“Yes,” said Sorrow. “Time-weaving is one of the abstract arts, the highest class of witchcraft. I manipulate material objects, but dream of one day expanding my powers to the manipulation of abstract forces. Avaris is the only witch to have mastered all the material and abstract realms. If I could speak with her for even five minutes, I’m certain the knowledge I could gain would transform me.”
Infidel nodded. “So, when you went to the Isle of Grass, you were looking for Purity. And, if you could, you’d like to learn a few things from Avaris?”
“I sense a hint of disapproval in your tone.”
“History is a subject that bores me, but even I’ve heard stories about Avaris. She’s one of the most evil women who ever lived. She used to eat children!”
“History is written by victors,” said Sorrow. “Once, the weavers were a force to be reckoned with, willful women with powers rivaling those of gods. The men of this world could not tolerate the threat to their sovereignty, and used the Church of the Book to turn the world against the weavers and hunt them down. Unfortunately, men possess a greater stomach for bloodshed and brutality than most women. They ended the era of weavers through a campaign of violence. They now ensure the subservience of women through a phallocentric mythology that treats us as inferior beings.”
Infidel cracked her knuckles. “I like to think I’m doing my small part to help women get back into the bloodshed and brutality business.”
“I’m not content with playing a small part,” Sorrow said, clenching her fists. “The world I was born into is fundamentally corrupt. The grand crimes committed against humanity are so audacious that all notions of right and wrong are upended. The rich and the powerful build their civilization upon the backs of the weak, justifying their cruelty and theft with a fictional moral code supposedly enshrined in a book that no man has read.”
Infidel nodded. “Sister, you don’t have to preach to me that civilization is screwed up. That’s why I do everything I can to avoid it.”
“I’m not content to run. I’m going to tear it all down.” There was a hard determination to Sorrow’s voice I found chilling. “I’m going to destroy the Church of the Book, topple the kingdoms of men, and establish a new golden age.”
Infidel stared blankly at Sorrow for half a minute, uncertain what to say. Finally, she cleared her throat. “It’s good to have goals.”
“Yes,” said Sorrow. “But I need more than goals. I need power, and I need allies. If you’re truly aware of the unjust nature of the world, and even half-deserving of your legend as warrior, why not join me in my battle?”
“Because it’s a stupid battle,” said Infidel.
“How can you be so blind?” asked Sorrow.
Infidel crossed her arms. “I think you’re the one who might be missing her own contradictions. You think you’re wise enough and smart enough to remake the world? Don’t you see that anyone arrogant enough to think that is likely going to wind up making things worse?”
“I would rather try to remake the world and fail than hide in this remote backwater and avoid the struggle for justice.”
“If you think I avoid struggles on the Isle of Fire, you’ve got a lot to learn.”
“You fight pointless battles against freaks and scoundrels. It’s hardly a worthy struggle.”
“There’s a difference between battles and struggles,” said Infidel. “Fighting is easy for me. My struggle has been to learn to love and trust after being raised in a life where these words had been stripped of meaning. My struggle now is to rise above a life where my main pursuit has been to amuse myself, and remake myself into a mother who can raise a child. I’ve lived most of my life stuck with the same attitudes and emotions I had when I was fifteen. My struggle is simply to grow up.”
“Wouldn’t you rather raise your child in a world more just than this one?”
Infidel shrugged. “This world isn’t so bad. Stagger used to take me up into the jungle, where we’d explore vine-draped ruins and eat fruit fresh straight from the tree. We’d make our beds under stars so bright and crisp it looked like the sky was full of glorystones. Civilization might have its problems, but the world... the world’s all right.”
“What a waste of your talents,” Sorrow said.
“It sounds like you’ve got more powerful allies in mind anyway. What about Purity? Did you find her when you visited the Isle of Grass? Was she able to help you?”
“No,” said Sorrow, sounding bitter. “I found only Purity’s grave. The tales of an ageless witch who tormented the northern land proved only a myth.”
“Those Skellings were pretty insistent that someone was stealing their women.” Infidel stood up. The hammer glowed as she rose slowly into the air. She drifted over to the long beam of what had once been the mast of my sail boat, now straddling the branches of three different trees. I noticed for the first time the long, skinny roll of canvas lashed to the mast. Odd. I hadn’t had sails rigged on the boat since I owned it.
She untied the rope and the canvas dropped into her hands. I noticed that the white cloth sparkled like it was coated with diamond dust... or frost. She unrolled the canvas above the deck and the Jagged Heart dropped, tip first, into the wood. The harpoon stood there like a second mast, carved from a spiraling narwhale horn.
“Purity is supposedly stealing their women to build an army to look for this,” said Infidel. “It’s the Jagged Heart. Belonged to a friend of mine named Aurora. The Church of the Book stole it. I’ve made an oath to take it back.”
“The ice ogres may not give you a warm reception,” said Sorrow.
“I’m armed with a big hammer made of solid sunlight,” said Infidel. “They won’t give me any guff.”
“I admire your confidence,” said Sorrow. “But the northern realms are dangerous. Your quest may not be as simple as you think.”
“I think it’s a more realistic goal than wiping out the church and overthrowing all the kingdoms of the world.”
Sorrow sighed, then turned back to my sea-chest and finally opened it. I could taste the clean odor of cedar in the roof of my mouth as she gingerly lifted the lid.
The contents were mostly intact. From my limited view, it looked as if a bottle of squid ink had broken as the boat had tumbled, but the damage was mostly to the items packed on the right side of the chest, where I’d kept blank parchment and writing material. Three quarters of the chest looked untouched by the spill, and this was where I’d stored a life’s worth of maps and notes. Two life’s worth, since at least half the material had been drafted by my grandfather, Judicious Merchant. Waves of nostalgia washed over me as Sorrow began to gingerly lift papers from the chest. Her eyes were wide with excitement.
“Marvelous,” she whispered, as she unrolled a master map of the island. “Well worth my investment, if it leads me to my quarry.”
“You know, I’ve been almost every place Stagger’s been,” said Infidel. “You might save some time if you just asked me for the location of whatever it is you’re looking for.”
“Perhaps. But you’re unfamiliar with the witch nails in my scalp. You’ve never seen them before.”
“So?”
“So I’m looking for more of them. And somewhere on this island, I believe I shall find the grave of Avaris.”
“She’d dead? I thought she was still out there handing out magic powers to mean girls like Purity and the Black Swan.”
“Those leads have proven elusive,” said Sorrow. “The Black Swan denies any connection to Avaris. But there is another oral tradition that says Avaris once had a palace here on the Isle of Fire, where she commanded an army of witches, until they were wiped out by the Church of the Book. According to legend, this island is home to a vast graveyard of weavers. My study of witch nails is hampered by the fact that there are so few weavers left. Much of the knowledge I seek has been lost. My hope is that I will discover nails in the skulls of old weavers that will provide a template for me to take my studies further.”
“Hmm,” said Infidel. “Can’t say I’ve heard about a witch’s graveyard.”
Sorrow flipped through the notebook in her hand. “Did Stagger have any sort of indexing, or organizational system?”
“Sure. If he thought it was important, he put it in the sea chest.”
“This might take a while,” Sorrow grumbled, as she looked at the reams of parchment.
“This might be a waste of time,” said Infidel. “Stagger used to give me long, drunken lectures on pretty much every scrap of stone or bone we yanked out of the ground. He never said a thing about Avaris.”
“He was older than you, correct? He’d explored the island before you met him.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know him. Stagger was... uh... what’s the word I want?”
“Loquacious,” I offered, from my ghost cage.
“Chatty. Get a few pints in him and he wouldn’t shut up. I’ve heard about every damn rock he ever turned over in this jungle.” She sighed, placing her arms across her chest in a way that looked almost like she was trying to hug herself. “By the sacred quill, he used to bore me, but it was worth sitting through an hour of meandering drudgery for the five minutes of brilliant wit that would suddenly spill from him. He’d make me laugh ’til my face hurt.” She shook her head. “Now, I even miss the boring lectures.”
“I wish I could have met him,” said Sorrow. “I’ve heard he was the best authority on the secrets of this island.”
Again, I appreciated the irony that Sorrow had stripped herself of the chance to have what she really wanted, which was a conversation with me. Of course, I would have disappointed her. I’d never found the legendary witch’s graveyard. I took a little delight in knowing that the woman who’d imprisoned me had wasted her money buying my papers. There was nothing in those notes or maps that would direct her to Avaris.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t have some idea of where to look. I do know my history, after all. Supplement this with a little legend and rumor, and I knew where I’d start looking, based on three pieces of evidence.
Item One: The weavers had reached the peak of their collective powers five hundred years ago, during the rein of King Glorified Brightmoon. Ol’ Glory, as he was called, vowed to wipe out all the witches in his kingdom, and commissioned a blacksmith to craft a weapon up to the job... the Gloryhammer. He entrusted the weapon to one of his best knights, Stark Tower, ancestor of Infidel’s former fiancé. As impressive as the Gloryhammer might be, Stark actually took his duties so seriously that the had an even more dangerous weapon commissioned, an ebony sword called the Witchbreaker. This blade was said to be forged from iron stolen from the gates of hell. Anyone killed by the blade was instantly banished to the pits.
As you might guess from someone who felt the need for such a weapon, Stark took a no-nonsense approach to his job, and eventually people started calling
him
Witchbreaker instead of the sword. According to legend, he killed over ten thousand witches. He was allowed to keep any valuables his victims might have had, and if they had children, he had the legal authority to sell them into slavery. The Tower clan remains obscenely wealthy to this day.
Like any rich person, Stark liked to travel in comfort. When Avaris fled more civilized climes to set up shop on the Isle of Fire, it’s said that Stark gave chase in nine ships filled with servants and building supplies and erected a castle for the duration of his stay.
Item two: The bay of Commonground is the only place on the island with a safe harbor for cargo ships carrying enough swag to equip a castle. Odds are excellent he would have built his home near the bay.
Item three: There are, in fact, several big stone ruins a few miles upriver from the bay that are sometimes called “the Knight’s Castle.” They’re so close to Commonground, they’re the first place every amateur treasure hunter strikes out for. I’ve done some poking around, but didn’t waste much time because my grandfather’s notes indicated he’d explored the place and found nothing. He also recognized, architecturally, that the walls were the work of middle period stone masons from the Silver Isle, not remnants of the Vanished Kingdom. He’d moved on to more fruitful targets deep in the jungle. But about a half mile away from the Knight’s Castle there are some earthen pits grandfather noted as possible burial sites. He never made any notes about digging them up. I did a few test digs, but they didn’t strike me as particularly promising. There were no headstones. The fate of Stark Tower is unknown; there’s at least six different legends of how, where, and when he died. But if he’d been buried at these mounds, he almost certainly would have had a stone monument. I’d assumed the unmarked graves had been for his servants and slaves. But what if it had been where he’d buried his prey?
I strained to move my wooden limbs. Not long ago, this would have been exactly the moment in my thought process where I charged into the jungle with a shovel, a dozen flasks of rum, and my invulnerable best friend. I sighed heavily, then rattled the invisible bars of my ghost cage and shouted out a common four letter word for ‘excrement.’
This triggered Menagerie, who’d been perched on the rudder. He hopped over to me and raised his left paw toward my gloved hand.
“I didn’t say ‘shake,’” I grumbled.
Infidel had turned her head when Menagerie went into motion. Sorrow, too, glanced up from the pile of papers she had spread out before her.
“Looks like your dog wants to practice his tricks. Though why he’s trying to shake hands with my golem I have no clue.”