Sylvester & Tuette: Cursed Doubt

Chapter Eighteen

I grow tired of that Cursed fly’s devious shenanigans.


First, it had been that bawdy looking plant that somehow continued to flourish despite Roost’s best efforts of neglect. Then it was the lei cat that had caused quite a bit of damage to the workshop, though nothing of irreplaceable value had been lost. Then it was a rare but equally annoying chicken that still continued to announce the impending approach of dawn every morning in that shriek of a caw.


Now it was a seleagle. And the creatures weren’t known to be gentle under bouts of captivity.


As it was, the giant bird had been flapping about madly inside the workshop, Puze buzzing a cackle from somewhere nearby. Now it was perched just at the doorway and had said it would snap at any who dare intrude. It then began speaking in lower tones and Count Roost could only assume it was talking to Puze, conspiring against the Cursed count.


Instantly, Roost was speaking ill of his own advanced abilities with manipulating Curses. It wasn’t everybody that could bring about instantaneous transport from one point to another but he had done it. The problem was he had given the potentially phenomenal power to someone that would very much like to see the count dead. He knew it wasn’t a new power, just one that usually required a large tether. Like when applying a Magik disguise. As it turned out, altering the fruit fly’s Curse was proving to be somewhat disastrous.


He tried overhearing the words that the large seleagle spoke and what Puze might be saying but the bird’s speech was too low to be intelligible and he couldn’t even hear Puze. He tried putting his head around the corner. Like a flash, the large beak of the seleagle darted forward, grazing against stone. Roost felt his heart hammer in his head as he stumbled back and nearly fell down the stairwell, mentally reeling about the situation. To be restricted from realms of one’s own castle!


The chicken sounded off again and Roost was reminded the he was still in his bedclothes. He desperately desired to change. Maybe, since the bird can speak and understand language, it can understand logic and reason. “Bird! Seleagle!” he called around the corner. The murmuring stopped but the bird didn’t say anything. “Might I pass by the room? To reach my bedroom further up the stairwell?”


It was a tense silence that followed, broken by the seleagle’s reply: “Mooove quickly.”


That was all Count Roost needed when he darted for the other side of the entryway, glancing in to the workshop. The view startled him and made him trip, causing him to bang his knee against the firm edge of the first step off the landing. With the seleagle was the chicken, perched in the window, as usual, and Puze on the bird’s head.


And the young girl that hosted as representative of the World Spirit.


The scene was limited as the large flyer’s piercing gaze chilled the count’s blood. It looked like it might actually attack Roost, had he been able to fit into the narrow stairwell. As it was, it could probably bird-walk its way up the awkward steps and get at Roost anyway. He didn’t feel like risking that chance.


Count Roost ascended the stairs, clambering with hands and feet. The moans of Voidet drifting sharply up after him brought attention to the fact that Botch was in the castle. After he handled the old man, he’d be ready to head up with the count’s washing basin.


He felt fearful for the young boy. He didn’t want the overeager seleagle to snap at Botch, possibly killing him if not causing him to fall down the harsh steps. Roost stepped into his room, quickly donning knew clothes and running a toothy comb through his hair. He left his stubble unkempt and briefly paused, thinking about his perfect disguise. Why don’t I alter it so I don’t grow facial hair?


Roost knew the answer immediately: if he didn’t shave, then his true form would just become itchy in a sense, and make him look crazed when he attempted to scratch at fur that wasn’t there. He cursed himself for wasting such seconds on thoughts he had already contemplated long ago.


Racing down the stairwell, his hand bracing against a stumble, he came to the landing again, just as Botch was seen on the far side. Steam from the basin indicated the temperature, and the count felt briefly glad that the boy might not have to hold it for too much longer. Motioning madly with his hands, he ordered Botch to stop. The murmurs from within the workshop between the seleagle, the fly, and the Spirit had stopped just before Roost came upon the landing. Standing caused him to remember that he had hit his leg on the stone step: it throbbed slightly.


“Seleagle! I require passage again!” He felt like a fool, asking for permission from an intruder, and wondered how he appeared in Botch’s eyes. He didn’t want to lose the boy’s enamored respect. He felt like he might be the son that Roost himself knew he could never have the chance at acquiring.


As it was, Botch looked too confused for words. His face was scrunched in a manner that was almost humorous. After a few low utterances from the bird, he emitted what could’ve been a growl – Can avian growl? – and said “Pass, human.”


Without looking into the room again, Roost moved by the portal. “What is happening?” asked Botch with fear laced in his speech. “Who is in the workshop? Was that Puze”?


Roost grimaced. “No, it is something Puze brought back with him.” He looked down at the basin, the steam rising in gentle curls. An idea popped up and he silently took the basin from Botch.


Rounding the corner, he hefted the basin awkwardly, hoping to send the scalding water onto the large bird... but the water instantly turned to snowy fluff and Roost swore, remembering the Spirit and her abilities. He dropped the basin and it shattered, hitting the edge of a table first before crashing to the floor.


The seleagle jerked its head backward and began scratching madly at its eye. The count realized instantly what had happened: a ceramic shard had flown into the beast’s eye. The girl shrieked, seeing the seleagle in pain and she obviously didn’t think quickly enough about fixing it. Roost stepped into the room in a dash, pushing at the girl. Her reaction wasn’t expected: she screamed louder when she could’ve done much worse. How could such an old Spirit behave so childishly?


Roost was mindful of the blinded bird as it was not ignoring its damaged eye and snapping around the room, hoping to get at Roost. Puze was obviously guiding it by voice. The Spirit just shrieked and the count thought to invite her to disappear but instead embraced it: the screams seemed to disorient the bird.


He ducked himself underneath the nearest table and began moving against the wall towards the other side of the room. It being a circular room, he knew he didn’t have the best options for hiding, but he had to try if he was going to be rid of this larger-than-life menace. When he got a quarter of the way around, he looked back and saw Botch staring into the room in amazement. The boy then disappeared and Roost felt a little shame, hoping the boy might be able to face such a situation. The shrieking Spirit also disappeared finally, probably not able to take the excitement.


Suddenly, the seleagle stopped snapping madly about and Roost looked to see why. It was bleeding from both eyes, probably blinded permanently, but it was sending its beak about as if it was sniffing. Roost couldn’t recall if the birds picked up on scents. When the seleagle snapped at the table he was under, the count decided they could. Thankfully, the edge of the table was thick, as most workbenches are, and the seleagle’s beak didn’t have a chance at breaking through it. But that didn’t stop it from trying again.


Roost felt coldness envelop his face and he realized that he’d been sweating. This bird was now hunting him, blinded but still quite deadly. It could smell him and by that, knew where he was, and it would hear him if he moved. Puze was most likely guiding him as well and Count Roost thought that he might send congratulations to the pesky fly: he had finally been bested. And by benefit of my own Curses!


Without preamble, Botch burst into the room, panting but also holding something inside his fist. He leaped at the seleagle, who had turned at the new noise but didn’t attack, probably out of pure curiosity. He landed wholly against the bird, looking like a tiny doll of straw compared to the oversized avian. The bird flapped its wings once, then again, and finally started to snap and send its talons about. But nothing landed on Botch: he was too small and too close.


And then the seleagle fell into a heap with Botch straddling the bird.


Puze could be heard buzzing around and then Roost saw the third broken cage: Two left for the dacking pest. But Puze flew out the window and, curiously, the Spirit didn’t reappear. Is she frightened? Or maybe her domain has been redefined? It was becoming obvious that she didn’t understand her powers. And that somehow seemed even more costly to the count. Someone with abilities they don’t understand can be quite dangerous. Then how had she known to turn the hot water into snow then? Had the seleagle suggested it?


He looked at the heap, confusion now entering his mind. How had Botch done it?


The boy stood up, panting, sweat coating him almost as equally as it was now being donned by Roost. “How’d you do that, my boy?”


Botch huffed once and then held out his hand.


In it was the Pain-Less Stone.


Roost could only beam a smile before he felt his knees falter under the waning rush of excitement. He had intended to reach the pikes on the other side of the room. He had never thought that anything more useful could be elsewhere in the castle if it wasn’t in the workshop.


Count Roost felt very proud. He looked at the paralyzed seleagle heap and wondered if he should kill it or attempt to question it when it came out of its Magik-induced coma.


He decided on the latter, knowing the former might actually be enjoyable since the bird had caused so much trouble.





*          ~          *          ~          *





Using a length of chains brought from a disused portion of the former dungeon, Roost and Botch were able to drag the seleagle down the stairwell and out into the courtyard below the sole tower.


With grip juice, they fastened the chains to the stone blocks set into the path that wended though the yard. It was just in time too as they had set the last gripped link when the seleagle’s beak began to slowly snap. Roost imagined the bird was thirsty. And found himself not caring.


Botch, to the count’s mild surprise, had not left his side and, indeed, looked pleased with the desired outcome of their actions. They both stepped away from the bird as it began to pull against the chains, which they had haphazardly woven together to make a kind of net. The bird squawked once and tried it’s might against the makeshift net only to find it to be too powerful for the creature to break through. Roost could see that it obviously couldn’t get enough leverage, what with being so close to the ground.


The bird snorted once, then again, and then said, “Where?”


“You are on the island – my island – of Boost.”


The bird inhaled a rasp of air. Its eyes had stopped bleeding but it obviously couldn’t see of out them; whether through dried blood or permanent damage, the count didn’t know. “Then yooo are the count. Rooost.”


That registered a mild surprised. “Yes. And yooo know how?” he replied in a decidedly mocking gesture.


“Rooost,” wheezed the bird. “Roooster. Yooo possess one.” It paused, its breathing labored by its restrictions. “How fitting. As yooo are a chicken!”


Count Roost felt bile rise inside of him, his worst nightmares and actual past slamming into him simultaneously. The bile overtook his vision and the next thing her knew—


He was being forcibly hauled off of the unconscious or dead body of the seleagle by Botch. The boy had tears streaming down his face. Roost’s own knuckles felt raw, the muscles in his legs burned as if he had been running or kicking excessively. He looked again at the boy. His own attack on the bird didn’t make him cry. Why does he shed tears now?


Roost felt his own lip trembling and licked it, tasting blood. He knew immediately what had happened and felt shame color his entire body in a sunset hue.


He had lost control. He had let himself become enraged.


It had been years since anyone had actually called him a chicken, or even likened him to the rare birds, but not since adopting the thinner, more muscular disguise had it been uttered even once. Roost knew that his name might invite the comparison but he had always hoped that his fearful rule would inspire a more menacing definition. He lived on the top of a small mountain, in his perch or roost, and put fear into the hearts of those that failed to serve him properly.


But this abomination of a bird had brought out the very worst in the count in one smooth stroke.


Is he now dead, this descendant of war? Roost looked down on the weakened seleagle. Not much of a warrior. He spit a small build-up of blood at the feathered fiend and it stirred.


“Awaken, fowl!”


The seleagle gasped, then coughed, and then vomited, its beak forced to remain settled halfway into the mess. “Is this why yooo Curse the king’s land?” it asked, lifting its head as far as it could to avoid having to rest in its own vomit. “Because yooo cannot handle name-calling?”


The count turned his neck, feeling a defining pop as joints relieved tension and took on new challenges. Botch, sniffling still but having wiped his face clean, stood just behind and to the left of the count. Obviously, the episode of Roost’s supreme rage had frightened the boy, but he hadn’t fled.


And for that, Roost was grateful.


“I Curse for my own reasons, bird.” He licked his lips again. “You’ve either encountered the king directly or another ta that has come across my scheme.” He pondered briefly on that, thinking it might not have been so wise to leave his intentions unguarded for anyone to discover them. But that was why he had sent word to the folk in Gale Marsht. He stated plainly what it would take to stop the Curse and now they had somehow convinced the king to come and face the count. Everything was almost going according to plan.


Almost.


“I’m aligned with the king, foul. He will come here and he will kill yooo.”


Count Roost leaned down and got as close as he dared to the bird, which was decidedly close: Botch’s tense form was registered in Roost’s peripheral. “I’m counting on it…”


The bird snapped from beneath the chains, causing Roost to stir just slightly. “Why dooo yooo have Joy?”


The count frowned. What was the bird talking about? Is it deranged? “Only when I have the kingstone will I have any joy, eagle.” He looked into himself, seeing that glorious future. “Then, my life will be at peace.” Roost imagined a night where he didn’t have to suffer dreadful dreams and days where he didn’t have to remain burdened by invalids like Voidet. “That’s when my life will truly begin.”


The bird sighed and settled back down into its small puddle of sickness. “Yooo are unaware. Yooo are blinded—”


“You are the blind one, fool!” He felt like kicking the bird again and when he didn’t, he was surprised to see Botch perform the deed as if he had been mentally cued.


The bird groaned. “Tiny feet. Yooo must be a proud father, Rooost.”


Botch gasped and looked up into Roost’s face. The count looked down at Botch and realized that the boy wasn’t too much shorter than himself.


Roost smiled. “I am.”


The boy smiled, his eyes glassing over suddenly and he immediately began to wipe them with his sleeve. Roost wondered at the boy’s true parentage then and decided that it might be a good time to arrange a permanent move of Botch to Castle Tigra Lei.


He threw his arm around Botch and turned the boy away from the seleagle. Roost quickly decided that the bird would be left to die and rot, ejecting its fluids and eating its own vomit if it wanted a chance at surviving. There was no way it could escape. And even if it did, what could it do? A blind bird is useless.


Just like Botch’s true father probably is.


Just like my father definitely was.