Osiris

I wish he’d never found the damn thing.

It had been chained at the bottom of an underground lake: a silver sword, glinting six hundred feet down a twisting cavern of dripping limestone. I told him not to take it, that the ancient, gilded vines and faded glyphs were there for a reason. The skeletons, too, should have been a clue, mineralized after decades of rest belowground. But of course, Darrius never listened to me. Never has.

My friend dove down, down, his form disappearing under the lake’s glassy surface. I held my breath with him. The minutes stretched on, glowworms holding a swinging vigil behind my tense reflection. Then, with a gasp, Darrius emerged again, swinging the sword triumphantly over his head. My palms were ringed in crescents as I helped him out, but I plastered a smile over my nerves. I should have tackled him then, ripped the sword from his hands and chucked it back into the lake. But I didn’t.

I’m telling you—it’s all Darrius’s fault. If he had never taken the thing from that damned lake, I wouldn’t be in prison, and none of them would be dead.

#

Osiris was something out of a fable, a blade long and deadly and glowing with an ethereal shimmer whenever enemies drew near. Its sheath was wreathed in an ancient language that neither of us could read—perhaps if we could have, we might have avoided this whole mess.

Being an experienced adventuring party, we quickly catalogued the sword’s responses to our usual foes: yellow for ogres, green for goblins, silver for faeries. You get the picture. It took us a while longer to realize that the intensity of the glow was also linked to the number of creatures. We once came upon a swarm of hundreds of pixies and the sword went plasmic, so bright I had to avert my eyes. Not wanting to piss off a nasty swarm, I insisted we circle around and continue on our way. Darrius kept glancing back over his shoulder though, twitching with a nervous energy. That was the last time we avoided a fight, and the first time I had doubts about the dangerous hold Osiris had on my friend.

#

Sometime over the next few days, Darrius’s eyes developed a mean glean to them. I don’t know when it started, but I do know when I first felt their sting.

It had been raining for several days. Osiris alerted us to a roving band of ogres, likely five strong, behind the next rocky outcrop. I was tired, worn out from days with little sleep and less food, and just wanted to make it to the next town without incident. Darrius, though, had other plans. As he twisted Osiris thoughtfully in his hand, he told me we should attack. Ogres are nasty creatures, always picking on the weak and the innocent. That barn we passed yesterday, smashed to pieces? What if there had been someone there, a prisoner, a damsel in distress? Wasn’t it our duty to help? His eyes reflected the soft golden glow of his sword, and I knew there was no talking him out of it. I sighed and nodded, barely pulling my crossbow from its oiled leather casing before Darrius was gone round the bend.

I won’t dwell on the ensuing battle—if you can call it that. Two adults, three ogrelings. No damsel in distress. Likely just a family band migrating through the countryside, trying to scrape out a living in the only way they knew how.
He slaughtered them all.

Darrius turned to me, grinning and dripping dark purple blood on the grass. I could barely meet his gaze. The ochre light from Osiris fizzled with the life of his last victim, but the light in his eyes remained: He was satisfied, triumphant. Gleeful, even. My friend was gone, and in his place—a monster.

I should have left him then and there, but I still held hope that I could talk him down from his mania, or part him from Osiris if it came to it. I was thoroughly convinced the sword was cursed at that point, but of course I couldn’t tell Darrius. The thing was an extension of himself, and he treated it like a lover, caressing it softly as he cleaned blood from its shining silver blade. So I remained, trying my best to steer him clear of more innocent creatures.

Of course, I failed, many times, and so we have arrived at the pivotal moment in my tale. The goblin cave.

#

The goblin cave was really more of a shallow depression in the mountainside, and hardly seemed worth the title. I hadn’t even noticed Osiris beginning to glow, so faint was its shimmer, but of course Darrius knew. There’s a goblin up ahead, he told me, I can feel his presence from here. I shook my head, arguing that a lone goblin couldn’t possibly be worth his trouble. But then came the gleam, and the excuses, and the nervous energy, and I knew I couldn’t win. I followed him up to the cave, stomach thick with dread.

A faint sound emanated from the cave; someone was humming. An old goblin came into view, trundling about his goblin chores and humming his goblin tune. He was obviously alone, no harm to anyone. Just an old man going about his day.

I grabbed Darrius’s arm, pulling him back. Shouldn’t we leave him alone, just this once? Osiris only alerted us to the presence of creatures, after all, and I had seen no evidence that it could differentiate between evil and good. Darrius shook his head, the gleam in his eyes turning to an angry flame so fierce that I pulled back my hand as if I’d been burned. Without a word, he pulled away, and I closed my eyes to the horror I knew was coming next.

A quick cry, a tussle, and then the thunk of a head hitting the ground. I vomited onto the hard-packed earth.

Then, something unexpected: the distinct tang of magic in the air, followed by a sharp cry of pain.

I quickly sprang around the corner, sword drawn in defense, and was surprised to see a knight, member of the King’s Inquisitors, dark armor gleaming in the sunlight as he pinned my friend against the ground. He quickly locked Darrius’s wrists with a thick silver chain, and a red aura of magical restraint speckled my friend’s body. Osiris lay in the dirt a few feet away, next to the head of the defenseless old goblin. A worn pipe smoldered from the corpse’s lips, tobacco and fresh blood playing a noxious duet in the air.

“You need to come with us,” said a voice from my right. I turned to see another knight, this one with a captain’s badge on her shoulder. She glared at me disapprovingly, crossbow pointed at the center of my chest.

“An ogre family slain at Catharta,” she announced, counting off on her fingers, “and band of orc schoolchildren and their teacher. Three gnomes killed in cold blood around their campfire. An elderly hermit with no family. Do you deny having a hand in these senseless murders?”

I shook my head slowly, stepping back into the rock wall of the cave. “No! I mean, I tried to stop him! It was the sword, I think it infected his mind, Darrius would never...” My mouth was dry, and I swallowed hard.

The captain shook her head, eyes hard as flint. “You tried to stop him? Doesn’t sound like it to me. Sounds like you were too coward to do anything, and now you’re trying to save your own skin.”

“I’m not! The sword—just look at it, it’s evil! We are but traveling adventurers, taken advantage of by a demon blade. You must see that I’m telling you the truth!”

“If that’s true...” the captain looked thoughtful for a moment. She glanced at her partner, who shrugged as if to say, It’s up to you. I prayed to every god that I knew. She had to see that it was Osiris who was the base of all the killing, not Darrius!

She turned back with a look of clarity in her eyes, and my heart pattered with hope.

“If it’s true that your friend here really was possessed by a cursed sword, then what’s your excuse?”