The Last Page (101 page)

Caliph’s ships had held the brunt of Saergaeth’s armies at bay, gathering them, holding them in one place where Gr
-ner Shie’s mindless gluttony could stop dead the entirety of the war. In that respect, Caliph’s plan had been a success. Precisely timed, the Abomination from outside reality
had transmogrified her, even her vocal cords, giving her the ability to pronounce the glyphs.

The beacon had gone up, called forth the Devourer. By destroying Saergaeth’s army, by destroying everything, it had put an end to the threat of Sena’s removal from Stonehold. Or rather, it had ensured that the
C
srym T
would stay where it was, safely ensconced at Isca Castle, and that it would remain in Sena’s possession, with time purchased for her to continue studying its contents.

Once the threat had been eliminated, the Thae’gn that had written on her skin had removed Gr
-ner Shie from the equation, before it could reach the object of its hunger, before it could devour the newest owner of the
C
srym T
.

“Ha! Clever Pun. And so like tattoos . . .”

The old man’s voice again. A splintered trace, an echo of sound.

She whirled around but there was no one in the room.

“The Last Page.”

Why me?
thought Sena. She felt like some rare virus in a dish that They had been waiting for to reach critical mass. Waiting for some simple, predictable chemical reaction that They could then exploit.

She felt like a paramecium that had eaten a specific type of agent, as if the
C
srym T
had been a lure. Once she had ingested the contents of the book, the next step in the process had been administered with clinical care, like gene therapy, something that would bring her to the next phase of her development.

The questions she couldn’t answer were:
why?
and:
what now?
What would They expect from her now?

She used her new eyes and looked out, far away, and saw the planet as a single cell, hovering in space, ready for insertion of a foreign bud.
Am I that bud?

The word games began.
Last Page. Page of what? The
C
srym T
? She scowled.
Or could page mean usher?

She thought of gardeners turning what was living into compost, preparing for the next season. She thought of the coiled, tightly packed realities waiting in the
C
srym T
. . . tightly coiled, packed . . . like the blueprints of life.