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Synopsis
This audiobook features an exclusive interview with Edward Cox and Imogen Church.
Also available, THE CHAMPION OF DEAD TIME, a prelude to THE CATHEDRAL OF KNOWN THINGS.
Divided, hunted and short on resources, the surviving members of the Relic Guild are in real trouble. Their old enemy, the Genii, and their resurrected master have infiltrated Labrys Town and taken over the police force.
So the Relic Guild must flee their home, and set off on a dangerous journey across the worlds of the Aelfir. One that will lead them to a weapon which might destroy the Genii. Or the whole universe...
And forty years before all this, the war which led to the fall of the Genii continues. And what happens to the Relic Guild during that conflict will change the course of their desperate flight.
Read by Imogen Church
Release date: October 15, 2015
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Print pages: 400
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The Cathedral of Known Things
Edward Cox
An Interim
Time Mechanic
At times, he played the long game in the strangest of places.
Above, the primordial mists of the Nothing of Far and Deep roiled beneath an angry sky yet to warm its cold days with the fire of a sun; a monumental dome of liquid slate devoid of nights filled with the ruby and silver glares of its moons. Below, unused time congealed into slabs of pulsing colour to create a landscape of blues and reds hued so variedly as to fill the spectrum between dusk and dawn. Raw thaumaturgy dashed the air like static, whipping, dancing, as free and wild as windborne snow. A hum, low enough to be felt rather than heard, vibrated and churned the volatile atmosphere, coaxing shape from shapelessness.
Hovering between the angry sky and the landscape in flux, Fabian Moor was exhilarated by the flakes of higher magic swirling around him, stinging his face, singing to his blood. An age had passed since he had last been able to enjoy the moment.
Defeat at the hands of the Relic Guild was far in the future, yet a distant memory now. Those petty, interfering magickers might have proved much more intelligent, problematic – even more powerful – than Moor had been prepared for, but ultimately their meddling had achieved nothing that hindered Lord Spiral’s greater strategy. Yes, details had been compromised, planning required adjustment, new pathways needed to be found; but all the Relic Guild had really achieved was to buy themselves a little extra time. Just a few more years.
With a feeling of satisfaction, Moor looked to the northern horizon, and stared with wonder upon a column of energy that connected unstable land to swirling sky like an umbilical cord of liquid fire. Droning with a mournful song, blazing, spitting bolts of purple at the ground, the column snaked and twisted through the air like a whirlwind. The First and Greatest Spell, that energy was called, and it bore a legend. It had been cast by the only creature of higher magic worshipped by all lower races: the Timewatcher.
The First and Greatest Spell would one day be contained within a building named the Nightshade. But now, in its raw state, the spell was an immense and untamed formation of thaumaturgy that inflated an ever expanding bubble within the Nothing of Far and Deep. It held aloft the sky while solidifying time into the founding stones of an intrinsic House that would come to be known as Labrys Town, a human haven surrounded by the alleyways of an endless maze called the Great Labyrinth. The creation of this House would prove to be the Timewatcher’s grandest achievement, and her biggest mistake.
Among all the Thaumaturgists, only Spiral, the Lord of the Genii, had been able to match the Timewatcher’s power; only his command of higher magic had been able to smuggle Moor back to this time, a thousand years before the Genii War, to when the Timewatcher’s fabled First and Greatest Spell birthed the most significant epoch in the history of the Houses.
Moor’s sense of wonder grew. In this time frame, the Aelfir were warring against each other, out among the plethora of realms, fighting in perpetual, bloody battles that never heralded a victor – a cycle of pointlessness that was already centuries old. When the Great Labyrinth was completed, The Timewatcher would use it to break that cycle, and spell the end of what the Aelfir would come to call the Old Ways. Moor understood what a privilege it was to be chosen to bear witness to such an important beginning, to such … creation. Labrys Town might give the Aelfir a common ground, give them peace, but that peace would not last.
And to think, in only a millennium, the Great Labyrinth would become the catalyst that caused The Timewatcher to lose so many of her children. Lord Spiral and his Genii were coming, and nothing would be the same again.
An itch crawled across his skin.
Hollowness gnawed inside him.
Fabian Moor sighed.
From the satchel which hung from his shoulder, he took a phial of blood and popped the cork with his thumb. He paused before drinking, staring at the phial and its contents.
A part of Moor had hoped that being present at this primitive stage of the Labyrinth’s creation might ease his cravings; that the flakes of raw thaumaturgy, hissing in the air like a storm of static, might substitute the need for sustenance that ached in his core. He wondered: was this chronic need to feed on blood a weakness? Perhaps the virus that he carried meant he had become nothing more than vermin. Or did his condition make him greater even than the Thaumaturgists?
In the overall scheme of things, did it matter?
Lifting the phial to his lips, Moor drained the blood in one go. He was repulsed by how willingly he savoured the rusty tang as it slipped thickly down his throat, quenching his hunger, filling the void inside him. The phial fell from his grasp, and he watched it tumble down, end over end, until it disappeared into the fluxing landscape. There was no time left for musing and marvelling. Slowly, Moor descended. His eyes ever watchful, his instincts alert, almost fearful.
The purple fire of the First and Greatest Spell might have been providing the highest of thaumaturgy by which this House was achieving existence, but the Timewatcher’s spell would not sculpt the final design. For that, the Great Labyrinth and its town required labourers … of a kind.
Moor could see them as he neared the ground, hundreds, thousands of them, scurrying and lumbering and sliding over slabs and boulders that glowed blue and red. Radiating a vague violet sheen, the workers burrowed and dug, carved and built. Labouring tirelessly, in perfect unison, they hardened time to the black stone foundations of this House. Sculptors, creators, the builders of realms, these things were the Timewatcher’s loyal pets. They were the Time Engineers.
Some of them appeared humanoid, hefting stone and laying brickwork; others appeared as giant slugs that devoured everything in their path to then excrete lines of dull purple jelly like icing squeezed from tubes. The last of them were arachnids, and they scooped up the jelly upon flat backs and carried it to the humanoids to use as mortar in their work. The Time Engineers needed no sustenance, no rest, and were unconcerned by the hostile environment. They would not stop building until this House was finished.
Moor spied an area of completed ground beside a wide chasm, and headed towards it. Landing near the edge of the chasm, he froze, tense and ready, as an arachnid scuttled towards him, back laden with purple mortar.
For the most part, Time Engineers were apathetic creatures, harbouring no prejudices, incapable of distinguishing between friend and foe. They understood only order and purpose. However, whether Moor be Genii, vermin, or a new and brilliant form of life, he remained fundamentally a creature of higher magic. If the Engineers detected his thaumaturgy, they would regard him simply as raw material to be mashed and ground into the foundations of Labrys Town.
The single arachnid didn’t pose much of a threat. But if the one approaching detected Moor, it would summon its fellow Engineers, and one Genii could not stand against the thousands that would answer that call. Should he attempt to fight, they would alert the Timewatcher to the discrepancy, and Moor would have to flee before his lord and master’s orders could be carried out. There would be no second chance. Subtlety was his best friend in this place.
Thankfully, the lone Engineer was focused on its current task. It did not pursue the Genii who had broken into this timeframe, but scurried up to the chasm and disappeared down into it. Relieved, Moor peered over the edge.
The fissure was shallower than he had expected, though it still sank into the ground a fair way. Its mouth might have been crude and ragged, but the further down the chasm reached, the neater and squarer its walls became. Moor could see Time Engineers working tirelessly, their violet glow lighting the depths. Some clung to the walls, smoothing and shaping; others worked at the very bottom, constructing what Moor supposed would be the partitions of interconnecting rooms.
Glancing nervously around at the forming landscape, ensuring no other Time Engineers were close by, Moor dipped a hand into his satchel again, this time producing a small terracotta jar. He ran a pale hand over the smooth and plain surface, feeling the charge of higher magic held inside.
The last of the Genii.
The other jars containing the essences of Moor’s fellow Genii were already in place. Viktor Gadreel, Hagi Tabet and Yves Harrow now lay waiting among the bones of Labrys Town. This final terracotta jar contained the essence of Mo Asajad.
In Moor’s natural time period, the war against the Timewatcher was over, and Lord Spiral had lost – or so his enemies believed. The rest of the Genii faced imminent execution, and the last of their allies among the Houses of the Aelfir had been vanquished. Every one of the secret strongholds Spiral had created within the Nothing of Far and Deep was being searched out and destroyed. There were no safe havens left for the only remaining Genii.
Moor could not take the other Genii to where he was headed; a tomb of his own awaited him, and his immediate future was too unpredictable to play minder to his comrades. The passage of time, while they lay hidden beneath the noses of their enemies, was the best weapon they had now. The higher magic that contained Asajad, Gadreel, Tabet and Harrow inside the terracotta jars was unstable; but with the energy of the First and Greatest Spell wrapped around them, they would be kept safe, kept strong, waiting for the day that Moor could return to reanimate them.
It was Lord Spiral himself who had taught Moor the forbidden thaumaturgy that had preserved the essences of his colleagues. Moor remembered the tortures it had inflicted upon them. He could not rid himself of the images and sounds of their suffering. Only Mo Asajad had refrained from screaming when Moor had reduced her physical form to ashes. She had glared at him throughout the process, gritting her teeth against the agony, and she had not stopped glaring until she no longer had eyes to glare with.
Moor studied the terracotta jar in his hands, struggling to understand why Lord Spiral had chosen Lady Asajad for the task. Her devotion to the Genii cause was pure, but Spiral was the only person Asajad would obey without question. When her essence was reanimated she would resent following Moor’s orders. She would not function well within a group not under Lord Spiral’s personal command. Mo Asajad lived to dominate, she craved control. She was an unhinged creature of higher magic, and Moor could foresee problems.
He circled a finger around the jar’s wax seal.
It was not beyond the realms of temptation that he might compromise Asajad’s containment device. He could hurl it down into the chasm, to the very bottom, where the terracotta would shatter and release the thaumaturgy it contained. And when Asajad’s essence began its ravenous search for meat and blood and reanimation, the Time Engineers could have their way with her. They could recycle her thaumaturgy and grind it into the fabric of the Labyrinth. Getting rid of her now might cause fewer problems in the long run, Moor reasoned. And who would know what he had done?
No. Spiral had chosen Asajad, and Moor could not defy his lord and master.
Holding the jar securely in both hands, Moor stepped off the edge of the chasm and floated down.
Careful to keep himself away from the arachnids clinging to the sheer faces surrounding him, he continued descending until he neared the bottom. His earlier suspicions had proved correct; the Engineers were indeed segmenting the wide and long floor into rooms. The walls they had built thus far were incomplete, appearing as ruins. Moor wondered what manner of building would eventually rise from this great pit.
He landed in a half-finished room where a single humanoid Time Engineer, its glowing skin fractured by black lines like a network of veins, laboured away. The Engineer did not react to the Genii’s arrival. It continued to build its wall higher.
Taking a steadying breath, Moor latched onto the thaumaturgy with which the First and Greatest Spell had saturated this land and flashed a quick command to the humanoid.
The Engineer ceased working and turned to face the source of the irregularity.
It had no features as such, just a swirl of black-veined violet where its face should have been. The glow of its body brightened and dimmed as though it was unsure how to proceed. Once again Moor touched the First and Greatest Spell. He didn’t dare delve too deeply lest its power absorb his own entirely. He barely skimmed the surface, scratched down just enough to send the Time Engineer a simple but firm command which it could not refuse.
Moor placed the terracotta jar on the newly formed floor and stepped back. The Engineer stepped forward to kneel beside the jar. And then, just as the other Engineers had done for Gadreel, Tabet and Harrow, it proceeded to bury the essence of Mo Asajad.
It punched the floor, its fist sinking effortlessly into hardened time with a sound oddly poised between breaking glass and splashing water. The Engineer plunged its arm down to the shoulder before withdrawing it, leaving behind a perfectly circular hole. Moor held his breath as the Timewatcher’s labourer picked up the terracotta jar and lowered it into the opening. The worker then began rubbing flat palms over the floor in circles as if washing it. Faster and faster it rubbed until, with subtle pulses of red and blue, the hole was filled and smoothed to black stone.
Moor relinquished his command of the creature. The Engineer turned away from him to continue working on the wall. Only then did the Genii sever his connection to the First and Greatest Spell; only then did he rise at speed, up past the arachnids clinging to the walls, out of the chasm and high into the blizzard of thaumaturgy.
Fast and silent, Moor continued to ascend, soaring towards the roiling slate-grey sky. To the north, the fire of the Timewatcher’s mighty spell continued to drone and spit; below, the violet glow of the Time Engineers dotted the landscape. He did not stop rising until he came within several yards of the thick and churning primordial mists of the Nothing of Far and Deep. For a final time, he pushed a hand into his satchel and removed the last item, a simple wooden scroll case.
Moor slid out the scroll and unrolled it carefully, letting the case fall from his grasp. Upon clean white parchment were glyphs and symbols, swirls and shapes, strange configurations, written in black ink by a hand that Moor knew all too well. It was a complicated formula that decorated the page, more complicated than any other Thaumaturgist could create. These were the words of Lord Spiral himself, the language of higher magic, and they were for Moor’s eyes only.
This scroll was one of two that Spiral had left Moor before his defeat at the hands of the Timewatcher. The first had allowed Moor to travel back to this early stage in the Labyrinth’s creation. But the second …
In this time period, Moor was as a single bee in a forest, a grain of sand in a desert, an unnoticed interloper, but he could only remain for a short while. He was not shielded from the raw elements as the essences of his comrades were in their terracotta jars. He was whole, alive, and if he lingered too long, the mighty thaumaturgy that had delivered him to this time would cease protecting him. The First and Greatest Spell would drain the higher magic from his body until only dust remained. Fortunately, Lord Spiral had given him a way out.
Moor began reading aloud from the scroll, the language of the Thaumaturgists hissing and sighing from his lips as quick and fleeting as the flakes of higher magic whipping around him. He intoned the words of his lord and master, his voice growing in intensity, barely able to contain his urgency.
As Moor recited, a grey churning disc appeared in the Nothing of Far and Deep directly above him. Growing darker and smoother, it swirled faster and faster until Moor read the last word and the disc collapsed into a portal, a black hole punched into the sky.
The scroll burst into flame, burning in a flash to ashes that blew from Moor’s hand to be lost in the blizzard.
With his work done, the Genii gave a final glance below him to the landscape birthing a House. The Relic Guild would see Fabian Moor again, and at a time when they were not prepared to deal with him. Moor would return to wake his fellow Genii, and together they would search for Spiral. They would find the hidden prison that the Timewatcher would come to create for the Lord of the Genii.
All things were known in the end.
Moor rushed up towards the portal. Without hesitating, he flew into the black hole and disappeared from the Labyrinth. For now …
Chapter One
House of Dead Time
Samuel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear.
As soon as he stepped into the portal, the cellar beneath the warehouse in the southern district of Labrys Town had swirled away, the police officers and their guns blinked out of sight, and it was as if the old bounty hunter had jumped into a huge, suffocating blanket. Blackness engulfed him, pressed against his eyelids like the thumbs of a murderer; filled his mouth and nostrils like thick poison searching for the passage of his throat. And it was cold.
In vain, Samuel tried to shout his defiance; to thrash and struggle against the darkness that refused him air and light and sound. His body was unresponsive, numb. With an unfeeling finger, he tried to squeeze the trigger of his revolver, to shoot blindly, madly, into the void. But his deadened nerves had relaxed his hand to a listless thing, and the revolver had already slipped from his grasp to be lost forever in nothingness.
The suffocating blanket seemed to stretch under his weight, until finally it ripped open and spilled him into freefall.
No sooner had Samuel sucked in a great gulp of air than it was stolen from his mouth by rushing wind. His vision was assaulted by streaks of purple lightning. The echo of a bestial scream reached his ears, full of rage and pain. Samuel felt that he would fall forever, down, ever down, until age withered his body, addled his mind, and his life would crumble to dust amidst a starless sky.
Just as he had embraced this notion silver light dazzled his eyes, and the darkness spat him out onto hard, solid stone with a bone-jarring thud.
Sprawled face down on damp cobbles, Samuel groaned and then rose to his hands and knees. He looked up. The portal’s glassy surface rippled within a rectangle on a wall of black bricks before him.
With a nudge from his prescient awareness, Samuel jumped to his feet and drew the rifle from the holster on his back. He ejected the empty magazine, slapped a new one into place, and took aim at the portal. The power stone behind the barrel gave a small whine and glowed with violet light as he thumbed it. He might have run out of fire-bullets, but the four metal slugs in the magazine would still kill anyone who dared to follow him.
‘I do not think the police will be brave enough to come after us, Samuel.’
The old bounty hunter looked over his shoulder. Van Bam stood behind him, his hands atop his green glass cane.
The illusionist added, ‘And I suspect the portal closed once we left the warehouse.’
As if to confirm Van Bam’s words, the portal shrank with a low drone. With a sigh and a puff of dust, it disappeared, leaving behind black bricks and no sign that it had ever been there.
Samuel lowered his aim and turned around.
Van Bam’s smoothly-shaved head was tilted to one side. The black, loose-fitting shirt and trousers he wore looked dishevelled. The tip of his glass cane touched the cobbled ground between his bare feet, and the metal plates covering the illusionist’s eyes glinted with reflected light.
Samuel looked up: Silver Moon shone in the night sky. He looked to his right: a long, wide alleyway stretched away into the gloom. Its walls were supported by buttresses positioned every fifteen paces.
Samuel’s features fell. ‘The portal led us out into the Great Labyrinth?’
Van Bam nodded gravely.
Samuel was aghast.
When Fabian Moor and his fellow Genii had taken control of the Nightshade, they had claimed total dominion over Labrys Town, and Samuel had thought everything lost. Yet the Relic Guild had found an unlikely ally in the form of a blue ghost, an avatar which had offered aid, albeit in a strange and dangerous way. It had led them to a secret portal hidden in the cellar of an abandoned ore warehouse. But the portal was meant to be the Labyrinth’s backdoor, an emergency exit, an escape route that would lead the Relic Guild to those who could save the denizens from the machinations of the Genii. Instead, it had led them out into the endless twists and turns of the giant maze that surrounded Labrys Town? People disappeared in the Great Labyrinth.
‘How does this help us?’ Samuel demanded of Van Bam.
They could have been anywhere in the Great Labyrinth. The only place of civilisation was Labrys Town, at the centre of the maze. And even if returning there was an option, it could take hours or days, weeks, months or years of walking through never-ending alleyways to find it.
‘It would seem the portal has only delivered us to the midway point in our journey,’ Van Bam replied solemnly. His face was turned toward a slim stone pedestal that had risen from the alley floor, a few paces ahead.
Closely followed by Van Bam, Samuel stepped over to the pedestal. Its top had been fashioned into a square box, which was filled with a colourless, gelatinous substance. Before the pedestal, a section of the cobbled ground had been smoothed to form a large disc of grey.
‘A shadow carriage?’ Samuel said.
Van Bam nodded. ‘It is a sure sign that the doorway to the House we need is in the Great Labyrinth. But to summon a shadow carriage to take us to it, we must first know the symbol for that House.’
Samuel frowned. ‘Where’s Clara?’
Van Bam gestured with his head, and Samuel looked to his left. The alleyway stopped at a dead end. Against the wall, Clara’s small figure lay crumpled. Moonlight glinted from the blood that pumped from the bullet wound in her side, which she had sustained back at the warehouse. Her blood formed a puddle on the cobbles around her. She wasn’t moving.
‘No,’ Samuel said.
He took a step towards her, but was checked by Van Bam’s voice.
‘We have another problem, Samuel.’
The ex-Resident was facing down the long alley. Samuel could see something moving down there. Although the sky was clear, it was as though a veil of cloud was being drawn over the light of Silver Moon. In the near distance, darkness deeper than the night gloom slithered over brickwork and cobbles, making oily, fluid progress along the alley towards the agents of the Relic Guild.
A light breeze brought strange scents to Samuel’s nose. Age. Corruption. Hopelessness. The temperature dropped, became icier than the fresh chill of Silver Moon.
‘Shit,’ Samuel spat, his breath frosting before his face.
The Retrospective … that House of dead time, of corrosion, perversion, where all the monsters dwelt … it had sensed the Relic Guild. Its doorway was opening.
‘I lost my revolver,’ Samuel stated, gripping his rifle tightly. ‘And I’ve only got four bullets left.’
With gritted teeth, Van Bam stabbed his glass cane down onto the ground. To a musical chime, bolts of illusionist magic sped from the cane, hurtling down the alleyway to merge and form a hard barrier of transparent green that stretched from wall to wall. When the slithering doorway met it, a low creaking filled the freezing air. But the barrier held. It had halted the Retrospective.
‘It will not last long,’ Van Bam warned.
Samuel’s magic refused to help him. The prescient awareness that had served him well throughout his life, that had saved his skin on innumerable occasions, told the old bounty hunter that this was his last stand. There was nowhere else to turn, and soon the wild demons of the Retrospective would come hunting his flesh.
Samuel looked at the pedestal and the stone box, with a searing sense of frustration. All he needed to do was draw the right House symbol into the gelatinous contents, and a shadow carriage would appear to whisk them away to safety.
‘We need that damned House symbol right now, Van Bam!’
‘If the avatar knew it, then Clara is the only person it gave it to.’
Clara’s small form remained unmoving against the dead end wall.
‘Clara!’ Samuel bellowed. He felt a small pang of relief as her face twitched, and she stirred. ‘Did the avatar give you a symbol? Quickly!’
The changeling struggled but failed to open her eyes. She released a moan of pain.
Samuel made to approach her again, but this time Van Bam grabbed his arm.
‘Do not touch her,’ he hissed.
Samuel froze. He had never heard such fear in Van Bam’s voice before.
‘It is her colours, Samuel,’ the illusionist added. ‘I can see—’
A loud snap shattered the air. A jagged crack had appeared in Van Bam’s magical barrier. The crack continued to spread and groan as the weight of the Retrospective pushed against it.
Clara moaned again. Or was it a growl?
She seemed to be trying to open her medicine tin. The lid gave, but the tin slipped from her grasp, spilling tiny white tablets into the puddle of her blood. She looked up at the night sky, opened her mouth and gave a growl of frustration. Her canine teeth had lengthened to sharp points. She glared at Samuel and Van Bam, her eyes shining with yellow light.
‘It’s coming,’ she whispered hoarsely.
And Clara howled like a wolf.
Chapter Two
The Secrets of Flowers
Fabian Moor stood inside his sterile cube of silver metal.
The cube had been constructed by thaumaturgy, and it had been Moor’s safe haven since the end of what the humans called the Genii War. For forty years, he had sheltered inside it, hidden from those who did not know that a handful of Genii had survived the war against the Timewatcher. In any other place, Moor was compelled to feed on blood to preserve his life. But the cube’s magic had suppressed this maddening need. Still, the long decades of isolation had at times threatened to drive Moor insane, but he had resisted, retained his sanity by never losing sight of the day when his undoubting faith and unwavering patience would be rewarded.
Now that reward was at hand. The purpose of the sterile cube of thaumaturgic metal was almost served.
Behind Moor, Mo Asajad focused her attention on the empath who was slowly dying in the clutches of the serpentine tree that grew at the centre of the cube’s silver floor. Lady Asajad, tall and stick-thin beneath a priest’s cassock, long, straight black hair flowing down her back – she stood still, frozen, tense, watching the empath as keenly as a carrion bird hovering over a battlefield, searching for bloody spoils.
It wasn’t that Moor didn’t share his fellow Genii’s fervent eagerness – high expectations had been placed on this human magicker called Marney. She was to reveal her secrets and fulfil the desires of the Genii. But if the isolation of the last four decades had taught Moor anything, it was the virtue of patience. Occasionally, one could do nothing but wait for events to happen as and when they were ready.
Leaving Asajad to her crow-like observations, Moor cleared a wall of the silver cube to shimmering air. He gazed out on a silent House of nightmare.
The Retrospective was a huge and violent realm, home to countless monsters fighting each other in never-ending battles that raged across a scorched landscape beneath a hateful sky filled with poison and lightning. It had been the Timewatcher – a being supposedly the embodiment of benevolence and equality – who had created this place at the end of the Genii War. The monsters roaming this House of damnation had at one time been Aelfirian soldiers who had fought bravely alongside Lord Spiral and his Genii. The Retrospective was punishment for their choice, for their treachery, a prison in which dead time perverted their bodies and minds with ceaseless fury and blood-lust.
Moor had to wonder if the Timewatcher, while serving her brand of vengeful justice upon Spiral’s armies, had ever paused to consider the true implications of creating the Retrospective. Across the scarred and beaten landscape, Moor could see innumerable beasts of every shade of nightmare fighting and killing, hacking and maiming, stabbing, slicing, biting and feeding upon each other. Lust, raw animal lust, revelling in lawless pandemonium. But if the wild demons could be tamed and united into one mighty army, they would form such an unbeatable force that even the Timewatcher’s Thaumaturgists would tremble before them.
Moor quelled a surge of impatience.
The power to tame the wild demons was beyond the likes of Fabian Moor and Mo Asajad. Only Lord Spiral could achieve this. Only his mastery of thaumaturgy, which rivalled the power of the Timewatcher Herself, could command true unification within the Retrospective. But Lord Spiral was lost. At the end of the Genii War, the Timewatcher had banished him to his very own prison realm, a House called Oldest Place, where he was to face his every act of betrayal in endless, repetitive
Time Mechanic
At times, he played the long game in the strangest of places.
Above, the primordial mists of the Nothing of Far and Deep roiled beneath an angry sky yet to warm its cold days with the fire of a sun; a monumental dome of liquid slate devoid of nights filled with the ruby and silver glares of its moons. Below, unused time congealed into slabs of pulsing colour to create a landscape of blues and reds hued so variedly as to fill the spectrum between dusk and dawn. Raw thaumaturgy dashed the air like static, whipping, dancing, as free and wild as windborne snow. A hum, low enough to be felt rather than heard, vibrated and churned the volatile atmosphere, coaxing shape from shapelessness.
Hovering between the angry sky and the landscape in flux, Fabian Moor was exhilarated by the flakes of higher magic swirling around him, stinging his face, singing to his blood. An age had passed since he had last been able to enjoy the moment.
Defeat at the hands of the Relic Guild was far in the future, yet a distant memory now. Those petty, interfering magickers might have proved much more intelligent, problematic – even more powerful – than Moor had been prepared for, but ultimately their meddling had achieved nothing that hindered Lord Spiral’s greater strategy. Yes, details had been compromised, planning required adjustment, new pathways needed to be found; but all the Relic Guild had really achieved was to buy themselves a little extra time. Just a few more years.
With a feeling of satisfaction, Moor looked to the northern horizon, and stared with wonder upon a column of energy that connected unstable land to swirling sky like an umbilical cord of liquid fire. Droning with a mournful song, blazing, spitting bolts of purple at the ground, the column snaked and twisted through the air like a whirlwind. The First and Greatest Spell, that energy was called, and it bore a legend. It had been cast by the only creature of higher magic worshipped by all lower races: the Timewatcher.
The First and Greatest Spell would one day be contained within a building named the Nightshade. But now, in its raw state, the spell was an immense and untamed formation of thaumaturgy that inflated an ever expanding bubble within the Nothing of Far and Deep. It held aloft the sky while solidifying time into the founding stones of an intrinsic House that would come to be known as Labrys Town, a human haven surrounded by the alleyways of an endless maze called the Great Labyrinth. The creation of this House would prove to be the Timewatcher’s grandest achievement, and her biggest mistake.
Among all the Thaumaturgists, only Spiral, the Lord of the Genii, had been able to match the Timewatcher’s power; only his command of higher magic had been able to smuggle Moor back to this time, a thousand years before the Genii War, to when the Timewatcher’s fabled First and Greatest Spell birthed the most significant epoch in the history of the Houses.
Moor’s sense of wonder grew. In this time frame, the Aelfir were warring against each other, out among the plethora of realms, fighting in perpetual, bloody battles that never heralded a victor – a cycle of pointlessness that was already centuries old. When the Great Labyrinth was completed, The Timewatcher would use it to break that cycle, and spell the end of what the Aelfir would come to call the Old Ways. Moor understood what a privilege it was to be chosen to bear witness to such an important beginning, to such … creation. Labrys Town might give the Aelfir a common ground, give them peace, but that peace would not last.
And to think, in only a millennium, the Great Labyrinth would become the catalyst that caused The Timewatcher to lose so many of her children. Lord Spiral and his Genii were coming, and nothing would be the same again.
An itch crawled across his skin.
Hollowness gnawed inside him.
Fabian Moor sighed.
From the satchel which hung from his shoulder, he took a phial of blood and popped the cork with his thumb. He paused before drinking, staring at the phial and its contents.
A part of Moor had hoped that being present at this primitive stage of the Labyrinth’s creation might ease his cravings; that the flakes of raw thaumaturgy, hissing in the air like a storm of static, might substitute the need for sustenance that ached in his core. He wondered: was this chronic need to feed on blood a weakness? Perhaps the virus that he carried meant he had become nothing more than vermin. Or did his condition make him greater even than the Thaumaturgists?
In the overall scheme of things, did it matter?
Lifting the phial to his lips, Moor drained the blood in one go. He was repulsed by how willingly he savoured the rusty tang as it slipped thickly down his throat, quenching his hunger, filling the void inside him. The phial fell from his grasp, and he watched it tumble down, end over end, until it disappeared into the fluxing landscape. There was no time left for musing and marvelling. Slowly, Moor descended. His eyes ever watchful, his instincts alert, almost fearful.
The purple fire of the First and Greatest Spell might have been providing the highest of thaumaturgy by which this House was achieving existence, but the Timewatcher’s spell would not sculpt the final design. For that, the Great Labyrinth and its town required labourers … of a kind.
Moor could see them as he neared the ground, hundreds, thousands of them, scurrying and lumbering and sliding over slabs and boulders that glowed blue and red. Radiating a vague violet sheen, the workers burrowed and dug, carved and built. Labouring tirelessly, in perfect unison, they hardened time to the black stone foundations of this House. Sculptors, creators, the builders of realms, these things were the Timewatcher’s loyal pets. They were the Time Engineers.
Some of them appeared humanoid, hefting stone and laying brickwork; others appeared as giant slugs that devoured everything in their path to then excrete lines of dull purple jelly like icing squeezed from tubes. The last of them were arachnids, and they scooped up the jelly upon flat backs and carried it to the humanoids to use as mortar in their work. The Time Engineers needed no sustenance, no rest, and were unconcerned by the hostile environment. They would not stop building until this House was finished.
Moor spied an area of completed ground beside a wide chasm, and headed towards it. Landing near the edge of the chasm, he froze, tense and ready, as an arachnid scuttled towards him, back laden with purple mortar.
For the most part, Time Engineers were apathetic creatures, harbouring no prejudices, incapable of distinguishing between friend and foe. They understood only order and purpose. However, whether Moor be Genii, vermin, or a new and brilliant form of life, he remained fundamentally a creature of higher magic. If the Engineers detected his thaumaturgy, they would regard him simply as raw material to be mashed and ground into the foundations of Labrys Town.
The single arachnid didn’t pose much of a threat. But if the one approaching detected Moor, it would summon its fellow Engineers, and one Genii could not stand against the thousands that would answer that call. Should he attempt to fight, they would alert the Timewatcher to the discrepancy, and Moor would have to flee before his lord and master’s orders could be carried out. There would be no second chance. Subtlety was his best friend in this place.
Thankfully, the lone Engineer was focused on its current task. It did not pursue the Genii who had broken into this timeframe, but scurried up to the chasm and disappeared down into it. Relieved, Moor peered over the edge.
The fissure was shallower than he had expected, though it still sank into the ground a fair way. Its mouth might have been crude and ragged, but the further down the chasm reached, the neater and squarer its walls became. Moor could see Time Engineers working tirelessly, their violet glow lighting the depths. Some clung to the walls, smoothing and shaping; others worked at the very bottom, constructing what Moor supposed would be the partitions of interconnecting rooms.
Glancing nervously around at the forming landscape, ensuring no other Time Engineers were close by, Moor dipped a hand into his satchel again, this time producing a small terracotta jar. He ran a pale hand over the smooth and plain surface, feeling the charge of higher magic held inside.
The last of the Genii.
The other jars containing the essences of Moor’s fellow Genii were already in place. Viktor Gadreel, Hagi Tabet and Yves Harrow now lay waiting among the bones of Labrys Town. This final terracotta jar contained the essence of Mo Asajad.
In Moor’s natural time period, the war against the Timewatcher was over, and Lord Spiral had lost – or so his enemies believed. The rest of the Genii faced imminent execution, and the last of their allies among the Houses of the Aelfir had been vanquished. Every one of the secret strongholds Spiral had created within the Nothing of Far and Deep was being searched out and destroyed. There were no safe havens left for the only remaining Genii.
Moor could not take the other Genii to where he was headed; a tomb of his own awaited him, and his immediate future was too unpredictable to play minder to his comrades. The passage of time, while they lay hidden beneath the noses of their enemies, was the best weapon they had now. The higher magic that contained Asajad, Gadreel, Tabet and Harrow inside the terracotta jars was unstable; but with the energy of the First and Greatest Spell wrapped around them, they would be kept safe, kept strong, waiting for the day that Moor could return to reanimate them.
It was Lord Spiral himself who had taught Moor the forbidden thaumaturgy that had preserved the essences of his colleagues. Moor remembered the tortures it had inflicted upon them. He could not rid himself of the images and sounds of their suffering. Only Mo Asajad had refrained from screaming when Moor had reduced her physical form to ashes. She had glared at him throughout the process, gritting her teeth against the agony, and she had not stopped glaring until she no longer had eyes to glare with.
Moor studied the terracotta jar in his hands, struggling to understand why Lord Spiral had chosen Lady Asajad for the task. Her devotion to the Genii cause was pure, but Spiral was the only person Asajad would obey without question. When her essence was reanimated she would resent following Moor’s orders. She would not function well within a group not under Lord Spiral’s personal command. Mo Asajad lived to dominate, she craved control. She was an unhinged creature of higher magic, and Moor could foresee problems.
He circled a finger around the jar’s wax seal.
It was not beyond the realms of temptation that he might compromise Asajad’s containment device. He could hurl it down into the chasm, to the very bottom, where the terracotta would shatter and release the thaumaturgy it contained. And when Asajad’s essence began its ravenous search for meat and blood and reanimation, the Time Engineers could have their way with her. They could recycle her thaumaturgy and grind it into the fabric of the Labyrinth. Getting rid of her now might cause fewer problems in the long run, Moor reasoned. And who would know what he had done?
No. Spiral had chosen Asajad, and Moor could not defy his lord and master.
Holding the jar securely in both hands, Moor stepped off the edge of the chasm and floated down.
Careful to keep himself away from the arachnids clinging to the sheer faces surrounding him, he continued descending until he neared the bottom. His earlier suspicions had proved correct; the Engineers were indeed segmenting the wide and long floor into rooms. The walls they had built thus far were incomplete, appearing as ruins. Moor wondered what manner of building would eventually rise from this great pit.
He landed in a half-finished room where a single humanoid Time Engineer, its glowing skin fractured by black lines like a network of veins, laboured away. The Engineer did not react to the Genii’s arrival. It continued to build its wall higher.
Taking a steadying breath, Moor latched onto the thaumaturgy with which the First and Greatest Spell had saturated this land and flashed a quick command to the humanoid.
The Engineer ceased working and turned to face the source of the irregularity.
It had no features as such, just a swirl of black-veined violet where its face should have been. The glow of its body brightened and dimmed as though it was unsure how to proceed. Once again Moor touched the First and Greatest Spell. He didn’t dare delve too deeply lest its power absorb his own entirely. He barely skimmed the surface, scratched down just enough to send the Time Engineer a simple but firm command which it could not refuse.
Moor placed the terracotta jar on the newly formed floor and stepped back. The Engineer stepped forward to kneel beside the jar. And then, just as the other Engineers had done for Gadreel, Tabet and Harrow, it proceeded to bury the essence of Mo Asajad.
It punched the floor, its fist sinking effortlessly into hardened time with a sound oddly poised between breaking glass and splashing water. The Engineer plunged its arm down to the shoulder before withdrawing it, leaving behind a perfectly circular hole. Moor held his breath as the Timewatcher’s labourer picked up the terracotta jar and lowered it into the opening. The worker then began rubbing flat palms over the floor in circles as if washing it. Faster and faster it rubbed until, with subtle pulses of red and blue, the hole was filled and smoothed to black stone.
Moor relinquished his command of the creature. The Engineer turned away from him to continue working on the wall. Only then did the Genii sever his connection to the First and Greatest Spell; only then did he rise at speed, up past the arachnids clinging to the walls, out of the chasm and high into the blizzard of thaumaturgy.
Fast and silent, Moor continued to ascend, soaring towards the roiling slate-grey sky. To the north, the fire of the Timewatcher’s mighty spell continued to drone and spit; below, the violet glow of the Time Engineers dotted the landscape. He did not stop rising until he came within several yards of the thick and churning primordial mists of the Nothing of Far and Deep. For a final time, he pushed a hand into his satchel and removed the last item, a simple wooden scroll case.
Moor slid out the scroll and unrolled it carefully, letting the case fall from his grasp. Upon clean white parchment were glyphs and symbols, swirls and shapes, strange configurations, written in black ink by a hand that Moor knew all too well. It was a complicated formula that decorated the page, more complicated than any other Thaumaturgist could create. These were the words of Lord Spiral himself, the language of higher magic, and they were for Moor’s eyes only.
This scroll was one of two that Spiral had left Moor before his defeat at the hands of the Timewatcher. The first had allowed Moor to travel back to this early stage in the Labyrinth’s creation. But the second …
In this time period, Moor was as a single bee in a forest, a grain of sand in a desert, an unnoticed interloper, but he could only remain for a short while. He was not shielded from the raw elements as the essences of his comrades were in their terracotta jars. He was whole, alive, and if he lingered too long, the mighty thaumaturgy that had delivered him to this time would cease protecting him. The First and Greatest Spell would drain the higher magic from his body until only dust remained. Fortunately, Lord Spiral had given him a way out.
Moor began reading aloud from the scroll, the language of the Thaumaturgists hissing and sighing from his lips as quick and fleeting as the flakes of higher magic whipping around him. He intoned the words of his lord and master, his voice growing in intensity, barely able to contain his urgency.
As Moor recited, a grey churning disc appeared in the Nothing of Far and Deep directly above him. Growing darker and smoother, it swirled faster and faster until Moor read the last word and the disc collapsed into a portal, a black hole punched into the sky.
The scroll burst into flame, burning in a flash to ashes that blew from Moor’s hand to be lost in the blizzard.
With his work done, the Genii gave a final glance below him to the landscape birthing a House. The Relic Guild would see Fabian Moor again, and at a time when they were not prepared to deal with him. Moor would return to wake his fellow Genii, and together they would search for Spiral. They would find the hidden prison that the Timewatcher would come to create for the Lord of the Genii.
All things were known in the end.
Moor rushed up towards the portal. Without hesitating, he flew into the black hole and disappeared from the Labyrinth. For now …
Chapter One
House of Dead Time
Samuel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear.
As soon as he stepped into the portal, the cellar beneath the warehouse in the southern district of Labrys Town had swirled away, the police officers and their guns blinked out of sight, and it was as if the old bounty hunter had jumped into a huge, suffocating blanket. Blackness engulfed him, pressed against his eyelids like the thumbs of a murderer; filled his mouth and nostrils like thick poison searching for the passage of his throat. And it was cold.
In vain, Samuel tried to shout his defiance; to thrash and struggle against the darkness that refused him air and light and sound. His body was unresponsive, numb. With an unfeeling finger, he tried to squeeze the trigger of his revolver, to shoot blindly, madly, into the void. But his deadened nerves had relaxed his hand to a listless thing, and the revolver had already slipped from his grasp to be lost forever in nothingness.
The suffocating blanket seemed to stretch under his weight, until finally it ripped open and spilled him into freefall.
No sooner had Samuel sucked in a great gulp of air than it was stolen from his mouth by rushing wind. His vision was assaulted by streaks of purple lightning. The echo of a bestial scream reached his ears, full of rage and pain. Samuel felt that he would fall forever, down, ever down, until age withered his body, addled his mind, and his life would crumble to dust amidst a starless sky.
Just as he had embraced this notion silver light dazzled his eyes, and the darkness spat him out onto hard, solid stone with a bone-jarring thud.
Sprawled face down on damp cobbles, Samuel groaned and then rose to his hands and knees. He looked up. The portal’s glassy surface rippled within a rectangle on a wall of black bricks before him.
With a nudge from his prescient awareness, Samuel jumped to his feet and drew the rifle from the holster on his back. He ejected the empty magazine, slapped a new one into place, and took aim at the portal. The power stone behind the barrel gave a small whine and glowed with violet light as he thumbed it. He might have run out of fire-bullets, but the four metal slugs in the magazine would still kill anyone who dared to follow him.
‘I do not think the police will be brave enough to come after us, Samuel.’
The old bounty hunter looked over his shoulder. Van Bam stood behind him, his hands atop his green glass cane.
The illusionist added, ‘And I suspect the portal closed once we left the warehouse.’
As if to confirm Van Bam’s words, the portal shrank with a low drone. With a sigh and a puff of dust, it disappeared, leaving behind black bricks and no sign that it had ever been there.
Samuel lowered his aim and turned around.
Van Bam’s smoothly-shaved head was tilted to one side. The black, loose-fitting shirt and trousers he wore looked dishevelled. The tip of his glass cane touched the cobbled ground between his bare feet, and the metal plates covering the illusionist’s eyes glinted with reflected light.
Samuel looked up: Silver Moon shone in the night sky. He looked to his right: a long, wide alleyway stretched away into the gloom. Its walls were supported by buttresses positioned every fifteen paces.
Samuel’s features fell. ‘The portal led us out into the Great Labyrinth?’
Van Bam nodded gravely.
Samuel was aghast.
When Fabian Moor and his fellow Genii had taken control of the Nightshade, they had claimed total dominion over Labrys Town, and Samuel had thought everything lost. Yet the Relic Guild had found an unlikely ally in the form of a blue ghost, an avatar which had offered aid, albeit in a strange and dangerous way. It had led them to a secret portal hidden in the cellar of an abandoned ore warehouse. But the portal was meant to be the Labyrinth’s backdoor, an emergency exit, an escape route that would lead the Relic Guild to those who could save the denizens from the machinations of the Genii. Instead, it had led them out into the endless twists and turns of the giant maze that surrounded Labrys Town? People disappeared in the Great Labyrinth.
‘How does this help us?’ Samuel demanded of Van Bam.
They could have been anywhere in the Great Labyrinth. The only place of civilisation was Labrys Town, at the centre of the maze. And even if returning there was an option, it could take hours or days, weeks, months or years of walking through never-ending alleyways to find it.
‘It would seem the portal has only delivered us to the midway point in our journey,’ Van Bam replied solemnly. His face was turned toward a slim stone pedestal that had risen from the alley floor, a few paces ahead.
Closely followed by Van Bam, Samuel stepped over to the pedestal. Its top had been fashioned into a square box, which was filled with a colourless, gelatinous substance. Before the pedestal, a section of the cobbled ground had been smoothed to form a large disc of grey.
‘A shadow carriage?’ Samuel said.
Van Bam nodded. ‘It is a sure sign that the doorway to the House we need is in the Great Labyrinth. But to summon a shadow carriage to take us to it, we must first know the symbol for that House.’
Samuel frowned. ‘Where’s Clara?’
Van Bam gestured with his head, and Samuel looked to his left. The alleyway stopped at a dead end. Against the wall, Clara’s small figure lay crumpled. Moonlight glinted from the blood that pumped from the bullet wound in her side, which she had sustained back at the warehouse. Her blood formed a puddle on the cobbles around her. She wasn’t moving.
‘No,’ Samuel said.
He took a step towards her, but was checked by Van Bam’s voice.
‘We have another problem, Samuel.’
The ex-Resident was facing down the long alley. Samuel could see something moving down there. Although the sky was clear, it was as though a veil of cloud was being drawn over the light of Silver Moon. In the near distance, darkness deeper than the night gloom slithered over brickwork and cobbles, making oily, fluid progress along the alley towards the agents of the Relic Guild.
A light breeze brought strange scents to Samuel’s nose. Age. Corruption. Hopelessness. The temperature dropped, became icier than the fresh chill of Silver Moon.
‘Shit,’ Samuel spat, his breath frosting before his face.
The Retrospective … that House of dead time, of corrosion, perversion, where all the monsters dwelt … it had sensed the Relic Guild. Its doorway was opening.
‘I lost my revolver,’ Samuel stated, gripping his rifle tightly. ‘And I’ve only got four bullets left.’
With gritted teeth, Van Bam stabbed his glass cane down onto the ground. To a musical chime, bolts of illusionist magic sped from the cane, hurtling down the alleyway to merge and form a hard barrier of transparent green that stretched from wall to wall. When the slithering doorway met it, a low creaking filled the freezing air. But the barrier held. It had halted the Retrospective.
‘It will not last long,’ Van Bam warned.
Samuel’s magic refused to help him. The prescient awareness that had served him well throughout his life, that had saved his skin on innumerable occasions, told the old bounty hunter that this was his last stand. There was nowhere else to turn, and soon the wild demons of the Retrospective would come hunting his flesh.
Samuel looked at the pedestal and the stone box, with a searing sense of frustration. All he needed to do was draw the right House symbol into the gelatinous contents, and a shadow carriage would appear to whisk them away to safety.
‘We need that damned House symbol right now, Van Bam!’
‘If the avatar knew it, then Clara is the only person it gave it to.’
Clara’s small form remained unmoving against the dead end wall.
‘Clara!’ Samuel bellowed. He felt a small pang of relief as her face twitched, and she stirred. ‘Did the avatar give you a symbol? Quickly!’
The changeling struggled but failed to open her eyes. She released a moan of pain.
Samuel made to approach her again, but this time Van Bam grabbed his arm.
‘Do not touch her,’ he hissed.
Samuel froze. He had never heard such fear in Van Bam’s voice before.
‘It is her colours, Samuel,’ the illusionist added. ‘I can see—’
A loud snap shattered the air. A jagged crack had appeared in Van Bam’s magical barrier. The crack continued to spread and groan as the weight of the Retrospective pushed against it.
Clara moaned again. Or was it a growl?
She seemed to be trying to open her medicine tin. The lid gave, but the tin slipped from her grasp, spilling tiny white tablets into the puddle of her blood. She looked up at the night sky, opened her mouth and gave a growl of frustration. Her canine teeth had lengthened to sharp points. She glared at Samuel and Van Bam, her eyes shining with yellow light.
‘It’s coming,’ she whispered hoarsely.
And Clara howled like a wolf.
Chapter Two
The Secrets of Flowers
Fabian Moor stood inside his sterile cube of silver metal.
The cube had been constructed by thaumaturgy, and it had been Moor’s safe haven since the end of what the humans called the Genii War. For forty years, he had sheltered inside it, hidden from those who did not know that a handful of Genii had survived the war against the Timewatcher. In any other place, Moor was compelled to feed on blood to preserve his life. But the cube’s magic had suppressed this maddening need. Still, the long decades of isolation had at times threatened to drive Moor insane, but he had resisted, retained his sanity by never losing sight of the day when his undoubting faith and unwavering patience would be rewarded.
Now that reward was at hand. The purpose of the sterile cube of thaumaturgic metal was almost served.
Behind Moor, Mo Asajad focused her attention on the empath who was slowly dying in the clutches of the serpentine tree that grew at the centre of the cube’s silver floor. Lady Asajad, tall and stick-thin beneath a priest’s cassock, long, straight black hair flowing down her back – she stood still, frozen, tense, watching the empath as keenly as a carrion bird hovering over a battlefield, searching for bloody spoils.
It wasn’t that Moor didn’t share his fellow Genii’s fervent eagerness – high expectations had been placed on this human magicker called Marney. She was to reveal her secrets and fulfil the desires of the Genii. But if the isolation of the last four decades had taught Moor anything, it was the virtue of patience. Occasionally, one could do nothing but wait for events to happen as and when they were ready.
Leaving Asajad to her crow-like observations, Moor cleared a wall of the silver cube to shimmering air. He gazed out on a silent House of nightmare.
The Retrospective was a huge and violent realm, home to countless monsters fighting each other in never-ending battles that raged across a scorched landscape beneath a hateful sky filled with poison and lightning. It had been the Timewatcher – a being supposedly the embodiment of benevolence and equality – who had created this place at the end of the Genii War. The monsters roaming this House of damnation had at one time been Aelfirian soldiers who had fought bravely alongside Lord Spiral and his Genii. The Retrospective was punishment for their choice, for their treachery, a prison in which dead time perverted their bodies and minds with ceaseless fury and blood-lust.
Moor had to wonder if the Timewatcher, while serving her brand of vengeful justice upon Spiral’s armies, had ever paused to consider the true implications of creating the Retrospective. Across the scarred and beaten landscape, Moor could see innumerable beasts of every shade of nightmare fighting and killing, hacking and maiming, stabbing, slicing, biting and feeding upon each other. Lust, raw animal lust, revelling in lawless pandemonium. But if the wild demons could be tamed and united into one mighty army, they would form such an unbeatable force that even the Timewatcher’s Thaumaturgists would tremble before them.
Moor quelled a surge of impatience.
The power to tame the wild demons was beyond the likes of Fabian Moor and Mo Asajad. Only Lord Spiral could achieve this. Only his mastery of thaumaturgy, which rivalled the power of the Timewatcher Herself, could command true unification within the Retrospective. But Lord Spiral was lost. At the end of the Genii War, the Timewatcher had banished him to his very own prison realm, a House called Oldest Place, where he was to face his every act of betrayal in endless, repetitive
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The Cathedral of Known Things
Edward Cox
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