by Edward Cox
Clara saw the hurt on Namji’s face, and couldn’t hold her gaze.
‘Before all this began,’ Clara told Namji with a heavy voice, ‘I worked at a club called the Lazy House. They called me Peppercorn Clara.’
‘I remember the Lazy House, and its reputation,’ Namji said. ‘I spent two years in Labrys Town, you know.’ She leant into Clara, keeping her voice low. ‘The avatar told me that you had been one of the Lazy House’s … employees.’
‘I was a whore, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I was being polite, Clara.’
‘And I was being blunt.’
‘So – what? You’re going to stay angry about your past until you’ve taken it out on us all? How does your regret help the bigger picture?’
Clara’s jaw set, and the wolf growled in her chest. Namji was undeterred.
‘We all come from somewhere, Clara,’ she said, studying the changeling’s face, and the illusion that had been cast upon it. ‘But, for what it’s worth, you’re very pretty as an Aelf.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Not so much as a human.’
Namji smiled, and Clara felt the tension within her break. She couldn’t help a laugh escaping the grim line of her lips.
Yet the two whores, huddled together, whispering, sharing secrets, reminded Clara of her days at the Lazy House. She thought of Willow, her one true friend. They had looked out for each other, kept each other sane. What was Willow doing now – had she managed to find a new friend who would watch her back?
A cold and sudden pang hit the changeling. Now Labrys Town was under the rule of the Genii, was there any kind of life left for the denizens to lead?
‘I’ve had to fight my way through all sorts of crap to get to this point,’ Namji said, her eyes drifting up and into memory. ‘But I had some good teachers along the way. One inspired me to live the life of a nomad …’ She gave a laugh. ‘But that’s the past. It’s the immediate future that concerns me now.’ Her large green eyes found the changeling’s face again. ‘If you know what I mean.’
Clara sensed the presence of Marney inside her, aloof, hiding, and her gut twisted. ‘Known Things,’ she whispered.
Namji checked no one was eavesdropping, and then nodded. ‘Known Things. The answer to all our problems.’
‘If you trust the avatar.’
‘And I do, Clara.’
The landlord returned at that moment, his tray loaded with a pitcher of beer and six glasses. Namji paid him and he wandered off to talk to a regular.
Pausing before she picked up the tray, Namji quietly said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve learnt over the last forty years – you can’t save everyone. And to really change the way things are, you have to be royalty or a politician … or a Resident.’
She looked over at the table, where the group waited for Glogelder’s contact to show up. The eyes on Van Bam’s Aelfirian face were closed as he concentrated on maintaining the illusions.
‘But you’re none of those, Clara,’ Namji continued, not unkindly. ‘You’re a magicker, an agent of the Relic Guild. Your lot is to live on the periphery of life, always watching, always ready to protect the vulnerable from what they can’t see, what they don’t know about.’ She reached out and gently tapped Clara on the temple. ‘With the information you have up here, you might just save every living soul across all the Houses. And if you do, the worst part is, no one will ever know what you’ve done. You’ll never be thanked for it. That is who you are now.’
How very profound, Gideon drawled. She sounds a little like Van Bam. Irritating, isn’t it?
Clara managed a smile, and felt a sudden appreciation for Namji, a woman she hardly knew.
‘What about you, Namji?’ she said. ‘What’s your place now?’
‘Oh, life is rarely how I’d like it to be, Clara. I’m just doing what I need to do to stay alive.’ Namji lifted the tray from the bar. ‘If we’re going to stay one step ahead of the Genii – and the Toymaker – we all need to trust each other and work together. Even with Glogelder in the pack.’ She chuckled and nodded towards the table. ‘Come on, let’s join the others.’
After a final, contemplative look at the young women at the end of the bar, Clara’s mood became surprisingly light as she followed Namji back to the table. Samuel, carrying his usual stern expression, raised an eyebrow, his large blue eyes questioning. The changeling nodded at the old bounty hunter, letting him know her anger had passed. Hillem cleared his throat and looked meaningfully at Glogelder. When Glogelder shook his head, Hillem kicked him under the table.
‘All right!’ the big Aelf said, rubbing his leg. He faced Clara, but couldn’t bring himself to actually look at her. ‘I am very sorry for anything that I might have said that caused you offence,’ he said perfunctorily.
‘Oh, brilliant,’ Hillem said. ‘That’s the worst bloody apology I’ve ever heard.’
‘What do you want from me?’ Glogelder snapped. ‘I haven’t got anything to apologise for.’
Play nicely, Clara, Gideon purred. It’ll be easier in the long run.
‘Shut up, Glogelder,’ Clara said, taking a glass from the tray and sliding it across the table to him. ‘And have a beer.’
‘Excellent idea,’ Namji said.
Glogelder gave a wide grin, took the pitcher and filled his glass. He then filled a second one and passed it to Clara.
‘To us,’ he said, raising his glass to the changeling.
Clara clinked her own against it. ‘You’re an arse,’ she replied, and took a long draught of dark brown beer.
As Glogelder did the same, Hillem set about pouring beer for everyone else. Samuel drained his glass as though he had been desperate for a drink since the Relic Guild had escaped the Labyrinth. Van Bam didn’t touch his, but his eyes were open now, and he stared at it.
It was while the group drank in silence that the tavern door opened and an Aelf walked in. She looked to be around the age of Samuel and Van Bam, wearing a uniform of blue trousers and blazer, white shirt and black tie. Under her arm was a peaked hat. Her expression was pensive as she scanned the tavern and finally settled on the group’s table.
‘That’s my contact,’ Glogelder said, wiping beer froth from his top lip. His manner had become serious, professional. ‘Her name’s Symone.’
‘I’m not sensing any danger from her,’ Samuel said.
‘Nor me,’ Clara added.
‘Of course you’re not,’ Glogelder said, catching the woman’s eye. ‘She’s here to help us.’
‘Then it looks like we’re up,’ Namji said to the big Aelf. ‘The rest of you wait here.’
Closely followed by Namji, Glogelder approached Symone, and began speaking to her in a hushed voice.
Van Bam seemed in touch with what was happening around him for the first time since entering the tavern, and he looked up, speaking quietly.
‘This person will help us find Known Things?’
‘Yes,’ said Hillem. ‘She’s going to escort us to the portal. I hope.’
‘Who is she?’ Samuel asked.
‘A night guard.’
Clara frowned. ‘Night guard for where?’
Hillem shrugged. ‘A museum.’
Chapter Sixteen
Garden of the Necromancer
Hamir was lost, but he remembered …
The Trinity of Skywatchers had been established to be the overlord of the overlords. Its legitimacy arose from the Timewatcher’s prerogatives, and its purpose was to administer Her laws, and to ensure they were upheld by all Her children. Iblisha Spiral, Yansas Amilee and Baran Wolfe – the Word, the Warden, the Wanderer – represented the Timewatcher among the Thaumaturgists. The Skywatchers were the governors of higher magic.
Some had called the members of the Trinity the personal diviners of the Timewatcher. They had a duty to monitor the skies, to l
isten to the language of the stars and decipher its tales of the future, especially those futures that whispered of trouble heading towards the creatures of lower magic. Spiral, Amilee and Wolfe were charged by their Mother to stave off these future troubles, to rectify injustices and mistakes by always finding peaceful resolutions for Aelfir and humans – unless the sky told them of crimes committed by their fellow Thaumaturgists.
Hamir remembered …
In the far and distant past, there had been uncommon occasions when the Trinity of Skywatchers convened a court known as the Council of Three. Resented by some, feared by most, the Council of Three always assembled on Mother Earth, and any Thaumaturgist summoned before them could not hope for a happy ending.
It was rare for a creature of higher magic to defy the Timewatcher’s word and law, but those who did commit this crime were shown no mercy by the Council. There were moments in Mother Earth’s long history when the Word, the Warden and the Wanderer had drained the higher magic from Thaumaturgists, burned the symbol of thaumaturgy from their foreheads, and expelled them from the pantheon. There was no severer punishment, no greater shame, that could be suffered by a creature of higher magic. As the Council of Three, the Trinity of Skywatchers exacted the retribution of the Timewatcher.
Hamir could not fathom where he was, but he wondered …
It was said that no Thaumaturgist could hide from the Trinity; that it was impossible to conduct nefarious plans against the Timewatcher without triggering a summons to the Council of Three. Yet Iblisha Spiral proved to be the exception to the rule. His actions betrayed his Mother, and every living being existing under Her loving Gaze. His was the greatest act of deception ever seen among the Thaumaturgists.
Hamir the necromancer could appreciate the logistical problems that Spiral would have faced in the build up to the war. The Trinity of Skywatchers were masters of precognition, and that made Lady Amilee and Lord Wolfe a little difficult to sneak up on. Spiral would have had no easy time concealing his plans from his fellow Skywatchers. An improbable achievement, one might say – though, as it turned out, not impossible.
Hamir reasoned that it would have taken a great and subtle use of thaumaturgy to pull the wool over the eyes of the Warden and the Wanderer, not to mention the eyes of the Timewatcher Herself. To have achieved his goals, Spiral would have had to fool the very skies above him.
Time, Hamir realised, still not knowing where he was.
Spiral must have hid time itself. Every moment, every thought and action that he planned, Spiral had kept secret from the sky, from the stars, from the whispers of the future. He had found a way to make himself undivinable.
Therefore his planning was not subject to chance. Everything was calculated. Baran Wolfe’s murder had not been a flashpoint that escalated hostilities; it was a catalyst, a strategic decision that caused the final rent between the Thaumaturgists, and brought them to war against the Genii. As Spiral had hidden his actions so masterfully, by the time Baran Wolfe the Wanderer had realised that the end of his life was a part of Spiral’s plans, he must have already been at the wrong end of the Genii Lord’s distinct lack of mercy.
Hamir came to know these things as he came to know where he was, and with clarity.
He understood that his physical form lay asleep in a dream chamber high in the Tower of the Skywatcher; and that his mental projection hadn’t arrived at a new destination, but had been reassembled, thought by thought, until the necromancer stood in a small grove of apple trees, still pondering the history of the Thaumaturgists and the Genii War.
Beneath his feet was soft, moss-choked grass. Bees buzzed. Insects crawled over fallen fruit. Clouds drifted across the sky.
Hamir tugged at the tuft of beard on his chin. He knew that he could see beyond the grove, that there was more outside the trees, yet his mind would not let him perceive it.
‘A disquieting effect, isn’t it?’ said the avatar. ‘To know something is there, hidden in plain sight. Perplexing, wouldn’t you say, Hamir?’
The necromancer shrugged. Of course the avatar was there with him, though he couldn’t see it. It always had been, hadn’t it? And such an annoying presence.
Hamir said, ‘I know things about conjurations – such as yourself – that many people do not.’
‘Oh?’ said the avatar.
‘Yes,’ Hamir replied. ‘Although it can be said that you future-guides are magical beings, you are never formed from magic alone. There is always a building block from which you are grown. You are founded upon the spirit of a real person who once lived and died. So tell me, avatar, who did you use to be?’
‘Curiosity, Hamir?’ the avatar said. ‘Since when did you take an interest in anyone other than yourself?’
It was a good point, and Hamir didn’t suppose that the answer to his question would alter his situation in any way.
He stepped towards the edge of the grove, and began to see something of the gardens that lay beyond it. The avatar materialised before him, a sky-blue aura surrounding the twilight shape of a person. Tendrils of light waved around the future-guide.
‘I’ve been thinking about Spiral,’ Hamir said, though he knew it was truer to say that here in this dreamscape Lady Amilee had been making him think about Spiral. ‘It seems to me that as brilliantly executed as Spiral’s plans were, his predictions could not have been flawless. He must have allowed for at least an element of variability.’
‘And what element might that be, Hamir?’
‘I was thinking specifically about the war itself. To cultivate events that lead to a war is one thing, but to predict its outcome is entirely another. That is where the variables lie. I can’t believe that Spiral was ever certain that he and the Genii would beat the Timewatcher and her armies. He must have known there was a good chance he would lose.’ Hamir narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘Did Spiral see two outcomes, two possible futures? Did he prepare for both?’
The necromancer looked up at the clouds in the sky. ‘Of course,’ he whispered. It all made sense then, and he chuckled heartily. ‘Spiral foresaw the creation of Oldest Place. He knew that if he lost the war, the Timewatcher would incarcerate him in his own prison realm.’
‘Very good, Hamir.’
The necromancer didn’t much care for the avatar’s mocking tone, and he glared at it. ‘That’s why the Genii returned, isn’t it? To free their lord and master from Oldest Place. Fabian Moor and his cronies are Spiral’s answer to a variable – his contingency for losing the war.’
‘It was Spiral’s final deceit,’ said the avatar. ‘Not only had he foreseen the creation of Oldest Place, but also that the Timewatcher and the Thaumaturgists would abandon the Labyrinth and all the Houses.’
‘Ah. I did not know She had abandoned the Aelfir as well as the humans after the war.’ Hamir continued. ‘If Spiral knew that this would happen, he also knew there would be no one left to oppose him if he escaped Oldest Place. The Houses would be his to take. Ingenious.’
‘It was the plan no one knew Spiral had made,’ the avatar said. ‘The Timewatcher Herself hadn’t realised that he had grown so powerful that he could divine Her future actions.’
‘Yet Lady Amilee realised,’ Hamir countered, gesturing to the apple trees around him, and whatever else he couldn’t see in this dreamscape created by the Skywatcher’s imagination. ‘She would seem to have divined what the Timewatcher couldn’t. Strange.’
The avatar was silent. Tendrils of blue light coiled and snaked gracefully around its body. Smoky shadows drifted from its eyes to dissipate in the air like mist in sunshine.
‘Curious, though,’ Hamir said. ‘I was led to believe that only the Timewatcher knew where She had hidden Oldest Place. Spiral must have become such a powerful Skywatcher to have divined its location before She had created it.’
‘He didn’t divine its location,’ the avatar replied. ‘It was the one anom
aly in Spiral’s plans, the mystery he could not unravel. However, he did divine that someone other than the Timewatcher would come to know the whereabouts of Oldest Place.’
‘Who?’
‘Come forward, Hamir, and you will learn more.’
The blue spectre floated away. Hamir hesitated, and then walked from the grove of apple trees.
The garden beyond the trees spread before him, grew around him, like a bubble expanding, to encompass blooming flowers full of vibrant colours, and an expanse of mossy grass, lush beneath a glorious sun. Hamir squinted. He knew the grand garden continued on for a distance, but there was a boundary that he could not perceive beyond, blocking his vision with the same disquieting effect he had experienced in the apple grove. But what he could see clearly, rising towards the sky behind the avatar, was a column of energy, droning, spinning like a whirlwind of black and white dashed static.
Hamir recognised the column immediately; it was the same energy that had disassembled his awareness back in the underwater cavern, and then reconstructed him, thought by thought, in this garden.
The necromancer shielded his eyes against the sun as he followed the column’s length up to where wispy clouds drifted across the sky. And there, high in the air, a figure hovered before the column, borne upon wings of fluid silver, dressed in purple ceremonial robes.
Lady Amilee, the Warden, the last of the Trinity of Skywatchers.
Hamir felt no relief at finally finding his host. He watched as Amilee studied the column of droning static, adjusting her height every now and then, and occasionally reaching out to stroke the energy.
‘It is a slipstream,’ the avatar said. ‘An amalgamation of timelines, possible futures.’
