Hush (Dragon Apocalypse) (36 page)

DEAD IN THE WATER

H
OW MUCH OF
what happened next is memory and how much is dream is difficult to say.

I hung upon the Jagged Heart like a pig upon a spit. Purity grimaced as my ghost blood ran down the narwhal shaft in dark red spirals, staining her hands. She tried to shake me loose, but the barbed head held me tightly. In the end, she was forced to awkwardly manipulate the harpoon close to her so that she could grab the portion of the staff that jutted from my buttocks. I hung upside down in the boat for a moment. I saw Judge Stern remove his heavy black cloak and drape it over his frozen daughter.

“You attempt to warm her in vain,” one of the ogresses said with a scowl.

“I merely wish to hide the shame of her unclothed limbs,” said the judge.

By then, Purity had shifted her grasp on the harpoon. She shook the shaft over the edge of the boat and I slid, face down, toward the growing river of blood. I splashed into the fluid, blinded for a moment by the opaque tide, before I floated face up to the surface. I felt no pain. I could not move, or even blink. I bobbed along in the current, utterly limp. Just as I could no longer reach for one of the oars cutting into the blood mere feet from my shoulder, my mind, too, lost its ability to hold on to reality. I felt as if fog rolled in from the edges of my memories, blotting out all that remained of my consciousness.

And yet... and yet I do have impressions of my journey into the realm beyond. Perhaps some faint spark of personality remained to bear mute witness to my fate. Or, equally plausible, I’ve imagined details to fill in the gaps.

Be it truth or dream, this is my recollection:

When the river of blood reached the edge of the cliff, rather than spilling over to flood the ogre village below, the river darkened and spread outward, into the air, flowing toward the stars. My corpse was carried by the current far ahead of the boat that carried Infidel. Purity stood on the bow, the harpoon held before her like a battering ram. A pale glow originated from the Jagged Heart and spread across the sky, triggering a magnificent display of the northern lights. Behind the boat, Hush stirred, her icy body rising, her coat of snow and ice falling away to reveal a crystalline dragon the size of a mountain. As she spread her snowy wings, blizzards spun from the tips, dancing outward in ever-strengthening waves. Much of the world would wake to a morning covered with snow.

The blood flood continued to rise, though at some point my perceptions flipped and instead of rising, we were falling. The stars above were now the stars below, and we fell, one and all, toward the vast black sea of night. As the waters grew closer, I could see that the stars, so small at a distance, were actually bits of ice, brilliant as diamonds. They continued to grow larger as I fell, growing from flea specks to fragments the size of fingernails, to chunks as large as my palm, to floes as big as boats, until they became small islands, hundreds of yards across. I smashed into the waters that separated these icy isles. The sea was awash with light. As I bobbed back toward the surface, I saw that the cold waters were dense with phosphorescent krill, glowing ghostly shades of green and blue.
Ghostly
was an especially apt adjective, since the krill looked like translucent wisps of light rather than beings of flesh. I understood, at last, the origins of the auroras we’d witnessed in these northern latitudes.

By pure chance, my face turned heavenward as I reached the surface. Purity’s boat was nowhere in sight. Snow clouds roiled high above, filling the sky, reflecting the pale glow of the sea.

From these clouds emerged a whale. It was Slor Tonn, his head split open. I could see through his great black and white form as he tumbled through the air. He was as much a phantom now as I’d been. He splashed into the waters some distance away from me. My body was tossed by the waves created by his impact. I found myself upside down, my lifeless eyes staring into infinite blackness, my feet now above water. I could not move to right myself. I don’t know how long I drifted, numb and silent.

Dead in the water.

Then, far below, a faint circle of white, like a smoke ring, growing, rising toward me.

It was Slor Tonn. His massive jaws were opened into a toothy circle. His jaws clamped down on my waist, severing my legs. The last thing I remember, or dream I remember, is the pressure of his tongue flattening me against the roof of his mouth before he swallowed.

And then there was nothing.

A
ND THEN THERE
was something. In the dark and silent void, I heard... music. The song was faint, the far-away voices of women singing, unaccompanied by instruments. I couldn’t recognize the words; the language sounded like that of ogres. It didn’t matter. The music was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, haunting and heartbreaking yet joyful, filling me with loneliness, then promising to take that loneliness away.

My peaceful communion with this ghostly melody came to an abrupt end as I was vomited from the belly of the whale. Imagine a sound like a cat coughing up a hairball, assuming you were inside the cat, and the cat was fifty feet long. This disgusting cacophony served as my trumpet to awaken me to judgment day. I found the will to open my eyes as I was squeezed through the whale’s undulating esophagus, my passage illuminated by reeking buckets of half-digested ghost krill. I exploded out upon the whale’s great pink tongue, my arms flopping uselessly. My left hand snagged against the whale’s saw-like teeth and was severed as I was spat out across an ice floe. The pain of losing my hand was agonizing. The pain of everything was suddenly unbearable. My chest was nearly hollow; half my guts had spilled out when Slor Tonn had snapped me off at the legs. My heart was trying to beat, but faced the difficulty of having been chopped to mincemeat by Purity’s harpoon.

I squeezed my eyes tightly to hold back the gush of tears. Never had I hurt so badly, not even when I’d died the first time in the material world.

There were voices around me: ogres, judging from the deepness of the tones and the harsh, hacking syllables of their vocabulary. Not such a big surprise, I guess. The Great Sea Above was heaven for ogres.

Clenching my teeth to control the pain, I managed, through extreme force of will, to open my eyes. I was flat on my back on the ice. An ogress crouched above me. She was nude save for a necklace of whale teeth, and her pendulous breasts nearly touched my nose. She shifted, giving me a better view of her face, although I wish she hadn’t. Her visage was a horrifying mass of blisters and raw flesh, black around the edges, as if she’d been burned. Above her blackened tusks, her pale blue eyes were gentle, even kind. Her hair was pulled back into a severe top-knot, the hair singed and frizzed.

Her half-charred lips were set in what can only be described as a bemused grin.

“I was there the night the fortune teller predicted the sea would swallow your bones,” she said. “She forgot the bit about getting spit back out.”

“Aurora?” I gasped.

“Yep,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re in a world of pain.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I swallowed hard. “Unbearable.”

She reached into a pouch at her side, then pushed something rubbery between my teeth. With her meaty fingers, she worked my jaws, forcing me to chew. The taste was like raw, rotten kidney mixed with licorice. I wanted to spit, but she held my lips shut. I decided to swallow. Given that my stomach had fallen out of my rib cage, it was the fastest path toward getting rid of whatever foul thing she was poisoning me with. However, as I swallowed, my pain eased. It wasn’t just a numbing that came over me, but a flush of heat and energy.

“That was a slice of dried adrenal gland from a polar bear,” Aurora said. “The gland sits next to the kidney, so your saliva is going to taste like urine, I’m afraid. Give it a minute to kick in and you should feel better.”

I nodded. “Not even a minute. That’s pretty good stuff.”

Aurora shrugged. “Get used to it. Now that you’re dead, you’ll be eating it by the fistful. It’s pretty much the only thing to soothe the pain.”

“I’ve been dead for weeks. Until now, it hasn’t really hurt,” I said.

“Last I saw you, you hadn’t passed on to the afterlife. You were just sort of a pathetic ghost haunting the woman you used to love.”

“Still love,” I said. “Nothing’s pathetic about that. And last I saw you, you’d been fried by Greatshadow, and your ghost was off to the Great Sea Above to find your family.”

Aurora picked me up, placing me upright on the ice. We were surrounded by a score of ogres in various states of decay. Most were short a limb or two. Some were missing heads. “I found them.”

I raised my remaining hand and said, “Awk.” The ogres who could manage it raised their hands to return the greeting. They were a sad-looking lot. Most were chewing on rubbery bits of bear gland like gum. Even from a distance, their breath smelled of piss.

“I thought the Great Sea Above was heaven for your people,” I said. “Why is everyone in pain?”

“Heaven and hell are myths of your people. For my people, there is life, and beyond. Once you are in the Great Sea Above, you’re immortal. Your body no longer ages. This also means that it no longer heals. You remain in the same state you died in, unless you suffer further injuries here, or your corpse decays or is damaged back in the material world. Ordinarily, this isn’t a problem. We entomb our dead in ice, where their bodies may remain unchanged for eons. Alas, when I was driven from the temple, the conflicts that followed led some ogres to desecrate the bodies of my relatives. The call song I sing extends back thirty generations. I should be surrounded by legions; only this small band remains.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Aurora shrugged. “Eternity is too long to dwell on regrets. For now, I’m grateful for what I have. I’m among those I love. My family needs me. I have a purpose, which makes me happy. And now that my oldest friend has found me, my happiness is increased even more.”

“Really?” I asked, trying not to sound shocked. “I was your oldest friend? I always thought you didn’t much like me.”

“You?” she chuckled. “You were likable enough, but I was speaking of Slor Tonn.” She looked up. Slor Tonn floated directly above us. “I’m sorry he’s passed on, but happy he found me. I’m not surprised. There was always a bond between us.” She looked down at me. “On the other hand, I’m completely befuddled that you’re here. Your kind normally passes on to different realms.”

“I’m a bit surprised myself.”

“I assume there’s some logical explanation?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think logic has much to do with this.”

I told my story, starting with Infidel promising to return the Jagged Heart, all the way up to the point where Purity stabbed me. It took a long time, long enough that I required a second dose of bear gland, but Aurora listened patiently, as if she had nothing but time.

In the end, she nodded, contemplating what I’d told her.

“I’m probably missing some important details,” I said. “I don’t really know who this Tarpok character is, or why he’d ally himself with someone like Purity.”

“Tarpok was my eldest brother,” said Aurora. “He was the biggest, strongest, toughest ogre in the village. I was his runt sister, in a family with twenty siblings. As a hunter, Tarpok brought great prestige upon my family. Then I entered the priesthood, and eventually became high priestess. In my youth, the villagers would look upon my father and say, ‘there is an ogre who deserves respect, for his semen has produced the mighty hunter Tarpok.’ Once I was high priestess, the praise changed, and they said, ‘this great ogre’s semen has blessed our village with Aksarna the wise.’ Aksarna, by the way, being my true name. As you can imagine, this hurt Tarpok’s pride.”

“I would think it would hurt your mother’s pride, hearing your father get all the credit.”

“Tarpok and I have different mothers. Father has produced twenty children, by seven different mates.”

“Oh. Are ogres polygamous, or is child birth just that difficult?”

“Ogres are fiercely monogamous. Most of my father’s wives were murdered by younger women wanting to catch my father’s attention. Only after the old wife was out of the way would father choose a new wife.”

“And he’d choose a known murderess?”

“It showed she had passion. It’s considered highly flattering if a female is willing to kill to gain access to your semen.”

I furrowed my brow. I tried to be open-minded about cultural differences, but this was a bit much.

“Semen is
very
important to my people,” Aurora said, sounding worried I hadn’t caught on. “Which added to Tarpok’s shame. He was a mighty hunter, yet his first bride bore him no children. He murdered her two years later and took a second wife. She, too, bore no children. Then he married Sinnatok, a widow who had four young children, so she was certain to be fertile. This marriage, alas, produced no offspring. Whispers grew that Tarpok the mighty was really Tarpok the seedless. Women snickered as he passed. His shame was great.”

“Tarpok seemed pretty popular when I saw him,” I said. “Your people must have gotten over the fact he was sterile.”

Aurora shook her head. “Now that I’ve rejoined my family, I’ve learned what happened in my absence. With the Jagged Heart gone, the priestesses were weakened. Tarpok announced that we were at war with the Skellings, and that he was to be our warlord. He took up residence in the temple, since it was the most defensible structure. He killed any priestess who objected, but spared the few who broke their vows of chastity in an attempt to, shall we say, sanctify his semen.”