The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist Page A

go with Sorge and see it for ourselves.”

    THE BODIES were laid out on flat squares of canvas that would, once the families were satisfied, be sewn around them for burial. Several men from the village were still there—to Chang, all alike with their drab woolen coats, bearded faces, and wrinkled hard stares—and they silently made way for the two outsiders. The Doctor knelt by each corpse. From Chang's perspective, the damage was clear enough—the throats of each groom gaped wide, the wounds nearly black with clotted blood—and so he turned his attention instead to the stable. The double wooden doors were open, the muddy yard marked by too many foot-and hoofprints to untangle. Chang could see from his clothing and plastered hair that one of the dead men had lain in the rain. Any traces of blood would have been quickly obliterated by such a storm. He looked to the village men.
    “Where was the other?”
    Chang followed them inside. A stall door had been cracked at the hinges, as if the groom had been driven—or thrown—against it with great force. The floor was covered with damp straw, and while there were grooves and hillocks indicating a struggle, there was no way to know who or what had made them. Several stalls were now closed with rope, their wooden slats snapped or broken. Something had stirred the horses to violence.
    He turned at the approach of Svenson. The Doctor studied the straw, the stall door, and then, completing the circuit, the rest of the main stable room. He glanced once to Chang, with a deliberately blank expression, then turned to the villagers.
    “It seems plain enough, I am sorry to say. Sorge has suggested a wolf, or even wolves, driven out by the storm. You see the wounds required great strength.”
    “And teeth?” asked Chang mildly.
    “Indeed.” Svenson frowned. “The narrative is unfortunately clear. The first groom hears a disturbance and opens the doors to see what it might be—from the distress demonstrated by the horses, we know the disturbance was significant. Once outside, he was attacked. The door still open, the beasts gained entry and slew the second groom, again—” Svenson gestured to the battered stall “—with notable ferocity.”
    The men nodded at each point the Doctor made. The horse snorted.
    “Would it be possible,” Svenson asked, smiling encouragingly, “to see where these fellows slept?”
    Their quarters were undisturbed: two bunks, an iron stove, moth-eaten blankets, and a rack of woolen stockings set to dry. A metal box of biscuits had been knocked from its shelf, the pale contents, more than likely rife with weevils, spilled out on the straw. Chang cleared his throat and met the ever-suspicious faces of the villagers.
    “Where is their privy?”

    HE HAD merely wanted to be away from the piggish stabbing eyes, but once he strode down the path to the tiny wooden shed, Chang felt the effect of too much tea—drinking being the simplest way to avoid conversation with their hosts—at that morning's breakfast. The privy's door was ajar. As he pulled it open, Chang saw its upper hinge had become dislodged. He wrinkled his nose. The hole cut into the seat of sawn planking was spattered darkly around its edge. Even he could smell—burning through the standard reek of the pit beneath—the foul, acrid traces of indigo clay. He leaned forward, squinting at the stained wood… a viscous smear… stinking dark blue mucus. To either side of the hole were smaller marks… fingerprints. He pictured the position of the hands—the forward position, from the placement of each thumb. Someone had vomited their twisted blue guts out.

    THEY SAID nothing more on their return, accompanied as they were by the villagers. Chang had managed to subtly direct the Doctor to the privy—forcing himself to discuss wolves with their hosts in the interval. Though he did learn that of five horses driven into the woods, two remained unaccounted for—and in the fishermen's opinion