Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse) (14 page)

“And this actor is also an authority on dead languages?”

“Indeed. The Tremblepoint family has collected a library of literary manuscripts that date back centuries. It’s only natural that Equity would learn to read them.”

“And you’re certain you can’t read the letter?”

“Why would you doubt me?”

“Because, despite your denials, the world believes you to be a weaver.”

“This would not be the first time that a thing commonly believed has proven baseless. I’ve not a single nail in my skull,” the Black Swan said, tapping the solid dome of her forehead with a razor-sharp fingernail. “You know this.”

“True. But I recently encountered a ghost named Purity. She hinted that the nails were only one crude method of becoming a weaver. She said emotions could be as powerful as physical spikes, and that hatred and the thirst for revenge had opened channels in her mind to grant her powers.”

“Interesting. Might I suggest you discuss this matter with her?”

“Unfortunately, Purity was intent on murdering the sun. Stopping her required killing her.”

“And in the course of stopping her, you took the drastic step of merging your soul with that of Rott.”

Sorrow frowned. “Brand couldn’t have told you that. I never explained my powers to him.”

“My dear, you crawled into the room on a serpent’s belly. You’re covered in dragon scales. There’s a nail in your scalp of a matching ebony hue.”

“Fine. You’ve diagnosed my problem correctly. Is there nothing you can do to help me?”

“You drove that nail into your scalp seeking great power. Why did you do so if you weren’t willing to pay the price?”

“I had no idea my body would change like this. I want it to stop.”

The Black Swan shook her head slowly. “It won’t stop. I’m sorry, Sorrow, but your fate was sealed when you chose to access Rott’s powers. As a dragon, Rott had centuries to study the elemental force he blended his soul with, and still his mind was decayed by entropy.”

“Perhaps my mind is stronger,” said Sorrow. “My life has toughened me.”

The Black Swan shook her head. “You risk the world if you approach your current problem with arrogance. You’ve been given a great opportunity to change the fate of mankind, but doing so will require that you alter your goals.”

“But my goal
is
to change the fate of mankind.”

“By waging a pointless war against the church, when the true threat to humanity lies with the primal dragons. What use will it be to overthrow your fellow men if humanity is wiped from the world by the collective power of these beasts?”

“I’ll deal with the dragons when and if they’re a problem,” said Sorrow. “For now, I know who my enemies are. It’s just my friends I’m still having trouble identifying.”

The Black Swan nodded. “We may not be friends, but I feel I owe you the courtesy of a warning.”

“A warning against what?”

“Despite your confidence, Rott is an ancient power whose will far exceeds your own.”

“I met Rott in the Sea of Wine. He’s dead. I don’t think he has any will at all.”

“You saw his physical body in the Sea of Wine. His form would only persist if some flickering hunger for survival were left within him. By blending your soul with his own, you may stir this hunger enough to wake the dragon. If the beast awakes while he shares your form, the dragon will devour your spirit and digest your intelligence to nourish his own quiescent mind.”

Sorrow found that she’d unconsciously begun to chew her fingernails. She pulled her hand away from her lips. “You can’t know that. You’re like all prophets, speaking in vagaries.”

“Let me say this as directly as possible. I believe that Rott’s energies are too powerful for you to control. You can halt your slide toward total domination by the beast by removing the nail you carved from him and giving it to me for safe-keeping.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Sorrow. “I finally have the power I’ve sought for all these years. I’m going to learn to control it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but that’s never stopped me. I’ve become an expert at defining my most dangerous areas of ignorance, then learning what I must to survive. I know it’s possible to tap a primal dragon’s power without losing one’s intelligence because Purity did it. I saw it with my own eyes. If a thing can be done, it can be duplicated.”

“You’re a fool,” said the Black Swan. Her iron fingers clanked as she clamped them to her chest. “If you have such command and control over your abilities, why did you produce such poor work on my breasts?”

“By the vacant moon,” said Sorrow, closing her eyes and rubbing them. “They’re made of iron! They’re never going to look real!”

“So you admit you’ve delivered an inferior product,” the Black Swan said. “I insist you remain here until they’ve been remade to my satisfaction.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Sorrow muttered. “When the worms ate your brains, they shat out your sanity.”

“I was a fool to have faith in you,” the Black Swan said in a low squawking tone that might have been intended to convey disappointment, though she sounded more like a duck with a sore throat.

Sorrow curled around to face the door, resisting the urge to curse. She slithered down the hall and found Battle and Slate leaning on opposite sides of the bar, engaged in an arm wrestling contest. A score of gamblers had gathered around them, staring intently at the match. Slate had removed his helmet, and his face showed signs of strain. The cut on his neck she’d stitched shut was bleeding freely again.

Suddenly, Slate’s arm went down, and the crowd erupted in cheers. Battle pumped his fists in the air. Slate rose, rubbing his wrist, then extended his open hand.

“An honorable victory,” he said. “Well fought, my friend.”

Battle shook his hand. “You had me worried for a minute, buddy. Thought we’d break the damn bar. The Swan would take that out of my pay.”

Slate chuckled as he nodded. Sorrow slithered around the bar and grabbed him by the arm.

“We’re leaving,” she said.

Slate allowed himself to be pulled toward the door. “Must we depart in haste?”

“I don’t need you rough-housing in here. Battle’s right. The Black Swan will bill us for any damage.”

“No harm was done,” said Slate as they stepped outside.

“I suppose I should be happy you just arm wrestled instead of getting into a brawl.”

“We had no cause for combat,” said Slate. “Ours was a friendly contest.”

“Fifteen minutes ago you thought he was an unholy abomination. Suddenly he’s your friend?”

Slate shrugged. “We talked as we waited. Beneath his beastly exterior, he’s a good soul.” He sighed, and leaned against a piling on the dock. He removed his glass gauntlet. His arm was covered in blood. “I could have bested him if my stitches hadn’t torn.”

Sorrow shook her head. “Was it so important to find out who was stronger that you’d risk hurting yourself?”

He grinned. “A day isn’t well lived until I’ve spilt a little blood, even if it’s my own.”

“You don’t have much extra to spare,” she said. She removed her helmet and took his arm to examine her torn handiwork. “Let’s find a room for the night. I need to fix you up again.”

Slate chuckled. “How is it, if thou art the damsel in distress, I’m the one who requires constant mending?”

Before she could answer, a voice called out, “Sorrow?”

The curious thing about the voice was that it came from directly overhead.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CIRCUS

S
ORROW LOOKED STRAIGHT
up. A teenage boy with curly black hair was floating fifty feet above her. She raised her hand and cried, “Jetsam!”

Jetsam smiled broadly as he kicked his legs to swim down through the air. When she’d parted company with the Romers, the family had been the most miserable creatures in all of creation, Wanderers without a ship. The
Freewind
had been transportation for Sorrow, but for the Romers it had been home. They’d escaped with little more than the clothes on their back. Now, Jetsam was outfitted in a crisp white uniform of cotton breeches and vest, with a bright green sash for a belt and a matching bandana serving as a cap.

“Zounds!” Slate cried as he spotted the flying teenager.

“Zounds?” Jetsam asked. “What are you, an actor?”

“An actor?” Slate asked, confused.

“The only place I’ve heard that word was in the Tremblepoint play,
The Merchant of Monkeys
.”

“When would you have seen a play?” Sorrow asked. “You’ve lived your whole life on a ship.”

Jetsam’s head reached the level of her own when he stopped swimming down through the air. He spread his arms and brought himself to a halt, his feet still sticking straight up. “I’ve done more than seen the play. I performed in it. I played the role of second monkey when I was eight. The show was staged on the fo’c’sle of the
Horizon
.”

“I had no idea Wanderers had thespians among them,” said Sorrow.

“We’re sailors, not barbarians. One of the reasons Commonground even exists is so we can get together and enjoy plays, concerts, dancing, and so on.”

“How is it that thou dost fly?” Slate asked.

“‘Thou dost?’” Jetsam responded, eyebrows raised. Then he shrugged and said, “My family rescued a mermaid princess. As a reward, each member of my family got to blow a note on the mer-king’s magical conch. We all wound up with different powers, based on our names, more or less.” He performed a loop in mid-air, righting himself so his feet were pointing down. “I got the best power, if I do say so myself.”

“Aye. ’Tis quite a talent.”

Sorrow said, “Forgive me. I was so surprised to see you, I haven’t made the proper introductions. Jetsam, this is Slate. Slate, Jetsam.”

The two men shook hands.

“Speaking of surprises,” Jetsam said, glancing at her serpent tail. “You, uh, look... different... somehow.” A few awkward seconds passed, before he asked, cheerfully, “Have you lost weight?”

She sighed. “I’m surprised you recognized me, to be honest.”

He laughed. “I have an unusual level of experience with looking at the tops of people’s heads. Believe me, even from fifty feet up, the second you took off your helmet I knew who you were.”

“I take it from the uniform you’ve found work on a new ship? Was your family able to remain together?”

“Yep and yep. You’ll never guess who we’re working for now.”

“Brand Cooper,” she said.

“You’re a better guesser than I gave you credit for.”

“I happen to know that Brand recently came into some money, and a ship was one of the things he mentioned buying. Your mother must have mixed feelings about working for him.”

“Nah. Ma’s fine. It’s Mako who’s pitching a fit.”

“And Brand’s going back to the Silver City?”

“Yep.”

“Might he be interested in taking on passengers?”

“I can’t answer for him, but I know Ma wants you back on board.”

“Really? Why?”

Jetsam shrugged. “I just heard her telling Sage that there’s never a witch around when you need one.”

“What do they need a witch for?”

“Who knows? But come on back to the ship. Everyone’s asleep, but I’ll wake Brand and let him know I’m bringing you aboard.”

“We’re most grateful,” said Sorrow. “Where’s your ship?”

“Right here!” Jetsam pointed to a clipper docked next to the
Black Swan
. The name on the bow was
Circus
. The figurehead beneath the bowsprit was a buxom woman painted to look like a clown. “Used to belong to some wealthy gambler. Well, wealthy before he came to Commonground. When he tried to skip town on his debts, the Black Swan sent her enforcers after him. They were kind of messy. It smelled like hell when we came aboard. We’ve spent our whole first day cleaning up dried blood and worse from all the nooks and crannies.”

Jetsam led them up the gangplank. The timbers creaked as Sorrow slithered onto deck. The ship smelled strongly of soap, with only a hint of rotting meat. Yet even that masked whiff made her stomach growl. She’d not had a thing to eat since she’d been sick at the Knight’s Castle, and she was now undeniably famished. When she realized it was the scent of putrefied human remains triggering her hunger, her appetite fled once more.

Jetsam led them to the aftcastle and softly rapped on the door. They waited in silence for a moment; just as he was about to knock again, the door creaked open and Brand looked out. Sorrow’s eyebrows shot up.

“You’ve cut your hair!” she said.

Brand ran his hands along his closely cropped scalp. With his long locks gone, he looked older. His face seemed squarer, less feminine. “I’m a businessman now. I figured I should clean up a little.” His eyes focused on Sorrow. She could see his whole body tense up.

“Let’s play fortune teller,” she said. “I can tell you what you’re about to ask.”