Page 70 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“No time for this,” said an echo of Ms. Haas. “Get the mask.”
I glanced between the dead man and his living double, neither of whom was masked. “What mask?”
“No mask,” whispered Mr. Castaigne, rising and training a pistol upon me. “No mask.”
Tired, disorientated, and half-starved as I was, my reflexes could have been swifter. But one did not survive long beyond the Unending Gate without learning to respond adequately in times of danger. I shifted my weight forward, bearing his weapon away with one hand and, at the same time, driving my opposite forearm into his throat. Mr. Castaigne fell, struggling to breathe, and dropped his gun.
I retrieved it and covered him. “Sir, for reasons I cannot explain, it is important that I acquire a mask. Please tell me where to find one.”
But Mr. Castaigne was staring past me, his face a waxen veil of horror.
“If I were you,” Ms. Haas said from nowhere, “I really wouldn’t look over your shoulder.”
Someone—something—rushed past me; a ragged creature in yellow robes, its presence at once glorious and vile. I did not watch as it engulfed Mr. Castaigne, but turned instead to flee.
•••
“Mr. Wyndham. Wake up.”
I opened my eyes. Rising, I saw the door to my cell stood open. Beyond it, the hallway was deserted, and behind me I heard a sound like the tearing of cloth.
“What are you waiting for?” said Ms. Haas. This all seemed familiar, but I couldn’t think why. “Go.”
I moved through the shadowed corridors as if tracing the steps of a half-forgotten dream. On the floor of one of the interrogation rooms, I found the body of Mr. Castaigne, his eyes wide and his visage a paroxysm of terror.
“Get the mask.”
I saw none but, surrendering to the twisted logic of Carcosa, Iknelt down and hooked my fingers behind the dead man’s jaw. His face came away in my hands, becoming a shard of featureless alabaster and revealing beneath a thing of which my editor advises me I should not speak.
“Put it on and move quickly.”
I followed her instruction and felt at once a cold and indefinable sense of violation. Returning to the tangled skein of corridors, I found now that my steps were drawn on by some will not entirely my own. My path led me up a spiral of broken stairs and out onto a ledge of scored and weathered stone. The sky roiled with sepia clouds and, far below, the ancient and famous city of Carcosa spilled forth its canals and its factories, its tenements and spires like the fever dream of a dying cartographer.
I found Mr. Castaigne standing perilously close to the edge, a few paces away from me.
“They are here,” he said. “The enemies of the people are inside the tower. And, since only we two remain, it must be either you or I who betrayed us.”
I considered my position. On the one hand, I could not help but feel some pity for this man whose loyalty to his cause seemed to have driven him so deeply into paranoia and whose predicament may have been at least in part my doing. On the other hand, he remained one of my captors and, therefore, ultimately my enemy. And it was this last factor that I deemed most pertinent to my current situation.
“That is so,” I replied. “But we have no way of knowing which of us it was.”
Mr. Castaigne curled his fingers despairingly into his hair. “Then we have failed.”
The strategy to which I was about to commit was a gamble but, from what I had observed of Mr. Castaigne’s state of mind, it seemed my best hope of overcoming him. “There is perhaps one hope. If weboth cast ourselves from the tower, we shall be certain that the traitor is destroyed, and our lives are a small price to pay for the security of the party.”
“You’re right.” His eyes began to fill with tears. “And had I not been compromised I would have thought of it immediately.”
I felt more than a little guilty at this, but my own survival was at stake. “That does seem logical.”
He stretched out a hand towards me. “Serve well, Citizen.”
And then he stepped backwards into empty air, but before he could fall I felt a rush of wind and a sickness like joy as I watched a ragged thing in yellow robes snatch him up and consume him.
•••
“Mr. Wyndham. Wake up.”
I opened my eyes. Rising, I saw the door to my cell stood open. Beyond it, the hallway was deserted, and behind me I heard a sound like the tearing of cloth. In my left hand, I was still holding a chill, alabaster mask.
