July, 1895 — Crowdy Library
Cranwould's Curses, A Partial Compendium was proving only marginally useful. The text had clearly been partially expurgated, and he suspected a more complete copy could probably be obtained on one of the libraries' upper levels. The editor's note said the missing segments were "lost" due to manuscript damage that could not be recovered during the reprinting, but it was a little too convenient that all the good bits — all the bits that would tell you precisely how to replicate these curses — were the ones "lost" in such fashion. What remained were descriptions of the effects of the curse and known cases of use, and a rather more thorough treatment of remedies than Dil thought was necessary. It was an easy thing to make a catch-all countercurse. He always carried one. It might not reverse all curses, but could usually be relied upon to reduce the effects long enough to get to a healer, and that was all anyone untrained in healing or cursebreaking ought to be doing, anyway.
He flipped through the pages. The curse on question was one that numbed the body, beginning with the fingertips. In minor cases it caused fumbling, in the most severe case a growing paralysis. Quite a range of effects, so important to get the measures right — shame someone had made that significantly harder by redacting the instructions. They must know people were still going to do it, didn't they? Why keep a book like this available if they didn't expect to need the references on curse reduction?
The remedy might hold the clue, now that he thought of it. Many curses he had experience with could be reduced or resolved by undoing specific things that had made them up. If the counter-curse instructions were detailed enough — and if they were real, not pure untested speculation — he might be able to work his way backwards.
"Cranwould," he heard someone mutter, which startled him enough to look up. They were scanning the shelf across from his table, with a reference slip in their hand. They were looking for this book. Diligent slouched over it, hoping not to be noticed, but too curious to keep himself from staring keenly at them (which probably gave him away).
He flipped through the pages. The curse on question was one that numbed the body, beginning with the fingertips. In minor cases it caused fumbling, in the most severe case a growing paralysis. Quite a range of effects, so important to get the measures right — shame someone had made that significantly harder by redacting the instructions. They must know people were still going to do it, didn't they? Why keep a book like this available if they didn't expect to need the references on curse reduction?
The remedy might hold the clue, now that he thought of it. Many curses he had experience with could be reduced or resolved by undoing specific things that had made them up. If the counter-curse instructions were detailed enough — and if they were real, not pure untested speculation — he might be able to work his way backwards.
"Cranwould," he heard someone mutter, which startled him enough to look up. They were scanning the shelf across from his table, with a reference slip in their hand. They were looking for this book. Diligent slouched over it, hoping not to be noticed, but too curious to keep himself from staring keenly at them (which probably gave him away).