part0009

It was almost midnight in a more affluent part of the city where three people were engaged in a desperate battle to save a young girl’s life. There was the lawyer, his wife, and a tall man in charcoal grey robes.

The bedroom was bathed in candlelight as the girl’s choking breaths filled the air. Her head was strained backwards, her neck bulged and the tracery of veins beneath her skin shone with a sickly purple light. The furnishings in the room spoke of wealth, but no amount of money could help the girl, and the lawyer’s hands were slippery with sweat as he held his daughter down.

‘Hold her tight!’ said the man in the charcoal grey robes as he strode to one side of the room and used a slender dagger to scratch an arcane symbol into the wall.

Similar marks were now scrawled upon numerous items in the room. The man had used soot to write on curtains and used his dagger to carve symbols in the dressing table and floor boards. He had even cut his arm so he could use his own blood to paint mysterious characters on the window. Every time he wrote something down the girl’s suffering seemed to increase as wisps of purple smoke emerged from her mouth and tendrils of magical energy radiated from her body. The glowing tendrils passed through the lawyer’s clothes and burned his skin and he gritted his teeth as he tried to maintain his hold.

The magical strands also sought out the man in the charcoal grey robes, but he seemed oblivious to the searing pain. His attention was focussed entirely on containing the curse that had been cast upon the girl. If he got it wrong the curse would re-establish itself more strongly than ever and the girl was not strong enough to endure a second attempt to free her.

‘You must be ready to comfort her,’ the man in the charcoal robes had told her. ‘You must be calm and strong. No matter how you feel you must make her believe that she is safe and loved. If she doubts you, she will die.’

And so it had come to this. The lawyer and his wife were beyond themselves with worry, but this was their last hope. They had tried everything but no one had been able to help them until a local healer suggested they try the man in the charcoal robes, the man known to some as the Sage of Blackfell House.

Exhausted and sick with anguish, the lawyer snatched a glance at the man who had come to help them. Tall and slim, with broad shoulders and shoulder length hair, he struck an imposing figure. His features were strong, almost hawkish, with prominent cheekbones and a full mouth that was now clamped tight with concentration. But it was his eyes that gave one pause. Those eyes were so dark as to be almost black and yet they glittered with flecks of gold. Such gold flecked eyes were the mark of a feral mage and yet the man in the charcoal robes insisted that he did not use magic.

‘Curses like this can be broken with certain symbols and patterns,’ said the Sage. ‘Magic would make it easier but the correct placement of the symbols should suffice.’ He paused. ‘But the process puts great strain on the body. Your daughter may well die in the attempt.’

That was two hours ago and the girl did indeed look close to death. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and her body convulsed each time the robed man added a new set of symbols.

‘We’re close,’ he said. ‘But this curse was designed to resist interference. The more I constrain it the more dangerous the energy will become.’

Dropping to his knees he scratched a series of characters in the corner of the girl’s bedside table before stepping back to survey all the marks he had made. The lawyer and his wife glanced at each other then tensed as their daughter’s body was caught in a spasm of magical force.

‘Esme!’ cried the mother and the lawyer groaned as glowing skeins of magic engulfed his arms, but the man in the charcoal robes merely frowned.

Magical energy had begun to surround the girl’s body in a writhing nimbus of light that was slowly expanding outwards. Each time it encountered one of the marks it shrank back as if it were probing for weakness and the Sage gave a snarl of frustration. The arcane symbols might contain the curse, but without actual magic they were not strong enough to break it. His only hope was to focus the malicious force in one location. Turning to the mother he barked out a demand.

The magical force had found a gap in the confining circle and was now growing in strength as if it could breathe through it, but still the terrified woman just looked at him.

The man turned it over in his hands. The comb was made from bone and the spine was flat and smooth. If he kept the characters small it should do. Holding his dagger by the blade he began to write. He needed to get the characters just right or it would not work. Within a matter of seconds he had finished and he placed the comb in the gap between two of his previous marks.

Immediately the glowing energy began to probe this new inscription and to the mother’s horror it seemed to grow in strength. The marks on the comb started to glow while those scratched into the floor boards on either side began to dissolve as if they were formed from nothing more than dust. In a matter of moments all the Sage’s work would be undone.

The mother glanced at the tall man who was now focussed entirely on the comb. For a moment she thought he had failed, but then his expression took on a distinct note of satisfaction and the gold flecks in his eyes seemed to glow.

‘Yes!’ he cried, and with a suddenness that made her start, the man fell to his knees, took the magic-infused comb in his hands and snapped it.

A burst of magical light exploded around his hands and the comb was reduced to dust. For the first time, the man cried out in pain and his fingers curled into claws as the burning energy surged through his flesh.

The woman might have gone to help him, but the sound of her daughter’s cry captured her attention. Turning round, she saw her husband release his grip as their daughter began to weep. She was no longer straining from the torment of the curse, she was simply frightened and confused. Slowly they helped her to sit up and some of the fear seemed to fade from her eyes.

Still holding his hands out in front of him, the man in the charcoal robes got to his feet. For a moment he watched the family come together on the bed. Raising his left arm, he adjusted a charm bracelet on his wrist until a tiny pewter wren hung down. For a moment he watched the charm as if he were waiting for it to give him some sign then, seemingly satisfied, he relaxed his arm. Finally, he reached out with his senses, but no trace of the curse remained. It was done.

Without a word, he walked quietly away and slipped out through the bedroom door. At the stairs, he reached for the banister and winced. His hands still burned with incredible pain, but that would pass with time. Slowly he made his way down to the ground floor of the house. He had just opened the front door when he heard the lawyer’s voice.

‘Yes,’ said the lawyer and the man in the charcoal robes gave a sigh. A curse like this used to be quite rare, but in recent years they were becoming more common.

‘Maybe it’s time for you and your family to leave Guile,’ said the man. ‘You might want to try the mage city of Confluence. The council there still exerts a degree of control and the use of such malicious magic is frowned upon.’

‘Goodnight,’ said the man and before the lawyer could finish he swept out of the door and off into the night. He wanted no payment and he did not deserve their thanks. The spell that had tormented this family was a painful reminder of the curses he had cast when he lived under the thrall of magic. He had not cared if the target was worthy of such punishment, only that he got paid. And unlike the spell cast on the lawyer’s daughter, his curses had not been so easily broken.

The man walked on through the empty streets of Guile, but every shadowed alleyway seemed to be filled with the ghosts of his past. There had been a time when he lived for magic and power; a time when his very name struck fear into the richest and most powerful people in the land. Now only a handful of people in the city knew his true identity and he was happy to be forgotten.

He was no longer a notorious sorcerer, no longer the man who slew the Demon of the Vale . He now used his knowledge of the arcane arts to help people where he could.