Authors: Joe Ducie
“Bah, Fenton Creed. Sleaze on legs.
I mean anyone I
liked
.”
“Sophie lives, and she’s somewhat
happy with this unfound doofus from Perth, back on True Earth. Nice kid,
actually. Saved me from a stint in Starhold a while back. Him and Clare both.”
Tia refreshed our drinks, pouring
the blue liquid once again to the rim of the shot glasses. “One for Clare,” she
said. “May Origin keep her safe until rebirth.”
I drank to that and cherished the
cool burn as the otherworldly liquor ran down my throat.
Tia looked a little unsteady on her
stool after that shot, and I gave her my arm to lean on. She pressed her weight
against my side, warm and sure. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Mr. Hale?”
“No, ma’am.”
She frowned and ran a finger down
the bridge of my nose. “Why aren’t you even tipsy?”
“Call it long practice, my dear. The
stuff on Earth may not have this particular kick, but the proof is through the
roof.” She giggled. “Tia, what you said just now, about Origin and—”
She waved my words away. “Just
something they say around here. It’s nice, like a little prayer. For the
departed, lonely, and broken hearted, honey.”
I’d heard it before—recently—on the
burning boardwalk where Emissary had slaughtered so many so swiftly... so
easily
.
What had he said?
Times were, even the smallest of your kind could wield
Origin and protect their souls against our touch. Now... you are scattered.
“Origin’s another word for Will?” I
asked.
“Yep. Close enough, I think.” Tia
still leaned against me, holding herself up, and the warm scent of alcohol on
her breath made me want to follow it back to the source. Soft, red lips, parted
and shining in the dull light. She watched my face and smiled. “Oh, no you
don’t, Declan Hale. I am far too pretty and precious for you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and much too old.”
I laughed. “What are you? Thirty?”
She scoffed. “Twenty-eight, Mister.”
“Well, I’m twenty-five. You’d
practically be robbing the cradle...”
Tia sighed. “I remember when you
were seventeen, last time I saw you. Hell, I remember when you were twelve and
already in the advanced classes at the Academy. So long ago it seems.”
“Remember in advanced warfare, first
time we met, and you were stuck with me as your partner? The cheeky little shit
who was too clever for his own good? Raising merry hell every other week?” I
chuckled. Merry hell was putting the kind of trouble I caused at that academy
mildly. “God, I was so nervous when they put us together. You were fifteen and
gorgeous and already being considered for an apprenticeship under Commander
Jade in his Cascade regiment.”
“You never seemed nervous, and we
took the championship that year in the Academy Games, if I remember correctly.”
Tia spun the half-empty bottle of liquor around on her bar. “You know, I think
I miss those days. Things were a lot simpler back at school.”
“Everything was beautiful and
nothing hurt,” I muttered. “Another round, Miss Moreau?”
Tia considered and then nodded. “I
can’t think of one good argument against it. You pour, though. I’m seeing
double here...”
“Yes, you are.” I dabbed at the
tears cutting silent tracks down Tia’s cheek with the sleeve of my shirt and
gently rested my fingers on the terrible scar that practically cut her pretty
and precious face in two.
“Got that escaping the Void,” she
muttered. “You know how hard it is to heal cuts from a Voidling... Guess I was
lucky it closed at all.” She sniffed and tapped her glass against the bar.
“Service in this place is terrible.”
I poured, and we drank again, just
sipping at the rocket fuel this time, and fell into an old, comfortable
silence. The hour was late, and I thought of Annie asleep upstairs and what
misery Emissary was inflicting upon Perth.
Here I am drunk and useless...
but not alone.
Branded as I was, I’d be nothing but annoying if I faced
Emissary now. I needed the healers in Ascension City. I needed Knights at my
back and a fleet of warships at my command.
“To days long gone,” Tia said and
tossed the rest of her drink back. “Tell me more stories about those old days,
Declan. I’m just going to rest my eyes for a...” She yawned, scrunching up her
nose like a tiny, oriental rabbit. “... for a minute.”
So I spoke of the old days and of
the little things. Sneaking out of the Academy at night and catching a shuttle
to Farvale. The hundreds of little secret passages and tunnels on the Academy
grounds, built over thousands of years of students coming and going. I reminded
Tia of Sentinel Worthington, the doddering old librarian in the Infinite
Catalogues, and how he used to disappear into the stacks for months at a time
and emerge hollow, gaunt, and sporting a prickly silver beard. Rumor was he’d
traveled to more worlds than any other Knight in history. I spoke of our
friends, the long dead, and not how they’d died but how they’d lived. Somewhere
between one or two o’clock, according to the clock in my head, Tia’s breathing
evened, and she dozed against my shoulder.
I carefully maneuvered her off the
stool and into my arms. The petite thing, five feet and a dime, weighed about
as much as a feather pillow. I carried her over to the leather couches lining
the lounge area, taking it slow between the empty tables, and put her down gently.
She murmured something about a violin and eyelashes, frowning in her sleep. Her
boots came off easily, and I covered her with a tasseled red blanket slung over
the back of the couch.
“Goodnight, Tia,” I whispered and thought
about kissing her cheek. I stumbled back to the bar for another shot of fine
liquor instead. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Sometime later, halfway between
midnight and dawn, I fell asleep with my head against the polished mahogany and
my hand clutching a bottle full of nothing but blue dregs and the morning’s
regret.
I woke to the smell of frying food
and a gentle tapping on my shoulder. Sitting up at the bar, I instantly
regretted shots six through ten. Sunlight streamed in from the high eastern
windows, playing with the dust on the air, and I groaned against the harsh
radiance.
“Oh... sweet holy hell.” My head
spun a loop on creation’s most nauseating roller coaster. “Annie, am I dead?”
My young detective swam into focus,
sitting on the same stool Tia had used last night. She looked me up and down,
judging me that way women do with a single you’ve-no-one-to-blame-but-yourself
glance, and chuckled. “So you are human, after all.”
“Please tell me you’ve got some
ibuprofen tucked away in that jacket of yours.”
“No such luck, I’m afraid. Tia said
to come get you. Breakfast is on the table.”
My stomach grumbled at the scents
wafting through from the next room. I could almost pluck the sizzling meat and
toasted bread out of the air. Something entered the fray that smelled a lot
like fried eggs and melted butter, and I was bested. However, standing up
proved to be a challenge, and Annie graciously offered her arm. I glared at the
empty bottle of blue liquor, resting upright and proud on the bar, and vowed
never to drink again.
Or perhaps I’d never stop drinking
again and outfox the inevitable hangover that way.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked,
rolling my neck around in slow circles. Using the bar for a pillow had buried a
railroad spike of pain between my shoulder blades. “Been a long few days,
hasn’t it?”
“I got a few hours. The bed was
comfortable, and I could smell the fields of honeyberries through the open
window. Like cinnamon and caramel all squished together.”
We walked around the bar and through
the swinging kitchen doors. In stark contrast to the dull light in the bar, the
kitchen was full of warm sunlight streaming in through high windows. “You like
it here then?”
“I’m still trying to absorb the fact
that I’m not on Earth. It all seems so... so
real
.”
“It is real,” Tia said, turning
around from the stove with a frying pan of spitting bacon and a big, white
smile on her face. “Good morning, sunshine. You look terrible.”
“Good morning, Tia. Why are you so
chirpy and upbeat and not regretting that bottle we polished off last night?”
“I guess I just handle my drink far
better than you.”
I gave her a look of deep mistrust.
“Guess so.”
Tia chuckled. “Actually, hotshot, drink
a glass of this juice.” She poured me a tall glass of honey-colored liquid,
nice and frosty. “Natural remedy, made from the berries. Get some of this
breakfast into you, and you’ll be right as rain in half an hour.”
I could only sip slowly at the thick,
syrupy glass of juice, but it was delicious and did something almost
straightaway for the pounding in my head. Taking a seat at the old, worn oak
table, I sat up a little straighter and scraped butter over toasted sourdough.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can
do to help?” Annie asked Tia. “I feel like I’m abusing your hospitality here,
what with only just meeting you yesterday and all.”
“Nonsense. You brought this sorry
sod back to me,” she replied, pointing a ladle full of scrambled eggs at me.
“That, more than anything I can think of, is the best thing to happen in some
time.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.”
“Happy I’m not dead,” Tia muttered
with an honest grin and dished scrambled eggs with a dash of paprika onto a big
serving plate.
Breakfast was fattening, greasy, and
just what I needed to get me feeling partway toward normal again. Under the
table, I rolled up the sleeve on my shirt to get a look at Emissary’s brand.
The rune didn’t hurt so much anymore—it was more like a dull ache—but the
purple veins spreading around from the wound looked somewhat troubling. Like an
infection. The skin just around the burned tissue had wrinkled as if it were
decaying flesh bloated in still water.
Ugh, that made my stomach turn. I
covered the brand and rejoined the conversation.
“There’s some trouble back home,”
Annie said to Tia. “Declan’s acting in... somewhat of a consultancy role with
the WA Police.”
Tia offered me a cheeky grin. “She
arrested you, didn’t she?”
“As sharp as ever, Moreau.”
“So what trouble back home has got
you flaunting your exile—”
A shadow flickered across the table
through the window over the sink, and a steady but firm knock rattled Tia’s
backdoor. Through the thin blinds, I could see the outline of a man wearing
what resembled a businessman’s Stetson.
Tia glanced over and frowned. “Oh,
well this isn’t going to be good news.” She looked at me, shrugged, and got up
to answer the door. “Mayor Stormborn,” she said, an almost imperceptible edge
to her voice. Renegade armies had been scattered with less. “Good morning.”
“Tia,” Stormborn said, casting a
quick look my way over her shoulder. His smile rippled and almost failed, but
he corrected quickly. “Good morning, my dear. Good morning indeed. I wonder if
I may have a moment of your time, and of your guest’s over there. My word, it
is him, isn’t it? Declan Hale himself.”
“Howdy, Mayor,” I said, offering a
quick salute. He was alone, it seemed, but it was all too easy to imagine an
armed guard nearby, perhaps sneaking through the bar while we were distracted.
I kept my hand in reach of my sword, much good it would be against firearms and
anyone with a drop of Will.
“You’d better come in then,” Tia
said. “Yes, that is Declan, and this is Annie.”
Stormborn spared Annie a fraction of
his gaze. “Charmed, my dear. From True Earth, yes? How remarkable. I’ve not
been back there myself in nearly fifteen years. And you, Mr. Hale, why I
can’t—”
“Declan’s fine,” I said.
Stormborn grinned as if I’d just
turned piss into gold. “Declan. Of course. And please call me Augustus. As I
was saying, I can’t tell you what a genuine honor it is to meet you—the boy who
ended the Tome Wars.”
“Would you like to sit down?” Tia
asked, pouring the mayor a glass of the honeyberry juice.
“Thank you, Tia. Yes, yes. Thank
you.” He was flustered, perhaps due to the spare tire he seemed to be carrying
around his waist under a suit as fine as any I’d ever seen. He removed his hat
and placed it on the table. Lord Mayor Stormborn sipped at his glass of juice
and sighed happily. “Ah, Tia, that is something special. Squeezed not two days
ago, am I right?”
“Yes, sir. Picked them myself.”
“Heavens, girl, but you do make some
fine drinks.” Stormborn pushed back from the table and looked over his glasses at
me. “Now, Declan, I’m sure you can probably guess at my reason for this visit
as much as it pains me to make it. You know that Meadow Gate is neutral
territory. Under the accords signed by men far older and wiser than you or I,
Knights or Renegades or any refugee from of the Tome Wars could come here and,
provided they work, expect aid and succor.”