Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (4 page)

Tung had never felt so close to death. Every part of his body screamed at him, begging for mercy. The pains fought each other for his attention so at least he couldn’t feel them all at once… that surely would have killed him. The throbbing pain in his brain took his mind off the gut-wrenching nausea which wracked his stomach. The crippling ache in his teeth made him forget about the swarm of angry bees which was trying to sting its way out through his eyeballs. It was like the world’s worst hangover… times at least a million, except this magically induced pain fest would beat any hangover from hell, even one sent straight from the devil himself.

The first thing he saw was Madrick’s face. The old man’s lips were moving so he guessed he was speaking, but the words were distorted and virtually inaudible, as if mumbled through a gag. He concentrated hard, trying to understand what he was hearing. He didn’t know it yet, but concentration was going to become a recurring necessity in his life.

“You’ll be pleased to hear that it’ll get less painful each time you do it. Towards the end, I was able to conjure up spells with nothing more than a twinge round the temples.”

He rubbed his forehead as if to relive a fond memory, but he quickly found the bruise where Tung had punched him earlier; that stopped him rubbing and brought his mind back to the task in hand.

“Well, what’s the spell? Let’s see what you’ve created. Tell me the words you have in your head.”

Tung heard the question, but he didn’t really understand. Something alien was taking up his whole mind. He couldn’t focus on it and he couldn’t hold it still long enough to work out what it was. It was like trying to watch floaters in your eye, you moved your eye towards them, but they moved with you and stayed just on the periphery of your vision. As he battled with it he got the impression of three words and through the sheer force of determination he held them still long enough to remember… to remember he couldn’t read; he was totally and completely illiterate.

“Bugger, bugger, bugger. I’ve just remembered something and it’s, ahmmm, a bit of a problem. I can’t read a single, damned word. I wasn’t at school long enough to catch the plague never mind do any learning. I don’t even know the letters never mind the words.”

Madrick felt a panic welling up inside him. His breathing stopped, his stomach tightened and a hint of bile invaded his throat. This was a disaster. Some spells were incredibly dangerous if used without care. You could easily kill yourself, and everyone around you, experimenting with an unknown spell. Without knowing what the spell was, how could he work out how or when to use it? The ‘when’ was less important because, in their present predicament, the ‘when’ was right now. The ‘how’ was the crucial thing, but he needed to know the ‘what’ before he could work out the ‘how’.

Madrick summoned all his strength in an attempt to portray some degree of calmness. He had to work out what the spell was, and he needed to do it without totally spooking Tung.

“Not a problem, just tell me what the picture is. There’s always a picture to illustrate the words. What do you see?”

Generally the picture would tell him straight away. That was the point after all; the picture was designed to help identify the spell. Sometimes the words were needed because a picture couldn’t easily illustrate the more ethereal spells. It was like Pictionary - ‘dog’ is easy and ‘silhouette’ is hard - however, Madrick knew nothing of that future problem. He had a big, present problem to deal with. For now, he’d just have to work with whatever picture this moron had in his tiny brain.

Tung struggled to picture the picture, but a sheet of pain was obscuring everything inside his skull. As he concentrated, the words became clearer, he could definitely see them, but of course that didn’t help him read them. Then, as the cranial mist cleared a little more, he saw it. An image of a large black stallion; the magnificent beast pawed the ground and great flares of hot breath exuded from its nostrils.

“I see it. I see it,” he shouted. “It’s a big black horse. It’s a beautiful big black beast of a stallion.”

Madrick knew straight away what this spell was. This horse was a Pictionary ‘dog’ of the spell world. The interpretation was simple, but this bit of magic wasn’t going to help them at all. This spell created a majestic stallion. A stallion fit for a king, but not much use to them given the present circumstances. This great beast couldn’t help with their escape, so they had to get it out of the way before they could move on. Tung would have to ‘say’ the spell, create the stallion and then originate a new enchantment. There was no other way and time was running out fast.

Madrick explained to Tung how to cast the spell.

“It’s much the same as using the Scroll. Just stare at each letter in your head with your mind’s eye. They’ll disappear one by one and KAZAAM, you’ll have cast the spell and then you’ll be able to use the Spell Spell again. So let’s go, use the Stallion Spell now because it’s of no help to us whatsoever.”

Tung concentrated on the words. He’d never even heard of his mind’s eye so he very much hoped he had one. As he stared at the first character in his head it began to swirl round his brain, it rotated and twisted, faster and faster, and then it disappeared exactly as it had been with the Scroll. Tung moved his head eye to the next letter and repeated the process. Then the next, then the next until all the words in his head had vanished. Again, as the last character disappeared, a deafening roar paralysed the very core of his brain. A blinding flash flared inside each of his eyeballs and an even brighter flash exploded in his mind’s eyeball. He fell backwards and was unconscious moments before his head crashed onto the stone floor.

Madrick watched Tung carefully as he ‘spoke’ the spell. Again he marvelled at Tung’s aptitude. Again, if he hadn’t drifted off into his own little world of daydreams he might have reacted quickly enough to prevent another high velocity collision involving Tung’s head and the cell floor. Again, the massive spell-headache was going to be even worse than it needed to be.

“Next time,” Madrick said to himself, “next time I really must try harder to catch his head before it hits the ground.”

As Tung crashed to the floor, a thunderous roar exploded in the corner of the cell and, as if by magic - which was exactly the way it had come about - a magnificent, jet black stallion appeared. It looked confused and angry, and just a little bit dangerous. It paced menacingly in its corner. Frightening as it was, Madrick knew they’d have to ignore it and keep going until they had a spell which would help get them out of this place.

Tung was coming back to life; much quicker this time. As he opened his eyes he saw the old man and then he saw the beautiful stallion. He was overpowered by a strange sense of pride as he watched the great horse pacing in the corner; he had created it. He was Tung the Wizard. He was Tung the… very sore head indeed.

“I thought you said there’d be less pain every time? The back of my skull feels like it’s been bashed in with a rock.”

“Trust me. That won’t happen again, I can guarantee it.” Madrick assured him and promised himself he’d make sure that future spell telling didn’t result in the Tung-floor heavy impact.

As Tung regained most of his senses he became aware of the look on the stallion’s face. Its dark eyes were eyeing them both menacingly. Tung was scared. Madrick was scared too, but time was running out, so he tried to calm Tung.

“It’s more scared of us than we are of it.”

“It must be pretty damned scared then.”

As if to prove Madrick right, the mighty beast lifted its tail and deposited a large steaming pile of manure on the floor. If either man thought the smell in the cell couldn’t have got any worse, then they realised at that very moment just how wrong they were. It wasn’t all bad though, at least the mountain of brown sludge added some colour to the drab greyness.

“Time for the next spell,” urged Madrick. “Come on. Get the Scroll. Read the words. We have to create a spell which will help us. I know it’s in you somewhere. It’s just a matter of time, but we don’t have much of that left. It’ll be morning soon, so they’ll be coming for me… I mean us.”

Tung reluctantly reused the Spell Spell scroll and, just as Madrick had said, each time he used it, it did become less painful. Certainly he no longer got that dreadful, crushed-by-an-avalanche sensation in the back of his skull - thank you very much Madrick.

Spells came and went.

The Banquet Spell created a magnificent feast which seemed entirely out of place in the dank cell. The stallion seemed pleased though and it was much calmer now as it munched and chomped its way through some of the luscious fruit which had appeared.

The Weather Prophecy Spell did its thing. It only forecasted the weather. It didn’t let you make rain or storms, so what was the point? It was indeed a dull spell, but at least they knew tomorrow was going to be bright and sunny.

As each useless spell was created and dispelled; Tung and Madrick became more and more despondent. Tung in particular was becoming dejected, he was suffering plenty of pain yet it seemed his suffering wasn’t bringing the prospect of escape any closer. Maybe he was destined to create one useless spell after another until the guards came and dragged him off in the morning.

Madrick tried to keep his spirits up, but making motivational speeches wasn’t one of his stronger points. No one who knew him would call him inspiring.

“Don’t worry. It could be the next one. In fact, I’m certain the next spell will be the one. I feel it in my very bones. When I was spelling for Mifal, I created many useless spells, however things always came good in time… well until the last time of course.”

He realised he’d rather spoiled his little pep talk so he added “So let’s press on, trust me, the next one will definitely be the one.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

Tung reluctantly opened the Scroll one more time and went through the enchanting motions, he was actually very proud of himself because he could do it quite quickly now. Without an initial hitch, the next spell appeared in his brain. He could see the words, but as he searched for the picture, a mounting panic engulfed him. Where was the picture? There was no picture. His mind’s eye searched the empty space where the image should have been. He tried everything. He closed his mind’s eye and opened it again just as you would with your real eyes when you can’t believe what you are seeing, or in this case, not seeing.

“I can see the words, but there’s still no picture.”

“There must be a picture. There’s always a picture if you concentrate hard enough. SO CONCENTRATE.”

Tung tried again, hard. He concentrated harder than he’d ever concentrated before in his life although that wasn’t saying much. He’d never been particularly strong in the brain department.

“There’s nothing, nothing at all. There’s no picture,” he said as his mounting panic arrived at the blind level… 20:20 blind panic.

For at least a minute Madrick didn’t react, at least not visibly. Inside however, an immense pressure was building in his brain. Blood pumped noisily through his ears blocking out all other sounds. Was his head going to explode? He slumped to the floor. Why could this buffoon not see the picture? There was always a picture. No picture meant no hope. Maybe he could teach Tung to read in the next short while. That was a ridiculous idea, the futility of the situation was clearly clouding his thinking. Of course, Tung could just say the mystery spell see what happened, but that could be extremely dangerous. Imagine the horrifying consequences of a misdirected fireball or a banshee scream in this confined space. He had to face up to it, no picture meant his life was over.

Then it came to him in a blinding flash of revelation. There was no picture; nothing to see. Yes, yes. There was nothing to see because with this spell there was nothing to see. It was the Spell of Invisibility, it had to be. How could they be so fortunate? This was the perfect spell for a great escape.

“You’re a genius,” cried Madrick as he began a strange little dance around the cell. His fancy footwork had to avoid all the banquet food and the stallion; and a few other things which Tung, and the stallion, had created along the way.

“You’re the perfect keeper of the Scroll. You’ve done it. We’re as good as free. You’ve created the Spell of Invisibility. It’s a fantastic spell; you have to see this one to believe it.”

Laughing at his own little joke, he closed in on Tung who backed off in case a hug was on its way. It was, but the retreat had been fast enough to avoid it. Madrick was too busy thinking about the wonderful spell to notice the snub. Thinking back to the daily classes in the Sorebun Academy where students had been subjected to endless lectures about every spell known to wizard-kind, he dredged up everything he knew about the spell which Tung had created.

He remembered it would make the sayer vanish, along with anyone touching him at the time of saying. He remembered it was a short lived phenomenon, lasting only a few hours. And finally, he remembered that only the body was affected so they’d have to be completely naked otherwise their clothes would give them away. Well, at least it was going to be bright and sunny tomorrow.

He devised a simple plan; the simpler the plan, the more likely it was to succeed, particularly if he had to rely on an idiot like Tung. In his mind, it went something like this - they would strip naked, hold hands and stand close to the door; tight against the cell wall. Tung would say the spell and the invisible pair would merely wait for the guards to come for them. When the door opened they’d slip out in the confusion, and there would be plenty of confusion. Perfect. The plan was flawless in its straightforwardness. It couldn’t be simpler so surely it was bound to work.