The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

the memory of the thin silk robes hanging closely around her body…the suddenly soft weight of her limbs in his arms as he helped her from the table…even the animal spate of effort as she pulled the gag from her stretched lips). Svenson swallowed and frowned anew at Bascombe, deciding then that he very much disliked the man’s proud manner—one could just tell by the way he ticked his notebook. He’d seen enough naked ambition in the Macklenburg Palace to make the man’s hunger as plain to his trained eyes as the symptoms of syphilis. More, he could imagine how Bascombe had been served by the Process. What before must have been tempered with doubt or deference had been in that alchemical crucible hardened to steel. Svenson wondered how long it would be before Crabbé felt the knife in his back.

    The last functionaries laid the final victim on a divan, next to the uncaring elderly churchman—a handsome woman with vaguely eastern features in a blue silk dress and a fat white pearl dangling from each ear. The last book was set down—the whole pile had to number near thirty!—and Bascombe made his final jabs with the pencil…and then frowned. He flipped back through the notebook and repeated his calculations, by his darkening frown coming up with the same unsatisfactory answer. He spoke to the men quickly, sorting through their responses, winnowing their words until he was looking at the somnolent figure of a particularly lovely woman in green, with a mask woven of glass beads that Svenson guessed would be Venetian and extremely expensive. Bascombe called again, as clearly as if Svenson could hear the words, “Where is the book to go with this woman?” There was no answer. He turned to Crabbé and the two of them whispered together. Crabbé shrugged. He pointed to one of the men who then dashed from the room, obviously sending him back to search. The rest of the books were loaded carefully into an ironbound chest. Svenson noted how all of them wore leather gloves to touch the glass and treated them with deliberate and tender care—their efforts reminding him keenly of sailors nervously stacking rounds of ammunition in an armory.
    The clear association of particular books with specific individuals—individuals of obvious rank and stature—had to relate to the Cabal’s earlier collection of scandal from the minions of the powerful, at Tarr Manor. Was it merely another level of acquisition? In the country, they had gathered—had stored within those books—the means to manipulate the powerful…could the aim have merely been to blackmail those powerful figures into journeying to Harschmort, and then forcing this next step upon them? He shook his head at the boldness of it, for the next step was to seize hold of the knowledge, the memories, the plans, the very dreams of the most mighty in the land. He wondered if the victims retained their memories. Or were they amnesiac husks? What happened when—or was it if?—they awoke to full awareness…would they know where they were…or who?
    Yet there was more to it, if only in simple mechanics. The men wore gloves to touch the glass—indeed to even look within it was perilous, as those who had died at Tarr Manor made clear. But how then did this precious information serve the Cabal—how was it
read
? If a person could not touch a book without risking their life or sanity, what was the point? There must be a way…a key…
    Svenson glanced behind him. Had there been a noise? He listened…nothing…merely nerves. The men finished loading the chest. Bascombe tucked the notebook under his arm and snapped his fingers, issuing orders: these men to take the chest, these to go with the Minister, these to stay. He walked with Crabbé to the doors—and had the Minister handed something to his assistant? He had…but Svenson could not see what it was. And then they were gone.
    The two remaining men stood for the barest moment and then, with a palpable relaxation of their manner, stepped one to the sideboard and the other to a wooden cigar box on a side table. They spoke smilingly to one another, nodding at their charges. The one at the sideboard poured two tumblers of whisky and crossed to the other, who was even then spitting out a bitten tip of tobacco. They swapped gifts—tumbler for cigar—and lit up, one after another. Their masters not gone for ninety seconds, they were smacking their lips and puffing away like princes.
    Svenson looked around him for ideas.