The sound of muffled speaking and creaking wood downstairs alerted me to a visitor to the manor.

I briefly considered crawling across to the study to see if I could get a glimpse of what was out the front, but it would be far too much trouble, a scolding from Ivian and probably nothing left to see by the time I got there.

It was a good choice to stay where I was, as Ivian soon came back into the room with a bowl of semolina.

I ate and thought more about horses until a knock on the door preceded the valet's voice.

"The lady requests both of your presences below. Shaman Ikstoff is ready to see the young master."

The valet winked at Ivian and me for some reason, before hurrying back downstairs. That was the man that served the plates at the dinner table.

Ivian had carried me to the foot of the stairs, when we could finally make out the words of my mother's voice from the reception hall.

"So curses can be passed on then," she was saying in worry.

"A bad thing, milay- uff," a high-pitched voice for a man was suddenly interrupted by a fit of coughing.

"Vis, please get the shaman a pitcher of water, hurry."

"Yes, Lady Cianna,"

The coughing seemed to die down, just as we entered. Mother was sitting up in her seat across from an old man bent over in his chair.

"Ivian, Tilly, please sit here beside me." Mother called to us as we entered the room.

I studied the old man. He was another mage, like Mr. Barker.

But I didn't have such a good impression. His long white beard that stretched to the ground from where he was bent over, was scraggly and unkempt. His black robes looked tattered and he had little ornaments dangling from his ears and clothing, very unsuitable for a mage.

He was definitely nothing like the mages that seemed to come to life then disappear around him. Those mages were well dressed in elegant military uniforms, the very images of disciplined practitioners and studious researchers.

Still, the staff behind him was unmistakeable. Not that the thick, gnarled stick of wood was anything special, but in it was embedded a magic stone.

It was a good thing Ivian was holding me, as the white haired figures did not remain flickering in the air, instead, overwhelming my vision with white specks and dizziness.

It was the lab, the same one I had seen before in a memory perhaps better forgotten.

The desks were strewn with papers, magic implements and the stones that powered them. Magic stones with the same waves of tingling as I felt from the staff.

And then, I registered the smell, and my surroundings changed.

This time, it wasn't the land of the white haired spectres, instead it was Mr. Barker and his barrel.

He was sitting there, the very first time I saw him in the yard, throwing wet wood chips into a tamed rogue fire.

Gulp, gulp, gulp. "Thank you, young man. Thank you," the shaman's strained voice broke through my trance. "It is but, gphn, but a old crick in the lungs. I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Please, Shaman Ikstoff, take your time."

Smoke and ashes. He stunk of the stuff. What do all the mages here need with fire? It was a contradiction. mages made fire, controlled fire, they didn't let it smoke up their clothes, unless they were in battles, maybe.

"Let me see the boy," the old mage croaked, looking up now at Ivian and me.

Ivian took a step forward and grabbed me under the arms, so I latched onto her. It was one thing to study an interesting specimen at a distance, quite another to be delivered to its arms.

The old man stunk, was wearing tattered robes, and though his beard was impressive in length, its upkeep left much to be desired and scratched against me.

This was going to end badly.

"Uhuuhuu," The shaman wheezed, "Not so different from other babies after all. No meaning of insult to you or your household, but it's not uncommon for women to have exaggerated opinions of their offspring."

Well, so much for my parents being important family of the king.

I could literally see the fate of someone who spoke that rudely to a lord and lady of the white haired peoples.

I flinched as even the sound of the bolt of lightning instantly charring the white haired criminal on the block boomed through the room. It was so loud and yet, I was the only one to hear it.

"I'm right here Tilly, the shaman is just going to make sure you're healthy." Ivian noticed my discomfort and thought it was the old man. Well, it was this old crook actually.

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I doubted the old man could make sure he was healthy himself, let alone me.

Though, it's true that he was a mage. Perhaps he was actually a healer, just advanced in years. Healers had to be trained in magic after all. How else would they diagnose?

I hesitantly let his gnarled hands pull me around while paying close attention to what this maybe-doctor was going to do.

Ouch!

He betrayed my trust and poked me right in the knee!

This was total violation. How dare he!

I shot a glance of desperate appeal towards Ivian as the old hoax started to poke and bend, all the while hmming and haaing his cavity steeped breath all over me.

Oh no. He surely didn't do this to mother... my goddess...!

I suddenly knew my purpose in this life. I must have revenge on this evil demon!

"Shaman Ikstoff, I very much do not believe my son is enjoying this treatment. Why the need for all of this..."

Mother! My saviour!

Based on her comment, it seems it was only I who was subjected to such treatment.

"Aherm, yes, quite so," he responded, and put me on the table. "The northern airs here can put strange cold in all of us. I am checking his body for any lumps or rashes. The lingering curse of infertility that you were under is not likely to pass on to others and is usually only detectable by years of trying to conceive. More likely he has one of the curses of foul odours if he's acting up."

Mother was under a curse? I latched on to the one part of his sentence that threw my feelings in greatest tumult. I even forgot my feelings of confusion and betrayal from being manhandled like this fall away from me as I tried to catch what was going on.

I had heard talk of curses more and more recently, but it was only now, as I grew concerned for mother that a wash of different images assail me.

"Report any dealers in curses to your local military branch. Only licensed specialists in construction and medicine may use trade cursed spells freely." An announcer called out in a virsphere broadcast.

"It's in there, my brother told me so," a girl Ivian's age spoke with excitement as she pointed at a door behind a shelf filled with books. The door had a small sign on it that read "restricted stacks". "It's restricted because they teach some of the curses to the forensic and enforcement divisions there."

The shelves of books disappeared though as mother spoke angrily to the shaman, "I told you, my Tilvrade is seeing visions. This isn't some cold or foul odour."

"Very strange, aherm." The shaman seemed unconvinced, "In any case, I'd have felt if anything was wrong with the boy's bones or muscles with the check up right now," the shaman commented.

This quack probably already decided what he was going to say before he did the check up... Mother, don't be fooled!

Mother didn't say anything though, and the shaman continued in his annoying and high pitched tone., "You aren't hiding something, are you? The curse, kufkufkuf, it can't be caught, but then, do you even know it was the curse of infertility? This boy should never have been born if it was."

"No, shaman Ikstoff. As you know, I have also been very confused by this. When I became pregnant and spoke with you first, it was to answer those questions. If we had known the curse would lose it's effect..."

Was I an unplanned birth? That doesn't seem right. Wouldn't a noble family want an heir? I was still mother's pumpkin, right?

"Give me another moment and I'll see if there's anything wrong with the boy's mind."

I'm not so comfortable with you taking any care of my mind. Mother, come on. Tell the quack to bugger off.

But mother didn't help me.

The old man took out a strangely shaped vial of sand with stripes drawn all up one side.

"You there," he pointed at the valet, "as I hit the floor with the staff, please flip this vial and place it on the table, like this."

Then, he dug a piece of wood with a weird geometric symbol on it out of his robes, fixed it to his staff, as if it was actually going to do something and started waving it all around, over me.

Was he going to finally do his job and cast a diagnosis spell? About time...

"Every whisper, bark or knell, from lady, pup or rustworn bell, hereby under lock and seal, until the supplicant to unbind does kneel. Curse of silence!"

Clack

As the last line was chanted and his staff hit the floor, I desperately shouted out, trying to warn mother and Ivian that this quack was casting a curse on me! How dare he, in my own home!

Mother and Ivian did look suitably troubled, but didn't make any movement to stop this madness. I was just relieved that of all the curses he could have prepared, he had made a curse of silence.

Unless he did something to reinforce it, which by his shoddy performance seemed beyond his ken, it should wear off within a day. I just had to make sure I got away before then.

As I desperately scrambled to try to make distance from the scary man, mother asked him nervously, "what did you do to him? Is he in pain?"

The shaman was squinting at the odd vial of sand. He looked up at my mother and then me.

"No, lady, no. I just put a curse of silence on him."

Duh. You said so when you cursed me. Try to respond properly, you quack, I thought, but my mother seemed satisfied with his answer.

"Settle down boy, no one's here to hurt you."

He slapped my bottom as he said this, just to make sure I knew he was lying.

Ivian finally clued in and rushed over to save me. "Don't hit him!"

At least I had one ally in the room.

I snuggled into her embrace and pointed her towards the room's exit, but she just took a few steps backwards.

"Nothing wrong with the boy, aherm. Except the fuss he makes, aherm. The casting time for the curse was normal, so there was nothing on his mind already to interfere with it. Aherm, he just needs to kneel to me and the curse will unbind, aherm."

He might be a total quack, but at least he put an unbind sequence on the curse.

"Did you just say kneel?"

Finally! My mother was enraged.

"My son will never kneel to you. You should be ashamed for even suggesting such a thing!"

Wait, wasn't my wellbeing more important than an empty ritual? I think my mother and I weren't quite on the same page.

"You will unbind the curse on my son immediately. Do you hear me? And you shall be thankful that you will never hear from me again after this day."

Maybe this was a talk with mother that I should avoid...

"Aherm, yes, ughkughkugh, lady" even now, he added the title almost as an afterthought, or perhaps he was just distracted by his coughing. "It was, ugh, a relatively harmless, ugh, unbinding ritual, and, aherm-"

"Relatively harmless? My one and only son, forgoing his honour is relatively harmless?"

The old man was coughing more and more through my mother's tirade. Ivian was also starting to move from side to side, rocking me and patting my head in comforting assurances that I suspected were more for herself than for me.

The valet, who had been getting the shaman's mug of water suddenly took a few steps back realising something was very abnormal.

He stepped in front of mother, putting an arm out in front of her and slowly backing both of them away.

"Shaman, you need to leave. You are ill," I didn't know the valet well, but I was impressed at how calm he kept his voice. This coughing from a crazy man was scary as hell. "My lady, please leave the room. Ivian, take the young master to the back and bathe him."

"Oufk, uhuuhuu," the shaman's coughs chased us as mother shooed Ivian out the room in front of her. The door closed behind us, only Vis and the valet remained in the room with the old man.