Distant Star

by Joe Ducie

  With a sigh, I rubbed at my eyes and licked my lips. I wanted something fizzy, for a change, such as a can of Coke or something. The Forget may have held every territory ever written by the Willful, but the bulk of True Earth’s delicacies often found their way over, one way or another—particularly in and around Ascension City, where the majority of humanity crossed between the realms.

  I made my way toward the kitchen. My bare feet were silent against the wooden floorboards, which is why I heard the two gentle voices before I saw them. I slowed to a stop just in the hall outside of the kitchen and eavesdropped.

  “Trust me when I say this,” Aaron said. “You do not want Declan Hale fighting this war again. He is ruthless.”

  “That’s good for a war, isn’t it?” Ethan asked, obviously not in the gardens. I heard the fridge open and close, the rustle of brown paper bags. They were putting away the supplies purchased in Farvale.

  Aaron sighed. “Spoken by a man who has never fought in one. You misunderstand, because you cannot understand. Declan is kind, caring, and loyal. He is all of these things, yet he is ruthless. In war he is driven by rage. In the final years of the last conflict, he committed such atrocities. The Degradation was almost among the least of them.”

  “What did he do?”

  “What was necessary to protect what he believed. In whom he believed.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Ethan remarked.

  “No?” Aaron chuckled without humor. “Again, you cannot understand. I took lives in the war, young Ethan. Many lives. Some deserved death, and some did not. But I never wielded true power. Not like Declan. In the final days of the war, just before he created the Degradation, the penultimate battle was fought in a realm of Forget known as the Reach. A city of millions… Declan used a weapon he found in Atlantis during his Great Quest to fight in that battle.” Aaron sighed.

  “What weapon?”

  “A sword. A terrible sword capable of harnessing an absurd amount of Will. He lost control, Reach City burned, and Declan’s little secret was exposed. With Atlantis at risk, he chose to seal away the city… at the expense of the Story Thread.”

  “And now that’s he going back? What will happen?”

  “I wish I knew. He’s changed. Perhaps for the better, perhaps not. Only the guilty can understand the cost of true power, Ethan. And Declan is very guilty. Millions of innocents suffered and died for his ambition. Let us hope he has learned from that mistake. Yet I can’t help but feel the last five years were nothing more than a brief interlude between conflicts.” Aaron sniffed. “Last time, Declan had Tal Levy—Sophie’s sister—to fight for. Now he does not. Now he has… just his anger. I’m terrified we’re helping a madman gain inconceivable power.”

  “You could… talk to him about this.”

  “And say what? No, we must watch. We must help him avoid the war.” One of them turned on the sink tap. “Besides, I am not nearly brave enough to anger Declan Hale. No, no, no.”

  I’d heard enough. Aaron’s words did ignite a spark of frustration in my heart, but I liked to think I’d changed since the end of the Tome Wars, since my choices had forced Tal’s death. Fair to say I’d paid a handsome price for my ruthlessness. Stepping away from the kitchen, I headed out to the balcony once more for some fresh air. My ire had to be directed towards my true enemies.

  Jon Faraday.

  Morpheus Renegade. His stab-happy wife.

  And anyone else that gets in your way, Dec? whispered a voice in the back of my head.

  How far would Faraday go? His acceptance of Renegade into the Fae Palace had been a surprise, but he wasn’t stupid enough to actually trust the snake. Not in a million years. The heat death of the universe would pass us by before Faraday would so much as blink in Renegade’s presence. So what was the plan? The end game? Plunge both kingdoms back into war? Too simple.

  The sun disappeared behind the mountains, casting violet halos on the craggy peaks.

  The solution came back to Atlantis, and what could be won there. The fate of the new world order would be decided in the ruins of the old.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I Ain’t Happy

  I went into the kitchen for that Coke I’d been craving earlier. With the rest of the gang missing, the villa was a quiet place. I knew Clare had been upstairs earlier, so I set off to find her, two fizzy drinks in hand.

  Dusk light filtered in through the skylight in the hallway upstairs. “Clare?”

  “In here, Declan.”

  I followed her voice down the hall and into the bedroom she and Sophie had shared last night. The door was ajar, and the subtle scent of cinnamon drew me in and left me wanting to sit down and sigh. I was a long way past regret for what could have been in my life. Still, I couldn’t help but want at these simple moments of perdition.

  Clare was seated in a window bay that overlooked the magnificent lake and mountains. The failing light caught her lounging in a silk blouse and shorts. A golden aura of energy seemed to cling to her form, to follow the curves from her bare feet up to her avian-like face.

  My heart skipped a few beats. I felt a familiar surge of longing—of raw desire. She wasn’t just gorgeous. She was beautiful and made me feel my age, for once. Young before war’s end, before Tal.

  “You’re staring, Declan.”

  “Sorry. Breathtaking view up here, is all.”

  Clare smiled at the not-so-subtle compliment. She accepted the Coke with a word of thanks and twisted off the screw cap to release that satisfying hiss of bubbles. “The first sip is always the best.”

  “I was lonely, so I came looking for a friend.”

  “Oh, we’re friends, are we?” Clare took her first sip. “Not just old lovers who hook up once every half-decade? Or break one another out of custody? Risk treason and execution? I don’t know what we are, Declan, but I am confused.”

  I sat on the edge of the window niche and gently stroked Clare’s ankle. “I know, and although the words are too small to convey any true meaning, I am sorry for all the trouble. I know I can be… ruthless, sometimes.”

  Clare rolled her eyes. “You’ve just never gotten over the girl you couldn’t have. Tal was lovely, Declan. She was kind and lovely. But she’s gone. Long gone. Move on, would you?”

  Everything was tied to Tal, wasn’t it? My every choice, every victory, and every defeat came back to her. Love was a many splendored thing.

  “Is it that simple?” I asked. Never mind the armies of Forget were on the move. Never mind I had just over a day left to live, if the past was to be believed… “I loved her, Clare. I still love her. So very much.”

  “And that’s fine, very human even. I’d be worried if you felt any other way. I know losing Tal—never really having her—makes you feel torn open inside. Declan, that’s a good thing. That’s a goddamn strength. You’d be broken and finished if you didn’t feel that bad from losing someone you love. But she is gone, and you’re wanting after something you can’t have. Typical man.”

  “I did have her once. On the eve of the Degradation in the ruins of Nightmare’s Reach. I told her I loved her and she said… heh… she smiled and said thank you.”

  Clare closed her book, a finger between the pages, and crossed her legs. “I never knew that.”

  I shook my head. “No one did. She died later that night. That endless night.”

  “I’m sorry, Declan, for your loss. I don’t know if anyone has ever said that. I guess if no one knew…”

  “Sophie knew I loved her. That’s why she stuck with me through the exile.” I sighed a sigh for the ages. “Thanks, Clare.”

  “Honestly though, you can’t have her. So move on.”

  “Easier said than done, sweet thing. I… I try not to think about it. Sometimes I get so absorbed in my writing—or a bottle of scotch—that I go an entire half a day without thinking of her. Sometimes. But…”

  “But?”

  “I let myself think of nothing but her—for five minutes at
the end of the day. Five minutes where I let myself bask in the regret of what happened. The one I lost, who I never really had. It’s futile, I know. Five ultimately pointless minutes that do nothing but hurt, yet I reckon I’ll be doing it right up until the day I die.”

  So, just once more then, according to the Historian. Grand.

  “Well, this is just a whole other side of you. You’re always closed off. Emotionally flat. I think you’re actually feeling so much so often that you’re broken.”

  Emily Grace had said something similar, under the hot lights and amidst the fierce music at Paddy’s only a few short nights ago. I think you’re trying very hard not to cry. I missed her.

  “You kissed me,” I said, changing the subject rather abruptly.

  “Yes. And you kissed me back.”

  “May I kiss you again?”

  Clare leaned in so close that our noses almost touched. “No,” she said, her breath warm against my face. Then she pressed her lips against mine softly, just for a heartbeat.

  I laughed, enjoying her secret smile and affection. “Please do that again…”

  Clare uncrossed her legs and returned to her book. “You need to think about what it is you want, Declan. Goodnight.”

  *~*~*~*

  “Did you get all of it?” I asked.

  Marcus made it back to the villa early the next morning, as most of us were sitting around the kitchen. Something as simple as cornflakes should’ve taken the magnificence out of breakfast in Forget, but if anything, the mundane cereal only enhanced the view of the forest-city further down the lake and added a sense of reality to the unreality.

  Sugar to the spice.

  “I brought you some clothes and shoes,” he said, stomping through the kitchen unshaven and tired.

  A knot of dread settled in my stomach at the sight of the backpack slung over Marcus’s enormous shoulder. I already knew what was in there. I knew it.

  He unzipped the bag and tossed me a white collared shirt and a pair of trousers—all wrapped up in my favorite grey waistcoat.

  I can’t save you from that wound, I’d told my dying self. All the Will in the world couldn’t… Are you wearing my favorite grey waistcoat?

  My funeral suit. Oh… goody. I pushed away the bowl of cornflakes. Suddenly, I wasn’t so hungry anymore. Still, the clothes were better than the dirty polo shirt and jeans I’d been wearing for two days.

  “And then there’s this,” Marcus said, and handed me a book in a brown paper bag. “Really, you just left it sitting on the counter?”

  “Hidden in plain sight.”

  “What is it?” Clare asked, running her spoon through the milky dregs of her breakfast.

  “Tales of Atlantis. How Tal and I found the Lost City, back in the day.”

  “Hmm. Go get changed, would you?” Clare stopped running her foot up and down my leg under the table. “You don’t look like you without the vest.”

  “You’ll be the death of me, sweet thing.”

  I excused myself and headed upstairs to the shower. Better to die well dressed, I suppose, although I was still a few pieces short of solving that grim puzzle. The man who had died on my shop floor had had a fresh scar cutting down his face and a gaping wound in his gut. Knowing it was coming, perhaps it could still be avoided.

  Sophie and Ethan were cuddled up together on the leather sofa in the living room, sketching crude drawings of the mountains over the far side of the lake, when I came downstairs. Ascension City was just on the other side of those peaks.

  Sophie laughed as Ethan stroked the small of her neck, just behind her ear.

  Kids.

  “Good morning, you two.”

  “Hey, Mr. Hale,” Ethan said.

  I offered him half a smile. “Call me Declan, Reilly. You’ve earned it.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “You need a shave.”

  I rubbed at my stubbly cheeks. “So, here’s the thing. You two are heading back to Perth this morning. I’m sending you on a super-secret important mission to, uh, go have fun at the beach or something.”

  Sophie glared. “What?”

  “Just until all this plays out, one way or another.” I held out my hands and, after a moment, Sophie and Ethan each gave me one of their own. “This isn’t your fight, even if you want it to be. Neither of you are ready for this. Sophie, you were just a kid during the last war, and Ethan—despite your daring rescue—this is your first time in Forget. You’re untrained and worse, eager to please.”

  “That’s not really fair, is it?” he said, pulling back his hand.

  Sophie shrugged. “I’ll stay if I want, Declan.” She glanced at her boyfriend. “But I don’t think I want to, not really.”

  “‘Phie?”

  “Hush, Ethan. Declan’s right, in his own idiotic way. We’ve no reason to be here, and we’ll most likely get in his way.”

  “But if we stay, then I won’t have to do uni exams next week.”

  I snorted. “Well, at least you’ve got your priorities straight.”

  After a long moment in silence, I let go of Sophie’s hand and sighed.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “Not a chance,” she said. “Not with what’s at stake.”

  Kids.

  *~*~*~*

  So, just the six of us to save the big, cruel world and all of Forget.

  Or at least stop the whole mess from slipping any closer to oblivion.

  “Anyone want to back out, now’s your chance. We’re going about as deep into Forget as you can go. To the very edge of the Degradation.”

  “This isn’t going to end well,” Marcus said. “For any of us.”

  Trust Marcus… until he gives you a reason not to.

  “Chin up, sailor.”

  Tales of Atlantis sat on the coffee table. We circled around the table and the book of short stories, written a long time ago by the last people to see Atlantis before it fell into the seas of chaos.

  “It’s either you or Clare who’ll have to do the diving invocation,” Marcus said. “Sophie, Ethan, and I are tied to True Earth, not to Ascension City.”

  That was true. Using a book as a gateway, diving through the pages, meant remaining tied to the point of origin—True Earth for Sophie, Ethan, and Marcus, which meant they couldn’t dive again unaided. To sever their tether would be to risk falling into the Void, slipping sideways out of existence.

  Just one of the many rules of diving across universes. You could only go one level deep. Earth to Forget. Clare had come the other way, Forget to Earth. She was tied to Ascension City, and I had crossed the Void through the Black Mirror, which had been forged here.

  Sophie, Marcus, Ethan—and Aaron, who possessed not one drop of Will—would have to ride alongside either Clare or myself.

  Ethan spun the book around on the table. “So if Atlantis was lost for so long, how come this book can get you there?”

  “It gets you close,” I said, “to the plains the city was built upon all those millenniums ago, and the Degradation. It’s hard to explain, but Atlantis used to be a part of Earth—of True Earth, where all of us save Aaron were born. Atlantis fractured, Ethan. Some travesty in the past forced the city into Forget.”

  “There are theoreticians at the Academy in the Fae Palace that believe Atlantis was, perhaps, the very first piece of Forget,” Aaron said and stroked his chin. “The first realm to form and claim the nothing-space the Void occupied. From Atlantis, all the rest of Forget formed, like an archipelago. What we call the Story Thread. Not just worlds upon worlds tied together, but universes upon universes.”

  “And you just happened to have a copy of this book lying around?” Clare asked, glaring at the damn thing. “Broken quill, if Faraday knew…”

  “I found it not even a week ago, on the shores of Diablo Beach back in Perth.” I grunted. “Which tells us one thing. Someone, perhaps even Faraday himself, wanted me back in Forget. To try for Atlantis.”

  A silence fell over the grou
p, and I felt cold, though the day outside was warm and bright.

  “We’re diving into a trap,” Sophie said. “But there’s no other way, is there?”

  “Not to where we’re going. So let’s get it over with.” I rolled up my sleeves and picked up Tales of Atlantis. “Clare, grasp the cover. The rest of you, hold on tight to either of our arms. This will be a bumpy ride.”

  Aaron shifted his duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. “I’ve only ever done this once before,” he said.

  “It’s like riding a bike… across a thin wire over a nightmarish chasm of horror,” I assured him.

  “Chin up, sailor?” Marcus asked.

  I let the Will flow down my arms and into the thin book of old stories. “Something like that.”

  We slipped along the ragged edge of the burning page… and straight into a warzone.

  SILENCE THE GUNS: PART III

  Wastelands aside, he cannot win.

  Those soulless eyes, that bloody grin.

  No sword or defiance will scar,

  His broken will—a distant star.

  ~The Historian of Future Prospect

  After Madness, 2007

  You were unsure which pain was worse—the shock of

  what happened or the ache for what never will.

  ~Simon Van Booy

  Perhaps a secret—

  Or pencil in hand,

  Enriched the pure leaf

  Made true, after all

  Scorn the fool’s last piece.

  ~King Morrow’s Journal (Vol. VII)

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Perdition War

  The Tome Wars had been a time of anarchy and rampant destruction. When people capable of harnessing the powers of creation used that power to make war, the result was always catastrophic. Before my fall, I’d been a hero, in the cruelest sense of the word.

  I’d used my strength to shatter entire legions of Renegade’s soldiers.

  I’d foiled plots and assassination attempts against King Morrow—Faraday’s predecessor.