The Last Page

dangling in the wind and her skin had been flayed open like a tattered kite, it had never attacked her. It had done something on its own, outside her small sphere of logic, like a lab technician re-engineering some small speck of life in order to study it. And then, They had used her.

It felt mysterious and sinister but mostly it felt invasive. What did They do to me?

But, in the same self-exploratory moment, Sena felt like she could already answer that question.

Caliph’s ships had held the brunt of Saergaeth’s armies at bay, gathering them, holding them in one place where Gr-ner Shie’s mindless gluttony could stop dead the entirety of the war. In that respect, Caliph’s plan had been a success. Precisely timed, the Abomination from outside reality had transmogrified her, even her vocal cords, giving her the ability to pronounce the glyphs.

The beacon had gone up, called forth the Devourer. By destroying Saergaeth’s army, by destroying everything, it had put an end to the threat of Sena’s removal from Stonehold. Or rather, it had ensured that the Csrym T would stay where it was, safely ensconced at Isca Castle, and that it would remain in Sena’s possession, with time purchased for her to continue studying its contents.

Once the threat had been eliminated, the Thae’gn that had written on her skin had removed Gr-ner Shie from the equation, before it could reach the object of its hunger, before it could devour the newest owner of the Csrym T.

“Ha! Clever Pun. And so like tattoos . . .”

The old man’s voice again. A splintered trace, an echo of sound.

She whirled around but there was no one in the room.

“The Last Page.”

Why me? thought Sena. She felt like some rare virus in a dish that They had been waiting for to reach critical mass. Waiting for some simple, predictable chemical reaction that They could then exploit.

She felt like a paramecium that had eaten a specific type of agent, as if the Csrym T had been a lure. Once she had ingested the contents of the book, the next step in the process had been administered with clinical care, like gene therapy, something that would bring her to the next phase of her development.

The questions she couldn’t answer were: why? and: what now? What would They expect from her now?

She used her new eyes and looked out, far away, and saw the planet as a single cell, hovering in space, ready for insertion of a foreign bud. Am I that bud?

The word games began. Last Page. Page of what? The Csrym T? She scowled. Or could page mean usher?

She thought of gardeners turning what was living into compost, preparing for the next season. She thought of the coiled, tightly packed realities waiting in the Csrym T . . . tightly coiled, packed . . . like the blueprints of life.

Not a paramecium. I am an oocyte, ripened by the book, fertilized in a test tube by the Thae’gn. I am a zygote.

I am not breathing!

Sena felt her body move when she stood up in front of the mirror. She felt perfectly healthy. Perfectly rested. She had never felt like this before, like she could run for miles, jump over mountains. It was impossible for her to be sad. She sat back down and outlined her eyes and lashes, stroked color into her lips. She changed into her best black dress, which clung to her body like something starved for warmth.

She left the bedroom and went down to the grand hall, one step at a time, watching the marble steps come up at her, hearing the noise increase as she approached the room where Caliph’s corpse lay in state. “I have no time for this,” she whispered to herself.

There was a great crowd of people; a line of lesser gentry passed through an exterior candlelit hall. The music was soft but piercing and everywhere the smell of food.

Curious, she stopped, plucked a glass of wine from a serving tray and lifted it to her lips. She drank, felt the wine go down. She realized she was neither hungry nor thirsty but the wine tasted excellent at the back of her throat. The smell. The tingle. She enjoyed it.

There were people watching her now, scrutinizing her, wondering why she wasn’t mourning. She glared back at them with her scintillating eyes. She glided between them, heading for the bier.

Caliph’s body had already been embalmed. He looked gray and glossy under the candles. She saw through him. All his organs had been removed, turning him into an empty puppet wrapped in expensive silk.

He was dressed loosely in a white robe, like a priest, shining in the light like fresh soap. Sena lifted his sleeve and found the place on his arm where, a month ago, her unswerving desire had wounded him. It pained her. That scar had accumulated so much meaning. It seemed the symbol of their relationship.

Gadriel was pushing through the crowd. But she didn’t care whether he was coming toward her or running away. She whispered abruptly, stopping on a spirant sound. Gadriel stopped. Everything stopped.

But there wasn’t any blood in her veins. She paused only momentarily. Another word blossomed on her lips, this one powerful enough to reach through skin, below tissue, to find holjoules at their source. Sena spoke and suddenly, all the pets in the room detonated. Dignitaries had brought them, fluffy creatures with pedigrees they carried in their arms. Mayor Ashlen’s hounds died where he had leashed them. Cats and daenids and other more exotic things, like the rooks in the garret, all of them disploded with a gory popping sound.

The guests screamed as the wake plunged into a sacrificial bath. Many sobbed and puked. Many more of them ran . . . not because a dozen loyal animals had died but because, on the grand hall bier, Caliph Howl was sitting up.

CHAPTER 42

Metholinate supplies are restored. Masons work to fix damage to the castle and other buildings especially in Barrow Hill, Temple Hill and Daoud’s Bend. The brief warm spell doesn’t last. The rest of the repairs will have to wait for spring.

All the major papers have ruled Caliph’s death an elaborate charade. They say that records of his trauma and time of death could have easily been forged. Several dignitaries from the wake go so far as to tell the press point-blank about the sham.

“We weren’t fooled.”

“It was a disgusting prank and the acting was poor. The murder of animals, family pets, was a revolting over-the-top theatric for which the government will have to pay. A public apology is in order.”

They fill the opinion section of the Iscan Herald.

And then, of course, there are others who believe.

Caliph feels lost for a while. He reads the documents, sees the canister that supposedly contains his stomach. He talks with the physicians and the embalmer but all of them seem frightened and quickly go away.

He remembers the jolt when the gun-stone must have hit the deck, remembers the metal sticking from the middle of his chest. He had remained conscious as his men turned the airship home, running from the battle, engines pounding to get the High King home. He had been conscious even when they were struck again over the city . . . so close . . . only a hundred yards from the mooring deck. And he had felt his stomach pitch as the Byun-Ghala had finally lost power, drifting into the walls of Isca Castle with graceful, violent repercussions.