David Wells - Cursed Bones

With a heave, he dragged her from the bunk and tossed her roughly onto the floor. She fell hard, knocking the wind from her and adding a bruised hip to her injuries.

“Let’s see, these must be your things, yes?”

Lacy didn’t answer.

He took up her pack and dumped it out on the table, carelessly tossing her possessions onto the floor until he found the little black box wrapped in a square of cloth. He set it on the table and carefully unwrapped it, taking pains to avoid actually touching the box itself.

“Pity I don’t still have the wizard,” he muttered. “His talents might have been useful right about now.”

After a few moments of looking at the seamless box from every angle, Rankosi hauled Lacy to her feet and roughly sat her down on the bench facing the table.

“Open it.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Try.”

“My hands are bound.”

He unwound the cord from her wrists, setting her hands to tingling.

“Open it!”

She clenched her jaw and shook her head.

He put her hand on the table and raised his club over it. She whimpered, clenching her eyes shut but still shaking her head.

Bones shattered as he brought the club down on the back of her hand. She cried out, pain like nothing she’d ever felt coursing up her arm, filling her shoulder and chest, ripping through her flesh and threatening her very sanity. In the back of her mind, in a place she didn’t even know existed, she thought about all of the people on Fellenden who’d suffered similar torture, or worse. Before this moment, she didn’t know that anything could hurt so much. She gasped for breath, pain threatening to overpower her consciousness, but her resolve held firm.

“Open it!” Rankosi demanded in a harsh whisper.

“No!” she shouted through tears and torment.

He grabbed her broken hand and squeezed.

She gasped again, agony flooding into her as broken bones scraped together. Darkness closed in around her and she drifted off into peaceful oblivion.

***

Pain returned before consciousness did. She was floating in that halfway place between sleep and wakefulness, pain surrounding her and engulfing her until she came fully awake with a start, gasping and whimpering at the sudden onslaught of torment from her broken hand.

“Ah, you’re awake,” Rankosi said, “seems I might have hit your friend here a bit too hard. He’s still out cold. So where were we? Ah yes. Open the box!”

“I can’t,” Lacy whimpered. “I don’t know how.”

“Try.”

“No.”

“You’re stronger than I would have thought,” Rankosi said. “Perhaps I’m going about this all wrong.”

He drew a knife and carefully, slowly placed it at Drogan’s throat. “He’s nothing to me but a body. Open it or I’ll kill him.”

Lacy swallowed and shook her head.

Rankosi smiled wickedly and his arm started to tense.

“Stop!” Lacy said.

“Yes?”

“He didn’t do anything to you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He doesn’t deserve to die.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“This is between you and me, leave him out of this. He can’t hurt you, he’s totally defenseless.”

“Yes, he is. Now open the box or he dies.”

Lacy struggled to regain her feet, wincing when she started to use her broken hand for leverage. She staggered to the bench and faced the little black box. Her father had entrusted her with this task, she couldn’t let him down, yet a man’s life hung in the balance. What would her father do? What would he expect of her?

He’d always taught her to value life above all else. She closed her eyes tightly, tears slipping down both cheeks as her resolve faltered.

Tentatively, cautiously, she reached for the box with her left hand. It felt cool to the touch. She tried to lift the top of the box as if it had a lid with hinges, but nothing happened. She picked it up and carefully looked it over for any sign or seam, but found nothing. She slammed it against the table-still nothing.

“I don’t know how to open it,” she said, hanging her head.

Rankosi stared at the box for several seconds.

“Place your hand on it and think of it opening,” he said. “See it open in your mind.”

Lacy did as he instructed.

Nothing happened.

Then it started to glow. She snatched her hand back, staring in wonder at the symbol that had become visible on all sides of the box.

Rankosi smiled in triumph.

“Place your hand on the box and say the word: Ruminoct.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means: Open. Now, do as you’re told.”

She reached for the box again, her hand shaking visibly, and spoke the ancient word.

For a fraction of a second she felt like it might open, but then it recoiled as if it sensed her duress. The little box went suddenly dark and lifeless.

Rankosi snarled in anger, raising his club to brain her in sudden fury, but then mastered himself just as quickly.

“What does he know that I don’t know?” he muttered to himself, staring off into the distance. “He could have simply killed the girl and had the box delivered to him, yet he chose …”

Drogan rolled over, drawing a dagger in a single smooth motion, and plunged it into the heart of the sailor, killing him in an instant. A faint black shadow drifted out of the dying man, floating up through the ceiling.

Drogan staggered to his feet and nearly fell again as he found the bench.

“How badly are you hurt?” he asked, burying his face in his hands.

“My hand is broken,” Lacy said. “He hit you really hard.”

Drogan nodded, gently prodding the lump on the back of his head. “Give me a minute to get my bearings and I’ll see if I can do anything for your hand,” he muttered.

She nodded, looking helplessly at her broken hand.

A few minutes later there was a loud pounding at the door.

“Open up in there,” an angry voice said.

When they didn’t immediately respond, the pounding grew louder.

“Open up, right now!”

Lacy looked at Drogan, then at the corpse on the floor as the door burst open and two men entered, followed by the captain.

“I heard a scuffle,” a sailor said. “Came to you with it straightaway, Captain.”

Lacy thought the voice sounded familiar.

“I’ll not tolerate murder on my ship,” the captain said.

“But he was possessed,” Lacy protested.

The captain eyed her with a confused frown.

“I’ve heard a lot of excuses in my time, but that’s a new one on me. Take them to the brig. We’ll sort this out once we’re sure they can’t do any more harm.”

***

They spent the night in cold, cramped cages that shared a wall of bars. Dinner was a moldy piece of bread and a cup of water. Lacy was miserable. Her hand throbbed with pain that wouldn’t let her sleep. The guard ignored her pleas or threatened her when she didn’t relent.

Drogan just curled up on the floor and went to sleep. She didn’t understand him, but she had to admit to herself that she was glad he was still with her, even if they were locked in cages.

Morning came and two men hauled her out of her cell to face the captain. They took her to a little room and sat her roughly in a wooden chair. The captain and first mate sat behind a table facing her. Both guards took positions behind her on either side of the door.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the captain asked.

“The man came to our quarters and attacked us,” Lacy said, holding up her broken hand as evidence. “He was possessed by a creature that’s been hunting me for weeks.”

“Possessed?” the first mate said. “By what, a shade?” he laughed.