* * *
FOR several minutes, Caliph stood mystified. But then the deck boy arrived. Caliph preferred the
The boy on the
Caliph took it and pulled it open. As he read, Sena’s delusions of grandeur melted into the background.
What it said, even in the shadow of last night’s attack, put a disquieting spin on Sena’s insistence that the
The city-state of Sandren had seen countries rise and fall. Its rich unattainable eye had long gazed over the Atlath Continent with a kind of supreme multifaceted neutrality. The city-state’s wealth was enormous. It had never been looted. It was, as it had always been, aloof to armies marching under and around it. Only one fool had ever attempted a siege.
Caliph tugged his lip, bewildered to read that during the last thirty-six hours, coinciding with a stay of warm sloppy weather, Sandren’s citizens lay dying.
Details were sparse. Some kind of sickness. Rumors chased their own tails.
As Caliph’s three airships neared the great jag of the Ghalla Peaks, he could see other zeppelins clustering.
A flock of balloons drifted together, enormous gasbags bearing crests and colors, each one from a different nation. The airships’ ponderous bodies were lanced and strafed by light; despite this, they looked small and powerless against the mountain’s cool gray backdrop.
Birds enmeshed the conflux in helices that twisted slow as summer gnats. Some of them carried messages between the ships. Information was spreading.
Caliph called for field glasses. He felt them arrive in his hand and looked southwest at the congregating vessels. There were craft from Waythloo’s Iron Throne, Wardale, even the Society of the Jaw. He made out one bizarre ship from the Theocracy of the Stargazers; another, pale as a cave beetle, from the Pplar. Fane, Dadelon, Iycestoke, Bablemum, Greymoor and Yorba. They were all here. A circus of colors. A sky full of political clout.
Behind the harlequin minnow-shaped bodies, where the sun could not yet reach, Caliph made out the black arms of Sandren’s famous teagle system. Great brackets of metal lunged from vertical clefts in the rock. Small only in perspective, the brackets trailed down the mountain’s sheer face, ending amid a smoky cluster of buildings that broke out into the sun and glinted like overturned trash.
Far above the conflux of zeppelins, the brackets led up, carrying their threads of cable toward the hidden city-state of Sandren.
If the Sandrenese were sick, Caliph was eager to hear the details, eager to see how he could help.
Some of the heavier airships had already docked at a great platform suspended halfway up the mountain: a half disk of grilled metal supported by cables and struts. The elevators could be summoned to this platform and the airships were moderately protected from the buffeting, generally east-blowing winds.
Not all craft could make the thirteen-thousand-foot ascent to the city.
Caliph handed his field glasses off and sent a message to the captain, requesting that he motor them in.
Not forty minutes later, another bird arrived with a message from the south. This one was an invitation.
Caliph was being called to Bablemum’s great flagship. There, Grand Arbiter Nawg’gnoh Pag would host the pre-conference party in the evening. It would be a way to gather and make sense of the crisis, what had happened to the Sandrenese, and how best to help.
Having had no sleep, Caliph finally gave in. He slept for several hours, woke, grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen and met with Alani in private.
“This could be it,” said the spymaster. “We need to be careful tonight.”
“They’re not going to kill me on their own ship,” said Caliph.
Alani coughed into his fist. “It’s Bablemum’s ship.”
“Pandragor controls Bablemum. Wouldn’t that be a little too obvious—”
“You’re right that they won’t likely make an attempt until after you give your speech,” said Alani. “Nevertheless—”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
“You should be.”
“Nevertheless what?” asked Caliph.
“Nevertheless, we’re going to put a watchdog on you tonight.”
“This is crazy. We’re going to be late.”
“No we’re not.” Alani snapped his fingers at one of his men. “Bring us a dog.”
“Yes, sir.”
Caliph was still talking. “I hate watchdogs.”
“I know.” Alani sounded genuinely apologetic. “But it’s the best way.”
Caliph frowned. His stomach hurt.
“You look nervous now,” said Alani. “That’s good.”
“Isn’t it
“Trust me. I’m doing my job.”
“Well if you’re nervous, then I shouldn’t be. It’s my job to go to this thing and keep Stonehold’s head from dragging in the—”
“That will be your job later, when you deliver your speech,” said Alani. “But not tonight.” He raised his index finger. “Tonight your only job is to stay alive. And with a little prudent fear, that job will be made considerably easier.”
Caliph growled and adjusted the button cover at the middle of his throat. He pointed to it fiercely with double fingers. “Is it fine?”
“You look perfect.”
Alani’s man came back from belowdecks, leading a tubby dog on short legs.
“I really don’t want to do this,” said Caliph.
“It’s my call,” said Alani. He knelt down and took the dog by the collar. It whimpered, sensing that something was not right.
One of Alani’s men produced a muzzle. It was a heavy latticed thing, woven into a basket of pale boiled leather, riveted together at all intersections. Caliph found it bulky and terrible to look at; it allowed the dog to open and close its beak but obscured its small blue eyes almost entirely. The dog gurgled and clucked, then shrieked once as the spike at the back of the muzzle pierced its chubby neck.
“They’re going to think it strange? Sena not coming?” Caliph asked, trying not to think about the animal.
“Hardly. I think Bablemumish derision for her is an open book. We don’t want to enflame an already precarious situation.”
Alani adjusted a gauge wired to a chemiostatic battery that now hung under the dog’s throat. This was cutting edge, government-issue holomorphy, produced by entrepreneurs in Isca City at top-secret facilities. Caliph had to accept some blame in its creation despite the fact that the product was vastly different than the original specifications.
“You’re right,” Caliph said. “Let’s get this over with. I want to be back on the
“So do I.”
Alani flipped a toggle switch on the collar portion of the muzzle. It began whispering. This was a hideous version of the thing worn by the captain’s crippled son, only the equation it repeated, ever so slowly, was of a much different bent.
The numbers in the static-filled hiss produced a ward. This ward would cover the High King, all night long. The outcome, different from the company’s original proposal, was that the animal would die in the process.
Each dog offered a one-night watch.
It was an inefficient device, a prototype really. But the contract had included a tricky clause. Caliph had already decided not to renew. He might even fight it in court once they returned from Sandren. In the meantime, with the knowledge of how he was viewed by the south, for the sake of Stonehold’s future, he allowed Alani to set the collar.
