The Cathedral of Known Things

by Edward Cox

  Van Bam was convinced he had missed an important element within the information he and Angel had gathered at the banquet – some small detail he had seen, maybe a word he had overheard, forming a link in a chain. Perhaps that was what had disturbed his slumber. Had his unconscious mind sifted through the information while he slept and found the link that connected events?

  Van Bam gazed around in the gloom. The darkness wasn’t quite right. He sensed a lie in the room, an omission. Here and now, a truth was concealing itself from the illusionist.

  Van Bam flicked his cane, releasing a small glassy chime, and whispered to his magic.

  He detected the anomaly almost immediately. A patch of air dangled over the bed like an invisible cloud of not-truth. Van Bam reined in the urge to panic caused by his realisation that it dangled no more than a foot from his nose.

  Low, hushed voices came from beyond the bedroom door.

  Keeping his body still and his expression natural, Van Bam whispered to his magic a second time. Holding his cane in both hands, he twisted and pulled his hands apart. The green glass had become malleable, and Van Bam kept twisting and pulling until the cane separated into two halves, and the illusionist held a short, wicked spike in either hand.

  Voices came through the door again. Hurried. Urgent.

  Van Bam took a breath. The anomaly in the air before him shifted. The illusionist thrust up with one of the glass spikes, stabbing – into a solid body.

  Jumping from the bed, Van Bam held the spike at arm’s length as a struggling, squealing mass slowly materialised, losing the spell of invisibility that had concealed it. Impaled upon the green glass was one of the strange creatures native to the desert of Mirage, part scorpion, part spider – a coppion. Its legs stopped wriggling as it died; its tail ceased thrashing and hung limp, leaking clear venom. A pale corpse on the end of the spike.

  A cry of pain came from beyond the bedroom door. It was followed by the tell-tale spitting of a gun. Angel shouted.

  ‘Van Bam!’

  The illusionist whipped the dead coppion onto the bed, ran to the door, flung it open, and entered the lounge, a green glass spike in each hand. He surveyed the situation.

  Angel was there, dressed in a nightshirt. And she wasn’t alone in the lounge area. Namji, the newly revealed heir of House Mirage, stood close behind the healer, wearing fatigues and heavy boots. At first, Van Bam thought Namji was the aggressor; she had an arm wrapped around Angel, and in her free hand she held a small pistol, power stone primed and glowing. But the fear in the Aelf ’s eyes told Van Bam a different story. The aim of her weapon seemed to encompass the entire room. The two women were moving slowly through the lounge in unison.

  ‘Van Bam,’ Angel hissed.

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘Coppions. I have already killed one.’

  ‘So did we. Bastard stung me.’

  Van Bam looked through the open door to Angel’s bedroom. There, on the floor, lay a dead coppion, a few of its legs missing, its body mutilated by a bullet. Van Bam noticed then that Angel’s arm was glowing with the pale radiance of healing magic. There was a puncture wound on the back of her hand, oozing with clear liquid streaked with blood.

  ‘I think there’s another one in the room,’ Namji warned, the pistol shaking in her hand.

  ‘Keep still,’ Van Bam ordered, and both women froze.

  Van Bam knocked the spikes of green glass together lightly, summoning his magic for the third time. The chime reverberated around the room, searching for lies. There was a small patch of illusion on the wall behind Angel and Namji.

  ‘Both of you, walk towards me. Slowly.’

  The women separated, and did as he asked. The anomaly reacted and began creeping down the wall. By the time Angel and Namji had walked past Van Bam, the concealed coppion had reached the floor, and then it scuttled across the room towards them, moving fast. As it jumped into the air, Van Bam stepped forward and stabbed out with a glass spike. He grunted as he lanced the coppion mid-flight. It thrashed in its death throes. With a clink of glass on tile, Van Bam jabbed the point of the spike against the floor. The invisibility spell left the coppion, and there it was, wriggling madly, impaled through the body. Van Bam finished it off with the other spike.

  Angel rounded on Namji. ‘What in the bloody Timewatcher’s name is going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘Buyaal,’ Van Bam answered for her. He kicked the dead coppion away. ‘I understand now how he performed his show. He was using illusionist magic more powerful than mine. That is why I could not detect it – he was able to hide it from me. It was blood-magic. Buyaal must be working for the Hermit.’

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Namji said, her voice distraught. ‘Buyaal isn’t the enemy. I-I came to warn you …’

  She trailed off at the sound of someone clucking their tongue.

  At the far end of the room the balcony doors opened, and blue-grey moonlight flooded the lounge. A figure stood on the threshold, tall, burly, head wrapped up in scarves, his Aelfirian face boasting a huge, grey beard.

  ‘Ebril,’ Van Bam whispered.

  The ambassador’s grin was as broad as it was malevolent.

  ‘I have to admit, Master Van Bam, you are disappointingly slow piecing all of this together.’

  Although it was Ebril’s voice, the words were not spoken by the Aelf at the balcony doors. Van Bam looked to see a perfect duplicate of the ambassador standing in the main entrance to the guest apartment. ‘I had believed your mind was far quicker than this.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Angel.

  Behind Van Bam a third Ebril had emerged from the illusionist’s bedroom. A fourth image stepped from Angel’s bedroom, and said, ‘Now, what am I to do with the three of you?’

  Angel swore again. ‘What’s going on, Van Bam?’

  ‘Illusions.’

  ‘I can bloody see that! Which one is real?’

  Clearly terrified and on the verge of tears, Namji’s hand shook more than ever as she aimed the pistol at one Ebril then the next. ‘I-I don’t know what to do,’ she whimpered.

  Each Ebril seemed amused.

  Angel made an angry noise. ‘Give it to me,’ she said and snatched the pistol from Namji’s grip. The healer’s aim was solid. ‘Just tell me which one is real, Van Bam.’

  Each image of Ambassador Ebril was a perfect duplicate of the man Van Bam knew. Except the eyes – they were orbs of black. Confused and angry, Van Bam knew that his magic was not strong enough to tell which Ebril was the real Aelf, or indeed if they were all illusion.

  ‘It was you all the time,’ Van Bam said through clenched teeth. ‘Ursa was working under your orders. You were responsible for bringing Fabian Moor to Labrys Town.’

  ‘And thank you for allowing me to bring news of Lord Moor’s success back to Mirage,’ said the Ebril in the doorway to Angel’s bedroom. He smiled. ‘Lord Spiral was planning his uprising long before the Timewatcher suspected anything.’

  The ambassador by the main entrance shrugged. ‘House Mirage already belonged to the Genii by the time the war began.’

  ‘Ursa and I hid ourselves well in the entourage that was sent to the Labyrinth,’ said the Aelf by the balcony door.

  Behind Van Bam, the fourth Ebril added, ‘All we had to do was wait. No one suspected us. Not even your precious Lady Amilee.’

  Angel aimed the pistol at the Aelf near the balcony doors. ‘High Governor Obanai and his House sided with Spiral?’ she said angrily. ‘And no one knew?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that,’ Ebril replied. ‘Including the other members of my entourage, of course. Their cluelessness helped to conceal Ursa and me. But most of those who returned to Mirage with me were quickly converted. In fact, only one has resisted subjugation.’

  ‘My father trusted you,’ the High Governor’s daughter hissed. ‘And you betrayed him.’


  ‘You suggest I am a traitor?’ the Ebril behind Van Bam said. ‘It was your father who swore his House’s allegiance to the Genii.’

  ‘I trusted you!’

  ‘Grow up, Namji. This is your last chance. Join your father, or die – here and now – with these humans.’

  Namji’s lip trembled and she looked more terrified than ever.

  Slowly, silently, Van Bam reconnected the two spikes into one cane of green glass. He gave Angel a nod.

  ‘Yeah,’ the healer growled. ‘Bollocks to this,’ and she pulled the trigger.

  The power stone flashed, and the pistol spat. The Ebril standing on the threshold to the balcony swirled like smoke as the bullet passed through him, and then he reformed into the perfect image of the ambassador. He was smiling.

  As Angel took aim at the next Ebril, Van Bam whispered to his magic, thinking to summon a diversion – anything to confuse the situation and allow his fellow agent a clear shot at each of Ebril’s duplicates. But the words refused to pass Van Bam’s lips. A sour energy rippled across the room, making the illusionist feel as though he were being forced to swallow his own magic. Angel yelped and dropped the pistol as if the metal was red hot. The power stone cracked and fizzed as it hit the ground. The pistol shattered.

  Angel groaned and sank to one knee, clutching the hand bearing the coppion sting. Her skin flared with healing magic and more poison oozed from the wound.

  Helping the healer to her feet, Namji looked at Van Bam, and then each image of Ebril. Her fear turned to defiance.

  ‘I will never willingly join Spiral,’ she whispered, her young face steely. ‘I’d rather die than turn against the Timewatcher.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you had to learn how to stand on your own two feet eventually,’ said the Ebril standing in the apartment’s main doorway. ‘I very much doubt your family will mourn your passing. Personally, I’ll be glad to see the back of you—’

  Ebril’s head was suddenly yanked back, exposing his throat. A shadow had moved up behind him. Moonlight glinted from a blade. A knife sliced into Ebril’s skin, severing arteries. Blood erupted down clean white robes, and Ebril dropped to his knees and fell face down upon the tiled floor without a sound. Instantly the three illusions swirled into smoke and disappeared.

  Van Bam had just time enough to share a surprised look with Angel before Buyaal, Master of the Desert, stepped out of the shadows and into the room.

  He marched straight up to Namji and gripped her shoulders, looking intensely into her face. ‘Are you all right?’

  Namji looked at the corpse of Ebril and nodded.

  ‘There is an explanation here,’ Van Bam said warningly. ‘And I will hear it!’ He stabbed his cane against the tiles with a discordant chime.

  ‘I understand your anger, but now is not the time,’ Buyaal said, his expression stern, his facial tattoos eerie in the moonlight. ‘We have to leave. In case you haven’t guessed, there is a Genii controlling Mirage.’

  ‘That’s who the Hermit is?’ said Angel. She winced and groaned again, using her healing magic to ease the pain in her hand. ‘He’s a Genii?’

  ‘You have been told many lies since you first set foot in this House, but the Hermit is no enemy,’ Buyaal replied. He switched his gaze to Van Bam. ‘I am one of the Hermit’s followers. He is leading the resistance in Mirage. There is much you do not know, but for now you have to trust me.’

  ‘Then get us outside the citadel walls,’ Van Bam said forcefully. ‘We need to use the doorway back to the Great Labyrinth.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Buyaal said earnestly. ‘Just about every soldier in Mirage will be guarding the Giant’s Hand, and so will the Genii.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest, Buyaal?’

  ‘I will take you to the Hermit. But first get dressed, both of you. The desert nights are cold.’

  Van Bam could read the truth on Buyaal’s face, an open honesty, pleading and anxious. The illusionist nodded to Angel.

  A few moments later, when the Relic Guild agents had hastily dressed and returned to the lounge, Van Bam saw Buyaal holding a spell sphere. Namji stood very close to him, her expression blank, her large Aelfirian eyes staring at Ebril, lying dead in his own blood.

  Buyaal said, ‘My first duty is to save the heir of Mirage, but the Hermit also needs to speak with the Relic Guild. If you would live longer than this night, you will allow me to lead you to him.’

  He smashed the spell sphere against the wall. The intense reek of magic was followed by a moaning wind. A huge circle had been neatly cut into the wall, and through it Van Bam could see the dunes and the shifting sands of the desert, grey under the moon. In the near distance were the silhouettes of mountains.

  ‘A portal?’ the illusionist said.

  ‘A gift from the Hermit,’ Buyaal explained. ‘It’s only short range, but it should give us a head start before the Genii realises that Ebril failed to kill you.’

  Blood-magic? Van Bam wondered. He had thought only higher magic could create portals.

  ‘This spell won’t last forever,’ Buyaal said with a smile, though his micro-expressions betrayed his urgency.

  Namji moved alongside Van Bam and squeezed his hand. ‘You can trust Buyaal. He saved my life. Saved all our lives.’

  ‘Well,’ Angel said, clutching her hand. ‘I don’t know about you, Van Bam, but I’m buggered if I’m staying here.’ She gave her fellow agent a shrug.

  Van Bam nodded. ‘Then lead the way, Master Buyaal.’

  Marney felt nothing.

  In Ghost Mist Veldt, on a mountainside where the war against the Genii was hidden by sentient magic, she had been captured by deserters from Spiral’s army. She didn’t know where they had come from; they had simply materialised in the stone hut. And their appearance had coincided with Denton’s disappearance. Marney was not holding out for her mentor’s return.

  The Aelfirian soldiers had relieved Marney of her possessions, stripped her down to her vest and undergarments, kept her on her knees on the hard floor of the stone hut, with her hands bound together behind her back and tied to her ankles. Marney’s face ached from bruising. She could feel dried blood in her nostrils, taste it at the back of her throat. Her clothes had been used as fuel to keep the pot-bellied stove burning with such a low heat it barely lifted the chill in the hut. The wind whistled through cracks in the stonework.

  Cold and shivering, with her emotions locked inside her, deadened beneath a magical seal, Marney embraced a state of apathy in which she could coolly remember the teachings of her missing mentor.

  Know your enemy first, Denton had once told her. Try not to act before you understand who you are dealing with.

  There were four Aelfirian soldiers keeping Marney captive, but only three were currently inside the stone hut with her. One male and two females. Each of them seemed to have succumbed to a desperation that had sunk far below mere hopelessness. Marney had been listening to them talk, reading their emotions, as they rifled through her possessions which were laid out on the rickety metal camping table. Less than an hour ago, Marney had been at that very table, talking to Denton, before the magic of Ghost Mist Veldt had snatched him away.

  ‘Rations!’ the man called out. A young Aelf by the name of Nurmar, he was short and scrawny, barely fitting his ragtag uniform. Nurmar had upended the contents of Marney’s backpack onto the table, and had found the sealed nutrition cakes she had brought with her. ‘Am I glad to see these—’

  One of the women, Jantal, snatched the ration from his hand and placed it down with the others. ‘We divide these up fairly,’ she said, voice full of warning. She slid the pile of nutrition cakes to one end of the table. ‘Got a problem with that?’

  Nurmar shook his head and resumed searching.

  Jantal was an intolerant Aelf, at least a decade older than Nurmar, and she demanded obedience with threats that
she issued in a free and easy manner. Within this small group of soldiers, Jantal was second in command to an Aelf called Matthaus, the only deserter currently absent. He had left the hut a while ago, taking with him the envelope containing Denton’s secret instructions on how to find the Library of Glass and Mirrors.

  The fourth soldier was a large Aelf with a haunted look on her face. Red, they called her – probably a nickname, but nothing to do with the colour of her hair, which was short and black. She didn’t help her fellow deserters, only watched as Jantal and Nurmar rummaged through Marney’s belongings. Marney could sense that Red’s emotions had all but flat-lined. Her mind was war-damaged.

  Marney’s eyes drifted to three rifles leaning against the hut wall. Know your enemy first, Denton had impressed on her.

  Nurmar had several weeks’ worth of beard on his face. Judging by the dark circles around all their eyes, and the feral quality in their expressions, these soldiers had been living on the edge for all that time. But one advantage the empath had over her captors was that they did not seem to realise their captive was a magicker.

  ‘What’s this?’ Nurmar said. He had found Marney’s tin of sandalwood bath salts and had it open in his hands. ‘Looks like salt or sugar.’

  Jantal leaned in for a look. She dipped a finger into the bath salts, and then touched it to her tongue. She pulled a face and spat on the floor.

  ‘If we can’t eat it, don’t waste time on it!’ she shouted and smacked the tin from Nurmar’s hands, as if the bitter taste of the scented salts was his fault.

  The contents of the tin cascaded across the stone floor.

  Marney felt nothing.

  Unperturbed by Jantal’s outburst, Nurmar continued his search, muttering, ‘Where did a bloody human come from, anyway? Isn’t she supposed to be confined to the Labyrinth?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jantal replied. She was holding up Marney’s baldric of throwing daggers. ‘But we can be sure she wasn’t sent here to help us. And I don’t suppose it could hurt to try to make her talk again.’