The Chemickal Marriage mtccads-3

by Gordon Dahlquist

  At a swinging wooden door he paused and peered into a scullery. A heavy steel cleaver stuck up from a butcher’s block, and Svenson wrenched with both hands until the blade came free. A woman in dark livery watched from an inner doorway. Past her more servants gathered around a teapot.

  ‘Everyone all right?’ whispered Svenson.

  The woman nodded.

  ‘Excellent. Stay here – you’ve all been told, haven’t you?’

  The woman nodded. Svenson turned for the door, then craned his head back. ‘Beg your pardon – so much has changed – the western wing?’

  ‘No one goes there, sir.’

  The cook was joined by the others, the increase in numbers heightening the dubious nature of his uniform, his accent, his filthy appearance.

  ‘That’s my cutting knife,’ said one of the men.

  ‘I will not abuse it.’ With an afterthought Svenson sketched a bow of thanks. ‘Not to worry. I do serve the Queen.’

  The disapproving man only pursed his lips. ‘Queen’s an old haddock.’

  Where the staircase had stood was a wall of new-laid brick, unplastered and without a door. This route blocked, Svenson followed the path of recent construction and eventually met voices, coming near. He scrambled behind a cloth-draped statue of an Eastern goddess (nearly putting out his eye on a finger of her fourth arm). The voices went past: two men in green with carbines guarding a half-dozen shambling, bandaged grenadiers.

  He walked on, gripping the cleaver. The corridor was gritty with plaster and sawdust, and ended at a wide, high foyer. He had reached the front of the house. Svenson flattened himself against the wall.

  The foyer was filled with bodies: grenadiers. Unlike the Customs House, these men were not dead: they stirred and moaned, slowly regaining their senses. A group of six, standing shakily, was bullied to order by Vandaariff’s militia.

  More of Vandaariff’s men marched through the main door carrying the same boxes that Kelling had so assiduously cared for. These men wore brass helmets, and dropped the boxes without ceremony. There was no sign of Kelling, or of Bronque. Perhaps they were still outside. Perhaps they’d been killed.

  The western wing lay beyond the foyer, but Svenson could not cross without being seen – any more than he could remain where he was. The group of grenadiers began to trudge towards Svenson’s arch. He retreated to a squat piece of cloth-covered furniture and ducked under the sheet, only to find a solid Chinese trunk. Svenson curled into a ball. The footfalls passed by, endlessly, but finally he tugged the cloth from his head. Not ten yards away on the opposite wall, similarly peeking from his own shroud, was a young man Svenson did not know.

  Carefully the young man slipped free of his hiding place and Svenson recognized the figure who had followed from the canal – orange coat, brass helmet, canvas satchel. He pointed deliberately to the floor.

  ‘We must go down,’ he whispered.

  Svenson nodded. ‘First we must cross the foyer.’

  The young man reached into the satchel, coming out with a pair of blue glass balls. He offered one to Svenson, but the Doctor shook his head, leaning close. ‘They have helmets – more than enough to stop us. Still, I have an idea.’

  ‘What is that?’

  The Doctor carefully laid the cleaver on the young man’s throat. ‘That you are my prisoner, Mr Pfaff.’

  The last grenadiers were being roused with kicks. Svenson’s quick count of Vandaariff’s men stalled at fifteen, four or five in helmets. Keeping to the wall, he and Pfaff advanced nearly halfway to the far wing before they were seen. The curiosity of Svenson holding a knife to Pfaff’s neck prevented an immediate clash. Instead, Vandaariff’s men formed a line to hem them in, carbines raised. Svenson addressed them as calmly as he could.

  ‘I am here for Lord Robert Vandaariff. If prevented, I will take the life of this man. Since Lord Vandaariff desires him whole, whoever amongst you provokes my action will pay the penalty. I will speak to Mr Foison.’

  ‘You’ll speak to me,’ replied a senior guard, shouldering through the line.

  ‘I am Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson of the Macklenburg Navy. This man is named Pfaff. He has information vital to Lord –’

  ‘Svenson?’

  ‘That is correct – and I assure you, unless you allow …’

  The Doctor faltered, for the senior guard had taken a paper from his pocket and, upon consulting it, signalled to his men. The four in helmets strode forcefully towards Svenson and Pfaff, then knelt to lift two panels in the floor, exposing a staircase leading down. The drone of machines echoed from below.

  ‘The Warden. You are expected,’ said the guard. ‘Leave the satchel and the helmet.’

  The carbines snapped back to readiness. Pfaff eased the satchel and helmet to the floor.

  ‘And the knife.’

  Svenson dropped the cleaver with a clang. The guard motioned them to the stairs. The soldiers who’d opened the stair doors stood just out of reach … but they did not spring.

  In a moment of strange calm, Doctor Svenson reached into his tunic for the red tin, took a cigarette, tucked the tin away and struck a match. He exhaled, and tossed the match aside. Still none of the green-coats attacked. Still mystified, Svenson descended, boots rapping the steel steps like a pair of mallets. Pfaff came after, and his head had just cleared the edge when the panels above them were unceremoniously slammed shut. Both men flinched, Svenson groping for the rail.

  ‘What did he mean, “Warden”?’ asked Pfaff.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Their shadows danced above them as they went, elongated demon shapes with twisting limbs. At its base the staircase vanished into black water, like a pen in a massive inkwell. Across the dark pool, too far to jump, awaited a brick wall and a door of unpainted oak.

  ‘Do you think it’s deep?’ asked Pfaff.

  ‘I do.’ Svenson knelt and cupped a palm. The water beaded on his skin like oil. ‘It’s warm … and filthy from the machines. I should not drink it.’

  ‘I had no desire to.’

  Svenson thrust his hand into the water and shoved forward, sending small waves at the door. He stood. ‘Come.’

  ‘Where?’

  Svenson extended one foot deliberately over the pool and stepped down. The water did not rise above the ankle of his boot. He used his second foot to kick another wave.

  ‘Look where the ripples break. There are stones beneath, in a path. Simple, really.’

  He picked his way to the door, Pfaff following only after having rolled up his precious chequered trousers. ‘Why would anyone do this?’ Pfaff muttered. ‘Take all this trouble?’

  ‘To keep people like us out. And I suppose stepping stones instead of a path because the water needs to flow freely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To power the machines.’ Svenson reached the door and turned. ‘But it isn’t salt water.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Pfaff balanced on the last stone, waiting for him to open the door and make room. Svenson did not.

  ‘It means the river. Where is the Contessa, Mr Pfaff?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Of course you know.’

  ‘Open that door.’ Pfaff filled his hands with a slim knife and a brass-knuckle guard.

  Svenson nodded across the black water to the stairs. ‘You should go back. The soldiers will not harm you if you do.’

  Pfaff spat in the water. So answered, Svenson opened the door and stepped into a scene of his own hell.

  Copper wire had been strung around the room on hooks, well away from the floor, which was awash with filthy water like a slaughterhouse with blood. Around a medical table stood a dozen figures in white robes. A large man lay strapped to the table, his face obscured by a black rubber mask that bristled with tubes and wires, his skin the colour of cherrywood.

  A robed acolyte knelt to insert a bolt of blue glass into a brass box-stand, one of several strung together. Another acolyte fitted wire inside a wooden
box lined with orange felt. Each discarded box cluttering the corners of the room meant another convert, and the faces looking up at their entrance, eyes peering through red livid rings, lacked any expression save cold will.

  ‘Get away from him,’ called Svenson.

  ‘We will not,’ replied an acolyte at the head of the table, gripping a brass handle.

  ‘I am named Warden of this ritual, by your master. This one is not to be reborn.’

  ‘How do we know you speak the truth?’ asked the man with the handle. His hood hung loose around his shoulders and Svenson glimpsed a grenadier uniform: one of Bronque’s adjutants, captured and already made Vandaariff’s slave.

  ‘Do you presume?’ Svenson replied haughtily, but felt his ignorance. Nowhere did he recall any warden. What was he intended to do? ‘Where is the Executioner?’ he demanded. ‘Where is the Virgo Lucifera? Where is the Bride?’

  The adjutant of grenadiers only shook his head.

  ‘Then find them!’ shouted Svenson. ‘How else can we continue? Hurry!’

  He stabbed a finger at the exit – a curtain, he saw – and the acolytes retreated, bowing and bobbing … all except the adjutant, who remained, still ready to throw the switch. Svenson approached, looking stern.

  ‘Why do you delay?’

  The adjutant swallowed, fighting some inner command. ‘I … I have surrendered my will, in order to be free … my desires have been redeemed …’ His mouth groped for words. ‘The – the –’

  ‘Where is Colonel Bronque?’ Svenson asked gently.

  The adjutant shook his head.

  ‘Where is Mrs Kraft?’

  ‘Consumed. Consumed. Every last soul shall be –’

  Pfaff’s brass-bound fist shot into the adjutant’s jaw. Svenson leapt for the handle as the man toppled, luckily, backwards.

  ‘Good Lord! If he had fallen the other way –’

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked Pfaff, looking down at Mahmoud.

  ‘He is not. Untie him, wake him – we must know what happened.’ Svenson prised the mask from Mahmoud’s face, wincing at the clinging layer of gelatin, smeared to conduct the electrical charge. Instead of helping, Pfaff crossed to the curtain.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Why did they listen to you?’

  ‘Because obviously Vandaariff left instructions –’

  ‘And you made a bargain,’ Pfaff sneered.

  Svenson pulled at the restraints. ‘Everyone has made bargains. While Vandaariff holds Miss Temple or Chang, he is convinced he can command my aid – and so names me Warden to put me near him, where I can defend him against Schoepfil … or you.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Pfaff ducked through the curtain and was gone.

  No doubt because of his size, more of the blue glass balls had been employed against Mahmoud to bring him down, and Svenson could not rouse him. The large man was too much to carry. Svenson could only leave him where he was.

  Outside the curtain waited a second, wider moat, churning and black. On the opposite side rose another flight of iron steps. The wall behind the staircase bore a line of square embrasures, one of which had its metal grille bent aside. Pulses of water – translucent and clean – slopped over the embrasure’s lip and into the pool.

  Svenson carefully negotiated another set of hidden stones. No wet prints from Pfaff climbed the steps – had he bent aside the grille? Svenson was tempted to follow, but reasoned that the sooner he reached Vandaariff the better. The stairs rose to an open trapdoor. He climbed through and gazed about in wonder. If Schoepfil’s makeshift arrangement in the railway carriage had been a pencil sketch of Vandaariff’s prowess, here was a full work executed in oil: more machines with more wires, more hoses, and two large medical tables in the centre. Around the tables, instead of paltry footbaths, hulked five massive coffin-shaped tubs, with space for a sixth. Each tub perched atop a brass-legged dais, like giant, gleaming scarabs. At the beetle’s mouth lurked an ugly crucible chamber, each primed with a bolt of blue glass.

  The walls were painted in the style of Oskar Veilandt, though Svenson felt the execution differed … another artist, or the same artist with an older and unsteady set of hands? Much of it echoed the massive painting from Vienna … but as much again had been changed, reimagined. Had Vandaariff’s practical knowledge deepened? Or had his desires changed? Or had a scrap of the old financier’s practical mind remained to assert itself?

  Doctor Svenson cupped his hands around his mouth and called: ‘Robert Vandaariff! Oskar Veilandt! I am here!’

  ‘So you are, my Warden. Welcome.’

  Framed in a small archway, Robert Vandaariff stood wearing a white robe, with a half-mask of white feathers over his haggard face. One blackened hand lay on a squat rostrum that sprouted a mix of knobs and handles. A second archway was at Vandaariff’s back, through which Svenson glimpsed a fountain swirling orange and blue. From the reflections Svenson perceived that Vandaariff was sealed away by protective walls of glass. Vandaariff turned a knob on the rostrum and a door closed, blocking off the fountain room.

  Svenson wondered if he could use one of the smaller machines to smash the glass. ‘I am not yours. If you do not surrender I will do my best to sabotage every piece of equipment you have.’

  Vandaariff shook his head. ‘But, Doctor, surrender is exactly what I intend!’

  ‘Then enough of this nonsense. Too many people are in danger, and your fortune –’ He checked himself. ‘Robert Vandaariff’s fortune – cannot be passed to dangerous fools.’

  ‘We agree again. It is a shame we have not taken tea.’

  ‘It is a shame I have not shot you through the heart.’

  ‘Don’t play-act a man you are not. Do you imagine I have not divined your nature?’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Enough words. See those souls you – you alone – protect.’

  With a sudden chill, Svenson turned to the line of tubs.

  ‘Protect or sacrifice, dear Doctor, whichever you choose.’

  The acolytes Svenson had driven from below – and that many more again – returned to the room hauling a sixth porcelain tub with its brass undercarriage. Black hoses were attached and dark fluid poured inside.

  The sixth tub contained Madelaine Kraft, her honey-coloured skin covered with painted symbols, as senseless as she’d been in the Old Palace. Now she floated naked in a rust-red fluid.

  An acolyte approached the glass wall with a bow. ‘All is ready, my lord.’

  Svenson gaped at Professor Trooste’s red-scarred face. ‘Dear God.’

  ‘Very well!’ Vandaariff did not hide his pleasure at Svenson’s dismay. ‘Proceed.’

  Trooste clapped his hands and several acolytes followed him out. More attended to the tubs, wary of the Doctor’s interference, but he was too stricken at seeing whom they held: Mr Kelling, Colonel Bronque, Matthew Harcourt, Michel Gorine and, last of all, poor Cunsher, his lank hair suspended in the viscous liquid.

  ‘Abate your concern, Doctor – worse decisions await. Nothing is forbidden. Habituate yourself to that fact.’

  Svenson did not reply. Any attempt to save them now would fail – he could not, unarmed, defeat so many – and cast away any chance of saving them later. That every tub was fitted with a glass-charged undercarriage meant that a vast amount of power would be channelled into each: the thought of a well-seasoned broth came foully to mind. These were living beings, laid out like stew-meat in a kitchen. The entire enterprise, every lusciously fashioned, brass-bound inch of it, was obscene.

  ‘It won’t work,’ he shouted to the glass. ‘I see the sepsis in your hands – you’re rotting from within. That you can stand is a miracle.’

  ‘No miracle, Doctor – deliberately timed. Though time does run short …’

  Svenson followed Vandaariff’s eyes. Mr Foison limped into the room, a bloody bandage wrapped around his right thigh. Vandaariff’s dapper captain had become as dishevelled as the Doctor. In one hand he held a
silver knife and in the other a leather case. With a horrible certainty Svenson knew it was the same case he’d passed to Miss Temple in the Thermæ.

  On Foison’s heels bustled Trooste and his acolytes, bearing Cardinal Chang, naked to the waist and senseless. Before Svenson could move, Foison raised the knife.

  ‘Is – is he …’

  ‘Dead? No.’ Foison nodded to the leather case. ‘But neither, would I say, is Cardinal Chang at home.’

  Chang was strapped face down on a table, head in a padded frame, as if for surgery. An acolyte carefully cleaned the scar at the base of his spine. Svenson grimaced at the increased inflamation.

  ‘Mr Foison has been impetuous, but the vessel has arrived.’ Vandaariff broke into a gurgling cough, groped for a shallow bowl and then retched into it, a clot of curdled aspic. ‘I am … unclean – not meant for such a fragile basin … yet to be rid of it is to die.’

  ‘You will find no relief.’ Svenson called. ‘Robert Vandaariff was a healthy man at Parchfeldt, before contact with that book, and in a few months his body’s been destroyed. Though Chang is healthier still, the same will happen. No matter how you may try to prepare him alchemically, you will find only the same unstoppable decay.’

  ‘Contact with a book?’ murmured Vandaariff. ‘What book? I have consulted physicians by the score. The precipice I occupy is due to consumption aggravated by an especially grievous bout of blood fever. With no other avenue available, I have turned to the late Comte’s intriguing research.’

  He shrugged at Foison, as if to apologize for Svenson’s offensive theories.

  ‘That is a lie,’ Svenson said to Foison. ‘He needs you to protect him.’

  Trooste took a beaker of red liquid from Mrs Kraft’s tub and raised it to the light. An acolyte stood ready with a tray of flasks. Trooste poured the beaker back into the tub and selected a flask, sprinkling its contents judiciously … bright flakes gleaming gold. The flask was capped and they moved on to Mr Harcourt. Another beaker to the light, and another flask, but for Harcourt it was a sprinkling of dark pellets.