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.