The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  ‘I heard these tales,’ Hamir admitted. ‘And I hid the truth.’

  ‘There’s no place to hide now.’ Bellow stood to his full ten-foot height, not facing Hamir but drawing a long breath as though to steel himself. ‘I want to know why, Progenitor. Why did you create us?’

  ‘I …’ Hamir’s voice cracked. He bit back against old memories and the angry heat that flared inside him. ‘There is nothing I can say that would not disappoint you.’

  ‘But you will tell me anyway,’ Bellow stated, raising the bowl of blood for Hamir to see. ‘I will not open this portal until I have heard the truth.’

  Lines of shining magic criss-crossed the oval frame, an incomplete spell. The almost childish defiance on the giant’s face was as unnerving as it was unwavering.

  ‘You were an accident,’ Hamir said sadly. ‘I tried to use dead time to resurrect the spirits of … of comrades, friends – those I loved and believed in. I thought I could master the power, but I was wrong … so wrong. I never meant for your mothers to die. I never meant to create the Nephilim—’

  ‘I have no interest in listening to you excuse yourself,’ Bellow said with a growl that emphasised his size and power. ‘There is a path that led you to the creation of your children, whether by accident or not. Now, tell me your story, Progenitor. Tell me why.’

  Fear came to Hamir then, threatening to drag him back into a time he had darkened from his mind long ago. ‘The story is too long, complicated. We do not have the time to … to discuss it now.’

  The giant sneered. ‘Truth or evasion?’

  ‘Why can’t it be both?’

  Bellow stood statue-still, his stare frozen, as though contemplating whether or not to use his immense magic to torture more information from Hamir.

  ‘You were right to say there is no place left to hide, but time is running out,’ Hamir said solemnly. ‘I swear I will tell you everything you wish to know once we have defeated Lord Iblisha Spiral.’

  Hamir didn’t know if the giant found sense in his words, or if he had never intended to carry out his threat – perhaps he was fearful of the truth, too – but mercifully, Bellow finally drew the last symbol of blood-magic upon the box of thaumaturgic metal and his spell was complete.

  A distorted noise like glass shattering singed Hamir’s nerves. The jagged lines of magic filling the oval frame blazed and imploded, leaving behind the shiny churning black surface of a portal.

  ‘I will tell Marney and Clara that you are ready,’ Hamir said shakily, grabbing at any excuse to leave the room. ‘They will provide you with an exact destination for the portal.’

  ‘I will not forget your oath, Progenitor.’ Bellow’s expression was unreadable, his eyes bright and large. ‘Your day is coming. The Nephilim will have their reckoning.’

  When Marney reached full awareness, she was surprised to feel free of pain. She opened her eyes a crack, blinking against the glare of the ceiling prisms. She was lying on a padded table, and someone had dressed her in black leggings and a dark blue jumper. On a matching table, Samuel’s coat had been folded up next to a pair of black leather boots, along with a baldric of throwing daggers.

  An Aelfirian face loomed over Marney, oddly heart-shaped, large green eyes filled with concern.

  The empath managed a smile for Namji. ‘The last time I saw you,’ she said, her words croaking from a dry throat, ‘I wanted to slap your face.’

  ‘I was fifteen!’ Namji laughed. ‘And jealous that Van Bam was your boyfriend.’

  ‘A long time ago now,’ Marney said.

  Namji helped her into a sitting position and passed her a glass of water. It was cold and refreshing on the empath’s throat.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Namji asked.

  Marney felt a little groggy and stiff but said, ‘Pretty good on the whole.’

  ‘Your wounds are healed but I’m afraid you’ve got some scars.’

  Marney shrugged and drained the glass. ‘I’ll add them to the rest.’

  The time Marney had spent in Clara’s mind, along with the search through Known Things, were still fresh to her, but the memories were somehow disjointed, out of sync. It would probably be a while before she could order them.

  Marney felt Namji’s sadness. The Aelf was looking at her with a serious expression. ‘I’m so sorry about Van Bam.’

  The empath controlled a wave of heartache. And regret. ‘Working for the Relic Guild comes with risks that we all try to accept.’

  Namji looked a little concerned by that response – suspicious, perhaps. ‘All the same, I am sorry, Marney.’ She wasn’t just talking about Van Bam’s death.

  ‘Me, too.’

  Marney recalled a run-down apartment above a bakery in the eastern district. Her emotional memories still clung to the warmth and happiness she had experienced there, shared with Van Bam – stolen moments of love during a time of hate. They had never officially ended their relationship after Van Bam became Resident, but … how could they continue as lovers if Marney had to share him with the psychopath in his head, who saw, heard and felt everything he did?

  Marney didn’t know if she had ever really stopped loving Van Bam, or just … learned to live with his absence. And she was sure he reciprocated. There had been moments over the years when Marney knew that Van Bam was watching her through the eyes on the streets, but he never invited her to the Nightshade – perhaps because he realised that she wouldn’t have accepted. Gideon had stood between them, kept them apart, as he had always planned to do.

  At least she had got to say goodbye to Van Bam in Known Things. And Denton. But …

  ‘I should’ve gone to Van Bam.’ Marney whispered to herself. ‘We could’ve stayed friends. Too late now.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said a man. Marney hadn’t registered him entering the room but she sensed his emotions now – worry, fear, confusion. He approached Marney with a jug of water. ‘Van Bam’s not gone, remember.’ He refilled her glass. ‘I’m Hillem, by the way.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ Marney said, taking a sip. She might’ve been hiding in Clara’s mind, but she had been conscious of what was going on around the changeling. Sometimes. She knew about Glogelder, too – and Gulduur Bellow. ‘I take your point, Hillem. Clara’s the Resident now, and I’m well aware who her spirit guide is. But I’m not sure how I’d feel about using her to mediate sweet nothings between Van Bam and me.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Hillem.

  Namji pursed her lips. ‘I worry that Clara’s a little young to be Resident.’

  ‘Again,’ said Hillem brightly, ‘remember her spirit guide has forty years of experience to draw on. I think Clara will do fine.’ He appeared to mean what he was saying. ‘She’ll be a good leader, and you certainly wouldn’t want to pick a fight with her.’

  Marney studied him. He wasn’t that much older than Clara himself yet he spoke with the confidence of someone who had decades of experience. His face was a perfect mask of charming certainty, betraying nothing of the anxiety that Marney could feel in him. In fact, if she hadn’t been an empath, she wouldn’t have known that he was trying to latch on to any form of hope that he could.

  ‘You can see why he made a good con man,’ Marney said to Namji. ‘He can’t possibly be as wise as he sounds.’

  ‘He is, beyond his years,’ Namji replied. ‘Glogelder – not so much.’

  Hillem laughed. ‘Glogelder has got me out of more scrapes than I care to count.’

  ‘As many times as your quick mind has saved him, I should imagine,’ Namji said.

  Hillem shrugged. ‘Brains and brawn – it’s a lethal combination.’

  Marney didn’t need empathic magic to know how Hillem felt about Glogelder. They were loyal, like family. No matter what happened, they would always be able to depend on each other. With a pang of nostalgia, Marney re
membered when it had last been that way for the Relic Guild. And how it had all ended.

  ‘Hillem,’ said Marney, ‘don’t ever forget your friendship with Glogelder. Don’t ever drift apart.’

  ‘That’s right – you’d be lost without me,’ Glogelder said from the doorway. He entered the room, followed by Samuel, whose expression was as closed down and borderline angry as always. Glogelder grinned at Marney. ‘And someone has to teach him how to talk to girls.’

  Hillem laughed. ‘Says the Aelf whose idea of romance is ten pints followed by a burping competition.’

  ‘Oh, sure, but you should see me dance!’

  Hillem shook his head at Marney. ‘Two left feet,’ he whispered.

  Marney looked into Samuel’s pale blue gaze.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the old bounty hunter asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ Marney replied. She swung her legs over the side of the table and got to her feet. ‘You know, considering we’re all about to walk into the Retrospective.’

  That statement chilled the mood in the room. Marney felt fear coming from the Aelfir but not from her fellow magicker. From him, only sadness.

  ‘I thought maybe some of us could stay behind,’ Samuel said. ‘But it’s only a matter of time before the wild demons get inside the tower.’

  ‘Wouldn’t make a difference if they couldn’t,’ Namji said. ‘We’d go with you anyway.’

  ‘Can’t walk away from this now,’ Hillem added.

  Glogelder nudged Samuel with his elbow. ‘Against our better judgement, of course.’

  Samuel gave the smallest of smiles. ‘Actually, I was thinking we could send Gulduur and Hamir by themselves.’ Something close to genuine gratitude emanated from him. ‘But I’m glad to hear we’re still standing together.’ Then his face became stony once again. ‘Amilee’s asking for us. The portal’s working. It’s almost time to leave.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Glogelder said, his manner professional. ‘No sense hanging around.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to Marney alone first,’ Samuel said. ‘We’ll catch you up.’

  Respecting Samuel’s wishes, the Aelfir left without a word.

  Marney and Samuel stared at each other for a while. He was trying to protect his emotions behind the hard shell he always wore to keep people at arm’s length. But he couldn’t fool an empath. How like Samuel it was to know what he was feeling while being unable to express it. Marney remembered this man so well, but a gulf of forty years stood between them.

  She grabbed the boots from the table. ‘I heard you, you know,’ she said as she put them on and fastened the buckles. ‘Somehow, a part of me heard you telling the others that you wouldn’t give up on me.’

  Samuel struggled with words at first. ‘I watched Denton and then you sacrifice yourselves to Fabian Moor to give the rest of us a chance.’ He shrugged. ‘I honestly thought I’d never see you again, Marney.’

  But he couldn’t express his joy for this reunion, Marney could sense. The fiery heartbreak of losing Van Bam burned too deep inside him. She took the baldric of throwing daggers and sat on the edge of the table, looking down at the slender blades.

  ‘During the old days,’ she said, ‘Denton told me how you came to join the Relic Guild. You had a tough childhood – as tough as Clara’s, I imagine. But I understood you better after hearing that story. It made me like you.’

  ‘I always thought you were a pain in the arse.’ Marney snorted a laugh and the ghost of a smile reappeared on Samuel’s face. ‘But I’m glad you’re with me now.’

  It was a grand admission by Samuel’s standards. He sat next to her on the table and Marney felt as though she had deflated.

  ‘I miss Denton, Samuel,’ she said, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I miss Van Bam. I miss them all.’

  Samuel held her hand. ‘Me, too,’ he whispered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lord of Lies

  The Retrospective was supposed to be the means to an end. Not the solution.

  The scorched plains of dead time had opened onto yet another Aelfirian House. Through a great rent in the air, trees and fields and cities were pulled into the fiery, poisonous belly of the Retrospective. Countless wild demons slaughtered and fed upon creatures of lower magic, gathering steaming, bloody remains – raw matter, compost – from which new monstrosities would grow. The Aelfir could not hope to stand against this pandemonium, not even if they raised an army of a billion. The Retrospective was inexorable. And soon, the Lord of the Genii would augment its power to new heights with the First and Greatest Spell.

  Fabian Moor stood on a hill of volcanic rock, watching, listening to the tumult of a dying House. Beside him, Mo Asajad also observed. Further down the hill, Viktor Gadreel had raised his hands to the spiteful acid sky, revelling in what he saw and heard. Unlike the hulking brute, Moor embraced no joy, for he had been listening at the Sisterhood of Bells; he understood the implications of his lord and master’s words. Although they hadn’t spoken of it, Moor knew that Asajad was as troubled as he.

  We will grow and expand until the only state of existence is a House of blood and dead time, Spiral had said.

  There had been a time when Moor had considered himself Spiral’s closest confidant. He was certain that Spiral shared every aspect of his plans with him, and his faith in his Lord’s methods had been complete. Moor’s faith was now blemished by doubt.

  How many Aelfirian Houses had Spiral devoured so far – five? Six? It was only the beginning; there would be no end to his pursuit. Not until the First and Greatest Spell had been ripped from the heart of the Nightshade and the Retrospective had accumulated so much power it would absorb every House, every world and realm, every form of existence to create … what?

  What happens next? Moor wondered.

  Before Spiral took the Sisterhood of Bells, he had opened the Retrospective on the Tower of the Skywatcher. He wanted Yansas Amilee to suffer, he had said; he wanted her to watch as the realms burned around her. Yet Spiral had shown no interest in discovering whatever plans the Skywatcher and the Relic Guild were trying to concoct. It seemed that he didn’t care.

  But Fabian Moor cared. And by the look on her face, so did Lady Asajad. Had Lord Spiral become complacent? Had Oldest Place damaged his mind beyond repair?

  Eyes scouring the destruction of an Aelfirian House, Moor was irritated by Viktor Gadreel’s childish revelry.

  ‘Look at him,’ Moor muttered angrily. ‘Did he ever once stop to consider what he is witnessing?’

  ‘You feel sympathy for the Aelfir, Fabian?’ Although Asajad’s tone was scalding, she had lost her supercilious edge and easy mockery. ‘Has it not always been Lord Spiral’s design to make them serve us?’

  Moor studied her shrewdly. ‘Serve us?’

  They had to be careful. Never once had either of them been given reason to question Iblisha Spiral; and to do so now was dangerous. The Lord of the Genii had become the Master of the Retrospective. He and it were one. There was no telling where Spiral was, or what he could hear.

  Choosing her words carefully, Asajad said, ‘Spiral’s symbiosis with the Retrospective is … ongoing. I suspect there are many things in his new world that he is not yet able to control or see. Consider – perhaps he can only complete the process when he has the First and Greatest Spell.’

  Moor looked at the hate and torture playing out on the horizon. In the sky, a flying demon dropped the two Aelfir it was carrying in its claws. Their bodies fell tumbling, screaming, into the writhing sea of monsters below. Gadreel bellowed a laugh at the spectacle.

  ‘Then perhaps while our lord is preoccupied with this latest attack on the Aelfir, he is not listening to us,’ said Moor.

  Asajad regarded him like the predator she was. ‘If you tell me your troubles, Fabian, I might tell you mine.’

  ‘The Retrospective,’ Moor
said quietly. ‘I always reasoned that it would be the weapon that brought the Aelfir to their knees. A deterrent for disobedience.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Asajad said. ‘Billions of Aelfir will still fight for the Genii’s cause. They will march in Spiral’s name on the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster, to a new war that would see him reclaim Mother Earth for his own. But it was not supposed to happen this way.’

  ‘Is Spiral creating a new existence?’ Moor added. ‘The Retrospective will become the future of everything, he said.’

  ‘If that is true, have you wondered what place we Genii will have in Spiral’s new design?’

  Moor looked out across the broken landscape as the Retrospective finished devouring the Aelfirian House and closed its mammoth maw. The raw blood and matter painting the land red heaved and expanded before Moor’s eyes; and even as he watched, fresh demons rose from the red ground. The Retrospective had grown, and so had Spiral’s army.

  ‘I will tell you this,’ Moor said to Asajad. ‘I worry that our lord has no need for anyone now.’

  Asajad made to reply, but then a figure materialised on the hillside between them. At first Moor feared it was Spiral himself, having overheard the conversation, bringing wrath and punishment to those who dared question him. But instead, a small, elderly Aelfirian man appeared.

  Councillor Tal, the Ghoul, looked exactly as he had at the Sisterhood of Bells, except for his eyes. They had become large pools of deepest black.

  ‘Lord Spiral requires your presence,’ Tal said amiably.

  Although the Aelf appeared calm and compliant, Moor could tell that behind those black eyes his mind and soul were screaming in agony. Spiral had turned Tal into a plaything, a servant, a whim, a shadow to follow him around. A spy?

  ‘And where might our lord be found?’ Asajad asked primly.

  ‘In his great hall.’ Tal pointed to something behind the Genii.