A Boy and His Curse

“Keep rowin’, lad!”

“But I’m tired!”

Scrant Greyson was trying to sleep, but the arguing of his uncle and younger cousin, Raami, kept him awake.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Huh?” grunted Uncle Brodric. Grunting was usually the extent of Uncle Brodric’s conversations. “Oh, it’s you. Go back to sleep, boy. This journey’s ’bout you, after all. I wasn’t the one the prophecy was written about now, am I?” he joked. He jostled Scrant, nearly sending him out of the ridiculously small dinghy in which he, Uncle Brodric, and Raami sat.

Scrant leaned back against the boat’s side. He wished he didn’t have to be in a rowboat for a seeming eternity all for a piece of metal. He also wished that the Amulet Prophecy had never been written, his father hadn’t died, and his mother hadn’t given him to Uncle, even though it meant a tidy sum for his mother and sister, Amelia. It seemed impossible to sleep, but he finally did.

Many miles away, in a stone castle, a scout approached a regal man sitting on a throne. He wore no crown, but everything about him suggested he was a ruler. He was tall with a long face, a pointed beard, and a cold smile that did not meet his narrowed eyes.

“Milord.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve found him.”

“Show me your proof.”

The scout held out a mirror. The tall man took it and waved his hands and an image of a boy with scraggly brown hair appeared on it.

“Scrant Greyson,” the regal man commented. “He doesn’t look like much. Oh, but he will be useful.”

“How, milord?”
    
“Why, the Amulet Prophecy! With the Moren Amulet, I would be unlimited, but he is destined to grasp it. He will give it to his uncle, and then we cannot wrest it from his family, but the prophecy controls him. So,” he paused for effect, “we change the prophecy.” At this, he withdrew a bottle of ink from his robe. “Scrant Greyson and his curse were created by this very ink.”

“Whose ink?” the scout questioned.

“A Fable Thatcher’s.”