Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

She couldn’t imagine Caliph Howl taking a sincere interest in Nenuln’s church. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going to take his money, even if he offered any. What would a “token of his gratitude” consist of, anyway? She tried not to think about it. Besides, she could afford her current expenses better than she could afford to be financially obligated to the entity she had come here to depose.

  Tonight was going to be her stage with litho-slides and editorials; her chance to politely decline his assistance and tell the press what Nenuln’s church was really about.

  * * *

  BY half past twelve, winter hurled night at the city and the sunset transformed icicles on St. Remora’s eaves into jewels. This far north, the planet’s angle around the sun produced sunsets that lasted for hours.

  Shortly, a knight in chemiostatic armor pounded on the front doors just as Taelin was opening them to check the approach. When they swung into the vestibule, the narthex seemed to lose one of its walls, staring vastly down on Mark Street.

  The knight greeted her with a brusque smile and stepped out of the cold strawberry evening, armor glowing from little emerald panes of holomorphic glass. Once she had invited him in, a detachment of men poured into the church, inspecting rooms and establishing a perimeter with gate-crashing efficiency. It took less than five minutes. Taelin could see men holding flash handles. Bulbs popped in the murky street where gas lamps dwindled toward Knife. Then, Taelin heard the jingle of bells. A dark shape slipped off Mark, up St. Remora’s private causeway and came to a stop on the terrace.

  Against the sky’s pennants of ripped pink and winter turquoise, Taelin saw a man dressed in black step from a sleigh heaped with luxuriant fur. He wore a gold clasp at his throat and looked directly at her.

  I am an emissary of Nenuln! She chastised herself as the High King’s hand floated up to help Sena.

  Twined in white fur, immaculate as the snow-draped roofs, the High King’s witch drew her hood back while Caliph Howl waited for her. In the twilight, Sena’s short gold curls tossed fitfully in the wind, eyes searching momentarily, wary of the subjacent streets.

  Her gaze found Taelin as the eleven lenses on St. Remora’s facade dumped muddy orange light over her face. An eternal instant passed between them. Then the High King caught Sena’s hand and pulled her like a kite through air.

  * * *

  TAELIN imagined decadent sweets imported from Yorba, silk sheets as rich as cocoa butter. She imagined gorgeous, wrought-iron lanterns throwing candlelight across a lavish palace bedroom dripping beneath the moons. Under creamy light, the High King and his witch were moving together. Perfect bodies. Serpentine rhythms. Indulgent. Erotic. Pernicious to the soul. Sena’s lips pulled earnestly, her perfect teeth bit tenderly, siphoning the High King, drop by sparkling drop into an ewer full of souls …

  * * *

  “YES. Come in.” Taelin inhaled sharply.

  The narthex was freezing. The knight helped her close the door. A crowd of people with official clearance milled as another flashbulb branded its ugly ghost onto her retinae.

  “Thank you. Nothing for me,” the High King was saying. His smile was cordial. The smells of mocha and warm, iced pastries (filled with rehydrated berries) had already fogged the air.

  Taelin watched Sena’s delicate fingers pluck snowflakes from her hair. “I’ll have loring tea,” said Sena.

  More flashbulbs and conversational laughter. Taelin watched the press fawn over the High King’s witch while Sena reciprocated.

  “Lady Rae,” a man in business attire leaned into her ear, “we’re going to do the donation over here.” His hands, one behind her back and one gesturing in the direction he meant for her to go, never actually touched her.

  More flashbulbs. Taelin was getting a headache. She smiled and blinked and followed the man’s directions.

  Caliph Howl stood near a table with a coffer on it, smiling exactly as all politicians smiled. His hands were folded in front of him until the man guided her into position. Then a spot right next to the High King opened up and Caliph put his arm around her.

  That was precisely the moment that a huge amorphous shadow burst out of the chancel into the hall and caused Taelin to cry out. No one else seemed to notice the shape. They looked at her instead.

  Taelin looked from the undulating apparition toward Sena.

  Forked, interwoven shadows fluttered over the witch’s cheeks. Her stare seemed to gouge Taelin’s body, excavating flesh and bone and soul like an occult steam shovel. What’s happening? Why did I come here? Why am I in Stonehold? This is … anserine.

  * * *

  TIME seems to change. Chemiostatic mechanisms in the church’s walls are groaning. Everyone is talking. Sipping cups and smiling while the High King reveals a coffer. Litho-slides of the moment are flashed by journalists in the wings.

  Glowing dials are spinning. The air is warped. Taelin can see a mansion on a hill … its windows swell with red skies. Sena’s mouth is full of whispers. Her curls are blowing. Her sapphirine eyes drool perfect rivulets: chokecherry red. Taelin hears the great black shadow that has slid out of the chancel shriek like gulls above the sea. Its shape is enormous and impossible to describe. Taelin feels herself stumble and fall. Then a woman’s beautiful lips—perhaps Sena’s—are pressed against hers, kissing her deeply. She feels the probing of an eager tongue.

  Taelin opens her mouth to scream but something heavy dislodges from the back of her throat. It bubbles out of her mouth like semi-molten beef fat … with the exception that it ululates and squeals.

  “There she is.”

  A smiling face hovers over her. Not Sena’s.

  “We lost you there for a minute. Let’s move her to that cot.” She can feel strong hands lift and position her on the uncomfortable canvas. She lets the nightmare go, gladly trading it for reality—even though it doesn’t feel real yet. Things are only marginally better.

  Caliph is leaning over her with eyes the color of wet snakeskin. He is looking at her pupils. She can tell he is attempting a prognosis. But his anxiety over her is the anxiety of a stranger for another stranger.

  For a moment she lets herself look into his eyes.

  What’s happening? She feels frantic and confused.

  From behind the High King, she hears someone break the silence with a joke. “It’s okay folks … she’s just never seen that much money before.” A chorus of good-natured laughter.

  But a flashbulb pops and Caliph’s irritation shows. “Please! No more lithos!” Caliph’s voice is smooth but forceful. She sees a knight grab the offender and move him instantly toward the door.

  A woman in a red trench has appeared.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” says Caliph. “Is she all right?”

  It is the physician’s turn to look at Taelin’s eyes. She makes Taelin squeeze her fingers. Her face is kind but not as kind as Caliph Howl’s. “I think she’ll be just fine,” the doctor says.

  Taelin sits up and summons a smile for the crowd. “I’m sorry.” Dazed amity leaks out of fractures in the resolve she has put on specifically for the event. “I don’t usually faint.” There are more jokes … this time about the High King’s good looks.

  Taelin sees the chapel as though its gravity has shifted and the witch is at its core. The huge shadow has disappeared. Sena is looking at her with a curious smirk. Not cruel. Rather ingratiating … as though she has done Taelin a favor.

  Taelin scowls and stands up. She remembers she is being scrutinized. She smiles again and touches her forehead where there is a faint scar.

  The physician produces a glass syringe.

  “Oh Gods, no. No. I’m fine.” She holds her hands up and maintains the artificial grin despite the fact that the room is spinning. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t eaten much today.” She sits down again, this time in a padded chair that has been scrambled from a nearby room.

  Caliph pats her gently on the back and puts a glass of water into her hand. “We don’t have to d
o this tonight,” he whispers. His voice is only for her. Too kind. She suspects him of ulterior motives but smothers her skepticism with graciousness she coughs up for the press.

  “No, really. I’ll be all right.” She stands up. Everybody claps.

  She can see the Iscan trade bar in the coffer. Gold. Its value must be extraordinary. She doesn’t know what to say. She says thank you. She lets the High King’s aides move her into position by the table. They shine lights on the two of them. The ambrotypist begins with a litho for the papers and then takes two images on treated plates of glass.

  She doesn’t want this. She works her demonifuge nervously between her fingers. She remembers that it is too much money. She must stop this. She must decline. She must turn this event to its one true purpose and the only reason she agreed to the High King’s donation in the first place: so that she could refuse it in front of the press, then tell all the journalists what she intends to do … how Nenuln will change the north forever. But it is too late. Is it too late?

  The litho-slides have already been taken. If she declines now, they will print the slide of her accepting and then write that she changed her mind. She will look foolish and capricious. If she accepts, her entire goal will be compromised. But it is too late. She has been thinking while the flashbulbs pop and the journalists scribble. She has been smiling and nodding while her eyes circuited the room.

  The ceremony has been abridged for her sake. The High King is already leaving. Taelin sees Sena standing by one of the crimson window panes. Wait! Weren’t all the panes replaced? The witch breathes on the window and then draws something on the frost-covered glass. The knight has reopened the front doors and the air is freezing. Sena gives Taelin a private smile and floats out into the snow.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Royal Charity Backs Pandragonian Religion

  by Willis Bothshine, Journalist

  In a move some have called political desperatism, High King Caliph Howl gifted three hundred forty thousand beks to the reformed Church of Nenuln in the form of a solid gold trade bar. The king’s public donation took place at thirteen o’clock on Tes eleventh, Day of Whispers. The gift was accepted by Lady Taelin Rae, currently the church’s only acting clergy, before royal knights escorted it to Crullington Bank for deposit …

  Taelin’s eyes skipped down, passing over details of her arrival and purchase of St. Remora.

  But according to Dr. Yewl, professor of Stonehavian Politics, “Even if the [High] King’s donation doesn’t ease the tension between [Pandragor and Stonehold], it’s a smart thing for him to do, locally. He should do more of it. Shelters bring order [instead of] rogue panhandling to pay off squat lords. We need more infrastructure for rebuilding [people’s] lives.”

  Before it came to its smug conclusion, the article turned out another line or two about the High King’s failure to build relationships with the south.

  Taelin set it aside with a feeling of despair. Papers were for entertainment, skepticism and veiled malice, not messages of hope.

  What had happened? But she knew. Last night she had had a dream. A beautiful white figure had appeared to her, standing in St. Remora. Haloed in gold, and orbited by fantastic lights, the being had told her, in a pure high language, about the blackness that had come crashing through her chancel.

  So much like a train …

  All darkness and smoke and dials spinning. Like a locomotive bursting into a station.

  It was the witch’s train.

  And Sena had her bags packed. She had used Stonehold up. She was done here, on the edge of escaping … far away.

  The language was so simple, so beautiful and perfect, that Taelin hoped Nenuln would never stop talking.

  Don’t let her get away, Taelin.

  But I don’t understand the other things I saw. There was a man’s body, I—

  You saw the future, Taelin. It is a gift.

  * * *

  TAELIN touched the demonifuge against her chest. So it was meant to be. She was meant to accept the High King’s money. She was meant to meet Caliph Howl.

  Yet her dream had given her no clue how to chase Sena down. Taelin didn’t know any holomorphy. She had never been good at math. Nenuln will provide a way.

  She set her cup of coffee down and got up to shovel snow.

  As she approached the front doors, she stopped.

  A single pane of red glass confronted her. How had she missed it? Its ill-fitting edges leaked cold air. Taelin looked at it closely. There was a finger-drawing melted into the ice, flower-like.

  She wiped her hand across the mark. Strangely, she couldn’t make it go away.

  She rubbed harder, scrubbing with her sleeve. She began to panic. Why wouldn’t the ice melt?

  “Lady Rae? Is something wrong?”

  Taelin whirled. “I thought I told you to have all the panes replaced!”

  A former squatter named Vera, nearly Taelin’s age—whose youth had been rasped off against sidewalks and back alleys—put a worn, ruddy hand emphatically against her concave chest. “I did.”

  “Then what do you call that?” shouted Taelin, thrusting her finger at the glass.

  Vera shook her head, utterly confused.

  Vera liked to remind everyone that she had been a landlord and had once taken good care of her properties. Taelin now doubted that was true and regretted having given charge of the church’s restoration over to her.

  “I want that red glass changed out,” said Taelin. “Today!” Then she hefted her shovel and opened the door, squinting against the sudden brightness of the snow.

  There had been no knock which was why, when she stepped out onto the powder-laden step, the man standing there startled her.

  Thankfully, he gave no indication that he had heard her yelling. He wore a long black coat of felted wool that fell to his ankles and his smooth head, dappled like an eggshell, framed a warm face that smiled through a soft white beard.

  “Good morning,” he said brightly. “My name is Alani.”

  Vera poked her head out, interrupting. “Pardon me, Lady Rae.” Vera’s tone didn’t indicate that she wanted to be pardoned. “But there ain’t no fucking red glass to change out!” Then she disappeared and slammed the door, leaving Taelin outside.

  * * *

  “THOUGHT she was exotic, did you?” Sena smirked. “It’s all right. I’m not jealous.”

  “Why are we talking about this?” asked Caliph. His neck was hot from the conversation.

  “Oh, be serious. That priestess costume she wears? That’s just for show—”

  “Just for show?” Caliph started laughing. “Well she’s a damn good fake then. She bought that horrible ruin with her own money.”

  “Not her money.”

  “Whatever. It’s her money now. Daddy’s name isn’t on the account at Crullington. Maybe I just handed a trade bar to a theologaster but—”

  Sena’s smirk faded away. “Maybe you did.”

  “Maybe I did. It doesn’t matter. It’s political.”

  The night of her arrival had blown over. His desperate search, the way she had avoided him: the argument had already come and gone. Another stone tipping the pan toward something he didn’t want to think about.

  The thermal crank’s fan had kicked in. He sat across from her in the east parlor watching the hot breeze tug her oiled ringlets. When she leaned forward in the chair, legs braced in an elegant K, shoulder extending so that her fingers could deposit an unfinished cup on the coffee table, Caliph coughed.

  An angelus bell sounding from Temple Hill cleared his thoughts, reminding him of the time. “You’re sure you want to come with?”

  “I’m all packed.” Sena looked up from her position, stretched between cup and chair. The filigree in her skin went chromium with the dawn. Caliph remembered phrases: crystallized guanine in the dermis. She had once called the markings her iridocyte idiom. Words he had been forced to look up.

  “Caliph?”

  “Sorr
y. I’m … tired.” He stood up and stretched. “You’re absolutely sure you want to come?”

  “You already asked that.”

  He rubbed his temples. “I know. It’s just that this trip might not be perfectly safe. This speech I have to give…”

  “Important one. I know.”

  “You could say that.”

  “There’s a lot riding on this trip, Caliph.” The way she said it made it sound more like a warning than an acknowledgment.

  “All right. But we have to leave by twelve.”

  “My ships are ready.”

  “Ships?”

  She sat back. “I’m taking the Odalisque and the Iatromisia.”

  “I see. So we’re taking three … three airships,” he spread his pinkie, ring and middle finger like an array of weapons, “when we only need one? Why do we … I mean, why do you want to do that?”

  She stood up, walked over to him and draped her hands around his head. Despite a cup of loring tea, the scent of her breath remained almost perfectly neutral. “Caliph, you’re bringing the Pandragonian priestess. I haven’t asked you why.”

  It felt like she had punched him. “How did you know that?”

  She breathed—which he knew was a presentment—and closed her eyes. When her lids slid shut she looked almost exactly as he remembered her from college. But when her lashes unzipped, like black vinyl, they revealing glistening alien pools.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  But he couldn’t.

  “You know I brought you something,” she said. “But you were so upset the other night, I didn’t give it to you.”

  “Oh? Was it a birthday present?”

  She nodded and her fingers produced a wooden carving that resembled his collection of tiny figurines in the high tower’s display case—except that this one’s workmanship was not as elegant. It was a man with a young girl on his shoulders.

  “Thank you.” It was nice of her to remember his fondness for those wooden figurines but she apparently lacked understanding. He was not a collector. The set in the high tower was not an array of pieces purchased from upscale shops. He kept them because of the person who …