Greatshadow da-1

by James Maxey

  I was intrigued by this news, and had a dozen questions, but before I could ask them the passage we traveled opened into a huge, circular chamber a hundred yards across, ringed with columns. We all craned our necks as we entered, looking up at the high cone-shaped roof. A checkerboard pattern spiraled up the steep walls, producing a feeling of vertigo.

  In the center of the chamber was a raised platform. Upon this sat a mirrored glass pyramid roughly ten feet along the base. Sitting upon this, perfectly balanced, was a cube of what looked to be black, seamless iron the same height. Perched atop this was an equally large sphere of polished jade, seemingly carved from a single block of stone. My ghost heart skipped a beat as I looked at it. I couldn’t even begin to guess its value.

  Finally, on top of these three, perfect solids, sat a throne of gold.

  “Muh fuh uh,” said No-Face, softly.

  “It’s magnificent,” whispered Zetetic, sounding awed as he looked at the tower of geometric shapes. “I wonder what these objects must have meant?”

  The boa constrictor rose up next to him, its eyes glazed. “I can tell you what the throne meant,” he said. “The man who ssssat upon that throne ruled the damn world.”

  Father Ver spat on the dusty floor. “The man who sat on that throne is dead. No one remembers his name.”

  As dazzled as I was by the wealth before me, Father Ver’s words struck me. What did wealth mean if you could afford to build something like this, then vanish so completely from memory? The man who sat upon that throne had probably thought he was pretty important, but time had swept him away completely. Since everything a man might do with his life would be erased by time, perhaps my grandfather was right. Maybe the only sensible path was to live naked in a tree, eat fruit and bask in the sun. Not that this had been Father Ver’s point at all.

  Menagerie, however, had different feelings on the matter. He slithered across the room, his serpentine belly somehow finding purchase on the smooth surfaces of the pyramid.

  “Don’t climb it!” cried Zetetic. “It’s precariously balanced!”

  “Precariousss my assss,” said Menagerie as he zipped up the cube and slid over the sphere to the throne. “There’sss an iron rod or sssomething ssstuck through the middle to hold everything in place.”

  He slid his chin on the throne itself. The boa pulled loop after loop of his body onto the seat. In a flicker, Menagerie’s human form appeared on the throne. “I know you said the debate about treasure was over, but look at this! We have to take measures to protect our finds. We can’t leave this here for Hookhand to just walk in and grab!”

  “No one is going to grab it,” said Tower. “The sheer weight will protect it from being stolen.”

  “Are you really willing to take that chance? If you come back tomorrow and it’s gone, you’ll hate yourself.” Menagerie rubbed his hands along the golden arms of the throne.

  “I assure you, I’ll be able to sleep in peace,” said Tower. “Come down at once and let’s move on.”

  Menagerie ground his teeth, glaring at the knight. Then he said, tersely, “As you wish.”

  He clamped his hands around the armrests as he stood up, his feet on the jade sphere. As he rose, there was a loud click. From beneath the floor, there was a ticking sound, like the world’s largest clock counting off seconds.

  “That can’t be good,” said Zetetic.

  Menagerie picked up his hands from the armrests. “Nobody panic. It’s probably just-”

  Before he could finish the sentence, the ticking stopped. The jade globe snapped open, a wedge widening into a giant mouth full of saw-edged green teeth. The mouth proved larger than the footprint of the throne. The golden chair dropped straight down into the maw, carrying Menagerie with it.

  The jaws clamped shut with a loud clang that bit right through the throne. The metal posts and backrest spun off through the air, flying twenty feet before clattering loudly on the floor. Menagerie’s torso from the belly-button up tumbled through the air. His legs were completely gone. The sphere spun around to face the rest of the party with an eyeless face, as its mouth once more opened in a toothy smile.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DEVOURED BY THE MONSTER

  Menagerie’s torso bounced once on the floor. His left hand flopped limply against a small squiggle tattooed behind his ear and he suddenly vanished. I blinked, wondering where he’d gone, but had no time to dwell on the matter.

  The sphere, the cube, and the pyramid had all separated, hovering in the air, spinning to face new targets. The jade sphere shot toward No-Face as a deafening, high-pitched scream erupted from within. With only inches to spare, the faceless mercenary leaped from the path of the green ball, leaving the toothy maw aimed at Father Ver. Yet as No-Face dodged, he let his iron ball and chain trail behind him. The giant mouth snapped down as the weapon passed through its mineral lips. Shards of jade sprayed out as the teeth snapped on the iron links. With a grunt, No-Face planted his feet and jerked the chain taut. The jade orb spun dizzily as it cut an arc, narrowly missing Father Ver. Infidel dropped her pack and leapt into the curving path of the spinning sphere, drawing back her fist.

  A thunderclap echoed through the chamber as she landed her punch. The gleaming green stone shattered, sending sharp, fist-sized chunks in all directions. Chewed-up bits of golden throne bounced on the marble floor. What must have been hundreds of concentric platinum hoops, in diameters from ten feet to smaller than a wedding ring, spilled out, rolling everywhere.

  There was no sign of Menagerie’s legs amid the rubble, though I didn’t exactly spend a lot of time looking. My attention was drawn to the cube and the pyramid, which were hanging in the air, unseen motors within whining like a billion mosquitoes. Unlike the sphere, no mouths opened on these solids as they selected targets and launched forward.

  The iron cube raced toward Infidel. She reared back to punch it, but the flying cube smashed her in mid-swing, flattening her against its face. The whining, buzzing noise within rose in pitch as it built speed, pushing her with it. With a shock wave that knocked Relic, Father Ver, and the Deceiver from their feet, the cube hammered into the chamber wall.

  I thought of the flattened skeletons I’d found embedded in stone and felt sick. Any normal person would be nothing more than a smear of blood after such a blow. Yet, when the cube pulled back, Infidel looked intact; the marble panel behind her was shattered into gravel, and she was driven into the dense volcanic soil behind. She looked dazed, but was plainly alive.

  The cube whirled and targeted Lord Tower, zipping in a straight line toward the knight. Tower was hovering an inch or two in the air. Steel spikes snapped out of the soles of his metal boots and he kicked down onto the marble floor, driving the spikes into the stone. The cube hit him with an ear-splitting WHANG, driving him backward. Marble fragments flew as Tower’s boot carved a long, ragged gouge in the floor. The pitch of the unseen engines grew ever louder, but the cube’s speed was visibly diminishing. I wondered if Tower could actually stop it before they reached the wall.

  My eyes were drawn elsewhere before I saw the outcome of Tower’s braking action. Amidst the larger chunks of chewed-up throne, I spotted what looked like a bit of brownish red intestine wriggling on a scrap of purple silk. I looked closer, in morbid fascination, wondering if Menagerie had been chewed up so completely by the inner workings of the sphere that this was all that was left. I stared closer, and suddenly understood what I was seeing: half an earthworm, pinched off at one end, writhing in pain.

  Was there a second half to this worm amid the rubble? Could Menagerie be restored if we could join the two halves? I turned to find Relic to share my theory, but was distracted as the glass pyramid flashed past me.

  Unlike the straight paths the sphere and cube had followed, the pyramid moved chaotically through the air, darting a few yards in one direction, then shooting off at a crisp angle without losing speed in defiance of all logic and physics. Its glass faces were cycling through colors, pale bl
ues, bloody reds, banana-yellows. It rang with a sound like off-key chimes as it jerked through the air. No-Face chased after it, trying to shatter it with his ball and chain, but the pyramid would tumble aside before his blows connected, shooting off in some new random direction.

  Aurora, meanwhile, was grabbing the fog that surrounded her, shaping and pressing the mist into her palm until she’d packed a ball of ice the size of a grapefruit. She hung back, studying the pyramid’s lurching flight path, her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she figured out a pattern, or perhaps it was only luck, but when she reared back and flung the ice-ball, aiming to the left of the pyramid, her target obliged by darting left. The ice-ball hit the triangle face dead center, passing through the glass as if it wasn’t even there. Instantly, the neighboring face flashed green as the ice-ball shot out. No-Face, still chasing the dancing pyramid, wound up getting punched right in the gut by the projectile. He stumbled, off balance, clutching his belly.

  “Sorry!” shouted Aurora. She turned her eyes away from the pyramid for only a second, but in that second all the faces turned black as it charged her. She looked up, raising an ice-covered fist as the pyramid overtook her. Instead of the crash of glass hitting ice, the collision unfolded with eerie silence as Aurora simply sank into the ebony surface. The pyramid tumbled as it passed over her, kissing the floor where she stood before shooting straight up, once more flashing through a spectrum of bright shades.

  Aurora was gone.

  Meanwhile, Lord Tower had finally won his contest of momentum against the cube. He now held it motionless in mid-air, with a single hand holding the Gloryhammer across the cube face while his free hand popped open the compartment on his belt that held his magic notebook. The visor of his helmet lifted on its own as he awkwardly flipped through the book with one hand. Finding the page he wanted, he brought the book to his face and bit down on the edge, trapping a page open as he let go with his hand and brought his fingers to the long, skinny item sketched on the page. He drew his hand back, tugging a loop of leather from the paper, followed by a long shaft of narwhale tusk that he kept working out a few feet at a time, continually adjusting his grip. The bone-white shaft proved to be eighteen feet long, tipped with a gleaming heart-shaped blade of pinkish ice.

  If this wasn’t the Jagged Heart, it’s hard to imagine what was.

  Tower let the book tumble from his mouth. With a grunt, he pushed the iron cube away from him, tapping it with the Gloryhammer so that it flew back a half dozen yards. The iron block whined as it shot toward the knight once more. Tower brought the tip of the harpoon down, dropping the Gloryhammer to grasp the shaft with both hands.

  The iron cube ground to a halt as the ice tip burrowed into its solid face, sinking nearly a foot. Cracks spread across the iron as the whining noise within changed to a growling grind. Tower twisted the shaft and the entire cube shattered. Fragments of springs and gears bounced all around him.

  The knight didn’t waste any time savoring his victory. Instead, he charged back across the room, his spiked iron boots shooting out sparks as he ran, the harpoon held like a lance. The glass pyramid flashed white on all faces as Tower neared, a bright, burning light nearly impossible to look at.

  I turned away just as the light suddenly dimmed and a cacophony of breaking glass reached my ears. I looked back and saw that the pyramid was gone; all that remained was glassy dust scattered across the floor like snowflakes.

  “Uhrurruh!” No-Face shouted, dropping to his hands and knees. He ran his fingers through the glass dust. “Uhrurruh!” he cried again.

  Tower surveyed the scene. “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

  “Aurora was inside the pyramid when you broke it,” said Zetetic, now back on his feet. He nudged his boot around in the glassy remains, until he found a splinter the size of a man’s thumb. He picked it up and looked at it closely. “She’s gone forever, I fear.”

  “Nuh!” cried No-Face.

  Tower, his faceplate still open, turned pale. “I didn’t know,” he said.

  “What could you have done differently if you had known?” said Father Ver, still sitting on the floor. “You couldn’t let the thing keep tumbling until it had swallowed us all.”

  No-Face stood up, his whole body trembling. He stared at Lord Tower with his single, misshapen eye, his fists clenched. He screamed at the knight, “Yuh guhdum muhfugguh! Yuh kuh uhrurruh!”

  “It was an accident,” said Tower, lowering his faceplate.

  Relic was back on his feet, wandering through the rubble that covered the floor. He pushed aside bits of shattered jade and chewed up gold with the tip of his staff. At last he leaned over and picked up a small, moist, wriggling bit of meat, then moved to the other half of the worm I’d spotted on the silk.

  “Is this going to work?” I asked. “Can you read Menagerie’s thoughts?”

  Relic didn’t answer me as he placed the two halves together, letting the bisected worms touch at their shared wound.

  There was a rapid blur of motion, as the thin, squiggling worms gained mass and muscle. In the span of a heartbeat, the worm was gone and Menagerie sat before us, restored once more. The speed of the recovery left me seeing double.

  Only, I wasn’t seeing double.

  There were two Menageries, sitting facing each other, both the size of pygmies.

  “What the hell?” they both asked in unison. Their voices were high-pitched squeaks as they asked, “How did… It wasn’t supposed to work like…” They each reached out to touch the other, their fingertips tapping together in mirror symmetry.

  Both reached for tattoos on their shins and suddenly two small bears were staring at one another. “Terrific,” both bears said, in a resigned tone.

  Father Ver walked toward the twin bears and looked down, his eyes narrowed. “You’re to blame for this! You were ordered to ignore the treasure. You’ve cost us the ogress and the War Doll by your disobedience.”

  Relic shook his head. “The War Doll is still functioning.”

  Infidel punctuated his sentence by tearing free of her stony outline, staggering onto the floor, still looking dazed.

  The Truthspeaker continued to glare down at the small bears. “Disobey again and your contract will be terminated.”

  The Menageries shifted back into their twin, pint-sized human forms. They both placed their hands across their knees and sighed. They said in their stereo voices, “You don’t need to threaten me. No one feels worse about this than I do. The sight of all that gold made me stupid.”

  “Muh fuh,” said No-Face, looming over his fellow Goon. “Nuh whoowa smuh guh?”

  “Yeah, you’re the smart Goon now,” the Menageries said, shaking their heads.

  The faceless giant held out his hands. Menagerie took them, and let himselves be pulled back to their feet.

  While this was happening, I’m certain that I’m the only one who noticed that the Deceiver had pulled out a piece of cloth and wrapped the largest shard of glass within it, stuffing it into his bag.

  “Let’s take an hour to rest,” said Tower, sliding the harpoon back into the book. “There are prayers of penance I need to perform for having allowed a book to touch the ground. No-Face, you’re bleeding; let Father Ver stitch you up.” The big man’s hands and knees were red with blood from where he dug through the glass fragments searching for Aurora. Finally, Tower turned to Relic and said, “Make certain your War Doll is still functioning. If you need more time for repairs, let me know.”

  “Of course,” said Relic. He left the others and headed toward the shadows of the hall where we had first entered. Infidel sat there, crouched down out of sight of the others. She’d removed her shining steel bra, which was squashed flat. She was hammering the flattened plates back into cup shapes with her fists, using her knee caps as a guide.

  “I’m sick of this,” she grumbled softly as Relic approached.

  “Patience. You may shed your disguise soon enough.”

  “I don’t mean I’m sick of my disguis
e. I’m sick of this mission. Stagger and I goofed around in these ruins for a decade before he got killed. This team is dropping like flies. Maybe Aurora and I weren’t always friends, but she deserved a better death than that.”

  Relic squatted down beside her. With his limbs hidden within the confines of his cloak, he looked more like a heap of rotting rags than a man. “We can’t be certain that Aurora is dead. Her thoughts simply vanished when the pyramid swallowed her. Perhaps she was transported elsewhere.”

  I also had my doubts she was dead. Unlike Ivory Blade or Reeker, Aurora hadn’t lingered behind as a ghost. Or would a human ghost and an ogre ghost go to the same afterlife? The Great Sea Above she’d described certainly was nothing like the church’s version of heaven. Since the ghosts usually only lingered a moment, had I simply missed her in all the excitement?

  Infidel tried the repaired cup on for size. It was still dented, but it did vaguely resemble the curve of her breast again. “The Black Swan said that only two people survived this quest, and made it pretty clear I was one of them. Tower’s probably the other survivor, given his bag of tricks. It doesn’t bother you that your death has been foretold? Why don’t you get out while you still can?”

  “Whatever the Black Swan saw, she’s already altered our fates. It’s possible we will all survive, and the dragon will die.”

  Infidel didn’t look at him as she worked on the second bra cup. Her lips were pursed tightly together for several seconds before she said, softly, “Or maybe all of us will die. Even me.”

  I put my ghostly hand on her shoulder, wanting to comfort her. I’d never heard such despair in her voice.

  “I thought I was done with this,” she said, hammering the metal on her knee.

  I didn’t think she was talking about the bra.

  Relic nodded. “And now you are afraid again.”