The Chemickal Marriage (10 page)

‘No apron?’ Chang asked.

‘Not today.’

‘Are those for me?’

‘You will look into them. I prefer not to prise back your lids, but Foison is within call.’

‘What events do they hold? What do you want me to see?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Vandaariff. ‘I want your body to
feel
.’

The first card plunged Chang into the midst of a rousing country dance, a farm girl to either side. Fiddle music sang in his ears. Vandaariff pulled the card away and he was back in the nasty room, panting, sweat on his limbs.

Vandaariff raised the second card. Chang balanced on the edge of an icy rooftop. Three yards away, across an abyss of five flights, stood the next building. Men ran towards him, shouting, waving clubs. He steeled himself and leapt – and once more Vandaariff pulled the card away. Chang’s breath heaved. His body pressed against the chains.

‘Who are these people? Whose memories –’

The third card was a banquet. The fourth card a horserace. The fifth a game of whist. In the sixth he strangled a man with a silken rope. In the seventh he lay on a brothel sofa with a thin-limbed whore bouncing energetically above him. Vandaariff pulled the glass away and Chang looked down at his arousal, mortified and angry.

‘Enough,’ said Vandaariff, smiling. ‘Unless you would prefer that last again?’

‘Choke on your own blood.’

‘An admirable performance. A foundation upon which to build.’

Vandaariff returned the cards to the satchel. He removed a second batch.
These cards were like nothing Chang had ever seen, for they were not
blue
… instead, each glinted with different colours. The first was mottled with streaks of red.

‘We start with iron.’

The card contained no experience, no memory, no human life. Chang’s senses fogged and he gagged at the taste of blood filling his throat. Vandaariff pulled the card away and selected another, greenish and flecked with copper …

One after another Chang absorbed their depths. Where before the glass had implanted memories, here the transaction lay beyond his mind, as essential forces passed from the glass to his body. Each time he felt both sickened and more strong, Vandaariff tempering Chang’s body like a blacksmith working steel. When the cards were back in the satchel, pain echoed in his bones and knotted his organs. His teeth burnt like coals in a fire. Vandaariff reached into his coat and came out with an eighth card, bright orange. He gripped the back of Chang’s head and thrust it before his eyes. Chang arched against an explosion of agony near his spine.

When it was finally taken away, Chang could barely breathe.

‘I’m going to cut your throat,’ he gasped.

Vandaariff took off his gloves and snapped the satchel closed.

‘Three days, Cardinal. In three days you may well do just that thing.’

But the next day he heard voices in the other room. Then the door was flung open by Doctor Svenson, with Celeste Temple screaming like a fool. Svenson leapt to the chains but Chang stopped him with an urgent whisper. ‘Where are we? Where is he? Where is his man?’

‘The Xonck works at Raaxfall – there are soldiers just outside –’

Another figure in the doorway – was it
Phelps
? ‘They have heard – they are coming!’

‘Leave the chains!’ Chang hissed. ‘Against the wall – hide!’

Svenson had already shut the door. The Ministry man pressed himself into the corner. Celeste Temple stood like a stone, staring at Chang’s body. Finally she noticed Svenson waving vigorously and dropped under the table. The girl would kill them all.

For a moment he heard nothing … then the hidden door swung open, shielding Svenson behind it. No one stepped through. Chang jerked his head as if woken and blinked at the light. He could see Foison’s shadow, and a gleam of metal in his hand.

‘What now?’ Chang called hoarsely. ‘Where is your master?’

Foison took a single step into the doorway, offering no clear shot to Svenson or Phelps.

‘Where are they?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Chang cocked his head. ‘Has the cat misplaced its mice?’

Chang looked past Foison, hearing more footsteps.

‘Benton’s dead, sir!’ The man was out of breath. ‘Everyone but Hennig – two men, he says, with guns – left with the girl!’

‘Left where?’

‘He didn’t see, sir. We’re looking everywhere –’

‘Bring Hennig. Send word to Lord Vandaariff.’

‘But, sir – if we find them – no one need know –’

‘If we find them, we will then send word of
that
. Do it
now
.’ The man ran off. Throughout their conversation Foison had kept his eyes on Chang, who could not decide whether his captor was Asiatic or, instead, some Lapp or northern Finn.

‘There are footprints outside. I came to ask. You might have
heard
.’

‘Not a thing,’ said Chang.

‘You are fortunate they did not find you.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because
you
… are the property of a jealous, jealous man.’

Foison drove his body hard against the door, slamming it into Svenson, then he spun, whipping the knife in his right hand towards Phelps, who cried out, the bright blade sticking out of his topcoat. Foison slammed the door again, still harder – Chang could see Svenson’s legs buckle – and then opened it wide, another knife in his hand, and kicked the still-struggling Doctor in the ribs.

The chain across Chang’s chest and arms went slack. Foison turned at the
sound, but Chang took hold of the chain and cracked it at Foison like a whip, the last hard link snapping at the man’s forehead. Foison sprawled into the wall.

Miss Temple stood, her fingers rapidly working free the other chains, eyes blessedly averted from Chang’s body. Svenson was on his knees, an unwieldy Naval revolver jammed into Foison’s belly. The white-haired man lay on his back, blood on his face, his teeth bared in pain.

‘He has pinned me to the wall,’ hissed Phelps, pulling at the knife that held him.

Miss Temple hurried to assist Phelps, who did not seem to be injured. Chang gratefully slipped off the table to crouch near the Doctor.

‘We did not expect you,’ said Svenson. ‘We thought you dead.’

‘As I you,’ replied Chang.

‘These fellows will kill us.’

‘They will try.’

Chang slapped Foison across the face, and then wrenched him up by the collar.

‘I require your clothes.’

He left the white-haired man his undergarments and boots, for Foison’s feet were small. He turned his back on the others to dress. Foison’s trousers were black leather, but the white shirt was silk and draped Chang’s skin like cool water. Decent once more, he reached for the jacket, but paused at the expression on Svenson’s face.

‘Dear Lord … Cardinal …’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Chang snarled, turning his head. ‘I have lost my glasses, I cannot help it if my eyes offend your delicacy –’

‘No, no – good heavens, no – your
spine
–’

Both Miss Temple and Phelps stood in shocked silence. It was the last thing Chang wanted to think about. He could move without pain – that was what mattered. He slipped into the coat, a surprisingly good fit, given the discrepancy of shoe size, and jerked his chin at their prisoner.

‘Get him on his feet.’

Foison’s hands had been tied behind his back. Chang picked up the second knife – Foison’s coat still held another pair sheathed within it – and held it flat against the man’s throat.

‘Must we take him with us?’ asked Phelps.

Chang raised a hand for silence, then pointed to the door. At his nod the Doctor pulled it wide, revealing Chang alone in the doorway, Foison before him like a shield.

The clicking of pistol hammers came like a chorus of crickets – at least ten men, standing in the cover of more tables and the colourless corpses they bore.

‘If you interfere, he will die.’

‘If you touch him, we’ll shoot you to pieces,’ replied the man to his right, in a green Xonck tunic, three stripes on his sleeve. His revolver pointed straight into Chang’s ear.

‘Then we understand one another,’ said Chang. ‘As much as I would enjoy killing this man, in exchange for safe passage, I will not.’

This was the moment. If they had orders to prevent an escape at all costs, the bullets must fly. But Chang did not believe these men possessed such autonomy. Foison ruled them with as tight a hand as Vandaariff ruled him. Chang pressed the blade into his captive’s brown throat, against the vein. The Sergeant lowered his pistol and barked at the others. They fell back.

Chang looked at Svenson. He had no idea where they ought to go, yet it was crucial this ignorance not be conveyed to their enemies. But the Doctor turned to Miss Temple. She swallowed with a grimace, and her words came out a croak. ‘Follow me. The tunnels.’

Chang kept his face a mask, but marvelled at the size of the factory – furnaces, silos, catwalks, assembly tables, projectile moulds, cooling pools. He walked backwards, holding Foison between them and the gang of soldiers, whose guns still tracked their every move.

Foison did not speak, though his eyes remained fixed on those of his sergeant.

‘This coat of yours cannot have come cheap,’ Chang whispered. ‘I did not think silk wore well enough for the expense.’

‘Silk is surprisingly warm,’ observed Doctor Svenson. ‘The north of China is very frigid.’

Chang ignored the interruption, watching the Sergeant, not ten steps away, and hissed into Foison’s ear, ‘What will your master say, I wonder?’

‘This changes nothing,’ replied Foison. ‘Three days. You are his branded stock.’

Miss Temple’s sharp call stopped Chang’s reply. ‘We require a
key
.’

A gate of iron bars blocked the tunnel. At Foison’s nod, the Sergeant came forward and unlocked the gate. Doctor Svenson held out his hand.

‘You shall not follow.’

Again Foison nodded and the Sergeant gave over the keys. They slipped past the bars, and Chang called to the soldiers as Phelps relocked the gate.

‘We will leave him further on, unharmed.’

The Sergeant opened his mouth to protest, but Foison shook his head.

Chang continued to walk backwards until the light had gone and their view of the soldiers with it. Then Chang drove a punch into Foison’s kidney and forced him to kneel.

‘What are you doing?’ Svenson whispered.

Chang had the knife at Foison’s throat. ‘What do you think?’

‘You gave your word …’

‘This man will kill us all. Don’t be a fool.’

‘If his men find him dead,’ hissed Svenson, ‘they will hunt us all the more!’

‘They are already hunting us. Without their leader, they will hunt us
poorly
–’

‘But you have given your word!’ whispered Phelps, aghast.

Chang wedged a knee into Foison’s back and pushed him face down in the dirt. ‘You do not know how he has wronged me.’

‘We do not,’ said Phelps, ‘but you cannot execute a helpless man –’

‘He is helpless because we have bested him. Are you an idiot?’

‘We have all given our word with yours,’ said Svenson. ‘I understand your impulse –’

‘Sanity is not an
impulse
!’

‘What on earth is happening?’ asked Miss Temple. She stood beyond the others, sagging against the wall.

‘This man must die,’ said Chang.

‘He cannot,’ said Phelps.

Svenson reached over to her. ‘Celeste, are you well?’

‘Of course I am. Have we not promised to let him live?’

Chang growled with frustration, then impatiently extended his hand to Phelps. ‘Give me your damned handkerchief.’

Having stuffed the cloth into Foison’s mouth, Chang bound Foison’s legs, pulling the knot as tightly as he could.

‘This kindness means nothing,’ he whispered. ‘If I see you again I will kill you.’

Foison remained silent, and Chang resisted a final urge to kill him anyway. He padded on to where he heard the others breathing.

‘I cannot see,’ he whispered. ‘Celeste, do you know where you’ve led us?’

‘Of course.’

‘Those men will pursue, and quickly –’

‘Yes, but do we seek the canal, or the front gate?’

‘Where are we
now
?’

‘The blasting tunnels. They run in all directions.’

The girl’s assurance frayed Chang’s patience. ‘How do you
know
this?’

Phelps cleared his throat. ‘There was a map of glass, sent by the Contessa –’

‘That is not it at
all
,’ croaked Miss Temple.

‘Perhaps we should press on,’ suggested the Doctor.

‘If we talk while we are walking, I will lose my way.’

‘And our pursuers will hear the echo,’ added Phelps.

‘Go how you please,’ Chang snarled. ‘We will follow like blind lambs.’

Chang’s poor eyes could discern but shadows in the chiselled ceiling, and he was forced to keep a hand on Mr Phelps’s coat-tails, last in line, wincing when his bare feet caught the edges of broken stones.

It was not the reunion he had expected, with Celeste Temple in particular. What in the world was
Phelps
doing here? And why had they stared so at his
wound? Svenson was not one to talk – unshaven and more gaunt than ever, the man looked like he’d crawled from a crypt.

Where was Elöise Dujong? Probably somewhere minding the Trapping child …

Knowing the others could not see, Chang reached beneath the jacket and under the silk shirt … his finger ran across the ridges of a new scar, but from the scar itself he felt no contact. He gently probed … below a thin layer of flesh lay something hard.

At the tunnels’ end the ground was damp, the gravel sunk with river mud.

‘These tunnels would have been used to transport the Comte’s machines,’ explained Miss Temple. She coughed and then, to Chang’s surprise, she actually spat. ‘Do excuse me – beyond is the canal, and beyond that our boat, unless someone has sunk it. We can return to the city, or press on to Harschmort.’

‘Are we prepared for Harschmort?’ asked Svenson. ‘Two of your men have disappeared there – Cunsher himself would not risk it.’ He turned to Chang. ‘And you, Cardinal … in all gravity, had I the space and the light to examine –’