The Dark Volume Part 50

GRIM AND determined, Fochtmann loosened the restraints, easing Vandaariff to his knees and watching carefully as the man emptied the fouled contents of his stomach onto the planking. Leveret opened his mouth to complain, but the engineer impatiently motioned him to silence.

Vandaariff tipped his head from side to side, slowly, like a stunned bull, and flexed his fingers as if he were testing a pair of new leather gloves.

"Do not approach him," Fochtmann warned.

Vandaariff strove to rise, grunting with effort, the livid scars accentuating the whiteness of his eyes. Fochtmann took the rag and wiped Vandaariff's face.

"Look at him!" whispered Mrs. Trapping. "What is wrong?"

"These are temporary effects," said Fochtmann. "Be patient..."

"Monsieur le Comte?" asked Leveret. "Is it you?"

The Contessa took one hesitant step. "Oskar?"

Vandaariff tried to stand but could not, slipping to his knees and elbows like a tottering colt. He looked into the faces around him, and his eyes-the whites tinged with a blue film his blinking pushed into beads that broke down his cheeks-began to clear... and upon seeing the Contessa, a rattle of recognition rolled from his throat.

"Oskar?" Her voice was gentle. He swallowed, his face suddenly clouded by fear. The Contessa sank so her face was at his level.

"You are alive again, Oskar... it is not the airs.h.i.+p. On the airs.h.i.+p you were killed... but you have been restored. You have been restored by one of your own marvelous books, Oskar. Do not be afraid. You have come back to us... back from where no man has ever returned."

Vandaariff swung his head awkwardly, straining to make sense of her words, of the different room and so many people-so different from the ones he had last seen. He lurched forward. Fochtmann patiently raised him when the spasms had stopped, once more wiping Vandaariff's chin.

"Is it truly him?" whispered Mrs. Trapping.

"Of course it is," said the Contessa easily. "He knows me."

"Did not Robert Vandaariff know you too?" asked Leveret. He peered suspiciously into Vandaariff's face, like a farmer inspecting a pig at auction.

"Monsieur le Compte-if you are the Compte-my name is Leveret-"

"Tell him we need proof," Mrs. Trapping called over Leveret's shoulder. "Something only he could know-some snip of alchemical whatsit."

Mr. Fochtmann insinuated himself between Leveret and Vandaariff.

"Give him room, sir-the physical costs of the infusion are prodigious. Robert Vandaariff has undergone this after the Process, nor had he a young man's vitality to begin with."

"The problem is not his body," said Doctor Svenson, studying Vandaariff with pained disapproval, "but his mind. The Comte was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the arms of death."

"I'd expect him to be grateful," muttered Mrs. Trapping.

The Contessa sighed with irritation and s.h.i.+fted closer.

"Oskar... try to remember... on the airs.h.i.+p. The last minutes. You were very angry-angry at me. I had behaved very badly. I had killed Lydia-"

Vandaariff's eyes flared at her words. The Contessa nodded as if to encourage his memory, as if his rage were entirely natural. "I had ruined all of your great plans. You came at me... you thought to kill me... but then you were stabbed. Do you remember? Everything had gone wrong. We were betrayed. The airs.h.i.+p was sinking. You were dying. Francis came to you with a book... an empty book, Oskar. Francis captured your soul."

Robert Vandaariff swallowed, listening intently, watching her mouth. His lips trembled.

Once more Leveret thrust his face forward.

"This is the Xonck Armament Works in Parchfeldt Park, monsieur. I am Mr. Leveret. You are-" He grimaced with distaste and then muttered to the room at large, "I feel a fool saying this at all-we have no certainty that anything of the sort has occurred..."

"Go on, Alfred," said Mrs. Trapping. Leveret sighed, then snapped his fingers in front of Vandaariff, whose gaze had gone back to the Contessa.

"The contents of that book have been infused into the body of Robert Vandaariff. If you are indeed the Comte d'Orkancz, we require you to give out some sign-some a.s.surance-that this is true. We require it now."

Vandaariff blinked, returning Leveret's stare. Miss Temple could see the man's expression had sharpened, enough for his true thoughts to be veiled behind it-though this might bespeak no more intelligence than a cat's wary reaction to a curious child. She swallowed with a wince, like the others unable to look away from his scarred face, but unlike them, dreading an echo of the corruption she had already allowed to stain too much of her own mind. But Robert Vandaariff remained mute.

"Why don't we simply make him answer?" Charlotte Trapping addressed Mr. Fochtmann. "What did you call it-the control phrase? Why doesn't Alfred simply speak the phrase aloud and order him to tell us?"

"He may not be unwilling," began Fochtmann, "but unable. If we try to imagine what this man may have seen-"

"Nonsense. Alfred?"

Leveret stood tall and cleared his throat. "Indigo Pilate iris sunset Parchfeldt! Are you the Comte d'Orkancz?"

No one spoke. Instead of answering, Vandaariff attempted to stand. Fochtmann caught his arm, and so steadied, Vandaariff kept his feet.

"He will not answer," hissed Leveret. "Look at him! He does not even acknowledge the phrase!"

"That is impossible," said Mrs. Trapping. "At least... it ought to be..."

Leveret's face darkened with rage. "Is this trickery? Does he presume to trifle?"

"For G.o.d's sake!" cried Fochtmann. "Give him another moment! He has only come back from the dead!"

Miss Temple was startled by the halting clicking steps-the gla.s.s woman was advancing with great care, the little girl in tow. Vandaariff thrust Fochtmann away from him, gripping one of the bra.s.s boxes in an effort to remain upright. A line of saliva hung from his lips. He met Mrs. Marchmoor's swirling blue eyes.

Then his mouth slackened and his eyes went under a cloud. The gla.s.s woman was quite obviously probing Robert Vandaariff's new-fas.h.i.+oned soul.

"What do you see?" whispered Fochtmann.

"Tell us!" hissed Mrs. Trapping.

The gla.s.s woman began to glow with the same cerulean sparks Miss Temple had seen that morning in the Duke of Staelmaere's study, and her gleaming fingers tightened around the vacant girl's arm.

"Look at this marvel!" Fochtmann whispered, eagerly staring at the gla.s.s woman. "She senses him... she sees what has been done-an accomplishment beyond anything I might have dreamed..."

Francesca's eyelids flickered like a dreaming animal's. Miss Temple looked back to Vandaariff... with alarm she realized that Francesca's face was now flinching and twitching exactly in time with his. Through the conduit of the gla.s.s woman's hand, the child was being completely exposed to Vandaariff's mind. Did no one else see?

Mrs. Marchmoor's words curled into Miss Temple's mind like a serpent encircling a sleeping bird.

"It is done. The Comte d'Orkancz has been saved."

FRANCESCA TRAPPING suddenly coughed, choked, and then sprayed out a mouthful of blackened spit. Her mother screamed. As if realizing too late what had happened, Mrs. Marchmoor thrust the child toward Colonel Aspiche, breaking the connection. Francesca retched again, bent over double.

"Francesca!" shrieked Mrs. Trapping.

The girl looked up, eyes wide, as if she were seeing the room for the very first time. Mrs. Trapping rushed toward her, but was caught about the waist by Leveret.

"What has happened?" shrieked Charlotte Trapping. "What has she done to my child?"

"Charlotte-no, wait-"

"Do not!" cried the Colonel. He held tight to Francesca's shoulder and pointed to Mrs. Marchmoor. "Margaret-Margaret, what in heaven..."

Her remaining gla.s.s hand had been sprayed with black bile. Mrs. Marchmoor convulsively licked her lower lip as she stared down at the stain, as if she could taste the nauseating substance through her surface. The surprise in the gla.s.s woman's voice pierced Miss Temple's mind like a pin.

"He... he is... unclean..."

The bright slug of her blue tongue spurred another spasm in Miss Temple's stomach. The gla.s.s woman had never found the corruption, even when probing Vandaariff's mind outright, having wrongly a.s.sumed that with the change in bodies the Comte's prohibition no longer held force. Only when the taint had pa.s.sed to the child could the gla.s.s woman sense it. Mrs. Marchmoor retreated from Vandaariff, her blue lips drawn back.

"Unclean?" Leveret shook his head angrily, still holding Mrs. Trapping. "What does that mean?"

"It means nothing!" shouted Fochtmann. "We all saw the sickness from the procedure-this is more of the same-it is natural-"

"It is not," Aspiche shouted. "Look at the child!"

Francesca trembled, held at arm's length by the Colonel. Her lips and chin were black, and her small mouth dark as a wound.

"The child is ill," snapped Fochtmann. "It has no bearing on our work."

Phelps nervously addressed the gla.s.s woman. "You must explain, madame. You looked into his mind-you told us the infusion worked, that this was the Comte-"

"It is the Comte!" insisted Fochtmann, but the gla.s.s woman's continuing distress stopped his speech.

"I could not see it in him," Mrs. Marchmoor hissed. "Only in the girl... but it is from his body..."

"What is from his body?" demanded Aspiche.

"Nothing!" Fochtmann waved his arms. "The girl must be diseased-"

"I was forbidden by him," said Mrs. Marchmoor. "None of the Comte's servants could enter his mind-"

"We don't understand you, Margaret," said the Contessa.

The gla.s.s woman rolled her head as if to clear it, yet her words remained too dense, as if she could not find the way to translate her present senses into language.

"I could taste that the book held him, that he had been infused with Lord Robert-but not the character of his mind... I was forbidden, and so the corruption... eluded me..." Mrs. Marchmoor thrust her bandaged stump at Miss Temple. "She knew! She knew all along!" Her dismay rose to a keening shriek.

Fochtmann wheeled toward Miss Temple, his own frustration finally finding its object.

"Did she? It seems she has known all sorts of things! She was alone with the book-and alone with the girl! I suggest she tell us all exactly what she has done to them both!"

Miss Temple took a careful step backwards.

"The truth is before you all-the decay. You have not given a man new life... you have retrieved a corpse."

"TRUTH BE d.a.m.ned!" roared Xonck, and he careened toward Vandaariff, scattering everyone. Fochtmann turned in protest, but Xonck drove his plaster fist into the man's stomach, then took Vandaariff by the collar with his other hand.

"Francis!" screamed Mrs. Trapping. "Francis, we need him-step away at once! At once or you will die!"

"Company!" cried Leveret. "Arms!"

The soldiers raised their carbines. Xonck spun Vandaariff's body before him as a s.h.i.+eld, his foul lips pressed dripping against the man's right ear. Aspiche thrust Francesca Trapping to Phelps, sweeping out his saber as Phelps caught the girl in the crook of his cast and groped in his coat for a pistol. Leveret waved to stop the soldiers from firing, visibly furious at events being so suddenly beyond his control.

But then Xonck's whispering was answered.

From inside his raw throat came a chuckle, and the man's features settled into a heavier, petulant expression Robert Vandaariff had never worn.

"Why, Francis..." he rasped. "You seem to be in... a very bad way..."

"Oskar?" whispered Xonck with fervent relief. "Is it you?"

"You hold me rather tightly," answered Vandaariff. "I do not like it."

"If I release you, I will be shot."

"Why is that possibly my concern?"

"Let me enlighten you, Oskar," Xonck snarled. "My body is poisoned by your gla.s.s. I require you to save my life-after which I am again your willing friend. I cannot speak for Rosamonde-she too is not her best-but I can say that others, who hold the power to end both your life and mine and whose place this is, have agreed to your restoration only so you can be their slave."

"That is only to be expected." Vandaariff shrugged, surveying the room as if his gaze were a gun site, nodding with contempt as he recognized the faces around him. He reached up to wipe his face, the surprisingly delicate movements of his large hand entirely of a piece with the Comte d'Orkancz. He frowned at the black fluid wetting his fingertips. "What is this?"

"Margaret says you're unclean."

Vandaariff studied the gla.s.s woman, c.o.c.king his head at her bandaged arm. "Does she? Well... poor Margaret... always so emotional."

"They have administered the Process," hissed Xonck impatiently.

Vandaariff reached up to the scars, his touch smearing the black fluid across the raised welts. "A perfectly good idea, I'm sure. At any rate, worth the attempt..."

Mr. Leveret stepped forward and shouted directly into Vandaariff's face. "Indigo Pilate iris sunset Parchfeldt!"

Vandaariff chuckled. "The Process is powerful," he said with a wan shrug. "But infusion from a book is even more so. One is new-laying the essence."

"But-but we have remade you out of nothing!" Mrs. Trapping's arrogance had taken on a plaintive whine. "We must control you!"

"Must?" Vandaariff faced her with a sudden, low intensity. "Control the worms in your own stomach, madame. Command the innocence of your daughter to return. Order your bankrupt heart to pump clean-"

Mr. Fochtmann brought down an iron wrench on the back of Francis Xonck's head, with a sickening, crushed-pumpkin thwock. Xonck collapsed on the dais, utterly still.

Vandaariff looked down, abstractly curious. "My goodness."

Mrs. Trapping's hand was over her mouth. "Francis! Francis!" She strode toward Fochtmann. "What have you done to my brother?"

Mr. Fochtmann struck her cleanly on the jaw with his fist, knocking her into a sprawl of kicking legs.