heartbeat, his skin looks like charcoal. It’s not a difficult diagnosis.”
Menagerie looked at the Deceiver as if he was ready to pounce on the man. Then, his body slackened, and he said, in a soft voice, “Fix him. Please.”
The Deceiver shook his head. “The Truthspeakers stripped me of the power to raise the dead. I’m sorry.”
Menagerie ground his teeth together and clenched his fists, his anger rising. But instead of attacking Zetetic, he looked down at the fallen Goon.
“You moron,” he said, his voice trembling.
“That’s a fine goodbye,” said Reeker’s voice from the pool. I looked toward the rippling water and found a bilious yellow vapor rising, coalescing into the familiar form of Reeker. The pale spirit lingered for a few seconds as it looked down on the scene.
“Reeker! It’s me! Stagger!”
Reeker’s eye widened as he saw me. I drifted closer. His naked, barefoot ghost seemed shorter than he had been alive. There had been whispers that he wore lifts in his boots; apparently these rumors were true.
“Stagger?” he asked. “What are you doing here? You’re dead!”
“So are you,” I said. “I’m haunting Infidel. Well, technically, I’m haunting a knife. If you pick something and focus on it, you might be able to stick around.”
He looked down at his burnt body. “Why would I want to stick around?” he said. “Look at what’s left of me. It’s going to hurt like hell popping back inside.”
“I meant you can stay here as a ghost.”
Reeker laughed. “How pathetic would that be? Life was fun because my body was fun. I could eat, drink, and fool around. Can a ghost do any of that?”
“No. But it beats just fading out to nothing, doesn’t it?”
“What? You don’t believe in heaven?” Reeker asked.
“You do?”
“Sure. Like a Black Swan barge in the sky. I’ll just keep on eating, drinking, and sleeping around, only there I won’t get bossed around by tattooed shapeshifters. And in heaven, all my friends will have, you know, faces.” He looked on No-Face with a look of unconcealed disdain.
The giant man was standing over Reeker’s body, shuddering, tears rolling over his blank features from his one visible eye, as he gurgled, “Guh huh huh huh. Guh huh huh huh.”
“The big baby,” Reeker said.
“Kind of a cold thing to say about the only man crying over your death.”
Reeker shrugged. “Remember that little calico cat that used to hang around the bar? No-Face cried like a little girl when it got run over by that cart. Him crying over me is nothing special.”
I had an epiphany as I looked into Reeker’s remorseless face.
“I never liked you,” I said.
“What a disappointment,” he said with a sneer. “You were the biggest loser in Commonground. You had the most gorgeous girl on the island giving you goo-goo eyes, and you never had the guts to sneak a kiss. You acted like you were smart, reading all those damn books, but what did you ever do that was important? You wasted your life.”
I ground my ghost teeth, sorry I’d called out to his wraith.
Reeker glanced up at the tree houses. A hundred dark faces looked down at us. Among them was the tall, thin form of my grandfather. “Must run in the family. Hard to get less ambitious than living up a tree like a damn squirrel.”
Before I could think of a retort, he turned his eyes toward the stars and drifted upward. “I’ve stuck around long enough. There are women waiting in the next world. I can hear them calling to me now.” His phantom body remained intact as he rose, not dissipating the way Blade had. He cast one last glimpse down at his battered, broken body.
“Damn,” he said, as he cleared the trees. “I was one handsome devil.”
Meanwhile, Relic and Father Ver had joined the others at the pool. The assembled dragon-slayers glanced at one another.
“This is insane,” said Zetetic, the first to state the obvious. “The dragon knows we’re here. Let’s call this off and try again some other century.”
“Maybe he does know we’re here,” said Tower. “But does he know who we are? If he knows the danger we pose, why such a feeble attack?”
Relic nodded. “I concur. This was merely a test to see what he was up against. If he was worried by what he’d seen, lava would now be flowing down the slope toward us.”
“We’ve lost a third of the party without reaching his lair,” Zetetic said to Tower. “How many of us will have to die before you call this off?”
“All of us,” said Tower. “We have a duty.”
“ You have a duty,” snapped Zetetic. “What’s in it for the rest of us?”
“Munuh,” said No-Face.
“Money was going to be my answer too,” said Menagerie.
“Was it worth losing a friend?”
“Reeker broke the contract; he paid the price.” Menagerie’s face was hard as he said, “The next Goon I recruit won’t be such a pain in the ass.”
“That’s a very mercenary attitude,” said the Deceiver.
“Is that surprising?” asked Aurora. “We’re mercenaries.”
Zetetic looked at Relic. “Fine. So Tower and Ver are here for duty, and the others are here for money. What are you after?”
Relic pulled back his hunched shoulders and said, in a firm voice, “I’m surprised a man of your learning has to ask. Greatshadow’s hoard is more than a collection of gold and gems. The greatest treasures of the Vanished Kingdom may be found amid his trove. There are scrolls containing plays that no man has seen performed in centuries, sculptures that once adorned the gardens of kings, and paintings and carvings that show the long forgotten world of my youth. I would pay any price to look once more upon these arts.”
“You sound almost like you mean this,” I said.
I thought it would sound plausible. It’s simpler to say this than to reveal my true motive.
“Which is?”
Hatred. Pure and simple hatred of the beast. Every moment that he survives torments my very soul.
“Fine,” said Zetetic. “Let me set you all straight on the real reason we’re here. The Isle of Fire is the largest wild plot of land left in the world. It’s covered in virgin timber, beneath which lies rich volcanic soils begging to be cultivated. The island has fresh water rivers and deep harbors perfect for cities. The king isn’t trying to rid the world of some great evil by slaying Greatshadow. He’s trying to expand his empire. Are you willing to die for that? Because I think that the greedy dreams of an already rich king are a lousy thing to die for.”
“The king’s motives are of no importance,” said the Truthspeaker. “It matters only that you obey. Remember the X sanction.”
Zetetic looked at Aurora, Menagerie, and No-Face. “Don’t any of you wonder what he’s talking about? Do any of you care what kind of monsters are paying your salaries?”
“Enlighten us,” said Menagerie.
“I told you the Truthspeakers stripped me of the power to raise the dead,” said Zetetic. “When I do it, apparently, it’s ‘evil.’” He formed little quote marks with his fingers as he spoke the word. “But the Church is rife with hypocrisy when it comes to necromancy. I was captured a year ago. I didn’t go down easy. I killed… what? Fifty knights?”
“Forty-three,” said Lord Tower, tersely.
“They wasted no time when I was captured. I was bound and gagged and given a trial that lasted less than an hour. Ten minutes after my conviction, I was marched to the gallows where a noose was placed around my neck. Father Ver himself gave the order to hang me. I still have nightmares about the trapdoor swinging open beneath my feet.”
“Apparently, you survived,” said Aurora.
