by Dora Machado
She saw the pool reflecting on the mirrored pupil above her. Severo bent over her, holding her under, while Khalia knelt next to her. Lusielle’s breath grew tight in her lungs. She held on to it for as long as she could and still her mind went nowhere, sloshing at the bottom of the pool along with her thrashing body. It wasn’t until the sights before her began to blur that she felt her consciousness flowing, abandoning her body, joining into some communal torrent, plunging into the dark abyss.
* * *
Lusielle’s hope that the pool would take her to the curse giver was more than just a hunch. The curse giver was a most deliberate creature, meticulous in her work and accomplished at every level.
By Lusielle’s estimation, she—for the “it” had become a “she” in her mind now that the creature had a name—was a somewhat indulgent being with a strong sense of self who had once reveled in merriment and mischief. As a Goddess, she would have wanted a means to enjoy her followers’ adoration and showcase her power. As a curse giver, it would have been a handy skill to count on. For a water-loving being, the pool was the perfect means.
Lusielle had seen the creature once before, when she had been intoxicated with Khalia’s powerful airs, when her lungs had failed and the lack of breath had freed her mind from her body’s hold. In many ways, that first journey served as her guide now. The shrine had been the logical port. She had toyed with the idea of taking in the airs again, but she knew it would be difficult to recreate the same conditions and arrive to the same place, especially if the creature was alerted beforehand by an inhaler’s potent rites.
This is why she had chosen to use the pool in the shrine. The cult of Jalenia might have died many centuries ago, but Lusielle was wagering that the fallen Goddess’s habits were part of the creature she had become and that an old road would lead her to a new address.
All of a sudden, her mind’s torrential plunge broke. Her thoughts coalesced into a sentient presence that looked and felt like herself. A humid cold enveloped her and sank into her arm’s broken bones. A pebble tripped her boot, causing her foot pain. Her sore ribs ached when she moved. She was as vulnerable to injury and violence here as she was back in the shrine. Death could find her easily at either place.
Her lungs rattled a demand for air. Her mind began to pull away in response to her body’s frantic call. A trickle of spicy breath appeased her starving lungs. She recognized the inhaler’s breath, no doubt forced into her body while she was under the water by Khalia’s formidable lungs. Good woman, Khalia. She was blowing a little air into her lungs every so often in order to keep her body alive but her mind free.
Working through the periods of air deprivation proved to be as difficult as it was disturbing. The craving for air was strong. Her traveler’s body rattled desperately waiting for Khalia’s breath and yet Lusielle pushed on. Thank the gods for the Chosen’s breath, because breath was time and time meant life.
Lusielle clutched the amulet she wore and looked around. The sight before her was familiar from her vision but not exactly the same. The landscape didn’t ripple as it had done before, an indication that it was part of a real geography somewhere, a place susceptible to weather and change, not a vision.
Today, the lake she had seen before was draped with shrouds of drifting mist lapping at the cliff where the lonely house stood. She made her way to the blue door, ignoring the fear. The door was locked. She tested the lock, but it didn’t budge. The Strength … could it lend her mind the brawn her body lacked?
The amulet turned hot to her touch. The opaque crystal darkened to black. Fear flared, compelling her to run away.
Instead, she aimed for the doorknob and kicked. Much to her surprise, the door crashed open. Lusielle barged into the room.
The wood notes of fragrant sandalwood overwhelmed her senses. The hearth was burning. The black lute sat on a stand by the fire. The chair was empty. The hastily abandoned quill rested on the desk, dripping ink on the floor. Lusielle snatched it from the desk.
“Come to check out your handiwork?”
Lusielle spun. Orell stood by the ornate crystal basin in the corner. His decomposing body showed the yearlings’ ravages. His drenched clothes were ripped and ridden with holes. His sodden, decaying skin bulged and rippled with the frantic movements of the little beasts feeding inside of him. Mottled barnacles grew on his skin, around his nose, mouth and fingers, the yearlings’ parasitic companions.
Lusielle had to repress the urge to bolt. She gagged when a yearling poked out of Orell’s ear, a flash of silvery scales and a bloody beak. No shock. She managed to keep her composure. No fear.
“I have your quill.” She lifted it in the air and, holding it by the ends, flexed it slightly. “Don’t go anywhere and don’t move if you’d like to keep it intact.”
Elfu had said that the only possible way to trap the creature was to control its weapons; this curse giver wrote her curses down.
“Well done.” Orell clapped but stayed sensibly in place. “How fun. I haven’t been surprised in … let’s see … never. How did you manage?”
“Don’t mind that. You know why I’ve come.”
Orell clucked. “How does a servant of Izar become so skilled at deceit? How did you come to kill with your craft?”
“I didn’t kill you—I mean, him. The comb was clean of poison. He killed himself.”
“The comb might have been clean, but you killed me all the same.”
“Fear killed you,” Lusielle said. “Dread did you in. The difference between fear and courage is not the absence of danger, but the will to tackle the risk.”
“How can you live with yourself?” Orell said. “How many have you killed with your potions? How many deaths have you caused by neglect, excess or recklessness?”
Lusielle’s visceral anger was the first sign she was floundering. The second one was the need to defend her actions. The creature was homing in on her weaknesses, on her doubts, on the questions she had asked herself many times after a customer failed to get better or died. She was not of the line of Uras and yet she got a sense of what the madness was all about.
Orell tilted his head and smiled, a feminine gesture which contrasted in every way with his masculine face’s gruesomely deformed features. “I enjoy a worthy opponent every so often.”
“Why did you curse the line of Uras?” Lusielle said.
“I told your boyfriend,” Orell said. “He is your boyfriend. Isn’t he?”
“You know he can’t remember.”
“Clever, don’t you think?”
“I don’t enjoy torturing people quite as much as you do.”
“But can you appreciate the superior craftsmanship?”
“Cruelty trumps craftsmanship any day.”
“But you have to admit, the combination makes for supreme entertainment.”
Lusielle didn’t have time to indulge the creature’s gloating. “Were you one of Edmund’s scorned lovers?”
“Me? Edmund’s lover?” Orell laughed. “He was such a treacherous man in that way, intellectually satisfying, but hardly accomplished at anything more.”
“Did he spurn you?” Lusielle said. “Is that why you cursed him?”
“Sex, sex, sex. Why does everything have to be about sex around here?”
“You know why.”
“Pretty clever, don’t you think?”
“You amuse yourself with your work,” Lusielle said.
Orell scoffed. “You shouldn’t find any fault with that.”
“I don’t mix remedies for the sake of amusement.”
“The hours on end spent over concoctions and ingredients,” Orell said. “The little jolt your heart gave every time a customer walked through your little shop’s doors, wondering what challenge you’d be tackling next, what new and intricate potion you’d be able to brew at their expense. Is that not amusement all the same?”
She wasn’t going to let the creature throw her off balance. She had to focus. “How long have you been
watching me?”
“I like watching.”
Lusielle strained the delicate quill. “I didn’t come here to linger.”
“Oh, yes, why did you come?” Orell sneered. “Not for my company, I think. You find me repulsive. Perhaps if I looked different ….”
Orell’s ghastly face shifted into her mother’s familiar features. His decomposing body blurred and rearranged into her mother’s graceful figure. Lusielle found herself staring into a pair of green eyes very similar to hers. It was eerie and strange all at once to see her dead mother’s features masking the creature’s face, but she couldn’t allow the curse giver to divert her.
“The Lord of Laonia is going to die,” Lusielle said.
“So?” Her mother shrugged icily. “Blame his father for that.”
“Did someone contract a curse on Edmund?”
“Do you think I’m a ruthless mercenary?”
“That’s what you do, isn’t it? You live off your curses. Death is nourishment?”
“You’re putting too much stock in words.”
“You might be a trickster and a rogue, but I happen to think you mind your words.”
A blinding smile lit her mother’s eyes. “Really?”
“You’ve put a lot of work into your curses.”
“Some have said I might be a poet.”
“Not a trained poet.”
The smile died on the lovely face.
“You composed those verses carefully, deliberately,” Lusielle said. “Are they part of yet another curse?”
The creature’s eyes darkened dangerously. “I think perhaps you shouldn’t have come.”
“Believe me, I would have stayed away gladly. I’m drowning slowly back at Teos.”
“Shall I finish what I once started?” The creature flashed a malicious grin. “Why don’t we drown you right here and now?”
The curse giver moved so fast, Lusielle’s eyes never saw it coming.
One instant her mother was standing by the basin. The next instant, an extraordinarily strong grip was shoving Lusielle face-first into the water basin.
Water—the whole of the Nerpes, it seemed—poured down her nose, ears and throat. The quill snapped in her hands and yet the curse giver didn’t even flinch.
Lusielle knew she was done.
Her calculated gamble had failed. Her educated guesses had been wrong. From the basin’s clear depths, she watched her mother’s expressions, the fascination, the thrill, the determination.
Lusielle’s death seemed to last forever. The rain kept falling against the windowpanes. The lute sat idle on its pedestal. The fire flared, stood up on two legs and walked out of the hearth.
Chapter Ninety
BREN TOOK ONE LOOK AND KNEW he had arrived barely in time. Damn the Twins. Lusielle’s strengthening potion was so effective he’d had to skip three dosages before he fell back into the rigor. Hato had tried to cajole and persuade him to drink the potion, but in the end, Bren’s will prevailed. A man didn’t have to have total use of his legs to defend himself from his friends. He just had to keep them at bay with the range of his sword, enlist the help of an unlikely ally—Lusielle’s friend, Vestor, who was readily at hand—and charge him with the task of keeping Hato and the potion away from him once he went into the rigor.
As to his journey, Bren had had no doubts where he would end up if he tried. After he figured out what Lusielle was about to attempt, he realized that the madness had opened up a door which had been shut to him before now. Perhaps he, too, had a chance to go after Lusielle and surprise the curse giver. The gods knew, he couldn’t allow Lusielle to fight his battle and face the creature alone. He didn’t know if destroying the curse giver would defeat the curse, but despite the long odds, given the opportunity to face the curse giver who had destroyed his line and his life, he would not hesitate to kill it.
The creature had laid out a direct path to his mind during the madness. The trail was still fresh. It was like following a deep rut in the mire, hard going but clear tracks. His overwrought mind would have followed that trail to the demon pits if necessary. The wall of fire protecting the fiend’s lair wasn’t going to stop him.
Bren was pure will, and his will was fueled by a rage that was hotter and more pervasive than the fire that could no longer consume him. The heat enveloping Bren didn’t burn him because he had transformed into the same kind of heat and his rage flared with the fire.
Lusielle was struggling but feebly, drowning in the crystal basin. In the guise of a handsome woman, the powerful creature Bren knew to be the curse giver held Lusielle down with one hand. Knowing that surprise was the only advantage he had, he slammed against the curse giver, a scalding collision that knocked the evil creature clear to the other side of the room.
Bren lifted Lusielle out of the basin and laid her out against the wall. She hacked and retched, unable to draw breath. He saw the desperation in her eyes, the last compulsive gasps of a body unable to function.
“Back,” he barked. “Journey in reverse. Get a breath!”
Her eyes closed. Her body went into spasms. That’s when he got hit from behind, an icy blow that smothered the fire protecting him.
“You came back for more?” Edmund’s scornful smile overtook the fiend’s face. “What a pleasure. I get to finish the line of Uras with my own two hands.”
The fight that ensued was less of a battle and more of a test of endurance. Blow after blow, Bren was slung against the wall, trampled beneath the desk, slammed against the door and even hurled over the ceiling beams. If he conjured a sword from his thoughts, the creature conjured a bigger one. If he called on the help of a spear or a shield, the fiend produced deadlier versions of his weapons.
He had to make a stand. He jumped from one beam to the next, swung about and landed on Edmund’s broad back, trying to slash the creature’s throat with his sword. The curse giver threw him off as if he was a tiny monkey trying to ride a steed.
Bren knew it was only a matter of time, but he kept the creature engaged. Lusielle’s body was no longer visible in the room. Her chances to escape the curse giver’s pervasive reach were better with every moment that passed. His odds were getting worse by the moment, but Bren hunkered down to prolong the fight for as long as he could last or to kill the beast, whichever came first.
Chapter Ninety-one
LUSIELLE GASPED, HACKED AND HEAVED AT the same time. Severo was holding her up by the armpits. Water poured out of her like a river from its source. The shrine spun around her in dizzying whirls.
“Breathe!” Khalia shouted. “Breathe!”
If only it were so easy.
Bren. He was back there. Alone. With the curse giver. The quill. It hadn’t been the quill. What then?
“Did you learn anything?” Khalia pushed aside the drenched hair sticking to Lusielle’s face. “Did you figure out how to defeat the curse?”
She shook her head, coughing water and bile.
“Laonia’s lost,” Khalia said. “Morning is only moments away!”
If not the quill, what was the curse giver’s weapon?
Was it the silver needle? No, she had left that behind when she killed Edmund. There had to be something else.
In truth I dabble. Animal guts. In songs I trade. Strings. In fear supreme I reign. Songs. In dread I deal, with black I kill. Black. Shiver when you hear my steps.
By the gods. “Put me back!” she rasped. “Under the water!”
“You’ll die for sure,” Severo said.
“Run back to the hall,” she said. “Force your senseless lord to drink the potion. Do you hear me? If you want to live, if you want your friends to survive, if you want to help your lord, on my orders, do it! Khalia, hold me down. We have no time to waste.”
Chapter Ninety-two
SEVERO RAN AS FAST AS HE had ever ran. His steps clattered on the cobble stones, his wet boots squished as his feet pounded the stairs, and his ragged breath echoed in the alleyways. He prayed as he ran, to
the Twins, to his mistress’s gods, he didn’t care. If they had listened to his prayers when he had been trapped in that cellar, then perhaps they would listen to him now.
He prayed for his lord and his mistress. He prayed for himself, for speed for his feet, breath for his lungs and power to his legs. He prayed for the sun to slow its daily birth, for the night to extent its rule. The fate of his lord, the lives of the Twenty, and Laonia’s future depended on him.
He took the steep stairs three at time. His breath was coming raggedly now. His eyes were fast on the fire burning atop the tower of Laonia’s hall. It guided him through the maze of streets and alleys pounding beneath his wet boots.
He knew now the truth he had refused to see from the very beginning: Mistress Lusielle was and had always been the very woman that his lord had needed. Maybe the Twins themselves had placed her in Severo’s path. Perhaps she had been the gods’ conduit from the very beginning. Maybe the gods had taken mercy on Laonia and chosen Severo to deliver the woman into his lord’s arms, because they knew that even if Severo doubted their intentions and questioned their fairness, he had always believed in their power.
He bolted through the gates of Laonia’s halls, shoving aside the guards, ignoring the questions of the alarmed courtiers lingering downstairs, tackling the steps even though he couldn’t breathe any longer. The balance of the Twenty were waiting grim-faced outside of his lord’s chamber. They parted to let him pass without asking questions. Standing guard by the door, Cirillo and Clio opened the door for him.
As Severo barreled into the chamber he knew what he had to do. He would need help to deliver his lord from his grim fate and not just from the Twins, but from all the Thousand Gods. His lady had given him a charge and never again for as long he lived was he going to let her down.
