by Joe Ducie
“They’re here to see me?”
He glanced at me askance. “You know, you should visit more often. You’re not nearly as hated as you think.”
“Really?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Great swaths of the universe would cheer to see your head on a pike out front of the palace, but the Knights—your people—know the good work you’ve done.”
And indeed, as we approached the Argent Shield, a slow but sure round of applause rang out from the crowd Eyes that had been watching our approach solemnly, perhaps seeing me for the first time, broke into joyful, bright… something, something that may have been hope. A cheer arose in the crowd, and Vrail laughed softly to himself, most likely at my dumbfounded expression.
“Give ’em hell, Hale!” a voice cried out.
“Welcome back, Commander!”
“Nice waistcoat.”
And dozens of similar cheers trailed after us, doing no good at all for the headache brewing just behind my eyes, but improving my resolve considerably.
We approached the boarding ramp of the Argent Shield and were greeted by the rest of our crew. Two Sentinel Knights that I didn’t recognize. Technically they were a rank above me, but I’d been given command through royal decree. Both were old enough to have fought in the Tome Wars, which meant I wasn’t dealing with freshly minted recruits, but soldiers who knew what our morbid business was about. “Ship’s stocked and ready for departure, Commander Hale,” said the one to my right—a young woman, early thirties, blue eyes. Her blond hair was tied back in a no-nonsense braid, tucked into the hood of her silvery cloak. Her molded battle garb complemented her fit figure. “I’m Sentinel Marcia Cotton.”
“Ship’s not anything flash,” said the other Knight—a grizzled, large man who stood a good seven feet tall, more than a head over Vrail. His arms were like tree trunks, under his cloak, and a thick beard covered most of his face below his keen violet eyes. “But she’s sturdy and flies true. Sentinel Adam Gough, Commander.”
The sleek ship would be fast, given its relatively small size. Next to the Blade of Spring, it would be like a small, fluffy Chihuahua nipping at the heels of a Labrador, but that could work in our favor.
I’d like to have a dog one day. Somewhere wide open, green, and quiet. After all my wars are fought… “But then, if I could have that,” I muttered, just to myself, “I wouldn’t be here at all.”
“What was that, Commander?” Marcia asked.
“I said we best be underway. You two pilots?” They nodded. “Then you’re driving.” I hefted the weapon I’d signed out of the armory onto my shoulder. “I’ll ride shotgun.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Drops of Jupiter
“This could be the start of something, you know,” Vrail said. We were seated in the rear compartment of the Argent Shield, just after takeoff. Our pilots Marcia and Adam were zeroing in on Shadowman’s trail so we could follow him across worlds. “You back in action, I mean. It’s been a slow half-decade without you. If you’re back for good, we could see about cleaning up the Outer Territories. Piracy’s getting worse out on the spiral arm of the Golden Carousel. You leading your own small unit, high-value missions like this… We could get some work done.”
Not too long ago Vrail had told me he thought I, not my older half-brother, belonged on the Dragon Throne. What had he said? “Sentiment in the city may have been twisted against you, Declan, by your brother and his court, but more than a few remember who it was that ended a century of madness and slaughter.” I didn’t think I had it in me to seize the Dragon Throne. “You have a duty, Declan. And that’s the last word I’ll say on this matter.”
True to his word, he hadn’t mentioned the feasibility of committing high treason since. Perhaps he’d soured to the idea of a drunken madman on the throne.
“It’s good to be back in the fold,” I admitted. The triumphant cheers I’d received upon approaching the Argent Shield had been encouraging. Perhaps I wasn’t as hated as my exile had led me to believe. Perhaps I had it in me to do a good job at Knightly business again.
A second chance was rare in my line of work, as most first chances failed in death or worse than death. Could I ever be forgiven for the things I’d done? For the Degradation? For desolating Reach City with the Roseblade to thwart the Renegades? For the legions that had died, for me and my insistence that the job get done, no matter the cost?
Broken quill, I didn’t deserve a second chance, but perhaps Vrail was right. Perhaps I could find meaning and purpose in my work. If my exile had taught me one thing, it was that life needed purpose, whether you were a Knight or a blackberry farmer. When all was said and done, I was good at being a soldier, if not the best, and I could do some good…
I flexed my arms and stretched the mythril plates under my shirt and across my chest. “I like the sound of that. Better than a civil war for the throne, eh?” I joked. “Let’s go see where we’re headed.”
The Argent Shield was a small enough vessel, fast and light, so all that separated the flight deck from the rear compartment was a small galley containing standard rations and an airlock for zero atmosphere or underwater work. The Knights built their ships to be versatile. We entered the flight deck, and I leaned on the headrest of Sentinel Adam’s seat.
“How are we looking?” I asked Marcia, who was strapped into the command chair. The flight deck resembled a cockpit of an airliner, save for the crystal beacons and weaponry controls. All seven feet of Adam was squashed into the co-pilot’s chair. He monitored a screen that displayed an ion trail through the upper atmosphere—Shadowman’s footprints in the sand.
“He’s jumped some distance,” Marcia said, giving me a glance over her shoulder. “Narrowing the pattern down now.”
Smoke rose from a dozen fires far below in Ascension City. At our height, we held a commanding view of the city and the miles upon miles of districts spanning the east and south. I could see right up to the mountains that encased the city to the west and the distant blue sea to the north.
One of the consoles chimed an agreeable bell tone, and I cracked my knuckles. “Right then, where we headed?”
“Oh, you’re not going to like it,” Adam grunted, squinting at the display. “He’s somewhere near…”
“True Earth,” Marcia said. “He’s in the true universe.”
Visions of the Blade of Spring hovering in the sky above Perth ran through my mind, and I swallowed hard. Most of the planet remained ignorant about the worlds behind the world. If Shadowman blazed through the atmosphere in that ship, however, he’d start a global panic. We might have already been too late.
“Somewhere near?” Vrail asked.
“Best as we can tell,” Adam said. “Do we follow?”
I didn’t need to think too hard on that one. “Let’s get him then, sentinels.”
Adam and Marcia set to work, igniting the reality beacon on the console and keying in the coordinates along Shadowman’s trail. The ship lurched—Vrail and I grasped handles just above our head—and jumped forward into the Void. The world of Ascension City faded away, replaced by a cord of strong golden light surrounded by inky blackness.
The Argent Shield shuddered as it leapt across universes, heading back to the start of the Story Thread. The trip lasted only about thirty seconds, yet in that time we covered a distance so inconceivably infinite that the mind couldn’t comprehend it.
Reality reasserted itself as we exited the Void, wisps of frost clinging to the outer hull of the ship, and a planet a thousand times the size of True Earth hung just off the starboard engines against a backdrop of about a hundred million stars.
“Is that…?” Vrail asked.
“Jupiter,” I said. “Can my new friends please tell me why we’re hovering above Jupiter, millions of miles from anything important?”
“Because he’s here,” Marcia said.
“Confirmed.” Adam tapped his screen and stared out at the planet.
“Where?” I asked,
glancing through the windscreen and scanning the visible space. “Are we below him?” The enemy’s gate is down…
“No, he’s in the atmosphere,” Marcia said, speaking slowly as if I were a child—or something dangerous she wasn’t sure would react well to being prodded. “The Blade of Spring can take the storms. The Argent Shield would be torn apart,” she said simply. “We can’t follow them any farther, Commander.”
“Not with that attitude,” I quipped, already pondering how to navigate into a gas supergiant riddled with storms the size of True Earth. Why the hell is he hiding out here?
“The bastard must’ve known he had one of the only ships currently outfitted for planet dives,” Adam said.
What was my shadow doing? Ducking into Jupiter’s atmosphere was a move I would have made, but only if I were trying to hide.
Shadowman was not trying to hide—he’d bombarded Ascension City, sworn death to the Everlasting. He was loud and bleeding arrogance… but he’d retreated into the storm clouds of Jupiter? What was his game? But I found one of them, Declan. Yes, yes. With the Historian’s help, I have found one of the stinking bastards…
Out here? Did he think the planet a place I couldn’t—wouldn’t—follow him?
“Well played, Shadowman…” I wasn’t beaten yet. An insane yet alluring idea formed in the back of my mind and shuffled forward, a wicked glint in its eye. “Have any of you read Prince of Galaxy VII by Tom… I forget his last name. It’s sci-fi, nothing groundbreaking. Just good old-fashioned space opera.”
“Was the author Willful?” Vrail asked.
“He most assuredly was,” I said. “It’s one of the many books I read during my exile—you guys probably wouldn’t ever encounter it without five years of empty time on your hands.”
“What tricks did you pull from it?” Adam asked, urging me to get to the point.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, staring out of the shielded glass up at the planet. Or down at the planet—direction didn’t really apply in a vacuum, so long as you applied propulsion in the correct manner. “So we definitely have a lock on the Blade, right? Precise coordinates within the planet?”
“To the inch,” Marcia said. “You thinking of firing one of the missiles? The storms will throw it off by hundreds—if not thousands—of miles.”
“This is a rescue mission. Res-cue,” I emphasized, stretching the word. “He’s got high-value hostages aboard. You don’t fire a missile at hostages.”
Marcia nodded. “Then what?”
I pooled smoky, luminescent Will into my palms. The bright smoke leaked between my fingers and lit the blood in my veins. It could work… But, hell, this will be one for the record books.
“See that look on his face?” Vrail asked Adam and Marcia. He was grinning. “That’s the look that ended the Tome Wars.”
*~*~*~*
Vrail helped me with the enchantments. We’d left the bridge and stood in the corridor just outside the portside airlock, opposite the galley. My skin and clothes were aglow with precise Will weaves and invocations. The mythril armor tingled and made me feel pins and needles in my legs and arms.
“This is stupid,” Vrail said. “No, this is reckless.”
“No reason it won’t work,” I said, my voice tight and perhaps betraying the worry seeping into my very bones.
Or was that “worry” coiled excitement? Hard to tell, but I was caring about the stakes in the game again. For the longest time, I’d been drifting in a fugue of indifference. I was back to work. Alive and productive. “Also, I received a pretty big inside tip a day or so ago that I’ve got at least a few years left in me. And—let’s be honest—I’ve done stupider things.”
Vrail considered that for a moment, then smiled wryly. “You know, if it were anyone else, this would be certain death. But how much longer do you think you can keep taking these chances, Hale, before one of them doesn’t pay off? You’ve the luck of a hundred Knights, you ken, but it’ll only take one wrong move to put you in the ground.”
“Or the cold, endless vacuum of space?”
“Or that.”
He had a point—a more than valid one, when all was said and done. I played the game, and I played it well, but at a certain point, didn’t the risk have to outweigh the benefit? Not saving the lives of Ethan, Sophie, and the Historian, of course—that was personal—but the risk of playing the game at all. You’re in too deep to ever stop playing, whispered that deceitful, belittling voice in the back of my head. You turn away now, and there are a hundred enemies, just waiting to plunge a dagger into your back. Just waiting for you to blink.
I took a deep breath.
That’s why you gave the kid to Annie.
And exhaled slowly.
“Well, I can only play the moves I have,” I told Vrail. A subtle but unnerving vibration shook the ship. Marcia and Adam must have steered us a lot closer to the planet than the occupational health and safety manual would recommend. “And right now, this is my only move. So let’s be about our work.”
“I think we must be in position,” Vrail said.
Marcia’s static-laden voice burst through the intercom on the airlock’s hatch. “That’s as close as we can get. Any closer will compromise the hull. If you’re going to do this mad thing, then do it.” She cut off with a string of curses.
“That one wouldn’t cry at your funeral.” Vrail chuckled.
“Oh, she just hasn’t got to know me yet.”
A heavy silence fell between us, the kind of silence only possible between two old friends who might’ve been about to never see each other again. I’d shared far too many of those silences, with far too many lost friends, and the lonely years that followed had been deafening in their silence.
We clapped each other on the shoulder and pressed our foreheads together, then separated.
“Pint at Edgar’s when this is all over?” he asked.
I was still nursing a headache from the shots I’d done at McSorley’s. “I’ll drink you under the table.”
“That’s the spirit.”
After one last check of the enchantments flowing across my skin, I stepped into the airlock, and the door slid closed behind me on near-silent rails. I was trapped in a small compartment about the size of a prison cell, and through the porthole window, I could glimpse nothing save the Earth-sized orange-and-purple storms, surging across the gas giant like bruises blossoming on skin.
“Ready?” Vrail asked through the intercom.
I steeled myself, said my final goodbyes to my son, Annie Brie, and a few others in my head then nodded. “Once I’m gone, head back to Ascension and let them know. Either I’ll return with the Blade or I won’t.”
“Long odds,” Vrail agreed. “Luck, Commander.”
A warning light bathed the white walls orange, and I heard the air start to leak from the compartment. The soft light turned to police siren blue, warning me of decompression. I was relatively safe inside my enchanted suit.
The outer door on the hull silently slid open, exposing me to the pure vacuum of space. Jupiter spun across my vision, and I took a deep breath. This is going to be spectacular. I squashed my lingering worry under a wave of devil-may-care excitement.
I felt a gentle tug, as if I were hooked on a loose line from within the atmosphere of the planet, and decided not to drag the moment out any longer.
Taking a leap of faith, I kicked off from the floor of the Argent Shield, out into space… and began my dive into the storm clouds of Jupiter.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Knight Fall
The enchantments coating my skin sealed me in a suit of artificial atmosphere—an invisible spacesuit, complete with a bubble of air—air that tasted like an ashtray, but air nonetheless. To an outside observer, however, I shot toward the planet in nothing save shirt, trousers, and a getup of waistcoat and scuffed black shoes. A lone figure hurtling toward certain death, if he wasn’t dead already, equipped with nothing more than a badass eye patch and a w
hole lot of wasted good intentions. I’d have liked to have brought the shotgun along, but there were limits even to this level of absurdity.
Space was quiet. Empty. Vast.
I didn’t feel the cold, but I could hear my own panted breathing and heart pounding. Jupiter filled my field of vision. A great, swirling sentinel of stormy gas and impossible size. Somewhere, in that mess, hid Shadowman and the Blade of Spring. The enchantment work Vrail and I had done, engineered from the tricks pulled from that sci-fi novel, should have been pulling me straight toward the ship’s hull.
All I had to do was grit my teeth, think of Paddy’s, and fall.
The Blade and I were like two magnets being drawn together. The stronger, more powerful magnet—the ship—was pulling me in. But blimey, if this worked, they’d be studying it in the Academy for centuries to come. If it didn’t—well, they’d still be studying it, but as a warning that no matter how much raw talent or power a Knight might have, he could still suffer from a monumental case of the fuckups.
As far as deaths went, though, I could’ve gone in a lot worse ways than by being pulled apart in the storm clouds of Jupiter. No one would ever say I died boringly.
Or without anyone to carry on your name…
I pushed that thought aside and concentrated on the task at hand.
The ability to pull enchantments out of stories already written was one of the greatest strengths of the Knights Infernal. We had needed to be precise, careful, and clever in devising my invisible protective layers, but because the general idea existed within the pages of a book, the enchantments could adapt and account for a thousand little details that simply wouldn’t have occurred to someone not versed in orbital diving. I didn’t glance off the atmosphere or shatter my bones into dust, because the enchantments absorbed the impact, pierced the upper atmosphere like a needle through a balloon, and flung me into the tortured sky of the planet.
I hit the storms a few minutes later and stretched the enchantments to their breaking point.
