The Boy and His Curse

by Michael P Mordenga

  “Oh Caity, not now,” Gibbs said under his breath.

  Her chest tightened, but she pressed on.

  “It’s not exactly true,” she said, glancing at her sandals, “I’m sorry to say this, but your parents aren’t coming back. They were swallowed up by the curse. Your parents are no longer alive and I am really sorry.” She couldn’t finish without choking back tears.

  The room went silent, sucking all the air out of the cozy space. The sound of the cave furnace rumble was roaring now. All eyes were on the shaking Earthian.

  He was trembling, every cell in his body disrupted in a horrible shudder. Barely able to hold himself together, he began to rock steadily. Looking at Caitilin for confirmation, she could only affirm the news with her eyes.

  “What?” he whispered. They had done this to him. It was these faerie people.

  Caitilin put her hand on his leg again, trying to hold him still. He was white like a ghost and moving like a rickety engine. She wanted so badly to hold him still, offer him peace. It was a deaconess’ job to heal body as well as soul. She wrapped her loving arms around the boy.

  “Caitilin, that was foolish. We cannot communicate with the Earthian now,” Gibbs said.

  Ethan’s teeth began to rattle; he could feel his heart beating urgently, his blood pumping in anger. He felt hot, ablaze with an uncomfortable rage. All these Phaenix, they had ruined his life for the last time.

  Hinson sensed it in the boy. The way his lip trembled and his teeth ground, he was on the verge of doing something he would regret. Hinson stood between Ethan and the exit of the cave, towering over the boy.

  “Ethan, listen to me,” Gibbs said. “You must swallow your rage. This is not the time to mourn.”

  “Swallow it,” Caitilin said, worried.

  “Steady yourself, Gibbs,” Hinson warned.

  Ethan broke free of Caitilin’s embrace, swinging his arms, forming his hands into rigid claws. His eyes went wide, ferocious like a red hog.

  “No!” he screamed.

  Hinson tried to stop the boy, but Ethan was much too sporadic, hopping around the room on one leg. Ethan drove his forearm into Hinson’s neck, throwing him off balance.

  Gibbs lifted his hand; he could hold the boy using gale wind art. But then he dropped his hand. Forcing the boy to be here was not what he wanted. This situation had already snowballed into a tragedy; they didn’t need barbarism. It wasn’t the job of the clergy to constrain anyone; that was more the purpose of the Phaenix army, and the clergy often differed sharply with them.

  He stared at the distraught Ethan. He saw his face of horror and his eyes of lament and felt very sorry.

  Ethan was through the door, running into the night. The sky was black like the engrossing confusion dwelling within the boy. Every tree he ran by was meaningless; every dirt patch a horrible waste. This was what his life had become, a pointless mound of drivel made by a weird priest and winged fairy chick. He kept on running, letting everything pass him by. His leg emitted angry vibrations of pain and he let it fuel his rage. Ethan hoped to outrun the pain, but it branched out inside him. Like a dark tentacle that grew inside, the darkness wrapped itself around him. Everything in the forest was gone! He ran deeper into the woods, feeling his livid emotions override his blindness. He wanted to burst into flames of agony, engulfing the whole forest with his sorrow. They took everything from him. The whole universe had done this to him. All he wanted was the world to leave him to his comfortable life, but now it had been stolen from his hands.

  The darkness hurtled him deeper until his body went numb. His feet could not feel the wet grass, nor could his body feel the cruel wind. He truly was deep in the vast abyss of his darkness. He floated aimlessly, struggling with the tentacle of blackness. It had its grip around his torso, squeezing his very weak heart. It was then that Ethan realized he was lost in a sea of nothingness. Surrounded by an empty void, his body burst forth in a symphony of chaotic movements. He feared he was being swallowed. Swallowed by what? It was the pain of his life, the death of his dreams, and the boulder-sized impact of reality falling on him. The dark tentacle was all around him. No parents to guide him, no home to call his own, and no friends to support him. He was the true meaning of lost, devoid of all purpose.

  “Just leave me to die! Whoever is out there in this universe, just leave me to die,” he spoke to the black quietness of the night.

  His request was refused. For in one moment, Ethan heard a reply to his sorrow. He saw a rain drop of light fall onto him. First it was just a speck—one lonely speck—whiter than snow. Then another speck of light came down. He noticed more light specks were careening down, softly touching his body. The glowing rain showered forth from the skies and lit up the forest with a soft glow. Each speck landed on Ethan’s broken body and melted. He relaxed in the light specks and let them wash over him. The light illuminated him, covering him in a white shine. Lying on his stomach in a patch of dirt, he felt his body suddenly lifted. The light made him weightless; he could drift about and float in air. He dared not move; he was surrendered to the light. It washed inside him, reaching for his tired mind and aching muscles. It touched his ribcage and pushed out. The dark tentacle loosened around his torso, giving up its hold. A deep breath entered his body, filling his entire frame and then releasing into the silent, calm night. The freedom of the exhale removed every weight inside and Ethan felt free. The reality of him losing his parents for an eternity lost its razor edge. It still felt like a great sorrow that they would not return, but he felt a subtle assurance. Some presence was with him. It let him down gently. The rain of light ceased and Ethan was carefully laid back down to the ground. He drifted off to sleep on the dirt.

  Ethan had another dream. He saw himself in an open meadow. It was vast and empty and yet he could see trees on both sides of it. It took him a moment to realize that he was covered in wooden clothes from his head to his chest. His head had a hard oak helmet covering his skull and jutting out to protect his nose. His chest and back were surrounded by hard oak with the same Phaenix insignia from Hinson’s arrows. He felt something leathery in his hands. Looking down, he saw it was a leather shaft to a sword. The blade was a long sword and Ethan could see his reflection in the shiny metal. A warrior stared back at him. His eyes widened and for the first time, he realized who he was.

  *****

  Hinson stood up, scratching his knuckles aimlessly. “No beast will have mercy on him in the forest, master. We should bring him back.”

  Gibbs looked around the room at the other two bewildered Phaenix and sighed. “He is in the Daysun’s hands now. We can’t force him to stay and fight. That is against our very code. We need to let him decide. If the Daysun wants him, he will protect Ethan in the forest.”

  Caitilin was huddled in the corner of the house. She could not stand what she had said. After all of her cycles as a deaconess, she had destroyed a young Earthian’s life with her words. It wouldn’t end there, because now they wanted him to stay. If he stayed, Ethan would be taunted by the other Phaenix, hunted by the Queen, and tortured by the trolls. He was an open target with no hope of defending himself. She felt the prick of her conscience for telling him his parents would never come back. It was as true as the curse on his hand, but it carved too deeply into him. Now he was gone, beyond the reach of all her pitiful prayers. She understood why he was lost. Neither world had parents for him. He would die as if he was alone. Her stomach felt queasy.

  The door opened.

  Ethan had returned to Gibb’s house. His clothes resembled a wet dirt rug. The battle inside him was gone, now replaced with a look of serene calmness. The quiet made his eyes relax, his face muscles loosened and his posture less tense. He walked gracefully in the room with the weight of a feather guiding his steps.

  “Did my parents die painfully?” Ethan asked with sincerity.

  Hinson felt the need to field this question. He was well versed in strong Faerian theology. “Your parents ceased to be because of t
he curse; they didn’t fall beyond the gates of life. It’s more like they were transported into the world of non-being and when the curse was removed from you they were unable to restore back to your physical world. There are some things Gibbs cannot restore through the linking of kotomas.”

  Ethan felt the reality hit him hard in the chest, but there was still calmness washing over him. “And you say the Kalhari did this?”

  Gibbs decided to take this one. “That’s all the Kalhari understand, causing others pain for their own advancement. This curse’s legend describes it as made by the demon Avero, the same demon that made the trolls. This way of thinking came from them living in a nasty swamp for centuries. It has caused a deeply rooted bitterness that has removed all compassion for others. They will stop at nothing to destroy us for the life we live.”

  Ethan felt his heart sink lower, but he took a relaxed seat on a cushion. “What will Faeria do if I stay?”

  It was Caitilin’s turn. “If the Daysun wants you here, they will need to be educated to understand. I don’t like the idea of an Earthian staying here, but it seems that your kotoma has brought you here for a reason. We have to play this by wing and make sure that the other Phaenix don’t try to hurt you, but I cannot fathom how to do this. After your second world war we decided to never let your people come back and that has severed the ties between Earthian and Phaenix worlds. In fact….”

  Suddenly, Gibbs urgently motioned for Caitilin to stop talking.

  “The last Earthian that came to Faeria was found, captured and publicly executed to the approval of the town.”

  Ethan was glad that he was sitting; otherwise he would have fallen to the floor in fear. He stared at his worn shoes and thought as hard as his brain could muster. Every avenue of his mind gave him the same conclusion, there is no going back.

  “I don’t like this one bit,” he said, “but I see there is no way around it. My curse was made by these troll people. They threaten to destroy me and they have already taken everything I have. To be honest, when I threw that dagger at that troll, I really enjoyed it. I’ve never tried to kill anything in my life. I cried as a little kid when my gerbil died. But now I want to see this race of troll dead. I want them destroyed mercilessly until they beg for forgiveness.”

  He stood up in defiance, ignoring his injured leg. “I want to help rid your land of this scum and my curse.”

  Gibbs was a little shaken. “We’ve created a monster like the Octaflaught,” he whispered into Caitilin’s ear.

  “Are you sure this idea has illumination?” she whispered back.

  Hinson walked proudly over to the boy and patted him on the back. “That’s the spirit! Our first order of business is getting you over to the Queen.”

  From outer verse

  From second world

  From government unseen

  Comes unknown soul

  Of lesser mind

  Of one who dreams our dreams

  -Part one of The Davik Scrolls

  XI: Give Us the Twig!

  Scaught and Aria could barely breathe in the ash pit they stood in. It used to be the place they called home. Everything was a charred black heap on the ground, a hazy smoke wafting over it. There were Phaenix hunched over, lifeless on the ground; most of them women and sprouts.

  Scaught and Aria had traveled silently over the East forest for days, making sure to avoid detection by the invading Kalhari. Taking the north route through Fen Fen fields, they stealthily infiltrated through the Cianis streams and passed through the Daven meadows. Faeria had been mostly intersecting amber fields, but now it was something different. What they had found was a holocaust of their brethren. The once-colorful forest, teeming with life, was now a gray mausoleum. Every tree was burned without mercy and every stream cistern polluted with necro rats. Nothing could withstand the cruelty of a troll.

  There was sorrow written all over Scaught’s face. Each step was haunting and he just couldn’t believe that any creature would do this. He wanted so much to leave and go back to the sunny fields of the West. But he couldn’t. The Queendom had asked that he and his brother retrieve the dead and make gardens for them. It was a safer job than spying, but hardly anyone had the heart to go through with it. Seeing all the dead was enough to make any Phaenix lose all hope.

  The other Phaenix thought Scaught and Aria were crazy, but they had their own reasons for being here. Countless times, they had been told by spies who had seen the carnage how horrifying it was to enter the devastated forest, but they hadn’t listened—they needed closure. It was Troika, another brother, that they needed to find.

  Troika was a spy who had been assigned to watching the trolls within the camp on the third night. He had a partner Phaenix traveling with him, but he wouldn’t say who it was because he had been sworn to secrecy. The only thing they knew was that he was in charge of the third night and the trolls would be resting at Western Moss Pointe.

  Once, moss had grown here, making the ground a cushy carpet, but that had been tarnished with Phaenix blood. Scaught sniffed a patch of bloody leaves on the ground. Standing up, he pointed to what looked like a trail of blood. His nose could pick up distinct Phaenix scents and could immediately tell the blood trail belonged to a female Phaenix. They followed the trail of ashes and blood and found that it opened up to a small field.

  “We are nearing the Eastern Temple,” Scaught said, sniffing the air.

  Aria just shook his head in sadness.

  They knew they would find it, but they dreaded it in their hearts. The Eastern Temple was burned to the ground. The gems were tarnished, the gold had been stolen and the wooden structure had been ripped apart. Everything they had once celebrated about their god was turned to ashes from the temple fire.

  Aria pounded the ground. “Those worthless monsters. How could any force stand up to them? Even our Daysun was defeated.”

  Scaught didn’t know what to say, but he did notice the temple skeleton had toppled in on itself. He began to pull up pieces of the wall.

  “What are you doing? That is sacred,” Aria asked.

  “There’s someone inside this.”

  Aria started to lift the pieces off until they found who was underneath the temple. She was burned slightly, but it seemed that the fire had burned out before she could be consumed. The life had left her body, and the corpse was limp, with an arrow wound in her stomach.

  Aria got down on his knees. he couldn’t take it anymore. “Do you know who this is?”

  Scaught turned away. “Sasha, Budgeron’s daughter. She was not allowed to be out here. This was Troika’s partner. He couldn’t tell us because she had disobeyed her father. She loved this land and she wanted to aid the warriors. No father would want this to happen.”

  They scooped up her body and decided it would be best to take it back to Budgeron. The kingdom would truly mourn because of this.

  *****

  It had finally happened; Ethan was going to meet the Queen. The reality had hit him while he was walking through the golden trail of the West forest. How did this happen? Did I really say yes to be in this Phaenix land?

  He thought about his actions, running through the darkness of the forest and feeling the relief of the glowing rain. Even through his grief and increased stress, he couldn’t deny what he had seen and felt. It turned his gut to know what he saw. Ethan was meant to be a warrior on a battlefield. He said yes to it.

  Words like destiny and fate cycled through his mind, which disagreed with his general stance on the supernatural. Experiencing a presence that could only be described as divine had been bullish to him.

  Did he really meet someone? With all he was feeling, Ethan decided not to tell Gibbs or Caitilin. He could imagine them jumping up and down in excitement, flaunting their beliefs in this god and how their theology had been right all along. That’s not what he wanted. In fact, he tried everything in his power to deny that something had happened in the darkness of the forest.

  Caitilin and Hinson ha
d decided to take the boy to the Queen. It had all been planned out the night before. Hinson explained, with great enthusiasm, that Ethan would need her approval first or Phaenix would constantly try to kill him. Only her rule had the power to make him safe. Gibbs related that the Queen is the most majestic and powerful creature in the whole land. Getting the silver majesty to agree to an Earthian’s presence would take nothing short of a miracle; she was stubborn, hotheaded, and feisty. Hinson nodded and responded with a smile. He had concocted a plan that would get the job done with the Daysun’s help.

  “I wish I could take the boy, but age keeps me here,” Gibbs said. “This is a job for young minds, with quick feet, and a strong kotoma.”

  Gibbs gave them a sack of sugarwine apples, three tenderized bird jerkies and two hog sacks of sweet stream water for the journey. It would take the whole day to walk to the Sprawl because Ethan didn’t have the gift of flight. Caitilin and Hinson groaned at his handicap, wishing that his frail Earthian body could grow something useful to aid them. Hinson sharpened his green arrows and re-strung his bow. He was never certain when his woodsman learning would come in handy. Caitilin filled her silk pouch with Phaenix dust from Gibb’s pot, cleaned up her purple deaconess tunic, pinned her hair back in a silver clip, and washed her face. She did not want to visit the Queen looking dirty. Ethan was the only one out of place. Within moments Gibbs had given him a patch-filled cloak he had made from spare tunic cloths. It looked ragged and very far from Ethan’s graphic t-shirt and dusty jeans, but it was the best Gibbs could do. The cloak fit over his body with some slight adjustments, and Ethan almost looked like he belonged in this world. Gibbs specified removal of Ethan’s jeans and t-shirt to keep most suspicion at bay. There was a thin robe between his cloak and his underwear.

  Hinson had led them steadily with his woodsman knowledge. He pointed out every edible flower and every nourishing mushroom, particularly pointing out species Ethan could ingest. The yellow ones would give any non-Phaenix a psychotic trip that could only be described as colors flushing through the mind. The red ones had a nutrient that would speed up the inhabitant’s adrenaline and cause insane amounts of energy. It was the preferred mushroom of the Phaenix warriors, many of them chewing the red mushrooms before battle.