I spent most of my time drifting near the two women, mostly because of my craving for Infidel’s company, but also because of the circle of chilled air that surrounded Aurora. Even as a ghost, the jungle heat was unpleasant. Still, being a traveling ghost wasn’t all bad. On my trips through the jungle while I was alive, I was normally too exhausted by hiking to enjoy the scenery. In my weightless, ogre-cooled comfort zone, I had time to appreciate the rich tapestry we walked through. If everything around us was the work of the Divine Author, he had a sense of playfulness when it came to the colors surrounding us. Translucent pink salamanders the size of bananas crawled over dark jade leaves big enough to use as a tent. Parrots and parakeets the color of lemons and oranges flitted between chocolate-brown tree trunks, devouring iridescent copper beetles and finger-length ants red as chili peppers. Orchids blossomed in every nook and cranny, flowers I’d only seen in botany books — yellow and black tipsy tigers, snow-white wedding gloves, pale purple danglers. The breeze was a heady mix of their perfumes; though, little by little, the floral aroma was getting drowned out by the low-tide stench of Reeker as he and the Deceiver slowed their pace to skirt the bubble of cool air surrounding Aurora.
“Allow me to apologize for Father Ver,” said the Deceiver, looking back at Aurora with a friendly smile. “His church teaches that ogres and mermen and the like are false beings, existing as sort of a shared dream that will all be wiped away when the world finally awakes to the truth. I pity him for the limits of his worldview. I personally am happy to be in the company of someone who knows ice magic.”
Aurora gave him a suspicious look. Even a compliment felt dangerous coming from the man. Still, I wondered if I was giving him a fair shake. I distrusted Deceivers mainly because the church had drilled into my brain from an early age that heretics like Zetetic were the incarnation of evil. That same church harbored a supply of knife-wielding maniacs dedicated to stabbing the woman I loved. Perhaps I needed to keep an open mind.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the magic of your people,” Zetetic continued. “It’s based on completely different theories of reality than those that are taught by the Church of the Book. Since Father Ver believes he is in possession of the sole path to truth, your mere presence is a threat to him. The undeniable evidence that your magic works undermines everything he believes. No wonder he hates you.”
Aurora shrugged. “I don’t care what he thinks.”
“A healthy attitude,” said Zetetic. Then he turned toward Relic, who was hobbling along near Infidel. “The ruins of the Vanished Kingdom are filled with idols of gods long since forgotten. I’d love to learn more about who these gods were, and what the men of your time believed.”
Relic shrugged. “The men of my time were no different than the men of today. There was no one great, universal truth accepted by all. In the end, it mattered little who or what was worshipped. Time wiped away both the just and unjust. The followers of the dog-god vanished from the world just as completely as the followers of the snake-god. The temples where a thousand men gathered to sing the praises of their makers are now hidden beneath roots and rocks. I cannot help but think that, no matter what men believe to be true, over a long enough time scale, it will be proven false.”
Zetetic smiled. “Just because an idea is eventually false doesn’t mean it wasn’t true once. We Deceivers are smeared as believing that the world is created from shared lies. It’s more accurate, however, to say that the world is composed of contradictory truths.”
“How can truths be contradictory?” asked Aurora. “Things either are, or they aren’t. It can’t be both night and day at the same time.”
“It can if the world is a sphere,” said Zetetic. “In your homeland it is always winter; here it is always summer. If I could travel instantly between the two physical spaces and ask the season, I would receive two contrary yet true answers. People are limited to thinking that their immediate experiences represent all that is real. The Church of the Book believes one model of reality, while Weavers, blood magicians, and somnomancers all are certain that they are in sole possession of the actual truth of the world. You can’t blame people for thinking that these competing ideas can’t all be correct. But, what if reality is large enough to accommodate everything? What if we live in a world where all truth is local? What if, on the grand scale, everything that can be imagined is true?”
“Remind me not to ask you any more questions,” grumbled Aurora.
“I’m merely trying to pass the time with some intellectually stimulating conversation.”
“The only thing I need stimulated is my spine,” said Aurora, with a hint of strain in her voice. She shifted the oversize pack she hauled to redistribute the weight to her left shoulder. “What the hell does Tower have in the packs? Anvils?”
“If your load is heavy, perhaps I could be of assistance.”
Aurora gave the Deceiver’s slender form a quizzical look. “What? You’ll tell me some lie about the gear? Convince me that it’s lighter?”
Reeker suddenly became much more alert.
“Uh-uh,” he said, grabbing Zetetic by the arm and pulling him a yard further up the trail from the ogress. “If you try to use your powers, I’m supposed to give you a full blast of juice.”
Zetetic frowned. “You wound me, sir. I was merely offering aid to a member of the fairer sex. Have you no sense of chivalry?”
Aurora snorted. “He’s the wrong guy to ask that question.”
The faintest trace of a snicker flickered over Infidel’s face.
“Reeker’s the worst womanizer I’ve ever seen,” said Aurora. “He’s slept with every whore in Commonground without paying a dime. Treats them like something you’d scrape off a boot, and still they line up outside the bar waiting for him.”
Reeker didn’t look offended by this summary of his character. Instead, he slicked back the white streak in his hair and said, “Aurora, honey, I’d be happy to show you what the women are so hungry for.”
Zetetic stroked his chin as he studied the skunk-man. “I suspect his secret is musk.”
Reeker cut him a sideways glance.
Zetetic wasn’t deterred. “Most mammals use scent to convey sexual signals. With his control of aromas, perhaps Reeker is seducing women on a primal level with odors they aren’t consciously aware of.”
Reeker poked the Deceiver in the chest. “You don’t know nothing! Women like me for my good looks and charm.”
Zetetic held up his palms. “I meant no offense. However, since I lack your striking features and erudite manners, I’m left with only simple kindness with which to befriend women. This is why I’d like to help Aurora.”
“No magic!” said Reeker, again with a finger-poke.
“I don’t really do magic,” said Zetetic. “I only tell lies. What have you to fear from a mere liar?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Reeker. “But you’re lying in saying you’re a liar. Or not a liar. Or not lying about... I mean, you’re not telling the truth in... what I’m saying is...” He furrowed his brow as he got lost ever deeper in the thicket of the sentence he was attempting to construct.
“You’re trying to say I’m lying about being merely a liar,” said Zetetic. “That’s an astute observation. Any man can tell a lie. I know how to make the universe believe it.”
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Relic gasped loudly. His staff fell from his gnarled hand as he collapsed to the ground, completely limp.
“My head is not a safe place to eavesdrop,” Zetetic said, sneering down. Then, while Reeker was looking at the fallen hunchback, the Deceiver casually placed a hand on Aurora’s pack. His gaze met the ogress’s eyes as he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, “I’m big enough to lift this pack with one hand.”
Reeker spun around and spat, sending a gob of yellow goo toward Zetetic’s face. Only, by the time the spit had crossed the five-foot gap between them, Zetetic’s face was replaced by a giant ankle, and Aurora was jerked from her feet.
Everyone looked up through the hole that had suddenly been punched in the canopy. Zetetic was now two hundred feet tall, holding the pack by a single finger looped under a rope. Aurora dangled beneath the pack, looking no bigger than a rat.
“I do believe I’ve remembered another appointment,” Zetetic said, laughing, his voice booming like thunder. He flicked his arm toward the ocean, sending Aurora and her pack flying in a long arc down the slope.
Infidel knelt next to Relic. She whispered, “You alright?”
Relic sucked air through clenched teeth, then said, “His thoughts... like razors... my mind... is bleeding...”
Infidel shrugged off the shoulder straps of her pack, letting it drop to the ground in a clatter. She cracked her knuckles and looked up with the same eager grin she always brought to fights where she could beat up someone bigger. Her face fell into shadow as Zetetic’s sandaled foot flew down toward her and Relic. Infidel whirled around, kicking, catching Relic in the gut and launching him out of the stomp-zone. She crouched to jump away but was too late. The giant foot slammed into her with a shudder that shook the whole mountain.
Zetetic jumped, knocking over trees, flying down the slope a good fifty yards before crashing back to earth, waving his arms to maintain his balance on the uneven terrain. Off in the distance, perhaps a half-mile away, I caught a glimpse of Aurora and her pack tumbling head over heels, on the verge of vanishing once more into the canopy. Then, in a sudden flash of light, her downward arc was intercepted by the shining silver form of Lord Tower, catching the ogress in his outstretched arms. Her pack tore loose at the impact, sending a spray of camping gear out over the treetops.
As difficult as it was to tear my eyes from this spectacle, I turned back to Infidel, who was splayed out in the center of a giant footprint. With a grunt, she popped her face up from the earth. She spat out a mouthful of black jungle dirt as she sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Satisfied she wasn’t hurt, I turned my attention back toward the Deceiver. He had leapt again. His robes were tattered below his knees, shredded by the ancient trees he pushed aside like tall brush. Long streamers of blood-tangle vines trailed behind him as he fled down the mountain.
Lord Tower had circled around and now shot like an arrow toward the Deceiver’s chin, the Gloryhammer blazing like a second sun in his outstretched arm. Aurora hugged his chest for dear life, in a death-grip that probably would have crushed anyone not encased in enchanted armor. Yet, before the knight could strike, Zetetic swung out with his tree-sized right arm and back-handed the knight in mid-air, sending him shooting back toward the ocean, looking like a spiraling comet as Aurora left a trail of bright snow in their wake.
Infidel rose back to her feet just in time to see Father Ver fly past, his hands locked onto the hide of a large tiger that effortlessly carried the old man. I followed as they caromed down the mountainside, leaping from rock to log, covering the quarter-mile to the giant’s ankles in a span of seconds. The Truthspeaker cupped both hands around his mouth and shouted, “You will go no further!”
The Deceiver smirked as he spun away from the Truthspeaker’s voice. His smirk changed to a frown, however, as his feet remained firmly planted on the ground. He raised his hands, feeling the air before him as if it were an invisible wall.
“You are no giant! You are a vile fabricator who will turn and face me at your true size!”
Zetetic’s face contorted as his limbs jerked. “Graaah!” he cried out as he began to shrink, swinging his arms before him as if swatting at unseen bees. “Graaah! Naayaaah!”
With each second that passed he shed size, dropping to fifty feet, twenty, ten, and then he was only a man again, face to face with a panting tiger and a very angry cleric.
Zetetic held up his hands and gave a sheepish grin. “You can’t blame a fellow for trying.”
Father Ver had a different opinion, which he expressed by leaping off the tiger and planting his bony fist squarely in the center of the Deceiver’s mouth. Zetetic spun from the blow, falling to his hands and knees.
He spat out blood and growled, “You bast—”
Father Ver silenced him by kicking him in the throat. The Deceiver fell to his back, his arms flopped out to his sides. Father Ver dropped with his knees, straddling the Deceiver’s chest as he pummeled the man’s face.
“Blasphemer!” Father Ver screamed. “Accursed malignancy! May your filthy name be erased from the Book!”
Zetetic raised his hands to block the blows, but the priest simply knocked them aside and continued to rain down punishment. Menagerie changed from tiger back to human and leaned against a fallen tree, his arms crossed as he watched the whirl of violence. Reeker and No-Face reached the area a moment later, saying nothing as they stared at the beating unfolding before them.
The Deceiver’s arms fell limp. He’d never gotten in a single blow. Father Ver’s fists trailed blood as he cut his knuckles pounding his victim’s teeth. The Deceiver’s pale face began to resemble a scary clown, as bright red blood painted his cheeks with a lopsided grin.
Ivory Blade and the Whisper suddenly bounded into the triangle formed by the Goons. Blade grabbed the Truthspeaker by the shoulders and tried to pull him off the fallen man.
“You’re going to kill him!” he growled, as he tugged at the cleric’s robes. With the Whisper’s help he pulled the elderly man back to his feet. Blade grabbed Father Ver by the collar and said, “Calm yourself. You don’t need to sink to his level.”