by Joe Ducie
Or three centuries. Or four.
Either way, the history books and even the sacred texts of the Knights Infernal had civilisation during this time period on Earth absurdly, confoundedly, somewhat haphazardly, wrong.
“Hey there, sweet thing,” I said to Tal and pulled one of the empty chairs at the table closer to her so we were sitting almost side by side. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and took one of her hands in mine. She was warm and carried a scent somewhere between strawberries and rainfall.
“Sweet thing, is it?” Tal ruffled my hair and straightened my dishevelled eye patch, which masked my dead eye. “You think you’re charming when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” I lied. “Sober as a fox.” In truth, while I was most definitely over the legal limit—if Atlantis had such a thing, what with most of the transport autonomous flying cars, carriages, and shuttles—I didn’t feel too drunk. A little tipsy, perhaps. “And I’m charming either way. Where’d you get that nice dress?”
I’d drunk enough to fell bigger men than my good self, but long practice had awarded me the gold medal at the Scotch Games. The old liver had to pull an extra shift if I wanted the same buzz a lone bottle used to give me, and often I got the hangover in the morning without the warm buzz the night before.
Tal raised a single eyebrow and stared at me. “It was a gift.”
I thought about kissing her again.
“Okay, I am drunk, Tal. You got me. But you are beautiful, you are lovely angles and olive skin. Where are our minders at the moment?” We were escorted at all times in and around this great city. Wardens, they were called. Will users, perhaps proficient—I had yet to push my bounds and find out—who had graduated from some academy whose name escaped me. A lot of new names and concepts had piled up over the last few weeks. Vale… something or other, I thought. The Atlanteans liked to attach the word ‘Vale’ to certain places. I hadn’t figured out why yet, and hadn’t really cared to ask.
“They are outside,” she said and grinned. “My two are chatting with your two. I think the tall one has a thing for the blonde one. Lucky girl, he’s gorgeous. Your two don’t come in here anymore?”
“Gorgeous? Sure if you like the tall and handsome thing. And no they don’t come in. I think they’ve gone and figured me out. I’m not about to sneak out the back door with all this booze in the way.” I waved at the bar, at the bartender Galus. He held up a bottle of something blue, Tal’s favourite sip from the one or two nights we’d spent here together, and I gave her a look. She shook her head. “No, thank you, Galus,” I said with a sigh. I could read body language as well as the best of ‘em, and Tal was not in a drinking mood—a drinking with me mood. She was in a ‘we need to talk’ mood. “We’re leaving.”
“Leeving,” he said and gestured to the glass doors and the street beyond. “Do’sad weel’io, Declan?”
I nodded. The enchantments I’d cast on my mind to understand the Atlantean language had worn thin. Time to recast those in the morning, as I really couldn’t be bothered with the groundwork required to complete the enchantment right now, although the subtle stuff like Healing and Augmentation Will was always a little finicky for me. I was more likely to set myself on fire than heal a wound. Dozens of healers far more proficient than me had patched me up and kept me going over the years. I was stuffed if something ruptured internally, as it so often did in my line of work.
And what work is that, Declan? a voice that sounded a lot like Emily Grace, one of the Everlasting—Fair Astoria, the only member of that gang with a soul—whispered in my head. Are you a Knight? An exile? Hero or villain? She paused, or I paused, or perhaps the booze paused. A father?
“Take me to the gardens,” Tal said. “We need to talk.”
Called it.
*~*~*~*
So we went to the gardens, just a few streets over from the bar. Wildflower beds and lush, green grass under canopies of cherry blossom trees, or something akin to cherry blossom trees with bushels of bursting pink petals, bordered a winding path scattered with old leaves across the small park. We walked past splashes of colour mixed with green stems and vines, and water clearer than cut glass in a little trickling river, six feet wide, crisscrossed with white marble bridges. Our minders, four of the best and brightest Will Wardens in the city, kept their distance. Close but not too close.
I strolled hand in hand with Tal through the Elysium Gardens of fabled Atlantis, which surrounded the enormous spire of the Vale Atlantia, stretching a mile above, piercing the clouds, and glinting darkly in the half-light. Creatures akin to fireflies danced around us, small flakes of snow that had been set on fire. I recalled seeing something similar on Voraskel, in the glade where Emily Grace, Fair Astoria, had died in my arms. The tiny sparks passed through our skin, warm and harmless, as if either they weren’t real or we weren’t. Tal smiled as if she’d spent the last six years as host to an Elder God monstrosity and still thought on those days often.
“I can’t go back, Declan.” And she didn’t say it nervously, or as if she were worried how I would react. Tal spoke simply, a soft, gentle fact that drove a spike of ice into my chest. “I know we’ve only been here two weeks, but there’s a calm to Atlantis. A… sense of wellness. And no one knows us here. You feel it, too, I know you do. This is the world before it ended. As close to paradise as anything I’ve seen across the Story Thread. We were born and lived in the ruins of this civilisation.”
“What about Sophie?” What about me? Tal knew I couldn’t stay here. Not forever. Technically I had all the time in the world, years to spare, but the pull to return was strong. A compass in my mind, something I’d shared only with Tal, pointed the way home. We weren’t lost in the past, if we didn’t want to be, because I was anchored to the future. The petals of the Infernal Clock, which had resurrected both me and Annie Brie, my police detective from Perth who had faced the Everlasting and sort of lived to tell the tale, connected us across time, it seemed. And, if I were brave and true, that connection lit a path through the Void back to the present day.
More and more I was beginning to sense that the Infernal Clock was, perhaps, the most powerful object in existence. Time, space, even death were rendered null by its power. And a piece of it, a single crystal petal, rested in my heart. It felt like a Sheriff’s badge pinned to my waistcoat, allowing me to traverse the dusty Void at high noon without fear.
So long as I was carrying a six shooter. And the bad guys knew I was more than willing to shoot first.
“Sophie has thought me dead for six years. Tell her I didn’t survive the trip here with you. She’ll never know any different.”
“Lie to her?” I chuckled, somewhat grimly. “She’ll blame me again for losing you. That’s hardly fair, sweetheart.”
Tal looked at me sideways. “You deserve some measure of blame for what happened to us, Declan Hale. You can take her ire… for me.”
“You know the fate of this city, Tal.” I gestured at the gardens, at the mighty skyscrapers beyond them and the Vale Atlantia, at the very sky. “The Everlasting are going to attack and this entire city is going to be swept into the Void. That’s history. That’s what happened and what will happen. I saw it painted on the walls of the Tomb of the Sleeping Goddess—so did you. History to us. We can’t change events we know are set. Broken quill, even trying will probably cause it to happen. True Earth will be less one entire landmass. You can live here with these people, knowing their fate?”
“They haven’t even heard of the Everlasting yet! That future could be hundreds, even thousands, of years away. I won’t go back to your future and fight the Knights, or the Renegades, or face Oblivion again.” Tal clenched her jaw and a tear cut down her cheek. “Call it cowardice if you will, but Declan, I love you. I’ve always loved you. And if I go back with you, I’m going to have to share you with a war that is going to, at best, decimate the Story Thread. At worst, unravel the whole damn thing. And, at the last, tear you apart.”
“Tal—�
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“A war that is going to destroy you!” Tal wrapped her arms around me and pressed her cheek into my shoulder. She shook, fighting tears. The twilit air was warm and so was she, like a good fleece blanket. “I can’t see that. I won’t. You’ll fight this war, because that’s what you do. When it comes to conflict and battle, war and chaos, the universe seems to spin around your head. You attract the absurd. I won’t go back to watch you be consumed by it. Because that’s the worst part, you know?” She pulled away and laughed bitterly, grasping my hands. “They won’t be able to kill you. You survive, Declan. You always, always survive. Even when you die, you live. No, you won’t die. But you’ll change. I can see it. The war will take you and you’ll become hard, harder than you’ve ever been. You’ll sacrifice entire worlds for one inch of an advantage against the Everlasting. Don’t tell me you won’t, because I know you, and you have.”
“I’m an Arbiter of the Knights Infernal,” I said, hating the dark edge to my voice. “Once commander of the Cascade Fleet and, fuck it all, it should be me on the Dragon Throne and not Jon Faraday. But I am not the boy who sacrificed Reach City and all those souls. Not anymore. I’ll never be able to atone for that, but I won’t make such a mistake again. You’re right, of course, I will fight. It’s my place, my role in the universe. I’m a soldier. I’m… good at it. It’s also the right thing to do. The Everlasting must be fought.”
I’m no longer the genocidal librarian. No longer the exile growing fat and slow… just drunk. This is my game, and I play it well.
“You could stay with me.” Tal pressed her hand to my chest. I fought a shiver. “We could live out our lives here and let the Void consume us both when the time comes, if that end is within our lifetimes. We’d at least be together.”
I met her eyes and, just for a moment, thought about staying, thought about blackberry farms and distant memories. For just I moment, I considered the impossible. I shook my head and Tal pulled her hand from mine.
“You damn yourself, Declan Hale,” she whispered. “And millions are going to suffer and die because you don’t know how to quit.”
“It will be worse if I don’t fight. We don’t belong here, Tal.” My time lag headache pounded against my skull. Without drink to subdue the incessant drumming, a hurricane was a’brewing in my mind. I thought maybe I’d drunk enough to sleep tonight. Not well, of course. Never sleep well on the sauce, and my liver never gets a chance to sleep. But enough to put me down and forget for a few hours. Let Tomorrow Declan deal with Yesterday Declan’s avarice.
And the nagging thought, the stirring shame, that I was too weak to stop. The demon’s name is Alcohol, I thought, and the voice in my head sounded unfamiliar, young, and it will kill me to get a drink.
“You don’t belong here,” Tal said, shivering despite the warmth and pleasantness of the evening. “But I may.”
*~*~*~*
I dreamt of the future that night, in the suite shared by me and Tal toward the higher levels of the Vale Atlantia. The High Lords of Atlantis, after several days of something approaching interrogation, had agreed to let us roam the city. Our arrival, in the crown of the Atlantia itself, the plateau that would one day imprison Lord Oblivion of the Everlasting, had caused something of a ruckus. We had appeared beaten, bloody, and bearing the remnants of a sword that was still whole during this time period—the Roseblade.
The ruins of that blade, more than anything, had convinced those that needed convincing that Tal and I were from a distant future. Especially given that their sword, whole and unbroken, had been resting in its pedestal next to us up in the crown. The alloy used to create the sword, celestial illusion, was perhaps the rarest element in all known existences. It couldn’t be created by the Willful—by us magic users, although I hate the word magic. Magic by its definition was inexplicable, defied explanation, whereas Will was the ascending fire at the heart of creation powering the universe. Those who were Willful could write entire worlds into reality, add realms to the Story Thread. All it took was ink and paper. But celestial illusion was rare and precious and one of the very few things of which the Knights Infernal had a finite supply.
Or, rather, no supply, in my time period. Only what could be found and scavenged.
Celestial illusion was also, supposedly, unbreakable once forged. I think the fact I’d somehow melted the sword frightened the High Lords more than my dismal predictions of the future.
The Roseblade itself could unmake worlds. An absurdly powerful weapon, cast with white rose petals in the crystal blade, to maximise and exceed the wielder’s Willful talent. I’d wielded it before, more than once, and always to dire effect. As a kid, barely nineteen, I’d destroyed the Reach—a city world home to millions—and more recently I’d unleashed the Peace Arsenal. Lord Oblivion of the Everlasting had manipulated me, had outplayed me masterfully, but in the end I’d done it for Tal. Some poor bastard back in real time would have been possessed by Oblivion in her place. My fault. One sin to right another. I’m not sure morality worked like that, but it was the best I could do.
And I’d no doubt pay for that one day. We always pay for our choices, better to own it now and expect the sword to fall instead of hoping for the best and ending up half blind and owning a dark, dreary bookshop haunted by characters from the novels you read as a kid. Annie had been able to see Roper Hartley in my bookshop back in Perth. For years I’d thought I’d lost my mind, but no, Annie and I had lost it together. Better than drinking alone.
The suite we’d been given, Tal and I, was opulent and polished. The floor was graceful marble tile, and reflected the high ceilings above as clearly as a still blue lake mirrored snow-capped mountains. Chandeliers of soft, flickering flame hung in the common area, a living space overlooking the city about three quarters of a mile up in the Vale Atlantia. Much like the palace in Ascension City back home, a lot of Will had been expended to make the structure bigger on the inside. It had been TARDIS’d to all hell. Weaving enchantments and crossing space in parallel realms of the Story Thread, creating permanent gateways, allowed for violations of basic physics. Well, not so much violations, but most definitely bending the laws of the universe. Sort of bending it back on itself, so to speak. More is less and left is often right when two unique pieces of the cloth canvas are forced together.
The suite had two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Tal and I were not sharing the same bedroom.
I slept alone. And my mind fell into the future.
In my dream that night, I walked the endless fields of the World Cemetery—a planet roughly the size of True Earth that held nothing but grass and trees and graves. The cemetery was the final resting place of all Knights Infernal. Over the long centuries, the graves and memorials had spilled across continents. Even if a Knight was lost in an unknown battle, or to the Void, a memorial was erected here in the hallowed soil. Charged with guarding, policing, and maintaining the countless worlds of the Story Thread was grisly work.
The dead had numbered enough to need their own world, in the end.
My grandfather, Aloysius Hale, walked at my side. He had been, once upon a time, the Chief Librarian of the Forgetful Library, which contained every book never written, among other treasures. One of the most highly regarded positions in the entirety of the known Story Thread. He had been imprisoned by my half-brother, King Jon Faraday, for supporting me as rightful king after I ended the Tome Wars. Starhold had addled his mind, last we spoke. A touch of the Void about the orbital prison ensured very few of its inmates escaped time spent there unscathed.
Still, he strolled at my side now. A tall man, my father’s father, bespectacled and wearing a tailored suit befitting his new station as caretaker of this particular section of the World Cemetery. His black shoes were polished to a fine point, his lapel smooth, and his jacket held no loose threads. I knew I was dreaming. Knights were trained to not only lucid dream but to assess and feel for reality at all times, like a sixth sense. To tune our Will to the right beat. There were a lot
of worlds and universes out there, a lot of heavens and hells, and countless copies of True Earth itself. We needed to be able to tell reality from fiction.
Which was the leading theory as to why so many of us were unhappy and turned to drink and worse than drink. Fiction was often kinder than true reality.
“We’re going to see her, aren’t we?” I asked.
My grandfather nodded. He consulted a fine silver pocket watch, glared up at the sun, and adjusted the dial by a few minutes. I couldn’t read the time, but I could see that his eyes were as black as coal. That troubled me, somewhat. Black eyes were also a touch of the Void. Possession, corruption, a failure to stand and be true.
What is happening back home?
“She’s missed you,” he said, and his voice was a deep rumble, almost a hiss, that shook the dream around us. The creature wearing my grandfather’s face wanted me to know it was there.
We walked in silence after that, winding up a hill littered with ivy and moss soaked headstones. At the top, under the shade of a copse of trees, sat Clare Valentine—my friend and lover, once upon a time. She sat on the earth where I knew, in the real World Cemetery, her tombstone stood white and new. I’d lost her half a year ago on the Plains of Perdition. Morpheus, King of the Renegades, had killed her. To slow me down. She had died for me.
A lot of people have died for me. Because of me.
“Hello, Declan,” Clare said. She was twisting small sunflowers into a crown. Her eyes, which had always raged through a storm of colour, a quirk of the Willful, were as blue as glacial water.
