Curselock

Chapter 135: Silence

A million different things sprung to mind as Leland stood awkwardly holding onto a limp Glenny. He tried not to look Aunty P. in the eyes, thinking the gesture would show a level of guilt he wasn’t yet ready to explain away. A mage with a healing spell, while not unheard of, was quite unusual especially for a lowly rank two.

Legacy specializations left a mage, by far, a blank canvas to specific utility. Lucia and Spencer were prime examples. One specialized in everything lighting, the other everything portals despite both being Legacies of the Mage.

Arcane healing was a known route a Legacy of the Mage could walk. Leland knew this, and he could only assume Aunty P. did as well. She was playing him, and he just didn’t see why. Nor did he know the best course of action.

Luckily, the Huntress stepped in. “Leland’s the mule.”

Aunty P. looked between the two. “Is he now? I suppose that makes sense. Potions are quite breakable after all.”

Leland caught the Huntress’ eye. She didn’t so much as blink in his direction.

“Marvelous duel!” Harlen then announced, seeing Jude was now awake. “Simply marvelous! The children in this day and age are so much more… ingenious than back in my day!”

Harlen turned to Glenny. “What a magical cloak! Very interesting effect! Shadow stepping, if I saw correc—”

The Reflection King cut himself off, finally noticing that Glenny was unconscious in Leland’s arms. He then stepped off his raised throne, misty blue stone steps appearing mid-air as he walked. He arrived just before Glenny, reaching his arm out.

Before Leland could respond, Aunty P. said, “Of course you can.”

Harlen gave her a sly smile. “That is not for you to decide, Eldest Princess.”

“Excuse me?”

The ghost King didn’t care to respond, locking eyes with Leland. “May I?”

“S-sure?” he said with the hesitance of a newborn fawn.

Harlen’s smile grew wider as he rubbed his pale blue hands together. An invisible presence appeared deep within the man’s incorporeal form, one of many heads and even more hearts. He gently touched Glenny as a quartet of ghostly men appeared a dozen steps away. Slowly the men played their trumpets, their rhythm starting out slow.

A white blizzard reflected in Harlen’s eyes, the invisible presence surfacing for but a brief moment. The trumpets grew louder. The presence traveled through its vessel’s arm into Glenny, stirring his consciousness into a frenzy.

Wrinkles creased Glenny’s sleeping forehead, creating a beading of sweat. He shifted uncomfortably in Leland’s arms, his shaky movements growing with the trumpet’s increased vigor.

They blazed, quick repetitive notes, like a bard accompanying a heroic tale. At least, until Glenny woke up. The musical ghosts took their cue, disappearing back into Harlen like nothing ever happened.

“I just love a good show,” Harlen said to a confused Leland before helping Glenny to his feet. “Good duel. It was grand entertainment.”

“W-what just happened?” Glenny asked, finding everyone, except the Huntress, looking at him. Even Jude, who was very much alive and even smiling.

“Nothing like the call of the Void to get the mind going!”

Glenny did not know what that meant. But he did know the feeling in the back of his mind. Soothing was the best way he could put it. Quiet, even. His mind filled with the Sightless King’s empty threats and the cloak’s whispers was quiet.

“Do it again.”

Harlen raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. And why would I do that?”

“Because… because… please?”

Harlen laughed, the sound coming out as multiple voices.

“Glenny,” Carmon said, appearing at his son’s side in an instant. “Why are you asking that?”

For a moment, father and son stared at each other. The reasoning was simple in Glenny’s eyes, but not something he wanted to express out loud. They had already had an argument about the Legacy of the Chameleon’s adaptation and Glenny’s mom’s addiction to adapting to everything. Neither of them wanted to hash it out again, but there was a topic Glenny had yet to broach.

Glenny whispered, “Did mom ever talk about hearing the things she adapted to?”

Carmon, and everybody listening for that matter, froze. Abruptly, the cloak of blades on Carmon’s shoulders extended in every direction. They split and connected, thin in diameter but growing in surface area. A blade-woven dome mimicking cloth was the finished product, and he and Glenny were surrounded, essentially isolated from the others. In other words, no one could hear them.

“W-what do you mean?” Carmon asked.

A lump caught in the back of Glenny’s throat. Suddenly he felt like a kid who was about to be chastised for breaking a vase or smearing mud on the walls. He’d get in trouble, grounded and sent to his room without dinner. But then again, he was an adult, albeit young, and it’s not like he wanted to hear voices in his mind.

“I hear things,” Glenny said. “The cloak whispers where strong shadows are and sometimes hints at how to properly shadow step.”

“That’s… odd?” Carmon said, frankly not believing the statement. “I know there are parasitic items that have egos. They speak aloud, and often bring wisdo—”

“I also hear the Sightless King.”

Glenny had told his father about adapting to the Sightless King after being under his influence. It was the Huntress that taught him to adapt, to survive, but he had yet to tell anyone except for Leland and Jude about the rest.

“It started as whispering. The Sightless King promised great power for my help, my obedience. Eventually they swapped to urges, and when that didn’t work, insults. Right now, it’s mainly mutterings but occasionally, the Sightless King makes his presence known and tries to goad me into a conversation.”

Carmon fell into thought. Glenny, however, fiddled with the tips of his fingers, his palms long going clammy.

“So?” he asked.

“What?” Carmon’s appearance mimicked his son’s hands, and then some. There was a fear hidden deep within his eyes, a fear that he tried not to show.

But Glenny knew his father. He knew what he feared, and he may have inadvertently served it to his father on a silver platter.

“Did mom hear voices?”

“No. No she did not.”

“Maybe she didn’t tell you—”

“No, Glenny. This is incredibly strange. Incredibly wrong.”

“Well it’s not all that bad. The cloak tells me where to step to—”

“And how long until it tells you to step on a broken branch and you fall to your death? Or to step through a crack in the wall where you will suffocate and die?”

Glenny reeled back at that. “It’s not like that—”

“And what happens when this ‘Sightless King’ says something that actually gets your attention? Its corruption will erode your willpower in a dark moment.” The hardness in Carmon’s eyes died. “Trust me on that,”

Meekly, Glenny nodded.

“Why did you ask Harlen to use the Void on you again?”

“Because my mind went quiet.”

“You looked like you were in pain.”

“I was asleep.”

“You were sweating and writhing.”

Glenny didn’t know about that. Frankly his first thought was that his father was lying. Why would he be in pain if his mind was finally quiet?

“You are not going to ask Harlen to do that again,” Carmon said.

“And why not?” Glenny found himself asking. Adapting was his problem, his problem that his father hid from him.

“Because it’s dangerous. We talked about this. Your mom was always hellbent on adapting to new things—”

“You think I can adapt to the Void?”

Carmon hesitated. He wanted nothing more than to protect his son. He chose his next words carefully. “You can adapt to anything. Well, almost anything.”

Outside Carmon’s personal conversation bubble, Aunty P. pretended to be interested in Roy and Diana’s conversation with Jude. They were going over the match play by play and blah by blah. She didn’t care, nor did she think Sybil – who was standing beside young Leland, listening intently – did either.

No, Aunty P. was focused on Glenny and Carmon’s conversation. She had long ago perfected the art of spy craft, specifically specializing in the aspect of her Legacy, the Legacy of the Fallen Emperor, that truly made her one of a kind.

There was not a single privacy spell, ability, or item that she couldn’t break into. With enough time, Aunty P. was sure she could even crack a divine artifact.

She had long found that privacy was a one way street, a street that she deemed worthy of walking. It was horrible, at first, but by the age of twenty one, she had thwarted six assassination attempts on her sister, the Queen. It was the sixth time that she truly felt she had found her calling, even if it meant never finding love or a true friendship.

Things said behind closed doors often were too vulgar for her to glorify with her presence. After her third failed marriage, Aunty P. decided she would forever be alone. Nothing was worse than knowing that any suitor was sucking up to climb social ranks or to obtain power after years of scheming.

By the time Carmon and Glenny’s conversation was over, she had long stopped caring about what they were saying. Young Glenny, while an interest to her, was not pressing enough to worry about now. When he applied to the Inquisitors in a few years she’d remember the conversation and check on the details, but until then, she had a young princess to protect.

After making use of King Harlen’s brother, Lane, Aunty P. knew there was more blood to be spilled. And soon.

The traitorous maid was only the beginning. Her life, while long over, was just one more added to the growing pile behind Aunty P.

Tomorrow was the start, she needed to prepare with Harlen and Lane.