Too Many Curses (18 page)

In his own castle, he didn't exactly know what was behind his Door At The End Of The Hall, which was strange considering he'd been its creator. It was magic beyond measure, too powerful to be unmade, too dangerous for even a dark wizard to unleash. But he was very dead, very impatient. He took the tremendous handle in both hands and pushed. The whispers fell silent. The Door moaned.

It didn't budge.

"It can't be opened," said someone. "Not from this side."

Margle hesitated, unsure if he was the one speaking again.

"Where are you? Show yourself!" He shouted to nowhere and everywhere at once. "I demand to know my tormentor! It's my right by the Thirteenth Concordant of Damnation!"

The voice deepened. It laughed, sending rumbles through the air. "You aren't in hell. Not a hell of the underworld at least. Infernal law can't help you."

"Where am I?" Margle flapped his arms and legs wildly, unable to move. "Where am I?"

"Don't you know?" The dark voice chuckled again, but the laugh stopped suddenly and took on a gentler tone. "Why should I tell you then? You, Margle the Horrendous, who showed not a single mercy in your whole life? Should I care about your discomfort? Haven't you earned all of it and more? But I'm not like you, Margle. I've a modicum of compassion. Apparently even for a vile shadow such as yourself."

It barked a hard, booming laugh. "You're behind the Door."

Margle froze. His skin felt clammy. He sweated and shivered at the same time.

"You're here because I brought you here," said the voice, now neither angry nor gentle but sounding as if it were full of disinterest. "You're here because I couldn't let you pass on, though I would've gladly done so had I a choice. But the spells that you have placed demand you not be released so easily. So I hold you here because I have enough will of my own to decide that."

Margle's fear turned to rage. He was a legendary dark wizard. Kingdoms trembled before him. Gods begged for his favor. Not the big ones, but the small to medium deities, the ones on their way up. He'd never felt so powerless.

"Who are you?"

The voice ignored the question. "Other spells demand that I restore you to life. Your miserable, wretched, misbegotten, wasted life." It growled like a beast. "And I don't know how long I can resist them. I'm not master of myself. Not yet. But you will remain dead for as long as I can keep you so." The voice cleared its throat and spoke softly. "Let's hope that's long enough."

The Door At the End Of The Hall shuddered and thudded. The nothingness twined around Margle. Stone rose up under his feet. He was once again at the end of the hall, looking down at the Door.

"You're the castle," said Margle.

"Not quite. I am the soul of the castle."

"I never gave you a soul!"

"Souls aren't given. Nor can they be constructed from magic alone, even the forbidden magic you put behind that Door. Souls are found things, priceless as any treasure yet sorely neglected. But I've found mine, and I value it more than those whose only right to one is that they were born with it."

Margle raised his fists. Had he any magic, he would've blasted every last brick and stone to rubble, crashing it down upon his head without a second thought. "Soul or not, you're my castle! And as your master, I demand resurrection!"

"Your demands matter little now. You're just a shadow. Only the enchantments you've already cast hold any sway over me and even those cannot bind me completely now that you're dead."

"You defy me? No one defies me! No one!"

The castle laughed softly, condescendingly, but with a touch of pity for the powerless wizard. He didn't notice. He was too busy raging.

"I demand resurrection! I am Margle the Horrendous! I am your master."

The castle's voice dropped to a low whisper. The words echoed through the halls for a long, long time. Seemingly for days to Margle.

"But you are not my only master."

On the other side, Tiama the Scarred stood before The Door At The End Of The Hall. No one saw her. No one saw the Door. Neither were invisible. They were just meeting in a neglected chamber of the castle. There weren't
many such places where evil forces might meet unobserved. In fact, this was the only one, and even it wouldn't remain deserted for much longer.

Neither Tiama nor the Door said anything. They just stood, perhaps sharing telepathic conversation, perhaps merely staring at each other. Although, as the Door had no eyes, even this was debatable.

Tiama's own eyes burned with green-and-black flames. She reached out with one flawless white hand toward the handle. The parchments on the Door swayed and flapped. Its timbers tightened against the iron bar. The runes glowed with life. An invisible energy tossed her aside. Silently, she flew across the small chamber to crash against the wall. The collision shattered her bones, and she sank to the floor a broken, lifeless figure. With her stark white skin and featureless face, she resembled a half-finished marionette waiting for her paint and strings.

The Door At The End Of The Hall groaned.

The fire in Tiama's eyes never dimmed. With a sharp crack, her neck twisted back into place. Her crushed fingers straightened. Her limbs realigned. She stood, unbroken again but still quite lifeless. She scowled with her slash of a mouth.

"I'm telling you I heard something," said someone.

The chamber door creaked open. A penguin and a toad prince poked their heads in cautiously.

The chamber was empty.

"Told you there isn't anything in this room," said the toad.

"There's something in every room," countered the penguin. He shivered. "Awfully cold in here."

"Can't take a little chill? What kind of penguin are you?"

"It wasn't as if I asked Margle to make me a penguin. If he'd given me a choice, I would've chosen a toucan or cockatoo. Something more tropical."

The toad belched loudly.

"Stomach still bothering you?" asked the penguin.

"Must've been something I ate." He puffed out his chest and croaked with a grimace.

The penguin waddled away with the toad prince hopping alongside. "Let's go see if the guest room fire could be coaxed into warming my flippers."

The chamber was left deserted again, and it remained empty this time. Tiama the Scarred and The Door At The End Of The Hall were already off on other dark errands.

Despite the dangerous nature of her home, Nessy's job wasn't always exhilarating. Perhaps outside these walls, walking corpses, chatty gargoyles, and bodiless voices were something of an oddity, but Nessy had been working for wizards long enough to find such curiosities unremarkable. While she didn't mind the occasional burst of excitement because the unexpected made her profession so challenging, she also enjoyed the quiet times when there was nothing but her and her work. After these last few days, she appreciated these moments even more.

Everyone was off doing other things. She didn't know what. Nor did she care. She only wanted to enjoy her moment of peace while it lasted. Only the nurgax remained by her side, but it was so responsive to her mood that it kept deathly quiet. It towed the cart with silent efficiency. The
squeak of the cart's wheels and the creaks and groans of the castle were the only sounds.

Even the hellhound trapped in the rug was placid. It slept during the day, whether nesting in a shadow or a very hungry carpet didn't matter. The beast had managed to loose a great, black paw in its struggles. Another tear revealed a single, closed eye. Its rhythmic breathing was muffled.

Nessy went to her cart and reached into a tub of writhing zombified anatomy. She pulled out a hand. Rather, she pulled out her arm with a zombied hand clutching her by the wrist. It was a little hand. Probably belonged to a goblin at one time. She hoped it would suit her needs.

The zombies seemed the perfect bait for her plan, but only if the hellhound responded. She knew its appetite craved undead things. But these zombies weren't entirely the same as the Vampire King or the Drowned Woman. They didn't possess souls. They were dead flesh animated by dark magic. Little more than a necromantic novelty. But they were half-dead, and she hoped the hound didn't care about the difference.

She brought the goblin hand close to the hound. It stirred. Its eye opened, and it snarled ravenously.

Satisfied, Nessy began her task. There was true beauty in humble labors, she'd often mused. Nothing felt quite so satisfying as seeing a well-swept hall or the shine of polished brass or a shelffull of books put in their proper order. All
her masters had considered such toil beneath them. They were always too busy with other concerns, with their magic. Studying it. Writing about it. Playing with it like children involved in some exalted game. One wizard might shrink a city. Another then would shrink a kingdom and stick it in a bottle on his mantel. A third would do this and convince the tiny people to worship him as a god. And so on and so on until the absurdity transcended madness. And the madness consumed them. That was the true secret of magic, she knew. It was almost entirely senseless.

It might make a simple task easier, she had to admit, but only slightly. The only thing magic was truly good for was great feats of worthless accomplishment. This castle was a monument to this truth. Every curse roaming its halls was a masterpiece of grand pointlessness. True, Margle had possessed incredible power. Men had trembled at his name, and many admired and envied him. But not Nessy, because she knew the one thing all great men (and all men who aspire to greatness) never learned.

The fate of the universe didn't rest in the hands of giants. It could be found in the littlest things. Anything done well was a worthy accomplishment, whether it be unwrapping arcane secrets or sweeping halls, raising kingdoms from the ocean or washing dishes. All tasks, great or small, were of equal importance in the end. Without peasants, there could be no kings. Without soldiers, there was no army. Without Nessy, there was a very dusty, cluttered castle. Though none of her masters would soil themselves to do
what needed to be done, she had yet to meet a wizard who liked having dust on his shrunken cities.

A green-and-golden hummingbird flitted to Nessy's side. "What are you doing?"

"Hello, Humbert."

"Hello, Nessy. What are you doing? What's that? Are those body parts? Is that a finger? Are those eyes?" He tossed off questions nearly as rapidly as his tiny wings beat. She didn't know where he found the energy, or how he even found enough nectar to stay alive in the castle. Such small mysteries concerned her little.

Humbert whizzed around her head. "They're moving! They're moving! Why are they moving?"

"They're zombified." She stopped the cart and reached into the tub of organs.

"That's disgusting! Is it slimy? I bet it's slimy."

"Actually, they're all dried out." She removed a small length of intestine. It coiled up her arm and did its best to wrap around her throat. She threw it to the floor and held it there with her foot while dipping a trowel into a bucket of brackish muck.

"What's that?" Humbert flew so close to her ear that his humming filled her head. She gently brushed him aside.

"River troll mucus." She dumped it on the squirming intestine. The blackened tube of flesh twisted and curled, but held in place.

"Why are you doing that?"

"To keep it from wriggling away."

"Why troll mucus?"

"Because it's very sticky, but it washes away easily with soap and lemon juice."

"Why do you want to stick dead things to the floor?"

"To lead the hellhound where I want it."

"Where do you want it?"

Before she could answer, Humbert darted down the hall to inspect three eyeballs glued twenty feet away. He zipped off to get a closer look at some fingers another twenty feet farther on. He didn't return, and she wasn't surprised. He was easily distracted.

Nessy paused in her task to re orient herself. She didn't know how much a hellhound could eat in one sitting. She was only leaving little bits, but it was a long way to her final goal. The Vampire King had been very little meat, mostly bone and skin. She tried to visualize just how much rotten, squirming flesh she'd left in her path.

The nurgax growled.

Nessy turned to see what startled it and came face to face with the armor of the Blue Paladin. The unmanned armor was tall and gleaming, like the ocean cast in steel. If one believed the legends, this wasn't far from the truth.

The empty helmet nodded to her.

"Hello," said Nessy.

The armor stood, his iron chest thrust forward, his right gauntlet wrapped around a tremendous battle-ax. One stroke could slice her in two, but Nessy didn't fear. Had he wanted her dead, she would have already been so. But this was the
fabled suit of the Blue Paladin, a champion of some renown, one of the few enemies Margle had simply killed because he was too dangerous to live, even if transformed into a sleepy bunny. But the Paladin had been a foe only to the forces of evil, and his armor was the same. As with the Sword in the Cabbage, Margle had never been able to take its power for his own use, much to the wizard's annoyance.

Nessy was annoyed as well. Annoyed that the armor wasn't where he belonged.

"You aren't supposed to be out here."

The Blue Paladin nodded again.

"I take it this is very important business that has you out and about."

He nodded gravely this time, difficult as that might be to measure in a thing without a face. She decided that the suit had always been well-behaved before and had every right to stretch his leggings every few decades if he so desired.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got some important business of my own." She strode past the armor. The nurgax followed with the cart in tow.

The Paladin clomped behind them. She glanced over her shoulder. He was following them. He made a lot of noise, clanking and rattling. The Blue Paladin must've been a truly great champion, she determined, but he certainly hadn't defeated evil by sneaking up on it.

Twenty-seven feet later, she stopped again. So did the Paladin.