Modern Magick

Royalty and Ruin: 8

'You said the ortherex of this Britain are stronger,' I said to Melmidoc. 'And they don't confine themselves to just troll hosts. What else do they like?'

All of the more distinctly magickal races have suffered their share of infestations, Melmidoc replied. Though, interestingly, it is only sentient creatures who are afflicted. There have been no recorded cases of ortherex feeding upon, or breeding within, any species of magickal beast.

That eliminated my first theory. The only other living creatures we had encountered at Farringale were griffins. While they were splendidly magickal, I did not think they were sentient.

Probably.

'Mauf, are griffins—' I began, opening the rich purple cover of my precious book. But there I stopped, for I'd received an eyeful of his title page. '....That's new,' I observed.

'In point of fact,' said Mauf loftily, 'It is a very old technique.'

'I know that, but I've never seen you employ it before.'

'I understand my predecessor to have been stolen, once. I humbly suggest that he would not have been, had he taken the correct precautions.'

'Like this one, for example?'

'Precisely like this one.'

I read the title page aloud. 'Whoever steals this book, may they be drowned in water. And if they be not drowned in water, may they be burned in fire. And if they be not burned in fire, may they be hanged from the neck. And if they be not hanged from the neck, may they ingest poison. And if they do not ingest poison, may they be eaten by wolves. And if they be not eaten by wolves, may they fall from a great height. And if they do not fall from a great height...' I turned the page and stopped reading, for it went on. And on.

'Taking no chances, eh, Mauf?' said Jay.

I patted the book gently. 'Maufry, you do know that medieval thief-curses don't work?'

'Who says that they do not?'

The practice had persisted in some quarters well past the medieval era, in fact, for the belief in their efficacy as curses had endured. It had taken a large study, sponsored by the Hidden Ministry in its earlier days, to establish that many were fake. Or not so much fake as insufficient; they were just words, usually written down by those who had no magick. A real thief-curse needed no words, and since the authentic kind were genuinely deadly, they had, of course, been banned by the Ministry long ago.

But Mauf was bristling in my hands, and the tone of his dusty book-voice was both defensive and slightly injured. So I said, 'Never mind,' and weakly changed the subject. 'Ortherex, Mauf. I am sure you must know a lot about those.'

'Having sat helpless upon my shelf while they ate up my city around me, I can say with some justification that I do.'

'What did they do?'

'They drank up the magick of Farringale and dined upon its inhabitants, until the population lay dead in droves.'

'And then what?'

'I do not know, Miss Vesper. I, like my fellow tomes, fell deeply into slumber. What was left to wake for?'

'Wait,' said Jay, frowning. 'We were there. We saw empty streets, quite clean. It was nothing like Darrowdale. If the people all died, why didn't we see bones? Skeletons?'

'Did they all die?' said Alban. 'Some fled, and founded Mandridore.'

'And stuck around long enough to clean up the streets before they left? With the place infested with ortherex, and the threat of catching the infection any moment?'