Jack Cloudie

from the fall of the House of Barir. What did it matter if his face could flow like melting candle wax to take on the guise of others? The other faces were still him. A thought leapt unbidden into Omar’s mind. The nagging feeling that there had been something familiar about Farris Uddin when they had first met. Was it possible that Farris Uddin had been in his father’s house before, wearing someone else’s face, or perhaps using a face that would fit in there. Had he been one of the house’s retainers — perhaps even Alim, the rascally nomad turned water farmer who had helped Omar tend the desalination tanks?

No, he couldn’t have been a permanent fixture, Omar realized. A guardsman might have to travel the length of the empire on the caliph’s business. So might a smuggler or a bounty hunter. But Farris Uddin couldn’t have spent years labouring on the house’s water farms, could he?

‘And what will you get for handing us over to the caliph?’ asked the large, bearded prisoner. ‘More of your blessed immortality drug? You haven’t aged a single day since I left the empire.’

Farris Uddin held up the empty vial that Omar had seen the caliph inject himself with. ‘The Caliph Eternal is not the man he used to be — which, ultimately, is why you are here and why we are here too.’

‘You’re too old to be a philosopher, Udal.’

‘I’m too old to be anything else,’ said Farris Uddin.

‘You told me back in the fortress that it isn’t a drug,’ said Omar. ‘But I saw the Caliph Eternal begging the grand vizier to be given its needle.’

‘Not something that will make an addict of a man, although the Caliph Eternal sorely needs it.’ Uddin looked at Boulous and nodded at the prisoners. ‘Cut their ties and let them stand free. Not the big one, though, his temper runs hot.’

Farris Uddin named each of the prisoners in turn, for the benefit of Omar and Boulous.

‘You flaming unchain me,’ spat the giant Jackelian the commander had identified as Henry Tempest, ‘and it’ll take more than some nets dropped by your flying bloody salamanders to stop me.’

‘I am quite sure of that,’ said Farris Uddin, his features twitching and changing back to the face of the guardsman that Omar recognized. ‘You are a piece of inferior work; substantial, but inferior. Your bones and muscles are so dense that your own glands cannot cope with your form without making an amateur chemistry set of your blood. Our womb mages would not have made such elemental errors with your flesh.’ He tossed the empty vial across to the woman he had named as First Lieutenant Westwick. Boulous was keeping a wary pistol barrel levelled towards the prisoners.

‘What do you think our Caliph Eternal is “addicted” to, sweet lady?’

Westwick dipped a finger inside the syringe, touching the residue to her tongue. ‘Blood!’

‘By Lord Tridentscale’s beard,’ whined the commodore, ‘is that the secret of the Caliph Eternal’s long life? He’s made himself into some sort of vampire?’

Uddin smiled. ‘I presume the Kingdom’s State Protection Board has some insight into the inner workings of the empire — we always catch a few of your agents every year on our side of the border. They haven’t all been shopping for bargains in the souks, have they? Why would the Caliph Eternal need regular injections of blood?’

‘He’s not the caliph!’ said First Lieutenant Westwick sounding astonished.

‘Very clever, your price has just risen,’ said Uddin. ‘The grand vizier has installed an impostor on the throne. Only the true Caliph Eternal knows the secret of the blood engineering which bonds his regiment of personal bodyguards to him. A very useful protection, don’t you think?’ As Uddin spoke, his features began to warp again, this time reforming into an exact match of the young man that Omar had seen in the heart of the palace. The caliph, ruler of rulers, Akil Jaber Issman himself. ‘I can mimic the Caliph Eternal like this, but if I dared to trespass into the Jahan, the beyrogs would rip me apart the moment they saw me. They would know the difference between me and their true master.’

‘But how did they get to the Caliph Eternal?’ asked the woman. ‘We’ve known of your womb mages’ ability to breed shape-switchers for centuries. Jackals has safeguards against them in place and we don’t even have a full understanding of the processes you use to create them. Your defences must be superior to ours.’

‘Yes, there are tests that can detect such assassins,’ said Farris Uddin, ‘and of course, our tests are a lot more proficient than yours, but there is one secret you have not had access to — and that is the true nature of the Caliph Eternal’s title. His immortality doesn’t come from lifelast, although he imbibes the drug too. The drug extends a man’s lifespan no more than three hundred years. You die looking as if you are in your third decade, but die you eventually will.’

‘Then he is a wicked vampire,’ whined the commodore.

‘No,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘The caliph is what we call an enculi, although no one outside of the ruler of rulers’ inner circle should have heard of that word. It is a form of womb magery. You take the flesh of a man — even a corpse’s flesh will serve — and use it to give birth to a child, one so alike the original flesh-giver, that he or she is identical, beyond even a twin’s likeness.’

‘Your people’s blessed resurrections,’ said the commodore. ‘The oldest son of the sultan of Hakaqibla died falling off his horse on a hunt, and the caliph bought him back to life.’

‘Yes, the new son would have been an enculi,’ said Uddin. ‘It is one of the carrots that is dangled in front of the empire’s satrapies to ensure our friends’ loyalty. If a loved-one dies, we can bring them back, at least in resemblance.’

‘That’s the Caliph Eternal’s immortality …?’ said Westwick.

‘At any one time,’ said Uddin, ‘the Caliph Eternal has seven enculi cast from his own flesh and raised in secrecy at the heart of the Jahan, within the womb mages’ lair. There they are reared and taught in isolation from each other, waiting for the Caliph Eternal to pass into paradise.’

‘Seven of them?’ said Omar.

‘The healthy body of an enculi can be guaranteed,’ explained the guardsmen commander, ‘but each mind is unique; even raised with shared tutors, given identical lessons, the same food and training. Some enculi cast from the Caliph Eternal’s flesh will grow to be wise, some will grow to be fools, and some will grow to be indolent or insane. When the Caliph Eternal is dying he is given the current seven enculi’s test results and the cleverest and strongest of them is chosen to continue as the light of the world. Their tutors strangle the other six and their bodies are destroyed. Before he dies, the passing Caliph Eternal gives his chosen child the secret of the blood sorcery that grants him absolute control over the beyrogs and the other biologick servants of the Jahan.’

‘A grand vizier who is also the head of the order of womb mages,’ said Omar, the realization of their predicament dawning on him. ‘He would have been involved in the destruction of the six spare enculi.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘And it is now obvious that filthy wretch Immed Zahharl only destroyed five of them. The weakest and most pliable of the six he had installed on the caliph’s throne as his puppet; the Caliph Eternal’s chosen one must have been spirited away soon after his recent succession, before he could consolidate his power, kept prisoner and milked like a cow for the secrets of his own blood. How grateful would you be to the grand vizier, saved from destruction and installed on the throne as the true Caliph Eternal, your ability to command the beyrogs solely dependent on a regular infusion of your own flesh-brother’s blood?’

‘Where is the real Caliph Eternal?’ asked Boulous. ‘If they need to milk the ruler of rulers for the magics that are within his blood, where are they holding him prisoner?’

‘The surviving agents of the Pasdaran used the time the grand vizier’s men spent torturing you to good effect,’ said Uddin. ‘We matched their interrogations with a little questioning of our own. It was easy enough to kidnap one of the grand vizier’s inner circle when we knew what to look for, what questions to ask.’

‘I wish you had grabbed that bastard Salwa,’ said Omar.

‘The new grand marshal of the guardsmen?’ laughed Uddin. ‘A little too obvious.’

‘Where is the true Caliph Eternal being held?’ asked the Jackelian woman.

‘Where else, the Forbidden City itself,’ said Uddin. ‘Mutantarjinn, the stronghold of the womb mages, where the grand vizier and his disgusting new sect first rose to prominence.’

‘Say that isn’t so,’ groaned the commodore. ‘That’s a free city, owned and sealed as tight as a drum by the order of womb mages; crawling with your dark-hearted sorcerers and full of sicknesses and twisted abominations that should never see the light of day.’

‘It is also where the grand vizier and the Sect of Razat’s womb mages are producing the airship gas you have been sent to locate.’

‘You’re lying to me, Udal,’ said the commodore. ‘Another lie to go along with your damned false faces, just another wicked lie to get old Blacky to head down to that dark, terrible place and save your undeserving ruler.’