by Edward Cox
‘Clara,’ said Van Bam, facing down at the floor, ‘before the Timewatcher decreed the Labyrinth a forbidden zone, contacting the Thaumaturgists was relatively easy for the Resident.’ He turned his metal eyes to her. ‘But the Thaumaturgists disappeared long before you were born, yes?’
Clara nodded acknowledgement, and Van Bam continued.
‘There is … an emergency safeguard, I suppose you would call it, that was incorporated into the Labyrinth’s design. Very few people know of this safeguard – not even every member of the Relic Guild was made aware of it – but, at least at one time, it formed a line of communication between us and certain guardians outside our realm.’
The elevator came to a stop and opened onto a narrow and gloomy corridor that must have run beneath the police headquarters. It was only wide enough to walk single file, and Clara once again followed the Resident. A low prickling of hope fluttered in her stomach.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘You know how to contact the Thaumaturgists?’
‘No, I do not,’ Van Bam replied. ‘Understand, Clara, this emergency safeguard was designed for the unlikely event that the Resident and the agents of the Relic Guild were in some way incapacitated, and no longer able to protect the denizens. Should such an emergency occur, it would fall to certain individuals – the captain of the police force, for example – to send a distress signal to those who might be able to help.
‘It is my prayer, Clara, that sending a distress signal now will at least alert someone out there who still knows how to reach the Thaumaturgists.’
Clara’s sense of hope became a little brighter. ‘So that’s it? You flick a switch and we’re saved?’
Her hope all but vanished as Van Bam stopped in front of her and looked back with a miserable expression.
He said, ‘If Samuel were here, he would tell you my plan is foolhardy, an act of desperation that has no chance of success. He is adamant in his belief that no one is out there listening anymore.’ He sighed. ‘I cannot tell you he is wrong, Clara. But we will try. The distress signal takes two people to activate.’
He walked on.
The corridor turned to the left and ended at another wall decorated with tiny maze patterns. Van Bam pressed his hand to the patch of mazes. Another hidden door appeared, and the Resident led Clara into a chamber beyond. The door closed and disappeared behind them.
The air felt oppressive, unnaturally silent. The chamber was sparse and bland, and could easily have been a room in the Nightshade itself. It was lit by a ceiling prism, and that familiar maze pattern was repeated on each cream coloured wall. The only object of note was a slim pedestal that rose from the centre of the floor. Atop the pedestal was a clear glass sphere which contained wispy lights.
Clara moved forwards for a closer look. There was thick fluid inside the sphere, not quite milky like an eye, but alive with sparks and streaks as if a storm cloud had been charged with purple lightning. It was beautiful, and the effect was almost hypnotic. Clara noticed that on opposing sides of the sphere the glass was indented with two hand shapes. It was obvious to her that she and Van Bam were required to press their hands into these indents to activate the distress signal.
The idea of feeling the scintillating orb against her skin was suddenly so pleasing to Clara it was as if she had never wished to do anything else. Could everybody’s troubles be over with a single touch?
Dazzled by the purple sparks, she reached out a hand—
‘Do not touch it!’ Van Bam snapped.
Clara withdrew her hand sharply.
The Resident was facing the wall through which they had entered. ‘This is wrong,’ he said. ‘Someone else has been here, and recently.’
Clara looked around the sparse room with a frown. ‘How can you tell?’
The light from the ceiling prism glared back from Van Bam’s metal eyes as he turned to her and used his green cane to point at the glass sphere. ‘There is a barrier of magic surrounding that device, and it should not be there.’
‘What?’ Clara took a step away.
‘I can see it,’ Van Bam said. ‘One touch would mean death. Someone knew we planned to activate the distress signal, Clara, and they have used magic to stop us.’
Clara felt a sudden, chilled pang. In the stillness of the chamber, her heightened senses became so alert they were almost painful.
‘Strange,’ Van Bam said. ‘There is only one place in this town from where the Labyrinth’s magic could be used in this way.’ He cocked his head to one side. After a second or two, his face fell. ‘I … I can no longer hear Gideon’s voice. I cannot feel the Nightshade—’
There was a sudden click. The outline of a door appeared on the wall. Clara looked at Van Bam for directions, but he gave none. The Resident whispered an unintelligible word and tapped his cane against the floor. There was a brief glow of soft green light, and then Van Bam disappeared as if he had blinked out of existence.
‘No,’ Clara implored.
Suddenly alone, she backed away as the door swung inwards and four police officers burst into the chamber, rifles aimed, power stones primed and glowing. Captain Jeter followed them, a sneer on his face and a pistol in his hand. The dark lenses of his spectacles glared at Clara with bitter satisfaction.
The magic of the Nightshade was as old as it was mysterious. Ever had it projected beings into existence, strange spectres that were not truly real. They were phantoms which represented some inner aspect of whoever held the position of Resident. They were servants who conducted those mundane chores that were clearly beneath Hamir’s duties as chief aide.
Van Bam’s servants had always been strange looking creatures – angelic, almost – but they carried the imperfection of eyeless faces. Knowing Van Bam as well as he did, Hamir found these phantoms a good representation of the Resident. Over the past forty years he had grown quite accustomed to their presence. However, now that the Genii had infiltrated the Nightshade, Van Bam’s servants had disappeared, each and every one of them, as if even the smallest aspect of the Resident had been purged from the very stones of his home.
And now the new Resident’s servants had begun to appear.
As Hamir tried to reach his laboratory, they dogged his path through the Nightshade’s corridors. Their limbs were stick thin, and their bodies were withered. Puckered skin hung from them in folds, raw and pink. Their long necks lacked the strength to hold their spherical heads aloft properly. Their features seemed smeared across their faces, and their eyes were protruding, watery pink orbs that never blinked. They were gross representations of Hagi Tabet, who hung upon leathery tentacles back in the isolation room.
Hamir found himself intrigued. Although the servants of the Residents were never truly real, they were solid. Could they be killed? Hamir didn’t know the answer because he had never had cause to find out before. The servants had been peaceful, docile creatures, but these new phantoms were far from that. It seemed that Tabet, in her quest to become the new Resident, had decided that Hamir’s services as chief aide were no longer required. For her servants were certainly trying to kill him.
Hamir disliked doing two things at once. He preferred an orderly approach, where one task was dealt with at a time; but Tabet’s aspects were sorely inconveniencing him. The necromancer needed to reach his laboratory to find some way of warning Van Bam and the other agents of the Relic Guild. Each corridor he turned into, however, held a new phantom waiting to pounce – though ‘pounce’ was perhaps too flattering a word for these creatures.
The aspects shambled with slow and dulled movements, heads lolloping on long necks. Mostly, Hamir found them easy to dodge and leave behind. Their hands were large, and their fat fingers were slow when they reached for the necromancer when he passed. But the merest touch from these slow fingers was like the hardest punch from the toughest brawler of the Anger Pitt. Hamir had only been struck once, and once was enoug
h; his ribs were bruised and his face swollen from where the blow had sent him crashing against the maze-covered wall. It would not happen again.
As he hurried on, and dodged yet another phantom, a voice called to him.
‘Hamir?’ Hagi Tabet’s tone was light, almost pleasant. Her voice came from the very stone of the Nightshade, from the walls and ceiling and floor. ‘Where do you think you can run to?’
Staying silent, Hamir ignored the voice and continued on. But the new Resident was not to be deterred from her goading.
‘I can see everything, Hamir,’ her voice sighed. ‘There is nowhere you can hide. Come back. Some friends of mine are on their way, and they so wish to see you again.’
Hamir turned into the corridor that led to his laboratory. Predictably, another of Tabet’s aspects waited for him.
Enough was enough, the necromancer decided, and he took a scalpel from his pocket.
Side-stepping the grotesque phantom’s lumbering reach, Hamir slashed the scalpel across its blubbery, pink throat as he skipped past. The phantom gave no cry of pain, spilled no blood, and fell to the floor where it faded out of existence.
‘Hmm,’ said Hamir.
‘Now that was just rude,’ Tabet whispered.
She chuckled with a curious hissing sound as Hamir continued on to the end of the corridor.
He placed his hand on the wall, feeling a mild sense of relief as the outline of his laboratory door appeared. At least the Nightshade still acknowledged his presence to a certain degree. But when he opened the door, he was not greeted by the usual gloom of his private chamber; a bright light shone from within, casting the corridor and the necromancer in a deep blue glow.
‘Ah,’ Hamir said with something close to a smile on his face. ‘The mysterious avatar, I presume. I was wondering when you would visit me,’ and he stepped into his laboratory, closing the door behind him.
Hagi Tabet screamed his name.
Chapter Sixteen
Secret Places
All was quiet in Old Man Sam’s hideout. Unlike most other agents of the Relic Guild, he had never taken rooms at the Nightshade. He preferred his own space, away from the utter lack of privacy offered at the Resident’s home. Although he wasn’t the first agent to live in his hideout, he had to wonder if he would be the last.
The apartment was situated in one of the few residential buildings in the central district. The front door had been bricked up years ago; and in the corridor outside, standing against the wall where the door used to be, was a janitor’s locker. The sole entrance to the apartment was the hatchway in the ceiling – though it was not the only point of exit – which was only accessible from the fire escape that led to the roof. From the outside, to the unknowing eye, the hatchway appeared to be an air vent.
It was a peaceful building in which to live. The other tenants were mostly businessmen and women who liked to live close to their workplaces. None of them appreciated that they had a secret neighbour; that they lived next door to the fabled hideout of Old Man Sam. So many of Samuel’s rivals had tried to find this place – younger bounty hunters out with a point to prove – but not one of them had ever found success, and that was probably why they were still alive.
Samuel sat at a table in the bedroom – though there had never been a bed in the room, and he had always slept on the sofa in the lounge – and cleaned his guns. Pinned to the walls around him were a map of Labrys Town, old bounty notices, and handwritten notes of general information and routines concerning old marks, all of whom were long dead.
He had tried to sleep, but his thoughts refused to slow down or acknowledge the needs of his ageing body. Samuel’s weapons were already in perfect working condition, but he conducted the cleaning process anyway, as a means to alleviate his growing restlessness. Until Van Bam and Clara returned from the police headquarters there wasn’t much to do except wait.
With a sigh, Samuel laid his rifle upon the table, and then began checking his revolver.
He knew what Van Bam was going to attempt at the police station, and he was sure it would prove to be a waste of effort. There had been a time when the distress signal would have travelled far from the Labyrinth, through the never-ending mists of the Nothing of Far and Deep, all the way to the Tower of the Skywatcher. And there it would have alerted Lady Amilee, perhaps the greatest guardian the Labyrinth had ever known. But Lady Amilee, along with all her fellow Thaumaturgists, was long gone now. Even if the distress signal could still be activated, the chances were it would be lost in the Nothing of Far and Deep, unheard by anyone for eternity.
Placing his revolver down, he reached for a small wooden chest and opened it. Inside were stored empty magazines and ammunition – both magical and standard – along with a few spare power stones charged with ambient thaumaturgy absorbed from the air and ready for use. Samuel loaded his newly-cleaned revolver with eight regular metal slugs, and then placed some spare – fifteen or more rounds – into a pouch on his utility belt. He had seven ice-bullets left, which he also stored in the belt. His rifle was already fully loaded with his last four fire-bullets, and he loaded a spare magazine with four thumb-sized, regular slugs.
Over the years, he had always used his magical ammunition sparingly. But now, he reasoned, he could ask Hamir to replenish his dwindling stock. The thought gave him little comfort.
Clicking the last bullet into the magazine, Samuel’s work was done. He sat back and rubbed his face.
Could he really think Van Bam a fool for attempting to activate the distress signal? Options were growing thin, the Relic Guild was in deep trouble, and the Timewatcher only knew how well Samuel understood that desperation could motivate actions. He had been blinded by the empty promise of a blue ghost. He had willed himself to believe the avatar, allowed its lies to manipulate him; and just at the point when he had acknowledged how desperately he needed some kind of hope, Van Bam had helped him to realise that he had never believed the avatar at all, and the shame he felt cut deep.
No, the Resident was not a fool, and Samuel hoped – prayed – that he himself was wrong, and that Van Bam would find success at the police headquarters.
A noise from the lounge disturbed his thoughts.
A brief hum was followed by a hissing, crackling sound.
In a second, Samuel was out of his chair and walking from the bedroom. The sound grew louder. It emanated from an innocuous looking cupboard fixed to the small space of wall between the bathroom and bedroom. Samuel opened its doors.
Inside the cupboard was an eye, like those on the streets of Labrys Town. It was covered in a thick layer of grime. Samuel wiped the grime away, and saw the milky fluid inside the hemisphere was agitated, as though it had been brought to the boil. Many years had passed since he had used this device; in the past, it had formed his direct line of communication to the Nightshade. He had built the cupboard around it to prevent Gideon from spying on him.
The eye buzzed and crackled with a sound like a distorted voice. One word came through, clear and intelligible: ‘Samuel’. It was the familiar voice of the necromancer.
‘Hamir,’ Samuel said. ‘Can you hear me?’
When Hamir spoke, his words were gurgled and there were gaps in his sentences. ‘Is … Bam … to speak …’
‘Van Bam’s at the police headquarters.’ The necromancer’s reply was nothing more than distorted static. ‘Say again, Hamir.’
‘ … Genii … Nightshade. They know … your hideout is … you … underground—’
With a click, the eye device fell silent, and Samuel was dismayed to see the milky fluid inside become tinged with a shade of pink as it continued to boil. He slammed the cupboard doors shut and stepped back from it.
In that moment, time paused, and sharp needles speared through Samuel’s veins as his prescient awareness awoke.
The apartment became Samuel’s web and he the spider w
aiting for the feel of vibrations upon silky threads. He was starkly aware of every object around him; his hearing was acutely sensitive to all sound.
A scratch from above.
Someone was on the roof, at the hatchway.
It wasn’t locked.
Quicker than he could think, Samuel drew his knife from the sheath strapped to his side. Steered by his magic, he moved to stand with his back to the wall below the ceiling hatch, the ladder before him. But his instincts told him not to climb up and lock the hatchway.
It was time to kill.
After a moment, the hatchway opened – just a crack at first, and then wider.
A hand holding a snub-nosed pistol descended into the apartment, followed by a man’s shaven head. Leaning down from the ladder, and with his back to Samuel, the man scanned the apartment with his weapon. Samuel stepped forward, slapped a hand over the intruder’s face and pulled his head back. In one smooth action, the old bounty hunter slit his throat.
The man gave a gurgled scream as Samuel pulled his body down onto the apartment floor, hard, and the hatchway slammed shut above him. Samuel kicked the snub-nosed pistol away and left the man to bleed and choke and writhe while he climbed the ladder, slid the bolt to lock the hatch, and jumped back down.
The dying man’s eyes were wide with panic and he clawed with weak fingers as Samuel searched his clothes and found a letter. He unfolded it and read:
WANTED
BY ORDER OF THE RESIDENT
The bounty hunter known as Old Man Sam
is hereby proclaimed a demon-worshipper
and enemy of the Labyrinth. Wanted dead.
Proof of kill required.
No reward for live capture.
Samuel gritted his teeth as he screwed up the notice and let it drop onto the body of the dead bounty hunter. It bounced off his chest and settled in the blood that soaked the carpet beneath him.