The Last Page ch-1

by Anthony Huso

  Then she whispered a weak equation, using Caliph’s own blood to mend him. The skin closed slightly.

  She took another piece of fresh linen she had soaked in antiseptic and wrapped it several times to bind the wound, embalming him, it seemed.

  With utmost care she removed the tourniquet. She stoppered the silver vial and got dressed.

  Betrayal.

  It caused a strange pain in her heart.

  Caliph shifted. A dark wrinkle passed over his features as though from a bad dream. The monkshood would cause vivid hallucinations.

  Lifting her pack quietly, Sena turned the gold handle on the door. Her skirt murmured in a rustling chill that trickled from the window. She left him to dream.

  CHAPTER 29

  Caliph dreamt of Marco.

  Vivid stripes seared the horizon like orange marmalade trapped between layers of molten tar. The color was intensely bright. Leaves rustled. Stars peeped down through a steeple snared by trees.

  Caliph fought his way through saplings and emerged in a lowering black yard heavy with sinister shapes.

  The creature met him in the dark.

  “Hello, Caliph.” He wore tattered black. “It’s been a long time—”

  The voice mulled stately, obsolete decorum with viperine cunning.

  Caliph felt strangely unafraid. The sliver of citrus-colored light cut through Marco’s faded shroud. The arms of trees remained starkly visible, showing through his body. His face and eyes startled the gloom: waxen white set with dismal inky jewels. Marco radiated displaced malice.

  “It is bedtime,” Marco said. He spoke as though reciting archaic poetry. “Bedtime for kings with a story for their end.”

  A flurry of tattered black filled the air; Marco twirled and perched on a slumped headstone. He balanced impossibly, knees pulled up under his chin, arms dangling, eyes inapprehensible beneath the brim of his hat.

  “Which amuses more?” he asked. “That your nursemaid was a dead king? Or that the two of us would talk long hours—both fearing that he might hear? And now the irony that we talk on . . . while he slumbers underfoot?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To warn you of his return,” said Marco. “The teeth of his neglected ghouls clatter useless verses in the yard . . . poetry for soil . . . basking rhymes unripened by the moons.”

  “What poetry? I don’t understand,” said Caliph. In his dream he was eight years old.

  “They seek validation in your ears. Our master is coming back, young Howl—and with him comes the end of kings.”

  Fear filled Caliph and burst through the dams of his control, cracking thick mental barriers erected from childhood as protection from the eldritch and profane.

  In the dream, Caliph defiled the grave on which he stood, unhindered by the trivialities of range or barriers fashioned from zippers and cloth.

  A steaming golden stream spattered across the headstone on which Marco perched.

  The echo of the specter’s laugh resonated through the mountain woods, behind the crickets and across the Healean Range. He dropped from his perch, stood behind the carven stone inscribed with Caliph’s uncle’s name.

  What have I done? Caliph thought.

  Uncle will be furious.

  Caliph lurched up in bed. His own sticky vapor cloying in the sheets. Cooling rapidly. He was mortified. Strange dark shapes blew around the room, shadows twisting from the open windows. He looked down at his arm with confusion.

  The wound throbbed with his heartbeat.

  Slowly, the realization of what had happened filled him with humiliation and loathing. Not just the bed-wetting, but the fact that he had let this happen . . . this wound. Cameron had told him about his uncle, charming a girl, using her blood to open the book . . .

  He felt the aloneness. The exquisite rejection. An estranged and primal howl reverberated in the fleshy dark caverns of his chest.

  Her pack was gone. His uncle’s book was gone. Sena was gone.

  It butchered his emotions like one of those senseless bulbs of meat under Thief Town.

  And yet . . . he had felt it coming.

  Caliph gathered up his sheets and dragged them from the bed. He turned the knobs on the tub. Stammering hot water burst from the fixture. His body rippled with gooseflesh as the bitter residue cured across his skin.

  It serves me right.

  Against his better judgment he had trusted her. He had wanted so badly for the two of them to beat the odds, for her to suddenly evolve and legitimize his trust.

  He might as well have committed a brandy-filled chocolate into the hands of a homeless sot with the charge to guard it with his life. It was his fault, not hers.

  He sprinkled soap flakes from a box into the spluttering bath. His heart pitched and frothed between damnation and forgiveness. He struggled with motive. Was the book really so important to her? Even now he wanted a reason to absolve her, grounds to purify that final, puzzling, seditious kiss.

  Smooth hard fixtures turned below his hands, strangling the supply of water.

  He bathed, washed his sheets and hung them from the curtain rods to dry.

  He could still taste the drug inside his mouth, feel its weight roll through his head like cannonballs.

  She had taken her boots beneath the chair and the bottle of oil she used to perfume her hair.

  Caliph opened a panel where the servants stored the linens and pulled out a stack of fresh sheets. Her other toiletries stood nearby. He thought of David Thacker in the dungeons, pleading for a second chance. He remembered Grume’s. The promises. He recalled that Zane Vhortghast had saved his life—several times.

  Caliph flipped the mattress, snapped the sheet like a sail and let it float across, imagining Sena on the other side. He looked savagely at the empty space where she might have been.

  “The wind blows . . .” he muttered, leaving the old Hinter proverb unfinished. His whisper fizzled with morose histrionic resolve.

  The next day was hot. Shouts and growling clangorous sounds from the steelyards in Ironside hovered in a steamy haze coming out of Temple Hill.

  A new warship was nearly ready. Caliph harbored suspicions that it would prove useless in the days ahead. Yrisl still promised an aerial assault.

  Caliph could see streetcars and zeppelins from a parlor on the castle’s east side. Flashes of light from metal and glass flickered across the room at discrete angles, shimmering a moment, then vanishing as some wagon or whirling airship flung sunlight off its faces.

  Despite the afternoon reflections, the air in the room cosseted shadows. Caliph nibbled pastries and canned fruit from a tray. He had draped himself on a plush chaise, feet up on a priceless coffee table, regarding the newly certified metholinate levels with unsettled scrutiny.

  Air horns and steam whistles usually percolated through the urban effluvium beyond the window as barges and cranes fought to load and unload cargo along the wharves. But the docks today were silent, devoid of commerce.

  Sigmund hadn’t commented on Caliph’s foul mood when the two of them had talked earlier that morning and finalized certain technical details.

  The better part of Caliph’s thinking had gone into one outlandish plan. Everything else had evolved into half-hearted contingencies devised to prolong the inevitable if the main plan failed—which was why Caliph had yet to tell anyone how it would come together.

  Caliph sorted through a stack of paperwork he had been ignoring for some time.

  In addition to the restructured metholinate reports, it contained a paper authored by the red-faced Dr. Baufent who had performed the autopsy on the ichthyoid men in West Gate.

  Unfortunately, the physician had written the report as though to herself—which meant that it often became far too technical for Caliph to follow. Loquacious jumbled sentences muttered about pathogenic mucin, photophores and dense high-impact skeletal structures.

  Caliph tossed it aside as he remembered her with foggy distaste. Though he was curious about th
e creatures’ physiology, the digressive report deflated his interest.

  With Vhortghast gone and all the other craziness of the past few weeks, Ghoul Court had not been raided. It was still on the agenda but the timescale had been moved back . . . intentionally . . . ruthlessly. The raid was now a critical piece of timing in Caliph’s war plan.

  He massaged his eyebrows where a dull ache had begun to throb. He pushed hard into the bone, rubbing in circles before daring to lift the next piece of paper—his afternoon itinerary.

  Kam 2, 561

  10:00 Lunch & reports

  10:40 Messieurs Stepney, N

  grüth and Bîm

  11:40 Hazel Nantallium of Os Sacrum

  12:00 General Yrisl . . .

  The list went on. Caliph checked his watch. It was a quarter past ten. He shuffled through the remaining papers and digested what he could.

  At 10:35 he strapped his chemiostatic sword around his waist, left the parlor and entered the royal study precisely on the half hour. The burgomasters of Growl Mort, Murkbell and Bilgeburg were waiting for him, chairs tugged together in a tight fraternal chevron as though huddling for warmth. They stood up the moment he entered.

  Caliph shook their hands.

  After obligatory pleasantries they all sat down, the burgomasters in their stiff velvet-padded chairs, Caliph at an enormous polished desk.

  The burgomasters seemed paradoxically nervous and, at the same time, self-assured. Caliph supposed they had a shrewd agenda that Simon Stepney had failed to advance back in Hlim when he brought the ugly little factory—which had not been melted into sling bullets but been miraculously retrieved by Gadriel from whatever box into which it had been tossed and placed for the hour with expert and subtle ingenuity on the High King’s desk. It sat prominently beneath a lamp, partially hidden from his guests.

  Despite its presence, all three of the burgomasters looked, in a serene and well-disguised way, deeply rankled at being here. It must have been at the top of their minds that Caliph Howl had executed one of his best friends less than two weeks ago for treason. They minded their manners.

  Caliph watched them. They outnumbered him. On their side were many years of experience buttressed by very high opinions of themselves. They would present their case, make their demands and force the High King to deal with their concerns. Holomorphic aberrations had not been kind to industry and time (for them) was running out.

  Caliph stroked the brass nailheads on his armrest. For an eternity it seemed, he waited.

  Bejamin Ngrüth cleared his throat.

  “Your majesty. The . . . fungal outbreak . . . at Vog Foundry is only the beginning of my associates’ and my troubles. Business has gone slack in the face of the war. Everyone is either demonstrating or spectating or off stationed in western Tentinil.”

  Caliph interrupted his momentum.

  “Where’s Jaeza?”

  The last of the big industrial boroughs’ burgomasters had not shown up.

  Bejamin Ngrüth looked annoyed. Simon Stepney smiled as though pained. He gesticulated faintly as if pulling cobwebs from the air. “She had—prior engagements, your majesty. Though of course this was the top priority for her, an emergency, I’m afraid . . . came up.”

  Bejamin Ngrüth agreed and rummaged in an oxblood attaché.

  “Yes, she did however send her regards and apologies as well as this memo expressing her unanimity.”

  He laid a crisp, white, notarized sheet of parchment on the desk in front of Caliph.

  “Unanimity?” Caliph asked. “In what?”

  Bejamin smiled and adjusted his silver spectacles. His hair was greased back in gleaming sandy bands. He forged on bravely.

  “Your majesty, we haven’t disclosed this quarter’s profits yet, but we’re vicinal to bankruptcy. If the sluggish prewar economy and holomorphic chaos doesn’t get us, frankly the city’s flat pollution tax will.”

  Caliph looked hard at the other two burgomasters.

  “Pollution tax? That’s what this is about? Does Ben speak for all of you?” Quick nods and muttered affirmations followed.

  Caliph didn’t pause. He had done his research and was ready for this.

  “Ben, forgive me, but you’re being terribly imprecise. Vog Foundry has survived wartime economies before. What you’re really telling me here is that you can’t manage your business.”

  Timothy Bîm let air out through his nose.

  “Your majesty, with all due respect, if the four main industrial boroughs go down . . . so goes Isca.”

  “So this is a genuine crisis?” Caliph asked.

  The burgomasters assured him that it was.

  “I disagree. If it was a real crisis I don’t think I’d have a piece of paper sitting on my desk. I think Jaeza Tal would be here. I also disagree that Isca City is so devoid of hardworking people that twenty-two boroughs will be dragged under by the managerial incompetence of four. That’s what you’re suggesting. That the fate of the majority is somehow inextricably intertwined with the fate of half a dozen executives?”

  Bejamin Ngrüth remained tenacious.

  “Your majesty, we have a large debt both to the Independent Alliance of Wardale and the Free Mercantilism of Yorba for holomechanical resources and raw materials that were shipped to us this spring—”

  “That’s an inventory issue.”

  “Of course it’s an inventory issue.” Simon nearly lost control. “Our inventories were decimated by giant mushrooms, among other things!”

  “What is it, Simon?” asked Caliph. “Is it the prewar economy? The pollution tax? Or the giant mushrooms? What do you want from me? You want me to bail you out?

  “Gentlemen, I appreciate your industry’s integral role in our economy but changing a tax law for businesses that can’t keep themselves afloat is not going to help Isca survive. This is a difficult time, for all of us.” He saw Simon open his mouth to speak and raised his hand. “Please . . . no more about the giant mushrooms. I know that’s not your fault. I’m sure we can get you some aid for the disaster but I have no intentions of adjusting the pollution tax based on the current economy.”

  Caliph leaned forward, his voice unflustered, his eyes poised and cool.

  “You are shrewd businessmen, gentlemen. I’m not going to rub your tummies or offer you a toddy. It is up to you to ensure your factories survive. I don’t expect you’ll ever again track up my office with this kind of panhandling. Is there anything else?”

  The burgomasters stammered a bit and dug in their attachés but came up empty-handed.

  The meeting was over and Caliph guessed he had forged several new enemies. He didn’t really care. With all the shit on my plate, he thought, they can eat a little too.

  Unfortunately, the worst news was just around the corner.

  He endured a meeting with Hazel Nantallium, who was the bishop of Hullmallow Cathedral. She reeked of sweet incense and painted her face in a manner that indicated coquetry was not without her jurisdiction.

  Over the course of sixty minutes (which was twenty beyond what Gadriel had scheduled her for) she tried to persuade Caliph to allow his name to be added officially to the church records. She offered him everything from a plaque with his name on it bolted to the pulpit, to a flirtatious glimpse of her inner thigh with the not-so-subtle hint that more explicit possibilities existed.

  To be able to say that the High King was a member of the congregation would give Hullmallow Cathedral the kind of official authority it had enjoyed on and off through the past several centuries if and whenever they had been able to convert a High King.

  Caliph graciously and repeatedly declined.

  With a terse smile, Hazel left and Caliph hurried off, late for his meeting with the Blue General.

  Yrisl brought the bad news.

  “It’s true,” he said. “What the papers have been saying about the worm gangs. Something is seriously fucked.”

  Caliph sighed. “Please. I have a long day scheduled. Just say some
thing useful that I can understand.”

  “A wagon full of bodies was dumped behind Teapetal Wax last night. They were carved up with traditional gang sigils. Some journalist caught it on a litho-slide. We confiscated it and took him in for questioning but . . . the wagon was marked. The men who dumped the bodies . . . they . . . were police.”

  Caliph sat down.

  “We’ve questioned every one of them. They don’t know where the bodies came from. All of them say they were following strict orders from high command at the Glôssok Warehouses. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Caliph sat by himself in the royal study. He had asked Yrisl for a moment alone. Intelligence had come out of Miskatoll that Saergaeth planned to issue a final ultimatum, demanding the High King relinquish his throne. He would give a deadline and then . . .

  Caliph listened to the sounds of the city coming through his window. Sigmund had lied. Or someone had lied. Those canisters of solvitriol suspensate hadn’t come from cats. They were human souls. Boys and girls. Gang members from the back alleys of Thief Town. Eventually he would get to the bottom of the deception. Eventually somebody, maybe even the High King himself, would have to pay. But for now, for this moment, Isca City and the entire Duchy of Stonehold was hanging by a thread.

  Solvitriol power was the only thing that could save it. Solvitriol bombs. From the seedy underbelly, from violence and trash, Isca’s worm gangs had become martyrs and heroes in his eyes, an integral part of Isca’s defense.

  He would go to Glôssok. He would curse and tear Sigmund’s office to pieces if he had to in order to sort this murderous debacle out. He would sentence good old Sig to death and hang himself in chains from West Gate if he had to. But not now. Not now. The gears were in motion, his war plan already underway.

  It was cruel. He agreed. It was drop-dead fucking evil and wrong. And he knew he was headed for even more lost sleep because of it. But there was nothing else to do. The last thing he could do now was stop. If it was true, if murdered street youths had been Sigmund’s ingredients for bombs, by the gods of Incense Street, he had to use them to save Isca. He wouldn’t allow their sacrifice to go to waste. He would use them to save the Duchy from itself.