by Anthony Huso
You get to take these notes home and use them as a reference and a guide for your own shuwt experiences. That’s all this is. I am not your priest.
[redacted]
Oh, good. For a minute there I thought everything was unraveling.
[redacted]
No. Yes, it is an incredible sum.
[redacted]
Yes, let’s do both, thank your father.
[redacted]
No, I understand, you’re right. For what you’re paying you’re entitled to talk about whatever you want. But like I said, I don’t want you to get all crazy-religious on this stuff. It’s just a drug. I don’t want you to wind up dead. That’s why I’m being practical … trying to turn you off from all this Sslia-legend-shit.
[redacted]
Uh, sure. Nenuln is a nice-sounding phrase.
[redacted]
You could use Sslia, you could use Nenuln. Whatever you like better. No one in the north is going to know what they mean anyway.
[redacted]
No names please. Will you strike that? Thanks.
Anyway, back to the tinctures. This is your second time with them so it’s going to be less painful. It gets easier every time.
[redacted]
Is it a dangerous underworld drug? Yes. With repeated use, will it eventually cook your brain from the inside out? Yes. You signed the waiver.
But is it also a sublime concoction capable of drawing on humanity’s collective past and personalizing it for you in a way that provides inspiration, insight and possibly even epiphany?
Maybe, yes. I think I’m offering that service.
Others are going to tell you that shuwt tinctures reveal hidden dimensions and enlighten you as to the actual nature of the universe. I don’t say that. I suggest a conservative approach to the aftermath of a shuwt journey. Remember the ratio: ninety-nine percent meditation, one percent action.
[redacted]
Right. Let’s finish up with a legal recap, shall we? First offense will get you …
[redacted]
Iycestoke is far worse. I don’t know what they do in Bablemum but once the treaty takes effect I’m sure they’ll follow the same laws as Pandragor.
[redacted]
I agree. It’s just arbitrary legislation as far as I’m concerned. But they can’t legislate my culture out of existence. Veydens have been doing this spirit guide thing for centuries.
[redacted]
Yes, but see, that’s precisely why I don’t offer those services. You shouldn’t take tincture without a guide. But this whole movement of getting a dream shaman? I mean, that crap about the answers being inside of you is just a convenient way to sell things to people that don’t have any friends.
[redacted]
Because we’re talking about transcendence. And I’m of the opinion that you cannot transcend without permission. Without help.
That’s the one part of the Sslia legend that I can buy into. I don’t believe the notion that shuwt tinctures offer some kind of passage to divinity, but I do like the idea that, in the end, the Sslia doesn’t really seem to succeed. The Sslia just disappears. Why? In my opinion it’s symbolic of taking something to the extreme. It’s symbolic of obsession, of elitist rhetoric, of going down the wrong road on your own. That’s what happens. You fucking disappear.
[redacted]
Good. Right.
[redacted]
Yes. Use them but not more than once every other day and no more than twice in a week. Three doses in a ten-day period will probably set your brain on fire. So go two in a week and then stop. And I mean stop.
Cold.
I’ve never seen anyone take a third-day dose and not end up tied to a bed for the rest of their lives, assuming they survive.
[redacted]
Yep. I’ll get you a copy of the session. No problem. Two-week rest intervals.
[redacted]
Yep.
[redacted]
Yep.
[redacted]
All right. Take care. I’ll see you in three.
CHAPTER
45
The papers were smudged. Their margins were also badly crumpled as if they had been carried around for a long time, pressed inside a small book with their edges hanging out. They were at least a year old based on the political reference.
The questions pertaining to how Sena had gotten access to these personal papers and why she had placed them here made Caliph uneasy. A soft knock on the door brought a further lump to his throat. “Come in?”
The door slid open and much to his relief the familiar face of Dr. Baufent leaned in. What he didn’t like was that she looked nervous, and not a little afraid.
“What’s wrong? Where are we?”
“Bablemum.” She didn’t elaborate but inflected it as if to lay blame on him.
“How did we get here?”
Baufent looked at the papers in his hand. “Found those, I see?”
“Yeah.”
The physician withdrew her head as if toward a sound from outside the room. Her hand came up, finger raised while she listened. All Caliph could hear were the dripping branches, the frogs and leaves and buzzing static of the city. A weird night bird also called from just outside the window.
“Yes. He’s awake,” Baufent called out to whoever had spoken. Her voice launched the unseen bird from its perch. Its wings sounded large and leathery and Caliph caught a glimpse of its head—an anvil-shaped aberration—as it flew away. “He’ll be out in a moment.”
She stuck her head back inside. “You’ll be out in a moment?”
Caliph considered exercising his authority. Part of him wanted to bark at her, demand a full account of what was going on, whether Sig had been found—even though he knew that answer, didn’t he? Instead he nodded and let her go.
He tossed the papers back on the small table and slumped into a chair by the window. He closed his eyes and Sig’s face was there, teeth chewing at that ridiculous patch of hair. Caliph let out a silent, volcanic wheeze, hot and angry and cathartic. He allowed himself a few seconds of grief.
It wasn’t enough.
Sig deserved more than stifled sobs. He deserved life.
Another knock at the door.
Caliph lashed out. “What!”
Baufent’s voice was firm on the other side. “I forgot to tell you not to turn on any lights,” she said. “It’ll draw attention.” Then her footsteps scraped away.
Caliph stood up, furious.
He inhaled the lukewarm humidity deeply, then wiped his eyes. There was a set of clothes laid out for him. He dressed violently, thrusting arms and legs through holes. He took his anger out on the seams.
Fly buttoned, boots buckled, he marched toward the door, eager to confront the unknown.
A lit octagonal hatch ten feet down the hall guided him toward the only possible destination. Tremulous people-shaped shadows spilled out into the hall. He barged in, then drew up, forced to reassess.
Taelin lay practically atop a tattooed man Caliph had never seen. It was an exaggeration, but she was perched on the same divan, leaning parallel with him into the cushions, one of her legs draped over his mighty thigh. His arm was around her waist.
Dr. Baufent stood by a lamp whose maroon globes bloodied the room. She did not look happy.
There were other big men, like the one groping the priestess. Heavily tattooed greenish skins and coarse red braids erupted from them, unable to be contained by rich clothing. Cuff links, and black sleeves and silk ties strained but failed to tame the crew of wicked gentlemen. They glared at Caliph.
Their leader was obscured, barely discernable among the powerful angles of the room. He was huge and broad, a trapezoid flowing, hacked from bolts of luxurious cloth. Easily twice Caliph’s size, he looked down with fiery black eyes and said, “High King Howl. A pleasure to meet you.”
“I’d like an introduction,” said Caliph. It was a flat command leveled at Baufent.
She s
pluttered. She was not trained as an aide or a servant and must have found his order discomfiting. “Th-this is—”
“I am Ku’h,” said the huge man. He had a thick southern accent but his Trade was just fine. “We are glad you are feeling better. I am…” he seemed to lose his way for a moment “in charge … of the Great City of Bablemum.”
“In charge?” Caliph couldn’t hide his skepticism.
“The lord mayor is dead,” said Ku’h. “Only some of us are left.”
“Dead how?”
“The disease.”
“We know the Sslia brought you here,” said Ku’h.
The word surprised Caliph. He recognized it from more than Taelin’s drug counseling transcripts. It had also been in the journals Sena had given him.
“Sena came aboard while you were comatose,” Baufent said quietly, as if passing Caliph the facts which Ku’h had molested. “But she didn’t speak to us.”
“Sena spoke to me,” Taelin interjected happily.
Caliph didn’t look at Taelin. He kept his attention fixed on Baufent. The doctor rolled her eyes at Taelin’s comment. Then she continued. “Sena set the ship’s course before she left. We stopped here, last night.”
“The Sslia,” said Ku’h calmly.
Caliph turned to Bablemum’s makeshift magistrate. “Ku’h, can we talk? Privately?”
“Of course.” Ku’h smiled. There was something wrong with that smile. If his entire city had been wiped out by the same disease that had steamrolled Sandren, why did he seem so calm, in control, even amused? Why wasn’t he filthy and tired from fighting off silver-skinned plague victims and giant eel-men? Even more obvious, why wasn’t he sick?
Caliph gestured to the doorway through which he had entered the room. He didn’t know a thing about the ship’s layout and decided to take Ku’h aside in the only direction that wouldn’t make him feel lost.
Ku’h stepped into the darker hallway. When they were sufficiently alone, Caliph said, “There was an international conference scheduled in Sandren five days ago. We—”
“I know what happened,” said Ku’h. “I know how you came to be here.”
“So you know we’re following—”
“The Sslia,” said Ku’h.
Caliph didn’t want to give in. He didn’t want to accept that his world of metholinate trade, of meetings and treaties and signatures on paper was collapsing into a deep hole of esoteric words and occult legend. As much as he had wanted to escape the role of High King only days ago, he now very much wanted it back. He wanted all of it back, all the problems and threats and mincing tongues.
Those things were understandable.
“I’m following the woman who committed the crime. Who murdered all those people in Sandren.” It was all he had left to hold on to. The last rational piece of action he could take. Caliph realized this even as he said it. But now that it was out of his mouth, he also realized that it sounded crazy. If the plague was everywhere, if even the mighty city of Bablemum was a silent ruin, where would Sena’s case be tried? Were there any lawyers still alive? Judges? Did laws still exist? The world had changed under Caliph’s feet. He was falling and yet he was trying to ignore that fact.
The realization disturbed him. As if some mechanism in his head had finally snapped to, he wondered, maybe, whether it was time to start thinking in a new direction.
“She is in the city,” said Ku’h.
“Where?”
“With the Lua’groc.”
“The Lua’groc?”
The lewdness in Ku’h’s smile arose, no doubt, at Caliph’s expense. Ku’h pulled his white shirt out of his pants and lifted it to reveal his muscular sage-colored abdomen. There was an ugly black mark above his navel.
“We are the Cabal of Wights,” said Ku’h. “Or, as the witches of Mirayhr call us, the Willin Droul.”
Caliph sorted through everything he had read in Sena’s books. “The Lua’groc are one of the ancient races. But you don’t look like some kind of mon—”
“The Cabal is not an ethnic organization, King Howl. We come from every region of the continent. Most of us do not have Lua’groc blood in our veins.”
“So you have medicine? You look healthy.”
“We wear the Hilid Mark,” said Ku’h. He gestured to his waist, which was not far below Caliph’s eye-level. “It is a ward. We are protected.”
“So you’re with them? The creatures spreading the disease?”
“Yes.”
Here was the enemy. One face of it at least. And Caliph felt unarmed. There was no way he could fight this man. And what good would it do? Rather, this was an opportunity to understand, finally, what had happened.
“Why are you with them? Why do you want all of this to happen?”
Ku’h laughed, a sound that came from miles deep. “You expect poor, ignorant people to join a cult. People without hope. But that’s not the case, King Howl.
“The affluent and powerful can also become disillusioned. The endless pursuit of money, fame, comfort, power? The desire for a sense of accomplishment before you die? Don’t you feel it too?”
Caliph rocked back on his heels. “You don’t think providing government for peoples’ well being is worthwhile? You don’t think doctors—”
“In the end,” said Ku’h, “no matter who you are, or what you did, self-sacrifice included, all you’ve done is rubbed yourself in an effort to feel special—to feel good.
“Which is why I joined the Cabal of Wights, Mister Howl: to get underneath the protective shell that keeps us all feeling safe and normal. To get down to the ugly, tender truth.”
“And what’s the truth?” Caliph asked.
“Change is truth.”
“You joined an organization that backs change? That’s not so unusual. But why the disease? Why—”
“Why paint with yellow over blue?” Ku’h interrupted. “The answer is that you prefer it. That’s all there is. Change. Not change with a purpose. Just change. That’s why the Lua’groc laugh in the face of their own death. It’s a beautiful, empowering thing: to not care. To stand in awe and watch the universe devolve.”
Was this true? Was this what Sena believed? Was she really with these psychopaths? Some kind of prophet flying at their head? Leading them? Caliph couldn’t believe it.
And yet … she had killed all those people at Sandren.
He felt the planet crack in half and all the warm logic pour out of its center, leaving the world cold and empty. Maybe there were no courtrooms left. Maybe there were no crimes that could be rationally punished. But there was still one thing Caliph could do. He could find Sena and he could ask her, to her face, why.
“You worship Sen … er, the Sslia?” asked Caliph.
“The Sslia is the avatar of change. We embrace that change. But the Sslia is also a servant, an attendant. The Sslia prepares the path. The Sslia, by virtue of its own desire to escape the role it has been given, does the only thing that it can do.”
“And what is that?” asked Caliph.
“The Sslia destroys the world.”
“That’s a lot to take in, Ku’h … especially on an empty stomach.”
Ku’h’s smile was dark and cunning. Caliph could tell that the huge Veyden was not underestimating him. “The Sslia told us that you had arrived. She said you would need food and safety, that you were already protected against the disease. Bablemum is no threat to you. We have come up to invite you to dinner.”
“Thank you. We’re all hungry. But I’ve just woken up and I need a shower. Can I ask for forty minutes?”
Ku’h’s eyes were predatory. “Of course.”
“Again, thank you.”
Caliph reached out to shake the man’s hand but Ku’h only simpered. “You are in the south now. We do not touch here … unless we are mating.”
Caliph followed the giant man back into the other room. Without a word, Ku’h made a gesture and all his men stood up.
Caliph cringed at t
he demure moment of separation between Taelin and the Veyden who had been reclining next to her on the divan. The sight of it made him hugely uncomfortable.
When all the Veydens had left, Caliph turned to Baufent. “Tell me when you think it’s safe to talk.”
“I think it’s safe,” she said.
“Are we in danger?”
“I don’t know.” Her face was as gray as her hair. She looked exhausted. “He’s not the lord mayor, that’s for certain.”
“What’s going on? What happened?”
“You know as much as I do,” Baufent snapped.
“I mean with Sena. What happened?”
“I can tell you what happened,” said Taelin.
Shielded from the priestess, Baufent offered Caliph an elevated eyebrow.
“Taelin? Can you excuse the doctor and me for just a couple of minutes? I want to talk to her about my injuries.”
“Sena healed you.” Taelin beamed. She giggled softly and sauntered toward the door. “But that’s fine. I know you want to talk about me.” She blew him a kiss and then the curious octagonal portal slid shut.
As soon as she was out, Baufent exhaled. “She’s lost her blessed mind. Completely. She practically worships your…” An awkward moment. Baufent’s face was deeply lined. “Anyway, I have to admit, I’m starting to wonder whether I should join her church.”