The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

itself was signified—he’d had enough Greek to name them—by an alpha and then just above it, as if it were its multiplyingpower, a tiny omega … and from the omega ran one clear scoring line of paint down to the nest of symbols representing the chamber. Chang looked up from the canvas, feeling foolishly literal. If the room was the alpha—where in it might he find the omega? To his best estimate it lay just beyond Vandaariff’s desk … where the wall was covered by a heavy hanging curtain.
    Chang crossed quickly to the spot, watching Vandaariff closely. The man
still
did not stir from his writing—he must have covered half a long page in the time Chang had been there. This was perhaps the most powerful man in the nation—even on the continent—and Chang could not resist his curiosity. He stepped closer to the desk—by all rights his reeking clothes alone should have shattered a saint’s concentration—to get a look at Vandaariff’s unchangingly impassive face.
    It did not seem to Cardinal Chang that Robert Vandaariff’s eyes saw anything at all. They were open, but glassy and dull, the thoughts behind them entirely elsewhere, facing down at the desk top but quite to the side of his writing, as if he were instead inscribing thoughts from memory. Chang leaned even closer to study the parchment—he was nearly at Vandaariff’s shoulder and still there was no reaction. As near as he could tell, the man was documenting the contents of a financial transaction—in amazingly complicated detail—referring to shipping and to Macklenburg and French banking and to rates and markets and shares and schedules of repayment. He watched Vandaariff finish the page and briskly turn it over—the sudden movement of his arms causing Chang to leap back—continuing mid-phrase at the top of the fresh side. Chang looked on the floor behind the desk and saw page after long page of parchment completely covered with text, as if Robert Vandaariff was emptying his mind of every financial secret he had ever possessed. Chang looked again at the working fingers, chilled by the inhuman insistence of the scratching pen, and noticed that the tips were tinged with blue … but it was not cold in the room, and the blue was more lustrous beneath the pale flesh than Chang had ever seen on a living man.
    He stepped away from the automaton Lord and felt behind him for the curtain, swept it aside to expose a simple locked door. He fumbled with his ring of keys, sorting out one, and then dropped them all—suddenly full of dread at being in Vandaariff’s unfeeling presence, the pen scratching along behind him. Chang scooped up the keys and with an abrupt, anxious impatience simply kicked the wood by the lock as hard as he could. He kicked again and felt it begin to split. He did not care about the noise or any trail of destruction. He kicked once more and cracked the wood around the still-fixed bolt. He hurled himself against it, smashing through, and staggered into a winding stone tunnel whose end sloped downward, out of view.
    Apart from his relentless spidery hand, Lord Vandaariff did not move. Chang rubbed his shoulder and broke into a run.
    The tunnel was smoothly paved and bright from regularly placed gas-lit globes above his head. The passage curved gently over the course of some hundred paces, at the end of which Chang was forced to reduce his speed. It was just as well, for as he paused to steady his breath—leaning against the wall with one hand and allowing the gob of bloody spit to drop silently from his mouth—he heard the distant sound of many voices raised in song. Ahead the tunnel took a sharp bank to his right, toward the great chamber. Would there be any kind of guard? The singing drowned out any other noise. It came from below … from the occupants of the overhanging cells! Chang sank to his knees and cautiously peered around the corner.
    The tunnel opened into a narrowed walkway, little more than a catwalk, with railings of chain to either side, extending to a black, malevolent turret of iron that rose into the rock ceiling above him. Through the metal grid of the catwalk rose the sound of singing. Chang peered down but, between the dim light and his squinting eyes, could get no true sense of the chamber below. On the far side of the catwalk was an iron door, massive with a heavy lock andiron bar, that had been left ajar. Chang stopped just to his side of it, waiting, listening, heard no one, and slipped into the