The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

already assailed by feelings of guilt and recrimination. Could he not have wounded them? Shot once and bluffed them into submission, tied with curtain cords like Flaüss? Perhaps … but such niceties—had human life become a
nicety
?—left no time to find the women, to secure his Prince, to stop these fellows’ masters. Svenson saw that the dead man still held a burning cigar between his fingers. Without a thought he reached down and took it, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes with long-missed pleasure.
    The men were unarmed, and with no weapons to pillage Svenson resigned himself to more stealth and theatre, holding the empty revolver as he walked. He’d left the room’s other occupants as they were and picked his way through an empty string of parlors, watching for any trace of Bascombe or Crabbé, but hoping it was Bascombe that he found. If what he had guessed of the books from Tarr Manor was true, that they were capable of absorbing—of
recording
—memories, then the chest of books rivaled an unexplored continent for value. He also realized the particular worth of Bascombe’s notebook, where the contents of each book—of each mind!—were cataloged and detailed. With those notes as a guide, what question could not be answered from that unnatural library? What advantage not be found?
    Doctor Svenson looked around him with annoyance. He’d walked through another sitting room to an airy foyer with a bubbling fountain whose sound obscured any distant footfalls that might point him in the right direction. The Doctor wondered idly if the labyrinth of Harschmort had a Minotaur. He crossed heavily to the fountain and looked into the water—could one ever
not
look into the water?—and laughed aloud, for the Minotaur wasbefore him: his own haggard, soot-smudged, battered visage, cigar in his face, weapon in hand. To the guests of this gala evening, was
he
not their determined, monstrous nemesis? Svenson outright cackled at the idea—and cackled again at the antic hoarseness of his voice, a raven trying to sing after too many cups of gin. He set down his smoke and stuffed the pistol into his belt, and reached into the fountain’s pool, scooping water first to drink and then to splash across his face, and to once again smooth back his hair. He shook his hands, the droplets breaking his reflection to rippling pieces, and looked up. Someone was coming. He threw the cigar into the water and pulled out the gun.
    It was Crabbé and Bascombe, with two of their functionaries walking behind, and between them, unmistakably, his posture characteristically sharp as a knife-point, Lord Robert Vandaariff. Svenson scrambled to the other side of the fountain and dropped to the floor, for all his fear and fatigue feeling caught out like a character in a comic operetta.
    “It is astonishing—first the theatre, and now this!” The Minister was speaking, and with anger. “But the men are now in place?”
    “They are,” answered Bascombe, “a squad of Macklenburgers.”
    Crabbé snorted. “That lot has been more trouble than they are worth,” he said. “The Prince is an idiot, the Envoy’s a grub, the Major’s a Teuton boor—and the
Doctor
! Did you hear? He is alive! He is at Harschmort! He must have come with us—but honestly, I cannot imagine how it was accomplished. He can only have been stowed away—hidden by a confederate!”
    “But who could that be?” hissed Bascombe. When Crabbé did not reply, Bascombe ventured a hesitant guess. “Aspiche?”
    Crabbé’s answer was lost, for they had moved through the foyer to the edge of his hearing. Svenson rose to his knees, relieved they had not seen him, and carefully followed. He did not understand it … though Vandaariff walked between the two Ministry conspirators, they paid him no attention at all, speaking across hisbody … nor did the Lord take part in the plotting. What was more, what had happened to Bascombe’s treasure chest of blue glass books?
    “Yes, yes—and it’s for the better,” Crabbé was saying, “both of them are to take part. Poor Elspeth has lost a quantity of hair, and Margaret—well, she was keen to press ahead. She is
ever
keen, but … apparently she had a
confrontation
with this Cardinal at the Royale—she—well, I cannot say—she seems in a
mood
about it—”
    “And this is along with the … ah … other?” Bascombe politely cut in, bringing the conversation back to its subject.
    “Yes, yes—
she
is the
test case
,