by Edward Cox
Despite the chaos and violence that reigned within their view, not one sound reached the ears of the Genii. They observed while surrounded by dead and eerie silence.
Viktor Gadreel made a low, grumbling sound. ‘This is what became of our Aelfirian armies?’ he asked.
‘Along with their realms, yes,’ Moor replied. ‘Disturbing, isn’t it?’
Great beasts with elongated heads flew through the poisonous sky, gliding gracefully on leathery wings. They dodged the spears of lightning, and dived to attack shambling giants who swung laboriously at them with boulder-like fists on the end of tree-sized arms. Smaller creatures scurried around the feet of the giants; some fought among themselves, others searched for food, or so it seemed. In the distance, a hive of arachnoids exploded into life with sabre-legged defenders who met the attack of spiny, slug-like monstrosities.
Gadreel shook his head in wonder. ‘And you say it was the Timewatcher who created this place?’
‘The Retrospective, She called it,’ Mo Asajad answered. Even she, in the face of this brutal scene, had lost her spiky argumentativeness. ‘The corrosion of dead time. It serves as a reminder of what it means to be the Timewatcher’s enemy.’
Gadreel scoffed. ‘To think, She dared to call us evil.’
‘Yes, the irony runs deep,’ Moor said.
Gadreel looked at him, his one eye dark and unblinking. Dressed now in the cassock of a priest, the bald Genii was as hulking and powerful-looking as he had always been. It pleased Moor to have the old brute back at his side.
‘It is just as I told you, Viktor—’ He was cut off by a blinding flash.
Out in the cruel wilderness, a lightning bolt struck a giant, tore it apart, reduced it to a shower of bone and meat in which the smaller creatures revelled and fed.
Asajad made a small noise of delight at the spectacle.
‘The Retrospective is an unimaginably huge realm,’ Moor continued. ‘These wild demons, as the humans like to call them, are vast in number. They will serve our purpose well, don’t you think?’
Gadreel remained sceptical. ‘All I see are beasts succumbed to madness, Fabian. Even with our combined thaumaturgy, how can we hope to turn such mindless animals into a trained army?’
‘We can’t,’ Moor replied. ‘But there is one who could.’
Gadreel look at him sharply, angrily. ‘You said he was gone, banished for good.’
‘No, Viktor,’ said Asajad. ‘We said he was missing.’
With a smile, Moor turned from the Retrospective and approached the strange, tree-like creature standing at the centre of the cube. Its snake’s nest of roots twisted and writhed on the silver floor; its tentacular branches held aloft the filthy magicker of the Relic Guild, the empathic human called Marney.
‘They would have us believe that he is unreachable, lost forever,’ Moor said as Gadreel and Asajad came alongside him, ‘that only the Timewatcher knows his true location.’
‘But some secrets aren’t as well kept as they believe,’ Asajad said. She stroked Marney’s slack and unconscious face with a delicate hand.
Gadreel folded his meaty arms across his barrel chest. ‘This human really knows how to find his prison?’
‘As Fabian said, it is ironic,’ Asajad sighed. ‘The Timewatcher believed in equality, demanded that we treated Aelfir and humans as our peers.’ She traced a finger down the empath’s naked body. ‘And now She will rue the day She ever trusted so lowly a creature as this.’
Gadreel nodded, clearly pleased.
‘So long ago,’ Moor said, ‘we three endured tortures to preserve our essences, to escape the war against the Timewatcher, but history showed that we had died. It was all for this day, my friends.’
He took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, staring at the pale and pitiful magicker hanging before him. ‘Soon, this empath will reveal to us the hidden location of Oldest Place, and the Aelfir will know the true meaning of horror.’
Viktor Gadreel grinned, and Mo Asajad closed her eyes as if listening to the sweetest of music.
Moor turned from the empath and the tree-like monstrosity, and faced the Retrospective once more. The silent images of mindless rage and lustful violence no longer disturbed him; they fuelled his blood with the roar of higher magic.
‘The day has come, my friends,’ he told his fellow Genii. ‘Soon, Lord Spiral will stand beside us once again.’
Acknowledgements
When you get handed a ticket to the Biggest and Best Ride, you come to realise there are a lot of people who deserve your eternal gratitude. I would like to thank:
Mum and Dad for the life they gave me; Dot and Norm for the start they gave me (and sadness too that Dot never got to see the release of this book). My test readers: Kellie and Katy (the Almost Girls), Geoff, and my main man Trusty Mike. My agent John Berlyne for his perseverance and for unlocking the door I’d been banging on for the last ten years; and my marvellous editor Marcus Gipps who made me feel so welcome and special when I found the courage to walk through that door – this also goes for Gillian, Simon and Jen, along with the rest of the amazing Gollancz team.
Keith, Lesley, Helen and Kelly, the students I studied with and the students I taught. The T-Dog for keeping the faith, Stefan Fergus for his seal of approval, Miss Grumpy Bear (who doesn’t scare me at all), and the staff of the Rendezvous Bar & Bistro for keeping me plied with coffee while I wrote a large chunk of this story. And my wonderful daughter Marney, whose birth disrupted the writing of this book, and who is still too young to read about the adventures of her namesake.
To each and every one of you, my thanks.
This book is dedicated to Jack, my wife and best friend, who supported me while I stood in line for the Biggest and Best Ride, and put up with my every shade and mood. I love you.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Edward Cox 2014
All rights reserved.
The right of Edward Cox to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2014 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 473 200326
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
www.gollancz.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
An Epilogue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
&n
bsp; Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Forty Years Earlier
Chapter Twenty
Acknowledgements
Copyright