Black Bottle Read online

  The words drive a powerful pain into her core because Nathaniel is right. Before the end, she will drain Caliph’s Hjolk-trull blood into the ink. That trace of immortality, passed down from the Gringlings to the Hjolk-trull make him intrinsic to her designs.

  If her body was different, if it hadn’t been changed—but Sena no longer bleeds.

  Caliph has been wrapped up in the myth of his conference, so certain of what is really important. Her destruction of the zeppelins has roused him. She has his full attention now.

  The conference baited him out of Isca, it gave her time to inspect the Chamber. But now the ugly moment of the switch has come.

  Caliph will do what she knows he will do. His sense of justice will carry him. After all, he is good man. But in order to capitalize on that goodness, she has had to do the unthinkable. She is the Omnispecer. This moment’s arrival was foreseen.

  What amplifies her exquisite anguish is that only now does Caliph see her clearly, as she really is.

  Sena drags the holojoules toward the Pplarian ship with the only kind of wound she lacks the choice to bear. It feels like her soul is bleeding. There will be no thank-you for destroying Stonehold’s enemies. Already, Caliph’s thoughts are turning on her. She is not surprised, but she is surprised by how it feels to be an outsider, an enemy, the one who caused him pain. She is shocked at how it feels to be mistrusted rather than adored. And yet it is familiar. She has been down this road before.

  He will chase her now, to the ends of the world—not because he loves her but for the answer he is seeking. That is both the cruelty and the essential purpose of the thing. She wants to cry but sticks it in her throat. She will not weep in front of Nathaniel. Eventually, she knows, Caliph will have his answer. He will know that her hands were tied.

  You look pleased, Nathaniel muses. It is a caustic joke. She cannot imagine her false smile is so convincing. Even if you do need the holojoules, I think you must be reveling in your power. Destroying entire governments, out of sheer egoistic joy?

  Rectitudinous joy, Sena corrects him.

  Oh? You tire of the politics of men? Poetic. Nathaniel’s tone darkens into his version of a sneer. But I don’t believe you. Why are you coiling their energy? What are you spooling them up—?

  You don’t want me to go to Soth? Sena feigns shock. It is a small punch, a jab.

  His coldness slides across her chest, her waist, the back of her neck. Sena keeps moving. She steps out of the sky, onto the Pplarian vessel.

  Please, Nathaniel mocks. You don’t need a thousand bodies’ worth of blood to go to Soth. You have your colligation …

  “Then maybe you’re right.” The holojoules of mass murder have been cached. She has wound them tightly and will hold them just a little while longer. “Maybe I enjoyed it. Maybe it was just for fun. Besides, my colligation is for other things.”

  Yes. I wonder what those things might be …

  Within the ship, Sena sees a shape moving; a Pplarian is coming out to greet her.

  So many secrets, Nathaniel says. At least you’re giving him plenty to read. As I knew you would …

  You want him to know about me, don’t you? You want him to understand what a monster I am? I think he already knows. But what’s monstrous about saving my child?

  Sena swallows hard because he is so close to the truth. He is on the cusp of understanding everything she is hiding from him. So incredibly close, in fact, that she is terrified to speak.

  Caliph Howl is worth killing, Nathaniel says.

  “Yes,” she whispers. “But before he gives us everything, I think he deserves to know why.”

  Have it your way. The shade manifests its version of a horselaugh. But if he’s going to understand anything you give him, won’t you have to undo what they did to him?

  Won’t you have to burn the puslet out?

  Sena carefully maintains her emotionless look. “Yes, I will. I’m going to do it with tinctures. The puslet’s sensitive cells won’t survive a single dose.”

  He has suggested the very thing she planned.

  Interesting. Obviously you want to play spirit guide. Steal some private time? Don’t for an instant think I’m letting you inside his head alone.

  * * *

  THE Odalisque plunged out of the sky.

  It had followed the battle in Sandren carefully. When the witches had taken the High King underground, Sigmund had suggested where the maintenance tunnels might lead. The ship had motored out, away from the flawless’ leaping forms, beyond the edge of the cliff. There, Sigmund had scanned feverishly and when the witches had emerged with Caliph in tow, he had shouted—somewhat drunkenly—and pointed at the tiny platform bolted to the mountain wall.

  He had shouted again, in dismay, when the unthinkable had happened and Caliph and the witches had plummeted. They fell like stones wrapped in fabric, clothing flapping madly behind them.

  The Odalisque gave chase, descending as fast as it could, not in a vain effort to save them, but in an effort to determine the High King’s fate.

  * * *

  CALIPH could vaguely recall killing monsters with his sword. Or crayon.

  Whatever.

  Baufent had hooked him up to a bag of fluid and said something crazy. Then she turned to Sena, who had just walked into the room. While Baufent asked Sena for her professional opinion, Caliph noticed that his mistress had dyed her hair pale pink and put it into ponytail bunches off the back of her head. Her lips shimmered with pastel blue cosmetics and her nurse uniform was black, complete with unlikely gartered stockings. Caliph’s feelings over this did not correspond with the emotions he felt subconsciously floating just out of reach.

  Why didn’t they correspond?

  He couldn’t remember and for the moment, he didn’t care.

  Sena looked down at him melodramatically, as if reading lines from an atrocious satire. “He’ll live, doctor. I’ll see to it.”

  Caliph started laughing while Sena produced a small steel flask from her halter top and told Baufent to administer it. Any moment now, Caliph expected dancing fish with hats and canes.

  Instead, Baufent scowled, unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents. “Won’t this do even more harm?” she asked.

  Caliph’s laughter was like a windup toy that wouldn’t stop.

  “Yes and no,” said Sena. “It’s poison, but it’s also the only way to remove his breasts.” She brushed Caliph’s hair from his forehead with cool smooth fingers as if deeply concerned over the future shape of his body.

  “You’re right,” said Baufent who had turned into a real talking hamster. The huge gray rodent that was now Baufent leaned forward with the tiny flask in its paws and said, “Drink it … Drink it.”

  Going along with the dream, Caliph did as he was told.

  But when the liquid hit the back of his throat, something changed. Sena’s voice changed as well. It took on an edge. “Try to stay calm,” she said. “We’ll get through this.”

  Her hand rested firmly on his forehead.

  The euphoria had already begun to fade. Replacing it was darkness, emptiness and panic. “Sena? What’s happening?”

  “Taelin isn’t well. She got into the medical supplies,” said Sena. “The puslet in your head allowed you to feel what she was feeling. You got high right along with her. But now we’re taking the puslet out. The influence of those drugs is going to go away—suddenly.”

  Caliph felt his skin tighten. His body felt too small for his skeleton. All his bones pushed out, as if they were going to tear through.

  He screamed.

  Fire gurgled through his brain, driven by the strangely familiar smell of hyper-sweet mint. His breasts shrank instantly away. For a moment he knew them as Taelin’s breasts. He felt them with Taelin’s hands. Taelin’s long dark hair was in his face. He moved to brush it aside; then it was gone. All of it was gone.

  His bones ripped through his skin, erupting from elbow, knee; the tips of his fingers exploded and his finger
bones poked free. The skin of his feet bunched up around his ankles like threadbare socks that had finally given out. He screamed and his scream was never-ending. He was a pincushion of bloody bones, a punctuation mark of agony. His ribs broke and unfolded. They pierced upward through his chest.

  He lost wind and heard his own scream fading into the abyss.

  Sena’s voice filled his ear. “We’ll get through this. Knock three times on my door.” Then she was gone and he was alone in the dark—with his uncle.

  “Where did she go?” Nathaniel asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “She’s cunning. You shouldn’t trust her. Tell me where she went.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Fool. She’s going to kill you. To save herself, she’s going to drain you dry. Now tell me where she went.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Get up here, Caliph.”

  Caliph’s body had shrunk. He was small now, only a child, and his bones had readjusted. He wasn’t a mess anymore. The pain had faded into powerful discomfort. He climbed from the darkness up onto a stool built just for him and looked across a high laboratory table at his uncle. Nathaniel smiled unpleasantly and used a medical probe to poke Caliph in the chest. “What do you think of that, eh?”

  Caliph winced but didn’t talk back.

  “That’s shuwt tincture,” said Nathaniel. “It hits you like a hammer, doesn’t it?” He grinned.

  Caliph didn’t know what to say.

  “You can’t speak,” said Nathaniel, “because you’re not really here. You’re six years old.” Caliph looked across the disheartening scene on the table. There was a dissection tray between them with a small creature lying on its back. Nathaniel handed him a forceps.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know,” said Caliph. Then he realized his mouth hadn’t moved. He was thinking the answer … not really talking.

  “Fine,” said Nathaniel. “We’ll find her. Now pick up a cotton ball.”

  Caliph obeyed. He remembered this. He remembered doing this exactly. He had been here before, when he was young.

  “Clean up that bit of mess there,” Nathaniel snapped.

  From the other side of the table Nathaniel basked in the silvery, wooden light that poured in from the backyard. Huge windows like display cases for insects cut up vignettes of branches and sky. The trees looked distorted through hundred-year-old glass.

  Nathaniel’s hair floated above his forehead as he drew Caliph’s attention back. “Pay attention boy, help me open it up—see how they move?”

  Caliph set down the forceps and used his fingers to hold back the sticky warm flaps of skin while Nathaniel placed a narrow reed into the rodent’s mouth. He inflated the tiny pink lungs with his own breath. The thing was still alive. Caliph watched its heart, no bigger than his thumbnail, pulse slowly under an anesthetic spell.

  “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Nathaniel said. “What’s the point?” He stabbed a probe into the rodent’s brain; the legs twitched twice and the heart wound down. His uncle laughed. “Useless,” he said.

  Caliph let the flaps of skin close over the broken toy. He felt like crying but he didn’t. He was not in charge of his body. He felt his stubby legs climb hurriedly down the stool. His heart was racing. He was running out of the laboratory, just as he had done when he was six.

  “That’s what she’s going to do to you!” Nathaniel called out to him, laughing.

  Caliph ran away.

  The hallway outside his uncle’s laboratory was wide and tall. As he ran, the strip of carpet down the center began to hiss. Parts of it came up and tumbled around his feet. The hallway grew taller and taller as he ran toward his bedroom door. The carpet got deeper. There were tumbling shapes around his legs. Leaves.

  Fallen leaves rattled and crunched around his shoes as he ran. The ceiling disappeared into a partly sunny sky. He was surrounded by trees.

  Caliph’s legs lengthened. He strode up to his bedroom door, which was no longer his bedroom door, and lifted his knuckles. He scowled. Hesitantly, he knocked: three times.

  The door had a rounded top and a small leaded glass window. The blue paint covering its solid construction was cracked but clean. The door belonged to a cottage surrounded by orange and red leaves. Some of the leaves made leathery noises at his feet. The cottage’s wooden shingles released a drizzle of water that missed him by inches. He looked up. White skies punched with blue indicated the weather was clearing. Sunlight set the trees on fire like entire books of matches. He inhaled and smiled. It smelled like rain.

  The door swung open. Its motion sucked one of the leaves across the threshold with a swirl that brought it to rest against the stiletto heel of a fine black boot. His eyes moved up from silver toes to faded dungarees to chic cashmere. Sena smiled at him like a bolt of lightning.

  “You came!” she said as if surprised.

  He felt sheepish. “Yeah, I didn’t have … I mean,” he shrugged, “I wanted to see you.” He remembered her handwriting, unpretty and boyish. An envelope, an invitation, had come to his box. Or had it? Had this happened before? Wait, I thought I took the train …

  “Come in.” She stepped back and let him walk into the cottage. The smell of sweet mint enfolded him. He recognized it as the smell of the liquid he had drunk.

  “How was the trip from Desdae?” she asked.

  “Good. I took the Vaubacour Line from Maiden Heart to Crow’s Eye.” He felt her fingers stroke the back of his head.

  “I’m surprised they let you go.”

  “Who?”

  “Your secret guards.”

  Oh, yes. My secret guards …

  The memory arrived so quickly that it felt fabricated. “I snuck out through the attic,” he said. “After dark.”

  “Clever boy.” Her smile flexed around the words. “What can I get you?”

  “Something to drink,” he said. “That’s quite a climb.” He sat down at her kitchen table even though he didn’t feel tired. The small heavy trestle that supported him was gray and gashed from tools.

  “Five thousand feet, give or take,” she said as she opened the icebox. She pulled out a jar of dark cloudy liquid and poured him half a glass. “Loring tea,” she explained, then filled it with ice, sugar and heavy cream exactly as he liked.

  She set it in front of him. He said thank you. She smiled and turned to wipe off the countertop.

  He lifted the drink and noticed a shape in the middle of her table. A red dark shadow more than a book. He felt as if he should have been surprised. “My uncle’s book.”

  “If you say so.” She sat down across from him.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It hasn’t been his in a long time.”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  He downed the whole glass of tea. He was incredibly thirsty. Sun from the windows hit pans and kettles hanging overhead, reflecting burning copper pools into the kitchen’s depths. Sena leveled her eyes at him. “I need to tell you something. But we can’t let him hear. You have to keep it secret. No matter what happens. You can’t repeat what I’m going to say.”

  Caliph’s attention riveted to her eyes. “What?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” It was like an echo.

  There was a timing problem. When had this happened? But he felt reflexively warm inside. He choked slightly. Then smiled. The smile spread. He saw it mirrored on her face, a slow but definite upwelling of happiness that pushed both corners of her lips up. And the issues of when and how … where this had happened … all faded into dull unimportant doubts. He was overjoyed. This meant they were together. For real. They had a future.

  Caliph had wanted this for so long.

  Maybe it was foolish to interpret this as some kind of cement that would hold them together, keep her from disappearing, but he did. Somehow this made everything official.

  He leapt from his seat and moved around the table to
sit beside her. The fashionably cut cashmere obscured her waist. He began to suspect what it was hiding. But no. He put his hand under the delicate wool, against the smooth warmth of her belly. There was no sign. He looked at her face, confused, but her smile didn’t waver.

  “It’s too early,” she whispered. “I’ve been holding her for you. It’s a girl.”

  “Holding her?” He felt like they were talking in a church.

  “We can do that.” Her voice was barely audible even in the small area of the kitchen. “Hjolk-trull can do that.”

  Caliph grappled with the possibilities of what she was saying. How could it be? Her organs became cryptic and mysterious. He had no idea if this was really possible. He remembered her eyes ghosted with clurichaun fire, full of playfulness. Had it happened then? He was still disoriented with respect to time.

  She was touching his neck. “What should we name her?”

  Caliph’s mind was empty of girl names. He tried to think. What would she want him to choose? Maybe he should suggest naming it after her. No. He had a better idea. “We could name her after your mother.”

  Sena’s mouth plucked with delight. “My mother?”

  “Why not?” said Caliph. “She had a beautiful name.”

  “Aislinn,” Sena whispered in his ear.

  “Aislinn.”

  There was a knock at the door. Caliph scowled and got up to answer it.

  “Caliph—”

  But he had already opened it. And there it stood, black and stooped, already reaching into the house. Something in a robe almost. Caliph smelled that familiar old-man smell. It trickled into everything, insinuating itself through the cottage like dust or smoke.

  Its hand reached out and rested on the top of his skull.

  The past intruded on the present. It sickened him, swirling like a bowl of his own vomit, stinking in front of his face. He tried to shut the door but it was too late. Nathaniel had already come inside.

  Caliph turned to look at Sena. She had apologetic eyes. Why? This was his fault. He had opened the door.

  He felt the cottage change back into his bedroom. He felt the math of his uncle’s house again, the air of that place—twenty years ago—it had bent his bones. It had modified his skull, crushed his eyes into hard skeptical wedges. And it was doing it again. He was squeezed down, out of adulthood, back into his six-year-old frame. He was back in the house on Isca Hill.