James Maxey - Greatshadow

“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.

“Hear something?” Infidel asked.

“I… don’t think so. Dog ears are so sensitive, they play tricks on me. I’m picking up faint voices, but they must be coming from miles away.”

“She’s free now,” Blade said, his voice trembling. “She was my dream while I was alive. Now, she’ll be the world’s nightmare.”

“What? Who? What’s going on?”

“The Whisper,” he said, holding his ghostly hands toward the sky, watching the light filter through his ethereal skin. “I died with a heart full of rage. She’ll be trapped in this emotion. She’ll kill and kill and nothing will ever slake her anger.”

“Let’s start over,” I said. “I’m not following you. I mean, I understand she’ll be angry, but-”

“Whisper was my wildest dream, brought back from the land of sleep by my experimentations in somnomancy. Dream magic,” he said, his voice sounding choked and tight. “She’s a dream creature who pretended to be human to make me happy. She became the living embodiment of my lust and vanity. I’ve walked in the shadows for so long I grew to love the darkness. Now…” He frowned, the saddest face I’ve ever seen. “Now I will have nothing but darkness.”

He shuddered and the wispy edges of his body began to blur.

“Don’t surrender!” I shouted, offering him my hand. “You can stay behind if you hold on to something hard enough.”

If he heard me, he didn’t respond. The tower of mist no longer looked like a man; then, it didn’t even look like mist. All that was left was the pool of blood where he’d stood and the light and shadows of the forest dancing upon it.

I dropped to my knees before the pool of blood. I was desperate to bring him back; until this moment, I hadn’t known that I could talk with other ghosts. I plunged my hand into the gore. “Come back,” I cried out. “Come back, please!”

Nothing happened. Though my condition was no different than what it had been a moment before, I suddenly felt desperately lonely, like a fallen Wanderer left on a desert island. I was surrounded by the living, but was not a part of them. Were there other ghosts in the world? Or was I the only soul who’d failed to move on? Was I just as much a failure at dying as I had been at living?

I lifted my hand from the blood, expecting it to come away clean. Instead, it was coated red, the warm fluid running down my naked arm. Yet, the drops that fell didn’t ripple in the pool below. It wasn’t real. It was ghost blood. I smeared it between my fingers and it faded away.