“Do you think I fear you?” Xonck rasped wickedly. “Do you think I need you at a disadvantage? You have survived me several times on luck alone—we both know it. Climb out and meet me… the real question is whether you have the courage.”
“On the contrary,” sneered Chang, “I am too in awe of your prowess.”
Xonck sucked at a blister on his lip. Chang saw a flicker of blue through his cloak—Xonck's free hand held one of the blue glass spikes. If he released Xonck's leg, nothing prevented Xonck from hacking away at Chang as he tried to crawl out, utterly unable to defend himself.
“Withdraw your leg slowly,” said Chang. “If you try anything at all I will do my best to sever your knee.”
Xonck removed his hand from his cloak, revealing the glass dagger.
“If you do that I will stab you through.”
“And you will still bleed to death in this stinking hole,” said Chang. “The choice is now yours.”
“It is no choice at all,” huffed Xonck, and he quite deliberately raised both arms, and then very slowly pulled his leg free of the pipe, allowing Chang, the razor pressed close, to extricate first his arm and then his upper torso from the hatch.
“Drop your weapon,” said Chang.
“As you will.”
Xonck released the glass dagger. Chang's eyes flicked toward its impact—he wanted to be sure it shattered and could not be snatched up again—and Xonck swept his plastered arm at Chang's wrist and knocked the razor away from his knee. Chang swore, his legs still caught in the pipe. Xonck clawed his free hand at Chang's face and Chang wrenched his left forearm up to block it. Exchanging blows like a pair of boxers, Chang cut the razor at Xonck and dredged a thin line across the plaster.
Xonck swept up a leather fire bucket full of sand and swung it at Chang's body like a heavy mace. Chang bent to his right and the bucket only jarred his shoulder and showered them both with sand. Xonck dropped the bucket and reached into his cloak for more glass. Chang curled his legs beneath him and shot forward, barking both ankles hard on the metal hatch rim but trapping Xonck's arm against his body and bringing him down. Xonck thrashed to his feet, eyes wild, a new glass dagger finally ready. Chang rolled to his knees, his back to the cold iron furnace, waiting for the attack…
But Xonck's eyes had not followed his movement—the man still stared, blue saliva hanging off his chin, at the floor where Chang had been. Xonck snorted in a panic, then wrenched his face to Chang's. With a swirl of his black cloak, Xonck was gone through the door.
IF XONCK'S illness had the best of him, then now was the time to cut I him down. Chang dashed after him into the curving stone corridor and toward the staircase door. But Xonck had shot the lock—there was blue fluid on the knob—and it took four strong kicks to break it wide. The circular stairs offered too many doors to either side for Chang to blunder past safely, and his caution allowed Xonck, wherever he had vanished, to slip free.
It was always annoying when, having decided to kill, the work could not be done, but perhaps it did not matter. Chang knew the exact task to justify his journey to Harschmort—long overdue, and his alone.
At the main level Chang entered a long formal ante-room, whose far end held an archway hung with a heavy red curtain, like a private proscenium. Chang knew it was far more likely to hide servants than a stage, and so he sidled quietly to the curtain's edge. He heard voices on the other side and the clinking of cutlery, and saw that the thick carpet of the ante-room continued on to the far side… was it a private dining chamber? Who could have the leisure for a meal at a time like this?
He came through the curtain with a sudden rush. Three men in black smocks and knee-breeches looked up with surprise from their work, laying meat and cheese and pickled vegetables in piles onto vast silver platters. Chang struck the nearest with the heel of his fist hard across the ear, knocking the man into a line of wooden chairs. The second—gripping a cleaver half-deep into a wheel of thick-rinded cheese—he kicked without ceremony in the stomach and then hurled by his smock onto the groaning carcass of the first. The third, younger than the other two, stood gaping with his hands full of translucent onions, like the disembodied eyes of drowned sailors. Chang took him by the throat.
“Where is she? Be quick about it!”
“Who?”
Chang hurled him into the wall—the onions slathered away on impact—and hauled him up again, this time placing the razor flat against the man's cheek.
“The Ministry officials—where are they?”
Chang spun to the second man, the cleaver wrested from the wheel, foolish—or angry—enough to attack. Chang's razor flashed forward. The man yanked back his arm, too late, his face going white as he looked down, for the slice across his fingers was so clean that the blood took a good two seconds to flow—but then the flow would not stop. The servant dropped the cleaver and held the wound tightly with his other hand, the blood seeping through those fingers as well. Chang yanked his captive peremptorily toward the kitchens.
“You are making their food—where is it to go?”
“The green drawing room—just outside—”
“What would they be doing in the kitchens if you're preparing their food here?”
“I don't know—they made us leave!”
“Where are their other prisoners?”
“What prisoners?”
“Where are the dragoons?”
“Outside—something happened in the garden.”
Chang shoved him back where they had come.
“Tell no one, or I will return to cut your throat.”
THE NEXT red curtain led to a formal saloon, with a mirrored wall and a massive sideboard lined with bottles. Its tables lay littered with papers, glasses, cigar butts, and at least one cardboard box of carbine cartridges. Chang crossed the carpet in silence to another curtain—he imagined how, with all the curtains drawn, the whole suite of connecting rooms would appear as one massive reception hall—and heard two men speaking low… guards?
“Allow me… your nose…”
“Ah! I do beg your pardon. It is no doubt the fen grass, one always sets to sneezing at Harschmort. Good Lord—this is blood!”
“It is.”
“Good Lord.”
“Did you see Mr. Soames?”
“Soames? Who is Soames?”
“With Phelps.”
“Who is Phelps? I am hopelessly at sea—and my head aches like a night of gin.”
“Phelps is with the Duke.”
“The Duke is here?”
“The Duke was in the garden.”
“Good Lord. Was not the garden where—”
“His Grace—”
The second man cut him off with a sneeze. Chang flicked the curtain aside. The two men wore black coats, and each held a handkerchief—one tight against its owner's nose and the other, the target of the sneeze, using his cloth to wipe blood from his cravat. They looked at Chang with surprise.
“Where is the Duke?” he snarled.
“Who are you?” asked the man no longer wiping his front.