The Obsidian Chamber

61

What is it?” Diogenes repeated.

“I wonder if you’d mind getting the boat ready,” Constance said.

His mind went blank, as if he was unable to process what she was saying. The last few minutes had been so strange — her behavior had become so unexpected — that he could barely get the words out. “The boat? Why?”

“And then if you’d be good enough to take my things out to it.” The conflict he’d read on her face, the hesitation, was now gone. “I did most of my packing earlier this afternoon — when I told you I was resting.”

He passed a hand over his forehead. “Constance—”

“I’m leaving. My work is done.”

“I don’t understand. Your work?”

And now her voice was cool, even. “My revenge.”

Diogenes opened his mouth, but no sound came.

“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” Constance said. “It’s not in my nature to gloat or tease. It is, however, in my nature to be brutal. So I’ll make my explanation as concise as possible. This entire thing has been a charade.”

“A charade,” Diogenes managed to repeat. “What charade?”

“The charade of our love.” And now he saw that, in one hand, she was holding her antique Italian stiletto — something he had not seen since the Riverside Drive mansion.

“But it’s no charade — I love you!”

“I know that you do. How touching. And your courtship was, in all honesty, beautifully planned and exquisitely performed. It was all a woman could ask for.” She paused. “A pity it didn’t have its intended effect.”

This had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t mean this, any of this. Perhaps the arcanum had been flawed and, once again, she was not herself. And yet he felt a creeping, terrible uncertainty. “What in God’s name are you saying?”

“Need I be more clear? Very well. What I am saying is: I don’t love you. I never loved you. On the contrary: I despise you. I feed on my hatred of you morning, noon, and night. I cherish my hatred; it is now a part of me, indivisible and precious.”

“No, please—!”

“When I first learned you were alive, down in the sub-basement, all I felt was fury. And then you spoke. You spoke with your honeyed tongue. Do you recall how, once you were done, I said I needed time in which to consider your proposition? I had become confused, uncertain. I was also angry — irrationally so — at Aloysius for disappearing, for drowning. And the prospect of becoming a mental vegetable was, of course, displeasing. But by the end of that night, I was at peace with myself. I was happy. Because I realized I was being given a unique opportunity: a chance to kill you again. Your supposed death in the volcano had been too quick. This time, I decided to do it right.”

“You…” Diogenes took a step forward, then stopped. Never in his life — not even in the depths of youthful despair following the Event, or after the failure to steal the diamond known as Lucifer’s Heart, or even during his recovery from Stromboli — had he felt so utterly devastated. “You took the arcanum…”

“The arcanum was an unexpected benefit. A happy circumstance, in that it not only aided me, but also helped convince you I was sincere — just as my knocking out Lieutenant D’Agosta helped convince you, although in that case I was saving his life, since you would almost certainly have killed him had I not intervened.”

Diogenes staggered. “What about our night together? Surely that wasn’t a charade!”

“It was the very climax of the charade. You were correct: your reformulated arcanum did restore my health and vigor. That restoration was… a most heady experience. And so now you can add your recollections of that night to your memory palace of pain. Remember how you once described our first night together? An animal spasm. This is my gift to you: one spasm for another. Yet I knew even then that the fleeting pleasure I gave you would be paid back in pain a thousandfold, every day, every night, for the rest of your life.”

“It’s not possible! The things you said, the expression on your face, your appetites, your smiles… That wasn’t pretense, Constance. I would have sensed it.”

There was a brief silence before Constance spoke again. “I must admit — when I saw Halcyon, when I saw your obsidian chamber — my resolve did occasionally waver. Seeing this room, in fact, was my greatest test. Ironically, that’s how I knew I had to complete my work. And I remind myself how much more pleasure your suffering will give me than anything offered by the temptations of Halcyon.”

Every word of Constance’s, spoken matter-of-factly in that elegant, old-fashioned voice, was like acid in his ears. He barely knew what he was saying. “I don’t believe it. This is some perverse joke. No one could deceive me like—”

“You deceived yourself. But I weary of this. Now you know the truth. And I wish to take my leave of this island of yours, leaving behind all your fine memories, hopes, and dreams… in tatters.”

“You’ll need the arcanum—”

“I’m content to join the rest of humanity in the march toward death. No, Diogenes, it is you who need the arcanum. Prolong your own life, so you can live in misery forever!” And now, at last, her voice broke out into a laugh: low, exultant, pitiless.

Hearing that laugh, Diogenes felt his knees buckle. He sank to the floor. A cold, baleful light seemed to spill over him. And with that light came a bleak realization, the bleakest he had ever known: this was no cruel joke. Her dismantling of him and his dreams was a masterpiece of vengeance, pitiless and awe inspiring in its comprehensiveness. Halcyon would be all the more lonely now that he had experienced their being together. Constance knew that. She knew that she was leaving him here, a broken man, in a place she had made intolerable with memory.

His eyes were cast downward; a haze obscured his vision. “Is there nothing I can say, nothing I can do, to convince you that—”

“No,” she said. “And please don’t demean yourself by begging; it’s unseemly.”

Diogenes said nothing. The haze grew thicker.

“Actually, now that you mention it, I am curious about one thing. That door on the far side of the island; the only one anywhere that’s locked. What’s behind it? I know perfectly well you’re hiding something there. I might as well see everything before I go. That I should be at all curious suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability, but that in itself is probably the reason. I saw a key around your neck last night; no doubt it fits the lock. Give it to me, please.”

Last night. As she spoke, out of nowhere he heard an echo sound in his mind. Let her try to deny it — we were one.

The mist receded. Diogenes looked up to see her standing above him, one hand outstretched.

A change came over him.

What’s behind it? I know perfectly well you’re hiding something there.

All hope might not be lost. He realized that he had just been given a chance — his last chance…

He staggered to his feet, did his best to collect himself.

“No,” he said, his voice hoarse in his own ears. “No. I will show it to you. I will guide you through it. I will reveal to you… that part of my soul no one has ever seen before.”

Constance withdrew her hand. Something unfathomable flashed in her eyes.

“Very well,” she said.

A moment of silence passed. And then Diogenes — walking a little unsteadily — left the alcove, passed through the library, and headed for the front door. Constance followed a few steps behind him.

Moments later, a dark form detached itself from the deep shadows of the library where it had been hiding, listening, and — careful to keep out of sight — followed the two as they made their way across the sand toward the path leading into the mangroves.