“I come to this place intending no malice,” she announced. “Purity, we’re kindred spirits, aware that the world is an unjust place. We seek, in our own fashion, to better it; I would rather be your friend than your foe. But I cannot let you extinguish the sun. Renounce your plans and join me on a more constructive path. If you refuse, I give my solemn vow that I will kill everyone in this room.”
“You’re the crippled materialist,” Purity scoffed. “The pathetic failed witch who nearly killed herself with a bone-nail. Despite the drama of your entrance, you’ve no power to enforce your threats.”
The iron and glass helmet that covered Sorrow’s features flowed backwards like mercury, revealing her face and scalp. From my hovering vantage point, I counted swiftly: One, iron. Two, copper. Three, glass. Four, gold. Five, silver. Six, wood. And seven... seven was something black as tar, something that made my eyes ache and my stomach turn.
Sorrow said, in low, firm tones, “I’ve carved a nail from a fragment of tooth belonging to Rott, the all-consuming. I now command the elemental force of decay. I possess the power I’ve long sought to remake the world. It does not suit me to have the world end just as I gain the ability to save it.”
The helmet spread back over her scalp and face. She said, calmly, “I will begin killing when I count down from three. Three.”
Which, as fate would have it, were the number of minutes I had left.
Purity glared at Sorrow’s red right hand. I had trouble taking my eyes off it myself. We both had to be wondering what Sorrow’s new powers might do to ghosts.
Sorrow had her gaze locked on Purity. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tarpok lean back in his boat, hefting his iron harpoon over his shoulder.
“Sorrow!” I wheezed, though of course no one in the room but Infidel and Purity could hear me. Infidel started running toward Tarpok, but it was too late. He hurled the massive shaft of steel, which flashed through the air between him and Sorrow.
Sorrow proved more attentive than I’d supposed. She stretched out her right hand, palm open like a shield to catch the harpoon’s razor tip. The horrible weapon turned into a cloud of reddish dust, swirling to settle on the ice at Sorrow’s feet.
“Two,” said Sorrow, though I technically had over two and a half minutes left.
The mariners in Judge Stern’s boat once more scrambled overboard. Stern spun around and barked, “Any man whose boot touches the ice shall be hanged!”
The sailors didn’t even pause.
Sorrow, on the other hand, turned her head slightly.
“Father!” she called out, in astonishment.
This distraction was all that Purity needed. She lunged forward, her vast wings unfolding, as she thrust the Jagged Heart like a pike. The tip barely touched Sorrow’s frozen armor before Sorrow caught the shaft with her red right hand.
Instantly, Sorrow’s armor spider-webbed with cracks. As she moved, the iron began to flake away, rendered brittle and useless by the Heart’s extreme chill. The narwhal-horn shaft yellowed where Sorrow touched it, but didn’t disintegrate.
The impact knocked Sorrow backward. She slipped from her icy perch. Her armor shattered into scraps of black shrapnel, skittering across the floor as she landed flat on her back. Purity came to rest on the icy boulder where Sorrow had perched a moment before.
“Foolish girl,” the shapeshifter growled. “You come here and boast that you wield the power of a primal dragon? What of it? I’ve surrendered myself to Hush for two full centuries. I’m more than her prophet; I am her avatar! You brandish the power of decay? Cold stops decay!”
Sorrow opened her mouth and drew a breath. I knew her next word would finish her countdown.
But Sorrow wasn’t my sole focus of attention. In the exact same span of seconds that Sorrow and Purity had fought, Infidel sprang into action. Tarpok had just thrown his harpoon, his right arm still outstretched. Infidel no longer had the dragon strength that had allowed her to leap rivers in a single stride, but she was a well-muscled woman in her prime who could cover the twenty-yard gap between her and Tarpok in heartbeats. Tarpok was rising, regaining his balance, when Infidel reached his boat. The upper lip of the leather vessel was eight feet off the ice, but Infidel leapt to within inches of the edge, sinking her bloodied knife into the leather, using it as a pivot point as she swung her body up. In the blink of an eye, she was over the rim, leaving the bone-knife dangling in the leather. With a snarl, she placed both hands on the hilt of her long sword, planted her feet firmly, and drove the honed steel tip with all her weight into Tarpok’s belly.
The point of the blade skittered along his stomach, tearing a gash in the sealskin coat he wore. Beneath it, pale white flesh was revealed, and a tiny line of beaded blood. Her most powerful blow had only scratched him.
Infidel had no time to prepare a second strike. Tarpok caught her by the hair and snatched her from her feet.
“I’m going to wring your scrawny neck,” he grunted, as he brought her face inches from his own.
Infidel reached over his shoulder, her fingers closing around the shaft of the Gloryhammer. The weapon flared as she took command of its power. Tarpok and Infidel shot skyward with the speed of lightning, towards an intact section of the roof. Tarpok’s head smashed into the ice, sending a spray of crystalline daggers flying in every direction. Infidel curled her body beneath his as they rose. On impact she drove her elbow straight into the ice-ogre’s throat.
Unfortunately, the awkwardness of her position caused the Gloryhammer to tear from her grasp, and they both tumbled back to the floor. They slammed to the ice ten feet behind Sorrow just as she said, “One.”
I actually had two minutes left.
Sorrow lay on the ice wearing only a modest silk slip. The braces she’d once worn were gone; her limbs looked to be in full health once again. Perhaps she now had the power to reverse entropy as well? She kept her eyes fixed on Purity as she rose.
“You were warned,” the young witch said. She opened her mouth wide as her belly swelled. With a violent convulsion, she vomited, sending a jet of oily black fluid spraying toward Purity. The air instantly stank of rotten meat, a foulness that gagged even me.
The spray broke into black droplets in the air, which began to flitter and buzz. Purity was swallowed by what can only be described as a tornado of flies. The flies swelled forward from the whirlwind, engulfing the three boats. Screams filled the air as the black cloud covered everything.
Meanwhile, on the ice behind Sorrow, free from flies, Infidel had recovered half a second before Tarpok did. On her knees, she ripped the Gloryhammer free of the leather straps that held it on the ogre’s back. She rose to stand above the fallen warrior.
Infidel looked rough. Her impact with the ice had torn loose the stitches on her brow, and bright red blood flowed across her cheek and down her throat. If she felt any weakness, she didn’t show it. She lifted the Gloryhammer with both hands high above her head.
Tarpok, flat on his back, had by now recovered enough to recognize his danger. He swung his right arm up to protect his face.
It didn’t help. Infidel swung the hammer down with such force that it snapped his forearm, driving flesh and bone down to pancake flatness as it impacted with his face right between his tusks. His head caved in, squeezing his brains out through his ears.
Infidel stumbled backward as she tried to avoid the sudden gush of blood rolling toward her feet. She looked pale and exhausted as she landed on her butt. The impact caused her to drop the hammer. She took a deep breath as she probed the bleeding wound on her brow with her fingers. She pulled away her hand, coated with her own blood.
To balance herself, she placed that hand upon the ice beneath her. The ice throughout the cavern instantly turned pink.
My final moment:
The cloud of flies turned white as the insects developed a coat of frost. They plummeted from the air, bouncing as they landed with tiny tapping sounds that built to a deafening crescendo, like a billion bits of gray hail striking a tin roof all at once. In the aftermath, Sorrow had proved unable to live up to her boast of killing everyone.
Not that she hadn’t given it her all. The human sailors were dead, or nearly so. Half of them were little more than skeletons wreathed in maggots, the other half were still-living men with skins swollen to the bursting point by writhing things within them, gorging on their organs.
The only man unaffected was Judge Stern, who hugged the Writ of Judgment tightly to his breast. These documents were often protected with glyphs to ward off damage; the protections must have shielded the judge as well.
The boat of the ice-maidens was none the worse for wear. The ice-armor that coated the women had proven impervious to the flies.
The trio of ogre priestesses on the final boat were also unscathed beneath shells of ice, but the oarsmen who’d shared the boats with them had been utterly maggotized.
Standing on the boulder of ice, Purity looked down at Sorrow. The shape-shifting witch had sheathed herself with icy armor.
Sorrow took a step backward, bringing her fists up, her brow furrowed as if she was pondering how to respond to this turn of events. But if she’d not expected her attack to be thwarted, she was even more surprised when her feet slipped out from under her and she landed on the pink ice with a wet
smack
.
The dragon’s frozen tongue was melting, and melting fast.
Sorrow and Infidel struggled to make it to their feet. They were both soaked by the time they stood. The cavern floor was now six inches deep with pinkish water. The cavern was filled with the aroma of spit mixed with a little blood. The fluid was now deep enough that the sealskin boats were starting to float.
With a wave of the Jagged Heart, Purity literally froze both Sorrow and Infidel in their tracks, trapping their bodies in ice.
“Hush has tasted virgin blood!” Purity shouted, looking toward the trio of ogresses. “We’ve only seconds before the dragon awakens and propels us into the Great Sea Above! Secure our prisoners and place them in the center boat!”
The ogresses leapt from their boat and ran to Sorrow and Infidel. One paused before Tarpok long enough to kick him in the gut, before aiding her sisters in lifting the frozen bodies and rushing back toward Purity’s boat. The Gloryhammer was retrieved as well, along with the corpse of Stern’s bodyguard, still spotless in the Immaculate Attire. The ogresses understood the artifacts were too valuable to simply leave behind.
The old witch looked over her shoulder. “Judge Stern, as your crew has proven inadequate to the task at hand, would you be so kind as to move to my boat?”
The judge looked dazed, but he nodded and climbed out into the knee deep water. He paused for a moment, looking down at the remains of his men, then reached into the boat to grab something I couldn’t see and stick it in a pocket of his robe. The entire cavern shuddered as he sloshed toward the middle boat.
“Hurry!” Purity cried, watching events from her perch on the ice boulder. “Hush wakes!”
In response, there was a groan, soft at first, building to a deafening roar loud enough that Judge Stern covered his ears as the ogresses helped to push him into the center boat. The frozen forms of Infidel and Sorrow were tossed in like stiff baggage, coming to rest in the middle of the vessel.
The dragon’s groan faded, ending with what could only be described as a sob. The noise reminded me, for all the world, like the cry of a woman who’d just been told of the death of a lover. It was the sound, on the most primal level, of a broken heart.
And then the blood came, gushing up the dragon’s throat in a great carmine flood. It surged through the chamber, lifting the boats. The dragon’s jaws opened to let the blood flow out toward the cliff edge in a great river ten feet deep. Purity flitted down from her icy perch as the flood engulfed it, landing in the central boat.
To the right, the boat that Tarpok commanded spun in the current, the bone-handled knife sticking from its bow.
Despite the fact that my broken ribs made me feel as if my torso was full of shattered glass, cutting me with even the feeblest of motions, I stretched my arm out as I flew toward the boat. The knife was now solidly in the material world. Was there enough of it still in the middle realm where I dwelled that I could grasp it?
I almost laughed as my fingers closed around the hilt and yanked the blade free.
The boats were racing forward now, on the river of roiling gore, with Purity standing on the bow, harpoon in hand, her eyes scanning the horizon in the direction of a sunrise which might never come.
This witch had to die.
I flew toward her with the fullest speed of my imagination.
She caught me mid-flight with the Jagged Heart, moving faster than I could follow, driving its tip into my chest beneath my left collarbone. With a push and a twist, my ghost heart was torn free from its arteries and forced down to meet my liver.
The bone-handled knife slipped from my fingers to land at the witch’s feet. I opened my mouth to curse her, but only a bubble of blood escaped.
My time in the material world had come to an end.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN