by Joe Ducie
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about giving up the drink,” I said. “Exiled or not, my particular brand of asshattery has saved Forget more than once. Selfish to spend half the day in a drunken stupor when creatures like you think they can have free reign over the Story Thread. Time I got my head back in the game.”
“Are you going to stop me, Declan?” Scion asked, and in the blink of an eye he was the young boy again, Charlie, snared in a dark cape. “I am Everlasting, you dolt. Ageless and eternal. You can no more kill me than hold back the tides of the Void.”
I gripped the hilt of Myth, stuffed down the back of my pants against my waistcoat, and had to disagree. Forged for the Nine to slay... Well, there were nine Everlasting that needed slaying. Might as well start with the youngest and work my way up.
After all, what was one more completely inept forever-war?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Scotch o’Clock
“The Knights Infernal cast an exiled drunk as their defender.” Scion laughed. “You must see, Declan. How far and how fast the Knights have fallen. And just... how amusing that is. We feared you—once upon a time.”
“So it’s war you want, is it?” I asked. “Because, just between you and me, that shit is getting old.”
“We are the rightful rulers of the Story Thread—of all Forget! And look how your brother scurried once his life was on the line. One soldier, just the least of our creations, forced the protectors of humanity to abandon True Earth.” Scion grinned, baring twin rows of rather white teeth. “You have no idea what this world means, do you?”
I was done with the small talk. Time to end this, one way or another.
“You know, I met your brother,” I said, taking a slow step toward the Younger God and drawing Myth from my belt, “Lord Oblivion, with eyes of blood. He took something very important from me.”
Scion smirked. “Aye, he stole your shadow and cast it into the Void—affording you protection from the Voidlings. That was His price for harnessing the Degradation against the armies of Renegade, and his gambit that you would return to sever the clock.”
“No, not my shadow. He took someone I cared for... very much.”
Scion raised a hand, palm flat, toward me, and a burst of invisible energy knocked me back a step. The scar on my palm, from the shard of the Infernal Clock that had granted me a second life, burned with a pain so fierce it was almost ecstasy. I brought my broken sword down through the air, cutting through the bands of unseen power, and Scion staggered back as if I’d dealt him a solid blow.
The all-knowing, all-powerful smirk faded from his face, and he grew uncertain. His eyes flicked from the weapons in my hands to my face, as if seeing me for the first time. The Younger God beheld a man who, actually, could hold back the tides of the Void.
A long moment seemed to pass between us, and then I ran at the Everlasting even as he raised both his hands to stop me. A wave of force struck me, and I staggered against what felt like a solid wall of ice. My palm blazed all the more, and on the wind, just on the edge of hearing, the song of the Infernal Clock—the Dawn of Moment—whispered in my ear.
The ice became syrup, and I forced myself forward another step as Scion’s eyes widened in disbelief. He exerted himself, palms pressed toward me, and I could now see the waves of heat and energy bursting from his hands.
“Die!” he spat.
Out of the corner of my one good eye, I glimpsed Annie still smiling softly, even in death. The sight of her turned the seed of anger in my chest into a mighty, immovable forest. Myth shone with a faint, dull light, and I realized I would not need my broken sword after all. I let it fall, and without my strength the blade whipped through the air, crashed through one of the obsidian pillars, and was blasted out to sea by Scion’s power.
And I drew closer, close enough now to reach out and grasp the Everlasting by the throat.
His flesh burned under my touch, and Scion delivered a devastating, backhanded blow to the side of my head, punching at my blinded eye. I weathered the attack as the power of the Infernal Clock surged through me, dissipating force that would have reduced my head to a bloody pulp, had I been anyone else. Under my grip on his throat, Scion’s flesh charred and stank.
The world seemed to be moving in slow motion as I fought the energy pressed against me and raised Myth above my head. The skin on my arms stretched and tore under the strain, and my lips were drawn back from my teeth far enough to split in the corners of my mouth.
I tasted blood.
I wanted blood.
Slowly, achingly, Myth fell, and the crystal tip dug a furrow along Scion’s brow and down the bridge of his nose. Blood, crimson and hot, flowed in rivulets down his face. I was hurling my might, forged not only in Atlantis five years ago, but in the heart of the Infernal Clock, against the Everlasting—and I was winning.
“An eye for an eye, Scion,” I whispered. A cold and wholly suffocating anger gripped me, and I punctured the Everlasting’s eye. I turned the Creation Knife slowly and carved a gooey, grey mess from his socket.
Scion screamed, and his power failed. Time sped back up, and I jerked forward, bringing Scion down with me atop his form, which merged from young to old as fast as I could blink. Here I was, once again, plunged into the blood and filth of the Knights Infernal. And hell, I was no believer in fate or destiny, but perhaps that needed to change. In that moment, I glimpsed a pattern so intricate and complex that even a glimpse was maddening. I saw myself at the heart of a bright web, my life stretching out in concentric ripples from the center. Everything I had ever done, from Atlantis to the Tome Wars, had been so I could lose my shadow, gain a painful measure of immortality from the Infernal Clock, all so I could retrieve Myth and have a fighting chance here, now—tonight.
Then the glimpse was gone, the details too absurd, and I was back in the fight.
Myth thrummed in my hand, demanding more, desiring an end to this ghastly business.
Scion squirmed, weak, in my grip around his throat. “We’ve an account to settle, you and I,” he rasped. “My Brothers and Sisters will see to that. There is no world, no corner of the Story Thread you can hide, Knight.”
“You’ll find me just up the road at Paddy’s, asshole.” Once it’s rebuilt. “Wednesday night’s steak night.”
I drove Myth into Scion’s chest with a cry, and a shockwave of pure energy—from the knife, not from the god—sent me spinning away. I rolled across the stone and right over the edge of the tower but spun onto my stomach in the last few feet and grasped the rough edge with the tips of my fingers, only just preventing a fall.
Scion shrieked, and Myth, stuck in his heart, shone with white light, a beacon as bright as the dawn against the night sky. The Younger God faded, his skin split, and red fire burned in place of his blood. His flesh blackened and turned to ash, and the ash to dust, which swirled on the air, absorbed into the light of Myth—the Creation Knife.
“Wasn’t so hard...” I groaned and pulled myself back up onto the plateau. The stone felt like sponge against my back and, for a brief moment, flickered as if it were nothing more than crystal illusion.
With Scion’s ascension stopped, the tower was fading—back into whatever abyss Scion and Emissary had pulled it from. I’d thwarted the Everlasting beachhead, but at a cost almost indistinguishable from defeat.
With no time to catch my breath, I crawled to one knee and then staggered to my feet. I grabbed Myth as I limped past the heart of the plateau and shoved the knife under my belt. Work to be done, wars to be fought, and the knife would be needed again, I was sure.
I scooped up Annie—poor, sweet Annie—and ran to the tower’s edge, out over the precipice overlooking the coast and the sand dunes. From this height, I could even glimpse Riverwood Plaza up the hill, as dawn broke in the east. It had been a long night. But there was little time for sightseeing.
With a quick thought, I invoked a minor levitation enchantment just as the stone beneath my feet faded into nothing.
Whatever it was and wherever it had come from, with Scion bested and Emissary dead at the bottom of the ocean, the tower’s grip to the reality of True Earth buckled.
Trusting to my restored Will, to the soft halo of light clinging to my shoes, I stepped off the tower as it popped out of existence and a clap of air rushed in to claim the space it had so recently occupied. High above the gentle swell, my levitation charm slowed my descent, and I didn’t so much fall as drift lightly, back and forth, as if I were a feather on a light breeze.
I landed on my knees in the shallow swash, on the edge of a wide, semi-circular groove left in the sand by Scion’s tower. Foamy seawater rushed into the groove, a good six feet deep. I lowered Annie into the water but kept a hand under her back, holding her close, and wished on the first rays of sunlight and the daystar that she would live again.
Chapter Thirty
Baby, I’ve Been Here Before
I don’t know how long I sat there in the surf, holding Annie close and telling her everything about my life up until about three days ago, when we’d met in the cool, early-morning mist at Kings Park. I couldn’t stop brushing her dark, wet hair back from her face. The swash from the sea had soaked us both, and her legs swung lifeless in the shallow water, back and forth.
Another friend I’d failed to save.
Another girl who had died for me. For my resolve. Easy to blame the machinations of the Everlasting, but no one ever said I had to play—to act. I could’ve just sat back and sipped scotch these last few days, tipped a glass to the end of the world. At least then I never would have… come to care for Annie Brie.
“And just beyond the mountains, the city of Farvale is built within the forests bordering Lake Delgado. I took Tal there once, and we drank this cheap, awful vodka for the first time. It was like a white whiskey, I suppose.” So long ago it seemed, but only eight short years. I’d been sixteen-nearly-seventeen. “She kissed me on the cheek.”
Dawn had well and truly broken over the eastern horizon at my back, scattering thin rays of cool light across the ocean. Soon, not even the deep gouge in the sand where Scion’s tower had manifested would remain. Water washed away everything, given enough time, and the ocean was calm now. At some sort of hard-fought peace that never lasted long.
“Annie, I…”
Had it only been three days since I’d met this woman? Three days, yes, and never mind the spare change and uncertain time in the Dream Worlds. Broken quill, three days was a new record to love them and leave them, wasn’t it? All the fear of the last few days had culminated in this—my young detective and I alone on Diablo Beach in the gentle, timeless surf. We saw some wonders, Annie, you and I…
I could almost hear Emissary cackling, but his score was settled. My brand was gone, naught but a mess of dead eschar. In the end I had won, but the cost… the sheer cost. Broken quill—and dragon’s fire aside—but I was running out of room and chalk to tally that particular board.
I could see well in the early light. A corner of cream parchment poked out of the inner pocket of Annie’s burned and bloody jacket. The parchment looked rich, thick and creamy, something the Knights might have used... I frowned and removed a sodden envelope.
The ink on the front had run, but I could still see that it was addressed to me. Someone, a woman, had pressed her lips against the parchment and left a kiss in dark red lipstick. The envelope was heavy and deformed. Not a letter then. I turned it over and saw a familiar wax seal—a gauntleted fist over an open tome, crowned by three stars.
The house crest of the Renegades.
...Detective Brie. I found your jacket, honey. Emily had slipped the envelope into Annie’s pocket in the ruins of the Atlas Lexicon. Had to be, but why...?
I broke the seal, tired but curious, and spilled the contents onto my palm.
Struck with dawn light, glinting as if it were a diamond, a single crystal rose petal rested in my hand. Traveling on the winds of time and memory, from an unfathomable distance, the soliloquy of the gears at the heart of creation turning in perfect, endless harmony reached my ears, and ground what was left of my soul to dust and less than dust.
In my hand I held one of the petals of the Infernal Clock, stolen in Atlantis after I’d severed the Clock with the Roseblade and Emily had kicked me from the summit of that palace—to my somewhat timely death.
“Oh, Em...” I whispered. “That’s just cruel.”
I had a choice to make.
Use the petal and bring back Annie—the obvious choice, but Emily in her timeless splendor knew that. Had she known this would happen?
Or I could use the petal on someone else. Tal... No, she was truly lost. But Clare Valentine? Sweet Clare, who had died and died hard for me on the Plains of Perdition, torn apart by a ravenous horde of the undead. I knew where to find her body. I dug around in my pocket and retrieved the crumpled and torn photo Sophie had taken of Annie and me at the tavern, just those three short days ago. The young detective sat straight and proper on her stool, offering the camera a small, polite smile—as you do around new people—and there I sat, cider in hand, a stupid smirk on my face. The resemblance to Scion was, for a moment, so uncanny that I suspected some trick.
But no, it was just me.
Hell, I could keep the petal for myself. In my line of work, being killed before my time was a damn certainty, and I had more enemies than the next ten Knights combined. I’d already cheated death once. But Clare... with her ever-changing eyes and pixie beauty hadn’t deserved her death. She cared for me, and I didn’t want to be exiled and alone anymore.
Only so much comfort in dregs of scotch and stale digestive biscuits, after all.
Bringing Clare back was the right thing to do.
So I placed the petal in Annie’s palm, sliced from the star iron sword, and closed her fist around it. The razor-sharp edges pierced her lifeless skin. Cupping her hand in mine, I poured a furnace of Will into the petal and cheated death once again. That scythe-wielding bastard would just have to deal with it.
“Exiled and alone...” I muttered. “Well, exiled no more.”
And we were all of us alone, clinging to a rock spinning through the star-strewn darkness and trying desperately to matter. To make some sort of everlasting mark, however true or awful that mark may be. Spinning endlessly alone—until we’re not alone, and we stumble into someone else trying to mark the chaos, and we cling tighter to that person than we ever have to the world itself. That spark in another, that resonation of the soul—a counterpoint in the dark—was more real and more important than the earth beneath our feet.
Annie and I had spun together across worlds and universes and dreams. But the chaos had swallowed her whole, absorbed her warmth, and scattered us apart as easily as we had spun, intoxicated, together.
She deserved a second chance, as did Clare, but one injustice at a time was the best I could do.
Some small amount of time, no more than a few minutes, marched idly past, and a touch of warmth and color returned to Annie’s skin. The blow to the head which had killed her faded away. Her eyes, which I had closed, fluttered, and her brow creased in a tiny frown against the early morning light.
“Declan?” Annie struggled to sit up, found she couldn’t, and fell back down into my arms. “Declan… what happened?”
“You bumped your head, sweet thing. But you’re okay now.”
“Oh…” Annie held her palm against her forehead. From what I remember of the experience, coming back to life hurt beyond words. “Oh my, that’s what happened. Why are we in the ocean?”
“Good question.” With a great deal of care, I stood and helped Annie to her feet. She managed it, keeping an arm slung around my shoulders. Two ragged immortals, now, barely able to stand. “Would you join me for breakfast, Annie?”
“I…” She frowned. “Did we win? We did, didn’t we?”
“Emissary’s dead. Rotting on the ocean floor. Scion is... gone. We won enough. For now.”
“Good.” Annie f
ound her feet a little better. I held my forearm out for her to grasp. Her hand was warm against my arm. Warm and alive. She clung to it as if the world were not real, as though she were a traveler setting foot on distant shores after a long journey. “That’s good. In that case, I’m thinking bacon and egg muffins, and pancakes with syrup. Oh, and hash browns with coffee. Can we get that? Please?” Her stomach grumbled.
I found a smile after all, a little further down the road from tired and lonely. Sand crunched underfoot as we walked away from the sea. “Honey, you had me at bacon. But you’ll have to pay—a dragon ate my wallet.”
*~*~*~*
The End of
Book Two!
:)
Also available from Joe Ducie:
The Reminiscent Exile series:
Distant Star
Broken Quill
Knight Fall (coming late-2013)
Short stories:
The Forgetful Library
Upon Crystal Shores
Red vs. Blue
Z-Apoc – A modern zombie tale:
Part I – When John Met Sarah
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Ducie (1987-) is a writer from Perth, Western Australia. By day, he charges a toll to cross a bridge he doesn’t own. Yet by night, in a haze of scotch-fuelled insanity, he works tirelessly on an array of stories both short and long. Joe possesses a fierce love of a smooth finish. Under no circumstances should you ask him just what that means.
Joe was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria in November 1987, and currently resides in Perth, Western Australia. He is primarily an author of urban fantasy and science fiction aimed at young adults. His current stories include Distant Star, Upon Crystal Shores, Red vs. Blue, and The Forgetful Library.