Black Bottle Read online

  “That’s strange.” Anselm was standing beside her. “The lifts have been running. There should be people…”

  “What are those?” Taelin pointed to the streets bordering the platform.

  Below, in the shadows of buildings, cautious figures moved.

  “Are those people?” Anselm asked.

  She had automatically assumed, but doubt crawled through her head now, burdened with his question. There was something about them. Where they stood. And how. They did not walk from place to place as people should have. They hovered. They stood where thieves might stand, or crouch. They moved tentatively. Even though she could not make them out, she saw them as shy hideous things, wreathed in cyclones of trash and unclean air. Taelin felt cold. As the ship passed over, she got a glimpse of one thin figure. It was naked, shimmering and gray. It swayed and tottered through a window as if mortally wounded, then disappeared from sight.

  As her eyes scanned the streets, evidence of looting took shape: broken windows and open doors. How could this happen in two days?

  A huge shadow darkened the avenues. It alarmed her, reminding her of what had happened at St. Remora. She quickly realized, however, that it was the Odalisque coming up from behind and wondered cynically whether Caliph Howl would be surprised by the scene below. Shielding her eyes as the sun burst around the Odalisque’s skin, she watched its vast shape glide south.

  Taelin stared contemptuously until, without warning, the docking spire on the Iatromisia’s undercarriage sank into a socket on the teagle platform and propelled her into a stumble. She braced her palms against the railing and turned her attention back to the huddled streets, scanning for more people.

  Nothing moved.

  As soon as the ship came to a stop, men in black departed over the railing on thick cords. They swung out into space, chrome blue goggles capturing the sky. The cords trailed up over the gasbags. Taelin watched the men descend like circus actors. They maintained elegant postures until they touched the platform. Then they spread out with their heavy coils; each man pulled his rope through the eyelet of a different cement pylon. They had the ship tied without delay and Taelin heard the cargo elevator buzz to life belowdecks.

  She watched physicians and logistical advisors begin flowing out from underneath the zeppelin and leaned out over the railing for a better view as people organized, talked and pointed toward the streets.

  “We almost forgot you,” Dr. Baufent said sharply. “I think you’re the only one who hasn’t been poked.” Wrapped around her fingers, a hypodermic loaded with pale blue fluid glittered in the sun.

  “Vaccine?”

  The doctor gave her the southern sign.

  Taelin dutifully rolled up her sleeve. She felt the steel pierce the meat of her shoulder and winced. Dr. Baufent pulled out, swabbed and smiled. “Want a candy?”

  A small fracas had been building from below and it now drew their attention over the rail. There was a shout and Taelin saw one of the men in black standing with his feet apart, one hand out, pointing. His other hand rested on the handle of a truncheon that was still holstered against his hip.

  For a few moments he seemed to be hallucinating. Nothing happened and the branches at the edge of the platform tossed slowly, rolling with the wind. They hid Taelin’s view of the ground. Another man came to stand beside him and it was then that Taelin realized the physicians and advisors were gone. She heard the elevator coming back up. Maybe they had fled back to the ship?

  Clearly the two men below could see something that she could not.

  After another moment, both men pulled their truncheons. Three more men ran into sight. These, however, were coming from the edge of the platform, out from beneath the tossing trees, back toward the cargo elevator. Those who had been standing on the platform watching, moved their feet nervously, as if the slab were tilting, as if they couldn’t quite get their balance.

  “What’s going on?” asked Baufent. It was a useless question.

  Pouring from under the trees, springing and leaping and hopping madly, a crowd of naked forms tumbled onto the platform and lunged for the men. The men swung hard, bringing their ghastly assailants down.

  Taelin stared in horror.

  After twenty seconds of brutality, what creatures were still standing retreated. She watched them lope back into the trees, slip down retaining walls and scurry off into shadow-clogged alleyways. Some dragged themselves through busted windows, heedless of the shards.

  The men had won but Taelin could see them panting, hands on knees. They glanced in every direction like scared children and backed quickly toward the cargo elevator, which now sounded to be coming back down. They kept their truncheons out.

  Nearby, the Odalisque was in the middle of mooring. Taelin twisted at her necklace while men from Caliph’s ship secured the ropes and then jogged across the platform to consult with those who had just repelled the attack. The discussion was brief and too distant to hear.

  “It’s the same thing,” said Baufent. Taelin had forgotten the physician was there.

  “What is?”

  “The disease.” Dr. Baufent’s short gray hair rumpled in a faintly latrine-scented wind that drew through the urban desolation to the west. “It drives them mad at first. We’ll take samples. We’ll run tests, but I think it’s the same.”

  Taelin’s heart was pounding. “But the vaccine works?”

  “Yes, dear. You’ll be fine … by the end of day two. We just need to keep you quarantined until then.”

  “Quarantined? Why bother bringing me up if I’m … how am I supposed to help if…”

  “Shh—” Baufent’s gunmetal eyes were analyzing the talking men. “We have plenty of doctors up here. This was about you posing for litho-slides, remember? It’s political.”

  Taelin felt insulted, but Baufent’s brutal candor acted like a strange ointment. It smoothed things over in an abrupt and unexpected way. “What about them?” asked Taelin. She pointed to the men.

  “They got theirs a year ago.” Baufent spoke softly. “All physicians and government employees were required to be vaccinated after the court was cleaned. The rest of Isca got theirs soon after.”

  “The court?”

  “I’m sure you read the papers, dear. Ghoul Court is what we call the borough in Isca where it started.”

  Taelin had read the papers but now she was talking to one of the physicians that had actually been there. “What does the disease do? That was information they never published.”

  “It turns them into fish,” said Baufent. “Not really, of course. But it’s a genetic modifier. Some people thought there was cross-breeding going on. Complete nonsense. What’s strange is that the mutation shuts down at different stages for different people. We don’t know why. Some people’s transformation is nearly unnoticeable. Only their brain is affected. Others die. And still others … Well. I guess you’ve seen them.”

  “Is it airborne?”

  “No. It’s carried in the blood and mucus membranes. And it’s sensitive to race. Pplarians for instance react differently.”

  Word came back from the ground crew that the High King had decided not to abort. “We’re going to set up shop,” one of the men in blue goggles said curtly as he strode past Baufent. He had just come up the lift and seemed to have been tasked with disseminating information.

  Taelin and the doctor left the deck and went down to the cargo hold where people were gathering. One of the men in black was barking out instructions.

  He told them that erecting pavilions for a field hospital at the current spot would be futile. The wind in the Ghalla Peaks was irregular and violent. So, the decision had been made to locate the hospital’s hub on the palace grounds, some eight hundred yards to the east, which would also be safer in case of another attack.

  The master sergeant also made it clear that they wouldn’t be taking up residence in the palace proper for political reasons, a decision that irked most of the physicians.

  Taelin got
a personal escort to the palace grounds where she was assigned to oversee the medical supplies being ferried from the airship. Despite her knee she was able to organize and verify inventory counts and help the other iatromathematiques unpack. She unrolled yards of white cloth and opened boxes of antiseptic, surgery tools and ampoules ready for the needle. There were less conventional supplies as well, living creatures encased in holomorphic glass harvested from the Memnaw: a dozen scarlet horrors with special equipment to turn their voracious hunger on the plague.

  Toward nightfall the hospital, fully erected and open for business, sat waiting for patients.

  No one came.

  * * *

  BORED, Taelin sat down on a little crop of rock just outside the tent hospital. It was dark here and relatively quiet, the perfect place to think. She unfolded Speck’s drawing and smiled.

  Sena was up to something. She was sure of it. And poor Caliph Howl might be along for the ride. But what could she do? How did Nenuln intend for her to overcome the High King’s witch?

  Taelin flinched from a noise in the darkness. A soft twittering.

  It was a bird that had come up and was dancing on the crop of rock. Strange that it was still flying after dark. Then she noticed the subtle glow in its eyes.

  It seemed to gasp as it hopped back and forth, twisting its head, looking at her finger like a grub.

  There was clockwork in its brain. Taelin reached out and grabbed it. The lodestone that had drawn it to her was in a ring on the third finger of her right hand. A contingency, her father had said. I want to be able to find my daughter—

  Well he had found her.

  Again.

  Strapped to the bird’s leg was a note and a little bottle of liquid. She read the note with a sense of horror. All it said was, A toast to the High King.

  “I am not an assassin!” she hissed. Thankfully, no one was close enough to hear. She looked toward the bright hospital tents where people still bustled. No one was close enough to have even noticed the bird’s arrival.

  She crumpled the note and tossed it into the weeds. She considered throwing the tiny bottle in the same direction but put it into her pocket instead.

  Depressed, stressed and angry, she left the crop and hobbled up the battlements to the palace’s outer wall where Naobi had risen. She watched the large moon for a long time. Clouds slipped like white flames across its face.

  Dr. Anselm arrived to check on her.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  “I suppose it is.”

  “I wanted to thank you.” She found his loud, friendly voice soothing. “You did a great job today.” He cocked his head. “And I’m not just saying that to pamper Avidan Mwyr’s daughter.”

  She raised a finger at him. “No babysitting.”

  “No babysitting.” He grinned. Then, “You certainly didn’t need any. Have the reconnaissance teams left?”

  “What? I don’t know. I hadn’t heard about them.”

  “Maybe they’re already gone. The king sent two detachments down Avenue of Lights.” He pointed vaguely toward domes and statues that cluttered the dark skyline. “From the sound of it, we weren’t the first ones here. A Pandragonian vessel landed to the south somewhere.”

  “What is it?” she asked. “You make it sound like something bad happened.”

  Light from the tents groped his features as he glanced down at his feet; nostrils, lips and cheekbones became a black puzzle. “Word has it, they were attacked … worse than we were.”

  Taelin ached to know if her family had been spared. Her cousin and several close friends lived in the Perch. But how could she get to them?

  And how could they have been spared? When she gazed over the copper domes and ancient masonry, the city seemed empty. All she saw were blackened streets and windows. Bright flowers in planters threw ruffling shadows over abandoned brickwork and tar, lit harshly by pools of white-blue lamplight.

  Somewhere in the darkness, Taelin could hear a fountain splashing. But the lovely avenues rolled with papers and garbage.

  Anselm laced his fingers over the crown of his shaven head. He arched back—stretching.

  “Did you see that?”

  Anselm snapped back. “Where?”

  Taelin pointed. “It was right there. There it is again, see it?”

  “Yes.”

  Something crept below the wall, slinking through folds of darkness on the east side of a boutique. It was coming toward the palace.

  Dr. Anselm’s voice broke the tension. “Our first patient?”

  Taelin took her crutches and hopped down the battlement steps, hurrying as best she could toward the gate.

  “Wait!” he called. “You can’t go down there! You’re under quarantine.”

  Taelin stopped. “It’s not airborne.”

  Anselm’s eyes seemed abnormally white. They were wide and solemn with the gravity of her objection. “Listen, this is serious. Now I know you don’t want to—”

  “No. No,” she said. “You’re right. I’m being stupid.”

  “You’re being concerned.” He walked down the steps, huge hands thrust into the pockets of his crimson trench. “Nothing wrong with that. But you’ve done enough today. Here.” He produced a bottle of pills. “Take one of these before you sleep. It will help with the altitude.”

  She accepted the little jar of yellow and purple capsules.

  “Now go get something to eat. And sleep! I’ll coax our patient in, don’t worry.”

  Taelin knew he was right. He seemed levelheaded. He reminded her faintly of Aviv. With a wave and a smile she turned toward the medical tents and the smell of cooking food.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Sena waited for Caliph to say something. There was no up or down. The darkness in the airship pooled around them. They were fish, in an aquarium, looking out at the mangled lights of humans. White tents wobbled. Doctors’ shadows wrinkled in the night. Sena did not touch him as she thought about the Bablemumish and Pandragonian plots, the whispers in upholstered staterooms and electroplated dining decks that floated below the City in the Mountain—waiting for the High King.

  “Did you know anyone here?” asked Caliph.

  “Yes.” When Caliph’s wait turned obstinate she relented. “His name was Tynan.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Old boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She felt the hair on the back of Caliph’s neck rise. Tonight it wasn’t the energy pouring off her skin that frightened him. Tonight something darker, behind her, only a foot below the ceiling, was listening. Caliph couldn’t see it but it was there. And she felt it put Caliph’s hackles on end.

  “What would you do if you were trapped behind a door?” She drew his attention back to her. “Where you couldn’t see the front of the lock?”

  “What?” Caliph looked back at the glowing wind-crumpled tents. They had begun to snap in the wind.

  “Never mind. Let’s flip it,” she said. “Here’s your riddle.”

  “Riddle?”

  “Just listen.

  “Pretend you’re in a room. The whole world is in the room with you. Like a giant globe. But it’s not a toy. It’s the real world. With all the people and things on it that you love. They’re real … just small. You’re not standing on the world.”

  Caliph scratched the side of his face. “Okay…”

  Sena felt the thing in the darkness stir behind her but she kept talking. “So you’re stuck in a room with the world. At the room’s edge is a locked door. Behind the door is Something awful. A Monster. The Monster will eat you if It gets out.”

  “So I don’t let It out.”

  “It really wants to eat you. It wants to eat the world too.”

  “So this is a puzzle where I have to choose whether to save myself or the world, right?”

  “Damn you.”

 
; His smile was slow and roguish. “Does this have anything to do with that crazy thing you said yesterday? Are you the monster here?” She watched his face flex the ghosts of hospital light, pulling the radiance of the flapping tents into his cheeks. He wore an expression of mock fear that tried to set things right between them. It was a valiant attempt. She wanted to touch his lips.

  Instead, she said, “It’s more complicated than that. The locked door is the only door in the room—that you can see.

  “The Monster is banging on that door, trying to get out. Every minute, you hear the door cracking, getting weaker.

  “The Monster slides you a key. It tells you that if you set It free, a mechanism will open a second door. A hidden door. If you’re fast enough, if you’re ready to run—you might just get away.”

  “Not very reassuring. If I don’t unlock the door, what happens?”

  “It breaks through.” She reached out and gently dug her nails into his arm. “It gets you.”

  “Nice. So it’s only if I unlock the door that I have any chance at all.”

  “Correct. But it’s just a chance.”

  “How do I know the monster isn’t lying to me?”

  “Isn’t It?”

  Caliph laughed. “Not much of a riddle.”

  “No?”

  He dragged his laugh out until it became skeptical. “Why am I trying to solve this?”

  “You don’t have to. All I said was, ’Here’s your riddle.’”

  “Which is an implicit invitation.”

  “Not necessarily. Not all riddles need to be solved. Some just need to be delivered.”

  “I see. When I realize what the riddle is not asking, I’ll get my insight. Is that it?”

  “Like when you dropped the Pandragonian accord into that black envelope and sent it away…”

  She’d unsettled him. But his eyes didn’t go saucer. He looked at her narrowly; refused to ask how she knew this secret thing. “Are you trying to tell me that there’s no way to patch things up with Pandragor, peacefully?”

  “No. That’s true, but that’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”