A Hero's Curse

by P. S. Broaddus

  “Tig, be nice,” I say. I turn back to Chatter. “Others have done it. The Urodela escaped. And the heroes crossed the desert twice. And then apparently you led King Mactogonii across as well.” I am getting a little annoyed. “What alternative do we have?”

  “The Urodela f-f-fled for their lives when this was st-still a swamp, and thousands d-d-died. King Mactogonii told me that the Urodela have a s-s-song about the R-R-Redlan River called the ‘River of Poured Out S-S-Sorrows.’ The heroes crossed the desert because they’re h-h-heroes, and there were hundreds of them the s-s-second time. Even then they had to f-f-fight b-b-beasties all the way to the St-St-Stone Forest and still several of them d-d-died. The k-k-king tried to c-c-cross alone, undetected, in s-s-secret, and he nearly d-d-died. So it just seems extraordinary that you w-w-would attempt a f-f-feat that looks impossible.”

  I change course since this line of conversation is getting us nowhere. “What can you tell me about the Cauldron? And what about the daemon?” I ask. “He lives near here?”

  “I only know what K-K-King Mactogonii told me while we were t-t-traveling. I led him for t-t-two days, so there was a lot of t-t-time for him to t-t-talk. He didn’t talk as much as I did but that’s b-b-because I’m just more interesting.”

  “Right,” I interrupt, “but about the Cauldron . . .”

  “Oh, yes, the B-B-Burning Cauldron is the source of the d-d-daemon’s army and much of his p-p-power, according to your king. It’s some kind of p-p-portal. King Mactogonii said that’s wh-wh-where the d-d-daemon came from, and now he’s b-b-bringing other things through, too.”

  “How did the daemon get through?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. I’d never heard it called “the Burning Cauldron.”

  “I don’t know how he g-g-got through,” says Chatter, definitely exasperated now. “I think s-s-something about the C-C-Cauldron makes both the wind and the heat. He c-c-controls it somehow. He f-f-feeds the d-d-dragons stuff that comes out of the p-p-portal so some of the d-d-dragons will do what he s-s-says. Everything he’s b-b-brought through the portal is impervious to this d-d-desert. You aren’t hearing me! You m-m-might not have a home in two w-w-weeks, and here you are, and have a ch-ch-chance to do something about it! But I w-w-would recommend you try to avoid t-t-teeth and slime and f-f-fire and sandstorms.”

  “Why are you so pushy?” I ask, “Really, what can I do except try to get home and warn the kingdom?”

  Chatter raises her voice to a frustrated bark. “Warning won’t do any g-g-good!” Her shrill little voice cuts through the tunnel. “Don’t you s-s-see? Something more is n-n-needed! King Mactogonii b-b-believed that! You’re so insistent on f-f-facing insurmountable d-d-dangers to go home, but you can’t s-s-see that since you’re already here n-n-now, you might be able to do s-s-something about it!”

  “What do you mean I have a chance to do something? I’m nobody!” I shout. “And, I’m blind!”

  “Are you?” says Chatter. She’s quiet for a moment. Tig’s tail is swishing back and forth in a regular, angry rhythm. “I’m s-s-sorry, I thought you just c-c-couldn’t see because we were in the t-t-tunnels. King Mactogonii couldn’t s-s-see down here, either.”

  I blush. I didn’t mean to make her feel sorry for me. She and Tig can see in the tunnels, and it would be natural that I couldn’t see down here. The issue hadn’t come up.

  “She’s b-b-blind?” asks Chatter again, but this time to herself. I raise an eyebrow. “That’s interesting,” she says and begins clicking her teeth again. “P-P-Perhaps the doors . . .” Her attitude changes before I can interrogate. “I’ll t-t-take you as close as I can to the Kingdom of M-M-Mar, even though it may n-n-not be there by the time you r-r-reach it, but f-f-follow me,” she says, scampering out a left-hand tunnel.

  “Why is that ‘interesting’?” I ask Tig as I grab my pack and head after her.

  “No idea,” he responds, his voice flat, but I know it’s bothering him, too. “But I don’t like the idea of following a coward. She’ll run at the wrong moment, and that could be it for us.” I don’t respond. We don’t have a choice.

  Chatter is, well, chatty. She talks and whistles away, telling us about the tunnels, stories of what the swamp had been like years ago, King Mactogonii’s quirks. I had no idea he clicks his tongue in his sleep or hums when he’s pleased. Actually, I didn’t really know anything at all about him. Tig is strangely quiet during Chatter’s nonstop flow of information. I note the irregularity. Tig rarely allows a conversation to go uninterrupted.

  If I wasn’t so distracted myself I would poke him in the back and ask if the cat’s got his tongue. Instead I follow his tail, and let Chatter’s voice wash over me. The tunnel is smooth stone most of the time, high enough for me to walk. At times we take a fork, or it turns to hard dirt, or gets narrow, but there aren’t enough landmarks or dramatic changes to track without being familiar with the tunnels, so I stop trying. Thoughts of family and what to do if they aren’t at the farm are interrupted when Chatter stops.

  “There’s a d-d-door above us here, we’ll j-j-just pop up to have a l-l-look,” she says.

  I can almost feel Tig arch his eyebrows and shrug. We follow up a narrower sloping tunnel, and I can feel the cool stale tunnel air turn hot and stuffy.

  “Qu-qu-quiet now,” hisses Chatter.

  “Look who’s talking,” I hiss back. The air goes from hot to burning and sweat breaks out on my forehead above my blindfold. “Wow, that’s hot,” I whisper. I hear a rock scrape aside and what sounds like brush being moved. The wave of hot air is almost overwhelming. In that second I get a taste of what Chatter was trying to tell us about nothing surviving here. I crawl forward after Tig anyway.

  “Stay low,” says Tig. I feel him halt about a foot in front of me and give a low growl. “What’s the idea, ringtail?” A buzzing shoots up my spine.

  “I wanted you to s-s-see it. To know it’s b-b-beginning,” says Chatter in a small, panicked voice.

  “Know what?” I ask in a fierce whisper.

  “The d-d-daemon’s army,” she says.

  “What do you see, Tig?” I ask, trying to suck in a breath of air, but it’s too hot, and I gag instead.

  “We’re on a rise looking north, Ess. There are thousands down there.” Tig’s tail lashes against my face.

  “What are they?”

  “I can’t tell. They walk upright, two legs, two arms, like humans, but these aren’t humans. For starters, they’re too big.” Tig’s chest starts a low growl that continues through the rest of his description. “They move too awkwardly. Their arms are too long, their legs too short. Their bodies look just like hard black shells, like those horned beetles that eat wood. Their heads are like a beetle’s, too, really small, and they tuck them down into their body.”

  “Do they have weapons? Do they look dangerous?” I ask. I can hear the muffled movements now—the far away sound of confused tramping thumps and the clink of metal on metal.

  “They’re armed for battle, Ess. Big, ugly cleavers. There are arcus vultures flying overhead.” Tig’s tone changes, and he gives a short spit. “What is that?” He backs into the hole a step. His tail is very bushy.

  “A d-d-desert wyrm,” whispers Chatter. Her teeth clack together a few times. “They l-l-lived under the Smoking Mountains far to the N-N-North, but the d-d-daemon brought them here several y-y-years ago. They eat anything.”

  “What does it look like, Tig?” I ask.

  “Its head is the size of our house. It’s moving like an inchworm, dragging its tail and some kind of stinger behind. It has great black horns all around its head and a round, tentacle-filled mouth.”

  “That sounds awful,” I interrupt.

  A high-pitched “screeeeee” floats to us from the plain below. Tig spits again and backs another few inches into the hole.

  “The w-w-wyrm,” says Chatter in explanation.

  I have to know one more thing. “Where are they going?”

  Tig is quiet for a moment, even
his low growl has ceased. The hot air surrounds me, and my clothes stick to my body as my skin pricks.

  “They’re headed southeast.” I know what he’s thinking. There isn’t anything to the southeast except the Kingdom of Mar, Uncle Cagney, Nob, Lilan Garrig, my parents, and our little farm, nestled against the Valley of Fire.

  “Too many, too c-c-close, c-c-closer than I thought they would b-b-be,” says Chatter. “We should get b-b-back underground.”

  We duck back into the tunnel, and I’m grateful as the hot rush of air slows. Chatter scrambles past, her thick tail so bushy it is bigger than she is. We crawl back down, each step cooler.

  “We have to do something,” says Tig, again breaking character. He rarely volunteers for anything. This, perhaps more than anything we have heard so far, shakes me.

  I take a deep breath and press my knuckles against the fabric over my eyes. “I agree. We should do something.” I put a careful emphasis on should. “But what can we do besides warn Mom and Dad?” I ask, a pleading in my voice.

  Chatter volunteers her advice. “Not that it’s s-s-safe, but it m-m-might be safer than heading back to your K-K-Kingdom of Mar. Y-Y-you could find your k-k-king. He knew something about how to st-st-stop this army and the d-d-daemon. Maybe you c-c-can even find what he n-n-needed in the Kingdom above the S-S-Sun. I wouldn’t advise it b-b-but if you insist on d-d-doing more than staying s-s-safe in the t-t-tunnels I can take you to the door in the Reach Mountains, and t-t-tell you everything I know on the way.”

  “I’m sure you will,” says Tig, but I detect a pleased undertone in his sarcasm. “Lead the way.” I arch an eyebrow. I’m about to follow a constantly distressed and nonstop chatterbox under a daemon’s invading army to a distant mountain range so I can find a city that is nothing but myth where a lost king might have gone.

  And now my cat is going soft.

  Chapter 17

  Chatter is true to her word and tells us all she knows about the daemon, King Mactogonii, and even what the king said about the Kingdom above the Sun. She also tells us about how to build nests, her preference of insects, differences in the temperature of sand versus clay, and what a pain it is to dry her tail if it ever gets wet. Not that it has gotten wet in a long time. Tig goes from a reluctant follower to supporter to outright teammate within the day. I think he might have rolled over and declared his undying love when she started talking about how much she hates water, except he couldn’t interrupt her nonstop flow of information, stories, and gossip.

  There are interesting tidbits. Apparently the king said that it would be impossible to defeat the daemon without negating the daemon’s sorcery. I assume the sorcery Chatter mentioned is what Uncle Cagney talked about when he said everything around the Cauldron looked nice, but it was an illusion.

  This makes me think of Dad again. Uncle Cagney said that he had a piece of sunfire that cut through the darkness. I’ve never heard of sunfire. Uncle Cagney had just said it was “powerful stuff,” and it had cleared away the black fog and illusion. Had Dad faced the daemon and lost, even with sunfire? Is that why he resigned as King’s First Champion? Did King Mactogonii know Dad had tried to use sunfire?

  “We had to kill some n-n-nasties along the way,” continues Chatter, “but of course, he was the k-k-king, so the tunnels were no real ch-ch-challenge, I left him when he w-w-went in the door of the m-m-mountain.”

  “What’s the door like?” I ask in the unusual lull.

  “There are s-s-several,” she says, encouraged by active listeners. “I mean, j-j-just one big door into the m-m-mountain, but then there is a circular r-r-room that has several d-d-doors—”

  She pauses, just for an instant, but it is unlike her so I notice. “That’s where he asked m-m-me to come b-b-back here and help anyone else along the w-w-way if I saw them.”

  “Really?” I ask. This is unlikely news.

  “Sure,” she says, “I w-w-wanted to help so I l-l-left right away, but he went on, and I guess from there he f-f-found the Kingdom Above the S-S-Sun, and now he j-j-just needs you to help him f-f-finish what he started.”

  I doubt it, I think. The king probably died somewhere or is still facing a problem way bigger than a Kingdom Champion could help with, much less a blind girl and a snarky cat. I’m also pretty sure the king didn’t ask Chatter to leave and come back to the Gray Wastelands to wait for someone else. It sounds to me more like she abandoned him for some reason, but Tig just grunts and says, “That was smart of him to have you come back.”

  I can’t believe he’s being such a knucklehead, but I let it go. I interrupt a long-winded detailing of Chatter’s preference for hair nests over grass nests. “In the circular room, how did King Mactogonii know which door to take?”

  “I don’t know. He p-p-pointed it out. I’ll r-r-recognize it when I see it.”

  There’s that hesitation again. Not obvious, just the catch of a breath that you come to hear if you can’t watch someone’s expression. Chatter goes on to tell a story about the biggest rat she ever killed and the hardships of living in the Gray Wastelands. I’m beginning to appreciate King Mactogonii’s naming scheme. Although, if I ever do meet him, one of the many questions I’ll have for him is why, of all creatures he could choose to give the ability to speak Lingua Comma, did he choose this one?

  I don’t argue when Chatter says it’s night, and we need to stop. My knee has started throbbing again. My fall yesterday hasn’t had any other serious effects. The cut on my shoulder seems to have been superficial. I suppose it was the sand in the wind that was making it sting so badly. Even though my knee is throbbing, it only started in the past hour, telling me it is probably nothing worse than a sprain. It could have been much worse.

  This time the water in the flask feels decidedly lighter. I realize with a jolt that we probably won’t be able to make it back under the Gray Wastelands without finding water somewhere in the Reach Mountains. As I settle down on my pack and suck the last of the moisture out of a mushroom I realize I am still planning on making it back home. I haven’t given up on the idea. It has just been delayed.

  For some reason this encourages me. I let Tig curl up against my back. Before I go to sleep I feel another bushy tail fold itself next to the warm spot that is Tig. I roll my eyes under my bandana. In a way, I feel separated from Tig. If he wasn’t hanging on to every word—which is a lot of words—this ringtail is saying I could talk to him about what’s ahead. Like the doors in the mountain Chatter mentioned. I don’t like the way she hesitates when she talks about the circular room. Her version of what King Mactogonii said sounds thin to me. I think something happened there. My brain starts to shut down, so I push the tangled thoughts away and try to appreciate the added warmth against my back where Chatter is curled.

  Chatter is perfect for heavy sleepers. Which means she would be perfect for Uncle Cagney or Mom, not me. She wakes us in the morning with a shrill chit-chit-chit-chit that is closer to a dog’s bark than anything I’ve ever heard from a cat. Tig doesn’t say anything, rude or otherwise, which is probably the nicest thing he could have said.

  “Wh-Wh-While we were looking for the door at the top of the m-m-mountain,” says Chatter, “the one to the Kingdom Above the Sun, what a long name, but it’s fun to say, well, the k-k-king told me they used to t-t-trade with the Kingdom of Mar, but he said they had c-c-cut off relations ages ago, and n-n-nobody had t-t-traveled between the two k-k-kingdoms in a long time,” Chatter continues. She doesn’t ever take a breath. I keep waiting for her to pass out from lack of oxygen, but she must have built up some kind of immunity because the only time she really breathes is when she’s asleep. That’s when she snores. And clicks. And whistles.

  “The k-k-king said that according to the histories in the archives in your k-k-kingdom, the d-d-door in the mountain couldn’t be s-s-sealed. He’d never s-s-seen it, but he knew it was there and that it l-l-led straight to the K-K-Kingdom Above the Sun—”

  “Then why didn’t he come back, Chatter?
” I interrupt.

  “I don’t kn-kn-know,” she says. “That’s wh-wh-what you all are supposed to f-f-find out.” She says this slowly, as if explaining a simple concept to a small child.

  “That sounds like it could be dangerous,” I say, voicing the thought that has been bouncing around in my head. “How do we know something doesn’t live in the mountain and didn’t eat the king? Or that the people in the Kingdom Above the Sun didn’t throw him in prison or kill him? You mentioned that even the king said they don’t have a good relationship anymore.”

  “All g-g-good and valid points. Anything c-c-could have happened, fangs or p-p-prison bars or damp or d-d-disease. There is very likely nothing to be d-d-done,” says Chatter, a little faster and higher than usual. Then her voice returns to normal. “B-B-But I don’t think the king is dead. You didn’t know h-h-him. If even d-d-dragons couldn’t kill him then he is t-t-tough, but I s-s-suppose he could die, and b-b-besides the doors to the mountain aren’t that sc-sc-scary.”

  “I didn’t say anything about the doors being scary,” I say. I let the statement hang for a few seconds to see if she tries to backpedal or if Tig has something to add. Instead, there is a rare silence broken only by the swish of Chatter’s tail, the pad of Tig’s paws, and the gentle thump of my boots in the tunnel.

  I shrug. “The dragons pretty nearly killed him,” I mutter. “The whole thing still sounds pretty thin to me,” I say, loud enough for all to hear.

  Chatter ignores me, but her next statement has my ears perked up again. “The k-k-king said there was a m-m-maze through Syteless Peak that, if you could get th-th-through it, would lead to the K-K-Kingdom Above the Sun. I’m good at m-m-mazes, the tunnels under the G-G-Gray Wastelands are a maze. They used to be a city, and it wasn’t a m-m-maze to start with, I guess, b-b-but it is n-n-now, and I know almost all the t-t-tunnels all the way to the Smoking M-M-Mountains in the north.”

  “Syteless Peak? Now there’s a name. Is that why you thought it was ‘interesting’ when you heard I was blind?” I interrupt. “Since when is there a mountain named Syteless Peak?”