The Zero Curse

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Well done,” I said, as I pushed the dispeller against Akin. Rose wouldn't have stood a chance against an older magician, not normally. But the dispeller had destroyed all of the woman’s protections. “She nearly had us.”

  My cheek throbbed, but I had no time to tend to it. Instead, we studied the woman’s unconscious body while Akin searched her. She was in her early twenties, I estimated, although I couldn't tell much else about her. Her face was a rich chocolate colour, shades lighter than my own; her clothes were cheap, probably completely untraceable. She would have been attractive, if she hadn't been trying to recapture us.

  “Nothing much,” Akin said. He held out his haul. A couple of Devices of Power and a simple gold chain she’d worn as a bracelet. I took the chain and inspected it, then waved the dispeller over the metal. “What do you think it means?”

  I shrugged. The chain hadn't been magical, as far as I could tell, but it would be costly. And yet, everything else about her was cheap.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I looked up and saw more people running towards us. “But we have to move.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “They’re everywhere,” Akin said. “Where do we go?”

  I glanced at the villa. The call was getting stronger, yet ... yet I felt no threat. And besides, Akin was right. The hunters were closing in rapidly. We might be able to hide in the villa, or find a place we could defend, or ... I caught Rose’s hand, trusting that Akin would follow us.

  “This way,” I said. “Come on!”

  The shouts grew louder, intermingled with whistles, as we raced down the road towards the villa. It was massive, yet there was something about it that nagged at my mind. Two stories, as far as I could tell; surprisingly intact, despite its location. And there were no gargoyles, nothing to suggest defences ... I told myself, sharply, that I could be running straight into a trap.

  There’s no choice, I thought. We don’t dare let them take us prisoner again.

  The gate was open, inviting us into a tiny courtyard. It looked odd to my eyes - there wasn't room for a carriage to turn unless the driver was prepared to scrape the walls - and there were no plants within view. Perhaps it was meant to be empty, I thought, or ... perhaps we were about to sneak in through the servants’ entrance. The other side of the villa might be far grander. Or ... I pushed the thought out of my mind as we reached the wooden door, temptingly ajar. I was surprised it had lasted so long, despite the location. The wood should have decayed long ago.

  I paused, forcing myself to think. The call was coming from inside the villa. And that meant ... we could be walking into very real danger. There was still no sense of threat, but there wouldn't be. A trap wouldn't look like a trap, would it? I’d heard of plants and animals that had a hypnotic effect on their pray. There were spells that did the same thing, drawing their victims in and holding them until it was too late. None of them looked like deadly traps.

  The sounds from behind decided me. I pushed the door open, then led Akin and Rose into the villa. The inside was cool, so cool that I found myself shivering. There were no windows, yet ... yet it wasn't dark. Light seemed to fan through the room, coming from ... I couldn't see where it came from. Dad’s warnings rang in my mind as I closed and bolted the door, cutting off the outside world. I didn't think it would slow the hunters down for long. They wouldn't want to go into the buildings, but they didn't have a choice. They’d have to find us before we made it out of the city.

  “The magic here feels wrong,” Akin said. He tried to cast a spell, but the spellform refused to take shape. “Cat ... where have you brought us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, truthfully. The villa didn't feel bad, not to me. But Rose looked uneasy, clutching my hand as through it was a lifesaver. Akin didn't look much better. “I think ...”

  The door shook. I said a rude word, then led the way into the next room. The villa was large enough for us to sneak to the far side, surely ... unless the hunters had already surrounded the building. I forced myself to keep going, anyway. We couldn't keep second-guessing ourselves until we froze, unable to decide what to do. The noise seemed to quiet down as we entered a passageway and vanished altogether as we entered a third room. Somehow, I didn't feel that was a good thing.

  “Someone lives here,” Akin said. “And we shouldn't be here.”

  I frowned. The room was a dining room, utterly frozen in time. There were plates on the table, plates covered with food ... it looked as through whoever lived in the villa had just stepped out for a moment, as though they would be back at any moment. My eyes swept the room, noting the wooden cupboards, the large portrait on the wall and the tiny stuffed donkey sitting on one of the seats. I felt a pang of grief for the child who had owned the toy, centuries ago. She - or he - would be nearly a thousand years dead by now.

  Rose made an odd sound. “Why is the portrait so weird?”

  I followed her gaze. There were twelve people in the portrait, five of them women. The men were facing outwards, their faces clearly drawn; the women had their backs to the painter, their figures barely recognisable as feminine. One of the girls was clearly younger than me, yet she had her back turned. I couldn't help wondering what it meant. Dad had never insisted that I turn my back when I sat for a family portrait.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Akin said. “My family has a collection of ancient paintings from the empire. They never depicted female faces, not once.”

  Rose and I exchanged glances. “Why not?”

  Akin shrugged. “Isabella asked,” he said. “My father didn't know.”

  I considered it for a long moment. The empire had given us so much of our culture - everything from clothes to etiquette - that I found it hard to understand why our portraits were different. Perhaps it was something that hadn't survived the collapse, a holdover from the days before the empire had conquered most of the known world. My ancestors had lost most of their culture when they'd been brought into the empire, but the founders might have kept something of theirs. There had been a belief, if I recalled correctly, that knowing someone’s face was enough to cast a spell on them.

  But that makes no sense, I told myself. They wouldn't be making portraits of anyone if that was true.

  I reached for the stuffed donkey, only to have it crumble to dust the moment it touched my hands. My fingers tingled; I brushed away the dust, feeling another pang of bitter guilt. The toy had been perfect, frozen in time until I’d tried to pick it up. Cold logic told me that the original owner was dead, but ... but it was hard to believe it. I didn't really want to believe it.

  “Don’t touch the food,” Akin said.

  Rose smiled. I hesitated, then nodded grimly. Who knew what would happen if I touched the food? I didn't want to find out the hard way. Instead, I looked around the room again, trying to see if there was anything else we should look at before we hurried onwards. There were books on the shelves, locked in a glass-fronted cabinet. I wanted to take them, but I didn't dare try. They might crumble the moment I touched them too.

  A crash echoed through the building. I exchanged glances with Akin and Rose, then led them out of the eerie room. The hunters seemed to be moving slowly, but that wouldn't stop them catching us. I wondered if we could defend the room, yet ... it didn’t seem likely. We’d beaten one by sheer luck, but there were too many ways in and out of the dining room for us to hold it for long. And they’d know about the dispeller by now.

  Another crash, directly ahead of us. I cursed. They’d delayed long enough to surround the villa, then break in from both sides at the same time. It was likely to work, too. If they kept pushing from the front and the back, they were going to catch us between them. I looked from side to side, then led the way up a set of stone stairs. It might buy us more time.

  And I went down the wall once, I thought, as we crept up the stairs. We can do it again.

  The call seemed louder, somehow, as we reached the top of the stairs and glanced around carefully. Everything still seem
ed suspended in time. The carpet under our feet was intact, even though it should have rotted away hundreds of years ago. I led the way down the corridor, peering into the four bedrooms. Two of them were definitely for children, judging by the size of the beds. I wasn't the tallest girl in my year, but the beds were still too small for me ... if I could have slept on the beds without breaking whatever magic was holding them suspended in time. The other two were either for older children or adults.

  And that one is for a woman, I thought. A half-opened wardrobe was clearly visible, crammed with dresses and scarves. I couldn't help thinking that much of what we knew about the empire was clearly wrong. Why had the women covered their hair, perhaps even their faces? What else have we forgotten over the years?

  I heard voices from down below. The hunters had found the stairs. They might not know for sure we’d gone up, but they’d put a guard on them anyway. And ... when they figured out we weren't on the ground floor, they’d go up themselves. I wondered, sourly, if we could ward the stairwell, but I knew it would be pointless. Akin presumably could cast a dozen different wards - Dad had drilled them into Alana and Bella from a very early age - yet I doubted he could cast anything that could stand up to an adult magician. And none of the Objects of Power I’d forged could help.

  We slipped down the corridor as the voices grew louder. One room was clearly a playroom, crammed with toys; another was probably a small office, the walls lined with bookshelves. I promised myself that we'd come back, if we made it home. The books needed to be recovered before ... before what? The glee of discovering something new was tempered by the awareness that thousands of books had survived, in libraries or collections all over the known world. Their owners had parsed them out, trying to figure out the secret. But none of them had deduced the truth.

  “Crap,” Akin muttered. “They’re coming up the stairs.”

  I barely heard him. The call was suddenly very loud, leading me - leading us - into another office. It was larger than Dad’s office, yet ... there was something regal about it. The walls were lined with gold and covered with portraits, a couple of which I recognised from the ancient tomes. Emperors, dead and gone years before their empire had crumbled into dust.

  And yet, the room was oddly bare. No bookshelves, no fireplace, no windows ... just a couple of chairs, a solid wooden desk and a door on the far side of the room.

  Rose gasped. “We’re trapped!”

  I glanced at her. “What?”

  “There's no way out,” Akin said. I could hear people coming down the corridor towards us, searching every square inch of the building. “Cat, we’re trapped.”

  “There’s a door there.” I pointed to the door. A faint light shone through the opening. “We can go out that way.”

  Akin stared at me. “There’s no door there.”

  I looked back, stunned. I’d never been able to see through illusions; I’d never even been able to sense them, not until I’d forged my spectacles. Alana had made me walk into walls or closed doors a couple of times, just by casting illusions she knew wouldn't fool anyone else. But now ... why was I the only one who could see the door? Was it because I was the only one who could hear the call?

  “There’s a door there,” I insisted. I walked around the desk, wishing I had the time to go through it. The office looked as if it belonged to someone important. But maybe it was just for show, a place to hold meetings with visitors. Dad didn't do his important work in any of the offices he showed to outsiders. “Come on.”

  I reached out and waved my hand through the door, half-expecting a spell to bite me. Alana had done that too, hiding a hex under an illusion. But there was nothing. My fingers met empty air. Akin stared at me, perplexed. It dawned on me, slowly, that he really couldn't see the door. Rose seemed more inclined to take my word for it. But what was on the far side ... I saw a corridor, I thought, but ... but there was something odd about it. I didn't really know what I was seeing.

  “Come on,” I repeated. The sounds from outside were getting louder. “We have to move.”

  Rose hurried over to join me. Akin cast a quick spell on the doorway, then walked over as I led the way down the corridor. I noticed he had his eyes shut as he walked through the hidden doorway. To him - and Rose - it must have seemed as though I had stepped right into a wall. And yet ... his eyes jerked open as we passed through, clearly shocked.

  “The magic ...”

  The floor vanished. We fell, crying out in shock. I had a brief impression of utter darkness washing towards us, then ... then I squeezed my eyes closed. A trap ... I'd led my friends right into a trap. Perhaps it had been configured to snare me, or someone like me, rather than a magician. The Thousand-Year Empire had known about us. They’d probably had ways of dealing with us.

  I felt solid ground below my feet. We’d landed ... we’d landed so gently I hadn't felt the impact. I opened my eyes carefully and looked around. We were in an underground chamber, illuminated by a single glowing orb. My friends were standing beside me, utterly unmoving. I poked Akin in the arm, but felt ... I wasn't sure what I felt. My finger skittered over his shirt, as if there was something isolating him from me. I turned to Rose, but she was just the same. They were trapped like flies in amber.

  Panic crashed against my mind. I clutched the spellcaster tightly, even though there was no visible threat. The dim light made the shadows look nasty ... I couldn't even see the chamber’s walls. And ... the only thing I could see was a scroll, sitting on a small wooden desk. It was surrounded by a faint haze of yellow light.

  The call snapped off the moment I saw the scroll, as if it had never been. It had wanted me to see the scroll, I realised dully. I pulled the dispeller out of my pocket and pressed it against Akin, but nothing happened. The panic grew stronger, threatening to overwhelm me. If my friends were trapped, again ... what could I do? What had happened to us? Where were we?

  I looked up. The gloom was all-consuming, but ... I couldn't see any way up. I didn't even know how we’d gone down ... I’d heard stories about teleport gates and other fantastic magics, but none of them seemed plausible. The power it would take to teleport a grown man from one side of Shallot to the other would be beyond a hundred magicians working in unison. And yet ... I knew we’d fallen ... maybe I was just over-thinking it. It wouldn't take more than a handful of spells to slow our fall, then lock my friends in place ...

  Maybe I was frozen too, I thought. It felt like paranoia, yet ... yet there was no way I could disprove it. There were spells that froze a person’s thoughts as well as their bodies, trapping them until they were freed. I could have been frozen like that too, but ... the thought nagged at my mind. The spell simply couldn't hold me for long.

  I touched Rose’s cheek. It didn't feel like flesh. My fingers touched, but didn't touch ... as if there was a barrier between us. It wasn't something I recognised. Time itself seemed to run oddly within the chamber ... no, within the entire city. The villa had been unchanged until we’d blundered our way into the building. I wondered, as I turned to look at the scroll, just what had happened to the original owners. They’d left in a hurry.

  We’re on the outskirts of the city, I reminded myself. The Eternal City had been huge. I had problems grasping the sheer size of the city, no matter how hard I concentrated. They might have had time to leave before whatever ruined the city reached here.

  I inspected the scroll through my spectacles, but there was nothing. The yellow haze didn't seem to be quite real ... as if it wasn't magic. And yet ... it was there. I held my hand over the haze, unsure if I should touch it or not. It didn't feel threatening, but ... I knew from grim experience that I couldn't sense a threat until it was too late. If there was a nasty spell just waiting for me, I was in trouble. And yet ...

  Bracing myself, I plunged my hand into the haze. It snapped out of existence at once, as if someone had cancelled the spell. I yanked my hand back, but nothing else happened. The scroll just lay there, waiting ... waiting for me. I peered
down at it, yet ... there was nothing. It was just a scroll. I told myself I was being silly and reached for the scroll, half-expecting it to crumble the moment I touched the parchment. Instead, it was easy to open it and read the top line.

  Greetings.

  I frowned. It was written in Old Script, but a very archaic form of Old Script. I supposed it shouldn't have surprised me. The more modern languages hadn't even existed when the Eternal City had collapsed. And yet ... it still felt odd. I’d had the ancient language drummed into my head from birth, but I still had to work to translate every line. The writing was tiny, so tiny I had to squint to read. And the phrasing was archaic. Even the most hidebound of my tutors had clearly spoken an imperfect version of the tongue ...

  Putting the thought to one side, I started to read.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Greetings.

  If you’re reading this - if you gained admittance to this chamber - you’re a Zero.