Read Always Forever Online

Authors: Mark Chadbourn

Tags: #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction, #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General

Always Forever

 
Always Forever

Also by Mark Chadbourn

The Kingdom of the Serpent:

Jack of Ravens

The Dark Age:

The Devil In Green

The Queen of Sinister

The Hounds of Avalon

The Age of Misrule:

World's End

Darkest Hour

Always Forever

Underground

Nocturne

The Eternal

Testimony

Scissorman

 
Always Forever
Book three of
The Age Of Misrule

MANN CHADBOURN

an imprint at Prometheus Books
Amherst, NY

Published 2009 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books Always Forever. Copyright © 2009 by Mark Chadbourn. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Inquiries should be addressed to

Pyr

59 John Glenn Drive Amherst, New York 14228-2119 VOICE: 716-691-0133, ext. 210 FAX: 716-691-0137 WWW.PYRSF.COM

13 12 11 10 09 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chadbourn, Mark.

Always forever
by Mark Chadbourn. p. cm. - (The age of misrule ; bk. 3) First published: London : Gollancz, an imprint of Orion Publishing Group, 2001. ISBN 978-1-59102-741-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Title.

PR6053.H23A79 2009 823'.914-dc22 2009013236 Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

 
              contents

All the News by Max Michaels
7

ONE The End
27

TWO Beyond the Sea
44

THREE On the Wings of Golden Moths
62

FOUR Empty Cisterns, Exhausted Wells
78

FIVE In League with the Stones of the Field
103

SIX Islands of the Dead
121

SEVEN Peine Forte et Dure
143

EIGHT The Sickness at the Heart
165

NINE Gods and Horses
183

TEN Below
208

ELEVEN Grim Lands, Grey Hearts
231

TWELVE Infected
248

THIRTEEN All Stars
270

FOURTEEN Like a Serpent Play'd before Them
299

FIFTEEN War Is Declared and Battle Come Down
321

SIXTEEN Semper Fidelis
339

SEVENTEEN (Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below
361

EIGHTEEN Down to the River to Pray
381

NINETEEN In the Belly of the Beast
405

TWENTY The Place Where All Things Converge
429

TWENTY-ONE Samhain
455

Bibliography
467

 
All The news
by Max Michaels

e're a cynical race. With remarkable ease we manage to find the worst in
everyone we meet. Charity workers selflessly slave amongst the poor in
a disease-ridden quarter of some stinking tropical city. They get spotted kicking
a dog or yelling at some unfortunate on a bad day that has somehow surpassed
all the other bad days and instantly we're tearing them apart for being less than
worthy. Where does that come from? Is it some kind of repressive religious
thing slammed into us during schooling, where everyone is a sinner unless
they're a saint? Look around-the world out there is a nightmare; the same as
before, I suppose, only different. It's a struggle for anyone to get through it, but
we carry on, trying to do the best we can under the circumstances. We're all
deeply flawed-that's our nature. But if we fight to overcome those flaws, surely
that's worth some praise, isn't it? The only time to make any judgment-and
maybe not even then-is at the end of someone's life, when you can stand and
look back, weighing all the good things and the bad things and the overwhelming majority of thoroughly mundane things, and decide whether it was a
life well lived. Let me tell you now, you won't find many saints. I bet you won't
find any at all. But you will find a preponderance of fundamentally good people
striving to be the best they can. And isn't that the kind of thing we should be
celebrating: not that someone is good, but that they're fighting to be better.

So let's talk about heroes.

The worst always brings out the best in people when they're pushed to the
edge and find reserves they never realized existed in their day-to-day lives. And
these are, indeed, the worst of times, so it's hardly surprising that in the midst
of them we found the best of heroes. Just normal folk, like you and me, with the
usual bundle of neuroses and weaknesses, but they've proved themselves to be
champions. (Excuse the gushing language: it's not
modern
, and it's not
British
,
and it's not cynical. But then, that's the point I'm making.) I'm writing this so
the record of their deeds is preserved to inspire future generations. Is that a pretentious hope? I don't know, but it's important to me that I do it.

If you'd met them on the street in the time before the Big Change, you probably wouldn't have given them the time of day. Jack Churchill, Church to
his friends, was moody and introspective, driven to the edge of despair by the
suicide of his girlfriend, Marianne, two years earlier. That act had thrown his
entire life off course. He'd been an archaeologist and a writer with massive
potential, but he ended up going nowhere, losing his friends, his hope. Ruth
Gallagher was a lawyer for some big-shot firm-sharply intelligent, as you
would expect, but a little repressed, with a problem finding any relationship to
match her exacting standards. Although she'd achieved a great deal for someone
in her late twenties, she didn't feel fulfilled. She'd only taken on her career to
please her beloved father, who'd died of a heart attack after learning his brother
had been murdered in a bungled building society robbery. Laura DuSantiago
was probably the most complex and misunderstood of all of them. By all counts,
she was a sociopath and misanthrope with a past blighted by drugs and petty
crime. Her acid tongue and sarcastic manner made it almost impossible to like
her. At the same time she was brilliant with technology, and once you broke
through the unpleasant exterior you found reasons for her attitude and the constant confusion that obscured her true nature: as a child she'd been to hell and
back at the hands of a mother who used religious obsession to mask her growing
psychoses; Laura's body and mind were left scarred in the process. And in a
struggle with her mother in the family home she had woken from unconsciousness to find her mother dead, seemingly by Laura's hand.

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