original story: Point of Origin (part 2)
Here's the second part of the tale about a pirate, his weapon, and the witch that cursed him foul. (part 1 is here)
Title: Point of Origin
Rating: Arrr (R, for violence)
Note: Mine. Please don't copy
They did follow my rapid steps and breathlessly bade me enter the monstrosity of stone masts and decking that had impeded my path, declaring that it was the parking garage they spoke of. Flame-colored lanterns eerily illuminated the dark recesses, casting long-toothed shadows to match my mood. Within its bowels I heard a slow clap of three, and by the time I neared on the last clap, I discerned my prey. Her palms, barely equal to the task of clapping, were no longer fit to touch a face. If blood ran through those gnarled appendages, it was scant indeed. One glance at her face betrayed a vision most foul.
My companions did gasp, and the curly-haired one marked her as my foe by saying, “She’s the one who sold it to me!”
“And she’s the witch who cursed me,” I replied.
It was the same woman, but time had gnawed her and left nothing but the faintest morsels on her bones. I could see the sinew moving her limbs through skin pale as parchment, where it wasn’t covered by rags and wraps, and she ambled forward with fragile steps as she let her hands drop heavily to her sides.
“I am a witch, as was my mother before me,” rasped the creature that approached us.
She stopped and gazed at my companions, who had whipped curiously small flat boxes from their garments and were tapping them rapidly with their thumbs. Her eyes rolled in her head and then rested their sight on me.
“The world has changed, and I have seen it, but it marks me not with death. Not yet. I would say ‘welcome’ and be courteous, but my eyes smart at the sight of you,” she said. “They have their excuse of foolishness, growing up in such an age. E’en so, the chit did do me well, bringing you to me where I could see my handiwork.”
The curly-haired one did look up and protest, claiming she did not know the woman was a witch. I knew she had not by her tone and her tears, and as this foul woman had possibly killed me, it would have been no great measure of her skill to fool the girl. Still, I put aside the girl's rants of innocence and concentrated my thoughts on what the witch had said.
“Your handiwork? And what spell have you wrought, witch? What is this place? And why am I in such clay as this?”
She smiled, or tried to. It was not pleasant to behold.
“I am what I am. It would have been kinder to slit your throat and be done, but I had to be true to my mother’s teachings. I did visit upon you the evil you did bring upon me. I took your future and twisted it.”
“I spoke not but the truth. You are a witch as you have proved by your work. You would not have made a good wife for my friend, but instead would have ruined his life with your black arts.”
“I would have been a mother!” she shrieked. “I was with child when you told him what I was, and he cast me out as nothing. I lost my child in the streets, birthed too early to live and breathe. Others struck me down, grieving as I was, and laughed at me. I knew rage then and remembered my magic. I killed them and ate their hearts and livers for their trespass. I grew stronger and decided you would pay dearly for the loss of my womb by intimately witnessing the death of your own flesh and blood.”
I tried not to gag at such repast, and looked about for the others to make words of comfort to them for hearing such evil as she spoke, but they had fled already on soft feet.
“I followed your ship’s travels for a year and plenty to catch you unawares,” she said, continuing her rant. “I waited until you came to Alexandria again and were full of the grog and hunting a bedmate before I made myself known to you. You did not know me as you knew me in bed, and I did keep your seed in me as I slit your throat. I cursed us both then, me to live as long as your kin did and you to remain bound to the blade I killed you with. Now the one you inhabit is the last and I need wait no more. I die when she does, as she will have no child while you are within her. And you will reside within her as long as she lives, now that she has been near the blade.”
She cackled then as hen does over a nest of eggs, but all I saw were vipers near her bosom.
“So you killed me? That I can trust. But you shackled me to the blade?” I studied the weapon and felt no different. “ I cannot believe you, yet this place is fantastic. How many years have passed?” I asked.
“Two hundred and more.”
I gasped. “For someone thrilled with vengeance, you waited most patiently.”
“More than I had counted on. I birthed your child and left it on the doorstep of those I knew to be childless. He was raised as their own and eventually took a wife. Wars interceded and I did lose track of your bloodline. Finally I decided I had had enough and began to whittle them down.”
“You killed our children?”
“I do not claim them. Their blood and mine shall never mix, to my benefit. They meant nothing as I have no ties of heart to them, but I was caught with blood on my knife and the magistrates of the time felt pity for such a creature as me, obviously addled in the head.”
“Obviously,” I growled.
She laughed. “They put me in prison for the rest of my life rather than hang me, but I wouldn’t die. Eventually they lost my name and crime and did release me. By then I had honed my skills to kill without discovery. I have slain all that you could name as kin. This one is the last.” She shuddered, as if with ecstasy.
“Wretched woman! How can I believe you?”
“Draw the blade against your palm.”
I did, and to my surprise the cut appeared not only on my hand but on the witch’s.
“She is the last. As she dies, I die.”
“If that’s what it takes,” I said, readying my blade to my throat.
“Ah, but there’s a catch. You will live in her until her body dies, and then you will be back in the blade, only this time I won’t live to shroud you in sleep and keep fingers from you. You will feel the flesh of those who hold you, feel their thoughts as you scream in silence from within your prison of dark cold metal.” She cackled again as she marked my shocked state. “Enjoy your life in your kin’s body while you can, but every hour it ages hastens your own awaiting hell.”
I was no man of action then. Her words were hard to grasp, yet the feminine flesh I resided in, the very heart I felt beat within my breast was not my own. Somehow, someway, the witch had told me true. And it was monstrous. How could I make straight this twisted fate? I did not want to die entombed in metal, if I died at all.
Two shadows rose from behind her, something smaller between them. By the time I recognized my companions, they had loosed the contents of the pail in their hands, dousing the old witch with water.
The impact sent her to the ground, but her screams of outrage let us know she was still with the living.
“I thought that would work,” said the one dressed as a ‘hore.
“It did in the Wizard of Oz,” said the other.
“Run!” I cried, as the witch did recover enough to snatch at them. “Do not let her touch your flesh!”
They shrieked and scattered, hitting the witch with the pail as they dropped it. Down she went again, cursing most foully.
Moved by their brave deed, I decided inaction only fed the witch’s joy. Blade half raised, I did think then to end her life and possibly the curse, but she raised her head and sneered at me.
“And what would that accomplish? It would hasten my death, to be sure, but strike me down and that clay dies. Kill me and she dies too.” She laughed again as she spat water from her cracked lips. “It will only hasten your damnation.”
My legs did give as if I were astride a deck on rough seas, and I did drop the dagger and reach for a nearby mast in needs of support. The cold touch of that stony beam did give me pause. I was alive. I could feel, but at what cost? The trap was neat and did not invite escape. A child of mine, my last child, did forfeit her own existence as long as I breathed within her, and the witch was bound to her as well. In cursing me, the witch had cursed my blood, and I would have none of it. My child deserved to feel the ocean’s spray and have her hair whip wildly in the wind, to taste a kiss on her own lips and feel her heart race with love and joy. But how to free my child from a foul deed of revenge, a curse that had no answer?
The cold beam sucked the heat from my hand and made my bones ache. No, her bones, I amended. This strange mast must be strong indeed to hold decks of stone apart and aloft, and my gaze turned heavenward as I pondered the structure we were in. It dawned upon me that such a mast would not feel the sting of metal. Indeed, metal would be the loser in any argument between them. But would my sacrifice be enough?
“You can’t run away,” the witch taunted as she awkwardly rose to her feet. “Heaven cannot help you either,” she said, mistaking my upward gaze as a plea for help. “She only needs to be near the cutlass and you reside in her. Take her away from it and you choose your prison early for you will follow the metal where it goes.”
And there it was, my answer. Destroy the cutlass and she would at least be free of my presence. I silently praised a God I did not know well for having pity on my child. Then I did fill myself with the calm demeanor of resignation and stood steadily to face the demon of my past.
I caught the eye of the curly-haired wench, decided she and her companion were far enough away, and nodded. “Be with her and drag her away from here, from this witch and from this blade, and I will be eternally grateful.”
Before the witch could suspect my actions, I swung back my weapon as if to fell a telling blow, praying my child’s arms had the strength I needed to cut down my enemy’s plan. I even gripped with both hands to ensure the outcome.
The witch stepped back a pace, as instinct bade her save what skin of hers remained.
I swung and turned on my heel all of an instant. When the cutting edge struck against the stone, it sparked once and shattered. There was a stinging sensation and then I knew the world no more.
-*-
Title: Point of Origin
Rating: Arrr (R, for violence)
Note: Mine. Please don't copy
They did follow my rapid steps and breathlessly bade me enter the monstrosity of stone masts and decking that had impeded my path, declaring that it was the parking garage they spoke of. Flame-colored lanterns eerily illuminated the dark recesses, casting long-toothed shadows to match my mood. Within its bowels I heard a slow clap of three, and by the time I neared on the last clap, I discerned my prey. Her palms, barely equal to the task of clapping, were no longer fit to touch a face. If blood ran through those gnarled appendages, it was scant indeed. One glance at her face betrayed a vision most foul.
My companions did gasp, and the curly-haired one marked her as my foe by saying, “She’s the one who sold it to me!”
“And she’s the witch who cursed me,” I replied.
It was the same woman, but time had gnawed her and left nothing but the faintest morsels on her bones. I could see the sinew moving her limbs through skin pale as parchment, where it wasn’t covered by rags and wraps, and she ambled forward with fragile steps as she let her hands drop heavily to her sides.
“I am a witch, as was my mother before me,” rasped the creature that approached us.
She stopped and gazed at my companions, who had whipped curiously small flat boxes from their garments and were tapping them rapidly with their thumbs. Her eyes rolled in her head and then rested their sight on me.
“The world has changed, and I have seen it, but it marks me not with death. Not yet. I would say ‘welcome’ and be courteous, but my eyes smart at the sight of you,” she said. “They have their excuse of foolishness, growing up in such an age. E’en so, the chit did do me well, bringing you to me where I could see my handiwork.”
The curly-haired one did look up and protest, claiming she did not know the woman was a witch. I knew she had not by her tone and her tears, and as this foul woman had possibly killed me, it would have been no great measure of her skill to fool the girl. Still, I put aside the girl's rants of innocence and concentrated my thoughts on what the witch had said.
“Your handiwork? And what spell have you wrought, witch? What is this place? And why am I in such clay as this?”
She smiled, or tried to. It was not pleasant to behold.
“I am what I am. It would have been kinder to slit your throat and be done, but I had to be true to my mother’s teachings. I did visit upon you the evil you did bring upon me. I took your future and twisted it.”
“I spoke not but the truth. You are a witch as you have proved by your work. You would not have made a good wife for my friend, but instead would have ruined his life with your black arts.”
“I would have been a mother!” she shrieked. “I was with child when you told him what I was, and he cast me out as nothing. I lost my child in the streets, birthed too early to live and breathe. Others struck me down, grieving as I was, and laughed at me. I knew rage then and remembered my magic. I killed them and ate their hearts and livers for their trespass. I grew stronger and decided you would pay dearly for the loss of my womb by intimately witnessing the death of your own flesh and blood.”
I tried not to gag at such repast, and looked about for the others to make words of comfort to them for hearing such evil as she spoke, but they had fled already on soft feet.
“I followed your ship’s travels for a year and plenty to catch you unawares,” she said, continuing her rant. “I waited until you came to Alexandria again and were full of the grog and hunting a bedmate before I made myself known to you. You did not know me as you knew me in bed, and I did keep your seed in me as I slit your throat. I cursed us both then, me to live as long as your kin did and you to remain bound to the blade I killed you with. Now the one you inhabit is the last and I need wait no more. I die when she does, as she will have no child while you are within her. And you will reside within her as long as she lives, now that she has been near the blade.”
She cackled then as hen does over a nest of eggs, but all I saw were vipers near her bosom.
“So you killed me? That I can trust. But you shackled me to the blade?” I studied the weapon and felt no different. “ I cannot believe you, yet this place is fantastic. How many years have passed?” I asked.
“Two hundred and more.”
I gasped. “For someone thrilled with vengeance, you waited most patiently.”
“More than I had counted on. I birthed your child and left it on the doorstep of those I knew to be childless. He was raised as their own and eventually took a wife. Wars interceded and I did lose track of your bloodline. Finally I decided I had had enough and began to whittle them down.”
“You killed our children?”
“I do not claim them. Their blood and mine shall never mix, to my benefit. They meant nothing as I have no ties of heart to them, but I was caught with blood on my knife and the magistrates of the time felt pity for such a creature as me, obviously addled in the head.”
“Obviously,” I growled.
She laughed. “They put me in prison for the rest of my life rather than hang me, but I wouldn’t die. Eventually they lost my name and crime and did release me. By then I had honed my skills to kill without discovery. I have slain all that you could name as kin. This one is the last.” She shuddered, as if with ecstasy.
“Wretched woman! How can I believe you?”
“Draw the blade against your palm.”
I did, and to my surprise the cut appeared not only on my hand but on the witch’s.
“She is the last. As she dies, I die.”
“If that’s what it takes,” I said, readying my blade to my throat.
“Ah, but there’s a catch. You will live in her until her body dies, and then you will be back in the blade, only this time I won’t live to shroud you in sleep and keep fingers from you. You will feel the flesh of those who hold you, feel their thoughts as you scream in silence from within your prison of dark cold metal.” She cackled again as she marked my shocked state. “Enjoy your life in your kin’s body while you can, but every hour it ages hastens your own awaiting hell.”
I was no man of action then. Her words were hard to grasp, yet the feminine flesh I resided in, the very heart I felt beat within my breast was not my own. Somehow, someway, the witch had told me true. And it was monstrous. How could I make straight this twisted fate? I did not want to die entombed in metal, if I died at all.
Two shadows rose from behind her, something smaller between them. By the time I recognized my companions, they had loosed the contents of the pail in their hands, dousing the old witch with water.
The impact sent her to the ground, but her screams of outrage let us know she was still with the living.
“I thought that would work,” said the one dressed as a ‘hore.
“It did in the Wizard of Oz,” said the other.
“Run!” I cried, as the witch did recover enough to snatch at them. “Do not let her touch your flesh!”
They shrieked and scattered, hitting the witch with the pail as they dropped it. Down she went again, cursing most foully.
Moved by their brave deed, I decided inaction only fed the witch’s joy. Blade half raised, I did think then to end her life and possibly the curse, but she raised her head and sneered at me.
“And what would that accomplish? It would hasten my death, to be sure, but strike me down and that clay dies. Kill me and she dies too.” She laughed again as she spat water from her cracked lips. “It will only hasten your damnation.”
My legs did give as if I were astride a deck on rough seas, and I did drop the dagger and reach for a nearby mast in needs of support. The cold touch of that stony beam did give me pause. I was alive. I could feel, but at what cost? The trap was neat and did not invite escape. A child of mine, my last child, did forfeit her own existence as long as I breathed within her, and the witch was bound to her as well. In cursing me, the witch had cursed my blood, and I would have none of it. My child deserved to feel the ocean’s spray and have her hair whip wildly in the wind, to taste a kiss on her own lips and feel her heart race with love and joy. But how to free my child from a foul deed of revenge, a curse that had no answer?
The cold beam sucked the heat from my hand and made my bones ache. No, her bones, I amended. This strange mast must be strong indeed to hold decks of stone apart and aloft, and my gaze turned heavenward as I pondered the structure we were in. It dawned upon me that such a mast would not feel the sting of metal. Indeed, metal would be the loser in any argument between them. But would my sacrifice be enough?
“You can’t run away,” the witch taunted as she awkwardly rose to her feet. “Heaven cannot help you either,” she said, mistaking my upward gaze as a plea for help. “She only needs to be near the cutlass and you reside in her. Take her away from it and you choose your prison early for you will follow the metal where it goes.”
And there it was, my answer. Destroy the cutlass and she would at least be free of my presence. I silently praised a God I did not know well for having pity on my child. Then I did fill myself with the calm demeanor of resignation and stood steadily to face the demon of my past.
I caught the eye of the curly-haired wench, decided she and her companion were far enough away, and nodded. “Be with her and drag her away from here, from this witch and from this blade, and I will be eternally grateful.”
Before the witch could suspect my actions, I swung back my weapon as if to fell a telling blow, praying my child’s arms had the strength I needed to cut down my enemy’s plan. I even gripped with both hands to ensure the outcome.
The witch stepped back a pace, as instinct bade her save what skin of hers remained.
I swung and turned on my heel all of an instant. When the cutting edge struck against the stone, it sparked once and shattered. There was a stinging sensation and then I knew the world no more.
-*-