Worse Than An Orphan's Curse Read online

  Chapter 2: Dead Man's Ashes

  Seven years later.

  Dar shivered with a chill that came not entirely from the damp night air. Black clouds blotted out the stars above and a thick shroud of darkness spread over the abandoned, seafront warehouse district of Port Boraka, where the blind Azzari gang ruled supreme at night. Only a few faint glimmers of light from distant, well-lit streets penetrated the Azzari shadow spells. To show a light here would activate one of their prohibitive spells.

  Most victims wandered in by accident, or were lured by subtle spells, but Dar was here deliberately. Why me? Dar asked himself, only in his thoughts, as he peered around the corner of a building, his ears alert for any sound, but he knew the answer to that question. Dar had superlative night vision, and he had spent the entire day in total darkness to prepare for this mission, so his eyes were at their most sensitive, but even so he could barely make out where the buildings were. It didn’t help that everything was painted flat black.

  Nothing moved, silence prevailed, but Dar remained uneasy; sending him here after midnight on a moonless night meant there had to be black magic involved.

  Dar edged around the building and forced himself to walk down the middle of the street as he had been instructed. There really was no point in trying to hide in the dark from a blind man, but he had to remain absolutely silent.

  One more block to go. Dar’s sensitive ears picked up a sound, a rustle like cloth blowing in the wind, but he felt no wind. He froze. The Azzari were coming in one of their periodic sweeps. Why me? He asked himself again. Why send a ten-year-old boy to do a man’s job?

  King Peli’s voice shouted in his head, “You were chosen because Belshar’s spells told us that, of all the thieves and apprentices in the Guild, you were the most suitable for this task.” Dar had heard about King Peli’s ability to communicate mentally with his subjects but never before had he been important enough to experience it. He didn’t dare to argue with his king but he trembled in fear and could not act.

  The Azzari neared and Dar could make out the shapes of the black-robed figures, linked arm in arm in a chain from building to building across the street. Dar panicked and turned to flee, but an invading presence took control of his muscles, turned him around and sent him running straight at the Azzari who, now aware of his presence, were circling to trap him.

  Dar dropped suddenly to hands and knees, scurried under outstretched arms, scrambled to his feet and sprinted away. Only then could he feel his skinned knees stinging and he found himself running on his own. With his paralysis broken he needed no further encouragement. Peli had relinquished control but Dar could still feel his king looking out through his eyes.

  The Azzari tried to follow Dar but they lost track of him when he slowed down and concentrated on moving and breathing in absolute silence. Being good at that was, he now realized, another factor in his being chosen for this mission. Dar kept his eyes and ears open for other Azzari while he found the correct building and wriggled in through a small hole.

  It was even darker inside.

  “To the right,” Peli’s voice came into his head, reminding him of his instructions. Dar felt his way along a wall, up a flight of stairs and past three doors. He stopped at the fourth and his fingers traced the letters carved into it, “Kordell Shipping.” Peli said, “This is it. Go in. It’s been abandoned for decades, ever since the death of the owner.” Dar picked the old lock, pushed the door open and entered the room.

  Dar found a metal urn on a shelf. “Take it,” Peli ordered. Dar put the urn in his sack and retraced his steps. He waited at the hole in the wall until an Azzari sweep went past, then exited and ran for the border of the Azzari zone.

  Even the unlit streets of Port Boraka’s derelict slums seemed bright to Dar’s eyes. There were still dangers, but this was home territory and he knew how to deal with them. Still, he got a bit nervous when he spotted one ragged man behind him three times.

  “Relax,” Peli told him. “He and the others are there to protect you.”

  Dar made his way to a partially-collapsed, three-story apartment building and entered through a hole in the back where a window had been. He found his way down a dark staircase to a door, knocked, gave the password, and was admitted to the basement. Peli took control there and marched Dar’s body through rooms and corridors unfamiliar to Dar, all the way to the throne room. Nobody tried to stop him.

  Belshar was waiting, looking very impressive with his long, white beard and dark robe. He took the tarnished brass urn from Dar’s sack and placed it on a workbench off to one side. The workbench, at eye level to Dar, was cluttered with a confusing maze of glass jars, flasks and tubes, and rubber hoses. Colored fluids bubbled and dripped.

  With his eyes Dar followed the tubes from Belshar’s bench and for the first time in his life he beheld his king, the tyrant who, with the help of the wizard Belshar, controlled most of the crime and corruption in Port Boraka. He also saw why Peli, the Beggar King, never left this room and never let anybody see him. The tubes disappeared into his chest, feeding nutrients and drugs to the ravished body. His legs were down to short stumps above the knees and he had no hands. His hair was completely gone and bare skull showed through in patches. His face was an expanse of raw, putrid flesh, held in place by shreds of gray skin. There were no teeth in the slack, drooling mouth and the nose was a rotting hole. Dar could not look into the oozing sockets that had once held eyes.

  Peli’s body was no longer capable of speech or movement so he turned Dar’s body around, held up the urn and asked, “Is this the right urn, Belshar? Are these Captain Kordell’s ashes in here?”

  “The urn is labeled ‘Ledrok,’ an elementary cipher, just as your informant reported, and it was obtained under the conditions set by the spell. As to whose ashes they actually are,” Belshar shrugged, “we shall know only when the summons is answered.”

  “Then get on with it.” Peli paced Dar’s body back and forth while Belshar worked. Dar had been pushed aside and forgotten. Peli was now using Dar’s body as if it was his own.

  Belshar emptied the contents of the urn into a crucible, mixed in some colored powders and salts, stirred it with a copper rod, then set it on a brazier of hot coals centered in a triangular diagram on the floor. He chanted in an archaic language for a few minutes, then grabbed the crucible with his bare hands and flung the contents into the air. The dead man’s ashes floated briefly in a cloud, then settled to form the vague, ghostly image of a bearded man.

  Peli studied the figure, then laughed and said, “Captain Kordell, it is you.”

  The figure’s lips moved. Peli looked at Belshar, who tapped a small triangle. When the high note faded a thin voice could be heard. “Yes, I am Kordell, once a ship’s captain, dead now nigh on fifty years.”

  “You are a year and a day short of five decades dead.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “This boy is not me. Look there and see the handiwork of your curse.” With Dar’s hand Peli pointed at his own body.

  The ghost looked and almost lost its shape. “Peli! Still alive.”

  “Yes, but only because of the power of your curse. Long have I suffered, but you shall suffer longer, seven times longer, and you shall feel seven times worse than my worst pain.” The spittle he sprayed while shouting punched dark little holes in Kordell’s ashen image. “For what you did to me I sentence you to seven times as many years of agony as you inflicted on me.” Peli was nearly dancing. Pushed into a far corner of his own mind, a terrified Dar could only watch as Peli raved on. “You thought you were safely dead but with my magic I found you. Now you are here, in my power. Belshar, energize the crystal.”

  Belshar pulled on a cord that drew aside a curtain behind Kordell. In a shallow alcove stood a pale yellow, hexagonal crystal large enough to encase a man. Belshar approached the crystal. In each hand he held a metal rod with a wooden handle and a gold tip. Wires trailed back to a large clay pot sealed with wax. He inserted the rod
s into holes drilled in the crystal, one at the top, the other at the bottom. A low, steady hum emanated from the crystal, accompanied by an occasional crackle as random sparks jumped from the surface.

  Kordell, watching intently, asked Peli, “What are you doing?”

  “Exacting my revenge. Belshar’s spell will place your spirit in this crystal, which has been designed to inflict constant pain on any ghost.”

  “You are insane.”

  “Forty-nine years of torment can do that to a man. Belshar, do your thing.”

  Belshar took the metal rods and stabbed them into the brazier below Kordell. The ash ghost wavered as his particles whirled around and around, then distorted toward the huge crystal. Peli laughed.

  As his voice receded Kordell said, “By reciting this verse, I revoke my curse.”

  Peli stopped laughing. He looked with Dar’s eyes at his own body, saw it sag as the curse left it and death took it.

  Dar felt Peli’s grip slipping. He pushed with all the power of his mind.

  A streak of light flashed from the ash-ghost to the crystal while a streak of light flashed from Dar to the crystal.

  The ashes drifted to the floor. Kordell’s ghost was gone from them. Dar was in control of himself. Peli was gone.

  Belshar stepped right up to the crystal. Dar crept up behind him and peered around him into the crystal. A pair of ghostly images looked out at them. The images sort of merged together, then alternated every few seconds. Dar recognized one as Kordell, though he looked like he had a bad toothache. The other, he surmised, could only be Peli, as he had appeared when his body was whole. His features were distorted with rage and it looked like he was shouting but Dar heard nothing.

  Belshar said, “I know you can see and hear me Peli. There is nothing I can do to break the spell, no way I can free either of you from the crystal. You made sure of that. But look on the bright side; with two of you in there the spell is only half as strong and it will last only half as long. In one hundred seventy-one and a half years you will both be free.”

  Belshar turned suddenly toward Dar. Terrified, Dar stumbled backwards. He should have escaped while he had the chance. But Belshar smiled down at him. “How would you like me to make you the new King of the Beggars?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “What about Peli?”

  Belshar glanced at the crystal and shrugged. “He abdicated. It was I that made him king and gave him his power. I can do the same for you. What do you say?”

  Dar reflected briefly on the misery of his life to date as a beggar and apprentice thief, and he pondered his future options in that career as opposed to Belshar’s offer. There were hidden strings he was sure, but he said. “I say ‘yes.’”

  “Good. Now if you’ll just do as I say we’ll both be very happy.” Belshar smiled.

  The End

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