Elder Shadow (The Reminiscent Exile Book 5) Read online

  ‘You’re a cancer,’ I said. ‘And my body is killing itself to reject you.’

  Oblivion flashed anger my way but then shrugged. “Sure, if that helps you understand and accept your death. I will rend Astoria’s mantle from you before that happens.”

  ‘I have to give it to you. I won’t do that.’

  “To save your son’s life?” He shrugged again. “You humans are perpetually weak in that regard. Go to hell or own it, Declan Hale, it matters not to me. Either way, I win.”

  I gritted my teeth and bit down on a response. The hell of it was, he was right. I cared for that kid I’d abandoned, to spare him this very fate, and now here we were anyway. But if what Oblivion said was true, if I was beginning to unravel, my body and mind fail…

  ‘It’s a race now,’ I said. ‘All your plans, all your expectations, and this old rig of mine can’t accommodate you to see them done.’

  Oblivion sighed. Up ahead, through the Void, I sensed True Earth—that glittering heart of all creation, mother terra, the beginning and the end of everything. Knights, indeed, any human, always knew when home was close. We’d punch through somewhere near Perth, near Annie.

  “I should have anticipated your resistance,” Oblivion conceded. He was talking to me like we were… well, not equals… but as if he weren’t an ageless demigod and I was more than a gnat to be swatted. “Your body was a ruin long before I claimed it. You’ve been tortured and beaten, killed and resurrected. Match that with the powers you’ve dabbled in, the mantle you were granted, and is it small wonder something so fragile and human can’t hold itself together in my radiance?”

  ‘Is that how you describe yourself on your dating profile? Name: Oblivion, Age: Endless, Body Type: Radiant?’

  “Make your jokes and enjoy your time left. If nothing else, Declan Hale, this is the end for you.”

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’ I blinked and considered. ‘I’m still here. Still breathing.’

  We punched through the Void, as expected, and bright sunlight under clear blue skies shone down upon my face. My boots crunched under sandy shores and the Indian Ocean glittered at my back like a canvas cast with sapphires and diamonds. We stepped from Void to Earth, as easily as moving from one room to another. Hell, I admired how well the Everlasting could navigate the Void.

  ‘Diablo Beach,’ I said. ‘I blinded your brother Scion here, with the Creation Knife. This is where Annie died, where I brought her back with one of those petals that can kill you bastards.’

  I felt a spike of unease from Oblivion before he masked it well. He hadn’t aimed to be here, not really, but here we were anyway. Something, some sense, perhaps the weakness in the canvas of reality during Scion’s incursion, had made this a prime spot to break through into True Earth, but it was the site of one of my victories.

  One of my many victories against the Everlasting.

  It rattled Oblivion, and I sensed he was beginning to understand that all of us, even him, were dancing to strings tied long ago.

  Dusk understood it. But then he was the more cunning of the two brothers.

  I grinned as Oblivion stomped up the beach, frightening away some gulls, and focused my attention back on the heavy tome in my lap—Astoria’s, Declan’s, mantle of Everlasting power and territory.

  I flipped to the glossary, knowing that so long as I willed it, believed it, there would be a glossary. This mantle was a part of me, something instinctive. The moment it had been bestowed, I understood it on a fundamental level—the knowledge and strength was opened to me. And the mind prison an ideal place to search through the mantle, to find what I was looking for…

  Again, I’d been focusing and planning too much on changing the past to affect the future. When we were already living in the ruins of all those plans. Emily had known to save Annie, Astoria had known she would die, known we would have a child together—she had known, because I’d told her in the past. I’d told her everything ten thousand years ago.

  Fair Astoria, sweet Emily Grace, may she rest in peace, had been given ten millenniums to prepare for this fight—my fight. The lost petals of the Infernal Clock would be within this mantle somewhere, I was certain.

  The eternal trap of desire… At the time, the words had seemed awkward, even cryptic, and that had been the point. The race still had to be run, Emily had known it, even as she killed me. Even as she killed me she knew how much more fighting I still had to do. I must have seemed so young to her, back in those days. Naïve and stumbling in the dark. It was all to purpose. I wondered, briefly, how much she had wanted to tell me. Those lazy afternoons she spent as Emily Grace in my bookshop, bringing me lunch, discussing wine and music and good words… we’d been friends. She had known what was to come, all of it, and still she had wanted to stay. Emily had been more human than most humans I knew. I think more than a small part of her wanted to tell me everything, but knew that doing so would have changed it.

  I wondered. The eternal trap of desire…

  I scanned the glossary in the mantle’s tome, the pages thick, creamy and scripted in neat lines of blue parchment ink like old shipping ledgers. And mutating, even as I read them, flowing like water over smooth river stones, listing any and all territories under the sway of my mantle. Such vastness, worlds I would never visit, wonders I would never see.

  What I was looking for, I didn’t know, but I was certain it would jump out at me—

  The words on the page faded, all save two:

  Desire’s Eternity

  Well, that seemed about right.

  Words began to appear beneath the heading, the title of the place, describing the location and the best paths to reach the right universe through the Void. Desire’s Eternity was a… town, sort of, like Meadow Gate, but much more orbital. An interstellar waypoint at a nexus of roads through the Void. A thousand worlds from here, but no more than a few hours careful travel for someone as savvy as Oblivion. Or as savvy as Declan, so long as I followed the directions in the mantle, which were a part of me now.

  From the description, images and pictures appeared in my mind’s mind—another gift of the mantle—and I beheld a grand space station, the length and size of Manhattan, orbiting twin stars and a vagrant moon covered in lights and being mined for resources. Desire’s Eternity, neutral ground, rarely if ever visited by the Knights Infernal, though it did exist on a few of our possible mile markers.

  Hell, it was in disputed territory as far as the Knights where concerned. Somewhere that would have been comfortable under our rule before the Tome Wars began over a hundred years ago, but long since forgotten and abandoned as the war raged and sacrifices had to be made. Desire’s Eternity, the orbital city/spaceship/market platform governed itself, a hub of strength and wealth in that entire region of the Story Thread.

  A lot of war criminals and villains had fled there, it seemed, fleeing the Tome Wars and—here I grinned—rumour that Declan Hale, Commander of the Cascade Fleet, had seized the Roseblade. Again, I’d made a splash.

  And it was here at Desire’s Eternity, I was certain, Emily had secreted away the petals from the Infernal Clock.

  The connection was flimsy, but also too coincidental not to be part of one of her schemes. And those schemes, even the one that had killed me, had always worked out doing more good than harm in the long run.

  Now, I thought. How best to convince Oblivion to get us there? And how the hell am I going to use the petals against him? Knowing the possible location was one thing, the smallest thing—all else would be for naught if this accomplished nothing more than arming Oblivion with some of the most powerful weapons in existence.

  The brig, my mind prison, shook horrifically and the heavy mantle tome was cast from my hands. It hit the floor and disappeared, as more shafts of ugly black light breached the cracks in my mind. The door to the cell swung open on screeching hinges, but beyond was nothing but storms and torn skies. No escape.

  A torment mindscape, I thought. That’d be a cool band name.<
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  I blinked away dire and dismal thoughts about the end of my life and focused externally on what Oblivion was up to. So long as I was still alive, I could still fight. I was surprised to find us warming a seat at the bar at Paddy’s, the Irish pub blown up a few adventures ago by an Emissary dragon, servants of the Everlasting, and where I’d promised Annie a steak dinner in a few days. Oblivion was at the bar, knocking back shots.

  ‘Something to take the edge off?’ I asked.

  Oblivion paused, a sense of shock shuddering through my mind, and the glass of amber liquid—tequila, and cheap stuff, I’d wager—halfway to his/my lips. He sensed the smirk in my words, the arrogance, and placed the shot glass back on the bar.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE MADMAN’S MEDICINE

  ‘Used to think about you, about a million times a day. Got that down to under half a million these days. Work in progress, on my way, getting back to where I started’

  “What have you done to me?” Oblivion asked.

  Oblivion demanded.

  This early in the afternoon, Paddy’s was only sparsely populated. One concerned looking bar girl, young, barely eighteen, probably working up the courage to cut me off. I’d already knocked back four shots, it seemed, and called for four more. A few other bar flies, a man drinking a well-worn glass of red wine, some of the kitchen staff milling about, looking bored, prep done and waiting for the evening rush, but other than that Paddy’s was sparse.

  Oblivion burped. “Hale! I can barely focus, my mind and thoughts are slipping… what have you done?”

  Now the bargirl looked truly alarmed—here I was, talking to myself. She glanced at the few other patrons, as if they would help, but they were all purposely ignoring me. We’ve all got our problems, after all, without making those of others our own. In no small way, I imagined they sensed the ire, the wrongness, the Lord Oblivion of the Everlasting ruining what was an otherwise nice afternoon of day drinking.

  I sneered. ‘You got more than you bargained for, taking me as your vessel,’ I said, as another chunk of my prison fractured and oily light burnt at my skin. It was all falling apart. ‘Looks like you got the best part of me—the rampant alcoholism. You need help, mate. A program, someone to talk to. Oh you got yourself a real problem, boss.’

  Oblivion sneezed and blood coated the back of my hand in a fine spray. Now that wasn’t good. “This is intolerable,” he said.

  I shrugged. ‘I managed to be a functioning alcoholic for the best part of a decade, and still fought you all in that time.’ Here I laughed, not an ounce of genuine sympathy for the god. ‘Welcome to the wild and wacky world of addiction. You wanted my body, you get the whole package, it seems.’

  “I want another drink,” Oblivion said, and he sounded aghast. “Even now, even knowing the cause of my malaise, I want another drink. I should be pursuing Annie Brie, but I came here first…”

  ‘That will never go away,’ I said. ‘Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. It’s in the wiring, Oblivion, down in the fundamental code of our make-up. I don’t drink like other people—I can drink anyone under the table, pick a bar and a spirit, it doesn’t matter where or what, and I’ll be the last man standing… and keep going. Sounds cool, right? It’s perhaps the most pathetic thing there is.’

  “Humanity itself is a disease,” Oblivion growled. “And this, an affliction within disease? Bah, intolerable, I said, but this is worse.”

  ‘Hey, you know what makes it easier.’ I did something then, and I wasn’t sure how, or if it could be repeated, but I took control of my arm, my left arm, only for a moment. As easy as breathing, I had my arm back, and I collected the shot of booze from the bar and knocked it back in one well-practiced, wholly pathetic, flick.

  And it was Oblivion who felt the kick of that flick.

  He gasped and slammed me back into the brig, regained control of my arm, but he couldn’t seal the door again, not as our bond corroded and my body failed, rejected his presence. I sensed his thoughts race, wild and a touch… afraid. He hadn’t known that was possible, hadn’t even considered the possibility that I could have control again so soon after the star iron manacle debacle. And this time without the manacle. His fear turned to rage, turned to ice, and then a deadly calm.

  “You are unique,” he said. “Human, but unique.”

  Tal had said something similar, the night I became king, said it was a weakness when it came to the Everlasting. Sorry, sweet thing, but I think you were wrong. It may kill me, but you were wrong.

  ‘Drunks like me are a dime a dozen,’ I said to Oblivion. ‘Every bar in creation, I guarantee you, has at least one. Flies attracted to shit. Most of us functioning right up until we’re not. Any one of them will tell you the same. We can’t just have one drink—one is too many, and ten is not enough. Alcohol hits us like a train, and worse, we put ourselves on the tracks.’

  Oblivion stared at the bottles of booze behind the bar. He glared at the fluid, hating it, wanting it. Such was our avarice, such was our disease.

  Here I was using the power of alcoholism to fight an Elder God and, son of a bitch, I was winning.

  “I will not cede to your weakness,” he spat, but he finished that last shot of tequila on the bar before storming out through the patio doors and back out on the trail of Detective Annie Brie.

  *~*~*~*

  As the maelstrom (a word I really liked, encompassing all manner of malaise and malady, woe and worry) in my mind worsened, as the booze took hold and the bonds holding me to Oblivion frayed ever further, I began to bleed from my eyes, from my ears… and other places.

  ‘When you start sweating blood,’ I thought, ‘it’s time to stop and reflect on your life choices, Oblivion.’

  “Surrender Astoria’s mantle to me and I shall end this at once,” Oblivion replied, stumbling a little down the road toward the ruins of my bookshop. Paddy’s was my local pub, just two minutes up the road from the little library (some hundred thousand books) I had shrouded myself in during the years of my exile.

  Those years seemed like a distant memory now, of a healthier and happier time. Though I had been quite miserable and drinking a crate of expensive liquor every week.

  ‘Sounding a little desperate now,’ I said. ‘What was the original plan, when you took control of my body?’ I paused. ‘Oh yeah, you were going to parade me in front of your family and destroy the Knights Infernal. How’d that go for you? You know what your problem is, Oblivion, you lack imagination.’

  I stood in the doorway of my prison cell, which hung suspended on nothing, as if at the top of a sheer cliff face, gazing out into my mind tearing itself apart. Forked red and gold lightning tore across the landscape, the seas below swirled in storm, waters blacker than midnight, tinged with an amber hue. Ha, it’s scotch, I thought. I could dive right in and swim the last good swim through the ocean of booze. The clouds roiled overhead, distant stars beyond, broken quills below. A knight could fall quite easily from this height. Lose his grace.

  For a moment I honestly considered jumping, just falling from the cell, a drop of about a mile into those turbulent waters—the ocean of malt liquor. Perhaps the water represented my subconscious, or something, but I didn’t doubt it would kill me. The game would be over, and I had a sneaking suspicion (which meant I had a certainty) that if I died, my body would fail with me, thus ejecting Oblivion.

  It would end my torment.

  But it would begin someone else’s. He’d claim the nearest unprotected form, one of these poor innocent people giving me a wide berth as I stumbled and bled down the sunny street toward Riverwood Plaza in Joondalup that sunny afternoon.

  “You right, mate?” one of them asked, a young chap in paint-spattered shorts and a singlet.

  “Be gone!” Oblivion growled, and thrust my bloody hands against his chest. The kid flew backwards into the wall of a pizza joint and slumped, breathless, winded, against the stone lane.

  Oblivion, not a people person, clenched my fists an
d wiped the blood from my upper lip with the back of my hand.

  Yes, end my torment. The Elder God expected me to fight, to resist to the last breath. I could use that expectation against him and end it all now. But that felt like the coward’s road, even if it was unexpected. He would jump forms, possibly into the poor painter he’d just clocked, and Annie would be in no less danger.

  At least here, now, I still had some cards to play. And, honestly, I wanted revenge. Revenge for so many things, least of all his possession and corruption of my body. I wanted to see him burn and suffer.

  Something told me I wasn’t the only one, and all the spikes and bumps in the road that had waylaid Oblivion—the star iron manacle, chief among them—had been set not just by me but other vested interests out there in the Story Thread, who saw me, King Declan Hale, as the best chance of unseating and ending the Everlasting once and for all.

  That was an encouraging thought, that I wasn’t alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it—not wholly, anyway. Not as I began to fall apart inside and out.

  No time for Desire’s Eternity, not now, so that plan was out. I wouldn’t make it across the Void in this condition. At best, and here I was being hopefully over certain again, I had an hour or two before I bled to death. Before I simply ceased functioning.

  So what could I do?

  How could I win?

  Or at least lose in a way that ensured Oblivion’s plans failed, too?

  All this time, I’d been thinking of this game as hands in blackjack, with Oblivion as the dealer, sitting on an ace and no doubt ready to pull a face card from the deck and hit twenty-one. But I had an ace of my own, didn’t I? I had Astoria’s mantle.