by Edward Cox
The guide dumped the wood on the floor of the shelter and crouched before the fire, warming her hands. ‘And then, of course, there’s us.’
She looked from one empath to the other, her large eyes narrowed and calculating. ‘I’ve no interest in what you’re doing, but I trust to the Thaumaturgists, and I choose to believe it’s for a good cause.’ She took a breath and exhaled heavily. ‘If you don’t mind me telling you, we let messengers come through our House from time to time, carrying news of the war. I’ve heard terrible things about what’s going on out there. About where you two are headed.’
Marney felt a chill.
Denton leant forward. ‘Really? We receive little news in the Labyrinth.’
The Aelf ’s eyes glazed as she stared into the flames. ‘If Spiral leads his army to the Trees of the Many Queen – oh, we’d fight them, we’d fight them to the death. But I’ve heard you don’t get a choice. The Genii, they have ways of making you want to join them. They have ways of … turning your thoughts, driving you mad, making you hate your fellow kind.’ She sniffed. ‘That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’
Marney could sense that the Aelf believed the rumours. She was a brave woman, truthful, and her words were meant as a warning to the agents of the Relic Guild. There was fear inside her, a fear that the Genii would one day come and subjugate her House as they had subjugated many others in this war.
Marney looked at Denton, hoping to find reassurance in his cheery face, but the old empath was lost in thought, staring out into the rain, his emotions closed.
‘Right then,’ the Aelf said, rising to her feet. ‘The portal’s not far now, and we should be moving before the light’s gone altogether.’ She looked at Marney, saw the worry on her face, and gave her a friendly smile. ‘Can’t very well let the old man go tripping up in the dark now, can we?’
Denton snapped out of his reverie and scoffed. ‘That’s a fair point.’ He got to his feet with a groan. ‘As much as it pains me to admit it. Shall we?’
As Marney and Denton slung on their rucksacks and damp travelling cloaks, the Aelf extinguished the fire and then laid it with fresh wood as a courtesy to the next traveller. Once again, she led the empaths out into the rain and the depths of the Trees of the Many Queen.
By the time they reached their destination, it was twilight and the rain had stopped. The forest smelled fresher and earthier than ever, and was shrouded in a thickening mist.
The portal was an archway formed from two bent and twisted trees, ancient and leafless. Fixed to the apex of the archway, a bronze plate had turned green over time. The symbol engraved into it depicted two rectangles standing upright and connected by a straight line.
I don’t recognise the House symbol, Marney thought to Denton.
The Union of Twins, Denton replied.
Marney had never heard of it.
It’s a very different House to the Trees of the Many Queen, Marney.
‘You should know,’ the Aelfirian guide said, standing before the archway, ‘that the only thing standing between the Genii and this House is the Timewatcher’s army. The war is being fought in the Union of Twins.’
Marney’s gut twisted as the Aelf pressed a knot on the old and twisted tree-frame. With a low hum, a dark, liquid portal began churning within the archway.
Denton laid a reassuring hand on Marney’s shoulder.
‘Good luck to you both,’ the Aelf said. ‘And take the blessings of the Many Queen with you.’
Giving thanks to their guide, Denton took Marney’s hand and led her forward. Together they entered the portal.
Marney expected to find herself in a ghostly tunnel that cut a path through primordial mists to their destination. But this was no doorway, and the portal did not snake and twist through the Nothing of Far and Deep connecting an Aelfirian House to the Great Labyrinth; it was an inter-House portal, and it delivered Marney to the Union of Twins instantly.
A flash of light blinded her eyes, a roar like thunder deafened her ears, and a shockwave punched Marney from her feet. Before she could call for Denton, or make sense of her surroundings, she was sent spiralling down into unconsciousness.
Inside the decrepit building on the east side of Labrys Town, Samuel was a few steps ahead of Bryant and Macy.
He faced a hallway, long and wide, home to twelve apartments, six on each side. The door of every apartment was open or smashed from its hinges. Above, light prisms ran in a straight line down the centre of the ceiling, every one broken and useless. From the doorways to the left, ghostly shafts of pale sunshine penetrated into the hallway. Dust drifted and twinkled. The shafts of sunlight dimly lit the way ahead, down to the end and the closed door of the stairwell. Everything appeared dreary grey through the lenses of Samuel’s magically enhanced goggles.
‘What’s your magic telling you?’ said Macy.
Samuel’s prescient awareness was warm inside him, as though it had one eye open, drowsy but not asleep. The noise of Bryant breaking open the entrance doors had not alerted anyone in the building. All was still and quiet, but … ‘There’s something here,’ Samuel said.
‘What’s that smell?’ Bryant asked.
The building reeked of decay.
‘Fabian Moor’s virus,’ Samuel said, his gut knotting. ‘It’s the smell of his victims.’
Bryant scoffed, unimpressed. ‘Golems smell like rotting vegetables?’
‘No.’ Samuel’s voice was low and sombre. ‘But the infected do.’ Gripping his revolver tightly, he turned to the twins. ‘When they come for us – and they will come – be ready. The infected have no fear of what you can do to them. They’ll only be interested in your blood. If you get bitten, there’s no cure for Fabian Moor’s virus. Remember that, and put them down quickly.’
‘Okay then,’ Macy said offhandedly, and she gestured to the hallway. ‘I guess you’re up.’
Samuel bristled. He could sense that Macy and Bryant’s faces, hidden within the shadows of their charmed hoods, still carried arrogantly confident expressions, despite the warning.
‘Stay behind me,’ he said. ‘Don’t get in my way.’
Guided by the warmth of his magic, Samuel slowly moved down the hallway, revolver in hand.
The agents’ footsteps rustled upon the threadbare carpet, kicking up puffs of dust as though they walked upon sun-baked dirt. The dingy grey paint on the walls was peeling into brittle flakes, and the plaster beneath looked ready to disintegrate into fine powder at the slightest touch. There was an unnatural ambience in the apartment block, a distant white noise that seemed to absorb sound into a lifeless hum, as if the building itself was dying. Dry and crumbling, it was as if this place had been abandoned for years.
When he stepped in line with the first set of opposing apartment doors, Samuel stopped and waited for his prescient awareness to detect any danger in the immediate future. It remained dull and drowsy within him. He gestured for the twins to check the apartment on his right, while he investigated the left.
He was greeted by a miserable one-room dwelling, small and cramped and scarcely habitable. There were no ornaments or personal flourishes, and the only furniture was a single bed and a rickety looking table. Both had been broken, and the mattress had been shredded. Dried blood spattered the carpet and a tangle of stained sheets. A thin layer of dust coated everything.
Samuel frowned when he turned to the tiny kitchen in one corner of the room. The oven had been vandalised. Its door lay on the floor. Its parts and internal workings had been ripped out. On closer inspection, Samuel saw the metal insulation box which held the oven’s small power stone had been cracked open, and the stone itself was missing.
Back out in the Hallway, Bryant informed Samuel that he and his sister had found the same aftermath of violence in the other apartment, but no denizens, dead or otherwise.
‘Is the oven broken?’ Samuel said
, and Bryant nodded. ‘Is the power stone missing?’
Macy ducked back inside to check, and confirmed it was gone.
‘What does that mean?’
Without reply, Samuel led the group to the next set of apartments, and then the next, and the next. In each, furniture had been smashed, blood had been split, and the power stones had been removed from vandalised ovens.
Three-quarters of the way down the corridor, Samuel looked up through a hole that had been cut into the ceiling. It was neat and circular, leading to the next floor, and large enough for him to pass through.
‘Quicker than using the stairs, I suppose,’ Macy half-joked.
‘What’s that noise?’ Bryant said.
Samuel was aware of it too. A tapping – no, patting, dull and fleshy.
His magic grew a little warmer.
Leading with his revolver, Samuel stepped away from the hole in the ceiling and checked the next set of apartments. They were the same as the others, as was the last room on the right; but the last door on the left was closed. The stench of rotting vegetables was stronger, the patting louder.
Samuel pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun. He looked into a communal bathroom and found two people inside.
One, an old man lying on the floor, was already dead, his clothes shredded. A woman crouched over him, so emaciated by the Genii virus her age could not be determined. Her head was bald, her skin clammy grey and streaked with black veins. With one hand, she reached into a gaping wound in the man’s stomach, pulling out stringy lengths of innards and stuffing them into her mouth. With the other hand, she rhythmically smacked the man’s broken and blood-smeared face as if her need for violence had formed a nervous tic.
Pat, pat, pat …
Macy and Bryant moved up behind Samuel. Macy swore. Bryant gagged.
The infected woman stopped feeding upon the dead man and looked sharply at the doorway. Her jaundiced eyes were full of the purest hate. Blood and morsels of human flesh spattered from her mouth as she gave a series of shouts, a mixture of coughing and barking.
Samuel’s revolver flashed and made a low and hollow spitting sound. The woman’s head jerked back. The bathroom tiles cracked behind her in a spray of blood. She slumped forward over the old man’s body, and Samuel lowered his gun. He closed the bathroom door and turned to the twins.
They stood uncertainly. Perhaps the message had finally sunk in; perhaps now they understood why Gideon had given them the order to show zero tolerance to any denizen carrying infection—
Time dulled . . .
The environment pressed in on Samuel’s senses like needles. The warmth of his prescient awareness flared to a fiery scream carried on his blood, drawing his eyes and the aim of his weapon to the hole in the corridor ceiling. He felt shifts in the atmosphere, imperceptible to the others, and he knew what was coming before he heard the shuffling of quick footsteps from the floor above.
‘Get ready,’ he said, and the twins wheeled around, standing before their fellow agent.
There was a scuffle at the hole, and then two of the infected dropped through, together, tangled and fighting as they fell crashing to the floor. With a series of barked shrieks, they disentangled themselves and ran at the agents, faces full of rage, the stench of infection preceding them.
Bryant met the first with a straight right cross, punching the monster from its feet. It slammed to the ground on its back, its face crushed and neck broken. Macy grabbed the second by the throat, holding it off at arm’s length as it kicked and punched the air wildly. Macy took a moment to study the monster, and then, with an almost casual twist of her hand, broke its neck with a dull crack.
‘That’s not all of them,’ Samuel warned.
There was another scuffle at the hole in ceiling. Three more infected jumped down, one after the other, and rushed forward. Macy hurled the limp body still in her hand. It crashed into the virus victims, knocking them to the carpet. The twins advanced, and the infected died before they could get to their feet.
No more followed. The air reeked of decay.
‘Shit,’ Bryant said. He was staring at the blood covering his gauntlets. He seemed agitated, desperate to clean it away. ‘Get it off me!’
‘Stop panicking,’ Macy snapped. ‘The virus is magical. Hamir said it dies with the carrier—’
‘Shut up,’ Samuel said. His voice was low but sliced the air like a blade.
His magic was still active.
As he heard a hard thump, Samuel spun around, aiming the revolver at the stairwell door at the end of the hallway. When it didn’t open, he moved forwards, gesturing to the twins to keep back and stay silent. Laying a hand upon the dry and rough wooden surface, he closed his eyes and listened to his magic. It told him the door was locked and sturdy. But it warned him the immediate future would be grave if he opened it.
Samuel snapped his hand away as there came another thump on the other side of the door. This time, it was followed by the muffled cough-barks of the infected. Samuel stepped back as a fight broke out in the stairwell. The door shook and several quick screams were followed by abrupt silence. The silence was replaced by wet and angry gnawing. From the crack beneath the door, blood began soaking into the edge of the dusty carpet, making it a curious shade of grey through the goggles.
‘How many do you think there are through there?’ Macy said.
Samuel shrugged. He looked at the dead bodies in the hallway, and then up through the hole in the ceiling. His magic told him it was the safe way to continue on.
With the help of Bryant’s interlaced fingers, Samuel was hoisted through the hole, and he climbed out onto the next floor of the building. He immediately checked the stairwell door to ensure it was locked on this level too. It was, and he wondered whether Fabian Moor had trapped his victims in the stairwell to wait until they had changed into servile golems.
There was another hole cut into the ceiling, and Samuel stared up into the last floor of the building as Macy and Bryant jumped up from the floor below to join him. Silently, the agents checked all the apartments.
‘Why are the power stones missing?’ Macy muttered to herself.
Certain now that there were no survivors, Samuel removed his charmed hat, rolled it up, and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his coat. The twins pulled back their hoods. Bryant rubbed the scar on his cheek as he always did when he was troubled. Out of habit, Samuel checked that his revolver’s power stone was glowing and replaced the spent bullet. He then checked the spirit compass. The needle was slowly turning around the face again. The automaton spider was still outside the building, waiting to make its move.
Samuel took a breath and stood beneath the hole leading to the final floor. ‘If Moor’s here, he’ll probably have golems with him.’
The twins gave Samuel a look as if to say that after what they had just dealt with, a bunch of fragile, slow-moving servants were no particular menace.
Samuel glared at them. ‘Golems can use guns.’
Having enlightened them, Samuel looked up at the hole in the ceiling. ‘And if Gene’s still alive, he’ll probably be up there too.’
Things were very different on the final floor of the shelter. This part of the dry and crumbling building felt almost alive, suffused with a strange darkness. Through the green glass lenses of the goggles, the darkness filled Samuel’s vision, black yet luminous. The shadows of the third floor had become solid, tangible, chipped into a thousand million pieces that scuttled over threadbare carpet and crumbling plaster like a swarm of black-shelled beetles.
By the expressions on Macy and Bryant’s faces, Samuel knew they could see the effect without the use of the goggles; and by the way they shifted, it was clear the twins could also feel the crackle of magic in the air.
The flow of the shadow-insects was converging on a closed door halfway down the hallway. Samuel walked
to it, followed by his fellow agents. Curiously, the swarm on the floor parted beneath their feet, revealing the dry and worn carpet. With Macy and Bryant standing on either side of him, Samuel confronted the door. It was not coated in the strange darkness; rather the shadows crawled and scurried through the gap around the frame into the room beyond. Samuel considered the door, his prescient awareness stirring. A moment passed and Macy opened her mouth to speak.
Samuel didn’t give her the chance.
Shoving out with both hands as hard as he could, Samuel pushed the twins away from him in opposite directions. He dropped to one knee just as a hail of bullets ripped through the door with violet flashes of thaumaturgic bursts and flew over his head.
Samuel was sprayed with splinters of wood. The bullets made a thudding noise as they hit the scuttling shadows on the opposite wall. Samuel’s deeper instincts guided him. Aiming up, his revolver spat four times. The hail of bullets ceased immediately.
Samuel sprang forward, kicking the door open and rolling into the room beyond. He came up shooting. Four more golems fell to the floor to join the two he had shot through the door. They thrashed and jerked upon hardened shadows, cracking and popping as their bodies began breaking into chunks of dry stone within their cassocks.
The revolver empty, Samuel holstered it, drew his rifle and primed the power stone. His magic took stock of the situation.
The apartment had been gutted. Door-shaped holes had been cut into the left and right walls, leading into the neighbouring apartments. Samuel’s prescient awareness warned him that danger approached from the left side hole, into which all the shadows seemed to be crawling. He pressed his back to the wall next to the opening and waited.
