Knight Fall

by Joe Ducie

  “You know what he’s like,” Sophie said softly.

  “More and more I do.” Annie rolled her eyes at me and leaned against the counter, inspecting the sleek silver shotgun. “And what’s with the woman on the couch? She… Emily… doesn’t look well.”

  “She looks a lot better than when she fell through my door,” I said. “Someone tortured her rather badly. We’ve healed most of the damage, and the baby is okay, as far as ’Phie could tell. It’s been a busy night, Annie.”

  Annie nodded. She seemed resigned, withdrawn. “The start of something? Like last time?”

  I shook my head, considered, and then shrugged. “Hard to tell—too early in the game. I don’t see any direct threat to Perth yet. But there’s nonsense afoot in Ascension City and across Forget—nonsense with my name written all over it.”

  Emily stirred, and I sat down next to her on the edge of the couch, near her knees. She was muttering again, so I leaned in close to try to tell what she was saying.

  Her eyelids fluttered open, and her gaze found me first, since I was leaning down over her. She smiled softly, bemused for a moment, then a ripple of something awful dashed across her face. She remembered, and her hands flew to her stomach, cradling her baby bump.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay.”

  Emily’s gaze darted around the room, flying from Sophie to Ethan, and lingering on Annie for a long moment. She then grasped my head and pulled my lips down to meet hers, kissing me once and then resting her forehead on my nose.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. Tears rolled down her cheeks—warm and sure. “You’re always there for me. Always kind.”

  “What happened, Em?” Despite the welcoming kiss, I was thinking of the dagger that Emily had slipped between my ribs not too long ago—and the stormy night in Atlantis when she had kicked me from the tower in the heart of the city to a certain death.

  For some reason, I’d already forgiven her. That was odd. I usually nurtured a grudge with the best of ’em.

  Emily gave a sad smile. “Just the past coming back to haunt me. Oceans of time washing away the sand and revealing secrets buried far too long ago.”

  “So we’re going the enigmatic route, huh?” I asked. “Riddles wrapped in murky words? My patience for that has long since worn down to the bone. Tell me, and tell it true, Em. Who did this to you?”

  “I’m sorry, Declan. I was trying to be kind…” Emily sighed, and I had the strangest sense that we’d had the conversation before, a long time ago. Déjà vu or something. “She had eyes of blood, Declan.”

  My heart clenched, as if Emily had plunged her hand into my chest and squeezed. Behind me, Sophie made a soft sound somewhere between a whimper and a gasp.

  “We don’t know it’s her,” I said quickly, staring at Emily but speaking to Sophie.

  Sophie said nothing, which said enough.

  “Of course it’s her…” I muttered. “Him, I should say, in her body. Lord Oblivion.”

  “He’s no longer bound to Atlantis,” Emily said. “When you severed the Infernal Clock, you severed the chains binding that beast to the Lost City. The cruelest of the Nine. He’s free and… vengeful.”

  Sophie wrapped her arms around herself, and her mouth wobbled, as if she were about to burst into tears.

  Ethan frowned and pulled her close. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I’d like to know the same,” Annie said.

  I took a deep breath and waited for Sophie to give me a tiny nod before exhaling. “You’ve all heard pieces of this particular tragedy before. Annie, you probably least of all. Pieces of—broken quill—of what had to be done. Six… damn, nearly six years ago now, I stormed Atlantis and forced an end to the Tome Wars. I gambled and lost, lost hard, against one of the Everlasting.”

  “Lord Oblivion?” Ethan asked.

  I shrugged. “Sophie’s sister, Tal, was with me. We were… We loved each other very much. She taught me what love was, why it mattered…” A broken kind of happiness. “I’d just annihilated the Renegade legions at the Reach with the Roseblade. Things were spiraling out of control. It was madness, madness. I killed… I killed a lot of people, most of them far too close to innocent.” I paused, reached for a bottle that wasn’t there, and grimaced. Sobriety was fast becoming a crippled crutch. “Some of the backlash spilled over into Ascension City, burning great swaths of it. The largest, most catastrophic battles in the hundred years of the Tome Wars were fought that night. Broken quill, but it was raw nightmare I unleashed with that damned sword. I’ve been dogged by white roses ever since.”

  “You ended the war,” Emily said softly, as if reminding me of the one good thing I’d done with my life. “I was there, Declan—one hundred years ago, when it all started. You were so young to do what you did, but you ended it. And it needed ending. Just like the Infernal Clock needed severing. It was the right time.”

  “At a cost, my dear,” I said. “I did it all at sheer cost to your armies and your old husband Morpheus. I… I’m sorry I killed him, by the way. For whatever sorry is worth to you.” I scratched at the band of my eye patch and grunted, more than a little frustrated. “No, I’m not sorry for killing him. He took something special from me, and if given the chance, I’d kill him again, a lot more slowly. I’m sorry for the hurt it must have caused you, though.”

  Emily sat up carefully, swinging her legs under the coffee table, a hand resting on her unborn child. “Morpheus and I were a marriage of long circumstance. I never loved him nor he me. I do not mourn his passing, Declan. His means to an end were far too cruel.”

  Something we may have had in common, I thought.

  “Sorry,” Annie said, “but did you say you were there at the start of the Tome Wars?”

  Emily cast an unreadable gaze at Annie—something, perhaps, hostile and cold. “I am the Immortal Queen,” she said simply, as if that explained her timeless grace.

  In the somewhat awkward silence that followed, Ethan cleared his throat. “So, ugh, you mentioned something about unleashing raw nightmare, boss? Sounds spooky.”

  I blinked, lost for a moment before I remembered what I’d been telling them. “Ah, right. Anyway, using the Roseblade that night in the Reach tore openings in the Void. Pure nothingness began to bleed into reality from a few key wounds. My grandfather, Aloysius, summoned me to the Forgetful Library to seal one of the tears. I didn’t know it at the time, but I prevented the largest incursion of Voidlings ever seen from pouring into Ascension City.”

  My companions listened in dead silence. For Ethan and Annie, a lot of the story was new, but all of them had been touched by the Void, Annie far more than she knew—far more than I’d told her, at least.

  “With the Knights and Renegades still reeling from the Reach, I saw no other choice. It was my first real act of madness, even after the destruction of the Reach. The chaos was preferable to the Void. So Tal and I gambled on Atlantis, on what we knew was hiding there.”

  “Imprisoned there,” Emily said.

  “Aye, say it true, my dear. What was rotting in that cursed city.”

  Leaning against the counter, Annie tapped her hip. “The Everlasting, yes? Like that Scion son of a bitch from a few months ago.”

  “Scion’s older brother, I suppose.” Although his host body—what remained of Tal—was female. It was still a he, if any sort of gender could’ve been ascribed to something as ancient and alien as the Everlasting. “Bit of a nut job. It took my shadow and… Sophie, I’m sorry…”

  “I’ve heard this before,” she said, giving me a hard look I knew well—a look that suggested it should have been me, that night, and not her sister.

  I couldn’t have agreed more. “My shadow and Tal’s essence. It scattered pieces of us across the Void. I was granted a boon, in a way. Voidlings can’t really touch me or work their awful magics to wound me. Shadowless, I am poison to them. And Tal… Tal was destroyed.”

  “And for your shadow and my sister’s soul,�
� Sophie whispered, “you got the Degradation, and Morpheus Renegade surrendered. The Tome Wars were over, and you didn’t have to use the Roseblade again, which would’ve made the cracks in the Void, sprouting up all across Forget and the Story Thread, worse. Almost worse enough to pierce reality here on True Earth.”

  “Victory at a cost so high, it may as well have been defeat,” I said. “The only clever thing I did that night was surrender the Roseblade to an old friend in Ascension City. Last I saw of it, though—you had the blade, Emily.”

  She offered me a small smile and patted my knee.

  Ethan sighed. “So Oblivion is out and about in Forget. No longer in Atlantis. And it was Oblivion that hurt Emily, but it—he—looked like Tal?”

  The Immortal Queen of the Renegades nodded.

  “I get the feeling we’re heading full circle toward something dangerous.” I clenched my fists. “Why did Oblivion attack you, Emily?”

  “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  “That’s the wrong question, Declan.” Emily put a soft hand on the back of my neck. “What’s the right question?”

  Her hand felt warm, almost comforting. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at—”

  “Why does Oblivion choose to still look like Tal Levy?”

  That… was actually a good question. Thinking on Tal hurt, and always would, but that question…

  I feared the answer—not for my own sanity, but for what it could mean, after all these years, in which I’d loved and lost without Tal. I swallowed and hesitated for a moment, considering the answer from all angles, and then took the plunge. “Tell me then. Why does Oblivion still look like her?”

  “To wound you.” The Immortal Queen cupped my cheek in her palm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Annie tense, a hand hovering over her service weapon. “Oblivion is seeking revenge for Scion’s defeat. You were a novelty to the Everlasting, all those years ago. A useful toy to their ends, to severing the Infernal Clock and the locks on the Eternal Prison. An unwitting pawn on the grandest stage in all the universes.” Emily sighed. “Oh, Declan, better you had stayed that way. Because now the Elder Gods are coming for you.”

  Whoop-de-fucking-do. “And they hurt you to… what, get my attention?” I asked, a touch confused. Emily and I were friends, despite the occasional stabbing and murder, but there were faster avenues to draw my gaze. Better avenues.

  “You’re surprised.” She laughed softly. “Forgive me, but I often forget how young you are. It’s your eyes, you know, the eyes of an old man that watched civilizations burn. That burned them. You’ll understand soon, I promise, why hurting me was the surest strike they could have made against you.”

  We fell into silence for a moment, and I scratched my stubbly chin. The red and blue lights from the police cruiser still splashed against the walls.

  “I’m going to go see how those two are getting on outside,” Annie said. “Declan, can I have a word, please?”

  I stood and followed Annie back through the labyrinth of high shelves once more, stacked with books and buried in the cool scent of old leather and vanilla.

  When we reached the door, she put her hand on the knob, turned, and gave me a piercing stare. “That woman killed you, Declan.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “No.”

  Annie opened the door and stepped out into the dreary night. The rain had almost entirely given over. Thunder still rumbled, but distantly. “Every instinct in me is screaming that something is amiss with her, Declan.”

  And, having said her piece, Annie trudged across the drowned cobblestones toward her colleagues, leaving me with that to think on.

  I closed the door and left it unlocked, the wards down, and headed back through my shop. Sophie blocked my path halfway through the maze, somewhere between Crime and Sci-Fi. Her eyes glinted dangerously in the half-light.

  “’Phie, I think I know what you’re going to say and—”

  “Do you think she’s still in there?” Sophie asked, grasping my forearm hard enough to hurt. “Declan, Dec… Could my sister still be alive?” she whispered fiercely.

  And then I was back on that tower in Atlantis, where I’d fallen through time and death. Where, all things said and done, I should have died half a decade ago instead of Tal. But that night of the fall, earlier in the year… The creature that looked like Tal staring down at me—hating and, perhaps, fearing me—as a storm of cherry blossom petals raged and burned like ash under a tormented, purple sky, something had changed that night.

  “Did you see a future for us, Tal?” I asked, but she only stared. “Did you see us waking up together? Smiling in the morning? Did you see us laughing and growing old? Did you see me loving you even more, for every morning as the years flew past?” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Boy, I sure did.”

  I sighed, and it turned into a wince that brought me close to tears.

  “Please, say something.”

  An arc of wicked purple lightning tore the heavens apart behind Tal.

  “Oh, well. Songbird, I love—”

  Tal pressed an ethereal finger against my lips. Her eyes, the eyes of a Knight, blurred from harsh crimson to soft pepper brown. For a heartbeat—or the moment between—she was mine again in mind, body, and soul.

  “I know,” she whispered, and she vanished like smoke on the wind.

  I stared into Sophie’s eyes and lied, “She’s dead, ’Phie. We lost her a long time ago.”

  Chapter Six

  Renegade Ideas

  Annie returned, a net of water droplets coating her dark hair, and stared out of the window alcove overlooking Riverwood Plaza. Her two fellow lawmen were still out and about in the rain, dusting for prints and looking for clues and what have you. The rain had hindered them somewhat, which was useful, but the storm was passing, and I was still trying to decide what my next move should be.

  Indecision was usually the gamble of these games in the night—too many ways to move and far too easy to see all the mistakes I was about to make.

  Should I go after Shadowman, my unholy twin, and mount a rescue for the Historian? What of Emily being attacked by the Everlasting Oblivion—attacked by what was left of Tal Levy, a girl I had loved and lost and spent the last six years trying to find again in the bottom of too many—not enough—scotch bottles? Hell, should I seek out the Knights in Ascension City, try to explain the latest round of chaos?

  Safe to assume that King Faraday’s patience with me may have worn a touch thin, despite my rescinded exile status. I could see them shackling me in star iron first and asking questions later. Or just lopping off my head and have done with it. Arbiter Drax and a few others would be chewing at the bit for that particular honor.

  Annie said something that pulled me from my thoughts. “Sorry?” I asked. “I missed that.”

  “I’m stalling them,” she said. “The officers outside. Against my better judgment. They’ll want to chat soon. What’s the move, Declan?”

  Emily sat poised on the edge of the couch, amidst the stacked crinkled pages of my unfinished novel, watching me with a calm grace that belied the condition she had been in only a short while ago. Arms linked, Sophie and Ethan leaned against a creaky case of books, also watching me.

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath to steel myself. “Okay. Here’s the thing. Twice in the last six months, I’ve been pulled back into Forget, once to my death, and second to the destruction of the Atlas Lexicon and Scion’s incursion on Diablo Beach. Both times the Everlasting were playing me for a fool. Not again. Time to get back in the game properly.”

  Ethan gave me a quick salute. “With ya, boss.”

  I opened my mouth to shoot him down, thought on it a moment, and then nodded. Ethan had proven himself resilient this past year, and his Will training had progressed in leaps and bounds after he’d seen the kids at the Infernal Academy outperforming him. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, either—or, more importantly, of tak
ing a hit.

  Sophie frowned but nodded. “I won’t sit this one out, a prisoner of the Academy, or be left behind like on the Plains of Perdition. I’m with you, as well.”

  Annie wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. “I don’t know if I want to get pulled into another whirlwind adventure with you, Declan. Or, you know, another pub crawl. The last time…” She rubbed at the spot where Scion had shattered her skull and killed her. Her eyes filled with tears. “Why can I always feel you in my head? Like there’s a compass pointing right at you in my mind!”

  “Annie…” I didn’t know what to say. Now wasn’t the time. Is there ever going to be a good time to tell her she died and you brought her back? Ethan and Sophie stared at me strangely, confused, and Emily avoided my gaze. Em knew the truth—hell, she’d slipped the immortality petal into Annie’s pocket in the ruins of the Atlas Lexicon. “I’m not sure.”

  “Could it have something to do with that, that dagger? Myth?” she asked wearily.

  I glanced quickly at Emily again, an unspoken warning for Annie to keep her silence about Myth.

  The Immortal Queen only offered me a small smile and a quiet laugh. “Oh, Declan, I know you found yourself another trinket of celestial illusion. I know you’ve hidden it somewhere nearby. The Creation Knife. You used it to blind Scion.”

  “Eye for an eye,” I muttered, tapping the patch covering my left socket. The eye was whole but useless. I’d plucked Scion’s clean out. The roughshod immortality afforded to me from the petal of the Infernal Clock in my heart made me something dangerous to the Everlasting, as the loss of my shadow made me dangerous to the Void.

  “Yes. Well, you can use the knife to take us to Voraskel,” Emily said.

  I blinked, sure I’d misheard. Sophie chuckled uncertainly, as if responding to a rather tasteless and poor joke. Ethan chewed on the word, likely trying to remember where he’d heard it before. Annie just sighed, as lost as ever.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pressing my thumb and forefinger against my brow, warding away the inevitable headache, “but did you say ‘Voraskel’?”