The trail rolled on, and Korak trotted forward, gobbling up leagues and anything else that took his fancy. The bear was tireless but easily distracted. Whenever he caught a whiff of berries, Korak he would veer in that direction. At first, Charlot tugged at his fur and directed him to keep moving forward but, by midday, the old sorcerer's bones ached so that he was happy for any excuse to stop. The experience at Quarterlee had left him feeling depleted.
Ahead of them, the trail rounded a jagged finger of granite that was surrounded by yellow-gold. Though he was too far away to make out the spiraling leaves of the shudderstep bramble, Charlot could identify it by color alone, and he gave Korak’s fur a sharp tug, guiding the bear off the path.
The last thing Charlot needed was to get pricked by a flying thorn and spend the whole day reeling in his saddle like a drunkard. It wasn’t enough to simply avoid disturbing the bramble. Beneath those golden spirals were tight bulbs, constantly swelling with bittersweet sap. When they could take no more, they erupted and cast their needle-sharp barbs with enough force to pierce a boar’s hide at fifteen paces.
The bramble’s poison produced a state akin to the most profound drunkenness that lingered far longer than any normal drink. Every so often, some fool would come up with the idea to brew beer from the sap. It led to a stupefying state from which some men never sobered.
Typically, when one encountered the bramble, the best thing to do was to set it ablaze from a distance, causing all the needles to fire off at once. But then afterward, one had to carefully check nearby trees. If a needle lodged in one, it would spread the bramble, exacerbating the problem.
Charlot glanced up as he considered this, and he found a set of golden eyes staring back at him. A shadowcat! The black lynx was twice Charlot’s size, her sleek black coat blended in with the bark of the black oak she perched in.
Instinctively, Charlot’s hand shot into his pocket and slipped on Nemonullus, his ring of protection. As if Charlot had been thrust underwater, all sounds grew distant and muffled, his limited sight growing weaker still.
No sooner had he donned the ring than Charlot realized there was no need, and he slipped it off. He did not like the closed-in, numb feeling of wearing it. The limits of the aged wizard’s vision were far shorter than a shadowcat could pounce. If the lynx had wanted him, Charlot would already dead. Her powerful fangs could snap his neck like a dry twig.
How fortunate Korak was with him. Charlot might be an easy meal, but the shadowcat knew better than to tangle with a silverpaw. Beneath him, Charlot felt Korak stiffen. He snuffled, sucking in tremendous gusts of air as he caught the cat’s scent.
At last, Korak’s walleyed gaze turned upward and spotted the cat. The bear huffed upward at the cat and pawed the ground, looking like nothing so much as a hound that had treed a squirrel. A key difference was that Korak could likely knock over the tree if he set his mind and tremendous bulk to the task. The shadowcat rolled her shoulders and yawned, curling her long pink tongue at the curious pair of strangers below her, and then settling back on her perch. She seemed utterly unconcerned.
Korak turned his head so that he could see Charlot, his ears cocked back in outrage at the impudent lynx. But Charlot only shrugged. If the cat didn’t want to fight, Charlot certainly didn’t either. His bones still ached from the last scuffle with shadowcats
Charlot recognized the cat’s game. An opportunist, she would wait for an animal or a man to be struck by a needle, then finish them off while they were disoriented by the poison. Peering upward, Charlot could see fringes of white at the corners of the lynx’s black face, and he nodded to the cat in understanding, respect from one ancient to another. She was perhaps too old to hunt, but clever enough to wait.
With a little urging, Charlot convinced Korak to forget about the cat and to circle the bramble at a safe distance. Charlot squinted, straining his eyes to see if the thief they pursued had perhaps fallen prey to a barb. But there was no sign of the boy. As they completed the circuit, Korak caught wind of something north of the path, and his amble became a brisk trot. Charlot hoped they were more berries. He was getting hungry.
To Charlot’s surprise, Korak had scented not berries but a clearing where silvery husks of dead trees stood on softly sloping hills. Underfoot, there were wild potato plants, growing in great abundance.
Charlot dismounted at once, finding to his delight that they had already flowered and a few had fruited. Sadly, the potatoes were not quite mature enough for harvesting, but Korak was anything but discriminating. At once, the bear began digging up tubers and gobbling them.
For a moment, Charlot wondered if he ought to take the fruits off so that the bear didn't get sick from eating them, but Korak didn't need telling. The bear ignored the leaves and little round fruits, casting them aside as he rooted for tubers. His great paws turned the earth faster than any spade, and Charlot forgot about his aching joints, planted Flaccaro at his side and bent low to inspect the plants and the soil.
Charlot was astonished to find that the potatoes were in splendid condition, without the slightest trace of blackeye blight. The fungus should have already set in by now, forming blue-black rings around the stem buds and rendering the potatoes unfit for human consumption. Though the climate and soil of Norta were ideal for potatoes, the blight was ubiquitous, so no one grew them.
Excited, Charlot dug a plant out with care, inspecting its roots, which were healthy as well. He eyed the small, purplish red tubers, and then drew Vitserpadag to cut one in half. The flesh was creamy white, without even the slightest tint of rot. Charlot dug into the soil of the hummock for some sign of why, it was a dark loam, just sandy enough to drain well with the modest slope.
Charlot hunted around the clearing, looking for some idea of why this patch was untouched by blight. Once, this had been a stand of black birch. However, the trees all stood dead and bare, and traces of papery nest combs still clung to some.
Ravager wasps.
They'd gone tree to tree, burrowed into and built their nests. When the leaves dried and there was no more sap to drink, the ravagers simply moved to the next tree. That let the potatoes gain a foothold, and then they were choking out any trees that tried to spring up.
Charlot could not help but look around the clearing and think of what might be. If someone were to fell those dead trees and dig out their roots, to clear the weeds and set the earth into orderly rows, one plant every yard or so, this hill could feed a dozen people, perhaps more if a well could be dug.
He hadn't seen this kind of red potato in the north before yet, clearly, it was thriving. Another month in the earth, and it would be ready for harvest. If it truly resisted blight—his mind leapt forward, thinking of families gathering around fields, cottages springing up, building roads and mill houses, garrisons—it would end in another Quarterlee, another Adder Vale. Charlot shoved the thought out of his mind.
Never again, he thought, shaking his head. Still, he couldn't help but take a few potatoes that were developed enough to have eyes, tucking them into his pocket. He took a little sample of the soil as well, tapping it into a little envelope of waxed paper and folding it shut.
Looking around the clearing, Charlot wondered why no one had settled here. It was not too far from Fraughten, so surely someone had found it. Bad water? Bears? Wendigs? Something else?
His fingers brushed against Nemonullus in his pocket. As Korak continued to gobble potatoes, Charlot walked around the clearing once more, looking for any sign of a beast lurking in the area. As he peered into the woods, he thought perhaps his vision had sharpened slightly.
His mood had improved as well, and he felt stronger, if a bit battered. What was causing it? Was it the sunlight? The fresh air? Eating good food? Surely having a sense of purpose was no small part of it. It seemed he couldn't walk more than hour or two without being struck with some new interest.
Standing there watching the bear root in the earth, the enormity of the time he'd wasted fell upon Charlot. Fifty years gone, he'd told himself he would work on the plot to destroy Wyrth, but he'd done precious little but putter about, read shelves upon shelves of books, and await death.
It was an arresting thought, and he shut his eyes and shook his head. Hadn't he cultivated the silver pears? Conserved his powers, avoided the greatest dangers of the Art, stayed where it was safe?
Yet, how much more alive he felt out here in the world, where he’d nearly died three times already. He watched the monster bear wolfing down raw potatoes and, suddenly, he felt Nemonullus pulse in his pocket. In the roots trailing from the bear's maw, Charlot saw the glint of gold.
"KORAK! HOLD!" Charlot ordered, and the bear turned to him mid-bite, cocking his head in confusion. In the bundle of tubers and roots, there was a piece of white gold, caked with black dirt.
The bear held in place, and Charlot moved in for a closer look. It was a golden ring. Roots had grown through the ring, and they were deeply indented by the band. At once, Charlot suspected sorcery. The growing force of roots would have deformed a ring of normal gold. Furthermore, it was certainly cursed, for Nemonullus had pulsed in alarm.
He'd nearly forgotten he'd given the ring the power to sniff out curses. Charlot couldn't help but grin with satisfaction. It had been a long, long time since he made the ring of protection, and it was still as potent as the day he forged it.
With a snap of his fingers and a cutting cantrip, Charlot severed the root, and the plant fell from the bear's mouth, while Korak breathed noisily, his eyes on Charlot. As it fell to the ground, the ring slipped off the root. Charlot picked it up with a stick, careful not to touch it.
"You may resume devouring everything in sight," Charlot said, and the bear blinked, not understanding. "Eat," Charlot amended, and this was a word Korak knew. He did not need to be told twice.
Taking a leaf from one of the potato plants, Charlot brushed dirt off the ring, wondering how long it had been in the ground. There wasn't a scratch on it. He prodded at a stubborn clump of earth with the leaf's stem and was surprised when it broke free and revealed a black pearl streaked with ruby red, set within a thin circle of square-cut black diamonds. A great fortune was lying in the dirt before him.
Now, what was a ring fit for a king doing buried in a patch of wild potatoes? Charlot set the ring down carefully and hunted about where Korak had dug up. Charlot picked up Flaccaro, thinking of breaking up the earth, but the haughty staff recoiled at the thought of being used as a common spade. Instead, he released Flaccaro, and it stood rigidly upright under its own power. Charlot hunted about until he found a flat stone to use, muttering contempt for his stave.
After a bit of digging, Charlot unearthed the skeletal hand and arm of the ring’s former wearer. The fingers were blackened, the ring finger had been burnt completely through, and Charlot could not locate the rest of the finger. It was a day of hands and, for a moment, he paused, waiting for the ominous feeling to pass.
The potato roots had grown downward and found the ring. Charlot set his own hand near the skeleton's to judge its size. The bony hand was quite a bit smaller than his own. Perhaps it had belonged to a woman or an adolescent. For a stupid moment he wondered if it was somehow the boy, but the bones were old, and the root taken time to grow through the ring.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"So! You are a cursed ring," Charlot addressed the ring, which did not dispute his accusation. “Our skeleton here made off with you, and then vanity overtook her, and she decided to see what he might look like wearing a king's ring, is that right? I suppose she burst into flames, died in the agony she deserved?"
Charlot would likely never know, but he liked this story.
"Fools, Korak. Fools make cursed rings, and greater fools steal them. It takes a certain kind of irresponsible malevolence to put something into the world that will outlive you, causing pain all the while."
The bear grunted as he wolfed a mouthful that was more dirt than potato.
"Oh, are you calling me a hypocrite? Truly, I have created many articles of vast destructive power. Yet, none will outlive me, if I have any say in the matter. Do you hear that, you great glutton?"
Korak did not. His head was literally in the sand, as he pulled a strand of potatoes out with his teeth.
"Well, let's have a look. Don't eat me if I go mad," Charlot cautioned, not sure his request would be of any use.
Concentrating, he peered through the planes, his eyes flickering blue, then red, shifting through the safest planes of inquiry first. One could not simply glimpse all the planes at once when dealing with a cursed ring.
Cursed artifacts were always, always booby-trapped on top of whatever curse they bore. Hidden sigils that would drive one mad, energy traps that would siphon away power, and runaway reactions that would consume all the object's power in one go and explode with great violence. There were many, many tricks to forging a magic ring and the master arcanist knew them all.
As Charlot inspected the cursed ring, he formed a mental picture of the one who'd crafted it. It was simple, yet expertly executed, no frivolous ornamentation, and the deep groove surrounding the ring of black diamonds lent a striking contrast to the stones.
Between the restraint, the simple and elegant design, it spoke of an older man, but there was something wild and unrestrained in the black pearl he'd chosen, the bands of bloody red running through it. Highly ostentatious! There had to be a wild streak, running through that crafter’s rigid control.
He pictured the craftsman with some affectation, an ear full of golden rings perhaps, or some gaudy tattoo. Something to set this one apart. He had a need to be different.
Charlot looked at the sun; it was after noon. He knew he ought to bury the ring and come back for it if he wanted to have any hope of catching the boy. But he shook his head at the thought. Not a chance. He could no more pass up the opportunity to tinker with the dangerous ring than he could stop his own heart.
"Do you know, friend Korak, that I have slain twenty-one magicians worth naming. It is a tiny number compared to the Leaden Inquisition of Haraleed the First, where hundreds were slain. And that was but a pittance before the disastrous fourth battle of Grimbalgon, where we lost thousands of magi. It's quite a dangerous occupation. Yet, if you take all those disasters and throw in old age for good measure…still! You will not even touch the number killed by that greatest of all mageslayers…" Charlot's voice grew deep and theatrical.
"Curiosity," Charlot concluded, and the bear sneezed out a great clump of dust, rather spoiling the dramatic effect. Charlot rolled his eyes as the bear went back to digging.
"Now, little ring, reveal your secrets to me," Charlot whispered, and in a series of gestures, he covered himself with shimmering wards of protection, then he delved deep into the magic of the ring.
The artificer who'd made the cursed ring was a talented one, indeed, and his traps were subtle. They led one to believe they were on the right track to disarming them, and then AHA! The fool would be tricked into putting on the ring.
Should an investigator try to simply dispel them, it would trigger the main sigil. The ring would detonate in a grand plume of extra-dimensional flame that would devour everything for fifteen paces in any direction. Charlot swiftly revised his picture of the ring’s creator. Though the ring’s outer design showed restraint, within it was almost grotesquely powerful. Tremendous energies were bound within the band.
For a moment, Charlot stopped and pondered it. Why imbue so much power into a ring that was just meant to kill thieves? With exquisite care, he unraveled the three false traps. Each was meant to break the will of a meddler in a different way, but the result would be the same. They would don the ring.
With the lesser traps defeated, Charlot could begin to work on undoing the sigil of annihilation, carefully subverting its energies so that it could not fulfill its purpose and explode. The day wore on as Charlot stood straight as an oak, his hands moving in slow, measured gestures as he plucked at the arcane bonds.
The ring hung in the air now, suspended by Charlot's will, and he thought that he had the right combination to release the doomsday sigil without destroying everything in sight. If another archmage had made the ring, Charlot would never have dared to try and undo the trap here in the middle of a potato field with only the most cursory wards protecting him. But Charlot was certain whoever had made this cursed ring, though talented, was no master.
Drawing a deep breath, Charlot invoked three words of power. The ring burned in midair, purple-black flames tapered to an unwavering point like a candle's flame. Every fleck of dust and mote of dirt had been disintegrated, and the ring shone as bright as the day it was forged.
Like a key turning in a lock, he felt the doomsday sigil disarm. The unmoored energy boiled off. He could walk away, and the ring would fall in the dirt and slowly burn away to nothing, never to curse another.
Of course, that would never satisfy the master arcanist. He wanted to understand why this queer ring had been made, to learn all its secrets. His eyes flashed with prismatic light, and Charlot inspected the ring in earnest.
The deeper he looked, the more questions he had. The ring was tied to a plane known as Yala, a realm of burning darkness, where the thoughts of terrible beings tore through very substance of the plane in shuddering arcs of heat lightning, birthing demons in their wake. Being caught in one of those thoughts was like drowning in a wave of molten lead.
Yala was not a plane most magicians meddled with. If you wanted destructive power, why not go right to the eternal burning of the Allflame, or the limitless light of the Godplane? If you wanted something slow and painful, why not the poisoned light of the humming hills of Gamayain?
All were far easier to bind into a ring than the fickle nature of the shadowflame. And why so much power? A tenth of the energy would be enough to kill an ox.
Charlot peered into the spiraling cage of arcane force surrounding the ring, and into the mysterious black pearl, and then he noticed something he'd never seen before.
The ring wasn't simply meant to kill. It abducted the wearer. Through Yala!
Charlot's wild eyebrows arched, and he had to reappraise his picture of the craftsman. He could see it now. One would don the ring, and it would tear them screaming through the burning darkness of Yala, arcing through the plane as bitter lighting. They would then emerge at the ring's destination, bewildered, and potentially half-cooked. The ring wasn't meant to kill, it was meant to capture. At once, he understood why the creator had chosen to draw people through Yala rather than the Demiplane.
When great magicians wanted to travel great distances in a short time, they strode through the Demiplane, where form and shape could be molded by the mind, and the difference between one step and a thousand was just a matter of imagination and willpower. Demiplanaar travel was as safe and as predictable as could be hoped for when one was tearing through another dimension composed of an entirely different sort of reality. Indeed, if you wanted to abduct mundanes, you could make a ring that ripped them through the Demiplane far easier than this monstrosity.
But you could not trap magicians this way. Any true magician would recognize right away they were in the Demiplane, and they would turn their will against any force trying to steal them away and defeat it. A second-year apprentice could escape such a ring. Not so for this clever little curse.
Now that Charlot understood the mechanism, he peered for any sign the ring would do something once it reached its destination, perhaps send its subject into a deep sleep or otherwise incapacitate them.
There were none. So, the wizard responsible was secure in his power, arrogantly so. So, why had it failed to drag this skeleton’s body back to its destination? Where was it meant to steal them to?
More arrogance, the destination wasn't even obfuscated. Charlot could keenly perceive the ring's intended destination, far to the west, a dungeon in a dead magma chamber at the feet of Urth'Wyrth. A place of gleaming obsidian, worked all over with wards and runes of containment.
"Swallow the Stars," Charlot cursed, and Korak cocked an ear, perhaps understanding this was an oath. "How many of these rings did this monster make?"
Small wonder the wizard who'd made these could expend so much energy making them. He was capturing magicians and stealing their power. He likely gave the emptied husks to the volcano afterward, hedging his bets for favor with the Demon beneath the Mountain.
Now, Charlot really wondered. How old could this corpse be? He lifted the skeletal hand again, but the fact that all the flesh had been burnt off the bones made it difficult to tell. Normally, bones would rot within fifteen years, but burnt by the shadowflame, and a magician…who could tell? Likely less than a century based on how far down the bones were, but even that was no certain thing. Shifts in the earth could spit bodies back up or drag them down below.
It was entirely possible the one who made the ring was still alive, still capturing fools and sucking the life from them. Now, Charlot knew where to find him. How terribly careless he was!
Only the old ones, great powers such as Charlot could dare to be known, and even then, it had taken twenty-one fools to secure his position. A lesser magician, such as the ring's crafter, ought to hide lest the wolves find his door.
Already, Charlot was considering it. What rare books might he find if he destroyed the ring's maker? What wealth was hidden away beneath the earth? He nodded, his lower lip jutting. He'd already made up his mind to rid the Arc of this pretender.
Eventually.
For now, it was time to see if he couldn't make a few changes to the cursed ring. He had no use for a ring that delivered him into the jaws of a foe.
Delving deeper into the sorcery of the ring, Charlot understood why it had burned the wearer to death instead of teleporting them to Urth'Wyrth. The wizard who'd designed it clearly hadn't expected anyone to carry it so far away from his lair.
They were five hundred leagues from Urth'Wyrth, and Charlot didn't think anyone could survive a jump of more than five leagues through Yala. The ring had summoned the energy to teleport the one who'd donned it, attempted the jump and failed, and then all that energy had nowhere to go save bleeding back through the wearer. The otherworldly fire had burned them to the bone.
Slowly, Charlot subverted the action of the ring. One at a time, he bent the sigils within the ring so that, by degrees, he completely unraveled its purpose. He worked slowly and meticulously, shaping the enchantment, and beads of sweat rolled down from his brow, but he never flinched, never blinked.
The slightest misstep would destroy the ring, and likely him as well. At last, he twisted the last link of power into place, and the purple-black flame twisted back in itself and entwined around the ring like a serpent, finally drawing back into the golden surface. Charlot reached out and plucked the ring from the air, anxious to see if he'd succeeded.
"Do not be alarmed, Korak," Charlot ordered, and he put on the ring, holding his breath for an instant. There was always the chance he'd blundered. When he did not burst into flames, Charlot concentrated on a spot across the clearing, and then he disappeared in a whorl of purple-black fire and reappeared in a burst of flame across the clearing.
Wisps of smoke trailed from him, and he had a singed, unearthly smell to him. Korak bellowed in surprise and bolted, running to hide behind a massive old oak tree. Even the grand old oak could only hide half of the bear. Charlot could see his blurred mass cowering.
"Korak! Come back, you coward! It worked!" Charlot shouted, unsteadily. He needed to remember to don the ring of protection on his other hand before he put on the shadowflame ring next time. Even a short trip through Yala was anything but pleasant. How wearying to subvert the curse, yet how satisfying to succeed!
Korak peeked his nose around the tree and, snuffling the air uncertainly, and then, finally, he peeked around, his eyes wide with alarm.
"Don't worry, I won't make you try it," Charlot said, but the bear still looked leery.
Charlot eyed the oak tree. How good it would feel to sit with his back against it and shut his eyes!
"Perhaps, just a brief rest," Charlot muttered. They'd spent much of the afternoon on potato hill. Yet, if he stopped to rest now, he might as well turn back, there would be no finding the boy. Still, there was one more labor to do before he could leave the clearing.
"Help me fill in this hole, Korak. Let them rest," Charlot said, and he kicked dirt over the skeleton of the hapless thief. Korak trundled over, snuffling, and peering at Charlot. Charlot made a few gestures, trying to get the bear to help, but Korak rolled his head from one side to the next. He couldn't get it. The bear could understand digging up the earth to get food out but could not wrap his mind around putting the dirt back.
Then, Korak barked in sudden understanding, and a tremble shot through Charlot's whole body at the great volume. What a bear! With two great paws together like a plow, Korak drove a great heap of dirt into the pit, and then Charlot stepped on it until it was flat.
"Rest at last, thief. I suspect you may be avenged before all is said and done."
Charlot retrieved Flaccaro and tucked the reborn shadowflame ring into his left pocket, keeping the ring of protection in his right. He climbed back onto Korak, and the potato-stuffed bear plodded forward, toward what remained of the day.