by James Maxey
Zetetic wandered around the cave left by Aurora, staring up at specks of light that dotted the ceiling. He climbed a wall and thrust his fingers into one of the lights, which proved to be a hole in a paper-thin sheet of rock. He flaked it away in big handfuls, and soon had a large enough gap to climb through.
“Follow me,” he said, as he wriggled out.
Relic leapt onto the wall and clambered after him. Despite his injuries and the obvious pain of every movement, the little dragon still seemed much stronger and faster than I was. I guess even a lamed dragon was a better physical specimen than an ordinary man. Or, at least in better shape than me. I was panting, my arms trembling, by the time I managed to drag myself through the hole. My legs were quivering as I walked out onto a freshly formed plain of soot-black rock still spiderwebbed with tendrils of bright red lava. The volcano seemed to have lost a great deal of its energy with Greatshadow gone. Still, I danced around, grateful I had boots. As long as I kept moving, the heat was merely blistering instead of crippling.
In the center of the rapidly cooling lava, amid rock that cracked and popped as it gave up its heat, was Greatshadow’s enormous head and shoulders, frozen into the solidifying stone. One wing jutted into the air behind him like a giant black sail. The deep brick-red of his scalp was now pink beneath a layer of thick frost. The Jagged Heart had returned to its normal size and lay upon his snout as if it had been dropped there by some hopelessly lost whaler.
Zetetic ran across the smoking plain, jumping over glowing cracks, scrambling up Greatshadow’s scaly hide. Though it was entirely the wrong thing to be thinking about, I couldn’t help but gawk at the sheer size of the dragon’s skull as my internal booze calculator tried to figure out how many rounds I could buy at the Black Swan if I could somehow cash it in. A lot. A whole damn lot. Numbers weren’t my strong suit.
Zetetic stood between the dragon’s eyes as he snatched up the Jagged Heart. “Got it!” he shouted. “Now, we just need to get a warrior to the spirit world to finish off the dragon!”
Relic nodded, standing before the Greatshadow’s toothy jaws, staring up at Zetetic. “Stagger will have to do.”
“Have to do what?” I asked.
“Go to the spirit world to kill Greatshadow,” said Zetetic, tossing the harpoon at me. I jumped back as the tip buried into the stone where I’d just stood.
“You almost killed me!” I shouted.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” the Deceiver said. “You aren’t alive, remember? No court would convict me.”
I grabbed the harpoon and yanked it free. I held it toward Relic. “You’re the one with the daddy-grudge. You do it.”
“Nowowon has broken my claws. It’s agonizing to hold this knife; I could never wield the harpoon effectively,” said Relic. “And Zetetic is too cowardly to be trusted with the mission.”
“I have no argument with that statement whatsoever,” said the Deceiver.
“I’m not exactly a prime physical specimen myself,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow. “And I’ll fight any man who says I’m not a yellow-bellied coward!”
“You may not need to fight the dragon yourself,” said Zetetic. “The War Doll — I mean, Infidel — is already in the spirit realm. The gate she passed through leads to the specific abstract reality where Greatshadow’s soul resides. She did show a certain talent for violence. If she’s somehow recovered from her psychic split, you could have her complete the mission.”
My immediate thought was, screw the mission. Except for the whole end-of-the-world-by-fire thing, what did I care if Greatshadow’s soul was killed? But the thought that I could be reunited with Infidel in the spirit world made my heart beat faster. I didn’t want her to die, but, if she was already a spirit, I’d rather be on the other side with her than trapped here as a ghost.
“Okay,” I said, holding the harpoon in a two-handed grasp. “You’ve made your case. How do I get to Infidel? Zetetic can’t open another spirit gate. If there was a magic item here that could open the portal, isn’t it buried under about a thousand feet of rock now?”
“Oh,” said Relic. “That was a lie.”
“Nice,” said Zetetic.
“Then there’s not some object here with the power to send me to the land of the dead?” I asked, confused.
“I wouldn’t say that’s true either,” said Relic, walking toward me, wincing as he shifted the bone-handled knife around in his claw to grasp it by the hilt instead of the blade.
Before I understood his intention he stabbed me, the blade punching though my left nipple. In a second of time that dribbled by like molasses I felt the knife tear through my pectoral muscles, skim between my ribs, slice the edge of my left lung, and puncture my heart, halting it mid-beat.
The world went black.
I LIFTED MY throbbing head from my folded arms and looked around the bar at the Black Swan. I blinked my bleary eyes, attempting to focus in the dim light. The lanterns barely flickered behind soot-grimed crystal globes. A score of empty tankards were set out around me in a semi-circle of pewter and glass. My whole body was stiff and cold as I stretched, working out the kinks in my back.
I rubbed my sleep-fogged eyes, then studied the bottles behind the bar, choosing what I’d drink next. I frowned when I realized all the bottles looked empty. Everything was covered with dust. Busty, one of the regular serving wenches, was at the far end of the bar, her back to me.
“I just had the worst nightmare,” I said. My tongue felt thick in my mouth, covered with a dry, pasty scum. “Bring me a beer, would you, luv?”
She wouldn’t. At least, she didn’t. She just stood there, still as a statue. I got up from the stool and staggered toward her, keeping one hand on the bar for balance. I reached the end of the bar and suddenly sobered up.
Busty was nothing but a dusty skeleton, still standing upright, staring blankly ahead with empty sockets. Her frilly blouse hung like a sack, the generous bustline now dangling to reveal a desiccated breastbone. I spun around, surveying the silent room. There were a hundred people packed into every corner, all dead, their skeletons frozen in rough approximation of daily motion. Players gathered around a table, faded cards forever clasped in their bony fingers. A whore leaned on the shoulder of a client in a corner booth, her mummified cheeks stained with rouge, her dusty wig askew atop her skull.
“Hello?” I said, to the silent room.
No one answered.
However, as I strained to listen, in the distance I heard a long, low howl, like the baying of a wolf. I crept across the dusty floorboards to the door, looking out onto the familiar skyline of the Isle of Fire.
Only, it wasn’t quite as I remembered. The boats surrounding me were all derelict husks, floating in water the color of red wine. A rotting, tilted pier ran toward the banks of the bay. The damage done by Greatshadow’s attack on Commonground was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the slopes of the island were still covered with a thick jade canopy of trees, rising to a volcano from which plumes of stark white steam boiled heavenward. The sky was a light gray slate, devoid of a sun, or even clearly defined clouds. The island that lay before me seemed out of scale, smaller somehow.
I crouched down, startled, as the animalistic howl once more rolled over the bay. Wolves weren’t native to the Isle of Fire, though they haunted the mountains near the monastery where I’d spent my childhood. I’d gone to sleep many a night pondering the meanings of their different songs; sometimes, they sang toward the moon to tell tales of loneliness and lost loves. Sometimes, their songs were almost joyous, a simple declaration of, “I’m alive! I’m here! And I’m a wolf!” That song was easy to distinguish from a harsher, more sinister war cry, when they howled to frighten prey, to startle them into running. This was that last type of howl.
I glanced back to the bar. The Jagged Heart was lying on the floor beside my stool. I looked down, surprised to find I was still wearing the finery Zetetic had conjured. To my greater surprise, I found the bone-handled knife
jutting from my chest. I didn’t feel a thing as I grasped the hilt and popped it free. No blood flowed from the wound.
“Relic?” I said, wondering if he could still hear me.
The only answer was the gentle lapping of the wine-dark sea.
Going back inside, I grabbed the Jagged Heart. I wondered how it had made the transition. I’d been holding it when I was stabbed, but when I first died, I’d passed over naked. Maybe the difference was that Relic hadn’t stabbed a living man to dispatch me to the ghost realms. He’d stabbed a materialized spirit. If I ever met the Divine Author, it seemed like a good thing to ask Him about over a pint of beer. Assuming the Divine Author drinks.
What am I saying? He’s a writer. Of course He drinks.
Alas, He wasn’t here at the moment, and my quick pillaging pass behind the bar showed that beer wasn’t present either. If this were paradise, the sea outside would have been made of actual wine, but I suspected I would be in for an unpleasant surprise if I tested that. I was going to be doing this dragon hunt sober, damn it.
Back outside, I headed up the boardwalk toward the forest. Like the bar, it was eerily silent: no bugs buzzing, no bullfrogs bleating, no birds providing a serenade. I pushed through underbrush studded with fearsome thorns. The Jagged Heart proved better than a machete; vines and limbs studded with wooden needles froze solid as I touched them, snapping with only the slightest touch. Once I was through the brush, I was surrounded by towering trees, their smooth, perfectly formed trunks stretching high overhead into a curtain of unbroken green. It was dark as a moonless night, but my eyes soon adjusted to the dimness.
From high up the slope, the howl of the unseen beast once more rolled through the air. As the sound faded, I thought I could hear a crunch, crunch, crunch in the distance, the footsteps of something large creeping amongst the trees. I had a pretty good idea what might be making the noise.
Somewhere out in the darkness was the monster who’d lived inside the woman I’d loved.
I skulked up the slopes, holding the harpoon like a halberd, a weapon I had absolutely no experience with. Not that I had much experience with any weapons. Infidel had been my principal mode of defense, which was for the best. Given how often I’d been drunk when our fights broke out, if I’d tried handling anything sharp I’d probably eventually have stabbed myself.
I heard a shuff, shuff, shuff of something moving through the leaves and pressed up closely against an ancient tree trunk thick enough to hide an elephant. I peeked around, listening closely to see if the noise was drawing closer.
Shuff, shuff, shuff. It was right on the other side of the tree.
When I met the she-dragon, would I kill her? Could I? What if I tried to talk to her? Would she recognize me or just try to eat me?
Trusting that I would know what to do when the moment came, I grasped the harpoon and raced around the tree at top speed, which, thanks to my cape snagging on the trunk, wasn’t all that fast. Still, it was fast enough to terrify the little girl in the lacy dress I found pressed up against the tree on the far side. Her eyes popped wide and her mouth gaped into an almost perfect ‘O’ as she filled her lungs, ready to scream. I dropped the Jagged Heart and jumped toward her, hands outstretched, knocking her to the ground as I clamped my hand over her mouth. Air gushed around my fingers as her muffled scream tickled my palm.
“Shhh!” I hissed, as quietly as I could manage. “Shhh! Do you want your other half to hear?”
Tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head ‘no.’
I couldn’t believe how tiny she was, pinned beneath me. Infidel had actually been somewhat petite, I guess, but it was easy to forget this when she was juggling around bruisers and brutes. Princess Innocent was a whole lot shorter and her arms were thin as broomsticks. My hand practically covered her whole face.
“I’m going to let go,” I whispered. “Don’t scream.”
She trembled as I pulled my hand free. I helped her stand, while I rose to my knees so we’d be on eye level.
“Are you all right?” I asked. Her dress was torn in a dozen places, and her cheeks were covered with scratches. Her long silver hair was a mess.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head.
I weighed my words carefully. I had dreamed, should I ever reunite with Infidel, I’d confess my love and kiss her hard enough to make us both dizzy. That seemed highly inappropriate now, given her reversion to such a young age. “I was... I was a friend. My name is Stagger.”
“You smell bad,” she said, scrunching up her nose.
No doubt I did. Growing up in a palace, Innocent had probably never met anyone who sweated.
“Have you seen your other half?” I asked. “Is she near?”
She furrowed her brow, looking confused.
“The she-dragon,” I said. “She brought you here.”
“She wants to eat me,” said Innocent. “But I’m good at hiding.”
Which was true enough. The princess had hidden inside Infidel all these years without me suspecting a thing.
As I thought this, an idea occurred to me. Innocent had been hiding inside Infidel. Could she do so again? What if... what if the way to join her two halves back together was simply to let the dragon once more devour the princess?
“The way you’re looking at me scares me,” said Innocent.
I pursed my lips as I pondered my options.
Whatever was showing on my face couldn’t have been good, because Innocent suddenly burst into tears. She went limp, almost fainting, as she fell against my chest, sobbing. I wrapped my arms around her, stroking her hair.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I’ll protect you. I won’t let the monster hurt you.”
And that was that. The vile thought of feeding this little girl to the she-dragon was banished back to whatever dark pit in my brain it had crawled from. Some fatherly instinct welled within me and I knew with absolute certainty I’d willingly die to protect this girl.
“I’m s-so tired,” she sobbed. “I’ve b-been running and running and running.”
Again, this was true for Infidel as well. The whole time I’d known her, I’d thought of her as a fighter, but, in truth, she’d lived every moment on the run from her own past. How had I been so blind?
“You won’t have to run any more,” I whispered, setting my jaw firmly. “I’ll fight the monster for you.”
I hugged her for a long time, her face pressed against my chest, until her sobs died down to whimpers, then sniffles. I finally pulled away from her, still on my knees, my hands on her shoulders as I said, “Everything is going to be fine. I’m your friend, and I’ll take care of you.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. Her mouth hung half open as her eyes were fixed at a point in space somewhere over my shoulder.
I didn’t have to turn around to know what was standing behind me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE WORLD CAN WAIT
I DOVE ASIDE as a three-clawed foot stomped down where I’d stood, causing the earth to shudder. My flight was brought to a choking halt by the red velvet cape, caught beneath the she-dragon’s heel. I should have dumped the cloak the second the damn thing had been inflicted on me. I fiddled with the collar for half a second before slicing the clasp open with the bone-handled knife. I dropped the blade as I scrambled toward the Jagged Heart. The ground was slippery with frost. I slid across ice-etched leaves, my hand outstretched. A giant claw punched into the soil in front of me, forming a scaly fence. I slammed into it, the harpoon only inches beyond my grasp.
The she-dragon leaned down, her jaws dripping sap-like spittle, the tangles of her hair dangling like vines. Bright yellow eyes stared into mine as she paused in reptilian concentration. Did she recognize me?
“Infidel!” I shouted. “It’s me, Stagger!”
Her oversized fingers wrapped around my throat as she snatched me off the ground. Her n
ose was merely two holes flat against her face, like the nose of a snake. The emerald green scales that glittered around her eyes were weirdly beautiful, in a terrifying, inhuman way.
“I love you!” I shouted. “You loved me!”
The creature licked her lips, her eyes twinkling with the same delighted hunger I’d seen in Infidel’s face when Tower had produced the cake. Her head tilted back as her jaws opened to an impossible angle. I flailed helplessly as she brought me toward her jagged teeth.
“Leave him alone!” a tiny voice shouted below my feet.
The she-dragon closed her mouth and looked down. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Princess Innocent with her hands on her hips.
“He’s my friend and I won’t let you hurt him,” the princess shouted, a stern look in her eyes.
A low growl rumbled from the she-dragon’s chest as she eyed the annoying creature.
The princess stomped her feet, obviously furious at the delay. “My daddy’s the king and you have to do what I say! Put him down!”
“You really should listen to her,” I squeaked.
The she-dragon responded by flinging me aside. I went flying above the canopy of trees, feeling profound déjà vu as I reached the apex of my flight and began to plummet toward the blood-tangle vines far below. My re-entry was thoroughly unpleasant. If I’d truly been alive, it’s possible it would even have been fatal, as I slammed into a tree trunk hard enough to knock off bark. But, just as the wound had been clean when I pulled the bone-handled knife from my ribs, the cuts and scrapes that crosshatched my arms beneath the shredded remains of my sleeves didn’t ooze a single drop of blood.
I rose on rubbery legs as a high-pitched shriek of pain reached my ears. I struggled back up the slope, limping, my ankle twisted, though the pain I felt was muted by the same general gauziness that wreathed all my senses in death. Then, for no apparent reason, my ankle suddenly hurt like the devil. In fact, my entire body felt like I’d gone two rounds in a pit fight with No-Face. Blood bubbled up from my various cuts, though almost a minute had passed since the wounds had been inflicted.
