black mage

This is a story that I just wrote in the last week, the idea came at me fast, so the writing may be a little sloppy. This is a first draft, so any and all comments are welcome. I'm looking specificly if things are unclear, or if there are plot holes that I have missed.

“Rue-voe"

The man that had laid in the bed across the room from me, his name was Robert. Robert scared me worse than anything else had ever scared me; he scared me worse than I even knew it was possible to be scared. I was afraid, but I couldn’t leave him, I was trapped with him, and I knew that only his slow but inevitable death would relive me of his presence. I would listen to his labored breathing at night. I would hear his sharp, violent coughing that would always strike in the morning. It was always accompanied by blood. Then his raw throat would produce a horribly painful rasping sound, and I could hear with every breath he took that his life was slowly fading from him, like water slowing evaporating from a boiling pot. But it was not fading fast enough, oh god; it wasn’t going nearly fast enough. I had never really been one for praying, but I prayed to the gods for Robert to leave me, I prayed for that damn breathing to end, then maybe my fear would be able to subside. But the gods either didn’t exist or didn’t care, because day after day Robert continued his breathing and his coughing, and I would be forced to watch as his bed cloth became speckled with dark red spots…god, it disgusted me.
Of course I had heard the stories of Rue-voe(1) , everyone has. It is something that parents tell their child about when they are young to keep them scared and obedient. A part of me didn’t even believe that it existed, I did not think that anything so horrible as what had been described to me could possibly exist, at least outside the afterlife of the damned. When I was taken alive, I was not fearful, I was proud of what I had done, I was over-confident, I was a fool. As soon as I was forced into the Red Room and saw Robert, I knew that I had been mistaken. All the pride I had felt left me immediately and I was overcome with fear. Maybe the fear was what caused it, maybe it was the curse, but as they secured me to my bed, binding me down, all I could do was weep, it was all too much for me to comprehend at once. My breathing was restricted to wheezing gasps; I found it impossible to control myself. Rue-voe was real, so horribly real, and was now meant for me.

Rue-voe, the most unholy curse available to a living man, is something that all know of and all fear. The Shaviz(2) told us of the effects of the curse, of the insanity and eventual rot it brings to the body, but the process of how it is performed is only known to those that have undergone it’s cruelty. Rue-voe is not something that can be invoked by a simple incantation or spell; it must take place under very specific conditions with one of the oldest and most heinous rituals. Rue-voe is given its power from the souls of the dead, and those souls are taken from the ones that the victim loves. You die knowing that you are not only damned to die by the power of those that you love, but that they are also damned as well.
The cursed is put in the Red Room, a room that has been magically altered to contain the curse, to hold in the power of the souls that it uses. Within this room there are no windows and no light in the conventional sense. The room itself emits light, but it is a grey light, as if you were to look through a dense fog at dusk. I was placed within the room, and restrained on a bed. The bed was plain, just white sheets and a small pillow. By the end of the curse, the white sheet will become stained red with blood, but at that time the white was a sharp contrast to the gloom in the room, and seemed almost vivid. I was able to move my hands, arms and upper body, but that was all. While in the Red Room, there is no food or drink, once subjected to the curse and through its completion the body no longer needs to eat or drink. I do not know why, maybe because that would provide some small distraction or pleasure while within the Red Room’s walls, something that has no place in this damned space.

The anticipation of the Rue-voe to take effect is horrible, as I soon found out, but I tried my best to stave it off. I tried talking to Robert, as he was the only one that I was able to talk to. Even as much as Robert scared me, in the beginning I was still glad for his company. Robert, he didn’t seem to mind my presence either way, he seemed not to be able to completely grasp the concept that someone else was in the room with him. To his mind, I was just a ghost that was always floating, intangible and distant within the room. He had been within these walls far to long to be able to recognize another human being for what he was, but he could at least talk back then, before his breathing became labored and his throat became like an open sore that was continuingly ripping open from the spasms that would tear through his body.
He talked not to me, not to anyone really, but just talked. At first his stories would be coherent, something that could be followed by the logical mind. He would tell of the ceremonies that he had been a part of, he would tell of the wonderful sights he would see as the smoke from the pipe would take effect, and the magic that the herbs held would overtake his body. He even spoke of love, of his wife, of his daughter. He seemed most lucid when he talked of them. Their names changed every once in while, his wife was called Ann one day, and Susan he next, but he would always describe her in the same way, always the same curly black hair, always the same birthmark on her ankle, and always the same dark green eyes that he would stare into as they made love. He spoke of his daughter, how she delighted in the rituals of the clan. How she would enjoy watching as the older women danced within the fire, protected by their magic, how it would crawl up their bodies and around their arms, how it seemed to be a more suitable dance partner for those beautiful women than any man ever could. Most times he would tell the barren walls the same story over and over again, not knowing that he was continually repeating himself. But it was not as if he could not think of anything new, but as if his mouth was somehow comforted by the repetition of words. His voice would gain a minute amount of force behind them after the third or fourth repetition.
He told the wall of his last day of bliss before his live became the horrible torture of Rue-voe. He said that Susan had been breathing slowly next to him, fast asleep. The blanket that covered them had slipped down to her waste, and exposed her bare breasts, which Robert slowly caressed with his hand. He kissed her on the back of her neck, and watched her sleep. The effects of the magic plant did different things to different people. He and Susan had both taken some of it’s smoke earlier that evening, and now Susan was fast asleep, the plant always made her weary, while Robert was full of energy. The rush he had gotten earlier was wearing off, and now he just felt happy. He knew that the magic that was endowed in the plant would wear off soon, but for now he was more than happy to just lay with his wife and watch her sleep. They had partaken in the magic plant because the leaders had announced that a special honor was to be bestowed upon Robert’s family. Mia, Robert’s daughter, was allowed to try the magic plant for the first time, now that she had become twelve. Mia was allowed very little, as it was custom for a person to build up a tolerance to the magic before being allowed to use it freely.
The barren walls did not respond to Robert’s words, but I did. I knew exactly the honor that was to be given to Robert’s wife and child, the honor of Telugu(3) . Even before his story took the horrible turn I knew it would, I began to cry. Robert could not have imagined what the Shaviz considered to be an honor, but the next morning they came to his home, and took his wife and daughter, saying that they were the only ones needed. Robert did not tell how he found out, how he was able to follow the Shaviz to their secured ritual site, and all my questioning on the subject went unheeded. What he did talk of was the site of his wife and daughter, along with five other women, two adults and three children, stripped nude and standing near a large stone slab. They stood there as the first women was lead to the stone, and seemed to willing lay on her back as the Shaviz, all dressed in the ceremonial garments and chanting some horrible curse, took their knives and began their work on the woman. They put a knife through each palm, one through each foot, and then inscribed a bloody sigil on her abdomen. Throughout the entire process, neither the woman on the slab nor the ones standing near moved an inch. Robert could not understand how they could watch his with no fear, no revulsion, but I knew. They had been placed under a powerful hypnotic spell that kept them, for all intents and purposes, brain dead. They were little more than puppets, moving only with their strings were pulled.
As soon as the sigil had been carved into the woman, the chanting turned from a monotone hymn to a loud yelling. As soon as the Shaviz did this, Robert felt something pass through his body, like being struck by lighting. It was the soul of the woman being forcibly removed, and the power of it being transferred to those in the ceremonial garments. Robert had foolishly reviled himself after seeing what the Shaviz intended to do to his family, but was no match against the power of the Shaviz. His wife and daughter stood motionless as he was dragged away, screaming for them to run and crying in his desperation.
Robert had broken the rules, he had resisted the decision made by the Shavizs, and had fought back. That had been almost a year ago. He had been thrown in the room as an example of those that would disrupt the natural order of things, but of course the Shavizs did not tell us the real reason Robert had tried to kill them. They had told the rest of the clan that he had become jealous of their power, that he had wanted it for himself. I believed it myself, at first that was; it wasn’t until I found out the truth, that it was Robert’s sorrow, not his rage or jealously that brought him to consider murder, that I started to believe in his cause. It wasn’t just in this room that our lives had come together, but our fates had been the same.
I know all this, I know how the Shaviz did this and why, because I was an apprentice. I was one of the chosen, from a family with noble blood, to become, in time, a Shaviz myself. The secret of the Shaviz power was reveled to me once I had been selected, and it was at that time I began thinking about how to stop the revolting ritual. At first all I did was watch the ritual of Telugu, and study the way it was preformed. In the beginning I shrank away when the women were brought to the stone slab, but eventually I became numb to the sight, knowing that it was the only way I could try and stop it. Eventually, when the Shaviz thought I was ready, I was told I would become one of them, and be granted the magic and power that they had.
I did not sleep at all the night before; I replayed over and over again what I planned to do in my head, trying my best to stay focused and confident. Eventually, dressed in my new garments, I was presented my opportunity. I was given a knife to pierce the bewitched woman’s flesh, but I turned it on the Shaviz. In their start I was able to kill two before they could subdue me with their magic.

I tried asking Robert questions, I would try and talk to him, try and make some human connection to help rally myself for what I knew was inevitable. When I did try to communicate with him, his head would tip toward me, his eyes looking at the wall behind me, through the ghost he saw me as, and seemed to almost consider my presence as real. He never answered though, never once said a word to me, only ever talking to the wall. I think he regarded the wall more sociable than me because in his mind the wall was real. It was the walls that could interact with him, and were doing so, the walls were the things that were invading his body and mind, the things that held the curse, and thus they were truly the only real things to him anymore. The stories and memories he would repeat were just recordings, his mind trying to fight back, but losing.
Over time Robert’s skin began to show the effects of the curse that gives it it’s name. It started with what looked like a rash on his skin. Just redness and some bumps, but soon grew much worse. The poison that had taken his mind, his perception of reality, was now done with his soul and was moving on to his body. The redness spread across it’s host’s body until it found what it was looking for, a scar. The curse could not inflict physical damage on the body by itself, but once it had taken the soul, twisted it and ruined it to a point of useless insanity, it could make the body torture itself. Once the soul was gone, the body was defenseless and easily subjected to the suggestions of the curse.
I would watch as day after day Robert’s scar on his left arm, most likely from a hunting accident or animal attack, slowly broke open and became infected. It started as a small cut, only inches in length, but soon grew to the point that the muscles could be seen. I could see the muscles in his arm flex and relax every time he moved his hand. The edges of the scar never healed, only continued to grow. The flesh close to the opening grew grey and seemed to be rotting, there was the constant smell of decaying flesh once the redness took over, a horribly sweet, sickly odor. I knew that his time was close, that soon his lifeless body would be taken from the room, leaving me alone to undergo the same slow, laborious death that he had endured. I wished even harder for his life to end, if I could have killed him myself I would have, but it was impossible. I even yelled aloud for days for someone to come kill him for me. I held onto a dream I had that someone came in and beat him to death with a club, his rotting flesh squishing, blood splattering on the walls and his brittle bones breaking under the harsh blows. Robert’s body was little more than a piece of rancid meat by then, but it could still feel pain and react accordingly, and as the club came down on his body, he screamed and writhed on the bed. I watched all of this happen with a smile on my face. And as soon as the club broke through his nose and crushed in his skull, finally silencing that horrible breathing, I began to laugh with relief. But it had only been a dream, and when I awoke to the noise of a blood laced coughing fit, I began to cry.
I don’t remember much after Robert’s death; once the curse was done with him it had concentrated its effort on me. It took my mind shortly after that, like my life was a dream that I was desperately trying to hold on to but it was futile, the dream of my life slipped away from me. I remember bits and pieces after that, mostly its just pain. It started in my leg, with a scar from a childhood accident, then slowly grew up toward my chest, tearing open a healed burn across my abdomen.
It is almost a blessing that Roe-voe takes the mind before it begins it’s work on the body, if I had been conscience as the curse slowly reminded my body of it’s old wounds, I don’t think I would have survived the process. I am alive now because I have been made an example of. The Shaviz want those to see what happens to a traitor, to a rebel. They put me in a cell reserved for thieves and blasphemers. They wanted me to live, and once I was removed from the Red Room, slowly the effects of the curse on my soul wore off. My sanity came back, the world around me became real once again, but the physical effects are impossible to reverse. I can never leave the bed that they bound me to; I will never be able to move more than my hands and head. Wounds inflicted by a curse are different than those given by the natural world. The body cannot heal from the cursed wounds, the flesh that the curse touched remained rotten and decaying, the smell is overpowering. It is like living within a corpse. The pain has left me though, the Shaviz treat the wounds daily to keep the decay where it is and to stop me from dieing too soon. Every time they hold a ritual, I am dragged out to show the people that the curse is real, that their power is to great to be overthrown.
Every day I wish I had died in the Red Room, that I would have shared Robert’s fate while my mind was still swallowed by the curse, but I was not that lucky. I will lay here, almost completely paralyzed, until the Shaviz finally let me go on to death.

1. Rue-voe: "Red rot"
2. Shaviz: "Leader or priest"
3. Telugu: "transfer of power" or "transmission of soul"

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