Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  Wouldn’t you agree, Sslia?

  What I am is consequence. In the same manner that my humanity was taken from me and I became something else, so soon … soon … what I am now will be taken again, and I will make an old transition.

  I can no longer use shuwt tinctures to inhabit the bodies of young girls as I once so enjoyed doing. My veins no longer flow with blood. But sometimes I cut myself as I used to, in order to make certain. Then I wonder if I am really in a ruined stone house at the jungle’s edge—waiting for the end.

  Caliph checked his chemiostatic watch. He guessed he had time for a little more and dutifully followed Sena’s note to the next log.

  Journal Entry: C. Stone: -1,68814

  Li: Arkhyn Hiel.

  The terrible beauty of the Last Page has long been prophesied. But who believes in prophecy these days? The churchgoer hoping for validation in his lifetime? Hoping for some great sign to appear; for his enemies to be burned? The churchgoer and the sadist are indistinguishable. Anyone with a serious mind toward the future must cast Yacob Skie’s scrolls aside, ignore prophecy and get on with the business of progress.

  It is hard to fault the pragmatist since Yacob Skies’s words are difficult to understand.

  But there was a time when men were more than men. When they were nearly gods they harkened to subtle things. Men are simple creatures now, as if they have poured all the complexity of themselves into their diversions and their machines. Now they understand only the simplest emotions. Lust, indignation and fear. These are the things that steer their nations. Even love has become too subtle for them to grasp.

  This is why I have been seeking the evolutionary key ever since I escaped the destruction of the gardens at Jorgill Deep. It is not the evolution of machines that will save us, but the evolution of ourselves.

  We must tear these otiose bodies down and knit new flesh to new bones. We must find our way back to the secrets of Gringling skins and the fields of Ahvelle. The key is there, compressed in a string of numbers. Transformation is essential. We need to become like Them.

  Which was why I fled the garden on shuwt tinctures and alit in the bones of my desert princess. In exchange for my immortality, I gained the chance to discover the secrets of the Yillo’tharnah, to find a way out of Their inescapable trap.

  When my desert princess waned I found a new vessel. And a new one after that. And in such manner I have compiled my research and scoured the continent for the Cisrym Ta.

  For years I screamed from the jungle at Them to let me find, to let me become the Last Page. I decorated myself in bonnets and bracers and plastrons of intricate design. I have worn platinum wires over every inch of my body and, in the end, resorted to white tattoos.

  But then she arrived.

  And for reasons that will likely ever remain opaque to me, They chose her, put the book into her hands and cut her up with Their lovely designs. And so she will be, by necessity, my enemy and my partner, traveling through everlasting night. She cannot be rid of me. She smells me at her lover’s throat—like smoke. She chases me away and thinks to bargain with her compliance. But what real choice does she have? She knows what is coming. The numbers belong to me. There is only one sane choice she can make.

  So, I will bide my time, the thing in the corner that mewls and begs for scraps, the wastrel that importunes another night inside her skin—so warm!

  But this is not me. These things are far beneath me. I am not a dead queen beneath the sands. I am not Arkhyn Hiel. And I was never Nathaniel Howl. I am Gringling. I am a Writer and Eater of Time.

  Caliph’s eyes froze over his uncle’s name. He put the book down. Instantly terrorized. The crazy journal entries had become personal. He got up and strode across the cold echoing vestibule to the bright doorway where his men still hissed and bellyached over the map.

  “Where is Sena?”

  They shook their heads.

  The vestibule’s front doors cracked open, letting in gloomy daylight along with the spymaster. Alani crossed the room swiftly. “Sigmund Dulgensen has arrived.”

  The messenger bird had travelled quickly and the Bulotecus had come straight up.

  “Good. Can you show him where the pumps are? I’m actually reading something at the moment. Tell Sig I’ll catch up with him as soon as I can.”

  “Of course.”

  Caliph wanted to go looking for Sena. He wanted to ask about his uncle’s name and about Arkhyn Hiel.

  Caliph started up the vestibule’s staircase but was turned back by one of his own sentries. Sena hadn’t gone that way, he was told, and the sentry’s position marked the edge of the secure zone.

  Torn between the book and the more practical obligation of seeing to Sig, Caliph decided he had better go with the latter.

  The instant he set his feet in the direction of the chemical pumps two bodyguards materialized. He exited the palace with them in tow, moving through a side door that deposited all three of them on a cement landing where the pink-gray of morning wrapped Caliph in a chill.

  Immediately on the right, a mortared pit lined with steps led down. They ended at a rusting door set in the brickwork, fringed with moss. Stenciled High Malk warned away unauthorized personnel. Caliph’s soldiers had used bolt cutters on the padlock and the door was already ajar.

  Inside, small white bulbs illuminated the well-greased blackness. Dials and pipes and valves riddled a cave-like space without clear dimensions. Echoing from its center came the deep yet somehow boyish baritone of Sigmund Dulgensen. “Look, that’s not a sniffer. That’s a flusher. Get me a sniffer. They’ve gotta have one in those cabinets over there.”

  Caliph rounded a huge staple of pipe and almost ran into his old friend’s backside.

  “Whoa! How ya doin’, Caph? I won’t shake your hand.” Sigmund’s huge frame was draped in coveralls. An ambiguously colored turtleneck peeked from his collar. His hands were slippery and black.

  Caliph patted him on the shoulder. “You came up to save us?”

  “Fuck yeah. They rushed me right up. It’s no wonder you’re in desperate straits with this guy.” He poked a meaty finger toward the man rummaging in the cabinet.

  “How are things going?” asked Caliph.

  “I mean … that guy couldn’t piss straight without using both hands.”

  “I meant down below.”

  “You mean the carnival of souls?” Sigmund scratched the side of his neck, making a black mark. “I don’t know. More ships showed up this morning flying flags from Bablemum and another out of Pandragor. It’s a fuck-sick mess if you ask me. Just about everyone with a crown is floating around Skaif.”

  “You’re not bored down there, then?”

  “Nah. That little guy that floats around keeps me company. Cute kid.”

  “Specks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry I pulled you out of Isca for this.”

  “Are you kiddin? It’s only what? Sixty degrees warmer down here? You think I’m goin’ back?” He never looked directly at Caliph as he spoke, fiddling with valves, crawling under pipes and foisting his great bulk into impossible crannies on all sides of the machinery. “How’s Sena?”

  “Good.”

  “That’s good. Can you hold this? I can’t reach my pocket.” He was wedged deep between wall and pipe but managed to extend his hand and drop a gooey black nut into Caliph’s palm. “I think they got an override hidden down here.”

  “Was Alani or anyone else here with you?”

  “Ah … he fucked off somewhere. Just you, me and Jimmy over there,” he jerked a thumb at the man still rummaging in the cabinet, “and your two goons, of course.”

  The man whose name was certainly not Jimmy returned with a glass cylinder connected to two feet of looped rubber tubing and a pump-ball. Inside the cylinder rolled three small spheres, one pink, one green and one yellow. “Here you go,” said Jimmy.

  Sigmund waved him away. “I don’t need that anymore.”

  The man
looked dejected. He took the tool back to the cabinet.

  “So how’s Sena? Did I already ask you that?”

  “Yeah, I said she’s good. Why do you ask?”

  Sigmund glanced over at him, a momentary connection of the eyes. Then he was scowling at the machinery again, chewing on the thatch of hair under his lip and working at something with his powerful arms. “Got some home troubles?”

  Caliph felt taken by surprise. “I guess you hear stories from the staff?”

  “I guess I do.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Nuthin’ much. Heard you couldn’t find her the night she came home.”

  While Caliph thought back on the embarrassing incident, he nudged the lumpy black mess Sig had given him. “I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

  “Yeah? You think she’s painting clouds?”

  Caliph deliberated a moment whether this was the sort of friendship that could provide useful perspective. “I don’t know. Is that what you think she’s doing?”

  “Ha! You could have me carted away.”

  “Did I have you carted away over the Glossok cats?”

  “No, but … I was fucking coerced. I should have—”

  Caliph took back the reins. “I don’t want to talk about that. I was kidding. I don’t give a shit about that anymore.”

  Sigmund winced. “I’m just saying—maybe she is, maybe she isn’t.”

  “Yeah, but you know her. You know me. I just want to know if you think I’m an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not a fucking idiot.” Sigmund groaned. He pressed his body back against the wall and shook his arms as if loosening up for a workout. “Listen, I said my piece back in college—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, my opinion hasn’t changed. She’s fifty thousand volts. Pheromones at however many feet and then you get a look. I don’t think I have to explain it. But there’s somethin’ shifty.” He shook his head. “I mean … if you can’t even find her the night she comes back from a—how long was she gone? Anyway … then what good’s her perfect little ass?”

  Caliph wasn’t upset. But Sigmund seemed to feel obligated to follow up his assessment with a softer explanation.

  “Caph—the thing is—you pretty much could have had your pick. I mean you had your pick. But you know there was this little gal, Y’ahc. Remember her?”

  “I remember.” It surprised Caliph that Sigmund remembered the girl’s Pandragonian name.

  “Complete crush on you. She was sweet too … shy but—anyway. I always thought it was a shame she never had a chance. But … I can’t blame you in the least. Sena Iilool!”

  “Which makes me a shallow son of a bitch,” Caliph muttered.

  “Fuuuuhk that! I’d have done the same. Probably. It’s not like Sena was a … well, she has—had a sense of humor. In a weird way, she was more like one of the guys when it came down to it. Maybe that’s why I never trusted her. But she was, y’know? I mean you could already kinda see it comin’ on. A little out there if you know what I mean. Hey, where’s Jimmy? Can you tell him to get me an adjustable ratchet?”

  Caliph looked around for the man but didn’t see him. “Thanks, Sig.” Caliph didn’t feel like thanking him. “How long until we can get the Odalisque some fresh juice?”

  “Now.”

  “You fixed it?”

  “Isn’t that what you called me up here for? I just need to tighten this panel back on.”

  “Leave it. I don’t think anyone will care.”

  “Good point.”

  Caliph watched Sigmund wriggle out of the crevice. When he was free, the two of them headed back toward the vault’s door accompanied by the silent bodyguards, one of which had just stopped and turned his head.

  “What is it?” asked Caliph.

  The man raised a finger. The other man pulled a chemiostatic sword. Everyone waited.

  All Caliph heard were drips and a faint humming from the transformer.

  Finally the bodyguard looked back toward the door. “Let’s go. Go-go. It’s nothing.”

  Caliph’s heart thawed but beat irregularly. The bodyguards, despite tight plastic smiles, urged Caliph and Sigmund along quickly. They exited the utility vault and were ushered quickly up out of the pit.

  One of the bodyguards lingered. He pulled a padlock out and snapped it shut with what seemed to Caliph overeager haste.

  “Are you sure that other guy got out of there?” asked Caliph.

  If the bodyguards blinked, their chrome goggles hid it. “Yes, he’s out. Don’t worry. Let’s get back topside.”

  Caliph scowled.

  * * *

  THE Odalisque’s two-ton batteries were hooked up to thigh-thick hoses and sucked dry. From the vault below the ciryte mooring deck, the pumps Sigmund had freed vented glowing green fluid back into the solution tanks.

  The entire process would take a full hour and entail acrid fumes and the deafening sound of liquid under pressure. Caliph went back to the palace while Sigmund searched for food.

  Alani was inside, glancing at the books Caliph had left on the divan. “Interesting reading?”

  “Sort of,” said Caliph. “Have you seen Sena?”

  Alani handed him the books. “No. I was going to ask you.”

  “Should we be worried?”

  “I’m adequately worried.” Alani pinched his goatee. “But no. I’m sure she’ll turn up. Just focus on the conference.”

  Caliph sat down and turned his attention about as far from the conference as he could imagine. He’d used a small adhesive bandage from the hospital tent as a bookmark.

  13Date suspect.

  14Impossible. Date is certainly fabricated.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Sena had left the Odalisque shortly after Caliph went down to the hospital. The glow of the tents was far behind her. She went south, dragging the shade of Nathaniel Howl beneath a film of porphyrous clouds.

  He demanded to know what she was doing.

  What am I doing? she thought. How can you not know?

  The Chamber contained the number she was looking for, the sum of salvation, the hard-to-prove variable Nathaniel had put into his notes. She didn’t doubt that Nathaniel already knew this. His calculations were the ones she had lifted from the margins of the Cisrym Ta. He had never actually entered the Chamber but his sums were exceptionally tight. You’re wasting your time, he thought at her.

  Sena ignored him.

  Nathaniel’s shade billowed and careened like ash; coughing spiral paths around Sandren’s smokeless chimneys before settling down behind her where she stood momentarily on a flat-top roof. The shade ran its spectral-fingers through her hair and whispered ugly metaphors.

  Each time it asked, a different way, if she could ever love it, she tried to fathom whether the entreaty was genuine—a crude and offensive parody of crooning—or whether it simply took pleasure in reminding her of that horrible span when it had gotten inside.

  What is your colligation for? asked Nathaniel.

  She refused to answer. The voice persisted, scratchy and faint, like an occult recording played back on phonautograph.

  What is it for? Tell me.

  “Stop it.” Sena applied a measure of tease to her scold, just enough—because she had to be careful. At Nathaniel’s whim, St. Remora could open. Taelin’s vision of the great shadow bursting out of the chancel could come true. Sena was unready for that. “Tell me about St. Remora,” she said, “and I’ll tell you about my colligation.”

  Nathaniel momentarily abdicated. He did not like the idea of their two great batteries poised against each other, hers of blood, his of souls.

  Sena let it be. She took up position in a bell tower and waited for the qloin.

  Sena had seen Duana and her girls walk lines from Mirayhr to arrive near her deserted cottage in the Highlands of Tue. They had killed a behemoth gol quietly ravaging empress trees in the hills. Its carcass had thundered among the blooms and
all its blood—two hundred seventy gallons—had been whispered away, holojoules pulled up into the powerful equation that had dartled the three women to Sandren. They had crossed lines to reach her in the mountains.

  Sena was impressed.

  But she was also waiting for them. She watched as they passed over an avenue with impossible, holomorphic leaps, launching themselves from the rooftops to the north onto the edifices south of Falter Way.

  They’re coming, said Nathaniel. As if she had backed into the cobweb of some great barn spider, he clung and brooded on her back.

  Sena had to steel herself against his touch as she watched the qloin running along the rooftops.

  Duana was the qloin’s cephal’matris. Sena recognized all three women. Even the ancillas were in the Seventh House. Sena felt their carven eyes pluck her from the skyline and so stepped off the bell tower to fall feet-first, wind ruffling over her cheeks. She landed hard on a copper dome thirty feet below. The balls of her feet dented the metal and pitched the weather vane in a new direction. The resulting bang rolled over the surrounding streets and caused a mob of ghouls in a nearby alley to bawl up at her before continuing their pilgrimage toward the bright hospital lights on the palace grounds.

  Have you calculated a way into the Chamber? Nathaniel’s glimless eyes clouded the air beside her. Sena looked away. She dropped from a crocket into a street opposite the ghouls and started to run. Her acrobatics felt warm and familiar. A regression. A resonance with mortality.

  Have you calculated a way in?

  “Yes,” she said. “The same as for opening the Cisrym Ta.”

  Mmm. The shade darkened visibly. All Their locks are hungry.

  With Nathaniel’s shade dogging her, Sena let her fluid pointers lead the way. Her diaglyphs told her when and where to move, when and where to wait. She saw the world through a lens of her own design, funneled through purposely traceable channels. The flexing, glimmering demarcations etched in her corneas allowed her efforts to look convincing. She did not want to lose the qloin.