The Relic Guild (19 page)

‘All you have to do is get me close to him,’ Samuel said, as if it were a simple thing. He pulled up his trouser leg, reached into his boot, and produced a small snub-nosed pistol. ‘Give me five minutes alone with Llewellyn – I’ll get what we need. Pittman’s a greedy bastard. Even he won’t try anything while I’ve got a pistol to his money’s head.’

Bryant rolled his eyes. ‘Samuel, even if I was stupid enough to test Pittman’s greed – which I’m definitely not, by the way – do you honestly think the four of us could walk away from any trouble we start here?’

Samuel didn’t reply and slid the pistol back into his boot, moodily.

‘Perhaps we should talk to Gideon,’ Van Bam suggested, which didn’t much improve Samuel’s sour expression. ‘He could arrange a raid on the Anger Pitt. While the police are keeping everyone busy, we can smuggle Llewellyn back to the Nightshade for questioning.’

‘Don’t think we haven’t thought of that,’ Macy said. ‘But it’s not an option. See, we’ve heard Llewellyn’s in a bad way. Pittman’s paying a doctor to stay with him at all times, just keeping him breathing until he gets his money. Llewellyn probably wouldn’t survive a move to the Nightshade.’

Van Bam nodded slowly.

‘So,’ Bryant said, ‘if we want to know where this artefact came from, and who was trying to buy it, we need to talk to Llewellyn here and now, while he’s still breathing, and before word of Carrick’s death gets out. And we need to do it the sneaky way.’ He leant forwards and gave Van Bam’s walking stick a light flick. The illusion of wood gave off a musical, distinctly glassy chime. ‘The Relic Guild way, if you know what I mean?’

Macy rested her chin on Van Bam’s shoulder again and grinned. ‘Are you ready, boys?’

Samuel was on his feet before any of them. By his body language, he was eager to be doing something – anything – other than sitting around talking.

‘Let’s do this quick,’ Bryant said, ‘while Pittman’s busy with his cronies.’

Van Bam took a final look across the arena. Pittman was looking over the balcony, down onto the cheap seats, where it seemed as though he would be enjoying the profits from yet another full house. Van Bam then followed Samuel and the twins out of the box to the corridor beyond the curtain.

Having first ensured that no denizen was around to view his actions, Van Bam dropped the illusion on the green glass cane and held it out, vertically. Once his fellow agents had each gripped the green glass with one hand, Van Bam stabbed it down against the floor, whispering to the illusionist magic in his veins as he did so. A dim chime was followed by a soft pulse of green light as the cane amplified his magic to surround the group. A moment passed, and then, one by one, each of them became invisible.

Van Bam knew that Samuel, Macy and Bryant could not see him or each other, but
he
could see them. His fellow agents appeared as lines of magic, like pale green skeletons. The illusion would last as long as his glass cane remained in his hand, and his companions remained in his immediate vicinity.

‘Right,’ said Macy. ‘Bryant will lead us up to Pittman’s apartment. Van Bam, you can see us well enough to follow. Samuel, hold my hand so you don’t get lost – there’s a good boy.’

Marney’s eyes were pinched shut. She could feel Lady Amilee’s arms crossed over her chest, holding her securely, and she knew they were flying, borne upon the Skywatcher’s wings of fluid silver. A gentle breeze caressed Marney’s face and her ears were filled with the distant moaning of a lonely wind. Her emotions were hardened like the wall of a dam, preventing her fear bursting to the fore, but she dared not open her eyes.

‘Do not hold back from this,’ Amilee whispered into her ear. Her voice was soothing, benevolent. ‘You may never get the chance to experience it again.’

Marney opened her eyes and moaned.

The walls, floor and ceiling of the Skywatcher’s observatory had disappeared, fallen away, expanded into an endless void of space.

‘The sky above your realm,’ Amilee told her.

Stars, millions of stars, more than Marney had ever seen from Labrys Town, in clusters and formations that she never had known existed. The sun, too, looked different, lighter in colour than when viewed from the ground, its edge jagged and alive with liquid fire. Silver Moon hid behind the sun, not so bright now in the glare of the great fiery orb, but Marney could see that the peaks and craters on its surface were monumental. And in the distance, loitering in the shadow of its silver sibling, Ruby Moon appeared small, smooth and blood red.

These visions might be majestic, but Marney’s brain was struggling for understanding; she could not deny what she was seeing, but could not comprehend how she could be seeing it. Had Lady Amilee travelled far from her tower, or were they still in her observatory? Were the things she saw real or illusion?

‘How … how can this be happening?’

‘Thaumaturgy,’ Amilee explained, as if this word should give comfort and assurance and understanding. ‘I am a Skywatcher and it has long been my duty to safeguard the Labyrinth from outside interference, to protect the denizens. I watch the sky, Marney. And I listen to it, decipher its language. For some time now, the sky has been speaking only of trouble and uncertainty. Still, it is beautiful to behold, yes?’

Marney clutched Amilee’s arms. Such openness, such freedom – she felt like a child clinging to her mother. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘You are among the privileged. No denizen outside the Relic Guild has ever been permitted to my tower. But I have not brought you here merely to experience the grace of the sky. Observe …’

Suddenly it felt as if Amilee had dived, and they were falling down into darkness. But Marney supposed they could have been heading in any direction. The effect was stomach wrenching nonetheless, and she fought back a wave of nausea. The star-studded darkness became a hazy blue, and when Amilee levelled out their flight she began circling high above a huge city.

It took Marney a moment to realise what she was looking at; but when she saw a cube-like building at the exact centre of the city, and followed the line of a road that led from it and headed directly north to a much,
much
bigger cube, it dawned on her that the road called Resident Approach connected the police headquarters building to the Nightshade, and she was gazing upon the town she called home.

‘And now the Great Labyrinth,’ Amilee said. Her body was pressed hard against Marney’s back. ‘The realm that connects all the Houses of the Aelfir.’

Beyond the town’s boundary walls the alleyways of the Great Labyrinth went on and on, further than Marney could see, seemingly without end. She had been told so many times that no one but the Timewatcher knew how far the alleyways stretched, and to where they eventually led – if anywhere – but nothing could have prepared her for seeing the vastness of it all with her own eyes. Labrys Town was not only dwarfed by the endless maze that surrounded it, it was an inconsequential speck by comparison.

Amilee said, ‘But for the creation of the Labyrinth, the Aelfir would have continued warring among themselves, existing within chaos and ignorance. Our Mother gave them a common ground in which to find order and peace. You, Marney, as an agent of the Relic Guild, play your part in preserving this state. Until now, your personal existence has been small, restricted, and it is high time you understood the full magnitude of Spiral’s plan.’

The Great Labyrinth fell away as the Skywatcher gave a beat of her wings. Marney was carried upwards, fast, and soon the view of her home was obscured by thickening mist that quickly engulfed her in utter whiteness. Amilee gave another beat, and the mist thinned as she and her passenger rose out of it. With one final beat of those fluid silver wings, Marney’s stomach was left behind as Amilee jaunted away at impossible speed; not stopping until the mist they had passed through seemed no more than a patch of fog at an unimaginable distance.

Then Marney saw it, hanging in a black void, like a vast, nebulous cloud of pale white. Bursts of luminous blue crackled along its surface, like brief but monstrous flashes of lightning.

‘The Nothing of Far and Deep,’ Amilee announced.

Marney could only stare in speechless awe. Her grip on her emotions slackened only slightly, but enough to let her know that if she lost her focus completely, she would be swamped, drowned, by what she saw.

‘The Great Labyrinth sits at its core,’ Amilee said. ‘The pathways to the Aelfir lead through its primordial mist.’

From the body of the Nothing of Far and Deep, thin and wispy tendrils snaked out. Marney was too fearful to even guess at the distance each tendril covered before they halted at pinpricks of light – hundreds of them, it seemed – all glittering around the great white cloud like moths around a glow lamp.

‘Every light you see is the sun of an Aelfirian House,’ Amilee explained. ‘Most, your people have had contact with. Some do not treat with the Labyrinth.’

‘I …’ Marney took a breath. ‘I had no idea there were so many.’ Her voice was hushed.

‘Ah, but these are only those that you can see, Marney.’

Beneath Marney’s emotive control, she realised she felt so small, so insignificant in the face of the Nothing of Far and Deep, she could have wept. Van Bam entered her thoughts; had he, at some time, been shown this awe-inspiring vision by the Skywatcher, too?

‘At this very moment,’ Amilee said, ‘the war is raging, out among these lights. The Houses are divided, Marney. If Spiral succeeds in his quest to subjugate the Aelfir in their entirety, they will not revert to their warlike ways, squabbling among each other, harbouring petty hatreds. They will be united under Spiral’s tyranny as a single, unimaginably huge army.’

The nebulous cloud flickered with blue lightning, and Marney struggled to comprehend the full significance of the Skywatcher’s words. Each wispy tendril that connected the vast whiteness to a pinprick sun was a pathway from the Great Labyrinth to a House of the Aelfir. Countless realms divided, caught in a feud between creatures of higher magic; she could understand only that the scope of this war was too enormous for her mind to conceive. And to think, she had held to the ignorant belief that her role as a Relic Guild agent could really make a difference.

As if sensing her train of thought, Lady Amilee said, ‘The protection of the Labyrinth, and the part of the Relic Guild is, without doubt, the most intrinsic element to this war, Marney. For without control of the Great Labyrinth and Labrys Town, there are too many Houses Spiral cannot reach, and without them he cannot hope to raise an army capable of defeating the Timewatcher.

‘The Genii are greedy. They crave dominance and power, and – be assured – if this war ever went in their favour, if the Labyrinth fell under their control and all the Houses of the Aelfir stood with them, it would still not be enough for Spiral and his kind. His ambition has always looked beyond what you can now see …’

Once again, Amilee beat her silver wings, and Marney was speeding through the dark void of space. The Nothing of Far and Deep and its pinprick suns disappeared. For an instant, Marney felt pulled in all directions. She groaned as her emotive control slipped from her grasp a little more. The flight only lasted for a few heartbeats, and then she was
motionless once more, clutching desperately to
the arms of the Skywatcher crossed over her chest.

She
could see a new, vast cloud-like formation in the
far, far distance. Unlike the nebulous whiteness of the Nothing
of Far and Deep, it roiled almost angrily, churning with
a deep purple luminescence in the darkness. It somehow seemed
both violent and majestic, forbidding and welcoming. Of all the
things the Skywatcher had shown Marney so far, the empath
shied from this vision the most.

‘What is it?’ she
whispered.

‘We call it the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster,’ Amilee replied
. ‘There are many realms inside, Marney, but can you guess
what world sits at its heart?’

Marney didn’t reply
; she didn’t know how to. She both wanted and
didn’t want to know the answer. Even as Amilee
’s lips brushed against her ear, she could feel cracks
beginning to splinter her last empathic defences, and she tried
to bolster herself for the words that had to come
.

‘Mother Earth,’ Amilee told her softly. ‘The home of the
Timewatcher.’

Marney’s control shattered. With a moan her body
fell limp, and if not for the Skywatcher’s tight
embrace she might have drifted off into the dark void
, lost forever.

‘This is where Spiral’s ambition would lead
him,’ Amilee continued. ‘And should he raise an army large
enough to conquer the Higher Thaumaturgic Cluster, and the Timewatcher
falls, then the Genii and their hordes would spread like
a plague across distances and realms you could not comprehend
, Marney. Nothing would be safe, and there would no longer
be a Mother Earth waiting to welcome your soul when
your end comes.’

Marney’s mouth opened, but no words
came forth. With fear and wonder, she watched the roiling
mass of luminous purple within which the Timewatcher could see
all things from Mother Earth.

‘And so, I hope, you
begin to appreciate the implications of Spiral’s quest, Marney
. When considering the full scale of the war, the Great
Labyrinth might seem small, and you might feel smaller within
Labrys Town, but if we allow your House’s purpose
to be perverted by Spiral, it
would then become the catalyst for a time of darkness unlike anything we have seen before.’