by Edward Cox
Van Bam agreed. Let’s see where this leads.
This time, it was not a radiant column covered in glowing mites that they discovered. It was plant life. Luminous fungus sprouting in clusters along the base of the walls lit a large area of ground covered in a carpet of what looked to be miniature trees with fat, furry leaves.
Marney confirmed that she was picking up the same not-quite-complete emotions as before, battling to find sentience.
‘Incredible,’ Hamir said, sounding genuinely impressed.
Two narrow paths of black stone divided the miniature forest; and between them was a shallow stream of clear, gently running water that flowed from a spring in the ground. It followed a straight course before disappearing through a crack in a large stone the same colour as the paths.
Clara padded up to the water and sniffed it. It smelled clean, fresh.
I would advise against drinking it, Van Bam said.
‘This simply shouldn’t be here.’ Hamir almost chuckled as he gazed around at the plant life. ‘Utterly astounding.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ Hillem said, his curiosity ever present. ‘You say this is life, but isn’t everything here alive, in some sense of the word?’
‘Nothing should form naturally here,’ Hamir explained. ‘The Retrospective exists by recycling and expanding and remoulding what it already has – or what it claims.’ He inspected a patch of fungus on the wall. ‘This House is founded upon dead time, blood, waste material. But this … this is new, not native.’ Hamir thought better of touching the fungus and straightened, his face troubled as though struck by a epiphany. ‘It is everything I was unable to achieve.’
‘The Nephilim,’ Bellow said wistfully. He produced a curved knife from the sleeve of his robe and cut the end of his finger. He allowed his blood to drip to the ground, whispering fleeting words of blood-magic. His blood sizzled with energy, and where it dripped a new tiny tree sprang up, healthy green leaves unfurling from the buds of its branches.
‘Of course the presence of my people caused this life,’ Bellow said, as if to himself. ‘Some of their magic must have leaked from their prison. I doubt Iblisha Spiral has seen what is occurring down here. And my herd must be close.’
‘Or perhaps they’re right here,’ Marney said. ‘Look.’
The Orphan was no longer urging the group to travel further into the cave. The childlike demon was perched upon the cracked stone into which the stream disappeared, hopping up and down insistently.
Bellow strode down the path. Hamir hurried after him, obviously encouraged by the giant’s binding spell.
Marney gave Clara a warning glance before following, saying mentally, We should follow Gulduur’s lead, not question him or try to stop what he’s doing.
Agreed, Clara said. But stay close to him.
Bellow batted aside the Orphan and studied the cracked stone. Marney hopped onto the path on the other side of the stream and looked for herself. The rest of the group hung back.
‘What have you found?’ Samuel asked.
‘Blood-magic to trap blood-magickers,’ Bellow replied.
There are glyphs and wards carved into the rock, Marney told Clara. They’re radiating magic – higher magic.
‘This stone is a seal,’ Bellow said, his growing excitement evident to all. ‘It is a lock. Spiral must believe that only he can open it, but then … he does not know that he failed to trap all the Nephilim.’
‘The prison must be opened by higher magic,’ Hamir mused. ‘You are the key, Gulduur.’
Although the wolf couldn’t see what the giant was doing, Marney relayed that he was inscribing the symbols with blood from the open cut on his finger.
The Orphan screeched and scurried away as the stone split into two halves. The demon fled into the gloom, its duty served, the magic binding it to the group apparently broken.
Bellow’s bright blue eyes held a triumphant sheen as water pooled around his feet. The stream deepened as its flow was stoppered, no longer pouring underground. Bellow, Hamir and Marney stepped back as the stream rose before the broken rock in a veil of shimmering water ten feet tall and five feet wide.
‘Bugger me,’ said Glogelder.
With his bloodied finger, Bellow touched the water. It parted like curtains revealing darkness beyond. ‘A doorway,’ the giant said, and he went through, dragging Hamir after him, not waiting for anyone else.
With a nervous glance back at Clara, Marney quickly followed.
The wolf padded down the stone path, Samuel and the Aelfir close behind, the Toymaker’s insectoid parts scurrying around their feet.
But as soon as Marney had disappeared into the black, the liquid curtains closed with a splash that sent a wave of magic shimmering through the veil. The doorway collapsed, falling in a rush of water that steamed and hissed on the cave floor. The stream began to boil and froth.
‘No!’ Samuel shouted.
An overpowering stench of rot filled the air. Namji and Hillem gagged. The luminous fungus and miniature trees were beset by a preternatural decay that fast reduced them to putrid puddles which were drawn down into the red rock beneath them.
What is that? Van Bam asked.
The wolf’s heightened hearing was picking up a sound, a distant rumble made by thousands of running feet.
‘Shit,’ Samuel hissed.
His face blanked; his eyes lost focus; his body became honed by prescient awareness.
‘Listen,’ Namji said.
A tumult of voices, echoing, baying, heading towards the group. The ululations of wild demons.
‘For a minute there,’ Glogelder said through gritted teeth, ‘I really thought this was going to be easy.’ He checked his pistol and looked at Samuel. ‘What’s the word, sunshine?’
‘Run!’
Chapter Eighteen
The Last Stand
They came. An endless wave of misshapen beasts.
Ahead of Clara, Samuel turned to run backwards as he fired his ice-rifle, spitting dart after dart over the wolf and into the mass of wild demons the Relic Guild were struggling to outrun. His aim steered by prescient awareness, each dart as hard as crystal, Samuel never missed his mark. But even his sure-shooting couldn’t deal with a horde of this size, and he missed the two demons who descended upon Clara from the ceiling.
The first landed on the ground in front of the wolf, the second on her back, causing her legs to buckle. It stabbed hornlike hands into her flanks, the sharp tips digging through her thick pelt, piercing her skin. Van Bam hissed as he experienced Clara’s pain. The Toymaker swarmed the demon that had landed on the ground, each insectoid flashing as they administered lethal shots of thaumaturgic venom. Barking and growling, Clara shook the demon from her back and ripped the head from its shoulders with her powerful jaws.
Behind the Relic Guild, the mass of monsters kept on coming – screeching, baying, desperate to tear and rend.
Namji fired three bolts from her crossbow along the horde’s front line, which stretched from wall to wall. The vacuum magic slowed the pursuit, crushing and ripping apart any demon that came close to it, but Clara knew the effects wouldn’t last long.
‘Come on!’ Samuel shouted.
Hillem and Glogelder didn’t need to be told twice. Namji wasn’t far behind them, and Clara brought up the rear with her army of automatons.
If there is any safe place left for us in the Retrospective, Van Bam told the wolf in a growl, then Samuel’s prescient awareness will find it. Don’t stop, Clara.
The thunder of pursuit made by thousands of demonic feet shook the ground.
There was no time to figure out how or why the Relic Guild had been detected, or to worry about what had happened to Marney, Hamir and Bellow. When the demons came, they came hard and fast, pouring down the cave passage like the violence of the Retrospective person
ified. Blood-chilling cries and bestial roars echoed with the voice of damnation, bringing the stench of age and decay and hopelessness.
Most of the demons were behind the Relic Guild, a vast stampede of perversion reaching back who knew how far; but some had managed to get ahead of the group by burrowing through the red rock around them.
Look out! Van Bam warned.
But Clara was already aware of the danger. The ground just ahead erupted and a four-legged monster jumped for her. It had no face on its conical head, and the smily ebon carapace covering its body looked as hard as stone. It kicked at Clara with its forelegs, its feet more like bony clubs. The wolf dodged the attack, letting the Toymaker take care of the creature.
Hillem cried out in alarm as two more demons appeared from the ground before him. He thrust the barrels of his pistols into their gaping maws and burst the backs of their heads. As he did so, a section of the wall to his right collapsed and a monstrous worm slumped into the cave, hissing putrid breath from the void of its mouth. Glogelder reeled away, pumping two fire-bullets into its huge, flabby body. But neither the big Aelf’s shots nor Samuel’s ice-darts slowed the worm; in fact, their attacks only caused the beast to rear with anger. Once again, the Toymaker killed their foe with thaumaturgic stings.
The flight continued. The tide of demons remained endless.
Strength and time were running out, and Clara felt they were only fleeing into the jaws of inevitability. But while Samuel’s magic continued to lead them, they wouldn’t give up. Hillem and Glogelder dealt with the few demons who emerged from the ground and walls and ceiling around them – if they got the chance before Samuel and the Toymaker took care of them. Namji slapped her last cartridge of bolts into her crossbow as the group sprinted single file through a bottleneck in the cave. Namji turned and fired at the ground. Demons screeched and died, and the vacuum magic bought a few more precious seconds.
Where’s Marney? Clara demanded angrily. Where are Hamir and Bellow?
Keep faith, Clara, Van Bam replied. Pray that our friends have reached a place where salvation will come to us all.
Clara wanted to laugh at that. She wanted to mock Van Bam’s unwavering hope and give in to the wolf’s baser instincts, which longed for her to turn around and fight the horde, to face her death with pride. But she kept going. She was the governor of Labrys Town – even though she was probably about to become the shortest serving Resident in history.
Once again, just as it had seemed that they might beat improbable odds, the tables had been turned on the Relic Guild. Perhaps Van Bam was right; perhaps all they could do was hope that their missing friends had found the Nephilim’s prison and that salvation was on its way.
The cave narrowed again, shepherding the companions into single file. After Samuel, Hillem and Glogelder had got a little way ahead, Namji turned, shouting, ‘Go! Go!’ at the wolf and the Toymaker. The small Aelf pulled a spell sphere from her satchel, shaking it until it gave off the glow of angry red magic. As soon as the wolf and the Toymaker had passed her, Namji smashed the sphere on the ground, releasing the spell.
Crimson lines of fierce magic jumped and spat, forming a latticework of crackling energy between the narrow walls and rising high to illuminate the shadows above. Namji sprinted after Clara as the first wave of demons hit the spell. The magic sliced through them as easily as wire through cheese, butchering them into bloody chunks that slapped steaming to the red rock floor.
‘It won’t last long,’ Namji warned, and Clara increased her speed.
The passage widened again, the darkness ahead only lifted by the Toymaker’s lights. With a deafening crack, an avalanche of red rock fell from the high ceiling, followed by a demonic giant jumping down into the cavern with an earth-shaking boom.
Thirty feet tall at least, its hair and beard were thick nests of vinelike tentacles that writhed around a broken face with eyes like burning coals. Its arms and legs were as long and thick as tree trunks, its body covered with bony plates of armour. Its roar carried the rage and stench of the Retrospective.
Samuel and Glogelder dived to the ground as the giant swung a boulder-sized fist at them. Hillem darted back, but not far enough to avoid being skimmed by the fist. It smashed one of the pistols from Hillem’s hand, spinning the Aelf before he fell into a sitting position. The giant prepared to strike again. Hillem fired his remaining pistol at it with a yell of fear. The bullets pinged harmlessly off the armour of bone.
As the insectoid army of the Toymaker swarmed forward, Namji’s crossbow twanged. The bolt struck the giant in the midriff. Vacuum magic raged. The spell wasn’t powerful enough to devour their foe completely, but the giant’s bellow of pain shook the ground as its midsection was crushed and destroyed. The giant collapsed in two mighty cauterised halves, blocking the way forward.
Clara bounded up onto the remains, the Toymaker forming two defensive lines either side of her. Proud and strong, the wolf kept vigil as the others clambered over the giant’s body. Glogelder had to help Hillem, whose hand was injured; Namji and Samuel had no trouble, and they all made it safely to the other side. By the time Clara headed after them, the horde of wild demons were teeming down the passage again, and the giant’s corpse had begun to steam and melt to raw matter that would feed the Retrospective and create a new monstrosity.
The agents of the Relic Guild continued to fight for every scrap of extra time they could buy themselves, reloading as they ran, killing anything that got in their way. Pray, Van Bam had said, but Clara wasn’t sure the wolf knew how to.
Their flight became increasingly desperate. Strength waned, ammunition ran low, but the Relic Guild fought on.
The passage ahead was blocked by a great wall, the only way through it a tunnel burrowing into its base. Once the group had entered it, Namji fired yet another bolt of vacuum magic at the opening. With the spell howling like a gale behind them, the group exited the tunnel into a small rocky chamber with a low ceiling … and no other way out.
Namji’s magic moaned.
Samuel stood staring at the dead-end wall, breathing hard. Inside her head, Clara felt Van Bam’s hope sinking as the ghost studied the old bounty hunter’s body language through her eyes.
The end of the road, Van Bam whispered.
‘What now?’ Glogelder demanded, his voice thick with anger. ‘What’s your magic telling us to do?’
‘It isn’t,’ Samuel said hollowly. ‘This is it. This is as far as the cave goes.’ He turned to the group, his old face shining with sweat in the Toymaker’s glow. He replaced the spent power stones on his rifle with fresh ones, and his blue eyes fixed on Glogelder. ‘What’s your situation?’
The big Aelf opened the chamber on his pistol. ‘I’ve got two fire-bullets left.’
Samuel undid his utility belt and threw it to him. ‘You’ll find more bullets in the pouches. Namji?’
The magic-user dropped her crossbow on the floor. ‘I’m out,’ she said miserably, then looked inside her satchel. ‘I’ve only got a few healing spells left.’
‘I need one of those,’ Hillem said, wincing. ‘That bloody giant broke my hand.’
Namji removed a sphere from the satchel and crushed it over Hillem’s right hand. He groaned as the spell fixed his bent fingers and sealed tears in his skin with the pale glow of healing magic.
You could do with a little healing yourself, Van Bam told Clara.
She carried a few superficial wounds, but they were serious enough to have matted her pelt with blood, and some of them were still bleeding. Calmly summoning her magic, Clara felt the crushing rush of metamorphosis, felt the sting of wounds healing, and then she stood among her colleagues as the human.
Samuel gestured to the small automatons surrounding the changeling. ‘Tell them to guard the tunnel,’ he ordered.
Defer to him, Clara, said Van Bam. Samuel’s experience is our best bet here.
Clara nodded. ‘Defend us,’ she ordered the Toymaker.
The hundred insectoid automatons filled the tunnel, lining the floor, clinging to the walls and ceiling. The thaumaturgic lights on the ends of their tails protruded, ready to sting any approaching enemy.
Samuel said, ‘When the vacuum magic runs out, we’ll have to pick off any demon that makes it past the Toymaker. Hillem, Glogelder – make your shots count. Clara, save your strength for when we need the wolf. Namji, try to conjure some magic that could help us.’
With Hillem and Glogelder either side of him, Samuel stood at the centre of the cavern, facing the tunnel where the Toymaker glowed.
‘Last stand, eh?’ Glogelder said as he loaded his pistol with any bullets he could find from Samuel’s utility belt. ‘Well, then … shit on it all.’
‘You think you’ve got it bad,’ Hillem said. He was loading his own pistol with ammunition from his gun belt. ‘The last thing I’ll probably ever see is your ugly face.’
Glogelder managed a smirk.
Hillem turned worried eyes to the ceiling. ‘You know, there’s nothing to say they won’t come at us through the rock.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ Glogelder grumbled. ‘Did you think we weren’t scared enough?’
‘Listen!’ Namji snapped. She and Clara had moved behind the defensive line. ‘My spell’s run out.’
Clara realised that the moan of vacuum magic had stopped, and in its place faint hisses and shrieks echoed down the tunnel into the chamber.
Samuel aimed his ice-rifle, but then shook his head. ‘This isn’t right,’ he announced. ‘My magic isn’t flaring. The demons aren’t coming.’
Hillem crept up to the tunnel mouth. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said, peering through the Toymaker’s glow. ‘Something’s moving down there, but … but it looks like the demons are retreating. I can see— Oh!’
Hillem staggered. He faced the group with a confused expression. A line of blood trickled from his nostril.
