The Dark Volume

The train he'd crawled beneath had just arrived—that is, its engine faced the platform—but the other train, on his right, was preparing to leave Stropping, and Chang dashed alongside, toward its steaming engine. Without looking back he dove beneath it, scrambling out the other side.

The row of track before him was empty. Chang ran at an angle toward the next train over, painted yellow. He considered doubling around—back to the terminal—or climbing into the train through a window, just to get out of view. But what he needed more was distance. Another twenty yards and he dove under again. On the other side of the yellow train, Chang began to sprint: the train beyond it was in motion, leaving Stropping, its distant front end disappearing into the black tu

He reached the train just as its final car swept by. He leapt between the tracks proper, ru

Francis Xonck was still alive.

SOME DISTANCE behind him, but still closer than he would have liked, a determined pair of dragoons emerged from under the yellow train. Chang broke into a ragged run, following Xonck's train into the dark tu

But the tu

One line of tracks veered into a deeper side tu

But the flickers of light at least showed him where to go. He broke into a reckless run as the neglected side cavern echoed with the approach of another train. Yet instead of roaring past, this train broke speed to actually enter the cavern. Knowing there were only seconds before he must be found, Chang sprinted toward the curving cavern wall, the bricks black with soot. The wall was a series of arches, each one penetrated by a set of rail tracks, all fa

He edged between the train car and the filthy wall. The dragoons came nearer. Chang flung himself down and rolled beneath the car. He felt for the cross-braces above and hauled himself up off the ties, wedging his boots to each side and wrapping his arms around the cables. In a matter of seconds his tu

Chang slowly lowered himself onto the bed of rail ties, listening to the sounds in the cavern, feeling the pressure of the wood and gravel against his back, and the cool, foul air of the cavern on his face. What if he merely died where he was? How long until his bones would be discovered? Or would they be taken apart by rats and scattered across the whole of the tu

He peered past his boots. The light in the cavern was moving again. Divested of its cars, the engine had reversed direction back toward the station proper. In its wake came the smaller bobbing glows of the individual dragoons. Chang relaxed on the wooden ties—he would wait another few minutes before moving—and turned his mind to more useful matters. Francis Xonck was alive. Colonel Aspiche was diseased. There was growing unrest in the city.

In hindsight, it seemed stupid not to have recognized Xonck during their struggle in the train compartment at Karthe, and his reappearance was a reminder that Chang could take nothing for granted when dealing with the Cabal. For all he knew, not a single person had perished aboard the dirigible. But then Chang recalled the severing of Lydia Vandaariff's head and the Prince of Macklenburg's legs, and then Caroline Stearne floating facedown in the rising flood. The servantry always died.

Chang rolled out from under the rail car, brushing at his coat from habit. Barely able to see a thing—but suddenly curious—he walked, one hand against the wall, to the car's far end. Chang patted his hands across the platform, and found a metal ladder welded to its side. He climbed up and felt for a waist-high railing of chain around the platform's edge. He threw a leg over it and ran his hands across the door. It was metal, cold, and lacking any handle.

Chang retraced his way to the car's other end, finding an identical platform, ladder, and flat metal door. He pulled the glove from his right hand and ran it over the cold surface. His fingers found the depression of a key hole.

He fished out a ring of skeleton keys, sifting through them by feel for three particularly heavy and squat specimens he had acquired in trade from a Dutch thief named Rüud, after Chang had secured him a hiding space on a smuggler's ship to Rotterdam. Chang had more than once contemplated discarding them, a