I hurried up the stairs of the palace to The Pinnacle, Queen Ariadne’s chambers. I was but a messenger delivering, well, a message to her. The Pinnacle was the highest spire in the palace, and the most lavish, walls embedded with petrified oak branches wrapped in thin gold string to give a shimmering sheen to them. The floor was a mosaic of striped and the mottled shells of the giant snails of the North Expanse, and I, who always had a great fondness for the creature, hoped that they hadn’t been injured or killed in the process.
Queen Ariadne sat atop a throne of pure obsidian, gathered from a volcanic eruption that took place on the other side of the world, the South Expanse of Endymion. I had no idea who had the thought to collect some precious obsidian for Queen Ariadne in the middle of a volcanic eruption, or how they managed to, but there it was, a throne that dazzled so brightly in the filtering sunlight it hardly seemed black so much as pure white.
“What say you, messenger boy?” Queen Ariadne asked me as I bowed low to the ground, my nose brushing the snail shell mosaic floor. I caught sight of a young girl who couldn’t have been more than ten kneeling at Queen Ariadne’s feet.
“The Kings of North Endymion send their regards,” I informed her. It was a trivial message to send someone across the world to deliver, but alas, that was how royalty was. They never bothered to say anything actually useful. They could discuss the bargains, for example, and the Crow Catchers. That was useful, but no one ever wanted to talk about bargains. It was somewhat of a taboo topic in Endymion, and everyone tended to keep their bargains to themselves. I didn’t know mine yet, but I probably would soon. My dreams had become increasingly flocked with birds, a sign that my bargain would probably have something to do with the animal. Recurring dreams were the most accepted sign that you were about to get your bargain, although there were many other theories around the subject, most of them far-fetched. I wasn’t afraid to get my bargain like some people were. I doubted a poor messenger boy could be spared a very dangerous bargain.
“Please send mine in return.” She gave me a crooked smile that didn’t quite reach her glassy blue eyes.
“I will.”
“Oh–and before you go, have some cake.”
“Uh–of course. How kind of you to offer.” I gave a polite smile that veiled my nervousness. I didn’t feel like tasting a cake offered by a lady who used the shells of innocent snails to make her floor and obsidian collected from a giant volcanic eruption to make her throne. I was worried that the cake was going to exceed my expectations, but not in a good way. I imagined a delicacy dripping with the slime of poor snails seized by Queen Ariadne, and my stomach curdled at the horror of the prospect. Unfortunately for me, my theory was correct.
“Willow! Bring me the cake.” Queen Ariadne issued the order to a young girl kneeling at her feet.
“Of course, my liege!” Willow stood up and disappeared through a long shadowy corridor. She emerged a few seconds later, rolling a cart in front of her. On top sat a huge pie, adorned with curls of steam rising from the warm golden crust. I had to admit, it looked pretty appetizing.
“Now, Willow, you may leave us.” Queen Ariadne turned back to me. The last look the queen gave me seemed like a ghost of sympathy, like that emotion had died long ago yet still haunted her. Then she took the knife–cut open the pie–and a million crows came flying out.
These belong to the Crow Catchers, I realized with a cold jolt of shock. I was about to wheel around to see how Queen Ariadne was reacting to this when I felt a searing pain in my eyes. I screamed and my knees buckled to the ground and my hands flew to cover my eyes. I didn’t have to find a mirror to know they had turned blue and glazed over. I had a bargain now.
My bargain was with the Crow Catchers.
A bargain was a promise, a destiny, a burden. Once you got your bargain, your eyes turned blue and blank. You were now blind to everything but your bargain, and your life was set for you, for better or worse. Usually your bargain was with something or someone–with the seaside market of Knotalis, or the hidden dragons of the ancient stone peaks. I had expected my bargain to be with something trivial. Yet my bargain was with the Crow Catchers. I was either fated to triumph over them or fated to die by their hands. And I had a good idea of which one it was.
The poor crow’s final caw was shattered and broken like glass. I stepped away from the motionless bird, my face taut with disgust. I gazed up to the sky, where more crows circled the frozen desert, like black holes in a piece of pale fabric. Shivering, I turned to the Master, who had observed the killing with satisfaction.
After I’d received my bargain, I had no choice but to quit my job as a messenger. The Crow Catchers would easily be able to target me if I was constantly alone, making my way through difficult terrain. Instead I had chosen the job that was both the most likely and the least likely to end my bargain–I had become a servant to the Crow Catchers. At the time I thought myself rather clever–there was no way the Crow Catchers could kidnap me if I was serving them. Now that I was several weeks into working for them, I was confident that if they didn’t kill me, the grueling weather would.
“Take the feather, Koral,” he hissed, his voice dripping with oil, or maybe vinegar. I let out a sigh like a dying breath as I bent down and plucked a single feather from the unfortunate bird and dropped it into a small crystal jar.
“I thank you kindly,” he said with mock sweetness. “Now give it to me.”
“Why?” I asked desperately. “Perphaps if you could just tell me why we have to kill so many crows here, or why we’re kidnapping so many people, or why we have to forage for strange plants, I would be more, well, enthusiastic about all this work.”
“Silence,” snarled the Master. “You do not ask such questions here. Speak of this again and there will be punishment.”
“Yes, Master.” I bowed to him. Although I hated killing so many crows, I found that I didn’t hate bowing to someone who had killed many crows himself, and, I suspected, had killed many other things as well. I had always been good at bowing down–it was a skill that a messenger needed to learn from the beginning.
The Master gave me an approving nod. “Let us leave before the snowstorm, so it can cover our tracks.”
I climbed onto my giant tundra snail and followed the Master as we rode through the cold, barren wasteland that was the North Expanse of Endymion. Tundra snails weren’t meant for the North Expanse, a frozen desert of death and emptiness. They were meant for the glorious tundras of the South Expanse. While the landmass of the North Expanse was made of scrapped oyster shells on those expensive gemstone globes that all rich merchants in Knotalis sold, the South Expanse was made of diamond.
We arrived back at the stone watchtower that we were camping out in. Inside, several Crow Catchers were gathered around a small purple fire, occasionally tossing in what I recognized as amethysts to keep the fire going. None of them spoke to me, and many of them didn’t speak at all when I was in their presence. I knew they were discussing their plans behind my back, and I was dying to know who the Crow Catchers really were and what they wanted to do that was so secret. Yet I reminded myself the most important thing was staying safe, and by doing that I had to play the role of the obedient unquestioning servant–a role that I had played many times before.
“Koral! Go upstairs to your quarters and leave us to discuss matters,” the Master commanded. I nodded and hurried up to my “quarters,” the lookout area of the watchtower. It was the highest room of the tower and had nothing but a small stone railing to protect me from the screaming winds and pieces of snow hurtling through the air, but I had several blankets and a lantern to keep me warm, or in the very least, to keep me less cold.
I could hear voices drifting up from downstairs, and I tried to follow their conversations. At first the Crow Catchers had kept as quiet as possible when “discussing matters,” but now they hardly bothered. I had a hunch it was because they had realized that even if I did hear their plans, I would never be brave enough to do anything dangerous with the information. That’s probably true, I thought miserably.
“…And we have our final piece,” the Master was saying. “The crystal jar is able to seep the magic from the crow feather, and once we remove the crow feather, we are able to melt the jar without anything turning to ash. The crystal jar will melt, and transfer the magic into the amethyst fire.” There was a collective “ooohh” from the rest of the Crow Catchers. I had a sense they had been trying to solve this particular problem for a long time.
“Pour in the ingredients!” Suddenly curious, I edged down the stairs on my stomach and peered through the railing to the bottom floor of the watchtower. The Crow Catchers were gathered around the purple fire and were carefully tossing in the plants, gemstones, and crystal jars. The fire blazed gold, then started to fade in color until it reached a glassy blue, the same color as my eyes.
“Now test the cure.” Two Crow Catchers grabbed a person tied up in the corner, one who I hadn’t noticed before. This must be someone they kidnapped, I realized with a chill. They dragged him to the fire, and for a moment, I marveled at how the blue color of the fire perfectly matched the person’s glassy eyes.
Then the Crow Catchers tossed him in. A scream rose from the person as the fire flared around him, a scream that seemed to curdle my veins and dry up my own blood. I shut my eyes, afraid for what I would see when I opened them.
“My–my eyes!” I heard a voice cry. My own eyes fluttered open. The fire had gone out, and standing in its place was the person, unharmed, yet I noticed something different about him. I gasped. His eyes were no longer glassy blue, a symbol of the bargain he would always carry and his blindness for the rest of the world. They were brown, glittering with pieces of gold–his bargain was gone. I now knew what the Crow Catchers had been doing this entire time. They were creating a cure for the bargains, and that made them more powerful and more dangerous than anyone else in the entire world.
This is amazing, I realized, my head dazed. My bargain could change the world. If I faced the Crow Catchers, if I won…I could free everyone of their bargains. But if I fail, I will die. I had a choice. I could keep living my life as an obedient unquestioning servant like I always had, avoiding my bargain, avoiding my fate. Or I could face my bargain with courage I didn’t have–and free everyone else of their own.
Art: Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash