Caliph endured another hour as they sailed over Lampfire Hills, where Travis Whittle pointed out all the peculiar wonders of his domain but snubbed questions about Winter Fen and Daoud’s Bend, the boroughs abutting his south and east borders.
When the zeppelin turned north, Caliph noticed how the pilot avoided the sky above Ghoul Court and churned instead into Maruchine.
Up ahead, rising from what by now had become a monotonous clutter of peaked roofs, six enormous zeppelin towers fumbled like partially exhumed claws toward the stratosphere. An array of other airships could now be seen drifting over Thief Town and Murkbell. They carried huge industrial parts through the dirt-smeared skies.
Malgôr Hangar, however, was a strictly military installation. Built lower to the ground than Hullmallow Cathedral, it was less visible but still ten times the size. It housed most of Isca’s zeppelin fleet at the very heart of the city on the border between Maruchine and Thief Town.
Caliph’s zeppelin ride had come to an end.
The ship slowed and eased toward one of the six towers. They docked with a disconcerting lurch as somewhere far below ropes were quickly tightened.
Enormous gears and pistons like titanic tree trunks adjusted the dock’s elevation, pulling the airship down.
“We’ll be bidding Mrs. Din farewell here,” whispered Zane.
“Is that her name?” remarked Caliph, watching the woman gather her dress as she prepared to disembark.
“Freja Din and Salmalin Mywr aren’t natives,” said Vhortghast lowly, “they have strong ties to Greymoor and the Pandragonian Empire—respectively. Both of them would probably like nothing better than to see Stonehold and especially Isca annexed by a southern power.”
“They’re harmless gadabouts,” muttered Yrisl. “Don’t let him spook you. They spend too much time at the opera to plan a coup.”
Vhortghast curled his lip at the Blue General as though catching wind of something foul.
Caliph’s head hurt from trying to see the entire city from the air. He stepped up to a spyglass and peered through its lens at a distant clock tower. Eight-sixteen. Nearly noon. His stomach grumbled.
“Right this way, your majesty.”
Caliph didn’t even look at who was talking to him. He turned and headed back through the stateroom, stale with the smell of cigar butts, spilled brandy and sweating bodies.
A bridge led to solid ground and a windswept battlement behind which the sky glowered with wisps of dirty rain already falling over Tin Crow and Nevergreen.
Freja Din guided her husband directly toward the shelter of the tower as though frightened by the wind.
“The opera house is just there,” pointed Vhortghast, “across the canal in Murkbell. We’ll meet them again this evening for the premier of Er Krue Alteirz. The High Seneschal will be coming.”
“Do we have tickets?”
Vhortghast grinned like a ruined fence.
“The High King donates a sizable sum to the opera. You have the best seats in the house. We don’t need tickets.”
Caliph was beginning to understand that ordinary rules did not apply to him. He could do virtually whatever he wanted and all but the most outlandish would accommodate him without question.
“I’m hungry.”
“You’ll want to save your appetite for this evening,” said Vhortghast.
Caliph scowled visibly. “Actually I’m starving.” The eggs and strudel had been wonderful but hadn’t stuck with him past an hour ago.
Vhortghast shrugged.
“We can eat, but you may lose whatever you put down.”
“Why?”
“We have some business which I’m fairly certain you will find most memorable—more so than our zeppelin ride and more so than Er Krue Alteirz, unfortunately because it is somewhat . . . distasteful.”
Caliph’s hunger slacked only slightly at the spymaster’s words.
6 W.: “Sena sleeps.”
7 D.W.: A hit squad of witches composed of three Ascendant Sisters.
CHAPTER 9
Caliph never saw the zeppelin hangars of Malgôr firsthand—at least not that day. He heard about them instead from Vhortghast on his way down a crepuscular spiral staircase deep inside the northwest zeppelin tower. Humming overhead metholinate lights illuminated patches of rust and slippery stone.
“Watch your step,” warned Vhortghast.
They passed through several well-manned checkpoints before the staircase dumped them into a small dingy tiled foyer with the number six painted in red, barely visible through layers of grime.
They stepped out into a half tube that tunneled north and south. Over one hundred fifty feet wide and seventy-five floor to ceiling, the black-green tunnel burrowed out of sight in both directions, obscured slightly by steam and questionable vapors that drifted aimlessly over the floor. The space was lit by sustained magnesium lights suspended far overhead.
Cones of intense white revealed patches of crud-caked block work, walls befouled in a way that suggested black