Hush (Dragon Apocalypse)

by James Maxey

  “I’m almost grateful enough for this protean gift that I’m tempted to let you live,” she laughed. “Almost.”

  She extended the Jagged Heart toward Captain Romer. I turned, intending to grab Infidel and carry her to safety since the Gloryhammer was downstairs in the hold, but she was gone. In the passageway beneath me I heard running footsteps.

  The deck above the main hold splintered as Infidel exploded into the air, flashing toward Purity faster than I could follow. She slammed the head of the Gloryhammer into the woman’s jaw with a fury that made me wince. Purity’s head snapped backward, tearing at the throat, nearly decapitated by the blow. Infidel’s momentum carried her skyward, leaving Purity dangling in mid-air for the microseconds it would take for her wings to realize they were dead.

  Only the wings kept flapping. Even as Purity’s head continued to tear from its shoulders, a new head grew in its place. Menagerie had been able to change shapes too swiftly for the eye to follow. Purity had inherited his speed.

  “That was unpleasant,” Purity’s new head grumbled as her old head dropped toward the Sea of Wine. High above, Infidel had managed to halt her upward course and was now turning back down for another pass.

  If Purity had delayed even a tenth of a second, Infidel might have stopped her. As it was, the four-armed witch waved the Ice-Moon Blade toward the mainmast of the Freewind and suddenly there was a full scale iceberg looming above us, the mast caught within its core. Every timber shuddered as the boat began to tilt toward starboard.

  Then, with Infidel barely a hundred feet away, Purity swept the Jagged Heart across the sky, cutting open a rip in reality. A black night glittering with stars showed through the gash. Purity flapped her wings to race into this new sky just as Infidel passed through the space where she’d dangled an instant before. Infidel swung her feet down, trying to slow her descent, but by her speed I guessed she was about to smash straight through the deck. Yet before she hit, every rope in sight rose to catch her, forming an impromptu net. She punched through the deck despite this, but it sounded as if she came to a crashing halt below without breaking through the hull.

  Not that it much mattered.

  The iceberg around the mast weighed at least as much as the ship. The Freewind turned completely on its side as the iceberg crashed into the waves of wine. Everyone on deck was thrown toward the sea.

  The last thing I noticed, as I tumbled toward the wine, was that the flies had caught up to us once more. I hit the rail with a jolt that flipped me roots over nuts, and the world went dark. An instant later I was submerged, unable to see. Ropes tangled about me, halting my further descent. For a panicked moment I struggled, certain I would drown, before the fluid washing about within my barrel chest reminded me that I had no lungs.

  Calming myself, I searched the darkness for the red glow of the endless sunset. Instead, everything was black as pitch in all directions. Then, in the distance, I saw a light flicker to life. I turned toward it, and saw that it was a lantern held by a red-haired girl who was standing on the main mast at a 90 degree angle, walking along it like a spider. Cinnamon?

  I pushed my head above the surface and the puzzle pieces slipped into place. It wasn’t Cinnamon who was sideways, it was the ship. The Freewind was on its side, the masts parallel with the water. And, judging from its grayish hue, this was indeed water. We were no longer in the Sea of Wine. Captain Romer must have triggered our journey back.

  I tried to call out to Cinnamon, but my waterlogged tongue failed to produce even a squeak. Not that my ordinarily faint voice was likely to have been heard over the noise all around. It sounded as if there was a waterfall not ten feet behind me, and every timber of the ship was groaning. Add the pops and cracks coming from the sizeable iceberg that loomed in the darkness, plus the general lapping of waves, and it’s a wonder that I was able to hear Mako call out, “We’re taking in water! Get the main hatch closed!”

  I spun around and found the source of the waterfall. The main hatch was indeed open, and given the perpendicular orientation of the deck, the bottom edge of the gaping hole was a good foot below the waves, sinking deeper by the second. Ordinarily, the double hatch doors lay flat against the deck when open, one toward starboard, one toward port. The port door was the half above water. Jetsam appeared from nowhere, swimming through the air with graceful kicks. He released the pin that secured the hatch door to the deck and darted aside as the giant door swung under its own weight to crash shut. Unfortunately, this did nothing to ease the immediate crisis; the starboard half of the hatch was the part taking on water, and the door was beneath the waves.

  I let the current carry me to the edge of the hatch, catching myself before I was pulled into the hold. With my wooden fingers stiff and waterlogged, I groped for the outer edges of the door beneath me. I found them, but the wood wouldn’t budge; it was no doubt secured by a pin.

  Mako appeared in the water beside me, gasping for air. He’d obviously been beneath the water, trying to move the door. “I can’t see the damn pin!” he shouted. “Get the lantern closer, Cinnamon!”

  Cinnamon turned from studying the ice-bound upper half of the mast and ran along the thick wooden beam with confidence. A rope swung out as she jumped. She landed at a crouch on the looped rope, dangling the lantern down until the base skimmed the waves. The water glowed, pale and ghostly.

  Mako sucked in air and dived. I followed, dragging myself down along the door’s edge. I reached the bottom and found Mako trying to free a wooden pin that ran through a small metal ring, securing the door. It was stuck, resisting even his enviable muscles. I reached for it to give aid, but before I drew near he thrust his mouth to the metal ring and bit it in twain. I’d never seen anyone spit underwater, but he managed to do so, sending the fragmented pin and ring tumbling into the dark depths. Mako strained to move the door, which was heavy even in air. Trying to move it through water required more than strong jaws. I braced myself as best I could and got both hands underneath the edge. Slowly, the heavy wooden door began to move. Mako got beneath it, his muscles straining as he added to my efforts. In half a minute we had the hatch jutting out at a right angle to the deck, at which point it was impossible to move it further while we were in the water.

  “Where’s Rigger?” Mako shouted as he thrust his head up for air. He glanced at Cinnamon on her rope. “He’s obviously recovered.”

  “Well enough,” a faint voiced cried off to our left. Rigger was sitting in the doorway of the forecastle. From above, a block and tackle with a sizeable hook descended toward us. It took Mako a few seconds to secure it to the door’s edge. He and I pushed from below, but Rigger and his pulleys did the real work, lifting the door until it was free of our grasp. It closed into place and Jetsam flitted around the edges, securing a further series of pins that held it shut.

  “S-s-so c-cold,” Cinnamon said as she wrapped her arms around herself. Everyone was breathing out great puffs of fog, and ice was starting to form on every moist surface.

  “Our course was plotted for the arctic,” Mako said. “Look at the stars! See how the Tallship hangs on the horizon; we’re well north of the Silver Isles.”

  I glanced up. Unfortunately, while I was an expert at finding my way through trackless jungles, I was completely lost trying to fix my location via constellations.

  “Where’s Mother?” Rigger asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mako called back. “She was near the main hatch as we were turning water. I saw her crouch to touch the deck and trigger our journey back to the real world, but lost sight of her after that.”

  “Find her,” shouted Mako. “Our only hope of saving the ship is to get wind under the sails to push us upright.”

  I suspected that was a doomed mission. With the masts dipped down into the waves, the canvas sails were spread out beneath the water, their white forms giant, ghostly jellyfish.

  “I know that Poppy was in her bunk,” Mako said. “Mother, Sage, Infidel, and Sorrow are unaccounted for.”


  “Also Brand and the princess,” said Jetsam.

  “And the ice-maidens!” said Cinnamon.

  “Abyss take the ice-maidens,” growled Mako. “Unless they’ve become master locksmiths, we know where they are.”

  The ship groaned as it sank lower in the water. The sound was both physical, caused by the stress applied to ship’s beams as it sat at such an unnatural angle, and spiritual. The ship’s ghost was screaming, an incoherent howl of pain that only I seemed aware of.

  I tried to speak, but again found my tongue useless. My wooden body was so tangled in rope there was no chance it would sink into the deep. I abandoned it, crossing the threshold of the golden door in my chest and flying free, a phantom once more. Instantly, my ghostly senses returned and the savage chill of the night sliced through me. The Romers were dressed for a tropical climate. Freed of the sepia hues of my wooden eyes, I could see the blue cast to their lips.

  The ship groaned again and with a thought I was at the figurehead, its carved features now twisted in pain.

  “I c-can’t hold the t-timbers together much longer,” Jasmine’s ghost stammered. “S-saw off the main mast if you m-must! It’s our only h-hope of r-righting the ship!”

  “On it,” I said.

  I ghosted into the ship’s hold, to the captured women in their manacles, now thrown against the ship’s hull as if it were a floor. It was pitch dark; I could only see them splashing around thanks to my ghostly senses, and even this was a strain. These women’s souls were like ash-covered embers, nearly invisible. Fortunately, they possessed at least some will to live, as most struggled to stand. Failing to stand meant drowning; the water in the hold was now hip-deep. Those who’d been knocked unconscious by the ship’s tumble were being helped by Sage and Sorrow.

  Though it was entirely the wrong moment for such an experiment, I had to know. I reached my phantom fingers into the torso of the nearest woman. Would my still vital spirit fill her nearly soulless body?

  Alas, whatever trick Purity used to possess others eluded me. I felt no connection with the woman’s physical form. My half-formed notion to control her and tell the others to saw the main mast free was thwarted. Worse, my faint hope that I might find a new permanent body should I somehow happen upon a soulless male was dashed almost before I’d even fully conceived it.

  I shrugged the failure off. There were more pressing problems. Where was Infidel?

  At the thought, the braided wedding band on my hand tugged my arm out. I followed, sensing a connection to the band of hair she wore. I ghosted into the galley. Bags of flour had burst, coating everything in a pale white powder. The air smelled of vinegar, lard, and molasses. Dark gore coated the left side of Infidel’s scalp; shards of glass stuck from her hair. She was stretched out on the floor, only, as I made sense of the boat’s tilt, I realized she was actually standing, and that the floor was now a wall she leaned against. She stood in shin deep water, conscious, though obviously dazed. The glove of the Immaculate Attire brushed the goop from the side of her head, leaving clean skin in its wake. She wasn’t bleeding; a broken jar of molasses had shattered as it bounced around the small space and was dripping down upon her. Infidel groped for the Gloryhammer beneath the wheat-frosted water, lifting it to cast light on a large splintered hole in the wall. Or rather, the ceiling, turned sideways. This was the hole she’d punched in through. She was close to the waterline, but not quite submerged; icy waves sloshed across the broken boards as the ship pitched.

  She jumped back through the hole and shot into the air.

  “Where’s Purity?” she shouted.

  “Gone!” Mako shouted back. “The ice is pulling the ship under!”

  “Not if I can help it,” she called out, landing near the crow’s-nest, buried beneath at least thirty feet of ice. She planted her boots on the slick surface and swung the Gloryhammer overhead in a two handed grip. With a grunt, she struck, hitting the ice with such force that her feet lifted into the air. I raised my hand instinctively to protect my eyes from the flying shards, though, of course, they passed through my phantom form harmlessly. The blow sounded like lightning striking mere yards away, and the crackling that followed had the quality of an electrical storm. Deep cracks ran through the ice and also through the frozen mainmast.

  The ship screamed like a woman in childbirth as the main mast splintered at its base, then snapped completely. Infidel was thrown back as the iceberg tilted, but the hammer lifted her skyward long before her boots hit the water.

  The ship shuddered as it rose slightly, but failed to right itself. All of its sails were waterlogged, and the rooms beneath on the starboard side were filled with water.

  A small hatch on the poop deck suddenly banged open. Captain Romer crawled out, completely drenched. My hunch is she’d been swept into the hold by the rushing water.

  Gale wasted no time. She surveyed the chaos around her and began to bark commands. “Cut all the sails! They’re dead weight at this point.”

  Mako dived into the icy ocean, snapping ropes with his teeth. Between his speed in the water and Rigger’s powers, the sails wouldn’t weigh us down for long.

  I flashed back into my wooden body, determined to make myself useful. Unfortunately, I was still tangled in ropes. Instinctively, I reached for my bone-handled knife, but, of course, that was tucked in the belt of my ghostly form, not this clunky wooden shell. I wound up getting a free ride as the boat tilted and slowly rose. The Romer brothers had succeeded in their task.

  Mere minutes after the peril had seized us, it was over. The boat was upright, or something like it: the ship listed to starboard at least twenty degrees.

  “Romers!” a woman’s voice called out. I looked toward the foredeck and saw Sorrow. When had she come from below? She was standing by the ship’s enormous iron anchor, which had somehow managed not to slip from the deck. She placed her hand upon the painted black iron. “Gather round before you catch your death of cold!”

  The iron anchor bent upward as she grabbed it in the center. She formed it into a rough tripod, and rubbed her hands along the tip of the tripod until the iron glowed a deep cherry red. She snatched her fingers back and said, “This thing’s hot as a stove, so be careful.”

  Cinnamon and Jetsam were beside it a moment later, their hands outstretched, steam pouring off their black sleeves.

  “Thank the seven stars,” Cinnamon whispered through chattering teeth.

  “Hooray for witchcraft!” said Jetsam, riding the warm updraft above the hot metal.

  It took a few moments for the rest of the Romers to join us. Captain Romer used her control of the wind to circulate a warm dry breeze heated by the anchor. Even the captives below would get their share of life-saving warmth. The immediate danger of hypothermia was averted. Infidel was the final arrival, landing across from me on the opposite side of the anchor, her gaze not meeting mine.

  “You’ve some nerve to return to the ship,” Mako growled.

  “I did just free you from a killer iceberg,” said Infidel.

  “If you hadn’t sent your damn monster to catch the harpoon, none of this would have happened!”

  “We can’t know that,” said Sorrow. “Given her experience with possessions, Purity probably sensed Menagerie’s soulless shell the second she came on board. She may have timed seizing his body to take advantage of the instant Mako dropped the Jagged Shard. Magical weapons sometimes act to protect their users via enchantments their owners might not even know about. It’s possible if she’d attacked while Mako carried the harpoon, she would have wound up frozen, or worse.”

  “This is nothing but speculation,” said Mako.

  “Informed speculation,” said Sorrow. “The Jagged Heart isn’t carved from lifeless ice; it’s the very heart of a primal dragon, or a fragment of it, at least. It’s more magic than matter. It bonds spiritually with its owner. It’s almost a parasitic relationship, as the owner provides the weapon with mobility and purpose while the weapon provides the
owner with powers and defenses. It’s similar to Infidel’s Gloryhammer.”

  “The Gloryhammer doesn’t defend me as much as I’d like,” grumbled Infidel.

  “Doesn’t it?” asked Sorrow. “The bones of your arms should be shattered by the blows you deliver. The weapon should rip from your merely human grasp as it accelerates you into flight faster than an arrow leaves a bowstring. Its enchantments protect you passively; there may be other powers you could utilize if only you knew of them.”

  “How would I find out about them?” Infidel asked. “For instance, I can make it glow brighter or softer just by thinking, but it seems like it should also be able to put out heat, which would come in useful in times like this. But no matter how hard I try to make it hot, it stays cool to the touch.”

  Sorrow nodded. “That’s because the sun isn’t a source of heat.”

  Infidel furrowed her brow, confused.

  “The monk Inquisitus proved three centuries ago that heat originates within the earth and light originates within the sun. The two are attracted to one another, but have independent sources.”

  “I can feel heat on my face when I look at the sun,” said Infidel.

  Sorrow shook her head. “You feel the heat attracted to the light reflecting off your face. Inquisitus proved his theory by documenting temperatures at over nine-hundred locations. His data show that the peaks of mountains are consistently cooler than the land surrounding them. If the sun were the source of heat, mountaintops should be warmer, since they’re nearer. Conversely, the bottoms of mines, far removed from the sun, are intensely hot. Thus, he proved that the core of the earth is the true source of warmth.”