The Relic Guild Trilogy

by Edward Cox

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

The complete trilogy collected together for the first time! Journey into the Labyrinth . . . Includes: The Relic Guild, The Cathedral of Known Things, The Watcher of Dead Time and two EXCLUSIVE short stories 'A terrific debut novel, with plenty of scope for expansion and some really good world-building. Most importantly, lots of fun' Joanne M Harris, author of Gospel of Loki Magic caused the war. Magic is forbidden. Magic will save us. It was said the Labyrinth had once been the great meeting place, a sprawling city at the heart of an endless maze where a million humans hosted the Houses of the Aelfir. The Aelfir who had brought trade and riches, and a future full of promise. But when the Thaumaturgists, overlords of human and Aelfir alike, went to war, everything was ruined and the Labyrinth became an abandoned forbidden zone, where humans were trapped behind boundary walls 100 feet high. Now the Aelfir are a distant memory and the Thaumaturgists have faded into myth. Young Clara struggles to survive in a dangerous and dysfunctional city, where eyes are keen, nights are long, and the use of magic is punishable by death. She hides in the shadows, fearful that someone will discover she is touched by magic. She knows her days are numbered. But when a strange man named Fabian Moor returns to the Labyrinth, Clara learns that magic serves a higher purpose and that some myths are much more deadly in the flesh. The only people Clara can trust are the Relic Guild, a secret band of magickers sworn to protect the Labyrinth. But the Relic Guild are now too few. To truly defeat their old nemesis Moor, mightier help will be required. To save the Labyrinth - and the lives of one million humans - Clara and the Relic Guild must find a way to contact the worlds beyond their walls. 'Ed Cox has created a lush, detailed world while also hinting at a larger backstory that will be revealed in volumes to come' SFX 'an exiting blend of steampunk, fantasy, horror and pulp adventure . . . an intriguing, original and enjoying book' Starburst

Release date: November 15, 2018

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 1250

Sample

 

 

 


Hemlock

 

Charlie Hemlock already had enough on his mind without having to deal with a nasty bastard like Jarris.

The dull red glow of Ruby Moon struggled to cut through the fat dark clouds spilling endless sheets of warm rain onto the Labyrinth. With his coat soaked through, his hair plastered to his scalp, Hemlock ran through the eastern district, slipping and sliding on wet cobbles, desperately fleeing towards the very outskirts of Labrys Town.

Reaching the end of an alley, he took a few precious moments to catch his breath. Furtively, he peered out onto a narrow road of crooked residential dwellings. It appeared deserted. No sign of pursuit. But appearances were always deceptive in this town.

The trouble with having someone like Jarris on your tail was that she was very good at her job - as subtle as a breeze in the night, but as deadly as tasteless poison in your food. Besides Old Man Sam, there was no better bounty hunter in Labrys Town. Not many people could afford her services, but Jarris was at her most dangerous when she was working for herself, and Charlie Hemlock was something of a project of hers. For the better part of six months, he had managed to avoid her, but tonight he sensed his luck running out.

Hemlock checked the road was clear again. The worst thing he could do now would be to lead Jarris to the merchandise, but he didn’t have the time to waste throwing her off his scent. He had to keep moving, and pray for the best.

Taking a steadying breath, mustering his courage, Hemlock made to sneak from the alley. He froze when he heard a high-pitched whine coming from behind him: the tell-tale sound of a power stone priming a handgun.

“Hello, Charlie,” said a low, female voice. “You know, for someone so stupid, you’re surprisingly difficult to track down.”

With his hands in the air, Hemlock turned around slowly.

Jarris wore dark clothes. The wet tangles of her hair were silhouetted against the glare of streetlamps shining from the other end of the alley. She aimed the gun at Hemlock’s chest. The violet glow of the power stone set behind the revolving chamber partially illuminated her face. Her slight smile might have been amused, but was altogether dangerous.

Hemlock held his hands before his face, and closed his eyes. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t-”

“Shut up, Charlie,” Jarris snapped. “If I was here to kill you, I would’ve put a bullet through the back of your head. I just want to chat.”

Not feeling particularly relieved, Hemlock lowered his hands and frowned. Chats with Jarris never ended well.

“I hear you’ve got something big going on,” she said, the aim of her gun steady. “A nice juicy deal with a mysterious new boss.”

Hemlock feigned bemusement. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Jarris. I haven’t had any work for weeks.”

“That’s not what Fat Jacob told me.”

“Shit,” Hemlock whispered, and he managed a bitter smile. “Fat Jacob should learn to keep his fat mouth shut.”

“You’d think he would, wouldn’t you? Especially given what you’ve been up to. Jacob told me all about this deal of yours, Charlie. And I want what I’m owed.”

Hemlock could’ve bemoaned the fact that he’d had no choice about working with Fat Jacob, even though everyone knew that Jacob was just about the worst business partner in the history of the Labyrinth; but Hemlock had to concede that the current situation might be entirely his own fault. It was possible that, not so long ago, he had inadvertently screwed Jarris out of money – maybe on two occasions. Not his brightest idea in hindsight.

“Listen, Jarris,” said Hemlock. “You’re right. I do have a job going on – and, yes, it’s big – but my new boss . . . you don’t mess around with him, trust me. I’ll get you your money when-”

“I want fifty percent of what you’re making.”

“Fifty percent?”

“Say another word, and I’ll make it sixty.”

“Forget it!”

Jarris was also quick. Before Hemlock had finished his exclamation, she had closed the gap between them, gripped the collar of his coat, pulled him close, and jammed the barrel of the revolver into the underside of his chin.

“That’s sixty percent, Charlie,” she hissed. “And if you even think about screwing me over this time . . . well, I found you once, I can find you again. Only then, I won’t let you know I’m around.”

“All right, all right!” Somewhere beneath his panic, a part of Hemlock’s brain acknowledged that he was probably lucky to be alive as it was. But he simply didn’t have time for this. “It’s a deal,” he said miserably.

“That’s a good boy, Charlie.” Jarris was smiling again. “Now, who is your new boss? Fat Jacob doesn’t know anything about him, and it’s been a long time since something big went on in this town.”

“I can’t tell you,” Hemlock said truthfully. “And, believe me, you don’t want to know, anyway.”

“Don’t I?” She tightened her grip on his collar, and pressed the gun harder against him. “I’m not politely enquiring, you arsehole. Tell me what you know, before I . . .”

As she trailed off, Jarris seemed confused at first, but then her face screwed up in pain. A soft moan escaped her lips. She let go of Hemlock, dropped her gun, and fell backwards. Her head cracked against the cobbles. Lifeless eyes stared into the falling rain.

If Jarris had a weakness it was that she believed – as so many others did – that Charlie Hemlock was helpless vermin, a disloyal and venal rat, happy to steal scraps from the tables of other vermin while running from his own shadow. She believed that, even when cornered, Charlie Hemlock was too cowardly to stand up to a seasoned killer like her. Of course he wasn’t brave enough to use the knife he kept hidden in the sleeve of his coat - a knife with a blade so thin and sharp that Jarris wouldn’t feel it pierce her skin, slide between her ribs, puncture her heart – he was Charlie Hemlock.

The knife’s small, silver hilt protruded from Jarris’s chest. There was no blood. No mess. No time to hide the body.

Hemlock pulled the thin blade free, cleaned it on the bounty hunter’s clothes, and then continued on his way through the rain.

Feeling sick, desperation driving his feet, Hemlock made his way to the very edge of the eastern district, to the sheer, hundred-foot-tall boundary wall that surrounded Labrys Town. He followed a narrow lane that ran between the wall and the backs of buildings into an area where no one ventured anymore. He didn’t stop until reaching an old and abandoned lock-up.

The first thing Hemlock noticed was that the lock-up’s sliding door was already opened a crack, the pale light of a glow lamp spilling out onto the wet cobbles; the second thing was the voices coming from within. With the rain drumming upon him, a sense of dread chilling his insides, he crept up to the door, and took a peek inside.

Two men stood in the lock-up, a glow lamp on the floor between them. One of them was a big and battered bruiser called Ash, and he was supposed to be there. The other was Dumb Boy Clover, an unfortunate sort of man, who was supposed to be elsewhere. They stopped talking as Hemlock stepped into the lock-up, slid the door closed, and gave them both a baleful glare while shaking water from his hands.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Oh, hello, Charlie,” said Dumb Boy in his nasal voice. His clothes were soaked through, and he smelled of onions. “You ain’t here, are you?”

Hemlock blinked. He looked at Ash, who scratched his stubbly face and said, “He just turned up,” with a deep, unconcerned chuckle. “He doesn’t seem to know why.”

“I see.” Hemlock jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Why is the door unlocked, Ash?”

“I needed some fresh air. I was outside having a smoke when Dumb Boy arrived.”

“That’s right,” Dumb Boy happily confirmed. “He was.”

“Right . . .” Hemlock rubbed his forehead. “And where’s the key for the door?”

Ash produced it from his pocket, and Hemlock held out his hand. With a frown, Ash passed it over.

“Dumb Boy, you shouldn’t be here,” Hemlock said, gripping the key tightly. “Go and wait for me outside.”

Dumb Boy seemed uncertain. “But it’s raining.”

“Well, you’re already wet, so-” Hemlock bared his teeth “-go and get wet some more, you bloody imbecile!”

With a vacant expression, and a maddening lack of urgency, Dumb Boy Clover left the lock-up without further word. Hemlock closed the door after him, prayed for calm, and then turned to Ash.

“You do understand who we’re working for, don’t you?” he said with strained patience. “I mean - you remember what kind of person the boss is, right?”

Ash shrugged. “Relax, Charlie.”

“Relax? Ash, this job is already turning sour. If we get caught, there’ll be no walking away from the trouble we’ll be in. Some very serious people are about to get involved in this, and even if I was allowed to tell you who they are, you wouldn’t believe me. I need you to stay focussed.”

Ash’s square and pitted face split into a grin. “You should calm down before you have a heart attack. I’ve got this, Charlie. No one’s going to find us here, and the merchandise hasn’t been out of my sight.”

“Yeah. About the merchandise . . .”

In the shadows at the back of the lockup, a small and young woman lay on her side on the floor, facing the wall, with her knees drawn up to her chest. She wasn’t wearing much, and her hands were tied behind her back. Her slow, sleeping breaths sighed peacefully around the room; strange, considering the last time Hemlock had seen her she had been full of fear and begging for her life.

“Ash, what did you do to her?”

The big bruiser rocked his head from side to side. “I might have given her a little something to make her sleep. All that begging and crying was getting on my nerves.”

Hemlock stared at his accomplice, and then threw his hands into the air. “Are you insane?”

“What’s your problem?”

“We need her awake, you idiot!”

Ash drew himself up. His expression was flat, but his nostrils flared, and there was anger in his eyes. “Just because you arranged this job, Charlie, don’t think for a minute that I won’t slap the gob off you.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” Hemlock said quickly. “I didn’t mean to shout, but . . .” He glanced at the small form sleeping by the back wall. “Ash, the boss needs this woman because he knows that she keeps a secret. But before we can use her, you need to find out what that secret is. You’re not going to do that if she’s unconscious, are you?”

Ash eyed Hemlock for a moment, and then shook his head. “Charlie, we’ve had this girl for nearly three days now. We’ve starved her, threatened to kill her, and I’ve made sure she’s more frightened than she’s ever been in her life. If she really has this secret the boss needs so bad, she would’ve given it to us by now.”

Hemlock really didn’t have time for this.

“She has it, Ash – trust me. The boss is never wrong, and the clock is ticking.”

With another glance at their captive, Hemlock dipped his hand into his deep coat pocket, rummaged around, and then pulled out a small ampoule. He shook the clear liquid inside. It gave a brief sparkle of magic.

“Look, the boss says this’ll loosen her up.” He held the ampoule out to his accomplice. “Use it, Ash. And if it doesn’t work, then strangle the bloody secret out of her. Because . . . Because time is running out, and the boss is waiting. Understand?”

Ash took the ampoule and studied it. “Whatever I have to do, eh?” he said with a lazy grin.

“Just get it done,” Hemlock replied. “I’ll deal with Dumb Boy.”

Wondering what he ever did to deserve the curse of such a wayward crew, Hemlock left Ash to it and stepped from the lock-up, knowing in his heart that he had bitten off way more than he could chew with this job. He slid the door closed, and stared at it for a moment. Warm rain splashed upon his head and shoulders. The door was made of metal, two inches thick. Four sturdy iron rods served as its locking mechanism. He looked at the key in his hand.

Charlie Hemlock would refer to himself as a pragmatist. Others wouldn’t be so kind in their terminology.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the key into the door’s lock. Carefully, as quietly as he could, he turned it until he felt the iron rods slide into their housings.

“What are you doing, Charlie?”

Dumb Boy Clover stood out in the rain, stepping from foot to foot, wringing his hands nervously. There was a pained expression on his face.

He added, “If you’ve got the key, how can Ash get out?”

From inside the lock-up there came a whimper, followed by the muffled menace of Ash’s voice.

“Dumb Boy,” said Hemlock, “Do you remember the instructions I gave you?”

“Yes, Charlie. You said to wait at home until the boss needs me.”

“So why are you here?”

Dumb Boy’s mouth worked silently for a moment. “I ain’t heard from anyone, and I was worried that-”

A piercing scream shattered the night air. Dumb Boy flinched. Hemlock faced the lock-up, his heart thudding. Someone was thrashing around inside, and it wasn’t Ash. The scream became a series of pitiful cries that began to sound like coughing that began to sound like barking.

“Charlie!” Ash shouted. He was banging on the door, trying to open it. “Let me out!”

The barking stopped, replaced now by a low, rumbling growl.

“Oh shit!” Fear had cracked Ash’s voice into a hopeless sob. “Charlie, please . . . she’s a magicker. She’s a-”

Vicious snarling mingled with Ash’s screams. It didn’t last long. The wet sound of gnawing and tearing replaced the silence of sudden death. Throaty growls came from the other side of the door.

Dumb Boy tried to speak, but he choked on his words. Still wringing his hands together, he was walking backwards, slowly, his fearful eyes looking from the lockup to Hemlock.

“Go home,” Hemlock ordered. “Keep your mouth shut, and wait for the boss.”

There was a single bark, as loud as thunder, and then something thumped against the lock-up door. Dumb Boy Clover turned and ran down the lane, quickly disappearing into the gloomy downpour.

Hemlock’s breath caught, and he backed away from the lock-up, as a long, bestial howl came from inside.

“Keep running, Dumb Boy,” he whispered. “You really don’t want to see what happens next.”

 

 

 


Champion of Dead Time

 

The demon’s axe rose and fell, chopping off the blubbery creature’s arm. The creature hissed putrid breath, raising a fat hand before its grotesque face to ward off a second attack, but to no avail. Blood poured as thick and rusty sludge, and the hand joined the other limb on the scorched earth.

Although the creature was twice the demon’s size, it was not made for combat; its ovoid head and two remaining limbs were connected to a huge slug-like body, lumbering, flaccid, slow. Its voice was a distorted and childlike wail as the demon dismembered the last of its arms, and buried the axe deep in its face. With a wrench, the demon split its adversary’s head in two. The creature slumped, dead, and the demon wasted no time. With speed and seemingly unlimited strength, it proceeded to butcher the corpse, hacking the slug-like body into bloody, steaming chunks.

This filthy creature was an abomination, an abnormality; wherever it dragged its blubber, it secreted a mucus that enriched the barren, lifeless earth, turning it into fertile soil. To breed order was the creature’s sole purpose; to pervert the land so life could flourish naturally. It was the demon’s duty to eradicate such blemishes from the Retrospective, where the chaos of dead time had to be preserved.

As always, the Retrospective accepted the demon’s offering. The creature’s remains steamed and melted to a viscous soup that was sucked down through cracks in the red and blackened rock. The Retrospective fed. It wasted nothing. And the raw matter that it devoured would soon be used to create true wild monsters who would roam this savage House and keep it untamed.

The demon looked out across the broken landscape. In the distance, behemoth storm clouds had gathered. Bloated and poisonous, raining acid and barking great spears of lightning at the ground. Beneath the storm, countless monsters fought in the perpetual war that raged across the Retrospective. Ten million of them at least, forming a writhing sea of corrosion. They were locked together in pandemonium, knowing no other way than violence and hate. But the demon had no interest in joining the monumental battle. It had its own war to fight.

The demon stiffened as a sudden, alien presence stroked its mind. Turning, huge axe raised and ready to attack, it was confronted by a strange sight, one it had never before seen in the Retrospective.

There was a rent in the air, a ragged hole that led to somewhere far from this House of dead time. And there, standing in the glow of silver light, was not a monster but a man. Dressed in a black cassock, long white hair falling about his shoulders, his skin was as pale as death, and he bore scarring upon his forehead. The demon did not know what to make of the man in the silver light. It only understood that he was an intruder and had to be expelled from the Retrospective.

With the axe held high, the demon ran at the man. He barely moved, only flexing his hands, but an energy came from him unlike anything the demon had experienced before, a foul kind of magic. As easily as swatting a fly from the air, the energy punched the demon onto its back. Axe slipping from its grasp, it slid along the ground and lay still, momentarily stunned.

Confused, daunted, the demon jumped to its feet, retrieving the axe and shaking it above its head threateningly. But it dared not launch a second attack. The man stared, again barely moving as more magic came from him, this time as subtle and slithering as a snake. It enveloped the demon, sank into its mind and memories, and a voice spoke in a language that did not belong to the Retrospective. And it asked a question: Do you remember who you used to be . . .?

For the first time, the demon knew fear. It turned and fled from the man in the silver light.


The demon continued its journey across the Retrospective. But where it had once travelled only with the objective of exterminating abominations from this House, it was now beset by doubt.

Sometimes, the demon remembered the person it used to be. Other times, it recalled that it had been many people, corroded and crushed together by the endless recycling of dead time, to be reborn over and over again, whenever chaos was threatened. But the man in the silver light had awoken something old in the demon. The residue of his voice remained in its mind as a clean and distant ringing, almost like a song. It reminded the demon of a long forgotten thing; an important thing that the demon used to believe in. And it was a word. A single word that represented power.

Genii.

As the demon struggled to comprehend why the ringing remained in its mind, it arrived to where the Retrospective had led it: a hill of red rock and the mouth of a cave. Hefting its axe onto its shoulder, the demon entered the cave and began following a narrow path into a tunnel that sloped down deep into the earth. Almost immediately, the demon felt a chemical change in its body. Its blood was turning to venom in its veins; muscles and bones and organs and skin were becoming lethal toxins. With every step the demon took down into darkness, it changed into a walking, breathing poison; and before long, it understood why.

The tunnel opened into an enormous cavern, a subterranean hive where thousands of mites the size of the demon’s hand scurried and crawled. The noise of them was a deafening chatter. Their bodies were transparent, and a glow came from within them, filling the cavern with a sickly pale light. The mites worked tirelessly, crawling over each other, as they devoured the barren rock and used their excrement to build a huge pointed structure that hung from the high ceiling like a smooth glassy stalactite. It glinted wetly, already reaching halfway down to the cavern floor. The rich stench of minerals and nutrients coming from the stalactite cloyed the air of this filthy spawning ground.

Strength waned in the demon, and it welcomed the toxic changes in its body, which now festered with disease. It was repulsed by what it saw in the cavern. This was not the first time the demon had witnessed this kind of blemish.

If left unhindered, the thousands of luminescent mites would multiply to millions; they would continue breeding, devouring, nurturing, building and burrowing, until their enriched glassy tower fed the seeds of life into the very roots of the Retrospective. Even if fighting was the answer to this problem, there were too many of them for the demon alone to slaughter with its axe. The Retrospective demanded sacrifice, and it had altered the demon’s state, making it the plague that would spread and choke and exterminate this abomination.

Sensing its end approaching, the demon lifted its axe and hurled it at the glassy stalactite. The head sliced home with a deep toll that reverberated around the cavern. Thick, luminous liquid spilled from the wound, and the chittering of the mites reached a crescendo.

When the mites swarmed, the demon waited, calm and still. Knocked down and buried beneath a thousand scurrying bodies, it was blinded by the sterile brilliance shining from his attackers, but barely registered the pain as the mites tore and bit and fed upon poisoned blood and diseased flesh. Before it knew nothing, the demon heard the clean ringing of a distant song in its mind, and wondered if it would ever see the man in the silver light again.



A tornado of fire ripped across the damned landscape, shredding noxious clouds from the sky, tearing up the ground and leaving behind rivers of molten rock. Wider than a city, taller than a mountain, the tornado grew as it destroyed, sucking millions of wild monsters into its raging furnace, reducing everything in its path to raw matter that fed the belly of constant, random change. Ever recycling, ever expanding, the Retrospective had no concept of time. All time was dead in this House.

The demon once again knew awareness when it slipped from the base of the mighty fire tornado, riding a narrow river of magma on a skiff made from charred bone. Around it, ash swirled and danced in the blistering heat, thick as a snowstorm, borne on steam and smoke that sent it spiralling up to the festering sky. As the tornado receded into the distance, black rock began to mould the land anew, rising as jagged mountains, falling as ravines of obsidian glass. The stench of blood made a cloying atmosphere, and the shrieks of new monsters once again echoed across the smouldering plains.

How many times had the demon been reborn into this world? A thousand? A thousand thousand? And always with the voice of the Retrospective in its mind, steering its direction, leading it to where the next anomaly hid, to where the seeds of life waited to be destroyed. But this time there was a difference. The remnants of the man in the silver light remained inside the demon, that clean and distant ringing, almost like a challenge, or a summons to some inexorable change which could not be denied. It mingled with the voice of the Retrospective, tearing at the demon’s resolve and allegiance.

The skiff came to a halt, lodged in black rock as the river of magma cooled and hardened. Confused, torn, the demon stepped from the vessel of bone. Gripping its mighty axe tightly, it resumed its never-ending journey across the Retrospective.


Soon enough an abomination appeared in the poison sky. It drifted like a monumental jellyfish the colour of starlight. Fifty-foot long tentacles hung from the bloated bag of its body, radiating a purple hue as they protected a great sack filled with many eggs. Who knew where the creature was headed, or what manner of life would hatch from it. The Retrospective only cared about exterminating the anomaly before those eggs were laid, and it had once again charged its champion with the task.

But the demon was distracted.

As the creature drifted by overhead, the demon was transfixed by a line of silver light that had split the air. The light began to widen, spilling its sterile glow onto the red and scorched ground. The demon flinched, raising its axe, as the ringing in its mind became clearer, melodious. When the light widened enough, the man revealed himself. And this time, he was not alone.

Behind him, a strange treelike creature had wrapped its serpentine branches around the wrists and ankles of an unconscious human. As the captive was held aloft, the rest of the tree’s branches coiled and writhed in the air like a host of snakes. A woman studied the captive. She was dressed similarly to the man, in a black cassock, and her hair fell down her back as long and straight as a fall of oil. She showed no interest in the demon; and although the demon couldn’t see her face, it somehow knew that the woman bore scarring on her forehead.

The demon flinched a second time, as the man’s extraordinary, undeniable magic reached out and stroked its mind, gentle as a sigh. The demon resisted the urge to flee, and allowed the magic to saturate it. The man’s voice, so strong and enticing and alien, whispered with a question: Are you still loyal to the Genii?

The demon knew its answer instinctively. Dropping to one knee, laying aside its axe, it bowed its head to the man in the silver light. As it did so, old memories surfaced, of things the demon hadn’t realised it knew. Long ago, before the Retrospective had raged into existence, there had been a war. A mighty war that had shaken Houses, divided creatures of great magic . . . and the enemy had won.

Look for me, the man said, and the rent in the air vanished, taking the silver light with it.

The demon stayed down on its knee, hoping that the man would come back. The clean, vibrant ringing in its head receded to a distant song once again. The demon remained kneeling until the Retrospective decided to remind it of its duty.

A screech came from above. The bloated jellyfish and its sack of eggs had drifted into the distance, but flying towards the demon was a wild monster, borne on leathery wings. It landed with a thud not far away, and a final beat of its wings stirred up a cloud of burnt dust. The monster’s body was bulky, but its neck was sleek and long. It regarded the demon with soulless eyes, snapping a deep mouth filled with crooked, glass-like teeth. It was an impatient gesture, not threatening, and the demon noticed the saddle of bone growing from the ridges on the monster’s back.

Snatching the axe from the ground, the demon ran at the flying monster and jumped into the bone saddle. Encouraged by the demon’s heels, the monster beat its great wings and vaulted into the air. With the axe raised high, the demon soared skyward, racing to where the giant jellyfish floated into the horizon. The thrill of the hunt would have to suffice for now. But wherever the Retrospective chose to send its champion next, the demon would always listen to the song in its mind, and search for the man in the silver light.

 

An Epilogue

 

Doubt & Wonder

 

 

In the long game, defeat was only part of the strategy.

Alone and beaten, Fabian Moor strode across a narrow bridge of stone. Cold purpose drove each of his steps as his path arced over a chasm so deep that light itself was swallowed into an endless void. He looked up at the luminescent stalactites that hung from the ceiling of a vast cavern like the spires of an inverted cityscape, glowing with a violet radiance. With a surge of intolerance, Moor gritted his teeth as he glimpsed something moving among the shadows there. A silhouette, dark and sleek against the pale light, left the cover of a stalactite and sailed down towards him with the slow beating of huge wings.

Without breaking his gait, Moor thrust out a hand. A point of light, no bigger than a pebble, shot from his palm and streaked upward. It hit the silhouette with a flash of silver-blue that illuminated a creature three times the size of any man. The creature recoiled, great leathery wings folding forward, a bellow of pain coming from a gaping maw manifestly designed for rending flesh. As the light faded, a bitter wind moaned around the cavern, followed by the sound of dull creaking. In the gloom, the creature’s frozen body hit the bridge several paces ahead of Moor and shattered into a thousand glassy shards which glittered like jewels as they tumbled and spilled into the abyss.

Icy remnants crunched under Moor’s boots as he continued onward.

The bridge ended at a promontory, where, before the rough and sheer cavern wall, a stone golem stood sentinel. A thick neck and broad shoulders supported its boulder-sized head. The wall of its chest tapered to a marginally thinner waist; massive fists dangled from powerful arms and hung down past the knees of tree-trunk legs. Hulking, easily twice Moor’s height, the stone golem didn’t move, but its eyeless sockets seemed to glare a challenge to the man standing before it.

Moor sneered up at its chipped and worn face. ‘Well?’