The Cathedral of Known Things

by Edward Cox

  No sooner had Samuel sucked in a great gulp of air than it was stolen from his mouth by rushing wind. His vision was assaulted by streaks of purple lightning. The echo of a bestial scream reached his ears, full of rage and pain. Samuel felt that he would fall forever, down, ever down, until age withered his body, addled his mind, and his life would crumble to dust amidst a starless sky.

  Just as he had embraced this notion silver light dazzled his eyes, and the darkness spat him out onto hard, solid stone with a bone-jarring thud.

  Sprawled face down on damp cobbles, Samuel groaned and then rose to his hands and knees. He looked up. The portal’s glassy surface rippled within a rectangle on a wall of black bricks before him.

  With a nudge from his prescient awareness, Samuel jumped to his feet and drew the rifle from the holster on his back. He ejected the empty magazine, slapped a new one into place, and took aim at the portal. The power stone behind the barrel gave a small whine and glowed with violet light as he thumbed it. He might have run out of fire-bullets, but the four metal slugs in the magazine would still kill anyone who dared to follow him.

  ‘I do not think the police will be brave enough to come after us, Samuel.’

  The old bounty hunter looked over his shoulder. Van Bam stood behind him, his hands atop his green glass cane.

  The illusionist added, ‘And I suspect the portal closed once we left the warehouse.’

  As if to confirm Van Bam’s words, the portal shrank with a low drone. With a sigh and a puff of dust, it disappeared, leaving behind black bricks and no sign that it had ever been there.

  Samuel lowered his aim and turned around.

  Van Bam’s smoothly-shaved head was tilted to one side. The black, loose-fitting shirt and trousers he wore looked dishevelled. The tip of his glass cane touched the cobbled ground between his bare feet, and the metal plates covering the illusionist’s eyes glinted with reflected light.

  Samuel looked up: Silver Moon shone in the night sky. He looked to his right: a long, wide alleyway stretched away into the gloom. Its walls were supported by buttresses positioned every fifteen paces.

  Samuel’s features fell. ‘The portal led us out into the Great Labyrinth?’

  Van Bam nodded gravely.

  Samuel was aghast.

  When Fabian Moor and his fellow Genii had taken control of the Nightshade, they had claimed total dominion over Labrys Town, and Samuel had thought everything lost. Yet the Relic Guild had found an unlikely ally in the form of a blue ghost, an avatar which had offered aid, albeit in a strange and dangerous way. It had led them to a secret portal hidden in the cellar of an abandoned ore warehouse. But the portal was meant to be the Labyrinth’s backdoor, an emergency exit, an escape route that would lead the Relic Guild to those who could save the denizens from the machinations of the Genii. Instead, it had led them out into the endless twists and turns of the giant maze that surrounded Labrys Town? People disappeared in the Great Labyrinth.

  ‘How does this help us?’ Samuel demanded of Van Bam.

  They could have been anywhere in the Great Labyrinth. The only place of civilisation was Labrys Town, at the centre of the maze. And even if returning there was an option, it could take hours or days, weeks, months or years of walking through never-ending alleyways to find it.

  ‘It would seem the portal has only delivered us to the midway point in our journey,’ Van Bam replied solemnly. His face was turned toward a slim stone pedestal that had risen from the alley floor, a few paces ahead.

  Closely followed by Van Bam, Samuel stepped over to the pedestal. Its top had been fashioned into a square box, which was filled with a colourless, gelatinous substance. Before the pedestal, a section of the cobbled ground had been smoothed to form a large disc of grey.

  ‘A shadow carriage?’ Samuel said.

  Van Bam nodded. ‘It is a sure sign that the doorway to the House we need is in the Great Labyrinth. But to summon a shadow carriage to take us to it, we must first know the symbol for that House.’

  Samuel frowned. ‘Where’s Clara?’

  Van Bam gestured with his head, and Samuel looked to his left. The alleyway stopped at a dead end. Against the wall, Clara’s small figure lay crumpled. Moonlight glinted from the blood that pumped from the bullet wound in her side, which she had sustained back at the warehouse. Her blood formed a puddle on the cobbles around her. She wasn’t moving.

  ‘No,’ Samuel said.

  He took a step towards her, but was checked by Van Bam’s voice.

  ‘We have another problem, Samuel.’

  The ex-Resident was facing down the long alley. Samuel could see something moving down there. Although the sky was clear, it was as though a veil of cloud was being drawn over the light of Silver Moon. In the near distance, darkness deeper than the night gloom slithered over brickwork and cobbles, making oily, fluid progress along the alley towards the agents of the Relic Guild.

  A light breeze brought strange scents to Samuel’s nose. Age. Corruption. Hopelessness. The temperature dropped, became icier than the fresh chill of Silver Moon.

  ‘Shit,’ Samuel spat, his breath frosting before his face.

  The Retrospective … that House of dead time, of corrosion, perversion, where all the monsters dwelt … it had sensed the Relic Guild. Its doorway was opening.

  ‘I lost my revolver,’ Samuel stated, gripping his rifle tightly. ‘And I’ve only got four bullets left.’

  With gritted teeth, Van Bam stabbed his glass cane down onto the ground. To a musical chime, bolts of illusionist magic sped from the cane, hurtling down the alleyway to merge and form a hard barrier of transparent green that stretched from wall to wall. When the slithering doorway met it, a low creaking filled the freezing air. But the barrier held. It had halted the Retrospective.

  ‘It will not last long,’ Van Bam warned.

  Samuel’s magic refused to help him. The prescient awareness that had served him well throughout his life, that had saved his skin on innumerable occasions, told the old bounty hunter that this was his last stand. There was nowhere else to turn, and soon the wild demons of the Retrospective would come hunting his flesh.

  Samuel looked at the pedestal and the stone box, with a searing sense of frustration. All he needed to do was draw the right House symbol into the gelatinous contents, and a shadow carriage would appear to whisk them away to safety.

  ‘We need that damned House symbol right now, Van Bam!’

  ‘If the avatar knew it, then Clara is the only person it gave it to.’

  Clara’s small form remained unmoving against the dead end wall.

  ‘Clara!’ Samuel bellowed. He felt a small pang of relief as her face twitched, and she stirred. ‘Did the avatar give you a symbol? Quickly!’

  The changeling struggled but failed to open her eyes. She released a moan of pain.

  Samuel made to approach her again, but this time Van Bam grabbed his arm.

  ‘Do not touch her,’ he hissed.

  Samuel froze. He had never heard such fear in Van Bam’s voice before.

  ‘It is her colours, Samuel,’ the illusionist added. ‘I can see—’

  A loud snap shattered the air. A jagged crack had appeared in Van Bam’s magical barrier. The crack continued to spread and groan as the weight of the Retrospective pushed against it.

  Clara moaned again. Or was it a growl?

  She seemed to be trying to open her medicine tin. The lid gave, but the tin slipped from her grasp, spilling tiny white tablets into the puddle of her blood. She looked up at the night sky, opened her mouth and gave a growl of frustration. Her canine teeth had lengthened to sharp points. She glared at Samuel and Van Bam, her eyes shining with yellow light.

  ‘It’s coming,’ she whispered hoarsely.

  And Clara howled like a wolf.

  Chapter Two

  The Secrets of
Flowers

  Fabian Moor stood inside his sterile cube of silver metal.

  The cube had been constructed by thaumaturgy, and it had been Moor’s safe haven since the end of what the humans called the Genii War. For forty years, he had sheltered inside it, hidden from those who did not know that a handful of Genii had survived the war against the Timewatcher. In any other place, Moor was compelled to feed on blood to preserve his life. But the cube’s magic had suppressed this maddening need. Still, the long decades of isolation had at times threatened to drive Moor insane, but he had resisted, retained his sanity by never losing sight of the day when his undoubting faith and unwavering patience would be rewarded.

  Now that reward was at hand. The purpose of the sterile cube of thaumaturgic metal was almost served.

  Behind Moor, Mo Asajad focused her attention on the empath who was slowly dying in the clutches of the serpentine tree that grew at the centre of the cube’s silver floor. Lady Asajad, tall and stick-thin beneath a priest’s cassock, long, straight black hair flowing down her back – she stood still, frozen, tense, watching the empath as keenly as a carrion bird hovering over a battlefield, searching for bloody spoils.

  It wasn’t that Moor didn’t share his fellow Genii’s fervent eagerness – high expectations had been placed on this human magicker called Marney. She was to reveal her secrets and fulfil the desires of the Genii. But if the isolation of the last four decades had taught Moor anything, it was the virtue of patience. Occasionally, one could do nothing but wait for events to happen as and when they were ready.

  Leaving Asajad to her crow-like observations, Moor cleared a wall of the silver cube to shimmering air. He gazed out on a silent House of nightmare.

  The Retrospective was a huge and violent realm, home to countless monsters fighting each other in never-ending battles that raged across a scorched landscape beneath a hateful sky filled with poison and lightning. It had been the Timewatcher – a being supposedly the embodiment of benevolence and equality – who had created this place at the end of the Genii War. The monsters roaming this House of damnation had at one time been Aelfirian soldiers who had fought bravely alongside Lord Spiral and his Genii. The Retrospective was punishment for their choice, for their treachery, a prison in which dead time perverted their bodies and minds with ceaseless fury and blood-lust.

  Moor had to wonder if the Timewatcher, while serving her brand of vengeful justice upon Spiral’s armies, had ever paused to consider the true implications of creating the Retrospective. Across the scarred and beaten landscape, Moor could see innumerable beasts of every shade of nightmare fighting and killing, hacking and maiming, stabbing, slicing, biting and feeding upon each other. Lust, raw animal lust, revelling in lawless pandemonium. But if the wild demons could be tamed and united into one mighty army, they would form such an unbeatable force that even the Timewatcher’s Thaumaturgists would tremble before them.

  Moor quelled a surge of impatience.

  The power to tame the wild demons was beyond the likes of Fabian Moor and Mo Asajad. Only Lord Spiral could achieve this. Only his mastery of thaumaturgy, which rivalled the power of the Timewatcher Herself, could command true unification within the Retrospective. But Lord Spiral was lost. At the end of the Genii War, the Timewatcher had banished him to his very own prison realm, a House called Oldest Place, where he was to face his every act of betrayal in endless, repetitive waves of torture. It was said that only the Timewatcher knew where She had hidden Oldest Place, but Fabian Moor knew better …

  He looked over his shoulder at the empath held aloft by the serpentine branches of the tree-like creature. Soon she would reveal the secret location of Oldest Place, and Lord Spiral would be freed. He would lead an unstoppable army of wild demons through the Houses of the Aelfir like a tempest of eternal fire that would blaze and grow, spreading to realms and dimensions far beyond the comprehension of lowly minds like that of this magicker. And the Timewatcher would come to learn how blind She had been in creating the Retrospective.

  Moor’s eye was caught by an anomaly outside, within the violent panorama. A lone demon stood mere paces away from the other side of the cube’s wall of shimmering air. Apparently uninterested in the bestial warfare raging behind it, the monster was staring back at the Genii.

  Broad, muscular, standing at least seven feet tall, this wild demon didn’t seem quite so … wild. Oh, it looked vicious enough: skin the colour of corpses, arms and legs covered in gashes crudely stitched with thick twine and puckered into angry red lips. It wore a leather kilt, studded with sharp and rusty spikes, and a leather jerkin whose pointed hood covered the beast’s head and face. On its feet it wore calf-length boots made from skin fresh enough to be still greasy with sweat and blood. And in its huge hands – hands with sinewy fingers tipped with cracked, black nails – it held a woodcutter’s axe, a weapon that might have seemed mundane if not for the sheer size of its wickedly sharpened head.

  Despite its appearance, Moor detected a consciousness within this demon’s madness, buried and calculating.

  In truth, this was not the first time Moor had observed the creature. Genii and demon had stared at each other in this way once before. On that occasion, the demon had attacked. It had run towards Moor, its huge woodcutter’s axe raised and ready to cleave. Moor had easily repelled the attack with a simple burst of thaumaturgy that punched the demon to its back. When it jumped to its feet again, Moor had expected a second assault. But the demon had hesitated and seemed to think twice about its actions. It had raised the axe above its head, performing a series of threatening gestures, as if to retain its pride in the face of a fight it recognised it couldn’t win.

  That act of pride had piqued Moor’s curiosity. He had probed the demon’s mind, wondering if there was more than just a spark of intelligence within its mindlessness. The Genii had been surprised to discover a strong awareness that bordered on personality. But the intrusion into its mind had confused the demon, shattering its resolve, and it had fled in fear.

  Now the demon didn’t run, didn’t seem frightened, and made no threatening gestures. Moor gained the impression that this thing had been waiting for him to return. Did the demon remember the Aelf that it used to be? Did it recognise Moor as a Genii, one of Spiral’s generals who had led the Aelfirian rebels in the war against the Timewatcher?

  Intrigued, Moor reached out with his thaumaturgy, sent it through the wall of shimmering air to stroke the demon’s senses. At first, he felt nothing but hate and rage, and the beast flinched, raising its axe defensively. Concerned the monster would again flee, Moor quickly latched onto the intelligence that was buried beneath layers of madness. He whispered to it.

  Slowly, the demon lowered its axe. Moor was pleased to sense a pulse of inquisitiveness. He posed a question to the demon: was it still loyal to the Genii?

  In answer, the demon dropped to one knee, heavily, clumsily. It laid its axe down upon the scorched earth and bowed its hooded head.

  Moor’s satisfaction came as a grim smile.

  ‘Fabian!’

  Asajad’s voice carried its usual tone of disrespect, and Moor’s smile of triumph quickly changed to a grimace of irritation.

  ‘What?’ he snapped.

  ‘Stop playing with the monsters and look at this.’

  The serpentine tree was stirring.

  Looking back into the Retrospective, Moor saw the demon had remained on its knee, head bowed. He let the beast know that he was pleased and pulsed a command into its being – look for me. He broke his connection with the demon and returned the wall of the cube to its solid silver state. As the Retrospective disappeared, Moor turned and moved to stand beside Asajad.

  The strange, treelike creature was shuddering, which in turn caused its captive’s body to spasm. Leathery branches coiled tighter around Marney’s arms and legs, hoisting her higher into the air. The empath’s eyes remained closed and not one sigh o
f distress escaped her dry and cracked lips.

  Marney’s head snapped back, her neck muscles straining, her mouth working silently as if trying to articulate her agony. Moor knew that the tip of the leathery limb that had punctured the empath’s lower back and coiled up around her spine was now drinking memories from Marney’s mind, absorbing her life, draining her of everything she had ever been, of everything she knew.

  The expression on Asajad’s small, porcelain face was eager, her breathing was quick and hard, exhilarated.

  The tree became more agitated.

  Its roots writhed and twisted on the floor like a nest of snakes; its highest branches stabbed and slapped the silver ceiling. Marney began shaking, her entire body tense and vibrating. Her eyes fluttered open and rolled to white. A small gasp escaped Asajad; a single limb of the serpentine tree had stretched towards the Genii, pointing at them accusingly. Its tip swelled like an abscess, changing the leathery brown-green bark to a taut and angry red. But when the abscess burst, it was not with blood and pus. Instead, a thing of beauty was revealed.

  A flower. Crimson petals unfurled like a hand reaching for salvation. Delicate florets in a vibrant yellow centre lay matted and heavy with clear nectar sugared sweet with the memories of an empath.

  From the sleeve of her cassock, Asajad produced a small scalpel and offered it to Moor. He took it from her and stepped forwards. The flower quivered before him. He hooked it between his fingers, gently pulling the petals forward to expose the stem. With one careful but deft motion, Moor cut the flower free. The stub bled a brownish sludge.

  Moor stepped back with his prize nestled in his hand.

  The outreaching branch dropped to the silver floor with a slap. The tree ceased all movement, and Marney hung limp in its grasp. The tree gave a sudden judder. With a wet sucking the branch that had coiled around the empath’s spine slid out of her back, and hung flaccid, blood-smeared and glistening. And then the strange, serpentine tree entered its death throes.