The Cursed Crown

by Matthew S. Cox

  Oona glanced at her with a ‘how could you say that?’ expression.

  “It’s a bit difficult to hunt down and kill Nimse after they’ve eaten you. Once out of that cell, I would not have rested until I’d tracked those wretched men to wherever they hid and sent them to Tenebrea.”

  “Yes, but even if you killed them, there’s still the memory of what they did.”

  “I…” Kitlyn sighed. “Perhaps we should stop talking of such things. I am on edge enough down here.”

  “Yes. I agree.”

  Soft whispers and scratching noises came from up ahead.

  “They’re watching us,” said Kitlyn.

  “I don’t see anything.” Donal grabbed his sword but didn’t draw it.

  Kitlyn opened her thoughts to the Stone. Hundreds of small feet and hands gripped here and there, staying just beyond the radiance of Oona’s light. “They are close, but calm. Either the light is keeping them at bay or they saw us bypass that shrine.”

  Marta jumped and whirled to look back at a soft scrape. “Perhaps both?”

  A clatter of falling small stones came from ahead. Moments later, the cave-in Kitlyn remembered—or at least the opposite face of it—emerged from the darkness.

  “Is this the damage your giant caused?” asked Lonn.

  “No. It was here already. Maybe Lucen did it. If this passage had been clear, I never would have found Omun.” She put her hands on her hips, studying the complete blockage. Dirt had fallen in from above along with many giant slabs of rock that had once been ceiling. “If this had been clear, I’d have walked straight out into Lucernia, gone back to the castle hoping to get help for Oona… and probably been locked away. Either in a cell or a bedroom.”

  “Speaking of things I’d rather not talk about…” Oona rubbed her wrist.

  A Nimse leaned out from one of the holes in the giant dirt wall, lips peeled back enough to emit a tentative snarl.

  “That’s different.” Kitlyn braced for it to rush at her. “Last time, they came after me pretty much right away.”

  “Perhaps they are afraid of six people?” asked Donal. “Or the light?”

  Kitlyn couldn’t tell if the Nimse remained oddly calm because she hadn’t disturbed a shrine. Maybe it feared Oona’s light, didn’t want to attack seven people, or some act of the gods held it back. Regardless of its motivation, she didn’t want to waste time on a pointless question.

  She opened herself to the sense of the Stone. As she had pictured the tunnels behind the dungeon she’d escaped from, a sense of her surroundings manifested in her awareness. The cave-in continued for about sixty feet, riddled with tunnels like a termite nest, though no chambers existed, suggesting they’d burrowed only to be able to go back and forth past the collapse. If I can tear Castle Cimril apart at the seams, I can clear this. “Can you understand me?”

  The Nimse tilted its ball-shaped head, still snarling. Both bean-shaped nostril eyes might’ve been focused on her. Hard to tell as they lacked pupils, being solid black. It continued to lean out and duck back, emitting low growls like a frightened dog hiding in a burrow.

  Kitlyn looked at Oona. “Be ready with the light. This may disturb them.”

  “What may disturb them?”

  “I’m going to clear this corridor.”

  The soldiers gave her various looks of incredulity.

  Oona nodded.

  “If you can understand me, you should leave that tunnel,” said Kitlyn.

  She closed her eyes and held her hands out in front of her, palms down. As Kethaba had taught her, she reached inside herself to the ‘core’ of her magic, sending warm tingly waves of power throughout her body. The stone beneath her feet warmed. A faint rumbling started in the ground in response to her wrapping her consciousness around the massive blockage of dirt and stone.

  Like molding clay, she commanded the great hunks of rock to melt and slide out of the way of the earth, which she pushed upward. Startled Nimse screams pierced the roar of upheaval. Soldiers ran close on either side of her, but Kitlyn didn’t break her concentration or open her eyes. Letting go of the effort too abruptly might trigger an even worse collapse and kill all of them.

  “Go back,” yelled Oona. Armor rattled. A second later, “No, I’m talking to them.”

  “Oh, right,” said Marta.

  Warmth intensified from the right, no doubt from Oona making her orb brighter.

  In Kitlyn’s mind, the image of a liquid mass of dirt flowed up the side walls, pouring into the opening above from whence it had fallen. As the last of the doughy mass settled into place, she guided the liquid stone back to the ceiling, shaped it flat, and melded it with the parts that had not collapsed. She sealed hundreds of cracks and fused the walls of Underholm solid once more.

  Bewildered high-pitched chirps echoed in the distance.

  “By Lucen,” whispered Lonn. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Not even the high priest has such power.”

  Kitlyn gradually relaxed her magic until she trusted the ceiling to hold, then let go entirely and opened her eyes. “I am sure the high priests have as much or more than I do. Mine is merely different.”

  “From Evermoor.” Donal took his hand off his weapon. “She is using stoneshaper magic.”

  His tone didn’t imply insult, so Kitlyn nodded at him. No trace of any Nimse remained visible in the wide open corridor, except for the faint scratching of small bodies running away. Some traces of dirt remained, a sixty-foot wide swath of damp brown ahead of them instead of the pale grey dust everywhere else.

  “That was… incredible.” Oona gazed around at the ceiling, her eyes wide. She made her light ball glide upward for a better look at the perfectly flat stone. “It would’ve taken workers many months to clear such a collapse if at all.”

  Kitlyn resumed walking. “I now know where I am. It truly is a straight line between Lucernia and Evermoor. The central chamber had enormous passages leading north and south. Their city may stretch for miles underground. This highway cuts across it.”

  A short while later, the passage leading to the chamber where she had discovered Omun came up on the left. Seeing it made her shiver at the memory of the wall swarming with Nimse. She crept down the side corridor, curious to survey the damage or look for ways the Nimse could’ve escaped to the surface. She remembered the ceiling had allowed some sunlight in. The cracks remained as they’d been before, still packed with thick roots. It didn’t look as though any Nimse had used it as an exit, so she saw no need to mend the stone.

  Oona advanced to the end of the ledge, peering down the four-story-deep room. “That must be where Omun slept.”

  “Be careful.” Kitlyn took her hand and looked down as well. An Omun-shaped hole remained in the wall and floor where his lower body had been buried. The Nimse that had fallen to its death no longer lay there. “The pool at the bottom is only a few inches deep. One of them fell and died, but it’s gone. Do they care for their dead?”

  “Something bothers me about the Nimse,” whispered Oona.

  Donal moved closer to her. “Other than their enormous teeth and vicious little claws?”

  Oona managed a feeble smile at his whimsical tone, but nodded. “Yes. Something else.”

  “They are not quite animals.” Kitlyn headed back to the main passage.

  The group walked in relative silence for a few hours, the constant whispering and scratching of Nimse coming from beyond the reach of Oona’s light. The soldiers kept close behind them, all on edge and spooked at the constant sense of being surrounded.

  Eventually, the light fell upon another pair of enormous doors, hanging ajar. Kitlyn slipped past the gap into the massive chamber that looked like the main street of a city in miniature. Most of the façades in the walls only came up to her face, roughly two stories’ worth of construction in the span of ten feet.

  Gwynn whistled. “This is the city of the Na’vir. It’s much more elaborate than I imagined.”

  “Such ruin.”
Donal advanced in a gradual, rotating spin, looking around at everything. “What caused this?”

  Oona shook her head. “I only wish I knew the answer to that.”

  “You should put your hair up, highness.” Marta started to swipe her fingers at it, but hesitated. “It’s nearly past your seat and will get in the way during a fight.”

  “I’m hoping we do not have to fight.” Oona fidgeted. “If I am crossing swords with someone… or something, circumstances have already gone quite awry.”

  Kitlyn looked back and forth over the huge chamber while walking forward. Every time her foot hit the ground, she lofted a cloud of swirling grey dust. On the far side, the opposite doors to the ones they entered lay bashed down, the result of Omun carrying her back out to Evermoor. A line of destruction cut across the square where he had trampled benches, statues, and columns.

  “There…” She pointed, and moved up to a fast walk, approaching the smashed door.

  A sizeable hunk of ceiling had fallen along with the doorjamb, exposing earth. Though the ground had a healthy collection of small dirt piles, it appeared the Nimse had cleaned most of it up. A large recently-dug tunnel led nearly straight up from the spot of exposed earth.

  “This is where they traveled to the surface.” Kitlyn gestured up at the opening.

  “Excellent.” Marta nodded. “Will it be enough to repair that and be on our way?”

  Kitlyn widened her stance and slid her feet back and forth to get past the dust to solid stone. “I do not know, but I shall try.”

  Omun had left enough rubble in the city square that she had no shortage of material with which to repair the ceiling. She raised spires of stone from the ground to push the gargantuan door upright. However, lacking the ability for her magic to affect the hinge plates, or any ladders for someone to reach them by hand, she propped the door against the wall and proceeded to liquefy rubbled stone and move it to the damaged area. Before long, she had mended the ceiling and wall.

  “Navissa’s nethers!” rasped Lonn. “Here they come!”

  Kitlyn whirled around. The city center had exploded to life with Nimse. The four-story-tall chamber with eight stories of walkways and building faces turned black under a wave of thousands of diminutive bodies. The creatures crawled sideways upon the walls, darted across the ceiling, and swam down to the floor, rushing toward them like a liquid mass of teeth.

  Lonn grabbed Kitlyn by the arm and whisked her into the corner by the doorjamb. Within a second of her catching herself on the wall, Janna shoved Oona in beside her, mushing her against the stone. All five soldiers formed a human barrier between them and the onrushing legion.

  Kitlyn gawked at the size of the horde. Even bringing all thirty soldiers wouldn’t have mattered.

  Damn. I should have asked Omun to come with us. I could call for him, but he would never make it in time to matter. She summoned a large rock, shrouded in green magic light, readying to hurl it into the crowd. The soldiers drew their weapons. Twelve feet of open floor separated them from the charging Nimse.

  Ten.

  Six.

  Kitlyn launched the stone at one, smashing its ball-shaped head open like a rotten melon. Its companions swarmed around the dead one like it didn’t exist.

  Teeth and swords clashed in a clamor of clanking and screeching.

  Oona thrust both her arms upward, and her orb bloomed from dark blue to pure white, blinding in its intensity.

  The mass of Nimse screeched in unison and recoiled, stopping like water against an invisible barrier.

  Kitlyn raised rock spires in front of the soldiers, trying to create a defensive wall. One clipped a Nimse, knocking it over backward. Janna kicked the first one to get close to her in the face, flinging it away. Another leapt in teeth first, but she raised her sword to block. The creature dove back howling, black blood pouring from its mouth. Gwynn slashed one on the arm, then suffered a bite to her thigh before pounding that one in the head with the handle of her blade. It collapsed to the ground and curled up. Marta swung her sword back and forth in an effort to keep Nimse at a distance.

  “Wait!” shouted Oona. “Don’t kill them.”

  Donal looked up at her in bewildered alarm after killing his second one.

  “What?” Kitlyn whirled to stare at her. “Are you serious?”

  Donal whispered apologies to Tavin for not being able to see him again.

  “They’re hesitating. Praise Lucen!” said Gwynn.

  Oona took a step closer to the soldiers. Wisps of azure energy swirled up her arms, adding to the orb, brightening it. Hundreds of Nimse raised their arms to shield their tiny eyes, all recoiling. A few whimpered in fear. Seconds later, the nearest ones screamed in panic and raced away into the mass, seeking cover of darkness.

  “Please,” said Oona. “Don’t hurt them. I… have a feeling. I think I understand why we were sent here. We are not meant to destroy them.”

  25

  The Court of Nazadur

  Oona

  Keeping her light high and bright, Oona squeezed between two soldiers, advancing on the wall of Nimse.

  They continued shrinking back from her, wailing in pain and turning their heads away—until their secondary eyes a little behind where human ears should be caught the light. They screamed again before darting into the crowd.

  While hiding behind the soldiers with her back against the wall, staring at the vast army of small murder-mouthed horrors, a sudden inspiration she could only credit to Lucen changed her terror to pity.

  The touch of Lucen urged her toward mercy, not conquest.

  “He sent us here to help them,” said Oona. “That’s why I felt like we had to come ourselves. If you had sent only soldiers, perhaps with other priests of Lucen, they would have thought nothing of slaying the Nimse… and likely would’ve been overwhelmed. Look at all of them.” The sheer amount of Nimse presently staring at her frightened her at the implications of how that battle might have gone. And after wiping out the likely small force, they would have spilled out and fulfilled her vision, crawling all over Cimril.

  Kitlyn drew a sharp breath. “You are the kindest, most gentle soul to walk upon Lucernia. Only you could possibly feel compassion for these creatures.”

  Oona glanced back at her. “You do not?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. Though my first meeting with them wasn’t exactly on wonderful terms. Attempting to bite my head off is not what I would call a pleasant greeting.”

  “They cannot help themselves.” Oona turned and rested a hand on Gwynn’s thigh. “Something compels them.” By Orien’s mercy, may your wound be cleansed. Sun-orange light welled up around her hand, seeping into the young woman’s leg.

  Gwynn made a face like she’d stepped barefoot in slime. A moment later, she stared in reverent awe. “Highness… you’re a healer as well?”

  Kitlyn rubbed the left side of her neck.

  “Orien has bestowed his gift to me, yes. It is somewhat recent. I’m only still learning.” Oona bowed her head and offered a quick prayer of thanks to him.

  “Not to challenge you, highness.” Janna kept her shield high, trying to position herself between Oona and Nimse. “But how do you know?”

  “I am sure of it, but I know not why.”

  Donal muttered a brief prayer to Lucen.

  “Stay close and do not stray from the light.” Oona moved the orb to a point directly above her head and advanced at the mass of Nimse, following the inexplicable pull urging her deeper into Underholm.

  The brilliant light parted the sea of snarling creatures, changing growls to simpering whines of pain. As each front row scrambled away from the searing light, the next moved in, preparing to attack, but recoiled once the glow fell upon them at close range.

  Oona veered to the left, following the path of the subterranean city street.

  “You’re going south,” said Kitlyn. “Why are you going that way? It’s deeper into their city… let us head for the exit.”

 
; “You know it is south?” Lonn pointed his sword in that direction.

  “Yes. The Stone tells me where I am.”

  Oona smiled. “I feel we must go this way. Trust in Lucen.”

  “Oh, I do.” Kitlyn looked around. “I trust him. It’s the Nimse I have little trust in.”

  The street narrowed from the great open square, reminding her of a large thoroughfare in the heart of Cimril, only with stone overhead instead of sky. Ruined shops and dwellings lined both sides, painstakingly carved from solid stone. Oona suspected something akin to stoneshaper magic had a hand in it due to the exactness of lines. The soldiers huddled close, keeping their blades pointed outward at the aggressive Nimse hovering just beyond the circle of light. Every so often, one swiped a claw at the air.

  Oona stared at the Nimse in front of them walking backward as fast as she advanced. The creatures focused on her appeared less hostile than the others, almost as if they could somehow sense she didn’t wish to harm them. An inexplicable notion that they all suffered some sort of intense pain—other than what her light caused—increased her pity for them as well as her urge to help.

  “Perhaps Orien rather than Lucen led me to this path,” whispered Oona. “It matters not, I understand and will do as you ask.”

  The fist-sized light ball drooped, its eye spots making it appear tired. Before the light could falter too much, Oona bolstered it with another prod of desire.

  “Please don’t let that light fail… or we will all wind up in lots of rather small pieces.” Kitlyn gave her arm a squeeze.

  The soldiers emitted uneasy noises.

  “Worry not.” Oona reached up to brush her hand over the orb. “He’s tired. Not used to being this bright for this long.”

  “He?” asked Kitlyn.

  “Don’t you see his little eyes?” Oona smiled.

  “Is he really alive or is it something you did… like a puppet?” Kitlyn tilted her head.

  “I’m not really sure, but I like to think about him that way. He’s cute.” Oona again ‘pet’ the light ball. It wobbled in response.