The Obsidian Chamber

24

The soft echoes of this declaration by Diogenes slowly faded away, leaving the room in silence.

Constance was momentarily stunned. It had seemed sincere: a genuine confession of love. But she quickly shook off that impression. Diogenes had already humiliated her with his extraordinary capacity to lie, and this was merely a reprise.

Even as this thought went through her mind, she wondered: why would he even think he could succeed at such a charade again? Besides, Diogenes was incapable of love.

… I not only admire you, but I’m afraid of you.

… 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?

“If what you say is true,” she said coldly, “then have the courage of that sentiment. Show yourself.”

This was greeted by a moment of stillness. Then Constance heard the scritch of a match from behind. She whirled around. And there he was: standing in the tapestried entrance to the music collection, leaning, arms crossed, beside a newly lighted wall sconce holding a burning taper. He looked almost the same — the thin features, so like his brother and yet so different; the modeled chin, the well-formed pale lips, closely trimmed russet beard; and the strange, bicolored eyes, one green, the other cloudy whitish blue. The only difference was an ugly scar that now marred the otherwise chiseled perfection of his left cheek, traveling from hairline to jaw. An orchid boutonnière was tucked casually into a lapel of his jacket: she recognized it as Cattleya constanciana, the white-and-pink flower that had been named after her.

Constance stared, struck dumb by the abrupt appearance of this spectral figure out of her past. And then, quite suddenly, she leapt at him, swift as a bat, stiletto in one raised hand, aiming for his eyes.

But Diogenes had been expecting this. With a deft move, he ducked away from the blow; as her blade arm flashed past he grasped it in a grip of steel; then spun her toward him, pinning her other arm to her side, holding her in a tight embrace. The stiletto clattered to the floor.

She had forgotten how quick and strong he was.

She turned her face away from his, struggling furiously, fruitlessly.

“I’ll release you,” he said in a calm, steady voice, “if you’ll hear me out. That’s all I ask — that you hear me out. And then, if you still wish to kill me, so be it.”

There was a moment of stasis. At last — mastering her anger — she nodded.

Letting go of one hand, Diogenes knelt to retrieve the stiletto. Constance thought briefly of kicking him in the face, but realized it would be hopeless: physically, she was overmastered.

She might as well let him speak.

Diogenes rose again. He released her other arm and stepped back.

She waited, flushed and breathing hard. He stood still now, in the light of the sconce, as if awaiting her reaction.

“You say you love me,” she said after a moment. “How absurd for you to think I could possibly believe that.”

“It’s true,” he said. “And I think you already know it — even if you can’t admit it to yourself.”

“And do you really think, after what you’ve done, that I’d reciprocate?”

Diogenes spread his hands. “Those in love are full of irrational hope.”

“You mention the feelings I had for your brother. Why, then, should I have any interest in his inferior sibling — especially after the way you abused my innocence?”

This was said scornfully, sarcastically, with intent to wound. But Diogenes answered the question in the same mild, reasonable tones he had employed all along.

“I have no excuse. As I’ve said, my treatment of you was unforgivable.”

“Then why seek forgiveness?”

“I don’t seek your forgiveness. I seek your love. I was a different person then. And I paid for my sins — at your hands.” He motioned, briefly, toward the scar on his cheek. “As for my being inferior to Aloysius, I can say only this: you and he would never have been happy together. Don’t you realize that? He’d never love anyone after Helen.”

“While you, on the other hand, would be an ideal partner.”

“For you—yes.”

“Thank you, but I have no interest in a union with a psychotic, misanthropic, imperfectly socialized killer.”

At this, the faintest of smiles crossed his face. “We’re both killers, Constance. As for being a misanthrope — is there not a similarity there, as well? And are not both of us imperfectly socialized? Perhaps it would be best if I simply described the future I envision for us. Then you can make your own judgment.”

Constance started to make another cutting remark, but stifled it, feeling her responses were beginning to sound shrill.

“You’re a creature of another era,” Diogenes said.

“A freak, as you once called me.”

Diogenes smiled wistfully, waved a hand as if to concede the point. “The simple fact is: you don’t belong in the here and now. Oh, you’ve made valiant efforts to integrate yourself into the twenty-first century, into today’s quotidian, vapid society — I know, because I’ve observed some of those efforts at a distance. But it hasn’t been easy, has it? And at some level, you must have begun to wonder if such an effort is even worth it.” He paused. “I don’t belong in this time, either: for a very different reason. You couldn’t help what happened to you — Enoch Leng intervened in your life, murdered your sister, took you under his… care. Just as you said, I, too, am imperfectly socialized. We are two peas in a pod.”

At this trite observation, Constance frowned.

As he’d been speaking, Diogenes had been toying with the stiletto. Now he placed it on the harpsichord, took a step forward. “I own an island, Constance — a private island in the Florida Keys. It’s west of No Name Key and northeast of Key West. It’s not a big island, but it’s a jewel. It is called Halcyon. I have a house there; a breezy mansion furnished with books and instruments and paintings; it offers both sunrise and sunset views; and it has been stocked with all the rare wines, champagnes, and delicacies you could ever wish for. I’ve been preparing this idyll over the years with painstaking, excessive care. It was to be a bastion; my last and final retreat from the world. But — as I was recovering in that hut in Ginostra — I realized that such a place, no matter how ideal, would be unbearably lonely without another person — the one, the perfect person — with whom to share it.” He paused. “Need I name that person?”

Constance tried to formulate a reply, but found the words wouldn’t come. She could smell his faint cologne. The unique and mysterious scent brought back a memory of that single night…

He took another step forward. “Halcyon would be our escape from a world that has no need for or interest in us. We could live out the forty or fifty years allotted to us, together, in mutual discovery, pleasure… and intellectual pursuits. There are certain problems of theoretical mathematics I should like to tackle, problems that have defied solution for centuries — such as the Riemann Hypothesis and the distribution of prime numbers. And I’ve always wanted to decipher the Phaistos Disc or work out a full translation of all the Etruscan inscriptions. These are of course massively difficult puzzles that would take decades to solve — if they can be solved at all. For me, Constance, it’s the journey, not the destination. It’s a journey we will make together. That we are meant to make together.”

He fell silent. Constance said nothing. This was all too much, too quickly: the protestation of love; the vision of an intellectual utopia; the allure of a sanctuary from the world… despite herself, some of what he had said struck deep.

“And you, Constance, will have all the time in the world to undertake your own odyssey of the mind. Think of the projects you could complete. You might take up writing or painting. Or study a new instrument. I have a lovely Guarneri violin that would be yours to play. Think about it, Constance: we could live in absolute freedom from this dull and corrupt world, indulging our dearest pursuits and desires.”

He stopped. In the silence, her mind raced.

Much of what he’d said about her was true. After he had so cruelly mistreated her, Constance had ceased to think of Diogenes as a person. He had been merely a focus of hatred, a monochromatic being whose only interest to her was in his death. What did she know about his history — his childhood? Very little. Aloysius had implied he’d been a curious, highly intelligent, withdrawn boy: a budding Captain Nemo, with his private library and arcane interests. Aloysius had also made very veiled references to a certain event: an event he refused to explain, but one that he felt tragically responsible for.

It was all too overwhelming…

Diogenes cleared his throat quietly, intruding on her thoughts. “There’s something else that I must bring up. It will be painful; it will be personal — but it is of the greatest importance to your future.” He paused again. “I know about your history. I know that my ancestor Enoch Leng devised an arcanum, a drug, that extended his life span. He tested that drug on you, and it proved successful. He became your first guardian. And as you know, Leng’s arcanum required the murder of human beings and the harvesting of their cauda equina — the bundle of nerves at the base of the spine. Many years later, science and chemistry advanced to the point where Leng developed a second arcanum. This one was wholly synthetic. It no longer required the taking of human life to concoct.”

He paused, taking another step forward. Constance remained rigid, listening.

“Here is what I must tell you: that second arcanum, the one he gave you for decades, was imperfectly formulated.”

Constance raised a hand to her mouth. Her lips moved, but no sound came.

“It worked for a time. You’re living proof of that. But my research indicates that after a certain number of years, especially if one stops taking it — as you have — it would backfire. The person would start to age—rapidly.”

“Ridiculous,” said Constance, finding her voice. “I haven’t taken the arcanum since Enoch Leng’s death five years ago. Naturally, I’ve aged — but only by those same five years.”

“Constance, please don’t delude yourself. You must have begun to notice the effects of accelerated aging. Especially… the mental effects.”

“A lie,” Constance said. But even as she spoke, she thought back to the changes she’d noticed in herself, minor problems that went back at least to her trip to Exmouth, if not before. Her insomnia; the occasional lassitude; a diminishment of her hyperacute senses. But more than that, she had become aware of a growing sense of distraction and restlessness that she seemed unable to shake. Much of this she’d blamed on the distress of losing Pendergast. And yet, if Diogenes was right: how terrible it would be to sit quietly in the empty mansion, feeling one’s mind slipping away…

But no; this was just another one of Diogenes’s baroque lies.

Again, his quiet voice intruded on her thoughts. “Here’s the heart of the matter. Through a great deal of time and effort I’ve managed to accomplish two things. First, I’ve worked out Leng’s formula for the original arcanum. This is the formula my brother believed he had burned the only surviving copy of. He was wrong; there was one other. I found it. It took longer than I’d care to admit, as well as unique knowledge of this house — but I did it. I did it for you. And then I was able to synthesize, perfectly synthesize, that formula, so its manufacture would not require ongoing human victims. I give this to you, my dear.”

A brief silence descended. Again her head spun: it was all too much — too much. She felt overwhelmed; she could hardly stand. She glanced around, looking distractedly for a place to sit down; remembered who was standing before her; and with a great effort focused her attention once again on him.

“Of course, to do this I needed laboratories, scientists — and money. But that work is done. I have the new, synthetic formula. You don’t need to age prematurely. You don’t need to feel your mind tiptoeing into oblivion. After a brief course of treatment with my arcanum, your physiology will have stabilized; you can live out the rest of your life with no premature deterioration. We will both grow old together — normally. All I want from you is one word: yes.”

But Constance said nothing.

Looking at her, a new urgency came over Diogenes’s expression — as if, having said all this, he was afraid that she would refuse. His voice rose. “What kind of life are you going to have in this huge house, without my brother? Even if you do emerge from this self-imposed isolation, what kind of company do you think Proctor and Mrs. Trask will prove to be, year in and year out? Will they help you during the lonely decline you’re destined to suffer… through no fault of your own?”

He fell silent. If what he said was true, Constance could picture the result all too clearly: a wasteland of boredom and ennui, sitting in the darkened library, moving between books and the harpsichord, while the well-meaning Proctor stood guard at the door and Mrs. Trask served her overcooked pasta. It would be nothing less than standing guard at her own death watch. The thought of losing her mental faculties was almost more than she could bear.

“All those years,” Diogenes said, as if reading her mind. “All those years you spent under the tutelage of my great-grand-uncle Leng — what a shame to see such a mighty intelligence, such deep learning, go gentle into that good night.”

He waited, looking at her intently, as if willing her to speak. But she remained silent.

At last, he sighed. “I’m so sorry. Please know that I’ve risked a great deal for you already. I would never force a choice on you. Once the course of treatment is complete and you found you were not truly happy with me and Halcyon, I wouldn’t stand in the way of your leaving. I believe, I know, a beautiful and happy life awaits us there. But if you can’t see past my terrible misdeeds and your own hatreds, if you can’t believe that a love like mine can transform a man… I’ll have to accept that.”

And then, he turned away from her.

As he spoke these last words, Constance experienced a curious epiphany — one that had been bubbling up during their talk. Diogenes had treated her abominably. She had hated him with a fury that was almost beyond human. But it was also true that… she almost shuddered at the forbidden nature of the thought… here was the Pendergast she could have — a Pendergast who, perhaps, was more a kindred spirit to her than his brother could ever be. If Diogenes had truly changed.

He was slipping on a pair of gloves. She glanced over at the harpsichord, to where he had set down the stiletto. The weapon was still there. It would be the work of a second to snatch it up, bury it between his shoulder blades. Surely, he knew this as well as she did.

“I…” she began, then faltered. How could she possibly express the thought? But she said it: “I need time.”

Diogenes whirled toward her, hope blossoming on his face — an expression so earnest Constance realized, with a shock, that it was impossible to feign. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll leave you now. You must be very tired. Take all the time you need.” And he reached for her hand.

Slowly, self-consciously, she extended it.

He grasped her hand in his; turned it over in a slow, caressing motion; and planted a kiss in her palm. Then — as he drew back — he took the tip of her finger between his lips for the merest fraction of a second. It was like an electric shock to her entire body.

Then, with a smile and a short bow, he was gone.