Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

Chang carefully stepped away from the ladder.

Behind her sat Christian, insensible in a chair. At her feet was an oddly shaped trunk, like a leather-bound octagonal hat box.

“Contessa.”

“Cardinal Chang.”

She was tired, and her head tilted to the side as she spoke, as if to tell him so—that she was only a woman, and one who, however resourceful, stood near the end of her rope. In truth, Chang had never see the Contessa look so… human , so subject to fate. Her hair was pinned back without care and her pale face uncharacteristically drawn with fatigue. The dress was, for her, extremely plain, a cheap sort of silk that had been dyed violet—someone's wedding dress refit for fancy usage, and he wondered whose home she had ransacked to find it. He saw no weapon in her hands, but that meant nothing—the woman was a weapon in herself.

He turned at the sound of Willem emerging from the stall—the horse behind him was spent but not visibly deranged. The boy cradled a canvas-wrapped bundle in his arms.

“I have your parcel from the saddlebag—” he began, but his words stopped when his eyes met Cardinal Chang's.

“It is all right, Willem,” the Contessa said, quite calmly. “The Cardinal and I are old friends.”

Chang snorted.

“I understood your wounds to be quite mortal,” she said.

“I understood you to be drowned.”

“One's life is indeed a parade of disappointment.”

She stretched the fingers of each hand, like a cat rising up from sleep. Chang did not shift his gaze from hers, but pitched his voice to the boy.

“Willem, you must leave. Set her parcel down and go home.”

The boy's eyes darted to the Contessa, and then to Chang. He did not move.

“He will not harm me, dear,” said the Contessa softly. “You may do what you like. I am grateful for your kindness.”

“I won't leave you,” whispered the boy.

“She is not your mother!” barked Chang, and then muttered, “You do not have eight legs…”

The Contessa laughed, a throaty chuckle, like dark wine poured in a rush. “Cardinal Chang and I have much to… discuss. You may be sure I am not in danger, dear Willem.”

The boy looked at Chang with a new distrust but slowly set down the canvas bag. Chang backed away to give him room, waiting as the boy shifted the bar and slipped out the door. Chang snorted again and spat into the straw.

“Not everyone around you will perish, then—even if he has no sense of his escape.”

“Is your own company any less perilous, Cardinal? I do not see Miss Temple or Doctor Svenson.”

Chang pointed with the knife to the remaining groom, still inert in his chair. “And what have you done to him?”

The Contessa shrugged, utterly indifferent. “Not a thing. I am quite recently arrived.”

“He reeks of the glass, of indigo clay. He was bewitched by it— sickened by a shard of shattered glass.”

The Contessa raised her eyebrows. “My goodness. Blue glass? Surely it was all destroyed in the airship.”

“The glass was fissured with cracks. The groom had looked into it. Whatever memories were stored inside have been altered.”

“Well, yes, I expect they might be.” She sighed like a heartsick schoolgirl. “How little I know about such practical matters. If only the Comte were here to explain to us—”

“It has damaged the boy's mind, perhaps permanently!”

“How terrible. He is so young.”

“Contessa!”

Chang's voice was harsh, impatient. The Contessa waved one delicate hand dismissively at the dazed groom, and beamed at Chang with something bordering on affection.

“Poor Cardinal—it seems you are unable to protect anyone. Of course, since nearly everyone hates or fears you—that Asiatic trollop for example—”

He stepped forward and brought the back of his hand sharply across the Contessa's jaw. She stumbled but did not fall, raising one hand to her cheek, her eyes wild with something close to pleasure, meeting his gaze as the tip of her tongue dabbed at the blood beading on her lower lip.

“We must understand one another,” he whispered.

“O but we do.”

“No,” hissed Chang. “Whatever you hope to achieve, you will not.”

“And you will prevent me?”

“Yes.”

“You will kill me?”

“Why not—as you killed the two grooms in the north.”

The Contessa rolled her eyes. “What grooms?”

“Do not pretend—”

“When have I ever pretended?”

“You hacked out their throats. You took a horse—”

“I found a horse.”

“Do not—”

“Will you strike me again?” She laughed unpleasantly. “Do you know what fate befell the last man to lay a hand on my body in anger?”

“I can imagine.”

“No, I do not think you can …”

He gestured to the strange hide-covered trunk. “What is that? You could not have taken it from the airship. You leapt from the roof.”

“Did I?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Such emotion. I found it, obviously… with the horse.”

“What is inside?”

“I haven't the first idea.” She smiled. “Shall we find out together?”

“Do not think to remove a weapon,” he hissed. “Do not think of anything but the ease with which I can end your life.”

“How could I, now you have reminded me?”

She knelt in the straw and reached for the trunk, turning it this way and that in search of a catch.

“There is no evident hinge,” observed Chang.

“No,” she agreed, pressing each corner carefully. “Though I know it does open.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I have seen it, of course. Before I took it.”

“You said ‘found’ before.”

“Found, took—the point being—”

“Did you see inside?”

“Perhaps…”

She looked up at him with a triumphant smile, then pushed firmly. From within the case Chang heard a muffled metallic click. The Contessa grinned, set the trunk down, and stood.

“There you are,” she said, stepping away and indicating the trunk with an open hand. Chang motioned her back toward it.

“Open it fully.”

“Are you afraid of something?”

“Do it slowly. Then step away.”

“So many commands …”

The Contessa kept her eyes fixed on Chang's as she sank down to the straw. Both hands reached out for the lid, gripping it delicately. She glanced down into the trunk, then back to Chang, biting her lip.

“If you do insist…”

THE IRON pole landed hard against the side of Cardinal Chang's head and he dropped to his knees. The boy swung again. Chang deflected the blow, barking his forearm and knocking the knife away. He cried out, his head swimming, shouting at Willem—misguided idiot!— swaying on his feet, blinking with the pain. The Contessa rushed at him, the trunk snatched up and held high. She brought it down hard on Chang's head and he collapsed into the straw.

For a moment he could not move—neither his body nor, it seemed, his thoughts—the whole of his sensibility stalled like an insect in a ball of thickening sap. Then the pain lanced across Chang's skull like a fire. His fingers twitched. He felt the straw sticking into his face. He heard the Contessa rustling nearby, but could not move.

“Where is the knife?” she hissed.

“Did I—did I—” The boy's voice was fearful and wavering.

“You did what was right and brave,” the Contessa assured him. “Without you, my dear boy, I should have been—well, it is too frightful to imagine. Cardinal Chang is exactly the brute he appears. Ah!”