Black Bottle (11 page)

She doesn’t want this. She works her demonifuge nervously between her fingers. She remembers that it is too much money. She must stop this. She must decline. She must turn this event to its one true purpose and the only reason she agreed to the High King’s donation in the first place: so that she could refuse it in front of the press, then tell all the journalists what she intends to do … how Nenuln will change the north forever. But it is too late. Is it too late?

The litho-slides have already been taken. If she declines now, they will print the slide of her accepting and then write that she changed her mind. She will look foolish and capricious. If she accepts, her entire goal will be compromised. But it is too late. She has been thinking while the flashbulbs pop and the journalists scribble. She has been smiling and nodding while her eyes circuited the room.

The ceremony has been abridged for her sake. The High King is already leaving. Taelin sees Sena standing by one of the crimson window panes.
Wait! Weren’t all the panes replaced?
The witch breathes on the window and then draws something on the frost-covered glass. The knight has reopened the front doors and the air is freezing. Sena gives Taelin a private smile and floats out into the snow.

CHAPTER

9

Royal Charity Backs Pandragonian Religion
by Willis Bothshine, Journalist

In a move some have called political desperatism, High King Caliph Howl gifted three hundred forty thousand beks to the reformed Church of Nenuln in the form of a solid gold trade bar. The king’s public donation took place at thirteen o’clock on Tes eleventh, Day of Whispers. The gift was accepted by Lady Taelin Rae, currently the church’s only acting clergy, before royal knights escorted it to Crullington Bank for deposit …

Taelin’s eyes skipped down, passing over details of her arrival and purchase of St. Remora.

But according to Dr. Yewl, professor of Stonehavian Politics, “Even if the [High] King’s donation doesn’t ease the tension between [Pandragor and Stonehold], it’s a smart thing for him to do, locally. He should do more of it. Shelters bring order [instead of] rogue panhandling to pay off squat lords. We need more infrastructure for rebuilding [people’s] lives.”

Before it came to its smug conclusion, the article turned out another line or two about the High King’s failure to build relationships with the south.

Taelin set it aside with a feeling of despair. Papers were for entertainment, skepticism and veiled malice, not messages of hope.

What had happened?
But she knew. Last night she had had a dream. A beautiful white figure had appeared to her, standing in St. Remora. Haloed in gold, and orbited by fantastic lights, the being had told her, in a pure high language, about the blackness that had come crashing through her chancel.

So much like a train …

All darkness and smoke and dials spinning. Like a locomotive bursting into a station.

It was the witch’s train.

And Sena had her bags packed. She had used Stonehold up. She was done here, on the edge of escaping … far away.

The language was so simple, so beautiful and perfect, that Taelin hoped Nenuln would never stop talking.

Don’t let her get away, Taelin.

But I don’t understand the other things I saw. There was a man’s body, I—

You saw the future, Taelin. It is a gift.

*   *   *

T
AELIN
touched the demonifuge against her chest. So it was meant to be. She was meant to accept the High King’s money. She was meant to meet Caliph Howl.

Yet her dream had given her no clue
how
to chase Sena down. Taelin didn’t know any holomorphy. She had never been good at math.
Nenuln will provide a way.

She set her cup of coffee down and got up to shovel snow.

As she approached the front doors, she stopped.

A single pane of red glass confronted her. How had she missed it? Its ill-fitting edges leaked cold air. Taelin looked at it closely. There was a finger-drawing melted into the ice, flower-like.

She wiped her hand across the mark. Strangely, she couldn’t make it go away.

She rubbed harder, scrubbing with her sleeve. She began to panic. Why wouldn’t the ice melt?

“Lady Rae? Is something wrong?”

Taelin whirled. “I thought I told you to have all the panes replaced!”

A former squatter named Vera, nearly Taelin’s age—whose youth had been rasped off against sidewalks and back alleys—put a worn, ruddy hand emphatically against her concave chest. “I did.”

“Then what do you call that?” shouted Taelin, thrusting her finger at the glass.

Vera shook her head, utterly confused.

Vera liked to remind everyone that she had been a landlord and had once taken good care of her properties. Taelin now doubted that was true and regretted having given charge of the church’s restoration over to her.

“I want that red glass changed out,” said Taelin. “Today!” Then she hefted her shovel and opened the door, squinting against the sudden brightness of the snow.

There had been no knock which was why, when she stepped out onto the powder-laden step, the man standing there startled her.

Thankfully, he gave no indication that he had heard her yelling. He wore a long black coat of felted wool that fell to his ankles and his smooth head, dappled like an eggshell, framed a warm face that smiled through a soft white beard.

“Good morning,” he said brightly. “My name is Alani.”

Vera poked her head out, interrupting. “Pardon me, Lady Rae.” Vera’s tone didn’t indicate that she wanted to be pardoned. “But there ain’t no fucking red glass to change out!” Then she disappeared and slammed the door, leaving Taelin outside.

*   *   *

“T
HOUGHT
she was exotic, did you?” Sena smirked. “It’s all right. I’m not jealous.”

“Why are we talking about this?” asked Caliph. His neck was hot from the conversation.

“Oh, be serious. That priestess costume she wears? That’s just for show—”

“Just for show?” Caliph started laughing. “Well she’s a damn good fake then. She bought that horrible ruin with her own money.”

“Not her money.”

“Whatever. It’s her money now. Daddy’s name isn’t on the account at Crullington. Maybe I just handed a trade bar to a theologaster but—”

Sena’s smirk faded away. “Maybe you did.”

“Maybe I did. It doesn’t matter. It’s political.”

The night of her arrival had blown over. His desperate search, the way she had avoided him: the argument had already come and gone. Another stone tipping the pan toward something he didn’t want to think about.

The thermal crank’s fan had kicked in. He sat across from her in the east parlor watching the hot breeze tug her oiled ringlets. When she leaned forward in the chair, legs braced in an elegant
K,
shoulder extending so that her fingers could deposit an unfinished cup on the coffee table, Caliph coughed.

An angelus bell sounding from Temple Hill cleared his thoughts, reminding him of the time. “You’re sure you want to come with?”

“I’m all packed.” Sena looked up from her position, stretched between cup and chair. The filigree in her skin went chromium with the dawn. Caliph remembered phrases:
crystallized guanine in the dermis.
She had once called the markings her
iridocyte idiom.
Words he had been forced to look up.

“Caliph?”

“Sorry. I’m … tired.” He stood up and stretched. “You’re absolutely sure you want to come?”

“You already asked that.”

He rubbed his temples. “I know. It’s just that this trip might not be perfectly
safe.
This speech I have to give…”

“Important one. I know.”

“You could say that.”

“There’s a lot riding on this trip, Caliph.” The way she said it made it sound more like a warning than an acknowledgment.

“All right. But we have to leave by twelve.”

“My ships are ready.”

“Ships?”

She sat back. “I’m taking the
Odalisque
and the
Iatromisia.
”

“I see. So we’re taking three … three airships,” he spread his pinkie, ring and middle finger like an array of weapons, “when we only need one? Why do we … I mean, why do
you
want to do that?”

She stood up, walked over to him and draped her hands around his head. Despite a cup of loring tea, the scent of her breath remained almost perfectly neutral. “Caliph, you’re bringing the Pandragonian priestess. I haven’t asked you why.”

It felt like she had punched him. “How did you know that?”

She breathed—which he knew was a presentment—and closed her eyes. When her lids slid shut she looked almost exactly as he remembered her from college. But when her lashes unzipped, like black vinyl, they revealing glistening alien pools.

“Trust me,” she said.

But he couldn’t.

“You know I brought you something,” she said. “But you were so upset the other night, I didn’t give it to you.”

“Oh? Was it a birthday present?”

She nodded and her fingers produced a wooden carving that resembled his collection of tiny figurines in the high tower’s display case—except that this one’s workmanship was not as elegant. It was a man with a young girl on his shoulders.

“Thank you.” It was nice of her to remember his fondness for those wooden figurines but she apparently lacked understanding. He was not a collector. The set in the high tower was not an array of pieces purchased from upscale shops. He kept them because of the person who …

Caliph’s heart skipped. He turned the thing over and saw the familiar words carved into the piece’s base.

“For Caliph.” The same that marked each of his other figurines.

He felt elation and confusion at the same time as he pictured how Cameron’s hands must have aged, how whittling a hunk of wood must have grown more difficult with the years—

“You saw him? You went to Nifol?” Caliph interrupted his own thoughts.

Sena nodded.

The dream man had left Stonehold just before the war, heading for the warm south. But this carving pulled him back across the miles. Caliph stroked the wood lovingly with his thumb. Upon closer inspection, the carving seemed to be of Caliph himself. He noticed how Cameron’s knife had picked out the smile of the girl on his shoulders with particular care.

Sena had told him nothing about her trip. Ten months of mystery. The casket-shaped boxes unloaded from the
Odalisque
had carried books. They were stacked three deep, creating blockages in all the hallways adjacent to the library.

Well, now he knew one more thing.

Seneschal Vicunt knocked on the parlor door. Caliph recognized the two-stroke tap, light-handed and expressly unobtrusive. He slipped the wooden carving into the pocket of his long coat. Sena withdrew her arms from around his neck and walked slowly back to the glass coffee table where she retrieved her cup.

“Pardon me,” said the seneschal as Caliph opened the door. “There’s a diplomatic package here, addressed to the lady of the castle. It’s from the Grand Arbiter that’s been holding rallies in Gas End.”

Caliph glanced over his shoulder to where Sena stood, blowing across her cup, watching him.

“It’s a bit heavy.” Vicunt’s voice communicated strain.

Caliph opened the door and directed him to bring it in.

The seneschal placed it on one end of the coffee table. It was a square wooden box, roughly two feet on a side and eight inches deep. The label bore the diplomatic seal and was clearly addressed to Sena.

A strange aroma surrounded it. It smelled of ointments and spice.

Caliph lifted a butter knife and offered it to Sena, gesturing for her to break the seal.

She sipped her tea and did not respond.

“You’re not going to open it?”

“No. Take it out and bury it.”

“Bury it?” Caliph smiled quizzically. “What’s in it?”

“Nothing good,” she said.

Caliph brandished the knife at the seal but Sena only shrugged. A pavid chill crawled across his back. It was addressed to her. He had no right to open it.

“You know what’s in it?”

“Take it out and put it in the ground,” she said again. “The Church of Kosti Vinish feels threatened by me. If you open it, it’ll be public knowledge … and it will derail our reason for going to the conference.”

Caliph hesitated, still holding the knife. He could not fathom what the box might contain that would prevent him from going to the conference. He looked at Sena’s unreadable blue eyes, hovering an inch above her cup. Finally he put the knife down. “Drown?”

“Yes, your majesty?”

“No one opens it. Take it out to the bogs. Make sure it’s never found.”

Drown bit his lip nervously. He approached the box with brand-new, highly-visible dread, picked it up in both arms and hauled it from the room.

“See,” she said after he had left. Caliph scowled at her. “You
do
trust me…”

CHAPTER

10

Suspicion nagged Taelin. Her invitation to accompany the High King’s entourage bore the stink of contrivance. Especially since the high-profile conference in Sandren was going to be the first real forum between the Tebesh Plateau and what was collectively known as the Hinterlands in over eighty years. Her father had instilled in her an awareness for what he called
the wire-pullers
: people who maneuvered other people in order to protect themselves from legal or political harm. Her presence on such a trip, amid the High King’s staff, would certainly classify.

On the other hand, Taelin had come north with a keen understanding of her social status. Her whole goal in transforming St. Remora into a mission home was to gain the attention of the crown.

In light of how her journey had unfolded thus far, it was only natural that the crown would seize the opportunity to pose her next to itself. And that was precisely where she wanted to be. Only from such a position of privilege would she have access to Sena Iilool, to the possibility of persuading her to denounce the groups that had elevated her to the status of a goddess, or in the case that Sena was insane …