by Edward Cox
You know my sort?
Yes. And you can’t intimidate me.
A brief silence.
I’m disappointed, Clara. The way the voice scratched the inside of her skull told Clara that he was telling the truth. Have your colleagues taught you nothing about what it means to be an agent of the Relic Guild?
They’ve taught me enough to know that they’re better people than you could ever have been in life, Clara retorted.
Gideon clucked his tongue. Don’t you realise how childish this romanticised view of your fellow agents is? You have placed Van Bam, Samuel, and, most especially, Marney, up upon a glorified pedestal. And it is with this same romanticised view that you would now damn me as a villain.
Understand me, Clara – long before you were born, when I was Resident, I taught those three idiots how to protect the denizens of Labrys Town. And I taught them well. You do not know the kind of things they have had to do in service of the Relic Guild.
Clara batted aside the ghost’s provocation. What about you? She was full of heat now. What kind of things did you do, Gideon?
Oh my … Gideon’s tone became dark, his voice whispery. You don’t really want to know the answer to that, do you, Clara?
The wolf stopped pacing. Her mind was filled with sudden images of razor sharp blades slicing tender, pink skin. Blood welled, seeped, poured, and words Clara did not understand imbued love with hatred and turned fearful whimpering to screaming agony.
You … You were a blood-magicker, she said, disgusted.
I was much more than that! Gideon’s voice was full of spite. I was born touched by ancient magic, far more powerful than that of any other Relic Guild agent.
You were a savage.
A laugh, hard and sharp. I was descended from mighty ancestors, Clara, Houseless outcasts called the Nephilim.
Never heard of them, Clara retorted.
Then let me tell you, child – the Nephilim were to be feared. They were giants, adepts of blood-magic. The Timewatcher turned her back on them.
Clara growled. You can’t intimidate me!
Gideon’s voice closed around the wolf ’s mind like a wicked claw. Then perhaps I should tell you about your heroes, Clara. Did you know that Van Bam once drove a black marketeer insane by showing him illusions of his worst nightmares? Or maybe you’d like to hear how Samuel once tortured information from a treasure hunter by popping her eye out with a knife. But wait! I should tell you of the time that your beloved Marney used her empathic magic to convince a man it was a good idea to put the barrel of a pistol into his mouth and pull the trigger.
The claw of Gideon’s voice squeezed Clara’s mind. Sharp talons stabbed into her memories, digging into her every thought and dream. It made her feel weak, and the wolf began to panic.
You and Marney aren’t very different, Gideon hissed poisonously. Whores, both of you, who liked to spread their legs for any man that came along. But where you liked to charge for your services, Clara, Marney gave it away for free! He chuckled like hot wind rustling dead leaves. Or is it better to not speak ill of the dead?
Shut up! Clara spat.
But Gideon did no such thing. The wolf shuddered and whined as the ghost’s grip on her mind tightened, draining her of courage and strength.
The Genii would have toyed with Marney before they killed her, you know. They would have made her screech like an animal. They would have taken the secrets of the Nightshade from her like they were ripping out her soul. And before she died, Marney would have known the true meaning of agony.
Stop it! The hate and lunacy of the blood-magicker who filled Clara’s mind was too much to bear, and the wolf could only cower before it. Please, I’m begging you – just stop!
Don’t ever presume to know my sort, child! Gideon bellowed. And never forget that while I’m up here in your head, I can twist your every thought until they turn you mad!
And Gideon released his grip.
Clara yelped. She turned in circles, her posture defensive, coiled, ready to strike, but there was no enemy in the cell with her. The silence in her head was sudden and complete, and she wondered if the ghost of the former Resident had blinked out of existence.
‘Clara.’
Van Bam’s voice coming from the neighbouring cell made her flinch. But it sounded familiar and reassuring.
‘Gideon is a difficult presence to deal with at the best of times,’ Van Bam said. ‘Trust me. I know this.’ He sighed. ‘But you must remember to show him respect. Always. His advice should be listened to.’
Clara moved nearer to the bars of the cell, filled with the sudden urge to be closer to the illusionist, to hear more of his comforting words, to find protection from the madman in her head. But Van Bam said no more. Silence except Samuel’s snoring. The atmosphere was uncannily still, and for the first time since changing into the wolf, Clara’s confidence was blemished by doubt.
The incongruous presence of a dead Resident slowly returned inside her head. It was heavy with judgement.
I’m sorry, Clara thought to him quickly. Marney – I never realised, I … I never stopped to think—
Stop snivelling, Gideon retorted. I don’t need your apology, and Marney’s death isn’t relevant. But seeing as you’re in the mood to rekindle our friendship, Clara, would you care to take some advice?
Clara didn’t reply with words. Instead she gave acquiescence with thoughts, respect with feelings. She did not want to give Gideon any reason to unleash the full force of his spite on her mind again.
Listen to me very carefully, child, Gideon said. For the first time in your life you have control over the wolf. Yet here you are, doing your level best to not understand it. You revel in your power, consider yourself untouchable, slave to no one and master of all. You have become a bully, Clara.
I … What?
You’re no better than that idiot Marca.
Wait—
No! You will listen to me. I’ve no time or patience to deal with the ignorance of the wolf. Marney has left a message in your mind, and it will be far simpler to discover what it is if I do not have to wade through all this pride and anger swirling around your mind.
She understood what Gideon was driving towards; she knew what lay at the end of his point. But she couldn’t agree to it, despite her newfound fear of the ghost.
I don’t have to change back, she said timidly, pleadingly. I’ll control myself.
You’re frightened of the change, Gideon said. And I don’t blame you. But this is for your own good, Clara.
No. No, I’m not frightened, Clara lied. I’m just better this way.
Gideon snorted. And you had the cheek to call me a psychopath. There was a bored edge to his voice now. I don’t mean to disappoint you, Clara, but you are not the first changeling I’ve known, and certainly not the most impressive. You cannot deny the wolf any more than you can deny the human. If you continue to fight the process, your magic will ultimately make the decision for you, anyway. Only then, the metamorphosis into the girl will be agony beyond belief.
A vision bloomed in Clara’s mind. She saw a small girl, awkward in body, gawky of face, with short mousy hair streaked with red dye. She was frightened of herself, frightened of her world. She was bound by chains, staring back at the wolf with sad eyes.
I can’t, she told Gideon desperately.
Then by all means continue fighting what you are, Gideon replied haughtily. But if you carry on down this road, Clara, your magic will eventually drive you insane. He broke off to chuckle. It comes to this – to understand yourself is to accept that the human and the wolf are in symbiosis. Two creatures in one body. That is what it means to be a true changeling. Anything less serves no purpose to the Relic Guild.
To fully control your magic, Clara, you must learn to initiate the metamorphosis of your own volition. Chilly amusement had crept into Gideon’s voice
. Now, I need to talk to the human about Marney’s message. Lie down, please.
It wasn’t a request; and Gideon’s order – the tone, the shape, the feel, the weight of it inside the wolf ’s head – could not be denied.
Although the cell’s stone floor was cold against Clara’s underside, she began to pant, her tongue lolling and hot breath steaming in the air. She could feel the frightened girl with sad eyes reaching out to the wolf.
I’m scared, she admitted, unashamed. Stay with me.
Gideon laughed. Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Chapter Six
Tower of the Necromancer
If Hamir could claim to have been blindsided by discovering that in the bowels of the Nightshade there was a secret room called the Last and Lowest Chamber – a room that the Genii could not follow him into – and that the Last and Lowest Chamber hid not only the roots of the Timewatcher’s mighty First and Greatest Spell, but also a portal leading out of the Labyrinth, then the necromancer supposed that some people would describe the location to which the portal delivered him as a masterstroke in the art of surprise.
All things considered, Hamir had to concede he was moved in the vaguest of ways by this last discovery. Although, he reasoned, had he only applied a little more logic to the situation, the oddly smooth and metallic-looking cave to which the portal had taken him would have merely served to confirm his suspicions.
The necromancer chided himself with a wry sort of smile.
The portal had gone. The thick, churning whiteness of the Nothing of Far and Deep was now covered by a wooden door on the back wall of the cave. A simple looking door that could have belonged to any house in Labrys Town. However, this door had locked tight after his arrival, and Hamir suspected that it would not unlock even if he applied his magic to the task. Not that he would make any attempt; returning to the Nightshade would only deliver him back into the mercy of the Genii.
Hamir walked away from the door, and out of the cave.
He didn’t need to look back to know he had exited onto the lower quarter of a mountain just as unnaturally smooth and metallic-looking as the cave’s interior. Before Hamir, a wide and grey path sloped down to a bridge that spanned a yawning chasm enclosed by the semi-circle of a great cliff face. In the near distance, at the end of the bridge, a tower rose from a gigantic disc of metal-rock, a mighty tower with a sleek black body, capped with a dome of grey metal.
The Tower of the Skywatcher.
Lady Amilee, Hamir thought in wonder. One of the most revered creatures of higher magic to ever serve the Timewatcher. Amilee the Skywatcher had, many years ago, been the patron of the Labyrinth’s denizens, the liaison between the Relic Guild and the Thaumaturgists. And who else could be behind life’s recent mysteries?
Hamir frowned. Before the Timewatcher had turned her back on the Labyrinth, Amilee’s House, the Tower of the Skywatcher, had been famed for its beauty. The scene that now met the eyes of the necromancer was dreary at best.
Where roaring falls of emerald had cascaded from the high cliff to crash down into the yawning chasm and moisten the air with a fine, rejuvenating mist, pure and cleansing, no water fell now. The air was dry and gritty and still. Once, the stars and moons of an alien sky could be marvelled at through wispy clouds of many scintillating colours; now starlight and moonlight struggled to shine through dirty fog that drifted like smoke from forge chimneys. The metal dome capping the proud tower had been as bright as a mirror, sparkling with reflected light from the sky. The highly polished silver had become tarnished and dull grey.
The House of the Skywatcher was dead.
‘Tragic,’ Hamir murmured.
His footsteps ticked in the silence as he made his way down the path and onto the bridge. As he walked he kicked up dust. He wondered briefly about the fate of the Relic Guild. Had he warned them in time that the Genii had conquered the Nightshade? Were they trapped and hiding in Labrys Town, or had the avatar helped them to find a way out, as it had helped him? Were they dead? Did they think that he was dead?
Given the situation, the Relic Guild’s survival seemed like it would be a good thing. On a personal level, Hamir had always found Van Bam a decent sort of fellow, if a little too internalised for his tastes. Samuel was just a miserable bore whose intellect couldn’t stretch beyond the present moment. But Clara … Clara was another matter. There was something different about the young changeling, special perhaps. Hamir hoped she had survived, because he had rather enjoyed her company.
Why should that be? he wondered.
As Hamir made his way across the bridge, he pulled a phial from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He held it up and shook the red contents. The phial was filled with blood – or more specifically, Clara’s blood.
If one knew how to use it, the blood of a changeling was a powerful catalyst that could fuel the simplest of spells with the power of the highest of magics, if only for a short while. This was the second of two phials that the avatar had ordered Hamir to draw from Clara’s veins. The first had helped the necromancer activate the portal in the Last and Lowest Chamber of the Nightshade, thus enabling his escape from the Labyrinth. The purpose of this second phial had yet to reveal itself.
Hamir reasoned he would recognise an occasion for its use when it arose, and slipped the phial back into his pocket.
Cresting the rise in the bridge, the necromancer headed towards the mammoth disc from which the Tower of the Skywatcher rose. He saw a figure standing sentinel at the end of the bridge. Hamir recognised the figure with a chilly pang and stopped in his tracks.
Tall and broad, still as a statue, comprised of thaumaturgic metal with exposed internal mechanisms like a giant clockwork toy, it was an automaton sentry which guarded the bridge.
Designed by the greatest metallurgists, the automatons had been the servants of the Thaumaturgists. If ordered to, this construct could wreak terrible violence upon foes, most especially upon unwanted guests. Hamir could not be confident that Lady Amilee would welcome him to her House. His magic would have little effect against automatons, and if this one decided to attack, the necromancer would be defenceless.
‘Interesting,’ he said sourly.
With little choice, Hamir advanced at a cautious pace. As he crept closer to the automaton, he was relieved to discover that it still did not react to his presence. He reached the end of the bridge, and the construct remained unmoving when he stood within touching distance of it.
Standing eight feet tall, the automaton’s silver frame towered over the necromancer. The cogs and pistons of its exposed internal mechanisms did not turn or pump. A thick layer of dust coated the smooth, featureless metal plates covering its chest and face. Hamir reached up and placed a hand on its face plate. The metal was cold and inert, devoid of the warmth of magic. The thaumaturgy that animated this sentry was either dormant or dead. Either way, it was inactive.
‘No more useful than a scarecrow,’ Hamir muttered, and he walked around the automaton, continuing on his way across the giant disc of metal-stone.
The base of the Tower of the Skywatcher was easily large enough to match the Nightshade. Huge double doors were set into it, and they loomed before Hamir. Although they were at least fifteen feet tall, and as thick as a man’s arm was long from wrist to elbow, the doors were surprisingly light and made not one creak or groan as Hamir pulled them open.
He paused before entering, gazing around at the dreary landscape, wondering if the Skywatcher was as dead as her House.
Inside the tower, the weak light crawling in from the entrance did little to banish the shadows in a cavernous reception hall. This was of no concern to Hamir, for his eyes needed no light to see.
Deadened glow lamps were fixed to the walls above a series of alcoves in which a host of inanimate automatons stood. There were at least fifty alcoves surrounding the hall, and Hamir remember
ed that the dusty and dysfunctional automatons inhabiting them were Amilee’s private army; there had been a time when the Skywatcher had much to protect.
Lady Amilee. Her duty had once been to watch every pathway that led from the Houses of the Aelfir to the Great Labyrinth, to guard the denizens of Labrys Town. Hamir supposed that if one considered the aftermath of the Genii War, one could say that Amilee failed in her duty to protect the Labyrinth.
At the centre of the reception hall’s hard, grey floor, two glass elevator shafts rose to disappear through the ceiling high above. The door to one was open, the elevator waiting inside.
Hamir made to step towards it, wondering dubiously if this tower still retained enough energy to activate the elevator. But as he approached the open door, he suddenly realised that he was not alone in this place.
His skin tingled. A presence hung in the air, palpable enough to feel – or perhaps taste was the better word – and Hamir gave a small smile. The necromancer had been keeping the company of ghosts long enough to recognise when one was close by.
‘Let me take a guess,’ he said, voice echoing around the hall. ‘Alexander, is that you?’
Like a newly opened ancient crypt sucking a great breath of fresh air, a long, rattling sigh rushed at Hamir from all directions.
‘What do you want?’ the disembodied voice said.
It was Alexander, Lady Amilee’s aide, an Aelf who had served the Skywatcher devotedly in life, and now, it seemed, in death.
‘You’re not welcome here, necromancer,’ the ghost said.
‘I really don’t care what you think, to be honest,’ Hamir replied with a raised eyebrow. ‘Show yourself, please.’
‘No. Go away.’
A twinge of boredom inflected Hamir’s mood – or was it impatience? Difficult to tell these days. In all his long years of servitude to Lady Amilee, Alexander had always been an intolerant wretch, an Aelf in a perpetual bad mood without the grace of a single welcoming bone in his body.
‘I see death hasn’t mellowed you, Alexander,’ Hamir said, and he shrugged. ‘Show yourself, don’t show yourself – by all means follow your wont. But, please, just answer me one question. Is Lady Amilee here?’
