Maledictions

by Graham McNeill et al.

  ‘You aren’t real!’

  Kalyth’s scream pierced the stillness. Claws whistling through the frozen air, shining, sharp, desperate, she raised her arm and swung. She struck her own body, pain razoring through her, searing, blinding, as she slashed at her branches, hacked into herself. The impacts shuddered through her and branch after branch fell into the snow at her feet. Cold snapped into the wounds. Sap and blood poured down her side and she swung again. Because the Bright One, the little ones, these things, whatever they were, weren’t really beside her. They were in her body, in her head. And she would bleed them out, cut them out, if it killed her.

  Kalyth swung again, woody pulp and bone splitting. She braced her left arm against a boulder. Locked her elbow. Swung. Her claw sliced through skin, bark, bone. Agony flared, a deep heave of pain. She swung again, awkward for the angle. She needed to get him out. All of them out. She swung. Again and again and again.

  Her arm snapped in two with a wet crack. Shock. Pain. She looked down at the severed limb in the snow, her hand, palm up, clenching and unclenching still. Blood gushed from the stump of her arm.

  With a sudden flare of light, the Bright One and all the little ones disappeared from her field of vision.

  For a moment, Kalyth thought it had worked, that she was finally rid of them, but something jolted deep in her chest. Her heart tripped over itself. The Bright One squeezed, dug his teeth into a thick artery. He swelled, pushed himself against her organs, thrust hate and rage outward as if he could stopper the wounds with it.

  Kalyth felt life rushing away from her and still, the Bright One shouted for her to kill. Killkillkill!

  ‘Kalyth!’

  Idrelle’s voice snapped through waves of pain and Kalyth turned, severed branches littering the snow around her, what was left of her arm swinging, sopping and limp, against her side.

  Idrelle bolted up the hillside, her hands outstretched as if she wanted to embrace her.

  The Bright One roared.

  The Bright One surged.

  The Bright One shoved Kalyth away from herself, sliced her from her own body as surely as she’d sliced her own arm away and Kalyth watched helplessly as her body charged, her legs pumping against her will. Kalyth screamed, tried to warn Idrelle, but the Bright One’s voice overtook her own. He flung her working arm back and leaped towards Idrelle. For a moment, Kalyth felt herself suspended, her body launched high into the air, and there was Idrelle below her, confused and terrified, as the Bright One sneered and swung Kalyth’s claw at Idrelle’s head.

  Idrelle scrambled, skidding and sliding on the icy ground, narrowly avoiding the blow as Kalyth’s body crashed to the earth. The impact shoved blood from Kalyth’s mouth and nose. The claws of her hand lodged deep into the ground, wedged into ice and frozen soil. Kalyth bore down, trying to force her body to remain there, pinned to the earth so the Bright One couldn’t attack again. But he took hold of her arm, his grip like a vice and he yanked at her buried claws with all his strength, trying to pull free, trying to kill Idrelle.

  Kalyth screamed again as Idrelle moved into view and the Bright One kicked at her from the inside.

  ‘Kalyth!’ Idrelle’s voice broke, her hands raised and defensive, her own claws ready. ‘What are you doing?’ Idrelle stepped closer and the Bright One snarled and heaved. ‘You’re hurt! Stop it! Stop!’

  Kalyth gasped as the Bright One flared, thundering into every vein, every muscle, every pore. He wrenched her arm so hard Kalyth’s claws shattered. Her fingers dislocated. The Bright One heaved Kalyth’s body upright and rushed towards Idrelle, mouth slung wide, teeth like daggers, hand a cluster of broken, splintered spears.

  Idrelle fell back, but she was prepared this time and her arm slammed into Kalyth’s body as the Bright One attacked, knocking her away so sharply that Kalyth’s body flew into the air. For one suspended moment, Kalyth saw the moonlit sky above her, and felt the wind, cold and terrible, whip into every open wound.

  Kalyth slammed into the boulder spine first. A rib shattered. Her belly bulged where a jagged wedge of stone pierced her. Viscera drooled out of her back and onto the ground. She tried to inhale and couldn’t. She couldn’t move her arms. She couldn’t move her legs. Her eyes were open, but blood was closing over everything. And there was Idrelle, kneeling over her and weeping.

  Kalyth’s breath bloomed over Idrelle’s face, feverish and tasting like lost summers and blood and dying things. Idrelle watched as Kalyth’s eyes unfocused. She watched her best friend die.

  Idrelle pressed herself against Kalyth’s ruined body and tried to beg the life back into her. She clutched Kalyth to her breast, the stump of her severed arm swinging against her side as she rocked her back and forth, back and forth.

  She didn’t understand why this had happened.

  She didn’t understand why.

  Grief surged through her like a rainstorm, like a river. Every inch of her filled with it. She felt it like a thing alive. Like a thousand thousand somethings racing through her and wanting to fill her up. She felt it settle deep in her chest. She felt it grip her heart.

  Idrelle wailed, low and long.

  She held Kalyth until her body grew cold in her arms. As the silence stretched around her, Idrelle thought she heard a whisper. It didn’t sound like the Spirit Song. It was infinitely softer. Infinitely more mournful and deep.

  Slowly, Idrelle stood. Cradling Kalyth’s body, she walked through the frozen landscape. But she didn’t walk towards the sylvaneth grove. Instead, she moved without thinking towards the blue-grey ridge, travelling west towards the outcasts’ camp where the land was rocky and still.

  Just before dawn, it began to snow.

  And the snow wasn’t white.

  It was crimson.

  Toshimichi felt a chill crawl through the hair on his arms as he stared up at the castle of Baron Eiji Nagashiro. The caprices of wind and sun had worn down the ancient walls, gnawing away at them like vultures picking at carrion. The outer battlements had crumbled away, lying in broken heaps around the foundations. Exterior towers were hollow shells, blank windows staring out across the desert, roofs reduced to skeletal beams and ragged patches of tile. The central courtyard was heaped with sand, great mounds that had drifted up against the inner walls. Only the central keep had managed to resist the elements, rearing up from the desolation in a series of tiered platforms with sharply angled overhangs and flared roofs. A narrow spire rose from its highest point and from its balcony a light shone, gibbous and forlorn.

  The scholar clutched his robes more tightly, drawing them close about his body. The driving heat of the desert, intense even in twilight, could not offset the cold that gripped Toshimichi. His agitation was sensed by the demigryph that bore him across the sands. The half-bird clacked its tongue against the inside of its beak and stamped its feet in a display of uneasiness.

  ‘There is no harm for you there,’ Toshimichi told the animal. He stroked its feathered neck and tried to calm its anxiety. The demigryphs of Arlk were renowned for their endurance, but also for their obedience. The most prized had an almost empathetic bond with their masters, sensing the intent of their riders without the need for command. Toshimichi’s steed had picked up on his own reluctance to proceed. The animal, however, could not understand that sometimes a man must go where he did not want to go.

  Sho Castle. Toshimichi had read much about this place… even before the deaths began. None of what he had read was to its favour. This, after all, was where the curse had started so long ago. His mother had had dreams of this place before she died. His brother had spoken of it that last night before he too…

  Toshimichi focused on the beckoning light. He prodded the demigryph with his spurs and urged it onwards despite the feeling of dread that gripped him. ‘I am expected,’ he said. ‘Baron Eiji has sent for me. It is unseemly to keep a baron waiting.’

  The de
migryph slowly advanced towards the ruined castle. Each step made Toshimichi’s pulse quicken. The atmosphere of danger was palpable, but there was something else as well. The promise that had accompanied Baron Eiji’s summons.

  The promise of answers.

  The promise that the curse could be undone.

  Few improvements had been made to Sho Castle since Baron Eiji had reclaimed the fortress. The keep was largely barren, entire sections closed off and unused. The great hall in which Toshimichi was conducted by the baron’s taciturn retainers seemed even more gigantic by dint of its scant furnishings. The long table that stretched across the middle of the room was its dominating feature, an opulent piece with ornate carvings of writhing dragons and fiery phoenixes adorning every inch of its surface. The chairs arrayed around it were similarly adorned, though their condition varied wildly from one to the next. Some gleamed with the lustre of care and polish while others were faded and scarred, pitted by worm-holes and worn down by neglect.

  Though there were many niches in the walls for statues and trophies, only that directly behind the head of the table was filled. A suit of armour bearing the symbol of the Nagashiro clan squatted on a teakwood platform while a pair of crossed swords rested in the rack behind it. Toshimichi gave them only a brief glance. He knew what these pieces were meant to represent. He also knew that the real ones had been destroyed centuries ago.

  That fact was clearly not lost upon the others who were gathered around the table. A hefty, sallow-faced man dressed in the extravagance of a cosmopolitan shook his head as he squinted at the armour and swords. ‘I know artisans who could make more convincing copies in their sleep,’ he chuckled. ‘Eiji should have spoken to me if he wanted some fakes.’

  ‘Perhaps the baron wished to have a less garrulous man handle so delicate a matter,’ opined a white-haired man seated near the end of the table. Pale and thin, dressed in the robes of a priest, he was almost the antithesis of the rich merchant. ‘You are quite boastful, cousin Masanori. Sometimes discretion is preferable to ostentation.’

  ‘He’ll fool nobody with those fakes,’ Masanori scoffed. ‘Even shut away in that temple of yours, Gunichi, you could tell they aren’t real.’

  The dark-haired woman seated across from Masanori gestured to the armour with a delicate wave of her powdered hand. ‘Perhaps the only person Eiji is trying to fool is himself,’ she suggested.

  Toshimichi nodded in agreement. ‘An interesting supposition,’ he said. He gave the woman an apologetic smile. ‘Do you know the baron well?’

  The woman fingered the tassels on her silken tunic. ‘No,’ she confessed. ‘I have never met him. I only know what his brother told me of his eccentricities.’

  ‘That would make you Otami, Mikawa’s wife.’ The statement came from the head of the table. Seated in a high-backed seat was an elderly woman in white robes. Her silver hair was pulled back tight, held in place by a pearl-tipped pin. Her fingers were heavy with jewelled rings, the nails of her small fingers grown out to a length of several inches and sheathed in gold. About her neck she wore a simple chain from which depended an ivory carving of the Nagashiro clan symbol.

  ‘You are Mikawa’s mother,’ Otami said, a note of uncertainty in her voice.

  ‘I am the Dowager Nagashiro,’ the elder replied, pressing a finger to the ivory talisman she wore. ‘Mikawa was my youngest. He did not have a chance to introduce you to any of us before he was… taken.’ The last word fell from the matriarch’s lips as little more than a whisper. A haunted look entered her eyes and she looked anxiously at the shadowy niches all around them.

  Toshimichi interposed himself into the awkward silence. ‘If you have never met the baron then I doubt you have met any of us. I am Toshimichi, a student of the sage Baram in the lamasery of Khult. The sombre fellow at the end of the table is Gunichi, a lay priest in the temple of Dracothion.’ One after the other, Toshimichi introduced the people gathered at the table. Masanori the wheat-trader. Hirao the demigryph breeder. Chihaya the brewer. Emiko the courtesan. Komatsu the swordsman.

  ‘Except for the baron himself, we who are gathered about this table are all that remains of the Nagashiro clan,’ Toshimichi announced when he was finished.

  Komatsu stood up with such alarm that his chair went skidding across the bare floor. ‘What do you mean? What is this?’ The man’s hand closed around the grip of his sword as he glared at Toshimichi.

  ‘Anger will not change truth,’ the Dowager stated. She motioned for Komatsu to sit down, then turned her attention on Toshimichi. ‘You are certain of this? We have not yet seen Sugihara or his daughter.’

  ‘They are dead,’ Toshimichi said. ‘Sugihara took his own life after… after the curse took his daughter.’

  Gunichi crossed his hands in front of him in the sign of the celestial dragon while Masanori drew a small bottle from his belt and took a swig of its contents. Komatsu was more voluble in his reaction.

  ‘Curse? What curse?’ the swordsman demanded.

  ‘The curse that haunts all the Nagashiro clan,’ the Dowager explained. ‘The curse that rises once a century to visit death upon this family.’

  Komatsu shook his head in denial. ‘I am not of your blood! I married Masanori’s daughter!’ He looked at Otami. ‘We are not of the Nagashiro. We have nothing to do with this!’

  ‘But you do.’ The words echoed through the desolate hall. The speaker came striding out from the doorway just beside the niche with the imposter armour and swords. He was a middle-aged man, his hair still a lustrous black, although traces of silver infiltrated his beard. The tunic he wore was a deep scarlet with the emblem of the Nagashiro clan embroidered in green thread. From the centre finger of his left hand, a huge ivory ring repeated that emblem and pronounced his rank and title. Baron Eiji Nagashiro.

  The baron strode into the great hall, his sharp features drawn back in a reproving expression. Two burly retainers dressed in Eiji’s livery flanked him as he approached the table. ‘When you married into this family, you merged your blood with ours. The prosperity of Nagashiro, which you coveted, is yours. And so too is our curse.’

  ‘I want no part of any curse,’ Komatsu stated. He turned from the baron and gave Masanori a withering look. ‘You said nothing about any curse when I courted your daughter.’

  ‘It is a burden all the Nagashiro clan shares,’ the Dowager said. ‘For centuries its shadow has hung over us.’ She wagged a bony finger at Masanori. ‘You should have warned Komatsu. When he hears what is in store for him, he may decide to take your head before Yorozuya comes for it.’

  Komatsu drew his sword, the sharp blade shining in the hall’s dim light. ‘Let this Yorozuya try to take my head! I am the best blade in all the Khanate! I have fought forty-seven duels and never suffered a scratch! Just let this Yorozuya dare show his face.’

  The swordsman’s boasts brought grisly laughter from many at the table. Toshimichi did not share in the morbid humour. He turned towards Komatsu. ‘I have delved deeply into the history of our family and the curse that haunts us. Perhaps there was a time when you could have crossed swords with Yorozuya and emerged the victor, but that day is long past. Yorozuya died almost four hundred years ago.’

  ‘You see, Komatsu,’ Gunichi proclaimed, ‘it is no mortal foe that threatens you, but a vengeful wraith from the underworld.’

  The swordsman sat back down, his face almost ashen in colour. He laid his weapon across the table but kept a ready hand upon its grip. ‘A ghost,’ he muttered. ‘A murdering ghost.’

  ‘A ghost that seeks to murder us all,’ Toshimichi said. He gave Otami a grave smile. ‘When you married into this clan, you became part of our blood as far as Yorozuya is concerned. He will seek your heads as viciously as ours.’

  Otami could not control the tremble in her voice. ‘But why? Who is… or was… this Yorozuya?’

  Baron Eiji took it upon himself to an
swer that question. ‘Yorozuya was the Lord Executioner of King Ashikaga Hidenaga at the time of the Five Princes. One by one, King Ashikaga brought battle to each of the princes and one by one their castles fell.’ He paused and gestured at the room in which they sat. ‘This was one of those castles, and Jubei Nagashiro was one of those princes. The king was determined to solidify his rule and leave no spark of dissent to trouble his legacy. So when he defeated a prince and captured a castle, he called upon Yorozuya to execute the entire family. Down to the least trace of noble blood.’

  Toshimichi pointed to the ring the baron wore and the pendant around his mother’s neck. ‘One of the Nagashiro escaped the massacre. Now, once a century, Yorozuya’s spirit returns to try to complete his duty to King Ashikaga. When he begins to kill, he continues, relentlessly. Once a month, he seeks out a victim. For years he hunts us down, until whatever infernal force drives him is spent. At least for another century.’

  Baron Eiji stepped away from the table and slowly paced the hall. ‘When the wraith is loosed from the underworld, the descendants of Jubei die. It does not matter how far they run, or where they hide, Yorozuya finds them. He raises his great two-handed sword, the executioner’s blade he wielded in life, and with a single stroke he removes…’

  ‘Did you summon us here simply to remind us of the horror that hangs over us?’ Masanori demanded.

  Baron Eiji smiled at the merchant’s outburst. ‘No. I called you all here because this is where it all started.’ He let his words linger in the air, watching his audience as they waited for him to continue.

  ‘This is where the curse started,’ Baron Eiji declared. ‘And this is also where it can be brought to an end.’

  Gunichi gave a sour look at the markings which Baron Eiji’s retainers had scrawled across the floor. The priest of Dracothion did not care for this occult display and made that disdain obvious to the others. ‘No good can come from dabbling in the profane arts,’ he warned. ‘This smacks of necromancy, the dark magic of Nagash.’