The Chemickal Marriage

– the noisy presence of Vandaariff’s men behind each successive stairwell door. Foison’s errand
was
hisalone. But at the top of the staircase her search was foxed, for the bloody trail vanished into a long runner of carpet.
    She kept walking. This was Harschmort. She would meet someone – and
confront
them. The Contessa was wrong about that too.
    When the shouts came she hurried towards them, and the explosion that followed. Ahead, a woman careened through a smoking archway, gold-skinned and frail, black hair around her shoulders. She saw Miss Temple but did not pause.
    ‘Hurry!’ she cried. ‘
Run!
’
    Without thinking Miss Temple took the woman’s hand and fled. A cork slipper flew from her foot, and after three awkward steps she kicked off its mate.
    ‘All of them – every last one taken –’
    Cries and the sound of breaking glass came from behind. Miss Temple saw shadows wrestling in blue smoke, and brass-helmeted men charging into the cloud with clubs.
    The woman watched with too wide eyes, hand to her mouth. ‘My son –’
    Miss Temple tugged her on. ‘You can do nothing.
Run
.’
    ‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded, out of breath. ‘How did you escape?’
    ‘I have not escaped. I have entered. Wait.’
    They had reached a doorway left ajar, and Miss Temple peered through. Four green-coated men lay on the floor, though they bore no wounds. The air stank of indigo clay, and Miss Temple’s eyes stung.
    ‘Wait,’ gasped the woman. ‘In case. My name is Madelaine Kraft –’
    ‘There is no “in case” if we keep moving,’ said Miss Temple.
    ‘I cannot run. You will be taken with me. Listen. You don’t know who I am. Please. I heard him once explain a thing –’
    ‘
Who?
’
    She squeezed Miss Temple’s hand in a feeble request for patience. ‘The Comte d’Orkancz. The secret is light. “The chemical value of light” – as if it were as solid as earth or water, or active like fire or cold. He put a disc of glass – do not be shocked – a
disc of
glass
on a woman’s body and opened a curtain so the sun hit it. She fairly sang with pleasure –’
    ‘What woman?’
    ‘That does not matter. Her name was Angelique –’
    Miss Temple pulled her hand away. ‘
Ah
.’
    ‘
Light
. The character of blue glass –’
    ‘You mean it will not work in the dark?’
    Madelaine Kraft shook her head. ‘We are already too late – the dawn has come! The only hope now is to know – to understand his
thinking
–’
    ‘His thinking is as scrambled as five eggs in a bowl. Do you know Cardinal Chang?’
    ‘Of course I know Chang.’
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘I do not know. I have misjudged him. I have misjudged myself and lost my son.’ Abruptly Madelaine Kraft pushed Miss Temple through the door. ‘I will lead them away.
Go
.’
    She closed the door, and through it Miss Temple heard her shouting to attract the guards.
    Miss Temple pulled a revolving pistol from the holster of a fallen man. She waited, bracing the weapon with both hands, ready to shoot the first man through the door. The sounds outside went quiet – Madelaine Kraft had been taken away – and no guards returned to search. Still, for some minutes Miss Temple did not move. The men at her feet, asleep or dead, lay in a heap like the bones outside an ogre’s den. She had managed an entry to Harschmort, but this room marked another degree of danger. Newly constructed for the ritual of this night, here was the true beginning of her battle with its master.
    Blocking her path was a bed of black gravel mixed with blue stones: blue glass spurs. She could not risk the spurs in bare feet. On the wall hung a line of white robes edged with green, with a pair of felt slippers at the foot of each. She exchanged the Contessa’s cotton robe for that of a Vandaariff acolyte, and helped herself to the slippers, noting how filthy and dark her feet were.
    Between the gravel and the far door lay a mosaic of large tiles. A noxious resonance in her throat warned her not to simply walk across, though she’dno idea what would happen if she did. Each tile was made of a different coloured glass, but the Comte’s memories brought only confusion. Then Miss Temple laughed aloud, for in the corner of one tile she saw an
x
, quite freshly scratched.
    ‘Well, thank you
very
much …’
    A series of hops brought her to the far side, thinking very little of the entire challenge. Like so much learnt thinking, to Miss Temple it was just another