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  This worked and he hardened to her. “Then I don’t understand why you gave it to them. If it’s so important—”

  “It is so important. Which is why I gave it to them. They’ll keep it safe, Caliph. In the meantime, I have errands in Sandren. Don’t worry. The Sisterhood can’t use it. Even if they open it … it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  She hung on his question. “To save the world,” she said.

  This sent a hairline crack through the invisible wall between them. She watched it creep slowly, as Caliph puzzled over her words. Soon it would turn elaborate and ugly. Sena left the room and went to stand outside in the sunlight. Caliph followed her as though leashed.

  She inhaled, let the cold air fill her, but did not feel cleansed. At her feet, sunlight scoured the metal, working to efface the terrible associations from the night before.

  “What do you mean?” Caliph asked. “That it’s too late to save the world? You mean the Shradnae Sisterhood is trying to save the world? From what?”

  Sena had turned her head to watch his mouth move as he asked this inevitable question. He wore a crooked premonition, gathered at one side of his face as if he sensed what was coming.

  “From me,” she said. These two words tapped the wedge into place.

  “I don’t get it.” But he did get it. She knew, in his guts, how the rimy dark angle of her words, worked shardlike between his ribs. He chuckled, trying to make light of it. Trying to transform the absurdity into a joke. “I thought the Sisterhood was always the, you know…” he popped his lips and twirled his finger, “the enemy.”

  “They are,” she said softly.

  “I don’t really understand what you’re saying, then.” He tried to smile. Failed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Sena turned away from the sun, away from him. She saw herself through Caliph’s eyes, wanting to feel what he felt. He saw her irises flickering with tiny arcs as she turned. He saw her walk resolutely away, through the doorway, leaving him on the deck to believe finally and unequivocally that she had lost her mind.

  And that was better. The fissure at least, between the two of them, would give Caliph some dignity, some space and time to claw his way back.

  * * *

  FOR several minutes, Caliph stood mystified. But then the deck boy arrived. Caliph preferred the Bulotecus to the Odalisque. On the Bulotecus, Specks would have handed him the message, floating and smiling.

  The boy on the Odalisque said nothing as he gave Caliph the note.

  Caliph took it and pulled it open. As he read, Sena’s delusions of grandeur melted into the background.

  What it said, even in the shadow of last night’s attack, put a disquieting spin on Sena’s insistence that the Iatromisia be included in this ill-fated flight.

  The city-state of Sandren had seen countries rise and fall. Its rich unattainable eye had long gazed over the Atlath Continent with a kind of supreme multifaceted neutrality. The city-state’s wealth was enormous. It had never been looted. It was, as it had always been, aloof to armies marching under and around it. Only one fool had ever attempted a siege.

  Caliph tugged his lip, bewildered to read that during the last thirty-six hours, coinciding with a stay of warm sloppy weather, Sandren’s citizens lay dying.

  Details were sparse. Some kind of sickness. Rumors chased their own tails.

  As Caliph’s three airships neared the great jag of the Ghalla Peaks, he could see other zeppelins clustering.

  A flock of balloons drifted together, enormous gasbags bearing crests and colors, each one from a different nation. The airships’ ponderous bodies were lanced and strafed by light; despite this, they looked small and powerless against the mountain’s cool gray backdrop.

  Birds enmeshed the conflux in helices that twisted slow as summer gnats. Some of them carried messages between the ships. Information was spreading.

  Caliph called for field glasses. He felt them arrive in his hand and looked southwest at the congregating vessels. There were craft from Waythloo’s Iron Throne, Wardale, even the Society of the Jaw. He made out one bizarre ship from the Theocracy of the Stargazers; another, pale as a cave beetle, from the Pplar. Fane, Dadelon, Iycestoke, Bablemum, Greymoor and Yorba. They were all here. A circus of colors. A sky full of political clout.

  Behind the harlequin minnow-shaped bodies, where the sun could not yet reach, Caliph made out the black arms of Sandren’s famous teagle system. Great brackets of metal lunged from vertical clefts in the rock. Small only in perspective, the brackets trailed down the mountain’s sheer face, ending amid a smoky cluster of buildings that broke out into the sun and glinted like overturned trash.

  Far above the conflux of zeppelins, the brackets led up, carrying their threads of cable toward the hidden city-state of Sandren.

  If the Sandrenese were sick, Caliph was eager to hear the details, eager to see how he could help.

  Some of the heavier airships had already docked at a great platform suspended halfway up the mountain: a half disk of grilled metal supported by cables and struts. The elevators could be summoned to this platform and the airships were moderately protected from the buffeting, generally east-blowing winds.

  Not all craft could make the thirteen-thousand-foot ascent to the city.

  Caliph handed his field glasses off and sent a message to the captain, requesting that he motor them in.

  Not forty minutes later, another bird arrived with a message from the south. This one was an invitation.

  Caliph was being called to Bablemum’s great flagship. There, Grand Arbiter Nawg’gnoh Pag would host the pre-conference party in the evening. It would be a way to gather and make sense of the crisis, what had happened to the Sandrenese, and how best to help.

  Having had no sleep, Caliph finally gave in. He slept for several hours, woke, grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen and met with Alani in private.

  “This could be it,” said the spymaster. “We need to be careful tonight.”

  “They’re not going to kill me on their own ship,” said Caliph.

  Alani coughed into his fist. “It’s Bablemum’s ship.”

  “Pandragor controls Bablemum. Wouldn’t that be a little too obvious—”

  “You’re right that they won’t likely make an attempt until after you give your speech,” said Alani. “Nevertheless—”

  “I’m not afraid of them.”

  “You should be.”

  “Nevertheless what?” asked Caliph.

  “Nevertheless, we’re going to put a watchdog on you tonight.”

  “This is crazy. We’re going to be late.”

  “No we’re not.” Alani snapped his fingers at one of his men. “Bring us a dog.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Caliph was still talking. “I hate watchdogs.”

  “I know.” Alani sounded genuinely apologetic. “But it’s the best way.”

  Caliph frowned. His stomach hurt.

  “You look nervous now,” said Alani. “That’s good.”

  “Isn’t it your job to be nervous?”

  “Trust me. I’m doing my job.”

  “Well if you’re nervous, then I shouldn’t be. It’s my job to go to this thing and keep Stonehold’s head from dragging in the—”

  “That will be your job later, when you deliver your speech,” said Alani. “But not tonight.” He raised his index finger. “Tonight your only job is to stay alive. And with a little prudent fear, that job will be made considerably easier.”

  Caliph growled and adjusted the button cover at the middle of his throat. He pointed to it fiercely with double fingers. “Is it fine?”

  “You look perfect.”

  Alani’s man came back from belowdecks, leading a tubby dog on short legs.

  “I really don’t want to do this,” said Caliph.

  “It’s my call,” said Alani. He knelt down and took the dog by the collar. It whimpered, sensing that something was not right.

  On
e of Alani’s men produced a muzzle. It was a heavy latticed thing, woven into a basket of pale boiled leather, riveted together at all intersections. Caliph found it bulky and terrible to look at; it allowed the dog to open and close its beak but obscured its small blue eyes almost entirely. The dog gurgled and clucked, then shrieked once as the spike at the back of the muzzle pierced its chubby neck.

  “They’re going to think it strange? Sena not coming?” Caliph asked, trying not to think about the animal.

  “Hardly. I think Bablemumish derision for her is an open book. We don’t want to enflame an already precarious situation.”

  Alani adjusted a gauge wired to a chemiostatic battery that now hung under the dog’s throat. This was cutting edge, government-issue holomorphy, produced by entrepreneurs in Isca City at top-secret facilities. Caliph had to accept some blame in its creation despite the fact that the product was vastly different than the original specifications.

  “You’re right,” Caliph said. “Let’s get this over with. I want to be back on the Odalisque by midnight.”

  “So do I.”

  Alani flipped a toggle switch on the collar portion of the muzzle. It began whispering. This was a hideous version of the thing worn by the captain’s crippled son, only the equation it repeated, ever so slowly, was of a much different bent.

  The numbers in the static-filled hiss produced a ward. This ward would cover the High King, all night long. The outcome, different from the company’s original proposal, was that the animal would die in the process.

  Each dog offered a one-night watch.

  It was an inefficient device, a prototype really. But the contract had included a tricky clause. Caliph had already decided not to renew. He might even fight it in court once they returned from Sandren. In the meantime, with the knowledge of how he was viewed by the south, for the sake of Stonehold’s future, he allowed Alani to set the collar.

  Alani snapped a leash to the device just as their ride flew in.

  A small capsule with one pilot, a glowing orange gasbag and an array of directional fans swept over the deck. The pilot got them boarded, dog included, just as the sun slipped into a violet bruise behind the mountain.

  The capsule lifted off, making Caliph’s stomach pitch. It ferried them through the chilly evening toward Bablemum’s great Quadrivium.

  They arrived at thirteen o’ five, stepping out onto the airship’s impressive brass-like deck. The sound of music and the smells of indulgence seemed highly inappropriate considering the circumstances.

  Perhaps it’s cultural, Caliph thought. Perhaps there’s too much of Stonehold in me. Too much of the grim Naneman. He tried not to pass judgment as a pair of men in ecru flight suits with copper goggles and velvet guns greeted him on the platform.

  Their boots and pants were smudged with grease indicating they might have done actual work during the day. One of them stroked his gun as if he were holding a pet, letting the fur trail between his fingers.

  “King Howl.” The two men escorted Caliph toward the light. Alani followed three steps behind, leading the watchdog. They were guided through an open doorway, into a double-decker lounge with crisp clean lines and crisp clean women. Singular scarlet lilies with black freckles emerged from slender vases like fireworks and a metholinate fireplace bubbled on a hearth that made no attempt to simulate anything organic.

  The space was lit with cool white light gushing from various fixtures. A mood, neither too dim nor too bright, sprang from the crystalline radiance of the bar. The furnishings seemed to be brass. Caliph doubted this considering the weight such objects would add to an airship.

  “Here they come,” whispered Alani. The spymaster ignored the looks of disgust associated with the blood-dripping dog.

  Caliph plucked a stemmed drink from a tray. While an ominous group of men closed in, he took a sip and eyed them.

  There was a harpist playing near the bar and a naked woman lay on her back not far away, painstakingly detailed in brightly colored paint. She lay perfectly still, each of her nipples covered with a bright red lily and another pinched between her legs. She was a small-breasted creature, which helped with her duty as a buffet table: her abdomen and chest were laden with leaves that had been piled with artful, bite-sized slices of raw fish: pink and white and red.

  “Your majesty,” said one of the looming men.

  Caliph gave them his best smile.

  “High King Howl!” chimed another.

  Some of them extended hands. Some did not. It was not southern custom to shake. Caliph shook the hands offered and introduced Alani.

  “By the Eyes … what is that thing?” One of the men was looking at the dog.

  Alani made a brief explanation, which Caliph still found embarrassing. It might be cutting edge in Stonehold, but he doubted the south had need of such crude mechanisms. While Alani explained, Caliph noticed how old his spymaster looked: more like a doddering relative than an elite bodyguard. It was hard not to feel ashamed in these surroundings.

  One of the men laughed. “A watchdog? King Howl doesn’t trust us.”

  Caliph kept his chin up. “Alani might be overly protective, but he takes good care of me.”

  “Yes. You’re famous,” said the man. “Or I should say infamous. You’re the Alani from Ironwall, aren’t you? We tried to sign you on in Pandragor.” The man was laughing but his eyes were shrewd.

  “I’m not from Ironwall,” said Alani. “And I don’t believe we’ve done introductions yet.”

  “So we haven’t, so we haven’t.”

  Several names passed revealing the men to be mostly lesser officials.

  “Would you like some fish, King Howl?”

  The men turned to the living buffet table and took their time, lecherously filling their small plates. As they did, Alani leaned forward and whispered in Caliph’s ear. “There’s the grand arbiter.”

  Caliph looked up and spied a man on the second floor who leaned heavily on an art deco railing. The man was robed in white fur—trimmed with black. He had yellowish flabby-looking skin and deep-set eyes. His jowls swayed as he spoke somberly with the man next to him.

  Caliph looked down, re-engaging with the men around him. “So. Do we know what’s happened to Sandren?”

  “We do not,” said a thin overly tan gentleman with white hair who had suddenly appeared. He had a ragged mouth that looked like a badly healed knife wound.

  “It’s excellent to finally meet you,” said Caliph. He recognized Emperor Junnu immediately as his adversary, the man at the head of the mighty Pandragonian Empire, the same man who had sent Nuj Ig’nos two weeks ago into the north to burden Caliph with the solvitriol accord.

  Caliph disliked how the southerners did business. Maybe that too was the Naneman in him. In the north, if you disliked someone, you threw a spear at his head … or at least nowadays told him point blank to get off your property.

  But the southerners spent their taxes on naked women and body paint and rare fish. They invited you to the party and probably to their estate in the spring while slipping poison into your cocktail.

  “It’s excellent to meet you as well,” Emperor Junnu was saying. His red mouth performed antics that passed for cordial happiness. “Any revisions to the accord?”

  “None so far.” Caliph smiled broadly.

  “That’s good,” said Junnu. “You wouldn’t believe what we pay for document preparation in Pandragor.” Caliph decided the evil blue twinkle in Junnu’s eyes was for real.

  “So … Sandren?” Caliph asked again.

  “We don’t know for certain,” said one of the other men. “But there have been some reports of illness along the south edge of the Great Cloud Rift. People that flew out of Sandren have gotten other folks sick. We’re a bit alarmed. It might just turn into an epidemic.”

  Another man added to the story. “Moved a hundred miles in one day. People sick from Nwodus all the way up to the edge of the capital now.” He tapped his finger on the railing leading
down to the dance floor. “But we think it came here first.”

  “Here meaning Sandren,” said Caliph.

  “That’s right.”

  “So has anyone been up? To Sandren?” Caliph asked.

  “We sent some reconnaissance teams,” said Junnu. “We’re waiting to hear back.”

  “When are you due—to hear back?”

  “It’s only been four or five hours.”

  “You know, I brought a medical ship,” said Caliph.

  “I’d heard that,” said Junnu. “That’s extraordinary.”

  “Yes. It was … not really my idea. But it seems fortunate now. Maybe I could go up. See if I can help.”

  “A charitable notion,” said Junnu. “No one’s going to stop you.”

  “What about the schedule for the conference?”

  Junnu raised his glass. “We’ll have to postpone it a bit. See what’s really going on up there. But don’t think you’ll get out of speaking.” He smiled and the other men laughed.

  “Are you kidding?” Caliph said. “I slaved over this speech. If I don’t give it, all that heartburn Nuj Ig’nos caused me will be for nothing.”

  Junnu raised his glass. “To north-south relations!”

  Everyone toasted.

  The emperor’s face was bright as a cherry with good-natured mirth but faded quickly. “You know, King Howl, your speech is the number one reason I’m here. It’s going to be a critical night—for both the north and the south.”

  Caliph tilted his head. “You’ve set some high expectations.”

  “Oh, I’m the perpetual optimist, King Howl. I have no doubt we’re on the edge of solving our differences.”

  Caliph felt an enormous hand clamp down gently over his shoulder. So large, it engulfed him. Grand Arbiter Nawg’gnoh Pag had come down from the balcony and crept up behind him. He leaned into view, beaming monstrously. “Hello, King Howl.” The arbiter’s words were profoundly deep and hollow and framed with vague contempt. “I’m Nawg’gnoh Pag.”

  “From Bablemum,” said Caliph.

  “That’s right. I wonder if I could borrow you for just a moment.”

  Caliph glanced over his other shoulder at Alani. The spymaster was stiff, his eyes riveted on Caliph’s eyes. “I don’t—see why not,” Caliph said.