Elder Shadow (The Reminiscent Exile Book 5)

by Joe Ducie

  Most of all, I did not want to take the petal from Annie. She had been given it without her knowing, and that was enough. I had no right to ask for more.

  “You’re up to speed?” I asked

  “Everlasting,” she said and pointed at my head. “Time running out. You’re a king, now. Sulking, it seems.”

  I chuckled again. “Yeah, you’re up to speed. Been speaking with Sophie and Tal, eh?”

  She nodded. “After what happened in Riverwood Plaza, poor Ethan, we fled across the Story Thread to Ascension City, met up with Sophie, figured out what had happened. We started working on a way to free you. Imagine our surprise when you did it yourself.” She sighed. “I still don’t understand four things in five about your life, Declan, but I’m here. I know you try to do the right thing. I cleaned up the mess in Riverwood as best I could. Your shop is a police-taped ruin. You’re considered dead in the blast. Ethan’s… murderer, is considered still at large. There are no real leads.”

  “He’s right here,” I muttered and tapped the side of my head. “And he can hear everything we say, Annie, so best be mindful.”

  ‘This witch killed my sister,’ Oblivion growled. ‘I’ll enjoy devouring her still-beating heart.’

  “He says hello.”

  Annie met my eyes behind her reflective lenses. “Tal said you were being mopey, but I didn’t expect this. It’s like you’ve given up, Declan.”

  “I’m tired, Annie.”

  “Is it that thing in your head? Preying on your mind?” She shook my shoulder. “You need to act! Or you’ve already lost.”

  I considered her words, thought there was probably some truth to them. Or maybe it was the sheer amount of booze Oblivion had poured through my system in the last week. He’d taken the brunt of the poison, sure, but it had still run through my body and drowned my liver. Was the depression I felt, the misery and apathy, a result of being back on the sauce? I didn’t know for certain, but it felt right. I was an alcoholic, by any and every definition, and had spent years mired in misery and defeat… That had changed, off the booze. I’d began to plan for the future again, my future, even with the Everlasting problem hanging over us all like a storm cloud.

  “If you could do one thing right now,” Annie said. “If you only had a day to live, say, and could do only one thing that would help, what would you do?” She held my chin and turned my face to look at her, to meet her eyes. I had a real problem meeting eyes at the moment, almost like I was ashamed of something. “First answer only.”

  “I’d…” …launch an assault on the Citadel of the Everlasting.

  Annie, only a year or so ago nothing more than a local detective, unware of the wide and wonderful, the endless and horrific, nature of the Story Thread. Unaware of Will, and other worlds, of demons, and gods, and drunk bookshop proprietors, thrust her finger at me.

  “Whatever you’re thinking right now,” she said. “That’s what you should be doing. That’s what Declan Hale would do.”

  “It’s going to get a lot of people killed,” I said. But the citadel had been mostly undefended. Sure, there’d be enchantments, I’d felt more than a few, and shields, but it’s defence comes mostly from the fact no one save the Everlasting know where to find it.

  Well, the Everlasting and me.

  I glanced at the star iron manacle, as Oblivion felt me come to a decision and hurled himself against the walls of his cell in anger. The cracks in the manacle were worse again, the once clear black-glass now dusty and chalked, petrified. The game was up, one way or another, in the next day or two. Perhaps even sooner.

  I stood. Annie stood with me.

  “So, where are we going?” she asked.

  “To start a war, Detective Brie. To start another war.”

  *~*~*~*

  An hour after returning from True Earth, I convened a war council in the grand and opulent chambers before the Dragon Throne. I had the Cascade Fleet recalled, ever ship with a cannon and that could fly ordered battle ready within the next five hours. I called up the reserves, manned and crewed the ships, and generally spent a good few hours arguing with my advisors and secretaries, my ministers—those brave enough to argue—and, primarily, my royal treasurer, who saw this as folly and bankrupting the empire.

  Let it be folly, I thought. Let it burn. Again, I was the Shadowless Arbiter, and my sole purpose—never mind kingdoms or even friends—was to stand against the Everlasting. And at that moment, perhaps only for another day, I had command of more resources than I ever would have again. Use it or lose it.

  My friends—Annie, Tal, and Sophie—stood at my back. I’d named them personal advisors to the king, accorded them titles and apartments, top secret security clearances, and so on. They were now the true king’s council, and the old council kind of knew it and begrudged them the fact. Everyone was arguing with everyone else, but they were doing what I said. Slowly, grumbly, but they were doing it.

  If all went to plan, my friends would be needed for some dark work. Tal and Annie, after all, were the only two people in existence who could not be possessed by the Everlasting, thanks to the petals of the Infernal Clock ticking away in their hearts. They could still be hurt, still be killed, but beyond that they were, for all that mattered, effectively immortal.

  “Your grace,” Arbiter Ferenol said, standing at the long marble table, staring up at me on the edge of the throne, exasperated. Her name to me sounded like some sort of headache medication, which I could have really used right then. She was a slight woman, severe brow, and I’d known her in the past to be a voice of calm, of reason. “This is utter madness.”

  Ah, not so reasonable today.

  “I cannot support you in this,” she said.

  “Good thing we’re not a democracy then, isn’t it?” I whispered, though thanks to the acoustics in the grand chamber, my voice carried well. It was all for dramatic effect.

  “If you’re to ignore the advice of those here, those who wish to see your reign on the throne last,” she countered, “then I will have to resign my position.”

  I shrugged. “A day ago you’d have said the same to Jon Faraday, I’m sure. He didn’t believe in the Everlasting. No, actually, that’s not fair. He did, but he considered them my problem. He had his kingdom, the Knights Infernal, and let his baby brother deal with the real threat. Well, you can’t have it both ways. That attitude alone makes me more suitable for his chair than any other claim I had, all of which were legitimate, as decreed by King Morrow before he was lost in the final days of the Tome Wars.”

  I linked my fingers and rested my chin on my hands, letting the silence stretch out uncomfortably.

  “You were all there, all of you,” I whispered. “In those dark days, madness turned to ruin at the edge of the Roseblade, the war turned to hell. Entire worlds falling into the Void. I stopped that. Have you all forgotten so easily?”

  “You were responsible for it,” barked Senator… Crest? Crease? Fuck. A man of average height, blonde hair to his broad shoulders, a sneer fit for a king.

  “One night of chaos to stop a century of war,” I said. “Do the math, mate, I saved far more than I burned. None of you, the so-called wise and powerful, who had spent your entire lives up to that point in the war, were doing anything about it. Worthless, the lot of you,” I growled.

  “Declan,” Annie said. “You catch more flies with honey.”

  I laughed and eased back on my anger, took my foot off the accelerator—but only half an inch or so.

  “Here’s how it lays out, ladies and gentlemen,” I said, fighting the fatigue, the depression, the desire to just roll over and die with every ounce, every torn shred of my soul, my identity before it was taken from me again. Annie was right, Oblivion was messing with my mind. Had to be. I’d been… well, not fine, but functioning, before he strolled on in. “You are free to leave your positions this evening. I won’t stop you. I will imprison you in opulence and comfort alongside the former king, for however long I’m on the thron
e. I will ensure you cannot interfere with the war to come.”

  I let that sink in a good long half minute, awkwardly long, meeting every eye at the table. I didn’t have a problem meeting the eyes of people I held in contempt. They sure as shit had a problem holding mine, though. Good.

  “War is coming, one way or another. Lord Hallowed Dusk has assumed command of the Everlasting Peace Arsenal, that was his plan. This I know for certain, first-hand intelligence. He will have done so by now. War is coming.” I slammed my fists together. “The enemy stronghold is known to us. It isn’t a world, it isn’t full of innocent civilians, as is usually the case. It is a vast, island-citadel at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. It is afforded the protections of true reality. It is… bound by those protections, and thus, to us and our fleet, vulnerable.”

  I was almost eager to be away, to be at command of a fleet again, and rain down fire and hell upon my enemies.

  “We can strike the surest blow in the war now, within the next day, before they even have time to retaliate. The Everlasting are powerful, but they are few. The Everlasting are ageless, but they have never been attacked before—not like this. They think themselves above such measures. They thought themselves above even death. I have seen two of them die this last year alone.”

  I had them now—first threaten, then the honey. Annie had half the equation right.

  “The full might of the Cascade Fleet attacks at dawn,” I said. “Space-dawn, whenever that is. As swiftly as we can pilot the fleet through to the galactic core in the prime universe. We’ll need the enchanters opening the waypoints through the Void, the safe passages to the local solar system surrounding True Earth.” I considered, then shrugged. “Not too long ago, I attacked a sub-orbital prison in the storm clouds of Jupiter. Home these last ten thousand years to Scarred Axis. The waypoint should still be active, should still be functional, and there’s plenty of breathing room around that gas giant. Rally the fleet on that location, tonight, now, make it happen.” I paused. “Any more goddamn questions?”

  There were no more goddamn questions.

  “Good. See it done, and we’ll get along just fine. Cross me, and I’ll destroy you.” I leaned back, relaxed in my diabolical throne, and raised my palms toward the ceiling. “You may not like me—hell, I don’t often like me—but I’m here to save you. All of you. We can do this, ladies and gentlemen, and I refuse to face these horrors alone. No more. The Knights Infernal consider themselves rulers of the Story Thread, the policemen of the World Compass. Well, time we lived up to that. Or what the hell are we doing? If we don’t do this, then the Everlasting win. Hell, the Everlasting deserve to win.”

  I stood.

  And that was that. Game on.

  *~*~*~*

  The full force of the Cascade Fleet was something to behold. The grand ships, both combat and support craft, had been recalled at a haste not seen since the final days of the Tome Wars, when only ragged remnants remained. In that time, new ships had been built, fresh commanders—even some who had been children during the Tome Wars. Well, they were in for a shock now. Baptism by fire. It was good enough for me, damn it, when I was young and not old and decrepit, closing in on thirty.

  The fleet ships burning their fusion engines, racing through the known and ‘trusted’ paths of the Void, using the interdimensional drives installed as standard in any knightly model, to meet at the rally point in the skies above Jupiter. In record time, the largest space-faring fleet ever assembled… well, yeah, it assembled.

  From the vast and sleek command deck of the Blade of Spring, the king’s ship, the greatest, newest, grandest ship in this or, indeed, any fleet (of the Peace Arsenal, we still didn’t know, and Oblivion wasn’t giving any hints that weren’t threats of doom and gloom for me and mine), I surveyed the rest of the fleet dropping into the rally point, silhouetted against the backdrop of the swirling storm giant—Jupiter.

  I took a sip from a crystal tumbler of fine scotch. A Lagavulin 16. The sip was delicious, redeeming, and wholly my idea. I was drinking again, and wondered if my plan was only the best excuse I had to start the habit anew.

  “All part of the plan,” I muttered, when Annie raised a single eyebrow and said more with a look than words ever could.

  “Said every drunk ever,” she countered.

  I thought about that and raised the glass—point. “Trust me. Desperate times, desperate measures… Rest assured my head is planted firmly on my shoulders and not up my ass on this one.”

  Annie rolled her eyes. Her point stood. Every drunk ever had their excuses, their white-knuckle grip on the neck of the bottle. “For you. Only for you. Just this once.”

  The Blade of Spring was at the cutting edge of starship design. Think Star Trek, or Star Wars, sci-fi of the highest order. Those massive silver-grey ships that hovered above worlds like spears, or destroyers. An enormous ship, hundreds of decks and thousands of missile bays, ion cannons, deployable autonomous shuttle craft. It was designed to be controlled by a skeleton crew, as well, and—with the neural net crown I wore atop my head (the only crown I’d allow at the moment)—controlled by a single mind, if needs be.

  I had been aboard the Blade of Spring once before—with Shadowman and the Historian of Future Prospect. We had come here, to Jupiter, to stop Shadowman from unleashing Scarred Axis. In that, as in so many things, I had failed, but I was beginning to see a pattern to that failure, even a purpose. Hallowed Dusk had the right of it: I was more and more certain we were all of us dancing on the strings of some puppet master. Something, perhaps the star iron manacle rotting on my wrist, made me think it wasn’t some hidden, dark adversary, but ourselves from the future. We were playing catch-up, as best we could, to plans we would one day lay down.

  Confusing, vexing, yes, which is why going to blow up the Citadel of the Everlasting was at the top of my to do list. It was actionable action, in line with the overall purpose and goals of my life, which was to see the Everlasting fall. Still, I didn’t like the idea this was all mapped out, all planned like some poorly written novel, and not so much intricate as inevitable.

  So I was defaulting to my prime directive—which was to make bad things go away in as big of an explosion as I could manage.

  The bridge of the Blade of Spring was at full capacity, that day, not a skeleton crew, and we were on an officially sanctioned mission, after all, with the king himself aboard. Techs and Guardian Knights manned the control columns. I sat in the captain’s chair, of course. Before all of this, before any of it, I had been a military man, a commander. The youngest commander of the Cascade Fleet in history. Hell, that may still be true. I was only in my late twenties, after all, despite all my old man heading toward thirty reminiscence and bluster.

  I knocked back the rest of the scotch with a practiced flick and ordered another. There was a delicate balance to this plan, as much an external fight as it was internal. Have you noticed how much they’re drinking, Shadowman had said, briefly loosed from Dusk’s grasp. I hadn’t, but he had, and he’d been trying to tell me something important in as fewer words as possible, because we weren’t alone. We were never alone.

  Another scheduled blast of ships dropping into this dimension rallied the fleet to capacity. Against the velvety depths of the universe, the orange-mauve swirl of Jupiter, the entire might of the Knights Infernal stood at my command. Thousands of ships, some on par (though not greater) with the Blade of Spring, many smaller, sleeker—faster but still deadly. I spotted the Argent Shield out there, spinning like a buzzing bee around larger vessels. I liked that plucky little ship. I’d used it to effect in the past.

  “Well, your grace,” Tal said, and placed a hand on my shoulder. She squeezed gently. Her fingers were warm. “Let’s all go die for your pride.”

  I snorted as one of the stewards refilled my crystal tumbler. Tal had raided the armoury, strapped herself in mythril plate mail, gained a knightly blade, and an even more knightly pulse pistol. She looked good, tall, ready to take o
n this or any universe again, and the horrors therein. She also regarded my tumbler of scotch with a distasteful eye, but I think she got it—she saw the point, my oh-so-clever plan. It wasn’t anything I dared vocalise, not with Oblivion listening in, and I guarded my thoughts well, but it was a plan and not an excuse. Alongside the knowledge of my son, and that Annie may have been capable of finding him, I kept my dark purpose under lock and key.

  A lot—everything, really—was on the line, and far too reliant on me being able to handle my booze. That was a cruel irony, a bitter joke. After all the times and crimes, the years and tears, it came down to a fucking cosmic drinking contest. Well, so be it. I could drink the best of them under the table.

  The neural web I wore on my brow, a thin silver crown tied directly to my mind—which was worrisome, as there was already far too many gate crashers at that party—informed me in real time the number and readiness of the fleet. I could, if I wished, issue a direct command without speaking a word, merely think it, and the command would be relayed across the entire fleet in less than a heartbeat. I saw in the HUD, the heads-up display, projected directly onto my eyes, the weapons capability, the squadron formations, crew and ordnance aboard each ship. The computer, hundreds of years’ worth of battles and data plugged into its databanks, even offered strategy and potential avenues of assault.

  Here was the Cascade Fleet of the Knights Infernal.

  Here was the War King Declan Hale.

  Locked and loaded.

  Enough strength and might to conquer entire worlds, whole strings of worlds, and the universes around them. Enough force and muscle to police something as vast and unruly as the Story Thread. We existed for a reason and we were not, as some so settled into their ways believed, allowed to grow fat and lazy on our watch. The threat was real. The Everlasting existed. We were the only force, humanity’s only shield, against the blight.