The Watcher of Dead Time

by Edward Cox

  You lost, Marney told the Genii. Spiral is dead.

  ‘I know.’ He looked both saddened and impressed. ‘Tell me, throughout the history of the Labyrinth, did the Relic Guild ever play a longer game than this?’

  Marney didn’t reply at first. Bellow continued to whisper.

  No more games. Marney’s tone had softened, stripping away all pretence until only the stark truth was felt. No more plots, no more secrets … this is the end.

  Tears came to Moor’s eyes. ‘The Timewatcher always used to be so compassionate and forgiving. But I don’t suppose I can expect forgiveness from anyone now. There’s nothing left for me.’

  You’ve lost everything. It was sympathy that Marney now injected into Moor’s being, and his newfound weakness latched on to it. Your power has gone, the rest of the Genii are gone – you’re alone, Moor, but … that doesn’t mean there aren’t any choices left.

  Moor snorted a bitter laugh. ‘Choices?’

  Think about it. Marney’s empathy became a sly snake, coiling around Moor’s darker emotions, dragging him further into hopelessness. Look into your heart, Fabian, feel for the right thing to do.

  ‘Yes, the right thing,’ Moor said miserably. He picked up Samuel’s knife, studied it. ‘Was there ever any other choice?’

  No.

  And Fabian Moor slit his own throat.

  Marney watched, feeling nothing, as the wicked blade severed skin and tendons and arteries with ease. Blood gushed, drenching Moor, pooling on the silver floor around him. Still on his knees, his face expressing only calm defeat, the Genii stared at the red-smeared knife in his hand. He remained that way until his veins had emptied, his eyes closed, and he sagged, lifeless.

  Gulduur Bellow barked a single word of blood-magic. Moor’s remains collapsed, burning from within with a magical fire the colour of ambient thaumaturgy. The fire spread to the blood on the floor, and in but a moment, the last of Spiral’s Genii was reduced to fine ash.

  Bellow looked at Marney, his large face and dazzling blue eyes full of sadness. ‘I’m sorry we were too late for Samuel.’

  Marney glanced at Samuel’s corpse and realised that although his head had been severed, his body was not dead. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths, and she didn’t want to guess why it had been done to him.

  ‘Please,’ she said to Bellow without emotion. ‘I don’t want to leave him like this.’

  Bellow gave a nod of understanding. He moved towards Samuel’s body, again summoning thaumaturgic fire to burn the remains and destroy the serpentine creature.

  Heat and the stench of magic washed over Marney as she watched the face of her friend crumble to ash. ‘Goodbye, Samuel,’ she whispered.

  And Marney dispelled her own magic, deciding to truly feel this moment, to lock it tight inside her, to remember – perhaps to honour each person who had died along this cursed journey that had taken forty years to complete. Marney found devastation inside herself: guilt and sorrow and anger wrapped around a love so profound that she was once again an eighteen-year-old fledgling struggling to make sense of the world, battling her uncertainty.

  It was more than she could handle. She tried to stay upright, but she had no strength left and her knees buckled. Sobs came thick and fast. Her back hit the silver wall and she slid down to the floor. The cracks and pops of the serpentine creature crumbling to chips of harmless stone accompanied her wails. Through an ocean of tears, Marney saw the blurred image of Gulduur Bellow approaching her. The Nephilim lifted her into his arms, and Marney fell into his embrace.

  ‘Come, my friend,’ Bellow said softly. ‘Let me take you home.’

  Forty Years Earlier

  The End of the Beginning

  The war was over.

  In a quiet, smoky tavern in the eastern district of Labrys Town, Marney sat alone at a corner table, getting drunk. She refilled her glass from a bottle of dark rum and sipped, savouring the fiery tang. On the opposite side of the table, before an empty chair, sat a second glass, filled but untouched. The landlord cleaned glasses behind the bar; a few patrons sat by themselves, nursing drinks. They all looked as miserable as Marney felt.

  Everything had changed, and Marney found irony in the thought that she was only eighteen and still had her whole life ahead of her.

  She hadn’t seen her fellow Relic Guild agents since the night they killed Fabian Moor. Samuel was … Marney didn’t know where Samuel was. But Van Bam was in the Nightshade. The presence Marney had felt in his mind that night had been the ghost of Gideon. Van Bam was the new Resident of Labrys Town. And the new Resident’s first duty had been to inform his people that they were on their own.

  Marney drained her glass and refilled it.

  The Last Storm had come. The armies of the Timewatcher had defeated the enemy. Spiral had been locked up in his very own prison House called Oldest Place and the surviving Genii executed. The Aelfirian exiles had been sent home and it was a time of celebration across all the Houses. But in Labrys Town there was nothing but lament.

  The Timewatcher and Her Thaumaturgists had abandoned the denizens. Without reason or compassion, She had decreed that the Labyrinth was now a forbidden zone. Every doorway that led to the Houses of the Aelfir had been removed from the Great Labyrinth. The only portal that remained to the denizens was the one outside the Nightshade, to be used for nothing other than importing essential goods; the rest, along with their shadow carriages, had been destroyed and bricked up behind the boundary walls. Now all that could be found among the treacherous alleyways of the endless maze was a cursed place called the Retrospective, a House of poison and damnation where Spiral’s Aelfirian armies roamed as wild demons.

  The atmosphere suddenly felt too still.

  On the other side of the table, the air blurred. At first, Marney thought it was the drink. She frowned through an alcohol-induced haze and watched a woman materialise. Dressed in a thick purple robe, her head was shaved bald and she had a black diamond tattoo on her forehead. She sat calmly in the chair which had been empty a moment before, staring at the empath with tawny eyes.

  Marney looked at the landlord and his customers. They weren’t moving; they had frozen into poses, mid-action.

  Marney looked back at the woman, mildly surprised to see she was still sitting there. ‘I thought you’d abandoned us,’ she said, struggling not to slur.

  Lady Amilee didn’t quite smile. ‘I have … one or two affairs to tie up before I leave.’ The Skywatcher raised an eyebrow at the full but untouched glass of rum on the table before her. ‘Are you expecting someone to join you?’

  ‘No. It’s for Denton.’

  ‘Denton?’

  ‘We made a promise to drink to an Aelfirian soldier who gave his life to help us. To help you.’

  ‘I see.’ Amilee contemplated that. ‘But now you’re drinking to Denton’s memory, too.’

  ‘And everyone else’s.’ Marney took a slug from her own glass and coughed as the spirit burned her throat. ‘What do you want?’

  Amilee appeared concerned by the empath’s inebriation. ‘Do you remember when we first met, Marney? You were so frightened of losing Denton – of having to face the realms without his guidance. You made him proud, you know. He trusted you more than any other person.’

  ‘But he didn’t trust me enough.’ Marney could hear the bitter bite in her slurring words. ‘There were things he stopped me remembering. Things that you didn’t want me to know, I’m sure.’ She poured herself another glass of rum, trying to ignore the tears threatening to come to her eyes. ‘What happened at the Library of Glass and Mirrors?’

  Amilee pursed her lips. ‘Didn’t your mentor warn you how dangerous that information is? He was protecting you—’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Marney slammed the glass down on the table, spilling rum. ‘Fabian Moor knew what it was, didn’t he? He found out somet
hing about me from Denton, and that is why he tried to take me with him. Tell me I’m wrong!’

  ‘Marney, calm down.’

  ‘No! Denton blocked my memories and died before he could tell me why. It isn’t fair!’

  Angrily, Marney wiped the tears from her face. She didn’t care any more. As far as she was concerned, every creature of higher magic could get damned.

  ‘Marney.’ Amilee’s tone was soft, understanding. ‘What would Denton say to you now? Would he say that life is rarely fair? That you should hold to your faith and perhaps answers will find you eventually?’ She raised a hand, stopping Marney from unleashing a choice retort. ‘Have you ever considered that Denton was not only protecting you but also preparing you?’

  Marney screwed her face up. ‘What does that bloody well mean?’

  ‘That there’s hope for the future, Marney.’ Sadness filled Amilee’s tawny eyes. ‘Keep faith in the Relic Guild. Remember the trust you had in Denton. And never forget that all things must be known in the end.’

  Marney scoffed. ‘Please, I can’t stomach any more enigmas, so either speak plainly or go away so I can drink in peace.’ Shaking her head in frustration, she looked at the landlord and lonely patrons, still frozen like statues. ‘Why did you come here, anyway?’

  But when Marney looked back, Lady Amilee, the patron of the denizens, had disappeared. The atmosphere almost sighed as it was released. The landlord continued cleaning glasses and the patrons resumed drinking as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

  Marney sat there for a long time, staring into the space where the Skywatcher had been. Her eyes drifted down to the glass filled with rum in memory of Denton. She thought about secrets; she thought about the friends who had died; she thought about the love she could now never share with Van Bam.

  She snatched up Denton’s glass and drained its contents in one go.

  An Epilogue

  The Relic Guild

  It was estimated that almost two hundred thousand denizens had succumbed to the Genii’s virus. A fifth of Labrys Town’s population – all dead.

  But it could have been worse. If the Nightshade hadn’t saved its people, if its magic hadn’t swept through the town, cleansing the streets, killing those who had been infected, then no one would have survived. The virus would have run its course, eventually turning every denizen into an inhuman golem. As it was, the stony remains of those who had reached the end of the infection’s cycle were still being found even three weeks later.

  A time of social upheaval was at hand for the Labyrinth. Everything had changed.

  Ennis made his way along an alley behind apartment buildings in the central district, carrying a bag of groceries. It was early morning and the sun had yet to clear the boundary wall. A light mist hung over Labrys Town. The shadows clung to the chill of Silver Moon.

  Whenever possible, Ennis had taken to avoiding the streets at the busier times of day; he couldn’t really explain why. Going back to his old apartment, returning to his old life with the police force, hadn’t felt right to him, and it just seemed better to stay out of the way, perhaps to let others believe he was dead. At present, it was very easy to hide among the deceased.

  A lot of children had lost their parents to the virus and the orphanages were struggling with the influx. Ennis, however, had managed to get Jade and Daniel into a good place in the western district. They’d be well cared for. Ennis had tried to find Long Tommy after the troubles, but the old crook had become just another name on a long list of casualties, and the part he played in saving Labrys Town would probably never be known. As for Lady Amilee, Ennis hadn’t seen her since the night he killed Hagi Tabet, but he suspected that she was long gone from the Labyrinth.

  Reaching a black iron fire escape, Ennis first checked the coast was clear and then began climbing the ladder one-handed, clutching the grocery bag to his chest.

  Van Bam was dead. The denizens were now calling him Van Bam the Blind. They said he was the Resident who failed his people, who allowed the Genii to return and take control of the Nightshade. Ennis still wasn’t sure of the whole truth but he doubted Van Bam had failed anyone. The Nightshade had a new Resident now, and Ennis was happy to hide from her.

  Climbing onto the rooftop, he took a moment to enjoy the view. In the distance, far across the dirty old town, the sun had finally cleared the black canvas of the boundary wall. Its golden rays evaporated the mists and glinted upon the metal of silver fighting machines. The automatons that had risen to defend the denizens had scaled the boundary walls and were now perched atop it – ever-watchful guardians, Ennis supposed, waiting for a time when they were needed again.

  The air smelled somehow fresher, sweeter; the atmosphere clean and uncluttered. Only in recent days had Ennis come to appreciate how stagnant this thousand-year-old town had been. But now, nothing would ever be the same again.

  On that night in the Nightshade, Ennis had wondered if Lady Amilee’s presence heralded the return of the Thaumaturgists, the great overlords from myth and legend. But no; the Labyrinth had new overlords now. The Nephilim: a race of giant creatures of higher magic who came from a House called the Sorrow of Future Reason. Ennis had never heard of them before but the town’s older generation had, and he’d heard them whispering about how the Nephilim were blood-magickers, dangerous and to be feared. Worse than the Genii, some claimed.

  Ennis didn’t really understand why the Nephilim had come, but somehow their House had replaced the Retrospective, and thus far they had done nothing to justify such a terrifying reputation. Because of them, the doorways from the old stories had begun reappearing out in the Great Labyrinth. Portals were once again connecting the denizens with the Houses of the Aelfir. The boundary walls might as well have collapsed. The people of Labrys Town were staring into the face of a bright and complicated future.

  Ennis stiffened.

  The air didn’t feel right. He was being watched.

  He scanned the rooftop.

  Since the end of the troubles, Ennis had been living in a secret apartment that used to be the hideout of the bounty hunter Old Man Sam. Its secret entrance was a hatchway disguised to look like an innocuous air vent. Ennis stared at it now as the tingle of magic brought gooseflesh to his skin.

  A woman materialised, sitting on the concealed entrance. Her ears were pointed, her mouth and nose small, but her eyes were large, giving her face an oddly triangular shape. An Aelf. In her hand she held a spell sphere.

  ‘Hello, Ennis,’ she said, rising from the entrance. ‘Are you going to invite me in?’

  Eyeing the spell sphere warily, Ennis wondered if he could drop the bag of groceries and draw his pistol before she could use it.

  As if reading his thoughts, the Aelf smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ennis said.

  ‘My name’s Namji,’ she replied. ‘A friend of mine wants to talk to you. She’ll explain everything.’ She opened the hatchway and gentured to the ladder beneath. ‘Let’s go.’

  Ennis descended into the secret apartment to find another woman – a human – waiting for him. Namji followed him down, closing and locking the hatchway behind her.

  ‘This is Marney,’ the Aelf said.

  She looked to be in her late fifties, wearing a short coat with a baldric of silver throwing daggers beneath. Her hair was tied into a loose tail and her expression was unreadable.

  ‘Sit, Ennis,’ Marney said.

  He felt compelled to follow her instructions, knowing somewhere inside him that she was using magic. It suddenly felt like a very good idea to put the groceries down, pass Namji his pistol and sit on the threadbare sofa. His own magic rebelled against this subjugation but there was little it could do. His solitude, his peace, crumbled to dust.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ he growled.

  ‘You’d be surprised by what we know,�
�� Namji said.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We’ve been looking for you,’ said Marney. ‘Thought we’d better have a chat.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Ennis said miserably. ‘I don’t care what you’ve heard, I just want to be left alone.’

  Marney was amused. ‘He certainly sounds as defensive as the person who used to live here.’

  ‘All he needs is a rifle on his back,’ Namji agreed.

  Ennis looked from one woman to the other, unable to decide if they were here to harm him or mock him. He couldn’t think straight through whatever spell Marney had placed on him.

  ‘We’ve been hearing rumours,’ Marney said, ‘about a police sergeant who went the extra mile to protect the denizens. He likes to keep secrets, apparently.’

  ‘Especially about his magic,’ Namji added.

  Ennis made to object, realised it was pointless and closed his mouth.

  ‘I understand your need to hide,’ Marney said. ‘We know all about you, Ennis.’

  She stood to one side. Ennis tensed as a low growl came from the bedroom. Whatever courage he might have clung to evaporated when a wolf walked into the room, glaring at him with eyes as fierce as the sun. The beast was huge, its head almost level with Marney’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t,’ Ennis blurted, dwarfed, panicked, his insides quaking. ‘Whatever I did, please don’t hurt me.’

  To his surprise, the wolf glowed with magic. Shrinking and morphing with bony pops and clicks, the beast changed into a young woman, not even twenty, wearing dark grey clothes.

  A name rustled from Ennis’s dry throat. ‘Clara …’

  The new Resident of Labrys Town. The last time Ennis saw this woman, he had considered her the enemy and treated her as such. Had treated her with contempt.