Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  “Wonderful,” said Pag. “Let me get you a fresh drink.”

  “Oh, I’m fine.” Caliph followed Pag a few steps away, behind a fountain of scarlet lilies. When the arbiter turned around, Caliph heard the watchdog whimper. Here, behind the lilies, Caliph found himself confronted more directly with the southerner’s startling proportions. For such a giant of a man, Pag’s eyes, nose and mouth seemed small. They were clustered at the center of his face, surrounded by a great empty expanse of golden flesh. His eyes were black, lips puffy and unnaturally static. Pag’s robes draped him as if he were a giant piece of furniture covered for the season with a cloth.

  “How are you, King Howl? Did your mistress get the box I sent?”

  Caliph recalled the box Sena had refused to open. The one he had sent to be buried in the bogs. He felt his back turn cold. “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it though.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. It’s not important.” Pag’s voice was slow and deep and hypnotic. “I just wanted to take a moment to speak to you on Emperor Junnu’s behalf.”

  “The two of us were just talking,” said Caliph. “I wonder why he didn’t speak for himself?”

  “Delicate matters like this—” Pag gesticulated with his enormous hands, fingernails shining as if oiled. He almost seemed to lose his train of thought. “Listen, King Howl. Pandragor doesn’t have a solvitriol program.” He clasped his hands in front of him, reverently, just below his breast. “Thanks to you, our empire has avoided the sins of Iycestoke.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “Well, it’s really like this, I’m afraid. Pandragor is prepared to come forth with certain litho-slides and documents that illustrate quite clearly what lengths you went to in order to win your civil war.”

  Caliph finished his drink in one gulp but the alcohol failed to warm him. He knew exactly what Pag was driving at and pulled out his pocket watch. “I’m sorry Mr. Pag, I have another engagement—”

  “I’m talking about the Glossok Warehouses,” said Pag. “About how you murdered your own citizens to make solvitriol bombs. Souls. Solvitriol tech runs on souls, yes? But that’s hardly common knowledge…”

  “I’m actually quite late,” said Caliph.

  “I do hope your talk for the conference is well in order,” said Pag.

  “Fuck you,” whispered Caliph. He felt his restraint slip away. “You want war? With Stonehold? You think you can come through those mountains? Read a history book. When the Pplarians tried us they learned the hard way that Stonehavians are better kept as friends. They never tried again.”

  Pag leaned forward, his huge frame balanced on the balls of his feet, his horrible face inches from Caliph’s nose. “We’re going to eat you alive,” he said. Then he turned and walked away.

  Caliph excused himself. He met Alani outside.

  “Wasn’t so bad,” said Caliph. He looked down at the moon-limned clouds reflecting in the brass below both their feet. “Get that thing off the dog before it bleeds to death.”

  Alani crouched down and did as he was told. “Did Pag threaten you?”

  “Of course.” Caliph brushed it aside. “We need to get up to Sandren.”

  “I’m not sure we should be worrying about the Sandrenese right now, your majesty.”

  “If we go up and see what’s happening in Sandren, I’m that much farther from all the people who want to kill me. Good idea, right?”

  “Yes. I suppose it is.”

  Caliph inclined his head in Alani’s direction. “So smile.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  It was the fourteenth of Tes.

  “I was falling. I fell off the airship!”

  “You most certainly did not,” one of the doctors repeatedly assured her. “We had to sedate you,” she said. “Your injuries are minor. You’re going to be fine.”

  Taelin took a sponge bath and then, with the doctor’s assistance, got dressed.

  “Where are my crutches?”

  The physician scowled. She handed them to Taelin with a terse expression.

  Taelin promptly propelled herself out to the observation deck. Glasses mounted on the aft railing allowed her to get a reasonable view of the Odalisque. It cruised slowly, silver fins and purple skin, a giant ornament sliding among the other ships. She could get no sense of what was happening.

  “Now you’re just like me. ’Cept you can’t float.”

  Taelin looked at Specks who had drifted out onto the deck, a fragile white marionette without any strings. He was sipping something warm. His backpack held the cuddly sarchal hound. “You sleeped a long time.” His high-pitched voice was vaguely scolding.

  “Yes I did. I had to.” Taelin decided not to mention the attack over Skellum. She hoped he had slept through it.

  “Cuz you got hurted? What happened to you?”

  “Yes, Specks. I hurt my knee.”

  He nodded. “Just like me. I bet you wish you could float.”

  As he drifted closer, the sound of his ticking blue and copper bracer began to twitter rhythmically in Taelin’s head. The mechanized sorcery of the thing unnerved her, as did the trail of little red drops it left behind.

  “I can’t float but I have a crutch,” said Taelin. “I could bat you right off this deck.” She brandished the crutch.

  Specks laughed. “How far do you think I’d go?”

  “Far enough.”

  “I made you something.” His eyes were big and brown and beautiful as a girl’s.

  “You need a haircut,” said Taelin.

  “Do not.” His small hand patted at his mop.

  “I can give you one.”

  “No way!”

  “What did you make me?”

  He grinned. “Something.”

  Taelin winced. Her knee hurt. She closed her eyes, but when she did she saw women’s faces crowding around her and the velvet gun biting into dead flesh on the deck of the zeppelin. She gasped, opened her eyes and hobbled to one of the dining tables where she collapsed into a deck chair. Specks floated after her. When her crutches slid off the wall where she had propped them, he picked them up for her and carefully repositioned them.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Dad says I need to be helpful.”

  “You certainly are.” She saw another fresh paper lying on the table. “Could you hand that to me?”

  “Sure.”

  It was the Ghalla Chronicle, a rag published in Skaif which, as an unofficial part of Sandren, crouched five thousand feet directly below.

  She read the headlines and tore the paper free of its waxen cover. Specks hovered close by—eerily—ticking and dripping as she spread the news out on the table and tried to ignore the pain in her leg.

  “What are you reading?” asked Specks.

  She didn’t answer. Taelin felt her eyes fill up with tears. Her hometown was not far south of Sandren and she had friends and relatives in the city-state. She covered her mouth with her hand. Her family had summered there almost every year while her father did contract work for the urban praetors. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Her eyes scoured the editorial for details.

  A one-line barb regarding the political fortuitousness of Stonehold’s medical ship fell just short of suggesting a full-blown conspiracy. When she saw her own name, listed among the High King’s retinue, she felt the indelicate implications.

  She didn’t care. She was here because of the vision, because a great black smoking locomotive had burst from her chancel wall. Her goddess had spoken to her. And Taelin was determined not to let the High King’s witch escape.

  Perhaps this was part of it. Part of her purpose.

  “Don’t cry,” said Specks. “You want to see what I made you?”

  “Yes I do.” Taelin tore herself away from the paper and wiped her eyes. She smiled when she looked at him. He was so thin and small. No more than a floating skeleton that couldn’t get enough to eat.


  “’Kay. Hold on.”

  “Hurry,” she teased. “I can’t wait.”

  “Rot’s guarding it. It’s in my backpack.” He turned around. “Can you get it out?”

  “Of course.” She reached in and took out a piece of thick paper folded into squares. “Is this it?”

  “Yep.” Specks grabbed it from her and quickly unfolded it. On the sheet he had drawn a sarchal hound made up mostly of head and teeth. “You can name him anything you want,” said Specks. “I drawed it cuz I have rot and all you have is that necklace.”

  “Thank you,” said Taelin.

  “You’re welcome.” His smile was ear to ear.

  “I’ll name him Speck.”

  Specks laughed. “You can read your paper now,” he said.

  “Oh, can I? Thank you.” She made like she was going to poke him in the stomach and he drifted backward, giggling.

  Taelin looked back down at the paper where Mr. Wintour, the editor, was pointing out that the symptoms of the disease nearly matched those described a year ago, when Isca—the capital of Stonehold—had had a similar outbreak. It had been publicized in the south: how a plague-ridden borough had been ruthlessly corralled and burned. Isca had managed to contain it by force and cruelty. It had been one of the things that helped cement Taelin’s resolve against the Stonehavian government.

  Mr. Wintour went as far as to suggest that Stonehold might be the only country with a viable vaccine.

  Taelin put the paper down, pulled her crutches up under her armpits and lurched off across the starboard deck, ignoring the crewman that had just arrived to ask if she wanted something to eat. Specks floated after her.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Several hundred yards away she could see the medical ship floating. Tiny red-coated figures moved back and forth on its decks.

  It didn’t sit right.

  Taelin scowled at the zeppelin. Why would Caliph Howl bring a floating hospital to an international conference? Even if he was a complete hypochondriac, a few doctors on staff would have made better sense.

  “Miss Rae?”

  “Hello. I’m Dr. Baufent.” Taelin recognized her immediately as the physician who had handed her the crutches. She was short, middle-aged and looked stubborn as a tree stump. She extended her hand. Taelin shook. She could tell Baufent’s hair had once been auburn but only traces of that color stained a boyish cut of nearly uniform marsupial-gray. “We haven’t much time. His majesty wants me to escort you to the Iatromisia … assuming you’re willing to pose for lithos that show how Pandragor and Stonehold are working together to battle the plague. If not, I’ll simply tell him that you declined. No one’s going to force you, dear.”

  She said dear, but Taelin sensed no warmth. Her inflection of majesty established that she also held no special love for the High King.

  Taelin made the affirmative southern hand sign at the same time she bobbed her head in a circular up and down pattern: a result of surprise and confusion mixed with yes!

  “Let me get my things. Will a day bag be enough?”

  The doctor said that it would.

  Taelin swung her body around and nearly crashed into Specks. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Are you going?”

  “Yes. I have to go up and see if I can help the people in Sandren. They’re in trouble. They’re sick. They need doctors.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “No. But there might be other things I can do.” She reached out and tussled his hair. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring Speck with. And then I’ll be right back.”

  Specks didn’t say anything as she poled herself back to her room. She dug her newly stamped papers out of her luggage and stuffed a sack with some money and a change of clothes.

  Feeling disheveled and sick and defiant of both, she emerged and saw Baufent in the hall who beckoned to her with tightly controlled impatience.

  Taelin propelled herself after the stocky woman who neither acknowledged nor waited on her injury. They descended a metal staircase to the airship’s hold and Taelin, after managing the stairs on her own, caught up to the doctor who was already standing near an open slide door. A gust of fresh wind caused Baufent to squint.

  Taelin heard a bang and saw a cable fire from a gun just above the gaping doorway. Its end leapt out toward the Iatromisia. Why are they firing on their own ship? But the cable missed the Iatromisia by yards. Its end snapped violently to the weighted end of a corresponding cable, which had been the real target. It hung vertically beneath the other ship. There had to be some kind of electromagnet or a holomorphic attractor because the two cables joined with such force that they partially entangled and sent whiplash waves rolling in both directions all the way to the hangar doors.

  Taelin watched as the cable on the Iatromisia was reeled in until the line from the Bulotecus sagged between the two ships, connecting cargo hold to cargo hold. Taelin wondered how difficult it was for the captains to maintain the slack. Maybe it was automated.

  Dr. Baufent prodded her physically by grabbing hold of one of the crutches. “This way, dear.”

  Behind them, a kind of small gondola hung from the ceiling of the hold. It featured large glass windows, cramped seating and a single door which opened courtesy of a man Taelin had not previously noticed. The doctor shooed her to get in.

  “Would you stop?” Taelin said.

  Dr. Baufent showed no embarrassment. “I’m sorry, but we’re in a rush. They’re waiting on you.”

  “Well then I should have had more notice.”

  “I agree,” said Baufent. “You should take that up with Caliph Howl.” She climbed in next to Taelin.

  The man shut the door and, like it or not, both women were forced to cuddle. Taelin heard some kind of mechanism engage and the gondola ratcheted forward, following a groove in the ceiling. When it came to the maw of the slide door an arm extended up, gripped the cable and then …

  Taelin felt the carriage swing free. They rocked for a few adrenalized moments before a motor whirred to life and some contraption beyond Taelin’s view began gobbling up the thick thread of metal, spitting it out behind them, moving them quickly down the line.

  Taelin worked the edges of her necklace nervously the entire time.

  When they reached the nadir, the little motor coughed a bit but ground on, pulling them up the incline and into the cargo bay of the Iatromisia.

  With ginger motions, Taelin swung herself out of the compartment. No sooner were they clear than the contraption was sent back, deadheading toward the Bulotecus. The gondola soon disappeared into its cargo hold, the cable was released and the Bulotecus reeled it in. The transfer had been impressively quick.

  Taelin saw instantly that the Iatromisia was a much different ship from the one she had been on. It’s duralumin beams lay exposed, everywhere: undisguised by rich hardwoods and fancy light fixtures. Its hold was packed with medical supplies and refrigerated cases.

  Dr. Baufent guided Taelin upstairs, pausing now to offer help.

  “I’m fine,” said Taelin.

  When they reached the upper deck a man in a red trench greeted them.

  Baufent provided introductions. “This is Anselm. He’s a cretin and if you can stand him five minutes you’ve got a stronger stomach than I do.”

  Anselm smiled. “She’s always like that.” He was a Despche: tall and black with large hands and a beautiful face. “Looks like you’re a patient.” He gestured at the crutches.

  Taelin laughed in spite of everything that was happening.

  “He’s also a womanizer,” said Baufent. Then she marched off, barking at other people as she went.

  “Well,” said Anselm, “so you’re our very important passenger—”

  Taelin let out one giant exhalation. “If I’m here to be babysat—”

  “No, no.” Anselm raised his palms. “We’ll let you have at it. Things sound pretty grim up there. I don’t thi
nk we’ll have time to babysit.”

  “What are you planning to do?” she said. “If it’s plague—”

  “Sounds like it. But this ship is loaded with vaccine. You’ve been vaccinated, yes?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm. That’s a problem. I’ll have to talk to Baufent about it. Anyway, all of this is good luck. We’re strangely prepared.”

  “Yes you are.” She hoped her tone didn’t convey her cynicism too strongly.

  “Well,” Anselm’s voice dropped noticeably, “who knows why a witch commissions a full staff of physicians for a political conference.” His eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “But then again, I’m glad she did.”

  So it was Sena …

  It hadn’t been Caliph at all. Her memory of him from the mission home, helping her up, handing her the glass of water—she felt a sudden, inexplicable pang for the High King. It sprang from the baseless assumption that he was some kind of victim that Sena had duped. Though, in that light, it made him rather shallow, didn’t it?

  More likely he had a hand in this unbelievable coincidence.

  “The only thing I’m glad about,” she said, picking up her conversation with Anselm, “is that I’m able to help.”

  * * *

  THE Iatromisia began its ascent of the Ghalla Peaks with a dull thudding sound from its gasbags that Taelin did not understand. The ship vibrated. A disturbed tuning fork. But, as long as the craft was going up, Taelin was able to set her unease aside.

  They rose vertically with elevator-grace. Taelin felt her ears pop. The bright zeppelins that had surrounded them moments ago fell away.

  As she leaned slightly over the aft railing Taelin noticed the Odalisque following them.

  The wind was cold here but nowhere near as biting as it had been in Stonehold. She smelled familiar pollens, detected the peculiar woody aromas that emanated from scrub in the Ghalla Peaks. Though it was still winter, the milder climate tantalized. The smells made her dread going back to Isca.

  The gray, bird-haunted shadows of the mountain slid past until finally, the ship breached into sunlight, rose over a jagged cornice and lifted several yards above the deserted teagle platform where a pair of mighty black steel arms dripped with cables.