Black Bottle

CHAPTER

46

Sena stood at one of Ulung’s many inroads, waiting for the Veydens. The flawless did not guard the borders to their empire. Those who stumbled in were presumed swallowed by the sewers.

You ate here last summer, said Nathaniel.

This particular gateway to Ulung was located in a cistern beneath one of Bablemum’s restaurants, not far from where the airship had moored.

“Yes,” she said. Despite her eternal lack of hunger it was true.

You made your pact with the flawless here?

“Yes.”

I don’t doubt they greedily accepted your terms. But you don’t need to be here. You don’t need to fulfill your promise to them. I’ve been infinitely patient, he said.

“Patient, is it? Not desperate?”

I’m far from desperate.

“So it seems. You just returned from the ocean … I’ve been wondering—”

Why isn’t the High King dead? Why are you delaying the ink?

“When I need ink I’ll have it, Nathan.” He hated when she called him that. “But I’ve been wanting to ask you something—”

Don’t try to turn this around.

“Why did you send me to Soth—?”

For my daughter. And the pimplot—

“That’s a lie. You never loved your daughter. You saved yourself in that garden twenty thousand years ago —”

You know nothing.

“I think we could have found a substitute for the pimplota seed, don’t you?”

I don’t know. You’re the one going to the jungles. You’re the one who wants to do everything with exactness—

“The platinum wires. The rubies? You actually tried to use stones. You’ve made mistakes. But I don’t think you could have really believed—”

So you think my journals are a fabrication …

“Yes. An impressive fabrication.”

You know the number is two, don’t you? I knew it when you came back from the Chamber. Who are you planning to take instead of me? After the ink is made, who will you take? Who?

“I’m taking you.”

Lie! Who?

“It’s you Nathan. Who else can I take? If I don’t want you to sabotage the glyphs? I have to choose you, don’t I? Isn’t that what you’d do?”

Metallic shrieking filled the lightless recesses of Sena’s head. She was genuinely worried that he might snap. This was the moment that would decide how the rest of the night played out. Nathaniel’s howls slowly dwindled into whimpers that faded across the world.

“You can’t get out without me,” she said, hoping he was still listening. “St. Remora can’t speak for you. St. Remora can’t manipulate a pen. It’s you and me…”

But he was gone. What was he doing? She looked across the intervening miles to St. Remora for a sign. Had she had a heart, it would have been pounding. She looked south toward his stone house in the jungles. Nothing. She looked everywhere but he was powerful in insubstantial ways. In the numbers of nonphysicality, he was expert from long meditation at the edge of the abyss. He hid from her with puissant ease.

St. Remora ticked.

The jungles blew in a damp wind off the sea.

Sena waited, more afraid than perhaps she had ever been.

Fine.

It was a dry hiss, desiccated and startling inside her ear.

But I know about you. I know what’s inside you …

Sena’s stomach turned on itself. Her entire body went cold. “Oh? What’s that?”

Guilt. You feel guilty about what you’re doing.

“You’d have no remorse—”

No. I wouldn’t. That’s the difference between us. That’s why They chose you I think. They’re great connoisseurs of pain.

Sena didn’t dare upset him with another question. She would let him say whatever he wanted. She would do whatever he asked her to do. Because she could taste the end from here. It was within her grasp. Yet if he found out, if he suspected—

I think you’ve waited to make the ink because you have feelings for my nephew. Tell me I’m wrong.

“You’re not wrong.”

You feel guilty, so you want him to know. You need to apologize.

Sena touched the corner of her eye with one fingertip. The strain was written in her neck, in her jaw.

So go apologize to him. You have the tincture. I will give you three hours to say your good-byes. But I warn you. If you set one foot inside my house at Khloht—

“I won’t.”

The shade seemed to incline its head just slightly. Then it was gone.

From the basement of the restaurant came a bang, the sound of a metal door swinging full back. The tramp of feet descended. A light slowly infused the cistern.

Two Veyden men arrived at the bottom of a set of crust-caked cement steps and swung their lanterns over Sena’s form. Despite their great size and the weapons they carried, they looked at her with pale green faces and glossy eyes.

“You don’t want a light down here?” one of them asked.

“No.” Her small form had materialized silently in the middle of the room when their lights had struck it. They were Willin Droul. They wore the Hilid Mark. But they were not Lua’groc, which meant they could still feel fear. It was fear they enjoyed. The awe of the cult kept them invigorated and honest in their efforts to serve it, and it was also their reward. Sena knew this.

“Have the flawless come up?” asked one of the Veydens.

“No. I’m going down to them,” said Sena.

Both men shifted uncomfortably. They were terrified and giddy to the point of euphoria. “The Shradnae Sisterhood has arrived in the eastern ruins—as you predicted,” one of them said.

“Make sure they find the Grand Elesh’Ox.”

“Is that where the sacrifice will take place?” the first Veyden asked.

“Just do it,” she said.

Both Veydens bowed.

“Tell Ku’h,” Sena said, “that I want him to bring Caliph Howl to the tanks.”

The Veydens wondered why. Why bring the king of Stonehold down to her council with the flawless? Would he be an offering? Would the flawless eat him? But neither man would ask this question. They were both too afraid.

*   *   *

AFTER talking to Baufent, Caliph took a shower. The stall was plated in mirrors and pierced by recessed lights. Creamy pearls of gold-brown soap ejected automatically into his hand from a liquid dispenser hidden in the wall. The tacky spore-filled stink of the jungle slid off him. Only after that, he imagined, did the desert grit embedded in his pores come up too.