The Curse Giver

by Dora Machado

  Lusielle hesitated. “Did any of them survive?”

  The woman shook her head.

  So much for a little reassurance.

  The fire flared with renewed intensity. A new kind of smoke rose through the hose and spilled out into the room, a vaporous, perfumed mist, shimmering with light flashes like an approaching storm. Within moments, a low fog crawled over the floor, swirling around Lusielle’s feet, sifting beneath her skirt, caressing her legs with lukewarm fingers.

  “I need to be able to see,” Lusielle said.

  “You’ll be in no condition to see anything,” the Chosen said.

  “You implied that the only way this had any chance to succeed was if I was agreeable to it,” Lusielle said. “I won’t volunteer unless I’m able to see everything that happens.”

  “The vapors have already been called. The doors are already sealed. What do you want me to do?”

  “Do you have a mirror?”

  “A mirror? Here? Of course not.”

  “We’ll have to make do.” Lusielle’s eyes fell on the tray holding the Chosen’s packaged mixtures. She dumped the packets on the counter and looked at her reflection on the highly polished copper. A frightened stranger stared back at her. What by the Thousand Gods do you think you’re doing?

  Lusielle propped the copper tray against the wall and sat on the cushions, adjusting her position until the tray was at the proper angle to reflect her back. The lady Khalia settled cross-legged beside her, placing a pair of small ram horn shells on the ground. The tightly curled vermillion beauties spiraled into delicate coils at one end. Stacking one shell against the other, the Chosen made sure the tiny trumpet-like openings were facing her.

  Lusielle eyed the shells with suspicion. “What are these?”

  “Shells, of course, the internal tools that the dwarf red squid uses to keep afloat, we’re told.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d take such care if they were common shells.”

  “Common?” She chuckled softly. “Nay, they’re a rarity from the Sea Port Cities. They always come in pairs. They’re Teos’s treasures.”

  “Why use them now?”

  “If you must know ….” The lady lifted the shell to Lusielle’s ear.

  What are these? Lusielle’s voice reverberated back from the shell, followed by the Chosen’s reply and their ensuing exchange, a perfect replication of their entire conversation moments ago.

  “Clever, don’t you think?” The lady smiled. “These pretty shells store our words for the future. In the absence of highborn witnesses, who are not always available or convenient, we have some recourse, just in case it’s needed.”

  Lusielle had not known such things existed. The Chosen had had her witnesses for Bren’s inquest, but for reasons Lusielle refused to dwell on, her inquiry required a different approach.

  “Are you ready?”

  Lusielle’s trembling fingers fumbled with her buttons. She really hoped she wasn’t going to regret this. Her fingertips stumbled and slipped as if coated with lard. The lady’s hands took over the task. One by one, the Chosen undid her buttons, her skirt’s fastening and her shift’s laces, pulling the shift over her head, undressing her as if she were but a helpless child.

  Indeed, Lusielle was feeling helpless. She tried to cling to her remedy case and her skirt but with a firm tug, the lady wrenched them from her hands and tossed them aside.

  “There’s no need for shame in beauty.”

  Easy for the lady to say. She wasn’t sitting naked before a stranger, risking her life based on a few shaky hunches. But as the vapors rose and thickened, Lusielle’s embarrassment began to subside. Her body was growing numb and her limbs heavy. Her fear, on the other hand, was surging with the dangerous mist.

  By the time the lady began to draw on the prolific hose, Lusielle sprawled on her back with her head resting on the crux of the Chosen’s crossed legs. The woman’s upside-down face hovered above her in the mist, lips joined with the bubbling hose, throat gulping compulsively, nostrils smoking puffs of the iridescent vapors raining down on her.

  It took some work, but when Lusielle finally managed to crane her indolent neck, she spotted her body’s golden reflection on the propped-up tray. Her limbs stretched limply about her. Her breasts rose and sank with her breaths. Her skin felt licked and stroked, numb yet excruciatingly sensitive.

  The translucent haze gathered about her body like a diligent colony settling to feed. The mist curled around her geography’s high points, nipping at her toes and nipples, teasing her lips and flirting with her nostrils. A pair of luxurious lips descended on Lusielle, a rubbery ring sealing around her mouth. Lusielle’s rigid jaw locked in place, but the Chosen’s fingers pressed on her chin until her tongue broke through her lips.

  A cloud of smoke flooded Lusielle’s mouth, a plume that coated her palate, gushed down her throat and poured into her lungs. Her body ached. Her back arched in a sudden spasm. Her lungs tried to reject the poison, but the Chosen persevered, forcing down the vapors with formidable strength.

  The moment lengthened beyond endurance. Lusielle’s mind began to flicker. Darkness enveloped her thoughts. She knew she had to break through the darkness if she was going to survive. Her body was giving up ahead of her mind, so she clung to her thoughts, hoping they could lead her through the ordeal.

  The mysteries of air inhalers were legendary. Teos had a monopoly on the old craft. Yet no one was better equipped than Lusielle to understand the impact the inhaler’s airs had on the body. She recognized some of the simpler ingredients by taste and smell. She could deduce the presence of other ingredients by noting her body’s responses.

  What was new, different and terrifying was the effect that Suriek’s witching fire had on the mix. An unfathomable magnification took place in the floating hearth, stoking potency and accelerating reactions in ways that could hardly be understood, let alone explained.

  An image of her mother bent over her annotation book overtook her mind. Lusielle knew that the sight was a hallucination, yet her mother’s presence felt real. As she looked up from the book, her mother smiled. The pages before her sparkled like jewels.

  “You’re dead,” Lusielle whispered. “You can’t really be here.”

  “There’s opportunity in death’s fringes,” her mother said.

  “Opportunity for what?”

  “Reason. Knowledge. Awareness.”

  An image sprouted from the parchment, taking shape out of the luminous haze. A familiar silhouette staggered out of the book and climbed onto her mother’s stretched palm. The broad shoulders. The muscular legs. The lean profile. She recognized Bren’s shadow, his proud body buckling under some immense weight threatening to crush him.

  “What’s the unholy, forbidden burden that turns the just into outlaw, robs the blessed from grace and grinds the dutiful down to dust?” her mother said. “What’s the ailment that cannot be spoken, the pox that cannot be healed, the sickness that cannot be cured?”

  Unholy. Forbidden. Unspoken. Lusielle forced her addled mind to churn. It was like pushing a wagon through the thickest mire. Incurable?

  “You can never see it,” her mother said, “but by the Thousand Gods, you can sense it.”

  A thought burst out of her mind like a sudden spark. “It’s not possible,” Lusielle whispered. “It’s trickery. It’s make-belief. It’s myth and superstition.”

  “Would Riva purge the kingdom to stamp out myth?” her mother asked. “Would Teos forbid the practice to eradicate superstition?”

  “Are you saying that Bren is ailed by … a curse?”

  Her mother crossed her lips with her finger, but her expression should have been enough confirmation. Lusielle couldn’t accept it. The airs were muddling her wits. After a lifetime practicing Izar’s enlightened ways, how was she supposed to believe in something as implausible and illogical as what her mother suggested?

  “It’s not possible,” Lusielle murmured.

  Perhaps in the
old times charlatans, swindlers and pretenders had been able to sway the gullible into believing in love potions, lust hexes, money charms and retributions spells. But these days, the odd craft had been unmasked as fraud and proscribed. It wasn’t reasonable. No common person had the power to fuel something like that.

  “Spoken like Izar’s true pledge,” her mother said. “You’re right when you say that no common person has the power to fuel a curse. But you’re wrong about the existence of curses. Beware. Just as the airs open the mind’s eye to the unknown, the notion opens the gates to the unwelcomed. Be wise, daughter. You tread on a perilous path.”

  Her mother’s image burst into luminous drizzle. The droplets rained in the darkness, collecting into a pool of light. Lusielle looked down and saw her own face reflected on the water, gold and hazy, like her image on the copper tray. She found herself staring into a wide, almond-shaped eye, a lightless, menacing vision, a golden pupil floating in the dark iris.

  “Who are you?” A voice hissed in her ear. “How dare you enter my lair?”

  The darkness deepened, drawing Lusielle into death’s black well, a brutal plunge initiated by the inhaler’s toxic airs, but precipitated by the murderous force that had just discovered her.

  “You can’t win.” Laughter echoed in her ears. “Shiver when you hear my steps.”

  “Out of here,” her mother’s voice shouted in the darkness. “Now!”

  Lusielle’s body responded to her mother’s command. She gasped for breath, inhaling more of the vapors, but succeeding at re-engaging her scalded lungs. Hers was a journey in reverse, a flight from dark to light, from oblivion to consciousness. The toxic airs played havoc with her senses. She couldn’t tell reality from dreams. Her reason rejected her experience while her instinct clung to it fiercely.

  She forced her eyes to open. The Chosen’s face loomed over her. The lady’s eyes were closed.

  Lusielle forced the words through her scorched throat. “Lady Khalia?”

  A single tear sprang from the Chosen’s eye. It clung to her long eyelashes for an instant, before plunging into Lusielle’s eye with a searing sting. For a moment, all Lusielle could see were the tears running down Bren’s scarred face.

  “There’s no reprieve from the gods,” the Chosen wailed. “A fine one must perish.”

  The Chosen had succumbed to her airs. Just like Lusielle, the lady had been overtaken by a vision and the sting of her tear left no doubt as to who was the object of her dreams. Lusielle suddenly understood her fears’ vast scope. She also understood failure’s tragic consequences.

  “Wake up.” She shook the woman, first gently, then hard. “Wake up!”

  “What?” Puffs of iridescent vapors bubbled from Khalia’s mouth. “What is it?”

  “You were dreaming.” Lusielle struggled for breath. “Now you have to ask.”

  “You’re alive!”

  “Ask now or we’ll never know.”

  The look Lusielle spotted on the Chosen’s face was even more frightening than everything else she had learned this day. She seemed confused. Confused!

  The lady hacked, as if her inhaler’s poison had finally prevailed over her body. Why now? After thousand of sessions and hundreds of inquiries, the powerful Chosen didn’t know what to ask!

  The woman’s face was pale with fear. Her tone had the unmistakable sound of an apology. “We’ve never gotten this far.”

  “The riddle,” Lusielle rasped. “Ask from the riddle.”

  “The one Robert found?” She pondered the idea for an instant. “Yes, you’re right.” She drew on the hose, inhaling great quantities of vapor then expelling it over Lusielle’s body. “What are you?” she asked. “Mark, tease or fate?”

  Lusielle’s body contorted with the pain stabbing her back. An awful croak echoed from her throat, the stifled scream her lungs couldn’t power. Her nails tore into the cushions. The Chosen was lifting her hip, trying to turn her on her side.

  Blind with pain, Lusielle fought to cling to her senses. Making a huge effort, she bent a knee, planted a foot on the ground and managed to lift her hips partway. Craning her neck, she squinted through the haze and spotted her back’s reflection on the tray.

  The scar was alight. At either side of her spine, the outline of butterfly wings blazed like the witching fire’s flames. Something else was burning on the skin below it, blood rupturing through the smoldering skin, curves and lines connecting with each other in a macabre script that composed a single, terrifying word.

  The Chosen’s face twisted into a host of expressions. Shock showed foremost, but Lusielle also saw fear and horror etched on the woman’s face. After a moment’s hesitation, fear turned to resolve.

  “Teos is ever present,” the Chosen said. “Teos is always watching.”

  Lusielle’s body was numb, but using her tongue, she managed to dislodge the single stick of camelina she had secreted out of her remedy pouch and stowed in her mouth, tucked between her cheek and her gums. She bit down. The root cracked between her teeth. Bitterness curled her tongue and burned all the way down her throat.

  The sting ignited her belly but also her senses. A surge of strength cleared her mind and energized her body. A dagger flashed in the Chosen’s hand. Lusielle grabbed her skirt with one hand and rolled on the ground, knocking Konia’s box open as the blade sliced the cushions where she had been lying just an instant before.

  Scrambling through the spilled contents, Lusielle found what she needed. All at once, she stuffed it in her skirt’s pocket, came to her knees and lunged for the vermillion shells.

  She managed to snatch only one of the shells. The Chosen kicked the other one out of the way. It shattered against the wall. Lusielle staggered to her feet and went for the bolted door, but the lady Khalia stood in the way, inhaling great quantities of the vapors that would fortify her body while weakening Lusielle’s unsustainable burst of strength.

  The Chosen aimed the deadly dagger. “Did you really think you could escape us?”

  Lusielle set her sights on the door and charged, but the burst of strength powering her body deserted her. Her steps slowed. Her knees gave up. Her sputtering lungs quit and so did her senses.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  HATO GAVE THE ORDER TO RAISE the sails with a heavy heart. True, Lusielle had demonstrated enormous courage in her deeds, but foolish bravery aside, the outcome had been known from the start. Nobody stood up to Teos and won. Only a fool would try to tangle with a Chosen. No mortal could withstand the formidable forces wielded by an expert inhaler of airs, let alone Khalia. It had been an uneven affair from the start.

  The galley’s crew had removed the stairs and released the bindings as soon as they had returned from the witnessing. Khalia’s actions were a clear message. Hato could almost hear her mocking voice in his mind. “Poor thing. Her lungs weren’t very sturdy.”

  Over two hours had passed since they had returned from Khalia’s ship. Hato had kept the barge on course with the galley for as long as he could, but now the situation was changing. All of a sudden, a commotion stirred the Chosen’s galley. Shortly thereafter, two hundred oars rattled into place. The tepid wind would not detain or delay the will of Teos. As the oars dipped in the water, the galley took off, racing the current through the Nerpes’s wide straights, leaving the clumsy barge behind as if it were a decrepit old tub.

  “Hoist the sails,” Hato shouted. “Keep up with the procession!”

  Ships of all sizes and kinds sailed by, chasing after the sacred galleys. The water boiled with millions of yearlings, also following in the galleys’ wake. The barge was falling further behind the White Tide procession. The sailors Hato had seen fit to retain from the original pirate crew gathered around the rig.

  “Didn’t you sloths hear me?” Hato cursed. “I said sails up, you idiots, maximum clip!”

  The rig master scratched his head and shrugged. “Very well, my lord.”

  Only shreds of sails made it up, scraps of tattered wool ho
isted by broken ropes halfway up the main mast. The rest of the sails lay limp on the deck as piles of shredded strips. The balance of the Twenty joined the crew, puzzling over the destruction.

  “I don’t understand,” Clio said. “When could this have happened?”

  “We stood watch the entire time we were tied to the galley,” Cirillo said.

  Khalia. Hato just knew the Chosen had wanted them out of play. But did she also want them dead in the water, unable to get to Teos in time for the tribute?

  Only if she was plotting with Riva. Only if she was willing to destroy not just Bren, but also her homeland.

  Hato looked to the east where, on the distant riverbank, the low shore revealed the blackened shores scorched by a pervasive storm of wildfires. The fires had all but ended the profitable reed trade that had sustained the region, forcing the area’s audacious reed croppers to migrate elsewhere. The shore was now deserted. Only the abandoned reed cutters anchored channelside remained behind, the testament of a people gone. Closely resembling sets of paired windmills mounted on flat rafts, the cutters loomed in the darkness like dejected warriors.

  In the distance, a town or two dotted the Nerpes’s western shore, a well-laid trap. Riva’s men would be waiting on the kingdom’s banks now that Orell knew their barge carried Laonia’s tribute, more so if Riva and Khalia were allies. Hato would have to steer the barge clear of the kingdom if he wanted the tribute whole and Bren free.

  “I want half of you working on these sails,” Hato said. “Repair them. Put them together. I don’t care if you have to make new sails out of our mantles. Do it. The other half of you, fashion some long oars. Weave paddles from the reeds if you have to. We’re getting to Teos on time to pay the tribute even if we have to swim downstream.”

  Hato marched across the deck with a stride that would have been impossible just days ago. Unexpectedly, he realized that the remedy mixer had been more accomplished than all of the healers he had consulted put together. If only she could manage to survive Khalia.

  By the time Hato went back to the cabin, Bren was struggling to regain his senses. The confined little cabin smelled damp and stale. A whiff of the inhaler’s fiery breath clung to the place, reeking not only from their clothes, but also from Bren’s saturated pores. It was as if Khalia herself lingered here, taunting Hato, boasting of all her gains, exuding her foul influence. Bren sat up on the berth, rubbing his jaw, scouring the space for the only sight he craved.