Curselock

Chapter 165: The Dead

With Isobel’s newly evolved parasitic weapon, the group had less to worry about scouting-wise. Every now and then she’d take to the skies, fluttering up high to get a lay of the land. Or rather, a lay of the rock valley. From her vantage, any monster along their path was obliterated without warning as a solidified spike of toxic… stuff ripped a hole through their torsos.

What the spike was made out of, Isobel didn’t know. Only that it was akin to spider venom if it got in a living being’s blood. Over all, she was happy with the change even if her rate of fire was significantly lower than the previous evolution. Increased stopping power, flight, and poison made up for that in her eyes.

In the end, while traveling in the storm was safer due to the lack of monster threats, the slick footing decreased the group’s speed significantly. The Archon never appeared again as well, something Isobel was quite happy with.

Leland and Sybil had tried to ask her about the girl the Archon imitated on multiple occasions, but the Huntress ignored them like a stoic statue. After a few attempts, they got the hint. Well, mostly. Leland had a few ideas, none of which he thought he should share. If Isobel decided to tell him, then fine. Otherwise his ideas were his own.

It was on the second day in the rain that the group came upon the first of many dead bodies. Human, armored, and spiked into the ground with enough force to make an isolated crater, the body was nothing but a bloodied mess of metal, exposed bone, and viscera.

Leland said a few words about the body’s soul, but kept it short. If the person was anything like the man who crashed beside them a few days earlier, then the body would be a Harbinger. Honestly he did not care what happened to a Harbinger’s soul, he had long since come to terms with completely eradicating their existence after all.

Soul Fire was a beast of its own, however.

Still, a dull thought occurred to him after reminding himself that Sybil was technically a Harbinger. Well, almost at least.

He supposed he himself would be a better example that not all Harbingers were bloodthirsty fiends hell bent on the destruction or corruption of the innocent. So, looking at the dead body smeared into the rocks, Leland wrestled with his emotions until he decided that he was being foolish.

So, standing over the body, Leland spoke. It was short, it was brash and apathetic. He did not know this person, evil or not, and all he could do for it was hope its soul was in a better place. Which he did, he truly did.

Sybil and Isobel, meanwhile, debated on taking the body’s items. While the armor was crumbled like a broken roof, a few rings and even a bauble or two were fine enough. Splattered in blood and fleshy bits, sure, but otherwise unbroken.

Leland broke the argument by reaching down and dropping the items into his inventory ring. Sybil frowned at him.

“Sorry,” he told her, “but if some adventurers randomly came across my dead body, I’d hope they took my things and get some use out of them. Especially if it meant simply selling them to buy better gear. Gear saves lives.”

Whether from the rain, poor lighting, or the fact that Sybil had been taught to hide her emotions, Leland could not place the look she gave him. It wasn’t irritation or anger, but something more… overt. He couldn’t tell, but the Princess didn’t linger on the subject for long, simply striding off toward the storm’s eye.

It was only a few hours later that they came across another body. This time the body was strung along a jagged rock like a gutted fish on a butcher’s slab. Suffice it to say, Leland said some words from a distance while Isobel fluttered over to take any items of value.

She returned holding a medallion, “Recognize this?” she asked after swiping off the water.

“Maybe?” Leland asked, tilting his head. It was faded, the metal poorly stamped with a few awkward circles interlaced with one another. “Is this… is this the sigil of the Sightless King?”

Isobel smirked. “Worse. That’s the sigil of the Sightless Cult.”

He made a face at it, his thumb wiping the rain off again and again. “We always knew the Sightless King’s true followers were on another continent. I guess it’s this one.”

“Indeed. Or they created a foothold on this continent and no one was able to force them away.”

“But that man who fell from the sky was a Harbinger. And unless the Sightless King somehow actually made it to Lord-hood, the Sightless Cult would only be just that. A cult, not Harbingers.”

Sybil butted in, “What are you two talking about?”

Leland looked at her quite gravely. “Glenny, Jude, and I—”

Isobel coughed.

“— and Isobel – fought off a cult invasion in the port city of Shoutwell. And well, it looks like we just found another member.” He gestured at the body hanging limp from the rocks.

“What does that mean for us?” Sybil asked, her hand finding her hip.

Leland and Isobel looked at one another. “Not much?” he said, more as a question than not. “I’m not sure. At least for now, nothing changes. But now we know we do have human enemies lurking around.”

Isobel looked to the sky. “Or flying around.”

The others looked up and the trio watched the shifting dark clouds roll over one another. Now that they were inside the storm, the flashes of lightning they saw from a distance were quite different. Before they were quick bursts of light, each highlighting the layers of cloud and the occasional silhouette of great battling beasts.

Now, the lighting had shed its illusion, showing the reality of the situation. There was no lightning, at least not at the quick turn around they thought. Occasional strikes of actual lightning did crash above, but far and alone the light show was different colors of magic. Spells, each burning with the ferocity of a true battle.

Of a true war.

Worse than that, once they were in the storm, no silhouettes of monsters showed through the heavy rain. When they looked up, all they saw was the light of spells, not the target of said spells.

And for some reason, that created an itch under Leland’s skin. Isobel’s too, but she was perfectly fine with never scratching it. But being a mage had its own caveats, and Leland hoped his pathway wasn’t pointing toward soothing the itch.

Glancing at Sybil, he told himself again and again it wasn’t. It took a while, but he actually believed himself.

Slowly Leland forced himself to peel his eyes away and look ahead. The eye of the storm, the location he needed to reach to complete his contract and the location he assumed his pathway was pointing. Steeling himself, he adjusted his coat and parted the rain from flooding his vision. Then he walked, the others closely following a moment later.

For the next few hours, they came across bodies seemingly at timed intervals. Of course that wasn’t actually true, but the pattern of walking, finding a body, walking, and finding another body was. Minutes blurred together in the storm, the eternal darkness the clouds brought mixing well with the never ending assault of falling water.

By the sixth body, Leland’s inventory ring was full. He contemplated removing some of his larger items, like his blanket and pillow, but ultimately couldn’t. They were reminders, all things considered, of home. And well, another ring that was most likely going to be sold wasn’t worth forgetting home.

That didn’t stop him from ditching all the odd things he’d accumulated since buying the ring. For some reason, Leland had an entire plate of sucked-clean chicken wings in there. Why? He vaguely remembered being hungry one late night and not wanting to deal with ants in the morning. So of course slamming the plate into a pocket dimension was the obvious choice to combat his laziness.

They traveled until they couldn’t, eventually stopping when hunger became a problem. Leland’s supply of raw food was dwindling. He was glad he had stocked up in anticipation of the necessity for road meals with Jude and Glenny. He did not want to separate from Isobel and having her hunt would be a prime reason to.

So they sat around a green fire made by Isobel using alchemical means. Leland mentally noted that he had to buy some of the fire starter she used. Fire in the rain was a godsend.

The group didn’t speak, instead they all just stared at the flames, alone with their individual thoughts. Sybil and Leland were both stoic in their longing stare, having both already expressed their thoughts to one another. Isobel, on the other hand, crinkled her lips and scowled, her thoughts forcing her to shift with the unease of runic algebra.

Sybil was the one to finally say something. “Miss Isobel—”

“What?” the Huntress snapped, her head jerking over before abruptly halting. She mulled for a long second, eyes going wide and allowing darkness to enter her thoughts.

Isobel forced herself to calm, taking in what little remained of her past life. “You know,” she began, the green fire illuminating only half her face, “she hated that thing.”

Sybil followed her eyes and frowned. “What? This cloak?”

Having been wearing the same ratty cloak since being pulled from the water upon the trio’s abrupt arrival into the Valley, the Princess had hardly thought of it. It was comfortable, albeit a bit thin in places as well as smelling like age. But it was Isobel’s, not hers.

“I’d hug her,” Isobel continued, “and she’d complain that it was too scratchy. She would push herself away, but I would just hold on tighter…”

Sybil and Leland shared a glance.

“Who are we talking about?”

“Abby.”

It was said with open air, a haunted memory, a lost existence. It was just a name, but somehow the word itself extracted pain. How long had it been? How long had it been since she said her daughter’s name? Her heart knew the answer.

Too long.

“Abby,” Isobel repeated again. “My daughter.”

“Was… did that Archon wear her face?” Leland asked, the rain all but consuming his question.

Isobel still heard and through the haze of water splatter she nodded. “Bastard being. I’ll kill it if it ever gives me the chance. Her face… is hers… not some lawless being’s.”

“Where is Abby?” Sybil asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

“Dead.”

“I’m so—”

“I don’t want your pity. It was a long time ago and I’ve moved on.”

Leland bit his tongue but he still grimaced. Isobel noticed, turning on him. “What, boy? What are you making faces about!?”

Long ago Leland had learned the Huntress responded to questioning like a wolf to a slab of meat. She would rip and tear and never let go… but she would also respect the meat for refusing to be eaten, if it had the spine that was.

So, he straightened his spine, looked her dead in the eyes, and said, “Archon’s are experimenters. They take things apart, change things, put them back together, and behold, they have a new creation. There are theories that Archons have to work to better things. Whoever or whatever created them made them to always better things—”

“Get on with it,” Isobel sneered.

Leland closed his mouth, his lips turning into a fine line. He thought for a long second, eventually saying, “I think the Archon felt you were not perfect, so it changed something in you to make you perfect. It showed you your daughter one last time so you can finally remember or finally forget. So you can move on, because I know you, I don’t know you well, but I know you. And I don’t think you’ve moved on.”

Isobel stared at him, heat swelling through her chest. She could rip him apart for mocking her. She could utterly destroy his body and scatter his bits to the wind. She would return to his parents and tell them how he died. She would look them in the eyes and… and… and…

The heat in her heart cooled like lava to a river. She could never kill a child then gloat about it to their mother. No matter how much it would serve the unruly brat right. She just couldn’t do it, not with the hole in her heart. Not with the knowledge that she would be creating an even larger hole in Leland’s mom’s heart.

So as steam rose through her throat, and bubbles welled along her eyes, Isobel stopped her initial reaction and actually thought. About Abby, about Leland, about the Archon, about her life since… since she forgot how to love.

Maybe it was time to forget. Fully. To finally cut away the last strings of what kept her weak.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She had tried that. And failed. All those years she didn’t think about her daughter. All those years she bundled herself in that ratty cloak despite not knowing why she kept it. Maybe it was time to find out. Maybe it was time to remember. Maybe it was time to heal.

Isobel looked away and whispered, “Maybe you’re right.”