Curselock

Chapter 269: A Curtain

Captain Curtain was a very unremarkable looking man. With hair that pulled back across his skull and not a single scar across his face, the man walked and talked like a stressed out father more than a Captain of the army. When he spoke he made little gestures with his arms, and when he studied someone he squinted a little.

But despite all of this, Curtain stood straight and tall. When people tried to push him, he pushed right back. His codename, which most people thought simply referenced fabric, was actually much more poetic. The man kept a tight lid on whatever bastion he oversaw, a lid that had had never once seen the light of war. Curtain was his codename because behind his bastions’ walls, war never was.

Today changed that. War was here, and judging by the reports, being outnumbered was a given. If he included the massing monsters frothing at the mouth and ready to rush the bastion, being outnumbered was, well…

A knocking sounded from his office door, the person behind the wood paneling not waiting a single second before opening the door and marching right in.

Curtain eyed Isobel and she eyed him back, that slacking-ignorant look she always held seemingly as prominent as her own reputation. People did not like the Huntress, not that she went by that title nowadays. He knew of her long before she randomly appeared at his bastion, everyone knew of the famous, or infamous, Inquisitors, especially those in the military.

It was every Captain’s nightmare to have an Inquisitor put their nose into army business, but here, even though she recently left her occupation of Inquisitor, Curtain was glad she was here. Even if she was as problematic as they said.

He gave her a stiff nod and moved onto the boy on her heels. Leland Silver, son of the famous duo the Inquisitors Silver and apparent good Harbinger. With the title of Vagrant Warden, the Captain knew the young man to have friends in very high places – the fact he had yet to be drawn, quartered, and executed proved as much.

Though, if some of the stories were to be believed, there were very few who could stand in the way of him. Curtain had heard the rumors around the mess hall, he’d seen the reports coming from Palemarrow Castle itself. Harbingers, artificial Lords, Witches, Leland Silver had fought them all, and won.

Next to enter was the berserker, Jude Brown. Another son of two famous Inquisitors, there wasn’t much to know about him besides his recent actions against the Sightless King. The Crown considered the problem of the artificial Lord to have been handled largely by Jude and Glenny, the next young man entering the room.

Glenny Red, another son of two Inquisitors – one deceased – was listed as crucial when it came to killing the Sightless King. As the reports went, he dealt the finishing blow to the cursed creature.

And to the Captain, out of all of the reports about the trio of boys, he believed the one about Glenny the most. Strictly speaking of appearance, both Leland and Jude looked like children. Bright, inquisitive stares, that sort of arrogant innocence young people had.

Glenny was the opposite. The moment he stepped into the office, the young man covered in living shadows searched the room for exits, weapons, and dangers. He looked around almost lazily, like he was bored and annoyed at being there. But the Captain knew, behind his white and black eyes was a man hardened by experience and tempered with murder. Life had been cruel to Glenny Red, his mother’s passing only a catalyst for the need to grow.

Finally there was the bear. Reports were lacking about the magical creature, but from how some of the men around the bastion spoke about the cub, there were secrets of power hidden within her paws. Just recently, Curtain received a report about a strange, teal, space magic she wielded to shark bets from the idiotic mages.

Seeing them taken down a peg always made Curtain smile.

“Good, you are all here—” Curtain stopped himself as someone else entered.

At first he thought it was one of the adventurer team leaders, but they were not meant to arrive for another twenty minutes. Filling in the Vagrant Warden and the Huntress took precedence.

But no, this woman was no team leader. In fact, Curtain knew her to be nothing but trouble. Elin the thief stood within his office, no doubt looking for something to pinch like a common street pickpocket. Multiple times he had thought about kicking her out of the bastion, but each time a pragmatic reason to keep her near had popped up. Need someone to spy, someone outside the court of military ethics? It was always good to keep a rogue on a leash during operations like this.

Curtain swallowed, deciding to ignore her presence. Why she was here, he had no clue, but again, filling people in on the threat took precedence right now.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice as flat as the horizon. He stared directly at Leland. “And thank you for not killing my aid.”

A wash of emotion passed over the boy's face. Embarrassment, anger, irritation. Perhaps he was thinking the Captain a fool like the other captain he had met, Tar.

“Right,” Leland forced himself to say, “bad timing.”

Curtain held his stare. If the Harbinger brought trouble, the rank of Vagrant Warden would mean very little when the whole of the bastion turned on him. If that were to happen, there would be no choice but to surrender to the military. No matter who his friends-in-high-places were, killing innocent soldiers for doing their job would earn him the executioner’s block.

Of course that would never happen, but Curtain knew he didn’t get to where he was by ignoring proper contingencies.

“The past is in the past,” he lethargically said. “Right now, we have bigger problems.”

The Captain began to explain what was coming. Witches, was the simple explanation, but the oddities of how and why they were attacking was cause for significant concern.

“We estimate they know they cannot win an all-out assault on the bastion. But they are preparing anyway. Something spooked them.”

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“Parasite,” the Huntress and Leland said at the same time.

Curtain looked between them. “Explain.”

“A parasite won and was destroying Witch nests and feasting on their essence,” Isobel said, “I reported it when I—”

“Which report?” the Captain interrupted, already rifling through papers.

“My most recent.”

He found it, giving it a once over. “It says, ‘mysterious bipedal monster,’ nothing about a parasite.”

She rolled her eyes. “A: didn’t know it was a parasite back then. And B: I didn’t stick around to find out. Ask the kids for more information if you want it.” She gestured at the others.

He sat the paper down and glared at Leland. “And why do you know about this parasite? You’ve been here for less than half-a-day.”

Leland scratched the back of his head. “Uh, It’s following me.”

“Description, estimated power level, estimated threat level?”

“Female body, missing leg. Bloodstained mangled clothing. I took a full force punch from it and was launched across the sand and cracked the foundation of Sand Castle… so, strong. The threat level is rather low, I’d say. We almost killed it with just a few of us. Though, it is growing stronger every minute it’s not dead, so.”

“Abilities?”

“Space warping punches and kicks. Can teleport.”

Curtain glanced around the others, Jude and the bear, gauging their reactions to this information. They didn’t so much as blink improperly, meaning everything reported was genuine.

He reached down to the Huntress’ report, wanting to document everything said here, but found the paper missing. He didn’t have a chance to look for it nor question where it was before a question was raised.

“Why are the Witches even here?” Leland asked. “Like, I get the whole, ‘wanting to stop change,’ thing, but I do not buy every Witch is here for that. If they know attacking the bastion is futile and are being hunted by a parasite, why bother sticking around? They have to know there’s nothing to be done here. Closing the Tears is impossible, trust me, I would know. And yet, they remain.”

Curtain wanted to ask for expansion over the idea of closing the Tears, but held his tongue. The current situation was too important. “Do you know of the Seer?”

Leland instantly shivered, as if the name sent hot coals up his back. A strange reaction, the Captain concluded, for the action was almost involuntary. Even stranger, was that Leland’s face fell like a fledgling tripping out of the nest. There was no recognition in his eyes about the name, but something far more… dangerous.

Curtain let himself relax, releasing his command over the room slightly. While his power would never rival the likes of High Inquisitor Rushwin, he had picked up a trick or two when it came to aura manipulation. The key was visualizing a space, in this case, the office, and flooding that space with personality and accommodations. In but a few words, the room was his, and no one else’s.

So, when Curtain relaxed his grip on the room, someone else’s took hold.

He had read the report from Knight Mason about how Leland Silver had swooped in like a Lordly messenger, here to pass on the good word of health and healing. Mason had described Leland as “a being that had a ticket to the heavens, but had yet to enter,” at least until Leland started talking to lost souls. The remainder of the report was rather harsh, all things considered.

This feeling, this overbearing weight within the Captain’s office, was nothing of the sort. It poured from Leland like thick rot. It corrupted the room, dredging the walls and floor into something far beyond simple wood and nails. Hatred sung like a siren’s call, urging all in the room to march out into the sand and comb through every grain until the obscenity that was the Seer, was dead.

Curtain even noted that Leland’s friends looked at him with cautious, fearful eyes… that was, until Leland muttered, “Stop it,” under his breath.

The simple command released the room back to the Captain, snapping it back into a room of law and order. Those closest to the boy looked relieved, like soldiers given leave right before a battle.

Leland then cleared his throat. “I do not know who Seer is, mind explaining?”

“He’s a Witch…” Curtain’s eyes wandered, finding Glenny and Elin in an opposite corner of the room than he remembered. When did they move? During Leland’s outburst? That made the most sense. Again, that wasn’t important right now. “Seer is a monster, one who has been on the Inquisitor’s most wanted list for nearly a century at this point. If these reports are up to date, then the Inquisitors believe him to be a Legacy of Souls—”

Leland sucked in a breath, his friends doing the same. Everyone froze, except for Elin, who was looking around timidly.

“So he’s strong,” Leland asked.

“Yes… but that is the least of the problems. Seer is smart. Disciplined. He wouldn’t have survived this long if he wasn’t.” Curtain tapped his desk. “To answer your earlier question, yes, the Witches are here for reasons other than to interfere with the Tear. They, simply put, have been marked by Seer’s magic and are essentially being forced to fight for him. Monsters too.”

“What does he want?”

“That is an excellent question. One we have yet to answer.”

“Great,” both Leland and Isobel cursed.

A voice sounded from lower in the room, Gelo, the cub asked, “If Seer is so smart, he knows he will lose if he attacks the bastion, right? That means it isn’t his goal – something about the Tear is.”

Leland thought this through, his eyes glazing over as he stared into space.

Curtain nodded. “Correct. But what that may be—”

“Ah! I know what he wants!” Leland announced. “Souls. He wants souls!”

“Souls?”

“Trust me, they have plenty of uses, some far less savory than others.”

“But what—”

“This isn’t good,” Leland rambled before speaking to his friends, “I didn’t think about this earlier when we were in world Alpha, but I should have at least asked Walker. But where did all of the souls of his world go? His whole planet died out, leaving what? Countless souls to wander?”

Glenny spoke up first, “Wouldn’t they just go to Oblivion?”

“Not necessarily. The Lord of Souls ferries souls to Oblivion… what if world Alpha’s equivalent to the Lord of Souls died when everyone else did? Painful, agonizing deaths, mind you, the kind of deaths that cause souls to stick around.”

“Then there would be countless souls roaming world Alpha,” Jude supplied.

“But that has been disproven,” Glenny said. “We know there’s nothing in world Alpha. Aunty P said as much. Surely they’d send someone into the Tears that could see souls.”

“But Aunty P didn’t know about Walker. And with Lodestar’s reaction to Seer’s name—” Leland’s eyes lit up. He spun to the Captain. “You’ve got a major problem on your hands.”

Curtain, who had been following along, albeit missing several pieces, asked, “Who are Walker and Lodestar?”

“Walker is the last surviving person of world Alpha. There should be a report from Captain Tar about him somewhere. And Lodestar is… is—” Leland stopped himself before twisting his neck to look over his shoulder. “Lodestar, is my theory correct? Is Seer looking to take a world-worth of souls for himself?”

A voice came from Leland’s back, one that chilled the air like cold, bloody steel, “Yes.”

“We better stop him, then?”

“Indeed.”

Leland held off scoffing. “And you’re going to help? We both know your history. This falls in your purview I’d say.”

“It doesn’t,” Lodestar replied, “but maybe it once did.”

“Is that a ‘yes?’”

“It is.”