The Last Page

A vague stink issued from the darkness at the top of the domed island. Much different from sewage. It stank like rotting salmon—a stench that gripped Mr. Naylor with fear. Perhaps one of them had come. One of the flawless!

“Lift your shirt, muckety,” said the same ruthless voice. Mr. Naylor obeyed. His pink eyes were getting used to the gloom. He could make out dark shapes crouched around the slick crown of the island, buttery with fungal growths. He hunkered down to join them after eyes better than his had found the tattoo above his navel.

Another shape started burping. Hot, reeking blasts erupted noisily into the already close air.

Several eructations followed, resonant and deep. Soon the island was moaning with them, guttural and melancholy sounding. They were like the sounds of strange frogs, sad and pitched. Changeable. Now like something gasping through a reed. Now like great volumes of slow wind yawning through the sewers.

Mr. Naylor knew the sounds traveled for miles. He had overheard a man at the opera telling another man about his singing toilet. How he had felt the reverberations in his ass and leapt up, the Herald and his smoke still in hand, looking fearfully into the water as though something might reach out and grab him. “It sang,” he said. “Like a drafty window, sort of, but I’m telling you: my toilet sang.”

Mr. Naylor pictured the man after several ineffective flushes, watching the bowl continue to vibrate, holding his breath and straining to hear the very faint and secret sounds of the Iscan Council of the Wllin Droul.

Mr. Naylor was not participating as much as the others. His weak body could not produce the sounds that the other Council members could. Thankfully, none of the flawless were here tonight. He did not relish the chance of being randomly eaten.

Mr. Naylor did not participate but he did pay close attention. They were telling a story he had already heard about one of the flawless that had walked lines to the Porch of Sth in search of the book. One of the flawless had been beaten back because the book’s owner had made a pact with The Hidden.

“She has it! She has it!” bellowed one of the black shapes. Its language was not spoken in anything resembling human form, but Mr. Naylor understood.

“How can you be sure?” moaned another.

“I told you, word has come from Yloch. They verified the story.”

“Yes, but we’ve heard nothing from them for decades and now they want us to storm Isca Castle? How do they know she’s coming here? How do they know anything at all?”

“Those in lung know. If those in lung find out we are loath help—”

“We are not loath to help.” The amount of phlegm in the voice made it seem like the speaker would choke. “I do not even want to talk about such a thing. We will help. We must help. We have sat useless for centuries and now when word comes, we try to pretend that we know better? Even these brainless mucks are smart enough to listen and obey.”

Mr. Naylor took no offense at the speaker’s words. His pink eyes could not quite penetrate the gloom.

“So . . . Yloch says she’s coming. Fine. If they say she’ll be in the High King’s Castle, fine. But we’ve already got a muckety in there. Why do we need to organize a raid?”

“The muck is difficult to reach. He has been quiet for years . . . and . . . we don’t want to give away our position.”

Another of the creatures made a bubbling sound. The equivalent of “Hmmmm.” Then it spoke. “I wonder. The opera muck might be able to give us a third chance. Why not let him have a go at getting it for us?” Mr. Naylor grew even more attentive now that they were specifically discussing him. “If she winds up staying at the castle she’ll certainly attend the opera at some point and if not, then at least we’ve got the other two options.”

The whole gruesome obscure assemblage seemed to mewl and smack their mouths together as though tasting the suggestion.

“Yes. Yes. That’s a fine idea. We’ll let the opera muck try his hand.”

Finally Mr. Naylor spoke.

“Who is she?”

The creatures chuckled at his expense because he had come late and missed a large part of the meeting.

“Some Shrdnae Witch who’s been poking around Yloch. She found the Csrym T! Stupid crawler who thinks she can open it and read it like poetry. She has no idea what it means. None at all. We have to get it back and send it to lung—they’ll know what to do.”

“What is her name?” asked Mr. Naylor.

“Name? Name? Stupid muck. We don’t know her name. But she’ll be Sslî if we don’t get it back from her soon. She’ll be Sslî to us all if we don’t stop her from opening the book.” The thing speaking wrung its hands in a horrid parody of human behavior.

Mr. Naylor smiled.

“I’ll need her name if I’m going to invite her to the opera.”

“Names. Muckety wants names.”

The creatures were quite intelligent but they were plagued by their half-states, unable to escape the clutches of madness brought on by too much of two kinds of blood.

“We’ll get you names, you muck. We’ll get you all the names you need for the crawler with the Csrym T.”

“Wonderful,” said Mr. Naylor as though speaking to one of the burgomasters that frequented his shows. “I’ll set about it at once just as soon as I know who she is.”

Something large and heavy slid into the water. The Council was breaking up.

Mr. Naylor stood and brushed himself off as though doing so might solve the ruinous slime that had soaked into his pants. He turned and began sloshing back toward the platform and the weary elevator.

“Mr. Naylor!” burped the voice from the island. It was the first time it had spoken Hinter instead of the guttural language used during the meeting. The first time it had used his name. “Make sure you are careful on this one. Make certain you are extra, extra careful.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Naylor. He smiled and continued toward the platform where he crammed himself back into the tiny compartment and rode the banging lightless box back to reality.

CHAPTER 14

The brown many-tiered spires of Isca City slid skyward over a twisting baroque catacomb of lanes and streets. Glimbenders squeezed out of offal-piled nests behind glowing clock towers.

In the evening, they took to the air: mad droves of singular candent eyeballs stitched with fur and bat wings. They tumbled, gracile bits of blackened ash or street confetti into the sky; whirling out from belfries and cupolas and campaniles, searching for stray cats and dogs, quadrupeds of virtually any kind into whose brains they would drive their slug-filled ovum.

In Lampfire Hills, the buildings grew together as in other sections of the city: nine, twelve, twenty stories high. Dozens of flying buttresses and arches straddled the lanes at various heights, passing thrust onto and between buildings, shoring up the city with dangerous interdependence.

A clockwork shop on the corner of Tower and Mark displayed cuckoos and pocket watches, flickering with the bubbly green glow of chemiostatic fluid.