Darkest Wish Read online

  Ignor watched in awe as his master held the book in one hand while pouring the fairy dust with the other. Making swirling runes around the circle while chanting an old spell.

  It had been an interesting year after Dr Finklesteam decided to research the occult. A decision he came to after realising that everything he invented or created had failed. There was a flaw with all he put his hands to in the modern world of man. So, his interest began to lead to the darker arts. He visited the elders of the Arcane Library of magic and spent two months locked in their deepest vault, reading books, tomes and scrolls from around the world. He had gathered information about a powerful genie that had been trapped in an amber diamond. A power that could be harnessed by only the cleverest, most brilliant and daring of men. Of course, the Doctor realised that this was himself. It could be no other.

  The rest of the year had been a tumultuous time: finding the crystal itself, making deals with witches and wizards on how to extract the power, trading and dealing with warlocks for spells and scavenging the tools needed.

  Ignor viewed how the fairy dust glistened and sparkled, it was beautiful. Yet he was sickened when the master explained that the dust was made from grinding down the fairies themselves, which he had captured from the Farrosion forest. Every part was used except the wings. Those he kept on display on the wall. Each perfect set pinned to a framed board of felt. When the lightning forked across the night it lit them up, the flickering shadows making the wings appear as if they were fluttering.

  “Concentrate Ignor,” the master snapped. “It’s almost time. Connect the silver wire to the top of the diamond. And be careful not to disturb the runes or salt.”

  “Yes, Master,” he replied as he lifted the silver cord which was attached to the pole that rose out of the laboratory. Rain ran down the shaft in swift rivulets, forming silver beads before spattering onto the floor. On the end of the wire was a screw which he inserted into the top of the crystal holder. The silver thread brushing the upper-most face of the diamond. It sparked a memory. He had something important to tell the master.

  “But Master wait, I must tell you…”

  “Not now, Ignor. Can’t you see that the moment has arrived? Look.”

  Ignor craned his head back as far as it would go, the stitches in his neck straining as he gazed up to where the Doctor was pointing.

  Thunder roared through the heavens, sucking the wind from Ignor’s chest. Then the sky flashed once again, bleaching the world white before throwing it into darkness.

  “Stand back and watch history unfold,” Dr Finklesteam laughed. “Observe, my loyal servant – for I am about to gain the powers of the genie.”

  “But, Master…”

  “Silence!”

  Ignor slammed his mouth shut, his single tooth biting through his tongue. He tasted blood, the same viscous fluid which dripped from the wound in his palm where the tip of the crystal lay buried.

  It’s fine, he told himself. The single thought bouncing around the bliss inside his head. I can always tell the master afterwards.

  Patiently he watched as the Doctor, still balancing the book in one hand, placed the palm of his other beneath the diamond. Pain twisted his mouth as he pressed his hand up into the sharp crystal. Then, forcing his grimace away, he began to recite the spell from the old pages.

  “Genie trapped within the stone

  I release you from your crystal throne.

  Your power is what I demand.

  Bestow it to me, through my hand.”

  Ignor leapt with fright as the laboratory exploded with light. The pole began to shake violently as lightning surged down the shaft. The metal screamed in protest as the charge carried on through, following the path of the silver thread before infusing inside the diamond.

  The crystal brightened like a lamp made from the sun itself. Forcing Ignor’s eyes shut yet he could still see the terror unfold in silhouettes through his lids.

  The fairy dust spat and bubbled as the runes began to swim in circles around the salt. The fiend’s fang vibrated as it spun clockwise while the finger began to turn in the other direction.

  “It’s working,” Dr Finklesteam said excitedly, his maniacal grin widening as the crystal grew in size, breaking from the device before rising from the bench. The master’s hand pressing into its sharp underside.

  A fierce wind tore around the chamber. Picking up speed along with scraps of paper and dust. The jars and bottles along the various shelves rattled and bounced, creeping closer to the edge. Rain and hail cascaded through the open roof, pelting the room with small balls of ice, shattering glass and stinging Ignor’s bare flesh.

  “It’s working…” The Doctor continued until the crystal suddenly drained of light. The spectral of power flowed out of the diamond, draining it of colour.

  Ignor felt a tingling sensation from his hand and when he raised it in front of his face, he saw that his entire palm glowed amber.

  “Its…nothing is happening.”

  The Doctor turned his head to regard Ignor and the strange phenomenon that had enveloped his hand. His face contorted into the grimace a toad might give before being fried alive. Then he let out a dry sob.

  “No. It can’t be,” he said.

  His words were suddenly crushed as the damaged crystal exploded, showering him in shards of glistening splinters.

  Dr Finklesteam’s body, along with the salt, fairy dust, finger and fang, were flung against the wall. The god cycle being knocked over in the process.

  Ignor stared at his master’s unmoving body and the laboratory detritus that lay above his limp form. He wished to go to him, but was held firm by an unseen force that gripped his entire being, squashing him from all sides - including from the inside out.

  “I bestow my power unto you,” came a calamitous voice as thunderous as the elements that cracked the night. “From genie to man, from crystal to hand…” it said, reverberating from deep within Ignor’s chest, yet he witnessed no body to go with the voice. “What is thy wish?”

  “Wish?” Ignor spluttered, his swollen tongue flopping around his mouth, squirming like a fat slug in a tight sock.

  “Yes,” confirmed the voice. “You released me from my prison, now I may grant you a wish. Choose whatever your heart desires.”

  There was movement beneath the pile of broken shelves and twisted apparatus as Dr Finklesteam struggled into a siting position.

  “Ignor?” he coughed, dust falling from his broken mouth. His goggles were shattered and long open gashes ran down his cheek and jaw. They would need stitches.

  “But I have no wishes,” Ignor said. “Please, my master desires the power, not I.”

  “Only you must choose,” the booming voice replied. “Make your wish, for the power only lasts with the storm above.”

  Ignor cast a glance into the sky. The rain had begun to wane, along with the thicker clouds. He hadn’t much time.

  “What have you done?” the master groaned, trembling hands probing his damaged face and scalp.

  “The wish?” the genie demanded, a subtle irritancy riding on his words.

  “Please, I have…wait,” Ignor muttered, a rare idea coming to him. He knew what he must wish for. What he must ask. It was quite obviously the only thing which he desired. A wish that he was more than sure that his master would be happy with.

  “I wish,” he continued, feeling more confident. “That the master and I swap roles. That I have his vast wealth of knowledge and that he has my vast expanse of emptiness so that he may enjoy the innocence of bliss.”

  The bodiless voice began to chuckle. “As you wish…”

  “Ignor?” Dr Finklesteam whimpered, his eyes becoming large circles inside his broken goggles.

  “It’s alright Master,” Ignor reassured, giving him the thumbs up – or thumb up as he only had the one. He would have said more, but the chamber began to shake violently as a maelstrom of rain, glass and broken furniture began to whirl about in a frenzy.

 
His body was drawn towards the tornado, sucked closer by the ferocious energy. As was the Doctor. Raising his hands in front of his face for protection, he was lifted from the ground and spun.

  Ignor’s world became a dizzy vortex, limbs being dragged one way and then another as he tumbled end over end.

  A peculiar thought surfaced in the emptiness of his mind. The image of the outside world. A place he had no experiences of. It was swiftly followed by another. This one of joy, an emotion that was alien to him, that was born of his first invention that worked.

  The hairs on his flesh rose in mottled goose-bumps as more thoughts and memories sprang into being. All whirling around the confines of his head more ferociously than the tornado that danced with his body: Happiness, glee, stars, moons, loss, sorrow, hate, failure, graveyard…death.

  The storm that raged in his head ceased with the storm that seethed inside the laboratory and he fell to the ground with a thump.

  As the objects settled about him, he heard the chuckling voice of the genie taper off until it vanished completely. The wish had been fulfilled.

  Gazing about at the mess around him, he became aware of an ugly creature that sat on the floor. Short and squat, its face was a criss-cross of hideous stitches, the skin itself pulled tight and puckered in the wrong places. Opening its mouth, it wet its broken lips and moaned. The sound no more intelligible than the grunt from a dying pig.

  Ignor offered it a sad smile as he lifted the broken goggles from its head.

  “Master,” he began, but his now highly intellectual mind told him that he could no longer call the man before him master. But what should he call the being that was formerly Dr Finklesteam?

  “Bliss. Do you understand me?” he asked, but was greeted with another moan, slack features staring up at the moon as it appeared through the broken clouds.

  Ignor clambered to his feet and dusted himself down. He was happy to find that his new clothes consisted of smart comfortable britches, high-quality boots and a silk shirt bristling with lace beneath a velvet waistcoat. Very dapper, he mused. Then giving his hands a second glance, he noticed that his missing thumb had been returned. The aches in his body had vanished along with the stitches that held the patchwork of mismatch pieces together.

  “How delightful,” he sang, in a rich baritone.

  Feeling a flow of divine ecstasy pulse through him, he crossed to the chamber door and flung it open.

  Fresh air washed over him as he held his arms out to embrace his freedom. Ignor had never stepped foot out of the castle grounds and he was itching to begin new adventures around the world. He placed one foot in front of the other, thrilled to not feel any pain with the movement.

  Then a moan from behind him made him pause.

  Swaying on unsteady legs, one being longer than the other, was his former master.

  “You should be delighted, Bliss. This is what you’ve always wanted,” Ignor said. “I’ll be gone for a while. Possibly a long while. Possibly I will never return. In the meantime, you have free rein of the castle, but I must warn you that you shouldn’t go having any thoughts. Thoughts are dangerous and you don’t want too many of them fluttering around your empty head. They’ll chase away the bliss. It’s not what you would have wanted.”

  Bliss moaned. Whether he understood or not, Ignor couldn’t say.

  “Might I suggest that you try a pickled bog sprout. You are of course permitted to have a little joy in your life.”

  And leaving his rich words echoing around the laboratory, Ignor strode away to fill his head with the world.

  The End

  Author Notes

  I would like to thank you for reading ‘Darkest Wish’. It was the first in a wide range of short stories that I have locked away inside my mind. Although its subtlety different from the genre which I usually write, it was a great deal of fun to play with.

  If you’ve enjoyed the story, please try my other works: Eversong, Shadojak and Ethea. The three volumes in ‘The Daughter of Chaos’ trilogy. You will find them on Amazon or if you prefer the physical copy you can purchase them from Waterstones or directly from my website. www.acsalter.com

  My next adventure follows the path of Dylap. A strange creature that has been washed up from the river Twine and found by fairies. I’ve included the first two chapters of the book in this download.

  The darkest fairy tales are those told by the fairies themselves…

  Dylap

  1

  Bad omen

  Mist gathered around the base of the mighty oak. Climbing up the cold trunk and beginning to seep over the balcony, where Dilbus Fenwick stood. He was leaning against the wall, finding it hard to see the forest floor, some eighty spans down. The ghostly white vapour having thickened to form a sea that flowed half way up the trees that made part of the city. It crept over his boots and clung to his ankles with icy fingers.

  It was going to be a cruel night, Dilbus realised. Made ruthless by the large bird which now glided above the city’s canopy. Its black body, several times the size of himself, was invisible in the starry sky. Yet its cries echoed throughout the Farrosian forest, forcing the fae of the city to stay behind doors – in the safety of the trees in which they dwelled. There had been enough strange goings on of late.

  Dilbus glanced about the royal city of Farro, the warm glow of sun gems lighting up the thousands of windows that spiralled around the trees. The ones below the mist appearing like spirit homes, drowned beneath the flowing tide - while those above flickered along the labyrinth of branches and stems, bridges and platforms which formed the city itself. Even the Palace, the pure white alabaster tree at the centre of Farro, was partially hidden from view. The many royal guards which were standing vigil along the branches and balconies were casting fearful glances up at the huge bird, their javelins gripped tightly, venturing no further from the trunk than necessary.

  Dilbus shook his head, it was a bad omen.

  He left the balcony, shut the doors and bolted the night outside as he ventured further into the tree. His knee feeling the damp and complaining with each hobbling foot fall. Stabbing him with each lumbering step. If that was his only problem, then his life would be simple.

  Yet, he shouldn’t grumble. He had a warm chamber, carved into the great oak high up the trunk. Not so high as the upper classes, he wasn’t pure enough for that, but high enough for a soldier who’s only bravery was surviving the wars. And he was even given the position as the Commander of the night watch. A task which found him sat alone most nights, writing rota’s and tasks for the watchmen to carry out. A menial job, meant for retiring servicemen, or the crippled – a role in which he fit, perfectly.

  Limping to the gem stove, he held his hands above the stone and rubbed warmth into his fingers, his swollen knuckles creaking with the movement. But the pain was a mild irritation compared to the stump that protruded from his back, where his wing should have been. The useless protuberance sticking out from his shoulder, rubbing against the bandages that strapped it down and becoming a thing of ridicule for others to laugh at.

  Dilbus brushed fingers through his greying hair, cursing the day he had lost his wing. It would have been better to lose a leg, an arm or even one of each. A fairy could still fly, missing a limb, but lose a wing and you were a creature of the ground. A creeper, a crawler, a climber – a thing that scurries and never feels the air beneath them as they soar above the canopy of the forest.

  Unclenching his fist, Dilbus took up his berry mug and settled himself into his acorn rocker. No good would come of thinking along that remorseful path. The day had happened, it couldn’t be changed and he wasn’t getting his wing back. At least he returned from the war, thousands of others couldn’t say the same. And his bravery was recognised. Hence the chamber in the mighty oak. Although, he would give it all up, even becoming a base dweller, to have his wing back.

  He drank deeply from the mug, the bitter taste of stale berry juice forcing him to swallow the liquid in a single g
ulp. Or was that the willow bark that he had grounded into the drink. A medicinal powder for the numerous pains his body was repeatedly asked to endure.

  Settling the berry mug on the side table, he leaned into his rocker, catching his damned stump on the back spindles and sending a fresh jolt of pain through his body.

  Dilbus’s fist slammed into the rocker arm as a loud knock struck the balcony door. He thought it may have been an echo from his throbbing outburst, until the knocking came again. This time louder, and repeated with an irritating persistence.

  “I’m coming,” Dilbus growled. “Cease your banging before you wake the wood knolls.”

  His twisted leg replaced the banging as it thumped lazily along the carved floor. Scraping over the thick rings which told of the oak’s many years.

  When he reached the doors, he put his face to the crack and peered out.

  There were two night watchmen, junior members. One was whispering to the other while holding out an arm at a right angle.

  “It’s true,” he giggled. “If he tries to fly he can only spin in circles, until he gets so dizzy that he falls out…”

  Dilbus slid the bolt and shoved open the door. Catching the watchman mid-sentence with his finger still rotating in the air. He glowered at the pair and was glad to see that they had at least the decency to look ashamed.

  “Well? What is it?” Dilbus demanded. “You’re supposed to be patrolling the perimeter.”

  “That’s right, Mr Fenwick, Sir,” replied the ashen faced fairy who had been mocking him. “But we’ve found a body in the river.”

  “The Twine? You know the rules, boys. Anything that has been washed up from the river, needs to be put back. You can’t go meddling with matters from that cursed stretch of water.”