The Obsidian Chamber

63

The sun was just sinking into the Gulf of Mexico as Constance followed Diogenes out of the mangroves into the meadow at the far end of Halcyon Key. Diogenes had not said a word to her since leaving the house. He was holding himself more erect now, and his bearing was steadier. But Constance could make out no expression on his face. His heterochromic eyes seemed to be bottomless pools in which no spark of personality registered.

He walked toward the series of buildings at the far end of the meadow, passing the old, crumbling power plant and stopping before the copper-sheathed door labeled CISTERN. He reached up, took a gold chain from around his neck — from which hung a black key — and fitted the key to the lock. With a whisper of well-oiled hinges, the door opened outward.

Still without a word, Diogenes stepped inside, flicking on a series of light switches as he did so. Over his shoulder, Constance could make out a large, circular chamber of old brick. A red-painted metal box was set into the near wall. A stairway led down to a stone catwalk that ran around the outer wall in a semicircle, ending at an iron-banded door. Five feet or so below the catwalk was a smooth surface of black water.

She had won. Her revenge was complete: Diogenes was a beaten man. And yet she was conscious of a sudden, intense curiosity about this place. She sensed, rightly or wrongly, that there was a still-deeper level to him — a level she had not yet, despite everything, fully sounded. Why she would even want to, considering the sharpness of her hatred, she did not quite understand.

As Diogenes led the way down the staircase, he at last broke his silence. “Cisterns such as this are very common in the Keys,” he said. “It is often the best way to collect fresh water.” His voice was hollow, and distant, and utterly atonal, and it echoed strangely in that underground brick chamber, as if coming back from the realms of the dead.

Reaching the bottom of the staircase, he made his way along the lip of the catwalk. Again, Constance could make out the distant hum of machinery. As she followed, she glanced down toward the water. The cistern below had no rungs, steps, or other means of egress; if one were to fall in, there would be no way to climb out.

Where the catwalk stopped at the iron-banded door set into the cistern wall, Diogenes paused. He pointed at the door. “Beyond this lay the old machinery once used to pump water to the house. The machinery was remarkably large and extensive. Modern technology, of course, rendered it obsolete long ago, and it was disposed of. As you shall see, I have found a new use for the empty space.”

Employing the key once again, he unlocked the door, pushed it open. Blackness yawned ahead. Stepping back, he made a small gesture, ushering her inside.

Constance hesitated. She could see nothing; there was no reflection from the central cistern. She could almost imagine taking a step forward and dropping into limitless empty space. But nevertheless, after a moment she moved past Diogenes and into the room.

Her heels rapped on stone.

Diogenes followed her in, closed the door behind them. For a moment, all was dark — a blackness so complete that Constance, who was no stranger to the dark, had never experienced its like. But then there was a faint click, and a light came on in the ceiling.

Her first impression was that she was floating in a black and silent void. Then there were additional clicks, and as Diogenes turned on light after light, she realized where she was. She was standing inside what appeared to be a perfect cube, with floor, walls, and ceiling of black marble. But then, as she looked more closely, she realized that the lights — which were spaced at regular intervals, a few feet below the ceiling — were actually placed behind very thin panes of some dark, smoky substance. The substance was of no particular color, but rather a shifting, shimmering grayscale, and the light that filtered from behind the panels gave the room a faint, strange, glittering luminescence, as if she were imprisoned within a smoky diamond of various shades of gray. And then she realized: the walls and ceilings of the room had been paneled entirely in obsidian.

As if on cue, she heard a bitter, mirthless laugh from behind her. “That’s correct,” came the same atonal voice. “This, not the meditation temple, is my true obsidian chamber. It is a shrine — if you can call anything that collects those things that bring shame and pain a ‘shrine’—to my past life.”

Looking around more closely, Constance now saw that a series of oblong frames were set into all four walls at intervals as regular as the lights. All were the same size — about eighteen inches by two feet. They were not flush with the walls, but extruded, at precisely the same distance from the floor as their brethren. They, too, were edged in obsidian, with fronts of clear glass. A small, hidden pinlight within each case gave their contents — in layouts reminiscent of the artist Joseph Cornell — a faint illumination.

“My museum,” Diogenes said. “Please — allow me to act as docent. These displays are chronological, starting here, at your left.”

He took a few steps from the door, stopping at the first frame. Inside, Constance saw a sketch, drawn on ruled school paper, of an old, miniature city. It was breathtaking in its scope and fine detail. It could only have been drawn using a magnifying glass and a technical pen with a tiny, tiny nib. Every microscopic house had been shingled; every cobble on every street had been lovingly shaded; every doorway had a microscopic number above it.

“I drew that at age seven,” she heard Diogenes say. “I lived in that city, in my mind. Every day I would add more detail to it. I loved it above all else. I include it here as a reminder of what I might have become — had things been different. But you see, while I was still at work on this… something happened to me.”

“The Event,” said Constance.

“Yes. The Event. You don’t know much about it, do you? I’m sure Aloysius never spoke of it.”

Constance remained still. She was staring at the remarkable drawing. It was barely conceivable someone so young could have created something so detailed, so perfect.

“Aloysius and I were playing in the basement beneath the Maison de la Rochenoir, our old New Orleans house on Dauphine Street. We stumbled upon a hidden room full of props, created by our great-uncle Comstock for his magic show. One of them was called ‘The Doorway to Hell.’ Aloysius goaded me into it. It… turned out to be a device built for one of two purposes: to drive a person mad — or frighten them to death.”

How horrible, Constance thought.

“It was some time before I could be rescued from its interior. It was so terrible, I tried to kill myself with a Derringer left there to offer eternal ‘relief’ to the person trapped inside.” He paused. “The bullet went in my temple, but it was a small caliber and it came out my eye. There was a question as to whether I would survive. I did survive. But then, afterward, things were… different. I was sent away for a time. Color vanished from my world — leaving me only with monochromatic shades of gray. My ability to sleep was, and remains, impaired beyond remedy. When I returned, I was changed. Changed utterly.”

He moved on to the next frame. Constance followed. Inside was a tiny crucifix, covered here and there in dark stains that appeared to be old blood. A legend at the bottom of the crucifix read: INCITATUS.

“I felt strange urges that I didn’t understand. On the other hand, neither did I fear them. From time to time I… indulged myself in them. But as I approached maturity, one desire took preeminent hold over me: the thwarting, mortification, and ultimate destruction of my brother, Aloysius — who had visited this horror upon me.”

He now moved slowly past several frames, pointing first at one tableau, then at another. Constance saw things she did not understand: a hair shirt made out of some organic substance; a hangman’s noose; what looked like a thick bunch of poison sumac, wrapped tightly in fishing line.

“At first, my attempts to wreak vengeance on my brother were haphazard. Unfocused. But as I grew older, a plan began to take form. It would require years, even decades, to carry out. It would require all my time and attention. It would require the creation, and the loving curation, of several different identities. For example, that of the New York Museum curator Hugo Menzies.”

They had by now rounded a corner and were halfway down the second wall. He stopped at a frame that held within its mercury-colored walls an ancient bayonet. “The weapon that killed Special Agent Michael Decker, Aloysius’s close friend. Not the real one, you understand — that is still no doubt in an evidence locker somewhere — but an exact replica.”

He moved to the next frame, which contained a copy of the magazine Museology; a museum ID, spattered with blood; and a box cutter.

“Margo Green,” Diogenes said, by way of explanation.

The next frame held a handwritten letter, several pages long, signed “A. Pendleton.” Beside it was an expensive-looking ladies’ handbag.

“Viola Maskelene,” Diogenes said in the same, strange, hollow voice. “That did not end well.”

More quickly now, he steered her past other frames, rounding the obsidian space to the exhibitions on the third wall: a cut-glass crystal containing what appeared to be diamond grit; a memorandum from Herkmoor Prison — and then, Constance stopped. In the middle of the third wall was a frame containing a fragment of a bloodstained satin sheet and a half-drunk glass of greenish liquor, with a faint trace of lipstick on the rim.

She turned suddenly to face Diogenes.

“You,” he said simply.

“I’ve seen enough,” she said, and abruptly stepped past him and began making her way toward the exit without looking at the other displays.

Quickly Diogenes scrambled to keep up. He darted ahead, and — as she rounded the fourth and final wall — placed himself between her and the door, blocking her path.

“Wait,” he said. “Look.” And he pointed at the frames.

After a moment, she complied. Save for the first — which contained an obituary, a bloody scalpel, and a decorative fan of Central American design — the frames on this wall were all empty.

“I’ve changed,” he said — and this time, the voice was not entirely cold and hollow; there was an edge to it. “I’ve changed again. I’ve stopped. Don’t you understand, Constance? Although that was not my original intention when I started keeping these trophies, this place has become — as I’ve implied — my Museum of Shame. It chronicles my misdeeds, both successful and unsuccessful, as a way of ensuring that I will never, ever go back to the old ways. But I created it for another reason, too: a safety valve. I realized that, if I ever did feel the old… needs resurfacing, all I would have to do was come here.”

Constance turned away from him, not entirely sure whether she was blocking out his words or her uncertain reaction to them. She realized her eyes were resting on the final occupied frame: the one that contained a scalpel, a fan, and an obituary. The obituary was for an eminent cardiac surgeon, Dr. Graben, who had been the victim of a homicidal slasher. The obit bemoaned the incalculable loss to science and humanity this man’s death heralded. It was dated only four days earlier.

“So you lied,” she said, pointing at the obituary. “You did kill more people.”

“It was necessary. I needed another sample to synthesize the elixir. But I don’t need any more: you can see, feel, the results for yourself.”

“And how is that supposed to make me feel? Others have died — died unnecessarily — so that I could live.”

“The old woman was comatose, moribund. And the doctor wasn’t supposed to die. His entrance was unexpected.”

Once again she began to walk away; once again he interposed himself between her and the door. “Constance. Listen. This room is a perfect cube — but the space that originally held the pump machinery was not. I’ve created a room within a room. Did you notice that large box, at the top of the stairway? When I made this room, I filled the space between the walls of my obsidian chamber and the original stone of the pump room with plastic explosive. Plastic explosive, Constance — enough C-4 to turn all of this — the chamber, the cistern, everything — into a fine mist. That box at the top of the stairs is the trigger, set on a time delay. Once, as I said, this chamber had a different purpose for me. Now it fills me with self-loathing. As soon as I was secure in your love, I was planning to blow it up — to destroy forever my shameful and violent past.”

Constance said nothing.

“I’ve bared my heart to you, Constance,” he went on, his voice suddenly urgent. “You’ve seen everything now. I never told you, but it was always my hope that, in time, we could both take the arcanum, and keep on taking it. Now that I have the perfect synthesis, not only have I succeeded in reversing your unnatural aging — but I have the ability to keep you, in essence, forever young. We can both stay forever young, cut off from the world, reveling in each other. And not only that alone: our son could join us, here in this most special place. He deserves to join us. Despite what you said before, he’s only a child. A little boy. He needs more than to be a figurehead, an item of veneration. He needs his parents. Here, we can forget our difficult, painful former lives and turn instead toward the future. Isn’t that a beautiful vision?”

His pleading tones echoed through the dim room.

“If all that is true,” Constance said, “if that life is really behind you, if this is nothing more than a chronicle of the past deeds of a former existence… why were you so quick to enshrine this?” She pointed to the obituary.

Diogenes looked from her to the frame. After a moment, he hung his head.

“I thought as much.” And she turned to maneuver around him.

“Wait!” he said urgently, following her as she opened the door leading to the catwalk. “Wait. I’ll prove it to you — the ultimate proof. I’ll arm the device now, detonate the C-4. Turn this museum into a crater. You can see for yourself — from a safe distance.”

She paused on the catwalk, looking down into the dark water. Behind her, Diogenes spoke again.

“What more proof can I give you?” he asked quietly.