by Lee Bond
Dark Iron King II:
Arcadia Falls
By Lee Bond
©copyright Lee Bond 2014
Kindle Edition
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE UNREAL UNIVERSE!
“STAR WARS WHO? THESE BOOKS NEED TO BE MADE INTO MOVIES RIGHT NOW!” -SK
“MY SON AND I LOVE YOUR BOOKS! THEY ARE THE BEST!” -JH & RH
“FORGET MOVIES, I WANT TO PLAY THE MMO!”-GH
“GARTH NICKELS IS WITHOUT DOUBT THE MOST HANDSOMEST AND AWESOMEST GUY WHO HAS EVER DONE ANYTHING, AND BEFORE YOU ASK, NO. I AM NOT RELATED!” –GN
“GARTH IS THE FUCKING MAN!” –M
“CAN I GIVE THIS BOOK 10 OUT OF 5 STARS?” – SC
AUTHOR’S FOREWARD
I’m not going to lie.
These two books were a gigantic pain in the ass to write, and even more so to edit; in DeadShop Redux, everyone will speak perfect Queen’s English and that’s that. Between the rambling Arcadian and Ickfordian patois, Chad’s particular way of mangling the language and every other damn thing that happens ‘neath The Dome, I am sick to death of grammar. I particularly gave up on ‘its’ versus ‘it’s’, so if any of you feel compelled to call me out on it, know that a certain devil-may-care Specter might just swing by your house late one night to discuss the fine points of how –in the Unreal Universe- things don’t follow the rules.
Clear? Awesome.
So yes, Dark Iron King’s I and II were a pain in the ass to write. Of this, there can be no contest, but at the same time …
I can honestly say I’ve never written anything so grand or bold in my entire life. I am immensely proud and pleased of the work I’ve done, and I know through personal and Facebook contact with some of you that you all feel the same way, and that, more than anything else, keeps me going.
It certainly ain’t the money, though at the time I’m writing this, I’ve definitely seen an uptick in sales (Foreign Devil, Subversive Elements and Citizen Pariah have all breached the top #100 in their various online categories, which is awesome).
As a good friend of mine keeps telling me: ‘It only takes one.’ And that one could be, like, Michael Bay or even better, James Gunn (he did Guardians of the Galaxy, Sooooo …. If anyone knows him … LEND HIM YOUR COPY OR TELL HIM TO EMAIL ME AND I’LL DELIVER THEM PERSONALLY).
Just sayin’.
I fell in love with new characters in these books. Dominic Breton, Chevril Pointillier and Queen Agnethea specifically, but also anyone who actually got more than a paragraph. There’s something magical (cough cough) about Arcade City. People just kept springing from my fingers and onto the page and it was all I could do to keep it down to realistic limits! I’ve never had a world spring so quickly and so powerfully to life before, either, and while you may argue that the whole entirety of Trinityspace has done just that, but I’ll let you in on a little secret:
I’d been working on the first three books in one format or another for nearly twenty years. You literally cannot imagine how much time I’ve spent into building the Unreal Universe because … well, it might be a little depressing, hey? So yes, the Unreality is wild and beautiful and filled with things that might take your breath away, but in truth, I only ever really considered what went on ‘neath The Dome this last year. Before Dark Iron King, it was just a place to mention whenever Chadsik went off the rails, or started thinking about his dad. Fun fact: at one point, King Barnabas Blake the One and Only was essentially a giant amorphous nanotech blob that terrorized his people on a daily basis.
So … not much different, really.
I love Arcade City so much that, when Darkness Falls and the Light Rises (which … which will probably spell the end of Garth’s adventures) I will have to revisit the people there. There is a richness and wealth, such color and vibrancy (not to mention despair and darkness) that to do Arcadians any less would be a crime.
For now, though, read on, dear readers.
And watch Arcadia Fall.
Table of Contents
1. Ickford? More like What-the-Fuck-ford
2. The Tendrils Have Spread Too Far, the Q-Gun Fires, a Matronly Request
3. Side Quests are Total Bullshit
4. A King’s Work is never Done, a Politician’s Offer and Tendrils that Need Trimming
5. Side Quests really are Bullshit
6. Hungryfish Rising, What’s All This Then, and A Son’s Sorrow
7. When Two Tribes Go To War
8. A King’s Will, an Assassin’s Desire, and A Bartender's Secret
9. All the King’s Soldiers
10. Tendrils Afire, an Old Lizard Runs, and Armageddon It On
11. The Naming of the Beasts and other Amazing Things
12. A New Note, a Son’s Choice, and The Cage is Rattling
13. King’s Cross
14. You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry, The Mouth of Ages, An Assassin’s Hilarity
15 And All The King’s Horses…
16 London Bridge Ain’t Just Falling, It’s Completely Fucked, All Together Now, Aftermath
17 I Totally Called That
18 The Last Brigadier, The King in his Castle, the First Brigadier
19 I Have Inside Me Blood of Kings
20 Bloody Black Road
21 Le Roi de Platine
22 Heeeeeere I Come to Save the Day!
23 King Moron of Moronspace
24 The Play’s the Thing…
25 … Wherein We’ll Catch the Conscience of the King. And then we kill him. Somehow.
26 Arcadia Falls
27 Odds and Ends before the End
Domefall
The Sleeper Must Awaken
Someone’s at the Door
Run, Runner
The Cage Breaks … or Does It
Assholes and Elbows, People
A Most Unfortunate Turn of Events
Minus Zero
Tin Soldier
Fallen
Shieldbreak
The Real Boy
Well, That Could’ve Gone Better
1. Ickford? More like What-the-Fuck-ford
Agnethea smiled at Barnabas, but the old man was no fool. He knew precisely how she felt about his presence just as he had made it known –and some time ago- exactly what he thought of her. Still and all, things being the way things were, there was nothing the ‘blacksmith’ could do about her, her kind, or the things they chose to do. She fluttered her fan delicately, wafting away the malodorous stench that puffed out through the door she’d just stepped through; Ickford, her charming home and delight, was certainly living up to it’s name today.
“Barnabas.” Agnethea repeated, turning her gaze quickly to the man standing off to one side. He fairly radiated hostility and violence on the rise. “What brings you to fair Ickford?”
Barnabas struggled to keep his blacksmith persona in place; Garth had a keen eye in that head of his and he could sense things that the man had no right being able to sense. If he clued in that this was all a charade now -and further that the two titular people involved in the ‘attempt’ to rid him of Dark Iron most likely couldn’t do it- … Barnabas had no desire to deal with the aftermath of such a ferocious altercation.
The Blacksmith King doffed his cap and bowed as magisterially as any man, even bending a knee, sick to his stomach and raging the whole time at doing so; Agnethea’s repugnant face crinkled into a horridly knowing smile. “Travel, Mistress Agnethea. Travel, and the winding road.”
The man who –against all odds and common sense and believability- Barnabas was traveling snorted derisively at the phrase ‘winding road’ and stamped a foot, el
iciting a raised eyebrow from Agnethea. There was summat going on between the two men, and as Agnethea stood there, watching the two men interact silently with one another, it suddenly dawned on her what was so interesting about Barnabas’ as-yet unnamed traveling companion.
He was clad nearly head to toe in handmade clockwork armor. You could barely see it, but here and there through the thick, draping clothing he wore, glints of brass and other bright metals shone. The implication took her breath away. Agnethea turned fully and properly to Barnabas’ companion. “My name is Agnethea. I run Ickford.”
Then she stuck out her hand.
Barnabas rose hastily from his bow and intercepted Agnethea before she could lay a hand on Nickels when suddenly, a whispering tickle in the back of his mind warned him of the Enforcers at the door.
“Oh my.” Agnethea crowed, putting her extended hand on a hip. “That’s quite the look.”
“He’s making those kinds of faces all the time these days.” Garth stepped forward, unable to take his eyes off the woman that always brought a grimace of disgust to Barnabas’ face, and who was apparently a Obsidian Golem, an unknown –and unexplained, thanks to the blacksmith’s bizarre reticence to even acknowledge their existence- force in the world, one who’d filled poor old Meechy with such terror that he’d gone mental in the blink of an eye.
Meechy’s palpable terror was at complete odds with the mere slip of a woman who stood before Garth, dressed in what was best described as nineteenth century steampunk; form fitting black lace dress with ruffles and furls in all the appropriate places, a glinting silver necklace crisscrossing around her neck, leather belt bound saucily around her hips, long leather boots that were so form-fitting Garth could make out truly spectacular musculature. The belt held three knives, two of the buzzer variety and one plain old gutting knife that she probably used to hold non-Ironed idiots at bay. Here and there, sewn directly into the fabric of the form-fitting black and red dress, were some very basic, ornamental gears.
Hair so pale it almost counted as white until Agnethea moved her head this way and that, allowing nearly luminous threads of purest blonde to shine like fire spilled down her back from a ponytail, leaving two wisps to trail down either side of her face, framing eyes that were hidden behind a delicate lacy veil that obscured any hint that she had actual eyes.
Was that the weird thing? Obsidian Golems had no eyes? Just, like, one giant swathe of flesh where eyes went?
Agnethea’s rosebud mouth quirked in amusement at the flash of puzzlement on the still unnamed man’s face. He was a quick study. She hadn’t been so thoroughly devoured in a single glance since, well, now she thought on it, since a certain blacksmith who was dancing and hemming and hawing and pretending to be less than he was by a long shake had come across her so very long ago.
Then, as now, there was a certain predatory gleam in the man’s eye though unlike then, there was a distinct lack of fear and, more importantly, at least to a woman who’d grown accustomed to the feeling, zero disgust. If anything, Agnethea trusted her many years to tell her that the armor-clad man with the most interesting eye piece knew of the fear and terror her kind evoked in even the most ardently Dark Ironed man or woman and either didn’t care or didn’t see what the fuss was.
Garth blinked and shook his head. Holy crap. He hadn’t stared at a woman like that since the first time his stupid blue eyes had fell on Naoko. Trying his best to ignore the stab of regret and sorrow burning suddenly through his heart, Garth stuck his hand out, noting with a raised eyebrow that Barnabas –only recently intent on preventing Agnethea from shaking hands- was so distracted by something over the Obsidian Golem’s shoulder that he didn’t even bother trying to stop the meeting, a thing that he only just realized Barnabas –for whatever reason- had been trying to prevent this whole time.
“My name is Nickels. Garth Nickels.” His heart skipped and jumped in his chest. Had to be the Iron. Had to be some inner awareness of what it was about the slender angel in black that had so horrified Meechy. Nothing else. There was only Naoko. Naoko, lost in the stars.
Agnethea stepped around Barnabas, who still stood and gaped through the door leading into Ickford like one stripped of all his senses. “As I said before, Mister Nickels, my name is Agnethea, and I run Ickford.” She took Garth’s brass and copper encased hand in her own, heart suddenly thrilling as he swept the hand up to gently press his lips against a knuckle.
Barnabas snapped to just as N’Chalez finished kissing the Obsidian Golem’s hand. His stomach wanted to revolt. He wanted to shout and scream and lay down some King’s Will right there on the spot but given the two people he wanted to dispense justice on, he sincerely doubted it would work; given Agnethea’s abominate condition, the beast would simply laugh prettily behind the mask she wore and Nickels … well, he might succumb to Specter’s ravenous hunger and he might not.
Planting as false a smile as he’d ever worn on his face, Barnabas turned to speak. “Well, aren’t we becoming the fastest of friends, hey? Such good tidings, this.”
Agnethea’s blossoming smile wilted. Aware she was still holding Garth’s hand, she released it reluctantly, mind wanting to turn to the mystery of the man’s lack of fear and the immediacy of the undeniable attraction they obviously shared. “Why are you here, Barnabas?”
Barnabas flicked an eye to the outsider. Good. The idiot was staring at the beast with barely disguised lust. Beneath that hungering gaze, he seemed to be struggling with some other emotion. He was barely in the now.
”A word in private. If you please, queen?”
Agnethea wondered what under The Dome the King truly could want with her, bringing with him as he had a mysterious man clad in clockwork armor to her very door, so it was with a quirked brow that she stepped off to one side so the two of them might talk in quiet; Garth Nickels accepted the moment with a barely disguised roll of the eyes and devoted himself to peeking through the gates into Ickford.
“What’s truly going on here, Barnabas?” Agnethea demanded when they were far enough out of earshot. “You made it quite, quite clear the last time you came ‘round this way you’d prefer me dead and buried and now you bring this … plaything of yours to my very doorstep? What are you playing at, I wonder.”
Barnabas bit back the hot retort, pushed down on the heavy surge of Will threatening to rise up behind him. ‘twouldn’t do any good at all to lose either temper or Will. Not here, not now, no it would not.
Nor, he realized bitterly, would his carefully built gewgaws do anything save fill the wretched fiend with amusement.
“I am King,” he did his venomously, stepping as close to the abomination as he dared, “and I play at nothing. Wretch, all ‘neath The Dome is…”
Agnethea smiled prettily as the breeze which had dislodged her eye-veil just enough to give ‘her’ King a quick flash of that which gave all men –e’en King himself, if only barely- good reason to tremble and mind their tone. “Apologies, my Lord, no offense was intended.”
Barnabas snorted as he cast a furtive eye towards Nickels. The fool was still involved in alternately peering through the gates and checking on the vaultmen and their progress. “Hold those pleasantries for someone who’ll fall for ‘em, Agnethea. That pretty smile and that innocent expression of yours works but once in eleven thousand years.”
Agnethea rolled a hand, urging the King to continue. “As you are not playing at anything, mayhap then it is yon beastie who shall do the playing? What is he then? Some new monstrosity here to test my mettle? To root out the dis-ease that has befallen your gearheaded children?”
“He is nowt of mine.” Barnabas admitted bitterly, more so than he preferred. “He is an outsider and I am sick to death of him.”
Well, now, that did perk a Golem’s interest, hey? Though she of course cared little one way or the other what her relationship with the King was these days, the situation in Ickford could use a bit of … Kingly ignorance.
“So,” she drawled, fingering t
he knives at her hips, “you bring him here. To what purpose? To live? To die? To kill or mayhap be killed? Tell me your mind.”
“Matters not to me.” Barnabas ground the words out. Gods, the loathed the sight of the beast before him and if he were honest wi’ himself, such close proximity to the Miasma surrounding her and her ilk put him ill at ease and so violently short-tempered it had the King wondering briefly if this were how his gearheads felt. “He is adept at smithing and artificing, as you no doubt gleaned from that quick glance at his arms. We did travel for a time and for want of summat to occupy my mind, I schooled him in the way of such things. Took to it quicker than any I’ve seen, our Nickels did, and now he’s here, I’d see the back of him.”
Agnethea wanted to poke and pry more into the nature of the man the King was dropping off like an unwanted bastard, but doing so would undoubtedly betray her own deep-seated suspicions as to the true reasons. “He will find no friends here. Mickel and Harvard take considerable dislike towards new blood.”
“Again, Queen, it matters not.” Barnabas repeated the words emphatically. “He is here. He has wanted to be here since the moment he learned of it’s existence. Use him or abuse him as you see fit. I have things to attend to and thus my charade with the lad comes to a quick close.”
Agnethea dipped her head in wry acknowledgement of the things the King alluded to, adding, “Aye, that Clanging were ferocious. Those of mine that take the risk did tell me inward has suffered greatly. Gone as you’ve been these hundred years, there is even more awry than you may know. Tell me though, King of mine, why should I allow him entry? Bearing in mind that I believe nothing as has come out of your mouth since the moment we met and e’en less since you made your dislike of fair Ickford known to me.”
“Do or don’t.” Barnabas ground the words out. Off to where Garth stood, the lad was doing little to disguise his growing interest in the … ‘discussion’ being had. “In or not, dead or alive, truly it does not matter. Kicked down the road, flung into The Wall. The lad himself has a favor to demand of you, one you may find interesting enough to keep you amused. Or not. I cannot explain how little I truly care in any other way.”