The Cathedral of Known Things

by Edward Cox

  Hamir looked intently at the column, and realised that it was a representation of the sky, of the stars, and the language of the future that whispered to the Skywatcher, condensed into energy within this imagined dreamscape.

  ‘The slipstream is the conduit that allows Amilee to access the real world,’ Hamir said. ‘It is the seat of power from which she toys with people’s lives, manipulates their fates. And where do you fit into this, spectre?’

  ‘I am Lady Amilee’s avatar. She sends me to adjust events as she needs to. As you say, there are always variables in the art of divination, Hamir.’ The avatar drifted closer to the necromancer. ‘At one time, the slipstream comprised a multitude of timelines that practically filled this garden. But, over the years, Lady Amilee has chipped away at them, whittled the timelines down, until now only four possible futures remain.’

  Hamir considered the avatar’s words for a moment, and then he asked, ‘And in these futures, the Genii either succeed or fail to free Spiral?’

  The avatar didn’t answer.

  Hamir looked up at Amilee, hovering before the column on her wings of silver. How long had she been here, divining the future, while her body remained in the dream chamber in her tower? Yansas Amilee, the Warden, Treasured Lady of the Thaumaturgists – had she foreseen Spiral’s actions, but too late to prevent the war? Would anyone, including the Timewatcher, have listened to her if she had spoken against the most favoured creature of higher magic? Had she bothered trying?

  ‘Tell me.’ Hamir turned to the avatar. ‘You mentioned that one other knew how to find Oldest Place. I suspect it was the reason why Fabian Moor abducted Marney, yes?’

  ‘If Lady Amilee wishes you to know more details, Hamir, then she will tell you herself.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Hamir looked up again. ‘I am here, my lady,’ he shouted up to the cloudy sky. ‘I came as you commanded!’

  The Skywatcher didn’t reply. She didn’t look down. She adjusted her height to inspect a different section of the swirling, droning slipstream, her silver wings gently, gracefully, maintaining her altitude.

  ‘Lady Amilee!’ Hamir tried again, louder this time. ‘I have one or two questions for you.’ Again, the Thaumaturgist ignored the necromancer.

  Was she waiting for Hamir to show proper respect, to address her by her full title, perhaps? If that was the case, after what he had been made to endure on his travels to this realm, Hamir rather thought she was going to have a long wait.

  He drew a breath, cupped his hands around his mouth, and barked the Skywatcher’s true name. ‘Yansas! I’ve no patience for your ignorance.’

  ‘Save your breath,’ said the avatar. ‘She won’t address you, or your rudeness, because she doesn’t want to. And perhaps she has good reason.’

  Hamir glared at the avatar. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Hamir the necromancer, the one with the mysterious past, the one nobody gets to know. You of all people should understand why we keep our secrets.’

  Hamir shrugged. ‘Maybe I keep my secrets because I’ve nothing interesting to reveal. Why does my past arouse such intrigue in others?’

  The avatar chuckled humourlessly. ‘Perhaps it’s because the scarring on your forehead gives people an insight into your true nature.’

  ‘I see,’ Hamir said evenly. ‘Then you have been told the history of my relationship with our good Lady up there?’

  ‘I’ve learned enough to know that no one should ever trust you.’

  ‘You are not the first to believe that.’

  ‘You’re a ghoul, Hamir.’

  If Hamir had been faced with the avatar in the real world, where his magic was his to command, he could have rendered tortures upon its spirit unlike anything it had experienced in life. But he wasn’t in the real world.

  With a sigh, the necromancer turned his eyes to the Skywatcher again. ‘What happened to her?’ he asked, his voice tired. ‘I was told recently – by another ghost – that Amilee was abandoned by the Timewatcher and the Thaumaturgists too.’

  The avatar was silent for a moment, its tendrils of blue light waving about with the slowness of strips of cloth floating underwater. ‘That is a story for her Ladyship to tell you herself, should she wish to.’

  ‘Fine,’ Hamir said with sneer. ‘Then at least tell me why I have been brought to this damned place. What part am I to play?’

  Before the avatar could answer, Hamir was buffeted by a sudden wind.

  Lady Amilee landed gracefully on the grass between Hamir and the blue spectre. Her silver wings gave one last beat, and then fell limp and liquid, disappearing through slits cut into the back of her purple robe. Tall and elegant, her head shaved smooth to the scalp, Lady Amilee didn’t acknowledge Hamir’s presence in the slightest, and addressed the avatar.

  ‘How have events unfolded?’

  ‘As well as can be expected, my lady,’ the avatar replied. ‘The Relic Guild escaped the Labyrinth. They have been travelling across the Houses with our Aelfirian agents.’

  They survived, Hamir thought with relief. He then pushed aside his uncustomary moment of logic-clouding compassion to listen to Amilee.

  ‘Have they reached the destination?’

  ‘Almost, my lady.’

  ‘And Marney is not with them?’

  ‘No,’ said the avatar, and Hamir detected a genuine sadness in its voice. ‘The changeling – Clara – now carries the information on Spiral’s prison.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Amilee said coldly, but she was quiet, thoughtful.

  Ah, Hamir realised, Marney’s kiss … That was what the empath had transferred into Clara’s mind: the whereabouts of Oldest Place. But how in the realms had Marney known that information to begin with?

  ‘Tell me,’ Amilee asked the avatar, ‘How many Genii control the Nightshade? Is it four or five? Is Yves Harrow with them?’

  ‘I cannot say,’ the avatar admitted. ‘I only know that Fabian Moor is not alone.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Amilee whispered.

  Hamir took a step forward and cleared his throat. ‘If the number of Genii is important to your meddling, my lady, perhaps I can be of help?’

  Amilee looked back over her shoulder in the necromancer’s general direction. Hamir could see the black diamond tattooed onto her forehead, but her tawny eyes didn’t meet his as she waited for him to speak further.

  ‘Three other Genii have joined Fabian Moor in Labrys Town,’ Hamir explained. ‘Mo Asajad, Viktor Gadreel and Hagi Tabet. I have seen or heard of nothing concerning Yves Harrow.’

  Without acknowledging Hamir in any way, Amilee sighed, and gestured with her hand towards the droning column of the slipstream.

  With a noise like ice ripping apart, a strip of energy uncoiled from the slipstream, peeling away like a loose thread. A giant snake of static, it hung in the air for a moment before losing cohesion and falling like ashes. The column of the slipstream had become noticeably thinner.

  ‘Hmm,’ Hamir muttered. ‘Three timelines left?’

  Amilee addressed the avatar again. ‘The time has arrived. You know what has to be done next.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  Hamir frowned.

  From the sleeve of her robes, Amilee produced a large, black iron key, old and unwieldy. Stepping forward, she reached out and pushed the key into the twilight blue of the avatar’s body. When she removed her hand, it was empty.

  ‘Deliver the magickers to where they need to be,’ Amilee ordered the avatar. There was sorrow in her voice. ‘Only by activating Known Things can the Relic Guild hope to destroy Spiral.’

  Known Things, Hamir pondered, but aloud he voiced a very real concern to the Skywatcher. ‘Forgive me for asking, but did I hear right? You expect the Relic Guild to destroy Spiral?’

  ‘All things are known in the end,’ Amilee whispered, still ignoring Hamir. ‘Go,’
she told the avatar. ‘You know what to do.’

  Immediately, the avatar drifted away from the Skywatcher, and approached the slipstream, where an arched doorway had formed.

  ‘What in the Timewatcher’s name is going on?’ Hamir demanded.

  The avatar drifted through the doorway and disappeared. Amilee stared after her future-guide, her back turned to Hamir.

  ‘Lady Amilee, how is it that you believe magickers can stand against creatures of higher—?’

  Lady Amilee’s silver wings sprang from her robes and fanned out behind her. She vaulted from the ground, soared into the air, circling around the three remaining timelines that comprised the slipstream. She rose higher and higher, until she seemed no bigger than a bird.

  ‘Please, my lady!’ Hamir bellowed. ‘What have you done? Why does Clara carry the location of Oldest Place? What is Known Things?’

  Hamir quickly jumped back as the Skywatcher hurled an object down at him. It came fast, a dot at first, but quickly being revealed as a ball of blue glass the size of Hamir’s head. It landed on the spongy, moss-choked grass, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop at Hamir’s feet. He stared at it. On opposing sides of the ball, the glass had been indented with handprints.

  The necromancer picked it up, careful not to let his hands touch the indents. He studied the glowing substance that swirled like smoke inside the blue glass.

  He looked up at the Skywatcher as she examined the column of energy high above, then he held the sphere up towards her. ‘All right, my lady,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘Once again, let’s do this your way.’

  His hands were a perfect fit for the indents.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Relics

  A few months previously, the Aelfirian woman called Symone had accrued more gambling debts than she had been able to pay back. On the orders of the avatar, Namji had sent Glogelder to visit Symone with an offer to help her out of her plight. There had been one proviso: in return for paying off the debts, she would – at some point in the near future, and with no questions asked – smuggle a small band of strangers into her place of work: the Museum of Aelfirian Heritage.

  As the group progressed down a wide street that ran alongside the River Bells, Van Bam was vaguely aware of Hillem telling Clara all of this. The intense concentration of maintaining the complicated illusions disguising the group made it hard for him to fully comprehend his surroundings. He sensed that the riverside street was busy, filled with Aelfir; he knew that Symone led the group, and that his colleagues had surrounded him, protecting him from disturbances. If Van Bam’s magic faltered, revealing the human faces of the magickers for but a moment, the Relic Guild’s long journey could well end here, on the streets of the Sisterhood of Bells.

  In the distance, Van Bam heard a bell in one of the mighty clock towers chime the hour to the city. Hillem was talking again, this time telling anyone who would listen about the history of their destination. Van Bam found the young Aelf ’s voice surprisingly soothing. It conjured a focal point for his concentration, and he absorbed the information.

  The Museum of Aelfirian Heritage had been built shortly after the Genii War. As a memorial, Hillem said, to the Houses which had survived the war and remained loyal to the Timewatcher. Free to visit, funded by the arts assembly, and a regular location for presentations and lectures given by the wisest academics to be found among the realms, the museum had an ongoing and ambitious project to preserve the histories of every known Aelfirian House.

  Finally arriving at the museum building, the group was confronted by a colossal monument. Fifteen storeys high, and even wider than the Nightshade. It was new, cleaner than the old dirty buildings around it; built from white stone, looking entirely modern amidst the ancientness of the Sisterhood of Bells. Within the tall railings of thick black iron, the gardens that surrounded the building were lush and blooming, furnished with both park benches and statues. As the museum was closed for the night, Symone led the group around to the security guards’ entrance at the rear.

  While the Relic Guild hid in the shadows provided by a small copse of trees, Symone entered the museum and relieved the previous shift. A few moments later, she ushered the group into the building and quickly closed the door behind them.

  Now standing in a gloomy, musty hallway, Van Bam asked Symone if there was anyone else in the building. When she confirmed there wasn’t, it was with immense relief that he finally dropped the illusions he had been maintaining since leaving the train.

  As the Aelfirian masks worn by the three magickers swirled away, revealing their true faces, the museum guard’s features fell flat.

  ‘The Panopticon is looking for them,’ Symone said, apparently to anyone who wasn’t human. She shifted her large Aelfirian eyes to Namji. ‘They’re in the newspaper, you know. Everyone’s talking about them. I could get locked up just for talking to you.’

  By the shades of her emotions, Van Bam could tell the Symone was ready to bolt.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ said Glogelder. He had moved behind Symone, towering over her. ‘Funny, because there didn’t seem to be a problem when I was paying off your debts.’

  Symone looked back at him, and didn’t seem much intimidated by his size, or by the spell sphere launcher hanging from his shoulder. She noted the weapons carried by the group: the pistols hanging from Hillem’s gun belt, and the butt of the ice-rifle peeking over Samuel’s shoulder.

  ‘No one told me I’d be escorting humans,’ Symone huffed.

  ‘There are a lot of things you haven’t been told,’ Namji responded coolly. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know about those, either.’

  Considering Namji’s words carefully, Symone cast a shrewd gaze over Van Bam, Clara and Samuel, before concluding that, yes, the less she knew the better.

  ‘You lot are on wanted lists in just about every House,’ she told the magickers. ‘They’re saying you’re murderers. They’re saying you’ll bring the wrath of demons down on all of us unless we give you to the Retrospective.’

  ‘Not everything they say is true,’ Clara said.

  ‘All the same, can’t say I’m exactly pleased to meet you.’

  ‘I understand your concerns,’ said Van Bam. ‘And we are grateful for your help.’

  ‘Are you really?’ Symone sighed. ‘If anyone finds out that I helped you, I won’t just get locked up. I’ll get strung up!’

  ‘Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine,’ Samuel said.

  ‘We’ll be out of your way soon enough,’ Glogelder said with a grin, ‘and then you can get on with forgetting that you ever saw us.’

  ‘Now,’ said Namji, ‘I believe you know the room we need?’

  Symone nodded, and she smiled lightly at the three humans. ‘Do they know?’

  ‘Just lead the way,’ Namji replied sternly.

  ‘As you like.’

  Gesturing with her head for the group to follow, Symone set off down the hallway towards the main museum. Glogelder and Namji stuck close to her, but Samuel grabbed Hillem’s arm and held him back.

  ‘What did she mean?’ the old bounty hunter asked. ‘Do we know about what?’

  Hillem looked both uncertain and amused. ‘It’s probably easier if you just see for yourselves,’ he said.

  Samuel let him go and he headed after his colleagues.

  ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that,’ Clara said.

  ‘I tend to agree,’ Van Bam replied.

  ‘Well then,’ Samuel grumbled, ‘let’s go and see for ourselves.’

  In silence, Symone led the group through the museum, darkened and eerily quiet for the night, and they ascended flights of stairs to the upper floors. They passed through a host of rooms, each representing various Aelfirian Houses, many of which Van Bam had visited, many he had only heard of, and others that he hadn’t known existed until now. There wer
e scale models and replicas, along with genuine artefacts and relics displayed in glass cabinets or in roped off areas. Every wall, it seemed, was covered in illustrations, and written histories of the Houses.

  Van Bam’s thoughts drifted to Marney again, and how she would have loved to visit the Museum of Aelfirian Heritage.

  Gideon decided to speak to the illusionist just after Symone had led them up to the fifth floor.

  I’ve been thinking, my idiot, he said. I’ve worked out what has been bothering me. At least, a part of it.

  Oh?

  It’s Clara, Gideon explained. Or more specifically, me and Clara. How is it that she and I are communicating? All this while, we have assumed that it was a trick of the avatar’s that allowed her to hear my voice. But what proof do we have of that?

  Van Bam thought for a moment. The evidence may not be conclusive, but it seems too coincidental for it to have not been the avatar’s doing, Gideon. You returned to me, and Clara began hearing your voice, at precisely the moment the avatar last appeared to us.

  Then let us consider the coincidence. Unusually, there was no spite in Gideon’s thoughtful voice. That blue spectre is a portent, my idiot – a future-guide. It was created to lead us. We can agree that it has a master?

  Yes – whoever that might be.

  Ah, now you’re thinking!

  You have worked out who the avatar’s master is?

  I have a theory, Gideon said. Again, we assumed that the avatar’s master was a person – hoped that it might be a Thaumaturgist, or someone of equal power. But perhaps there is a reason why our benefactor has remained unseen. What if it is not a person at all? What if it is an object – something magical – that is the master?

  This gave Van Bam pause for thought. You think Known Things itself created the avatar? You think this relic is sentient?

  I’m sure I don’t know, but that’s not what I was thinking. I’m certain the avatar is only leading us to Known Things. But consider the nature of what has happened, and think bigger, my idiot.

  Bigger?

  And right under your nose, so to speak.