by James Maxey
She finished the letter in moments, rolled it up, and sealed it with a band of iron foil. She handed it to Infidel. “I should finish my work this evening. I’ll meet you at Stagger’s boat in the morning so I can take possession of his papers.”
“Agreed,” said Infidel.
Infidel departed, limping on the leg that had taken the machete blow. I was nervous about her passing through town noticeably wounded, with visible cuts on her face. This isn’t a good town to show weakness. But, once she was outside, she’d no doubt use the Gloryhammer to fly to the Freewind. Not exactly stealthy, but the skies of Commonground were a lot safer than the gangplanks.
Since I knew where to find Infidel, I lingered behind. I had a hunch I wanted to follow up on. I moved my face before the Black Swan’s vacant eyes.
“You can see me,” I said.
Then, slowly, the hollow sockets began to fill with translucent fog, knitting itself into ghostly orbs, which burned with a soft glow. The fog flowed over the iron cheeks and lips, growing denser, until I found myself staring at the face of a young woman rather than the mechanical mockery of one. The woman had thick black eyebrows and an angular nose a bit too large for her face. The iron lips didn’t move; the bellows stayed silent. Yet, as the woman’s ghost lips parted, a voice in my mind said, “I’m... aware of you.”
“I thought you might be. Your barbs seemed a little gratuitous if you didn’t think I was around to suffer. Why didn’t you tell Infidel I was here?”
“I don’t wish to encourage her memory of you. The sooner she forgets you, the sooner she’ll be free to master her own destiny.”
“She’s free now.”
“No. She’s undertaking a dangerous quest to fulfill a promise you made. It’s an unnecessary risk, and a pointless distraction.”
“Distraction from what?”
“The dragon apocalypse! Have you failed to pay attention at all?”
“Greatshadow isn’t angry at humanity. Infidel showed him mercy when he was at his weakest. He’s promised not to seek revenge.”
“And yet, again and again, I’ve lived through the day in which the primal dragons rise against humanity. I’ll never be able to erase the memory of blizzards blasting even the southernmost islands, the sea rising to swallow whole cities, and mountains crumbling like sand castles as the earth shakes off mankind like an annoying flea.”
“Tragic. But why must Infidel be the one who stops this?”
The Black Swan sighed. “Infidel’s former power was derived from dragon blood flowing through her veins. She alone possessed the sheer physical might to perform the heroic undertakings required to spare mankind. Behind the scenes, I arranged that she would come to Commonground so that I might oversee her training. But instead of becoming a focused, highly skilled warrior under my command, she met you and was seduced by your slovenly ways. Now, she’s an undisciplined brawler, although, stripped of her powers, she’ll not remain one for long. Unfortunately, in the timelines where I had you killed, Infidel is corrupted by her rage and assassinated by the Church of the Book long before her powers mature to the point that she can slay Greatshadow.”
“Well, she has no powers now,” I said. “You’ll need some new pawn for your game.”
“True. Which is why I’m placing my hope in Sorrow.” She motioned to the sculptress still shaping her thighs. “Unlike Infidel, her talents are meshed with a driving ambition and a grand vision. As Princess Innocent Brightmoon, Infidel’s childhood was too sheltered and pampered to allow her to grow into a serious adult. Sorrow has been tempered by tragedy from an early age. She has a heart full of hatred and bitterness that spurs her ever onward toward her goals of revenge.”
“She seems nice enough.”
“I assure you, nice is a word seldom used to describe Sorrow. And, unlike Infidel, she loathes men; foolish love will never distract her from her greater destiny.”
I shrugged. “What you do with this woman is of no concern to me. I want you to leave Infidel alone. If you don’t....” I let the thought trail off. I felt like I should be inserting a threat, but couldn’t really think of one.
“Are you attempting to be menacing?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“You’re failing at it. I’ve nothing to fear from you. You shall not linger in this world for much longer.”
“You’ve managed to stick around a long time. Why can’t I?”
“I never surrendered my hold on my bones,” she said. “I renew my energies by bathing my skeleton in blood. You performed a similar trick with your knife. But now that you’ve foolishly removed it from the mortal world, you’re fated to fade away. All actions require energy, even the actions of a spirit. Currently, you’re empowered by the dragon blood that the bone-handled knife drank in Greatshadow’s realm. That magic may sustain you for some time. But, with no further source of blood, your energies will fade. One day you won’t even have the power to remember your name. Soon after, you’ll vanish from this world forever.”
I ground my ghost teeth. Could I believe her? Where was the profit in lying to me? On the other hand, what was the profit in telling me the truth? “My actual bones aren’t all that far from here. What if Sorrow builds me a new body like yours?”
“I think cast iron breasts would look even more ridiculous on you than they do on me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Abandon hope, Stagger. Though I despised you in life, I’m not so hard-hearted I take pleasure as you suffer in death. You love Infidel, but her love for you will only lead her to a tragic end. In the most probable future, Infidel will die on her journey to Qikiqtabruk. Your daughter will never be born. Do you wish to linger as an impotent observer to the doom of those you hold dearest? Move on, poor ghost, to the great unknown.”
“I can’t help but get the feeling you’re manipulating me,” I said. “You’re taunting me so I’ll do something. But what? Just tell me what you want. Maybe if you’d tried that with Infidel, she would have become the savior you wanted her to be. By trying to treat her like a puppet, you’ve gotten her strings all tangled.”
“There is nothing more I need from you, Stagger. Return to your bones.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
She raised her ghostly hand and waved me away.
Suddenly, I was on a sandy bluff, overlooking the sea. This was where Infidel had buried my body. The sun was low against the water, almost gone. My grave of white sand had been somewhat flattened by wind and rain, but there was a man-sized bulge in the earth that hinted that bones lay beneath.
“Maybe you can get rid of me that easily,” I said, scratching my ghost scalp. What now? Was Infidel really in danger? Or was the Black Swan trying to trick me into stopping her mission? If so, how? What could I do?
Impotent observer of doom. That didn’t sound pleasant at all. But as long as that little band of hair was on Infidel’s hand, there was at least some small part of me left in the world. Blood wasn’t the only source of magic. I was determined to hold on powered by nothing but love.
CHAPTER THREE
SERIOUS, HARD-WORKING PEOPLE
THE SUN WAS below the horizon but the sky remained luminous, casting eerie shadows across the hill that held my grave. In the dimming light I stared at the ground, imagining my body six feet below. Not even a month had gone by. How much of me was recognizable underneath this mound of sand? I’d done a lot of digging around the island. Some places in the deep jungle, the soil was so dank and worm-ridden that a corpse would disappear inside a week. Here, on a windswept hilltop, in salty sand, baked daily beneath a tropical sun... perhaps my corpse had mummified. Certainly my bones were intact. Probably my teeth and nails and hair. The colorful shroud Infidel had fashioned from a stolen pygmy blanket might still be recognizable.
Why I found it comforting to think that I might be slowly turning into jerky instead of jelly, I can’t say. I suppose that as long as I have bones, I have hope. I’ve heard t
hat on the island of Podredumbre, the natives dig up the skeletons of their ancestors on the winter solstice and bring them back into their homes for a feast in their honor. Perhaps one day that ritual would catch on here. In fact, winter solstice was only a few days away, though in the eternal summer of the Isle of Fire I doubt many of the residents of Commonground would even notice.
There was a moment of morbid curiosity where I contemplated thrusting my head underground. I’d discovered while exploring the pygmy tunnels as a ghost that, in pitch darkness, I could see the faint aura given off by all material objects. Given that mirrors weren’t any use to me now, it might be interesting to see my face once more.
Instead, I clenched my fists of fog and turned away, floating upward. Some things are best left unseen. Above me, the boldest stars were starting to glow in the darkening sky. I drifted on the sultry wind that flowed down from the jungle slopes, the moist air redolent with a thousand species of orchids. I rose nearly a mile before I spotted Commonground, roughly twenty miles away. Even at this distance, the city was aglow with the lanterns of countless ships. The beaches around the bay blazed with funeral pyres. It had been weeks since Greatshadow attacked the city, but new corpses washed ashore with each tide.
I set off for Commonground at a leisurely pace, lost in thought, wondering if Infidel had done the right thing by sparing the dragon. I was shaken from my reverie by a faint high-pitched wail. I scanned the horizon. Was it some sort of bird? It sounded almost human, and it was definitely getting louder.
Then I spotted what looked like a man flashing toward me against the darkening sky. At first glance, it looked like Battle Ox, tumbling head over heels through the firmament. But the flying figure hurtled closer, and I made out a heavyset man dressed in a bearskin vest and wearing a horned helmet. His thick sinewy hands were clamped tightly to a two-handed axe. As he tumbled past, I saw that his beard was flecked with vomit, and he shrieked at a much higher pitch than one would expect from such a bruiser. In his wake, he left a strong odor of piss. I had the distinct impression that his flight was neither voluntary nor welcome.
I could have given chase, but I was more interested in who had launched the man into the atmosphere rather than where he was going to fall back to earth. Ordinarily, if there were bodies flying this sort of distance, Infidel was involved.
Though Commonground was thick with ships, it didn’t take long to spot the Freewind. The vessel was a long, square-rigged clipper with three masts, with a distinctive burgundy hull. I’ve heard that the boards were soaked in red wine before it was assembled. This isn’t a standard building practice among the Wanderers, and I have no idea what advantage it might have given the ship, but I must admit it helps the boat stand out in a crowded harbor.
To my utter lack of surprise, the Freewind was under attack. While Commonground was a sanctuary city among the Wanderers, meaning that even the Freewind wouldn’t be molested while at port, the attackers plainly weren’t from around here and probably didn’t understand the rules. Two long ships with figureheads carved to look like angry dragons had pinned the Freewind against the docks, rendering the ship’s legendary speed moot. The attacking boats had hulls wrapped in what looked to be oily hides. At least a hundred burly men wearing bearskin vests and horned helmets swarmed from the boats, running along boarding planks or climbing the numerous grappling ropes that now draped the Freewind. They were roaring deafening battle cries at a much more dignified and manly pitch than the shrieker who’d passed me seconds before. While I didn’t understand the language, the raiders matched the description of a race of warriors from lands north of the Silver Isles who called themselves Skellings. The only thing I really knew about them was that they were supposedly cannibals. Since their homeland was two-thousand miles away, it was doubtful they’d come this far looking for dinner.
At first glance, it looked as if the Skellings were launching their assault on an empty ship, which had to make it all the more embarrassing for them that they were failing to get on board. Those climbing up ropes had the bad luck of having the knots slip free from their grappling hooks inches before they reached the railing. Those attempting to run up gangplanks were suddenly snatched from their feet by hurricane-force winds on a bay that was otherwise calm. The waters around the ships grew crowded with flailing bodies.
One of the grapplers, however, had managed to leap for the railing as his rope broke, and I watched as he climbed aboard the all but empty deck. Suddenly, a child dropped out of the rigging, hands first, grabbing the warrior by his horned helmet. The Skelling staggered around, cursing, as the slender figure maintained a perfectly balanced handstand. As I drew closer, I saw that the mysterious gymnast was a girl, perhaps ten years old, with a very stern grimace on her face. Curly black locks spilled out from a wine-red beret that marked her as a member of the crew. Her agility at riding her unwilling mount was all the more remarkable for the fact that she was wearing a belt studded with lead sinkers that had to weigh at least fifty pounds.
After balancing on the Skelling for a few seconds, she dismounted with a somersault. The second her fingers left the helmet, the confused warrior shot into the air as if he’d been launched from a catapult. He vanished into the night so swiftly that he was gone from sight before the girl’s feet even touched the deck. She bounced as if she had springs in her toes, with her hands stretched overhead. As if by magic, a rope swung toward her. She grabbed hold as it lifted her once more into the rigging.
Perhaps the phrase ‘as if by magic’ is a bit too coy, since I knew damn well that every member of the Romer family that owned the Freewind had been given magical powers as a gift for rescuing the mer-king’s daughter. Though I normally avoided sea-travel, Infidel had done a stint aboard the Freewind not long ago as a sword-for-hire during the so-called Pirate Wars. The Romers were serious, hard-working people who neither drank, gambled, nor trafficked in stolen merchandise, which meant I didn’t know them personally. Luckily, thanks to Infidel’s tales, it wasn’t hard to piece together who was who.
The girl had to be Poppy, the youngest Romer. The mermen had given her one of the stranger magical abilities I knew of. Basically, anything she pressed down on would spring into the air with a hundred times the force she’d applied to it. From what Infidel had told me, Poppy was ten years old, and something of a tomboy.
The ropes were being cooperative with Poppy and uncooperative with the Skellings thanks, no doubt, to another family member – Rigger. He was only seventeen, and purportedly something of a worrywart. I’d likely find him at the wheel. I flew to the back of the boat and found what had to be him, along with two other family members. All had the same kinky black hair and red berets, along with sharp noses and blue eyes. Rigger had a narrow face adorned by an unflattering scraggle of a beard. With his slender limbs, he looked like a puppet, with a score of thick ropes wrapped around his arms and legs. He was drenched with sweat, his teeth clenched, as he drew upon his mer-gift, which was the ability to manipulate ropes with his mind. Ordinarily a ship the size of the Freewind would have required a crew of at least twenty, but Infidel told me that Rigger was capable of sailing the boat alone.
He wasn’t alone in defending the boat, however. Standing beside him was a young woman holding a long spyglass pressed to her right eye. She was a bit younger than Rigger, perhaps fifteen, and was staring into the glass with the same sweating intensity Rigger showed in manipulating the ropes. Perhaps the fact that she had the cover over the lens explained her effort. But even with the cap she was seeing something, since she shouted out, “Another grappling hook starboard! Three men on the rope!”
Rigger nodded. “Anyone else? Should I drop them?”
“Wait... there’s a fourth climber getting on... now!” She looked pleased as the screams of men falling into the water reached the wheel. It was a reliable guess that this young woman was Sage, the clairvoyant of the Romer clan.
“The attacks are slowing down,” shouted the third person at the wheel, an olde
r woman with streaks of gray in her dark hair, her skin tanned and deeply lined by a life at sea. This was Gale Romer, matriarch captain of the Freewind, and the reason that the Skellings kept getting gusted off their gangplanks. Gale had the power to control winds even before her encounter with the mer-king, which helped explained the Freewind’s reputation for speed. She looked at Sage and cried, “Give me a count of the dead!”
“Thirty-seven,” said Sage. “Mako and Jetsam are making short work of them.”
“How’s Infidel doing against those ice-serpents?”
“Hard to say,” Sage answered. “The Gloryhammer is so bright I can’t see through the glare.”
“What’s that about Infidel?” I asked, forgetting I couldn’t be heard.
Fortunately, I wasn’t kept in suspense long. The hatch to the cargo hold was wide open and suddenly a bright beam of light shot up from the guts of the ship as if the sun had just risen inside.
With a whoosh, Infidel flew from the hatch. She was completely enwrapped by what I can only describe as a python covered in thick silver fur. Three or four pythons, in fact, although it was difficult to tell where one snake ended and another began. Infidel had only one arm free of the tangle, but she had a death grip on the Gloryhammer as she rocketed into the sky, then dove, heading for the shore. I gave chase, unable to tell if she was in control of her flight or not. She flew directly for a large bonfire. In a flurry of sparks and flames, she dropped feet first into a pygmy funeral pyre, shielding her face by pressing it into the crook of her elbow. She stood there for only a second, protected by her armor as the serpents screamed. Their squealing voices were disturbingly similar to those of human babies as their oily fur ignited. Infidel leapt from the thick of the flames. The writhing serpents slipped from her torso to bunch around her legs. She rubbed her eyes and coughed for a few seconds, then spat out a gob of spit that looked blood-red, though that might have been due to the firelight. Without waiting to catch her breath, she shot off like a comet. The burning serpents couldn’t hold their grip against the acceleration and fell, crying as they tumbled.
