The Zero Curse

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Magister Niven’s question ran through my mind. “Where does the power come from?”

  I looked down at the spellcaster in my hand. I knew where the power came from now - the magic field. Objects of Power drew directly on the magic field, rather than channelling power through a magician. The mere contact with a human mind must taint the power, I reasoned slowly, corroding away at the Devices of Power even as they were forged. No wonder they didn't last long, I realised slowly. The power couldn't flow through them without being twisted and warped out of all recognition.

  And Tyros had built this place ...

  The glowing orb flickered and went out. Absolute darkness crashed down around me. I jumped, unsure what to do. The chamber had been too dim for me to grasp any of the layout, even before the light had vanished altogether. I clutched the scroll in one hand, shoving it into my bag even as I tried to decide what to do. My friends were frozen, trapped in time, while I was trapped in utter darkness. I couldn't cast a light, not without tools or equipment I didn't have. And for all I knew there was a chasm right next to me.

  “Cat,” Akin said. “Cat?”

  “I’m here,” I said, quickly. The magic - the strange magic Tyros had devised - had flickered and died. “Rose?”

  “What happened?” Rose asked. A faint light appeared as she cast a light spell. “Cat?

  “Long story,” I said, shortly. Neither of them seemed to have realised that they’d been frozen in time. I wasn't sure I wanted to tell them, either. No one had even suspected the existence of a magic field, unless Magister Niven had an inkling. If I told them the truth and it got back to our parents ... it would, of course. The story would be too good not to be shared. “Can you both cast light spells?”

  I heard Akin muttering a spell, just loudly enough to be heard. A pearly white light appeared, shimmering unsteadily through the air. Akin was standing next to Rose, his pale skin so white he appeared to have seen a ghost. Rose didn't look much better. I wondered, sourly, just what I should tell them. A lie might rebound on me if - when - they discovered the truth.

  “I think we stumbled into a trap,” I said, as I looked around. The shadows had vanished, revealing a small workroom. I searched it quickly, picking up a handful of the older tools and components for later. Tyros had been a master forger, whatever else he’d been. He’d been thousands of miles ahead of me when he’d died. “But we survived.”

  I felt a flicker of bitter envy. Tyros ... Tyros had been powerless, but he'd known what he was. He’d been useful. And yet ... he'd also been exploited. Both Great Aunt Stregheria and Fairuza had sought to exploit me. I wondered, as I worked my way through the drawers, if Dad would try to exploit me in the future. We’d been raised to believe that we had to put the family’s interests ahead of our own. I just hadn't been very useful, until now. Dad might expect me to work for him when I grew up.

  But I would have done that, wouldn't I? The thought mocked me. I wanted to be useful.

  “Here,” Rose called. “I’ve found a tunnel!”

  I followed her gaze. A dark tunnel, leading into the darkness ... I had no way of knowing where it led. But there was no other way out. We must have fallen through a hole in the ceiling - I was sure we’d fallen through a hole - but there was no trace of it. The roof looked smooth, utterly unbroken. I took one last look at the desks and cabinets, then shook my head in amused disbelief. The workroom really wasn't that different than any of the workrooms I’d used back home.

  The room shook. I heard something crashing to the ground. Rose yelped.

  “The building’s collapsing,” Akin snapped. Another crash drowned out his words. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Get down the tunnel,” I ordered.

  It was the only way out. Tyros wouldn't have wanted to kill anyone who found his lair, but ... I had a nasty feeling that the lair’s defences had been the only thing keeping the building intact. Tyros ... had done something remarkable, I thought. And yet ... I touched the scroll in my pocket. He’d also done something very dangerous. And he’d been an unwitting accessory to a crime of monstrous proportions.

  I tried to grasp the true scale of what he’d done as we stumbled into the tunnel and made our way into the darkness. The population of Shallot was somewhere around 80,000, although that didn't include the people who lived outside the city’s walls. If the Eternal City had been five times larger than Shallot, it must have had a population of 400,000, perhaps more. It had been the centre of a world-spanning empire, after all. The population might easily be in the millions.

  And Tyros and his friends had torn it all down.

  It was unimaginable. I just couldn't make myself grasp it. I didn't know every last person in Shallot. They were just faceless numbers to me. 400,000 was even worse. I didn't know a single person from the Eternal City. I knew, intellectually, that they’d all had lives of their own, that they’d loved and hated and lived, but I couldn't imagine it. Tyros had been party to mass murder on an unimaginable scale and I just couldn't understand what he’d done.

  And Tristan was worse, I thought. He knew what was going to happen.

  I was sure of it. He couldn't have been otherwise, not knowing what he did. Draining the magic field would wipe out every spell in the region. The magicians would have some stored power, if I was correct, but nowhere near enough to save the city. Falling buildings and shattering containment spells would have done the rest. And if so many of the great and the good had been in the Eternal City when it died, no wonder the empire had died with them. It had been decapitated.

  And yet, there was a part of me that understood. Tristan had been like me: powerless, but born to a powerful family. He would have been mocked and tormented for his lack of power, just as my sisters had tormented me. His family would have known what he was, of course, and sent him to the Zeroes, but that wouldn't make things better. Alana had still been able to get the better of me, after I’d mastered my talents. Tristan would have had the same problem.

  I wouldn't have committed mass murder, I told myself. I wouldn't ...

  But what would I have done, my thoughts asked, if I’d had the ability to strip Alana and Bella of their power? Would I have used it? I could use it. I thought I understood how the device must have worked, although forging it would take time. And if I built it, what then? What if someone else built it? Fairuza had wanted me to brew a potion that would burn through any wards known to exist. How much worse would it be if she had something that wiped out magic, all magic? She could destroy the Great Families in an afternoon.

  Akin glanced at me as the ground shook, again. “You’re being very quiet.”

  “I was just thinking about the building,” I lied. “It might have come down on their heads.”

  “Good,” Akin said, bluntly. “That will stop them chasing us.”

  I swallowed, but said nothing as the tunnel began to level out. Akin’s light revealed a handful of concealment runes carved into the wall, hiding it from casual inspection. I wondered just what had happened to Tyros after he’d finished the scroll. Perhaps he’d gone in search of his long-lost family or ... perhaps he'd just walked into the Eternal City and waited to die. To me, it was the past; to him, it was all too real.

  I should destroy the scroll, I thought. I didn't think Tyros had done anything to keep a magician from reading it. What would happen if I did?

  Another faint tremor ran through the ground. No one knew anything about magic fields, not in Shallot. Everyone assumed that magicians had magic and that was all there was to it. They’d be shocked if I told them the truth, then horrified. Someone might just find a way to lower the magic field in a particular area, just to weaken wards before they were smashed. Or ...

  My blood ran cold. What if the magic never came back?

  I clenched my fists as the full horror struck me. The duellist experience suggested that the magic field flowed back into place, but ... but what if it had limits? What if - one day - the magic field ran out and the magic just
... went away? No magicians ... no healers, no forgers, no ... no magic. And what about the creatures that depended on magic? Dragons, unicorns, basilisks, centaurs, werewolves, mermaids ... could they even live without magic? Would they die with the magic? Or would they slowly fade away?

  You don’t know that will happen, I told myself, firmly. You don't know if any of this will happen.

  And yet ... I swallowed, hard. Magic hadn't gone away with the empire. Of course not - too much magical knowledge had been spread around for that. But magical activity had fallen sharply, in the decades following the empire’s collapse. Perhaps ... the magic field had weakened too, only no one had noticed. And we’d had to rebuild the principles of magic pretty much from scratch. We might have adapted to the new reality without ever being aware of it.

  I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't even tell my Dad. I couldn't ...

  It felt like we’d been walking for hours before the tunnel started to slope upwards. I tensed, trying to push my thoughts to the back of my mind. But it didn't work. Where were we? Where had Tyros considered a safe place to hide an exit? Were we outside the city? Maybe not. Tyros clearly hadn't known the ... curse ... on the Eternal City would spread further, not by where he’d built the villa. I wondered just what the man who’d hired him had been thinking, when he’d issued his orders. Perhaps he’d thought the tainted magic would fade away, allowing him to stake a claim to the remains of the city. Or perhaps Tyros had deliberately misled him. I would never know.

  “There’s a door up ahead,” Akin said. “I’ll go first.”

  “I’ve got the bracelet,” I said. “Let me go first.”

  I slipped past Akin and pushed the door. It felt like cold stone to my palms, but it opened smoothly. I caught a glimpse of a pair of carved concealment runes as I inched forward, spellcaster at the ready. Tyros had been a very skilled forger. I wondered, absently, just what his training had been like as I looked around. We’d come out in a basement, it seemed. The air smelled musty, but there were no hints of wild magic. I crept to the stairwell and listened, carefully. There didn't seem to be anyone above us.

  “Be careful,” Akin whispered.

  “Of course,” I said.

  I climbed up the stairs carefully, pausing to listen after every step. Dust glimmered in the air as I reached the top, forcing me to cover my mouth. I didn't want to sneeze! But there was no one outside, just darkened corridors. I could see a window, in the distance. The sun was slowly falling behind the distant hills.

  “Night time,” I said, quietly.

  I yawned as we searched the building from top to bottom. It was deserted, save for a colony of mice that squeaked loudly and fled our approach. I took heart from that, even though I disliked the idea of sleeping so close to vermin. We might well be quite some distance from the Eternal City. Tyros certainly wouldn't have wanted his tunnel to come out too close to the warped magic field.

  “We should go further,” Akin said.

  I shook my head and yawned, again. My entire body was starting to ache, reminding me that I’d been awake for over two days. Or at least I thought I had ... if it had been night when I’d escaped our captors, I’d been awake for at least forty hours. I’d kept going, somehow, but ... but I couldn’t go on for much longer.

  “I’m tired too,” Rose said, practically. “We don’t want to push ourselves too far.”

  Akin didn't argue. I think he was tired as well, just too proud to admit it. He and Rose had burned up a great deal of energy over the last few hours, casting spells ... and if their own magic had powered the freeze spell, they’d have been drained of that too. Except it wasn't their magic, was it? They drew on the magic field.

  And I have no link to the field, I reminded myself.

  I smiled, tiredly, as we made our way back down to the basement. The implications were staggering, assuming I managed to get home. Now I understood, I thought, some of the more complex Objects of Power I’d seen in the books. And I understood precisely how a flying machine worked. I could build one now, given time and materials ...

  “I’ll cast a concealment ward on the stairs,” Akin said, once we reached the bottom. “Rose, can you block the tunnel entrance?”

  “Yeah,” Rose said. She sounded laboured. I wondered if she was having problems mustering the magic. Whatever Tyros and his comrades had done, it had permanently warped the magic field near the Eternal City. “Should one of us stay on watch?”

  “No point,” I said. I appreciated the thought, but it didn't matter. None of us were in any state for a fight. “Let’s just get some sleep before morning.”

  I felt a flicker of amusement as I picked a spot on the floor and lay down. Mum would have a fit if she discovered that I’d shared a room with a boy. She’d never let Alana and Bella have sleepovers where there was an adolescent boy in the house. I’d never understood it, not really. The parents could provide whatever chaperonage was required. And yet ... it was the principle of the thing, I supposed. Young girls were not meant to compromise their reputations before they were old enough to make such decisions for themselves.

  Not that it matters, I told myself. We don’t want to split up now.

  The floor was cold and hard. I wished for a mattress, a blanket ... even a long coat. But I’d just have to endure the discomfort. Rose lay down next to me, looking disgustingly at ease in the semi-darkness. I supposed, unpleasantly, that she was used to sleeping in uncomfortable places. The light snapped out of existence a second later as Akin cancelled the spell. We couldn't risk being found until we were rested.

  I reached for the spellcaster and placed it within easy reach, just in case. Akin’s wards wouldn't keep out a determined magician, but the noise should wake us. I wasn't going to let them take me again, not while I had the scroll on my person. I knew I should destroy it, but ... it was history. I didn't dare show it to anyone, yet ... I didn't dare destroy it either. Tyros should not be forgotten.

  And yet, I’m the only one who remembers him, I reminded myself. Did anyone read his name in the history books?

  I doubted it. I’d learnt dozens of names from the history books, the men who’d made the Eternal City great, but they’d mostly been emperors or generals. Only a handful of them had been women and only one of them had been a ruler in her own right. The others had shocked what passed for High Society in those days. It puzzled me - women had magic too, magic enough to rule the Great Houses - but I suspected I’d never figure out the truth. Perhaps the women had secretly ruled the empire from behind the scenes. One woman was supposed to have done just that when her husband proved incapable ...

  “Good night,” Akin said. His voice echoed in the darkness. “I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  “Good night,” Rose echoed. I could hear her smile. “Try not to get up too quickly. It will hurt.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Sleep didn't come easy ...

  ... And when it did, I dreamed of the magic going away.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Cat!”

  I jerked awake, my head spinning. For a long moment, I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. The nightmares had dragged me into a maelstrom of shadows, where everything I’d known had been wrong and nothing I’d done had been able to make things right. I felt sweat dripping down my forehead, even though it was cold. My head felt as if it had overheated. It throbbed, dully, as I fought to steady myself.

  “You were having a nightmare,” a voice said. I almost hit out before realising that it was Rose. “What were you dreaming about?”

  I gasped and opened my eyes as I fought for breath. Rose was kneeling next to me, her face illuminated by a glowing light. Akin was sitting on the other side of the room, watching me nervously. I felt a hot flash of shame, mingled with embarrassment. I’d never had such vivid nightmares in Raven Dorm, and, if I had, the noise-dampening charms would keep me from waking the others.

  “Night terrors,” I managed. I didn’t want to tell her the truth. The scr
oll felt heavy against my skin. “I think ... I think everything just caught up with me at once.”

  “You’ve done very well,” Akin said, gently. I caught a glimpse of his worried face as he rose and headed for the stairs. “It’s nearly morning, I think.”

  My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten properly in two days. I sat upright, gritting my teeth. We didn't have much food left, yet if we didn't eat we’d collapse before we made it to safety. We didn’t even know where safety was! I couldn't go back to the suite, no matter what promises Fairuza made. The scroll would be far too revealing if it fell into her hands. I knew I should destroy it, but ... but I couldn't. I couldn't even consider the possibility.