Jack Cloudie

I could find a way around the hurdles that have defeated every womb mage labouring on the problem for half a millennia.’

Omar stared down to where the grand vizier was indicating. He had seen such tanks before, being dragged through the womb mages’ chambers beneath the caliph’s palace. The yellow nutrient fog inside almost concealed the poor slaves within, their bellies unnaturally distended to allow them to give birth to the products of the sorcerers’ art.

‘Of course,’ said the grand vizier. ‘The previous attempts to manufacture our airship gas were made by mere men, and my solution would not have been one they could easily countenance.’

As the grand vizier stopped speaking, the yellow fog of nutrients cleared and Omar saw the faces of the slaves, straining and sweating under the unnatural load their wombs were carrying. Bearded and coarse, they were the faces of men!

Farris Uddin turned his head from the sight in disgust. ‘Abomination, what have you done?’

‘When Ben Issman wrote of the two souls held in a body’s flesh, he was talking about something we womb mages refer to as a chromosome. And only the male chromosome can produce a skoil. Fortunately, the work I did on scouring away my gender can be modified for other uses … such as giving a male a fully functioning womb.’

‘You are cursed under heaven!’

‘Perhaps I am.’ The grand vizier shrugged. ‘Perhaps every one of us was. Not all of my sisters died on the long journey from the provinces to the heart of the empire. When I tried to locate my remaining two sisters, I found their death records here in the Citadel of Flowers — where they had spent their final years as producers. Do you know what they whisper to producers before their bellies are given a changeling virus to swell them to a useful size? This is your duty to the Caliph Eternal, do your duty, woman.’ The grand vizier beckoned to Salwa who removed a large syringe from the chest and passed it to him. The chief minister leant close to Farris Uddin’s head and whispered, ‘This is your duty to the Caliph Eternal, do your duty. Man.’

He plunged the syringe into Farris Uddin’s arm. ‘Of course, it’s not easy to give a man a producer’s womb, even now. It takes many days for the changes to complete, and fifty per cent of those we attempt to alter reject the virus and die within the first few seconds.’

Farris Uddin was shaking in his chair, his face turning purple. The grand vizier kicked the chair over angrily, enraged that there would be no chance to inflict the ultimate indignity on the last of his surviving secret police enemies. ‘Wasteful, I know. But there are always so many sons of the empire left.’

Omar looked on in horror as the chest of the man who had saved him from the sack of Haffa swelled up, choking Uddin, as the air could no longer enter his lungs. Omar’s kin, the last of his family, by how many generations removed? Their eyes met briefly as he twisted on the floor, the features of his face distending in automatic reflex, as if all the faces he had worn across the ages were surfacing in turn during his death throes.

‘Sorry — boy,’ the man mouthed, and then with a series of gentle tremors, his eyes rolled to white and the long life of Farris Uddin finally came to an end.

Omar howled in rage, rocking his chair until the claw-guards weighed into him, giving him a taste of their rock-hard fists with their talons retracted.

‘You really are the last son of Barir, now,’ sighed the grand vizier, almost sounding disappointed by the lack of challenges left to face. ‘And you shall honour your venerable ancestors by following in their footsteps.’ He indicated to Salwa that another syringe should be made ready.’

‘He is not one of them,’ protested Salwa.

‘Not raised as one, perhaps,’ said the grand vizier. ‘But he is a male and he wears a guardsman’s uniform. He picked his side when you had him tied to a pair of draks.’

‘I know Omar better than anyone — he is a joke, not a threat.’

‘The woman called Shadisa knew him. Salwa of the Sect of Razat has chosen more aptly — or do you wish to reconsider your answer to me?’ There was an edge of menace in the grand vizier’s words, and suitably subdued, the new grand marshal of the guardsmen delved back into the womb mage’s chest.

‘Better,’ said the grand vizier. ‘One dose for the last son of Barir, one for the Caliph Eternal.’

Gagged and bound to the chair, the real caliph began to struggle madly, and with an imperious flick of his fingers, the grand vizier sent one of his claw-guards to beat the ruler to a quiet stillness with its fists. ‘You have reached the end of your usefulness to me, Akil Jaber Issman. Let us see if it is to be death or a producer’s tank for you.’

The false caliph moved to stand between the grand vizier and his twin, clearly troubled by the implications of what the grand vizier had just announced. ‘We still need my flesh brother’s blood, mother, we still need to milk him for the enzyme that controls the beyrogs and the other creatures of the Jahan.’

‘Oh, my beautiful son,’ said the grand vizier, hugging him close and speaking softly. ‘We don’t.’ The grand vizier indicated the ranks of claw-guards. ‘We have a new imperial bodyguard, more appropriately sized to travel on an airship’s decks. And as for the Jahan, I believe the Citadel of Flowers will make a far more appropriate centre of power for the new, enlarged empire I shall create.’

‘But you saved me from execution,’ whined the enculi. ‘You said I was the son you could never have, that your love for me was too strong to allow one of my flesh brothers to supplant me as the rightful Caliph Eternal.’

‘My darling,’ said the grand vizier, plunging a dagger deep into his pet’s heart. ‘You are quite correct, the one thing I can no longer have is a son.’ The false caliph staggered back, looking in stupefaction at the blade buried in his chest, before collapsing slowly to the floor. ‘By heaven’s right, my future enculi shall be daughters.’ The grand vizier knelt by the dying boy’s side, taking his hand, kindly. ‘Close your eyes, my son. You will be asleep soon. Sleep knowing your mother is claiming your throne. A calipha to rule the empire in the name of Ben Issman’s blood line.’

As the dying boy’s tremors ended, the grand vizier stood up and took one of the pair of syringes being proffered by Salwa. ‘I suppose I shall have to have the beyrog barracks in the citadel flooded with poison gas, now that I can’t control the stupid, lumbering things. Almost as stupid as my little enculi here. He always was the weakest of the last caliph’s flesh children, whereas I have high hopes that you-’ the grand vizier angled the needle towards the empire’s real ruler, ‘-young ruler, will be able to survive the process of becoming a producer.’ Walking up to the true caliph, the grand vizier plunged the syringe into his arm and stood back to watch his shaking palpitations. The grand vizier nodded in satisfaction as the fit passed after a couple of minutes. ‘There, that is the vigour of youth for you. Now, Salwa, you shall prove your loyalty to me. Put the last son of Barir to the service of our sect as a producer, and let us see if his constitution proves as stout as the caliph’s.’

‘Pray,’ said Salwa. ‘Can you not do it? Or one of my claw-guards?’

‘And would that be a true test?’

‘Please,’ Omar begged, as the new master of the guardsmen advanced on him, a strange, conflicted look in the creature’s eyes. ‘Shadisa, do not do this thing.’

‘Shadisa shall not,’ said the thing Omar had once loved as a woman. ‘But I am Salwa.’

The needle plunged into Omar’s arm, drawing blood as its terrible contents found their way into his body. His eyes went out of focus as his chest heaved, the skin around his arm burning, throbbing. The commodore was shouting something to Omar, but he couldn’t hear the old man’s words. Please don’t let me die here, fate. What would be the point of letting it end here for me? Who would you have to torment then? The room seemed to judder with rough chemical violence, his body changing, twisting with the sickness of the sorcerer’s foul art. Then, as quickly as it had taken Omar, perhaps a minute or two later — although if felt like mere seconds to him — the fit was lifted, his body left washed with cold sweat.

‘Thank Lord Tridentscale’s beard, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘You made it.’

‘Welcome into our sect’s service, last son of Barir,’ smirked the grand vizier. ‘We will require litters of ten skoils a time from you, a new brood every four months. Toss the boy in a cell with the Caliph Eternal and the two Jackelians. Make sure you remove the caliph and the boy when their bellies start showing.’

The claw-guards cut Omar’s bonds and dragged him away. He shouted and struggled in panic as he caught a last glimpse of the long line of producers’ tanks below, filled with slaves doing their hideous duty for the empire. Omar hardly needed the stomach cramps and fever to remind him of his fate. I will be joining their ranks soon enough.