Curse of the Midions

by Brad Strickland

  “Who are the Toffs?” Jarvey asked.

  “They owns Lunnon, don’t they? They’re in charge of the whole show, as you might say. Not more than a hundred of them, though, and the Lord Mayor, well you should know him right enough.” She nudged him with an elbow. “They all call him Nibs, but not to his face, and his name’s Tantalus Midion. You got his property there.”

  Jarvey felt as if his blood had chilled. “This, you mean?” he asked, holding up the Grimoire. “But I got this from an old man, Siyamon Midion, some kind of cousin or something. He took me to his house—”

  “Aye, you said that last night. Look, cully, here’s all I know about that. In the year of 1848, Tantalus Midion used the Grimoire to open up a pathway to this place. An’ him an’ his friends, the Toffs they are now, they brought people here an’ made them work to build Lunnon as it is now.”

  “Then he must be dead.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because that was more than a hundred and fifty years ago!”

  Betsy shook her head. “Don’t work that way, cully. Look, there’s time, see, an’ there’s book time. This here’s book time, time created by the magic of that book there. The ones that come through from the other side of the book stay the same, see? They don’t get no older. Their children, though, well, we grow up and grow old and we die, see? Don’t ask me how it works. I don’t have the art of it and couldn’t tell you. Anyway, it’s all account of the art and the book there.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Siyamon told me to look in the book, and it dragged me here somehow.”

  “That’s the art working, see? The magic, I guess you’d call it. This Siyamon, he wanted to get rid of you for some reason, and he used the book to send you here. You were going to be a Transport. But here’s the thing, see: Every Midion, so they say, writes his own chapter in that book. Every chapter leads to a different world, see? Your Midion, your Siyamon, must have been tryin’ to send you to his chapter, not to ours. You tricked him, though. First one I ever heard of that got the best of a Midion, so good for you, cully.”

  “How did I trick him?” Jarvey asked.

  “Well, see, you brought the book along with you. And that makes you valuable to Nibs and valuable to us, doesn’t it? You know, some of the lot last night was for scragging you and—”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Killing you,” she said with a shrug. “Scragging you and takin’ the book. But no, I told ’em. I know the power of that thing. My own mother, see, she was Transported.”

  Jarvey shook his head and hoped his expression didn’t look as dumb as he felt.

  Irritation quirked the corner of Betsy’s mouth. “Transported? Like you was. Brought here to Lunnon she was, from elsewhere, like all the first people. To help start old Midion’s world, like. He used his book and he brought her here.” Betsy balled her right hand into a fist and pounded it on her knee. “Mam hadn’t done nothin’ wrong, see? She just got caught by old Midion’s lackeys, an’ next thing she knows, she’s through the book an’ into Lunnon. Like all the firsts. My dad, well, I dunno. I think he was born here, though. He got Mill-Pressed when I was just a littl’un. You get Mill-Pressed, you don’t get to talk to your family at all, and no news of you gets out, barrin’ one of your mates gets released and dares to tell your wife or husband about you. Nobody ever told Mam. Dad may be dead by now. Probably is.”

  Jarvey felt a faint stirring of hope. “Where’s your mother?”

  Betsy stood up. “Enough questions, cully.”

  Jarvey got to his feet, his face hot. “Look, don’t keep calling me that, okay? I have a name. What’s it mean, anyway? Cully?”

  With a shake of her head, Betsy said, “Somebody green and not knowin’. Somebody a stranger, but not a threat. It’s kind of matey, but kind of sneering, tell you truth. Not a bad name. But what do you want me to call you, then?”

  “Jarvey will do.”

  “Right, then, Jarvey. Now look, do you know the spell of words to use to work that book or no? You said you didn’t, but now it’s just us, so tell me true.”

  “I don’t know any magic,” Jarvey said. “If I did, I wouldn’t stay here another second.”

  “Know any of the art at all?”

  Jarvey hesitated. Broken windows, blown light-bulbs, exploding baseball bats . . . melting candles. But he said gruffly, “I thought magic wasn’t real. Just stuff in books and movies and like that. I never even believed in it until all this happened.”

  Betsy reached out and grabbed Jarvey’s arm, hard. “Then you need help. All right. I need help, too. Trade’s fair, innit?”

  “Trade?”

  Betsy leaned in close, her green eyes sharp enough to stab Jarvey to the soul. “My mother’s in trouble. We’ll do a deal. I’ll take care of you, see, and make sure you don’t get pressed, and teach you how to get food and drink, and help you find how to use that book. You’re a Midion, you ought to be able to use the art, right? But when you do, see, you help me. You use your book to find my mother and set her free. Will you do that?”

  “I-if I can.”

  Betsy gave a solemn nod. “Look, I believe in you. You have the blood of the Midions, and that’s sorcery blood. They do say that some of’em tried to use their art for good and not evil, but the bad’uns, the ones like old Nibs—well, you stick with me, and we won’t worry about him, right? We won’t worry about them until you get strong enough to kill him.”

  Jarvey couldn’t even swallow the lump that rose in his throat. He felt himself nod, and he felt his stomach clench, hard and heavy.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Free Folk

  Royal Crescent was so far from the cellar that it took Bets, Charley, and Jarvey all morning to get there. They ducked along back alleys and streaked across busy streets, with Jarvey’s head spinning. He tried to hide his fear as he followed in Bets’s wake, slipping through streets clattering with horses, carts, and carriages.

  “Here we are,” Bets breathed at last. “Looks like there’s some arrived ahead of us, though.”

  At the top of a low hill, they stood behind a hedge. Jarvey looked down a street paved with pale red brick and lined by waist-high, severely trimmed hedges. Down the hill, about a hundred yards away, two semicircular drives split off on either side of the street, and facing each drive was a magnificent curved three-story building with high, arched windows. Each building had three imposing doors. “Town houses for Toffs,” Bets explained. “Six families there, all on the Council. Your Lord Zoroaster’s is the closest one on the left, but see what’s standing in front of it.”

  Three black carriages, each one drawn by two horses, had stopped at the curb. As Jarvey watched, the door to Number 3 opened and two men in black leather coats came out, arguing. At this distance, their voices were no more than an angry buzz, like a bee trapped in a glass jar.

  “Come on,” Bets said. “We’ll get closer and see what’s what. Charley, you stay here in case we need a decoy.”

  Jarvey followed her across the street, where they ducked behind the far hedge and crouched as they slipped down the hill. A rumble of wheels and the clopping of horses made them pause. Bets rose to take a quick look over the hedge, and Jarvey heard her suck in her breath. “It’s him! Old Nibs! Come on!”

  Bets wormed right into the base of the hedge, creeping easily among twisted gray branches in a kind of leaf-green twilight. Jarvey grunted as twigs caught his hair and clothing. Ahead of him, Bets stopped. Peering through the leaves, Jarvey spotted a coach, larger and far more magnificent than the others. The door bore a golden shield, and on the shield was the head of a wolf, in silver, with rubies for eyes.

  One of the black-coated men appeared to open the door. Someone stirred in the dark interior of the coach, then stepped out into the strange milky light: a stooped, crooked old man, his face a sour, wrinkled apple framed by a fall of stringy white hair. Tantalus Midion, beyond any doubt. His dark blue eyes peered from beneath shag
gy white brows, and his cheekbones lay knife-sharp beneath the skin. Standing there leaning on an ebony cane, he looked enough like Siyamon to have been his brother.

  “Well?” His voice was high, reedy, and cold.

  The leather-jacketed man stood with his head bowed. “My lord, the man is not here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He has gone away, my lord.” The tipper’s voice quivered.

  With a snarl, Tantalus Midion raised his cane and struck the man a quick blow on the leg, making Jarvey wince. “You will find the traitor Zoroaster, or I shall have you put to death. I shall have you flayed alive, boiled in oil, torn to pieces, and fed to the ravens. Do you understand me?” He had not raised his voice from a conversational level.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The old man growled, swiveling his head, sniffing the air. “Something odd is happening. Something here is not in order. Zoroaster left my Council without permission, and the palace guards say he took a servant with him. He brought no servant into my house, and Zoroaster is a secret man. He shares his carriage with no one.”

  The tipper was sweating. “No, my lord.”

  Tantalus Midion raised his bony hand, his fingers slipping against his thumb, as though he were feeling the atmosphere. “The air feels wrong here. Something is disturbing the fabric of my city. Zoroaster would be able to tell me what the problem is. Scour the entire city, man. Find Zoroaster and bring him to me. I will crush his secrets from him.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “The air is wrong,” Tantalus repeated. “If Zoroaster dares to challenge me—let it be known to all that I can destroy this city if I must. I have days of life left to me on Earth. I could return there, retrieve the Book, and make another world if I chose. If I did that, I would rip out this chapter, and you and everyone else would perish. Do you understand? Be advised. Find the man.” With that, the old man turned and stepped back into the carriage. The tipper closed the door, and the driver whipped the horses into motion.

  As soon as the carriage had driven away, the tipper groaned, limped to the edge of the drive, and vomited in the gutter. Jarvey shivered.

  Other tippers appeared from the doorway of Number 3, each one forcing a man or woman ahead of him. “We haven’t seen the master since yesterday,” one old man protested.

  The tipper steering him slapped him hard. “Quiet until we ask! Sir, this is the lot.”

  The tipper who had spoken to Tantalus wiped his mouth. “Take the servants to the lockup to be questioned.”

  Jarvey counted six of them in all, two men, one old woman, and three middle-aged women, all of them weeping. The tippers forced them into the carriages, and then the carriages rolled away.

  “Let’s go,” Bets said.

  Their trip back to the cellar was somber. Bets muttered, “If Nibs is after Lord Z, you’d best keep your distance from the man. Lord Z might be strong, but Nibs would snap him like a matchstick. Looks like you got no one to help you find your parents but us, Jarvey.”

  Charley slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your mam and dad for you. If we have to, we’ll leave the city until this hunt for Lord Z ends one way or the other. We’ve stayed in the Wild before this.”

  “Won’t come to that if I can help it,” Bets returned. “It’s no life in the Wild.”

  “What’s the Wild?” Jarvey asked, not sure if he really wanted to know.

  Bets shrugged. “Well, there’s Lunnon, and there’s the farmlands all about, see? And the rest of the whole world, that’s the Wild. Strange trees that talk at night, animals that might’ve been humans until Nibs got mad at ’em, mountains that move, ground that sucks you down under and smothers you. It’s poison land, land that’s almost alive. Most of the farmers, they’re people who are glad enough to be out of the tippers’ sight and striking, but every year a few of them are taken off by the things that live in the Wild. Besides, if you run into the Wild to get away from Nibs, and he finds out about it, he comes after you.”

  “Hunts runaways for sport, Nibs does,” Charley said with a brown-toothed grin. “In the palace—that’s Bywater House, where he lives—they do say he has a room with their heads hangin’ up on the walls.”

  “Just talk, but we’ll try to keep well out of the Wild,” Bets said. “Charley, spread the word. Tomorrow noon we have a meeting with the other bands.”

  “Why?” Charley asked, sounding surprised.

  “Nibs thinks something’s here as shouldn’t be here. That’s Jarvey, innit? Sooner we help him find his parents and get out of Lunnon, sooner the tippers will ease off.”

  Charley just grunted. Jarvey tried to say “Thanks,” but the word wouldn’t come out. He wasn’t sure that Bets could really help him. Or that she planned to.

  Another sleepless, fearful night, another morning under a pale, milky sky, and Jarvey began to despair of ever seeing his mother or father again. After a hasty breakfast, he took the Grimoire off into a corner and tried to open it.

  The latch refused to give. Maybe you had to have that circle around it, he thought. Or give the book a command. “Open,” he said.

  Nothing happened.

  “I command you to open!” he growled, feeling foolish.

  He reached for the latch, and with a crackle an angry red spark burned his fingers. He jerked his hand away, yelping. His thumb and two of his fingers showed white blisters the size of pencil erasers. Jarvey felt a flare of frustration and anger inside. He grabbed the book and made a hasty retreat to the Den.

  By noon, thirty or more ragged, dirty kids had gathered in the basement. Most of them clustered in a loose group, with only Charley apart, standing beside the door with his arms crossed and a resigned smile on his thin face. Betsy stood on one of the rusted machines and had them all take a good look at Jarvey. “He’s a new one, but he’s game to join the Free Folk,” she announced. “Spread the word. He’s Jarvey Green to everyone, right? And he’s to have help from any of the Free Folk, on my say.”

  “Got a mum or dad lookin’ for him, has he?” asked an older boy, dressed in a shabby old coat and a battered felt hat.

  “He’s lost his parents,” Betsy said shortly.

  “Lumme,” little Puddler squeaked. “Becomin’ a orphan without permission? That’s an automatic life sentence in the mills, that is!”

  “Half of us are guilty of it, though, so what’s the difference?” a plain-faced, red-haired girl said, to a general murmur of agreement.

  “All right,” Betsy said. “That’s one thing I want you all to do: Keep your ears and eyes open for strange new folk in Lunnon, a man and a woman, Jarvey’s parents. If they’re here, someone will notice them. They’ll stand out. You’ll know if you get word of them, and if you do, you come to me, understand?”

  There was a general murmur of agreement, and then Bets continued, “Now, Jarvey’s not used to life outside, so he’s got to lay low until he gets the hang of things. So me and some of my Dodgers are goin’ on the sly with him to give him a bit of training. Can’t stay here, because it’s too close to the tippers’ den over in Dead Street, so we’ll be moving on.”

  “Where will you den, then?” someone asked.

  Betsy hardly spared him a glance. “New place. Never you mind where it is. We don’t want any of you lot gettin’ nipped and bargaining for your freedom with our secrets, right?”

  “Oi!” shouted the oldest boy. “None of that, Bets. We’re Free Folk, we are. Death before dishonor.” Jarvey saw the black-haired Charley, in the background, shake his head as if in disbelief.

  “Bets?” another kid, a fourteen- or a fifteen-year-old boy, asked in a hesitant, hopeful tone. “If you and the Dodgers are thinkin’ about movin’ out of this place, how’s it if my lot take up here? The tippers are sniffing awfully close to our digs in the attic of the sick-house down by the river. Besides that, it ain’t healthy, over there where so many go to die.”

  “Take it, then, and welcome,” Betsy said. “Only do
n’t come in from the wide street by day, not ever. The alley’s the only way then. Tell you what, we’ll leave Charley for a few days to show you the ins and outs, how’s that?”

  “Bag that up and sell it!” Charley snapped. “You ain’t ditchin’ me, Bets.”

  “No,” Betsy agreed. “You’ll come along to you-know-where in a couple of days, after Ben’s bunch settle in here. You’re the best one to teach them, and you know it. So you stay, and that’s that.”

  Charley leaned back against the brick wall, arms still crossed, head lowered and a scowl on his face. Uneasily, Jarvey wondered if Betsy somehow knew about the warning Charley had given him. Was she trying to separate Charley from the group because he knew things that she didn’t want Jarvey to learn?

  Betsy fielded more questions, and Jarvey listened with his head spinning. In all his life he’d never been involved in anything more serious than a hard-fought game of baseball, but these kids played for their lives, every day and every night. He nervously fingered the book wrapped up in his old shirt. He wore clothes like the other kids now, given to him by Betsy. The buttonless pullover shirt, coarse as burlap and a dreary gray, hung on him like a tent. He wore faded black pants, their legs loose and floppy, hacked off short three inches above his ankles. The only things of his own that he kept were his sneakers. He felt ridiculous in that getup, but mostly nervous about all those eyes staring at his face, filing away images of him for future reference.

  As Betsy dealt with the group’s curiosity, Jarvey gratefully sank down and sat, glad to be out of the spotlight. He wondered what had become of Zoroaster and what Zoroaster knew about the Grimoire. The weight of the book seemed to be increasing, and just touching its covers gave Jarvey a peculiarly cold, sick feeling. He hated the thing and wished he could throw it away, but it seemed to be his only hope.

  Jarvey tried to make sense of the fragments Zoroaster had told him. When Siyamon Midion had used his dark art on Mom and Dad, what had happened to them? Were they enslaved in one of the deadly mills?