Distant Star (16 page)

We were the fire against the
indifference to the threat of Faraday, of Renegade and his damned armies. We
were not a force of 
good
; we
were a force of 
necessity.
 I’d
ended a war once, out of necessity. I shook my head and thought of what to say
next—something meaningful that would inspire courage in my few precious
companions. I came up with nothing, and suddenly, the very idea seemed absurd.

“Here’s to magic,” I said, raising
my glass and finally embracing the word. I paused, then tossed the scotch back
with a practiced flick, and relished the burn down the back of my throat. The
others took small sips, perhaps savoring the taste.

“May it make sense with time,”
Aaron added, inclining his glass toward me. He looked old, done in. “It will
get better with time…”

I had to remind myself that
Atlantis was still a myth to my friends. Inaccessible and lost. But I had been
there. Tal had been there.

“No,” I said. “No, no. Just liquor.
Time’s no good, old friend.”

Time was a bitch.

Time was a headache and a slow,
painful death on a shop floor.

But then time wounds all heels, doesn’t it, Declan?
And in the end it would settle all of our accounts with merciless
efficiency. There was a dark, certain thought in a world where nothing was
certain save uncertainty. Was I really that miserable?

Maybe I was just insane—the
lesser of two certainties and a thought that just wouldn’t quit. Oh well.

“Wonder what else they have on tap
here…” I muttered, and turned back to the liquor cabinet.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Master Bolt

Clare was awake and making coffee
when I stumbled into Aaron’s kitchen the next morning. I had a most regretful
hangover. She looked great in the early light with her disheveled crimson red
and electric blue hair. She wasn’t wearing her Knightly garb, just a shirt,
shorts, and a pair of baggy knee socks.

“You look odd without a
waistcoat,” she said as I limped over to the fridge.

I straightened my collar and
smirked. “If I don’t look the part, then how am I supposed to act the part, is
that it?” I found eggs, some Italian bread, bacon, leftover chicken breast,
tomatoes… I had an idea. Was there garlic? Ah, a single clove.

“The part?” Clare spooned a
healthy tablespoon of sugar into her coffee and sat stirring it idly as she
stared at me from behind her multi-colored fringe.

I deposited my ingredients on the
marble countertop and sorted the meat from the greens from the bread rolls.
“Never mind. I’m not much of a cook, sweet thing, but I can make one helluva
filling sandwich. You hungry?” She shrugged. “Sure you are. Want to give me a
hand? Poach some eggs while I chop tomatoes?”

Clare
smiled—another one of those uncertain certainties this early in the game.
“You know, despite the danger, Declan, I’m glad you’re not cooped up in that
bookshop. It’s a dreary place.”

And I think it drove me mad
.
Madder.
“Me too, actually. I’d grown far too accustomed to the silence.”

“And the
writing.”

“I enjoy
the writing.”

Clare helped me make breakfast.
Ascension herbs on the bread rolls added a touch of local flavor to the whole
ordeal. I wrapped the chicken breasts in crispy bacon, and then I sliced
tomato, diced onion, scooped relish sauce, and topped it all off with a poached
egg. There was no mayonnaise, unfortunately, but the smell of good honest food
wafting through the villa brought the others to join us before it could all get
cold.

We had sandwiches for breakfast,
and they were good.

Afterwards, I laid out the plan
for reaching Atlantis. I only glanced over the Degradation, as I was not quite
willing to discuss what needed to be done there. The Degradation would be a
bridge to burn when we reached the damn thing. Getting to the Lost City would
be hard enough, if not damn near impossible. Someone, perhaps everyone, would
most likely die for this folly.

Yet it had to be done, and I’d go
alone if all else failed, for the right reasons as well as the selfish ones. I
couldn’t let Morpheus Renegade or his queen seize the city, not with the secret
buried in its heart. Whoever took the Infernal Clock, took Forget. The Knights
would fall under an unstoppable Renegade onslaught.

In the early morning light,
Aaron’s balcony overlooking Lake Delgado didn’t seem a grim enough venue for
the topic of our conversation, but it would have to do.

“So the Degradation ties Atlantis
to our reality, Declan?” Aaron asked. “A way between the worlds?”

“As best as I can explain it,
yeah.” Not like the book diving, or the portals that skimmed the Void. As our
toast last night had promised, this was old magic. Real magic. Gone-too-far
magic. “After stumbling across
Tales of
Atlantis
all those years ago, Tal and I used it to forge a path into the
city. We were young and stupid, and had no idea what was sleeping there.”

“But why? I mean, what’s so
terrible about Atlantis? What could Faraday, or Morpheus Renegade do, if they
won the city?” Aaron rested his hands on his not inconsiderable gut. He seemed
genuinely perplexed.

I grinned, wishing I had another
breakfast sandwich. “Do? Oh, not much. Just unleash the demonic forces of Hell
that destroyed the Old World and pushed humanity back ten thousand years.
Basically send us right on over the brink of extinction. Atlantis died all that
time ago for a
very
good reason.”

Aaron paled. He heard the dread
conviction in my voice. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Ascension City had just a
taste five years ago, before I used the Degradation to seal Atlantis again.” I
slapped the old merchant on the back. “But not to fret, eh? We’ve got about a
day before we need to worry about that. That’s our job, mate. Beat the bastards
there, gain access to the city, undo the Degradation and take away any reason
for being there. After that, well, time… 
time
, is different in Atlantis. Stretched…”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked,
her eyes wide and fascinated.

I looked at Tal’s sister and
wished things were different for her. She was very young and very pretty. I
should send her home, really, and save her the pain… but something made me
hesitate. Some instinct, a gut feeling sent by Oblivion itself, no doubt.

“That’s what happened. What we
did, Tal and I.
Why
we did it. We
forced a tear into the Void, and dared King Renegade to seize the city. To put
an end to the Tome Wars and at the same time seal away the monstrosities
running rampant over Ascension City. We couldn’t have known what was housed in
Atlantis. In its heart. Do you understand? We couldn’t have known.”

“What? What was there?” Clare
licked her lips and paused. “Declan, let’s have the truth now.”

“The Infernal Clock, among other
things. There’s another fairytale made real for you.”

Ethan took the bait, even as
Marcus sighed and covered his face with his hands. “Other things?”

Sophie began to weep. She knew
this part. I’d owed her this much for killing her sister.

“One of the Everlasting,” I said.

A shadow seemed to fall across
the room, and it couldn’t have been mine.

“The Everlasting?” Ethan asked
into the silence.

“If you’d had a proper education,
in the Academy, you would know their names. Every Knight knows their names.
Oblivion, Scion, Chronos… There are nine of them.”
For mortal men doomed to die…
“For all that matters, they are gods.
Old gods. Until Atlantis, until Tal and I, no human being had ever dealt with
them face to face, as far as we knew. They were a story, the first story,
handed down across aeons.
Just
a
story.”

“And you met one?”

“‘Met’ is too kind of a word, but
yes, I did. Tal was with me. Only for a handful of minutes, but when we were
done my shadow had been torn away, Tal’s essence was scattered across all the
realms of existence, and the Degradation encased Atlantis like a death shroud.”

Hopeless quiet greeted my words.
Only Marcus and Sophie had known about my encounter with something from beyond…
everything
—the Earth, the
Forgetful realms, the Void. The Everlasting belonged to none of them. Not to
the universe or the space between universes. It terrified me.

“How do you intend to unmake the
Degradation?” Aaron asked. “The best scholars and most powerful men and women
in Forget haven’t been able to even dent that monstrosity in five long years.”

“Simple, really. We kill its fuel
supply. Choke it and watch it die.”

“Again, I must ask. How?”

The “how” was the crux of the
matter. The truth within the lie I’d told the ruling class before the Dragon
Throne yesterday morning, just before I was sentenced to space prison. “I’ve
already mentioned the Infernal Clock, but what do you know of it?”

“It’s supposed to grant eternal
life,” Clare said. “Immortality.”

I nodded. “I saw it once. I was
almost close enough to touch it when the Everlasting made Tal and I barter for
the Degradation. Our own fault, I suppose. We stumbled into Its lair and woke
the darn thing up.”

“Which one was it?” Marcus asked.
“It was Oblivion, wasn’t it? You dealt with Lord Oblivion in front of the
Infernal Clock. Just like the old fairytale goes.” He shook his head, unable to
believe what he was saying.

“It was Oblivion, yes. He… It…
offered us a deal. It tricked us, but we got what we wanted, in the end.
Atlantis was sealed away, and Renegade’s army was scattered across the Plains
of Perdition as the Degradation came into being.” I thought back to the
terrible day. An endless night upon an endless prairie. “The Infernal Clock is
the master bolt in the shield’s design. It’s not actually a clock, like with
hands and a face. But it does keep time, and if we sever the Clock, the whole
darn shield comes crashing down.”

Marcus cursed. “So your solution
to the Degradation is to cut out the very heart of the Story Thread? Declan,
wasn’t one apocalypse enough for you?”

“Think of it more like a diseased
limb that needs amputating. Tal and I used the Infernal Clock as a linchpin of
power, to fuel the Degradation. If it can be removed…”

“Madness. End-of-the-world-type
madness.”

“Perhaps, but there’s a taste of
redemption in it, don’t you think?”

“And without the Clock, Atlantis
is just a ruined husk of a city, yes?” Aaron stood and clapped his hands
together. “No reason to fight over it. No reason for war. Well, what do you
know? A cord of rationale buried within Declan’s lunacy after all.”

*~*~*~*

Later that afternoon, as the sun
crowned the peaks of the western mountains, I sat in the living room next to
the liquor cabinet, and scrawled on loose-leafed parchment with a fountain pen.
Sophie found me there and sat down quietly on the rug to watch me write.

“Sophie, there you are. Where’ve
you been hiding? I just sent Ethan off to find you in the gardens.”

Sophie’s smile was strange,
confident. She looked happy. “I’ve been at the markets in Farvale with Aaron
all morning. Have you seen the town? It’s wonderful. I ate a honeysuckle
dragonfly!”

“Gross.”

“Delicious. And look…” She
glanced about and then leaned in close, pulling her shirt aside and revealing
her left breast. There was a silver bar running through her nipple. “They
didn’t even ask for ID. I’d forgotten what this place was like. Think Ethan
will like it? I love being home, Declan.”

I grasped at my own nipple and
winced. “Ouch. Why?” I shook my head. “No, never mind. You’re right about being
home. Despite the prison sentence and impending doom, this is where we belong,
‘Phie. But, you know, if you and Ethan want to leave now and avoid the fight to
come…”

Sophie poked her tongue out at
me, then pressed the soles of her shoes together and rocked side to side.
“Really? I stuck with you for five years, Declan. You know why. I’m not about
to change teams now.”

“It’s not about changing teams.
More like stepping off the field and living your life without my troubles
hanging over you like the sword of fucking Damocles.”

“From what you’ve said, Forget
may not be worth living in much longer if the Knights or the Renegades manage
to take Atlantis. So I’ll fight for that, if you don’t mind—or even if
you do.” Sophie stood up. “Right, Ethan’s in the gardens. Where’s Marcus
hiding?”

I straightened up the pages,
blowing on the ink to help it dry. “I sent him back to Perth, to the shop.
There’s a book we need to cross over into the Plains of Perdition. A scary,
scary book.”

“He’s due back soon?”

“Before sunset, if we’re lucky.
Later on tonight if we’re not. At dawn tomorrow we make the trip and see about
averting catastrophe.”

Sophie headed outside in search
of Ethan, and I threw my latest pages into the hot coals which simmered in the
fireplace. The writing had only been a distraction from the waiting. If I
wanted I could go wandering around Farvale, but with a face as recognizable as
mine, wandering was probably a bad idea.