by Edward Cox
This had proved to be true on a couple of occasions when the container stopped at portal checkpoints. The red crystal gave off a low light, shortly before muffled voices came from outside. Hillem had become tense at these moments, motioning with urgency for them to remain silent, only relaxing when the container continued its journey, and the light of the crystal had died.
Samuel’s gut instinct was to trust Hillem. Glogelder and Namji, he wasn’t as sure of. As for the avatar, did Samuel have any other choice but to trust it?
Of course Fabian Moor had returned to free Spiral – it seemed obvious now. The Genii were creatures of higher magic, yet they were too few to take on the combined strength of the Aelfirian Houses. But with the Lord of the Genii, the most powerful Thaumaturgist that ever existed, at their side again, who knew what they could achieve? All Fabian Moor had to do was find Oldest Place. It almost sounded easy.
Samuel had to believe that whoever had sent the avatar, whoever was its master, it was someone who knew what they were doing.
‘Tell me about Councillor Tal,’ Van Bam said, after a lull in the conversation. ‘What part does he play in all of this?’
Hillem sucked air over his teeth. ‘Tal’s a tricky one to pin down,’ he said. ‘The rumour is that during the Genii War he held quite an important position in the Timewatcher’s army. But that’s really all I know about that side of him. What I do know for sure is that after the war, Tal fought very hard for governorship of the Aelfheim Archipelago, and the export operation to Labrys Town.’
‘You trust him?’ Samuel asked.
‘Without question,’ Hillem replied. ‘Tal’s the Relic Guild’s spy within the Panopticon of Houses. Our network isn’t as large as we would like, but his involvement has been vital.’ He smiled coyly. ‘It was actually Tal who prepared the way for your escape. He delayed reporting your arrival to the Panopticon, while I got word to Namji. Marca was a problem. We knew he was watching you, but he didn’t know we were watching him.’ He shrugged. ‘We had to get you out of Sunflower before the Panopticon knew you were there.’
‘But they did know we were there,’ Samuel pointed out. ‘They sent the Toymaker.’
Hillem’s face looked troubled. The shadows cast by the light of the green glass cane gave his Aelfirian features a shade of the demonic. His pointed ears seemed to grow longer.
‘Marca was a fool, but he didn’t deserve to die,’ he said. ‘As for the Toymaker – there’s a lot of mystery surrounding him, but I’m not sure he’s really controlled by the Panopticon. The Thaumaturgists left him behind to guard the last portal to the Labyrinth. They told us that if anyone as much as looks at that portal in the wrong way, the Toymaker will appear.’
‘Is this the first time he has appeared?’ said Van Bam.
Hillem shook his head. ‘About twenty years ago, a freedom group tried to take control of Sunflower. They thought they could rescue the denizens from the Labyrinth somehow. But the Toymaker turned up, killed everyone, and then disappeared. Just like that, or so they say.’
‘And no one knows who he is?’ said Samuel.
‘As I said, there’s a lot of mystery,’ Hillem replied. ‘But it’s generally believed that the position the Thaumaturgists gave him wasn’t an honour, but a punishment. The Toymaker used to be a Genii.’
‘What?’ said Samuel.
Hillem shrugged. ‘That’s the story. They say the Thaumaturgists stripped him of higher magic, used their own thaumaturgy to force him into obeying their commands. They punished him by making him enforce the Timewatcher’s final prerogative.’
‘Which is to stop humans escaping the Labyrinth,’ Van Bam said.
‘And the Aelfir from breaking in.’
‘But the Genii were executed after the war,’ Samuel pointed out. ‘Their bodies were flung into the Nothing of Far and Deep.’
‘What – like Fabian Moor and his cohorts were?’ Hillem countered. ‘I don’t know if the Thaumaturgists punished any other Genii in this way, but I do know the Toymaker has no other choice but to perform his duty. He’ll destroy anyone who gets in or out of the Labyrinth.’
Samuel folded his arms across his chest. ‘And he’s hunting us right now.’
‘Which is why we have to keep moving,’ Hillem said with a nod.
Samuel’s brow furrowed as silence unfolded in the container. Above, the meat hooks hanging from the ceiling chimed together. Van Bam shifted the illuminated cane in his lap, and shadows danced upon the metal walls.
‘Then who controls the Panopticon of Houses?’ the illusionist asked Hillem. ‘Who are these enemies of ours?’
‘Look, the Panopticon is supposed to be a democratic union, but …’ Hillem rubbed his face. ‘After the Genii War, without the Thaumaturgists looking over our shoulders, there was a very real concern that the Houses would start fighting among themselves again, that we would slip back to the Old Ways.’
The Old Ways, Samuel thought: a millennium ago, when the Houses of the Aelfir had engaged each other in bloody wars that were unending – senseless fighting that never produced a victor or served a purpose. The Timewatcher put a stop to the Old Ways by creating the Labyrinth, the great meeting place that linked together every House of the Aelfir, and where all castes were welcome. She and the Thaumaturgists managed to maintain peaceful unification between the Houses for a thousand years. Spiral destroyed it in two.
Van Bam said, ‘The Panopticon was formed to prevent further wars?’
‘And it worked at first,’ Hillem replied. ‘It held the Aelfir together. But now it’s a fragile peace, and trouble flares between Houses much more often than it did during the thousand years of unification. Sometimes it’s encouraged.’ His expression became sour. ‘If nothing else, the Thaumaturgists were a great deterrent.’
Samuel considered the Aelf. Hillem was young, in his mid-twenties, yet he spoke about the subject matter with the confidence and familiarity of one who remembered the Genii War.
‘What changed?’ Samuel asked.
Hillem pursed his lips. ‘Without a bigger fish looking over his shoulder, the toughest bully will always get his way, right?’ He sighed. ‘Unofficially, there’s a group called the Sisterhood – though the term is so widely used and accepted that it might as well be official. It’s formed from the most influential Houses, the richest and biggest. The Sisterhood rules the Panopticon, and they’re not particularly fond of the Labyrinth.’
‘So we were told,’ said Van Bam. ‘Your friend Glogelder explained that certain Aelfirian castes blame us for events following the Genii War. Why?’
‘Because that’s what happens when people are left to draw their own conclusions,’ Hillem replied. ‘We were never given a reason why the Timewatcher abandoned us. She just ordered us to continue sending supplies to the denizens of Labrys Town. Some castes considered this duty a punishment – that the Timewatcher was favouring you, when She should’ve been condemning you most of all. It was because of the Great Labyrinth that the war began.’
‘Please believe me,’ said Van Bam. ‘The past forty years in Labrys Town have hardly been luxurious.’
‘I know,’ Hillem said quickly. ‘But it’s more than that, you see. The Sisterhood no longer has faith in the Timewatcher – they don’t fear flouting Her final laws. They want nothing more than to cut all ties with humans.’
‘Cut ties?’ Samuel’s tone had fallen flat. ‘They want to let us die?’
Hillem raised his hand in a placating gesture. ‘Fortunately, they can’t achieve their ends because the majority of Houses do still believe in the Timewatcher, and they definitely fear Her wrath. But you have to understand, the Sisterhood is absolutely convinced that cutting ties with the Labyrinth will end the final stigma of the Timewatcher and Her Thaumaturgists once for all, and show the Aelfir that they no longer need to fear Her.
‘Over the years, the Sisterhood has been
slowly gaining support. Theirs is a sly, pernicious crusade, and as time goes on, they’re convincing more and more Houses to question their faith in the Timewatcher.’ Hillem seemed sad. ‘It might not happen for another forty years – it might take a hundred – but if no one stops the Sisterhood, one day they’ll get their majority, and the Aelfir will abandon the denizens of the Labyrinth.’
Van Bam glanced at Samuel before responding to Hillem. ‘Surely attitudes would change if this Sisterhood knew that the Genii have returned – that they are planning to free Spiral?’
‘Oh, without question,’ Hillem said. ‘But it’s convincing them to believe you that’s the problem. And what evidence can you give them? The avatar certainly doesn’t seem keen to pay them a visit.
‘I don’t doubt the Sisterhood knows all about what happened in Sunflower by now, but all they’ll do is use it to highlight how dangerous and unworthy humans are.’ He made an angry noise. ‘I bet not one of them bothers to wonder why you are here. And if they do, they’ll be too scared of damaging their positions to wonder aloud.’
‘Isn’t this where Councillor Tal can be useful?’ Samuel said.
‘Tal is doing all he can,’ Hillem assured them. ‘But it’s not easy for him. Considering that he represents the Aelfheim Archipelago in the Panopticon of Houses, and add in the operation he’s in charge of in Sunflower …’ He exhaled heavily. ‘Tal isn’t the most popular councillor in the Panopticon. He doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends there. But he’ll get through to the right people eventually, I’m sure.’
‘And in the meantime we do what?’ Samuel said, irritated. ‘Keep running?’
‘Samuel has a good point, Hillem,’ said Van Bam. ‘If everything you say about the Toymaker is true, he will catch up with us eventually.’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure what happens next,’ Hillem said apologetically. ‘Namji is the only one who knows the details. She’s our … Resident, I suppose you would call her. She’s a lot closer to the avatar than Glogelder and me. We only get told what we need to know, when we need to know it.’
His large Aelfirian eyes gazed at Clara lying on the floor beside Van Bam. ‘All I know for sure right now is that we need to stop the Genii finding Oldest Place.’
‘And how do we do that?’
Hillem didn’t answer Samuel but raised a hand for silence as the vibrations in the cargo container’s walls and floor lessened and then stopped. A gentle bump followed, which Samuel took to mean that the floating platform upon which the container sat had been deactivated, and that they had reached their destination.
Hillem motioned for continued silence as he rose from the floor and crept towards the doors. While watching the inert red crystal strapped to his wrist, the young Aelf listened intently. He flinched as three sharp clangs echoed around the container. But the red crystal did not glow, and Hillem visibly relaxed. In return, he banged twice on the doors, waited for the two clangs that replied, then banged one more time.
Smiling, clearly relieved, Hillem turned to Samuel and Van Bam, opened his mouth to speak, but was rudely interrupted by a series of fresh clangs that came like a loud and clumsy drumbeat.
‘Glogelder!’ Hillem shouted, and the drumbeat ceased. ‘Stop pissing around!’
The container doors opened, and the big form of Glogelder was revealed, his scarred face split by a broad grin. Behind him, an arched portal was set against a redbrick wall.
Glogelder pulled a disgusted expression and waved a hand to clear the air. ‘Whoa! What’ve you been eating in there?’
Samuel shared a look with Van Bam. The sewers beneath Labrys Town were still heavy upon them.
‘Actually, you two are a bit ripe,’ Hillem said.
‘But don’t worry,’ Glogelder said, wrinkling his nose. ‘There’s a laundrette and bathhouse here. Got some food for you, too.’
‘And where is here?’ Samuel growled.
‘Come on, I’ll show you around,’ Hillem replied.
‘And I’ll take care of the little one,’ Glogelder said, nodding at Clara’s sleeping form. ‘Namji’s getting a cosy bed made up for her.’
Inside the Retrospective, in a sharp-walled valley, hidden away from the blood and thunder raging across an implausibly huge landscape, Fabian Moor’s wrath surpassed anything to be found in that hateful place.
Sweat shining upon his face, body aching and limbs trembling, Moor focused his thaumaturgy upon the valley’s dead end wall. He had already split the rock, widened the rent, and through it created a pathway that bridged the land of dead time to a House of the Aelfir. He was diverting the higher magic of the Nightshade, that power to connect the Retrospective to all realms, and Moor wielded it with the full fury of a Genii, though it threatened to crush him.
At no point in her life did Marney discover the location of Oldest Place … The words of Hagi Tabet rattled in Moor’s mind, and failure burned into his core.
Earlier, Moor had summoned wild demons to his side. Five had come to him. Evidently, the Retrospective encouraged its denizens to remain within their social groupings; each of the five demons had been made to a similar design of perversion. They had scurried and clambered down the sharp and jagged valley wall, fighting to be the first to reach the source of the summons, eager in their madness to rip their summoner apart. But Moor had controlled them. While simultaneously wielding the Nightshade’s power and maintaining the portal to another world, he had stabbed his thaumaturgy into the demons’ beings like a hook into the belly of a fish. He had wrenched at their obedience, forced them to do his bidding.
Moor could see them now, through the rent in the wall, out in a verdant House where the sun shone, golden and warm. The demons ran amok, savage and wild, among a large group of shaven-headed Aelfir who wore the robes of monks. Most of the Aelfir fled, and Moor allowed them to escape. Several lay dead already, their blood and flesh staining the green grass. Moor tempered the violent lusts of the demons. He ordered them to capture one victim each, and to then return.
The first demon returned to the valley, creeping with the twitchy nervousness of a wingless fly. Gangly and thin, fragile-looking but strong, its skin was a grey carapace that glistened with an oily film. With two of its long, knife-like fingers stabbed into the eyes of a monk, it dragged its victim, kicking and screaming, over the threshold. The four other demons, almost identical to the first, followed closely, each consigning an Aelf to the corrosion of the Retrospective.
As soon as the last demon had crossed the threshold, Moor released his grip on the portal with no small amount of relief. The rent in the valley wall sealed, reverting with a snap to sharp and jagged rock, forever closing off the world of sanity to the Aelfirian monks. But Moor did not relinquish his control over the demons, and he forced one last command into their madness.
The monsters shrieked in frenzy and slaughtered their captives with dizzying speed. Stabbing, biting, tearing, they revelled in the meat and blood that showered their hard skins. Before the screams of the monks were cut short by the sudden and final silence of death, their ripped and shredded masses became the raw material that fed the Retrospective.
Blood began to steam; organs and bone began to melt: all organic matter condensing into a soup that would be absorbed into the rock of the valley floor to be later used for spawning new monstrosities to stalk this broken House.
While the process took place, Moor rewarded his minions by allowing them to feed upon the diminishing remains.
Surely he could not be wrong? All these years he had been certain that the empath knew the location of Oldest Place. He had known that Marney was the key that would free Lord Spiral from his prison. It was this certainty that had bolstered Moor’s resolve through four decades of utter isolation within the tomb of his silver cube. But had he made a mistake? Miscalculated? Forgotten a crucial detail while the Relic Guild meddled in his affairs? Could it be that Fabian Moo
r, Lord Spiral’s most trusted Genii, really had failed his master?
A bellow came from the sky, wrenching Moor’s attention away from his feeding minions.
A new and very different kind of wild demon had been attracted to the carnage in the valley. It hovered in the air on wings of smouldering feathers, ash-grey and smoking, burning beneath with a blistering furnace-orange. It was formed more from bone than flesh, with thick skeletal plates covering its chest and abdomen like armour. Easily twice the size of the demons in the valley, its face was an eyeless mask studded with small, barbed horns, its mouth a curved and vicious beak.
Against the backdrop of a bruised sky and spiteful lightning, wings beating and smoking, the new monster descended towards Moor’s minions, leading with clawed feet like skeletal hands, its talons clacking together.
Moor tried to hook its obedience with his thaumaturgy; but whether because its madness was too strong, or Moor’s exertions had put a dent in his strength, the flying demon was able to deflect the Genii’s attempts. Opening its wicked beak wide, its bellow reverberated off the valley walls like a hail of rage. It moved in for the kill.
‘No!’ Moor shouted.
But the monster had already closed a clawed foot around the head of one of Moor’s minions, and ripped it free without effort. The corpse fell to the ground, thrashing and spraying blood.
The four remaining demons panicked before the new monstrosity. Fear of this greater might overcame the thaumaturgy that subjugated their will, and they slipped from Moor’s control. One of them tried to escape, but only made it halfway up the valley wall before the flying demon plucked it from the rock, tore its body in two, and then hurled the bloody pieces to smash into two of the remaining three demons.
Though he knew it was useless, Moor tried to reinforce his influence over the last of his minions; he tried to synchronise their actions, get them to attack as a team, and at least put up a fight against the flying demon. But the fallen two were easily slaughtered and reduced to ruined mounds; and by the time Moor accepted the futility of his attempts, the flying demon had wrapped its burning wings around the last minion and was bathing in the flames that consumed its victim, severing the Genii’s final connection.
