Distant Star (11 page)

“Gee, I’m awful glad you stopped
by with such good news. I came here to change that fate.” I held my head and
thought of what waited on the other side of this forest. The city. The past.
All the king’s horsemen vying for my head… “They think killing me will make
their problems go away—that my death will somehow undo the damage. It
will not.”

But never mind. I’d chosen to
return, to see what my death was all about.

I stopped feeling sorry for
myself and concentrated on harnessing a resolve that would see me through. “I
can’t imagine this is easy for you. Being here. Why did you really want to see
me?”

The Historian shrugged and, for
just a moment, looked like the sixteen-year-old girl she was supposed to
be—innocent and uncertain. “Because you’re…” She grasped at the air,
looking for the words. “Before the end, you’re going to be given a chance, a
moment in time… to do something that no one has ever done before.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, that’s as close as I can
See it. Something
new
. Something… of
absurd importance. You, Declan Hale—the Shadowless Arbiter—are
going to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”

“You’re quoting Blake.” I scraped
a chunk of moss from the boulder. “Fitting, I suppose. And then I die?”

“Yes, and then you die.”

“Yay.”

The Historian stepped away from
me. She clasped her hands together over her breasts, and the blue sapphire
hanging around her neck shone with a soft, ethereal light. As I had done seven
years ago, during my graduation at the Infernal Academy, I fell to one knee
before her. Back then we had been the same height, even while I was on my
knees. Now my head was level with her waist. She placed a gentle hand on my
short, tousled hair.

“The next few days are going to
hurt, Declan.”

“I know.”

“Your enemies are not all evil.”

“I know.”

“You should forgive Jon Faraday.”

“I know. But never.”

A single tear traced a lonely
track down the Historian’s cheek. She let it fall unchecked, and without
thought, I reached out my open palm and caught it. That brought a smile back to
her face.

“When we first met, I feared you,
Declan. You scared me so much. More than the old Knights, the battle-scarred
veterans, or all the dark tales of Renegade cruelty put together. Do you know
why?”

“Of course.” I couldn’t keep my
voice from wavering, just a little. “Because of the future—or the past,
now. You Saw what I was going to do. What I would become. Atlantis, the war’s
end. The Degradation unleashed and the Story Thread crippled. Reach City and
all who lived there destroyed. I wish you’d told me some of it, at least enough
to save Tal. Or enough… to die in her place.”

“No, that’s not why. Never mind.”
She folded her hands over an elaborate belt, studded with gemstones. “You hated
me after you were exiled.”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

I sighed. “Why shoot the
messenger? Laws and accords as old as the universe itself bind you. It’s not
fair, but that’s life, right? Various shades of not-fair and regret.” I kissed
the back of the Historian’s hand and stood, having paid homage long enough.
“That’s a good thing, I suppose. If life were fair, then all these bad things that
happen to us would be because we deserved them.”

“Declan… you take cake, okay.”

Old jokes again. She really did
see everything. “Don’t you mean take care?”

“That too.”

*~*~*~*

I’d travelled into Forget and the
realm of Ascension City unassisted and untethered to the real world. No book or
written word had brought me across universes.

I was here in truth, having
survived the Void with sanity intact. I could not float back to Perth on a
whim.

Coming through the Void put me at
a disadvantage. The only way back was across the Void again or through one of
the guarded gates, where Forget and True Earth overlapped. If I was taken
prisoner in the city—and I would be—I would have no easy way of
escape. I’d have to rely on my charm and a winning attitude if I was going to
survive. Yeah, that would see me through.
S’all
gravy, baby.

The path through the forest was
paved with old cracked stones, worn and weathered. Bristly tufts of grass and
fat vines grew between the slabs and crept along the soil banks on either side
of the green corridor. I followed the path north, tasting the wind. Overhead,
unseen through the canopy, I could hear the rumbling of airships flying toward
the city.

“Good to be back,” I reminded
myself. “Oh, yes indeedy.”

The Historian had abandoned me by
the pool. She had used a leather-bound tome to slip back to her temple in the
mountains to the east of Ascension City. Once I watched her disappear, I
remembered I’d left
Tales of Atlantis
back
on the counter in my bookshop. That was sloppy. I had a feeling I was going to
need it, before all was said and done.

I followed the path for a few
miles, winding through the trees and thinking deep thoughts. My polished black
shoes were soon scuffed and biting at my ankles. They weren’t made for
strolling in the woods.
What other way
into the universe, though, Muir?

The path meandered alongside a
river too wide to cross.
I skirted the banks and headed as north as I could manage.
The cobbled, broken stone and overgrown weeds were dwindling. The canopy had
receded, too, and I beheld the late afternoon sky overhead. Tiny zipping dots,
cruisers and ships, darted to and fro within the clouds. Ascension City drew
close now, and my whole returning-to-the-scene-of-the-crime lark began to seem
very real. The trees had thinned enough that I could glimpse the edge of the
forest.

Ten minutes later, I emerged from the tree line on the crest of a
tall hill. From that vantage point, I beheld my old stomping grounds with a mix
of wearied relief and rising trepidation.

“Oh, you pretty thing,” I muttered.

I’d sensed home before I’d seen it. Ascension City housed tens of
millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of those were gifted with Will,
low-level practitioners, for the most part, who could do little more than light
a candle. Other inhabitants fell into the intermediate crowd, who usually
couldn’t pass the Academy’s brutal entrance examinations but were suited to
enchantment and augmentation work. As for the upper class, the experts, I could
sense one or two flares of power on par with the Knights Infernal.

The city looked magnificent.

Modern architecture and ancient design came into relief against a
backdrop of darkening sky. Ascension City appeared beyond its time and wouldn’t
have looked out of place in an epic Sci-Fi novel set on an alien world. The
buildings were futuristic, yet to the east, large swaths were charred and under
construction.
Reconstruction
. Half a
decade had passed since I’d left, and most of the damage I’d wrought had yet to
be repaired.

But the lights were on, and the roads and skies were heavy with
traffic. I guessed the city thrived.

Mighty towers, almost wreathed in clouds, scraped at the sky.
Glass domes extended over stadium-sized fields, and walkways stretched from the
peak of one building to the next—bridges built in the air over the city.
Neon-blue lighting ran up and down the streets and throughout hundreds of the
buildings. Its energy came from the conduit of tapped power running beneath the
city, a font of true power from the heart of creation, bleeding through a crack
in the canvas of reality.

The near-eternal source
of energy powered the intricate grid and had kept the city running even during
the most strenuous hours of the old wars.

Although most inhabitants didn’t know it, Ascension City was a
poor imitation of Atlantis.

One tower rose above all others in the heart of the city and shone
like a beacon in the half-light, a white spire of pure obsidian stone,
monolithic and imposing. Even at this distance, I could see the unnatural
smoothness of the rock, the polished finish and metal trim. Blue lights ran up
the tower in a spiral pattern, and a single white sphere of fire, at the
tower’s peak, ignited a flat plateau.

The Fae Palace of the Knights Infernal had been carved from a
mountain long centuries ago. The heart of the city was the crystal core of a
mountain long dead. The rest of Ascension City, some thirty miles across,
sprawled out from that central tower.

I had missed this place.

*~*~*~*

I made no effort to mask my
appearance as I treaded once more familiar paths through the outskirts of the
city.

My journey through the Void had
spat me out in the forest bordering the south side of town. Emerging in that
location was useful. My current destination, the Cedar Sky—a charming old
shop in the market district—was only a half hour’s walk.

The cobblestone lanes and vaulted
stone archways marked the way into the sprawling market area. Contemporary
hotels and rustic old inns stood side by side and thrust their upper stories
above ramshackle shops. Red-and-white-pebbled bricks lined wide boulevards,
which in turn were circled by low hills. The city had been built around those
hills.

Crowds of Forgetful
citizens—men, women, and children born and raised in this
world—meandered in the busy streets. Wheelless taxi-cycles, hovering a
foot above the ground, zoomed down roadways alongside old wooden carts.
Ascension City was a blur of the past, present, and future. With so many
conflicting realms, it was impossible for anyone to keep time in order. The city
may have been ultramodern in part, by standards back in the real world, but its
people and customs spanned five thousand years.

An old farmer selling sticky
mangoes the size of soccer balls eyed me warily as I paused on a street corner
to wipe the sweat from my brow. “Broken quill, but I know you, don’t I, son?”

“Me? No, I don’t think so.” Best
to avoid a riot so early in the game.

I moved on, leaving the old man
wagging his finger at me and tapping his head. I made it a few shops down the
lane before his startled cry cut through the air. “Hale! By the Everlasting,
that was Declan Hale!”

Bugger…

Murmurs and shocked whispers
rippled through the throngs of Forgetfuls, putting me in the calm heart of a
swirling tornado. In a city of people from all corners of Forget, skins dark or
pale, clothes of bright and strange cut, faces masked or hair dyed violent
colors,
I
was the one that stood out
like a sore thumb, a record skipping a beat—
sing it true, songbird
—or a cat hunting among the pigeons.
Five years ago, and I imagine even in the years since, my face had been
plastered on every wall and screen for a hundred worlds.

“On a steel horse I ride…”
Wanted: Dead or Alive
.

The crowds parted for me, the
infamous exiled Knight, and I strolled through lanes and enjoyed the freedom
offered by my pseudo-celebrity. That freedom would all come crashing down soon,
I was sure. The soft, pleasant aroma of turmeric and a thousand other spices,
teas, and seeds wafted on the air as I headed deeper into the quarter. I was
nearly at my destination but kept my eyes peeled for trouble.

I could easily imagine a dagger
in the back or a bullet to the brain, not to mention attacks of a more
supernatural nature. Strands of silver light trailed behind me from my clenched
fists. My Will was alight, daring anyone to try and stop me.

None dared.

A few minutes later, followed by
hordes of grim-faced men but so far unmolested, I reached the storefront and
home of an old friend. Barrels of cashew nuts, pistachios, and red dates sat
out front of the Cedar Sky. Exotic teas and coffees in canvas bags were stacked
thirty feet high against the crooked, fieldstone building.

Whistling a merry tune, I let
myself in.

Inside was hot and humid. Wiry,
Byzantine folk music wailed from an old gramophone. More barrels and satchels
of herbs were scattered atop buckled wooden tables. Scents of wolfberry and
ginseng hung in the air. That smell, more than anything else so far, made me
realize just where I was and how far I’d travelled since breakfast that
morning.

“Welcome, welcome,” chimed a
deep, cheerful voice from somewhere behind the immense stocks of earthy
produce. “Welcome to Cedar Sky. How may I—?” The voice emerged from
behind a wall of herbs before it cut off abruptly.

“Aaron!” I pointed a finger at
the portly man. “Long time no—”

“No!” Aaron backed away and fell
over his chair. He hit the floor with a solid thud which rattled the various
alchemical bottles on the shelves. “Oh sweet, broken quill—no, no,
no
. Not now, not ever. Hale, get out of
here! You insane bastard—did anyone see you enter this shop?”

“No.”

“Well, praise Allah for
small—”

“
Everyone
saw me come in here.”