The Lupine Curse: A Tale of Netherway

Deidre had been busier, and more comfortable, in these days of nervous waiting than she was in her entire life. In the shape of Calan located in the center of a bustling trade city, she dwelled as the other priestesses and followers did, taking care of the sick and healing travelers that passed through.

“Throw them!” Timothy exclaimed excitedly.

Deidre tossed the dozen or so wooden runes on the stone floor. A man beyond Deidre’s help had passed away the day before, leaving behind a few measly possessions: a rusted sword, a shattered shield, and a small pouch filled with wooden runes. The adventurer claimed the infected wound was from an adolescent dragon lurking in a cave he slept in one night, though Deidre saw how his lips turned a faded, purple hue the days before he died; he’d simply been cut by the thorn of a poisonous herb called violet’s kiss.

She didn’t tell anyone that detail, and a few eyes of the keener girls in the chapels made a silent agreement to keep his legendary tale of the dragon encounter safe and sound within its lie.

“What does my future hold?” Timothy asked the runes.

Deidre squinted at the faded symbols. “A long, healthy life and … ah, wait, I see danger here, too, and adventure—great adventures. It says here you will slay an infamous giant and save an entire city from ruin. And you see this one here?” She held up one of the runes to his wide, excited eyes: two parallel lines intersected by another with winged edges. “This one means you’ll fall in love with a beautiful girl, and have several, strong children who will love you dearly.”

Timothy scrunched up his face. Evidently, his fortune had taken a turn for the worst. “Children? I don’t like runes!” At that, he stomped away, and quickly forgot all about them.

Arienna came from behind Deidre chuckling to herself. “What do the runes truly tell of his future?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? I am not learned in runework or divination.”

They both laughed.

Deidre stared at the small, wooden pieces. The past, lately, seemed more like one, long string of faded memories more than anything else. Not a day had gone by that she didn’t wonder where Fenris was, how he was, or if he was even alive to begin with. It was often the first thought that greeted her as she awoke in the early hours each morning.

That curiosity had been urging her to go beyond the chapel, towards the gates of Gods’ Rest and the roads beyond … to find him, even if all she found was a corpse of some kind, a pile of bones with a familiar shape. And if he was alive? If she could comfort him for but a handful of moments, lend him the grace of a friend, the journey would have been worth it.

But, as luck would have it, the overwhelming amount of Hands arriving the city of Gods’ Rest was overwhelming, as were the illustrations of her head and the reward for it. To leave the room meant certain death, by sword, noose, or otherwise. Gods’ Rest, with comparison to other trade city, such as Portsworth, is remarkably small. A quarter of its size, if not lesser.

Peasants and city folk were becoming more frantic with the possibility of gold, dragging around girls with even the slightest resemblance to her, in hopes that the Lord of Gods’ Rest was particularly tipsy when presented with the look-alike.

For once, her harelip had done some good. No one had been sentenced to death. No rewards were given. Not yet.

Deidre watched the sunlight twinkle between crisp, falling leaves, casting colorful designs through the stained-glass windows.

Markus’ voice was drifting in and out, telling her how he saw several Hands overtake a drunkard who’d brandished a dagger, and spilled his blood, then and there. Markus had been ordered personally by the Lord of Gods’ Rest to treat any of the assassins as guards of the City Watch, to pardon such behavior if it was deemed necessary.

When it comes to the elves of the Crimson Hand, most, if not all, bloodshed is ‘necessary’, so long as it is not inflicted upon them.

“I asked him why they were here,” Markus told her, “he responded that I was only a soldier, and didn’t need to know. S’pose he’s right, though they’re my guards, and it’s still my city. Been grown up here, seen the harshest winters and summers hotter than Siflos’ damned realm, seen a good deal of unpleasant things and still I stayed when I could’ve left to greener lands. But I saw it, Deidre, I’m no simpleton. I saw what was there in his eyes when I asked him these simple questions.”

“What was it?”

“It was coin, lass. The Crimson Hand must’ve bribed him, convinced him with talk of gold, jus’ like those drawings of your head. What with all the towns they pillage and burn, they’ve wealth beyond their time, I reckon.”

It didn’t hurt, either, that many cities funded the Crimson Hand whenever word spread of a Cursed nearby, just to stop the rumors that their trade routes were unsafe.

“Crimson Hand, Red Hand, Scarlet Hand … hmph! Nobody even knows their gods-damned name. The streets are restless, lass. Grown men are frightened of elves two heads shorter than them. Drunkards are ’fraid of the taverns at night. Travelers are straying from the city because they’ve heard the rumors. Gods, I’m turning folks back when they arrive at the gates. I tell them—”

“I understand, Markus,” Deidre said slowly, rubbing her temples. He had been coming in more frequently to tell her the way things were beyond the chapel, though it only drained her already diminishing hopes. She was praying for the day in which he would burst through the doors, smiling ear to ear, with news that it was safe to leave.

Like any difficult truths, she knew it deeply that this vision was unlikely. Not without something terrible happening beforehand.

It was around midnight, perhaps later in the darker hours of morning; Deidre could tell by the way the moon hung low through the windows.

She was alone, and sleepless, her body yearning for a touch of sunlight unhindered by stained glass, even a ray of moonlight accompanied by a breeze. She was certain if she could but sit outside for a half an hour, it’d put her right to sleep.

She was unhooking herbs from a drying rack and tying them together with twine, right next to Calan’s spring, her hands guided by the light of several candles. Sage, thyme, and other scents were sharp in her nose.

The footsteps came, then.

She turned her head, and they stopped. The massive chapel was utterly empty. The torches were doused. Moonlight alone illuminated the empty hall beyond the alter.

Chills caressed her neck. My mind is hearing the sounds of dreams when I should be asleep, she told herself.

The footsteps came again, this time louder. They were soft enough that she could hear the sifting of leather on stone, but not loud enough for them to echo.

“Yes?” she asked the empty air. “Hello?”

The chapel gaped at her. Wide, dark, and empty; it seemed a pathway nightmarish creatures to enter through.

It’s not uncommon for spirits to wander during hours like this, she thought. Especially ghosts who find someone as restless as them. Try as she did to reassure herself, but her skin buzzed with goosebumps, and the hairs on her arms raised up.

When she turned around again to light more candles, the footsteps returned—louder, faster. Deidre’s heart quickened. She grasped the smooth wax of a taper.

This time, when she turned around, the air was not empty. There was a shadow, standing upright, its footsteps halted. There was something eerily dead about the figure, how it stared through her, even though she could not see the eyes amidst the darkness.

It just occurred to her that she had not heard the door to the chapel open, or close, that entire evening.

Deidre had seen a Cursed One before. She did not feel particularly frightened by the appearance of the shade before her, more so the manner in which it had crept up.

When the shadow did not move, Deidre held up the candle closer. She was several steps above him on the altar. “Who are you?” she asked the shade. Then the light of the candle flickered; she realized it was not a phantom or ghost at all, it was someone dressed entirely in black, with hands folded neatly behind the back.

There was no response. A pale, cadaverous hand reached to his side and unsheathed a dagger. The blade slid from its sheath slowly, a long hiss that slithered on the walls. Deidre’s mouth went dry.

“I’ve finally found you,” the figure said, approaching her. He removed his cowl, revealing two stark, red eyes and a malevolent smile. “I’ve searched a very long time, you know that? Checked every last damned tavern and home. Even killed a few in the process. Thought I’d got it right, once or twice. Hoped. But now … now I can drag your body from here, and we can finally be done with this wretched city. The debauchery, the chaos, the revelry. Filthy.”

Deidre did not beg. Her back stiffened, she put the candle back in its holder, calmly. Something warm started between her shoulder blades, a twitch of energy that stung her back and flitted to her right shoulder.“How did you get in here?” she asked while she moved behind the alter.

He snickered, relaxed and flipped the dagger in the air. “Of all the things you might ask before you meet your end, you choose this? It was simple, really. I waited until the rest of these whores went to rest, and slipped in. My kin didn’t believe me, not when I told them: ‘Mark my words, I’ll find her hiding in an unlikely place, a place we wouldn’t think to check. She’s a wench, but a tricky one, at that.’ Now, here you are, amongst the supposedly holy, hiding behind the grace of a goddess far greater than your own, wretched soul.”

Deidre hummed her understanding as the spell strengthened, traveling to her bicep. Her muscles strained to contain the energy; her right arm began to tremble, almost violently. So she played along with it.

“Frightened? Look at you … quivering.” He laughed deeply, until every stone had heard a deep throb of it. “Wondering how it will feel? Don’t worry, I sharpened the blade just this morning, before dawn. You will feel a sting, I admit, but it will be over, soon enough.” He tilted his head; the look in his eyes reminded her of a starved dog’s that had finally found a few scraps of meat.

“Then again, pain does have a way of … slowing things down. Time included.” He took several steps closer.

Deidre’s whole body was shaking with the destruction spell. She was keeping it in her forearm, her wrist a charged coil, ready to guide it out through her fingers. She could not help, but in that moment of the realization of her instinctive power, laugh.

“Oh, laughing? Does Death amuse you?” He was at her height now, close enough to see the dirt under his fingernails. “Laugh for the last time, hare!” The assassin rounded the corner of the alter, lunging with his weapon.

She couldn’t hold it back, and let her wrist snap toward him, unleashing the energy. It exploded from her hand, crackling like lightning between their bodies until it found the assassin’s chest and the light curled around him. Hundreds of tiny, biting serpents bit into him.

“Death does not amuse me,” she grunted as the energy continued to surge through him, “but you do.”

His dagger clattered to the floor, and Deidre clutched the altar, gasping for air, drained, pale, the room swirling all around her, and her stomach nauseous from the effort.

She still had not mastered her abilities with magick, in fact she was far, far from doing so, this being only the third week after first discovering she could use her talents not only to heal, but to damage, to inflict pain, to cause suffering—and if desired, death.

It was called destruction magick; a rare and frowned-upon study largely neglected in most mage’s schools.

The paralyzed assassin stared up at her while the veins in his head bulged. Soon, the grief and agony she forced between her hands would overcome his body and, if his spirit was weak, he would die.

She didn’t bother with telling Arienna this time. Deidre took the trembling assassin by his shoulders and dragged him to the oaken door that led to the chapel’s catacombs. By the time she let him go to grasp the iron handle, his pulse had faded.

The room was cold and permeated with damp, foul-smelling air. Deidre picked up the only lit torch from its sconce and dragged the body deeper through the darkness. Deeper, passed several rooms with half-nailed coffins and protective runes etched into the walls, until she landed at the last step of a winding staircase.

Here it was frightfully cold, and there was a stench more pungent and revolting than any of the other rooms. She was not certain she was safe from vengeful spirits, this deep in the catacombs, so she murmured a protection spell, and felt a light shield hum into place around her body.

She found another sconce and set the torch in.

Along the way, she stopped to put her hand against the wall, to close her eyes and breath. Any remnants of sleeplessness had been incinerated by the effort of the spell.

When she looked up, she was watching how the flickering light stretched just far enough to illuminate a row of dead bodies, all in different stages of decomposition.

Deidre dragged the body to the end of the row, crossed his arms, shut his eyes, and stepped back to dust herself off.

Going to have to start another row next time, she thought.

Deidre felt the warmth of a soft, friendly hand on her shoulder. It was not unusual for a follower of Calan undergoing a vow of silence to follow her around, keep an eye on her, and occasionally, tap her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“Child of Calan, what is—” She turned around.

The catacombs were empty.

She snatched the torch up and scurried away.