by Edward Cox
Only when the final threads of his thaumaturgy were cut did Moor realise how much energy he had expended. He slumped to his knees as if a crushing weight had fallen on his shoulders. A gnawing void gripped his insides, a sudden, encompassing hunger that demanded to be fed, and he retched and vomited bile onto the scorched valley floor. The effort of using the Nightshade’s higher magic to connect the Retrospective to an Aelfirian House had drained Moor utterly. He could not rise to his feet.
Smoky air buffeted him, and he looked up. The flying demon was drifting towards him now, wings beating slowly, ash and embers swirling up to the poison sky. It bellowed again, covering the Genii with scorching, rancid breath. It rose above him, preparing to descend, to strike. It was enormous, at least twelve feet tall. Moor tried to summon at least a spark of thaumaturgy, but the emptiness and hunger roiling inside him sapped his energy, and he only succeeded in falling back onto his rump.
In that moment, Fabian Moor knew that he had truly failed. That he had condemned himself to death.
The flying demon’s final bellow was triumphant. Moor closed his eyes as long talons reached for him …
He heard running footsteps, each one as heavy as a stamp. He felt the air displace, and sensed a large presence jumping over him. Moor opened his eyes just in time to see the Woodsman vaulting high into the air to smash its huge axe into the flying demon’s chest.
Shrieking, the demon fell to the valley floor, billowing smoke and ash. The Woodsman stepped upon its body. Rising flames, tall and dancing, burning fiercely, sent Moor scuttling back. The flying demon reached for its attacker with bony hands tipped with knife-sized talons, but the Woodsman had already wrenched the axe free from its foe’s chest. Before one of those vicious talons could cause a single scratch, the Woodsman cut first one and then the other of the flying demon’s arms away at the elbows. The beast’s shriek shocked Moor’s ears. And then, undeterred by the red flames raging around it, the Woodsman proceeded to butcher its foe.
Again and again the huge axe rose and fell, the Woodsman’s iron hard muscles bulging, the gashes covering its limbs straining their stitching. The flying demon was hewed into a mound of meat and bone, the fire of its burning wings doused by the deluge of blood. With ash drifting on the breeze like gentle snow, the gruesome remains began steaming as the Retrospective accepted the latest offering of raw material. The Woodsman strode away from the carnage, heading back towards Moor.
While its studded kilt, leather jerkin and hood were charred and smoking, the demon appeared unscathed. Covered with gore, the head of its giant axe gleaming and dripping, the Woodsman strode past the Genii. Exhausted, still unable to rise from the valley floor, Moor shifted his position to see the demon stand obediently behind the thin and menacing figure of Mo Asajad.
‘Do you have a death wish, Fabian?’ Her voice was as cold and hard as her stare. Beside her, an open portal had split the air, giving a view into the Nightshade.
As Asajad walked towards him, Moor glanced briefly at the swiftly diminishing remains of the flying demon.
Exhaustion turned to shame. To exhibit his weakness before anyone was disgraceful enough, but to do so before Lady Asajad, who had always questioned his leadership, was the height of humiliation. Moor succumbed to despair, feeling the indignity of needing a wild demon to save his life. He prepared himself for Asajad’s next scathing words.
But to Moor’s surprise, when Asajad reached his side there was a tinge of sympathy in her voice.
‘You are normally such a cautious creature, Fabian,’ she said. ‘Might I suggest you remember that in future?’
She offered Moor a fat phial. He stared at the blood that filled it, but he didn’t accept the offering at first.
Asajad sighed. ‘We are all in the same predicament. Drinking blood is a necessity, not a choice.’ She offered the phial again with more insistence. ‘I have no wish to see you like this, Fabian. Please, regain your dignity.’
As if urging him to take the advice, hunger churned Moor’s gut fiercely, threatening a second bout of vomiting. He snatched the phial from Asajad’s hand, popped the cork, and drank the salty contents thirstily.
Immediately, the blood lifted the fatigue. Strength returned to his body. The blood filled the draining emptiness inside him with a heat that reignited the higher magic in his veins. Slowly, Moor got to his feet, unsteady at first, but the blood rapidly made him feel solid and whole again.
‘Better?’ Asajad asked.
‘Not especially,’ Moor grumbled. He looked at the empty phial in his hand, and let it drop. It shattered into myriad shards upon the valley floor.
‘Fabian, you told me that taming the Woodsman was relatively easy because it has an uncommon intelligence among the wild demons of the Retrospective.’ Asajad took in her surroundings with a disgusted look. ‘Why, then, are you bothering to attempt the subjugation of demons clearly cursed with a far lesser intelligence?’
Moor glanced back at the Woodsman, standing still and patient, axe in hands, face concealed by the leather hood.
‘You know damn well why,’ he told Asajad bitterly.
‘Do I?’ Asajad’s tone was scalding. ‘Because you also told me that you did not compare your powers with those of Lord Spiral – not even remotely, you said. Yet here you are, out in this vile place, trying to do Lord Spiral’s work.’
Moor took a calming, steadying breath. ‘What if we have no other choice, Asajad?’
She glared at him for a moment, and the patch of scarring upon her forehead grew paler than her porcelain skin.
‘Have you lost your senses?’ she snapped. ‘The power of the Nightshade is the power of the Timewatcher. You, me, Viktor and Hagi – we can barely control a fraction of that power. Among every Thaumaturgist and Genii that ever existed, only Lord Spiral came close to equalling the Timewatcher. Only he could truly wield the First and Greatest Spell. You know that, Fabian. So did you come here to vent your anger, or have you decided to lose all hope?’
Moor looked up at the hateful sky, the poison clouds full of anger and spite. How had he ever believed that he alone could control the Retrospective and conquer the Aelfir?
‘I had to try something,’ he told Asajad bitterly. ‘What if we cannot find Oldest Place? What if Lord Spiral is never free again?’
‘Yes,’ said Asajad. ‘Hagi has been filling me in on the situation.’ She looked Moor over and seemed concerned by what she saw. ‘Viktor is not best pleased with you, Fabian, and I do not blame him. It is not his fault that you were deceived by the empath, and you should not have treated him as you did. He is owed an apology.’
Moor didn’t reply but simply stared at the shards of broken phial at his feet, wishing that he had more blood to consume.
‘Oh, poor Fabian,’ Asajad’s mocking smile came back to her face. ‘You know, for what it’s worth, I’ve come to think that you were right about these human magickers. They really aren’t to be underestimated. They are … clever. Perhaps more than you believed.’ She laughed into the back of her hand. ‘You really didn’t see the Relic Guild coming, did you?’
Moor felt a flush of anger. ‘First you admonish me, then you speak of apologies as if we are squabbling children, and now you mock me? Do you have no comprehension of the predicament we are in, Asajad?’
‘Of course.’ Asajad’s voice was as stony as her expression. ‘But you have not heard what Hagi has to say.’
Moor frowned at her. ‘There is news?’
‘Such news!’ Asajad’s eyes flared hungrily. ‘The Resident needs to speak with you, Fabian.’
‘What?’ he demanded.
In reply, Asajad turned and began walking back towards the portal that led to the Nightshade. The Woodsman turned and followed her.
‘Go and see Hagi, Fabian,’ Asajad called back. ‘Before more of these filthy demons are attracted to your despair.’
&nbs
p; Chapter Eleven
Sandalwood
Although Clara didn’t know where she was, or how she had got there, she doubted she was dreaming. But how could this world in which she found herself possibly be real? Everything was cast in its own shade of grey, as if etched in pencil, but with a degree of clarity and detail that Clara didn’t know could exist without colour.
She was heading across a courtyard, wide and spacious. The ground was stained in places with patches as dark as slate against off-white cobbles. Up ahead, the courtyard ended at a line of ugly, squat buildings with grainy brickwork. Clara was moving towards them, though she was not walking. She couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet; only a curious sense of detachment, as if she was floating – dreamlike, but not in a dream.
Clara tried to look at her hands, but her vision would not shift. She tried to look to her left and right, but no matter what she did, her line of sight simply would not stray from the buildings ahead. It was almost as if …
Samuel appeared to Clara
He stepped in front of her, talking to her, his mouth moving but his words inaudible. In fact, Clara realised, there was no sound of any kind in her strange world. Or scent.
Samuel was cleaner than when she had last seen him; his face was no longer grime-smeared, the skin around his goatee beard was shaved smooth and shiny. His short, grey hair was no longer matted and greasy, and his long coat and clothes had been cleaned of the filth from the sewers beneath Labrys Town. Although Samuel’s image was also drawn in shades of grey, there were splashes of subtle colours, hues that pulsed around his head and torso. It struck Clara that these weak colours represented the old bounty hunter’s mood. The changeling was relieved to see him, in a distant sort of way.
Samuel? Clara said – or did she think it? Either way, he did not hear her.
Two Aelfir walked alongside Samuel. The first was the lanky idiot Hillem, looking slight beside his broader companion. The second Aelf was a real bruiser, with a scarred face as hairless as his cratered head. Clara knew the bruiser’s name was Glogelder, and that Hillem – not stupid after all – had been the Relic Guild’s secret ally in Sunflower.
Had Gideon told her these things?
Appearing iron grey to Clara’s vision, neither Aelf radiated dull colours as Samuel did.
Glogelder spoke, silently to Clara’s ears, and made himself laugh – an inappropriate joke, apparently, as no one else laughed along with him. Clara found herself looking down at the green glass cane in her hands. Only they weren’t her hands.
Of course she was in Van Bam’s head, seeing how he saw. Why had she ever been confused? Hillem and Glogelder appeared so colourless because they were not magickers; and in this grey world, Van Bam saw colour only in magic.
The group of men reached the end of the courtyard and stopped before a shabby door inlaid with a cracked stained glass window. Clara knew the door led to a chapel of the Timewatcher.
Hillem was speaking now. Although Clara couldn’t hear his words, she knew he was telling Samuel and Van Bam about their location. As Hillem’s mouth moved, Van Bam looked away from him, and Clara had her first proper look at a place that she suddenly understood was called Nowhere Ascending, a realm that could not truthfully claim to be a House of the Aelfir.
More buildings, grainy and ugly, lined the opposite side of the courtyard. There were thaumaturgically-powered lifting trucks, piles of floating platforms, and two large metal cargo containers. But when Van Bam’s sight lifted up and above the buildings, Clara’s mind was filled by a vast backdrop so utterly black that it was like staring into a lightless void. The blackness was not still; it rippled with a liquid quality that gave it a graceful sense of flowing, as if the courtyard and its buildings were surrounded by mighty falls of oil.
Van Bam looked directly above. There was no sky. Instead a huge disc blocked the way, far overhead, with a deep grey colour only a shade lighter than the oily falls.
Nowhere Ascending is a portal, a woman’s voice said in Clara’s mind. It’s used to transport large shipments of cargo.
The voice didn’t surprise Clara, nor did it alarm her. Within her detachment, she realised this woman had been with her from the moment she perceived this place. Hadn’t she?
I didn’t know portals could be this big, Clara replied.
I suppose portals can be any size, within reason, the woman said. That huge disc up there is the base of the next level. There are more levels above it – and below us – all rising in unison.
Where does it lead? Clara asked. What’s at the top?
A network of other portals. Nowhere Ascending is a trade route that connects many Houses, Clara. Though I don’t think you ever really reach the top. You either go somewhere else, or keep rising until you … join the bottom again, I suppose.
The explanation made sense to Clara, though she wasn’t sure why. How many levels are there?
I have no idea, said the woman. But I can tell you that this level is an abattoir. It’s on its way to pick up a team of butchers and a herd of cattle. For now it’s empty, and safe for us to ride unnoticed. Don’t worry – we’ll be getting off before the butchers arrive and the slaughtering begins.
A flash of intense colour assaulted Clara’s senses as a brief burst of thaumaturgic energy crackled over the surface of the flowing darkness. For but a moment, the grey world was streaked by purple. Van Bam’s vision then shifted to look at Samuel, Hillem and Glogelder standing before the shabby chapel of the Timewatcher. Hillem was still talking.
Clara. There was amusement in the woman’s voice. Aren’t you curious as to who I am?
Your name is Namji, Clara replied instinctively, her mind filled with an image of a petite Aelf with a heart-shaped face. And then, because she knew it was true, she added, I don’t like you.
But you don’t know me.
I know you can’t be trusted, Clara said. Why do I know that?
Namji chuckled. Well, it probably isn’t your own opinion that you’re expressing right now.
Gideon’s?
Namji scoffed. Gideon doesn’t care about me one way or another. Or anyone else, I shouldn’t wonder.
Then … do you mean Van Bam? Gideon said someone he knew had rescued us. But Van Bam doesn’t trust you?
There was a pause. It’s a little complicated to explain, Clara, but no. I think it might be Marney’s opinion you’re experiencing.
Samuel was addressing the group now, with his usual abrupt and borderline angry manner. Glogelder seemed unfazed by the old bounty hunter’s approach, but Hillem had raised his hands in a calming gesture.
Let me back this up for you, Clara, said Namji. I’m guessing you’ve already figured out where your mind is right now. As for your body, it’s safe, recuperating in a healing sleep.
That’s a lie, Clara said, because it was true. I don’t need to heal. You’re keeping me unconscious on purpose. You’re a magic-user.
Another pause. All right, you got me, Namji admitted. I wanted to keep you out of the way for a while because I need to talk to you secretly, Clara. Gideon allowed me to use his connection to Van Bam as a conduit that would connect the two of us. Gideon said he’d stay out of our way while we talk, but I don’t doubt he’s listening. She chuckled, adding wryly, And feeding you information.
Tell me why Marney doesn’t like you, Clara said, a tinge of intrigue invading her detachment.
Namji sighed. I wasn’t very kind to her once. A long time ago, Clara, when I wasn’t much more than a kid and didn’t know better. Lots of things have changed since then.
Clara knew that was the truth; there was an immaturity about her dislike of this Aelfirian woman that belonged to a time long before she was born.
Glogelder was talking now. Whatever the big and scarred Aelf was saying, he punctuated his words by slapping a clunky weapon hanging from his shoulder, which Clara k
new was designed for launching spell spheres. Samuel shook his head, and Glogelder rolled his eyes. Hillem took over, pointing at the empty holster strapped to Samuel’s leg as he spoke. Samuel nodded thoughtfully. Hillem then looked directly at Clara as he continued speaking; only he wasn’t looking at her.
Did Van Bam know the changeling was in his head?
Gideon told me that he filled you in on the situation, said Namji. You know why the Genii have returned, don’t you?
To find Oldest Place and release Spiral. Clara didn’t say this, but assumed her silence would provide affirmation enough for the Aelf.
Namji continued. And you know about Hillem, Glogelder and me, and our relationship with the avatar, right?
Why do you call yourselves the Relic Guild? Clara asked.
Imitation is a sincere form of flattery, Namji replied offhandedly. Now, I need you to focus, Clara. The avatar told me that Marney hid a secret message in your mind. Gideon says you’ve been trying to find it.
Is that why you’re here? Clara said. Are you going to force the message out of me?
No. I’m here to tell you that you have to stop searching for it. Namji’s voice had become hard. Marney planted information in your head, Clara – information that comes with a set of very specific instructions that must not be revealed, not until the time is right. Do you understand?
With Glogelder beside him, Hillem raised a hand in farewell. Samuel was mouthing ‘See you later,’ and then he and the two Aelfir walked away, leaving Van Bam on his own.
Clara grew suspicious. The avatar told you what the message is, she said to Namji. You know, don’t you?
The avatar never gave me any details of the instructions, Namji replied, but, yes, it told me what the message is about.
