Broken Quill [2] (31 page)

“We want you to aid us,” Delia said,
smoothing her salt-and-pepper hair back with a shaking hand. She was trying to
get things back on track, bless her heart. “Declan, in exchange for a pardon,
we want you to set your immortality—or whatever boon you gained in
Atlantis—against Emissary and the master he serves. We want you to reclaim True
Earth for the Knights.”

“Do it your damned self...” I
muttered.

Drax snarled. “One man against the
Everlasting. That was the plan, and who better than the prodigal son? The
exiled immortal? We thought if any of us could best them, it would be you.”

I looked at my brother, weakened and
hollow on his stolen throne. “Was this all you, Jon? Did you abandon True Earth
just
to draw me back here? To test my resolve and... and
immortality
?”

Faraday licked his lips and made a
sound caught between a wheeze and a rasp, like air passing through dead lungs.
Just
how far gone are you, brother?

“Declan,” he said, with surprising
vigor. “You deal with Emissary. Reclaim True Earth as a representative of this
court and the Knights Infernal, and I... I will pardon...” His voice failed
him.

Fenton Creed squeezed his shoulder
and stepped forward. “Defeat Emissary, Hale, and your exile will be lifted.
You’ll be granted tentative status as a Guardian within our ranks once more.”

I snorted. “I don’t believe you.”

Drax slashed his hand down through
the air. “Believe it, Hale. I was strongly against this offer, but it is the
wishes of the council and King Faraday. Your minor titles will be
reinstated—but you’ll never work in the field again. Some lesser position will
be found. Training at the Academy, perhaps.”

I stared at Faraday, struggling to
keep his eyes open. He nodded—just. “What if I don’t want to come back?”

“What?” Drax blinked. “You... what?”

“I decline your gracious offer, my
lords and ladies. My
king.
”

“Declan...” Faraday wheezed. “No.”

If I didn’t know any better, he
could almost be begging, but did I know any better? He clawed at the sleeve on
his kingly robes with frail fingers, catching at the fabric. Faraday lifted the
sleeve and revealed the aged, wrinkled flesh of his forearm. Not three months ago
he’d stood in my shop, skin clear and healthy, corded with thick muscle. Now he
was withered.

And branded into his skin was a
familiar mark.

Emissary’s mark.

With a sigh, I undid the cufflink on
my shirt and rolled up my sleeve.

“He got you too, huh?”

The lords and ladies, spectators to
the handful of real players in the chamber, gasped. Even Drax grunted at the
sight of Emissary’s handiwork.

“How long have you had that mark?”
Fenton hissed.

“This would be day three.”

He nodded, lips pursed into a thin,
grim line. “King Faraday was branded seven days ago. He started to... suffer
the effects on the second day. The brand is what’s killing him.”

“What?” I glared at the mark on my
arm. The tattoo of scarred and burned flesh roiled, like dying embers in the fire.
Around that fire was wrinkled, old skin. It was killing me? “No, it’s a brand
for Will suppression.”

“It’s more than that—” Drax began.

“Then why am I still fit and
healthy? The second day, you said, for Faraday, and on my third the only thing
wrong with me is this blasted eye patch.”

“Declan,” Annie said quietly, coming
to the obvious conclusion half a second before I did myself. “Is it because of
the petal? The petal that brought you back to life?”

I sighed and Drax gave me a wintry
smile.
Of course...

“Immortality,” Arbiter Drax said.
“Or something close enough to ward away the detriment of the brand. This is why
you’re best suited to the task at hand, Hale.”

It won’t last, I thought. I don’t
know the boundary of my so-called immortality, but I can still bleed, still
burn... The curse in the brand will catch up with me.

It was already catching up with me,
if the wrinkled skin around the mark was any indication, just a lot more slowly
than it had my brother. Broken quill, but Emissary had to die and die soon—or I
would.

“Return to True Earth, Hale, and
defeat Emissary. Kill the monster, and the rune scholars at the Academy believe
the brand will fade. Save not only your own life but that of your brother’s,
and accept reinstatement into the Knights Infernal as your reward.”

With a sigh, I realized I had no
choice but to take their offer. My brother, his condition deteriorating before
my eyes, held out a gnarled and wrinkled hand. His fingers were twisted with
arthritis.

Three days ago I would have spat at
his feet.

Three days ago I would have burned
this damned palace down around his head.

Now I simply felt sorry for the man,
so I shook his hand.

The lords and ladies breathed a sigh
of heavy relief.

“We’ll be with you, Declan,” Vrail
said and clapped me on the shoulder. “Dessan, Garner, and me. Can’t let you
have all the fun, you ken?”

“I ken, my friend. I ken all too
well...”

Emissary was not a force to be
trifled with—even at my best. With a few good Knights at my back, and Annie,
perhaps we could get a drop on the bastard. I had Myth now, the Creation Knife.
Celestial illusion on my side could tip the scales in our favor. Maybe.

“You think because I’ve got some
protection from the Infernal Clock, I can get close enough to stop the demon?”
I had to hand it to them, at least they weren’t just firing me out of a cannon
and hoping for the best. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? I want my pardon in
writing before I leave.”

Delia plucked a scroll of parchment
from a pile on the table, sealed with the crest of the Knights Infernal. “I
think you’ll find this in order,” she said. “Witnessed by all who stand before
the Dragon Throne.”

I took the document from her,
slipped it into an inner pocket on my waistcoat, and patted it down. “I’d
better.”

That seemed to signal an end to this
unruly and otherworldly council. I stepped down off the dais, slipped Annie’s
gun back into its holster, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and sat down
next to Tia in the cheap seats.

“You get points for flare, as
always,” she said. “But your delivery leaves something to be desired.”

Annie stood over us, looked down at
us—at me. “I want to go home now, Declan. I wish... I wish none of this had
ever happened.”

I stroked my chin, scratched at an invisible
beard, and sighed. “So do all who live to see such times, my dear. But you are
right—home again, home again, jiggity-jig.”

Down, down… to Goblin Town

“When small drops began to fall and
darken the world in penny-shaped circles,
no one around him scurried for cover.
For lonely people, rain is a chance to be touched.”

 
~Simon Van Booy

So saving the world—indeed, the
worlds—from Emissary came down to me, Annie, Tia, Vrail, Dessan, and Garner. Not
a bad bunch, and not one I’d bet against. It felt good to be back on a quest
for the Knights Infernal, even under such stringent circumstances. It felt good
to be back at the head of a taskforce, to set out into Forget, to right a
wrong, to stop something evil from rising. Again, it felt as though I were
coming home. For the first time in a long time I didn’t really want a drink.

I requested Ethan and Sophie before
departing the Fae Palace, but Drax just laughed at me. He knew as well as I did
the worth of a good bargaining chip. And I would not bet two of my only few
friends in the world on whether these next few hours were going to land on red
or black. So no Ethan and Sophie, but I would be back for them—pardoned,
healed, and unbranded.

“What are you smiling for?” Dessan
grunted.

“Because that went just as I thought
it would.”

“Oh? So we’re all not about to die
fighting one of the Old Gods?”

I laughed. “Fairly good odds on that
happening, but I was smiling more at the fact that, after everything, those
lords, ladies, and Knights
need
me again. Five years on, and here’s a
taste of vindication.”

Garner ruffled my hair. “If we’re
being honest, you
let
them exile you all those years ago. Given your
standing at the time and what you’d just accomplished.” He glanced sideways at
Annie. “That is, the Renegade surrender and the end of a century of war. I was
more than surprised you didn’t balk at the sentence leveled on your shoulders
back then.”

“I wanted out,” I said, almost
spitting the words on the floor. “But now I want back in. Yes, yes I do.”

We rode the elevators down to the
levels of arched doorways that led to the Lexicon. This close to the heart of
the Knights’ power, I wasn’t about to reveal Myth, my latest weapon of
celestial illusion. So a quick jaunt to the Atlas Lexicon, and then—not a
train—I could use the knife to cut through to my shop in Perth, on True Earth,
and we could put an end to this whole sordid affair.

I was looking forward to destroying
Emissary.

The ‘how’ of that still eluded me,
as he’d absorbed my best Will-attacks, but I’d find a way.

Tell the truth, I was itching for
the fight.

*~*~*~*

The Atlas Lexicon was just as busy
as we’d left it not two days ago, before the Dream Worlds where I’d discovered Myth,
before Meadow Gate where I’d discovered Tia, and before Ascension City where
I’d discovered a pale sort of pseudo-redemption. We’d have to see how that
would play out.

The rest of my companions, including
Annie, went off to the vendors to see about tickets. I still hadn’t retrieved
Myth from my young detective yet, but that’s the path she and I would be
taking, instead of the inter-dimensional trains, given the slip into the Void
that had happened last time.
Slipped... or pulled?
I wasn’t sure on the dynamics
of using the Creation Knife to cut through to the real world, to True Earth,
but if that failed then I still had McSorley’s key, and we could use an archway
in the arrivals hall to jump back to Perth.

Plenty of nice, safe options.

Weaving my way through the crowds, I
took a seat on the bench overlooking the Pillars of Creation and the
Globescape, the mighty steel skyscrapers and glowing spheres, just to rest my
tired bones and gaze at the miraculous crystal sky.

Maybe got about thirty seconds of peace
and quiet. Then Emissary took a seat next to me and slung his arm around my
shoulders.

“You’re a hard man to find,” he
said. The subtle strength in his grip suggested he could, with less than a
twitch of his wrist, snap my neck as if it were a matchstick. The immaculate,
black double-breasted suit he wore looked good in stark contrast to my
wrinkled, worn shirt and waistcoat. It’d been a rough few days, losing an eye
notwithstanding.

“Well, I was just about to come
looking for you,” I said. His hands were stained red with what could only be
dried, rusted blood. “Funny old life, isn’t it?”

“I told you not to leave Perth,” he
said, and a deep growl, almost below hearing, rode along his words. Tremors
heralding the quake to come.

“Yeah, see, I kind of think you
actually did want me to leave. I don’t know why, yet, but you knew which way
I’d run once you marked me. Care to fill in a few blanks?”

Emissary chuckled, and lashings of
pink flame danced between his teeth. Smoke whirled in loose tendrils around his
suit. “Don’t focus on the small details, Shadowless. You miss the bigger,
indeed the
biggest
, picture.”

“And what’s that?”

Emissary gestured at the crowds
milling below, along the railroads between the six skyscrapers powering the
Lexicon, and up at the shifting crystal spheres displaying one world after
another in an endless, harmonic symphony of precision and universal melody.
“War on the horizon, Declan Hale. A war even you, with your knack for survival,
cannot stand against.”