5 The Poison of Magic

IN THE DUNGEON beneath the Black Palace, a cell door thudded shut. In a murky corner of the cell was a shape uncurling from its resting position. There was nothing but straw in the small space and a filthy stench. The Grim wasn’t a breather, but the body he possessed had belonged to one.

‘Rasnal Nalrost,’ called Beezer in a booming voice, causing Threadfin to jump. ‘Get on your feet.’

‘I wish you would warn me before doing that,’ Threadfin snapped.

Low laughter from the darkness, and a face emerged, leaving the rest of the Grim hidden. The face was that of Haven Tone, of course, for the Grim had possessed the Atlantian king on his return to the world. ‘Nice of you to visit me, Todder. Come for a nice chat about back-stabbing old friends? I thought we had an understanding. A truce.’

‘You tried to manipulate me.’ Threadfin shrugged. ‘You failed.’

‘No, no, we are much more than friends though, aren’t we? Have you not told your companions the truth? No? Do they not know what you are, Todder? What we are?’

Before replying, Threadfin glanced at Beezer who stood like a statue formed of black marble and with as much expression. ‘You have been judged by the viral council, Grim, and found guilty of innumerable crimes against the living of this world. We have been gathering the evidence for some time, and there’s a lot of it.’

‘Two of your miserable years by my calculations,’ replied the Grim in a musing tone. ‘That’s how long you’ve been traipsing about from world to world, isn’t it? You’ve hardly scratched the surface, but at least you’re trying.’

Threadfin felt somewhat unnerved by the Grim’s knowledge of his coming and goings. Knowledge he shouldn’t have, what with being locked up in a warded dungeon. ‘The viral council is satisfied by the evidence we’ve collected. It’s enough to pass sentence upon you.’

‘A viral council, is it?’ the Grim croaked with laughter. ‘There was never such a thing.’

‘There is now.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Before I pass sentence—’

‘What,’ asked the Grim in an injured tone, ‘don’t I get a trial first?’

‘If you were living or undead,’ answered Beezer with a sneer, ‘yes, but you are a shadow. A parasite.’

Threadfin frowned, wondering if Beezer was correct, but went on anyway. ‘The council needs to know about two artefacts known as the Crystal Sword and the Aura. If you cooperate, it may go in your favour.’ The virals were abuzz with excitement and fear over the possibility of artefacts as rare and powerful as the Shathra Stone.

Nalrost’s laughter echoed throughout the cell, a hideous hacking sound. ‘And what? You will kill me fast, not slow? Let us not lie to one another, Todder.’ The Grim glanced at Beezer. ‘Your council will never allow me to keep existing, and so how I die is of no consequence. Besides, I died once before; it didn’t take. You are in no position to ask anything.’

Threadfin risked a few steps closer so he could see the Grim a bit better. The prisoner’s form was alike to writhing snakes, consuming themselves, the body of Haven Tone visible but for brief periods. Funny, it reminded him of Manic and Mania. The Grim was closer to a shraed than anything else. ‘Have you no humanity left? What happened to you, Rasnal?’

A shadow behind the viral mages detached from a corner by the door, and stepped forwards. A torch flared, and the Grim flinched from the light. A man named Ralan, who once posed as a Church Paladin, looked upon his father, face unreadable.

The Grim lunged at him, but the oblivion chains binding him pulled him up short, fingers inches from Ralan’s face. ‘You!’

‘Father.’ Ralan’s voice was filled with sorrow. Threadfin felt his dead heart give a lurch within his chest. Might have been a nesting field mouse stirring. ‘Tell him what he wants to know.’

‘Betrayer.’

‘Tell him, please.

‘Disloyal wretch. Foul ingrate. I shall have your tongue and your eyes cut out. I’ll carve your—’

‘Do something right for once in your miserable existence. Father, please!’

‘You stinking foul pieces of ...’ The Grim appeared to visibly struggle for control. ‘Tartaros took me. It stole my humanity. Did I ask for any of this? I am a shadow, the Grim Master, Reaper of souls, but I never asked for any of it.’

‘Ever the victim,’ said Ralan. ‘Ever the excuses. Always playing the game, but the game has ended and you have lost.’

The Grim snarled and attempted to lunge again, but the chains bit deeper, eliciting a howl of rage and pain from the prisoner. ‘Have I, though? Have I?’

‘The viral horde is everywhere outside these walls,’ said Threadfin. ‘It fills the corridors above, and spreads throughout this world.’ Though if Beezer had his way, they’d all be in Icarthya before long. It was becoming impossible to find lodgings for them. ‘Two of the greatest viral mages guard your cell night and day. Your sentence has been passed, but I alone have the power to commute it. It was I who founded the council, and I who lead it. Tell me what I wish to know, Grim.’

‘The angels themselves couldn’t contain me,’ the Grim snarled, screwing up Haven Tone’s face in a mass of wrinkles and spit. ‘The Despoiler failed too, so what makes you think you undead can do better? I created you.’

Now, that is interesting. The same name Manic mentioned, before Mania cut him off. ‘Look, this world’s survival is at stake. Isn’t that why you did what you did all those centuries ago? To save this world? The nature of existence itself hangs in the balance. Something you once fought for, or do you deny it?’

The Grim quietened as though mulling it over, but after a few moments, said, ‘I spent centuries imprisoned in Hell’s Teeth. Guarded by shraeds in the form of a twin-headed gorgon. Before that it was the angels, but I dealt with those feathered pests. Oh yes, I did.

‘No,’ he continued, ‘it was Cerberus who was my bane in the end.’ He glanced up at Threadfin, eyes wild. ‘They called themselves that, but you know them better as Manic and Mania. I escaped beneath their notice and waged war on them, and even managed to banish them. Do you think some undead maggots like you,’ he added with a gesture at Beezer, ‘are going to deter me? Do you think you can frighten me? Bribe or coerce me?’

Beezer moved closer, and Threadfin felt power emanating from the mage. The elder was losing patience.

‘And you,’ snarled the Grim noticing Beezer’s reaction, ‘think you can destroy me, do you? Neither of you know what’s coming. You search for trinkets when you should be preparing for annihilation.’

‘Um, well,’ said Threadfin, ‘we did sort of defeat you, then capture you, and lock you up down here for two years, so ...’

The Grim growled. ‘It was that bitch who defeated me, not you. Astra Dar’s power has grown beyond my worst nightmares. The Prince of Darkness is coming and you cannot stop him. He is your true enemy, not her, and not me. He has infected her with his essence. The essence of Tartaros.’

‘We are preparing for war, father,’ said Ralan, ‘and we are ready to fight.’

‘No,’ said the Grim, ‘you’re not.’ He frowned, as though concentrating on his son’s features. ‘Do you think the undead hordes can withstand the might of Tartaros? I created them to serve me, not to thwart the Darkness. Not to defeat it. Impossible. Oh, yes, I know; the undead defend the living these days. Don’t you think I would’ve created them for such a purpose if I believed it would’ve worked?’

‘Then,’ Threadfin announced, ‘you leave us no choice. The council sentences you to death, one from which you will not escape this time.’ The magic involved had been worked out, and both Beezer and Threadfin would carry out the sentence right there in the cell. So, why do I feel like this is a bad idea? Stupid instincts always getting in the way.

‘Father,’ Ralan pleaded in a whisper, and the Grim stared back at his son, though what he thought or felt was impossible to fathom. ‘What became of the artefacts. Just tell them.’

‘And what then? I remain here a prisoner for all eternity instead of death? Or, will they send me back to the Styx, to—’

‘That is one option,’ interrupted Threadfin, ‘if you cooperate. I won’t lie, the rest of the council doesn’t agree with me, but I hold the vote that matters. Your fate rests in my hands.’

The prisoner said nothing for a long moment. Then he nodded. ‘Do you know what the Shathra Stone and the Aura are?’

‘Pieces of the Spectrum,’ answered Ralan.

Threadfin glanced at his companions and then back to the Grim. ‘Yeah, we sort of knew that. I was hoping for something we didn’t know.’

‘I searched the Spectrum,’ the Grim continued, ‘seeking answers. I never knew what I might discover. I stumbled upon an ancient being, the first of the angels as it happened. Terribly old and powerful. His name was, Volcanus.

‘There was another with him, a little younger. His brother, Wormwood. It just so happens it was they who formed the first soul shard now known as the Crystal Sword. With it, they shattered a part of the Spectrum, and produced both the Aura and the Shathra Stone. It was they who let the Darkness in, and began the long war for existence. Then, both sword and Volcanus disappeared. Both became legend and then myth, the sword even more so. Few believe it exists. Do you believe, Todder?’

‘Huh,’ said Threadfin, wondering if this sudden cooperation wasn’t just a ploy of some sort. ‘You know none of this tells me what I want to know. You’re stalling.’ But why is the question. He must know he can’t escape. Right?

‘Ah, Todder, my better half. Would that we were whole again, and you would see ... but then you do see, don’t you?’

Threadfin tried to maintain his calm. ‘Not riddles. I hate bloody riddles.’

‘Reflections.’

‘Them too.’

‘Ever wonder why you’re so different from other virals? You see things in reflections. You pass through mirrors and enter worlds. An odd ability for a viral mage, considering you’re the only one with it. You’d think at least one other undead mage out there might have a similar talent.’

Ralan was staring at Threadfin, shock in his face. ‘No, it can’t be.’

Now, Threadfin was one of the most patient half-souls going, just ask anyone. Relaxed, was his middle name. However, his tolerance was being stretched to breaking point right about then. ‘What are you grolg-brained idiots nattering on about?’ He didn’t mean to shout it. Sort of came out that way.

‘Your power, your magic,’ Ralan whispered, with the Grim nodding along, ‘is the Aura. How could I not have seen it before? Hidden in plain sight all this time.’

Beezer looked perplexed, but then a dawning spread across his features too. ‘You told us you and the Grim are two halves of a whole, which was once Rasnal Nalrost. When the Aura Crystal was caught up in his ritual ...’

‘The crystal form it had taken was destroyed,’ the Grim finished for him. ‘But not the Aura itself, because it cannot be unmade. It was reborn again along with our dear Fin Todder here, a thousand years later. You are the Key, Todder, because the Aura is the Key, just as the Shathra Stone is the Door. Why do you think there’s been such interest in you. Hardly for your winning smile or irascible wit.’

Threadfin wanted to sit, but there was just the floor and he decided it wouldn’t look right. Maintaining his composure was proving difficult, however. A good thing virals didn’t faint, although he believed he might be the first. No wonder Manic and Mania took such interest in him all the time. ‘You’re lying,’ he managed to utter, but didn’t believe it. ‘My bent in seeing worlds is my own. It always has been.’

‘I’m afraid not, although not all your magic is of the Aura. You are still a viral at least. Your draconic self belongs to you, but the part which lets you do all your fancy mirror tricks, your bent or talent as you call it these days, is the Aura. I’m sorry.’

‘No, you’re not.’

The Grim sniggered. ‘Under your nose or rather, your withered skin all this time, and you were clueless.’ He barked a deep laugh, although Threadfin couldn’t see what was amusing. A glance at the other two told him they’d really had no clue.

Where does this leave me, then? he wondered. What do I do? On the other hand, two artefacts down, and one to go. Somehow, the thought didn’t comfort him.

‘You know,’ said the Grim leering at him with Haven Tone’s visage. ‘I don’t fancy returning to the Styx after all.’ He raised his arms in the gloom, dragging the chains higher, while ignoring the obvious pain they must have caused. ‘Do you think these bonds mean anything? Do you believe anyone can hold me? Ever since you threw me down here, I’ve been devising a way to defeat them. To defeat your pathetic wards and your viral horde.’

It was then Threadfin became aware all wasn’t well. A feeling of something bad about to happen. I should get around to listening to my instincts one of these days.

‘The Aura is of no use to you, Todder,’ the Grim growled. ‘Look at what you’ve done with it. Nothing! You haven’t begun to scratch the surface of its power. However, if it were in my capable hands ...’

Lyrin opened the cell door behind them and entered, making Threadfin jump and curse. Torch in hand, worry etched her ravaged face. Not an easy thing to do when all expression was rotted away. ‘What is he doing? Those dead rodents out here aren’t dead anymore, and they’re everywhere, attacking people.’

Threadfin thought he could hear Pole cursing behind her, his short sword clanging against stone.

Beezer stormed out of the cell, and immediately viralic magic erupted on the other side of the door. With a last forlorn look at his father, Ralan followed.

Threadfin turned back to the Grim, but too late realised his mistake. He should’ve left too. In fact, he should’ve been the first out of the door. The body of Haven Tone disintegrated into hundreds of rats. They rushed the hapless viral, who had no time to react, not even to utter a squeak.

The rodents sank their teeth into his withered flesh, and in their bite was the poison of magic.