Black Bottle

But the dream seemed never-ending. His bed swallowed him like a rumpled white ocean. Nathaniel was gone and the trees outside the huge warped window were barren and black and the sky was gold with morning. He looked at his hands in the light and they were small.

I’ll build a kite this morning, he heard himself think—but it was not him. He was still a stowaway in his own skull. Eavesdropping. A kite big enough to carry me away from here.

Then a hand touched him from behind. He jumped with surprise and fear but arms encircled him. He turned, and in turning was enveloped by the shadow of her neck, the sweet toasty smell of her lotus-pink hair. Her blue lips kissed him sexually, not as a woman kisses a child. And he wanted her. As a boy wants his first young schoolteacher. She tasted of candy floss. Warm and soft and splendid.

It isn’t bad, uncle, he thought angrily. It isn’t bad if she makes me fall where I’m never found. This is it. He turned into her carnival of colors. I’ve found it, uncle. I’ve found it.

The duck landed here.

20Holomorphy measures its cost in cuts. According to holomorphic charts, the human body contains seven cuts.

CHAPTER

27

The fall from Sandren had lasted over a minute. Then the four witches had leveled off and landed in the blue-green coils of a vast wind-shaken grassland north and east of Seatk’r, a mile beyond the point where the ghetto’s fingers of glittering trash flowed like artificial effluence down the foothills’ morning-shadowed ravines.

This was the story Caliph heard. He remembered none of it. The Odalisque and the Bulotecus had both descended for the pick-up. Caliph had been unresponsive. As the flagship of the Iscan Crown, the Bulotecus maintained a tiny room packed with medical necessities. Caliph had been put on a stretcher and hauled on board. Taelin too, had been ferried over from the Odalisque for treatment. Even Miriam had been stitched up.

Crews were shuffled. Dr. Baufent had come over to the Bulotecus. She attended to Caliph personally. She had administered first aid, but Caliph had come out of his daze under his own power. Even when Caliph pressed her, Baufent denied having given him any kind of tincture.

“No, I did not,” she had said. “What do you mean a tincture?” Caliph’s insistent questions had put her on the defensive. “I don’t even know what a tincture would be. I can assure you I have no idea what you are talking about.”

He had asked about Sena.

“No. Miss Iilool was certainly never here. I think she would have been arrested the moment she set one foot on this ship.

“No she didn’t give me any tincture for you to drink. King Howl, look at me.” She had shined a chemiostatic light into his eyes.

“You’re delirious. You’ve been hallucinating.”

*   *   *

ISHAM Wade and Mr. Veech looked at the four witches with deep skepticism while Anselm and Baufent held their opinions like clipboards, close to their chests.

Caliph’s head was still foggy but he clung to the moment as best he could, trying to pay sedulous attention. His head was still swimming with echoes of dreams, visions … hallucinations? He didn’t know what to call them.

All the ranking members of the crew had been gathered on the Bulotecus’ rear deck. When they weren’t staring at the witches, they were staring at him.

They think I’m losing it.

Among the noteworthies were the physicians, the airship captain, Sig and the Iycestokians—Whom Caliph had not been able to justify keeping locked up. Lady Rae was asleep in one of the staterooms.

The Bulotecus had moored in Seatk’r.

That much Caliph knew for sure.

“I really must demand a private audience,” Mr. Wade hissed in Caliph’s ear. Meanwhile the witches were explaining Alani’s death.

“—so he died from wounds … sustained from the creature that was attacking King Howl,” Miriam summed up.

The story attained a certain level of credence based mostly on the fact that Caliph was still alive. Caliph had little choice other than to believe the account. He could remember nothing about the actual event.

Since the government of Seatk’r was being uncooperative, the Odalisque climbed back to Sandren. It scouted the area. The monsters in the city seemed to have slunk off. The Odalisque retrieved what bodies had not been eaten and returned to report. The Pplarian airship, it seemed, was still in Sandren, waiting for the High King.

I don’t like it, Alani would have said. Caliph could almost hear the spymaster whisper in his ear. Baufent had yet to examine the body and confirm cause of death.

The spymaster’s death was a great black anvil that crushed through all of Caliph’s other crises and sat dead center; immovable.

It kept going through his head over and over, how can Alani be dead?

“Your majesty. We need to talk,” whispered Mr. Wade.

“Listen! I will meet with you when I am … when it is appropriate,” said Caliph. “And right now it is not appropriate.”

The crowd hushed at his outburst.

Mr. Wade’s meaty face was flushed, probably with anger. Caliph didn’t care.

He turned to the witches and gestured curtly for them to continue. Miriam started talking but all Caliph could think was, What is wrong with my head?

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Mr. Veech, “but we arrived late. What were your names?”

The witches reintroduced themselves.

Each of them was improbably attractive and athletic, as if selected from a beauty pageant: Anjelique Breckenshire, Gina Dingo and Autumn Solburner. Miriam Yeats seemed to be their leader. All of them had thin scars around their necks as if they had survived an attack with piano wire.

Caliph felt cold but Autumn’s voice interrupted his thoughts. She was an erogenic copper-headed saucebox with bizarre black accents dyed into her hair. “Of course you can trust us. We saved your king’s life.”

Had someone asked a question? I need to focus! Caliph thought. Mother of Emolus my head hurts.

“Here are the facts,” said Caliph, turning to the witches. “We were attacked on the twelfth by your organization, over Mirayhr. We lost good men and women that night.” Caliph saw a glance pass between Autumn and Miriam.

Miriam looked at Caliph calmly. “Your ship was attacked in an effort to prevent the thing that happened this morning—from happening. All those people in all those zeppelins didn’t have to die. We’re after Sena Iilool, just like you are.”

The words cut Caliph deeply because the witches’ actions seemed supportable. Was it true? Had he been on the wrong side? Had the attack on his airships by the Shradnae Sisterhood been justified?

Everyone on the rear deck knew that the four women had leapt from Sandren, falling on some mathematical parachute of wind. They had risked themselves to save Caliph’s life.

“You know it’s true,” said Miriam. “The only people you lost that night were the people that stood between Sena and our operatives. She lost the book that night.”

Isham Wade perked up.