by Joe Ducie
I sat down at my desk and surveyed the applicant files before me with a critical eye, tapping my chin thoughtfully, as if I knew what I was doing. Opening the first one, I was met with an image of a pretty girl with silver-grey eyes and blue skin that made me think of Clare Valentine. The file was written in a runic script I didn’t understand. With a sigh, I handed the documents to Fix.
“Read this to me twice, please,” I said.
“Would you like a tablet to take notes? This girl’s name is Tylia Vuleta Vale.”
Vale again.
I shook my head. “Read it twice and I’ll remember the important bits. Come on, let’s get started. We’ve a dozen more to go after this one.”
*~*~*~*
The next morning, though it was still eternal night outside, I gave my first lecture in a small theatre within the heart of the Vale Celestia. Yeah, I know, I had a job, a normal job, and I could see myself being good at it. Wouldn’t be too long before some monster or demon showed up to ruin things, I’m sure, or an Everlasting jumped out of the shadows, but until then.
Training. Teaching. Learning.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “Can you all hear me? Can you all… understand me?”
A general murmur of assent rippled through the ranks. I nodded to my assigned translator. Fix stood and said, in what I assumed to the rest of the class was fluent Atlantean, “Do you all understand this man? Raise your hand if you do not.”
No hands went up so I clapped my hands together and rubbed them in anticipation—all the translation enchantments were in place.
“Very good. Then welcome to Infernal Training 101, my friends. My name is Declan Hale. My rank as your commander is Arbiter. You may call me Arbiter, or Arbiter Hale. Or Declan. Hell, I’m not too fazed.”
A hand went up in the front row. A young man who reminded me of Ethan, Sophie’s boyfriend, although he had darker skin and more laughter in his eyes, cleared his throat. From the files I’d read last night, his name was Elan. He was eighteen and useless at the subtler Will enchantments, like healing, much like my good self, but a lot of raw power pooled unseen behind those merry eyes.
“Question at the front?”
“Arbiter… Is that a title? A designation? I am unfamiliar with this rank.”
“So you are—so you should be. Where I’m from, a very long way from here, I belong to an order of knights. Men and women of Willful inclination who are devoted to the cause of protecting the Story Thread from the enemies of humanity.” And protecting it from humanity itself, more often than not. “In this room you will be graded accordingly and in line with the ranking system of the Knights Infernal. If you are here today, it is because I wanted you to be here. I intend to turn you into delicious, soldier milkshakes, because the high lords didn’t really understand what they were doing when they put me in charge of you lot—who I am or what I’m capable of teaching you.” I laughed. “We have something approaching the element of surprise there.”
The files I’d read—translated by pixie-faced Fix—had not been encouraging. My selection of students had been what was left after the other commanders, teachers really, had formed their squads. Which was fine. Which was all good and well. Because I didn’t need the best or the brightest—I just needed the eager and the willing. If these kids, and I did think of them as kids despite some of them being in their twenties and only a handful of years younger than me, wanted it badly enough, I could show them how to command Will beyond their wildest imaginations.
“Arbiter… Declan,” Kara Denitae said, seated next to Elan. She was nineteen, blonde, nimble and fast. Some of the best Knights I’d ever trained alongside had been short but swift. Size didn’t matter when you could shoot fire from the palms of your hands. I could use her.
“Yo,” I said.
“We heard you and another… visitor have been put in charge of the last two teams of students. Could you tell us more about yourself?”
Kara glanced at one of her fellow teammates, a redhead named Sardi, according to the files. Sardi was the oldest kid in my squad at twenty-two. She had a face of severe angles and wore a necklace of fine gold which travelled under her shirt and down her bare arm to become a bracelet. I hazarded a guess that the golden contraption was the focus for her Willful talent.
“Who are you?” Sardi asked. “Where do you come from?”
“All in good time. Someone tell me about the Vale Celestia,” I said with a grin and leaned back against my desk. “Pretend I’ve never heard of this place before, never seen a single team of students work together. What should I expect?”
The class exchanged looks, shrugs, and it was Tylia Vuleta, the youngest in the group at seventeen, who spoke up first. She was of a race I didn’t recognise, most likely from some world that didn’t exist in ten thousand years, or had mingled with the rest of the Story Thread so much to dilute the culture into something else. Her skin was sapphire blue and her hair, tied up in a bun atop her head and held in place with white chopsticks, was as dark as shadow on a moonless night. Her eyes were mesmerising, the iris’ cut with a grey spiral through pale green pupils.
“Well, once you have trained us, Declan, we are to compete in a tournament designed to test our understanding of the several avenues of Will studied here at the Vale Celestia,” Tylia said, and her voice was a soft whisper that somehow echoed in the small room. She carried her focus, her magical wand, on a brace strapped to her arm. A piece of gnarled oak wrapped around a rod of obsidian glass about eight inches long. “The stages of the competition will include duelling, Willful artistry including practical demonstrations, forging Will-infused artefacts, and team skirmishes designed to test our nerve.”
“Duelling, is it?” I nodded. “One on one?”
“Not necessarily,” Tylia continued. “We are each gifted a cosmic sphere before the assessment begins. One for each team member and one for our team leader, Arbiter Hale.” She glanced at her companions. “Six spheres, small crystal orbs about the size of an egg. We can wager these spheres against our competitors. If we want to enter the duel with two members of our team, we must gamble two spheres. Three members, three spheres, you see? You, as our team leader, are meant to be kept only for the more difficult challenges. Some of the duellists on rival teams are quite adept. It may take two or three of us to best one of them.”
Not by the time I’m done with you. “And if we lose all our spheres?” I asked.
“Elimination,” Tylia said simply, and as if she expected this as the most logical outcome. “Expulsion from the Vale Celestia. I imagine you, too, will lose your employment.”
Elan scoffed. “I will win all our duels,” he said to Tylia and gestured to the room at large. “You may bet your spheres on that, castri’l.”
Tylia bristled as if stung and I looked to Fix, who chuckled softly. What does that mean? I asked with a raised eyebrow.
Fix shrugged. “Castri’l,” she said, twirling her finger in the air. “Hmm… perhaps ‘sweet of heart’, is the closest translation. A term of endearment or affection. Elan is being flirtatious.”
Tylia turned a deeper shade of blue and glared daggers at Elan. He let those daggers stab him and smiled.
“Moving on, Elan,” I said. “I’ve got a few months to whip you lot into shape then. I expect my squad to decimate the competition, you understand. We will win the trophy or the cup or the whatever the devil is on offer here. Gold medals all round, you hear me?”
They heard me, but the translation didn’t seem to go over too well.
“We’re going to win,” I clarified. “You have a problem with that, Nemin?”
The last member of my ragtag group of no-hopers was a young man of eighteen. He had heavily augmented himself with Will enchantments that had altered his physical appearance. He was human, unlike Tylia, but his eyes had been modified to resemble those of something feline, like a jungle cat—narrow slits and a haunting glow. He had a mane of long purple hair pulled back in a ponyt
ail. He wasn’t burdened with muscle, but his chest and arms visible around the tight black vest he wore looked strong and corded. His ears tapered to a fine point, like shark fins.
“No problem,” he said. “Unlikely we win, but no problem.”
“We’ll see. Training starts tomorrow morning, ladies and gentlemen. Be here an hour before first light—dressed to run five miles.”
“There is no first light, Declan!” Fix said brightly. “It’s always sparkling night here at the Vale Celestia.”
“Right, of course. Five a.m., ladies and gentlemen. Nice and early.”
With my instructions known and clear, I walked out of the room and went exploring my home for the next four months.
*~*~*~*
I spent most of that day exploring the grounds of the Vale Celestia on my own. Fix looked like she had somewhere to be. “Have to see my sister,” she said. “Always a family emergency with her.”
But she wanted to meet me for lunch, which was nice, so I wished her well and went for a stroll across the campus. Of the minders that had tailed me everywhere in Atlantis, there was no sign. Perhaps I was trusted enough to meander through the forests under the crystal night sky alone now that I was gainfully employed.
More likely I was being watched through subtler means. Enchantments and the like. I could have cast a few diagnostic incantations, but with the myriad charms already clinging to my waistcoat and the translator enchantment running pretty much night and day, I’d be hard pressed to sense any unique trackers through the maelstrom. I was drenched in Will.
It was the sky that amazed me the most about this school. The gemstone asteroids and the city built on the surface of the moon. Perhaps when I made it back to Ascension City, to the Knights Infernal and the Academy, I’d suggest some changes. We could have used an obstacle course like the one above to train pilots during the war. Most of the recruits had been baptised in fire, given the supply versus demand in the Tome Wars.
I’d been a pretty decent pilot. An even better commander.
A could-be king?
“Bah,” I said, following a dusty trail between two buildings covered in old vines. “Too nice a day to think on such things.”
The students of the Vale Celestia, colourful and quiet, in groups and alone, did give me curious glances as I made my way around their campus. Word had already spread ahead of me, as word was wont to do. I was beginning to see that my arrival and my job here was something of a big deal. Olympics-style big deal. To have two new teams of students enter the fray a few months after the initial selections had created some buzz.
Part of me, and not a small part, was looking for a bar. I knew the road back to the portal which would take me to Atlantis would be open. I could slip back to the city for a few hours, get nicely toasted, and stumble back. But every time the thought crossed my mind I also thought of Tal’s sad eyes, her almost entreaty for me to lay off the sauce.
Don’t do it for her, do it for you.
Hell, that voice sounded far too much like personal growth for my tastes. I squashed that vector for change swiftly and sat down on a grassy hill, sparsely populated with spruce saplings, and lay back with my head resting on my hands so I could spend a lazy hour staring at the pale night sky.
Ten thousand years, I thought. As far as running away from your problems went, I’d run a marathon or two. The Roseblade inserted into the melted and warped devastation of the Infernal Clock had sent me back here—Tal had hitched a ride at the last minute—and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some reason for me to be here. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think the universe revolved around me—okay, yes I was, sometimes, and indeed, sometimes it had—but most of my life had been manipulated and guided by some purpose. Some sort of… divine destiny.
Now that was arrogance on par with the Elder Gods.
But I always found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Time and place enough to make some sort of difference on global, even universal, scales. For good or ill, my choices had ended wars, saved or ruined millions, and made a lot of people cry. I was an Arbiter of the Knights Infernal.
We made a mess, that’s what we did.
But by the Everlasting, we cleaned it up.
*~*~*~*
The next morning, as the moon rose and diluted the dark blue asteroid belt to a sort of azure haze, I had my recruits—sorry, my students—out running laps around the Vale Celestia. A light rain had fallen in the night, soaking the ground, and a humid mist clung to the air like an annoying shower curtain to the leg. I ran at the head of the group, surprisingly somewhat in shape after a few weeks of heavy drinking.
I’d made a promise to myself last night, all alone in my chambers up in the staff quarters on the eastern slopes of the valley, that I’d get back into the routine I’d followed during my time at the Infernal Academy and the Tome Wars. Tried, tested, and true, a daily routine had seen me at my best, most productive—and most dangerous. Even back then, though, I’d been able to enjoy a drink and still get up and run in the morning.
These days… bones old before their time ached from past fractures, joints torn and shredded sang the song of their people, and scar tissue ropy and tight pulled at my side, along my stomach. One scar in particular, where Morpheus Renegade had gutted me in the ruins of Atlantis close a year ago. I couldn’t get up in the morning with a hangover as well as those aches and expect to run at my best.
I was older. Not old. Just older. Wiser? I understood the need to stop drinking. I also understood that one drink with dinner couldn’t hurt, right? Bullshit. When a train hits you, it’s not the third carriage you need to worry about. There’s a certain sort of wisdom in self-awareness, and I was aware that when it came to alcohol, for me, one drink was too many and ten was not enough.
Hi, my name’s Declan. Declan Hale. I’m the Shadowless Arbiter, the Never-Was King, architect of the Degradation and wielder of the Roseblade. I walk between universes, I’ve seen civilisations burn, I’ve burned them, and I commanded the Cascade Fleet against the Eternity-class battleships of the Renegades during the Tome Wars. Oh, and I’m an alcoholic.
I didn’t think there was a meeting anonymous enough to hide my particular brand of bullshit.
So I’d made a promise. To Tal, because I couldn’t trust myself to keep it otherwise. Commit to the routine. Just for the days, weeks, or months I called this time and place home. Atlantis and the Vale Celestia… it was like checking into rehab. I had time to breathe, away from the dregs of the Tome Wars and the Everlasting. If I didn’t feel better after a few months of sobriety then I could go back to killing myself one drink at a time once all this Atlantis nonsense was said and done.
“How… much longer… do we have… have to run?” Elan asked. He drew in deep, desperate gasps of air.
“Two more minutes,” I said, breathing a little heavier than I would have liked myself. “Oh, and look, Elan, it’s all up hill.”
Tylia gave him a disdainful look over her shoulder. “Hurry along, castri’l,” she said sweetly.
I laughed and so did Fix, who had decided to train with the six of us, even though it was outside her job description. I liked Fix, she was pretty and fun, so I was certain we were heading for heartbreak.
A few minutes later I called a halt to the run on a small rise overlooking the northern bend in the valley. Most of the Vale Celestia stretched out behind us, and some impressive snow-capped mountains rose up in front. A cool breeze rolled down those mountains, fighting the humid mist which hid most of the buildings and trees.
“Okay, good hustle,” I said. “Now we’re going to do it again. On three!”
Groans and desperate gasps for mercy burst from my small little group of hopefuls. I started to jog back down the hill and all save Elan and Sardi made a half-hearted effort to follow me. A few paces down the hill I raised a hand to stop.
“You two,” I said to Elan and Sardi. “Need to pick up your game.”
Elan gulped in a lungful of air and
scowled. “That was a test?”
I nodded. “And you failed. Never surrender, my little soldiers.” Sardi’s glare turned into a rough nod.
“Why… why are we out here so early?” Kara asked. “What is the point, Arbiter Declan? The examinations are a contest of Will, not physical endurance. Not that I don’t enjoy a good run, but this is not how we will be tested.”
“Strong mind and body, strong Will,” I said. “They don’t teach that here? Blimey, that’s encouraging.” I took a deep breath. “Now, who’s really ready to run again?”
Another chorus of groans and a few muttered curses emanated from my group.
“Move,” I said, and dashed down the rise. “If you don’t hate me then I’m not doing my job.”
Only Tylia and Nemin ran after me this time, and ten seconds later when we reached the bottom of the hill I called a halt and clapped them both on the shoulder. “That’s enough. Good work you two.”
“We are not to keep running?” Nemin asked.
“No, we’re done for the day. I just wanted to see who would keep going when it got tough. You two just became my favourites.”
I waved to the rest of the gang, my three stragglers and Fix, to catch up. Once we were all together again, and just as the sun began to peek over the mountains to the east, I ended the exercise session. All said and done, my crew had kept pace over three miles, which was something to work with. By the time the examination rolled around in four months, they’d be running ten miles and liking it.
“Showers then breakfast—nothing greasy, you hear, eat some avocado and boiled eggs—and then get to the classroom when that first bell goes off and the rest of the school is just getting out of bed.”
“What are we to learn today?” Sardi asked.
“I need to know your strengths,” I said. Your weaknesses. “You’re all going to duel me with the intent to incapacitate and render me helpless.”