by Joe Ducie
Ethan took a step toward me. I sent a blast of Willfire to scatter at his feet, keeping him away.
Chunks of stone began to collapse under our feet. The ramp up to the hovering cruiser would not be accessible much longer.
So I smiled at my friends, gave them a wink, and made them a promise I had no idea if I would keep. “I’ll see you again. You think this, of all things, could end me?” I scoffed at the idea. “Now go. I won’t be far behind.”
The power in the sword was building, and the whole dais started to glow. The liquid light flowed along invisible tracks, forming archaic runes, and the blade grew hot in my grip. A breeze rushed up from the slot in the Clock stem, tossing my waistcoat back. I didn’t know what was about to happen—and I was afraid.
At least my friends would be safe.
“Thank you, Declan,” Sophie said, with such sincerity that my resolve almost broke. She knew—oh, they both knew—what leaving me meant.
Sophie and Ethan fled, stumbling a little with Tal dangling between them.
The tower split down the middle just as my friends reached the cruiser ramp. Go on… They ascended the ramp and were just about to enter the cruiser when Tal bucked in their grip, throwing herself back. She rolled back down the ramp and landed on her knees and elbows.
Her honey-brown hair whipped in the breeze, and she looked up—right at me—a fierce smile and a mask of determination on her face.
“Tal!” Sophie cried. “No, Tal!”
Tal leapt to her feet, and just as the courtyard broke away entirely and a monumental piece of the tower collapsed on the ruined city below, she closed the distance between us and jumped across the gap, landing on the dais before the remains of the Infernal Clock. The wind whipped up strands of her long hair into my face, tickling my chin.
Sophie made to run after her sister, but Ethan grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the cruiser. A good thing, too, as the ramp now ended with a mile of open sky. The last I saw of my friends was Sophie clawing at Ethan to release her…
And then the Roseblade exploded.
A blinding burst of heat and light overwhelmed me, and I shielded my good eye against the brightness. The world shook underfoot, and when I chanced a look, I saw that the dais was aglow with a rainbow of glyphs and runes, spinning across the diameter of the stone faster than the eye could follow.
The Roseblade melted in my grip, hot and fierce, releasing my wounded and bloodied palm, and I ran across to Tal and put my arms around her as the dais was swept out of Atlantis and sent tumbling into the Void. Thunderous wailing and even harsher coils of air forced me to my knees, cradling Tal against the storm as the encroaching darkness absorbed everything but the ten feet of glowing stone beneath us.
Blackened petals from the melted blade stuck to the dais. The sword had been destroyed, but just what in all creation had I unlocked?
We’re going to die… Just when I’ve got her back, in my arms, we’re going to die.
Tal looked up into my eye, and a thousand words were said in a heartbeat. We both knew it was the end—together again, only briefly. She had abandoned Sophie and Ethan to die with me.
I gasped, and something hot and warm rolled down my cheek.
Tears fell from my eye and into Tal’s hair. I was weeping. And the odds against that were a long fool’s bet, so much so that I laughed, honest and true, and pulled Tal closer.
If I was to die young, then so be it. Fuck the causality; at least I’d freed Tal from Oblivion’s grip. One good act before the end. Time and the Story Thread could sort itself out regarding Emily and my son, given that we had never done the deed, so to speak, to conceive him in the first place. If I were to die here, then bring on the darkness, because I was done and dusted a long time ago.
Death seemed like a fair price to pay for what I’d achieved.
Blimey, if anything, I’d gotten off light. Death was easy—I’d done it before and felt nothing but relief. The sheer cost of my life up until that point was overwhelming. The people who had died for me, because of me… the numbers were staggering. Lives I had ended, cut short, sheared as white roses in the rain. Lives that just weren’t anymore. It was too easy to attach some cause or purpose to why the dead were dead. To end the Tome Wars, to stop the Everlasting, to prevent a Voidflood…
All the reasons I had acted. All the reasons why the weight of a million souls—and a million more—sat heavy on my shoulders.
Easier to make the choices than to live with the dire cost.
That’s the rub, you know. The unseen but all-too-well-known consequence to playing the game. I could make all the right choices, checkmate in two moves, and still carry the infernal weight of those I had damned.
It would be better, easier, if I were crueler.
Better if I were a lot of things. Knight, exile, renegade, ghost, shadowless… father.
The dais struck something hard, and we were knocked off-balance, out of each other’s arms, and bright reality reasserted itself. Like paint spilled from a tin against a blank canvas, an azure sky spread across the heavens, bleeding over a true horizon under a golden sun. Scents of cool air, of wildflowers on the wind, and the sounds of a bustling city far below appeared on the canvas, drawn by some unseen hand.
We’d fallen out of the Void—alive.
When and where… I looked around, taking in my surroundings, and fell off my feet with a strangled cry. It seemed we hadn’t moved at all, at least in space, but the courtyard and the scattered crystal petals burnt into the floor… I landed on my injured hand, and a spike of pain shooting up my arm forced me onto my back. A bird, an eagle or seahawk, flew across the cloudless sky.
Somewhere nearby, I heard shuffling and a soft gasp.
“I don’t know if I should’ve done that,” I said to the shuffling. “Unleashing the Arsenal… it was selfish.” The shuffling stopped. “When all is said and done, Oblivion is going to do far more harm than good.”
“So you’d rather I had stayed his leash?” Shuffling whispered.
“I’d rather a lot of things, you know. Rather I’d been born to some other role and left alone to enjoy the simple things—sandy beaches, blue oceans, tall mountains, and fresh snowfall.” Blackberry jam. “I love you,” I said, cradling my wounded hand in my lap as I sat up. “Even when we were kids and didn’t know what that meant, I loved you.”
Tal Levy sat on the dais next to me and hefted me up into a sitting position. She placed her small arm across my shoulders, pulling me in close. “Love you, too. Please look at me, Declan.”
I looked at the scattered rose petals instead, dispersed from the Roseblade and fused to the dais. A profound relief, to have destroyed that sword, and another ounce of victory I could scrape from the bottom of the barrel.
The world around us felt familiar, like a comfortable pair of boots, and a terrifying idea of just where we had ended up gripped me and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t say how far the blade had pulled us through the Void—certainly a good distance, but we were exactly where we had started: the tower in Atlantis.
Only here it still stood, whole and hearty. The tower looked new.
We were alive. I could guess where I was, but when I was…
I feared I was dead and this—and Tal—was a cruel dream.
But Tal felt real. Her warm breath, her olive skin, and the quiet strength in her arm across my shoulders. At the Tomb of the Sleeping Goddess she had been real only in the sense that she was a mouthpiece for the Everlasting. She had been torn asunder then and for the last six years, but now… a bargain struck and another death cheated.
Please look at me, Declan, she had said.
“I’m afraid you’ll disappear,” I whispered. After all the years and all the worlds, how would I even know what was a dream or not? Did it matter?
We lived in a universe full of horrors, and we strolled through worlds that were once dreams in the minds of madmen. And I guessed you had to be a little mad to not only dream but to act
ually try to create that dream. Put the words on the page, so to speak. Forget and the Story Thread, at their heart, were nothing more than a dream within a dream, imposing themselves on pure reality.
After everything, it would surprise me little if I woke up in a padded cell wearing a straitjacket. Although I would be disappointed.
Strange shuttles and speeding craft surrounded the tower. Cannons and sharp weaponry zeroed in on me and Tal. Footsteps echoed up from within the tower, and a single guard, garbed in resplendent armor and toting an honest-to-god blunderbuss, emerged on the plateau.
“Ji’to, nah!” he barked, gesturing with his weapon.
I didn’t recognize the language but the meaning was universal. Tal and I rose to our knees and put our hands above our heads. My left hand, impaled and mostly cauterized by the Roseblade, still bled a little, tricking down my arm. Tal slipped her left hand into my right. Her fingers were warm, alive, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Here we were—young, battle-torn, once dead, and alive—the pair of us… and unless I missed my guess, thrust back in time at least ten thousand years at the cost of an Everlasting armada and God knew how much war and carnage to come back home.
But after all was said and done, the last six years and the odds against us, there we were, together again. I’d won for once.
And that was hilarious.
“Al’do… sadwe!” barked the Atlantean guard, his ancient blunderbuss pointed square between my eyes. “Na-hoc one sulari!”
“I think he wants your number,” I said to Tal, as soldiers descended on flat spheres of energy from the hovering shuttles. We must have tripped an alarm…
She chuckled, low and soft. “Your eye patch?”
“Yeah?”
“Looks good.”
“Oh, by the Everlasting, not even half as good as you, songbird.”
Tal squeezed my fingers. “I love that name. Shoes are scuffed, and the waistcoat seems a little worse for wear, though.”
“Hala-du’sad we!” The guard gestured upward with his weapon. Another universal sign, if ever there was one. Tal and I stood, our hands still clasped together above our heads.
Far too long since I’ve held her hand…
“There’s this little bar,” I said. “Quiet, out of the way, only blown up once, and well on its way to being rebuilt… Paddy’s Pub in Joondalup on True Earth. You, me, and the Wednesday steak special make three?”
Tal giggled—a sound so pure I doubt she had uttered the same in over six years. “Are you asking me out on a date, Mister Hale?”
“I’d never presume, Miss Levy.”
“Maybe you should, just this once…”
“I’m sorry for getting you killed. Mind, body, and soul.”
“Don’t be. I chose it.” Tal sighed. “And we’ll always have Atlantis…”
The guard scowled. “Altantias? Suur… Nae Infernius lo dalis grewn!”
“I think we’ve pissed him off.” I was good at that. Some would say a touch too good. Paddy’s would have to wait about ten millenniums, unless my math was off. “Would you ever want to be the wife of a blackberry farmer?”
Tal hummed over the question for a moment. “Would this farmer of mine wear a devastatingly handsome eye patch and a ragged waistcoat?”
“I fear he would insist. But I’d make you queen of my jam empire…”
Tal looked me in the eye. I almost had to look away from her gaze, from eyes that had seen through me since we had first met—such a short time ago in the grand scheme of things. “Okay, one date at this pub of yours.”
The soldiers swooped in behind us, pulled our hands apart, and produced sparkling manacles of star iron. I winced a bit as my wounded hand was pulled behind my back and the cuffs snapped shut around my wrists.
Before they pulled us away, I leaned in close and caught Tal’s lips with my own, nothing more than a brush of a kiss and soon ended
. It was the best in my life. “Got you,” I said.
Tal laughed, clear and free. “Oh, Declan, you had me from the start.”
*~*~*~*
The End of Book Three
About the Author
Joe Ducie is a writer from Perth, Western Australia. By day, he charges a toll to cross a bridge he doesn’t own. Yet by night, in a haze of scotch-fuelled insanity, he works tirelessly on an array of stories both short and long. Joe possesses a fierce love of a smooth finish. Under no circumstances should you ask him just what that means. Also available from Joe Ducie:
The Reminiscent Exile series:
Distant Star
Broken Quill
Knight Fall (you just read this one, care to review it?)
Z-Apoc – A modern zombie tale: Part I – When John Met Sarah
Young Adult: The Rig (Hot Key Books, 2013 – Winner of the Hot Key Books & Guardian Young Writers Prize)
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Joe would love to hear your thoughts on writing, his books, or how best to slay the Valyrian Wilder-demons and their dark legions. He keeps a blog/web page. You could also follow him and demand more of his delicious words on Twitter, get in touch on Facebook, or send him a regular old email: [email protected]
Table of Contents
OPENING SALVO – WORLD-WEARY ENOUGH TO FALL ASLEEP IN A NIGHTCLUB
Chapter OneBroken Reason
Chapter TwoStorm Sense
Chapter ThreeMirrors
Chapter FourReunited Petals
Chapter FiveHunted
Chapter SixRenegade Ideas
Chapter SevenShining Armor
Chapter EightOld Voraskel
Chapter Nine ‘Ware the Everlasting
Chapter TenWarming Up
Chapter Eleven The Enchanted Forest of Astoria
Chapter Twelve A Tomfool of Cherry Blossoms
Chapter Thirteen The Tomb of the Sleeping Goddess
SALVO II – PUT YOUR LIPS ON ME FOR NO GOOD REASON
Chapter Fourteen Old and New
Chapter FifteenEach Breath She Takes
Chapter Sixteen Birth and Death
Chapter SeventeenDragon’s Fire
Chapter EighteenA Distant Star
3RD SALVO – I’M NOT ONE TO CRITIQUE A FUNERAL, BUT…
Chapter NineteenFractured Blackberries
Chapter TwentyStolen
Chapter Twenty-OneShadow Games
Chapter Twenty-Two Drops of Jupiter
Chapter Twenty-ThreeKnight Fall
Chapter Twenty-Four The Blade of Spring
Chapter Twenty-FiveI Still Don’t Like Mondays
Chapter Twenty-SixVoided
Chapter Twenty-SevenAll Roads Lead Home
Chapter Twenty-EightThe Gambler
Chapter Twenty-NineThe Future Soon
About the Author
The Reminiscent Exile series:
