

  “Did you not go there?”

  “Of course not, Celeste. The clothing was brought to me—Lina knew what we needed.”

  “So no one has seen the Jorgenses’ cabin?”

  “Of course people have seen it—the villagers who found them—”

  “But that is not the same at all,” cried Miss Temple. She called to the driver in her firmest voice. “Sir, we will require you to take us to the cabin of Mr. and Mrs. Jorgens. It is most urgent.”

  The man pulled his horse to a stop and turned. He glanced once at Miss Temple but then settled on Elöise as the person in charge. Miss Temple sighed and spoke in the most patient tone she could muster.

  “It is necessary we visit the cabin of Mr. and Mrs. Jorgens. As you can see, I am wearing the poor woman's dress. It is incumbent upon me—for religious reasons, you understand—to pay my respects to her memory. If I do not, it is impossible that I shall sleep soundly ever again.”

  The man looked again at Elöise. Then he turned and snapped the reins.

  Miss Temple took another bite of mutton, for she was extremely hungry still.

  IT WAS perhaps twenty more minutes until he stopped the cart and pointed to their left. Through the trees Miss Temple saw a winding path washed away in more than one spot, like a penciled line incompletely marred by the jagged pass of a gum eraser. She scrambled from the cart without assistance and then gave a hand to Elöise, whose expression was far from her own excitement.

  “We will not be long,” Elöise called to their driver. “It is just…just along that path?”

  He nodded—Miss Temple wondered if the man possessed a tongue—and pointed. Miss Temple took her companion's hand and pulled her away.

  The washed-out sections were moist and required careful steps to avoid thick mud, but in minutes they were out of sight of the cart, no matter how Elöise kept glancing back.

  “He will not leave us,” Miss Temple finally said.

  “I'm glad you think so,” answered Elöise.

  “Of course he won't. He has not been fully paid.”

  “But he has.”

  “You think he has, but he surely plans to charge us that much more again once we are stranded with him in the hills.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I am used to people wanting money—it is the dullest of things. But now we can speak—and look, Elöise, there it is!”

  THE CABIN was small, and nestled comfortably between the trees on one side and a lush meadow. All around them Miss Temple could see the flotsam left from the flooding rain and its recession. The air was tinged with a certain whiff of corruption, of river mud churned and spread like a stinking condiment amidst the grasses and the trees.

  “I'm sure I don't know what you hope to find,” said Elöise.

  “I do not either,” replied Miss Temple, “but I do know I have never seen a wolf in a boat. And now we can speak freely—I mean, honestly, wolves!”

  “I do not know what you would like me to say.”

  Miss Temple snorted. “Elöise, are our enemies dead or not?”

  “I have told you. I believe they are dead.”

  “Then who has done this killing?”

  “I do not know. The Doctor and Chang—”

  “Where are they? Truthfully now, why did they leave?”

  “I have been truthful, Celeste.”

  Miss Temple stared at her. Elöise said nothing. Miss Temple wavered between dismay, mistrust, and condescension. As this last came most easily to her nature, she allowed herself an inner sneer.

  “Still, as we are here, it seems perfectly irresponsible not to investigate.”

  Elöise pursed her lips together, and then gestured about them at the ground.

  “You see the many bootprints—the village people collecting the bodies. There is no hope of finding the sign of an animal's paw, nor of disproving any such signs were here.”

  “I agree completely,” said Miss Temple, but then she stopped, cocking her head. To the side of the cabin steps, pressed into the soft earth was the print of a horse's shoe—as if the horse had been tethered near the door. Miss Temple leaned closer, but found no more. What she did find, on the steps themselves, was one muddy bootprint followed by a thin trailing line.

  “What is that?” she asked Elöise.

  Elöise frowned. “It is a horseman's spur.”

  FOR ALL her bravado, Miss Temple found herself taking a deep breath when she opened the cabin door—slowly and with as little sound as possible, and wishing she'd some kind of weapon. The interior was as simple as the outside promised—one room with a cold stove, a table and workbench, and a bed—plain and small, yet large enough to hold a marriage. Beyond the bed was an achingly little cot, and beyond this Miss Temple saw the trunk where her dress had undoubtedly been kept. She felt Elöise behind her, and the two stepped fully into the room, amidst the trappings of dead lives.

  “I'm sure the others have… have cleaned,” said Elöise, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  Miss Temple turned back to the door, to the hinges and the handle.

  “Do you see scratch marks? Or anything that would suggest a forceful entry?”

  Elöise shook her head. “Perhaps Mr. Jorgens opened the door himself upon hearing a noise—they apparently had dogs, if there was barking—”

  “They were killed in bed—I saw the bedding, quite covered in blood.”

  “But that could be only one of them—when the other had opened the door, allowing the animal inside.”

  Miss Temple nodded. “Then perhaps there are signs of violence in the door's vicinity…”

  “Celeste,” began Elöise, but then stopped, sighed, and started to look as well.

  But there was nothing—no scratches, no blood, no sign at all. Miss Temple crossed to the bed—at least someone had been killed there.

  “Can you search the stove, in case anything untoward has been burned?”

  “Such as what?”

  “I'm sure I do not know, Elöise, but I speak from experience. When the Doctor, Cardinal Chang, and I searched the workroom of the Comte d'Orkancz—we knew the Comte had been keeping a woman there who had been injured by contact with the blue glass—I located a remnant of the woman's dress, which proved a helpful clue.”

  Elöise took all this in with a tolerant sigh and set to clanging about with a poker. Miss Temple pulled back the bed's patchwork quilt. The mattress below was marked with rust-brown stains, soaked through the absent sheets. The marks were heaviest near one end of the bed— the head, she assumed—but spread across its width in a series of lines and whorls.

  “There is nothing here but ash,” muttered Elöise, setting down the poker and wiping her hands with a grimace.

  “I believe both husband and wife were in the bed,” said Miss Temple. “If the Doctor were here he might confirm it—but the stains suggest two occupants. Of course, we have no idea where the bodies were found.”

  “With their throats torn out,” said Elöise, “the blood would be prodigious.”

  “Where was the child?”

  “What child?”

  “There is her cot,” said Miss Temple. “Surely you would have been told…”

  Elöise sighed. “After a certain point it was simpler not to mix with the villagers at all. Perhaps there is an orphan. Lina never said.”

  “But was she here?” asked Miss Temple. “Did she see it?”
<
br />   “Of course she wasn't,” said Elöise. “Any wolf would have killed a child as well.”

  Miss Temple did not reply. She stepped past the bed to the small cabin's only window. It was latched, but she could see, fine as the tip of a needle drawn across the worn wood, a tiny scratch. Something sharp had been driven between the frame and the pane. Miss Temple slipped the latch and pulled the window open, only to have it stick half-way.

  “The wood has warped,” said Elöise, pointing to an imperfection in the upper frame.

  Miss Temple leaned forward and looked out the window to the ground, some five feet below. Who could say what climbing or jumping might be possible? She was about to shove it closed when her eye caught something flicked by the wind. At first it seemed a shred of cobweb, but when she reached out to take it she saw it was a hair. She plucked it from the splinter where it had snagged. A very black hair, and some two feet long.

  IF THERE was anything else to find in the cabin, it escaped them. Retracing their steps across the moist forest floor, Miss Temple glanced at Elöise, who walked ahead. The one black hair was wound in a loop and stuffed into the pocket of her dress—Miss Temple's dress had no pockets (not that she normally sought pockets, it was why one carried a bag, or walked with servants). Elöise's hand persisted in absently plucking at it as they went, as if her mind wrestled with the truth behind their discovery.

  Miss Temple took the moment to study Elöise—for she had not before in all their time together taken any particular time to examine the woman, involved as they had been with fires and killings and airships. The tutor's brown hair was piled sensibly behind her head and held in place with small black pins. To her sudden surprise Miss Temple noticed within Elöise's hair one thin strand of grey—and then upon searching, two or three more. Exactly how old was she? To Miss Temple the very idea of a grey hair was outlandish, but she accepted that time did grind all before it (if not in equal measure) and became curious about how such a thing felt. Such projection of interest, if not sympathy, drew Miss Temple's eyes down Elöise's body, where she found herself satisfied by the woman's practical carriage, her slim but sturdy shoulders, and her ability to walk without whinging over muddy and rough terrain. Of course, she knew Elöise had been married, and that married life expanded a woman's experience in a way that left Miss Temple morally ambivalent. On the one hand, experience tended to improve a person by removing illusions—and at the least giving them more to speak of at the table—but on the other, there was so often in married women a certain vein of mitigation, of knowledge that served to reduce rather than expand their thoughts. She suddenly wondered if Elöise had children. Had she ever had children? Had they possibly died?