Black Bottle (48 page)

The captain tapped an illuminated dial. “Probably no more than forty minutes.”

“What if we dump things?”

The captain grudgingly considered. “Well, sir … your majesty. I suppose it might buy us fifteen or twenty minutes if we tossed everything not nailed down.”

“Neville.” Caliph jerked his head toward the copilot. “Go get everyone out. Start tossing whatever you can.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“I’ll go help,” said Sig.

Caliph had turned his attention to the thing in the distance. A tree, the biggest tree in the world, sprouted from the sand. But if that was true, it was a dead tree. It was white-green and the canopy was clearly not comprised of branches. It was one solid mass. An umbrella. More a mushroom than a tree, yet the stalk despite having one main column seemed to be entangled with other, more slender stems.

The entire thing hovered like a flattened thunderhead, enormous beyond comprehension. Worthy of some geographic name. It was side-lit in gold, but parts of it were slipping into sepia-pink shadow, hazy from the desert’s chaff. Sena’s white ship did not deviate. It tracked straight for it. An evening star headed for the horizon.

“What is it?” asked Caliph.

“I don’t know,” said the captain. “But there’s something circling it.”

Caliph cupped his field glasses again and shielded them from the slanting rays. “What the…”

Under magnification the object was clearly not a mushroom. Nor was its vast umbrella supported from below. Rather the thing seemed to be floating and the great stalks below it were sloughing blubber, stretched perhaps between the island of bloated organs that filled the sky and whatever carcass still rested under the sand. Limpid shapes moved drunkenly in clouds around the thing, thrashing and tearing at the shape. Some kind of black-eyed scavengers with flashing transparent bodies and indistinct methods of flight.

“It’s something dead,” said Caliph.

Captain Viktor Nichols nodded. He was not from the south and it was clear he had no idea what it was. “I—” He started to say something then stopped. Caliph noticed an oil stick drawing taped beside Nichols’ controls where Specks’ hand had spelled Dad.

Caliph clenched his jaw and looked back toward the hideous mass. Against its hazy gray shape, he found the fading sparkle of Sena’s ship and hated it. “Follow her,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Caliph left the cockpit and walked back to the witches’ stateroom. He pounded on the light hollow door until it vibrated against the frame. No answer.

He turned the handle and went in. The room was empty.

From belowdecks he heard the hydraulics of the cargo bay opening. He left and took the stairs down. It was hot but breezy in the hold with a gaping hole toward the aft. Sig along with some of the crew and his remaining bodyguards had tethered up. They pushed crates and equipment out into the wind.

“Have you seen the witches?” Caliph shouted above the noise. They shook their heads. He went back upstairs and ran into Dr. Baufent.

“What is that
stink
?” she asked.

“Go have a look from the cockpit,” said Caliph. “It’s probably going to get worse.”

“Are we landing?”

“Do you want to die in Iycestoke?”

“No.”

“Me neither. We’re not landing.”

“What can I do?” she asked. Caliph studied her for an instant. In that instant he appreciated her grit.

“Go down and help lighten our load. We’re going to try and stay aloft as long as we can. Have you seen those witches?”

“No.”

Caliph touched her on the elbow, lightly. She didn’t flinch but he could feel her rigid strength, her tenacity. “I’m going to try to get us out of this.”

“Well don’t let me slow you down.” She pushed past him toward the hold.

Caliph checked the starboard deck, the roof above the cabins, the port, then the aft. He looked in all the rooms, except Taelin’s. They were empty. He checked the cockpit again. The captain still clung to the controls, sweating out the second worst experience of his career—on the same day.

Caliph took a maintenance ladder from behind the cockpit. It climbed up inside the skin, between the gasbags, rung after rung until he came to the hatch. He pushed it open and pulled himself up, poking his head above the top of the zeppelin. From here he had a clear 360-degree panorama of the desert, the debacle and the dead thing in the sand. All four witches stood a dozen yards away, staring at him, clearly interrupted.

Caliph climbed out of the chute and marched toward them against the wind. They were flapping—hair and clothing—looking shadowy against the sinking sun. Their perfumes mixed with the thick charnel vapor rolling from the south.

“It’s a hylden,” said Miriam. “Obviously a dead one.”

It was a parry that failed to turn aside his anger. Caliph shouted into the wind. “I’m not really worried about that! What I am worried about is that!” He swung his arm in a wide arc at the black crescent of Iycestokian warships.

“We don’t have enough blood to hide an airship,” shouted Autumn. “Unless you’re willing to sacrifice some of the crew.” Her black-red hair lashed around her face, obscuring her eyes.

Caliph’s heart cooled.

“Are you?” asked Miriam.

Am I what?
thought Caliph.
She can’t be serious. Is she really asking me to let her kill some of the crew so that she can work her equation?
“No!” shouted Caliph. “Fuck no!”

“We didn’t think you would be,” said Miriam, “which is why we’re up here, debating our options. The Iycestokian ships are too far away for us to steal blood.”

Caliph’s mind, long spinning like a runaway cog, bit down into the teeth of an epiphany. He shielded his eyes and looked toward the bloated cloud of blubber and gas. Sena had told him about the Shradnae secret of hemofurtum.

“What?” asked Miriam. “You look like you’ve just had an idea.”

“What about those things … feeding on the carrion,” Caliph shouted. “If we got close enough to them. Could you use them?”

The witches squinted after his finger.

“If we can make it there…” shouted Autumn.

Miriam made the southern hand sign for yes. “Nyaffle. Dangerous but maybe … yes. It could work.”

Caliph’s skin crawled. What was Sena doing? And why?

Why wouldn’t she help them if she wanted Caliph to follow? Why let them struggle? She was the villain in this chase. He had to accept that. He had to let go, once and for all.

CHAPTER

37

Taelin came out of her room with her crimson goggles on, her brown leather jacket zipped up against the wind. The world was better now, bathed in pink. She could see things clearer. She was sure of it.

A horrible racket from belowdecks made her wonder what was happening. She walked out onto the starboard deck and immediately saw the Iycestokian ships. Her goggles made them clear against the sky, deep red rather than black. They were southern ships. And she was from the south. They should have been her friends. But she had a new directive now.

She had a mission. A goal. The demonifuge was real. Sena had assured her of that. She was Sena’s messenger now. Taelin gripped her necklace in her hand.

All praise the Omnispecer!

Oh, my gods! What is that smell?

She covered her mouth and nose with her hands.

It’s death, you nimshi.
The thought came at her from the other girl. The inside-girl.

Taelin gasped.

A warm trickle of anger bubbled up through the crevices in her spine. Artesian. Gushing to full red bloom in the tissues that packed her skull.

“Do you think the Iycestokians are trying to stop us?” asked Taelin.

Father will take care of us,
said the inside-girl.
He always takes care of us.

Which father?
She had two distinct memories of two distinct men.

“We can’t let the Iycestokians win,” said Taelin. “We need to make it to Bablemum!”

The inside-girl did not disagree so Taelin allowed her breasts to swell up, tearing through her clothing, popping the buttons off her jacket. They were so buoyant that they tugged away from her chest painfully, swelling up above her shoulders. Above her head. Bigger than balloons. Zeppelin bags. They pulled her into the air—off the deck, out across the desert toward the Iycestokian craft.

Blue-and-orange patterns splashed below her like paint. The wind howled and the air was full of sand, but she could see. Her goggles cut through the haze. She steered herself toward the oncoming airships gliding under one of the great melon-shaped balloons just as the sandstorm closed in behind her.

One of the soldiers on deck caught her and pulled her down. He wore smooth strange armor. She kicked him in the face.

“Leave Sena alone!” she shouted. “Don’t you understand? You’re going to die anyway! Join the cause, or she will smite you with her mighty hand!”

The soldier removed his helmet, with its glass and metal facets, and looked at her with sad eyes.

Aviv!
He had joined the Iycestokian military! But what were the odds that he would be on the deck of the ship she had landed on? How could this be real?

His sweet black face, shining, smiling. His arms around her. And behind him stood their little boy. Five years old, smiling at her. Taelin knelt down on the hard deck. The texture of the metal dug into her knees but she didn’t care. She grabbed her son, pulled him into her, tight against her chest. His body felt so small. Bird bones and slender muscles.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

“I love you too Mama.”

Taelin was sobbing, shuddering. It was the happiest she had ever been.

“You don’t feed him enough,” she said.

“I do,” said Aviv. “He’s just small for his age.”

Taelin pulled her son’s face back from her shoulder and held it in both hands. When she did, she noticed the silver spots on her wrist. But it was all right. She would get him vaccinated. His smooth young skin, the color of brown sugar—a perfect blend of her and Aviv. It was flawless aside from a little mole under his right eye. His lashes were long and dark and his eyes were bright brown. There were tears in his eyes but his tender lips were smiling.

How could I have let my father convince me to give you up?

Father will take care of us,
said the inside-girl.

“I hate my father.”

Taelin picked her son up off the deck and held him. He cuddled her warmly, quietly, as if they’d never been apart. As if this was normal.

The
Bulotecus
had disappeared from sight.

“Let’s get out of the wind,” said Aviv.

Taelin beamed with joy and turned to follow him. It was almost dark. The light was purple in the blowing sand. Out in the storm she could see a desaturated stripe of pinkish-blue where the sun must have been setting. Then part of the deck bent strangely and a metallic bang rattled the full length of the railing. Aviv looked unstrung.

Taelin could smell putrefied fat. The stench carried a kind of moisture, so rich and repugnant in contrast to the thin dry air.

“Behind you!” shouted Aviv.

Taelin gazed into a black eye that sat motionless, barely twenty inches from her face. She absorbed the initial impression: that there were two eyes, and a host of serrated teeth, and a large transparent body. It was tangled in the cables that ran up to the gasbag, clinging with spindly crustacean-like legs. It did not appear to see her.

Taelin slowly put her son on the deck and told him to run to his father.

The movement stirred the creature, but only slightly. Its stubby head lolled to one side as a great leg plucked at the cables, trying to find a better grip. The beast seemed drunk.

She had never been so close to a nyaffle. But she reminded herself that they were far south, over Nah’Ngode Ayrom. This was a wild place.

The creature’s glassy carapace hunched up behind its gruesome head, ending in a splayed transparent tail. A host of slender legs acted in unison, clutching at the cables and railing like a clumsy hand. Off its back, the great crystalline wings still hummed, helping to keep it balanced where it had come to rest.

Taelin could see through its transparent armor into its distended gut, as if a plastic bag had been stuffed with fat. The great chunks of white-green blubber it had gouged out with that circular mouth, with those serrated teeth, were already dissolving slowly into milky chowder.

She backed away, watching the sunset convulse within the nyaffle’s glossy chitin, its soulless black eyes stared at her.

It shifted an increment, like a specimen pressing the wall of an aquarium, mouth hinging and unhinging as though focused primarily on breathing.

Taelin looked toward the doorway. Aviv was gone. Another ghostly white shape scudded up along the side of the railing, sounding like a child running with a stick, snapping each metal baluster. A xylophone.

“Aviv?”

Women in dark pants were standing on the deck, staring at her.

“Where is my son?” she shrieked. He was lying on the deck, still, blood pouring from a nyaffle bite.

A short stocky shape in a long red coat lurched up beside her. Some kind of crimson goblin. Taelin felt an iron grip and a stab of pain.

“My son! My son!” Taelin screamed, sobbing.

*   *   *

“S
HE’S
completely out of her mind,” shouted Baufent.

Specks’ body lay underneath the shrieking woman, where she had picked it up and carried it out and laid it on the textured floor.

“I had him on a gurney,” shouted Baufent.

“We need to get him off the deck before the captain sees this!” Caliph called against the wind. He had just helped Baufent wrestle the priestess to the deck and inject her with a sedative in an effort to keep her from leaping over the railing.

With as much decorum as he could, Caliph picked Specks’ tiny corpse up and cradled it back inside the ship. He held him, head on shoulder, as if the captain’s son had been asleep, as if he was carrying him off to bed.

But no. That wasn’t remotely how it felt. It felt horrific. It felt gruesome both physically and emotionally. The wind howled and with the rotting hylden and the desert grit between his teeth, Caliph could both smell and taste the awfulness of this moment.