The Paper Sword (12 page)

Tharfen's Curse

B
efore
its surface had been shattered by an earthquake the area they were entering had been well terraced and had contained some of the most fertile farmland in all the Phaer Isle. Large field-sized slabs of bedrock now leaned here and there propped up against one another as though someone had pushed a puzzle inward toward its centre. Wild descendants of the domestic crops that used to be cultivated here still grew out at all angles. They kept seeing pumpkins perched on ledges, squinting down with twisted, wrinkle-made grins on their malformed faces, and in one place they passed through a small orchard of dwarf fruit trees that grew out sideways from a sheet of bedrock that was tilted almost vertically. The fruit looked like it might be apples, but when Torgee bit into one it tasted like a combination of crab apple and radish. He spat it out.

“Spell-crossed,” he said. “Far too bitter to eat.”

“I hope we find something soon,” Tharfen said. “I'm getting really hungry.” She reached into the pocket of her cloak and touched her sling, but couldn't quite bring herself to take it out and start swinging it around as she normally did.

They followed the pathway ever downward amongst these tilting slabs, always doing their best to scout ahead around the corners and angles in order to get as wide a view as possible of each new stretch as it opened before them, but so far they had spotted no other creatures to feel threatened by. They made good time, running steadily most of the rest of the day. As evening fell they came to a field where rich green leaves with red spines grew in great abundance.

“Must have been a beet patch,” Saheli said. Using her staff, she dug some of them up, washed them in a small stream that flowed nearby, and she and Torgee scraped their skins off with sharp stones. They all ate the raw beets in silence. Then, refreshed, they set off again.

Phaerlanders are not ones to grieve overly long, but Xemion couldn't help thinking of Chiricoru, and whenever he did his heart was gripped with sadness, regret, and a certain amount of anger toward Tharfen. Perhaps it was unfair, but it had been Tharfen who was looking after Chiricoru when she had escaped and died. He thought of Chiricoru, whose playful honk he had known as long as he could remember, and he couldn't believe she was gone. If only he had insisted on handling her himself. He looked at Tharfen bobbing along in front of him and he glowered and wished he had never trusted her to look after the bird. In fact, he wished he had never met her. He spat and spat again, the taste of the memory water still bitter in his mouth.

When night came they camped in a thicket of small sapling beech trees that had sprung up in a kind of cul-de-sac near the foot of the mountain. They agreed to take turns being on guard, Xemion first.

As she lay beside Tharfen, Saheli touched in the pocket of her cloak the small brown bottle of water that she only now realized she had brought with her from the well. She remembered the sweet taste of the black water and she took another little sip. But it had no effect. All day scattered visions of her brutal past in that cabin in the woods had been erupting into her consciousness as she ran. She took one more little sip and wished for her merciful amnesia to return. But it didn't. And all the while that haunting melody teased her mind with a presence that never quite became clear. She thought of Chiricoru. She saw Chiricoru flying and a golden feather descending. It fluttered almost to her hand, but before she could get a hold of it, it drifted away. Like smoke caught in a backdraft, her mind streamed after it, backward through the day, until she beheld Xemion's terrified face as he had emerged from the valley of the dragon. She had not seen the dragon, so she fashioned it now in her imagination — a great mineral beast with scales like layered sheets of shale and jade, its eyes like opals. From there, the day continued winding back in her mind from her flight through the green valley to the snarl of the Pathan dog as it lunged at Tharfen. Her heart thumped and drove the day back farther yet, sending it tumbling in reverse up the mountain, unrolling itself like a great wave toward those two black gates where Xemion had been caught. But before she could reach them and see again the backward face of their gaunt keeper, Saheli slipped out of recollection and into the merciful fathoms of her dreams.

Xemion stayed awake a long time keeping watch. All about him moonlight silvered the ground, speckling this and that leaf in the thicket as the wet wind blew in off the not-so-distant sea. His hands kept wandering down to the hilt of the sword, which was warm from almost constant contact with his palm. But it was just a painted stick. When he woke up Torgee for the second watch, he decided, he would search through the trees for a better weapon: a sharpened stick or a big blunt stone. But he was wearier than he knew, and before he could search he slid into that middle region between wakefulness and sleep where a thought like a submerged bubble had been trying to rise to the surface for hours. In his dream it broke through and rose before him with all its naked terror: the dragon at that very moment when it had looked into his eyes. He gasped and drew in again that acrid saurian scent. His hand grasped the sword tighter, but the movement only served to break the dream dragon out of its trance. Its eyes darted to his hand and beheld the sword just as it had done earlier in the day, but this time the flame burst from its mouth directly at Xemion. Before he could scream the fire struck his hand. But instead of searing heat, it brought only strange warmth that rushed up his wrist, through his arm, and into the sword, causing it to glow luminous and green. A great wave of pleasure passed through Xemion and the sword shone like a lamp, but when he looked at his hand that held the sword he saw that it had turned a deep livery red. And now, somehow in the misty metamorphosis of the dream, the heat from the dragon fire became the heat that had come off of Vallaine's red hand and it filled Xemion with a feeling of horror. He tried to scream in his sleep but he could not. He tried and tried until finally his eyes opened to see the first red rays of dawn coming on. Xemion was at first relieved to know that he had been dreaming, but when he looked at his palm he saw that it had indeed been turned a faded purple like a newly healed scar.

“Saheli!” he called out, alarmed, holding his open palm before her waking eyes.

Saheli sat up, puzzled, and then held her own hand out to him. It, too, was a faded purple colour. She smiled broadly. “Beets,” she said, and then she laughed. Awakened, Torgee and Tharfen also held up their hands, which were likewise red, and they also laughed. This was a good start to their day. Xemion laughed too.

As they had agreed the night previously, they set off with the idea of finding their way as soon as possible to the coast road. Xemion had argued that Torgee and Tharfen could then go back by themselves to Cape Sho while he and Saheli continued on to Ulde. But Saheli wouldn't have it. “They risked their lives coming to warn us and now it is our duty to make sure they get safely home.” When he scowled at this, she continued, “We will never get to the rebellion on time now anyway. We're way off course. We would arrive too late.”

Xemion didn't like it, but he saw the sense in her argument and reluctantly agreed. Now, though, as they reached the foot of the mountain and entered a long, narrow plain shored up on both sides by heaped up walls of crumpled bedrock, he had to force every step and fight his reluctance and bitterness. He wasn't as sure as Saheli that they couldn't somehow get to Ulde by tomorrow morning. If only there was some way to be rid of Torgee and Tharfen so that there weren't these endless delays. Torgee sidled up to him as the four continued their fast pace. “Are you remembering anything unusual?” he asked.

Xemion coughed, his chest still hurting from being trapped in the gate. “I don't think so,” he answered. “But Anya always said that the ancient spoken spells don't necessarily work right away. Maybe in a few days I'll start to remember things I've forgotten.” He turned to face Saheli. “Are you forgetting anything?”

She shook her head grimly. Her levity had vanished. That melody kept picking away at her mind as though it were a summons demanding to be received.

“Do you still remember being in that house?” Tharfen asked. “In the forest with the old man up on —”

“I remember,” Saheli snapped, cutting her off. “I just wish I
could
forget.”

Xemion turned angrily to Tharfen and shushed her. Her eyes squinted back angrily at him but she obliged, shrinking her lips into a resentful pout.

“What if you forget something important?” Xemion asked.

“Like what?” Saheli stared at Xemion.

Xemion shrugged awkwardly. And then Saheli stopped and put her hand over her heart. They all stopped and looked at her, puzzled. She lifted her hand to her neck and found the slender silver chain.

“Xemion,” she said quite seriously as she withdrew the locket from within her blouse. “You should take this, just in case.… I know how important it is to you.”

A blush rushed to Xemion's cheeks as she held the silver loop of the chain open for him and he ducked his head through. Once he had it on, Saheli stood there for a moment looking at him and he wished he had something to give her in return.

“We should go,” Torgee said impatiently.

“Yes. My mother is waiting. That's important to me,” Tharfen threw in bitterly. Xemion made a slightly exaggerated bow to Saheli.

“Thank you, Saheli,” he said gruffly, and with that they continued on their way, all of them feeling a little awkward.

“I wish
I
could forget,” Tharfen said after a while. Nobody responded, so she said it again. “I said I wish
I
could forget.”

“And why is that?” Xemion asked a little sharply. To the south a high wall of fitted stone lined the side of the road.

Her eyes darted back at him just as sharply. But they softened when she looked at Saheli. “I wish I could forget … forget what happened to Chiricoru,” she said.

“Do you mean you'd like to forget about how you let her get away?” Xemion snapped. He realized immediately what he'd done and he bit his lip, but it was too late. Tharfen turned white and her lower lip began to tremble.

“That is so unfair,” Saheli chided him. “It would have happened with any of us. Chiricoru was just doing what swans do. They pretend to be wounded to lead predators away from their young. She wasn't trying to escape from us; she was trying to protect us.”

Xemion should have apologized, but he said nothing, and Tharfen's rage at his unfairness took hold of her. Staring at his proud face with its haughty high cheekbones, her feelings for a moment were clarified into an irresistible hate. “You will pay for your insults,” she growled through gritted teeth. “You will pay dearly. Don't you worry.” Remembering what had happened only yesterday with the examiner, they all became very quiet and Xemion's complexion notably turned a little ashen.

“You should take that back,” Saheli whispered to Tharfen. “He didn't mean it.”

Xemion still said nothing.

“I won't,” Tharfen shot back fiercely.

“You should say sorry,” Torgee advised Xemion quietly. He turned over his forearm to show him various scratches and scars that had been left there. “She did every one of these.”

But Xemion's silence had become entrenched and he just jogged along sullenly. Both sides of the road now were lined with the remains of an ancient, though still very high wall that was mostly covered in flowering vines. It was high enough to cast half of the roadway into shade, but ahead of them a wide swath of sunlight slanted in from the south, spilling over the closely fitted stone.

The cause of this as they discovered when they got there was that a marble portal had been cut into the wall. Tharfen angrily tugged away some of the vines that covered it and peered through. And what she saw relieved her. On the other side of the portal a roadway ran in the direction of the coast. She pulled more of the vines away and they saw that various emblems and insignias had been carved into the marble of the portal, including a clear engraving of the Great Kone at the top. The roadway beyond the portal had a strange silver sheen that was not at all unpleasant to look at.

“This is where we turn,” Tharfen stated in a hard voice. The others made no move. Instead they eyed the silver roadway beyond the portal and the insignia engraved into the marble apprehensively.

“Come on. Why are you stopping?” she demanded in a voice full to the brim with barely contained passion.

“It just doesn't look right,” Saheli answered, eyes fixed on the engraving of the Great Kone. Xemion read aloud the name engraved over the curve of the archway. “Shissillil,” he said in a puzzled tone. “I remember when I was very very young Anya told me something about a place called Shissillil.”

“We all promised we was going this way first chance we got,” Tharfen hissed.