“I don’t speak the lingo, guys,” said Infidel. “I do know a little river-pygmy. Nanda chaka? Gratan doy bro?” Her accent was atrocious. She probably meant to ask if anyone knew river-pygmy, but instead she was asking if anyone had a canoe in their mouth. It didn’t matter; the forest-pygmies didn’t seem to understand her anyway.
She sighed. “I’m not getting of here without hurting a lot of you, am I?”
“I think there’s been enough hurting here today,” said a man’s voice from high in the trees above. The speaker used the crisp, finely enunciated syllables of a Silver Isle accent; it could have been Lord Tower speaking, except the voice wasn’t as deep or forceful. “Are you responsible for this slaughter?”
“Not me,” said Infidel. “There was this invisible woman who went crazy and, uh… hell, that’s just not believable at all is it?”
“Not terribly,” said the voice above.
Infidel shrugged. “If I was any good at lying, I’d make up something. But, there really was an invisible woman. She cracked a few swords over my head as well. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
The branches above rustled. Suddenly, a patch of green, the color of moss, lowered down toward the platform on a slowly descending loop of vine. It was no pygmy. It was an elderly man of normal stature, wearing only the same gourd codpiece as the pygmies, his skin dyed green. He was all bones and skin, his flesh covering his thin limbs like aged leather. His hair was a few long green strands braided down the back of his scalp. His eyes were a sharp and penetrating blue.
“Who are you?” he asked, as his vine brought him to the platform.
“Who are you?” Infidel answered.
The old man scowled, then cocked his head, as if he was searching for some bit of information just beyond his grasp. “It’s been a while since anyone asked that question. The Jawa Fruit tribe calls me Tenoba. It means old long gourd. Among your people, my name… my name was…”
He paused, trying to remember how to say the words. It didn’t matter. I knew what he was about to say before he said it.
A light flickered in his ancient eyes. “My name,” he said, “was Judicious Merchant.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was too stunned by my grandfather being alive to closely follow the swirl of activity that unfolded. A wounded pygmy at the edge of the platform verified that they had, indeed, been attacked by something invisible, and confirmed that Infidel hadn’t hurt anyone. Forest-pygmy scouts were rushing up, telling about the fight further down slope, and how a group of long-men had killed the invisible assassin. I would have focused more on what they were saying, but I was too busy doing math in my head. My father had me when he was twenty-three. Judicious had been twenty-five when he sired Studious. So… that meant the man standing before me was ninety-eight.
For a man two years shy of a century, he looked pretty good. He still had all his teeth, for starters, even if they were the same jade hue as the rest of him. When he moved, he was as fluid as a jungle cat, without a hint of the stiffness or weakness that hampered most people his age. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him; his wrinkled leather skin sat atop wiry muscles so sharply defined you could have taught an anatomy class using them. Of course, I was seeing more of that anatomy than I truly wanted to. It’s one thing to discover your long lost grandfather is still alive. It’s another thing entirely to learn he’s a grass-colored nudist with his privates stuffed into a dried fruit.
“I knew your grandson, Stagger,” said Infidel.
Grandpa frowned.
“His real name was Abstemious Merchant.”
I winced on hearing my birth name. I must have been really drunk to have told her. Abstemious means someone with control of his appetites… perhaps my father’s lapse on his vow of celibacy inspired the choice. Stuck with this moniker, it was only a matter of time before I became an incurable drunkard.
My grandfather frowned even deeper. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve had seven wives. My children have produced scores of grandchildren. I’m afraid the name isn’t triggering any memories.”
The words were like a slap in the face. I’d revered this man. I lived on the Isle of Fire in imitation of his greatness. He didn’t even remember my name?
Infidel produced the bone-handled knife. “You gave him this when he was ten.”
My grandfather took the blade, sliding it in and out of the sheath. He scowled as he saw the dried blood smeared along the metal. “He didn’t take care of it. It’s dirty.”
“He took great care of it,” said Infidel. “He kept it clean and sharp for forty years. If it’s dirty, it’s my fault.”
“Hmm.” Suddenly, a light flickered in his blue eyes. “I remember this knife. The handle was carved from the tibia of a dragon.”
Or so he thought. He’d told me this when he gave me the knife, but one of the monks who specialized in the study of anatomy had assured me the bone was merely that of a bull. But, what if the monk had been wrong? If the hilt truly was dragon-bone, could the magic that infused dragons explain how my spirit had become ensnared by the knife?
As Judicious turned the knife over in his hands, he nodded slowly, as if he were accepting the memories flooding back to him. “I had a son who became a monk. Studious, I think? He had a bastard child raised in an orphanage. That was Abstemious?”
“Yes.”
Grandfather grinned. “I recall him now. Bright kid. Voracious reader. He became a monk?”
“He became you,” said Infidel. “Or, at least his dream of you. He was an explorer, a scholar, and a storyteller. No one knew more than him about the ruins of the Vanished Kingdom. He lived in your old boat in Commonground.”
“I notice you’re speaking in the past tense.”
Infidel nodded.
Grandfather sighed. “I outlive many of my relatives.” He looked down the slope, in the direction of Tower’s party. “I suppose, if you’re friends of the family, I should show a little hospitality. Go tell your companions they’re welcome to stay the night in our huts.”
“I’m not sure they’ll take you up on the offer,” said Infidel. “The leader of the party is kind of snooty.”
“Still, extend the offer.”
Infidel nodded. “If they accept, you need to know that I’m pretending to be a machine. I don’t talk around them.”
“Ah,” said Grandfather. “I wondered why you were dyed silver. I thought it might be some new fashion. You fooled me, by the way. When I first saw you from the trees, I mistook you for one of the ancient engines, and wondered how you were still intact. You reminded me of a mechanical dancer I once excavated. A lovely, wondrous thing, though I never found her head. The clockwork that used to drive her had long-since corroded, but I’m still left breathless by the cleverness of the men who once lived on this island.”
The pygmy huts were better described as tree houses. I’d never been in one before, though I’d caught sight of them often enough. The floor of the forest can be a quiet place; the real action is unfolding high above in the canopy. Here, the forest-pygmies had woven together seemingly endless ropes from blood-tangle vines and strung them together in a complex network of swinging bridges. Houses were built with floors of dense netting spread from branch to branch, with roofs of still-living vines and branches woven together overhead. The floors seemed solid enough when the pygmies flitted across them, but once Lord Tower began to carry the party up to the huts, the platforms sagged ominously beneath the weight. The floor weavers had probably never planned for someone as large as Aurora to visit. No-Face swiftly moved toward the thick trunk of the tree that formed one corner of a large communal area and wrapped his chain around it, with his good arm still coiled in the links. It was hard to read the mood of a man who didn’t have expressions, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t like heights.