“Why are you asking if I know anything about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Vhortghast. His lips seemed afraid of the hideous gray teeth beneath them, peeling back and exposing them to view. His pasty, fictile expression was unreadable. “I’m sure you have other employees that give you information.”
Caliph didn’t. Not this kind of information. He wondered if he should.
Vhortghast clenched the railing with both hands and watched birds cavort through plumes of smoke.
“There’ve been some strange occurrences in the city. Unexplained . . . holomorphic . . . kinds of crimes. All the Shr
dnae agents that we know about—that’s only two by the way—that we’ve been watching . . . have disappeared.”
“And you think it’s related to the blueprints?”
“No. My first guess would be that it has to do with the war. The Witchocracy is pulling agents out of harm’s way.”
“Out of harm’s way? Isn’t it their job to be in harm’s way?”
“Not these. The agents we were watching were what the Witchocracy calls half-sisters. Who knows? They might even have been decoys. We never even interrogated them.”
“Then I’m not following you. What does this have to do with the blueprints?”
“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But a Pandragonian official, no name, you know how it goes, claims they traced the blueprints here.” Zane fixed Caliph with a piercing stare.
Caliph’s throat thickened.
“So I thought I’d ask,” the spymaster’s tone was the closest thing to friendly banter Caliph could imagine, “if you’d heard anything about it.”
“No,” said Caliph.
Vhortghast studied him another moment then looked away. “Fine.”
Caliph couldn’t tell whether Vhortghast’s “fine” meant that he knew. Maybe he understood that Caliph wanted the secret kept secret, reading between the lines, understanding that yes, Caliph knew all about the stolen blueprints but that Zane Vhortghast’s job was no longer to ask questions about them. Zane Vhortghast’s job was to ensure the information didn’t leak. Caliph hoped, against serious doubt, that this was the case.
“You’ve taken a mistress . . .” Vhortghast said it with something between cynicism and bored acknowledgement. “The same girl you were . . . involved with at Desdae?”
The spymaster laced his fingers and amended his comment with, “She’s quite a catch.” He then turned to the zeppelin looming behind them. “I’m headed for Tentinil. Tour the field. That sort of thing. I’m sure General Yrisl will want to coach you on some plans.”
The spymaster’s tacit disdain for the Blue General showed like wood grain through shallow coats of diplomacy.
“I want you to stay in the city,” said Caliph suddenly. “Help me formulate some ideas regarding Ghoul Court.”
Vhortghast scowled. “What kind of ideas?”
“I want to assume control of that borough.”
The spymaster looked stunned.
“Your majesty, now is probably not the time to allocate resources—” He stopped. Caliph’s eyes had slashed out like claws. “But I’ll get some men on it.”
Caliph’s glare shifted from Zane Vhortghast to the seething Iscan skyline.
“This city will not tolerate a sovereign criminal element. I want to personally oversee Ghoul Court’s submission to law, inspections and regular patrol—just like every other borough. If we’re at war, we can’t afford a safe haven for spies at the very center of our city, wouldn’t you agree?”
Zane Vhortghast was quick to answer yes.
Ghoul Court, the age-old cesspool, had been ignored for decades because its problems (while ugly and deplorable) had never seemed to spread. The Court drove fear like a wood splitter into every watchman’s chest.
Patrols went in organized in boisterous, blundering packs: easily avoided by discreet thieves, smugglers and nascent, highly mobile factions. Usually hard and fast, the raids consisted of fifty or more heavily armed men with a squad of iatromathematiques serving as medics and backup. Such large-scale busts were infrequent and orchestrated mostly to satisfy Travis Whittle.
But when the raid was over, the watch removed themselves quickly as throngs of shadowy, ragged shapes encroached, congregating in smirchy alleys. Watching. They held pipes and boards driven through with eight-inch nails, swung makeshift weapons in crude but adequate grasps.
After a raid, the watch was always left with the distinct feeling that it had been tolerated, indulged by some sinister power that oversaw the balance, placated with a victory before being herded slowly and methodically back toward the border.
Terrified and infinitely outnumbered, the police would stumble toward Lampfire or Maruchine or Murkbell with their prisoners in tow, lugging sacks of contraband and evidence.
Gasping, they would burst into less formidable streets by Bragget Canal or Seething Lane where the old Vindai brewery crouched. By then, the shapes had vanished like cockroaches into jumbled masonry and sub- floors.
Zane Vhortghast didn’t object to Caliph’s reasons for cleaning the Court. What he objected to, thought Caliph, was the amount of sheer effort and resources that the job would entail.
Caliph took a late lunch with Sena in the high tower, watching zeppelins plow the sky. Filthy brown clouds marred the pale expanse over the Iscan Bay like dark spots on the achromous fur of a beast. The sky growled and rumpled with extraordinary speed, its weather promising treachery and destruction.
Airships glided into hangars. Those still aloft had little hope of landing. They buoyed like spiny fish from the city’s tendrils and headed west, propellers thudding, cutting thick slabs of air, moving out of the storm’s path.
Gadriel served an epicurean assortment of exotic cheeses, fruits and breads accompanied by slender glasses of comet wine. While the wind fumbled and creamy tatters of cloud slid around the tower, obscuring the view for moments at a time, Caliph and Sena picked at their food.
“These came for you,” said Gadriel. He laid a few envelopes on the table before going to build a fire on the hearth.
Caliph opened the daily totals for what dwindling metholinate still wheezed through Isca’s miserly distribution pipes. A sinking feeling tugged his stomach down into a point of unbearable gravity, like a child pulling on his mother’s shirt. Caliph looked taut, etiolated and shiftless.
The numbers on the paper, though large, had already condemned the city to the greatest energy crisis it had ever faced.
Caliph blotted the sudden perspiration that collected on his forehead with the back of his sleeve and chewed his lip fiercely as he stared at the immutable columns. The numbers paralyzed him.
“What is it?” asked Sena.
“Gadriel, schedule me a meeting with Sigmund Dulgensen.”
“Right away, your majesty.”
Sena scowled as she sipped her wine. “Sigmund Dulgensen? From Desdae?”
“Yes.”
“What’s he doing in Isca?”
Caliph filled her in briefly, omitting sensitive information about crashed zeppelins and stolen blueprints.
“Better make it tomorrow afternoon,” he said to Gadriel, tossing the paper aside. “At least an hour—maybe two.”
“Do you still want to meet with the Pplarians?” asked Gadriel.
“Shit. I forgot about them.”
Gadriel mused. “I can move them to—”
Caliph signed no several times. “I can’t put them off. Last thing I need is a bunch of insulted Pplarian ambassadors who think I’m too self-absorbed to—”
