Black Bottle

choice to bear. It feels like her soul is bleeding. There will be no thank-you for destroying Stonehold’s enemies. Already, Caliph’s thoughts are turning on her. She is not surprised, but she is surprised by how it feels to be an outsider, an enemy, the one who caused him pain. She is shocked at how it feels to be mistrusted rather than adored. And yet it is familiar. She has been down this road before.

He will chase her now, to the ends of the world—not because he loves her but for the answer he is seeking. That is both the cruelty and the essential purpose of the thing. She wants to cry but sticks it in her throat. She will not weep in front of Nathaniel. Eventually, she knows, Caliph will have his answer. He will know that her hands were tied.

You look pleased, Nathaniel muses. It is a caustic joke. She cannot imagine her false smile is so convincing. Even if you do need the holojoules, I think you must be reveling in your power. Destroying entire governments, out of sheer egoistic joy?

Rectitudinous joy, Sena corrects him.

Oh? You tire of the politics of men? Poetic. Nathaniel’s tone darkens into his version of a sneer. But I don’t believe you. Why are you coiling their energy? What are you spooling them up—?

You don’t want me to go to Soth? Sena feigns shock. It is a small punch, a jab.

His coldness slides across her chest, her waist, the back of her neck. Sena keeps moving. She steps out of the sky, onto the Pplarian vessel.

Please, Nathaniel mocks. You don’t need a thousand bodies’ worth of blood to go to Soth. You have your colligation …

“Then maybe you’re right.” The holojoules of mass murder have been cached. She has wound them tightly and will hold them just a little while longer. “Maybe I enjoyed it. Maybe it was just for fun. Besides, my colligation is for other things.”

Yes. I wonder what those things might be …

Within the ship, Sena sees a shape moving; a Pplarian is coming out to greet her.

So many secrets, Nathaniel says. At least you’re giving him plenty to read. As I knew you would …

You want him to know about me, don’t you? You want him to understand what a monster I am? I think he already knows. But what’s monstrous about saving my child?

Sena swallows hard because he is so close to the truth. He is on the cusp of understanding everything she is hiding from him. So incredibly close, in fact, that she is terrified to speak.

Caliph Howl is worth killing, Nathaniel says.

“Yes,” she whispers. “But before he gives us everything, I think he deserves to know why.”

Have it your way. The shade manifests its version of a horselaugh. But if he’s going to understand anything you give him, won’t you have to undo what they did to him?

Won’t you have to burn the puslet out?

Sena carefully maintains her emotionless look. “Yes, I will. I’m going to do it with tinctures. The puslet’s sensitive cells won’t survive a single dose.”

He has suggested the very thing she planned.

Interesting. Obviously you want to play spirit guide. Steal some private time? Don’t for an instant think I’m letting you inside his head alone.

*   *   *

THE Odalisque plunged out of the sky.

It had followed the battle in Sandren carefully. When the witches had taken the High King underground, Sigmund had suggested where the maintenance tunnels might lead. The ship had motored out, away from the flawless’ leaping forms, beyond the edge of the cliff. There, Sigmund had scanned feverishly and when the witches had emerged with Caliph in tow, he had shouted—somewhat drunkenly—and pointed at the tiny platform bolted to the mountain wall.

He had shouted again, in dismay, when the unthinkable had happened and Caliph and the witches had plummeted. They fell like stones wrapped in fabric, clothing flapping madly behind them.

The Odalisque gave chase, descending as fast as it could, not in a vain effort to save them, but in an effort to determine the High King’s fate.

*   *   *

CALIPH could vaguely recall killing monsters with his sword. Or crayon.

Whatever.

Baufent had hooked him up to a bag of fluid and said something crazy. Then she turned to Sena, who had just walked into the room. While Baufent asked Sena for her professional opinion, Caliph noticed that his mistress had dyed her hair pale pink and put it into ponytail bunches off the back of her head. Her lips shimmered with pastel blue cosmetics and her nurse uniform was black, complete with unlikely gartered stockings. Caliph’s feelings over this did not correspond with the emotions he felt subconsciously floating just out of reach.

Why didn’t they correspond?

He couldn’t remember and for the moment, he didn’t care.

Sena looked down at him melodramatically, as if reading lines from an atrocious satire. “He’ll live, doctor. I’ll see to it.”

Caliph started laughing while Sena produced a small steel flask from her halter top and told Baufent to administer it. Any moment now, Caliph expected dancing fish with hats and canes.

Instead, Baufent scowled, unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents. “Won’t this do even more harm?” she asked.

Caliph’s laughter was like a windup toy that wouldn’t stop.

“Yes and no,” said Sena. “It’s poison, but it’s also the only way to remove his breasts.” She brushed Caliph’s hair from his forehead with cool smooth fingers as if deeply concerned over the future shape of his body.

“You’re right,” said Baufent who had turned into a real talking hamster. The huge gray rodent that was now Baufent leaned forward with the tiny flask in its paws and said, “Drink it … Drink it.”

Going along with the dream, Caliph did as he was told.

But when the liquid hit the back of his throat, something changed. Sena’s voice changed as well. It took on an edge. “Try to stay calm,” she said. “We’ll get through this.”

Her hand rested firmly on his forehead.

The euphoria had already begun to fade. Replacing it was darkness, emptiness and panic. “Sena? What’s happening?”

“Taelin isn’t well. She got into the medical supplies,” said Sena. “The puslet in your head allowed you to feel what she was feeling. You got high right along with her. But now we’re taking the puslet out. The influence of those drugs is going to go away—suddenly.”

Caliph felt his skin tighten. His body felt too small for his skeleton. All his bones pushed out, as if they were going to tear through.

He screamed.

Fire gurgled through his brain, driven by the strangely familiar smell of hyper-sweet mint. His breasts shrank instantly away. For a moment he knew them as Taelin’s breasts. He felt them with Taelin’s hands. Taelin’s long dark hair was in his face. He moved to brush it aside; then it was gone. All of it was gone.

His bones ripped through his skin, erupting from elbow, knee; the tips of his fingers exploded and his finger bones poked free. The skin of his feet bunched up around his ankles like threadbare socks that had finally given out. He screamed and his scream was never-ending. He was a pincushion of bloody bones, a punctuation mark of agony. His ribs broke and unfolded. They pierced upward through his chest.

He lost wind and heard his own scream fading into the abyss.

Sena’s voice filled his ear. “We’ll get through this. Knock three times on my door.” Then she was gone and he was alone in the dark—with his uncle.

“Where did she go?” Nathaniel asked.