Curselock

Chapter 278: Book 5 Epilogue

Soaring through the wide, open sky, Zeke found his target after nearly two days of nonstop flying. If there was one good thing about being a summoned creature, having your summoner as an energy source was it. As long as Leland was healthy, so was Zeke. Finalizing his descent, he allowed the air to lift him gently down, his wings ruffling along with the wind.

Attached to his leg dangled a rolled piece of parchment, one that Leland had carefully written and tied to Zeke. And while the crow did not know the note’s content, he had watched his summoner smile to himself as he wrote it. That, along with his summoner’s orders, was all Zeke needed to understand the mission.

This note was for his girlfriend.

And while that wasn’t a problem, Zeke did need to consider the difficulty of his quest. Leland’s girlfriend was the Queen, after all, a woman under guard and situated in the heart of a fortified city, within a castle whose wall had yet to fall. Even when a Harbinger knocked at the gates, the citadel stood tall.

“Just sneak in there,” Leland had told the bird, as if it was that simple.

Zeke had almost rolled his eyes at his summoner, but he knew complex gestures such as that would alert his summoner to his actual intelligence. He felt it strange, hiding things from his summoner, but such was the nature of crows. Resourcefulness wasn’t just a description for humans, and acting like a dumb bird had helped insulate Zeke from annoying conversations and over eager bears.

Shivering, Zeke remembered the look the bear known as “Gelo” gave him when they were first introduced. If Leland was powerful and unique for a human, then Gelo was the exact same but for beasts. Until he could fend for himself, Zeke would keep his intelligence hidden. He did not want to get tangled into doing things with the only other “smart” animal around. His murder of feathered friends was the only pack he needed… at least while the bear was relegated to the ground.

If Gelo could learn to fly, then it might be wise to introduce her to the flock…

A shrill whistle sounded against the rushing wind. Looking down, Zeke saw the City of Ivory Reach, or at least, the bones of the Dead Lord that encompassed the city. It seemed, since Ashford’s attack, the city had stepped up its defenses, adding guards on top of the Lord’s bones.

A small barracks had been erected on what remained of the sternum, the cracked and broken ribs making real estate somewhat limited. Standing around the barracks were troops and guards split into separate units, each practicing, training, or sitting around entertaining themselves… all except for one.

Zeke and the young man locked eyes, the young man having already spotted the crow and blown a whistle. Like headless chickens, the whistle set the nearby guards into motion. Panic ensued, as well as a few stand out operations. While few in numbers, those who reacted to the threat of the summoned, ethereal crow circling their Queen’s castle did not pull punches.

Fireballs, arrows made of arcane will, blasting waves of shearing wind, even an attack that tugged at Zeke’s very essence lit up the sky. The spells, while variable and quite deadly, were nothing for the relatively small bird. For once, Zeke felt gratitude for his size and didn’t think rude thoughts about his summoner’s capabilities, the ease of dodging potentially quest-ending attacks all but making up for the fact.

Though, if Zeke had the choice, he’d want to be bigger. The size of a roc or maybe a phoenix. Yeah, being the size of either of those would be nice.

As he dove under the sternum of the dead Lord, thus removing the threat of being shot out of the sky, Zeke mused about his summoner’s breakthrough with ether. Maybe, just maybe, he actually could be summoned the size of a phoenix. Maybe even larger if his understanding of ether was true. It had been awhile since Zeke properly took flight in his true body, and seeing the look on that conniving bear’s face when his wings blotted-out the sky would be the highlight of the century for him.

With these thoughts, once again he realized just how lucky he was to have been paired with Leland. He was a good summoner, even if he got in his own way quite often.

The infiltration of the castle continued, and quickly Zeke’s high hopes for a challenge were banished. It seemed, at least to him, Ivory Reach put too much trust in the dead Lord’s bones as defenses. While they might be impervious to an enemy sieging the city walls, they sure weren’t to a small bird that loved to fly.

That was, until reality parted directly in front of him, swallowing him before he could properly react.

“Get it!” a voice shouted. “Quickly before it can—”

Zeke thrashed, all hope of a peaceful entrance gone. Talons met skin and beak pecked at eyeballs. If he died here, his death wouldn’t be the end. He’d be kicked from this world back to his own, only to be resummoned by Leland a moment later. But that would mean he’d have failed his mission, and if there was one thing he was not going to do, he wasn’t giving the bear reason to be smug.

Gelo doesn’t fail missions, Gelo gets stuff done, Gelo is the best beast around— Zeke tuned out his own insecurities, focusing instead on the battle—

“Got it!” someone yelped, snatching Zeke from the air like a falcon capturing a dove mid flight.

Held upside down like a perched bat, Zeke let out many caws and attempted to peck the man who held him. His attacks were thwarted by his own spine! The dang thing couldn’t bend the way he needed to draw blood from the man’s hands.

“Good job Roy!” a man who looked strangely like Zeke’s own summoner said. “Wait… is this one of Leland’s birds?”

Caw!

The man holding him pulled back his arm, holding him up to his eyes. He had a big, dirty beard with bits of food lodged deep within the curly, brown hairs. “Now that you mention it, maybe?”

Zeke lunged, aiming for the man’s eye. The man easily pushed out his hand, creating more than enough distance. “Haha, silly fella.”

“I think that’s one of Leland’s. Is that a note?”

Caw! Caw! Caw! Zeke thrashed with all of his might! Even if these people knew his summoner, the note was for his girlfriend’s eyes only! Caw! Caw! Caw!

The man holding Zeke peeled off the note, unfurling it with one hand. But, before he could read it, a voice cut through the air.

“Don’t!”

It was rough and scratchy, as if the vocal cords that produced such a sound were not accustomed to speaking a human tongue.

Everyone froze. But the man who looked like Leland thawed the fastest. “Don’t what?”

Zeke forced himself to speak, even though it ruined his game of resourcefulness. “The note is not for you!”

“Who is it for?”

“My summoner’s girlfriend.”

“Leland?”

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Zeke’s head hung slack. His mission was over, he had lost. Sneaking into the castle was no longer possible. He could see that accursed bear’s snarky stupid face! Gah! He hated to lose, especially when it was so embarrassing!

“Yes,” he said defeated, like a pouting kitten. “D-don’t read the note, please.”

The man who looked like Leland and the man named “Roy” shared a look, each shrugging. Roy then released Zeke, allowing the gift of uncaged flight to be returned to the crow. He fluttered to the nearest table, perching as proudly as he could.

“Do you have a note for me?”

Zeke tilted his head. “Who are you?”

“Leland’s father, Spencer.”

“Ah.” The bird poured over what to say, eventually going with the truth. “No.”

“Sent his girlfriend a letter before his own dad? What kind of ungrateful—” Spencer shook his head. “What’s in the note?”

“A report.”

“What kind of report?”

“Positioning update.”

Roy squinted at the bird. “Are you lying?”

“No,” Zeke replied blandly.

“Okay, I believe you.”

Zeke blinked slowly. “Thank you?”

“Your welcome,” Roy said, nodding to Spencer.

Leland’s father sighed loudly, snatching the note and rolling it back up without reading it. “Want me to re-tie it?”

Zeke nodded slowly. And just like that, the quest was still on.

“How’s he doing? I mean, how are all of them doing?”

Not seeing any reason that Leland would hide this fact from his own father, Zeke said, “Leland recreated a long forgotten secret form of magic taught to him by several Lords and an immortal alien man named Walker from world Alpha.”

No one spoke.

No one at all…

Then Spencer sighed, saying, “It’s always something with him. Does he eat? Sleep?”

“He does not sleep. He found a magical way not to. As I understand it, he is the only one of the group, including the bear, who is able to go without sleep. He eats. Jude brought plenty of snacks.”

“That’s my boy!” Roy said proudly.

With his fingers pinching the area where the bridge of his nose connected with his eyes, Spencer asked, “By bear, do you mean Gelo or Floe?”

“Gelo. Floe became a Lord with Leland’s voting authority.”

“His what?” Both men screeched, their jaws slack.

Zeke looked between them. “As a potential candidate for Lordship, Leland has the authority to add call votes between other Lords. In this case, he bartered the Claim of the Sightless King to put the Guardian Spirit Beast known as Floe onto the list of candidates for Lord of Dungeons. The Lords then voted, taking Floe in as one of their own.”

Spencer had upgraded from pinching his nose to harshly rubbing his temples with both hands. To Zeke, this looked rather painful. Roy, on the other hand, had begun to laugh. Zeke could see the relation between him and Jude now. Frankly, it was frightening.

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“And Gelo?” Spencer asked after a moment of listening to his friend’s laughter.

“That smug little cub? What about her?”

“What’s this?” Roy asked, wiping a tear from his eye. “You don’t like little ol’ Gelo? Why not?”

“She is insufferable,” Zeke answered, his “S”s coming across as miniature caws. “All she does is stand there and look cute while I circle overhead to protect everyone! Even Jude is on constant look out for threats, and he’s always playing a musical instrument!”

“Hey Spencer?” Roy asked. “Can crows have crushes? Because I think this bird has a crush on Gelo.”

“I do not!” Zeke screeched, flapping his wings. “Take that back right this instant!”

“You know,” Spencer mused, “I was going to say he was a little envious, but now that you mention it, yeah, I think he does.”

“Jude was the same way when he was ten or so,” Roy reminisced, looking thoughtful. “I remember he punched that one neighbor girl…” He snapped a few times. “What was her name? Her sister was the Legacy of Spiders?”

“Lina?”

“Yes! Lina! I remember when Lina’s sister pounded on my door with her little sister in hand. She had a bloody nose and claimed Jude did it. And when I questioned Jude about it, he said he hated her and her stupid face. Later, I asked Leland and Glenny about it when Jude wasn’t around, and both swore that Jude had a crush on Lina and didn’t mean to punch her. He was trying to come off as macho, and accidentally slugged her!”

Roy started laughing again.

Spencer and Zeke stared at him. “I see the family resemblance,” the bird muttered.

Getting up to open a window, Spencer asked, “Anything else you think you should tell us about our sons?”

“They are heading into the Gru Triumvirate as we speak.”

Both parents huffed out a suffering sigh. “Of course they are. Even after everyone they know warned them not to.”

Zeke nodded. “Isobel attemped to sway him as well, but failed. Luckily, she has decided herself to be Leland’s personal guard, following him everywhere.”

“I hope not to the bathroom!” Roy laughed.

Spencer asked, “I’m glad they found Isobel, but why is she doing that?”

“She thinks Leland is special, too special to be let off the leash, so to speak.”

“Wow!” Roy continued. “Never thought I’d see the day when a bird uses an idiom!”

“Wow!” Zeke mimicked. “Never thought I’d see the day when someone like you knows what an ‘idiom’ is!”

Roy’s laugh evolved into a full on cackle.

“That confirms it, you’re Leland’s. Banter like that could only be created by a lifetime of friendship or being raised by a group of lifetime friends. It seems you are the latter,” Spencer said.

“Can I go now?”

Spencer gestured to the open window, allowing Zeke to continue his mission.

The castle came into view sitting against a backdrop of the setting sun. Even with a cracked sternum overhead, the castle’s imposing silhouette only reminded the Palemarrow citizens, and its enemies, that the castle was both heart and soul of this budding nation. They did not fall during Ashford and the Sightless King’s attack, they would not fall to whatever may come next.

A grand staircase led Zeke up into the pruned courtyard. To the bird, the lack of natural trees and bushes made him shake his head. But, then again, he could see and understand the wealth, time, and patience the gardeners put into their works of art. From trees that were shaped explicitly like triangles to bushes that were perfectly round, the courtyard projected both might and opulence.

Zeke flapped his wings, gaining height as he shot for an open spire window. He neither looked at nor cared to study his surroundings, his mission suddenly becoming far more dangerous. He was in, and that meant close quarters and plenty of guards.

Room after room he went, scaring maids and whomever may be around. But Zeke didn’t have time to apologize, not that he would anyway. The first sign of trouble was as primordial as it got, an age-old issue that humans had been struggling with since they first put up four walls and a roof.

A locked door.

Zeke did not have thumbs and he did not think his summoner’s girlfriend would be thrilled with him destroying the door to get this message to her. This was her home, and while he was infiltrating, he couldn’t just do as he liked… could he?

Briefly, Zeke pondered if he should look for an alternate route to find the Queen. But as he thought about it, he realized an important fact. He did not know where the Queen was. Breathlessly and without speaking, it was time to alert his summoner and ask for help.

Zeke brushed his and Leland’s connection, pulling the human’s attention from traveling to that of the castle.

“Oh, you made it!” Zeke heard his summoner say, his voice appearing inside his ethereal head like it was one of his own thoughts.

It was a strange feeling, but such was the dynamic of summoned creatures. What would be their point if the summoner and summoned couldn’t communicate with one another? Not every bird was as smart as Zeke, a fact he would never forget.

“Sybil’s room should be a hallway past that door,” his summoner said. “Can you get through there?”

Zeke gave the door one last look over, eventually giving Leland the equivalent of a shake of the head through their bonded connection.

“Hmm okay. You are going to have to backtrack some—”

Zeke was already off, flying out the way he came into a crossroads of hallways, paintings, and over the top grotesque rugs. Whoever, in Zeke’s opinion, thought those diabolical rugs were worth stepping on should be fired. He almost shivered from the use of green and pink, whatever the creator was going for, this was definitely not it.

“Left. Two hallways down. See that staircase? Yeah, go up a floor then a right. Then there’s a laundry chute—” Leland stopped himself, watching Zeke move through the castle through Zeke’s own eyes. “Go down a floor and exit the chute. Then straight ahead, and you’re there!”

Zeke paused, something ahead catching his attention. What was that? Some kind of snack table? There were plenty of fruit and nuts—

“Ah, that’s the shrine I made for the Lord of Magic. Neat isn’t it?” Leland said.

Stopping himself from eating an offering for a Lord, Zeke reminded himself just where he was and who he was partners with.

“That’s Sybil’s room right in front of you. You may have to knock.”

The bird took a deep breath and tapped his talon against the wooden door. The sounds produced were quiet, but still, whoever laybeyond heard.

“Enter.”

Just how was Zeke supposed to do that? Again, he didn’t have thumbs. He knocked again.

“I said enter!” the voice called again.

Zeke knocked again.

“Enter!” the voice yelled.

Zeke smashed his hard beak onto the door.

“Oh for the love of—” Things shifted beyond the door, footsteps sounded not a moment later. With a mighty pull, the door swung open. “Hello—”

Zeke scampered in, taking flight and quickly passing the young woman before she could close the door in his face. He took a second to look around, finding a dinner table set for one and a half eaten roast chicken. Past that, the room was just another room. Boring and bland, no sticks, no nesting feathers. He didn’t like it.

He cawed.

“How did you get in—” The Queen stopped herself. “Wait, Leland?”

No, I am Zeke, he thought, knowing his summoner was watching. He couldn’t exactly talk now, could he?

Instead, he cawed, loud and proud.

“Not Leland? But you are one of his crows, right?”

Caw.

Through their connection, Leland said to Zeke, “Push the fork off the table, she’ll know what it means.”

Zeke did that, but internally he was frowning. He was no dang house cat. Pushing things off tables was their job. But still, he did it, and the look on the Queen’s face was both amusing and scary. How was this his summoner’s partner? She stared at him like he was a misbehaving child with nine heads!

“Why did you do—” Sybil stopped herself. “Oh. Ooooh. Leland can see through your eyes?”

Zeke bobbed his head.

“O-okay… strange. Where is he?”

Zeke stuck out his leg, showing off the tied note. Taking it from him with gentle fingers, the Queen plopped down on a couch and got to reading. Judging by her expression, he could tell exactly what part of the note she was on.

Zeke had been there when Leland wrote the note so he understood which parts were written to be funny or cute, informative or purposefully obtuse and short. Forgetting about the description of ether, how Floe was now a Lord, and the whole thing with that strange parasite woman-creature-thing, Leland had purposefully left the bit about heading toward the Gru Triumvirate until the very last sentence.

Sybil pursed her lips once finished, staring daggers at the bird. “This is the first letter you send me? An update!? Not a ‘Dear my dearest Sybil, everyday we spend apart my heart breaks’ kind of letter!?” She threw the paper at Zeke.

“How stupid—” Whatever angry words she was going to say, she swallowed like molten lead. After a deep breath or two, she said, “Thank you for the update. I-I’m just worried. I saw the reports from both Tears and, well, I’m not surprised trouble has followed you. But that’s who you are, you have to be the reincarnation of trouble incarnate.”

Zeke quirked his head to the side, feeling his summoner’s emotions bubble through their connection. What was he supposed to do in this situation? Rub his head on her hand? No. Zeke was putting his foot down, he was no dang cat!

“Can…” Leland spoke directly into his mind. “Can you rub your head against her like a cat?”

Zeke froze, terrified that Leland could read his mind. No, no that wasn’t possible. Not unless he learned psychic magic in these few days they’ve been apart… which, actually now that Zeke thought about it, was possible. Contracts were too versatile.

Restraining himself, Zeke just cawed. If he ignored Leland’s request long enough, surely he’d forget about it… right?

…Right?

Deep within a previously thought impossible desert of black sand, a creature feasted on various bits of meat and fonts of mana within a deep hole. Where exactly this creature was, no one knew, for it had destroyed all of the humans who knew this particular hole’s location. Not that it mattered much, anyways.

Not unless it was being hunted by him.

They had fought once before, he was responsible for its lame leg. It was healing alright, considering that the local sources of mana were mostly dried up, but still, the fact that it lost its leg at all was a deafening blow to its confidence.

Confidence that had been rekindled after years of suffering. It was alive! It was independent! And most importantly, it was unshackled by the cage of mundane white gloves. No longer did it have to be worn, no longer did it have to be used.

It smiled in delight, at least until it remembered him.

After their first scrape, it thought he’d be an easy target. It would show up, kill him, then depart without a worry and with a meal unlike any other.

Boy, had it be wrong.

As a parasite, it didn’t have memories like normal humans. Most, if not everything, was done by instinct. It retreated when hurt, it ate when hungry, it murdered when bored… it followed the scent of good mana when on the move.

Or at least, it used to.

The man had appeared in its mind every time it caught a whiff of a mage. No one had yet come close to how perfect his mana smelled, but all reminded it of him… specifically of how the sky lit up purple, of how the world moved to his command.

It had wanted to attack right then and there. He was a threat, and it was better to take him out now, right? It wanted to, it truly did. But instinct told it “NO!”

Its legs refused to move, its magic refused to gather. In that moment, it felt like the humans it hunted, like moths trapped in a cage lit aflame. Death was coming for it if it moved to kill him. Absolute death, there would be no coming back this time. No one to reforge what was left of its husk-like soul… that was, if it had a soul at all any more.

So it decided, then and there, that it would forget the human named Leland and live out its life snacking on whatever poor sap it came across.

And there it sat, covered in blood and bits of flesh and bone, eating its feelings like a petty teenager. It chomped and chomped, slurping the stringy parts and gnawing the tough parts. It devoured everything, bone, intestines, clothes, even the jewelry some wore. Nothing was off limits when it came to its stomach, an empty pit, it was. A never ending—

Crack!

It stopped, pain erupting through its jaw. Like spitting out a corn kernel, the parasite spat a wad of red flesh, pale, chewed up bone, and a coarse golden ring. That was strange, it had eaten gold rings before. What was different—

Oh.

It held the ring up to its eye. “You in there brother?” It gave the ring a little shake. “Can you hear me? Hello? Are you defective? Parasite hello?”

It hummed to itself, popping what remained of the human’s finger out of the ring. It put the ring on, a sudden surge of energy encompassing it like static before a lightning strike. The ring grew hot on its hand, parasite clashing against parasite.

They warred, internally and but for a moment. The ring was weak, or rather, the parasite that inhabited the ring was far, far less powerful as the parasite inhabiting a human body. And yet, the ring was hundreds of times more powerful than any normal human.

As the parasite crushed the parasite in the ring, consuming its essence and power, it couldn’t help but think of Leland, the man of its nightmares.

Power bloomed within its body, and for the first time since the night of purple skies, it didn’t see itself as dying by his hand but rather eating his hand. It cackled, a path forward opening before its very eyes.

All it needed was more parasites to feed on. All it needed was to collect more power.