I was restless. Something was bothering me and I didn’t know what.
I didn’t want to work but pushed myself to do it anyway. Sonder’s message had included a list of books that were supposed to contain references to the monkey’s paw so I put on my coat and went out into central London to look for them. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and it wasn’t-the books Sonder had listed were obscure as hell. But finding a book in a bookshop, even an obscure book, is a lot easier than finding a person in a city.
Two and a half hours and twelve bookstores later, I’d tracked down seven out of the nine books on Sonder’s list and decided to call it a day. I went home to my desk upstairs and pulled the first volume from its parcel. It was old and smelt of dust. A third of the way through, I found what I was looking for.
…the First Age, where the monkey god was brought to battle by Morthalion the Destroyer. For three days and three nights they battled but the monkey god’s claws could not pierce Morthalion’s shield. Neither could Morthalion’s death magic slay the god, for being divine, its spirit could not be parted from its body by mortal means.
Seeing this, on the fourth day Morthalion reached down and tore away a part of his own shadow, from which he formed himself a blade of darkness, slim as a leaf and sharper than the frost. Wielding it, he struck off the god’s foot, then before the two could be reunited Morthalion burnt the foot in black fire until it crumbled to ash. Again and again Morthalion struck, cutting and burning feet, legs, arms, head, and finally body. At last only one part of the god remained: a single paw.
Morthalion could not destroy the paw and instead bound it up with a white thread, enspelling it so that all should forget the monkey god’s name, and thus his power could never be restored. But the monkey god’s spirit lived on within the paw, and survives to this day, filled with hate for the race that destroyed him.
The passage ended. I flipped to the end, but the monkey’s paw wasn’t mentioned again. I closed the book and picked up the next.
— of wish-granting items, little needs to be said. Their powers are generally overrated and greatly inferior to those of True Mages, who-
I rolled my eyes and tossed the book aside. The next one, titled Encyclopaedia Arcana, was thicker and the writing denser.
Wish magic, or desire magic, works quite differently. It magnifies the power of speech: Rather than the words being a trigger, it is the speaking of the wish itself that rewrites reality.
Stories abound of carelessly or ambiguously worded wishes causing disaster; these legends, unfortunately, have a firm basis in fact. While wish magic will not misinterpret or “twist” a wish, neither will it take into account context or intention, and phrasing is absolutely crucial. Clear, simple sentences are best; convoluted wording often results in too weak a “lens” for the magic to focus through, and vague wishes bring totally unpredictable results. Many mages blame such results upon malicious intelligence on the part of the granting power, but this is inaccurate. Wish magic is essentially neutral. It grants only what is asked; nothing more and nothing less.
There is a qualification, however. Most sources of wish magic have individual prohibitions against wishing for a certain outcome, a common example being the taking of a life. Should the user attempt a forbidden wish, the magic will fail to take effect or rebound upon the wisher. There is usually no way of discovering such limitations except through trial and error, making such experimentation a highly dangerous process.
More than any other, wish magic is capable of creating extraordinarily powerful effects; however, experienced mages generally consider it more trouble than it is worth.
Books four and five didn’t have anything new. The sixth was more interesting.
…imbued items capable of bestowing wishes, generally referred to as “monkey’s paws” regardless of their actual form. Their magic works as an unspoken contract, granting the user between three and as many as seven wishes.
At first, the wishes will appear to work to the user’s benefit. However, with each wish the monkey’s paw gains a greater hold over its bearer and soon it will begin to twist the wishes, subtly at first, then more forcefully. In every case, the user is made to feel that the only way to escape his problems is to use the paw again; each wish leads to greater and greater calamity, until he is destroyed.
Although wholly evil, a monkey’s paw is bound by rules. First and foremost, the monkey’s paw cannot force a bearer to accept its contract. It can tempt or promise but the truly innocent are safe; at some level, the bearer must knowingly and willingly consent to the item’s power. The monkey’s paw must also follow the letter of a wish, if not the spirit. This has led many to believe that a clever wielder could make extended use of a monkey’s paw by wording his wishes carefully, but such success is rare.
The final book was a slim volume that seemed handwritten rather than printed. Squinting, I realised it skipped from account to account, and I was in the middle of a paragraph before realising that it was what I was looking for. I went back to the beginning of the section and read it from start to finish.
The monkey’s paw is one of the most ancient of all artifacts and the truth of its origin is unknown, though many have crafted lesser copies in an attempt to imitate its power.
The monkey’s paw grants wishes with few if any limitations. Most believe that these wishes follow fixed and certain rules. This is false. The monkey’s paw is sentient and free-willed. The paw, not its bearer, chooses whether and how to grant a wish. Any bearer who believes he controls it soon learns his mistake.
While inactive, the paw lies dormant. In these periods, the monkey’s paw will often adopt a place, or a person, to remain with. This “host” seems to enjoy limited protection from the item; perhaps the monkey’s paw prefers not to harm those who do not use its power, or perhaps it simply chooses not to bite the hand that feeds it. The reason, as with so much else concerning the item, is unknown. The monkey’s paw is not in the habit of explaining itself and rarely leaves witnesses in its wake.
The section ended. I read it through twice more, then sat back in my chair. Something about that last one made me uneasy. A host …
I tried to figure out some way I could put the information in the books to use but came up blank. Bound or unbound, limited or unlimited, evil or neutraclass="underline" Each book told a different story, and without knowing which was true they weren’t much help. The one thing they all agreed on was that the monkey’s paw was dangerous-and I’d known that already. I walked to my window and looked out over London.
The morning had been overcast but the clouds had vanished one by one and the sun was shining down out of a clear sky. Sunset was only a couple of hours away and the colour of the sunlight had changed to a rich yellow-gold, the chimneys and rooftops casting long shadows with the coming evening. The windows in the houses and flats were still illuminated by the sun but as dusk drew nearer I knew they would light up one by one, making squares of light in the darkness.
I was still restless. I’d tried to shrug it off all day and it hadn’t worked, and I didn’t know why. I’d done a job for Belthas and succeeded. Okay, I didn’t know everything, but Rachel and Cinder had been stopped. I wasn’t completely happy about the way things had ended, but I hadn’t had much choice.
Was it about Luna and the monkey’s paw? I thought about it and realised that wasn’t it. Working on the monkey’s paw wasn’t making me feel any better; the problem was somewhere else. Something was wrong.