The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

it—while he spoke. “Indeed…
Highness
,” he snarled dangerously, as if his very words were smoking vitriol. “Abdicating
responsibility
can be mortal—one is scarcely in more peril than when trusting those who promise all. Was not Satan the most beautiful of angels?” Xonck staggered away.
    Bascombe appealed to the Contessa. “Madame—”
    She nodded tolerantly. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.” Bascombe hurried out.

    “Now we are alone,” said the Prince, in a satisfied tone that was meant to be charming. The Contessa smiled, looking around the room at the other men.
    “Only a Prince thinks of himself ‘alone’ with a woman when there are merely no other women in the room.”
    “Does that make Francis Xonck a woman—as he’s just left us?” laughed Major Blach. He laughed like a crow.
    The Prince laughed with him. Chang felt a twinge of empathy for Xonck, and was tempted to simply step out and attack them—as long as he killed Blach first, the others would be no trouble. Then Rosamonde was speaking again, and he found her voice still fixed him where he was.
    “I would suggest we place Herr Flaüss on the table.”
    “Excellent idea,” agreed the Prince. “Blach—and you there—”
    “That is Mr. Gray, from the Institute,” said Rosamonde patiently, as if she had said this before.
    “Excellent—pick him up—”
    “He is very heavy, Highness…,” muttered Blach, his face red with exertion. Chang smiled to see Blach and the older Mr. Gray futilely struggling with the awkward, kicking mass of Herr Flaüss, who was doing his best to avoid the table altogether.
    “Highness?” asked the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza.
    “I suppose I must—it is ridiculous—stop struggling, Flaüss, or indeed it will go the worse for you—this is all for your benefit, and you will thank me later!”
    The Prince shoved Gray to the side and took the writhing man’s legs. The effort was not much more successful, but with much grunting they got him aboard. Chang was pleased to see Rosamonde smiling at them, if discreetly.
    “There!” gasped Karl-Horst. He gestured vaguely to Gray and returned to his seat and his tea. “Tie him down—prepare the—ah—apparatus—”
    “Should we question him?” asked Blach.
    “For what?” replied the Prince.
    “His allies in Macklenburg. His allies here. The whereabouts of Doctor Svenson—”
    “Why bother? Once he has undergone the Process he will tell us of his own accord—indeed, he will be one of our number.”
    “You have not undergone the Process yourself, Major?” asked the Contessa in a neutral tone of polite interest.
    “Not as of yet, Madame.”
    “He will,” declared the Prince. “I insist upon it—all of my advisors will be required to partake of its…
clarity
. You do not know, Blach—you do not
know
.” He slurped his tea. “This is of course why you have failed to find Svenson, and failed with this—this—
criminal
. It is only by the grace of the Contessa’s wisdom that you were not relied on to effect changes in Macklenburg!”
    Blach did not answer, but less than deftly tried to change the subject, nodding to the door. “Do we need Bascombe to continue?”
    “Mr. Gray can manage, I am sure,” said the Contessa. “But perhaps you will help him with the boxes?”
    Chang watched with fascination as the long boxes were opened and the green felt packing pulled onto the floor. While Blach secured Flaüss to the table—without the slightest scruple for tightening the straps—the elderly Mr. Gray removed what looked to be an oversized pair of eyeglasses, the lenses impossibly thick and rimmed with black rubber, the whole apparatus—for indeed, it was part of a machine—run through with trailing lengths of bright copper wire. Gray strapped the glasses over the struggling man’s face—again, viciously tight—and then stepped back to the box. He removed a length of rubber-sheathed cable with a large metal clamp at either end, attaching one end to the copper wire and then kneeling for the box with the other. He attached it there—Chang could not see exactly to what—and then, with some effort, turned some kind of switch or nozzle. Chang heard a pressurized hiss. Gray stood, looking to Rosamonde.
    “I suggest we all step away from the table,” she said.
    Blue light began to radiate from inside the box, growing in brightness. Flaüss arched his back against his bonds, snorting breath through his nose. The wires began to