by Joe Ducie
A whole lot more to it than that, of course, than a simple death. A lot more. Tal had died in Atlantis, standing before the Infernal Clock and a god. Her soul, her life force, had been used to fuel the Degradation and keep Atlantis hidden for five long years. She had been possessed by the Everlasting Oblivion. I didn’t know if she was still out there, somewhere, caught in some terrible form between life and death. For all that mattered, she was dead.
“Oh. Oh that is... my boy, I’m sorry. I know how much you cared for her.” He blinked and looked around as if seeing where he was for the first time. “But that was some time ago, wasn’t it? Before this awful business, before that brother of yours locked me away...”
“What do you know about the Everlasting, Grandfather?” I don’t know why I asked that question—only that it felt right to do so.
Aloysius blinked. “The Everlasting? Nothing concrete, lad. Only the old fairy tales, as you know.” He shook his head. “They’re not real.”
“Blessed Scion on his pale throne,” Annie said, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “The Younger God...”
“...sits all alone,” my grandfather muttered. He shook his head. “Who’s this, Declan? She’s pretty.”
“This is Annie,” I said. “We’re running short on time—bad guys doing bad things, do you ken? As Chief Librarian, was there anything you ever found or read among the catalogues of the Library that spoke of the Everlasting?”
“Night’s bite repels the blight,” he said, and grasped at his forehead as if the words pained him. When he focused on me again, I thought perhaps he didn’t quite know me. “The old tales, yes? They devoured human hearts for strength. Declan? Yes, Declan, come with me. Something to show you.”
He strolled off toward one of the hills shining in the sun, marble headstones thrust toward the sky as if they were the teeth of some monumental, subterranean beast. Vrail kept pace with him, ready to catch him if he fell. Starhold had not been kind. Already an old man when sentenced, my grandfather had been robbed of his mind by the orbital prison.
“When was he released?” I asked Vrail quietly.
“After your last jaunt through Forget, three months ago.” Vrail’s brow was set in a hard frown. “As you can see, he’s no threat to anyone. Your brother, for what it’s worth, saw fit to find him a position tending to the cemetery.”
On the crest of the hill was a scattering of cherry blossom trees—what had once been Tal’s favorite and now grew wild throughout the dust-strewn streets of Atlantis—and a circle of headstones, peppered with light shining through the trees. A storm of tiny pink petals danced between the graves, piled up in little flurries against the marble.
My grandfather came to a stop in front of one of the markers. He bowed his head as I joined his side. The earth under my feet hadn’t quite had time to grow a coat of fresh grass. Reading the inscription on the headstone, I released a long, shuddering breath.
Clare Valentine
A Sentinel of the
Knights Infernal
1988 - 2012
The wind whistling through the petals of the cherry blossoms became a dull yet insistent roar. On the edge of my vision, I saw Vrail lead my grandfather away, but I kept my eyes glued to Clare’s epitaph. The Knights had centuries of records beyond those of True Earth’s civilizations, but it was to the calendar of that blue marble we kept time. Annie had stayed at my side. I could sense the tension in her shoulders.
“Oh, Clare...” I whispered. “Same old mistakes, sweet thing.”
Clare Valentine, Clare of the ever-changing eyes, had died for me on the Plains of Perdition. We’d had something, years ago. Something almost lovely. I’d been young and stupid and looking for some fucking human connection against the cold and the dark of the Tome Wars. My skill and proficiency in battle ensured a swift rise through the ranks of the Knights Infernal. We’re active soldiers by the time we’re fifteen—earlier, in some cases—and I became one of the youngest field commanders in history on my eighteenth birthday. Through blood, bone, and steel, I was granted command of a full Cascade contingent—eternity class cruisers, squadrons of hardened men and women, access to some of the most destructive spell and enchantment books forged in ancient runes.
Clare had been there for all of that nonsense.
And there also when I was groomed for a place among the ruling class of Ascension City—a Lord of the Knights Infernal and then an Arbiter—granted a legitimate claim to the throne in the event of King Morrow’s death.
Well, die he did. His command ship had been destroyed in the Tome Wars, at the Fall of Voraskel, and I had been left near alone, what remained of my contingent scattered across the length and breadth of the Story Thread, fighting Renegades and monsters pulled from the most nightmarish worlds in existence.
“I was a soldier, Annie.” Clare’s tombstone was cool, even under the warm light from on high. “That’s all I can really say, I guess. I was a soldier, and I was good at it.”
“You... you’ve had to kill people and lose people.”
“Oh yes.”
“How do you live with it?” she whispered, wiping away a few tears with her sleeve. “I can’t stop thinking about the men I’ve killed. Or of poor Sam.”
I shrugged, almost envious of how easily her tears fell. If I had the answer to that, I’d have part of the equation for making peace with my past and learning to be happy. But happiness was more of an outlook on life, wasn’t it? Think positive, and all that jazz. There were men like me amongst the Knights—and the Renegades, no doubt—who had fought bloody and hard. Ruthless soldiers in a hopelessly inept forever-war. I’d seen people do terrible things to each other, little cruelties and big cruelties. Necessary cruelties and all-too-unnecessary cruelties.
None of them could have been happy after that, could they?
But then we all had something to fall back on at the end of the day, to stave away such thoughts on happiness or lack thereof. When the battle was over and those unfortunate enough to still have the strength to fight another day had gone home... I’d fallen quite eagerly into a bottle of something amber and aged. How do you live with it, Annie? As best you could, while feeling so much pain that the only facade you can show the world is a wearied, numb sort of sarcastic indifference.
A not-emotion buried and drowned—to the best of my ability—in scotch and red wine.
“You scream on the inside,” I said. “Always. All the time. I... I don’t even know why, anymore.”
“God, what happened to you, Declan?” Annie read Clare’s epitaph once more. “Who was she?”
I fell to my knees and quivered, clawing at the confusion inside, wanting it all to stop and go away. My hands grasped the edges of Clare’s tombstone as if I could wrench it from the earth and make it undone. Make it never-have-been. Still, the tears did not fall.
I’d never been the crying sort. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d shed a single tear in anger, sadness, happiness, or any blasted real-world emotion. Life in this world—indeed, all worlds—was good at one thing. It could dry out even the most luscious of souls and leave a ragged, comatose husk incapable of expressing just how loud he was screaming on the inside. A yūgen of misery.
Clare’s tombstone was immovable—cold and unremarkable in a sea of similar, unyielding stone.
We were all screaming, yes, but never loud enough to wake the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Age of Judgment Day
Well, after that impromptu visit to the World Cemetery just on the corner of Misery Way and Regret Lane, it was time to face King Faraday, Arbiter Drax, and all those other scheming and plotting bastards.
I stormed into the Throne Room bristling with a quiet, cold anger and a desire to cast out this so-called ruling class. Not just into exile, as they had done to me, but into the Void itself. Scatter them far and wide and take what was mine—the Dragon Throne. For five long years after the Tome Wars, the throne had never strayed far from my thought
s. King Morrow, Faraday’s predecessor, had all but endorsed me as the rightful heir before his command ship was lost to the Void.
But True Earth had bigger problems than my overthrowing Faraday. One day, perhaps... whispered a smooth voice in the back of my mind. One day soon. I couldn’t let the attack on my life, and all manner of other nonsense, sway me from the quest to destroy Emissary. To do that, I needed help. To do that, I needed these smirking bastards.
Again, the vast chamber was empty save for the core of the Knights Infernal gathered around my ruined brother on his mighty dais. Tia was here as well, seated on the first row of pews before the throne. She offered me a kind smile, which I did not return, not now, not with such bitter anger inside of me. I feared what she was about to see of me—Tia and Annie both.
Drax, the arrogant son of a bitch, stood calmly alongside Delia, Fenton, and a few other lords and ladies I couldn’t name, around a long wooden table. It was covered in scrolls, holographic datapads, and maps of Renegade-controlled worlds, as well as platters of fine food and tall glasses of colorful wines.
Annie and I strolled up and onto the dais, inserting ourselves among the mighty and powerful. I stayed just at her back, off to the side, as we had planned. She held her hands on her hips, jacket thrust back, revealing the dark handle of her service weapon.
“Declan, good evening,” Delia said, staring at me strangely. Perhaps she read something in my body language. “We’re glad you decided to return—”
“Save the sentiment, Helen,” Drax snapped, and clicked his fingers in my direction. “Well, have you reached a decision, boy?”
“I most certainly have,” I said, and before any of them could react, I stepped behind Annie and, in one quick draw, pulled her gun from its holster as I moved around the table, twirling on my heel. The movement was swift and fluid, and it ended with me pressing the cold, smooth barrel of the weapon against Drax’s forehead, right between his eyes.
The chamber froze.
Annie stepped back off the dais as Tia gasped and jumped to her feet. Delia and Fenton looked shocked but recovered quickly. The handful of other lords and ladies, some Knights, some not, gave startled grunts and cries. My brother, half-asleep and half-dead on his damned throne, wheezed a rough chuckle.
“Don’t talk; just listen. I was attacked tonight by four men—not Knights, but certainly Willful—and at least one of them has known allegiance to you, Petey Drax.” I twisted the barrel around his brow. “Care to explain that?”
Drax, to his credit, actually smirked and offered me a condescending laugh. It’s probably what I would’ve done, if it were me with the gun to my head. “What was done tonight was done in the best interest of this court and Ascension City.”
“So you don’t deny it?” Annie said, a fire in her eyes.
“What’s all this?” Delia asked. “What have you done, Arbiter Drax?”
“He sent three men to their deaths,” I said and gently squeezed the trigger just a fraction. “Want to make it four?”
Faraday groaned and all eyes, save mine and Drax’s, gazed his way. “We were...” he began, strained and pained. “We were... testing your immortality, brother.”
Those words hung in the air for a moment, and then I actually laughed. A few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You sent the gunman in Perth,” I said. “Of course you did. The gunman, Annie, at the university. They sent him to see if I could still bleed.”
Annie looked furious. “You are an elected official. A minister! If I ever see you in Perth—”
“You’ll do what, Detective Brie?” Drax snorted and smacked the gun aside. “Mind your tone with me, girl. You forget I’m a Minister in the Australian Cabinet. I could have you discredited and tossed out of the police force on your ear.”
I cleared my throat and didn’t raise the gun again—I didn’t need a weapon for this; my word was law. “You harm Miss Brie in any way, shape, or form, Drax,” I said quietly, “and I will turn my sole attention on you. I will not rest until I’ve utterly destroyed you and all you’ve built.” I clenched my fist. “The only reason I’m not exacting a cost for trying to kill me—twice—is that I’ve bigger enemies to deal with just now, or have you forgotten, Minister? Your country—your world—is under siege. A siege you so-called rulers and leaders turned tail and ran from the moment things got a little bloody.”
“We’re not equipped to deal with something as ancient and powerful as the Everlasting,” Drax said. “We had to fall back, regroup our strength, and fortify Ascension City against attack by these creatures. You stirred them up, Hale, you brought this latest travesty down on our heads in Atlantis.”
I almost gaped. “Damned if I do, damned if I bloody don’t... I gave you five years to prepare for war against these creatures. The Degradation sealed Oblivion away, as much as it did Atlantis and the Infernal Clock. I told you all, back then, of the threat—of what I found lurking in the ruins of the Lost City. But you were too busy exiling me and scrabbling for power to listen.” I shook my head, dazzled by their idiocy. “You’ve been jacking off for five years with no payoff and you want to blame me?”
“We want you to aid us,” Delia said, smoothing her salt-and-pepper hair back with a shaking hand. She was trying to get things back on track, bless her heart. “Declan, in exchange for a pardon, we want you to set your immortality—or whatever boon you gained in Atlantis—against Emissary and the master he serves. We want you to reclaim True Earth for the Knights.”
“Do it your damned self...” I muttered.
Drax snarled. “One man against the Everlasting. That was the plan, and who better than the prodigal son? The exiled immortal? We thought if any of us could best them, it would be you.”
I looked at my brother, weakened and hollow on his stolen throne. “Was this all you, Jon? Did you abandon True Earth just to draw me back here? To test my resolve and... and immortality?”
Faraday licked his lips and made a sound caught between a wheeze and a rasp, like air passing through dead lungs. Just how far gone are you, brother?
“Declan,” he said, with surprising vigor. “You deal with Emissary. Reclaim True Earth as a representative of this court and the Knights Infernal, and I... I will pardon...” His voice failed him.
Fenton Creed squeezed his shoulder and stepped forward. “Defeat Emissary, Hale, and your exile will be lifted. You’ll be granted tentative status as a Guardian within our ranks once more.”
I snorted. “I don’t believe you.”
Drax slashed his hand down through the air. “Believe it, Hale. I was strongly against this offer, but it is the wishes of the council and King Faraday. Your minor titles will be reinstated—but you’ll never work in the field again. Some lesser position will be found. Training at the Academy, perhaps.”
I stared at Faraday, struggling to keep his eyes open. He nodded—just. “What if I don’t want to come back?”
“What?” Drax blinked. “You... what?”
“I decline your gracious offer, my lords and ladies. My king.”
“Declan...” Faraday wheezed. “No.”
If I didn’t know any better, he could almost be begging, but did I know any better? He clawed at the sleeve on his kingly robes with frail fingers, catching at the fabric. Faraday lifted the sleeve and revealed the aged, wrinkled flesh of his forearm. Not three months ago he’d stood in my shop, skin clear and healthy, corded with thick muscle. Now he was withered.
And branded into his skin was a familiar mark.
Emissary’s mark.
With a sigh, I undid the cufflink on my shirt and rolled up my sleeve.
“He got you too, huh?”
The lords and ladies, spectators to the handful of real players in the chamber, gasped. Even Drax grunted at the sight of Emissary’s handiwork.
“How long have you had that mark?” Fenton hissed.
“This would be day three.”
He nodded, lips pursed into a thin, grim line. “King Farada
y was branded seven days ago. He started to... suffer the effects on the second day. The brand is what’s killing him.”
“What?” I glared at the mark on my arm. The tattoo of scarred and burned flesh roiled, like dying embers in the fire. Around that fire was wrinkled, old skin. It was killing me? “No, it’s a brand for Will suppression.”
“It’s more than that—” Drax began.
“Then why am I still fit and healthy? The second day, you said, for Faraday, and on my third the only thing wrong with me is this blasted eye patch.”
“Declan,” Annie said quietly, coming to the obvious conclusion half a second before I did myself. “Is it because of the petal? The petal that brought you back to life?”
I sighed and Drax gave me a wintry smile. Of course...
“Immortality,” Arbiter Drax said. “Or something close enough to ward away the detriment of the brand. This is why you’re best suited to the task at hand, Hale.”
It won’t last, I thought. I don’t know the boundary of my so-called immortality, but I can still bleed, still burn... The curse in the brand will catch up with me.
It was already catching up with me, if the wrinkled skin around the mark was any indication, just a lot more slowly than it had my brother. Broken quill, but Emissary had to die and die soon—or I would.
“Return to True Earth, Hale, and defeat Emissary. Kill the monster, and the rune scholars at the Academy believe the brand will fade. Save not only your own life but that of your brother’s, and accept reinstatement into the Knights Infernal as your reward.”
With a sigh, I realized I had no choice but to take their offer. My brother, his condition deteriorating before my eyes, held out a gnarled and wrinkled hand. His fingers were twisted with arthritis.
Three days ago I would have spat at his feet.
Three days ago I would have burned this damned palace down around his head.
Now I simply felt sorry for the man, so I shook his hand.
The lords and ladies breathed a sigh of heavy relief.