The Portrait's Grin

The air in the Grand Portrait Gallery of Castle Blackwood hung thick with the scent of old oil and dust, disturbed only by the anxious rustle of Lord Elias Thorne’s silk robes. Elias, a mage of considerable, albeit self-taught, skill, paced before the stern visages of long-dead lords and ladies, his brow furrowed in characteristic stubbornness. His page, young Thomas, stood by the arched doorway, a silent, watchful presence, his gaze fixed on the polished floor as if tracing patterns invisible to others. Thomas was often misunderstood; perceived as simple or slow, he possessed a quiet intensity that Elias, in his perpetual self-absorption, rarely noticed.

“The King is dead,” Elias muttered, not to Thomas, but to the echoing chamber and the painted eyes that seemed to follow his movement. “And Prince Regulus ascends. A weakling, they say. A man more suited to prayer books than battle maps.”

A messenger had arrived moments ago, breathless and mud-splattered, bringing the news that would ripple across the kingdom. For many, it was merely a change of guard; for Elias, it was a tremor that promised opportunity. He had long longed for something more than his comfortable, if slightly constrained, life as the castle’s resident sorcerer. He craved influence, power, a seat at the table of the powerful, not just a corner in their library.

He stopped before the largest portrait, that of King Theron the Cruel, whose painted eyes seemed to gleam with a malicious intelligence. Legend whispered that Theron had dabbled in forbidden arts, seeking power not just for his reign, but for himself. Elias felt a kinship with that ambition, a spark of recognition for the insatiable hunger that gnawed within him.

“A new era,” Elias said, turning abruptly to Thomas, who flinched slightly, startled from his reverie. “And with it, new possibilities.”

Thomas merely nodded, his expression unreadable. Elias dismissed the boy’s silent assent, his mind already racing. The ascension of a weak king meant a power vacuum, a chance for those with cunning and strength to rise. And Elias knew where strength lay – not in armies or gold, but in knowledge, in the ancient, potent magic hidden within the castle’s stones.

He spent the following days poring over ancient texts in the castle library, dusty tomes bound in cracked leather, their pages brittle with age. Thomas would bring him meals, his movements quiet, his eyes occasionally flicking towards the arcane symbols and diagrams that filled Elias’s workspace. Once, Thomas reached out as if to touch a particularly disturbing illustration, a grotesque figure writhing in chains, but Elias, engrossed in translating a difficult passage, shooed his hand away impatiently.

“Careful, boy,” Elias snapped, without looking up. “This is not for your eyes. Go, fetch more lamp oil.”

Thomas retreated, his face unreadable as ever, leaving Elias to the whispers of the past. Elias discovered references to a hidden chamber beneath the oldest part of the castle, a place where King Theron was said to have communed with ‘entities not of this sphere’ to gain unnatural power. The texts spoke of a ritual tied to blood and shadow, performed during times of significant transition, like the death of a king and the rise of another.

The descriptions were unsettling, filled with warnings of madness and corruption, but Elias’s stubbornness interpreted these not as dangers, but as tests of will. The longing for ‘something more’ twisted within him, a desperate craving for the power that would elevate him, that would make him indispensable in the new court. He ignored the creeping dread that began to infest the castle – the cold spots that moved like living things, the faint, unnatural sounds that echoed in empty corridors, the way the portraits in the gallery seemed to shift their expressions when he wasn't looking.

One evening, as Elias meticulously copied a complex summoning circle, Lord Valerius, the King’s Chamberlain and a man Elias had always considered a rival for influence at court, appeared in the library doorway. Valerius was a man of sharp features and sharper wit, seemingly dedicated to the mundane affairs of state, yet Elias felt a constant, unspoken antagonism from him.

“Still buried in your… curiosities, Elias?” Valerius’s voice was smooth, laced with what Elias perceived as condescension. “The new King arrives within the week. There are matters of state requiring attention, not dusty legends.”

Elias bristled. “Legends often hold truths, Valerius. Truths that men like you, bound by parchment and protocol, would never comprehend.”

“And some truths are best left undisturbed,” Valerius replied, his eyes holding a depth Elias couldn’t fathom. “Be careful, Thorne. Ambition is a hungry beast.”

He departed as silently as he arrived, leaving Elias seething. Valerius was trying to distract him, to keep him from discovering the true source of power, no doubt intending to claim it for himself. The rivalry was clear. This only hardened Elias’s resolve. He would find the chamber, he would claim the power, and he would rise above Valerius and all the courtly schemers.

Following cryptic clues in the texts, Elias located a hidden passage behind a loose stone in the castle’s deepest cellar. Thomas was with him, carrying a lantern, his small face pale in its flickering light. As they descended a narrow, winding staircase, the air grew heavy and cold, carrying a faint, metallic odour. Thomas stumbled, dropping the lantern. It clattered down several steps, plunging them into darkness save for a faint, phosphorescent glow emanating from the stones themselves.

“Clumsy fool!” Elias hissed, fumbling for his tinderbox.

Thomas didn’t respond, but Elias heard a soft, scraping sound. When he finally relit the lantern, he saw Thomas standing utterly still, his hand outstretched, fingers tracing a pattern on the damp stone wall. The pattern was one Elias recognised from the forbidden texts – a binding symbol.

“What are you doing?” Elias demanded.

Thomas slowly lowered his hand, his eyes wide and distant. He didn’t speak, but his gaze seemed to plead with Elias. Elias, however, saw only obstruction, another delay caused by the boy’s strange behaviour. He pushed past Thomas, his impatience overriding any concern.

The passage led to a large, circular chamber. In the centre stood a stone altar, stained dark with ancient residue. Runes covered every surface, pulsing faintly with that same sickly light. The air here was thick with a palpable presence, a feeling of immense, ancient power that was both intoxicating and terrifying. Elias felt his heart pound, his blood sing with dark energy. This was it. The ‘something more’ he craved was within reach.

He consulted the final passage of the text, identifying the ritual needed to draw upon the power. It required a focus, a conduit, and a sacrifice. As Elias prepared, tracing the final lines of the summoning circle around the altar, a voice echoed from the entrance of the chamber.

“Stop, Elias!”

It was Valerius. He stood there, not with guards, but alone, his face etched with a mixture of fear and grim determination.

“So, my rival reveals his true colours,” Elias sneered. “Come to claim the power for yourself?”

“You fool!” Valerius stepped forward, his hand outstretched, not in threat, but as if to ward something off. “This isn’t power to be claimed! It’s an entity, a parasite that consumed Theron and has lain dormant, waiting for a fool like you to awaken it during a moment of transition!”

Elias laughed, a harsh, broken sound. “Lies! You want to keep it from me! Well, you’re too late!”

He raised his hands, ready to utter the final incantations. Valerius lunged forward, shouting, “No! It’s not a rivalry, Elias! I was trying to stop you! This chamber is a prison, the rituals are bindings! Thomas! Help me!”

Elias faltered, glancing back at the page. Thomas was no longer by the entrance. He stood closer to the altar, his body rigid, his eyes glowing with the same phosphorescent light as the runes. The scraping sound Elias had heard earlier – Thomas hadn’t been stumbling; he had been reinforcing the binding symbols, trying to subtly deter Elias, misunderstood in his silent efforts.

But Elias’s stubbornness, his blind ambition, had already set the wheels in motion. The runes flared, the air grew impossibly cold, and a presence, vast and utterly alien, began to coalesce above the altar. It was not the surge of controllable power Elias had envisioned, but a tearing, a rending of reality.

Valerius screamed, recoiling as shadows detached themselves from the walls, writhing and reaching. Thomas let out a sound Elias had never heard him make, a guttural, inhuman cry, and the glowing runes on his skin flared, a desperate, final attempt at containment.

But Elias had broken the ancient bindings. The entity, formless and hungry, lunged not for Valerius, but for the one who had awakened it, the one whose desperate longing for ‘something more’ had created the perfect void for it to fill. Elias felt an icy tendril pierce his mind, followed by another, and another. His consciousness fragmented, his ambitious thoughts consumed and replaced by something vast, ancient, and utterly, horrifyingly alien.

The last thing Elias Thorne saw was Valerius, his face a mask of horror and regret, and Thomas, his small body radiating a futile, desperate light, as the portrait's grin in his mind widened into a gaping, cosmic maw. The power Elias had craved was his, but the price was everything. The castle, the kingdom, the world – they were now merely potential feeding grounds for the horror he had unleashed, all because he was too stubborn to see an ally, too blind to understand the silent warnings of a misunderstood page.