I see something clean as clouds flowing across the Healean Range, sky bright as glazed porcelain painted by sun and shallow sea. In the book rests your future—captured—in an instant held. Drifting on the trajectory of our throw.
I can already feel the pressure on my back and the miles of still-accreting sediment begin to weigh. I will be the first fossil of the new world. My ambit—so small.
But They cannot dislodge me or draw me out. I am not Nathaniel Howl, soul uncoupled from body and mind. I am only buried under mud and heavy numbers, beneath the new continents, as They once were buried.
As we ignored them, I am: a grain of sand, muffled by Their pallial secretions, stuck until the tides go out again.
—S.
BOOKS BY ANTHONY HUSO
The Last Page
Black Bottle
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Huso was born in Minnesota and has lived in Asia, Europe, and around the United States. When not writing, he is a video game designer. Titles he has worked on include Dishonored, Call of Duty: World at War, and Boom Blox Bash Party.
He currently lives and works in Austin, Texas, with his wife and daughters. His blog can be read at www.anthonyhuso.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BLACK BOTTLE
Copyright © 2012 by Anthony Huso
All rights reserved.
Cover art by James Paick
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
First Edition: August 2012