Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (14 page)

Eventually they left the small forest and found a rough track which they followed to a larger road. It was good to be travelling again even though they didn’t know where they were going.

“I wish we knew where we were going,” said Madrick.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,” said Tung, feeling pleased he’d been the one to find the silver lining this time.

“I think you’ll find that that’s a bad thing, my friend. We need to get ourselves a purpose; a direction.”

VROOOOOOOM.

Both men dived to the side of the road, they’d never been so scared, well, not since the thunderball knocked them out of the sky. This time though the culprit wasn’t magic, they’d just encountered their first motor vehicle. They’d seen these machines on the television, but nothing could have prepared them for the effect it had on them. They were overwhelmed by the speed, the smell and the noise. These machines were truly frightening.

Once they’d regained their senses, and after a few more close encounters of the very near kind, they realised the vehicles went on the black bit of the wide track so they, as walkers, needed to stay at the edge of this dark torrent of roaring madness. They’d only just come to terms with the craziness which was modern traffic when they had their first real conversation with a twenty-first century modern man. He’d stopped his car and asked them for directions; it seemed this modern world was no different to their own because ‘direction requests’ always came when you were a stranger. As usual, the asker was already tense and exasperated so the conversation was short and not so sweet. It was clear from this exchange that some of the most offensive swear words from their time had survived and were alive and doing very well.

They walked for miles and eventually came to what looked like an enormous, indoor street market. The massive sign above the entrance confirmed this; SUPERMARKET it proclaimed.

“Let me do the talking,” said Madrick. “We’ll pretend to be from a land far away and we’ll say we’re unfamiliar with the customers here… I mean customs. We are unfamiliar with the customs here.”

It went surprising well. Everyone had a large basket on wheels so they got one for themselves; imitate and blend seemed to be a good strategy. They gathered food provisions and a trolley full of useful items such as backpacks, warm coats, a torch and a couple of sharp knives. They queued behind other shoppers who seemed to be waiting to pay for their goods. When their turn came, everything was passed over a glass window which beeped as each item flashed by. The ‘shopkeeper’ smiled and asked for a meaningless sum of money; meaningless to them that is. After having their modern coins refused as being insultingly insufficient, the manager was called and the two were hauled off to his office. They explained they were not from these parts, but the manager was in no mood to deal with these tramps, as he saw them. He threatened to call the police. He lifted a strange, bone shaped object from his desk and started to punch buttons. Madrick was frightened because the last thing they needed was a brush with the authorities. Mifal may be long dead, but there was undoubtedly some other equally cruel, modern dictator to contend with. So, as a last resort, he offered one of the gold coins as payment.

The man thumbed the beautiful coin and, within an instant, his attitude had changed dramatically. Not one to miss an opportunity, the manager offered them a hundred modern day pounds for the coin. He could spot value when he saw it. Once the deal was done, he led them out of his office and helped them through the check out process.

They left with their purchases and some modern paper money. They were pleased with themselves, but they knew they’d have to come to terms with modern money and modern ways of shopping, sooner rather than later.

They kept walking along the road and came to a small cluster of shops. One displayed a glistening array of jewellery in its window and had a little notice on the glass which said ‘We Buy Gold’.

“We should try and get more of this modern money. I’ll try and sell another coin. I want to know if others will give us one hundred of their pounds again. Maybe the man at the market was a fool to pay so much.

“You wait here. Don’t talk to anyone.”

Madrick went in alone and showed the man one of the gold coins from the ‘never empty’ pouch. The man examined it though a strange eye glass and became quite animated and excited. He offered five hundred pounds which Madrick immediately accepted; that was so much better than the hundred he’d been given in the supermarket.

“That was great,” he said to Tung as he left the shop. “We now have plenty of today’s money so we should find it easier to fit in. We need to hide though and the best place to hide is among lots of people. We need to get to a big town where we can be anonymous. That’ll give us space and time to make a plan.”

It was wishful thinking, because space and time hadn’t been too kind to them of late.

As their confidence grew, they began to ask passers-by for directions to the biggest town around. London, they were told, was as big as they came so they headed for it. They followed the directions and their instincts. Things got busier. There were more people, more houses, more shops… they must be getting closer. They kept asking for London and eventually someone kindly offered them a lift.

They rode in the back of the car, wide-eyed and silent. There was no need to talk to the driver because he was separated from them by a glass window. This was fantastic; the speed and the comfort were amazing. Eventually they stopped and the driver opened the door for them.

“Forty-seven pounds please.”

Madrick was surprised by his request, but he thought better of challenging it. Better to go along with what was clearly a modern custom. He handed the driver three twenty-pound notes.

“Thank you very much,” he said as he jumped back in his car and drove off. There was to be no change for the strangers.

They looked around and found themselves in the heart of a sprawling metropolis.

“So this is London,” said Tung. “I’m frightened.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll manage. We’ve made it this far after all. We were told we should find a ‘hotel’ because that’s the modern equivalent of an inn. Once we get a room of our own we’ll be fine.”

They set off in search of a hotel. After wandering the crowded streets for an hour or so, they saw it; The Ritz Hotel.

It took a while, and a few ‘we are strangers in this land’, to get checked in. Having no credit card was the first problem, but like many problems it was solved with a big bundle of cash; not even Ritz employees were immune to a big bundle of cash. Names were the next hurdle. Madrick was reluctant to give his real name but he’d blurted it out before he could conjure up an alternative.

“Mr Madrick, welcome to the Ritz.”

“No. Madrick is my first name,” he said before he could stop himself.

“My apologies, sir, so what is your surname?”

“Tide, my surname is Tide.”

He definitely wasn’t going to give his real name; he hated to be reminded of it and hadn’t used it since entering the Sorebun Academy. His real family name, Zabarus, carried a damning stigma which he didn’t want to divulge to Tung; maybe someday he’d share that secret, but today was not that day. His mind drifted back to the task in hand and he realised he should probably not have given Tung’s real name either, but it was too late. After a few more ‘we are strangers’, they were registered as Tung and Madrick Tide - father and son. Tung felt surprisingly comfortable with that and it felt right to Madrick as well. There was definitely a growing trust and friendship between them.

They were accompanied to a small box room with no windows. There was no bed and it was distinctly claustrophobic when the metal doors slid shut. The hotel man who was carrying their backpacks pressed one of an array of buttons and without warning their whole room began to judder. This was awful. This wasn’t what they expected from a hotel; a tiny room which shuddered, had no windows and, worst of all, they had to share it with a stranger.

The judders and shudders stopped as suddenly as they’d started. The doors slid open to reveal a carpeted floor they’d never seen before. They were not where they’d been when they entered this weird room. It was like the Transportation Spell in a box.

“Follow me please,” said the man with the bags.

A long corridor and the man led them to a beautifully painted door which was opened to reveal a luxurious suite. This was more like it. Enormous windows displayed a stunning view of the city which sprawled out as far as the eye could see. Massive buildings with vast facades of shiny glass, mazes of streets thronging with cars and crowds of people rushing to who knows where.

It didn’t take them long to settle in and feel at home although neither of them had ever known a home like it. This place was fabulous. It had a large living area, a separate bedroom and a bathroom which actually had a toilet in it. The whole place was warm, the beds were incredibly soft and there was an enormous television which, over the next while, they would watch avidly. There was a cold cupboard which held little bottles of drink and there was a mysterious speaking device which allowed you to name any food you wanted and a man would come to the door bearing that very food… it was magic.

They ventured out a number of times and, as their confidence grew, each outing became a little longer and a little more adventurous than the previous one. They were adapting well although they were frequently flabbergasted by the miracles they saw around them.

Madrick was impressed with the way they’d coped so far. They seemed to be safe and secure in their new environment so maybe now was the time to use the spell which Tung had in him, the one he’d had in his head for quite some time. They’d kept it for protection, just in case their pursuers caught up with them again. He felt they should use it now, because now they’d no modern chasers and they’d left the original hunting party a thousand years behind.

“Let’s use your spell,” he suggested to Tung. “It will be a little dangerous, but we can do it if we are careful. It will allow us to create other spells which may be more useful to us now we’re free of pursuit.”

Madrick had already explained that this spell was another either-or spell. He couldn’t tell which one it was without the words. He’d tried to get Tung to describe the letters but that had defeated him. So the spell was either NOISE or Siren Shriek. They were similar and he reckoned either would have helped them gain a tremendous element of surprise, enough surprise to allow them to escape had they been in danger of capture.

“Remember, you won’t hear the mind numbing noise whether it comes as a massive explosion of sound or whether it comes out of your mouth in an ear-piercing scream.”

“I know, you told me before.”

Tung went out onto the balcony while Madrick took shelter in the bedroom, wrapping thick blankets round his head and pressing pillows against his ears for extra protection.

Tung spoke the spell and crashed forwards into the rail. At least he bashed the front of his head this time; sweet relief. Even before he’d hit the ground, the most deafening noise ever heard exploded in every direction.

Thousands of people within a quarter mile radius were totally paralysed by the incredible sound. Once they recovered from the initial shock they looked all around expecting to see complete devastation from some kind of dreadful explosion. All they saw were other startled people looking around in bewilderment. Many exchanged animated, embarrassed chatter as they tried to work out what had just happened.

Tung peered over the balcony and was astounded to see the chaos he had caused. Hundreds of people stood rooted to the spot, many more had fallen over, cyclists had been floored and there were multiple, traffic pile ups caused by motorists who’d lost control when the sound wave hit.

That spell would have worked fine if we had been cornered, he thought to himself as he re-entered the suite. Madrick was emerging from the bedroom; he was shaken even though his preparation and expectation had shielded him from the worst effects.

“Noise Spell,” remarked Madrick stating the obvious. “That was astounding.”

Tung held his forehead. Blood oozed from where he’d hit the balcony rail.

“I’ve cut myself,” said Tung stating the bleeding obvious. “But no real damage done… to me that is.”

They could hear people panicking and screaming in the corridors and the adjoining rooms. It seemed to be chaos out there. They smiled at each other because they were the opposite; they were calm and were settling into the comfy chairs in preparation for another session of television. They’d been fairly sure it would be impossible to pinpoint the source of the almighty sound blast and it looked as though they were right.

A loud, insistent knocking on the door made them both jump. They looked at each other, trying to work out what to do. Madrick put his finger to his mouth. Tung understood and stayed silent. They tried to ignore the banging, but it became louder and more persistent.

“Get ready to run,” said Tung as he crossed the room and opened the door cautiously.

A hotel porter was standing breathless in the corridor. He looked as if he’d been running for miles.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“We’re a little shaken but we’re fine,” replied Tung as casually as he could. “What on earth was that dreadful noise?”