The Cathedral of Known Things

by Edward Cox

  The echo of Van Bam desperately wanted to flee.

  ‘Lord Moor?’ Wolfe said.

  Fabian Moor ignored the Skywatcher and walked to Spiral. In his hands, he held a box of black stone, with the polished finish of obsidian, and shaped like a diamond. Spiral took it from him.

  ‘Oh, Fabian,’ Wolfe said despairingly. ‘What have you done?’

  Without replying, his face inscrutable, Moor took up a place behind his new master.

  ‘Look at it, Baran,’ Spiral said, holding the diamond-shaped box up proudly. ‘I created this device from unused time. It contains a gap, a hole that I punched into the fabric of reality. I have been filling that hole with my plans and actions – every deed, every conversation, every thought. That is why you have not been able to divine me. I hid the truth from the sky.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Wolfe whispered. ‘The only one who can manipulate the substance of time in this way is … is …’

  ‘Who, Baran? The Timewatcher?’

  Fabian Moor’s affectation of indifference did not hold as he gave Wolfe a cruel sneer. The echo of Van Bam recoiled, not wishing to witness any more.

  ‘Our great Mother is unaware just how powerful her favoured son has grown,’ Spiral said proudly. ‘Inside this device is my own personal slipstream, Baran, where my plot to overthrow the Timewatcher hides.’ He turned the diamond-shaped box over in his hands, studying it almost lovingly. ‘I have called it Known Things.’

  ‘Known Things,’ Wolfe repeated, ‘where all the answers lie,’ and he laughed bitterly. The echo inside him understood the importance of what he was witnessing. ‘Then tell me, my Lord Spiral,’ said Wolfe, ‘what is the Cathedral of Doubt and Wonder?’

  Fabian Moor gave Spiral an alarmed look, but Spiral assuaged his concerns with a snorting laugh.

  ‘I have to admit that I’m impressed, Lord Wolfe,’ he said. ‘I had considered Known Things a perfect creation, but obviously you found a flaw. It is commendable – a testament to your power – that you were able to divine enough to lead you to me here at the Falls of Dust and Silver.

  ‘As to the nature of the Cathedral of Doubt and Wonder … well, as we’ve established, the Timewatcher isn’t the only creature of higher magic able to manipulate the substance of time. The Cathedral is my war room, my private council chambers, concealed in the Nothing of Far and Deep. It is where I meet with my Genii.’

  ‘Genii?’ Wolfe queried.

  ‘Ah, forgive me, Baran. Allow me to explain.’ Spiral leant back and called out a further summons. ‘You can come forward now!’

  From behind Wolfe, three more renegade Thaumaturgists appeared, and joined Fabian Moor behind Spiral. Each wore an identical black cassock, and bore fresh burn wounds on their foreheads.

  The first of them was a tall and painfully thin woman, her face small, pale as porcelain, with long hair as black as night. Next to her was another woman, not so tall but broader; her sandy hair was short, and she had the face of a predator, almost feline. The last of them dwarfed even Lord Spiral. He stood next to Fabian Moor, obese and hulking, his head bald, his face cruel.

  Wolfe recognised each of the newcomers instantly: Mo Asajad, Hagi Tabet and Viktor Gadreel.

  ‘We are Thaumaturgists no longer,’ Spiral told Wolfe. ‘We are the Genii.’

  Standing defiant, Wolfe made a last appeal, ‘Please, Iblisha, I beg you – all of you – it is not too late. End this madness now.’

  ‘Madness?’ Spiral roared.

  His eyes flashing, with Known Things still in his hands, the Lord of the Genii stepped forwards, flexed his back, and his wings sprang out like swords drawn from their sheaths. Wolfe did the same, and the two Skywatchers confronted each other, their fluid, silver wings fanned out behind them. The four Genii watched.

  Wolfe tried to summon his thaumaturgy to attack, to escape, to create the chance to warn the realms of the coming storm, but Iblisha Spiral was quicker, and much more powerful. Barely moving, his skin glowing, Spiral batted aside his foe’s attack as easily as swatting a fly. And then he wrapped his higher magic around Wolfe, squeezing him, crushing the fight from him. Wolfe’s wings fell limp as Spiral drove him to his knees.

  ‘I knew you would come, Baran,’ said Spiral, his voice like a thousand arrows raining from the sky. He tapped the diamond-shaped box of unused time in his hands. ‘I saw it.’

  Spiral drew a shuddery breath as he siphoned the thaumaturgy from Wolfe’s body, devoured it, added it to his own power.

  ‘Iblisha, please …’ Wolfe groaned.

  But the plea fell on deaf ears.

  By the time Spiral had drained his fellow Skywatcher of higher magic, the echo of Van Bam felt as though his soul had been stolen.

  Spiral’s eyes were luminous, violet orbs as he looked back at his Genii. ‘Viktor, take his wings.’

  Gadreel didn’t hesitate. The brutish Genii stamped forward and moved in on Wolfe, to carry out his lord’s order.

  Still trapped in the clutches of Spiral’s thaumaturgy, weakened by the loss of his own magic, Wolfe could only issue a series of piteous cries as Viktor Gadreel ripped the silver wings from his back, tearing flesh and muscle, breaking bones.

  The echo of Van Bam screamed.

  When Gadreel was done, he dropped the wings upon the auditorium floor in front of Wolfe. They had lost all malleability, and thumped to the dusty wooden boards as solid silver, smeared in the blood of the Skywatcher. Gadreel returned with bloodied hands to stand alongside his fellow Genii.

  ‘Had Lady Amilee been in your position,’ Spiral said, ‘she would have had the good sense to come here with reinforcements’ His beautiful, terrible face betrayed no emotion, but a single tear ran down his face into his thick beard. ‘But you, my dear Baran, always trusted to logic, assured that reason would prevail – the compassion of the Timewatcher.’

  Defeated, torn and stripped of power, Wolfe had not the strength to weep.

  ‘But we do not have to walk separate paths, my brother,’ Spiral continued. ‘I would like you to see what I have done. I would have you serve at my side, just as you and I once served our Mother. I’ve no need to hide anymore.’

  Wolfe and the echo of Van Bam could do nothing but watch, as Spiral held Known Things out at arm’s length and once again summoned his higher magic. The black tattoos of the thaumaturgic language moved upon his body, the shapes and symbols losing their forms, becoming straight lines that began sliding over his muscles. Like snakes they slithered up to his shoulders, travelled down his arms, over his hands, and onto the smooth, glassy surface of the obsidian diamond that he held.

  The language of the Thaumaturgists reconfigured upon Known Things, and each symbol flared with the purple light of higher magic.

  ‘You came here for answers, Baran, and I will give them to you,’ Spiral whispered. Tears were falling freely from his violet eyes. ‘You will be my records keeper, and you shall have a title. You will be Voice of Known Things.’

  As Spiral approached Wolfe, two gelatinous tubes emerged from the obsidian body of the diamond-shaped box, and the symbols of Thaumaturgy intensified, the purple light blazing like fire. The gelatinous tubes whipped the air, as they advanced on Wolfe’s face. The echo of Van Bam sobbed and begged for mercy as Spiral gave Known Things its voice.

  Ringing like a wet finger sliding around the rim of a wine glass, one of the gelatinous tubes set as hard as crystal and stabbed into Lord Wolfe’s temple, punching through his skull and lancing into his brain. The other tube slid into his mouth, down his throat, into his airway, where it too hardened to glass. Wolfe’s eyes closed as fluid ran along the tubes, and he began forgetting everything he had ever been. Known Things filled his lungs with Spiral’s concealed truths, and poured hidden time into his mind.

  Mercifully, the echo of Van Bam was thrown from the Skywatcher’s body. His vision raced back until he was again
observing from the safe confines of the message sphere, secreted in a high corner of the auditorium.

  Slumped on the dusty wooden floor, in a pool of his own blood, Baran Wolfe, the Wanderer, Honoured Lord of the Thaumaturgists, was on his knees. Broken and drained of higher magic, eyes closed, the glass umbilici connected him to the black diamond in his hands. Spiral stood over him, tall and powerful. The Genii were lined up behind their lord.

  At a flick of Spiral’s hand the diamond tattoo on Wolfe’s forehead smouldered and burned away, leaving a red and ugly wound.

  ‘Now, tell me your name,’ Spiral demanded.

  ‘Voice of Known Things.’ The reply seemed to come from all places at once, each word provoking the thaumaturgic symbols on the box to flare.

  ‘And what is your purpose?’

  ‘To speak the truths that the Lord Spiral wishes me to speak.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Spiral. ‘Hagi.’

  Lady Tabet stepped up alongside him. ‘Yes, my lord?’

  Spiral pointed at the silver wings on the floor, coated in the blood. ‘Take those, but do not clean them. Ensure they are delivered to Lady Amilee exactly as they are.’

  ‘With pleasure, my lord.’

  Hagi Tabet approached the wings with an outstretched hand. Summoning her thaumaturgy, she lifted them off the floor. With the silver appendages floating before her, Tabet walked past Voice of Known Things, and disappeared from Van Bam’s view.

  ‘Lady Asajad,’ Spiral said, ‘you will remain here. The Falls of Dust and Silver is now yours to command. Go about your duties.’

  ‘As you wish, my lord,’ Mo Asajad said. Breathless with excitement she too left the auditorium.

  ‘And you, Viktor,’ Spiral continued. ‘It is time to alert our fellow Genii. Tell them to burn the mark of the Thaumaturgist from their skins, and rally our Aelfirian allies. Tell them the time has come. Tell them to prepare for war.’

  With a savage glint in his eyes, Viktor Gadreel strode away.

  Spiral turned to the last remaining Genii.

  ‘Fabian,’ he said affectionately.

  Lord Moor drew himself up, proud and eager to serve the creature of higher magic before him.

  ‘You have been with me from the beginning,’ Spiral said. ‘The first to follow me, my most trusted confidant.’

  ‘What would you have me do, my lord?’

  ‘First, you are to take Voice of Known Things back to the Cathedral of Doubt and Wonder. You will find Yves Harrow waiting for you there. He knows what to do with this wretch next.’

  Moor nodded. ‘And then, my lord?’

  ‘And then you are to wait for me. There is a duty that I trust only you to perform, Fabian. Your part in the coming war might prove the most dangerous of all.’

  As Moor strode towards Voice of Known Things, the images darkened until Van Bam knew true blindness for the first time, and the last echo of his consciousness faded to silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  Unknown Things

  Clara’s mind cleared. She found herself facing Van Bam. The two of them were surrounded by a soft blue glow. The shaken expression on the illusionist’s face convinced Clara that he had witnessed the same thing as herself.

  ‘Shit,’ Clara said. ‘Did we just see the start of the Genii War?’

  Van Bam could only nod. He looked as confused as she felt.

  Clara shook herself, and rubbed her face. She knew that what she had experienced had been much more than merely seeing the start of the Genii War. It was as though her spirit had been dragged back forty years in time, to a place that didn’t exist in the present, a House called the Falls of Dust and Silver. Clara had suffered the anxiety, the humiliation, the agony that belonged to Lord Baran Wolfe. She knew, profoundly, how it felt to be betrayed by a fellow Skywatcher.

  ‘Samuel is not with us,’ Van Bam said.

  Clara looked around. Nor were Namji, Hillem and Glogelder.

  The changeling and the illusionist stood in a strange chamber enclosed by blue glass. Clara had no memory of arriving in it. Beyond the transparent walls, thick and luminous mists wrapped the chamber. For some reason, the absence of Samuel and the others didn’t strike Clara as odd. Somehow, it made sense that they wouldn’t be there.

  ‘I wonder where they are?’ Clara said.

  ‘Evidently, they were not meant to come with us,’ Van Bam replied. ‘We can only hope that this is all part of the plan.’

  Lightning flashed, silent but fierce as it cut through the luminous mist outside, clawing upon the surface of the blue glass chamber with spiky fingers of energy – above, below, and all around.

  Forget the others for now, Gideon said. I think we are travelling through the Nothing of Far and Deep.

  Gideon, I—

  Stop, Clara, the dead Resident snapped. You, Van Bam and I have all experienced the same thing, and we’re as confused as each other. Don’t complicate the issue by speaking mentally. I have no desire to play messenger while the three of us are together like this.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said aloud. ‘The doorway at the museum – it was supposed to take us to Known Things. So where are we?’

  ‘Given what we have just been through,’ Van Bam replied, ‘I would say that we have been delivered to some kind of information storage device, perhaps a greater version of a message sphere.’

  Makes sense, Gideon said to them both. Our shared experience was as witnesses to events of the past.

  Clara shuddered as she remembered how it felt to have silver wings ripped from her back. ‘This thing is carrying us through the Nothing of Far and Deep?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘To where?’ Clara looked at the cloth wrapped around her hand. A circle of blood had soaked through from the cut on her palm. She thought about how it had felt to use blood-magic to open the doorway in the Museum of Aelfirian Heritage, and she remembered what Gideon had told her about his ancestors. ‘How do the Nephilim fit into this?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Van Bam said. He gripped his cane tightly in both hands, and turned his metallic eyes to the ceiling as more lightning danced upon their blue glass carriage. ‘I am struggling to clear my thoughts, to understand what any of this means.’

  Let’s all of us take a breath, and put this together piece by piece, advised Gideon. The ghost spoke without a shred of his customary spite. At least we now know what Known Things is.

  A records device that Spiral created from unused time. Clara had no idea what that meant, but she remembered vividly how it felt to be connected to Known Things, if only for a brief moment. It was not an experience she wished to repeat. But did she have a choice? Was that how the location of Oldest Place would be extracted from her?

  Gideon continued, I think the most telling fact is, whom Lord Wolfe recorded that message for.

  ‘Lady Amilee,’ Van Bam whispered.

  Clara had heard that name mentioned a hundred times before, but only now, with the residue of Baran Wolfe’s suffering still within her, did she truly comprehend what it stood for. Lady Amilee, the Thaumaturgist, the Skywatcher, the patron of the denizens …

  ‘It was Amilee who showed us Wolfe’s message,’ Clara said. ‘She must be the avatar’s master.’

  Van Bam agreed. ‘Then not all of the Thaumaturgists abandoned the Houses. But was Lady Amilee the only one who remained?’

  ‘And why doesn’t she show herself?’ Clara said.

  A good question, Gideon purred. All we can be certain of is that Amilee wants you to reach Known Things, Clara. And I think, via Lord Wolfe’s suffering, she has just told us where we can expect to find it.

  Clara flinched as the wall behind Van Bam shattered into a million pieces of blue glass that swirled away, sucked into the luminous mists. The magickers backed away as a circular tunnel formed in the mist. It stretched
away from the open chamber, cutting a pathway through the Nothing of Far and Deep; and at its end, churned the blackness of a portal.

  A lonely wind moaned. The portal rushed towards the chamber. Clara and Van Bam steeled themselves.

  ‘Clara,’ said Van Bam. His face was calm, but she could smell his fear. ‘Perhaps it would be a good idea if you changed into the wolf.’

  The Lazy House, nightclub and a whorehouse, was thriving. Firearms were prohibited in the club, and it didn’t matter how important or notorious you were, or which particular skillset you specialised in, everyone was neutral within its walls. It formed a common ground for Labrys Town’s underworld. The police feared it like criminals feared the Nightshade. But it wasn’t the clientele that disturbed officers, it was the vice and corruption so readily available: temptation, abandonment, revelry – the Lazy House catered for all weaknesses.

  Muffled music resonated through the stairs with a low, driving throb as Ennis made his way up to the second floor. The small wooden token in his hand, no bigger than a coin, bore the number four. It had cost Ennis twenty Labyrinth pounds, and afforded him one hour to conduct private business in a private room.

  Ennis didn’t consider himself beyond temptation, but he hadn’t come to this place to sample its sins; he was trying to gather information on the magickers of the Relic Guild, and thus far he had discovered nothing of use. As he made his way up the stairs, the heartbeat of the Lazy House thrumming beneath his feet, he felt that nothing he had found out was making much sense.

  Ennis was trying to piece together a profile of the Relic Guild. He reasoned that if he understood the magickers a little more, he might gain an insight into their methods that would provide him with a clue to their movements, their haunts, hiding places – anything.

  Earlier, after leaving the shard of strange metal at Long Tommy’s junkshop, Ennis had visited a couple of bounty hunters he knew. He had questioned them about Old Man Sam, the deadliest bounty hunter in Labrys Town, some would say, and undoubtedly the longest serving. They had known his reputation, but nothing about him at all. Ennis had then tried a few police informants, but they had been as clueless about Sam as the merchants had been about Van Bam.