I attempted to offer my opinion of her demands in the form of a string of artfully delivered curse words. No sound emerged from my coconut lips. Despite having a mouth, I discovered I had no tongue. I sat up, feeling clumsy and disoriented. My eyes had difficulty keeping the world on the level as I swayed first to the left, then the right. I had only a muted sense of proprioception. I stretched out my driftwood arms, fingers splayed, to steady myself on the sand.
It felt, I must confess, a good bit like being drunk. Had I really spent fortunes in pursuit of this sensation when I was alive?
This
had been my preferred state of existence, listing through the world like a ship with a damaged keel?
Perhaps I’d paid freely for this sensation in life, but in death I’d grown used to sobriety, and wanted it back. Still seated, I scraped out letters on the sand using my gnarled fingers.
P-L-E-A-S
I don’t know what she thought I was about to ask, but Sorrow dropped to her knees before my wooden body and placed her lips upon the jagged gash of my new mouth. She sucked in air from my coconut and I felt dizzier than ever.
She broke off the kiss and stood, turning her back to me. Of course, since she appeared to me as nothing but numinous energy, I could see through her clothes, her skin, her ribs and lungs, all the way through to the other side, where her hands were busily knitting something dark and cold. It took me a second to understand it was a little doll made of twigs and grass. She brought it to her lips and breathed into it.
My own body suddenly felt warm.
She stood the tiny doll in the palm of her hand and said, “Rise.”
I rose, feeling as if unseen hands had taken me by the arms to help me stand. The world was askew, with my head lopsided upon my shoulders, until she adjusted the head of the miniature and my own skull rolled to right the world. I glanced down at the letters I’d written; they seemed very far away. My new body was a good foot taller than my old one. Sorrow looked tiny as I loomed over her. But despite our different statures, there was no question that she was the dominant entity in our new partnership.
“Those letters,” she said, glancing at the sand. “Erase them.”
I wanted with all my soul to disobey, but instead my left foot dragged across the letters, blotting out my pitiful attempt at communication.
“You remember how to write,” she said, softly. “Perhaps you have other memories from your former life. I have no power to force you to forget them. But forget them you must, or your days will be agony.”
I slowly shook my head. I could still say, “No,” at least.
“Whoever you were, that person is dead,” she said, sounding defiant. “You had your chance at life, and you had your chance to move on to the abstract realms when you passed away. It’s your fault you’ve lingered and become fuel for my creation. I’m not to blame for the fate that has befallen you. I’m simply a weaver, a materialist who is able to sculpt lifeless matter into useful forms. Your soul no longer served a purpose; its energy was wasted on aimless wandering. I’ve done you no harm, ghost. Indeed, I’ve given you a gift; a few final days of purpose.”
I again shook my head, “No.” The grinding sound of my coconut skull swiveling on my wooden shoulders was unnerving.
She didn’t look directly at my face as she said, “You have no choice. In the morning, I shall take possession of a large quantity of manuscripts. I don’t trust the scoundrels of this port sufficiently to hire assistants to help move them. You’ll serve as my porter, as well as my bodyguard. Just as wood is tougher than muscle, so too are you stronger than a man, and impervious to pain. You will make a formidable warrior if needed. Fortunately, I’m not one who behaves recklessly. With luck you’ll never need to expend your energy in battle.”
She walked off beyond the edge of my vision. I couldn’t turn my head sufficiently to follow her. She returned a few minutes later with a bundle of clothing. “Get dressed. You won’t pass for human, but in Commonground that’s not such a rarity. In this garb, you’ll draw less attention.”
The paralysis that inflicted me vanished and I was able to take the clothes she offered. Unfortunately, my freedom of movement was decidedly limited. Any of the ordinary actions one might take while dressing seemed permissible, but when I wanted to wheel around and dash for the forest, my body proved deaf to my commands.
The clothing was surprisingly fresh and clean. Given my resemblance to a scarecrow, I’d expected nothing more than rags, but there was little evidence that these clothes had ever been worn before. Perhaps she was as adept at knitting cloth as she was at molding steel or shaping wood. The pants were heavy wool; they no doubt would have been hot and scratchy if I’d still had skin. The shirt was even rougher; fabrics aren’t my specialty, but I believe it was woven from jute, more suited for burlap bags than clothing, though given the splintery nature of my new joints, perhaps the thick fabric was a good match. Heavy cloth gloves and sturdy leather boots hid my plainly inhuman extremities. The final touch was to cover my coconut skull with a tri-corn hat, matched with a large bandana hiding most of my face and neck. I imagined I looked a bit like a bandit in the get-up.
“You’re rather dashing, with that crimson bandana,” Sorrow said, adjusting the way it rested on my cheeks, if a coconut had cheeks. I found myself curious about what other colors I might be wearing. With my amber vision, I’d thought all my clothing was shades of brown, but for all I knew she might have dressed me to rival a peacock.
“Follow,” she said, and I followed.
W
E PASSED THE
night in one of the luxury suites aboard the
Black Swan
. I’d been in similar suites before. During the times in my life when I was blessed with money, I saw little reason to hoard it. “Seize the day!” was my motto, though in practice this usually meant “grab the bottle!” The old
Black Swan
had been destroyed when Greatshadow attacked Commonground, and this new room was so clean and polished that the light of a single bedside lamp hurt my new eyes. Sorrow hadn’t bothered to give my coconut face a nose, but when she hung her cloak in the closet, the scent of fresh pine was powerful enough I could taste it in my false mouth despite my lack of a tongue. Formerly, the rooms I’d stayed in had sported artwork in which scantily clad pagan goddesses had been a popular theme. Now, the paintings on the wall were all landscapes in muted colors. I suppose it was more tasteful, but I also thought it was a little dull.
Sorrow placed me in the corner of the room and told me to sit. She returned to the door and sealed it shut by molding the frame to the wood of the door itself. She stripped down unselfconsciously before me, changing into a simple cotton nightgown. Again, I noted the health of the right half of her body, and the dark veins, wrinkles, and amber blotches of her left side. “You may not move tonight unless danger arises while I’m sleeping, in which case you are free to defend me. Remain alert; your senses may be dulled by your new encasement, but you have far less to distract you than you did in life. You have no need for sleep or food or water now; focus your attention on any noises from the hall.”
She climbed into the bed of silk and was asleep in moments, the covers pulled almost to her chin despite the tropical heat. Her bed was surrounded by a veil of mosquito netting, but I could see her easily enough, even in the darkness. Like Infidel, she proved to be a restless sleeper. All through the night, she tossed and mumbled.
I wondered how she had come to be named Sorrow. It seemed off-key for a nickname, since it was neither cruel nor funny, and it didn’t strike me as the sort of name a person would willingly choose for herself. But it made little sense as a given name, either. What mother would wish such a label upon her daughter?
S
ORROW ROSE BEFORE
dawn, lingering a while before a mirror as she ran her fingers around the dark, inflamed flesh surrounding one of the nails driven into her scalp. This was the nail that looked like it was carved from mahogany. To judge by her wincing, the wound felt as painful as it looked. She applied a bit of pressure and a bead of thick amber puss bubbled up. She wiped it away with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol, as a deep frown once more lined her face. She worked the last of the puss from the wound, and took a moment to drag her fingers around her scalp. Even in the dim candlelight, I could see a haze of stubble had arisen during the night. It seemed her baldness was the product of a razor.
An hour later we were back outside, amidst a cacophony of hammers and saws. Commonground was busily being rebuilt by the river pygmies, and the docks by the Wanderers, both of whom relied on the town as an economic hub.
I followed Sorrow to the shore and recognized the path she was walking toward a tangle of dense trees. Sitting in the upper branches of one particularly robust mangrove was what was left of a sailboat. The ground beneath the boat had been picked clean by river-pygmy scavengers, but despite the relative ease of climbing the gnarled and knotty trees, it looked as if the boat was unmolested. Even out of water, everyone would have recognized this as my boat. In life, I was hardly a fearsome enough figure to discourage looters. Infidel, however, had a reputation as someone who didn’t trifle with thieves. She’d lived here a few days following Greatshadow’s attack, and had made it her home since returning from the hunt. Until word got out that she’d lost her powers, the place was safe.
“Climb,” said Sorrow, as she hopped upon my back. Her arms wrapped around my neck in a way that would have choked me if I’d needed to breathe. I barely felt her weight upon me. Nor, I should note, did I much feel my own weight. The soggy driftwood had dried a good bit during the night and my limbs felt stronger and steadier than they had before. In one of the few civil conversations I’d ever had with Hookhand, he told me that when he’d first put on his hook, it had been a lifeless weight strapped to the stump of his arm, but over time he felt as if the ghost of his hand had flowed into it, and that, impossible as it seemed, he’d been able to feel things with the cold iron.
While there was no mistaking my new body’s crude sense of touch for the nuance of actual flesh, I found that there was some truth to Hookhand’s story. My phantom fingers had flowed into the roots beneath my gloves, and I could sense the pressure as I grasped the branches, and feel the spiky bark digging into my wooden palms. My sense of hearing had improved during the night, and though I was hampered by my single-hued vision, my ability to focus was improving.
I climbed over the railing of my boat. The vessel had been in poor repair for years, but a few weeks in the branches had warped and twisted the deck into a surface where not a single plank could be described as flat. It looked as if the whole thing could fall apart in a good stiff wind, though that was currently being tested, as the omnipresent sea breeze kept the whole structure swaying. Sorrow dropped from my back and called out, “Hello?”
There was no answer. She looked around, then crouched to enter what remained of the cabin. I knelt to watch. I was never fastidious in my housekeeping, but the place was a disaster even by my slovenly standards. The boat had obviously flipped end over end when the tidal wave carried it here. Everything had been drenched as well, and what books I could see were coated with mold. My heart ached as I contemplated the ruined pages. Despite my early years in the monastery orphanage where I was taught to read and write, I’ve always considered myself an autodidact. I’ve stuffed my skull with information both trivial and profound without the guidance of any teachers other than these books. I mourned their death as much as I would have mourned the passing of a human friend.
I couldn’t blame Infidel for the poor state of my belongings. Even if she had emptied out the cabin and tried to salvage the books, the truth was most had mildewed long ago, as I tended to keep my reading material in tottering stacks by my bedside rather than safely arranged in glass cases. Perhaps it was the combination of my lax housekeeping and the tidal wave destruction that had led Infidel to simply ignore this mess. She slept in a hammock she’d strung in the branches above the deck, with a patch of sail stretched overhead serving as a roof.
Sorrow sighed. She grumbled, as much to the wind as to me, “My grandmother used to say one should never buy a pig in a poke. I’d imagined the grandson of Judicious Merchant would have taken better care of his writings.”
I silently chuckled inside my driftwood cage, delighted at her consternation. For while I’d been a lackluster guardian of my reading materials, I was far more diligent with my own writing. Somewhere under all the clutter and debris was my grandfather’s sea chest. It was tightly constructed from high quality cedar and utterly air tight. All my important papers were probably safe inside, but she had no way of knowing this. It was her own fault for not carving me a tongue, or even allowing me to write in the sand.
Sorrow cast her gaze upwards, shielding her eyes with her hand. Infidel was coming near, the Gloryhammer glowing like a second sun. A darker shape followed closely behind, flapping awkward, ungainly wings. Some sort of injured pelican?
Infidel covered the half mile that separated us in mere seconds, wisely choosing to land on a thick limb beside the boat rather than on the deck itself. She nodded in greeting toward Sorrow, then looked at me. “Who’s this?”
“A little extra muscle,” said Sorrow. “I haven’t bothered to name him yet. I guess I’ll call him Drifter.”