Sylvester & Tuette: Cursed Doubt

Chapter Three

“I’m not certain if I’m hearing you correctly, young Puze,” sneered the count.


“I have… eenformed thee hue-man… of thee sit-you-ation… and thee Magi… eenformed me dat… it is set for remady. S-s-sire.” Count Roost nodded at the clarification. He hated when the little fruit fly didn’t take the time to articulate his words.


The count had the perfect plan set into motion: by sending his Cursed messenger to Maperryta Cafeglian Dormaset, the self-proclaimed “Magikal Governor” would be able to witness the extent of Count Roost’s powers.


Now Dormaset had to make the next move and, by any means, get the king of Decennia to go along with it. Roost didn’t care how the aged man came upon the task, just so long as it happened. He could almost feel the eventual power at the tips of his fingers. For too long, it had been beyond his grasp, but now it was much closer than ever before.


A bellow came from below; a low moan that served to undermine the calming effects of the waves that crashed on the shoreline further down. The count knew better than to expect a calm eye in the torrential storm that was his life.


Puze, in his glass-mesh cage, looked from the count towards the door and back again. Roost thought the creature might be feeling sympathetic for what was causing the bellow. He then snorted at the though. As if the thing feels sympathy. Count Roost ignored Puze’s movement, but could not ignore the moans.


With a sigh, he went to the heavy door, opened it, and began his cyclic trek downwards. The spiral staircase wrapped around the inside of his sole tower, opening out to each room. Count Roost passed the room directly below the one he had been occupying, giving a glance to the recently-uprooted and exotically unique flower that stood there, slightly wilted. I should water it. Or something.


He continued down and stepped off at the bottom, only one room deeper, at the base of his tiny castle. The moans were louder down here and carried an undercurrent of caustic ruin. The count still had a little way to go. Moving to the other side of the main hall, he opened a prominent, heavy door, letting the moans double in strength as he descended into the hollowed out sub-flooring. Decades prior, they had served as the former ruler’s cellblocks for island dissenters. Currently, it was a shabby infirmary, home to but one creature, one lonely man.


The count, having performed deeds of the dastardly sort in the past, almost always had to abbreviate these moments in which he would deal with the man. Roost had found he could not maintain the presence of a dying man.


At the end of this stairway and continuing towards the only usable room, the count knew why the impaired man had been moaning: his torch was going out, as evidenced by the dim glow that silhouetted the door. Slowly, with measured practice, Roost grabbed an unused torch and went into the room. Using the dying torch’s embers to light the new one, he effectively replaced the tiny room’s source of light.


In the warming light, the count could see that the resident’s pile of read prints had grown and the unread pile had become smaller. Roost would have to gather more so as to provide the terminal man something useful for passing the time. He wondered, briefly, if he could just reshuffle the pile read and put it under the pile to be read. He knew he could not do that, but it honestly was not the first time such a notion had crossed his deceptive brain.


Another contradictorily cold thought entered Roost’s head: he knew he could burn the prints and the bedding and the old man too, and he would not even have to go through with what was being asked of him. He, Count Roost, could be free. I’m the ruler of an island after all. A municipality!


But, as always, the thought subsided and the count felt shame for letting it take root once again. He patted the newly-quiet man’s hand once and immediately felt like he was not there anymore: with light bringing the elder’s attention to his prints, Roost was invisible. It stung in an expected way, but at least he didn’t have to use the PainLess Stone this time. And at least the old man didn’t talk.


With the moans quieted, Count Roost could return to the main floors. He moved away from bedside and had only one foot on the first step when he heard more mutterings: a voice. He slowly rotated himself to look at the man again. In that short amount of time, the ill man had fallen asleep, head back, latest unread text in his lap. His mouth moved almost silently and Roost knew words emitted from that home of too-few-teeth.


The count did not have to move closer to know what was being said over and over again, without rhythm. “I am trying, old man,” said the count. Before he let himself lose his composure, the count moved out of the room and up the stairs with a quickened pace. The word hung forever at his earlobe as if designed to haunt him into submission and humiliation: Godblade.


“I will recover your accursed Godblade. And this – all of this – will end. No more Dying Man Dance.” No one heard these words, but they helped with the self-affirmation that the count needed to complete his task. The hardest part was already over. Now all the pieces would fall into place, whether they wanted to or not.





*          ~          *          ~          *





The count was in his sole tower once again as dusk settled around the island’s shore. He was preparing the Curse that would change all of Decennia. The land would not change, but the masses would.


Rubbing a closed eyelid with his cool left thumb, Roost wished to have the ritual over with. He was not sure how long it would take. The tome in front of him, filled with nearly a hundred scripts, detailed the sequence, but not the length of time it would take. The oppel ink each script was written in was known to be dangerous when compressed in close proximity of itself. But that was why the tome was bound with yoppa leather; its properties nullified the dangerous side effects of the powerful ink.


Roost went to one of the many marked section of the book. Each marking represented a kind of Curse. This particular one was similar but different. He was not only attempting to manufacture a new Curse, but he was looking to establish the parameters of the victims without having to possess personal “leftovers” of the intended victim, like hair lost or skin shed.


Usually, to cast a Curse, the caster had to be Cursed and fuse a piece from his body with a similar piece from his would-be victim. Hairs were common enough, but the freshness of the leftover was necessary and differed between Curses. Rather than using the infusion method, Roost was going for a land mass specification. He knew a healthy dose of time would have to pass before the Curse actually took effect, but it was worth it if the end result was possession of the acclaimed yet mythic Godblade.


This volume he owned was filled with powerful Magik. The benefit he most enjoyed was the ability to craft new Curses. And right now, he was aiming for the largest Curse he had ever known to exist. Roost was looking to put a Curse on the entire kingdom of Decennia.


Such a lavish expression of power was almost necessary when it came to his final goal but he knew that he had to quell the dying man if he was to ever proceed with his own life. Voidet was so demanding when it came to his personal desires. But Roost had the plan for acquiring the Godblade and Voidet would be happy and either die peaceably or somehow be restored to full health; Roost was not sure of the exact properties inherent in the legendary blade, but he knew that he could not allow the man to slip away before at least attempting to procure the arcane weapon. He sometimes wondered if the blade’s absence was even keeping Voidet alive.


With so many gales in motion, Count Roost set about to finally Curse the kingdom and ultimately get the monarch to leave his post and personally deal with the menace that the count himself was constructing.


It was a dangerous game when Magik was involved, Roost knew, but would ultimately be worth it as it was the only way to silence the malignant forces that haunted his own life. Haunted, yet motivated him to acquire so much more. He was the island’s governor, which was ideal for now, but he had bigger gilltain to fry. Eventually, he might even get to return to Gor Bilesk. Or even cross the Fanway and serve under Gor Pyron’s leader, Topoto. He was the one who would ultimately be inheriting the kingstone. Plus, with the Godblade and no more ties to this sullied kingdom of Decennia, that action seemed most appropriate to the count.