Black Bottle

“One Thousand Rosewind Palace.”

Even after a year’s worth of official mail from the address, it still sounded blithe and fruity in Caliph’s mouth.

He handed the two books Sena had given him to one of his bodyguards and pressed the grime-encrusted button on the lift. It was just after midnight. The cage around him staggered a moment, then smoothly unreeled down oil-streaked suspensor bars and into the courtyard’s chilly sweetness.

The captain had repositioned the ship over the palace’s ciryte mooring deck but there wasn’t enough room to accommodate both it and the Iatromisia. When the lift touched down, he struck out across the vast glittering dais, emerged from the zeppelin’s shadow into moonlight and descended directly toward the hospital tents that glowed whitely through a black braiding of exotic botanicals.

Already he could hear the screams.

Updates had come to him regularly, indicating that “patients” were gathering beyond the palace walls. Several of the saner ones had been captured and treatment had begun.

The screams did not come from the tents. Howls and wails floated above the outer walls, attesting to the great horde there.

Caliph arrived in the central tent unannounced, flanked by bodyguards. He looked at the tentative atrocities that recoiled from the touch of their caregivers. Most of them seemed to have lost the ability to speak. They gurgled half-words and lowed like nocturnal amphibians.

Were they still human? he wondered.

One squatted on a white canvas cot, another curled into the fetal position, oozing black-green pus from ulcers that glistened over skin gone iridescent gray. The disease had modified what muscles they had left, made them hunker. They smelled like salmon.

Keeping her distance, but staring through the metallic-toned morbidity, Caliph saw the priestess of Nenuln watching him.

He noticed her crutches. She looked away the moment their eyes met. Shit, he thought. Here’s something I should have handled earlier. He walked the circumference of the busy tent so that he could engage her directly. She did not attempt to escape.

“Lady Rae.”

She bowed slightly. “Your majesty.” He found her pretty, cinnamon-colored. And there were reddish highlights in her long wild hair. “I didn’t realize it would be like this.”

“You didn’t?” Her eyes accused him.

What could he say? Quantities of vaccine were piled around them in refrigerated chests.

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, I came over here to apologize. I wouldn’t have brought you with if I’d known it was going to be so dangerous.” He gestured to her crutches.

“I know. It’s just political.” Her tongue snicked against her teeth. “Your doctor made it clear: I’m just here for the lithos. You didn’t expect me to actually help with anything important.”

“It’s absolutely political,” he said. “I’m sure you know my standing with your father’s government. We’re lucky to have you in Isca.”

“That seems overly candid for a politician,” she said.

Caliph pressed on, trying to fight her skepticism. “Why would I lie?”

“Apparently you wouldn’t.”

“No … I wouldn’t. The truth is, I appreciate your interest in Stonehold, the work you’ve done in Lampfire Hills and Os Sacrum. My thanks is insufficient. And your willingness to come to Sandren, to show up here, puts me even more in your debt. But now, look at your leg. I don’t feel comfortable having you so close—”

“That would look bad, wouldn’t it?” She smiled; a momentary awkwardness bubbled up between them. He felt like he wasn’t following her. “If something were to happen to me?” she clarified. Her head straightened and she looked at him squarely.

“That’s right,” said Caliph. He felt off balance. Maybe he had misinterpreted the smile. He supposed he understood what she was getting at. “Regardless of whether you think it’s just about my image, I’d still like you to go back down to the Bulotecus.”

“Where it’s safe?”

“Yes. Where it’s safe.”

“It wasn’t safe the other night.” She waved her hand in front of her crutches. “You know, King Howl—I know that for you, this is political. But, honestly, why do you think I came up this cliff in the first place?”

Caliph hung his head. “Because to you, it’s not political. You’re here out of the goodness of your heart, to help people. And you won’t be dragged away.” This was a bit of a show. Based on what Alani had told him, Caliph knew she hated Sena. The priestess wasn’t without ulterior motives. But he wanted to see if she would relent, if she might admit to some level of hypocrisy.

She did not.

Instead she clapped twice. “Very good, King Howl.” But then her face softened, her cynicism slipped marginally. She regarded him for a moment, possibly against a set of less-harsh assumptions.

“Well,” said Caliph, “everything you’ve said is fair. I invited you. Now I suppose I have to live with the risks.”

“Do you? I doubt it.”

Caliph shifted his eyes to the hospital and the grisly patients squirming on cots. He ignored her assessment. “So, how is the vaccine working?”

“There’s no one here to vaccinate,” she said. “All of them are already infected. But Dr. Baufent ran some tests. It’s the same strain you had in Isca.”

“Well, at least there’s hope for anyone we find who doesn’t have it yet.” A volley of moans carried over the walls like a fusillade aimed at his optimism. He forced a razor-thin smile and ended with, “All right. Thank you for your help. Please be careful.”

She ducked her head. “Your majesty…”

Caliph left her in the tent and headed for the walls, trying to ignore the scarlet mussels that ground themselves against several naked patients. He wanted to talk to his men.

Alani stood near the gates. He seemed to be muttering with his commanding officer in what, from a distance, looked to be an almost satirical pose, standing sagely with one hand on his hip, the other stroking his beard.

As Caliph arrived, satire vanished. Alani turned to him and said point-blank, “This whole thing is too big for us.”

“Where’s Sig?”

“He never came up. We moved him to the Bulotecus before we left.”

“Good. It’s safer down there.”

Alani took out his pipe, spun it and pointed it at Caliph’s chest. “I’d like to move you down there.”

Caliph started to scoff but Alani’s eyes stabbed him. “You think I’m joking? Your little priestess over there is getting cruestone-delivered messages from someone down below and I don’t have time to worry about it—”

“She’s harmless,” said Caliph. “Trust me.”

“Is she? We brought her with for a reason. Don’t let the Pandragonians turn this around on us.”

Caliph raised his palms. “I know I don’t make your job easy but—”

Alani interrupted. “Please—our escort’s designed for a three-day trip to a secured building for an uneventful conference. Currently, I barely have the manpower to secure the perimeter at this position. That means every man is working. That means none of them are sleeping. That means, even popping pills, in a little over thirty hours we’ll have lost our edge—completely. At that point everyone crashes and we’re defenseless.”

Caliph blew a thin stream of air and looked around. The howls from the other side of the gate were deafening. “Is there anything we can do to make it easier? Besides giving up?”

“If we move you inside the palace and leave a couple men with the hospital tents, I can start letting men sleep.”

“That’s not good politics.”