Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (3 page)

Madrick did have a story to tell, regardless of whether anyone wanted to listen.

“I graduated from the Academy and was presented with a few minor scrolls. That’s how a wizard makes his way in the world initially. I used these scrolls well, but every so often I slipped in a ‘special’ with the Spell Spell and secretly created a new enchantment, and that made me stick out from the crowd. Anyway, I became so famous that I was invited, or rather commanded, to attend the court of King Mifal. He liked what he saw and made me his Royal Wizard in attendance. That meant I was given access to his personal store of scrolls so I became even more powerful. He’d a reasonable collection of interesting minor scrolls, but he’d nothing of major import because that was the way it was with ‘private’ collections. The Wizards tolerated kings, great lords and emperors building small collections of insignificant scrolls… what was the point of starting unnecessary wars over inconsequential artefacts? Anyway, I digress.”

“You do, don’t you?” said Tung under his breath.

“To begin with it all went well and I pleased Mifal with my stunning magic. I amazed him with my versatility. He thought I was exceptionally clever to use his scrolls so ‘imaginatively’. His previous wizard had never achieved such impressive feats. But of course, it was really the Spell Spell which was doing the truly splendiferous stuff.”

“Of course,” said Tung.

“Most of my created spells were wonderful and I used them to great effect. As my reputation grew, I had to keep my wits about me because my wizard teachers from Sorebun were a little suspicious to say the least. Every so often they’d send spies to spy on me and try to discover how I’d changed from one of their pretty ordinary students into such a famous and respected wizard. As I said, I was very careful so they never did work it out.”

“Is there a point to this story coming any time soon?”

Madrick ignored the interruption.

“I revelled in my position as the King’s personal wizard. I loved the prestige it brought me. My talents had finally been recognised and I was genuinely content. At last, I’d found my place in the world, but that all changed when Mifal stripped me of my exalted position about an hour ago.”

Madrick continued pacing the cell. It was one of the castle’s biggest communal dungeons, designed to hold up to eighty prisoners at a time, so he’d plenty of room to pace. He’d settled into a sort of circular orbit with Tung as the central point. It was beginning to make Tung dizzy so, when planet Madrick next passed close enough, he grabbed his sleeve and applied just enough downward tug to make Madrick sit. The old man hardly noticed and continued his story as if nothing had happened.

“Ungratefulness, that’s what landed me in this dreadful dungeon. Yes, ungratefulness. I did miracles for Mifal and made him the greatest, and happiest, king in the history of this land. I’m sure you wondered how Katrina, the most beautiful woman in the entire world, fell in love with the ugly, old oaf. Well, you’re looking at the man who made it happen. One of my spells, thank you very much.”

Madrick began to rise, but Tung spotted the movement in time to lay a restraining hand on the old man’s knee. He didn’t want the old buzzard circling him again. Madrick shifted his weight slightly, but he didn’t stand up.

“So Mifal had the queen he wanted and he was feeling at one with the entire universe, with one slight exception. He wanted more from me. He’d seen results from all his personal scrolls and he was bored. I needed something spectacular and so returned to my own wondrous scroll. I created my next spell. That’s when total disaster struck. I’d created the one spell I couldn’t use. Now the scroll you have in your hand is as worthless as a harlot’s love.”

Madrick paused and reminisced about the considerable experience he had of that particular worthless commodity. The pause lasted so long that Tung thought the old man had passed out or died or something. He prodded Madrick with his finger to try and get him talking again. It worked.

“I’d created the one spell I couldn’t use. How could I be so unfortunate? O me miserum.”

Madrick stared listlessly at the cell ceiling. Was the old man going to lapse into silence again? Thankfully he wasn’t. In the resonant, whispering voice he reserved for the mystical bits, he continued.

“I will tell you of this spell, listen carefully. This is the really important part of the whole story. If you’re going to concentrate on anything I say, concentrate on the next bit.”

Tung concentrated as best he could.

“This spell was born in the dim and murky past when the ancient wizards battled for supremacy. They were the true magical ones. They were the special people who actually created the spells which exist today. This particular spell was created by Kargill, the most powerful of all the ancient wizards. Its purpose was to save the lives of those ancients who’d been defeated in a magic duel. This spell began a sort of ‘honour among ancients’… just like thieves have. Basically the spell completely took away a wizard’s power. The vanquished wizard spoke the spell and thus lost the ability to ever, repeat ever, use magic again. Of course, without magic he was no longer a threat to the victor so his life could be spared.”

“And?”

“Well, that’s the spell I have inside me now, the Wizard’s Finale Spell. If I speak the spell I’ll become powerless, if I don’t then I am powerless. This is the ultimate dilemma for me. O me miserum… again. That’s why I’m in this stinking dungeon. King Mifal had given me until midnight to perform another spectacular miracle for him. To use his exact words, ‘no miracle, no Madrick.’ A man of few words our king.”

“He’s certainly said very few to me,” remarked Tung under his breath.

Madrick had once again lapsed into silence. He sat dejectedly with his hands covering his face. He was making sad, little whiney noises. Tung studied him and thought about the spell, the Scroll and the possibility of escape. Could there really be something in this for him, he wondered, could he really be staring at a way out?

Eventually Madrick spoke again. He’d abandoned the mystical lilt in his voice, now his intonation seemed much more urgent. Now he was speaking rapidly as if his life depended on it … which, of course, it did.

“If you do exactly what I tell you we have a chance to escape from this place, but only if we work together. I propose entering a solemn pact with you, a life or death, eternal and soul-binding pact.”

“You mean do a deal?” asked Tung after he’d sifted and simplified the words.

“Don’t mess me around. You must know you’ve nothing to lose. Right now, you have the life expectancy of a mayfly in June.”

“You mean do a deal?” repeated Tung.

“Fair enough, do a deal, whatever. The ‘deal’ I offer you requires me to say the damned Finale Spell and then I will help you use the Scroll to get both of us out of here. But heed this warning and heed it well, the Scroll makes a dangerous friend unless you’ve had the sort of training I’ve had.”

The last bit was true, but Madrick had only added it to make Tung feel he’d still need him once he had the power of the Scroll.

“Do we have a… deal?”

Tung didn’t need a degree in logic to know this was his last chance; his only chance. He spat enthusiastically on his palm and offered it to Madrick. The old man declined the outstretched, dripping hand and patted Tung on the shoulder. Then he began the rather boring explanation of how the spell scroll worked.

For the next half hour Madrick described the intricacies of the Spell Spell. Tung concentrated harder than he ever had before; he recognised a do-or-die moment when he saw one … he’d let plenty of them drift past him before now. Had he understood enough? Only time would tell.

“So, when you trigger the spell you’ll see words in your mind, and a picture. These, together, identify the spell you’ve created. Because I’ve been trained, I’ll know what the spell does. I, and only I, will know the best way to use it. I, and only I, will know how to use it in a way which won’t kill you. Together, and only together, we will harness the power.”

Maybe he was overdoing the ‘you need me’ part of his speech, so he stopped talking. Now it was time to focus on the massive opportunity the spell offered them.

“In your hands, the spell won’t be working for the likes of Mifal, it’ll be working for us. Together we’ll fulfil our wildest dreams, each and every one of them. And wild dream number one is to escape.”

That was it, explanation over. What more could he do to prepare Tung? Had he done enough to convince the lad how necessary he was? Undoubtedly, he’d done all he could and he was actually beginning to think this pact might work. Not because Tung was trustworthy, he certainly wasn’t, but Madrick knew he really was indispensable, for now.

“Right then, let’s make magic. It’s time.”

“Right Rick, let’s do it.”

There wasn’t much to see while the old man performed his last ever act as a wizard although tears flowed down his face when the deed was done. Before Tung could comment, a powerful surge of energy from the scroll banged into his chest with the force of a kick from a cart horse. It was at that precise moment that he knew for sure the old man’s story was completely and absolutely true.

“Remember well what I have told you,” Madrick said once he’d recovered. “Now it is time for you to do what you must do.”

The old man crossed his fingers and prayed silently. There was one thing he hadn’t told Tung namely, only about one person in five had the basic capability to use magic. This was a roll of the dice.

Tung unrolled the scroll and stared hard at the first character on the manuscript. As he concentrated, the character began to swirl on the page, it rotated and twisted, faster and faster, and then it disappeared just as Madrick had described. Tung moved his eyes to the next and he repeated the process. Then the next, and the next, until the parchment appeared completely blank to him. As the last character disappeared there was a deafening roar in the very centre of his brain followed by a blinding flash inside each of his eyeballs. He fell backwards and was unconscious moments before his head crashed onto the stone floor.

If Madrick hadn’t drifted off into his own thoughts he might have reacted quickly enough to prevent the high velocity collision involving Tung’s head and the cell floor. That was going to make the massive spell-headache even worse. He didn’t care,

“Praise the Gods,” shouted Madrick as he danced around the prone body. “I’m not the sorriest, unluckiest human being alive after all.”

He’d beaten the odds, not only was Tung one of the one-in-five, he also had an aptitude. And he’d listened, and he’d understood, and he could drum up the necessary concentration; happy days are here again.

He looked at Tung as he lay on the ground. What a sorry example of a human being he was. He offended all five senses. He smelt bad, he felt grimy, he looked awful and he sounded like a pig in heat. And Madrick didn’t need to be a genius to know that taste would undoubtedly be the most offended sense of all.

He examined Tung’s face as he lay, still as the dead, on the cold stone. He placed his hand on Tung’s forehead, it was warm and wet. With his thumb he raised one of the eyelids and, as the lid was pulled up, the other eye flicked open. Tung was conscious.

The long and prestigious history of the International Investment Bank of Europe stretched back nearly three hundred years, although its hidden roots could be traced back to Saxon times. Its modern structure surfaced in 1715 to lend money to the bankrupt British government to finance its fight against the Jacobites and the government has been indebted to the bank ever since.

Listed as the eighth richest in the world, its true wealth wasn’t known outside its own, highly secretive, boardroom. It was, in fact, the richest bank that the world had ever seen. It concealed assets all across the planet, including vast fortunes salted away in Chinese banks, which it secretly owned. Its massive wealth was impossible to trace or count.

IIBE had first blipped onto Michael’s radar when Noviru installed its anti-virus software across its global network. It was the biggest deal the company had ever won and the job was expected to take months to complete.

Even though he was one of their newest workers, Michael was given the lead role in delivering this highly prestigious contract. The company wanted to exploit their rising star’s skills to the utmost. After some serious negotiation, an office was provided in the IIBE headquarters building and for nearly four months Michael spent virtually every waking hour working on the implementation. This was an exceptional turn of events because IIBE was so precious about its security and had never before allowed outsiders into the heart of its operation.

Michael poured his heart and soul into making the project a stunning success; he’d have sweated blood if it’d been possible. This was his big chance to impress his bosses and this was his chance to further one of his secret ambitions. He’d the chance to kill two large birds with one stone - two big black hawks down.

Over the next few months he began to see how IIBE operated… and he didn’t like what he saw. These people didn’t break the regulations, these people made the regulations and they made them so they were the sole beneficiaries. It is called the Golden Rule - those with the gold make the rules. And these people definitely had the gold.

He also checked them out on the Internet and he didn’t like what he found. His research covered everything from their financial performance through to the profiles of the company directors. In the deepest recesses of the Internet, where only the real experts know to look, he found murky speculative material about a darker side to IIBE. He trawled through the numerous perturbing conspiracy theories. For example, ‘The One World Government’
claimed that some of the planet’s richest people hide behind organisations such as the UN, WTO and the World Bank, and their ultimate aim is to gain control of the world’s money supply therefore giving them control over everyone who is in debt, which is pretty much every government, every company, everybody.

Deep down, he didn’t fully subscribe to any of these theories, however surely it was no coincidence that IIBE’s name nearly always came up after a bit of digging and hacking? No smoke without fire, so there was probably some truth in among the dross. He logged the information in the back of his mind, just in case. Rumours abounded about IIBE’s highly secretive and ruthless internal security department and the fact that some of the rumour mongers had mysteriously disappeared only added to the speculation.

Anonymous inside sources claimed the bank’s security methods were modelled on the brutal and secretive methods of the Russian KGB or the old East German Stasi… or both. That sounded a bit ironic, a communist inspired defence for the ultimate capitalist beast. Anyway, he noted that fact as well, but he reckoned he was too clever to be derailed by old, cold war tactics.