Curse of the Midions

by Brad Strickland

  Both men were shrieking foreign words, red lighting flashing from the tip of Siyamon’s cane and blue lightning leaping from the stranger’s outstretched fingertips, and the very air crackled with their fury. The book felt as if it were expanding in Jarvey’s grasp—

  His body jerked, flowing forward, pulled by a physical attraction he could not overcome. As he fell, his arms wrenched behind him, as if the book had passed right through his body—or his body had passed through the book.

  Then . . . Jarvey felt whole again, solid, himself but in darkness, free-falling, the book clutched tight against his chest. He tumbled, head up, feet up, into whistling, freezing air, into endless night.

  A moment later or a hundred years before, he crashed to earth with an impact that blew out his consciousness like a candle flame caught in a tornado.

  CHAPTER 3

  Into the Fog

  Slowly, feeling returned. Jarvey’s first thought was that he must have been hit with a fastball, because his head throbbed so painfully. Jarvey’s left arm, twisted beneath his body, tingled with pins-and-needles numbness. His fingers ached as if they had been broken, and he gradually became aware that he still clutched the book.

  Lost in total darkness, Jarvey sat up with a lurch of effort. From somewhere far away he heard a low murmur of voices, but he could make out no distinct words. Feeling around in the dark, he thumped his hand against a sharp corner. He swept his palm over wood and discovered he was sitting on a hard floor beside some kind of desk or table.

  With difficulty, Jarvey hauled himself up, swaying on his feet. His left hand still held the book. His mouth and throat felt as dry as the Sahara. “Hey,” he croaked, but the darkness swallowed the weak sound. He stretched out his right hand and inched across the floor until he reached what felt like a shelf of close-packed books.

  Still in Siyamon’s library, then. What had happened to the lamps? Edging his way to the right, Jarvey reached a door. He felt around, found the handle, and turned it, opening the door to dim yellow light. Before him the arched hall led away, illuminated only by four fat candles flickering wanly in wall sconces. Halfway down the hall on the right a door stood ajar, and the murmuring voices were coming from there.

  “Not you, of course,” a querulous old man was saying. “None of my trusted advisors. But the rest, I tell you, must go back. We cannot tolerate so many idle hands, so many immortal mouths to feed!”

  “Sir,” another voice said, “with respect, that cannot be done. The spell would require tremendous power, and it would leave you dangerously weak.”

  “Do you dare question me?” the first voice thundered.

  Jarvey crept down the hall, close enough to peek in through the partly opened door. He could glimpse men sitting at a long table, oddly dressed in long black double-breasted coats. They looked like figures in a historical movie, long sideburns on their cheeks, high collars, old-fashioned ties. Three of them were sitting at the near end of the table.

  One glanced up, caught sight of Jarvey, and sprang to his feet. “My lord, if I might be excused. I have a slight indisposition.”

  “Go, go,” the old man said in his grumbling voice. He was out of sight, toward the right end of the table. “Now, Dodson, as to the question of the power it would require...”

  The man who had risen stepped into the hall and closed the door, cutting off the voice. “You are asking for trouble,” he said sternly. “To interrupt the Inner Council is a gross violation of propriety.”

  “I’ve got to find my mom and dad,” Jarvey blurted, his voice trembling with fear.

  “Hush!” The man gripped his arm, spun him around, and marched him down the hall. At the far end, he opened a door. He reached up, took a candle from its sconce, and pushed Jarvey inside a small parlor with a scatter of small tables and chairs, each table holding a candelabra. The man lit one of these from the candle he held. “Who are you? Kitchen boy?”

  “I’m Jarvey Midion,” Jarvey began.

  The man dropped the candle he held, and it went out with a splash of melted wax. “The devil you are! Another one?” He took a step forward, narrowing his eyes. “Hair like—”

  “Don’t say it!” Jarvey said. “Look, I have the Grimoire. Siyamon Midion—”

  The man bent forward. “That can’t be—not the Grimoire? Here? Impossible!”

  Jarvey grated his teeth. “I want to find my mom and dad!” he snapped.

  The candelabra shivered on its table, doing an eccentric little dance, the flames flickering. The man grabbed it. “The Grimoire here,” he repeated. “What year is it? Tell me quickly.”

  “It—it’s 2006,” Jarvey stammered, bewildered.

  The man groaned, sinking into a chair. “Then the Curse of the Midions endures into two more centuries! The book, the cursed book!”

  Jarvey’s eyes flew wide. “I know you! You looked a lot older, but you warned me. You said to beware the book, and I saw you fighting Siyamon with some kind of magic—”

  “Quiet,” the man said. “I have no time to explain now. Jarvey—that is your name, you said?—you are in grave danger. That book is deadly here. It could cause—well, it could cause the world to end.”

  “What?”

  “Shh! Not so loud! Listen, I am—well, call me a cousin, and that won’t be far wrong. You must trust me. Keep that book safe, keep it out of Tantalus Midion’s hands at all costs, do you hear? You have come directly to his house, to Bywater—”

  “It’s Siyamon’s house,” Jarvey said.

  “It may be in your world. This is not your world, do you understand? This is not your world, not your year, not your past. This is all a fiction, a dream made real by Tantalus Midion, as his ancestors used the Grimoire to make their own evil dreams real and then went to inhabit them. You, I, all of this around us—we are inside the book you hold!”

  “I don’t understand you!” Jarvey shouted. One of the candles drooped and ran, liquid dripping over the man’s hand. It left a long stalactite of wax, but he did not seem to notice it.

  “We must get you out of this,” he said, setting the candelabra down. “Call me Zoroaster. You must trust me. I will try to find some safe place for you, but you must not call attention to yourself. Wait here.” Zoroaster slipped out the door, pulled it shut behind him, and his footsteps faded. Jarvey slumped into a chair, feeling as if his legs had turned to water. What had happened to his parents?

  In a few moments, the door opened again. “Here,” Zoroaster said, tossing a cloak to Jarvey. “Wrap this around you, and keep that book under it. You are to follow me and keep still. Don’t say a word!”

  “I want my mom and dad,” Jarvey insisted.

  “I—very well, then, I shall try to take you to them. Only do as I say, and quickly! We haven’t a moment to lose!”

  Jarvey draped the cloak around himself, and Zoroaster fastened it at the throat. “Keep that book hidden, whatever you do. Now, you must follow me. Stay three steps behind me, look down at the floor, and don’t speak a word. Let’s go.”

  Jarvey nearly jogged in Zoroaster’s wake as the man strode fast out into the hall. They followed the corridor away from the library, stepping out into an enormous room whose ceiling was so high that it lost itself in darkness. A man stepped forward, offering a much longer cloak and a silver-headed cane. “Leaving, my lord?”

  Zoroaster threw the cloak around his shoulders. “Yes. This boy brought an urgent message.”

  The man opened the front door, and Zoroaster led the way out into a damp, fog-wrapped night. In the distance gas lamps flared, but they made only ruddy blurs in the darkness. A long gravel drive crunched beneath Jarvey’s feet, and he had the impression that some kind of tall iron fence walled them in on either side. Ahead of him, Zoroaster called, “Open, there!”

  Someone in the fog responded, “Yes, my lord,” and a heavy iron gate groaned on its hinges. They stepped out through a gap between two small structures—guardhouses, Jarvey realized, like the ones his dad had shown
him in a brochure about London.

  Zoroaster stooped and said, “Into the carriage, boy. I have some questions.”

  A black horse-drawn carriage loomed in the darkness. Jarvey had trouble finding the narrow steps, but with an impatient boost from Zoroaster he half-stumbled inside, collapsing on a seat. The man clambered in, sat opposite him, and closed the door. He thumped the ceiling with his cane, and with a clatter and rattle, the carriage jerked into motion.

  “Where are my parents?” Jarvey demanded. “Siyamon took them into his house.”

  Zoroaster, visible only as a silhouette in the darkness, said, “Listen to me, Jarvey Midion. The house I have taken you from is not the Bywater of the real world, of your world. Please understand, this whole city is the creation of a great sorcerer. Tantalus Midion is master here, and I daresay he is the great-grandfather of the Siyamon Midion in your world. He was married, years ago, though his wife died. His son he left behind when he used the Grimoire to open the gateway to this place.”

  “You keep saying crazy things,” Jarvey accused.

  “I know they sound insane to you. Try to understand, though. The Grimoire is filled with magic secrets. It allows the Midions to escape death in the real world, to write spells of great complexity that open other worlds to them. These worlds are—are shapeless, unformed, until the spells are written, and then they become real. The Grimoire that you have somehow brought here—well, think of it as containing Tantalus’s world, and many other worlds besides. That is not wholly true, but it may give you an idea of how important the Grimoire is. It was first created in the year 1659 by Septimus Midion, who resented the death of his innocent daughter. He wanted to create a world of dreams where his daughter still lived, you understand, and he vanished inside the book, leaving—well, leaving his son, who was as confused as you must be.”

  “How can a person vanish in a book?” Jarvey asked.

  “A Midion could,” Zoroaster said darkly. “They were a numerous family at that time, and many of them were gifted with the art of magic. Later Midions came into possession of the Grimoire, and they twisted it and misused its magic—or perhaps it twisted them. The book gives such great power that it tempts a sorcerer to evil.”

  Jarvey was shaking his head. “This is all crazy. Look, I just want to go home! You said you’d take me to find Mom and Dad.”

  The coach had been rattling along, but as Jarvey spoke, it slowed and halted. With a snarl of anger, Zoroaster opened the coach door and leaned out into the fog. “Driver!”

  “Sorry, my lord. Curfew wagon is coming. They’ll want to see our papers.”

  A dim light shone through the open door. Zoroaster hissed between his teeth, then threw the door open. In a whisper, he ordered, “Get out and hide! Here, take this.” He waved a shadowy hand, and Jarvey, reaching out, felt a card being thrust into his grip. “That is my home address. Come to see me tomorrow, as quickly as you can. Come by day! I will help you if I can.”

  “My dad—”

  “Your parents are not here! I lied to get you out of Bywater House! Get out now, or you’ll be captured.” Zoroaster seized Jarvey’s arm and practically hurled him out of the coach. The cloak ripped away, and Jarvey stumbled into a dark opening, an alley between two indistinct brick buildings. He could hear the slow clopping of horses, the trundle of wheels. A hand bell rang.

  The driver of the coach snapped a whip, and the carriage rumbled off into the fog. The bell clanged again, and from the darkness came a rough voice: “Twelve o’clock of a foul night, and ye be warned!”

  Jarvey heard another sound, a sharp hiss, almost a whistle, from the dark alley behind him. “Is anybody there?”

  In response, a quick, stealthy, skittering sound came from the alley. Rats, maybe. Jarvey gripped the book, wondering if it was heavy enough to clobber a rat.

  “Woss that?” The sharp voice came from down the street, from the direction of the wagon rumble. “You hear that, Georgie?”

  “Nar, ya got fog in yer lug-holes,” an older man’s voice snapped. “On wiv it, Bert, and less of yer lip.”

  And now a dark bulk loomed out of the fog, a heavy wagon, pulled by a single plodding horse. Jarvey opened his mouth to yell—

  “Mmpff!” A hand clamped over his open mouth, and other hands seized his arms. He felt himself being dragged away from the street, away from the streetlamp. Breath whistled in someone’s nostrils, two or three people, by the sound of it. An urgent whisper said, “In here, quick!”

  The hand over his mouth didn’t move, but the figures hauling at him broke away. They pushed at him from behind, and Jarvey stumbled deeper into the narrow alley. The trundling sound of the wheels and the clopping of the horse’s hooves stopped and he desperately tried to wrench free and yell for help.

  “Sst!” The voice was right in his ear, and the warm breath smelled of onions. “Quiet, boy! You want the Mill Press to get you?”

  The grumbling older man’s voice came from the fog: “Nuffin’ there, I tells ya. You ain’t gonna please Nibs by prowlin’ around lookin’ for runagates what ain’t there.”

  The younger man’s voice, higher pitched and quarrelsome, came back: “I heard somethin’, I tells ya.”

  “Rats, or a mangy stray dog. Get on with yer, Bert. Some of us has homes ter go to, an’ th’ mills is hungry fer yon bearns. If you makes us late, on yer head be it!”

  Bert growled a curse, but Jarvey heard the crack of a whip, and a moment later the wagon rolled away. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard another sound, softer than the horse or the men, and unsettling. Children were crying somewhere, maybe in the back of the wagon.

  The hands didn’t release Jarvey until the wagon had passed out of earshot. Then the person whose hand had clapped his mouth shut finally let go and said, “Well, cully, you’re a green ’un and no mistake. Run away, have we? Come to join the Dodgers, have we? Rich boy out for adventure, I’ll wager.”

  “You’re a girl,” Jarvey said, surprised.

  Someone giggled, and the girl snapped, “None of that, Carks. Let’s get this baby to the snug, and then we’ll see what’s what. Maybe he’s got some brass in his pockets to pay us for his rescue.”

  “Rescue? What do you mean? Look, I’m an American, and I have to get to a police station—”

  “Walk-er!” one of the shadows said, then burst into a giggling fit. “Go to a tippers’ station? You’ve got rocks in your nog, is what! Same as trotting to the mills, it is, and shoutin’ ‘Oi! Here, take me!’ Tippers’ station! Find yourself chained to a loom in about half a shake, you do that.”

  “I was kidnapped,” Jarvey said desperately. “A man who said he was my uncle took me to, well, he said it was Bywater House, and he and—”

  A hand slapped his face, so hard that Jarvey saw an explosion of yellow. “Nibs took you, did he?” the girl growled. “Well, you’ll not be telling him of the likes of us, else you’re fish food tonight, sharps.”

  “Ow,” Jarvey said, rubbing his cheek. Then he realized he had dropped the Midion Grimoire. “Where’s my book?”

  “Got it here, cully,” another boy said. “Here, reach out. Where are you? Here it is, take it. Can’t none of us read, no gates.”

  The sharp corner of the book poked into Jarvey’s chest, and he took it from the boy, feeling its weight almost with gratitude.

  “Come on,” the girl said. “Mill Press will have runners out.”

  They shoved him, led him, and grumbled at his slowness as they made their way through a maze of alleys and byways, under bridges beside a river that reeked of stagnant mud and dead fish, through open windows and into basements crowded with stacks of crates and what seemed to be rusted machinery. “Where are we going?” Jarvey asked three or four times, but he never got an answer. It was like some of his bad dreams, nightmares of endless running, to something or from something, in which he could make no progress.

  However, this night’s running found an end at last. From ahead of him, Jarvey heard a c
omplicated rapping, answered by another series of taps, and then a dim opening appeared, a door. The kids behind him thrust him forward, down a steep incline, to the doorway, then through, hurriedly, and the shadowy figure of the girl held aside a hanging blanket and urgently beckoned to him. Jarvey ducked under it.

  One dripping candle provided a faint light, but to his weary eyes it blazed bright enough to dazzle him. His head ached, and he felt every bruise he had collected. Jarvey had the impression of being in an immense room, something almost the size of a cathedral, but someone—the kids around him, Jarvey supposed—had walled off a portion of it. Splintered wooden crates, stacked more than head-high, made a hollow square about twelve feet on a side. A ragged gray curtain covered the only entrance. More pieces of gray cloth, roughly stitched together, made up a kind of drooping, sagging ceiling overhead.

  Jarvey saw four boys and one girl, all of them staring at him silently. The youngest of them looked about eight years old. He squeaked, “Who’ve we brought home, then, Betsy?”

  “A rum ’un,” the girl said with a grin. She was close to Jarvey’s age, but incredibly dirty. Her hair might have been red, but it was hard to tell in the candlelight. She, or someone, had hacked it short. Bangs hung on her forehead, but the rest of her hair spiked away in all directions. Her eyes were green, her nose tilted up at the tip, and her mouth wide. Like the others, she wore a shirt and pants too big for her, the pants belted at the waist with a rope, and she was barefoot.

  The youngest boy had been waiting in the tent-like enclosure, but the other three had been the ones shoving Jarvey along. One looked as if he might be Pakistani or Indian, with black hair and eyes. The second was a year or two younger than Jarvey, and he had blond hair that fell into a cap of curls. The last was a tall, lanky kid who was probably thirteen or fourteen. He had shaved his head down to stubble, and he was missing two front teeth.