by Anthony Huso
Lightning seared the sky just beyond the window, splashing harsh light into Alani’s eyes. The paneled walls vibrated in rumbling aftermath.
“It looks like we may be in trouble here,” said Caliph.
Alani reached into his vest and pulled out a pipe. He lit it; the flame sizzled and flared under his cupped hand. He nodded but did not speak.
“Tell me again why I find myself the beneficiary of your . . . services,” Caliph said.
Alani lingered before answering. He looked out at the rain. In the south, he knew that warm dry weather was probably baking the land, even at night, gently. His aging skin and bones remembered that southern climate with longing. But everything about the north resonated with him: the shortening season, the turning of the wind each fall.
And the snows . . .
Stonehold was the end of the world, far from the endless summers of the south. People were real here. They knew what it was to lay up stores, to watch the mountains for an early frost. Such a wonderfully haunting landscape, Alani thought. So filled with life because the season of death was only ever a season away.
“I have a vested interest in the Duchy of Stonehold,” Alani said softly after the interminable pause.
Caliph indicated with casual, friendly ease that Alani’s answer was not good enough, that he needed more in order to believe.
“I was born here.” Alani invested each word with soft-spoken meaning.
Caliph frowned. “A broom.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A broom,” said Caliph. “That’s what belongs in your hands. You were a janitor at the High College. You nearly caught us in the stables at Desdae.”
Alani smiled and watched the memory spread like light across the High King’s face. “Correction, Mr. Howl, I did catch you. And it’s good of you to remember.”
“That was the last time,” said Caliph. “That was what made me steal the clurichaun.”
“I know,” said Alani.
Caliph sat back, stunned. “I can’t believe I couldn’t remember your face.”
“You were preoccupied. Under stress, the memory tends to slip.”
“I took a caning because of you.”
“A clever political move. I was impressed.”
“So you didn’t work for Zane?”
“No. I had a private interest in you. Four years as a janitor, watching you finish school? That should convince you of my interest in the Duchy.”
“But why?”
“Because I’d heard about you. I came to check in on the future ruler of my beloved country . . . to see if you stacked up.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
Alani waved his hand. “You did. Which is why I wanted you on the throne. I still do . . . but you seem to be at a disadvantage for the moment, and I think I can help.”
“You told the Iscan Council where to find me. That’s why a zeppelin showed up in the Highlands of Tue. And that started my problems . . . with the witches.”
“No, your majesty. You are to blame for your problems with witches. Not me. If the zeppelin hadn’t shown up, I think you might have stayed in that pasture . . . permanently.”
Caliph considered for a moment, then made the sign for yes. “Fair enough. Maybe you did save my life. Now tell me how you intend to help . . . and . . . I want details.”
“Well, your majesty. As I’m sure you’re aware, Bjorn Amphungtal is still in the city.”
Caliph tugged his lower lip. “Okay, but I’m sure the blueprints have left the Duchy by now.”
“Which doesn’t concern us anymore,” said Alani. “You have your own set. You don’t need them. The blueprints aren’t our problem anymore.”
“Then what’s our problem?”
“Our problem is Pandragor getting involved in our civil war. Vhortghast knew about solvitriol power. He wanted it for the Duchy. And he manipulated you into starting a program by staging an energy crisis.
“But he didn’t want war with Pandragor. My guess is that he thought you were too inexperienced to handle the situation and took the reins himself. Look at the documents here.” Alani sorted through the papers and pointed out one in particular. “You can see what happened. He coerced David Thacker into selling him the blueprints. Then he turned around and sold them to the Pandragonians for a small fortune. But that’s when things went wrong.
“Saergaeth Brindlestm started negotiating a new deal with them, luring them out of Vhortghast’s pasture. They already had the blueprints and must’ve seen you as someone they wanted to replace.”
Caliph scowled.
It was clear that Pandragor was intent on helping Saergaeth win the war: not that Saergaeth needed any help.
For the next several hours the room grew dark with Alani’s counsel. The draperies sagged inward, trapping sound in mournful heavy folds. Even the lamplight seemed lacquered: little snails and lockets of light held in stasis by the darkly polished wood. The two men leaned together, scavenging from the paper bodies Vhortghast had left behind.
Alani smoked. The soft pop of his lips against the pipe stem punctuated their dilemma.
“I’m damned any way I go, aren’t I?” said Caliph. “There must be half a dozen nations that know I have solvitriol power. If I move ahead with development, the Duchy becomes a potential threat to them. We invite attack, sanctions . . .
“I could sign treaties that I won’t proceed with solvitriol research . . . allow inspections—”
“And ensure losing your own civil war,” finished Alani.
“And ensure losing my own civil war.”
Caliph’s echo was quiet and resigned. “It’s the only edge I have against Saergaeth.”
Alani nodded as he smoked.
“Alani—or should I call you Mr.—?”
“Alani. Just Alani.”
Caliph barely smiled. “Your altruistic endeavors—”
Alani wagged his finger. “It’s nothing that preposterous. I told you.” He laid his pipe aside and adjusted his old hands, folding them across his lap. “I am not a charitable individual, King Howl. This is more than patriotism. This . . . is for me.”
Caliph’s eyes returned Alani’s stare with calcified impunity. Maybe he can see a trace of pain, thought Alani. His injured ribs ached. But the High King’s unsympathetic glare only reinforced to Alani the correctness of his choice. Caliph Howl was the right man to be High King.
“Are you sure,” Caliph was saying, “that you can establish yourself quickly enough . . . to be useful in this war?”
Alani appreciated the question. Like everything else it was no-nonsense. It did not apologize or make excuses. Nor did it indicate that Caliph and Alani were friends.
“I have always been established in this city,” said Alani. “My profession took me out of Stonehold but . . . I will not be starting from scratch.”
“Then it’s settled.” Still, Caliph paused, seemed to hedge on asking one final question. “What are the odds,” he asked, “that Mr. Vhortghast will return?”
Alani suppressed a grin. “That is something you need not trouble yourself with. I will keep an adequate amount of resources fixed in that regard.” He picked up his pipe and smoked before proceeding. “I will of course need to do some cleaning.” His fingers fluttered like a feather duster. “Appoint some . . . different people to positions within the organization. That sort of thing. Don’t be alarmed if you see new faces around the castle or in my company. All of this, you and I,” he motioned with his hands, “is based on trust.”
Caliph felt sick. Trust, specifically, was a word that chafed him.
Isca had been cut off from fresh imports for at least two weeks. Yet, even with southern commodities being conspicuously absent from shelves all across the city, Caliph held back.
He would save war plans for another night, after he had talked to Sigmund one more time and verified again that certain technical aspects were not beyond the realm of possibility.
Even so, things were moving fas
t. They had to move fast. Without trade, Isca would not survive the winter and winter was, according to the austromancers, barely a month away.
After Alani had finished a second pipe and the two of them had said good night, Caliph went upstairs. He pulled off his boots and tossed them under the bed. Sena did not stir. He watched her breathe for several minutes—wanting her.
“Quit staring at me,” she mumbled without opening her eyes.
He wondered how many hearts lay like wreckage in her wake, wondered again if his might become one of them. Caliph cracked a window and took time to breathe. He inhaled the smell of rain as the sky grumbled.
“Mmmm—” Her purr came from behind. “I like it cold.”
He turned. The candles poured gold across her skin and hair. The blue stripe looked purple in the dark.
Caliph undressed quietly and crawled into bed. Despite his desire he could not bring himself to brave the rejection he felt waiting, lurking like a quiet beast beneath the sheets.
Sena listened to him. Eyes so intent she could hear them staring at her. She waited for him to adjust his body, make some casual, seemingly coincidental touch that would serve as the starting point.
When he did nothing, she became bored and finally drifted off to sleep.
The following day, green leaves rained sporadically, petulant that they, in their supple beauty, should be ripped from their laughing parties on the limbs and tossed out like rowdy guests. They tumbled from branches, destined to be changed hideously against the ground. With irregular weather patterns along the cooling sea, the wheat fields swirled with fog.
Sena’s boots stuttered through patches of blue shadow and striped sunlight. Her soles scraped over half-buried stones.
She bent down and examined one, but passed it over. With the disconcertingly early fall, she had decided to step up her timetable. She couldn’t stand the duality of her relationship with Caliph any longer.
The Healean Mountains had received a dusting of white, as though some prankster with all the Duchy’s powdered sugar at his disposal had orchestrated a grand hoax in the middle of the night. A sudden crispness inveigled the air.
Sena found the shift in temperature abrupt. With it, everything she had prepared for seemed to have suddenly crept up on her. The nearness to her goal, the realization of the cruelty she was about to effect brought a lump to her throat.
Caliph had already dealt with so much disloyalty. If only she could tell him what she planned to do! But the recipe was precise: taken by theft, it read.
Her time at Isca Castle was coming to an end.
I will go south, she thought, before winter seals the mountains shut.
She stopped, turned and shielded her eyes from the sun. A knee-high wall fenced in the square of untilled ground through which she had been walking. Her pack held two roundish rocks. She stooped to heft a third. She tossed it, caught it, spinning it in air, revealing its qualities.
She put it in her pack with the others and started back. As she picked her way over the weedy ground, she noticed a bent crone watching her.
Sena’s lips struggled frantically. Her hand fumbled for her sickle knife. Then she realized with internalized embarrassment that it was not Giganalee that had stopped along the road. Paranoia tongued her brain.
Heart still pounding, Sena flushed under the grandmother’s scrutiny. She was a caricature, old and short in a black shawl, peering and leaning on a stick of wood. Her crumpled mouth whispered syllables in Hinter to the two wide-eyed children half-hidden in her skirts. A boy and a girl stared at Sena with anesthetized alarm.
Sena stared back, warily. She pulled the strap of her pack tight against her shoulder and fingered her curls.
The old woman continued to whisper.
Sena headed for the road, departing the cemetery with a backward glance. She felt the setting sun burn orange around the contours of her face and suffuse her eyes with fire. Though unintentional, the effect seemed to startle her spectators, who trudged quickly on their way.
This was the country that hunted witches, cut off their legs and left their torsos to freeze in Ghoul Court.
Despite her immunity, or rather because of it, stories of the High King’s witch had inundated the countryside. Litho-slides of her face filled the papers. People recognized her; they did not like her poking around in their cemeteries.
Sena left the fog in the valley and ascended the tree-sheltered lane that led to Nathaniel’s house. By the time she reached her destination, both shoulders were raw and her back sore from the bulging rocks.
It was late. Light filled the sky like the albescent flesh of a mussel; only the land was dark and indistinct. She pushed her way through the years of wild bramble growth and tramped back to the spot she had chosen.
It was early. She had been planning on the first of Thay. But she would have to do this now because by Thay, she would be hundreds of miles away.
Sena had cut away a small section of meadow grass with her sickle knife and formed a circle in the weeds. A carefully balanced stack of round stones rose into a rough conical shape. With a final heave, the ones in her pack dropped like hammer blows, denting the ground. She placed them in the mound and stepped back to assess her work.
For a moment she rested. Finally, she began the formula.
Some of the rocks had come from Caliph’s family burial ground. Others were from the woods. A few she took from the fields and the last three were from the graveyard west of Isca.
She circled the pile, walking backward, repeating the numbers and counting each repetition.
Meant to keep horrors like those at the Porch of Sth forever cordoned from physical dimensions, the numeric statement had been part of the Sisterhood’s set of seasonal traditions for several hundred years. She hoped it would also keep Gr-ner Shie at bay. It was something she could do for Caliph . . . for the Duchy.
Her heart fumbled, feeling momentarily sentimental about Stonehold. Despite everything . . . she liked being here. But I can’t stay! She banished the thought immediately and continued her numeric chant. It was almost complete when the world shook.
An explosion of panicked marsupials filled the air when the movement began. They dropped from the dreadful eves of the house like soft stones, squirming from web-thick attics and churning clumsily into the sky.
Trees swayed.
Sena, despite her nimbleness, stumbled and fell. It felt as though the ground had come alive; it tossed her into the weeds like a doll.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, everything grew quiet. Sena’s heart clenched rapidly like a nervous fist.
Her meticulously balanced pile had shaken down to a low mound. Another faint tremor rumbled deep inside the mountain.
Standing up, Sena repeated the numeric charm, no longer certain of its efficacy.
The quake had roused the last of summer’s bugs. She watched them take flight, sing wildly, trying to seduce a mate. Overhead, predators circled the yard, feasting on the insects’ heedless love: soft green bodies gnashed in tiny vicious maws.
Sena returned to the castle.
The streets were alive. The cobblestones and lamp-lit bistros along King’s Road were packed with little crowds talking about the quake. The High King’s witch went unnoticed.
Sena crossed into the Hold and over the drawbridge; she took a coach to the castle from the gate. When she arrived, she went inside and began her long climb up to bed.
Caliph’s whisper arrested her. It came out of a blackened parlor that bordered the hallway, a temporary lair where he had holed-up to brood.
“Where were you?”
Sena jumped. She turned toward the tall narrow doorway that framed a curtain of negative space.
“I was at your uncle’s house—thinking.”
Caliph’s shape materialized from the darkness as out of brackish water. Sena’s imagination transformed the scene; she pictured herself hovering over him . . . his body floating in a pond. Shadows filled his eyes and collected around
his limbs and neck. His robed arms reached out and pulled her slowly toward him.
It struck her both morbid and funny at the same time. She hadn’t pictured him worrying about her. The realization made her feel strangely warm.
“I’m all right,” she whispered.
“I thought I might have lost you,” he said quietly.
It would be tonight or never, Sena thought. They went upstairs. Sena closed the bedroom door.
She slipped powder into his wine. They drank and flirted. Caliph unlaced her blouse and kissed her shoulders. She wanted him suddenly, savagely. It had been weeks now without relief. But the drug was quick. Foreplay became the only play as it slipped from delicious to slurred to clumsy and revolting. Caliph collapsed, a clouded expression on his face.
Sena sighed.
Distraught but determined, she pricked her finger and whispered the words that would deepen the rest of the mountain herb. If the narcotic did not keep him quiet, the Unknown Tongue would.
She looked at him.
Under the oil lamp he seemed like a sleeping copper figurine. Molten orange and blue-black shadows drooled across him.
Sena hesitated and touched his chest. She grew momentarily softhearted. I love him, she told herself. And he loves me. She held her sickle knife over his chest, deliberating.
With a quick jerk the blade parted his skin.
She chose the muscle of his upper arm for the task. For a moment he did not bleed. Then the dark fluid ran, an endless supply, flowing from the tissue into the silver vial she held below it. He twitched slightly, eliciting a groan.
Her thumb pressed the flesh above the cut and instantly the flow stopped. With her teeth, she tore a piece of clean linen.
Her hands moved delicately, like moth wings, fingers caring for the wound with attentive tenderness. She held the skin apart and filled it with orange powder.
Then she whispered a weak equation, using Caliph’s own blood to mend him. The skin closed slightly.