The Endless King Read online

  She bounced lightly on her heels as she spoke, ponytail slashing the air, fists jabbing with what Denizen assumed was perfect technique. It usually was. Abigail wasn’t in the habit of wastefulness, and that included her thirteen-year head start.

  Simon was still glaring at the plane.

  ‘Even if it had been a big one. The kind of plane where you don’t know you’re on a plane. That’s all I’m asking. It’s one thing to be travelling in a metal tube that only stays up because it’s going too fast to fall down –’

  ‘That’s not precisely how it works –’

  ‘Thank you, Darcie –’ Simon said, as a second girl stepped from the plane, wearing the polite grimace she always adopted when someone was being inaccurate – ‘but it’s another to have it bounce around and then steady up again like it suddenly remembered it was a plane.’

  Abigail shrugged. She had greeted the turbulence with a fierce grin, which was generally the way she approached everything. Denizen had thought he caught the briefest look of relief on her face when they landed, but he assumed that was because the four-hour flight was the longest she’d ever sat still.

  ‘There’s not much demand for flights here. Only Knights come to Adumbral.’

  Denizen could count on one hand the amount of times he’d ever seen Darcie Wright take off her glasses in public, but now they dangled forgotten from her hand, revealing eyes of bright, silver-haunted iron.

  A Knight’s first and foremost weapon was the wellspring of voracious fire beating like blood through their veins, shaped by the eldritch language they called Cants. The fire wanted to be used, even though every time it stole just a little bit of its wielder away – turning them to metal, black and hard and cold.

  The Cost. Power always had a price, and if Denizen had learned one thing in the last year it was that some were more visible than most.

  ‘I remember my first year here,’ Darcie murmured, drawing a dark hand through her riot of ebony curls. ‘But then you leave, and time passes, and your memory convinces you it couldn’t have been that big. That spectacular. You shrink it, to fit it in with what you know of the world.’ She smiled. ‘But then you return and it all comes back. Like a sunrise. You remember that here, of all places, the rules of the world don’t apply.’

  She slipped her glasses into her pocket. ‘I love it here.’

  With a shared conspiratorial grin, Denizen, Abigail and Simon followed suit, removing their black gloves to reveal dull iron hands.

  ‘Well, there should still be a bus,’ Simon continued, mock-grumpily. ‘And hang on … Adumbral’s all –’ he waved a hand at the mountain – ‘this bit?’

  Darcie nodded. ‘The city-state.’

  ‘And Daybreak’s the fortress at the top?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Well then, why didn’t we just skip to the top with the Art of Apertura? It’s not like there would have been much difference. Cold sweat, eyes screwed shut, imminent chance of death –’

  ‘The difference, Simon Hayes, is that we do not punch a hole through the universe just so we can avoid motion sickness.’

  Malleus Vivian Hardwick stepped from the plane, her movements as controlled and lethal as the propellers’ slowing spin.

  ‘It’s a long war. We only have so much skin to give.’

  It took only one look at any Knight Superior to confirm the viciousness of their war, and Vivian more than most. Her credentials were written in scar tissue and Cost, her career a knot of battles and sacrifice notorious the world over.

  Well, within the secret garrisons of the Order, at least. Denizen had been thinking about that a lot on the flight, in particular where that left him.

  A long-handled hammer swung at Vivian’s waist – both her symbol of office and the weapon that had carried her through as many hells as Denizen had frowns.

  ‘Yes, Malleus,’ Simon said instantly.

  They had all given skin one way or another. Once, Denizen’s Cost had been just an ink blot in his palm. Now, it rose up past his wrists in black manacles, and splinters had found their way into his left eye. Not like Darcie’s – hers were the mark of a sacred duty – but a reminder that the power in his heart cared more about being free than its host.

  If he covered his right eye, the world became a stained-glass window, all shades of grey, indigo and blue. Knights had a natural ability to see in the dark, but since the summer Denizen had found it a little easier to see the dark in things instead.

  Even the light.

  You mind your house, I’ll mind mine.

  He locked that thought away. He’d been doing a lot of work on that. Vivian had even said he was coming on nicely, which for Denizen’s mother was the equivalent of a celebratory parade. Their eyes met, and Vivian’s expression, which normally held the grim promise of an oncoming train, softened into a slight smile.

  ‘It is good to be home,’ she said.

  Denizen had been seeing that smile more and more recently. He was becoming quite fond of it.

  ‘There’s our lift,’ Simon said, pointing.

  Knights fought in the shadows, and birth and blood had gifted them with the Intueor Lucidum: sight in darkness. Denizen’s vision was a tracery of silver – brighter in his left eye than his right – and he could easily make out the black jeep making its way down the slope towards them. He was almost surprised by its arrival. The leader of the Order didn’t exactly care for the Hardwicks, and Denizen wouldn’t have been surprised if they had been left to walk.

  A warm wind drew sweat from Denizen’s cheeks as the jeep approached. That’ll take some getting used to. Ireland stuck out into the Atlantic like a foot from under a duvet, but they were further south now, and Denizen felt the unfamiliar electricity of being somewhere else.

  He hadn’t travelled much. There had been an unplanned, unwilling and unpleasant trip during the summer, but being kidnapped by the Family Croit and served on a platter to their mad, grieving goddess hardly counted as a holiday, even by Knightly standards.

  Then again, Denizen thought, staring up at the immensity of Monte Inclavare, does this?

  ‘I. Can’t. Wait.’ Abigail kept leaving them behind only to double back, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘We’re finally here, and –’ Her own words pulled her up short, eyes widening. ‘Not that we didn’t appreciate your training, Malleus. We –’

  Vivian waved a hand. ‘I understand.’ Her smile deepened a fraction. ‘Now your real training begins.’

  ‘She keeps saying that,’ Simon muttered to Denizen. ‘Why does she keep saying that?’

  Considering the paces Vivian had already put them through, it was an unnerving statement, but Denizen’s worries ran far deeper.

  Back in Crosscaper, the most you had to worry about was homework and sports. Joining the Order had traded those worries for a vicious war against extradimensional shapeshifters called Tenebrous, and, while Denizen obviously hadn’t enjoyed facing off against clockwork women, murderous crows and, on one occasion, an animated dustbin, at least all you had to worry about in those situations was dying.

  However, Daybreak was the most secure fortress on the face of the planet. He was completely and totally safe, which meant he was completely and totally safe to worry about other things. Such as:

  The leader of the Order and I have … trust issues. Hopefully, there would be some important business that called Palatine Edifice Greaves away, and they would never have to be in the same room again. For the rest of their natural lives.

  What have the other Neophytes heard about me? Denizen had found it difficult enough to make friends as Denizen Hardwick: bookish, ginger, freckled, sceptical of all things but most of all himself. Now he was Denizen Hardwick, the son of a respected Malleus, with his own list of messy encounters both with enemies and the people he was supposed to get along with.

  Which led him on rather neatly to the last point. Denizen was very purposefully not thinking about that one. He loved words, and he’d picked up a suitably m
ilitary one from Vivian for exactly this situation.

  Redacted – editing or withholding information for security purposes. Generals did it all the time, apparently, to protect those under their command. Denizen was no general, but he and Vivian both agreed that certain … things were best locked away.

  No matter how much it hurt.

  The jeep pulled to a stop, the driver sliding out to open the doors for them.

  Relax, Denizen told himself. It’s a year. You have your friends. You’re in the safest place you can be. This is a new start! Yes. That’s it. You’re going to bury any untoward … thoughts, and keep your head down. The last thing you need is stuff from your past coming back to bite you in the –

  ‘Oh my God.’

  Darcie’s exclamation made Denizen look up, just in time to meet a crooked, familiar smile.

  ‘That bad?’

  It was Grey.

  2

  Another Country

  For a long time, they drove in silence.

  Denizen fought the urge to stare at Grey, just as he had the day they’d met. Halfway between scepticism and desperate curiosity, world-weary with no real knowledge of the world, Denizen had gone into that first meeting with thirteen years’ worth of mistrust, but Graham McCarron was Grey to his friends, and it said a lot that it had only taken Denizen half an hour to find that out.

  Neither one of them were those people any more.

  The jeep climbed the winding road. Abigail’s eyes were flicking between Denizen and Grey. Darcie’s hand was tight on Denizen’s arm, and if Vivian – never the most … relaxed of people – sat any straighter she’d snap like a rubber band.

  ‘So how have you been?’ Simon asked Grey politely, and he had never been more of a hero to Denizen than in that moment. ‘We only met … briefly.’

  Even he faltered there – there really was no good way to say after you got mind-controlled to betray us all.

  ‘You mean after I got mind-controlled to betray you all?’

  Darcie flinched. Simon looked ill, as if whatever he’d been about to say had abruptly reversed back down his throat. And Vivian almost seemed to relax, as if the edge in Grey’s words was something she understood.

  ‘The doctors say I should talk about it.’ There was a strange, strained distance in his voice, as if he were trying to speak a language he hadn’t used in years. ‘There have been a lot of doctors. They all agree with each other, which I guess is a good sign.’

  He smirked at that, and for a moment Denizen saw his mentor again, the wry and smiling Knight who’d been so kind to him in those first weeks of a new and terrifying life. And then the smile vanished, and a different person sat in front of them, like the most depressing magic-eye picture ever drawn.

  Grey had always been slender, but now he was thin to the point of worry, his cheekbones knife blades poorly sheathed under skin. His once-long hair had been shaved painfully short on either side, a fringe half-hiding one eye. He’d abandoned his customary tailored suits for a faded vest, bare arms taut with muscle and the Cost’s advance and, in the only country in the world where a Knight had nothing to hide, his hands were gloved in black.

  ‘What …’ Darcie’s voice was careful. ‘What else have the doctors said?’

  The road climbed Monte Inclavare’s spine, the bare earth on either side studded with candles like a new crop of wheat. Grey swallowed deeply before responding.

  ‘The Order can’t find any trace of the Clockwork Three in my head, but, considering that we didn’t even know Tenebrous could get inside people’s minds, they don’t really know what to look for.’

  The Man in the Waistcoat. The Woman in White. The poor, wretched Opening Boy. Three of the worst Tenebrous the multiverse could vomit up, with a vendetta against Denizen’s mother that they would have done just about anything to satisfy.

  Denizen didn’t hate the Tenebrous he fought, but death by Vivian had been far too good for the Three. They’d killed Denizen’s father, Soren. They’d killed Corinne D’Aubigny and left her husband Fuller Jack to mourn her.

  And they’d puppeted Grey, turned him against his comrades, and left him empty as a discarded glove.

  ‘They’re dead now, anyway,’ Grey continued, mock cheer in his voice. ‘So that door is closed. And the doctors make me listen to wellness tapes. So I’m sure everything will be fine.’

  He chuckled. The others did not.

  ‘But enough about me – how’s home? How’s …’

  He trailed off. Seraphim Row had been home for Grey far longer than it had been for Denizen, and, looking back, Denizen could see echoes of himself, Simon and Abigail in Grey’s friendship with Fuller Jack and Corinne D’Aubigny.

  Just one of many casualties the Three had left in their wake.

  The window. Look out of the window. The walls of the city loomed ahead, sheer and brutal with battlements, and Denizen was about to ask something inane about their height or anything, just to break the silence, when Darcie sat bolt upright in her seat, trembling.

  It wasn’t exactly seeing the future: Darcie had been clear on that a number of times. But watching puddles showed you the first drop of rain, and watching the skin of the universe with a pencil in her hand told Darcie where a Breach would occur.

  Now, though, it was her eyes that sketched, slamming left and right in their sockets with typewriter clicks of iron. Abigail caught one of the Lux’s flailing fists. Denizen hissed as Darcie’s nails dug into his skin, scratching as if trying to draw –

  Her voice was a toneless drawl.

  ‘Hereherehereherehere–’

  And then Denizen felt it too.

  You could say it was a little like slowly realizing that the food in your mouth was rotten. You could compare it, perhaps, to the shocked betrayal of tearing your skin on a nail and the queasy fascination of watching your own blood well.

  But it wasn’t like any of that. Not really. It was what it was.

  A Breach.

  The field of candles ended a few hundred metres down the slope and, as the jeep growled to a halt, a swathe of flames flickered as if teased by an invisible hand. Dust plumed upwards beyond the field’s edge. The air bent inwards. Darcie slumped like her strings were cut.

  Vivian was already halfway out of the door before Grey grabbed her arm.

  ‘Wait.’

  The Tenebrous unfolded like frost condensing on a car window, if frost were black and dull and maggoty with movement, if nervous systems were made of dirty char. Dust rose to bulk out the waving tendrils with grainy muscle, skin and spines and a skull that even as they watched split into a snarl –

  And then a bang of torn air, an explosion of grit from the back of the newborn monster’s skull, and a long spear of black steel was suddenly vibrating in the ground behind it.

  One mightn’t have been enough. Humans were systems – complex, interconnected, fragile – but Tenebrous were black oil and scrap scavenged from the worlds they invaded, and Denizen knew from experience just how much it took to put them down.

  It died on the fifth bolt, coming apart with a fading, mournful scream. The entire encounter had only taken a couple of seconds and Denizen realized that the shoulders of Monte Inclavare were bare for a reason.

  There were no trees between here and the walls. No plants. No cover.

  A killing field.

  ‘You missed out,’ Grey said calmly, turning the car key once more. ‘Sometimes they use the rocket launchers.’ The jeep began to move, and the Knight started, his eyes suddenly hunted. ‘I’m sorry – Darcie, are you OK?’

  The Lux nodded, a tear cutting a path of darker black down her cheek.

  ‘I’m fine. The veil between worlds is thin here. It makes things more –’

  Denizen’s heart still pounded with adrenalin, drowning out her words, and with every beat trickles of gold spread through the cracks and crevices of him, searching for freedom. Cants shifted in his head, yearning to be filled with flame, to break the world and burn –r />
  – and, with an ease born of practice, Denizen trapped them, raising in his mind a fortress of imaginary iron and dense, unthawable ice. The inferno wailed like a trapped cat, but Denizen and Vivian had worked for months on this technique, poring over maps of castles and engineering manuals, every trick of the siege trade.

  Funny the things you could bond over.

  ‘You should have stayed at home,’ Vivian was saying, voice tight with concern. ‘This is the one place in the world that doesn’t need a Lux. You should have –’

  ‘I’m seeing my friends off,’ Darcie responded mildly, and, though Cants still pleaded in his head, Denizen grinned to see Vivian abruptly sit straighter. ‘The world will manage for a day or two. And so will I.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Vivian said, clearing her throat and turning to Grey. ‘You’d think they’d learn not to come here.’

  ‘Learn?’ There was an uncharacteristic cruelty in Grey’s voice. ‘Tenebrous don’t learn. They either Breach outside and have to face the walls or run off the city’s candlewards like water off a windscreen. Then they have to face the walls.’

  Ahead, gates the same bruise-black as Denizen’s palms lurched open with a groan of something prehistoric sinking into tar. Their sheer size would have been reassuring if Denizen didn’t already know that walls could be bypassed, even ramparts as impressive as these.

  Like rats forcing their bodies through pipes, or damp worming into a wooden floor, Tenebrous could Breach the very walls separating our universe from theirs. Walls hadn’t stopped the Clockwork Three from killing Denizen’s father twelve years ago, or returning last year to provoke open war between humanity and the Tenebrae’s Endless King.

  Walls hadn’t saved Grey.

  They passed beneath the shadow of the battlements and Denizen could feel eyes on him. Slits in the stone glittered with drawn arrows. Barricades cupped the other side of the gates, so, even if an enemy did manage to break through, they’d simply be running into a pen, at the mercy of the archers above.

  ‘Bit much,’ Simon whispered, as if afraid someone would hear.