Black Bottle (40 page)

Caliph paused. “Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the crew trying to make things comfortable but … don’t you think it’s out of context considering what just happened? We’re
not
on holiday.”

Taelin looked at the floating boy who was clearly waiting, uncomfortably, wondering what he should do. She felt embarrassed for him, angry at Caliph, angry at herself, as if her own disapproval had somehow tainted the High King’s thoughts and precipitated this reprimand. Looking shaken, Specks said to Caliph, “I’ll turn them off right away, your majesty.”

“No!” Taelin said. “Please, leave them on! I can’t bear thinking about what’s happened today. I just—just leave them on.”

Caliph smiled uncomfortably and pulled his napkin into his lap. “She wants them on,” he said. He fanned his fingers.

In response, Specks offered a submissive shy look. He bowed and then promptly drifted toward the kitchen, armband ticking.

“That poor child,” Taelin said.

“Yes. He’s a good boy. He lost his mother—”

“I know.”

Caliph resumed his previous line. “Anyway, I’m sure your family would be relieved to have you back.”

Taelin had been slipping down in her chair; now she scooted her butt back, trying to sit up straight. “No, they won’t. You don’t understand.”

“Are you willing to explain it to me?”

“Not really.”

Caliph blew a sigh. “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to give me something. Because otherwise I’m going to drop you off at the nearest town.”
(You callous, selfish, horrible—)

“I see. You’re going throw me off?”

“This isn’t political.
(Bullshit)
Yes, I’m guilty of planning all sorts of ways to use you to my advantage with regards to your father’s government.”
Why did he call it that?
she wondered.
Her father’s government?
“Right now I’m talking about your safety,” he said.

“I’m not getting off this ship.”

“Why?”

“It was an arranged marriage!” she blurted out. She couldn’t help it. “And I know you won’t understand, but I wasn’t rebelling. It was supposed to be a gift from my parents to me. I wanted it.”

She locked her arm straight up and down in front of her, knuckles buried in her lap, face hidden partly in the hollow of her shoulder. She wanted to hide. “There was a baby. The wedding was called off.”

Caliph looked stricken, confused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—” He didn’t know what to say. Clearly. Clearly he had no idea where this outburst had come from, why she was telling him this seemingly unrelated thing. Wasn’t it obvious?

“I can’t go home,” she said tearfully. “They don’t want me. They gave me money to go away. Don’t you see? I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She reached immediately for her wineglass and drained it. Her whole mouth puckered. Then she risked a look at Caliph’s face. His expression didn’t read as apathetic. He wasn’t rolling his eyes or looking evasively toward the floor.

“What happened?” Caliph asked.

She sniffed. “After the wedding was called off I spent my days down at the park, at the library. Thank you.” She took the napkin he handed her and wiped her nose. “There was a statue there of Emperor Vog. His widow came every day and just sat there, in her dead husband’s shadow, feeding the birds, moving when the sun changed. We talked.”

“Then you had the baby?”

“Yes. My parents pressured me into leaving it with Aviv. Which I did. But he was Despche. And it wasn’t political, you know, to be with one of the slavers … no matter how rich his family was.”

“Do you keep in—”

“No,” she interjected fiercely, then softened. “No, I haven’t spoken to Aviv since the birth. His family owned an archipelago, so he probably went there. I stayed at the hospital after the delivery. For depression, you know? Nothing serious. When they released me I decided I needed a fresh start. My family practically threw me out the door. I decided to build a church.”

“From your grandfather’s journals.”

“Yes.”

The last breathless rays of sunlight blazed an oblique trail through the railing and over the deck, the end of which trailed across the arch of Caliph’s boot. She saw his foot flex inside the leather, which probably indicated he was thinking furiously. “I think my church days are over,” she said.

“Why?”

“Just a feeling. Nenuln doesn’t answer when I pray. Maybe she never did. What if it was all me? Making it up?”

Caliph didn’t smile. “A friend of mine, scientific type, says we’re constrained by our five senses. Enlightened, he says, but also constrained. He says we’re like a blind newt in a cave, doing the only things we can, trusting in the senses we possess. But that there are things out there, beyond the cave, red flowers we will never see or smell. We can only hear stories about them and trust or disbelieve that they are there. I haven’t made up my mind about any of that, but I think it’s a nice metaphor. I don’t blame you for believing in your goddess—whoever she is.”

Taelin was stunned. She had hardly expected such a thoughtful reaction to her admission of doubt. “Your friend sounds a bit factious for a scientist. I mean if he’s advocating for whatever’s out there.” She glanced at the sky.

“I think he’s a good thinker … he’s also a good friend. Theories’ll change in twenty years where I feel his friendship won’t.”

Taelin felt her lips screwing into a slow smile.
Why am I making eyes at him!

“Please,” she said. “Please don’t take me home. You don’t know my family.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you won’t take me home?”

Caliph gestured to the tinkling strand of lights. “Did I leave the lights on?” He was not a bad person, she decided earnestly. He was a good person who, like many good people, had taken the wrong lover. It was clear to her that he was genuine. He cared about what had happened back at Sandren. She could see the fretfulness, no: the
foreboding
in his face.

“I saw pictures of what you were reading … in my head.” She plunged into the matter that had brought them to dinner. “I saw your uncle,” she pressed her lips together, afraid of sounding crazy, “the horrible things he said to you. And what Sena wrote—that you need to figure something out.”

She had to force herself to watch his face. What if he laughed? What if he … but his face had gone slack. His eyes were wide now and staring at her. It was true. She
had
really been inside his head. She couldn’t explain it, but it was there—between them—substantiated and undeniable.

“You have to take me with you,” Taelin said. He had gone so pale. Vulnerable almost. “She doesn’t love you,” Taelin pressed. “It’s a trick. Something horrible is going to happen and we have to stop her.”

His mouth opened and for a few moments his lower jaw shifted as if he was trying to fit it over an invisible object. He seemed to give up. A potentially complicated answer never emerged and instead he said, “I know.”

Taelin saw him as a boy with a new puppy in a sack. The sack’s neck was knotted; it was weighted down with rocks. Caliph knew that it had to be done but he didn’t want to do it—yet he wasn’t going to blubber about it either. Taelin could see that and her heart melted. She wanted to comfort him. She left her chair and crouched beside him, daring to reach out and touch the High King’s hand. It was innocent, she told herself.

His fingers were warm and soft. His nails manicured.

“Lady Rae—”
Oh no!
But then he pulled something golden out of his pocket. Something almost glowing. “I picked it up.”

It startled her, but not because it represented a sign from her goddess that she was being shamelessly inappropriate. In fact, she didn’t even see it as a symbol of Nenuln anymore. It was just a necklace with no special powers other than the sentimental fact that it had belonged to her grandfather. What amazed her was that he had rescued it and kept it for her.

“Oh…” she said.

“What?”

“Thank you.” She took it from him, then abruptly leaned forward and planted her mouth against his. She almost stopped there. She almost pulled back and left it at that. But she didn’t. She pushed her advantage. Kissed him again. Waiting to see if he would resist. When he didn’t, when she realized that he had actually begun to kiss her back, her body filled with heat.

It wasn’t wrong. The relationship between Caliph Howl and his witch queen was nothing official. It had never been recognized. Never been authorized by any church. No vows, no certificate; it meant nothing.

Thank gods she could still save him.

Her head was buzzing, maybe from the wine. And despite this breach in protocol, her head, her whole body was telling her this was the way to defeat Sena Iilool. She moved up on top of the High King, one leg on either side of his chair. She closed her eyes and smiled as Caliph’s lips worked down the side of her neck. She ground herself down hard against him.

It was moments later that he lifted her up off the deck and carried her back to his stateroom.

CHAPTER

31

Taelin woke up the next day pale and wretched. She couldn’t believe what she had done or that he had let her. And yet it had been just what she needed. She couldn’t help toying with the idea that maybe it could work … maybe it could last.

Impossible!
She stayed in her room, pacing, staring out the porthole at faint wisps of vapor that passed for clouds, tearing at her fingernails with her teeth.

That was when she noticed the little silver patch on the underside of her wrist. There were two spots actually, directly over the blue shadow of her veins. Nothing to worry about. Right? After all, she had been vaccinated. So had everyone else on the ship. She turned her wrist in the window light. It shimmered beautifully.

Her thoughts went back to Caliph. She didn’t remember returning to her room … or the details of his room. But she did recall the startling crackle of static as she had pulled his shirt off, discrete electrical ghosts that limned the soft-woven blackness before falling into dark trenches around the bed. Mostly she remembered the feel of the sex.

Her cheeks went through cycles, burning and cooling then burning again.
What am I going to do?

What if he acts like nothing happened?

There was a knock at her door. She put her face in one hand and closed her eyes. “Who is it?” she called.

A voice said, “Specks. Are you coming to breakfast, Lady Rae?” It was a lilting impersonation of something almost masculine and chivalrous. She had to smile. But then the implications of going to breakfast sank in. A host of possibilities raced through her head. In the end, she decided not going was far riskier than going.

“Yes,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.”
Oh shit!
she thought. Then she looked in the mirror.

“Oh shit!”

She cleaned up, pulled her hair back into a tail and pinned it in place. She rummaged for something light and relaxed to wear.

She left her room.

Refracted morning light played designer, painting different colored stripes across the ceiling; pastel bands led her toward an antiseptic blaze at the end of the hall.

She found her way out onto the zeppelin’s port deck where a small crowd of people bantered over breakfast. But it wasn’t actually all that jovial. The more she listened the more solemn and uncertain the mood registered. What laughter seeped out echoed in the aluminum railings, affected and strange.

The witches were seated to Caliph’s right. She noticed the large shape of Sigmund Dulgensen, sitting in his overalls, and the judgmental glare of Dr. Baufent whose short gray hair spiked in the breeze. Baufent was staring at her.

When Taelin looked at Caliph she thought,
A hello kiss? Certainly not!
She resigned herself to “Good morning.”

He smiled at her but gave no special indication that everything was fine. Instead he seemed as preoccupied as ever, scanning the faces around him.

The witches were talking, their glittering eyes full of tiny geometric designs. Taelin looked beyond the railing, at a landscape that had changed magically over night. Orange dunes with serpentine crests harbored pools of shadow. Miles of sand glittered under daybreak as the sun punched east. For a moment, Taelin watched the
Bulotecus’
stretched silhouette passing over the ground.

She looked for Sena’s ship and found it. A fleck of white.

It refused a definable shape: in one moment it resembled the pupa of a tremendous insect, then fantastically, a pale tuber. But they were momentary semblances. It shifted, bulbous portions smoothing out, planing into curious banks of gill-like clefts on some albescent batoid, slipping with mercurial swiftness to the next.

“It’s only a bitch if they find us,” she heard Sigmund say.

“Of course they’ll find us,” snapped Baufent. Taelin turned around. The physician was digging in a halved citrus with a serrated spoon.

“They might not,” said one of the witches. “They don’t have towers in the desert.”

Notably missing from the group was the Iycestokian diplomat and his bodyguard. Taelin sat down in one of the empty seats, hoping for a reaction from Caliph. His indifference was quickly dragging her into a black spiral of depression.

“Well, at least a breakdown ain’t likely,” joked Sigmund.

Speak for yourself,
Taelin thought.

“Ship’s in good working order,” he went on, “and we have enough juice to get us quite a ways. I think we’re in good shape.”

“Will you kindly
shut
up?” said Baufent. She glared at the mechanic. “We are not in good shape, you idiot.” She got up and left the deck.

Sigmund scratched the side of his neck and looked sheepish. “Just trying to look on the bright side,” he muttered.

Taelin’s chair was near but not too near to Caliph. She listened to him talking with the witches—all four of them beautiful and sparkling. They made Taelin feel like a wreck. “Sig’s right,” Caliph said. “We need to stay positive. If she’s headed to Bablemum. That’s what? Another five hundred miles, give or take?”