The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

He was ready to believe he was mad, when suddenly the torch went out with a bang, as if someone had slammed it between two hands. Bishop was standing in the pitch black. He took a step back and stumbled over something. He landed on the sand floor of the cave.

Then, just as suddenly, the torch flamed up again, even though it was lying there in the sand. It was burning as brightly as it had been before those invisible hands had slammed together. Invisible hands? He’d surely been tossed into a witch’s pot of madness. Aye, he’d been gaining in madness since he first saw Penwyth. Slowly he eased himself up, picked up the torch, and looked at what he’d tripped over.

He saw a stick half buried in the sand. A stick? Why hadn’t he seen it before? Had he knocked it free of the sand when he’d tripped on it? It made sense, yet it didn’t, not at all. Fear nibbling around the edges of his consciousness, Bishop studied the stick before he planted the torch in the sand, feeling it sink down a good six inches—and surely that was strange, for there was nothing beneath the sand save rock, was there? But it didn’t matter. He reached for the stick, gently shoved away the rest of the sand, and lifted it.

His hand burned, suddenly, fiercely, as if he’d stuck it into a flame. He dropped the stick, rubbed his fingers, and just as suddenly the pain was gone. Without thinking, without pause, he reached out his right hand for it and lifted it. It was warm, that damned stick was warm against the skin of his hand. There was no burning, nothing but steady, pulsing warmth. It seemed that the stick was settling in, that it was made for his hand and no other’s, and it fit his hand perfectly. It was perhaps a foot long, no longer. It felt like nothing he’d ever touched in his life. By all the saints’ muttered prayers, he thought, he could tell it was old by the very feel of it. No, it wasn’t just old—“old” was a word that didn’t apply to it. No, it was beyond old, it was something from before anything a man could understand. He knew it, deep inside.

Nor was it just a simple stick, torn from a tree limb. He held it close to the torch. No, it was finely carved, indentations all around it where there had been stones, perhaps. Precious stones? He didn’t know. He wasn’t at all certain that it was wood. But it wasn’t metal, he knew that. But then, what was it?

“Bishop?”

He looked up to see her standing not three feet away, watching him.

“Look, Merryn, I found it.”

“What did you find?”

“My torch went out and I stumbled over it. It looks like a stick, but it’s not. See, there were possibly precious stones worked into it.” He reached toward her with it. “Tell me what you feel when you touch it.”

Merryn reached out her hand.

“That’s it, your right hand.”

“Why?” she said as she took the stick.

“I don’t know. I first picked it up with my left hand and it burned me. How does it feel to you?”

“Warm. The wood feels almost soft.”

“Aye,” he said. “That’s it.”

She sat down beside him, the stick still in her right hand. She touched it with the fingers of her left hand, and her fingers felt scalded, like she’d just dipped them in boiling water.

“Be careful. For whatever reason, it won’t accept your left hand.”

“I wonder what it is,” she said, holding it so gently, as if it were something very precious, something very fragile.

“It’s the reason I came here,” he said, and in that instant he knew it was true.

“There’s something strange at work here, isn’t there, Bishop? Something we don’t understand.”

“Yes, and it has something to do with the damned curse. We will figure it out. It’s why we’re here.”

Merryn stared at the stick, turning it in her right hand, feeling the warmth of it against her palm. It was so strange, so very strange. Then she said, “Once when I was a little girl, my grandfather showed me a drawing in a very old parchment. I’ll never forget the drawing, it was so vivid, the inks so bright. It was so real, as if someone had pressed it there, an exact image of real life.”

His heart began to pound slow, deep strokes. He sat forward, not touching the stick, but watching her turn it slowly on her palm, caress it. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about the drawing.”

“There were three old men, all with long gray beards, smooth, like they’d just been combed, coming nearly to their waists. All of them wore long white robes with lovely worked-leather belts, studded with gems. One of the old men held a stick like this, and the stick looked very new. It was shining and shooting off sparks, as if from a fire. He was pointing the stick outward as if at the person looking at the drawing. My grandfather leaned over my shoulder and said in his rolling, deep voice, “These are wizards, young Merryn, from long ago. The one in the middle, he is holding his wand.”

“Was he holding the wand in his right hand?”

She closed her eyes, tried to remember that wonderful drawing. “Yes,” she said after several moments. “He was.”

“This is very interesting,” Bishop said. “You think this is a wizard’s wand? It’s like the one in the drawing?”

“I don’t know, Bishop, but you came here because something pushed you to come here. You found this stick. It must have something to do with the curse.”

He said, still looking at that wand in her palm, “It wasn’t on the ground when I came in here before. I am very certain of that.”