Black Bottle

by Anthony Huso

  CHAPTER

  50

  The Veyden messenger that had told the lie—that Sena was on her way to make peace—was dead. Autumn had taken him out behind the hotel as ordered. Shortly after her return, Miriam had noticed how things had changed: how everything had a wrongness to it.

  As the Sisterhood’s attention had been pulled inward, diverted from the exterior of the hotel and focused on the mysterious Veyden messenger, the lights in the Grand Elesh’Ox had shifted color. They were not dimmer. But they had turned from yellow-orange to olive-green. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the ornate textured wallpaper began to peel.

  When some of the furniture started floating, spare inches above the floor, Miriam knew what was happening.

  The humidity doubled. Then it doubled again. It was like breathing water. The whole building felt like it had been scuttled. Miriam’s feet barely kept contact with the ground.

  Outside, in the wide avenues, shapes were massing—orderless and green, shadowed by distance and atmospheric moisture, flickering with a hint of silvery, reflective skin.

  The Willin Droul were coming.

  From all quarters, from every building, street and drain, a huge circle of hungry variegated forms drew in around the grand hotel. It was clear to Miriam that the Sisterhood had been led into a trap.

  Miriam blamed herself for this mistake.

  From the Grand Elesh’Ox, the collective smell of the Sisterhood’s skin, warm and fragrant, bled out into the avenues. Her girls were leeches, dangling in the watery air, baiting in a great gathering of silvery schools.

  The snuffling groans, the chirrups of titillation and ecstasy were audible as the hoard surrounded the building. Miriam watched hungry eyes gather in the streets, eager for the slaughter. Some eyes were visible. Many more were not. Mounds of rags stood and swayed. The Willin Droul clogged every alleyway; they filled every adjacent window.

  Talons and fat lumpen heads scraped the brickwork around the hotel’s foundations. Tentacles wrangling from fishy jowls; they tasted over sashes and drip caps. The creatures had ringed the Elesh’Ox with wards. All exits were sealed from the outside, with fish-blood holomorphy; with puissant ancient skill.

  “They’re everywhere,” said Autumn. “We have to get out.”

  “They’ve sealed the corners,” said Miriam. Even with the Sisterhood’s own blood, which Miriam was not prepared to spill, moving in the absence of the starlines—as her qloin had done in the desert—was not possible. In order to attempt it, they would need to get out of the hotel, out of the streets, out of the damping holomorphy that the Willin Droul had draped over everything.

  Miriam didn’t feel like she should have to explain all this—especially to Autumn—so all she said was, “Put a qloin above the delivery door.”

  “Already done.”

  “Good,” said Miriam. Even that single word had to be forced with great effort past her teeth. She wasn’t going to try and run. In some ways, she was grateful that the Willin Droul had sealed them in. The Sisterhood had already seen too much failure and death; too much running. Tonight would be different.

  As the Willin Droul surrounded the building, Miriam took comfort in the idea that Sena might have orchestrated this ambush. That, at least, would be better than being outwitted by fish. She wondered if it had always been Sena’s aim to destroy the organization that had burned her mother.

  If so, there was something to admire there in the ruthlessness of the planning. In light of what the Sslia was supposed to do, it struck Miriam as peculiarly meticulous that Sena would, on her way to whatever oblivion awaited her, arrange to destroy the organization that had given her so much. Given and admittedly taken away. Was this why she had flown an airship into the south instead of simply walking lines? To lure the Sisterhood to the Willin Droul’s ancient seat of power?

  Huge bodies threw themselves against the hotel’s outer walls. Miriam heard windows breaking in the back.

  As the clamor rose, there was no doubt that Sena would not show up for this finale. The Sslia had more important things to do. Giganalee had been right. Who else but Sienae Iilool could claim the mantle of the Eighth House? And the Eighth House did not use its hands. It used its minions to get things done.

  “What if we jump?” asked Autumn. “We can go roof to roof. We can use their blood to fuel an escape.”

  “You don’t think they’re on every rooftop for a quarter mile in every direction? Waiting for us? Have you counted them?”

  Autumn licked her lips.

  It was fitting, thought Miriam, that the girl from the isles, who had arrived out of Greenwick so long ago would have hands like these. The fingers of the Eighth House were silver, slippery and ichthyic.

  “We have to try,” said Autumn. “We can’t give up.”

  “All right.” Miriam made the southern hand sign for yes. “But I’m not going to run like I did in the desert. Tonight I’m going to stay here. Take half the cohort and tell them to try and escape across the roofs. The other half will lead a distraction—with me. We’ll try to hold them in the street. The rest of you are free to go.”

  “I’m staying with you.” Autumn’s eyes told of disappointment. She wanted for Miriam and herself to be in the half that fled: that escaped. Who will lead the Sisterhood? was a question neither of them asked.

  “All right,” said Miriam. “Go and get them sorted.” But Autumn, baby … they’re not going to make it.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Autumn did as she was told.

  This was how the world would end, thought Miriam. Amid the gluttony and screams of those insensitive to the miracle that they were still alive. Amid the chaos of disease and universal pandemonium, those that represented the last vestige of intelligent life would squander their advantage in this avenue, on this city block.

  She chuckled bitterly as she hustled down the hotel’s main staircase, conspicuously unafraid, incapable of changing what was going to happen.

  The hotel was dark. Miriam had ordered all the lights put out. Witches covered its rooftop, crouched on dormer peaks, ledges and cornices like gargoyles. Their sweat unfurled from waxed cotton and drifted, tantalizing the crooning horde below. The horde began to hop and lurch excitedly, cracking paving stones with their collective mass.

  Miriam waited for Autumn in the foyer. She peered out through a jalousie while the building’s foundations shook. The panes of glass rattled in their frames. She sensed the Sisterhood shift within the hotel, anxious. Sisters appeared in the stairwells.

  Autumn squeezed her way through them, down the wood and tile steps. When she reached Miriam, she spoke in Withil. “We’re ready.”

  “All right.”

  Miriam ordered the doors thrown open.

  At the front of the building, a wide porch cupped the curvature of the facade. From it, a flight of stairs ran directly to the street. Miriam walked out, kyru in hand. She stood at the head of the steps and gazed down hatefully into the multitude. Sickly fingerlings, thin and newly changed, mewled below her as if waiting for some sign.

  Although their insatiable hunger had pulled them close to the Grand Elesh’Ox, Miriam decided there was no real order to the ranks. The flawless of Ulung stood shrouded in black canopies, surrounded by their spawn, paws like pink cake batter dripped from their sleeves.

  Other flawless had also arrived. She recognized their diverse forms from Sandren, Iycestoke and the White Marshes of Pandragor. They did not represent a uniform horror. They took many different shapes. Similarity was sparse but a turgid opaline sheen marked them as one.

  In the avenue, Bablemumish sculptures of black marble, pewter and beryllium found new uses. They allowed the Willin Droul to coil their limbs around sculpted legs and arms and thereby support their grotesque fatness. They had modified the air so that gills could breathe. They had changed gravity so that huge bodies could have some relief—but it was not complete and they were still heavy and this was not the same as swimming.

  For
a while, the Lua’groc held back, perhaps savoring the moment. Miriam noticed Autumn come out of the hotel and stand beside her. Her sweet ancilla. She did not regret the moments when they had been just that: cephal’matris and ancilla—when she had been forced to give orders, and Autumn had been obligated to carry them out. The hierarchy had never been an impediment for them. For them, the protocols had only ever allowed them additional ways to show each other respect. To love each other. She had never ordered Autumn around like a subordinate. Ever. There had always been that understanding between them, that they were partners. That they were a team.

  Other sisters came out onto the porch, kyrus glittering.

  Miriam was almost ready to give the command when Autumn smiled as if for an ambrotypist, modeling the perfect young athletic face of the north. The lean sweat-dappled cheeks and arms. Then she drew back and pitched her kyru into the horde.

  The blade landed in a white forehead and blood like lake water rolled out. The windows and peaks of the Grand Elesh’Ox began to mumble with voices. Witches pulled at currents of holojoules in the Unknown Tongue and threaded the power of the Willin Droul’s blood into divergent equations. A bubble of humid dreams surrounded the hotel and sealed the witches in, but they could still use hemofurtum to fight.

  An orgy of self-mutilation began among the fingerlings who, under the numbers of the witches, started clawing off their own skins. Their blood fueled other deceptions as some of the flawless turned their long striped talons on one another. Bodies flew. Limbs and organs cartwheeled through sultry blood-flecked air.

  Then chirrups and barks and groans welled from the numberless congregation and endless ranks surged at the Elesh’Ox.

  Miriam watched the heavy bodies stampede toward her as she talked. With every few words another of the Lua’groc died. But they were without number and without fear.

  Lacking a final moment of glory, Autumn disappeared less than ten feet in front of her, swallowed up at the base of the steps. When that happened, Miriam did not scream and throw herself into desperate battle. Instead she dropped her kyru and stopped talking. She looked up at the cloudy sky, hinting at more rain, away from the abortive ancient things that floundered up the staircase and trampled her under claw and limb. The rough brush of their hides, the slapping wetness of their bindings, the stink of their gasses was gagging.

  She gasped from the impact, breath forced out when their weight ground her against the right angles of the stairs. They broke her bones. They crushed her rib cage like a sack full of kindling.

  And there was blood. An elemental figure in a holomorph’s death. Hot red wax running down the stairs. She searched for any sign of Autumn between the shuffling legs but her head was pointed in the wrong way and the world was getting cloudy.

  The greatest equations were products of suicide. She opened her mouth in a bid for final retribution. To gather all of what had spilled out of her into one conclusive strike: a detonation that would kill hundreds. But Miriam’s lungs were empty and she could not fill them.

  CHAPTER

  51

  Sena watched as the tincture unfurled its pseudo-reality, its time-bent brand of postulations-cum-potential-for-meddling.

  It was Caliph’s third journey. Though the pain of entry into dream was not so bad—the damage this dose did was extreme. She had lied: he would not recover.

  But that didn’t matter. Nathaniel was right. This was her chance to say good-bye, and to apologize.

  The tincture brought them both, Caliph as traveler and Sena as guide, down hard in the House on Isca Hill.

  In this dream, Caliph was coloring at the kitchen table while his uncle stood in the sunlight holding the Cisrym Ta, reading. She hoped Nathaniel would not follow her. She hoped he believed what he had said and was allotting her this time for closure.

  Sena looked around the room. A man in formal uniform was cooking eggs and strudel at the stove. Over Caliph’s shoulder Sena could see that he was drawing red and purple monsters. Their shapes were like simple clouds with serrations instead of soft curves. Their almond-shaped eyes had slits for pupils. Their mouths were jagged.

  She wondered why his mind had gone here, of all possible memories. Perhaps the monsters in the sewer had chased him to this quiet morning where similar fears were explained with crayons.

  The smell of breakfast was delicious. A bell rang in the house and Nathaniel did not look up from the book. The servant picked up a towel and wiped his hands.

  “Let Caliph get it,” said Nathaniel.

  Caliph sat at the table, engrossed in his images, pressing hard against the paper so that each stroke made a soft smack when he pulled the crayon away.

  “Caliph! Get the door!”

  Sena watched the command register. Caliph didn’t look at his uncle but his young eyes grew wide. He glanced peripherally as he slid off his chair.

  In an act of betrayal, the crayon rolled off the table. It clattered loudly. The sound of it pulled him up short though he had already marched halfway across the room.

  He turned around, looking frightened, then walked back. He picked the crayon up and set it on the table, making sure it didn’t move again. A quick glance at his uncle confirmed that Nathaniel was staring at him. Then Caliph walked fast out of the room, legs leading, butt tucked in, wary of a swat.

  Sena followed him down the dim passageway between the mansion’s kitchen and its foyer. Little Caliph glanced over his shoulder but Sena was invisible to him. All he cared about was that his uncle was not behind him.

  When Caliph reached the foyer he struggled with the huge door, trying the dead bolt several times before understanding which way he had to flip it. Then he tugged with his whole body, barely managing to drag the portal back.

  The day outside was young and brutally cold. Fine snow sifted from the sky and icy golden light flared into the foyer around three women. Sena was stunned. She had not expected this.

  “Hello,” one of the women said. Her eyes glittered with miniature carvings. “Is your uncle home?”

  “Yes.” Caliph stood there, staring at the women.

  “Can he come to the door?”

  Caliph put his lips tightly together and nodded. Then he walked stiffly to the passageway and called out, “Uncle Nathaniel!”

  Instantly the black billow of Nathaniel’s robes gusted down the hallway. His lips were bloodless, his expression one of infinite irritation.

  “Who is it?”

  “Some ladies,” said Caliph.

  Nathaniel entered the foyer and stared at the women on the front steps. His scowl deepened. He pulled his robes around him and snapped his book shut.

  “Nathaniel Howl,” said one of the women but her eyes, all the witches’ eyes were on the book.

  He sneered at them. “Unable to get in through the windows, I assume?”

  “We’re willing to make a transaction,” said the witch.

  Nathaniel didn’t laugh. Instead his lips pulled back from his teeth in the manner of a cornered animal. “Really? Belting the three of you nightly until my heart wears out?” He shook the book at them and did not invite them in. “You’ll stay out there until I’m ready. And when I’m ready…” He giggled softly. “Well, I’m sure the three of you can piece it together to be gone by then.”

  “You think you’ll survive long enough? To get ready?” The cephal’matris took half a step closer, keenly aware of her inability to enter the house, but threatening nevertheless.

  Sena saw Nathaniel’s eyes dilate with inhuman blackness. He took several steps toward the threshold, book in hand, smiling rapaciously. The entire qloin drew back. It was impressive, even to Sena, to see them cower.

  “Yes. Yes I do believe I’ll be around,” said Nathaniel. “Long after the three of you are not. Yes. I’ll be here. Rest assured. Arrangements have been made.”

  “The Sisterhood can make you the richest man north of Eh’Muhruk Muht.” Sena looked at the cephal’matris’ quavering eyes. She was lovely and young
and scared, sent out by Megan to do what could not be done.

  “Why not the richest man north or south?” asked Nathaniel. “Why not the richest anywhere? I’ll tell you why, you pathetic pully-haully whores. Because you can’t give what you don’t have. You are not remotely powerful enough to offer me what I want. What I want, I will get. Myself! And you,” he pointed at her directly, “will go back and inform that whitewashed cunt you call the Eighth House of my decision. Have a wonderful day. Ladies.”

  He shut the door and turned to Caliph who had been sitting on a tall back chair in the foyer, listening quietly to the exchange. “Women are receptacles, Caliph. You have to give them something to hold. Pound it into them really. That’s why, in the end, I’m going to survive. Because I can see the future, boy. Did you know that? I can see it. Just like my daughter, with her immortal eyes. Her perfect immortal eyes. They’ll carry whatever burdens I give them. And it’s going to be wonderful. A brilliant success.”

  Caliph swallowed hard as his uncle stormed out of the foyer. “Don’t answer the door again,” Nathaniel shrieked.

  * * *

  SENA marveled at this serendipitous insight.

  His daughter? Here was undeniable proof that all his notes had been careful deceptions. Not a surprise. But what was surprising, and the thing that sent a shiver through Sena’s immortal flesh was that Nathaniel had not sent her to Soth to rescue his daughter …

  But to rescue her eyes.

  How could she not have seen that? The double fake! Pretending he loved his daughter and then when the lie was uncovered, he was able to make it seem that Sena had guessed right, that Arrian had meant little to him—when in fact the opposite was true.

  He needed his daughter desperately as any holomorph needs a drop of blood.