The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

indifference of white ash. On the third toe of her left foot was a silver ring, but Chang had known from the first glimpse of her hair…it was Angelique.

    “I believe you are…acquainted with the lady,” continued d’Orkancz. “Of course you may be acquainted with the others as well—Miss Poole”—he nodded at the woman in the middle—“and Mrs. Marchmoor.” The Comte gestured to the woman directly in front of Chang. He looked down, trying to locate Margaret Hooke (last seen on a bed in the St. Royale) in what he saw—the hair, her size, the color of what flesh he could see beneath the black rubber. He felt the urge to be sick.
    Chang spat a lozenge of blood onto the platform and called to the Comte, his hoarse voice betraying his fatigue.
    “What will you do to them?”
    “What I have planned to do. Do you search for Angelique, or for Miss Temple? As you see she is not here.”
    “Where is she?” cried Chang hoarsely.
    “I believe you have a choice,” said the Comte in reply. “If you seek to rescue Angelique, there is no human way—for I read the effects of the glass in your face, Cardinal—for you to bear her from this place and
then
do the same for Miss Temple.”
    Chang said nothing.
    “It is, of course, academic. You ought to have died ten times over—is that not correct, Major Blach? You will do so now. But it is perhaps fitting that it take place at the feet—if I am correctly informed—of your own hopeless love.”
    Staring directly at the Comte, Chang gathered hold of as many of the hoses rising from Mrs. Marchmoor’s body as he could and prepared to rip them free.
    “If you do that, you kill her, Cardinal! Is that what you desire—to destroy a helpless woman? At this distance I cannot stop you. The forces at work have been committed! None of these may retreat from their destiny—truly their lot is transformation or death!”
    “What transformation?” shouted Chang above the rising roar of the pipes, and the hissing gas behind him.
    In answer d’Orkancz reached for the speaking hose and jammed it sharply back into the mask. His words echoed through the vaulted heights like thunder.
    “The transformation of
angels
! The powers of heaven made flesh!”

    The Comte d’Orkancz yanked hard on one of the pedestal’s brass levers, and brought his other hand down like a hammer on a metal stop. At once the hoses around Angelique, which had been hanging and lank, stiffened with life as they were flooded with gas and boiling fluid. Her body arched on the table, and the air was filled with a hideous rising whine. Chang could not look away. The Comte pulled a second lever and her fingers and toes began to twitch…a third, and to Chang’s growing terror their color began to change even more, a deadening, freezing blue. D’Orkancz pushed in two stops at once, and shifted the first lever back. The whine redoubled its intensity, ringing within every pipe and echoing throughout the vaulted cathedral. The crowd above them gasped and Chang heard voices shouting from the cells—cries of excitement and delight, hoots of encouragement—that grew into a second buzzing chorus. Her body arched again and again, rippling the hoses like a dog shaking off the rain, and then within the screams and roars Chang heard another tone that pierced his heart like a spike: the rattle of Angelique’s own voice, an insensate moan from the very depths of her lungs, as if the final defenses of her body were expending themselves against the vast mechanical assault. Tears flowed unheeded down the Cardinal’s face. Anything he did would kill her—but was she not being destroyed before his eyes? He could not move.
    The whining roar snapped at once to nothing, silencing the entire chamber like a gunshot. With a sudden rippling shimmer that Chang could scarce credit he was seeing, a wave of fluid rushed beneath her skin along each limb from her feet and hands, flooding up to her hips and torso and finally enveloping her head.
    Angelique’s flesh was transformed to a brilliant, shining translucent blue, as if she herself…her very body…had been before them all transmuted into glass.
    The Comte pulled up his stops and pushed in his final lever. He turned up to the throng of spectators and raised his hand in triumph.
    “It has been done!”
    The crowd erupted into ecstatic cheering and applause. D’Orkancz nodded to them, raised his other hand, and then turned to Blach, for a moment pulling the speaking hose