up at the dark, trying to breathe.
“I see lights!” She gagged. “Nenuln’s lights!”
Thunder boomed and in the sudden brilliance Taelin’s skin turned to rubber. A grossly corpulent appendage curled around her. Its flesh flowed inward: lightless boiling plasma. It moved with self-encrypted gravity. Several more limbs, turbid and glistening, slapped down around her, reaching for her throat. Her mouth was open, howling but soundless.
She felt an icy bite. Slippery and rough. A cobweb of fatty madness enclosed her, like a bug trapped in phlegm spit at the ceiling. Something scrabbled with the demonifuge, desperate and angry.
Then the ruins ruptured and fathoms of liquid poured in. Her body—her skull—crushed instantly.
She saw, or imagined that she saw, a fading white polyp flailing on heavy currents. Her arms perhaps. Some profligate kelp-like gyration in the depths. Distortion. Golden syrup. Then more white light. Brilliant white light.
Vast black shapes moved below her, receding toward the event horizon of an oceanic trench. Light flickered through Sena’s torn coat, radiant cones that shifted from a hole between her shoulder blades. The beacon gave Taelin some sense of direction at the edge of the violent plume of sediment that billowed from Jorgill Deep.
She watched stones fall slowly, sinking back into a swirl of midnight blue and brown.
Sena’s fingers closed around her hand. The witch’s eyes were suspended in water. They looked down into Taelin, earnest and communicative.
The pressure dissipated. Her crushed body moved. Her imploded head considered. She gripped her demonifuge tightly but knew: it had not been Nenuln. It had been Sena Iilool that pulled her out of silted blackness, up into the glorious brightness of her bedroom on the
24U.T.: Approximate pronunciation: Sectua’Gaunt.
CHAPTER
36
Insidiously, with the ship’s southward passage, everything had become foreign. The landscape and objects they passed over had names in languages that Caliph found unfriendly. According to the captain, the wind at their backs was called the Hali. It blazed down the slopes of Ayrom Karak and out across the strangely hued desert of Nah’Ngode Ayrom.
The Hali brought the storm.
Caliph had located Isham Wade and had backed him up against a railing. Sand was already stinging them as it whipped up off the dunes.
“Unhand me!”
“Did you try to poison me?”
“No! Have you lost your mind?”
“Tell the Iycestokians to let us go!”
“I have witnesses to your brutality,” Mr. Wade sputtered.
“I want your communication device,” Caliph shouted over the wind.
Isham scoffed in a way that hinged on real amusement. “You don’t even know what it’s called.”
Caliph glared at Mr. Wade’s jeweled ring. “I want it
Sigmund loomed over Caliph’s shoulder, ready to assist. They had locked Mr. Veech in the hold.
“Drag him inside, Sig.”
They moved off the deck into the shelter of the paneled hall. Isham raised his hands.
“Give it to me,” said Caliph.
Isham reached up and, with little effort, pulled his left eye out of its socket. He shook it gently as if about to roll it in a game of chance, then held it out, aiming for Caliph’s palm.
Caliph drew back, horrified, which tugged an indulgent laugh from Isham’s throat. “You know what they say about us Iycestokians,” said Mr. Wade. “One eye talks about what the other one sees.”
The eye looked up at Caliph from between Isham’s fingers. It was slippery and positively real. Not made of glass.
“How do I use it?”
Isham chuckled. “You can’t. It’s mine.”
Caliph did not attempt to take it away. “Put it in. Tell them to let us go. We’re on the same side.” They weren’t on the same side at all. He had hoped the device would be something he could use, something he could at least comprehend.
Isham put his eye back in. It moved and behaved like a real eye, reassuring Caliph that he had not missed the obvious.
“I can’t tell them to let you go, King Howl. They have an objective here.”
“They want the book. Fine. Tell them I’ll land in Bablemum and we’ll deliver the book there. You said you need vaccine. I can deliver that too.”
“We already have vaccine, King Howl.”
“But you said—”
“Your medical ship was intercepted just north of Sandren.”
“That’s an act of war!”
“Well, according to—”
“What about the people on board? What did you do with them?”
“I’m sure they’re fine. My government will replicate the vaccine and immunize Iycestoke.”
“And the rest of the south? The north? What about them? Are you going to sell it to—”
Isham leveled his hand, fingers spread. He wobbled it and squinted, indicating such a decision had not yet been made.
“You evil fucking bastard.”
“Be realistic!” said Isham. “Selling it will help us survive. Everyone wants to survive. Think about flies getting their heads chewed off. The mantis is just trying to survive. You can’t blame him for looking like a flower. What’s evil about that?”
Sigmund grunted.
Caliph grasped at the last straw he felt he had. “What about the book? I hand you the book at Bablemum.”
“You’re not in a bargaining position, King Howl.”
“Yes, I am,” said Caliph. “Because I’m the only one that can stop this. I’m the only one that can convince her not to do what she’s going to do. But in order for me to convince her, I need to catch up to her.”
“And what is she going to do, King Howl?”
Caliph couldn’t force himself to say it. The words simply wouldn’t come out. It was too preposterous. Even with everything that had gone wrong he couldn’t say it out loud.
Isham smiled and went on. “Whatever it is, you don’t need to catch up to her. We can do that. Iycestoke will stop her. Rest assured. You’ve never seen an Iycestokian armada, King Howl?
“Now please, just show me the book.”
Caliph deliberated whether that was a good idea. The book’s existence coupled with the fact that the Iycestokians still had a diplomat on board were probably the only reasons the
“Come with me,” said Caliph. He marched to his stateroom and pulled out Arkhyn Hiel’s journal.
“May I see it?”
“I believe you can see it perfectly well from there,” said Caliph. He put the book away.
“That’s hardly proof,” said Isham.
“I don’t owe you any more proof,” said Caliph. “Now tell your armada what you’ve seen. You’ll have plenty of time while you keep Mr. Veech company.”
Sig stepped forward and took Isham Wade by the arm.
“Take your hands off me!” Mr. Wade struggled fiercely but Sigmund applied torque and the diplomat went
