Tracing Back

Compared with the missions he had undertaken before, filled with slaughter, bloodshed, and intrigue, this one had been as quiet as a walk through the woods. It was both an adjective and a verb, though Wanda had not understood Salomon's little rhetorical joke at first—normally, no one would have understood such an obscure joke. Only after Wanda and Salomon began communicating through magic, conveying thoughts and intentions to her, did she understand. Salomon said he had never seen a spell capable of achieving immortality through ceramification and vitrification, but he could still work out several incantations, which he told Wanda on the spot. They were only experimental spells, after all; even if cast, they would not produce any consequences. Scarlet magic burst from Wanda's hand in a brief, brilliant spark, and the weed she held snapped cleanly in two.

"This is more like a curse," Wanda concluded.

"Exactly, my apprentice. Like the spell that turns people into pillars of salt, vitrification and ceramification are more like curses. That witch cursed herself and cursed Basbas. That proves her mastery of Dark Magic, but her spells did not match her actions. If she had been so powerful, she could have killed the Vampires she created thirty years before I arrived. Perhaps that proves the power did not belong to her." Salomon dug into the earth and took a yellowed werewolf skull from the shallow pit. So many years had passed that even cursed flesh had long since rotted away, becoming a feast for the decomposers underground—a deadly feast. With enough light, Wanda would have been able to see the dead insects beside the corpse. Their bodies drew other insects, and the curse slowly spread along their tiny legs and through their tunnels until they were completely exposed to sunlight and finally died.