The Cursed Lands

by Timothy L. Cerepaka

  Helnia looked at Grandma Deri in surprise. “How do you know so much about the behavior of Arsian thieves, Grandma? I didn’t think you knew so much.”

  “When you’re as old as me, you forget where and how you learned so much,” said Grandma Deri, though it was with a wink and a mischievous smile. “But anyway, you should thank the Dragon Gods that you didn’t get killed or robbed. Most mages aren’t as lucky as you.”

  “That may be so, but I don’t feel lucky,” said Helnia. She rubbed her head. “Actually, I feel stupid, because I was lured out by the woman’s son. I should have seen this coming.”

  “Don’t get so upset about it,” said Grandma Deri, patting Helnia on the shoulder. “We all make mistakes sometimes. Best thing you can do is learn from your errors and try not to repeat them.”

  “Thanks, Grandma,” said Helnia. “But what are you doing here? I thought you were at the school today.”

  “Why, I was coming to meet you,” said Grandma Deri. “I have some important news for you from your brother, Sarzen.”

  “Sarzen?” said Helnia. “What is it? Is he safe?”

  “He is, Helnia, he is,” said Grandma Deri. “But he soon won’t be, I fear, if he goes to the Cursed Lands, like he intends.”

  “Sarzen is going to the Cursed Lands?” said Helnia in surprise. “Why? There’s nothing out there.”

  “Because he is going on a quest to search for the Dragon Gods,” Deri explained. “He spoke with the Elect, who agreed to send him and a team of mages and Warrior Priests to cross the Cursed Lands and find the Dragon Gods, who might be able to help us defeat the Draymens once and for all.”

  “Have they left yet?” said Helnia.

  Grandma Deri shook her head. “No. The decision was just made a couple of hours ago and it still isn’t public knowledge yet. I was only informed of it because I have a friend among the Warrior Priests who told me to tell it to you, because he thought you might be interested in knowing what your brother is about to do.”

  Helnia couldn’t believe what she was hearing; it was almost too good to be true. “The team of mages and Warrior Priests you mentioned, have they been chosen or not?”

  “Not yet, as far as I know,” said Grandma Deri. “But I imagine they will pick out the members for the team very soon, because I understand they want to get this team sent out as soon as possible.”

  Helnia stopped paying attention to Grandma Deri after the first sentence, however. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in her head, while Grandma Deri also rose with her, though more carefully due to her age.

  “Helnia, what’s the matter?” said Grandma Deri in surprise. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “I need to go to the Sanctuary,” said Helnia. “I want to talk to Sarzen about joining his team.”

  “You want to go with him?” said Grandma Deri in surprise. “Why?”

  Because I want to see our parents again, was Helnia’s real motivation, but aloud she said, “Because I’ve already lost my parents and don’t want to lose him, too, not if I can protect him at any rate.”

  “But what about your attackers?” said Grandma Deri. “Shouldn’t you report your attack to the law enforcers? Surely they must know about this.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” said Helnia, dusting off her coat, which had gotten dirt over it when she fell onto the street. “I wasn’t killed and they didn’t steal anything or hurt me very badly. Maybe I’ll report this to the law enforcers later. Thanks, Grandma. See you later.”

  Before Grandma Deri could respond, Helnia was off, heading out of the alley and then turning down the street in the direction that would eventually take her to the Sanctuary. She intended to take as many shortcuts to the Sanctuary as she could; she was not going to miss this opportunity to see her and Sarzen’s parents.

  ***

  Chapter Nine

  One week later …

  Sarzen started when the cart upon which he rode hit a bump in the road. He grabbed the edges of his seat, hanging on for dear life, only to realize that they were still descending the mountains and had yet to reach the plains. But from his current position on the cart, he could see the plains below, which stretched out for as long as the eye could see. He couldn’t even see the Cursed Lands yet; they were too far away, though according to the maps he’d consulted, they would reach the border between Yores and the Cursed Lands in a week if they kept up their current pace.

  “Awake?” said Helnia, who sat behind him down in the cart’s bed. She was sitting against a large crate of food, playing with her necklace, the beads of which glowed with magical power.

  “Yeah,” said Sarzen, nodding. He rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep at all.”

  “You’ve always been that way,” said Helnia with a chuckle. “But you do seem really tired, though.”

  Sarzen didn’t argue that point. Ever since he’d volunteered to go on the quest for the Dragon Gods, Sarzen felt like he’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep altogether over the last week. He had been so busy picking out helpers and allies to bring on the quest, figuring our the route they’d take, getting supplies and vehicles in order, and many other things besides. Granted, the government had aided in some of it, but Sarzen had still been directly involved in most of the preparations, which often meant working late into the night trying to figure out how much food and water and medicine they’d need to take on their trip. It didn’t help that they’d left early in the morning, hours before the sun came up, so they could make good ground on the first day of the journey, meaning Sarzen didn’t get nearly as much sleep as he normally did.

  Looking around, Sarzen realized that he was the only one who had fallen asleep. The train of wagons—six in all, each one burdened with boxes of food, water, medicine, clothes, equipment, and a variety of other supplies—that was going down the path from the mountains to the plains had not stalled. The drivers were still wide awake, steering the horses in the right direction, while the defenders of the wagons kept an eye out on all sides around them in case of an attack from ambushers.

  On the wagon directly behind theirs was Rothel, who was going on about a rousing story of his to a woman—one of the drivers—who looked like she was barely paying attention. It was good to see Rothel in high spirits; Sarzen had chosen to take him along because he was a mage whose magical abilities would no doubt come in handy at some point during their journey.

  Because they wanted to keep the mission tight, Sarzen had been limited to picking out only five Warrior Priests and ten mages. Their basic plan was to head to Ferro’s Pass, which was located in the center of the Cursed Lands, and avoid as much conflict as they could, resting only in places that afforded natural defense and only traveling as long as the sun was up. That meant avoiding Draymens raiding parties and forces; while Sarzen was confident that he and his team could defend themselves, the point of the mission was to find the Dragon Gods, not fight Draymens, which would only waste time and energy that could be better spent achieving their goals.

  The reason they were heading to Ferro’s Pass was mostly based on Helnia’s advice. She had told Sarzen that the Dragon Gods had likely gone through Ferro’s Pass at some point, assuming they had crossed the Cursed Lands as all of the legends said. Because they didn’t have any other clues to go by, Sarzen had agreed that they should go there.

  But Sarzen had to admit, he had been surprised when Helnia had appeared in the Sanctuary and asked him if she could come along. He was at first hesitant to bring her with him, since he didn’t want to put her in danger, but Helnia had been very stubborn and he eventually relented. Besides, Helnia wasn’t entirely helpless; he had seen her use her magic before and knew that she could handle herself in a fight. Still, there was a reason Sarzen had put Helnia in his cart with him and that was to make it easier to defend her in case of an ambush.

  Not that Sarzen had been given complete rein over who to pick, however. While the government had approved of Helnia and Rot
hel, the Elect had picked out a handful of their own men to join the expedition. Sarzen saw one of them right now; a red-haired woman in her early thirties, who sat on the cart behind Rothel’s. She wore a large, warm purple coat, along with a hood that made her look very mysterious. She was petting a little white monkey in her lap, which was her pet.

  She was Misma Henos, a mage who worked for the Elect and who had also been in the Yoresian Army before the Elect ordered her to join the mission. Despite having fought in the Army, Misma acted more like a prim and proper noble lady than a soldier, though Sarzen had been informed that her magical prowess in a fight was legendary.

  For that matter, Sarzen didn’t understand how she could be a mage when she didn’t have a bead necklace. Nor did he understand why Misma had brought along her little pet snow monkey; she had assured him that it could take care of itself, but Sarzen was still skeptical about bringing along what was essentially another mouth to feed. So far, the little snow monkey—named Icicle—had not misbehaved, but Sarzen still would have preferred to leave it back in Ars instead of bringing it along.

  “What are you looking at, Sar?” said Helnia, causing Sarzen to look down at her again. “You seem distracted.”

  “Just Misma’s monkey,” said Sarzen. He got up from his seat next to the driver’s cart and hopped down into the bed of the cart, where he then sat opposite Helnia. “I don’t understand why she brought it along. It won’t be of much help in a fight. I doubt it can even hunt.”

  Helnia looked at Sarzen in surprise before raising her head to get a good look at Misma. “That’s not just a monkey, Sar. That’s a Raugian.”

  “A what?” said Sarzen with a frown.

  Helnia lowered her head and looked at Sarzen again. “A Raugian. That means it’s a type of animal that can generate and channel Raugus energy.”

  “I thought only humans could use Raugus,” said Sarzen.

  “We’re the only species, aside maybe from the Draymens, who have managed to harness its power and turn it into a teachable discipline, but we can’t generate Raugus ourselves,” said Helnia. “Some animals, like snow monkeys, can; they can generate a tremendous amount of Raugus energy, if you feed and raise them right.”

  Sarzen scratched the back of his head as the cart bumped underneath them. “I didn’t know some animals generate Raugus. Can these same animals also be used like beads to channel magical power?”

  “Of course,” said Helnia. “But most mages don’t use Raugians because those types of animals don’t share their Raugus very easily. It usually takes years of training and bonding with a Raugian before it will choose to share its power with you; even if you raise a Raugian from infancy, it still requires a lot of work to get it to trust you with its energy.”

  “Does that mean that Misma is a powerful mage?” said Sarzen.

  “It means she has way more discipline and training than me,” Helnia admitted. “I’ve never had the patience for working with a Raugian. Beads filled with mined Raugus energy are a lot easier to use. Still, when you have a Raugian on your side, it can give you access to more Raugus energy than most mages normally have access to.”

  “Interesting,” said Sarzen. He scratched the stubble on his chin. “If snow monkeys and other animals can generate Raugus energy, why don’t we just use them instead of worrying about the Raugus wells drying up?”

  “Because you can’t just take Raugus energy from a Raugian, like how you can drain a well,” said Helnia. She sounded a little offended at the thought. “A Raugian has to choose to share its energy with you, and sometimes even a trusted Raugian won’t always share its power with you. It’s not unheard of for Raugians to cut off their power to their mages in mid-battle, either because the Raugian got scared or it was wounded or it decided to abandon its mage for whatever reason. It’s not a particularly stable energy source, to put it lightly.”

  “Ah,” said Sarzen. “How do Raugians generate energy, anyway? I thought it was impossible.”

  “No one knows,” said Helnia. “Some of the oldest legends state that the Dragon Gods created the Raugians with that ability, but again, no one knows for sure. But it is definitely an established magical fact; I work with a teacher in my school who has a pet night cat that is a Raugian.”

  “Uh huh,” said Sarzen. He stretched his arms and leaned back. “Well, then I guess that Icicle might not be as much of a dead weight as I thought. I wonder what kind of powers it has, though.”

  “I don’t know, because I don’t know Misma very well,” said Helnia with a shrug. “Hopefully we will never have to figure out, though, because that would mean we’re fighting for our lives.”

  Sarzen nodded, but didn’t say anything else because he had suddenly started thinking about Renuk’s grave again. He wished he hadn’t, because every time he thought about it, it just made him feel angry and powerless, because he still did not know who had raided it.

  And not only had someone raided it, but that same someone had stolen Renuk’s corpse, too. Sarzen had seen the dug up grave and empty coffin himself. He had spoken with the grave keeper, who said that he had not seen or heard anyone in the graveyard the night before. The law enforcers of Ars had spent the last week searching for anyone who might have anything to do with the terrible crime, but they had yet to arrest anyone and had been unable to locate Renuk’s corpse. The head of the law enforcers had assured Sarzen that they would spend as much of their time as they could searching for Renuk’s corpse or the thief who had stolen it while Sarzen and the others were away, but Sarzen feared that the law enforcers would not be able to find the corpse or the thief in the city.

  The Draymens probably stole it, Sarzen thought. Maybe even that same assassin who killed Renuk two weeks ago.

  Now, Sarzen did not have any proof that the Draymens had stolen Renuk’s corpse, but he had heard tales about Draymens digging up human graves to eat the rotted corpses within. He had never seen that himself, of course, but he worried that that might have happened to Renuk’s corpse. He could see them doing it as a psychological tactic; if they could break into the city and kill Renuk, that was one thing, but to break in again and steal his corpse right from under the inhabitants’ noses? That was something else.

  Sarzen gripped the handle of his sword. He had almost decided to stay behind, instead of heading out on the quest, so he could aid the law enforcers and Warrior Priests in the search for Renuk’s corpse. But Sarzen had volunteered to go on the quest, which was more important in the long run, and he did not want to entrust this dangerous quest to anyone else. Still, just the idea that the thief was still out there, doing who-knows-what to Renuk’s corpse, was enough to make Sarzen burn with anger. He made a mental note to personally kill whoever had stolen Renuk’s corpse if he was ever lucky enough to run into that person.

  All of a sudden, their cart’s driver looked over his shoulder and said, “Warrior Priest Sarzen, we have nearly reached the gates. We will be entering the plains soon.”

  Snapped out of his thoughts, Sarzen looked up at the driver and said, “What? Oh, good. Glad to hear it. When will our next stop be?”

  “In the village of Ohm,” said the driver. “That’s about two hours away from the gates. We have already sent messengers ahead to announce to the villagers to prepare for our arrival.”

  “Good,” said Sarzen. “Keep an eye out for any Draymens raiding parties. Now that we’re about to enter the plains, we are going to be in Draymens territory, and they are known to attack caravan wagons, especially large ones with lots of supplies like ours.”

  “Yes, sir, Warrior Priest,” said the driver, nodding.

  The driver turned his attention back to the road, while Sarzen looked at Helnia and saw that she looked rather pale. She was playing with her necklace again, like she was nervous.

  “Helnia, are you worried about the Draymens?” said Sarzen.

  “Sort of,” said Helnia. “It’s just that the plains … it’s been ten years since we’ve visited them.”


  Sarzen nodded. Ever since he and Helnia escaped from their destroyed hometown, they had lived in Ars. Neither of them had left the mountains, not even to visit other towns, because the trauma of the destruction of their old town made them too afraid and distrustful of the plains to return. Sarzen knew that they would have to do it, of course, but that didn’t mean he was going to enjoy the three day journey through the plains, however necessary it was.

  “We’ll be fine,” said Sarzen. “As long as we keep our wits about each other and don’t do anything stupid, I think we should cross the plains without any trouble.”

  Helnia didn’t look entirely convinced about that, but she didn’t argue the point. She just resumed playing with her beads, a look of worry on her features. Sarzen glanced back down the next two carts; Rothel was still telling his story to his driver, while Misma was now feeding her pet monkey, Icicle, a piece of bread as a treat.

  After a few more minutes of travel, their caravan train finally arrived at the gates. The gates were large and wide, made out of ancient steel, but despite their age, they still held up and had yet to be breached by the Draymens. The gates towered above them, their forms blocking the rising sun and casting long shadows upon their path, but Sarzen hardly felt worried. He had seen those gates before, from back when he and Helnia had first arrived in the mountains, but it had been years since he’d last seen them and they didn’t appear to have changed much in those ten years.

  Standing on either side of the gates were two armored guards of the Yoresian Army. They were large, muscular men wearing the usual gray armor of the Yoresian Army, both armed with shields and swords that were currently sheathed at their sides. The two guards did not move to meet the caravan, however; instead, they just sat there and watched as the caravans drew closer and closer to the gates.

  Eventually, the caravan stopped in front of the gates, at which point the two guards approached the caravan in the front. Sarzen’s cart was the second cart, so he couldn’t hear what the guards were saying to the driver of the first cart. But the longer they talked, the more a sense of dread filled him, as if he was about to hear bad news.