Sohna and Vivian - My Brother's Keeper

“What is it?” she asked him. “What’s the matter? Do you know something about this?”

“We’re cursed!” she finally understood him saying.

Great, she thought, resigned. But she also suspected he knew more about this curse stuff than he’d told her.

“Wolf, does that tower have something do with it? With the curse?”

“Oh, Virginia, I’m so sorry ...” he wailed.

“Wolf!” She shook him. “What do you know about this?”

“Oh, I knew this was a bad idea for us to come here!” he went on. “I knew it! Why didn’t I listen to myself? Why ...”

“WOLF!” she shouted. What was the matter with him? Couldn’t he hear her, she wondered? Just being around the ghost tower was making the hair on her neck stand up. Wolf’s reaction was scaring her even more. “Stop it!” she cried. He needed to tell her what he knew about the curse. She couldn’t stand not knowing what might happen.

“And why did I have to bring my succulently sweet wife along?” he queried himself. “Oh, I’m so bad, so bad ...”

His words touched a nerve.

“Well I’m sorry you don’t want me around!” she cried.

“A wolf always follows his instincts, and did I do that?” he asked rhetorically. “No!”

He was totally ignoring her, she realized, tears stinging her eyes. It was as if she weren’t even there. As if they’d turned into someone’s parents, she thought bitterly, then choked. Well aren’t we? she wondered. It occurred to her then what a real wolf’s instincts would inevitably be.

“You’re not interested now that I’m pregnant, are you?” she demanded to know. “You’re getting a child; that’s what you really cared about.”

“And the cub too!” he went on. “Oh, cripes, what am I going to do? I don’t deserve to be a father after what I’ve done, putting my own cub in danger, no sirree!”

Virginia burst into tears.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. That dream she’d had was what had first started her to realizing it. Before that they’d been on their honeymoon and he’d managed to force himself to make love to her. But that was before she’d started to ‘show’ at all. Her body hadn’t looked any different then. Now she looked shapeless and undesirable. Last night at the inn he finally hadn’t been able to pretend anymore. And it was only going to get worse!

“Oh, this is awful, Virginia!” he wailed on, his own voice choking. “I knew I never deserved to live happily ever after!”

Her anger flared.

“Well I’m sorry!” she shouted at him. “It’s not like I have any control over it! I’m going to get big and huge and ... and FAT!!! So I’m sorry you have to be burdened with looking at me!”

“I’ve been bad ...” he wailed on. “I’ve done such bad things ...”

“Well you should have thought about that to begin with!” she went on, choking on the words. “I didn’t get pregnant by myself!”

“Oh, cripes ...” he moaned, and threw himself on the ground, sobbing.

A small part of Virginia’s brain told her that she was being ridiculous, that of course Wolf loved her and wanted the baby, and that his present behavior was suspiciously strange. But she just hurt so badly she could hardly stand it. Her old fear of abandonment had returned with a vengeance and now it was even worse because, in loving Wolf, she’d lost all the protection she’d built up over the years to shut it out. She could already envision him gone; her life bereft of him, alone and lonely; such emptiness ... What emptiness? the tiny remaining rational part of her asked. It hadn’t happened yet ... but it would! ... No! It wasn’t her, it wasn’t happening! What was going on? There was a curse ...

Cursed! Yes! She would be cursed to live her life without him! How could she live, knowing that?

Those were not her thoughts. In all her years of loneliness and wasted existence, she had never once considered suicide; knew she wouldn’t even now if the worst happened and, God forbid, something happened to Wolf. Would she?

It will be lonely, so lonely ... all I loved ... gone ... The overwhelming sense of pain and loss threatened to engulf her. She could barely breathe. Maybe it would be better if she died with him, she thought. She wasn’t that old, only twenty-one. It would be years, eons, until she died a natural death. How could she go on, with no one? How could she live with the emptiness, it hurt so badly ...

No. That wasn’t true. Even if he were gone, she’d have the baby. What was she thinking? She’d never leave the baby; she couldn’t, no matter what. It was hers and she loved it and she would never do that, ever!

With that realization, something seemed to snap loose inside her heart. She understood that she’d been afraid, terrified of doing just that - leaving her child as she had been left - but she also knew now those fears were groundless. She trembled and her tears continued to fall, but the tightness in her chest had abated, and with it the cloak of superimposed emotions, though she could feel them still, around the outer edge of her soul, hovering. She took a deep breath.

I need to look at that tower, she thought. But the thought brought with it an old fear dredged up by the powerful force still surrounding her: At the moment, she was still facing Wolf, crying and writhing on the ground in misery. She’d have to turn her head to see the tower. Suppose he was gone when she looked back?

No, that’s silly, she told herself, but her fear held her paralyzed. This is crazy! she thought, but it did no good. All right then, what worked before? She’d thought about the baby. Yes! She knew her own child would never leave her; she remembered how she’d felt about her own mother, even knowing everything she’d done. Her baby would love her always. She put a hand on the small bulge in her stomach. Then, with a supreme act of will, she jerked her head around to look at what the presence didn’t want her to see.

Emptiness ... pain ... longing ... hurt ... anger ... fury ... poured from the dark ghostly windows. The intensity of emotion nearly overwhelmed her, but she held on tight to that little corner of reality - the piece of herself that she’d just discovered that wanted and needed to become a mother. That’s the curse, she realized. It takes you over. Wolf ...

It was easier to look back towards him than it had been to look away, though not much. She was too afraid he’d really be gone. No, that’s not right, she thought. It just wants me to be afraid.

He was, of course, still there, as she’d rationally known he would be. And now she could see his reaction not as a response to her presence, but for what it was: the effect of the curse upon him.

But what can I do? she wondered. I don’t know how to break a curse! I’m resisting it a little but it’s not like it’s gone! Still, she knew she had to do something; she couldn’t just stand there and watch Wolf suffer. If she could resist it a bit on her own - with the baby’s help, she smiled to herself - maybe she could help Wolf resist it. Maybe that would make it a little easier on both of them.

Her feet felt like lead weights as she walked to him; it seemed to take forever. She crouched down beside him, her heart wrenching at his agony. But what should she do? Instinctively she reached out to touch his face, but stopped short. What if he recoils at my touch? she wondered. What if he really does find my pregnant body repulsive? The tightness clutched at her chest again and she felt lumpy and enormous. Some men were like that, she knew. She’d heard about them somewhere ... from somebody ... once.

Some men? she demanded of herself. What does that have to do with Wolf? But the feeling refused to leave; it just stayed there like a nagging itch. Even telling herself she knew it was the curse doing it did no good. Finally she resorted to what had worked for her before. It’s his baby too, she reasoned. He’ll love it no matter what he thinks of me.

She’d intended to place his hand on her stomach, though she knew she wasn’t far enough along to feel any movement herself, much less have it felt by others, but she figured it might symbolically help him to battle the artificial loneliness. Plus, she reasoned, it was always possible he could sense something about it that she couldn’t. During the last full moon, he’d told her he could hear the baby moving around, for instance. But he’d been wringing his hands so energetically that she had a hard time trying to get one away from him and when she finally wrestled him for possession, she ended up with her face only inches from his.

He still couldn’t see her - his eyes, red from the continuous crying, were focused on some horrible imaginary event. His face was twisted in a grimace of emotional torment, the creases at the corners of his eyes black in the dim light, his jaw set, his lips slightly parted. Without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him.

The loneliness, which had been screaming at her even then that he would turn away in disgust, vanished in a hiss of white noise. Virginia’s ears popped. She felt Wolf jerk beneath her hands.

“Virginia!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around her and embracing her tightly.”Oh, Virginia!”

She hugged him back, letting the relief wash over her, exhausted. He sat holding her possessively in his lap, rocking himself back and forth, until long after she fell asleep.

The ghostly tower had vanished.

Upon a hill in the world of old
Sleeps a story that remains untold;
Sit back, you must learn this lesson well -
Of a kingdom cursed by a great spell...

Imagine a land, fair and serene
Where lived the dryads, gentle has been;
But the peace there was to end quite soon
Come Midwinter's Eve, full of the moon.

Of the kingdom that once had thrived
In the end, not a creature survived;
The land turned barren, desolate, dry,
Out of the dark came a piercing cry.

The Basquel Queen, near her time to end -
A broken heart that would never mend -
By her hand, seeing her love's great pain,
Determined to save what did remain.

In whispered voice, with her final breath
The grim promise she sealed with her death -
She gathered her strength, her eyes now closed
And wove these last words, so full of woe:

“My love, my hate with this one last spell
I curse your people and hide them well;
And I promise you with all my heart
But a child twixt two may break apart.”

“It’s not all there,” said Tony.

“What?” asked Wendell.

“I said it’s not all there. Look.” He unfolded the by now dog-eared scrap of paper he’d copied the fragments of the prophecy onto that they’d found in the king’s records room, and slapped it down onto the table next to Wolf’s discovery. “There are words at the end of this one that aren’t in that. See? It says ‘one last spell’ right there on both copies.” He pointed. “Then it also says ‘promise’ and ‘my heart’ on the same line, there, on both of them. But on the one I made, it has more words after those that don’t appear on this. See? It says ‘kingdom fell’ ... ‘hand’ ... ‘his life’ ... And then farther down it says ‘must’, ‘peace’, and ‘Ere’. Part of this is missing!”

“Well I don’t see what we can do about it,” declared Wendell a bit petulantly. “The representative from the Wizard’s Council should be here at any moment. The fact that they’ve agreed to interact in world affairs regarding this matter at all is nothing short of amazing. It’s highly unlikely they’d agree to reschedule, and I know their representative is not going to hang about while we search up the missing part.”

“And we’re not going back there anyway!” Wolf put in. “We barely made it out as it is. If it weren’t for my lovely Virginia, we’d never have broken the curse.”

“Well, you did break it,” Tony pointed out.

“Dad!” Virginia exclaimed.

“It’s a curse, Tony, it’s not the measles,” his son-in-law informed him. “Just because you get over it once doesn’t mean it can’t strike you again.”

“Yeah, Dad,” added his daughter. “Go break another mirror and see what happens.”

“Oh,” he said, chagrined. Somehow he hadn’t thought of the mirror incident as being the same sort of curse, but he supposed it was. A curse is a curse is a curse? he thought.

At that moment, the butler entered and announced the arrival of the visiting wizard. He straightened up, expecting to see a figure that resembled his vision of Merlin - a skinny old man with a waist-length grey beard, wearing long rune-covered robes and a conical hat, possibly carrying a staff with an orb set into it. Instead he was positively dumbfounded to discover that the wizard was a rather short blonde woman of about his own age, wearing one of those forties-style dresses he’d seen at Kissingtown and carrying a Siamese cat on her shoulder like a baby. She ignored him utterly and walked up to the king.

“Your Highness,” she said with a slight incline of her head.

Wendell nodded back.

“Milady,” he said in return, “We’re honored that you have consented to help us.”

“I haven’t consented to anything yet,” she reminded him. “I just want to make that clear. I only said I’d look at it.”

“Yes, of course,” purred the king. “Would you prefer to see it right away or have someone show you to your chamber ... ?”

“I’d like to get started right away,” she said briskly, “But I’m not ready to look at the document quite yet. Where are the ones who discovered it? I’d like to meet them.”

“I guess that’s us,” Virginia piped up.

The woman ... wizard ... wizard-woman’s eyes snapped to his daughter. “And you are . . ?” she prompted.

“Virginia,” she said, as Wendell rushed into the breach.

“My step-sister,” he clarified.

The wizard-woman’s eyes widened in mild interest as she looked from Virginia to the king and back again. Wendell went on, “And this is her husband, Wolf. They discovered it together.”

The mild interest deepened into surprise, and what looked to Tony a bit like dismay.

She stared at Wolf curiously a moment, then hefted the cat and made a gesture with her hand. For a moment, Tony wondered if she’d cast some sort of spell, but Wolf merely held his hands out to her, palm up, for inspection. She peered down at them, then looked back up at him, her eyes narrowed, considering. He dropped his hands to his sides, putting one around Virginia.

“You two are the same Virginia and Wolf who helped save the Nine Kingdoms?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Wendell before the couple could speak for themselves.

“Hmmm ... I can see there are a lot more variables to that particular equation than anyone suspected,” she muttered cryptically, giving his son-in-law a significant look. “But no matter. It does put to rest the matter of authenticity.”

Tony’d finally had enough. There was something about her manner that grated on his nerves in the first place, and her suggestion that his daughter might be a liar only made it worse.

“Excuse me,” he said, “But if we’re going to talk about authenticity here, how about you? How do we know you’re really a wizard? You’ve come in here demanding to know who everyone is, but who are you?”

“Antony!” cried Wendell, aghast.

“Dad,” his daughter warned him.

Wolf, strangely, said nothing.

The wizard-woman fastened her attention on Tony. He swallowed, realizing only then what he had just asked for. He could imagine what was coming: Okay, you want proof that I’m a wizard? Poof, you’re a frog. Believe me now?

She smiled.

“You’re quite right,” she agreed. Her voice was quite pleasant. “I hadn’t thought of that, but that is a possibility, so far as all of you know. Except one.”

She turned to Wolf.

“Well?” she asked. “Will you vouch for me then? It would avoid an otherwise rather unnecessary display.”

Wolf fidgeted uncomfortably as Virginia turned to look at him curiously.

“Do you know each other?” Tony asked.

“Oh,” said the wizard-woman, as if she realized her mistake. “No. Not as such. Only in the sense that one wizard knows another.”

Tony’s mouth fell open. So did everyone else’s.

“What?” he and Virginia cried at the same time.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. Tony was too dumbfounded to say anything else.

Wolf cowered like a trapped animal.

“No!” he insisted. “I’m not! Really!”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. He couldn’t recall ever seeing Wolf do even the most minor magic, though he did know quite a bit about it. But that could easily be explained by living around here, he thought. He regarded the woman suspiciously.

“It was my mistake,” she acknowledged. “He’s quite right; he bears nothing but an apprentice’s mark. I didn’t realize that none of you were aware of it. Most of those who leave us bore their associates to tears about the experience. However, he should still be able to verify my credentials.”

“An apprentice?” Virginia asked in stunned amusement.

“Well ... “ her husband whined.

Tony could see that this was going nowhere fast. The discussion was about to degenerate into a long, involved narrative of Wolf’s past history. Not that his daughter didn’t deserve to hear it, he thought, but it had waited this long, so it could surely wait a bit longer. Right now they had more important things to talk about, while the wizard was here. If she really was a wizard, he amended. He still wasn’t fully convinced of it.

“What are you talking about, a mark?” he asked her. “What kind of mark?”

She sighed.

“When the apprentice class first arrives at the Council school, they’re tested. Those with sufficient ability to progress are marked, so that the Council can track the usage of their skill,” she explained. “It’s not a visible symbol; only an individual with the proper ability and training can see it. As higher levels are reached - journeyman on up to full wizard, the marks are altered to reflect the person’s growing ability.

“But the training to see them - all of them - is a part of the initial testing process, so that no one is required to bear, for even a short period of time, a mark they can’t see for themselves. Since Wolf has such a mark himself, I know he is able to see mine.”

The cat yawned and stretched away from her, then butted its head beneath her chin. She nuzzled it back and scratched its ear. Her speech finished, she acted once again as if Tony weren’t there.

He glanced over at Wolf, who was still trying to explain to Virginia why he’d never bothered to tell her what kind of school he’d attended. His son-in-law looked up and, seeing Tony looking at him, said, “She is a wizard, Tony. A necromancer.”

Wendell, who up until this point had probably been too stunned to speak, Tony thought, frowned in disapproval at the remark. She noticed it immediately.

“It’s not what you think it is,” she told him. “Necromancy is essentially a field of divination. Prophecies, especially, are in its domain, as they are descriptions made by the dead of delayed events which affect the living. Those who would raise the dead to be their slaves are not true necromancers, and they are certainly outside the limitations of the Council.”

“Zombies?” asked Tony, aghast. “You mean that’s really possible?”

“Possible, yes,” she replied. “Ethical, no. That’s what the Council is essentially for, to ensure the ethical use of magical ability.”

“But if that’s true, then ...” he wanted to ask how Christine could have gotten so out of control, but decided after he’d spoken that it might be better not said in front of Virginia. The necromancer understood him anyway, though.

“Not all people who have the ability have been trained in the Council schools. Those who are self-taught and do not bear the marks are known as witches. Whether they use their powers ethically or not is entirely up to the individual. Without the marks, the Council has no means of recourse,” she explained. “Now, before we become embroiled in a detailed discussion of ethics - or someone’s personal history” - she said pointedly to Virginia and Wolf - “Shall we get to work on this prophecy you’ve discovered?”

Her manner was that of a teacher trying to keep her class on task. Tony realized only then that that was probably what she was: a teacher of magic, yes, but still a teacher.

“Yes, Ms. Wizardess,” he said somewhat sourly, under his breath.

“There is no such word as wizardess,” she lectured him. “I’m a wizard. The term is gender-neutral. But,” she relented in a less formal voice, “It would be a lot easier if you would all just call me Samantha.”

After Wolf and Virginia had related their tale of what had happened during their journey, interrupted frequently by Samantha to ask questions, she’d examined both the draft Wolf had found in the underground room and the copy Tony had made of the fragment in Wendell’s records room. By then only Tony was left in the room, as she had promised to let Wendell know as soon as she’d come to a decision about it. Virginia and Wolf had said they’d wait until then to find out as well.

“You’re quite right,” she agreed. “Part of this is missing.” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the table. “Strange.”

“What’s strange?” asked Tony, trying not to get a mouthful of cat fur in the process. When she’d begun to study the written ‘documents,’ as she called them, she’d promptly handed the animal to him. He’d been surprised, wondering if it was her familiar, but she’d only scoffed at the notion, saying something about the humane treatment of animals - and informed him that no, Lucent was only her sweetie-pie. The endearment had sounded so incongruous coming from the lips of this otherwise no-nonsense woman that he’d had a hard time not laughing at it. But he hadn’t dared to even chuckle because Lucent was staring at him: a hard, considered stare that said he’d been evaluated thoroughly and found lacking. Apparently, though, not too lacking because at the moment the cat was nestled tightly against his cheek, purring loudly and vigorously.

“Well,” she said, answering his question, “It’s in such good condition - and it doesn’t look torn.” She bit her lip. “Considering all the other magic associated with it - the forget spell and the curse - I’d have to say the omission is deliberate. Though I can’t think why. It’s far easier to make the entire thing inaccessible to anyone than it is to hide only a part.”

“Maybe it wants to send us on a wild goose chase?” Tony asked.

“Maybe,” she acknowledged. “Though we could do that easily enough ourselves with the wrong interpretation. That isn’t the only possibility here, though. There could very well be a third party involved.”

“A third party?” he asked. “You mean the person or people who started the curse and the prophecy and the forget spell and all that, us, and someone else trying to throw a wrench into the works?”

“No,” she told him. “I was thinking more along the lines of whoever wrote the prophecy. That wouldn’t have come from the same source as everything else. If you’re going to all the trouble to cast a forget spell and a curse to keep people from knowing something, you’re hardly likely to write up a prophecy to remind them about it. If whoever it was had sufficient power, they could have initiated some counter-measure for the original spell.”

“A counter-measure?” he asked, remembering something Christine had told him in her dream. “Would this have anything to do with something called Guardians?”