Part 29 (1/2)
Svenson returned to the car for a lantern, but the hook was empty. One of the businessmen looked out of his compartment, blanching to see Svenson advancing at such speed.
”Where is the conductor?” the Doctor called, his voice low but sharply urgent.
”I-I have not seen him this hour,” stammered the man.
But Svenson was already past, convinced the conductor had been thrown off the train or beneath its wheels after inadvertently discovering Xonck's hiding place. And if Xonck was hiding under the coal wagon, what did that mean as far as the Contessa's fate-or Miss Temple's? Had they been dispatched like so many others? Or could they be on the train? That would put Xonck in the same situation as Svenson with regard to the freight cars and the caboose... unless- and Svenson cursed himself once more-Xonck had not been asleep when they'd stopped. Of course not-Xonck would have been waiting, leaping at once from hiding and loping like a wolf down the length of the train. Perhaps even now he was warming himself at the stove in the caboose, having slaughtered every other occupant! And if Miss Temple or the Contessa had sought refuge there-was there a thing they could have done to stop him?
Svenson stalked through to the second car without finding a lantern. Upon reaching Eloise's compartment he found its door open and one of the young men traveling to the southern mills standing inside. Beyond the man, Svenson saw Eloise, the bandage in place, her hands held tightly together. The young man spun to Svenson, eyes caught by the pistol in his hand.
”I-we heard the lady cry out,” he managed. ”For help.”
”Eloise?” Svenson called past the man to her, fixing the interfering fool with an openly vicious gaze.
”I was asleep... I do not know... dreaming-perhaps I did.”
”Excellent. Most kind of you to help.” Svenson stepped aside with all the crispness of a Macklenburg soldier on parade to allow the man to exit. ”If you will excuse us.”
The young man did not move, his gaze still fixed on the weapon.
”Is there something wrong on the train?” he asked.
”I cannot locate the conductor,” replied Svenson, in as mild a voice as he could manage. ”Perhaps he walked up to the engine when last we stopped.”
The young man nodded, waiting for Svenson to say more, and then nodded again when it became clear that Svenson had no plans to do so. He edged into the corridor and walked quickly away, looking back once, to find Doctor Svenson glaring. The man bobbed his head a third time as he left the car.
”I am sure he was only trying to help,” whispered Eloise.
”A man of his age alone with an injured woman,” observed Svenson, ”is no more worthy of trust than an asp let into a child's nursery.”
She did not reply, giving him the clear impression that his entire manner only made things worse.
”How do you feel?” he asked.
”I have been thinking,” she replied, not to his question at all. ”You asked me of Francis Xonck. Whatever gla.s.s he used to stab me, I know it was from a book that had been imprinted. Because I felt myself- my flesh, but also my mind-being penetrated, not by a blade, but by... experiences.”
”Do you recall them?”
Eloise sighed. ”Will you not put that thing away?”
Svenson looked down at the pistol. ”You do not understand. The conductor is missing.”
”Yet if he has only gone to the engine-”
”Xonck is on the train-somehow-I am not certain where. The conductor may have discovered him and paid the price.”
”You should not have lied to that boy-you ought to have enlisted his help!”
”There is no time, Eloise, and too much to explain. He and everyone else on this train would think me mad-”
”It would be mad to face Francis Xonck alone when there is no need! Or are you set on some ridiculous notion of revenge?”
Svenson swallowed an angry reply. That she could so easily mock the very notion of revenge, that he might be owed anything, or that he was incapable of taking it... or even that despite everything she might be correct-he slapped the metal door frame with an open palm. The anger was pointless, and he let it go, his emotion stalling like a Sisyphean stone at the crest. She was waiting for an answer. Svenson seized on the first unkempt thought that came to mind.
”You... Yes, before-you mentioned the gla.s.s, dreaming-the fragment. Do you recall what you saw?”
”I do,” she sniffed, shuffling to a sitting position. ”Though I cannot see it helps us.”
”Why?”
”Because it was broken. The thoughts inside, the sense of the memory... the content of the gla.s.s had been deranged. Like the ink running on a waterlogged page, but in one's mind... I cannot describe it.”
”It was a very small piece-”
Eloise shook her head. ”The matter is not size. There was no logic-as if five memories, or five minds, were overlaid one on top of another, like patterns of paper held to a window.”
”Was there any detail to suggest who might have been the source?”
She shook her head again. ”It was too full of contradiction-all tumbled into one place, which was not one place... and all the time... I had forgotten, music...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. ”It means nothing-though I'm certain the memories themselves are true. Each portion flickered... overlapping the seams between them.”
”And none of these... elements seemed... significant?”
”I do not believe so,” she said. ”Indeed, now that I try, I can scarcely recall a thing.”
”No no, this is useful.” Svenson nodded without conviction. ”A wound with the blue gla.s.s-as contact with blood creates more gla.s.s- necessitates some exclusive contact between the gla.s.s and the victim, do you see? Blood congeals against the original gla.s.s and is itself crystallized-the flesh becomes solid. But what is the nature of this newly made gla.s.s? Since it is in-is of-your body, does it contain some memory from you? How is this raw gla.s.s different from that smelted by the Comte?”
Svenson's mind genuinely raced with the consequences of Eloise's broken shard, and what this implied about the structure and workings of the gla.s.s books. A torn piece of paper would show only the fragment of type printed upon it, but a similarly sized spear from a blue gla.s.s page apparently contained an overlay of multiple memories. It meant that the books were not read (or ”written”) in any linear way, but that the memories were shot through the gla.s.s like color in paint, or seasoning in soup, or even tiny capillaries in flesh. Whatever aspect of the gla.s.s normally allowed a person to experience the memories in sequence had been dislodged on the broken fragment, and the different memories it contained had been jammed into one jagged, unnatural whole.
He looked over at Eloise. ”On the airs.h.i.+p, the mere touch of a gla.s.s book on her bare skin drove the Contessa to distraction.”
”She killed the Prince and Lydia for no reason but pique-”
”Francis Xonck has used broken gla.s.s to cauterize a bullet wound, and now carries that gla.s.s within his body. He may well be insane.” Svenson winced to think of it. Given the wound, the lump of gla.s.s would be the size of a child's fist; what visions gnawed-no, tore-at Francis Xonck's mind? ”He also possesses a gla.s.s book, saved in particular from the wreckage. I do not know what that book holds, I can only say that a perfectly sound man who did look into it was turned to a gibbering wreck. That Xonck has selected this of all books must mean something.”
He knelt near her. ”Eloise, you may be closer to his thoughts than any other soul alive.”
”And I have told you-”
”He knows the gla.s.s will kill him,” said Svenson sharply. ”In the Comte's absence, he will attempt to find the man's notes, his tools- anything to reverse what has been done. I must find him.”
”Abelard, he will kill you.”
”If you know anything more, Eloise. Anything at all, his aims- his cares...”
But she shook her head.
AT THE far door he finally found a lantern on a hook. Svenson struck a match, tamped the wick to a steady glow, and stepped out to face the blank wooden wall of the freight car. He sniffed the air to no avail, then leaned cautiously over the rail with the lantern. An iron ladder was bolted to the freight car, but he saw no sign of blood or indigo discharge. He returned to the corridor, striding willfully past Eloise and the other occupants, back to the front of the train. He drew out the revolver, took a breath, and then-acutely aware of being watched by the businessmen-realized he could not open the door with both hands occupied. He fumbled the lantern handle into his gun hand and groped for the k.n.o.b.
The ceiling above him thumped with an impact. Someone had leapt onto the pa.s.senger car from the coal wagon-in itself a prodigious feat-and was racing toward the freight cars. Svenson broke into a run. He clawed open the connecting door, just as a second thudding impact echoed Xonck's leap from the first pa.s.senger car to the second.
Svenson sped down the corridor, just a few steps behind the man on the roof, and shouted for Eloise to stay where she was. He reached the rear door and yanked it wide. The footsteps were gone. Xonck must have leapt ahead onto the freight car, but Svenson could not see him, nor-above the clattering wheels-hear a thing. He spun round to find that all four of the young laborers had followed.