The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  ‘Hillem?’ Glogelder said worriedly.

  ‘Get away from the tunnel,’ Clara shouted, her heightened senses prickling with a new danger lacing the air.

  But it was too late. Hillem dropped to his knees, fighting for breath. Blood streamed from his nose now, and more poured from his ears and leaked from eyes as red tears, drenching his face and clothes. He held out a hand for Glogelder, his mouth open in a silent scream. Glogelder raced to him with a cry of despair, but as he neared an almighty pressure crushed Hillem’s head with a harsh crack, spraying his friend with a shower of blood.

  Glogelder reached his side just in time to catch Hillem’s dead body in his arms. ‘No!’ he bellowed, before a deep pop of energy punched the big Aelf to the back of the cavern, where his head struck stone and he fell unconscious.

  Namji rushed to Glogelder, making small panicky noises as she searched her satchel for a healing spell.

  Samuel took aim at the tunnel, his teeth clenched.

  They are coming, Van Bam warned, and Clara knew who he meant.

  She stood alongside Samuel, doing her best not to look at Hillem’s dead body and the sickening sight of his crushed head. ‘They’re here,’ she said coldly.

  She felt Van Bam’s fear.

  There came a drone. In the tunnel, the Toymaker’s lights began blinking out one by one, each automaton deactivating and clattering to the ground. The power stones in Samuel’s ice-rifle died next. Clara bent double, groaning as a wave of thaumaturgy hit her and sucked the magic from her body. It hit Samuel at the same time and he sank to his knees.

  Fabian Moor walked down the tunnel, picking his way through the now inert parts of the Toymaker. Behind him came Mo Asajad and Viktor Gadreel.

  ‘Please,’ Namji was moaning, cradling Glogelder’s head, ‘wake up, wake up.’

  Moor stepped over Hillem’s corpse and surveyed the chamber. His cool gaze lingered on Samuel and his face became a mask of hatred. Viktor Gadreel’s one dark eye bored into Clara. He looked surprised to find her alive; after all, the last time he saw her, he’d left her to the mercy of the same wild demons that had killed Van Bam.

  The changeling felt the ghost of the dead Resident recede further into the back of her mind.

  Mo Asajad’s expression grew puzzled at the sight of Namji cradling Glogelder and weeping over him, before turning to Moor.

  ‘Well, this is … surprising.’

  Moor agreed.

  ‘We kill them,’ Gadreel stated.

  ‘Not so fast, Viktor,’ Moor replied.

  Clara, like Samuel, was held immobile by higher magic.

  Moor and Asajad locked gazes. Something unspoken passed between the two of them, but there was little point in trying to decipher what it was now.

  ‘Lord Spiral ordered us to kill any life we found,’ Gadreel rumbled.

  ‘But as Lady Asajad pointed out, Viktor, finding this life is a surprise.’ Moor walked to Samuel, lifting his face up by the chin. ‘These are magickers of the Relic Guild, and I think Lord Spiral would be very interested in discovering why they are here, don’t you?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Future Reason

  Marney was frantic.

  The watery portal had disappeared after spiriting her away, leaving behind nothing but the thick red rock of a dead-end wall in another cave passage. Marney’s thoughts were for Samuel and Clara, Namji, Hillem and Glogelder. She had tried to search for the emotions of her friends, but all she could pick up on were the alien, indecipherable feelings of a former Thaumaturgist and a Nephilim.

  ‘We have to get them back,’ Marney stated, pleaded. ‘There’s no telling what the Retrospective will throw at them.’ She looked imploringly at Bellow. ‘Reopen the portal.’

  ‘I don’t know how to,’ the giant replied. It might’ve been the truth, but his mind was clearly on something other than the fate of the Relic Guild.

  Marney looked at Hamir hopefully.

  ‘I lost the ability to conjure portals a long time ago,’ the necromancer said in that maddeningly calm and genial way of his. ‘And we could be facing troubles of our own, Marney.’ He looked around the cave; huge, as vast as the passage they had just left and lit by an amber glow that came from somewhere up ahead. ‘Perhaps this is Spiral’s doing. He might have detected our presence in the Retrospective and is on his way here to deal with us.’

  ‘I agree with you, to a point,’ Bellow countered. ‘But I believe we were lucky.’

  ‘Lucky?’ Marney almost shouted.

  Bellow regarded her. ‘The Retrospective is ever-shifting, and it is under Spiral’s command. Perhaps he detected us and moved the location of the Nephilim’s prison a moment too late to prevent the three of us from entering.’ Evidently excited, the giant set off towards the amber light. ‘I do not believe Spiral has seen everything, and we have the bigger picture to think about.’

  Again Marney felt the overwhelming sense of home that Bellow radiated, carrying hints of things that he was keeping to himself. But Marney was reluctant to follow him, reluctant to move from the place where the portal had been and give up on her friends.

  Hamir took her elbow. ‘I understand how you feel, but Gulduur is right. The best thing we can do for the others is see this through to the end.’

  ‘What end?’ Marney snapped. ‘I’ve had enough of secrets, Hamir. What haven’t I been told?’

  ‘Come and you will find out for yourself. I would suggest controlling your emotions first.’

  Marney was rankled but summoned a shield of apathy and stopped feeling anything.

  They followed Bellow, and when they reached the source of the light, they discovered life unlike anything they had yet seen. The red rock had become soft, damp, almost muddy, glowing in places with amber crystals. Luminous fungus and miniature trees sprouted in clusters from the walls and floors. A carpet of soft, ash-grey grass grew underfoot. Warm, clean water dripped from above and humidity misted the air. Marney could hear the clicks and buzzes of insects. If she hadn’t deadened her emotions, she would’ve been astounded to hear the cry of a bird and the distant flutter of wings.

  Bellow chuckled – half in delight, half in incredulity – as he trailed his finger over the verdant leaves of a tree sprouting from the wall. ‘The Skywatchers really do have a complicated way of seeing the future,’ he said. ‘If Amilee played any kind of trick, it was to give me the answers to my questions in pieces – to allow me to draw my own conclusions.’

  ‘It’s an annoying habit of hers,’ Hamir muttered.

  Bellow chuckled again, this time with pure happiness. His bright blue eyes welled with tears.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Marney said, her voice emotionless. ‘And I want the truth.’

  ‘I’ve been carrying suspicions,’ the Nephilim admitted, ‘but now I am certain.’ He looked down at Marney, smiling. ‘Lady Amilee made promises to me that I believed to be hollow. But now I understand that they were just … more complicated than I realised.’

  ‘Promises?’

  ‘To help me find my home.’

  ‘Consider what you are seeing, Marney,’ Hamir said. ‘Life growing in a House of dead time and blood. Life encouraged by the presence of the Nephilim herd.’

  Marney still didn’t understand.

  ‘The Retrospective is founded upon the same principles that birthed the Nephilim,’ Hamir continued. ‘It’s almost as if it was created to be used by blood-magickers – of the thaumaturgic kind, of course. A perfect environment for such creatures, in fact.’

  Marney looked around at the strange life, still confused. The environment might have appeared peaceful, even borderline tranquil, but outside lay plains of hate and fire and perversion where nothing good roamed.

  Bellow said, ‘What Amilee failed to mention with her promises was that once my herd and me were reunited, w
e would have to build our home for ourselves.’

  Marney felt the giant’s excitement and screwed her face up, nonplussed. ‘In the Retrospective?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Bellow said, almost hungrily. ‘Come, Progenitor. Your children are close.’

  The giant set off again with determined strides, his huge feet crushing short grey grass.

  Perplexed, Marney kept pace with Hamir as he was dragged along by Bellow’s binding magic.

  ‘The Retrospective is the Nephilim’s home?’ she asked.

  ‘Potentially,’ Hamir answered. ‘Dead time, blood, death, recycled matter – it is the very stuff from which I made the Nephilim. If they wrestle control of this House from Spiral, they could transform it into whatever image they choose. Marney, the Retrospective is the Sorrow of Future Reason.’

  ‘Look at this!’ Bellow shouted, his tone a mixture of demand and awe.

  Magic quickened Hamir’s pace. When he and Marney caught up with the giant, Bellow was standing stiff-backed as they approached him, his emotions in desperate flux, threatening to boil over.

  ‘My people.’ Tears shone in his eyes. ‘My herd.’

  The giant stood at the edge of a mighty subterranean lake of clear water, glistening with radiance shining from deep beneath the surface. Marney peered over to see the source of the light. Despite her empathic control, a gasp escaped her.

  Down in the depths, giants drifted in the lake, curled up asleep in cocoons of transparent glowing amber. Hundreds of them. Perhaps a thousand.

  ‘The Nephilim,’ Hamir whispered, and Marney felt a flutter of fear coming from him.

  ‘My Progenitor,’ Bellow growled. He pointed to an island of black stone at the centre of the lake. From its summit, a deep green light sparkled like a star. ‘Your day has come.’

  Two bullets and a knife.

  The Nightshade knew Ennis. It spoke to him, steered his direction, taught him how to navigate its labyrinthine structure. And it was leading him to the cancer growing at the heart of the Resident’s home.

  Each corridor looked the same, each new antechamber as dull and uninspiring as the last, and the walls carried a repetitive, hypnotising pattern of tiny mazes. The air felt sickly, as though the very stone of the Nightshade was fighting off the disease of Hagi Tabet’s influence. Activating Labrys Town’s defences had weakened the Genii’s hold, and the Nightshade’s magic was seeping through her gangrenous fingers.

  Ennis descended and ascended short flights of stairs, passed through antechambers and corridor after corridor, never seeing a single room or window. The Nightshade was as complicated as a three-dimensional puzzle whose thousand pieces were comprised of nothing but a bland cream colour. Yet Ennis knew where he was going, and the building’s magic fuelled his courage.

  He held the gun that Long Tommy had given him, the charmed power stone primed and glowing red. The sharp blade coated in thaumaturgic metal was safely sheathed at his hip.

  Two bullets and a knife …

  If Ennis needed any further confirmation that Hagi Tabet had been weakened, he found it in the grotesque creatures he stumbled upon from time to time, almost tripping over them. Misshapen and pink, their skin hung in folds. With long, thin necks not strong enough to hold up spherical heads, their faces were cursed with smeared features and bulging pink eyes. Monstrous hands dangled from the ends of spindly arms.

  Ennis didn’t know what they were and didn’t care about anything other than that they appeared to be dying. Lying on the floor, either still or weakly failing to pull themselves up by the walls, they appeared to be fading from existence and didn’t notice the human passing by.

  The Nightshade let Ennis know that he had reached his destination when its guidance drew him to the sound of weeping and the first window he had seen. It was set into the wall, a big clear rectangle in the maze pattern. Ennis stole a glance through it.

  A scene of horror made his heart thump.

  Her body withered, Hagi Tabet hung on a web of leathery tentacles that had grown from her back to pierce the floor, ceiling and walls. Her face was filled with desperation, anger, hunger. Another tentacle smeared with glistening pink jelly had slithered from her navel and was writhing on the floor.

  The Woodsman was there, too, its axe hanging on its back. The demon was holding two children – Jade and Daniel – before the Resident, one in each hand. The sound of their tears was clear to Ennis, as though he was in the room with them.

  Tabet’s appendage rose above the children like a snake. Its tip inflated, opening a yawning, toothless mouth. Thin, greasy lips quivered.

  With an urgent pulse from the Nightshade’s magic, Ennis acted. He pressed his hand against the mazes on the wall next to the window. The outline of a door appeared with a click and swung inwards.

  ‘Stop,’ Ennis said before Tabet’s perverse tentacle could harm the children. His throat was dry, his tongue sticking to the roof his mouth. He stood in the doorway, aiming the pistol. ‘Let them go.’

  The appendage flailed, flicking pink jelly around the room as Tabet sucked it back into her body, leaving an angry red bud at her navel the size of a fist. She considered the new arrival with watery eyes. The Woodsman let go of Jade and Daniel and blocked Ennis’s line of fire.

  ‘Go!’ Ennis told the children.

  Whimpering, they scurried from the room.

  Tabet became agitated. ‘Magicker,’ she hissed and began swinging on her web. ‘Kill it!’ she screamed. ‘Kill it!’

  The Woodsman drew its axe with supernatural speed.

  Ennis squeezed the first trigger on the pistol.

  With a low and hollow spitting sound, a burst of higher magic shot a thaumaturgic bullet at the Woodsman. But it intercepted the shot with demonic reflexes and the bullet shattered the axe head with a dull clang, sending hot shards into all directions. Ennis yelled and threw himself out of the room, desperately knocking burning pieces of metal from his clothes. Undeterred, the Woodsman stamped into the corridor, cast aside the axe shaft and came for Ennis.

  From the floor, he took aim at the dark triangle at the front of the Woodsman’s hood and pulled the second trigger.

  The demon staggered back as the thaumaturgic bullet pierced the shadows of its hood. A screech came from somewhere distant, like a cacophony of death rattles from a host of wild demons. The Woodsman held itself upright by the frame of the door as lines of dull light cracked its skin. With a final roar it broke apart with a warm, golden glow, as if a burst of sunlight had cleansed the corrosion within the demon. It left nothing of the Woodsman behind.

  In the following silence, Ennis got to his feet.

  A knife …

  He dropped the empty pistol and slid the knife from its sheath. The blade’s keen edge glimmering with a pearlescent quality, Ennis stepped back into the room.

  ‘What … what is the meaning of this?’ Hagi Tabet tried to appear innocently bemused, but she only succeeded in expressing her madness. ‘I am just trying to help the denizens.’

  Ennis knew she was too weak to use her higher magic; the Nightshade was telling him so. If he left now, Tabet would most likely starve to death without the Woodsman. Not that Labrys Town could afford to wait for her death.

  Ennis moved closer to her.

  ‘Come,’ she pleaded. ‘Serve me as others have.’ She tried to smile. ‘The rewards will be great.’

  Ennis stared at her.

  Hungry …

  Two tears fell from Tabet’s eyes.

  ‘You’re a monster,’ Ennis said coldly. ‘And the Nightshade doesn’t want you here.’

  Tabet’s face screwed into bestial rage. She yelled a curse and the tentacle shot from her navel like a spear.

  Ennis was ready. He sidestepped the attack and chopped down with the knife. The thaumaturgic blade sliced easily through the leathery appendage, cutting it in half.<
br />
  Tabet’s low roar of pain resounded through the very fabric of the Nightshade. Her wounded tentacle whipped the air, pumping pink blood, spraying the room and Ennis.

  Ennis rushed past it and stabbed the knife into Tabet’s chest. The thaumaturgic blade met little resistance, plunging through skin and bone as if through wood pulp, and skewered the Genii’s heart.

  The ensuing silence was abrupt. Ennis staggered, breathing hard.

  Tabet’s watery, mad eyes stared up at the ceiling before rolling back in their sockets. Ennis retreated further, feeling sick, as the web of tentacles steamed and dried, cracking and popping, turning to brittle stone which crumbled and dropped the Genii to the floor.

  Hagi Tabet, the Resident of Labrys Town, moaned once, and died.

  Ennis wiped blood from his face.

  A drone shook the Nightshade, so low it almost rattled Ennis’s bones. The light from the ceiling prisms in the room and out in the corridor died, steeping everything in darkness. Then, one by one, they flickered back into life, a dim glow at first but quickly brightening to a clean silver glare. The drone rose in pitch with the whine of rising power. The Resident’s home was waking from a coma to find itself strong and full of rage.

  The sound of children crying came from somewhere close and Ennis hurried after it.

  In the bowels of the Nightshade, in a room called the Last and Lowest Chamber, the First and Greatest Spell stirred.

  Gathering power and momentum, a fat column of purple light danced and crackled with the very highest of magic that could be cast. Finally freed from its constraints, the First and Greatest Spell suffused the Nightshade, pouring out into the streets of Labrys Town, pure and cleansing once more. The column bulged before erupting with a mighty burst of energy that flew into the portal standing beside it.

  In the blink of an eye, the energy travelled an unimaginable distance. It reached the end of the portal, smashing a simple wooden door from its hinges. The First and Greatest Spell exploded into many scintillating colours as it filled the cave beyond and then flooded down a mountainside like lava from a volcano.