by Edward Cox
‘Perfectly,’ Van Bam replied, clearly pleased.
He dispelled the mirror, and Clara looked around at the forest.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘Fittingly, this House is called the Face of Grace and Truth. It is a wildlife reserve, which means there are no Aelfir here to witness our passage. Word of our escape from the Labyrinth is out, and we are wanted people.’
Clara nodded. ‘So Gideon has told me.’
Van Bam pursed his lips. ‘Clara, when was the last time Gideon spoke to you?’
‘Not for a while now.’
‘He has not spoken to me for a while, either. It is unlike him to be so quiet.’
Clara could feel the dead Resident’s presence in her mind, but it was an uninterested kind of presence, as if he had found a secluded table in a library where he wouldn’t be disturbed by anything going on around him. She knew he wouldn’t reply if she called to him.
‘I still don’t understand how I’m hearing Gideon’s voice,’ Clara admitted. ‘He said that the two of you believe it was caused by the avatar.’
‘That is so,’ Van Bam replied. ‘I do not know how the avatar did it, or why … Perhaps it knew that Gideon would help temper the wolf ’s wilder side.’
Clara gave a smile. ‘Well, something certainly worked.’
‘How much can you recall, Clara?’ Van Bam asked. ‘With Gideon being reluctant to speak, I am uncertain as to exactly what you remember from the time you spent unconscious.’
Clara’s eyes narrowed as she recalled her strange experiences and related them to Van Bam.
She spoke of what Gideon had told her, of the rescue from Sunflower, of Hillem and Glogelder, and the attack of the assassin known as the Toymaker. She remembered being told of the Panopticon of Houses, a not-so-democratic union set up to govern the Aelfir after the Genii War; and of the secret band of hierarchs called the Sisterhood, who had little love for the Labyrinth and its denizens.
She recalled why the Genii had returned, that they hoped to find Oldest Place and free Spiral. Lastly, most importantly, Clara told Van Bam of her strange conversation with Namji, and of finally learning what had been imparted to her by Marney with the empathetic kiss.
‘We really are in trouble, aren’t we?’ Clara said.
Van Bam shrugged. ‘Samuel and I have been in worse situations.’
‘Really?’
‘No, Clara, not even close.’
Clara chuckled as the illusionist smiled and continued.
‘It is impossible to guess if Fabian Moor knows that Marney gave you the location of Oldest Place.’ His expression was sympathetic. ‘I do not suppose that you ever wished to be the custodian of such a secret.’
Clara could still feel Marney’s presence, lingering inside her. But it felt different now, more dormant than it had been before, as if it was sleeping – or perhaps hiding from Gideon – and the changeling had no wish to wake it up again. The box of secrets the empath had planted in Clara’s mind, so great a mystery for so long, a mystery she had at one time been desperate to unravel, now felt as if it was filled with poison.
‘But the information was never meant for us,’ Clara said. ‘Marney used me as a courier, a messenger. I’m supposed to deliver the location of Oldest Place to a device called … Known Things? Do we know what that is, Van Bam?’
‘A relic of some kind,’ Van Bam replied. ‘Perhaps a weapon, perhaps a set of instructions. I do not know. Either way, activating Known Things will supposedly rid the realms of Spiral and the last of the Genii forever.’
‘And only I can activate it,’ Clara said. ‘The knowledge in my head is a key.’
A breeze blew through the forest, whispering through the trees. Clara wrapped her arms around her body, her hands feeling the soft texture of her new clothes, her mind going over all she had learned while unconscious.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ she wondered. ‘How do you think Known Things works? How will it take the information from me?’
‘At present, I suspect the answers are only known only by the avatar,’ Van Bam replied. ‘But Samuel and I will stand beside you all the way, Clara. Our new Aelfirian friends, also.’
Clara was reassured to hear that she wasn’t alone, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘How much do you trust Namji?’ she asked, remembering her inexplicable yet instant dislike of the Aelfirian woman.
Van Bam chuckled. ‘There was a time when I would have told you not very much. But that was decades ago. Now, I am very glad to have Namji on our side. I would say the same for Hillem and Glogelder.’
Something curious crept into Clara’s mind, like a crackling sensation scratching across the inside of her skull: Gideon’s amusement. She waited for him to speak, but he remained silent. A fresh breeze chilled the changeling.
‘Clara,’ Van Bam said sternly. ‘Soon, we will be leaving this House. At our next destination is the portal that will deliver us to Known Things. Are you ready to face the uncertainty ahead?
Clara nodded, and Van Bam smiled.
‘But before we leave,’ he said, ‘Namji has asked for a meeting, to discuss what happens next. Now, you can either accompany me to this meeting, Clara … or you can stay here for a while and test your new clothes.’
There was a sudden lift in Clara’s spirit as she remembered the speed and strength of the wolf, the feel of the forest as she sped through it. She looked around at the trees, heard their call, tasted it on the fading sunlight. She rubbed a hand over the material of her new magical clothes – a second skin. Pulling up the hood, she looked at Van Bam, grinning.
‘Go – celebrate your magic while the moment allows,’ Van Bam told her. ‘Gideon will keep you abreast of any important details – once he decides to start speaking again, that is. And, of course, if the wolf is not too stubborn to listen.’ With a twirl of his green glass cane, the illusionist walked away. ‘Try not to stray too far, Clara. I will let you know when it is time to return.’
Clara watched him until he disappeared into the trees.
Despite the situation, despite the weight of responsibility that Marney had planted in her mind, Clara flushed with exhilaration. She gritted her teeth, and ran down the slope into the bowl in the forest floor, the magic in her blood singing with the sweet voice of power and grace. She willed the animal to come, welcomed the bestial strength and courage, accepting the wolf as an extension of herself, and asking it to accept her.
And with a forwards lurch, without pain or fear, Clara ran on four strong legs and disappeared into the thick and wet mist.
Samuel was thinking about death.
On the outskirts of a clearing, he sat on the rough ground, resting against a tree. With his new revolver holstered at his thigh, and the ornate ice-rifle lying across his lap, the old bounty hunter watched the Aelfirian Relic Guild make preparations to leave the forest House of the Face of Grace and Truth.
Beyond the clearing, Glogelder hid the two trunks, still filled with hoarded weaponry, inside the treeline, grumbling all the while that he didn’t like leaving behind his stockpile. Namji and Hillem ignored his complaints as they constructed a contraption out of clear crystals, thin copper wires, and a metal rod, which Samuel understood would eventually form a communications device.
At the centre of the clearing was a tall, wide archway made from roots and vines, twisting and tightly interlaced: a portal, ancient and inactive, but soon to be the pathway that led the group to their next destination – perhaps their ultimate destination. The archway had no symbol that might tell Samuel which House the portal led to, and, as usual, Namji had not been forthcoming with the information.
The old bounty hunter’s gaze settled on a stream that skirted the glade before veering off to run through the forest. Its burbling was as peaceful as everything else in the Face of Grace and Truth, though the tranquillity in this H
ouse meant little to Samuel.
He was thinking about death.
Before the Genii War, the Face of Grace and Truth had held a different name. The Trees of the Many Queen, it had been called. Home to a race of proud and secretive Aelfir, the Trees of the Many Queen had been imbued with strong and ancient magic. Legend said that the forest was sentient; that the roots of every tree absorbed the souls of the dead, and those souls protected the House. Welcoming to friends, dangerous to enemies, the forest magic of the Trees of the Many Queen had been destroyed by the Genii. The reserved but valiant Aelfir who had lived here had resisted subjugation, and fought Spiral’s army to the death. Not one of them had survived.
Hillem had told Samuel that after the war the Timewatcher had preserved the Trees of the Many Queen, perhaps in memory of the Aelfir who had remained loyal to Her until the bitter end. She had instructed that this forest House be left to nature’s wild laws, a realm where animals roamed free of Aelfirian interference, and it became known as the Face of Grace and Truth.
A message in the name? Samuel wondered.
He also wondered about the sentient magic that the Genii had destroyed. If the trees were no longer able to absorb their souls, what had happened to the spirits of the Aelfir who died defending their House? What happened to the souls of the dead from any House now?
There was a place, a vast phenomenon far out in the void of space known as the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster. And at the heart of this place was the ineffable world of Mother Earth, the home of the Timewatcher. Not for the first time in the last four decades, Samuel asked himself a question: did the Timewatcher still welcome the souls of the dead into her House with a loving embrace?
He had no answer, but sometimes he didn’t believe that any soul could reach Mother Earth now. The Timewatcher had disappeared. She had turned Her back on Her children, abandoned humans and Aelfir alike; why would She do that, but leave the doors to Her House open? Would the Timewatcher care if She knew that a handful of Genii had survived the war? That they were planning to free Spiral from the eternal prison She Herself had created for him?
She should care, Samuel decided. If Spiral and his Genii overcame the paltry resistance offered by the Relic Guild, their goal would be to subjugate every House of the Aelfir. They would raise an army so large that the Timewatcher and all Her Thaumaturgists would be unable to prevent it marching on the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster, and the ineffable House called Mother Earth. Nothing and no one would be safe.
Namji paused in her work to offer Samuel a slight smile. He stared at her until she looked away to continue helping Hillem construct the communications device.
With a sigh, Samuel ran his hand over the decorative metal of the ice-rifle, and the pattern carved into the wooden butt. At least he now understood why he had never felt comfortable around Clara.
Samuel’s magical gift was to be warned of danger, at all times; a prescient awareness that watched his back. His magic steered his thoughts and dictated his actions, but only when trouble was imminent. When he was starting on a path to danger, Samuel’s magic became a bad feeling in his gut, as if all hope had been stripped from the future. With the mystery of Clara’s connection to Marney finally explained, the old bounty hunter supposed the changeling had been leading him to a troubled future from the moment he had first laid eyes on her. She had always been a bad feeling.
‘Do you know what I’m wondering?’ Glogelder’s voice came from the edge of the clearing. ‘How does Known Things work? If it’s able to kill Spiral, doesn’t it need to go to Oldest Place? I mean – we’ll have to take it there, because that’s where Spiral is, right?’
Namji and Hillem stopped working and looked at each other. It was a question they hadn’t considered before. And neither had Samuel.
Glogelder pulled a duffle bag from one of the trunks and flapped it open angrily. ‘And where do you think Oldest Place is, anyway?’ By the tone of his voice, it was clear his uncertainty was making him edgy. ‘I’ve heard a lot of theories from a lot of people in my time. Nobody really knows what they’re talking about, do they? But what if one of them got it right? After all, Oldest Place has to be somewhere.’
‘The people of Labrys Town also have theories,’ Van Bam said as he emerged from the treeline and walked over to stand beside Samuel.
The Aelfir looked at them.
‘The most common belief is that Oldest Place is the lowest age of the Retrospective,’ Van Bam continued. ‘They say that, buried beneath a land of fire and poison, Spiral, Lord of the Genii, sits in Oldest Place, feeding upon the souls of the dead that the wild demons capture for him.’
The stillness was only broken by a breeze rustling leaves, and the burbling of the stream.
‘That sounds like a myth to me,’ Hillem said, his smile uneasy.
‘To me, also,’ Van Bam replied. ‘But the truth will not be revealed until Clara reaches Known Things. Please, do not let me disturb you from your work.’
Taking the hint, the three Aelfir returned to their efforts.
Van Bam turned his metallic eyes to Samuel sitting with his back to the tree, and said, ‘I trust your mood has improved?’
Samuel didn’t answer. Earlier, when the illusionist had told him what it was Marney had planted in Clara’s mind, his reaction had not been particularly helpful.
‘Where’s Clara now?’ Samuel asked tersely.
‘Enjoying her magic for a while,’ Van Bam replied. ‘She will join us when we are ready to leave.’
Samuel shook his head. ‘How did Marney find out, Van Bam?’ He couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Has she known since the end of the war where the Timewatcher hid Oldest Place? Has she been sitting on it all this time? And who told her? The Timewatcher Herself?’
‘I do not know.’ Van Bam’s voice carried the sad inflection of one as tired of unanswered questions as Samuel. ‘But I can guess who encouraged her to give the information to Clara. I suspect Marney had been dealing with the avatar long before the two of us.’
‘Like this lot,’ Samuel said, nodding to the Aelfir in the clearing. ‘But they don’t know who’s controlling the avatar. Who’s the master? Who’s dangling the carrot in front of us?’
‘I am hoping that all our answers will come at our next destination.’
‘That’s not the first time you’ve hoped for that.’ Samuel made an angry noise. ‘You know, I always used to resent the idea that I would die in the Labyrinth – if not from bounty hunting, then from old age and uselessness. But now … How do you destroy the most powerful Thaumaturgist that ever existed, Van Bam?’
Samuel looked at the portal in the clearing and shook his head with vexation. ‘We used to spend our lives hunting down all kinds of dangerous artefacts and relics, but this device, this Known Things? How could Marney know about it when we didn’t?’ He swore softly. ‘If it’s that powerful, the Timewatcher should’ve used it to kill Spiral at the end of the war. Not put him in a prison.’
‘Samuel,’ Van Bam said in a consoling sort of way. ‘I would not like to guess at the Timewatcher’s reasons, and I do not much like how we have been manipulated, either. But if the future to which the avatar is leading us arrives at a place where Spiral, Fabian Moor, and the last of the Genii, are finally vanquished for good, then I am being led willingly. I know you feel the same, old friend.’
The illusionist offered the old bounty hunter his hand. With a wry smile, Samuel accepted, and Van Bam helped him to his feet.
‘I never thought I’d say this,’ Samuel said, ‘but I wish Hamir was with us. He always seemed to know things we didn’t, had secrets up his sleeve that he could whip out at the right moment.’
‘I have to agree with you. As indecipherable as Hamir was, I think our chances would greatly improve if he were here.’
‘Do you know what really pisses me off, Van Bam? If we’re successful, what’s t
he best we can hope for?’
‘To return home, I suppose.’
‘Exactly.’ Samuel gestured to the Aelfir. ‘You heard what Hillem said. The Sisterhood isn’t exactly a big supporter of the Labyrinth. Eventually, they’re going to stop sending supplies, and the denizens will die out anyway. Makes me wonder what the point of it all is.’
Van Bam smiled. ‘Samuel, we are old men, long in the tooth, and perhaps we have seen too much in our time. But I keep my faith, even now, and I choose to believe that in the end the Aelfir, including the members of the Sisterhood, will remember their compassion for humans.’ He shrugged. ‘And who knows, when we return home, perhaps our efforts will become legend, a tale that is told in the Labyrinth for generations to come.’
‘Need to avoid being killed first,’ Samuel said, sliding the ice-rifle into the holster on his back. ‘Personally, I don’t give a toss if I never see Labrys Town again.’
Van Bam chuckled and clapped his old friend on the shoulder.
‘That should do it,’ Hillem announced.
Having completed the construction of the communications device, he and Namji stepped back. Glogelder walked into the clearing, his spell sphere launcher hanging from his shoulder, a duffle bag filled with spare weapons and ammunition in his hand.
Namji shooed the Aelfirian men away, and they came to stand alongside Samuel and Van Bam. Glogelder dumped the duffle bag on the floor with a clunk and acknowledged Samuel. Hillem busied himself fastening the buckle on a holster belt. Two pistols hung at his waist.
Namji stood before the group, gathering her thoughts before addressing them. A cloth satchel hung diagonally from her shoulder, no doubt filled with the paraphernalia of a magic-user. She gestured to the stone archway behind her. ‘This portal will take us to a House called the Sisterhood of Bells.’
Van Bam looked questioningly at Samuel.
Samuel shrugged. ‘The name seems familiar, but I don’t think I ever went there.’
‘It’s now the Aelfirian capital,’ Hillem explained. ‘It’s where the Panopticon of Houses is based.’
