The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  Marney moved quickly. With rumbles of higher magic shaking the ground, she fled back down the street and into the first opening she found – a broken doorway leading to the foyer of what appeared to be a hotel, though it was hard to be certain with the amount of wreckage inside. She slid a second dagger from the baldric, found a hiding place with a view of a smashed window and waited.

  A moment later, the soldiers crept by.

  One led the group with Denton behind him; the other two brought up the rear, rifles aimed at the old empath’s back. Denton shuffled rather than walked, clearly exhausted. There was blood on his face. Marney waited for them to pass before slowly, quietly stepping out onto the street behind them, a throwing dagger in each hand.

  She prepared herself.

  She attacked.

  The first dagger sank into the base of the woman’s skull. She fell, dead. As her comrade looked down at her in shock, Marney’s second dagger severed the artery in his neck. He sank to his knees, clutching his wound, trying to stem the shower of blood. His wail of anguish was all the more disturbing for the expressionless mask on his face.

  As he fell sideways to die, the lead soldier wheeled around in surprise. Denton knocked the rifle from his hands and they wrestled, toppling to the ground. The soldier gave his captive a crack on the nose with his elbow, but not before Denton had clawed the mask from his face.

  Marney seized her chance.

  Even as the solider drew his pistol and primed its power stone, Marney sent her empathic magic spearing into his emotions. Without mercy, she made the soldier feel how right it was to slide the barrel of his gun into his mouth and pull the trigger.

  The back of his head burst with a spray of red.

  Denton kicked the corpse away from him and got to his feet, stiff and awkward. There was a cut on his forehead and blood poured from his nose, which was obviously broken. He had locked down his emotions as tightly as Marney had. They stared at each other for a moment, as though contemplating the complete lack of emotions shared between them.

  Finally, Denton wiped blood from his nose and smiled. ‘You know, rescuing me was incredibly reckless. You really shouldn’t have taken the risk.’

  ‘Well, I did, so stop complaining and tell me what we do next.’

  Denton was about to reply when a boom of magic stole his words away. The Thaumaturgist and the Genii were still fighting, and their battle shook loose debris from the already fragile buildings and sent it tumbling to the street around the empaths.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Marney said.

  ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Denton replied. ‘But it’s not that easy.’

  He led Marney to the end of the street. Together they looked out onto the wild and furious display of thaumaturgy taking place behind the long wall.

  ‘The portal we need is on the other side of that wall,’ Denton said. ‘A little tricky to get to at the moment, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Marney. ‘That’s where the soldiers were taking you. It’s the portal to Mirage?’

  ‘Ironic, don’t you think? They were about to deliver me to where we’re heading anyway—’

  A great crack of higher magic shattered the air.

  Marney stared at her mentor. ‘You heard what the Ghoul said, Denton – Mirage has fallen to the Genii, just like this place. And we have to go there to reach the Library of Glass and Mirrors?’

  ‘Not exactly. We’ve been travelling the Way of the Blind Maze, Marney. By reaching the Burrows of Underneath, we have completed the combination to the lock. That portal won’t take us to Mirage. It’ll redirect us to the Library. In theory.’

  ‘In theory? ’

  ‘Nothing is infallible.’

  The old empath’s face became serious again as he looked back at the fight taking place behind the wall. Another clatter of higher magic sent a swarm of jagged sparks climbing towards the mountain-range sky. Shouts of rage followed, tinged with triumph, as though the battle might have found a victor.

  Denton wiped more blood from his face. ‘Let’s take a closer look,’ he said.

  When Samuel and Van Bam arrived at the abandoned ore warehouse in the southern district, they found Hamir inside, along with the twins Macy and Bryant.

  While Bryant stood watching, Hamir sat at a table slowly filling a syringe with blood from Macy’s arm. The twins – tall and broad, blonde-haired, with almost identical faces – ignored Samuel but looked surprised and pleased to see Van Bam. Hamir had no interest in anything other than what he was doing. The elderly necromancer had already filled two syringes, now stored in a wooden rack, and was working on a third. He was collecting the blood that would serve as food for the Relic Guild’s prisoner.

  Fabian Moor hung in his thaumaturgic prison, his feet several inches above the circle of symbols that had been carved into the warehouse floor. The symbols glowed with purple light and blocked the Genii’s higher magic, holding him immobile and powerless. Stripped of clothes and dignity, Moor’s head hung limp, his long white hair falling across his chest.

  Although the prisoner carried no visible wounds, Samuel knew he had been repeatedly tortured. On one occasion, Samuel had watched as Hamir deployed his special brand of magical agony upon the Genii, and he had no wish to witness it again. He didn’t want to know what else the necromancer had done in an attempt to break Fabian Moor, to force him into revealing what he knew about Spiral’s war plans.

  Samuel approached the twins and the necromancer.

  ‘Is he all right?’ Bryant said, gesturing to Van Bam as he swapped places with his sister and offered Hamir his arm.

  Van Bam, who had maintained the sombre silence he had been keeping throughout the journey to the warehouse, was standing in front of Moor, his bare feet inches from the prison’s glowing symbols. This was the first time the illusionist had laid eyes on the Genii.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Samuel said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Macy, rolling down her sleeve.

  ‘Hamir,’ Van Bam said, his voice hollow. ‘Can you show me Moor’s face?’

  Hamir paused screwing a syringe onto the needle in Bryant’s arm to give Van Bam a questioning glance. He seemed about to enquire after the reason for the request but evidently decided he didn’t care, as was Hamir’s way. With a whispered word, the necromancer gestured towards the thaumaturgic prison. The purple light intensified and Fabian Moor raised his head with a gasp. The Genii stared straight at Van Bam with unblinking eyes, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Thank you, Hamir,’ said Van Bam. Without acknowledging anyone else in the room, the illusionist stared back at the Genii.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Bryant said.

  ‘Preparing,’ Samuel replied.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t look all right to me,’ Macy said. She walked over to Van Bam and began talking to him quietly.

  ‘Preparing for what?’ Bryant asked.

  Samuel didn’t reply; his attention had been caught by a glass box sitting at the back of the warehouse upon the platform of the cellar elevator. Inside the box, a purple mist of protective magic surrounded a strange device: a head-sized sphere of glass filled with murky water and covered in a wire mesh and a host of thumbnail-sized power stones. When the Relic Guild had first captured Moor, he had been using the device to store harvested shadows.

  ‘Hamir,’ said Samuel, ‘do we know what that thing is supposed to do yet?’

  ‘No.’ The necromancer continued draining blood from Bryant’s arm.

  ‘Best guess is still a shadow carriage of some kind,’ Bryant said.

  ‘On consideration,’ Hamir added, ‘I believe it was designed to transport Mirage’s invasion force from the Great Labyrinth to Labrys Town.’ He looked pointedly at Van Bam. ‘An invasion that was thankfully sabotaged.’

  Van Bam gave Hamir a slow glare before returning his att
ention to Moor, while Macy continued to speak to him.

  ‘However,’ Hamir continued, ‘nothing can be known for certain unless the Genii is made to talk.’ He tapped a leather-bound book on the table beside the wooden rack. A gift from Lady Amilee, it contained powerful arts that only Hamir could translate. ‘Thus far, even the secrets of the Thaumaturgists have been unable to break him.’

  After filling two more syringes with blood, the necromancer told Bryant to roll down his sleeve. He removed a smooth metal cylinder from a bag beside his chair and used it to store all five syringes.

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

  Hamir rose and walked to the elevator platform, taking the cylinder and the leather-bound book with him. Placing the items on the glass box containing Moor’s mysterious device, he activated the elevator’s control box and descended into the cellar without another word.

  Well used to Hamir’s ways, Bryant gave a light shake of his head and turned to Samuel. ‘So what’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve just discovered the identity of one of Moor’s business associates.’ Samuel pulled a sour face and headed towards the eye device on the warehouse wall. ‘I need to call in Gideon.’

  A glass hemisphere fixed to the wall, the device was filled with a milky substance, giving it the appearance of a rheumy eyeball. These devices were scattered throughout Labrys Town, always watching the denizens, always listening to their conversations. If a regular denizen touched an eye, it would connect them to the police; but if a magicker touched one, the connection would be made directly to the Nightshade.

  As soon as Samuel laid a hand on the hemisphere, the milky fluid began to churn; there was a buzz and the Resident’s voice snapped angrily, ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’ve got a problem,’ Samuel said levelly, moving away from the eye.

  A moment later, the Nightshade projected Gideon’s image from the eye into the warehouse. He materialised wearing a dark green roll-neck jumper and black trousers. His face was gaunt, shaded by stubble, and his sunken eyes glared manically. His hands were covered in the pale scars of a blood-magicker. Gideon looked around the warehouse before his angry gaze settled on Samuel.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  Samuel took a calming breath. His relationship with the Resident had been abrasive since the day they met, and just seeing his image raised his heart rate.

  ‘Before we captured Moor,’ Samuel said, ‘we knew he’d been conducting business with various people in the underworld. This morning, I found out that one of them is Gemstone Llem.’

  ‘Did you say Llem?’ Macy said. She lost interest in Van Bam and joined the conversation. ‘That could be problematic.’

  Bryant puffed his cheeks. Even Gideon looked concerned.

  Gemstone Llem was a well-known name in Labrys Town’s underworld. A boss among criminals, she had made staying one step ahead of the law an art form. The Nightshade had been watching her for years, waiting for her to slip up, but Gemstone Llem never did. Until now.

  She was the daughter of an Aelfirian ambassador and a high-ranking human merchant. She spent most of her time in the Gemstone Isles, the House her father came from, while abusing her mother’s merchant contacts to conduct shady business in the Labyrinth that was very hard to trace back to her. When the war started, Llem, along with many other Aelfir, had been stranded in Labrys Town as guests of the Resident. None of them was allowed to return to their Houses until the Thaumaturgists decreed it was permissible again to use the portals outside the town in the Great Labyrinth.

  ‘Shit,’ Gideon said, irritated.

  Llem was problematic because she knew how to hide behind her Aelfirian heritage. Given that Aelfirian visitors were already afforded far more courtesy than the denizens, there would be a diplomatic quagmire to navigate if the Resident wanted to question her officially. Coupled with the fact that Gideon needed to maintain a good relationship with the Merchants’ Guild for when contact with the Aelfirian Houses was re-established, bringing charges against Llem without embarrassing her parents would be tricky.

  It wasn’t that Gideon couldn’t have her dragged to the Nightshade; he was the Resident, and in Labrys Town his law held sway no matter where an Aelf came from. And the situation was certainly serious enough to justify some heavy-handedness. But a lot of the Aelfirian exiles were already angry at Gideon for allowing the delegates from Mirage to return home while they had to remain – and they would only get angrier if word of Mirage’s treason got out. The Resident had to be careful and Gemstone Llem would be aware of that. Ruthless and clever, she knew how to make herself untouchable. To a point.

  Gideon made an angry noise. ‘Are you certain she’s been dealing with Moor?’

  ‘As much as I can be,’ Samuel replied. ‘I went to see Long Tommy. He says that Llem’s scared. Apparently, when we captured Moor it left her in the lurch and she’s looking for a magic-user to undo their business arrangement.’

  ‘Why?’ Gideon demanded. ‘What kind of business was it?’

  ‘Tommy didn’t know.’ Samuel shrugged. ‘Sounds like unfinished business, though. All Tommy could tell me was it involved a property somewhere in town.’

  ‘What property? Warehouse? Apartment?’

  ‘If we want to find out, we need to talk to Llem.’

  ‘That’s not very helpful, is it?’ Gideon said spitefully.

  Samuel felt his hackles rise. ‘I can only tell you what I’ve been told, Gideon.’ He gestured angrily at Fabian Moor. ‘It’s not my fault if you’ve had no luck talking to him!’

  ‘Shut up and let me think, you idiot.’

  Macy and Bryant tensed, ready for the Resident and his agent to add to their list of many confrontations, but Samuel bit his tongue and Gideon fell silent.

  The Resident’s eyes darted from side to side as he conversed with Sophia, the former Resident who now served as his spirit guide.

  ‘Obviously we haven’t got time to take the official route,’ Gideon said. ‘Yet we can’t exactly go accusing Llem of fraternising with a Genii.’

  It was a good point. There weren’t many denizens who knew that Fabian Moor was a Genii; most believed he was a wild demon who had sneaked into town. If word of Llem’s arrest got out and the general populace learned the truth, it might induce panic across Labrys Town.

  ‘Me and Bryant need to be careful here,’ Macy said. ‘Llem knows us.’

  Which was the problem with having agents working undercover in the underworld. Macy and Bryant’s magical gift of inordinate strength meant they got a lot of work as bouncers or bodyguards with various clubs and criminals, and for many years they had been a valuable source of information. The trouble was, to keep that line of information flowing, the twins could rarely act directly upon what they discovered without revealing their affiliation to the Relic Guild.

  ‘Unless you think this is worth blowing our cover for,’ Bryant said to Gideon.

  Again, the Resident conversed with Sophia.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Samuel.

  ‘You, Samuel?’ Gideon grinned cruelly. ‘Well, this I simply have to hear.’

  Ignoring the Resident’s acerbic manner, Samuel looked over at Van Bam, who was still staring at the Genii in his prison.

  ‘Can’t do this the official way,’ he said, ‘and Moor won’t tell us anything. So if we’re going to get to Llem quickly, we need to be underhanded.’

  ‘Make your point,’ Gideon snapped.

  It was Van Bam who replied, his grief replaced by anger. ‘He means that we have to do this the Relic Guild way.’

  The illusionist turned from the prisoner and gave Samuel a nod. Whispering, he tapped his green glass cane upon the floor and a crystalline chime spread across the warehouse. Van Bam’s image wavered, his clothes altering, his skin colour changing. In an instant, the illusionist shifted his appearance into the perfect likeness of
Fabian Moor.

  Gideon chuckled darkly. ‘I like your thinking. Do it.’

  Denton and Marney stood on either side of a slim breach in the wall. Higher magic rumbled, followed by shouts.

  ‘You shame the Timewatcher!’ It was a woman’s voice. Hard. Full of rage. ‘You shame your fellow Thaumaturgists!’

  Furtively, the empaths took stock of the situation.

  On the other side of the wall, a Genii was sprawled on his back upon rubble, a blanket of wavering energy holding him down, crushing him. A Thaumaturgist loomed over him. One of her hands was balled into a fist, glowing with higher magic that stretched out to a point, as though she held a sword. Defeated, the Genii could do nothing but lie prone before her power.

  Several yards beyond them was the stone archway of the portal to House Mirage – the final piece in the puzzle of the Way of the Blind Maze that would, somehow, redirect Marney and Denton to the Library of Glass and Mirrors.

  ‘You deserve no mercy, Lord Buyaal,’ cried the Thaumaturgist.

  Buyaal, Marney thought. The Genii who had taken control of Mirage.

  ‘You brought misery and suffering to the House I protected.’ The Thaumaturgist raised her sword of higher magic, preparing to stab down. ‘You are a traitor!’

  A clap of thunder disturbed her.

  A dark hole appeared in the air twenty feet above the scene. By the time Marney realised the hole was a portal, a second Genii had dropped through and fallen onto the Thaumaturgist.

  She had no time to defend herself. With a bellow of rage, the Genii – huge, hulking, powerful – brought both his massive fists down into her face like an animal in a berserker rage. He hit the Thaumaturgist again before grabbing her around the throat and hoisting her into the air. Her face a bloody ruin, she kicked wildly as the Genii squeezed. His hand flared with magic and the Thaumaturgist’s body fell to the ground in a heap, separated from her head.

  Marney locked down her emotions and steadied her nausea.

  The Genii glared at the head in his hand for a moment before casually tossing it away. He wiped sweat from his bald pate and then dispelled the magic that held his fellow Genii to the ground.