by Edward Cox
Van Bam didn’t suppose that the yard’s employees had ever realised that the hut was longer on the outside than it was inside. But it was: at one end, Gideon opened a secret door in the hut wall concealed by a magical charm, revealing descending stairs of stone. The vile odour of the sewers drifted from the doorway.
Gideon ordered Samuel in first with a jerk of his head. Samuel complied, studying the compass, the two-shot pistol loaded with thaumaturgic bullets drawn and primed. Marney went next, her eyes still not meeting Van Bam’s, her face a stony blank.
‘Hide us,’ Gideon instructed Van Bam before following them.
Entering himself, Van Bam whispered to his magic, channelling it through the cane, and the glass glowed with pale green light. It was a concealing light in which the group cast no shadow; and so long as they remained within its sphere, they would not be seen or heard. However, Van Bam wasn’t certain that his magic could fool the perceptions of a Genii.
The secret door closed behind them and they began descending the stairs, quickly arriving at a metal grille platform where a caged ladder led straight down into the sewers. The four magickers soon reached the slick cobbles of a walkway which ran alongside a river of foul-smelling waste. Fixed to the black brick walls, grime-smeared glow lamps shed weak light upon this dingy world. The acrid air left an oily film in Van Bam’s mouth.
The spirit compass gave a solid click and Samuel whispered, ‘Got him.’
The group followed his lead.
The sewers were like a distorted mirror image of Labrys Town. Instead of streets and alleyways dividing the buildings, the river of sewage snaked and weaved through a network of paths and tunnels, flood pools and filter chambers. On numerous occasions it had provided a quick method of travelling around town unseen for the agents of the Relic Guild. Van Bam had known its stink to linger in his nostrils for days.
The compass took the group through a tunnel where moss and luminous fungus grew. Marney’s hands were out at her sides, feeling the fetid atmosphere for signs of emotions. Gideon’s impatience was evident; he walked close behind Samuel, as though willing his agent to go faster. The symbols of blood-magic that decorated his hands appeared to reflect the light from Van Bam’s cane.
At the end of the tunnel they turned right onto a new walkway. Here the viscous rush and burbles of the river were accompanied by the echoing patter of dripping water. The walkway stretched ahead into the gloomy light, bending round to the left. When the group reached the bend, Marney said, ‘Wait,’ drawing them to a halt.
‘What have you got?’ Gideon snapped.
Eyes closed, the empath faced the dark sewer ceiling high above her. ‘Emotions,’ she stated with an empty voice. ‘But … they’re weak, phasing in and out of existence.’
‘Denton?’ said Samuel.
‘No.’ Marney looked at Samuel with hollow eyes. ‘Someone down here is infected with Moor’s virus.’
A shriek came from somewhere not too distant. It repeated, coming closer.
Van Bam said, ‘My magic hides us from eyes and ears.’ He looked pointedly at the symbols on Gideon’s hands. ‘But our scents will still carry. The infected are drawn to blood.’
‘Then by all means extinguish your light,’ Gideon drawled.
Van Bam did so and the gloom enveloped the group.
A third shriek activated Samuel’s prescient awareness. He shoved the spirit compass into his pocket, holstered Hamir’s pistol and drew his rifle, aiming it along the walkway.
Gideon stepped ahead of him as a series of coughing barks approached.
‘Hold your fire, Samuel,’ the Resident said darkly. ‘I don’t see why you should have all the fun.’
Eager to use his magic, Gideon gave a flick of his right hand. The glyphs of blood-magic sparked and burst into violet fire, licking the air from his fingertips like the flames of perverse candles.
A moment later, a figure emerged from the gloom, racing for the Relic Guild with an animal’s gait. Coughing, barking, shrieking – hateful and desperate to claim the taste of fresh blood.
A chill slithered through Van Bam. ‘Oh no …’
It was Macy.
Marney swore.
In the dim light of glow lamps, Macy came on all fours, a ghoul retaining little of the person she had been. Her clothes were shredded. What remained of her blonde hair was matted to her scalp. The jagged lines of black veins covered her skin like thick cracks in porcelain. A carrier of magical disease, Macy no longer recognised friend from foe; she only saw food before her.
Coolly, his hand ablaze, Gideon watched the monster coming closer and closer … and closer still.
‘Gideon!’ Samuel hissed, the aim of his rifle steady. ‘Deal with her before I do.’
‘Hold your nerve,’ Gideon spat, as if disgusted by his agent’s concern. He waited until Macy was close enough to see her jaundiced eyes, bulging from their sockets with bloodlust, before he unleashed his blood-magic.
The fire flew from Gideon’s hand, trailing violet flames like a comet. It erupted as it hit Macy and punched her onto her back, engulfing her. The heat caused Van Bam, Marney and Samuel to move away. Gideon held his ground, however, fire licking at his boots, watching as his magic consumed Macy, silencing her screeches with the finality of death.
The magic ran its course, leaving behind a charred skeleton lying in scattered ashes before the last flames died.
Van Bam stared, filled with sadness and nausea at losing yet another friend. Gideon looked unperturbed by having just killed one of his own agents, infected or not. Samuel, like Van Bam, stared at the remains, his teeth clenched.
Marney’s voice, flattened of emotion, broke the moment. ‘I can feel something else.’ She almost sounded bored. ‘There’s a residue, like emotional footprints leading through the sewers to … to Denton.’
‘Where?’ Gideon snapped.
‘Up ahead.’ Marney used her chin to indicate the area from where Macy had appeared. ‘Not too far away.’
Samuel fished the spirit compass from his pocket and confirmed the direction. He frowned, confused. ‘I’ve lost his spirit.’
‘I can definitely feel Denton,’ Marney stated.
‘Can you sense any sign of Moor?’ Gideon said.
Marney shook her head.
‘My magic’s giving me no new warnings,’ Samuel said. ‘But Hamir told me that Moor can conceal himself from lower magic.’
Gideon growled. ‘Then let’s side with caution. Van Bam …?’
Knowing what was expected of him, Van Bam tore his eyes away from Macy’s remains and stabbed his cane down on the slick cobbles. With a glassy, musical chime, green illusionist magic spewed from the cane and rose to form a small ghostly bird in the air. Flapping its tiny wings, the bird sped off, following the line of the walkway, carrying Van Bam’s vision with it.
The illusionist could almost feel the wind on his face as he raced through the sewer, seeing what his bird saw. All too soon he found Denton, and had to fight the urge to wrench himself away from his magic; to deny what he saw. But he didn’t. Hot tears filled his eyes.
Denton was dead.
The old empath’s naked, pallid body was held against the sewer wall by a host of glowing tentacles that had sprung from a cluster of luminous fungus on the floor. There was a fresh and ragged bite wound in Denton’s neck from which black veins had begun to spread. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. His head hung limp, his chin tucked against his chest. Van Bam was glad he couldn’t see his face.
The tentacles not holding Denton snaked in the air, barely able to hold themselves up, as though life was draining from them. One of Denton’s arms was free and his fingertips were covered in wet, glistening blood. Evidently the blood had served as ink, and Denton’s last act had been to write something on his stomach. The letters were upside down.
Gideon�
��s voice filled Van Bam’s ears. ‘What have you found?’
Dispelling his illusion, Van Bam returned his sight to his eyes. Wiping away tears, he told the group what he had discovered. Moments later, they all stood before Denton’s corpse.
‘Maybe his heart gave out.’ The coldness of Marney’s tone could have frozen the humid, bitter air of the sewers. ‘Maybe the virus was too strong for him.’
Gideon agreed absently, his usual spite and anger replaced by something personal and unspoken.
Samuel, stoic, studied the writing on Denton’s stomach, tilting his head to one side to better read the words. Blood had run from the letters.
‘I can feel residual emotions here,’ Marney said. Van Bam wondered if her empathic magic was experiencing Denton’s final moments. ‘There’s pain. And anger. Whatever Moor was after, I … I don’t think Denton gave it to him.’
‘Small mercies,’ Gideon murmured.
‘It says recyc portal,’ Samuel told the group. ‘A message from Denton?’
‘Maybe,’ Marney replied, deciphering the emotions she sensed in the atmosphere. ‘Could be telling us where Moor went next.’
‘There is a portal close to the recycling plant in the southern district,’ Van Bam said.
‘And it can’t be far from here.’ Gideon sighed, looking at his agent’s corpse. ‘Farewell, Denton,’ he whispered mournfully. ‘Samuel … let’s not leave him like this.’
Gideon stepped away, beckoning Van Bam to join him.
Marney stood statue-still, unflinching, as Samuel aimed his rifle, muttering something that might have been a prayer – or a curse – before shooting a fire-bullet into Denton’s chest. With a soft whump, the fire bloomed a ferocious furnace orange, incinerating the old empath from the inside out, spreading to the tentacles and fungus, reducing them all to smouldering ashes. Samuel and Marney stared at the remnants of their friend wreathed in smoke that reeked of magic.
Van Bam desperately wanted to hold his lover.
‘Concentrate,’ Gideon told the illusionist, though his voice held genuine, uncustomary sorrow. ‘Let’s say Moor is heading for the portal. Is he intending to leave?’
‘I do not see how he could,’ Van Bam said quietly. ‘The Timewatcher’s barrier still surrounds the Labyrinth.’
‘Moor already evaded the Timewatcher’s barrier once to get in,’ Gideon pointed out. ‘And I wonder – Her spell might prevent creatures of higher magic from entering the Labyrinth, but does it necessarily stop them leaving?’
‘Even so, it makes no sense.’ Van Bam’s sadness was quickly turning to anger. ‘Moor gained nothing from Denton, he does not have control of the Nightshade, he has not subjugated the denizens – why leave when he has achieved nothing?’
Gideon considered that. ‘What if we hurt his plans more than we realised?’ he said. ‘What if Moor is fleeing – aborting his mission?’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Samuel, ‘he might be gone already.’
‘Then we do what?’ Van Bam said with heat. ‘Just assume he left? Let him become someone else’s problem?’
‘No.’ It was Marney who answered. Her expression was unlike anything Van Bam had seen on her face before. It wasn’t an emotionless mask; it was open, murderous rage. The daggers in her baldric glinted in the dim light. ‘We find Moor, and Samuel puts a bullet through his head.’
‘Agreed.’ Gideon gave a deathly grin. The symbols on his hands flared with the energy of blood-magic. ‘The war is almost over. There can’t be many places left for a Genii to flee to. We follow him.’
The rains of Ruby Moon were falling by the time they exited the sewers. It was the predictable heavy and warm downpour that had fallen every night on Labrys Town for the last thousand years. Marney barely noticed it drenching her clothes and soaking her skin. She had stoked her rage to a magical tempest that burned and devoured every other emotion inside her. Murder was the only instinct driving her feet.
‘We need to know the House symbol,’ Van Bam said above the hiss of rain. Jogging on slick cobbles, the four of them made their way along a wide street of residential dwellings. ‘Without it, we cannot know which doorway Moor travelled to.’
‘Have a little faith,’ Gideon announced confidently, as though the weather only served to heighten the power in his veins. ‘Your Resident knows a secret or two.’
Marney hoped so. The Great Labyrinth was an endless maze filled with countless doorways leading to the Houses of the Aelfir. If Moor had already left Labrys Town, the Relic Guild were dead in the water without the House symbol to summon the shadow carriage that had whisked Moor away to whichever doorway he needed.
Samuel said, ‘This street gives me a bad feeling.’
Everything looked normal. There was no one other than the Relic Guild out braving the rain. Lights shone from behind the misted windows of the houses. Marney searched for emotions, detecting those of unconcerned denizens carried on the rain. Snippets of laughter and raised voices came from a small tavern they passed. Normal. But Samuel was right to feel troubled; the street felt almost too normal.
A Genii could fool lower magic, Hamir had said …
Using the image of her mentor’s dead body, Marney honed her rage to a point of white-hot determination. She knew that if she acknowledged her grief for but a moment, she would crumble, crash – fall down and perhaps never get up again. She would not let Fabian Moor walk away from all he had done. That Genii was owed his execution.
Up ahead, the street ended at the boundary wall – a sheer, looming canvas of black bricks a hundred feet tall. The street turned to the left, leading to an industrial area where the recycling plant was situated. But directly ahead, just beyond the last of the houses, a large square had been cut into the boundary wall, easily big enough for a tram to pass through. It led to a courtyard filled with a darkness that the glow of the streetlamps couldn’t penetrate: a checkpoint where a portal and shadow carriage waited to deliver people to the doorways of the Aelfir.
The group headed straight for it.
Undoubtedly, Moor had already dealt with the police officers assigned to guard the checkpoint in this time of war, but had the Genii killed them outright or left them infected with his virus? Just as Marney wondered this, the group came within twenty yards of the checkpoint entrance and stopped as one.
‘Do you feel that?’ Van Bam said.
Magic. It permeated the air, sparkling now and then like jewels as rain passed through it. The streetlamps were dead; no lights or sounds came from the houses.
‘It is a perception spell,’ Van Bam said. ‘Designed to conceal this end of the street from the denizens.’
‘But not us.’ Gideon looked back the way they had come, staring through the translucent wavering wall of the spell to where the street appeared normal. ‘Samuel?’
With the rain pattering on his coat and plastering his hair to his scalp, Samuel stood so still he might have been frozen. His thumb twitched and then pressed the power stone on his revolver. It whined into life with violet light. Marney’s magic sensed the hard survival instincts of prescient awareness rising in him like a bitter breeze. And then she detected the danger herself.
Emotions phasing and dying … the aroma of rotting vegetables …
‘Infected,’ Marney said.
‘And golems,’ Samuel added stonily.
Van Bam tensed, holding his green glass cane like a weapon.
Gideon’s hands ignited with the fire of blood-magic. ‘Where?’ he demanded.
‘Everywhere,’ Samuel replied. ‘It’s a trap.’
The door of the last house on the left opened, and by the time Samuel had shouted, ‘Down!’ he was already aiming his rifle at the deformed, lumbering golem that appeared. He shot it through the head before it could raise the pistol in its hand. Even as it fell, hissing with dispelled animation magic, jerking and c
racking, crumbling into chunks of stone, two more golems emerged from the house opposite.
As Samuel dealt with them, a window smashed to Marney’s right. One of the infected raced shrieking onto the street through shards of glass, crashing Gideon to the ground, burying its face in his neck. The Resident bellowed an indecipherable word and the violet flames of magical fire rose and incinerated his attacker, bones and all. He swore as he got to his feet, holding his neck, waving his hand to clear smoke and ash.
‘There’re too many of them,’ Samuel shouted.
And chaos broke free.
Every window of every house in the area under the perception spell smashed simultaneously. Upstairs and down, a host of golems aimed pistols at the Relic Guild and infected rushed onto the street.
Samuel’s rifle flashed and spat. Gideon began uttering guttural words of blood-magic. An instant before the golems unleashed a hail of bullets, Van Bam stabbed his cane against the ground. With a discordant chime, a barrier of green illusionist magic covered the group in a watery dome. But Van Bam wasn’t quite quick enough. Bullets and raindrops fizzed harmlessly against the barrier, but the trigger fingers of one or two golems were faster than its creation.
Gideon grunted. He spun around, colliding with Marney, landing on top of the empath as they fell to the ground.
Marney blocked the intense wave of pain the Resident emoted. Her magic couldn’t detect golems, for they had no emotions to read; but she could feel the hatred and bloodlust of the infected.
Rolling Gideon onto his back, Marney sat up. The virus victims, savage and animal, crashed their fists against the green dome, baying for blood.
‘The barrier will not last long,’ Van Bam said, his desperate face staring at Gideon. Already the hail of bullets was putting cracks in his magic. ‘It will have to dispel before I cast another and we will be momentarily exposed. What is your magic telling you, Samuel?’