Curse of the Midions

by Brad Strickland

  “Yeah,” Jarvey said. “So what?”

  Charley ran a brown hand though his mop of hair. “Well, then, it’s—I dunno. Jarv, before old Nibs caught him stealin’ and had him hung, Fortner Dare was captain of the watch. Head tipper, same as like Hawk is now.”

  Jarvey felt ice in his chest. “A tipper? Betsy’s dad, you think?”

  “Dunno what to think,” muttered Charley. “But Dare ain’t a common name. One of the Firsts was Fortner Dare. He couldn’t die here, not naturally died. He had to be hung, didn’t he? But whether he was Bets’s dad or not, well, I dunno, mate.”

  Jarvey sat silent for long moments. Then Charley slapped him on the back. “Buck up, though. Tell you what: If you can get yourself up to the palace without bein’ caught, I’ll wager you I can get you in.”

  From somewhere in his rags he produced a metal ring of what looked like spikes and L-shaped rods of metal. “Lockpicks, mate. For gettin’ in where nobody wants you. And if you’re caught with lockpicks on you, mind, it ain’t the mills for you. It’s—” He drew his finger across his throat and made a horrible gurgling sound. “It’s good-bye and farewell to your noggin, mate. It’s a hangin’ offense.”

  Jarvey had never studied anything in school as hard as he studied becoming a burglar. For two days Charley instructed him, letting him work on a wide sampling of locks that he had squirreled away in one of the hideouts. Jarvey learned how to feel for the tumblers inside the lock, how to ease them up and keep them up one at a time, until even the heaviest lock would spring open. Over and over they practiced, until Jarvey’s knuckles ached and blisters stood on his thumb and forefinger from the effort. Finally, Charley said, “That’s all I can teach you, mate. So are you willin’ to risk the drop, then? You really goin’ to do it, fighting the odds?”

  “I don’t want to,” Jarvey confessed. “But I have to.” He licked his dry lips. “Will you—Charley, will you come with me?”

  Charley gave him his stained grin. “Nah, mate, only get you caught if I did. This here’s a one-man job, see? Them dogs may wag their tails and turn over on their backs to see you, but they’d have my bleedin’ leg off if I came along. My bunch might kind of stroll around, though, keep the guards’ attention on us, like. Best we can do, mate.”

  So it was settled. The next day brought the worst fog yet. While the others went out gathering food and some bones for the dogs, Jarvey practiced with the lockpicks over and over. Night came on with a slow fading of the light, the fog still dense, nearly impenetrable. All the better.

  They made their way through the dark streets, and Jarvey felt grateful for Charley’s knowledge of Lunnon. In the fog, he would have lost himself after the first hundred feet. He carried the picks and a lumpy parcel of bones and meat, bribes for the watchdogs.

  It must have been nearly midnight when they reached the brick wall. “Luck, mate,” Charley whispered, slapping Jarvey’s shoulder. “Sing out if you find yourself in trouble, and we’ll do what we can.”

  With dread in every move, Jarvey made his way to the overhanging branch, by feel, not by vision, for everything was pitch black. Finally his stretched-out hands brushed the hanging twigs, and he hauled himself up into the tree. He made his way to the trunk and swung down. He would drop into the yard, not the lane, from there, and if the dogs had forgotten him—well, old Tantalus wouldn’t have anything more to worry about.

  Jarvey closed his eyes and let go. His heels hit the soft lawn with a thump, and he sat down hard from the impact, but he sprang back up immediately. He heard growls and the scratch of paws, and he said softly, “Good boys! Good boys! Are you hungry? Want a snack?” It was all he could do to keep from yelping the words.

  The dogs began to whine, and instead of biting him, they jumped up on him, planting their forefeet against his chest. He emptied the parcel, and he heard them snarfing up the bones and meat scraps.

  With his hands stuck out in front like the Frankenstein monster in the old movies, Jarvey made his way across the lawn. He found the house, worked his way to the front door—if servants were still there, they’d be more likely to be in the back, he reasoned—and set to work with his picks.

  He couldn’t see a thing, not even the torchlight from the gatehouses a few yards behind him. It helped to close his eyes. He began to sweat as the pick found the lock pins and slowly moved them. The dogs came over, sniffing him, rubbing against him, probably hoping for another snack.

  Jarvey began to sweat in frustration. Remembering the time he had used magic to force a lock open, he tried to hold back those feelings. Zoroaster had warned him that old Midion could sense magic. It wouldn’t do to alert Nibs, not now, not when he was so close—Jarvey felt a click, another, and another. At last the pins all seemed free, and he gingerly reached to turn the knob. With a soft click, the latch opened, and Jarvey pushed inside the house, closing the door against the dark and the dogs behind him.

  One gas light burned low and blue in the great room. He found the door that led to old Tantalus’s study. A lock secured it too, but an easier lock, and with a minute’s attention, he had it open. Inside Hawk’s anteroom, Jarvey risked turning up the gas a little. That let him open the last locked door, the one into Tantalus Midion’s library. He stepped in.

  It was safe enough. The big windows had been covered with heavy maroon velvet curtains. He shut the door behind him and turned up the gas.

  So many books! Jarvey went to the desk and pulled a large open volume toward him. It was in some foreign tongue, all swirls and squiggles, and he couldn’t read a syllable of it. He moved over to one of the two sets of shelves and looked at the spines. Some of the books were old and crumbling, some fresh with gilt lettering. None had titles that sounded at all helpful. Maybe the other shelves—

  He was in the middle of the room when the door boomed open. “Thief!” shrieked a shrill voice.

  Jarvey spun, numb with shock. Old Tantalus Midion stood in the doorway, his face a mask of rage.

  Behind him, grinning wickedly, stood Charley Dobbins.

  CHAPTER 13

  The End of the World and What Happened Next

  Midion lurched forward, his hands crooked into threatening claws. “I’ll have you in the mills for life!” he shouted. “No! I’ll burn you to ash in the town center at midday, as a lesson to others!”

  “Told you you’d catch him red-handed, my lord,” Charley said. “That’s old Jarvis Green, that is!”

  Jarvey dived past Midion, and Charley, laughing, jumped to block his escape. Jarvey had the satisfaction of delivering one punch to Charley’s midsection that made the black-haired boy collapse before old Midion’s surprisingly strong claws hauled him back. Midion almost threw him into the chair behind the desk. “So you’re the snipe who I’ve been hearing of,” the old man said. “Well, my friend, your games end here, tonight. You, Dobbins, run to the Holofernes station and fetch Captain Hawk. Now!”

  Charley got up, stared fiercely at Jarvey for a second, then slunk away. Midion crossed his arms. “You think I am an old man, and you are young and strong. Do not deceive yourself, boy. I have the art, and I can deal with such as you by crooking a little finger.”

  “You’ve got the art,” Jarvey bluffed, “but I’ve got the Grimoire.”

  Midion’s face writhed. His shaggy white eyebrows bunched in a ferocious scowl. “What? Grimoire? Don’t be a fool, Green.”

  “My name’s not Green,” Jarvey said. “It’s Midion. Jarvis Midion.”

  The old man staggered as if hit by a blow. “Midion? Midion? It’s not possible!”

  “Look at me,” Jarvey said, hoping his voice sounded braver than he felt. “Remember the old rhyme? Hair like rusty gold, eyes a midnight blue?”

  “Nonsense!” Midion snapped. “I’ll soon beat the truth out of your hide—”

  “Do, and you’ll never find out what happened to the Midion Grimoire,” Jarvey said, gambling that the old man would believe him. “You’ve known something was wrong with your little
kingdom for weeks, haven’t you? Well, here’s what’s wrong. I came through the Grimoire to your Lunnon, and I brought the book with me.”

  “Here?” Midion screeched, and Jarvey heard real terror in the sound. “No, it can’t be. You’ll come with me!” One of his talonlike hands shot out and seized Jarvey, dragging him out of the chair. Midion marched him through the darkened house until he came to a tall, narrow door. Standing before it, the old man raised his free hand, clenched like a claw, and began to chant in a weird, singsong voice: “Foris! Abra, abri, abrire! I command it!”

  The door did not open, but dissolved. Beyond it lay a swirling darkness, a whirlpool of fog and night. “That is living death, you snipe,” old Midion said. “I have but to give you a push, a little, little push, and in you go, to be swallowed there. Death, did I say? No, death in life! There you will drift forever, aware, alone, and not even able to die, lost in darkness for all eternity! Shall I give you a little push, my lad?”

  Jarvey’s voice shook: “Go ahead if you never want to find the Grimoire.”

  With an animal bellow of anger, Midion dropped his hand, and the door stood as before, solid. “I’ll learn your secrets, and when I know all you know, I may be merciful and merely throw you through the dark gate. Or I might do something even worse to you!”

  Bread and water and loneliness. They came to be all Jarvey knew, locked in a windowless room on the second floor of the palace. Sometimes old Midion would appear to ask if he’d changed his mind yet. Jarvey refused even to answer. Time and time again he tried to work some magic to open the locked door. It refused to budge. Curled in a ball of hopelessness on the floor, Jarvey passed the time by dreaming up ways he could revenge himself against good old Charley.

  None of them would work, but they passed the time.

  At last Jarvey became aware that the interval between meals had stretched on and on. His throat was dry, and his empty stomach clenched. He dully wondered if old Midion had decided just to let him starve.

  His mind drifted, and it clutched at something that floated by: that strange word, abrire. Old Tantalus had chanted it before the magical doorway, but he had heard it chanted before. It was one of the words—he was almost sure it was—that Siyamon Midion had said just before the Grimoire pulled him in. If he could only remember the other. If he could only . . . he drifted in and out of strange dreams.

  The clicking of the lock wakened him. He braced himself. Midion must be coming back to make his demands and his threats again. The door swung open, the yellow light spilling in painful to Jarvey’s eyes—

  “You’re a sight,” a familiar voice said. “Ready to get out of this, are you, cully?”

  Jarvey sprang up, tottered, nearly collapsed. “Betsy!”

  “Sh! Come on. Old Nibs is out for the evening—Council’s meeting and he’s presiding as Lord Mayor and Dictator for Eternity. Come on!”

  Jarvey staggered into the hall on unsteady legs, blinking in the light. Betsy wore a gray skirt and a white blouse and apron. A white bonnet covered her red hair, and her face was cleaner than he had ever seen it. “How did you get in?” he gasped.

  Betsy rolled her eyes. “Thirty housemaids come in every day, Jarvey. Do you think anyone would notice a thirty-first, bringing up the rear?”

  “Listen,” Jarvey said urgently. “Charley’s—what’s the word? Peached on you.”

  “I know,” she said grimly. “Don’t worry about Charley. He’s got himself in trouble, and he won’t soon get out of it. The tippers have him in a cell right now, trying to pry knowledge out of him that he doesn’t have.”

  “He said your father—he said your last name, Dare—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Betsy said. She led him down a corridor and through another door. “Come on.”

  “Can’t leave,” Jarvey muttered. “I have to get back to old Midion’s study.” He lowered his voice. “Where’s the book?”

  “In the pantry,” Betsy said. “Tucked where no one’s likely to look. I knew you were going to break into the palace, and I was afraid they’d find a way to force you to give it up so—I took it. I didn’t want to trust it to anyone else. I’ve been carrying it with me everywhere for weeks.”

  “You brought it here?” he groaned. “You’ve got to get it. Is Hawk in the house?”

  “No. He’ll have gone to the Council with Nibs. He’s become old Nibs’s bodyguard since my—since Lord Zoroaster disappeared.”

  They reached the big domed front room. Betsy pressed something hard and cold into his hand. “Nipped this,” she said. “You might find it useful.”

  It was an old-fashioned key, and it fit into the locks of both doors. Jarvey pulled the heavy maroon drapes across the windows of the study, turned up the lights, and frantically began to read through the titles of the books he had not been able to examine.

  Enchantments. The Arte of Magick. Ye Practyse of Divers Artes. Which one, which one?

  Then, at the end of one of the shelves, a row of small black books, no titles on their spines. He opened one and read in angular handwriting:

  ... the spell is simple enough, with the Grimoire. I have found servants in plenty, desperate men who wish to be out of the way of the police and the gueen’s men. With them I will build my Refuge, a London where I may Rule ...

  A diary. Jarvey flipped through the pages, stopping to read a line here and there, but none of it helped. Most of it took the form of angry ramblings against fools and enemies. One shaky passage dealt with Tantalus’s discovery of the date of his own approaching death: June 12, 1848. It ended with the words “I must escape this world before then.”

  Jarvey nearly jumped out of his skin when the door opened. But it was only Betsy, holding the Grimoire. “Here it is. Let’s go!”

  “Wait, wait. It won’t do us any good unless—”

  “We’ve got to go!” Betsy warned. “Nibs is always back before midnight, and it’s gone half past eleven by now. Come on, there’s no time!”

  They raced into the big front room—

  And the front door opened, freezing them in their tracks. “What!” An outraged Tantalus Midion glared at them. “You! I’ll teach you to—”

  “This way!” Jarvey yelled, and he ducked back down the corridor toward the library, slamming and locking the door behind him. He grabbed the heavy table that Captain Hawk used as a desk. “Help me!” Betsy took hold of the table, and they tugged and shoved, blocking the door.

  They retreated into the inner study, and Jarvey locked that door as well. He heard a thunderous blast from outside. The house shook with it, and he reeled, the way he had teetered when old Siyamon had chanted out—

  Abrire ultimas!

  The phrase came back and as the door to the study bowed as if a giant’s hand were pushing it, Jarvey snatched the Grimoire from Betsy’s hands and shouted the words aloud.

  The door opened—

  A door of light, not darkness—

  Everything was light.

  White radiance flooded the world, and Jarvey could see only the figure of Betsy standing at his side. Before him reared another gray, indistinct figure, its features impossible to see in the white glow, but it had to be Tantalus Midion.

  The book, the Grimoire, writhed in Jarvey’s hands. It struggled to open.

  “Fool! Fool!” Tantalus’s voice, sounding distant, thin, tiny.

  “To Earth,” Jarvey yelled. “To London, and take Tantalus Midion there!” Words of desperation, not art.

  And he opened the Grimoire.

  The universe went insane. Everything swirled, water going down a cosmic drain, falling away, down an endless whirlpool. Tantalus Midion swept past, blue eyes wide with terror. Away, away, screams fading.

  Jarvey fought a wind that whipped at him, sucking him forward. The book struggled in his hands like a living thing, but he had to resist, had to find his parents.

  A power greater than he could resist snatched at him, jerked his feet from under him. Jarvey yelled in despair, trying to h
old on to the Grimoire, trying to fight the endless fall, knowing he lacked the power. He tumbled headfirst, toppling, unable to stop himself.

  Something as strong as iron clamped onto his wrist, and a commanding voice shouted, “Quietus!”

  Darkness and drifting, and then the feeling of something soft and yielding beneath him—a grassy hillside. “What happened?” Jarvey asked.

  “You did a foolish thing,” a voice answered from the darkness. “A foolish and brave thing.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You know me as Zoroaster,” the voice answered. Then it called out, “Elizabeth? Are you here as well?”

  Someone lurched against Jarvey, and he heard Betsy gasp, “What happened? Where are we?”

  “Not in Lunnon,” Zoroaster said firmly. “And not back on Earth, where Tantalus Midion has gone. I believe we are in an unwritten chapter.”

  “An unwritten—” Jarvey broke off. “What about my mom and dad?”

  “They are somewhere in this,” Zoroaster said, and Jarvey felt something hard thrust against his chest. He closed his hands on the familiar shape of the Grimoire. “Let’s have a little light,” Zoroaster said, and immediately a soft blue-white glow surrounded them.

  Jarvey gasped. Zoroaster was older, years older, than he had been a few weeks earlier. “What happened to you?”

  “Travel,” Zoroaster said. “Travel between the worlds of the Grimoire and the real world. I can slip back and forth, using my own magic. It may or may not surprise you to learn that Zoroaster is not my name, that I am a Midion too.”

  “So I am, too,” Betsy whispered. “I’m your cousin, Jarvey.”