by Edward Cox
‘Evidently, at least one survived,’ said Hillem.
‘So what if it’s one of Spiral’s strongholds?’ Namji said. ‘Amilee wouldn’t send us there if the Genii were still using it.’
‘Listen to me.’ Samuel rubbed his forehead. ‘Years ago, Van Bam and I met one of the treasure hunters who went to the Icicle Forest. He was the only survivor of that trip. Just before he died, he said it was a savage place – evil – and you really don’t want to know about the wounds he sustained there.’
Nobody spoke. Samuel’s heartbeat was loud in his ears. The lonely wind of the Nothing of Far and Deep moaned from the portal.
‘You all heard what the Genii said.’ Namji’s voice sounded strong, resolute. ‘This is to do with Known Things. What if Van Bam and Clara are there, waiting for us? What if they are this rogue element?’
With a noise of frustration, Samuel opened the chamber on his revolver and emptied it of ammunition.
‘I’ll tell you this much,’ he said darkly, replacing the regular metal slugs with fire-bullets from his utility belt. ‘There’s no way I’m walking into the Icicle Forest until my magic comes back.’
Forty Years Earlier
The Ghoul
There were four Aelfirian soldiers standing guard, one at each corner of the cold and grey observation room. With rifles hanging from their shoulders, dressed in dark grey army uniforms, they stood to attention, barely moving, never speaking. Their faces were concealed behind black masks with dark-lensed goggles which hid their eyes.
They reminded Marney of giant ants.
Surrounded by the soldiers, Marney sat next to Denton at a sturdy metal table. Behind them, the room’s only door was closed; in front of them, the entire back wall was an observation window. The glass had been misted to the colour of storm clouds, and nothing could be seen of the interrogation cell on the other side.
Marney looked at Denton. He faced the observation window, hands clasped together on the table before him. His expression was calm but Marney could sense that he was controlling his anxiety behind a magical shield, just as she was.
Somewhere around a week had passed since Marney and Denton first set off from the Labyrinth. It was difficult to be certain, though; time didn’t flow at equal speeds through the Aelfirian Houses. Sometimes jumping from one House to another meant stepping from morning into night, and night into morning. Marney had lost all concept of time on this strange mission to find a fabled realm called the Library of Glass and Mirrors, a dangerous House where the histories of the past, present and future were kept.
She looked at the soldiers. There was nothing aggressive in their statue-like postures, but they had been ordered to detain the empaths. The trouble was, Marney couldn’t read them. They were dead to her magic.
Those masks shield them from us, Denton had explained earlier. They’re protected from any magic that affects them mentally – empathy, telepathy, illusions … I don’t know what’s going on here, Marney, but we’d need thaumaturgy to get past those masks and question these soldiers.
Here was Cradle of the Rise. The battle had been won in this House almost immediately prior to Marney’s and Denton’s arrival, but the empaths were detained the instant they emerged from the portal. For their protection, a faceless officer had said from behind a mask. But it hadn’t rung true. The Timewatcher’s army had defeated Spiral’s Genii. Cradle of the Rise was victorious. Yet this did not feel like a House celebrating victory. Anything but.
I don’t like it, Denton.
Me neither. The old empath didn’t take his eyes off the observation window. Something is very wrong in this House.
But we’re so close to the end.
Keep faith, Marney.
The journey so far had taken the empaths through many Houses. For the most part they had travelled without hindrance, but the war between the Timewatcher and Spiral had been an ever-present threat around them. Sometimes they clipped the war, protected by the Timewatcher’s Aelfirian armies. Occasionally they found themselves in the heart of the fighting, and Marney had seen and done things that she desperately wanted to forget. But always they had kept moving forwards, searching for the portal that would deliver them to the Library of Glass and Mirrors.
However, most people believed the Library to be a myth, a story, a lie; such a mysterious place did not have an entrance at the end of a well-travelled path. Its portal was hidden, and to find it the empaths had been navigating what Denton called the Way of the Blind Maze: an ancient mode of travelling much like finding the combination to a lock. By passing through carefully selected Houses and portals in a specific sequence, the portal to the Library would eventually reveal itself.
Frustratingly, from Cradle of the Rise the empaths were due to travel to the Burrows of Underneath, where, according to Denton, the portal to the Library of Glass and Mirrors would appear to them. Whatever obstacle the agents of the Relic Guild had hit in this penultimate stage of their journey, it felt a little too final for Marney’s tastes.
The door opened. A small middle-aged Aelf walked in carrying Marney’s and Denton’s backpacks. He did not wear a protective mask. The four soldiers snapped to attention and saluted him, almost in unison. The Aelf spared the empaths a glance, a distinct lack of good humour in his large eyes, before addressing the soldiers.
‘If any of you ever claims to have seen me, I’ll ensure you disappear.’ It was no idle threat. ‘Now get out.’
Without hesitation, the soldiers followed the order. The Aelf locked the door behind them and then placed the backpacks on the table before the empaths. Marney noted that his dark grey uniform was plain, unadorned by any insignia of rank. His hair was thinning, his face careworn. Emotions were weak, fluctuating, impossible for Marney to read.
A satchel hung from his shoulder. He shrugged it off and placed it on the table between the backpacks.
‘It is in your best interests to remain silent,’ he said. He opened the satchel and pulled out a small wooden box. ‘Please, say nothing.’
Leaving the box on the table, the Aelf turned away and walked up to the observation window. He stood before the misted glass with his hands clasped behind his back.
I think it’s best if we do as he says, Marney.
Who do you think he is? Marney asked.
Judging by the authority he commands and lack of rank on his uniform, I’d guess he’s secret service. Denton sounded intrigued.
Does that make him an ally or an enemy?
Whichever he needs to be, I should imagine. Denton peered closely at the small wooden box. Let’s just see where this leads.
Denton took his backpack and placed it on the floor beside his chair. Marney did the same, but looked inside hers. She was comforted to find her baldric of throwing daggers sitting at the top, along with an envelope, which she pulled out, holding it tightly.
Denton had given Marney the envelope at the beginning of their journey. It contained coded instructions for their mission – which was to say, everything that Marney hadn’t been told about it. At the beginning, she had thought they were searching for information on the Icicle Forest, but she came to learn that there was much, much more to their mission. However, it was too dangerous for Marney to know exactly why Lady Amilee was sending them to the Library of Glass and Mirrors. Denton knew, however; and the only time Marney was to open the envelope was if he fell along the way.
Marney hated that she had been kept in the dark but trusted her mentor. She had witnessed people die to protect the secrets inside that envelope. She herself had killed to keep them unknown to anyone other than Denton. But unless they could leave Cradle of the Rise for the Burrows of Underneath, the envelope’s contents were academic. The mission ended here, in this room.
Denton was watching Marney. Please tell me it is unopened, he said.
Marney showed him the unbroken wax seal on the envelope
before sliding it into the leg pocket of her fatigues. She felt Denton’s relief.
‘This war has changed much,’ said the Aelf, his back still to the empaths. ‘Nothing will ever be the same again.’
He placed a hand against the observation window. There was a brief, low drone and the misty effect began to clear from the glass, fading away until it gave a view into the detention cell. And its occupant.
Marney’s breath caught.
The prisoner was female. Human-looking, not Aelf. She hovered in the air above a circular metal platform inscribed with a host of strange interconnecting symbols and glyphs that Marney didn’t recognise.
The language of the Thaumaturgists, Denton said in awe. It’s a prison formed from higher magic.
The symbols glowed with purple radiance. The woman hovered on her back above them, turning slowly in their thaumaturgic glare, her arms and legs hanging limp. She wore the dark cassock of a priest, but when her upside-down face came in line with the window, Marney saw the patch of scarring on her forehead that identified her as a Genii.
Marney felt her empathic control slip. Denton, only a Thaumaturgist is powerful enough to imprison a Genii like this.
I know.
Marney swallowed. The last time she and Denton had met a Thaumaturgist, it had almost put an end to their mission. Hopefully whoever had created this prison was long gone from Cradle of the Rise.
‘It’s a rare thing, you know,’ said the Aelf, ‘to catch a Genii alive.’ He remained facing the window. His tone of voice was soft, calm yet commanding. He gestured to the prisoner. ‘This is Lady Jubilee. For a creature of higher magic, she was remarkably easy to overcome. So easy, in fact, that I was suspicious of a trap at first. But I think, in the end, she believed too much in her own power. Complacency was her downfall.’
The Aelf turned from the window and faced the empaths. His thinning, unruly hair and pointed ears were highlighted against the purple glow coming from the interrogation chamber. His large eyes were full of secrets.
‘I have learned that Spiral’s armies tell tales of me,’ he said. ‘To them, I am a myth, the monster in the shadows waiting to snatch them from their beds. They call me the Ghoul.’ He sounded pleased. ‘Fear is vastly destructive to an army, and I might be guilty of fanning the flames of my myth.
‘The truth, however, is that I am a covert operative in the Timewatcher’s army. I hide on the periphery, watching and listening, waiting for special little moments like these.’ He looked back at Lady Jubilee in her thaumaturgic prison. ‘In this regard, I am not unlike an agent of the Relic Guild.’
He didn’t say this to elicit a reaction from the empaths; he was simply stating fact. The Aelf – the Ghoul – was obviously a man of resolve, hardened by the war.
He continued, ‘My job is to gather intelligence and then decide how best to use it against the enemy. I have orders to transport Lady Jubilee to the last place she will ever see. And there, before she faces her final fate, she will tell me everything she knows of Spiral’s plans.
‘I answer to very few people in this war. No one stands in my way, my methods are never questioned, and those who are allowed to see me very rarely meet a good end.’ It wasn’t said as a threat. ‘Officially, I am not here. Officially, neither are you.’
The Ghoul stared in silence at the box on the table.
Marney, can you read his emotions?
Only a little, Marney replied. He’s been trained to hide what he’s thinking and feeling from magickers.
But he knows that training would offer no defence if we decided to use our magic to control him. He’s not carrying a weapon, either. He clearly knows who we are and he’s happy for us to see him, as he puts it.
Marney considered for a moment. He’s telling us we can trust him?
Let’s hope so.
The Ghoul drew a breath. ‘Lady Jubilee’s misfortune brought me to Cradle of the Rise, and lucky for you that it did. For the last few days my network has been whispering about two human magickers drifting through the Houses, when the war was supposed to have confined all humans to the Labyrinth.’ He eyed the empaths shrewdly. ‘Yet no one appears to know what they are doing, or where they are going.’
But he does? Marney said.
He certainly knows something, Denton replied.
Lady Jubilee’s mouth hung open, as if releasing a moan of anguish.
‘The Timewatcher and the Thaumaturgists have gained the advantage in the war,’ the Ghoul said. ‘Our triumph in Cradle of the Rise is just one of many recent victories and Spiral’s position is growing weaker by the day. There are plans afoot for a mass offensive, an operation we’re calling the Last Storm. It will happen soon, I believe, and the Genii are no longer strong enough to stand against it.’ His face darkened. ‘However, the Lord of the Genii still has a sting in his tail.’
He turned back to the window. ‘It would appear that certain Houses have been subjugated by the Genii in secret. Spiral has been using them to hide reserve forces. One such House is Mirage.’
Marney had to stop herself swearing aloud. House Mirage … Van Bam and Angel had been sent there on a mission.
Under the table, Denton gripped her hand. Don’t assume the worst, he told her. Let’s hear what else he has to say.
‘Under the command of a Genii named Lord Buyaal, Mirage became active and launched a surprise invasion on its neighbour. The Burrows of Underneath.’ He looked back over his shoulder. ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you the strategic significance of this House.’
Marney could sense Denton holding back a barrage of questions. She pushed down her own rising sense of panic and squeezed her mentor’s hand.
‘The Burrows of Underneath might not be completely lost but we can take no risks,’ the Ghoul continued. ‘We have heard nothing from the Thaumaturgist who was in command there and reports from the few soldiers who made it to us drew a very bleak picture. Therefore, all portals that lead from the Burrows of Underneath to allied Houses have been sealed. And that would include the portal in Cradle of the Rise.’
Marney looked at Denton, but the old empath’s eyes were fixed on the Aelf.
The Ghoul added, ‘If anyone wished to travel to the Burrows of Underneath from here, they would need powerful magic to break into that portal now. Higher magic, I should imagine.’
The Aelf laid his hand on the observation window and a brief drone filled the room. Lady Jubilee jerked in her prison as though she had been shocked, and then the glass became the colour of storm clouds once again.
‘I have orders to take you into custody,’ the Ghoul said, facing the empaths. ‘However, for the time being, I have decided that you cannot yet see me.’
He approached the table, slipping a leather wallet from his trouser pocket. ‘You and I share a benefactor who outranks the few commanding officers who outrank me.’ He placed the wallet on top of the wooden box.
Marney recognised it: Denton’s sigil wallet. It contained a plate of magical metal. If the right person touched that metal, it would show a diamond inside a circle engraved into its surface: the sigil of Lady Amilee the Skywatcher.
Denton took the wallet and the Ghoul opened the box. Inside was a spell sphere filled with a magical liquid alive with scintillating lights.
The Aelf picked it up. ‘I’m told this spell will last for only a brief time.’ And he hurled the sphere at the wall behind Marney and Denton.
A noise as if the air had been sucked from the room made Marney’s ears pop. The large circle of a portal had appeared on the wall, although it was not like any portal Marney had seen before. It stretched away like a cave filled with rainbow-coloured jewels, illuminated by streaks of pale lightning clashing and dancing in a network of energy. The only sound was a vague hissing.
‘I’m going to step outside for a few moments,’ the Ghoul said, his expression and voice
full of warning. ‘If you are still in this room when I return, then you will see me. Good luck.’
And with that, the Aelf left the observation room.
In his wake, Marney and Denton shared a look before returning their eyes to the portal.
A shared benefactor? Marney thought to her mentor. Amilee.
Denton got to his feet. Time to get out of this House, he said. Take only what you need, leave nothing that identifies us or the mission.
With the envelope of instructions already in her pocket, Marney pulled her baldric of throwing knives from her backpack and slipped it on.
Denton was staring into the depths of the portal. Marney, I have no idea what we’re about to head into.
Marney stood alongside him, her emotions locked down tight. Let’s go and find out.
Early morning and the sun had finally cleared the boundary wall. Mist rose above Labrys Town. The air smelled fresh and clean. For now.
Samuel climbed up a fire escape to the apartment above a baker’s shop. Reaching the top, he found the apartment window unlocked. He opened it and climbed inside. Scented smoke greeted his nostrils.
It wasn’t much of an apartment: a cheap and dingy dwelling on the east side of town – just a small bedroom and a smaller bathroom. The floorboards were bare and unfinished, the paint on the walls old and peeling. Brown water stains decorated the ceiling. A dressing table had been fashioned from recycled packing crates. The bed with its thin mattress looked about ready to collapse, as did the chair sitting next to it.
The bed had been used recently. Upon the dressing table an incense stick burned. Samuel watched the lazy coils of scented smoke drifting up to the stained ceiling.
Some people believed that smoke would guide the spirits of the dead to Mother Earth and the loving embrace of the Timewatcher. It was an Aelfirian custom and a pointless superstition as far as Samuel was concerned; it only served to make the living feel less guilty about surviving friends and loved ones. But Samuel knew of at least one person who would buy into the concept.