The Cursed Codex

by Matthew S. Cox

  Dad leaned in his doorway a little while later, saying something not loud enough to get past the music.

  Keith pulled the earbuds out. “Sorry. Had music on. What?”

  “Ash is here.”

  “Oh! Cool!” He trotted over, but paused. “Hey, Dad?”

  His father raised both eyebrows. “Hmm?”

  “How did you know…? I mean with Mom. How did you know when you were in love with her?”

  “Ahh.” His father smiled. “Got a girl at school giving you the eye?”

  Keith stuck his hands in his pockets, a rush of warmth in his cheeks. “Umm. Not exactly, I’m just asking in general. How do you know if it’s really love or something else?”

  “Well, it’s complicated, son. There’s no easy answer for it… but if you’re willing to make a fool of yourself or do something stupid for her—or him. It’s fine if you’re gay. Anyway, if you’re willing to do something stupid for them, more than once, you might be. Especially if you don’t care if your friends see you acting stupid.”

  Keith grinned. “It’s cool, Dad. There is a girl I’m thinking about, but I’m not sure she even knows I exist.”

  “Ahh.” His father patted him on the shoulder. “Sounds like a crush then. It can’t be love until you know her beyond what she looks like.”

  I do know her. “Yeah. That’s true. Guess I need to talk to her.”

  “Good plan.” His father patted him on the shoulder before heading downstairs.

  Keith followed, diverting to the front door where Ashur waited. “Hey, you escaped!’

  “Yeah.” Ashur stepped in and kicked off his shoes. “What do you wanna do?”

  “C&C, but we can’t without everyone here.” Keith pointed at the living room. “PS4, movies, or if you’re really bored, I could dig out like a board game or something.”

  Ashur stared at him. “Board games? Really? What are we, nine?”

  They wound up in the living room on the PS4 for the rest of the afternoon. Keith wanted to tell him about the key and his idea that Sarah had somehow become trapped inside the Codex, but every time he thought to say it, he changed his mind. The story sounded so utterly crazy that even Ashur, his best friend, would either think he teased him or that he’d lost his mind.

  Hanging out did take his mind off Sarah, somewhat. It had been a while since Ashur had any free time between school and soccer practice, so Keith didn’t want to sound like a nut job and make things weird.

  Ashur stayed for dinner. Living right next door had its benefits, like being able to hang out playing video games until bedtime.

  When the doorbell rang at eight, Ashur groaned. “Gotta go.”

  “’Kay. See you tomorrow.” Keith put away the game system while his friend answered the door.

  Mrs. Zuabi waved at him. “Hello.”

  “Hi.” Keith smiled. “Sorry. We lost track of time.”

  “It is okay, I figured you would. You boys don’t get enough time to be friends lately.” She sighed at her son. “Perhaps we are having you do too much too soon.”

  “It’s all right, Mom.” Ashur waved to Keith and walked out of sight off the porch.

  “Good night.” Mrs. Zuabi closed the door.

  Keith ran upstairs. He dug around his desk until he found a metal bead chain from a set of fake dog tags he’d won at some carnival, and used it to make the key into an amulet, which he hung around his neck. With the Codex beside him, he sat on the floor by the closet, waiting.

  Did I fall in love? Is it supposed to feel like this? So fast? She doesn’t know me, but it feels like I’ve known her for a long time. Maybe she does know me. She’s in my head, right? Making me say stuff. He stared down at the book. Or is this book trying to trick me? It got her… what if it’s trying to lure me into a trap, too?

  He gazed at the closet, trying to remember how it felt to hold her hand through the bars of the gate. If he wound up stuck inside whatever world lurked beyond his closet door, he decided it wouldn’t be that bad as long as he was with her.

  Ugh.

  What’s wrong with me?

  “I’m hoping to jump into an alternate world and maybe get stuck there to help Sarah. I guess that counts as doing something stupid.”

  Crap. I’m in love.

  Following a tedious week at school, and the alarming normality of his closet, Mrs. Norris showed up for dinner Friday night. Keith could barely make eye contact with her out of guilt over failing to have made any progress reaching Sarah. The only thing he’d accomplished was writing a letter to her explaining that he knew she’d become trapped somehow in the book and he would help her. He hid it in his desk and added ‘mysterious letter’ to Kyra Redmane’s inventory. He did that Tuesday, and on Thursday he noticed the entry had changed to ‘mysterious tear-stained letter.’

  He didn’t sleep well that night, wracked with guilt.

  Mrs. Norris seemed to adore having people around and even gave off motherly vibes toward his parents. They got on well, and for almost an hour after dinner, Keith sat there in awkward silence while his parents conversed with her about random, boring things. When she left, he walked her home so he could have a moment to talk to her without his parents listening in.

  Upon reaching her front porch, he sighed. “Nothing’s happened yet. Maybe it won’t until we’re playing the game again tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Norris squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t know what to believe right now, Keith. I want to think there’s a chance. Some things you pointed out are rather difficult to explain, but also… so far-fetched.”

  “I know.” He kicked his sneaker toe at the sidewalk, while staring down. “It’s hard for me to believe, too, but I just know it’s real. Maybe something will happen tomorrow. The book’s being quiet because I think it suspects I’ve figured it out. Or something.”

  She smiled. “Well, whatever you do. Be careful. Please thank your parents again for the wonderful dinner.”

  “Your pie was amazing. I’ve never had cherry pie before.”

  Mrs. Norris blinked. “Never? Oh my. That’s borderline child abuse.” She winked.

  Keith chuckled. “’Night Mrs. Norris.”

  He watched her go inside before heading home, hands in his pockets, gaze on the ground, and mind in the clouds.

  Saturday at 11:09 a.m., Keith sat behind his GM screen looking at Elliot, Carlos, Tira, and Ashur seated around the table. Tira, being tiny, took up the corner between Ashur, and Carlos, who faced Keith. Plastic cups of tea and a giant bowl of Smartfood popcorn competed for space with character sheets and dice. Elliot had been rambling on about maybe using grid maps and figurines for the combats so it would be ‘tactical,’ but Tira protested, preferring to keep it all in the imagination so, as she said, “it’s more like a story and not a wargame.”

  “I found the key,” said Keith.

  Carlos tilted his head. “How can you find the key? You’re the GM.”

  “He’s probably talking for his girlfriend, Kyra.” Ashur winked, clicked his tongue, and pointed at Keith with finger guns.

  Everyone except Tira chuckled.

  “Dude. You got it bad for a girl who doesn’t even exist.” Ashur grinned.

  Elliot coughed, laugh-tears running down his face. “The only way Keith could get a girl is if he made her up.”

  “Butt.” Keith tossed a d12 at Elliot, bouncing it off his head with a satisfying hollow-coconut like thok. “Look who’s talking.”

  “Ow contrail, Keith-san.” Elliot patted his large belly. “Phoebe Walsh is all over me. She says there’s a whole lot of me to love.”

  Tira grinned.

  “No kidding.” Carlos playfully punched Elliot in the side, making him jiggle.

  “Umm, it’s ‘au contraire,’” said Tira.

  “Whatever.” Elliot rolled his eyes.

  Keith grabbed his T-shirt, clutching the key hanging around his neck. He almost tugged the chain up to show them the glowing gem, but if his friends freaked out, they might
not play. Somehow, he knew Sarah’s life depended on them playing.

  So he kept it hidden.

  “Right,” said Keith. “Docar’s awake on last watch. The sun comes up, casting a long shadow from the tower. All around you, the land remains black and desolate. Nothing is moving but the wind.”

  Elliot leaned to the side and farted.

  “Not that wind,” muttered Keith.

  Tira pulled her beige sweater up over her face.

  Carlos waved his character sheets like a fan. “I cast dispel cloud.”

  “I can’t even…” Ashur, gagging, stood and staggered out into the hallway.

  The foul stench of the infernal abyss seeped into Keith’s throat.

  “Oh man. Dude!” Keith choked. “I should dock you experience points for delay of game.”

  Elliot laughed.

  22

  Learning the Rules

  Docar sported a strange, broad smile no one could explain. He seemed proud of himself for some reason. Nasir the Bold once more packed up his bedroll and walked around in a small circle, stretching his great muscles. Kyra Redmane sat on the ground some ten or fifteen paces away from the group, staring into the distance. The continuous, gentle breeze kept her hair aloft, fluttering like a delicate ginger spirit.

  Tira Shadow grumbled.

  A second later, her hair also lifted into the wind.

  Nasir shrugged his pack over his shoulder and approached the ranger. “So, where is this key?”

  “I’m not sure.” Kyra attempted to conceal a sniffle while stuffing a scrap of parchment into her satchel. She kept her head down, hiding her face under her long locks. “I thought I had found it once, but it’s not here anymore.”

  Docar tapped a finger to his chin. “Hmm. Perhaps you have memories from a prior life.”

  “Maybe.” Kyra sighed. “I recall a story about a farmer’s children finding the key in the meadow and thinking it a pretty trinket.”

  “So we double back to that village?” asked Fuegor.

  Kyra stood and gazed off to the east. A touch of redness ringed her eyes, though her expression had become stoic. “It is not the same village. This one is nearer to us, perhaps an hour’s walk. Surely it is abandoned by now.”

  “Can you track these little ragamuffins?” asked Nasir.

  “I doubt any trace of their passage remains,” said Kyra. “The rumor came from before the Devouring touched this place.”

  “Didn’t it start here?” Tira Shadow eyed the tower.

  “I do not think this is the tower. It is rather on the small side.” Fuegor cast a spell, which caused his belongings to fling themselves into the air and collect on his person in their proper places. “It is an outpost.”

  “Which way?” asked Docar.

  Kyra pointed east, readied her longbow, and set off.

  Roughly two hours later, the broken remnants of a small town came into view. The land to the southeast of the guard tower contained many small hills dotted with scattered dwellings. A cluster of wood-and-stone buildings formed a village square at the almost middle of the twenty or so farmhouses on all sides. Nothing lived or moved within the abandoned settlement, not even rats or crows come to pick at bones. The skeletal carcasses of cows, goats, and chickens lay here and there among broken fences, smashed wagons, and collapsing homes.

  “It is going to take a while to check all these ruins,” said Nasir. “I don’t suppose you know which house belonged to the children who found the key?”

  Kyra shook her head. “Even if I knew what it once looked like, that wouldn’t help. The Devouring has ruined all.”

  “It would go faster if we split up,” said Fuegor.

  “No.” Kyra narrowed her eyes. “We are deep within the Dark Wizard’s realm here. At any moment, danger may present itself. Better we are not easy to pick off one at a time.”

  “Umm, yeah.” Tira Shadow edged closer to Nasir. “We should stay together.”

  “Very well then.” Nasir faced the nearest dwelling and marched toward it.

  For an hour or more, they searched houses, breaking open cabinets and trunks, yet located only peasant clothing and flatware. A large field full of dead, brown cornstalks separated the fifth home from the fourth. Despite the bleakness of an entire crop withering, the brown did offer a welcome change from the black shrouding everything else.

  Tira Shadow and Kyra raised their hands in a cautionary gesture at the same time. The women looked at each other, sharing a second of ‘Yeah, I heard that, too.’

  “Ambush,” whispered Kyra.

  Nasir drew his blades and whirled around, cutting down plants to carve out a wider space where nothing could hide.

  Seconds later, rustling in the dead corn drew nearer. Fuegor raised his hands, summoning a shimmering blue wall of magical light around his body. Docar squeezed his morningstar. Kyra also drew her two swords and sliced up more of the dead plants, widening their clearing.

  A swarm of black-skinned creatures rushed out of the growth. Their pod-shaped bodies tapered forward to a lamprey-like mouth beneath a pair of fist-sized eyes on thin stalks, and narrowed to a stubby tail at the other. Thick, clear slime covered their otherwise jet-black skin. Two powerful legs with backward-bent knees carried them in a bobbing run. The creatures lacked arms of any kind, and the tallest one stood an inch or two above the level of a man’s waist.

  Nasir leaned back into a defensive stance. “I do not like the looks of this. Their mouths are at a rather alarming height.”

  Fuegor guarded his crotch.

  Time paused for a moment or four as the laughter of invisible children came from overhead.

  Chaos erupted. Somewhere between a dozen and twenty of the creatures surrounded the party, flinging themselves into an all-out attack with little regard for their lives. Nasir flew into a frenzy of strikes and defenses, but out of every ten times he rounded his blade, he only connected once. Fortunately, the creatures appeared to share his horrible fortune, and had no luck biting him.

  Docar started off swinging, splattering two of the creatures early on with his morningstar, but soon, he wound up devoting all his time to throwing healing magic at Fuegor, who had become a chew toy. Almost every time one of the creatures attacked him, it clamped its mouth onto his legs or stomach, shredding his robes and drinking blood. Kyra flew among the monsters like a dervish, killing one every three or four swings and hitting most of the time. The creatures seemed to sense danger and avoided her whenever possible, gathering more and more around Nasir, who remained frustratingly unable to land a swing.

  Out of nowhere, one of the creatures in front of Nasir dropped dead. A soft, fleshy thump happened seconds later, and another one fell. A third and fourth went down one after the next.

  “What the…?” asked Nasir. His confusion ended when he spotted a throwing knife sticking out of the head of a dead creature at his feet.

  Time froze.

  “How did she take four attacks in one round?” asked the voice of a disembodied boy. “And kill four of these… whatever they ares.”

  “I re-spent my development points,” said a little girl voice from nowhere. “I found a special ability that’s like, really stupid for a thrown weapon user not to have. If I get a crit, I get a free throw. I can throw two knives a round since they have a faster attack pattern, and the second was a crit, so I got another one, and that critted, too.”

  A shuffle of papers echoed in the sky.

  Nasir grunted. “Can you move?”

  “No,” said Tira Shadow.

  “Nor I. Why has everything stopped?” asked Fuegor. “It is most unsettling to see these horrors merely standing there.”

  “I know not,” muttered Docar, “but it is likely vile magic.”

  “Rules lawyer,” muttered Kyra.

  “What’s that?” asked Fuegor. “Some manner of foul demon-spawn?”

  “Worse. Oh, never mind.” Kyra smiled. “We have but to wait. It shall pass.”

  “You can’
t just let her rebuild her character in the middle of a game,” said another disembodied boy.

  “Hang on,” said Spirit Boy. “Okay, I found the Opportunist ability, but you’re doing it a little wrong. It can only work once per combat round. If you get a crit when taking an Opportunist attack, you don’t get another one.”

  “Aww,” whined the invisible little girl.

  “It’s okay for now. This is only a random encounter. The ones you killed stay dead… going forward though, you can’t take a free attack when your free attack crits. And guys, we’re all still learning the rules. If she knew it a few weeks ago, she’d have taken it. It’s cool. We’re doing this to have fun, right?” asked Spirit Boy. “So… right. Carlos, you’re up.”

  Time resumed.

  Fuegor hurled another fire bolt into one of the creatures chewing on his leg. Shrieking, the blood-sucking fiend spun about in a panicked frenzy, wailing in agony until it collapsed, dead in a smoking heap.

  Time stopped again.

  “Hang on,” said a disembodied boy from Docar’s direction. “He’s throwing fire spells around a field full of dead, dried-out corn.”

  “So?” asked Spirit Boy.

  “Ugh,” said another disembodied boy’s voice from Nasir’s direction. “He’s right. This whole place would be on fire.”

  Kyra closed her eyes and muttered, “Crap.”

  “Good thing you made a clearing,” chimed the invisible little girl.

  “Oh. Umm.” Spirit Boy cleared his throat. “Yeah. Good point.”

  The brown corn stalks flashed into a conflagration. Since Nasir and Kyra had cut down an open area, the flames touched off by numerous fire bolts from Fuegor didn’t do much more than cover the adventurers with soot. A handful more of the creatures wailed in pain as the flames raced across the cornstalks, incinerating the entire field to flat, open ground in a matter of seconds.

  Roaring, Nasir threw himself into another attack, this time slaying two creatures with near-perfect sword strokes to their heads. Black, goopy blood sprayed from where his blades cleaved flesh, splattering on Docar and Fuegor who stood nearby.