Gloaming

by Charlotte E. English

  The door led her into a serene morning-room with windows of green stained glass, and a pale, feathery carpet. A large sofa beckoned, clad sumptuously in dark green, and she sank gratefully into it, requiring a moment’s rest to compose herself. Had she really just entered somebody’s storeroom and robbed it of a neckcloth? She could not be certain that it belonged to Walkelin. Even if it did, what had it been doing in that box? Who had put it there? Had she done more harm than good in removing it? Perhaps she had just disgracefully thieved the thing.

  But she had not tried to. It had foisted itself upon her, and she doubted not that she was chosen as messenger, not thief. All she could do was ensure the neckcloth was taken to Walkelin — provided she could find her way back to the Wind’s Tower. The Brightening would soon come, and if she was not mistaken in her surmise, it would bring with it a more rational arrangement of the house. But what use was that? She had found the tower by mistake, and during the natural light of the day. What road could she take to find it again, if she were to try?

  There followed a half-hour of pure confusion, for door after door carried Oriane through such a dizzying succession of disparate chambers that she was left at a loss. Nor could she retrace her steps, for returning back the way she had come never did take her back anywhere; there was only onward and ever onward, and never where she wanted to go. Exasperated and increasingly chilled, she draped the neckcloth around her own neck to keep it safe and tucked her frozen hands under the folds of her shawls. She was wearing two: her own woollen shawl over her gown, and the moss-made one over the top of that. The extra warmth thawed her stiffened fingers, and she was able to face the next chamber and the next with a somewhat renewed equanimity.

  So many different places had she visited in such quick succession that she had all but stopped paying attention to what any of them were like; she paused long enough only to note that this, still, was not the Wind’s Tower, and on she went. But at length she was obliged to stop, for upon entering an odd, echoing room with a domed roof, no windows and too many sides, dominated by a very strange clock, she found that the door through which she had entered was not at all disposed to let her leave again. Upon turning and attempting to step back over the threshold, she found herself walking nose-first into a mirror. Its blank, hard surface glittered in cold mockery of her confusion.

  Blank. It did not reflect her own figure, though she stood directly before it.

  Shocked, she turned again, eyes scanning the room for signs of some other egress. There were none. There was nothing there at all, in fact; the floor was a bare expanse of polished, patterned bronze, the pale walls fitted with curving pillars of the same, and the ceiling adorned only with three globes of light. All that there was of any interest was the clock, and when another attempt at departure ended with the same, dispiriting result, Oriane felt obliged to focus upon the clock instead.

  It was a handsome specimen, to say the least. The tallest clock she had ever beheld, it towered almost as high as the high-domed ceiling, its faces looking down upon Oriane with a kind of chilly indifference. Really, the clock seemed almost aware, and not in an especially good mood.

  And how many faces it had! Walking slowly around it, Oriane counted thirty-seven of them, all displaying different times. The clock was built out of reddish-coloured wood, its pale faces glittering with light and magic and jewels. Some of the second-hands were racing around at a speed Oriane was unused to seeing in a clock; others crept in agonisingly slow circles, barely making any progress at all.

  Half of them had stopped completely. This did not seem right to Oriane’s practical frame of mind. Had nobody been tending to the glorious thing? What a great shame that was. It took her a moment to identify any apparent means of winding it up, but at last she found it: a great bronze key, half hidden in between three closely-crowded clock faces. This she grasped and turned, relieved to find that it turned easily enough under her hands.

  Almost immediately, the air resounded with the sounds of tick-ticking hands spurred into renewed activity. The groaning of gears accompanied the noise, and such a clatter went up that Oriane wanted to clap her hands over her ears to keep it out. But she kept grimly at her work, and wound the clock until it would go no further. Then she stepped back, pleased with the results of her labours, and stood a while watching the hands upon the various clock-faces spinning merrily about. They were still not at all regular, to her disappointment; they all ran at different speeds, marking different times. But perhaps that was how it was meant to be.

  A few minutes later, the clock began to chime. The noise reverberated around the room at such volume that Oriane could barely stand it; she did cover her ears this time, and fell afterwards to the floor, curling herself up and throwing her shawls over her head in an effort to mute the terrible racket.

  Happily, she was not long tormented. The clock chimed once; twice; three times! And then fell silent.

  She was reminded of the way a clock’s chime sounded across Argantel, when the Gloaming came in. But there were four chimes then, so it could not be the same.

  Could it? For the quality of the light was changing in the room, growing — almost imperceptibly — lighter and brighter, but with a brittle quality to it that she recognised. Was the Brightening come in? She could feel no doubt that it was, and tried to persuade herself that there had been four chimes, not three, and she had somehow miscounted.

  A glance at her own pocket-watch dispelled any such comforting ideas: it was but three o’clock. Nynevarre had said four, hadn’t she? The light was an hour early.

  Oriane began to tremble, her watch almost dropping from her shaking hands. Hastily she packed it away, and tried hard to calm herself. She could not have altered the ages-long flow of time across Argantel, could she? Not merely by winding a clock?

  But she had. Surely, there could be no other explanation; it could not be a coincidence. What had she done? And what would it mean for Laendricourt?

  Part Four: Florian

  1

  Beyond the mirror was no cellar room, like the one Florian had just left. He fetched up instead somewhere very high up, though he could not immediately have said how he knew anything about his relative elevation, for there were no windows. He was in somebody’s wardrobe, the kind that consists of a smallish room lined wall-to-wall with cupboards. Some of the doors hung open, affording Florian a view of many racks of garments, all sumptuously coloured and finely made.

  He could not find the door.

  There were mirrors, though, mirrors aplenty. At least three at first count, not including any that might be concealed behind the carved, dark wooden cupboard-doors that all hung open. Was that a lazy habit, or was somebody in the process of choosing—

  ‘Another one,’ said a deep voice, and Florian, with a sinking heart, discovered himself to be correct upon the latter point. Spinning about in search of the source of those low, pleasant tones, he saw a tall gentleman with the silvery-white hair of advanced age, though his face did not look so very old, nor was his posture that of an elderly man. Prematurely white, perhaps; it happened to some. He was in the region of fifty, maybe fifty-five. His cool grey eyes were fixed upon Florian with a questioning look, and his mouth was rather grim. He was a well-groomed specimen, and appeared to be changing his dress, for a reddish-purple velvet coat was in the process of being returned to a nearby cupboard, and his dark silken waistcoat was unbuttoned.

  ‘Another one?’ Florian echoed. ‘Is this, then, what became of Oriane?’

  The gentleman did not immediately answer, being engaged in laying his coat very tenderly upon a hanger carved of wood, and depositing it into the dark, welcoming recess before him. This done, he removed his waistcoat and gave it the same treatment, then turned a stern eye upon Florian. ‘Madame Travere is here, yes,’ he finally replied. ‘I can answer for it that she was well, perhaps an hour or two ago.’

  Florian felt a flicker of excitement, and congratulated himself for his good fortune. To tumble, quite
by chance, through the very same portal which had stolen Margot’s friend! Perhaps he would be the means of shepherding her home again, and would find himself in high favour as a consequence. These pleasing thoughts warmed his heart, and he answered in high good cheer: ‘Excellent! If you would be so kind as to direct me to her, Seigneur, then neither of us shall much longer impose upon you.’

  The gentleman looked at him strangely. ‘You have a way, then, of returning yourselves to Argantel?’

  ‘Why,’ said Florian, experiencing for the first time a whisper of doubt, ‘One of these mirrors was the means of getting me here, wasn’t it? I should think it would work in reverse?’

  A glint of cool grey amusement was his answer, and his confidence faltered. ‘Do, by all means, experiment,’ said the stern gentleman, and turned his attention back to the contents of his cupboards. ‘It would be best to get the matter over with at once.’

  Florian mustered his resolve, and turned to the nearest mirror. It ran from floor to ceiling, an expanse of cold, glittering glass cradled in an ornate bronze frame. He touched it, and felt only unyielding smoothness under his fingers; no promising insubstantiality, no watery vagueness. He tried the next, a smaller silver-framed thing a few doors down; the same result. Three more there were, clad in gold, crystal and wood respectively, and none of these would oblige him either.

  The last was bordered in copper, the metal poorly maintained, for it had turned greenish. In this the stern gentleman was checking the result of his selections. He adjusted, minutely, the hang of his indigo brocade coat, a handsome creation which spilled to his ankles in a flow of silver-traced cloth. His waistcoat was the other way about, silvery etched in indigo; his shirt was the kind of bright, pristine white that Florian’s could only dream of. He wore dark breeches, white stockings, silver shoes and a fall of lace at his throat, and all in all made a fine figure of envy. For a moment Florian forgot the matter of the sixth mirror, so absorbed was he in admiration.

  When at last he noticed himself observed, the gentleman moved away from the mirror, with a cordial gesture of invitation. ‘Do, please, try not to get fingerprints upon the glass. I have but just had them all buffed.’

  Florian scrubbed his fingers upon his trousers as he approached, though without hope of its availing him much, for they were as dirty as his hands. He did not, by now, expect that the mirror would oblige him, any more than the other five had, but he dutifully set his fingers to the glass. ‘I don’t suppose,’ said he nonchalantly, ‘that you are informed as to some other means of escaping this place?’

  ‘If I were, I should have long since made use of it,’ came the unpromising reply.

  Florian digested that in discouraged silence. ‘I suppose it is in your power to tell me where I am got to, at least?’ he tried.

  ‘You are in the valley of Arganthael,’ said the gentleman. ‘The house of Laendricourt, therein, and I do not particularly recommend your going much beyond the gardens.’

  Arganthael? Laendricourt? The words were so similar, and yet so different. Intriguing. ‘Why should I not go past the gardens?’ Florian protested. ‘Somewhere out there may be the way home!’

  ‘There is not. Believe me, I have explored the possibility, and at considerable risk to my life.’ The gentleman, being now pleased, apparently, with his appearance, turned to give Florian the full benefit of his regard, and what he saw did not please him. His brows came down, and the flickering of candlelight reflecting in his cold grey eyes gave him a most uncongenial look. ‘Those will not do, here,’ he said, indicating Florian’s grubby and worn attire with a gesture both languid and dismissing. ‘You will stand out a mile, and beside that you will undoubtedly freeze. I had better lend you something.’

  Florian’s hand went to his bare throat. ‘I had the perfect neckcloth for the occasion, for a little while. What a pity that I ever gave it up.’

  This earned him a sharp look, but no response. The gentleman was busy in his cupboards, rooting among an array of waistcoats, and he did not emerge for some time. When at last he turned back to Florian, he was laden down with at least three waistcoats, two coats of similar length and magnificence to his own, a shirt of moon-silver silk tissue, a pair of pale trousers and four neckcloths, all of them lacy in appearance. Florian could not for so much as an instant imagine himself thus arrayed.

  He was not immediately given the clothing. ‘Who are you?’ said the gentleman, pausing to fix him with a look of strange intensity. ‘That hair… I do not quite understand it. You have never been here before?’

  Florian made him a bow, the most elegant one he could manage. ‘I am Florian Talleyrand, of the Chanteraine Emporium in Argantel.’ He did not want to admit that he was only a shop boy, and saw no occasion for doing so.

  What he had said to discomfort the fine gentleman he did not know, but there came a snapping together of the brows, and he repeated: ‘Chanteraine?’

  ‘The Chanteraines are the last word in both convenience and wonder,’ said Florian dutifully, wishing yet again that he could, by now, count himself among them.

  ‘Hm.’ The gentleman did not comment, but filled Florian’s arms with the heap of garments and stepped away. ‘You may make your own selections, I suppose?’ he said distantly, and then he was gone, though by no visible means, for Florian still could not see a door.

  ‘Wait — who are you?’ began Florian, but it was too late, and no response came. He fell instead to examining the beautiful things he had been given, with delight and not a little trepidation. What did he know of finery? How was he to determine which waistcoat would look well with which coat, or neckcloth? He puzzled over it for some minutes, feeling somewhat trepid, until he summoned back his usual insouciance and dismissed the matter. If the high-and-mighty gentleman was displeased with his choices, no doubt something would be said.

  He made a strange discovery, during the removal of his own clothes. Tucked into one of the deep pockets of his own shabby trousers was a tiny book, which he unearthed from beneath the candle-stub, the tinderbox, the pencil and the couple of handkerchiefs he normally carried about with him. He had taken its weight and shape for his own little pocket-book at first, but upon drawing it out found it to be peacock-blue instead, arrayed in silk, and quite obviously not his pocket-book at all. It was the book Pharamond Chanteraine had tried to bestow upon Oriane, though how it had got into his pocket he could not imagine, for he distinctly remembered leaving it in a store-box at the emporium.

  Curious.

  But if Oriane was somewhere hereabouts, it was for the best that he had it; he could at last fulfil his master’s order of giving it into her own hands.

  Shortly after, Florian stood arrayed in shades of green, though none quite matched the vibrancy of his hair. He had a dark green coat with a tall collar and wide sleeves; a waistcoat rather brighter, all stitched about with swirls; the pale silvery shirt and pale trousers; a spill of pewter-coloured lace at his throat; and a pair of boots sturdier than they appeared, in steel-grey. He looked with new regret at his begrimed hands, and settled for hiding them in the pockets of his coat.

  The gentleman came back. A swift, surveying look, and he seemed satisfied, for his brow cleared and he made no comment.

  ‘Thank you for the loan of your wonderful clothes,’ Florian said.

  ‘I shall expect them back, and unharmed.’

  Florian nodded.

  The gentleman’s attention was fixed again upon Florian’s hair. ‘Your mother and father,’ he said, musingly. ‘They have not… do either of them have similarly…?’

  He did not complete the sentence. ‘Mad-coloured hair?’ Florian said cheerfully. ‘Oh, no, and neither of my siblings either. I have often been accused of dying it, but that, I assure you, is never the case.’

  ‘No,’ came the thoughtful reply. ‘I can see that it is not. I am Ghislain,’ he added, whether in belated answer to Florian’s apparently unheard question or at random, Florian could not determine.

  ‘Gh
islain…?’ Florian invited.

  Ghislain did not immediately reply. Instead he pointed one long finger at some point over Florian’s shoulder; upon turning, Florian found, to his surprise, a frosted glass door. Had it always been there, or was it this moment appeared? Florian made for it very willingly, and only when he had set one foot over the threshold and was halfway through transferring the other did he receive a response.

  ‘Ghislain De Courcey,’ said the gentleman, and a sensation of shocked recognition arrested Florian’s progress on the spot. But too late, for he was over the threshold, and the next thing he heard was the resonating sound of the door slamming closed behind him.

  When he turned back, it was to find that the door was gone again.

  2

  De Courcey.

  There could be little doubt that Ghislain was some connection of Margot’s, though whether Margot herself was aware of his existence or not was impossible to determine. She had certainly never mentioned any missing relatives, as far as Florian could recall; did that mean that this Ghislain had nothing to do with her, despite the coincidence of his surname? Florian longed to return to Argantel and question Margot on the subject at once, and to this end he did his best to find his way back down to the bottom of the house, and the mirror that had brought him through. But the thick, syrupy light that drenched Laendricourt confused his perceptions. His eyes ached and watered, pierced by the brutal glitter of bright golden light off cold, hard glass. Doors blurred, shifted and vanished before he could reach them, or when he did manage to hurl himself over their inviting thresholds he never found that the rooms beyond resembled the chambers he’d glimpsed through their inviting archways.