The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  ‘I know you’re here, Van Bam,’ he said to the room. ‘Do you really want to play this game with me?’

  The illusionist didn’t reveal himself and Samuel sighed into the silence.

  No one had seen Van Bam for the better part of four days, not since he returned from a mission to House Mirage with news of Angel’s death. Van Bam blamed himself for what had happened to Angel, and even Gideon had allowed him space and solitude in which he could grieve. But now the wheels of the Relic Guild were turning again and Van Bam was needed.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Samuel said, sitting on the windowsill and folding his arms. ‘We’ve got a mission.’

  Silence.

  It wasn’t surprising that the illusionist had chosen to seek refuge in this apartment. Although Samuel had never been there before, he knew what it was used for. Against their better judgement, Van Bam and Marney had become lovers and this was their secret nest. To find it, Samuel had to track Van Bam’s spirit. He’d found a hair in the illusionist’s chamber in the Nightshade and used it in the spirit compass. And considering that Van Bam shaved his head, Samuel really didn’t want to know which part of him the hair had come from.

  Van Bam and Marney had tried to keep their relationship secret from their fellow agents but everyone in the Relic Guild knew, including Gideon, who was never going to be happy about a romantic tryst between his agents. This dreary apartment was a private space where the lovers could meet away from the prying eyes of the Nightshade; where they could feel … normal?

  With their duties to the Relic Guild of paramount importance and Gideon looking over their shoulders, Van Bam and Marney’s relationship was doomed to fail. Samuel couldn’t understand why anyone would wish to pursue such a pointless exercise.

  Although, he had to admit, he wished Marney were here now. She would know how to deal with Van Bam’s grief.

  It didn’t matter to the illusionist that his survival had saved the Labyrinth from invasion; he took no satisfaction from the fact he had exposed Mirage and the Genii who controlled the desert House. All that mattered to him was his guilt; he had made it home while Angel had not.

  Samuel didn’t know what he could say to Van Bam to help him through this, but he did wonder how many more Relic Guild agents would die before this war was over.

  Samuel’s eyes lingered on the burning incense stick for a moment, and then he looked pointedly at the rickety chair beside the bed.

  ‘Should I light a stick for Gene as well?’ he said, a little unkindly. ‘Would you feel better if we grieved together?’

  There was a light, glassy chime and Van Bam materialised, sitting in the chair with his green glass cane lying across his lap.

  ‘I watched her die, Samuel.’ His eyes were puffy, the whites bloodshot, as though he hadn’t slept for a while. Stubble grew on his head. ‘I promised to get us both back home, but I left her behind.’

  Samuel could’ve told Van Bam that he had been the one to put Gene out of his misery. He could’ve excused himself by explaining how the elderly, harmless apothecary had been infected by Fabian Moor’s magical virus; explained that there was no cure for the virus, and the only way to stop Gene from becoming a bloodthirsty animal who would spread the disease had been to put a bullet through his head. He could’ve told Van Bam how that incident was plaguing his nightmares every time he slept. But he didn’t. He didn’t know how to talk about it, even if he wanted to.

  ‘Angel knew the risks of the job,’ Samuel said instead. ‘She served the Relic Guild for a lot longer than you and me.’

  ‘And telling me that proves what, Samuel?’ Apparently there were no tears left in Van Bam, only futile anger. ‘What does it change?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Samuel summoned what tact he could muster. ‘Seems to me you beat the odds to get home, Van Bam. This Genii in Mirage – Buyaal, was his name? Do you think any of us would’ve fared better against a creature of higher magic? Yes, Angel died, but that’s always the risk for us. You stopped Spiral’s army invading Labrys Town. Angel’s death saved a lot of lives.’

  ‘You were not there,’ Van Bam replied, his voice mournful. ‘You do not understand what happened.’

  ‘Then explain it to me, Van Bam.’

  ‘I cannot. I … I have been ordered not to discuss it.’

  ‘Fine.’ The Relic Guild was founded upon secrets, even between its agents, and Samuel had long ago given up questioning that fact. ‘It’s time to come back to us.’

  Van Bam stared at him for a long time. He made to speak, stopped, and then finally said, ‘Has there been any news of Denton?’ A pause. ‘And Marney?’

  Samuel shook his head. ‘We’re not allowed to talk about them, either. We don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. And I think that includes Gideon.’

  Samuel couldn’t stand the sorrow etched into Van Bam’s face and averted his gaze, looking at the incense stick again.

  ‘Look – Fabian Moor is our prisoner and he’s going nowhere. Hamir can’t get him to talk but his deeds are still playing out in town. We also have a new informant – a lowlife from the eastern district called Long Tommy. I went to see him this morning and he had some worrying information. I need your help, Van Bam.’

  Red eyes fixed on the floor, Van Bam nodded.

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

  Samuel climbed through the window. He paused, straddling the ledge, looking at the illusionist. Two agents dead, two more missing – it felt like the Relic Guild was on the back foot, even though they had Moor in custody.

  ‘I know how you’re feeling, Van Bam.’ Samuel was surprised to hear the genuine sympathy rise in his voice. ‘I …’ Not really knowing what he had intended to say, Samuel stepped out onto the fire escape. ‘Don’t keep me waiting,’ he said, before heading down to the alley below.

  A slender silver blade sighed across the square and stabbed into a soldier’s throat, just below his black mask. Choking, he fell and died, but not before squeezing off a few rounds from his rifle, shooting his fellow soldier in the legs. She screamed, dropping like a lead weight to the rubble-strewn ground. Marney slid another dagger from her baldric but she didn’t get the chance to use it.

  The soldier’s survival instincts had cut through her pain. She crawled behind her fallen comrade, rolling his corpse onto its side. The barrel of her rifle appeared over the makeshift barrier, and with a bellow of rage from behind her mask, she began firing at Marney. The rifle’s power stone flashed with bursts of thaumaturgy, shooting bullets with a low and hollow spitting sound.

  Marney rushed back the way she had come, following the crumbling wall of a tavern. Bullets cracked the stonework behind her. She made it to a hole that used to be one of the tavern’s windows and dived through, landing painfully on the debris inside. Scrambling to her feet, she pressed herself against the wall next to the broken window, turning away sharply as a bullet sent a spray of stone chips towards her face.

  The shooting stopped and Marney took steadying breaths, keeping her emotions locked down behind a magical shield of apathy.

  The Ghoul, the mysterious Aelf, had warned the empaths that they were heading into hostile territory, but they hadn’t been given a chance to adjust to their change of environment. After Lady Amilee’s portal had broken them into the Burrows of Underneath, Marney and Denton immediately faced seven enemy soldiers guarding the portal and the empaths had been separated. The appearance of humans had spooked the soldiers. While Marney managed to escape their clutches, Denton had been captured. The soldiers then abandoned their post, fleeing into the city and taking the old empath with them as a hostage.

  Marney closed her eyes and called out for her mentor. Denton! Denton, where are you?

  Silence. He wasn’t close enough to contact mentally and he was getting further away with each passing moment.

  From outside, Marney heard the wounded so
ldier shouting into some kind of transmitter, begging for assistance. Her voice was surprisingly clear through the mask. She cursed viciously, obviously receiving no reply.

  Marney needed a plan and quick. She was pinned down, and unless the soldier removed her protective mask she was impervious to empathic magic.

  The tavern was in ruins, much like everything else Marney had seen so far in the Burrows of Underneath. Most of the wall opposite her had fallen down, giving her a view of the road that led back to the portal to Cradle of the Rise. No point trying to return there. On the floor, the bodies of two more dead soldiers lay upon the debris of broken stone and plaster, splintered wood and smashed glass. The hilt of a silver dagger protruded from the throat of one; another winked from the lens of the other’s goggles.

  Marney had killed three soldiers so far. That left the one outside and the three who had abducted Denton.

  If Marney allowed herself to feel anything, she was sure it would be despair. The Burrows of Underneath was comprised of a series of huge interconnecting cities within what appeared to be a world-sized subterranean House, home to a hundred million Aelfir. But this city – whatever its name was – felt empty, deserted. There was no trace of emotions at all, as though every living being had been removed. Although that would make feeling for Denton easier, if the soldiers took him too far away – to another city, or through a portal that led to Spiral’s allies – Marney might lose him for ever.

  Gritting her teeth, Marney gathered her daggers, cleaning the blood off them before sliding them into the baldric. She crouched down beside the corpse closest to her. She decided against taking the rifle; she had never been any good with guns. Lifting a protective flap on the soldier’s utility belt revealed three small spell spheres about the size of grapes. She selected one and shook it. The clear substance inside emitted the faint glow of magic.

  The mask worn by the soldier out in the square protected her against magical manipulation but not from a magical blast. Marney narrowed her eyes at the spell sphere, trying to decide what kind of spell it held. Offensive? Defensive?

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ she whispered.

  Standing with her back to the wall again, Marney took a deep breath, counted to three and then rounded into the gap in the brickwork, hurling the spell sphere in the general direction of her assailant. She ducked out of the way as the soldier returned fire. The bullets cracked harmlessly against the wall. Marney heard the tinkle of shattering glass, followed by the drone of a released spell, and then … silence. Unnatural silence.

  Marney risked a look outside.

  The soldier was on her knees, rifle discarded, surrounded by a dome of translucent energy. She ripped away her mask, revealing an Aelfirian face expressing abject agony. She covered her ears with her hands and threw back her head in a silent scream. Blood poured through her fingers as she succumbed to some kind of sonic explosion.

  Marney watched while the solider wept tears of blood and more showered from her nose. She died and toppled onto the corpse of her fellow solider. Feeling nothing, Marney waited for the dome of sonic magic to exhaust itself.

  High above, a strange sky – if the Burrows of Underneath could truly claim to have a sky – rolled with dull crimson fog, thick as dirty smoke, forming an uninterrupted blanket of cloud. Colossal, jagged rock formations protruded from the fog like the peaks of a mountain range clinging to the ceiling of a monumental cavern. The atmosphere was humid and heavy, and Marney felt crushed by the vastness of this House.

  Again she tried to contact Denton. Again he didn’t reply. Her hand moved to the leg pocket on her fatigues, feeling for the envelope inside. Had the moment arrived? Was it time to open the envelope, memorise the instructions and continue the mission alone? Was it time to give up on her mentor?

  Marney’s empathic magic flared strongly, deadening her emotions so completely that to most people she would have disappeared from perception.

  No, it was not time to give up on Denton. As the last of the sonic magic dissipated, Marney approached the two dead soldiers in the square. With her foot, she pushed the woman off her comrade’s body. She pulled the mask from his face and studied it. The black material felt almost metallic but was as light as air; the lenses of the googles appeared to be simple tinted glass. Inside, the mask was inlaid with veins of copper wire and a thousand violet lights as tiny as pinprick stars in the night sky. Power stones, Marney reasoned, as small as sugar grains.

  The mask moulded itself to the shape of her face when she put it on and she marvelled at how easy it was to breathe through the not-quite-metal material. She heard a gentle buzzing which felt as if it travelled through the bone of her skull to her eardrums. The dark lenses cleared, showing the environment with a clarity that Marney’s naked eyes had never beheld.

  She stared down the narrow road leading out of the square, flanked by damaged buildings. Dark coils of smoke rose from the city towards the crimson mountain range sky. Marney did not want to guess how many Aelfir had died here.

  The buzzing in Marney’s head intensified, like static, and through it rose a barely audible voice.

  ‘… assistance required. Please respond.’ A man’s voice. Gurgling. Distorted. Desperate. ‘Is anyone receiving? Urgent assistance—’ There was a burst of static, and when the man’s voice came back he was uttering a long line of curses. ‘What’s wrong with these damned transmitters?’

  ‘It’s magical interference.’ This voice belonged to a woman. ‘It’s messing with our signal.’

  ‘No shit,’ said a second man. ‘The others must be dead. That human is still out there somewhere.’

  ‘And she’s probably a magicker, too.’ The woman sounded angry. ‘There’s no telling what she could do to us. I say we kill this one. He’s only slowing us down.’

  Denton. Alive.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ the second man replied. ‘We can make a report when we reach—’ Another burst of static.

  ‘Quiet, both of you!’ the first man snapped. ‘We’re taking this old bastard with us, and that’s an order. From this point forward, we’re on our own. I have no idea what’s going on, but screw this House. We keep moving and regroup in Mirage.’

  Mirage … Marney held back thoughts of Van Bam.

  The voices fell silent, the static lessened to a low-level buzz and the view through the goggles began to change. Still attuned to the masks of the enemy soldiers, Marney thought as her vision dimmed except for a strip of brilliant clarity. It began at her feet, travelled across the square and headed down the street into the city. At the top of the right lens, a red symbol pulsed faintly. The simple shape of a castle sat beneath a small circle: the House symbol of Mirage. The mask was giving Marney directions to Mirage’s portal. To Denton.

  Marney sprinted off, vaulting the dead bodies, running deeper into the Burrows of Underneath.

  The House smelled of ruin. The hot and greasy reek of smoke and death filled Marney’s nostrils despite the mask covering her nose. The air was laced with a residue of magic that prickled against her skin and her every step was dogged by chunks of fallen buildings and shards of glass. If not for the low buzz of the mask, only the silence of utter abandonment would have greeted her ears. The voice of this city was dead.

  Passing not one corpse or casualty, Marney wondered if the citizens had been subjugated, as she had witnessed the Genii trying to do to other Aelfir, forcing them with thaumaturgy to switch allegiances to Spiral. Had the inhabitants of the Burrows of Underneath been moved to House Mirage, too, where their numbers would swell Spiral’s army by tens of millions?

  Perhaps the war wasn’t as close to ending as the Ghoul seemed to think.

  Marney focused her attention on more immediate matters: Denton was alive, his three abductors were isolated and Marney had one chance to rescue her mentor before he reached the portal to Mirage and faced … what? Interrogation? Torture? W
orse, a Genii?

  She picked up speed. The goggles continued to give her directions via a line of clarity which took her through the ruins of a town house and out across a plaza, where a demolished fountain wildly sprayed water into the air and flooded the area. Marney splashed across the plaza and through the shower. The mask sent her right into an alley and then left into a wide street at the end. And it was there that the distorted voices of the soldiers buzzed in her ears again.

  ‘… what do we do?’ The snippet was panicked, the reply disjointed, mostly incoherent, but Marney heard the words, ‘Higher magic,’ and, ‘Take cover!’

  A burst of static coincided with a dull concussion that came from somewhere just up ahead. Throwing caution to the wind, her leg muscles and lungs burning, Marney sprinted. She approached the end of the street, where two tall opposing buildings had toppled and crashed together to form a clumsy, unstable triangle. The ground began vibrating. Deep drones of preternatural energy shook the air. Pieces of stone and glass fell from the triangle.

  Cautiously, Marney made her way under the precariously leaning buildings and peeked onto a wasteland of rubble. Her emotional control almost slipped when she saw Denton. He and the three soldiers were crouched behind the remnants of a long wall, hiding. On the other side of the wall, brilliant light and deepest darkness clashed in a vicious dance. The roar of magic rose and fell like a siren.

  Marney ducked back into cover, removed the mask and let it drop to the ground. The air prickled upon her face.

  Denton, she thought.

  Marney! His reply was full of relief and fear. Stay where you are. A Thaumaturgist and a Genii are fighting.

  Marney slid a throwing dagger from her baldric. Denton, can you break away, grab a gun – anything?

  No – wait! Marney, the soldiers want to take refuge until the fighting is over. We’re heading back your way. Hide!