The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,95

and I are trying our best to implement his schemes for the invasion of the human world, running around this dank pit like lunatics, ordering demons around who are not the most responsive underlings—”

“Yes, yes, hard to find good help these days,” agreed Magnus hurriedly. He stood up, testing his legs. He was fairly steady; it seemed he had already recovered from the outpouring of magic he had committed on their way down to the cathedral. Recharged by the thorn? He couldn’t know. “What is the Father of Demons doing to Simon and why?”

“He has shut himself into some random torture chamber to torment one Shadowhunter who is in no way a direct threat to him. It’s ridiculous. It needs to stop.”

“Agreed,” said Clary immediately. “Point the way.”

“So you’re going to take us to save Simon,” Alec said, making sure he fully understood, “so that Sammael stops being distracted and gets back to the business of destroying the world.”

“Yes,” said Shinyun. “Take it or leave it.”

“Wait,” said Magnus. “I need to ask you something first.”

Shinyun cocked her head a little to the side. “Oh?”

Magnus hated to ask Shinyun any questions about himself, his thorning, his current state. He had no reason to believe her answers, for one thing. And she would use it as an opportunity to lecture him again. But he didn’t understand what was happening to him, and behind that incomprehension lurked fear.

“You said I was suffering from the thorn,” he said, “but that’s not true. I’m getting stronger. My magic is getting more powerful. I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand?” said Shinyun.

Magnus said, “I don’t understand how, without a third thorning, I die. If you ever had the slightest fleck of mercy in you,” he pleaded, “you have to explain. So at least I know what will happen. Will I suddenly weaken? Will I wither away?”

“No,” Shinyun said. “You will simply take on more and more of the thorn’s power without being fully bound to its master. Your magic will grow stronger, and wilder, and less in your control, and you will become a danger to yourself and the people around you. If they don’t abandon you, they’ll surely die themselves.”

Magnus stared.

“So I’ll feel better and better and better,” he said. “Until I suddenly feel much worse?”

“No,” said Shinyun. “Until you suddenly feel nothing. That is why everyone takes the third thorn. The choice is no choice at all. Now, shall we go get your friend?”

A glow emerged from her chest, the same red as Magnus’s magic. With the ease of a master painting a line, she drew a Portal in the air with her index finger. It opened on a chamber of black obsidian spikes. In the background, a pool of something red bubbled. “Hmm,” she said. She gestured with her finger, and the view through the Portal changed. Now they were looking at a huge white stone plate toward which a gigantic millstone descended. “Not that, either.” She gestured again and then again, flipping through different destinations.

“Hell of Iron Mills… Hell of Grinding… Hell of Disembowelment… Hell of Steaming… Hell of the Mountain of Ice… Hell of the Mountain of Fire…”

“Lots of hells, huh,” said Magnus.

“Can we hurry this up?” said Alec.

Shinyun gave them a withering look and kept browsing.

“Hell of Worms, Hell of Maggots, Hell of Boiling Sand, Hell of Boiling Oil, Hell of Boiling Soup with Human Dumplings, Hell of Boiling Tea with Human Tea Strainers, Hell of Small Biting Insects, Hell of Large Biting Insects, Hell of Being Eaten by Wolves, Hell of Being Trampled by Horses, Hell of Being Gored by Oxen, Hell of Being Pecked to Death by Ducks—”

“What was that last one?” said Jace. Shinyun ignored him.

“Hell of Mortars and Pestles, Hell of Flensing, Hell of Scissors, Hell of Red-Hot Pokers, Hell of White-Hot Pokers, ah! Here we are.” Through the Portal seemed to be a limestone cave, dense with stalactites and stalagmites, a great mouth of fangs. Loose iron chains lay scattered across the ground like a nest of sleeping snakes.

“What’s that one called?” Alec said.

“No idea,” said Shinyun. “Hell of Wasting Time Torturing Someone Unimportant. Go through before I regret this.”

They kept their weapons at the ready and passed single file through the Portal into the cave.

The interior of the cathedral had been dank and musty, but cool. By contrast, the cave was scorchingly hot, and dry like the inside of an oven. Magnus followed Alec, Jace, and Clary as they picked their way around the stalagmites jutting