The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  The tunnel was unlit, but darkness was no barrier to a Knight’s eyes. The frosty glow of the Intueor Lucidum painted the world in lines of subtle silver—not banishing the dark but simply making it irrelevant. In the six months since Denizen’s Dawning, he’d almost forgotten what the absence of light looked like.

  The staircase eventually came to an end, metal trembling as each warrior stepped from it. Denizen had been wondering whether it went on forever, a drill sunk deep into the earth. The air was bitterly cold.

  How far down were they?

  One of Greaves’s men opened a thick steel door set into the wall and beckoned them all forward. Vivian’s jaw was clenched. She looked even more annoyed than usual, which was saying a lot.

  “What is it?” Denizen said quietly so that Greaves couldn’t hear.

  She simply shook her head. “You’ll see.”

  The chamber beyond was low and long and made of stone, and it was entirely covered in carvings of Knights at war. Tiny figures crusaded across the ceiling or marched in regiments along the floor, crashing in great waves against the rows of doorways beyond.

  Denizen was kneeling. He didn’t even remember doing it. He just wanted to see. The detail of the Knights was excruciatingly fine. Some of the carved flagstones looked newly laid, the mortar still bright and fresh. Others looked like they had been there for centuries. He could make out the markings on their armor, the hand-and-hammers on every flag; he could make out the fragments of iron carefully crafted to represent the Cost they’d paid. ...

  They looked determined. They looked unafraid.

  “When a Knight is…” For the first time since they’d met, Greaves looked like he wasn’t sure of the right words to use, though Denizen knew enough of him at this point to wonder whether it was an actual pause or a pause ... for effect.

  “Knights are powerful people. I don’t just mean the Cants. No one is forced to enter the Order; they join because they are people of singular will and bravery, possessed of a rare kind of determination. A conviction. A courage.”

  He stared at each Knight in turn. “We are made of a different metal.”

  The first of the cases was being brought in, the Knights pausing as they heard Greaves’s voice. Denizen watched their backs straighten at his words.

  “The Order takes that metal and reforges it. We clothe that will in training, in strategy. Knights are taught to fight impossible battles against impossible odds, working in secret, unseen, undetected, and alone. That makes us dangerous.”

  “And then there are the Cants,” Denizen said.

  “And then there are the Cants,” Greaves repeated. “That will, and that training, and the power to break the world with words of fire. Knights are human weapons ... but, for all that, we are still human. And weapons break. And humans fail.”

  A thousand details that had been simmering just below Denizen’s consciousness finally surfaced. Realization crept up on him slowly, like the taste of bile.

  That was why this place disgusted Vivian. That was why it was called Retreat, not The Retreat. Each of the doorways had a thick steel door, with a shuttered slot at head height.

  All the locks were on the outside.

  “You kept them here,” Denizen said, and there was horror in his tone. “You kept them here if they lost themselves.”

  “Retreat,” Greaves said. “When a Knight goes wrong, we’re lucky if all they do is run.” To his credit, the revulsion on his face looked entirely real. “This place is a necessary evil.”

  As most Tenebrous lacked hearts, brains, and other easily stabbable places, the Order’s weapons had been forged with the same fire that infused their wielders. Spoken steel. The same etchings that characterized a spoken-steel blade marked these doors as well.

  Greaves read the realization on his face and nodded. “You could roar every Cant you possessed and not make a scratch.”

  Shapes purred in Denizen’s head, but he ignored them as best he could. Not the time. Or the place.

  “The most secure location on three continents,” Jack said. “We could hold it against half the Tenebrae.”

  “Is that what we’re going to be doing?” Vivian said. She sounded far more comfortable with that than the idea of talking to them.

  “No,” Greaves said. “This is diplomacy.” He drew his hammer. “And that diplomacy comes with a price.”

  Vivian’s eyes widened. “That’s the promise you made?”

  “Twelve Knights,” Greaves said. “No hammers. They were very clear.”

  Mallei hammers were the most potent weapons the Order possessed. They were the only thing that could truly destroy an ancient Tenebrous instead of merely driving it back to the Tenebrae. Denizen could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Vivian without hers.

  His hand immediately went to his bag, where the stone blade waited. Did it still retain any of the potency of a full hammer? Did Greaves know he had it? Should he say something?

  Vivian’s glare shut Denizen’s mouth for him, and his hand dropped to his side.

  “It’s all right,” Greaves said. His smile had returned, as if they weren’t standing in an underground asylum about to meet monster nobility. “I didn’t come empty-handed.”

  At his nod, the lids of the six cases were thrown wide. Inside each, packed in dark foam, was a suit of disassembled armor.

  Denizen leaned forward. Each piece was ink-black, so dark even the silvered shades of the Lucidum seemed to slip from its surface. They were massive too—Denizen had spent plenty of time polishing Vivian’s armor, and he had a beginner’s knowledge of sizes and weights. Maybe Jack could have moved and fought beneath the massive plates of iron, but very few others.

  “Hephaestus Warplate,” Vivian whispered, an unfamiliar note in her voice. It was awe, plain and simple. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Well, we only get dressed up for special occasions,” Greaves said wryly. “I figured this qualified.” The humor vanished from his voice as he glanced at Denizen. “You asked me earlier if I was enjoying this.”

  Denizen colored.

  “I take my joy where I can find it,” the Palatine said. “We have lived this war for so long. If what happens here today has even the chance of ending it ... For that, I’ll make any promise. For that, I’ll do anything. And so will you. Do you understand?”

  Denizen did.

  “Good,” Greaves said. “Now let’s go meet your public.”

  THEY DIDN’T HAVE LONG to wait.

  One by one, the hairs on Denizen’s neck rose, the Tenebrae breathing along the shocked and upright strands. At first, it was a quiet wrongness—the familiar becoming unfamiliar, like a beloved song played slightly out of key.

  Those with a Knight’s blood were naturally more sensitive, and since his first Breach, Denizen’s senses had been sharpened for strangeness. When normal people felt another world intrude on theirs, they got as far away as they could, making awkward jokes about it at home later, when surrounded by loved ones and bright lights.

  I wish my friends were here.

  Even as he had the thought, Denizen knew he wasn’t alone. Around him, twelve Knights drew their weapons with a thoroughly reassuring rasp of steel.

  “Hold,” Greaves said. “They said sunset. We have a few minutes.” He was half into a suit of Hephaestus Warplate, being helped by a small female Knight with a thundercloud of black-and-silver hair.

  The armor was ludicrously large. Only one Knight—Nathaniel Gayle—had fully donned his, and he no longer looked like a person at all but a fortress come to life. Vanes rose above the armor’s shoulders like smokestacks. The helmet was a blunt, eyeless fist of steel.

  How can he fight if he can’t see? Denizen couldn’t imagine walking in the armor, let alone fighting in it—unless the Court were considerate enough to line up so he could just fall on them.

  Denizen was staring at the Knight so intently that he flinched when sudden fire gleamed from the black armor’s surface. In
candescence ran from joint to joint like magma worming its way through stone. Lines of light crisscrossed and split across each plate, diving in shafts of gold down chest and legs, coiling through pauldron and helmet.

  The vanes emitted a purr of superheated air.

  Eyes opened along secret seams—the red-gold of banked embers. Denizen knew that fire. It danced through his bones as well.

  With a rumble akin to some great hidden forge, the Knight took a grinding step forward, shrugging massive shoulders into a brawler’s stance.

  He doesn’t need a weapon, Denizen thought, staring at those huge, spiked fists. He is a weapon.

  Vivian was looking at the armor with undisguised hunger. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  And it was, for sheer destructive potential. More of the Knights had donned the warplate, and now each was two and a half meters tall, spines barbed and flaring like the threatening hood of a cobra. Every breath they took was a rattling growl of metal.

  Comforting. It was comforting. The chamber was filling with the corroded reek of the Tenebrae, and nausea was already fluttering in Denizen’s throat, but as each Hephaestus Knight took their stand it was hard to imagine anything breaking that colossal line.

  “In that armor, a Knight can punch through stone,” Vivian murmured. “They were forged in the first days of the Order, in more ... uncivilized times.”

  “Smiths gave their lives to forge each suit,” Jack said. “The Cost was judged sufficient for weapons of such power. They’re priceless, only unveiled in direst need.”

  People gave their lives to build those?

  That made a horrible kind of sense—presumably, if there were more, they’d all be wearing one. Denizen had only been a Neophyte for six months, but he had always thought his clash with the Three had given him a crash course in just how bad the war against the Tenebrae could be. But to live in a time when Knights would give their life in one gasp just to forge a weapon for another? How desperate had things been? And, despite everything, a tiny part of Denizen couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be sheathed in that power, to feel unearthly metal support your blows….

  Armored, but with his helmet at his side, Greaves glanced at Denizen as if he knew exactly what he was thinking. Denizen flushed and looked away.

  Knights had spread out, all facing the simple wooden door at the far end of the chamber. Crossbows were prepped with spoken-steel bolts. The PenumbraCorp agent, Strap, drew a bulky handgun from underneath his long coat. Mallei gave up their hammers for spoken-steel swords and axes, Vivian scowling as she parted with hers.

  Denizen was suddenly struck by how few of the assembly’s names he actually knew. No one had stopped for introductions. It didn’t help that all their gazes were so intense that Denizen tended to immediately drop his eyes to the floor.

  He didn’t know their names.

  A sick feeling bloomed in his stomach at that, a disquiet that was nothing to do with the Tenebrae.

  They were here because of him. This was all happening because of him.

  Denizen didn’t like to think of himself dying. That was, he thought, pretty standard for a normal person. But what was generally a low-level dread had been kicked into overdrive by the idea of being pushed into the spotlight before the Forever Court. Denizen had been very busy worrying about himself.

  He hadn’t, for a second, thought about how other people might end up dying.

  That’s what Knights do. Denizen had his own experience of that choice. It was what had made him believe he wanted—no, needed—to be a Knight, to add his voice and fire to theirs. Knights died to keep the world safe from Tenebrous.

  But now they might die for him.

  The woman who had helped Greaves into his armor was standing directly in front of Denizen, her eyes pale and wide, her face a raw-boned collection of angles dusted by freckles. Black-and-silver curls bobbed to her shoulders. She might have been Jack’s age. She might have been much younger.

  The Tenebrae breathed through the room—and Denizen didn’t know her name.

  Beyond her there was a man as slender and lithe as a jaguar, muscles shifting beneath a mat of dense tattoos. He held a spear in one hand, its blade long and delicately curved—and Denizen didn’t know his name.

  This fear, this dread, it’s the Tenebrae. Ignore it. It’s just the bow wave of a Breach. It’s—

  It’s the truth. Every drop of blood, every scrap of skin fed today to the cold hunger of the Cost—that was on him. If he said the wrong thing to Mercy—and suddenly that hit him—

  She’s going to be here soon and, oh God—

  Denizen was filled with competing types of fear, and through it all came the dentist-drill whine of the rising Tenebrae. Air moved in ways it shouldn’t. Watches vied with each other as to which could tick backward the fastest. A room of closed doors was suddenly filled with a fetid, creeping wind.

  The walls shifted in Denizen’s peripheral vision—closer, then farther away. He had the sickening thought that maybe the soil beyond had turned to liquid, an endless, hungry sea, and they were all adrift on it in a sinking chamber of stone.

  The wooden door rattled on its hinges.

  Blades rose, a forest of glinting steel. Hephaestus Knights squared their titanic shoulders, fire spitting from their joints.

  “Steady,” Greaves said.

  Denizen slipped his hand into his bag, wrapping his fingers round the cool hilt that lay there.

  The door rattled again. A screw popped free to bounce from the floor.

  Maybe she doesn’t want this meeting at all. Denizen’s stomach had officially caved in on itself. Maybe it’s her dad. Dads are supposed to be overprotective, aren’t they? Even giant god-father-monster things. Maybe this isn’t diplomacy. Maybe this is about getting me to hold still so I can be swatted… .

  “Um,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Not one of the Knights turned round.

  Denizen’s voice was a squeak. “Maybe we should—”

  The door exploded.

  Shards and splinters rode a wave of black liquid, the nightstuff of the Tenebrae. It seethed outward from the doorway, tendrils latching on to the wood like blind fingers seeking purchase. Great torrents heaved themselves out with soundless splashes, as if an ocean lay beyond the simple wooden doorframe. Denizen staggered as the whole chamber shook.

  What had come before—the nausea, the intangible wrongness—was nothing compared to what hit them now. It felt like the world was ending, and all Denizen could think of was whether Darcie was clutching her head at home, whether Knights a thousand miles away felt the world flinch at such a grievous injury.

  The wrongness gave another heave, punching the air from Denizen’s chest, and what he drew in to replace it was pestilence so vile it made him gag.

  And it spoke. It spoke in the tones of a prince.

  Introducing ...

  How sly, that voice. How amused.

  Liquid still flowed from the doorway, but before it could wash up against the boots of the Knights it paused, rolling back on itself as though meeting an invisible wall. Denizen watched the Knights carved into the floor drown beneath it.

  The Herald of the Court, the Fatale Monstrum, the Smile Kuchisake ...

  A hand slid from the murk, followed by an arm with too many joints, and a bladed shoulder behind. Denizen’s eyes slid from it like water from feathers. All he could see was a long slice of shine, like the mono-molecular edge of a diamond. More of it passed through the blackness—long, gleaming limbs, a sharp teardrop of a head. He could only tell its shape from the distorted reflections painting the chamber a thousand hues, like the inside of a haunted kaleidoscope.

  Mocked-By-a-Husband!

  Its grin split the air in half.

  To the left of Mocked-By-a-Husband, the nightstuff rippled like a pond suddenly hammered by stones. The ripples spread in, however, and from them burst the shapes of birds, a cacophony white as virgin snow.

  Badb, the Covet Congress,
What-Men-Called-Muinnin ...

  Pale crows spun and fluttered, slamming off floor and ceiling before coming together in a clot of wing and eye. The chamber rang with the sound of cawing, the scrape of talon and feather. The mass shifted, and twitched, and rose—a murder of birds in an approximate human shape.

  Malebranche!

  Two dozen sets of eyes blinked. Beaks long and sharp gleamed among feathers.

  There was a third Tenebrous. Denizen hadn’t even seen it appear. It was a man, or the shape of a man. He could barely see it behind the towering Hephaestus Knights, but in scattered glimpses he could see that it was sleek in the way sharks were sleek, and beautiful in the way spiders were beautiful.

  It smiled at him. Denizen flinched so violently his shoulders hurt.

  Even the disembodied voice seemed afraid.

  Rout.

  Was the voice coming from the blackness? Was it one of the Court speaking? Mocked-By-a-Husband didn’t seem to have a mouth. Malebranche had too many. Rout—no. Denizen did not want to think about that smile again.

  The voice paused, and each of the Court stood taller, resplendent in their shroud of unreality.

  Attend upon the Forever Court!

  Not one of the Knights moved. Denizen watched them because it was easier than looking at the monsters in front of them. Not one weapon shook or dipped.

  How are they so calm?

  Denizen suddenly understood Vivian’s complete opposition to this meeting. Not just because it could be a trap, but because it was unnatural to be standing here and not lashing out with every weapon they had.

  It was the first lesson humanity learned. Put a fire between you and the dark.

  Power itched through Denizen’s guts. He could already see the patterns the flames would make in the air. Rout first. That smile needed to be burned away. The Hephaestus Knights would follow his lead, he was sure of it. They’d take Mocked-By-a-Husband and then Denizen could—

  A new light bloomed.