Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

As she stood there, a third knock came. She jumped slightly.

This was silly. Taking a deep breath, she unbolted and unlocked the door, then — with some effort — pulled it open. And then she stifled a scream.

A man stood on the stoop before her: a man who looked to be in the very last stages of debility. His shirt was stained and torn almost to ribbons; the inside of the collar was almost black; half-moons of dried sweat darkened the armpits. Despite it being November, he had no coat. His pants were, if anything, even more rent than the shirt. One cuff had come undone, billowing out over the bare and impossibly dirty foot below; the other trouser leg had been cut or, more likely, ripped off at the calf. The cloth of one shoulder and one leg were heavily matted with dried blood. But it was the man’s gaunt and hollow face that most distressed her. His hair was plastered to his head like a skullcap. Dirt, mud, blood, and dust coated his skin so thickly that she had a difficult time distinguishing his race. His beard was a tangled rat’s nest that ended in several spiky points. And then there were his eyes: two burning coals set deep, so deep, into sockets of purplish black.

She seized the door and was about to slam it closed when she realized that the specter standing in front of her was Proctor.

“Mr. Proctor! My goodness!” she said, opening the door wide. “Whatever happened to you?”

He took one tottering step forward — then another — and then collapsed to his knees.

Quickly, she knelt, helping him to his feet again. He appeared to be beyond exhaustion.

“What happened?” she repeated as she guided him through the refectory. “Where have you been?”

“It’s a long story.” His voice was faint, barely a whisper. “Can you help me to my room? I need to lie down.”

“Of course. I’ll bring you some broth.”

“Constance—?” he murmured.

“She’s not here. I don’t know where she’s gone. I think that Lieutenant D’Agosta might have some idea. You should ask him.”

“I will.”

“But I do have wonderful news. Or did you already know? Mr. Pendergast is alive. He didn’t drown, after all. He was back here, briefly — then left again, about a week ago I understand.”

For just a moment, those coal eyes brightened even further. “Good. That’s good. I’ll call Lieutenant D’Agosta first thing tomorrow.”

They were halfway across the reception hall when Proctor abruptly stopped. “Mrs. Trask?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ll rest right here, if you don’t mind.”

“But let me at least get you to a sofa in the library, where you’ll be—”

Yet even as she spoke, Proctor released his hold on her and slid slowly onto the cold marble floor, where he lay, unmoving, in a dead faint.

Pendergast laid aside the thick book he was reading — Douglas Hofstadter’s brilliant if at times recondite Gödel, Escher, Bach —and looked over at Constance Greene. She was sitting opposite him, ankles crossed demurely over a leather footrest, drinking Hediard Mélange tea with milk and sugar and gazing into the fire.

“Do you know what I just realized, Constance?” he asked.

She glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in mute inquiry.

“The last time we sat together in this room, Percival Lake paid us a visit.”

“You are right. And therein — as the saying goes — hangs a tale.” And she went back to sipping her tea and looking into the fire.

Mrs. Trask and Proctor appeared quietly in the library doorway. The housekeeper had long since recovered from her shock, and was simply glad to have the household together again. Proctor, too, looked like his old stoic self, and the only remaining sign of his ordeal was a slight limp — the result, he’d explained, of a lion bite and a hike across almost two hundred miles of trackless desert.

“Excuse me, sir,” Mrs. Trask said to Pendergast. “But I just wanted to know if we could do anything for you before we had our supper.”

“Nothing, thank you,” Pendergast said. “Unless you need anything, Constance?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” came the reply.

Mrs. Trask smiled, curtsied, then turned away. Proctor, the eternal cipher, merely nodded and followed her back in the direction of the kitchen. Pendergast picked up his book and pretended to resume reading, but privately he continued observing Constance.

She’d spent the last week in a private Florida clinic, recovering from the wounds she’d sustained in the fight with Flavia, and tonight was her first night back in the Riverside Drive mansion. Although they had spoken at some length over the week — and while each had told in detail their stories of how they’d spent the last month apart, and any lingering misunderstandings were now fully cleared up — she did not seem herself and, truth be told, had not — as far as he could tell — since leaving Halcyon. All evening she had seemed restless and brooding; she would start to play a piece on the harpsichord, then leave off in the middle of a passage; she would pick up a book of poetry and stare at it, but for half an hour not a page would be turned.

Finally, he lowered his book. “What’s troubling you, Constance?” he asked.

She looked over at him. “Nothing is troubling me. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Come now. I know your humors. Is it something I’ve said or done — or not done?”

She shook her head.

“It was unforgivable of me to leave you defenseless like that in Exmouth.”

“You couldn’t help it. You nearly drowned. And as you know, I managed to — how should I put it? — entertain myself in your absence.”

Pendergast winced inwardly.

After a minute, Constance shifted in her chair. “It’s Diogenes.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can’t stop thinking about him. Where is he now? What’s his frame of mind? Will he seek out the good in life — or will he prove a recidivist?”

“I fear that only time will tell. I hope for all our sakes it is the former — I gave Howard Longstreet my word on the matter.”

She picked up her teacup, then put it down again without tasting it. “I hated him. I loathed him. And yet I feel that what I did was too cruel — even for somebody as wicked as he was. Even… given what he’d done to me. And to you.”

Pendergast considered a variety of answers, but decided that none of them would be satisfactory.

“You made him the way he was,” she went on, her voice lower, eyes still on the fire. “He told me about the Event.”

“Yes,” Pendergast said simply. “It was a stupid, childish mistake — and one I regret every day. Had I known, I would never have forced him into that terrible device.”

“And yet that’s not what troubles me. What troubles me is that, despite everything, he tried to come back from the dark place in which he’d spent so many years. He created Halcyon. It was to be his retreat from the world; his place of safety. Also, I think he built it to make sure the world would be safe from him . But then he made the mistake of falling in love with me. And I–I was consumed with a thirst for revenge.”

Suddenly she looked directly at Pendergast. “You see, we’re two sides of the same coin, you and I. You, at least in part, made Diogenes into the monster he was. And now, I’ve unmade the good man he tried so hard to become.”

“Do you really believe he was telling you the truth?” Pendergast asked gently. “That he loved you? That he had left the sick and evil part of him behind?”

Constance took a deep breath. “He had left the evil part of him behind — as best he could. I don’t think he’ll ever be free of it; not entirely. But yes: he loved me. He cured me; he saved my life. He would have done so even if I hadn’t agreed to stay at Halcyon. Those days we spent together… he couldn’t have said such things — done such things — if he hadn’t been utterly in love.”