by James Maxey
“You are a fraud,” said Father Ver, as the old god shrank to waist height.
“You are a perversion,” he said, reducing Nowowon to the size of a house cat.
Father Ver looked down on the diminutive old god and crossed his arms. “You aren’t even worth crushing beneath my sandal. You’re a lie, and no one believes you any more.”
Nowowon squealed as he shrank to the size of a mouse, then a cockroach, then a fly. Lord Tower’s spiked metal boot suddenly slammed down, driving into the solid stone.
“I’m not wearing sandals,” he said, casting the Truthspeaker a sideways glance.
Zetetic ran up, snatching the Jagged Heart from the ground. “Why is there a crippled baby dragon over there? Why is the spirit gate closed? What the hell happened? I thought the world had come to an end!”
“Why would you think that?” asked Tower.
“I threw you both through your gates. Greatshadow was ready for us. He killed you both and came into the chamber and killed the rest of us. I survived because I had told No-Face that fire couldn’t burn me. But when I left this place, I found nothing but ash as far as the eye could see. I traveled the world, entirely alone, for decades without finding another survivor. Even the mermen and ice-ogres were gone. The primal dragons had joined together to strip the earth of all sentient life.”
“You were trapped in a deception by the old god,” said the small dragon, rising up on his misshapen legs with the help of his gnarled cane. This was definitely Relic’s voice, and now there was no mistaking this dragon’s eyes were the same eyes I’d spied through the burlap hood. “Nowowon knew that you were vulnerable to assault with a highly detailed hallucination. You were trapped by what was essentially a lie.”
“It lasted forty years!” said Zetetic, waving the Jagged Heart in Relic’s face for emphasis. “And who the hell are you? Why is no-one telling me why there’s a dragon here?”
He was answered with a deep voice that made the ground tremble.
“There’s a dragon here because you woke me from my slumber.”
Everyone turned to the vortex of stone.
A scaly head the size of a ship had squeezed through the hole. It was a deep, glowing red, the color of embers shimmering beneath a blanket of dark ash. Sulfurous smoke rose from the creature’s nostrils. The dragon glared at us with eyes that burned like foundry furnaces, with a heat that caused Father Ver’s robes to send up tendrils of white smoke from fifty feet away.
All we could do was stare back, the moment frozen, as Greatshadow opened his enormous maw, revealing teeth like ivory stalactites and a tongue like a carpet of lava. Wind howled through me as Greatshadow sucked in air like a bellows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OILY BLACK SMOKE
AND THEN THERE was fire, a great red wave of flickering tendrils engulfing us in a flood of heat and light. Imagine a coal-fired oven, stoked to a cherry red, with a pot of oil boiling furiously upon it. Imagine plunging your head into this pot, the burning oil working its way into your nostrils and ear canals, into your tear ducts, searing every pore. My spectral teeth burned, my tongue scalded, and there was nothing to do but keep screaming, though I couldn’t even hear my own voice. Once, I’d ridden out a hurricane in my small boat and the roar of the wind had been so loud it loosened my bowels. This devouring flame howled far louder, a crescendo appropriate for announcing the end of the world.
And the smell. As a veteran explorer of volcanoes, I knew all too well the brimstone stench and the peculiar acid tang of molten rock. Add to this the stink of vaporized hair and flesh crackling on the bone and you still cannot imagine the foulness of the atmosphere.
As suddenly as it had begun, the flame passed. The pain jangling my phantom nerves collapsed from incapacitating to merely agonizing. Blinking away the ghost tears in my scalded eyes, it appeared that little had changed. The four figures who’d been present before were still there: Relic, revealed as a dragon, was unharmed, save that his staff was but a heap of white ashes at his feet. He was standing where Infidel’s clothes had been; they were completely gone. There was no sign of the bone-handled knife, though I still felt its tug... from Relic’s mouth?
The Deceiver had survived as well, crouched down, hugging the Jagged Heart to his chest, its aura of supernatural cold sparing him from the flame. Tower, too, was untouched; his Armor of Faith gleamed even brighter, as if the flames had cleansed it of the dust and grime it had gathered on our journey. Somehow, Father Ver, standing just behind the knight, wasn’t even singed even though his robes had burned away.
In fact, the only party member missing was No-Face’s corpse. There wasn’t even a pile of ash, just a small rivulet of serpentine liquid metal flowing where his ball and chain had once been.
Father Ver turned toward me. As I studied his face, I realized I could see Tower through him. I wasn’t looking at a man. I was looking at a ghost.
The phantom glared at me, and said, “You cannot be my guide.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said. “Look, you might be here for only a few seconds, so let’s get to the point: it looks like you’re still heading for the spirit world. When you get there, I need you to rescue Infidel. I mean, the War Doll.”
“You mean Princess Innocent.”
“You knew?”
He frowned deeply. “This was just one of many obvious truths I turned a blind eye toward with the goal of ridding the world of Greatshadow.”
“But how could you know? Relic was reading your mind and said you were fooled.”
“I sensed his mental probes instantly,” Father Ver said. “It was a simple matter to command him to see in my mind whatever he wished to see.”
I crossed my arms and shook my head, imitating the same pose of disapproval I had encountered so frequently in my youth. “So you not only kept quiet about things you knew weren’t true, you actively took part in a deception. For shame.”
“Your judgment matters to me not in the slightest,” said Father Ver. “Tower was my friend. I would not deny him his chance to find his lost love. In the end, the Divine Author will deliver the final verdict on my choices. Let us hope... let us hope it was His intention to write a romance.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he looked heavenward, not caring whether I spoke to him or not. He spread his arms wide as his face was bathed in light from above. I looked to see its source, but there was nothing there.
“Ah,” he said, in a tone half joy, half sorrow. “So that’s the truth of it.”
He pressed his lips together in a wistful smile as the outline of his face wavered. Then he was gone, and all that was left were a few blackened teeth where he had stood.
My attention returned to the danger at hand. I didn’t want to be around if Greatshadow unleashed another inferno. Fortunately, while I had been chatting, Tower had sprung into action, leaping into the air and flying straight toward the dragon. In scale, it was like a bee diving toward a bear’s nose. With both hands, he slammed the Gloryhammer into the center of Greatshadow’s snout. Like a bear stung on the nose, Greatshadow winced and drew his head back. The false-matter tunnel warped and wobbled, allowing the impossibly large beast free movement as he retreated. Tower grabbed the rim of a scaly nostril with his razor-tipped left gauntlet, refusing to give the dragon a second of relief as he rained blow after blow on the creature’s nose.
As Greatshadow departed, Relic spat the bone-handled knife from his mouth into his hand. It had been completely untouched by the flames. The misshaped little dragon shouted to the Deceiver, “We must give chase! Tower needs the Jagged Heart!”
“You’re out of your mind!” shouted Zetetic. “I’d be dead if I wasn’t carrying this. And why should I listen to you? You’re a dragon!”
“A dragon maimed by Greatshadow,” snarled Relic as he wiggled his stunted wings and limped toward the Deceiver. “A dragon whose sole purpose is to see his father suffer and die for the cruelties he’s inflicted.”
“Father? Y
ou’re Greatshadow’s son?”
“Possibly.”
“How can you not be sure?”
“I’m definitely his offspring. But I’m uncertain if I’m his son or daughter. Since my genitals are internal and I’ve not yet matured, this remains—”
“Stop.” Zetetic scrunched up his face and rubbed his closed eyes. “Just stop.”
“You’re uncomfortable discussing sexual biology?” asked Relic.
Zetetic sighed. “It’s one of my favorite topics. But, maybe, right now isn’t the best time to get into this?”
“Agreed. We must help Tower.”
Tower was a fair distance away at this point, still maintaining his assault. There was little Greatshadow could do to remove his annoying assailant while he was in the tunnel, but the second he pulled his head free into the larger chamber beyond, a talon with claws longer than the Jagged Heart swatted Tower away.
The far end of the tunnel became a solid sheet of flame as Greatshadow tried a second time to melt the knight.
“Make yourself immune to flame,” said Relic, grabbing Zetetic by the arm and tugging him.
“I can’t!” cried the Deceiver, planting his feet wide to resist. “There’s no one left to believe my lies! Your reptilian mind is useless to me!”
“Lie to Menagerie. He’s still alive,” said Relic.
“What?” I said.
“What?” said Zetetic.
“No shape-shifting blood magician would neglect to include a tick among his forms,” said Relic. “I sense him now, dug in behind your knee. Nowowon’s magic has robbed him of his humanity, but the Goon is an accomplished survivor.”
Zetetic lifted the hem of his robe and bent over, using the Jagged Heart to balance himself as he twisted to see the back of his leg. Sure enough, there was a little black speck there. “Do ticks have ears? Can he hear me?”
Relic was silent as he stared at the bug.
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, his mental state has been greatly damaged. Perhaps he may recover once he has consumed sufficient blood, but, for now, your skepticism is justified. He’ll be of no use to you.”
“Do you have a second plan?” asked Zetetic.
“As a matter of fact,” said Relic, running the sharp edge of the bone-handled knife along his palm. He sucked in air as a line of bright blood bubbled up.
I was floating near him, watching with interest, a bit off vertical amid the room’s distorted landscape. I fell about a yard as I materialized, landing on the cracked black stone. I instantly leapt up with a yelp; the stone was hot as a furnace. I jumped closer to Zetetic and the Jagged Heart, and while my feet were spared a scalding, I became keenly aware of my nakedness and the possibility of losing toes and other more valued parts to frostbite. I hopped a few feet away, into a zone where the ground was more bearable.
“Stagger is a ghost haunting this knife. His soul manifests physically when the knife drinks the enchanted blood of dragons.”
Zetetic furrowed his brow. Then he shrugged, and said, “I’ve seen crazier stuff. But if I must work with a dead man, I’d rather not be confronted with his private bits. Luckily, I have the power to summon clothing from thin air.”
Instantly, I was dressed in finery; a cream silk shirt tucked into black satin britches with calf-high boots of soft leather. The whole thing was topped with a rather flamboyant red velvet cape.
“That’s handy,” I said. “Have you ever thought of earning a living as a tailor?”
“It wouldn’t work. One limitation of my art is that I can never convince people of the same lie twice.”
“There’s no time for discussion!” said Relic. “We must get the harpoon to Tower. With every passing second, Greatshadow grows closer to victory.”
Zetetic chewed his lower lip. He looked to be in genuine agony as he said, “Every fiber of my being is screaming I should run. But... Nowowon’s little hallucination trap may not have worked the way Greatshadow would have wanted. We can’t end this merely by wounding the beast, or even annoying him. Humanity may pay the ultimate price for our failure. I’m in.”
“Wait,” I said, grabbing Zetetic by the arm. “If you can’t convince people of the same thing twice, how do we get to the spirit world? How do we kill Greatshadow’s soul without Ver’s scroll, and, more important to me, how do we rescue Infidel?”
“Who’s Infidel?”
“The War Doll, formerly Princess Innocent Brightmoon,” said Relic, holding the blade in his intact claw as he allowed drops of blood to drip one by one onto the bone-handled knife. His blood boiled and bubbled, etching the steel as it vaporized, but he timed his bleeding so that another drop had fallen before the first evaporated. “By now the dragon half of her nature has no doubt consumed the last remnants of her human self. She cannot be rescued. Killing Greatshadow’s soul can be accomplished with the Jagged Heart; as Aurora revealed, it’s been crafted to slay spirits. As for getting the harpoon to the spirit world, there is a magical item in Greatshadow’s lair we can use.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Even in my egg, I could read minds. I was hatched with many of Greatshadow’s memories. From the moment I first breathed air, I already had a full command of language and a deep understanding of his mystic arts.”
“Precocious little scamp,” said Zetetic. “Let’s hope you know what you’re talking about. Hurry!”
The two of them set off at a fast jog down the tunnel. I hung behind for a second, staring at the spot in the air where I’d last seen Infidel, and decided my only chance of seeing her again was to cast my lot with these two.
About a hundred yards down the tunnel, we were all knocked from our feet. A wave of lava swept into the far end of the passage, rushing toward us in a glowing river. Fortunately, since I was behind the Jagged Heart, I was spared from the heat, which rolled toward us as a shimmering wave, but stopped the second it reached the air around the enchanted weapon. The lava stopped flowing as well, freezing into a low wall about three feet tall. Behind it, the molten rock began to drain away, back into the chamber beyond.
I strained to see, missing my power to just float around and look at whatever interested me. As we climbed onto the wall and rushed forward, with the ground cooling and crackling as we advanced, what I could catch a glimpse of interested me greatly. I saw Greatshadow stumbling, bleeding profusely from the side of his head, his blood coming out in great surges of liquid fire.
We arrived at a large ledge on the inner lip of a volcanic caldera open to the sky. Before us was a bubbling lake of magma stretching off as far as I could see, which wasn’t all that far due to the haze of sulfurous smoke. Greatshadow had dropped to all fours, shaking his head to clear it. His eyes had a glassy look. His sheer size was almost impossible to comprehend; not even whales were this large. He was more like a landmass than a living being, though the muscles rippling beneath his crimson hide revealed the truth of his animal nature.
Above us, beyond the sulfur clouds, the sun blazed brightly. Only I quickly realized that it wasn’t the sun; the light was moving far too swiftly across the sky. Suddenly the glowing object burst through the clouds. It was Lord Tower, blazing down with the speed of a shooting star. He slammed, hammer-first, into the dragon’s head. The addition of speed turned Tower into something more dangerous than a bee — he was now like a bullet shot from the sling of an expert marksman, and his momentum was enough to drive his invulnerable armor deep into the dragon’s skull.
The blow flattened Greatshadow, driving him down into the burning mire. He unleashed a low, mournful howl as he struggled to rise. Magma-like blood bubbled from a series of holes near the fringe of spikes along the ridge of his skull. His eyes seemed unfocused as his limbs jerked spastically.
“Plainly, we’re not needed here at all,” said Zetetic, turning back toward the tunnel.
“Die!” Relic shouted. It took me a second to realize he wasn’t shouting at the Deceiver. Instead, he was shaking his bony fist at
Greatshadow. “Your suffering is like wine to me! I drink in your agony as you die! Die! Die!”
Tower clawed back out of the hole he’d dug into Greatshadow, covered in flaming gore. He rose into the air, twirling, throwing off a halo of muck. When he stopped spinning he was clean again, his silver armor a dazzling light show reflecting the Gloryhammer, the lava, and Greatshadow’s pulsing blood.
“Your final page has been written, Greatshadow!” Tower shouted, his voice echoing from the walls of rock surrounding the battlefield. “Your name shall vanish from the One True Book!” Tower shot into the air, vanishing into the haze as he rose toward heaven to summon speed.
“Do it!” screamed Relic. “Kill him! Kill him!”
The resentment I felt toward my own negligent father suddenly seemed rather mild.
Zetetic’s retreat had halted only a few feet into the tunnel. He was looking back at Greatshadow. Apparently, the opportunity to witness the death of a primal dragon was overriding his desire to flee.
Greatshadow’s glazed eyes suddenly focused on the ledge we stood on. With a voice like a rumbling earthquake he growled as he spotted Relic, “This was your doing!”
“Yes!” screamed Relic, spittle flying. “I’ve plotted your demise since the day you tossed my twisted body onto the volcano’s slopes! Once you die, I shall become the new primal dragon of fire! No one will deny me my destiny!”
“Indeed?” said Greatshadow, his voice firm despite the fact he still flopped helplessly in the lava, unable to rise. “You’ve shielded your mind from me, but your dead companion has no mental defenses. I’ve just learned that the knight’s armor is made of prayer.”
He cast his gaze skyward as Tower reached his apex, the brightest object in all the heavens.
Relic’s waving fist froze in mid-air. A sudden look of horror filled his reptilian eyes.
“The monks would be too disciplined to light a candle,” he mumbled, sounding almost as if he was speaking to himself.
“I’m pretty sure none of them smoke,” I said.
