by Joe Ducie
And dead was dead.
Only… “I died,” I whispered, speaking half to myself and half to the kid. “So did Annie, but the petals of the Infernal Clock revived us… And Emily had those petals.” I felt a surge of hope, almost relief, quickly squashed by a harsh realization. “Even if she hadn’t used them, they’re not here… Damn it all.”
An angry shriek echoed through the forest—the cry of the Orc Mare after me. And what of Emissary? I couldn’t stay there any longer. I would have to leave Emily alone and to the elements.
Still, I hesitated another minute, kneeling in front of her, and gave her forehead a quick kiss.
She already felt cold.
“I’ll come back and bury you,” I promised. The baby’s tiny arm fell loose of the shawl, and—quite accidentally I was sure—his tiny fist brushed against my stubbly chin. I laughed to keep from sobbing. “Broken quill, kid, already throwing punches far outside of your weight class. You’re definitely a Hale.”
Two shrieks cut through the quiet air of the enchanted forest, from the east and south, answered by a third somewhere away to the north. That last shriek was close enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. I was out of time for grief and sentiment.
I washed my face in the stream, took a few swigs of river water, and decided to abandon the supply pack—the weight would only slow me down. Before I left the pack, I retrieved a small leather purse with a handful of gems, the Forgetful currency, worth about a hundred bucks. If we made it through the forest, I’d need money on the next world.
“Okay,” I said, mentally preparing as best I could for the chase to come. One stray step, one misjudged moment, and I could snuff out the life in my arms before he’d even lived a day.
In the past I’d shouldered some significant responsibility, but none seemed as heavy as my current need to ensure the little one’s survival. “We’ve got one way off this world, back in the ruined city. You’ve been good so far, so do me a favor and be as quiet as you can, okay? Okay.”
*~*~*~*
A low mist coated the ground as I jogged as quickly as I dared back through the enchanted forest and toward the ruins of the Renegade city. After a few minutes at a steady jog, I crossed back over the star iron ring surrounding the tomb and felt my Will come back to me. The return of my power was encouraging, but the forest was no longer a pleasant place, alight with snowflake sparks and inviting spring scents.
The twisted trees seemed menacing, a dark and infested wood. Monstrous creatures, so far unseen, circled closer as they hunted me and my son. The air tasted stagnant, alive yet dangerous, and it stank of musk. I was painfully aware that if I left the path, we could wander lost for days and no doubt stumble upon a whole plethora of unimaginable horrors.
At least the planet in the night sky provided enough light through the canopy to keep my one good eye on the vague, fogged path back to the city.
“You’re going to have to take my word on a lot of this,” I muttered. My son’s small eyes blinked up at me and out at the strange world. How well could newborns see? Fatherhood and baby care were not subjects taught at the Infernal Academy. Am I holding him too close? Can he breathe? “The sky usually doesn’t look like that, you know. More stars and less strewn with planetary debris.”
My innate sense of impending danger kicked in a split second before we rounded a curve in the old path that led back to the city. Sure enough, two Orc Mare armed with wicked, curved blades of black steel barred the way. Their black eyes widened when they saw me, and the one on the right opened his mouth to shriek—
“Bang, bang,” I said between heavy breaths. A bolt of white-hot energy about the size of a marble ran under my skin and burst from the tip of my index finger.
The Willful bullet took that Orc Mare on the right between its eyes. The other advanced on me, sword raised, and I shot that one dead, too.
“Nothing to it—”
A third monstrosity came flying out of the darkness to the right. It didn’t have a sword, but I raised my arm in a block and caught the tip of its sharp, fetid claws. Hot lines of pain tore through my arm but I shoved the creature back. I punched the Orc Mare in the jaw with my bloody arm and was rewarded with a sickening crack. The creature stumbled back, howling in pain, and I had sense enough to shoot it dead before it recovered.
“Bugger,” I cursed, inspecting my arm. The cut didn’t look deep, but I was worried about infection. Something to worry about further if I survived the next hour’s run back to the city. “And are you okay?”
The kid made a curious gurgling sound and closed his eyes, off to sleep. He’ll need feeding soon. I have to hurry.
Ignoring the stinging in my arm, I continued down the winding, overgrown path.
The night had fallen quiet, which was somehow worse. At least if the Orc Mare were wailing, I knew where to expect them. Silence, on the other hand—well, damn near anything could hide in silence.
“We need a distraction, little fella,” I said. “Something loud and noisy and confusing to draw them away… or to send them every which way.”
I snorted a rough chuckle and decided to set off some Willful fireworks.
I’d never make it back to the city using stealth—not if the last encounter and the stinging claw wounds on my forearm were any measure—so a blazing display of confusion and fire seemed like a fine Plan B.
Those with enough ability to channel vast amounts of Will got recruited into the Academy and were taught how to manipulate the magicks and enchantments of a million different worlds, written down in novels. For the most part, we learned soldiering skills and survival enchantment.
Yet, more often than not, we did a bit of reading on the side and taught ourselves impressive yet relatively useless skills, like juggling or coin rolling.
Or, in my case, fireworks.
And while what I had in mind did have certain military applications, it was about as subtle as a brass band parade and certainly beneath the lauded and powerful image of the Knights Infernal. I set to work.
“It’s going to get a bit noisy, kid,” I whispered as white light flowed under the skin of my arm, illuminating the blood from the claw wounds, and entered my palm. Smoky, luminescent light fell from my fingers. Holding the enchantment in my mind like the answer to some simple math problem, I raised my palm to the sky and fired.
A streak of purple sparks and whistling fire spiraled above the trees and exploded in a dazzling display of cascading embers and thunder. I fired off more fireworks into the forest at random as well as overhead. Soon enough, the shrieks of the Orc Mare rose again.
I decided to set the whole affair on fire.
I wreathed an old oak tree in a coil of superhot flame, which ate into the bark and burnt into its heart. The tree ignited as if it were nothing but scraps of kindling, and soon a thick cloud of white smoke bellowed above the forest.
I shot off a few more fireworks, adding to the cacophony of noise and confusion. The forest fire at my back spread dangerously fast, sprinting along the network of tree roots and brush coating the ground to lick at my heels. I coughed on the smoke in the air and made sure to cover the kid’s mouth and nose with the shawl.
The flapping of rotting wings joined the shrieks of the Orc Mare as they took flight, fleeing the flames and chasing the thunder of the fireworks, trying to track me down.
Finally, I cast a subtle perception enchantment over me and the kid, which would make us even harder to spot within the maelstrom.
*~*~*~*
A few hours later, after having lost the path once and thankfully finding it again—and without further molestation from the Orc Mare—I emerged from the forest just north of where Emily and me had entered the forest that afternoon, on a small grassy hill overlooking the heart of the ruined city. Of Emissary there had been no sign, which bothered me more than it should’ve. No news is good news…
Smoke clung to the air from the fire, which burned through the forest like—well, like wildfire, and
made me dizzy. An orange glow emanated through the trees, and I could hear the distant crackling of wet trees burning. Muffled explosions echoed through the forest from trees splintering under the intense flames.
I looked to the city, just a few hundred feet below. The ruins seemed quiet, and I hoped most of the Orc Mare were still in the forest, hunting me and burning. The skyscrapers holding up that wreck of a starship between them, her fusion engines still glowing softly against the night, were a brisk ten-minute walk through the streets, assuming we didn’t encounter any resistance or blocked avenues.
That starship was where I wanted to be.
“Close now, kid,” I said, counting a thirty-second rest in my head and catching my breath. “Blimey, I need to run that old obstacle course back at the Academy a bit more often, eh?”
My infant son winked one eye and then the other, so I took that as endorsement and began the quick descent into the outskirts of the city, following the dirt path cut into the hillside.
Back down in the city, my shoes clicked on old cobblestone streets as I clambered over chunks of torn-up asphalt. I kept an eye on the shadows in the abandoned doorways, as well as up in the sky above. Well to remember that those bastards can all fly…
That part of the city had been laid out in a convenient grid pattern, much like Manhattan, which allowed me to keep the tall towers supporting the wrecked ship in view on my right. I cut down three blocks, feeling a rising trepidation and that everything was progressing far too easily.
Soon enough I stood on the corner about a half dozen streets over from the dilapidated skyscrapers. The prospect of climbing through the buildings only to have the foundations give way made me rethink my plan, but I was out of options—and sooner or later, my enemies would catch up with me.
The baby needed food. I needed bandages, rest, and a stiff drink.
Running on fumes, I jogged down a desolate avenue of fallen rubble, crushed cars, shattered glass, and at long last neared my goal. I could hear the mighty starship’s engines thrumming overhead and the sound of the ship gave me my second wind—I was close.
“Just might get him out of here, Em,” I said, mostly for the baby to hear. But then something up ahead pulled me up short and I cursed. “Damn it all, spoke too soon…”
Emissary stood in the street just before the entrance to the skyscraper I needed to climb, as if he’d been waiting for me all this time. Quite possibly he had been. At this point in the game and after all the years of impossible realizations, Emissary anticipating my next move was small potatoes.
His suit was repaired through some enchantment, after I’d scattered the few rounds of buckshot into him, as was most of his face. Ragged scars ran up his neck and under his hairline, where the star iron had burned his skin. “Ah, Declan,” he said. “How nice to—”
In no mood to chat or match wits, I hugged my son against my chest with one hand, and with the other I sent an ugly unguided wave of brute concussive force, designed to simply knock the bastard dragon from my path.
The cannon of air struck Emissary like a freight train and hurled the creature across the street and into the dusty, unbroken glass of an abandoned storefront. The glass shattered, of course, and swallowed the beast whole. I used what little time I had to run.
“That was an assho—bad guy.” I stepped over some rubble and inside the skyscraper holding up the starship. The air inside was dank, dirty. I cast a glowing orb about the size of a tennis ball with a click of my fingers and tethered it to hover in the air just a few feet above my head. “Generally best avoided, but I’ve found they’re a lot like bad pennies—keep turning up.”
I found the eastern staircase and, after shoving the emergency door aside, breathed a sigh of relief to see that the stairs seemed mostly intact, crisscrossing back and forth up through the skyscraper. A bit of luck, finally… Grim-faced and running on less than fumes, I took the first step of hundreds and headed up as fast as I could.
“Forgive me, but I’ll have to concentrate on breathing for a while,” I told the little fellow.
After about five minutes, my legs were on fire, wobbling from the strain, but I’d managed to climb most of the way up the building. I’d reached the floors where the impact from the ship had torn the structure open. Cool wind ruffled my hair, under that amazing and terrifying planet-ruined sky. The ship was only a few floors above me, and I thought I could see a way aboard, through the exhaust ports.
In the distance, smoke rose from the enchanted forest. I wondered idly just how much of the forest would burn. From the base of the skyscraper came a bellow, and a burst of green flame illuminated the side of the building, melting glass and scorching concrete. I felt as if I were standing near a bonfire. Emissary’s back on his feet and pissed.
Two floors of rubble took a minute to navigate, but finally I stepped from the skyscraper and crawled into the ruined ship, searching for each step and making sure it could take my weight. I climbed in through one of the leeward-facing exhaust ports, almost level with a balcony and the stairwell on what felt like floor ten million to my abused legs.
Down below, a dragon unfurled its wings.
“And I’m going to make damn sure most of your days aren’t like this,” I said, panting from the strain. We emerged on one of the upper decks. I knew the layout of the ship—I’d learnt to fly on one just like it, ten years before—and we’d reach our destination in about thirty seconds, barring any surprises. The gravity elevator probably wouldn’t work, but there should be a service ladder. “I mean, the forest was nice, wasn’t it? But the demons, fire, and homicidal dragons? All that bullshit—ah, pretend you didn’t hear that—all that… bothersome to-do won’t be your life. I promise.”
Old skeletons, grinning—mayhap screaming—skulls, lay slumped against the dull walls of the corridor. Six years’ worth of dust and grime, long-dead soldiers in their uniforms, entombed in a dying ship.
I jogged up to the next floor, midway along the length of the cruiser, and headed toward the bow of the ship.
The kid sneezed, and I almost dropped him in surprise.
“Oh, you scared me,” I said between heavy breaths. My shins had split and fallen off a few miles back, I was sure, along with my knees. Blisters the size of cannonballs had formed on my heels. “People do that to each other, though, when they’re holding onto something precious. That’s a nose, by the way, what you just sneezed out of. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, ten fingers, and ten toes. You’re off to a good start, kid—for the most part.”
I slid open a long door on rusted hinge rails, wincing at the shriek of metal-on-metal that hadn’t been oiled in half a decade, and stepped through the gap. “And this is the bridge and control column of a crashed inter-dimensional Eternity-class starship, Fourth Inked Battalion, Cascade Fleet, commissioned by the great and powerful Order of the Knights Infernal.”
I cleared my throat and saw what I’d come all this way to see. “You know, your dad once commanded the entire Cascade Fleet. Oh yeah, legions of soldiers and hundreds of ships just like this one. They asked him to fight a war…”
I picked up Myth, the Creation Knife, from the torn and dusty leather command chair where I’d sent it from the forest and took a seat. I’d doubted the knife would be here, until I’d seen it with my own eye, but Emily had been right—as always. The knife could carve the distance between two points, even just a step away, on the same world.
Useful… but why are the petals black? Back in the grove, where Oblivion had killed Emily, using the knife had hurt. The blasted thing felt different, too. Holding the hilt before had produced a warm, almost inviting, vibration. Now the damn thing shook and jarred, as if it were snagging on the threads of a hundred unseen worlds.
Myth felt… defiant.
A dragon’s roar pulled me from my thoughts. I gazed out the forward-facing windows, twice-shielded enchanted glass, and saw the city street far below. A sleek, oily black dragon about the length of half a football field furled its wings
and shot a river of hot fire up toward the ship. One yellow eye pierced me from far below.
Emissary could see me, even up here in the ship.
“Time to go, little fella,” I said.
The control column flickered with light from the dying fusion engines, but it was more than enough for my purposes. Working quickly, as Emissary flapped his wings and took flight, I tripped the engines and—given the state of the wreck—set them to ignite. A vibration shook the ship, and newly loosed dust rained from above.
Calmly, I took a deep breath and stepped behind the command chair, leaning on the faded leather with my back as the ship began to tilt entirely toward the city street below. She was about to fall, as Emissary raced up the side of the building, wreathed in fire and a wicked wingspan.
I hesitated only a moment, fearing the consequences, and then sliced open a way between the worlds with Myth.
A sharp pain just behind my eyes tried to blind me, and I almost let the portal slip, but I’d been trained long ago to deal with pain under stressful circumstances. Old warning bells and harsh red lights began to blink along the walls of the bridge and the control stations.
Pushing off the back of the command chair, I took a long step forward and ducked through the portal. The step was disorienting, as I went from leaning at a forty-five degree angle on a shaking ship to flat, grassy ground in a single step.
I’d moved on an axis with and—ever so briefly, on Voraskel—against gravity.
The baby frowned, and I’m sure he felt the same momentary disorientation.
“How was that?” I asked, in the clean air on the new world, somewhere I’d been once before. “First trip across universes.” Through the portal at my back, the warning sirens on the ship were eclipsed by Emissary’s frantic, ferocious roars. I turned back to see the dragon flood the shielded glass with green liquid flame. The creature slammed into the outside of the bridge, claws digging deep furrows in the broken metal of the hull.
“Here’s the fun part,” I told my son, smirking grimly.