Curse Breaker: Sundered

by Melinda Kucsera

  It was stupid to bait his attacker, but all Miren had was bravado right now. If I can just get the man to step into the light, I can thwack him hard on the head and go check on Ran.

  “Come on. Show yourself. I haven’t got all night. Unless you’re afraid of me in which case, you can bugger off now, and I won’t chase you.” Miren swallowed, but fear had dried his throat. What’s he waiting for?

  The darkness shifted, and a blurry shape bounced off the white nimbus that encased him. His pendant let loose a blinding pulse of light, and it silhouetted a screaming man who threw his arms up to shield his face.

  “The light—devils and vultures, it hurts. Put out that light and fight me like a man.”

  “I don’t think so. Men fight in the light. Only creatures of the dark fight in the dark.”

  Miren ran his index finger along the side of the crystal pendant in wonder, taking care when his finger swept around its sharp edges. It hung on an unadorned leather cord and until tonight, it was the most boring crystal he’d ever seen except for its jagged shape. But now he looked upon that shard with new respect, and thanked Fate for his brother’s lifelong fascination with crystals.

  Miren replaced the crutch under his arm and leaned gratefully on it as he hopped forward, driving the creature back and away from the Foundlings’ door. What if he’s already been inside there?

  Miren’s heart beat a triple tattoo of fear, and he increased his pace to a fast hobble. The silhouetted man backed away, but he couldn’t escape the edge of the pendant’s nimbus. It billowed like white flames dancing in the drafts continually breezing past. The shadow-man was tangled up in it. Good. Burn that thing to cinders.

  “Let go of me.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise. Do you?”

  But that raised a good question. What should he do with his captive? Smoke boiled out of the creature’s bent back and swept upwards describing the graceful arcs of a set of barely perceptible wings. The shadow-man was doubled over but still protecting his head.

  “What are you—a demon?”

  His captive didn’t answer. His screams had died into silence as the creature convulsed. Miren was almost at the Foundlings' door. No, oh Fates no, their door was ajar. No one peered out.

  “Moirraina? Will? Vianne? Bevik? Saveen?” Miren kept rattling off names with growing fear as the silence attenuated. “Ran? Are you in there? Come to the door if you can hear me. Let me see you’re all right.”

  Miren listened with every fiber of his being for the soft patter of his nephew’s sock-covered feet, but there was only silence and the occasional animal grunts of his captive. Ran didn’t answer, nor did he appear. Miren bumped the door with his shoulder, opening it wider so he could peer into the darkness. All the lumir in the Foundlings’ cave had been extinguished.

  How is that possible? None of them know how to douse them. In fact, there was only one person who knew how to turn off a lumir crystal’s ever-present glow—his elder brother, and Sarn could only do it because he had magic.

  “Ran? Speak to me.” Miren’s voice broke on his nephew’s name.

  “He’s not here right now,” said a new voice from inside the Foundlings’ cave.

  Light from his pendant reached into that dark cavern and lit the edges of another shadow-being. But this one made the hairs on the back of Miren’s neck stand up.

  “Come, Sinner, to your dark father fly. Thy time is nigh, brother of the thorn in my side.” The figure threw back his cloak revealing an ordinary man and extended his hand. “Come, Sinner, set thy shining raiment aside. Embrace your dark side. At my side, your time is nigh.”

  His voice was mesmeric. It rose and fell to the rhythm of a familiar song, but Miren couldn’t place it. Never mind where he’d heard it, it wasn’t important. He must remove his pendant. His hand flew to the crystal, but it slipped from his grip and the cord it hung on cinched itself tight against his throat leaving just enough room for him to breathe.

  “I can’t take it off.”

  Neither could he look away from those glittering black eyes. They promised everything he’d ever wanted—his brother’s undivided attention. No more rivals, no more competition, just the devotion he’d clung to as a child. Once again, Sarn would be his whole world, and they’d have grand adventures far from this place of sorrow and stone.

  “Take my hand.”

  Miren nodded and extended his hand, but his pendant’s white nimbus crystalized, and his hand slammed into it. The crystal refused to let any part of him extend beyond its aegis.

  “Well, you are full of surprises, brother of Sarn. Tell me your name.”

  Miren opened his mouth to comply, but his voice dried up in his throat, and an invisible hand gagged him.

  Death’s Marksman

  Nolo hit the wall and bounced off it, dodging the holes an honest-to-God tentacle punched through the floor. What the hell is a sea monster doing under Mount Eredren? He put that question aside for later when the floor wasn’t caving in under him.

  “Sarn!”

  “Go, get out of here. It's all coming down.”

  And so, it was. Nolo hopped over a widening hole heading for the mouth of a connecting tunnel. But a scream brought him up short. He turned back to see Sarn clinging to a precipice and trying to climb up to the child peeking around a group of statues.

  Where did that boy come from? Who is he? And how did Sarn know he was there if his magic's gone?

  “Bong.”

  There was no time to inquire about that child. Nolo shot down the hallway to his left and entered a perpendicular corridor at a dead run. His heart pounded with his steps. He must get back in time to save them, and by God, he would.

  Nolo turned into another corridor that would take him back to the other side of the square closer to where he'd last seen Sarn. I will save him this time.

  “Bong.” The bells of Mount Eredren seemed to mock him, but he ran on, zigging when the corridor zagged.

  Images of past failures chased Nolo, and so did those bells. The past melded with the present. Every statue glared at him, and Hadrovel’s face resolved out of each shadow he raced past. Around every bend in this accursed maze, apparitions of a younger, bloodier Sarn limped into his path, eyes burning with more than magic.

  “Why didn't you save me?” asked one such apparition.

  “Because I didn't look. I didn't want to see.”

  And he still didn't. Nolo skidded on wet tiles as the ground shook sending a wave sloshing over the rim of a basin. The ornamental fountain kept on spouting jets of water as if nothing was happening.

  Guilt had conjured this apparition of a teenaged Sarn, but the specter's grip was solid when it jerked Nolo to a stop.

  “Unhand me. You’re not real.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  Those green eyes he knew so well darkened as the light winked out of them. They swirled and changed to black as Nolo struggled to free himself from this creature’s iron grip.

  “You’re not Sarn. You’re not even real. You’re just a shadow of the past trying to hold me back. But you can’t, not this time. I will save him.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Sarn’s doppelganger.

  It lifted Nolo by his neck as its face contorted into a black mask. It bore a crooked grin that looked like a scythe’s blade beneath its burning eyes. Hell’s vast plain stretched behind those burning orbs as Nolo struggled to break the Adversary’s grip.

  “You’re not real either. You’re just a ghost my guilt conjured.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because the real devil has no power over a child of God.”

  More than faith protected Nolo. A cross glowed on a chain around his neck. It was a gift from his wife, Inari, on their first anniversary. He'd never taken it off after the priest had blessed it. Nothing infernal could touch him when he wore it.

  “Perhaps I am just a figment of your guilt, or perhaps there's a little devil in all of us.”

  The Advers
ary flung Nolo at a wall and vanished. Moments before he struck it, Death’s Quiver settled against his back and flattened out into a kind of pseudo-armor. It struck the wall first, absorbing some of the impact.

  Still, Nolo landed badly on unsteady legs. He shook his head to clear it of the last vestiges of that abomination’s influence then tottered toward the next bend, which should put him back at the intersection where Sarn was. Hold on, Kid. I’m coming.

  “Bong.” The bells of Mount Eredren rang one last time then fell silent.

  A crash sent Nolo hurtling toward a rising dust cloud. He coughed and fanned his hands to clear the air. An icy hand gripped his shoulder jerking him to a halt for the second time this hour. Death materialized beside him.

  “Stop,” she said.

  “I can't. I must save him.” He tried to slip free of her grip but couldn’t. His body had ceased obeying the commands he sent it.

  “You can't.”

  An arrow appeared in his hand between thumb and forefinger ready to be nocked to the bow that had appeared in his other hand.

  “Put that away. You had your chance to give him a merciful death. He's on his own now.” She waved her free hand and both the arrow, and the bow returned to that place in between life and death to wait for his call.

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t see it before because I wasn’t looking for it.” Death shook her head and released him.

  “Didn’t see what?”

  “The Adversary’s mark. He bears it, and there’s only one way to acquire that filth.”

  “How?”

  “By serving the enemy of everything.” She shuddered and hugged herself. Suddenly, she looked as fragile as a branch in a gale-force wind.

  “Sarn would never do that.”

  “Not knowingly,” his conscience chided, sounding too much like Death for comfort, “but you never did get around to giving that boy a dose of religion.”

  And that truth tripped Nolo up because his conscience was right. There had always been a reason not to push the conversation in that direction until Sarn was ready for it, but that day had never come, and now the Kid was caught by an evil he was ill-equipped to handle on his own.

  I will save him. Nolo gained his feet, but before he could round that last bend between him and his apprentice, Death’s cold hand closed on his shoulder again. She jerked him to a stop just as the ground crumbled away under his feet. Nolo stared down at a drop of at least eighty feet. Only her steely grip kept him from falling. He dangled there at her mercy until she backed away from that gaping hole and took him with her.

  When they stood on solid ground again, she released him.

  “Thanks for the save. Where is he?” Nolo rounded on her.

  Death pointed at the hole. The entire intersection was gone, and so were several storerooms. Two of the closest tunnels on the far side had also partially caved in, but Nolo couldn't absorb that right now. Sarn was gone, and so too was that mysterious child. A black mist billowed up through the hole, shrouding everything below in impenetrable darkness.

  It wasn’t smoke, but as it passed, one by one, the lumir crystals, which had glowed for centuries beyond count, winked out, dropping them into darkness. Violet light spilled out of Death’s deep hood and pooled around them.

  “Is he—?” Nolo swallowed unable to say the word. “Tell me true. Is he alive? You’d know if he died, wouldn’t you?”

  Before he could seize death by her black robes, they melted away to reveal an angel’s snowy wings. She flapped them and dispersed the black mist.

  “What does your heart tell you?”

  Startled by the question, Nolo consulted that organ, but it had no answers only hopes and prayers. And there was far too much he didn't know about Sarn. If we both survive this, that must change.

  “There's nothing you can do for him now.” Death said prodding him to move. “But there are others who need you.”

  She held out her hand, and a black arrow tipped by a bleeding red heart materialized. She held a merciful death in her hands as she gestured to the moans of the hurt and dying echoing through the gloom. There had been others caught in the collapse—many others.

  “Can’t this wait?”

  Death shook her cowled head and pointed at the shadows rising around them. “You must mark the dying for heaven as quickly as you can before that beast claims them for hell.”

  “He's here?”

  “His minions are, and he's never far behind them. Mark them quickly. Be my Chooser of the Slain, now.”

  Nolo swallowed the lump in his throat. He must see to his duty even if it broke his heart to turn away from that hole and his lost apprentice. He served a greater Lord and a higher calling even when it hurt to do so.

  You’re not abandoning him; Nolo told himself. But he was, and his heart knew it. Hang on, Kid. I’m coming with reinforcements. It just might take me a little while to reach you.

  The black bow appeared in his hand as he took the arrow from her and let the Marksman rise and overtake him. Death’s Marksman nocked, sighted, and released until his arm tired, sending mercy to those who needed it.

  “Lord, I commend their spirits to you,” Nolo said aloud as each arrow left the Marksman's bow. In the silence of his heart, he added another plea. Watch over a certain young man for me and keep him safe until I find him.

  The Marksman’s arrows flew true. They passed through everything in their paths and jinked to avoid those they weren't meant for. The Angel of Death followed each one to its mark.

  Sighs of relief greeted her as she gathered their liberated souls into her arms. Nolo had to look away, not just to find his next mark, but because he kept seeing a teenaged Sarn lying in a pool of blood on the hard, uneven stone floor, his body battered and broken. That time, he hadn’t been hurt beyond time and the healer’s ability to repair, but this time he might be.

  Tears gathered in his eyes and fell into the same hole that had swallowed Sarn. Stay alive, Kid. I will find you.

  “Will you do what you should have done five years ago?” asked his conscience, and the Marksman stilled, awaiting the answer.

  “I don't know.”

  Things had changed over the last five years. What was the answer for a fifteen-year-old might not be the same answer for a twenty-year-old.

  “I just don't know,” he said as he nocked and sighted again.

  Stay alive, Sarn. You must stay alive. The world’s a better place with you in it.

  Finding Allies

  A thousand copies of the Adversary crawled through the Lower Quarters searching for a mind to possess and signs of the ‘Foundlings.’ Meanwhile, his shadows searched for Sarn. Somehow, they'd lost track of that young man. He'd punish them later for that failure. After Aralore had so spectacularly bungled things, he now had to accelerate his plans. You’ll pay for that, girl, in this life or the next. I promise you that.

  “Bong.”

  “No!” The Adversary hunkered down cursing time and the Litherians for their obsession with bells. His influence was waning with each toll. Time was definitely not on his side.

  “Call the light,” said those hateful bells. “Make the darkness bright. Call the light, and He will hold you tight through the night. With Him, no trouble's in sight. Because you called the light, the light came and drove out the darkness.”

  As peal after peal rolled through the stronghold and under it, miles upon miles of tunnels magnified the power of those bells and pushed back his influence. They renewed the blessings on this place and its citizenry. Their song called the faithful to midnight services or quiet reflection and prayers, depending on the listeners' religious bent.

  The Adversary covered his ears, but there was no escape from those bells and the hourly praises they sang—praises he’d once sung before the Fall. The hole in his soul where he’d once been connected to God the Father resonated with that song, wracking him with pain. He rose as the Prince of the Morning, led a rebellion in heaven, lost it, and fell int
o a lake of burning fire with each ding-donging of those horrible bells.

  Twenty-three times, he relived his fall from Grace. The Adversary curled into a protective ball and squeezed his eyes closed, but the memories of his defeat replayed with each tolling if those bells.

  After eleven and a half minutes of mental and auditory torture, they finally stilled, and the echoes of his screams died away. Silence reigned. The Adversary rose from his defensive crouch. He had forty-eight minutes until the next aural assault—forty-eight minutes to accelerate his plans. Where are you Death? I need you.

  His spirit was already flayed and growing ragged around the edges, but he stretched out his thoughts again despite the pain, and they flowed like a horde of shadowy rats over the tentacles snaking through more and more of the Lower Quarters.

  The pain increased as his mind fragmented. A thinking copy of him lodged in each shadow-rat, but as they dispersed, they began to lose cohesion. He'd used up too much of his energy. He needed a recharge since the rest of his power was still locked away. As his shadow-rats disintegrated, pieces of his consciousness drifted back to where they'd split off from him—all except one.

  That piece had bumped into a frightened man hunkered down behind a stalagmite. A black mist swirled around him, and he batted it away.

  What have we here? The Adversary cohered beside the man in plain homespun and boiled leather, and he dropped an arm around the man’s thin shoulders. His mind might need a rest from all that magicking, but his voice worked just fine, and he'd never needed more than his silver tongue to sway even the most ardent truth-seeker.

  “It’s not that way,” the man repeated as he hugged himself and rocked back and forth.

  “What’s not that way?”

  The thin man roused. He looked at the Adversary and saw a friend as down on his luck as he was. He didn’t notice the black worm crawling into his ear and from there, into his mind, which still churned with vague plans involving a certain mage and his magic.