Curselock

Chapter 257: Rest

“What do you mean?” the man asked.

Leland scratched the back of his head. “My Lord deals with curses.”

“I see. You are a… noble?”

“Not quite.”

“Ah. Then you are a steward?”

“No…? I think there may be some miscommunication here. The patron of my power deals with curses. She’s more godly than nobility.”

Now it was the man’s turn to look perplexed. “Your power derives from more powerful beings? Are they immortal?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Leland said. “Some die from being killed or from very old age, but to us mortals, they are immortal, yeah.”

The man’s jaw slacked and wobbled. He stared at the young man before him, long dried tears threatening to make a reappearance. “I… I would like to meet them. Y-your Lord, you say, deals with curses? C-can she h-help me?”

Now it was Leland’s turn to hesitate. “Maybe. The issue is talking to her. Lords are naturally fickle. But, I have a special way I can get her attention if I need to. Though, I’ll bet she’s watching us have this conversation right now.”

He added a little wave off to the side for good measure. The man stared at the gesture, then followed suit and did the same. That then prompted the others to also wave, though they did not have the context of why they were waving.

“In the meantime, why don’t you tell me more about your curse. Maybe we won’t have to involve the Lords at all.” He paused. “Actually, why don’t we start with your name? I am Leland, this is Glenny, Jude, and Gelo.”

The man’s eyes darted to the others, quickly retreating back to Leland. “My name has long been forgotten.”

“Hmm. Right. Well, we’ve got to call you something.”

“Call me… Wanderer. My… people were often named after their chosen professions. And while I did not choose to walk my world alone…”

“Wanderer,” Leland said, savoring the name in both his and the man’s language. It sounded strange if he was honest. The syllables didn’t match up to the consonants. “How about ‘Walker?’ I think that will work better for my people.”

“Walker. I am Walker.”

Gesturing to the Tear, Leland asked, “Shall we?” before handing over a large poncho from his inventory ring.

“P-please…”

“Are you thirsty?”

“I have not had a drink of liquid in… thousands of years.”

A canteen appeared in Leland’s hands, one he filled using lifeforce water. Walker took it slowly, tilting his head back like a beaten dog. Liquid filled his mouth, overflowing onto his cheeks and throat. He grunted, almost as if he forgot to swallow. He stopped, staring at the dripping water.

“I-I spilled it…”

Leland shrugged. “That’s okay. Plenty more where that comes from.” He held out his finger, creating a single drop by way of cantrip. “See?”

“You can… create water?”

“Sure.”

“You must be very powerful… water… water was a scarcity hoarded by the nobility. When the wells finally dried up, those who could create water with magic were taken and held as invaluable resources. Most died before passing on their gifts…”

“That’s horrible,” Leland muttered, giving a subtle shake of his head to his friends. The others relaxed. “I can say without a shadow of a doubt, my world is not like that.”

“Do you have a sun?” Walker asked, squinting through the Tear. “You must. I recognize daylight…”

“We do? What’s—”

“You must destroy it!”

The outburst made everyone stop. Leland held up his hand, again easing his friends, but only just. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Walker pointed at the red sky, more specifically the off red orb. “That sun! My sun! That accursed thing destroyed all my world’s life! First the plants and crops, then the water and the poor. But eventually, kingdoms fell to ruin and stone turned to dust. For years! Years! I watched dust form into sand! Years! Destroy the sun, Leland! Destroy it before it can consume all!”

Taking long, strenuous breaths, Walker stood heaving. Veins had appeared across his face and neck, his withered muscles begging to rest. He breathed. And breathed. Ranting, a feeling he had long grown out of. What good was yelling at the sky when no one listened.

Finally, tears fell. That was wrong, wasn’t it? There were people listening.

He felt something touch his shoulders. Opening his eyes, Walker found Leland’s arm. He was being consoled. Patted, touched, soothed. “I am shameful,” he uttered, his voice like a dying doe. “I am shame—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay… You’re not alone. The sun is not killing us. Everything is okay.” A potion appeared in Leland’s hands. “Here, drink this. Everything is okay…”

Walker’s hands were shaking, but he managed to down the vial without spilling a drop. Slowly, he closed his eyes, the shaking coming to a stop. His heaving chest equalized, his enraged heartbeat relaxed. And, for maybe the first time in centuries, he fell asleep.

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“What’d you give him, Leals?” Jude asked.

“Muscle relaxer,” he replied, switching languages.

“You just carry a muscle relaxer around?”

Leland gave his friend a hard look. “This is not the time or place.”

“I mean, okay but—” Glenny socked Jude on the arm at the same time Gelo created a patch of ice over his foot. “Fine, fine! I get it!” he screeched.

Taking a deep breath, Leland said, “His name is Walker… or that’s the name I sort of chose for him. He’s the last survivor of this long dead world. He’s immortal, a curse he says… not that I blame him.” He gestured at the endless sand. “All dust from what the world used to be. He’s been walking for a long time, it seems. He’s met the Archons, but they left him alone when they were here. I guess our world is meant to save his, or rather, meant to save him.”

“Is he hostile?” Glenny asked.

“I… don’t think so. He wants to destroy the sun, so there’s that. But that seems a little farfetched as a possible goal. So. I don’t think so.”

“What do we do with him?”

That caused Leland to smile. “I am giving him to the Lords. Or will try to. He’s a problem. You all saw how fast he moved. Can you imagine if he started murdering? It would take a coalition of Champions to maybe take him down.”

“So he’s the Lords’ problem.”

“Yep.”

“Are they going to… take him?”

Again, Leland smiled. “If they don’t, I’m going to make my Lord’s life a nightmare.”

“How are you going to do that?” Glenny asked.

“Well first, I’m going to make contracts with Lords until one of them can get me an audience with her. Then I’m going to keep making audiences with her until she—”

The group wasn’t quite out of the Tear yet, only a few more paces from actually crossing over. But that didn’t stop other things from crossing. A crow, one similar to Zeke but non-ethereal, swooped in from the blue sky into the red. It circled once above the group before landing before Leland and cawing. The crow then took off, flying straight out of the Tear.

It was then Leland noticed his Legacy tattoo was dancing in a circle.

“It looks like I will be saving annoying my Lord for a future day,” he mused. “Let’s get Walker out of here and into a bed.”

“Why can’t your Lord just take him now?” Gelo asked. “Is that something she could do?”

“Probably. But I don’t want to send him to my Lord without being there when he wakes up. Friendly faces before he meets her.”

“I see. Maybe my mom can help him. If she’s not too busy. Oh! That reminds me! I asked her about Rules and Rulers when I was asleep last night. She says that you are on the right track but the Lord of Curses forbid her from speaking any more about it. She did confirm she is a Ruler of Cold, though.”

Leland’s face morphed into a bland expressionless irritation. “Oh course she did. Maybe,” he said, turning his head to the side slightly, “I’ll follow through with my plan to annoy her anyway.”

He rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, casting a levitation cantrip on Walker. It was a simple flex of magic, the only real difficulty was the awkward shape of the pale man and his weight. He tethered the cantrip to his hip and began to exit the Tear, Walker following closely behind as if on a gurney.

“And as much as I want to figure all of this Rule stuff out,” Leland said, “I don’t know where to begin. Again.”

“Do you really need to know?” asked Jude. “Because that all sounds like boring titles or labels. Who cares if you know what being a Ruler of Cold means besides that you are powerful?”

“He’s got a point,” Glenny said.

“But I want to know,” Leland said. “What if knowing the history of the terminology helps me figure it out.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Jude asked.

Leland ignored the question, pulling Walker along.

They exited the Tear and were promptly met by Captain Tar standing alone part way to Sand Castle. From the magic brimming from her eyes, Leland suspected she saw the whole exchange with Walker. And judging from how she stood alone and on the balls of her feet, he also suspected she was wary of the man.

“Stop right there,” she said, her voice carrying across the black sand. “What is this?”

“Is she seriously doing this?” Leland asked his friends, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

“I am!”

“Great. She can hear us from this distance.”

“I can. And you need to explain now. The Inquisitors are already on their way, code gray.”

Leland rolled his eyes, knowing the Inquisitors’ code from his parents. The colors ranged from green to gray, each marking a potential threat level to the kingdom, green being nothing more than an annoyance, gray being a doomsday threat.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

Tar gritted her teeth. “The Inquisitors are on their way!” she repeated.

“Yeah, to deal with the parasite, not Walker. I’m not stupid. There is no way you’d call in a code gray for a sleeping man.”

“A sleeping man who wandered endlessly in a dead world!”

Jude whispered, “Dude, I think she really did call in a code gray.”

“No way,” Glenny said. “If it was found to be a false alarm, she’d be stripped of rank. She wouldn’t take that risk.”

“She can hear you, remember?” chided Gelo.

“Look,” Leland said, taking a step. “He’s not your problem and he’s not going to be ours after he wakes up and I explain things to him. You saw the crow, right? The real one that entered the Tear—”

“What are you talking about!? There was no crow!”

“Yes there was.”

“It landed right in front of us.”

“It cawed at Leals.”

“They’re not lying!”

Tar’s face twitched. “I have good perceptions. I didn’t see any crow—”

“Just like how you didn’t see a parasite sprinting at Sand Castle?” Leland asked, not trying to hide his tone. “If I remember right, I did. And I was able to head it off.” He held up his arms. “I even had the broken arms to prove it.”

Clenching her fists, Tar asked, “What do you want me to do in this situation!? A man was walking alone in a world everyone thought was desolate—”

“Not true! The Lords knew, otherwise I wouldn’t have been given a quest to enter this one. Come on, Tar. Think this through. There is more at play here than you or I. Let me do my job and we’ll leave before nightfall.”

Tar didn’t answer with words, instead lowering her guard and relaxing her stance. The boys and Gelo took that as a sign to continue toward Sand Castle.

The conversation reminded Leland of something, his contracts.

Use: For the duration of the contract, access to the spell, Moon Bones and Sun Skin, is granted. Only usable once per hour.

Return: Observe the patterns of the stars within the new worlds and report these back to the Lord of the Celestial.

As he walked, he doodled a drawing of World Alpha’s sky. The picture was crude and lazy, but in the end a singular large star took up the whole page.

Now all he had to do was find a temple to the Lord of the Celestial. Or, he supposed, he could create one here.