by James Maxey
“You’re the crippled materialist,” Purity scoffed. “The pathetic failed witch who nearly killed herself with a bone-nail. Despite the drama of your entrance, you’ve no power to enforce your threats.”
The iron and glass helmet that covered Sorrow’s features flowed backwards like mercury, revealing her face and scalp. From my hovering vantage point, I counted swiftly: One, iron. Two, copper. Three, glass. Four, gold. Five, silver. Six, wood. And seven... seven was something black as tar, something that made my eyes ache and my stomach turn.
Sorrow said, in low, firm tones, “I’ve carved a nail from a fragment of tooth belonging to Rott, the all-consuming. I now command the elemental force of decay. I possess the power I’ve long sought to remake the world. It does not suit me to have the world end just as I gain the ability to save it.”
The helmet spread back over her scalp and face. She said, calmly, “I will begin killing when I count down from three. Three.”
Which, as fate would have it, were the number of minutes I had left.
Purity glared at Sorrow’s red right hand. I had trouble taking my eyes off it myself. We both had to be wondering what Sorrow’s new powers might do to ghosts.
Sorrow had her gaze locked on Purity. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tarpok lean back in his boat, hefting his iron harpoon over his shoulder.
“Sorrow!” I wheezed, though of course no one in the room but Infidel and Purity could hear me. Infidel started running toward Tarpok, but it was too late. He hurled the massive shaft of steel, which flashed through the air between him and Sorrow.
Sorrow proved more attentive than I’d supposed. She stretched out her right hand, palm open like a shield to catch the harpoon’s razor tip. The horrible weapon turned into a cloud of reddish dust, swirling to settle on the ice at Sorrow’s feet.
“Two,” said Sorrow, though I technically had over two and a half minutes left.
The mariners in Judge Stern’s boat once more scrambled overboard. Stern spun around and barked, “Any man whose boot touches the ice shall be hanged!”
The sailors didn’t even pause.
Sorrow, on the other hand, turned her head slightly.
“Father!” she called out, in astonishment.
This distraction was all that Purity needed. She lunged forward, her vast wings unfolding, as she thrust the Jagged Heart like a pike. The tip barely touched Sorrow’s frozen armor before Sorrow caught the shaft with her red right hand.
Instantly, Sorrow’s armor spider-webbed with cracks. As she moved, the iron began to flake away, rendered brittle and useless by the Heart’s extreme chill. The narwhal-horn shaft yellowed where Sorrow touched it, but didn’t disintegrate.
The impact knocked Sorrow backward. She slipped from her icy perch. Her armor shattered into scraps of black shrapnel, skittering across the floor as she landed flat on her back. Purity came to rest on the icy boulder where Sorrow had perched a moment before.
“Foolish girl,” the shapeshifter growled. “You come here and boast that you wield the power of a primal dragon? What of it? I’ve surrendered myself to Hush for two full centuries. I’m more than her prophet; I am her avatar! You brandish the power of decay? Cold stops decay!”
Sorrow opened her mouth and drew a breath. I knew her next word would finish her countdown.
But Sorrow wasn’t my sole focus of attention. In the exact same span of seconds that Sorrow and Purity had fought, Infidel sprang into action. Tarpok had just thrown his harpoon, his right arm still outstretched. Infidel no longer had the dragon strength that had allowed her to leap rivers in a single stride, but she was a well-muscled woman in her prime who could cover the twenty-yard gap between her and Tarpok in heartbeats. Tarpok was rising, regaining his balance, when Infidel reached his boat. The upper lip of the leather vessel was eight feet off the ice, but Infidel leapt to within inches of the edge, sinking her bloodied knife into the leather, using it as a pivot point as she swung her body up. In the blink of an eye, she was over the rim, leaving the bone-knife dangling in the leather. With a snarl, she placed both hands on the hilt of her long sword, planted her feet firmly, and drove the honed steel tip with all her weight into Tarpok’s belly.
The point of the blade skittered along his stomach, tearing a gash in the sealskin coat he wore. Beneath it, pale white flesh was revealed, and a tiny line of beaded blood. Her most powerful blow had only scratched him.
Infidel had no time to prepare a second strike. Tarpok caught her by the hair and snatched her from her feet.
“I’m going to wring your scrawny neck,” he grunted, as he brought her face inches from his own.
Infidel reached over his shoulder, her fingers closing around the shaft of the Gloryhammer. The weapon flared as she took command of its power. Tarpok and Infidel shot skyward with the speed of lightning, towards an intact section of the roof. Tarpok’s head smashed into the ice, sending a spray of crystalline daggers flying in every direction. Infidel curled her body beneath his as they rose. On impact she drove her elbow straight into the ice-ogre’s throat.
Unfortunately, the awkwardness of her position caused the Gloryhammer to tear from her grasp, and they both tumbled back to the floor. They slammed to the ice ten feet behind Sorrow just as she said, “One.”
I actually had two minutes left.
Sorrow lay on the ice wearing only a modest silk slip. The braces she’d once worn were gone; her limbs looked to be in full health once again. Perhaps she now had the power to reverse entropy as well? She kept her eyes fixed on Purity as she rose.
“You were warned,” the young witch said. She opened her mouth wide as her belly swelled. With a violent convulsion, she vomited, sending a jet of oily black fluid spraying toward Purity. The air instantly stank of rotten meat, a foulness that gagged even me.
The spray broke into black droplets in the air, which began to flitter and buzz. Purity was swallowed by what can only be described as a tornado of flies. The flies swelled forward from the whirlwind, engulfing the three boats. Screams filled the air as the black cloud covered everything.
Meanwhile, on the ice behind Sorrow, free from flies, Infidel had recovered half a second before Tarpok did. On her knees, she ripped the Gloryhammer free of the leather straps that held it on the ogre’s back. She rose to stand above the fallen warrior.
Infidel looked rough. Her impact with the ice had torn loose the stitches on her brow, and bright red blood flowed across her cheek and down her throat. If she felt any weakness, she didn’t show it. She lifted the Gloryhammer with both hands high above her head.
Tarpok, flat on his back, had by now recovered enough to recognize his danger. He swung his right arm up to protect his face.
It didn’t help. Infidel swung the hammer down with such force that it snapped his forearm, driving flesh and bone down to pancake flatness as it impacted with his face right between his tusks. His head caved in, squeezing his brains out through his ears.
Infidel stumbled backward as she tried to avoid the sudden gush of blood rolling toward her feet. She looked pale and exhausted as she landed on her butt. The impact caused her to drop the hammer. She took a deep breath as she probed the bleeding wound on her brow with her fingers. She pulled away her hand, coated with her own blood.
To balance herself, she placed that hand upon the ice beneath her. The ice throughout the cavern instantly turned pink.
My final moment:
The cloud of flies turned white as the insects developed a coat of frost. They plummeted from the air, bouncing as they landed with tiny tapping sounds that built to a deafening crescendo, like a billion bits of gray hail striking a tin roof all at once. In the aftermath, Sorrow had proved unable to live up to her boast of killing everyone.
Not that she hadn’t given it her all. The human sailors were dead, or nearly so. Half of them were little more than skeletons wreathed in maggots, the other half were still-living men with skins swollen to the bursting point by writhing things within them, gorging
on their organs.
The only man unaffected was Judge Stern, who hugged the Writ of Judgment tightly to his breast. These documents were often protected with glyphs to ward off damage; the protections must have shielded the judge as well.
The boat of the ice-maidens was none the worse for wear. The ice-armor that coated the women had proven impervious to the flies.
The trio of ogre priestesses on the final boat were also unscathed beneath shells of ice, but the oarsmen who’d shared the boats with them had been utterly maggotized.
Standing on the boulder of ice, Purity looked down at Sorrow. The shape-shifting witch had sheathed herself with icy armor.
Sorrow took a step backward, bringing her fists up, her brow furrowed as if she was pondering how to respond to this turn of events. But if she’d not expected her attack to be thwarted, she was even more surprised when her feet slipped out from under her and she landed on the pink ice with a wet smack.
The dragon’s frozen tongue was melting, and melting fast.
Sorrow and Infidel struggled to make it to their feet. They were both soaked by the time they stood. The cavern floor was now six inches deep with pinkish water. The cavern was filled with the aroma of spit mixed with a little blood. The fluid was now deep enough that the sealskin boats were starting to float.
With a wave of the Jagged Heart, Purity literally froze both Sorrow and Infidel in their tracks, trapping their bodies in ice.
“Hush has tasted virgin blood!” Purity shouted, looking toward the trio of ogresses. “We’ve only seconds before the dragon awakens and propels us into the Great Sea Above! Secure our prisoners and place them in the center boat!”
The ogresses leapt from their boat and ran to Sorrow and Infidel. One paused before Tarpok long enough to kick him in the gut, before aiding her sisters in lifting the frozen bodies and rushing back toward Purity’s boat. The Gloryhammer was retrieved as well, along with the corpse of Stern’s bodyguard, still spotless in the Immaculate Attire. The ogresses understood the artifacts were too valuable to simply leave behind.
The old witch looked over her shoulder. “Judge Stern, as your crew has proven inadequate to the task at hand, would you be so kind as to move to my boat?”
The judge looked dazed, but he nodded and climbed out into the knee deep water. He paused for a moment, looking down at the remains of his men, then reached into the boat to grab something I couldn’t see and stick it in a pocket of his robe. The entire cavern shuddered as he sloshed toward the middle boat.
“Hurry!” Purity cried, watching events from her perch on the ice boulder. “Hush wakes!”
In response, there was a groan, soft at first, building to a deafening roar loud enough that Judge Stern covered his ears as the ogresses helped to push him into the center boat. The frozen forms of Infidel and Sorrow were tossed in like stiff baggage, coming to rest in the middle of the vessel.
The dragon’s groan faded, ending with what could only be described as a sob. The noise reminded me, for all the world, like the cry of a woman who’d just been told of the death of a lover. It was the sound, on the most primal level, of a broken heart.
And then the blood came, gushing up the dragon’s throat in a great carmine flood. It surged through the chamber, lifting the boats. The dragon’s jaws opened to let the blood flow out toward the cliff edge in a great river ten feet deep. Purity flitted down from her icy perch as the flood engulfed it, landing in the central boat.
To the right, the boat that Tarpok commanded spun in the current, the bone-handled knife sticking from its bow.
Despite the fact that my broken ribs made me feel as if my torso was full of shattered glass, cutting me with even the feeblest of motions, I stretched my arm out as I flew toward the boat. The knife was now solidly in the material world. Was there enough of it still in the middle realm where I dwelled that I could grasp it?
I almost laughed as my fingers closed around the hilt and yanked the blade free.
The boats were racing forward now, on the river of roiling gore, with Purity standing on the bow, harpoon in hand, her eyes scanning the horizon in the direction of a sunrise which might never come.
This witch had to die.
I flew toward her with the fullest speed of my imagination.
She caught me mid-flight with the Jagged Heart, moving faster than I could follow, driving its tip into my chest beneath my left collarbone. With a push and a twist, my ghost heart was torn free from its arteries and forced down to meet my liver.
The bone-handled knife slipped from my fingers to land at the witch’s feet. I opened my mouth to curse her, but only a bubble of blood escaped.
My time in the material world had come to an end.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DEAD IN THE WATER
HOW MUCH OF what happened next is memory and how much is dream is difficult to say.
I hung upon the Jagged Heart like a pig upon a spit. Purity grimaced as my ghost blood ran down the narwhal shaft in dark red spirals, staining her hands. She tried to shake me loose, but the barbed head held me tightly. In the end, she was forced to awkwardly manipulate the harpoon close to her so that she could grab the portion of the staff that jutted from my buttocks. I hung upside down in the boat for a moment. I saw Judge Stern remove his heavy black cloak and drape it over his frozen daughter.
“You attempt to warm her in vain,” one of the ogresses said with a scowl.
“I merely wish to hide the shame of her unclothed limbs,” said the judge.
By then, Purity had shifted her grasp on the harpoon. She shook the shaft over the edge of the boat and I slid, face down, toward the growing river of blood. I splashed into the fluid, blinded for a moment by the opaque tide, before I floated face up to the surface. I felt no pain. I could not move, or even blink. I bobbed along in the current, utterly limp. Just as I could no longer reach for one of the oars cutting into the blood mere feet from my shoulder, my mind, too, lost its ability to hold on to reality. I felt as if fog rolled in from the edges of my memories, blotting out all that remained of my consciousness.
And yet... and yet I do have impressions of my journey into the realm beyond. Perhaps some faint spark of personality remained to bear mute witness to my fate. Or, equally plausible, I’ve imagined details to fill in the gaps.
Be it truth or dream, this is my recollection:
When the river of blood reached the edge of the cliff, rather than spilling over to flood the ogre village below, the river darkened and spread outward, into the air, flowing toward the stars. My corpse was carried by the current far ahead of the boat that carried Infidel. Purity stood on the bow, the harpoon held before her like a battering ram. A pale glow originated from the Jagged Heart and spread across the sky, triggering a magnificent display of the northern lights. Behind the boat, Hush stirred, her icy body rising, her coat of snow and ice falling away to reveal a crystalline dragon the size of a mountain. As she spread her snowy wings, blizzards spun from the tips, dancing outward in ever-strengthening waves. Much of the world would wake to a morning covered with snow.
The blood flood continued to rise, though at some point my perceptions flipped and instead of rising, we were falling. The stars above were now the stars below, and we fell, one and all, toward the vast black sea of night. As the waters grew closer, I could see that the stars, so small at a distance, were actually bits of ice, brilliant as diamonds. They continued to grow larger as I fell, growing from flea specks to fragments the size of fingernails, to chunks as large as my palm, to floes as big as boats, until they became small islands, hundreds of yards across. I smashed into the waters that separated these icy isles. The sea was awash with light. As I bobbed back toward the surface, I saw that the cold waters were dense with phosphorescent krill, glowing ghostly shades of green and blue. Ghostly was an especially apt adjective, since the krill looked like translucent wisps of light rather than beings of flesh. I understood, at last, the origins of the auroras we’d witnessed in these norther
n latitudes.
By pure chance, my face turned heavenward as I reached the surface. Purity’s boat was nowhere in sight. Snow clouds roiled high above, filling the sky, reflecting the pale glow of the sea.
From these clouds emerged a whale. It was Slor Tonn, his head split open. I could see through his great black and white form as he tumbled through the air. He was as much a phantom now as I’d been. He splashed into the waters some distance away from me. My body was tossed by the waves created by his impact. I found myself upside down, my lifeless eyes staring into infinite blackness, my feet now above water. I could not move to right myself. I don’t know how long I drifted, numb and silent.
Dead in the water.
Then, far below, a faint circle of white, like a smoke ring, growing, rising toward me.
It was Slor Tonn. His massive jaws were opened into a toothy circle. His jaws clamped down on my waist, severing my legs. The last thing I remember, or dream I remember, is the pressure of his tongue flattening me against the roof of his mouth before he swallowed.
And then there was nothing.
AND THEN THERE was something. In the dark and silent void, I heard... music. The song was faint, the far-away voices of women singing, unaccompanied by instruments. I couldn’t recognize the words; the language sounded like that of ogres. It didn’t matter. The music was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, haunting and heartbreaking yet joyful, filling me with loneliness, then promising to take that loneliness away.
My peaceful communion with this ghostly melody came to an abrupt end as I was vomited from the belly of the whale. Imagine a sound like a cat coughing up a hairball, assuming you were inside the cat, and the cat was fifty feet long. This disgusting cacophony served as my trumpet to awaken me to judgment day. I found the will to open my eyes as I was squeezed through the whale’s undulating esophagus, my passage illuminated by reeking buckets of half-digested ghost krill. I exploded out upon the whale’s great pink tongue, my arms flopping uselessly. My left hand snagged against the whale’s saw-like teeth and was severed as I was spat out across an ice floe. The pain of losing my hand was agonizing. The pain of everything was suddenly unbearable. My chest was nearly hollow; half my guts had spilled out when Slor Tonn had snapped me off at the legs. My heart was trying to beat, but faced the difficulty of having been chopped to mincemeat by Purity’s harpoon.
