by Joe Ducie
She removed her hand. “Doesn’t that look pretty now.”
“Barely a scar. Thanks, ‘Phie. Still hurts a bit, though. Help me sit down?”
Sophie helped me to a seat on the leather sofa next to the fireplace. Chester flew from his perch and settled on my knee. His golden eyes stared unblinking into mine. I stroked the feathers about his neck.
The chef had out done himself. Plates of sizzling meat and warm breads were arrayed across the coffee table. Marcus, Ethan, Clare, and Aaron had already helped themselves and were chatting quietly in between bites of the delectable food. The heady aromas of sharp spices were damn near dizzying.
“What are you staring at, Declan?” Clare asked.
I blinked and fell out of my swirling thoughts. I’d been staring at nothing but the far wall. “Is that a liquor cabinet? How did that slip by me?”
Chester flapped over onto Sophie’s knee as I stood up. I cast a quick look at Aaron, and he smirked. Sure enough, the cabinet was locked. Without really thinking about it, I snapped my fingers, and the door clicked open. Inside I found renewed hope that everything would be okay.
“Macallan’s Single Malt Scotch Whisky… eighty years old.” I cradled the bottle to my chest, wiping some of the dust away. “Ladies and gentlemen, a toast!”
“I’m surprised it took you this long,” Aaron remarked. “Just a drop, I suppose.”
The cabinet held a set of crystal whisky glasses, and I placed them out on the coffee table between the two sofas. “None for you, Chester. You’re flying in the morning.” As for the rest of us, the consequences could go hang themselves.
“Isn’t he a little young for this stuff?” Clare asked me as I handed Ethan a glass of amber liquid.
“Oh, sure. Too young for scotch but old enough to break a condemned man out of prison. Young enough to die, Clare.” I knew that better than most. “Come on, we’ve got to acknowledge the commitment we’ve made today—to ourselves, to Atlantis and all its many splendored wonders.”
Marcus shrugged and accepted a glass. Clare looked as though she had something more to say, but decided against it. Maybe she really was on my side and a thorn in Faraday’s. Or maybe sponsoring a little underage drinking was nothing compared to our other crimes.
“What commitment?” Ethan asked.
“To saving the world, rookie.”
“I didn’t realize it was in peril,” Sophie said.
“Given what’s at stake, we’re probably the only people in all Forget who can stop what’s about to happen.”
“And what is about to happen?” Aaron popped a red date into his mouth.
“I don’t know what game Faraday or Renegade are playing, but I do know we can’t let either of them take Atlantis. I told them I could end the Degradation, and Renegade acted as if that didn’t matter. I think he may have found a way through the shield without me.”
“Is that possible?” Marcus asked, then sipped at his drink.
I thought of the Immortal Queen and the dagger she had used to stab me. What had she done with that dagger? Or more specifically, the blood on it? Having my blood may have made it possible to breach the city.
“There’s magic in what we are,” I said, holding my glass before me against the flames of the fire. Looking a touch confused, my compatriots joined me. Five shadows danced on the rich mahogany walls, all save mine. “We are real magic, folks. None of the flashing lights and broken Will stuff we do every damn day. What we are is very rare.”
We were the fire against the indifference to the threat of Faraday, of Renegade and his damned armies. We were not a force of good; we were a force of necessity. I’d ended a war once, out of necessity. I shook my head and thought of what to say next—something meaningful that would inspire courage in my few precious companions. I came up with nothing, and suddenly, the very idea seemed absurd.
“Here’s to magic,” I said, raising my glass and finally embracing the word. I paused, then tossed the scotch back with a practiced flick, and relished the burn down the back of my throat. The others took small sips, perhaps savoring the taste.
“May it make sense with time,” Aaron added, inclining his glass toward me. He looked old, done in. “It will get better with time…”
I had to remind myself that Atlantis was still a myth to my friends. Inaccessible and lost. But I had been there. Tal had been there.
“No,” I said. “No, no. Just liquor. Time’s no good, old friend.”
Time was a bitch.
Time was a headache and a slow, painful death on a shop floor.
But then time wounds all heels, doesn’t it, Declan? And in the end it would settle all of our accounts with merciless efficiency. There was a dark, certain thought in a world where nothing was certain save uncertainty. Was I really that miserable?
Maybe I was just insane—the lesser of two certainties and a thought that just wouldn’t quit. Oh well.
“Wonder what else they have on tap here…” I muttered, and turned back to the liquor cabinet.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Master Bolt
Clare was awake and making coffee when I stumbled into Aaron’s kitchen the next morning. I had a most regretful hangover. She looked great in the early light with her disheveled crimson red and electric blue hair. She wasn’t wearing her Knightly garb, just a shirt, shorts, and a pair of baggy knee socks.
“You look odd without a waistcoat,” she said as I limped over to the fridge.
I straightened my collar and smirked. “If I don’t look the part, then how am I supposed to act the part, is that it?” I found eggs, some Italian bread, bacon, leftover chicken breast, tomatoes… I had an idea. Was there garlic? Ah, a single clove.
“The part?” Clare spooned a healthy tablespoon of sugar into her coffee and sat stirring it idly as she stared at me from behind her multi-colored fringe.
I deposited my ingredients on the marble countertop and sorted the meat from the greens from the bread rolls. “Never mind. I’m not much of a cook, sweet thing, but I can make one helluva filling sandwich. You hungry?” She shrugged. “Sure you are. Want to give me a hand? Poach some eggs while I chop tomatoes?”
Clare smiled—another one of those uncertain certainties this early in the game. “You know, despite the danger, Declan, I’m glad you’re not cooped up in that bookshop. It’s a dreary place.”
And I think it drove me mad. Madder. “Me too, actually. I’d grown far too accustomed to the silence.”
“And the writing.”
“I enjoy the writing.”
Clare helped me make breakfast. Ascension herbs on the bread rolls added a touch of local flavor to the whole ordeal. I wrapped the chicken breasts in crispy bacon, and then I sliced tomato, diced onion, scooped relish sauce, and topped it all off with a poached egg. There was no mayonnaise, unfortunately, but the smell of good honest food wafting through the villa brought the others to join us before it could all get cold.
We had sandwiches for breakfast, and they were good.
Afterwards, I laid out the plan for reaching Atlantis. I only glanced over the Degradation, as I was not quite willing to discuss what needed to be done there. The Degradation would be a bridge to burn when we reached the damn thing. Getting to the Lost City would be hard enough, if not damn near impossible. Someone, perhaps everyone, would most likely die for this folly.
Yet it had to be done, and I’d go alone if all else failed, for the right reasons as well as the selfish ones. I couldn’t let Morpheus Renegade or his queen seize the city, not with the secret buried in its heart. Whoever took the Infernal Clock, took Forget. The Knights would fall under an unstoppable Renegade onslaught.
In the early morning light, Aaron’s balcony overlooking Lake Delgado didn’t seem a grim enough venue for the topic of our conversation, but it would have to do.
“So the Degradation ties Atlantis to our reality, Declan?” Aaron asked. “A way between the worlds?”
“As best as I can explain it, y
eah.” Not like the book diving, or the portals that skimmed the Void. As our toast last night had promised, this was old magic. Real magic. Gone-too-far magic. “After stumbling across Tales of Atlantis all those years ago, Tal and I used it to forge a path into the city. We were young and stupid, and had no idea what was sleeping there.”
“But why? I mean, what’s so terrible about Atlantis? What could Faraday, or Morpheus Renegade do, if they won the city?” Aaron rested his hands on his not inconsiderable gut. He seemed genuinely perplexed.
I grinned, wishing I had another breakfast sandwich. “Do? Oh, not much. Just unleash the demonic forces of Hell that destroyed the Old World and pushed humanity back ten thousand years. Basically send us right on over the brink of extinction. Atlantis died all that time ago for a very good reason.”
Aaron paled. He heard the dread conviction in my voice. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Ascension City had just a taste five years ago, before I used the Degradation to seal Atlantis again.” I slapped the old merchant on the back. “But not to fret, eh? We’ve got about a day before we need to worry about that. That’s our job, mate. Beat the bastards there, gain access to the city, undo the Degradation and take away any reason for being there. After that, well, time… time, is different in Atlantis. Stretched…”
“What do you mean?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide and fascinated.
I looked at Tal’s sister and wished things were different for her. She was very young and very pretty. I should send her home, really, and save her the pain… but something made me hesitate. Some instinct, a gut feeling sent by Oblivion itself, no doubt.
“That’s what happened. What we did, Tal and I. Why we did it. We forced a tear into the Void, and dared King Renegade to seize the city. To put an end to the Tome Wars and at the same time seal away the monstrosities running rampant over Ascension City. We couldn’t have known what was housed in Atlantis. In its heart. Do you understand? We couldn’t have known.”
“What? What was there?” Clare licked her lips and paused. “Declan, let’s have the truth now.”
“The Infernal Clock, among other things. There’s another fairytale made real for you.”
Ethan took the bait, even as Marcus sighed and covered his face with his hands. “Other things?”
Sophie began to weep. She knew this part. I’d owed her this much for killing her sister.
“One of the Everlasting,” I said.
A shadow seemed to fall across the room, and it couldn’t have been mine.
“The Everlasting?” Ethan asked into the silence.
“If you’d had a proper education, in the Academy, you would know their names. Every Knight knows their names. Oblivion, Scion, Chronos… There are nine of them.” For mortal men doomed to die… “For all that matters, they are gods. Old gods. Until Atlantis, until Tal and I, no human being had ever dealt with them face to face, as far as we knew. They were a story, the first story, handed down across aeons. Just a story.”
“And you met one?”
“‘Met’ is too kind of a word, but yes, I did. Tal was with me. Only for a handful of minutes, but when we were done my shadow had been torn away, Tal’s essence was scattered across all the realms of existence, and the Degradation encased Atlantis like a death shroud.”
Hopeless quiet greeted my words. Only Marcus and Sophie had known about my encounter with something from beyond… everything—the Earth, the Forgetful realms, the Void. The Everlasting belonged to none of them. Not to the universe or the space between universes. It terrified me.
“How do you intend to unmake the Degradation?” Aaron asked. “The best scholars and most powerful men and women in Forget haven’t been able to even dent that monstrosity in five long years.”
“Simple, really. We kill its fuel supply. Choke it and watch it die.”
“Again, I must ask. How?”
The “how” was the crux of the matter. The truth within the lie I’d told the ruling class before the Dragon Throne yesterday morning, just before I was sentenced to space prison. “I’ve already mentioned the Infernal Clock, but what do you know of it?”
“It’s supposed to grant eternal life,” Clare said. “Immortality.”
I nodded. “I saw it once. I was almost close enough to touch it when the Everlasting made Tal and I barter for the Degradation. Our own fault, I suppose. We stumbled into Its lair and woke the darn thing up.”
“Which one was it?” Marcus asked. “It was Oblivion, wasn’t it? You dealt with Lord Oblivion in front of the Infernal Clock. Just like the old fairytale goes.” He shook his head, unable to believe what he was saying.
“It was Oblivion, yes. He… It… offered us a deal. It tricked us, but we got what we wanted, in the end. Atlantis was sealed away, and Renegade’s army was scattered across the Plains of Perdition as the Degradation came into being.” I thought back to the terrible day. An endless night upon an endless prairie. “The Infernal Clock is the master bolt in the shield’s design. It’s not actually a clock, like with hands and a face. But it does keep time, and if we sever the Clock, the whole darn shield comes crashing down.”
Marcus cursed. “So your solution to the Degradation is to cut out the very heart of the Story Thread? Declan, wasn’t one apocalypse enough for you?”
“Think of it more like a diseased limb that needs amputating. Tal and I used the Infernal Clock as a linchpin of power, to fuel the Degradation. If it can be removed…”
“Madness. End-of-the-world-type madness.”
“Perhaps, but there’s a taste of redemption in it, don’t you think?”
“And without the Clock, Atlantis is just a ruined husk of a city, yes?” Aaron stood and clapped his hands together. “No reason to fight over it. No reason for war. Well, what do you know? A cord of rationale buried within Declan’s lunacy after all.”
*~*~*~*
Later that afternoon, as the sun crowned the peaks of the western mountains, I sat in the living room next to the liquor cabinet, and scrawled on loose-leafed parchment with a fountain pen. Sophie found me there and sat down quietly on the rug to watch me write.
“Sophie, there you are. Where’ve you been hiding? I just sent Ethan off to find you in the gardens.”
Sophie’s smile was strange, confident. She looked happy. “I’ve been at the markets in Farvale with Aaron all morning. Have you seen the town? It’s wonderful. I ate a honeysuckle dragonfly!”
“Gross.”
“Delicious. And look…” She glanced about and then leaned in close, pulling her shirt aside and revealing her left breast. There was a silver bar running through her nipple. “They didn’t even ask for ID. I’d forgotten what this place was like. Think Ethan will like it? I love being home, Declan.”
I grasped at my own nipple and winced. “Ouch. Why?” I shook my head. “No, never mind. You’re right about being home. Despite the prison sentence and impending doom, this is where we belong, ‘Phie. But, you know, if you and Ethan want to leave now and avoid the fight to come…”
Sophie poked her tongue out at me, then pressed the soles of her shoes together and rocked side to side. “Really? I stuck with you for five years, Declan. You know why. I’m not about to change teams now.”
“It’s not about changing teams. More like stepping off the field and living your life without my troubles hanging over you like the sword of fucking Damocles.”
“From what you’ve said, Forget may not be worth living in much longer if the Knights or the Renegades manage to take Atlantis. So I’ll fight for that, if you don’t mind—or even if you do.” Sophie stood up. “Right, Ethan’s in the gardens. Where’s Marcus hiding?”
I straightened up the pages, blowing on the ink to help it dry. “I sent him back to Perth, to the shop. There’s a book we need to cross over into the Plains of Perdition. A scary, scary book.”
“He’s due back soon?”
“Before sunset, if we’re lucky. Later on tonight if we’re not. At dawn tomorrow we make the tr
ip and see about averting catastrophe.”
Sophie headed outside in search of Ethan, and I threw my latest pages into the hot coals which simmered in the fireplace. The writing had only been a distraction from the waiting. If I wanted I could go wandering around Farvale, but with a face as recognizable as mine, wandering was probably a bad idea.
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.