The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

just see the shadows of bodies through the gaps between fence slats and fired again. In reply someone fired back, three shots in rapid succession that tore up the mud around him. Svenson returned fire twice, blindly, and hurled himself away, doing his best to run.
    For the first time he saw that the yard was the back of a ruined house, the windows broken and the roof gone, the rear door off its frame and lying broken in the mud. The doorway and the open window frames were lined with faces. Svenson careened toward them even as he tried to take in who they were—children, an older man, women—their skin the color of milky tea, hair black, clothes colorful but worn. He raised the pistol, not at them but toward the sky. “Excuse me—I beg your pardon—please—look out!” He rushed through the door, the bodies around him skittering clear, and glanced back just long enough to see the fence in movement, bodies coming over. He dove ahead into the darkened rooms, leaping cooking pots, pallets, piles of clothing, doing his best not to step on anything or anyone, his senses assailed by the smell of so many persons in such a tangled space, by the open fire, and by pungent spices—he could not even name what they were. Behind him a shot rang out and a splinter of wood whipped into his face. He winced, knew he was bleeding, and nearly ran down a small child—where the hell was the door to the street? He stepped through doorway after doorway—as close as he could come to a dead run—dodging all the occupants—a room of goats?—jumping over an open cooking fire. He heard screams—the other men were in the house—just as he entered what had to be the main hallway, and directly in front of it a ruined set of double doors. He rushed to them, only to find they had been thoroughly nailed shut—of course, the house was condemned. He rushed back, looking for a window to the street. Another shot rang out—he didn’t know from where—and he felt a hideous
snip
of air as the bullet traced past his ear. He kicked through a hanging curtain and into someone’s occupied bed—a screaming woman, an outraged man—his feet caught up in their sheets but his gaze fixed on another carpet nailed to the wall, hanging down. Svenson threw himself to it and whipped the carpet aside. The window beyond was blessedly clear of glass. He hurdled the frame, tucking his hands around his head, and landed in an awkward sprawl that ended with him facedown on the paving, his pistol bouncing away on the stones.
    Svenson thrust himself to his feet—his hands felt raw, his knee bruised, ankle complaining. As he bent to recover the pistol another shot rang out from the window. He turned to see Blach, one hand holding a bloody handkerchief to his face, the other with his smoking pistol, fixing Svenson in his sights. Svenson could not move fast enough. Blach squeezed the trigger, his eyes ablaze with hatred. The hammer landed on an empty chamber. Blach swore viciously and broke open the gun, knocking the empty shells out the window, digging for fresh cartridges. Svenson scooped up his weapon and ran.

    He did not know where he was. He kept on until he was winded, doing his best to lose pursuit—dodging from street to street and cutting through what open lots and parks he could find. He finally collapsed in a small churchyard, sitting with his head in his hands on the ancient, cracked cover of a tomb, his chest heaving, his body spent. The light had grown—it was full morning—and the open space between objects struck him as almost shockingly clear. But instead of this making the events of his night seem unreal, Svenson found it was the day he could not trust. The weathered white stone, the worn letters spelling “Thackaray” under his fingers, the leafless branches above—none of these answered the relentless strange world he had entered. For a moment he wondered if he had eaten opium and was in that instant lying stupefied in a Chinaman’s den, and all of this a twisting dream. He rubbed his eyes and spat.
    Svenson knew that he was no real spy, nor any kind of soldier. He was lost. His ankle throbbed, his hands were scraped, he had not eaten, his throat was raw, and his head felt like a block of rotten cheese from the Comte’s drug. He forced himself to remove his boot and palpate his tender ankle—it was not broken, nor probably even seriously sprained, he would simply have to treat it carefully. He scoffed at that unlikely prospect and