Broken Quill [2] (27 page)

Dessan, a tall man with short, blond
hair and an easy smile, shrugged. “We volunteered, Declan. You look like shit,
by the way. A pirate, you are not. Got those hundred gems you owe me?”

“Owe you for what?”

“Pulling your ass out of Voraskel!”
He shook his head and nudged Vrail in the ribs. “Last time we saw each other,
before war’s end.”

“I remember Voraskel a lot
differently. Too many deaths and not enough hot sauce.”

“Just blowin’ in the wind, huh?”
Garner said, and cracked a toothy grin. “It’s good to see you again,
Commander.”

Vrail snorted. “Likely lose a few
more teeth word gets out you’re calling him that, Garn.”

“If you don’t think twice, it’s alright,”
he said.

Vrail had more to say on the matter,
but I cut him off. “Gentlemen, this is Annie Brie—a friend of mine fresh from
True Earth, so go easy. Annie, these are the three most incompetent Knights in
all Forget. I lost count of the number of times I had to pull their fat out of
the fire.”

“No more than we did yours,
Commander.” Garner chuckled and then caught himself. “Sorry, Declan. Or do you
prefer Shadowless these days?”

“Oh, broken quill, not you lot, as
well. Let’s just stick with ‘sir’ for now.”

Dessan considered and then nodded.
“For what it’s worth, I’m genuinely glad to see you back here. We missed your
brief visit earlier in the year, but here you are again.”

“Here I am again. Same old mistakes,
huh? At least I’m getting a lot of happy-to-see-you over chop-his-head-off, so
that’s just swell.”

“Where are you heading then?” Dessan
asked. “I wouldn’t advise heading out into the city. Half the palace already
knows you’re here. Won’t be long before we get crowds out in the square
clamoring to get a glimpse of you.”

“I was thinking of visiting the
Academy, actually. Not off limits, is it?”

“No, and that may be the best place
for you, actually.” Vrail scratched at his chin. “You want to see a healer
about that eye?”

“Already did. Best she could do was
this eye patch. I’ve a friend at the Academy may be able to do more.”

Vrail nodded. “The Academy it is. Do
you want to lead the way, or have you forgot—?”

“Shut up and follow me. Annie, stay
close, yeah?”

I needed one of my Knightly guard to
access the elevators, but they were good company regardless of whether or not
it irked me to have them following me around. To be honest, I was still reeling
from my brother’s offer and what had happened to him.
What power in Forget
can steal youth?
Or convince Faraday my services were worth reinstatement?
He was risking civil war as the
best
case scenario.

The gilded elevators spat all five
of us out on a wide open floor, supported by steel pillars and scattered with a
handful of arched gateways, ten feet high by the same across, that looked out
on grassy hills and old buildings. The gates to the Infernal Academy. A handful
of people moved back and forth—Knights, students, instructors, and the like. I
strolled over to the nearest gate, felt the breeze of another world on my face,
and glimpsed the Academy for the first time in over five years.

I felt something that may have been
happiness.

“I guess you’re sticking with us?” I
asked Vrail, Dessan, and Garner. “Or on your heads be it.”

My guards shared a look and the
smallest quirk of a smile. Dessan spoke. “We were given strict orders to
accompany you throughout the palace. The
palace
, Hale. Technically, the
Academy is not in the palace, no? We’ll be at Edgar’s when you’re ready to step
back through.” He shrugged a shoulder toward one of the other gates. “Miss
Brie, a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” Annie said softly as
Garner and Dessan moved away, leaving us be.

Vrail hung back and regarded me for
a moment. “Am I free to speak in front of... Annie, wasn’t it?” he asked me, and
offered my young detective a gentle smile.

“As if we were alone, old friend,” I
said.

He nodded. “Sentiment in the city
may have been twisted against you, Declan, by your brother and his court, but
more than a few remember who it was that ended the century of madness and
slaughter.” He paused and inclined his head toward me, pressing his knuckles
against his brow, a mark of significant respect among the Knights. “I hesitate
to speak of this in front of more ears, even ears belonging to Dessan and Garn,
but hesitate I must, you ken?”

“Indeed I do.”

“You could split the Knights down
the middle, you know? If you raised a banner, a certain number, a not
insignificant number, would flock to it.”

“Vrail,” I said with half a grin,
“that’s dangerously close to treason.”

“You killed Morpheus Renegade in
Atlantis.”

Annie stared at me.

“Yes, yes I did. He killed me, too,
but that’s semantics at this point.”

Vrail waved away my words. “There
are some, the same folk who remember the end of the Tome Wars, who believe if
you were in command then Morpheus Renegade would never have gotten the better
of us on the Plains of Perdition, would never have almost seized Atlantis for
himself. You stopped him—not Faraday. You averted catastrophe yet again.
Declan...” Vrail hesitated, and cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “My
king
,
you belong on the Dragon Throne.”

I laughed and clapped him on the
shoulder, but there was an edge to my voice and a glint in my one good eye. “My
friend, that is treason.”

“Then slap me in star iron and chop
my head off!” Vrail clenched his fists and sighed, frustrated. “At least think
about it...”

“Think about overthrowing my brother
and claiming the greatest seat of power in existence? Annie, what say you?”

She held up her hands. “Oh, leave me
out of this mess.”

“You have a duty, Declan,” Vrail
said. “And that’s the last word I’ll say on this matter. Enjoy your afternoon
back home—we’ll see you at Edgar’s.”

I nodded my thanks and offered Annie
my arm as Vrail strolled away shaking his head and muttering to himself. Annie
took my arm, somewhat gingerly, and we strolled through the arched gateway of
grey stone, crossed the invisible threshold between worlds, and stepped onto
old, worn cobblestones. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back into the palace
and at the glimpse of Ascension City visible through the tall, narrow windows.
Above the arched doorway, on the Academy-side, was clear, blue sky only just
fading toward sunset in the west. The air tasted clearer here, out in the open.

“So you can use books, which I
haven’t seen yet,” Annie said. “There’s the Lexicon, the knife, and now magical
portals down old corridors. You make this world-hopping business seem far too
easy, Declan Hale.”

“How many is this?” I thought back
over the last day. “World number four or five?”

The road curved around a small
hillock and revealed a deep valley stretching toward a horseshoe-shaped ring of
mountains and distant snowy peaks cradling one of the first bastions of
knowledge and reason in humanity’s long history.

The Infernal Academy.

A series of interconnected and
towering spires clung to the slopes of the mountains above both domed stone
buildings and square, more modern glass-and-steel structures. Like Ascension
City, the Academy was a hodgepodge of old and new, a medley of sights, sound,
and smells that spanned ten thousand years and five hundred generations of
Knights.

“Another wonder,” Annie said
breathlessly, her eyes agleam in the twilight of this latest world. “You grew
up here?”

“I certainly did.” And it did feel
like coming home again. Ascension City was all good and well, and it
was
home, but the Academy was where I’d grown up. Semantics again, as some
considered the Academy and Fae Palace one and the same and therefore all a part
of Ascension City, but we were technically worlds away from all of that. “And I
know how large it looks, but don’t let that fool you. There’s just as much, if
not more, underground. Those spires, the domes... you’re looking at the tip of
a monumental, living, breathing iceberg.”

Annie nodded. “It’s like a
mini-city. Ethan and Sophie are here?”

“So I’m told, my dear. Let’s go find
out.”

*~*~*~*

As we drew closer to the Academy, I
asked, “So what did you think of my brother?”

“He looked unwell.”

“Yup, something going on there we’re
not being told. How about their offer? Did it seem genuine to you?”

“Honestly?” She shrugged. “I think
they were all very scared of something—Emissary, perhaps, I know he scares me
half to death—and that woman, Delia, was only a breath away from getting down
on her knees and begging for your help.”

I was inclined to agree. “Drax, on
the other hand, didn’t seem so pleased with the whole affair.”

“No, he doesn’t like you.” Annie
kicked a loose stone along the road and into the dry, yellow scrub skirting the
green hillsides. “I know you said the Knights had people in power all over the
world, over
my
world, but it was still shocking to see that my
government knows about all of this.” She gestured back toward the palace with
her thumb. “Wonder what else they’re not telling us?”

“If I know anything about politics,
then probably a whole lot.”

Soon we were on the outskirts of the
Academy, wandering past folk who seemed to be in a hurry. Classes ranging in
age from the young to mid-teens were scattered across the vast Academy grounds.
Older people, Knights and denizens of the Infernal Academy—the mini-city—ran a
thriving township, built around a long, winding river that cut through the
heart of the collection of buildings old and new.

I glanced at the large town clock close
to chiming the hour, halfway toward dusk. Time here mirrored time back in
Ascension City. A perfectly convenient coincidence. “Hey, want to see something
cool?” I asked Annie.

“Um... okay.”

I led her through the crowds,
keeping my head down once again, to quieter parts of the Academy grounds. If
memory served, I had about ten minutes to get where I was going or we’d miss
the special event. At some point, I’d have to find Sophie and Ethan and see if
’Phie could do anything for my eye, but we could spare half an hour for the
wonder I had in mind.

“Gotta be careful not to grow deaf
and blind to God’s beauty,” I muttered, as we descended a steep set of stone
steps strewn with moss and dusty gravel.

Annie blinked at me. “You believe in
God?”

“Well, I did meet one...” I
shrugged. “I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell or any of that nonsense. But a
higher power? Some sort of almighty creator? Maybe. I’ve seen enough to know
I’ve seen nothing.”

“But no heaven?”

“I died, Annie. I bled out slowly
and died. I saw no heaven, no hell. All I remember is an inky blackness, not
dissimilar to the Void. But I don’t really
remember
it. Rather, I have
just of a sense of the place... the not-place.”

Something for her to think about as
we ducked into a tunnel of wet stone under a bridge. Folk chatted brightly and
animatedly about their day overhead. The scent of coffee and baked goods
permeated the air just before we entered the tunnel and took a turn down. Beams
of sunlight pierced special funnels in the tunnel, lighting our way.

“Where are we going, Declan?”

“Somewhere secret. Somewhere... I
think I may be the only one who knows about it.”

The tunnel grew narrow but remained
well-lit, and soon we were ducking to keep our heads from brushing the ceiling.
The chatter and scents of coffee had faded to nothing. Half a minute later,
Annie and I reached the end of the tunnel—a dead end.

I tapped my foot against the
dusty-brown stone floor and stared straight ahead at the point where the two
walls and the roof met in an angled tip. The walls seamlessly joined to create
an isosceles shaped space at the end of the tunnel. To all appearances, the
tunnel dead-ended at a sharp point. “We made it here in good time. Often, I’ve
never been able to find this place, as if it moves, but today was a good day.
The Academy has a way of... changing.”

“What are we doing here?” Annie
asked.

“Are you wondering whether it was a
good idea to follow someone you barely know to an empty and disused part of the
Academy?”

Annie rolled her eyes. “I followed you
across worlds, didn’t I? And if you try anything fresh, I’ll just shoot you.”
She smiled, but it had a way of fading.

“Thinking about that bald bastard
who took a shot at me, aren’t you?”

She nodded slowly, and brushed a
loose strand of her midnight-black hair back behind her ear. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. It was a necessary
thing you did, but that doesn’t mean it was or
should
be easy.”

The triangular-shaped point in the
wall sprouted a door covered in thick ivy vines and blossoming purple flowers.
The arched wooden panels below the violet foliage grew into the wall. The heady
scent of honeysuckle and vanilla wafted into the tunnel from beyond the new
door.