The Endless King

by Dave Rudden

  ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’ Greaves said acerbically. ‘You’re not your mother, Denizen, not some lifer Knight raised to the blade. How far do you think you would have got in any of this if that brush with Mercy hadn’t gifted you with such fluency?’

  ‘It wasn’t –’

  ‘No more lies, Denizen. No more games. You used thirty-seven Cants in your battle with the Redemptress. I counted. Vivian could have trained you round the clock for six months and you wouldn’t be that good.’

  Utterly paralysed and absolutely flailing at exactly the same moment, Denizen struggled for words.

  ‘You … you counted?’

  Greaves flashed him a shark’s grin. ‘I multitask. And I’m right. Without Mercy, you wouldn’t be here.’

  Greaves was right. He’d barely survived as it was. Denizen didn’t enjoy fighting. He’d come to Seraphim Row to find out what happened to his parents, then to control his power – which was not going well – and then he’d wanted to help … but did that mean fighting?

  You do enjoy it. Letting that rage out, letting it flow through you to wreak your will upon the world, flinging power left and right like a child’s dream of a wizard …

  Denizen shivered, and refroze his melting fortress walls. That wasn’t him. That was the fire.

  Wasn’t it?

  ‘You’d live here,’ Greaves said, ‘training in the arts of a Knight, plus diplomacy, history, negotiation. And when Mercy returns you’ll be the one talking to her. I wish there was another way, but we don’t have anything close to an expert. We have you.’

  ‘What about …’ He swallowed. ‘What about Simon? Abigail?’

  ‘They’d visit. Knights pass through Daybreak all the time. They’d be transferred out of Seraphim Row at the end of this year anyway.’

  Something twisted in Denizen’s stomach. ‘R-really?’

  ‘We go where we’re needed,’ Greaves said. ‘It’s a big world with a lot of holes in it.’

  There was only one more card Denizen could play. ‘Does Vivian know you’re offering this?’

  She’d been the Order’s first choice for Palatine, or so the rumours went. Not because of manoeuvring – then as now, Vivian had the political grace of a meteor strike – but, if there was one thing Knights didn’t argue with, it was results. (Privately, of course, both Hardwicks knew that Vivian would have been a disaster. Forms, schedules, logistics … However, there was absolutely no point in letting Greaves know that.)

  ‘You think she’d disagree?’ One look at the Palatine and Denizen knew he’d been outplayed. ‘Her son contributing more to the war effort than a hundred Mallei? You’d be doing your name proud. And you’d be a lot safer.’

  ‘You don’t just mean by staying here, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Greaves said simply. ‘The more Cants you know, the more they want to be said. And you know thirty-seven. At least. How’s that working out for you?’

  As if responding to his words, Denizen felt the yawn and stretch of seventy-eight Cants, alien shapes with lives of their own, and little regard for the teenager struggling to hold them in place. Fighting made that carefully constructed fortress far harder to hold.

  And here was one far more secure.

  Denizen reeled. He had been systematically beaten, as surely as if he’d sparred with Abigail. There was nothing he could say, and even if there were …

  Mercy doesn’t want to talk to me. She hasn’t contacted me since she saved my life.

  ‘We go where we’re needed,’ he whispered.

  Greaves’s eyes found his. ‘And you’re needed here.’

  6

  Demands

  It was a long time until lunch.

  Greaves hadn’t shown Denizen the way to the training chamber. Maybe the Palatine wanted him alone to think about his offer, or maybe there hadn’t been enough time left, or maybe he’d even – rightly – noted that Denizen was in no mood to try and catch up.

  Instead, Denizen had been left in what he supposed you’d have to call the Daybreak canteen. It probably wasn’t what they called it. Canteens generally didn’t have swooping ceilings hung with snow-white pennants, or well-worn flagstone floors, but Denizen had eaten in a canteen for eleven of his fourteen years and there was a certain canteenishness about the place all the same.

  Denizen sat in an alcove where he could observe the whole room – the long benches, incongruously modern coffee machines and the counter, behind which lurked a Knight whose apron and disposable gloves did absolutely nothing to dilute his air of contained murder.

  Denizen wasn’t at all fazed to see Knights manning the mashed potatoes. The Order weren’t the types to outsource their dirty work. Besides, he thought sourly, if anyone could talk a hard-bitten warrior into a hairnet, it would be Greaves.

  It was so like Greaves. The last time they’d met, he’d leaked false information to Denizen to see if his loyalty lay with Mercy or the Order, and now he’d even found a way to turn that to his advantage. And yes, in fairness, he was doing it to keep the world safe, but that was the problem with Greaves – you had to use the phrase in fairness a lot.

  And it made sense. That was the worst part. Daybreak was where Denizen could do the most good. Here, with Greaves, and away from …

  Denizen thought about his birthday, just a few weeks gone – clustered around a single table in Seraphim Row’s huge kitchen, gifts and stories and a little paper hat that Vivian had resolutely refused to wear but folded primly and put in her pocket. Jack had sung, his voice rich and warm as a forge fire, and …

  I could write. Email. Surely Greaves wouldn’t mind –

  And there it was – this was Greaves’s territory. All communication would have to go through him. Giant as this place was, Denizen suddenly felt very trapped.

  You’re being selfish. He picked at the ancient wood of the table. Nearly a year ago, Denizen had put himself in between a Tenebrous and a child. He could have run. Nobody would have known. But he’d made a choice.

  He’d stayed then. He should stay now. And time would pass, and year after year of Neophytes would come and go, and his friends would write, and maybe they wouldn’t start to resent him for being safe in his tower, but sooner or later, one way or another, the letters would stop.

  And he’d be here. Waiting for someone who might never actually show up.

  Denizen shrank back as teenagers began slipping through the door with the careful gait of bodies who’d been sparring all morning. There was a coltish not-quite-thereness to their movements that was disquietingly familiar, like seeing a stranger in your clothes. There were so many of them.

  Denizen scanned the crowd and –

  ‘Guys!’ Denizen winced at the eager squeak that came out of his mouth. ‘Guys!’

  Fortunately, Abigail clocked his frantic waving before it went on too long, and they wound their way to him through growing crowds.

  ‘I hate to break it to you,’ Simon said, when they had got close enough, ‘but you’re late for training.’

  With a jolt of horrified embarrassment, Denizen realized there was a lump in his throat. Stop being ridiculous. He swallowed, and forced a grin to fill the silence.

  ‘Yes,’ Denizen managed. ‘I’ll explain, but – how did it go?’

  Abigail threw herself into the back of the alcove, her face like thunder. Simon and Denizen exchanged glances. Denizen had had personal experience of just how patient Abigail could be, but generally that expression meant something was going to get broken.

  ‘Is … something wrong?’

  Abigail’s shoulders rolled in a fluid shrug. ‘No.’

  One eye on Abigail in case breaking stuff was still on the menu, Simon sat down as well.

  ‘Grey is our Master of Neophytes.’

  ‘Oh!’ Denizen said, and suddenly Greaves’s offer gained new and tangled dimensions. He could vouch first-hand for Grey’s teaching skills, but he couldn’t deny that his former mentor might not be in the best … head
space for teaching.

  But if I stay I’ll see more of him. Yesterday the thought would have cheered him immensely, but that was … Before? Was that what he was about to think? Was Denizen going to avoid his friend just because the war had changed him? Wasn’t that what war did?

  And isn’t it kind of your fault?

  He was jolted out of his reverie by Abigail abruptly jumping from her seat and stalking towards the queue for food.

  Denizen frowned. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Simon said. ‘She’s been super-quiet since training. And I know you guys were trained by Grey, but I have to say, if the rest of the year is like his opening speech …’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Simon pressed both his hands down on to the tabletop between them, but not before Denizen saw them shake.

  ‘Denizen … I spent a month hiding from the Clockwork Three in Crosscaper and I don’t think I ever even really saw them, not properly, but, when you’re being … being hunted like that, I felt like I knew them. You know?’

  Light streamed in through the high windows, but the taller boy’s eyes blinked furiously, as if trying to see in the dark.

  ‘The Boy used to cry. Constantly. I could feel the sound in my hair, on my tongue. The Woman in White had this skittering, loping walk, like she would occasionally move to all fours …’

  ‘I remember,’ Denizen said softly.

  ‘And the Man in the Waistcoat … he thought he was so funny. He’d make little jokes to himself as they went around destroying the classrooms, read out those stupid posters that Mr Colford used to put up about staying positive –’

  Mr Colford had been their favourite teacher in Crosscaper. Denizen had never heard Simon refer to anything he did as stupid before.

  ‘He had this way of mocking all the good things he found, all the good things in the world. He read the birthday card you sent me and he made it sound horrible. And, on top of all that, they twisted Crosscaper around them. Our home. Our childhood.

  ‘They made it theirs. And now, now I know that’s what Tenebrous do, but at the time I thought I was going mad. I thought they were in my head.’

  ‘Look …’ Simon spoke so rarely of those weeks that, when he did, Denizen felt like he had been handed something incredibly fragile to hold, and a single wrong word would break it forever. ‘Simon, they didn’t even know you were there. They weren’t in your head.’

  ‘I know,’ Simon said. ‘They were in Grey’s.’

  They sat in silence until Abigail returned, carrying a tray loaded with enough food for all three of them.

  ‘You need to eat,’ she explained, ‘even if someone didn’t come to training.’

  ‘Hey,’ Denizen said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Abigail said, flashing them both a grin. ‘So where were you?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Was it a … walrus situation?’

  ‘We never agreed to that code name,’ Denizen said. ‘But … yes.’ Both Simon and Abigail’s faces darkened as Denizen explained Greaves’s offer, warily eyeing the closest tables so they weren’t overheard.

  ‘He wants his eye on me,’ Denizen trailed off dismally. ‘It must be that. He wants me close because he thinks I’m …’

  ‘Like Grey,’ Abigail said, her voice stony. ‘But you’re not.’ She sighed. ‘Compromised, I mean. You had to save Mercy. We do what we have to – whatever victory demands.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Denizen said. Which was true. It was only in the subsequent months that thoughts of a decidedly squishy variety had bloomed. At the time, all he’d thought was that Mercy was very loud and he was probably going to die.

  ‘I don’t think Greaves judges Grey for what happened either,’ Simon said. ‘He’s tried to help him, from what I can see. And yes, I know, Greaves, but that’s something about him I’d actually believe.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Denizen said. ‘I just …’

  ‘You just don’t want to be left behind,’ Simon said, and smiled. ‘Because we have very short memories, and as soon as I’m not sleeping at the foot of your bed I’m definitely going to forget you ever existed. Won’t we, Abigail?’

  ‘Forget about who?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Guys,’ Denizen said. ‘You’re not funny.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon said, and Denizen told himself that it was the lingering thought of the Three that put the hollow edge in his smile. ‘We are.’

  Denizen looked at the plate in front of him, loaded with the same sort of primeval mush that Vivian served in Seraphim Row – so healthy you could have used it to terraform Mars.

  ‘Now eat,’ Abigail said, iron in her tone. ‘We have a long day ahead.’

  She was right. Lunch gave way to languages, a towering mantis of a woman named Madame Adler marching the gathered Neophytes through French verbs with military precision.

  There was a lot to take in. It wasn’t that their training had been haphazard; it was just that it had been dictated by Vivian’s sensibilities, some subjects pursued with her typical vehemence, and others … not. Darcie had made a fair stab at picking up the slack, but listening to a friend was one thing, a stranger surrounded by strangers another.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad,’ Abigail, who spoke French already, said as they walked to their next class.

  ‘French I’m fine with,’ Simon said, ‘but first thing tomorrow we have Latin. Latin. That is not a tomorrow language. That’s a yesterday language. Three or four thousand yesterdays, in fact.’

  ‘Well, technically, we should have been studying Latin all year,’ Abigail, who also knew Latin, said. ‘It was just far easier to ask Darcie.’

  The thought sent a pang through Denizen. Even their conversations felt a bit uneven, like a familiar song played with an instrument missing. Get used to it, a voice hissed cruelly in his head, as they navigated their way through the corridors. In a year, you’ll be playing solo.

  ‘So,’ Simon said. ‘Have you … have you decided what you’re going to do?’

  ‘No,’ Denizen said. ‘I haven’t. But –’

  Abigail cut him off. ‘What do you mean, what he’s going to do? He’s going to stay.’

  Denizen flushed with shock, marbled with the first stirrings of anger. ‘Well, I haven’t had a chance to think about –’

  Abigail sighed. ‘That’s not what I mean, Denizen. Think back. Did Greaves actually ask you?’

  ‘Em …’

  No. No he hadn’t. He had neatly skewered each of Denizen’s protestations, but, now that Denizen thought about it, it hadn’t felt like an argument, with both sides having an equal chance of convincing the other.

  It had felt like an order.

  ‘I’m sorry, Denizen,’ Abigail said, ‘but things are different now. I’m not saying Vivian ever went easy on us, especially not on you. But she did things her own way, and so does Greaves. We mightn’t like him –’

  ‘We don’t like him,’ Simon interrupted but his attempt at humour fell flat.

  ‘– but he’s in charge. He gets to give us orders and, unless they’re morally wrong, we have to follow them. That’s what being a soldier means. And from the sound of it he’s right. If she shows up again, and you can help, then you should. This is what you signed up for. It’s your duty.’

  Denizen’s shoulders slumped. She was right. She really was.

  Yield not to evil, but attack all the more boldly. It had been the Hardwick motto for more than a thousand years. Vivian might have done her own thing, but only after a lifetime of sacrifice and battle. She’d earned the right to bend the rules a little.

  Denizen, in fairness, had not.

  7

  Battlefield

  They went to be social.

  The Neophytes’ Solar had settees, tapestries, rugs on the floor to take some of the chill from the flagstones – even a dusty TV and DVD player with a single box set of world history documentaries underneath.

  It softened the chamber a little, but there was only
so much you could do with a stone box. Abigail appreciated them trying to provide somewhere homey, but the first thing Neophytes learned was that everywhere was a battlefield, if you knew where to look.

  Abigail scanned the room. A few little cliques had already formed, but many teenagers just sat alone, awkwardly trying to look around without being seen to do so. Simon immediately made a dash for the closest chair, curling up as if he were hoping to disappear between the cushions.

  ‘We’ll have to talk to them sometime,’ Abigail said quietly, perching on the armrest. She was trying to be patient with the boys’ reluctance, but her whole childhood had been spent finding strange adults trying to hide bandages under their sleeves at breakfast.

  In Abigail’s family, elders were referred to as aunt and uncle by tradition, but for those Knights that passed through the house it was more than that – they were family, by blood spilled rather than shared.

  ‘I know,’ Simon said grumpily. ‘I just wish Denizen had stuck around. I wanted to talk to him about … stuff.’

  ‘I think he’s talked out,’ Abigail said, though in truth she’d also been a little disappointed when Denizen had begged off social time and gone to his cell. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Gah. All right. I’m just … picking one. Hang on.’

  ‘Nope,’ she said, and yanked Simon out of his chair before he had a chance to protest. Ignoring his white-hot glare, she approached the tiny Neophyte with the bank-manager frown, who was sitting ramrod-straight on a plush footstool, gaze fixed on the window as if thinking of diving out of it.

  Abigail could feel eyes on her. Nobody else had made such a bold move across the floor. But there was her mother’s voice: Sometimes you have to go first. That way you make it easier for everyone else.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

  The kid looked at her with an expression of pure panic, hair cropped short around features almost too delicate to hold eyes that big. When the small Neophyte spoke, their voice was surprisingly deep. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘How are you?’ Simon repeated, trying to nonchalantly lean against the wall before realizing it was a little too far and straightening himself out. ‘We’re Simon and Abigail. I’m Simon.’ He frowned. ‘That was probably obvious.’