Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  Despite her unfamiliarity with the region, Miriam had no need of a map. The bowl of blood had given her the High King’s position and her diaglyphs led the way.

  She pushed out of the grassland, into the actual city, and found the metropolis quiet. As evening fell, she could tell her girls were exhausted.

  They needed a place to make camp. A building. Power seemed to be cut almost everywhere. Small things worked. Signs burnt with bright colors, sucking their energy from golden wires that coiled into the air and ended miraculously like antennae. But there was one building with noticeably more juice, one that clearly had its own grid, like the localization of chemiostatic power in the north. It glowed, independent of the surrounding darkened streets.

  Miriam sent scouts to determine if it was occupied.

  Word came back that it was empty, powered on bariothermic coils near the back of the building, and that it seemed tactically sound.

  “I don’t like it,” said Autumn.

  “I don’t either. But we have more than fifty qloins here.” Miriam looked around. “I don’t want to search for another place with power, do you?”

  Autumn waved a hand back and forth.

  “No. So we’ll make camp here,” said Miriam. “Then we’ll get some food into the girls. And then we’ll head for the Iycestokian ship.”

  It had been two days and one night without sleep. It had been a full day without food. Necessities were necessities.

  Miriam led the Sisterhood into the building, which advertised an opulent set of suites. It was an old hotel where dignitaries had stayed, regal and impressive from the outside; posh on the inside. The foyer bore the taint of calamity: a vase of withered flowers, a discarded washrag twisted and hardened with dried blood. A cash register had been overturned and left empty on the carpeted floor. There were a few personal effects abandoned off the waiting area, in the west hall.

  Ensuring wealthy guests didn’t have to suffer an outage explained the localized grid. Miriam wondered how long the bariothermic coils would last. Ten, fifteen years without repair?

  She assessed the building’s lines of sight. Its position was good. It commanded a clear view of the avenue out front and looked down on all approaching streets. It was also only a few blocks from where the High King’s ship was moored. When she climbed the stairs to the hotel’s roof, she could actually see the airship, levitating amid the trees.

  The kitchen had canned goods but no running water.

  That made sense if the mayor had discovered where the disease was coming from. He would have depressurized all the mains just prior to Bablemum’s gruesome end.

  Bottled juice and alcohol would not go far. Miriam would have to find water soon. What they had carried from Parliament would not last the night.

  By the time the Sisterhood had eaten, the sun was gone.

  Miriam sent Autumn and two other sisters to the Iycestokian ship well after dark. They came back with word that the ship was only recently empty. Autumn claimed she could smell Taelin’s perfume.

  The High King was close by.

  Miriam was ready to send qloins into the surrounding streets when message came that sisters posted at the front door had received a visitor.

  Miriam went straight down to the foyer and found an enormous Veyden. He waited quietly, surrounded by drawn kyrus.

  “He has the mark,” said one of the girls.

  So this Veyden was from the Willin Droul? This would explain their ability to evade the Sisterhood’s diaglyphs and why they had shrunk from Miriam’s approach.

  Four girls surrounded the huge man, trepidation painted on their faces. Miriam planted herself in front of him.

  “Sit down,” she ordered.

  He did so.

  “What is your name?”

  “Kosti.”

  “Why are you here, Kosti?”

  He spoke reasonable Trade. “I need a token that I delivered my message. Something I can take back—”

  Miriam called for a small case. Autumn handed it to her. Inside was a flashing array of gems, padparadshas: the Witchocracy’s untraceable reserve currency of choice.

  She took one, large as her thumbnail, glittering with orange and pink-colored light, and put it into the Veyden’s hand.

  “Now why are you here?”

  Kosti turned the gem in his big green fingers. “I have a message from the Sslia.” Miriam’s heart stilled but she maintained her composure.

  “Get on with it,” she said after his unbearable pause.

  “She will come. Tonight. Here.”

  Miriam watched him closely. Kosti’s cagey eyes flicked first to Autumn’s face, then once again to hers. He watched them with animal interest for signs of deception, but Miriam couldn’t tell what he might be thinking. His facial tattoos blackened the serenity of unmoving cliff-like structures of bone. His skull was almost prehistoric, and undeniably frightening.

  “Why is she coming here?”

  “To make peace.”

  “What do you mean make peace?”

  “To make peace is all the Sslia said.” Kosti stood up from the red leather settee and slipped the jewel into a pocket on his satin vest. Apparently he felt his duty here was over. His yellow-green hands flickered with muscles. His braided hair swung like fronds from a tropical tree.

  “Will you let me go and tell the Sslia that I delivered my message?” he asked.

  “I don’t think you’ll go back to her, Kosti. You wouldn’t want to risk leading us there. So no. I’m afraid I won’t let you go.”

  She looked at Autumn and spoke in Withil. “Take him out behind the hotel.”

  * * *

  TAELIN followed Baufent. They left the ship by way of a lightweight boarding bridge, which was anchored to a mooring tower.

  Rather than coming himself, Ku’h had sent a detail of men to escort the High King. They were not proficient in Trade.

  Taelin listened to them.

  She kept her fingertips on the cable railing. As she moved down the center of the bridge, she felt the causeway bounce under her feet. At the far end, she stepped off, through an outer mesh of caging that decorated the top of the mooring tower. A proper stone dome formed the inner shell of this caging and provided an apse-like space, lit with wild torchlight and painted with a profoundly ancient-looking cyclorama. Taelin had to duck her head.

  One of the Veydens spoke to the High King and gestured toward a set of stairs that led down. Although it was plain that Caliph didn’t understand their speech, body language sufficed and the Veyden quickly switched to rudimentary Trade, still beckoning with his hand. “Come,” he said. “Come, come.”

  The stairs under the painted dome funneled Taelin down a guttering orange nightmare. Flames flapped in the warm dense air, sounding like water.

  Sometimes the inside-girl talked to her. Sometimes there was a dryer, older, darker whisper in her ear, telling her what to do. Or more specifically, what not to do. It was her mission from Sena to ignore both of these voices, which was difficult—especially when the inside-girl chimed in.

  Father says you shouldn’t listen to her. The witch is lying …

  To help ward the voices off, Taelin rubbed the demonifuge between her thumb and fingers. It was cold and comforting against the warm humidity of this place. She worked it vigorously. Like picking at a sore, it drove her on, wanting to be open, slick and glaring.

  As she followed Caliph Howl and the others down into the tower’s belly, she pushed at the necklace’s edges, felt the setting bend and stretch.

  Shapes moved under the splashy torchlight. Taelin fumbled for her goggles. She tightened them to her head and rummaged in her pocket. She stopped while the others walked on and pulled out the secret tin. There were only three sticks left. She had rolled them earlier. She took one. The crinkling sound and the texture between her fingers offered prompt reassurance. She could feel the seeds sliding inside.

  She patted herself, found her box of matches and snapped one. The wonderful s
mell effused, of the beggary seeds’ first contact with fire.

  “What is she doing?” Caliph’s voice was far away. “Ubelievable…” There were hands on her arms now. She batted them away.

  “Gods…”

  “Does it really matter? Let her smoke.”

  “Just put her on a godsdamned leash!”

  The goggles made the world lovely-tinted. The stonework inside the tower was transformed into puccoon patterns while the torches snapped—pretty sheets of coquelicot.

  Supposed to be mine. Mine. One of the voices was like a feather quill scratching over paper.

  Taelin didn’t know what that meant, but she held the demonifuge close. She tried to block the voice out with another drag as she tumbled out of the tower and into the humming, dripping streets of Bablemum. She was following the crowd.

  Glowing signs made strange oases of light. A few of them anyway. Neon colors bubbled. Liquid buzzing sounds soothed her indescribably.

  There were thick curved walls, unlike the squared angles of northern cities. And there were tropical trees whose leaves dangled like belts of leather. Vines lit with pale florets threaded the masonry like star maps.

  “I’m hungry.”

  No one heard her.

  “I’m hungry!”

  “We’ll get you something in a moment, dear. We’re going to dinner.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Taelin. She looked at the physician’s short solid body padding through the street, dark and compact, hair unmoving. Her profile in the strange light was vaguely rodent-like. “Are you married, Dr. Baufent?”

  The physician snorted.

  “No children?” Taelin pressed.

  “I live alone.”

  “That’s good,” said Taelin. “Less sadness … back in Isca … you know? When the jungle eats us.” She burst into laughter. Boisterous. Filled with genuine glee. “Oh, shit! We’re going to dinner!” She bent forward at the waist, eyes closed, bellowing so hard she nearly dropped her smoke.

  No one was laughing with her. In fact, she could hear them talking about her.

  “Shut her up?”

  “… already smoking … it’s dangerous to double up on sedatives.”

  “We can drag her.”

  She opened her eyes and stared down at a face cast in dark silver. Hairless and dead, it was attached to the body of a teenager that lay crumpled in the street. One of its eyes was filmy but still glistened with moisture. The other had been gored out, probably by a bird. It stank of rotting fish and its abdomen had been opened by scavengers.

  Taelin stopped laughing. Her mouth opened wide as she lost her balance and stumbled forward, bashing her knees on the bricks, skinning her palms. She recovered clumsily, felt Caliph’s strong grip under her arm.

  She gasped for air. Heavy and fungal, tainted with a billon spores.

  “Ahh…” Her mouth was open, drooling. “Ahh … I’m going to be sick.”

  “Give her one of your tablets,” said Baufent.

  “I already did.”

  Behind the voice of the High King were the voices of the Veydens. They sounded gruff but frightened, talking in their language of inverted vowels. They were saying strange things that she doubted Caliph would approve of. Assuming she had understood. She wasn’t exactly fluent. They were talking about Sena. But she felt distracted from the conversation by the silver body. Rather bodies.

  “Nenuln!”

  They were everywhere! A sediment. Debris borne in on a violent tide, deposited without decorum, strewn limb over torso across curb and fender. They were tangled around doorjambs and bariothermic transformers. Ravaged. Some stripped to the bone. Rib cages strung with pemmican.

  “Oh shit! Ohshit-ohshit-ohsit!” Her legs gave way again.

  You know it was Corwin that saved me? He pushed me out of the way at the last moment. Then this beautiful glowing stone came down on his head. And he just … disappeared. Is that what you’re going to do? Sacrifice yourself to save Sena? Push her out of the way while the Yillo’tharnah come down on you?

  Don’t do it.

  The inside-girl wouldn’t be quiet.

  The smell of the dead city was in her mouth, her eyes, her hair.

  The dry whisper of the old man was in her ears, urging her to stop working the soft metal of her necklace, to stop bending it back and forth, back and forth.

  “Soon—soon,” Taelin whispered.

  Taelin had lost her cigarette. She spun around in Caliph’s grip. Her whole body felt sticky with sweat. “Gods you have beautiful eyes,” she said directly into his face. “Cobra-brown.”

  Then one of the Veydens hissed that they needed to be quiet. That someone was coming. She felt the familiar stab of a hypodermic. People were always giving her injections.

  She was laughing again, because the color of death was pink.

  CHAPTER

  48

  When Taelin went slack, Caliph nearly dropped her. Her eyes were hidden behind the dark red lenses of her goggles. He hoisted her limp body across his shoulders, holding a leg and an arm. He tried to gallop toward the Veyden escorts that were motioning to him, windmilling their long olive-colored arms, trying to encourage him through a kind of stone doorway that led into a small court.

  The doorway was vaguely coffin-shaped and he bashed Taelin’s head unintentionally against the awkward frame.

  “Fuck! Is she all right?”

  “Bit of a bump is all,” whispered Baufent.

  As soon as Caliph was through, the Veydens panned their hands. Clearly they wanted him to be quiet.

  Caliph had no idea what might have spooked them but he decided the best course was to exercise a bit of trust.

  On the walls of the court, Caliph could make out several posters of children in southern dress. Their faces were made adult with makeup and they struck strangely sexual poses as they marketed some diversion located at 2229 Led’Nhool N’god.

  Sinewy feline shapes hissed from atop a pile of cryptic refuse—things partly organic and partly incomprehensible because they were intricate and foreign. The Veydens led them across the pavement.

  Caliph could hear a hive of bariothermic coils. It buzzed against the foundations of the next city block. Initially the sound masked low gluttonous slurping sounds in the darkness. But as they neared the hive’s brain-like convolutions, Caliph drew up.

  Icy white fog from the tubing mixed with holomorphic sparkles. The pale light revealed a ghoul hunched over the body of a dog. The sound of eating became clear and Caliph almost let go of Taelin.

  Before he could set her down, one of the Veydens had driven his spear into the creature’s shoulder. The blade entered along the neck, behind the clavicle, following the creature’s spine into its chest cavity. The Veyden jerked the spear around, presumably slicing up internal organs before wrenching it free.

  Just as the event seemed over and they began to move on, something grabbed Caliph and jerked him sideways against the wall. Again, he almost dropped Taelin. Bolts stuck mindlessly from the mortar where they might have once supported fire escapes. He had gotten snagged.

  Baufent asked if he was all right. He nodded but felt his irritation dilate. He did not like his lack of direction or his lack of control.

  Where are we going?

  He couldn’t ask because the only word his guide seemed to know was come.

  At the end of the barren court, an eight-foot wall blocked any possibility of progress. A ridge of cement topping the wall had been embedded with broken bottles and random shards of glass.

  The Veydens drew up and Caliph wondered if they were lost. He turned to Baufent whose face was lacquered in wild color. A streetlamp beyond the wall threw its rays through the broken glass. Baufent’s face caught a reddish-purple triangle over one eye and a thin strip of green across her lips and chin.

  She looked terrified.

  Caliph listened to the bubbling sound of the streetlamp. He was just about to ask her opinion when one of the Veydens wrestled with a
metal hatch set atop a short cement cylinder. The cylinder was twelve feet across but only four feet high and the Veyden knelt on it, fumbling with something.

  With an objectionable grating sound he finally drew the hatch up. A mephitic burp rolled out of the city’s guts. Caliph peered in. Pestilential darkness sighed.

  Why are we going down? thought Caliph. We’re supposed to be going to dinner …

  “Come,” said the man.

  “I don’t know about this.” Caliph directed his doubt at Baufent.

  “I don’t know about it either.” She looked around, first at the serrated wall then back toward the stone doorway they had come through. “Do we really have a choice?”

  “You always have a choice.”

  The Veyden was getting impatient. He patted the top of the cement cylinder with the flat of his hand. “Come, come!” The other two had already gone inside.

  Caliph thought of the Iycestokian ship, floating back at the edge of the city. It was the only place he knew that represented relative safety. But could he find his way back to it? What if he ran headlong into whatever had spooked his guides? Even if he did manage to reach the ship, carrying Taelin the entire way, he still didn’t know what to do from there.

  And where would he—

  “Come!” The man’s whisper resembled a shout.

  Caliph glared at him. But the Veyden did not shrink. He beckoned, pulling with those great fingers, gesturing for Caliph to hand Taelin over.

  Caliph looked at Baufent once more. She hesitated then nodded her assent.

  “Okay,” said Caliph, after which he didn’t sigh or deliberate. He rolled Taelin off his aching shoulders and into the big man’s arms. Then he climbed atop the cement tube and looked down. The fumes smacked him in the face. He felt dizzy.

  The man reached out and steadied him.

  Of all possible realities, this had to be the most improbable. He found no humor in the bizarre fact that he was climbing into a foreign sewer. He gritted his teeth, clenched them until it felt like they might shatter. Then he helped Baufent up onto the access point and lowered her carefully onto the rungs.

  “Thank you,” she said as she began feeling her way down into the dark. “I think.”