Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (30 page)

Michael and Madrick watched as Tung went through the routine. It had all become very easy and seemed surprisingly normal. He read the words on the Scroll and then concentrated hard on the picture in his head. His mind’s eye scanned the picture before he described what he saw in his head in great detail. His description was precise and measured. So far, so good.

Madrick pondered, his face crinkled as he over exerted his brain muscles. No interpretation of the new spell materialised. The search of the libraries of his memory came up empty.

“Give me some more detail of the picture, Tung.”

He dredged up the minutiae of the image but it did nothing to help solve the mystery.

“I really don’t know this one. It’s a complete mystery to me. I know I’ve always advised against this, but this time it may be a case of just say it and see.”

“I don’t want to do that. This one feels different in my head. My gut’s telling me that this is an important one and it’s not to be squandered. We need to find a way to work out what it is. I don’t want to risk wasting it and anyway, for once we’re not in a life or death rush.”

Something deep down inside told him this was a very significant spell. He wanted to know what it was, but no matter how hard he concentrated on the picture, he couldn’t find anything he hadn’t already described to Madrick. He stared at the words without concentrating on the individual letters, but they offered him no help whatsoever. Madrick stared into space, looking for inspiration; like the revelation about the Invisibility Spell. It wasn’t quite a ‘eureka’ moment but Madrick eventually came up with the solution.

“As far as I can see, there’s only one thing we can do. You need to tell me what the words are, without of course ‘saying’ them.”

“Ahmmm, you do know who you’re talking to, don’t you?”

“Listen, I’m going to teach you to read. I know we’ve talked about this before, but there was never time, there was always someone about to pounce on us. We have the luxury of time now, so you’re going back to school and I’m going to be the teacher.”

Tung thought about it. His mind drifted back to his last day at school. He’d been seven years old and the teacher had beaten him remorselessly because he’d been unable to say how many coins were left if you took two coins away from four. He couldn’t see why the answer wasn’t none. Even an idiot knew you’d always take all four coins. Why on earth would anyone leave any? He lost focus as his mind replayed some of the other painful incidents from his schooldays. It was a horrible series of memories.

“Did you hear what I said? It’s time for you to go back to school.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tung. “You keep telling me how important learning is. Or, as Michael would say ‘a man without schooling is like night’.”

“What are you talking about?” said Michael.

“It’s a shortened version of what you say all the time,” said Tung. “You’d say ‘a man without schooling is like a day without sunshine’. Well, a day without sunshine is, in simple terms, like night. So I say ‘a man without schooling is like night’.”

“Tung, you’re nuts,” said Michael although inside he was admiring the logic.

“You may be right, but it seems it’s time for me to learn to read. Mind you, you’ll need to be patient with me, I don’t learn fast.”

And so it was. Madrick set about the rather daunting task of teaching Tung to read. Of course, they didn’t actually need to teach him reading as such, all he had to do recognise the letters. This turned out to be much more difficult than any of them expected.

“You’re going to learn Salatin. It’s the language which preceded and was in fact the root of Latin. It’s the language of all magic and spell scrolls.”

“Enough with the history lesson, Madrick, just teach me to read.”

Michael provided the modern tools needed for the task, namely sheets of paper and a thick marker pen. Madrick carefully drew each of the forty-eight primary letters of the Salatin language and spread them out across the table.

“These are the primary characters, we’ll not bother with the sixty-six secondary letters for now. We can worry about them later… if it becomes absolutely necessary.”

Deep breaths.

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got in your head. Look at the first letter in the spell and tell me which one of these it matches.”

Madrick was amazed by Tung’s sustained level of concentration. It wasn’t so long ago he’d had the attention span of a distracted gnat. However, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to match what was in his head with the images Madrick had drawn. Tung focused as hard as he could, but the images seemed to change shape each time he looked at them. A modern teacher would have realised that Tung was, in fact, dyslexic. After hours of struggling, they managed to get some letters matched.

Madrick scribed what Tung extracted from his head. There were some letters he just couldn’t pin down so he used a ‘?’ and there were others he suspected weren’t right, but he had little choice other than to accept Tung’s best guess. Eventually they ended up with ‘devenoien?i? e?? bov??us’.

“This makes no sense to me,” said Madrick. “I’m going to take it away and work through the possibilities.”

“I’m off for a lie-down,” said Tung. “This learning is harder than creating spells.”

It was two hours later when Madrick shouted excitedly.

“I’ve got it. By George, I think I’ve got it.”

Tung and Michael were eating a pizza and chatting about nothing in particular. Madrick burst into the room still shouting.

“I’ve got it. I’m sure I’ve got it.”

“Benevolentia est donates.”

They looked at him hoping for an explanation. Michael now knew how Tung felt when a modern expression jetted right over his head. Madrick’s words meant nothing to him.

“Is this good?”

“Good? Is this good? You’re so funny, Michael.”

“What?”

“You’ll understand when I tell you what we’ve got. You were right Tung. You were right about the specialness of this spell and you were right not to waste it. Anyway, I know what it is now, but I’ve still no idea what we’re going do with it. Let me explain.”

“Not before time,” they whispered in unison.

“This spell will create a set of words. Anyone who reads them will become kind, caring and benevolent. They’ll not know they’ve been hexed and they’ll be compelled to perform good and selfless deeds. How long it lasts depends on the individual; the crueller and more unpleasant the person, the longer the spell will force them to do kindnesses.”

“Sounds good,” said Michael, a cheesy grin spreading across his face like Dairylea.

“This spell is one of the most ancient of all spells. It was intended to transform the behaviour of the rich and powerful. After all, they were the only ones who could read.”

He threw Tung a funny look when he mentioned reading.

“The rich folk were the only ones who could make a worthwhile improvement to other people’s lives. And most rich folk were cruel and horrible people who could do with an attitude adjustment. Not much has changed, eh? Of course, back in my day, the Words couldn’t be reproduced easily because only a select few could write.”

He threw Tung that funny look again when he mentioned writing.

“So the spell could only bring its magnificent benefits to small, isolated pockets of humankind. I guess it might be a different story today.”

Michael listened with growing interest. He’d always wanted to make a difference. Hurting IIBE was a start, but maybe he could make an even bigger contribution to the planet. Maybe this was his chance to change things for the better; forever.

“Exactly what will the spell create? Will Tung see the words in his head? Or does it create a bit of paper with these special words?”

“We’ll have a small parchment with the Words inscribed on it.”

“Thank goodness, we might never have got the words out of Tung’s head.”

“And it just gets better. We can create other parchments with the Words; they’ll all work. We can make as many copies as we like.”

“Too right,” said Michael, his brain racing with the possibilities.

“Tung will be immune from the Words. They’ll have no effect on him, or us if we’re touching him when he says the spell.”

They all pondered the potential although Tung’s thoughts quickly turned to pizza. His lazy gnat attention span had kicked in again, but to be fair it had been some time since he’d last eaten… nearly 10 minutes.

“I have an idea,” said Michael. “I know exactly what we should do.”

He leaned forward as if he was about to share a conspiratorial secret.

“I think we should spread the Words as widely as possible. Affect as many people as we can. Make the world a better place for everyone. With my skills we can exploit the Internet and global communications to get the Words out there. I always wanted to make a difference. Here’s our chance to bring some happiness to the masses of ordinary people who seem to be constantly slapped down by the Big Man. This is our opportunity to change everything. We should do this.”

Madrick had no idea what ‘the Internet and global communications’ were. All he knew was that Michael seemed to know how to exploit them. Tung was more worried about who ‘the Big Man’ was and why he was slapping people.

“We’ll be legends,” crowed Michael. “We’ll go down in history.”

Madrick was as excited as anyone, although he had some reservations. He couldn’t put his finger on his concerns, but something about the idea made him uneasy. He had no way to articulate the feeling so he said nothing. After all, what harm could be done by thousands of people doing good deeds?

“I don’t know why I feel this way, but I think we should make ourselves immune.”

“No problem,” said Michael. “We’re good enough people already. We don’t need any help to get us to do the right thing. After all, look at the gift we’re about to give the world.”

The three men held hands and Tung spoke the spell in his head. There was no blinding flash, no thunderclap or anything else to indicate the power of the small piece of parchment which appeared in mid-air and floated gently to the ground like a feather. Michael picked it up and saw eight beautifully inscribed words. He held the parchment tenderly and nodded sagely as he wandered off to his computer room.

“Spam email and Internet forums,” he whispered to no one in particular. “Plus a sprinkling of WikiLeaks, YouTube, Google Buzz, Facebook and Twitter.”

He wanted people to see the Words, to read the Words, and he knew exactly how to make that happen.

“Do you ever wonder if he really knows what he’s doing?” said Tung.

“All the time, but particularly right at this moment. When that spell was created it was virtually impossible to reproduce the magic words. But that was then and this is now, and now is very different. I’m worried that the wise old wizard who created the Good Will spell couldn’t have foreseen what can be done with all this new-fangled technology.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Tung. “It always is.”

Sir Marcus Buckingham had been appointed chairman of IIBE by way of a unanimous vote at the specially convened board meeting. It had been a formality once he’d put his name forward and exerted the pressure which his family name allowed. Not everyone was happy however no one could stop Sir Marcus stepping into the top role.

He now sat in the Chairman’s office, his office, and reflected on how well he’d handled events since his father’s sudden death. He was very happy. Everything had gone exactly according to his plan, and his plan was the only plan which mattered.

He had the power he craved, derived from his inherited wealth, his leadership of the Occultus Populous and his recent appointment as chairman of IIBE.

He’d laid his father to rest with a extremely dignified ceremony. Many highly influential people from around the world had attended to show their respect. Truth be told, many of them were only there to ingratiate themselves with him. He knew that’s why they’d been there, but so what?

Once the formalities of the funeral were complete, he’d tackled the other family issues. He’d enjoyed informing them all they’d no longer be receiving generous allowances and they were on their own. Basically he cut them off from the family fortune. In particular, telling his mother she was no longer allowed to live on the estate had been one of the most satisfying things he’d ever done. He hated that woman. She’d never paid him much attention and, in later years, had actively ignored him. He’d nothing to thank her for except his independent spirit and his coldness towards other human beings. She’d once described him as having all the qualities of a poker, but without the occasional warmth. It was very gratifying to return her indifference in spades.

He wasn’t following the family tradition. This wasn’t how things were meant to be, but he didn’t care. He could do whatever he wanted. Happy days.

He’d firmly established himself as ‘the head man’. He was in charge of the family, the Occultus Populous and IIBE. Everyone knew who the boss was, so now was the right time to pursue the perpetrators of the vindictive exposé of his secret organisation. Time to put that problem to bed.

The first step was to convince the Council this was the right course of action. They’d already been presented with blindingly clear evidence, but they seemed adamant the evidence was wrong. Then again, why should he bother trying to convince these idiots? He was in charge. He could just impose his will.

By way of distraction, he perused his emails and noticed a strange news story which referenced the spread of an unusual chain letter. Apparently the letter was written in Latin which meant most people couldn’t understand it. Bizarre. Why would a letter like that spread so rampantly? Why would the average person send it on to their contacts? Normal chain letters either promised good luck if they were passed on or dreadful consequences if they weren’t. What was this phenomenon about? Could it be linked to the odd occurrences which had become so prevalent in recent times? Unlikely, but it was worth a few minutes research to find out a little bit more.

A quick Google search brought him face to face with the Words. They meant nothing to him. He read them out loud to see if they made any more sense when spoken. No help. He couldn’t make sense of the eight foreign words. He popped them into the Google Translator which came back with ‘
I hope your day is good. You are welcome.
’ What a load of old tosh.

He was about to sign off from his email account when a strange sense of calm engulfed him. He felt… different. Without thinking, he emailed a copy of the article to all the Council members and all the IIBE Board members. He didn’t know why he’d done it; it just felt like the right thing to do. Then, just for good measure, he emailed the article to everyone in his address book. Why not, he thought, as over eight hundred emails hit the ether.

He clicked off his computer and leaned back in his chair. He decided to phone his mother, just to see how she was keeping. Halfway through the conversation he began to tell her of the great things he’d planned. He wanted to use half the family fortune to help some of the world’s most unfortunate people in disease ridden countries, just like Bill Gates had done, but on a much grander scale. She never found out what he’d planned for the other half of the fortune.

He’d noticed a red spot on his tie. He tried to flick it off. He realised, too late, that it was the dot from a laser sight. The high velocity bullet smashed through the window and slammed into his chest. He was dead before he hit the floor.

In a room in an office block across the street Jim Robinson began to pack away the sniper rifle which had served him so well during his time in the Special Forces. He had one last look at his work and could see panic in the office of his former boss. He had carried out the dying wish of Sir Samuel Buckingham. He had carried out his final order from Sir Samuel. ‘Kill Marcus’ had been the last words spoken by his great friend.

Jim Robinson didn’t know what would happen next. He had no idea what would become of his life. He didn’t care. He’d done what needed to done.

“The Great Grand Master is dead, long live the Great Grand Master,” he said as he closed the door behind him.