The Last Page

“I have a sound grasp of this city’s laws and I know there are a host of outdated, still-viable punishments able to be handed down for insulting a High King.”

He smiled softly as the audience went pale. They were gauging now, how they could explain away the hasty remarks, cast their unforgivable sauciness in a better light by adding meaning and rationale after the fact.

“I’m insulted.

“But I’m also patient.” He looked at the prince. “If any of you doubt me, I respect that. I will earn your trust. I will secure Stonehold’s future. And I will do that, hopefully, by not choosing war. I will not choose war. If war comes, that will be Saergaeth’s choice.”

After the silence ebbed in, Lewis was the first to speak. “Forgive me, your majesty.” He bowed slightly and began to clap.

Whether they felt he deserved it or not, everyone else followed suit.

After that, the meeting broke up. Whispers slithered between the burgomasters but by and large Caliph had come out on top. At a different time or place his words might have turned the same audience against him.

But this had been a critical moment. Caliph knew that Stonehold needed a decisive leader. With less unified military power than most northern countries, the High King of Stonehold had to exude power from his pores. He could not flinch in the face of overwhelming or unknowable odds.

He heard the whispers but in their own draconian way he sensed that the burgomasters were pleased. Yrisl had warned him beforehand that many of them were dreading this audience, distressed by the possibility of a meeting with an academic milquetoast fresh from Desdae’s idealistic lecture halls.

Everyone was crowding toward the door, drawn down a series of staircases and passageways by an alluring smell that propagated from the kitchen. The Blue General met them at the exit and fed them the usual lies for good measure.

“Everything will be answered in due time. We’ll call you back once this [completely absurd, fatuous] meeting has been assessed and compared with intelligence reports from the field.”

Caliph listened to them go. When the room was nearly empty, Yrisl approached him.

“I’m not sure about how you handled that. We needed to cement Lewis and Vale Briar as an ally. This is a war, your majesty . . . no amount of diplomacy is going to save us and calling Saergaeth a hero . . .”

“He is a hero,” said Caliph. “His popularity north of Tentinil approaches legend. He’s protected the people near the Glacier Rise better than any High King.”

Yrisl sighed. “Well, two percent of the region where your hero lives is comprised of military. That means eight thousand airborne, engineers and regular army. If he musters from Gadramere and Mortrm he’ll have a legion over that. Vale Briar has to be solid with us!”

Caliph nodded. “I’m sorry for jumping on both of you,” he looked at the prince who had stayed behind and was listening intently, “in front of everyone.”

Yrisl’s eyebrows levitated.

Mortiman looked hungry. “Nonsense. You did exactly what you should have. I was just glad you had it in you.”

“Oh? And what did I have in me?”

“You showed those fickle bastards that you don’t give a shit about etiquette when you are forced into a fight. You fought dirty. More importantly, you won. I like that and so do they.”

Caliph looked at the floor. “Thank you . . . but . . . none of this is the issue. I’m the issue. If it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be a threat. I wonder if we held some kind of election, found another way to turn the crown over to Saergaeth.”

He looked up to see both Yrisl’s and Mortiman’s jaws go slack.

“I mean it,” said Caliph. “I’m sure Saergaeth knows how to manage Stonehold better than I do. Why not let him? If war comes, think of all the blood that will be spilled. Think of our countrymen fighting each other. All because of me? It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” said Yrisl. “If this is a test of our loyalties, so be it. Nevertheless I’ll respond as if your concerns are genuine. If the High King’s throne were turned over to the first challenger, where would that leave the sovereignty of the Duchy? I’ll tell you where. In question. This government isn’t up for auction. Nor is it subject to contestation—by anyone. You, your majesty, are not the issue. The issue is, pardon my saying so, much bigger than yourself. The issue is the security of the Duchy—which no one except you is authorized to ensure.”

The prince nodded.

Caliph sighed through his nose. He walked to the window and looked out on the distant turmoil of Temple Hill.

“All right, tell me about Saergaeth.” He sounded apathetic.

Yrisl glanced at the prince.

“His only challenge, your majesty, will be feeding all his troops. Without Lewis, we die.”

The maps rustled in a breeze that pulled into the high tower and Caliph began to feel the discomfort of the stomach that he suspected was common to all the High Kings of history.

The prince, seeming to sense that there was nothing else to say, extended his hand and offered a solicitous smile.

Caliph grinned and shook. “I won’t hang you out to dry.”

“I appreciate that. I leave for Tentinil in the morning. Good luck managing Isca. I’ll send word the minute anything changes.”

The Blue General paused, waiting for a formal dismissal before following the prince out.

“Go ahead, Yrisl. Get something to eat.” Caliph remained at the window.

“I could have something sent up,” Yrisl offered.

Caliph shook his head and waved the departing tactician away.

Alone, he pondered the past two days.

The zeppelin had dumped him off directly at the castle. The next morning, at his coronation, the Council had been disbanded and a great crowd of people had cheered. Or, thought Caliph, maybe they had only shouted.

For several days he had been free. An anonymous . . . mostly anonymous . . . wanderer in the north, chasing what he thought was love or adventure. Maybe it was just stupidity. But now his fate had finally caught up.

He wished his father could be High King but Jacob wasn’t a Howl. In fact, Jacob, according to the one instance of him saying so, was a half-blooded Hjolk-trull that had come from the Gwymrn Sward, a place he had never described or explained.

The family history was murky and embarrassing. “Unfortunately, when you were two,” Jacob had once told him, “your mother . . . got sick . . . with the rest of her family. Since you were a Howl and therefore related to the High King, he sent his physicians out to the estate. They decided it was likely bad food, something you had avoided eating due to your tender age. Your Uncle Nathaniel came from Greymoor soon after, inheriting the house and you with it.”

Caliph could remember living with his uncle in the vast dark house. The dream man had come to live with them in the fall.

Suddenly, Caliph wondered about the dream man as a real person instead of a dream person. Cameron was the man in the dream, the real man that had carried him down that rope so long ago. It had been at least sixteen years but if Cameron was still alive, he might be able to help run the kingdom. He had been a soldier, a tactician maybe. Words spoken so long ago echoed indistinctly out of the past.

Jacob would know. After his uncle’s death, Jacob had been the only reliable figure in his life. He had taken Caliph to Isca’s south side, to Candleshine.

It wasn’t until Caliph’s eighteenth birthday, for reasons unknown, that the Iscan Council had decided Caliph’s mother’s blood was good enough to call him a Howl. They removed him from school and gave him the entrance examination to the High College of Desdae.

Apparently he had passed.

Now he was in Isca again, the past leaking into the present, alone in the tallest tower in the Duchy of Stonehold.

Caliph thought again of Cameron, the dream man. He recognized it as wishful thinking, smoke puffs in the sudden wind of responsibility facing him, but it was still worth a try. If nothing else it would provide some closure: