Black Bottle Read Free

dead.

CHAPTER
    2
    High King Caliph Howl tapped his fingers on a sheaf of paper. It was one hundred twenty-three pages of fresh print that had nothing to do with the parlor full of cigars and music that twittered just the other side of a twelve-foot cherry wood door. The evening of entertainment was not for him. It was for Nuj Ig’nos and the other diplomats.
    The papers puffed slightly at the edges every time Caliph’s fingers struck them; the desk lamp imposed a sharp, ice-bright rink of light onto sentences filled with names and commerce and promises and threats. He was supposed to be thinking up enigmatic calculations that would transform the stack of Pandragonian demands into something that would serve the Duchy of Stonehold rather than undermine it. But after an hour he felt the hot itch of pressure at the back of his neck. Despite the coolness of the room, heat coursed over his shoulders, under his arms, up into his face.
    He pawed at his chin. The cup of warm milk and honey on his desk—gone cold—had failed to help.
    Finally, he opened a drawer and raked through staplers and gadgetry for a bottle of artificially flavored tablets. After eating two, he tossed the bottle back into the drawer and kicked it shut. The gurgling pain in his stomach subsided.
    Maybe there was no way to satisfy the Pandragonian demands. Apart from turning over the throne and making Stonehold an unincorporated, organized territory of the empire, something like the tragedy that had befallen Bablemum, nothing was going to make Nuj Ig’nos happy.
    You fuckers, he thought. Out there eating Iscan caviar, drinking comets, staring at the ensemble of violinists wearing bare-backed dresses in the middle of Oak just for you! And you hand me this—koan. And you already know how it’s going to end.
    A soft, persistent knocking resonated from the room’s official entrance.
    Caliph picked up the stack of papers, tapped its edge on the leather surface of his desk and took it across the room to the trash. The trash consisted of a black envelope. It would bear the document’s name and date until it merited resurrection. Caliph sealed it and placed it in a wire basket.
    He smiled wanly as the knocking persisted. Only one man knocked in such a fashion. Caliph strode from the bookshelves, over the patterned carpet and cracked the door. A volcanic glow immediately widened and burst across the threshold.
    A thin figure bowed from the waist, shadow streaming into the room. Alani’s head, as always, was shorn and his powder-white goatee was diplomat-perfect. Slender liver-spotted hands folded reverently across his black vest. Stuffing the vest, pleats of white silk had been stamped with an asymmetrical brooch of featureless silver.
    Caliph stepped back and made a theatrical gesture with his arm. The spymaster straightened and walked in.
    As the door shut, Caliph started talking. “The accord is a sham.”
    Alani’s voice, like whisky, came with a warm ripple of corrosion. “Of course it is.”
    “And this conference in Sandren we’re supposed to go to … is starting to feel like a trap,” continued Caliph. He returned slowly to the cold oasis of light on his desk.
    “This came for you.” Alani handed him an envelope.
    “You’ve read it?”
    “Yes.”
    Caliph unsheathed the note and snapped it open.
    “‘King Howl,’” he read aloud. “‘We feel compelled to make it abundantly clear that your speech on the fifteenth is of critical importance. Do not deviate from the clear and narrow dialogue that will lead to warm relations with the Six Kingdoms.’”
    It was not signed. Caliph snarled at the page. The Pandragonians were far from subtle.
    “Do you still plan to go?” asked Alani.
    “Of course.”
    Alani reached into his vest. “Good.” He drew out a pipe. “Understanding their motives, you can’t fault them for being unhappy over the reunification. They’d rather you were dead … and all of Stonehold splintered.”
    “Well, I’m