by James Maxey
“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.”
“You will take your freakish hands off me,” Father Ver said, his voice a low hiss.
Blade snapped both hands into the air, his fingers spread in a gesture of surrender.
“Now you will go away!”
Blade spun on his heels and bounded off up the trail, running at breakneck speed, quickly disappearing among the trees. The Whisper looked after her fleeing lover for a few seconds, slack-jawed with surprise, before she shot off in pursuit.
Father Ver looked back down on his bloodied victim. Blood bubbled from the Deceiver’s nostrils as his breath came out in gurgles. The Truthspeaker knelt beside his victim. Zetetic flinched as his hand approached. The Truthspeaker grabbed the Deceiver’s chin and turned his barely focused gaze to meet his own, then asked, “Where is it?”
Zetetic looked back with sad puppy eyes.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Father Ver said. “You wouldn’t have dared this without the sketchbook. You will hand it over.”
Zetetic’s hands reached into the folds of his red robes and producing a small leather-bound notebook, barely six inches tall. The cover had no words on it, but it was scuffed and scratched, the parchment pages within looking dog-eared and folded over. Father Ver snatched the book away.
“Your wicked imagination exceeds my ability to think of prohibitions,” said Father Ver. “Let us keep this simple. I gave my word to the king that I will not kill you. I’ve made no vow that would prohibit me from cutting out your blasphemous tongue. Attempt to escape again and I swear you will never utter another lie.”
The Deceiver glared at Father Ver with a mix of hatred and terror, then nodded slowly, indicating he understood. Father Ver let go of the man’s chin and wiped his gore-drenched hands on his victim’s red robes, looking disgusted. He glanced toward the sky as Lord Tower drifted down toward them. Aurora was still clamped onto his chest; her hair had come undone from its top knot and lay against her scalp in a chaotic tangle.
She looked a bit wobbly as Tower set her on the ground.
“You believed his lie, ogress,” grumbled Father Ver, without looking at her. “Your pagan faith makes you an easy target for his falsehoods. If he speaks to you again, feel free to break his jaw.”
Before Aurora could reply, Lord Tower looked down at the semi-conscious Deceiver and said, “Why would he try something like this? Even if he’d reached the sea, we could have stopped him at any time.”
“Not without this,” said Father Ver, holding up the small book.
Tower reached both hands to his hip, popping open a compartment in his armor exactly the right size to hold the book. He stared silently at the emptiness within. “By the sacred quill,” he mumbled. “How did…? When could he…?”
“The Deceiver fails to respect reality itself,” Father Ver said. “It would have been a simple matter for him to become a master pickpocket.” The priest cast a glance toward Reeker. “You were supposed to keep this from happening.”
Reeker shrugged. “He caught me by surprise.”
“Of course it was a surprise!” Father Ver shouted, throwing his hands into the air. “Did you think he would be considerate enough to send you a detailed letter explaining his plan? Are all half-seeds half-wits as well?”
Reeker’s eyes flashed with anger as he drew back his shoulders and pressed his lips into a pucker. Menagerie nodded toward No-Face. The giant man’s hand clamped over the skunk-man’s mouth.
Menagerie said, “This is twice I’ve had to apologize for my colleague’s behavior. I assure you, there will not be a third incident. For now, he’s going to go help gather up what gear we can find from Aurora’s pack. He won’t grumble while he’s doing it. Right?”
No-Face lowered his hand. Reeker swallowed his pride and whatever else he might have been holding in his mouth, then said, “Sure, boss.” Then, to Father Ver, “Won’t happen again.”
Lord Tower scanned the treetops, paying no attention to Infidel and Relic as they joined the rest of the party. Relic was limping more than usual; his whole body was wracked with tremors. Infidel was holding his arm, supporting him.
Lord Tower sighed. “Since we aren’t under attack right now, maybe Greatshadow didn’t notice this incident. Perhaps the worst that has come from this is that our supplies are scattered halfway back to the sea. We’re going to lose the rest of the day gathering them.” He looked at Menagerie. “I need more than just Reeker on the job. You’ll all help recover the gear.”
Menagerie nodded. “We’re on it. I can work the treetops as a monkey.”
Tower turned to Father Ver. “While Zetetic’s stunt has cost us time, it’s also proof that he has skills no one else brings to the mission. Help him get cleaned up and stitch his wounds.”
Father Ver’s left eye began to twitch. He looked as if he was about to explode, but he said, softly, “As you wish.”
Lord Tower looked down at the Deceiver, who had managed to sit up. The beaten man probed his bloodied mouth with his fingers, wincing as he pulled out a broken molar. The knight said, “Before you fell into heresy, you earned renown as a scholar. Some priests tell me you were the smartest man they’d ever met. How can you be dumb enough to pull a stunt like this? Even if you’d escaped with the book, you would not be free. Should ten days pass without word from me, the monks will initiate the X sanction. You understand the consequences?”
The Deceiver nodded. His wet voice whistled as he said, “I undershtand the damned conshequencesh.”
Tower turned back to the others. “Let’s get busy. Goons, gather gear. Blade, I need you to… to…” His voice trailed off as he looked around the clearing. He turned to Father Ver and asked, “Where are Blade and the Whisper?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SOMNOMANCER
“I can follow their scent,” said Menagerie, sh
ifting into the form of a wolf. His voice was a yelping growl as he said, “I’ll take the War Doll for back up, assuming it can act independently. It’s the only one with a chance to keep up with me.”
“Agreed,” said Relic, his voice still weak.
“There’s no need for a search party. Blade won’t run forever,” said Father Ver. He didn’t sound apologetic for having caused the problem. “Once he trips, or runs into something, he’ll return to his senses.”
“Given Blade’s agility, he might run a long time,” said Lord Tower, as he rose into the sky. “With the thickness of this canopy, I’ll never spot him from the air. Menagerie’s plan is a sensible one. I’ll help gather gear while they’re gone.”
Stay with me, Blood-Ghost, thought Relic. I dare not look into the Deceiver’s mind again. You must watch him with complete vigilance.
The Deceiver didn’t look as if he was going start mischief anytime soon. Father Ver knelt before him, examining the man’s torn face. Zetetic was oddly passive as the priest reached out to touch a gash on his upper lip. “This will require stitches,” Ver said. “It will hurt.”
Menagerie sniffed the ground, then bounded up the trail at breakneck speed with Infidel at his heels. Or rather, his paws. I looked at Relic and said, “I go where she goes.” I spun around before he could answer and surrendered myself to the tug of the knife in her boot sheath. My ghostly feet lifted from the ground and I flew after them far more swiftly than I could have run.
A mile up the trail, the wolf slowed to sniff the ground next to a shallow stream. The vegetation here thickened again due to the presence of the water, and I searched the dense foliage in vain for any sign of Blade. Infidel caught up a few seconds later, panting heavily. Even with her strength, running a mile uphill in the furnace-like heat was no easy task.
“I thought you might like a chance to talk,” said Menagerie in his wolf-yips. “It’s got to be killing you keeping quiet around those assholes.”
“It’s not all that tough,” Infidel said. “It’s not like I’m eager to chat with any of them.”
“I find Father Ver moderately entertaining,” said Menagerie, pausing to take a few laps from the stream. “Have you noticed that he and the Deceiver seem to have exactly the same power? They both say things that aren’t true and make them come true.”
“Actually,” said Infidel, “the Deceiver’s power is less creepy. He says things that change himself. The Truthspeaker says things to change others.”
“Creepy or not, I could have laughed my ass off when Reeker had to hold his tongue. I went into the wrong line of business with blood magic. I’d trade all my tattoos for the ability to shut Reeker up whenever I wanted to.”
“I thought you guys were friends,” said Infidel.
The wolf shrugged. “I’m not in a career where it pays to have friends. The people I grow close to have a depressing tendency to die. Reeker and No-Face are my companions chiefly because they’ve proven themselves as survivors.”
Infidel pressed her lips tightly together and swallowed hard.
“You okay?” asked Menagerie.
“Just thinking about Stagger,” said Infidel. “He’d still be alive if he hadn’t been my friend.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” said Menagerie.
“Can’t I?” said Infidel with a feeble grin. “I’d trade Greatshadow’s treasure for the chance to go back and do things differently. Sometimes, I forget that he’s gone, and feel like I’m going to look back over my shoulder and find him standing there, giving me a reassuring smile.”
“I’m here!” I shouted, waving my arms. “I’m here!”
“You’ll always have his memory, at least.”
“Maybe I don’t want the memories,” she said. “Because, when I do turn around, and see that he’s not there, it feels like hands grab my heart and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze.”
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, drawing a long, slow, breath.
“It helps some, pretending to be a machine,” she said. “To think there’s only a mechanical pump in my chest, not a heart. I’d pay any price for a head full of gears instead of memories.”
Menagerie sat down, scratching behind his ear with a paw. He took a moment to let Infidel compose herself before he said, “I know it’s trite, but time does make the pain go away.”
Infidel shook her head. “When I think about the Black Swan in her cobwebbed wedding dress, I wonder if that’s true.”
“You’ve never lost anyone close to you before?”
“Stagger’s the only one who ever got close,” she said. “My mother died when I was thirteen. I was told I should mourn her, but I didn’t really feel anything. I was raised by servants; my mother was just this pretty china doll who decorated my father’s palace. She barely ever spoke to me. I can’t remember the sound of her voice.”
“My mother was my world,” said Menagerie.
“Was? She passed away?”
“She’s still alive. I just don’t see her.”
“But you used to be close?”
Menagerie looked up and down the trail, as if making sure no one else was listening. Finally, he said, “My mother was a prostitute, sold by her parents to a brothel when she was eleven. She was fourteen when she gave birth to me, and I was swiftly followed by two baby sisters. She gave us the best life she could; stashing away a few coins here and there in the hope that she might one day purchase her freedom and raise us in a better home. From the age I first understood what was going on, I dreamed of having enough money to make her dream come true. I joined a street gang when I was seven and began shoplifting and picking pockets. I committed my first murder at age nine. Got involved in blood magic not long after; by age thirteen, I was running my own gang, and earned enough to send my sisters off to a boarding school. By the time I was sixteen I bought my mother’s freedom and set her up in a house with servants.”
“That’s very noble of you,” said Infidel.
The wolf let out a series of low barks that it took me a second to recognize as a bitter chuckle. “Noble is not a label often applied to me. The evidence is before your eyes; I’ve surrendered to blood magic so completely, I’m no longer fully human. I’ve killed hundreds of men, too many to count, and am incapable of remorse. My sisters are both married to respectable men and have large families, but I’ve not seen them in twenty years. I send them the fortunes I earn so that they may live like royalty in the heart of the Silver City, in homes surrounded by high walls and armed guards, specifically to protect them from men like me.”
As he finished, he tilted his head. He raised his nose and sniffed the air.
“Blood,” he said.
“Whose?” asked Infidel. “Blade’s?”
Menagerie leapt across the stream and raised his ears, cocking his head from side to side.
“Do you hear something?” she asked.
“Someone running?” Menagerie said, but he sounded confused. “It might be Blade, except-”
Suddenly, a green-skinned midget shot out from the undergrowth and splashed into the stream. He was naked save for a gourd codpiece, and bleeding profusely from his neck. He slid to a halt as he saw Menagerie and Infidel. He opened his mouth to scream but only gurgles escaped his lips. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell face first into the water as blood loss won out over panic.
“Quickly,” said Menagerie, leaping into the hole the pygmy had left in the greenery. He bounded along the blood trail, panting as he leapt over logs and boulders. Infidel chased after him, pulling out her long sword to use as a machete. They ran no more than a quarter-mile before anguished cries reached them, the sound of men dying.
In their haste, the wolf and Infidel raced right past a cluster of knotted vines laced through with palm fronds. I paused to study it; I knew this sign. It marked the edge of a forest-pygmy clan line. It announced to other pygmies that this area was off limits to all but members of a single extended family. My pygmy knot literacy
wasn’t fluent, but I think this clan called themselves the Jawa Fruit.
Since the others were well ahead now, I again surrendered myself to the tug of the knife and flew to join Infidel, flowing through trees and rocks as if they weren’t even there.
I caught up in seconds. Infidel and Menagerie had stopped. I couldn’t see past them at first. I did notice, however, that the ground around them was slick with blood. Beyond them, I could hear more screaming.
“This will come out of our pay for sure,” Menagerie grumbled.
I moved to see what he was looking at. I wished I hadn’t.
Ivory Blade was slumped up against a rock. At least, what was left of him was. His head was missing from his shoulders. There was a heavy log hanging from vines, swaying back and forth. One end was wet with blood, and worse things. Remnants of white-haired scalp were pressed into the grain of the wood. Infidel had triggered one of these traps by accident a few years ago. Trip over the wrong vine, and suddenly a log swings down like a hammer. Infidel had escaped her trap with a minor headache. Ivory Blade, alas, had popped like a balloon. Despite the gore coating every nearby surface, Blade’s Immaculate Attire was still spotless.
“Whisper must be taking revenge,” said Menagerie as he tilted his ears toward the screams coming from further upslope. “Sounds like she’s tearing through some pygmies.”
“Deja vu,” said Infidel. “Still… it’s not really their fault. That damned Truthspeaker caused this.”
“She’ll get to him next,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around, and there, like a pillar of fog, stood Ivory Blade.
Blade looked down at his wispy form. Blood from his corpse was trickling down the stony ground to form a little pool, and he rose from this pool like steam. He looked at me with sad eyes, shaking his head. “How ironic. As a somnomancer, I always assumed I’d die in my sleep.”
“You can see me?” I asked.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
We both nodded. Infidel had no reaction at all to the words being spoken mere inches behind her, but Menagerie turned his head slightly, his ears twitching.