Authors: Joe Ducie
Emissary blasted through the
skyscrapers, one after the other, like a missile wreathed in scorching pink
flame. Tia cast a shield of pure energy over our heads as chunks of stone and
glass rained down upon the Lexicon. The crowds ran for cover, still screaming
but drowned out by the explosions, and many were trampled in the chaos.
The inter-dimensional railroad
flickered and died. Enough of the Pillars had been damaged to cripple the
Lexicon’s network. I feared, briefly, what that meant for all the people,
thousands of them, traveling through the network of worlds at that moment. Did
Emissary just snuff out the waygates and portals? Had the Void just... fed?
I was snapped out of my thoughts as,
overhead, the crystal spheres projected with dozens of worlds
shattered
and began to fall from the heavens. Even I gaped, and I’d seen some truly
awe-inspiring sights in my life. Worlds were literally falling out of the sky!
The crystal spheres fell in vast chunks
and tiny slivers as the projections of distant worlds flickered and died. The
ground shook hard enough to rattle the teeth in my skull as the crystal struck
home.
Amidst all that, Emissary vanished.
As he had done before, in human form, Emissary seemed to disappear into
nothing. One moment the dragon was there, and the next a harsh clap of thunder
filled the space he had occupied. Myth, my subtle weapon of celestial illusion,
was gone—buried in the beast. Thick whips of liquid flame drizzled down through
the air, tangled within the falling debris, as if they were a rain of deadly,
fiery confetti.
Tia stood over me and raised her
hands toward the sky. Another one of her shields popped into existence, a thick
barrier of transparent blue light. She poured her heart and soul into the
enchantment, stretching it a good distance of about forty feet, covering the
wounded and the fallen nearby.
All but impossible to hide from the
rain of sharp crystal and deadly fire. Like a gong, Tia’s shield rippled and
rang as pieces from above slammed into the construct. Her knees buckled under
the strain of the bombardment, and she fell with a cry. I was there, under her,
and lent my strength. I grasped her under her arms and kept her hands above her
head, aflame with liquid power, as chunks of thick crystal slammed into the
ground, crushing those unfortunate enough to be caught beneath, outside the
range of Tia’s shield.
And then the rain was over.
Only seconds later, but the time
felt like hours. The maelstrom done for now, Tia let her arms fall with a moan
of utter exhaustion. The sky was clear and blue above her. She smiled at me,
holding her up, and then her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she
collapsed into my arms. Her shield of pure Will dissipated, as spent as its
creator.
Everything was quiet. Far too quiet.
I’d not seen destruction on this
level since the darkest days of the Tome Wars. Yet powerless, I’d managed to
drive Emissary away—but I’d lost Myth, which was a sore blow. The wound I’d
delivered with my rough imitation of an Infernal Blade had seemed to stick,
which was encouraging, but the beast was still alive.
What kind of Knight couldn’t even
slay a dragon?
I lowered Tia gently onto the ground
amidst the rubble and checked her vitals. Her pulse was thready but there, and
her eyes moved beneath her lids. Her heart thumped a quick beat under warm,
sweaty skin. She was alive—exhausted, shattered, but alive. Satisfied, I stood
up and pressed a hand against the cut on my bicep.
My wounded, useless eye was as
painful as a bee sting doused in sweet liquor and set alight. As if guided by
Destiny herself, I found and retrieved a bottle of scotch from the broken
storefront of a little, burning gift shop spared under Tia’s shield and
wandered over to a wooden crate, loosed from an overturned truck of similar
wooden crates. Pulling the cork out with my teeth, I took a heavy swig and felt
all the better for it. My shoes were scuffed with ash and dust, and that seemed
somehow more real than the true cost of the battle.
We’re outclassed, I thought.
Emissary is faster, stronger, and simply better in every way. Broken quill,
he’s destroyed the Lexicon!
“He’s not indestructible. Night’s
bite... repelled the blight...” I muttered, and I don’t know why, but that felt
like a thought in the right direction. “Only the guilty understand the cost of
true power.”
Where had I heard that?
Hadn’t Forget suffered enough under
my true power?
Night’s bite...
I stared at the half a sword in my
hand. The blade had snapped and formed a crude point. Too long for a dagger and
far too short for a sword. So why had the blade wounded the dragon when all
other means had failed?
“Night’s bite...
Knight’s
bite.”
A slow, careful smile spread across
my face.
Could it be that simple?
I felt the weight of history on my
back, the weight of something that had, over the last ten thousand years,
become simply ceremonial. The Knights Infernal gifted their graduates with a
blade made of star iron—an Infernal Blade. Star iron was a rare element, one of
the few things that could not be written into existence, and owning a blade was
a point of great pride. The element had many uses—from restricting Will power
to increasing the potency of runic warding.
Perhaps, back in the days of
Emissary and the Old Gods, before Ascension City, before even Atlantis and the
Infernal Clock, star iron had been put to a more practical use.
Perhaps it could make gods bleed.
Annie found me, in the end, and took
the scotch from my hand and tossed it aside. The bottle shattered against a
chunk of crystal the size of a bus—flickering even now with faint images of
fallen worlds—and amber liquid, like so much spilled poison, soaked the ground.
I wasn’t sorry to see it go. I drank
too much—the last few days and hangovers had made that clear—and relied far too
much on the dull buzz to get me through the day. A facade of happiness as fake
as the human skin Emissary had worn.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said.
“How, Annie? How are you okay?”
“Not sure I am...” Annie turned,
holding a pale hand against her hip. Blood stained her blouse, leaked between
her fingers, and dribbled down her jeans. “It’s not too deep, but it needs
stitching. Can we still get home?”
I nodded but didn’t elaborate.
“Is Tia...?”
“She’s alive. She overdid it,
exhausted herself. Saved a good many lives, but she’ll need some rest. A day’s
worth if not more.”
Another woman stepped lightly
through the pieces of fallen crystal, around the debris of the broken
skyscrapers, and found me slumped and somewhat defeated. She wore a gown of
midnight-blue, stretched gently across the bump in her belly, and over her
right arm she carried a brown jacket.
“Timeless, graceful Emily,” I said.
“Why, oh why, am I not surprised to see you here? Thank you, I guess, for
sending those Renegade soldiers. They did some good.”
“Declan,” Emily Grace said with a
smile. “And Detective Brie. I found your jacket, honey. Here.” Emily handed
Annie the jacket and also placed a delicate hand over Annie’s bleeding side. A
quick flash of light and the wound sealed over, leaving not even a scar.
“Thanks. Oh, that’s better. Thank
you.” Annie shrugged into the brown leather jacket, singed a bit around the
collar, and zipped up. She hugged herself. “So... he’s a dragon.”
“Yup.”
“We need a brave knight,” Emily
said, her lips twitching. “Do you know any, Declan?”
“I’m reminded of a quote. Something
about how all the brave men are dead.” Work of a few seconds to fetch another
bottle of scotch, but... no. No answers to my woes in the bottom of a bottle,
however many I check. “You know what’d really help—if I had the Roseblade.”
Emily had the good grace to blush.
She’d killed me for that sword and the eternal petals of the Infernal Clock.
“The Roseblade is... beyond my reach for now.”
“You lost it?” I blinked and
then considered. “No, you’re up to something, aren’t you? Fair warning, Emily,
I defeat Emissary, and I’m reinstated into the Knights. I’ll be coming for the
crystal sword then.”
A wonderful smile claimed Emily’s
face. She sat herself down on my knee and draped her arms across my shoulders.
I found myself with a hand on the bulge of her unborn child. “They offered you
a pardon? How exciting. You know, you could come and be my Knight, sweet
Declan—Prince Consort of the Renegades. No? But did I just see you lose another
weapon of celestial illusion?”
I grimaced. “I think it wounded the
beast, but I’m not sure.” The gouts of dragon’s blood still sizzled in small
pools beneath the fallen crystal globes. I met Annie’s gaze. “We should get
back to Perth, reassess and regroup. Are you coming with me, Emily?”
“No, I am not.” She stroked the
swell of her belly, her hand gliding over mine. If the old prophecies were to
be believed, the child of the Immortal Queen would destroy Forget to save it,
or some such nonsense. “I fear the Everlasting are about to cast their first
stone on Perth’s still waters, Declan.”
“Emissary tearing through the
population wasn’t enough?” Annie asked, somewhat sarcastically. She was
tired—on edge. Weren’t we all? “How do we get back without the knife?”
“McSorley’s portal arch,” I said,
tapping my pocket. The ornate key he’d given me was a comforting weight.
“Should work, even despite this devastation. The arches, unlike the Lexicon,
are powered by the negative energy of the Void and—”
“Enough,” Annie said, holding up her
hands. “Enough. Let’s just head home.”
Emily let me stand, and I scooped up
Tia in my arms, gave the Renegade queen a farewell nod, and followed Annie into
the terminal. The damage was less severe here, but great chunks of shattered
crystal had plummeted through the ceiling and smashed the stained glass
windows, and the screams of the dead and dying echoed from wall to wall.
“The Knights will be here soon,” I
said to Annie. Tia was as light as a feather in my arms. “They’ll help those
that can be helped.”
*~*~*~*
It took a while—and Annie had to put
three days of parking fees on her credit card to get her car out of His
Majesty’s multi-story—but we made it back to True Earth in the late afternoon,
having crawled through the debris and destruction at the Lexicon with Tia in my
arms. We filled McSorley in on what we knew, what had happened at the Lexicon,
and he in turn told us about the horror inflicted on Perth in the last few days.
Emissary had been busy, preparing for Scion’s ascension. The streets were
scarred and bloody. We drove in silence, just ahead of the day’s end traffic,
north on the freeway back to my shop, Tia asleep and frowning on the back seat.
Annie jammed a charger into the
car’s cigarette lighter and plugged the cable into her phone. After a few
minutes, the device beeped to life, and a string of tiny chimes announced the
arrival of a new message. Then another. And another.
The chimes went on for about a
minute.
“Brian,” she said. “And work. Ninety
new messages. Forty missed calls. Shit.”
“Are you going to call him?” I asked
gently. First thing I was doing when I got home—after putting Tia to bed—was
taking a shower and then grabbing a kebab from across the plaza.
Annie frowned. Her knuckles gripped
the wheel as we zoomed down the freeway. “Later. Once I’ve dropped you off. Do
you think... is Emissary here?”
“According to McSorley, he killed a
good fifty people while we were away. Stole their hearts and all. He says
police and federal agencies, as well as the military, are scouring Perth.” As I
spoke, a cadre of police cars passed us on the other side of the freeway, just
across the train line. “Which will do about as much good as tits on a bull...
He’ll be here, Annie, if we didn’t beat him back. As Emily said, the
Everlasting—Scion—is making his play. For whatever reason, perhaps to bloody my
nose, they’ve chosen Perth to do it. We need to be ready.”
A tear rolled down Annie’s cheek.
She didn’t bother to swat it away. “How can we fight them? You’re powerless,
none of your friends made it back with us, Tia’s unconscious... Even the knife
is gone! Declan, I’m scared.”
I watched the lines on the freeway
zip past. “We’ve got half a star iron sword and your handgun.”
“I’m out of bullets,” she said and
laughed shrilly. “Sorry.”
“Quite alright, my dear...” I yawned
and just rested my eye for a moment.
What felt like only moments later, I
jerked awake, Annie shaking my shoulder and startling me from a rough kind of sleep.
We were in the alley behind my shop, just on the outskirts of Riverwood Plaza.
After a few days on the wild and wacky rollercoaster that was Forget, we were
back at the start.
I stretched in the late-afternoon
sun, but that pulled at the tentatively scabbed wound on my arm, forcing a
fresh trickle of blood to soak my shirt. More than anything right then, I
couldn’t wait to shower and change into something fresh. I scooped up Tia from
the back seat and then leaned in to Annie’s window and discouraged her plan to
go and find her fiancé.