The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

hallway whence they’d come.
    “It doesn’t signify,” he said to them cheerfully. “We shall find the Prince tomorrow—in some fashion—and the Doctor may be dealt with at leisure. There is no hurry. Besides”—and here he chuckled, speaking more intimately—“we have another engagement with
nobility
—yes, Roger?”
    They passed out of hearing. Chang slowly retreated another ten yards, boxed in again. He would have to attack the guard to get out, or outlast them—assuming that when the party left they would take the guards along. He turned and continued down this half of the corridor, hoping the circle might join on the other side.

    Chang advanced with his stick before him in both hands—one on the handle and one on the body—ready to pull it apart at a moment’s notice. He had no real idea if he was the hunter or the hunted, but knew that if things went bad he could be fighting several men at once, which was almost always fatal. If the group of men kept their heads, one of them was always presented with an opening, and their lone opponent, no matter how vigorous or skilled, would fall. That man’s only option was to attack at as many points as possible and through pure aggression separate the group into fragile individuals—who might then be prone to hesitation. Hesitation created tiny moments of single combat, winnowing the group, which in turn created more hesitation—ferocity pitted against presence of mind, fear trumping logic. In short, it meant attacking like a madman. But such a wanton strategy opened his defense with more holes than Mrs. Wells’s natural smile—and any remaining presence of mind in his opponents—which was to say, if they were not inexperienced, stupid, easily rattled farmers—would leave him stuck like a pig. The better aim was to avoid it entirely. He took care to make no noise.
    As the corridor curved, he detected a low humming from beyond the inner wall—from the central chamber, whatever that actually was. On the floor in front of him lay a profusion of long boxes, opened and emptied in a great tumbled pile, the same boxes he’d seen on the cart at the canal and in the house of Robert Vandaariff—though these were lined with blue felt rather than orange. The humming grew louder, then steadily louder still, until the very air seemed to vibrate. Chang put his hands over his ears. The discomfort bled horribly into pain. He stumbled forward. The corridor ended at a door, sheathed in metal. He picked his way across the boxes—the great throbbing noise covering the sound of his awkward steps—but he could not concentrate, tripping, knocking boxes aside. He tottered and shut his eyes. He sank to his knees.
    It took Cardinal Chang several seconds of brutally reverberating echo in his ears to perceive that the sound had stopped. He sniffed, and felt his face. It was wet. He dug for his handkerchief—his nose was bleeding. He struggled to his feet amidst the littered boxes, shaking away a fog of dizziness, staring at the bright stains on the cloth as he doubled it over and dabbed again at his face. He collected himself, sniffed, stuffed the handkerchief into a side pocket, and stepped carefully to the door. He pressed his ear against it, listening, but it was too thick—which only made him wonder all the more at the true extremity of the throbbing hum, to have so touched him through the massive walls and this heavy door. What had happened to the people
within
the chamber? What was the cause of the noise? He stood for a moment, assessing just where he was in relation to his ostensible aims—to find the true killer of Arthur Trapping and the elusive Isobel Hastings. Chang knew he had pursued a dangerous tangent—perhaps trapped himself there. Then he thought of Angelique, perhaps on the other side of this door, involved he knew not how—but certainly without any protection he could trust. He turned the handle.
    The heavy door swung open on silent well-oiled hinges, and Chang entered with all the noise of a ghost—and indeed, as he took in the spectacle before his eyes, the color drained from his face. He had entered a kind of ante-room, divided from a larger, vaulted chamber—whose high walls were lined with gleaming pipes, like a great organ, like a cathedral—which he saw through a large window of thick glass. The pipes ran together down to the floor and gathered under a stage-like platform upon which was a large table. On the table lay Angelique, quite