Peacemaker’s First Strike
by Jennifer S. Hane
Have I dealt with any really bizarre curses, the kind that aren’t even in the books, maybe? You bet I have. A piece of advice, if you’re thinking of being a Shriver: the more high-profile your client, the more likely things are to turn squirrelly. Even if the curse is simple, the circumstances generally are not. And sometimes … well, let me tell you about a time.
When I get this job, I’m an up-and-coming destroyer of malefic spells: a mite short on experience still, but established in my work, and viewed as competent. I’m doing my rounds in the villages outside Gristall, when I receive a message saying Commander Whiteford’s in the city, and I’m wanted to attend him at once. Of course I drop everything and go. If you haven’t heard of Whiteford, if history has managed to forget him – let me just say that at this time, he’s one of the primary reasons we even have a border defense. I wouldn’t value my country that much if I let him get debilitated by some curse.
He’s staying at the Officers’ House – an old place, fancy – while soldiers from his division crowd every inn and private home round about. When I arrive the place is swarming with people. But they don’t make me wait. I am hustled in past a small crowd of scribes, quartermasters, and other officials, and I bask in professional pride as I tramp down a long hall, with my boots ringing on the hardwood floor.
Even so, I have to put some steel in my own spine before I actually see Whiteford. As my escorts open his door, I forcefully remind myself that I am worthy of such a client, and that the brave and powerful are no more difficult to release than the peasant I helped last week. I make myself keep my shoulders straight and eyes forward. I make myself believe that when I speak with him, I will know what I’m talking about.
Whiteford proves to be a wolf of a man, big and hard and broad-shouldered. His dark hair gives way to a majestic hint of gray in the beard and at the temples. Yet oddly, he strikes me as vulnerable. The room is fine but spartan, with no comforts beyond basic furniture, and he is alone in it. He sits half-hunched in the one large armchair. He delays raising his eyes to watch the people crowding at his door.
I step inside as one of the functionaries introduces me. “This is Erevay Tormund, sir. The Shriver you sent for.”
Whiteford gives the barest of nods. The aide seems to wait for him to say something, then finally gestures toward him. “Lord High Commander Velsyn Whiteford.”
“At your service, sir,” I say, in my best crisp tones. I turn to the aide. “It will be ideal if I can speak to the Commander in private.”
He bows and withdraws, shooing the others out of the doorway and closing it with care. It gives a soft but ominous click. I step forward and adjust my cloak, so the guild sigil at the shoulder shows in plain view. “I am here to assist however I may, sir. What seems to be your trouble?”
Whiteford fixes me with a dull-eyed stare. A note of husky disuse haunts his voice. “I can no longer wield my sword; it burns me.” He swings his head slowly toward the window, as if my presence already bores him. “Yet I am compelled to touch any weapon that lies within my sight.”
At the first sentence, my eyebrows rise. After the second one, I’m working to keep the rest of my face from doing anything stupid. I’ve never heard of such a thing in all my career. Swiftly my surprise descends into skepticism.
“Could you show me?” I ask.
Wordlessly, he raises his hands and opens them. Bandages criss-cross both palms.
“Your pardon, Commander. I meant to ask, could you demonstrate the affliction? I respect the fact that it pains you, but I must have a chance to observe every detail. This may be vital to a cure.”
“My sword is there.” Whiteford waves toward a chest at the bed’s foot. “Bring it out, and you will see to what I am reduced.”
I do as he tells me. The sword is a lovely thing, worthy of the distinguished warrior Whiteford is; I almost yearn to touch it myself. As soon as I unwrap it, Whiteford starts from his chair. His face pinches up with obsession. I lay the weapon on the bed and back away; he strides toward it, reaches down, and seizes it with confidence. But then he gives an anguished shout, and his fingers spasm open; the sword drops back onto the coverlet. He stands wincing a moment, flexing and shaking his hand. Then, to my horror, he grabs for the sword again. This time he holds it longer, clenching his teeth and groaning. The pain becomes too much, and again he flings it away.
“Cover it!” he cries. “Cover it, before I destroy myself!”
I scrabble for the cloth that lies at my feet. I fling it over the blade and under Whiteford’s hand, now reaching for the hilt a third time. In an instant, his face clears. The smallest of sighs escapes his lips. Slowly, he crosses the room and resumes his chair.
“Now, you have seen whatever is to see,” he says. “What cure is to be had for this … trouble … of mine?”
I scramble for something nice to say. I don’t want to tell him that his curse is new to me, and probably new to everyone in my profession. I don’t want to tell him I have no idea how to liberate him. But I’m going to love figuring it out, and I don’t want him to pick up on that, either. It might give him the idea I’m making light of his difficulties.
“A cure must be woven together from many things,” is what I settle on. “That’s how I earn my fee.” Hm; is that too flippant? Well, I’ve already said it. “Now that I’ve seen the symptoms, I need the motive. Have you any idea who might have called this down on you?”
“Brandobar,” he growls, clutching at the chair’s arms. It’s the first emotion I’ve seen him show, excepting what the curse dragged out of him. “He knows my sword seeks his neck. What other would have more need to stop me wielding it?”
The name seems familiar, and in a couple of seconds I remember it. Warlord Hengus Brandobar, raider of the southwest Bounds. One of those distant but deliciously ominous concerns that residents of the Centrum like to tut-tut about over dinner. “So,” I say, “an enemy on the battlefield?”
“Yes. The focus of my last campaign.” Whiteford blows a puff out of his cheeks. “We struck him soundly, but could not bring the matter to an end. Supply shortages forced our return. This began on the road home. His revenge, I suppose.”
“There’s no one else it could have been? What about a disgruntled underling who thought you drove the soldiers too hard? Or perhaps a rival for command. Was there anyone who disagreed, perhaps vehemently, with your choice to withdraw?”
He shakes his head wearily. “I am not such a poor leader as all that. No, if there were mutinous leanings among my forces, they never came to my ears.”
“What about someone off the front? A noble who doesn’t fancy you. An angry lover who thought you too long away.”
Dry, bitter laughter bursts from Whiteford’s throat. “If only! I am too steady and obedient for the first, too busy and humdrum for the second.” He rubs his forehead. “Believe me, I have thought on this … too much. The long nights of wondering whether I’m to shrivel on the stem leave me little else to busy myself with. Brandobar it must be; I have no other enemy.”
Well, that certainly makes it easy. Though only having one suspect always leaves me nervous that I’m missing something.
We talk more, mostly about business matters. I end up leaving with a stout handful of bank notes for expenses, and promises of an even stouter fee should I succeed.
And that’s when the excitement starts to go to my head. Because a fascinating new imprecation always makes my eyes brighter and my heart a little more lively, and this was the first really good one I’d seen in four years.
Sure, suuuurre, one becomes a Shriver to help other people – that’s what we all say anyhow, and when I say it I do really mean it. But when you’ve seen fifty cases of the Coward’s Folly and a hundred of the Jealous Lover’s Turnabout, you can’t help developing a little boredom.
Let me provide a bit of background for the non-professional. If you’re a fellow Shriver, you can skip this part. Curses can be malicious or an attempt at poetic justice, but either way, they grab onto some flaw in the cursee. Could be a specific bad deed, or a general deficiency of character. It’s harder to find a curse that sticks to an upstanding citizen, but fortunately for the curse-casters, nobody’s quite perfect.
Losing an ability tends to be a hint that you’ve misused it somehow, and that’s the only clue I have to go on, prima facie. That and the identity of the likely culprit.
Right away I hustle to the bank and change some notes, then spend the next few hours laying out my funds on travel to the Bounds. For something this tricky, I’ll have to visit the place it happened and speak with the man who did it. First, though, I’m going out for dinner. I’m plunking myself down in the Pigeon’s Crest and ordering up a glass of that specialty wine everyone talks about, Lay-craw Tong-bow or whatever its name is.
Three days later, when I actually swing my leg over a mule’s back and prepare to ride out with my chosen caravan, I’m not feeling quite so rosy. I’ve spent the time interviewing everybody close to Whiteford: his servant, his lieutenants, his quartermaster, his cook. And I have learned almost nothing. The case has turned more frustrating than fascinating.
Oh, they all remember clearly enough when he first fell under the curse. But they can’t give me any details that improve upon seeing the thing for myself. And more importantly, they can’t – or won’t – give me any dirt. Whiteford’s a noble man, they insist. Valiant. A superb leader and faithful patriot. If he’s got vices, he certainly doesn’t spread them about … not so as to show his men a bad example. He doesn’t deserve this.
“And who should I get for a client but the King’s avenging angel,” I grumble, arranging my cloak over the mule’s rump. “A veritable battlefield saint.”
“What’s that?” The sprightly little merchant beside me looks up from checking his horse’s harness.
“Oh, nothing.” I turn away from him, and then feel bad for acting the snob. “Just feeling sorry for myself.”
My commission presses on me, heavy as an EastHelm giant’s hand. That nagging self-doubt is back. If I can’t sort this one out, it’s going to be a blow to my professional reputation and my opinion of my own cleverness. But it will also be a blow to most everything I hold dear. Whiteford forms part of civilization’s strong arm. He stands guard against the reappearance of a cruel, hungry time when every man took what he pleased by force. Shrivers do fail on occasion, but I can’t afford to.
I think I can manage, though. It’ll all be fine.
The Bounds! A dangerous land, but it’s got a wild beauty to it. Looking on it for only the second time in my life, I can see why villains like Brandobar get romanticized on occasion: they take on the aura of their landscape. Those big, bare hills, those weathered rocky knobs, those sweeps of tawny grass high as a man’s thigh … all shot through with enough ravines and copses to give marauding bands a hiding place.
My caravan stops at Brow Desingya, one of a few walled settlements that keep the Bounds from belonging entirely to Brandobar’s ilk. I find a cheap inn where I can drop my things, and start making inquiries. It’s not long before I have a good approximation of what Brandobar’s been up to, who’s on his dirty list, what part of the country he’s in now, and how bad of a beating he took three months ago. With the royal army gone, his band has not been bothering much with secrecy. I also probe for any indiscretions that said army or its commander might have committed while passing through. The worst complaint I can draw out has to do with soldiers stealing food … and the complainant notes, with pleasure, that their commander had them whipped for it. Oh well. Whiteford the Righteous. At this point, I’m getting used to it.
Maybe someone cursed the man for being holier-than-thou? But no … he never gave that impression either. Other people tell his fine qualities abroad. Whiteford doesn’t spend a lot of time noticing himself being good; he just is.
So two days later I’m out in those hills, alone with my rather dull-minded steed, hunting up the only lead I’ve got: Brandobar himself.
His outriders see me before I see them. They swoop upon me like two eagles diving at one lamb, hot to fight each other over it. But they spot the Shriver’s sigils on my cloak, and by the time they draw up beside me, they’re all firm politeness. They tug their dusty hoods to me and box my mule in with their powerful, snorting horses. There’s no blade between my ribs, but I’m only going where they want me to go.
I expect to keep my head because no one who’s anyone important would be nasty to a Shriver. Brandobar could be the most ruthless warlord in the whole Bounds and it wouldn’t matter. If you harm one of us, the whole guild will refuse to treat you … and the kind of person who casts curses knows better than anybody that he might need a Shriver himself someday. Now I wouldn’t bet a silver on him being willing to negotiate, to help me lift the curse. But I hope to pick up helpful diagnostic hints. People simply can’t avoid letting secrets out when they open their mouths.
The camp is atop a mesa, where it commands a wide view of the countryside. I know not all of Brandobar’s forces are here. He probably has pockets of them scattered all through this area, ready to be drawn in swiftly by signals from the main camp. It still impresses me with its size; the raiders here would overwhelm any hamlet or merchant convoy. And just one of them would be enough to do for me. After I dismount, I make a pretense of fussing with my mule’s tack. That’s good: my hands aren’t shaking. Brandobar, like Whiteford, is just another man. A man I might need to liberate someday.
The two outriders bring me to him, bracketing me on right and left. He holds court under an awning, on a makeshift throne piled with animal hides. I can see that he is younger than Whiteford, although his face is weathered and drawn. His gaze is proud, straightforward, fierce, but it dismisses me at once. I am not important enough to hate.
That’s some comfort, I suppose.
“Greetings, Hengus Brandobar,” I say, with a slight bow.
“I am Altus Brandobar,” he answers, sternly. “Hengus, my father, has died of his battle wounds.”
This stuns me, but I manage to recover. “Forgive me, master. I was not aware.” Neither the local rumors nor Whiteford have said anything of this. The elder Brandobar must have survived the battlefield to die a quiet, lingering death from infection or internal bleeding. Which opens up some intriguing possibilities. The curse could have sprung from the agonies of a dying man. Or the son might have cursed Whiteford on behalf of the father. Either would be very potent. Now I have to probe for confirmation.
“He died with honor,” says Brandobar the younger. “There is nothing to regret.”
“And is there then nothing to avenge?” I watch his face. People who aren’t Shrivers think our training is about the magic. That’s not the half of it. We study people. How to draw their deepest secrets out of them, how to tell they’re lying. It’s the only way to get the job done.
And in Altus, I don’t see any sharp reaction. I haven’t touched a chord. “Forthcoming victories will avenge my father. We have no plans to vanish, or to become servants.” He gives me a more probing look. “What do you seek, Shriver? Why are you here?”
“I seek information only. A man who is known to you has fallen under a curse. I wish that you tell me if you have any guess who may have set it.”
“One known to me?” Brandobar queries. “Who?” His tone holds … not surprise, but a hint of real curiosity. I still haven’t caught him out.
“One you would name an enemy. Whiteford, Commander in His Majesty Temelann’s army.”
Brandobar leans to one side and spits. “I know nothing. I do not trouble myself about the life of anyone of Temelann’s, unless I am thinking of how best to end it. Whiteford I remember – a dutiful, noisy cur. But he has tired of barking and gone home to his master, and I have heard nothing of him since.”
He plays dumb with great skill. It’s time for the direct approach. “Master Brandobar. Was it you or your father who cast the curse upon this man? Or did you hire someone to cast it?”
He sharpens, eyes burning into me like stars of ill omen, and everything hangs upon a brief silence. I don’t know whether he’s about to order my execution, or confess; explode in furious denial, or make a careful protestation of innocence.
He does none of those things. Again, his reaction startles me. He turns his hawk-bright eyes away, and gives me a little wave of the fingers. “No, we neither cursed him nor tasked another to do so. If he is cursed it pleases me, but it is no deed of mine.” When he looks back at me his expression has gone mild, almost bored. I am no threat to this warlord’s interests. I could lift the curse or fail; he truly does not care.
I think of asking Brandobar whether he knows any flaws of Whiteford’s, apart from the sin of opposing him on the battlefield, of course. But then he glances at one of my escorts. “Dolmund. Lead the Shriver out of our camp, that she may search elsewhere.” And I have nothing to do but bow politely and withdraw.
My thoughts whirl as I mount my mule and escape. Could Hengus Brandobar have done this without his son’s knowledge? It’s not impossible. But it’s a tenuous theory to go on, and I need proof. I won’t be getting any here.
It’s an anxious, frustrating ride back to Brow Desingya, because I’m getting nowhere and running out of ideas fast. I’ve been eager for a challenge, but until now I haven’t really been willing to believe I might not be up to it. My mind spins endlessly over the interview with Brandobar, trying to decide if I read anything wrong, or if there was anything I missed.
Just after I rejoin the main road, I come upon a caravan of farmers’ wagons, all huddled on the verge. They seem to be only pausing for the moment; the animals are in harness, the drivers still in their seats. They eye me suspiciously as I pass.
And then, as I’m trundling along and only half-noticing these people, I spot someone who doesn’t belong. Her embroidered gray robe and jewelry mark her, too fine and decorative to belong to a typical farmwife. Her horse waits nearby, and though the tack is dusty I can see its quality. She appears to be arranging a trade with the caravan, offering them potions or medicine.
She looks so frail that I get the uncanny impression I’m seeing a ghost. Her clothes hang on an abnormally thin frame; the hint of red hair that slips from under her hood contrasts sharply with her pale skin. As I pass, she glances over her shoulder, and I catch her gaze. Then I know what she is. I do a little magic, but I don’t live and breathe it. There’s no mistaking someone who does – not once you look in their eyes.
She turns and goes back to her conversation, taking no further notice of me. I ride on by.
But that night at the inn, I ask around about the waifish mage. I don’t have any particular reason to; she just sticks in my mind, somehow, and I haven’t got anything better to do. Apparently she also sticks in other people’s minds, because the barkeep recognizes my description right off. “She came along of the army, but she didn’t leave with ’em,” he says, dishing up my stew.
That perks up my ears. “A deserter?”
“Naw. Least there wasn’t any fuss about her staying behind, nobody lookin’ for her.”
“She doesn’t wear any insignia.”
“Well she’s not with the army now. She left ’em, sure thing. But mayhap nobody cared. She’s not a battle-mage no how. Just some sorta helper.” The barkeep shrugs. “She don’t like to talk about it.”
Now that’s interesting. Maybe I’ve finally found someone who knows Whiteford’s tragic flaw. But of course it couldn’t be that easy. When I ask the barkeep how I can talk to this woman, he hems and haws. “She don’t live anywhere particular. Wanders around pickin’ herbs and selling ’em to townsfolk. Camps in the open. Your best chance to find her agin is to wait ’til she shows up here.”
I ask him to give her a message if she appears, then finish my stew and go to bed.
If she does drop by the inn I hope she’s willing to stay, because next morning I’m out on another expedition. If I can’t guarantee the person responsible for the curse, I can at least go to the place. The battles fought here almost certainly have something to do with it, and I’ve found out the location of the most decisive one. From there I might be able to pick up some magical echo of the curse itself. It doesn’t matter whether it was cast on the battlefield – the conceptual link will be enough.
Having an object with a connection also helps. That’s why I’ve brought Whiteford’s sword with me. It’s strapped to my mule’s side now, hidden inside a bulky canvas wrapping.
The site isn’t hard to find, because three months on, the land still hasn’t healed. A wide swath of country has been burned, dug up, and half churned to mud. The plain is dotted with remains of wooden palisades, overturned carts, shattered armor, and other litter. My mule breathes heavily and pricks his ears toward every little sound. He doesn’t like the place.
We roam until I find a flat-topped boulder sunk in the earth. I dismount and take the sword down, then lead my mule some way off and drop his reins. I unwrap the sword and lay it atop the stone. Its blade gives back a dull reflection of the overcast sky.
Now I sling my bag down from my shoulder and take out what I need. Over the stone and sword I pour some soil from the battlefield, half a bottle of wine, the ground seeds of the pasetta vine, and last, a splash of my own blood. I cut the thread around a roll of parchment and lay it out atop the mess, taking a moment to marvel at its exquisite calligraphy before I set it on fire. As its words dissolve into smoke, I kneel beside the boulder and let my eyes go unfocused.
At first I see only a blurred impression of the scenery, and feel nothing but the soreness of the nick I put in my arm. Then the light odor of smoke from the burning scroll transforms to something thicker and nastier. The light darkens, and I feel an ache begin in my heart.
I focus my eyes and look up. Instead of clouds, the sky is covered by dark, heavy billows of smoke. A reek of blood and decay assaults my nostrils. If I listen, I can hear faint screams and shouts, as if the battle were still taking place. Suggestions of struggling forms dance in the corners of my eyes like fog, but if I look straight at one, I cease to see it. Pain builds in my soul, uncontrollable and unfocused, like the nameless distress of a fever dream.
I hear a loud grating sound and look down to see the sword whirling on the boulder, once, twice, thrice around. A roar of fire grows in my ears; shouts and cries increase in volume. I close my eyes and concentrate.
Betrayal. That’s what I feel. Underneath a flood of sympathetic pain for all the death and injury that took place here – is this from the curse’s originator, or from me? – I am experiencing the horror of discord with a friend. An ally has become a tormentor. Something I thought was good and pure has been exposed as a source of evil. A hole has opened in the curtain of the world and shown me the outer darkness. It is not an enemy whom I curse. It is …
But no, this will not give me names and specifics. I’m working with a spiritual echo, nothing more. And now it’s time to end the exercise. I imagine the battlefield as I saw it first: peaceful, near-silent, damp and empty under a gloomy sky. I think about my task and how I will go back to the inn and put some pieces together to solve the mystery. I snap my eyes open.
And I still see columns of smoke boiling toward a black sky, still hear the sounds of trampling feet and clanging weapons. The agony of loss clings to me. I try to dismiss it, try to think of something else, try to remember myself and the fact that this is not my loss, but the pain is too deep. I cannot help but sympathize with it, and through this it keeps hold of me and drags me down, down into a dark, oily, drowning pool.
My mind dims, and I can think of nothing but the finality of death and the general cruelty of the universe. I made a bid to lessen that cruelty, a little. All I met was opposition and failure at every turn. There is no hope left to me now.
I am losing awareness of my body. Despair is all that has any meaning for me, and despair is not a bodily thing. I am not myself; nor am I the one who set the curse on Whiteford. I am a formless spirit, a smooth and empty channel for experiences, waiting to be filled by suffering.
The little part of me that can still think for itself and realizes what’s going on desperately tries to claw its way back. My ritual has run away with me; I’m sinking into the dark trail left by the curse. This has never happened to me before, but I know what I need to do. I must hang on to something of my identity, or a part of my current reality, that is positive and honest. I have to mentally stare at it until it expands to fill my thoughts, then use it like a guide rope to pull myself from the morass.
And I cannot do it. The howling horror of the betrayal is too strong. It exerts an absolute demand on my attention, and I cannot find an idea powerful enough to counter it. I try one after another, and every time I can feel my concentration slipping. I’m fading. I …
I can feel a hand on my shoulder. I don’t know when it got there. There’s a flicker of warmth and beauty coursing through my consciousness, and it eases the dread the way a fire begins to ease a bone-deep chill. Speaking of which, I am very cold. I drag my eyes open.
I am lying on my side, half-curled into a ball, not far from the sunken boulder. The gray-robed mage kneels over me. Her hood is thrown back, giving me a full view of her disheveled red hair. Her pallid skin and drawn cheeks look even more unhealthy up close. The magic I’m receiving has a tender quality, but her eyes are dull and disinterested. Gray eyes, the color of her clothes.
In a moment, she removes her hand and rocks back onto her heels. The flow of power into me ceases, and I choke back a little cry of disappointment. I shouldn’t complain; I can tell I’m out of danger now.
“You were dying,” she says, blandly.
Yeah, I was. I try to sit up, but that doesn’t go so well. I only manage to roll onto my back. “How is it you happen to be here?” I ask the mage, as I stare at the sky. A raindrop falls on my face.
“I was gathering herbs. There are kinds that grow most readily in the burn scars.”
It might be true, but she says it with a hint of hesitation that suggests it’s an excuse. She probably followed me out here. Why?
“I’m investigating a curse,” I tell her. “In case you hadn’t guessed.”
She doesn’t respond. With a valiant heave, I manage to get my upper half off the ground. My muscles shake.
“I apologize,” the mage says, “For the incomplete nature of my help. It is difficult for me to summon strength for direct healing, these days. I am more effective in amplifying the powers of natural materials. And you were too far gone for such.”
I nod weakly. “You’re a healer, then.”
“Was. Now I am only suited to be called ‘herbalist.’ Our king shall have to find someone else, to close the wounds of soldiers and to mend their broken skulls. My power for such things is spent.”
“What brought that on?” I ask, under some combination of genuine concern and professional curiosity. She might be cursed herself. “An illness?”
“You could name it so.” She cracks a wan smile, and I know I won’t be getting her to tell me any more about it.
With a soft groan, I fold my legs under me, in preparation for standing up. “Lady, I both thank you for your kind assistance, and fear I must ask for further help, of a different sort. If you were in the army, you must have known Commander Whiteford.”
Her face stays blank; she says nothing.
“He is under a curse,” I continue. “A curse prompted by a betrayal. Tell me, if you can, who he might have betrayed? And know I ask this only for Whiteford’s good. To lift such a curse, I must understand its nature.”
She answers without emotion. Her lips are the only part of her that moves. “Whiteford is an honorable man. Fair to his soldiers, and loyal to our king. Everything he ever did was for the good of his country.”
I clench my teeth. “Yes, I’ve heard that overall impression from dozens of people. But it needn’t have been the sort of transgression that would look serious to an outsider. Did he quarrel with an old friend? Did he cheat at cards? So he was mostly a good person, but what was bad about him?”
The frail woman dead-eyes me. “Everything he ever did was for the good of his country.”
I glance down and throw up my hands. “Alright, I admit it, he was a divine being in human flesh. I …”
When I look back up from this little fit I’m pitching, she is gone. Just gone. Invisible, or whisked away, or dissipated into vapor, it doesn’t matter – the conversation is clearly over.
“Wizards!” I snarl, not caring if she hears.
There’s one more thing to do, once I’ve gotten back on my feet and found my mount, who wandered quite a way while I was indisposed. I return to the sword on the boulder. It spun during the ritual, and it settled pointing northwest. I line myself up with the blade and start walking, keeping a careful eye on both ground and horizon for anything of special interest. Hundreds of paces out, I come upon a body that missed being recovered. It’s mostly skeleton now, but I can tell from the remnants of clothing and hide armor that it was one of the barbarians.
I kneel and resign myself to picking over the body. Cause of death is obvious: two arrows through the torso. I find a few belongings: a knife, an empty glass vial, three bone dice, a piece of flint. I pocket them in some futile hope that they’ll be helpful later.
I recover Whiteford’s sword, wash it clean, and re-wrap it. I ride away from the battlefield and perform a purification rite in a nearby meadow, so I’ll come to no harm from disturbing the corpse. By this time, it’s late afternoon. My soul feels as gray as the sky.
That night I maximize my warmth and safety. I retire to my room early, and take a mug of hot spiced cider to drive off the last memories of my little descent into hell. Once I’m nice and comfortable, I try letting my mind go loose, gently stirring everything I know about this curse to see if new insights drift to the surface.
They don’t.
Tomorrow, I should prepare my return to Gristall. There’s nothing more for me to do here. But “betrayal” isn’t much to go on; any cure I craft from something so general would need a leapfoot’s own luck to work. If I confront Whiteford with this new hint, maybe he’ll spill. Or not. He might not even know what I’m talking about, might not recognize whatever he did as a betrayal.
And if I get clumsy, if my weak understanding of the curse proves to be too much of a limitation … that horror I just nearly drowned in? It’s going to endure the rest of Whiteford’s life. It’s going to win.
Dread starts twisting my stomach. I can’t go back. I don’t have enough.
I lay the four items I took from the dead warrior on the bedside table. I turn them over and over in my hands. The flint is scored from many uses striking fire. The knife still has an edge to it. I tap the dice against the table; they make satisfying clack noises. I uncork the vial and sniff it. An alien scent blooms in my nostrils, heady and metallic and full of magic. My body craves whatever was in that vial.
Nothing’s coming to me. I hide the objects in my bag again and go to bed.
But in the morning, everything makes sense.
And a good thing too, because someone’s pounding on my door and scattering all my thoughts. I open it to find a serving boy. “Master said t’ tell you Ferridan’s here.”
I smile at him. “Who?”
“The lady what sells the potions.”
In haste I tidy myself and patter down the stairs to the common room. And there she is. She’s taken over a table near the door, and is trying to interest the inn’s patrons in her wares as they depart on morning business. I walk over and greet her. She registers no surprise at seeing me.
“When you’re done here,” I tell her, “I’d like to ask you a professional question. Four silver konas for a good answer, and as some compensation for yesterday.”
She studies me with her oddly lifeless eyes. “What is your question?”
I shake my head. “Later. In private.”
After the morning crowd have cleared out, I meet her in my room, with her in the one chair, me on the bed, and the little table between us. I take the vial out and plunk it in the center. “I was hoping you could smell this, and tell me what used to be in it.”
She pops the cork and takes a cautious sniff, then inhales deeply. She gives a little sigh. “It was most likely a potion for the cure of diseases caused by bad airs. Pneumonia. Diphtheria. Some fevers.”
“Then it might have saved the life of the person I found it on.”
“Yes.”
“Only for them to be slain by arrows.” I take the vial back and hold it up suggestively. “One of yours?”
She gives me a look that says she knows that I know. She is resigned to my knowing. She nods once.
“When you left the army,” I say, “it wasn’t only because your power diminished. They wanted you no more, but neither did you want them. You did not approve of something.” I count out the four konas, but keep them under my hand for the moment. “How, Ferridan? How exactly did Whiteford betray you?”
There is a long silence. I begin to think she’s not going to answer – we could sit here until we both die of thirst, while she just paralyzes me with her gray, dull stare.
“We were undertaking negotiations with Brandobar,” she says finally, “and with the elders of his warband. In large part, the working of them fell to me. Whiteford had not brought along a proper diplomatic attaché … I suppose I should have taken warning from this.” She swallows. “But I took the duty seriously. Brandobar was not a simple thug. Ruthless, yes. He lived by an old and ugly code, the kind in which strength confers right. But he had honor and could be bargained with. I offered him a noble title, a degree of representation and autonomy. I enticed him with the blessings of civilization. Wizards like myself, you know, are terribly delicate. We don’t make useful slaves; you cannot force us to produce little treasures like this …” She nudges the empty vial with a finger. “Under coercion, we just die.”
I hold my hands quiet over the money, nervous. “So what went wrong?”
“Whiteford threw it all out.” She looks down at her hands. “We had something drawn up. We had agreement from Brandobar and the elders. We almost had agreement from the territorial minister. But then he talked to Whiteford and decided that Brandobar could not be trusted, and that pacifying him was not worth the costs to us anyway. Better to wipe the warband out. We threw the treaty away and went to battle.” Her fingernails are digging into the table. “Whiteford did not even deign to tell Brandobar that negotiations were closed. He simply attacked. It was a brilliant strategic move – and a betrayal.” She looks back up at me. “Now Brandobar is dead, along with many others. The band will go on raiding, with fiercer anger than before. And I am quenched … He tried to make me. He tried to make me go on healing and supplying the army. This is why my magic withered.”
I slide the coins across the table to her. She takes them in her hand, but does not pocket them.
“As soon as I saw the Sign of Shrivers on your cloak, I knew why you were here,” she tells me. “I thought of letting you die.”
If I were to expose what I know now, Ferridan would be declared a traitor and probably executed. I could hold that over her head, as leverage to make her roll back her own curse. This would be the easy way.
Or I could turn her loose and lift it without her assistance. The treatment would be experimental, but I know enough details now. I could devise appropriate penances and lead Whiteford through them, applying magic at crucial moments to dissolve the spell that haunts him.
But neither of these options feels right. And when you’re handling curses, being right is more important than correct technique.
I reach across to take Ferridan’s hand. She doesn’t resist, but she is startled by the touch. The first light I’ve seen appears in her eyes: the hint of an unasked question.
“You’re a diplomat,” I tell her, “so negotiate. What would you like Whiteford to do? I can give him any list of deeds, and he’ll perform them. They could be the silliest of things, but if I pronounce them suitable to his treatment … well. He doesn’t have to know they come from you, your payment for lifting what you set. I believe you did this because you felt powerless.”
The brightness flashes and goes out. “Nothing will return the dead.”
“No. But some things might help the living.” I frown. “When Brandobar’s band finish licking their wounds, then as you’ve said, the raids will start again. Without Whiteford at the front, defense will be ineffective. The common people living here will be a prey.”
“And if he returns, he will finish what he began. He will massacre the warband.”
“You could stop that.”
A week gone by, I’m back at Gristall, telling Whiteford what he’s got to do. He takes it surprisingly well. Living under a curse will do that to a person, I suppose. Anything else seems better.
I inform him that he needs to see an Oathmage, and get himself put under … well, almost a different sort of curse, but one that should be more amenable. If ever there is no more Brandobarian warband – if ever all his followers are killed, or so scattered and enslaved that they no longer form a people – Whiteford shall fall ill and die. He can fight, but he cannot annihilate. And since the warband must endure, there is now a higher compulsion to make peace with them.
Whiteford concludes that the binding spell will push his curse off, as if he didn’t have room for more than one. That’s not at all how these things work, but I allow him to believe it. What’s really going to happen is that Ferridan will revert her spell after he accepts the new one. I’ll help her if she needs it. Sometimes curses take on a life of their own, and won’t quite vanish even when their caster wills it. But I don’t anticipate difficulties.
And then I’ll keep Ferridan’s secret – for the rest of her broken life. That’s why this story’s in my memoirs, and not in the official annals they keep up at the guild. Hey, you! Who are you, reading my memoirs? I’d better be dead. You’d better be someone from the far future. And then I hope there are still Shrivers. I hope you take this to them and let them see it. You never know when there might be another case of Peacemaker’s First Strike.
Listen, I discovered this curse! I get to name it.
_______________
Jennifer Hane is an electrical engineer who designs satellite electronics for a living. (A small number of objects in space have some of her work on them.) In her spare time, she meddles with a variety of AI and robotics projects, which you can check out by looking up WriterOfMinds on your favorite social media. Her work has also appeared in Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction.