FOR Q’S EYES ONLY

  MEMORANDUM TO Q

Re: THE DARK XANTHE

By: AH

We have new information about the so-called “Dark Xanthe”, the automaton supposedly created by the heretic Inigo Chance of his dead wife, the Muskovite, Arkady Yelenkova.

Enclosed:

1. A summary of what is known so far about the “Dark Xanthe”.

2. An artist’s rendition of this creature.

3. a statement by a reliable informant.

4. We have also recreated from the files of Doctor Allan Lawrence a scenario of what Xanthe Chance’s feelings are and Skryker’ likely response. This is an important breakthrough. If there is some sort of link between the automaton and Xanthe chance then we have another way of snaring her.

FILE Q/AH 2 RESTRICTED ACCESS. HIGHEST PRIORITY

THE DARK XANTHE

!. SUMMARY

When Xanthe Chance finally grew up there was much talk about her coldness and remoteness of manner. Many even said she was not real, but a very fine automata. Some went further. Xanthe Chance was the automaton Inigo Chance had created in exile to remind him of his dead wife, Arkady Yelenkova. Professor Chance had been exiled to Hryggeskerry for heresy. He narrowly escaped a death penalty. His crime was to presume too far on the powers of the Deity, Sol Invictus and attempt to create life. Specifically, he had built an array of automata for the Clocktower at Valerian College, fabulous creatures that appeared vibrant with life.

2. ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF THE DARK XANTHE AUTOMATON

 

3. TESTIMONY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF INIGO CHANCES FANTASTICAL CREATURES

Interview with Mistress Clover Ede.

This is the story as I heard it from a cleaner at the Ministry of State Security.

“Well, gentle master, my Nan’s mother was there, an’ I remember it as if I were there meself. They filled the Roman Amphitheatre wi’ folk Enemies of Inigo Chance, an’ just plain folk. An’ they dragged him an’ his poor wife into the arena. She were big with child, but did they give her a chair? No! So some woman got up and took her a little folding stool. You could see the Heresy Police didn’t like it, but the women there were gettin’ real argy-bargy. They had no row wi’ her. Just a bit of a thing she was, like Lady Xanthe.

An’ then it happened. They destroyed them Fantastical Creatures in front of the Perfessor’s eyes. Him being a Chance, he laughed at first. Then he got quiet. Because summat was destroyed that day. Summat was hacked to pieces and burnt. An’ the summats didn’t die easy. The Perfessor collapsed with his heart, and Arkady Yelenkova went into labour. An’ the mob turned on the Heresy Police. An’ blood ran red an’ redder.

Arkady’s baby died, and she, poor lady, went out of her mind with grief. She stood in her room as they’d wanted her to stand in that arena. Not a word did she say an’ not a sup to eat nor a sip to drink would she take. They took her to St Dymphna’s Asylum for Mind Sicknesses, which is really here before they moved to a new place an’ the Ministry came here. But she were too far gone. Just a doll, they said. On the fifth day she began to come out of it, an’ they thought she’d turned a corner.

An’ so she had, but not the corner they had in mind. She put on her wedding dress, combed out her long dark hair and set a wreath of roses in it, like a bride again. She went up to the Tower Room, up there in the Ministry Tower. She ran up all them stone steps like the wind and no-one could catch her.

There’s a winder up there, in that Tower Room. A winder they call the Chance winder. Two Chance heretics, Hieronymus Chance and Salamander Chance, cast themselves from that winder. An’ so did Arkady. She ran an’ she opened it an’ she stepped out smiling as if she were goin’ to her light o’ love.

An’ they say all the birds of Deva came in a huge flock to try to stop her falling. But she sang to them as she fell, her dress so fine about her like wings and her hair streaming behind her. An’ the birds sang with her. Them birds sang Arkady Yelenkova across the Borders of the World.

An’ there’s summat else, summat that’s on my mind. Lady Xanthe has that Chance winder in her mind, and has done since she came here. Such a wreck she was, barely alive. It’s kept locked and Lord Skryker hisself has the only key. Even so, he checks two or three times a day to see it’s still locked, he’s that worried about her. Cruel stuff people say, that she’s not real. That she’s the automaton that Perfessor Chance made of his dead wife. Well, I say he should have let the dead lie in peace, not meddle. It’s the lady has to deal with it now.

4. Reconstruction from Doctor Lawrence’s file entries and diary.

Xanthe whirled around to face him, eyes wild and desperate. “She’s in my mind. The Queen of Stars. The Dark Xanthe. She’s so clear she could be me. Is she me? And what are you? Inigo Chance stole something of me. If I’m not real, then what are you?”
This was Xanthe’s elusive, will-o’-the-wisp style of conversation, linked by often distant points. Then Skryker gasped as a vision of the Queen of Stars, the Dark Xanthe flooded his own mind. For he had seen her, this unearthly beauty.
Unbelievable lovely, but essentially inhuman; the Dark Xanthe was an automaton with long black hair, a long white dress and a wreath of roses and ivy on her head. She was crying, tears trickling down her rosy cheeks. With equal suddenness, his mind’s eye transformed the automaton was transformed into the real Xanthe, pale and resolute; wearing a white shift, her hair was cut short and she was bound to a stone pillar.
But Xanthe in the real world was frantic. “Where do I stop and she begin? If she’s destroyed, what will happen to me? Will I be dead? Or have I been dead all along and is it she that‘s alive?

CONCLUSION
This situation gives us another way of snaring the young woman in question. Her link with reality is tenuous. Skryker and Lawrence are the main supports in the life of a lonely girl.
I suggest we work to break down that support and separate them. Then we can take Xanthe chance more easily. She is closely guarded, but if she learns to mistrust she will be easily exploited.