by Edward Cox
Ironically, if Gene had still been alive, the elderly apothecary could have eased Samuel’s self-induced suffering.
He stood before the plain white shutter door of an abandoned ore warehouse. First ensuring there were no denizens around to witness his presence, Samuel stepped forwards. He shuddered as he passed through the perception spell that had been cast upon the building. It was a curious magical charm, designed to convince most denizens to forget that the warehouse was there. Getting past the spell, Samuel laid a hand upon the shutter door. The magical locking mechanisms recognised the touch of a magicker, and the door rose with a series of metallic clangs as sharp as bullets firing straight into Samuel’s brain.
Macy and Bryant turned to look at Samuel as he entered and closed the shutter behind him. Bryant pulled a face that suggested Samuel was something he had trodden in; Macy wore a half-amused but fully knowing smile. Hamir had no interest whatsoever in who had arrived. The necromancer clutched a leather-bound book to his chest, his attention absorbed by the man he was holding prisoner.
Fabian Moor was staring at Samuel. The Genii sat cross-legged on the warehouse floor, upon the symbols Hamir had carved into the stone – strange shapes and swirls from the language of the Thaumaturgists, configured into a rough circle. The symbols glowed with a low purple light, radiating the power that sapped Moor of his higher magic and kept him incarcerated within the circle. The prison was obviously working, as Samuel’s prescient awareness detected no danger whatsoever from the Genii.
Moor’s eyes lingered on Samuel, full of indifference. His skin was as pale as an albino’s, smooth and unblemished, except for the patch of scarring on his forehead that had once been the tattoo of a black diamond.
Samuel met Moor’s gaze evenly. ‘Has he said anything yet?’
‘No,’ Hamir answered. ‘We are waiting for our Resident before I begin the interrogation,’ and he began leafing through the leather-bound book.
Moor blinked – once – and turned his stare to the necromancer.
‘But I have heard an interesting story,’ Macy said as she walked over to a small table on which two carafes sat. ‘There was a drunken idiot in one of the taverns down Green Glass Row last night,’ she continued as she filled a cup with water. ‘Apparently, he was trying to fight anyone within punching distance.’
‘Funny, I heard that same thing,’ added Bryant. ‘Whoever he was, he was very upset about the death of his friend. He started ranting at any denizen who would listen about –’ he looked to Macy ‘– what was it again? Something to do with magickers?’
‘Yep.’ Macy carried the cup of water over to Samuel. ‘According to witnesses, none of us know how fortunate we are to have the Relic Guild protecting us.’
‘Oh, yeah – that’s right.’ Bryant shook his head. ‘I suppose it’s lucky for everyone that this lunatic decided to leave his guns at home.’
He gave Samuel a hard stare.
‘Here, drink this,’ Macy said, offering Samuel the cup. ‘You look like shit.’
Samuel looked at the clear water, but didn’t take it.
‘We’re all grieving for Gene, Samuel,’ Bryant said. ‘But most of us have the good sense to remember our duties too. You’re lucky you didn’t get locked up. Or shot.’
Silently, Samuel took the cup from Macy.
The memory of the previous night was a little blurred to him now, but Samuel remembered the anger and the shouting, though he couldn’t recall returning to his hideout. Or exactly how much he had drunk. He hadn’t meant to let the situation get out of control.
Nobody had ever really got to know Gene – he’d kept himself to himself. Samuel had known him better than most, though, certainly better than Macy and Bryant. Samuel had only been a boy when he first joined the Relic Guild; and Gene, as much as Denton, had taken the youngster under his wing, looked out for him. Samuel remembered working as a shop boy at Gene’s little apothecary store in the western district, sweeping up and running errands. It had been the first time he had ever known a sense of family.
He met the gazes of the twins and sighed. He wanted to explain to them that he was trying to get over Gene’s death; that he thought getting drunk might banish from his mind the memory of the old and harmless apothecary succumbing to the ravages of the Genii virus. But the sound of Gene’s desperate and pleading voice kept on rattling round and round in his head. Samuel didn’t know how to explain the grief he was experiencing.
Keeping his silence, Samuel lifted the cup to his lips and drained it of water.
‘Better?’ asked Macy.
Samuel nodded and offered back the empty cup.
Macy didn’t take it and snorted. ‘I’m not your bloody housemaid,’ she said before moving off to leave Samuel feeling foolish.
Bryant sneered at him. ‘Really? You set fire to that homeless shelter?’
Macy barked a derogatory laugh. ‘Gideon isn’t too pleased about that, Samuel.’
Bryant shook his head. ‘You burned the whole place down, you arse.’
‘Give it a rest,’ Samuel grumbled, walking over to the table.
As he drank a second cup of water, Samuel noticed that next to the carafes was a small wooden rack holding a few phials of blood. His stomach flipped. The blood was to feed Fabian Moor, the only source of food the Genii required now. Samuel didn’t want to know who had donated the contents of the phials.
In the corner of the warehouse, the automaton spider that had captured Moor lay on its back, legs curled, seemingly dead – its purpose served. The sentient metal that the spider had been created from, along with the leather-bound book that Hamir was reading, had been gifts from Lady Amilee, parts of a secret art that only Hamir could understand. These secret arts had made Moor’s capture possible, but they weren’t to be used to execute him, as logic might dictate. Lady Amilee wanted the Genii questioned.
Fabian Moor was Spiral’s most trusted general. He had been heavily embroiled in the plots and plans of the Genii Lord, and there was undoubtedly much he knew that could benefit the war effort.
‘I wonder if he’s ever seen the Timewatcher,’ Bryant said to no one in particular. He only seemed to realise he had spoken aloud when he noticed his fellow agents looking at him. ‘I mean – Moor was a Thaumaturgist once,’ he added quickly. ‘They all get to see Her, don’t they?’
Hamir considered Bryant’s question, tugging at the tuft of beard that sprouted from the point of his chin. ‘Not all of them,’ he said after a moment.
Samuel and the twins waited for him to reveal more, but he simply returned to reading the book.
‘Well, thanks for that, Hamir,’ said Bryant, rolling his eyes.
The necromancer acted as though no one had spoken, content to ignore all present. Bryant shrugged at his sister, and Macy chuckled. They were all well used to the strange ways of the Resident’s aide.
Hamir had always struck Samuel as a contradiction. He might be small and elderly, but his magic was probably more powerful than anyone’s in the warehouse – excepting that of Fabian Moor, of course. He was always smartly dressed in a three piece suit and tie, his shoulder-length iron grey hair was swept back from a face that held placid green eyes and a calm expression. He carried himself with an amiable manner, yet he was capable of such terrible, destructive things. His tone of voice remained gentle and welcoming even when he issued cutting comments. It was impossible to fathom what he was thinking or feeling.
Hamir was an oddity, a mystery, and he had served as aide to the Residents of the Nightshade for longer than anyone knew.
Fabian Moor was watching Samuel stare at Hamir. The slightest of smirks had turned the corner of the Genii’s mouth. Samuel once again heard Gene’s pleas in his mind, and he wished he could put a bullet through Moor’s head.
‘Shall I tell you what I am curious about?’ Hamir said, looking up from the book. ‘What the Genii
was doing at the homeless shelter.’ He looked at Samuel. ‘Of course, if it hadn’t been gutted by fire, I could’ve investigated the building for myself.’
‘Well it was, so you can’t,’ Samuel replied levelly. ‘What’s your point, Hamir?’
Hamir blinked, and then addressed the twins. ‘Tell me again – what did you see at the shelter? You mentioned shadows?’
Bryant answered. ‘It was like he was controlling them.’
‘Moor was summoning them, Hamir,’ said Macy. ‘Those shadows had been fractured, shattered, and they moved towards him like a massive swarm of insects. But they didn’t attack us. They didn’t try to stop us.’
By this point the Genii had averted his cold gaze from Samuel.
‘In fact,’ Samuel added, ‘I’d say the shadows moved out of our way, and Moor didn’t seem interested in doing anything other than harvesting them.’
‘And then he stored the swarm in the device he had created,’ Hamir said, nodding.
The necromancer stepped away from the incarcerated Genii, placed the book down on the table, and moved to the far wall of the warehouse, where a large rectangular hole was cut into the floor. Using a small control panel on the wall, Hamir raised the elevator platform from the cellar. With a whirring hum, the platform arrived from the lower level and clicked into place. Sitting on the platform, contained inside a clear glass box, was the head-sized sphere that Fabian Moor had been using when the Relic Guild had found him. A light purple smoke of protective magic drifted within the box.
Still surrounded by that metal mesh holding the fingernail-sized power stones, the sphere remained full of the murky liquid. When Samuel had first laid eyes on the device, it had seemed powerful, important. But now the Genii’s toy appeared inert and useless.
Sitting calm and cross-legged upon the glowing symbols on the floor, Moor gave the device a cursory glance, before resuming watching Samuel with utter dispassion in his eyes.
Samuel’s skin itched.
‘Have you deactivated it, Hamir?’ Bryant said, nodding at the sphere in the glass box. ‘Is it harmless now?’
Hamir gave him a withering look. ‘To render a device harmless, Bryant, one must first understand what function it was designed to perform.’ He shrugged. ‘At present I have no idea what this thing is.’
‘Maybe we interrupted Moor before he finished making it,’ Samuel said.
‘It is possible,’ Hamir replied.
Moor looked away again, irritation flittering across his otherwise expressionless face, perhaps confirming the suspicion.
Samuel gave a bitter smile. ‘It’s probably as useless as it looks.’
‘Impossible to say for sure.’ Hamir considered the device for a long moment. ‘I can tell you that the mesh holding the power stones had been infused with thaumaturgy, though the metal itself is just ordinary lead, easy to come by. The glass sphere, however, is a little more specialised. It is Aelfirian, imbued with magic – similar to the glass we use for spell spheres – and not at all easy to come by in Labrys Town at present.’
‘Moor must’ve got it from a magic-user,’ Bryant said.
Macy agreed. ‘But which one? Most of the magic-users went to ground when the war started.’
‘That’s exactly what I want you to find out,’ said a new voice, hard and spiteful.
Samuel wheeled around to look at the observation eye fixed to the wall behind him. It had activated, and the milky liquid inside the glass hemisphere was roiling. Slowly, the ghostly image of a man materialised from the eye, projected into the warehouse from the Nightshade. His greying hair short but unkempt, he wore a dark green roll-neck jumper. The skin of his hands was decorated by old scars. Gideon’s drawn face and sunken eyes expressed his usual state of borderline anger, and he glared at Samuel.
‘Please tell me this penchant for arson is a new hobby and not a career move,’ the Resident said caustically, his voice slightly distorted. ‘I dread to think what I would do if I lost another of my agents this soon after Gene.’
The twins tensed, and Samuel clenched his teeth.
‘Show some respect, Gideon.’
‘Why, would that help our situation, Samuel?’ Gideon pursed his lips in mock consideration. ‘Perhaps you would like to build a shrine to Gene upon the ruins of that homeless shelter you destroyed so wantonly?’
‘Perhaps I would,’ Samuel growled, trying to swallow his anger before it turned to white hot fury. ‘Maybe you should help me. You might learn what compassion feels like.’
‘Is that right?’ Gideon’s expression became dangerous. ‘Gene isn’t the first magicker to die in service to the Relic Guild, and he won’t be the last. If you ever act like this again, Samuel, I’ll have the police shoot you on sight. Do you understand me, you idiot?’
Macy interjected before Samuel could unleash a blistering retort. It was not the first time she had headed off a confrontation between the Resident and her fellow agent.
‘Has there been any word from Angel and Van Bam?’ she asked.
Gideon faced Macy, his teeth bared in an expression somewhere between a grin and a threat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’
‘Then what about Denton and Marney?’ Bryant said. ‘I haven’t seen them since …’ He screwed his face up. ‘When was the last time I saw Denton and Marney?’
Macy shrugged, and Samuel’s anger dissipated as he tried to answer the question for himself. Denton should’ve been in the warehouse. His wisdom would be invaluable when dealing with the Genii. But the last time Samuel had laid eyes on the empaths had been at the Nightshade the day before yesterday.
‘Denton and his pupil are busy,’ Gideon said.
‘Why?’ Samuel demanded. ‘What are they doing?’
Gideon turned sunken eyes to Samuel. ‘If you were supposed to know the details, don’t you think your Resident would have already told you, Samuel?’
Samuel looked away as his anger threatened to rise again.
‘Now, enough about your fellow agents,’ Gideon stated. His image fizzed. ‘Let’s deal with the matter at hand.’
The Resident gazed upon Fabian Moor sitting in his thaumaturgic prison. The Genii was looking back at him with a curious expression.
‘So this is Fabian Moor,’ Gideon said, his tone unimpressed. ‘Has he still not volunteered any information, Hamir?’
‘He has refused all invitations of discourse.’
‘Invitations,’ Gideon said with a sneer.
The necromancer stared at the Resident. ‘I suspect politeness will mean as little to a creature of higher magic as demands and threats, Gideon. Talking to this Genii was always going to prove fruitless, yes?’
‘Then I assume that book will help to make him more cooperative?’
‘Naturally.’ Hamir walked to the table and took the leather-bound book into his arms again. ‘Lady Amilee’s methods of interrogation are quite clear, and she has left a little room for me to add a few of my own modifications.’
‘Excellent,’ Gideon said, and he gave Moor a cruel smile. ‘Are you listening, Genii? Talk is pointless, the necromancer says. Do you understand what that means?’
For his part, Moor appeared utterly unconcerned. Macy and Bryant looked uncertain, edgy at hearing the casual threats Gideon was aiming at a creature of higher magic. As for Samuel, he was not affronted by the prospect of Hamir torturing Moor for information.
‘Now, Hamir,’ said Gideon, ‘What do you suggest we do about the Genii’s little toy?’
The glass sphere apparently remained inactive inside its container upon the elevator platform.
‘Until I can fathom what it is for, I rather think I’m stuck with it,’ Hamir said. ‘It certainly wouldn’t be wise to store this device at the Nightshade.’
The Resident thought for a moment. ‘You say the sphere is magical glass? Aelfirian?’ Hamir no
dded, and Gideon added, ‘And there is no way Moor could have brought it with him when he arrived in Labrys Town?’
Hamir shook his head. ‘Upon reanimation, he would have been as naked as the day he was born.’
Gideon looked at Macy and Bryant. ‘I think you’re right. We know Moor has been dealing with denizens from the underworld, and one of them must have provided him with Aelfirian glass. I want you two to talk to your contacts. See if you can find out who gave it to Moor.’ He jabbed a thumb at Samuel. ‘And you might as well take the arsonist with you.’
Macy shot Samuel a warning look, and he bit his tongue.
Gideon turned his malicious regard back to Fabian Moor. ‘Hamir, you know which questions to ask this bastard, don’t you?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Then short of killing him, indulge yourself. You all have your orders.’
And with that, the image of Gideon blinked out, and the eye on the warehouse wall deactivated.
In the following silence, the three agents looked at each other, then at Fabian Moor in his prison of glowing thaumaturgic symbols. The Genii was staring at Hamir. It seemed that all were wondering what the necromancer was planning to do with the secret arts hiding in the pages of the leather-bound book. But Hamir, phlegmatic as always, gave nothing away and raised an eyebrow at the magickers of the Relic Guild.
‘Please close the door on your way out,’ he said.
Van Bam and Angel didn’t have to wait long to discover what secrets Namji was keeping.
In the banquet hall in the High Governor’s house, a string quartet of beautiful Aelfirian women played lilting music. Van Bam sat cross-legged upon thick cushions at the end of the head table, Ambassador Ebril beside him. Next to the Ambassador sat Mirage’s ruler himself, High Governor Obanai – a stern and serious-looking Aelf – and next to Obanai was his equally serious-looking wife, Governess Vael. Positioned at the other end of the table was Angel, and between the healer and Governess Vael sat Namji.
