The Harbinger
by Quinn J. Graham
Quinn J. Graham is a nerd’s nerd from Ontario, Canada. An avid reader, writer, video game enthusiast, and hobbyist game dev, a significant portion of their day involves bouncing between the words on a screen and those on a page, and trying to sort out which is which. Their fiction has previously appeared in Wyldblood Press, Factor Four Magazine, and On Spec Magazine; with their story “The Necessity of a Shepherd” being a finalist in the 2023 Alberta Magazine Awards. You can check them out at @officialqjg.bsky.social
Discovering the hole hadn’t been a surprise. As a mouse, Morris was quite good at it, and there were no shortage of cracks and crevices in the king’s castle to explore, spread out among the ancient brickwork. Even Morris hadn’t found them all, so when he stumbled upon this new hole he was hardly fazed, even though he was fairly certain it hadn’t been there the day before.
It was just a little gap in the stonework, hidden behind a suit of armour in a random castle hallway. Morris’ tiny tummy was grumbling, and though he couldn’t smell any food down the hole, there were more cooks in the kitchen today than usual–grabbing this and that from the
larder for the celebration–so he might as well check.
The hole was deeper than expected, and colder. And it went down too. By the time Morris realized he might already be lower than the dungeons (the smell of the fungus he sometimes nibbled there had come and gone), there was no room for him to turn around. If the tunnel stopped suddenly, he’d have to start ascending backwards, and he didn’t fancy that idea at all.
Fortunately, the tunnel did take him someplace, only he had no idea where. The room was unlit and unfurnished, with stone walls bare of everything save for some unused sconces and a pair of large, sturdy looking doors made from burgundy wood inlaid with gold. An iciness hung in the air that nearly made his whiskers freeze, as well as a darkness so thick it was impossible, even for Morris’ eyes, to see the far opposite wall.
Evidently, there was nothing of interest here for the little mouse. He couldn’t smell any food. In fact, he couldn’t smell anything at all, so he turned to go back through the hole.
“Stop,” said a voice.
Morris froze instinctively.
“I know you are there” said the voice again, its tones raspy and ancient, like the grinding of founding stones. “I can feel the life thrumming through your veins. Reveal yourself.”
Whatever ‘thrumming’ was, Morris remained motionless. Staying still sometimes meant wandering eyes would pass him by. It had worked so far, at least in his experience.
“Whoever you are,” continued the voice, slithering through the air like a serpent, “Tell me how you infiltrated this sanctum, and I shall reward you greatly. Anything your heart desires shall be yours.”
Morris’ round ears perked up at that, and his survival instincts faltered. “Do you have any cheese?” he suddenly asked.
There was a moment before the voice in the darkness spoke again. “… I beg your pardon?”
“Cheese. Do you have any?” Morris turned back to the darkness, scanning it for any movement or signs of life. “A bit of cheddar right now would really hit the spot.”
A ponderous silence filled the air between the mouse and the dark room.
“… Very well,” said the voice. “Inform me of how you came to enter this place and you shall have all the cheddar in the world.”
Morris didn’t know about that; there was no way he could eat that much at once. Still, he was hungry now. “I came in through this hole in the wall over here.”
The shadows on the other side of the room seemed to shift, the darkness itself sliding along the walls until it surrounded the gap that Morris had come through. “Such a small portal. What enchantments did you work to traverse it?”
“I’m a mouse.”
The darkness raised in Morris’ direction as if noticing him for the first time. “Ah. A rodent. I see.” The shadows sank and slithered back to the spot near the opposite wall. “Nothing to be done then.”
When the voice didn’t speak again, Morris shifted awkwardly from paw to paw. “May I have that cheese now?”
“I cannot fit through that gap in the stone,” whispered the voice in the shadows, “so I have no cheese to give you.”
“Oh.” Morris’ whiskers fell. “Well, alright then. I’ll see if I can find something somewhere else. Goodbye.” He moved towards the tunnel.
“Before you go,” said the voice suddenly, “little mouse, might you do me a favour? I have not seen the world outside this tomb in a long, long time. Tell me of things there. How has the surface changed since my imprisonment?”
Morris sniffed. “I don’t know. How long have you been trapped?”
“Ages and ages, little rodent. I fell when the first stones of this castle were laid, struck down the very day of this kingdom’s birth by the man who would rule this land and protect it from me.”
That sounded like a long time ago. As with most animals, the only passage of time Morris really concerned himself with was whether the sun was up or down. But he did know of one recent development. “Well, the king and queen have had a baby girl today, I’ve heard.”
“A child? The country has a young princess?” The darkness glided over to Morris, churning with interest.
“Yeah, the cooks are running in and out the kitchen for some kind of feast. I can’t hardly sneak in to get a crumb”
“What excellent news. What marvellous news.”
“Not for me.”
The cloud of gloom continued to swirl, stewing, dark tendrils entwining and unfurling, before the voice finally spoke. “Little mouse, might you do me another favour? Act as my eyes and ears above; continue to observe the kingdom’s beloved princess and return to me frequently with the details.”
Morris blinked. This sounded like a lot of work. “Will you give me some food if I do?”
“Again, there is no cheese in my possession to give.”
“I’d settle for crackers.”
“No crackers either.”
“Aw.”
“But,” the voice continued, and Morris could swear the words were caressing his ears, “agree to do my bidding, and I will bestow upon you a dark blessing, one sure to aid you in any quest you undertake.”
Morris didn’t know what a ‘bidding’ or a ‘blessing’ was; he just wanted to eat. Maybe they were edible? “Sure,” he said.
All of a sudden, the cloud of shadows swept over Morris. His vision went black, and he felt as if he’d been plunged into a pool of icy water. He was falling through an endless night, drowning in an endless ocean. Every instinct in his animal brain told him he was dying
Then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling slid away. His vision returned. He was still cold, but for some reason it wasn’t bothering him nearly as much as it had.
“Now go. Learn as much as you can,” said the voice. “Return here in time and share with me what you uncover. Go, my agent of shadows.”
“My name is Morris.” And with that the little mouse squeezed himself back into the tiny passage, and left the shadows there in the dark room.
#
Normally, Morris would have forgotten such a strange encounter. It would have faded into the background as just another odd event in the life of a mouse, no more present in his mind than a brush with the queen’s cat or a fall down the stairs of the east tower. But since then, life had taken a definitive turn.
He’d chanced the kitchen afterwards. Even though it was still as full of cooks as could be, no one seemed to be able to notice him, even when he scurried right between their feet. It was like he wasn’t there at all. He slipped into the pantry and ate his fill, and wasn’t disturbed once.
It extended beyond the kitchen too. No matter where he went, if Morris didn’t want to be seen (which was most of the time), he simply was not. Eyes glazed over him, and the sharp noses of other animals couldn’t catch a whiff of his fur.
It had to be the work of the voice. He didn’t really know how it had been done, but then again, he didn’t know how a lot of things were done. But if it was the voice, then Morris owed them for the favour.
So he did spy on the princess, and after quite a while had passed, he returned to the hole in the wall to report what he had witnessed. Although it quickly became apparent that the voice should have, perhaps, been a bit more specific in its instruction.
“So she took her first steps yesterday, but she can’t walk for long without falling over,” said Morris. “Oh, and the building blocks aren’t her favourite toy anymore. Now she’s got this ribbon on a stick that she can’t get enough of.”
“I … see,” said the voice
“And she’s starting to get fussy about nap time. She used to fall asleep almost as soon as she was in the crib, but now she gets all wrestly when she’s put down. Someone has to sing a lullaby just to get her to relax, and usually–”
“My servant,” interrupted the voice.
“It’s Morris.”
“Morris,” said the voice, “your efforts are … very thorough. But you need not dictate to me every single event of the princess’ life in such great detail.”
“I’m only doing what you asked.” Morris licked his paws and started grooming dust off his fur; since he’d started eating so well, the hole had gotten very snug. “Why’s this princess so important anyhow?”
For the first time he could remember, the voice in the darkness chuckled. “Because while the spell that binds me here is powerful, it is not eternal. I feel it grow weaker by the day.” The shadows in the room drifted over to the deep red doors, dark tendrils testing and teasing the wood and metal.
“I expect to be free of this place in approximately fifty years, and when that time comes I will have one chance to find a vessel to inhabit and achieve my full potential. The princess is the latest link in a chain of descendants stemming from my adversary, the accursed human who trapped me here. By the time his enchantment finally fades, the princess will be a powerful queen. I can think of no better pawn for my aims.”
“Your aims?” Morris asked. He of course knew what ‘aims’ were, but for a mouse they usually never stem beyond ‘find food’ and ‘get sleep.’ Aside from the fact that a princess could go into the kitchen whenever she wanted, he didn’t see how royalty figured into either.
The shadows floated down to Morris’ side. “The world above has had many names for me, my pet. The Light Swallower, The Oncoming End, The Shadow Tide. And I will be given a new name when I escape this prison to burn the world to cinders, taking all that is mine and sparing no lives.”
“Except for mice, right?”
“Pardon?”
Morris cleaned his whiskers. “You said ‘sparing no lives’, which I think means killing everyone? But you wouldn’t kill all mice, right? Because that would include me, and I would quite like to live.”
In the corner of the empty room, the shadows coiled and undulated rhythmically. “I will …” said the voice flatly, “consider this request.”
“Oh, good,” Morris let out a little sigh of relief. “And then what?”
“Then nothing,” the voice said. “The oceans will boil and dry, the plains will be buried under bones and ash, and the sun will choke on the smog rising from the burning remnants of civilization. Everything will be gone.”
“Except for mice.”
The cloud of gloom whirled slowly.
“But what about bread?” Morris asked.
“Excuse me?” The gloom perked up in Morris’ direction.
“And cheese,” the mouse added. “You’ll want both when you’re done with all that important-sounding stuff. And a nice spot to nap too.”
“Annihilation does not leave time for napping,” said the voice.
“But everyone wants to nap!”
The shadows rushed towards Morris, rising in front of his tiny face like a tidal wave. “I want for nothing!” the voice spat, the dark mass rolling and heaving as it spoke. “I am a force of darkness and despair that has lingered since the first dawn. Since my creation it has been that all would fall in my wake. I need no food or rest; I am a power that will cleanse the world in fire and blood, and nothing will remain in its stead!”
Morris trembled beneath the towering darkness as he stared up at it. “No bread or cheese?”
“No,” said the voice, rage ebbing as the shadows returned to a calmer, more tranquil state. “None.”
Morris sat back on his haunches. He tried to fathom the idea of two of his favourite things in the world just one day not being there.
“I don’t think I would like that,” he said after a while, eyes falling to the hard stone floor. He dragged a paw through dust on the ground. There didn’t seem to be much point in a world without the simple joys of bread and cheese.
Both the mouse and the voice were silent for a minute or two, neither having anything to say. But eventually the voice in the darkness spoke. “I suppose,” it said, “that sparing a small portion of food is not entirely out of the question.”
“Really?” Morris’ looked up again, his eyes wide.
“A scraping.”
“And a napping spot?” the mouse asked hopefully.
“Perhaps. We will see, my servant.”
#
Morris continued to watch the princess. He saw her ride a horse for the first time in the arms of her father from the roof of the stable; when she attended court for the first time, Morris kept an ear out from behind the throne. Later, he listened as well as he could when the king urged his daughter to at least consider the potential suitors he had found.
“She does not like them?” asked the voice.
“No,” answered Morris. “She kept saying that she didn’t care about alliances or land. She wants to marry for love.”
The shadows swirled in contemplation. “A shame; her suitor could have been a valuable asset.” The cloud of darkness grew suddenly heavy. “Should the princess get her way, any random fool could become her betrothed.”
As the voice’s uncertainty made the shadows churn, Morris scratched an ear, a question stewing in his tiny head. “What is ‘love’ anyways?”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve never heard of this ‘love’ stuff before,” Morris explained. “Why does the princess want it? Can you eat it?”
“No,” said the voice. “No, you cannot eat it.”
“Well then why bother?”
“Love is a powerful, human emotion,” the voice explained, tones steady. “It is fickle, impossible to control, and devastating to wield. Having it can empower the frailest soul, and taking it away can destroy the strongest of men.”
“But you said the princess wasn’t marrying for power.”
“She is not, and such is her and every other human’s folly.” The gloom bristled like the fur of an angry wolf. “They treat love as a blessed thing that hides no shadow, forged between the connection of individuals; found in their embraces and deeds for one another. To them nothing is more sacred. In truth, even love has barbs as sharp and poisonous as even the most treacherous weed.”
“Oh!” said Morris. “Like what me and Ginger have.”
The bristles in the dark suddenly abated and pulled away. “What?”
“I mean, I don’t know about the ‘barbs’ and ‘poison’ bit. And some weeds are quite tasty if you can stand a bit of bitter–”
“Who is Ginger?” the voice asked.
Morris felt his tiny throat tighten. The voice generally didn’t like it when he brought himself to the conversation, usually responding with dismissal or sometimes anger, but the bit about Ginger had just slipped out.
“Uh,” Morris began, verbally tip-toeing on this unsteady ground. “Well … Ginger’s my mate.”
“Your … mate?” The words seemed reticent.
“Yes,” Morris answered, wading out further. “We share a nest together. And I always save her some cheese when I find some, especially Parmesan, because that’s her favourite. And when it’s cold in the castle walls, she nuzzles up to me to try and keep me warm, even though I don’t mind the chill that much. And sometimes if I’m getting tired with caring for the pups, she’ll–”
“Pups?” the voice interrupted again. “You have children? When did this happen?”
“Well, we had a litter a few days ago, but we’ve had a few before now. Since, uh …” he trailed off. He was still getting used to the idea of measuring time the same way the voice did. “A year back, I think?”
The shadows drifted downwards like a heavy fog, the voice quiet the whole time. Morris, initially, didn’t make a sound either, but eventually he built up the courage: “She makes me happy,” he said. “Is … is that what love is?”
After another, weightier silence, the voice from the settling shadows said: “Yes. I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“No,” said the voice. “I do not.”
“Why? Did you want to?” Morris asked. “Do you want to ask Ginger? I can bring her.”
“I–” the voice began, “I do not think that would be a good idea. In fact, I think this is where our conversation should end.”
“Huh? Why?”
“I must ruminate on some things.”
“Oh, okay,” Morris said, not knowing what ‘ruminating’ was or why the voice had to do it alone. “When did you want me to come back?”
The darkness slowly pulled itself away from Morris. “Never. Do not return, Morris. You are no longer beholden to me.”
“I don’t understand,” Morris said.
Morris didn’t understand a lot of things, but usually he could be content with that; some things were too big for a mouse to understand, and that meant it was none of his business. But the voice telling him not to come back … Morris didn’t understand that. He tried to and failed. It frustrated him.
It saddened him.
But no matter how many questions Morris asked, the darkness remained still and silent, until the small mouse, with no other options, turned and left through the gap in the wall.
#
For a long while the darkness slithered and wrestled and writhed all alone, tossing and turning with the restlessness of an angry sea, even as the doors to the room grew less heavy every day, and an unnatural, golden light began to glow faintly from the cracks.
Then, when the light glowed brilliantly and the doors themselves looked as if they might buckle, a small mouse poked into the room through a crack in the wall.
The shadows froze. “Morris?”
“Hullo,” said the mouse in a creaky voice, “It’s been a long time, I think.”
Not a tuft of the mouse’s fur wasn’t silvery white, and his eyes, once pure black, had become cloudy and grey. When he walked, there was a hitch in his step, as if one of his legs wasn’t as strong as it used to be.
The gloom rushed to the mouse’s side as if to support him, but the only thing the dark tendrils could do was swirl weightlessly around the little creature’s paws and tail as he tottered into the thin shaft of light. “Ahh, that’s better,” he said, squinting in the brightness as he stretched and lay down.
The shadows drifted around him in silence for a moment. “How is Ginger?”
“Gone,” said Morris.
“Oh.”
“Most of the pups too,” he added. “It’s fine. They had full lives, I think.”
The darkness said nothing. It continued to swirl at the mouse’s feet. Morris meanwhile, looked directly into the light coming from the doors. “It’s almost time, isn’t it?”
“It will be any day now I expect,” replied the voice. “The spell is beginning to break. Soon the doors will open and I will be unleashed upon the world once more.”
Morris tried to scratch his ears and looked sidelong at the shadow surrounding him.. “You don’t sound very excited.”
The voice did not reply immediately.
“Morris,” it then suddenly said. “You said that Ginger and your pups had full lives. What about you? Have you had a full life?”
“About as full as one can hope for a mouse. But my life’s gone on a bit longer than normal, I think.”
The light behind the door pulsed, illuminating the room in a way that hadn’t been possible before. The stone walls, once foreboding and strong, were now a tired grey, the sconces on them rusted, the damaged metal frames barely holding on.
In the dimness, the shadows rippled as a dark puddle on the floor. “Things were simple before,” said the voice. “There was only me and the other, and they could only live short lives devoid of meaning. In a sense, I was a mercy; they were flames that longed to be infernos when in truth they could burn no brighter than embers, and I was the gale to blow them out. But now…”
The voice trailed off. The mass of darkness shivered. “I think I feel cold.”
“Well, there’s lots of sunny places outside to curl up for a nap,” Morris said cheerily. “Especially on a full stomach. And you’ve always got fresh baked bread out there, not to mention cakes and pies.”
In quiet tones, the voice said, “Bringing the end of all things does not leave much time for napping or eating.”
“The end of all things, except mice,” Morris reminded him.
“Yes. I remember.”
Morris stared at the light streaming in, and he imagined that if it was possible, the gloom was too. The door creaked.
“It can’t have been easy,” he said while watching the rolling shadows, “being in here for so long. I’m used to hiding in tight, dark spaces, but I’m a mouse; I’m supposed to. But with whatever you did to me back then, I could go wherever I wanted, see lots of sights, eat lots of food–more than a mouse usually gets to. I met Ginger while I was exploring like that. I didn’t get to tell you last time.” Morris blinked slowly. “I never would have found her if it wasn’t for you.”
The shadows were still.
As the creaking of wood began to grow louder, Morris extended a tiny paw. “Here.”
“What are you doing?” The gloom pulled back.
“You need a vessel or something, right? Ginger made me happy. You deserve to be happy too, if that’s what you want.”
“I want for nothing.” said the voice. “I am not meant to.”
“Everybody wants something.” Morris reached a little further towards the shadows. “And it’s okay if it’s not what you wanted at first.”
The darkness gathered tentatively, as if afraid to touch him.
“It’s alright. Please,” Morris said. His eyelids were beginning to droop. “I’m tired.”
Slowly, carefully, a small wisp of darkness just barely grazed the mouse’s paw, and the shadows asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “what do I do out there?”
Morris closed his eyes. “Try the cheddar.”
A tendril of shadow entwined with the mouse’s weak grip. The voice spoke again: “Thank you, Morris.”
There was a loud rush of air, and the light from the spell became swallowed up in a whirlwind storm of shadow and noise. But as suddenly as it had begun, the cacophony ceased, and the room was empty, save for the body of a small mouse that lay in the centre of the floor. And as the room’s doors opened slowly, exposing the room to the rest of the world outside, the thin shaft shining on the mouse grew until it shone like a spotlight. And with a heavy thud the doors stopped. The magic light suddenly faded, and the open doorway stood, showing the way to grey emptiness beyond.
The mouse got up.
He blinked with his beady black eyes and scratched himself. Then he licked his forepaws and began to bathe, his fur coat turning from silver to taupe where he patted it down. When he was finished, he gazed at the open door, sniffed at it, then turned around and scurried into the crevice in the opposite wall, leaving the room, now finally empty, behind.
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