Page 68 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“You will tell me everything.” By the shape of my interrogator’s silhouette I was certain that it was Castaigne.
“You were not a captive at all, then?” He did not answer. Perhaps he was playing with my mind. Perhaps I was.
“Why,” he asked, “were you meeting with counterrevolutionaries?”
“I am here on behalf of a woman who fled Carcosa as a child. She has no interest in your city or its politics, and neither do I.”
“Your friend is one of the former people?”
“You know this. I have told you this.”
The interrogator leaned forward. “Do you believe that Citizen Castaigne is in contact with this woman?”
This was preposterous. “Youare Citizen Castaigne.”
“You will answer my questions.”
“I do not know how to.”
A guard struck me, and the interrogator spoke again. “Do you believe that Citizen Castaigne is in contact with this woman?”
“You told me that you were not.”
Another blow. I had known that it was not the answer he wanted. I did not know how to answer differently. I had been in the cell for two days. For five days. I had never been anywhere but the cell. I had never seen stars that were not black or a sky with only one sun.
“Take him away. I am growing tired of his impertinence.”
The guards lifted me from my chair and dragged me down the corridor to my cell. It was the same cell as before. It was not the same cell as before. The floor had developed an unnatural smoothness. The air tasted of tin. In my dreams, cloud waves rolled across the surface of a great lake. On the far shore I saw a ragged figure in yellow robes.
•••
I awoke in my cell with jaundiced sunlight filtering through the window. I awoke in my cell with the un-light from black stars prickling my face. I awoke to see Citizen Castaigne huddled against the wall. I awoke alone. The claws of a winged monster scrabbled at my window. Everything was silent. I could not sleep for the sound of the tattered robe dragging on the floors of an ancient castle. I slept and dreamed that my face was a porcelain mask.
I awoke in a cold chair, a bright light shining in my face. A hooded woman sat opposite me, and once more I heard that soft and now-familiar flapping, as of cloth against rock or leather against bone.
“If Castaigne is not the traitor, who is?”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “there is no traitor.”
“There must always be traitors.”
“Why?” I was not certain I wanted to know the answer. I could not help but ask the question. I had been there for three days. Two. Five.
“Because the shadows lengthen, and songs die unheard.”
The guards took me back to my cell. It was the same cell. It was a different cell. A yellow sky. A black sky. Now I ate. Now I slept. Now I dreamed. Or perhaps I always dreamed. I awoke and the floor was unnaturally smooth. I awoke and the air tasted of tin. My skin felt smooth and dry, as if it would crack at the slightest pressure. I feared what I would find beneath. I heard the tearing of cloth and the beating of wings. I raised my hands to my face and dug my fingers into my skin.Take off the mask. You must take off the mask. The bird-things screamed outside.
•••
I awoke, or thought I awoke, in my cell. The door had moved, and I was not alone.
“Mr. Castaigne.”
He stared at me with wild, desperate eyes. “Tell them what you know. It’s the only way to stop this.”
I did not trust him, but then at that time I also did not entirely trust myself. “You have been interrogating me. You are as much one of them as anybody else.”
“No longer. I have been found guilty. Guilty of betraying the Party and the People and the great City of Carcosa.”
