Black Bottle

I cut three sheets of skin from my back. The third was meant to keep all three of us together. But it could not, and therefore, onto it will go this letter.

I knew even a year ago that it wasn’t going to be me. I hoped. I wished. I went to Sandren to double-check. But I wasn’t destined to be hurled into the sea: a message in a bottle, born by knowable tides toward an island paradise—newly made.

It was Nathaniel’s paradise. I only finished it. I had other things to worry about. It has been complicated, trying to get you both out while Nathaniel watches my every move.

When I wrote your glyph did you feel yourself come apart at the seams? Did you feel how I stitched you back together, so carefully? So tight? And then, into your new home, your new phylactery, the tincture packed you. All of you. Your body, the very fabric captured in my eye. The seed of you.

I know that feeling. To be cut apart, turned into a symbol. Perfected. Your design shining like a gem.

And this is the part where you will think, How strange!

That she put me into her eye.

I used to laugh at the old holomorphic prescriptions. They read like fairy tale recipes for spells. (I never told you the outrageous equation for opening the Cisrym Ta. I am so sorry for the scar I gave you.) But these recipes contain more than numbers, which was hard for me to understand. Initially, I laughed at their strangeness but now I know, only the preposterous should be set aside. The unknown is what I embraced.

There is no more fitting phylactery for the things I wanted to save—than my eyes.

With my eyes, I looked to the future. They apprehended what was important, sorted through the clutter, focused on that which I desired. They were the seeds of all my actions and filled with what mattered most to my heart. It is true that I carried what I loved best in my eyes.

I find it unaccountable that such alien horrors as the Yillo’tharnah should have so much insight as to my nature, to set the number at two and force me to wrestle with these emotions. Perhaps it amuses Them, that the Sslia should be faced with these introspections at the end, that I must go blindly into the future, on hope, my ambit divided and reduced. My eyes plucked out, my tongue silenced.

But at least now, it is done.

I spent all summer preparing the math that could change you, like the Yillo’tharnah had changed me. In this I feel some success. Know that this was never about preserving a species or salvaging the greatest mind. It was never about saving a people. It was, in every instance, about transformation. About leaving the split, gooey chrysalis behind.

This is not betrayal. This is evolution.

I wanted you to understand that I did not consult with kings or clergy or ask for the opinions of philosophers or conservationists, holomorphs or seers. And this was on purpose.

Why?

Because, quite frankly—fuck them.

This was my decision. And I admit it was selfish, like everything I have ever done.

Our daughter went first because I owed her that. Because, among many things, I regret the tiny bones I left in the ground at Desdae. Tell her I love her. I had to fight for her because she was so young, because she couldn’t have escaped under her own power. You went next, on your own. You had to fight for yourself because I was already overcome. And you won, as I knew you would.

It is what I wanted. You are finally free—from everything. This is a repetition of the sacrifice my father made for me. I am proud to be caught in the noose, hanging like a question mark at the end of the day, for both your sakes.

I have written this before my fate has reached me, in secret, away from Nathaniel’s prying eyes. But I hope for what is to come.

Right now you are chasing me. Right now you don’t understand what I have done. One day you will open this book and you will find this note tucked inside its cover, passed to you like we did in class.

I have made notes to help you remember.

In the bookcase of the house you now live in, you will find the Cisrym Ta. And therein, in Inti’Drou Glyphs, is a trace of me and you. Seeds floating in sunlight over Thilwicket Fen, strung out on the breeze that buoys them. In the evening slant, by the shadow of a road, glows the packed clay of my youth with a boy named Caliph Howl. I love this memory. It comforts me beneath the groaning of the world, spinning in blackness, while the Abominations send tremors through my core.

You will read it. You will discover the possibilities. But that is not why I chose you. I picked you because I love you. And there is no other reason.

I see something clean as clouds flowing across the Healean Range, sky bright as glazed porcelain painted by sun and shallow sea. In the book rests your future—captured—in an instant held. Drifting on the trajectory of our throw.

I can already feel the pressure on my back and the miles of still-accreting sediment begin to weigh. I will be the first fossil of the new world. My ambit—so small.

But They cannot dislodge me or draw me out. I am not Nathaniel Howl, soul uncoupled from body and mind. I am only buried under mud and heavy numbers, beneath the new continents, as They once were buried.

As we ignored them, I am: a grain of sand, muffled by Their pallial secretions, stuck until the tides go out again.

—S.

BOOKS BY ANTHONY HUSO

The Last Page

Black Bottle

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony Huso was born in Minnesota and has lived in Asia, Europe, and around the United States. When not writing, he is a video game designer. Titles he has worked on include Dishonored, Call of Duty: World at War, and Boom Blox Bash Party.

He currently lives and works in Austin, Texas, with his wife and daughters. His blog can be read at www.anthonyhuso.com.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

BLACK BOTTLE