Sylvester & Tuette: Cursed Doubt

Chapter Fourteen

“How do you two know each other?” asked Celester.


Tuette looked to Dermy before deciding to answer. She knew that her outburst in Zharinna would eventually bring about this question. “We were traveling companions. A few years ago.” Do I need to reveal that I’m Cursed? Will that counter my Freezer guise? Does it matter now whether I keep up the ruse or not? Their goals had shifted in the span of a few minutes. Before the Artificial attack, they had been actively pursuing a rumored chicken flock. Now the king had decided that they should go after Roost. The situation somehow had unfolded in Tuette’s favor.


“Traveling companions? That’s it? Like, with a troupe or like minstrels or something?” Neither knew how to answer so he asked another question. “Are you bandits?”


Bandits? Is he serious? It sounded like a horrible suggestion, as if plucked from a tree in the middle of nowhere. Tuette assumed all the king’s thoughts came from nowhere, rather than from his invaluable kingstone. Why isn’t he using that knowledge to seem intelligent? Because he’s an idiot?


Big surprise.


“Kingasir, we’n be no ban’its, oh. We…”


“Why are you still wearing that disguise, Dermy?” She couldn’t help asking. The Guards were gone and if they were being spied on, it was by Magik means because she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. And if it was with Magik, there really was no point in trying to block it: someone determined enough would come across the truth of his situation sooner or later.


Dermy sighed. He then stood up, moved to stand beside a tree, forced his wrist tightly into a fork between the trunk and a branch, and pulled bodily against it. The sudden action made Tuette shriek as loud, wet cracks sounded from not just Dermy’s shoulder but his entire arm.


In the next instant, Dermy was back to his normal self, his arm still hung up on the tree. He reached forward with his left hand to remove his right and he then settled it against his side. When he let it go, it hung limply, like when his disguise had been dissipated before. It looked broken beyond repair. She immediately wondered why he hadn’t let a ta heal it.


He settled himself back down on the log and began to speak. “It’s just… with the disguise, I know I sound like an idiot and look different, but at least,” he picked up his right arm with his left, letting the hand dangle at the wrist. “At least I’m useful like that.”


Celester stepped forward. “You broke your arm, Dermy? Why not see a healer or something?”


He took a deep breath. “Because it can’t be mended.” Another deep breath. “I-I sacrificed it. So the bones could be tethered to my disguise.”


Understanding dawned on Tuette but the king looked even more confused. “Tethered to your disguise? You mean… What? What do you mean?”


Tuette felt her eyes roll at the lack of comprehension on behalf of the king. “He means that, to work for you and to appear unassuming, he had to adopt the disguise with Magik. Most require the Spell be tethered to an object that you always have to keep on your person. He knew he’d need to keep the disguise up for a long time and that would be proportionate with the size of the object to be tethered.” She took a breath, thinking of the things that Dermy had been forced through since leaving her company. Since working for the crown.


Yet another life ruined in the name of the king.


“Human bone, king, is terrific for absorbing tethers: they last longer and are sturdy. But they eat away at the bone. If Dermy has kept his tethers on for even a year, too much of his bone would’ve deteriorated. And eventually, the bone will vanish and the disguise will fail.” She looked at Dermy now, who looked sullen. “How much longer do you have for this disguise, Dermy? Before you have to go back?”


“A month” he said quietly. “Maybe two. Craspone said that I couldn’t trust the other farmers. At least not the ones on the mountain. He said I needed to appear unassuming, so they wouldn’t suspect me. I imagine they did anyway.”


“Who’s Craspone?” Tuette suppressed a heavy sigh. Did Celester always ask the unimportant questions?


She also didn’t want to relive the past. Not that part of it anyway. But now she understood for what real purpose Dermy had left her for. “Craspone per Taali met us during our travels, about three years ago. Before that, Dermy and I traveled the land, searching for a variety of ingredients to store for making Potes and crafting Spells.” She finally decided to omit the part about being Cursed. For now, at least. “In Dekenna, we came across Craspone. He works for you. Or did, at one time. He recognized Dermy’s affinity for plant properties and said he could have a good future working under—Working for… the mountain.”


“He said I could work for you and I’d end up helping the whole of Decennia. When I told him that I couldn’t leave Tuette, because…”


“Because… I’m a, uh, sorry traveler. With poor direction.”


“I wouldn’t say that, no,” said Celester. “But for you to travel alone, as a helpless woman in the wilds, that I understand.”


Helpless? Tuette knew she was hardly helpless, even back then. But she knew that contradicting him would only further the instance in when she would have to reveal her Curse. She scratched her head through her hood, noting not for the first time that her head was sweaty, her hair matted against her scalp. It felt uncomfortable, but they weren’t in the shade. She stood, moved to stand in a surefire shady spot just inside the forest, and undid her hood to let her hair out. It was true that she was limited, yes, but she knew she was not helpless.


The king looked puzzled as to why she had done this but didn’t ask questions. His eyes did seem to linger on the hem of her skirt though and she looked down, wondering if she had gotten more chicken droppings on it. When she looked back up, he was looking back to Dermy as Dermy said “So Craspone directed both of us to the Grechy Pools and there, we found Tuette’s swan.”


Celester looked confused again as he glanced back at Tuette. Apparently, he had forgotten her swan-shaped home and thought that a real bird was being discussed.


She chose to ignore the confusion and speak like he should have remembered the structure. “I talked about how I could use a Life Spell on the swan so we could travel around more quickly.” The confusion faded and the king even looked a little bashful for having forgotten. Tuette knew that after finding the swan, Craspone had pulled her aside and informed her about the nature of the kingstone, for then-unknown reasons, but she decided to omit this during their retelling too. It seemed that, judging by the way the king hid his kingstone, that it wasn’t exactly public knowledge. “Then Dermy left me, in the middle of the night, with Craspone.” She looked into Celester’s eyes. “For you.”


The monarch didn’t seem ashamed. He almost seemed amused, at least. Dermy spoke up then. “Craspone told me that I couldn’t be so open about using my advanced forms of Magik on the mountain. Not around the farmers. He said a plot was brewing. Against you, sir. I told him I could disguise myself. Appear unassuming. So that when I went to work the orchards, I wouldn’t be suspected. He said he was already a suspect and that he had managed to escape.” He gulped, as if thirsty, and Tuette wondered if they should’ve brought their skins into the forest to refill with fresh lek water. “During our travels back to Mount Reign, we were… attacked. By thieves. Or what I thought were thieves. They aimed to kill both of us but Craspone fought hard against them. And took a fatal blow for it.”


Tuette recalled in her mind the image of Craspone and found it both humoring and pitiful to think of such a tiny man as he was fighting against any kind of attacker. But he apparently had and paid with his life. “Before he died,” continued Dermy “he said I should use the disguise, like I said I would, and infiltrate the mountain. For the sake of the crown. And the future. And everything.


“I based my disguise on him and, when I arrived at the western fields, told them that word about Craspone’s death had reached his home village. And that our families feuded. And that I hated him and wanted his job because someone like him didn’t deserve it when I clearly did. I felt sick for the lies but they bought it. In no time at all, I was installed on the mountain and made contacts with the other Magikals there.”


“Others? There are other Magik people on Mount Reign?” Celester looked embarrassed.


Dermy shook his head. “Not many. A few. The men that worked in the orchards were only spies, not Mages. We had our network. And it never involved face-to-face meetings. Those are too risky. No, we had to leave scripts and such to relay messages. I was contacted shortly after arriving. Apparently, Craspone had come searching for me personally. I didn’t understand why.” He looked at Tuette then. “Now I think I do.”


“How do you mean?” asked Tuette. She was genuinely curious now.


“Think about it, Tuette: during the months we traveled, we came up with some fantastic Potes. That had to get noticed by someone. Then we separated and have now found ourselves on the same quest, helping the king here save Decennia.”


“But anyone could do this. It’s only a means of performing a Rev—“


“No,” said Dermy in such a forcefully quiet way that Tuette remained silent. He looked down at his dead arm. “No. We were chosen. By someone. Or something. Maybe even the maperryta. It started with us needing to Freeze chickens but Roost changed the rules and now we have to confront him. And he’s using Magik that I know you recognize.”


That shook her. He had remembered everything she told him about her apprenticeship under Corunny Voidet. Has he pieced out that someone’s adopted Voidet’s means of Cursing? He knew she was still Cursed so he’d already figured out that Voidet still had to be alive. But how had the count overcome the Curser? Did Dermy know the answer? She’d ask him later, when the king wasn’t so attentive.


But the comment drew Celester’s intrigue. “Magik you know, Tuette? What Magik?”


She maintained eye contact with Dermy for a second, let a moment pass between them, turned to look at the king, and said, “My old teacher, Corunny Voidet. The last I heard of him, he was working near the southern edge of Javal’ta. And he’s a master at Cursing.”


That was going to be all she divulged. Until the pesky king asked, “Your teacher was Cursed?” So he remembers the facets of Cursing, then. “And, what, his Freezing profession panned out and he became an irritant of a count?”


“No. We’re not dealing with the same man. But we’re dealing with his Magiks.”


“So someone… killed your teacher? And is using his Magik against Decennia?”


Not wanting to invite more questions, she nodded. “Yes, that has to be it.” Dermy met her gaze again and, when Celester looked to the specialist, she shook her head slowly at his puzzled look, silently pleading that he not reveal the whole truth just yet. Celester looked back at her as she resumed her normal, storytelling features.


“And I guess that, since you’re tangled up in this, you definitely want to go after this guy? For killing your old teacher?” He paused for only a second, not letting her answer. “I guess I would do the same thing, if it was one of my more cherished professors from Majramdic.”


The king turned wholly back to Dermy as Tuette began to bunch up her hair to be resettled inside her hood. “And your disguise? Do you need to keep wearing it?”


Dermy sat for a second before answering, his gaze distant in a way. “My right arm is useless without the disguise. The Magik, though it’s tethered to the bone, keeps the physical illusion of usefulness.” He sighed deeply. “Until the bone is gone, that is.”


“I don’t think you need it anymore, Dermy. If it’s the Guards you’re worried about, they’re trustworthy. That’s their job.” Tuette shook her head at the man’s naivety but decided not to comment on it. “And if we’re spied on, then we can take it head on. But we have a new goal in mind.” The sound of splints in the distance came at them and they all turned their heads to watch the Gousheralls in the immediate distance.


Tuette said, “Dermy, if anything, we need you as yourself. You’ve done your duty with the disguise. And if we need to fend of any additional infiltrators, then we’ll take it in stride.”


“But my arm…”


“It can be mended. A good ta can fix it. It’ll take considerable time but if we don’t move now, then we won’t have that time available. And whoever does the healing needs at least some original bone to work with.” She moved to stand at his side, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. After this is all over, we’ll get you back to your normal self.”


He nodded only once before standing, but he muttered a familiar something while stroking his right arm and Tuette knew he was resetting his disguise again. She thought of the few instances where a Magiked disguise had to be used for such a lengthy period of time and knew they never ended well. Depression was a common enough occurrence, along with odd splits in personalities, as if the wearer couldn’t distinguish between the fashioned disguise and his true self.


But Dermy seems okay. For now. As his façade resettled itself, like a shimmering skin, he seemed wholly happier. Almost like a different person.


Tuette could only wonder how much was Magik and how much was truth.


“So I suppose the disguise stays then.” It wasn’t a question from the king, but a statement that seemed to be tinged with sadness. What does he care about Dermy’s state of well being? He’s probably more worried that Dermy might hinder our travels if he becomes mentally unhinged. Does Celester know of the side-effects regarding prolonged Magik disguises? Dermy might have informed him before they embarked, but she wasn’t sure.


The Guards arrived finally and Sylvester attempted to whistle to get Eafa to come to him. The actual sound that came from his mouth was more like a comical raspberry and Tuette could only stifle a laugh. What man can’t whistle?


This one.





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When the Guards dismounted to help fetch the remaining splints for the trio, Celester looked like he was accepting the situation as rote and was willing to move on. He clasped his hands together when his mount was finally brought to him and said “So, how do we get to the Seagulf Islands. In the span of… how many days?”


“Kingasir, it bein’ eigh’ day, oh.” Tuette pursed a frown, feeling sorry for Dermy. He had left a solid life of Magik exploration to help a monarch who couldn’t even whistle. And he was suffering for it. She knew plainly that his arm couldn’t be restored. He’d have to resort to a delfin, maybe. And those creatures, if bred poorly, were unreliable and sometimes dangerous.


“We can be at the southern coast in four or five days, depending on travel.” She tried scrambling her brain in an attempt to remember the pertinent information regarding southerly travel. Is the Nementor Path safer in Javal’ta or will we be forced to travel more nocuous routes? There were no mountain passes in the south but there were many swathes of forestry and the occasional river. Without a means of fording those rivers, they could spend as much as two weeks trying to reach the coast. She realized she had misspoken because it was with her swan-home that she had been able to travel so quickly. She felt abashed for the oversight. How could she have forgotten her means of transport for the past three years?


“Four or five days?” asked the older Gousherall. “We can’t fly there, Miss Tuette, however convenient that might be.”


Tuette felt her face flush crimson at the man spotting her flaw. “Uh, yes,” she finally stammered out. “I had… forgotten.” She looked to Celester but his face didn’t brighten at her admission: he seemed lost in thought.


An idea percolated quickly in her head then. “The chickens.”


Both Guards looked at her in confusion, Dermy with a quizzical manner, and the king looked… surprised? She continued though. “We need to follow their trail. Where they came from.”


Terry, the younger and more attractive Guard, said, “If we find more of those flightless rodents, won’t Roost have them slaughtered again? I mean, isn’t that why the king suggested we go after the count instead?”


“But where did they come from? Chickens stay in flocks for their overall safety when it’d be easier for them to separate individually. Maybe there’s a larger flock of chickens… and maybe some other flightless birds?” She hadn’t intended for it to come off as a question but it couldn’t be helped because even she was dubious of the brazenly-forming idea.


Dermy caught on more quickly than the others though. “An’ wit’ th’ other bird’, on’ migh’ bein’ a t-a-l-ker!”


“Yes, and if we can convince the talking birds to help provide use passage, for the benefit of the kingdom, then we will get to Boost before the Curse matures!”


Celester still looked like he wasn’t paying attention. The attitude was typical, she decided. Does he ever listen?


Finally, he silently nodded but straightened his posture, staring Tuette directly in the face. “We’ll do this. It’s necessary.” Dermy looked more pleased than his Magik disguise could compensate for while the Guards began to check the splints, tightening their saddles and such. Celester looked somber once again, as if he had something difficult to swallow, or spit up.


It finally came. “Tuette, why did you attempt to Freeze those chickens?”


A cold knot formed in her chest, in her stomach. Dermy paused but didn’t look at her: he had known even before that time, then. Before she had that panic filled moment where she saw her only chance to Reverse her own Curse. And how it had been slipping away.


She wanted to tell the whole story but her ability to deny and bend the truth seeped through first, making her feel like oily strands were entangled around the words that left her mouth. “I was trying to save them. For you. For Decennia.”


He moved forward by one step and seemed that much more impossibly imposing. “No, that wouldn’t have worked, Tuette. The Curse would’ve remained. Because I wasn’t Freezing them.” So he knew how it was going to work. He was more informed than she had been let on. Is that his style? Does he feign ignorance, only to drop incriminating evidence right into your lap, like a viper poised to strike or strangle?


Still, she felt like it was to her benefit to continue with a lie, or rather an omission of truth. Tuette knew she didn’t have to discuss her Curse, just gloss over it. Her idea might prove unreliable, even though it was clearly the best shot they presently had. “No, sir. I could Freeze them and then you could re-Freeze them, and save everyone.” Tuette wanted to end the sentence with a flippant smile but it wouldn’t come.


Celester didn’t take another step and considered the notion. For a non-Magikal, it would make sense. It had to. No one outside of the fold could understand otherwise. It was correct to say that Magik Spells and Charms could be multilayered but Potes could not: they couldn’t be used on the same target twice. It was something that baffled Mages for centuries and no matter how many tweaks went into the creation of a Pote, it always ended with a target singularly affected and wasted Potes. A Spell of similar properties could be used in conjunction with a Pote, but there were no Freezing Spells and the only genuine Freezing Charms were the jo’kra rods that Freezing Clans had been passing down for generations. They’re selfish like that.


But the king, with his limited intelligence – that combination of words seemed to fit best in her mind – didn’t know any better. Dermy obviously did and she knew that she’d have to converse privately with him later. Celester nodded once, still looking grim, and moved to mount his splint. Dermy let a lazy gaze linger on her before performing similarly.


The Gousheralls had, at some point, already reclaimed their positions as front and rear-Guard and they were forced to wait for Tuette to finally mount in her ungainly manner. She felt less deflated by showing her legs though: she decided that she really was in the company of men that knew better than to make a comment or honestly didn’t even care about her leg-based locks.


For that small token of kindness or ignorance, Tuette knew she was grateful 





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She recognized she was behaving deceptively and that she would have to eventually provide truthful answers. But only Tuette knew she had no answers. None that would please anyone, anyway. Tuette, in pondering, realized she had more questions than anything.


Was the Curse against Decennia a ruse to bring out Celester or was she really the target? It was obvious that Magik commonly crafted and employed by Corunny was being used against them all. But why would some count be doing this just to bring out a Cursed apprentice? Tuette didn’t pretend to know. She had witnessed the Artificial-from-Afar Charm before but never in such a bewildering manner. What had been the conduit of proximity? It had been pure ironic chance that Reefetta had been possessed as it could’ve easily been herself or Dermy even.


Running over everyone’s physical stance in her mind, before the slaughter, she wondered if the Artificial might’ve passed over Celester and maybe even favored Reefetta. But that shouldn’t have been possible. With that particular Charm, there was no amount of discrimination. Unless Celester with his kingstone is immune to Artificials.


It was only a theory that could rarely be tested but, judging by what Craspone had told her, the kingstone was supposed to divulge knowledge of the past kings while also providing various amounts of protection. Celester certainly behaved like he was physically protected: he had faced Reefetta and overturned her without hesitation, as if he didn’t have to worry about the possibility of falling on her blade. But was he protected from Magik too?


The passively aggressive idea zipped through her head that she might try Freezing him to test the hypothesis. But she didn’t want to waste her precious Pote on the gullible man.


They traveled. It was at a quick pace that threatened to actually lull Tuette; traveling by night for so many years, between planting shallow roots here and there, had conditioned her to sleep more evenly during daylight hours. Half the day was already over and Tuette knew they still had at least another full day before they reached the Javal’ta border. It was during this time that Celester requested they stop for yet another meal. Just how much food is available to him on his pretentious mountain perch?


In the wilds and amongst the planes, the spaces between towns, food was not so easily garnished. Fruit trees or vegetables couldn’t always be found in the midlands. Idly, Tuette only wondered where the produce originally came from that Dermy grew for the king and all of Mount Reign. It had to have originally come from somewhere. And meat wasn’t that easy to come across either: small or medium-sized animals weren’t abundant in the area. That fact was more evident by the chickens being able to survive the area for so long; if some feral canine had ever took them in the night, their numbers would’ve diminished more quickly and the group wouldn’t have been able to witness the slaughter, as ultimately beneficial as that had become.


Thinking of the mayhem caused Tuette to partially lose her appetite. But she knew she needed to eat so she didn’t try and stop King Celester from calling a halt. They rested near a rocky outcrop which seemed out of place in the midland, much like the ones near Zharinna. Tuette wondered if they formed a loose trail when seen from above. As if someone, long ago, had decided to move the mountain and dropped pieces along the way.


They ate rationed portions of salted meat. Dermy actually had been able to lure some lengthy, meaty worms from beneath a rock when he put what he called a broccot leaf in a shallow hole. “Th’ broc-cot ‘ttracts these’n dirt serps, oh.” They left Dermy to his dirt serps, watching through peripheral only as he cut off their heads, squeezed their boneless innards into a half-bowl, and added some of the broccot and other grounded herbs. He then mixed the concoction with his bare fingers and then proceeded to eat with those same fingers. Tuette felt nauseous from the site and could only chew her meat carefully, nursing it during the entire meal.


The sun, high in the sky, seemed to beat it’s warmth against them and Tuette knew her head was going to start sweating and matting her hair down again. Just another instance where the Curse was a major irritant.


She thought briefly of letting her hood down and allowing the swan-shaped mass to be on full display. What does it matter anyway? Celester is mostly ignorant about Curses and the Gousheralls don’t generate an opinion one way or the other. But Dermy had been reluctant to let them see him for what he really was. Perhaps he really didn’t trust both of the men, or maybe just one of them. Tuette silently hoped it was the older, less appealing one, knowing it was foolish to think in such shallow terms. And that since the younger Guard, Terry, was less suspicious, he was most likely the one to be wary of.


She looked at Dermy and, although he had been forced to reveal his personal gambit, he looked as chipper as ever. Tuette knew it was the disguise though and briefly wondered if it was designed to take his most sour and unpleasant mood and emit the polar opposite. She knew that disguises varied but this was the first long-term one she had witnessed that hadn’t been an obvious one.


Amongst traveling performers, one or two people were forced to always be in a disguise of some kind to make it appear that some mythic beast had been captured. But always, the disguise had to be tethered to a larger-than-average boulder, of which the counterfeit creature was usually perched upon.


They could eventually be rid of the falseness though: Dermy was stuck to be disabled permanently. She thought of delfins again, creatures that were waterborne shape shifters, to a degree. They could mimic the proportional shape of another living being or even just a limb and act in conjunction with their owners to let them live seemingly normal lives.


But delfins were rare now. In Decennia, anyway. They could only survive in the water provided by the seas; lek or river water seemed to put them in comatose states. And they could survive outside of their environments for only hours at a time, always having to return to their isolated tanks of sea water. Tuette couldn’t imagine Dermy having to put up with a delfin. She had never seen one in person but was told a story that one bit its master on the cheek when it didn’t want to pick just one more piece of fruit.


She shivered at the thought of her own arm breaking off only to bite her on the face, and that was enough to help her refocus on her present task: aiding the others with trying to follow a chicken trail that was at least three years old. She knew the idea was a long shot, to say the least, but it was worth a try. Tuette had almost suggested that they go back to Zharinna and attempt to use her swan for traveling purposes, but that meant another two days lost and they’d be scrambling like mad to get to Boost. Especially with the limitation of nighttime flying. If only some chick eggs had been harvested from the deceased flock!


That was not meant to be though, and she knew it. Travel would be non-too-limited by the rising and falling sun with some random reptile eggs and a proper Bring to Life Spell. She silently wished to come across yet another swan-shaped home and instantly wondered where it had come from. She had never heard of the structures before. In Accordia, which was actually well east of their current location and therefore, out of the way, Tuette knew that they had giant frog-shaped structures. But would a frog travel as smoothly as a swan?


Images of the quintet inside a brick-and-mortar amphibian as it bounded across the landscape made her slightly queasy. And then when they got to rivers! No, she didn’t enjoy the idea of them traveling inside a river, or even on its surface.


To keep her mind from wandering to a fearful moment in the past, Tuette thought about Corunny Voidet and Count Roost. It was obvious that the count didn’t want the Curse to be lifted immediately, but which Curse: her own or Decennia’s? Was Voidet working with Roost? That doesn’t seem likely. Voidet couldn’t  stand the prolonged company of any single person, at least not when I was his apprentice. She remembered attempted lessons that were always cut short when she asked seemingly important questions about Spells or Curses. As if Voidet himself was reluctant to reveal an entire recitation in one sitting. She had spent just over a year under the large man’s tutelage and he had truly shown her very little.


The knowledge she owned, she knew it was because she personally sought it out and claimed it for herself. The search-and-discover approach seemed to enable her to grasp concepts more readily though. Tuette simply hated being Cursed because of it, knowing it was a mixed blessing: if she hadn’t been Cursed, she’d be trapped on a rigid path to becoming a ta or perryta. Being free to travel – and sometimes forced to travel – she had seen some valid sights


But after all was said and done, Tuette knew she would wish the Curse of the Hood hadn’t ever been cast.





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As they had resumed their southerly travel, knowing that Lorstelta was their most likely stop, Tuette recalled the day, nearly five years ago: she had been sitting in a small planthouse in Kluya, the other patrons around her enjoying their various types of potted stimplant blades in various ways: some licking the wide blade quickly, some sucking it slowly. Tuette had never been one to indulge in stimplants: it looked too much like putting large blades grass in your mouth, which it technically was. But the environments of most planthouses is usually very quieting.


At that point in her life, she had needed the quiet more than anything. She was nearing seventeen or eighteen years of age – she hadn’t truly kept track since leaving home at fifteen – and had only managed to cross the border of Dekenna into Whismerl, a feat none-too-large as New Opal had been relatively close to the border anyway. Those few years had found Tuette hopping from one small town to the next, hoping to find work and the Magikal underbelly that she knew had to exist in almost all towns.


Kluya had been her eighth disappointment. But at least they had a planthouse. It was a rainy day with Tuette drinking a green-tinted beverage when she met Corunny Voidet. He was not a particularly lean man: he was quite possibly the widest person she’d ever met but he was kind and offered her a room for the night.


In the dead of that same night, she couldn’t sleep and in trying to coax some water from the piping, she came across Voidet scribbling on some parchment… by the light of a glowing sphere. It shocked Tuette back then: she had never seen a Glow Globe. She watched in silence as he scribbled on the substrate in haste and, when he was seemingly finished, he leaned back, picked up the script, blew on it as if to let the ink dry, and the entire page turned into a sheet of water that quickly fell against his lap.


Voidet cursed loudly but the situation had caused Tuette to cry out in alarm: she had never seen anything so wonderful. Voidet was angry at what had occurred but not towards Tuette. He even invited her in and began to explain the situation with statements about Magik being a natural substance. She was ecstatic beyond that point, feeling she’d been struck with a pure-fated beam of luck.


In the weeks and months following the encounter, Tuette came to rely on Corunny Voidet for food and shelter, and the occasional lesson in Magik ritual, Spell casting, and with item Charming. He only briefly touched on Potes and Curses in their entire professional relationship, and Tuette realized too late that it was because both were Potentially the most powerful forms of practiced Magik: Curses because they could dreadfully alter a person’s entire life and Potes because of their sometimes-dire permanence.


In that time, the pair moved from town to town, touching base with the local perryta and being provided with communal shelter. To help pay for their non-Magikal board in Gimble Valley, Tuette had become temporarily employed with a small menagerie that highlighted avian species and called itself Menginal’s Attitarry. In return, she received eighty poks a week, menial by many standards. Tuette didn’t know what an attitarry was but Menginal, the owner, seemed smitten with animals in general. Her section was with the swans and each worker that presented the birds had to wear a hood that could be stuffed to make it seem like a plush version of the bird was perched atop their head.


In hindsight, Tuette wished she has chosen a smaller animal, like a hummingbird or even a swallow. The elegance of the swan drew her though and she was marked, in part, because of that. When they left Gimble Valley, she kept the hood, it being the only article of clothing she could swathe about her head in the colder months that had been drawing nearer and nearer.


In learning about tas and the maperryta, Tuette could only ask why Corunny himself wasn’t in line to become a ta: he had possessed so much useful knowledge, and even a tome that he said held some of the most Potent forms of known Magik recitation. He would often say, as a response, “Tas and the like are stuck and only focus on one thing. Us freelancers get to learn and specialize in conceivably everything. And since we travel so frequently, we get to know the lay of the land better than any ta could claim to know.”


Concerning the collection of scripts, Tuette now knew that tomes were physically dangerous because of the destructive nature of the ink, but Voidet’s had been tamed or shielded somehow. She had never learned the true nature of how all that ink had been subdued but she finally learned, near the end, that it was largely comprised of intricate Curses and other things that were never explained for her but were simply called V’tal Magiks, a term Tuette had never encountered before or since.


And that the last swathe of pages were blank, which told Tuette that Corunny himself might have even written most of the Curses and their recitations down. At the time, she had no idea if he was creating them or scribing them from another source but once she learned the truth, she knew that he was a dangerous man to be around.


It was the discovery of the true nature of his tome that had sealed her Cursed fate. When she asked about the nature of Curses again and then confronted him on the issue of his bound scripts, he got angry. He didn’t threaten physical violence but he did force her away.


Partially dejected and partially relieved, she left him while they were on the outskirts of Porssell, a township in northeastern Javal’ta. She traveled northward for a week before she came into Gale Marsht, the self-proclaimed “Magik Capitol” of Decennia. Her situation wasn’t demanding enough to warrant an audience with Cafeglian Dormaset, but she did speak with Gale Marsht’s perryta, Ack’orpo Trao.


It was in Trao’s company when she had been effectively Cursed.


Her hair, shorter by a considerable bit, shaped itself into a small swan as the pair walked down a narrow hallway, talking about her situation, and enjoying the sunlight that flung itself through the tall windows. Tuette noticed the topside irregularity with calm alarm but Trao acted like he had been attacked by a lettado: his eyes bulged and he stepped backwards, slowly, and when he came to the wall, he moved along it, away from her, until he reached a door and exited through it.


In being Cursed, she also experienced, firsthand, the bigotry that was coaxed out of people. She still hadn’t decided yet if that was another Curse in itself. Trao’s reaction certainly didn’t make her feel any better about it. It was in a short time where she learned that sunlight brought on the worst of her Curse, which she had named Curse of the Hood, as the unfortunate shaping of her hair could only have been decided by the swan-shaped hood that she had worn during her entire journey towards Gale Marsht.


Tuette was shuffled away from the capitol then, not even getting to finally see the maperryta when Trao had refused to acknowledge her. It had been a low time for Tuette; she assumed she could only stand in the shady representations of first the buildings in Gale Marsht and then the trees that she came across outside the capitol. It was while being attacked by another kind of gale that she drew up her hood and realized that she didn’t have to live completely in shadow. But her hair did.


In being Cursed as she was, she knew that it had to be Corunny as he was the only one with access to any stray hairs that she might’ve dropped while she was living with him. Of course, it was only when she had left his massive company that she realized he was also Cursed. It was either him or Trao and the perryta had acted like she would haunt him for eternity with her Cursed self.


She never learned what her teacher was Cursed with but her travels near the northern border between Whismerl and Broze brought her into contact with Dermy. He himself was not Cursed but he was the first Magikal she had come across who didn’t shy away from her when she shared her unfortunate story. He expressed an interest that delineated from ta-hood as well and she felt blessed to be graced with his company.


When Dermy pulled out his own smaller tome, she immediately became alarmed. But inside were no Curses, just facts: it was scripts bound together that provided detailed sketches and tidbits of information about a wide variety of plants. And the ink wasn’t oppel, but some sort of non-aggressive juice, watered down, and applied with twigs and splinters.


It was while traveling the midlands between the towns of northern Broze, near Dekenna, that she had received a script that stated simply the nature of her Curse, which she had already figured out, and the means of Reversing it: by Freezing a flock of chickens.


It was the script that inspired the pair to begin thinking about Potes, their ingredients, and when they started working strenuously to craft the perfect Freezing Pote. Dermy seemed to take it in part to see if he could actually do it but a part of it, Tuette assumed, was because he genuinely cared to see her free from the Curse of the Hood.


What Tuette never learned was exactly how Corunny had known where to deliver the script. She could only assume that he tracked her movements with a Seeker Spell and a map weave, much the same way Ta Speebie had located Count Roost. In asking the script carrier, a strong man who seemed none-too-traveled – he had soiled himself a couple of times and was dehydrated – where the delivery was sourced, he could only say that he recalled last hunting in a forest in southern Broze, near the coast.


Tuette, recalling the nature of Artificials, knew that Voidet had to have orchestrated it. He had instructed her, poorly, in crafting an Artificial once and though she couldn’t wholly remember how to construct a useful one now, she did know how to identify one of the false spirits.


Feeling pity for the poor messenger, Tuette and Dermy had first assisted him in regaining physical and mental stability, not to mention dignity, and guided him in the direction of southern Broze.


Tuette knew that after crafting the Freezing Pote, she would then focus on finding a chicken flock, keeping in mind that they were rare in Decennia. Dermy had promised to help her, too, but Craspone had finally come along and the rest was horror-inducing history. She was fated to fly by night in the swan and attempt to find peace in whatever town would have her.





*          ~          *          ~          *





Tuette scratched her scalp through her hood, being careful as always to not let a stray hair loose from the corral that was her headwear. In the west, thunderheads had formed and were close at hand, which surprised her; in the middle of the day, when she was anticipating the quick drop of Estella’s masculine half, Brill, she kept a hopeful eye on the sky and any cloud cover that might provide her with a bit of reprieve from her Curse.


In a short time though, the tall, dark clouds would be upon them and Tuette would feel free to take down her hood and give her hair a menial cleansing: she realized she hadn’t been able to tend to it in almost three days. Remembering scraps of her sorcereric origins tended to do that: mentally reliving the past and ending up in the Cursed present only to look forward to a future where dark clouds inhabit on the horizon.


Tuette silently said a few choice swears towards the supposed direction of Corunny Voidet yet again and wondered if, in finding Count Roost, they might also find her teacher.


One thing she was thankful to recall was Gimble Valley and the massive amount of birds that used to be caged or tied down there. She wasn’t sure exactly where in northern Javal’ta the place was but she was now piecing together the idea that the chickens might’ve flown the coop from Menginal’s Attitarry. She couldn’t recall if any of the birds had speech capabilities back then but there were bound to be some present now. Tuette felt confident in that.


They arrived in Lorstelta well before dusk, which didn’t matter since it was beginning to rain anyway, but there was no inn or public bedding. They used the time before darkness settled around them to find the town’s leader, a squat woman named Jirra Porrson Po. The name stuck with Tuette but she couldn’t recall where she’d heard it.


Jirra allowed them a night’s stay in her own private residence, which was a building dug into the stout hillside on the western edge of town. When they approached, a small child ran up to Jirra and leaped into her arms. The child, a girl, smiled happily. Then a tall, lean man exited the home, bending low to get through the entryway. He was conventionally handsome with short hair, which was the same shade as Jirra’s, a dingy blonde. Tuette, her hair free since the clouds had arrived, was envious of the short hair on both people and wondered if she could mirror the same look and eventually cause envy in someone else.


“This is my husband, Yuka.”


The group stopped short with Celester about to grip the man’s outstretched hand.


“This’n company, Jir?”


Jirra nodded, not noticing that the king hadn’t taken the man’s hand. “This’n the king, Yuk, dear. Of Decennia. They comin’ all the way from the mountain!”


Yuka looked stunned this time and, when Celester didn’t complete the handshake, he let his own fall to his side, staring at the king. “Sir.” He dipped his head a fraction and Jirra, who actually didn’t seem to pay attention to anything – a prime quality for a town’s leader – was beaming like her child at having such a distinguished guest.


“We havin’ a guest room, yes, in the front.” Yuka looked at Jirra as if about to say something but she cut him off. “And, course, we’ll take the back room. With Little Jorry here.” She hefted the little girl, who giggled, and then Jirra looked to the two Guards with the hint of a frown. “We have long seat cushions for your militiamen, if ya want. You and Miss here can, course, use the big bed in ‘ere.”


Tuette felt like vomiting on the squat woman’s round head. Dermy, thankfully, intervened. “Those’n naw marr’ed, oh. Kingasir gots naw queen. Yet, oh!” He then winked at the king and Tuette felt the queasiness return.


“The two gentlemen here can have any big bed they want. I’ll take one of those long seat cushions you’ve got. Or even a cot. Or a bedroll. I’m not picky.”


Yuka didn’t say anything but Jirra offered him the child to hold and took Tuette by her arm to guide her towards the home, happy to have another full-grown woman around, it seemed. If only for a night.


But Celester and the Guards remained behind, talking to Yuka and Tuette could only imagine about what because she finally remembered the man’s name: he had been Reefetta’s life mate. How he had ended up back in Lorstelta was anyone’s guess but it most likely seemed like he had abandoned the woman and, whatever crime he had committed, he had been granted immunity. How he had come to marry the town’s leader, Tuette couldn’t fathom. Had he come to plead his case, putting whatever blame he could on Reefetta. And Jirra, feeling sympathetic, felt pity and took him in?


Tuette, while being ushered inside, took a breath and asked. Jirra looked taken aback by the question. “How well do I know Yuka? Hmm.” She seemed to really be thinking about it, like she was afraid to divulge too much.


“We’ve already met Reefetta.”


That unsecured Jirra’s mouth somewhat. “Well, ma ‘usband was killed during a hunting expedition in the Tollu Fields, in the west.” Tuette had heard of such fields: they housed large, herbivorous creatures called pop’yogs, or just poppers. They were defensive of their territories and could kill a man with their tusks. “Yuka was in charge of the party and his wife of the time, that female fig, Reefetta, well, she had tagged along.


“Yuka was leading the group and his wife wouldn’t leave his side because she was too afraid of the midlands. What’s I told her ‘fore is that she should try the Nem’tor Path, yes! But, no, she never did. And she distracted Yuka and he led them into a popper nest ‘cause of it. Ma ‘usband was trampled and at first, everyone had blamed Yuka, ‘cause he led the team, and ran him out of town. He came back ‘bout three years ago, in secret and told me what really happened.” Jirra scowled then. “That trampy scag. That fitch! She gets my ‘usband killed!


“But I got her back, didn’t I?” She nodded back to Yuka. “I got her ‘usband, yes!” Tuette wasn’t sure how she personally felt about the situation; persons were allowed to remarry in many religions but she knew that most of those same religions, along with the town, usually required a proper separation from the first spouse. That usually involved the shattering of the unity case, a glass dome that was placed over a couple’s double-wick candle. The flames, which burned for a time after the dome was placed, flickered and died but the dome was sealed to the surface that held the wide candle. Tuette knew that the unity case symbolized that even when spirits were doused, the barrier around the pair still kept them protected from harm. When a marriage ended, the case was always shattered and the candle buried.


She didn’t bother asking about any such unity case because it could’ve already been shattered and disposed of or even kept elsewhere. It didn’t matter either way because only Yuka was here to tell the tale, with Reefetta back in Scothil.


The situation made Tuette burn a little though because she knew that Reefetta had settled blame solely on Yuka and it truly sounded like it was a mistake on many levels. Of course, Reefetta had been very vague about the exact reason they had both been chased away from Lorstelta. But Yuka was truly free to say anything he wanted and he might have, just to get back into good graces with his hometown.


It only served to remind Tuette of her fears concerning Dermy and it seemed like he hadn’t even mentioned her while he was working for the king. And for some reason, that didn’t settle well with her either, like their history hadn’t even mattered. But Tuette wanted to believe the unsupported figure, Reefetta, before she wanted to believe Yuka. Perhaps because I pity the unfortunate woman, or maybe because I heard her story first? What point would Reefetta have in telling Tuette and the others that Yuka had been the target of the mob; she had clarified that much. She couldn’t know they would find Yuka to dispute the tale and Yuka, obviously, thought that no one would ever come across Reefetta, alone as she was in that lek-centered forest. It’s rumored to be inhabited by a Horror, anyway, so who would ever venture forth to wonder? Travel between the towns was not always a novel idea in this area, mainly because of creatures like the poppers and, of course, bandits and rakish vagabonds. Tuette knew she was safe, to some degree, with the Guards and Dermy. And since they largely traveled by day, when it seemed like danger and harm had less traction under Brill’s gaze, they weren’t likely to come into any form of physical danger.


She wondered immediately about the king then: if Celester knew he was protected from harm via his kingstone, why did he insist on traveling with Gousherall Guardsmen? Was it a policy or was it truly only Magik harm that he was protected harm? If that was the case, why did he attack Reefetta when she was possessed by the Artificial? She could only decide it was because he truly didn’t know any better and because he had rarely ventured from atop the mountain, he couldn’t recognize real danger when he saw it.


Tuette let the issue drift from her mind as Jirra setup a bedroll in the sitting room, where the Guards would be sleeping on the seat cushions. After using her Wash Stone and a basin of fresh rainwater to clean her traveling garments, they settled in for bed in the family’s sitting room, cramped as it was. Terry gave her his cushion in exchange for her bedroll and, throughout the night, Tuette regretted it: the cushion wasn’t comfortable by any degree, no matter how cushy it seemed to be.