Black Bottle

with grave concern.

“Bring me my satchel,” she snapped, and one of the shadows behind her disappeared.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Baufent tore into him. “No? What about this?” She held up an empty hypodermic. “Are you a junkie? Or are you just stupid?”

Caliph didn’t know what to say.

“Get me a drip,” said Baufent.

“Ma’am,” a voice behind her sounded truly afraid, “there’s something happening on the ground.”

“I am busy! Get Anselm to deal with it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Caliph was still holding his breasts.

*   *   *

TAELIN’S second scream seemed to be mental. At least she had no control over her body. She couldn’t open her mouth. She was moving without willing herself to do so, scuttling across a concrete slab on her palms like a crab.

She reached for a sword just in front of her and grasped it by the handle. It felt cool and solid even though she was sure she was dreaming. The smell of burnt fish wrecked the air.

She jumped up, strong but clumsy, surprised by her own strength, gripping the weapon.

The palace scintillated: a pointillist’s figurative arrangement of pink and black and mica-white dots. She could hear the sounds of combat on her left flank but she could not move. Like in a nightmare, she was a watcher more than an active participant.

Her neck was locked in a direction that cast her field of view just south of the palace’s grand facade, off the cement pad and down toward an additional spread of gardens.

The taste in her mouth was foreign. She felt sweat trickle from the bridge of her nose down around her nostrils, incredibly real. At the edge of the cement pad, where a magnolia tossed in the wind, a gauzy darkness spluttered. It looked like black steam seeping into the air from no particular source but it held a shape that reminded her of the cloaks worn by college professors.

At the top of it—sweet Nenuln—a puff of white that bobbed fly-away with the wind, sheltered a pair of cimmerian eyes. They glared at her with malicious delight. Together it was the semblance of a man standing under the tree, just barely. Just almost there.

She walked toward him, which was the last thing she wanted to do, her sword out in front of her. As she approached, the shape grew taller, or perhaps it levitated slowly so that her vantage became that of a child at the foot of a grown-up.

Something like an arm effected from the mist, a hand spread and extended. She felt a cool-warm pressure grip the crown of her head. And a vaporous voice said something about her necklace that she couldn’t understand.

CHAPTER

25

There had been no report from Duana’s qloin.

When the High King had floated down from Sandren to meet Isham Wade, Miriam and her five sisters had waited for either Sena or Duana to materialize.

Neither had.

In an effort to collect intelligence, while the High King slept, Miriam and her two qloins had crawled out of the rain and into his stateroom.

The puslet was still cankered with neural cells it had cloned from Taelin Rae; its synthesis with Caliph’s brain was sloppy and any information it provided would be cloudy and intermittent. But Miriam did not care. All she needed was Sena’s location.

Unfortunately, Caliph didn’t know.

Sena had disappeared entirely, from diaglyph, blood scrying—even her lover had no idea where to find her.

Miriam could only wait for things to change. But when they had, when Sena had shown up—Miriam found herself woefully unprepared.

Sena’s immediate destruction of the airships had been paralyzing. For those precious moments, Miriam had been unable to think. And how she regretted it! By the time she had gathered her wits, the Eighth House—for who could doubt the meaning of Giganalee’s proclamation now?—was already walking toward the white ship.

Did Sena serve the Pplar? Or was it the other way ’round?

Miriam set these and many other questions aside. All that mattered for the moment was catching Sena. The puslet told her that Caliph Howl was intent on the same thing, that he didn’t want the world to end and that he was someone she could use.

Miriam was forced to change her plan yet again. Had it been available, she would have used the tremendous amount of energy necessary for both qloins to cross lines onto Sena’s ship. Not only was crossing lines exponentially more dangerous than walking lines, but it required so many holojoules—three hundred sixty murdered people for both qloins—that even if she killed the High King’s entire entourage it wouldn’t have been half enough. She would have done it. She wished there were enough bodies to use.

But it simply wasn’t going to happen. The only thing to do was use the Odalisque to chase Sena down.

Miriam watched the chaos unfold below her while clinging to the airship’s belly with gooey holomorphic fingers. Her ancillas were nearby.

The Cabal’s flawless had slunk up from Sandren’s fissures and the High King’s forces were now pinned beneath them, stretched like softened metal across the anvil of the Ghalla Peaks. It would be an unlikely partnership if she saved the High King.

He was standing stupidly with his back to the flawless, completely exposed and staring at a tree on the edge of the cement.

Miriam blamed the puslet. It was dirty.

The only thing giving her pause was Caliph’s spymaster. She desperately wanted him torn in half by the flawless. Then it would be safer for her to intervene. She hesitated a moment more, knowing that her window of opportunity was closing.

Finally, she gave the signal and popped the cork on a small capsule of blood. The grume of the battle was too far below for hemofurtum. She let go of the Odalisque and shouted. All six sisters glided out of the zeppelin’s shadow.

The boundary between the Sisterhood and its ancient enemy passed behind her as Miriam skimmed the trees, eyes focused on the flawless, which were still wolfing down human-shaped bites.

The flawless were not half-breeds. These eel-headed hulks had erupted from bygone cisterns like ancient gods. As bewildering as it was that these fables should reveal themselves here and now, Miriam’s time for idle thought ended as her feet touched the ground. Her momentum carried her into a run.

On her left, marked out by their use of velvet guns, the last three of the spymaster’s handpicked agents were fighting alongside him. Fighting was inaccurate. What Alani and his agents were trying to do was slow the flawless down. It wasn’t working. The flawless moved unhindered, relentlessly eating their way through the last people standing. But they seemed distracted.

Miriam tried to understand what they were looking at. Her eyes rolled up.

It was the Odalisque.

Some of them reached into the sky, twenty feet or more, pawing. One tried to jump. It was futile. The ship was far out of reach.

Miriam looked away as she raced toward Caliph Howl. Combat was not the answer here. Her only goal was securing the High King. If he died, the chase for Sena would be over.

Miriam motioned toward Caliph’s idle form at the edge of the cement. Her ancillas, like her, were already sprinting toward him. Then, across the expanse of cement, Miriam locked eyes with the spymaster. She saw him