The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Vandaariff was emptying his mind of every financial secret he had ever possessed. Chang looked again at the working fingers, chilled by the inhuman insistence of the scratching pen, and noticed that the tips were tinged with blue…but it was not cold in the room, and the blue was more lustrous beneath the pale flesh than Chang had ever seen on a living man.
    He stepped away from the automaton Lord and felt behind him for the curtain, swept it aside to expose a simple locked door. He fumbled with his ring of keys, sorting out one, and then dropped them all—suddenly full of dread at being in Vandaariff’s unfeeling presence, the pen scratching along behind him. Chang scooped up the keys and with an abrupt, anxious impatience simply kicked the wood by the lock as hard as he could. He kicked again and felt it begin to split. He did not care about the noise or any trail of destruction. He kicked once more and cracked the wood around the still-fixed bolt. He hurled himself against it, smashing through, and staggered into a winding stone tunnel whose end sloped downward, out of view.
    Apart from his relentless spidery hand, Lord Vandaariff did not move. Chang rubbed his shoulder and broke into a run.

    The tunnel was smoothly paved and bright from regularly placed gas-lit globes above his head. The passage curved gently over the course of some hundred paces, at the end of which Chang was forced to reduce his speed. It was just as well, for as he paused to steady his breath—leaning against the wall with one hand and allowing the gob of bloody spit to drop silently from his mouth—he heard the distant sound of many voices raised in song. Ahead the tunnel took a sharp bank to his right, toward the great chamber. Would there be any kind of guard? The singing drowned out any other noise. It came from below…from the occupants of the overhanging cells! Chang sank to his knees and cautiously peered around the corner.
    The tunnel opened into a narrowed walkway, little more than a catwalk, with railings of chain to either side, extending to a black, malevolent turret of iron that rose into the rock ceiling above him. Through the metal grid of the catwalk rose the sound of singing. Chang peered down, but between the dim light and his squinting eyes, could get no true sense of the chamber below. On the far side of the catwalk was an iron door, massive with a heavy lock and iron bar, that had been left ajar. Chang stopped just to his side of it, waiting, listening, heard no one, and slipped into the dark…and onto another spiral staircase, this one welded together from cast iron plates.
    The staircase continued up to the roof of the cavern, toward what must be the main entrance to the tower. But Chang turned downwards, his boots’ tapping on steps more sensed than audible over the chorus of voices. He could hear them more clearly, but it was the kind of singing where even if one did know the language the words might well have been those of an Italian (or for all he knew Icelandic) opera, so distended and unnatural was the phrasing imposed by the music. Still, the lyrics he did manage to pick out—“impenetrable blue”…“never-ending sight”…“redemption kind”—only drove him to descend more quickly.
    The interior of the tower was lit by regular sconces, but their light was deliberately dim, so as not to show through the open viewing slots. Chang slowed. The step below him was covered by a tangled shape. It was a discarded coat. He picked it up and held it to the nearest sconce…a uniform coat, dark blue at some point but now filthy with dirt and, he saw with interest, blood. The stains were still damp, and soaked the front of the coat quite completely. He did not, however, see any wound or tear
in
the coat—was the blood from the wearer, or from, perhaps, the wearer’s enemy? Whoever had worn it might have bled from the head or had their hand cut off and clutched the stump to their chest—anything was possible. It was then that—his mind moving so slowly!—Chang noticed the bars of rank on the coat’s stiff collar…he looked again at the cut, the color, the silver braid around each epaulette…he damned himself for a fool.
    It was Svenson’s coat, without question, and covered in gore.
    He quickly searched around him in the stairwell, and on the wall saw the dripping remains of a wide spray of blood. The violence had happened here on the stairs—perhaps only moments ago. Was Svenson dead? How had he