Broken Quill

by Joe Ducie

  Just south of Leederville, two minutes from the city, we were caught bumper to bumper in road works. I didn’t often come down this way, not since burning down McSorley’s and moving north, but I seemed to recall these road works had been in progress for years. A kid in the car next to me waved, grinned a chocolate-stained grin, and threw a plush Piglet at the window. His mother, sending a message on her phone, ignored the wee bugger entirely. I stuck my tongue out at him as we moved off. Annie made a quick turn into the fast lane and actually progressed more than a few, stagnant feet.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Quarter to ten,” Sophie said from the passenger seat.

  “I’m thinking breakfast. Bacon and egg muffins, hash browns, and some pancakes. McSorley won’t be there before quarter to eleven anyway.”

  “Know the opening time off the top of your head, do you?” Annie asked.

  “I’m a man of many talents.”

  With an hour to kill, and my stomach grumbling, breakfast turned out to be a good idea. Annie parked in His Majesty’s multistory, and I reluctantly left my sword in the car. We walked down Murray Street, past a locked up McSorley’s, and got breakfast on William Street, beating through the throngs of people all dressed up in snappy business suits and thirsting for coffee. Most of them had their heads buried in the The West Australian, splashed with the morbid headline:

  EIGHTEEN SLAIN IN ARSON ATTACK

  A picture of the Hillarys boardwalk aflame accompanied the headline. My brand stung all the more just thinking about the massacre, and I couldn’t help but feel that Emissary, whatever he was, was something out of my league. Not to brag, but I’ve tangled with gods and would-be-gods, men and women of complete power and complexity, and fought in wars that spanned entire galaxies of worlds. I came out of all that, for the most part, on top.

  They had trained me well at the Infernal Academy.

  And the Tome Wars had taught me everything else.

  So why was I on the back foot here?

  Perhaps I was just rusty. Apart from a brief foray into Forget three months ago, I hadn’t been back in the game for five years. I’d grown slow and a little fat on beer, steak, and scotch. Hell, I’d died in Atlantis and, if not for a quirk of fate, would have stayed dead. These were my thoughts as I sat on a thin aluminum chair out front of Mickey-D’s, chewing a hot bacon and egg muffin, food in the loosest sense of the word, and sipping a surprisingly decent cup of tea.

  I needed to get my head back in the game.

  Needed to stop wallowing in a past I couldn’t change.

  I needed... to sleep. But, hell, who had the time?

  This was my pretty little town, exile or not, and no freakish nightmare could come here and slaughter her inhabitants.

  Sleep when you’re dead, snickered a voice in the back of my mind that sounded surprisingly familiar. I thought of Clare Valentine, which made me pause mid-chew and frown. Strange thought from a strange, dead voice.

  We finished up with breakfast, collected my awesome sword, and strolled through the heavy oak door of McSorley’s just after half ten in the morning. By the Everlasting, but it had been a long, continuous night bleeding into day. The scent of wood polish and old, spilled beer hung in the air inside my once upon a time favorite pub.

  “We’re not open just yet,” Albert McSorley said from behind the bar, as he polished glasses in a sink. “Licensed from eleven. You’re welcome to sit at the bar and sip lemonade until—” He looked up, saw me framed by my companions, and calmly retrieved a cricket bat from under the bar. “Declan.”

  “Albert.”

  McSorley scoffed. “I recognize the cute redhead, but your other two friends I don’t know. Either way, I’m not so sure I want you all in here.”

  Albert McSorley was a retired Knight. Long out of the game and just looking for something beautiful, like all of us madmen. He’d been in Perth going on twenty years, ever since his hundredth birthday and retirement from the Knights Infernal. One of the boons of magic, of Will, was an extended lifespan. Long centuries of something beautiful, you ken. We could live well beyond that of your everyday human. But there weren’t too many Knights who had lived long enough to be called old, these days, not with the clouds of the Tome Wars still darkening the horizon—they’d all died in one battle or another. McSorley had survived all but a handful. He was, at best guess, closing in on his thirteenth decade of existence but looked about sixty. Pretty damn good for a man who had already been alive for twenty years before the Tome Wars had even started.

  I felt very young, barely a fifth his age, but what I lacked in experience I made up for in raw power and the devil’s own luck. Or, I usually did. I’d unrolled my sleeves and covered Emissary’s runic brand on my arm. Best old Al think me capable of burning his bar to the ground—again.

  I hadn’t been in here in the best part of two years, but it still felt comfortable and inviting. A row of mahogany, cushioned stools lined the front of the bar, which held about twenty taps of specialty beer. Tables and chairs, as old and rickety as McSorley himself, were scattered about the room, and a layer of sawdust coated the floor. Dull lamplight torches hung in brackets on the walls. Along the back wall was a small stage bearing the weight of a grand piano that had seen some shit. Last time I’d been here, I’d blasted a hole through the wall and levitated the piano out onto the sidewalk for the old man. Most nights he got up on stage himself for an hour or two, slamming out old show tunes and caressing shots of tequila.

  “You got some new pool tables? Shit, give me a cue and I’ll win every top-shelf bottle behind your bar.”

  “What do you want, Hale? I’ve gotta open, and I’d rather not splatter the floor with your blood. Get my dust all dirty.”

  “I came to use the Atlas Lexicon.”

  McSorley burst out laughing. He was missing more than a few teeth, and the ones he had left were a dull yellow. “Broken quill,” he cursed. “You’re still as mad as a hatter. Where do you think you’re going then? Avalon? Voraskel? New Voraskel? The Reach, perhaps? Oh no, you saw to most of them years ago. Everlasting save us, you’re not going to Ascension, are you?”

  “Home, Al,” I said, and gave him a quick salute. “Back to Ascension City. You know why—you can feel the shit in the air as well as I can. Perth’s not safe. See the news this morning?”

  McSorley nodded. He put his bat down, picked up a rag, and scrubbed his pristine bar top as if it were covered in a week’s worth of spilled beer. “What was it? Voidling?”

  “No. Something else.” Pink flames danced through my mind. “Something new. Or,” I considered slowly, “something old. Very old.”

  McSorley nodded. “I’d put money on the latter. There’s no new stories, lad, just the same old tales told different ways.”

  “What do you know about the Everlasting?” I asked.

  “Eh? Bunch of fairy tales.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, and I had the feeling he knew more than he was saying. Or suspected more. “Bedtime stories to keep kids out of trouble. Brush your teeth, or Vile Omen will know. Be nice to your sister, or Blessed Scion will turn your eyes red.”

  “Actually, I think it was Lord Oblivion who messed with the eyes.” Tal’s eyes had been gorgeous, the definition of windows to the soul, before Oblivion devoured her and bled her eyes crimson. “So you don’t believe they were ever real?”

  “Real? Everything’s real, lad, surely you’ve figured out that much by now. But were they gods? No. Just stories, good stories, and long dead.”

  “Declan,” Sophie whispered. “We can’t wait.”

  “Just give me a minute.” I looked back to McSorley. “What are you still doing here, Al? You’ve never been stupid. You must know trouble’s brewing.”

  The barkeep grunted and tossed me something from a pocket on his weathered apron. I caught it on reflex—an ornate golden key, cold and heavy. A line of Infernal runes ran down the length of the key, an ancient pass code for the gateway in the basement. “Ju
st be about your business, Hale. Go talk some sense into that brother of yours. He’s mad to pull back all the Knights from this world. We belong here, that’s why I’m staying.”

  “Let’s go,” Sophie said.

  “Hold on.” I was no detective, but I got the feeling there was something Old Al McSorley was not telling me. Something important.

  Annie frowned at him. “Mr. McSorley, I’m Detective Brie with the West Australian Police. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”

  Seems as though I wasn’t the only one whose spidey-sense was tingling.

  McSorley laughed. “A cop? Declan, what are you doing with a cop?”

  “Creature that’s tearing apart the town tried to kill her last night. Taking her to Forget so it doesn’t get a second chance.”

  “Is that so?”

  “What are you hiding, Al?”

  “Nothing,” he sneered. “And even if I was, why would I tell the man who burned down my pub?”

  “Because,” I said, and clenched my fists, “the first time was an accident.”

  “First time?” He cocked an eye. “Don’t threaten me, lad. I was conjuring and slinging spells before your father was born.” He sighed and relented, tossed his rag aside, and folded his arms over his chest. “Man in here the other day, looking for you.”

  “A man? Okay. Was he... was he wearing a fancy suit?”

  McSorley shook his head. “Nah. Older guy. Bald. Had the look of trouble about him.”

  “You tell this guy where to find me?”

  McSorley hesitated and then nodded. “Broken quill, lad, but I did. And I’m sorry. I thought he just wanted to give you a smack around. Something we’ve all wanted, from time to time. If I’d known he was a gun thug, I would’ve dealt with him myself.”

  “Gun thug?” Annie’s eyes widened. “The man who tried to kill you at the university! The man I... I shot.”

  “That’d be the one, I’m thinking,” I said.

  “Ayuh. Saw it on the news this morning, alongside all the other murders. Christ, town’s going to hell in a handcart.” McSorley cursed. “Recognized his ugly mug from the other day. Police wanted anyone with information to come forward.” He waved at Annie. “Here I am coming forward, Detective Brie.”

  “Did he say anything else?” she asked.

  “Nothing worth mentioning. Didn’t order so much as tap water, so I showed him the door.” McSorley shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “He knew about Forget and that whole side of things?” I asked.

  “Can’t rightly say, lad. He knew enough to want you dead, so that should tell you something.”

  “Aye, I suppose it does.” I sighed. “Okay, let’s be off, gang. My best, McSorley.”

  “Travel safe, Commander.”

  I ignored that jibe although it stung like a broken rapier to the gut, and walked around the bar, key in hand. Annie, Sophie, and Ethan followed in my wake. I held the swinging wooden door into the kitchen open for them, and they stepped through.

  “Declan,” McSorley said, before we parted ways and worlds, “you sort out this mess, come back here alive, and I’ll save you a seat at the bar.”

  I found half a smile. Now that was some good fortune and a reason to stay alive.

  “Once you’ve settled your tab, of course,” he grunted and went back to polishing pint glasses.

  Chapter Ten

  The Atlas Lexicon

  We moved through McSorley’s kitchen, down a flight of spiral stairs, and into a well-lit basement stocked with steel kegs, an insulated wine cellar, and shelves upon shelves of liquor and spirits. I was tempted to bring a bottle of something aged for the road, but with how tired I was and the journey to come, even I thought that would be pushing my luck into stupid territory.

  Not to mention my tab at this fine establishment had long since climbed north of absurd. At the current rate, I’d have to break into the Dream Worlds and steal Smaug’s treasure just to keep the old man happy.

  “So how’s this work then?” Ethan asked.

  “Follow me, my young apprentice, and I’ll show you.”

  Behind a few barrels of mulled cider, stacked from floor to ceiling, was an old arch of twisted obsidian stone, as grey as summer storm clouds. Hidden from sight and altogether not that impressive, the view through the arch was of nothing more exciting than the back wall of McSorley’s basement.

  “This... is the Atlas Lexicon?” Annie asked.

  “No, this is an authorized portal to the Lexicon,” I explained. “One of these costs your weight in gold and gems, I’m sure, but it’s well worth the trade he gets.”

  “Could you make one?” Ethan asked, a little excitedly. “Eh, I mean, I’m not planning to, it’s just you haven’t taught me how to dive using books yet, and if this is safer...”

  “Put that bullshit out of your head, kid.” I tossed the old key from hand to hand and back again. “You mess up one rune, and the whole thing could explode in your face.”

  “Voice of experience,” Sophie quipped.

  “Hush up, sweet thing. Let’s activate the arch, shall we?”

  “Yes, please,” Annie said, eyes alight and excited.

  I held the key by the bow and slid the blade into the empty air within the tall arch, moving my arm around as though I were casting a spell.

  “Eh... what are you doing?” Ethan asked.

  “Searching for the lock. Varies from portal to portal.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  I ignored his skepticism and kept running the key up and down through the air. Tearing a hole between worlds wasn’t easy. Well, with the Atlas Lexicon it kind of was, but there was a lot going on behind the curtain to make it so easy. Take modern technology—for example, my fancy smart phone. I didn’t know how it worked, but damned if I couldn’t play chess with anyone in the world with the push of a few buttons.

  The key jarred in the air and slipped forward a few inches. I let go, and the blade disappeared, as if stuck in an invisible lock, which was precisely what was happening. The key turned, and a sheet of white light filled the space within the arch.

  “Just warming up...” I said since Annie had taken a large step back. I slipped the key out of the lock and into my pocket, alongside my wallets and that photo of Annie and I together at the tavern. “Has to find an open connection to the international terminal. We’re on hold.”

  Color bled into the white sheet, hazy at first, like a camera out of focus, but then the image sharpened into something clearer. A vast, marble-floored temple of mighty pillars and stained glass claimed the arch. The inter-dimensional arrival hall of the Atlas Lexicon. Throngs of people, wearing strange and outlandish clothing, milled about the terminal, and the dull roar of footsteps and conversation drifted through the gateway.

  I stepped out of McSorley’s basement and into another world. Two points of infinite distance brought together so I could cross as easily as stepping from one room to the next.

  The air was warmer in the terminal, and I turned back to see both the reverse of the obsidian arch I’d just walked through and my companions on the other side. Ethan and Annie stared at me, mouths agape. For Sophie this was nothing new.

  “Come on through,” I said, and one at a time they did. Annie came last, hesitantly, with her eyes squeezed shut tight, as if expecting the trip to hurt.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “It felt like... a soap bubble.”

  “That’s it. You just made your first journey across worlds. Exciting, eh?”

  Rows of similar portals stretched off into the distance to the left and right. Several levels of arches disappeared to impossible heights overhead. People of all colors, shapes, and sizes emerged or disappeared through the thousands of arches, off to worlds and universes far from here. Our gate shimmered and faded away, only to flare to life again a moment later and show a group of folk dressed in purple robes, standing in some sort of monastery. They nodded to us politely.

  “Okay, best we get out of the way
. Follow me down and stick together.”

  Earlier, Sophie had described this place as something akin to Grand Central Station in New York City, and that was a fair comparison. The Atlas Lexicon was a station, a terminal with ten thousand connecting trains all chugging throughout creation. High, stained glass windows, thirty feet long, allowed beams of pure sunlight to bathe the floor in intricate and colorful patterns, refracting through every color of the rainbow. Green marble pillars, ten feet thick, held the ceiling in place. A whole load of little shops, selling everything from ice cream to booze to exotic, everyday treats from a plethora of worlds took up the majority of the space.

  I watched Annie as we walked past the shops, through the crowds, and also kept an eye out for any Knights or signs of trouble. Even the infamous could get lost in a crowd this size, which was somewhat comforting, as without Will I’d have to rely on my sordid reputation to see me though.

  “Not what you were expecting?” I asked my young detective.

  “I didn’t expect it to be so... commercialized,” she said, and brushed a strand of dark hair back behind her ear with a careful smile.

  “What were you expecting?” Sophie asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. This is amazing. I mean that, this is simply incredible, and I feel so small. I just didn’t think there’d be a Starbucks.”

  Ethan craned his neck. “Where? I don’t see one.”

  Annie chucked. “I was being a touch facetious, Mr. Reilly. There’s no Starbucks.”

  “Oh.” He looked a touch crestfallen.

  “Here,” I said, and dug the pouch of Forgetful gems out of my pocket. “Official currency of Forget. Small blue ones are pocket change. Go buy yourself an ice cream.”

  Ethan perked up and took Sophie’s hand. “Come along, sweetheart.”

  Annie and I sat on a row of seating familiar in airports and train stations the world over while we waited for the kids. Plastic chairs with plastic cushions. I rubbed at my eyelids and could’ve curled up right there and slept for a day. No one paid us the slightest lick of attention, which suited me just fine. I daydreamed of soft feather pillows.