The Curator
A man dressed in dark crimson robes and a sky blue sash made haste up the curatorium’s long winding staircase. Perspiration covered his craggy, old leathery face and his gray bearded chin was still awash with the wine he had spilled only moments earlier.
“Damn the fools, damn them!”
He kept repeating these words to the deaf, heavy-set stone walls, with almost every breath. The flickering flame of the torch he held cast shadows of his form over the stones of the stair’s steps and the dank walls. It resembled the form of a stumbling, muttering old fool. Even the shadows seemed to mock him, crouching even lower than him as the staircase finally unwound onto the roof of the curatorium.
“So, it has finally come to this,” said the old man as he caught his breath, and started off to find what it was he had come looking for. His mind was not as sharp as when he was young, and he was caught unprepared. He fumbled around the roof while the lukewarm dusk gave way to the chilling, gloomy cloudy night.
He kept straightening his beard with one hand, keeping his eyes closed. His other hand was raised, waving a pondering finger in a hazy, uncertain rhythm. It looked as if it was trying to catch up with a silent tune only he could hear. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and set off with his head intently searching the floor.
The air smelled of liquorice and the burned wheat stalks of nearby farmsteads. It was the planting season. He looked annoyed, trying to pick up what seemed to be a loose cobblestone from the roof. It seemed to give no purchase and try as he might, he could not remove it.
Standing upright, he folded his arms and breathed deeply, his elbows sagging slightly, his chin almost touching his chest. He sighed, and then abruptly erupted with a flurry of curses, kicks, punches and stomps. Quite an unseemly attitude for a person of his stature.
A Curator. By mutual assent among his peers, not a very prestigious one, but nonetheless, a Curator. The men had chased him up the stairs with profound alacrity and ruthlessness. Their drawn swords looked dull in the little light that was left, but the white of their teeth seemed to shine uncannily behind their wide grins. Forcing himself to calm down, he drew a few deep breaths before standing over one ledge from the roof and shouting, almost in a screech:
“Hilderich!! Hilderich!”
An answering shout came from somewhere below: “Over here master Olom, over here!” The curator leaned over the ledge, searching for a face to direct his ire at to no avail. He shouted once more, throwing his fists wildly into the air. The men drew ever closer slowly but surely, an air of supreme confidence about them. They had cornered him and there seemed to be no escape. The chase would be over soon now.
“Hilderich, you mongrel! Get the keystone and run! Run like there’s no tomorrow!”, said the curator and Hilderich complied smartly to the best of his ability. The Curator felt a strange rush of stinging air, turned about slowly, and had time enough to yell one last time at his pupil:
“Run now! Find the one I dared not!”
As Hilderich ran outside the curatorium, his gaze locked with the despairing eyes of his master, whose last look implored him silently to live. One of the men lunged forward with his blade set to pierce the old Curator. The wizened form of master Olom for a moment seemed to sidestep the blow nimbly, but that was not so. The blade had struck true, and the old man fell on his back without grace. As the second man raised his blade for the final blow, they were both grinning, their faces showing their relish, their enjoyment. This was what they lived for, the rush of murder and the smell of blood. They went about it in revered silence, cherishing every moment.
Hilderich simply stood there for a moment, transfixed, overtaken by the speed and incredulity of what was taking place. Fear had crept up in him, and had saved his life. And it was fear now as well, that urged him to heed his master’s order. In the next moment, Hilderich was running with eyes wide from horror, his hands gripping the green, flashy keystone with white knuckles.
“Had to make sure first,” said the curator through the agonizing pain of the blade’s blow while clutching his pendant. As the blade of one of his assailants came rushing down to meet his sternum, he was smiling with a glaze in his eyes, as if lost in a loving vision of the past. When he blinked next, himself, the curatorium, and the two assasins became a thing of the past. Bright white light suddenly filled the dusky plains accompanied by an eerie, unnerving silence.
Hilderich only felt a haze of heat and a tingling at the back of his head. He dared not stop or look back, he simply ran. And he prayed.