Chapter 20: The Noble Punishment, that story again

The crystal mummy carefully set Olice down, and she thanked it then she told it where they wanted to go.

“I am Olice Hjord, princess and apprentice to the Witch of Dimensions, We need to go to the Everfall Curtains, I hope we lessen your burden, Midal” Olice said, using the information that Ka had given her.

Midal bowed. “You have the advantage of me, Exemplar’s apprentice, you have not set foot on this ship be… ah that cloak, a spirit, a stowaway we once had. My thanks to you, for allowing us to serve, as we failed to do so long ago.”

“Troubling you again” Ka said.

“You will be free” Olice said.

There was a cracking noise as Midal actually smiled, the crystal on his face not coping well with the movement.

“We know, and most of us feel as punishments go, this was filled with mercy”

Gander really didn’t like being out of the loop, but he had guessed what kind of existence Ogittra was.

“How did you come to be cursssed to this ssstate?” Gander asked Midal, rightly assuming Olice wouldn’t tell him anything.

“We attracted the ire of the Enchantress of Punishments, it was she who bound us to serve whoever would blow the horn of this ship. Before we became thus, we were nobles of the velvet rust coast of Ang-Kiung. Our crime was one of knowledge and inaction.

We knew what the Sorcerer of Spaces was doing, what would happen to our lands… and we…”

Midal’s face twisted with disgust.

“…We were just going to sail away, leaving our people to their fate, we revelled as we always did, not caring at all about the tragedy that would unfold. She came too late to stop him, but she saved our people and cursed us, bound us to this ship and to the Red Crystal Realm we sought to avoid. We did nothing, nothing at all, would you call our punishment unjust?”

Susasov’s heart clenched, he wondered just how many people had the same story as the nobles of Ogittra and his own self, again he felt shame, doubly so since he was free of the prison made by his selfish actions. He recalled Ka’s act of submission and resolved to be of greater use to the child that had shown pity for him.

The Enchantress of Punishments was infamous, there were cases like this one, where she seemed quite just in her actions, but there was others that many would have called unjust. Just or unjust one could say one thing for sure about her punishments, they were frequent, Kigan and Awarth had many examples of her work, too many some would say.

Just or unjust, the strong have the power to judge those weaker than them.

Gander, being the way he was, had no hesitation.

“You ssshould have gotten worssse” He said.

It was probably for the best that Gander was tempered by servitude and was not surpassing in power.

“Don’t listen to him, he is just a big meanie” Olice explained.

Midal wasn’t worried, Gander had not said anything that he and his fellow fallen nobles had not thought before. He relayed the course and crystal mummies lurched into action.

Soon they were underway again, tearing through the churning crystal sea, and any being foolish enough to be the path of the Ogittra.

Olice enjoyed the feel of the wind in her hair.

“Sssso, what isss thisss Oracle like?” Gander asked.

“Big” Ka replied.

“Very Big” Olice confirmed.

“You aren’t going to tell me any more are you?” Gander asked.

Olice just smiled at Gander, who made an oath in his heart to hit Olice with a month of pranks, one after another when they finally escaped the Red Crystal Realm. In the meantime he slunk off to sulk and devour a shadow or two.

* * * * *

Olice was really enjoying a nice peaceful voyage where she didn’t even have to walk. She had been doing a lot of walking, that and fleeing, far too much fleeing. Olice wondered how she could become a mage that never hurried and never fled.

As she was musing this, the waves rushed up and then parted before them, revealing a lumpen reddish brown furred head, perhaps a bit reminiscent of a whale’s in shape. However whiskers wildly sprouted from this being’s upper lip and swept around behind it. What really drew the eye was the four massive tusks that protruded from its upper mouth. A four bloodshot eyes glared from the two sides of its mouth.

It roared a reverberating noise causing Olice’s heartflame to quiver and shake.

However someone from the crow’s nest of the ship called out in defiance of this blubbery beast that had appeared.

“Do you not value your life? Regret your choice and be rent in twain beast!”

The Ogittra did not slow or try to avoid the beast, it slammed into it and tore right through. The cursed ship left a feeding frenzy in its wake.

“Hahaha, a beast such as that is nothing to our curse!” The watcher in the crow’s nest cried.

Olice was speechless, she had known that it was something that happened, thanks to Ka’s past memory, but it was one thing to see it in a vision, it was another to experience it.

Naturally the residents of the sea didn’t bother the Ogittra after that, and the ones that were powerful enough to cause the ship trouble either didn’t care or new the dangers of messing with a cursed existence.

Either way, it was peaceful again from that point until land ho was cried.

The Everfall Curtains, there were probably countless places called that throughout just Kigan and Awarth.