Distant Star (9 page)

“Who’s that?”

“Trouble.”

I tapped the book concealed in my
coat thoughtfully for a moment. Could I still flee? Of course, but to leave
Clare to the Voidling… I wasn’t that far gone.

“Go flip the sign over, would
you, Ethan.”

“What about—?”

“Trust me.”

He did as he was told. I knocked
aside an ashtray and tiny ceramic pipe atop my sales counter, and then assumed
a casual position seated atop it. The
Tales
of Atlantis
I slipped from my holster and into a stack of cheap romance
paperbacks. To be caught with that, even by Clare, would be to sign my own
death warrant.

As soon as the wards were down
Clare stepped inside and motioned her six followers to wait outside. She
glanced at Ethan, no doubt sensing the sloppy shield around his Will, and moved
between Sci-Fi and General Fiction to keep both Ethan and me in view.

“Hello, Declan.”

“Hello, Clare.”

“You know why I’m here?”

“Of course. I’m to be arrested
for breaking the conditions of my exile.”

Clare bit her lip. “I’m sorry.
Faraday’s orders.”

“Quite all right, sweet thing.” I
picked up a tape gun from the counter and held down the flaps on a delivery
box. “For what it’s worth, I think we’ve both been set up by powers unseen. No
matter. I was just about to pay the faux king a visit, anyway.”

“Declan, are you
mad?
Run, run now. Any Knight will
arrest you on sight. Christ, that’s why I’m here! When we bring you in, Faraday
will have you executed. He’s forcing you out.”

“I got me some bigger problems,
Clare.”

“Like what?”

I frowned. “Like trying to find
the start of this goddamn roll of tape.”

“I
said
we should run…” Ethan mumbled, casting nervous glances at the
open door.

The Voidling was doing what its
kind did best. Waiting in the shadows. As soon as someone used their Will, it
would attack and latch onto the energy like two magnets snapping together. At
its most powerful, it would feed. The thing that had come to kill me was now my
secret weapon… but still Clare’s enemy.

“And no, I’m not mad,” I said.
“Merely tired. Frustrated. Cast aside and discarded. Exiled beyond the Final
Vanguards, no? All just for show. To keep the people happy and subdued. Give
them someone to hate.” I slowly let out my breath. “Clare, there’s a Voidling
hiding in the courtyard outside.”

She blinked. “You’re bluffing.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Ethan interjected, and then
wished he hadn’t when Clare scrutinized him. “I saw it. It followed me here.”

“And who are you in all of this?”

“Clare, Ethan. Ethan, Clare. He’s
got the talent.”

One of Clare’s entourage stepped
into the shop. A tall, grizzled man that reminded me of Marcus. He rested his
hand on the pommel of a curved sword concealed by his cloak and glared
something akin to pure, crude hatred at me. The crest on his cloak marked him
as one of the feared guards of Starhold, the Forgetful prison. I offered him a
winning smile.

“What’s the delay, Valentine?”

“Arthur,” said Clare, “Hale says
there’s a Voidling in the courtyard.”

The big man snorted. “Right. And
I’m the next High King of Atlantis. Come off it. He’ll say anything. Do you
know how unlikely it is a Voidling crossed into True Earth?”

I didn’t have to say anything. My
new friend Arthur was about to play his part in this impromptu script all too
well. He produced a set of star iron manacles, inscribed with runes in the
Infernal language. My, my… I warranted the highest honors. Those manacles
suppressed Will and placed a blanket of crushing fatigue upon whoever was
unlucky enough to wear them.

“Don’t try and resist, exile.”

“Arthur, wait—” Clare
interrupted. Her eyes flashed from emerald green to a fierce and fiery red. She
believed me about the Voidling, but it was too late.

Arthur tapped his Will and I did
nothing to stop him. The runes on the manacles began to glow. They sprang open
at the same instant an unholy and soul-wrenching
screech
reverberated across the courtyard. All of the windows along
my storefront imploded in a hail of jagged shrapnel.

I was already moving. As Ethan
cursed and Clare dived toward me, I stepped forward and raised a hand against
the thousands of tiny missiles. A whispered thought and a cone of ethereal
light spread outwards from my palm, creating a shield in front of Ethan, Clare
and myself. The rain of deadly glass shards slammed into the wall of force and
shattered again, to dust and less than dust.

Arthur wasn’t so lucky. He stood
beyond my range—and was cut to ribbons. The star iron cuffs fell to the
floor.

I laughed.

The force of the Voidling’s rage
had knocked the majority of Clare’s Knights against the front of my shop. They
recovered quickly, drawing books and swords bound in lines of pure story. They
all looked so young out there, standing well armed but alone against the
nightmare hiding in shadow.

“It’s after me, I guess.” I
rubbed my hands together in anticipation. Clare had moved to my side, as she
had done so many times in the Tome Wars. She held a small dagger in one hand
with a ruby in its hilt—her Infernal Blade—and in the other a small
paperback. “You know words are no good against these things.”

Clare blinked, swallowed, and
then nodded. “Right.” She slipped the book away. “What’s the plan, Commander?”

I didn’t bother to correct her or
deny the title.

“Stay out of my way,” I said, and
meant it. “That goes twice for you, Ethan.” I tossed him the bottle of
Captain’s and he caught it on reflex. “Pay attention, though, sunshine. You may
learn something.”

A rotten gloominess had descended
across Riverwood Plaza as I stepped outside to confront the creature of
nightmare. Shadows eclipsed the fountain, and the water that had been clear ran
dark and bubbled up and over the rim. The substance wasn’t water but thick,
living oil—a shadow made real.

The glass had been blown out of
all the windows in the courtyard. Terrified civilians scattered every which
way, as the creature that had been hiding in the fountain took shape. The
Voidling’s scream had toppled the frozen banana cart. Old Mathias was nowhere
to be seen, which pissed me off more than anything else so far.

The Knights did not hesitate. As
one, they fired blasts of superheated energy into the undulating pool of slick
blackness that crept toward my shop. I remained behind them, out of the line of
fire. Doing as she was told, Clare stayed behind me.

The Voidling kept on coming,
absorbing the flame, the ice,
and
the
lightning. These Knights weren’t the strongest of the order, not by a long
shot.

Then, the Voidling was upon us,
blotting out the sun. All sound seemed to die as the Knights fought the
terrible thing which grew six, then seven, then eight feet tall. It finally
assumed a shape which was vaguely human, a trunk with arms and legs, but where
its head should have been was an ugly, rotating sphere of dark oil. The thing
had no facial features, yet I felt it look at me. It shrieked again, but the
latest noise seemed just a whisper.

Which fractured five minds.

One by one, the Knights slumped.
Some fell to their knees, drooling, while others managed a stifled cry before
dropping, limp, to the cobblestones. Such was the power of the abstract—of
the Void. It had gotten close enough to work its vicious influence and would
soon devour not only flesh but souls.

I heard Clare mumbling incoherent
nonsense behind me. She gripped my arm, and her eyes, distant and dusty, were
the color of old paper. I turned back to the Voidling, pulled myself free of
Clare, and stepped in front of the defeated Knights to stand before the
creature from beyond space and time.

We regarded one another for a
careful moment, and then I plunged my hands into its chest.
Huh… guess you don’t forget how to ride a
bike.

It didn’t have a face, just that
dark orb of oily light, but I thought I caught a momentary flicker of surprise
in its form as I gripped its not-heart.
Good
,
I thought.
Fear me, you son-of-a-bitch
.

What happened next surprised even
me. As I tore its very being asunder, the Voidling
laughed
. It spoke, not aloud, but into my mind.

“
Oblivion sees you, Shadowless. Oblivion is watching.”

I recoiled, disgusted at its
touch inside my head. Its words tasted like rancid milk in the back of my
throat. A bolt of wild Will rushed down my arms and burst out of my hands,
inside the creature, and flames of emerald light consumed it from within. I
turned away at the last moment, just before it exploded, to shield my face from
the radiance.

Just like that, the spell was
broken. Reality, proper reality, snapped back into place. The sights and sounds
of the courtyard, the screams of bystanders, mostly, and the gush of water
flooding the plaza from the cracked fountain, came back into stark focus.

Tapping my chin, I pondered the
Voidling’s words for a moment and then turned back to Clare. She sat within a
broken window frame of my shop and held her head in her hands. The Knights
strewn on the ground around her mumbled and groaned, which was actually a good
sign. Perhaps they had kept their sanity.

Clare gasped as I touched her
shoulder. She looked up, pale as a ghost. “How did you do that?” she whispered.
“Declan, you
touched
it. Your mind
should be soup.”

“That’s my little secret, sweet thing.”
Seeing her perplexed expression turn to actual fear, I dropped the pretence. “I
got a lot more than I bargained for when I sold my shadow for some magic
beans.”

 
Clare stood shakily, holding my forearm for balance. “You can
fight them… No, you can do more than that. They don’t affect you, do they? If
Faraday knew—”

“He’d probably see it as another
reason to chop off my head. Remember why you’re here today. To wrap me in
shackles and deliver me to my execution.”

“I was…” Clare shook her head,
trying to clear the taste of the Void, no doubt. “That is… I didn’t know about
the star iron.”

“It doesn’t matter now, and don’t
worry, I believe you.” I kissed her forehead. “I really was about to deliver
myself there, anyway.”

“To Ascension City?”

I nodded. “Want to come with me?”

Clare seemed to get a hold on
herself and stood up a little straighter. She let go of my arm. “No.” She moved
over to the nearest fallen Knight and turned her over. The woman stared at the
sky unblinking. She’d gnawed a chunk from the flesh of her bottom lip. “I have
to tend to my unit. Please, help me.”

“Sorry, no. I must be on my way.
But I’ll send out the work experience kid.”

I stepped back into my shop.
Ethan stood staring at me with wide eyes. He clutched the bottle of rum hard
enough to turn his knuckles white. Other than that, he seemed in good working
order.

“Declan,” Clare called. I glanced
over my shoulder. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

No promises.

It was time to go too far.

HOLD ALL SALVOS: PART II

Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of night.
He leaves no footprints.
He casts no shadow.

~ Sandman (Neil Gaiman)

A forgetful rose to guide
him,
The curse of a madman’s last whim.
Crystal petals—blood, bone and steel.
Wrath and ruination brought to heel.

~The Historian of Future Prospect
After Madness, 2007

Wrought,
indeed, from words
Rent—torn asunder!
Islands no more, dear
Truth. A pity, you dolt,
Enigmatic fool.

~King Morrow’s Journal (Vol. VII)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eggshells

The roads to Ascension City, on
the very border of the real world—True Earth—and the realms of
Forget, were varied and plentiful.
Highways
jammed with broken heroes, boss
.

Ascension City could be dived
from along the ragged edge of the burning page.

Or I could reach it from a
multitude of adjoining realms within Forget itself.

Hell, the city could even be
stumbled upon by accident. The home of the Knights Infernal, the last bastion
of order and law against the Void, not only brushed up against True Earth, but
often times overlapped. Paint on the porous canvas ran, and the lines of
reality blurred.

Many a clueless mortal had found
their way into Forget and the city purely by elusive thought. The crossover
boundaries were, for the most part, fluid and unpredictable. A select few,
however, were
always
present
.
Always and in all ways. The Knights
patrolled the ones they knew about, trying in vain to monitor the ebb and flow
of citizens through the vast, sprawling metropolis and surrounds.