The Cursed Read online

  The Cursed

  Dave Duncan

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  THE YEAR ZERO

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  BOOK FIVE

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  BOOK SIX

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  BOOK SEVEN

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  THE YEAR ONE

  CONTENTS

  THE YEAR ZERO

  BOOK ONE, the book of SHOOL, who is Time, the Slow One, stealer of youth, guardian of what has been and what is to be, maker of ends and beginnings

  BOOK TWO, the book of IVIEL, who is Health, Star of Evening, bringer of wounds and sickness, Star of Morning, the Healer, the Comforter

  BOOK THREE, the book of MUOL, who is Passion, the Red One, bringer of love and hatred, maker and destroyer

  BOOK FOUR, the book of AWAIL, who is Change, the Inconstant One, the Fickle One, Ruler of the Night

  BOOK FIVE, the book of OGOAL, who is Chance, the Swift One, the joker, spinner of fortune

  BOOK SIX, the book of JAUL, who is Thought, who is Reason, the Bright One, dispenser of truth and falsehood, maker and breaker of law and justice

  BOOK SEVEN, the book of POUL, who is Destiny, the Great One, giver of life and death, the Mover, Queen of Days

  THE YEAR ONE

  Dedicated to

  Eileen Capes and Cliff Samuels

  with much gratitude for

  all their help & encouragement

  THE YEAR ZERO

  In the year 1222 by its own reckoning, the city of Qol was sacked by the Zarda. Later historians took that date to mark the fall of the Qolian Empire also. In fact the empire had been failing for at least two centuries, rent by war and pestilence, by economic decline and ever-spreading barbarian incursions.

  Even after the capital died in four hard days of fire and slaughter, the great imperial corpse continued to twitch throughout a long and bloody sunset. Warlords chewed chunks out of it to set up independent realms. City fought with city, province with province. Racial quarrels buried for generations arose again. Barbarian hordes settled down to till the soil; starving populations fled their homes to become wandering tribes. A few areas lived on almost undisturbed, happily pretending that nothing had happened.

  At first the people prayed for a Renewer who would rebuild the empire and restore the golden age. Their prayers were answered bountifully. Year after year, self-proclaimed emperors rose and fell. None established a realm that could outlive a good pair of boots.

  As generations passed, the vision of empire faded. The monolithic Qolian Empire became Kuolia, a continent of squabbling kingdoms.

  History posts no milestones, but historians require them, and the sack of Qol in 1222 served as a better landmark than any other. The damage the Zarda had inflicted on the fabric of the city could never be repaired. The Karithian dynasty had ended when Pantholion led his horde up the Sublime Concourse with the head of the boy emperor Iskith on his spear. Flames pouring from the Temple of the Twin God were clear evidence that the world had changed for ever.

  Even the imperial calendar itself seemed to die in the slaughter. The old Qolian reckoning by septiles was abandoned in favor of the Zarda system of counting weeks. People began marking time from the fall, dating events from the sack of Qol. It was as if 1223 had never happened and 1222 was the Year Zero of a new age.

  BOOK ONE,

  the book of

  SHOOL,

  who is Time,

  the Slow One,

  stealer of youth,

  guardian of what has been

  and what is to be,

  maker of ends and beginnings

  1

  In Daling, it began when Tibal Frainith came to Phoenix Street.

  Gwin was helping Tob the stableboy replace the wheat sheaf over the door. She was needed only when a cart came along and threatened to sweep ladder and Tob and wheat sheaf all away together, but her presence discouraged passing urchins from attempting the same feat. Meanwhile, she could clean off the road with a broom—not just because it made the entrance more appealing, but because it meant less dirt to be tracked inside. She could have sent a servant to do all that, but then it would have taken twice as long. She welcomed an excuse just to go outside. It seemed she did not leave the hostel for weeks at a time nowadays.

  Meanwhile, the staff indoors were probably sitting around eating and talking when they should be working. Morning was busy time. The last guests had just left. There was a stable to be shoveled out, water to carry, beds to make, bread to bake, bedding to air, and all the interminable cleaning. The Flamingo Room needed fumigating again, having still not recovered from the sailors who had infested it with bedbugs the previous week.

  Morning sunlight brightened the narrow streets of Daling like a baby's smile. Stonework shone in the color of beech wood. The cobbles were polished little islands, each one set off by dark mire in the crevices between them, giving the roadway a texture of coarse cloth, a cobble carpet, dipping here and there into noxious puddles, although even they reflected the sun. Exterior windows were rare, but a few bronze grilles gleamed joyously; and all the doors were limed to a brilliant white.

  Phoenix Street was occupied by pedestrians and horsemen and much idle gossip. Every few minutes, an ox cart would come clattering and rattling along, usually being chased by small children trying to cadge a ride, being shouted away by the carter. Strolling hawkers called their wares, stopping to talk with the women at the doorways.

  The old wheat sheaf hit the cobbles, disintegrating into a cloud of dust and a mess of rotted straw where Gwin had just swept. She clucked annoyance, and hastened to pass up the replacement bundle to Tob. He took it without a word. Not even his own mother could call him swift. The only good thing about Tob was that he was too stupid to be dishonest.

  She laid into the straw with her broom, spreading it out for hooves and wheels to crumble. She tried not to r
emember that self-same sheaf being hung—thirty-six weeks ago, a day as hot as this one promised to be. She had been helper then, too, but it had not been a half-wit stable boy up the ladder. It had been Carp himself. Now Carp was rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere near Tolamin. Karn and Naln had followed their father. She was the only one left now—widow, bereaved mother, innkeeper, Gwin Nien Solith.

  "Gwin!"

  She spun around, blinking into the sun.

  The speaker was tall, lean, clean-shaven. He bore a bulky packsack on his shoulders. His smock and breeches had never been dyed and now were a nondescript gray. They were ordinary Kuolian garb, yet of an unfamiliar cut, as if they had traveled far from the loom that birthed them. He had steady gray eyes, brown tangled hair, worn shorter than was normal for men in Daling. Bone and sinew lay close under his skin. Yes, tall. He was smiling at her as if the two of them were old friends, close friends. She had never seen him before in her life.

  "I don't..."

  He started. "Sorry! I am Tibal Ambor Frainith." He bowed.

  "Most honored, Tibal Saj. I am Gwin Nien Solith."

  "Yes. I mean I am honored, Gwin Saj." He was blushing.

  Blushing?

  Pause.

  The expectant look remained in his eyes. She could not recall being thrown off-balance like this for years. She did not forget faces. He was at least as old as she was, so why were his cheeks flaming red like that?

  A stranger in town would seek out a hostelry. Carp Solith had won a good reputation for the Phoenix Street Hostel; his widow had sustained it so far. Most of her business came from repeats, established customers—merchants, farmers, ship captains—but first-timers were not rare.

  So why was she gazing tongue-tied at this man? Why was he staring down at her with that blush on his cheeks and that wistful, disbelieving expression in his gray eyes? There was something strange about his gaze that she could not place.

  "The Phoenix Street Hostel," he said in his unfamiliar accent. "Everyone will... Everyone told me that it's the best hostelry in the city, Gwin Saj." He spoke too softly, stood a little too close.

  A lead pair of oxen emerged from Sailors' Alley, with another following.

  "They spoke no less than the truth, Tibal Saj."

  "I need a room, Gwin." He still seemed mildly amused that she had not recognized him. He was a little too quick dropping the honorific.

  "Rooms are my business, Tibal Saj." Why else display a wheat sheaf above the door?

  Tob was still up the ladder, tying the sheaf to the bracket. The ox cart was advancing along the road. Tibal backed into its path, holding up a hand to stop it, all without ever taking his eyes off Gwin.

  "You came by way of Tolamin?" she said. He must have done, to be arriving in the city so early in the day.

  He hesitated and then nodded. The wagoner howled curses at him.

  "How is it?" she asked.

  Tibal blinked and frowned. "Much the same," he said vaguely.

  What ever did that mean? The Wesnarians had sacked it in the fall.

  The teamster hauled on the traces and brought his rig to a clattering halt with the lead pair's steaming muzzles not an ell from the lanky stranger—who still ignored it all, still stared at Gwin.

  Tob came slithering down the ladder, leering with pride at having completed an unfamiliar task. "All done, Gwin Saj."

  "Take the ladder down, Tob."

  "Oh. Yes." The lout moved the ladder. Tibal stepped out of the way, so the team could proceed.

  "You almost got yourself jellied there," she said.

  "What?" he glanced at the cart and its furious driver as if he had been unaware of their existence until she spoke. He shrugged. "No."

  There was something definitely odd about Tibal Frainith, but he raised no sense of alarm in her. Almost the reverse—he seemed to be signaling friendship. Not asking for it, just assuming it. Curiously reassuring, somehow... clothes neither rich nor poor... carried his own pack. Not a rich man, therefore. Soft spoken. Not a soldier. Not a merchant. A wandering scholar, perhaps? At least he wasn't proposing marriage yet. Lately she spent half her days fighting off suitors who wanted to marry a hostel, and she was going to lose the battle.

  She opened the door, setting the bell jangling. "I'll show you the rooms we have available." They were all available, but she would not admit to that.

  He stepped past her. As she was about to follow him inside, a voice said, It has begun.

  Startled, she jumped and looked around. There was no one there. Tob was just disappearing into the alley with the ladder, heading around to the back. The wagon had gone. The voice had not come from Tibal Frainith.

  So who had spoken? Her nerves must be snapping if she were starting to hear voices. With a shiver of fear, she followed her guest inside, shutting the door harder than necessary.

  2

  In Tharn Valley, it began with a bad tooth. Bulion Tharn was no stranger to having teeth pulled. Any man who lived long enough to outlast his teeth had been blessed by the fates—that was how he liked to look on the matter. He had been fortunate in having Glothion around. Glothion was the blacksmith, the largest of his sons, with limbs like an oak. Old teeth tended to shatter when gripped with pliers, but Glothion could pull them with his bare fingers. It felt as if he were about to snap the jawbone and the way he steadied his victim's head under his arm would surely crush some unfortunate's skull one day, but nine times out of ten he could yank a tooth cleanly out.

  This time had been one of the other times. Bulion should have stood the pain a week or two longer, perhaps, to let the rotting molar rot some more. He hadn't. He'd been in too much of a hurry, and Glothion had pulled the crown off.

  That meant real bloodshed. Wosion had insisted they wait three days, until the fates were propitious, and by then Bulion had been almost out of his mind with the pain. It had taken Glothion and Brankion and Zanion to hold their father down while Wosion himself tried to cut out the roots with a dagger.

  He hadn't found all of them, obviously. Now, two days later, Bulion's face was swollen like a pumpkin and nigh hot enough to set his beard on fire. He was running a fever. The pain was a constant throb of lightning all through his head.

  He was very likely going to die of this.

  There were surgeons in Daling. The odds that he could survive the two-day ride there were slim. The odds that any leech or sawbones could help him now were even slimmer.

  It seemed the fates were ready to close the book on Bulion Tharn.

  3

  In Tolamin, it began with a runaway wagon. Two horses came careering down the narrow street in panic, trying to escape from the terrible racketing monster pursuing them. Its load of pottery ewers clattered and rolled; every few seconds another would bounce right out to explode on the stones and splatter contents everywhere. Bystanders leaped for the safety of doorways or pressed back against walls. There was no sign of the driver.

  A child stood directly in the wagon's path, thumb in mouth, an infant clad only in a wisp of cloth, staring blankly at the doom hurtling down upon him.

  The boy's mother rushed out to snatch him away to safety, but her foot slipped and the two of them sprawled headlong together, directly under the plunging hooves. Horses and wagon flashed over them and continued their headlong progress to certain destruction at the river. The woman scrambled to her feet, clutching her child. Apparently neither had suffered as much as a bruise.

  "There!" Jasbur screeched. "You see that?"

  "Lucky," Ordur muttered.

  "Lucky? You call that lucky? I say it's impossible. I say somebody is influencing!"

  Ordur scratched his head and thought about it. He wasn't thinking too clearly these days. "Suppose it could be."

  "Suppose? Hah! You're even stupider than you look, you know that?"

  "You too!"

  "You look like a moron, but you're not that smart. You don't have the brains of a lettuce."

  "You too!"

  That was the b
est Ordur could manage in repartee these days. He knew he was slow. It wasn't fair of Jasbur to call him ugly, though. Maybe he was ugly, but Jasbur was as bad. He was short and bent, almost a hunchback. His face was a grayish, swarthy shade as if it had not been washed for years, and gruesomely wrinkled. The whites of his eyes were yellow; he slavered all the time. Although the fringe of hair around his head was silver, its roots were dark. There were patches of shadowy dark stubble on his cheeks and more on his bald pate. His teeth were nastily prominent, his clothes tattered and filthy.

  The wagon had reached the dock. The horses veered to right and left; trappings broke miraculously to free them. The wagon sailed on by itself, passing narrowly between two moored barges and vanishing into the water. Jasbur crowed witlessly at this further evidence of fatalist influence upsetting the normal probabilities of the world.

  But talk of lettuce had reminded Ordur that his belly ached. He peered up the long street, then down it. There were a lot of people standing around, mostly staring after the wagon. An excited group had gathered around the woman and her child, babbling about their miraculous escape.