The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

superb!”
    “No one has spoken to him for days—apparently he will reveal all tonight, his secret plans—”
    “He’s going to speak! The Comte as much as promised it—”
    “And then…the work will be revealed!”
    “Indeed…the work will be revealed!”

    This last was from a pair of thin rakish men in tailcoats and masks of black satin. Chang had penetrated well into the maze of private apartments and presently stood behind a marble pillar upon which was balanced an ancient and delicate amphora of malachite and gold. The chuckling men walked past—he was in a middling-sized sitting room—toward a sideboard laid with bottles and glasses. The men poured themselves whiskies and sipped them happily, leaning against the furniture and smiling at one another, for all the world like children waiting for permission to unwrap birthday presents.
    One of them frowned. He wrinkled his nose.
    “What is it?” asked the other.
    “That smell,” said the first.
    “My goodness,” agreed the other, sniffing too. “What could it be?”
    “I’ve no idea.”
    “It’s really quite horrid…”
    Chang shrank as best he could behind the pillar. If they continued toward him he would have no choice but to attack them both. One of them would surely have a chance to scream. He would be found. The first man had taken an exploratory step in his direction. The other hissed at him.
    “Wait!”
    “What?”
    “Do you think they might be
starting
?”
    “I don’t understand—”
    “The smell! Do you think they’re
starting
? The alchemical fires!”
    “O my goodness! Is that what they smell like?”
    “I don’t know—do you?”
    “I don’t know! We could be late!”
    “Hurry—hurry—”
    Each tossed back his whisky and slammed down his glass. They rushed unheedingly past Chang, straightening their masks and smoothing their hair.
    “What will they make us do?” asked one as they opened the door to leave.
    “It does not matter,” the other barked urgently, “you must do it!”
    “I will!”
    “We will be redeemed!” one called with a giddy chuckle as the door closed. “And then
nothing
shall stop us!”
    Chang stepped from his spot. With a shake of his head, he wondered if their reaction would have been any different had he not traveled through the furnace pipes, but merely arrived at a Harschmort drawing room bearing the normal odors of his rooming house.
That
smell they would have recognized, he knew—it had been settled into their social understanding. The hideous smells of Harschmort and the Process carried the possibility of advancement, suspending all natural judgment. Similarly, he saw now the Cabal could be as blunt and open as it wished about its aims of power and domination. The beauty was that none of these aspirants—crowding together in their finery, as if they’d managed an invitation to court—saw themselves as people dominated, though their desperate fawning made it obvious that they were. The unreality of the evening—their
induction
—only served to flatter them more, thrilling themselves with the silks and the masks and scheming—enticing trappings that Chang saw were nothing but the distractions of a circus mountebank. Instead of looking up at the Contessa or the Comte with any suspicion, these people were turned gleefully the other way, looking at all the people—from within their new “wisdom”—they might now dominate in turn. He saw the brutal sense of it. Any plan that trusted for success on the human desire to exploit others and deny the truth about one’s self was sure to succeed.

    Chang cracked open the far doors and looked into the corridor Smythe had described, the whole of its length lined with doors. One of these doors had led him to Arthur Trapping’s body. At one end he could see the spiral staircase. He was convinced that Vandaariff’s study must lay in the other direction if it held a way down into the great chamber.
    But where to start? Smythe had said the house was full of guests—as he had said the hallway was full of guards…but for this moment it was unaccountably empty. Chang could not expect it to stay so while he tried each of what—at a quick glance—seemed to be at least thirty doors. All this time…was there any hope that Celeste was alive?
    He stepped boldly into the hall, striding away from the staircase. He passed the first doors, one after another, with a rising sense of anticipation. If whatever had happened to Aspiche and the Duke