THE WATCHER OF DEAD TIME (Book 3 of The Relic Guild)

A PROLOGUE: Strange Creatures

And then, for the longest time, he played the game alone.

Fabian Moor had spent half a human lifespan isolated inside a cube of thaumaturgic metal, surrounded by silver light radiating from four close walls. A claustrophobic sanctuary fifteen feet high and wide and long. Mighty spells had been cast upon it by the greatest of all Thaumaturgists, Iblisha Spiral. The cube had been Moor's haven – or prison; the hub for a universal portal which he had spent the last forty years using to search through the Nothing of Far and Deep for the House of all Houses.

The Great Labyrinth.

It was not meant to be this way. Spiral, the Lord of the Genii, had a grand plan that should have seen Moor returning to the Labyrinth at his master's side. But forty years ago, the magickers of the Relic Guild had proved to be a bigger obstacle than anyone had anticipated. However, even with the help of the mighty Skywatcher Lady Amilee, the Relic Guild wasn't powerful enough to destroy Lord Spiral's plan, or Moor. They had only delayed the inevitable.

At the centre of the silver cube, a strange tree-like creature grew from the floor. With a small degree of pride, Moor gazed upon its leathery, brown-green bark. Roots writhed like a nest of snakes at its base; branches grew from a solid trunk, coiling in the air and sliding over the ceiling. One of the serpentine branches pointed at Moor. He raised his index finger to meet its tip. The tree shuddered at the touch of its creator, but the branch withdrew when Moor held out the terracotta jar in his pale hands, recoiling from the forbidden thaumaturgy it held.

There had been moments when Moor had wondered if he would ever see this jar again. It was one of four, plain and smooth, its lid sealed with wax, filled with the darkest magic. A lifetime ago, Moor had buried them in the foundations of the Labyrinth, where they had remained, waiting for the day of Moor's return when he could reanimate the essences they preserved.

The last of Lord Spiral's Genii, sleeping the long sleep, and it was almost time to wake them up.

There had been moments when the isolation of the long game had threatened to drive Moor insane. The Nothing of Far and Deep was a vast, thick cloud of primordial mist – unimaginably huge to lesser creatures – and the Labyrinth was the only House dwelling inside it. Or so others believed. Moor's task might appear impossible to achieve, like trying to find a single diamond buried in a desert. But he had prevailed. Compromise, adaptation, patience – that was all Moor had required to carry Lord Spiral's ultimate goal across the decades to a time when there was no one waiting to help the people of the Labyrinth.

The Genii War was long over, the Timewatcher and Her Thaumaturgists were gone for good, and the terracotta jar in Moor's hands was the beginning of the future. The days of isolation were at an end, and the silver cube had almost served its purpose. Almost . . .

The serpentine tree stirred and writhed as a presence filtered through the thaumaturgic walls, disturbing the stolid air. A curious sensation washed over Moor. Someone had summoned him – but not with words, more with feelings that rippled through the silver cube, carrying fear.

Moor laid his hand on the glowing surface of a wall subtly unlike the others. Immediately the thaumaturgic metal's state shifted, changing from solid to pearlescent liquid and finally to clear, shimmering air.

A bedraggled man stood on damp cobbles outside. Behind him, an alleyway of the Great Labyrinth stretched away into misty gloom. He was small, his clothes and skin grubby, and his feral eyes were fixed on the terracotta jar in Moor's hands. Charlie Hemlock, they called him. It was a good name for the poisonous sort of human he was.

'Hello, Charlie,' said Moor.

Hemlock gave a quick nod in return.

Three golems stood in a line behind him. Deformed and withered bodies covered by black cassocks, grotesque faces hidden beneath the wide brims of their hats, these stone servants had lost every aspect of the humans they had once been. Subservient, incapable of speech or thought, they waited for orders. The power stones that energised the pistols in their hands glowed with violet light.