The Last Page (50 page)

The fabric had undulated suddenly and something small and freakish had clawed its way into view. A tiny humanlike arm, no bigger than a caterpillar, topped by an infant’s graceless clutching hand. It was white and rubbery, the size of Caliph’s pinkie. Flailing. Twisting free of the k
sh’s tight bindings. Squirming for an instant like a grub whose tail had been sutured to Kl
’s left serratus anterior.

Then Kl
had drawn his robes together, perfuming the air, hiding the mutant limb under layers of heavily scented yak fur.

Caliph stood in the shadowy aviary, listening to winged things rustle through the plants, staring out the vast windows flecked with dry urine and birdlime.

The zeppelins prowled over Ironside, ubiquitous and sullen. He listened to his breathing, smelled the ammoniacal fumes of the birds.

“Well,” he whispered to himself. “That went well—I think . . .”

The meeting with the Pplarians had been much briefer than Caliph anticipated; it left him plenty of time to meet with Sigmund Dulgensen.

He took the
Byun-Ghala
from its new home in the hangars off the zeppelin deck and plowed east over Temple Hill, passing the delicious smell of the malt house to the south.

In Ironside, hulls rose like whalebones from outspread keels as workers reinforced the wood with steel. Chemical welders sparkled amid the shadowy strakes and stanchions and partially plated bulkheads.

Men crawled through a jungle of beams and cables, black as the steel they worked, feverish to outfit warships in case Saergaeth attacked by sea. They ignored Caliph’s zeppelin as it neared a mooring mast over the Glôssok warehouses.

From here, Caliph could see the huge lacy arches of the aqueducts that ringed the bay. He left the airship for the military labs secreted in Glôssok.
A body of armed men wearing barbuts and black leather armor accompanied him.

He met Sigmund, who had gotten word the High King was on his way, in an observation room overlooking the factory floor. Caliph ordered everyone else out.

“How’s old Caph holdin’ up?” Sigmund grinned. His hands were black and slippery past the elbows.

“I’m holding up.”

“And the funeral?” asked Sigmund.

“They cremated him in Fallow Down,” said Caliph. His voice was thick and monotone. “They flew him in on a zeppelin. He’s sitting on the mantle in the grand hall. I guess I haven’t wanted to deal with it yet. I tell myself I’m too busy.”

Sigmund sighed and nodded softly while looking at his shoes.

“But that’s not why I’m here.”

Sigmund looked up. “I hope I ain’t fired.”

Caliph chuckled. “No . . . no, but I . . . I’ve been doing some thinking. I want to give you another chance to explain this solvitriol stuff to me. Please tell me you haven’t told anyone about the blueprints.”

Sigmund’s face, despite layers of carbon and grease, had already lit up like a welder’s torch. “Fuck no. I ain’t told a soul. What do you want to know?”

“We’re running out of metholinate. Saergaeth’s cut our supply from the Memnaw and we’re . . . well, I guess you could say we’re close to being fucked.”

“How much gas we got left?” asked Sigmund, chewing on his beard.

Caliph heaved a sigh and pulled his hair away from his forehead with one hand.

“Not much. You’ve probably noticed the city’s pretty dark at night. Most of the streetlamps have been locked off. We can last another month. Maybe two depending on the weather.”

Sigmund grunted and draped his massive arm over the back of his chair.

“That ain’t a lot of time, Caph. I’ve got blueprints, manuals, yeah, but I ain’t never built this shit before. You changed your mind about kitties goin’ zip?” He spun his finger in the air to mimic a centrifuge.

“Give me a break,” said Caliph. “I know you’ve been tinkering. You must have some of it worked out by now—and no, I haven’t changed my mind. It’s still disgusting. But frankly . . . well . . . it’s no worse than most of the other travesties I’ve seen lately.” He bit his lip and shrugged. “I guess we’ll kill some cats.”

Sigmund chuckled in a vague noncommittal way and took a tin of tobacco from his overalls. He packed his lip and scowled at the taste of burnt oil.

“Yeah, I guess I can’t fool you. I’ve been tinkering. It’s slow going though. I’ve kept most of my calculations in my locker, got a few tentative mechanisms in there too. But I can’t do much more on my own.”

“You won’t be on your own. I’m going to put you in charge of a classified department. You can have as many engineers as you need. As much space as you need. Nobody talks. Not to anyone. Everyone reports to you and you report to no one but me. How does that sound?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“What do you need?”

Due north of Isca the land blistered. Mud pots glopped and farted. They spewed white putty, silica and clay, like liquefied plaster. Beyond them, the green Fields of Gora sprawled inward toward Fallow Down from the sea.

At Fallow Down, Hitchsum Bridge crossed the White Leech where it swung wide and swift toward Borgoth’s Noose before cutting back into Bittern Moor and slicing south of Bellgrass. The bridge crossed half a mile of gray chop with a wide flat field of sun-bleached paving stones.

One of only three bridges that could support the weight of Saergaeth’s war engines, it had been fortified with artillery, wired by demolition teams in case of a sudden assault. Overhead, the only war zeppelin Tentinil laid claim to cagily patrolled the area.

Its captain had good reason to be afraid.

Mushrooms of orange and green smoke blossomed on both banks, drifting like jellyfish on the breeze. Both sides launched chemical bombs from growling engines that stalked the rivage. Most hit nothing but dirt.

Roric Feldman had come down to fight, accompanied by a House Guard named Garen and a handful of men. He had convinced his father to let him ride one of three engines patrolling the bank.

It took twenty men to operate a light engine and fifty for the big heavies (yet to be seen on either side of the conflict).

Like its zeppelin force, Tentinil had only one light engine. The others had come from Isca, rolling north weeks ago. They guarded the bridges while the remaining Iscan machines stayed behind, shepherding the city from zeppelin attacks.

Roric’s father was loyal to the High King. He would have locked his own son in the pillory had Roric so much as extolled a single virtue of Saergaeth Brindlestr
m.

But the war hadn’t gotten very bloody—yet. At least not here. And Roric didn’t even consider this fighting. As far as he was concerned, his allegiance to Isca was a technicality.

He was a voyeur, watching the plumes of poisonous smoke erupt with
boyish glee. He stood on the deck of the Tentinilian engine, a small flat space bounded by a single guardrail.

There were two decks stacked on top of each other, connected by a short series of metal rungs. Heavy armored doors swung open from either deck to allow access to the cramped, dark, hissing guts of the machine.

Its lower bowels seethed with fulgent coal. Huge swing gears thrust themselves in roaring grease-spitting revolutions. Massive chemiostatic cells pumped blazing green blood through mechanisms linked bewilderingly to brass and steel fixtures on the pistonlike parts of groaning hydraulics. Gauges measured temperature, flow and speed.

Four great triangular arrangements of toothy wheels pulled the engine forward, laying down a never-ending metal ribbon of blunted blades. The entire engine lifted upward and backward like a boot. As the shift drum turned in some deep sealed transmission, the monster lurched east down the shore, flinging out briquettes of tread-shaped ground.

The thing was heavily armored, riveted and brown with age. A clutch of heavy pipes jacked backward off the bulkhead behind the decks, coughing blackness into the air. Gun cradles housed massive gas-powered ballistae that fired steel spheres filled with pressurized vitriol mixtures.

Roric stood on the top deck, twenty feet off the ground, whooping as the artillery popped from the ballistae and hurtled across the river. On the other side, a violent concussion rent the ground.

Detonated mud and shrapnel twisted outward like sound. A plume of green mist ripped upward like an irate ghost, screaming silent molecular death to anything in its path.

Garen stepped out onto the deck, gripping the railing to keep his balance on the bucking, grated floor. He offered Roric a leather mask with a canister snout.

Roric thanked him at the top of his voice. He wondered briefly what it would be like to ride one of the heavies.

Saergaeth must have known better than to waste effort on the bridge. Although he was miles away, his troops returned volley with what looked like bored fear, vaguely conscious that one of the canisters might hit them directly.

They didn’t even aim except in haphazard fashion, eyeballing coordinates and guessing at wind. There was no point. They knew the bridge was wired. Even if they melted the Iscan engines, the demolitions team would ensure they never crossed.

Besides, Fallow Down was the last bastion of Iscan power north of the river. An entire regiment of men still rebuffed the attack as Saergaeth struggled to secure the muddy ground.

Roric wasn’t worried. His father had moved a battalion across the bridge, stationing them on the south side, and although he had returned to the town for additional supplies, the danger was minimal.

For some reason, Saergaeth wasn’t pushing very hard. After Bellgrass had fallen, the renegade king seemed to pause, unwilling to spread himself too thin.