Slor Tonn approached us. Even the whale proved tiny in comparison to the dragon, though if we were fleas, the whale was at least a fair-sized beetle.
“She can’t hear you,” Aurora called out. “Her ear drums are dozens of yards across. Your voices are too tiny to register. Also, I don’t know if she understands your language. I always spoke to her in my native tongue.”
“But you can still talk to her?” Infidel said, her voice filled with hope.
Aurora shook her head. “I could only communicate with her via a direct spiritual connection when I held the Jagged Heart. Right now, that’s in Slor Tonn’s stomach.”
I sighed. “I guess I’ll have to go in and get it. I’ve made this trip before.” I glanced toward the horizon. It was a pale pink. Any second, Glorious would rise above the edge of the water.
“I don’t have a better plan,” Aurora said, with a nervous glance at the brightening sky. “Slor Tonn, open wide!” But, rather than opening his jaws, Slor Tonn chose that moment to twitch violently. Aurora was thrown into the air as if she’d been caught by surprise astride a bucking bull. She landed on the whale’s back with a thud as the beast arched his spine. A gush of dark blood sprayed from his blowhole, spattering Aurora in a psychedelic shade of purple.
“What –” escaped her lips before the whale suddenly froze stiff, coated with a thick rind of frost from jaws to tail. Without warning, the great beast dropped from the sky. Aurora tumbled from his back as he fell, and only Infidel’s keen reflexes saved her as she swooped down and caught the ogress by her top knot.
“Slor Tonn!” Aurora shouted as the whale hit the ice below and shattered into a million pink and gray fragments.
Purity stood in the midst of the frozen chunks, still in her winged woman configuration, coated with ice, only seemingly much larger. In fact, there was no question: the Jagged Heart harpoon was eighteen feet long, and she quickly grew to that height, then doubled it. Her skin color changed until she had a white belly and a black back... Slor Tonn’s colors.
“Wonderful,” I sighed, as I adjusted my grip on Infidel’s shoulders. “Looks like Menagerie’s body has added whale’s blood to the mix.”
“Nothing can kill me in this body!” Purity shouted, eyeing us with a taunting gaze. “I can adapt to any assault! Thanks to your futile efforts, I’m more powerful than ever!”
“The only thing I hate worse than someone trying to destroy the world is a braggart,” Infidel grumbled.
“Wait,” said Aurora. “You’re sure this is Menagerie’s body?”
“At the core,” said Infidel. “It’s had some additions.”
“As high priestess, I can summon the spirits of the dead,” said Aurora. “Ordinarily, I can only call forward the shades of my own tribe. But Menagerie and I worked side by side for years. He and the rest of the Goons became my new tribe once I reached Commonground. He might respond if I called out to him.”
“Do it!” said Infidel.
“There’s one catch,” said Aurora.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You need the Jagged Heart.”
“Give me ten seconds,” said Infidel. Without warning, she dove toward the ground, dropping me and Aurora on the ice. With a
whoosh
, she shot toward Sorrow, who had just finished off the last ogre priestess and was turning to her father. Judge Stern was conscious once more, though his chin was coated in blood. He skittered backward on the ice as she approached.
“Away from me, you abomination!” he cried out, closing his eyes as Sorrow’s hand reached for his face.
In what had to be the most surprising answer to prayer on record, Infidel stretched out her free arm and caught Sorrow by the waist at exactly that second. Sorrow screamed a very bad word as Infidel swooped her skyward.
“I need you to do that rotting trick on Purity,” Infidel shouted as she swung back around.
“Ice neutralizes my powers!” Sorrow cried back.
“That won’t be a problem,” Infidel said as she shot toward the winged giantess.
Purity stood braced for the attack. She fired one of the thin blue rays at Infidel, but Infidel banked down at the last possible second to avoid it. Skimming along just inches above the ice, she plowed into Purity at the ankles, flipping her head over heels.
Aurora broke out in a hard run, trying to reach the shape-shifting witch before she could get back to her feet. Purity proved more resilient that we hoped, however, and in a moment she was on her knees, using the Jagged Heart as a staff to help her rise the rest of the way. As she stood, however, Infidel raced up from behind and struck a powerful blow with the Gloryhammer, directly on the back of Purity’s wrist. The frozen gauntlet that coated her hand shattered, and before she could even think of reworking the ice Sorrow struck, leaping from Infidel’s back to cling to Purity’s log-sized forearm.
Purity screamed as red and blue veins of infection raced up her arm. Sorrow dug her fingers deeper into the putrefying flesh on the back of the witch’s hand, the skin sloughing away in ragged strips, the bones visibly twisting and warping with advanced arthritis. The Jagged Heart dropped from Purity’s withering fingers. Aurora was there to catch it.
Unfortunately, by now Purity had twigged to the combined sneak attack. She swung her arm with all her remaining strength, smashing Sorrow into Infidel as she prepared another hammer strike. The two women tumbled through the sky, dizzy from the impact. Sorrow crashed into the ice from a dozen feet up, while Infidel managed to halt herself in mid-air, a grimace on her face as she fought to regain her aerial footing.
Purity stared at her damaged hand. She furrowed her brow as she willed the flesh to knit itself back together. Menagerie’s powers proved up to the task of reversing the damage. She capped her new fingers with a fresh coat of ice. I wondered how she had the power, since we’d robbed her of the harpoon, before seeing that she carried the Icemoon Blade in one of her lower hands, now barely the size of a dagger in her oversized grasp.
Aurora was backing up, speaking in a language I didn’t understand. Though she had the harpoon in her grasp, she wasn’t wielding it in any sort of defensive maneuver I could recognize. She was waving it around in the air in erratic loops, like a woman trying to swat a fly with a broom.
“Is this supposed to be menacing?” Purity growled, reaching for the harpoon.
Aurora suddenly switched from her ogre speech into the Silver Tongue. “In your own language, old friend, I call to you,” she shouted. “Menagerie, I summon your shade, that you may reclaim what has been taken from you!”
Purity snatched the harpoon away. She was now thirty feet tall. Aurora, the largest person I normally dealt with on a daily basis, looked like a toddler compared to her. Purity kicked her, sending the ogress bouncing across the ice.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have a sun to slay,” Purity said, turning toward Glorious as he hung above the horizon. She flapped her wings and rose toward the heavens. High above, I could see the material world floating like a blue-green grapefruit, but it was obscured by wispy tendrils of black smoke. The black smoke writhed and whirled as it descended toward us. Purity suddenly jerked her head up, gazing at the approaching smoke with a look of terror. An instant later, I could hear the sounds of wolves and lions and chimpanzees howling and roaring and screaming, above the trumpets of elephants and the shrieks of eagles. It was as if someone had rattled the cages of every zoo in the world at once.
The cloud whirled straight toward Purity. She brought the harpoon up to defend herself as the cloud took on a shape I recognized. Menagerie had been a tall man, covered with black tattoos from his scalp to his toe tips, an entire bestiary of the animals of the material world. The cloud coalesced into this tapestry of tattoos, but only the tattoos, with no underlying flesh or bone. You could see, through the gaps in his chest, the tattoos that covered his back. The tattoos looked wet, like fresh ink, and now that they were barely a hundred feet above I could see that they weren’t truly black, but a deep, deep shade of red, like congealed blood.
Purity opened her mouth to scream. Before any sound came out, the tattoo swarm formed a tight vortex and spun between her lips. Her throat bulged as the torrent of blood forced itself inside her.
Purity went limp as a rag doll. The harpoon and the Ice-Moon Blade slipped from her fingers as she shrank. Her wings vanished, along with her fur and killer whale markings. In less than a second, all her animal traits had disappeared and she looked exactly like Infidel. She dropped from the sky, falling twenty feet to hit the ice with a horrible
smack
.
Any concern I felt about watching this false Infidel fall was instantly pushed away by the real Infidel swooping down and grabbing me. We flew toward Aurora, who was running to grab the Jagged Heart, which had landed tip-first in the ice and stood like an empty signpost.
Aurora’s fingers closed around the harpoon. She turned to face our approach and held out her hand. “Ready to talk to Hush?” she asked.
Infidel and I placed our hands in Aurora’s huge palm.
“Do it,” we said, in unison.
A slow whirlwind built around us, flaking ice into snow, swirling in a gentle flurry, before building to a blizzard. The last thing I saw before the white washed away everything was Glorious, flapping his wings and flying toward us.
And then... we’d already moved beyond the material world, into the realms abstract. What lay beyond? Was reality like an onion, composed of layer upon layer upon layer?
I can only report that as the snow fell away, we found ourselves standing in a place that was neither the Great Sea Above nor the material world. We were in a vast, empty void, where the entirety of creation was the trio formed by Infidel, Aurora, and myself. Our physical bodies had vanished and we now stood revealed as beings of pure light, no longer human in shape, more like rainbows shimmering in the darkness.
Stripped of our bodies, I had no trouble recognizing Infidel or Aurora. Infidel was a nearly pure white flame, intense and focused. She had nothing that could be described as a belly, but at the core of her light a tiny white candle burned even more brightly. Our daughter? Aurora was a calmer, cooler shaft of blue. I couldn’t see myself; I wondered what the others saw?
In the center of the triangle formed by our energies, the Jagged Heart hovered. The blue shaft that was Aurora trembled, and I heard her voice. “Hush,” she said. “It is Aksarna, your humble servant. I’ve brought two guests who wish to speak with you.” I was surprised that she wasn’t speaking the ogre tongue. Or perhaps she was, but we were in a place where all languages were one and the same.
“You violate the sanctity of this place,” the Jagged Heart answered. “You’ve not performed the required rites. You dishonor me.”
“I beg forgiveness,” said Aurora. “But time is of the essence. As we speak, the dragon of the sun approaches. Purity came to the Great Sea Above to slay Glorious. But Purity was bonded with you; if she wills that Glorious should die, it’s because you wish that fate upon him.”
“This is not my wish,” Hush answered through the harpoon. “This is my need. Glorious must die so that I may go to my final rest. While he visits my realm, I can never know true peace. You, my priestess, know of the paradise I speak of. It is the pure silent darkness of the frozen night. It is the great calm that existed before the creation of light. It is the only hope of relief for my shattered heart. In the eternal peace of winter, I will forget all pain, all longing and loneliness.”
“How about all selfishness?” Infidel asked.
“Forgive her,” said Aurora. “She speaks out of fear.”
“I speak out of honesty!” At these words, I swear that the shaft of white flame threw up what looked like arms in frustration. “This frigid lizard is willing to destroy the world because she’s suffered a broken heart.
Boo-hoo.
Every day, people suffer loss. I watched the only man I ever loved die before my eyes. Did I think about killing myself? Did I feel like the world needed to be punished because I was alone and scared? No. I sucked up my pain, pulled on my boots, and tried to find a new path for my life. People do it every damn day. Why should this frozen crybaby feel that her suffering is any different?”
Aurora’s pale column flickered, looking afraid. But the Jagged Heart floated unchanged, as the dragon spoke once more. “You cannot understand. Human lives are too short. You’ve no time to truly feel anything. You flash through existence like shooting stars, vanishing as swiftly as you appear. You cannot judge the pain of timeless beings.”
“Then you can’t judge our pain,” said Infidel. “You can’t understand how precious time is to us, how few hours we’re given to share with those we love.”
“Do not speak to me of love and sharing,” Hush growled. “Your time may be brief, but while you live you’re surrounded by throngs of your kindred humans. We primal dragons exist as unique beings in our own realms. There is no one to share the burden of our solitude.”
“Have you tried?” I asked. “Because I heard a very similar argument from Glorious just minutes ago. He’s lonely as well, lonely enough that death looks like a welcome alternative. Maybe neither of you needs to die. Maybe you need to go to one another and talk. The legends say that you loved Glorious once. When he arrives, tell him how you feel!”
“How I feel?” Hush said bitterly. “Glorious rejected my love. The shame and humiliation of that moment can never be forgotten. I shall never show such weakness again.”