“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? You’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.