I knew as well: the southeast slope of the volcano is cut through by a whitewater river that cascades all the way to the sea, about ten miles distant.
“We’re practically home!” she shouted.
I was of a different opinion. Many years ago, a palm-reader in Commonground told me I’d die of drowning. More poetically, she’d told me, “The sea will swallow your bones.” It had been one reason I hadn’t joined Infidel on the
Freewind
. I extend my caution by never imbibing anything weak enough for a fish to live in.
“Jump!” Infidel yelled.
“Let’s weigh our options!” I shouted back.
Of course, arguing was pointless. Infidel pulled herself up on the thick root she held, clamping onto it with her teeth. With her now free hand, she punched the cliff wall. The root-draped stone beneath me crumbled.
As I dropped, Infidel grabbed me by the shoulder, pulling me toward her. She wrapped her arm around me, pressing me tight against her unbreakable body. Her breasts flattened against my back as she spooned me, curling us into a ball with her powerful legs. Her breath was hot against my neck. We fell through darkness, weightless.
I couldn’t breathe. Partially because Infidel’s arm across my belly was as gentle as a python, but, even more, because I so often dream of Infidel’s embrace. She’d been a mere teen when I met her; I a worn-out drunk twice her age. I’d watched as she’d ripped the arm off a bold warrior two feet taller than her who’d pawed her lithe body as she’d stood at the bar of the
Black Swan
. I wasn’t the only man to witness this that quickly decided an attempt at seduction wasn’t worth the risk.
I was, however, the only one who bought her a cider that evening and told her tales of the ruined cities hidden in the jungle. I’ve always been quick to make friends. Fate has brought me many fortunes over the years, and I’ve spent those fortunes making sure the patrons of the
Black Swan
never go thirsty. Yet, I’ve never had a friend quite so true as Infidel. Her lightness balances my darkness; her recklessness makes the ongoing foolishness of my life look like sage wisdom. The two of us laugh together freely, and trust each other with our lives. I’m the one person who would never betray her for the obscenely large bounty on her head. She’s the one person who never abandons me when my money runs out and I’m suddenly begging for drinks.
Never once in ten years of friendship has a night passed in which I didn’t fantasize about her touch. I’ve never spoken a word of my secret passion. She means too much to me. It’s not my arm I fear losing; it’s her company. Our time together is so much sweeter than our time apart.
As dreamlike as her embrace might be, there was the unfortunate reality that we weren’t in a bed, we were hurtling toward a dark, raging river. With a horrible jolt, Infidel’s shoulder cracked a boulder. We bounced into the torrent and her grip loosened. I inhaled, a bad move since my head was under water. We slammed into another rock and I slipped from her grasp. My face popped above the surface for a second and I coughed, water spraying from my lips. I sucked a cupful of air and croaked, weakly, “Infidel!”
She didn’t answer as I bobbed along, careening from rock to rock. In moments of panic, the mind can grasp onto the most trivial details, and I noticed I’d lost my knife. Infidel either misplaced or broke her weapons on a daily basis, but I’d carried this knife for forty years; it had been a gift from my grandfather. For a fleeting second, finding the knife felt like a priority. Then, from the thunder ahead, I realized that I was about to be swept over a waterfall, and my new priority became not to do so. I clawed desperately at boulders, but my hands had no strength. I still could only gulp small mouthfuls of air. The rocks pummeled me like the fists of giants. The knife-sharp pain that had torn my gut while running sliced me from groin to gullet. The water pushed me under and I went numb.
They say that drowning men see their lives pass before them. I could only see the fortune teller, an old woman with dark eyes, her ears sporting gold rings and thick tufts of gray hair. Her voice crackled like dry leaves as she traced the line of my palm and told me how I’d meet my end.
Of course, she’d told Caleb the Crusher that he’d die by hanging, and he’d been the man whose arm Infidel had torn off on her first night in Commonground. You have to question the skills of a diviner who misses such a fate.
I slammed into a rock face first. Stars danced before me, changing to snowflakes as they showered down in the darkness. I found myself standing before Aurora, the ice-ogress who serves as the main muscle at the
Black Swan
. She was discussing the small matter of my bar tab. In the three months Infidel had been at sea, I’d been a little freer with my purse than usual. When I confessed that I had no money, Aurora had pointed out that a man was never completely without assets. Artfully butchered, human flesh could pass for pork; only a few coins per pound, but for a grown man that added up. I assured her that once Infidel returned, my fortunes would improve. She gave me thirty days. It was thirty-two days later when Infidel got back. Unfortunately, the
Freewind
had been on the losing side of the pirate wars. This was in no way Infidel’s fault, but it meant that she’d not received the bonus promised to her in the event of victory. Given the way the Black Swan calculated interest, the handful of coins Infidel had been paid failed to dent my debt. Thus, not for the first time in my life, I was off to plunder the ancient tombs and temples of the Vanished Kingdom.
As I was swept over the lip of the waterfall, I took some small measure of comfort that my corpse would be sufficiently mangled that Aurora couldn’t even sell it as dog food.
The drop proved to be the shortest distance I’d fallen that evening, a trifling fifty-foot plunge into a broad pool. The water at the base of the fall roiled. In the turbulence, I couldn’t even guess which direction was up and which was down. The shallow gulps of air I’d gotten bobbing in the river were exhausted in seconds. My leather armor was heavy as steel plates. The pounding water pinned me. Yet, the pain and pressure felt distant. The water was warm, heated by the volcano, almost pleasant. The polished gravel beneath me was as comfortable as a feather bed. I went limp, all my weariness flowing from me like bubbles from my lips. There were worse ways to die.
As I was about to discover.
Just as I was on the verge of sleep and surrender, a strong hand grabbed my hair. I was tugged into the air and tossed over Infidel’s left shoulder like a sack of sodden potatoes. She was still carrying the dragon skull, her fist shoved inside the base. She waded through knee-deep water as I draped across her back, my eyes at the level of her heart-shaped buttocks. Water poured out of my lips and nose, but I couldn’t muster the will to inhale.
Infidel laid me on a beach of black sand, dropping the skull beside me, then straightened, shaking her head to get the hair from her eyes. She looked as soggy as a drowned rat; her torn pirate blouse hung from her arms like flaps of skin on a once-fat man. Her hair was plastered to her scalp, knotted so horribly that she needed a razor more than a comb. At some point, her necklace of molars must have snapped. The only evidence it had ever been there was a single tooth wedged between her hip and the top of her broad belt. Despite her sorry condition, her waterlogged clothes revealed the magnificent paradox of her body, the sleek and sultry curves that sat atop angular, iron muscles.
I spotted something amiss on her flawless form. A dark red stain glistened atop her left shoulder. I sucked in a spoonful of air, the effort making me tremble, and whispered, “You’re bleeding.”
She frowned as she followed my gaze to the crimson circle that seeped out across her blouse in ever-lightening shades of pink. Her eyes grew wide. In the adventures we’d shared, I’d only seen her bleed three times. Once, No-Face had caught her square in the mouth with his ball and chain, producing a split lip. He’d hit her by accident and she didn’t hold grudges, which was the only reason he was still alive. The same couldn’t be said for the bounty hunter who’d gone after her with a shadow sword. He’d crisscrossed her arms with a dozen cuts before she wrestled the blade away. They’d had to carry out what was left of him in buckets. And, of course, there had been the tussle with that mechanical tiger with the diamond-tipped claws. The only scars on her otherwise flawless legs had come from that fight.
Her face turned pale as she pushed the remnants of her pirate blouse down her shoulder, revealing streaks of red across her ivory skin. She wiped away the blood with her fingers, leaving behind smooth, unblemished flesh.
She looked back at me, her face turning whiter still.
I looked down. I understood why I couldn’t breathe.
The good news was, I’d found my knife.
The bone handle was jutting from the waist of my leather armor. Eight inches of honed steel were lodged in my gut. I couldn’t feel a thing, but blood pulsed from the wound with every fading heartbeat.
Infidel dropped to her knees. I looked up at her, her face so bright as the world around me darkened. I took in another thimble of air and mumbled, “Tell the f-fortune teller... I want... my m-money back.”
Infidel frowned, then just as quickly grinned. “You faker,” she giggled. “It’s nothing more than a scratch.” She grabbed the edge of my vest with both hands. The thick leather tore like tissue paper in her superhuman grasp.
Her jaw went slack.
It was something more than a scratch.
Her gaze met mine once more, and for the first time ever I saw tears gleaming in her eyes, her lovely eyes, a pale blue-gray, the ephemeral color sometimes found on the horizon of the ocean, where you can no longer tell where the sky ends and the water begins.
I couldn’t let my final words to her be some joke, some quip that hid the great secret truth of my life. I managed to swallow another mouthful of air and whispered, “I... have always... l-loved you.”
“Stagger,” she whispered back, eyes closing, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh, Stagger.”
I closed my eyes as well, unable to spare the strength to keep them open. My heartbeat fluttered in my ears, faint and failing. I hoped I could die at peace now; I’d confessed what I should have revealed ten years before. And yet... and yet there was one thing more. One last secret haunting me as I slipped toward my final rest. My blood turned cold as the guilt of my only betrayal of Infidel’s trust pulsed through me.
I mouthed the words, my voice barely audible, “I... didn’t lose... the m-map. I... s-sold it... to the... the... f-fishmon—” My voice failed. I tried to breathe but couldn’t. My body refused to obey, save for my eyes, which opened once more.
Infidel’s face was inches from my own. Her lips were puckered. I had the distinct impression she was about to kiss me. Then her eyes snapped open. She jerked upward as my final words sank in.
“You did
what?
” she asked.
I tried to answer, but it was no use. My body was done for. I couldn’t even close my eyes. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she said. Her words were lost beneath the roar of waves from a distant, invisible ocean. Behind her, I could see the bright orange faces of lava-pygmies as they emerged from the forest, holding spears tipped with glassy black rock above their heads, preparing to strike. I couldn’t warn her. I couldn’t do anything except drift upward. Whatever essence there may be of a man that is separate from his body had come loose as my heart went silent. I found myself floating, a shapeless, formless thing, a fog composed of memories and broken dreams, cut free from my flesh.
I looked down though non-existent eyes at the scene beneath me. Spears were bouncing off Infidel’s back. She rose with a snarl, yanking the bone-handled knife from my belly. Normally, I love to watch Infidel in combat. She fights like the unholy union of a bobcat and a ballerina, a whirlwind of blades and laughter that traces the landscape around her with long and looping arcs of blood.
But, I paid little mind as she raced toward the first pygmy and delivered a kick that sent him flying above the treetops. Instead, I looked down at the sorry, sodden thing that I’d once thought of as me. I hadn’t made it to fifty, but the mask of wrinkles around my eyes could have belonged to a man twice that age. My cheeks and chin were speckled with scraggly white stubble; I couldn’t grow a decent beard on a bet. My shoulder-length hair was streaked through with gray, and my pony-tail did nothing to hide the scaly bald patch at the back of my skull. I was tall, and in my better days my torso had been shaped like a V, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Until this moment, I always pictured myself with that body, and had never accepted that the bottom of the V had gotten lost beneath an O, a big, oval jug of jiggling fat that must inevitably attach itself to a man who loved his liquor as much as I did.
With my eyeless vision, I could see the truth of who I’d been: a fat, half-bald old drunk who’d been vain enough to fantasize that a woman whom the gods must surely envy might one day love him.
As my consciousness expanded, ever wider, ever thinner, I was dimly aware that I’d miss that man.
Then, I had no awareness at all.
Or, more accurately, I had awareness, but no will, no ability to guide my perceptions or ponder the scenes I saw. I was spread through all things. I was present in the dark depths of the ocean, floating beside hideous fish with lantern eyes and jaws like bear-traps. I was present in the jungle, slithering among the branches crawling with snakes and toads and beetles, all in rainbow hues brighter than gemstones. I was present in the bars of Commonground, where battle-weary veterans of the pirate wars stumbled along the uneven boardwalks as whores called out for their company. I could feel all the lust and loneliness of their moments, all the sorrowful joy that spills into the universe when two strangers touch in intimacy.