Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  It wasn’t wrong. The relationship between Caliph Howl and his witch queen was nothing official. It had never been recognized. Never been authorized by any church. No vows, no certificate; it meant nothing.

  Thank gods she could still save him.

  Her head was buzzing, maybe from the wine. And despite this breach in protocol, her head, her whole body was telling her this was the way to defeat Sena Iilool. She moved up on top of the High King, one leg on either side of his chair. She closed her eyes and smiled as Caliph’s lips worked down the side of her neck. She ground herself down hard against him.

  It was moments later that he lifted her up off the deck and carried her back to his stateroom.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Taelin woke up the next day pale and wretched. She couldn’t believe what she had done or that he had let her. And yet it had been just what she needed. She couldn’t help toying with the idea that maybe it could work … maybe it could last.

  Impossible! She stayed in her room, pacing, staring out the porthole at faint wisps of vapor that passed for clouds, tearing at her fingernails with her teeth.

  That was when she noticed the little silver patch on the underside of her wrist. There were two spots actually, directly over the blue shadow of her veins. Nothing to worry about. Right? After all, she had been vaccinated. So had everyone else on the ship. She turned her wrist in the window light. It shimmered beautifully.

  Her thoughts went back to Caliph. She didn’t remember returning to her room … or the details of his room. But she did recall the startling crackle of static as she had pulled his shirt off, discrete electrical ghosts that limned the soft-woven blackness before falling into dark trenches around the bed. Mostly she remembered the feel of the sex.

  Her cheeks went through cycles, burning and cooling then burning again. What am I going to do?

  What if he acts like nothing happened?

  There was a knock at her door. She put her face in one hand and closed her eyes. “Who is it?” she called.

  A voice said, “Specks. Are you coming to breakfast, Lady Rae?” It was a lilting impersonation of something almost masculine and chivalrous. She had to smile. But then the implications of going to breakfast sank in. A host of possibilities raced through her head. In the end, she decided not going was far riskier than going.

  “Yes,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.” Oh shit! she thought. Then she looked in the mirror.

  “Oh shit!”

  She cleaned up, pulled her hair back into a tail and pinned it in place. She rummaged for something light and relaxed to wear.

  She left her room.

  Refracted morning light played designer, painting different colored stripes across the ceiling; pastel bands led her toward an antiseptic blaze at the end of the hall.

  She found her way out onto the zeppelin’s port deck where a small crowd of people bantered over breakfast. But it wasn’t actually all that jovial. The more she listened the more solemn and uncertain the mood registered. What laughter seeped out echoed in the aluminum railings, affected and strange.

  The witches were seated to Caliph’s right. She noticed the large shape of Sigmund Dulgensen, sitting in his overalls, and the judgmental glare of Dr. Baufent whose short gray hair spiked in the breeze. Baufent was staring at her.

  When Taelin looked at Caliph she thought, A hello kiss? Certainly not! She resigned herself to “Good morning.”

  He smiled at her but gave no special indication that everything was fine. Instead he seemed as preoccupied as ever, scanning the faces around him.

  The witches were talking, their glittering eyes full of tiny geometric designs. Taelin looked beyond the railing, at a landscape that had changed magically over night. Orange dunes with serpentine crests harbored pools of shadow. Miles of sand glittered under daybreak as the sun punched east. For a moment, Taelin watched the Bulotecus’ stretched silhouette passing over the ground.

  She looked for Sena’s ship and found it. A fleck of white.

  It refused a definable shape: in one moment it resembled the pupa of a tremendous insect, then fantastically, a pale tuber. But they were momentary semblances. It shifted, bulbous portions smoothing out, planing into curious banks of gill-like clefts on some albescent batoid, slipping with mercurial swiftness to the next.

  “It’s only a bitch if they find us,” she heard Sigmund say.

  “Of course they’ll find us,” snapped Baufent. Taelin turned around. The physician was digging in a halved citrus with a serrated spoon.

  “They might not,” said one of the witches. “They don’t have towers in the desert.”

  Notably missing from the group was the Iycestokian diplomat and his bodyguard. Taelin sat down in one of the empty seats, hoping for a reaction from Caliph. His indifference was quickly dragging her into a black spiral of depression.

  “Well, at least a breakdown ain’t likely,” joked Sigmund.

  Speak for yourself, Taelin thought.

  “Ship’s in good working order,” he went on, “and we have enough juice to get us quite a ways. I think we’re in good shape.”

  “Will you kindly shut up?” said Baufent. She glared at the mechanic. “We are not in good shape, you idiot.” She got up and left the deck.

  Sigmund scratched the side of his neck and looked sheepish. “Just trying to look on the bright side,” he muttered.

  Taelin’s chair was near but not too near to Caliph. She listened to him talking with the witches—all four of them beautiful and sparkling. They made Taelin feel like a wreck. “Sig’s right,” Caliph said. “We need to stay positive. If she’s headed to Bablemum. That’s what? Another five hundred miles, give or take?”

  Taelin tried to absorb the conversation about chasing Sena. She tried to feel its importance. But it slipped past her. She wanted to be one of the grown-ups at the table but instead felt like a petulant child. It was the perfect metaphor, really. And why? Why had her life always been like this? No matter where she went, it was always the same.

  The captain’s baritone nearly shot Taelin out of her seat. “Yes,” he said. She hadn’t noticed him standing directly behind her, holding his coffee. His other arm was wrapped around his son. Specks held on to his father’s waist, resting his head against the captain’s body. “No matter what happens, we’ll have to dock in Bablemum. Pick up a charge. Get supplies.”

  One of the witches interjected that they might be able to put a glamour on the ship. Taelin sneered at the proposition of witchcraft but didn’t speak.

  “I don’t think a disguise is going to be enough,” muttered Caliph. “You’d have to make us invisible. Think about it. An uncharted ship comes out of the desert? Two days after the disaster at Sandren? Everyone’s going to know it’s us.”

  “Sena’s will come out first,” offered Sigmund. “Then we’ll see what happens.”

  Taelin agreed with that. Hopefully they shoot her down! She watched Caliph massage his temples. What was he thinking about? He had better not be thinking about Sena! She started hating herself again. She poured a bowl of cereal from a box with bright green berries on its front. She dumped milk over top and stared at the drowning mess, feeling sick.

  “Do we have any idea what we’re going to do if Sena lets us catch her?” Sigmund asked.

  Caliph said, “We need to find out what happened at Sandren and why. That’s my first priority.”

  “Do you really expect her to tell you?” Taelin blurted out.

  “Yes,” said Caliph, “I do.” He put down his napkin and stood up. “Excuse me. Please enjoy your breakfast.” He wrangled through the chairs to the doorway and disappeared.

  Taelin’s face had caught fire but no one seemed to notice.

  “We really don’t know what we’re doing, do we?” Sigmund laughed.

  No one shared his sense of humor.

  “Actually we do know what we’re doing,” said one of the witches. “We’re going save the world.” They too got up an
d left the table.

  “Save the world?” Sigmund chewed the hair under his lip a moment, “Well that’s just a little…” His voice trailed off.

  Taelin excused herself. She hadn’t touched her cereal. She pushed past a crewman and found the interior of the ship to be darker, quieter and cooler than the deck. The hum of the propellers resonated, as if the sound—the vibration—were a canvas on which everything else had been painted.

  At the ship’s primary intersection she looked and found both directions empty. She went to his bedroom and knocked.

  No answer.

  She tapped lightly again and a door opened behind her. Caliph stepped out into the hallway. “Oh, I was just…” She smiled, pointing at his door.

  He smiled back at her, genial but clearly confused. “What?”

  “I was just,” she tried to get her balance, “did you switch rooms?”

  Caliph’s head cocked slightly as the mystery for him seemed to deepen. After a pause he said, “This is my room.”

  “Oh. Uh … I must have gotten turned around.” She laughed nervously. “I could have sworn you dragged me into this one last night.” She pointed at the other door with her eyes.

  “What?”

  Oh, my gods! Is this my worst nightmare? “Last night?” Her voice was fragile, unsure, cracking even as the words left her mouth.

  “What about last night?”

  “Are you serious? I should have known.”

  “Known what?”

  “Known you’d do this after you got what you wanted.”

  “Lady Rae, I didn’t get anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Taelin turned and ran. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. Behind her, Caliph was calling out with what almost passed for real concern. “Lady Rae! Wait!”

  * * *

  “THEY’LL get over it.” Gina’s black eyes sparkled with carvings.

  “There must still be some residue of cells in the High King’s head,” said Anjie.

  Miriam nodded. “Which won’t last more than another hour, I think.” She was speaking in Withil, as were the others. They had overheard the High King arguing with Taelin; now they were gathered in the small room the four of them had been given to share.

  “It would have gotten worse if you hadn’t taken it out,” said Autumn. “It could still get worse.”

  “I don’t think it will,” said Miriam. She snapped the tiny bones and membrane in her fist: the miniature symphysis that had allowed her to eavesdrop on the High King’s memories. “The puslet was sick when I took it out. Even if there are residual cells in Caliph Howl’s head, they won’t survive long. When they die, the link between the king and the priestess will be severed and hopefully they won’t have anything more to fight about.” As she broke the symphysis in her fist, she thought about her own shattered eardrum. In felt symbolic. Her pool of assets was shrinking. Her ability to gather information had atrophied. Her tools were breaking, shutting down. She had lost two sisters in Sandren, possibly five—if she ever discovered Duanna’s fate.

  She felt her own callowness in the role of Sororal Head. Should she abort, go back to Skellum? Enlist another qloin? Or should she persist in following Sena despite the losses she had sustained? Though her decision to chase Sena had already been made, she still wondered whether it was the right thing to do.

  She hadn’t told anyone except Autumn that she was completely deaf in her left ear since the flawless’ attack in Sandren. And she hadn’t told anyone, even Autumn, how the puslet had really died. All she had said was that she had taken it out, that the information coming from it had turned to drivel—and that it had been sick.

  It had been very sick indeed.

  “What did you do with it?” asked Gina.

  Miriam let her irritation slip out. “I put my full weight on it. Against the starboard deck. Then I scraped it up and flung it over the side.”

  “I was just asking. It’s an expensive piece of equipment to let bake.”

  “We don’t need the puslet anymore,” said Miriam. “We know Caliph Howl is sincere. He’s going after Sena. That’s all that matters.” But in her head, Miriam had serious doubts. She had heard Sena talking in Caliph’s head as the puslet died; had worried as the new Eighth House methodically seduced him. Miriam was grateful for the High King’s pragmatic nature and the way he had stuffed those incredibly weighty emotions. But she still knew Sena was meddling.

  There were other things she didn’t know.

  She didn’t know how Sena had gotten inside Caliph’s head, or precisely what Sena had used to kill the puslet. Clearly she had used poison, but what kind, Miriam couldn’t be sure. As a sister of the Sixth House she had been schooled in toxins. But the subtle, pleasant-smelling thing in Caliph Howl’s system was something she had never encountered in the north.

  When Miriam had pulled the puslet out, it had been green. Black and green. She had run a proof to make sure, but yes, it was definitely poisoned.

  The question to follow was: how?

  How could Sena come and go without being seen? Certainly she was skilled. But all of them were skilled. On top of this, all four sisters, herself included, had cut their eyes. We have diaglyphs! Miriam thought. Diaglyphs were supposed to work!

  Yet somehow Sena had crept onboard undetected—for the second time. And she had poisoned Caliph Howl with a chemical Miriam had no knowledge of. Sena’s use of the poison also indicated a high degree of skill—just enough to destroy the delicate puslet, while Caliph Howl suffered nothing more than a spate of overly vivid dreams.

  All of this weighed heavily on Miriam. It was clear that Sena knew about the puslet and that she wanted it out of Caliph’s head. Why? What was Sena doing? What did the High King have to do with Sena’s plan?

  Miriam knew the basics of what Sena might be up to as well as any sister who got beyond the Second House. The Sisterhood’s foundations were based on this shadow war with the Willin Droul. Sena had opened the legendary book that the Willin Droul had been hunting for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. According to Giganalee the act of opening the book made Sena some kind of deity in the Willin Droul’s eyes, a deity they hated as much as they adored.

  Sena’s relationship with the book somehow put her in league with the Willin Droul, whose ambitions—so Giganalee had often said—revolved around the destruction of the world.

  It was thus that the Sisterhood had ever been seeking the book, to keep it out of the Willin Droul’s hands. And it was thus that Miriam was troubled deeply by the idea that Sena, whom Giganalee had seemingly inducted into the Eighth House, was now a kind of dark intercessor and champion of the Sisterhood’s longtime foes.

  If Sena was everything she seemed to be, thought Miriam, how could they hope to defeat her?

  “What are you thinking?” asked Autumn.

  Miriam shrugged. “I’m thinking we need to stay the course. I don’t want anything to jeopardize the rest of this trip. No unnecessary risks.”

  “In that case I think the priestess is a liability. We should get rid of her,” said Autumn. “We know she’s not stable. To me it looks like she’s cracking.”

  Miriam knew that Autumn was right. The information that had come through the symphysis showed how unstable the woman had become. But Miriam’s rebuke was gentle. “No. If Taelin chokes on a sandwich they’ll blame us. Let it go. We’re only seven hours from Bablemum now.”

  “Why is Sena headed for Bablemum?” asked Gina.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think she’ll really drag us through the jungles?” asked Anjie.

  “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  Taelin sobbed into the soap-smell of her pillow. Her face was hot and sticky. She wanted off the High King’s airship.

  How could he be so cruel?

  Men were always, always, always the same.

  She knew this. She had begun learning this when
she was thirteen, sitting with one of the hand’s sons on her grandmother’s east steps. The boy had passed her back the roach. Its coolness burned the back of her throat even now as she remembered his hand moving between her legs.

  While she smoked, she watched an army of tiny red bugs swarm from a crack in the foundation of her grandmother’s house. They had small soft bodies like drops of jam and held their rear ends in the air as they skittered over the cement, black eyes glistening. The boy’s fingers made her feel dirty and clean at the same time. She felt herself shooting across the crisp blue sky and leaned back on her palms, letting her legs open. She stared dazedly up at the blue and white shapes moving overhead.

  Eventually the rice paper fell from her trembling hands. The beggary seeds dropped into the dry weeds like tiny coals while her scream released a combination of ecstasy, boredom and anger, like a hot blast of factory vapor aimed straight up. She lay back on the steps laughing. “Thank gods there’s no one home!” The fields east of Kub Ish were wide and deep with sugar plants.

  “Are you going to touch me?” the boy asked.

  “I can’t. I’m going to be a priestess someday.” She laughed.

  His face twisted. He grabbed her by the hair and pushed her head down until her forehead hit the cement steps. Then he got up and walked away. Taelin was still laughing as she pulled out a little tin of beggary seeds with one hand and used her other to touch her scalp. Her fingers came away red. She rolled another cigarette and smiled.

  The little tin was in her hand now. She had pulled it from a deep pocket—where she hid it even from herself. With it came the gleaming bottle of poison her father had sent her.

  A shadow passed over the stateroom’s window and the room darkened. Taelin shoved the tin and the bottle back into her coat. A fist of wind struck the airship, which did not sway the room but produced a litany of sounds. She heard the metal creak. The casing of her window groaned. She heard the hum of cables; the subtle bending of the ship as joists and panels flexed.