Distant Star
Copyright © 2012 Joe Ducie
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publisher. One chapter or ten
percent of this book, whichever is greater, may be photocopied by any educational
institution for its educational purposes.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any references to
real people or real locales are used fictitiously.
Cedar Sky Publishing was founded in Perth, Western Australia.
This book also available as an e-book for Kindle.
First printed in the United States of America, 2012.
Written by Joe Ducie:
www.joeducie.net
Cover artwork by Vincent Chong:
www.vincentchong-art.co.uk
ISBN-13:
978-0-9873294-2-4
Tales of the
Knights Infernal:
For
FINOLA
First. Last.
Always.
Dark and getting
darker, sweet thing, but you are my light.
Here we are as
penguins (I’m the fat one):
To the
people who helped shape this story along the way – you are too many to
name. But I’m going to try anyway, in no particular order.
To Irene Quinlan – my eternal thanks and friendship. You were
right on every point, save for the wild berry cider. Strawberry & lime is
far superior.
To Imogen Rice – you, your pens, and an awesome soundtrack.
To Andrew Ireland – Trail? Trail. You carry the Guinness.
To Scott Eadie – you’re missing some good steak nights, bro.
To Chris and Val Ducie – for reading, for encouragement, for
keeping the beer fridge well-stocked.
To Hamish and Rachel Cotton – for catching one or two corrections
that almost made it into the final copy.
To Elisha Rooney – who taught me how to use a vacuum cleaner…
To David O’Boyle – you’re not missing some good steak nights,
bro.
To the bastards and bastardettes at DLP – no greater hive of scum
and villainy.
Last but not least, to my editors at Red Adept,
Becky Eaton and Lynn O’Dell – you humbled me good.
OPENING SALVO: PART I
Yet lost to time, that
dusty trail.
A hangman’s noose – a rusty nail!
The Never-Was King will command:
Degradation’s demise at hand?
~The
Historian of Future Prospect
After Madness, 2007
Regret for the
things we did can be
tempered by time; it is regret for the
things we did not that is inconsolable.
~Sydney
J. Harris
Islands of pure thought
Cannot compare Truth
Ah! Seen from aside
Naught but clouded cries.
Treasonous thought left behind.
~King Morrow’s Lost
Journal (Vol. VII)
Back in
Black
“Why’s it say ‘
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
’ on your door?”
I rang up the sale and placed the
book in a brown paper bag. “Dangerous places, bookshops.”
“No, really?”
“Really.”
“What could be dangerous about a
bookshop?”
The guy’s smile didn’t touch his
eyes. Something wasn’t right. I could taste strangeness on the air like burnt
rubber, or smoldering pages. Two wars and a whole world of trouble while
growing up had fine-tuned my survival instinct.
“Well,” I said, reaching into my
waistcoat. “There’s a power in words, my friend.”
His smile faded, and he made his
move, tearing the brown paper bag apart to get at the book inside. He was
sloppy and slow. I knew first-year Knights quicker on the draw than Smiler
here. His ineptness was almost insulting.
I drew the novel from my inside
pocket and slipped it open as the force of his Will slammed into me like a
freight train. Ah, such
strength!
I
hadn’t felt the like in years, not since the final days of the Tome Wars. He
was young, too, his cheeks covered in a scraggly beard. I was nearly impressed.
Still, he did not know with whom
he was dueling.
My book became an argent shield
that obliterated the solid burst of Will, a pure power sent against me. I was
the train and he, a Coke can. His fingers slipped across the pages, and he faltered,
caught in an invisible net. Someone had taught him how to throwdown, but not
how to focus his strength. Just enough to be dangerous. No matter.
His mind crumpled.
Blood ran down his face in
rivulets from his eyes, and I snapped his limbs together, pinning him to the
spot. He made a low, awful sound somewhere between a scream and a groan.
“Your name?” I asked.
The boy’s Will had shattered. His
copy of Figley’s
Assassin
dropped to
the floor, useless, just a book.
“Tell me, mate,” I urged. “You
must know who I am. What I can do.”
I sent a wave of compulsion drawn
within a thin network of suggestion and persuasion through the pages in my hand
and across the boy’s mind. Such subtle strands of Will were invisible to the
naked eye, but they settled on his thoughts and dug the hook of my coercion in
that much deeper.
“I am… the Pagemaster.”
I snorted. “Really? We gave up
those ridiculous codenames long before the war’s end. Come now, tell me the
name your mother gave you.” The words on my book began to shine with a dark
light. A
not
-light. Void light. “Or
Lord Oblivion itself will be kinder than I will be.”
The capillaries in his eyes had
burst, staining the whites dark red. Through the crimson mess, I watched his
small spark of defiance blur into fear, which was satisfying to see. I’d broken
not only his Will but also his will.
“Je-Jeffrey,”
he said. “Jeffrey Brade.”
“Jeffrey.” I nodded. “A pleasure
to meet you.” I drew back a bit of my Will to give the kid a chance to explain.
No one had been brazen enough to attack me for years. In a time not so long
ago, I would have cast his soul beyond perdition without even blinking. “Why
did you try to kill me today?”
He shook his head. “Can’t tell
you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Jeffrey took a deep breath and
released it slowly. “Won’t.”
“Listen to me carefully, Jeff.
Can I call you Jeff? You made a choice today. You made a choice to enter my
shop, to cast your Will against mine. I must say, you have one
helluva
talent. If I were anyone else,
you would have had me.” My tone hardened. “But I am not anyone else. I am
Declan Hale, the Shadowless Arbiter. My Will is tempered steel, as dense as the
heart of a distant star. Whoever sent you, Jeff, sent you to die. You owe them
nothing.”
“Fuck,” Jeff whispered. “Fuck
you. Atlantis is ours. You can’t stop what’s coming, Hale.”
“So be it.” The book in my hand
was Roper Hartley’s third adventure, a fine tale and as strong a cord as any in
the Story Thread. The Dread Lord Astaroth casts Roper and the gang into the
Blasted Pits of Na’ar—a place of eternal torment, of fire and lost souls.
Call it Hell. “Goodbye, Jeff.” The words leapt from the page, and dark light
became a burning rope in the air.
Jeff’s eyes bulged. “No,
wait—”
Patience was not one of my
virtues. The words wrapped around his neck like a demonic noose and yanked him
forward off his feet. A tremendous burst of heat and energy obliterated his
last scream. Like water sucked down a drain, Jeffrey Brade was absorbed into
the words on the page. His form was scattered to the far reaches of darkest
Forget.
I snapped the book closed and
sighed. Five years had passed since I’d had need of that particular bit of
power. Flecks of ash from another world swirled in the space so briefly
occupied by Jeff, amidst the stink of burning stone and rotten eggs. Sulphur,
fire, and smoke—I’d just sent a kid to Hell.
Holstering my novel, I stood for
a long moment in contemplation before picking up the phone on the counter. I
dialed the number from memory. The tone rang a single time, followed by a small
click and then dull static.