The Chemickal Marriage

to Chang. The
corrupted
essence will burn apart and flow to Miss Temple. Do you understand? Are you ready?’
    The Contessa spoke to the green-coated guards. ‘If he has done anything, shoot him. Be ready, in fact, to shoot anyone. Your master’s survival is at stake. Doctor?’
    Svenson nodded, glanced once at Mahmoud, and then stepped away.
    The Contessa slid back the brass caps on three of the knobs, and then uncovered the largest, a blood-red ball of glass, like the one they had found in the Contessa’s abandoned laboratory, which had so nearly claimed Chang’s life and her own. This new red sphere was undamaged and whole. The light struck the glass and the glass transformed, glowing with heat. With a shriek the cables leading to Chang’s table rattled to life. The hoses went taut and the machines took up their escalating drone. Miss Temple jolted against the restraints as the current met her limbs. Without volition sound came from her mouth, air from her lungs.
    In the same instant, sparks leapt from the three tubs. With a decisive lunge Doctor Svenson brought his heel down hard on the coupling at the front of Cunsher’s tub. A grisly crack and the coupling gave way, spittingsmoke and fire. Miss Temple saw Mahmoud hesitate – the Doctor’s warning, she now realized – before flinging himself at the tub of Michel Gorine. He seized the coupling with both hands, screaming at the contact, and with a brutal wrench tore it free. Sparking smoke spewed from the broken connection. Mahmoud’s body vibrated cruelly, his fingers locked around the cable, and he fell. Both Cunsher and Gorine remained as they had been, unharmed, but the tub containing Madelaine Kraft, like the others before her, erupted with a cloud of horrid steam.
    Miss Temple could no longer see for the shaking of her eyes. The machines became deafening – or was the roaring in her blood? She braced herself for the flood of cold corruption – but what she felt instead was heat, a clean consuming fire that scored each bone and every lineament of muscle and vein … and, with the agony of its passage, she felt the whole of her body reclaimed.
    The corruption of the Comte d’Orkancz had been scoured away. Her eyes streamed, and with her tears went his memories … from this much of her burden, at least, she was set free.
    The air reeked of burnt flesh and indigo clay. Mahmoud and Doctor Svenson lay on the ground, a guard with a carbine over them. Madelaine Kraft was gone. The Contessa’s hands were pressed against the glass. Every acolyte had gathered. Foison had come forward, along with Pfaff. Every one of them was looking at Chang.
    The scar on his back had lost its flaming shade, was now white and smooth like so many of his older wounds. Chang’s muscles strained as he fought to rise.
    He was alive … and awake.
    ‘Is it him?’ cried the Contessa. ‘Did it work or not?’
    Acolytes lowered the table to a horizontal position and loosened the restraints. Six together lifted Chang gently and turned him on his back. Then they bowed their heads. Chang groaned.
    ‘We require an answer! Are you these men’s master come back to life?’
    Chang raised a hand against the light. His voice came raw.
    ‘Who is there? What is this place? What has happened?’
    The Contessa raised her hand so that no one else might speak. ‘You are at Harschmort. Are you Robert Vandaariff restored?’
    Chang turned and met Miss Temple’s gaze. What had the Doctor done? His final changes had redirected the flow of power, and the bloodstone had effected her cure. But what had he done to Chang?
    ‘What is your name, damn you?’ This was Mr Schoepfil, still on his knees. ‘Do you know me?’
    Chang pushed himself up, his eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Drusus Schoepfil.
Nephew
.’
    ‘And do you know
me
, Lord Robert?’ called the woman in the brass helmet. ‘Can you name my
role
?’
    ‘I know your voice … Rosamonde.’ Chang hesitated. ‘My Virgo Lucifera.’
    The acolytes erupted with praise, fairly singing their master’s return. Mr Foison, Miss Temple noted, said nothing. Nor did Jack Pfaff. Chang held out a hand.
    ‘Something to drink. To return from so far away is thirsty work …’ The acolytes helped him off the table. One offered a white robe that Chang refused, another a bottle that he scrutinized and then accepted. He clutched the table for support, his body not yet under full command. His gaze fell on Svenson and Mahmoud. ‘Are those men dead?’