Elder Shadow (The Reminiscent Exile Book 5)

by Joe Ducie

  “He was beautiful,” I said. “I held him only a few hours as we escaped Voraskel, fleeing from Emily’s tomb, one of your Emissary dragons on our tail. I dropped a starship on that bastard to escape. I hope it hurt.”

  “Is he named?” Quirinus asked. “Does our grandchild have a name?”

  My ire returned. Names were powerful, true, and had the potential to be traced. “Not by me. Let’s change the subject. And if you think to use the boy as a knife against my throat—”

  Saturnia held up her hand and I fell silent—not from enchantment, or command, but from the simple look in her eyes. She looked earnest, true. “Our grandson is Everlasting. Nine were seven, and now eight again. He will not be able to live a hidden life, he will make himself known. His power will be rivalled only by those in this chamber, perhaps even greater, given his unique lineage. The Everlasting… Born.”

  I muttered below my breath and shook my head. “He seemed like more of a Dave or Scott, an Arthur or James, to me, but as you will…”

  Quirinus laughed, a hearty chuckle and rolled his eyes. It was the most human thing I’d seen from the pair of them yet, and it unnerved me all the more. “Your new holdings, Hale, are quite extensive. Fair Astoria was one of only two of our children to escape being imprisoned for the last ten millenniums, in time’s true measure. She had time alone, seeing as how Dusk chose exile and contemplation, to amass a great deal of territory.”

  “Father,” Dusk began, “I would speak to you alone. The influence beyond the Void has grown unstable.”

  “There will be time enough for that later,” Quirinus said. “After we have dispensed of your sisters.” He looked back to me, standing alone with enemies on all sides. Out of my depth, way out of my depth. “Astoria’s testament is beyond contestation. You are now lord-god of her territory, emperor or king, caretaker or minder—whatever you wish to call yourself.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “Take it back.”

  Saturnia held her hands, palm upwards, toward the heavens. After a moment, a sphere of rippling white energy, ethereal and mesmerising, coalesced. Within that sphere swam an infinite number of worlds, a talisman of power and energy, I knew without knowing, even as Oblivion slammed against the cage in my mind, that I was looking at Emily’s—Astoria’s— last living will. Her Will.

  I was frozen in place, unable to move, as the sphere of power floated down through the air and came to rest in front of me, the ripples of light shining warm against my skin. The sphere settled over my heart and then pressed itself against my chest. There was little resistance as I accepted Astoria’s mantle, her lost grace.

  It was over in a handful of moments, but in those moments, I gained several things—an enormous power boost, a vast sum of knowledge on matters such as navigating the Void, the location and resources of the universes I had just been gifted, and, surprisingly, little else.

  I felt no different, not really.

  I was still me.

  Still human.

  And as Oblivion was unleashed and swept once more over my mind, forcing me back into the brig, still fucked.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE WHISKY REMINISCENCE

  ‘All that you would have me do’

  I made some enemies that day in the Citadel of the Everlasting.

  Oh yes indeed, did I make some enemies. Most of the sordid gods in that holy place had enough reason to hate me, but if any were on the fence, then this sealed the remarkable deal.

  Emily’s grace, her last will and testament, settled on me as a mantle of true power, and even with Oblivion back in control, his mind scouring mine for any loopholes, searching for a grasp on that new power, I knew he couldn’t touch it.

  It was mine, wholly separate from him, as one Everlasting was from another. I understood a glimpse of the elder gods in that moment, just a glimpse and soon blurred, but they were elemental, a force of creation, and though they could war and rage and fight, their very nature was unassailable. Their power was constant, even if their lives were not. Astoria’s grace could only be torn from me through death—an easy enough task, one would think—but I had to will, as Emily had done, where the grace went next. Until then, they couldn’t kill me, or the power would run rampant, wild… a great swath of existence plunged into chaos. None of the Everlasting wanted that, less the chaos spill into their territory.

  Again, I glimpsed the edges of all that knowledge, that understanding, before it faded, settled into the back of my mind’s mind all vague and intimidating.

  I felt Oblivion’s frustration as a punch to the face, a black eye in my mind, and grinned around bloody teeth.

  ‘Not all going according to plan, eh?’ I said. ‘Didn’t expect me in your super cool club, did you?’

  He ignored me and stepped back in line with his brothers and sisters, all of whom stared at me—at me, not Oblivion—as I was, then and there, the main attraction. For the first time in the history of creation, not one but two Everlasting were gone, and to top it all off, to put a cherry on the shit sundae that was their day, one of their kingdoms had been given to a mortal. The Knight Infernal responsible for all this mess in the first place.

  That had to sting.

  I felt like I was winning, which was the surest sign I had no clue what was really going on.

  What game were mummy and daddy playing, up on their marble thrones? All they had done was ensure the Everlasting would come after me, and thus Oblivion, with renewed vigour.

  Maybe that was the point.

  “This is obscene,” Chronos said. “Utterly obscene. You reward this coward!”

  “We are what we are,” Saturnia said. “Your Father, the Wielder of the Spear, spoke true at your birth and today in this chamber. We are bound by edicts and accords, my son. To break those mandates is to break our own power. Astoria’s will must go to Declan Hale. What he does with it from there, well, if nothing else I imagine it will be fun to watch.”

  The Everlasting grumbled at that, and I could almost see them working it out, working a way round, to kill me and seize Emily’s legacy. I was in for a rough road ahead, but then was that anything new? Not in the least.

  “The grace will extend his life,” Oblivion said. “But he is still mortal. He will still die, five, six hundred years from this day. It does not matter. Our purpose, my purpose, has not changed. We must prepare the Story Thread for the darkness beyond the Void. None of this will matter, should that corruption be unleashed.”

  Here I paid close attention, as Dread Ash had claimed the same—that a threat, an enemy, greater even than the Everlasting, existed beyond the Void. Which did not seem possible. The Story Thread was all creation, every world and universe conceivable and imagined, those that existed at the birth of everything and those written into existence by the Willful since. Between those universes sat the Void. The endless night, the hangover, the anti-matter of creation, the sewers. A balance between light and dark. There wasn’t room, if space and time could be considered as something real and not absurdly abstract, for anything else. Was there?

  “I will persuade Declan Hale to restore Astoria’s grace to a rightful bearer,” Oblivion said. “I shall have ample time to persuade him.”

  Translation: I was in for some solid torture. ‘Bring it, bitch.’

  Dusk laughed, low and hollow. “Forgive me, brother, but in this as in most things you are blindingly transparent. Would you, perhaps, consider yourself the rightful bearer of Astoria’s legacy?”

  Oblivion said nothing. He used my mouth to grin at his brother.

  “And there is the matter of Ashaya’s grace,” Saturnia said. “As to her wishes, well, Ashaya was nothing if not one to set the cat among the pigeons.” Quirinus rolled his eyes, though fondly, in memory of his daughter. “Ashaya’s will is such that her grace be given wholly and without contest, to our daughter, Hail.”

  Pained Hail of the Everlasting perked her ears up and was too slow to suppress a wide grin. I watched her, reminded myself that
although she looked like a fifteen-year-old girl, she was more, much more. Hail sought out my eyes in return. I was one vessel with two mantles—that of Astoria and Oblivion—and thus the closest thing to a threat. A whole lot of significant looks going on today. Strangest funeral I’d ever been to, was all I could think.

  Saturnia created another sphere of grace—this time of Ash’s—and the glowing orb floated through the air and settled within Hail’s heart. Her eyes flashed, I felt the power coming off her in waves, and Oblivion’s hot jealousy.

  ‘This makes her stronger than you, yes?’ I had to laugh. ‘Stronger than Dusk?’

  In a way, yes, he replied. Though there is opportunity in such things.

  ‘She doesn’t like you, does she?’ I considered all I’d seen and heard that day. ‘None of your brothers and sisters like you. You’re the black sheep of the family.’

  Oblivion shut me up in the brig with another quick and easy slap. Despite my new grace, my new power, I was still human, it seemed. Which was an advantage. I would die, one day, yes, but that meant I could focus more on the here and now. I didn’t have to worry about what my future a thousand years from now would be.

  Everything was an advantage, and everything was also a disadvantage. It was all about how one played the game. Some of the fear I’d felt ever since Oblivion had used me to kill Ethan Reilly abated, and I clung to the hope I was building in my mind, the resolve. Emily had once said hope was my final resolve. I had to believe she’d meant more than just what it seemed on the surface.

  Otherwise, what was the point? To anything? Never mind my creation-spanning struggled against the Elder Gods, if I didn’t have hope, there was no point in even the littlest of things. Dinner with friends, drinks on the river, bike rides in the sun. The what didn’t matter, but the why, that was all that mattered.

  Your son, Oblivion said. Was all of what was said about the child true?

  The ground beneath my feet felt all kinds of uncertain again. I strove for anger, for resolve, but could only manage a wearied sort of resignation. In the end, I couldn’t win. Oh sure, I’d take one or two of the bastards and bastardettes with me, already had, but when you got right down to the grit, I’d fall in battle—today, tomorrow, two hundred years from now. It would end only one way. Fire and blood. What had Saturnia said to me, the first time we met in Atlantis, before I knew who she was, who she claimed to be, and that claim had been verified now, hadn’t it? Oh yes indeedy. Let me set the scene: Saturnia and Declan Hale, saucy and sober, in one of the fancy cocktails bars near the Vale Atlantia—the obsidian heart of Atlantis:

  I heaved another heavy sigh and ran a hand over my eyes. “What’s your end game?” I asked. “Is it too much to hope this doesn’t end in fire and blood?”

  Saturnia leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re at war with my children. You’re mortal, for the most part, and have the backing of the Knights Infernal, of factions of men and women who will fight and die for you… but in the end, it’s you, Declan. It’s you alone against them all. Fire and blood is all you can expect.”

  ”I will destroy the Everlasting,” I said. “I… they are everything that is wrong with creation.”

  ”They are immortally flawed.”

  ”Can I save Atlantis?”

  Saturnia blinked in surprise. “Declan,” she said, “you are the reason it burns.”

  Fire and blood.

  So be it.

  I could understand fire and blood.

  I was good at fire and blood.

  ‘My son,’ I told Oblivion. ‘He is the one part of me you’ll never get. Do you doubt me, Oblivion? After all I’ve survived? I will survive you.’

  Oblivion grunted, though beneath that, a current of something… contemplative? Curious? Dare I say it, even uncertain? You’ll break, he said. I will shatter your mind. The pain alone will have you howling, begging to tell me the truth. Where is the boy now?

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and that was the truth.

  What did you do with him after Astoria’s death, after Voraskel?

  I had shut down that part of my mind, placed it under lock and key in the part of my mind, the illusion, that was still mine. I was a mind within a mind, a soul trapped in a vessel under occupation. I could keep some secrets, some, but I felt snaked fingers, oily, slithering over the combination to that lock, prying and purchasing.

  I felt Oblivion could have quite easily prised the door from the safe. No need for subtlety, no need for finesse. If he chose, he could tear my mind apart and dance among the whirlwind of shreds and sanity. But the game had changed, I was protected by Astoria’s grace and, I guessed, because Oblivion wanted me intact. The latter would change, eventually, so I was on a timer. I had to figure out how to solve all this before that timer ran down and my usefulness, and the slim bargaining chips I had—though one ace in the hole, thanks to Emily—became useless.

  The Reminiscence, Oblivion said suddenly. What? What is that? You took the child there after his birth!

  I cursed and realised I’d missed a memory or two of the time I had spent with me son, Oblivion’s nephew. I had travelled to Meadow Gate, to Tia Moreau’s bar, aptly named The Reminiscence, with thoughts to give my son to her. But in the end, I had seen her happy, seen her clear of the life and sadness of the Tome Wars. So few of us had escaped the war alive, let alone happy, that she didn’t deserve to be pulled back in. I hadn’t wanted to bring her back into my life, my troubles, as for me the war wasn’t over—would never be over.

  I hadn’t left my son with Tia, and told Oblivion as much.

  We’ll see, he replied, and a cold weight settled in my heart.

  The rest of the funeral was a lot more stock standard, with drink and food and the Everlasting sharing stories of conquest and a few kind words about their fallen sisters. Which I found almost abhorrent, as they spoke of destroying worlds together, growing up in the early days of creation. A few inside jokes I didn’t get, of the sort close family shared, and a handful of anecdotes later and the damn thing came to a grateful end.

  Saturnia and Quirinus had disappeared at some point during the last hour, their thrones sitting empty and aloof. I didn’t know, or care, where they had gone. Off to create a few new universes, perhaps. I’d lived nearly thirty years without being aware of them, I could quite happily live another three hundred and never see them again.

  Something, some inkling, told me that wouldn’t be the case. But no matter. We make do.

  “Brother,” Dusk said, approaching me and Oblivion as we sat alone near the remnants of the bar I had destroyed. Oblivion had salvaged a cup of liquor and was sipping it sourly, thinking dark thoughts.

  My twin stared down at me, but of the Shadowman I saw nothing. It was Lord Hallowed Dusk using those Void-borne eyes, that corpse-like skin. Seeing myself like a corpse, not only a corpse but a possessed corpse, was as strange as you might imagine.

  “An accord?” Oblivion asked, swirling the dregs of his drink about the glass. “Until the matter is settled?”

  “I find myself in need to take a more active role in events, yes,” Dusk said. “One slumbers for an age and the whole Story Thread begins to crumble, the gods start falling, and darker menaces awaken. Time we restored the old ways, brother.”

  “In that, at least, we are on the same page.”

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I whispered, though I feared I knew.

  “Where do we start looking for the child?” Dusk asked.

  And I hurled myself against the walls of the brig, against the barred door, with everything I had to bear—which, unfortunately, wasn’t close to enough. ‘DON’T! DON’T YOU DARE!’

  Oblivion didn’t even blink against my struggles. I was nothing to him, nothing. Less than the smallest gnat. I couldn’t hope to overpower his control. “Meadow Gate, a world some hours of travel from here, home to the refugees of a minor conflict known as the Tome Wars. My vessel took the boy there after his birth. I could glean that
much from his mind before he sealed away the rest.”

  Dusk nodded. “A place to start, then. Shall we?”

  Oblivion drained his cup and tossed it aside. Together, he and his brother stepped sideways into the Void in pursuit of my son.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FIRE AND BLOOD

  ’It’s alright, it’s OK, just walk away’

  There’s this old song, right. I forget who sings it - one of those sad souls with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Leonard Cohen, perhaps. Janis Joplin.

  It doesn’t matter who sang it, because the song is that same track stuck on repeat, baby. One of those tunes that sting the soul, speaks across time and distance only to you, you alone. Like a good book, or finding resonance with the right person (before they get to know you, of course). The old song is full of memory, regret, and all the hindsight one could want after the funeral pyre has sent the ash on the wind—generally about relationships. Every song ever written—ever last one—is, in some way, a love song.

  And most of them, the vast majority, are about lost love, failed love. The could-have-been, would-have-been, should-have-been.

  As Lord Oblivion and Lord Dusk of the violent and ageless Everlasting sauntered across the Void to Meadow Gate, seeking a bar known as The Reminiscence, home of my old friend and almost lover, Tia Moreau, I couldn’t help but think on those old love songs. I was arrogant enough to think they were all about me.

  Those songs had something else in common, even if the beat and lyrics changed, the heart was the same. They were promises—promises not to hurt again, to be better, stronger, faster. In a word, the songs were lies. Lies bathed in bloody truth.

  Promising not to hurt someone again is like asking, demanding, the sun not to set. You’re just setting everyone up for disappointment.

  How to shoot at someone who outdrew ya, I thought, and worried for Tia. I had the very real sense I was about to get her killed.

  Two Everlasting, the most dangerous creatures in the Story Thread, were about to stop by her place for a drink. Worse, Tia didn’t know anything that could help them find my son. This was folly. I could show them that, I may have to, but it would be like giving away a number on the combination dial of the secret vault in my mind. I sensed that, as instinctive as breathing. To give an inch would be to give a mile, with these bastards.