Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  The skin taken from her back covered more or less thoracic vertebrae three through seven, representing seven inches top to bottom and a perfect tenth of her frame’s full height. There was a beauty to the numbers and the ratios.

  The tiny mouths on the tips of the tentacles gobbled at the underside of her dermis but Sena whisked it away. As she held the slice of her back, seven inches by seven inches seemed an extraordinary span.

  With broad angles of light still gushing from her, she placed the specimen on an oval tray. The room around her was an ooidal pocket punctured by blue-gazing duct-like portholes. Cool air slugged in. The walls, floor and ceiling all blended into one and moved in gentle ensemble. Most of the equipment in the room, the trays, racks and shelves, were living or once-living dentin.

  A three-foot fibril sprouted from a workbench like the feeler of a white roach. It bent under the weight of a citrus-blue berry of light that quivered at its tip. Under the luminary, Sena carefully separated her skin, like layers in an onion. It did not resemble human flesh and came apart easily into three distinct strata, each identical in size and appearance. She placed each of the three squares in a separate tray and began pinning down their edges. While she worked, the room expanded and contracted around her, gently, almost imperceptibly, as if breathing.

  Yul came back into the room. This time he ignored her unclothed body and offered a polite greeting in White Tongue having to do with the moon.

  Though it was midafternoon, Naobi’s face cratered the sky through one of the pore-like windows.

  “Moon’s greeting.” She smiled faintly.

  The Pplarian wore a red kash. He approached and extended both of his usable hands. Sena paused what she was doing and allowed him to press his fingers and thumbs into her palms and wrists, a ceremonial two-handed exchange that she accepted without question.

  “The temple has been closed,” he said. “The colligation is complete.”

  She had already seen it with her eyes, the gates being pulled shut, the sign being installed, the chain taking its padlock in the dark and snowy cold.

  Nevertheless she thanked him and her words were sincere. Knowing what the Pplarians had done for her only enhanced her sense of gratitude. The Pplarians owed her nothing, yet they had performed this service with strange munificence. Where they would go, what they would try to do on their own and whether they would succeed or be destroyed like the rest of the world was a mystery that remained beyond Sena’s knowledge. The Pebella of the Pplar was powerful and her ambit kept the fate of her people hidden.

  Sena adjusted her skin over one of the trays’ thick wax bottoms. She placed an additional pin, then looked back at Yul. “Thank you for coming this far. I get lonely.”

  Yul smacked his lips and craned his long neck to port like an albino tortoise without a shell. He peered through one of the windows at the Odalisque with his fuchsia eyes as if trying to see the High King. Finally he said, “I am sure your math is correct. Have you set the course?”

  “Yes.” She looked through the intervening walls—unlike Yul—across the sky to where she could actually see Caliph talking with Taelin.

  Yul inclined his head slightly in calm obeisance. He seemed calm. But she saw through the tight kash. His vestigial hands groped from caterpillar-sized arms and cupped his nipples. He pinched himself anxiously.

  “You should go,” she told him.

  He bowed, grinned brokenly and excused himself. As he neared the exit the muscular valve-like flap of the door opened and trembled around him. Yul squeezed his papillae fiercely and said, “The Pebella is never wrong.”

  Sena offered him a thoughtful scowl and nodded her head. Then he was gone and the valve snicked shut behind him.

  CHAPTER

  30

  “How did you know I was reading?” Caliph asked.

  Taelin didn’t like the way his eyes scoured her face. Like he was searching for a lie.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I felt sick. And … I just knew. I know that sounds crazy but I feel like I’m inside your head. I want it to go away.”

  The High King’s eyes panned nervously. “I uhm … are you sure you’re all right? Does Dr. Baufent know you’re up?”

  “Of course,” Taelin lied.

  Caliph smiled uncomfortably. “Okay. Well then, why don’t we go get something eat?”

  She said yes with her hand.

  Her father was dead. That was what kept going through her head as she followed Caliph Howl toward the starboard deck. He held the door for her, which made her angry for hard-to-pin-down reasons.

  Walking through the doorway, out of the controlled atmosphere, was like walking into another world. A familiar, warm-scented world full of wormwood and spider flower and the smell of tea trees on the wind. Taelin realized that they had left Sandren far behind. She remembered raiding the medical chest but it was almost like a dream. Dreams were dreams. She didn’t bring it up.

  Miles away, she could see the three lichen-colored hills, staggered in a perfect row. They formed the backdrop of her hometown of Kub Ish.

  Was the plague there too?

  She tried not to think about it and looked briefly at the silt flats: another unmistakable feature of the landscape, as if a giant pail full of mud had been thrown to the south.

  Strangely, she didn’t feel like running elatedly to the railing for a better view. She wasn’t homesick.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Caliph asked.

  She smiled thinly and pulled up one of the deck chairs. It was warm wood, set bowed in a light metal frame, supported with springs that adjusted comfortably beneath her. It was the kind of chair she imagined she could sit in all night. She pulled her feet up off the floor.

  Caliph Howl started with a resolved but quiet, almost apologetic tone. “Look. I know I already apologized back in Sandren for everything that’s happened. But then … even more things happened.

  “I feel responsible for you because you’re the only one here that … (damn right you’re responsible—my father is dead!) and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way … but you’re the only one that doesn’t belong here. (I hate you, King Howl. You are an evil deluded man at the head of an evil and deluded nation. I wish you were dead.)

  “You belong somewhere other than entangled in the political mess of this ship.” (Is that some kind of veiled insult?)

  Taelin felt a hot-cool mixture of emotions as his words flowed around her.

  “So you want to apologize?” she asked. “But you don’t want to tell me about what you were reading?” She smelled a freshly lit cigarette from the direction of the kitchen. When she glanced toward the source she saw Specks floating in the shadow of the door. For a moment it appalled her. She thought that Specks was smoking. Then she realized it was steam rising from a cup in his hand. The smell of smoke must have come from someone else. Specks’ eyes looked at her curiously, a kind of placid infatuation. He was not embarrassed that she had caught him staring.

  “I was reading some books that Sena gave me,” Caliph said.

  Taelin looked back at the High King. “So this is related to my grandfather—”

  “Apparently yes. But please. Let’s talk about you for a minute.”

  “You want to get rid of me?”

  His eyes begged for understanding. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. I just don’t think you belong on this ship. So far I haven’t guessed a single thing right and I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. But if something bad happens to us, I don’t want you to be here.”

  “I see.”

  Caliph cleared his throat. “I have it from a reliable source that you’re from around here.” He swept his arm at the landscape beyond the railing. “I’d like to take you home. From there you can either return to your mission home in Isca or stay in the south and let Stonehold fix its own problems. What do you say?”

  “I don’t want to go home.” She could feel the cool clammy possibilities of evening rain. Wild, colorful
clouds smutched the sky like brushfire smoke. The smell from the kitchen had woken a hunger inside her. She wanted a cigarette.

  Caliph scowled at her faintly. “Why don’t you want to go home?”

  “My father is dead.” She felt her face flush but pushed back against it, trying to focus on the cool wind and the tinkling sounds above her head.

  “You’re sure he was on the Pandragonian ship in Sandren?”

  “Yes.” She was on the edge of sobbing.

  “I’m sorry. I … (You’re not sorry. I hate you. I hate you and you should die.) If he was, I mean if he was on that ship, then your family’s going to need you.”

  “No they’re not! They loathe me. I’m a huge disappointment!” Why she told him this truth was beyond her. It fell out of her mouth, an admission jarred loose by the emotional tremor going through her; it seemed to shatter on the floor.

  The string of colored lights above the table lit up. While their soft tinkling was pleasant, she found their bright colors at odds with her mood. In a double punch, the food arrived, smelling delicious. Specks had gone into the kitchen for the tray. He served them with an ill-hidden smile of self-satisfaction. “I brought your dinner,” he said.

  Taelin felt angry at the setting. Furious that the little lights and warm food could go on sparkling and steaming and celebrating in spite of her. But she also felt touched by Specks’ smile. He was clearly proud to be serving them their food. “Thank you, Specks,” Taelin said. His pale, slender face beamed.

  “I doubt you’re a disappointment,” Caliph said. Then he looked at Specks and winced at the lights. He leaned forward and whispered in the child’s ear.

  “They’re fine,” interjected Taelin. “We could use some cheer … don’t you think?”

  Caliph paused. “Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the crew trying to make things comfortable but … don’t you think it’s out of context considering what just happened? We’re not on holiday.”

  Taelin looked at the floating boy who was clearly waiting, uncomfortably, wondering what he should do. She felt embarrassed for him, angry at Caliph, angry at herself, as if her own disapproval had somehow tainted the High King’s thoughts and precipitated this reprimand. Looking shaken, Specks said to Caliph, “I’ll turn them off right away, your majesty.”

  “No!” Taelin said. “Please, leave them on! I can’t bear thinking about what’s happened today. I just—just leave them on.”

  Caliph smiled uncomfortably and pulled his napkin into his lap. “She wants them on,” he said. He fanned his fingers.

  In response, Specks offered a submissive shy look. He bowed and then promptly drifted toward the kitchen, armband ticking.

  “That poor child,” Taelin said.

  “Yes. He’s a good boy. He lost his mother—”

  “I know.”

  Caliph resumed his previous line. “Anyway, I’m sure your family would be relieved to have you back.”

  Taelin had been slipping down in her chair; now she scooted her butt back, trying to sit up straight. “No, they won’t. You don’t understand.”

  “Are you willing to explain it to me?”

  “Not really.”

  Caliph blew a sigh. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to give me something. Because otherwise I’m going to drop you off at the nearest town.” (You callous, selfish, horrible—)

  “I see. You’re going throw me off?”

  “This isn’t political. (Bullshit) Yes, I’m guilty of planning all sorts of ways to use you to my advantage with regards to your father’s government.” Why did he call it that? she wondered. Her father’s government? “Right now I’m talking about your safety,” he said.

  “I’m not getting off this ship.”

  “Why?”

  “It was an arranged marriage!” she blurted out. She couldn’t help it. “And I know you won’t understand, but I wasn’t rebelling. It was supposed to be a gift from my parents to me. I wanted it.”

  She locked her arm straight up and down in front of her, knuckles buried in her lap, face hidden partly in the hollow of her shoulder. She wanted to hide. “There was a baby. The wedding was called off.”

  Caliph looked stricken, confused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—” He didn’t know what to say. Clearly. Clearly he had no idea where this outburst had come from, why she was telling him this seemingly unrelated thing. Wasn’t it obvious?

  “I can’t go home,” she said tearfully. “They don’t want me. They gave me money to go away. Don’t you see? I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She reached immediately for her wineglass and drained it. Her whole mouth puckered. Then she risked a look at Caliph’s face. His expression didn’t read as apathetic. He wasn’t rolling his eyes or looking evasively toward the floor.

  “What happened?” Caliph asked.

  She sniffed. “After the wedding was called off I spent my days down at the park, at the library. Thank you.” She took the napkin he handed her and wiped her nose. “There was a statue there of Emperor Vog. His widow came every day and just sat there, in her dead husband’s shadow, feeding the birds, moving when the sun changed. We talked.”

  “Then you had the baby?”

  “Yes. My parents pressured me into leaving it with Aviv. Which I did. But he was Despche. And it wasn’t political, you know, to be with one of the slavers … no matter how rich his family was.”

  “Do you keep in—”

  “No,” she interjected fiercely, then softened. “No, I haven’t spoken to Aviv since the birth. His family owned an archipelago, so he probably went there. I stayed at the hospital after the delivery. For depression, you know? Nothing serious. When they released me I decided I needed a fresh start. My family practically threw me out the door. I decided to build a church.”

  “From your grandfather’s journals.”

  “Yes.”

  The last breathless rays of sunlight blazed an oblique trail through the railing and over the deck, the end of which trailed across the arch of Caliph’s boot. She saw his foot flex inside the leather, which probably indicated he was thinking furiously. “I think my church days are over,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Just a feeling. Nenuln doesn’t answer when I pray. Maybe she never did. What if it was all me? Making it up?”

  Caliph didn’t smile. “A friend of mine, scientific type, says we’re constrained by our five senses. Enlightened, he says, but also constrained. He says we’re like a blind newt in a cave, doing the only things we can, trusting in the senses we possess. But that there are things out there, beyond the cave, red flowers we will never see or smell. We can only hear stories about them and trust or disbelieve that they are there. I haven’t made up my mind about any of that, but I think it’s a nice metaphor. I don’t blame you for believing in your goddess—whoever she is.”

  Taelin was stunned. She had hardly expected such a thoughtful reaction to her admission of doubt. “Your friend sounds a bit factious for a scientist. I mean if he’s advocating for whatever’s out there.” She glanced at the sky.

  “I think he’s a good thinker … he’s also a good friend. Theories’ll change in twenty years where I feel his friendship won’t.”

  Taelin felt her lips screwing into a slow smile. Why am I making eyes at him!

  “Please,” she said. “Please don’t take me home. You don’t know my family.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then you won’t take me home?”

  Caliph gestured to the tinkling strand of lights. “Did I leave the lights on?” He was not a bad person, she decided earnestly. He was a good person who, like many good people, had taken the wrong lover. It was clear to her that he was genuine. He cared about what had happened back at Sandren. She could see the fretfulness, no: the foreboding in his face.

  “I saw pictures of what you were reading … in my head.” She plunged into the matter that had brought them to dinner. “I saw your uncle,” she pressed her lips together, afraid
of sounding crazy, “the horrible things he said to you. And what Sena wrote—that you need to figure something out.”

  She had to force herself to watch his face. What if he laughed? What if he … but his face had gone slack. His eyes were wide now and staring at her. It was true. She had really been inside his head. She couldn’t explain it, but it was there—between them—substantiated and undeniable.

  “You have to take me with you,” Taelin said. He had gone so pale. Vulnerable almost. “She doesn’t love you,” Taelin pressed. “It’s a trick. Something horrible is going to happen and we have to stop her.”

  His mouth opened and for a few moments his lower jaw shifted as if he was trying to fit it over an invisible object. He seemed to give up. A potentially complicated answer never emerged and instead he said, “I know.”

  Taelin saw him as a boy with a new puppy in a sack. The sack’s neck was knotted; it was weighted down with rocks. Caliph knew that it had to be done but he didn’t want to do it—yet he wasn’t going to blubber about it either. Taelin could see that and her heart melted. She wanted to comfort him. She left her chair and crouched beside him, daring to reach out and touch the High King’s hand. It was innocent, she told herself.

  His fingers were warm and soft. His nails manicured.

  “Lady Rae—” Oh no! But then he pulled something golden out of his pocket. Something almost glowing. “I picked it up.”

  It startled her, but not because it represented a sign from her goddess that she was being shamelessly inappropriate. In fact, she didn’t even see it as a symbol of Nenuln anymore. It was just a necklace with no special powers other than the sentimental fact that it had belonged to her grandfather. What amazed her was that he had rescued it and kept it for her.

  “Oh…” she said.

  “What?”

  “Thank you.” She took it from him, then abruptly leaned forward and planted her mouth against his. She almost stopped there. She almost pulled back and left it at that. But she didn’t. She pushed her advantage. Kissed him again. Waiting to see if he would resist. When he didn’t, when she realized that he had actually begun to kiss her back, her body filled with heat.