The Last Page Read online

  “And you’d like to see it?”

  “I’m seeing a boy,” she murmured, twisting the knife.

  “But he doesn’t go to school here . . .” Caliph whispered.

  “No. He doesn’t.”

  “And I don’t mind.” His voice couched what he hoped was a satisfactory blend of confidence and innuendo.

  “Final exams?” She seemed to maintain a constant distance as though the air were slippery between them. “Aren’t you busy or worried—or both?”

  Caliph shrugged. “I don’t study much.” It was a blatant lie.

  She frowned. “And you have money for a play?”

  “I don’t pay anyone for notes. Actually I charge—expedition fees—you know?” His slender fingers gestured to the books all around. “I come into a good deal of money this time of year, but I usually get my tickets for free.”

  “Rape the Heart then?” She didn’t ask how he managed free tickets. “Tomorrow. I’ll meet you here before evening bells.”

  Caliph tossed her a wan smile. This was not a date of passion. “I’ll be here. What’s your name?”

  She shook her head derisively. “It matters to you?”

  “I’m not like other men.”

  “Boys,” she suggested. “If I were you and didn’t want to sound pretentious, I’d say, I’m not like other boys.”

  “Right.” Caliph’s eyes narrowed, then he feigned a sudden recollection. “It’s Sena, isn’t it?”

  Her lips curled at one corner.

  He tipped his head. “Tomorrow evening . . .”

  She stopped him just as he turned to go. “I’ll see you then . . . Caliph Howl.”

  Caliph smirked and disappeared.

  Sena stood in the dark alcove looking where he had vanished into the white glare of the balcony.

  “Caliph Howl,” she mused with mild asperity. “Why now? Why here, after four years, do you suddenly decide to give me the time of day?”

  Tynan Brakest was the other boy. He was sweet. He had been the one to pay her way at college. His father’s money ensured their relationship slipped easily from one moment to the next. The coins had purchased Tynan hours, weeks and months until the accumulated stockpile of familiarity had evolved into a kind of watered down love.

  But Caliph Howl? Her stomach warmed. This could be exactly what I am looking for.

  CHAPTER 2

  A storm was coming. Caliph lay in wait at the top of the library, surveying the campus through a great circular pane of glass. The black plash of leaves perpetuated through the trees to the west where Naobi drizzled syrupy light on lilacs bobbing near the lake.

  The universe snapped ineffectually at the dark silhouettes of students and teachers, human forms distorted by the warm gush of light spilling from the chapel across the lawn. Caliph felt superior to the herd migrating slowly toward Day of Sands vespers.

  It was difficult for him to imagine being king. The fact that he was an heir did not present itself at Desdae. Here he found himself treated like any other student, disciplined and cowed under the stern rules of the chancellor. But his father assured him it was for the best.

  It’s a time of unrest in the Duchy, read one of Jacob’s few letters. Men aspire to the High King’s throne. You’re safer at Desdae.

  In the belfry, like lonesome beasts, the bells began to toll.

  Caliph turned from the window and gazed on the dusty abyss of the library’s interior. Eight centuries’ worth of interred paper bodies infused the air with spoor. The pages were holomorphically preserved, mummified within this vast sepulcher. It was a temple to the dead, to thought, to maxims and poetry, to plays and battles and vagaries gouged out of antiquity. But it wasn’t Caliph’s temple.

  The bells ceased and a pleasant loneliness poured in with the moonlight, varnishing the railings, tranquilizing every board.

  He mouthed the words he planned to use tonight if Sena actually showed up. They were old words, bleak as the air that sighed around Desdae’s gables.

  Forbidden by most governments, silenced through flames that had once danced on great piles of holomorphic lore, slowly, very slowly, holomorphy was being practiced again. Opportunists seeking an edge in business, politics—they had begun drawing blood.

  At Desdae, the focus stayed safely on lethargy crucibles, thaumaturgie reactors that ran off planetary rotation and cow blood, that sort of thing. The professors never openly admitted that other types of holomorphy were also catalogued in obscure sections of the library. But in the teeth of their frantic scramble to gain tenure, the faculty often followed a much older motto than Truth, Light, Chastity and Hard Work. Theirs was: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

  Caliph used a tiny knife to prick his finger. As any holomorph, he needed something to start with, an essential ingredient to begin the chain reaction where matter, memories, reality could be extruded and controlled.

  Caliph could still remember the banal demonstration Morgan Gullows had put on for his freshman class: the way he had dropped that book. It had hit the ancient desk with a dusty thud and at that moment he had revealed a simple yet extraordinary idea to his young students: the book must travel half the distance to the desk and then half of that distance and so on, somehow going through an infinite number of divisive repetitions in a finite period of time. Although he had solved this mystery for them with simple mathematics, holomorphy, the Unknown Tongue, was the key to understanding the endless repetition of the spiral, the key to the ancient problem of the circle, the key to unlocking the universe.

  Numbers became symbols. Symbols compiled words. “Language shapes reality,” said the philosophers and linguists. So the maths of the Unknown Tongue deconstruct reality; form new realities—whatever realities the mathematician desires. “In reality,” claimed the holomorphs of Desdae, “there is none.”

  But Caliph knew that underneath their departmental propaganda, not everything was possible. And despite his natural aptitude for the discipline he distrusted it on a visceral level. To him, the Unknown Tongue was a struggling science propped on the intellectual framework of backward-gazing scholars.

  Metholinate burners, chemiostatic cells, ydellium tubing that polarized itself against the weather and somehow generated power out of nothing—practically. Those were the only things that made holomorphy worth studying. Those and the kinds of mischievous legerdemains he had selected for this meeting tonight.

  He had learned about holomorphy from his uncle before coming to Desdae: lessons he did not like to think about here, alone in the library. Instead, he examined his oozing fingertip, making the tiny cut open and close like a little red mouth.

  “Early, aren’t you?”

  Caliph spun to see a shape step out from the staircase. He had been expecting a knock. A clumsy tug at the bolted portals. Instead there had been a vacuum of sound, not even the scratch of picks in the lock, something that would have amplified across the library’s taut funerary silence.

  “You like surprising people.” He said it like a palmist giving a reading, trying to sound cool even though his heart was racing.

  “Practicing Introductory Psych?” she asked. “Let me try. You’re agnostic. Wait, that was too easy . . .”

  Caliph grinned. “I’m not agnostic. I just don’t like Prefect Eaton. Something about him being chancellor-slash-resident priest causes me cognitive dissonance.”

  Sena laughed softly. “So you used the handbook’s loophole clause? You actually filed a form?”

  Caliph shrugged. “Got me out of vespers.” He took out his pocket watch. “I’m not sure we can make it into town before the play starts.”

  “Sooo . . . you have other plans for us?” She walked toward him like a gunslinger.

  “Not really. I don’t like people who show up late.”

  She stopped, visibly stunned. “I’m not late.”

  Caliph took advantage of the moment.

  His voice yanked at the air. His wounded hand cut a black shape against the huge moon-drenched pane
of glass. The spread of his fingers drew darkness over her eyes and oxygen off her brain.

  It was too late for her to whisper a counter.

  He was on her, protracting, suboccipital subtraction, siphoning a strand of memory. The suction was mechanical and precise. If he succeeded it would be gone.

  Sena cursed and tackled him. They grappled. Caliph’s arm caught for the railing. Over thirty feet of empty air separated them from the tiles of the first floor; Caliph felt the antique balustrade give slightly under the pressure of their combined weight.

  Sena punched him hard and the formula died in his mouth. Breathless vulgarities struggled from both their lips. A loud crack sounded in one of the worm-eaten balusters. Just as the whole thing seemed ready to break apart, Caliph managed to gain leverage and push her back.

  Apparently she either didn’t care or didn’t comprehend their peril. Her hands clenched in his shirt, pulling him along in a clumsy stumbling dance toward the bookcases.

  Their scuffle rocked something near the shelves: the sound of a wooden pedestal base rolling slowly in a teetering circle followed by a splintering smash.

  Caliph toppled to the floor and wrestled with the girl who now pressed him from above. Somehow, through a quirk of balance and leverage she had managed to stay on top. He was astonished at her subtle strength.

  “Don’t-move-I’ll-kill-you.”

  Her lips ran all the words together. He could feel her breath and the icy edge of a small knife touch him on the throat. It was the same kind of knife he had used on his hand, the same kind every student of holomorphy was allowed to carry with them. Meant only for pricking fingers, it was still capable of opening his throat.

  Beside him, the fallen bust of Tanara Mae lay facedown in the darkness, nose shattered in pale shards that spun slowly, dissected by moonlight.

  “I thought you were simple,” she gasped in disgust. “What were you looking for?” She wiped a droplet of blood from her cheek, making a dark line, like a trail of mascara below her eye.

  “I think you’re bleeding,” Caliph said. One of his hands rested on the slender muscles of her waist.

  “Actually, that’s you bleeding on me.” They were entangled, warmth passing through their clothes, a comfortable but awkward closeness.

  “Well . . . you have a cut.” His finger brushed her cheek.

  “Don’t tell me you’re getting romantic.” She tried to push herself off but her leg was pinned.

  “Broke Tanara’s face too.”

  Caliph began to laugh, too loud. It echoed off the coffered ceiling.

  “It’s your fault! If anyone gets expelled for this it will be you.” She let up slightly on the blade. “I can’t afford another session with the chancellor.”

  “You must be the one they’re gossiping about—”

  “Let me up! This is your fault!” She struggled furiously against his weight.

  “Miss Iilool . . . what were you doing alone in the library after bells with a boy?” He impersonated the slow deep voice remarkably considering the pressure on his throat. Sena’s smile at the mimicry was brief and unpleasant.

  “What were you looking for?” she asked.

  “If I tell you, it will sort of defeat the purpose—”

  “You were doing something in the library yesterday.” She scowled thoughtfully and kept the blade on him. “Pranking someone, were you? Stealing a book before finals?”

  Caliph looked into her face with an expression of profound malice. For an instant she drew back.

  “You think I’d tell?” She extricated her leg and pulled herself up. Caliph picked up a piece of Tanara’s nose. He flipped it, then used it to point at her.

  “If you cross me—”

  “I won’t!” She sounded deeply insulted, almost hurt by the insinuation. “I promise.”

  “You don’t strike me as particularly trustworthy.”

  She snorted. “Probably the same as you.”

  “What can you possibly know about me?”

  “Everyone knows Caliph Howl, carnally or otherwise.”

  “Of course. So stupid. I’m one of the Naked Eight.” There was an element of shame, a hint of vulnerability in his voice that he recognized and quickly hardened. “You were in the courtyard with everyone else that day—”

  “That’s who it is then. You’re sabotaging Roric Feldman’s senior exam. For that wretched joke he played on you when you were a freshman.”

  When he didn’t answer she went on. “You must’ve been planning this . . . for a long time.”

  “I don’t care if you think . . .”

  “Relax. Why should I care?” She stood up and took a step backward. “I don’t just know you from the pillory, you know?”

  She leaned back against the railing, her posture seemed to communicate a series of wordless invitations.

  “Oh? Where else have I been locked under your view?” He glanced up furtively. The memory of her body pressed against him made it difficult to think. She had been warm and light, yet surprisingly strong. His voice leveled, turned cautious. He wasn’t about to take her bait. Though he had pretended not to know her, everyone knew Sena Iilool.

  “You were ranked second best swordsman last year,” she was saying.

  Caliph couldn’t tell if she was being serious.

  “You’re not even supposed to know that legerdemain. That’s way beyond sixth year holo . . .”

  “Thanks,” Caliph interrupted, “for the documentary. But I’m not your fool.”

  “I didn’t say you were . . . yet.”

  “Go piss up a rope.”

  “I’d get wet. And besides, holomorphy is my first discipline. I think we should study together.”

  Caliph snorted.

  “You think I need you? Just because every boy here follows you around like a trained sledge newt . . . I’m well ahead in my studies. I don’t need a . . .” He didn’t know what to classify her as and classifying her as a distraction would betray the what? Infatuation? Lust? . . . that was rapidly thickening inside him.

  “Co-conspirator?” Her suggestion startled him. “Look,” she said, “I know you don’t want to wind up teaching here like everybody else. I know who you are.” She floated from the railing and sank down in front of him.

  “I’m Caliph Howl,” he said directly into her face as though it were the most ordinary name in the world.

  She grinned.

  “I’ve got myself a king.”

  Her face was uncomfortably close, her breath sweet and startling as black licorice. Caliph could barely keep from kissing her lips despite the arrogance that snarled behind them.

  “I thought you were seeing a lad,” he mumbled.

  “I was,” Sena deadpanned. “Did you get the tickets?”

  Caliph made the southern hand sign for yes.

  “Then come on, we’re going to be late for the play.”

  CHAPTER 3

  It hits Sena on her second visit that Morgan Gullows’ office is not on the brink of relocating to one of Githum Hall’s sunny upstairs chambers. The pile of laundry, the lopsided stacks of cardboard boxes, the books, the coffee mugs: none of it has moved.

  The mushy darkness is riddled with pipes and objects shrouded in deeper gloom. Sena is familiar with the smell, a previously unidentifiable mustiness she recognizes from all face-to-face encounters with her employer.

  Teacher’s aide. Hmphf. Teacher’s maid is what he needs!

  Sena wrinkles her nose. There is a leather chair behind the desk, crippled from years of supporting the professor’s enormous carcass. It leans heavily to one side, seams burst, stuffing quite literally pressed out of it.

  Sena gets straight to her task, following the bizarre instructions Morgan has given her for locating Brunts’ A Dictum of Calculating Light in the office-shaped waste bin.

  She hoists a pair of soiled trousers and discovers a crumb-covered saucer and a foil wrapper whose yellow oil has drained down half a sheaf of midterms. These, she pushe
s aside. Below, are a stack of books whose weight has caved in the top of a cardboard box. Under the box is Brunts’ work, which she jerks free. Coming with it into her hand is a careless half-sheet, brown with dry spillage. It is written in Morgan’s handwriting and she can’t help glancing it over.

  Csrym T?

  The little sheet contains two references to Bode Royal wherein a codex is described, bound in clshydra hide. The references sound amusingly theosophic but after delivering Brunts’ work to the professor, Sena goes to the library on a whim and fills out a form that grants her twenty minutes with Bode Royal.

  The references are real.

  She gets a twinge in her stomach and decides to start chipping at the legend of the Csrym T. The more she chips the harder it becomes to dig out new leads. After several semesters, the amount of information she’s gleaned fills only two and a half pages. The legend jumps between books, like a bird darting through trees, tracing its history across millennia, in and out of obscurity. She chases it relentlessly. One of the most outlandish rumors linked to it concerns the lock and a corresponding recipe supposedly needed to open it. No key. Just a list of ingredients. The formula makes her stomach turn.

  She spends two weeks cross-checking the recipe’s veracity on the top floor of the library, coming to the conclusion that it has been translated exactly in four different languages when, out of a glaring white ogive, Caliph Howl invites her to a play.

  When she learned about Caliph’s plot against Roric Feldman, she took a hiatus from her pet project in order to analyze the heir.

  But getting inside his head, she realized, would require a seduction. She baited him, employed several previously infallible methods to which he maddeningly did not succumb. She could tell that he viewed the school code as a narrow ledge and her as a liability. Getting him to crack became a game . . . there was a certain purity to him that poured warmth into her stomach. But his crush on her was growing.

  It happened later in the Woodmarsh Building, against a backdrop of gray paint and bloodless creatures floating in jars. They had been alone, doing labs, looking through the monocular at slides and taking notes.