by Edward Cox
Was that what Marney wanted?
It was then she realised that the shouting between the inmate and the guard outside had stopped. And it wasn’t due to a natural conclusion to an argument. It seemed to Clara as though something had interrupted, brought their exchanges to an abrupt halt. It was like a vague ringing had been left in the air, and the change in atmosphere was palpable to Clara’s heightened senses.
Voices came from beyond the cell, muffled, whispered. The peep hole in the door slid open and then slid shut. The clunk of a key turning in the lock followed, and the door opened, spilling bright light into the cell.
Blinking, Clara moved further onto the bunk until her back was pressed up against the wall. A young police guard led a small, elderly man into the cell. The latter then waved the former away. As the guard left, the elderly man looked in disgust at Clara’s cellmate and the puddle of vomit on the floor.
Clara had never seen him before. He was dressed in a smart three-piece-suit and tie. Grey, shoulder-length hair was swept back from his face, and a tuft of beard sprouted from the point of his chin. He smelled slightly of flowers. With a welcoming air, he offered Clara a sympathetic smile. He moved towards her with a small key in his hand, which he pointed at the cuffs about her wrists.
‘Let’s get you out of those,’ he said kindly, ‘and away from this disgusting cell, shall we?’
Clara hesitated, but she sensed nothing to fear about this man. He did not force the issue, did not demand anything of her, and waited patiently with the little key. Clara raised her hands to him. He unlocked the cuffs and threw them and the key onto the bunk.
‘Thank you,’ Clara mumbled, rubbing her wrists.
‘You’re most welcome,’ said the man. ‘Now, your chariot awaits, yes?’
Clara frowned up at him, and he smiled at her again with the kindest smile she had ever seen.
‘The Nightshade is expecting you, Clara.’
She desperately wanted to object; she wanted to scream and claw and fight her way out of the building. But all she could manage was a quick choking sound before the elderly man placed a hand on her head and she immediately began slipping towards unconsciousness. From a distance, she heard him say ‘Sleep,’ and then there was nothing.
Chapter Five
The Resident
On the west side of Labrys Town, in a cemetery where grand mausoleums formed a cityscape of the dead, the white and grey stone glowed eerily beneath the hue of Ruby Moon. All was quiet among the statues and ornamentations crafted by the hands of master stonemasons. The lights of streetlamps and houses illuminated the near distance. Rain clouds were clearing from the night sky, and the wind had stiffened enough to flutter the cassock and long white hair of a solitary man standing before a moderately sized crypt.
He had been drawn to the cemetery by an alien signal, magic that did not originate in the Labyrinth. The source of the signal came from within the crypt, but it was weak, vague, barely detectable. It was almost as if the magic was fading, destined to be as dead as the corpses in the graves. It was not a favourable sign, and the man was not best pleased.
With gravel crunching beneath his boots, he stepped towards the crypt’s entrance – tall double doors of stone set between white pillars that were cracked with age. Above the doors an ornate carving of the Timewatcher, supposedly watching over the soul inside, did not much impress him. With a grim expression on his pale face, he extended a hand. Energy rushed from his palm. The entrance shuddered inwards; shifting stone ground as if the crypt was drawing a ragged breath.
He stepped inside, ignoring the dust and cobwebs the wind swirled around him. The faded tapestry hanging on the back wall, the words of memorial engraved into the stone to his left and right, were wasted on him; he cared nothing for whose resting place he disturbed and wasted no time in descending the steep stairs that led to the crypt’s vault.
There, a sarcophagus sat at the centre of the floor. Its lid was carved to resemble the man lying inside. The signal was a little stronger around it, but still not as strong as it should have been.
With his displeasure growing, the white-haired man barked a single word at the sarcophagus. The intricately carved lid cracked and broke into a thousand pieces which rose, slowly, hanging in the air for a moment, before he sent them flying away, like lethal projectiles, to shatter against the far wall.
He looked into the sarcophagus, feeling mild surprise that no skeletal remains lay inside; that there was no bottom upon which a skeleton might lie; that there was nothing to see except the deepest of shadows.
Jumping down through the hole, the man landed smoothly in a secret chamber beneath the vault.
The dark meant nothing to him; he could see perfectly well. The secret chamber was formed from hard-packed earth and was utterly empty. The only aspect of note was a crude hole dug in the floor. He crouched over it. It was a few feet deep and also empty. The source of the signal had at one time lain at the bottom of the hole, and the magic he could now sense was only the residue of its presence. He suspected some years had passed since the source had been removed.
The man leapt out of the secret chamber, up through the bottomless sarcophagus in a single bound, and ran up the stairs of the vault. Exiting the crypt, he stood in the cemetery and sniffed the air. He jumped up onto the crypt’s roof. There he cast a spell, a simple incantation that altered his vision, allowing him to see the wind. Like fine grey smoke, it whipped around him.
The very foundations of Labrys Town were imbued with magic. A network of energy lines flowed beneath the ground and in the air, travelling like blood through veins. The network connected every district and every building. It provided homes with energy, kept trams running, and charged the little crystals that the denizens called power stones. If one were skilled enough, it was possible to feel the network, see it, use it, and to detect within it the presence of magic that did not belong to the Labyrinth.
White, luminescent lines crisscrossed through the misty wind, like an intricate spider web. But interwoven into these lines were four tendrils of dark purple: four signals from alien sources that snaked between the currents of the Labyrinth’s energy. Three of the tendrils held a strong colour, vibrant and alive; but the fourth was undeniably weak, sickly. It rose from the crypt he stood on, struggling to exist as the wind threatened to scatter it in all directions. But it held its form, just, and weaved away into the distance, towards the lights of streetlamps and houses – and its source.
The man smiled grimly. Three signals were strong; they could wait, for the time being. The weakness of the fourth demanded attention before its time ran out and it disappeared completely.
He jumped down from the crypt’s roof and began following the flagging purple tendril that twisted away deeper into the western district.
She was strong, unafraid, and Peppercorn Clara was a distant memory.
She was the wolf.
She ran through the dense forest, thorn and branch snagging her silver pelt. Leaf and dirt felt soft and damp beneath her calloused paws. The gleam of the moon was bright and fresh, glaring through the canopy to light the way as she weaved between trees and vaulted over roots. The scent of earth and mould filled her nostrils.
She was the wolf.
Her pack bayed loudly as it ran proudly with its leader. Hidden by foliage, the wolves kept a respectful distance as she led the hunt. A challenger had come to the forest, one who sought dominance over her territory. The challenge had to be met, defeated. The trees were alive with the voice of her family.
She was the wolf …
… A sweet aroma filled her nostrils. Her body lay upon a soft mattress. She gathered clean, silky sheets into fists as the dream faded to nothing. Other memories drifted up lazily to replace it …
A chase through the alleyways. A man in a cell. A kiss …
Clara jerked upright, confused and blinking
against bright light.
She sat on a bed in a small room. Above, a prism shaped like a pyramid protruded from the ceiling, giving off clean and brilliant illumination. Her eyes struggled to gain focus. The walls were a bland cream colour, but decorated with a repetitive square pattern that looked like tiny mazes. There were hundreds of them, one after the other, in uniform lines.
There was no door.
Clara had no memory of leaving the police station or being brought to this room. But she remembered the elderly man in the three-piece-suit well enough. He had seemed so kindly, back in the cell. Clara knew he could not have been the Resident himself, but then who was he? The Nightshade is expecting you, he had said. Was she inside it now?
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Clara rubbed a hand through her short, greasy hair. A simple white gown had replaced the oversized rags she had been wearing and her feet had been carefully bandaged. She still stank like sewage.
Clara noticed a small scab on her forearm, no bigger than a pinprick, surrounded by the onset of a light bruise. She rubbed at it and smeared a tiny streak of blood across her skin.
This had to be the Nightshade.
Curiously, all Clara’s anxiety and fear had gone. The silence in this doorless room was so total it was like being inside a sound-proofed cocoon, a safe bubble that calmed and soothed her senses. Was the Nightshade where Marney wanted her to be?
Clara’s mouth watered at the sweet aroma in the air. It emanated from a table in the corner of the room, which had a thin cloth draped over its contents. Clara slipped off the bed, hobbled over on sore feet and peeled back the cloth to reveal a silver platter of various fruits and a glass jug of water.
Her stomach growled.
Three days had passed since she had last eaten – at least in her human form – and suddenly her location fell to the back of her mind, along with assassins and chases, kidnappers and empaths. She crammed a fig into her mouth greedily, washing it down with a glass of chilled water that she drained in one go. She ate a second fig, poured a second glass, and then picked up some sugar-coated lemon segments. Nothing had ever tasted better. She gorged herself.
Fresh fruit was hard to come by in Labrys Town; it was usually dried or preserved. Was this quality of food available to the Resident on a daily basis? Van Bam was the best-connected person in the Labyrinth.
Clara often heard the older denizens talking about Labrys Town and what it had been like before the Genii War, before the Retrospective came. They said there had been countless doorways out in the Great Labyrinth, each leading to realms and kingdoms beyond imagination. There, in these realms, the Aelfir had lived, and their Houses had coexisted in peace. The Aelfir were good friends to the denizens, and the Labyrinth was their common ground, the one House that connected all Houses, where they visited and traded, and life had been rich.
The Genii War ruined so much, it was said. At its conclusion, the doorways to the Houses of the Aelfir were sealed shut, and the endless shadows of the Retrospective began roaming the alleyways of the Great Labyrinth. No one had seen or heard from the Aelfir for forty years – no one save the Resident, of course. Only he still traded with the Houses. He procured all the materials and food stocks on which the denizens of Labrys Town survived.
Clara had to wonder, as she feasted on the fresh fruit, how many other privileges of his position Van Bam enjoyed; what luxuries that were denied the people he governed?
She checked herself. Here she was in the home of the most powerful man in Labrys Town, and she was worrying herself about food and history? All her life she had been taught to fear the Nightshade, but this didn’t feel like a bad place. Even the wolf, that constant threat within her, felt sleepy in her breast, and it was not purely because of the effects of her medicine …
Clara paused with a lemon segment halfway to her mouth. Her medicine! Did Jeter still have it?
At that moment a click startled her and she dropped the lemon segment to the floor. She backed away, both fearful and fascinated, as the outline of a door appeared on the wall opposite the bed. The door-shaped section swung inwards, and the small and elderly man stood on the threshold. His smile was as kindly as it had been at the police station.
‘Ah, good, you are awake,’ he said genially. ‘I trust you have refreshed yourself?’
Words failing, Clara simply nodded.
The light was much brighter in this room than it had been in the cell, and she could see that his eyes were soft green, and that there was a patch of scarring at the centre of his forehead, starkly white against his olive skin.
‘I’m Hamir, chief aide to the Resident. And you are possibly wondering what in the Timewatcher’s name is going on, yes?’
Again, Clara didn’t respond – she didn’t know how to. She was no one, only a whore from the streets of Labrys Town, but this aide, this Hamir was welcoming her to the Nightshade as if she was a respected guest.
‘Of course you’re confused.’ Hamir’s tone was gentle, understanding. ‘I apologise for accosting you so crudely at the police station. Sometimes explanations are best left until later, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
Clara wondered for a moment if she was still in some bizarre dream. Why wasn’t she scared? Perhaps the tiny scab on her arm was due to an injection of some strange, euphoria-inducing drug.
She pointed to the pinprick. ‘What’s this?’
‘Nothing of concern,’ Hamir answered quickly. ‘Now, if you will follow me, the Resident is ready to receive you.’
Clara hadn’t moved and was staring at Hamir. He chuckled lightly at her hesitation.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘You’ve no cause for concern.’
He led Clara out of the room to a corridor. Though her bandaged feet were still sore, she hobbled after him without complaint. The door closed behind them; the outline disappeared leaving no sign that it had ever been there.
Clara said, ‘I had a tin—’
‘Don’t worry,’ Hamir said. ‘Your medicine is quite safe,’ and he set off at a brisk pace.
Clara followed. She noticed immediately that the cream walls of the corridor, like the room, were decorated with that same repetitive pattern – hundreds of tiny mazes, thousands. Hamir led her into a new corridor, and then another, and then another, each appearing much the same as the last. They ascended and descended various flights of stairs, some long, some short, and cut through antechambers into more corridors. At no time did they pass another person; at no time did Clara see a single visible door, and the pattern of tiny, square mazes never changed on the walls.
The types of people who usually came to the Nightshade fell into two categories: those who held high social positions, and those who were brought in for punishment. The former was not exactly the caste Clara mingled with; the latter were simply never seen again. Into what category had the Resident slotted her?
Van Bam was a mystery. He rarely left the Nightshade; he was almost never seen walking the streets he governed. He was the iron fist, the unseen watcher, and the denizens of the Labyrinth knew as much about their Resident as they did about the Retrospective. Every inch of Clara knew she should not be feeling so peaceful. She was struck suddenly by a sensation, a warm glow in her thoughts. Marney’s kiss, the box of secrets in Clara’s mind, somehow radiated satisfaction, as if letting Clara know she was supposed to be here.
Hamir led her out of the corridor into an antechamber, and Clara stopped and stifled a gasp. It was not the surprise of seeing someone other than Hamir that startled her; it was the nature of the person that stood in the antechamber.
It was dressed in a white gown, identical to hers, and it was hard to tell if this was man or woman. Clara doubted it was human. The dark brown skin of its hairless head was mottled with patches of grey. But the discolouration did not detract from its sense of grace and eerie beauty; it was almost as if this creature had been untouched by
age or anxieties. Its ears, nose, and mouth – they were perfect features for a perfect head. However, its lack of eyes jarred against that perfection; smooth skin grew over the sockets, as if it had been born that way.
Clara kept her distance. The thing did not move, just stood before her, motionless. Its expression was impassive, but Clara knew that somehow it could see her, even though it had no eyes.
Hamir took her arm. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said as he steered her around the creature.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘An aspect – one of the Resident’s servants. It cannot harm you. Come.’
Hamir continued into the corridor beyond the antechamber, and Clara looked over her shoulder as she followed. The servant had turned, as if to watch her leave. With a shiver, Clara kept pace with the elderly aide.
By the time they reached their destination, they had taken so many twists and turns it would have been impossible for Clara to retrace her steps back to the room she had woken up in. The Nightshade, it seemed, was every bit as complex as the deep maze of the Great Labyrinth itself. They reached a dead end, and Hamir pressed one of the mazes on the wall. It depressed with a click. Again the outline of a door materialised, and it swung inwards. Still gracious, still kindly, the old man led Clara into a room. The door closed and disappeared.
She took a few steps forward. Hamir stood close behind her.
If the Nightshade had thus far been a pleasant surprise for Clara, then this room revived her original concerns.
The only light source came from a glow lamp sitting on a desk where papers and books lay strewn. The edges of the room were steeped in darkness. Upon a long workbench sat implements for experimentation, strange looking things made of wires and tubes that passed fluids from one bell jar to another. There were magnifying glasses, and contraptions of sharp, twisted metal. Above the bench, shelves were filled with bottles and jars, the contents hidden in the gloomy light.