Page 67 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
The flying creaturebrought me to a cell in a high yellow tower and there I was left for some days. They fed me enough that I retained the majority of my faculties, although the strange vistas visible through the narrow window, the ever-shifting patterns that marked the walls of my prison, and the peculiar behaviour of my captors caused me increasingly to doubt the strength of my grip on reality.
It began on perhaps the second day of my incarceration. The second or the third—early enough that time still had meaning but late enough that I was already losing track—I was led to an interrogation room, where two guards in black suits and pallid masks shackled me to a chair. A bright light shone in my eyes and opposite me I could just make out the silhouette of a slender man of aristocratic bearing.
“My name is Citizen Castaigne,” he said in thickly accented Khelish, “and you will tell me everything.”
I blinked against the glare. It was gratifying to have located our quarry, but I dearly wished it could have been under other circumstances. “I would be most happy to, but I have no information that would be useful to you.”
One of the guards struck a blow to the back of my head, which dazed me sufficiently that I missed my interlocutor’s next question. The necessity of repeating himself did not improve his mood.
“Why,” he asked, apparently for the second time, “were you meeting with counterrevolutionaries?”
I considered the somewhat unenviable options before me. My ordinary instinct would be, of course, to offer my full cooperation, for I saw great value in upholding the social contracts that support an orderly society. I had also, however, grown up in a kingdom whose law enforcement agents were corrupt to the point that they could be considered unambiguously evil, being as they were primarily the unliving minions of a malevolent sorcerer king. The Repairers of Reputations put me more in mind of those beings than of the good and faithful Myrmidons who protected the citizens of Khelathra-Ven.
Be this as it may, I was also cognisant that my actions in Carcosa, although they had involved some peripheral contact with subversive elements, had not, in fact, posed any threat to the Carcosan state or its apparatus. And although it is rare for tyrants to believe the truth if it does not confirm their fears I nevertheless concluded that honesty, in this context, remained the best policy. “I am visiting from Khelathra-Ven in order to investigate the blackmail of a friend of mine. To this end, I needed to make contact with a high-ranking member of the party. More specifically, with you.”
Mr. Castaigne leaned forward, leaving me uncertain whether I had made a clever choice or a foolish one. “Why would I be involved in the blackmail of a Khelathran?”
“You were betrothed as children. I thought it possible you might want her back.”
“Your friend is one of theformer people?”
“If you mean she’s a refugee from the Carcosan revolution, then yes.”
“So,” sneered Mr. Castaigne, “you confess that you came to Carcosa as the agent of an enemy of the revolution and you believe that I am also in contact with this traitor.”
“That seems like a mischaracterisation of my statement.”
“Take him away.”
The guards returned me roughly to my cell and I was sure the walls were closer together than when I had left, the ceiling tilting at an odd angle. In my dreams that night I saw black stars and heard a dreadful flapping in the darkness.
•••
I do not know how long I slept, but on awakening I saw that my cell door had moved, and that I was no longer alone. Huddled against one wall was a dishevelled man in a grey suit. His face, which might once have been handsome, was gaunt and drawn, and his eyes sunk to dark circles. I asked him who he was, and he told me his name was Icarius Castaigne.
Looking closer, I could see that he did indeed have the same build as the man who had interrogated me earlier, although his demeanour lacked all of his former confidence. “But how did you come to be here?”
“The Repairers took me.” His voice was thin and quavering, and he appeared almost on the verge of tears. “I am accused of consorting with an enemy of the people.”
“Miss Viola?” Was this a consequence of my earlier confession? How long ago had it been? An hour? A day?
Citizen Castaigne gave an anguished laugh. “That’s a name from another life.”
“You are not attempting to destroy her marriage by means of blackmail, then?”
The man looked genuinely perplexed. “I didn’t even know she was alive. I wish I still did not know. It is the knowing, you see, that they object to.”
“Then I am sorry for what has happened to you.” Outside I heard the beating of wings and the screaming of the strange not-birds. “But surely if this was all a misunderstanding they will let us go?”
“They see enemies everywhere. Without and within. They watch us always.Hewatches us always. The revolution was meant to end it, but I see the sign, I hear the awful dragging of His tattered robe. This is Carcosa, and ever will it be a place of—”
The door opened. Two guards seized him. Two guards in black suits and pale masks. The door closed and he was gone. Or perhaps he had never been there. I ran my hands over the floor where he had sat, looking for some sign that I had really seen him, that I had not imagined the frail man in grey or the opening and closing of the door. Or the world outside the cell. I closed my eyes and dreamed again.
A beating of wings. A ragged figure in a yellow robe. A cell that was smaller than it was. That was larger. Ever-shifting patterns on the wall. I was tied to a chair. I was locked in a room. I was alone on the shores of a lake under cold black stars.
•••
I awoke. I thought I awoke. A light shone in my face and guards in pale masks stood on either side of me.
