Caliph’s eyes noticed things: fly flecks on ceiling paint, cracked plaster, discoloration where there had been a leak in the roof.
He turned his head toward the lab’s bank of windows. Several were open. The old whitewashed metholinate pipes came up through the floorboards. He followed them with his eyes, around the window frames and up through imperfect holes in the ceiling. He could feel how nervous his tiny body was, heart racing like a hamster wheel.
Caliph watched and listened to the summer branches roll like waves beyond the windows. White winged insects shuddered and flashed, carefree amid the churning green. Humid summer smells mixed with medical antiseptic as his uncle turned and swabbed his arm.
Overhead, a tin ceiling fan whispered while the brittle chirr of insects rattled in the heat.
“Good boy,” said his uncle. Then there was a sharp pinch in the tender place at the crook of his arm. “Stay still.”
Caliph winced and arched his back slightly. His head pushed into the pillow.
“You’re Hjolk-trull,” said Nathaniel. “You know what that means?”
Caliph’s eyes were streaming from the corners; the pillow soaked up his fear. He shook his head slightly because he could not speak.
“Well the Hjolk-trull are descended from Gringlings, who are descended from Limuin … who are descended from gods. That makes your great-grandfather quite powerful, doesn’t it? If you believe in him. But I’m afraid he doesn’t care about you.”
Nathaniel rummaged with some metal tools on a nearby tray. He tore a length of fabric tape and plastered it over the spot where the tubing came out of Caliph’s arm. Then he flipped a switch on a small machine and Caliph watched his blood run up through the coils. He felt dizzy.
“I don’t believe in your great-grandfather,” said Nathaniel. “He exists, I’m sure. But I don’t believe in him. The scientific fact is that your blood is special. Aren’t you happy to be helping me?”
Caliph nodded. The old man’s eyes glittered with lightless mirth.
“Now hold still. We’re doing a test. I don’t have all the ingredients I need, but let’s see what we can accomplish without them.” The small machine made a sound that Caliph imitated by popping his lips. It was an airy pumping noise.
Pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop.
“Be quiet,” said Nathaniel.
Pop.
Caliph stopped but watched his blood run through the tubing, into a kind of pen that Nathaniel had picked up and was now adjusting.
“What are you writing?” asked Caliph.
Nathaniel chuckled. “I’m not writing. I’m drawing. You like to draw and so do I.”
“What are you drawing?”
“A jellyfish,” said Nathaniel. “To float in the abyss, in the dark, alone but beautiful.”
Caliph couldn’t see the drawing from his position on the gurney but he could see his uncle concentrating, whispering. Outside, the trees kept rolling, rolling, churning. His head felt like it was on the end of a stick that was being swung around the room. “Uncle?”
Nathaniel continued to whisper and draw.
“Uncle, I don’t feel good.”
The white laboratory ceiling had a black ring around it. Fuzzy. The ring was getting fatter and the hole in the ring was getting smaller. Most of the ceiling was hidden.
“Uncle?”
“Be quiet.”
The whole room had nearly disappeared and Caliph reached up with his other hand to scratch at his eyes. Something was wrong. He couldn’t see. Everything was black. His head felt funny. And then he was falling. There were rocks all around, hitting him in the face. He was falling in blackness. The rocks were falling up and he was falling down. The rocks hurt. He was crying.
The rocks hit him in the face. Slap, slap.
“Wake up, boy.”
Caliph could see the white ceiling again but it was fuzzy. His arm hurt and he was sweating, giant drops. His fingers tingled as if both arms had gone to sleep. The machine was turned off.
“Well I guess that has to be enough,” said Nathaniel. “I don’t want to kill my calf, do I?
“Do I, Caliph?”
The lab blacked out and Caliph snapped up straight. He heard Nathaniel’s voice again, but this was not a memory. This was something new.
You can’t touch her the way you want to, Caliph. She’s gone infinite.
Infinite.
And you can’t trust her anymore.
CHAPTER
52
Taelin looked up into the face of Dr. Baufent. “Hi,” Taelin said. Baufent looked serious. Baufent always looked serious. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” said Baufent.
Taelin didn’t believe her. The doctor sat across from her on a bench in what looked to be a restaurant. There were copper fixtures and dark wood on the wall. When Taelin sat up she saw eyebrow windows above the booth, looking out at street level on an indistinct mass of shambling feet.
People, she thought happily. Her head hurt and she was hungry. She reached up and touched a swollen goose egg exactly on the scar at the middle of her forehead.
“You took a bump while we were carrying you,” said Baufent. The doctor seemed wholly uninterested in what was going on outside the window.
“How did we get here?” asked Taelin.
“Up some stairs, through several doors,” said Baufent. “The High King’s witch helped spirit you up.”
“We’re in a restaurant! Have we ordered? Where is everyone?”
“I don’t know,” said Baufent. “Sena said to wait here for you to wake up and that you’d know what to do.”
Oh, thought Taelin. It must be time!
“Where’s the High King?”
“I don’t know. He abandoned us. It’s just you and me.” Baufent looked indescribably glum as she said this. Gray and tired and hopeless. She looked like she needed sleep. More than that, she looked utterly beaten, as if the thing that had been her had been pulled out and trampled and thrown away. There was no fight left in her face.
Taelin pulled out her necklace. She looked back out the window where a dismal dawn made droplets flicker like tiny white flames. She began to work the soft metal of the demonifuge in her hands. Squinting past the rain, into the gray breadth of Bablemum’s tropical avenues, she could see the Lua’groc massing. Ghouls with leaden skin crawled from sewers followed by taller, thinner men and women that moved like insects or crayfish. Squeezing from the ground came fatter forms, grotesque and slippery, bulging and toad-like, skinned in silver and gold and pink. “Don’t worry,” said Taelin. “Sena’s a goddess. Do you want to play cards?”
The things in the street seemed to be rejoicing.
They seemed to be eating.
“I’m going for a walk,” said Baufent suddenly. She stood up in a curt manner from the booth, put her hands in the deep pockets of her red coat and shuffled toward the door.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Taelin.
Baufent gave a humorless smile. “Good luck, girlie.” She opened the door, stepped outside and shut it behind her.
Taelin poked her nose over the window ledge again, looking out, trying to see what might happen, but there was too much commotion. Too much noise. Baufent’s entry to the street changed nothing. The celebration continued and Taelin slipped back down into the booth to continue working on her necklace.