by James Maxey
I had to wonder if the Immaculate Attire would stand a chance against a weapon like this. I consoled myself that Infidel could at least escape by taking to the sky. Then I saw the crowd pivot. I noticed a lot of the stars were blotted out by something big moving overhead.
Having lived by the ocean most of my life, I’ve seen my fair share of whales. Menagerie had one among his tattoos that I’d never actually spotted in our tropical climes, a beast that vaguely resembled a panda in its stark black and white coloring, but was even more evocative of a dragon by virtue of a dagger-toothed mouth that could open wide enough to swallow boats. He’d called the thing an orca.
He hadn’t told me they could fly.
Or, perhaps they can’t, and it was merely some enchantment that kept this beast in the air. Whatever the case, I watched, slack jawed, as a sixty-foot black-and-white whale sailed up to the cliff, swimming in air as if it were water. The beast cruised with its back just below the top edge of the cliff. Tarpok leapt into the air, the crowd screaming with jubilation as he landed astride the beast. The whale was rigged with an elaborate leather harness. Tarpok wrapped his fists into the lines and tugged the beast’s head toward the southern horizon. The orca let loose a loud “whuff” from its blowhole and, with a flick of its tail, surged in that direction.
The crowd gave chase from below, but the whale picked up speed with every wave of its tail. Tarpok raised his harpoon above his head and shouted, “Chakaaaaa!”
“Chakaaaaa!” the crowd screamed in unison.
With Sorrow unavailable, I held out hope the word just meant, “Good-bye,” and not, “Death to star-monsters!”
I’d seen enough. It was time to get back to Infidel.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BONES AND TEETH
AS THE TRACKLESS ice flashed beneath me, I feared I would never find Infidel. Had I been limited to ordinary sight, my fears would have been well-founded. Fortunately, when I held my left hand before me, with its phantom wedding band, I could feel a pressure like the tug of a distant magnet. At last my ghost eyes spotted her by the bright aura she cast as the only living thing for miles around.
It was fortunate I could see her aura, because the Gloryhammer couldn’t be seen at all. Infidel had cleared the butchered meat from the seal skin and flipped it fur side up, then stretched out on the ice with her fox-cloak curled tightly around her, forming a very tiny tent that hid both her and the hammer. My wooden body was laid out on the ice next to her, its arms folded neatly across its chest, as if it had been prepped for burial. I jumped inside. My wooden bones clattered as I sat up. She stirred, raising the lip of her hood ever so slightly. A bright beam of light shot over the bloodied ice.
“Was I snoring?” she asked, sounding drowsy, as pale fog rolled out from the gap she’d made.
“You were sleeping out here? You’ll freeze to death!”
“No, no, it’s pretty comfy,” she said. “The fur traps my body heat really well. I just conked right out. Were you gone long?”
“A couple of hours.”
“Well, I needed the nap. I feel ready for anything.”
“Trust me, you aren’t ready for what’s coming. Let’s get out of here,” I said, standing, looking north. “The two hunters made it to their village and sounded an alarm. Now the village’s top warrior is on his way here to do battle with the monster that stole the hunters’ seal.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Infidel sat up. The moisture that had been trapped by the fur instantly turned to frost on the silver trim of her armor, and left tiny glittering diamonds of ice on her eyelashes. “We want them to come to us.”
“This guy is riding a flying whale and carrying a solid steel harpoon. He looks like the very definition of bad news.”
Infidel furrowed her brow. “We came here looking for help against Purity. That means we need to talk to someone important. He sounds important.”
“He sounds dangerous! Let’s get out of here!”
“Excuse me,” said Sorrow in my ear. “Did you just mention someone riding a flying whale?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“That would be Tarpok,” said Sorrow.
“Is that the whale or the rider?” I asked.
“The rider. The whale is Slor Tonn.”
“Is this a private conversation or can I listen in?” Infidel pressed her cheek close to my ear without waiting for an answer.
“So, you’ve met Tarpok?” asked Sorrow.
“Not really,” I said. “He didn’t see me, but he’s on his way here, and he looked like he was coming for blood. The whole village was shouting him on, yelling, ‘Chakaa!’”
It was difficult to hear, but I think Sorrow sighed. She asked, “What did you do to get him angry?”
“Nothing!” said Infidel. “We just startled a few hunters.”
“Tarpok is the village champion,” said Sorrow. “He’ll lose face if he doesn’t return with some corpses. He’s a very dangerous fighter, but his whale is even worse. When you fight them, target Slor Tonn first.”
“What?” I said. “We aren’t going to fight. We’re going to run!”
“Or,” said Infidel, “Pardon me for having a crazy idea, but can’t we try to talk to him? The Divine Author knows how many miles we just flew to do that, right?”
“Tarpok is a fight-first, ask-questions-later type,” said Sorrow.
“How do you know so much about him?” Infidel asked.
“I told you I’d had difficulty on my trip up north. I escaped the Skellings only to be captured by ice-ogres. Fortunately, they treated me rather well. Their priestesses somehow knew I was a virgin, and they needed my blood for some magic ritual. But the night of the ritual was months away, so during that time I was kept in the temple, well-fed and comfortable. That’s when I picked up some of their language. Luckily, I never learned what ritual the priestesses needed me for. Tarpok learned I could manipulate gold and silver, so he wanted to see my talents. I was able to bribe him and gain my freedom by promising to build him an iron harpoon with magical strength and toughness.”
“So the harpoon’s magic?” I asked.
“No, but he doesn’t know that. Most ice-ogre weapons are made of bones and rock. Show them some steel and they think it fell from the heavens. Which, actually, it did, since I pulled the iron from a meteor they kept in the temple. But, despite its heavenly origins, the harpoon doesn’t have any special powers.”
“So the harpoon isn’t dangerous?” Infidel asked.
“It’s a twenty-foot shaft of hardened steel tipped with hooked barbs sharp enough to shave with,” said Sorrow. “It doesn’t need to be magic.”
“But you were able to bribe him,” said Infidel. “He listened to reason and he kept his end of the bargain in letting you go.”
“Actually, he tried to double-cross me, but one of the ogresses in the temple helped me escape to spite him. I got the feeling there was a power struggle between Tarpok and the priestesses. Tarpok’s something of a bully.”
“Then we’ll surrender,” said Infidel. “Grovel a little. Tell him we’re too scared of his reputation to even think of fighting. We’ll butter him up with praise, then tell him that Purity called his mother a bad name.”
“Hmm,” said Sorrow. “That’s not a bad plan.”
“Here’s a better one,” I said. “While Tarpok is out here looking for us, we sneak into town and find someone to talk to who isn’t riding a monster that can swallow us before we say hello.”
“I feel like you’re not trusting me again,” Infidel said, crossing her arms.
Before we could argue further, there was a faint gurgle at our feet. The hole the ogres had escaped in was frozen over now, but a few cracks in the ice suddenly began to spurt sea water. The fluid washed over the bloody ice where the seal had been butchered, sending little pink rivulets in all directions. The water froze an instant later, locking my boots in place.
Infidel tapped the ice with her hammer, freeing the so
les of my boots. The glow of the hammer cast rainbows in the frosted ice beneath us. A fresh stream of water shot up through the cracks.
Infidel bent at the knees, preparing to leap as she raised her hammer and wrapped an arm around my waist. She said, “Hold –”
I think her next word was going to be “tight,” but it was rendered moot as a shaft of solid steel punched through the ice beneath my feet. My right leg was instantly torn from my body, sending me spinning backward. There was a loud CRACK, as if lighting had struck us. The ice bulged upward as Slor Tonn punched up from the depths, throwing us both head over heels. I fell toward Tarpok, whose feet were wrapped in the leather harness as he used both hands to drive his harpoon through my barrel chest.
“We surrender!” I squeaked.
“Pamiiyok!” Sorrow screamed in my ear.
“Pamiiyok!” I tried again. I’d slid down the shaft of the harpoon far enough that I could have reached out and shaken Tarpok’s hand if he’d had one to spare at the moment.
“I accept no surrender,” Tarpok growled, in my own language.
He gave the harpoon a sharp jerk to the left and I was thrown back down to the barbed head with such force that my helmet fell loose. I watched it fall away into the icy hole left by Slor Tonn’s arrival. As the slats of my chest fell apart, I was shaken loose of the harpoon and tumbled head first toward the water, until my left hand snagged in the whale’s harness, purely by luck. My fall halted, I grabbed the straps with my right hand and held on.
I felt dizzy as Slor Tonn wheeled in the sky and the stars above us spun. An instant later the sky gave way to ice and I saw Infidel, sprawled on the snow beneath us, looking dazed, the Gloryhammer just beyond her grasp. Tarpok drew back his harpoon to hurl it, but hesitated as Infidel looked up toward him. Her cloak had fallen open, and her helmet had come off, revealing her face and hair.
“Purity?” Tarpok muttered. Then he barked, “Kisault, Slor Tonn!”
In defiance of all ordinary physics, the whale stopped instantly in mid-flight.
“Purity!” Tarpok shouted. “How did you reach this interloper before me? Why didn’t you tell me of your plans? I could have killed you!”
Infidel used Tarpok’s hesitation to scramble across the ice and grab the Gloryhammer. She rose on rubbery legs and snarled. “We just wanted to talk, you jerk!”
“Purity?” Tarpok asked, utterly confused.
“Rrrrraaaah!” Infidel cried, in full warrior goddess mode, as she launched herself into the sky. I lost sight of her as Slor Tonn wriggled in the sky, either to take evasive action or to meet her head on.
It proved to be the latter, as Infidel drove the Gloryhammer into the tip of the whale’s nose with a wet smack. A wave rippled through the beast’s blubber, snapping some of the harness rings, and it took everything I had to hold on as the whale lurched sideways. Up above, Tarpok cried, “Chakaaaa!” and thrust the harpoon with a grunt.
Seconds later, I heard Infidel shout, “Damn it!” She sounded more annoyed than hurt. For the briefest instant, she flashed through my line of sight in a rapid arc; her long white cape was snagged by the barbs of the harpoon.
Tarpok looked perturbed that his throw hadn’t resulted in a direct hit.
“Nakkertok, Slor Tonn!” he shouted.
I had no time to ask for a translation as the whale spun to hang perpendicular to the ice a hundred feet below, its body rigid as a plank. Infidel floated beneath us, trying to shed her cape, but the clasp had twisted back over her shoulder.
“Chakaaa!” Tarpok shouted again, and we descended toward the ice like God’s own gavel.
Infidel managed to get the Gloryhammer beneath her, so the enchanted mallet took the brunt of the impact, smashing the ice to chips an instant before her body slammed into the freezing ocean and was promptly pushed a hundred feet beneath by Slor Tonn’s bulk. Whether from the impact, the shock of the cold, or the crushing effect of descending a hundred feet underwater in the span of a heartbeat, Infidel went completely limp. The Gloryhammer slipped from her fingers and began to float upward, until Tarpok used his ape-like reach to snag it. With his other hand, he brought in the harpoon, dragging Infidel’s slack body toward him.
She was barely alive. In the pitch darkness beneath the ice, her aura flickered, growing dim. Her light became so faint I became aware of a second glow, no bigger than a firefly, in the lower half of her belly. Our daughter?
With each second that we lingered beneath the frozen waves, Infidel’s aura guttered dimmer, like a candle surrendering to the wind.
The bubbles of gas that had been seeping from my clothes suddenly changed directions. Slor Tonn was pointed toward the surface once more. Seconds ticked by before I could see the shattered ice toward which we swam, then, with a great splash, the mighty whale burst into the air and kept swimming in the sky.
As we leveled off, Tarpok shoved Infidel’s body under a harness line, trapping it. Water drained from her mouth and nostrils, quickly turning to ice. She coughed weakly, her eyes closed, and began to breathe shallow teaspoons of air, the faintest puffs imaginable escaping her darkening lips.
Certain that my arms were wrapped in the harnesses, I slipped from my body. I saw the golden cage now dangled by a single silver wire within what was left of my chest. If not for my shirt holding them together, all my chest staves would have fallen away. What would happen if the golden cage were to come completely loose?
I had no time to think of such things. Instead, I let my ghostly form hover next to Infidel. Her lips had turned blue. She’d been sopping wet, and now her hair and clothing had frozen solid. Tarpok had shoved the Gloryhammer beneath the harness as well. I remembered how, in her phantom form, Aurora had been able to touch the Jagged Heart to trigger its powers. Could I do the same? If I could place the hammer in Infidel’s grasp, would its magical energies revive her?
My spectral fingers sank into the glowing weapon. Instantly, I regretted my action. When I’d touched the hammer previously, it had been with wooden fingers and nothing had happened. When my spectral palm passed through the surface of the weapon, I felt the precise opposite of the surge of power Infidel had described. Instead, there was a terrible suction, hungry to devour my spiritual energies. My vision blurred as I struggled to resist the weapon’s pull. In my panic, I reached for Infidel’s limp hand, which lay outstretched toward me. To my astonishment, my fingers felt solid as they closed around hers. With her as my anchor, I resisted the suction of the hammer and pulled myself free.
I stared at the weapon. What had just happened? It had unfolded so swiftly, I’d had no time to understand the experience. But... there was something inside the hammer, residing in the Glorystone from which it had been carved. It felt... intelligent, ancient, vast, and lonely. So lonely. Unending solitude lay at the core of this weapon, an emptiness that wanted to consume all that it touched. What did this mean? Had I somehow encountered the soul of Glorious within the Gloryhammer? Could I possibly communicate with him if this was so? I shook my head. I dare not expose myself to this terrible emptiness again.
As frightened as I was of the hammer, I was even more frightened that I could touch Infidel’s hand. Only once in my phantom form had I experienced the sensation of physical contact... when I’d felt Ivory Blade’s phantom blood trickling across my fingers.
Was I now feeling Infidel’s soul? Had she slipped so far loose of her mortal shell that she was now in the between realm where I dwelled, halfway between life and not-life? I wrapped my arms around her, determined to hold her soul in her body. She stirred at my touch.
“So c-cold,” she whispered in my ear, though her blue lips didn’t move in the slightest.
“Hug me back,” I whispered, tightening my grip on her. “Take my warmth.”
She didn’t respond. Did she hear me? Did I have any warmth to give? What could I, a ghost, offer in comfort or strength? And yet... Sorrow had treated my soul as a source of energy that her golem could tap. This energy had taken form in
my ghost blood. Sorrow had taken my life force without my permission. Could I give it willingly?
With Infidel, giving was so easy.
My hand moved to the bone-handled knife in my belt. I drew the blade across the palm of my left hand. Beads of ghostly blood bubbled up. I took Infidel’s hand and made a matching cut across the palm. I rolled the bone-handled knife across my palm until it was wet, then placed it in her grasp.
I wrapped my fingers over Infidel’s hand, our woven wedding bands touching. Under other circumstances, this might have been a romantic gesture, even loving. But what did I truly know of romance? What did I know of marriage, beyond the exchange of rings? My own upbringing had been devoid of parents to guide me on such matters. Most married men I met in Commonground had left their wives in distant lands, and gladly so. All I knew of marriage was that it was treated by much of mankind as a burden.
I would gladly bear any burden for this woman.
A sudden warmth flushed over me as I remembered the tropical heat of our last shared night on this earth, fleeing through the jungle, pouring sweat, my heart pounding, but not with fear. There had been such excitement in the air that evening, such a grand pulse of adventure stirring our mutual blood. Had she known then how much I loved her?
Of course, I’d finally told her when we’d met again, on the volcanic slopes of Greatshadow’s spirit home in the abstract realms. There we’d held each other naked in the dry, near-blistering heat, our bodies braided into a single knot. It hadn’t been imagination... my life energy had flowed into her, creating a spark of new life.
