The Obsidian Chamber

22

Constance recognized the voice instantly. Snatching up the stiletto, she leapt up from the harpsichord stool, knocking it backward. Where had the voice come from? Feelings of humiliation, outrage, and violation mingled with surprise and homicidal anger.

He survived, she thought as she stood in the center of the room, torch darting from corner to corner, searching for his whereabouts. Somehow, some way, he survived.

“Show yourself,” she hissed in a low voice.

Silence reigned. She stood there, trembling. So it was he who had so artfully contrived this tableau. And to think she had allowed herself to enjoy it. To think she had admired an orchid he had discovered — brought by him into her own most private of chambers. To think she had eaten, enjoyed, food prepared by him. A shudder of revulsion passed through limbs already quivering with rage. He’d been spying on her, stalking her. Watching her sleep.

The flashlight beam revealed the room to be empty — but there were several doors and numerous hanging tapestries. He was there. Laughing silently at her consternation.

If he wanted to play a game, she would give him one. She switched off the torch, plunging the sub-basement into darkness. He was, it seemed, familiar with these spaces, but he couldn’t possibly know them as well as her.

In the dark, she would have the advantage.

She waited, gripping the stiletto, waited for him to speak again, to make a move, betray his location. The shame and horror of how she’d been toyed with continued to wash over her: those decadent meals he’d left, accompanied by wine… The poem with the feather of an extinct bird… His own little translation in the margin of the book… The new species of orchid, named after her… Not to mention that he had discovered the identity and location of her son — and then had a t’angka painting of him made for her.

My son… Anxiety lanced through her fury. What, exactly, was Diogenes doing — or worse, what might he already have done — with her son?

She would kill him. She’d failed once; she would not fail again. The basement collections were full of weapons and poisons, if it came to that. She might have the opportunity to better arm herself. But for now, the stiletto was exceedingly sharp and — if well handled — would be more than sufficient.

“Constance,” the voice came again out of the darkness.

It echoed strangely, distorted by passageways of stone and muffled by tapestries. The very sound of it was gall and wormwood to her; it caused an inner fury that was as physical as it was emotional.

She dashed forward, in the blackness, toward the uncertain source of the sound, plunging her blade into one hanging tapestry, then another, stabbing and slashing. Again and again the blade was deflected by stone, depriving her of the satisfaction of feeling it sink into tissue. She continued around the dark room, knocking over instruments and stumbling over display cases, the only sound the ripping and tearing of her knife through the woven tapestries that, she was sure, concealed the hiding figure of Diogenes.

At last, the heat of her fury abated. She was acting like a madwoman; she was reacting exactly as Diogenes expected. She returned to the center of the room, breathing quietly. The room, like many in the sub-basement, had been built with stone air shafts to withdraw the unhealthy vapors from the subterranean space and disperse them into the upper air. He was using those stone shafts to confuse her. He could be anywhere.

“Fils a putain!” she said to the darkness. “Del glouton souduiant!”

“Constance.” The voice came again from everywhere and nowhere. This time it had a mournful, but gentle, tone.

“I would tell you how much I hate you,” she said, in a low voice, “except that one does not hate the dung beneath one’s feet. One merely scrapes it off. I thought I had scraped you off. What a shame you survived. I do, however, take a certain consolation in the fact that you did not burn to death at Stromboli.”

“How so?” came the voice.

“Now you can die a second death by my hand — and this time I can watch you die in even greater agony.”

As she had spoken, her voice rose in both pitch and volume. But now the red mist fell away, to be replaced by an icy calm. She would not give him the pleasure of hearing her betray any more hatred. He was unworthy of any expenditure of effort — save for the thrust of a blade. She would aim for the eyes, she decided; first one, then the other. Out, vile jelly! And then she would take her time. But first, she needed to wait for the moment to strike.

“What do you think of my composition?” Diogenes asked. “You played it beautifully, by the way. I hope I managed to catch some of the contrapuntal fire of Alkan, in one of his more conservative moods.”

“It is unwise of you to bring up Alkan,” Constance replied. “It will only make your end more painful.”

There was a pause. And then: “You are right. That remark must have seemed — no, it was—insensitive. That was not my intention. That was my old self speaking. You have my apology.”

On one level, Constance could not believe — simply could not comprehend — that she was speaking, conversing, with the man who had lied to her, seduced her for his own perverse ends, and then discarded her with such triumphant scorn and contempt. What was he doing here — and why? No doubt to humiliate her further.

Diogenes said nothing. The silence lengthened. Still she bided her time. “So Aloysius was right,” she said. “He warned me to expect a confrontation: and now it has come. Assume nothing—those were his words. So that was you, in the tunnels beneath Oldham? That was you he saw, standing on the Exmouth dunes, watching us?”

Silence.

“And now your revenge upon your family is complete. Congratulations. Aloysius is dead — thanks to that thing you released. You think you are here to toy with me again. You think you can seduce me a second time, with your poetry and effete aesthetics and all the rest of your intellectual ordure. And then, when the moment is ripe, you’ll slip the knife in—again.”

“No, Constance.”

She went on, “Except, connard, it is I who will slip in the knife: an emasculating slash. I cannot wait to see the look on your face when I do. I saw it once before, you know: on that day when I pushed you over the lip of the volcano. It was the surprised look of a man losing his manhood.”

As she spoke, she felt the fury begin to rise again. She willed herself to stop talking, to let the cold composure return so that, when the chance arose, she wouldn’t miss.

At last, Diogenes spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Constance, but you’re wrong. Wrong about my actions — and utterly wrong about my motivations.”

Constance did not reply. She was calm once again. And the hand that grasped the stiletto was ready to dart forward and thrust home at the slightest indication of sound or movement. The years spent in the dark spaces of this sub-basement had sharpened her senses like a cat’s — odd it was taking so long for her eyes to accustom themselves to the blackness. She had been too long in the light.

“Let me assure you of one thing. I do not seek revenge on my brother or anyone else. No longer. Now my aim is different. Your hatred changed me. Your singular pursuit changed me. The volcano changed me. I’m a different man, transformed—reformed. The reason I am here, Constance, is because you are here.”

Constance said nothing. His voice seemed to be getting stronger, as if he were edging closer. Just a few steps more… a few steps more…

“I will be honest with you. You deserve nothing less — and besides, your high intelligence would see through any deception. By the time I’m done, you will know I am telling the truth: I promise you that.”

A brief pause.

“True: there was a time when I desperately wanted to see my brother suffer, as I had suffered as a child. Back then, I regarded you — forgive my bluntness — as merely a path to help destroy Aloysius. You see, Constance, I didn’t know you then.”

In her stockinged feet, she took a slow step toward his voice. And another.

“I was horribly injured by the fall into La Sciara. During the months of recovery, I had a lot of time to think. I did harbor notions of revenge toward you. But then — and, Constance, it happened so suddenly it was like a veil being torn from a window — all of that changed. I recognized my anger for what it truly was: another emotion altogether. My true feelings.”

She maintained silence. Diogenes had used such words on her before. At the time, they’d had the effect he had desired. She had drunk them in like water thrown on a parched garden.

“Let me explain why I feel — for want of a better term — a reverence for you. First, you’re the only person I’ve met who is my intellectual equal. And, perhaps, my emotional equal. Second: you bested me. I had to respect that. I made the mistake of toying with you, and you responded with the most astonishing vigor and singularity of purpose that I have ever seen in a human being. It awed me.”

Another step forward.

“Reverence. And respect. There are few people on this earth that I respect, living or dead. You are one. And thanks to my ancestor Dr. Enoch Leng, you have led a long and rich life. His elixir kept you young for over a century. It was only with his death that you, like the rest of us, began to age normally. The upshot of this is that you sport more than six times my scholarship.”

Diogenes laughed at this observation. But there was nothing snide or sarcastic in it: it was a light, self-effacing laugh.

“There is something else that I find most attractive about your long life span. You’ve lived. You are the one person whose thirst for knowledge, for revenge — and, if I may allude to something else as well, passion—has astonished me with its ferocity. Constance, I not only admire you, but I’m afraid of you. I realized this as I lay, recovering, in a small hut outside Ginostra, under the volcano, listening to the booming of Stromboli. It was humbling, because prior to that I feared nobody, man or woman. Now I do fear one woman.”

She slid another step forward in utter silence. She sensed he was there, mere feet from her. One more step and she could lunge…

“Which brings me to the other thing vital to understanding our connection: you are the mother of my son.”

In utter silence, she leapt forward and thrust the stiletto — into thin air.

“Ah, Constance. That saddens me. But I don’t blame you.”

Constance listened, motionless, in the dark. The voice had moved. Somehow he anticipated it. Or was he that close, after all? The echoes in the stone room, with its myriad doors and air shafts — combined with his low, soft voice — made it impossible to be sure.

“You see, Constance, I am convinced you are the one human being who, deep down, is capable of sharing my own peculiar view of life. Let’s face it — we’re misfits. We’re misanthropes, cut from the same cloth.”

It took Constance a moment to parse the meaning of what Diogenes had said. When she did, her grasp tightened on the stiletto.

“That is the crux of it,” Diogenes went on. “I was blind; I didn’t see. Now I do. We’re alike in so very many ways. In others you are my superior. Is it any wonder, then, that my reverence for you has only grown?”

For a moment Constance thought that Diogenes would say more. But now the blackness around her became filled with silence — a silence that stretched on, and still on. Finally, she broke it herself.

“What have you done with Mrs. Trask?”

“Nothing. She remains in Albany, at the side of her sister — who is taking a little longer to recuperate than initially expected. Have no fear: it is not serious. And Mrs. Trask is easy in her mind, having received assurances that you are being well cared for here.”

“Cared for? By Proctor, I suppose. I imagine you’ve murdered him.”

“Proctor? He’s not dead. He’s rather preoccupied at the moment, though, on an unexpected trek across the Kalahari Desert.”

The desert? Could he be telling the truth? Proctor would never leave the house defenseless while she was in residence. So much of what he was saying was shocking… and unbelievable.

“So then it’s my son you’re after.”

“Constance,” came the reproachful reply. “How can you say such a thing? It’s true I did have… issues with my brother. But why would I wish to harm our child?”

“You’re no father to him.”

“Indeed I’m not. But that I hope will change. You saw the t’angka painting I had made of him. I went to India, by the way, to assure myself our child was being well cared for. He is: and he’s a most remarkable boy.” A pause. “As one would expect of our offspring.”

“Our offspring. You once used much cruder terms to describe our liaison.”

There was a pause. “How painfully I recall my unforgivable behavior. As a token of my true feelings, please take a look at the compartment beneath that harpsichord stool.”

Constance hesitated a moment. Then she resolutely snapped on her torch, glanced around. While his voice was seemingly so close, he was still nowhere to be seen.

“The stool, my dear.”

She opened the seat top. Inside was a photograph attached to some papers. She plucked it out, examined it closely.

“That was taken five weeks ago,” came the disembodied voice. “He seemed very happy.”

As Constance stared at the picture, the hand holding the torch trembled ever so slightly. It was without doubt a picture of her son, in a long silken robe, holding the hand of Tsering. They were standing in an archway framed by cork trees. He was gazing into the middle distance with the perfect seriousness of a gifted three-year-old. Staring at the picture, Constance was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of loneliness and yearning.

She glanced at the attached sheet. It was a note from his guardians at the monastery, addressed to her, affirming that the boy was safe and well and that he was already showing great promise. It was fixed with a special seal — a seal, she knew, that proved Diogenes had actually been there, and that the letter was genuine. How Diogenes had contrived such a visit with those most secretive and protective monks, Constance could not begin to imagine.

She placed the photo and letter on the harpsichord and switched off the torch, letting the darkness return. She could not allow this disgusting man to work on her feelings. “You were there,” she said. “In Exmouth. You were spying on us.”

“Yes,” Diogenes replied. “It is true. I was there, along with Flavia, my — for want of a better term — assistant. You no doubt saw her: the young waitress in the Captain Hull restaurant who also worked part-time in the tea and curio store, A Taste of Exmouth.”

“That girl? Flavia? Working for you?”

“I must admit to having a bit of a problem with her. She’s a little too keen in performing her duties.”

“I can only imagine those duties,” said Constance.

When there was no response, she continued. “You released Morax. You set that cycle of violence into motion.”

“You are correct. I did help that poor, abused creature escape his tormentors. I had no idea he would react the way he did. All I wanted was to sow a little confusion. Distract my brother. And thus allow myself… to get a closer glimpse of you.”

Constance shook her head. She was beginning to lose her self-possession. She tried once again to marshal her anger. “Distract your brother? You killed your brother.”

“No,” came the voice, sorrowful once again. “There you are wrong. It does seem my brother is dead. But that was never my intention. I know a little of the feelings you two have, or had, for each other: forgive me, but I was quite relishing the competition. I’m sorry, it’s crude of me to say so — it’s a brotherly thing, you know.”

“You…” Constance stopped. Another silence ensued. All her accusations, all her suspicions, all her objections, seemed to have been deflated, and with this deflation rose confusion.

“So… Why are you here? Why?” she stammered at last.

“Can it be that you still don’t understand?” came the voice out of the velvety darkness. “My purpose in being here is quite simple. I am in love with you, Constance.”