Greatshadow Read online

  It was still a few hours before dawn when Relic led Infidel out to the Old Temple. Her skin was pink in the moonlight, raw from the lye soap and vigorous scrubbing. She looked ridiculous in the clothes Bigsby had provided. The outfit could have come from a whore’s wardrobe, but the scowl on Infidel’s face would likely discourage any customers. She was barefoot again. My knife was stuck into the waistband of her skirt.

  Bigsby had been dispatched by Relic on an errand. I’d missed the specifics while Infidel was bathing, but apparently the dwarf was supposed to bring someone out to the Old Temple to meet with Infidel.

  Relic no longer seemed to be aware of me. With my knife free of blood, I was unable to shout at him. He may have been able to read the minds of the living, but the dead lay outside his awareness, as long as they weren’t drunk on blood. Still, he knew I was haunting the knife. I couldn’t help but wonder what other uses he had in mind for me. If he talked to me again, what was I going to say? Should I try to use him to convey messages to Infidel? Tell her I was haunting her? Would that make her feel better, or worse?

  Infidel leaned against one of the basalt columns, gently kneading the knot on her forehead. After she’d been mauled by the iron tiger, she told me that it was interesting to be hurt. She’d been fascinated by her scabs for days. She acted like she’d made it through her entire childhood without so much as a scratch.

  A fog started to gather, masking the edges of the salt-crusted platform on which we waited. The lanterns aboard the ships at Commonground faded as the mist thickened. The damp night turned decidedly cold. Infidel folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands into her armpits for warmth.

  Relic looked toward the thickest clump of fog and said, “There’s no point in hiding. You’ve come this far; you won’t turn back.”

  The fog swirled as a dark shadow moved through it, then parted as Aurora stepped onto the basalt platform. I don’t remember ever seeing the ogress outside the Black Swan. Bigsby emerged from the fog right behind her. I wondered what he’d said to her to convince her to leave the bar.

  Aurora glowered at the hunchback. She was easily twice as tall as him. She said, “The dwarf gave me your message. How did you learn my true name?”

  Relic chuckled. “I plucked it from your mind, Aksarna. I have the gift, and the curse, of hearing the thoughts of others.”

  “Do you have the gift of an iron neck?” Aurora asked as her eyes narrowed. “Since you know of my past, you leave me little choice but to strangle you.”

  Infidel spoke up. “The Black Swan knows your past, and you don’t strangle her. Give ol’ Lumpy here five minutes.”

  Aurora looked at Infidel, pausing for a second to study her odd attire and bruised face. “What’s your role in this, princess?”

  “I think I’m auditioning for the villain.”

  “Infidel has agreed to kill the king’s men once they’ve slain Greatshadow,” said Relic.

  “You know about the mission?” asked Aurora.

  Relic tapped his brow with a gnarled finger.

  “Right, right. Mind-reader,” said the ogress. “Fine. Why have you dragged me out here?”

  “Ivory Blade negotiated with you to hire the Three Goons,” said Relic. “We need you to arrange for him to hire us as well.”

  “You’ve already confessed that you’re planning to kill the king’s men. As of now, that includes the Goons. I’m no traitor.”

  “You’ve been accused of treason in the past. I’ve come to offer you a chance to clear your name.”

  Aurora shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what you offer me. My loyalty lies with the Black Swan. I could never betray her.”

  “You have deeper, older loyalties, Aksarna.”

  “Don’t call me that,” said Aurora. “Aksarna died long ago. Commonground and the Black Swan are all I have now.”

  “You didn’t die,” said Relic. “You failed. The difference is significant. The dead are devoid of hope, but the fallen may dream of redemption. I know you are haunted by the possibility that you could one day return to Qikiqtabruk with the Jagged Heart, restoring the temple and erasing your shame.”

  “The Jagged Heart was destroyed,” said Aurora. “My soul was bound to it. My spirit died when the tip was shattered. It’s only my stubborn body that carries on.”

  “Wrong, wrong, and wrong,” said Relic. “The Jagged Heart was never so much as scratched. Your soul was never bound to it, despite the teachings of your religion. You may have loved it so much that it felt like a part of you, but this attachment was emotional, not supernatural.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  Relic shook his head. “The eyes are the easiest sense to deceive. The weapon was switched in the moments it was out of your sight; the raiders masked the true shard with dream magic. When you reached the raiders, they brandished a duplicate. It is this you saw shattered.”

  Aurora clenched her jaw. She placed her giant hands over her left breast as her eyes grew moist. “You know nothing. I felt it shatter. You can never understand.”

  “Cling to this falsehood if you wish,” said Relic. “But the Jagged Heart still exists. It’s carried by Lord Tower on his quest. With it, he’ll slay Greatshadow.”

  Infidel rapped her knuckles on the basalt column, a sound like a hammer striking brick. “Sorry to interrupt, but what the hell are you two talking about? What’s the Jagged Heart and why is it any more likely to kill Greatshadow than, say, a pointy stick?”

  Aurora contemplated her question. The sea mist beaded on her leather coat, running down in rivulets, pooling at her feet. At last, she said, “The Jagged Heart was a ceremonial harpoon. As High Priestess, I would use it to hunt the spirit whales in the Great Sea Above. The shaft is carved from the tusk of a narwhale; the blade itself is a knife-sharp fragment of pure ice taken from the shattered heart of Hush, the primal dragon of cold. In shape, the blade resembles the heart from a deck of cards.”

  “A fragment of Hush’s heart?” Infidel asked. “I thought that Verdant was the only primal dragon ever to be slain.”

  “Hush didn’t truly become a primal dragon until her heart was broken. It was only then that the elemental cold filled the vacant space inside her. My people revere Hush; our land rests upon her slumbering back. In exchange for our worship, the dragon grants her followers magical gifts.”

  “Back to the topic at hand, Tower is seriously going to try to kill Greatshadow with a harpoon made of ice?” Infidel rolled her eyes. “This is going to last, what, five seconds inside the volcano?”

  “The Jagged Heart can negate any heat it encounters. Cold is the true condition of all existence; heat is merely a local aberration. If the Heart still exists, it’s the perfect weapon to destroy Greatshadow. Of course, someone would need to carry it within striking distance of the dragon. That’s a nearly impossible task.”

  “‘Nearly impossible’ is semantically the same as ‘possible,’” said Relic. “With Lord Tower involved, it’s probable. He wears the Armor of Faith. It will shield him from Greatshadow’s powers.”

  Infidel nodded. “Yeah, I guess that would work.”

  Now it was Aurora’s turn to look puzzled. “Armor of Faith?”

  “It looks like a suit of plate armor,” said Infidel. “It encases Tower completely and is filled with a lot of gears and ratchets that enhance his strength. Pretty much nothing can penetrate it.”

  “Greatshadow’s breath melts armor,” said Aurora.

  “If it’s metal. But this armor is made of prayer. The Church of the Book has a team of monks whose sole job is to pray Tower’s armor into existence. One monk does nothing but pray for the helmet, another prays for the greaves, another guy prays for the shoulder pads, and so on. Every single gear and rivet on this thing has a monk — actually a whole squad of monks — whose only spiritual duty is to maintain their unceasing faith that the armor can’t be so much as scratched.”

  Aurora nodded slowly. “Very well. Let’s suppose the armor work
s. Tower can reach Greatshadow and slay his body. Then what? This is a primal dragon, the very spirit of fire. There’s a little of Greatshadow’s essence in all flame. You need to extinguish every fire in the world at once to truly kill him. If you overlooked a single flickering candle, he could eventually weave a new body and seek vengeance.”

  “This is why Lord Tower doesn’t travel alone,” said Relic. “The Voice of the Book has issued a Writ of Judgment. A Truthspeaker will read this writ aloud before Greatshadow’s spirit, slaying it.”

  Aurora stroked her chin, rubbing the bulges where her tusks were anchored in her jaw. “I still can’t believe they have the Jagged Heart. Maybe they’re the ones fooled by a replica.”

  “But you would know when you saw it,” said Relic. “And you can see it again. Arrange for Infidel and myself to be hired as mercenaries on the quest, and when we kill Lord Tower, we’ll return the harpoon to you.”

  Aurora shook her head. “I see no reason to trust you with this task. I owe the Black Swan my life, but it’s my sacred duty to recover the Jagged Heart. I’ll resign my position with the Black Swan and petition Lord Tower to join his team on my own. You may attempt the same. I won’t speak against you.”

  Relic glared at her. I could tell he hadn’t considered the possibility that Aurora would take a more direct path toward recovering the artifact.

  Aurora seemed unconcerned by Relic’s baleful gaze. She looked over at Infidel.

  “First the sarong, now a skirt. What’s with your wardrobe lately?”

  Infidel shrugged. “Once I have Greatshadow’s treasure, I’ll hire a team of tailors to follow me around. Until then, I’m getting by with whatever’s handy.”

  “Why are you so confident you can kill Lord Tower? If he’s good enough to take down a primal dragon, I don’t see how an undisciplined brawler like you will stand a chance.”

  Infidel chuckled. “Armor or not, I’ve thought of a thousand different ways of killing Tower. He’ll be dead before he knows what hit him.”

  “A thousand?” asked Aurora, sounding amused. “What’s your grudge against the knight?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” said Infidel, raising her hand and pinching about a half inch of air between her thumb and forefinger, “but I once got this close to marrying the bastard.”

  TO MY GREAT frustration, Aurora didn’t ask to hear the long story, not even a short version of it. Her devotion to the unwritten rules of Commonground was admirable to a fault.

  Relic dismissed Bigsby, telling him his services were no longer needed, as he and Infidel set off for the Black Swan. Aurora walked alone, a few hundred feet ahead. Relic, despite his bent form and hobbling gait, proved to be rather spry, keeping up with Infidel’s tireless pace with no sign of effort.

  The sun was rising by the time we reached the docks. The daylight revealed a half dozen corpses floating in the brine. It was a rare night in Commonground that didn’t yield a few murder victims. Bleary-eyed river-pygmies in dugout canoes poled their ways under the docks, gathering the bodies. Commonground bred strange industries. Pulling the right corpse out of the drink could be the equivalent of winning a lottery. Any given body might turn out to be an outlaw with a price on his head, payable dead or alive. Or, you might recover the corpse of a wayward son of a wealthy family and demand a ransom to return the remains for proper burial. In contrast, my career of looting temples and ruins seemed like honest work.

  As Relic and Infidel approached the Black Swan barge, I noticed that the stream of clients leaving the bar was a bit heavier than usual. It was like the place was emptying out completely. Patrons grumbled as they walked past us, luggage in hand. Some of them were standing around, looking lost as they stared at empty boat slips. It dawned on me that only half the ordinary number of ships were docked this morning. What was going on?

  Waiting at the front door of the Black Swan, arms crossed, were the Three Goons, looking stern. When Aurora walked up to them, No-Face moved to intercept her as Menagerie locked the front door. We were still too far away to hear what the Goons said, but not too far away to hear Aurora’s loud and astonished reply: “What do you mean, I’m fired?”

  Hearing this, Infidel launched herself into the air, covering the distance with a single bound. She landed beside Aurora, not wanting to miss any juicy details, as Menagerie said, “The Black Swan no longer requires your services. This establishment is closed until further notice.”

  “You’re joking,” said Aurora.

  Menagerie shook his head. Reeker chewed a toothpick as he stared at Aurora, obviously amused by her confusion. No-Face slowly tossed the iron ball he carried back and forth between his beefy hands, his attention focused tightly on Aurora, no doubt hoping she’d make trouble. It was almost breakfast time, and it was a rare day when the Goons didn’t beat up someone before breakfast.

  Here’s a quick primer on the Goons: I’ve mentioned No-Face a couple of times. He’s got a flap of scarred skin that hangs down from where a normal man’s eyebrows should be, covering his face like a curtain. There’s a tiny gap on the left side of the flesh-mask where a single pale eye peers out. Perhaps because his eyesight is iffy, he tends to strike anything that moves when he’s in combat, which is why he pegged Infidel that one time. He’s bald, his whole scalp covered with pale, shiny scars from the countless brawls he’s been in. They say he was sold as a baby to a traveling circus for display as a freak, but by the time he was eight he was big and mean enough to take up pit-fighting. Now, he’s seven feet tall, but manages to look squat due to the thickness of his muscles. The only armor he wears is a chain-mail vest; his only weapon is a fifty pound iron ball at the end of a long chain that he keeps rolled around his forearm. I’ve heard he feeds himself by pounding his victims into pulp with the ball, then sucking the remains under his flap into whatever mouth is hidden there.

  Next on the Goon roster is Reeker, a half-seed. Half-seeding is a variant of blood magic, suppressed by the church but never wiped out. Women who wish to get pregnant visit blood-houses to acquire specially prepared animal semen to, shall we say, supplement contributions from their husbands. In theory, the mix of animal and human sperm produces children with desirable qualities. A half-seed bull child will be strong and willful. A half-seed panther, agile and silent. No one knows if Reeker’s mother meant to purchase skunk juice, or if she got burned by an unscrupulous blood-house. The product was a man who can emit odors at will from every bodily orifice. The stench can bring even the toughest fighter to his knees. When Reeker’s not actively shooting out stink clouds, he’s still got a wet-dog whiff to him that makes you envy No-Face’s lack of nose.

  Unlike No-Face, Reeker doesn’t have a scar on him. No one ever gets close enough to land a punch. He’s learned to spit a gob of the worst smelling phlegm you can imagine up to twenty feet, and he’s more than happy to cut a gagging man’s throat to put him out of his misery. Reeker matches his dastardly combat style with a personality that’s all leers and crude jokes. Yet, for reasons I’ve never understood, he’s popular with women, even women who aren’t whores. He’s got a dumpy physique, and, at five-foot-nine, looks tiny next to the other Goons. Maybe it’s his hair. Above a pasty, round face, he’s got a thick, wavy, black mane that any woman would envy, sporting two snow-white streaks running back from his temples.

  The final Goon is Menagerie. He’s about six four and skinny as a rail. He’s normally dressed in a loincloth and sandals, showing off the animal tattoos covering him from the crown of his shaved head to the little gaps between his toes. Most of the animals are predators. He’s got lions, tigers, bears, ohmis (a jungle viper), sharks, and eagles. Being tattooed in Commonground rarely earns you a second glance, though Menagerie has taken his skin art further than the average sailor. What makes Menagerie stand out is that his tattoos are alive, inked in the blood of the various beasts, and infused with their spirits. Stare at them long enough and you’ll swear they’re breathing. No one has ever actually seen one move, but o
ne day the shark will be on his right shoulder, the next day on his left thigh, like it’s swimming around. That’s a neat trick, but it’s not what makes him dangerous. Menagerie’s a shape-shifter. He can surrender his body to any of these spirits, taking on their forms in the blink of an eye. The people he fights face off with a tall, skinny, unarmed man, and two seconds later they’ve had their hand bitten off by an alligator, their guts raked by a tiger, and have a rattlesnake clamped down on their jugular.

  Remember I told you that No-Face wasn’t the Goon people were really afraid of? Menagerie is the Goon people are really afraid of.

  Back to the confrontation: Aurora clenched her fists. “Stand aside. What you’re saying makes no sense.”

  Menagerie shook his head. “We both know that everything the Black Swan does makes sense, even if we mere mortals are blind to the logic.”

  Reeker spit out his toothpick. “Heh. Maybe the bar ain’t profitable now that Stagger’s pushing daisies.”

  If it was possible to die from a mean look, Reeker would have joined me in the afterlife from the glare Infidel gave him. No-Face found the crack funny, judging from the muffled, farting, “hur hur hur,” that filtered from beneath his face flap.