The curse of the damned ring had followed him, regardless of his attempt to set the ancient wrong right. But no sooner had the ring left his sight in hands of an ancestor of its maker than the call had come.
Sarah and Yuki were dead, run down in the pedestrian walk by a drunk driver. Most people would probably assume that it was coincidence. But Oyori knew the history of that ring.
Forged by a dwarf, stolen by the "god" Loki and bringing war and near ruin to the Aesir even before Ragnarock had destroyed most of them. It had somehow drifted down to the mortal realm where it wreaked havoc for centuries, even coming to his own homeland, where it was given as a gift to a woman seduced by a monk breaking his vows. A woman that later learned to become a dragon and destroyed the unfaithful monk.
From there its history became murky, but everywhere it appeared, misery followed. And he was, alas, no exception. He should never have even considered purchasing it, even to return it to the rightful owners.
All his power as an artificer was useless before this loss. Wife and daughter dead, an unchangeable fact. He glanced down at the tools in his hands.
Pygmalion's tools.
Pygmalion who once crafted a woman from stone that was so real that she was given life.
A plan sparked in his mind as he moved from his study to the impressive collection of enchanted objects from across the ages. Perhaps there was enough magic in these items that a miracle could be had. He lifted Durandal, the sword of Roland and before that Hector and before that other heros whose names were lost to the mists of time, the pride of his collection...and hoped.
****
"Excuse me, miss," the woman said. "It seems that you're dead."
"Oh, I get this a lot," the girl said.
She was a mostly attractive girl, clearly Japanese with blonde streaked hair. The only thing odd about her were the strange scars, more like birthmarks really, that littered her body. They weren't disfiguring at all, seeming to belong upon the girl, though it was apparent from her mode of dress that she was conscious of them. Were they just random marks it would have just been a minor oddity, but each resembled a rune or kanji that was just short of readable.
She pulled out a folder and handed it over with a flicker of discomfort. Some of the pictures in that file did make her look dead, and it always bothered her.
"My mother and I were hit by a drunk driver," she explained. "I did die technically, but I was revived."
"How terrible," the woman behind the registar's desk said. "Everything seems to be in order here. There must be some glitch in your records." Yuki nodded.
"It gets irritating at times," Yuki said. It was more than irritating. It was a constant reminder that everything about her life before five years ago was a blank. She had only her father's stories to go on. She sighed and, as usual, shuffled her sorrow to the background and tried to focus on starting her new classes.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:34)
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