The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

driving them several steps—but they caughtthemselves and pushed back, stranding him within the chamber. Blach scooped up the pistol with his left hand. The Comte was urgently tying off the steaming hoses with rope. Blach raised the pistol. With a sudden shock Chang saw what the cart held, for the top of the metal casket had become dislodged in the commotion. Without a thought he dropped his dagger, seized the nearest object, and whipped it behind him at the Major, flinging himself into the cart as soon as the thing left his hand.
    The glass book lanced toward Blach at the same time he pulled the trigger, shattering it in flight. Half of the shards sprayed back at the tower with the force of the bullet, into the iron walls and through the doorway at the two helmeted men, who threw themselves desperately aside. But half kept flying with the momentum of the book itself. The Comte d’Orkancz was shielded by the table, as Angelique—if in her present state the glass could even have had any effect upon her—was shielded by the hoses, and by the Major himself who stood most directly in the way. His unprotected face and body were instantly savaged by gashes small and large.
    Chang raised his head from the cart to see the man shaking with spasms, his mouth open and a hideous hoarse croaking scream rising from his lungs like smoke from a catching fire. Patches of blue began to form around each laceration, spreading, cracking, flaking free. The rattle died in his throat with a puff of pink dust. Major Blach fell to his knees with a snapping crunch and then forward onto his face, the front of which shattered on impact like a plate of lapis-glazed terra cotta.
    The great chamber was silent. The Comte rose slowly behind the table. His eyes fell upon Chang, clambering awkwardly free of the cart. The Comte
screamed
with an amplified rage that shook the entire cathedral. He rushed at Chang like a giant rabid bear. Without his dagger (it had fallen somewhere under the iron chest)Chang hurtled the cart—the two men were on their hands and knees, shaken but not in the Major’s straits, their leather aprons having saved them—and shoved the cart behind him into the Comte. Without looking to see its effect he raced to the stairs and began to climb.
    Almost immediately, on the seventh step, he slipped on a smear of blood, fell, and looked back, his hand digging into his coat for his razor. The two aproned men were crouched low, still flinching away from the doorway that framed the Comte d’Orkancz, who had snatched up Blach’s pistol and was even then aiming it at Chang. Chang knew there was only one bullet left and that with two steps more he would be out of the Comte’s line of fire, but behind the Comte, on the table, Cardinal Chang’s gaze was fixed on Angelique’s glassy blue right arm … which had begun to move. Chang screamed. Angelique’s hand was flexing, groping. She caught a handful of the hoses and tore them from their seals, shooting blue steam. The Comte turned as she let go and wrenched another handful, pulling at them like weeds in a garden. As d’Orkancz dove for her hand, crying out for his assistants, Chang caught a hideous glimpse, over the large man’s shoulder, of Angelique’s face, eyes still covered by the partially dislodged mask, twisting with fury, her open mouth, tongue, and lips a glistening dark indigo, her blue-white teeth snapping like an animal. Chang ran up the stairs.
    It was another turn before he saw the book he’d set against the wall in the pillowcase. Chang snatched it up as he ran, his right hand finally pulling the razor from his pocket. Below he heard a commotion of voices and a slamming door, and then the lurching clank of the dumbwaiter come again to life. In moments it had reached him—Chang’s energy was already beginning to flag—and then sped past. Whoever stood at the upper end would receive warning of his arrival well before Chang could climb. Was it only a matter of moments before he met Blenheim and his men coming down?Chang doggedly kept on. If he could just reach the gangway to Vandaariff’s office …
    His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of d’Orkancz, echoing through the chamber to the assembled crowds above.
    “Do not be alarmed! As you know yourselves, our enemies are many and desperate—dispatching this assassin to disrupt our work. But that work has not been stopped! Heaven itself could not forestall our efforts! Behold what has been done before