The Last Page

finally tying off the loose end that had generated so many dreams.

He left the tower, locked it and descended a set of corkscrewing stairs.

He went directly along one of the few hallways he knew—to his bedroom, festooned with wood and marble and occupied by several newly carved wardrobes.

Caliph sat down at a desk and took a sheet of parchment that seemed to be waiting at attention. He pulled a gold-nibbed quill from an elaborate inkwell and looked down at the empty page.

Jake,

I’ve been curious about your old friend, Cameron. If you know where to find him, please tell him I’d like to see him as soon as possible.

—Caliph

Caliph smiled, somewhat amused with himself.

He blew the ink dry and pulled one of the ropes that, through pulleys and bells, summoned one of the servants.

“Have this delivered to my father in Fallow Down at once.”

The servant took the note and ran.

“At once,” Caliph whispered to himself.

He pushed himself away from the desk and opened the bedroom windows. Outside, the sky sagged under a host of stars. They were framed perfectly by the sharp geometry of the battlements. A hundred thousand points of light trapped between the crenels seemed to represent all the people of Stonehold.

Maybe he was being maudlin. Maybe he was just beginning to understand what the burgomasters already knew: that lifestyles were at stake. Futures were at stake. People’s lives and homes hung in the balance.

He had studied war. Sena had handpicked the best books on tactics to augment his required reading. She had said, “You can’t ignore it, Caliph. War defines the king.”

CHAPTER 8

Voices come and go.

They speak in Withil.

A cold front pulls down into the Country of Miryhr. Gold, generator- powered lights caramelize the intricate sockets of brown medical equipment. Sena can hear the slow regular tick of a thermal crank but she is freezing.

“Nie slipsou,”⁶says Megan. She is not talking to Sena. She is talking to a harridan at the edge of the room, a decayed crone like a strange animal folded in half. Giganalee’s voice makes Sena whimper like a dreaming dog. “What news from our half-sisters in Sandren?”

Megan tightens. “There are signs the Wllin Droul has returned.”

Wllin Droul? Sena listens from the heavy drapery of half-sleep. She understands from inside the framework of argot, an Ilek phrase unchanged by Withil: Wllin Droul means Cabal of Wights.

The voices move like clouds, in and out of existence. Sena catches only bits when Giganalee speaks. “They can no longer . . . Chamber . . . Last Page.”

“Let us hope . . . Clea will send us word . . .”

The rain increases for a few moments, falling hard against the glass.

Sena woke with a start. Something stirred in the darkened room. She relaxed.

“You came quietly,” said Sena.

The candle’s halo obscured Megan. “But you have not come quietly, Sienae.”

Sena ignored her birth name.

Megan sat in an armchair near the bed. “What have you been doing in the Highlands of Tue?”

“What day is it?” Sena tried to divert the conversation to anything else.

“Black Moon, the fourteenth of Psh. You’ve been sleeping for sixteen days. You were lucky to catch us in Eloth. We were planning to leave the next day because of weather.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you . . .” Sena’s voice trailed off.

Megan leaned forward, face melting from the gloom. Her night-blue robe was trimmed with black. Setting her apart however was the slender coronet of tunsia that marked her as Coven Mother.

“What is it, Sienae?”

Sena could feel her own clouded emotions passing through the muscles of her face. Megan was reading them. For a moment they might have been real mother and daughter.

Sena fought it. She unclenched her jaw, tried to relax, forced a faint smile. “Thank you for taking care of me, Mother.”

Megan’s stern expression splintered. Into what? Compassion? The smudge of insoluble guilt? The Coven Mother reached out, tentatively, visibly aching in her core. Sena felt a surge of nausea. She envisioned Megan’s heart as a zombie lab of barely lurching emotions; the final resting place of matriarchal instinct strangled so long ago.

Sena didn’t pull away. She closed her eyes and submitted to Megan’s caress.

It didn’t last. Sena heard her sigh after only a few moments and opened her eyes to see Megan scowling at the wound. The old woman touched it lightly. It was swollen, blackish-purple, crusted and awful in the light.

Megan drew a bowl of steaming antiseptic from the top of the thermal crank. “There’s been an incident,” she said. “Three Sisters murdered in the Highlands of Tue. Shot by Stonehavian troops.”

Sena’s mind reeled. “Three? Why three?”

“Shh. It wasn’t a qloin.⁷ I sent them to fetch some of your things. But tell me, what was the future King of Stonehold doing at your cottage?”

“What? Why? What happened?”

“You don’t know? It’s right here.” Megan nudged a neatly folded newspaper on the nightstand like bait.

Grabbing for it would be a mistake. Sena forced herself to reply coolly, “I knew him at school.”

“And you didn’t tell me? Sienae . . .”

Sena closed her eyes.

“We only made one attempt at school,” Megan said softly. “It was too difficult. He was surrounded by secret police. Almost every cook and gardener at Desdae was a bodyguard. We didn’t assign you to him because of your inexperience. And now I find out he went looking for you?”

“It was his idea.”

“There’s no mention of you in the papers. No one knows why he was in Tue. Only that he was found, quote, in the company of witches.” Megan put the antiseptic back on the thermal crank. “Difficult headlines for a new king I’m sure . . . but if it’s still possible . . . I want you in his bed, Sienae. I want you in Stonehold right away.”

Sena wanted to ask why but could only nod her head softly. Her cheeks felt hot and seemed to throb. Great droplets of sweat welled up between her breasts and across her face. She felt sick. Truly, suddenly sick. “Mother . . . ?”

The room whirled around her, spinning out like a vomit-inducing centrifuge of purest black.

The morning after his Council meeting, the High Seneschal brought Caliph breakfast and his itinerary for the day.

Caliph sat up in bed and looked at the concise schedule, bemused.

P

sh 16th, 561

4:40 Breakfast

5:00 Zane Vhortghast (tour of the city)