by James Maxey
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.”
“Are all dragons such cowards?” Infidel asked. “Or is it just you?”
“Have a care, human,” said Hush. “You stand in the antechamber of my mind. With a thought, I can erase you from existence.”
“You would punish her when she’s right?” I asked. “I spent ten years in the company of the woman I loved without confessing my feelings. I’ve no excuse for these wasted years, other than my own cowardice. I, too, was afraid of exposing myself to rejection and isolation. I dealt with my pain in pretty much the same fashion you do. You want the world t
o be so quiet and dark that you can go into a slumber that’s like death. You want to just stop feeling anything. I did the same thing with booze. I’d drink until I couldn’t remember my own name. I’d drink until I couldn’t remember why I was drinking. Self-obliteration is the coward’s path.”
The flat blade of the Jagged Heart turned toward me. I swear I could see a dark green eye peer at me through the ice.
I said, “If you want to feel alive, you have to take the bad with the good. You can’t feel joy unless you open your heart to sadness. You can’t feel love unless you’re willing to bear loneliness. When Glorious arrives, tell him how you truly feel. Confess that you love him. What do you have to lose?”
“It’s too late for conversation,” said Hush.
“Infidel and I are proof that it’s never too late,” I said.
“You don’t understand. It is, indeed, too late,” said Hush. “Now leave.”
Suddenly we were back on the ice, standing exactly as we’d stood when the blizzard had surrounded us. Well, two of us were standing. Deprived of legs once more, I hit the ice with a loud splat and clawed the frosty surface to hold on as it suddenly tilted beneath me. All around us, the once solid sheet of ice had shattered into a thousand ice floes, bobbing on violent waves.
My eyes widened as I saw that Glorious had arrived while we’d been talking to Hush. He was pushed to the ice, wings down, his throat exposed, his body limp. His eyes were open, full of fear, wet with tears that ran down his golden cheeks to freeze on the ice beneath him.
Hush sat upon his chest, her jaws clamped around his throat, ready to rip through this windpipe.
“We’re too late,” Aurora cried, dropping to her knees, sounding beaten.
“Like hell we are.” Infidel cracked her knuckles, loud enough that even Hush’s green eyes shifted toward the noise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
COLDER EVERY SECOND
I BLINKED AND Infidel was gone, leaving a swirl of snow in her wake. I turned my head in time to see her punch into the side of Hush’s jaw with the Gloryhammer. The thunderous blow spread in waves from the tip of the dragon’s snout all the way down her serpentine neck, causing an avalanche to fall from her scales. Hush craned her head to snap at Infidel as she zoomed skyward. Infidel surprised Hush by making a mid-air U-turn and darting between the dragon’s closing jaws, into the vast chasm of her mouth.
The tree-sized teeth near the back of Hush’s jaws burst outward with an explosion of blinding light as Infidel hammered through them. Hush roared with pain as Infidel spiraled back into the sky.
Glorious lifted his head to see what had halted his planned suicide. His throat was bleeding, but it didn’t seem to be a mortal wound. As large as Hush was, Glorious was even larger, and her initial attempt at tearing out his throat had resulted in little more than an extra-nasty hickey.
“Now that I’ve got your attention...” Infidel shouted down at the dragons. “Stop fighting! If you don’t, I’ll tear out your teeth and claws until you’re too mangled to misbehave!”
“You dare threaten us?” Glorious growled, rising to all four legs. He glared at her with a look of elemental contempt.
“This isn’t a threat, it’s a promise,” Infidel shouted. “Everyone acts like primal dragons are one step removed from gods. You’re more like one step removed from spoiled teenagers, and trust me, I know about spoiled teenagers. I’m not going to sit by and watch the world get destroyed by a pair of self-important brats too childish to discuss their feelings for one another!”
“I feel only hate!” Hush screamed.
“And I deserve your hate,” Glorious screamed back. “I was a fool to spurn you, too vain and arrogant to see that I might one day long for your company. I can no longer stand the suffering! End me!”
Hush’s eyes widened. “You long for my company?”
“My loneliness is unbearable,” Glorious whimpered. “The pain of knowing that you once offered to save me from my self-inflicted fate doubles my suffering. As I gaze down upon the world, I see the polar regions, white and dazzling like a pearly crown upon the globe, and I think of you. You were so open when you came to me, so courageous, risking your heart. My hunger to tame the sun blinded me. It was not worth the cost of your love.”
“Was it not?” Hush asked, her voice calmer now. “With each passing century I’ve watched you as you traveled through the sky. I’ve hated you more with each passing year, but also envied you, and admired you. You’ve truly changed the world by taming the sun. If you had not rejected me, you would never have accomplished this great task. ”
“But I knew it must cause you pain,” said Glorious, on the verge of sobbing. “It hurts you still. My sunlight drives away frost from much of the world. I knew I was keeping you from your full potential. This is why, as I abandoned the sun, I sent it hurtling away. Even now, it slowly fades from the sky of the material world. In a month, it will be only a speck, indistinguishable from the faintest planets that travel across the night sky. Then, at last, the world will be forever dark, and you can know your final peace.”
“Oh, Glorious,” Hush said. “This is such a beautiful gift.”
“But it’s going to be an even better gift if he puts the sun back into its rightful path, right?” shouted Infidel. “That way the two of you can see each other every day. You don’t have to be lonely any more!”
Hush sighed. “The annoying creature is right. If you don’t rejoin the sun, you shall wither and perish. You cannot survive as a spirit untethered to matter. I... I would rather the world remain in light than lose you forever.”
Glorious clenched his jaws together tightly for a moment. I couldn’t read the emotions in his luminous eyes. At last, he said, “So be it. Perhaps my thirst for oblivion has proven... premature. I shall return to the sun. We will continue our conversation, come the dawn.”
“I look forward to it,” Hush said. Her body fell apart into a great mound of snow.
“What just happened?” Infidel asked, sounding worried as she looked down upon the collapsing white mountain beneath her.
Glorious stretched his wings. “Hush has abandoned her abstract form and returned to her true body in the material world.” He gazed at Infidel and said, “Do not in any way think that your threats have altered our actions. Either of us could have crushed you with no more effort than you would put into crushing a bug.”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Infidel. “You just run along and jump back into the sun now.”
“You speak to us with such insolence! You fail to respect our power,” Glorious growled as he turned away, his eyes narrowed. Then he paused, and glanced back over his shoulder. “And for this... thank you.”
“No problem.” Infidel smiled as she brushed the hair back from her eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” Aurora whispered, as she glanced down at me. I’d grabbed hold of her ankle to keep from sliding around on the bobbing ice. “Did Infidel just save the world?”
“Isn’t she going to be a great mother?” I said.
Glorious flapped his wings and rose into the air. This created an instant blizzard as all the snow from Hush’s body roared around us in hurricane winds. The air cleared as Glorious rose higher, radiant as noon. He was looking down at the ice. I followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at: a man in stark black robes standing amid the white snow, an unfurled scroll before him. Judge Stern was nearly a hundred yards away, but his deep, authoritative voice could be heard even at this distance as he shouted the verdict toward Glorious. “By the power of the Divine Author and the One True Book, the Voice of the Book has judged you, Glorious, and found you guilty of crimes against nature itself. You have trespassed upon the sun, claiming it as your own when the Divine Author gave it freely as a gift to all. The enormity of this crime is unforgivable.”
“Infidel!” I shouted.
“This judgment is final and cannot be appealed,” said Stern.
“Don’t let him finish reading –”
Infidel reached Stern, flattening him with a punch that sent him skidding across the ice on his back.
It was too late. Glorious shuddered in mid-flap. The internal luminance that filled his form instantly snuffed out, leaving his spiritual form a pale, ashen gray. With a soft sigh, he fell, but never reached the ice. His body changed into a fine powder that crumbled, billowing out as a dense cloud.
I stared, mouth agape, as the dust swept toward me. What was there to say? The world had just been condemned to death.
Infidel drifted down from the sky next to Aurora. We gave each other worried looks just as the dust engulfed us. Infidel leaned over and scooped up my legless torso, holding me tightly against her side. I wrapped my arm around her and squeezed.
No one spoke a word. Perhaps we each were hoping someone else would be the first to speak, to offer some clever, last-second plan to save everything. But the minutes simply ticked by as the dust slowly settled, revealing our grimy faces one by one. We looked like miners, covered in grit.
Infidel sighed. “Maybe the Black Swan is already traveling back in time to give us another shot.”
“That’s not really how her powers work,” said Aurora.
“So what are you saying?” asked Infidel. “That we’re screwed?”
Aurora shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘we.’ I don’t see how things are going to change much for me. The material world is going to freeze, but I don’t know that things will change for the dead.”
I thought this was a slightly selfish stance to take, but I didn’t feel like picking a fight by saying so.