Black Bottle

Caliph boarded the Odalisque. The private political meeting to which he had been invited occupied his thoughts. A man by the name of Isham Wade wanted to speak with him on behalf of the Iycestokian Empire. Caliph couldn’t help feeling giddy.

The Odalisque’s batteries were full. Tepid wind smacked him in the face as the captain decoupled and launched.

As Caliph moved across the deck from fore to aft, thoroughly preoccupied, he bumped into Taelin Rae, still on crutches. She had been standing on the starboard deck.

The red arrow on a thermometer clamped to a nearby strut climbed steadily as they descended. It seemed to measure her mood as well.

“Pardon me—”

“Don’t think I’m not coming back up with you.” She gave him a dirty look in addition to her warning. Caliph glanced at Alani who seemed to be overseeing the exchange with unnecessary reprehension.

“We just needed to get the worst of them down the mountain,” said Caliph. “Baufent says it’s edema.”

“I could have stayed,” said Taelin.

“I need to be at the conference. And I can’t have you staying up there while I’m down below. It will be one day. A day and a half, really. I promise you. I will bring you back up—with me. After the conference.”

Taelin reached into her pocket and seemed to manipulate some object there. Alani took a step forward. For an instant, the wind blew hard between all three of them, shutting them away from each other.

When it relented, Caliph remembered what he had meant to ask.

“Fine,” she said before he could get the question out. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

“I’m afraid you don’t.” His patience was thin. He still had the journal and now he held it up in front of her. The volume’s spine was ochre, spattered with water marks. The corners had been worn down to the boards; they were threadbare and gray. “Listen, I have a favor.”

“A favor? Are you serious?” Her eyes glowered at the book.

Alani stepped back as if to give the swelling conversation room. Caliph shook the journal slightly. “I’ve been doing some reading,” he said. “I really don’t know what to make of it. And I wanted to ask you some questions.” He folded it in his arms, across his chest so that it barely peeked from beneath his left bicep. Taelin was peering at it. “Ask away,” she said.

“All right. Have you ever heard of anyone named Arkhyn Hiel?”

“Oh, my gods!” She stamped one of her crutches on the deck, childlike. “What is this? Let me tell you something … Mr. Howl. If you think digging in my history for—”

“Whoa, whoa! I promise you, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. This is an honest question.” He raised his hands and the book stood up like a placard over her head.

“Give me that,” she said, reaching for it. He wasn’t tall enough to keep it away. He had to take a step back and shield it from her. “Is that what you’ve been reading?” she demanded. Alani shifted uncomfortably.

“You have to promise to give it back.”

“I promise.” She was ferocious now.

“No throwing it over the railing?”

Taelin opened her mouth, only a little, and stuck her chin out at him. Hand still open, she curled her fingers.

He gave it to her.

She opened it. Caliph watched her jaw fall slightly as recognition suffused her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“This is my grandfather’s handwriting,” she said. Caliph felt discrete muscles twitch. His throat constricted. Her assertion, rather than dissuade him, strengthened a growing suspicion that he recognized the penmanship as his uncle’s. Could she be lying?

“I was on page sixty,” he said. He stepped toward her in an attempt to find it but she jerked away. She riffled through the entries herself until she found the page.

“Where did you get this?”

“I don’t know how it wound it up in Isca.”

“Someone had to give it to you!”

“This isn’t a trick. I just want to—”

“Where did you get it?” she yelled.

“Was Arkhyn Hiel your grandfather?”

“Where did you get it!”

“Was Arkhyn Hiel your grandfather!” And this time it was no joke. It was not Caliph but the office, the High King of the Duchy of Stonehold, that had shouted at her. She was compelled to answer.

“Yes.” She looked shaken and quiet. “Yes. He’s my grandfather.”

“Where is he? Is he in a hospital somewhere?”

“No. He’s dead.” Her tone was vicious.

Caliph felt like things were crawling over his skin. “All right.” He tugged his lower lip. “All right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what this book is. It talks about Naen’uln, which I thought would ring a bell with you.”

“Of course it rings a bell with me.”

“Look, it’s clearly not referring to a deity here … it’s a thing. Not Nenuln, Naen’ uln. Naen’s something-or- other. What does uln mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? You’re the only priestess of this church.”

“It’s a Veyden word. But—”

“Are you sure? It doesn’t sound Veyden. What does it mean?”

“I think it means gold. I don’t know.”

“You have to know! Where did you get your dogma? Where did you—”

“I made it up!” She was crying now, sobbing actually. “I found my grandfather’s diaries. They talked about beautiful lights. I made it up!” She tore her necklace off and hurled it down. Then she thrust her grandfather’s journal back into his hands and poled herself away, headed for the toilets.

Stunned, Caliph knelt to retrieve the necklace. “I’ve lost my touch with women,” he whispered.

“I’m not sure that’s a talent you ever had,” Alani said.

Caliph did not smile.

*   *   *

CALIPH looked over the list of conference attendees and made mental notes beside each one:

•   Emperor Junnu of the Eternal Empire of Pandragor (and his Stonehavian ambassador Nuj Ig’nos whom I despise)

•   Grand General Roma Fidakh of the Iron Throne of Waythloo (who is little more than an overlord)

•   Grand Arbiter Nawg’gnoh Pag, on behalf of the lord mayor of the Great City of Bablemum (they all hate me and, since they’ve recently become an unincorporated territory of Pandragor it probably serves for me to hate them back)

•   Prime Minister Liab Chrias of Dadelon’s fierce federal union …

Caliph’s eyes rolled down the list.

The Grand Tahn was here—from the Society of the Jaw. He and his armies had ground relentlessly at Bablemum for over a hundred years, something less than all-out war. He had now become Pandragor’s problem.

Even the esoteric Queendom of Pplar had emerged from its pale chrysalis: the Pebella herself was on the list.

Caliph looked at their ships as the Odalisque descended onto the northern edge of the congregation. Many of them were cunning works of technology that put his to shame. The south ran on solvitriol, alluvial siliventium, even the sun. Yorba’s great airship was alive! Its vast green skin soaked up sunlight and absorbed moisture from the clouds. It fed and repaired its enormous, engineered, sac-like body almost without oversight.