The Relic Guild Read Free

within that twilight realm dwelt many terrible things.
    Manifested as a horde of ghosts, they snaked and weaved through the very fabric of the Great Labyrinth, like tendrils of dark history, remorseless aspects without good or reason; monsters, phantoms from nightmares with names only mentioned in whispers, or upon the pages of secret books. The wild demons of the Retrospective slept with one eye open, always ready to swallow the unwary.
    And Peppercorn Clara was heading straight for them.
    As the light of Ruby Moon shone brightly through a gap in the clouds, Marney reached the end of the alleyway and cut a sharp right. Somehow, she didn’t see the assassin until it almost was too late.
    Boldly, he stood further ahead, in the middle of the alley, dressed in a dark, flowing priest’s cassock and wide-brimmed hat. The violet light of thaumaturgy glowed from the power stone set behind the chamber of the pistol in his hand.
    An instant before the power stone flashed and the pistol shot its deadly slug with a low and hollow spitting sound, Marney leapt aside, ramming her shoulder into a buttress, and pressing her back flat to the alley wall. The assassin’s bullet cracked the brickwork a few paces to her right with a spray of stone. A sharp, high-pitched whine was immediately followed by a whirl of icy wind. The noise scrambled Marney’s empathic senses, but she retained control and heard a creaking, deep and dull sounding.
    Ice was forming where the slug had hit the wall. It spread out over the brickwork, creeping towards her like frosted breath on a windowpane. In an instant, the ice reached Marney’s right shoulder. She gasped and gritted her teeth as the cloth of her jacket began to freeze. Just as she thought she would have to break cover, the ice ceased spreading and mercifully began to melt.
    Magic: that bullet was designed to capture not kill. A direct hit would have preserved Marney’s body within a cocoon of ice. But magical ammunition was rare in the Labyrinth, and no one – no one – packed that kind of power into a bullet unless they were damn sure of their skills, unless they were … well connected . What kind of enemies had Clara made?
    The assassin still loomed in the alleyway. Marney tried to engage with his emotions, to manipulate him into obeying her command, but he was shielded from her empathy. More magic. There was no way she could get close to him while the gun remained in his hand, so she unzipped her jacket and carefully slipped it off. A baldric of slim throwing daggers was fastened around her torso like a girdle. She slid out a single blade. The silver metal felt cool and smooth in her hand.
    Marney waited several heartbeats, and then threw her jacket into the alley. Immediately, the power stone in the assassin’s pistol flashed and released a burst of thaumaturgy. The ice-bullet fizzed into the jacket, freezing it in midair. It fell, shattering to shards of ice upon the cobbles. Marney spun into the alleyway and threw the dagger. It sliced the air with a sigh before thudding into the face of her adversary. His head snapped back, dislodging the wide-brimmed hat, and the pistol fell clattering from his hand. The violet glow of its power stone faded and died.
    Marney wasted no time. She let fly with two more daggers; one took the assassin in the throat, the other in the chest. He stumbled, but did not fall. Marney readied a fourth blade, but paused before throwing it.
    Something was wrong.
    Beneath the black cassock, the assassin’s body was misshapen, top heavy. His back was hunched and his chest sunken. His limbs appeared overly long and painfully thin. There was no hair on his head, and his face was grotesquely deformed. The hilt of the first dagger protruded from his eye socket; it reflected red moonlight, but there was no blood, not from any of his wounds.
    Silently, he began convulsing. There came a hissing sound and the alley was filled with the hot and acrid stench of dispelling magic.