Curse Breaker: Sundered

by Melinda Kucsera

  As a person in a floor-length black cloak passed Papa, it extended a skeletal hand. Something about it reminded Ran of his brief run-in with the Adversary earlier. Ran scooted backward until his back hit the wall. If I stay quiet, the guy in the hood will take the food and leave us alone.

  “Do you want some pastries? They're crumbly and yummy, and there’s different kinds.” Ran covered his mouth to stop the flow of words, but it was too late.

  The black-robed figure squatted down and pushed its hood back. A woman regarded him with sunken eyes. Platinum locks framed her dark face, and her skeletal fingers fleshed out until they looked like normal ones. Transformation complete, she smiled at him, betraying a set of broken, crooked teeth.

  “No, I just wanted to see you. I like your father.” She bit her lip to stifle a laugh, but her repressed mirth sent stars shooting across the polished black ovoids of her strange eyes. “I don’t think he likes me. I’m not a popular type of Death.”

  Nor did that matter to her. As she straightened, she nabbed an orangey roll and hid it in her bell-sleeve. Ran approved of that.

  “For later,” she said with a wink then she whisked the cloth back over Ran’s hiding spot.

  Ran scooted forward and pushed the cloth up, so he could peer out.

  “What about Papa? Can you give him back his magic?”

  “No, Little One, he has to do that on his own. You might want to duck out of sight before I release them.” She tilted her head in Papa’s direction. “He doesn’t want my Chooser of the Slain to see you. And I’m just dying to see how long he can keep that up. Mortals are so entertaining.”

  She smiled, but her smile didn’t touch her hungry eyes. Ran let go of the cloth and felt for Bear. Oh no, he’d dropped his fuzzy friend behind the statues next to the cart. But a quick tug of his will brought Bear within reach, and he hugged his favorite toy hard while wishing for the soft whisper of its ghostly tenant’s thoughts. He could use some advice right about now, but Ghost Bear still hadn’t returned. Ran peeked out again.

  “Who are you?”

  “One of the many Faces of Death. Now, shoo.”

  As she donned her hood, her hands wizened into a pair of skeletal claws again. She touched Papa’s shoulder, and he spun to face the cart. His face was a mask of fear that quickly dissolved into relief.

  Ran waved then lowered the cloth until only a sliver of space remained between its crisp hem and the floor—enough to see Papa’s boots and their distinctive tread while he munched on an apple muffin. He needed to keep Papa in sight. Papa would never abandon him, not willingly, but Papa wasn’t in control, and that was more than a little scary.

  A large hand snaked under the cloth and grabbed Ran. Before he could scream, another hand covered his mouth and together, they pulled.

  Papa! Bear! Help me! Ran struggled, but it was no use. Those rough hands had an iron grip on him. Where was Papa? Why wasn’t he stopping this?

  Defend the Innocent

  Ragnes paced unable to stay still. No light illuminated this tunnel. Something had extinguished the yellow lumir crystal cluster that used to light it, but his undead eyes needed only shadows to see, and there were plenty of those about.

  Ragnes touched the handle for the hundredth time since he’d materialized in front of the Foundlings’ cave, but he retracted his hand before turning the knob. That cave was no longer his home. It hadn’t been for several decades. And with Beku gone, there was no reason to enter unless Gore was inside. Are you in there, you traitor?

  No response, but who knew if the mind-talking trick the Adversary used worked on the living. If Gore was still among the living. There were too many ifs, too many things he either didn’t know or the Adversary had made him forget.

  “Find Gore, and bring him to me,” murmured a fragment of the Adversary in the back of his mind, reminding Ragnes of his orders, and he cringed.

  In life, Ragnes was the kind of guy who followed orders only when there was some type of remuneration—usually the financial kind. The Adversary had yet to offer any kind of benefit beyond an un-life of enslavement. But he couldn’t disobey those orders. Nor did he want to. He wanted to find Gore, so he could pay that jerk back for everything that had had happened.

  Dirk might be the planner in their group, but Gore was the greedy one. Nothing was ever enough for him. The loss of his parents had bored a hole so deep into Gore that nothing could fill it, not even friendship. Gore was the one who’d put Dirk up to this crazy scheme, not the other way around.

  I followed you into that hellhole. So, did Villar and Cris. But Ragnes couldn’t recall seeing those two since then. Were they dead? Or had they, too, been changed into undead monsters with wings? At least the flight thing was useful, but the hunger was burning a hole in his gut the longer he darkened the Foundlings’ door.

  Ragnes stared at it, memorizing the woodgrain of that patched-together affair. Nearly all the wood in Shayari was enchanted, but there was some that wasn’t. No one knew why that disparity persisted. Acquiring a large enough piece of wood for a door was difficult. So, this one had been crafted from odds and ends and hammered into something approximating a door.

  There were remnants of magic too. Beku’s last beau was a mage after all, and he’d lived with the Foundlings for a handful of years. It would be only natural for him to weave some wards around the place where he slept.

  Here and there green bits of energy sparkled in the wood, but those wards were broken now. Something had ripped them apart. Did you do that, Gore?

  Ragnes touched the door and let his hand phase through it then stopped as his hunger spiked. No, he couldn’t go in there. It was too dangerous for the children who lived there.

  I won’t endanger them. I'm not Hadrovel. Just thinking of the former Orphan Master made his blood run cold then he laughed because what could that necromancer wannabe do too him now? Nothing.

  Hadrovel had been executed about five summers ago. Apparently, that creep had abused the wrong mage-gifted boy, and someone had finally taken notice and permanently stopped his experiments. Good riddance.

  Ragnes retracted his hand from the door. The Foundlings had been through too much already. I won't add to that. He'd wait out here and hope none of the Foundlings exited that door because his control was already slipping. Gore will come. I just need to be patient.

  Ragnes stared longingly at the door, but there were no answers written on it, just more questions—like what had happened to the rest of his friends? Were they wraiths too?

  He couldn’t remember anything except following Gore into a trap then darkness had seized him and ripped away everything that had made him Ragnes, a former Foundling and mostly productive member of society. Only embers of that man remained when the Adversary had remade him in his own terrible image.

  But those embers still glowed brightly in his soul-home. He’d kept that fire burning despite everything that had happened to him. Their light reminded him of who he was, and what he believed in.

  “Find Gore. Bring him to me.”

  Shadows gathered around Ragnes in a black roiling cloud, and they repeated the Adversary’s last command.

  “That’s what I’m doing. I know he’ll come here.”

  Maybe they'd heard him because those shadows fled back to their corners leaving a soft but insistent murmur in the back of his mind. Ragnes rested his forehead against the door again. It took All his concentration not to pass through it into the cave beyond, but he didn’t want to scare the children in there.

  They didn’t deserve that. Their lives were hard enough, and they were so innocent. That innocence reached out to him, and the hunger gnawed at him.

  They were a dozen candles flickering in the Adversary’s darkness. He could reach through that door, snuff out their lives and harvest their souls. Just one would sate the strange hunger assaulting his every sense. His new nature demanded he do that. Those little lights were an affront to his dark senses.

  No, I won’t do it. I won�
��t harm a single hair on their heads or take one lumen from their bright souls. He could never face Beku again if he did. They were hers even though she was gone. Ragnes spun and put his back to the door and the temptation to cross that threshold and complete his transformation into only the devil knew what.

  “Where are you Gore? I know you want them. Their innocence must be calling to you, just as it calls to me. I know you. Come and face me, coward.”

  “Who are you calling a ‘coward?’ The only coward I see is you,” Gore said as he dropped through a stalactite and hovered nose-to-nose with Ragnes.

  “Traitor!” Ragnes launched himself at the three-dimensional shadow that was Gore and punched his sneering face. “I knew it. You sold us out. What was the price for your friends?”

  The conman laughed as he spread his arms displaying his shadowy body and bowed. Wings boiled out of his back, and he spread them, blocking the tunnel.

  “He’s looking for you,” Ragnes said.

  “I know. I’ve been dodging his shadows for hours.” Gore studied his friend, gauging the Adversary’s hold on him. Was this a ruse? Or had the Adversary turned Ragnes to his will?

  Gore shifted his stance just in case his eyes had been deceived by some spell. After all, the Adversary was the father of lies. So too were his creations.

  “What about our friends—Cris, Villar and Dirk? Are they all wraiths? Are any of them still alive?”

  Ragnes cocked his head to one-side like a crow eying its next meal. “I have many friends. Would you like to meet them? They’d like to meet you.”

  Ragnes smiled and his teeth were entirely too white against the matte black ovoid of his face. He raised his arms, and darkness engulfed the tunnel. Shadows rushed Gore from every direction, pummeling him into the ground, and he went willingly into its sharp, cold embrace. He slid deep into the rocks where the shadows couldn’t follow. That was too close.

  “The Master calls. You should answer him.” Ragnes’ voice slammed into Gore then his hands did.

  They rolled out of the stonework into another tunnel, struggling for control. Each one tried to get the upper hand and the clinch, but they were evenly matched and only partly corporeal. Neither wraith noticed the tentacles sliding toward them.

  “Stop this.” Gore pried at the hands locked around his throat until he realized that iron grip wasn’t cutting off his airflow. You moron, you don’t breathe anymore. You’re dead.

  “Submit, and it’ll stop.”

  “This is pointless. We’re on the same side.” Gore pushed up intending to head-butt his friend, but their heads merged instead.

  Images flickered as memories struck like lightning, illuminating their recent past. Ragnes shoved Gore away, and their minds decoupled with such sudden violence, it left them both reeling.

  “Gore?” Ragnes shook his head and his face reconfigured from an ovoid with two eyes and a mouth to something akin to his old face. Albeit this version was more rounded than Ragnes’ had been in life.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Adversary made wraiths out of us.” And fools too.

  “I gathered that much. What happened to Cris, Villar and Dirk?”

  “Probably the same thing.” Gore spat. “But Dirk deserves it.”

  “No one deserves this.”

  Ragnes fisted his hand in the flowing shadow that made up his torso, ripped out a piece of it and threw it on the ground. It liquefied and oozed back into his foot. He shuddered at the alien feel of his returning flesh. It crawled back to where he’d ripped it out and melted back into place to cover up the fist-sized hole he’d made, and the creepiest part of all was that the process was entirely bloodless and painless.

  “I get your point. This isn’t natural.”

  “No, it’s not. So, what do we do about it?”

  Ragnes looked at Gore, but Gore was staring hungrily at the Foundlings’ door. He licked his lips with a forked black tongue. Ragnes slapped him hard across the face.

  “Don’t you even think about doing that to them. They’re innocent.”

  “And we weren’t?”

  “No, we weren’t, and you know it. How many crimes did we commit? Hmm? How many cons? Do you even remember? One was bound to catch up to us. That’s all this is—our luck running out. It’s punishment for what we’ve done wrong. You know what they say about karma.”

  “True, but I’m so hungry, and their souls are so bright. I just want a little of their light. Just a touch, just a taste, and their hearts will race.”

  “You sound like the Adversary. Do you really want to give in to your baser nature?”

  “And what if I do?”

  “Stop it. I won’t let you have them, not a touch, not a taste—look now you have me saying it too. We need to go.” Ragnes levitated to his feet. This undead thing had some perks after all.

  “Ragnes.”

  “What?”

  Gore held up both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Then who had? Ragnes spun on his heel, scanning as he moved, but there was no one there except the two of them and the ever-present shadows the Adversary had sent out, but they weren’t intelligent enough to do anything except watch and report.

  “Ragnes,” there was that whisper again. It sounded like Dirk, but how could that be?

  “Dirk?”

  “Where is he?” Gore surged to his feet and seized Ragnes by his throat again.

  “I thought we’d gotten past this. We can’t hurt each other.”

  “Where is he? I know you’re in contact with him. You always were a weasel.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Gore crushed his throat, but other than mangling his speech a bit, nothing else happened because wraiths didn’t need to breathe unless they needed to speak.

  “You ratted me out on the Janus job. Don’t deny it.”

  “Janus job—what the hell are you talking about? We’re dead remember? My memory of events from before I followed you into that dark passage are fragmentary at best. And what does it matter anymore? We’re undead minions of a bodiless psycho. Can we please focus on the problem at hand, not slights from the past?”

  Gore blinked and dialed back the rage. “You’re right. We can settle old scores later. Teamwork—that's what we need now.” He released Ragnes, and his neck sprang back to its original shape, none the worse for wear.

  “Ragnes,” Dirk called again.

  This time Ragnes didn’t answer him out loud. He didn’t want to set Gore off again because the squirrely man had a point. They couldn’t hope to escape the Adversary’s leash if they didn’t work together. But I don’t have to trust him. I never have before, and I’m not starting now.

  “Ragnes, I’m so sorry.”

  “Dirk?” Ragnes sent back taking care to think his reply.

  “Ragnes?”

  That wasn’t Dirk’s voice. It was too growly, and it sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. What an odd thought.

  “I’m here with Gore.”

  “Why are you being so quiet all of a sudden?” Gore glared at him with suspicious eyes.

  “Because I’m thinking about what we should do now. We can’t go against the Adversary directly. We need a plan.”

  “Plans are my department.” Gore jabbed his thumb into his chest, and it sank in quite a bit before he grimaced and withdrew it.

  “Then come up with something, please.” And leave me alone for a few minutes.

  “Ragnes?” It was Dirk again.

  “How are you speaking to me?” Ragnes replied in kind and felt something in the back of his mind vibrate. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. But some communication was better than none, so he put up with the discomfort.

  “Through a link. I know how we can get free of the Adversary.”

  “How?”

  “With this light,” said that growly voice right before light blasted through Ragnes. It illuminated every particle of him
as a weight slammed him to the ground. They rolled through several walls until they came to a stop in front of the Foundlings' door.

  “I knew it. You’re in league with him,” Gore shouted as he wrestled with Ragnes, but the light was passing through Ragnes or maybe he was passing into it.

  Not without my dear friend Gore. Ragnes freed his arms and wrapped them around his friend. Light spilled over from him into Gore.

  Gore screamed and thrashed. “Stop it! You’re killing me!”

  “Then so be it. We’ve lived longer than we should have, and I don’t trust you to leave the innocent alone and unspoiled.”

  Ragnes smashed his forehead into the bridge of Gore’s nose, and their heads merged then their bodies did as the light eviscerated them.

  “Ashes to ashes, my friend. All things end in fire and light. Embrace the punishment we so richly deserve. Burn with me, my friend!”

  Gore screamed once more then fell silent, leaving only fading echoes behind as he and Ragnes’ split apart. That glorious light wrapped around Ragnes scattered motes and pulled them to the white blaze at the other end of the link. It must have grabbed Gore too because he could no longer sense his former friend-turned-wraith.

  Maybe that was for the best. Redemption was an individual kind of quest, not a team effort, and Gore had never been much of a team player unless the job was too difficult or dangerous to pull off alone.

  Right before the world went white, Ragnes begged that light for one last boon. If there is a hell, take us to it. Surely there are no two souls more deserving of an afterlife of fire and torment.

  Who Do You Serve?

  In the nearly five years Sarn had worked with Nolo, he’d tried and failed to figure out which aspect of Death his master served. He was no closer to an answer tonight than any other night.