Curse of the Forgotten City

by Alex Aster

  Tor thought heavy thoughts and plunged beneath the sea, following her down, feet pointed toward the abyss.

  A mangled shipwreck rested on the seafloor far below. Vesper darted inside with impressive speed, eyebrows furrowed. “Come on, come on, come on,” he heard her say to herself, over the clatter of things she moved and pushed away deep in the belly of the ship. It was grand, bigger than Cloudcaster, with a large bird on its helm, wings spread wide.

  Tor wanted to get closer, to see what she was doing. What she was looking for. But before he could, Vesper bolted out of the skeleton of the vessel. He followed her, back up to the surface.

  “I have it,” Vesper shouted to the deck, her head bobbing out of the water. Tor stood on the ocean once more, watching Vesper climb up to the second step of the ladder, then crouch, one hand still gripping the railing.

  The other held a golden comb. She reached down and lightly brushed it against the surface of the sea.

  Silence.

  Nothing stirred. The waves continued to lap against the anchored ship, lazy and undisturbed.

  “Try again,” Engle said desperately. “You have to, this has to work. Please.”

  Vesper reached down once more, expression wary. But before she could comb the sea another time, a pale hand broke through the pitch-black water and gripped her wrist.

  Vesper gasped in shock, and the comb fell, disappearing beneath the water.

  A head broke through the waves. She had hair golden as sunlight spun into silk, the comb now dug into the crown of her head. The siren’s eyes were the pink of dusk, and much larger than even Melda’s, framed by lashes so long they touched her cheeks.

  Vesper blinked, as if struck by her beauty. “We—we—”

  “You’ve found it,” the siren said, her voice buttered velvet. The mermaid’s tail briefly stuck out of the water behind her in a happy swoop. It was covered in bright, glittering scales, her fins a gauzy, feathery salmon pink. “Make a wish—and make it count.”

  Melda spoke from the deck, her words guttural and desperate. “Save our friend, Tor. Cure him of any sickness or injury,” she said. “Please.”

  No. He wouldn’t let them waste their wish on him. Not when they could find the pearl. He wasn’t worth it. He rushed forward, running atop the sea, wanting to object, to give the mermaid another wish.

  The siren turned to watch him as he approached, like she could see him. Her head tilted to the side in curiosity, before she nodded at Melda.

  And he was yanked by his feet to the bottom of the sea.

  A Warning to Untested Pirates and Sailors

  Sirens are not the only temptresses of the sea. In the vast blueness, one must rein in greed—and desperation. For both lead to mistakes. And mistakes, at sea, are nearly always deadly.

  Orangebalms are a trail of tiny islands meant to tempt pirates and sailors into lowering their anchors. Dwarf fruit trees line their shores, sprouting golden apples, honey mangoes, and purple peaches. More than enough to tempt a dry, hungry mouth. But these fruits are plump with poison—even the thick, sweet-smelling liquid inside the tree’s branches is deadly to the touch. The sand beneath them is volcanic, hot enough to burn through flesh. And beyond those plants, vicious creatures await. Vampire leeches, flies that feast on eyeballs, and snakes with venom that dissolves skin and bone.

  These islands can be easily recognized by the orange ring of rocks around their coast, a pretty feature that often makes them more attractive to the unknowing. They are the exact inverse of an oasis and should be unquestionably avoided.

  Treasures also pose risks. Many a golden coin has been misenchanted, injected with dark power. Pirates who have come across these cursed riches have found themselves stunned permanently, shrunken to the size of a grain of sand, or transported alone into the middle of the ocean. Those with cursesensory emblems are prized crew members, for only they can smell the bitter scent of misechantment. That is why treasure is often carried in wooden chests—for a smart pirate does not touch their loot until a cursesensor can be consulted.

  It is also why thieves rarely survive long on pirate ships.

  Perhaps the greatest warning of all: For those willing to steal from the sea, the consequences can prove deadly. Guardians lurk below, giant creatures that can swallow ships whole.

  The ocean is full of ancient beasts who awaken when someone has taken a treasure they cannot keep.

  12

  Perla

  Tor hurtled off the bed, landing on the floor. He heard steps on the stairs, then Melda burst in, quickly followed by Engle and Vesper.

  Melda threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. “You—you were gone, Tor! You were dead, you were so cold and blue…”

  Engle embraced him next, and Tor was shocked to see his friend’s eyes rimmed in red. Engle nodded gravely. “She’s right, Tor. You died. We all thought...” He straightened and nodded. Tried and failed to smile. “But you’re here. You’re okay.”

  Tor didn’t have the heart or energy to tell them that they should have wished for the pearl. That maybe, that way, their mission wouldn’t be doomed.

  Because the prophecy had been right.

  One of them had died—only to be brought back.

  Which meant that the other half of the prediction would also come true. They would fail on their quest to find the pearl.

  Part of Tor had wanted to give up the entire journey, even as he sailed forward. But now, having seen the sacrifice his friends had made, he realized it wasn’t about him or his Night Witch abilities.

  It was about them. And he would die a dozen deaths to make sure they never did.

  All of Emblem Island was counting on them.

  He turned to Vesper, who watched him, wide-eyed, from the other side of the room, arms across her chest. Her hair was still wet, forming a small puddle at her bare feet. “Thank you,” he said. “I know you didn’t have to help me, so thank you.”

  None of them asked how Tor could have known how Vesper helped. She simply said, “I’m glad you’re all right,” before leaving the room.

  Tor turned to his friends.

  Melda sighed. “I don’t trust her for a second. But she’s not so bad, I suppose.”

  Engle nodded. “And we need her, now.”

  His friend was right. With the wish used up, they now had to use the compass the way the blood queen had intended—with someone from Swordscale holding it. Only then could the compass lead them to the pearl.

  They just had to hope that the spectral, the Calavera captain, and the Swordscale traitor hadn’t found it yet.

  Though grateful for Vesper’s part in his rescue, Tor couldn’t help but play back the night’s events, starting with the capsizal.

  Why had Vesper taken the fortuneteller’s skull?

  He rested through the night, sleep sweet like sapphire and thick as syrup. He slept all morning, too, almost through the afternoon. By the time he surfaced, Tor was starving, and they were nearing land. Ships passed by, leaving and entering the harbor in front of them. He thought it must have been a busy port.

  “Tor!” Engle said, smiling wide. He ran down from the upper deck. “How did you sleep?”

  “Well, thanks,” he said, his voice coming out raspy and cracked. He was thirsty—and had just realized it. “Are we stopping?”

  Vesper appeared, holding the compass. “We’ve been going where it leads us.” She opened her map, and Tor frowned down at the markings running along the planks at his feet.

  “The pearl is in Perla?”

  Engle shrugged. “According to the compass, at least.”

  “How did the ship sail without me?”

  Melda strode toward him. “We didn’t think it would—but we explained the circumstances to the mermaid, and the ship listened. It was still tethered to you, of course, can’t sail without you.” Sh
e swallowed. “When you were gone,”—Melda shuddered—“the ship stopped moving completely. The sails went out. That’s how we knew.”

  Tor felt very much alive, but could not fathom the moments Melda and Engle had thought him dead. If anything happened to either of them…

  No. He banished the thoughts. He was saved, for them—to help the two people who had continuously risked their lives to be there for him, without question. Using the comb to save him was a debt he could never repay—but he could make sure they succeeded in finding the pearl, saved their village, and got home safely.

  And that was exactly what they were going to do.

  Perla’s harbor stretched across an entire mile of coast, capable of hosting over a hundred vessels. Ships three times the size of theirs perched merrily in their own dedicated slots, each carved from luxurious wood that looked smooth and new. He noticed they were grouped by figurehead. Some ships had a roaring lion, plated in what looked like gold. Nearby, there was a small fleet of vessels helmed by horses. Then, warriors. Great serpents. And, finally, birds.

  Perla’s port was bustling with trade, the market starting far out into the docks. They disembarked and took their ship with them, only to meet a variety of merchants, each one yelling louder than the last.

  “Fresh cod, the flakiest on Perla!”

  “Oysters, the best you’ll find on Emblem Island!”

  “Rare tiger-striped mackerel, with lemon slices included!”

  “Genuine enchanted fishing rods, guaranteed to catch you dinner tonight!”

  “Fried fish with fried potatoes and purple pickles!”

  “Does Perla have a queen, like Zura?” Engle asked Melda, eyes wide with hunger as he surveyed the stands of food.

  “No. Perla is run by the five top merchants, who are said to hoard the best enchantments in Emblem Island, imported from every coast.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not surprised the pearl’s here. It’s probably in one of their palaces.” She pointed up at a cliff that framed the city. Five palatial houses were built in its side, each connected by a bridge.

  “How on Emblem are we supposed to get up there?” Engle asked.

  Tor didn’t know. It looked like the houses were well guarded. “Let’s just keep following the compass.”

  Vesper held it firmly in her hand, glancing down at her palm every few seconds. The needle led them down the docks and past luxurious seaside apartments and town houses, made of striking white marble. It was a city of wealth. The streets were perfectly crafted in stone, not a crack in sight. Shops lined the streets at the bottom floors of town houses, their products neat and simple inside. Through windows, Tor saw spider silk clothing, jewelry made from gems the size of small potatoes, a hat shop with hats enchanted to do all sorts of marvelous things, like whisper into the user’s ear the name of approaching strangers or warn the wearer of impending danger. Or so the man standing outside advertising them claimed.

  Everyone in Perla wore a hat, some in strange shapes, like bows and birds. Each in a range of colors: lavender, butterscotch, indigo, violet, blush, and juniper.

  Someone with an illusion emblem stood in the center of the road and painted the sky with an invisible brush, creating floating ribbons and balloons that burst, only to appear once more. By the looks of it, Perla was preparing for a celebration.

  “They certainly like chocolate here,” Melda said. Every block had a chocolate shop, with prices in the windows that made Engle’s eyes bulge.

  “Ten dobbles for a chocolate bar?” he yelled. “It better be made of gold!”

  “It is,” Melda said, reading the sign.

  “The City of Seekers,” Tor said softly, remembering what Captain Forecastle had called it.

  Melda smirked. “Indeed.”

  “This way.” Vesper turned onto a narrow side street, and they followed, squeezing past women wearing dresses that took up practically the entire block.

  Melda studied them, fascinated. “I’ve never seen fabrics like these,” she said quietly. “They’re enchanted.” One of the dresses turned from ice blue to pink, then shortened to its wearer’s ankles when she encountered a small puddle on the road. Another grew sleeves and a cape when the woman complained of the slight breeze.

  Vesper turned again, this time onto a street lined with pubs that looked nothing like the Crusty Barnacle. She stopped, and Tor ran into her back. “It’s…moving a lot,” she said.

  The needle whizzed this way and that, as if confused, before finally settling on a direction.

  “That means the pearl is moving,” Melda said.

  Tor nodded. “Which means someone has it on them.”

  Vesper walked faster now, almost running down an alleyway. Perla’s chatter and fine music fell away as they traveled to its seediest part, which, even then, was nicer than most villages.

  The streets were nearly empty. The shops all looked closed. Even the sun seemed to shine less here, blocked by the taller buildings closer to the harbor. Tor spotted a sign on the corner of a street, marking the place as Galaway Lane.

  “Seeking something?” A man wearing a fine long coat stood behind them. He wore a hat that had real flames burning on its rim, yet somehow the fabric remained unscorched.

  “No,” Melda said firmly. And they continued past him without another word.

  Engle swallowed. “I don’t like this place.” He looked around, squinting into the distance. “I feel like someone’s following us.”

  Tor wished they could turn back around. He felt uneasy, too, like they were all being watched. Yet, the compass’ needle continued to lead them farther down the street, deeper into the darkest part of the city.

  A scream echoed down another alley, not far away. Followed by another.

  Melda winced, her hands in fists. “There are rumors,” she said quietly, “that the city is so rich because it runs on the profits of dark enchantments.”

  Tor’s mouth went dry. He had heard about dark enchantments once, from a classmate who had gotten sent home after the teacher had heard him talk about them. They were born from pain—usually from forcing someone to enchant an object. And they always required blood.

  The compass swung toward an alley.

  Everything in Tor screamed to run. But they had made it this far. They were so close. So they walked down the alley, only to find a solid wall at the end. Nowhere else to go. And no sign of the pearl.

  The compass needle stopped moving.

  “What happened?” Engle asked. Something dripped nearby. A rusty door creaked. Smoke billowed from the building next door.

  Vesper shook the compass, trying to get it to work again. But the needle went limp. “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything differently.”

  Melda looked around. “It must be this place. The number of enchantments might be affecting it somehow.”

  Tor turned to walk back down the alley and froze.

  The Swordscale traitor stood there, next to the Calavera captain. His floating hat was now coated in flames, just like the man from the street. Tor’s stomach dropped. He watched as the Calavera captain pulled a matchstick from his pocket, lit it with the blaze on his head, then whispered a word into the flame. It glowed purple for the briefest moment.

  Then, it extinguished, along with every streetlight.

  In the near darkness, Tor could barely make out a figure who appeared in a flash of mauve.

  “Spectral,” Vesper hissed.

  The Calavera captain and the Swordscale traitor were gone. Vanished.

  Another flash, and a different spectral appeared. And another. They blocked the alley completely.

  None had a mouth, the skin pulled taut where one should have been. Still, Tor felt them as they stepped closer, reaching into his mind, prying it open like a stubborn oyster.

  We’re here to collect you, a slithering voice said right into
his brain.

  Melda tensed next to him. Engle gasped.

  Vesper let out a sob. He wondered what they had said to her.

  They backed into the wall, nowhere to go. And the spectrals inched closer, their dark robes dragging behind them.

  Vesper raised her hand as if to make them small, but her fingers shook. She groaned with effort, but seemed frozen in place.

  Are you ready to watch your friends die, Tor Luna?

  The spectral was standing in front of him now, the skin of his face stretching up like he was smiling.

  Tor cried out, cradling his hand. His lifeline—it was shrinking right before his eyes. Vesper had said that lifelines weren’t reliable at sea anymore, which was why theirs hadn’t changed at all during their journey, even moments from death…

  But they were on land now. The rainbow line shrunk smaller and smaller still, until it was barely there. Engle and Melda’s were practically gone. The spectral took a step forward.

  And crumbled to ash as an arrow hit it.

  Another arrow whizzed right past Tor’s nose, finding its next target. The third remaining spectral sent a cloud of smoke up as a shield, then threw a mighty beam of purple fire through the air, aiming for where the arrow had come from.

  But another pierced it, from the opposite direction.

  And the spectral fell to pieces.

  Tor’s lifeline grew again, back to what it had been before, an agonizing process, the rainbow lines stitching themselves back into his skin. There was a clatter at the mouth of the alley.

  The man from Galaway Lane who had spoken to them appeared. He lit a match on his hat and neared the three piles of ash as if to reignite them. But a voice from above said, “I wouldn’t,” and the man ran away.

  Tor recognized that voice.

  A moment later, a figure dropped down from the roof, holding a rope.

  Captain Forecastle. He wore a shirt without sleeves, revealing a long arrow emblem that ran the length of the inside of his forearm.

  There was commotion on the roof of the opposite building, and Forecastle quickly lifted his arm wrist-side up, pulled back with the other, and released—the arrow emblem shot out down his palm, then became real as soon as it left his skin, only to be replaced by another.