The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  The Retrospective was in flux.

  To the east and west, the horizon raged with chaos. Mighty fire tornadoes, each as big as a mountain, shredded the barren ground, tearing poison clouds and bloated flying demons from the sky. In their wake, rivers of molten rock flowed and a new hateful landscape began to form. The Retrospective was recycling, feeding the hunger of dead time, growing, making room for the next consignment of raw material.

  Protected from the environment by higher magic, Fabian Moor and Mo Asajad observed a gargantuan rent in the air that had sent the fury of the Retrospective spilling into yet another Aelfirian House. Buildings, entire cities were broken apart as easily as castles in sand – crushed and crumbled to a storm of dust. A countless horde of wild demons slaughtered the Aelfir, destroying life after life, collecting bloody remains as fuel to feed the belly of this damned House.

  And somewhere out there among the horde, Viktor Gadreel had joined the slaughter, revelling in the new power he believed his Lord was sharing with the Genii. He was a fool.

  At the end of the Genii War, Gadreel had been leading an undersized Aelfirian army at the Burrows of Underneath, a monumental House comprised of a cluster of huge subterranean cities. Gadreel failed to conquer the House, suffering a final defeat when the Last Storm came. Had Lord Spiral not saved him – as he had Moor and Asajad – Gadreel would have died alongside his army. The hulking Genii had never forgotten his defeat or forgiven the House which had given it to him. And now the opportunity to exact revenge had inflamed his desire to fervent heights.

  The Burrows of Underneath was sucked into the Retrospective in great plumes of crimson smoke, devoured by the fire of the tornadoes.

  All around Moor, the power of the House grew. Its army of wild demons would swell by hundreds of millions with just this latest addition to its mass. How many other realms were to come?

  ‘There is no place for us here,’ Moor whispered to himself.

  The sky bellowed as new clouds roiled and unleashed a downpour of acid.

  ‘I’ve not yet had the chance to tell you, Fabian,’ said Asajad, watching the acid sizzle and smoke as it hit the dome of thaumaturgy protecting the two Genii. ‘When our Lord instructed me to return to the Labyrinth and spread our … disease, I took the opportunity to speak with Hagi Tabet on the way back.’

  Moor frowned at her.

  Asajad kept her eyes on the rain. ‘Hagi learned a thing or two during her connection to Known Things that Lord Spiral does not wish us to know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She discovered why he is toying with the denizens instead of simply adding them and the Labyrinth to the Retrospective.’ Asajad looked at him. ‘Spiral cannot achieve his aims unless the denizens die before their House.’

  Moor looked out across the chaos of the Retrospective. Spiral’s spy, Tal the Ghoul, had accompanied Gadreel into the Burrows of Underneath. Spiral himself was … somewhere, consulting the skies. It was probable that this conversation remained between Moor and Asajad, but things that Spiral didn’t want his Genii to know were a treacherous subject matter.

  Moor drew a breath. ‘Explain?’

  Asajad moved closer to him. ‘The First and Greatest Spell,’ she said. ‘It is currently incomplete. Shards of its magic reside in the souls of the denizens. These shards condition the humans, force them to remain faithful to the Mother who abandoned them. Did you know this, Fabian?’

  ‘No.’ Enforced faith? This was a strange revelation indeed. ‘You are certain this is true?’

  ‘The Timewatcher Herself made it so,’ Asajad replied. ‘And according to Hagi, She only ever shared the information with Her Skywatchers.’

  But Spiral never saw fit to share it with his Genii …

  Asajad continued, ‘If Spiral allowed the Retrospective to grind the First and Greatest Spell into the substance of dead time now, its power would be sorely diminished, incapable of helping Spiral to achieve his dreams. But if the denizens die first—’

  ‘Then the shards of the Timewatcher’s magic return to the source, and the Spell will be complete.’

  ‘Thus giving Spiral all he needs to change the face of existence.’

  Asajad’s words made so much sense that Moor felt his resolve, his hope, his faith crumble to lifeless earth inside him. It explained why Spiral hadn’t wanted the humans destroyed during the Genii War, and revealed the real reason why he had needed the Timewatcher and Thaumaturgists out of the way before he implemented his plans. It had always been about the Retrospective, this cursed place of blood and hate and dead time. Spiral had foreseen what it could become with the First and Greatest Spell – the most ambitious and powerful creation magic ever cast, spanning a millennium, reaching into all worlds and realms.

  ‘The Timewatcher’s greatest achievement will be Her gravest mistake,’ Asajad said. ‘With Her magic, Lord Iblisha Spiral will rise to a new kind of Watcherhood.’

  The Watcher of Dead Time … what manner of anti-life would such a creature breed?

  The harsh light of truth banished the last shadows of doubt from Moor. With utter certainty he knew then that there was no place for the Genii in Spiral’s remade existence, and Spiral had always known that. Used and betrayed, Fabian Moor, the most trusted of all the Genii, had never been more than a rescuer, a stepping stone, and his part in the long game had ended. But what could he, Asajad and blinkered Gadreel do about that now? There would be no escaping the Retrospective.

  As though sharing his feelings, Asajad added, ‘Lady Tabet also discovered something else in Known Things. Let’s call it recently added information of which our Lord is not aware.’

  ‘Clara,’ Moor realised with a jolt. ‘Known Things took the changeling’s memories.’ And Spiral had destroyed Known Things before he could read them.

  Asajad stepped closer still, her voice barely a whisper as she spoke quickly. ‘Hagi wasn’t particularly clear, but I ascertained enough to believe that we might not have thwarted Lady Amilee’s plans against us after all, and that she hid her true intent from divination.’

  ‘Amilee?’ Moor pushed aside his sense of hopelessness.

  ‘Consider what our lord told us of the Nephilim, Fabian, and this prison he created for them. What if Amilee knows of it, too?’

  The greatest blood-magickers the realms had ever seen, Spiral had said, perfect creatures uniting higher magic and dead time. And they could not die unless Simowyn Hamir died. If the Nephilim were free, would they be powerful enough to stand against Spiral? Was there still hope for the last of the Genii?

  Asajad spoke on. ‘Given Spiral’s state of mind and that he is so reticent with us while believing that Amilee poses no threat, I am loath to bring this matter to his attention.’

  Moor read her underlying meaning. ‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘Keeping information from him is not the wisest course of action, but admitting that we have uncovered his secrets would incur his wrath.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Fabian – had it been up to me, I would have stormed the Skywatcher’s tower and drunk the thaumaturgy straight from her veins.’ Her tone became conspiratorial. ‘But consider this – if Amilee has found a way to prevent the Retrospective from reaching the First and Greatest Spell … well, the contents of Known Things was not meant for us, so perhaps it is best to trust in our Lord’s methods and let events unfold as they will?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Moor thought of the Houses and realms to which a Genii might escape and hide. He looked at Asajad’s pale face and knew in his heart that for the first time in over a millennia the two Genii were of a single mind.

  ‘We could have been glorious, Fabian,’ she said – angry, betrayed. ‘Mother Earth was supposed to be ours. It is not enough that we sacrificed so much to reap so little.’

  ‘We should have seen it coming,’ Moor replied. ‘Did you ever once witness Spiral mourn for the Genii who fell in his name?’
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  ‘All I know for certain is that our time is running out. Perhaps one of us should return to Hagi and see if she discovered anything else that might aid our survival—’

  She looked up as a cloud burst directly overhead with a roar of thunder. A fiery mass was released which sped down like a meteor, leaving behind a trail of billowing black smoke.

  Gadreel materialised within the protective dome. Gore-spattered, he looked confused at having been pulled so suddenly from the razing of the Burrows of Underneath. Tal the Ghoul accompanied him, appearing none the worse for wear.

  ‘What is this?’ Gadreel demanded, bloodlust in his eyes.

  He received no answer.

  Above, the fiery mass morphed into the shape of Lord Iblisha Spiral, borne on silver wings. He passed through the protective magic without hindrance and landed gracefully. His wings rose above him like wicked scythes. His beautiful, terrible face was creased with anger.

  ‘My lord,’ Gadreel said, bowing.

  Spiral’s violet eyes flared and dimmed with insanity. ‘Time does not move swiftly enough and the sky is hiding much from me.’ He spoke as though he was continuing an argument – perhaps one he’d been having with himself. ‘There are things I cannot yet see.’ He threw a chittering mass on the ground. ‘One of my demons found this in a cave.’

  It was an insect, some kind of mite. Around the size of a fist, its glass-like body was filled with an amber glow. Moor and Asajad shared a look.

  ‘It shouldn’t be here,’ Spiral hissed, as though the mite’s existence was the fault of someone present. ‘You will take an army of demons to where this thing was found,’ he ordered his Genii. ‘You will destroy any life you find there.’ He stamped on the creature, crushing its shell, deadening its glow. ‘And then we will return to the Labyrinth and hasten the deaths of the denizens.’

  The group travelled in silence.

  When the tunnel split into two paths again, the Orphan showed them which way to go, and the passage began gradually rising. Although no one spoke of it, there was genuine fear that it might continue upwards until it reached the surface of the Retrospective.

  As the wolf, Clara’s courage held fast. She and Van Bam had been talking about Hamir.

  Something occurs to me, Van Bam said. We were given a brief explanation of dead time. We were told that it is a volatile substance, dangerous, and only the greatest creatures of higher magic can master it.

  But Hamir wasn’t strong enough to control it, Clara replied. The Nephilim were an accident.

  But can you not see the glaring hole in the information we were given, Clara? Did you not notice the evasion and hidden meanings that passed between Hamir and Amilee when they spoke of dead time?

  He sounded irritated, but not with her. A general aggression pervaded Van Bam’s voice. Clara had first noticed the subtle change in his manner when she initiated the metamorphosis. Perhaps her magic had injected a little of the wolf’s spirit into the ghost. This didn’t displease Clara.

  I’m not following you, she said. What did you notice?

  Dead time encapsulates the horrors of an era. Van Bam’s usually smooth and deep tone was more of a growl. The Timewatcher harvested it from the Genii War to create the Retrospective, yes?

  What’s your point, Van Bam?

  If everything we have been told is true, then from what era did Hamir harvest dead time to create the Nephilim?

  Clara looked at the necromancer. Walking beside Bellow, his calm, unconcerned expression gave nothing away.

  What happened a thousand years ago? Clara asked.

  The Timewatcher made the Great Labyrinth, Van Bam answered. It spelled the end of an epoch which the Aelfir refer to as the Old Ways, when all the Houses were at war. It was a dark and mysterious time, and little has been written about it.

  So Hamir harvested dead time from the Old Ways? Clara thought about that, unable to see any significance. Does it matter? He was a Thaumaturgist back then – he probably did lots of things that don’t have any bearing on what we need to do now.

  Understand what I am saying. Van Bam was definitely irritated with Clara now. The others might believe that Hamir’s secrets have been revealed and he has nothing left to hide, but that necromancer, along with Amilee, is still hiding much from us.

  Glogelder tripped and swore. Samuel muttered something about the temperature rising. Clara could taste an increasing bitterness in the air.

  When this is over, Van Bam added more calmly, I would advise you to have a long talk with Simowyn Hamir, Clara.

  ‘What is it?’ Samuel said.

  The old bounty hunter was talking to Bellow, who had moved to the side of the cave and was studying a section of the huge wall which reflected light like glass.

  ‘Something is there,’ Bellow said. ‘Clara, we need darkness.’

  With a growl, the wolf ordered the Toymaker to hide its lights. The scuttling automatons swarmed behind a large boulder, where the glow from its many parts was shielded and deflected away from what Bellow was seeing. Silence was broken only by the Orphan’s impatient clicks and hisses in the darkness.

  Clara bared her teeth.

  ‘What in the Timewatcher’s name is that?’ Namji whispered.

  A large, glassy, uneven section of the wall acted like a tinted window, providing a view into somewhere outside the cave tunnel. On what looked to be the bottom of a ravine, a mass bigger than the boulder the Toymaker was hiding behind lay on scorched rock. Like a bloated belly, devoid of chest or limbs or head, it undulated as though filled with something living. Patches of hair grew from flesh tainted with the sickly hue of disease, coiling like small tentacles. No sound accompanied the images.

  ‘Is it a demon?’ Hillem asked.

  No one answered.

  A monster came into view and approached the bloated mass. Stick-thin but taller than Bellow, it moved with an awkward gait, using overly long arms which widened to wicked blades of bone as walking sticks. Its skin was charred and raw in places, its eyes tiny black beads, but its mouth was large and filled with blocky teeth. The nostrils of the monster’s flat nose widened to gaping slits as it smelled the bloated mass hungrily.

  ‘Let’s hope it can’t see us,’ Glogelder muttered.

  The monster raised its arms and struck. Both blades of bone stabbed into flab, tearing huge wounds in diseased flesh. Blood poured, looking more like rancid melted butter. But following it came something the monster clearly didn’t expect. Arachnids. Hundreds of them. The colour of poison, they scurried to be free on armoured legs, quickly emptying the bloated mass to a flaccid sack. They rushed the monster and knocked it to the ground, and in a heartbeat nothing of it could be seen beneath a writhing, feeding swarm.

  Hamir said, ‘Something is … changing.’

  A dazzling blaze of fire shone through the window, savage but soundless, its heat unfelt. Only Bellow and Hamir didn’t step away from it. The monster and arachnids were burned away instantly by a blistering wind. The walls of the ravine crumbled and melted to molten falls that became steaming rivers flowing across the ruin of flat landscape.

  ‘The Retrospective,’ Hamir said. ‘In case any of you needed reminding of what waits outside this cave.’

  Noxious gas rose towards a hateful sky the colour of bruises. Spears of lightning stabbed at the rivers, sending great gouts of molten rock into the air. Countless flying demons soared and fought overhead.

  ‘Ever recycling, ever changing.’ Bellow’s voice was low, whispery. ‘An entire House of dead time.’

  From somewhere in the darkness, the Orphan hissed angrily.

  ‘Yeah, we should move on,’ Glogelder said nervously.

  ‘Come,’ Bellow said.

  The giant set off after the Orphan and the group followed. The Toymaker joined them again, his lights lifting the shadows once more, and Clara saw the dismay on
her colleagues’ faces.

  Here in this cave, said Van Bam, it is, perhaps, easy to forget where we are.

  Thankfully, the path began to dip into a steady decline. After a short time they came to a sheer wall which blocked the passage except for three narrow tunnels burrowing into the rock. The Orphan led the way down the centre passage. The group followed single file, Bellow stooping to fit through, the Toymaker’s lights dancing. At the end of the tunnel, the cave opened out as wide and high as before. Ahead, the darkness was illuminated by the same amber glow as before.

  Bellow quickened his pace towards it, his long strides quickly overtaking the Orphan. The group had to hurry to keep up with him.

  Clara. It was Marney’s voice, soft and subtle in the wolf’s mind. Can you ask Van Bam something for me?

  Clara acquiesced. For all the empath’s abilities, Marney couldn’t hear the illusionist’s voice, which Clara was glad about; she had no desire to eavesdrop on the chatter between old lovers.

  Has he read anything unusual in Gulduur’s body language or micro-expressions? Marney asked.

  Clara relayed what Van Bam told her, though it wasn’t much. Bellow conducted himself with almost perfect stoicism; but, understandably, he was eager to the point of desperation to be reunited with his herd, almost too excited by the prospect to be fearful of his environment. Other than that, the Nephilim wasn’t giving much away.

  Damn it, said Marney.

  Clara didn’t like the way the empath’s tone felt in her head. What’s the problem?

  I’m not sure. Bellow’s figured something out about this place – about what’s making that light – and for some reason he’s not telling us. I think … I think Hamir’s worked it out, too.

  Funny, Clara said sourly, I’ve just been talking about Hamir’s secrets.

  Their emotions are so different, so bloody difficult to read. Marney made a frustrated sound. I don’t think talking to them would do any good, either.