The Last Page ch-1

by Anthony Huso

  Now at twenty-six, Caliph Howl faces a multitude of political challenges not unrelated to his uncle’s reign.

  Dr. Yewl, professor of Stonehavian Politics at Shaerzac University says this Howl will face more challenges than any other High King since Raymond VII.

  “Unlike [Raymond], who survived the Purple War when tensions between the Pplar and Stonehold peaked, Caliph Howl will have to earn the people’s respect,” said Yewl. “He will have to secure his authority while everyone is thinking he’s the nephew of a categorical tyrant. On top of that, he’s the youngest High King in the Duchy’s 668 years of independence.”

  Though opinions polled in Three Cats show a majority favor the Council’s dissolution and the reinstatement of the Office of the High King, fears persist that memories of Nathaniel Howl may darken the new king’s reign.

  Another omen is Caliph Howl’s mysterious disappearance immediately following his graduation, an event that has troubled many Stonehavians. New information from an unnamed source in Isca Castle goes

  so far as to claim the High King was found only days ago in the company of witches somewhere in the Highlands of Tue.

  And while critics assert this means we are in for another dubious kingship, supporters pass the accusations off as laughable.

  “I don’t think King Howl was within a hundred miles of Tue. He wasn’t [messing about] with witches any more than Councilor Deuad

  n was walking on the moon,” said Jeff Tibbs.

  Tibbs, an experienced castle historian is conducting a poll on Stonehavian sentiment toward the aging monarchy.

  His findings will be published in a subsequent edition of the

  Herald

  .

  “I’m gathering a lot of fascinating data,” said Tibbs.

  “One anonymous man from Candleshine heard that Caliph Howl had been crowned and I think his exact words were, ‘Kings are for storybooks. Get the Council back’s a better choice. That way there’s no throne to fight over.’ ”

  Unfortunately, for Stonehavians like this man, the High Throne continues to cause turmoil. And with the High King’s alleged secret trip to Tue and rumors of a “witch pact” spreading through every pub and bistro, tension seems inevitable.

  Certainly Isca’s free-tongued assayers are already arguing.

  “Whatever the truth is, we’re not likely to hear it from King Howl’s mouth. At least not for the first few weeks of his reign,” said Tibbs, who expects the coming month to be relatively quiet as Caliph Howl meets with various advisors and familiarizes himself with the routines of his new office.

  “Certainly he’ll be out and about, touring the city discreetly and making appearances at important events. Namely the rededication of Hullmallow Cathedral in Grue Hill and probably the opening night of

  Er Krue Alteirz

  at the Murkbell Opera House.

  “With tensions growing between Isca and Miskatoll few things are certain except that Caliph Howl has his work cut out for him.

  “On a lighter note,” Tibbs laughs, “one thing I can’t figure out. [The High King] apparently refuses to wear clothing befitting his office. I guess [he] prefers stuff that’s simply black.”

  So what can we expect from our king in black? War? Witchcraft? Only the summer of 561 will tell.

  Caliph had eaten his eggs and strudel while he read. He set the tray and the rest of the paper aside.

  Obviously in the sixteen years since his uncle’s death, the voice of the press had blossomed under a democratic Council. Caliph didn’t mind. It was time people started thinking. And who could blame them for wondering? It was his fault. Running away from responsibility.

  He got up and washed in an enameled basin fixed in a washstand in the corner. The pipes in the wall hammered at him as air worked itself out.

  Light from the west was creeping in, a great golden blaze that seared the cold gray skies above the Greencap Mountains and ignited the cherry wood moldings and furnishings with exquisite luster. The white floor turned to gold.

  Caliph’s bedroom was situated so that it looked west and north over the cliffs and walls of the Hold and down on the farmlands and hills and rocky moors. Despite the warming season, mornings in Stonehold remained chilly and damp.

  Caliph dawdled. Finally, Gadriel returned.

  “Mr. Vhortghast is here, your majesty. He’s waiting in the royal study.”

  “Oh good . . . uh—”

  “I’ll show you the way,” Gadriel said in a warm tone that indicated Caliph’s fumbling ignorance would not be faulted. “We will, of course, have it redone to suit your tastes. If you have any particular requests simply mention them to me and I will ensure they are taken care of. Your book buyer is already combing the shops for—”

  “I have my own book buyer?”

  “Of course.”

  “All he does is buy books?”

  “She, your majesty. And yes. She summers in the Duchy but travels the rest of the year to Pandragor and Yorba, returning with the newest publications in the spring.”

  “I take it she doesn’t like the cold.”

  They had left the bedroom, gone through several up and down staircases and were now walking briskly under ribbed vaults, heading in a southerly direction. Suddenly they stopped at an ogive fitted with a heavy oak door.

  As Gadriel opened the portal a slender man immediately rose to his feet.

  Caliph was mildly disappointed. He had been harboring a suspicion that the man from the train platform, who’d called himself Alani, would turn out to be Zane Vhortghast. He had asked the zeppelin crew how they had found him, whether there had been a spy, but no one would give him a straight answer.

  As it was, the spymaster looked nothing like the pock-faced man he’d seen under the streetlamp in Crow’s Eye.

  Caliph did not have time to examine the room before Mr. Vhortghast was at the doorway, shaking hands, smiling and bidding the High King to please follow him for there was much to see and much to do.

  As they hurried down the hall, Caliph saw Gadriel look after him with an expression of fleeting paternal concern.

  The spymaster was a wiry creature several inches taller than Caliph. He moved with profound grace and was dressed no doubt for the occasion, sporting a luxuriant herringbone suit of dark material. His face moved like malformed clay and two dark eyes had been thrust like chunks of pewter into the sockets. Overall, Caliph thought it was a visage that could easily have been hacked from a block of lard.

  “It’s good to meet you,” Caliph was saying. “I hadn’t heard of you until this morning.”

  He had noticed the spymaster’s teeth. They were ungodly: strange brutal slabs of gray ivory that had been worked with ghastly results by some dentist on Bloodsump Lane. There were faint glitters in his mouth that hinted at metal pins and makeshift attachments.

  “I’m fairly insidious.”

  Caliph smiled affably. “Really? How insidious are you?”

  Mr. Vhortghast grinned. A sight capable of cracking glass. “Sometimes when you’re sitting under the chain and you let one drop you get a splash that comes up and snaps you right in the hole. It’s alarming but you tend to forget about it almost immediately after it happens. I’m like that. I’m the cold water that makes your ass pucker.”

  “I see.”

  Together, they reached the south courtyard where a carriage was already waiting. A Pandragonian man with long lemon-colored hair and skin as brown as chestnuts stood by, wearing an open shirt and roomy pantaloons. He carried a chemiostatic sword on his hip. The green light of the cell in its pommel turned his hand a ghastly undying color.

  “This is Ngyumuh,” said Vhortghast. Ngyumuh bowed slightly at the waist. “We’ll have additional security as we make our tour but you won’t see them.”

  Ngyumuh opened the carriage door for both men and once they were inside shut it again.

  Caliph watched the Pandragonian man climb up alongside the driver as the carriage lurched forward.

/>   Vhortghast sat across from him, noticing where Caliph looked and what caught his eye.

  “You’re a watcher of people,” Caliph surmised.

  Vhortghast said nothing but looked out the window as they trundled across the drawbridge, over the moat and into the the Hold: Isca’s only independently walled borough.

  “Bit of a mess in the Herald, eh?” The spymaster looked apologetic. “But nothing we can’t fix.”

  “What? You mean about the witches?”

  Vhortghast nodded.

  Caliph glanced back at Isca Castle. The high tower rose like an incredible needle from the midst of half a dozen lesser spires, all of which gleamed yellow on the west side, slowly melting out of the cool blue shadows in the east.

  “Do you know anything about them?” Caliph asked.

  Zane studied him as though gauging whether Caliph was really ignorant.

  Caliph threw his hands up.

  “Look, I didn’t expect to find a pack of women in the middle of the woods. I’m asking you what you know about them.”

  The spymaster glanced out the window as they passed the brown dragons of Octul Box.

  “Of course I know about them. But the details concerning Shrdnae Witches are always foggy. They hide behind layers of deception. If a witch hunter shows up in Miryhr with a valise full of gadgetry for detecting holojoules, folks direct him, as they’re supposed to, toward Eloth where they know he’ll find nothing but gruelocks and death.

  “They despise Stonehold for reasons I’m sure you picked up in history class. But they’re more secretive than the Long Nine.”

  “I see. But that’s it? I mean, what do you know about them?”

  Vhortghast looked offended as he tapped his fingers on his cane.

  “They’re loose fish. Soiled doves. They’re trained from prepubescence up to give better spread than the Rose Courtesans in Iycestoke. Is that graphic enough? A witch in the right position can tie a baron or barrister tighter with the laces of her stockings than with a length of rope.

  “They’re a political entity. Once the governments of the north hunted them. Now, in Miryhr at least, the witches are the government. Really, your majesty. What is it that you want to know?”

  Caliph supposed that pretty much covered it. There wasn’t much there that he hadn’t heard before. But the thought of Sena doing strange things, secret things for an underworld organization put a coldness under his skin.

  He looked out the window at half a dozen strange towers in the direction of Temple Hill. Above the pitched rooftops and shanties that clung like barnacles to decrepit town houses and gray tenements, the towers rose like bones.

  “That’s Gilnaroth,” Vhortghast waved at the looming stone shapes, “the citizens’ necropolis. Anyone who can afford it is buried in Marbolia, the upper crust’s cemetery located in Os Sacrum.”

  Caliph nodded. “Yes that’s right, that’s not far from Candleshine—I used to live there.”

  “I know.” Mr. Vhortghast regarded Caliph shrewdly.

  Caliph frowned. “You seem to know an awful lot about me. I’m told you saved my life several times while I was at Desdae.”

  “Only three. Three in eight years isn’t bad.”

  “I’d like to hear the details.”

  The spymaster smiled wanly.

  “Well, twice it was Saergaeth—though that’s not common knowledge and we have no proof to substantiate it. But he gave up after the second attempt. We sent him a clear message that you were quite safe and would continue to be quite safe so long as you were at school. Those were two and three. The first occasion was actually some stray effort—we’re not sure whether it was funded by a government or an independent company.”

  “I see. And how do you do it? How do you come by your information—?”

  “Whispers, gurgles. It’s the usual network of filth. Like a sewer system, really.” Vhortghast drew a handkerchief from his vest and wiped his hands as though conscious of some asomatous stain.

  “The bigger the city, the more advanced the network. Not many people like to work in the sewers and you could say the same about spy networks. There’s no trick. Just like a city engineer memorizes the various tunnels and cesspools, I remember the names and places and take note when things change . . . when people die.

  “And now I’d like to hear how you gave my men the slip. How did you get out of Desdae without being seen?”

  “I went out the attic and down a tree. Maybe your men need better training.”

  Zane Vortghast smiled.

  The sinister towers of Gilnaroth had already fallen behind a series of pubs and restaurants that fronted stores at ground level while upper windows revealed apartments and trendy domiciles of artists and musicians whose wrought-iron balconies dangled with plants and banners welcoming the new king.

  WELCOME TO BARROW HILL, KING HOWL read one of the softly curling banners.

  “How do they know I’ll see?”

  “They don’t,” said Vhortghast. “Mostly it’s marketing. Everyone’s claiming you patronize their establishment these days. You’re the newest way to advertise anything. And artists more than most need to eat.”

  Caliph nodded with sudden wonderment. He hadn’t fully realized his fame. It was obvious that no one really knew what he looked like up close. Litho-slides would make their way into the papers fairly soon but in the meantime they could tell he had dark hair.

  Crude renderings of his image had been plastered up in patisseries and clothiers. They looked nothing like him.

  THE HIGH KING’S STYLE IS HERE! promised one poster in a barbershop window. LOOK LIKE THE KING!

  Caliph’s jaw went slack.

  “Pathetic isn’t it?” asked Vhortghast, “until you realize they’re just trying to survive.”

  The carriage lurched out of Barrow Hill into North Fell, following King’s Road to the south.

  “Where are we going?” asked Caliph.

  “To get you a proper sword.”

  “I have a sword.”

  “No, my lord. You have a trusty blade. Obviously it fell on hard times while you were . . . traveling. In any case the monarch’s sword is his symbol. I don’t care what you wear, but we can’t have you carrying around that filthy thing.”

  Vhortghast seemed so amiably in command as he made decisions that Caliph felt no need to challenge him.

  Instead, he looked out at North Fell’s market where cheap summer clothing hung in bright racks beneath deeply shadowed arches. Faux jewelry dangled from wire-armed trees, glittering with inane narcissism.

  Already the populace was out shopping. There were early vegetables and fruits piled up on tables and overflowing baskets, attracting files and customers. Fresh cuts of meat drizzled blood on the cobblestones and children in grungy dresses and threadbare pants darted through the throngs, pressing shopkeeps for coppers and scraps.

  The carriage paused for the stately glide of a chemiostatic streetcar, looming out of a tunnel in the bulwark of ancient bricks to the west and clacking toward Blkton. It left a strange ozone smell in its wake.

  “I remember them laying the rails when I lived in Candleshine,” murmured Caliph.

  The carriage lurched forward and they trundled out of North Fell, rolling into Tin Crow where the buildings were thick as crates, overhung and ponderous with outthrust gables of stone and heavy timber.

  Finally, the carriage bounced into Three Cats where the enormous sprawling market of Gunnymead Square hunkered beneath the awesome hulk of West Gate.

  A vast haggler’s paradise, but there were certain things the determined buyer would have to go east for, into the warrens of Thief Town, Maruchine and (for the particularly adventuresome or perverse) Ghoul Court.

  Above the raucous commerce rose the massive bulk of West Gate. Nearly as large as Isca Castle and three times as threatening, West Gate was more like four castles all mortared together with flying buttresses and parapets that bridged over and looked down with solemn warning on Isca’s
busiest point of entry.

  Caliph stared at a clutch of rotting pipes that burst forth from the inner bulk of the fortress and twisted down through bolted grates, ejecting foul sediment and dark gray geysers of foaming sewage.

  Children gathered near the gouts, tossing pebbles into the torrent and threatening to push one another in. The carriage stopped.

  Ngyumuh jumped down from his seat to open the door. Vhortghast exited first and eyed the crowd. Several soldiers shoved the masses back with poleaxes and truncheons while others clustered around the carriage, forming an impenetrable wall of armored flesh.

  Caliph stepped out to the sound of cheers mixed with shouts and a few catcalls. Vhortghast bid him hurry and directed Caliph through a secured inner gate flanked by half a dozen men.

  They traveled up a square staircase pierced by windows. The effect was that the immense thickness of the wall was perforated by breathing holes like a child might punch in a shoebox for insects.

  “There’s going to be a short ceremony here. Just mumble something gracious and we’ll be on our way. They’re going to give you a sword.”

  “Who?” Caliph asked.

  Vhortghast threw open the final door at the staircase’s terminus.

  “The military of course.” Both men exited onto a windy rooftop, over three hundred feet square and crenellated on all sides. Three stout watchtowers bordered it and thrust themselves even higher into the slowly bluing sky.

  A great quantity of giant Nanemen in light armor stood in formation. Silent. Grim. Facial muscles tight and strained as though something crawled beneath their skin. They gripped heavy axes and wore claymores on their backs.

  A guttural Naneman salute stunned the air, echoed momentarily. A ferocious shouting choir on the roof of West Gate as the High King came into view.

  Caliph felt appalled.

  There were a few civic leaders present as well. A handful of barristers and judges and more than half of the burgomasters.

  Caliph took his position near the head of the army, following the subtle directions of Mr. Vhortghast. He shook hands and offered pleasantries before a horn sounded. It ripped the air and everyone’s attention across the rooftop to where, much to Caliph’s surprise, the Blue General marched out of what appeared to be a giant hangar that occupied one of the three towers. Yrisl was accompanied by a platoon of men, most of them much larger than he was.