James Maxey - Greatshadow

As interesting as it was learning what the X sanction was, I was more intrigued by the idea that Tower could communicate with the monks through his book. The notebook had been the only thing in Tower’s hand when he stepped off the platform, and two seconds later he’d had the Gloryhammer in his grasp. Did the notebook contain some kind of portal spell? Maybe the Jagged Heart was still at the monastery, and could be sent to Tower when he was ready for it.

Before I could ponder the puzzle further, Grandfather lowered himself down from the trees on a looped vine. He stopped with his penis-gourd at eye-level and said, “You’ve worn out your welcome, long-men.” Our packs and gear rained to the ground around us as the pygmies tossed them from the platform. “Leave at once. Return to the sea. You may not pass through our territory.”

“We’ll go where we wish,” said Father Ver. “Should your kinsmen threaten us, we will meet any attack with deadly force. You have no-”

Lord Tower raised his gauntlet, motioning for the Truthspeaker to stop speaking. “You were gracious to show us hospitality,” he said to Grandfather. “We will not cause you any further bother. We’re here to fight the dragon, not fellow men, pagans though you may be. We will find another path.”

The knight cast his gaze toward Relic. “It seems we must put your knowledge of this island to a test after all.”

Relic nodded. “I know a way.”

“Do you?” I asked.

Not really, he thought back at me.

I smiled. For the first time since I died, I finally felt useful. All these years of poking around the island were going to prove valuable after all.

“It looks like I’ve finally got the upper hand,” I said. “I know how to get to the lair from here while avoiding Jawa Fruit territory.”

And what is the price of this information? asked Relic.

I pressed my lips together, feeling horrible about what I was going to say. But… what choice did I have? “I’ll keep spying on Tower. And in return… in return, you’ll tell me what Infidel’s thinking. I have to know. Is she really interested in him? Is there any danger at all that he’ll win her over?”

Relic’s eyes glowed in the shadows of his hood. A fair price. And what will you ask if you find that she does feel attraction?

I clenched my fists and said, “Nothing you’re not already planning to do. Tower was never going to come out of Greatshadow’s lair alive.”

To everyone’s astonishment, nobody died during the next week. I’ll take credit. Having been turned away from Jawa Fruit territory, I had Relic guide the party along the cliffs to reach the north slope. This was the harshest terrain on the island; I knew it well, since the ruins of the Vanished Kingdom here had been left relatively untouched by previous generations of tomb raiders. Treasure seekers have a tendency to look for the easy score; if they had the taste for actual work, there were more reliable careers available. So, most of the explorers stuck to the relative ease of the southern and eastern slopes, as I had done early in my career. It was only after I’d forged a friendship with a woman who could toss half-ton rocks around like bales of hay that the northern slope had opened up to me. Some of my most profitable discoveries had been made here.

There were no substantial navigable rivers on this side of the island, just cascading streams, so there were no river-pygmies. The few trees that clung to the rocky slopes were gnarled and stunted, unsuitable for forest-pygmies. That left only lava-pygmies to worry about, and since the Shattered Palace sat near the dead center of their territory, I didn’t see anything we could do to avoid them.

As luck would have it, in the chaos that followed Infidel meeting my grandfather, she’d never bothered to clean the bone-handled knife. Relic had returned it to her, and I was still free to move about. I felt like a child opening gift-wrapped presents, flitting from ruin to ruin as the others slogged slowly along narrow tracks that would give a mountain goat vertigo. The men of the Vanished Kingdom had regarded this rugged landscape as a spiritual place, carving countless small temples directly into the steep rock faces.

On my last trip through the area, I’d spotted some dark spots high up a jutting cliff that looked more like windows than natural cave openings. Infidel had been willing to risk the climb, but we’d spotted it near the end of our trip and our packs were already bulging, so we’d decided to save it for another day. As Tower’s party crept along the yard-wide lip of rock that led beneath the windows, I could see from Infidel’s expression that she remembered the place. I felt a pang of regret over this and a thousand other plans we’d made that we never got around to doing.

I fixed my eyes upon the windows and lifted toward them, as if carried by the updrafts that swept across the slope. I drifted inside, eager to discover if we’d passed up some priceless treasure.

Even before I went in, I saw clues that this wasn’t an old temple. I’d looked at enough weathered rock over the years to tell the difference between stones dressed centuries ago and relatively fresh work. These windows looked no more than a few decades old, which meant they were likely the work of lava-pygmies. Once inside, the truth was even more evident, since the ceiling was low, only about five feet high, black with soot from a fire pit lined with stones. The fire pit was still warm, and the gritty floor was covered with fresh footprints. At the back of the cave was a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.

The whole volcano was honeycombed with these passages, carved by lava-pygmies with obsidian pick-axes. Despite all the work the little orange men put into digging these tunnels and caves, they didn’t actually live underground. They used these tunnels mainly for religious rituals. For forest-pygmies and river-pygmies, Greatshadow was a god, but for lava-pygmies, Greatshadow was the god, and these tunnels normally led to pools of lava where sacrifices would be made.

When I first discovered these areas, my instinct was to back out. For one thing, exploring them meant crawling for hours, which was rough on the knees. Plus, you never knew when you’d turn a corner and find yourself face to face with a band of pygmies armed with poison darts and a sense of righteous indignation.

Once I started exploring with Infidel, the balance of power had shifted enough that lava-pygmy temples had become targets. While the lava-pygmies lived in the same relative poverty as the rest of the islanders, their sacred sites were often decorated with a commodity too valuable to ignore: dragon bones.

In theory, there were no dragons left other than the primal dragons. A scrap of dragon hide or a single dragon tooth were exceedingly rare in the rest of the world. Yet, somehow lava-pygmies always had dragon bones aplenty, along with hides that looked like they could have been tanned the week before. In The Vanished Kingdom, Grandfather had argued that these were the remains of ancient dragons, mummified and preserved by the dry, hot air inside the volcanic chambers. I’d never liked the theory. I’d spent enough time around the volcano to know that it might be hot, but it definitely wasn’t dry. Things rotted in a heartbeat in these areas.

I may have been given a key to the mystery when the two dragons attacked Commonground. Maybe the remains came from Greatshadow’s avatars once his spirit no longer animated them. Yet, when they’d been killed, their bodies had turned into slag and stone. No bones or hide had been recovered.

Since the party was creeping along the narrow path at a pace somewhere between snail and turtle, I decided I’d probe the tunnel a little deeper. The narrow passage was pitch black, yet my ghost eyes proved worthy to the task. In the absence of true light, the walls glowed with a soft, pale luminance. I wondered if the eerie illumination was some spiritual energy I had been unaware of when I was alive.