by James Maxey
Going once more to the basin, Sorrow washed her hands. Without looking at me, she said, “You’re forbidden to injure me or in any way seek to take revenge. Should anyone attempt to harm me, even Infidel, you’re obligated to defend me.”
I nodded.
Drying her hands, she crossed back to the desk. She lifted one of my notebooks, my favorite one, actually. I used a lot of different materials for writing. Parchment, made of old animal hide, is fine to write on, but the pages are thick, so you don’t get many pages in a book. There’s also papyrus. It’s the cheapest writing surface available, just flattened reed mats woven together by river pygmies. It’s a pain to write on and it falls apart with use, but you can buy more than you can carry for the cost of a pint of ale. And then there’s paper; the Church of the Book manufactures this sacred material at a remote nunnery on the Isle of Apes. Supposedly it’s made of ground-up trees boiled in nun’s urine impregnated with spices. This seems an unlikely recipe, though Wanderers who trade with the island tell me that the fumes from the nunnery make their eyes sting five miles out to sea, so who knows?
Paper is smooth, white as cotton, and thin enough that a book barely an inch thick can have a hundred flexible, yet durable pages. Its main drawback is that it’s expensive as hell. The only reason I own so many notebooks made from paper is that most knights and priests of the Church of the Book own them. A steady stream of these people have flowed to Commonground over the years to kill the woman I love. They’d failed their quests, but succeeded in supplying me with good writing material.
The notebook on the desk had belonged to a church assassin who called himself Penumbra. He’d attacked Infidel with shadow swords, blades that could hurt her even when she was invulnerable. So it had been a particular pleasure to loot his backpack and find this notebook. It was sturdy, bound in black leather, yet compact, just five inches across and seven inches tall. It had fit nicely in my jacket pocket, and except for ten pages of coded notes at the front that I’d never figured out, the rest of it was blank. When I’d gotten it, I’d been so enamored that I vowed I would write something special within its pages, an epic poem, perhaps, or my own authoritative history of the Vanished Kingdom that would replace my grandfather’s famous book as the epitome of scholarship.
Seven years later, no pen of mine had ever marked the notebook, though Sorrow had now filled another ten pages with her looping, elegant script. Turning beyond the last page she’d written anything on, Sorrow cut a blank sheet loose with the razor she’d used to shave Infidel’s temple. She folded the paper into a long, tapered wedge, flattening it out, then turned toward me. It looked a bit like an origami snake that had been stepped on. She stood on tip-toes to place the paper sculpture between my gaping coconut jaws, then used silver thread to sew it into place, or so I assume. I couldn’t see what she was doing, obviously, but the sound of a silver needle punching through paper and coconut husk has a rather distinctive rasp within the confines of a hollow skull.
When she was done, she stepped back and said, “You may now speak.”
“Really?” I asked. If I’d had eyebrows, they would have shot up. I could speak! Sort of. “Is that me?” I said, cringing at hearing the words. “I sound... funny.”
“Don’t be ungrateful,” said Sorrow. “You’re making words without lungs, throat, palette, teeth, or lips. You have only a paper tongue that vibrates to approximate the noises you would have made in life. You should be amazed at the cleverness of my craftsmanship, not critical.”
“I sound like a squirrel playing a kazoo,” I protested, though no tone of protest came through. I could neither shout nor whisper; all the sounds coming from my paper tongue were of roughly the same volume, which wasn’t terribly loud. On the other hand, if anyone had come aboard the Black Swan with a squirrel that played a kazoo, I would have paid money to see it. Perhaps Sorrow was right; the fact that I could make recognizable words at all was a thing worthy of note. When had I become so jaded?
“I saw the letters on the beach. You’re Stagger. These are your notes.”
“Yes,” I said, then nodded toward the bed. “And this is my wife. Will she be okay? Why hasn’t she woke up?”
“Infidel was sound asleep when the ice-maidens attacked; I could hear her snoring in the cabin next door. Her body was already primed for slumber. It’s too soon to worry.”
“It’s never too soon to worry,” I said. “And It’s not just her I’m concerned about. According to the Black Swan, she’s pregnant with my daughter.”
“The Black Swan is a manipulator of the highest order,” said Sorrow. “I would place no faith in what she says unless there’s a written contract involved, and then you should read every last word of the fine print.”
“Now that you know who I am, will you set me free?”
“You’re valuable to me,” said Sorrow. “I invested a tremendous amount of time and effort in creating a soul-catcher. I’m not prepared to throw that away. Besides, you were an unbound spirit when I found you. It was only a matter of time before you faded away to nothingness. You can last much longer now that you’re embodied again.”
“You said I would burn out.”
“It’s true. Your life energy isn’t infinite. But this was true before you were captured as well. For now, it is to the benefit of both of us that you occupy this form.”
I wasn’t certain of this. I’d enjoyed my freedom as a ghost, the ability to flit around as I pleased, my thoughts instantly translating into movement. On the other hand, this new body did have a tongue. I desperately wanted to talk to Infidel.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “Having a body again, even this clunky wooden one, isn’t completely unwelcome. But from now on, I’m not your slave to boss around. I’ll work with you as an equal partner.”
She snorted. “You’re in no way my equal, ghost. You are the echo of a drunken tomb-looter whose life’s work amounts to a few hundred pages of barely legible notes. I am a master of fundamental materials, driven to remake the world. A century from now, you will be completely forgotten, while I will be remembered as the woman who freed humankind from the authoritarian clutches of a wicked church and ushered in a new age of enlightenment and equality.”
I laughed, or tried to. My paper tongue turned it more into the sound of sneezing.
“Are you amused?” asked Sorrow.
“For someone smart, you’re remarkably ignorant of the word ‘hubris.’”
“This would apply to me only if I felt confidence in excess of my capacity,” said Sorrow. “I assure you, I never fail at my goals.”
“You have a self-inflicted hole in your head that’s killing you,” I said.
She frowned. She looked ready to change the subject. Glancing back at the maps spread on the desk, she asked, “Do you know where to find the Witch’s Graveyard?”
“Maybe,” I said. “There are folk legends and intriguing place names that provide clues. I can’t make any guarantees, but give me half a day and a pick-axe once we’re back in Commonground and I can probably root out the truth.”
“You can draw me a map?” she said.
“Already drawn,” I said, motioning toward the desk.
“Show me. You’re free to move as you wish, though I do not release you from the command to save me from harm.”
I walked to the pile of documents and pulled the corner of a sheet of parchment jutting out from beneath the stack. It had a purple ring on it from where I’d sat a bottle of wine while discussing the map with a potential buyer at the Black Swan. I tapped a roughly sketched rectangle next to the ring. “This place is called the Knight’s Castle. It’s a complex of stonework a few miles upriver from the bay. It’s been picked over pretty thoroughly, but there is one noteworthy feature, several hundred yards off the main complex. It’s overgrown with trees, but when I surveyed the land here” – I took a quill from the ink bottle and drew an X at the western edge of the castle – “there are several acres marked by evenly-spac
ed, rectangular depressions. No headstones, but even without them, it looks exactly like a graveyard where all the coffins have disintegrated, letting the soil collapse down into the graves.”
My ‘X’ looked a little barren. So I drew a circle around it, then jotted ‘Witch Graveyard’ above it. Those words looked lonely, so I wrote beneath them, ‘Treasure!’
“The embellishment isn’t necessary,” said Sorrow.
“Sorry,” I said. “Old habit. In the dry spells between finding actual relics, I supplemented my income by selling maps to treasure hunters from the Silver Isles. I saw a steady stream of barbers, barristers and haberdashers who’d run away from their boring lives and demanding wives to get rich quick by looting the Vanished Kingdom. Nearly all my customers got themselves killed during their first week in the jungle, so repeat business was lousy.”
“Couldn’t the hollow depressions be evidence the graves have been dug up?”
“There would be mounds next to the depressions. This is just gut instinct, but I don’t think anyone’s dug there because the area’s kind of boring. Every year or two somebody stumbles over a vine-covered temple housing idols with jade eyes and golden earrings. The folks who built the Vanished Kingdom weren’t noted for doing things small or subtle. Treasure hunters would rather hack away vines from a hundred mounds of boulders hoping to find an old temple than take a shovel to unmarked graves where everything has probably rotted.”
“The nails I’m seeking wouldn’t rot,” said Sorrow.
“Why not? Bone rots. Wood rots. Iron rusts. I guess the gold and glass might survive a long time underground.”
Sorrow gave my arguments a dismissive wave.
“You know little of the higher arts of weaving.”
“I know damn little of the lower arts, for that matter. Considering that the church has pretty much wiped out your kind, I think I can be forgiven a little ignorance.”
“While I’ve perfected the manipulation of the material world, within limits, there is self-evidently more to the known world than matter. This ship currently sails in one of the abstract realms.”
“I know a little bit about abstract realms,” I said. “They’re like dream worlds, only shared. They form the foundation of somnomancy.”
“I would dispute this,” said Sorrow. “Somnomancy isn’t a distinct magical art in my opinion. It’s more akin to the reality manipulation of the deceivers, only the somnomancer is being lied to by his unconscious mind. The abstract realms, on the other hand, are real, unless you believe we are dreaming now.”
“Do you have any convincing evidence that we’re not?”
“Don’t try to play games with me. I’ve no patience for such things. My body weakens with the passage of each day; each heartbeat is like a grain of sand through an hourglass. I’m keenly aware that death waits for me if I don’t reverse the damage to my body.”
“And your plan to save yourself is... abstract nails?”
“Avaris is said to have possessed a nail of time. Imagine the power to being able to sculpt and mold seconds and moments to your will! I thought the Black Swan possessed it, but her skull was unblemished.”
“What would such a nail look like? How would you even hammer it in?”
Sorrow sighed. “Sensible questions. I don’t know. I’m hoping to gather clues from context when I finally discover the skull of an ancient witch.”
“If I weren’t a walking, talking pile of driftwood, I might be inclined to call you crazy.”
“I’m not crazy,” said Sorrow, clenching her right fist. “I’m mad. Mad at my father, mad at the church and the damned Divine Author. I’m mad because I see the world as it truly is, not as the veil of convenient and comforting illusions everyone else embraces. I’m mad to be facing this fight alone.”
I shrugged. “You could try being nicer to people. Commonground is full of people who have grudges against the church. Hell, a lot of people probably have grudges against your father personally. You could probably make some allies if you weren’t so, uh... um... intense.”
“You were about to say ‘bitchy.’”
“Maybe.”
“My father is blunt, demanding and stubborn. People call him a great leader. Yet when I display these same qualities, I’m dismissed as a bitch.”
“Please note that I did avoid the word,” said Stagger. “Twenty years ago, the execration would have crossed my tongue with barely a thought. But I’ve heard Infidel called a bitch a thousand times, when her greatest sin has been that she is insufficiently fearful of men who enjoy being feared. If you must fuss at me, please focus on things I actually say.”
“My apologies,” said Sorrow. To my surprise, she sounded sincere. “Perhaps I’m overly defensive. I’ve survived as long as I have by being suspicious of everyone.”
I sighed, though my paper tongue turned the sound into the buzz of fly wings. “I’m really not your enemy. I couldn’t care less if you wish to wage war against the church. I live in Commonground because it’s one of the few places on earth where the church has no power. Hell, that’s pretty much why everyone who isn’t a Wanderer or a pygmy comes to Commonground. A lot of them would probably cheer you on.”
Sorrow’s shoulders sagged as she shook her head. “In some circumstances, the enemy of an enemy can be a friend; for me, the enemies of my enemies almost always prove to be unreliable scoundrels who view me as an easy victim.”
Part of me wanted to pat her on the back and say, “There, there.” She sounded lonely and worn out, and I’m a man with an excess of empathy. On the other hand, given that she had enslaved me and showed no inclination toward releasing me, my empathy could only go so far.
She rubbed her eyes. “I need to sleep. It will be hours before Captain Romer has recovered from her excursion into the Sea of Wine. I’m interested in learning how we got here. I assume Mako knows more than he’s telling.”
“I have a few insights. I saw Captain Romer lean down, touch the bare wood of the deck, and announce we were sailing the Sea of Wine. I also know from talking to Wanderers in the past that the Sea of Wine is sort of a gateway to their afterlife. If she dies, do you think we’ll be trapped here?”
“She won’t die,” said Sorrow. “And don’t think of our situation as trapped. We’re in the safest place imaginable at the moment. We don’t have to worry about assault by the Judgment Fleet, pirates, or Skellings while we’re here. We’re the only living things upon these waves.”
“But maybe not beneath them. I saw... something... lurking beneath the ship. A big, black serpent.” I was hesitant to say all I knew. I didn’t want to accidentally reveal the ghost of Jasmine Romer to Sorrow.
“Abyss, perhaps? The primal dragon of the sea has a pact to protect Wanderers.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve seen Abyss. He’s more of a giant turtle. This thing was covered in big black snake scales.”
“Hmm. That fits the description of Rott,” said Sorrow. “It would be appropriate that the dragon of decay would dwell here. Wine is a product of rotting grapes, after all.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say about one of my favorite beverages.”
“I appreciate wine not for its flavor but for its inspiration. Destruction is the precursor of creation. Perfectly good fruit when crushed and allowed to molder releases something new and precious. I would not be so eager to bring the kingdoms of the world to ruin if I didn’t believe something far more vibrant would emerge.”
“You’re not going to be overthrowing anything if Rott gets a sudden whim to swallow this ship.”
Sorrow shrugged. “If he does, he does. Some things are too big even for me to worry about. For now, it looks like Infidel will get to use the stateroom after all. I’ll go sleep in her bunk.”
“Where should I go?”
Sorrow shrugged again. “Stay by her side, if you wish. For now, I release you of all restrictions save the command to protect me.”
She opened the door, took her cloak, and left.
I was alone with Infidel, who had turned onto her side and was hugging her pillow. Her sleep now looked more natural than it had when she’d first been tucked in. I had renewed hope that she would recover fully.
If I’d been a courageous man, I might have woken her.
Now that I had the freedom to speak to her, I knew that I couldn’t. Between her quest and her pregnancy, she had enough worries without having to concern herself about my fate. And yet, there was still so much I wish I’d told her when I was alive.
I went to the desk, to the notebook with its neatly trimmed page cut to build my tongue. At least a hundred sheets of blank paper remained. This book had always looked so pristine and promising that any words I’d contemplated filling it with had seemed unworthy to stain its pages. Now, at last, I had a message deserving of its snow white fibers.
I took the book and the bottle of ink and crouched as I left the cabin. The Romer men were arranging their captives in the hold. Many of the ice-maidens had been taken alive, and we now had quite a cargo of prisoners.
Above deck, the sky was the same unchanging omnidirectional sunset. The waters had grown still, and the sails hung limp in the quiet air. The ice was nearly gone, leaving only a few puddles here and there.
I moved to the bow and sat cross-legged, placing the book before me. I steadied my ink and quill.
Dearest Infidel, I began. It is a great injustice upon my part that I have spent so many years in your company, pen and paper always at hand, and somehow failed to write you a love letter. Yet fate has granted me the chance to atone for this oversight. Perhaps the Divine Author is a romantic after all.
And so the words flowed, page after page, as I spoke of my hopes and confessed my regrets, and told her of my love. My normally opulent vocabulary faded as I wrote, as my language turned simple and sincere. Perhaps, in their simplicity, I even managed to capture some truth, though I fear that words will ever be inadequate vessels for the cargo of emotions. Yet on I wrote, undaunted, placing heart to paper in a setting that, while strange, was also familiar. In death as in life, I felt at home adrift on a Sea of Wine.
