The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

honest, was it bettered by anyone? He smiled wolfishly at the thought that it
was
better without the corrupted Mr. Gray, amused at the notion that he himself might be seen as an engine of civic progress.
    At the end of the corridor was another door. Gray’s key turned sharply in the lock and Chang peered into a room scarcely larger than a closet, with seven large pipes running vertically from the ceiling to disappear through the floor, each one set with an access panel similar to the one he’d emerged through downstairs. The room was stiflingly hot and reeking—even to him—with the acrid, chemical excrescence of indigo clay. To the side was another rack of pegs, dangling another collection of flasks, vials, and unsettlingly large syringes. The roar of the machines echoed in the tiny chamber as if he were near the humming pipes of a massive church organ. Chang noticed a narrow slice of light between two pipes, and then, looking closely, saw similar small gaps elsewhere in the wall they formed … and realized that this was literally true—the far wall of the closet
was
the pipes, and beyond them, its brilliant illumination shining through, lay the great chamber. Chang crouched and removed his glasses, pressing his face to the nearest chink of light he could find. The pipes were hot against his skin, and he could only see the smallest view, but what he saw was astonishing: an opposite wall, high as a cliff-face, thick with more pipes flowing the entire height of a gigantic, vaulted chamber, and then, just on the edge of his sight, what looked like the central tower, like the hub of a wheel, whose sheer face of riveted steel was dotted with tiny vents from which the interior of every cell in the old prison could have been viewed. Chang shifted to another gap on his hands and knees, searching for an angle that showed him more. From here he saw a different segment of the opposite wall. Between the banks of pipes lay a tier of exposed cells—actually several tiers—bars still in place, looking for all the world like viewing galleries in a theatre. He sat back and brushed himself off byhabit, wincing at how smeared with filth he was. Whatever was going to happen in the chamber, it was designed to have an audience.
    He was back in the spiral staircase, climbing quietly, both hands on his stick. The next and final door did not appear until double the usual number of stairs, and when it did, he was surprised to see it was wood, with a new brass doorknob and lock—consistent with the formal decor of Harschmort. Chang had ascended to the—probably lowest—level of the house proper. Gray had said they thought he was dead—but did that mean back at the Ministry or just now in the furnace pipes? Surely he had been recognized in the garden—did it matter? He was more than happy to play the role of avenging ghost. He opened the door a narrow crack and peered, not into the hallway he expected, but a small dark room, blocked by a drawn curtain, under which he saw flickers of light—flickers matching audible footfalls on the curtain’s other side. Chang eased through the doorway and crept close to the curtain. He delicately pinched the fabric between two fingers, making a gap just wide enough to peek through.
    The curtain merely masked an alcove in a large storeroom, the walls lined with shelves and the bulk of the open floor taken up with freestanding racks stuffed full of bottles and jars and tins and boxes. While he watched, two porters shifted a wooden crate of clinking brown bottles onto a wheeled cart and pushed it from sight, pausing to make conversation with someone Chang couldn’t see. After they left, the room was silent … save for bootsteps and a metallic knocking Chang had heard too many times before—the jostling of a saber scabbard as a bored guard paced back and forth. But the guard was hidden on the opposite side of the racks. To reach him Chang would have to leave the curtained alcove and only then decide on his angle of attack—while exposed.
    Before he could begin he heard approaching steps and a harsh commanding voice he recognized from the garden.
    “Where is Mr. Gray?”
    “He hasn’t returned, Mr. Blenheim,” answered the guard—by his accent not one of the Macklenburgers.
    “What was he doing?”
    “Don’t know, Sir. Mr. Gray went downstairs—”
    “Damn him to hell! Does he not know the time? The schedule?”
    Chang braced himself—they were certain to search. Without the covering