by Joe Ducie
“Renegades, but of a different sort—more like pirates. Men and women who sail the seas of the Story Thread, looting other worlds and running a trade in stolen and illegal goods across Forget. They’re rich and ruthless, and it was the blow you just saw me about to strike, more than anything, that undermined their entire structure and allowed the Knights to get a foothold on Voraskel—the Renegade home world.”
Annie shook her head. “You’ve led an... interesting life, Declan.”
“That’s a kind way of putting it, yeah.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Okay, I don’t know how or why we saw that. Something to do with these runes, messing around in my head, no doubt. Come on, I get the feeling we’re almost there.”
“Hold on, who was that man on the radio?”
I tried to stifle a grimace and failed. “Admiral Abrahem Levy. Sophie’s adoptive father. It was never official, but there was a time five years ago when I was engaged to her sister, Levy’s biological daughter, a lovely girl named Tal. Long story short, Tal’s physical existence was destroyed, and her soul and essence currently play host to one of the Everlasting. Lord Oblivion. You know, that old story.”
Annie left the topic alone after absorbing that.
From the rune-strewn room, we entered another corridor with a slight incline. The corridor led us outside into the heart of the temple and an undulating courtyard at least a good mile wide, open to the deep, navy-blue sky above painted with two of the three moons. One moon was cherry red and the other honey yellow. I whistled low at the sight. Lush vegetation, abundant wildflowers, cascading waterfalls of silver light, and old, viny, stone walls littered the courtyard. I thought of the Garden of Eden, of Shangri-La, of Atlantis before the city was lost, and every dreamed up place of beauty and splendor conceivable. All those places thrown together here, this dream world, to create a portrait of perfection so real that you could taste the bird song and hear the scent of rose petals.
“Is this real?” Annie whispered. She held a hand to her chest, breathless.
Snow-capped peaks rising to the west just beyond the temple walls hid the long walk back to this Eden, but at the center of the garden, a small pyramid of black rock, unevenly polished, rose up above the landscape. Something shining as if it were the North Star sat at the pinnacle of the pyramid.
The stroll through the gardens was, again, like a stroll through a dream. The beach of gently crashing waves, the football-sized mangoes, and the arboreal, humid, fairy tale forest, had all felt insubstantial, and here again time seemed to slide on by with little care. I couldn’t say how long it took Annie and I to traverse the mile from the inner temple to the black pyramid at the heart of the gardens—only that it was no amount of time that could be measured on a watch.
A set of fine, grey granite steps led up the outside of the obsidian pyramid. The structure was pristine, untouched by the creeping vines or the groves of wildflowers. The vegetation came to a sudden stop in a perfect circle around the outer edges of the pyramid.
“Only way to go is up,” I said and placed a tentative foot on the first step. When nothing happened—I’d been expecting hellfire at the very least—I took another step and breathed a sigh of relief. “Steady as you go,” I said to Annie.
We climbed up the pyramid side by side, the heels of our shoes clicking on the stone. A warm breeze ruffled my hair and carried the scent of something indescribable... but wholesome. A rich taste of seasons passing, I thought, but I had no idea what that could mean.
At the apex of the pyramid was a small plateau just wide enough for two, and suspended in a pedestal of brown stone was the hilt of a weapon. The blade, if indeed there was a blade, was sheathed in the stone. Set into the pommel of the hilt was a diamond the size of a golf ball, and it had been that diamond we had seen glinting like a star in the distance. A small, rectangular brass plaque, ancient and weatherworn, was built into the stone before the sunken hilt.
I kept a hand near my sword, just in case, but I felt as though Annie and I were alone here, alone in this whole world, save for Charlie and his mango-stained smile.
“What’s that say?” Annie asked, gesturing to a series of runes and glyphs inscribed into the faded brass plaque. “Can you read it?”
I stared at the ancient letters, six short lines, and shook my head. “No, not a word. Some of it looks vaguely familiar, maybe old Infernal, but I don’t know if even the language historians at the Academy have a translation for—”
My voice caught in my throat, and I had to swallow my words as the glyphs blurred. The letters changed and became a calligraphic form of English. I was able to read what was scribed into the brass plate.
Here rests Myth, the Creation Knife,
Forged in Atlantia for the Nine to slay,
Forged to light the Shadowless way.
Paths unbroken, unsung, unfound
Await the Immortal King to be crowned.
“Declan, are you okay?” Annie asked. She grabbed my wrist to stop me from falling. “You looked like you zoned out for a minute there.”
I blinked, and my eyes stung as if I’d been staring at the sun. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Sorry, I can read it...”
“What does it say?”
I recited the inscription aloud and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Broken quill, I think this was meant for me.”
“How so?”
“It has a ring of prophecy about it, don’t you think? Shadowless, that one’s obvious. But Immortal King? They’ve only been calling me that for a few months, ever since I died...”
My thoughts trailed away into knotted paths of confusion. I thought of the Historian of Future Prospect, a young girl of just sixteen, who acted as sort of a seer for the Knights Infernal. The Historian was a title, granted to one girl born every generation with the gift of foresight. She could See every possible future, branching out from each possible moment. Most Historians didn’t live much past their twenties. Most went as mad as a sack of cats.
Annie was talking, but I wasn’t listening. I fell out of my thoughts and met her eyes. “Sorry? What?”
“You died?” she said. “What do you mean you died?”
I offered her a kind smile, untucked my shirt, and lifted the tail to reveal the mess of tight, ropy scar tissue that crossed my gut and ran up to my ribs. “Long story short, about three months back I was stabbed in Atlantis, fighting over something called the Infernal Clock. Emily—do you remember Emily? Nice pregnant woman from Paddy’s? Queen of the Renegades? Emily kicked me off a tower a mile above the city and, as I fell, I hit a reality storm, which cast me back in time and space about a week. I bled out on the floor of my shop.”
“But you’re alive,” she said, her face ashen. “God, please tell me you’re not a ghost or a zombie or some such—”
I took her hand and pressed it against my chest. “Can you feel that? That’s my heart beating, same as yours. I was brought back to life with a crystal petal from the Infernal Clock. Sort of like a ‘Get out of Death Free’ Card.”
Annie shuddered and pulled her hand away. “I guess I’ll take your word for that.”
“Chin up, sweet thing. We’re here. We’ve made it. If that little bugger Charlie can be believed, this knife will get us to Ascension City. Then the real fun will start.”
“Right.” Annie looked at me sideways. “You really traveled through time?”
“Sure did. Learned a valuable lesson, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t go fuckin’ around with time.”
About as valuable a lesson as any I’ve ever had the misfortune to have stabbed into me. I trailed my fingers over the plaque and spent a minute committing the lines to memory, reciting them over and over again under my breath. Once I was sure I had it, I moved my hand over the hilt of the knife and hovered just an inch above the large diamond.
The hilt started to glow with gentle, silver light—luminescent, like a pool of Will—before I’d even touched the damn thing. Annie gaspe
d, and I hesitated, fearing booby traps or latent, hexed enchantment. In my experience, mystical objects of uncertain power ended up either killing me or unleashing travesties upon the Story Thread. Still, what other choice did I have?
I grasped the hilt.
Nothing exploded. A pleasant change in my line of work. Given my track record of mystical objects shrouded in chaos, I’d expected the seas to boil and the sky to fall.
The knife slipped from the rock as if I were running the blade through warm butter. About eight inches of shining, clear crystal formed the blade, and locked inside that crystal were about a dozen blood-red rose petals.
My hand shook. The Roseblade... Long ago, nearly ten years now, when I first discovered Atlantis on my Great Quest after graduating from the Academy, I’d seen a blade not unlike this, locked before the Infernal Clock. The Roseblade—capable of channelling enough Will to level mountains and boil oceans. The petals in that sword had been white.
The knife, Myth, is a weapon of celestial illusion!
“That’s actually kind of pretty,” Annie said. “For a knife. Christ, Declan, you look like you’re going to be sick!”
I thought I might be, at that. Swallowing hard, I ran a finger down the flat of the blade, along the cool crystal. More of that faint light shone from within, giving the petals a silver lining. I pricked my finger on the razor-sharp point, drawing a tiny bead of blood.
“Well...” I cleared my throat. “Bugger me sideways.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Nowhere Bar
“Is it valuable?” Annie asked, entranced by the radiant petals.
“Priceless,” I said, and if ever there was an understatement... “Let’s see if we can get it to work. I’m actually more confident that little bugger Charlie was telling the truth, now that I know what this is.”
“How d’you mean?”
I tapped the blade. “This knife is a weapon of celestial illusion, Annie. An ancient weapon from the time before Atlantis fractured and was lost. The crystal and the petals are a store of immense power, capable of absolutely anything. I don’t doubt we can cut through worlds with this blade.”
Annie stuck her tongue between her teeth and squinted at the knife. “I’ve read a book about a knife like this, you know. A children’s book when I was in high school. I’m sure of it.” She gestured vaguely with her hand. “The Subtle Knife, by Phillip Pullman. That’s the one. The kid in the story had a knife that could cut windows between worlds. Created, like… a portal in the air. I imagine not unlike what we used in McSorley’s basement.”
I nodded along. “Yeah, I know the story. It’s one of the banned books, along with Tolkien’s tales, sealed by the Knights.” A scary thought came to me then, and the knife in my hand seemed to get a whole lot heavier. “I wonder... no.”
“What?”
“Well...” I licked my lips and gazed at my surroundings, at the distant walls of the temple and the thriving, beautiful garden enclosing the pyramid. I thought about how insubstantial this world felt and how I’d likened moving along the beach and through the forest as a dream. “I wonder if we’ve somehow crossed into the Dream Worlds. Into the realms and beads of the Story Thread locked away by the Knights.”
“Is that possible?”
I chuckled nervously. “Before just now, I wouldn’t have thought so, no. But here we are. I don’t know what else this world could be.”
“So is that the Subtle Knife then, do you think?” Annie frowned. “In the book, I don’t think it looked like that.”
“I don’t know. How did they use it in the book?”
Annie shrugged and folded her arms under her breasts. “I don’t remember specifics, but they sort of felt around in the air with the tip of the knife and cut when it stuck. I think the kid in the story could feel when he’d found some other world, like a sixth sense.”
With no better idea, and praying I didn’t need to use my barred Will, I felt around in the air, waving the knife back and forth like an orchestra conductor waves a baton. The petals in the blade shone, and the hilt thrummed in my grasp, but no portals between worlds sprang into existence.
“That’s promising,” I said and stopped to admire the knife. The hilt stopped shaking, and the petals dimmed.
“Did you feel anything?”
“Hmm.” I tried again, moving the knife more slowly this time and feeling my way through the empty space. The petals shone again, and the knife jarred on nothing, striking a dull chime as if I’d scraped the blade against steel. Slower now, like a surgeon with a scalpel, I guided the tip of the blade and felt it slip into something invisible, like a key fitting into a lock.
The knife caught on the air and, with little force from me, slid down as though it were a zipper and revealed another world. Curtains were drawn open, and the air split as if reality was only a thin, frayed canvas and I were tearing it in half like I might a piece of paper. The portal was about seven feet high, from my shoes to a foot above my head, and wide enough for one at a time to step through. A swirl of bitingly cold snow blew from the new world and into ours atop the pyramid. All I could see through the portal was a blizzard of snow and ice.
“Won’t last two minutes there,” I said. “Do you think I can close—”
No sooner had the thought entered my mind than the portal zipped closed, the two folds of reality I’d split fused back together as if an invisible line of solder had been run along the seam.
“Try again,” Annie said firmly. “Maybe try thinking about where you want to go. Like, picture Ascension City in your mind, or something.”
That sounded like a mighty fine idea. I thought about Ascension City, the sprawling districts, the towering skyscrapers, and the clear crystal bridges built across the sky, connecting the intertwined buildings. I thought about Aaron’s shop, Cedar Sky, and his vast array of otherworldly spices, and the knife, Myth, snagged on another invisible point in the air. The knife slid through buttered reality and revealed a world of lush, green grass, a field surrounded by gently sloping mountains. The warm scent of spring and something sweet drifted through the portal.
Annie looked impressed. “Is that anywhere you recognize?”
“No, that’s not Ascension City, I’m afraid.”
“Try again?”
I held the portal open with my mind, somehow, and avoided thoughts of closing the tear. “It’s better than here,” I said. “Away from whatever-that-kid-really-is waiting for us if we head back.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “Oh, Charlie! We can’t leave him. He’s just a—”
“The runes set out in front of this temple, in that circle of gold, were some pretty potent wards and enchantments. I could only follow a smattering of them, but what I saw was enough to turn demons to smoke and even deter Voidlings. So do you really want to deal with something that only gets a headache when he strolls too close?”
Annie looked back toward the temple walls. “He’s just a boy.”
“No, he’s not. I’m asking you to trust me on this.”
Annie bit her lip but, after a long moment, nodded sharply. “Okay...”
“Thank you.”
With little fanfare, we stepped one at a time out of this world and into another.
Soft grass soaked with dew and a blue, cloudless sky greeted us on the other side. I stared back through the portal at the top of the pyramid and the brass plate on the pedestal. With a thought I wished it closed, and the portal vanished. We’d escaped whatever that place truly was and now stood on a world that felt solid and real.
“Back on track, Jack,” I muttered.
“Oh, I think I can tell the difference,” Annie said. “This place feels...”
“Stronger? Solid? Better than a dream?”
Annie nodded and brushed the grass with her fingertips. “That last place kind of felt like falling, didn’t it? As if the whole place could just vanish at any moment. Now we’ve got the ground back under our feet.”
“Nicely put.”
I admired our new surroundings. To the east, distant peaks stabbed at the sky, and to the west, the field dropped away toward a sparse forest of pine trees. A herd of some sort of fuzzy deer creatures grazed around the trees. The north vista held a whole bunch of nothing except what looked like a manmade wall that ran over hills and dipped behind a ridge. To the south, I saw something even more encouraging—fields of cultivated crops. The wind blew over the crops, carrying that scent of something sweet.
With no better place for it, I slipped Myth under my sword belt and let the blade rest flat against the leg of my pants. I’d have to be careful until I could find a sheath for the ancient knife. Given its power and what it could do, I’d be mad to let it out of my sight. Someone—or something—a long time ago had known I’d have need of it, which opened a whole barrel of questions I couldn’t answer.
Old powers that stank of prophecy swirled around my head. I’d never been a firm believer in fate or destiny. Most soldiers weren’t—not when any moment on the battlefield could be your last. I’d seen enough men and women cut down long before their time to affirm my belief in the guiding hand of absurd chaos over that of fate or fickle providence. Still... that inscription had been tailored for me, and weapons of celestial illusion were millennia old, which had to put the inscription around the same age, didn’t it?
“Where do we go from here, Declan?”
I emerged from the incomplete jigsaw puzzle rattling around in my head and tapped my chin thoughtfully. “We could keep trying the knife, but let’s have a look around first. Until we know more about how Myth works, we’re just searching for a needle in a universe of haystacks. This is definitely Forget, so we might be connected to a world that has access to Ascension City or even the Atlas Lexicon—although I don’t know if we should try that again anytime soon.”
“How can you tell this is Forget? It looks like Europe to me.”
I gestured vaguely at the crops a quarter mile away. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s a field of honeyberries. They don’t grow on Earth.”
