"Barren Curse" by Matthew T. Summers

The gathered masses watched with baited breath as the woman's veil was slowly lifted.  As one, a gasp of adoration echoed through the monastery.  The deep green of her simple dress echoed the woman's eyes, the simple dress also chosen to represent the fact that this beloved queen had once been nothing more than a simple peasant girl herself.  Just one of the many, many reasons that the population was so in love with her…

Though none loved her more than the man staring deep into her eyes at the moment, all thoughts of the observers and cameras forgotten.  The depths of his dark eyes were unfathomable; only the queen had ever crossed into their seas, and even now she was still captured by the purity and honestly found within.  A truer love had never existed upon this plane of existence before, and the population was already looking forward to the expected arrival of royal children within a few years.

Men were already making plans to wed their sons with any daughters, and women were discussing whom among themselves would sire the best daughter to marry any sons.  The entire kingdom watched in respect and admiration as the man spoke two very simple words, sealing a very complicated ceremony with the lightest of kisses.  The two turned to face the crowd…

Mia blinked as she looked over the crowd.  Something… felt wrong.  This was not… no, this wasn't supposed to be how it was.  She was no queen.  Mia shook her head, ignoring the sudden concerned muttering from the crowd as she fought to clear the fog inside her mind.  

The man's hand gripped Mia's shoulder carefully as he turned her to face him.  Mia looked up into his face and shrieked; where once a handsome man had been, a gruesome skull grinned back at her, flesh and muscle hanging onto sections of the skull and shoulder bones by the merest of sinews.   She shrieked and shoved him away, turning to run.

The monastery had disappeared.  She was standing in a grassy plain, completely alone.  Her simple dress was gone, replaced by the rags and filth of a pauper, but Mia cared nothing for this.  All she wanted to do was run.

Run….

Run!

The landscape whipped past her as her bare feet slapped at the earth unforgivingly.  For an eternity, Mia ran, running from her past, running from her fear, and running from… from something, though she knew not what.

A voice prickled at the edge of her hearing.  The voice was cruel, cold and calculating, and Mia held her hands over her ears in an attempt to keep the tones away; but the words pounded, hammered, mercilessly forced their way into her mind and wrapping themselves around her very thoughts.

Give us the code!

"No!"  Mia screamed, ripping out her hair in bloody clumps.  "Get out of my head!"

Give us the code!

The side of a cliff loomed ahead of her, and Mia didn't hesitate.  She took one step off the side of the cliff and found herself falling…

* * *

"Dammit, we were so close!"

"Much apologies, mistress…"

A slap echoed through the room.  Above the man's whimper, the woman's voice sneered, "Apologies?  If you're lucky, I won't have you killed once I become queen.  Start over."

"Y… yes, mistress…"

* * *

Mia happily wriggled the sand underneath her bare toes.  The small child looked over to where her mother was sunning herself in the midday sun; Mia waved at her before returning her attention to the sand.

After all, castles didn't build themselves, you know.

Her mom looked over after a while and smiled.  "Mia, dear, do you remember the code I asked you to keep secret for me?"

"Yes, Ma."  Mia gasped as her shovel hit a small, white fragment in the sand.  "I found sommthin!"

"That's nice, dear.  Do you remember the code?"

"Yes, Ma."  Mia dug the white fragment out of the sand and gaped openly at a tiny finger bone.  "I remember it."

"Can you tell me what it was, dear?"

Mia didn't answer for a moment as the finger bone in her hand began to shake quietly.  "In a minute!"

"Ok, dear, whenever you're ready."  The mother made a face but returned to the book she was reading.

Mia rolled the finger bone around in her hands a few times, enjoying the pulse and warmth that the bone was giving off until, in a moment of inspiration, she placed it on the sand directly before her and sat back, watching.  Immediately, the bone began to quiver, slowly at first then faster and faster until it seemed that it would shake entirely apart.  Finally, with the tiniest of noises, the bone split into two pieces, each piece reforming into individual finger bones.  These bones then began to quiver as the first had before, splitting again into two pieces and forming into a total of four finger bones.

Mia gaped in openmouthed astonishment as the bones continued to break and reform in this way until an entire skeletal hand had been completed, with some of the bones merging with other pieces to make the larger bones as required.  And still, they continued to quiver, shake, break, and reform… first into an arm, then another arm… then into the long bones for legs… the feet formed rather quickly, though the pelvis required more time… until finally the chest cavity had been created as well, and only the skull remained missing.

The bones shook harder now, filling the air with a keening sound.  One final split and rejoining created a humanoid skull, and the bones attached themselves into a full and complete skeleton, lying prone in the sand.  For the longest of moments, all was again still… then, with a creak of bone against bone, the skeleton stood up carefully, its movements jerky and forced until it was fully erect.

The mother looked up in astonishment, but Mia no longer cared about the woman on the beach.  In the back of her mind, a voice was screaming in fury; but that voice could no longer touch her now.  A grim sort of satisfaction settled over Mia's mind, and she suddenly wondered how old she was, in reality…

The skeleton moved its head around, the empty caves where its eyes would have been surveying the surroundings.  Then, without warning, the sand erupted into the air, hovering for a heartbeat before it rushed the skeletal figure, impacting into the bones with force.  Each glob of sand stuck upon contact, being compounded and enhanced by the next… and the next… and the next…

Each impact of sand rocked the skeleton, dust scattering into the air.  The clumps that managed to stick began to form in rough, recognizable shapes… organs, muscles and tendons began to take shape, and coloration began to form within the dirt itself.  Gradually, the skeleton had enough form on it to better resist the impact of the flying dirt and it braced itself more successfully using its newly formed leg muscles.

The remaining clouds of sand were settling down much more gently than the original clods had impacted, and now were forming skin.  The skin was a light brown in coloration, and darker hair formed a moment later.  The figure held its head upward and its arms outstretched to the heavens as the dirt continued to settle against her.

Until finally, the last clump of dirt came to rest against the hand, and the body of what was now recognizable as a human female was complete.  She opened his newly formed eyes, pushing jet-black hair away from her new face as he did so.  Her gaze went down to her hands and a smirk broke her dark features.

Her voice, when she spoke, explored the octave ranges quickly before settling down into a warm, earthy tone.  "Mia Hammon?"

Mia stood to her full height, the childlike persona completely gone.  The woman that stood before the sandwoman was the same woman from before; tattered rags, bare feet and all.  "Yes, I am she."

"You are ready to pass over?"

Mia glanced backward.  The woman from the beach was gone, and the voice could still barely be heard just on the edge of her thoughts.  She was screaming something intelligible; whoever the woman in her mind was, she was entirely unhappy at the moment… a thought that made Mia feel extremely satisfied.  "Yes, I do believe I am ready, Lady Death."

The black-haired woman reached out a hand to Mia.  "Then take my hand."

Mia glanced back at the specter of death before nodding once and taking the offered hand…

* * *

"Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit!"  Furious, the woman slammed her fists into the keyboard before her time and again until at last, with a splintering of keys, the keyboard finally gave up underneath her relentless assault.  "Dammit!"  Furious, she spun and faced down the gathered technicians with hatred in her eyes.  "I thought you said this thing was foolproof!"

The technician the woman had slapped before cowered before her.  "Lady Drania!  It is!  Or, it was…"

"Bull!"  Enraged, Lady Drania raised her arm and backslapped the man as hard as she could, sending the poor technician sprawling.  "This machine was supposed to be the best that magic and science combined could offer!  We have kept Queen Hammon alive for sixty-two days past her death, and this is what you give me?  Failure?"

She turned away from the technicians and stared down at the body in the lab below.  "Get out of my sight, all of you."

She waited until they had all cleared out of the room, still unable to take her eyes off of the broken and battered body below.  The wires and tubing running in and out of the body of the now deceased queen carried a mixture of chemicals and magic powder, a combination that had managed to keep the damn woman alive for this long.  However, the woman's willpower had proven even stronger than Lady Drania had thought; she still did not have the code to unlock the gates into her kingdom.

Without that code, she could never take the queen's place on the throne.  Lady Drania sighed and shook her head.  Her voice was a sneer as she said, "You know, queenie, your life would have been so much simpler if you'd been able to figure me out before I killed you."

She started to pace the room.  "And you know, would could blame you?  You had the perfect husband, the perfect kingdom, the perfect marriage… the only thing you lacked was a child."

Lady Drania smirked.  "That is where you made your first mistake, you dead bitch.  You came to me.  And because of it, now you're dead."  She walked back over to the window and sneered down to the body.  "Ironic, isn't it?  All you needed was the magical incantation I had to unlock the curse upon your barren womb."

She thought for a moment.  "You know, perhaps I do have a soul.  I'll go ahead and release the curse.  After all, you're dead.  Anyone that touches your womb now had deeper issues than I."  Grinning, Lady Drania made a quick movement in the air and muttered the releasing agent in a mocking voice.  "There.  Now you're released…"

Lady Drania's eyes widened.  Something…felt wrong… In horror, she looked around as the laboratory dissipated around her, vanishing into the ether of her comatose mind.  

"No!"  Her scream tore through the empty atmosphere.  "No!  You tricked me!"

On the ground beneath her feet, a thin bone began to vibrate as the woman continued to shriek in fury…

* * *

"Ok, your majesty."  The technician watched through the glass as the assistants moved forward and removed the body from the table.  "The spell appears to have been lifted.  The countercursing devices do not detect any further curse; the curse of barren is gone."

"Oh thank god."  Mia Hammon squeezed her husband's hand in relief.  "And the Lady?  Is she…?"

The technician nodded.  "Aye.  She shall bother the kingdom no further."  He smiled uncertainly.  "And the whole of the kingdom shall rejoice this day, I believe… for at last, the kingdom shall have an heir.  The evil witch is dead."