Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RAUM
It made a ton of sense that Ezra knew about the Dainsleif—it was a powerful object, and it acted like it was cursed.
The sword’s legend was of Scandinavian origin, with a singular myth about its creation.
Magic swords were a dime a dozen—they had been a popular and common artifact made in dozens of cultures and civilizations throughout recorded history, but the Dainsleif was never conflated with another sword, and the dwarf god Dain was always attributed as its creator and first wielder.
As a comparison, Excalibur had multiple origins, creators, and tales about its exploits and even its current locations, and the Dainsleif had only a few legends about it, with little variation.
“Is it an artifact do you think, or a cursed object, or a holy relic?” Raum asked Ezra, insatiably curious.
“That’s my question, and I’d only be able to answer it if I got to lay eyes on it and had some time to examine it. Which I would love to do.”
An artifact was an object created in and by magic to do a specific magical action or to serve a specific purpose.
A cursed object was typically something mundane that was then imbued with magic that was either inimical from the start, or the magic was corrupted by time or outside forces, and then became dangerous.
The less common objects were magical artifacts that then became cursed. Raum suspected that was the Dainsleif.
And a holy relic was any magical object made by a deity, and they were exceedingly rare.
“Well, to get us back on track, that’s what I’m working on when I’m not helping handsome curse-breakers do research,” Raum said with a rueful smile, realizing that they’d spent a big chunk of time talking about Raum’s work and none about why they were there in the library to begin with—especially since they had something of a time crunch, too.
“I’d love to talk about it some more when we aren’t dealing with an impending apocalypse.”
“Deal.”
They each got to work on their respective stacks of books, and fell into a companionable silence broken only by the sounds of pages turning and books being moved on the table.
Lilith came by a few times as she patrolled, sniffing and purring, and she would jump on the table for some brief attention from either of them before dropping down and continuing on her explorations.
Raum heard the distant thump of the door open and close, and the sound of someone approaching. He looked up to see one of the library clerks coming through the stacks, carrying a cardboard box full of folders and binders, followed by a campus security guard.
“Hey, Gary, what have you got for me?” Raum stood up from the table and went to Gary, who handed him the box with a groan at the weight. Raum took it easily and looked down inside, seeing several binders with Simmons’ name on the spine. “Whoa, what’s all this?”
“MERS found some more of Simmons’ research hidden in his office and had security bring it over here for a Sorcerer Redmayne?” Gary said, and the guard nodded, agreeing. “They said he was here with you.”
“That’s me,” Ezra said and got up from the table, coming over and peering down into the box. “Thanks for bringing it over. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Gary said, and he and the security guard looked relieved to be handing over the research. “I’ll leave you to it. Have a good day.”
“Thanks, you too,” Raum replied, and Gary and the guard left while Raum carried the box over to the table.
“I wonder what they found,” Ezra hovered as Raum set the box down on the table and started taking out binders, handing several to Ezra, who took them eagerly. “Let’s hope this is what we need.”
Ezra
Raum took the box and Ezra got started on his stack of binders, flipping through the plastic dividers and reading each section heading. He set aside two binders that seemed to have nothing to do with the trading post expedition, mostly older research into other sites, and kept looking.
It was in the last binder that Ezra found something useful. The research was dated recently, collated within the last few years, and the research into the trading company and the post was right there in front. “I think I found something.”
“What?” Raum asked, looking up from his own stack of binders.
“Research Simmons did on the trading company and the missing trading post. There might be more in here.”
“Great!”
Ezra started poring over the research, and he was skimming past what they had already learned when he flipped a page and stopped.
“Raum, look at this,” Ezra breathed out in surprise, and he turned the binder to show Raum a detailed sketch of the skull.
In the charcoal drawing, the details were smeared a bit, but the gaping mouth, the intricate designs carved into the bone, and the single slice from a bladed weapon on the forehead, were all identical to the skull Ezra had held in his hands.
The drawing was on old, thick vellum, and had the scent of dust and time. He left it in the transparent plastic sleeve, not wanting to damage the antique sketch.
“Is that the skull?” Raum asked. “That has to be it.”
“It is indeed,” Ezra confirmed. “Simmons knew about the skull before he went on the expedition to find the trading post. I bet it was the only reason he set up the dig to begin with.”
“What else is in there?”
“Let me see,” Ezra said and went back to looking through the binder, going slower now, carefully flipping through the pages and plastic sleeves holding old paper. He found another old piece of parchment in one of the sleeves, the edge ripped like the page had been torn from a book ages ago.
It was written in a tight, cramped script, and Ezra tried to read it, but the style of writing was too difficult. Another glance had him doubting it was in English, too. He checked for a transcription but found nothing. “Raum, can you read this?”
Ezra popped the plastic sleeve out of the binder and passed it to Raum, who took it carefully, peering down at the handwriting. “Yeah, I can read it. It’s in Norwegian, so give me a second.”
“I feel a bit better about not being able to read it,” Ezra muttered to himself. He had a lot of trouble reading old cursive script styles, especially anything before the 1960s. The smaller the lettering, the worse it got for him.
“There’s a translation app that can scan written text, cursive or not, and convert it to text on the screen of your phone.
I encourage my students to use it when dealing with primary sources where they can’t read the script.
It translates written scripts from other languages into English as well,” Raum said casually, not looking up from the page as he translated.
“It’s not perfect, but the margin of error is acceptable since it’s such a huge help for people with accessibility needs. ”
“There’s an app for that?” Ezra asked, sidelined from his impatience by the idea that there was an app that could help him with his research.
If he wasn’t pressed for time, he sent out images of the script in question to a transcription service to get it typed out and then emailed back to him.
Lots of times he was in a pinch and had to struggle through on his own.
He figured it was a symptom of his ADHD and his inability to register patterns in the cramped script that left him so stymied by old handwriting.
“Sure is,” Raum looked up long enough to give him a soft smile.
He set down the paper long enough to grab his phone and tap at it, bringing up the app in question and passing the phone to Ezra.
“It was made by one of the Computer Science grad students. Here ya go. If you like it, download it and give it a try.”
“Thank you,” Ezra said quietly, taking the phone and tapping through the app while Raum worked.
Two minutes of flipping through the app and Ezra pulled out his phone, glad it was still charged, and downloaded the app to his phone.
He slid Raum’s phone back to him and tried the app out on his phone, scanning a handwritten page and waiting patiently for the app to transcribe and translate.
Thirty seconds later, he had a transcription.
Like Raum said, it wasn’t perfect, the app supplying various word choice options and highlighting sections it couldn’t read clearly enough, but the gist was there. He could muddle through on the bits the app wasn’t able to handle.
“This is amazing,” Ezra said, and he looked up from his phone and caught Raum staring at him with a soft smile. “Thank you. You’re right—it’s not perfect, but it’s far better than spending hours trying to read a letter concerning a cursed object when the app can tackle it in seconds.”
“The grad student who designed it is constantly updating and tweaking the app, so it’s only going to get better. I’m glad it’s helping you already.” Raum waved the piece of vellum Ezra had handed him. “This is a page from a journal, and what it’s describing is kind of phenomenal.”
“What?” Ezra asked eagerly.
“It’s from someone who found the original trading expedition, all of them dead, and the skull, freed from its reliquary and brewing up a blizzard.”
“What happened?”
Raum looked down at the page. “Whoever wrote this knew what to do, somehow. They buried the skull in the reliquary, and left the human bodies to the carrion eaters. It’s a short description of where they found the skull, where they buried it, and how.”
Ezra frowned. “Monica Blevins almost died when she opened the reliquary; the skull drained her life force and magic, blew a hole in her aura. Whoever handled the skull had to be either a necromancer, or they weren’t a mundane human and had abilities to keep themselves safe.”