by Joe Ducie
Emily simply stared at me.
“New Voraskel?” I asked. “The bloody Renegade homeworld.”
Emily tsked. “No, no. New Voraskel is far too, well, new. A certain lack of history there. Hidden on Old Voraskel, I have considerable resources and weapon caches. Among other things. You remember that world, don’t you, Declan?”
All too well.
Sweet, bloody, broken quill. The Fall of Voraskel.
A battle in the final months of the Tome Wars that had spanned two worlds—Avalon and Voraskel. The Void had split between them through the sheer weight of the Will being channeled across the battlefield. King Morrow, the leader of the Knights Infernal at the time, had perished in that battle. My old friend Tia Moreau, as well—or so I’d thought at the time. Entire command vessels and legions of sworn men and women had simply ceased to be. I should have claimed the throne after Morrow, but then came the Reach, Atlantis, and the loss of Tal…
The rest was history. My half-brother, Faraday, stepped in, and I was exiled.
Broken quill, but half the Cascade Fleet, the elite of the elite, had fallen into the Void at the Fall of Voraskel and Avalon. The two worlds collided, and I’d played a literal part in destroying the Renegade homeworld. Another reason they didn’t like me so much. The world—what was left of it—was still there, had merged with the ruins of Avalon. A slow death.
“Voidflood…” I muttered, and I instantly regretted saying the word aloud. The creatures that swam through the murky nothing of the Void existed in the abstract. They could sometimes know when they were named, and voicing that particular word seemed like tempting fate to add another misery to the night’s events.
Growing up and living the life I’d lived, not a lot in this or any other world could shake me. I was, for all that mattered, hardened and embittered against monsters, enemies, demons, spooks, and the general hatred across hundreds of Forgetful realms. But Voidfloods terrified me, right down to my core.
I still had nightmares about the Fall of Voraskel. To see the canvas of reality tear away so easily and pure, dark nothingness seep over the thin—oh so thin—paintwork of the world, unmaking the laws of physics and sanity in one fell swoop. Indeed, worse, rewriting those laws into something twisted and cruel in the ruins of Voraskel and Avalon.
The Void had offended me that day. Loss and death were part of the natural order. What had fallen through the shattered sky above those worlds had burned the natural order and pissed on the ashes.
“Why oh why, dear Emily, would you ever want to visit Voraskel?” My hands were shaking—I shoved them into my pockets. “And what could possibly make you think I’d want to go there?”
“Simple, really,” she said. “Voraskel is where you’ll recover the Roseblade.”
Chapter Seven
Shining Armor
I let Emily’s words hang in the air for a long moment, getting a taste of them as they aged, and found them sour.
Annie broke the silence. “The Roseblade. So it’s a sword, yeah? Made from the same stuff as Myth?”
I nodded. “Of celestial illusion, which is kind of a super rare and entirely unpredictable alloy. Looks like crystal. Legend has it the weapons were forged in Atlantis, and the color of the rose petals in the blade is important. White petals were said to be… purest.”
“Purest?” Ethan asked.
“Reactors to generate and amplify raw Will,” Emily said.
“Unfettered and uncorrupted—pure power in a raw form.” I forced a rough chuckle. “Our Will power—or maybe what the Everlasting call Origin, seeing as how the weapons were created a very long time ago. Even shards of celestial illusion could topple empires…”
The history of the blades was murky and sordid. For the longest time, celestial illusion was thought to be the stuff of fairytales. But in my experience, fairytales could be very real—with exceptions. Most worlds and thoughts, written into existence by Willful authors, could become a jewel of the Story Thread, a new universe to be charted, but the limits on such seemingly infinite power of creation were complex, and the consequences for a misstep were catastrophic.
The Tome Wars were a fine example of Willful men and women abusing the power at their fingertips. The war had begun over a splinter group of the Knights Infernal, my people. The splinter group evolved to become the Renegades—in name and belief. Perhaps Emily was one of them, all those years ago… The Renegade agenda was to write worlds into existence that could be… plundered, for want of a better word. I might have been the one with an eye patch and a thirst for some dark grog, but the Renegades were the real pirates. It had taken a century to stop them, and in that time, a lot of the Story Thread’s light was overwhelmed by the Void. The Forgetful Realms were almost torn asunder.
Then I came along, not only living in fairytales but living off them, and bargained for peace.
Well, not so much peace as Renegade destruction.
Anyway, there were rules to the game, and certain materials could not be written into existence. Veins of celestial illusion to be mined—or whole weapons forged from the alien substance—were pretty high up on the list of things that simply couldn’t be created by the Willful. I didn’t know why, and Willful Mechanics had been the subject of study at the Infernal Academy for centuries. Call it divine providence or just simple human ignorance—either it was forbidden by some unknown law or edict of all creation, or we just weren’t clever enough to figure out how. I was a fan of the former explanation—but then, my ego would demand nothing less.
“So how is it you keep running into these weapons, Declan?” Annie asked. “If they’re so rare.”
I could only shrug. A few months before, Annie and I had spent some time in the Dream Worlds—worlds sealed away by the Knights for the danger they represented to Forget and the Story Thread. Our visit itself should have been impossible, let alone what we found in a ruined old temple and what led us to it.
Scion, in the guise of a child, had outplayed me that day. He’d needed me to retrieve the dagger—Myth, the Creation Knife. Because the bloody thing had been placed in a pedestal of dusty stone for me, by people—perhaps people—from ages long since buried under the weight of time.
On that plateau, in a garden reminiscent of Eden or Shangri-La, had been an inscription in archaic glyphs:
Here rests Myth, the Creation Knife,
Forged in Atlantia for the Nine to slay,
Forged to light the Shadowless way.
Paths unbroken, unsung, unfound
Await the Immortal King to be crowned.
A tool of immense power, Myth could cut the fabric of reality, allowing me to slip between worlds as quietly as a thief in the night. Certainly there existed a number of other ways to cross the Void and travel to other worlds. The Atlas Lexicon, once it was repaired, was the surest and the cheapest for those lacking Will. For the Knights, pages of a good book could be used to open pathways through the Void. But the latter method kept the traveler linked to the point of departure—sometimes a positive, often a hamstring. The Willful could only move once, in one direction; one Knight needed another to cross more than one world at a time, and even then the link could be severed, the traveler left stranded. Myth cut paths through all that bullshit.
“Trust me,” I answered Annie and sighed. “If I knew how to avoid them, I would. Celestial illusion has brought me nothing but pain.”
“And yet—” Emily rose to her feet, swayed, and then steadied herself. “And yet if you do not aid me in retrieving the Roseblade, Declan, then all that pure and unfettered power will fall to Oblivion. An unfavorable outcome, yes?”
That sword, in the hands of one of the Everlasting, would be akin to a nuclear arsenal the size of a galaxy in the hands of a madman—with someone daring him to push the button.
Broken quill, when having the blade in my hands was the kinder option… “Bloody hell. Okay, Voraskel it is.”
“Shit,” Sophie said.
“Indeed. You two want to b
ack out now—or head to sunnier shores and inform the Knights of all we’ve discussed tonight? That could be helpful.” I would be hunted for what Shadowman had done to the Historian. Perhaps sending a messenger to my vengeful brother, King Faraday, could prevent some misery down the line. “What d’you say? Ascension City?”
Ethan looked to Sophie.
After a moment, she nodded slowly. “But they’ll have to throw me in Starhold before I let them tie me to the Academy again.”
“As a reinstated Knight Infernal”—I inclined an invisible hat—“you two can claim my protection. I’ll sign a runeletter deputizing you as my official emissaries. You’ll be free to move about the palace, for the most part. Not even Faraday, Fenton, or Drax would violate an Infernal seal.”
Emily stood tall. “Very good. But we must hurry. Oblivion knows where to find the Roseblade. We do not have much time.”
“How did you escape?” I asked, perplexed. “Seriously, that doesn’t add up. Oblivion had you, tortured you, so how did you come to find yourself on my doorstep?”
Emily shivered. “He let me go, of course. So I could tell you all of this—so you’d go running across worlds after the Roseblade. So he could kill you, sweet Declan.”
“Well, the math on that reads a bit better.” Christ, but the world-ending catastrophes on my to-do list kept changing in priority. Recover the Roseblade, stop Oblivion, rescue the Historian, destroy Shadowman… “I need a drink.”
“You and me both,” Ethan said. “This is getting intense.”
“Declan…” Annie took a deep breath. “I’m stepping out again—walk me to the door?”
We went once more through the labyrinth of haphazardly stacked books until we reached to door, which she opened. The rain was nothing but drizzle now, but the wind still had a bite to it.
“Are you coming back?” I asked, standing in the doorway and looking out at Riverwood Plaza. “Annie, there’s work to be done."
“My shift was over an hour ago, Declan. I’m going home to my fiancé, and tomorrow I’m going back to work.” She gazed at me, not with defiance, but with a knowing kind of regret. I liked her, and she knew it, that way women always do. “I’m not a Knight Infernal or a Renegade or one of the Unfound like Ethan… You go take care of the universe. I’ll just take care of Perth.”
“Well, if you’re not coming with me, then I’m taking the cool new shotgun,” I said, hating that I felt slighted.
Annie stepped forward and caught me in a quick hug. The infernal compass in my head spun as if magnetized, making me dizzy. We were far from done with one another, Annie Brie and I. Of that much I could be sure.
“Stay safe, Hale,” she whispered into my ear. “We need to talk when you get back.”
*~*~*~*
“Okay, ’Phie and Ethan—you’re on supplies. Go fill a backpack with some perishables and water in the kitchen.” I clapped my hands together, trying to convey an air of confidence about the upcoming venture across the Story Thread. Fuckin’ Voraskel… “Emily Grace, is there anything you need? Baby-wise? Should you—”
“If you’re about to ask me if I should be accompanying you to Voraskel, I would rethink such a foolish question.” The glimmer in her eye promised another knife to the heart if I pushed my luck.
“Right. Of course.” She was the Immortal Queen, after all, and although she didn’t look much older than thirty, she was at least a hundred and ten years old if she had seen the start of the Tome Wars. Something told me Emily was far more timeless than even that—something, perhaps, to be discussed on our journey to the Roseblade. “Still, is there anything you require?”
“Just my knight in shining armor.” She smiled. “And his dagger of celestial illusion.”
I stroked the buttons on my waistcoat. Part of my armor, this old waistcoat. The fabric was imbued with layers of Willful protection and painted with unseen Infernal runes. The weight of such incantation and enchantment was burdensome, adding actual pounds to the thin fabric, but the benefits far outweighed the cost. The waistcoat could and had stopped a high-caliber round from a sniper rifle. Emily would have a hard time slipping a dagger between my ribs while I was wearing my armor. I’d enchanted similar protections into my trousers and shoes.
Although I didn’t look it, I was Emily’s knight in shining armor. “Let’s be getting this over with, then.”
I followed Sophie and Ethan into the kitchen and retrieved Myth, the Creation Knife and a weapon of pure celestial illusion, from the cutlery drawer.
Chapter Eight
Old Voraskel
I stood next to Emily, wondering on our time together and why she kept spinning back into my life, as Ethan shouldered the backpack and Sophie filled the side pockets with shells from the cash register. I carried the sleek shotgun itself over my shoulder, and I held Myth in my left hand, poised to cut between worlds.
For the first time in a long time, I actually felt prepared for whatever madness lay ahead.
“That’s everything, I guess,” Ethan said.
“Pen and paper,” I said. “Make sure there’s some in the pack. Once we get to Voraskel, get the lay of the land, you’ll need a formal letter of introduction to move about the Fae Palace on Ascension as my emissaries.”
Ethan snorted. “Instead of just showing up out of the blue like the last few times?”
“Don’t think they’ve forgotten you and Clare Valentine hijacked my shuttle to Starhold earlier this year, mate,” I said. “Or that with your potential skill, you’d make a fine recruit—albeit a shade old—at the Academy.”
Sophie zipped up the pockets on the pack, fit to burst with shotgun shells, with some effort and ran a hand through her boyfriend’s mop of dark hair. “They can have him—few years at the Academy would do him good.”
He smirked. “You mean I could grow up to be just like Declan?”
“Declan Hale is unique in the universe,” Emily said softly.
I glanced at her with my good eye and chuckled. “Yeah, sure, I’m a unique little snowflake. Please, Emily. Let’s just be about this dark business, shall we?”
I stepped into the clear space before the counter, between my writing alcove and the first of the dusty old shelves straining under the weight of forgotten libraries, and gripped Myth’s hilt. The trick to using the dagger was to open unfound and unseen paths through the Void—which meant avoiding known waypoints or written gateways, as the knife refused to allow passage along those thoroughfares. The Creation Knife created new paths, so long as I held the way clear in my mind, and it closed them just as quickly if I broke that clarity.
As if cutting through warm butter, the tip of the dagger disappeared into the air, like a pin through cloth, and I sliced the fabric of reality down toward the floor. Reality split and peeled back, curtains undrawn, and formed a gateway in the air about seven feet tall and three feet across.
Sunlight, warm and bright, poured in from another world. Used to the dull light of my shop, I squinted to let my good eye acclimate to the sudden change of scenery. The scent of spring flowers and the sound of trickling water filtered through the gateway—as did another scent, something old and indescribable that permeated all the realms of Forget along the Story Thread. A world scent. Once my eye adjusted, I could see gently sloping grassy hills through the gateway, overlooking the mosaic marble ruins of what had once been the capital city of the Renegades on Voraskel.
The sky blended from pure azure to violent purple and was strewn with the debris of Avalon—of an entire world. The burning planet, cracked and bleeding, eclipsed the sky. Small moons of jagged rock peppered the heavens and Avalon’s ring system, similar to the rings that banded Saturn, had slowly dispersed along Voraskel’s upper atmosphere and into space, as if emerald-green and ruby-red ribbons were caught on a slow, interstellar breeze.
“Look at what happened here…” I whispered. My companions, my friends and whatever Emily was, stood at my back, gazing in awestruck silence through the gateway from our
small corner of True Earth to Voraskel. “When they write the history books, if I have a say—a chance to explain why I ended the Tome Wars the way I did—I’ll point them here. It was Voraskel, more than anywhere else, when I decided that there could be no more of this. When I decided that if my elders and the supposed wiser men and women of the Knights Infernal wouldn’t take action, then I would.”
“Beautiful horrors.” Emily stroked the back of my neck and scratched softly at my hairline with her nails.
“This is insane,” Ethan rasped, barely above a whisper.
“Why did you hide the Roseblade here, Emily?” Sophie asked.
Emily removed her hand from my neck and stepped through the portal. Her sandals clicked on hardwood floors in one step, and sunk into yielding grass in the next. She turned to face us, standing an entire world away in just a few feet. “Who, save the creation’s most mad, would dare come looking in these ruins?”
“It needed hiding,” I said. “Although Voraskel… Broken quill, anywhere but here. How far do we have to travel?”
“Through the old forests on the other side of the city.” Emily gestured over her shoulder at the crooked splendor of two dying worlds on the very edge of crashing together. “An enchanted forest, naturally. One of the oldest in all existence. I hid the Roseblade in the Tomb of the Sleeping Goddess.”
Chapter Nine
‘Ware the Everlasting
The Sleeping Goddess. Fair Astoria. One of the Everlasting. Another of the blasted Nine.
I was never one to put much faith in fate or destiny, but if Emily was telling the truth—and, indeed, she had never lied to me—I could almost feel another gigantic piece of some predestined puzzle locking into place. It weighed around my neck like shackles of heavy rusted cast iron.
If the game was already decided, the moves already determined, then nothing I could do would prevent the inevitable Everlasting war.