Greatshadow (36 page)

Relic shook his head. “The War Doll is still functioning.”

Infidel punctuated his sentence by tearing free of her stony outline, staggering onto the floor, still looking dazed.

The Truthspeaker continued to glare down at the small bears. “Disobey again and your contract will be terminated.”

The Menageries shifted back into their twin, pint-sized human forms. They both placed their hands across their knees and sighed. They said in their stereo voices, “You don’t need to threaten me. No one feels worse about this than I do. The sight of all that gold made me stupid.”

“Muh fuh,” said No-Face, looming over his fellow Goon. “Nuh whoowa smuh guh?”

“Yeah, you’re the smart Goon now,” the Menageries said, shaking their heads.

The faceless giant held out his hands. Menagerie took them, and let himselves be pulled back to their feet.

While this was happening, I’m certain that I’m the only one who noticed that the Deceiver had pulled out a piece of cloth and wrapped the largest shard of glass within it, stuffing it into his bag.

“Let’s take an hour to rest,” said Tower, sliding the harpoon back into the book. “There are prayers of penance I need to perform for having allowed a book to touch the ground. No-Face, you’re bleeding; let Father Ver stitch you up.” The big man’s hands and knees were red with blood from where he dug through the glass fragments searching for Aurora. Finally, Tower turned to Relic and said, “Make certain your War Doll is still functioning. If you need more time for repairs, let me know.”

“Of course,” said Relic. He left the others and headed toward the shadows of the hall where we had first entered. Infidel sat there, crouched down out of sight of the others. She’d removed her shining steel bra, which was squashed flat. She was hammering the flattened plates back into cup shapes with her fists, using her knee caps as a guide.

“I’m sick of this,” she grumbled softly as Relic approached.

“Patience. You may shed your disguise soon enough.”

“I don’t mean I’m sick of my disguise. I’m sick of this mission. Stagger and I goofed around in these ruins for a decade before he got killed. This team is dropping like flies. Maybe Aurora and I weren’t always friends, but she deserved a better death than that.”

Relic squatted down beside her. With his limbs hidden within the confines of his cloak, he looked more like a heap of rotting rags than a man. “We can’t be certain that Aurora is dead. Her thoughts simply vanished when the pyramid swallowed her. Perhaps she was transported elsewhere.”

I also had my doubts she was dead. Unlike Ivory Blade or Reeker, Aurora hadn’t lingered behind as a ghost. Or would a human ghost and an ogre ghost go to the same afterlife? The Great Sea Above she’d described certainly was nothing like the church’s version of heaven. Since the ghosts usually only lingered a moment, had I simply missed her in all the excitement?

Infidel tried the repaired cup on for size. It was still dented, but it did vaguely resemble the curve of her breast again. “The Black Swan said that only two people survived this quest, and made it pretty clear I was one of them. Tower’s probably the other survivor, given his bag of tricks. It doesn’t bother you that your death has been foretold? Why don’t you get out while you still can?”

“Whatever the Black Swan saw, she’s already altered our fates. It’s possible we will all survive, and the dragon will die.”

Infidel didn’t look at him as she worked on the second bra cup. Her lips were pursed tightly together for several seconds before she said, softly, “Or maybe all of us will die. Even me.”

I put my ghostly hand on her shoulder, wanting to comfort her. I’d never heard such despair in her voice.

“I thought I was done with this,” she said, hammering the metal on her knee.

I didn’t think she was talking about the bra.

Relic nodded. “And now you are afraid again.”

She picked up the cup-shaped steel and began to smooth it between her fingers. “I haven’t felt like this since I left the palace. I used to be so timid and terrified. I never wanted to feel that way again.”

I was surprised to find out she’d been afraid of anything as a child. It seemed counter-intuitive. As a princess, I would have guessed she’d been protected from everything.

“I was treated like a china doll,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to play outside because I might fall and get scratched. I couldn’t sit too near a window, because the sun might burn my skin. I slept with armed guards stationed at my bed because my father was afraid of kidnappers. My whole family had tasters who sampled our food to make certain it wasn’t poison. Being constantly reminded I was so fragile left me in a constant state of terror.”

Relic nodded knowingly, but I had trouble imagining a fragile, frightened Infidel.

She sighed. “I wanted to do this treasure hunt as a quick smash and grab, making stuff up as we went along, the way Stagger and I always played it. Events never got out of control when we were together, because we never tried to control them. We just moved on whim and instinct, living fast and fearless. Now, Tower is talking about destiny and history, the Black Swan is playing with people’s lives like they’re pawns in some game, and it sounds like my father is already studying maps of this island figuring out where to build his new palace. I can’t help feeling that all this planning has put things out of control. We’re all going to die.”

Relic rose up, stretching his back, sinews popping. His hunch disappeared as he rose to the height of an ordinary man. His body was still hidden by the tattered cloak. His eyes glowed like red embers in the shadow of his hood.

“Perhaps you’re saying these things hoping I will reassure you,” he said, in a stern tone. “I need offer no comfort. All the strength you need to prevail pulses within your veins. You ceased to be a frightened little girl the second you devoured the blood of a primal dragon. A dragon soul shares your body now, a soul more powerful than the sniveling child you once were. Surrender yourself to the dragon inside and our victory is assured.”

Infidel shook her head slowly as she tested the second cup. Satisfied, she worked silently with the link of chain that held the cups together, crimping the ends between her fingernails, then slipping the whole thing on from the back like a vest before pinching the final connecting link between the cups shut at the front.

She stood up. Relic, still standing straight, looked down upon her, a good head taller. She peered up into his glowing eyes. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“I’m the second survivor of this mission,” he said.

“How can you know this? Are you a seer as well as a mind-reader?”

“No,” said Relic, as his head lowered once more, returning his outline to his hunchbacked profile. “But you cannot imagine the trials I’ve endured to reach this moment. There is nothing left for me to fear. Not even Greatshadow.”

“So tell me about the trials. Tell me who you are. Why should I keep listening to you?”

Relic shook his head. “I must remain an enigma until we achieve our goals. Greatshadow can pluck thoughts from the minds of others. If you knew my true identity, he might learn it as well. I’m the one enemy he should fear above all others... because he doesn’t even know I exist.”

“Why are you his enemy? Why do you hate the dragon so?”

Relic clenched his gnarled fist. “This too, must remain my secret. But know that my hatred for the beast is deep and righteous. Turning back is unthinkable. I cannot live any longer in a world that contains Greatshadow.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “I’m really getting tired of your mystery man act. Just answer her questions.”

Relic ignored me.

Infidel shrugged. “Fine. I’ve lived with your mystery man act this long, I can put up with it for another day.”

“And your fears? Can you put them behind you?”

She pulled back her shoulders and clenched her fists. “Dragons are cold-blooded. That’s the only blood I’ve got now. So cold my heart’s just a block of ice, incapable of fear, or doubt, or remorse. Timid little Innocent has long since been devoured by the monster.” She cracked her knuckles, as all emotion drained from her face. She looked like a machine once more. “Let’s go kick Greatshadow’s scaly ass.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ROUGH TREATMENT

A
FTER EVERYONE HAD
rested, we pressed deeper into the palace complex. The rooms we passed through were mostly barren. After all this time, I suppose items made of wood or cloth would have turned to dust, but it was curious that there were no ordinary objects made of stone or ceramic, which would have endured. The emptiness hinted that the people who had dwelled here had time to pack before they abandoned the place. On the other hand, it was tough to ignore the gems and gold embedded in the countless mosaics. Certainly, if people had time to pack up their dinner plates and chamber pots, they would have taken their valuables as well.

With Aurora gone, everyone was sweating profusely. The narrow passageway we followed descended at a rather sharp angle, and stretched for what must have been at least a mile. It made me wonder what the ancients had been digging for.

“It doesn’t make sense,” the Menageries grumbled. They were once more in their human forms, walking in mirror symmetry; as one miniature Goon swung his left foot forward, the other moved his right.

“What doesn’t make sense?” asked Tower.

“We’re heading toward a temple, right? This doesn’t seem like a good location to attract followers. Why put it so deep inside a mountain?”

“Muhskuh wuh thuh,” said No-Face.

The Menageries chuckled, a sound like chattering chipmunks.

“What did he say?” I asked.

The mosquitoes were worse then
, answered Relic.

“Obviously, they were a mining culture,” said Zetetic. “You don’t produce the gold and gemstones we’ve seen simply panning in streams. These people spent a lot of time underground.”

Relic nodded. “There was spiritual significance to the depths as well. The trees sink their roots deep into the soil. The ancients deduced that the earth was the origin of all life; the ground was regarded as sacred. Digging into the earth produced precious metals and priceless gems, further evidence that the divine dwelled beneath the surface. The deeper they dug, the greater the treasures produced. Temples were built as deep as possible so that the gods could better hear the prayers of the priests.”

Father Ver shook his head. “How sad to live oblivious to the truth.”

“A truth contained in a book your own church didn’t discover until a mere thousand years ago,” said Zetetic. “You have plain evidence men existed long before then. Does it strike you as unfair that your Divine Author condemned so many generations of men to ignorance by hiding the book?”

Father Ver started to answer, but Tower raised his gauntlet. “This is the wrong time and place to debate this. According to the map, we’ve reached the entrance to the temple.” He glanced at Relic. “I assume you can verify this?”

Relic nodded. We were in a long narrow room filled with arches covered with pale blue tiles. At the end of the hall there was a circle of stone, nearly fifteen feet across. Relic pointed to the stone and said, “That stone rolls aside. Beyond is a spiral stairway built of human bones leading down seven hundred seventy-seven steps. At the bottom is a natural cavern filled with gleaming crystals hundreds of feet tall; this was the most sacred spot in the kingdom.”

I perked up. “If Zetetic is right, and the veil between the spirit world and the realm of the living is thin in temples, could I escape? Could I come back to life?”

Relic didn’t look at me as he led the others toward the stone door. He replied mentally, saying,
You’ve already escaped the pull of the spirit world, Blood-Ghost. Abandon hope; you will never be alive again.

“You know, you could sugar coat that a little. There’s no need to be rude. You still need me as your spy, remember?”

For all the information you’ve so far gathered, I believe my circumstances would be materially unchanged without you.

I punched him in the back of the head with a phantom fist. It passed right through, but I felt a teeny bit better.

We reached the end of the hall. I’d seen this type of door before, a giant disk of stone sitting inside a matching groove. The ancients were marvelous engineers. Though the stone weighed several tons, no doubt it was so well balanced even a child could move it.

The disk was ringed with cup-sized indentations. Tower placed his hands into the holes, then flexed to roll the stone aside.

The door didn’t budge. Maybe it wasn’t that well balanced after all.

“It’s locked,” said Relic.

“I see,” said Tower. “How do we unlock it?”

Relic ran his gnarled hand along the blue tiles that decorated the arch surrounding the stone. He found the one he was looking for and pressed it. It slid aside, revealing a shaft about six inches wide. He thrust his skinny arm into it. “There’s a lever that releases the...” A muffled
SNAP
caused his sentence to go unfinished. He pulled out his hand, opening his fingers to reveal the rusty remains of an iron rod. He sighed. “Not all ancient artifacts are as well maintained as the War Doll.”