THE CURSE
By Valya Boutenko
© 2017 Valya Boutenko. All rights reserved.
Contents:
Chapter 1: A Harsh New World
Chapter 2: The Library
Chapter 3: Rumors
Chapter 4: Ausra
Chapter 5: The Fallen
Chapter 6: Too Soon
Chapter 7: Outcast
Chapter 8: The Pancake
Chapter 9: The Secret Treasure
Chapter 10: The Search
Chapter 11: Leap of Faith
Chapter 12: Earth
Chapter 13: Lost
Chapter 14: Found
Chapter 15: Bloom
Chapter 16: Swords and Harps
Chapter 17: A Perfect Ear
Chapter 18: First Match
Chapter 19: A Fighting Spirit
Chapter 20: Enemies and Friends
Chapter 21: An Unknown Threat
Chapter 22: Across the Desert
Chapter 23: The Gemstone
Chapter 24: Monstrous Lies
Chapter 25: The Take Down
Chapter 26: Reluctantly Famous
Chapter 27: The Mischief of Thieves
Chapter 28: The Map of Inquisition
Chapter 29: Buried in the Ground
Chapter 30: New Girl in the Court
Chapter 31: Closer Than Ever
Chapter 32: Hidden in the Mist
Chapter 33: Sand in the Wind
Chapter 34: Lady in the Fog
Chapter 35: Challenge Accepted
Chapter 36: The Gift
Chapter 37: The Queen’s Contest
Chapter 38: Twisted and Changed
Chapter 39: The Trouble With Dreams
Chapter 40: Tracks Without a Trace
Chapter 41: Accused
Chapter 42: Return of the Wizard
Chapter 43: A New Direction
Chapter 44: The Citrulene City
Chapter 45: Cruel Accusations
Chapter 46: The Long Lost Child
Chapter 47: The Potion
Chapter 48: The Spoils of Royalty
Chapter 49: The Truth of the Matter
Chapter 50: Stolen
Chapter 51: The Coronation
Chapter 52: The Second Visit
Chapter 53: On the Other Side
Chapter 54: Twice Broken
Chapter 55: The Third Visit
Chapter 56: Into the Future
About the Author
Chapter 1
A Harsh New World
Wendell lay reeling beneath the orange sky. He looked at the pea-sized stone resting in the palm of his hand. The black pebble was perfectly round, and seemed heavy for its size. Wendell felt sick. His mind rebelled against reality and his breath came faster and faster. Convulsing, the youth rolled over onto his stomach and vomited onto the desert floor. He closed his fist tightly around the dark stone so as not to lose it again. Not wiping the acid from his chin, Wendell pulled his trembling fists to his face and wept, allowing the sobs to erupt into the silence unsuppressed for the first time since he was a small child. Hot tears gushed from his eyes, and Wendell did not try to stop them. His teardrops fell onto his armored chest plate and slowly slid down the metal, leaving rusty trails in their wake. Only hours before he had thought of himself as a brave warrior and a hero, but now the boy knew he would go down in history as a terrible criminal.
Wendell felt the hard stone inside his clenched fist, and he opened his hand to look at it once again. Its glossy surface reflected the surrounding world like a dark mirror. He could see his own reflection distorted in the curving side of the stone. His messy blond hair was dull with dust and his odd colored eyes red from crying. One of his eyes was blue and the other brown. Although only eighteen, Wendell’s tear-streaked face looked older today than it had the day before. Wendell shoved the stone inside his pocket. He hated the loathsome thing. Sitting up, he rocked back and forth, overwhelmed and weak with pain. The terrible sound of his master’s final words echoed through his mind. "I am your master no more, let time be your teacher now!" Surrounded by the dry landscape, Wendell cried out into the lonely mountains, his feelings tearing him apart from the inside. His body shook with the grief of what had happened. “What have I done?” he whispered through trembling lips, and a fresh wave of emotion seized him. Wendell pulled at his hair, his face twisted with anguish. He felt worthless, and did not know how he could go on living with himself.
Suddenly, a terrible idea entered his mind. The tears abruptly ceased. Wendell glanced up the side of the mountain from where he had come. He rose. A numbness settled over him that was even worse than the raging emotions. Wendell’s face fell, the muscles in his jaw and cheeks going slack. His eyes stared blankly forward with an indifferent gaze. He rose and moved steadily up the mountainside. Stepping on a loose stone, Wendell twisted an ankle. The pain exploded in his foot, but the boy didn’t care about himself anymore, and continued forward, stepping roughly on the injured ankle and ignoring the screaming agony throbbing in his foot. Nothing mattered anymore. All was lost and he knew it was his own fault.
He climbed up the slope until he reached the familiar clearing at the top of the mountain. The cave entrance where the Pillar of Dominance had been earlier that same day was now filled in with boulders. Wendell walked passed it to the cliff ledge dropping off to one side of the clearing. Closer and closer to the edge he walked, until the toes of his shoes hung off the side of the cliff. His eyes watered from a mixture of wind and his own tears. He looked down. Several hundred feet below, the red desert extended as far as the eye could see, endless and permanent. Dust devils twirled in several places, rising up in uneven funnels. Wendell wanted to die. Each moment he lived was an unbearable burden. He could not imagine enduring an entire lifetime this way. How could he live with what he had done? Wendell bent his knees, ready to push off and take the leap into nothingness, when abruptly, something within him made him stop in mid-action. Was it cowardice, he wondered? No, he had nothing left to fear! This was something different. Overcome with a fresh wave of shame, Wendell looked out at the lifeless new world below. He trembled with emotion. “Set it right,” said a voice inside him gently. It was in this moment, that Wendell vowed to himself that he would find a way to fix the world he had ruined. There would be plenty of time to die. He stepped back from the ledge. Wendell firmly pressed his lips together and turned away from the cliff. He walked with determination back across the clearing.
In the soil near the entrance of the cave, Wendell saw his master’s sundial laying in the dirt. “You must learn, at any cost, the lessons I have failed to teach you!” his master had said before he had taken it off his own wrist and thrown it to his student. Wendell picked the object up and brushed off the dust. If there was a lesson his master wanted him to learn, then he would honor his teacher by learning it willingly, regardless of how hard it would be. Wendell felt a painful stab in his chest at the thought of having betrayed the old wizard. Master Loriander had been like a father to him. The only father Wendell had ever known. Wendell strapped the timepiece onto his wrist, securely buckling the leather strap. The dial spun around, following the orientation of the sun on its own. Wendell looked at the face of the dial. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning. Not more than two hours had passed since the dominance had been re-determined. Wendell’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably but not from hunger. He felt as though he would never be able to eat again.
The boy began to descend down the side of the mountain, not following any particular path or route. Without the protection of trees that had densely covered the mountains only hours prior, the sun beat down upon Wendell wit
h a vengeance. His mouth quickly became dry and uncomfortable. Wendell stripped off and discarded the heavy armor that weighed his body down one piece at a time, leaving it to lie where it fell. The punishing rays of the orange sun bore down on his skin in a weightless but constant murder. Wendell was painfully sunburned within a few hours. He forced his feet to shuffle forward. His face felt hot, and his head dizzy. Heat waves radiated from the rough soil around him. A spindly shrub beside him with more thorns than leaves cast a couple feet of sparse shade onto the dirt. Wendell looked at the grey purple shadow of the plant. The world spun around him. He wanted to collapse right then and there but he had a promise to keep, and so he pushed forward.
As the evening hours came it grew colder. At first this was a welcome relief, but Wendell quickly realized that without the insolation of plant life, the desert would get much colder than he could handle even though it was early summer. Wendell’s cracked lips began to tremble. He wrapped his arms around his body and walked on. As darkness fell, Wendell saw a light up ahead. He quickened his pace, moving towards the light as if to his last hope. As he approached, he recognized the building to be an old pub planted on the outskirts of a small village. The paint was cracked and peeling from the walls in curled-up tubes. Wendell wondered what condition the building had been in earlier that same day and if it had been his actions that had aged the structure it into its current ragged state. Realizing that he was now a fugitive, he pulled his hood over his head. Exhausted, alone, and afraid, Wendell entered the squat little tavern.
In the dim light Wendell could make out the shapes of approximately half a dozen men. Upon stepping through the front door Wendell suddenly found himself in the middle of an uncomfortable conversation.
“Who is responsible for this? Who will pay?” said a man sitting at the bar, his graying head hanging low over his mug.
“It was that evil wizard,” said the bartender.
Wendell nervously took a seat at the bar. The bartender was engrossed in the conversation, and mechanically placed a drink in front of Wendell without looking at the youth.
“We can’t just let him get away with this!” said the first man.
“I always knew that wizard folk was noth’en but trouble,” snorted a stalky man from a table behind them. He hit his fist on the wood making his mug jump. “Should of killed’em all off when we had the chance.”
“What has become of our world?” groaned the bartender, raking his thick fingers through his hair, “Windifera is ruined.”
“I’ve decided not to have children,” said a gruff, beefy man sitting to Wendell’s left.
The man next to him snickered. “Sure-sure Henry, good luck with that.”
The first man shoved him away, making him laugh and spill his beer.
“Stop your foolishness! How are we supposed to live now?” asked the bartender seriously.
“It’s not liv’en, it’s surviv’en!” howled the stalky man at the table behind Wendell.
“There are things out there…” said the man at the bar next to Wendell trailing off. “Creatures so terrible that it’s hard to believe nature would permit such monsters to live! I was in the forest when it happened, and I saw animals transform into such terrible beasts as words fail to describe!
“I tell you if that wizard ever crosses my path, I swear I’ll kill’em ah will!” spat the man at the table behind them.
Wendell pulled his hood even lower over his eyes. He could feel his heart rate quickening and the drink bringing the heat to his head.
“Death is too good for him,” said a tall meaty man with a black mustache, sitting at a table in the dark corner.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already done away with himself, the filthy coward!” said the bartender.
Wendell ground his teeth together. He felt something snap inside him, a cord pulled one turn too tight. Wendell quickly downed the rest of his drink, flung some coins across the bar table, and rose, making for the door. The coins glowed obviously in the dark tavern, emanating a golden light and leaving burnt marks on the scuffed-up wood.
“Hey!” said the barman without touching the coins. He looked at the others and jerked his head in Wendell’s direction, “Where did you say you were from?”
Picking up on the bar tender’s queue, the other men in the tavern rose and made their way over to Wendell.
“Yeah, we ain’t seen you in these parts before,” said one of them.
Everything seemed to speed up. Within seconds, Wendell was surrounded. What took place next happened so quickly and easily Wendell did not have time to think twice. A man with a blond mustache came at him. Wendell shoved him back onto a tabletop, overcome with frustration and anger. The young wizard reached for the dagger on the stranger’s belt. The weapon almost leaped into his hand. In an instant Wendell was firmly clutching the smooth silver handle and aiming the sharp point of the blade it at his enemies heart.
“No!” breathed the man, his eyes wide and his hands helpless. The other men stood still, transfixed by the horrible sight. Wendell towered over his victim, a head taller than the other men. It was surprising to the boy that nothing was holding him back from murdering this man. Maybe he was an evil wizard after all, Wendell thought. He drew back the knife ready to sink it deep into the man’s warm, living flesh, when suddenly he felt someone grab his wrist from behind, stopping him from completing the strike. Trembling with what he had almost done, Wendell slowly turned around to find a middle-aged man clasping his wrist with an unexpected strength. The man wore a heavy canvas robe and a leather eye-patch strapped across his lined face. He had a fresh cut on his cheek, that was sewn shut with a line of narrow stitches. One blue eye gleamed at Wendell for a moment, before the man disarmed the youth and returned the dagger to the man lying on the table.
“Kill the wizard!” shouted the bartender.
“He is no wizard, you fools!” hissed the newcomer, stopping the action dead in the room with words alone. “Are you so bent on revenge you would murder the first suspect you find without trial or evidence of a crime? He is only a boy.”
“If wizard he be, we cannot let him live,” said the bartender, “for fear of what he may still do.”
“You think your fear will keep you safe, but look at what it’s done to you! You gather like vultures before a kill, blindly agreeing to do what is obviously wrong.”
Wendell’s arms felt limp as they hung at his sides.
“Come with me,” said the stranger, grabbing Wendell’s shoulder and pushing him out into the night.
“What do you want with me?” asked Wendell, wrestling free.
“I want to help you,” said the man. He looked intently at the boy. “I can see you are in some kind of trouble.”
“I don’t need your help!” snapped Wendell. “Who are you, and where did you come from anyway?” he demanded.
“I am a friend,” replied the old man simply, “and I live in the valley like yourself.”
“The valley is ruined!” cried Wendell. “Everything is ruined!”
“Not all hope is lost, it will be alright,” said the old man trying hard to console him.
“How? How will it be alright?” demanded the youth. “Nothing is alright!”
“Do you need a safe place to go?” asked the man.
“No!” cried the youth, “I am no longer safe anywhere!”
“I offer you my home,” continued the stranger kindly. “Though it’s not much of a home yet. I am building a cottage an hour’s trek south of here, and you are welcome there. Just follow the river bed.” He turned to leave.
Wendell wrestled with his pride. Something told him to go with the stranger, but he commanded his feet to stay put. Glancing behind, he saw the faces of the men in the tavern watching him through the dusty windows. The dim overhead light masked their eyes, making their eye sockets look like empty dark holes. Wendell shuttered and looked once more at the retreating man, whose tall form was disappearing into the darkness ahead. G
oing against his better judgment, Wendell didn’t follow. Instead he hurried in the opposite direction, sensing with his bones that remaining near the tavern any longer would be a mistake. Struggling to suppress the desire to run, he forced his legs to move forward in steady, even steps. His heartbeat quickening in his chest, and the cold air burning inside his lungs, Wendell moved quickly but aimlessly through the night, letting his feet take him where they would. He had nowhere to go, and shelter was even harder to find than he had anticipated.
An hour passed, perhaps longer. Wendell lost track of time. Finally, he felt as though he could not take another step. The cold had forced itself deep into his chest, chilling the last of the warmth out of him. Wendell’s body had no more reserves of energy and he fell onto his knees. Trembling from hypothermia, he crashed onto the soil. His hands exploded with pain as they hit the frozen ground. His knuckles were bloodied and cracked with cold. Wendell collapsed. Shivering, he lay on the desert floor. It was all so hopeless. What could he do? How could he fix this terrifying new world? Wendell was almost certain that he would never feel safe again. He closed his eyes. Never in all his life had he imagined that he would so long for death. His pulse grew slower and slower, and yet, it did not stop.
He heard a woman scream in the night. Wendell could not tell how far away the sound had been. He made no move to get up. She was on her own now, like everyone else in the cruel new world. There was another muffled scream. “No!” Wendell breathed. He could not let her die! He was responsible for whatever was happening to that poor woman. Adrenaline pounded into his blood with that thought. Wendell could make out the sounds of struggle, and shoving himself off the ground, he ran numbly towards the noise. He rushed towards it, tripping in the dark and clumsy with cold. Up ahead he could make out three enormous shapes towering over an unseen victim.
Wendell felt the palms of his hands heating up. Forgetting his curse altogether, he uttered an incantation and a wall of fire roared towards the creatures from his glowing hands. The golden flames shot forward, snaking between the beasts and encircling their victim with magical fire. The beasts fearfully backed away from the flames. In the light of the fire, Wendell could see the monsters hideous forms. Shaggy fur thinly covered their leathery bodies. Slime oozed from their mouths, dribbling down the points of their dagger-like fangs. They snarled and hissed at Wendell. In all his life, the boy had never seen such hideous creatures. “Ouch!” cried Wendell, as a new black stone tore through his palm. The cut stung painfully. He caught the round stone with his other hand before it could fall to the ground. It was larger than the one he had made before. He quickly stuffed it into his pocket and looked down at the hand it had come from. A long bloody gash ran the length of his palm. Meanwhile, his spell was diminishing and the wall of fire began to shrink in height and intensity. In the center of the now feeble fire ring lay a dark-skinned young woman. She lay motionless in a yellow dress and leather corset. The monsters had re-grouped and were ready to attack again. Wendell ran forward, and just as one of the beasts reared up aiming to jump over the flames, the boy shouted a second spell. A powerful burst of wind hit the creature in the chest, momentarily forcing the beast back from the girl. Wendell used this opportunity to leap forward over the ring of fire. With the sweep of one hand he projected a shielding spell around himself and the girl. The monsters crashed their teeth against it, but could not break through. Wendell dropped two more fresh stones into his pocket. They made a loud clack as they collided with the others. Now there were gashes on both of his palms. He knelt by the young woman and checked her pulse. Relieved that she was still alive, he cast a healing spell upon her and she slowly opened her eyes, the scratches on her arms and legs pulling together and disappearing.
The Curse (The Windore Series Book 2) Page 1