The Last Page ch-1

by Anthony Huso

  A small effigy carved from polished black stone rested beside the paraphernalia. Shaped like a stylized ink spatter, it gleamed, bulbous at the center with exaggerated pseudopodia radiating out. Rather two-dimensional and disk-like, a single grotesque eye had been graven on its bulging middle.

  Sena’s skin went cold. It was the icon of the Wllin Droul. Ten to one odds David Thacker also bore the Mark. Sena had no wish to touch the horrible little carving.

  Several other items demanded scrutiny. A key (likely capable of opening the garden sewer grates from what Sena knew of keys), four rows of gold gryphs stacked in columns ten coins high apiece (which she was tempted instinctively to take but left alone), and finally another letter: this one from Chancellor Eaton dated in the spring of this year.

  What it said was both gracious and embarrassing. Sena felt herself flush. Apparently David Thacker had graduated without a degree.

  The coffer was the mother lode of dirty laundry, a treasure trove of bones. Sena almost felt humiliated for David Thacker (it was more than enough, way, way more than enough to destroy him) until she remembered the black icon and the key and the forty-two men and women killed in the siege.

  She shut the box and locked it and tucked it under her arm. She had what she needed. She headed for the door.

  Caliph’s plan had two outcomes depending on what Sena found. If she found nothing, she was supposed to leave the room undisturbed, return to the guest bedroom where they were temporarily staying and report. But if she found evidence, she was to remove it and bring it to Caliph who would then assess it and determine whether or not to order David Thacker’s arrest.

  There were no protocols for policing the Hold. Within the castle, the High King’s word was absolute.

  Sena reached the end of the hall and turned the corner, listening for noise. It took her by surprise when, without warning, an iron grip seized her by the elbow just above the joint.

  The pressure was exquisite, focused and educated with regards to specific points of pain. She dropped the coffer with a tumultuous clatter and tried unsuccessfully to whirl.

  Whoever it was had an expert grasp. He had her by the thumb and elbow now, tugging on her opposing digit in directions it was not meant to bend.

  “Move and I’ll break your arm.”

  Sena whimpered under the brute force.

  Mr. Vhortghast stepped out from the shadow.

  “My lady,” he said with a perfectly courtly tone. He did not remove his hands. “What oh what are you doing?”

  “Why don’t you ask the High King?” she spat.

  He released her. “Theft is still punishable by removal of the hands,” said Mr. Vhortghast.

  “Fuck off, you whey-faced freak.”

  “Tut. I’m sure this is a misunderstanding.” His voice was smooth as cream but he glowered at her. “We’ll resolve this in the morning.” He moved to pick up the fallen box.

  “Resolve it now,” Sena demanded.

  Zane Vhortghast rolled his eyes. “You mean to tell me the king is still awake and that I should disturb him in his room?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do.”

  The spymaster scoffed.

  “Or you can have it your way,” Sena fired, “and I’ll be sure to let him know what happened. He’s expecting that box.”

  Zane’s face was taciturn and tranquil. But his pause told Sena he was considering. He wasn’t stupid. He knew she slept with his employer.

  “You’re remarkable, aren’t you? Very well, I’ll accompany you to his majesty’s room.”

  “Let me carry the box,” she said.

  He thrust it at her.

  Sena took it with a sneer.

  They walked in silence, passing guards who didn’t dare glance sideways at the unlikely couple. When they reached the room currently servicing the High King, a small unit of guards saluted Zane.

  Zane raised his hand to knock. Sena smirked and simply walked in.

  Caliph pulled on a robe when he saw the spymaster. His eyes absorbed everything in an instant: the coffer in Sena’s hands, the tension in her face and Zane Vhortghast trying to look nonchalant.

  “Hello, Zane.” Then he turned to Sena and nodded at the box. “What’s this? What did you find?”

  “David Thacker,” her voice was soft, “I’m sorry, Caliph. He’s . . .” She handed him the box and the skeleton key to open it.

  After he had gone through every article, Caliph pushed the container aside, feeling sick. He handed the key to Zane who was still patiently waiting to hear what was going on.

  “That opens the sewer grates unless I’m sorely mistaken.”

  Zane took the key and frowned. “You’re suggesting the assailants came from the sewers?”

  Caliph nodded.

  “Impossible. The castle sewers are independent of the city sewers. The only way into them that doesn’t drain out of the castle is by a main line that’s locked and regularly patrolled. We’ve had no disturbances. It’s impossible that . . .” His mouth stopped working as he began to ponder more creative ways.

  There were certain prisoners in West Gate with tattoos identical to those found on the bodies tonight who had been caught trying to steal heavy machinery. The Crostate Brickyard had filed a report. All of it began to form a fuzzy picture in his mind.

  “Impossible?” asked Caliph. “Let me tell you what’s impossible. I have forty-two dead men and women. Forty-two grieving families I have to address tomorrow without any excuse for our incompetence. Now I swear—” His voice began to rise.

  “Forgive me, your majesty,” Mr. Vhortghast crooned. “I’ll have a thorough inspection of the sewers completed before dawn.”

  “Arrest David Thacker.” Caliph seemed to collapse as he said it. He sat down on the edge of the bed, utterly bereft.

  “Right away, your majesty. On what charge?”

  Caliph waved faintly at the coffer. “Qaam-dihet for now. Maybe treason later. And find out who Peter Lark is. I want to know what this letter is about.”

  “I will conduct the interrogation myself, your majesty.”

  Zane Vhortghast left the room.

  Sena felt dirty. She had never actually used her skills in this way. Pårn and fårn were innocuous choices compared to sentencing a man to death. And death, she felt certain, was what David Thacker would get.

  The basics of interrogation were simple. The first was to capitalize on the stress of capture or, in this case, arrest.

  David Thacker was thrown headlong into a filthy concrete cell. He hurt his shoulder as he tried to break his fall. Zane Vhortghast watched from a dark room behind a pane of glass while three men roughed him up. They shone lights in his eyes. Then they introduced him to the first of many stress positions.

  David Thacker kneeled on a cement floor, ankles crossed, hands behind his neck, a sandbag on his head.

  Zane Vhortghast entered the room.

  “Do you own a key to the grates in the east garden?” asked Zane.

  David was already crying.

  “No.”

  “This isn’t yours?” Zane held up the key from David’s box.

  “No. It must have been planted.”

  “Planted? How do you know where I found it?”

  “I don’t.” David sobbed. His face was awash and gleaming with snot and tears under the lights. “I just assumed you must have gotten it from somewhere.”

  Zane ignored the useless statement.

  “Do you use qaam-dihet?”

  “No. Only sometimes.” Under the lamplight, David’s sleeves had fallen down. His arms were crosshatched with an ugly pastiche of scars.

  “Who is Peter Lark?”

  David froze with fear. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.” The other men in the room took notes while Zane asked the questions.

  “Obviously he knows you. There was a letter in your box. Did he tell you to unlock the sewer grates?”

  “I told you, it’s not my key.”


  “So it’s his key, and you just agreed to unlock the grates for him?”

  “No. Peter Lark’s got nothing to do with the sewer grates. That’s something totally different.”

  Zane smiled at the sweet sound of truth.

  “Really, what does Peter Lark have to do with?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I never saw him but once and he wore some disguise.”

  “Who did you open the sewer grates for?”

  “Fuck off!”

  But the spymaster knew that David’s knees were already aching and his arms had gone numb. He was patient. “Who did you open the sewer grates for?”

  It was to be a long night of games at which David Thacker could not win.

  CHAPTER 22

  Roric Feldman was a traitor. That was the news Caliph heard on the first morning of the new month.

  A hawk had come streaking into the spires of Isca Castle like a stiletto. Its dark streamlined form shot out of a blinding dawn.

  General Yrisl was the first to read the note, which he then took directly to the king.

  Messieurs,

  Our boundaries remain ominously intact. The enemy refuses to cross the White Leech River. It remains a cold glittering line between the loyalists and the dissenters. Unfortunately, the mountains now belong to Saergaeth Brindlestrm.

  Regretfully, it is my duty to inform you that Kennan Keep, governed by Lord Roric J. Feldman, has sided with the enemy. There is neither time nor space for me to detail his treachery here. Suffice to say, Forgin’s Keep remains our last position in the Greencap Mountains.

  I respectfully request that you muster a legion as our front grows. I will position one army at Coldwell and the other at Borgoth’s Noose with the hope that we maintain our hold on Menin’s Pass.

  Else when winter comes we find ourselves cut off from the outside world.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Mortiman Tentil

  Prince of Tentinil

  Caliph sank into his chair.

  “Can we spare two armies?”

  Yrisl shook his head. “Tentinil already has five thousand active duty spread along the front. Even if the prince calls for a muster and adds his to ours we’ll wind up with a thin legion. Two armies of about four and a half thousand men.”

  “Remind me what we’re up against.”

  The general leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, hands hanging limply toward the floor.

  “The whole north is with him. That means Mortrm and Gadramere and a total of about seventeen thousand infantry compared to our fourteen. We have eleven light and seven heavy war engines to spread across six thousand square miles—all the heavies are still in Isca. Meanwhile, they have all their engines at the front. Something like eight heavy and a dozen light minus what we guess they lost at Fallow Down. All of that wouldn’t be half-bad if their zeppelins didn’t outnumber ours by more than three to one. And as you know, that’s Saergaeth’s game.

  “He pressed us to the river and dug in. Now he’s using the river as an easily maintainable line while he secures the keeps in the west as bases for the fleet of zeppelins he’s retrofitting day and night back in Miskatoll.”

  “What about King Lewis?”

  Yrisl snorted. “The intelligence the Pplarians gave us can’t be substantiated but personally I think you’d have better luck convincing a leper to spare change.”

  “So he won’t help, but let’s assume he does. Assume we can convince him.”

  “At the very best he’d give you four thousand infantry and a hundred knights. You can count Vale Briar’s zeppelins on one hand.”

  “So it’s the zeppelins that will kill us.”

  Yrisl nodded. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  Caliph signed off on the order for a muster. As the fountain pen scratched across the paper, Caliph felt a terrible premonition.

  “Do you think I should tour the field?”

  Yrisl tilted his head with a pained expression and gestured as though the matter were highly debatable. In the end, his answer was simple. “No. I wouldn’t count on Saergaeth to move before fall when the leaves are gone and there’s less cover in the woods for our troops to hide. He’ll want maximum visibility. Stark contrast for the bomb sites. Men and machines will stand out even better against snow.

  “Our morale will hold. No sense putting you in danger.”

  They avoided the topic of Fallow Down as they talked. There simply wasn’t anything to say. Nothing new had come to light and all the papers printed were the speculations drawn by scholars who struggled for the limelight by claiming expertise in some tenuously related field. In truth no one knew what had happened to Fallow Down.

  No one but Sena.

  It had been particularly difficult for her to contain her rage when Miriam had gone to the papers in an effort to dislodge her from the castle. Obviously the Sisterhood suspected something. They were turning against her. But she was cut off from them now, with no way of knowing what they knew.

  All she knew was that Megan’s hex was working. Finally. A month after the transumption hex, Fallow Down had disappeared. The Pandragonians were getting what they paid for . . . though they had yet to deliver the book to the Eighth House.

  Holomorphy had become unpredictable as Gr-ner Shie’s influence adjusted numbers in the natural world. Vog Foundry had erupted in fungus, great mushrooms sprouting from the holomorphic energies in the furnace. Bilgeburg had nearly shut down. It was in the papers. Things that relied on holomorphy were turning wild. Vog Foundry had hacked out the fungi and gone back to pure coke. Factories adjusted. Chemiostatic power still seemed safe. Sometimes holomorphy worked just fine. But people were crumbling. They took their money out of banks. They stocked up. They stole. There were fires burning in Blkton. And Sena didn’t blame them. They relied on the papers for answers and the papers had no answers.

  How could they? How could any of the journalists propose that some entity outside rational geometry was trying to eat them?

  In reaction to Fallow Down people grieved and shouted in the streets. They wrote poems and articles and threats against the government. Some found purpose and friendship in the lonely urban wasteland by forming groups and posting flyers. They latched on to the tragedy in a peculiarly maudlin way that made less sentimental folks acutely uncomfortable.

  Then there were the crasser lot, people without any direct link to the immense loss, whose lives and tiny close-knit circle of friends had been spared any lesson in privation. They grew tired of hearing about Fallow Down and thought up vulgar rhymes and pseudonyms, perhaps as a way of feeling strong in the face of horror, perhaps because they were simply ignorant. But even minority opinions, no matter how outlandish or cruel they seemed, found representation in the thronging streets of Isca.

  “Fallow Down the vanished town,” some said. Others shortened the grim nickname to Fallen Down.

  Sena marveled that Megan’s hex had actually cracked the prison. Like a histrionic felon scrabbling at the bars of his fabricated cell, Gr-ner Shie was groping, casting arbitrarily about for anything within reach.

  It was not a question of corresponding angles, of physically reaching through a crack. It was a question of hypothetical geometry, of warped space drooling into many different places. A question of imaginary time.

  If it had been otherwise, if regular laws had obtained, there would be no Duchy left. If Gr-ner Shie had been able to see and designate its motions, what had happened at Fallow Down would have happened everywhere at once.

  Instead, the incomprehensible thing reached out into different dimensions, into different times. It pawed through optional reality.

  Sena didn’t bring it up because there was nothing anyone could do. She understood the danger. It was only a matter of time before the fumbling throes of the otherworldly entity struck Stonehold another lucky blow.

  Sena’s mind felt numb. She could only handle so much trauma before her brain shelved the mechanism that processed fear. The
horror didn’t exactly go away. Nor did the tension or the stress or the endless hours of waiting before she could try to open the Csrym T.

  But it was boring horror. Like being confined in a very ugly room that she wanted to paint over. After a while, the anxiety faded and only nausea remained.

  To stay numb, she read the papers. The near constant sensationalism had become so familiar that she was beyond being shocked. Instead, it had the reverse effect. The headlines seemed to scream: Chaos is everywhere! Remain calm! Everything is normal!

  She moved on to the gossip columns where, at first, it was beguiling to see her name in print. Then she grew bellicose, then phlegmatic and finally entertained.

  It was like living an alternate life without any memory and reading about it later. For the sheer amount of information they printed, she thought they would have had to ask her opinion, filled up stacks of notepads.

  Now she understood that in order to oblige the insatiability of the masses, fabrication was required.

  The High King’s witch.

  That was what they called her as they speculated about why holomorphic energy was going wild. Some second-string journalist had coined the phrase. It was catchy enough and able to be pronounced (by the lazy) in an effortless breathy gust. It had stuck.

  After finishing yet another defamatory article about her life, Sena tidied up breakfast and returned to her bedroom . . . his bedroom . . . their bedroom.

  It had been thoroughly restored and partially redone. A new ceramic tub decorated with hand-painted roses had been hooked up to pipes from the boiler and sat elegantly in the center of the floor. New carpets, furniture and a massive ornate half-tester stood in state around the room.

  Light from the western windows diminished as the sun raced east like a gymnast jumping over the castle toward the sea.

  Sena took out the Csrym T and ran her fingers over it. She lay on the bed and stroked it. Heard it whisper. Legend claimed its vellum pages derived from stillborns. The notion pained her vaguely.