My old sailboat had come to rest in the tangled branches of a mangrove thicket half a mile away. The gaping holes in the hull would never allow it to return to the bay, but as a tree house it possessed a certain charm. Menagerie had spotted it in the aftermath of the dragon strike, as he’d flitted over the area in his vulture form, surveying the damage. He’d quickly singled out the most likely places to look for survivors, then he and the other Goons had set forth to help who they could.
Infidel was never afraid to lend a hand to anyone in need, but she declined to take part in the rescue mission. I couldn’t blame her; she looked completely wiped out after her fight with the dragon. She found Relic’s gnarled staff among the shattered planks of the Black Swan and used it for support as she limped across the rubble in search of my boat. She was sweating, her face pale and feverish. Her invulnerable skin didn’t burn, but, like anyone, when she got overheated, she could feel sick. It didn’t help that the sun had come out with a fury, its tropical rays turning the humid atmosphere over the churned up bay into a pressure cooker.
At midday, while Infidel still searched through the mangroves, I noticed the Wanderer ships returning. They sailed back into the bay in droves, once again forming a boat city, held together by ropes and ladders instead of docks and gangplanks. River-pygmies were now thick in the bay as well, an entire flotilla of canoes searching among the shattered ships and buildings.
The eruption of the volcano had finally subsided. The once verdant southern slope of the mountain was black now, cloaked with smoke and steam. A shower of fine charcoal ash rained down on the bay, coating every surface.
Infidel was grimy as a miner by the time she found my boat. The once white flag she was wrapped in was now mostly gray. She was all alone as she climbed into the branches. I wondered if Relic had possibly survived. No one had seen the hunchback since she’d tossed him from the crow’s nest.
My place was even more of a trash heap than usual. The piles of books had all toppled. The towers of bottles and jugs had turned into a carpet of broken glass. Infidel dug through the rubble until she’d found the thin cotton mat that served as my bed. She yanked it free of the debris and tossed it onto the deck outside. She located a few stained blankets and draped them in the branches, forming an umbrella to provide shade and shield her from the drifting ash.
She toppled onto the bed face first, her body completely slack. She lay motionless for half a minute until she raised her hand to the back of her neck, running her palm along the uneven stubble of her scalp. She groaned, a sound mixing weariness, frustration, and despair.
Then, she fell silent. After five minutes, I could hear her muffled snores. She slept like a corpse, her slumber undisturbed by the tossing, turning, and mumbling that normally characterized it. Hours passed; eventually the long day drew to an end and still she slept, without a single muscle twitching.
The ash rain had finally stopped and the stars were slowly emerging when there was a loud crunch in the debris beneath the boat. Infidel didn’t stir as the sound repeated itself; something large and heavy was walking around.
Someone called out, “Infidel?”
Infidel remained face down and immobile, her voice muffled as she replied, “Mwuh?”
“Infidel, it’s Aurora. Where are you?”
Infidel rolled over on her side.
“Go away,” she said, without opening her eyes. Her voice was feeble and scratchy.
“I want to talk,” said Aurora. “I brought you some food.”
Infidel’s unbruised eye cracked open slightly.
“Monkey?” she asked, the faintest glimmer of hope in her voice. River-pygmies sold monkey meat stuck on bamboo reeds, deep fried and served with a chili sauce. Infidel loved the stuff, though I’d never cared for it.
“Sea beans, some whale jerky, and a coconut,” said Aurora.
Infidel rolled over on her back, her brow furrowed. She seemed to be caught in an internal debate, weighing her hunger against her desire not to have company. At last, she sighed. “Come on up.”
She scooted into a seated position against a mangrove branch, tugging the flag she was wrapped in like a towel higher up her breasts as Aurora climbed onto the boat. Despite the devastation of the day, the night was coming to life with the chirps of frogs and birds. Off in the distance, a troop of apes howled as they scrambled through the canopy. The air was still thick with the smell of putrid water mixed with smoke. All along the slope of the volcano, remnant blazes danced. I felt a sense of longing, looking up at the mountain. It was impossible to say what ancient ruins had been wiped out by the eruption. On the other hand, the forest fires no doubt cleared away the tangles of vines that hid many a lost wonder. I wished I could go up on the slope later this week to scope out the newly revealed terrain.
Aurora sat down on the deck, cross-legged, dropping a large canvas bag in front of her. “I found you some more clothes. I have to say, that idea about a team of tailors following you around sounds like a good idea.”
Infidel shrugged. “There aren’t many people in the world with skin tougher than their clothing. I can be hell on a pair of pants.”
“How did your skin get to be so tough?”
“You aren’t supposed to ask stuff like that in Commonground,” said Infidel.
“I’m not sure there is a Commonground anymore,” said Aurora, glancing back out over the bay.
“Fair enough.” Infidel dug into the bag and found the coconut. She cracked it in her bare hands, holding the nut to her lips as the milk began to run out. She gulped down the pale white fluid then wiped her mouth, sitting the coconut aside as she dug back into the bag, pulling out a slender plank of purple meat as long as her forearm.
“Whale jerky, huh? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Even in a city by the bay, there aren’t that many people who keep harpoons in their room.”
Aurora nodded. “Whales are central to life on Qikiqtabruk. We eat their flesh, drink their blood, make cheese from their milk-”
“What?”
“What what?”
“Milk? Whales are fish. They don’t have teats. How can they have milk?”
“Whales aren’t fish. They breathe air like you or me. And, they suckle their young on milk. If you kill a mother whale while she’s still nursing, you can harvest barrels of cream. The cheese we make from it is a great delicacy. As high priestess, I would always be given the first batch after a hunt.”
“High priestess sounds like nice work if you can get it,” said Infidel. “I take it the Jagged Heart was used on the whale hunts?”
“Indirectly. Before each hunt, I would summon the ghosts of whales we’d slain on the previous hunt, and vanquish the spirits so that they couldn’t do evil against the ogres going out to hunt. The spirit meat was also essential provision for the dead of our people on their journey into the Great Sea Above. The Jagged Heart also had the power to open a pathway into the afterlife where I could commune with our ancestors. Its pale light would guide us as we sailed from the dragon’s jaws into the Great Sea Above.”
Infidel rolled her eyes.
“What?” asked Aurora.
“Nothing,” she said, as she chomped down on the sheet of meat and tore off a mouthful. She chewed with her mouth open as she said, “Hmm. Not bad. Not fishy at all. I hope you got the spirit of this one; I’d hate for an angry whale ghost to give me indigestion.”
Aurora frowned. “You aren’t terribly respectful of other people’s beliefs.”
Infidel shrugged. “I’m not even terribly respectful of my own beliefs. Anyway, why should you care what people think of your religion? It certainly didn’t do you much good. Banished by your own people for losing a harpoon.”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. I thought she was about to scold Infidel, but then her expression softened. “I wasn’t banished. I was executed. I was wrapped in chains and taken to an iceberg. My people chiseled a hole in the ice, then buried me in it. My own brother, Tarpok, filled the hole with water so that it would refreeze. Cold cannot harm me, and my people can survive for days without breathing if we do not struggle. Still, I was left to drift in my frozen tomb, completely trapped, doomed to eventually suffocate or starve.”
“But you obviously escaped.”
“The Black Swan rescued me. I don’t know if it was by pure chance, or due to her ability to travel back in time, but she found me after I’d been adrift for little more than a week. I was near death when she freed me. I had no will to live, but she nursed me back to health anyway. She told me that, since I was dead to my people, I could make a new life with her in Commonground. I hope she’s survived.
“I searched the ruins of the barge and found no sign of her. I don’t know what to do if she’s gone forever.”
“She’ll be okay. She strikes me as a survivor,” said Infidel, who by now had found the sea beans. Sea beans aren’t actual beans; they’re a puffy weed that grows in marshes. They taste like asparagus soaked in saltwater. They make my mouth pucker, but Infidel likes their crisp snap. “You were going to quit working for the Black Swan anyway. What do you care?”
“As priestess, my whole life was devoted to serving others. Without service, I have no purpose. I didn’t always approve of the Black Swan’s actions. If she had any greater goal for her life other than accumulating wealth, I never learned of it. Yet, serving her gave structure to my days. I know I was only another employee to her, but she was my world.”
Infidel rooted around in the sack once again and pulled out a jug with a cork in it, looking at it skeptically. “What’s this?”
“Fresh water,” said Aurora. “I don’t drink spirits.”
Infidel popped the cork and chugged down several cupfuls. “Mmm. I needed that. After a big fight, I’m always thirsty for days.”
“It must take a lot of energy, to do the things you do,” said Aurora. “There aren’t many people who can say they’ve killed a dragon.”
Infidel shrugged. “Yeah. It takes a lot out of me. But, not as much as you might think. My strength is more magic than muscles.”
“What is the source of your magic?” asked Aurora.
Infidel stared at her, obviously annoyed by the question. Then, to my surprise, she flashed her what-the-hell grin. “Okay,” she said. “You know that there used to be a primal dragon of the forest named Verdant. He was killed, like, a thousand years ago by the first Knight of the Book, the original King Brightmoon.”
Aurora nodded. “I’m familiar with the legend.”
“It’s not legend, it’s history,” said Infidel. “Brightmoon killed Verdant, who had been weakened by the decimation of the forests near his lair. The blood of the beast was drained and dried, forming a dark green powder. A gilded casket of this blood was kept at the Brightmoon Cathedral. When Knights of the Book are initiated, they’re given a spoonful of the stuff, dissolved in wine. It grants them a small measure of the dragon’s strength and toughness.”
“Blood magic,” said Aurora. “I thought the church disapproved of such things.”
“The Church is just a wealth of contradictions,” said Infidel. “They preach peace, then raise armies of violent tempered men to impose it. They sing the virtues of forgiveness and mercy, but build torture chambers to focus the faith of those who’ve gone astray. Dabbling in blood magic is a sin for you and me, but priests don’t have to play by the same rules. Since they decree what is and isn’t a sin, a priest could eat babies and pick his teeth with the bones and still be praised for his rectitude.”
“I’m starting to see how you earned the name ‘Infidel.’”
Infidel shook her head. “The church doesn’t give a damn about my opinions. It’s my actions that put me on the naughty list. When I was fifteen, I stole their casket of dragon blood. Knights had been gobbling down this stuff for centuries, so it was almost gone, but there was still about a pound of it caked up in the corners. I went at it with my fingernails and polished off everything that was left. At first, I didn’t think anything had happened to me. When the priest came to get me from the inner sanctum, he found me crouched down over the empty casket, blood caked around my lips and under my finger nails. The sleeves of my wedding gown were green with — ”
“Wait,” said Aurora, holding up her hand. “Wedding gown? Is this part of the story about you once being engaged to Lord Tower?”
Infidel pressed her lips tightly together, as if contemplating whether to say more. After several long seconds, she said, “Engaged isn’t the right word. It implies that he asked me to marry him and I said yes. The truth isn’t so pretty. I was sold to him.”
Aurora raised her eyebrows.
“My birth name was Innocent Brightmoon. I was the king’s third daughter, but the first to survive to breeding age.”
“A princess,” said Aurora.
“It’s not as good a job as it sounds,” said Infidel. “‘Princess’ is just a fancy label for a high-priced slave-whore. My wedding to the firstborn male heir of the Tower family had been arranged before I was born. The Towers were immensely wealthy; there were all sorts of political and economic reasons that the Tower and Brightmoon lines were fated to mingle. My father had decided that his first eligible daughter would marry the first eligible son of the Tower family, and that was that. No one ever asked my opinion on the matter.”
“Still…” said Aurora. “You were born into luxury. Life couldn’t have been all bad.”
“Couldn’t it?” Infidel asked. She sighed. “I guess, from the outside, it looked like I was living a life of wealth. But, it wasn’t my wealth, or my life. I was little more than a doll, a pretty thing to be dressed in gowns and decorate my father’s court. I was never allowed to make a single decision. I lived in a palace where court dinners were held, with meals literally fit for a king, and all I’d be given to eat would be a meager salad. I wasn’t allowed to taste dessert because my wedding gown had been designed before I was even conceived, and it was important that my waist be slender enough that I might get mistaken for a wasp. I never wore shackles, but I was a prisoner all the same.”
Aurora nodded. “So you decided to run away.”
“I wish I could say my actions were that deliberate. My education, such as it was, didn’t teach me much about making good choices. When my wedding day finally came, I could barely think. I felt like a caged rat; my mind was darting all over the place, looking for any escape, but I found nothing.”
“You must have really hated the young Lord Tower.”
Infidel made a gagging noise. “Hated doesn’t begin to cover it. He’s such a sanctimonious idiot; he can’t fart without running to the nearest priest to offer repentance. He believes every lie the church has ever crafted. You wouldn’t believe his awkward, ritualistic attempts to court me. I could tell he really had no choice in this matter either. If he’d been a little rebellious about it, who knows? Maybe I might have liked him. I mean, he was good-looking, and he was always winning jousting tournaments, so he wasn’t without a certain physical charm. But, his attempts to write love poems were cringe inducing. They sounded like sermons! ‘Praise the creator who this day has blessed me with the bounty of your chaste lips, blah blah bluhhh.’” She stuck out her tongue. “We never even held hands.”
Somehow, my ghost heart felt lighter to learn this. Since hearing she’d been engaged to Lord Tower, I’d assumed that she must have loved him once. I was jealous, though, obviously, there was no rational basis for this. I found myself annoyed that she was spilling her guts so freely to Aurora. I’d been her closest companion for ages. Why had she never shared this with me? Worse, why had I never had the courage to ask?
Infidel continued her story, “Anyway, it was my wedding day. There’s this ten minute ritual before the ceremony where the bride goes to the inner sanctum to pray in private; there’s not even a priest present. The inner sanctum was where they kept the casket of dragon blood. The second the priest closed the door, my eyes fixed on it. It was locked, but it was also a thousand freakin’ years old. I had it cracked open in about thirty seconds. And, like I said, when the high priest came back into the sanctuary, I was coated in the stuff. I’d gobbled it down like it was all the ice cream and cake that I’d been denied since I was a toddler.”
Aurora chuckled softly. “You must have been a sight in your bloodied gown.”
“To this day, I still don’t like wearing green,” said Infidel, with a small shudder. “I get bad flashbacks of looking down at the green coating my arms. The priest stared at me for about half a minute, just dumbfounded, then clenched his fists and came at me, shouting, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ Even though I’d never hit anyone in my life, I gave him a backhanded slap to shut him up. And… um… and… and his face sort of caved in. After that, I kind of… I kind of snapped. I launched out of the inner sanctum and tore through anyone in my way. I jumped out a stained glass window and kept running. I killed… I killed a lot of people on my way out of town. There might have been a puppy that got squished as well. I… my memory’s fuzzy, and I don’t like to think about it anyway. I was completely drunk on the blood. It’s one reason I seldom drink now. I don’t like feeling out-of-control. Anyway, long story short, I wandered around the islands for a couple of years getting my head straight before winding up in Commonground. It’s been a while since any of the church’s assassins came after me, but I’m guessing I’m still public enemy number one.”
“Which makes it strange that you want to sign on to the king’s dragon hunt,” said Aurora. “Won’t Tower recognize you?”
Infidel shrugged. “Who knows? I was just a girl back then. I have boobs now.” She ran her hands along her ruined hair. “And, you know, a different haircut.”
“Father Ver is with him,” said Aurora.
Infidel pressed her lips together tightly. If I’d still had arms, I would have hugged her to console her. I knew what she was thinking. A few extra curves and a dragon-induced haircut weren’t going to fool the church’s best Truthspeaker. I had personal experience with Father Ver’s powers. Infidel was screwed.
“Why do you want to go on this quest anyway?” asked Aurora. “It can’t be the treasure. You’ve never been obsessed with money.”
Infidel drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her arms as she stared out over the dark bay. Boat lanterns twinkled like stars across the water.
“Maybe I’m tired,” she whispered.
“Maybe?”
“Screw it,” she said, raising her chin. “I am tired. I mean, I’ve had fun. Stagger led me on some wild adventures. I’ve had experiences I couldn’t even imagine when I was fifteen. My life hasn’t been boring. But…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head.
“But?”
“But maybe I’d like boring.” She took a deep, weary breath. “Maybe I’d enjoy sleeping in a real bed at night, and wearing clean clothes every day. Maybe I’d like to walk down a street where I’m not looking over my shoulder wondering who’s about to jump me with a shadow blade. Maybe I’d like to meet a stranger and not instantly start thinking about how I’m going to kill him if things turn ugly. Maybe thirty-year-old Infidel doesn’t want to live her life trapped by choices made by fifteen-year-old Innocent.”
Her eyes were narrowed as she spoke. She sounded so angry. I’d never suspected. What kind of friend had I been that I’d missed this?
She finally relaxed, and said, softly, “The closest I ever came to feeling normal was when I hung out with Stagger. This is… this is crazy. But I used to imagine me and him getting out of here, finding some little village where no one knew who the hell we were, and settling down. Maybe find a little peace and quiet and normal.”
I’d dreamed that too. Why hadn’t I told her?
“Why didn’t you tell him?” asked Aurora.
“We… we…” She cradled her head in her hands. Her voice cracked as she said, “There are things that are wrong with me.”
“Stagger was wild about you. You have a crazy streak, sure, but anyone could see that he loved you.”
Infidel closed her eyes and clenched her fists. She looked as sad as when she’d sat at my grave. She was silent for a long time. Finally, she relaxed her hands, and sniffed. She whispered, “Normal couples can… they can do stuff. Intimate stuff. And I wanted that. I wanted that so badly.”
I wanted that! I wanted that so much it hurt. Why didn’t I have the courage to tell her? If I’d still had lungs, I would have cursed the sky for my cowardice.
“I’m guessing Stagger would have been okay with, um, intimacy,” said Aurora, with what might have been a grin, though her tusks made it hard to tell.
Infidel shuddered. “My strength makes touching things tricky. I try to slap a man, and I smash his face in. It took me years to learn to pick up a glass without breaking it. I’m more dangerous than people know.”
“You seem to have it under control.”
“I could have held his hand without crushing it, sure. Maybe even kissed him without breaking his teeth. But… but all my muscles are supernaturally powerful. Even ones… even ones I don’t always have full control over.”
“Oh,” said Aurora. Then, she said, “Ooooh,” in a way that made it clear she understood what Infidel was getting at.
Suddenly, I understood as well. Ordinary coupling could have left me maimed and mangled, if not outright dead.
“So…” said Aurora. “You’re a thirty-year-old virgin.”
Infidel shrugged. “I’ll die one, I guess. I’m never going to know anything like love. But, at least when I hung out with Stagger, I felt… I felt happy.”
I’d been happy too. And, even with my fantasies of shared sexual bliss crushed by Infidel’s physical realities, I still would gladly have gone with her to that quiet little village and lived out my days beside her. I’d loved her without even so much as a kiss for years. I could have accepted anything to make her happy.
“And now you’re unhappy,” said Aurora. “So what? The plan is to go get yourself killed by Greatshadow?”
“No,” said Infidel, sounding deadly serious. “The plan is to go get myself rich. Not pirate booty rich, not ancient artifact rich, but filthy, filthy, filthy rich. Because if there’s one thing I learned growing up in my father’s court, it’s that if you’re filthy rich everyone will bend over backwards to tell you you’re clean. If I show up in my father’s court with sole possession of Greatshadow’s treasure, I’m confident I’ll have a full pardon in my hands inside of ten minutes. The church might not be happy about this, but I’m betting after I donate funds to build a few new cathedrals, they’ll come around. I’ll be rich with my own money, not my father’s. I’ll be free to live where and how I wish. I’ll have my own palace with silk sheets on a bed so fluffy you’d think it’s stuffed with clouds. Every day I’ll take a hot bath while musicians serenade me and I’ll get out of the water and put on clean freakin’ underwear. And when I walk into my own damn dining room, people are going to run up to me with trays full of goddamn cake!”
Aurora nodded slowly, contemplating the dream. “And this is going to make you happy?”
Infidel shrugged. “I’m not shooting for happy. I’m aiming for comfortable and fat.”
“You’ll achieve more than this,” said a voice from the branches above. Infidel jumped to her feet. Aurora jerked her head up as a sheen of ice grew across her clenched fists. It was Relic. How the hunchback had climbed into the branches without us hearing him I don’t know. It seemed like a bit of a stretch that this could have been where Infidel had thrown him.
Relic peered down at the two women. His eyes glowed faintly golden in the darkness. He said, “You shall be beloved by all mankind, princess. You will be the champion who slew Greatshadow. For centuries men have perished due to the unpredictable malevolence of fire. Castles, hovels, entire towns have been reduced to cinders with no warning, killing young and old alike. Once Greatshadow is dead, fire will be a trusted tool of mankind, fully tamed, a danger no more. Children will sing songs about you a thousand years hence, just as they sing the tale of how the first Brightmoon vanquished the dragon of the forest. As for seeking the forgiveness of the Church of the Book, remember you won’t just return with the dragon’s treasure. You can also return with barrels of fresh blood, replacing the dwindling holy relic you stole. You can claim you were driven by divine visions to renew the blood. One day you’ll be regarded as a saint.”
Infidel looked up the slope of the mountain, toward the glowing caldera. “And maybe one day I’ll sprout wings and fly. Because if there’s a Truthspeaker on this quest, then I’m never going to be part of this dragon hunt.”
“Assuming there’s still a hunt,” Aurora said. “The Truthspeaker’s charred bones are probably at the bottom of the bay with the rest of the king’s fleet.”
“Nah,” said Infidel. “My father’s a jerk, but not an idiot. He sent those ships in to give the dragon a chance to feel like he’d finished off the threat before it even reached shore. It had to be a distraction. Tower and his team are already on the island.”
Relic nodded. “I concur. It’s only a matter of time before they contact the Three Goons. We must prepare for this moment.”
“Prepare how?” asked Infidel.
“You will need a disguise that Lord Tower cannot see through,” said Relic. “I have just the persona in mind.”
“Forget Tower. How am I supposed to fool a Truthspeaker?”
Relic’s glowing eyes twinkled as he chuckled. “That, my dear, will be far easier than you may think. Few are as easy to deceive as those most confident of the truth.” Then he cast his gaze toward Aurora. “The deception will require your cooperation, as well as the silence of the Three Goons.”
Aurora nodded. “If you promise to help me recover the Jagged Heart, I pledge to keep my mouth shut. As for the Goons, they’ve been hired as muscle; there’s no clause requiring them to disclose everything they know. We can buy their silence with a non-competing contract for those sub-rights.”
“I vow that recovering the Heart for you will be my second goal, though ensuring that Greatshadow dies remains my top priority. If you accept this, then we have a deal,” said Relic. He held out his gnarled hand. Aurora placed her giant hand upon it. Infidel laid her smaller hand against the ogress’s knuckles.
Infidel said, “Excellent. It looks like we’ve got it all worked out for me to join a group of men sworn to kill me so we can face off with a dragon that melts stone with his breath.” She grinned. “And Stagger used to complain that I never planned ahead.”