The Dark Volume

by Gordon Dahlquist

  Svenson stood, gathering the top of the sack into a knot. Mr. Potts was approaching from the stand of black stones.

  “You must trust me and say nothing,” the Doctor whispered quickly. “What this holds is unnatural—to even touch it is to put your very life at risk.”

  MR. POTTS informed them with a satisfied smile that someone had been using the rocks as a campsite, and that this person possessed a horse. The searchers had also discovered another spray of blue pebbles leading away from the rocks, into the hills. He looked at the sack in Svenson's hand but did not ask about it.

  “Is the person with the horse related to the blue stones?” asked Svenson.

  “I cannot say,” replied Potts, his eyes carefully moving across their faces.

  Mr. Bolte nodded sharply and announced that the search must continue, pursuing the trail of stones. Potts shouted over his shoulder to the other men, but paused, staring narrowly at the Doctor, before stalking off to lead them.

  Svenson turned to Mr. Carper. “How many fellows exactly are with us?”

  Carper frowned. “I believe it is six, and Mr. Bolte and myself. And yourself.”

  “Six counting Mr. Potts?”

  “Yes, six with Potts. Nine with everyone, including you. Why do you ask?”

  “Mere idleness. And apart from those staves, do any possess… weapons?”

  “The staves are quite stout,” answered Carper. “Do you mean fire arms?”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “I would doubt there are five guns in all of Karthe. I believe Mr. Potts possesses a pistol.”

  “He does?”

  “Well, he is a hunter.”

  “I did not know hunters often used pistols.”

  “No,” said Carper, smiling, “that is what is so convenient for us! I should much prefer to shoot a wolf than kill it with our staves.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And yet… as you say… it may be no wolf at all.”

  Svenson did not reply at once, then dropped his voice even lower.

  “It may—I hesitate to say—but our quarry may in fact be… a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “It is possible… perhaps I am wrong—”

  “You must be, sir! For a woman to do such violence—and to a child!”

  Svenson exhaled, not entirely sure where to begin, but Carper had reached his own conclusion, the fat man's breath rasping in clouds before his face.

  “If you are correct—with so many of us, she must surrender. We will not be called on to shoot a woman.”

  There were calls from the darkness ahead of them.

  “I believe Mr. Potts has found something,” said the Doctor.

  AT THE turning were signs of another struggle: flattened grass, a dark woolen wrap, and more glass—but this in smooth, broken wedges, not the rounded drips they had followed. Mr. Potts knelt over the glass, Mr. Bolte standing above him. It was clear by Potts' dark glare as the Doctor approached that the Ministry man had been told about the book. Svenson called out sharply as he saw Potts extend his hand.

  “Do not touch it!”

  Potts jerked his hand away, and stood with a triumphant sneer, making room for Svenson.

  “It is just like what you discovered in the rocks,” whispered Mr. Bolte.

  “Exactly,” said Svenson, to cut him off.

  The pieces of glass were impossibly thin, snapped from an inner page of a book, and starred along their length, as if they had been shattered.

  “I should be grateful to know your thoughts,” said Potts.

  “You would be even more grateful not to, I assure you,” the Doctor told him.

  “I do insist. I will have no more secrets.”

  “Then tell us where your fellow hunters are now? Your party.”

  “What is that to do with our search?” asked Mr. Bolte. “Surely we are enough—”

  “It is to do with what they hunt, as Mr. Potts well knows.”

  “My companions are reputable men.”

  “Soldiers of the Queen?”

  “They are not well-known criminals,” spat Potts, “like your Cardinal Chang.”

  “Cardinal Chang has been accounted for,” interrupted Svenson. “Your party has not. Your own arrogance shows exactly how little you do understand your prey—dangerous prey, as that poor child has proven with his life.”

  “What prey, Doctor?” snarled Potts. “Tell us all!”

  “The Doctor mentioned a woman,” said Mr. Carper.

  Svenson wheeled to find Carper directly behind him, holding up the woolen wrap.

  “Do you know it?” Mr. Bolte asked Svenson.

  “Not at all,” replied the Doctor.

  Mr. Bolte turned to Potts. “Do you? Do you know any woman here?”

  Mr. Potts shook his head. He glanced down at the glass shards and then back to Svenson with a cold, knowing gaze. As if in silent answer to all of their questions Doctor Svenson stepped forward and with deliberate strikes of his boot heel smashed the glass fragments into glittering powder, then scuffed as much dirt as would come loose on top of the pile.

  Potts pointed above them, farther into the hills.

  “The trail continues. Perhaps we've argued enough.”

  IT WAS another hour of steady climbing before they stopped again, by which time the air had grown quite cold. Without the slightest regard for propriety, Mr. Carper had thrown the woolen wrap across his shoulders. Ahead, at the front of the line—a line that had become distended as their journey increased and the urgency of their errand diminished with the deepening chill—Svenson saw Mr. Potts conferring earnestly with Mr. Bolte, and knew he ought to take part, if only to defend himself. But Doctor Svenson was tired and still too generally touched with despair not to instead take a cigarette from his case and light a match. He looked above him at the dense carpet of low cloud, so near it seemed he might exhale directly into its smoky mass. He offered the case to Mr. Carper, who shook his head, and then looked up to approaching footsteps—Bolte and Potts bringing the conversation to Svenson.

  “It has grown late,” began Mr. Bolte. “Mr. Potts suggests we stop.”

  “And go back?” asked Mr. Carper, hopefully.

  “That would take half-way to morning,” announced Potts. “Apparently there is an old mine just ahead. Shelter enough, and we may make a fire.”

  “Have we any food?” asked Carper.

  “We did not think to bring it,” snapped Potts, glaring at Svenson, as if the lack of a dinner was his doing.

  The fire was made in a long roofless hut, the far end sloping into shadows where a deep shaft had been sealed with a hammered-together wall of boards. Across a small clearing were two more huts, one also roofless and the other—because of the roof—a haven for nesting birds, its floor crusted and foul.

  “I have told you exactly the truth,” said Potts, his sharp features etched deeper in the firelight. “I joined a hunting party—”

  “Hunting what?” asked Svenson.

  “Deer,” replied Potts. “And wild boar.”

  “Boar?” asked Mr. Bolte. “At this time of year?”

  “I am no expert,” said Potts. He sighed with a sudden peevishness. “I am no particular hunter at all.”

  “No,” said Svenson. “That would be your Captain… what was his name?”

  “Captain Tackham,” yawned Carper. “I came up with them on the train. Elegant fellow for a soldier, I must say.”

  “Mrs. Daube told me the party went separate ways to hunt,” said Svenson to Potts. “I wonder who went north… and if they have returned.”

  “The Captain,” said Potts. “According to Mrs. Daube he returned and then went out again, searching elsewhere—there can be nothing, no good game, in the north.”

  “And what about this woman?” asked Mr. Bolte, poking the fire and looking seriously at Svenson across the rising sparks. “A woman is responsible for all this death? I confess that makes no sense to me.”

  Svenson met the
gaze of Mr. Potts, who seemed just as concerned about the question as he himself. Perhaps, as far as the men of Karthe were concerned, they shared a desire to keep their business as hidden as possible…

  “I will tell you all I know,” Svenson replied, and reached into his coat for another cigarette. “Though I cannot pretend to possess an answer to her particular mystery. Even her name may be a fiction— Rosamonde, Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.” He glanced at Potts, but the man's face betrayed nothing.

  “She is Italian?” asked Bolte.

  “Venetian, I was told,” said Svenson, deliberately deepening his own accent. “Though that too is most likely a lie… I myself first made her acquaintance in a private room of the St. Royale Hotel, in search of my charge—the Crown Prince of Macklenburg, Karl-Horst von Maasmärck. Do you know the St. Royale? It is an extraordinary place—the lobby is like an Ottoman palace, with carved columns and walls of mirror and marble—you can just imagine the sort of woman who keeps a whole suite of rooms there to herself! But, yes, the Prince—I was the Prince's personal physician—the Contessa was an intimate of the Prince's fiancée, Miss Lydia Vandaariff, though she was more truly an intimate of the girl's father, Lord Robert Vandaariff, whose name you must know, even in Karthe, for he must be reckoned one of the wealthiest men of the age—the Contessa being in fact a member of Lord Vandaariff's inner circle of advisors with regard to a particular business strategy involving my country of Macklenburg— thus his daughter's alliance in marriage with the Prince—mining rights, to be precise, which must interest you gentlemen very much, and then in turn manufacturing, shipping, markets in general—in any case, in this particular private room, the Contessa was, if I recall correctly—and I'm sure I do, for if ever there was a striking woman, it is she—wearing a dress of red silk, a Chinese red, which as you will know is a color that possesses more yellow in it than, for example, what one would call ‘crimson’—a very striking choice when set against the woman's very black hair…”

  He was gratified to see Mr. Bolte yawn, and pressed ahead with this pattern of detail and digression, giving at all times the impression of complete cooperation without ever revealing anything of substance regarding the Cabal, not even the airship and why such a woman would be in Karthe to begin with. Instead, by the time his narrative had paused to describe the labyrinthine interiors of Harschmort House, his only remaining listener was Mr. Potts, across the fire. The Doctor allowed his sentence to drift into silence and he reached for another cigarette. Mr. Potts smirked at the slumbering men around them.

  “An amusing stratagem.”

  “They have no need to know,” said Svenson. “I do not claim to know who has precisely sent you.”

  “You will accompany me back to the city,” snarled Potts.

  Svenson looked up at him. “Quite possibly.”

  “Without question.”

  “Mr. Potts, I appeal to you—you have seen for yourself this violence, the unnatural effects of the blue glass, the wickedness—”

  “I know that, alone amongst my fellows, I have discovered my enemy.”

  Svenson snapped with exasperation, “Alone amongst your fellows? Mr. Potts, what does that tell you? What do you think has happened to them?”

  Potts chuckled greedily. “They are unluckily blundering about the woods, while I capture—from your own description—the prime quarry of them all!”

  “Quarry? Not ally? Not mistress?”

  “It can be none of your concern.”

  “You tempt fate to speak before you have her in hand.”

  “Not in the slightest.” Potts smiled. “If I read these signs correctly she is gravely ill. Your proud villainess has been reduced to killing children. Speaking of which…” From his pocket the man extracted a large naval revolver, the black metal gleaming with oil. “You will give me what you found.”

  The large revolver was an unlikely weapon for the dapper Ministry man, one that required strength to be accurate, given the recoil, or simply a knowledge that anyone he was likely to shoot would be at point-blank range. It meant that either Potts was a cold killer or that he was ignorant of firearms altogether.

  “I will not,” said Svenson, nodding to the sleeping men around them. “You will do nothing.”

  Potts hesitated and then stuffed the weapon away. Svenson breathed a sigh of relief for the lack of bloodshed, but in the same moment knew he was dealing with a dangerous fool.

  “It is not the time,” sniffed Potts, officiously. “And as you say, the business is not finished. But do not doubt me, Doctor. If you try to escape I will shoot you dead—no matter who sees it.”

  POTTS SHOVED more wood onto the fire, and Svenson took the opportunity to excuse himself, aware that the other man would have the pistol trained on his back the entire time. He stumbled to the bird-stinking hut and relieved himself in its shadow. When he returned, Potts had lain down next to the fire, his eyes closed. Svenson smoked a last cigarette, tossed the butt into the embers, pulled the peacoat more tightly around him, and shut his eyes, the glass book in its sack at his side.

  When he opened his eyes, the hut was dark. The stone pit still smoked but the fire was dead. Mr. Potts was gone. Svenson's hand went instantly to the sack, felt the weight of the book—but it wasn't right, it wasn't smooth. He opened it up, could not see inside, and with an instant's hesitation thrust his hand in and touched not glass but a rough block of stone. With a snarl, he scrambled to his feet, winding the sack around his hand so he could swing the rock like a mace.

  He did not have far to walk. Mr. Potts stood in the center of the clearing, under the cloud-shrouded moon. He was not holding the book. Had the fool dropped it?

  “Mr. Potts,” Svenson whispered. “Mr. Potts!”

  Potts turned, eyes unfocused, as if unable to place Svenson yet knowing he ought to. The man's chin was streaked with a dark film, and Svenson wrinkled his nose at the smell of bile.

  “Where is the book, Mr. Potts?”

  “Who?”

  “Not who, what! The book! Where is it?”

  In response, Mr. Potts whimpered and rubbed his eyes. His hand was smeared with black liquid.

  “Potts—yes, of course—I remember.”

  “Where is the book?” Svenson reached out to shake the man's shoulder. Mr. Potts smiled weakly, but his eyes were wild.

  “Most important is the quality of paint—the chemicals ground into the paint to make colors—every chemical in life possesses properties—”

  “Mr. Potts—”

  “Chemical properties, fundamental energies!” whispered Potts, abruptly terrified, as if this was a secret he did not care to know. “One might even ask if there is anything else to life at all!”

  Svenson slapped Mr. Potts across the face. Potts staggered, blinked, opened his mouth, but found no voice. He looked into Svenson's eyes, blinked again, and the words came out in a fearful croak.

  “What… has… happened?”

  “Mr. Potts—”

  “Who am I?”

  “Where is the book, Mr. Potts? Where did you leave it?”

  But Mr. Potts was biting his trembling lip, attempting to not cry.

  Svenson dragged Potts to the roofless shed. He shoved Potts in and snapped a match to a candle stub—another ring of blackened stones, travelers' rubbish, with the far end of this shed also blocked off with planking, another shaft… and there, the canvas sack. It was empty.

  “An important problem is viscosity,” whispered Potts.

  “Tell me!” hissed Svenson. “Where is it?”

  Now the man was sobbing. “She was only a girl. I have a daughter myself…”

  Svenson wrinkled his nose with distaste. A new draft in the open shed had filled it with a tell-tale reek… was it from Potts or the shaft? The planking had been pulled away and then hastily pressed back into place, but at the simplest touch—as Svenson himself proved with a tug—the boards came off. The reek of indigo clay rose even stronger. He thought of the blue vomit in the privy
…

  “Mr. Potts… you are confused and frightened, but in no danger. You must help me find the book if I am going to help you—”

  But Potts shook free, stumbling into the yard. He pointed to the larger shed, where the other men still slept.

  “They are doomed,” he whispered.

  A sudden spike of fear shot the length of Doctor Svenson's spine. He strode past Potts—the candle going out—and then wheeled around, digging without apology in the man's pockets and pulling out the revolver. He entered the larger shed, cocking the hammer with his other hand… each man seemed to be where he had left them, undisturbed by Mr. Potts' babbling. Svenson sighed with relief, then looked back. Potts had dropped into a crouch, hugging his knees and muttering. The Doctor's attention was taken by a shadow in the far corner, near the blocked-off shaft. Was someone else awake? Keeping his eye fixed on a darkness he could not penetrate, Svenson dug with his free hand for another match. He struck it and looked down at Bolte. A glittering line of blue like the drag of a paint-clogged brush across the man's throat.

  Svenson dropped the match with a start. He raised the pistol toward the shadow in the corner, only to see it swell in size before him. He fired, the sound impossibly loud, but the shadowed figure—a man in a cloak?—darted to the side and was on Svenson before he could shoot again. A shocking blow knocked the Doctor down, the pistol flying from his hand. He groped to his knees, shouting to wake the others—the shadow was between him and the outside yard—and took another hideous blow to his shoulder, toppling him back again. Utterly dazed, Svenson felt himself picked up by the lapels of his coat. He looked into a reeking, dark-lipped, dripping mouth, a pale face whose eyes were wild. The Doctor was thrown with savage force through the wall of planking, a rag doll tumbling down into the shaft.

  HE AWOKE with his head pointing downward and his legs above in an uncomfortable tangle. Something pulled at his hair and he very carefully reached down to it, probing the area with half-numbed fingers. A gash had opened on the side of his skull, not too bad, but it had bled and the blood had dried. How long would that have taken? He was terribly cold. His head throbbed cruelly, as did his shoulder and the left side of his rib cage. He feebly groped around him—damp rock and earth, a steeply angled slope. He felt for a match, wondering how many he had left, but could not find the box—had it flown from his pocket? Svenson looked above him… a fretful penumbra of light, yards above. He listened, heard absolutely nothing save his own ragged breath, and began, with the grace of an upended turtle, to turn his body and climb.